Saturday Afternoon

All the kids are in their rooms.
The youngest two are sleeping.
Caroline is reading.
Sam is playing with his train table and singing.  Sounds like something between Johnny Cash and David Bowie.  He's having fun, though.

I need to do some prep for Children's Liturgy tonight.  The groups tend to be smaller during the summer, which is nice because we can go a bit more in-depth about things.  With this, though, I always need to be prepared because with more depth in a topic comes more questions.  Like, "Did Paul have a dog?", "So, if the Holy Spirit is like wind, why didn't tongues of fire blow out?" and "Abraham got rid of one of his sons and kept the other?"  You know...easy stuff.

But I'll blog first.

9 miles this morning wore me out.  To think I need to do 10 next Saturday in the swamps of Baltimore.  Oy.  Who's brilliant idea was that?
Right.  Mine.
My psoas has not been one of my best friends in the past few weeks.  Lots of ice, advil and stretching.  I think years of pregnancy and 4 c-sections have taken a toll on my abdominal muscles and hip stabilizers.  I'm trying hard, but it's going to take a lot ot get them back.  I hope the rest of me doesn't take too much of a beating in the meantime.  I'm really liking this running gig.
I am purging my closet over the course of time (Thanks Sue!) using wear it or get rid of it philosophy.  I've been trying on a lot of things that I just assumed would never fit again after having kids.  I've been pleasantly surprised - some of the stuff is actually too big now.  I'm down to one pair of pants that would look better with 5 more pounds off...other than that - it all fits.  Including the stuff I've found dating as far back as high school.  Nice.  I needed that little ego boost.  

Last night and this morning we were listening to youtube videos about the Rolling Stone list of the Top 500 Songs.  Lots of Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Doors and Elvis... more Motown and Beach Boys that we anticipated (totally on the mark).  The best part was the discussions that these songs started with the kids.  Nate totally digs Led Zepplin, Sam is more of a Smokey Robinson kind of guy, Benjamin was rocking out to "Iron Man" and Caroline likes the Mamas & the Papas.  It was cool to have all six of us sitting down around something and having a conversation (that didn't involve poop - Thanks Nate!!!).  We talked about why Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder wore sunglasses and how they did awesome things because of their disabilities.  We talked about Beethoven never being able to hear his symphonies except in his head.  We talked about Elvis and how he helped break down racial boundaries by with music.  Pointed out what a totally different sound The Beach Boys created.  Watching a video of Ike and Tina Turner we heard, "Hey!  That's Beyonce!" and cleared up that no, it wasn't Beyonce and that these days there isn't much new under the sun.  Listening to "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay", we talked about how Otis Reading died in a plane crash before the song was popular.  Caroline then asked, "Mama?  Was that the day the music died?".  We explained that no, even though Otis Reading died like those in February 1959 - it wasn't the same.  We'll save Richie Valens, The Big Bopper and Buddy Holly to discuss another day.  I was amazed that she even remembered and was starting to put pieces together.  Then I had one of the *eureka* moments when it's clear that sometimes they DO listen - dang
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Now...off I go to try to figure out how to explain Luke, Galatians and Kings...