Oh, Mister Sandman...Send me a dream...

    It's official. I'm watching too much day time television. Or at least I have it clicked on while I'm doing other stuff just for the noise. The distraction. Either way, the shows have invaded my subconscious and my dreams. What's a pregnant woman suppose to do? I rather be dreaming about Ryan Reynolds again but alas, no such luck. But that probably wouldn't be such a great idea since modified bed rest includes a lot of no-no's. And lets just say I'm not missing doing the laundry but there are other things I am missing...

     Anyway, my dream last night starts in an English Pub with Chef Gordon Ramsey. Apparently watching the BBC and Kitchen Nightmares is not healthy for you. For one thing, the guy annoys me. Yes, he's right most of the time and the conditions he finds these kitchens in are deplorable.

     And I'm not sure what a health inspector actually does because rotten meat sitting out on shelves in the freezer seems like it's probably breaking a huge health code. I could be wrong but my Mama taught me not to cook moldy food.
   
     But the guy is rude, and drops the F-bomb like he thinks seasoning his sentences with it is going to make his words seem more important. Personally, I don't know why he bothers with most of these kitchens...if they aren't already cooking with fresh and safe food, don't you think they already failed Basic Cooking 101? Having an Englishman cuss the living daylights out of them makes for great ratings..I have my doubts if it makes for better kitchens.
     
      Back to the dream...I'm in a busy English pub, listening to Gordon Ramsey cuss some poor cook out for their horrible food. Hero Hottie and I sitting at a table waiting for our food when it arrives as a greasy, English fry up. French fries dripping with oil and a sandwich that has taken a dip in a pot of boiling stale oil. I eat part of it and surprisingly wake up with heart burn. Man, those dreams are real.
   
     The dreams continues with a walk with some English dude who is telling us bad jokes about why it only takes one Englishman to get a job done but it would take two Scotsman to do the same thing. Apparently, this guy wasn't a fan of Braveheart. I have both English and Scottish in me so asking me to take sides would be like starting a war with myself. And then if we added my Irish ancestry...
     No offense to any of my international readers, I'm just retelling my dream. I'm such a mutt of cultures and I'm glad for it.

    But then the dream goes down the way of Auction Hunters. If anyone hasn't seen that show I haven't either until I was stuck on bed rest. It follows these two guys who go around and buy the contents of storage units. It's a treasure hunt show really. And what amazes me is the quality of stuff they find. But in the dream Hero Hottie and I are buying these antique clocks or mirrors with picture frames on them. I was so excited because I won them from the other bidders but I'm frustrated when I can't pick them up because of my lifting restrictions and he has to hold them while he drives the motorcycle we're riding on.
    What???? I'm actually being careful in my dream of lifting heavy objects but I think it's okay to get on the back of a motorcycle? I'm sure my doctor would put that on my no-no list.
  
    We're driving away from the auction place when we catch wind of the motorcycle gang riding ahead of us being caught by the cops. What show this is from I'm not sure but the scenery reminds me of the Bayou feeling from True Blood. Luckily, we didn't run into any vampires in my dream.
     We verve off some side road, which is highly bumpy and dusty. At this point I start worrying that I shouldn't be on the back of a bike. Like, duh?? And some rich, young guy with enough attitude to makes  you wish that he would lose all his money and have to shop at...Wal-Mart like the rest of us...rescues us just before the cops pull us over. Whew...but the dream doesn't stop there.
 
     No, then I dragged into the plot of a LMN movie. Seriously, there's this sleazy guy with lame pick up lines that's almost handsome but there's just something a bit greasy about him so you know you shouldn't like him.
      He's going around and marrying different women for their money. He starts out with women that hardly have anything, like a trailer and a junky car. And his pick up line always starts with a Rotisserie chicken from the grocery store deli and some excuse about not being able to cook. This somehow charms women into falling in love with him and after they marry and he steals everything he can he moves onto the next woman.
    Moving up in the world until he marries some rich, heiress that has picture frames made out of real gold and gems in her bathroom. Of course, he's slowly having the real gems removed and replaced with copies as he steals from her. But then her teenage daughter from a previous marriage finds him flirting with some rich, Italian lady at the bank. And you know what pick up line he uses on this Italian lady with her heavy European accent...
   yep, that's right..."I don't know how to cook. But I make a mean Rotisserie chicken. Let's eat." And he has her totally charmed with his fake American charm.

    Luckily, the woman he's currently married to, figures out what's going on and the Rotisserie chicken man goes straight to jail. Thank goodness for the predictable justice of LMN movies.

   At this point, the alarm wakes me up. It's not often I feel grateful for the most annoying sound in the world but since the chicken man had been brought to justice it was definitely time for that horrible collage of television to be turned off.
    Now, of course I wouldn't be surprised if I saw this movie on next year's line up for an LMN movie but will I get credit for it...no, of course not. But that's okay. I'm giving this idea away for free.

   In the mean time, I want to see the show where Gordon Ramsey takes on Bayou vampires and their kitchens, after all you should pick humans from the health food store and not McDonald's; with a side plot by the guys from Auction Hunters buying the storage units of vampires---because I bet they would have some good, old sh*t in there and perhaps we could have the greasy Rotisserie chicken man escape from prison just to be lured to his death by the Italian lady who is actually a vampire set out to rid the world of guys with lame pick up lines.

    I wonder what I would dream if I started watching Bridezillas, Fear Factor and What Not to Wear? 
    Bed rest might just drive me crazy. :)

Day Thirteen- Halfway There and Further Away

  So we're halfway there, a couple of days behind schedule and I feel further away from finding an answer than I did before. But I think this is what happens when you get close to some new understanding, obstacles are put in your way. On purpose, I'm sure of it. By who, I can't say. It is God, the universe, ourselves? But why it is when it rains, it pours? Or when we're so close to success, everything goes wrong that could? Like Murphy's Law but with a cosmic twist.
    I had my furnace quit on me. It decided that it couldn't break down during tax refund time or perhaps even after Christmas, it has to go on hiatus two weeks before the holidays. And not only that but it was taunting us. We had air blowing, except it was cold. There's nothing like blowing cold air in a poorly insulated house when it's twenty degrees outside. Brrr.
   The furnace is stuck behind the coat closet, so I emptied out the space into my hallway and living room. How did that much stuff accumulate into one tiny area? And who keeps bringing these things in that we don't need?
    I have a sneaking suspicion of who the culprits are and it's funny how as a Mom, we are prone to believe guilty until proven innocent. But after all, Bean's favorite saying is, "It was an accident."
    Today, I found a bucket of bird feathers under Abu's bed. I'm not sure what the intended purpose of them is or if that is even healthy but they had obviously been carefully collected and saved. Why is this info important, probably because children notice the little things in life that we have become too busy and hectic to pay attention to. Finding their little treasures reminds me, to use a cliche, stop and smell the flowers. Or if I don't have time to collect bird feathers with Abu than I'm probably doing too much. Just like most Moms. Just like most parents.
   But how hard is it to find time when life falls apart around you.

    Luckily with hero hottie's uncle working in the repairing business our furnace fix was cheaper than it could have been. It was only $450 instead of $800.  The gift of heat is priceless though.
    This number will either make you cringe for me or you'll shake your head and wonder why this is such a big deal for me. Money is based off perception. For people that have plenty of it they don't understand that obtaining the basics is a struggle. Daily. Relentless. Without break.
   The movie, 'In Time' tells this story for survival quite well I thought. And I'm not even a big Justin Timberlake fan, I thought the movie was fairly well done. Sad though. Just switch money for time and it's no different.

   Bean, Abu and I are going to make ornaments this weekend- in between getting ready for Christmas and finding time to catch up on my blog entries. Sorry about my daily blessings being a bit behind. It's ironic that I'm writing about finding faith but then I get so busy I'm having trouble finding the time to practice it. And if the furnace was the only thing this week I would dismiss it but since it's only one of a long list of things that have gone wrong, I almost feel like it's a challenge. The universe is asking, "Are you serious about finding faith or can you be easily dissuaded if a few more problems come your way?"
   I would have to answer, "It depends on the problems. I would have to bow out if I have to eat rotten cow brains, like on Fear Factor. Yuck!"
   Joking aside, I think we all have times where we feel like things grow tougher when they're already tough and I don't know why this happens. There has to be rhyme and reason to it but it's a question I don't have an answer for.

  So sometimes I have to say having faith feels like a game of Fear Factor. Which I'm not sure if it's proper to compare it to a game show but that's just the mood I'm in right now. You have to have humor to make it in this world without turning bitter in the end.
   Perhaps a little glitter on the floor, left over from our ornament making, will remind me what's important.

Day Seven- Courage Kicks Fear In the Rear

     First of all, when using the Internet, peruse the correct dictionary. I had looked up the word; 'courage' on dictionary.com, this is the definition that came back, 'the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear (Italics added by me); bravery.'

    I don't agree with this definition. Courage is not without fear. So I had to see if Mr. Webster agreed or disagreed. His definition is more accurate, "mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty"
    So see, the cowardly lion was always brave, he ventured with Dorothy, persevere in the face of great danger, and  withstood against the great amount of fear he felt for having to travel to Oz to ask for courage. The irony of course, being that he always possessed courage. He didn't have to ask for.
     It's not something we can ask some one to give us, we have to find it for ourselves. We have to feel it. 

    Courage has to be stronger than fear. It has to be able to take fear and sit on it. Silence it. Or at least muffled it's defeatism attitude. If nothing else, courage has to be louder then the sharp and painful voice of fear.

     It's difficult to have courage some times. Especially if it's a decision that goes against the majority. And what some one needs courage to do may not be the same thing some one else needs courage for.
     That's why on Fear Factor some people can jump off the side of buildings and some can't. That's also why some people can have creepy and crawly things covering their bare skin and not freak out. I enjoy taking photos of insects, I'm not sure I could lay down, chained up, allowing biting things to nibble on my skin while hero hottie has to find three missing padlocks.

     You can have too much courage and that's called recklessness. A lot of teenage boys and young guys seem to suffer from this. They end up on 'youtube' videos and comedy shows. I hope high user views relate to paid medical bills.
     
    Many things take courage:

           Speaking the truth can take courage.
           Making new friends takes courage.
           Standing up for what you believe in can take a great deal of courage.

      I hope to teach Bean and Abu about the courage to be themselves. To speak honestly even when everyone else rather hide behind lies. And to overcome their fears to meet new people, to try new foods and to keep reaching for their dreams even when they're afraid they might fail.

     Courage is difficult to hold onto and I can remember the times it left me. Sometimes it takes a lot of prayers to find our courage when it has forgotten us.

     And sometimes I really do wish a wizard could just hand me courage. Or I could be a superhero- they always have courage...and really cool gadgets. :)