must see tv...

has a television show changed your life lately?

ummm, yes... and it wasn’t “jersey shore”. 

the game show, minute to win it (on nbc), has changed my life. in a david allen getting things done kind of way...

the kids and i happened to watch part of this show the other night. i had never even heard of it before. it involves a contestant doing all kinds of kooky tasks and they have only a MINUTE to complete said kooky task it they want to move on up the money ladder (up to a million dollars). some contestants PREPARE for these kooky tasks by visiting the website and seeing all the previous tasks and practicing them at home. because they may be given those tasks on the show. and some of them are just plain fun to practice. and a lot of them involve items that you already have in your house and your kids WILL want to try some of them out after the show...

well, in a MOMENT OF OUTSTANDING POP CULTURE BRILLIANCE i decided to tell my kids that we were training to be on the show and that i was sure that dishwasher unloading was one of the tasks that they would be getting on the show. i set the timer on 60 seconds and told them that if they broke anything that they would lose a life (on the show you get extra lives and can miss a task and then try again if you have extra lives) and then i let them have at it. AND THEY BEAT THE CLOCK. and were able to move to the next level. which happened to be cleaning off all the kitchen counters and wiping out the sink... all in less than a minute. 

we have since conquered many other possible minute to win it tasks (not this one though sometimes it feels like we go through toilet paper rolls just that rapidly). making the bed in under a minute- DONE. wiping down the important parts of the bathroom with a disinfecting cloth- HECK YEAH. vacuum the playroom rug- NO PROBLEMO. putting up a basket of folded laundry- CHECK IT OFF, I AM MOVING TO THE NEXT LEVEL. 

it is amazing how many things you can MINUTE TO WIN IT. and it is even more fun if when you complete the task you jump up and down like CRAZY and shout out some redonkulous number of dollars that you just hypothetically won “ONE BRAZZILION DOLLARS BABY”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or if they don’t get it in time, just say in your robotic voice “you have two lives remaining”  and let them try again. if they think they might need extra time on a task they can ask for 10 extra seconds (which they earn along the way also in the real game).

it is amazing to think how many little annoying tasks i put off that would ONLY TAKE A MINUTE. or less. it is the small things that make the biggest difference sometimes. and sometimes all you need is ONE MINUTE TO WIN IT. or to finish it. or to begin it and make a start.

p.s. there is a FAMILY minute to win it coming up this week (on nbc, wednesday at 8 and an encore on friday at 8) where a whole family competes and believe me... we WILL be watching. right after we put all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. which will only take a minute. marshall style.

i am a genius {again}...

i realize that this is not the first blog post that i have entitled “i am a genius” but when you are a bona fide genius, well, you just have to shout it to the world...

or if you tend to do a thousand and one un-genuisy things on a daily basis, then when you do ONE really smart thing... then you just have to shout it to the world.

it is up to you to decide which one of those two most closely resembles me.

anywho... one of the things that had to go off of our list for this year was piano lessons for maxx. no time. with his schedule it was the ONE straw that broke the camel’s back (and the mom’s sanity level). i determined that this season of his life was the time for cross country, scouts, church, and school events. piano could wait until another season and he could play on his own without lessons. and he does play on his own a lot. this photo was from the first day of school. since his school starts the latest (millie leaves at 7, rosalea 7:45, and i take maxx and claire at 9), he has a nice little down time in the morning and he usually plays the piano at that time.

so a few weeks ago, i was at a village square event sitting by the cutest young couple (disclaimer: i had taught the boy in college sunday school for a while so i knew him already) and he introduced me to his adorable wife of about one month. i asked her about her life and she told me that she had just graduated and was starting to teach piano and voice lessons and i asked if she would be willing to come to our house in the mornings to teach piano. and she agreed. 

so she comes monday mornings at 8. and she looks so awake and cute that it is hard to like her. but once she and maxx sit at the piano and start making melodious sounds that permeate the whole awfulness of monday morning. well, it is then that a know that i am a genius.

and the feeling usually lasts for about 10 minutes until i do something really stupid to mess it all up....

i am a genius..

and kind of like the ole “i am a poet and didn’t know it” saying, i had NO idea how smart i was until i read donald miller’s blog today.

 the donald was short and sweet with this lesson... 

ELEMENT OF SUCCESS: MAKE OLD FRIENDS OLD FRIENDS...

Here’s a secret I learned long ago. It’s a big one and it’ll propel you into a future of greatness….

STOP TAKING SOCIAL CUES FROM YOUR PEERS.

Instead of taking social cues from people your age, take cues from people ten and twenty years older than you. Are you looking for a church that has a lot of people who are your age so you can hang out? That’s fine, but try looking for one where most of the people have families and perhaps a little grey hair. Why? Because the sooner you can relate to their priorities, the sooner you’ll be ready for the next stage of life. I’m in my late thirties but I’m more interested in hanging out with people who are retired. What’s it teaching me? It’s teaching me what matters later in life is friendships, family and love. In matters of faith, what matters to them is not theological debate, but closeness with Jesus and unity with believers.

that is why i LOVE my Bible study group of women who are all 10-20-30 years older than i am. and perhaps that is why the greene girls spend so much time at my house because i am 10ish years older than they are. hey, that makes them GENIUSES too!

is the plural of genius geniuses or genui?

hmmm, a real genius would have known.

sigh.

and speaking of...

“stick the landing”. which we were speaking of in the last blog post...

which just means that when you do something you finish it well. remember in the olympics when the gymnast has finished a PERFECT routine and then she doesn’t “stick the landing”. oooh, that is so sad. so i get to practice “sticking my landings” everyday. and it is a term that i whisper to myself a lot. and i whisper it to my kids a lot....

here are some examples of “sticking the landing”...

when you do the dishes, you wipe off the counters and you sweep up the floor and you wipe down the sink at the end. 10.0!

when you clean the toilet you CLEAN the floor around it and the bottom part of the toilet. ANOTHER PERFECT 10.0!

when you make the bed, you fluff the pillows and declutter your bedside table. THE CROWD GOES WILD!

folding your laundry, putting it away AND neatening up your sock drawer. HAND THIS GIRL A MEDAL!

so the other day our neighbor’s cable line was down dangerously close to the ground. cars were getting right up to it before they saw it and screeching to a halt. right at our driveway. it was kind of fun to watch. and a bit nerve racking.

so maxx and i grabbed some YELLOW duck tape and went out and put it on the wire. we made nice 10-12 inch strips of BRIGHT YELLOW duck tape to alert any drivers from way down the street that the wire was down and unpassable on that side.

before. cable line marked with YELLOW duck tape for safety...​

it ended up being up there for two days. our neighbors are out of town and so they weren’t aware of this. adam called the cable company and since it wasn’t our wire... well, they couldn’t come and do anything. so then i called the electrical company and they sent someone out since the school buses were having to drive through someone’s yard to avoid the low hanging wire. i saw the utility truck arrive just as maxx and i were leaving for his cross country practice last night. he ran 5 miles. i walked 2. we finished at the same time. no comments about that please. back to the point, the low hanging wire, that was being put back up by the competent tallahassee utilities team...

maxx and i arrived home to find that they had put the wire back up on high where it should be...

and they had left the BRIGHT YELLOW duck tape strips right there still on the wire. yup. right over over driveway. marking clearly our house as the one with yellow duck tape strips overhead. yay. at least we spaced them evenly. since we will be looking at them FOREVER!

and after... cable line put back up. still with YELLOW duck tape on it for perpetuity. sigh.​

my favorite part is that as we drove down the street and saw this from FAR AWAY, maxx’s only comment was..

“way to stick the landing”.

yes indeed, my young padawan. you have learned well. may the landing be stuck like yellow duct tape with you.

the sweet nectar of summer...

the BEST part about our kids going to camp in north carolina is the opportunity for purchasing cheerwine on our sojourn to the mountains. we buy a case for each kid (and one for mom) and then try to ration our cheerwine consumption over the next year. 

so this year, all on his own, maxx came up with a cheerwine chart. with little cheerwines to take off and add under your name whenever you indulge.

they may never go to harvard. they may never keep their rooms neat. they may grow up to be the kind of people who don’t make their bed everyday. they may never write a pulitzer prize winning anything. they may grow up to be even GREATER failures than their mother. they may move as far away as possible and talk once a week to an expensive therapist about their mother and all that she did to totally RUIN their lives (and they will have plenty of stuff to talk about). and they may not even become functional members of society....

but my children can make a cool chart. 

sigh. sometimes a mother can be proud of those little accomplishments. sometimes it is all she has to go on that she has influenced these children in ANY way at all other than for their detriment.

to celebrate the last night before school began (and by “celebrate” i mean “i cried a little bit”) we made cheerwine floats. they were SUPER yummy and reminded us of all the GREAT tastes of summer. 

and then we put our cheerwines on the cheerwine chart. legalistic little chart checkers that we all are.... yes, the therapist might need to cover that one day...