Month: September 2011 (Page 3 of 6)

oh, I’ve got friends in [high] places….

September 19, 2011 / Michele Minehart

Over the years I’ve begun compiling a list of reasons why we need good friends. For example:
1. To proof read your resume. Seriously, have someone make sure you’re not putting stupid stuff on there.

2. Calorie-laden food and beverage is best enjoyed in pleasant company. The calories diminish with laughter. Which is why book club and girls night are a means of exercise for me.

3. Your kids don’t become your identity. Because to true friends you’re not H/M/C’s mommy, that is just an element of your identity. You’re YOU to good friends.

4. Friends provide occasion to put on pants with real zippers and get out of the house, even if just for a walk. They also help you decide if you’re to a point that you can pull off horizontal stripes, jeggings or a fun hat. In short, friends are crucial to the shopping and wearing process. Because we all know husbands just don’t know how to answer the epic questions centered around how we really look in particular garments.

5. Friends straighten a crooked theology.

Though the first 4 reasons to have friends have been quite important to me as of late, number 5 poked his head in to say hello this past week. One of my favorite parts about being a youth director was our monthly cluster/cohort meeting with other area (NW Ohio) youth directors. I loved who I worked with, we had a great mix of personalities and perspectives and they always helped fulfill my hankering for thoughtful conversation. I’ve really missed several of these individuals over the years, as I’ve become further removed and as others have moved on to other positions and callings as well. My youth director friends landed a position in my Top 5 Groups I wish I could have a Reunion with list (also mentioned: college friends and my youth group kids).

So when I posted the other day about some wonderings I had about God “moving into the neighborhood”, I asked a friend to educate me about a related topic. You know, Luther and the entire movement of the Reformation. Nothing big. And my friend was good to offer up some resources for me to be enlightened.

He was also kind enough to call up my Trinitarian theology and show me some holes in my thinking. I was thrilled.

The essence of blogging, for me, is to ponder; I’m such a verbal processor that this more or less keeps KLR from having to set the phone down while I rattle off umpteen different thoughts while she gets the dishes done or pays attention to her husband. I never hold that any post is absolute, but rather a beginning point. I’m not in a pulpit (nor do I want to be. Nor should I be). But if I were, my bloggy thoughts aren’t the place to begin.They’re more of the chatter over coffee “what if” variety. So, apologies if anyone ever thinks that they’re much more than that.

Perhaps that’s why there are some pretty heated debates in the bloggy/social networking world. Others don’t have friends, like I do, who will simply converse and correct. Ask, differ and question but in a loving and considerate way. I’ve had more than one spiritual conversation over my meanderings, and I appreciate each one. Well, the ones in which I’m not simply trying to be converted to another way of thinking… but most of my conversational partners also enjoy a level of cerebral exercise, so it’s a mutual understanding that agreeing isn’t necessarily the goal. But sharpening, opening the eyes, or even heart, is paramount.

I hope you have friends like that. Good friends that ask you to think, reconsider, or even go back to the drawing board. Friends that say, “what if…”. Yes, I hope you have friends like that.

his list

September 17, 2011 / Michele Minehart

Whilst looking upon the large pile of laundry that needs folded, Husband remarked about just how much laundry our house requires. I was quick to point out that, as of late, he has only been involved in the folding part of the process – gathering, washing, drying, have escaped him. However, I was informed that he has a hatred of folding laundry; the rest of the process is actually preferred. Personally, I despise the “putting away” part of laundry and have been known to live out of clothesbaskets of clean clothes, at least until the dirty pile is larger than the clean pile and I have to rearrange pileage for basket uses.

The hatred of laundry folding conversation then produced a list of things Husband hates:

1. Spinach. Specifically cooked spinach piled onto a plate. He remarked, “We ate it that way all the time. I never knew it was a leaf until most recently.” In all fairness, there was an episode with a grasshopper inside the Del Monte can, so I can understand that it left a bad taste in his mouth (wah wah waaah).

2. Lima, Ohio

3. Folding laundry

4. Putting plastic over the windows in the winter

5. Exceptionally hot weather

I’m really glad that this conversation opened things up in our relationship. Now we can more efficiently work together in the laundry process. I’ll fold and he can do everything else, right? More so, I won’t make cooked spinach (I will cook some and add it to Creamy Chicken Lasagna because you can’t taste it and it gives the dish a hint of vegetable which justifies it as a healthy meal), not that I ever had or that it had appealed to me to do it in the future.

I suppose I’ll need to reciprocate in the future and come up with my own Abhorrent List. I could start with stupid people and semi-trucks, but I’m not sure where to go from there. Stay tuned.

grocery store face-off

September 16, 2011 / Michele Minehart

It’s important to pay attention to cultural norms. It’s how one, especially if she’s new to the community, knows what is acceptable, encouraged and expected. Today was one of those learning experiences.

Kroger, it appears, is for rookie moms.

Not moms who are just new to momdom, but rather those moms who doubt their abilities. I say this because they looked at me like either I was an alien or that I had a large black mole on the end of my nose, of which I was unaware. Let’s start from the beginning.

First, I was greeted in the parking lot by a mom of 2 young ones (driving a shiny white SUV. Inside she purchased a latte. I tried not to judge). As I pulled out Miss M she said, “I’ve got a question real quick: Is it really any harder with 3? They keep telling me it’s not, but I feel like I have my hands full with 2!”.

To be honest, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to answer that question. I said, “Not really. But then again, we moved when this one was 2 weeks old. The grocery store is cake in comparison.”

Then there was the old man by the carts who needed to know how old Lady C was. He was fascinated that such a youngin’ could make it to the grocery store.

The kids were pretty well behaved, but then H Boy decided he wanted to walk. I told him he could when we got to the milk – and subsequently rerouted once I saw the milk was the next section – but since we forgot the paprika, it made for a long venture. As H got out of the car cart, Miss M decided she was done, so I had to put her at the top of the cart in the purse holder. While wearing Lady C.

Which brought about Nice Lady who offered to help, after I had everyone situated. It was a nice offer, but we were ready to find the spice aisle (btw, Kroger – some spices aren’t for “baking”. It’d be to your shoppers’ advantage if you listed “spices” with “oil, baking goods”. You’re lucky I’m a Kroger Lifer and know my grocery groupings).

En route to the checkout we stumbled upon Mom of One (a cute little girl, I must say. The daughter. Though the mom was cute in a way that made me want to smack her. Wearing real pants and a shirt that wasn’t a hoodie. She didn’t even have her hair in a ponytail. Ugh). She wanted to know where I got my carrier (Etsy) and we stood and chatted the ins and outs of bjorns and wraps until a nice old lady with a mini-cart (can I tell you how I long for those days?) needed through.

Then Nice Lady reappeared (trying not to expose the fact that she had stalked me all the way to the checkout line, past the paprika and all) with an invitation to MOPS. Did you know it costs $60 to join? Crazy! But she offered me a year for free, and since I’m all about swag, I said “sure, I might be interested.” So she checked out behind me and fetched the invite freebie bag (I’m TOTALLY sure that they were equipped at the first meeting for an invite-a-friend contest. But I really do appreciate the invite) from her car while I unloaded 3 kids and the groceries. While the cart boy stood impatiently by awaiting the chance to return the car cart to the rightful place, as those things take up waaaay too much room in the cart return. I could tell I was clearly making him inefficient at his job by using the car cart. My bad.

Lastly, a word about car carts. I only let my kids use one when all 3 are present as I feel like a CDL should be required to drive one. Not so much an end-cap friendly vehicle. And the kids will be warned that they have to ride the car the whole time or it’s simply not worth my energy. But when it comes to engineering of these things, a mom was clearly involved at Meijer where as some 50 year old man was the genius behind Kroger’s. At Meijer, the car is right under mom so you can have a clear idea of who really is picking on whom. Then, for ease of unloading, the basket is at the front. No leaning over either a car or kid in order to reach the goods. Having a toddler “help” compounds the problem. All while under the watchful eye of Nice Lady, who I’m sure will report to her evangelism board about her experience of helping and reaching out to the poor, suffering mom of 3 under 3 who didn’t realize that Kroger is perhaps not the place for children.

However.

And it’s a big however.

I’ll be back. First, I think I could get a few gigs mom-coaching, if only in the arena of confidence boosting.

But the bigger reason is that Kroger has a Starbucks. This is the Right Bauer of grocery shopping experiences. I mean, after all that, don’t I deserve a Pumpkin Spice Latte?

Month: September 2011 (Page 3 of 6)

oh, I’ve got friends in [high] places….

his list

grocery store face-off

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