The Pinocchio Complex

Pinocchio Complex:  Question made to confuse, or befuddle someone.

If Pinocchio says, "My nose will grow now." What happens? A great Cretan once said; "All Cretans are liars." Is he lying or telling the truth?"

Ok, so this article actually has nothing to do with the Pinocchio Complex---but it is about Pinocchio.  I just thought the idea of the Pinocchio paradox was pretty awesome.  You can come back and think about it some more when you're done reading...


"Oh come, let us worship and bow down;  let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.  For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand."  ~Psalm 95:6-7

I've slowly been reading the story of Pinocchio to the kids over the past couple of months.  We're only half way through and it's a wonderful story---but hard to read sometimes as well.  Not only is the language translated in sort of an old-fashiony way, (it was written in 1883 in Italian and translated to English in 1892) but the character of Pinocchio is much less likeable than the cute little puppet boy we know from the Disney cartoon.

Pinocchio finds himself rebelling against his father at every turn.  The real clincher (so far) comes when Gepetto sells his own coat to buy his son a spelling book so he can go to school.  Pinocchio turns around and sells the book so he can attend a puppet show.  After reading this part and sneaking a peek at the astonished looks on my kids' faces, I took the time, of course, to point out the sacrifices that good parents make for their children.  Even horribly selfish children who break their poor parents' hearts!

Every now and then, Pinocchio's "conscience" will pop up and try to steer him the right direction, but he's pretty good at beating it back down again.  I have a feeling that conscience is going to win, though.  We just got past the part where the ghost of the conscience tries to reason with him.  That "spirit" just won't be defeated!  (Maybe it's a Holy Spirit, hmmm???)

Oh, but aren't we all just like that self-centered Pinocchio?  Instead of being grateful to our Maker and obeying Him because of His great love for us, we often toss out His precious blessings in favor of our own pursuits.

Thank God for the Holy Spirit who relentlessly attempts to guide us back home to our Father!

"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak;  and He will tell you things to come."  ~John 16:13  

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 This article was featured in the 97th edition of The Christian Home Magazine.

Also linking with:
Teach Me Tuesday @ Growing Home  
Titus 2's Days @ Time Warp Wife 
Tuesday Linkup @ Courtship Connection 
Women Helping Women @ Teaching What is Good 
Wisdom Wednesdays @ Simply Helping Him  
Wholehearted Home Wednesday
Encouraging One Another @ Deep Roots at Home 
Homemaking Linkup @ Raising Homemakers 
Wise Woman linkup 
Legacy Leaver Thursday @ Leaving a Legacy 
Essential Friday Link-Up @ Essential Things Devotions 
Desire to Inspire @ A Royal Daughter 
Inspire Me Monday @ Create With Joy 

Groundhog's Day and Homemaking Link-Up Weekend

Photo courtesy of Urlesque.com

This morning, my step-dad left some cookies on our porch.  Mom had written a note that said, "Happy Groundhog's Day, Love Grandma".  I read it to the kids and quizzed them about Groundhog's Day.

Me:  "Does anyone know what Groundhog's Day is?"

Michael (10): "A Chinese holiday?"

Me: "No"

Michael: "Well that's what Lynzie said!"

Lynzie (12): "Oh, maybe it was Japanese."

Me: "No."

Lynzie: "Well it's SOMETHING."

Michael: "A day that has something to do with groundhogs."

Me: "ha ha ha"

Michael: "A day to RESPECT the groundhog."

Me: "no."

Cainan (7): "A day to give each other cookies?"

I'm SO very excited to announce my Giveaway Jubilee for the month of March! Would you like to participate as either a giver, a winner, or both?  Click my adorable new button for all the details!



And...now it's time for this week's Homemaking Link-Up Weekend!

Would you like to participate in the party each week but just can't remember to link up?  There's a couple things I can do to help you out with that!  First, there's a cute button at the top of my sidebar that you can put on your blog to serve as a reminder for you---and an advertisement for me!  Secondly, I can send you an email reminder!  I send out a short email to participants who've requested one on Wednesday nights to remind everyone about the party.  Please let me know in the comments below if you'd like me to do that for you!


I'd love to have you link up your homemaking posts below!  Hope you have a GREAT weekend!

Ace of Base is Stalking Me!!!

AAGGHHH!!!! Get it out of my head!!

We've all had times when we've had a song stuck on repeat in our minds for hours, days, weeks...

For almost two weeks now, Ace of Base's The Sign has been looping over and over again in my head. I've heard it three times now in less than two weeks. First, on the way to Walmart. A few days later it was on the way home from Walmart. Just about an hour ago, a car drove by and had it blaring. This song came out in 1993 when I was a freshman in high school--why is it still around??

Relationships can be that way too. There are a couple people in my life that just seem to keep popping up--even though our lives have taken different directions. One specific example comes to mind: my cousin Amber. Our lives have just seemed to parallel one another, even though there's nothing we consciously did to make this happen.

We first met at church in 1993 (there's that "magical" year again!) when my Dad was dating her aunt Theresa. After they were married, Amber and I began spending a lot of time together and soon became best friends. The funny thing about Amber and I was that, though we weren't cousins in the DNA sense, we looked so much alike that people assumed we were actually sisters. Neither of us really look like anyone else in our families. (I would like to add that I think it is very unfair that she got to stay cute and slender after having children while I got to blow up like a walrus).

Since I was a year ahead of her in school, we did start to drift apart after I graduated and got married. Soon though, she was married too and we both began to start our families. By this time, we hardly saw each other at all and had different circles of friends and activities. Still, we somehow managed to time 5 pregnancies within weeks of each other, give some of our children similar names, and end up moving away from our hometown to the same new town an hour and a half away. In addition to that, we ended up at the same church and she got a job working for the same company as my husband, in the same department as my step-dad. There are many more memories and "little things" that remind us of each other---(in fact Amber, you're even part of my Ace of Base memories...remember Jayme and her CD collection? :)

I've jokingly said things like, "jeez, why can't I get rid of her?" (Just in case you read this, Amber, I wish we still lived close and I miss you!!! :) But seriously, what's up?

Do you have people like that in your life too? How about a certain painting that you see often in different settings and has special meaning to you? A scripture verse? For a long time, I'd see Jeremiah 29:11 ("For I know the plans I have for you....") EVERYWHERE! Guess God knew I needed to get that in my head!

I'm at the point now where I can see that God just might be doing something here. I think some relationships are woven together with our own lives on purpose. It will be interesting someday to sit on a porch swing with elderly Amber and look back at all the times God brought us back around to each other. I wonder if we'll be able to see his plan then?

I just hope that, in the meantime, he'll change the CD for me!

I Bought My Husband Ecstasy For Christmas

Well, it's been a really interesting month as our family has settled into our new home in the Pacific Northwest. At the beginning of January, my husband was transferred to the town of Mount Vernon, Washington---just north of Seattle. There have been many new things that I've had to become used to---several funny stories that I will write about soon. However, today's incident tops them all.

Early this morning, after my husband left for work, I was picking up the living room a little when I discovered a round, white pill on the floor near the entryway. Upon examination, I found that it had a tulip design stamped into both sides and it was about the size of an M&M. I wondered if it had just gotten tracked in as my husband works in a big mall and could have got it caught in the tread of his work shoes. But then again I thought, his shoes are flat on the bottom. Then I remembered a few months ago when a co-worker had sent him home with some sort of calcium-citrus tablets that were supposed to be helpful for alleviating cold symptoms. "Perhaps it's just something he got from a co-worker," I reasoned, "for headaches or something". I was trying to get started on the kids' school work for the day so I just set it up on the bookshelf to ask him about later.

Later this afternoon, I was just dingin' around waiting to start dinner and had a few minutes to do a little research on the mysterious pill. I Googled "white pill tulip" and was shocked to find page after page on the drug, Ecstasy!!!

One page had a picture of the EXACT pill I had sitting here---just with a slightly bluer tint to it. As I read through the different sites, the information given seemed to indicate that the "manufacturers" of these pills put different stamps on them--sometimes they can serve as an indicator of what is in the pill and other times they can indicate the location from which the pill was obtained.

This little bit of information FREAKED ME OUT!! You see, we've moved to an area that has been deemed one of the great tulip capitols of the world!! Mount Vernon hosts an annual tulip festival in April and is even home to the 2010 World Tulip Summit! What better logo for a local ecstasy pill than a happy little tulip!

As I continued my research, I found that many Ecstasy pills will have a slight mint smell to them. As my heart raced with the fear of discovering the obvious truth of what this little pill inevitably would turn out to be, I picked it up and gave it a sniff.

Sure enough! This horrible little intrusion to my happy, Christian home had a very distinct smell---Vanilla Mint!!

The idea that my husband had accidentally tracked it in was immediately thrown out---I was furious! Surely someone at work was playing a joke on him! The scenario began to play through my head. I pictured my poor, hard-working husband developing one of his regular migraine headaches and asking his co-workers if anyone had something he could take for the pain. I could see these slick and scheming city guys chuckling in the corner of the kiosk---"let's play a joke on the new country boy!" One of them slyly pulling out part of his clubbing stash and offering it to my naive and unsuspecting husband. Thank God, I thought, that he intervened and kept Jamie from actually taking it!!!!

Relief mixed with the fear of what "could have been" began to settle me down a little and I set the pill on top of my desk so I could make sure and educate him when he got home on the dangers of taking unknown drugs. I planned to show him all the sites I'd found and talk to him about how important it is that we remember: we're not in Eastern Oregon anymore. There are DANGERS here!!!

I headed to the kitchen to make dinner, determined not to dwell on the possible horrible scenarios that could have taken place had one of the kids gotten a hold of it. I really wanted to sit and write in my blog tonight and didn't want this worry hampering my creative thoughts from flowing.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the realization of what was really going on hit me. Co-workers, I thought. I remembered that last Sunday night, my husband had gone to a friends' house to practice medieval sword-fighting. A CO-WORKER friend. When he came home that night, he had explained to me the reason why he was a little late---the friend had given him a couple extra lessons since he wouldn't be available to teach this coming week.

There has to be more to this, I thought. My husband isn't naive. In the twelve years we'd been together, we'd switched character traits as he went out into the world to work and I stayed home with the kids. He knows a lot more about this world than I do...surely he'd recognize a drug for what it is. Panicking, I texted him: "You need to take a break and call me NOW!!!" For the next hour and a half I couldn't think straight. I just sat here at my computer Googling and Googling. I began planning the trip to my mom's that the kids and I would have to take to give my husband time to "think about" this new lifestyle and whether it was really worth it. I considered going through and deleting all my searches on Ecstasy as they would only prove incriminating when he was busted for drugs. No way, I thought, the jerk deserves it.

I went back to the computer and picked up the pill, examining it very closely. A small little twinkling of hope was nagging to get through my thoughts of a shattered life and a destroyed family. There's a stem, I observed. A stem with two leaves and a top petal-sort-of-thingy. However, a real close look at the devilish device made me aware of something I really hadn't noticed before. The leaves were sort of jagged along the edges. And the petals---they were sort of jagged too---and really rather leaf-shaped. Really, the more I looked at the thing, the more it looked like the image of a cluster of mint leaves.

Actually, this image does seem sort of familiar, I thought. Just then, the phone rang---it was my husband.

"Umm...did you maybe happen to drop one of your mints this morning?"

"No," he answered.

*Blink*, there went that little twinkling of hope.

"Why?" he asked.

"Well," I continued, "What do they look like?"

"Round," he answered, "Why?"

Ignoring his question: "And sort of the size of an M&M?"

"Yes."

"And do they have something stamped on them?"

"Yeah...like a mint leaf. Why?" By this time he was getting really irritated with my obviously interrogating tone.

"Yeah, but does it look sorta like a tulip?" I asked, desperately.

"Yeah, I guess. WHY? Oh wait," he said, realization dawning on him, "did you find it in the bedroom?"

"No, by the front door."

"Oh, ok well I had dropped one in the bedroom while I was getting ready for work and couldn't find it on the floor anywhere. It must have fallen in the cuff of my pants and then onto the floor later on. I'll show you what they look like when I get home. I promise, I'm not turning into a druggie!"

Finally, it dawned on me where I'd seen that little "tulip" stamp before. It was on the tin of Starbucks mints that I'd put in his stocking a couple months ago for Christmas.