ToT for Unicef and a not so charitable Top 5 list

The folks over at UNICEF have figured out a way to combine old-fashioned charity -- trick-or-treating for UNICEF -- with new-fangled technology -- text messaging.

You can "text or treat" for UNICEF by texting the word “TOT” to 864233 (UNICEF) to make a $5 donation and help UNICEF save kids’ lives. The $5 is charged one time to your mobile phone bill.

Click here for more info.

Now on the not so charitable front, keep reading...

Top 5 candies I will definitely steal from my kids' ToT loot:

1. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
2. Vanilla Tootsie Rolls
3. Chocolate Tootsie Rolls
4. Snickers
5. M&Ms

Then, once I'm done sneaking what I want, I'll let them keep 30 pieces of candy and will buy back the rest for a $5 gift Target gift card. That way, I don't have 500 pieces of candy begging me to eat it and the kids don't have 500 pieces of candy rotting their teeth.

They don't love the idea, but I feel like the $5 gift card is a good exchange. Of course, when I take them to Target to spend their gift cards, they'll probably want to buy candy.

The family that is awake together...

...will probably be crabby together tomorrow. It's 12:47am and everyone but Annie and Dungy is awake. Seems like insomnia must be a genetic trait in our house.

I'm awake because I fell asleep in the bathtub earlier and got a little re-charge, until I awoke in extreme neck/shoulder pain, which is probably a good thing so I didn't drown. So now I'm finishing up some work while catching up on my DVRed shows.

Mike just emerged from the basement, where he was doing something in his office. Maybe work. Maybe watching videos recently resurrected from his high school days and uploaded to Facebook.

Charlie had a bad dream about falling off a cliff and woke up screaming. I felt bad for him -- he was really scared when I got up to him.

And Robbie is awake for some unknown reason. Maybe Charlie's screams woke him? At any rate, he's awake too, having had his own six hour re-charge.

Right now, this is feeling like a 3am night. As in that's about the time it seems I'll be shutting down for the night. This is not a new issue for me. I am generally fairly nocturnal.

Fortunately, tomorrow is Halloween, so there will be enough sugar around to keep me -- and the rest of the family -- raring to go.

I survived the pumpkin patch...barely.

I chaperoned Robbie's class trip to the pumpkin patch on Tuesday. I was worried about being freezing, so in preparation for the trip I bought new gloves and pulled out my snow boots. In hindsight, I should have bought Depends and scheduled a post-patch appointment with a massage therapist or chiropractor -- or both.

The day turned out to be pretty nice. A little chilly, but the bright sun kept us warm enough. We -- 17 kindergarteners, 2 teachers and about 5 parents -- breezed our way through the "easy" corn maze. Unchallenged, we opted to try the "intermediate" maze. I headed up the group and let each kid have a turn at deciding which path we should choose. I didn't bother to tell the rest of the adults that my husband might argue that putting me in charge of directions might be criminally negligent. But the kids were making the decisions, anyway, so I figured we'd be ok and we were, although somehow, even though we entered the "intermediate" maze, we came out at the "hard" maze. Guess we were just overachievers.

From there, it was on to the haystack and the inflatables, where the kids jumped up and off and on, wearing themselves out to their little hearts content. Not much learning going on, but a great activity for kindergarteners nonetheless.

It was at the second inflatable -- the caterpillar -- that my initial injury occured. Inside the caterpillar was a slide. To go down the slide, you had to be able to climb up the slide, which was tough for several little girls who were creating a back up. Now, why I decided I would go in and hoist those girls up and over is not quite clear to me. In hindsight, I should've said "if you can't climb up, you can't slide down." But really, who would say that to adorable kindergarten girls with little orange and black ribbons in their hair and winter coats in 100 shades of pink?

So I crawled in through the caterpillar's mouth -- a lovely sight from the rear, I'm sure, made my way to the slide and started lifting, pushing and tossing those cuties to the top of the slide. On about the 5th and final girl, I felt something snap in the muscle between my left shoulder and my neck. Game over. Got to get out of here now.

Of course, any sane woman would have turned around and gone out the entrance. But not me...no, I had to try the slide. I'm praying that video does not exist that shows what looks like the caterpillar having a seizure as I struggled to climb the slide, heaving and rolling the sides of the inflatable as I tried to force my not so slender self over. Finally, I tumbled down the slide and landed in the soft mud at the end of the caterpillar's butt.

It was almost time for the hayride and the pumpkin picking. After a short detour to watch a T-rex chomp and spit out a few pumpkins (which was pretty cool, I have to admit), we loaded on to the hay wagon. The trip out to the pumpkin patch was short and enjoyable.

The trip back, however, had me wishing that I'd gone to the bathroom before we left and adding "call the chiropractor" to my to do list. Let's just say the shock-less ride in a tractor over enormous ruts on a path around multiple fields made my bladder loose and my already aching shoulder tight.

I'm happy to report that the repercussions on my bladder were short-lived and unnoticeable. My shoulder however is still leaving me wincing in pain and as of this morning has made my left arm somewhat numb.

Would I do it again? If it means spending time with my little guy, you betcha. As long as I can spend time with the massage therapist right after.

Wordless Wednesday: The Election Edition

Don't forget to vote!

Note: This is not my kid. But I loved his costume at the school Halloween party!

His and Hers DVRs

Tuesday night is Biggest Loser night in my house. Once I get the boys in bed, Annie and I sit down to watch and discuss who we hope goes home that night.

Often, by the time we are ready to watch, the show has already started. No worries. I have the DVR set to tape it every week. Besides making sure we don't miss a single challenge or trainer tip, watching Biggest Loser on the DVR allows us to fast forward through the commercials.

Tonight was no different until...

...the weigh in had just started. After winning the challenge, the blue team decided that Michelle's weight loss wouldn't count toward the black team's total this week. She weighed first and only lost 2 lbs, which minimized the blue team's advantage.

All the commercials before the show teased that tonight someone was going to have the biggest weight loss in the show's history. Bring on the next contestant...

But NO! All of the sudden the show stopped. The DVR was full and the recording stopped before the end of the show. GRRR!

So, I went to the list of recorded shows and here's some of what I found:

Godzilla -- 3 hours
Star Trek -- 2 hours
20th Century Battlefields -- 2 hours
Meet the Press -- 1 hour
Transformers Animated Series -- 2 hours (oh yes, that's Mike's show, veiled as a choice for the boys)
Jurassic Fight Club -- 2 hours (another one "for the boys")

So because my nerdy (yet lovable) husband wanted to indulge his inner geek, I was denied the opportunity to commiserate and celebrate with my fellow fatties.

To be fair, there were also a handful of my shows in the recorded list:

Ace of Cakes -- 1 hour
Desperate Housewives -- 2 hours
What Not to Wear -- 2 hours
Food Network Haunted Gingerbread Challenge -- 1 hour

(Boy -- what a picture that list of shows paints of me!)

Some couples will tell you that one key to wedded bliss is separate checking accounts. I think that his and hers DVRs might be just as important.

So -- if you watched the Biggest Loser tonight, PLEASE tell me who had the record weight loss and how much it was, what the reactions were all around and who got voted off.

It's rain, not rocket science.

The fifth game of the World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays was suspended tonight because of rain.

Pretty simple idea, right? Well, apparently the people who watch ESPN are either too dense to understand something so straightforward or have forgotten that baseball is indeed just a game because the sports network played FIVE minutes of a press conference discussing why the game was suspended.

Now, admittedly, I don't enjoy baseball. It's too slow and I'd rather not watch grown men re-arrange themselves while spitting nasty brown stuff on the ground. So, I probably don't have a proper appreciation for the fact that this could have been the deciding game of the World Series.

I only caught this press conference because I didn't bother to change the channel after the Colts mixed performance in their loss against the Tennessee Titans. Sigh...

I was happily checking my e-mail when my attention was drawn to the somber proceedings playing out in front of me on the TV. By the tone of the speaker's voice, I thought that someone had died or had at least been indicted for steroid use. But no...all the hushed discussion was about precipitation.

Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig spoke about being "nervous" in the 4th inning and about making decisions with "trepidation."

C'mon Bud. It's only baseball. It's not like you were trying to decide whether to put your ailing dog to sleep or how you were going to tell your wife that you forgot to get her a birthday present.

As if Bud didn't communicate it clearly enough, he passed the mike over to one of the umpires who spent too much time to say, essentially, "it was raining buckets." Pseudo-meteorologist #2 then handed the mike to yet a third person who at least seemed to have an understanding of how un-hard the situation was to grasp.

"That pretty much covers it," he said, going on to say that they stopped the game when the slipperiness of the ball threatened to make the game "comical."

Which is exactly what this press conference was.

Testify!

So I went to this women's fellowship meeting at a Missionary Baptist Church yesterday, which may not seem significant or out of the ordinary, except for the fact that I am a cradle Catholic.

But my friend Jane invited (read: blackmailed) me to go with her. She's been inviting me to attend one of these gatherings for six years. Sometimes I've declined because of legitimate conflicts. Other times, I've turned her down for fear of having my Catholic-ness corrupted.

Yesterday, I tried to tell her I couldn't go because I had plans to clean out Annie's room and that was going to require a large dumpster and a haz-mat suit. So she offered that if I went with her, she would come help me with Annie's room.

Sold!

"How long are we going to be gone?" I asked.

"Well, we'll leave here at 2pm. The fellowship is from 3 to 5pm," Jane answered. I figured I could manage that.

So, we drove to the south side of town to where Jane lives to pick up a couple of other "sisters" who would be attending the fellowship meeting as well. Now, in my faith, "sister" means one of two things. An actual relative who shares the same parents -- or a nun. These women were neither.

As Jane was driving to the church, I recognized the names of many neighborhoods, apartment complexes and streets -- because I'm used to seeing them on the nightly news in connection with a shooting or other violent crime.

"What have I gotten myself into?" I wondered, thinking that if I got shot Mike would be eternally perplexed as to why I was in that area of town it the first place.

But I trust Jane and just said a little prayer that my heart would be open -- and that no one would ask me if I've been saved.

We arrived at the little cinderblock church and went in to set up the meal. In addition to getting help with Annie's room, I was going to get to eat Jane's cooking, which is always delicious.

As I walked to the kitchen, which was directly off the sanctuary, I notice a large red drum set right in the front of the church. I think the Pope would faint.

The fellowship was set to begin at 3:00pm. So at 3:45pm, things got underway with a prayer over the food. Now, the most common Catholic prayer before meals starts with "Bless us, O Lord and these thy gifts..." and is pretty short. Can't let the food get cold!

But this was an extemporaneous prayer that started soft and slow, then quickly gained speed and volume. It was led by Sister Someone, but as she went on..."and Father we thank you for your presence here..." other women chimed in "Amen to that!," "Yes Lord!" and "mmmhmmm!"

Prayer was over, the food was on and the fellowship study was about to begin. The topic of the day was having a servant's heart -- a lesson I can certainly use some schooling in. Sister Williams made copies of the lesson for me and I just listened as the discussion went on.

I was pretty amazed at how these women -- there were about nine in the room -- could quote Scripture like I quote...well nothing. I can't quote anything like they could spout Bible verses.

I have to admit that my brain wasn't fully there all the time. I was thinking about what I needed to do when we got home. Of course, I didn't have a watch and Jane informed me the two clocks on the wall were both broken. But finally, Sister Someone asked for the time. 5:09pm.

"If I could have just 15 more minutes of your time," she said.

Sister Someone was determined to end on praiseful note. She offered up two Scripture passages -- Old and New Testament -- that talked about how the Lord does not change. (Of course I can't quote them to you here.)

Then, she really got going.

"If you have an need in your life, ask Jehovah Jireh -- the Lord who provides!"

"Amen! You know it!," cried the other sisters.

"If you have an ache or an illness, ask Jehovah Raffa -- the Lord who heals!"

"Praise Jesus!"

"If you want to know what's going to happen tomorrow or next year, call out to El Roi -- the God who sees!"

"Hallelujah! Amen!"

About 30 minutes later, Sister Someone asked Jane to lead the final prayer. I love Jane and I've asked her to pray for intentions before. But when that woman prays, she PRAYS -- long and hard. So she started the closing prayer, again soft and slow, and again like Sister Someone's opening prayer, got faster and louder. The other women in the room seemed to catch the spirit from the air and echoed with their own shouts of praise.

Then all of the sudden, someone started singing the kind of singing I've only seen in the movies. The soulful, joyful, clappy singing. It was what my Annie would call a "Praise Jesus! Hallelujah!" moment.

When it was finished, many of the women thanked me for joining them and I genuinely thanked them for having me. The invited me back and I said I'd think about it. Frankly, I'd like to see that big red drum set in action sometime.

Now, before my mother faints reading this, I'm not going to abandon Catholicism. But being there was a good reminder that we are all -- regardless of our denominations -- children of God.

And it was 6:30pm.