Deep (& shallow) Thoughts, By: Lori Jerger

Time V. Priorities: When I say, "I don't have time for that." What I really mean is that it is not a priority for me. I have my priorities and everyone else has theirs. Priorities are exclusive to an individual...sometimes two individuals might share a priority but it is by personal choice.

Cost of gas: It is going up folks, have you noticed? Boycotting a single gas company like Shell or Mobile is not going to effect the cost of gas. You will still be using the same amount of gas no matter where you buy it...Supply and demand is a simple economic fact that we should have all learned in high school...if we use less gas, there will be less demand and the cost of gas will go down. If you want to help drive the cost down, stop forwarding emails and boycotting stations...get on your bike and ride to work. Walk somewhere instead of driving...stay home and rent a movie instead of going out...complaint without action is useless. I challenge you to use 1/3 less gas this week.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp

Lori's law of excuses: When someone repeatedly says,"no" to the same request and offers a different lame excuse each time, or better yet, tries to find some way not to have to answer at all, the answer is, "no" and is always going to be , "no."

Say what you mean: and mean what you say. If you don't, I am going to interpret it how I want to and if you don't like how I respond, too bad. Since you didn't say what you meant, I get to take it however I want:0)

Personal Responsibility: Everyone has their own...My mama tells me I am not responsible for how others feel about or react to the decisions I make. As long as I am pleasing God, and my husband, how others feel about the way I conduct myself or the decisions I make regarding anything, is not my responsibility. Likewise, I am the only person responsible for how I respond in any given situation.

You may ask yourself what brought this on...nothing in particular...just my observation of human behaviour and my need to just be myself. It gets tiring feeling like you can't just speak your mind for fear of hurting someone. My prayer is that the Lord will give me the words to speak in every situation...even when it is something that may not be pleasing to the person listening...

Ellie update: She is doing really well actually. We are having virtually no tears at bedtime. She sleeps completely through the night from about 8pm to 6:30AM when all the others are moving around getting ready for school. She and the dog are best of friends now but the cat has bitten her twice...that's just today:0) Verbally she is moving right along...mimicking everything and progressively using her language to ask for things and communicate with us. I think having the other three around is really helping her in that area. She is in love with her father. When he walks in the door, she runs up and yells at me, "Daddy!" and points to the door before she runs over to hug him. She has an appointment next week for her first immunizations and I am anxious to see if she has put on any weight...she is a bottomless pit and will eat nearly anything you place in front of her...a far cry from the little runt we picked up in Russia who would barely drink milk and eat bread.

Ellie is so strong willed and yet, very affectionate...she wants to be held all the time...obviously, since I work from home, this can present a bit of a problem...I am working on this...it's hard for me to not want to hold her knowing that for the first two years of her life, she was not rocked to sleep, snuggled and read to, all the other normal things I took for granted with my first three. We are still allowing people to hold her for only brief snatches...less than 5 minutes at a time. I'm giving myself some time to spoil her...after two and half years in the process, it's the least we both deserve.

Rambling over...and out.