"Yes. Right now!"

I forgot where I put my blog.

Last spring when I launched the Happy Journey I gave it three months. I thought that would be enough time for me to figure out if it was something I really wanted to keep up with on a regular basis. Enough time for me to see if it was a blessing or a burden -- to me and to anyone out there reading it.

The thing is, I really liked it. But school ended and summer life began, we got a giant new puppy to add to the already crazy mix at Chez Elliott, I started a new job and life rolled on whether or not I was documenting it. Plus, I don't mind admitting I can be a little lazy.

So when I made the decision to come back, I had to look on my Facebook page for the blog address. And then, I had to remember my password so I could sign in. Then, I tried to redecorate my page and figuring all that out again took several hours (I'm still not finished). It might actually be more work to try not to have a blog than to just go ahead and do it.

Anyway, here I am. I make no promises on frequency of posts or prettiness of pages, but I will try to make you think and hopefully make you laugh a little. Happy Journey-ing.

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The Christmas break was fun, wasn't it? I really, really love having my kids at home. I love the loudness, the mess, the sleeping in, the extra snuggles. I love playing with the kids and watching them play with each other. I will admit the break seemed a bit longer this year, and after talking to several moms we all agreed it's because the kids were off for the entire week leading up to the big day. And there is only so much excitement a family can take before it starts to wear on everyone.

Our three kids all get along very well with one another for the most part, but my book-end children really know how to push each other's buttons. They know exactly what will rile the other one up, and they know just how far they can go before the laughing turns to crying. Throw in all the togetherness, the excitement of the season and you have to expect a kerfluffle or two.

During the second week of vacation one of the kerfluffles ended in tears, so I went in to see how I could restore peace and order to the situation. "Can you treat each other kindly, and use gentle words with each other?" I asked both of them. 

"Yes," said my daughter.

I turned to my son, who still had some tears wetting his cheeks. "What about you? Do you think you can do that, too?"

"Yes," he said, wiping his face, a small grin starting. "But not right now."

We all burst into laughter and the afternoon was restored. But later that evening as I was recounting the story to my husband, I thought about how often I have shared my young son's response.

How often have I been asked to do something and said Yes. But not right now. I know I have done it with my family, and I feel confident I say that to God on a daily basis.

Will you honor your husband in this situation? 

Yes. But not right now.

Will you put someone else first besides yourself?

Yes. But not right now.

Child, will you do what I am asking you to do?

Yes. But not right now.

Lots of times we just plain don't feel like obeying right when we are asked. It's a human response and God knows it because He created us. But just as I expect my children to respond to my requests, my Heavenly Father expects me to choose to respond to His.

This year, I would like to change my response. If I feel the Lord is asking me to do something specific I want my response to be "Yes. Right now!"

In 2011, what question will you say yes to -- right now?

It's Their Doody

Last month at our school's carnival we won a puppy. This was quite a surprise, since we never win anything at the carnival. I don't, at least -- occasionally the kids do. Every year I toss in my tickets for jewelry, or overnight hotel stays, or restaurant gift certificates and ... nothin'.

This year, though, we won and won big. Since there were a few animals up for prize drawing -- a puppy, a hamster, and a frog -- the Carnival Chairs decided they would protect themselves a little bit by making sure that the winning ticket for an animal had an adult's name on it. Well-played on the part of the chairs, in my opinion. Nothing worse than having little Johnny win a pet that Mommy didn't agree to.

So we bought our tickets and I took 10 of them, wrote my name on them and tossed them in for the dog. At 33 cents each that is $3.33 more than our first dog, Daisy, cost us. Anyway I put them in there thinking, "At least I can tell the kids I tried," and then I moved on to a cute looking duffel bag I thought I had a better chance of winning.

You can imagine my surprise when my friend came out to tell me my ticket had been drawn. "Are you sure you want the dog?" she asked. It helps having friends on the Prize Drawing Committee. Friends don't let friends win dogs they may not really want.

But I told her yes, we did want this little LabraGoldenDoodle. It's quite a mouthful so let me break it down for any cat lovers who are reading this: the mom is a black Lab, and the dad is a Golden Doodle. A Golden Doodle is half Golden Retreiver and half Poodle. I don't know why they don't call it a Golden Poodle because that makes a little more sense but to quote some 'tweens I know, "Whatev."

I kind of felt like I was on a game show after that ("But Wait! There's more!") because we didn't just get the puppy, we got chew toys, treats, a gift certificate to PetSmart and ... drumroll ... a month's subscription to a service called "Doody Calls."

Doody Calls is a backyard pooper scooper service.

Let's let that marinate for a second.

Now, our backyard isn't all that big so I feel kind of funny calling these people and having them take 3 minutes out of their busy lives to walk around our yard and scoop the poop. On the other hand, we do have two dogs now, and it is kind of hot out there ... I just wonder if they will scoop the poop out of the garage while they are at it, because our sweet Angel Belle goes in there sometimes.

I'll have to find out. When I call them, I'll definitely have to wear the Doody Calls T-shirts they provided in our gift basket.

And I'll need to be using one of these for my coffee:

Because nothing says "Good Morning!" like a mug like that. Cheers!

This Little Sign of Mine

This morning I received two urgent calls from a friend, one on my home phone and one on my cell phone, to tell me that our elementary school parking lot was being torn up and I better get up there quick to claim a little piece of property that has been near and dear to my heart this year.

I didn't receive either of her messages so Susie came and tracked me down at our neighborhood pool. I am extremely grateful because my little sign and I have been through a lot together this spring:

You see, I "won" a parking place at our school at an event we had last Fall. My husband likes to say I bought it, I like to say I won it. It really doesn't matter, because now its former home on this lightpost

is now gone. Patrick, the nice fellow in the photo, was kind enough to take the sign off for me when none of the 3 screwdrivers I brought with me were right for the job. We are having a new school built and for the most part it is really exciting, except for the fact that I seemed to have lost a parking space for the time being.

The reserved parking spot has been cause for unanticipated angst on my part. When I won it, I foresaw glorious days of me sailing into the lot at 1:59 p.m. for a 2 p.m. event and having a guaranteed space. I would arrive, cool and together, while others were glistening with sweat from hiking in from the back part of the lot, or further down the street.

What I did not foresee was all the people who would park there anyway, "just for a minute." So then I started arriving at 1:30 p.m. for the 2 p.m. event, just to make sure I got my own space. Not only was I early for everything under the sun, I was also irritated at this unexpected turn of events.

To be clear, I hold no grudges -- I totally get it. Crowded lot + empty space = no brainer. People honestly think that if you are not parked there at that moment, that there is no possible way you will arrive while they are in the spot. They mean no harm.

But what I learned about myself is that it's not worth it. Having a spot with my name on it is not worth me getting bugged about. Frankly, I'd rather be the one who has to park half a mile away and is still smiling than the one who is getting in a wad about a sign.

So you won't catch me "winning" this particular item again. But that is okay, because at our last school event our family won something we will have a lot longer than a parking space:

And Angel Belle can join the rest of us in our new Elliott Family Parking space -- on the driveway -- any time she wants!

I Love Pre-K!

Time seems to be speeding up around here and I'm not sure I like it. I'm way behind on writing about all the funny things that have been happening lately, but it is May and this month is nearly as busy as December.

I love May. It's so close to summer! And sleeping in. And swimming, and ... relaxing. I don't know if this summer will be as relaxing as I had originally thought but more on that later.

I am a little sad about this particular May, because it marks our fourth and final year in Pre-K as a family. That is really saying something, considering I have only three children. That's what happens when you have a boy with a summer birthday. I like to refer to it as a "victory lap."

All of my children did a year of Pre-K with the same fabulous teacher at the church where I grew up. The creativity and growth they experienced there is unparalleled in my mind. This last year we did an all day Pre-K at our elementary school. William has had a wonderful year with a wonderful teacher, and was more "ready" to learn this year than he was last time around.

This year the children get home readers sent home with them so they can practice their reading. It's an important skill, you know, and home readers are pretty big doin's for Pre-K. As if that was not fun enough, William's teacher sends home this pointer:




Because if you are going to read you may as well do it in style:




I'll be sad when we don't have the pointer finger to help us read anymore.




But I have a feeling we have plenty of adventures waiting for us!

Trash Talk

Since today is Earth Day and all I thought it would be a good time to tell you about our family and recycling. A while back my neighborhood stopped paying the private recycling service that was coming through our area picking up those little blue bins. I think we are getting the City to provide us with that service sometime soon. But it doesn't really bother me that much that we don't use the blue bins anymore because I was skeptical of how well that was working anyway.

Ever since we have started doing our own recycling, our family of five probably only throws out about two to three bags of trash a week. I'm not exaggerating. That's the truth and you can come look in my giant trash bin if you don't believe me.

Instead, outside we have in place five plastic containers labeled: Cardboard, Paper, Plastic 1&2, Plastic - Other, and the last one isn't labeled as it doesn't have a lid. It's our old blue bin and we use it for glass and aluminum.

We're pretty much recycling Ninjas.

Once a week or thereabouts we -- and by "we" I mean Mike -- take the bins to the local recycling center about two miles from our home. Since they are presorted he just dumps them into the proper bins and then we start all over again.

We feel pretty good about the difference we are making, and I have wondered what kinds of things our trash is turning into. But I know that whatever it is, it pales in comparison to what God can recycle from the trash of my heart.

It would be great if we could sort out the trash of our internal lives into bins like we do our external trash. I have a feeling it would only take a day for me to fill my bins up before I needed to empty them again.

Amazingly, He wants my trash. Yours too. He wants to take the ugly parts of our hearts and re-create them into something beautiful.

What can He make from the selfishness I give to Him? What about my impatience? My envy? Beauty from ashes.

God made the Earth and everything in it. That includes you and me. So don't worry about how gross and ugly your trash is -- go ahead and hand it over. He's seen worse. And I'm betting you'll be blown away by the beauty of His creation.

Have We Met?

I have a familiar face. Countless times I have had people approach me and start talking to me as if we were old friends, only I have had no clue who they were.

That is not to say I haven't had my share of embarrassing moments when I HAVE actually known the person. It's really nothing personal, it's just that I am not all that great at remembering people's names. If you will give me a little grace on that, I will give you grace on something you're not so great at, too.

Just the other day at Subway a woman I don't think I have ever seen before was very friendly to me, "Oh hey! How are you?" And I wondered if she really thought she knew me, or if she was thinking of my doppelganger:





This is Cynthia Stevenson. She has been in a bunch of TV shows and movies through the years, most notably (in my opinion, probably not hers) as the Mom in the "Air Bud" movies. I mean, c'mon, all my kids are still young and that has got to be the target audience for those movies. So you can see how it would happen: Someone's kid has an Air Bud movie on, the mom walks through the room and watches for a few minutes then sees me out and about and thinks she recognizes me. I, on the other hand, remain clueless.

(As a side note, I think Cynthia Stevenson seems really nice and I am pretty sure we would be friends if she lived in my neighborhood.)

And then there is the other matter of my name, which is the same (although spelled differently) of a famous Christian missionary and author, Elisabeth Elliot. She has lived an extraordinary life, lost her first husband to cannibals while on the mission field and has written several books.

Keep in mind that for both of us, Elliott -- or Elliot -- is our married name. But I have had all kinds of questions through the years, like "Did your mom know your name would be Elizabeth Elliott when she named you?" (Um, noooo ... ) Or some people who have confused the common tradition of passing down the male name in a family, and instead thought perhaps it was more usual to pass down the mother's name.


Like when I was in a Christian bookstore a few years ago and pulled out my credit card to pay, the salesclerk looked at my name and smiled sweetly at me. "Honey, I think I know your mom ..."

Sometimes You Just Need To Hear It

Last night we were listening to the messages on the answering machine and Mike could not stop laughing.

You see, April has been an exceptionally busy month for me. It is a month of 'endings,' and what I mean by that is there are several things I have been invested in for a few years that all happen to be ending this month. But as you know it's not like you ever just walk away -- there is a lot to do before you can officially 'end.' This is why I have not blogged since March 31 -- too much going on, and not enough time or energy to blog about it.

But back to the story. I am a list maker by nature but occasionally not everything makes the list before I leave the house, especially when I am trying to remember all that needs to fall into place before these things can be completed. So I call and leave myself reminder messages on the machine.

Mike was laughing because after each reminder ("drop books off," "email so-and-so") I ended the message with "Have a great day!" Actually that wasn't all I said but I don't know if I am ready to share the rest of it. Anyway he thought it was hilarious.

As it turns out, men don't leave themselves cheery messages like this. When they leave themselves messages, if they say anything else -- and that is a big IF -- it's something like "be productive" or "get it done today." Too much of a command in my book.

Women like to be encouraged, even if they are the ones encouraging themselves! We tell our kids to have a great day when they leave the house -- sometimes they say it too but more often it's a quick kiss and bye and off to the bus. Our spouses will tell us, but occasionally our day doesn't go as planned and we need a reminder to keep a positive attitude. So even if you won't admit it, I know I am not alone in my message-leaving.

There are just 10 short days left in the month and I have lots to do before it's over. The end of the school year is a busy time for everyone, and it is approaching quickly. So let's encourage one another to finish strong, to keep your chin up when things aren't going as smoothly as you would have liked. Sometimes you just need to hear it:

"Have a great day! You're fabulous!"