Chaos ensues...and disappears as fast as it came

Wow, if you were in our house right now, here's what you'd see: Pure chaos...Claire throwing a fit because she doesn't want to clean her room, Gabe screaming because he's mad at Claire, Olivia trying to comfort Gabe, but actually only making him angrier, Nate screaming because Gabe woke him up, birds chirping, and my mom trying to get everything under control while holding a conversation on the phone. Talk about multi-tasking (and ear-splitting sound levels!) Seriously, according to the OSHA, a quiet residential area is around 40 decibels, right now, I think our house is hovering at about, oh, 85 decibels, which is when you need hearing protection! (I think that Gabe's scream is probably about that, no kidding! Maybe even louder because the OSHA says that a baby's scream can be about 110 decibels ) At times like this, there's three things that we need are usually in short supply: patience, cooperation, and relaxing music, in that order. (Well, the third thing is optional, just my preference, helps you calm down...) Oh yes, definitely need patience. Ahh...breathe in, breathe out...repeat X10, all better! Better yet, don't think of getting mad as a waste of time, think of it as an exercise for the blue vein on your forehead, as Jeremy Duncan from the comicbook Zits would say. (Always makes me laugh!) Nah, just joking, think of it as a test from God, more like. Got patience down? Good. Next comes cooperation, which, unfortunately can't be done unless everyone wants to cooperate, like hitting a needle in a haystack, and if you're on the phone or have someone coming over, it's like hitting a needle in a haystack with a deadline, ack! Okay, by this time, our house has calmed down to a dull roar. (Just kidding, it's actually pretty quiet, if you don't count the vacuum running :) Okay, I take it back, Gabe just started blasting our ears...I mean, screaming again...Breathe...All better. Overall, my mom and dad do a great job at keeping the house under tabs, I wouldn't be able to do tht good! Personally, I like to calm down by listening to music.

CDs that are in my collection now:

High School Musical/High School Musical 2 Soundtracks-The High School Musical Cast (A weird choice for relaxation music, I know, but hey, if it works, it works!)

Dignity-Hilary Duff (Another weird choice...:)

The Greatest Hits-The Newsboys

And CDs with songs by various artists, check out the About Me section for a list of my favorite artists. So there you have it, the full anger guide, by Parker Ginn. :D I think Olivia posted an entry about how she cools off when she's angry too, you can read it here.

Happy Easter!

Did everyone have a good Easter?! Let's celebrate God's victory over death! Sorry, too much sugar, still hyped up on Easter candy...So yesterday, we got up and found our Easter baskets, (you're never too old for an Easter basket! :D) filled with candy, and one of those Bibles that looks like a magazine, pretty cool! We went to an Easter service at Heartland church. It was okay, they talked about how Jesus is the only way to be saved, how true! The worship service was good too, I like the music there, although my mom is always trying to get me to sing and dance! :D We sat up near the front, you could feel the shock waves from the drums! And yeah right about being able to hear yourself sing! :D Good service though; after that, we went home and had a perfectly wonderful lunch/dinner of lamb, various veggie dishes, and potatoes with, with, you'll never guess...CHEESE!!!! Yum! The lamb was nice and tender too, perfect! Mom said that it was so good because, "It had the love..." as Marie from Everybody Loves Raymond would say. Then, later that night, we watched End of the Spear. It's about these five missionaries who went to visit this savage Indian tribe in South America. Five of them ended up being killed, but the whole tribe was eventually evangelized, good movie, although a little violent. A good ending to a good day!

To resist, or not to resist, that is the question...Whether it's easier to do what's right, or to give in and be happy...

Okay, I need to stop with Shakespeare! :) My devotional has been hitting on a lot of good things lately, things I'm not particularly good at avoiding *weaknesses, ack!*. They've been helping me, maybe they'll you or someone you know too, or at least encourage you in your walk with God! :) Today, I read about resisting temptation. Temptation can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime, and in a variety of ways, making it hard sometimes to even know we're getting tempted. Satan tempts us because he thinks that we're dumb enough to give up true happiness in God for a minute of worldly pleasure. (Which we are sometimes) The best way to counter temptation is to pray everyday, to ask God for strength against temptation, Satan will try to use our greatest weaknesses against us, that's another reason to get rid of them! (I was recently listening to a song that talked about facing your inner-self and trying to get rid of your weaknesses, good song) Everyone gets tempted, Jesus even got tempted by Satan, but it's what we do when faced with temptation that's the real challenge. King David, called "a man after God's own heart" was tempted, he gave in to it, and paid the consequences for the rest of his life. But God is our greatest strength. He'll give us strength when we need it, so in the meantime, we should stay close to Him and ready ourselves for Satan's attack, so that we'll be ready when it comes!

Wisdom, wisdom, where art thou?

No, it's not Shakespeare...Today, I was reading my devotional and it hit on a really good point: even if we think we know something, we shouldn't be afraid to ask God for His wisdom and help. If you know me, you'll know that I can be stubborn and a know-it-all sometimes. :D I'm not too good when it comes down to asking direction or help from others, sometimes because I'm shy, but also sometimes because I don't want people to think that I'm dumb. But is it better to resist help and keep stumbling around in the dark, or ask for help and steady yourself? It's certainly not easy, at least not for me, but God's always there to help us, and He's always happy to give us wisdom and help us out.

There was a story in my devotional about how the author was staying in a hotel, and from her balcony, she could see where the water was shallow, and where it suddenly dropped off into a deep area. If she could've been in contact with the swimmers, she could've told them where a deep area was coming up. God is like that, He sees all, He knows when danger is headed our way, but the only way that He has contact with us is if we pray and ask Him for wisdom to discern what would be the right choice. We can never have too much wisdom, and God will never stop giving it out, so let's stock up while we can! :D Anyway, so later that day, the author went out to the beach to see if the deep areas of water were visible from ground level. Since she knew here the dropoff was, she stepped out to the edge...and promptly fell off the edge into deep water, like she'd seen the other swimmers do. The point is that even if we think we know something, we can't get smug about it, only God knows the whole truth, life is full of twists and turns that we can't see around, but He can!

Status Quo...

No, it's not a post about High School Musical, although I might write about that soon, those looking for the music video for that can watch it here...Okay, I'm back after being MIA for a week. (Just kidding! :D) But let's see, what has the Ginn Family been up to the last week? Well, last Saturday, we went to a surprise party for our friend, Mr. Cantwell, who's turned 50. (Or, now he's half a century old, more on that in a minute) Anyway, the Cantwells are the ones who adopted Kevin/Carter, remember him, he was one of our fosterkids. (His name is now Jackson, for those who have been living under a rock hiding away from the Ginn Family :) We all had a great time, throwing surprise parties is so much fun, you should've seen the look on Mr. Cantwell's face. It was real surprise! *cough, cough, surprise baby shower, cough, cough* Some of the people put together a tribute, we sang a song, Olivia and Mom wrote it, and we all sang it. Here's the lyrics. It goes to the tune of "Jesus Loves Me."

Kevin Cantwell you're so great.
7 kids was your great fate.
You're a great father and a friend.
Never ever would you offend.

Yes Kevin Cantwell.
Yes Kevin Cantwell.
Yes Kevin Cantwell.
You're half a century old.

Jesus loves you yes it's true.
And we also love you too.
You strive to please Him every day.
His light shines in every way.

Yeah Kevin Cantwell. (clap, clap)
Yeah Kevin Cantwell. (clap, clap)
Yeah Kevin Cantwell. (clap, clap)
You're half a century old.

Nice job Olivia and Mom! Anyway, they even got it on tape, aahhh!! Then we got home, and forgot that we had to change our clocks, ugh, my internal clock is still adjusting. I wake up, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, it's 9:30!" Because it would've been 8:30, oh well. Oh, but one thing to be thankful for, it's been nice and sunny out lately, a very nice change after all this snow and rain we've been getting! :D All in al, it's been a normal week, status quo.

The generosity of Eli Lilly

I was reading through the news just recently, and it turns out that Eli Lilly (the really big drug company headquartered here in Indy) is donating $4 million to fight tuberculosis. (TB) Tuberculosis has adapted itself and is now resistant against the drugs previously used to treat it. Not good. So Eli Lilly is donating the money to help train workers to be able to diagnose and treat the virus in Russia. I'm sure they're happy. Actually, we have to get tested every year for TB since we're a fosterfamily, and a few years ago, my mom's test turned out to be TB positive! She was a little freaked out. (Okay, maybe more than a little, right mom? :) Luckily, it turned out to be a strain that was nonactive and not contagious. (I think) The upside to this is that my mom doesn't have to get tested for it anymore, since we know that she already has it. So last year, while Claire, Olivia, and I are sitting in the doctor's office with a bubble of skin on our arms, (the shot makes your skin swell up and a little bubble of air appears under it, its weird) my mom's sitting there smirking. Yeah, real funny mom, if looks could kill...(Olivia was giving her the evil eye) It doesn't hurt that bad though. And my mom's already had more shots than anyone should have to. (They have to poke her a lot to find a vein for an IV, ouch...) Let's just hope that none of us ever get an active strain of it, then we'd be in trouble! :D