My poor son is being mislead.

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Sleep, It Does A Family Good

In America, getting by on just a little sleep can be seen as admirable. It is “overrated” and a tendency of the “lazy,” some might say. But sleep deprivation is probably taking away much more than the few extra hours of awake time is adding. For example, failure to get an adequate amount of sleep is proven to create strains on marriage and parenting, child learning, and health (it is linked to immune problems,  diabetes, obesity, anxiety and depression).

For the spiritually motivated, sleep is essential to keeping one’s inner life in order. Unsurprisingly, good sleep can spring out of a heart at peace.

You’ll steer yourself away from late night TV, internet surfing and computer games and you may cut back on caffeine late in the day after reading Dr. Hart’s tips for building better family sleep habits.  This and other advice will help the reader learn how to take simple steps toward making sleep—and health—a priority.

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As a kid, I “knew” what it would be like to be a writer.

It would involve the following:

• A corduroy jacket (WITH elbow patches…the elbow patches are important.)
• A “study” with built-in corner shelves
• Enough well-worn classics (first editions) to line said shelves
• A window seat over looking an ivy-league looking courtyard
• A huge dark oak desk, buried under crumpled up rough drafts
• A wire wastebasket, also overflowing with rough drafts
• Maybe a pipe (I like the smell of cherry tobacco, but I don’t like smoking. Maybe mine would be a bubble pipe.)
• A typewriter. Definitely a typewriter (with a very distinct clicking sound and a crisp ding! at the end of each line)
• An assistant in a flowered dress who brews hot tea, probably with sugar cubes
• Several notebooks full of inspirational scribbles

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I am writing you from under water.

Well, at least that’s what it feels like.

On my left side anyways.

Another way of saying it: To all of you who’ve been lying awake at night wondering if adults can get ear infections?

Wonder no more.

They can.

Here’s how I found out.

Justus had a miserable five day streak last week. He was the fever over-achiever, with temps between 102 and 103. I got a sun tan just lying next to the kid.

The other thing I got, lying next to him?
His fever.
And his congestion.
And…here’s the surprise: the corresponding ear infection.

I discovered the ear infection through my normal powers of observation, which is to say I had no idea I was having ear problems until I was laying on the bathroom floor being crippled by it.

I tried leaning to both sides. Holding my hand over my ear. Drinking water.

(You know, all the normal things you do to try to shake an infection.)

Nothing.

But then after a few minutes–maybe twenty?–of contemplating taking a joy ride over to Urgent Care, the ear ache disappeared as suddenly as it had arisen.

My first reaction? Ha.

Control.

Ear infection, schmear infection. You got no power here.

It was when some red ooze started trickling out of my ear that I realized the sudden change of ear pressure might not be a good thing.

Long story short: ear drum ruptured.

Its not the biggest deal, I find out, after the fact. Just another thing to protect from infection.

Add that antibiotic to my list.

Now, I feel like a well trained dog, getting held down while 4 little antibiotic ear-drops are plopped into my ear.

But, yes, that makes it official. Check that curiosity off your list.

Adults get ear infections.

And when one of your eardrums ruptures?

It feels like you are doing everything with half your head underwater.

I’m basically snorkeling everywhere I go.

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Today is  announcement day.

Soooo…let’s go ahead and pretend like we’ve had an announcement day before.

Like we have them all the time.

Like we are overrun with announcements like these ones:

• A few more websites have weighed in on my book in one form or another: Check out Plywood People and the blogs of Chad Estes, Matthew Paul Turner (Jesus Needs New PR), Brett Barner and the about-to-be-there post of Jason Boyett.
  
• You can read a sneak peek of my new memoir, Picking Dandelions, here. Feel free to email it to all your memoir-loving friends.
• Here’s a coupon code from Zondervan for $10 off a purchase of $10 or more. So you can snag my book for $4.99. Yes, its true, you smell a steal.
• Free V-Day gift (for you, don’t try to pass it off as your gift to someone else): The Lent Readings from the Mosaic Bible,which I contributed a coupla stories to. Go there. Read away.
• Kary Oberbrunner is doing an online launch party for his new book, Your Secret Name. Kary is one of my Columbus peeps, so treat him well. (Did I mention he’s giving away A LOT of prizes, including 5 books by yours truly?)
• If you’ve heard the rumor that Ben Arment’s Whiteboard session is a guys-only event, you’ve been mislead, my friends. Its an everyone event. Men, women. Come one, come all.

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1. Skinny jeans

I have yet to meet a person they look great on (Except for you who are reading this, of course. They look fabulous on you.).

My motto: When you are already skinny (just call me beanpole), all jeans are skinny jeans.

2. Snuggies

They remind me of the Thneeds in Dr.Seuss’ book and book-inspired cartoon, The Lorax.

“It’s a shirt. It’s a sock. It’s a glove, it’s a hat.
But it has other uses, yes, far beyond that!
You can use it for carpets, for pillows, for sheets!
For curtains, or covers for bicycle seats!”

The Lorax said, “Sir, you are crazy with greed.
There’s no one on Earth who would buy that fool thneed!”
But the very next minute I proved he was wrong.
For just at that minute a chap came along,
and he thought that the thneed I had knitted was great!
He happily bought it for three ninety-eight.”

Exception: If you are a Dr.Seuss character, I think owning a snuggie would make sense. I bet you’d fit right in around Who-ville.

3. Crocs

If I wanted a container for my foot, I would write Rubbermaid.

4. Destroyed denim

There is no normal human activity that would wear holes in in the spots where the manufacturers purposefully rip them. Just sayin’.

5. Livestrong bracelets or their spinoffs

Some examples include “What Would Scooby Do?” and “Cuddliest.” Tip to the wise:When the bracelets become available to the masses, and thus bear any saying that any joker decides to slap on them, people stop reading them.

If everyone has a saying, no one does.

6. Shorts or sweats with words across the butt.

I assure you, your butt is not a princess. And neither is mine.

7. Visible thongs.

You realize this is like combining Victoria’s Secret with the plumber crack? Hmmmm. Attractive.

8. Fake bakes.

I could just go the common sense route and point out that frying your skin isn’t fashion. (Unless your fashion icon is a slab of fried chicken.)

But there’s also something called health:

Several states are trying to pass bills to restrict use of beds to those 18 years old or older, maintaining that they present a hazard similar to smoking cigarettes. Enough said?

Just in case its not: A 2006 study by researchers at San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego linked a 70 percent increase in the risk of melanoma and squamous cell cancer to people who use indoor tanning equipment before age 35.

So, if you’re a chronic tanner, you may as well light up and take a few puffs while you’re in there. Oh wait. THAT’s not socially conscious.

9. Giant bug-eyed sunglasses.

I don’t care if Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears jump off a bridge. I’m staying on dry land.

10. Shawls.

I only wear giant pieces of fabric that swallow me whole if I’m playing a Bible character in the Easter Play. And that’s been 26 years now. So probably can afford to sit this one out.

Not to worry though…

My opinion is worth about negative three cents in the fashion market.

With no shame, I confess, I am no fahionista.

So if you happen to rock any of the items from this top ten list, please continue to do so with pride. My personal belief? You can wear anything as long as you apply my number one rule of fashion (there is no number two):

Put more effort on becoming a beautiful person on the inside than you do on the outside.

Then whatever you put on top won’t be so important. Its the ‘icing on the cake’ principle.

If you comment on this blog (click brown comment box under blog title) or RT/Post about this blog on Facebook, you will automatically be entered to win today’s book giveaway: Found Art by Leeana Tankersley. Found Art is a collection of spiritually enriching, uplifting stories from the author’s life. These stories are insightfully woven around the seasons found in Ecclesiastes 3 and include birthing and dying, planting and harvesting, speaking and remaining silent, weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, war and peace.

This is part of the 25 Days of Giveaway leading up to the Feb. 1st release of Sarah’s book, Picking Dandelions.

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Really, go ahead, peep away.

At my book, that is. (All lurkers outside the house will be given a manic Jack Russell terrier named Wrigley.)

There are excerpts of my new book, Picking Dandelions (soon to be released Feb. 1st) NOW available under the “excerpts” tag of the website.

Please take a sneak peek.

This will be particularly snazzy for you if you happen to live in central Michigan (or have crossed paths with me in real non-computerized life), as I custom-selected a couple excerpts for you. Get a tiny sample of what I said about our scrawny, econo-crumblin’ neck of the woods. :)

*     *     *

Bonus: Leave a comment (click the brown comment box under this blog title) and you’ll be automatically entered to win today’s giveaway in our 25 days of Giveaways. Today’s prize? J.R.R. Tolkien (not the deceased author of Lord of the Rings, but a movie about his life). This film tells the story of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, English writer, poet, philologist and author of many stories, including most famously The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

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Giving away daily prizes until Feb. 1st (release of my new book) so stop back often!

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You wake up at 4 a.m., but can’t sleep (those burritos get you every time). So you switch on the TV.

And its your lucky day. Someone is selling the product of a lifetime.

And that’s not all.

If you call to order now, you’ll get not just one, but two products of a lifetime. For eighteen easy payments of just something-ninety-nine.

Its a pen that will magically restore your totaled car.

Little coasters that do the work of a professional moving team.

A purse that organizes everything you own so that you can carry your entire house over your shoulder (okay that’s my actual favorite).

Each and every item will change your life.

Or…will it?

The answer, according to the Consumers Reports people, is probably not.

In this study, they tested 15 popular As-Seen-On-TV products to see if the items were really what the sellers  said they were.

Take this example. Here’s the actual short-mercial (the under 2-min. infomercial ad ) for the Slap Chop.

But here’s a video of how the Slap Chop performed for everyday people on this side of the TV screen.

A little bit of a difference, huh?

It makes me think…

Am I doing better than that?

Am I what I say I am?

Or am I hiding the flaws beneath my shiny packaging?

What about you? Have a favorite infomercial? Have you ever called and ordered a product? Click on the brown box beneath the title of this post (see pic) to tell us about your experience to automatically enter to win today’s giveaway: The Sacredness of Questioning Everything by David Dark – In this provocative, entertaining book, author David Dark writes, “The summons to sacred questioning, like a call to honesty, like a call to prayer, is a call to be true and to let the chips fall where they may.” Far from being a sign of cynicism or weakness, questions are not only positive but crucial for our health and well-being. Tweet about this contest using @sarahcunning or #pickingdandelions in your tweet and you will be entered in the drawing a second time. **Contest runs until midnight tonight so get your entries in now.**

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