Proper use of a Facebook status, at least in my opinion

Since I am fortunate to have Facebook on my iPod touch, and since I am fortunate to be able, on that application, to still have a page for nothing but status updates, I get to read lots and lots of status updates with just the touch of a finger.  Since I have committed to refrain from using this blog as a venue to vent frustrations, I am going to try to phrase the following “etiquette guideline” as straightforward, unsolicited advice, not just venting and whining.

1.  Do not cuss in your Facebook status.  I mean, really.  I’m scrolling down, browsing through people’s lives, and then your profanity smacks me in the face.  Just don’t do that.  It lacks class, and most people don’t want to see it.

2.  Do not use your Facebook status to complain about how bored you are.  You sound whiny and spoiled.  There is plenty for you to do, get up and go do something.  Or at least think of something a little more substantial to say on your status.

3.  It’s kind of rude to post cryptic statuses that only one or two people are going to understand.  I get it that inside jokes are fun and giggly, but most of us are on the outside.  Just saying.

4.  I don’t really need to know that you’re sitting in the living room, or watching your favorite tv show, or eating a Reese’s cup, or going to bed, or about to leave.  Tell me how you are, what you’re thinking, something funny that happened.

5.  Just a note:  when you say that you are writing a paper, doing homework, cleaning your house, doing laundry, or anything else other than typing a Facebook status, your status really isn’t true, you know.

6.    When you have a song stuck in your head, don’t do what I did the other day and post the lyrics.  I apologize from the bottom of my heart, although I’m thinking that none of you knew that song anyway.  But that same day, about five other people did that, and all they accomplished was getting their song stuck in my head, too.  Until I did that, I never noticed the effect it would have.  I’ll never do it again.  Just because one person is being tortured by some never ending song, doesn’t mean everyone else has to be.  (Posting lyrics in order to convey the message within is a different case entirely, by the way.)

7.  Maybe I’m just not in on the new cool trends, but I don’t get the new thing of repeating letterssss within or at the end of wordssss.  If there is a point to this, please enlighten me.  Otherwise, it just seems ssssilllllyyyy.

8.  Please keep in mind:  your Twitter update looks really strange and is hard to read when you import it in as your Facebook status.  Similarly, even if you’re updating your status from your phone, go on and actually spell the words out.  Don’t use text language.  We don’t all Tweet, and we don’t all speak text.

Okay, those are the main “misuses” of a Facebook status, in my maybe-not-so-humble opinion.  When you post your status, tell a story or share a thought or encourage us or give us an opportunity to encourage you.  Share an accomplishment, share a prayer request, share what God’s been doing in your life.  Tell us something funny that happened that day, or something ridiculous that happened.  There are so many possibilities, so many ways you can use your status to make someone smile, or a lot of people smile.  Basically, remember what your mama taught you:  “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.”

Now, I’ll be quiet, since I didn’t really follow that age old advice in this post.  And I better really think about my statuses from now on.  You guys will catch me if I slip up and break my own etiquette guidelines!!

Halls in the Hills, 2009

Labor Day weekend found almost 60 Hall’s, descendants of the first Samuel Hall himself, gathered at Tuckaleechee Retreat Center in Townsend, TN for the ??th annual Halls in the Hills.  Our surroundings were breathtaking, the food was plentiful and nicely filled with calories, and the company full of laughter.  These reunions are like no other, with people being absolutely cutthroat at game time, and then tearful and reverent an hour later during the worship time that highlights the weekend.  We missed last year’s, since the newest Samuel Hall was born the very day of the reunion, so we were especially glad to see everyone this time.  Every year brings changes in the group–deaths, births, and marriages, but these Hall’s are an embracing group, gathering in anyone who will claim them.  I officially claimed them just over nine years ago, and I’m honored to be a member of this amazing family.

This year made new memories just like every year.  How fun it was to watch our three oldest playing with Clay’s cousin Michelle’s two kiddos, Kyle and Ava.  The four oldest of the group–Kyle, Abigail, Ava, and Catherine–are just stairsteps in age, and they played so well together all weekend, even allowing two little tagalongs when Elisabeth and little Eliza wanted to play.  It was also fun to watch Bennett and Samuel, the two newest Hall’s (although not for long, since the next one is due at the end of September) explore the cabin, the front porch, and each other.  We rejoiced with Derek and Melissa, Bennett’s parents, at the announcement that their family would be expanding soon, and we marveled at the grace and strength of Becky and Glenda, who are both still freshly navigating life without their husbands.  We tried a dip in the pool, found it a little chilly, and wound up in the hot tub instead–Michelle and me, plus about 7 or 8 children!  There was singing, game-playing, game-watching, and smore’s made with Reese’s cups.

Our family was one of the first to say good-bye, since we needed to be home Sunday evening, but we still had a great time.  Plans are already being made for next year, and Lord willing, we’ll be there with bells on.  Thanks, Halls, for a great weekend!!

Prayer update

Just wanted to post a quick update on our current situation.  Our Lafayette house is back on the market, listed $8,000 lower and has already shown twice in the past two days.  We are praying hard for a quick sell.  We will be taking a loss with it at this price, but to sell it we had no other option.  We have a couple different options for how to meet that loss:  lots of people have recommended a short sale, in which the lender eats the loss, we pay taxes on the loss, and it hurts our credit, although not nearly as much as a foreclosure; or if we can go on and get approved for the mortgage on the Salem house, the banker said we can probably lump the loss from the Lafayette house into the new mortgage, having no negative effect on our credit.  This would obviously be our preference.  There are lots of other details that would be very confusing if I tried to type them all out, but that’s the gist of the situation.  Please be in prayer with us.  The most urgent issue is just that our house would sell, like, yesterday.  Our Realtor picked the new listing price, sounding pretty confident that this is a price that will move the house.  We cannot pay the mortgage on it once our renter leaves, and that may be at the end of this month.  So please please please pray with us!!

The kind of stuff that (thankfully) doesn’t happen every day

The other day I had one of those experiences that takes a few days to become funny.  The kind of experience that, in the midst of it, I can only endure patiently by imagining the blog I will get from it.

My day had been going pretty much according to normal, which around my house is still slightly different every day.  But there had been no major incidents to speak of, no spankings, no huge messes, nothing really remarkable.  It was almost 1:00, the magic naptime hour when I can lay three children down and do school with just Abigail.  At about 5 minutes before 1:00 (important so that you’ll know the following took place in only a three minute span), I made sure Samuel was not anywhere he shouldn’t be, and took myself to my bathroom for a minute.  I was in my bathroom and then my bedroom for three minutes.  (I know because I was on Facebook on my iPod and I noticed the time as 12:58 when I turned it off.)  Elisabeth came in crying for the hundredth time, clueing me in that it was indeed naptime.  So I ushered her out of my room to go round up the others for naptime.

My first clue that something was wrong was the fact that the duck bathroom door was open.  I’m trying to instill a new rule in my children to always close the bathroom door because Samuel has a fascination with Elisabeth’s potty, and even when it’s clean and empty, that’s just gross.  So the open door was potential for a tragedy.  Then next clue was Elisabeth, who was a few steps ahead of me, stopping when she reached the bathroom doorway and saying, “No, no buddy.”  Okay, so that confirmed that Samuel was in the bathroom, but I still had hope that he hadn’t done any damage.  Hope was quickly dashed to pieces.

Apparently, before coming in and crying to me, Elisabeth had used the potty.  Big time.  Not just number one, either.  And not a nice, solid number two.  No, a nice, loose, runny number two.  And apparently she forgot to close the door.  And apparently Samuel had crawled into the room and headed straight for his favorite object.  And apparently he had managed to get the potty out of the stand and dump it.  And apparently it was the funnest thing ever, because he had a huge grin on his face.  He was splashing his hands in the puddle around him and having the time of his life.  (Remember the whole three minute span, okay?)  At first I was grossed out, but when I saw the–shall we call it “floaties” so as not to be too crude–I almost threw up.

Elisabeth was on the verge of stepping in, so I literally pushed her out of the room, cried “Stay out of here!” and slammed the door.  I took about a two second survey trying to decide what to do first, then swooped Samuel up and plopped him down in the empty bathtub, clothes and all.  I would deal with him in a minute.  First to clean the floor.  Elisabeth must have really downed the apple juice, because there was quite a lake.  I grabbed towels and started mopping up.  Disgusting.  I got the worst of it and got the towels out of the way.  While I was mopping, Samuel pulled up holding onto the faucet, slipped on the remaining drops from the previous night’s bath, and fell head first on the drain, which sticks up in our tub.  So he’s screaming now, but still incredibly gross because I haven’t stripped him yet.  I felt horrible but I was just not going to pick him up as gross as he was, so I just patted his little head and said soothing things to him, mopping the floor the whole time.  Abigail heard the screaming, and started to open the door when I screamed–over Samuel’s screaming– “No, no, no!!  Do not come in here!!”  She was then terrified.  Who knows what she thought was going on in there!

I finally got the floor walkable, stripped Samuel, added his clothes to my pile of nastiness, and started his bath water running.  (So much for a 1:00 naptime.)  While the water was running I called for Abigail to bring me the Lysol and paper towels.  She tentatively opened the door to hand them to me, and said, “But Mommy, what are you doing in there?”  I told her to wait a minute and shut the door in her face.  While Samuel soaked, I sprayed and cleaned the floor and potty.  I finally got my gross little dude washed and sanitary once again, and was able to proceed with naptime as usual.  I got him dried, redressed, and laid down (with a bruised bump on his forehead from the drain), and was in Abigail’s bed with Elisabeth by 1:18.  All that happened in twenty minutes.

These are the incidents that happen with small children, and you don’t even have to have a lot of kids to deal with things like that.  But thankfully, this is the kind of thing that only happens once–at least I hope so–and is not the stuff of everyday.  I told Clay that I must have seen some of those puppy dog tails that little boys are made of.  Samuel, Samuel.  You’ll lose your reputation with a few more times like that, boy!