ON THURSDAY'S I POST FROM THE VAULT. THIS POST IS FROM JULY 2011. I’ve been wanting to get a piano for our house for almost a year now.  We previously had a baby grand but it took up too much space, so we sold it and then my plan was to replace it with an upright.  But Craig’s List . . . it’s just so much work with the calling and the appointment-making.  Finally, this week I found a piano at a local thrift store.  Only $99!  It’s really plain but that’s what I was wanting, because my plan is . . .

ON THURSDAY'S I POST FROM THE VAULT. THIS POST IS FROM JULY 2011. There was some interesting brouhaha on twitter this week from the blogging world.  In case you aren’t completely entrenched in the blogosphere, I’ll break it down: Heather Armstrong, writer of the mother of all blogs Dooce, went on a media trip to Bangladesh along with Christy Turlington, to learn more about what the charity Every Mother Counts is doing.  Cool, right? Well, the trip received backlash and a public fight played . . .

ON THURSDAY'S I POST FROM THE VAULT. THIS POST IS FROM JUNE 2O11. Compassion International is behind a new campaign called Live58, aimed at uniting churches to eradicate poverty in the next century.  I’m excited about it for several reasons.  First, I’m a longtime fan of Compassion – we have been a part of their child sponsorship program for some time and have always loved the work they do.  I also love the fact that they are calling on Christians to respond to poverty in a tangible way.  I’m . . .

ON THURSDAY'S I POST FROM THE VAULT. THIS POST IS FROM MAY 2011. Today around 9am I got a call from Jafta’s school. It was the nurse – letting me know that Jafta was in her office complaining of a stomach ache.  Now, Jafta is prone to psychosomatic complaints and general dramatics, so I was a bit skeptical.  The nurse offered for me to talk to him myself.  In retrospect, this was probably not the best idea.  He told me his stomach was hurting really bad, and then I made another mistake – I . . .

ON THURSDAY'S I POST FROM THE VAULT. THIS POST IS FROM MAY 2011. Yesterday Kembe came home from school with a really sweet note from the parents of another boy in his class.  I’ll call him Aidan.  The note said that Aidan talks about Kembe all the time, and really wants to have him over for a playdate.  Kembe somehow knew about the subject of the note and is  talking constantly about going to Aidan’s house. My first reaction was to be flattered and excited for Kembe.  He’s doing really . . .

ON THURSDAY'S I POST FROM THE VAULT. THIS POST IS FROM MAY 2011. A couple weeks ago, I was talking with some other bloggers about our messy bedrooms.  We all had a couple things in common: we all write about our lives on the internet, we are all relative perfectionists, we all keep the front of our homes neat and tidy, and we all have secret shame about the state of our own rooms.  We laughed about the ways we divert people from ever entering our rooms, and confessed our mortification over . . .

ON THURSDAY'S I POST FROM THE VAULT. THIS POST IS FROM MAY 2011. . . . is that you can call ‘pool party’ and they don’t ask who else is coming. We’re in Palm Springs for the weekend, resting and relaxing (and checking out all the fun family offerings in Palm Springs for a feature I’m working on).  There are a lot of fun things to do here – but for my four, the pool is where it’s at. . . .