Eternal tadpoles, Proposals and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

Titus has a tadpole. I saw a Frog Planet plastic terrarium thing last November and I bought it for him for his birthday in December. After he opened the present, we sent away for the tadpoles, which can't be shipped if there is any possibility of freezing weather. We waited and waited through January and February until the tadpoles finally came. Billy and Zach were buddies, and we liked watching them wriggle around their little pond. Sadly, Zach was not as robust and passed away before becoming a frog. Billy, on the other hand, has been a nice, big, active, healthy tadpole for about 5 months now. Don't you think 5 months is a little long to be a tadpole? I'm not a frog life-cycle specialist or anything, but we've been waiting for this tadpole to turn into a frog for a very long time. I've begun to wonder if we're doing something wrong. Bad water? Not enough food? Too dark? Too smelly? I've started speaking positively to Billy. Whenever I walk by I lean down and whisper, "Billy, you're a FROG. Be a frog, Billy, be a frog."

Living in the downtown area of Salem gives us an opportunity to cross paths with people of various ages, stages and social position in life. We are just down the street from an organization that helps homeless people, and also just around the corner from a US Market that sells whatever types of things corner markets sell. Needless to say, we have pretty heavy foot traffic of people who are down on their luck. Occasionally I see the same person several times, and I'll strike up conversations with them. I've been on a first name basis with several new friends, and have opportunity to pray with them every now and then. Last week a new face came by several times, a gentleman up in years with an apparent appreciation alcohol. One sunny morning I was skipping down the steps with a joyful smile on my face just as he was dragging himself past our house. I gave a cheerful "hello" to which he looked up and replied. "Hello, you look so nice. Are you married? (mumbling now) They all are." I cheerfully replied in the affirmative and ran back inside, catching Jeff in the kitchen and saying, "Kiss me, I just got hit on."

And one last story to reveal my true nature: I love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. They've been competing with Butterfingers to be my favorite candy bar for over 20 years. I don't eat them very often, but when I do, I savor every bite. Jeff bought me a Reese's Peanut Butter-Lovers Cup one time - more chocolate and more peanut butter, it was decadent. So this weekend we were camping. I hope to post more on that later, but that's not the point. The point is that someone brought Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to make into S'mores. If you've never had s'mores, I'm sorry. The idea of a s'more with Reese's was almost more than I could bear - it sounded scrumpdillyicious. I was seriously anticipating this morsel of heavenly delight on Friday night, but I never made it to the campfire. I was too busy having good conversations and getting my kids to bed, so much so that the delightful awareness of being near a whole bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups slipped my mind until Saturday night at about 10. That's when I was in a great conversation with three very nice friends on the edge of the campfire. My back side was to the fire, getting toasty, and my face was toward my friends. Did I mention I was in conversation? Listening intently. Interested in what was going on. It was good. And then the craziest thing happened. Someone off to my right said, "I have Reese's for your s'mores," and the desire from the night before returned with such force that I didn't even realize I had walked away from the conversation I was in. I went to the angel with Reese's and agreed to split a package with a young boy. It was about this time that I noticed peals of laughter coming from my left as my friends said something along the lines of, "Nice talking with you Jen. No, really, we can see what's important to you." I was captivated by peanut butter and chocolate.

What captivates you?