Thanks for your responses to my post on Mommy Blogging — it was fun for me to hear back from you on why you blog. Someone said neighborhoods aren’t what they used to be — and that’s true. Except that now our neighborhood is the entire world, and I think that’s pretty cool. (Hello to whoever you are in Argentina who visited!)

I mentioned a few days ago how I’ve discovered the high/low game, which we play at dinner — several nights a week. I don’t know what my deal is this past week but I’ve been on a roller coaster — either feeling like I’m super high on top of the world, or like I’ve plummeted to the bottom of the ocean floor.

IT’S TIME FOR ME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT EXERCISING.

I wrote it. So therefore I must do something about it. I always feel better and more even about life when I exercise. Maybe I need to go hang out at Blair’s blog and learn how to be consistent with charting my progress — which doesn’t exist right now. In fact, since I wrote my post on The Secret Pedometer Club, I’ve stopped wearing my pedometer because I never could get above 8,000 steps — even when I walked over an hour. And in the last two months, instead of losing those dreadful postpartum 20, I’ve gained 5 more!

But back to the highs. Indulge me a minute, and let me share with you the cute things my kids are into these days:

— I taught my 11-month old daughter to use the phone, that wonderful Fisher Price Chatter Phone (no batteries required) — and she promptly began putting it to her ear and calling her “Da Da” over and over. Already, Daddy’s Little Girl.

— My toddler son wants me to read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and No, No Jack several times a day, and he likes to walk around the house with a bucket of trains and a piece of wood, which he uses to make a bridge.

— The girls, 5 and 8, are into beauty parlor and like to brush my hair and read to me from their journals. When I put them in bed tonight, I noticed they had a row of baby dolls set up in their room in various cradles, high chairs, and a rocking chair. There was one lonely doll on the bed. “That’s the Mama, and she has five children,” they told me. I was almost afraid to ask, but I did. “Is she a nice Mama?” They said she was. (You never know.)

— My 9-year-old son is into magic card tricks. He has about four that he always wants to show me. “Pick a card, any card” is his most-repeated phrase around here. (And they really are cool tricks.)

So, that’s it. Those are my highs. The lows? I feel like I’m constantly spinning, being pulled different directions. Everybody around here needs something from me. And who is me? The other day I began to plummet, from the sheer exhaustion. I wrote in my journal, “Lord, I feel like I’m always spinning, not really getting anywhere, just spinning.” And I felt Him answer, “Pinwheels are beautiful to watch when they’re blown by the wind. Let my Spirit set you free.”

Ah … thank you, Lord.

Up next: a visit from a mom who has her act together in the kitchen. Though she admits it wasn’t always this way. Susan Thacker, author of Supper Swapping, will be here to tell us her story, and what it was like to be on the Dr. Laura radio show.

One brief announcement: Don’t forget to post on the topic of God’s Sovereignty for this week’s Carnival of Beauty hosted by Iris of Sting My Heart. The word sovereignty sounds deep and scary, right? Well, just tell us how God is big in your life! What does He mean to you? Some of you will probably come up with some great stuff — I’m looking forward to reading your posts!