Marilynn Griffith stops by Mom Unplugged today to provide a peek into her world of motherhood and family. She’s the author of eight novels, mother to seven children, wife to a deacon and proof of God’s enduring mercy.  You can catch Marilynn sharing her family adventures all week on the Mom’s the Word Blog Tour.

Life in the Key of Cheese

With going back to work, planning a women’s conference and keeping up with seven kids, time and money are at a minimum. Today I took a break and was pretty much traumatized by dryer lint overload and the huge pack of meat my husband got on sale.  Alas, when you have a big family, bulk cooking has to happen or you quickly go broke(r). Anyway, I had in my mind what I was going to do with our beefy gentleman: tater tot casserole, stroganoff, beans and rice and tacos. As I searched frantically for cheese to go with one of the proposed dishes, my daughter made an enlightening observation:

1. My emotional state is directly proportional to the amount of cheese in our refrigerator. Sad, but true. I have five sons you know. I have to keep repeating that lest you think I’m crazy. You could put cheese on their shoes and they’d eat it. I slip in beans, pumpkin, spinach, corn…all under the velvety guise of cheese. And yet, there’s a point when, like Mr. Meaty, enough is enough (usually after reading one of Tom Davis’ posts about AIDS orphans in Africa).

“Mom,” said daughter says often when I get like this. “Everything is going to be okay. Step away from the dairy products! They create mucous, remember? They can do without it.”

Can I tell you that I love that girl? She drives me nuts sometimes, but she’s getting pretty funny, like someone who would be my friend if she wasn’t my kid. Between episodes of making me want to strangle her, she cracks me up. Not to mention that she wasn’t too embarrassed to feature me in her top people on MySpace (when she was allowed to have one). Her friends found it quite strange, but hey…they also like cheese too and rides home.

I’ve made another observation about myself:

2. I’m addicted to social networking sites. Yes, me who scoffed at Myspace as a stupid site for teenagers who spent all their waking hours saying “Hi! How r u?” realized the other day that I have accounts on Sparkpeople (health sites don’t count, right?), Myspace (gotta keep eyes on the kid), Shoutlife (nice Christian folks), Facebook (writer friends?), Twitter (Tweet, tweet, hey!)  and other sites that I can’t even remember right now. People I’ve never met send me emails asking to be my friend on pages I forgot I even made. I zone out and ignore said emails until teen daughter gives me grief and then laughs saying, “That’s why I only add people who I know in real life. Didn’t you make that rule?”

Duh… Parenting can be so humiliating. It’s still nice to keep in contact with my brother who is always changing cell numbers, my good friend who moved away and of course, READERS who always seem to send a nice note on the days when I receive my royalty statements and consider climbing the roof (or buying more cheese). One day I might just ditch them all, but until then I’ll be at a social networking site near you screaming “ADD ME!!!!”

3. I’m a pet person. Sort of. True enough, I’ve never called it “my dog” yet. It’s still “theirs.” I only scoop poop on dog walks and no kennel cleaning or dog washing. Whenever i break down and take the dog for a walk because no one else is home, all the other dog owners in the neighborhood gave me that look and nod as if to say,”You’re a goner.” I’m not though. Really. At least not yet.

As one of my favorite characters from Mom’s the Word, Fallon Gray would say, “Everything gets broken, but trust God. He knows. He really does.” And she’s right. So often, God has to fix things, to fix me. Join me as I go to Him today and ask that He wipe away all the mess I’ve been dabbing at the cracks of my soul with and fill me with Himself. He’ll do it. He really will.

About the Book

When her tall, dark, delicious husband joins their three kids in calling her “Mom,” Karol Simons has an identity crisis. Sure she loves the pint-size trio, but what’s happened to her dreams of writing a novel? Determined to have it all, she turns to her neighbor for help.

Dyanne Thornton is thrilled to stand in as Mom for three weeks so Karol can write. Bursting with baby fever, the career-woman trades her glamorous clothes and four-inch heels for the playground and potty training. She hopes to convince her reluctant husband they should start a family of their own, right away.

Everyone’s in for some big surprises…

Order your copy of Mom’s the Word from Amazon.com .

Follow the blog tour at http://bit.ly/MomsTheWord .

Visit Marilynn online at http://marilynngriffith.com/.

Join Marilynn’s social network at http://www.sistahfaith.ning.com.