I don't know how this happened?! How has it already been almost a week since I blogged?!?!? CRAZY. I guess I just wasn't cut out to be a good blogger. I used to think so, but I just keep proving myself wrong!

Sunday. Hhmmm. I think Sunday was good. Our pastor preached about not throwing in the towel and about the fat lady singing. :-) It was very, very good. That night we had Sam & Tammy and Aunt Sue and Uncle Jerry over for brisket. Sam's birthday brisket! :-) (He turned 41 on Monday.) We also had fresh, homemade rolls and baked potatoes and corn and left-over turkey and I don't know what all. And some of Emilee's great hearthside cider (yum!) and the second half of the Thanksgiving punch that we hadn't mixed up on Thursday. It was all GREAT! I also made a big pineapple upside-down cake for desert. It was all way too much and we were stuffed. But it was fun! We visited for a while, then after Sue & Jerry left we still had time for one game. The birthday boy blew us out of the water, which made him very, very happy. We were even happy for him. But ONLY because it was his birthday. :-)

The next day we went over to Sam & Tammy's for a little while to visit with Scott & Angie, who were staying there for the day. It was nice to see them again. Then we came home and I got busy on the Regional paper--we were way late getting started on it because of Thanksgiving and everything else going on and I HAD to get to work on it! I stayed up late that night working on it and finished it up the next day. That was Tuesday. Hhmmm. I can't remember anything else about Tuesday.

Wednesday we had THREE house showings! Wow!!! How exciting! I took the kids to the library for story time and we picked out a bunch of Christmas books. We got several for them to read on their own, and I got "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" to read to them. We read the first four chapters that day! I also got a Dee Henderson book for me. I stayed up and read the first half of it that night. ~sigh~ It was great!

Yesterday I woke up in need of a long, hot bath. So I took one! With my book, of course. ;-) I was feeling pretty lousy throughout most of the day, so all I really accomplished was some school with the kids, a game or two with them, and some more reading. All in all, it was a great day! (Every now and then you need a day when you're feeling too poorly to accomplish anything--it makes you slow down and take a break, you know?!

Then last night we had ABM and Home Missions service here at our house. That was sooooo nice. I just love having people in my home and I love opening it up for services. It's been AGES since we've had one here, so I enjoyed it extra. :-) We had a good devotional, then a good time of prayer for the needs throughout the region and beyond. Afterwards we had lemon bars and some more hearthside cider. Sam & Tammy stayed and helped James get the Regional papers all put together and ready to go. It was late by the time everything was finished, but everybody was up for a game. I had talked James into buying Balderdash a few days earlier because it was a good price--and it's one of the very, very few games that he actually LIKES and is willing to play on occasion! So that's what we played last night. It was sooooo fun! Do you know who Marta Espina was? She's the 75 year old woman who was killed by a poodle who fell (or was thrown?) off an apartment balcony and hit her in the head. FOR REAL!!! We were sooooooo sure James had made that answer up (you know, the whole, "Today we're teaching poodles to fly" bit--one of his favorites), so Tammy and I ended up choosing whatever lame thing he had written up AND he guessed the poodle one, so he pretty well took the game with that one. It was a lot of fun. Made me think of the good old days when I was a teenager and we used to play that game on occassion. Frank, Jr. ruled at Balderdash. And Jon. They can come up with the dumbest (therefore the best) definitions!

After Sam & Tammy left I stayed up another 45 minutes or so to finish off my book. ~sigh~ It was so great!!! I wish I had the self-control to allow myself to read books regularly. I could so easily read a book every week if I would allot myself one hour each night to sit and read. But I can't do that. Once I pick it up I just can't put it down! Next thing you know it's been 3 hours and I'm halfway through the book! I don't think I've ever read a book except that I've done it in two days or less. THAT'S why I don't do it very often! I can't afford the sleep deprivation it causes me!!!

ANYWAY... today we got up and got everybody bathed and the house all cleaned up (good thing--there was another showing today!) and headed to Odessa for haircuts. Stacey chopped on all of us but James--he had gotten a haircut a few days ago. Then we went to lunch with her, then ran to Hobby Lobby in search of the perfect Christmas gift for Little Miss Crafts (Katie) and got some good ideas, then to Wal-Mart for some grocery shopping. Came home and had a message on the machine from the realtor. We've got an offer on the house! Wa-Hoo!!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! It is, of course, much lower than we'd like to accept, but it's just so exciting to HAVE one, you know?! So we had a good prayer earlier and asked God to give us wisdom. I was thinking about it the other day and felt like we just really need to PRAY over whatever offers may come our way, regardless of how much they're for. You know, when we look for houses in Albuquerque, we usually plan on offering a great deal LESS money than what folks are asking and we hope the Lord will bless us with a really good price for a really good house out there. Well, other people are in need of a house just like we are, and who's to say God doesn't want us to be a blessing to them by giving them a really good house for a really good price?! If He lays it on our hearts to accept a "lower" offer because it's the "right" buyers (I'm sure He knows who needs this house and all the details that we don't), then I can only assume He will bless us on the other end and meet our needs for a house out there. Right?! It doesn't really make sense logically, but it seems to make sense to my spirit. So we're just PRAYING about this offer and a possible counter offer and all that. Help us! More than anything, we just want God to direct this whole thing. We're still trusting Him for the RIGHT BUYER at the RIGHT TIME for the RIGHT AMOUNT. :-)

That's about all the excitement from here for today. Actually, I'm sure there was more to share, but I can't seem to think of anything else. I'm going to try to get some ironing done tonight (it's been piling up for almost two weeks now!), but I thought I should blog before I reach the ONE WEEK WITHOUT A POST mark and get attacked by NARR. Oh wait, I run NARR! I'm in the clear, either way! ;-) Hope all is well out in Blogland. One of these days I'll start really making the rounds out there again. Probably the same day I actually start posting faithfully again! Ha! Have a great night!!!

~Becki~