When you don't hear from me for several days, it's NOT because I'm a slacker. This time. ;-) It's because I'm going to be gone and I don't know that I'll have Internet access while I'm away. Besides, I'll be with PEOPLE! And who wants to blog when you could be enjoying the PEOPLE?! Not me!!! :-)

We'll be leaving in the morning for Colorado. We aren't able to have our usual Minister's Retreat for the entire region this year... something that has half of our folks ready to revolt, declare mutiny and throw us overboard. No, they're not THAT upset. The worst we've heard is that one pastor and one auxiliary leader may be boycotting the meetings we're having in lieu of the usual Retreat. Don't know who else thy might have talked into joining them by now. Of course, the reason they're upset is because they feel the serious need to BE WITH EVERYBODY, so the chances of them actually not showing up are beyond nil. :-) We'll have to come up with due punishment for their even threatening such a thing though. ~sigh~ I love this region! ;-)

As I was saying, we're not able to have our usual Minister's Retreat, so James decided we would have a northern Minister's Meeting (for the Colorado folks) and a southern one the next weekend (for the rest of the crowd). This weekend is our first one, so we thought we'd go a day early and get a church visit in as well. Most of our churches up there have service on Thursday nights, so we just have to decide which one we're going to land on tomorrow. The Minister's Meeting will be Saturday night and Sunday morning in Salida, then we'll stay over and be in that church Sunday morning and drive up to Craig for service that night. After that, who knows! We have tentative plans, but I'd hate to announce them and then change them. (But Em, can we stop over at your house at some point?!) I don't know if Jamey and the baby will feel up to going to the Meeting this weekend, so we're planning on going through 'Springs to visit them for a few minutes. Of course, knowing Jamey she'll probably be raring to go to convention this weekend with a 3 day old baby! I would love it if she did... and I'd also think she's CRAZY! Ha!

Anyway, now you know why I'll be missing until sometime early next week. :-)

Today was a long day. It was pretty stressful off and on--I hate days like that! We did manage to have a full day of school and I got all of the laundry and ironing caught up, we made it to horse lessons on time and then headed straight down to BTI service at Sister Grimes' house. Oh, Sister Grimes! She's 79 years old and planning on going to Ladies' Retreat with me next month! Wa-Hoo! I can't wait! She is such a neat old lady. She's so solid and faithful and truly trusts the Lord in so many ways--and is such a praying woman. And you never have to wonder what she thinks! The way she and her daughter pick and jab at each other is HILARIOUS. She's a mess and I love her to pieces! And I'm sooooo glad she's going to Retreat with me. :-) Hopefully we'll get at least one other lady roped into going with us!

That's it for now! Gotta get some rest so we can get up and throw some things in the car tomorrow and head north. :-) I'll be back sometime next week!

That's what somebody's blog list sites as my last writing. How does that happen?!?!? I've been trying sooooo hard to be better about blogging. I have NO IDEA where this past week went. Tuesday is our usual library day but it was SO WEIRD today. We went and returned all of the books that it seemed like we JUST GOT--seriously, it feels like we were just there two days ago, not a whole week! It's been a crazy one, I guess.

I can't remember any of the fun stuff, just the stuff that has occupied most of my time the past week or so. I know that I accomplished all of the time sensitive jobs that were closing in on me: WMB service, Assembly Minutes, Regional Planning Guide, VLB service, and finally Regional Paper. That means a whole lot of time on the computer. In the midst of it all, we managed to pull off five full days of school last week (took Thursday off, but made up for it on Saturday) and both days so far this week. Wa-Hoo! Speaking of school...

Last Wednesday I bumbled into a nice, relaxing morning. I was planning on getting into the same schedule: breakfast, devotions, then right into school. Somehow I ended up taking a nice, leisurely hot bath and roaming the house in my robe until 10:00 instead! And it felt soooooo nice! We had devotions and started school then and it seemed to go so much better than usual. I read on Emilee's blog that night how their family has switched to a later-in-the-day schooling schedule and it pushed me right over the edge. :-) Now we start the day with breakfast and devotions, then the kids run wild outside while I work on housework and other odds and ends. We start school at 11:00, take a short break for lunch, then finish up somewhere between 1:00 and 2:00. And I LOVE it!!! It feels like I get sooooooo much more accomplished this way! Before it felt like school was so consuming and like I lost most of my day to it somehow. This way it fits right in the middle of the day and I've got plenty of time to accomplish other things beforehand and afterwards. What a discovery!!! Strange, isn't it, how even as homeschoolers we sometimes absentmindedly think that we have to do things like public school. Who says you have to shove your kids behind a desk at 8:30 in the morning?! My kids seem to handle school much better when they've had a couple of hours to burn off some energy and just enjoy the day. I think we're all far happier this way. Wa-Hoo!!!

Hhmmm. Like I said, I can't remember what else we've been up to this week. It's been mostly school and all of those computer jobs I mentioned. I knew I was getting close to finishing up on the Regional Paper (the final biggie to be checked off the to-do list), so I snatched The Truth Seeker (the next book in that series) from Sister Galaviz while we were visiting her last night. :-) I finished up on the paper, then read the first 5 chapters of the book last night. I was responsible though and made myself put it down and go to bed at midnight. ~sigh~ It is sooooo fun to be able to relax with a good book, especially when it's a pleasure you seldom afford yourself. Of course, I'm on a roll now and am anxious to go through the rest of the series. It felt like I kind of deserved a good book after getting so much done this past week AND being a good home schooler lady. Today was back to the usual grind: school and laundry instead of school and computerwork! We went to the library and checked out 30+ books this afternoon, then came home and I dove into my book. :-) I let the kids watch a movie tonight and we all had Totino's and Cherry Coke. The kids watched their show while I read my book. What a great night! Ha! We stopped and had devotions and prayed for poor Sister Jamey to have that baby AGAIN (not for her to HAVE it again--we PRAYED for her again! Ha!)--seems like that's been a big prayer around here lately! :-) I put the kids to bed and got right back into the book. I finished up about midnight, I think. Tried to go to bed, but I am sooooo wired. No chance of sleep, so I thought I'd blog real quick--especially since my mother informed me that it had been 5 or 6 days. WEIRD. I still don't know how that happened.

The only drama going on around here has been concerning the fence. It's a long, long story and not a very happy one. In the end, we're getting a nice fence, that our dog can't walk through or stick his head through and be chewed up by the big dogs on the other side, the fence will be in the right place (it's been wrong for YEARS), and it's only costing us the $500 the previous home owner had set back for that purpose. That's all of the good news. The bad news is the strain that the situation has caused with our neighbor. Ugh! I just hate that!!! I can't handle conflict and I SOOOOO want to be a good neighbor and have a good relationship with everybody, you know?! But we just don't have the money in our house budget (we're likely to run out before we get everything done as it is!) to pay big bucks for a really expensive fence like was necessary. They say good fences make good neighbors. I say expensive fences should be built by contractors before anybody owns the houses divided by it so they don't have to struggle over who should pay how much. Mine may not be as concise and catchy as the other one, but it's more accurate!

And I guess that's about it. I think the suspense of that book is finally starting to wear off. (It's a good 'un!) That and the good, happy news I got a little while ago--but that I won't be the one to share. :-) So I'm going to try again to get some rest. And to blog again before 6 days from now! Good grief.

I added a blog list!!! I wasn't ever going to do that, but I've seen it on a couple of other blogs lately and I just can't pass up that nifty little feature that actually tells you how recently so-and-so posted something. It means I can go to my very own blog, take one glace and know immediately who the good bloggers are and the bad bloggers! The best blogger (at least for the moment) gets to be at the very top of the list!!! How cool is that?! No more clicking on 15 different blog addresses--I can go to my own blog and know whether you've done anything new or not. Sooooo cool. :-)

But... one of the reasons I've never had a blog list before is the worry that somebody might be offended that they're not on it! Ha! Silly, I know, but it can happen. So, please... if you're a blogger out there somewhere and you didn't make it to my list, it doesn't necessary mean that I don't like you or your blog. It might mean that I'm a dope and just forgot! (Libby, in your case it means that it just wouldn't LET me add your blog! Weird.) The only other reason would be that I had to pare things down a little bit. A mom of three can't spend four hours a day looking through blogs, you know! So I added the blogs that I try to check the most often, either because the people are very close friends of mine, cousins I adore (you know who you are!), people who's writings I especially enjoy... or just people who blog a lot and give me something new to read. ;-) Rest assured, not being on the list doesn't mean I don't come to check on you and your life every now and again. :-)

Today was not exactly the day I had planned on having, but it was extremely productive! As for the new school schedule, Em, I'll have to get back with you once we've actually given it a trial run--we didn't have school today! Ha! We had an accidental trial run on Wednesday, I guess, and it was GREAT, but I want to give it a few more days before I adopt it permanantly. I'll let you know how it goes!

I told James I would help him this morning, then do school with the kids this afternoon. HA. School didn't have a chance. Today was the big clean-out-the-den-and-the-boys'-room day. The catch is... the den and the boys' room is actually a garage. (We'll be finishing it out and turning it INTO a den and bedroom for the boys.) More accurately, it was a garage that was overflowing with stacks and piles of junk and stuff and books and boxes and Granddad's wood and other miscellanious furniture. It's all of the things that never got "moved in" because there's no place to move them. So really the garage has been serving as a storage shed. A really, really catastrophic storage shed. I've climbed up and over and around the boxes--and rummaged through most all of them--looking for things at one point or another, so it was TRASHED out there. Can't very well remodel a garage in that condition now can you?

We worked and worked and worked. It took until mid-afternoon to get all of that stuff sorted through and moved into James' office. (Remember I said that it wouldn't be an office for quite a while?! Now IT'S going to be the storage area until we get the garage finished.) The only things we left in the garage were the couch and a couple of pieces of furniture against one wall and some bookshelves piled high with all of the tools and paint supplies we'll be needing on another. It's AMAZING how all the junk in that 19'x25' room that you could barely walk through all fit into James' little 10'x12' office! Quite nicely, I might add. We're hoping to have the garage all done in the very near future... but we left the bags of Christmas cards within easy access just in case! Ha!

The kids helped a lot, hauling things in their wagon and the wheelbarrow. They worked good and hard, so we'll call it a whole day of P.E. ;-) Actually, this afternoon when all the work was done I told them to just go play. Next thing I knew they had instituted some sort of a "learning club" (I can't remember the cheesy name they came up with for it). Katie was the manager (naturally) and had made up some math pages that Joe had completed and they were on their way to study up on frogs and lizards and write reports about them. It's sooooo perfect! The kids had school, but I got the day off from it! Wa-Hoo! :-)

And that's our day, in a nutshell. James made Frito Pie for lunch today (I was still sorting in the garage) and then, while I was working on a model of our soon-to-be new rooms (!), he made an enchilada casserole for himself and trays with Spaghetti-o's, chips, chunks of watermelon and mint for each kid--and a cup of apple juice. WOWZERS!!! He's been working really, really hard to be a fantastic husband and dad lately. What a great guy!!!

Ah yes, my model. Diagram is really more like it. Once we got the garage emptied out enough that I could see it again instead of just the junk in it (!), the wheels started turning and I couldn't stop trying out all of the possibilities in my head. I measured everything and drew up a scale diagram, then measured the pieces of furniture that I know we'll be using in the room. Gotta make sure you put the wall and door in the proper place to accomodate everything, you know?! It took a long, long time and at least 10 different combinations of couch here, fireplace there, chair over there stuff, but when I finally landed on "IT," I knew it. :-) I AM SO EXCITED!!! ~sigh~ It's going to be so great. Someday, someday. For now my happy little diagram will tide me over. :-)

...are of the devil.

You've probably never heard of them before tonight. Neither had I until I accidentally activated them. I was less than an hour away from finishing up on my Assembly Minutes job when it happened. I was holding down the shift key while listening to the session and trying to decide how to begin the next sentence. Suddenly a box popped up on the screen telling me that by holding the shift key down for 8 seconds (ooooooh, I tapped into the secret formula) I had activated the filterkeys. If I wanted to keep them on I could click "Okay" and if I wanted to turn them off I could click "Cancel." Sounds easy enough. I tried "cancel" but it was too late. I have no idea what filterkeys are or why anybody would ever intentionally activate them. All it means is that you can't place the cursor in any specific location on the page, you just highlight a whole bunch of text that you didn't mean to highlight. It also means you can't use simple symbols such as a numbers or even a period--it uses the "greater than" symbol instead. This makes it quite difficult to e-mail your computer tech brother to beg for help since you can't type DOT-com. (NO PERIODS!!! How dumb is that?!) Ah, yes--and this doesn't just effect the Word document you're working on, it screws up your ENTIRE SYSTEM. I worked for 40 minutes scrolling through every menu and settings box I could find and clicking and unclicking on everything that said anything about filterkeys. NOTHING WORKS. I was finally getting desperate. I had e-mailed Jon, but it was way too late to call. I couldn't fix the problem on my own and NOTHING on James's laptop (which I was using) was working right because of the wretched filterkeys. I knew I either had to fix the problem or I'd have to fess up to him what I'd done. That wasn't an option (never until I'm well beyond the point of desperation!), so I brainstormed some more. I finally thought to Google "filterkeys." Ha! You wouldn't believe the number of people who have accidentally activated their filterkeys and become rather irate about it. I was sooooo happy to have found them. Come to find out--after spending 40 minutes trying to do things that make SENSE (like finding the filterkeys options and clicking the box that says "Shut the dumb things off, whatever they are")--all you have to do to get things back to normal is press both shift keys at the same time. ?!?!?! Like THAT makes sense!!! Who makes up stuff like that, anyway?! Why would some smart computer person come up with THAT instead of just making the "turn 'em off" option work?! The ONLY possible motivation must've been some sort of sadistic humor. It's just wrong, I tell you.

Just for kicks, you should type up a Word document and make sure you've got a decent amount of important information in it, then hold down your shift key for 8 seconds. Try to function that way for a few minutes. The panic becomes much more intense if you can imagine yourself being on James Horne's computer and unable to fix the problem and knowing that, eventually, he's going to find out what you've done. And you still have to live with him after that. HA! (He'll love this "make him out to be a monster" stuff! Maybe that's why I do it...) :-)

~whew~ I pushed both shifts. I finished the session up. I am DONE. Done with Assembly Minutes, done blogging, and FOREVER DONE with filterkeys.

That's me. I didn't really know it until I was telling Tammy a little while ago everything I have going on. When I heard it all spoken aloud it kind of freaked me out! Ha!

We've had a good couple of days around here. School has been getting progressively better each day, I think. We actually finished up before 1:00 yesterday. The key, I've discovered, is good attitudes. When everybody has a good attitude and just jumps in and DOES it, we can finish up in no time. When they whine and mope and grumble about the work, it can drag on for hours and hours. I have discovered this little nugget of truth, but I'm still waiting for the kids to catch on!

James has been preparing for the Minister's Meetings coming up. I've been able to help him a little bit with that. I also mailed a few cards this week!!! That may not seem like a very big accomplishment, but I'm the kind of person who thinks "Oh, I should send a thank you card" or "I should call to check on so-and-so" about a thousand times a month... but actually follow through just a few times a year! I am just sooooooo bad about things like that! (I've always said that I wouldn't have any friends at all if everybody was as bad as I am about keeping in touch--I'm just blessed to know people who just keep calling and writing, no matter now bad I am!) Anyway, 5 really cute Coca-Cola cards went out this week. :-) (Thanks again for those cards, Em--they're sooooo great!)

Monday night was my night to transcribe Assembly Minutes. I guess I should say it was my FIRST night. It's amazing how long it takes to do that. Of course, I probably include way too much information, but I just can't seem to do it any other way. What if you leave out something that somebody would consider to be important?! I've been given two sessions to work on and I made it through 3/4 of the first session that night. Finally gave up and made myself go to bed at 1:00AM. I finished up yesterday while the kids were having quiet time. Now I've got my second session to work on! I'd LOVE to get it all done tonight, I just don't know how it'll go. Time will tell!

I had my WMB service this past Sunday, I have Assembly Minutes to get done, I've promised James that I would have the Regional Planning Guide all put together and formatted by the end of this week (so far all I've done is collect what I HOPE is correct information for it!), the deadline for the regional paper is Saturday night (when everybody gets their stuff to me and I start putting it together) and I've got a VLB service this coming Sunday. That's the SWAMPED thing I was talking about. We've got our Minister's Meeting in Colorado next weekend and the southern one the following weekend. We managed to make it to the library yesterday before church, so our only other outing is the horse riding lessons that we'll be going to in about an hour... Then I should be free and clear to STAY HOME the rest of the week and hopefully start knocking some things off of the "to do" list. Strangely, I feel great. I'm the kind of person who really likes to work on one thing at a time and I easily begin feeling overwhelmed when my jobs start to pile up, but I'm not bothered at all right now. God has really been helping me--in sooooo many ways!--lately and I just feel like it'll all get done and fall into place at the right time.

Seems like I had a whole slew of things to blog about, but I can't seem to remember them so it looks like you're getting off easy today. :-) I do have a prayer request though...

My Great-Uncle Lloyd had a massive stroke this morning. I haven't heard any more, but things were looking very, very serious. This is one of my Granddad's brother's (Dad's Dad's brother), everybody's favorite in the family--he's fun and crazy and always the life of the party at the family reunions. He goes to church (Assembly of God, maybe?), but that's about all I know. Please pray for him and for the family. Thank you!

I fully intended to blog tonight (I mean REALLY blog), but we got a call this evening from Aunt Sue. She and Uncle Jerry were in Santa Fe, on their way home after a camping trip. They would be passing by our way! Wa-Hoo! They got here at about 6:00, I guess, and we've had a really nice evening just visiting. Tomorrow Uncle Jerry wants to ride the Sandia Tram--it's the longest aerial tram in the world--so Aunt Sue and I will stay with the kids and make James go with him. :-) After that, we'll just play it by ear and see what happens next. It's so exciting to have company! Wa-Hoo!!! Although this is the second batch in a row that brought their own sleeping quarters with them... it really makes me wonder! Ha! Anyway, I'll write more when I get a chance.

Just so you know, Sam was much better during school today. I used the diorama idea and Starfall.com, both of which he LOVED. Thank you all for the great ideas!!! Even the bear hunting one! ;-)

Three days have gone by *swoosh!* just like that. Let's see what I can remember.

I spent most of the day on Saturday on the phone. We did school in the morning, but after that I was on the phone trying to make sure I had current phone numbers and addresses for pretty much everybody in the Region. I need to put together the Regional Planning Guide for this year and there were soooooo many mistakes in the one I did last year (!) we thought it best to check and double check everything before we get too far. I'm sure there will still be plenty of mistakes somehow. It seems the harder I try the worse things get! Ha! Anyway...

At about 2:40 James came in and reminded me we had an appointment at 2:00. Oopsie! I called the lady and apologized, then the kids and I hopped in the car and headed to her house. She gives horse riding lessons and we wanted to go check it out. It seems sooooo crazy to me to have to pay somebody to teach my kids to ride a horse. Kids should just HAVE horses--or at least know several people who do--and have the opportunity to learn to ride just like they learn to ride bikes. Can you imagine paying somebody to teach your kid to ride a bike?! How dumb is that?! Well, I almost get the same feeling about paying for horse lessons! But there's just no way we could ever own horses--if for no other reason, we travel way too much. So if they're ever going to have the opportunity to experience the joy of riding it appears we're going to have to pay somebody for their time and horse rental! ~sigh~ Sad. So sad. Anyway, the lady and the horse seem very nice and the price is quite reasonable (she's actually letting Kate & Joe go together for the price of one), so we're going to give it a shot. Next Wednesday will be our first day. :-)

Hhmmm. Can't remember anything else about Saturday. You lucky dogs. ;-)

We had good church services yesterday. It was the first Sunday in AGES when I wasn't on to do anything--no song service, no VLB service, no Sunday School, no WMB service--so I was able to just sit back and enjoy it all. It was GREAT!!! For some reason though I was sooooooo tired after church yesterday morning. We came home and James said he'd take care of the kids' lunch, so I went to the bedroom and CRASHED. I was out cold for two hours! Wow, it was great!!! I haven't had a chance to get in a really good Sunday nap in quite a while. When I woke up James had baked brownies and a peach cobbler to take to church! WHOA!!! What a guy!!!

We had a good CPMA service last night, then enjoyed James' goodies and visited for a while afterwards. It was so nice! We've got such good people here and I always enjoy visiting with them. The fellowship time is so good for all of us, especially right now. It's good to be able to laugh and just enjoy one another's company.

This morning we got the kids up and headed for a "field trip" to the State Fair in Albuquerque!!! We wanted to go on a weekday morning when it wouldn't be totally swamped. It was a good decision. When the lady at the gate saw the kids she asked if we were with a school. I said, "Well, kind of. We home school!" She had me sign up on the "school" paper and we all got in for free as a true-blue "field trip"! Saved us $30, I do believe. Wa-Hoo! Gotta love that!

We had checked out the schedule the night before and were really looking forward to Michelle's Magic Poodles, a show where the lady was supposed to have a bunch of well trained dogs and other animals that would perform amazing tricks. The show was just starting as we arrived, so we rushed to get to it. OH, MY GOODNESS. It was sooooo embarrassing! It was a lady with four little white poodles in pink bandanas, a few stools and a hoola hoop. The dogs weren't exactly show worthy, particularly Emilio. "Emilio, come back here. Emilio, it's your turn. Emilio!!! Emilio, get back on the stage, Emilio!!!" Ha! It wasn't total chaos, but it wasn't exactly what we were expecting. The tricks that they did perform were so meager that only the simplest of audiences would be impressed. (That's Katie--she loves just about anything! Ha!) I told James we could make big bucks with Hershey Dog. All we've gotta do is tie a ribbon around his neck, pitch him through a hoola hoop a few times and scream at him a lot--we've got a show! We've been calling him our Magic Poodle ever since we got home. I have a feeling we'll probably start calling him "Emilio" every time he doesn't listen to us now! Ha!

Sadly, the poodles were far better than the show that followed. It was some shameless man who played a guitar and acted like a complete moron. Really, it was terrible. I understand getting on the kids' level and doing things that they'll enjoy and be amused by, but when a grown man wears mismatched shoes and socks and acts truly obnoxious--doing things that I would spank my kids for doing--there is a real problem. And there is so much crude humor nowadays (I don't consider it humor at all) and so very little dignity! Silly is one thing. Rude, crude, and obnoxious is quite another. As you might have guessed, we didn't last through the next show.

We left during the second song and went to tour the sheep barn. That was probably the highlight of the day. They took you "from shearing to sweaters" and had people doing every step along the way--shearing the sheep, spinning the wool, dying it, crocheting and weaving... It was really neat!

We went to the horse arena to see what was going on, but they were having English style competitions instead of traditional western. Joe didn't appreciate the doofy little Enlish saddles and couldn't understand why everybody was dressed so weird. When he noticed that all of the riders were girls, well, that was the last straw! Ha! So even the horse competitions didn't pan out for us--who would've guessed that?! On our way out, though, there was a girl standing there with her 5 month old palomino foal. He was gorgeous!!! And so soft and friendly. We enjoyed petting him and talking to him for a few minutes before moving on.

We saw some little itty-bitty newborn pygmy goats and some chicks and ducklings and miniature horses--that was all pretty cool. We walked through the building of booths and saw some guy with his bare feet in this nasty pool of green slimy looking stuff. He was "de-toxing." YUCK!!! Said he started with fresh water and the muck is what had come out of his body. GA-ROSS. James wanted to try it, but I wasn't about to sit around and watch. We saw some neat stuff, too, but didn't get suckered into anything. :-)

It was nearing lunch time, so we headed to the food court. Right in the middle of the food booths was a trailer that said, "Mystery Tunnel" on the side of it. We hadn't spent a penny all day and I guess it was just more than we could take and we thought it was time to throw some money away. Ha! $10 got our whole family in and we could stay for as long as we liked. When we walked through the black curtain we could see through the darkness that there was a catwalk of sorts in front of us with rails on either side. You could walk straight through to the back of the trailor and exit through the curtain at that end. But circling around you, continuously moving clockwise, was a black and orange "tunnel," the orange wavy lines illuminated and giving you the sensation that YOU were spinning around and around and around, upside down then right side up again, then upside down... It was so crazy! You KNEW you were standing on a solid, unmoving platform, but there was no way you could walk straight and keep from swaying and crashing into the railing. We tried to stand still and stand on one foot. No matter how hard you try to concentrate on the fact that you're standing STILL, your brain just can't adjust. In fact, I thought James was going to fall OVER the railing one time! Ha! It was great. :-) Katie did fine. Joe didn't enjoy it very much, but managed to deal with it okay. Sam didn't have any fun at all. "I don't like it, Mom. I want OUT." Oh, well. It was fun for James and me anyway! Not sure it was $10 fun, but... at least we got through the admition gate for free, right?!

We found nachos, corn dogs, a chicken leg and a BBQ sandwhich for lunch, along with some really terrific freshly squeezed lemonade. Yum! Of course, we could've eaten at Red Lobster for what we paid for a few corn dogs! ~sigh~ All part of the Fair, I guess. We went to find a table and were excited to see that the dive show going on was a pirate version with dudes actually DRESSED doing the dives. Cool! We watched a few minutes of it, but when the crude humor started there too (just can't get away from it!) we left. Good thing. Before long the pirates had stripped down to traditional diving gear. Eeek!

We finished our lunch and took one last look at the map. We had done everything we'd hoped to do and there was nothing left but to go home! We did take one sweep through the candy tent. They had huge baskets of individually wrapped candy of every shape and kind, old-fashioned stuff as well as new stuff. You could pick out a piece of this or a handful of that. When you left the tent they weighed your loot and charged you accordingly. That was kind of fun. We also grabbed some cotton candy on our way out because it just didn't seem right to go to the Fair and not have cotton candy.

We came home and sent everybody to nap time! ~sigh~ Gotta love that. The kids hate it when I call it nap time. They hate feeling like "little kids" and since they don't actually take naps anymore they prefer the term "quiet time." Oh well, I took a nap anyway!

This afternoon we finally faced reality. We had to go shopping. We'd put it off for several days and have even been bumbling through meals without bread for four or five days now! Enough was enough so we loaded up again and went to Edgewood. We got everything we needed and then some.

We came home and I quickly got to work on the Ladies' Retreat applications that I was supposed to have all formatted, printed up, and in the mail today. Oopsie!!! I TOTALLY forgot about that little project. They'll be in the mail first thing in the morning though!

And that's it. Oh, no it's not! In between quiet time and Edgewood Joe caught a snake! It's been several weeks (since before our Assembly trip, I think) since we've seen any snakes and we really thought they were all gone for the year. But Joe saw another one down in the pond and was able to nab it. He was so proud. It was one of the biggest ones yet, so I told him we should measure it. 22". Not bad for a garter snake! We took it wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay up the hill and released it.

There, I think that's everything. I would post pictures of the Fair, but I didn't get any 'cuz the dumb batteries died again. That means I got to lug around a heavy camera laden purse all day long for absolutely no reason at all. Ooooooh, that makes me mad! That's happened several times lately, so I had James pick up some new rechargeable batteries for me at Wal-Mart tonight. Hopefully it will help!

...again!

Oh, well. I still do far better than my sister-in-law. :-) (I know, I know--you've got good excuses, Em. It doesn't mean any of us have to LIKE it though!)

Where did I leave off last time? Tuesday, I believe. Tuesday was kind of a crazy day. I keep having this plan and it keeps not working out. It goes like this: get up, feed the fam, clean the kitchen, make sure everybody's dressed, beds are made, rooms are cleaned, have devotions, then get into our school schedule. We always make it pretty well through the devotions part, but when we hit school time it all starts to fall apart! Tuesday was no exception.

We started into school, but then had to call a very long recess so I could make a host of phone calls for James. I can't remember what they were all about. Service times and locations for our local members, campground arrangements for Ladies' Retreat and other stuff I can't recall at the moment. I know that I was heavily burdened that day and spent a whole lot of time praying. There were some "family things" that were going to take place that night and I was just sooooo pleading with God to have His way! I know that He helped in the situation and I feel like He's going to keep working things out, a little at a time. :-)

We finally ended up doing most of our schooling in the afternoon that day. The kids spent most of the morning outside playing, so that made them happy.

We had BTI service that night at one of our church members' home. We had a good Bible Study, but I had a hard time not being distracted by the nearby bookshelves throughout the service. It was almost like being at a Christian bookstore! There were shelves upon shelves upon shelves of Christian books, including a whole slew of fiction books. She had the entire O'Malley series by Dee Henderson. I had read the prequel a few years ago and was sooooo sucked in that I totally neglected my kids and became a bit irritable (or nearly violent--it depends on your definitions) if they dared to interrupt. Bad, bad, bad mom!!! But it was sooooo intense! Sometime after that (a year or two later) I allowed myself to read Book One of the series, but no more. By now you've guessed that I came home from church on Tuesday with Book Two. I couldn't help it! I was good though and only read the first half of it that night. I made myself go to bed shortly after midnight so I wouldn't be totally crabby with my poor, unsuspecting kids the next day. :-) I was quite proud of me.

Wednesday started out well enough and we even made it into the school part of our day without a hitch. That was nice!!! I did a few loads of laundry that morning. Strangely, an item or two of fall decor appeared around the house that day. James had agreed to hold of on decorating until September 1st and that meant we were already 2 or 3 days late! So I hauled the couple of fall bins into the house and did some decorating. Things look so great in this house! I've known that it was going to be much, much easier (and more fun!) to decorate this house for the the holidays than it was the last house, so it's kind of exciting!

I put the kids down for a nap at 2:00 and I grabbed my book. :-) The kids got up and went out to play at 3:00. I finished my book at 5:00. Very good boook, but I was disappointed that the ending was rather predictable. I like for things to take me totally off guard--especially if they're suspenseful--but still, it was great fun to read a good book. :-)

The kids showered up after their long, sweaty day of playing outside, then we had a late meatloaf dinner. I baked chocolate chip cookies while James put The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again on for the kids to watch before bed. I don't remember ever seeing that one, but it was great! The kids loved it. I even got all caught up on the ironing while we watched. Wa-Hoo! All in all, I managed the book thing pretty well, I thought. I got decent sleep instead of staying up until 3:00am to read it all in one sweep, and I managed school, decorating the house, some laundry, a hot dinner and cookies AND all of the ironing the next day. Maybe I can squeeze in a book a week like this! HA! I don't think James would ever allow such a thing. He told me that I was allowed to bring ONE BOOK home with me, NOT the entire series. As if he doesn't trust me to manage my time well or something. How unfair a judgment is that?! ;-)

Yesterday morning we had some differernt guys come give us an estimate for installing our kitchen floor. The "I Dream of Jeannie" Guy was GREAT and his estimate was fantastic--and there's no doubt he would do a beautiful job... but he can't get to it for a month! We were really wanting to get that project taken care of, so we thought we'd get somebody else to give us a price who might be able to get it done this next week or something. It made me very, very, very nervous the way this guy oohed and aahed over my house. He loved the wallpaper and then he just about went nutty over the kitchen cabinets--went on and on about what a great job we did painting them and how professional they look. Now, I love my house and I love the things we've done to it. But I would never dare to say that ANYTHING we do looks professional and it freaks me out a little bit to have a "professional" come to our house and ooh and ahh like that, you know?! Really makes me wonder about the quality of HIS work! I was really scared there for a while, but felt much better once we got his estimate. This mountain dude who thought OUR craftsmanship was amazing priced the job 5 TIMES HIGHER than the Jeannie Guy who's floored mansions! That settled that. We'll wait a month for the REAL professional. :-)

I had grand and glorious plans to accomplish much last night, but it wasn't to be. My cousin Stacey called and we talked for 2 hours. I didn't get anything done, but I'm sooooo glad she called. We're really bad about keeping in touch, so it's really great when I do have a chance to catch up on what's going on in the family and how she's doing. If she would call more often we wouldn't have to talk so long when she does call. (Okay, Stacey?!) Of course, I could call her sometime... I'm soooooooo bad about that!

Today was another start-into-school-only-to-have-it-foiled day. (Are you starting to understand why Saturday school is necessary around here?!) We had a minor emergency arise that was going to force us to take a trip into Albuquerque. We got all dressed up and ready to go, and as we were walking out the door we found out the problem had already been resolved! But James said we'd go ahead and go since we'd gone to all the work to get ready.

We ended up going to Lowe's and Home Depot to look at wallpaper books and tile. I have GOT to make up my mind about what we're going to do in that guest bathroom!!! We found a few things we liked and I came home with a plan... only to go stare at the bathroom for a while and discover that this plan won't work either. Just like all the others I've come up with. I'm beginning to hate that room. It just doesn't want to work!!! Nonetheless, we're going to do SOMETHING with it real soon, grand or not. Even if it's not fantastic like I would like, it'll still feel better to have it fresh and clean.

Sam & I have been feeling rather blah the past day or two and just keep sniffling and sneezing and scratching our itchy eyes. I'm beginning to think it must have something to do with the weather or some weed that's blooming or someting. Does that cause problems like this? Weeds? And do weeds bloom? In any case, something's going on out there that's affecting us. I'm tired of the sniffling and the itchy eyes but I've always liked to sneeze, so that part is cool. I haven't heard Sam sneeze, but he keeps rubbing his eyes until they're big and puffy and miserable looking. Of course, you rarely see his eyes since he's almost always hidden in a costume of some sort. I've taken these pictures this week.

We had an unexpectedly pleasant weekend. :-)

We got a bit of a late start on Saturday. Eggs and toast for breakfast, then the kids played outside for a bit while I cleaned the kitchen. We had devotions, then headed into school. Yes, on Saturday. My kids don't know that "normal kids" don't have to go to school on Saturday. DON'T TELL THEM. We travel so much and our schooling is so sporadic that we need to hit a Saturday every now and then!

We had left-overs for lunch, then we ALL had a nap. Well, the kids sat in bed and read while James and I took a much needed nap!

We got a phone call from Joe & Julie Steele saying that they were in town and would be joining us for church on Sunday. Sister Julie is a sister to Connie Werkheiser and Missy Hawkins. They used to pastor the Fields of the Wood church when James lived in Cleveland and he got to know them back then. Anyway, knowing that we might be able to have company slung me into a frenzied cleaning spree! Wa-Hoo!!! I spent a couple of hours working just on the kids' room. You know, the room that nobody would see or care if it was clean or not. Somehow it doesn't matter--knowing people are coming gives me that motivational shove to do what has been neglected. We pulled all the beds away from the wall and cleaned out under them (KIDS ARE SOOOOO GROSS!) and got everything put in it's place, dusted and vacuumed--and fresh sheets on the beds. It felt soooooo good! Then I moved to the living room. Cleaned the front windows (aren't you proud of me, Mom?!) and dusted and vacuumed in there, then in our bedroom.

For dinner I took out the stew beginnings from the night before (left-over brisket, potatoes, and Keilbasa) and added a can of corn, some carrots and some more potatoes, then mixed up a gravy kind of sauce to add to it. Threw some cornbread in the oven and talked to Bekah Peter on the phone for a few minutes. (Thanks for the call, Rebekah!) I was a little nervous about the stew (I don't know if I've ever made stew before--except Katie's recipe a month or two ago), but it was sooooooo good! Wow!!! And it was so fast and easy! And it used up the left-overs that otherwise would have gone to waste! ~sigh~ Perfect. I think everybody had seconds and we only had one bowl left over. :-)

After dinner it was back to work on the house. Our bathroom was already in good shape, but the guest bath was NASTY. (Have I mentioned that KIDS ARE GROSS?!) So I gave it a real good scrubbing. ~sigh~ We have GOT to get that room remodeled! It's just... wrong. It's just so wrong! Gross and yucky and nasty and dumb and smelly and stained and... just wrong. Anyway, I got it as clean as it can possibly be until we FIX it. I told James that even if the Steeles didn't end up coming to the house I'm sooooo glad that I thought they might! It motivated me to get the whole house whipped into shape and it feels GREAT! :-)

Then it was time to dive into prep for my VLB service. I had such a good time preparing for it! I just felt the Lord so near and enjoyed having the nice, quite, private time to read and pray and study. It was sooooo nice. It's hard to figure out where to go to to be alone in this house. We have the main room (kitchen, dining room, living room combo), our bedroom on one side and the kids' bedroom on the other. So when the kids are in bed and James is working at the desk in the bedroom, there's no place to go! I guess I would be "alone" in the main room, but it doesn't feel very private, you know?! We do, however, have great big walk-in closets in this house and I have discovered that it's the PERFECT place to go pray! I LOVE it in there!!! I've got plenty of room to pray and I can shut the door and feel so totally alone with God. :-)

So by the time I went to bed at midnight I had a nice, fresh, clean house, ready for company--just in case--and I had my VLB service all scribbled down in a notebook.

Sunday morning we got ready and headed off to church. We had a good service and good worship, in spite of the Acapulco thing. ;-) I think we had 14 there, so praise the Lord! The Placencio's were all there except for Aaron. He had gone to a Bible Study with a friend. :-( We were glad to have the rest of the family--they are all so special. And it was good to have the Steeles with us. Afterwards we went out to eat with them and had a nice time visiting.

We came home for the afternoon and I typed up my VLB lesson, then we headed back to church. I felt like service went really well, thanks to lots of participation and comments! I really enjoyed it. I can't say that very often when I'm the one standing up front (!), but I did this time.

After the service the Steeles decided to try to get their truck up to our house. They drive a special FedEx truck--it's the height of an 18-wheeler and we weren't sure if they'd be able to make it up the driveway or if they'd have to take out some trees to do it! We heard a few limbs cracking, but they got it in and didn't seem to damage the trees or the truck (thank the Lord!), so that's good! We just sat and visited for a while before calling it a night. The Steeles have a mini-motorhome type set up in their truck, so they just slept in their own bed out there.

I LOVED having company, even though they had to bring their "house" with them! Worst of all, they had to bring their own FOOD! We didn't know it until yesterday, but they try to stick to a healthy vegetarian style diet. Yipes! I don't know what to give to HEALTHY people!!! That part of it was SO NOT FUN! Half of the fun of being hospitable is being able to bake calorie laden pineapple upside-down cakes and cinnamon rolls and such! As for "real food," it's all about meat in this house--usually red meat, which is a definite no-no to veggie people. It really threw me for a loop. It was great having them here, but you feel like a terrible hostess when your company has to bring their own fat-free ice cream with them! Ha!

This morning we all got up and headed out to Petroglyph National Monument on the western edge of Albuquerque. We'd never been there before and I'm so glad the Steeles suggested it because we probably never would have gone otherwise! It was really, really neat.

The boys were enthralled by the millipedes--and there were TONS of them!!! This was the first one we saw, outside the visitors' center. We saw one near the end of the trail that was at least 8" long!!! They are so eewie (as Abbie would say) and fascinating at the same time--especially when they walk.

Here's the first petroglyph we saw. It was such fun trying to figure out what all of them were and might have stood for. We determined that this was a lizard enjoying a lollipop. ;-) Of course, then we realized that lizards don't have ears... oh, well.

Here's a map of buried treasure. The pirates put the loot at the base of the mountains and just to the east of the airport...

Here's a dog barking at a guy having a bad hair day...

Katie thought this looked like two mermaids and a sea shell. Joe saw birds and a fan. Sam saw a drunk Indian. ?! Only Sam!!!

Here's a dude on a unicycle...

"Revenge of the Mouse" -- Can you see it attacking the bird?!

Hello Kitty???

It is, however, NEVER a problem to get Katie to strike a pose!

And--miracle of miracles--Sister Julie DID manage to get some really good pictures of Joe! I love this one. :-)

And Sam the Ham...

This is the other angle of his pose! Ha!

Joe & Julie Steele

And the trek down the mountain...

It was great! It was a beautiful day and we were all done there by about 11:30, just as it was beginning to get too warm. We went out to Cece's Pizza (is that spelled right?!) for lunch. The veggie weird-o's picked it. Ha! By the end of the day James was saying things like, "Yeah, we need to start eating better." I said, "See! Now look what you've done--you've got him feeling guilty. Not me though--I'm fine!!!" :-) The pizza was good and we all had a good time.

We came back to the house for a little while and everybody got cleaned up and I was even able to grab a little bit of a nap. We said our farewells to Brother Joe & Sister Julie and they only cracked one branch and broke one antenna from the truck getting out of the drive. !!! I felt soooooo bad! I hope it's something that will be easily fixed. This lot just isn't made for things that BIG, you know?! I'm so glad we didn't know that ahead of time and we were able to spend so much time with them. We enjoyed their company and had some really good conversations. They are good people.

We headed back into Albuquerque tonight to go to Sister Grimes' house for dinner. Her daughter Pat made enchiladas for us. Sister Bailey came, too, and we all had such a nice time visiting together. It was GREAT! But I am sooooo tired! I'm going to go take a nice, hot bath and get cleaned up, then hit the hay. It's been a great weekend and now I need to recover from it! Ha! Tomorrow we get back into laundry and school. :-)