My OLD Blog

I'M MOVING!!!!

2008-11-17T14:31:00.003-07:00

I HATE TO DO THIS...

But I'm moving my blog. I decided it was finally time for a template change, but I'm having a terrible time working out all of the kinks here at this site. I'm not smart enough to dig through all of the codes and figure out what's wrong. It just seems much easier to start from scratch, so that's what I'm doing. ~sigh~ I hate moving. Hope it's not too much trouble to find me!

I'll work on adding all of the pictures and links when I get a chance.

My new home is...

http://www.stillburiedintoys.blogspot.com/

See you there!

:-)

I've Lost

2008-11-16T21:29:00.004-07:00

That's all there is to it. I HAVE LOST. I have tried long and hard--and will continue to try, although it's evident there is no hope--to resist my family's attempts to get all Christmassy before Thanksgiving. I love Christmas as much as anybody. In fact, I would dare say I love it at least as much as the rest of my family. But I've always been of the persuasion that you should hold off until after Thanksgiving to begin celebrating. It's like saving the cherry for last when you get a sundae. There's something about waiting and reserving the Christmas fun until Christmas time that makes you enjoy and appreciate it much more deeply than when you start way early. What's so special about something you can do any ole' time?! It's so wonderful because it only comes around once a year. Theoretically, anyway. Here at my house it is always trying to sneak in before schedule and this year it has gotten wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay out of hand. All of the kids burst out singing "O, Christmas Tree" several times a day. They all (kids AND James) insist on going to look at all of the Christmas stuff no matter where we are; Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot... And James keeps buying Christmassy things. It doesn't matter how much I try to discourage them, there's just no winning. They are all in full force Christmas mode and there's no turning back now. I keep telling them, "Just 11 more days, guys! You can do it! Hold off--you'll enjoy Christmas sooooo much more if you just wait!!!" But it's like telling your pet rock to do a backflip. It AIN'T HAPPENING. ~sigh~ So my new goal is to try to avoid them all for the next 11 days. Ha! Wish me luck!!!

We had a good Sunday. Good morning services. James preached about being thankful. (I suspect he's subconsciously trying to rush past Thanksgiving a week early because HE'S already in Christmas gear, too!) We came home and had time for a nap before heading to Sister Grimes' house for my VLB service. It went well, I thought, but I didn't make it to the one hour mark. That's always my goal. I just don't have enough to say to fill up all that time, you know?! We even sang 5 choruses tonight. Oh well. Hopefully the quality of what was shared surpassed the quantity, right?!

We went to Target after church tonight to look for a few things we hadn't been able to find elsewhere. The kids made it out with new blanket sleepers, and James did pretty well to stay away from the Christmassy looking stuff. (Only because of the limited selection and sizes, I assure you!) We have one particular child (the one who also complains that sleepers are "for babies") who kicks his covers off, then curls up into a little ball and shivers all night long. So we've been looking for some nice, cozy pj's. We finally found some--and they all rung up $3 cheaper than we were expecting. Wa-Hoo!

James insists that he would buy a sleeper for himself if they made them in his size. I insist that I'm moving out if he ever does find one. HA! He did, however, find himself a set of Grinch pj's. He bought Rudolph pants last week. ~sigh~ What can you do?! He tells me that I'M the Grinch around here, not him. And all because I want to enjoy Thanksgiving AND Christmas instead of skipping over the first and rushing into the second. He even had the nerve to call me a bad banana tonight... with a greasy black peel. ;-)

Even Hershey has joined the ranks of the pre-celebrators!!!

Ha! James saw this sweater for $2.50 at Target tonight and couldn't pass it up. I've always thought dog sweaters are sooooo dumb. But when your dog is a poodle to start with, what's to lose?! It's not like you're worried about him suddenly "looking dumb" or something! Ha!

The kids are sacked out all over our floor again tonight. I'm going to go take a bath and catch up on some reading. Tomorrow it's back to school and work, work, work! I've got to get the ceiling painted in Kate's room. Right after James takes down the 42 little white hooks that are up there from the last folks who lived here. And the three drawings the girl left up there. And little plastic canvas crafts that are tacked up. Seriously! I've left them there all this time because I figured with hot pink and turquois walls, who cares about a little left-over art on the ceiling?! But now that the walls are ALMOST white (I can STILL just barely see the circle on that one wall--I can't get rid of it!!!), it's time for the ceiling to be cleared, too. I'm setting small goals for myself. Surely I can get one ceiling painted in a day, right?!

The only other excitement of the day was my near death experience. I had left the laptop leaning against a table and it fell over. It's happened before, but this time when I picked it up it wouldn't DO anything--I just had a black screen staring at me. The power light was on, but it wouldn't respond to anything or even turn on or off. So I snuck outside and called Jon for help. He was, indeed, able to save my life. ("Unplug the computer, take the battery out for a few seconds, then put it back in and see if she'll boot up.") It worked!!! ~sigh~ What a relief. James does know about it though. He came in while I was trying to figure out where on earth the battery compartment was on the back of this thing. (There are little buttons and levers and screws all over the place back there!) I hate it when I get caught and have to fess up! Life is so much better when I can find what I've lost or fix or replace what I've broken BEFORE he knows anything about it! Oh well. The computer works, and I only received a very short and mild lecture. James is the KING of lectures (I think it's what makes him tick! Ha!), so I made out pretty good. All is well!

I'm Doin' the Work! I'm Not a Slacker!!!

2008-11-16T00:16:00.001-07:00

:-)

Seems to be the story of my life lately. Work, work, work! But somehow I seem to be coping pretty well. The thrill of getting things DONE is part of it. It just feels sooooo good to accomplish some of these things! And the thought of finishing this house up so we can enjoy it instead of work on it all the time--well, that thought is just downright glorious. And I have fully considered what Sister Tammy said on my last post--you finish a house up just in time for God to move you 1,000 miles away. I know. It just seems to be the way things go. We finally finished the Texas house... in time to move here! It took us 4 and a half years on that house. We're whizzin' through the remodeling job on this one hoping to enjoy it a bit before we have to vacate. Ha! Time will tell!

Anyway, this has nothing to do with anything, but I thought it was an interesting picture.

Hershey had been outside for FOREVER the other day and I couldn't figure out why he hadn't come back inside. He finally started scratching at the front door and whining! I thought I'd go check out his dog door to see why he hadn't just used it instead and this is what I found. He loves that dumb monkey. Apparently he tried to take it outside with him but didn't make it all the way through! It's mechanical and weighs a ton, so he couldn't push it back through the door to come inside, I guess! Dumb dog.

Okay! What have we been up to... School! 6 days this week! We're still trying to make up for all the time we took off while Mom was here. Kids are doing great, school has been pretty good this week, and they've been helping out a lot with whatever James and I have been working on.

Yesterday was the day to side James' office. Remember that cute little building we put in the back yard and them promptly filled with all of the STUFF that used to be in the garage??? We went out yesterday afternoon and used up the left-over siding from the garage and put it on the front of the building. We'll stain it to match the house. Won't that be cute???

We finished up just as the sun was setting...

And here's a picture of James' cute little log sided office in the glow of that great sunset. :-)

We came inside and worked the rest of the night on getting Katie's room all cleaned out. We took all the beds apart and got them moved to the garage, moved the boys' dresser into our room and Kate's around the corner into the living room, and got all the JUNK out. James got the baseboards up and I got the floor vacuumed. I was all ready to get to work in there, but I knew I had a VLB service coming up and wanted to spend some time working on that last night.

Today was one of those days where I feel really, really crummy. The kind where only a nap or a hot bath is going to make things better. I was able to get some plastic taped to the floor in Katie's room and tape off some of the door trim before we started school, so that was good. We worked until about 2:00, then MOM needed nap time, so everybody headed to the bedroom. The one and only bedroom for the time being. Ah yes, Mom--you asked where the kids are sleeping. Our room, of course! Five people and a dog isn't too many for one room, is it??? Ha! I'm soooooo thankful for such a nice sized room, that's all I can say! The kids sack out all over the floor with their sleeping bags and the dog goes and finds one of them to sleep on top of. Tonight is our third night, I think. So far, so good! I'm just afraid James is going to step on somebody when he gets up in the night and break a bone or something!

ANYWAY, the kids were GREAT for naptime today. Just read their books and didn't make a peep. I let them up after an hour, but I slept another 30 or 40 minutes! When I finally got up I was feeling much, much better. We got a few more things done around the house, then I headed into Katie's room and got busy priming the walls. You know, THE walls. The crazy pink and blue walls with the diagonal lines and huge circle and all that weirdness. It took THREE COATS of primer to cover it. I think. I won't know if it's truly covered until morning. I used both gallons of primer and there's just a little bit left in the paint tray, covered and waiting until the daylight will reveal if it needs yet another. I fear it will at least need some touch-up here and there. Crazy.

James took Katie and Joe with him to run a few errands, so I let Sam come in and help me paint. (I can handle one kid and paint, but three wanting to help is just way over my head--I always end up telling' em ALL no!) He had a BLAST.

And I only had minimal clean up to do when he was done. :-)

James brought home a rotiserrie chicken from Charlie's, then made all the fixin's to go with it while Sam and I were still priming Kate's room. He made Rice-a-Roni (a big hit around here, though we rarely have it), corn, and green beans with bacon. Yum!!! What a guy! Dinner was delicious and then (GET THIS!!!) James and Katie did all the dishes so I could get back to painting!!! WHOA!!! I LOVE JAMES SOOOOOO MUCH!!! He's become very, very helpful over the years, especially if I'm tied up with some project. (Particularly if it's a project he has commissioned! Ha!) He frequently gets lunch or dinner together, sometimes "just because." But in our 8 and a half years of marriage I have NEVER known him to wash a dish, or even put one in the dishwasher. He declares he has, but I can't recall it. But tonight he did the WHOLE THING! I put the left-overs away, but he and Katie washed everything!!! He even came back later and emptied the dishwasher!!! Did I mention that I LOVE MY HUSBAND?! I was soooooo dreading having to come and take over the big mess, but I didn't have to worry about ANY of it--it was all DONE!!! :-) :-) :-)

So, I got back to my paint roller! Like I said, three coats. So far. We'll see how it looks in the morning. Surely it will be good enough! I'll be wallpapering the bottom half of the room, and the painting technique I'm going to use on the top typically hides a multitude of sins... but I'd really hate to go to all that work and still be able to see that giant circle on the wall! Better safe than sorry, I say. I want that thing GONE! ;-)

I quit decently early tonight so I'd have time to finish up on my VLB stuff. It all came together pretty well, I think, and I was so blessed preparing it. I hope and pray everybody else will be blessed tomorrow night! I started with some bones I pulled out of Brother Ammon's message in the November Evening Light and built from there--about seeing our children saved.

Anyway, I hope everybody has a great Sunday! I'm planning on it. :-) Then it's back to WORK, WORK, WORK! :-) It's going to be a busy week around here, full of painting, wallpapering, staining and, yes, more polyurethaning--all in Katie's room. My goal is to have it all done by the end of the week. There's no way of telling if that's reasonable or not. I try not to think about a time frame because it's only frustrating when it doesn't work out--and it NEVER works out. "Two weeks!!!" ;-)

LOOK, MOM!!!!!!

2008-11-14T01:19:00.003-07:00

I LOVE it!!!!! It's 1:?? in the morning and here I sit blogging. Just a short one. We finally finished up on this little project sometime around midnight, then I had plenty of clean-up to do so I could take a picture. :-) It is sooooo perfect!

Remember how ugly it was before??? I was just sure I had taken a "before" picture of this area while my Mom was here because I knew we'd be tackling it soon. But I can't find it! I do, however, have plenty of pictures of CHAIRS being worked on. This particular angle shows the one "ug" area that was still remaining in my otherwise remodeled kitchen.

And here is the glorious finished product!!!

~sigh~ I just LOVE IT!!! It feels sooooo nice and clean and put-together--and it draws everything else together just like it's supposed to. I LOVE the extra cabinet space (which is already about 90% full!) and I LOVE it that Granddaddy's stool (the one I never could find a place for before) suddenly has the PERFECT spot. Almost a place of honor or something! Ha! ~sigh~ Makes me so happy!!!

Of course, this doesn't...

This poor room is one of our next projects. That and siding James' office. Busy, busy! Amazingly enough, we've been keeping up with school just GREAT through all of this. Haven't missed a day since Mom left! We're busy, worn out, and very happy with our progress. I will be most happy, though, when we are done progressing and can simply LIVE here. :-)

I've Been Binging!!!

2008-11-12T00:53:00.003-07:00

Sometimes being unmercifully pessimistic with your expectations of productivity can turn into a wonderful blessing. Take today, for example. We got up, had breakfast and family devotions, then I picked up the can on polyurethane to get back to work, fully expecting to accomplish very little--just like all the other days. Why should today be any different? But, lo and behold, it WAS different! We got sooooo much done!!!

I felt like I started out in slow motion. I polyed the utility cabinet again, then all the stuff that needed done in the bathroom again, then started into those six chairs that I love and hate alternately, depending on whether I'm looking at them or working on them. It was my fourth and final coat on them and I would have expected myself to be quite excited, the thrill of the elusive "end" being in sight. Instead it just seemed like each chair took me twice as long as the last and when I would look up and see how many chairs were still left to do I was always shocked and disheartened. But eventually (around 1:00?) I did finish them. Then I put another coat on the red cabinet doors, the cabinets themselves, and the blue door James built for the toothpaste cabinet.

All that being done I finally stopped and ate a sandwhich at 2:00. (James had fed the kids at noon, but I didn't want to stop when I still had a few things left to do.) The kids went down for quiet time, then got up and we had another day of afternoon schooling. It always feels a little strange, but it works. Joe took FOREVER again today. He totally shuts down when you put a subtraction sheet in front of him. When he looks at all the numbers on the page he just feels totally overwhelmed and hopeless. If you ASK him, "Joe, what's 17 minus 6" he can pop off the answer in just a few seconds. If he sees "17 - 6" on a piece of paper, it might take him several minutes. I finally told him to look at the problem, then close his eyes and repeat the problem out loud to himself--and not to open his eyes until he knows the answer. It cuts his time in half, at least, when he does it that way. Weird kid!

Anyway, I had had all I could take of the house in disarray yet again (or is it "still"--I forget!), so I started cleaning things up. We stopped for a nice, homecooked supper of chicken noodle soup (Campbells--I wish I'd had yours instead, Tammy!) and tuna fish sandwiches. Ah, yes! I almost called you, Tammy! I was so sad. Eating tuna made me think of you and miss being able to get with you and have tuna sandwiches and play Eternal Rummy. ~sigh~ The good ole' days! Ha! At least we have the memories, right?! :-)

After dinner I got busy cleaning up the kitchen. James had started the big job of cleaning out the garage. (Remember what a WRECK it was last time I posted a picture of it?!) James is ready to start building the wall out there (the one that will separate the boys' room from the den area), so we needed to get everything cleaned up out there so we can tear it all up again. ;-) He told Joe he'd pay him for some extra work tonight, so he spent a couple of hours working too. I left my kitchen project and headed out to sort through all of the tools and try to put them in some sort of order on the shelves out there. I thought it might be nice to be able to FIND some of them when we get to work again. It took a lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ong time, but we finally got things whipped into shape and looking good out there again! Here's a picture of James and Joe toward the end of the endeavor.

Meanwhile, in the house, Katie and Sam took it upon themselves to do some cleaning of their own. What great kids!!! Sam vacuumed everything in sight and Katie wiped down all of the appliances and counters and helped put stuff away.

James said since they were all sooooo good and helpful that they could stay up and watch Garfield's Thanksgiving. That made for some pretty happy kid-o's. We put them to bed at about 9:00. James and I kept working and cleaning and moved the chairs over to the TABLE where they BELONG!!! Who would've thought they'd ever actually be there again?! AMAZING!!! Of course, nobody can use them until noon tomorrow (they're supposed to sit for 24 hours after the final coat of poly) but it's still pretty exciting just to see them there AT THE TABLE. ~sigh~ I'm so happy. And they look so great!!! :-)

We got the living room all cleaned up and put back together and I finally finished up in the kitchen, too. Everything was looking so great that I just kept on going! (This is the "binge" mentioned in my title.) I started in on our room and got everything put away and in it's proper place, then vacuumed the floor in there, too. Wa-Hoo!!! Sat and watched the tail-end of an Alfred Hitchcock Presents with James, then went and took a nice, long bath. ~sigh~ Life is so grand!!! Except for the pile of laundry on the floor waiting to be done tomorrow, the house looks TERRIFIC!

Oh, and here's the door James built for the toothpaste cabinet, Mom. I know you've been anxious to see how it turned out. We finally got it hung today. :-)

What a great day!!! If we had PLANNED on getting all of this done, there is no possible way it could have happened. But sometimes it just sneaks up on you and you accomplish loads more than you ever considered doing--and it feels SO GREAT!

That's the good news.

The bad news is that since I was so busy doing all of the other stuff, I failed to put another coat of poly on all of the bathroom stuff again this evening. That means the poly job carries over into tomorrow instead of being done today. Oh well, you can't win 'em all! Besides, it's pretty fast and easy to poly the countertop and such--it's flat and smooth. It was those chairs with all of the bumps and bubbles and curves and slats all over the place that were the killer! But they are DONE now! Forever FINISHED! Wa-Hoo!!! If we were to add up the hours put into those chairs, they must be worth several hundred dollars apiece by now. Ha! Crazy, the things we do. Oh well. Better than being bored, I suppose. And now I have really, really cute chairs to sit on. After noon tomorrow. :-)

Just as I Expected

2008-11-10T22:29:00.002-07:00

... it's been another day of polyurethaning, only to end the day with having accomplished half as much work as I had planned to. Good thing I had anticipated a day like all the others, otherwise the irritation would be acute. ;-)

We had good services yesterday. I think. I was distracted throughout most of the morning service by rotten children, all mine. I don't know what happened! You'd have thought they'd never been to church before--MY CHILDREN, who have been to church at least 3 times a week since the day they were born! Katie was fine, but the boys needed some definite attention--and they got it when we finally made it home. They were MUCH BETTER in service last night. ;-) Sister Bailey talked about winning our incorruptable crown. It was her first WMB service in years and my first WMB service in years to be able to sit and enjoy instead of head up. It was WONDERFUL!!! :-) I'm so excited about her being in that position and about the switch from WMB to VLB for me.

Ah, yes! I took James up on that "you should get a book" statement from a few days ago. I asked Sister Galaviz if I could borrow Book 4 in the O'Malley Series after church yesterday morning. I decided to forego the Sunday afternoon nap I had plenty of time for and devoted the time instead to the new book. :-) After church last night we came home and got the kids put to bed and I dove back into the book. Reading into the wee hours was sooooo much better than polyurethaning into the wee hours. Mom and I stayed up until 3:00 one morning when she was here painting chairs, so I figured that bought me the right to stay up until 1:00 last night to finish the book. It was great, by the way. :-) (Have you made it that far in the series yet, Em? Or have you passed me up already?)

This morning we got up and had breakfast and devotions a little earier than usual. Afterwards I figured I would have time to get another coat of poly on all of the various things I've been working on and finish up in time for school at 11:00. It took a little longer than I expected, but school got rescheduled anyway so it didn't matter. James decided to take the boys to town with him to run errands today, so that left Katie and me with time for a quick girl party! I finished up on the 3rd coat (so far) of poly on the chairs while Kate worked on a few other chores around the house. By the time we were done with all that it was noon, so we had a pizza party and watched a girl movie. :-) I love having the time with just Katie and it happens far less often than I would like. I want to take her to town one of these days, just the two of us, and have some fun. I think it would be great!

James and the boys got home and we put everybody down for "nap time," then started into school at about 4:00. The kids have lots of workbooks, but they also do a lot of loose-leaf stuff like math drills, spelling tests, handwriting pages and things like that. I spent a while going through each kid's binder and organizing all of the things that had been stuffed in with no real order. I realized that their binders are way too small for all the work they do! I'm amazed at how much math they've done the past 2 months.

James decided we should load up and head to Edgewood to get them new binders for their math work, along with a few other things on our list. Of course, we also came home with a few things that weren't on our list. Which brings me to a confession...

I'm caving!!! I've fought so hard--for 8 years now--to keep Christmas celebrating postponed until after Thanksgiving. It's no small task when you're married to James Horne. He'd be whippin' out the jingle bells in August if I let him. But this year I've already given in to several little things. That second "puzzle day" where he listened to Christmas music, and at least one other day since then. And tonight at Wal-Mart he bought me some Christmas pj's. And I LET him! Even (I'm so ashamed)... without a fight. Not only that... but I'm wearing them right now. ~sigh~ It's just wrong, I tell you. I've tried to pinpoint the reasons for my giving in so easily this year. It could have something to do with the fact that I'm in this cozy little log cabin up in the mountains and it's actually been COLD and we've actually had SNOW (if only a little bit) three times. And this after 5 years in west Texas. It just feels like a great place to have Christmas, you know?! The other reason could be that we really got gypped on Christmas last year. We were right in the middle of moving and spent two weeks in December packing up everything and moving into storage. Terrible timing! Felt like we missed out on all of the pre-Christmas fun, you know? So I really am so ready for Christmas this year--not the day so much as the weeks leading up to it. The "feeling" of it, you know? The music and colors and decorations. And pj's, apparently. :-)

SO. Tomorrow is a day like any other. Get up, feed the kids, have devotions, and head for the polyurethane. "Two weeks!" Right, Mom?! That's when we'll be all done. "Two weeks." It doesn't matter when you start or what the project is or how many times it gets postponed or added to, the proper answer for the ending date of it all is always "two weeks." I think I'm getting used to the fumes though. Hhmmm... Can that be a good thing?! ;-)

Why Does My House Keep Looking Like This?????

2008-11-08T22:21:00.007-07:00

~sniffle~sniffle~ It just won't end... No matter how much and how hard I work, there is still more work to be done. Especially when you're married to James "whop-ching" Horne. (That was a whip cracking, in case you couldn't make it out.) I told him yesterday that it is sooooo exhausting to "work" for him. There's no such thing as, "Hey, great job on that! Why don't you take a break and treat yourself to a day off." It's always, "Alright! You finally finished up on that? When are you going to do..." Ha! Chop-chop! Of course, since that time he has brought home a vase of beautiful red and yellow roses, helped make lunch (soup & grilled cheese) today and made most of dinner (chicken parmesan) tonight. He also told me I should get a book from Sister Galaviz' "library" tomorrow. He's really a pretty good boss... once you let him know that's what you need! ;-)

We managed to get a full 5 days of schooling in this week, Tuesday-Saturday. I've been putting off my polyurethaning jobs all week long. I was supposed to be done by now, but I didn't even get started until yesterday. I spent Wednesday getting all caught up on the laundry and ironing from before Mom came. That felt good! We had another good BTI lesson at Sister Grimes' house that night, although we only got half way through it. That's okay--we're enjoying it!

Yesterday I pulled out the poly and went to work. I was really hoping to get two coats on the chairs yesterday and two today. HA. Should've known better. I got one coat on the chairs yesterday, as well as one coat on the utility table, the cabinet doors, the cabinet and countertop in the bathroom, and all the trim. But that was it. There must be something different about polyurethane fumes. No other kind of fumes have ever bothered me before, but I was feeling sick again last night after working with them--and after a few hours again today. Weird.

James bought a freezer yesterday. Wa-Hoo!!! He went to town to rent a trailer so he could pick it up. I finally got ahold of a U-Haul place (the first locations I tried either didn't answer the phone or didn't speak English) and asked if they had a small open trailer available. "What's your name, Ma'am?" I gave it to her. "How long do you need the trailer? ...When would you be returning it? ... What is your phone number? ...What year is the vehicle that would be pulling the trailer?" I told the lady I had no idea what year the vehicle was and asked if she could just tell me if there was such a trailer AVAILABLE so we'd know if any further interrogation was even worth our while. "Ma'am, I won't know that until we go through these questions." HA! As if the year of my vehicle is going to determine whether or not they've got a trailer sitting on the lot?! I told her I'd just have my husband call. People are crazy!

Anyway, James got home with the trailer and we got it into it's rightful spot in the utility room. Wa-Hoo!!! That means that room is ALMOST finished now!!! If only I can work my way through the Plague of Polyurethane we should be all done there. That will feel soooooo good!

James took Katie with him to return the trailer and hit the sales at the grocery stores so we'd have a few things to put IN our shiny new freezer. I got back to work with my bucket of poly and foam brush. The boys spent the next 3 hours rolling around the yard in the freezer box.

Oh, to be a kid again!

I was really hoping to get another coat of poly on the chairs last night, but they never did feel quite dry enough to use the steel wool on. ~sigh~ Same story tonight. I kept thinking they'd be dry enough sitting in there by the fire, but some of them still feel just a little bit tacky. You know what this means, of course. It means that I am perpetually bonded to a can of polyurethane and a foam brush. They will be my constant companions for 2-4 hours a day every day for the rest of my life. There's no such thing as just getting it all done in a day and being THROUGH with it. Noooooo, you have to don the grubby work clothes and walk around with your bucket day after day after day... ~sigh~ I can't imagine I'll have a chance to get a coat on the chairs tomorrow, so that means it'll be at least Tuesday night before I can be DONE with the poly--or at least think I'm done. (Until James reminds me of all the other things that still need poly-ed.) It really hasn't been so bad, I guess. Today I had the kids bring their school books and sit next to me while I worked so I could help them. It helped to distract me a little bit, too, so it didn't seem quite so monotonous.

Since I couldn't put another coat on the chairs tonight I decided to take a nice, hot bath. It was GREAT! I've actually been managing to catch up on a little bit of my reading this week. I'd fallen way behind again, but I finished of the Evening Light and two No Greater Joy magazines, then a Reminisce Extra. Tonight I finished up a Country Woman and made some headway in the latest Country. Wow. That sounds like a LOT of reading! It really wasn't. I was NEARLY done with most of those to begin with! Anyway, I was enjoying my nice, relaxing time in the tub... until this dreadful sound started coming from the bedroom. I couldn't figure out what it was, but it sounded TERRIBLE. It wasn't incredibly loud, but it was whiny and chaotic--and extremely repetitive. I finally had all I could take and started screaming for James. I told him I couldn't take whatever it was anymore and to please MAKE IT STOP. He just laughed, but the racket did stop. I found out later that he had been listening to some of that horrid organ music that he loves so much on YouTube. ~sigh~ What a goon. I'll never understand how he can enjoy such terrible things!!!

That's about it from here. I'm all set and ready to go for Sunday School tomorrow. Apparently next week's goals are the same as this week's: polyurethane everything that isn't walking, breathing, or speaking. We'll see if I can be more successful this go round.

A couple more pictures before I go. Hhmmm. None of Katie this time. Here's Joe enjoying some Hershey time. Hershey goes to sit with Katie or Joe a lot more than he used to. Not Sam, of course. Sam's the reason Hershey finally became "mean" to begin with! Ha!

And here's Sam with the "old woman" he made out of one of his birthday balloons.

Ah, yes. Sam. He was watching the slide show on my computer today when a picture came up of Katie pressing her hands against the glass of a tank at the Tennessee Aquarium a couple of years ago. There was a guy in scuba gear on the inside, pressing his hands against the glass back at her. Sam recognized it as an aquarium and asked if it was a scuba diver in there. I said it was. His shock was anything but mild. "You mean they keep PEOPLE in that tank?!?!?!?" HA!

James Made Me Do It

2008-11-05T21:33:00.012-07:00

It's really weird when your husband comes and says, "It's time for you to blog." Ha! I haven't been in the blogging mood much lately, as seems to be the case with most of the bloggers out there. Maybe they've been on the same emotional kiddie coaster I've been on. (It wouldn't classify as a true "emotional roller coaster," but I think a kiddie version might be an appropriate analogy. Ha!) I typically have no interest in politics and do my best to stay away from them. But this election was HUGE and I must confess that I felt like I might throw up last night. I say that sometimes when I'm disgusted with something. "It makes me want to throw up," usually on the source of my frustration! Ha! But last night I really and truly felt sick--like I might actually lose my lunch. I have so many feelings about this man and the decision this country has made, but the last thing weary Blogland needs is to hear more about what we're already so tired of hearing--and most of us so sick over! I think that's why James wants me to blog. It's a good outlet and we probably all need to get our minds off of things for a little while. But first...

Aren't you SOOOOOO THANKFUL to be a part of God's "Holy Nation"?!?!? What a blessing! Every few hours I'll feel that "gloom" start to come over my spirit, but without fail the Word of God begins to speak to my soul, or I speak to somebody with like feelings, or a particular song touches my soul--all of which have lifted my spirits and filled me with peace and joy and anticipation for the future rather than dread. It's strange to experience such a wide spectrum of strong emotions, for sure. But ultimately, GOD IS GOOD and we have SO MUCH to be thankful for. And just in case anybody else out there is struggling with the same feelings I have, let me share something that Brother Donnie Estep posted somewhere. (One of the many things that God has used to touch my soul and remind me--in such simple ways--that we have nothing to fear!)

Top 10 Predictions No Matter Who Wins the Election
1. The Bible will still have all the answers.
2. Prayer will still work.
3. The Holy Spirit will still move.
4. God will still inhabit the praises of His people.
5. There will still be God-anointed preaching.
6. There will still be singing of praise to God.
7. God will still pour out blessings upon His people.
8. There will still be room at the Cross.
9. Jesus will still love you.
10. Jesus will still save the lost when they come to Him.

Okay, so now on to something FUN and NORMAL LIFE-ISH. Won't that be refreshing?! I'll post about Ladies' Retreat soon, but first of all...

Today was not just the first day of the end of the world (Ha!), but it was also my baby boy's 5th birthday. Can you believe it?! WOW. I now have a 5 year old, a 6 year old, and a 7 year old. And here I am still 17... 14 years in a row! ;-) When we woke up this morning, the kids were already all wound up about the big day (although they did take a few moments to ask about the election and rant and rave their own frustrations for a few minutes) and Sam decided on breakfast. Not waffles or french toast, but "sugar cereal." They usually only get that once a week. Whatever!

It was nice and cool and kind of spitting some snow here and there when we woke up, so James declared Puzzle Day all over again. Technically, there is only one Puzzle Day a year. Truth be known, I never saw a puzzle today. But James did listen to Christmas music, which was, of course, his entire purpose for calling such a day. I started to get on to him, but he said he NEEDED it today. I couldn't fight with that!

We had devotions, then the kids bundled up and went out to scrape together a couple of snowballs. They came in and had a very tramatic day of school. Joe did, anyway. ~sigh~ That crazy kid spent an HOUR on one lousy page of subtraction. He could have been finished EASILY in 10 or 15 minutes but for his bad attitude. We're hoping that perhaps he's learned a little something through the experience. We'll know by tomorrow, I guess!

I made clam chowder for lunch today and it was sooooo good! I have a bad habit of rushing that recipe (usually don't have the patience to stand there and stir constantly while all that cold milk slo-o-o-o-o-owly heats and thickens), but today I grabbed a stool and took my time with it. It definitely paid off! Yum!!! We had some cresent rolls to go with it (Pillsbury this time, not homemade!) and the kids LOVED it. Afterwards James used his handy dandy apple tools to peel, core and slice-like-a-super-long-ribbon several apples and I made apple dumplins for the very first time.

Ooooooh, they were good!!! I'm not a big apple person, but these were wonderful. Joe said he thinks they're the very best thing he's ever tasted in his whole life... next to Tostada Casserole which, consequently, was Sam's birthday dinner tonight. Joe just loves to eat, really!

I took some chowder and a dumpling over to the horse lady and told her we were going to cancel our lesson for this afternoon--just wanted to have a nice, relaxing day with the family for Sam's birthday, you know? She was cool with that and seemed happy with the loot I brought. :-)

Sam waited not-so-patiently for his "party" all day today. James let Sam pick a show and he opted for the new Veggie Tales movie. It ended just as I finished up on his birthday dinner. We had him pray for dinner and he was sure to pray that the food would be good... and that the presents would be good, too. ;-) Here he is, all excited about his specially selected dinner...

Then we sang and it was cake time! Look at my chins, Em! Ha! Oh, well. It's a good picture of Joe, anyway! He looks so grown up in this picture!

And here's the birthday boy enjoying his chocolate cake with chocolate icing. His pick again, of course!

And then it was present time! He had a card from Sister Galaviz and one from Grandma Wanda, both with money inside. He was so excited! He'd been buying toys off of Katie all day and was just about broke by the end of the day. ("Sam, if you'll give me a quarter for this little wooden keychain, you can have another little toy for free!" What kid can pass up a good Buy 1-Get 1 Free sale?! Not Sam, that's for sure! I don't know how much old junk he bought off of Kate today, but I think she made a decent profit. Goofy kids!)

Sam had four gifts to open: one from Katie, one from Joe, one from James and me, and one from Grandma Vicki and Granddad. Katie had gotten him a toy knife and Joe got him a little gun that shoots little airplanes. And this is his gift from us:

That's right! A roll of Scotch tape!!! Seems strange, I'm sure, but that's only because you've never seen how that kid goes through tape. He is so creative and is ALWAYS making things with scissors, construction paper, and TAPE--lots and lots of TAPE. Just yesterday he made an entire Batman outfit for Joe--all out of paper--complete with legs and all. So we got him some tape and paper for his birthday! :-) We also got him an art/shape book with a stencil that he seemed to enjoy tonight--and an army guy costume. Mr. Dress-Up hit the jackpot tonight--a soldier costume from Mom and Dad and a fireman costume from Grandma and Granddaddy! He was just a little excited...

James wanted me to post the pictures we took AFTER we thought to close that bedroom door with the vacuum and junk, but these ones were so much cuter! So please excuse our mess. ;-)

It was a good, fun night. I finished up a book I've been reading with the kids tonight. I really enjoy reading to them at night and they always get sooooo excited. It's been easy to do it the past couple of nights because of the time change. Everybody is already feeling tired and wiped out by 7:00, so reading sounds like a mighty good idea to all of us!

I still haven't touched the polyurethane. That was supposed to be my goal this week. As was the ironing. Hhmmm. At least I made a lot of great food for my family today, right?! That's worth something, isn't it??? Unfortunately we probably have enough left-overs to last a day or two, thus freeing me up to do some of the work I've been neglecting. ~sigh~ What a pity. ;-) G'night, all!

What a Change!

2008-10-30T00:21:00.014-06:00

There are so many of them! For starters, my last post was entitled "A Day of Rest." HA! I'm struggling to remember what a day like that must feel like. It's been a wild and crazy week around here. There's no way I can remember all the details and, really, I'm sure there are several I'd just as soon forget anyway! Ha! We've worked soooooo hard and I'm sooooo tired. It's past midnight and I feel like I'm dozing off every minute or two, but my 52 year old mother is sitting across the room from me, fiddling on her computer. I can't be outdone by her, so I'd might as well blog while I'm waiting for her to give up and go to bed first. ;-)

Monday... all I know for sure is that the floor guys were back and I now have brand new, gorgeous floors and I'm soooooooooo happy!!! We've been working too hard to get everything all cleaned up so I can get a good picture, but hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to pull it off. :-)

We worked around the floor guys while they were here, although I can't remember what all we did. I don't remember any details from yesterday either, just that we worked, worked, worked. Right, Mom?! ;-) We've had an ongoing list of things to do each day and we check them off as we go. It's strange how lists like that work. Every time you check something off you think of at least two new things to add to the list! But we've accomplished SO MUCH--more than I really thought possible. At this point, we're very close to "done," except that I'm going to be polyurethaning for the rest of my life. Ha! There are so many things that need "finished" with the sealer and some of them will require several coats over several days' time.

I still don't have a whole lot of before and after pictures, but we're ALMOST done with the bathroom (James has yet to finish building the new toothpaste cabinet (we don't have any medicine, so it seems dumb to call it a medicine cabinet! Ha!) and I need to poly the countertop at least three or four more times, then caulk around the sink. Anyway, here are some before and almost after shots of that room. The "before" pictures don't even BEGIN to capture the true nastiness of that room--the floor was DISGUSTING and... well, everything was just gross!!! Just ask Jamey or Emilee! Ha! Anyway, here we go!!!

Entering the bathroom!!! Before...

After!

Before...

After!

Before...

After!

Before...

After!

We did a whole lot of "custom" things in this bathroom. That's our way of saying that we did things ourselves and saved some money here an there! The vanity was really nasty, but to save some $$$ we decided to refinish it instead of replace it. We got rid of the old sink/countertop, Mom scrubbed down the nasty wood on the cabinet, then I painted it this terrific blue color. After it was good and dry (several days later) I sanded off the edges here and there (and Mom came and sanded where the handles and knobs will eventually go--I was too chicken for that part!), put a coat of poly on it and voila! OH! And, of course, James installed the new countertop and surround and we stained and poly-ed it, too. It'll need more, but it's good enough for now!

The other really, really big project was the dining room chairs. WOW, what a job!!! I didn't think to take a picture of them before we started, but this pic of Joe sort of shows them...

They were a blonde sort of color, really blah, and didn't really go with anything. I bought them because they were good and sturdy and they were the right price. And because I had visions of what they'd look like all painted up to match my kitchen cabinets!

Monday afternoon at about 3:00 we pulled out Maurice. That's my airless paint sprayer. I have wasted away so much of my life with a paint brush or roller in hand that we finally invested in Maurice a couple of years ago when we lived in Andrews. He was worth the investment on the very first job!!! WOW, what a machine! It cuts the painting time down to a tenth of what it would otherwise take and it's so nice and smooth. I was in love the very first day. That's how "it" became a "he" and got a name all of his own. I wanted to find a place of honor to keep in him in the house, but James thought that was going a bit too far. ;-) Anyway, it's been a year or two since I've used Maurice, but I knew he was the only way to go when it was time to paint the chairs. So we drug him and and, lo and behold, he was NOT in the working groove the rest of us have been in for the past week and a half! I read the instructions over and over again, hooked and unhooked and rehooked everything up, had Mom look at it, then James, tried cleaning things again (it's very delicate--has to be cleaned thoroughly or will be ruined), talked to him, begged and pleaded and coaxed and finally laid hands on him and prayed for him! At long last, after I had poured boiling soapy water down him, he started putting forth some effort. We poured the paint into him and had to work a while longer before he was fully awakened from his two year nap and ready for work. By that time it was getting cold outside and the sun was slipping down behind the mountains. HURRY!!! We sprayed away and got a good, thick coat of paint on the chairs. Really thick! We were in such a hurry to get it done before it got too dark--then we had to get them into the house where it would be warm enough for them to dry. That meant transporting really, really wet chairs without smearing the paint. HA! Try that! Lets just say that Mom's and my fingerprints are forever preserved on the under side of each seat. We thought about painting over them, but decided to keep 'em that way as a momento to our work. :-) Since that time, there has been a whole lot of painting going on around here, all of it on the same six little chairs! Ha!

Mom painted...

And painted...

And painted some more...

I take that back. She spent the first 2 hours taping off the "hoops" on the chairs. She then painted two chairs and realized that the tape was worthless and was creating MORE work and that it would be faster to just take her time and paint carefully without the tape. So I spent an hour removing all of the tape she'd worked so hard to get on, then I helped her paint the yellow "hoops" on the chairs. Actually, on a chair. My chair. My one and only. Mom painted 5 chairs, I painted one. I'm a little slow. ;-) We were determined that the yellow had to be done last night, so we stayed up until nearly 3:00 in the morning last night painting chairs!!! James put on some good, happy music for us and it was fun, for the most part. After about 2:00 we were getting a little loopy and we laughed ourselves to tears a couple of times over nothing all that funny. That's always the best. :-)

Then today, Mom touched up on all the red paint that we'd missed with Maurice or that the yellow had oozed on to...

And tonight she was finally able to get the the green paint and finish everything up! Wa-Hoo!!! Ain't they CUTE?!?!?

Of course, nobody is allowed to sit on them or anything. Ha! Not until I get a chance to put several good coats of polyurethane on them to preserve their cuteness. That can't happen until next week at this point, so the kids will just have to keep using the stools for now. But we had to put the chairs around the table to see what they look like and to take a picture! :-)

~whew~ Mom finally just gave up and is headed to bed. Guess that means I can go, too. I'll try to blog tomorrow night because we'll be gone to LADIES' RETREAT for the weekend!!! WA-HOOOOOO!!!!! I am sooooooooo excited! I've been thinking about it and praying for it while we've been painting and sanding and staining our lives away this week. We went shopping tonight for all of the ingredients we'll need for the goodies we'll be taking with us. :-) Tomorrow we're going to try real hard to stay away from any tools, paintbrushes, or sandpaper. We're going to just clean things up a bit, do some cooking and baking, and get ready for the Retreat. ~sigh~ That will be so nice! :-)

A Day of Rest!!!

2008-10-26T23:32:00.001-06:00

~aaaaaaahhhhh~ What a welcomed relief! We had a great Sunday. We had a good service this morning and Sunday School went well with the kids. Much better than the messy, painty disasters of weeks past. :-) AND... a family that used to attend very regularly but hasn't been to church since we've begun having services in homes was there with us!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! For anybody who was at camp, it was Aaron and his family. :-) They've been attending another church, but Mark (the dad) finally said he wanted to find us and come have church with us wherever we are because they're just not getting fed at the other church. Again, PRAISE THE LORD!!! That is just SO EXCITING to me! There is something different about The Church of God. We hadn't even made it through the service (James had yet to preach) when Mark testified and said he's so glad they came, that he could feel the spirit and presence of the Lord and he felt loved and wanted and he felt "at home" and comfortable. Can I say it a third time?! PRAISE THE LORD!!! I'm just so thrilled. We're hoping and praying that they'll be joining us regularly again. They are a special family and we've really grown to love them. We definitely need a place to worship though--we pack out a house when we're all together! What a good problem to have!!! :-)

James had scheduled tonight's ABM service here at our house. Isn't that thoughtful of him?! HA! Since our floor isn't installed yet and the stove is still in the garage, we weren't able to bake anything today. So after church this morning we stopped by a grocery store and bought a caramel apple cheesecake, some fall cookies, and some mini-brownies to serve after the service. We stopped and had lunch at Burger Boy on our way up the mountain, then came home and got busy straightening the house up a bit. Mom had already gotten the kitchen all cleaned up last night--and somehow cleared off the last of the table debris--so that was a HUGE headstart. We got it whipped into shape pretty quick and actually had a couple minutes to lay down before church.

Sister Galaviz is our newly appointed ABM leader and she had a FANTASTIC service tonight. First of all, it was SO GREAT to have a piano during our song service! It's amazing what a difference that makes. God has been good and we've been blessed in our acapulco ;-) song services, but having a piano (especially when Mom's playing it!) just sort of draws your spirit into the worship of it all, you know? I was so blessed. Anyway, Sister Galaviz talked about the ABM department and used lots of illustrations about the human body and how it functions and how WE are to funcion as a unit. She had the kids help her out with the visual aids. She talked about the organs and the seven major functions (is that what she called them?!) of the body...

And she talked about the joints and how they work--two separate parts working together in harmony and such. Lots of good analogies from that!

And, of course, she went through lots of scriptures about the body and likened it to our own local church. It really spoke to me, and everyone else, I'm sure.

It was a really, really good service! Afterward we pulled out all the goodies and just visited for a while, which was nice. This was the first time any of our folks have been up to our house (except Sister Galaviz--she was here a few days ago) and I LOVED it!!! ~sigh~ It's just so nice to have people here. We've been meaning to have them up one family at a time for dinner, but things have been so crazy--and, of course, you feel bad inviting people to your house when it's all torn up! But it was great tonight. Aside from having only half a new floor (the rest comes tomorrow! WA-HOOOOO!), things looked pretty good around here, I thought! Well, not the garage or the bathroom we're only half done with (it currently has no toilet or sink--which is FAR BETTER than the nasty stuff that used to be there, right Jamey and Em?! Ha!) -- but that doesn't really count! It'll all be better next time around, I'm sure. Anyway, we had a really terrific service and it made me truly happy to be able to have it here at my very own little home. :-)

When everybody left Mom and I ran to the bathroom and put the wallpaper border up. Sorry, Amy--this one is at the top of the room! Ha! I generally prefer them in the middle of the wall, too (in fact, I've never put one at the top before tonight!), but it's just the way it had to go in this particular room! That was our one and only job of the day. Then we sat down with a cookie, another piece of cheesecake and some vanilla cokes and PLAYED A GAME! Yippie!!! It's against all the rules (just ask James--this is not a leisure trip! Mom is here to WORK, WORK, WORK! Ha!), but we've been working soooooo hard... and it's SUNDAY, for goodness' sake! So we got a few hours off tonight. :-) I smothered her at the game, in cause you're wondering. ;-) Tomorrow morning it's back to work! We've got quite a list and only time will tell how it will all go. Especially with the floor guys here again--it's hard to function around them. But it will be soooooooo worth it when I have beautiful new floors tomorrow night and can move everything back into place! I'M SO EXCITED!!! :-)

Okay, Okay, Okay!

2008-10-25T21:53:00.008-06:00

I wasn't going to post any pictures of our work until I had some before and after pictures to show you. Unfortunatly, we have yet to get to any "after" pictures! Ha! Mom has already been sharing some pictures with a few of you and I finally figured I should join in the fun. Besides, it feels great to to sit down and blog a bit and get some relief from a paint brush or sand paper for a little while!

Here is a "before" picture of the utility room after we emptied it out. GA-ROSS. You have no idea.
And here's a picture of the "during." Don't be fooled. I did the painting in there, not Mom. ;-) Actually, she did all of the trim work and I did the roller work. She's soooooo much faster than I am with the detailed stuff!

And that's it. No "after" to show you yet. We have all of the paint and wallpaper done and I have the cabinets stained and polyurethaned and ready to install. We're just waiting on the floor dudes to come do their job in there so we can move the appliances back in and we'll be in business!

In all of our excitement over making the really, really nasty utility room into a really cute and clean place that I might enjoy working in, we got a little carried away and decided to take the cuteness into the pantry and hall closet. :-)

We kept losing Mom though--she blended right into the wall. Ha!

Here's what the utility room looks like now that we've got the wallpaper and border up on top of the red paint. :-)

Better yet, here it is with the really great picture I eye-balled at Aunt Sue's store for a few months and finally took home. I never really had a place for it before, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how this room is turning out!!!

I'll get the "after" shot of the whole room once we have a floor, install the cabinets and get the washer and dryer back in place.

I spent most of my day today in the garage inhaling various fumes. It usually doesn't bother me a bit (I like the smell of most of that stuff), but after 8 or 9 hours of working with paint and stain and polyurethane (without thinking to open the window) I got to feeling rather sick. Oh well--I got a lot done before then! I can't remember what all, but I finished up on two or three coats of all three colors of paint on the cabinets that will go under the kitchen window--all they lack now is polyurethane. I stained the countertop for the bathroom and all of the trim that James will install to separate the wallpapers in there. Hhmmm. I can't remember what else. All I know is that I had about 14 things on my personal "to do" list today and I knocked of 8 or 9 of them. That's a whole lot better than Mom. She only had four things and still struggled to knock off two. Ha! Her's were biggie's--like wallpapering the top half of the bathroom. It's always so much more time consuming than you think it should be!

There will be lots more pictures to come, but I'll go ahead and post this one. We put yellow ginham wallpaper on the top half of the bathroom, then some textured wood looking paper on the bottom half... then we "washed" it with blue! I smeared blue paint over it and Mom wiped off the excess, leaving dark blue in the cracks and light blue over the rest. I can't wait to see what this bathroom is going to look like when it's all finished! My last bathroom was SOOOOOO great and I knew I could never recreate it. Besides, I wanted to go more "rustic" here in this house--it's more fitting that way. I think we're going to be able to pull it off and still go blue and yellow, which makes me very happy. (I like blue and yellow together... and we have really nice blue and yellow towels we bought just after we got married so we need to stick with those colors!) Anyway, this will give you some idea of the direction we're headed with this bathroom:

We called it quits early tonight. About 7:00, I think. We've been working until 10 or 11 o'clock each night. I wasn't feeling the greatest tonight anyway, but I also had to scrub down some really cruddy kids and get ready for Sunday School tomorrow. I had thought ahead to get my ideas together last week (can you believe that?!), so all I really had to do tonight was gather my supplies and do a little prep work. :-)

Hhmmm. I had figured on waiting until morning to take my bath, but I think now that Mom's done in there (we're down to one bathroom until we finish the blue and yellow one!) I may go ahead and go get that over with. I know I'll feel better after I soak a while--and it means I'll be able to sleep a little bit longer tomorrow morning! ;-) G'night!

If a Picture Says a Thousand Words

2008-10-25T09:22:00.000-06:00

...then why do these pictures not even begin to convey the chaos here?

Oh, well. Maybe it gives you some idea anyway. Did you notice that the garage that we worked SO HARD to get all cleaned out a few weeks ago, is now loaded heavy with junk. It used to be clear enough to be a nice bike room for the kids. Now you have to hurdle four cans of paint, a couch and a few cabinets just to get yourself a bowl of cereal.

Even the dog is having a hard time finding a place to relax anymore.

Yesterday didn't exactly go according to our plans. We started off well enough, but then the floor guys showed up. We really thought we could just work around them--stay busy on projects in the area they weren't working on at the moment, then switch to another area when they got close to our spot. Nope. It seemed that no matter where we went and what we did, we were in their way! Mom was able to get some of the wallpaper up in the bathroom, but she finally gave up on that because the dudes kept needing in there. Sister Galaviz had come up to help, but there was just nothing to do! The whole house was in utter chaos and there were people buzzing here and there in every direction and it was enough to drive a person just a little batty. Sister Galaviz's job turned out to be occupying the kids! Little did we know it was really the best thing that anybody could have done!!! The chaos would have been soooooo much worse if she hadn't been there to keep them busy.

Lunch time came soon enough, but there was no place to eat, so I made my way to the garage (yes, the garage) and scooped up an armful of peanut butter, jelly, bread, left-over pizza and a few paper plates. We fixed our gourmet lunch out at the kiddy picnic table and enjoyed a little break from the mess and chaos of the house. Poor Sister Galaviz. We had invited her up for lunch, to begin with. In the end it turned out to be a peanut butter sandwich she had to make for herself! Ha! She somehow seemed to enjoy it and didn't seem the least bit frazzled by all of the madness going on. That made one of us, so it was nice. Ha!

When the floor guys finally left at 4:00... No, wait. One important little tidbit of information is that they DIDN'T FINISH the floor. Good ole' Wade had told me it would be a one day job, but then they ended up coming on a day when they couldn't start bright and early AND had to quit early. And, of course, we had added two little sections of floor to the job after he gave us the bid. Anyway, they don't work Saturdays, so they won't be back until MONDAY. No problem. Except that Mom and I were both really thirsty last night and would have gone to get something to drink... if the refrigerator wasn't so far away! Ha! The fridge and stove and washer and dryer and all of the contents of the pantry and utility closet and who knows what else have been strewn all over the kitchen table and somehow filled the garage up as well. Crazy!

Anyway, after the floor dudes finally left we were able to get busy and DO something. We marked 6 things off of our list of 12 for the day. Actually, there were a few little things that got done that weren't on the list, but I wrote them down real quick so we could check them off and feel more successful than we really were. ;-) Today's list has three things on it, as well as the 6 from yesterday. Oh, wait... I think we thought of a couple of new things to add to it last night. Oh well. We'll see how far we get!

The kids just finished breakfast and are almost all gathered (two-thirds of them, so far) for devotions, so I've got to go. Hopefully the next crop of pictures will be more impressive than these. ;-) Have a great weekend!

So Far...

2008-10-23T23:11:00.003-06:00

Well, so far we have accomplished getting my entire house into shambles. It's a WRECK around here. It's so exciting!!! You always have to tear up jack before accomplishing something truly grand. If the magnitude of the mess directly connects to the grandness of the finished product then things should be beyond fantastic in the end! ;-)

We went to town a little early on Tuesday so I could go vote before we picked Mom up at the airport. Felt good to get that done. I've done my part. I wasn't so much voting for one person as I was voting AGAINST another! :-) Anyway, we got Mom from the airport and took her out to eat at the Olive Garden. Dad doesn't like Italian food and she never gets to eat at places like that, so it was fun. We came home and spent our first evening just THINKING. Got to get a good game plan going before you jump into remodeling stuff, you know?!

Yesterday, once we finally got through breakfast and devotions and all that, we all piled into the vehicles and headed to town to shop for everything we'd scribbled down on the list the night before. Home Depot and Lowes. I think we were successful. We got home with only about an hour to work. It was good, actually, because there's always so much prep work to be done before you can actually start on a real "project." So I removed vent and outlet covers and started scrubbing walls.

Mom went with me to watch the kids at their riding lessons at 4:00. They're all doing good and seem to have fun, but Sam has told me three weeks in a row now that he doesn't want to go and ride... until we get there--then he changes his mind and rides after all. Anyway, Staci let Katie and Joe trot for the first time yesterday. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! Ohhhhh, how I wish I would have had my camcorder!!! Joe was HILARIOUS! There's just no way to describe it. I only hope that my mind can forever remember the crazed look on his face and those giant eyeballs of his. You'd never know it to watch him, but he had a blast! He bounced around quite a bit and never really got the hang of a "posting trot" (you're supposed to sort of stand up on every other bounce), but he sure had fun. Still, I don't think he had as much fun as Katie girl did. She LOVED it. Not at first--she wanted to stop right away the first couple of times, but then she got into the groove and did really good. And asked to do it again and again! It was fun to watch them having so much fun! :-)

We came home and got back to work. Mom scrubbed walls while I painted ceilings in the bathroom and the utility room. Then we got the walls painted in the utility room as well. We were really surprised we got so far since we didn't really start until 5:30 or something like that!

Today wasn't quite as rewarding initially. We were busy for hours and hours before you could really see any progress! It was a bunch of those jobs that are necessary to do before you can do the really fun stuff that says WOW, you know? I got the shelves out of the pantry and scrubbed them down while Katie painted the shelf supports still in the pantry. Mom was busy scrubbing on the cabinet in the bathroom. Then she was busy wallpapering and I was busy painting the shelves, then the cabinet in the bathroom. Everything is turning out SO GREAT! ~sigh~ It's just so fun to be able to take something so gross (although it would be more fun to take something nice and clean for a change!) and turn it into someting really adorable. :-)

We stopped and got everybody ready for church and headed to Sister Grimes house for BTI service. We started into our new book tonight: The Will of God. Looks to be a really good one. Pat had pumpkin pecan bread for us afterward and it was really good, as was the fellowship. Pat is a riot!

After we left there we went out to Dion's... AGAIN. (I'm about pizza-ed out, I think--if that's possible!) Then we headed to Wal-Mart in Edgewood to pick up some more paint supplies. Came home and got the kid-o's to bed, then put our work clothes on again and finished up on the wallpaper and moved the stove and fridge out of the kitchen because WADE, THE FLOOR GUY, IS FINALLY COMING TOMORROW!!!!!! Wa-Hoo!!! I will finally have FLOORS! (Thanks for the tip on the cleaners, Kevin--it's a laminate flooring that we're installing.) We'll have to work our projects around wherever he is working, but that's okay. :-) James also has poor Sister Galaviz roped into coming up here in her work clothes tomorrow. Can you imagine?! Crazy woman seems excited to come help, though. Ha! It will be so fun to have her here! I think he initially had me invite her up here for lunch or dinner or something silly like that. In the middle of all this work?! I'm afraid all we'll have to offer her is a sandwich or left-overs! ~sigh~ I should be so ashamed. Somehow, I'm not. She just strikes me as the kind of lady who will be just as happy with it this way!

So now we blog. Mom in the blue chair and me in the red chair, 10 feet away from each other. She lives in Tennessee and I live in New Mexico. We see each other a few times a year. And here we sit, in the same room, not speaking, clicking away on the computers on our laps like we would do if we were a thousand miles away. There are times when I hate technology. I would have hidden the computers and made Mom play a game with me tonight... if only we could get to the table. Right not it's about 2' deep in STUFF. The kids will have to eat on the floor tomorrow. They'd just as soon do that anyway. Oh well. Hopefully we'll have SOME of this mess cleaned up by tomorrow night. Of course, we will have created a whole new mess in another room by then. ;-)

For now, I'm going to go take a bath and wash my hair. I'll sleep sooooo much better, I'm sure!

October 20th

2008-10-21T00:48:00.001-06:00

Is that the boringest blog title of all time, or what?! Oh well, it's the best I can do tonight!

It's been a good day around here, although none of it went as scheduled. We started off with chores, breakfast, then devotions and the other chores. Which reminds me... Here are the lists, Bekah--I hope you can read them!

Anyway, I taught Katie how to scrub the tub and toilet, then talked Joe through cleaning the floor and mirror. Sam had already stripped the sheets off all the beds earlier and I was able to get the laundry started. It will take a lot more of my time initially (until the kids can actually do this stuff without me there to help or coach them), but I'm sure it will be sooooo worth it. Assuming I stick with it, that is! I fear we'll be taking a two week break from the chores we haven't learned yet, because...

MOM IS COMING!!!! Wa-Hooooo!!! I am sooooooooo excited! I'm excited to spend time with her and James is excited to see what the house will look like once she's gone. Ha! Our first two priorities are the utility room and that nasty second bathroom. There are several other things that are on the list just in case we're better than we think and finish up on those two rooms super fast. :-) It's going to be so fun!

Back to our day... We got into school, but it wasn't too long before James came home with another little can of stain--the third shade he'd bought in an effort to match our new log siding with the rest of the house. This one wasn't any good either. At Mom's suggestion, we finally pulled out the old faithful can of Special Walnut that we've had lying around the house and *voila* a perfect match! Well, as perfect as we're going to get! James was gettin' pretty antsy about the situation, so I told the kids to take a break from school and we'd finish up later. Made for a very, very happy Joe.

Katie wanted to help me stain the logs, so she and I put our work clothes on and headed outside. She helped me get the bottom 7 logs done (as far up as she could comfortably reach) and did a pretty good job, I thought! Then I sent her inside to figure out something for lunch for herself and the boys. After a while Sam came outside with a hot dog wrapped up in a corn tortilla--and just raving about how good it was. Whatever works! Kate did pretty well cleaning things up, too, so that was a GREAT help!

Once she went inside and I was left alone without distraction I couldn't help but notice the color of the logs and recognize the smell of the stain and the feel of it--and my hands covered in it. It brought back sooooo many strong memories of Grandmother and Granddad. Everybody has different memories that are special to them. Although we all know who their favorite grandkid was (Ha! I only say that in case she happens to be reading! ;-) Love ya, Stacey!), going to the cabin to help out with the wood was my special thing with them. From the time I was about 12 years old I would go spend a week or two and help Grandmother stain and sand and wax all the stuff that Granddad had built. I remember having so much fun with them and talking to Grandmother about all sorts of things. I remember asking lots of questions once about her parents and her childhood and I was so fascinated by it all. I only wish I had written it down so I could remember it all now! So I stood outside staining my logs today, tears just pouring, and praying to God and thanking Him SO MUCH for giving me such wonderful Grandparents and for all of the wonderful memories I have of them. It's been 8 years this month since they were killed and I was feeling that same ache in my heart today as I did in the very beginning. I know it sounds strange, but I'm so glad. I don't ever want to forget how much I love them and all of the wonderful memories that make me laugh or cry or both. I am SO BLESSED.

Anyway, this is the result of our labor today...

Not a perfect match, but close enough to make me very happy! And see that tiny little can next to the dog? It only took about a can and a half of that stain to do the whole thing. So today's work only cost us about $6 total. That's the kind of work day I like! :-) I just hope we can figure out how to finish the entire house so it'll still match. The old, dried out logs are going to take the Penofin or linseed oil differently than the new, smooth logs do. We may have to get creative to make sure everything still matches decently in the end!

I helped the kids finish up their crafts from Sunday School yesterday. Joe had a hard time drawing the connection between Christopher Columbus and Jacob wrestling with the angel. "But Mom... what does any of this have to do with Jacob???" Good point. NOTHING, Joe--just finish your dumb boat. ;-)

I ran out of laundry detergent before my last load this evening, so James decided to load us all up and head into town to get some. I think he was really just dreading the sandwiches or left-overs that were about to show up for dinner and wanted an excuse to go out to eat! We went to Sam's club and got my detergent and a few other odds and ends we didn't know we needed until we got there. (That's the trouble with Sam's...) Then we went to Dion's for cheap pizza before heading home.

The kids are all sleeping in their sleeping bags tonight because I never got the fresh sheets put on their beds today. ~sigh~ What a slacker! I just finished up on all of the ironing (yeah!!!), except the little bit that is still in the dryer. So in the morning I'll have to do that--and get sheets on the beds--and we should be all ready for Mom to come! I'm going to try real hard to have a full day of school tomorrow, since there's no telling how much schooling will be taking place the next week or two. ;-) And I figured I really should blog since, as you know, I don't like to sit in front of a computer when I have real, live people to be with!

Before I go, here are some pictures James took today of Sam and the cross he built. That kid is sooooo cute.

Cute... until he tries to crucify somebody tomorrow, that is! Ha! Anyway, that's it from here! LATER!!!

Punkin' Chunkin'!

2008-10-19T21:27:00.009-06:00

That's what we did yesterday. It was great!

Oh, wait. First, this is a picture of Sam sleeping with his head wrapped. Every night! Weird-o!

Okay! On Saturday morning we got up and headed to Estancia, the Punkin' Chunkin' capitol of New Mexico! Sounds impressive, hu? I figure it's the perfect location for slinging or blasting pumpkins because there is NOTHING THERE!!! We had read that there would be a parade through town at 11:00 and we got there at 11:03 to find that it was over with already! Ha! No, it wasn't THAT tiny of a parade. Well, I guess it could have been... The story we got is that they started it at about 10:30 instead of 11:00. So much for that!

We headed out Highway 55 to the big event. We got there and found a decent place to park and made our way toward the action. There were lots of little consession stands, like at the State Fair--and selling food for the same outrageous prices! James didn't do too bad at the BBQ stand--their prices were actually pretty reasonable, so that's where we got all our "real" food. (It was lunch time when we arrived and James and I had skipped breakfast and were starved!) I went to another stand to get our drinks and some ribbon fries and that made up for what we'd saved at the first joint! Ha! James saw people walking around with ribbon fries and they looked soooooo good, so we just had to try some. There was quite a line and I was amazed at how LONG I had to wait in it! Apparently LOTS of people saw and wanted the ribbon fries! It was pretty cool watching the dude make them though. They jab a potato on the end of a drill (sounds rather unsanitary, I know, but the setting makes it okay! Ha!) and let 'er fly, pressing it through a slit that cuts it into one, long continious "ribbon."

Like this.

Hey, don'tcha' just love the girl in the black skirt in the first potato picture?! Looks like she's smoothing out her heating lamp skirt! Ha!

I stood in line so long I got bored and took a picture of the lady in front of me--her hat, actually. She's apparently quite the Punkin' Chunkin' enthusiast!

And here are the boys enjoying those ribbon fries, at long last!

When we finished our lunch we turned our full attention to the theme of the day: hurling pumpkins at amazing speeds to the other side of town or bowing them to smithereens and watching the chunks drop back to the earth, depending on which cannon was doing the blasting and how they were operated. It was cool! I read somewhere that at the National Championships (can you imagine?!) in Deleware a guy had blasted a pumpkin 4,594 feet. I don't know if these were going THAT far, but who knows! It was amazing, if a little noisy. Here are some of the air cannons. Gotta love the names!

I tried several times, but never could get a picture of a pumpkin in the air--they were WAY too fast for me! I got close with this one, but that's it.

Although it couldn't complete with the distance of the air cannons, this catapult was the COOLEST of all and always got the biggest applause. A couple of dudes would spend a few minutes cranking it down, then they'd put a pumpkin in the sling and tuck it up under the trailer before releasing it.

Here's the fam, enjoying the show and some cotton candy.

It was a good, fun day. But there are only so many pumpkins you can watch soaring through the air before it loses it's novelty. We left the big event and headed home, but made a couple of stops along the way. We went into a thrift store we'd never noticed before in Moriarty. WOW!!! It was huge and sooooo clean and organized--and CHEAP. We walked out with a turtleneck and 3 nice denim skirts for me, a vest for Katie, a book for Joe and a complete pirate outfit for Sam (pants, vest and hat) for $5.40. !!!!! Wa-Hoo!!! Now THAT is the way to shop! :-) Don't tell James, but all of the skirts are a little small for me. I wanted to try them on there, but he said no, at that price just take 'em--surely one of them will fit. I'll bring them to Ladies' Retreat, Em! ;-)

We came home and I spent about 40 minutes looking high and low for the new batteries and charger James just bought a few weeks ago. The camera batteries had died at the Punkin' Chunkin' so I needed to put the new ones back in. I couldn't find them ANYWHERE and kept looking and looking and looking, having that dread feeling swell bigger and bigger knowing that eventually I was going to have to tell James. I HATE THAT!!! That's why I spend so much of my life secretly spinning circles in search of whatever I've misplaced. ~sigh~ I get so tired of it, but I just can't seem to REMEMBER where I put stuff and I so dread the lecture that occurs when I TELL James I can't find something! Ha! He's so much nicer about such things than he used to be, but you know. Lectures are NEVER fun! ;-) Anyway, I did the same thing with my purse a few days ago. I can't tell you how much time I spent looking for it, knowing it was here SOMEWHERE, but just not seeing it and not able to remember where I had put it. I eventually found it right out in the open in the dining room. I found the batteries, too, yesterday. In my purse. Good grief.

After I finally solved the missing batteries mystery I was free and clear to work on Sunday School and VLB service. James made our new appointments last week and I have been relieved from WMB and appointed to VLB. Wa-Hoo!!! Is it okay to wa-hoo an appointment loss?! It feels so good to NOT be the WMB leader. I know that sounds terrible, but I was just really ready for a new focus, you know? I've been WMBing it for a whole lot of years now and I felt like I was just kind of saying the same thing over and over again. I'm excited about the VLB work, even though we don't have any VLB's other than James and me. :-) We've got some potential and I'm excited about working witht that. :-)

We had good services today, although Sunday School was a disaster. We use a spare room at Sister Galaviz's house and I had the brilliant idea of PAINTING this morning. I had brought a vinyl tablecloth to spread on the floor and it did it's job of sparing Sister Galaviz's carpet. For THAT I am very thankful! I don't know why I hadn't thought to bring trash bags for the kids to wear while they painted; I somehow just thought it would be okay since they were going to painting just a little tiny thing. HA. Sam slopped greenish-blue paint on my peachy-orange colored skirt right off. I went to the bathroom to wash it off and came back to find paint on Sam's pants, shirt, tie, and suit jacket. Aaaauuuugggghhhhh!!! What a dope!!! We never did finish the crafts. We spent the rest of the "class" cleaning up our clothes and washing the paint off of everybody's hands. No matter. The crafts had nothing whatsoever to do with our lesson! Ha! I couldn't come up with anything to do with the story of Jacob and Leah and Rachel and then his wrestling with the angel. So I talked about him having great perseverance, in both instances! We made some fall leaves and talked about trees persevering through the long winter even after sad things happen like loosing their leaves. I know: LAME. That's okay, the kids don't know it! Then we were going to talk about Columbus (we just had his holiday, you know) persevering and making it all the way to "discover" America. We were in the middle of making tiny Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria's when the paint got out of hand and we had to quit. The kids didn't even know what we were making or that it had anything to do with Columbus! Ha! Maybe we'll get a chance to finish them up tomorrow.

My VLB service went okay tonight, I think--although it was quite short. I'm notorious for having very, very short services (I just don't have that much to SAY, you know?!), but it seems like they've been stretching out longer lately for one reason or another. In lieu of true-blue VLB's, Joe read a scripture for me, Katie led songs, and Sam took up the offering. I talked about the sons of the prophets eating the pottage with the wild gourds in it and crying out to Elisha that there was "death in the pot." They didn't know they were eating anything dangerous until it was too late. The young people in the world today are doing the very same thing--partaking of so many things that will lead to their distruction, but they don't even know it. Elisha knew the remedy though. He simply said, "Then bring meal" and had it thrown into the pot. Meal is the main ingredient of bread, so I talked about Jesus being the Bread of Life and how He is the only thing that can save us from the poison of this world. When young people finally realize that their lives are not turning out the way they had thought and that the things they're partaking of are actually destroying them, they will cry out for help. When they do, we need to be ready with the solution--the Bread of Life! It made great sense in my mind--I just hope it came across clear enough that the dots connected for everybody else tonight! Ha!

We stood outside and visited for a little while after church tonight, which was so nice. Came home and let the kids have a snack before bed instead of dinner. Got everybody in their pj's, teeth brushed and in bed, then I went back to the dishes. Turned and looked at the clock and saw it was only 7:55!!! HA! Bedtime is 8:30 around here, so the kids really got gyped. It just FELT later than that--and the clock in the kids' room is still flashing the wrong time from another momentary power outage yesterday. I didn't tell 'em. What they don't know won't hurt 'em, I say! ;-)

And that's about it! Mom gets here on Tuesday and then it's work, work, work! :-) So I've got tomorrow to try to get the house cleaned up a little bit and HOPEFULLY get all caught up on the laundry and ironing. No problem except for one tiny little hitch. I think James is going to want me to be caulking and staining the new log siding tomorrow! Hhmmm... Guess we'll see who's jobs take priority, hu?! ;-)

SOOOOOOOO PROUD!!!

2008-10-17T21:44:00.009-06:00

And just as achy!!! Ha! It's been a VERY productive day today. We didn't get a LOT of projects done, but the ones we did were BIG!!! :-)

Things started off normal enough with breakfast, cleaning up and devotions. I sent the kids off to play, thinking we'd gather again at 11:00 for school. HA! Never saw a school book today. I knew James would be needing my help, but I didn't realize how much help he'd be needing!

It was time to set up the walls that he had built out in the garage. One wall really, but in two sections--a 6' section and a 10' section. No, wait. The first project was ridding ourselves of the garage door, piece by piece. Then we got the rail and everything else out of there. After that we spent, oh, quite some time (!) wrestling the two wall sections into place! Ha! James did a GREAT job though and the wall fits really good! He even built the window hole just right and we slid it right into place. And get this: everything is LEVEL!!! Not perfectly level, but the bubble stays between the lines on the level, so we're GOOD!!! :-) I sound almost as surprised as James did the other day when we tested the window in the hole in the wall for it (while it was still laying on the garage floor). It slid perfectly into place and with the most astonished voice James said, "It fits!!!" Almost like he was confused by the fact that he'd done it right! Ha!

This is what it looks like from the inside. This will be the boys' room eventually. Maybe by Christmas??? :-)

The boys love having their own tools to work with. They really don't have their OWN yet, but we let the borrow some to keep them occupied on days like today!

James and I didn't really have an expectations of getting much more done after getting the wall up and in place. But somehow we just jumped right into the next project, which was putting up the log siding to match the rest of the house.

This is a picture of the house when we first went to look at it. You can see the mountain man we bought it from there in the garage, along with all of his junk.

This is what the house looked like this afternoon once we got the wall up and the window installed.

And this is what it looked like a few hours later! Wa-Hoo!!!
We'll be staining the new logs to match the others--and then resealing the whole house. It REALLY needs it!

It was a long a grueling day, but sooooooo fulfilling! My back was so sore and achy, but I soaked in a nice, hot bath for a while tonight and feel great now. :-) I am just sooooo proud of us! I mean, this was BIG!!! I still think of us as teen-agers... wait. I still think of ME as a teenager (I always say that James was born 80 years old! Ha!) and I still feel that way most of the time, and it just seems like the coolest thing that my husband and I just BUILT A WALL! Ha! Silly to some folks, I'm sure, but it just feels so bizarre and amazing that we were able to DO something like that--and it looks pretty good, I think! :-)

We finished up just before dark and came in for a late dinner. Ravioli for the kids and scrambled egg and ham and cheese sandwhich for James. I didn't really eat, just munched. It's been a long and tiring day. But I'm so proud of us! Have I mentioned that?! ;-)

Ah, yes! I saw the picture on Emilee's blog of her gorgeous trees and thought I should post a picture of mine:

Ha! The baby aspen trees James ordered for me came yesterday, so I planted them today in the middle of our other projects. I've got my very own little aspen grove! Ha! Now given, they're not quite as impressive as Emilee's maple yet... Ha! I have great hope that these sad little twigs will someday be beautiful white aspen trees with brilliant golden leaves in the fall. :-) --Look this little guy even has a leaf already! Ha!

And here's one of the roses from out front. Pretty, hu?

Seems strange to me to have roses in October, but we're enjoying them!

And that's about it from here! Hope everybody has a really great weekend. :-)

So Much for Blogging Every Day!

2008-10-16T23:42:00.001-06:00

Oh, well. I made it ALMOST a week. It didn't do any good anyway, really. I somehow had thought that perhaps if one of us got all crazy and was actually posting something new every day that everybody else--or even a few--would say, "Hey, that's nifty! I think I'll give it a try, too!" It didn't nab any extra comments either. So much for a Blog Revival, hu, Amy?! ;-)

The real reason I didn't blog yesterday is because I didn't wanna. Just didn't feel like it. Truth be known, we had a pretty rough day around here yesterday. I had one of those Mom meltdowns. I HATE THOSE. It seems to happen at least once or twice a year around here. You have this overwhelming feeling that your kids have got to be the worst kids on the planet and you have TOTALLY failed in all of your efforts to train them right. They had a real doosey of a day yesterday and I toppled right over the egde. They haven't been listening very well lately and they've begun griping, whining or in some other way pitching a fit over simple little commands like, "Clean your room." Couple that with just flat-out badness (like two of them mysteriously disappearing yesterday at the horse lady's house while the other one was riding--come to find out they'd climbed up on the roof of the stable and were playing around up there!) and I've just HAD IT, you know?! I talked it over with James and we decided on a few things. I made a visit to the kids' room first. Then Dad went. Then we sat down and made a list--with the kids' input--of all of the House Rules. I don't know why, but I'm hoping that there's something about seeing it in written that will be more effective than hearing it in spoken! Ha!

Along with that list, I made up a list of chores for the kids. Our bad day started off yesterday when I went to their bedroom and found several shirts and slacks (that I had ironed and hung up) knocked carelessly to the floor and trampled upon. I decided that I'm DONE. If only Katie were a little older I'd put her in charge of all of the kid ironing! I can't do that yet, so I decided that they're going to start pitching in with all of the other household chores. I've always called them to help with the chores, but it's just been sporadic--every now and then when I'd holler for them. Mostly, I do things just like my Mom always did: by myself because it's so much faster and easier than having kids "help" you! I always said I wouldn't be that way ("Better to train them to do it from the very beginning than try to teach them later--when they feel like chores are a punishment of some kind instead of just a natural part of life"), but I failed! So now we're having to start all over again and try to reprogram them to be useful, helpful little children instead of selfish little leeches who do nothing but eat and play and wait for other people to serve them and clean up after them. (Is that too severe??? NAH!!!) Anyway, it's REALLY, REALLY bad timing. Mom will be here in just 5 days and then all of our newly established rules and regulations will go right down the tubes. For starters, I'll be too busy painting and wallpapering my life away with Mom to oversee and enforce the newly established rules. Secondly, you can't take the true liberty you otherwise would to train your children in the presence of a grandparent--you know how they are! ~sigh~ Oh well. Maybe it won't be as bad as I think. HA!

Here are Katie and Joe, checking out the new way of life.

Today has been quite productive. I took my bath, then got the afore mentioned lists printed out and went over the new rules with the kids, had devotions with them, got the kitchen cleaned up and the whole house vacuumed, helped the kids with their new "regular" chores, finished up school with them at about 1:30, went to the library with them this afternoon, then BTI service at Sister Grimes' house tonight. Came home and finished up on the ironing that I've been putting off for two weeks now. It took a few hours, but The Princess Bride helped! I haven't watched that movie in AGES. I don't know if the movie is fantastic as I think it is, or if it's just the memories of all the fun we had all those years ago that make it so great! Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Soooooo many classic lines!

The only other excitement of the day was when our newly groomed poodle ($30 just yesterday for the grooming!) got into SOMETHING. Don't know what it was, but they were sticky and matted real good into his dumb poofy head and fluffy ears. Ggrrrrr.

I managed to work most of them out in about 10 minutes, I think, so that's not as bad as it could have been. Still, why didn't he do it the day BEFORE his haircut??? Dumb dog!

That's it for now. I'm going to try to get some good rest tonight. James needs my help tomorrow setting up the WALLS THAT HE'S BEEN BUILDING! Wa-Hoo!!! Things are actually HAPPENING out in the garage! Hopefully there will be lots of before and after pictures to post in the upcoming weeks. :-)

Puzzle Day 2008

2008-10-14T21:22:00.016-06:00

Wa-Hoo!!! Today was IT!!! And a grand and glorious Puzzle Day it was. :-)

I'd tell you about yesterday, but I can't remember anything about it. All I know for sure is that we didn't have ANY TEARS during the spelling test! Another big Wa-Hoo!!! I had made Katie promise to try her very best not to cry, no matter what. As it turns out, she aced the test and Joe missed two! Whoa!!! Go, Katie! ;-)

James read on the Internet last night that the high today was supposed to be 41 degrees. Wa-Hoo! (How many "Wa-Hoo's" can you use in one post?! Let's find out, shall we???) We woke up today to a very chilly house. Can you guess??? --You're right: Wa-Hoo!!! I made muffins for breakfast and shortly afterward it began to SNOW. Yes, snow! Here where I live! In October!!! ~sigh~ There must be snow in heaven. Snow and horses. ;-) We all put on some nice, cozy clothes and James built a fire. We had devotions, but Joe spent most of the time staring out the window instead of paying attention. I finally cut it a little short (most preachers don't know when they've lost their audience; I'm not a preacher, but I know when I've lost 'em!), we went through our memory verses, sang our songs, and prayed. Then the kids got all bundled up and out they went! There was hardly anything on the ground--I'd be surprised if there was ever a whole inch of snow on the ground at once--but it didn't matter. They were soooooo excited!!!

The big, fluffy flakes were sufficient to declare Puzzle Day, so James took advantage of the opportunity to play Christmas music without me pitching a fit. :-) I'm a very adamant don't-play-Christmas-music-before-Thanksgiving-or-you-spoil-all-the-fun-of-it kind of person. Puzzle Day is the one and only exception. It occurs on the first snow of the year and it is a regular holiday at our house--a celebration of the wonderful things that are soon to come, so we try to partake of all of them in just that one day, kind of like ordering the sampler platter at your favorite restaurant. A true Puzzle Day means that all of your other plans are thrown out the window, you dress in nice, cozy clothes, build a nice, toasty fire, eat warm, hearty meals, sip hot spiced cider, listen to jolly Christmas music and put together a good puzzle. What could be better?! I've been loving ALL of it today! :-) :-) :-)

Anyway, I cleaned the house up a bit (I had left the kitchen trashed the night before for some reason--I hate waking up to that!) while the kids and dog ran wild outside. I sent James to the store for a few things, but I had forgotten a couple (!) so when he got home I hopped in the Envoy and made a quick run to Charlie's for celery and an onion. $1.74 total. When's the last time you spent only $1.74 at the grocery store?!

I came home and made potato soup for lunch and James made some grilled ham and cheese sandwiches to go with it. Yum! Immediately after getting that cleaned up I started on corn chowder for dinner. :-) We'll have lots of soup the next couple of days--it's supposed to stay chilly throughout the week. (Wa-Hoo!) I also made some hot spiced cider because that's what you're supposed to do on Puzzle Day. All three kids worked together on a 100 piece Chritmas puzzle of Katie's while I worked in the kitchen. It wasn't too long before they were back outside enjoying the snow though.

Sam built this...very original snowman! Ha!

Katie and Joe were more interested in snowball fights, particularly with their Dad--who was trying to get some work done in the garage. (He doesn't know how to properly Puzzle Day it!) James was impressed with Katie's perfectly round snowball. It would almost be a shame to throw it at somebody and mess it up! I think she asked him to put it in the freezer so she could save it for another day. That, of course, made me think of that Bill Cosby tape we used to have when I was a kid. "Junior Barnes... Oh, Junior Barnes... You gunkie!!!" HA!

Joe doesn't vie for the purtiest snowball, just the biggest.

Every little while I would hear James giggling and I'd look up from my work in the kitchen to see him running as fast as he could through the garage to come back into the house. Then he'd turn around and say, "Can't get me--I'm in the house now!" HA! I said, "JAMES! That's how the KIDS are supposed to play! You'd think it would be them nailing you with a snowball, then running into the 'safe house' and taunting you--not vise versa!" Ha! Katie and Joe kept calling him a scaredy cat and begging him to come back outside, but they were always sorry when he finally did.

Ha! I LOVE THIS PICTURE!!!

By the time I finished getting the corn chowder all mixed up and heated through I was wiped out! I sent the kids to their room for quiet time and I was able to fiddle around on the Internet for a few minutes, then grab a 20 minute nap. Perfect! The kids got up and headed back out to play and I started mixing up some sugar cookies. I called them in to help me cut them out and frost them. We had bought some new cookie cutters a few weeks ago, so we were able to make leaves, acorns and apples--and we even had some fallish sprinkles, too!

Oh, yeah! James decided to let the kids watch the Garfield holiday shows today. He started them with the Thanksgiving one this morning, then the next one in the afternoon just before nap time. The corn chowder was sooooooooo good. I used french bread to make garlic cheese toast to go with it. YUM!!! Afterwards we all had another cookie...

And the kids settled into our bedroom to watch the third and final Garfield show--the Christmas one. Katie was way ahead of the rest of the crowd and ready to go!

The boys were still in the kitchen with the cookies. (Look at my new canisters, Mom! I love 'em!!!)

It's a little ironic really that I didn't even see a puzzle until 7:00 on Puzzle Day! I was too busy cooking, baking and doing dishes all day to get to it before then! Puzzle Day is a whole lot more work when you're the Mom, that's for sure! Ha! It used to be all about enjoying all of the great edibles and doing a puzzle, nothing more. Now it's about making sure everybody else gets to enjoy all of those things--and if you have any spare time at the end of the day you can join them! It's been lots of fun though, even with all the cooking and cleaning. And my house has smelled so good today!!!

I started my puzzle while the kids were watching Garfield tonight, but it's a 1,000 piece-er and I'm not going to finish tonight. I thought about staying in there and doing the whole thing, but Katie is quite good at puzzles and really, really enjoys doing them so I figured I'd wait and let her help me do it tomorrow. Some good, fun mother/daughter time. :-) We were able to get just a little bit done before they went to bed.

James took this picture of Sam with his "peg leg." It's ALWAYS some kind of a costume with that kid!

And this is what the puzzle looked like when I quit for the night.

~sigh~ It feels so good to have taken the day off from the normal schedule and just HAVE FUN all day! It's pretty cool that even homeschooled kids get a day off now and then for a "snow day"--not because they couldn't make it to the school, just because Mom says so! ;-) It's been GREAT. The only thing that would've made it any better would have been to have Mom here to help out with the puzzle. And the cooking and cleaning! HA! Kidding--I'm just kidding! Anyway, it's been a truly grand day. ~sigh~ I'm so happy!!! The snow is all gone now, but we HAD some!

Wa-Hooooooo!!!

The Adventure Comes to an End

2008-10-12T20:50:00.011-06:00

It all started (you know you're in for a biggie with an intro like that! Ha!) yesterday morning at about 6:00. Actually, some background information might be necessary...

Ever heard of the Balloon Fiesta? It's an annual event here in Albuquerque where people from all over the world (for real!) come to see hot air balloons that have also come from all over the world. It's a spectacular sight and usually draws an attendace of nearly a million people. Can you imagine?! Good luck getting a motel room! It lasts for 9 days and has "mass ascensions" each morning where ALL of the balloons (750 or more) lift off in two "waves."

This is our first year living in the area and somehow we let the first 8 days go by without ever heading into town in the morning to see the balloons. Yesterday was the final day and we thought it would just be flat-out lazy and neglegent to live in the Albuquerque area and go through the entire Balloon Fiesta without ever seeing a balloon. Sooooo...

I got up just after 6:00 yesterday morning and got myself ready to go, then started dragging kids out of bed and getting them ready. "Mom, what are you doing?" "Mom, why are you getting us up in the middle of the night?" "What balloons? Mom, it's dark! Don't you know we can't see balloons in the dark?!"

There were so any gripes that one particular young man was banned from speaking again until we got into town. It was promising to be a fun day right off the bat! Ha!

To make a long story short (the Brother Tanny way! Ha!), we drove all the way up to the Fiesta Park and never did see a balloon. We kept driving around expecting to see hundreds, or even just dozens, of balloons any minute and finally thought to turn on the radio to see if we could find out what was going on. After about 15 minutes we heard somebody say, "Even though the Mass Ascension has been cancelled for today..." HA! We did it! We really did it! We managed to miss the ENTIRE Balloon Fiesta--living only about 20 miles away! Is that amazing, or what?! Hundreds and hundreds of balloons flying all week long and we never saw a single one!!! Joe (the particularly gripy one) was aghast. "You mean we got up in the middle of the night for NUTHIN'?!" And, "You mean people came from all over the world to see balloons, and they get to see... NUTHIN'?!?!?" Ha! We cheered him right up though. We took him to Shoney's for a breakfast buffet.

Hhmmm. He doesn't look too thrilled in this picture, but that's only because he hadn't made it to the buffet yet. And we did manage to see a few hot air balloons after all. See--look!!!

I had thought to dress Katie for the occassion in the balloon socks she bought with her own money last year. Shoney's had balloon decorations up. And Sam drew a picture for us. So it wasn't a total loss! ;-)

We stopped by a thrift store and found a few good pieces of kid clothes, so that was GREAT. Then we went to Hobby Lobby so James--I mean WE (~ahem~)--could look at the Fall and Christmas stuff. We made it out with only one new snowman this time. ;-) James let Katie pick some scrapbook papers out of the 10 for $1 stack, too. Made a very happy girl.

By the time we made it home at about 11:00 James and I were shot! Ha! We laid down and dozed for a few minutes while Katie and Sam made cards with her new papers and Joe romped outside. We got up and had lunch, then I spent an hour or two getting ready for Sunday School while the kids had quiet time.

After that I headed back to the kids' closet. I had started cleaning it out two days before, but got distracted and this was my first opportunity to get back to it! So the kids cleaned their bedroom and sorted through the toy box while I rooted through their closet and pulled out all of the clothes that are too small for them and straightened up everything else.

I have to show this picture because it CRACKS ME UP! Katie had been given a whole bunch of clothes a couple of months ago, some that fit her now and some that she'll have to grow into over the next few years. She was trying some of them on for me as I sorted the closet so I'd know what belonged in what stack. She found this sweater and decided she wanted to try it on even though it was obviously way too big. It may not be as hilarious...

Until you realize that those are LEG WARMERS she's wearing with it! I didn't know it had leg warmers with it and Katie obviously didn't know what leg warmers were... !!! That means, of course, that under the sweater were a couple inches of upper thigh and then some little pink ghandi's! HA!

As we were finishing up the cleaning that evening, we lost electricity due to a bad storm. So we lit some candles and Joe's little toy lantern and finished up the job. The power didn't come back on and so the kids ended up taking their baths by candle and lantern light, too! Ha!

We got the kids to bed at 8:30, but there was still no power. I had a WMB service to prepare for, but that's quite difficult when it's too dark to read your Bible or write anything down and, of course, you can't use a computer. There was really... NOTHING TO DO! It didn't take long for me to be bored out of my gourd. I realize that people lived without electricity for thousands of years... but I ain't one of 'em! Ha! I picked up my cell phone and started scrolling through the names. I decided to call my cousin Lyndi. I only talk to her about once a year and it seemed like time. ;-) We talked for about 2 hours and it was great to be able to catch up a bit.

I had this dread feeling that I was in for a rough night. I knew I needed to blow out all of the candles before I went to bed and that meant the house would be pitch black throughout the night. The kids (Joe, in particular) never handles total darkness very well and we keep a nightlight in the room for him. I also like to have a dim little light in the living room/kitchen area in case I need to get up for anything in the night, so the kids are used to that, too. I decided to sleep on the couch so I could intercept the little weenie on his way to our bedroom if he did happen to wake up in the night.

I'm not sure what time it was, but sure enough Joe woke up and was bumbling his way into our room "just to check" and make sure we were there. I caught him and told him to go back to bed. "But Mom, the whole house is dark!" I reminded him that there was no power and he wanted to know if I'd light a candle. Nope, can't go to sleep with a candle burning. I finally told him to get his pillow and blanket and come sleep on the floor in the room with me. I really thought that would settle it. HA. Every few minutes I would doze off... just as Joe would say, "Mom? Mom, you there?" "YES, Joe--Go to sleep." Just as I'd doze off again he'd call out to check and make sure I was there. "Mom, I can't see you--I just wanted to make sure you're still there." After several great awakenings (!) I assured him that I would BE THERE the rest of the night. I was getting rather agitated and told him to LEAVE ME ALONE and GO TO SLEEP. Thereafter I would just SENSE something. I'd turn over and sure enough he'd be standing there by the couch, staring at me!!! "I can't see you, Mom--I was just checking!" Aaaaauuuuurrrrrgggggghhhhh!!! I was probably way too easy on him (should have "taken care of business" real good a few times and made him go back to his own bed), but I remember being a kid and what some of those fears are like. They're very REAL when you're young, you know?! Anyway, I had a very long, irritable, and restless night!

We got up this morning and there was still no power! I couldn't believe it! It was cloudy outside, so it didn't really light the house up very much. So we took turns usuing Joe's little toy lantern to find our clothes in the closets and get dressed! (Thanks again for that lantern, Tammy--it was a real life saver! Ha!)

We do have hot water (propane, thank goodness!), but I didn't wash my hair because I knew I wouldn't be able to blow dry or curl it! So I went off of yesterday's curl. ;-)

We had a good service this morning and I was SO GLAD that I had done all of my Sunday School prep (collected craft supplies and printed out worksheets) before the power went out yesterday! After church we grabbed a bucket of chicken at KFC and brought it home to eat. STILL NO POWER! Can you believe it?! Crazy!!! We ate our chicken and everybody else went to their beds for nap time and I sat by the window with the best light to put together my WMB service! I've NEVER been so NOT PREPARED before!!! But God REALLY, REALLY helped me and in about an hour and a half I had 6 pages of hand written notes (a FIRST for me--I've always typed 'em out before!) and felt really good about it. Praise the Lord!

This is what the kids accomplished during quiet time...

We had a good service tonight and I hope it was a blessing to everybody. I talked about being an EXAMPLE and being able to say, as Paul did, "The things that you've learned and received and heard and seen in me, DO." I talked about being "a pattern of good works" and how we are to be an example to others of exactly what a Christian should be. Can we say to others, "Follow me as I follow Christ," or would we be a little scared of how they'd turn out?! It gave me lots to think about anyway! Actually, I had to apologize to Joe and James before I could even do the service! Ha! I was just a wee bit snappy with James when--after he'd had a good, full night's sleep while I was up all night listening to "Hey, Mom, you still there???"--we came home and HE stretched out for a nap and had the nerve to say to me while I was cleaning the kitchen, "You gonna get to work on your service, or what?" I'm not sure I was a real good pattern of good works in my response. I was joking when I was slugging him... but only partially! Ha! Then there was Joe. I wasn't feeling very kindly toward him today after the little creep kept me up all night last night. So I apologized to him, too. I told him I was sorry for not being so nice to him... but if he knew what was good for him he'd leave me alone and let me sleep tonight, lights or no lights! Ha!

We went to Target after church tonight to buy a lantern--a REAL one instead of a toy like Joe's. James wasn't too thrilled with the price, but I insisted. I told him the only way to ensure that the power would be back on tonight would be to spend the money on a lantern. If we DIDN'T buy one then the power would still be out and we'd wish we'd bought one. I was right! We bought a lantern, came home and didn't need it after all! After a full 24 hours (is that bizarre, or what?!) our electricity is up and going again! I told James we ought to leave the lights off tonight and go ahead and use the lantern since we bought it. ;-)

And that's about it. I've laughed quite a bit at the kids today (after I got to feeling more kindly, that is! Ha!), but I can't think of what for now. It'll come to me later. Anyway, that's what we've been up to the past couple of days! I was disappointed because I was really, really trying to blog 7 days in a row--I'm not sure I've ever done that before. But you can't blog without electricity, so it threw me off. And I was so close! Oh well. Hope you all had a great and adventuresome weekend as well! :-)

Okay, a Katie Story

2008-10-10T20:46:00.003-06:00

The kids overheard me talking the other day about Obama and his anti-homeschooling sentiments. It's been quite a topic of discussion around here ever since and the kids are more anti-Obama than ever. Yesterday Katie said, "Mom, if Obama does become the president and says we have to go to public school," then she crossed her arms defiantly and stated firmly, "I am NOT going, and that's all there is to it. I am NOT going to public school, and if he says I have to, then..." She shrugged her shoulders and said in an "oh, well" tone, "I'll just go." Then she followed up with, "But I am NOT going to make friends there!" Like I said, it doesn't transfer well on paper (or screen). You would have had to have seen her expressions and heard her voice inflections to truly appreciate it. ;-)

She's also been providing lots of laughs during school lately. I can't remember the last time we had a spelling test without tears around here. She spelled everythiing right today except the one she went blank on: above. She tried two or three different spellings down at the bottom of the page, but finally gave up and turned her paper in with that line blank. It was the first word, so it didn't set a very good mood for the rest of the test. Joe missed one word today, so they "tied," if you must look at it like that. Still, it's no consolation to her. She's still a miserable failure because she can't ever seem to get EVERY WORD right. It's sooooo pitiful that I can't help but laugh at her, even when I'm trying to be kind. When I handed her paper back I said, "You missed 8, Katie, and only got 2 right." I really thought she'd know I was joking. WOW. I only thought I'd seen uncontrollable tears before. Even after I finally got through to her that I was only kidding--that she'd spelled every word right (except the one she left blank)--it took quite some time for her to come back to us. That kid wears me out! Ha!

In English the other day she was supposed to take a verb (already selected for her) and write two sentences in the present tense, one with a helping verb and one without. Such as: "My mother IS POURING juice" and "My mother POURS juice." I gave her that example, then tried to help her with the second sentence. "The verb is CHECK, Katie. So if 'My mother IS CHECKING my paper' is the first sentence, then the second sentence would say 'My mother...'" "Plays checkers???," she said. HA! What a nerd!

And my all time favorite. She was supposed to fill in the blanks with certain vocabulary words. She wasn't familiar with the word "scent" and I was getting a bit frustrated that she wasn't drawing the connection between that word and the others used in the sentence: odor and aroma. She finally said, "But, Mom, I don't know what odd-ORE or AIR-uh-muh mean!" HA! I laughed so hard on that one that she finally had to join in. It's always best if she can just laugh with me!

Well, I guess that was several little Katie stories! :-) She's a good kid and brings lots of laughs.

Regular day around here today. Tuna casserole for dinner--made Joe very, very happy. Finished up on the laundry AGAIN. Maybe I'll even iron tonight. Or... maybe not. :-)

Hhmmm. Seems like there was something else I was going to blog about, but I can't think of it right now so I'll spare you any more rambling. It's pointless anyway, since Blogville seems to be only a temporary summer home for most folks any more. I usually don't complain about the lack of comments because I'm one of the very, very worst commenters in the world. But, COME ON! This has been crazy! Not just on my blog--everywhere!!! We're going to have to contact the authorities at NARR if things don't change soon. That's the Neighborhood Association of Rules and Regulations, for those of you who have forgotten. Then we'll all be sorry.

;-)

I Have Nothing to Say

2008-10-09T22:58:00.002-06:00

No, really--I don't. I'm only here to impress my mother. I figure 4 days in a row would be pretty wowing. So, Mom, are you wowed???

Besides, having nothing to say has never stopped me before. ;-)

Hhmmm. We had big plans today, but most of them didn't pan out. We got into school a little earlier than usual because we were going to head into town early for church tonight to take care of some business ahead of time.

We were planning on voting today (better now than next month when the rest of the world tries to cram it in), but then we realized we'd have to go into downtown Albuquerque to do it. It's not worth that, so we decided to wait until next Saturday when we can go vote at a little office here in the mountains.

We were also planning on going to Home Depot to check out ceramic tile for the bathroom. But then we got to figuring how much it was going to cost for the smaller tiles (12"-ers would be way too hard in this strange little room) and it was wa-a-a-a-a-ay more than we thought we wanted to pay, so we re-evaluated our plan and decided to have wood laminate installed in there as well. That, of course, required another call to good ole' Wade, the flooring guy. We're practically old buddies by now, what, with all the chatting we've been doing lately. I think I'll be much happier with this anyway. If I can keep the kids from flooding the bathroom and ruining it, that is.

With those two things marked off the list all we had left to do was go to the library and then grab a bite to eat before church. We should have known better than to try to eat before service--Sister Grimes' daughter always seems to have plenty of something cooked, baked, or bought to serve everybody afterwards. Tonight it was taquito's. ANYWAY, we were able to spend a decent amount of time at the library, which is so much better than having to rush. With Joe along we need all the extra time we can manage! That kid will take 10 minutes to pick out a book. He's big into looking things up on the computer and it drives me crazy. It wouldn't be so bad if he really needed the computer, but everything he looks up is on the same shelf: lizards, snakes, centipedes... He'll find a book on the computer, then follow the numbers to that very same shelf over and over again. Why not just go look on that shelf?! Somehow he's not interested in any of them unless he finds them on the computer first. He got plenty of creepy-crawly books again this time. Katie got some how-to-draw books, as did Sam. There will be lots of interesting pictures of dinosaurs and Garfield laying around the house this week.

We drove into town and spun around in circles for quite some time trying to decide where to eat. We finally ended up at Dion's Pizza just in time to scarf down one piece before rushing over to Sister Grimes' house for service. We had another good Bible study--I think we've only got one lesson left and we'll be done with this BTI book and move on to the next.

And that's about it for our not-so-exciting day. Katie has said a few oh-so-funny or adorable things in the past few days, but I'm not sure they'd transfer well on paper. She's so expressive and it's hard to recreate it with words alone, you know?! Oh well. I'd better start taking pictures again, I guess. They always get the point across with minimal effort. :-)

Worn Out and Oh, So Happy

2008-10-08T21:12:00.002-06:00

It's been a good day here today, but I am exhausted! I had devotions with the kid-o's, then James took Sam to town with him for a few hours. I was able to get our sheets changed and my "desk" cleared off. The pile had gotten pretty deep and was in danger of toppling. Katie and Joe did pretty well in school today, but were kind of slow about it. I was able to get some cleaning done while they were at it, as well as e-mailing the Western Skies to "the girls" for translation and calling the guy who's going to be installing our kitchen floor to reschedule (his idea) and add a little to the job (my idea). Pretty productive day, all in all.

The real excitement came at 4:00 though. 4:00 on Wednesdays is horse time! The whole family loaded up this time and drove to Staci's house for the kids' lessons. I was sure to wear a good, wide skirt because Staci told me last week that I could get on and ride for a few minutes this time, just for fun. !!!!!!! I can't begin to express the joy of it all!!! IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!! Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've been on a horse?! I think the last time I rode a horse was with Amanda and Josh Newman and Johnny Witty (Manda's dad had several horses)--I would've been about 19, I think. That's, like, 12 years!!! It's probably a sin to go so long without riding a horse. Anyway, I was soooooo excited!!! Even just WALKING was fun. There's something that just feels so right about being in the saddle. Staci said I could trot or canter if I wanted to and she gave me a few pointers as we went along. ~sigh~ There must surely be horses to ride in heaven. It is just soooooooo fun! Even for a poor girl like me who's never had the opportunity to get really good at it. I felt like I bounced around a bit too much at first, but got into the cantering groove pretty well after a minute. It just feels so cool!!! All is well with the world when you're atop a horse, that's all there is to it. It was such a grand and glorious thing and such a terrible and cruel thing all in one. I mean, I LOVED IT... but now I want to kick the kids out of horse lessons and ME take them instead! Ha!

When they finally wrestled me off the horse (ha!), we all headed into Albuquerque. James and Sam had been to Lowe's earlier in the day and found that they are clearing out all of their wallpapers and EVERYTHING in stock was on clearance. BIG TIME CLEARANCE! So I had measured every room in the house this afternoon and wrote down all of the dimensions. We were able to get wallpaper for the bathroom, the utility room, Katie's bedroom, the boys' bedroom, and some that we might use in our bedroom. (Anything we don't end up needing can be returned for a full refund.) Wow!!! Because things were SO CHEAP (some as little as $3.83 per double roll) we will be papering a lot more than I would have otherwise considered. Wallpaper is usually SO EXPENSIVE and we actually found several things that we really liked. What were we to do?! We came away with a cart FULL of wallpaper and borders. I had told myself I was going to do a little more painting and a little less papering in this house... Oh well!!! There are certain things that wallpaper can do that you couldn't recreate with paint, so we're capitalizing on that. I just hope if (when) we ever go to sell this house potential buyers will not be anti-wallpaper! Ha!

We spent quite a while in the aisle there at Lowe's pouring over the papers and working the numbers. When we were finally finished my brain was totally fried. I plopped down in the van and when it was all said and done... I could feel myself on that horse again! Ha! What a great day. I got to ride a horse (really ride, not sit on a horse that is moseying along single-file behind 8 others) and we got some GREAT deals on some really cute wallpapers--and then we went to Panda Express and I had orange chicken for dinner. What could be better?! ~sigh~ Life is so grand. :-)

Look, Mom--three days in a row! ;-)

I'm Going to Do It!

2008-10-07T22:43:00.003-06:00

I'm going to blog tonight!!! I'm really not in the mood, but I'm on a roll. And I'm not tired enough to go to bed yet, but not ambitious enough to do anything productive.

It's been a good day today, in spite of my failure ALL DAY LONG to call and wish Tammy a happy birthday. Aaaarrgghhhh! All of the best intentions in the world... they never get me anywhere! I'm just glad she's got some GOOD friends out there 'cuz if I was all she had it would be a sad, sad thing! Ha! She finally called me this afternoon so I could sing to her, but I was right in the middle of saving a lizard and was covered in olive oil and sap and was trying to stave off over-excitable children from doing more damage. So Tammy still only got a distracted birthday wish. I'll make up for it here:

I LOVE YOU, TAMMY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!! YOU'RE THE BESTEST FRIEND ANYBODY COULD EVER ASK FOR AND I WISH YOU A MILLION AND TWO JOYS IN THE COMING YEAR--YOU DESERVE THAT AND SO MUCH MORE!!!

A little over the top? Probably. Does it rid me of my guilt? Nah, not really. In any case, I really do hope you had a GREAT birthday, Tammy!

Aside from being a little hectic, my day was pretty good. I can't remember what happened this morning, I just remember it was another late start. We did manage to start school just a little after 11:00 (my goal is 11:00--it works GREAT), so that was good. Stopped for lunch. I love it that the kids are old enough to pretty much take care of their own lunch now. I'm working on training them to clean up the mess afterwards now! (Wish me luck!)

School was put on hold after that so I could help James pour cement. I don't know how to explain what we did--you just have to see it. James built the form this morning for a "footer" (I don't really know what a footer is, but it seems like the right word to use) for the wall we'll be building out in the garage--the one that will go on the outside wall where the garage door is now. We needed a 6"wide strip of cement going across the opening nice and level to line up with the cement on each side. This is what we'll (he'll) be building the wall on top of. Anyway, we did that today. Being the professionals that we are (this was our first try at cement) we had Katie measuring and pouring water into the wheelbarrow full of cement while James mixed it with a shovel, then scooped it into the form. I was the designated pusher-downer, smoother-outer and leveler-upper. My tool of choice (of necessity) was my hand, clad in a work glove. The glove got a little heavier and a little clumpier as we went along, but we managed! Ha! We also laid a board on top of the cement and tried to press it flat and smooth. It looks... well, it looks about like I would have expected, I guess! Not professional, by any means, but hopefully smooth enough and level enough that the wall won't tip over. That's what we were shooting for. ;-)

The other excitement of the day was of a reptilian nature. Joe came running in the house soooooo excited with those great big blue eyes bulging out. "Mom!!! There's a garter snake in OUR POND--the one we built yesterday for you and Dad! He's in OUR POND!!!" I can't help but adore him when he's so excited about something--he's just so stinkin' cute sometimes!

Katie had a bittersweet day. Bitter in school because Joe out-did her on the spelling test again. I give them a spelling test each day and any words that they miss show up again the next day. Katie does pretty well most of the time, but Joe is an exceptional speller and rarely misses anything. I give them the same 10 words, then tack on a more difficult "bonus" word at the end. Today they both aced the 10, but Katie blew it on the bonus word: Autumn. I figured they'd both blow it, but have it down by tomorrow. But, of course, Joe spelled it correctly. It just KILLS HER when he does something faster or better than she does. I showed her both tests, hers and Joe's, bearing the 100% at the top but it's no consolation at all. She just collapses on the table and the tears start streaming. ~sigh~ WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH HER?! Lectures, punishments, I've tried everything I know to do. I've finally just sort of given up and I tell her to go lay down until she can pull herself together and come back to the table with dry eyes.

Her day greatly improved later on, however, when SHE, not one of the boys, caught a lizard.

That's a first here--they see them often but have never been fast enough to nab one. She had him for quite a while before she realized that one of his hind legs was stuck to his tail with a big glob of hard sap. No wonder she caught him! Oh, that reminds me--I never did blog about her catching a bird a few weeks ago. Joe came flying through the front door with those same bulgy eyes and squeeky excitable voice as the snake announcement from today, saying, "Katie caught a BIRD!!!" James and I ran to the door in disbelief, but it was true. There she stood with a big, fat pigeon in her hands and a huge smile on her face. We listened for a minute as she rattled off the story of how she caught him, then we got to looking and realized that the poor thing only had one wing. The other had been lost in an injury. It was sooooo sad! When we pointed it out everybody's face just fell. Tenderhearted Joe immediately turned away and tried to choke back the tears, then wanted to know what we could do to fix it. James got to looking at it and told the kids that it was obviously an old injury--he'd been living like this for quite some time--so apparently he's been doing okay with just the one wing. Since he can't really fly (although he can flutter quite a bit and get a few feet off the ground), we're hoping that our yard will be a safer place for him than just "out there" somewhere. James always keeps birdseed out and most of it gets knocked to the ground. And, of course, there's the pond. Hershey MIGHT chase him, but would only sniff him if he did catch him. The only real danger would be the cats that sometimes come visiting--and that may be how the poor bird lost its wing in the first place! Anyway, we've seen our little one-winged bird once since we made Katie release him that day and he seems to be doing fine.

Back to the lizard. Katie was determined to save him from the sap, but he was just a little tiny guy and I was afraid she would accidentally rip his little leg off or something. He'd already lost the tip of his tail. I could only imagine the anguish if she DID de-leg him. So I found myself on the front porch with a tray of olive oil, working the sap off of a lizard's leg. The things you do for your kids, I tell ya'! It took about 10 minutes, but I managed to get it all out and I don't think I even broke a toe. ;-) We took him down to the kids little pond and washed the oil off of him, then I gave Katie a jar to keep him in for a little while. She put some grass in it, the boys caught a grasshopper almost as big as the lizard to "feed" it, and Katie found an extra communion cup to use for a water dish. What more could a lizard need?

About an hour later Joe came into the house with a grave expression. "Bad news and terrible news, Mom. Bad news: Katie has a bloody nose. Terrible news: we lost Lizorto." I didn't know he had acquired a name and wasn't able to mask my amusment at the choice. Joe didn't appreciate my laughter, however, and went to seek sympathy elsewhere. It's a rough life around here for lizards and birds and the kids who love them!

That's about it for our day. Stew for dinner. It was good, but not quite as good as last time. Still, it used up some left-overs that otherwise would've been thrown out. I read several more chapters of the Charlie and the Elevator book. It's really quite good! I actually think I'm enjoying it much better than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We've failed to have nap time or quiet time or whatever it is the past few days and it seems to be catching up with Sam. He fell asleep in my lap while I was reading. Katie and Joe were riveted and were DYING to know whether the vermicious knids were going to eat everybody or not. I think we're on chapter 13 now.

James and I watched some of the debate online tonight. For the first time in my life I've really been PRAYING about an election! I go back and forth from a carnal kind of fear that has to be prayed away (fear of our country stealing our rights away--the right to make decisions for your own family concerning schooling and healthcare and who knows what all) to a sort of excitement about "the end" coming and God wrapping this thing up! I pray for God to spare our country a little longer for the sake of our families and our children... but if that's not His will for Him to work a quick work and get us out of here! He knows best and He's in control. No matter what the liberal polls show. ;-)

Wow. When I start talking politics it's time to quit! Hope you all had a great day!

Mosey Monday

2008-10-06T20:01:00.003-06:00

First of all, here's our Sunday School craft from yesterday. We learned about Isaac and Rebekah and how the servant prayed and found Rebekah at the well. We made our wells out of soup cans, construction paper, pipe cleaners, pencils, yarn, and plastic communion cups. It was supposed to be the "cups" from egg cartons, but I had thrown our carton away a few days ago! Anyway, I thought they turned out cute. Sam enjoyed filling his can with water and sending the "bucket" down to retrieve some over and over again. :-)

When I woke up this morning, this is how I found the boys. Piled on Sam's bed with a bunch of toys and books. Joe was reading a book to Sam about King Cobras. (And I know--we've got to paint over those crazy walls! Ha!)

It's been a nice, relaxing day today--a much needed one. In light of all of our recent travels and the time the kids have spent sitting still in church or strapped into a vehicle, I decided it would be best to just let them RUN this morning instead of trying to corral them for school. I was able to get some laundry started and a few odds and ends around the house.

While I was busy in the house, the kids were working hard outside. They took it upon themselves to build a new pond "for Mom and Dad!!!" They were soooooo excited. Cute, hu?! :-)

We finally rounded up the troops and had devotions at about 11:30. Afterwards we had lunch, then headed into school. We took it nice and easy and had a few breaks here and there. We didn't actually finish until about 4:30, which is a new record for us. That's WAY late! That's okay though. We needed to take it nice and slow, I think. I got all of the laundry done, but fizzled out before I ever picked up the iron. Oh well, there's always tomorrow. I did manage a casserole for dinner tonight, but I'm DONE now. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of my evening, but I'm fairly determined that it shouldn't be too productive. Thus the blog! Ha! Katie is playing a game on the computer right now and the boys are just finishing up with their bath. We'll have devotions in a few minutes and get them to bed.

Oh--I forgot. I was in the bedroom today and heard all kinds of crazy racket coming from the living room. I went to check it out and this is what I found--James bouncing a big box violently on his knees.

Of course, it was only a matter of moments before a very giggly Sam emerged, quite dizzy, but having a great time!

And that's about it for our day. And WOW--I posted two days in a row! Yeah, me! :-)

At Long Last!

2008-10-05T23:19:00.003-06:00

Here I am to make up for lost time--and lost pictures! It's going to be in a whole slew of different posts because it's faster to upload through Picasa than any other way, but you can only post four pictures at a time that way. Anyway, we'll give it a shot and see how it all turns out.

These first pictures are of our own personal biking arena. You wouldn't believe how much time the kids have spent spinning circles in the garage since we cleared it out. They're going to be so disappointed when it's finished out and they won't be able to ride there anymore!

This first picture shows the side of the room that will be the boys' bedroom, with bunk beds over in that corner...

Their closet will be in the far corner, and look--that's where Grandmother's mantle will go! Right there on that wall that hasn't been built yet! :-)

And here's the rest of the room. To the right (where that crazy tile is on the wall) is where we're going to put in a bar. No, not THAT kind of bar--like a soda fountain kind! :-) I'm sooooo excited about finishing all of this out. It's going to be sooooo cool!

Like this! :-)

A Few Odds and Ends

2008-10-05T23:18:00.003-06:00

That's what these pictures seem to be! First of all, here's Katie working away on some card or letter for somebody. She spends so much time hunkered over in front of that little itty-bitty nightstand of hers. We've got to get that girl a desk whenever we start working on that bedroom! Ha!

Oh! Ha! This was sooooo funny!!! A snapshot can't possibly capture it--only a video would have done it justice. James had gone out to the garage to watch the kids on their bikes for a little while. It seemed like a good idea to sit on the couch... but after a while I heard him calling for help. He was STUCK! Really!!! He could not get up! Ha! I laughed and laughed and insisted on taking a picture before helping him, as any good wife would. That box was positioned just so, making it impossible for somebody of James' impressive physique to escape. ;-) It took two or three valiant (and gruntful) efforts on my part before he finally made his way out.

We've had "picnics" in the garage a few times recently as well. We're already gathering there as if it IS our den instead of GOING TO BE! Ha!

Not the greatest shot of the fam, but it does show the really cool bed that James picked up super cheap off of Craigslist last week. :-) This is just the footboard--the headboard is about 5' high, I would guess, and sort of twisted and gnarly. I LOVE IT! He paid less for it than we did for our current bed, although this one is WAY cooler. We thought about selling our bed, but I think we may sell Katie's instead and give our set to her for her room. :-)

The Colorado Trip!

2008-10-05T23:13:00.003-06:00

Okay, here we go!

We left for Colorado on Thursday morning, a week and a half ago. It's been long enough that I don't remember much about the trip. I do remember (only because of the picture) that Joe had brought along a pack of those long skinny balloons that you're supposed to be able to make animals out of. The balloons are so cheap, though, that if you blow them up past half way they just burst. So James put just a little bit of air in one and created the tiniest balloon poodle of all time! Ha! I thought it was SO GREAT!

We had a really good Minister's Meeting in Colorado, although most of the folks there were still holding a grudge over our cancelling the usual Retreat that we have with the entire Region. James and I were talking about it and how amazing it is that our people would rather drive 8 hours to be together with everybody in the Region than drive 2 hours and be with only part of them instead of all! They're not interested in the ease or convenience of it--we're family and everybody wants to be TOGETHER. So I think we've had our first and last Minister's "Meeting" and will be back to a central Retreat next year!

Anyway, even though it WASN'T a Retreat, the meeting seemed to go well and hopefully it was a blessing. We only had one message, but Jon preached a good one on feeding the flock of God. Good stuff. Lots of good boosts, too, especially Brother VanDeventer's. He's our ABM guy and this year he's wanting us to really focus on winning back the souls who have strayed from our churches in recent years. I'm excited to see the results of the ABM work in the coming year!

Dustin & Jamey Hays made it to the meeting, along with Isaac, Aleah, and 3 day old Lillie. All I can says is WHAT A WOMAN!!! Jamey deserves some sort of prize and that's all there is to it. Not only did she deliver a ten and a half pound baby, she came to the Minister's Meeting 3 days later! I know she was exhausted, but I'm soooooooo glad she came! It was so great to see her and the baby. Don't ask me how, but I managed to not take a single picture of Lillie. Is that dumb, or what?! Anyway, Jamey had a bit of a rough night on Friday, so Dustin left her and the baby at the motel room to rest for a while that morning. We ran into him and the kids at the Patio (best breakfast joint in Salida!) and asked him to join us at our table with the VanDeventers, but Isaac wasn't interested. After a while Katie went over to join them at their table. I generally don't have much sympathy reserved for Dustin, but since I can relate to being a PEOPLE PERSON, I felt bad for him being "all alone" with his kids instead of at the table with the rest of us. That's when I looked up and noticed how enthralled he was with whatever Katie happened to be sharing. Ha! A guy who loves PEOPLE will take whatever company he can get, I guess!

Here's Brother Van, giving that great boost I mentioned a minute ago. :-)

James brought a bunch of Church paraphernalia to pass out to the ministers as a thank you for all of the work that they do. (He was trying to help clear out some of the stock from HQ that they haven't been able to sell, too! Ha!) He had Church of God everything--hats, mouse pads, pens, license plate coveres and several other things, including my personal favorite: the 100th Anniversary of the Arise, Shine pocket knife! Ha! Gotta love that!!! (Who got those, anyway?!)

I tried to get a picture of Sister Karen in her Church of God hat, but she's too fast for me. :-)

Colorado, Part 2

2008-10-05T23:08:00.003-06:00

When the meeting ended on Saturday we all went over to Sister Flora's house where she had prepared a meal to feed the whole lot of us. She, too, is an amazing woman! (SPECIAL PRAYER REQUEST: Sister Flora was up helping her husband cut firewood last week and he accidentally dropped a tree on her back. Nothing is broken, but she's in lots of pain and isn't able to get around at all right now--she could really use prayer!)

Most of the ladies hung out inside.

The guys opted for the back yard.

The kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves climbing all over the pile of firewood and everything else they could find. Katie and Luke managed to make a teeter-totter for themselves and played on it for the longest time. (Don't know what Joe's doing!)

And here we have little Miss Abbie Girl, asking Mom for another can of juice with not a bit of charm! Ha! That girl cracks me up!

After the crowd left we went back to our motel in Howard and crashed for the night. The next morning we had church there in Salida, then headed up to Craig for church that night. It's about a four and a half our drive and it was soooooo pretty!!!

Beautiful Colorado!

2008-10-05T23:07:00.004-06:00

It's amazing, really. We travel lots of places and it seems everywhere we go we see truly beautiful scenery. Sometimes it's just gorgeous and I love seeing it all. But something about Colorado--all I can figure is that it must be the familiarity of it--makes my appreciation of the beauty run so much deeper! When I see some of the sights there I can feel the "WOW" from way deep down inside of me and I just LOVE IT there. Unfortunately, I didn't seem to catch the true glory with my camera. Oh well. The pictures are pretty, just not as WOW as it really is in real life! (It could have something to do with the fact that most of these were taken at 70 mph as we were driving up to Craig from Salida!)

More Beautiful Colorado

2008-10-05T23:05:00.002-06:00

And Yet More Beauty!

2008-10-05T23:00:00.004-06:00

I LOVE ASPEN TREES. I always have, but I think I've decided that I love them enough I want one of my very own. They always make me think of when I was a kid and would go to "the cabin" (Grandmother & Granddad's house)--there were lots of aspen trees up Gold Creek Road, a little dirt road that went up the mountain. Jon and I used to ride the motorcycles and 3-wheelers up there all the time and there were TONS of aspens. I love them at any time of the year. The spring and summer are always pretty, of course. In the fall there is just nothing like that brilliant golden yellow of the aspen trees! And I love them in the winter, too, when they're completely bare. I've always thought the smooth white bark (is it considered bark?!) with the "scratches" and knotholes was just so cool. They look kind of spooky or something, especially when they sway in the breeze. Anyway, James said you can get 3' aspen trees for just a few dollars! I was sooooo happy to hear that!!! I think I want two or three of them down next to our little goldfish pond. It will remind me of Colorado and of Grandmother & Granddad all in one. :-)

Craig, Colorado

2008-10-05T22:54:00.003-06:00

We got to Craig and grabbed a bite to eat, then headed over to the church. This is what was in the yard when we got there. :-)

We had about 45 until church was to start, so the kids and I went for a walk. It was a gorgeous night, so it was really nice. It was also a much needed break for kids who had been sitting in church and a van all day long!

We had a good service and James preached very Churchy message, from the Old Testament prophecies to Jesus establishing the Church in Mark, chapter 3, to A. J. Tomlinson and the Arise, Shine, up through some of the things that have happened since then to where we are today. I told him after church that when Jesus said He wanted us to preach the "whole gospel" He didn't mean we had to do it all in ONE NIGHT! ;-)

James asked all of the kids to come up front and sing God is so Good. I don't know how they ended up perfectly stair-stepped like that!

We stayed the night with Darryl & Stacy Clark that night. Gerald & Janis Cox came over and visited for a while, too. It was great! We so seldom get to be with any of those people and I really enjoyed it. They are a MESS! Ha! I can't remember when we finally went to bed, but it was LATE.

The next morning Sister Janis came back over and we all had breakfast together before loading up and heading out.

We made it as far as Steamboat Springs (ha!) before stopping. James knew of a soda fountain there, so we all had Italian sodas--a cherry, a boysenberry, a raspberry and a grape. James had a really fantastic fresh squeezed lemonade. After that we went next door so the kids could look at all of the great cowboy and western stuff. They, of course, had to model everything they found...

We made it to Jon & Em's house sometime that afternoon--3 or 4 o'clock, I think. The kids all had fun running outside and playing with the "pet" garter snakes that the Smith boys have captured and been keeping in the garage. I had a bit of a headache that day and nobody really seemed up to staying up and partying until all hours like we usually do. What a bummer! I think we all went to bed at about 10:30. That's so wrong! It's okay though. We'll make up for it next time! :-)

We left on Tuesday and went to Mardel in Colorado Springs. It is sooooo nice to be able to go there every few months! Even if you don't find much, it's just so nice to be able to walk around a great big, nice Christian book store. You take it for granted, that's for sure. In this giant city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, there is not ONE good Christian book store. There are two small ones that we've found--that aren't very impressive at all. It's crazy! But then, it seems to fit. I've really begun to wonder if there are any Christians at all in this state other than our little group! Ha! We just came from west Texas, you know. There are so many people there who are just simple, old fashioned, conservative folks. Here... well, most folks are just about the opposite of that! It's crazy. Anyway, Mardel was GREAT and we picked up a couple of books from the clearance section of the homeschool stuff. :-)

We made it home at about 6:00 that night, I think. We got everything unloaded and unpacked and got lots done the next day including all of the laundry and ironing--and horse lessons, too. Don't remember a thing about the next day, just that it wasn't nearly as productive as the first! We did have full school days both days, so that's good.

And Since Then

2008-10-05T22:51:00.003-06:00

I took this picture sometime this past week. I don't know how one girl can sleep with so many companions!

This week the kids got a package from some cousins in Pennsylvania. They had found coonskin caps for the boys and the PERFECT gift for Katie, as well--something to lug more STUFF around in! Ha! They all got coloring books, too. They were all pretty happy, but I've never seen a kid so excited about a backpack before--Katie just went on and on and on about it. She LOVES IT!!!

I also had a package waiting for me when we got home from Colorado. James insisted on buying these dishes for me. Are they cute, or what???

On Friday we threw a few things in the van and headed down to Hatch for our southern Minister's Meeting. We checked into the Village Plaza (the ONLY motel in Hatch--it's pretty old and I think it still has it's original furnishings (HA!), but we've grown sort of attached to it over the years!), then went to get a bite at Sister Banuelos' restaurant. Yum!!!

The meeting went really well in Hatch, just like in Colorado. It's so cool to me how we had the very same program, but with different people filling the slots, and how similar AND different it was! Some of the very same thoughts and ideas came across, but then some things were brought out in a whole new light. Brother Banuelos preached the message on feeding the flock of God at this meeting and it went in a TOTALLY different direction than Jon's had in Colorado--but they were both soooooo good! Brother Banuelos always reminds me of my Dad, but a lot darker. ;-) His messages are always so good and he finds deep little nuggets that I've never thought about before and I always get so much out of them. Everything at the meeting was really, really good and we just love these people so much!!! It was mostly our Spanish folks from Hatch and Alamogordo, then Chris & Shanda from Arizona and Sam & Tammy from Texas. It was great to be with ALL of them! We shared a room with Sam & Tammy (the Village Plaza has rooms with separate bedrooms), so it was fun sitting up and visiting until after 2:00am--although I was disappointed that we didn't play a single game. (What's happening to us, anyway?!) Chris & Shanda came over and visited for a little while too, so that was nice.

The meeting went well on Saturday, too, and amazingly enough none of us seemed to be very tired! :-) I took some pictures, but none of them turned out very good except this one. But it's SO good it makes up for the lack of more!

Erika is 7 months along now, though she hardly looks that far along! She's SO CUTE. :-)

After the meeting was over we all went to the Banuelos' restaurant to fellowship for a while, then to see the house that Hector & Erika are building. It's going to be so nice--I'm so happy for them!

By the time we left Hatch to drive home at 3:00 or so the late night was beginning to catch up with me! I napped for a little while, but I opened my eyes and noticed that the driver's eyes seemed to be closed more than they were open! So we traded places and James snoozed while I finished the drive. I was wiped out last night, but managed to get some ideas together for Sunday School for the kids for today. We haven't had Sunday School for them for a long time now--since losing the church building, I guess. It's hard to find a place to do that when you're in homes, you know? But Sister Galaviz said I could use one of the spare rooms when we have services at her house. It went well today and we had a cute craft--maybe I'll post a picture tomorrow.

We had a really, really good service this morning and the Lord really moved. He is so good to us and we are just so very, very blessed. It was CHILLY here today and I got to wear my leafy turtleneck and my fall sweater for the first time this year! Wa-Hoo!!! If that doesn't make for a great day, I don't know what does! ;-) But it got even better. Not only did we have a great service and I got to wear my fall clothes, we came home and James built our first FIRE of the year! Not only that, but I was able to take a nice Sunday afternoon nap on the couch in front of a nice, cozy fire for the first time this year!!! ~sigh~ Life is grand. :-)

We had another good service tonight, then had to go to Wal-Mart. What a terrible way to end an otherwise wonderful day! I HATE Wal-Mart in Albuquerque. I would rather leave Albuquerque and drive 10 miles past our house out to the Wal-Mart in Edgewood, just to avoid the noise and crowds and chaos and really rude people. It was the worst tonight it's ever been--I think it's because thousands upon thousands of EXTRA people are in town for the Balloon Fiesta this week. It's nuts. I'd like to go see the hot air balloons, but I really just want all of these people to go home! Ha! Anyway, we got what we needed and FINALLY made it out of the mad house and back to our own quiet little house in the mountains. ~sigh~ Have I mentioned that I LOVE IT up here?!

Guess that's about it. I should be able to STAY HOME from now until Ladies' Retreat four weeks from now. Maybe that will help my poor blogging habits to improve a little bit. Only time will tell! ;-)

I Didn't Get There

2008-10-02T23:41:00.002-06:00

... Did I??? ;-)

Nope, I didn't do it. I didn't blog about the Colorado trip. It's been a full day around here and I just didn't find the gusto to do it. Tomorrow morning I'm going to make sure all of my smelly children are properly scrubbed down (they're so gross!), clean the house a little bit, then we'll throw some things in the van and take off for our next Minister's Meeting. This one is in Hatch, New Mexico--only 3 or 4 hours from here--so it'll be a short, easy trip. We'll be in session tomorrow night and Saturday morning, then we'll head home that afternoon. At least that's the plan! We'll get to see Chris & Shanda and Sam & Tammy and Hector & Erika and Tayde and all of the great folks from Hatch and Alamogordo. Makes me very happy. :-)

Sorry for the lack of blogging (and the lack of pictures, Ray!) lately. I'll try to make up for it one of these days!

Does Anyone Else...

2008-10-02T12:23:00.002-06:00

...ban their children from telling jokes??? I do it ALL THE TIME. They make up their own jokes frequently instead of repeating ones they've heard or read. It's bad either way, but they usually get a more severe ban for the made-up ones. On our way up to Craig on Sunday all three kids tried their hand at telling jokes. I can't remember who got which, but one kid was banned from telling jokes for the rest of the day, another kid for two days, and the worst joke of all earned a three day ban. It ended yesterday unfortunately.

We were enjoying our "picnic" lunch on a blanket in the not yet remodled garage a little while ago when Sam says, "Knock, knock."

I groaned, but answered, "Who's there?"

"Orange."

"Orange who?"

"Orange... um... don'tcha' wanna let me in?!"

THREE DAY BAN.

Made it Home!

2008-10-01T23:54:00.003-06:00

We had a great trip to Colorado, but I'm too tired and sensible (are you buyin' it?) to stay up and write about it tonight. It's nearly midnight already and I want to be a good Mom tomorrow. ;-)

We got home last night and unloaded the van and did some unpacking. I was actually in bed just after 10:00--highly unusual for me, I'm afraid. Today we had a good, full day. Breakfast... well, not for everybody. "If any does not work, neither should he eat," remember?! I hate days that start like that! Anyway, it got better real quick after the sad start. Devotions, then some play time for the kids and the conclusion of the unpacking for me. School at 11:00, lunch at noon, then more school. I started laundry this afternoon, then we had horse lessons at 4:00. Everybody is doing great and finally learning to steer a little better. The first lesson or two were all about proper form and balance. The lady started them on the reins last week. It would be hilarious if it weren't so frustrating! You'd think it would be so very simple and natural, you know?! Hand/eye coordination never comes easy to Joe (he has to concentrate SO HARD on the simplest things sometimes!), but once it finally clicks he does really good. He's getting there with the reins. Katie's doing great. Sam looks great in the saddle, rides like a natural, and can make the horse stop and go. :-) Gotta start somewhere! She'll probably start him steering next week. Anyway...

I read a few chapters out of... Hhmmm. Can't think of the name of it. The book that is the continuing story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (something about the Glass Elevator) to the kids tonight. Put them to bed, cleaned the house up a bit, then finished up on the laundry and ironing while I watched a movie. Wa-Hoo! It's been a good day. :-)

And that's it for now! Hopefully tomorrow I'll find the time and oomph (I've been lacking that lately) to blog about the trip--and post some pictures for the guy in the northwest who likes the picture book version of a blog. :-)

Just so you know...

2008-09-25T00:30:00.002-06:00

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!

6 Days Ago?!?!?

2008-09-24T00:20:00.002-06:00

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 Did It!!!

2008-09-18T00:01:00.005-06:00

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. :-)

Filterkeys

2008-09-18T00:01:00.004-06:00

...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.

Swamped!

2008-09-17T14:56:00.002-06:00

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!

How Long Has it Been This Time?!

2008-09-14T22:40:00.030-06:00

I keep meaning to write every other day or so, but it just keeps not working out!

I feel like we hit the schooling hard and heavy this past week. I feel like that, but when I stop to think about it we went to the Fair on Monday and then took Friday off to spend with Aunt Sue and Uncle Jerry. We didn't do school on Saturday either, so that means we only had 3 days of school this week! I'm sure it feels that way because we're covering so many more subjects than the kids are used to. And I have this nifty little schedule worked out that--if we were actually able to follow it--would enable us to be done with school by noon each day. On the three days that we DID do school this past week we didn't finish up until 2 or 3 o'clock! I discovered that the math book we got for Joe is a little too much for him right now. I have to remind myself that although he's a smart kid and a FANTASTIC reader and speller, he IS only 6 years old! He's good at math, but not ready for the 3rd and 4th grade stuff I was asking him to do. It was frustrating for him and me both, so I decided to put it aside for a while and just work on basic addition with him each day until it's deeply engrained in that little brain of his. :-) In any case, it's quite an adjustment for the kids AND ME to be doing school well into the afternoon. We're not used to it at all and I think they're probably handling it better than I am! I feel like I'M going to run away and join the circus if things don't get a little easier around here! Ha!

Before I forget, here's a picture of Joe and "The Big 22 Incher" from Monday. :-)

Don't remember a thing specifically about Tuesday, except school. Wednesday was more of the same, but come 4:00 it was time for the kids' first horse riding lesson! Wa-Hoo!!! Before anybody has a chance to comment, let me just say, "I KNOW--IT'S SOOOOOO STUPID TO HAVE TO WEAR A HAT LIKE THAT TO RIDE A HORSE!!!" It just drives me crazy, but "it's the law." ~sigh~ Anyway, here are a few pictures of the kids enjoying their first spin on "Secret."

Miss Katie

Mosey Joe

And even Sam got to ride! That wasn't in the plan, but we had a few extra minutes at the end of the lesson--and the lady is just charging us a flat rate per hour instead of for each individual kid, so wa-hoo! :-) In case you're wondering, the lady was having them practice riding without holding on to anything so they can get the feel of the horse and learn to balance properly. Amazingly enough, Sam did the very best. He was just real natural up there and seemed to have a ball doing it! Ha!

The kids got to feed Secret and this horse, Tango, some carrots after the lessons. They did good and seemed to have a whole lot of fun, so we've got Lesson #2 scheduled for this next Wednesday. :-)

Here are some pictures of school time at the Horne home. We'll start with Miss Love-School-Can-I-Do-More-In-My-Maps-&-Geography-Book-Please...

Joe is... well, let's just say he's never quite as enthusiastic about school as his sister is. And yes, he's been sent to Principle Dad several times. ;-)

And aaaaaaaawwwww! Idn't he sweet looking?! All of your recommendations solved my School vs. Sam dilemma! (At least for one day! Ha!) I'm not sure what exactly he made... it started out as a train picture, but he got a little carried away! Oh well. He had a blast and it kept him still and quiet for a long, long time and enabled the others to have some peace and quiet for their own schooling.

Our other big project of the week was... (DRUM ROLL!!!) Getting an office for James! Wa-Hoo!!! *Streamers waving in the wind* *Confetti floating down from the sky* *Noise-makers sounding merrily* *People dancing in the streets and hugging complete strangers* ~SIGH~ It makes me soooooo happy! Our marriage has been SAVED!!! Ha! James NEEDS a place to go to be alone. And sometimes I NEED a place to send him! Ha! Ha! This two-bedroom house just doesn't lend itself to much privacy, you know?! Anyway, the "office" won't actually be an office for a good while yet, but just seeing it out the back window gives me hope that it may one day serve it's true intended purpose. :-)

We had a little lean-to in the back yard for firewood, but it happened to be in the perfect location for the office. Naturally! So James disassembled it, gave some of the wood to the boys to hammer on (one of their favorite pastimes) and saved what was salvageable. And here we have the work in progress, roof and back wall already gone...

And here is the vacant spot where it used to be...

And here we have what will be James' office! Cute, hu?! I know, I know--it's a little... wee, shall we say?! Ha! It's much smaller than his office in Andrews, but sometimes ya' gotta do whatcha' gotta do. :-) I keep thinking of the office that Dad had when we lived in Howard. Mom had this nice, spacious office/sewing room... and next door was Dad's little closet of an office! Ha! James' little joint is 10'x12'. That's got to be bigger than what Dad had! Actually... it's probably about the size of what Dad has right NOW, hu, Mom?! Anyway, it's totally unfinished on the inside--just studs--so James will have some work ahead of him.

It's actually a Tuff-Shed and the dudes came out and slapped the thing up in just a couple of hours. James, always the one to store away information that he'll be able to use later on, planted himself next to the back window and watched the entire process thinking all the while, "Wow, I could have done this myself." But, of course, now that he's watched somebody else do it he knows HOW to do it and will no doubt tackle it unassisted next time around. :-)

This is Joe enjoying "recess." (I call recess for my sake as much as the kids'! Ha!) Katie helps him get up his speed and off he goes! Oh yeah--James bought this bike for Joe this week. It had a problem of some sort, so he got it 50% off. Joe was really, really excited--especially when he saw that the bike says "COBRA" on it!

Sue & Jerry surprised us with a visit this past weekend! They were on their way home from a camping trip and stopped over on Thursday night. Friday morning we all got up and started driving up the mountain. James took us to the Tinkertown Museum. (Don't laugh, Dustin & Jamey--didn't we say our trip with you was our first and last there?!) Tinkertown was built buy a guy who apparently devoted his entire life to carving little figures and scenes...and collecting every possible article of JUNK known to man. Really, he must've been a really strange character. There is some really neat stuff there... and there is some really weird stuff there! Anyway, here are the boys checking out some of the miniatures.

We spent a decent amount of time at the museum because... well, because Uncle Jerry was with us and things ALWAYS move pretty slow when he's around! Ha! He's a slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ow moving guy. He's also a very curious guy and likes to take his time learning and inspecting things. We're lucky we got him out of a place like Tinkertown at all! Ha! SO MANY things to see and think about!

Once we left there we drove up to the top of Sandia Peak. I think the elevation is somewhere around 11,000' or something. It usually has a really great view--you can look straight down on Albuquerque and see the entire city. But it was a wee bit cloudy while we were there! Actually, I enjoyed the clouds as much or more as I would've enjoyed seeing the city. I just wish the pictures would show the DEPTH that you could see in real life. It's so cool to be above the clouds and looking down at them. And they were moving so fast--almost sliding up and over the mountain. It was very cool!

Cooler yet is that THIS is what was straight above us! A patch of perfectly blue western skies--surrounded by thick clouds EVERYWHERE ELSE! :-) It was so neat.

This is Joe trying to check out the view. Uncle Jerry wasn't very much help. ;-)

After the peak we drove on down into Albuquerque. We had lunch at Furr's, making James, Uncle Jerry and Joe pretty happy campers. We took them out to show them the Petroglyphs just because we couldn't think of what else to do! Uncle Jerry, true to his nature, was pretty skeptical about them truly being 3,000 years old like the sign said. A critic in every crowd. He can't just look at an etching of a dude on a unicycle and take it for what it's worth, you know?! Oh well. If he didn't enjoy the drawings, at least he enjoyed the view.

We came back to the house and I fed everybody a fantastic dinner of ham sandwiches. Actually, I can't even take credit for that--Aunt Sue supplied the ham! Ha! I am SUCH a bad hostess!!! Aunt Sue kept trying to teach Joe how to get started on his bike (he can ride once he gets going, but getting going is still a problem for him) and she finally just grabbed the bike so she could SHOW him...

You can always count on a few good laughs from Aunt Sue. ;-) We had a really good time with them and I'm sooooo glad they decided to stop and spend a day or two. We were all pretty wiped out after our adventuresome day, so we called it a night pretty early. Sue & Jerry were turkey's and took off without saying goodbye the next morning. ~sigh~ Early risers. I tell ya'. ;-)

The kids and I started our Saturday with a Muppet Show, just because it seemed like the thing to do. :-) We finally got going and ended up having a really nice no-school day. I had plenty to catch up on and stayed busy throughout the day. So busy, in fact, I totally forgot about lunch! James had taken Joe to Wal-Mart with him and they ate while they were out, but Katie and Sam and I were just occupied doing other things and never thought about it. There's NO WAY lunch would be overlooked if Joe was around! Ha! Anyway, James made us fajitas for dinner--they were really good! What a guy!!! :-) I made all of the kids take their baths, then I got caught up on all of the ironing while we all watched The Asparagus of La Mancha and Sheerluck Holmes. Put the kids to bed and got to work on my WMB service.

We had really good services today, this morning's service at Sister Grimes' house and this evening's at Sister Galaviz's. Sister Grimes' daughter, Pat, has been in several services with us since we lost the church building because we've been using their house a lot! And she seems to be loving it and wanting more. Praise the Lord!!! What a small price it would be to pay--if we were to lose that building, but see Pat saved! God knows what He's doing. Pat cooked dinner for us after service and we had a good visit with her and her mom. We really, really like both of them--they are quite the pair! Both have plenty to say and you never have to wonder how they feel about an issue! Ha! Sister Grimes is somewhere around 80 years old, I think, and she reminds me of the Grandma on the Garfield Christmas special--she is just soooooo funny! What a neat lady--and she always has such a good spirit. Never has a negative word to say about anybody.

My WMB service went well tonight, I thought. I talked about Juan Ponce de Leon and the search for the Fountain of Youth--and how people are still searching for it today in one way or another. That, of course, led us to the living water that Jesus can give us, a well springing up into everlasting life. I never really know how my services go over, I just know the ones that I enjoy preparing and this was one of them for me. :-) I know the Lord really blessed in our worship and prayers and there were lots of good comments.

Tomorrow, it's BACK TO SCHOOL!!! Pray for us. ;-) And if anybody thinks of any more ideas on how to keep things running smoothly, I'm sooooooo open to them! :-)

Impromptu Company!

2008-09-11T22:16:00.002-06:00

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! ;-)

Emilee!!!

2008-09-10T12:06:00.007-06:00

What do you do with all of your little people while you're trying to do school with the older ones?!

I know we've discussed this before, but I'm at a loss. Sam is doing well with his letter pages and such, but that only lasts for so long. He's sped through a whole lot of tracing and "color the pictures that start with 't'" pages before Katie and Joe are even on their second subject. With the two of them I can usually find some work that one of them can do solo while I'm lending assitance to the other one, but what in the world am I supposed to do with Sam?! He's a man of action and sitting still with a book or Lego's might last for an hour... but only when he's in one of those moods, you know?! He's also the class clown, which doesn't help matters. He gets great joy from trying to distract the others, especially if he can get a laugh out of it. I can't keep him quiet and away from "school" once he's finished his own because he wants to be playing cowboys or Star Wars with Joe. I told him this morning that he either had to go play quietly in his room or go outside. He opted for outside, but then I noticed Katie and Joe looking over their shoulders and giggling. Sam was standing on the bench outside the front window, singing and dancing. !!! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO TO KEEP HIM OCCUPIED AND ALLOW THE OTHERS A CHANCE TO ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING?!

Help me!!!

I decided to throw this on the blog instead of an e-mail to Em, hoping that perhaps some other Moms out there might have some good suggestions. The only thing I feel fairly certain might work is to tie him up and gag him and throw him in a closet for an hour or two. I don't feel right about doing that... but I might by next week! Ha!

What am I supposed to DO with this???

It Happened Again!

2008-09-08T23:05:00.002-06:00

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!

I've Fallen a Little Behind

2008-09-05T21:59:00.008-06:00

...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.

This is his Darth Vader costume.

The eye holes are a little difficult to manage, so he prefers this.

And the glasses he made for himself today. They're so narrow not even one eye can look through them! Ha!

That's it from here! Have a great weekend!!!

Our Weekend

2008-09-01T16:54:00.018-06:00

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???

Sister Julie is a crazy woman with a camera. She lines people up for pictures all the time--it's a good thing though 'cuz we seldom get whole family shots! 'Course, Joe doesn't look too thrilled...

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. :-)

Short One... I Hope!

2008-08-29T23:10:00.002-06:00

Today. Hhmmm. English muffins with strawberry-rhubarb jam for breakfast, devotions with the kid-o's, school, and some phone calls and addressing of a whole slew of envelops for James. Throw in some (very) mild housework and that was pretty much my day. I went through all the new school stuff and came up with a loose schedule that we can work with when we're ready to dive into the new books.

James was working on Minister's Meeting stuff (we're having to do a northern and southern "Meeting" instead of our usual Minister's Retreat this year--sooooo sad!), but he pulled himself away long enough to cook his favorite green chili enchilada stuff for lunch. He even mixed up some Rice Krispy treats! Yum!

I had a small brisket that I didn't know what to do with. We only ever have GIANT ones that we cook for 12 hours on real low heat, so this little 2 lb.-er threw me for a loop. I finally decided to just cook it like a roast. I put it in one of those oven bags you got me, Mom, with some potatoes (didn't have any carrots--bummer!), a packet of onion soup and a can of mushroom soup. It was sooooo good! And somehow, even with all that, it still tasted like a brisket, not a roast. I cut up the left-overs and threw into a crock-pot with what was left of the potatoes, then I added some of the Keilbasa from the other day. Tomorrow I'll see what else I can find to toss in there and we'll have a very interesting stew. ;-)

Sam and I played Connect Four and Scrabble Jr. tonight while Katie and Joe played Uno, then we all played Let's Go Fishin--that one where the little table spins and the fish open and close their mouths and you have to catch them. That is so much harder than it looks! I really think we should play it next time we get with Sam & Tammy or Dustin & Jamey or something. It's hilarous! Afterwards we played that Super Showdown game again. This time a ghost with eyes in the back of his head was judged to have a better chance at winning a snowball fight than the lunch lady with a ladder. :-)

I was able to spend some nice "alone" time with God tonight, which was so nice. I need so much more of that! I wouldn't trade the kids in for anything (!), but I still miss my pre-kid ability to spend as much time with God as I want and I struggle to spend the time now that I really need. It's a constant struggle, but it's my constant desire to improve in that area!

That's about it. I need more sleep than I got last night, so I'm going to bed NOW!

By the way, the iron really is dead. I tried it again today and it's a goner. What a bittersweet feeling this is! Ha! ;-)

I've Been The Good One!

2008-08-29T01:19:00.009-06:00

I don't feel that way very often at the end of the day (I have that pesky Melancholy conscience forever riddling me with guilt over the things I didn't do, you know?!), so this is GREAT! :-)

Had another good devotions with the kids this morning, then headed right into school with the kids. It's been going much better ever since James talked to Joe about kids in public school and how if the teacher has any trouble with them she'll send them to the principal's office, and what happens once they get there. He then declared himself to be the principal and told Joe he'd be really, really sorry if he got sent "to the office." :-)

I fed the kids lunch and did a few things around the house, then James rounded us all up and took us into town to take care of some urgent business.

First stop: Hobby Lobby, to check out the fall and Christmas stuff. ~sigh~ James was soooooo excited about the Assembly being so early this year because after the Assembly we come home and get full-force into the fall season. I petitioned him and asked if we could please refrain from dragging out the fall stuff until at least September 1st, which is still a full three weeks before the season truly begins. He agreed, but still couldn't keep from going to look and see what's available! Ha! We came home with a few pumpkins and some leafy garlands. ~sigh~ What am I supposed to do with him?!

Second stop: Sam's Club. In discussing our options, James and I decided to stick with our Sam's Club books for the kids' homeschooling, at least for a little while longer. We talked about what we were doing in school at their age and made a list of the things we want to incorporate. Most of those things won't require a book anyway, so I think we'll be good. We got each kid the next level comprehensive curriculum book (4th Grade for Kate, 3rd for Joe, and Kindergarten for Sam) along with some extras for Katie and Joe. The comprehensive curriculum books always include reading, comprehension, english, math... and another subject or two that don't come to mind right now. Our kids do a ton of leisure reading, so we're going to start incorporating spelling lists and book reports, as well as some creative writing assignments. The other books we got for Katie and Joe are: handwriting (something they both REALLY need to work on!), math (much more intensive that just what's in the big book--we're going to start some timed drills, too), and a maps and geography book. We also have a science book that we've all been going through together.The trick is going to be easing them into all of the "extra" work without them freaking out on us! Ha! I'm really happy with what we were able to get today and--for all three kids--we spent a total of $56. That makes me very, very happy! I intend to spend some time in the next several months doing some research on what we'll do after we quit the Sam's Club thing. I don't want to suddenly discover it's time for a change and then be forced into a snap decision, you know?! For now, we're good.

Stop three: Lumber Liquidators!!!

That's right--it's my new floor!!! Isn't it purty??? I'm guessing I'll like it even better once it's out of the boxes and actually ON the floor. ;-) Still, it's exciting just knowing that it's here!!!

We grabbed a bite at McAllister's, then let the kids play in the fountain for a little while before heading home. Katie had fun, Sam was a wild man (he was drenched within the first 30 seconds), and Joe was the weenie--suddenly not wanting to get wet. I grabbed him and pushed him into the spray several times. We all had a great time, or so I thought. One moment everybody was laughing, we said, "Okay, time to go" and as we were walking away all three kids were in tears! --Joe because his mean mom had shoved him into the water one too many times, but Katie and Sam I couldn't figure out at all. Katie was walking up ahead of us and was crying and sobbing and Sam wasn't much better. I had to laugh that all of the fun and laughter had come to such an abrupt end. After 20' or better Katie turned around to see if we were coming and we saw that her face was COVERED in blood!!! Who knew?! All of the people in front of us had been seeing a little girl crying, her mouth full of blood and more blood pouring from her nose... and her parents walking several feet behind her just laughing and talking about all the "fun"!!! Apparently she and Sam had had a pretty rough collision just as we called them to leave, thus explaining Sam's crying, too. We found a bench and sat Katie down and I worked a few minutes to stop the bleeding before we finally headed for home.

We got home and unloaded the van, then I did some picking up around the house. I was feeling hot and gross, so I decided to go take a bath. It's the first bath I've had in MONTHS and it was sooooooo nice!!! (Don't be grossed out--I have been showering, but our tub was out of commission until the now-extremely-wealthy plumbers came yesterday.)

I read some Chicken Soup stories to the kids before devotions (they love those!), then after I put them down I dove into the ironing. I pulled up the Church website and watched the Wednesday morning session of the Assembly. Soooooo good! James just LOVES Sharon Morrow's message and I was convicted anew by Brother VanDeventer's lesson. That's a good thing! I don't want to forget what God began in my heart at the Assembly.

Anyway, I ironed and ironed and ironed. Nearly 4 hours, I think. (It was ALL of our dress clothes and most of our casual clothes--big trip recovery, you know!) I was down to the very bottom of the laundry basket when the iron DIED. Just died on me. Aaaaauuuuuugggggghhhhhh!!! Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to iron until 12:30 at night with the thought, "I'm going to finish TONIGHT!!!" in your mind, only to fall short by 10 minutes' worth of work?! ~sigh~ That's just wrong. And I got to thinking... this is now the FOURTH household appliance that has kicked the bucket since a certain electrician visited our house a few months ago. I've had two curling irons, a blow dryer and now an iron go ka-put since he came--some of them that had worked perfectly for years, others that were brand-spankin' new. Hhmmm... If I thought he was clever enough to mastermind such sabotage I would accuse him. ;-) HA! So much for Brother VanDeventer's lesson, I guess! ;-)

I really haven't taken any pictures since the trip, so I figured tonight was as good a time as any. There really wasn't anything to take pictures of though, so I went and shot the kids sleeping. (Ha! Doesn't that sound terrible?!)

Katie usually sleeps with a host of stuffed animals, but Hershey always finds a way to make room for himself--usually stretched out across Katie's neck! She got off easy tonight.

Joe refuses to sleep with covers. Even if I go cover him up after he's asleep, he's kicked them off again in just a matter of minutes. Weird-o!

And Sam has this new thing about sleeping with the blanket wrapped around his head. Strange. Very strange.

That's it from here! Gotta get some sleep. It's sooooooo past my bedtime!

I Blog Like a Ketchup Bottle

2008-08-28T00:49:00.001-06:00

Can't get anything out for the longest time, then suddenly it all comes pouring out at once--WAY TOO MUCH. ;-)

Trip Pictures, Part 3

2008-08-27T23:29:00.043-06:00

Finally! The last portion of the trip! Here goes!

On day one in Pennsylvania, Katie hopped on, took a few spins, and suddenly knew how to ride a bike! Wa-Hoo!

The next day was the market in Belleville. I know a lot of you out there are Amish nuts, so I tried to get some pictures for you... unfortunately most of them didn't turn out very well. Oh well. Here's a happy Amish fellow enjoying some ice cream with his kid!

Some ladies hauling whatever they just bought. This was just shortly before the piglet got loose at the auction and made a run for it--through the entire market! There were several people in hot pursuit and it was quite a sight. :-) It seems like something they ought to do all the time, just for fun!

And I just thought this was a neat looking picture.

The day after that we all rode up to the top of the hill for some fun...

Tractor rides with Grandpa, of course! (Look, Mom -- Katie concentrates just like you do!)

James and his Mom enjoying the tractor rides, as well. :-)

Katie working on some project of hers. (Grandma Wanda bought her the hat at Belleville the day before and Katie seemed to think it was suitable for any activity.)

She and Sam playing on Grandpa's hay.

I love this picture! James is watching his cousin mow hay on the hillside across from his folks' place.

Grandma Wanda set up this pool for the kids. Katie requested it be put next to the fort so they could slide in. The water was wa-a-a-a-a-ay too cold to be fun, but kids are too dumb to know that.

This is James' Dad and Uncle Pete. I think these pictures are great! Looks almost like they were posed or something, you know?! Ha! Too cute. ;-)

ALL of the kids had fun on the bikes!

Joe spent lots of time practicing with no training wheels...

(Katie doesn't practice anymore--she flies!)

Took a few falls, but none of them nasty...

And finally got the hang of it!

(Pretty much!)

The boys were showing Grandpa how they could use sticks to pop their caps instead of the cap gun. They thought they were pretty cool... except they'd miss the caps so many times that when they finally hit one it would scare them! Ha!

We've developed a little bit of a problem... The kids get all excited about going shooting when we go to Pennsylvania... but their folks have so much fun doing it they have a hard time sharing the guns with the kids! Ha!

The holes in the wood are all mine--7 out of 9, I believe. James would never admit it, but half of the holes in that jug were made by his wife, too. :-) What great fun!!!

On our "extra" day in Pennsylvania James and I took the kids to ride the East Broad Top Train.

Have you ever seen Mennonite people who look holy... and totally miserable?! I always think it's so sad when people have separated themselves from the world, but obviously have no joy of salvation. This family didn't have that problem! The picture doesn't show it very well, but they practically glowed--the mother had a perpetual smile and all of their eyes were bright and they were just so cheerful. They were beautiful!

They had a Civil War "camp" set up near the tracks with tents and such all furnished with items of the era, along with people in full costume. Katie loved all the girly stuff in this tent!

These guys were part of the band--on their way to go play some old period music for us...

With their old banged-up instruments! It was soooooo cool!

THIS CRACKED ME UP! Ha! A dude in all his Civil War garb... standing in front of the Pepsi machine taking pictures with his digital camera, and another camera hanging from his neck! HA!

I thought this drummer was soooooooo cute!

As were these little boys--and you could tell they were lookin' for trouble!

This is our traditional farewell picture, the morning that we left. It wasn't as teary this time, so that made it a little easier.

Unfortunately I didn't get very many good pictures at my folks house after the Pennsylvania leg of the trip! I only got a few (and not very good ones) of when we road the riverboat. (My batteries died on the boat and I never could remember to recharge them until we got back home!

The kids checking out the controls...

My inquisitive mother asking a dozen questions of the captain. She's always like that. And she learns so much more than the rest of us. Weird how that works. ;-)

And that's it! Oh, except this shot of the kids and Dudley. I think that's his name. He's the dog who lives at our hardware store here in the mountains. :-) I love living here! :-)

There's another new post below, if you're up to it! ;-)

Tonight Was the Night

2008-08-27T22:45:00.002-06:00

...for ironing. I ironed four of James' shirts, two of Katie's dressed, and a dress shirt for each of the boys. I looked at the pile remaining and thought... "Ah, I'd rather blog." ;-) At least I got started. I've been trying to work up the inspiration to tackle that project for days now. Maybe tomorrow will by my lucky day. Or maybe not.

Today was a good and bad day. Had to make some phone calls that didn't exactly turn out the way I had hoped. All of you regional people, don't kill me... I had to schedule Camp the week BEFORE Convention for next year. UGH. It just makes me sick! It's sooooooo much better to have Camp after Convention (90% of our folks expressed that, some quite strongly!), but believe it or not, Mountainair is booked that week--and the Howard Johnson only had one weekend available in June, so we couldn't switch those dates. I gasped when the mayor told me that week was booked. It was everything I could do to keep from saying, "WHAT?! Who on earth is willing to go to that campground and pay to stay there and repair everything on it all week long--other than us?!" Ha! Anyway, God knows. There must be a reason.

In other news, we had plumbers here this morning for way too long. I know it was way too long because James told me about the bill. GOOD GRIEF. You could almost send a kid to college for what it costs to purchace a new sprayer and diverter and have plumbers install it (along with your OLD faucet unit) in a Roman tub. It just turns my stomach. Still, it saved us a little bit to re-use the old unit instead of buying a new one.

Then this afternoon we had a guy up to give an estimate on installing the wood laminate floor for us in the kitchen and utility room. He was, oh, 6'5" (I'm a really bad judge of actual inches, so let's just say "really tall") and quite friendly. Before he started measuring he slapped a book down on the table and said I could look through it if I wanted to see pictures of some of his work. The first picture I saw just about took my breath away--the house was AMAZING. "Wow," I said, "that's some ceiling." "Yeah," he said casually. I kept flipping through the book and was becoming more and more intimidated all the time. This guy has done some fancy-schmantzy floors in some super swanky houses. --No, not houses. Mansions. I looked around our unfinished and unpretentious little two-bedroom log cabin and had to giggle. "You work in some really nice houses," I said, trying to conceal my smirk. "Yeah, I used to live in California. That's where a lot of those pictures are from." "Ah," I said, as if I understood that everybody in California has a billion dollars and kitchens as big as my house. I flipped the page and saw a "blonde" lady (too old to be TRULY blonde--you know!) who was just beaming with happiness as she stood atop her newly installed swanky wood floor. "That's Barbara Eden," he said. "Hu?" I said. "Ever seen 'I Dream of Jeannie'?" Ha! It was her--really and truly! But with clothes on--a marvellous improvement! ;-) This dude works for RICH people. Celebrities and millionaires. But apparently he also works for preachers who purchace ripped up little houses to fix up and hopefully end up with a rewarding investment. Actually, we don't know that he works for preachers like that. We haven't received his estimate yet. He's the guy that Lumber Liquidators (the people we're getting the flooring from) got us in contact with--and they're not hoity-toity at all. We'll just have to wait and see. The bad news is that this guy is already booked for the next month! We were hoping to get this DONE. Like, by Friday! Ha! Not really, but SOON.

School went pretty well today. The kids (Joe, really) are a little bit *yeagh* getting started after being spoiled on no school for so long. And I'm afraid it's going to get worse. I think it's time to start "upping" Katie and Joe's schooling. We've always just used the comprehensive curriculum books from Sam's Club (Ha! Crazy, hu?!) and I'm really glad that we went that route. I just never could see paying hundreds of dollars on curriculum for those first few years, you know? Katie and Joe are both superb readers, Joe is an amazing speller, they both do well at math and comprehension... I would call that successful. But it's time to start including some things we haven't done up to this point and I'm looking into some different options. Ooooooh, I hate decisions like this! Most of the curriculum that you look at is soooooo extensive! I don't want my kids, at ages 6 and 7, to be loaded down with hours upon hours upon hours of bookwork. We need something that is much looser and more flexible, but something that is more intense than what we've been doing up to this point. So I've begun praying that God will help us to find what we need to be doing and make the best decision.

Tonight I played a new game with the kids. It's called Super Showdown and it's from Cranium. You end up with a contest (such as a pillow fight) and people or characters, and special "helps" for them. Then the players have to debate and try to convince whoever the judge is why one of them would beat the others. For example, they would have to explain why a Grandmother on roller skates would win at the pillow fight instead of Darth Vader with a magic carpet; or why a goose with x-ray vision would win a scavenger hunt instead of a leprechaun with a light saber or Willy Wonka who runs faster than a speeding bullet. Ha! It was great--and so good for the kids' brains. I immediately thought of your kids, Em--they would LOVE it! I'll be sure to bring it next time we all get together--I wanna play with Nathan and Caleb. :-)

Hhmmm. That's about it, I think. James is going with the ladies tomorrow to sign away the church building. Hopefully that means this whole ordeal is over with and we can move on without that stress. Oh, I forgot! We had a really good service last night--at Sister Grimes' house. We started going through book two of the BTI courses and everybody took the test at the end. (Including Katie--she is soooooo excited!!!) There was lots of good discussion and everybody really seemed to enjoy it, including Sister Grimes' unsaved daughter, Pat, who joined us! I told James that maybe God needed us out of that building so we'd be forced into having some home services and Pat would end up coming to church and getting saved! Wouldn't that be wonderful?! God knows. We're praying and trusting Him to lead us one step at a time.

That's it for now. G'night!

Trip Pictures, Part 2

2008-08-25T23:03:00.029-06:00

At long last! Here are some of my Assembly pictures!

We'll start with our all-too-cute General Overseer. :-)

The Baldwin family from Virginia--remember that beautiful song they sang?! "That's When God Wants to Hear You Sing"

The Banuelos/Soto's. :-) Don't worry, Tayde--your song was beautiful. And I knew it was in Spanish! Ha! ;-)

Some shots of the prayer line on Friday night...

It was a glorious Assembly! With shouting...

Running...

Praising...

And dancing... whoops. The "dancing" picture somehow disappeared on me! Oh well. I love this next picture just because of all the Church flags--it's beautiful!

Brother Johnny Wilson being ordained as a deacon

And Chris Clarkson being ordained a bishop

I thought I'd add some pictures for some people I know will find them here! Sister Tammy (F.), these are for you! Some of the Antioch tears following the appointments. It's heartbreaking and exciting all at the same time!

These next ones are for the VanDeventers. You'll never believe this, but Mary VanDeventer is a blog frequenter! ~gasp!~ Are you in shock?! I keep telling her she should start her own blog--wouldn't that be neat??? Anyway, these are for you, Sister Mary!

This is Persephanie testifying in front of the whole General Assembly! (I couldn't get a picture with decent color, so this is the best I've got. Still, there's a certain glow to her face, hu?! This is the night she and Sister Julie joined the Church.) :-)

Soooooo many prayers... being answered!!!

What a great looking crowd! (Thanks again for dinner, Brother V!)

This is for you, Cindi! (Grace, I don't know how often Cindi stops by here, so would you let her know there's a picture waiting for her? Thanks!) It was a pretty special night for this girl, too! :-)

Here are a few pictures of the children's presentation. (Great job, Wantuloks!) I had to post this one because of the kid in front, second from the left. HA! Cracks me up! Does anybody know who #419 is???

Here are Cainan and Naomi, cute as always but looking to have just barely more fun than #419.

Had to post this one 'cuz Malachi is so stinkin' cute in that hat.

Have you ever wondered what goes on in the General Overseer's room in between sessions? Jumping Jack lessons, of course!

This can't be appreciated without an explanation. You've seen the signs at the Assembly designating where certain people are supposed to sit--Field Secretary, Overseers, Clerks, etc. Well, Sister Gayle had made one up for Brother Werkheiser and it was placed on the second row, I believe. It's hard to remember where it was to start with because it got moved around so much! Every time Brother Kevin would come to sit down his "reserved" sign had been picked up and moved some place else and there was a person sitting where the sign once was. Ha! It didn't do him much good, but it sure was fun to watch. It became quite a joke and some clever person finally thought to move the sign to the balcony directly above his original seat. ;-)

I add the following pictures to illustrate just how hard the Assembly is on kids. And to show everybody a picture of Brian O'Dell carrying a little pink purse. ;-)

And last but not least, here are some of our regional VLB dudes. :-)

~Whew!~ Glad that's over with! Now, it's no fair just enjoying the pictures without taking the time to read the post just below. Or at least skim over it. I'll settle for "scrolling past," if you'd like. Just know it's there if you're interested in caterpillars or witches, or if you're just plain bored. :-)

Next up: Post Assembly Pictures!

Here Lately...

2008-08-25T22:11:00.003-06:00

Sam met a mean caterpillar! He came inside whining about his finger hurting "real bad." Said he'd picked up a caterpillar and it bit him. I've never known of caterpillars to bite, so I pretty much brushed him off. Sam is our toughest kid by far and not prone to complaining of pains like the others, so when he kept on insisting (for several minutes) that his finger was still hurting I told him to show me the caterpillar. He took me outside and I dicovered that judgment had already been served on the unfriendly little thing. Judging from the small portion of what remained of him, he was bright green and very spiney. I came inside and looked on the Internet for the longest time, but never found a perfect match. Picked up the complementary issue of Birds & Blooms we'd received the day before and *viola* there it was! It's the Lo Something-or-Another Moth caterpillar and it actually turns into a very beautiful and colorful moth. But if you see one, don't touch--they emit a poisonous venom that feels much like a bee sting. Who knew?!

Second strange occurance... James' favorite fish from the pond died. It was nice and plump and seemingly healthy one day, the floating on top the next. James can't figure out what on earth happened to him. Since that time I have found three of those crazy green caterpillars dead in the pond (I think they're falling out of the tree above) and two or three others nearby. Is it possible the fish ate a caterpillar and got poisoned?! I don't have any other explanation and this one is at least a little bizarre, so I'm sticking with it for now.

Saturday night was a doozy. Joe came into our room at 3:00AM soooooo scared because he'd had a bad dream. I had a good prayer with him and sent him back to bed, but it wasn't long before he was right back at my bedside. I was sooooooo tired, so I told him to just go get his pillow and blanket and sleep on the floor in our room. That would last a minute or two, but then he'd jump up and look at me with those great big scared eyes. He did that a few times. Said he couldn't hear me and James breathing and just wanted to check and make sure we were still there. I was dozing off in between each time, only to be awakened over and over again. He asked if we could turn a light on somewhere so it wouldn't be so dark. I pointed out the nightlight that was already in the room and reminded him that he's right next to his Mom and Dad and that God is with us and watching over us--that there's nothing to be afraid of. That helped for a minute, but then he asked if it would be alright if he crawled up on the foot of our bed to sleep. I said absolutely not! (We have enough problems--we are NOT starting that nonsense!) I never know what to do in these situations. On the one hand, I dont want to baby the kids and end up raising a bunch of sissies. (That's what I have right now--I'm hoping to raise them OUT of that mode! Ha!) On the other hand, I remember what it's like to be a kid and be scard at night. I don't want to be totally insensitive either. (Any suggestions would be most appreciated!) I finally took Joe to his room and I laid down in his bed with him for a little while. I never would have considered such a thing except that he was really and truly terrified. It was much, much worse than most of the other times he's been scared at night. We can usually pray and send him back to bed and he'll be fine, but this time he was almost trembling and seemed to be fighting off a fit of true panic--I mean really, truly, deeply scared. I was waiting until he fell asleep to return to my own bed, but I ended up falling asleep before him. I dreamt the whole time about him being scared and waking me up every few minutes to make sure I was still there. So when I woke up at 5:30 I felt like I hadn't slept at all! I HATE nights like that!

I asked Joe to tell me about his dream the next day. (He didn't want to talk about it the night before--thought it might make him even more scared.) He dreamt that the Wicked Witch of the West saw him and started chasing him. He tried to get away and was calling for help, but he tripped and fell. The witch grabbed his foot... and that's when he woke up. I said, "Well, Joe, if that's as far as your dream got you didn't have anything to be afraid of--maybe she just wanted to take you home and give you a cookie or something!" He looked at me in utter disbelief. "MOM... she's wicked!!! Why do you think they call her the WICKED Witch?!" Ha! Good point. I was only trying to help. By the way, my kids have never seen the Wizard of Oz, but they've seen pictures of the witch. --Mom, it was that same picture that induced the screaming fits last year! CRAZY!!! Anyway, Joe and Sam slept together last night and did great. Tonight they're back in their own beds. I don't anticipate any more problems. Only time will tell!

Let's see, what else... We had our services yesterday at a meeting room in a motel. We had pretty good attendance in the morning and a good time, in spite of the lack of music! We're pretty spoiled on a piano, so doing everything Acapulco (I know--it's just what we like to call it!) is quite a change. Last night was my WMB service. I showed that video that Brother Rob had prepared for his part on the Assemby program with scenes of mission trips in Africa, Asia, and Europe. IT IS SUCH A BLESSING!!! My favorite part, hands down, is the footage from Uganda where the dudes are playing their homemade instruments and singing, "Alleluia, Your name be praised..." It is so BEAUTIFUL--and THEY are so beautiful! It always overwhelms me with what a privilege it is to be ONE with them. We are PART of them and they are PART of us!!! It's just so amazing. The footage from Swaziland was a great blessing to our folks here. I shared how those people had just come out of the CoGoP and lost their church building, just like us. The video shows them walking from one place to another, singing as they go, then congregating in the open air and worshiping the Lord and singing, "Never give up! In times of sorrow--never give up! In times of trouble--Never, never, never, never, never--NEVER, never give up!"

I've been having some really good discussions with the kids during our morning devotions since we've been home from our trip. They've been asking lots of questions and really getting involved. I love it! Today I was reading Acts 7 to them, about Stephen preaching and then being stoned for what he preached. Joe was EXTREMELY upset by it. Why didn't somebody stop them? Why didn't Stephen run and try to get away? Why did God let it happen--God can do anything, so why didn't He save Stephen?! He was ANGRY with the stoners (ha!) and if only HE had been there he would have done something. That led us into a discussion about Peter and Jesus and how Peter had a hard time accepting the idea of Jesus being beaten and crucified--wanted to rise up and fight and not let anything bad happen. We talked about God miraculously saving people in some instances (3 Hebrew Children), but allowing others to suffer and die--like Jesus Himself, and Stephen. We talked about the reasons why He allows things like that and what we can learn through it. He and Katie both just pepper me with questions and I'm amazed at some of the thoughts they have about things. Our devotions are developing more into Bible studies--and I'm loving it! :-)

Big event for the day was grocery shopping. When we got home from the trip we had nothing in the fridge but Cokes and tortillas. Picked up some milk and bread the first day, so we've been living on cereal and sandwhiches since then! I made BBQ sausage and mac-n-cheese the other day, but that's about it. Been working on some house cleaning--and laundry, mostly. 10 loads, I believe. We brought home several bags of garage sale clothes from Pennsylvania (can't pass up jeans for .25 cents, you know!), so that increased the laundry a whole lot! I DREAD getting into the ironing. There's a TON of it. ~sigh~ Got to get started on it soon.

Way too long of a post. I hate it when I do that. Oh well. I'll get busy on the next picture post now! That'll make it all better. :-)

Trip Pictures, Part 1

2008-08-22T21:09:00.015-06:00

But first...

An update on our local church. We went today and took our flags and pictures and tracts from the church building and painted over the signs, then put up the CoGoP stuff again. We made sure everything was clean and in order, then locked the door and walked away. We're waiting for things to be finalized, but we've offered to give them the Church building and the sum of our current bank account if they'll just drop the lawsuit. Our ladies here are just soooooo tired of fighting things and although they know the building is rightfully theirs (and it is), they would rather just walk away from it and start over from scratch than to go to court and fight it out. After all, it's only a building. So we got things taken care of at the building and made arrangements to use a meeting room at a local motel for services this Sunday. Praise the Lord we were able to find something on such short notice! Do pray for the church here. We trust that God has wonderful things in store for us and we want to stay in a good spirit and not get ugly and angry toward the bunch of crooks that are snatching the building. Ha! Just kidding!!! (Kind of! Ha!) Anyway, pray for us here. We need God's help.

Okay, and now the fun part!

These pictures are about three weeks old, but no matter. They're PICTURES, right?! We traveled on Friday and Saturday and got to Mom & Dad's house sometime after 10:00 that night. We let the kids run off a little bit of steam and get the excited-to-be-with-the-grandparents spasms all worked out before putting them to bed.

We went to church at Zion hill the next day, then out to lunch at a Chinese buffet (can you believe it?!) before heading back to the house. There was still plenty of time for some fishing before our Sunday afternoon nap. :-)

(Mom is trying to untangle Joe's line from the tree up above, in case you're wondering about her unusual fishing technique.)

James took Katie for a ride in the paddle boat. It tips just a bit when he gets in. Ha!

Mounting the hammock...

Joe finally made it!!!

Hershey was enjoying the great outdoors as well, but it got a little hot for him.

Monday was Presbytery stuff, then a nice relaxing night at Mom & Dad's house. Actually, I don't remember anything at all about that night. I just know that was the plan!

Tuesday we got everybody ready and headed to Fields of the Wood! All of the kids decided they wanted to climb Ten Commandment Mountain, so up they went. I stayed down below so I could take pictures. That is, of course, the ONLY reason I didn't go with them. It had nothing to do with the fact that I'm now in my 30's and a titch overweight or the fact that it was dreadfully hot and miserable out there. ~ahem~ Anyway, Joe actually ran most of the way up and back. I was very impressed! Katie and Sam took things slowly, but they made it all the way, too. Good for them!

(All of the following pictures were taken from GREAT distances, just zoomed in real close. I love my camera soooooo much when I see pictures like this from a mile away!)

Here's a shot of some of the folks from our Region at the service. There were several others, but they were spread hither and yon. I just love it that so many of them made the effort to be there! They bless me. :-)

And that's it for now! The next installment will include pictures of the Assembly itself. :-)

WHEW

2008-08-21T22:21:00.002-06:00

We're HOME!!! We left Mom and Dad's house at about 8:30 yesterday morning. Stopped at Casey Jones' Villiage in Jackson, Tennessee and ate at the restaurant there for lunch. Fresh blueberries on the buffet! Wow! It was the first time James and the kids had ever been there and it's been several years since I've been, so it was fun. Everybody really enjoyed themselves and the food was really good. We even found coonskin caps for the boys there! They've been wanting them for AGES now, but they're hard to find and so expensive (but cheaply made) when you do find them. These were better and cheaper than most, so we now have two furry-headed little boys. :-)

James wanted to push on and go as far as we could last night, so we ended up driving 14 hours and making it all the way to (almost) Oklahoma City. We held out for dinner until we got there (8 or 9 hours past lunch!) because they had a Steak ~N~ Shake and it was going to be my last opportunity for one of those on this trip! So at 9:30 at night we woke our sleeping children, enjoyed a FANTASTIC Frisco Melt with two extra cups of sauce, found a motel down the road and fell into bed. The La Quinta (with our AAA discount) was only $1.50 more than the Motel 6 down the block. So we enjoyed a much nicer, bigger room with a bathtub (most Motel 6 rooms only have a shower) AND a good breakfast in the morning.

I drove the first leg of the trip today, taking us into Amarillo. James took it from there and we had a nice, enjoyable trip. We had bought a couple of those Children's Classics books at a discount store in Pennsylvania, so by the time we made it home today Katie had read Anne of Green Gables and Pollyanna and Joe had read The Prince and the Pauper and Robinson Crusoe.

We got into our mountains just before 5:00, so we had time to run to the Post Office and pick up our mail, then to the grocery store to grab some milk and bread--and Totino's pizzas for dinner. :-) I don't think this has EVER happened before, but we were able to get the van unloaded and vacuumed (thanks to Sammy and Katie) AND get EVERYTHING UNPACKED!!! Wa-Hoo!!!!! It usually takes me days to get unpacked and sort through everything. Now it's 10:30 and I'm wiped out, so to bed with me. I'll start tackling the mountains of laundry tomorrow.

Before I go... please say a prayer for our local church. It looks like our folks have decided to walk away from the church building rather than try to fight it in court. They're just so exhausted with the whole business (it's been going on for years, even though the lawsuit only became official just recently) and want to be able to just be DONE with it and go on. We don't know if even that is possible at this point, but we're praying that the CoGoP will accept our offer (to hand over the building) and drop the suit. Who knows. It's been pretty incredible, some of the things they've done and tried to require. In any case, God knows. He has all the answers and we only want what he wants. This has been extremely stressful on some very dear old ladies who have been attacked ruthlessly and unjustly. Please say a prayer that God would give them strength and comfort and peace that passes all understanding. They really need a touch from the Lord and we all really need wisdom to know where to go and what to do from here--beginning with a location for church services on Sunday! :-)

~Rebekah~

--As for pictures, I'll start posting some soon! The batteries to my camera died at Mom & Dad's house and I kept forgetting to recharge them. I've got them charging now though, so I'll be able to get my pictures on the computer tomorrow. Hopefully I've got some good ones, but even bad pictures are better than no pictures at all, right?! ;-)

Change of Plans

2008-08-16T20:10:00.002-06:00

We were scheduled to leave for Tennessee today, but James decided we'd stay one more day with his folks. We only get to see them once or twice a year (looks like just once this year) and even with the extra day with them it's only a total of 4 and a half. I do wish we could see them more often. What I REALLY wish is that we could pry them out of Huntington County and get them out to visit us some time! They're some of those people who just don't budge (even to visit) from where they were born and raised. I can't relate AT ALL! Ha! Anyway, James' Dad has actually been making sounds like he might like to come visit, so I told James to jump on it and don't let it die! Time will tell. :-)

Yesterday James and I left the kids with his Mom so we could go to town and have the van serviced. It's strange leaving the kids with Grandma Wanda. I find myself giving instructions to the KIDS rather than the babysitter. There's no, "Be sure the kids finish their lunch before they have a cookie," or anything like that. It's more like, "Kids, you know how your Grandma is. You can all eat the same thing for lunch--don't have Grandma make three different things for you. Be sure to finish your real food before dessert and when she offers you seconds and thirds, say no thank you. Tell Grandma you don't need to watch any TV while we're gone and..." !!! Crazy. They all have a blast though. Gradma included, I think.

James and I walked around Wal-Mart for a while and waited for the van to get done. (That CAN'T be proper English!) We walked ourselves out, then went and sat down in the room next to the shop to finish waiting. They had stacks of magazines to look at, but no Country or Reminisce, so I was at a loss! ;-) I finally picked something up and started thumbing through it. I ALMOST DIED. Maybe I am completely out of touch (I hope so!), but did you know that some people pay HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS on a single outfit?!?!? --OR MORE!!! This magazine had all of the "Fall Fashions" to look for. Ha! Ha! Ha! NOTHING matches and most everything looks like it's been recycled, or should be. There was one particular model who was wearing a shirt, vest, pants, belt and shoes, all priced separately next to the picture. I was stunned by the prices and had to get out a pen and paper to add them all up. That ONE OUTFIT cost over $2,000!!!!! Can you imagine?!?!? And the poor girl looked like she'd just walked out of Goodwill!!! People are NUTS. I am sooooooo glad I'm not cool. I can't imagine how binding it must be for truly rich people to feel like they have to pay extravagant prices to look like they don't have any money at all. I always just go back to the Advice to Members: neat and clean, but not for show. Doesn't that just sound so good?! So FREEING! ~sigh~ I love it.

After being thoroughly exasperated by the vanity of this world, we got in our van and meandered around town until we found a second hand shop. :-) Found a cute little denim jacket for Katie for $1.70. (If I put it in that crazy magazine I'm pretty sure I could've got at least $215 out of it! Ha!)

We ate at Hoss's, even though they still don't know how to spell their own name. It was good.

The kids have spent a lot of time in the pool here and, of course, riding bikes. And Joe has pretty well learned to ride this week, too! WA-HOO! Two kids in one week! Soooooo exciting! All Joe lacks is confidence. He does really well, but if he gets going to fast he forsakes the pedals, spreads his legs out and lets his feet hover just above the ground in This-Way-I-Can-Catch-Myself-If-I-Start-To-Fall form. In any case, I'm really excited for both of them. Too bad they don't have bikes at home! Maybe we can find one for .25 cents like James' Mom did! Ha!

Aunt Grace & Uncle Pete came to visit for a little while yesterday. That was nice. I really like them. After that we loaded up and went to see Larry and Mary Ann, some cousins of James'. They are some more of my favorites. Just really, really nice people. I think if we work on them throughout the year we would be able to get them to come to the General Assembly next year and maybe they could even drag James' folks with them. That would be soooooooo cool! It would be so great to have them there and they would all LOVE it.

Today James and I loaded the kids up and headed to Orbisonia to take the kids on the East Broad Top train. They were doing some special something-or-another and had people dressed up in Civil War garb there. They even had a camp set up with all of their tents and the stuff that would've been in them. It was really neat! I got some good pictures, I think. If I ever make it back to High Speed Internet I'll post some! ;-) We stopped for lunch at the Mini-Freez on our way home and I had a really fantastic raspberry milkshake.

The kids played outside most of the afternoon. It wouldn't be a proper visit without the traditional Hershey Hunt, so I made sure he got away this afternoon so we wouldn't miss out on that joy. Or something like that. I still don't know when or how he got out, I just know I suddenly realized he was gone. I got in the truck with James' Dad and we drove hither and yon, hollering and stopping and asking aunts and cousins to keep their eyes peeled for the little rat. We went back to the house, then drove up behind it to the top of the hill. That's where we spotted him, running home. I'm pretty sure he had heard me calling and decided it was time to head home. I have no idea how far he'd been, but he was huffing and puffing and his tongue was hanging out the side of his mouth, and he was just barely ashamed of himself. Mostly he just looked like he'd been having a great time. ~sigh~

Some more cousins came visiting tonight. I missed most of their visit due to bathing children, packing up, and calling home to one of our church members to check in and see how things are going back there. (Pretty good, except for being sued!) It's been a good visit and this week has gone by way too fast. Our visit with Mom and Dad will be even shorter, but at least we were able to see them a few minutes here and there when we stayed with them during the Assembly last week. And I'm already looking forward to our family visit in December--that will be SO MUCH FUN! :-)

I was looking at my blog earlier and was shocked by how far I had to scroll down to get to a picture. It's been way, way too long since I've posted any! Soon. Very soon. I hope. :-) Tomorrow we'll drive to Mom and Dad's house. Probably won't blog from there--maybe from a motel on the way home. We'll see!

~Bec~

And Then...

2008-08-14T20:25:00.002-06:00

After the Assembly ended we went back to the house and let the poor, neglected poodle out for a few minutes before heading to Chattanooga for dinner at a BBQ joint. Ah, yes. Poor Hershey. It was a long, lonely week for him! One day we didn't make it back at all in between sessions, so he was locked inside the house for a full 14 hours all alone. For all of his quirks, I'm thankful that he's perfectly trained in the ways that really matter on days like that! Anyway, dinner was GREAT and then we had a nice, relaxing evening back at Mom & Dad's house. For the 300 of you who went to Ryan's... don't tell me about all the fun I missed! ;-)

Monday morning James headed off to the Presbytery meeting (Dad was gone EARLY in the morning), so I spent my time gathering up our belongings, cleaning things here and there, sorting laundry, packing up and loading the van. We headed to HQ at about 10:30, I think, to help get things ready for lunch for all the Presby guys. Sister Shaw had things pretty well taken care of, so there wasn't a whole lot to do. I got the tables clothed (get it?) and sorted sugar packets with Sister Castro and Katie. (Pitiful job, I know--but it was right down my alley. And they look SO much better now! Ha!) My only other real job was dishing up and passing out the sherbet. It was kind of fun to play waitress... until I came to one particular Overseer who inquired as to whether the sherbet was good or not. He basically told me that I had no business serving something to others that I hadn't first tasted myself and would be able to verify personally that it is worthwhile; a lot of people do that with religion and so on and so forth. I endured the lecture for as long as I could and finally took a bite of sherbet, shoved the spoon back into the bowl and slapped it down in front of him. "Ith good!" Some people, I tell ya'. ;-)

(For those of you who are royally grossed out, I did remove that bowl and give it to one of my kids. The picky Overseer got a fresh bowl.)

We left directly following lunch and headed to Pennsylvania. We knew there was no way we'd make it all the way, so we didn't really push it. We stopped near Pigeon Forge and went into a really neat furniture and decor place that specialized in rustic, log, and lodge stuff. I LOVED IT! It's bad to go places like that though 'cuz you want it all. We actually made it out with nothing. Sad, but probably a good thing.

After that we took the kids to Bass Pro Shops. At least I think that's what it was. One of those outdoorsy kind of stores that is as much museum as it is store. They thought it was terrific!!! I did think to bring my camera with me, but realized once we got inside that the memory card was in the laptop. Oopsie. It was really, really neat and a nice break in the trip.

Can't remember how far we made it that night... I think it was someplace just beyond Roanoke. We stayed in the Relax Inn. James said the lobby had Ganesha all over it. Sounded like there had been a food fight in there to me, but he explained that Ganesha is the name of a Hindu god--the one that looks like an elephant. Creepy! I hate staying places like that. Feels like you're "supporting" the crazy false religion, you know?! The rooms weren't the greatest either. One wall had that dark paneling that all the trailers in the 70's were finished out with. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but that's an awful long time for a motel to go without remodeling! The lady was going to charge a $10 pet fee for Hershey. HA! Maybe if we were at a real NICE motel, but this place?! He would have been a nice improvement, you know?! It was a beautiful night, not too hot and not too cold, so we just left him in the van and saved the $10. He's so good to just curl up and go to sleep, so it's not a problem.

We finished out the trek to James' folks house at about 1:00 the next day. The kids immediately hit the toys outside. They've got a swing set and plastic play fort and bikes of all shapes and sizes. AND...

***Drum roll, please...***

Katie learned how to ride a bike!!! Wa-Hoo!!! I'll confess that this is one of those moments that I'm ashamed to admit that my kid is just now getting to something that they should have conquered long ago but never did because of reasons that are not their own fault. We bought them bikes a couple of years ago, but from the very get-go they had problems--the bikes, not the kids. The handlebars would flop around and need tightened, then the training wheels would fall off, then the tires would go flat--they would break down faster than we could fix them, so they really weren't ridable most of the time. Anyway, James' Mom had bought an old beat up bike for a quarter (really--25 cents) at a yard sale recently. It's been obviously painted several times by children and the seat is completely duct taped. In fact, it may BE duct tape with no seat at all! Ha! Anyway, Katie hopped on it and I helped steady her a few times. She kept working at it and in just 5 or 10 minutes was zipping all over the place unassisted! Wa-Hoo!!! I'm sooooo excited for her!!! Joe's been working on it a little bit, too, and he's close to getting the hang of it as well. :-) I have pictures but, like I said, the Internet connection here is way too slow to think about uploading pictures. They'll come later.

We had a nice night here and some of the best corn on the cob I've ever eaten. That's one of my most favoritest things about coming here--all of the FRESH, FRESH, FRESH fruits and veggies. You can drive a few miles to an Amishman's house with an orchard sitting picturesquely behind it and go pick out how many bushels or baskets of peaches or plums or apples that you want. I got some HUGE, gorgeous, juicy blackberries the other day. Finished 'em off tonight. YUM! :-) Anyway...

Wednesday is the day they have the Amish market in Belleville, about 20 miles from here. We got up early and headed that direction. We stopped at a few garage sales along the way and found some clothes for the kids. I love Belleville. I just love seeing all of the Amish people and horses and the farm animals for auction and their baked goods and everything else. Some of them are still a little weird about having their pictures taken, so I either try to aim and shoot real fast hoping they won't notice, or just shoot from the hip and hope I actually get 'em in the picture! I'll go through and see if I got any good ones one of these days.

We made it home from our shopping excursion in the afternoon and put everybody down for a much needed nap. When I woke up the kids were outside and Grandma Wanda was with them, filling up the swimming pool. They had a great time, even though the water was way too cold to actually be enjoyable. I know because I experienced it. I watched their Dad continually spray them all with the hose until they were nearly in tears (do all Dad's have a tough time knowing when to quit?! Ha!), so I finally took one of the water guns and gave him a taste of his own medicine. I fixed his wagon, Sister Janis! Ha! Anyway, he talked one of the boys into shooting me. I warned them that they'd be sorry and I'd dunk their heads in the pool water if they did it, but the promting from Dad was more convincing than the threatening from Mom. I didn't follow through with the dunking their heads thing, only because I didn't have to. They were sorry long before I got that far. But by the time it was over we were all soaked head to toe.

Today has been nice and relaxing. We just hung out around the house today. The kids played outside a lot. I've flipped through the channels a lot today. We don't have TV at home, so it's nice when we go other places to actually be able to watch something here and there. Ha! It seems to be getting harder all the time! It just amazes me. James' folks have 70 channels and most of the time you can flip through them and not find ANYTHING that is both clean and interesting or enjoyable. How is that possible?! 70 channels!!! It's nuts. I have found a few things on HGTV and I watched part of Bonanza with Joe today. I'm really wishing I would have thought to bring a cross-stitch or something to work on!

Grandpa Norman gave all of the kids rides on the tractor today. That's always a highlight for them. And James went into town and picked up some pizza from Danny's, always a highlight for him... and him alone! The stuff is TERRIBLE! It's nothing but school cafeteria pizza from when I was in 3rd grade, soy cheese and all. Bleagh. But I ate my obligatory piece and James held back to only 6 or 8 pieces, so all is well. :-)

And that just about gets us caught up! I'll write more when there's something more to write about. ;-) Until then...

~Rebekah~

It's a Grand & Glorious Feeling

2008-08-13T20:42:00.002-06:00

...to be wearing SOCKS again! Wa-Hoo!!! There are a great many wonderful things about the General Assembly and only a few truly terrible things, the most terrible of all being nylons. A whole week of 'em. I have a severe aversion (just personally) to bare legs and feet, so that's not an option. By the end of the week I CAN'T WAIT to get back into some nice, cozy, comfy socks. My first choice was my blue and green and white striped ones. Today was blue and orange argyle. ~sigh~ Life is grand. :-)

The webcast pretty well took care of the need to blog about the Assembly, which is both great and awful all at the same time. I'm SO GLAD that we have that available! What did they report--like, 43 countries that had logged on?! That's AMAZING!!! Wa-Hoo! I could go through my program and write about all my favorite parts of the Assembly, but it's already nearly 11:00 and I'm way too wiped out to even consider it. So... order the DVD's and pick out your own favorite parts. :-)

I will mention the shockers at the end. Brother Carter taking over Tennessee and Brother Horton taking over Virginia. Hhmmm. Strange. I have this peculiar desire to poke fun at Brother Horton here on my blog all of the sudden. I'm going to make myself refrain though. Tonight. :-) As for Brother Carter, can you believe that man actually had the nerve to approach some of our ministers directly following the dismissal prayer and inquire as to whether they were pastoring right now or not?! I'd hate to accuse him of trying to snatch our preachers... but I guess that's what I'm doing! Ha! I know he now needs a pastor for Antioch and for his own church and he's apparently not wasting any time getting right into the hunt. I told him he couldn't have any of our pastors. Actually, what I told him was that we scraped the very bottom of the barrel when we picked pastors so that nobody else would want them and we wouldn't be in danger of having them desert us. Ha! Of course, I said it mostly for the benefit of the particular pastor I was standing next to at the time (you know who you are!), but hopefully Brother Carter got the gist. Unfortunately, he doesn't strike me as a man to be easily discouraged or deterred. I figure he'll have both churches filled by the end of this week! HA! I truly hope so, anyway. We need good workers all over The Church of God and I pray God will provide some for those churches very soon. As long as they don't come from out west. Kidding--I'm just kidding! Sort of. ;-)

The bigger shockers were Brother Campbell going to Florida/Georgia and Brian O'Dell going to Cajun country--that's the biggest WOW of all to me. And I am soooooo excited about all of them! I can't imagine how hard it must be on the Campbells and their family and church to be parted after so many years... but I'm so excited! I feel like God's going to bless ALL of them for making this sacrifice, as well as The Church of God in Florida and Georgia. And the O'Dells! Wow!!! I feel so sorry for them (I can SO relate to the jumbled up feelings Sister Belinda is experiencing right now! Ha!) but I am just so, so, so excited about their appointment. I think they are going to be a wonderful blessing to the Church there. Besides... we're neighbors now! :-) Of course, "neighbors" in regions like this means that if they locate right in the center of their region and we stay right in the center of ours, we'll be about 850 miles away from each other! That's only about, what, 15 hours?! Crazy. Anyway, I don't think they even know I have a blog, but if anybody sees them be sure to tell Sister Belinda that I've been praying for them every time I see a Taco Bell. ;-)

Well, I think I'm going to call it a night. I'll try to post more soon, including some pictures. I'm just not up to it tonight, and I'm certainly not up to wrestling with this dial-up connection to get some pictures up tonight! Until next time--we're having a great time in Pennsylvania and I'll tell you all about it soon! G'night!

~Rebekah~

Liar

2008-08-06T21:18:00.003-06:00

That's me. I said I was gonna blog. I fully intended to blog. But I'm not blogging!!! It's always hard to make time for that during the Assembly, but last year I was able to make myself do it. This year its much more difficult because I know that everything is on the Web! I think it's FANTASTIC that we have that available this year--how exciting!!! But it means that people don't need to blogs to keep them updated. They can watch for themselves and see and feel everything that's happening. And that's much, much better than a blog. Besides, I know others are blogging and doing a fine job of it. :-)

Fields of the Wood was terrific and terrible all rolled into one. The service was really, really neat--and it was SO COOL when Dwayne Anders had the airplane fly over during his devotional. But it was sooooo miserably hot! It's really, really bad when you're sitting perfectly still under the shade of an umbrella and the sweat is still just rolling down your legs. GROSS. I love Fields of the Wood and I thoroughly enjoyed the service. But the moment it was all over I was ready to blow that joint! Ha!

We had time to get a nap that afternoon, which was GREAT. And then the Assembly started last night. ~sigh~ And now I'm too tired to tell you about it! Ha! So for now I'll just say that it was great, followed by a great day today. God's so good and I just keep feeling more and more blessed to be in The Church of God. Sometimes it just overwhelms me. I just don't deserve to be a part of all of this and I'm sooooo grateful. There is so much love in God's Church. Brother Byers preached about the "fellowship of the mystery" tonight and spoke about that LOVE among us--that we all need to have one heart beat, in perfect unity and to love one another as Christ loves the Church. Good, good stuff. But that's it for now. I need to get to bed so I'll be alert enough to know what goes on tomorrow. We're missing all of you who aren't here. Keep praying for us and keep watching! :-)