All Ready

... for my brand new (in a way) counter tops!!! Wa-Hoo!!! But more on that in a minute.

It's been a good Monday around here. Didn't do any of the regular house cleaning and laundry stuff that is supposed to happen on Monday, but that's okay. It will work out better for those things to happen later this week anyhow. We did manage to do school and I finally got the last of the kids papers graded, sorted, and packed away into their binders. Oh, how wonderful it will be to get back into computer school and be free from all of this grading papers and such! Ha! We've got 28 more days to go in order to complete our mandatory 180 days of school for this year. Then we'll be on break until after the Assembly. If we can actually go school-less for a month or two without somebody killing somebody, that is. My kids get so BAD when we don't do school! I guess they need the structure or something. We'll have to come up with lots of constructive things for them to do during their break.

Anyway, this afternoon I somehow got snookered into pulling weeds with the rest of the family. We all worked outside together for a couple of hours and, though pulling weeds isn't the most enjoyable of jobs, it was actually sort of nice to get some sunshine and fresh air. I'm way too much of a homebody. There are times when I go to church on Thursdays and think, "Hhmmm... is this the first time I've stepped out of my house since we got home from church on Sunday night?!" Ha! That's probably not a very healthy way to be. Actually, that's not true... We almost always go to the library on Tuesday, so that means I leave the house for church on Sundays and Thursdays and the library on Tuesdays. That's healthy enough, I guess. :-)

There was still work to be done outside, so we sent Katie in the house at 5:30 to cook dinner for the fam. Is that cool, or what?! She's helped with dinner lots of times and she's "made" dinner several times with my assistance, but this was her very first all alone effort. She came running outside to ask a question here or there, but did pretty well over all. Until the end. She was making tuna casserole and after everything is in the dish you're supposed to mix bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese and butter and sprinkle it over the top of the casserole before you bake it. Well, she just mixed it INTO the casserole. When she realized what she'd done she came running outside terribly distraught, tears just a-flowing. "I've RUINED dinner, Mom! I've just RUINED it!!!" I told her to mix more bread crumbs, Parmesan and butter and sprinkle it on top like she was supposed to the first time and go ahead and bake it. She got all ambitious and set the table with a pretty tablecloth and worked hard to have everything just like it should go, then she lit a candle to put in the middle. As she was getting the glasses she managed to drop and break one which, of course, brought a whole new flood of tears. "I can't do ANYTHING, Mom! I ruined our dinner and now I've broken a glass!!!!" ~sigh~ I never know what to do with that "I'm such a failure" thing. Makes me just want to slap some sense into her or something! I told her that she did NOT ruin dinner, it was going to taste great (and it did) and that everybody breaks a glass every now and then. RELAX and get over it--life goes on and it's all going to be okay. Good grief. We all enjoyed her casserole (and corn, as a side) and ended up eating the whole thing. That made her happy. Thank goodness. Ha!

After dinner I got busy cleaning the kitchen. Not just regular cleaning; major cleaning! I cleaned the canisters and the mixer and the microwave inside and out and the toaster and all of the other things (there are way too many of them!) that sit all over my counter tops. I scrubbed each and every one of them and put them on the kitchen table. We pulled the stove out and I cleaned it thoroughly, then I cleaned all of the nastiness that was behind and under it. GROSS. It's amazing how nasty some places get! We put the stove in the corner of the room and I wiped down all of the cabinet doors and drawers and cleaned the sink real good and then scrubbed all of the counter tops real good. So my kitchen is looking pretty bare right now. The guy is supposed to be here at 9:00 tomorrow morning to refinish the counter tops and I am so excited!!! Because I have no guts, we went with a pretty neutral looking finish, but I think it's just going to make everything look so fresh and clean in there. The final touch to it all, you know? And I'm excited to watch and see just how they do it. I'll try to document the whole procedure for you, okay Mom? :-) Anyway, I just finished cleaning the kitchen and scrubbing the floor. Now I'm sitting here blogging (two days in a row! --When's the last time THAT happened?!) and enjoying a Smith-sized bowl of Homemade Vanilla Blue Bell ice cream with Reeses Peanut Butter Shell on top. It's the best reward you could give yourself after a long night of pulling weeds and scrubbing and emptying a kitchen. :-) I'll try to blog THREE days in a row and show off my new counters tomorrow night.

OH! --Before I go... Although we miss our pastor when he's gone, we're hearing FANTASTIC reports about the revival in Kentucky! Tonight Frank Lewis, Sr. got sanctified!!! Is that cool, or what?! We're praying for him to receive the Holy Ghost before the revival ends. :-) And the young people there are hearing some mighty powerful preaching and they are just eating it up and responding to it with lots of prayer and surrender. That is sooooooo exciting!!! I love what God is doing in The Church of God. :-)