A Good Week

That's what we've had and that's what we're expecting again. :-)

I was able to get several unexpected things accomplished this past week, which feels really good. The day after we got home from our Colorado trip I intended to unpack and do laundry. Somehow I ended up emptying out the entire refrigerator and taking all the shelves apart and scrubbing everything down. Wasn't on the to-do list, but it sure felt good! I made it into the boys' room and started unpacking their stuff and ended up cleaning out their closet, toy shelves, and dresser. Again, it wasn't planned but things look and feel sooooo much better in there. Same thing when I got to Katie's room. She does a good enough job cleaning (finally!) that she cleaned out her own closet, but I got her dresser all nice and neat and organized again. ~sigh~ Those things make me so very happy!

The other real excitement of the week was...

I GOT A NEW SINK AND FAUCET!!!

I cannot begin to express my happiness! We've been "done" remodeling the house for many months now... minus the kitchen counters, sink and faucet. The sink and faucet were NASTY. We have extremely hard water here and there was all kinds of corrosion and gunk that just wouldn't clean up. I quit trying some time ago. Ha! It's discouraging to scrub and scrub on something and have it still be disgusting when you're finished, you know?! Believe me, this picture does not do justice to the degree of nastiness--you really can't even tell at all, so just take my word for it!

Oh, happy day--it's LEAVING!!!
The reason we hadn't replaced the sink and faucet in all this time was the counter tops. They aren't terrible, but they do have several chips and a few stains, a few drips of polyurethane here and there that are permanent. But it's sooooo expensive to replace counter tops, even for a small kitchen like mine!

But! James just came across this place that resurfaces your old counter tops for a fraction of the cost of replacing them. They've got dozens of different finishes and a 5 year warranty so we're going to go for it! Nobody wants to get a nice, new sink and faucet and install them in an old, beat up counter top... But we're set up to get our "new" counter tops this coming Tuesday (wa-hoo!) so the time has finally arrived for a new sink! I really can't figure out which feelings are stronger... my love for the new sink or my hatred for the old one! Ha! Anyway, here it is! :-)

Isn't it GREAT?! The left side is HUGE. The bowl itself is oversized and it's super deep--which has already come in so handy! The left side is smaller and a regular depth, so it's nice to not HAVE to use the giant side when you don't need it. ~sigh~ I'm so happy. :-) Most of all, it's FRESH and WHITE and CLEAN and not caked with nastiness! Life is good.

On Thursday James asked me about making a meal for all the church folks on Sunday. On Friday he ripped out the old sink. Just for future reference, it's not a good idea to be sinkless when you're trying to put together a big meal! Ha! The new sink wasn't fully installed and leakless until about 4:00 yesterday, so that's when I started cooking. I made a giant lasagna (thanks for the recipe, Jamey--it was great!), a chicken casserole (for the non-Italian eating people), and a spice chiffon cake--one of those pretty ones that you pop out of a molded tube pan. Well... in theory you "pop it out" of the pan. In my case, I shake and jiggle and poke and prod and pray over it and ease a floppy spatula along all the sides I can reach... and finally pry MOST of the cake out of the pan. Then I scrape the pan and try to put the puzzle together again on the top of the cake. Ha! It's great fun--you should all try it. ;-) To be honest, once I poured the caramel glaze over the top it looked gorgeous and you couldn't even tell that I'd been in a 20 minute war with the cake and pan. And best of all, it tasted really good. :-)

Today I felt way too involved. ;-) I taught Sunday School, led song service, fed the church (we also had some sub-sandwiches and Italian bread and salad to go with the stuff I cooked), then had my ABM service. This must be how Sister Shanda feels all the time. She's got half of the appointments in the Church, the poor thing! But God always blesses and uses her.

Our church dinner was so nice. I just love having the time to sit and visit with everybody like that. We've got some new people coming to church here that already seem like a part of us. They started coming while we were in Colorado and they haven't missed a service since then. They are a really, really sweet on Navajo couple who have been married for 49 years. They are just as cute as can be and they seem to love the services and the truth they're hearing. We're praying they'll keep coming and God will open their eyes to things they don't even know exist yet. :-) It was nice to visit with them during our meal.

Then it was time for ABM service. I'm never as well prepared as I wish I was, it seems. I was up until 2:00 last night working on it. I only went to bed then because I was beginning to feel sick, not because I felt completely satisfied with what I had. I felt pretty good about the lesson, just never did come up with a good, solid conclusion. I guess you just have to draw you own conclusions when you come to my service! Ha! I hope it was a blessing to somebody.

As crazy as this seems, we had had two services and a meal, come home and were all in our pj's by 2:30! Whoa! Seems like we've had these service-meal-service days once every month or two here lately. It's nice. Due to my late night last night I was bushed. The kids and James sat down to watch Hawmps! and I curled up on the couch in my fuzzy nightgown with my fuzzy blanket and took a good, long, sweet nap. ~Aaaaaahhh~ The perfect Sunday? Very nearly. We were missing our pastor and his family today (gone to Kentucky for revival), so it wasn't TRULY perfect. We miss them--and any member--when they're gone.

And that's about it. Nothing too exciting. Except a new sink. And the fact that the old one is gone. (THAT is exciting!!!!) And now we head into a new week. Looking forward to it. I think I'm going to end the day with a bowl of Blue Bell. That might make it the perfect Sunday even though the pastor IS gone. Ha!