Believe me??? ;-)
Just a note to say that we didn't hear anything about the house today. No news is good news, right? Okay, so probably not in this instance. Ha! It's in God's hands and we're happy knowing that.
Had a full day of school today, then James took the shaggy boys to get haircuts, Katie and I cleaned house, then tonight I got all of the laundry and ironing done because...
Tomorrow we're headed to Minister's Retreat in Colorado. And oddly enough, it feels really weird! I, of course, always leap at the chance to be with friends and church folks (especially right now, when I know that hereafter the opportunities will be few and far between with my dear friends out here!)... but somehow it feels a little awkward to be going to this Retreat that isn't really "ours." "Ours" will be in Alabama in a few weeks. That's weird, too! Ha! Anyway, Brother VanDeventer asked if we would please attend this function, hinting that it would be good for everybody to be able to tell us goodbye. Great. More tears and blubbering. Ha! As awful as that part will be, I wouldn't miss it. I'm so looking forward to seeing everybody and worshipping together and being able to hear some good sound preaching--from one of "our" ministers from Alabama, no less! Ha! Brother Rob Hawkins is the guest speaker. :-) So just as a heads up, that's where we'll be the next few days. We should be home Sunday night.
I did it. ;-)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Quickie
Think I'm capable of that?! We'll see.
We had a great Sunday. Enjoyed Sunday morning service, then took the Clarkson family out to eat. We must've really enjoyed our time together because we stayed at the restaurant all afternoon--until time to head back to church again! It was great. We had a good visit and several pretty good laughs. I'll always remember when Brother Chris felt like he'd been hit by a train. HA!
Yesterday we did school and all of the regular things. Changed everybody's sheets and got all the laundry done, though I have yet to pick up the iron. Just can't get motivated that direction yet.
Today the kids got done with school pretty early and headed out to play all over the mountainside. I couldn't seem to get myself rollin' to accomplish anything. I just felt restless or something. You'll never believe this, but I actually went and asked James if he'd take us to town. WHOA!!! I asked to go to town! James usually has to drag me there (!), but I just felt like I needed to get out of the house for a while. James needed to run a few errands anyway, so we all loaded up and went. First stop: Chick-Fil-A. I've never been a big fan of theirs (though I love the song--ha!) because I'm not a big fan of white meat, ever. But I've got to hand it to them--this particular store was under about the best management I've ever seen. There had to be 60 cars in the parking lot (for real--people were parking in the empty lot next to the parking lot, it was so full!) and the cars in the drive-through wrapped all the way around the building. But when we went in, they had four or five registers open and we walked right up and ordered. Within seconds, the manager was carrying our tray for us, escorting us to our table--and they had fresh flowers on every table. I spoke with at least 5 different employees for various reasons and they were all amazingly helpful, super fast, and extremely friendly. We watched from our table as two employees walked from car to car in the drive-through line (on the far side of the building from the drive-through windows), taking orders all the way back there so they'd be ready to pick up when they got to the other side. It was AMAZING how many cars went through there and how quickly. And though I mostly endure the chicken (with enough fry sauce it's actually enjoyable), the lemonade is fantastic. Mostly I enjoyed watching the 20 or more employees working like a finely oiled machine--they were terrific. :-)
From there we headed to the putt-putt place again. When we had gone a few weeks ago we bought tickets for two games but only played one. So we went today to make good on our other game that was already paid for. It was a lot of fun! I won on the first nine. And the second nine. So that means... ;-) I got a hole-in-one... TWICE IN A ROW! And one of them is when it really counted--on hole #9, when you get a free dessert from Chili's if you get a hole-in-one. Wa-Hoo! White chocolate molten cake, here I come! Ha! Actually, I can't take full credit for the shot. I ALMOST got a hole-in-one. I was just a couple of inches from the hole... but when James made his attempt his ball bumped into mine, nudging it into the hole. Ha! I told the guy at the counter and he said it definitely still counted. ;-) Katie and Sam had identical scores on the first nine holes and the last nine, so they tied all the way. On the last nine Joe actually beat his Dad, which is truly amazing. The kid is actually pretty good--even though he stands like a weird-o and never appears to be lining anything up at all, just randomly whacks the ball. Dumb luck?! Who knows!
After our game we had to go to Wal-Mart. That was NOT what I had in mind when I asked to go to town. Ha! Still, it had to be done. James needed to pick up some stuff for the Alabama Minister's Convention. We keep calling it a Retreat. So many things to get used to! Ha! Anyway, we hit the library on the way home and returned our mountain of books and brought home a new mountain.
It had been such a lazy, feel-like-doing-nothing kind of a day for me and I never did pull out of it. My children had cereal for dinner! They loved it. It was Joe's idea and it sounded quick and painless to me, so I gave quick approval to the suggestion. Later on James and I cooked up some bacon and eggs and made a breakfast burrito for him and a sandwich for me. What a night!
Rats. It's not as short as I thought. And I'm not even done yet!
The BIGGEST thing going on right now is... The yard sale lady who looked at our house... Jason called yesterday and said that she's going to be meeting with her realtor and the lender he recommended on Wednesday (that's tomorrow!) to see if she can get approved for the loan to buy our house. If she can, she'd like to see the house one more time and then it sounds like she's planning on making an offer. I'm trying real hard to not get too excited about it. First of all, she may not even get approved. Secondly, no offer has been made and it's foolish to bank on it happening; we'll just have to wait and see. Thirdly, even if she does make an offer, there's no telling what it will be! We're not wanting to be greedy about things, but we know how much we've put into the house and roughly what we need to get out of it. Okay, so James knows. Ha! Anyway, we're REALLY hoping this is "it"--we're so ready to get packed up and head to our proper place! I just keep praying and asking God to please bring somebody--this lady or somebody else--to make an acceptable offer on the house very, very soon. If it doesn't happen, we're going to have to move to Plan B. Plan A is: Sell the house and move our family to Alabama somehow. (We'll worry about the details on the other end later!) Plan B: James moves to Alabama by himself and stays in a fifth wheel belonging to a member there while the kids and I continue living in New Mexico until something else works out. Obviously, Plan A is the preferred plan. But if it doesn't pan out that way, James has still GOT to get to Alabama as soon as possible. We're already feeling terrible that it's taking us so long to get down there. Who wants an overseer who lives across the country, you know?! We need to BE there, but most importantly JAMES needs to be there. So we'll do whatever needs to be done to see that happen. I know God will open the doors for us and help us to work it all out in His time. I'm just really HOPING that His time is NOW and the door He'll open is selling the house to this lady (or anyone!) in the next few days! Ha! Please help us pray--we just want God's will to be done. We're hoping to hear SOMETHING tomorrow...
We had a great Sunday. Enjoyed Sunday morning service, then took the Clarkson family out to eat. We must've really enjoyed our time together because we stayed at the restaurant all afternoon--until time to head back to church again! It was great. We had a good visit and several pretty good laughs. I'll always remember when Brother Chris felt like he'd been hit by a train. HA!
Yesterday we did school and all of the regular things. Changed everybody's sheets and got all the laundry done, though I have yet to pick up the iron. Just can't get motivated that direction yet.
Today the kids got done with school pretty early and headed out to play all over the mountainside. I couldn't seem to get myself rollin' to accomplish anything. I just felt restless or something. You'll never believe this, but I actually went and asked James if he'd take us to town. WHOA!!! I asked to go to town! James usually has to drag me there (!), but I just felt like I needed to get out of the house for a while. James needed to run a few errands anyway, so we all loaded up and went. First stop: Chick-Fil-A. I've never been a big fan of theirs (though I love the song--ha!) because I'm not a big fan of white meat, ever. But I've got to hand it to them--this particular store was under about the best management I've ever seen. There had to be 60 cars in the parking lot (for real--people were parking in the empty lot next to the parking lot, it was so full!) and the cars in the drive-through wrapped all the way around the building. But when we went in, they had four or five registers open and we walked right up and ordered. Within seconds, the manager was carrying our tray for us, escorting us to our table--and they had fresh flowers on every table. I spoke with at least 5 different employees for various reasons and they were all amazingly helpful, super fast, and extremely friendly. We watched from our table as two employees walked from car to car in the drive-through line (on the far side of the building from the drive-through windows), taking orders all the way back there so they'd be ready to pick up when they got to the other side. It was AMAZING how many cars went through there and how quickly. And though I mostly endure the chicken (with enough fry sauce it's actually enjoyable), the lemonade is fantastic. Mostly I enjoyed watching the 20 or more employees working like a finely oiled machine--they were terrific. :-)
From there we headed to the putt-putt place again. When we had gone a few weeks ago we bought tickets for two games but only played one. So we went today to make good on our other game that was already paid for. It was a lot of fun! I won on the first nine. And the second nine. So that means... ;-) I got a hole-in-one... TWICE IN A ROW! And one of them is when it really counted--on hole #9, when you get a free dessert from Chili's if you get a hole-in-one. Wa-Hoo! White chocolate molten cake, here I come! Ha! Actually, I can't take full credit for the shot. I ALMOST got a hole-in-one. I was just a couple of inches from the hole... but when James made his attempt his ball bumped into mine, nudging it into the hole. Ha! I told the guy at the counter and he said it definitely still counted. ;-) Katie and Sam had identical scores on the first nine holes and the last nine, so they tied all the way. On the last nine Joe actually beat his Dad, which is truly amazing. The kid is actually pretty good--even though he stands like a weird-o and never appears to be lining anything up at all, just randomly whacks the ball. Dumb luck?! Who knows!
After our game we had to go to Wal-Mart. That was NOT what I had in mind when I asked to go to town. Ha! Still, it had to be done. James needed to pick up some stuff for the Alabama Minister's Convention. We keep calling it a Retreat. So many things to get used to! Ha! Anyway, we hit the library on the way home and returned our mountain of books and brought home a new mountain.
It had been such a lazy, feel-like-doing-nothing kind of a day for me and I never did pull out of it. My children had cereal for dinner! They loved it. It was Joe's idea and it sounded quick and painless to me, so I gave quick approval to the suggestion. Later on James and I cooked up some bacon and eggs and made a breakfast burrito for him and a sandwich for me. What a night!
Rats. It's not as short as I thought. And I'm not even done yet!
The BIGGEST thing going on right now is... The yard sale lady who looked at our house... Jason called yesterday and said that she's going to be meeting with her realtor and the lender he recommended on Wednesday (that's tomorrow!) to see if she can get approved for the loan to buy our house. If she can, she'd like to see the house one more time and then it sounds like she's planning on making an offer. I'm trying real hard to not get too excited about it. First of all, she may not even get approved. Secondly, no offer has been made and it's foolish to bank on it happening; we'll just have to wait and see. Thirdly, even if she does make an offer, there's no telling what it will be! We're not wanting to be greedy about things, but we know how much we've put into the house and roughly what we need to get out of it. Okay, so James knows. Ha! Anyway, we're REALLY hoping this is "it"--we're so ready to get packed up and head to our proper place! I just keep praying and asking God to please bring somebody--this lady or somebody else--to make an acceptable offer on the house very, very soon. If it doesn't happen, we're going to have to move to Plan B. Plan A is: Sell the house and move our family to Alabama somehow. (We'll worry about the details on the other end later!) Plan B: James moves to Alabama by himself and stays in a fifth wheel belonging to a member there while the kids and I continue living in New Mexico until something else works out. Obviously, Plan A is the preferred plan. But if it doesn't pan out that way, James has still GOT to get to Alabama as soon as possible. We're already feeling terrible that it's taking us so long to get down there. Who wants an overseer who lives across the country, you know?! We need to BE there, but most importantly JAMES needs to be there. So we'll do whatever needs to be done to see that happen. I know God will open the doors for us and help us to work it all out in His time. I'm just really HOPING that His time is NOW and the door He'll open is selling the house to this lady (or anyone!) in the next few days! Ha! Please help us pray--we just want God's will to be done. We're hoping to hear SOMETHING tomorrow...
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Exhausted & Happy
That's me. But if yard sales are this hard on a body, I'm not sure I can live through a move. Ha! I am soooooo tired and EVERYTHING hurts. I'm way too young to be feeling the way I'm feeling!
To recap... We never made it to the library on Tuesday, but I did manage to get all of the laundry and ironing done (let Katie stay up to watch a girl movie with me that night while I ironed--she had been SUCH a help throughout the day!), made a nice dinner for the family (using more frozen chicken and broth), sorted out the videos in the den for the yard sale (it's amazing how you feel the need to "purge" things that you felt comfortable with just a couple of years ago!), and got most of the yard sale stuff that was stashed all over the house priced and ready to sell.
Wednesday we got off to a pretty slow start, but can't remember why. We finally had our devotions, then went on a mad cleaning spree. I knew the rest of the week would be filled with yard sale proceedings and wanted everything to be nice and clean just in case we had any surprise house showings. Joe picked up clutter and put things away, Sam cleaned the kitchen and swept the floor, Katie vacuumed the carpet and rugs then mopped the tile floors. Joe swept the porch, then scrubbed the bathtub--not because it really needed done, but because he had been working rather grudgingly while the others were quite cheerful about it and I just couldn't let him go read a book while the others were still diligently working. ;-) I cleaned windows, scrubbed toilets, sinks, and counter tops. We had the whole house shining in less than an hour. It's incredible how quickly it can happen now that the kids are old enough to really help!
It was a rainy day that day and we made the most of it. Kate sat and read books to Sam for a while--I always love it when she and Joe do that. I spent my afternoon making our first corn chowder of the season (Mmmmmm!), along with hot rolls and cinnamon rolls. It's the sure sign that fall has arrived at the Horne house. ;-) I drew big bubble letters saying "BIG YARD SALE" with directional arrows on 8 (that's right, 8) posters and the kids colored in the letters off and on all throughout the day. They looked GREAT and drew in mobs of people for us. :-) We made a late afternoon trip to the library since we had missed going the day before, then we came home and had our chowder and rolls--everything was DELICIOUS. :-) Afterward James pulled the boxes of fall decor in from the shed and we got the house all decorated for the season. It's SO much easier than decorating for Christmas! :-) I think we were done for the day at 9:00.
Thursday started with devotions and school first, of course, and for whatever reason the kids seemed to need more help with school than usual. I actually sort of enjoyed it though. I learned lots from Katie's lesson on the human body and the different chemicals that are produced inside of us. :-) The rest of the day was spent in yard sale prep. We had a good BTI service that night on worldly amusements. Good stuff. Not worldly amusements; the lesson and comments about it. Ha!
We got up at 6:00 Friday morning to start dragging stuff out for the yard sale. HA. It takes a very, very long time to set up a sale--much more than the hour or hour and a half I was ridiculously hoping for. Sometime nearing 9:30 I told James to just go put all the signs up and open the gate--that we'd keep setting stuff up and pricing it all day if we had to, but to go ahead and open up for business. I really thought we would have lost the real "garage sale crowd" by then. My Dad is an early morning garage saler, as were the folks in Texas. If you advertised that your sale would start at 7:00, you'd have a pile-up of cars parked out front waiting by 6:30! Anyway, from the moment the signs went up we were SWAMPED. On a Friday! Up here in the mountains, in the middle of a MAZE of a neighborhood (thus the need for 8 directional signs! Ha!), in "a terrible location"! I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was not a full 5 minutes all day long until about 4:00 that SOMEBODY wasn't here looking, and usually a few--or a whole bunch of--somebodies! It was wild. We sold a lot of stuff and made a lot of money--the latter being something I hadn't really put a lot of thought into. My purpose for the sale was to de-STUFF and I'd never even considered how much money we might make. So the pretty profit was a wonderful surprise. :-)
At four-something in the afternoon we took the signs down, I pinned sheets over all of the clothes on tables, rods, and shelves, and we left everything else as it was... never considering the possibility of condensation over night! Ha! When we got up this morning everything was soppin'! The sheets were wet, but the clothes underneath were only slightly damp and dried quickly once the sun came out. Everything else we wiped off with towels as well as we could. I don't think anything was actually ruined, so that's good.
Anyway, last night we were sooooo tired once we closed up shop. James took the boys and headed to Subway to grab dinner. He said that Sam didn't even make it to Frost Road (less than a mile) before he was snoring--and Joe was asleep before they got back! Who knew that the sale had been hard on the kids, too?! We woke everybody up (ha!) and ate in the den and let the kids watch Wall-E. I COULDN'T WAIT until 8:30 so I could put the kids to bed and go to bed myself! Ha! I think I really did go to bed at about 9:00. Amazing!
Today we opened up the sale at 7 or 8-ish. It's been a LONG day and I can't remember that far back. Ha! Apparently there's no such thing as an early morning crowd around here--they didn't really start hitting until about 9:30. Strangely enough, Saturday was a MUCH slower day than Friday. Still, we did well and sold a decent amount. By 2 or 3 o'clock things had really died down and we decided to call it quits. I started sorting the PILES of baby clothes that were still around (though I did sell several bags worth today) into "to donate" and "to keep for the next sale" piles. Yes, that's right... we're planning on going through this garage sale misery AGAIN once we get an offer on the house, adding some furniture into the mix and then donating all of the little junk at the end of it. It took a few hours to get everything all separated (not just baby clothes--everything) into the piles and taken care of. James took a pile of donations to the thrift store (who rejected it--long story) and we got everything else moved back into the shed for next time. By then it was nearly 5:00. James said he would take the kids to Edgewood to donate all the stuff in the van to the Salvation Army out there--and they were glad to take it, which made James very happy after the encounter with the crabby lady and the first place. :-) He also took the kids to eat at McDonalds and to Wal-Mart--so they could all spend the money they made in the sale today off of their toys (about $15 apiece, I think) which means, of course, that we have now REPLACED the toys we rid ourselves of with new ones! That was NOT what I had in mind! Ha! Anyway, they had a great time AND...
It meant I had the house all to myself for a few hours!!!! It was glorious. I had to MAKE myself spend a little while cleaning up the house so I could really enjoy it, then I took a long, hot bath. It felt soooooo good, even though I got sunburned today and was feeling rather hot in those places already. Ha! It was great. I finally got out of the tub and had some left-over corn chowder for dinner at about 7:00, shortly before the family came home all excited about their new acquisitions: a yellow hat for Katie, a new air gun for Joe, and a remote controlled truck for Sam. A big one. Great.
Now they're all snoozing in bed and I'm not far behind them, I hope! But first, the most exciting news of all... that I'm scared to get too excited about just yet.
A yard sale lady looked at the house yesterday. She sounded interested enough that James let me show her through the house instead of calling Jason to set up an appointment through him--something that goes totally against James' nature. Ha! Anyway, she acted like she really liked it, but in visiting with her I just really didn't get the feeling that much would come of it. She is nice enough, but I really don't think it would be the best decision for her to buy our house. I would love to say that it's a perfect situation for her, but I really think it would be an unwise move for her--I don't think it will meet her needs satisfactorily and I think she might be getting herself and her daughter into some big financial heartache should she proceed with this. Of course, I was forming these opinions quietly in my head and it wasn't really my place to tell her, "You're nuts--you can't afford to make this decision and it's really not going to work the way you want it to anyway!" You know?! I keep thinking that if she has any friends or family with any sense surely they'll tell her those things. ?! ANYWAY...
I called Jason when she left and gave him her name and number as he had asked me to when we told him we'd be showing the house to somebody. He called back a few hours later and said that he had just talked to the lady. After she left our house she called her own realtor AND she called a lender to see about getting pre-approved for a loan (!) and if she can, she'd like to come look at the house one more time, then consider making an offer. WHOA! I had TOTALLY not expected anything to come of it when I was visiting with the lady. And even still, I feel really weird about it. I mean, I KNOW it's God's will for us to sell this house (at some point) and move to Alabama (that part: soon!)... but I keep thinking it surely can't be God's will for this LADY to make such an ill advised decision for herself and her family! So it's not like I can pray, "God, help her get approved for the loan and send herself into dire financial bondage for the sake of a house that's not going to solve her problems anyway!" Ha! Then the other side of me is thinking, Well, if she doesn't make THIS poor decision she'll probably just make another poor decision instead, so does it really matter?! HA! So I've resigned myself to praying, "LORD, YOUR WILL BE DONE--whatever that is. Just get us to Alabama very, very soon." I feel safe about that one. Jason says he'll keep in touch with this lady and her realtor and they should know early next week what her lender says. Help us pray for God's will!
I had fully intended to take pictures of our yard sale (weird as it sounds), but we were way too busy helping customers most of the time for that! Who knew?! Anyway, here are a few pictures I've taken in the past week or so.
James actually went and bought a roll of bubble wrap to protect his precious Church memorabilia. :-) This is the day he packed up the stuff from his office walls. Believe it or not, he had already taken down a LOT. Ha!
A few days ago the kids called me to the kitchen and informed me they had made lunch for me. ~sigh~ I am so blessed. :-) I've got good and thoughtful kids. Katie had made me a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and Joe had made ramen. Then they turned the lights out and lit a candle so it would be extra nice. Actually, I lit the candle myself because all of the kids are scared to light a match--something I'm VERY grateful for since I know all about what an 8 year old and a match can do. Right, Mom?! ;-)
They also made me a card.
Here are Sam and Katie working away on those yard sale signs. :-)
And this is a picture I took of my computer screen several days ago. On the left was the current temperature where I live right now, and on the right was the current temperature of where I'm going to live in Alabama...
Can you believe that IN SPITE OF THAT... I'm still EXCITED to move there?! Ha! God still works miracles, that's all I can say. ;-)
To recap... We never made it to the library on Tuesday, but I did manage to get all of the laundry and ironing done (let Katie stay up to watch a girl movie with me that night while I ironed--she had been SUCH a help throughout the day!), made a nice dinner for the family (using more frozen chicken and broth), sorted out the videos in the den for the yard sale (it's amazing how you feel the need to "purge" things that you felt comfortable with just a couple of years ago!), and got most of the yard sale stuff that was stashed all over the house priced and ready to sell.
Wednesday we got off to a pretty slow start, but can't remember why. We finally had our devotions, then went on a mad cleaning spree. I knew the rest of the week would be filled with yard sale proceedings and wanted everything to be nice and clean just in case we had any surprise house showings. Joe picked up clutter and put things away, Sam cleaned the kitchen and swept the floor, Katie vacuumed the carpet and rugs then mopped the tile floors. Joe swept the porch, then scrubbed the bathtub--not because it really needed done, but because he had been working rather grudgingly while the others were quite cheerful about it and I just couldn't let him go read a book while the others were still diligently working. ;-) I cleaned windows, scrubbed toilets, sinks, and counter tops. We had the whole house shining in less than an hour. It's incredible how quickly it can happen now that the kids are old enough to really help!
It was a rainy day that day and we made the most of it. Kate sat and read books to Sam for a while--I always love it when she and Joe do that. I spent my afternoon making our first corn chowder of the season (Mmmmmm!), along with hot rolls and cinnamon rolls. It's the sure sign that fall has arrived at the Horne house. ;-) I drew big bubble letters saying "BIG YARD SALE" with directional arrows on 8 (that's right, 8) posters and the kids colored in the letters off and on all throughout the day. They looked GREAT and drew in mobs of people for us. :-) We made a late afternoon trip to the library since we had missed going the day before, then we came home and had our chowder and rolls--everything was DELICIOUS. :-) Afterward James pulled the boxes of fall decor in from the shed and we got the house all decorated for the season. It's SO much easier than decorating for Christmas! :-) I think we were done for the day at 9:00.
Thursday started with devotions and school first, of course, and for whatever reason the kids seemed to need more help with school than usual. I actually sort of enjoyed it though. I learned lots from Katie's lesson on the human body and the different chemicals that are produced inside of us. :-) The rest of the day was spent in yard sale prep. We had a good BTI service that night on worldly amusements. Good stuff. Not worldly amusements; the lesson and comments about it. Ha!
We got up at 6:00 Friday morning to start dragging stuff out for the yard sale. HA. It takes a very, very long time to set up a sale--much more than the hour or hour and a half I was ridiculously hoping for. Sometime nearing 9:30 I told James to just go put all the signs up and open the gate--that we'd keep setting stuff up and pricing it all day if we had to, but to go ahead and open up for business. I really thought we would have lost the real "garage sale crowd" by then. My Dad is an early morning garage saler, as were the folks in Texas. If you advertised that your sale would start at 7:00, you'd have a pile-up of cars parked out front waiting by 6:30! Anyway, from the moment the signs went up we were SWAMPED. On a Friday! Up here in the mountains, in the middle of a MAZE of a neighborhood (thus the need for 8 directional signs! Ha!), in "a terrible location"! I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was not a full 5 minutes all day long until about 4:00 that SOMEBODY wasn't here looking, and usually a few--or a whole bunch of--somebodies! It was wild. We sold a lot of stuff and made a lot of money--the latter being something I hadn't really put a lot of thought into. My purpose for the sale was to de-STUFF and I'd never even considered how much money we might make. So the pretty profit was a wonderful surprise. :-)
At four-something in the afternoon we took the signs down, I pinned sheets over all of the clothes on tables, rods, and shelves, and we left everything else as it was... never considering the possibility of condensation over night! Ha! When we got up this morning everything was soppin'! The sheets were wet, but the clothes underneath were only slightly damp and dried quickly once the sun came out. Everything else we wiped off with towels as well as we could. I don't think anything was actually ruined, so that's good.
Anyway, last night we were sooooo tired once we closed up shop. James took the boys and headed to Subway to grab dinner. He said that Sam didn't even make it to Frost Road (less than a mile) before he was snoring--and Joe was asleep before they got back! Who knew that the sale had been hard on the kids, too?! We woke everybody up (ha!) and ate in the den and let the kids watch Wall-E. I COULDN'T WAIT until 8:30 so I could put the kids to bed and go to bed myself! Ha! I think I really did go to bed at about 9:00. Amazing!
Today we opened up the sale at 7 or 8-ish. It's been a LONG day and I can't remember that far back. Ha! Apparently there's no such thing as an early morning crowd around here--they didn't really start hitting until about 9:30. Strangely enough, Saturday was a MUCH slower day than Friday. Still, we did well and sold a decent amount. By 2 or 3 o'clock things had really died down and we decided to call it quits. I started sorting the PILES of baby clothes that were still around (though I did sell several bags worth today) into "to donate" and "to keep for the next sale" piles. Yes, that's right... we're planning on going through this garage sale misery AGAIN once we get an offer on the house, adding some furniture into the mix and then donating all of the little junk at the end of it. It took a few hours to get everything all separated (not just baby clothes--everything) into the piles and taken care of. James took a pile of donations to the thrift store (who rejected it--long story) and we got everything else moved back into the shed for next time. By then it was nearly 5:00. James said he would take the kids to Edgewood to donate all the stuff in the van to the Salvation Army out there--and they were glad to take it, which made James very happy after the encounter with the crabby lady and the first place. :-) He also took the kids to eat at McDonalds and to Wal-Mart--so they could all spend the money they made in the sale today off of their toys (about $15 apiece, I think) which means, of course, that we have now REPLACED the toys we rid ourselves of with new ones! That was NOT what I had in mind! Ha! Anyway, they had a great time AND...
It meant I had the house all to myself for a few hours!!!! It was glorious. I had to MAKE myself spend a little while cleaning up the house so I could really enjoy it, then I took a long, hot bath. It felt soooooo good, even though I got sunburned today and was feeling rather hot in those places already. Ha! It was great. I finally got out of the tub and had some left-over corn chowder for dinner at about 7:00, shortly before the family came home all excited about their new acquisitions: a yellow hat for Katie, a new air gun for Joe, and a remote controlled truck for Sam. A big one. Great.
Now they're all snoozing in bed and I'm not far behind them, I hope! But first, the most exciting news of all... that I'm scared to get too excited about just yet.
A yard sale lady looked at the house yesterday. She sounded interested enough that James let me show her through the house instead of calling Jason to set up an appointment through him--something that goes totally against James' nature. Ha! Anyway, she acted like she really liked it, but in visiting with her I just really didn't get the feeling that much would come of it. She is nice enough, but I really don't think it would be the best decision for her to buy our house. I would love to say that it's a perfect situation for her, but I really think it would be an unwise move for her--I don't think it will meet her needs satisfactorily and I think she might be getting herself and her daughter into some big financial heartache should she proceed with this. Of course, I was forming these opinions quietly in my head and it wasn't really my place to tell her, "You're nuts--you can't afford to make this decision and it's really not going to work the way you want it to anyway!" You know?! I keep thinking that if she has any friends or family with any sense surely they'll tell her those things. ?! ANYWAY...
I called Jason when she left and gave him her name and number as he had asked me to when we told him we'd be showing the house to somebody. He called back a few hours later and said that he had just talked to the lady. After she left our house she called her own realtor AND she called a lender to see about getting pre-approved for a loan (!) and if she can, she'd like to come look at the house one more time, then consider making an offer. WHOA! I had TOTALLY not expected anything to come of it when I was visiting with the lady. And even still, I feel really weird about it. I mean, I KNOW it's God's will for us to sell this house (at some point) and move to Alabama (that part: soon!)... but I keep thinking it surely can't be God's will for this LADY to make such an ill advised decision for herself and her family! So it's not like I can pray, "God, help her get approved for the loan and send herself into dire financial bondage for the sake of a house that's not going to solve her problems anyway!" Ha! Then the other side of me is thinking, Well, if she doesn't make THIS poor decision she'll probably just make another poor decision instead, so does it really matter?! HA! So I've resigned myself to praying, "LORD, YOUR WILL BE DONE--whatever that is. Just get us to Alabama very, very soon." I feel safe about that one. Jason says he'll keep in touch with this lady and her realtor and they should know early next week what her lender says. Help us pray for God's will!
I had fully intended to take pictures of our yard sale (weird as it sounds), but we were way too busy helping customers most of the time for that! Who knew?! Anyway, here are a few pictures I've taken in the past week or so.
James actually went and bought a roll of bubble wrap to protect his precious Church memorabilia. :-) This is the day he packed up the stuff from his office walls. Believe it or not, he had already taken down a LOT. Ha!
A few days ago the kids called me to the kitchen and informed me they had made lunch for me. ~sigh~ I am so blessed. :-) I've got good and thoughtful kids. Katie had made me a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and Joe had made ramen. Then they turned the lights out and lit a candle so it would be extra nice. Actually, I lit the candle myself because all of the kids are scared to light a match--something I'm VERY grateful for since I know all about what an 8 year old and a match can do. Right, Mom?! ;-)
They also made me a card.
Here are Sam and Katie working away on those yard sale signs. :-)
And this is a picture I took of my computer screen several days ago. On the left was the current temperature where I live right now, and on the right was the current temperature of where I'm going to live in Alabama...
Can you believe that IN SPITE OF THAT... I'm still EXCITED to move there?! Ha! God still works miracles, that's all I can say. ;-)
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Yea, Though I Walk
through the valley of the shadow of death… Otherwise known as the boys’ closet. I’ve spent way, way too much time there and, believe me, it was a harrowing experience. But more about that later.
On Friday evening I played Showcase Showdown with the kids. That’s always good for a few laughs. Then I let them watch a Loony Toons DVD for 2+ hours (!) while I worked on transcribing a session for the Assembly Minutes. It was like murder this year!!! Something was screwy with the DVD’s (plural, because they sent me a second one when the first one didn’t work right—but it was the same way) and it really tested my sanctification. Not sure I passed. Ha! Just ask Grayson. ;-) The discs wouldn’t play in either DVD player, on James’ computer, or on the recommended program on my computer. I had one program that would play it, but you couldn’t “scrub the playhead” (a new, really dumb sounding term I learned in the midst of this) to go to the spot on the DVD where you needed to be. Instead, you had to hold down the fast-forward button until you got there. You couldn’t even click it and let it run—you had to HOLD IT DOWN to keep fast-forwarding. Starting with 30 minutes of preliminary music. Not only that, but if you let your computer go into hibernation (and not always just that—even if it doesn’t hibernate, but sits a little too long), when you go back it would start the disc at the very beginning again. Meaning, of course, you’ve got to hold the ff button again—longer than last time because now you’re farther along in the disc. I didn’t time it the first few times, but after a while I decided I should use a stopwatch, just out of curiosity. I sat down to work one time and fast forwarded for 24 minutes to get to the spot I needed to be at. I was determined to try to finish in one last mondo sitting so I wouldn’t have to go through that again, but after Loony Toons I took a break to have devotions with the kids and put them to bed. When I got back to the computer the video screen had gone black again. Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!!! THIS IS ABSURD!!! I got the stopwatch. 35 minutes of holding down a button just in PREPARATION to be able to work. It’s totally insane. That means I spent 59 minutes just PUSHING A BUTTON that night. I did have the forethought, however, to grab some reading material before I sat down that last time, so in those 35 minutes I was able to read an article I’d been wanting to get to, as well as polish off the first chapter of Bringing Up Boys—been wanting to read that again now that my boys are a little older. So I tried real hard to think of that crazy disc as doing me a favor—forcing me into some “free time” that enabled me to read some things I wouldn’t have taken the time for otherwise. It was really just an attempt to maintain a little sanity. In the end, the only thing that mattered is that I FINISHED it and got it sent off. ~whew~ I’ve NEVER been so relieved to be finished with a job like that. No, wait… that’s not true. There was the presbytery meeting a few years ago… Ha!
On Saturday morning I went out and found James packing up his office. Whoa!!! The office is the only thing he packs when we move, but even that is usually reserved for the last day or two before we load up. He must be getting anxious to go! :-) His walls (that are usually PLASTERED with Church memorabilia) are now bare—and sort of pretty! (I almost forget there are walls in there most of the time since they can’t be seen… Ha!) It may help the office “show” better and feel bigger now.
Seeing James pack up some boxes sort of gave me the bug, too, but there’s so little I can actually pack right now. There was still lots of sorting do be done, however, so I had a day filled with that sort of thing. I made it through the cabinets on top of the fridge and all of the cabinets in the utility room. I pulled the fridge out and cleaned behind and under it (GROSS!) and cleaned all sides of the fridge itself. It stays with the house when we sell, so that’s one less thing I’ll have to worry about cleaning when the time comes. After that I cleaned out the hutch where I keep all of my books and Katie keeps a bunch of craft stuff. I pulled out nearly half of the books for the garage sale pile, as well as several other things. Then it was on to Katie’s room.
I took a few things off the walls to add to the pile. Before long James showed up and I knew I was in trouble. That man notices EVERYTHING. Sure enough, he walked in and started listing—specifically—the things that were missing. How does he DO that?! The walls and shelves are still full—how could he possibly know what has been taken down?! It’s maddening, I tell you. Ha! He’s actually been really good about letting me get rid of a LOT more than he’s ever allowed before. His hoarding tendencies are much stronger than my own. ;-) Still, I hold back on some things because I don’t want to over-do it and have him spaz out and snap—“It’s just too much! Forget it—let’s keep everything!” Ha!
Cleaned out under Katie’s bed and then headed to her closet. Being a walk-in closet, we use it for all sorts of things: blankets, photo albums, all of our games, sewing supplies, etc., along with her clothes. It felt GREAT to get that taken care of. And as the days go on it’s becoming evident that we’re going to have a HUGE yard sale. Wa-Hoo! Stuff be GONE!
After a long and full day of getting TONS of cleaning and sorting done, we had earned a pizza party. :-) We watched the Veggie Tales Esther show—I don’t think we’d seen that one in years. Great music. Put the kids to bed and ended the day with a nice, hot bath. ~Aaaaaahhhh~
Sunday was a grand and glorious day because OUR PASTOR WAS HERE! Wa-Hoo!!! We have missed him and his family sooooooo much. I’m so thankful to have them back, and thankful that (hopefully!) they can now settle into some sort of a normal life. They are needing to find a house, of course, and having that dilemma solved will help so much. I pray it happens very, very soon for them.
Sunday night the local church transferred our memberships to Alabama. We had submitted our request weeks ago, but with the Clarksons away we had to wait until they made it home in order to have a conference. I cried, of course, but did pretty well holding myself together. Ha! I know there will be plenty of tears when the time comes to actually leave, so they didn’t overwhelm me this time. :-)
Yesterday was the shadow of death day. GOOD GRIEF—I thought I’d NEVER get out of that closet!!! We started the day with our mile walk (last one for Kate’s experiment), so it was nice to start out with big, blue skies, puffy white clouds, cool, fresh air, and some exercise. Then it was time for the boys’ closet.
You know, it’s funny. Sam has been BEGGING for me to sort his closet for weeks now. He wanted to help and wanted to get rid of a ton of stuff. “There must be hundreds of toys in there, Mom—let’s sell ‘em!” But every time I would pick something up he would say, “Oh, um… Mom… Not that because, well, I’ve had that since Texas and… it’s special because… you know—memories.” “Mom, we need to keep that—I got that for my birthday when I turned five, so it’s special to me…” And so on. I kept working (mostly when he wasn’t looking), but would occasionally ask his opinion on something. I opened my hand once to show him some items and he said, “Hhmmm… a bouncy ball and a marble. I don’t know, Mom. They’re both pretty valuable…” HA! Crazy kid. Luckily, we found several foam darts as we were cleaning and he decided he’d rather go have a shoot out with Joe than help me. ~whew!~
I don’t know how it’s possible, but it took ALL DAY LONG to make it through the boys’ closet. We’ve got a lot of loot for the sale, so that’s good. We went through old videos, books, albums, and all sorts of miscellaneous items along with the clothing and toys. It looks and feels sooooo much better in there! It was sometime after 8:00 last night when I finally finished up in the boys’ room. –It went quickly once I finally made it out of the closet! We had devotions with the kids, then I crashed for the night and ended up staying up way too late looking online for houses in Alabama. That’s always fun. It will be more fun to look in person. It will be a lot more fun when we sell our house and our “looking” will be the real deal instead of just to get some ideas!
Today, I’m blogging while the kids are finishing up on school. Then I’ll have one more room to sort (the den) and I will have been through the entire house collecting sale items. Wa-Hoo! I’m so excited. I’m not sure how it’s going to work out… with all the stuff we’ve got it seems like it might take two or three days to get SET UP for a sale! Ha! We’ll see. Then, of course, there’s the laundry and ironing that I didn’t do yesterday. Time to change the sheets, too. All of the floors need vacuumed and/or mopped. And it’s library day. Hhmmm. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how the day turns out!
On Friday evening I played Showcase Showdown with the kids. That’s always good for a few laughs. Then I let them watch a Loony Toons DVD for 2+ hours (!) while I worked on transcribing a session for the Assembly Minutes. It was like murder this year!!! Something was screwy with the DVD’s (plural, because they sent me a second one when the first one didn’t work right—but it was the same way) and it really tested my sanctification. Not sure I passed. Ha! Just ask Grayson. ;-) The discs wouldn’t play in either DVD player, on James’ computer, or on the recommended program on my computer. I had one program that would play it, but you couldn’t “scrub the playhead” (a new, really dumb sounding term I learned in the midst of this) to go to the spot on the DVD where you needed to be. Instead, you had to hold down the fast-forward button until you got there. You couldn’t even click it and let it run—you had to HOLD IT DOWN to keep fast-forwarding. Starting with 30 minutes of preliminary music. Not only that, but if you let your computer go into hibernation (and not always just that—even if it doesn’t hibernate, but sits a little too long), when you go back it would start the disc at the very beginning again. Meaning, of course, you’ve got to hold the ff button again—longer than last time because now you’re farther along in the disc. I didn’t time it the first few times, but after a while I decided I should use a stopwatch, just out of curiosity. I sat down to work one time and fast forwarded for 24 minutes to get to the spot I needed to be at. I was determined to try to finish in one last mondo sitting so I wouldn’t have to go through that again, but after Loony Toons I took a break to have devotions with the kids and put them to bed. When I got back to the computer the video screen had gone black again. Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!!! THIS IS ABSURD!!! I got the stopwatch. 35 minutes of holding down a button just in PREPARATION to be able to work. It’s totally insane. That means I spent 59 minutes just PUSHING A BUTTON that night. I did have the forethought, however, to grab some reading material before I sat down that last time, so in those 35 minutes I was able to read an article I’d been wanting to get to, as well as polish off the first chapter of Bringing Up Boys—been wanting to read that again now that my boys are a little older. So I tried real hard to think of that crazy disc as doing me a favor—forcing me into some “free time” that enabled me to read some things I wouldn’t have taken the time for otherwise. It was really just an attempt to maintain a little sanity. In the end, the only thing that mattered is that I FINISHED it and got it sent off. ~whew~ I’ve NEVER been so relieved to be finished with a job like that. No, wait… that’s not true. There was the presbytery meeting a few years ago… Ha!
On Saturday morning I went out and found James packing up his office. Whoa!!! The office is the only thing he packs when we move, but even that is usually reserved for the last day or two before we load up. He must be getting anxious to go! :-) His walls (that are usually PLASTERED with Church memorabilia) are now bare—and sort of pretty! (I almost forget there are walls in there most of the time since they can’t be seen… Ha!) It may help the office “show” better and feel bigger now.
Seeing James pack up some boxes sort of gave me the bug, too, but there’s so little I can actually pack right now. There was still lots of sorting do be done, however, so I had a day filled with that sort of thing. I made it through the cabinets on top of the fridge and all of the cabinets in the utility room. I pulled the fridge out and cleaned behind and under it (GROSS!) and cleaned all sides of the fridge itself. It stays with the house when we sell, so that’s one less thing I’ll have to worry about cleaning when the time comes. After that I cleaned out the hutch where I keep all of my books and Katie keeps a bunch of craft stuff. I pulled out nearly half of the books for the garage sale pile, as well as several other things. Then it was on to Katie’s room.
I took a few things off the walls to add to the pile. Before long James showed up and I knew I was in trouble. That man notices EVERYTHING. Sure enough, he walked in and started listing—specifically—the things that were missing. How does he DO that?! The walls and shelves are still full—how could he possibly know what has been taken down?! It’s maddening, I tell you. Ha! He’s actually been really good about letting me get rid of a LOT more than he’s ever allowed before. His hoarding tendencies are much stronger than my own. ;-) Still, I hold back on some things because I don’t want to over-do it and have him spaz out and snap—“It’s just too much! Forget it—let’s keep everything!” Ha!
Cleaned out under Katie’s bed and then headed to her closet. Being a walk-in closet, we use it for all sorts of things: blankets, photo albums, all of our games, sewing supplies, etc., along with her clothes. It felt GREAT to get that taken care of. And as the days go on it’s becoming evident that we’re going to have a HUGE yard sale. Wa-Hoo! Stuff be GONE!
After a long and full day of getting TONS of cleaning and sorting done, we had earned a pizza party. :-) We watched the Veggie Tales Esther show—I don’t think we’d seen that one in years. Great music. Put the kids to bed and ended the day with a nice, hot bath. ~Aaaaaahhhh~
Sunday was a grand and glorious day because OUR PASTOR WAS HERE! Wa-Hoo!!! We have missed him and his family sooooooo much. I’m so thankful to have them back, and thankful that (hopefully!) they can now settle into some sort of a normal life. They are needing to find a house, of course, and having that dilemma solved will help so much. I pray it happens very, very soon for them.
Sunday night the local church transferred our memberships to Alabama. We had submitted our request weeks ago, but with the Clarksons away we had to wait until they made it home in order to have a conference. I cried, of course, but did pretty well holding myself together. Ha! I know there will be plenty of tears when the time comes to actually leave, so they didn’t overwhelm me this time. :-)
Yesterday was the shadow of death day. GOOD GRIEF—I thought I’d NEVER get out of that closet!!! We started the day with our mile walk (last one for Kate’s experiment), so it was nice to start out with big, blue skies, puffy white clouds, cool, fresh air, and some exercise. Then it was time for the boys’ closet.
You know, it’s funny. Sam has been BEGGING for me to sort his closet for weeks now. He wanted to help and wanted to get rid of a ton of stuff. “There must be hundreds of toys in there, Mom—let’s sell ‘em!” But every time I would pick something up he would say, “Oh, um… Mom… Not that because, well, I’ve had that since Texas and… it’s special because… you know—memories.” “Mom, we need to keep that—I got that for my birthday when I turned five, so it’s special to me…” And so on. I kept working (mostly when he wasn’t looking), but would occasionally ask his opinion on something. I opened my hand once to show him some items and he said, “Hhmmm… a bouncy ball and a marble. I don’t know, Mom. They’re both pretty valuable…” HA! Crazy kid. Luckily, we found several foam darts as we were cleaning and he decided he’d rather go have a shoot out with Joe than help me. ~whew!~
I don’t know how it’s possible, but it took ALL DAY LONG to make it through the boys’ closet. We’ve got a lot of loot for the sale, so that’s good. We went through old videos, books, albums, and all sorts of miscellaneous items along with the clothing and toys. It looks and feels sooooo much better in there! It was sometime after 8:00 last night when I finally finished up in the boys’ room. –It went quickly once I finally made it out of the closet! We had devotions with the kids, then I crashed for the night and ended up staying up way too late looking online for houses in Alabama. That’s always fun. It will be more fun to look in person. It will be a lot more fun when we sell our house and our “looking” will be the real deal instead of just to get some ideas!
Today, I’m blogging while the kids are finishing up on school. Then I’ll have one more room to sort (the den) and I will have been through the entire house collecting sale items. Wa-Hoo! I’m so excited. I’m not sure how it’s going to work out… with all the stuff we’ve got it seems like it might take two or three days to get SET UP for a sale! Ha! We’ll see. Then, of course, there’s the laundry and ironing that I didn’t do yesterday. Time to change the sheets, too. All of the floors need vacuumed and/or mopped. And it’s library day. Hhmmm. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how the day turns out!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Still No Title...
Yesterday I was able to make it through all of the kitchen cabinets and drawers, cleaning them out and separating items to put in the yard sale. THAT feels good! It’s amazing how much stuff you have in your house that you never use. Of course, I kept some of it because you just never know… and you’d LIKE to use it… you picture yourself using it when… You know, the never ending list of reasons why you have to keep things around, even though you can’t remember the last time you picked them up. It must be easier to be either a hoarder or a tosser. It’s induces great turmoil to want to do both! Ha! Still, I feel good about the yard sale pile I’m accumulating.
We got a call from our pastor yesterday afternoon saying that they weren’t going to make it back from Colorado just yet, so I spent some of my afternoon trying to “cram” for BTI service. Ha! I’m sooooooo not good at throwing something together at the last minute! But the lesson was good (“Prayer, Bible Study & Family Worship” from Let the Church Counsel Together) and we had lots of good discussion, so it worked out okay. We are re-e-e-e-e-e-eally missing our pastor and his family though! They’ve been gone for so long now and we’re so ready to have them back! I feel bad for them—it’s been such a long and grueling month for them, so many things to face, so many things to deal with, and so many new responsibilities—along with being away from work for so long. We’re praying God will bring them home very quickly now, both for our benefit and their own!
After church last night James said he was taking us out for dinner at Denny’s. It was quite an experience! Ha! We walked in and stood there for a few minutes and there wasn’t an employee to be seen anywhere. We were just about to leave when a peppy little blonde waitress showed up and seated us. Five or ten minutes later she appeared again to take our drink orders. (!) A little while later a large older woman showed up and passed out the drinks, then disappeared. Several more minutes passed before a jolly fellow in a pale green shirt came to chit-chat and predict what our children will be when they grow up and who knows what else. Ah yes, and he finally did take our orders before he left. Ha! It was crazy!!! An Indian man showed up next, asking if we wanted refills and (seeing that I was drinking only water) offered whatever we wanted—on the house. Should have took him up on it. Ha! He did bring hot chocolate refills to the boys and I drank some of Sam's. :-) And so went the evening, but when it was all over with we had had FIVE different people waiting on us, chit-chatting, and otherwise being almost TOO friendly. For nobody being there when we first arrived, a whole crowd suddenly showed up and became very interested in assisting us in every way imaginable! Ha! It took a very, very long time to place orders, much less receive them, but the people certainly were friendly. We even heard one of them answer the phone in the back, “It’s always a GREAT day at Denny’s! How can I help you?!” I told James we should start doing that. “It’s always a great day at the Horne home—what can I do for you?!” :-)
By the time we got home and got everybody to bed, it was after 9:00 before I started on my Assembly Minutes work. I had hoped to finish up last night, but it just wasn’t happening. I was so tired and had a terrible time focusing, so I gave up and went to bed at 11:00. I haven’t been sleeping well at night lately and I’ve been having crazy nonsense dreams when I finally do fall asleep. Most of the time I feel like I’m half awake throughout the night, in a state of semi-consciousness with my mind sort of whirling and mumbling prayers about selling the house or raising the kids or about the Clarksons—all kinds of stuff! I keep thinking of that scripture that says, “for so He giveth His beloved sleep” and asking God to help me to get some REST! He hasn’t answered that prayer just yet, however, and last night was about the same as the others. Oh well, I’ll try again tonight!
We missed the kids’ exercise experiment yesterday (due to my needing to study for service last night) so I told them we’d do it first thing this morning, right after devotions. So we loaded up the one functioning bike (Katie’s and Joe’s both have flat tires) and Kate’s roller skates and headed for the bike path. We timed Katie to see how long it took her to skate one mile. She walked it in 17 minutes the first day; skated it in 13 minutes today. Meanwhile the boys took turns with the bike. Sam rode for the first half mile while Joe ran along side of Katie, then they switched. Joe rode the rest of the way while Sam ran—full speed most of the time!—the last half mile. It’s amazing, the energy that kids have! Ha! Tomorrow, when they’re back to walking again I’ll walk with them instead of just drive along side of them. I didn’t get stopped, by the way, by any strangers wondering if the kids were in danger. Could have been because I have the “mom” look and was snapping pictures of the kids and talking to them through the window the whole way. ;-)
The skater...
The sprinter...
The biker...
Coming down the homestretch, finally!
And, here's the roller skate lady, once she came stumbling through the back door when we got home. Ha!
The kids finished up on school (Sam has now made it to page 100 in his Hooked on Phonics workbook and has read through the first 8 or 9 little books—it makes me so happy!), then James took Katie to town with him and left me home with the boys. I worked for a while on the Alabama Ministers Convention program for James and I think I’ve got it looking okay—we’ll see what he thinks of it when he gets home. The boys have been driving me bazerk and finally got sent outside with strict orders to not come back in “or else.” Sam especially HAS to have something to do at all times or he’s going to be finding or making trouble. I really thought that mile of riding/running today would help with his restlessness, but apparently not! Ha! I’m going to play a game with them or something in a few minutes. Then, if they can find something to do without beating each other up or tearing down the house (!), I’ll get to work again on the Assembly Minutes. Gotta get finished up on that today!
We got a call from our pastor yesterday afternoon saying that they weren’t going to make it back from Colorado just yet, so I spent some of my afternoon trying to “cram” for BTI service. Ha! I’m sooooooo not good at throwing something together at the last minute! But the lesson was good (“Prayer, Bible Study & Family Worship” from Let the Church Counsel Together) and we had lots of good discussion, so it worked out okay. We are re-e-e-e-e-e-eally missing our pastor and his family though! They’ve been gone for so long now and we’re so ready to have them back! I feel bad for them—it’s been such a long and grueling month for them, so many things to face, so many things to deal with, and so many new responsibilities—along with being away from work for so long. We’re praying God will bring them home very quickly now, both for our benefit and their own!
After church last night James said he was taking us out for dinner at Denny’s. It was quite an experience! Ha! We walked in and stood there for a few minutes and there wasn’t an employee to be seen anywhere. We were just about to leave when a peppy little blonde waitress showed up and seated us. Five or ten minutes later she appeared again to take our drink orders. (!) A little while later a large older woman showed up and passed out the drinks, then disappeared. Several more minutes passed before a jolly fellow in a pale green shirt came to chit-chat and predict what our children will be when they grow up and who knows what else. Ah yes, and he finally did take our orders before he left. Ha! It was crazy!!! An Indian man showed up next, asking if we wanted refills and (seeing that I was drinking only water) offered whatever we wanted—on the house. Should have took him up on it. Ha! He did bring hot chocolate refills to the boys and I drank some of Sam's. :-) And so went the evening, but when it was all over with we had had FIVE different people waiting on us, chit-chatting, and otherwise being almost TOO friendly. For nobody being there when we first arrived, a whole crowd suddenly showed up and became very interested in assisting us in every way imaginable! Ha! It took a very, very long time to place orders, much less receive them, but the people certainly were friendly. We even heard one of them answer the phone in the back, “It’s always a GREAT day at Denny’s! How can I help you?!” I told James we should start doing that. “It’s always a great day at the Horne home—what can I do for you?!” :-)
By the time we got home and got everybody to bed, it was after 9:00 before I started on my Assembly Minutes work. I had hoped to finish up last night, but it just wasn’t happening. I was so tired and had a terrible time focusing, so I gave up and went to bed at 11:00. I haven’t been sleeping well at night lately and I’ve been having crazy nonsense dreams when I finally do fall asleep. Most of the time I feel like I’m half awake throughout the night, in a state of semi-consciousness with my mind sort of whirling and mumbling prayers about selling the house or raising the kids or about the Clarksons—all kinds of stuff! I keep thinking of that scripture that says, “for so He giveth His beloved sleep” and asking God to help me to get some REST! He hasn’t answered that prayer just yet, however, and last night was about the same as the others. Oh well, I’ll try again tonight!
We missed the kids’ exercise experiment yesterday (due to my needing to study for service last night) so I told them we’d do it first thing this morning, right after devotions. So we loaded up the one functioning bike (Katie’s and Joe’s both have flat tires) and Kate’s roller skates and headed for the bike path. We timed Katie to see how long it took her to skate one mile. She walked it in 17 minutes the first day; skated it in 13 minutes today. Meanwhile the boys took turns with the bike. Sam rode for the first half mile while Joe ran along side of Katie, then they switched. Joe rode the rest of the way while Sam ran—full speed most of the time!—the last half mile. It’s amazing, the energy that kids have! Ha! Tomorrow, when they’re back to walking again I’ll walk with them instead of just drive along side of them. I didn’t get stopped, by the way, by any strangers wondering if the kids were in danger. Could have been because I have the “mom” look and was snapping pictures of the kids and talking to them through the window the whole way. ;-)
The skater...
The sprinter...
The biker...
Coming down the homestretch, finally!
And, here's the roller skate lady, once she came stumbling through the back door when we got home. Ha!
The kids finished up on school (Sam has now made it to page 100 in his Hooked on Phonics workbook and has read through the first 8 or 9 little books—it makes me so happy!), then James took Katie to town with him and left me home with the boys. I worked for a while on the Alabama Ministers Convention program for James and I think I’ve got it looking okay—we’ll see what he thinks of it when he gets home. The boys have been driving me bazerk and finally got sent outside with strict orders to not come back in “or else.” Sam especially HAS to have something to do at all times or he’s going to be finding or making trouble. I really thought that mile of riding/running today would help with his restlessness, but apparently not! Ha! I’m going to play a game with them or something in a few minutes. Then, if they can find something to do without beating each other up or tearing down the house (!), I’ll get to work again on the Assembly Minutes. Gotta get finished up on that today!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
I'm All Out of Titles
Yep. Just fresh out. Maybe something exciting will happen that will inspire a catchy title for next time. I hope it's something like, "THE HOUSE SOLD TODAY!!!!" ;-)
Yesterday James got up and headed into town to attend a Bob Ross painting class at Hobby Lobby. Makes me smile (and usually laugh, too) to think about it. I love it that he's found this nice, relaxing hobby to enjoy occasionally. He needs to be able to just get away from things for a while. Unfortunately, the class was cancelled and nobody called to let him know it. Bummer. Anyway, while he was gone...
Jason called and said some folks wanted to come look at the house in about an hour! WA-HOO!!!! We've been praying for that BIG TIME. It's only the third showing since we listed the house about six weeks ago. Crazy, hu?! When our house was on the market in Texas we had five to eight showings a week. It was pretty annoying, really! Now we're experiencing the other extreme. Anyway, God has really been helping us in our prayers over the whole sell-the-house/get-moved-to-Alabama thing and I've been feeling like my faith has really been strengthened. I feel like I EXPECT things to happen soon. I don't want to be one of those people who's always saying "God showed me that..." and then rattling off some prediction--that seldom actually comes to pass! But I told James a few days ago that something in me just sort of expects that we're going to get an offer on the house this week. I'm really hoping it's from the Lord, of course, but either way it feels good to have your faith stirred and to have high expectations of good things happening and God answering your prayers. He's so good to us. :-) Back to the showing... I hung up with Jason and got the kids hoppin', helping to get everything straightened up and looking purty. James got home from his cancelled class just as we were finishing, so he took the kids and left. Jason had told me that the lady coming to look is a realtor who's looking to buy for herself and she said it didn't matter if we were home or not. James and I both felt like maybe I should be here when they came. She and her husband seemed to really like it and had nothing but compliments for it. "I love your house and you've done a great job with presentation [That's the realtor speaking, of course. Ha!] Everything is in pristine condition and just looks fantastic. We'll definitely keep it on the list." So that's good news! The "keep it on the list" statement seems to imply that they plan to do some more looking and there's no telling how much time they'll spend doing it, but... who knows?! If they are the people that God has chosen to buy this place He can put it in their hearts to do it quickly. Right now they own a 3,400 square foot adobe house in Albuquerque that they're trying to sell for about half a million dollars. HA! Can you imagine somebody like that even LOOKING at my house?! Crazy. They are wanting to downsize, the husband said. She loved the log wallpaper (Ha!) and he loved the view. Walk-in closets in every room help, too. I wondered if they need to sell their house before they buy one... but perhaps they're rich enough they could just slap the cash on the table and sell their other house later on, right?! It's all in God's hands. I feel very relaxed about it and like I even sort of have a hard time praying about it anymore--almost like I've got the house thing prayed through and can't get inspired to really pour my heart out over it at this point! I'm not stopping, of course, but it's harder to really GET INTO prayer about it for some reason.
Once the people left and James brought the kids home we finished up on school, then loaded up and went to the library. Came home and James chopped up some of the roasted chili Erika had given us and made some queso with it--to go along with the tamales we had again for dinner. YUM. The rest of the evening escapes me.
Today was a good and productive day. The kids did good in school and enjoyed the experiment for science class. They were supposed to time themselves while walking one mile. Tomorrow they're supposed to use bikes or roller skates to do the mile, then the next day walk again and see how long it takes once more. I was ironing, so James took Katie and Joe (Sam was still at home, working on the dinner he was unhappy about having to eat) and dropped them off on the bike trail, then followed them for the mile. Ha! I told him to drive and measure out half a mile to see how far it is, then he could park and walk there and back WITH the kids. Nope, he's a driver not a walker. ;-) Another man saw the kids walking on the trail and our van following them and got concerned. He turned around and came and asked James if they were his children, just to make sure something bad wasn't going on. I'm sure a bad guy probably would've said they were his children too (right?!), but I appreciated that there are good folks out there who are concerned for other people. :-) James showed him the stopwatch and explained that the kids were doing an experiment and the reason he was there at all was because he won't allow them to go out alone without supervision! Anyway, they came home breathless and excited--and anxious to be able to ride the mile tomorrow. :-)
As for me, I did all of the laundry AND ironing (thank you, thank you), made homemade chicken pot pie for dinner (using up a pack of chicken from the freezer AND some chicken broth I had frozen AND some frozen veggies--Wa-Hoo!!! We're emptying that freezer out, just as planned!) and it turned out really good... despite what Sam (and maybe Joe) would say about it. I read library books to the kids for a while before family devotions, then afterwards I got to work on transcribing my session for the Assembly Minutes. I got half of it done tonight! That makes me VERY happy, most of all because it fills me with hope than I can complete the other half tomorrow night and be DONE with that responsibility. :-) We'll see if I can actually pull it off or not.
Yesterday James got up and headed into town to attend a Bob Ross painting class at Hobby Lobby. Makes me smile (and usually laugh, too) to think about it. I love it that he's found this nice, relaxing hobby to enjoy occasionally. He needs to be able to just get away from things for a while. Unfortunately, the class was cancelled and nobody called to let him know it. Bummer. Anyway, while he was gone...
Jason called and said some folks wanted to come look at the house in about an hour! WA-HOO!!!! We've been praying for that BIG TIME. It's only the third showing since we listed the house about six weeks ago. Crazy, hu?! When our house was on the market in Texas we had five to eight showings a week. It was pretty annoying, really! Now we're experiencing the other extreme. Anyway, God has really been helping us in our prayers over the whole sell-the-house/get-moved-to-Alabama thing and I've been feeling like my faith has really been strengthened. I feel like I EXPECT things to happen soon. I don't want to be one of those people who's always saying "God showed me that..." and then rattling off some prediction--that seldom actually comes to pass! But I told James a few days ago that something in me just sort of expects that we're going to get an offer on the house this week. I'm really hoping it's from the Lord, of course, but either way it feels good to have your faith stirred and to have high expectations of good things happening and God answering your prayers. He's so good to us. :-) Back to the showing... I hung up with Jason and got the kids hoppin', helping to get everything straightened up and looking purty. James got home from his cancelled class just as we were finishing, so he took the kids and left. Jason had told me that the lady coming to look is a realtor who's looking to buy for herself and she said it didn't matter if we were home or not. James and I both felt like maybe I should be here when they came. She and her husband seemed to really like it and had nothing but compliments for it. "I love your house and you've done a great job with presentation [That's the realtor speaking, of course. Ha!] Everything is in pristine condition and just looks fantastic. We'll definitely keep it on the list." So that's good news! The "keep it on the list" statement seems to imply that they plan to do some more looking and there's no telling how much time they'll spend doing it, but... who knows?! If they are the people that God has chosen to buy this place He can put it in their hearts to do it quickly. Right now they own a 3,400 square foot adobe house in Albuquerque that they're trying to sell for about half a million dollars. HA! Can you imagine somebody like that even LOOKING at my house?! Crazy. They are wanting to downsize, the husband said. She loved the log wallpaper (Ha!) and he loved the view. Walk-in closets in every room help, too. I wondered if they need to sell their house before they buy one... but perhaps they're rich enough they could just slap the cash on the table and sell their other house later on, right?! It's all in God's hands. I feel very relaxed about it and like I even sort of have a hard time praying about it anymore--almost like I've got the house thing prayed through and can't get inspired to really pour my heart out over it at this point! I'm not stopping, of course, but it's harder to really GET INTO prayer about it for some reason.
Once the people left and James brought the kids home we finished up on school, then loaded up and went to the library. Came home and James chopped up some of the roasted chili Erika had given us and made some queso with it--to go along with the tamales we had again for dinner. YUM. The rest of the evening escapes me.
Today was a good and productive day. The kids did good in school and enjoyed the experiment for science class. They were supposed to time themselves while walking one mile. Tomorrow they're supposed to use bikes or roller skates to do the mile, then the next day walk again and see how long it takes once more. I was ironing, so James took Katie and Joe (Sam was still at home, working on the dinner he was unhappy about having to eat) and dropped them off on the bike trail, then followed them for the mile. Ha! I told him to drive and measure out half a mile to see how far it is, then he could park and walk there and back WITH the kids. Nope, he's a driver not a walker. ;-) Another man saw the kids walking on the trail and our van following them and got concerned. He turned around and came and asked James if they were his children, just to make sure something bad wasn't going on. I'm sure a bad guy probably would've said they were his children too (right?!), but I appreciated that there are good folks out there who are concerned for other people. :-) James showed him the stopwatch and explained that the kids were doing an experiment and the reason he was there at all was because he won't allow them to go out alone without supervision! Anyway, they came home breathless and excited--and anxious to be able to ride the mile tomorrow. :-)
As for me, I did all of the laundry AND ironing (thank you, thank you), made homemade chicken pot pie for dinner (using up a pack of chicken from the freezer AND some chicken broth I had frozen AND some frozen veggies--Wa-Hoo!!! We're emptying that freezer out, just as planned!) and it turned out really good... despite what Sam (and maybe Joe) would say about it. I read library books to the kids for a while before family devotions, then afterwards I got to work on transcribing my session for the Assembly Minutes. I got half of it done tonight! That makes me VERY happy, most of all because it fills me with hope than I can complete the other half tomorrow night and be DONE with that responsibility. :-) We'll see if I can actually pull it off or not.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Hatch & Shed Work
Yesterday morning we went to church here in Albuquerque, then grabbed some lunch at a fantastic barbeque place we'd never tried before (sure, NOW we discover it... Ha!), then headed down to Hatch to be in service with the folks there one last time before we head east--whenever that will be.
We got to town a little early so we stopped by Chili Fanatic, the Soto's store. It's chili season in Hatch, New Mexico, right now and the store looked and smelled GREAT. The chilies are so pretty! Here are some of the little ones, ready to be made into ristras...
I love the colorful ones! They were so bright and beautiful. Sister Soto insisted that we pick one out to take with us (those people are so sweet), so we picked one of the colorful, small chili ristras--maybe that one on the far left in this picture, I'm not sure.
James had never had real Mexican food before he moved out west, but over the years he has developed a deep appreciation and great love of it. He's especially fond of green chili. He wanted his picture taken at the Soto's store with all of those gorgeous chilies. :-)
I knew that we would shed some tears in Hatch, but I keep managing to be unprepared for how emotional certain events are going to be. Ha! We were standing in the store, smelling the chili powder, selecting our jars of salsa, chatting with Tayde... and the obvious thought wiggled it's way into my mind: "What if this is the last time we're ever here?" The tears started to leak out of my eyes and just wouldn't quit, no matter how hard I tried to hold them back! We headed over to the church and I had a terrible time pulling myself together.
When Brother Banuelos greeted James he said, "So, are you happy about your appointment?" I saw James open his mouth, but nothing came out. His nose got all red and his eyes filled up with tears and began overflowing, and he just choked--he couldn't even speak! He, too, was totally unprepared for his own response. Things like that just don't happen to James--he's not very emotional about things most of the time. But there are so many feelings all twisted up inside of us and we just can't tell when and how they're going to come out--and when they do we're just as surprised as everybody else! Ha! It was Mission night in Hatch and all of the beautiful ladies in white directed the service and singing. I loved it, but cried through most of it because of that terrible "What if this is our last time here?" thought that I couldn't shake. Then Brother Banuelos got up and said he wanted to share a scripture. When he asked us to turn to Acts 20 I thought, "No way. Surely he's not going to read that..." Yup. He did. He read the whole passage where Paul was saying goodbye to the church at Ephesus and heading to Jerusalem, "not knowing the things that shall befall" and all that stuff. He read right through to the end of the chapter where everybody prayed with Paul and fell on his neck and kissed him and wept sore, "Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more..." It was awful!!! What a terrible passage to read! Ha! No, it was very sweet, especially because Brother Banuelos was doing plenty of weeping himself. He has such a beautiful and sweet spirit. He shared how he was a little nervous when they got their first white Overseer many years ago (after the split in the Church) and the culture was so different. He was surprised by how open and loving Brother Lowe was (something their culture was unaccustomed to) and felt certain they'd never have another Overseer like that. Then they had my Dad and were shocked to find that he was the same way, and now the same with James. He said he'd learned so many things from these men and was sorry that he hadn't learned more. (Can you imagine?! Weeeeeeee are the ones who have learned sooooooooo much from them!!!) When he had us good and in shambles (!), he handed the service to James. He cried and shared some scriptures and told everybody how much he loves them, then had me go do the same. ~sigh~ It's amazing, this bittersweet feeling we have. We are so filled with excitement about going to serve God in Alabama and have great joy that He's called us there... but it's mixed with so much sorrow because it means we're leaving all of these precious people who we love sooooooooooo much! They can't possibly imagine how terribly we will miss them all. How can your heart be breaking and rejoicing all at once??? It makes you feel all jumbled up, that's for sure.
It was soooooooooooo dirty and nasty and smelly and gross in the shed today. Bleagh. I hate jobs like that, but it does feel really, really good to get that done. I took a shower and got into some nice, cozy pj's early this evening. James ordered pizza for dinner and we watched Larry's Wonderful World of Autotainment. :-) As for the rest of the night, I'm going to do as much of nothing as I can manage. I'm sore and achy after the shed work today, besides the fact that I've had serious allergy problems since being home from the Assembly trip. The dusty shed and being outside all day (with whatever it is that I'm reacting to) made it soooooo much worse today. I KNOW that I sneezed hundreds of times, in groups of four or six or ten at a time, with only momentary lapses before the next fit. My nose is itchy and has been running like crazy, so now it's red and soooooo sore from being blown and wiped so much. My throat and lungs feel all clogged up, too, and I really just want to SLEEP, but who can sleep when you can't breathe?! It's so annoying because I'm not SICK, I just have enough symptoms that they're really a nuisance and agitate me pretty good! Ha! Jesus surely bore this is his body, too, so I'm praying for Him to touch and heal me from my "numerous ailments." ;-)
We got to town a little early so we stopped by Chili Fanatic, the Soto's store. It's chili season in Hatch, New Mexico, right now and the store looked and smelled GREAT. The chilies are so pretty! Here are some of the little ones, ready to be made into ristras...
I love the colorful ones! They were so bright and beautiful. Sister Soto insisted that we pick one out to take with us (those people are so sweet), so we picked one of the colorful, small chili ristras--maybe that one on the far left in this picture, I'm not sure.
James had never had real Mexican food before he moved out west, but over the years he has developed a deep appreciation and great love of it. He's especially fond of green chili. He wanted his picture taken at the Soto's store with all of those gorgeous chilies. :-)
I knew that we would shed some tears in Hatch, but I keep managing to be unprepared for how emotional certain events are going to be. Ha! We were standing in the store, smelling the chili powder, selecting our jars of salsa, chatting with Tayde... and the obvious thought wiggled it's way into my mind: "What if this is the last time we're ever here?" The tears started to leak out of my eyes and just wouldn't quit, no matter how hard I tried to hold them back! We headed over to the church and I had a terrible time pulling myself together.When Brother Banuelos greeted James he said, "So, are you happy about your appointment?" I saw James open his mouth, but nothing came out. His nose got all red and his eyes filled up with tears and began overflowing, and he just choked--he couldn't even speak! He, too, was totally unprepared for his own response. Things like that just don't happen to James--he's not very emotional about things most of the time. But there are so many feelings all twisted up inside of us and we just can't tell when and how they're going to come out--and when they do we're just as surprised as everybody else! Ha! It was Mission night in Hatch and all of the beautiful ladies in white directed the service and singing. I loved it, but cried through most of it because of that terrible "What if this is our last time here?" thought that I couldn't shake. Then Brother Banuelos got up and said he wanted to share a scripture. When he asked us to turn to Acts 20 I thought, "No way. Surely he's not going to read that..." Yup. He did. He read the whole passage where Paul was saying goodbye to the church at Ephesus and heading to Jerusalem, "not knowing the things that shall befall" and all that stuff. He read right through to the end of the chapter where everybody prayed with Paul and fell on his neck and kissed him and wept sore, "Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more..." It was awful!!! What a terrible passage to read! Ha! No, it was very sweet, especially because Brother Banuelos was doing plenty of weeping himself. He has such a beautiful and sweet spirit. He shared how he was a little nervous when they got their first white Overseer many years ago (after the split in the Church) and the culture was so different. He was surprised by how open and loving Brother Lowe was (something their culture was unaccustomed to) and felt certain they'd never have another Overseer like that. Then they had my Dad and were shocked to find that he was the same way, and now the same with James. He said he'd learned so many things from these men and was sorry that he hadn't learned more. (Can you imagine?! Weeeeeeee are the ones who have learned sooooooooo much from them!!!) When he had us good and in shambles (!), he handed the service to James. He cried and shared some scriptures and told everybody how much he loves them, then had me go do the same. ~sigh~ It's amazing, this bittersweet feeling we have. We are so filled with excitement about going to serve God in Alabama and have great joy that He's called us there... but it's mixed with so much sorrow because it means we're leaving all of these precious people who we love sooooooooooo much! They can't possibly imagine how terribly we will miss them all. How can your heart be breaking and rejoicing all at once??? It makes you feel all jumbled up, that's for sure.
James preached a bit, as a friend rather than Overseer this time, and then they took up an offering for us. They don't take no for an answer down there and we are always amazed by their sacrificial generosity. After service the cameras showed up and we got some pictures of us with the whole group of them. I went out on a limb and am trusting Tayde to send them to me since I didn't have any taken with my own camera. I'll be e-mailing her tonight about that. :-) She had made this poster for us. This is the only picture I had taken with my own camera.
...and also got little gifts and candy for the kids. She's so thoughtful. The church had planned a cook-out as well, so after church we went out to the yard and enjoyed some good food and good fellowship. It was so nice to be past all of the tears and be able to just have fun and talk and laugh. We do love them all so very, very much. We stopped by Hector & Erika's on our way out of town so she could send home some tamales with us. :-) We had some of them for lunch today and they are sooooooooooo good--some of the best I've ever had, I'm sure.
We got in late last night, but had a big project ahead of us today and needed to get a decently early start this morning. It was shed day. The day we yanked everything out of the shed and sorted through all of it, throwing all of the JUNK away and gathering all of the stuff we are going to put in the yard sale. I was pleased to see that the yard sale pile took up over half of the shed when we were finished. Wa-Hoo! I am so ready to PURGE around here. :-)
In the midst of the cleaning out there James found his old trombone and his mom's accordion. The boys had a blast playing with them and Katie had a blast taking pictures of them while James and I were still working in the shed.
It was soooooooooooo dirty and nasty and smelly and gross in the shed today. Bleagh. I hate jobs like that, but it does feel really, really good to get that done. I took a shower and got into some nice, cozy pj's early this evening. James ordered pizza for dinner and we watched Larry's Wonderful World of Autotainment. :-) As for the rest of the night, I'm going to do as much of nothing as I can manage. I'm sore and achy after the shed work today, besides the fact that I've had serious allergy problems since being home from the Assembly trip. The dusty shed and being outside all day (with whatever it is that I'm reacting to) made it soooooo much worse today. I KNOW that I sneezed hundreds of times, in groups of four or six or ten at a time, with only momentary lapses before the next fit. My nose is itchy and has been running like crazy, so now it's red and soooooo sore from being blown and wiped so much. My throat and lungs feel all clogged up, too, and I really just want to SLEEP, but who can sleep when you can't breathe?! It's so annoying because I'm not SICK, I just have enough symptoms that they're really a nuisance and agitate me pretty good! Ha! Jesus surely bore this is his body, too, so I'm praying for Him to touch and heal me from my "numerous ailments." ;-)
Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Tie-Dye Shirts
...I mentioned in the last post are finished! They looked SOOOOOOO great when I first rinsed them this morning, but after the second and third wash they had faded significantly. Bummer! Mine especially was SO bright before washing--I loved it! Now it's got LOTS of white and the colors aren't nearly as vibrant as they should be. Oh well. I still love how the pattern turned out--and they were lots of fun to make. :-)
And here is the mantel James built today.
Nice and simple. :-) I actually really like it. It makes the fireplace itself stand out a whole lot more, and that may be a good thing. We took Grandmother's mantel down today and got it all wrapped up in plastic and ready to move (when the time comes), then hung this one. Now we're ready to sell, right?! ;-)
And here is the mantel James built today.
Nice and simple. :-) I actually really like it. It makes the fireplace itself stand out a whole lot more, and that may be a good thing. We took Grandmother's mantel down today and got it all wrapped up in plastic and ready to move (when the time comes), then hung this one. Now we're ready to sell, right?! ;-)
Friday, September 10, 2010
I Have Pictures!
They're not of anything amazingly exciting, but it's been so long since I've had pictures of anything it seemed exciting. :-)
First of all, here is the little "Grandma Vicki" that Katie whipped up last week. It was sponsored by the Washburns from Bessemer. Ha! For clarification, Sister Tammy, did your husband want to PURCHASE it, or simply see the finished product--thus the donation? Anyway, here she is--crooked smile and all.
I keep telling Katie to WASH HER HANDS before she switches to another color, but she's too impatient and doesn't want to stop and do that each time. Sorry about all those extra "moles," Mom. Ha!
Let's see... Last time I blogged was Tuesday. Wednesday... I think I wrote in my diary on Wednesday. Sounds thrilling, hu?! Ha! You have no idea! You only THINK I've gotten bad about blogging. The last entry in my diary was from December 2008. The one before that was December 2006. Before that was March of that year. Pitiful. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a try again. Maybe I'll still grow into a good journal keeper one day.
School has been going better with Joe, for the most part. On EVERY "page" he asks me before he opens up the "show problems" window, "Did I read everything???" in that worried, uncertain, about-to-freak-out tone of his. I always just say YES!!!!! I'm the teacher and I'm making the decision that he has read everything that he needs to read (for the sake of my sanity, it's WHATEVER he may have read or not read! Ha!) and say YES every time. Ha! He's doing great with his work, so that tells me he's reading plenty to get the idea. And he loves quizzes.
Katie gets up early, gets dressed, puts her pj's away and makes her bed, then dives head first into school before we even have a chance to sit down for devotions. She's usually done with it before Joe gets his day going! She's doing great and loving it, as always. I've been amazed at how much that girl has grown up in the past few months. She's just suddenly so much more mature and SUCH a help around the house--and so willingly most of the time. It's wonderful. :-) She made brownies all by herself a few days ago. Nearly every morning (before she starts into school) she empties the dishwasher, just because. She's been much more kind to her brothers (for the most part) and is just happier in general these days. She's a keeper. :-)
Then there's Sam. How many times have I reported that Sam is finally beginning to read?! Ha! We're there again. :-) I've been working with him in his Hooked on Phonics books and he's doing sooooo good. It's crazy because Katie and Joe just started READING. It's like one day they opened up a book and took off and were really READING *snap* just like that. Sam is having to WORK at it little by little, but he's advanced beyond where he's ever been before and is able to read easy sentences (I think he's up to Book 7 of the series) and actually understand them instead of working so hard on each word that he's forgotten the others and isn't able to put them together. It's exciting and rewarding to see him learn. I've never had to WORK to teach a kid to read before--it's a challenge, but sooooo fun when things finally start clicking.
Yesterday we realized that if we were to get a call saying somebody wanted to see the house we'd be in big trouble--it had just sort of fallen apart piece by piece! Ha! I felt like the Lord really helped me in prayer yesterday morning and I was feeling very encouraged and like my faith had been strengthened. Along with that I was feeling the need to be READY to sell the house when the time comes, so we all worked together and got it cleaned up nice and purty again. That feels good. I'm EXPECTING God to work everything out and am praying hard for Him to give us guidance and direct our steps, and I feel like I was able to surrender my anxieties again and find REST in Him. ~Aaaaaahhh~ It's nice. :-) It would be nice if that one prayer would last me the whole way through. Ha! When you're doing the limbo thing (how low can you go???) it seems like you have to keep going back and surrendering all over again and finding new grace each time. I feel like God has really been working in my heart and in James' the past couple of days and getting us more to a place of willingness and being totally yielded to whatever He may have in mind for getting us to Alabama. It feels good to just GIVE UP, you know?! ONLY in reference to surrendering to the Lord, of course. ;-) Anyway, we're praying and trusting and feeling peaceful and excited about the future. Lord, get us to Alabama as soon as possible! On that note...
Can I be brutally honest??? It's my blog--of course I can. ;-) When we first got the news that we'd most likely be moving to Alabama, we felt peace about it... but I cried soooooo many tears about leaving the west and all of my friends. I pictured it being SUCH a struggle--and it was, ahead of time--and that I would have to really, really, really pray for God to work miracles in my heart for me to actually be able to be content living in a place like Alabama and not spend the rest of my life crying over Colorado or something. I wondered how long (weeks? months??? longer?????) it would take for me to be able to make Alabama my home, really and truly. I would think about spending the rest of my life down there (you never know!) and it would just break my heart--what a terrible, miserable possibility to consider!!! I even had one day where I was sick over the idea of raising my kids around a bunch of hicks! Ha! Not necessarily our Church folks there, just... well, it's ALABAMA! (Sister Tammy, I think you're the only Alabamian to read my blog--don't tattle on me! Ha!) I was ashamed of feeling things like that, but still had to wonder how I would cope with such a drastic change. And suddenly... I look at my heart these past few days and realize that God has totally transformed it and all of it's desires. How did He DO that?! I find myself soooooooo anxious to get down there (to Alabama!!!! Could you die?!) and I feel like I already have such a heart for the people there, such a burden for the work, and I just CAN'T WAIT to get there. I found myself praying yesterday, "God, help us to get out of this place and down where we belong." What?! The words surprised me, but I was more surprised when I stopped to really think about it and discovered that I really and truly meant them. I love the west and I know that I will certainly miss lots of things about it (should I list you all by name?! Ha!), but I already feel like we don't belong here anymore--I feel like we're out of place and we've just got to get where we belong. In Alabama! Ha! I'm dying over this--how in the world could such a change take place in someone's way of thinking?! ~sigh~ Only God. He is sooooo amazing. So here I am, having gone from worrying about trying to convince Alabama (and my own self) that I'm not going to be miserable for the rest of my life, pining over Colorado... to being worried that my western friends surely must think, "How rude!!! How could you be so happy to be leaving--don't you even care?!" CRAZY. All I can say is, I LOVE YOU'S ALL! ;-) But like Mom always reminds me: with the appointing comes the anointing. God has placed Alabama in our hearts. Already! I'm so thankful. Now that He's worked that enormous miracle in the heart of a western girl, we're expecting Him to work the much smaller miracle of selling our house and guiding us to the one he has for us "down yonder." :-)
Don't know where all that came from--didn't plan on sharing it. It just sort of spilled out!
When I was cleaning out the craft cabinet a few nights ago I came across the tie-dye kit that we've had sitting around for years. It almost made it to the garage sale pile, but then I picked up the directions and read through them. Looked easy enough--and I've always wanted a tie-dyed shirt! So last night after church we swung by Hobby Lobby and picked up t-shirst (50% off = $1.50 each) for the kids and me. This morning we set to work on them. I have NO IDEA how they're going to turn out (I think I got a little dye happy and there's way too much in my shirt--it might be soaking all of the colors into a giant murky blob right now! Ha!), but it was fun anyway! And I thought to take a PICTURE. First time I've taken a picture since we got home from our trip--except for a sunset picture I took last week.
Yes, Sam is "shooting" Joe with his shirt. ;-) They didn't have white shirts in the kids' sizes, so used a pink one for Katie and yellow for the boys. I'm anxious to see how they turned out! We'll know tomorrow morning. :-)
James has spent a great deal of his life on the phone this past week--something he's not used to doing--and has been carrying some pretty heavy burdens. Just a lot going on right now. Today he felt like he had some break throughs and God really helped with some things. I could tell that he just FELT like a load had been lifted and was "lighter" than he's been in several days. He came in this afternoon and said he wanted to just head to town for some family time, just wanted to relax and hang out tonight. We really haven't seen much of him lately. I thought about scheduling an appointment so I could visit him out in the office and we could catch up a little bit. Ha! Anyway, we went into town and had Cece's (is that how it's spelled?!) for dinner, then went and played miniature golf. We've lived here for two and a half years and it's the first time we ever made it down to the ONE putt-putt place in town. I was amazed that there were hardly any people there on a Friday night. Wa-Hoo! It was so much fun. I haven't played in YEARS. I think I was pregnant with Sam when James and I went on a vacation to Pagosa Springs--that's the last time I remember playing. Crazy. The kids had a really good time. Except Katie. She's not a natural at golf and she is NOT a very good loser. It all came together for her though on the very last hole when she managed a hole-in-one when it really counted and won herself a free taco or something from Taco Bueno. :-) Anyway, here are a few pictures.
First of all, here is the little "Grandma Vicki" that Katie whipped up last week. It was sponsored by the Washburns from Bessemer. Ha! For clarification, Sister Tammy, did your husband want to PURCHASE it, or simply see the finished product--thus the donation? Anyway, here she is--crooked smile and all.
I keep telling Katie to WASH HER HANDS before she switches to another color, but she's too impatient and doesn't want to stop and do that each time. Sorry about all those extra "moles," Mom. Ha!
Let's see... Last time I blogged was Tuesday. Wednesday... I think I wrote in my diary on Wednesday. Sounds thrilling, hu?! Ha! You have no idea! You only THINK I've gotten bad about blogging. The last entry in my diary was from December 2008. The one before that was December 2006. Before that was March of that year. Pitiful. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a try again. Maybe I'll still grow into a good journal keeper one day.
School has been going better with Joe, for the most part. On EVERY "page" he asks me before he opens up the "show problems" window, "Did I read everything???" in that worried, uncertain, about-to-freak-out tone of his. I always just say YES!!!!! I'm the teacher and I'm making the decision that he has read everything that he needs to read (for the sake of my sanity, it's WHATEVER he may have read or not read! Ha!) and say YES every time. Ha! He's doing great with his work, so that tells me he's reading plenty to get the idea. And he loves quizzes.
Katie gets up early, gets dressed, puts her pj's away and makes her bed, then dives head first into school before we even have a chance to sit down for devotions. She's usually done with it before Joe gets his day going! She's doing great and loving it, as always. I've been amazed at how much that girl has grown up in the past few months. She's just suddenly so much more mature and SUCH a help around the house--and so willingly most of the time. It's wonderful. :-) She made brownies all by herself a few days ago. Nearly every morning (before she starts into school) she empties the dishwasher, just because. She's been much more kind to her brothers (for the most part) and is just happier in general these days. She's a keeper. :-)
Then there's Sam. How many times have I reported that Sam is finally beginning to read?! Ha! We're there again. :-) I've been working with him in his Hooked on Phonics books and he's doing sooooo good. It's crazy because Katie and Joe just started READING. It's like one day they opened up a book and took off and were really READING *snap* just like that. Sam is having to WORK at it little by little, but he's advanced beyond where he's ever been before and is able to read easy sentences (I think he's up to Book 7 of the series) and actually understand them instead of working so hard on each word that he's forgotten the others and isn't able to put them together. It's exciting and rewarding to see him learn. I've never had to WORK to teach a kid to read before--it's a challenge, but sooooo fun when things finally start clicking.
Yesterday we realized that if we were to get a call saying somebody wanted to see the house we'd be in big trouble--it had just sort of fallen apart piece by piece! Ha! I felt like the Lord really helped me in prayer yesterday morning and I was feeling very encouraged and like my faith had been strengthened. Along with that I was feeling the need to be READY to sell the house when the time comes, so we all worked together and got it cleaned up nice and purty again. That feels good. I'm EXPECTING God to work everything out and am praying hard for Him to give us guidance and direct our steps, and I feel like I was able to surrender my anxieties again and find REST in Him. ~Aaaaaahhh~ It's nice. :-) It would be nice if that one prayer would last me the whole way through. Ha! When you're doing the limbo thing (how low can you go???) it seems like you have to keep going back and surrendering all over again and finding new grace each time. I feel like God has really been working in my heart and in James' the past couple of days and getting us more to a place of willingness and being totally yielded to whatever He may have in mind for getting us to Alabama. It feels good to just GIVE UP, you know?! ONLY in reference to surrendering to the Lord, of course. ;-) Anyway, we're praying and trusting and feeling peaceful and excited about the future. Lord, get us to Alabama as soon as possible! On that note...
Can I be brutally honest??? It's my blog--of course I can. ;-) When we first got the news that we'd most likely be moving to Alabama, we felt peace about it... but I cried soooooo many tears about leaving the west and all of my friends. I pictured it being SUCH a struggle--and it was, ahead of time--and that I would have to really, really, really pray for God to work miracles in my heart for me to actually be able to be content living in a place like Alabama and not spend the rest of my life crying over Colorado or something. I wondered how long (weeks? months??? longer?????) it would take for me to be able to make Alabama my home, really and truly. I would think about spending the rest of my life down there (you never know!) and it would just break my heart--what a terrible, miserable possibility to consider!!! I even had one day where I was sick over the idea of raising my kids around a bunch of hicks! Ha! Not necessarily our Church folks there, just... well, it's ALABAMA! (Sister Tammy, I think you're the only Alabamian to read my blog--don't tattle on me! Ha!) I was ashamed of feeling things like that, but still had to wonder how I would cope with such a drastic change. And suddenly... I look at my heart these past few days and realize that God has totally transformed it and all of it's desires. How did He DO that?! I find myself soooooooo anxious to get down there (to Alabama!!!! Could you die?!) and I feel like I already have such a heart for the people there, such a burden for the work, and I just CAN'T WAIT to get there. I found myself praying yesterday, "God, help us to get out of this place and down where we belong." What?! The words surprised me, but I was more surprised when I stopped to really think about it and discovered that I really and truly meant them. I love the west and I know that I will certainly miss lots of things about it (should I list you all by name?! Ha!), but I already feel like we don't belong here anymore--I feel like we're out of place and we've just got to get where we belong. In Alabama! Ha! I'm dying over this--how in the world could such a change take place in someone's way of thinking?! ~sigh~ Only God. He is sooooo amazing. So here I am, having gone from worrying about trying to convince Alabama (and my own self) that I'm not going to be miserable for the rest of my life, pining over Colorado... to being worried that my western friends surely must think, "How rude!!! How could you be so happy to be leaving--don't you even care?!" CRAZY. All I can say is, I LOVE YOU'S ALL! ;-) But like Mom always reminds me: with the appointing comes the anointing. God has placed Alabama in our hearts. Already! I'm so thankful. Now that He's worked that enormous miracle in the heart of a western girl, we're expecting Him to work the much smaller miracle of selling our house and guiding us to the one he has for us "down yonder." :-)
Don't know where all that came from--didn't plan on sharing it. It just sort of spilled out!
When I was cleaning out the craft cabinet a few nights ago I came across the tie-dye kit that we've had sitting around for years. It almost made it to the garage sale pile, but then I picked up the directions and read through them. Looked easy enough--and I've always wanted a tie-dyed shirt! So last night after church we swung by Hobby Lobby and picked up t-shirst (50% off = $1.50 each) for the kids and me. This morning we set to work on them. I have NO IDEA how they're going to turn out (I think I got a little dye happy and there's way too much in my shirt--it might be soaking all of the colors into a giant murky blob right now! Ha!), but it was fun anyway! And I thought to take a PICTURE. First time I've taken a picture since we got home from our trip--except for a sunset picture I took last week.
Yes, Sam is "shooting" Joe with his shirt. ;-) They didn't have white shirts in the kids' sizes, so used a pink one for Katie and yellow for the boys. I'm anxious to see how they turned out! We'll know tomorrow morning. :-)
James has spent a great deal of his life on the phone this past week--something he's not used to doing--and has been carrying some pretty heavy burdens. Just a lot going on right now. Today he felt like he had some break throughs and God really helped with some things. I could tell that he just FELT like a load had been lifted and was "lighter" than he's been in several days. He came in this afternoon and said he wanted to just head to town for some family time, just wanted to relax and hang out tonight. We really haven't seen much of him lately. I thought about scheduling an appointment so I could visit him out in the office and we could catch up a little bit. Ha! Anyway, we went into town and had Cece's (is that how it's spelled?!) for dinner, then went and played miniature golf. We've lived here for two and a half years and it's the first time we ever made it down to the ONE putt-putt place in town. I was amazed that there were hardly any people there on a Friday night. Wa-Hoo! It was so much fun. I haven't played in YEARS. I think I was pregnant with Sam when James and I went on a vacation to Pagosa Springs--that's the last time I remember playing. Crazy. The kids had a really good time. Except Katie. She's not a natural at golf and she is NOT a very good loser. It all came together for her though on the very last hole when she managed a hole-in-one when it really counted and won herself a free taco or something from Taco Bueno. :-) Anyway, here are a few pictures.
Sam never does anything half-way. I was afraid I was going to lose a knee cap a few times tonight. Ha!
This is MY first hole in one. I had two tonight. :-) That lonely little blue ball out there on the green is James', still looking longingly at the hole... Ha!
Though I BEAT him, James finally managed a hole-in-one on the very last hole, just like Katie did. Here they are showing off their coupons and candy. :-)
It was so nice to just RELAX and enjoy some time with the family tonight. We had such a great time.
Now we're home and James is back out in the office. :-) The kids are all asleep and I'm going to TRY to get to bed at a decent hour myself tonight. We'll see.
Oh, here's the picture of the sunset I mentioned earlier.
Update on the Clarksons, before I forget: Wilma passed away yesterday afternoon. Brother Chris will be conducting the funeral up there this coming Tuesday, so please keep him and all of the family in your prayers. Sister Shanda and Sister Connie were taking it pretty hard, of course.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
So Tired
... and can't figure out why! When we got home from The Big Trip we hit the ground running, getting unpacked and starting to sort the house for the "get rid of" stuff and making sure it was perfect for house showings (that haven't happened) and for the Open House on Saturday that was a total flop. After the Open House I sort of crashed. I went to bed early that night and slept in until nearly 8:00 the next morning. That's not the crazy part. The crazy part is that I took a two hour nap that afternoon 'cause I was so wiped out--and STILL felt tired when I got up! I've gotten decent sleep the two nights since then and have managed little naps in the afternoons, too, but I still just can't pull myself together. What is going on?! I've got to get over this!!!
Maybe it's just the limbo. I hate being in limbo. This place of knowing that we're GOING... but we can't really do anything to GO yet gets old real quick. I go back and forth from feeling like it's totally released to God and I have perfect peace that it's in His hands and will work out in His time, to feeling such urgency to get to Alabama, that we belong there and ought to be there (James has been Overseer there for a week now--freaky!), yet we're still here and don't even know how to make plans to get there until something happens with the house here and... Oh, it's just like everything is up in the air and we're not sure what to do about it! I feel like I ought to just REST in the Lord and have days when I really feel like I am. Then I have days where I feel like we need to push through in fervent prayer until we receive the answers we need (an offer on the house--or even just somebody wanting to come SEE it would be nice! Ha! Or direction to know how to plan if the house doesn't sell soon or SOMETHING) and like we can't just "rest"--it's our obligation to pray down some answers. I feel like I sort of swing back and forth between the two extremes and I'm having a hard time balancing them out, you know? I'm really TRYING to pray fervently for God to help us get where we belong, but not be pushy with it and impatient--I know He has a perfect plan in all of this. The patience thing always throws me. I don't think I'm very good at it. ;-)
And that's all from here. Ha! No, let's see what else is going on...
The Clarksons are still in Colorado right now. I think it's been about 10 days since Wilma had her stroke. It's been that long since she's had anything to eat or drink, but she's an amazingly strong woman and is still holding on! The Clarksons have had good opportunities to talk to several people, but I know they're anxious to get out of their own "limbo" situation. I know it must be emotionally exhausting for all of them. Do pray for all of them and, of course, for Wilma.
Sunday morning we had Sunday School and worship again, then James sort of preached an impromptu message because Brother Juan and his family weren't there. Brother Juan had been scheduled to preach in Brother Clarkson's absence, but the night before their little boy came down real sick and they still had him at the hospital. He's doing much better now, thank the Lord. Sunday night we just took up prayer requests and had a good season of prayer, then everybody shared a scripture that they had on their hearts. We sang several songs and enjoyed the worship time, as well. We sure miss our pastor and family when they're away, but God has been good to help us in our services without them.
Yesterday morning James took a bath and as he was getting out of the tub he noticed a centipede in the water. He immediately decided that it was time to bomb the house again. Ha! So the kids got all their school work done while James sprayed the entire perimeter of the house inside and out with bug stuff. Then he ran to the hardware store and bought three bug bombs, came home and loaded up the family and set the bombs off, then we headed out to Moriarty. We ate lunch at that Mexican restaurant that we ate at before Camp last year--you know, Jamey, the one we waited at FOREVER on our way to Mountainaire?! Ha! It was actually pretty good--and even pretty quick. :-) We stopped by Wal-Mart in Edgewood for a few necessities and then headed home. Called a Quite Time (I love those) and the kids sat down with books while James and I took a nap. :-)
I cooked fried chicken for dinner last night, Sister Bishop style. It turned out really good for my first time, I thought! James loved it, but we were too full from lunch to really eat much. Still, it made Joe very happy. :-)
Today has been another day of school, and then the weekly trip to the library. Came home with a new truckload of books, making for a nice, quiet afternoon around here. Sam is having some pretty unfun allergic reactions to something outside right now (me, too) and his eyes are all puffy and swollen and he just can't stop sneezing. I had him go soak in a bubble bath a little while ago and he seems to be doing lots better now. If only we can keep him inside for the rest of the night...
Hhmmm... There's really nothing else to say! I hate blogging about nothing. I should at least have some pictures to post. I'll have to work on that, but for now this is all I've got. :-)
Maybe it's just the limbo. I hate being in limbo. This place of knowing that we're GOING... but we can't really do anything to GO yet gets old real quick. I go back and forth from feeling like it's totally released to God and I have perfect peace that it's in His hands and will work out in His time, to feeling such urgency to get to Alabama, that we belong there and ought to be there (James has been Overseer there for a week now--freaky!), yet we're still here and don't even know how to make plans to get there until something happens with the house here and... Oh, it's just like everything is up in the air and we're not sure what to do about it! I feel like I ought to just REST in the Lord and have days when I really feel like I am. Then I have days where I feel like we need to push through in fervent prayer until we receive the answers we need (an offer on the house--or even just somebody wanting to come SEE it would be nice! Ha! Or direction to know how to plan if the house doesn't sell soon or SOMETHING) and like we can't just "rest"--it's our obligation to pray down some answers. I feel like I sort of swing back and forth between the two extremes and I'm having a hard time balancing them out, you know? I'm really TRYING to pray fervently for God to help us get where we belong, but not be pushy with it and impatient--I know He has a perfect plan in all of this. The patience thing always throws me. I don't think I'm very good at it. ;-)
And that's all from here. Ha! No, let's see what else is going on...
The Clarksons are still in Colorado right now. I think it's been about 10 days since Wilma had her stroke. It's been that long since she's had anything to eat or drink, but she's an amazingly strong woman and is still holding on! The Clarksons have had good opportunities to talk to several people, but I know they're anxious to get out of their own "limbo" situation. I know it must be emotionally exhausting for all of them. Do pray for all of them and, of course, for Wilma.
Sunday morning we had Sunday School and worship again, then James sort of preached an impromptu message because Brother Juan and his family weren't there. Brother Juan had been scheduled to preach in Brother Clarkson's absence, but the night before their little boy came down real sick and they still had him at the hospital. He's doing much better now, thank the Lord. Sunday night we just took up prayer requests and had a good season of prayer, then everybody shared a scripture that they had on their hearts. We sang several songs and enjoyed the worship time, as well. We sure miss our pastor and family when they're away, but God has been good to help us in our services without them.
Yesterday morning James took a bath and as he was getting out of the tub he noticed a centipede in the water. He immediately decided that it was time to bomb the house again. Ha! So the kids got all their school work done while James sprayed the entire perimeter of the house inside and out with bug stuff. Then he ran to the hardware store and bought three bug bombs, came home and loaded up the family and set the bombs off, then we headed out to Moriarty. We ate lunch at that Mexican restaurant that we ate at before Camp last year--you know, Jamey, the one we waited at FOREVER on our way to Mountainaire?! Ha! It was actually pretty good--and even pretty quick. :-) We stopped by Wal-Mart in Edgewood for a few necessities and then headed home. Called a Quite Time (I love those) and the kids sat down with books while James and I took a nap. :-)
I cooked fried chicken for dinner last night, Sister Bishop style. It turned out really good for my first time, I thought! James loved it, but we were too full from lunch to really eat much. Still, it made Joe very happy. :-)
Today has been another day of school, and then the weekly trip to the library. Came home with a new truckload of books, making for a nice, quiet afternoon around here. Sam is having some pretty unfun allergic reactions to something outside right now (me, too) and his eyes are all puffy and swollen and he just can't stop sneezing. I had him go soak in a bubble bath a little while ago and he seems to be doing lots better now. If only we can keep him inside for the rest of the night...
Hhmmm... There's really nothing else to say! I hate blogging about nothing. I should at least have some pictures to post. I'll have to work on that, but for now this is all I've got. :-)
Saturday, September 4, 2010
The Latest
I have nothing much to say, but I'm trying real hard to not let another week go by before I blog again--so here I am! Let's see what I can remember...
I did some more sorting on Thursday and it felt GREAT. God the chuckwagon table all cleaned out. That had become the catch-all for a variety of things--old pictures, scrapbooking stuff (what didn't sell a few months ago), music books, school books, all of our tapes and CD's and who knows what else. It felt so good to throw a bunch of junk away (it's so liberating!!!) and create a pile of yard sale stuff, too. I usually find myself in turmoil over things like this because I want to get rid of things--but I'm a bit of a hoarder and find myself keeping most of the things I had planned on parting with. Not this time. I'm so tired of having STUFF that just SITS there and never gets used! I'm sure there's more that I could be parting with, but I'm pretty proud of what I've weeded out thus far.
In sorting through all of the old tapes that have just been lying around I found my old Brian Ehrhardt tape. He was a blind guy in the Church of God of Prophecy up in Denver when I was a kid. I met him and "guided" him around some at a couple Conventions when I was about 11 years old. He was in his mid-twenties, I think, and such a nice guy. He wrote songs, sang beautifully, and could play just about any instrument known to man. I've often thought about him over the years and wondered what became of him. I had actually been thinking about him just a few days before, so I was so excited to find his tape! I played it once and it brought back so many memories of that era of my life--one song in particular had been a great blessing to me back then. I've heard the tape playing in Katie's room several times since I found it. It makes me happy. And I was FINALLY able to find him online last night (I've searched before to no avail) once I finally spelled his name right. From what I can tell, he's with the Elders church (he was engaged to an Elders girl last time I saw him), has a studio and does some producing, as well as traveling around speaking and singing. Makes me happy... and sad! Perhaps he'll be back in God's Church some day.
Yesterday was spent in preparation for our Open House today. The folks came out and mowed down all of the weeds for us in the morning. Though it's not as short as we would have liked, it looks soooooooo much better around here. I cleaned all of the blinds (I hate that job) and washed all of the windows in and out. It makes SUCH a difference, especially when you've got such a great view out the windows! Vacuumed and did some other house chores, then left the rest for today.
Last night we got an e-mail from the realtor in Alabama informing us that God must have something else picked out for us because that yellow house that I loved has a contract on it. I was surprised when I didn't feel disappointed (!), but I really and truly didn't. What a relief! Ha! I feel like God has helped me to release everything to Him and I'm perfectly fine with the knowledge that He has a different house for us. It's just out there waiting for us to find it. That's sort of exciting! So last night I stayed up way, way, way too late looking at realtor.com and making a list of some 30+ MLS listings that I'd like to explore. That poor realtor girl. She has NO IDEA who she's dealing with here! Ha!
Today we finished up on the house, getting the floors vacuumed, the bathrooms scrubbed top to bottom, the wood floors wet-swiffed, the cabinets and stove wiped down and... oh, whatever else we did. The house was sparkling when Jason showed up for the Open House just before 2:00. We headed to town, stopping down at the corner to have a good prayer for God to sell our house. Katie & Joe ran into the library to pick up a couple of books they'd had on hold, then James treated us to a late lunch at the Olive Garden. It was sooooo good! We went to Hobby Lobby and by then it was time to go home and see how things went at the house. Jason said only one guy came by--and he only came to find a realtor to talk to about putting his house on the market in the spring. Ha! I've never had any faith in Open Houses (does anybody ever really buy a house that way?!), but I have faith in God...
I've been so blessed by this whole process. Sometimes when life is "normal" your spiritual life seems to get a little dry, even when you try hard to not let that happen. But I'm loving that we have this great big NEED to take to the Lord! It just feels so good to have something that is out of my hands, and only God has the answer. I love the opportunities to TRUST Him like this. It's so exciting! It's an adventure to continually put something at his feet and then wait and watch and see how He's going to work it out. Fun! Sister Galaviz shared John 15:7 with me a few days ago, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." She told me she's been reminding God of that promise over some things she's praying about, and that she was going to start praying that verse concerning the sale of our house as well. Then tonight Brother Grimes (from Alabama) felt led to share this with me, "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear" (Isaiah 65:24). I felt the Lord as I read it and I believe it with all my heart. :-) God's already got the answer and it could very well be on it's way and we don't even know it yet! God is so amazing. :-)
Tonight James helped Katie with her very first Bob Ross style painting. She did great, but says she's going to stick to sculpting with clay for now--she's getting REALLY good with that. I've just sort of crashed tonight. I'm fully intending to go to bed at 10:00 tonight. That will be a novelty! Looking forward to service in the morning, though our pastor is still in Colorado and will be missed greatly. Keep praying for the Clarksons! Last I heard there has been no change in Wilma. I know they would appreciate your prayers.
Have a happy Sunday!
I did some more sorting on Thursday and it felt GREAT. God the chuckwagon table all cleaned out. That had become the catch-all for a variety of things--old pictures, scrapbooking stuff (what didn't sell a few months ago), music books, school books, all of our tapes and CD's and who knows what else. It felt so good to throw a bunch of junk away (it's so liberating!!!) and create a pile of yard sale stuff, too. I usually find myself in turmoil over things like this because I want to get rid of things--but I'm a bit of a hoarder and find myself keeping most of the things I had planned on parting with. Not this time. I'm so tired of having STUFF that just SITS there and never gets used! I'm sure there's more that I could be parting with, but I'm pretty proud of what I've weeded out thus far.
In sorting through all of the old tapes that have just been lying around I found my old Brian Ehrhardt tape. He was a blind guy in the Church of God of Prophecy up in Denver when I was a kid. I met him and "guided" him around some at a couple Conventions when I was about 11 years old. He was in his mid-twenties, I think, and such a nice guy. He wrote songs, sang beautifully, and could play just about any instrument known to man. I've often thought about him over the years and wondered what became of him. I had actually been thinking about him just a few days before, so I was so excited to find his tape! I played it once and it brought back so many memories of that era of my life--one song in particular had been a great blessing to me back then. I've heard the tape playing in Katie's room several times since I found it. It makes me happy. And I was FINALLY able to find him online last night (I've searched before to no avail) once I finally spelled his name right. From what I can tell, he's with the Elders church (he was engaged to an Elders girl last time I saw him), has a studio and does some producing, as well as traveling around speaking and singing. Makes me happy... and sad! Perhaps he'll be back in God's Church some day.
Yesterday was spent in preparation for our Open House today. The folks came out and mowed down all of the weeds for us in the morning. Though it's not as short as we would have liked, it looks soooooooo much better around here. I cleaned all of the blinds (I hate that job) and washed all of the windows in and out. It makes SUCH a difference, especially when you've got such a great view out the windows! Vacuumed and did some other house chores, then left the rest for today.
Last night we got an e-mail from the realtor in Alabama informing us that God must have something else picked out for us because that yellow house that I loved has a contract on it. I was surprised when I didn't feel disappointed (!), but I really and truly didn't. What a relief! Ha! I feel like God has helped me to release everything to Him and I'm perfectly fine with the knowledge that He has a different house for us. It's just out there waiting for us to find it. That's sort of exciting! So last night I stayed up way, way, way too late looking at realtor.com and making a list of some 30+ MLS listings that I'd like to explore. That poor realtor girl. She has NO IDEA who she's dealing with here! Ha!
Today we finished up on the house, getting the floors vacuumed, the bathrooms scrubbed top to bottom, the wood floors wet-swiffed, the cabinets and stove wiped down and... oh, whatever else we did. The house was sparkling when Jason showed up for the Open House just before 2:00. We headed to town, stopping down at the corner to have a good prayer for God to sell our house. Katie & Joe ran into the library to pick up a couple of books they'd had on hold, then James treated us to a late lunch at the Olive Garden. It was sooooo good! We went to Hobby Lobby and by then it was time to go home and see how things went at the house. Jason said only one guy came by--and he only came to find a realtor to talk to about putting his house on the market in the spring. Ha! I've never had any faith in Open Houses (does anybody ever really buy a house that way?!), but I have faith in God...
I've been so blessed by this whole process. Sometimes when life is "normal" your spiritual life seems to get a little dry, even when you try hard to not let that happen. But I'm loving that we have this great big NEED to take to the Lord! It just feels so good to have something that is out of my hands, and only God has the answer. I love the opportunities to TRUST Him like this. It's so exciting! It's an adventure to continually put something at his feet and then wait and watch and see how He's going to work it out. Fun! Sister Galaviz shared John 15:7 with me a few days ago, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." She told me she's been reminding God of that promise over some things she's praying about, and that she was going to start praying that verse concerning the sale of our house as well. Then tonight Brother Grimes (from Alabama) felt led to share this with me, "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear" (Isaiah 65:24). I felt the Lord as I read it and I believe it with all my heart. :-) God's already got the answer and it could very well be on it's way and we don't even know it yet! God is so amazing. :-)
Tonight James helped Katie with her very first Bob Ross style painting. She did great, but says she's going to stick to sculpting with clay for now--she's getting REALLY good with that. I've just sort of crashed tonight. I'm fully intending to go to bed at 10:00 tonight. That will be a novelty! Looking forward to service in the morning, though our pastor is still in Colorado and will be missed greatly. Keep praying for the Clarksons! Last I heard there has been no change in Wilma. I know they would appreciate your prayers.
Have a happy Sunday!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Didn't I Just Blog???
How in the world has it been 5 days already??? I think I'm going to just give up on trying to blog regularly and pick one day of the week that will be Blog Day. Maybe I can at least be faithful to THAT!
Things are going well here and we've been plenty busy since we got home. We made it in on Thursday night and spent the whole of Friday and Saturday getting everything unpacked and put in it's proper place, getting all of the laundry and (yes, believe it or not) even all of the ironing done. We're trying to keep the house decently clean at all times in case we get a call saying that somebody wants to come look at it. That hasn't happened yet, but we want to be ready!
The Clarksons were in Colorado on Sunday with Sister Shanda's grandmother who had just had a massive stroke. James moderated the morning service, Sister Galaviz taught Sunday School (which is where she declared, "We don't need the Hornes anymore!" Ha! --Maybe I'll tell the rest of the story later. Maybe not. I like leaving it like that--it sounds so great!), we sang a few songs, then Brother Juan shared a few scriptures and preached a bit. It was a good service and we really felt the Lord. I managed a glorious and much needed Sunday afternoon nap, then we had a prayer meeting that night. Sister Bailey had offered to be in charge and she did a great job--I was truly blessed.
Monday we were able to go into town and help the Clarksons for a few hours. They had made it back from Colorado at 4:00 that morning (!) and had to get moved out of their house that day. Crazy! I feel soooooo bad for them--they've got SO MUCH on them right now! They had already gotten a whole lot of stuff moved on Saturday, so we were able to help get most everything that was left while we were there. We had a good time and enjoyed the wonderful fellowship, as always. We're going to miss them so much!
We had to be home by 5:00 that evening because we had a guy scheduled to give us an estimate on taming the jungle. When we got home from the trip we were astounded at the weeds at our place! (No wonder nobody wants to come and tour the house! Ha!) It's NEVER been this bad before. It must have rained a ton while we were away--it looks horrible. James went and bought a mower on Saturday, but it gave out after about 3 minutes (for real!), so he returned it -- and they didn't have any others. So we're having to pay somebody to come and take care of it for us this time. Crazy. Anyway, the guy was very, very nice and the estimate looked good to us (we would have been willing to pay about anything to be able to find our house again), so he booked us for Friday morning. We can't wait.
Yesterday was library day, which thrilled the kids to no end. Of course, Katie told the lady at the desk that this will be one of our last times there because we're moving to Alabama and who knows what else. I just know that when I went up to help Sam check out his books the lady told us how sorry she was to hear that we were leaving. "It's going to be hard to find another family to replace you guys and the number of items you check out!" Ha! The gentleman who works with her came over and said, "Yes, it's very rare to find children as studious and pleasant as yours." HA! I didn't laugh out loud--I just thanked him and held it in until we made it outside. ;-)
We started into computer school for Katie and Joe on Monday. Katie is loving it and whizzing through her work every day, always wanting to work ahead but I won't let her. Joe... well, it's been a struggle with Joe. It has nothing to do with the computer vs. a book; it's just his OCD. I don't usually grab on to medical terms and conditions and claim them for my children, but it's just the most accurate way of describing the child--he has serious obsessive compulsive tendencies! I can't get him to READ THE LESSONS. He just keeps re-reading the same part over and over and over and over again--because he's not SURE that he read it all. What if he skipped something? What if he missed a word? What if...? And it goes on and on and on. I get soooooo aggravated with him and I don't know what to do! The boy cannot FUNCTION. He totally freezes up and just sits there with tears streaming down his face, refusing to read on because he's not SURE he read the first part. It's not just in school (though that's where we have the greatest difficultly with him)--he just can't give you a straight answer on anything. On Mondays when he's supposed to gather trash from all the trash cans all over the house and take the dumpster down to the street, James will ask him if he got all the trash. "I think I got most of it, Dad." James always wants a definitive answer--either you did or you didn't, you know?! "Well, there might have been something stuck to the bottom of the trash can that I didn't get, or maybe..." and here comes the list of if's that will go on for an hour. In fact, if James says, "Joe, go get the trash," things are okay. If he says, "Joe, go get all the trash," (notice the "all" this time), Joe will immediately burst into tears because he knows there is no possible way he can get ALL of the trash. Somewhere in this house there will be a tiny scrap of paper under a couch that he doesn't know about, or a Kleenex that's out of sight, or... ~sigh~ I would SOOOOO appreciate any suggestions. I've tried everything I can think of and have even considered Googling "children with OCD" or something! I'm at my end with him. I just don't know how to get him through this and help him be able to FUNCTION in life without freezing up and totally freaking out about stupid stuff! Anyway... Joe actually did a little better with school today, but we've got a long, long way to go!
I've begun weeding here in the house and it already feels so good. We've been talking about what furniture and whatnot we're going to sell before we move and have been planning on having a big garage sale when the time is right. I know how that goes though when you're trying to pack things up and move and have a sale at the same time--you will fail to find sooooo many things that really should have gone into the sale until after the sale is over with! So I starting going through and sorting things, beginning in our bedroom--just finished it up tonight. I've sorted through my desk drawers and my dresser, under the bed, both closets and just looked around the room itself to see what, if anything, needs to "go" from the walls. I've got two suitcases (that will also be sold--they've sat unused for years) full of clothes and odds and ends that we can get rid of, along with a few stacks of other things. Everything is collected, but put pack into place since we can't start making piles of stuff all over the house--it has to be show worthy around here. :-) I also have a list of things to remember to put in the sale. "Monitor in closet, old VCR, bag from top of closet, desk and chair..." I don't want to forget anything! I think I'll go through Katie's room and closet tomorrow. It feels good to sort of get a head start and know what we're going to be getting rid of. It makes me feel more together or something. Or maybe it just feels good to have something to DO while we're waiting for the house to sell so we can actually start packing!
Today was the big day. James is no longer the regional overseer of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico & West Texas. He is now the state overseer of Alabama. Crazy. I was really doing well (hadn't cried in several days) until Emilee called last night. I thought I was fine, but I just couldn't hold myself together at all while we were on the phone--just cried and cried! ~sigh~ I hate this part! Had calls from Brother Dustin last night and Sam & Tammy, too. Today we got our first call from Alabama: Richard Barnes. I said, "Oh, great! You're calling so you can be our very first 'problem,' right?!" Ha! It was kind of him to call and welcome us. Then a pastor of one of the churches there called to discuss some pertinent matters right off the bat. I answered the phone and he was so kind and sounded so chipper--and the deep, southern accent just sounded so friendly and welcoming! It was nice and somehow made me feel more excited. I've always enjoyed a good accent and southerners can just sound so nice and neighborly. So I enjoyed the good, animated welcome... then passed the phone of to James to hear about the problems. Ha!
This evening we grilled some ribs and made corn on the cob to go with it (two items from the freezer we're endeavoring to empty) and I patched up the holes in the pond. We had given up on trying to keep the pond going, but it adds soooooo much to the look and feel of the house when you walk over the little bridge with the waterfall and little stream running down to the pond... maybe it will help somebody fall in love with this place and want to buy it. :-) So I did some patch work today. After the yard people get things cleaned up on Friday we'll fill it up and see if it will hold water. We're hoping to have everything looking great because Jason has scheduled an Open House for Sunday. We're still hoping and praying that God will send the right person to buy the house very soon so we can work on getting moved to where God wants us to be. If the house doesn't sell soon... well, we're trying to stick to Plan A for now and we'll look at Plan B if we have to in a couple of weeks! But right now our prayers are that we'll start getting some interest in the next week or so. God knows best and He has a perfect time for everything. I'm hoping it's very soon, but am really just praying that He'll direct our steps and let everything fall into place as HE sees fit, not according to my plans.
That's about it! Tomorrow is another day. Oh, do pray for the Clarksons. They got moved out of their house and took care of the necessary things yesterday, then headed back to Colorado today to be with Sister Shanda's grandma. They're not expecting her to live and Brother Chris has been asked to do the funeral. It's really a waiting game right now--waiting for God to either miraculously heal Wilma, or take her home. I know they would appreciate your prayers for her and for all of the family--and Brother Chris has already requested prayer for the funeral, that God would anoint him and help him.
Things are going well here and we've been plenty busy since we got home. We made it in on Thursday night and spent the whole of Friday and Saturday getting everything unpacked and put in it's proper place, getting all of the laundry and (yes, believe it or not) even all of the ironing done. We're trying to keep the house decently clean at all times in case we get a call saying that somebody wants to come look at it. That hasn't happened yet, but we want to be ready!
The Clarksons were in Colorado on Sunday with Sister Shanda's grandmother who had just had a massive stroke. James moderated the morning service, Sister Galaviz taught Sunday School (which is where she declared, "We don't need the Hornes anymore!" Ha! --Maybe I'll tell the rest of the story later. Maybe not. I like leaving it like that--it sounds so great!), we sang a few songs, then Brother Juan shared a few scriptures and preached a bit. It was a good service and we really felt the Lord. I managed a glorious and much needed Sunday afternoon nap, then we had a prayer meeting that night. Sister Bailey had offered to be in charge and she did a great job--I was truly blessed.
Monday we were able to go into town and help the Clarksons for a few hours. They had made it back from Colorado at 4:00 that morning (!) and had to get moved out of their house that day. Crazy! I feel soooooo bad for them--they've got SO MUCH on them right now! They had already gotten a whole lot of stuff moved on Saturday, so we were able to help get most everything that was left while we were there. We had a good time and enjoyed the wonderful fellowship, as always. We're going to miss them so much!
We had to be home by 5:00 that evening because we had a guy scheduled to give us an estimate on taming the jungle. When we got home from the trip we were astounded at the weeds at our place! (No wonder nobody wants to come and tour the house! Ha!) It's NEVER been this bad before. It must have rained a ton while we were away--it looks horrible. James went and bought a mower on Saturday, but it gave out after about 3 minutes (for real!), so he returned it -- and they didn't have any others. So we're having to pay somebody to come and take care of it for us this time. Crazy. Anyway, the guy was very, very nice and the estimate looked good to us (we would have been willing to pay about anything to be able to find our house again), so he booked us for Friday morning. We can't wait.
Yesterday was library day, which thrilled the kids to no end. Of course, Katie told the lady at the desk that this will be one of our last times there because we're moving to Alabama and who knows what else. I just know that when I went up to help Sam check out his books the lady told us how sorry she was to hear that we were leaving. "It's going to be hard to find another family to replace you guys and the number of items you check out!" Ha! The gentleman who works with her came over and said, "Yes, it's very rare to find children as studious and pleasant as yours." HA! I didn't laugh out loud--I just thanked him and held it in until we made it outside. ;-)
We started into computer school for Katie and Joe on Monday. Katie is loving it and whizzing through her work every day, always wanting to work ahead but I won't let her. Joe... well, it's been a struggle with Joe. It has nothing to do with the computer vs. a book; it's just his OCD. I don't usually grab on to medical terms and conditions and claim them for my children, but it's just the most accurate way of describing the child--he has serious obsessive compulsive tendencies! I can't get him to READ THE LESSONS. He just keeps re-reading the same part over and over and over and over again--because he's not SURE that he read it all. What if he skipped something? What if he missed a word? What if...? And it goes on and on and on. I get soooooo aggravated with him and I don't know what to do! The boy cannot FUNCTION. He totally freezes up and just sits there with tears streaming down his face, refusing to read on because he's not SURE he read the first part. It's not just in school (though that's where we have the greatest difficultly with him)--he just can't give you a straight answer on anything. On Mondays when he's supposed to gather trash from all the trash cans all over the house and take the dumpster down to the street, James will ask him if he got all the trash. "I think I got most of it, Dad." James always wants a definitive answer--either you did or you didn't, you know?! "Well, there might have been something stuck to the bottom of the trash can that I didn't get, or maybe..." and here comes the list of if's that will go on for an hour. In fact, if James says, "Joe, go get the trash," things are okay. If he says, "Joe, go get all the trash," (notice the "all" this time), Joe will immediately burst into tears because he knows there is no possible way he can get ALL of the trash. Somewhere in this house there will be a tiny scrap of paper under a couch that he doesn't know about, or a Kleenex that's out of sight, or... ~sigh~ I would SOOOOO appreciate any suggestions. I've tried everything I can think of and have even considered Googling "children with OCD" or something! I'm at my end with him. I just don't know how to get him through this and help him be able to FUNCTION in life without freezing up and totally freaking out about stupid stuff! Anyway... Joe actually did a little better with school today, but we've got a long, long way to go!
I've begun weeding here in the house and it already feels so good. We've been talking about what furniture and whatnot we're going to sell before we move and have been planning on having a big garage sale when the time is right. I know how that goes though when you're trying to pack things up and move and have a sale at the same time--you will fail to find sooooo many things that really should have gone into the sale until after the sale is over with! So I starting going through and sorting things, beginning in our bedroom--just finished it up tonight. I've sorted through my desk drawers and my dresser, under the bed, both closets and just looked around the room itself to see what, if anything, needs to "go" from the walls. I've got two suitcases (that will also be sold--they've sat unused for years) full of clothes and odds and ends that we can get rid of, along with a few stacks of other things. Everything is collected, but put pack into place since we can't start making piles of stuff all over the house--it has to be show worthy around here. :-) I also have a list of things to remember to put in the sale. "Monitor in closet, old VCR, bag from top of closet, desk and chair..." I don't want to forget anything! I think I'll go through Katie's room and closet tomorrow. It feels good to sort of get a head start and know what we're going to be getting rid of. It makes me feel more together or something. Or maybe it just feels good to have something to DO while we're waiting for the house to sell so we can actually start packing!
Today was the big day. James is no longer the regional overseer of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico & West Texas. He is now the state overseer of Alabama. Crazy. I was really doing well (hadn't cried in several days) until Emilee called last night. I thought I was fine, but I just couldn't hold myself together at all while we were on the phone--just cried and cried! ~sigh~ I hate this part! Had calls from Brother Dustin last night and Sam & Tammy, too. Today we got our first call from Alabama: Richard Barnes. I said, "Oh, great! You're calling so you can be our very first 'problem,' right?!" Ha! It was kind of him to call and welcome us. Then a pastor of one of the churches there called to discuss some pertinent matters right off the bat. I answered the phone and he was so kind and sounded so chipper--and the deep, southern accent just sounded so friendly and welcoming! It was nice and somehow made me feel more excited. I've always enjoyed a good accent and southerners can just sound so nice and neighborly. So I enjoyed the good, animated welcome... then passed the phone of to James to hear about the problems. Ha!
This evening we grilled some ribs and made corn on the cob to go with it (two items from the freezer we're endeavoring to empty) and I patched up the holes in the pond. We had given up on trying to keep the pond going, but it adds soooooo much to the look and feel of the house when you walk over the little bridge with the waterfall and little stream running down to the pond... maybe it will help somebody fall in love with this place and want to buy it. :-) So I did some patch work today. After the yard people get things cleaned up on Friday we'll fill it up and see if it will hold water. We're hoping to have everything looking great because Jason has scheduled an Open House for Sunday. We're still hoping and praying that God will send the right person to buy the house very soon so we can work on getting moved to where God wants us to be. If the house doesn't sell soon... well, we're trying to stick to Plan A for now and we'll look at Plan B if we have to in a couple of weeks! But right now our prayers are that we'll start getting some interest in the next week or so. God knows best and He has a perfect time for everything. I'm hoping it's very soon, but am really just praying that He'll direct our steps and let everything fall into place as HE sees fit, not according to my plans.
That's about it! Tomorrow is another day. Oh, do pray for the Clarksons. They got moved out of their house and took care of the necessary things yesterday, then headed back to Colorado today to be with Sister Shanda's grandma. They're not expecting her to live and Brother Chris has been asked to do the funeral. It's really a waiting game right now--waiting for God to either miraculously heal Wilma, or take her home. I know they would appreciate your prayers for her and for all of the family--and Brother Chris has already requested prayer for the funeral, that God would anoint him and help him.
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