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...