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!