Sunday, February 27, 2011

Catching Up, Part 2

Okay, so Part 1 was way too long and should have been split up somewhere. At least it had pictures and video clips though, something the remainder of my posts will do without simply because I haven't TAKEN any more since then. I did, however, find these pictures on my camera, so I'll add them just so this post will have SOME pictures. :-)

This is where Charlie would rush to in our New Mexico yard to bark back at all of the neighborhood dogs when they would start talking.



And here he is, the mighty guard poodle silhouetted by the sunlight. ;-)




Okay, where was I? Australia. Yes, Australia. And you would have suspected I'd know the powder's origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. Sorry. Got carried away with that question. ;-)

The Hays helped us load a bunch of stuff into the truck, stayed for lunch, then headed back to Colorado. We kept working until about 4:00, then came in to sit down for a few minutes. The house was royally trashed from all of the packing and the MESS that accompanies it. James took Sam and went somewhere, though I can't remember where. That's when Jason called and said that young couple wanted to come and look at the house AGAIN. Right then. HA! The house was sooooo trashed. I warned him of that and he mentioned it to the couple, but they said it didn't matter--they'd like to come by again if we didn't mind. We had about 30 minutes until they arrived and Katie and Joe (on his gimpy leg) and I tore through the house at record speed, cleaning all we could and hiding all the rest. By the time Jason and the folks showed up the house had miraculously (really) transformed from a junk heap into a pretty decent looking place again! We had no vehicle to leave in, so we stayed at the house this time. I really like these people--they seem very nice. And not crazy. A definite plus when you're selling your house to someone. ;-) They love the house and they loved Charlie. :-) I tried to stay out of their way for the most part and just stood and visited with Jason while they looked around. When they left, he came back in the house--just as James got home--and told us that they would be getting with him the next night (Sunday night) to write up an offer on the house! WA-HOO!!!!

I don't remember much about the rest of the night. We went to Sunday School/VLB service the next morning, then rushed home to pack, pack, and pack some more--we had plans of leaving for Alabama the next morning and there was still sooooo much to be done.

Jason called with the folks' offer at 8:00-something that night. It was $20,000 less than our asking price. James took his time and countered their offer at $8,000 above that--$12,000 below the list price. He felt like that was the very limit of what he could come down to, but it seemed to be just a couple thousand above the limit that the other people could come up to! It's frustrating to be within $2,000 of selling your house and hit a brick wall, let me tell you! Ha! Actually, I never felt stressed about it. We just really, really prayed--for God to make a way for them to come up with the little bit of extra money, or to move on our hearts and let us to know we should come down the last bit. In the end, Jason called back to say that since Monday was President's Day they wouldn't be able to work with the lender until Tuesday and therefore wouldn't be able to get an answer back to us until then.

I had a sudden surge of adrenaline hit me late that night and ended up staying up until 1:00 packing the rest of the miscellaneous junk into the moving truck. I just pieced things here and there, whatever was the right size and shape to fit into the holes that remained--and in the end everything was nice and tight and snug. I love that. :-)

I got up at about 7:00 and started loading up everything that was to go into the van--all of our stuff for the trip, as well as suitcases full of shoes and clothes for the move. Then I cleaned the house up real good because we wanted it to be show worthy just in case this young couple didn't end up buying it and others might come to look. We headed into Albuquerque, grabbed lunch at Schlotzsky's, then went to Jason's office to sign the counter offer in hopes that the other folks would indeed agree to it. Came home, finished up on the last of the house cleaning, then loaded into the van and moving truck and headed east at about 2:00 that afternoon. On our way to Alabama!!! Wa-Hoo!!!!!

James drove the moving truck, of course, and I followed in the van. Everything went well, me just following, following, following... until suddenly James exited off where I didn't expect him to exit. I followed, wondering aloud why in the world we were taking this exit--we're supposed to be headed toward Amarillo, straight ahead, no exits! It was then that I realized the truck I was following was no longer blue and no longer said Budget, Car and Truck Rental, 1-800 followed by GO-BUDGET. It was now a huge white semi-truck that had red letters which read "Southern Refrigerated Transport." Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. There were other letters in small print down lower that no doubt said, "Specializing in trickery and leading people astray for 47 years" or something similar. About that time my phone rang. "Where ARE you???" I was only three miles behind James and promptly caught up to him, closing everything else out of my mind and my vision except for the blue truck, the word BUDGET, and the orange and white logo--for the rest of the trip. I was so successful at blocking everything else out that I never did see the sign announcing our entrance into Texas. Or into Oklahoma, Tennessee, or Missouri. I'm able to focus like that. In fact, I never had a CLUE where we were on this trip. I just knew I was following a Budget truck. Nothing else, just Budget.

We ate at Fazoli's in Amarillo because it's what we always do. I wasn't the least bit hungry, but ate 5 bread sticks with my lasagna because they were soooooo good and hot and fresh and greasy and crispy--some of the best ever. We had had a very, very long and tiring week with not a whole lot of sleep, so James said we'd just crash there in Amarillo for the night. That felt good.

It truly was a grand and glorious day. The biggest success was not that we signed papers with high hopes of getting a contract on our house, nor was it that I was clever enough to not follow the Southern Refrigerated Transport truck all the way to Nebraska before realizing something was amiss. No, the biggest success of the day is that the dog never got car sick!!! Wa-Hoo!!!!!! In fact, he did TERRIFIC on the whole trip. He has settled right in and decided (no doubt because of being served Blue Bell on several rides, despite the fact that all of you thought it was insane! Ha!) that the van is, indeed, a happy place. What could be happier than Blue Bell??? Unfortunately, it also proved that the crazy Internet people really were right about most dogs (at least mine) just being stressed out rather than actually having motion sickness. Weird. Either way, I’m a very, very, very pleased Charlie owner at this point. :-)

We left bright at early the next morning and had a long, long, long day of driving. We finally crashed at nearly 11:00 that night somewhere in Mississippi. We slept in just a little bit on Wednesday, then drove the rest of the way to Briarfield, Alabama, to the Powell's house--which will be our home for a little while.

Okay, I got two posts in and covered a week and a half! I'll try to write up Part 3 tomorrow. For now, I'm going to bed--BEFORE MIDNIGHT! That's something I barely remember ever doing... G'night!

Catching Up, Part 1

Wow. I have fallen sooooo far behind! And after being so good to blog every single day. But it just hasn't been possible. I've picked my computer up a few times along the way, but usually only to haul it from one place to another.

It all started two weeks ago... Boy, are you guys in for a post that will be way, way, way too long! Ha! Maybe I'll break it up into sections. Yeah, I should do it that way. Here we go.

Two weeks ago, I started packing. We were uncertain of how the future would go, but James had decided to just get us all to Alabama and trust God to work out all of those uncertainties. We needed to leave the house show worthy with furniture and decorations all in place, so we just packed up all of the things you couldn't see: closet contents, dressers, cabinets, James' office, shed junk (including boxes and boxes of GARAGE SALE stuff--and James says he's not a hoarder!!!), and who knows what else. James arranged to rent a 16' moving truck for us to fill up and bring with us; we'll go back for the furniture and other stuff when the time comes.

So I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday packing up the kids' closets, the stuff under all of the beds, the kids' clothes, junk like that. It was sooooo confusing. I had to try to pack stuff to be stored indefinitely (we could be living in our temporary housing situation for a month, or for up to a year--we have no idea), then I had to pack things that we'll want to have with us for that month-to-a-year, then stuff that we'd need in the next week until we left, then stuff that we'd need FOR the trip and the first couple of days when we got there... ~whew~ Wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay too much brain work for me!

Wednesday I worked long and hard a-a-a-a-a-all day long, up until the Hays arrived at 11:00pm. That's right, the Hays! At our house!!! WA-HOO!!! Apparently they'd been needing some Horne time almost as badly as we'd been needing some Hays time, so they worked it out to come on town to spend a couple of days with us. ~sigh~ What great friends. It was terrific. They got their kids put to bed and we just sat and talked for quite a while that night. We did get in one game of I-Buy before we called it a night at 2:30.

Thursday morning James got up early and headed out to find more moving boxes. I spent the morning packing up the craft cabinet and school supplies and things like that--while visiting with our COMPANY. :-) I made up some chicken and noodles for lunch and it actually turned out good--no chicken glop this time! I've decided it's a GREAT meal. It comes together in 20 or 30 minutes, but it's so good and just feels like a nice, hearty, home cooked meal. Makes me happy. I did some more packing throughout the afternoon, Brother Dustin worked on fixing one of the puck lights that flurbbed out on us recently, and Joe began hobbling around the house pretty dramatically at some point. He said he'd tripped and fallen while he was running, but we really didn't think much about it. We all headed in for church that evening, enjoyed a good service, then went to Dion's for dinner afterwards. We came home, put the kids to bed, then got down to business with I Buy and Balderdash. I think we went to bed at about 1:30 that night, but we had some really great laughs before that time. I remember the word "barbellate" providing a good deal of amusement. It's amazing how varying pronunciations can create such differing possibilities for a word. :-)

I don't remember what we were laughing at at this point, but I'm fairly certain it had nothing to do with the head wrap. Brother Dustin was thus adorned throughout most of the evening, as I recall.




Friday morning started with waffles and rationed syrup (long story), followed by our noticing that Joe was still limping badly. I had asked him the night before if his ankle was swollen and he said he didn't think so. When he was still limping the next morning I had him take his socks off (no easy task on that one foot) so I could compare his feet. No question--that right ankle was way swollen! So we called Doctor Dustin (he used to be a first responder with the volunteer fire department or something like that) into the room to take a look. He diagnosed a sprained ankle and wrapped it up, then offered to carry Joe into the other room so he could sit down and elevate it for a while. Joe wasn't too thrilled about being carried like a princess, but the rest of us enjoyed it immensely. :-)



I spent most of Friday packing up the kitchen. It is amazing how much stuff is in a kitchen. I gave our deep fryer and toaster oven to Jamey. Tammy helped me pack last time and I think I gave her our toaster oven and punch bowl or something like that. You pack so much stuff and just get to the end--if James hadn't been around I probably would've given away a whole lot more! Ha! Anyway, by mid-afternoon we were all feeling pretty wiped out from our sleep deprivation, so we put a movie on for the kids and crashed all over the den, taking naps or fiddling on computers. Then it was back to the packing. We had some pretty fantastical ham and beans for dinner that night (along with cornbread and honey--which did NOT make me sick this time! I didn't heat it up this time and just had a little bit, with no adverse side effects or affects--whatever it is!--so wa-hoo!), then I packed a while longer. I declared I was done packing for the evening, but James didn't think it was time for me to call it quits yet so he came to "help." ~sigh~ I hate it when he does that. He drug Jamey into it as well and before too long all of the Tupperware had been packed up along with most of the pantry. That pretty well finished up the kitchen, and it really was nice to have it done.

That night we played I Buy, then Balderdash, according to tradition. It was still too early to go to bed, so we threw in another game of Balderdash. :-) I would tell you who won, but only God knows. The game pieces kept randomly roaming all over the board, my piece mysteriously moving backwards (an impossibility according to the point method) and Brother Dustin's piece sailing toward the finish line even when he had received no points. I'm simply not observant enough to catch him cheating every time but it really didn't matter. We don't play this particular game for points; we only play for the laughs. We don't need the game board at all except that it contains such great memories for us, what, with the spewed coke stains and all. ;-) Anyway, the crowd called it quits and headed to bed at about 2:00. My afternoon nap had kicked in and I wasn't the least bit tired so I stayed up and cleaned for a while and even packed another box or two. I headed to bed at about 3:00.

James, Brother Dustin, and Joe headed to town early the next morning to pick up the moving truck--and some Krispy Kreme's for breakfast. :-) We loaded up all of the boxes of stuff we'd been packing all week long, which consisted of everything from James' office, everything from the shed (including boxes and boxes of garage sale stuff--I've already told James that if we can't fit everything on the next moving truck I'm going to be a wee bit upset that he insisted we bring garage sale junk with us! Ha!), all of the kitchen stuff, all of the kids' clothes (except some hanging clothes), all of their toys and books and stuff, things from other cabinets and closets around the house--oh, just all sorts of junk. We also loaded up that giant chuck wagon table and a couple pieces of Granddad's wood. We were sure to load up all of the big or heavy things we needed help with while they Hays were still there, then we finished up on the rest later that night. We stopped for lunch, then loaded the soda fountain into the Hays' van and bid them adieu--no tears this time because we are holding out hope that we'll see them once more before this move is complete. Of course, I shed tears about an hour after they left when Katie discovered the little gift they had left us along with a card. She brought it out to me and I sat on a box in the back of the moving truck and cried as I read it. Jerks. Ha! We do thank God for the special friendship He's given us with that family. It must be something special when you consider the amount of destruction our children have wreaked on the other family's property--yet we're still friends! Ha! Since they were at our house this time, it put us way ahead. Lillie pushed through the screen door, Aleah took a hammer to the freshly stained shed as well as throwing rocks in the newly lined pond (we've had a history of torn pond liners from such rocks) and Isaac was found in the pond... ~Aaaaahhhhh~ I love it. :-) Of course, Sam was guilty of being in the pond along with Isaac, but still. Oh, and they did tell us that last time we were at their house Sam and Isaac were playing with their van door and somehow managed to break the automatic door mechanism. That is a BIGGIE, sure, but just a month or two later somebody backed into that very door and it had to be replaced--and works like a charm now. ~whew~ I'm glad they didn't tell us about it before insurance paid for a new door! ;-)

Anyway... As much as I truly love the Hays children (it's all about incriminating their Dad and them having more destruct-o points than we do, thus putting us "ahead" in this warped competition of ours), I couldn't NOT capture some precious memories from them:



Is that not the most pitiful thing you've ever seen??? Poor girl--it endears her to me all the more. :-) And next:



HA! If only Lillie could speak I'd have a clip of her apologizing for the screen door. ;-) For the record, there was really no harm done this time. The pond liner was fine after the rocks and one kid from each family had tromped through it, James took Aleah outside with a can of stain and the two of them had fun touching up the dings in the shed, and James was easily able to get the screen stretched back into the frame--something he's had to do because of his own children (and more often his wife) several times. Still, it's so much more fun when it's the Hays' kids doing that stuff instead of our own. Ha! Despite my blog (ha!), they really are good kids. They are a lot of fun and we truly love being with them. And I love it that Charlie took to Aleah so well. :-)



And to end, here are a couple of clips I took during Balderdash one night. The first is of Brother Dustin acting like a toothless old man--something that grossed his wife out to a degree I'd never seen before although, sadly, I didn't capture THAT on film. The second clip, well, I have no clue what was going on but it's what our time together is all about. :-)



Thursday, February 24, 2011

Silly Computer

It doesn't know that it's 1:14am instead of 12:14am. Apparently I don't either.

I just thought I'd write a real quick update, though I haven't the time and certainly haven't the energy to write much...

We left Monday afternoon, drove, drove, drove some more... and finally got to Brierfield, Alabama, this afternoon. We had a wonderful time visiting with the Powells and they were so good as to show us the house and everything we will need to know, as well as walk us all over the property, to the tree house, down to the lake (my kids are in HEAVEN) and all kinds of stuff. Then they were so good as to help us totally trash their lovely home (I'm so embarrassed!) by filling it up with boxes and bins from the moving truck. Most things from the truck will go to a storage unit, but it seems like a whole lot of stuff got brought in here today! It was enough to wreck the house, anyway.

About the time we finished up with that it was time to get ready for the first night of Revival at our home church, Bessemer. I got all emotional about leaving friends out west again the other day, but even still it feels good to be where God has called us to be. We had a good service and Dad preached a wonderful message about God not taking us the easy way but the way which He knows is best for us, the history of the song "He Leadeth Me," David and Goliath, the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, and the Denver Broncos and The Drive against the Cleveland Browns in 1987. I don't know that anybody in Alabama knows who the Denver Broncos are, but I really enjoyed it anyway. ;-) I really was so blessed by the message and prayer time. We've had an exhausting few days or more and it felt so good to be in church and be refreshed and hear some good things from the Word of God.

After service we went to the Hopkins' house along with Mom & Dad. We all ate way too much (our pastor and wife are VERY hospitable--I love that!) and had a good time visiting with them and Sister Kristal while the kids played with Dalton and Madison, her children. We left there just after 11:00pm, drove the 50 minutes or so back to the Powell's house and I spent an hour or more trying to get control of the suitcases and clothes that were strewn all over our bedroom in our attempt to actually find everybody's dress clothes (and shoes and socks and belts and undershirts and...) when we were rushing to get ready for church tonight. I've found places for all of my clothes and James' (at least what was already up here in the room), I took the suitcases with the boy's clothes over to their room and have a basket of stuff sitting by the door to go downstairs in the morning. ~whew~ Feels good to at least have this room decent again. I have a terrible time sleeping in a messy room, so this was top priority. And now--instead of sleeping--I blog. How dumb is that?! But I'm done now. Just wanted to give and update for those who might be wondering where we are and what's going on.

Ah, yes! And I almost forgot the most important thing that I was going to update!

WE NOW HAVE A CONTRACT ON THE HOUSE!!! Wa-Hoo!!!!! PRAISE THE LORD! I am sooooo thankful! Of course, we all know that anything can happen and until it actually closes there's a chance that it could fall through. but we're trusting and praying that all of the inspections will go well and we will be able to close without a hitch--the week after Alabama Ladies' Retreat. ~sigh~ God is so good and I feel so blessed. And isn't it just like Him to give us a contract on the house before we even got to Alabama?! We were halfway here when Jason called to tell us. :-)

Okay, that's it. I am sooooooooo tired and we've got another long day tomorrow. I really will try to catch up one of these days. We look to have a pretty busy weekend ahead of us, so I don't know when it'll happen. Either way--we're HERE and we have a CONTRACT. And feeling so, so blessed. :-)

Monday, February 21, 2011

Okay, Okay, Okay...

I'll post. But just a short one. It's already after 1:00am and I am DRIVING TO ALABAMA TOMORROW!!! Wa-Hoo!!!! I am sooooooooooooooo excited!

We have had a grand and glorious week since I last posted. Alas, I haven't the time to write about it tonight so you'll just have to wait. Ha! The only reason I'm blogging at all is because I am WIRED and thought that if I sat still for a few minutes I might get sleepy enough to go to bed.

I will have to tell you all about our week when I get a chance. Perhaps I'll get to some of it tomorrow if our motel room has Internet access. Most do nowadays so we should be good. As for an update on our lives...

We have a moving truck sitting outside our back door, fully packed with only a few square feet of space remaining--where I will put a guitar and one last box just before we pull out tomorrow. I LOVE it when everything fits just so into a truck and fills up most all of the little holes. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle, but so much more exciting when the right piece slides into place. :-)

We've been on the phone off and on with Jason all evening. The young couple who stopped by here for the third time (!) yesterday made an offer on our house tonight. We countered their offer, they countered our counter offer, James said no dice, they are now looking into seeing if they can swing our counter-counter offer. They will have to talk to the lender dude in the morning (that's today, actually) just to make sure they can do this. I'm pretty sure they can. We're very, very close to coming to an agreement on the price (so close it would be sort of crazy if it didn't work out) and we're praying that it will all fall into place. James feels really good about what we've offered them, though it's more of a compromise than he would like to have made. If they just can't do it... well, then we'll have some real serious praying to do. We soooooo want to sell this house. It's just a matter of how much we can come down on it. That's up to God and James to work out. The best scenario would be if the folks get good news from their lender in the morning and decide that they can take the deal just like we offered it to them. It really is a good deal and they'd be getting a great house along with everything they wanted including the appliances. Well, not everything they wanted. They told Jason when they made their original offer that there would be one contingency: we have to leave the dog. Ha! They fell in love with Charlie yesterday. But then, who wouldn't??? Other than somebody mean and cruel and heartless. Like Dustin Hays. ;-)

Tomorrow we'll load the van, then do a real good cleaning of the house before we leave. We'll hear from Jason sometime in the morning about where things stand with the house. If we have all come to an agreement we're pleased with, we'll head into town to sign the contract before we hit the road for Alabama. We would greatly appreciate all of the prayers we can get for God's will to be done! We know better than to count our weasles before they've popped, but it really "feels" like these are the right people and this is the right time. Of course, we all know how much feelings matter. "The heart is deceitful above all things..." But that doesn't mean it's always wrong, does it?!

Okay, that did it. I'm feeling tired, at long last. I've been running on adrenaline for the past couple of hours and I'm hoping the crash is mere moments away. Keep us in your prayers--I'll try to put an update on here tomorrow night. Oh, wait... that would be tonight. Soon!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Missed a Day

Sorry 'bout that, Mom. I'll make up for it with pictures tonight. That'll make it all worthwhile. :-)

I started to head to bed at about 11:00 Saturday night. As I walked through the kitchen I saw the birthday stuff sitting out and thought, "Aw, man!!!" I had forgotten to wrap the gifts and decorate the table. So I spent the next hour wrapping gifts, taping streamers, blowing up balloons, and then cleaning up kid stuff from the living room. I'd forgotten to have the kids clean up before bed and I didn't want anybody to have to be disciplined on their birthday so I just took care of it for the little brats. ;-)

Kate was thrilled to see the streamers and balloons when she woke up. I knew she'd appreciate it. :-) I had just the right amount of strawberries left over (from their birthday cake) to make strawberry muffins for with a streusel topping for breakfast. Yum. :-) That made some very happy birthday kids right off the bat. My Mom used to make homemade muffins every Sunday morning. It's such a nice memory. I wish I were more like her. Sadly for my kids, I'm not. Ha!

We got ready for church, Katie wearing her new dress from Grandma Vicki. Not a birthday present, a Christmas present that just arrived. :-) She LOVES it and is just so thrilled to have something new to wear. She was so tired of alternating between those two winter dresses of hers!

Sister Bailey taught Sunday School, Sister Connie led songs, then Sister Galaviz taught a CPMA lesson with lots of interesting thoughts about eagles renewing their strength. After service we went to use our coupons (that expired that very day) at IHOP, since that had been the birthday kids' restaurant of choice. We got there and they were PACKED. There were probably 30 people waiting to be seated and at least a 15 minutes wait. At IHOP!!! That's just nuts. The poor birthday kids reluctantly agreed to Taco Bell as Plan B, with the agreement that we'd do IHOP another day, coupon or no coupon. We ate our burritos and headed home for the birthday party.

Before we had left the house that morning (after the kids were already in the van) I had snuck Katie's red rose to the table with the rest of the gifts so it would be waiting for her when we got back. We'd been home for several minutes before she finally spotted it, but this was her reaction:

All she wanted for her birthday was a beautiful red rose and a pair of white dress gloves. She was sooooo happy to have received her very first rose. What a girly-girl. I don't understand her (ha!), but I do love her that way. And the rose is GORGEOUS--from a real flower shop, not Wal-Mart. Apparently there is a huge difference! Who knew?! I'll never settle for cheap flowers again. Ha!

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the kids with the party get-up.


We got out the computer and made a video call to Mom & Dad so they could "join" us for the party. Modern technology is amazing. Of course, it wasn't too amazing since the audio kept flipping out on us. We finally just called on the phone and turned the speaker phone on, but kept the video feed on too so they could still see what was happening. Here are the kids watching and listening to Grandma and Granddad sing Happy Birthday to them.
As much as I love having pictures, I'm really regretting that I didn't take video of some things instead. Particularly Joe lighting the candles. We put 10 candles on the cake for Katie and Joe wanted to light them. He got about 7 of them lit before the flame was getting too close to his fingers and he had to blow it out. Of course, he was facing the cake and blew out all of the candles he'd just lit as well as the match. That was quite funny, but not nearly as funny as when he did the exact same thing a second time. HA! I saw it coming, but didn't instruct him differently just because I wanted to watch and see if he really and truly would make the same mistake twice. I'm not sure it wouldn't have happened a third time, but he refused to light them again. Ha! Goofy kid.

We finally got all 10 candles lit, sang to Katie, pulled the candles out (pink and yellow) and put 9 blue and green ones in, then sang to Joe. Since Mom & Dad couldn't exactly join us for cake (!) we decided to wait on that and just go right to the presents. The kids get $25 from their Grandma Wanda each year, one gift from my folks, and one gift from us. This year James decided to get them three or four lesser gifts instead of one nice gift. They were so happy and so thankful for everything they got--it made it great fun for all of us.

First were the gifts from Grandma & Granddad: A new nightgown for Katie with a matching one for her doll, Esther, and a set of marbles with instructions and a mat for Joe. He had guessed a few days earlier (from shaking the package) that it was marbles and then felt horribly guilty about knowing ahead of time what his gift was. I had assured him that it was something else--marbles wouldn't come in a box shaped like that. He thought he had ruined his surprise by shaking the box, but due to his mother's wrong conclusion he was surprised after all. Ha!

Note: Mom, I think you forgot to put a snap at the back of Katie's nightgown--to close up the neck. I was going to put one on... but I packed up a few boxes today and all of my sewing stuff got packed away before I thought about the nightgown! Ha! I'll have to buy a snap and fix it. Katie LOVES the nightgown--and it really is sooooo cute and fits her just right. THANK YOU!!!

Joe had asked for an electric blanket (what a nerd! Ha!) and a rope for his birthday. After James made 8 stops (for real) and I had made as many phone calls, we finally determined that Albuquerque didn't have any electric blankets available anymore--at least not at a price we were willing to pay. Electric throws had gone on clearance at Target for $7 but we missed out. Anyway, no electric blanket, but he doesn't care. He is sooooo happy to have a rope. :-)
Katie got a new mouse for her computer. She had dropped hers several weeks ago and has been using just the touch pad when doing school since then. She's so relieved to have a mouse again--though she forgot to use it for most of the day today. ;-)
Next round of gifts: A battery charger for Katie (since she plays with her camera non-stop and is ALWAYS asking for new batteries) and a new helicopter for Joe since his last one broke way too soon. The boys have had a BLAST with those choppers--I heard they were flying them over the house today. They got Joe's stuck on the roof once or twice, but Sam used the rope to "lasso" it and pull it down. :-)
Their gifts from Sam: his flashlight for Katie and his hacky-sack for Joe. Sam had wrapped up several things and givent them to Katie and Joe already the day before their birthday, but these were two of his favorite things. :-)
I know this one is a little blurry, but I loved Katie's face when she opened up her white gloves. They are elbow length satin ones--better than she ever would have imagined. :-)
And Joe was equally as thrilled with his pack of 1,500 bb's. Now he doesn't have to spend any of his birthday money to buy some for himself.
Here's a picture of Katie and Esther in their new pj's from Grandma Vicki--and the white gloves, of course.
And the new dresses, too. :-)
We had great fun opening gifts, then hung up with Mom & Dad and dug into the cake. It is so good, but I think next time I'm going to try it in a bundt pan and then put a glaze on it instead of frosting. Yum. :-)

We let the birthday girl pick out a movie to watch that afternoon. We weren't scheduled to have church that night (the Clarksons are still away), but in the morning service one of the ladies suggested that we should and asked Brother Juan to preach (talk about short notice--ha!). After a nice, leisurely afternoon we headed back into town for service. I really felt the Lord, particularly in our worship time. I love to worship Him. :-) Brother Juan did a good job again, of course. He is such a blessing. So sincere and such a beautiful spirit.

After service we drove by IHOP and saw that they were practically empty (go figure) so we went ahead and let the kids have their birthday meal after all. The cook that night was celebrating his birthday was well. He came out to meet the birthday kids and wish them a happy birthday, too. We had a good time, then came home and let the kids watch Looney Toons for a little while before bed. They both said numerous times that it was their best birthday ever. :-)

Today is actually a lot more of a blur than yesterday was. I can't seem to remember much. I worked on Ladies' Retreat stuff this morning--got some great slides to show with devotion #2. Now I just need to get the devotion put together. Ha! I called and talked to the campground to ask a few questions (which reminds me--I've got an e-mail to write, pronto!) and am feeling a little more informed now. That's nice. :-) After devotions and school with the kids today I started PACKING!!! Wa-Hoo!!!!!! I haven't mentioned much on my blog because it seems like every time I talk about something on here it sort of jinxes everything and it doesn't pan out. HA! God has been soooooo good to us these past several months and I can look back and say that I'm truly thankful for all of the things that I never would have chosen (!) because I know God has used them to speak to my heart, to humble me, and to teach me some very valuable lessons that I pray will stick with me always. He is so good. And now it appears as if He has opened the door for our family to get to Alabama, at long last! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!! I've been soooooo excited about this! Our plan is to leave about a week from now. We will rent a truck and pack up all of James' office, the contents of the shed, and whatever else we can fit from the house that doesn't help to make it purty. In other words, we want to take everything from closets, cabinets and dressers, but leave all of the furniture and wall decor so it will still look nice and pretty and show-worthy here. We plan on coming back for the rest of our stuff whenever the house sells.

Of course, all of this is subject to change should we get a contract on the house in the next week. I am sooooo not going to jump to conclusions or make any assumptions, but Jason did call tonight and said that he took that young couple to look at 8 houses in Edgewood and ours is still by far their favorite. I think they've exhausted all of the possibilities (there aren't a lot of houses for sale in this area and I know this is where they want to live), so that puts us in a pretty good position. If they decide to make an offer it will probably be sometime this week. I'm very hopeful, but trying real hard to keep myself in check. Don't want to get all excited and then crash with disappointment if it doesn't work out. ;-)

That being said, it's been so confusing to try to figure out what to pack and how to pack. I need to pack things that can sit in storage until we get into a house of our own (whenever that may be); I need to pack other things that we'll need once we get to Alabama and live in the miracle house that God and some amazingly wonderful Church folks have provided for us (!); I need to keep out the things we'll need in the next few weeks until we get settled there; and I need to not pack whatever needs to stay here to keep the house looking good. Unless we get a contract; then I need to pack it all--but still in different categories to be kept in different places until different times. Ha! It's going to be a jumbled mess, but I don't care. We're going to Alabama and that just makes me altogether too happy to worry about the details. :-)

So today I packed up some Christmas dishes from the cabinets, some utility room stuff, and a few boxes from Katie's closet. It feels so good to finally be DOING something, even though I'm not sure how to go about it just yet. It's great. :-)

I guess that's about it. We're looking forward to a good, good week--getting better toward the weekend, we hope. We have some things we're hoping will fall into place for this weekend (having nothing to do with the house) and we will know Tuesday night if it really and truly will happen. One little phone call will make our day or devastate us. But no pressure, D. T. ;-)

Saturday, February 12, 2011

I Stayed Up Way, Way Too Late Last Night

...and I've been feeling it off and on throughout the day today, but I'm still glad I did it. I was able to get the first devotion all put together for Ladies' Retreat. Wa-Hoo! I'm at a total loss as for what to do with the other three, but the first one just fell right into place complete with slides to show and songs to sing. That feels so good. :-)

In spite of my very late night, we had an early morning today. Had to get up and get my shower and make sure everything was looking perfect for the house showing. We worked extra hard to have everything show-worthy since we knew these people are seriously considering this place and would probably be combing over things pretty thoroughly. Jason showed up about 20 minutes early and I was so not ready! I put a curl in my bangs and threw a headband on and called it good. We visited with Jason for a few minutes then hit the road. The people were here looking at the house for about 45 minutes. Jason said they love it, they just need some time to think and talk things over. He's taking them to see two more houses on Monday, but he feels confident that in the end they'll still like this one the best. It's just a matter of whether they can/want to spend more money for a wonderful house (this one--ha!) or less money for a lesser house. If they're like us, they'll go for the cheaper house and fix it up. But it seems most people aren't like us. I hope they're nothing like us. ;-) We still haven't heard anything about the other lady who said she wanted to come see the house this weekend. She may or may not come check it out tomorrow.

Katie worked long and hard on school today and was finally able to get all caught up except for some projects and experiments that are overdue. We'll work on those next week. I don't have the heart to make her do school on Sunday. Actually I do, but I don't have the heart to make her to school on a Sunday when it's also her birthday!

That's right, tomorrow is Katie and Joe's birthday. (And Tammy Washburn's. Happy Birthday, Sister Tammy!!!) It seems SO CRAZY to me that I have a kid who is going to be 10 YEARS OLD. That's so not right. But I'll probably be feeling it a little more tomorrow, so I'll wait and write about it then.

The kids had requested a strawberry cake for their birthday again this year. We've done it several times. And every single time, the cakes fall in the middle!!! What am I doing wrong?! This time I got imaginative though. I sliced the top off of each cake, making them flat and smooth, if a little (okay, a whole lot) shorter than they're supposed to be. Then I took the parts that I had cut off, crumbled them up and mixed them with some frosting for the center layer of the cake. In the end, we have a short squatty cake but I still think it's better than a tall cake that's all dippy in the middle. ;-) Katie helped me decorate it with fresh strawberries. We went a little overboard. It looks GREAT. Since it's a birthday around here tomorrow maybe I'll actually get the camera out and take some pictures! Been a while since I've done that, it seems.

Hhmmm. That's it. Nothing else going on. Actually, it seems like there's something else, but I can't think of what it is. You lucky ducks. Have a great Sunday everybody!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Possibly the Longest School Day Ever

That's what we had around here. Did 25 pages with Sam, assisted Joe with all of the math that stumps him so terribly, and tutored Katie through way too many hours of work that was due days ago. I did one final load of laundry and hauled the ironing board next to the dining table so I could get caught up on that daunting chore while helping them. It took all... day... long. I'd make one or two strokes with the iron before being called by one child or another (sometimes two, on occasion all three) for assistance with whatever assignment was troubling them at the moment. I have no idea why they were all so high maintanance today, but it was crazy! I finished the ironing and the boys finished school at about 4:00 this afternoon. Katie, once again, worked right up until dinner time. Poor kid. She’ll get caught up one of these days—hopefully tomorrow.

But, of course, tomorrow we have a showing at 10:00 in the morning. Jason said that the young couple is bringing the wife’s parents with them as well as some friends of theirs who live up in this area. So there will be six of them total, plus Jason—who is serving as our realtor AND theirs, so it would be a sweet deal for him if they decided to buy this house. It seems like a really good thing that these folks are bringing a whole troop with them. It means they must be pretty serious about it, right??? But then, the more people who come the more eyes there will be to see any problems and brains to consider any possible negatives about purchasing this particular house. Or maybe there will just be that many more people to fall in love with it and insist that they MUST buy this house—this is “it”!!! Yeah, that’s probably what will happen. ;-)

I made enchilada casserole for dinner tonight and it was sooooo good. It was always my favorite meal when I was a kid aside from deer or elk—but then, I guess we used deer or elk burger IN the casserole back then, didn’t we?! :-) My kids have never been very fond of it (weird-o’s) so I very seldom make it anymore. Maybe that’s why it tasted so very good tonight. And I think the kids are enjoying it more now that they’re older, too. That makes me happy.

James is packing up some more of his office stuff and brought in “Kay Karls” for Katie to read. It’s an old fiction book that the Church put out through the Bethel Book Club years ago. I read it when we lived in Texas and I think it’ll be a great one for Kate. She loves fiction and there’s no way I can possibly preview everything anymore—they just go through too many books for that! I can’t remember very much about the plot of this book, but (being written by a Church of God author) I know that it’s about salvation and trusting in God come what may and that, at some point, the girl prays through to the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues, and somebody gets divinely healed and jumps up out of the wheelchair she’d been in for years. Wish there were more books like that for the kids to read! I think Joe would really enjoy “Priest of Dagon,” another Bethel Book Club book that we have out there.

~whew~ I’m going to have to stop blogging every day. There are just not enough things of interest to blog every single day. I’m boring myself. Ha! I’m done for the night though. Got some things I want to do around the house (bleach the kitchen sinks, CLR the faucets and fixtures, touch up the wood floors again, sweep up the wood chips from around the fireplace, etc.) so the house will be perfect tomorrow. Help us pray for God’s will! :-)

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Heeding the Rumor

...that there would be a showing sometime from Thursday to Sunday and another on either Saturday or Sunday, we hit the house cleaning hard and heavy this morning. What if Jason called today and said they were on their way?! I got one kid outside cleaning things up, gathering toys, and sweeping the porch, another was sent to dust all of the major surfaces throughout the house, while the third was hauling firewood, sweeping the floors, and cleaning the faces of the stove, dishwasher and microwave. I cleaned the kitchen, scrubbed both bathrooms, vacuumed all the carpets, and got the wood floors shining. We got it all done by about 11:00. Makes me wonder why our house is EVER dirty if it can be cleaned so quickly. Ha! About the time we finished Jason called to say that he’d be bringing the couple to look at the house… Saturday at 10:00. Jerk. Ha! Now I have to maintain the house until then. I hate trying to maintain. It’s just not possible with a husband and three kids. So tomorrow night we’ll probably end up with another mad cleaning spree.

After cleaning the house, we got busy on school. I’m not sure how it happened, but Katie has fallen way behind on her work. Today was her first day of playing catch-up. She’ll have a full day tomorrow AND Saturday in order to get up to date again. Joe and Sam both did well today and finished pretty quickly. Katie finally finished the amount I had allotted her to do today just in time to get ready for church.

As she was working on school and the boys were playing, I was able to sneak in a little nap. I don’t know why but I was soooooo tired today, even after my nap. When I got up, Sam was all excited because he’d “made a deal” with James. Sam is all about making deals. James had agreed to give him the bb gun that he’s had in the cabinet for years if Sam would sing the 99 cents song (a song Sam made up a year or two ago—it was sooooo great, but we can’t ever get him to sing it for us anymore) and give him all of the money he gets. I tried to enquire, but from what I could tell there was no end-point for that. So James will get every dime the kid comes by for the rest of his life, I guess. Ha! Crazy Sam. He’d give his mother and siblings away if it would get him a bb gun. Or new Legos. Or miniature cars. Or whatever catches his fancy at any given moment, which is usually whatever is in front of him.

Joe came in the room and he was happy to hear that Sam had his own gun. He takes joy in other’s joys naturally, but it also meant that he and Sam could have shooting competitions. Only one problem. He was all out of bb’s. The next 15 minutes were quite amusing, listening to James tease the boys because now they both had guns, but he had all the bb’s.

“But Dad, you don’t have a bb gun anymore—you gave it to Sam. Can’t we have the bb’s?”

“Nope. The guns are yours. The bb’s are mine.”

Then he would just crack up and go on and on about how pathetic it was that they both had bb guns, but it didn’t do them any good because they had no bb’s. They all laughed and giggled and fought it out for the longest time. I finally separated the bb’s for the boys, 35 apiece. Joe made a target and the two of them were outside for all of 5 minutes before they were out of bb’s again. :-)

We got all cleaned up for church, put Charlie in his box (he didn’t cry—first time! Just a fluke??? Yeah, probably), and headed to town. We stopped and got the mail on our way. Katie and Joe each had a birthday card from their Grandma Wanda with a $25 check. Sam immediately started talking to Joe about how many bb's he could buy with that amount of money--how many he could buy for himself AND how many he'd be able to buy for Sam, too. I told him to stop trying to mooch off his brother. It got real quiet in the backseat and then Joe started laughing and handed me the note Sam had just written. It said, "Joe is nise." I had to laugh because I had just picked up a note this morning--in that same handwriting--that said, "Joe is a bum." He's a bum until he has $25, then... :-) Which reminds me

James needed to stop by the Post Office, then we grabbed dinner at Panda Express before service. Joe's fortune cookie said, "Many people admire you." Then ensued another mighty arguement over who rightfully deserved to have received such a fortune. Katie insisted that more people admired her than Joe, but Joe started tallying things up. "Dad admires me, right Dad? And Mom, do you admire me? See, there's two. And Sam admires my $25--that counts for something!" I guess you've gotta take what you can get. ;-)

We had good worship tonight (it was so good to have James' voice and piano playing back!) and Brother Juan preached another good message. But honestly, I was still so tired (?!) and had a hard time staying focused.

And that’s about it. Look, Mom! Another post—15 days in a row. I’m probably just getting way ahead in anticipation of when we get a contract on the house and actually start MOVING. I may not blog much at all during that madness! Then again, I probably will. Blogging is sort of therapeutic when life is crazy. I hope I need moving therapy very, very soon. :-)

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

I Blog Today

...because I know my mother will come looking and be disappointed if I don't. But here's your warning, Mom: I'm not going to do this every day thing for the rest of my life. ;-)

It was another great day around here, only slightly more productive than yesterday. This morning we got up, James took one look at the dog, and decided enough was enough--he must be groomed. Today. James wasn't too awful fond of the hack job I did on Charlie's head poof while he was away. Agreed, he looks dumb. But he's a poodle, for goodness' sake--there's no way to avoid it, right?! I thought James would get used to it after a few days (I did), but he didn't last long enough to get used to it. I called the groomers and they said they could squeeze him in this morning, so James took Katie (somebody has to hold the dog and feed him ice cream and peppermints--HA!) and headed to town with the Charles.

So I had devotions with the boys this morning, then we got right in to school. I worked on the puzzle here and there in between helping with school stuff. I love having a puzzle out. It's so relaxing, even when you just work for a minute or two at a time.

I also used school time to try to fix Joe's helicopter. Mom & Dad had gotten each boy one of those helicopters that you see people selling in the mall. You know, where they pull a cord and the chopper goes sailing up through the air and then comes back and lands right in the guy's hand. They're heavy plastic and much more substantial than the remote controlled one that we got for Sam for Christmas--that broke and had to be replaced and then the second one broke, too. Anyway, these were the gifts that the kids just opened up when James got home on Monday night. On Tuesday afternoon, after several crashes of the same nature, Joe's chopper landed wrong and a propeller blade snapped in two. I felt so bad for him. Not just because his helicopter was broken, but because he felt so bad that he had broken something Grandma and Granddad had just gotten him. I told him there was no chance superglue would do the trick, but it only seemed right to try.

So I spent 30 or 40 minutes this morning working on it. I used a razor blade to gouge notches into each of the broken pieces (that I was hoping to meld back together), then "skinned" a twist-tie down to just the thin little wire, wrapped it tightly around and through the notches of the one piece, onto the other piece (while supergluing them together at the broken joint) and then through the notches on that piece. The notches were to ensure that the wire wouldn't slip loose. I covered the whole thing (plastic, wires--everything) with superglue, then used electrical tape on top of that. Slid the whole piece back into place, glued the top cover back on, then taped it once more. We let it dry for a little while before Joe headed to the porch to give it a try. In the end, we got a flight and a half out of it before it broke again. Ha! It flew just fine, but the crash at the end was just more than the superglue could handle. The wire and tape held so the blade didn't actually fall off, it just dangled loosely. In the end, I still feel it was a great success because I have a son who knows that his mom really cares. :-)

After lunch Joe wanted to play Scattergories again, just me and him since Katie was still gone with James. I made him help me finish up my puzzle first, though he really wasn't much help. We played four rounds of Scattergories, then I send him to finish up on school while I played two rounds of Battleship with Sam. By then Katie and James were home with a dog who in my opinion looks no less stupid than he did before. But he feels and smells sooooo much better. :-)

I told James I was making spaghetti for dinner tonight. He didn't say much, but I could tell he wasn't overjoyed at the thought. I wasn't the least bit surprised when he brought home some chicken breasts so we could have chicken parmesan to go along with it. He sliced the breasts in half, then beat them with a knife the way Grandmother used to do with deer and elk steaks. I must say they were very, very good. I would've been satisfied with the spaghetti personally, but the chicken was a nice addition.

I did another load of laundry this evening. It's really my way of stalling with the ironing. I can't make myself do the ironing unless I'm all caught up on the laundry so I'll know that there's not anything left to be washed and ironed and I can really and truly be "caught up," if only for a day. Of course, I'm not doing the ironing tonight either. Have some other things I need to attend to. Thank goodness. ;-) Maybe tomorrow will be the big ironing day. Or maybe not, because...

It looks like we're supposed to have two showings in the next few days. One lady saw the house online and really liked it and wants to come look at it on Saturday or Sunday. The young couple who were here at the Open House a couple of weeks ago went and looked at four other houses yesterday and have decided that they'd like to come and look at this one one more time, sometime from Thursday to Saturday. That's a good sign, right?! I'm in a strange state of mind, not daring to get my hopes up over anything, but not wanting to be faithless and just expect that nothing will come of any of this! There's a delicate balance somewhere that I struggle to maintain. ;-) Either way, please help us pray for God's will. That's all I'm interested in: God's will, God's way, in His own good time. :-)

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Home Alone No More, Day Two

HA! What a terrific title. I'm on a roll! :-)

Today didn't go at all as planned. Actually, I don't know that we had any definite plans. Perhaps that's why it went the way went. In any case, it was GREAT. :-) I had no motivation today and felt like simply loafing. So aside from a little laundry, that's pretty much what we did. Katie woke up feeling a little sick and proved it about an hour later. Yuck. It's strange--our family used to never, ever get sick. Seems like it's come and gone a whole lot more around here the past year or so. Kate wasn't seriously sick (after that one episode), but she felt sort of puny and carried a bowl around all day just in case. She never get get out of her pj's.

We had devotions by a nice, warm fire this morning. I love that. :-) Afterward I read a few Pat McManus stories to the kids. I read "Two-Man Tent Fever" to them, Mom. They enjoyed it, but are still too young to fully grasp the hilarity of it all. They kept asking for more stories though, so I read the one about group terms (a gang of elk, a sloth of bears, a screaming meemie of snakes, a murder of wives), the one about the crouch-hop and other useful steps, and then "Never Cry Snake." Gotta bring the kid-o's up right. :-)

I felt it my duty to open my new puzzle from Mom today, so I made myself do it. :-) Katie and Joe wanted to try a new game they'd never played before, so I grabbed Scattergories. They LOVED it and we played through all 12 lists, then through all but one of the refill lists--that's 11 more! It probably took us close to two hours, but it just seemed like the thing to do. Nobody felt like school today, especially the Mom. It was cold and windy and snowy outside and it just FELT like it should be a game and puzzle day. :-) We even had some fantabulous snow cream. ~Aaaaaahhhhh~ What a great day!

I worked on my puzzle a little while this afternoon and am probably close to half done with it. It's a very fun one to do. As I was working on that the boys got to playing around with dart guns and whatnot, like they do every day. Before I knew it Sam had shot Joe square in the back of the head with his slingshot. It has heavy foam balls (better than rocks, at least!) that can't really do any serious damage, but it would definitely smart if you got hit full force. And we have a "no shooting in the head" rule around here for everything--darts, rubber bands, whatever. I did the dumb mother talk as I took the slingshot away: "How would you like it if I shot you in the head, Sam?" I confiscated the slingshot and told him he was done for the day. That sent him into urgent pleading, "Oh, please, Mom! Please--can't you just shoot me in the head and then give it back??? I promise I won't hit Joe again!" Ha! That kid kills me. Which reminds me. I forgot to write an update about his fears the other night. I had prayed with him and put him to bed, then went to bed myself. At about 1:00 in the morning a very groggy Sam appeared next to my bed. I asked what was wrong and he just said, "Thanks for the prayers, Mom. They seem to be workin' pretty good." Then he stumbled back to bed. Ha! Crazy kid. Thank the Lord for being good and answering our prayers, large and small. He is good to us. :-)

I made a GREAT dinner tonight: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, GREAT gravy (two times in a row!), and corn. We also had some homemade bread along with biscuits and cornbread from Cracker Barrel. Yum. Katie was feeling better this evening and her Dad commissioned her to make brownies. Everything about the meal was great. Except for the cardboard cut I got on the tip of my finger while opening the butter box. What kind of a nerd cuts themselves opening a butter box?! I didn't even know it was possible. But I've got a big, clunky band-aid on it right now and probably a plethora of typo's to prove it. Dumb.

I've been playing with a VERY hyper puppy tonight and I think he's finally ready to curl up in his bed and go to sleep. I talked to my final TAP leader tonight, so now I just have to call the fun time lady and I'm all set. I do need to go work on some retreat stuff now that everybody is bedded down. I love the quiet of the night. Well... except for the two different Cathedrals songs coming from opposite ends of the house--one from Kate's room and one from the boys'. Still, it's almost quiet. I also love the kid noises of the day, of course, and am thankful for them. But it does make studying rather challenging, so the night time provides opportunites that are nonexistent during the day. I'm going to go take advantage of them. G'night!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Home Alone No More

Not sure why, but I had a very slow start this morning. I let the kids fend for themselves while I took a long, hot bath. Actually, it wasn't nearly as hot as it was supposed to be and ended up being pretty chilly by the time I got out. I hate that!

We had devotions, then the kids did a little school while I worked on Ladies' Retreat stuff some more. I finally made a bunch of phone calls and wrote a bunch of e-mails. I've gotten answers from everybody except one lady who I left a message for. I'm hoping she'll call back tomorrow and then I'll have my staff all set. All those who I was able to make contact with agreed to accept the positions I was asking them to fill. I do have one rather grudging TAP leader, but she'll be just fine. ;-) So I'm all done with the staff selection part. Wa-Hoo! Well, not completely... I still need to settle on two people and two positions--just can't figure out which to put where. But I'm getting mighty close! Oh, and a fun time director. I've never been to a Ladies' Retreat that had fun time, so I keep forgetting about that one. Gotta make that phone call, too.

I had planned to do the big house cleaning thing today, but was so not in the mood for it. Katie had gotten out a 550 piece puzzle the other day, so I sat down and worked on it for a few minutes. Then I got sucked in but I knew I really ought to be cleaning house, so I called the kids in to help and told them nobody was allowed to leave until we finished the puzzle so we could put it away and clean the house. :-) I think it only took us about 15 minutes, then we went about our different duties, getting things straightened up, bathrooms cleaned, carpets vacuumed, etc. I think the only thing that didn't get done was the wood floors, but they really don't look that bad so it's no biggie. Maybe tomorrow.

Before we knew it, it was time to go pick up James from the airport. We loaded up Charlie and his dish of ice cream (!) and he did well again. Wa-Hoo! We got to the airport and (get this) I took Charlie in with us. I never would have dreamed of doing such a thing, but last time we were there I saw two other people sitting there with little dogs in their laps while they were waiting for people to arrive. I figured I'd give it a try. At worst we'd just be asked to leave, right? This dog is so much more temperamental than Hershey ever was and he gets sort of spazzed out in "new" situations, so I'm thinking he really needs to get out more, see more places, meet more people. (Yes, I'm well aware of the lunacy of what I'm saying... but you people don't have to live with this dog and I do! Ha!) I held him the whole time we were in the airport, but he was still pretty much a nervous wreck. He likes people, but acts scared to death of them. That's something I hate about poodles but have never (up to this point) owned a poodle who acted that way. I'm hoping he'll grow out of it... ???

ANYWAY, we were only there for 5 or 10 minutes when James came walking through the gate. We got his luggage and then headed out to dinner. James must have still been feeling a bit southern after his Alabama trip because he wanted Cracker Barrel for dinner. ;-) We left Charlie in the van and he did great. He cried when we left him, but was curled up asleep in his bed when we returned. It was great to have a nice, hot meal and just relax and hear all about James' trip.

On the way home Charlie started whining and getting extremely restless--and making me very nervous. I covered every inch of myself with his blanket, just in case. Ha! I found a peppermint in my purse, so I unwrapped it and let him lick it for a little while. Peppermint is supposed to settle your stomach too, right?! Ha! In any case, this is now the third trip we've taken with the dog that he has NOT gotten sick on. ~whew~ What a relief. He's a long way from being OVER the carsick thing, I can tell--but I'm rejoicing with every small victory along the way. ;-)

When we got home James hauled in his luggage and we dug out the Christmas presents from Mom. We called her up on Skype so she could watch the kids open them. :-) The boys LOVE their helicopters and Church of God sweatshirts (it'll be nice to see them in something new--they each have a favorite shirt that they like to wear every... single... day) and Katie was thrilled with her new dress and the matching one--and shoes--for her doll, Esther. Special, hand-made grandma gifts. They're the best. :-) I opened my puzzle (guess I'll have to do another one this week! Wa-hoo!), my adorable Christmas sweater (it's rotten that I have to wait 9 months before I can wear it) and the Christmassy pj's. I love them all. And I'm not waiting to wear the pj's--I have them on right now. Love 'em, Mom. :-)

I've got some laundry going and hope to finish up and do the ironing tomorrow. It's good to have James home, though he's sacked out already. Didn't have the gusto to stay up much past 10:00 tonight. Oh well, I'm not too far behind him. It's been a good day. :-)

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Home Alone, Day Ten

We got up this morning and headed to church early because we were the Juans ride to church. We had a good service and I so thoroughly enjoyed the Sunday School lesson. --Especially since Sister Galaviz was able to be there after all and did a GREAT job teaching. She had pictures of sheep with their fleece all matted and full of grass and gunk--and one of a "cast" sheep, lying there in the grass, stuck on its back. Ha! It's pitiful--pitiful and pathetic that an animal could end up in that condition and not be able to get up on his own. But God didn't compare us to dogs or horses or any of the other animals who would just roll over and be on their way; He compared us to sheep. He didn't create us to be self-sufficient. He created us to NEED Him and one another. It's good to be a sheep. :-)

Carlos led songs this morning and Joe played his guitar. Then Sister Bailey was on for WMB service. She taught a lesson on boldness and read several biblical accounts of those who were bold for the Lord: David, the Hebrew children, Daniel, the apostles, etc.

We came home after church and I did a bad, bad thing. I ate a peanut butter and honey sandwich. We were out of homemade jam and I just can't make myself eat the store bought stuff anymore, so I went for honey. It seems like the past few times I've eaten honey I've ended up feeling sort of sick. I wondered about it even as I was making my sandwich, but I've eaten honey all my life and never had any problems--it must've been a coincidence, right? Nope. I'm sure now. I had a long and miserable afternoon curled up into a ball on the couch, trying to sleep so I wouldn't feel the horrible stomach ache. Bleagh. It was sooooo bad for an hour or so, then it eased up to just real bad. Ha! I still don't feel perfect, but I'm grateful to feel only slight discomfort at this point. It's strange... I really don't think honey dissolved in hot tea or anything like that would bother me, but the thought of eating it on cornbread or a sandwich makes me start feeling bad all over again. Why would my body suddenly start reacting badly to something that it never used to react badly to?!

Speaking of which... I'm one of those people who has never been affected the least bit by caffeine or sugar or anything like that. I don't get hyper or wired or whatever. But I've noticed that for quite a little while now I've had a hard time falling asleep at night. I used to hit the pillow and be out cold, but no more. Some nights I can lay there for two hours or more before I finally fall asleep. It's so frustrating! Mom asked me the other day if I have caffeine of any kind before bed. I hadn't thought of anything like that since it's never had any affect on me, but I suppose it's a possibility. It's not uncommon for me to drink a glass of tea the last hour or two before I go to bed. Could it be??? I really don't know (and I HATE the thought of being affected by stuff like that--I've always been completely immune to the rest of the world's caffeine reactions! Ha!), but I've been laying off the tea in the evenings for several days now. And I think I'm falling asleep faster. I'm hoping it's either a coincidence or a mental thing. Ha! I guess I'll have to start paying better attention to the things I'm consuming to try to determine if there really is a connection. If so, it can only mean one thing. I'm getting old. HA! No, it must just be a coincidence. But if it's not... DUSTIN HAYS, I WANT YOU TO KNOW YOU'RE RIGHT BEHIND ME! ;-)

Anyway...

Since service on Thursday night was cancelled it was rescheduled for tonight, giving us two services today! Yeah! I had about an hour this afternoon when I was pretty well confined to the couch and wondering if I'd even be able to make it to church (!), but thank the Lord I was well enough to go when the time came. Brother Juan preached a wonderful message tonight--about bearing fruit for the Lord, of all things! He marched all over my Ladies' Retreat theme. :-) He brought out several scriptures that I hadn't thought of in relation to the retreat and I look lots and lots of notes. Now if only I could figure out what I'm supposed to DO with them. I haven't been planning on teaching a class... but does God want me to?! Should I use what He's laying on my heart for devotions--or should I have somebody else do the devotions? And what about the music? Aaaaauuuugggghhhh! I'm feeling better and better about using certain people, but I still don't know who I need to ask to to what. It's tough to call people and say, "Hey, I really feel like the Lord wants you to be on staff at Ladies' Retreat this year. I have no idea what position I'm asking you to fill, but will you come help out???" I actually did that with one lady who I was feeling really strongly about using, but I can't make myself do it with all of the others! Ha! Time is running out (we're 6 weeks away right now!) and I've GOT to let people know what I'd like for them to do. ~sigh~ Prayers, please. :-)

We came home tonight and tried to watch a few minutes of the Super Bowl, but the commercials were so nasty we turned it off. I couldn't care less about the Packers or the Steelers anyway, except that I'm good and sick of the Packers right now. It's sort of like Alabama football. Last year (before anybody except God knew that we'd be moving there--ha!) I remember thinking that I'd never had any feeling--good or bad--about Alabama football... but suddenly I hated it because I was sooooo tired of hearing Roll Tide Roll! Ha! Same thing with the Packers this year. Besides the fact that I can't think of them without thinking of Brett Farve. I never really liked him anyway, but the tacky and tasteless retiring/not-retiring thing didn't help at all.

You know you're out of things to say when Brett Farve makes it to the blog. Sorry 'bout that.

After the kids were in their pj's tonight they all decided to dress up in suits (even Katie) so they could sing a couple of Cathedrals songs for me. Of course, they didn't wear the same suits the boys had worn to church today--no, they got new suits out of the closet. ~sigh~ Anyway, they sang one song for my Mom over the computer and two or three more for me afterwards. Joe keeps saying they are the Horne Kids Quartet. I told him that they can't be a quartet--there are only three of them. "No, it works, Mom. Katie sings lead and baritone." Ha! Joe was the tenor and Sam sang bass. It was GREAT. I finally had to make them go to bed, but I'm hoping perhaps I can get a video clip of them doing a song or two tomorrow. Sam even went to the bathroom and slicked his hair down to look the part. :-)

Ah, yes. Sam. He just came in here a minute ago, scared. He told me about a bad dream he had last night and he keeps thinking about it and is worried he'll have another bad dream. Last night's terror was the Rumor Weed. It cracks me up (!), but I know that when you're a kid whatever you're afraid of (no matter how silly) is very, very real and scary to you. He started talking about the devil wanting people to be afraid and that led him down a new train of thought. How can the devil make kids all over the world scared at night (he's going with the assumption that he's surely not the only one) at the same time. The devil isn't like God; he can't be everywhere at the same time, so how does he do it? Then, rationalizing why he's having struggles with fear tonight, he said, "I think the devil likes to hang out in New Mexico because he's already got so many bad people around here..." Ha! Albuquerque is a pretty rough place. Sam figures it must be one of the devil's favorite hang-outs. :-) Anyway, I shared several scriptures with him and had a good prayer with him--and I think he's asleep now. His real problem is that he fell asleep (and snored, of course) during church tonight and wasn't tired enough to fall asleep when I sent him to bed. He's usually out like a light (he doesn't have caffeine issues--ha!), but tonight he had time to lay around in the dark and THINK.

Katie and Joe have a birthday coming up next Sunday and I can't wait until it's over. Ha! They start talking about their birthday 6 or 8 months in advance (especially Katie) and what kind of cake they want to have this year and what for dinner and all that stuff. At least James will be home tomorrow and they'll start taking half of their ramblings to him. I asked what they wanted for their birthday this year and was pleasantly surprised by Katie's answer. All she wants is one beautiful red rose and a pair of white gloves that she can wear with her dresses. That seems sweet and old-fashioned to me. :-) Then there's Joe. All he wants is a rope (I assume for the purpose of tying people up and trying to set booby traps) and... an electric blanket. Ha! What a nerd. It would make him the happiest kid in the world to have one of those small electric throw blankets that little old men tuck around their laps when they sit in their recliners--he'd haul it from one chair or couch to another with a stack of books and a wide smile.

Okay, enough is enough. I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow we do school, work to get the house all cleaned up (both because Monday is house cleaning day around here AND because James is coming home), then head into town to pick James up at 5:00-something. We've had a great time partying while he's been gone, but now he's coming home and we're all excited and anxious for him to get here. :-)

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Home Alone, Day Nine

I did finish my puzzle last night. I know the suspense was killing you. :-) And I know it's pitiful to take pictures of puzzles, but I'm just that big of a nerd. At least I don't glue them together and hang them on the wall, right?! This is the one I did before--that took me FOREVER to finish. But it's so pretty. :-)
And while I'm doing the picture thing, here's one I took of all three boys the other night. They slept on the living room floor next to the fireplace a few nights while it was soooooooo cold and we were keeping their bedroom closed off so we wouldn't have to worry about heating that end of the house so much.
Yes, I did pick Sam up off of the tile and shove him back into his sleeping bag before I went to bed. Crazy kid!

And Joe just HAD to take a picture of Charlie tonight.

Okay, and now... our day.

James called this morning to wish me a happy anniversary. :-) Eleven years. He had bought me a dozen red roses and some stargazer lilies (what I had in my wedding bouquet) before he left for Alabama. The roses didn't last long and I had to throw them out yesterday (how sad--ha!), but several of the lilies have bloomed in the past couple of days. They are so pretty. :-)

To celebrate my anniversary, I spent the morning cleaning the ashes out of the fireplace. Ha! I finally got it all cleaned out (actually, it's never ALL cleaned out--but I did my best) and took the ash bucket up to the corner of the yard, dug a hole in the snow, dumped the ashes in, then kicked snow on top of them just in case. Then I came in and scrubbed on the stove and cleaned the glass and vacuumed up all of the ashes that had fallen onto the bricks. I talked to my Mom today and she made me put the vacuum cleaner out on the porch just in case there was still something "live" in the ashes that might ignite. "Way too many houses have been burned down by vacuum cleaners used to clean up fireplaces..." She's not usually the panicky kind (we leave that to James and his mother--ha!), so I figured I should take her advice. And just as I told her, the vacuum was forgotten about and is still sitting on the porch. Not sure how long it takes coals and ashes to completely cool. Probably until Monday night... when James gets home and sees the vac sitting out there. ;-)

Anyway, cleaning the stove out is a nasty job but it felt great to get it done. And the fire is so pretty once you can see through the glass again. :-) Of course, I spent the last half of the morning trying to START a fire! I'm from the paper-and-kindlin' camp and if I have both of those I'm all set. James is from the large-logs-heavily-doused-in-lighter-fluid camp. I usually send the boys out to gather kindlin' from the yard (there's never any shortage of sticks and branches laying around) but everything is still covered in snow right now, so I had to use James' method. Having bare logs with no ashes underneath them didn't help at all. I used about half the jug of lighter fluid (squirting more on and throwing another match in every 5 minutes or so when the fire would die down to nothing) before the logs themselves actually took. Ha! What a waste. If I had a decent axe I would have just chopped some kindlin'. Maybe that's what I'll ask for for my birthday in a few months. An axe. Ha!

After lunch I loaded up Sam and the dog and headed down to the rental place to return our movies. I left Katie and Joe at home to clean the kitchen. :-) They feel all grown up to be left at home alone for a few minutes (it took nearly 30 minutes this time) so it worked out well. I took Charlie's bed and another little dish of ice cream for him. Ha! This is so insane. But hey, he didn't get sick! Twice in a row now. I'm going to serve this dog ice cream in the van every day for the next two weeks if it'll teach him to LIKE the van and not hork all over it. ;-)

The kids were playing really well together this afternoon (rarely happens that all three of them are getting along together) so I was able to go to my room and work on Ladies' Retreat stuff for just a little while. That felt good. I still don't have a staff put together yet. I've GOT to settle on that and start making some phone calls! I felt a little more solid about things today, so hopefully I'm getting close.

I don't know what came over me this afternoon, but I suddenly had an irrepressible urge to empty everything out of the chuck wagon table and move it into Katie's closet and to take everything from that wall in Katie's closet and move it to the chuck wagon table. I think it has something to do with being anxious to PACK so we can MOVE, but I haven't been able to do any of that yet. And somehow the pointless transferring of stuff from one location to another gave me a little satisfaction and relieved my urge to DO something. :-) So now all of the miscellaneous STUFF is stacked on the shelves in Katie's closet and the chuck wagon table has now become the game and puzzle cabinet. I love having things freshly organized and stacked all nice and neat. :-)

I was going to make the kids' favorite casserole for dinner tonight, but then I realized that we're out of burger. So we ended up with tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. The kids were plenty happy with that and they loved the sandwiches made with our homemade bread.

Now all of the kids have had their Saturday night showers and are in bed, if not asleep yet. There's a new puzzle out on the table (Katie got one out after I put the Coke one away) and Charlie is asleep in his bed at my feet. Maybe I'll do some reading or something before bed. I'm looking forward to church tomorrow, but I'm already missing having James and the Clarksons there. And Sister Galaviz--something came up at work, so she won't be at church tomorrow either. And it was her week to teach Sunday School, too. No fair. I love her lessons. Oh well. We'll go in expecting God to bless the little handful that will be able to make it there, as well as those who will be elsewhere. :-)

Friday, February 4, 2011

Home Alone, Day Eight

Okay, these titles are easy but I'm getting pretty sick of them. Just two more of them and then I'll have to start thinking of something new again.

Today was a good and productive day. We all rejoiced over our fresh gallon of milk and enjoyed cereal for breakfast this morning. :-) I don't even eat breakfast most of the time, but it just seemed like the thing to today.

We had devotions, then started in on school. I went outside to haul some more logs in to stack in the little "thingie" (what is it called???) by the wood stove and discovered that we were at the very end of our firewood. We would run out sometime today or perhaps during the night tonight. I looked at the thermometer: 30 degrees. That's the warmest it's been in a long, long time around here. I went and checked the tire paths I had shoveled to see if they had melted out any or if everything was still packed and icy. Even in the still-too-cold-to-melt temperatures the bright sunshine had done some work and I felt... confident is too strong of a word... I felt pretty sure (in a confidently hopeful sort of way) that we'd be able to get out and back in without getting stranded or sliding off the driveway into the gate or a tree.

So I came inside and we did a quick clean up of the house (JUST IN CASE we had a surprise showing--I try to keep things at least decent at all times) and we loaded up all of the library books and headed down the highway. My purpose for leaving home was to get firewood, but the kids had been dying without their usual library visit this week (especially since they were cooped up inside most of the time) and I figured we'd stop by there, too.

I took my kids to the bar today. It's the only place to find firewood. Ha! Molly's Bar sits down at the bottom of the mountain where everybody exits from the Interstate to head north up to the area where we live. In the wintertime you can drive by there and see one, two, or as many as six or eight trucks will loads of firewood parked out at the edge of the parking lot. You check out the loads, talk to the guys and see who has the best price, make your deal, and then the guy will follow you home with his load and dump it in your yard.

We drove past the bar and there were NO loads of wood today. That was my whole reason for going out! ~sigh~ We went on to the library and the kids went inside while I waited outside with Charlie.

Ah, yes. I got to thinking about the fact that we're planning on going to Alabama at the end of this month (praise God--I'm sooooooooooo excited!!!)... and we have a dog who gets carsick. I DO NOT want to travel with a carsick dog for two whole days to get there! So I got to thinking about that crazy advice I'd read online the other day. (1) Vanilla ice cream to settle their stomach and deter motion sickness, and (2) make the ride soothing and enjoyable, a "happy experience" since they're usually stressed out rather than struggling with motion sickness. I decided to mix the advice together. I fixed the dog a bowl of ice cream and let him eat it in the van on our way down the mountain. Ha! I mean, come on--what could be more enjoyable than a bowl of ice cream as you travel?! :-) It was really just one spoonful, but it kept him busy and occupied for several minutes. I had him sitting ON HIS BLANKET (Katie took me seriously this time) on Kate's lap in the front seat and he made it all the way down without getting sick. Wa-Hoo! (I can't believe I'm excited because I took a 10 or 15 minute drive and the dog didn't hork. That's so dumb.)

We were at the library for 20 or 30 minutes. When we left and drove past the bar I noticed that there was now a truck there with a load of wood! Wa-Hoo! I pulled up next to him to ask his price and it was a couple of kids in there. Teenagers, that is. The guy told me $125. I can't believe I did this (James is so proud of me), but I took one look and said, "That's not nearly enough wood for $125." He told me to make him an offer and (could you die?!) I said $85!!! That is SO a James move--the kind that would have me all embarrassed and crawling under the seat and wanting to slip the guys an extra $20 when James wasn't looking. Ha! He said $90, I said sold, and he followed me home. I pulled the dog into my lap (because it's his favorite spot and I was hoping it would be "soothing and relaxing" for him--HA!) and petted him and talked to him the whole way home. He started whimpering and looking sick (it could have been my imagination--I'm not sure how a dog looks sick), but he made it all the way home with no incident. Success! Good Charlie dog.

We got to the house and I didn't even made it completely off the road and into the drive before we slid to a stop. I backed up a bit and gunned it. I love doing that. :-) I didn't make it all the way up the hill, but purty close. The guys with the wood were in a truck, but it wasn't a 4x4 (what is the purpose of having a truck if it's not a 4x4?!) and he was having a terrible time getting in the driveway himself. Even if he made it in, there was no place to go because the only place that had been shoveled was the two tire tracks where my van was! They were going to have to dump the wood way down the hill and the kids and I were going to have to haul it all the way up to the house through 6" of snow, with no wheelbarrow or dolly. Not fun. I finally told the dudes that if they just wanted to park the truck wherever they could get it, I'd be happy to pay them $100 for the wood--if they'd haul it to the front porch for me. :-) They were strapping young men with nothing better to do and it was the best $10 I've ever spent in my whole life. Ha! It would have taken us all afternoon to do it, but those two punks hauled it up--and stacked it for me!--in no time. They'd scoop up 10 or 12 chunks of wood and jog up the hill to the house with them. I can't wait until I have teenage boys around the house. They must come in so handy. :-) I stood outside and talked with the guys a bit while they worked and learned that one--the one that didn't look a day over 16 years old--is in college. The other guy had just come to hang out with his buddy and ended up roped into hauling all of that wood up to my porch--and would not be getting paid for his trouble. Ha! So when I paid the skinny kid I also brought a bag of cookies to the tag-along. Truthfully, he seemed as excited about a bag of homemade cookies as the other guy did about his $100. I love teenage boys. :-) And James was so proud that I had haggled so well and got a good price--delivered, hauled AND stacked. I was talking to him on the phone while the guys were hauling load after load up the hill and something slipped out of my mouth about feeling a little bad and like I ought to pay them more... "NO, BEC. Do NOT pay them more--you did good, just give them the $100!" Ha!

I spent some time working on my puzzle this afternoon while the kids finished up on school. We had a very late lunch, so we also had a very late pizza party tonight. :-) We watched The Ugly Dachshund again since it has to go back to the rental place tomorrow. (If I would have thought of it I would have taken it back while I was out today!) While that was on I did some proofreading for James and worked on some stuff for the Alabama Evening Light since the deadline is tomorrow.

Now the kids are in bed, I have finished up on my responsibilities, I have blogged, and as of last night I'm all done proofreading the Sunday School stuff. I can't decide whether to go to bed or stay up and try to finish my puzzle. ~sigh~ Decisions, decisions... Puzzle it is. :-)