HOW Does That HAPPEN???

A week already since I blogged?! ~sigh~ What a loser. It has been so crazy since we've been in Alabama though. For starters, I am soooooooo tired. It can't still be the post-chaos "crash" at this point. I should be well over that by now. So I've wondered about the climate?! But that seems unlikely, too. It's not desperately hot or humid, though there has been a lot of rain. The weather has felt pretty mild and even a little cool (wa-hoo!) a few days. I've had a sore throat and my ears have been plugged up (making it rather difficult on an already hard-of-hearing girl!) and stuff like that, but I've never felt actually sick. Mostly I just feel exhausted and listless all the time, almost like I'm pregnant or something. (I'm not; don't start any rumors. Ha!) I get little spurts of energy, but usually I just feel tired and groggy and would love to curl up and take a nap. How sad. Then Mom goes and tells me that it probably IS the climate and (most of all) the elevation change. She said her ear was plugged up for a year after they moved to Virginia from Colorado. Greeeeeeeat. Ha! I'm trusting that won't be the case with me!

Let's see. I have been a royal failure with the camera since we got here for some reason. But I'll post the few sorry little pictures I have taken. Here is a robot Katie built with some blocks here at the Powell's house. And here is Joe, walking his lizard. All of the lizards get names and I'm sure he could tell me which one this is (Escape--pronounced "es-COP-ay"--, Exit, Frisky, Lightening, Flash...), but I think of this particular lizard as Terrified or Panic-Stricken. Ha!

Okay, time for some catch-up. I'll try to give you the short, fast version since I've been way too rambly about all of the details in my recent posts. (Recent being for the past 4 years or so. Ha!)

Friday morning we drove to Cleveland, got there in time to help Mom clean up her remodeling mess (the bathroom is looking sooooo much better!) and get ready for the Mission Crusade (Sister Bishop was preaching--it was so, so good), come home, crash, get up, have a power outage, finally get some juice again, get ready, go to a girls' birthday bash at Cracker Barrel while James was at a Ways & Means Meeting and Dad watched the boys, then arrive back at Mom and Dad's house at roughly the same time as James--who was ready to get loaded up and head back to Alabama immediately. It was a flyin' trip, but I'm still glad we were able to go. The boys were able to get in a little fishing, at least. That made 'em happy. Here is a bluegill that Sam caught on Friday...



They were wearing Granddad's jackets because they didn't think to bring any of their own.

We went to church in Bessemer Sunday morning (we want them to know that we know it's our home church... before we start gallivanting all over the rest of the state visiting churches!), then grabbed lunch at McAllisters, stopped by Christopher & Banks (found a great $14.99 deal) while James took the shaggy boys for haircuts, drove by a few houses for sale (though we're in no hurry to buy and move out of the Powell's house, hopefully for several months), went back to the church for a while so James could work on state stuff and I could work on Ladies' Retreat (the kids played instruments), left to go get and deliver a pounding to our pastor, then it was back to church for service. We had a good one and two were saved--one of the kids (Zack, he's 6) and one of the Dudley boys, Jonathan--he's 20, I think.

Ah, yes. The Dudley boys. They are worthy of mention here. :-) Brother & Sister Dudley are members in Bessemer and they only live about 10 minutes from the Powell's house--I'm hoping we can spend some time with them when things settle down a bit. I think they are terrific. :-) They have three boys, ages 20, 18, and 17--I think that's what she said. They are all great big, broad, strapping young men with lots of energy and big smiles, though some of them seem a little more shy than others. They are "southern" all the way and they just crack me up! I looked out the window after church last week and saw one of them riding (?) another one across the parking lot. They are kind and helpful and respectful, but they are just great big boys in men's bodies. I was visiting with Sister Dudley after service one night and all the sudden the boys gathered around her, towering over her, and said almost in unison--in deep, throaty voices--"We're HUNGRY!" Ha! I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to feed them. I think she told me when they have tacos she has to have 70 taco shells ready. HA! I'd love to have them over for dinner, but... What in the world would you cook--and how many portions would you make?! James says he'll just go pick up 100 burgers at McDonalds. ;-) Anyway, I don't really know them yet, but I already just love those boys! :-)

Back to Jonathan Dudley. Brother Hopkins preached a good message, gave a pressing altar call, then went back and worked with Jonathan until he finally convinced him to make his way to the altar. Several of the men gathered around to pray with him. After a while Jonathan got up and walked straight out the side door into the parking lot without saying a word to anyone. We weren't real sure what that meant (ha!), but in a minute he returned with some of his "sin" in his hands. He laid it on the altar and then got back down to pray some more. :-) I've been praying for him a lot the past few days. I keep looking around and seeing the possibilities of a fantastic, on-fire youth group around here (like the one I was so blessed to grow up in) and I'm praying for just that. I already love all these kids. :-)

The big event of Monday was that James wanted to go to Carino's for their Monday Night Family Platter Special. The food was terrific... but as I was asking for my first refill on my Italian Soda (switching from blackberry cream to raspberry), then waitress mentioned that the refills weren't free on them. ~GASP!~ THAT IS SOOOOOOOOO WRONG!!!!! That's the whole REASON I go to Carino's--the Italian Sodas with free refills! Who in their right mind is going to pay $2 for a soda when you only get ONE?! ~sigh~ I'm devastated. I drank water the rest of the night and just sulked. Ha! I'm done there. The truly disturbing thing is that we no longer have a soda fountain, so I can't even make a soda for myself anymore! I rarely did it when we did have the fountain, but I knew I COULD have one anytime I wanted. Now that I have to do without entirely (thanks to the greedy Carino's people) I feel so cheated! Strange how the mind works. And the taste buds. I'd like to have a raspberry cream soda right now, come to think of it...

Tuesday night we drove over to Phenix City (between 2 and 3 hours away) for Revival. Brother Grant is preaching there this week and that was the only night we were free to go join them. I enjoyed his message, but wondered if all of the Alabamians were confused when he said that in Alaska you can only drive to the villages once the river freezes. I wondered if they connected the dots and realized that he was saying you drive ON the frozen river. It would be a pretty foreign thought around here, I'm sure!

This is how Charlie travelled home that night...



I think we've successfully seen in through the "being stressed out in the car" stage. Ha!

It rains here. A lot. When we travelled back from Cleveland it rained hard the entire trip. Same thing from Phenix City and sometimes on our way home from church. Out west it rains, then passes over. If you're traveling and you hit a rainstorm, it's not too long before you're through it and have big blue skies again. Out here it just doesn't stop--it'll rain and rain and rain... I'm still enjoying it at this point. It's not HOT, so I'm happy. :-)

Last night we had Talent Night for our WMB service. You could pay $10 to hear so-and-so sing a song, or they could pay twice that amount to get out of it. It was great and I think over $300 was raised for World Missions. Some things are a little goofy, though much more reserved than would occur other places (ha!), and then some things are serious and "spiritual"--which kind of threw me for a loop! Ha! It seems strange to have a goofy "I'll pay ____ to see _____ do _____" format when the thing requested is for them to sing a good, spiritual song that you would hear in church. I was expecting things like, "I'll pay $5 to hear Steve Ridlespurge yodel while hopping on one foot, rubbing his belly and patting his head." Actually, come to think of it I'd pay a lot more than $5 to see that... HA! We had several special songs (by some folks who could sing, some who could not--which was the point), a few testimonies, two drum solos, stuff like that. I thought it was extra cool when all of the kids played a song on the instruments--Katie on piano, Joe on guitar, Dalton on bass, Michael on drums and Zack on tambourine. I thought it was neat that a bunch of kids 12 and under were able to get up there and play together on demand. They sounded great. :-)

We were able to "Skype" (video call) with the Powells last night. It was nearly midnight here and mid-afternoon of the next day there. It was great to "see" them and catch up a bit. They seem to be doing very well and are happy and excited about the work. They have such a burden to see souls saved and the Church grown over there in Korea and asked that everybody just pray; pray that God will be able to use them over there for His glory and the furtherance of the gospel. Brother Powell gets all choked up when he talks about the open doors and his desire to make a difference over there. What a blessing they are!

The only other noteworthy occurrence is that James got pulled over the other day. HA! I'm sure he'll appreciate my sharing that. ;-) We were trying real hard to get going earlier on Sunday morning (we keep sliding into church just barely before service time--we'd love to get there EARLY instead!) and we were doing okay... then we started running just a couple minutes behind, but no big deal. We're still having to take the dog with us right now (that's another story) and on our way out to get in the van I--for some unknown reason--put the dog down without a leash on!!! He doesn't take off like a grayhound like Hershey used to do, lickedy-split through the woods and disappear (thank goodness!!!), but he does run around and romp and play--and DOESN'T come back on command. So I spent 3 or 4 minutes chasing Charlie all over the yard while James and the kids watched from the van. I was finally able to snatch him up, and we were on our way...

As background: James does NOT speed. Doesn't matter if we're running late or not; he just doesn't do it. We were still set to get to church about 5 minutes before starting time after the dog incident, but we didn't have any time to spare. Well, we're new to the area and aren't familiar with all of the speed limits and they don't have signs posted very often on some of these little roads, so... :-) He couldn't have been going more than 5 over, but it was enough that a cop decided to nab him. The guy was merciful and let him off without a ticket, but we were stopped for probably a good 10 minutes--making us late for church. (Though they hadn't actually STARTED church when we arrived. Do they always start a few minutes late, Sister Tammy, or were they waiting on us?! Ha!) Anyway, as we drove the rest of the way to church James gave instructions concerning our NEW departure time on Sunday mornings so as to ensure this doesn't happen again. Good plan--and we obviously need it. He was also sure, however, to blame me and the dog (I do take full responsibility for my part in putting us behind, to be clear) for causing the present situation. I just wanna know how come it was my 4 minutes with the dog that made us late instead of his 10 minutes with the cop! ;-) I was wise enough to not say it like that at the time, but it's been several days now and I thought it might be okay to mention it on my blog. HA!

That's about it. I've been trying for days not to get caught up on the ironing, a little bit here, a little bit there. But today is the day! I will win. :-) Right now James has run to the store and all three kids are romping through the woods with Charlie and Brady. The house is still and quiet (~aaaaaahhhhh~) and I really need to take advantage of it and return a couple of phone calls.

On a side note... PLEASE PRAY FOR ME AND FOR THIS LADIES' RETREAT!!! We're a week away now and there is still so much to be done! I've tried a few times since being in Alabama, but haven't been able to make any headway on my devotions for retreat. We have something going every since night this week, so that makes it tough. I've been praying faithfully for the Lord to help me, to bless the retreat, to guide and anoint all of the staff--all that stuff. But I still feel like a failure for not being more prepared! There is a women's meeting of some kind at church tonight, but when I get home--no matter what time it is!--I intend to stay up and try to make some headway. I want to be fully prepared and focused and have God's full favor at this Retreat. I have had a terrible time getting focused since being here--I just feel distracted with so many different things. I'm a horrible juggler. Maybe one day I'll be more like my Mom. I hope so!