Blog Rather Than Bed

Actually, the plan for tonight was to conquer the ironing. It's been piling up since we got home from New Mexico (how long has that been?!) and I've just been ironing a piece here and there as we've needed them. There is a pretty impressive pile now. It's crawling out of the basket up onto the couch. I thought if I brought it to the living room and set up my ironing board in here it would push me to finally get it done. No such luck. I worked on it for a while today, but had too many distractions like school, school, and more school.

So the new plan was to stay up late and do all of the ironing tonight while watching Assembly DVDs or something. But then James got a phone call, so the kids and I hung out watching YouTube clips of old Looney Toons and southern gospel groups, then reading stories and poems from The Book of Virtues while we waiting on James for devotions. About an hour past bedtime I finally prayed with them and put them down. Shortly thereafter James came in and we sat and talked for a good little while. Then I was too tired to think about ironing, so I decided to go to bed instead.

But then I read this thing from my Mom about how she's over in Swaziland and on her way to South Africa and struggling through horrible Internet connections, yet she's taking the time out of their busy schedule to keep us updated on things every day... but "her girls" are a bunch of losers and won't post anything new for her to read so she can know what's going on over here. (Those weren't her exact words, but the essence.) ~sigh~ She's right, of course. I hate it when she's right. ;-)

So here I am, blogging. I keep an on-going file of blog notes at all times so that when I do finally sit down to blog I'll have something to say. Unfortunately the list was somehow deleted so now I'm left with only my memory. This should be a very short post. (Ha. I don't have to remember what's been going on to be able to ramble aimlessly--we all know that.)

Last time I left off was when we finally left New Mexico and headed back to Alabama "for good." We had a good trip and I was surprised and relieved at how well we both did driving (James in the U-Haul, me in the van) the entire way without getting too tired--especially after all the adrenaline and hard work and sleep deprivation that had been going on.

The kids took turns riding in the different vehicles, but Katie was with me in the van all day long the second day and the boys were together in the truck with James. We had some really good girl talks and I was thankful for some nice, quiet time with her without interruptions. Well... time with Katie is never just real quiet, but you know what I mean. ;-) There were several things that I have been aware of for quite some time, but Katie didn't know that I knew about them--bad things that she had never confessed. I had really felt like just praying about it and leaving it with God, and trusting that some day Katie would come to me about them instead of me just declaring what I knew and punishing her. Well, our conversation led toward some of those subjects that day and I sort of opened the door and waited to see what would happen. She did, indeed, confess to the things I already knew about. I then told her that I already knew about these things and she was stunned and a little flurbed out by it. I told her that God loves her so much that He makes ways for her parents to know all of the things we need to know, even when she doesn't think we know. :-) Every time she would confess something I would follow it up by informing her that I was already aware of it and she would sort of spazz out on me. She is now fully convinced that God tells me everything so she should never try to keep anything from me. :-) I'm hoping that will work to our benefit in the coming years. Ha!

The next day Katie was riding with James and I had the boys with me. We had been talking and listening to Joe's southern gospel music when--out of the blue--he says, "Mom... I need to talk to you about something." And out pours a confession from him! Ha! Who knew that moving could be so revealing?! I guess we just need to move every few months so I'll know what my children have been up to. ;-) I had a good talk with Joe and we prayed and worked through all of the guilt he'd been struggling with. So now at least two-thirds of our children have clear consciences once more. :-)

I think I blogged a bit about after we made it back to Alabama, then there's a big gap in my blog notes, so I don't know anything up until the past week or so. You lucky dogs. :-)

We've been working real hard on school and on house stuff this week. The boys have been pulling weeds, Katie has been working on the Polar Regions unit that I had to reassign to her because she was doing so poorly the first time--that's taken up lots of her time (and mine) lately--and I've been working real hard trying to get some things taken care of around the house. I cleaned the master bathroom during a storm one night, scrubbing in the light sometimes, sometimes in the dark. :-) We've had a few good storms here and I know there were several killed by tornadoes in Alabama a few days ago, but I have a hard time getting real riled up over them as yet. I mean, every time it starts raining (which is frequently) the weather alarm starts going off and after a while you just sort of tune it out, you know? I've been around some pretty fierce storms (though they've been few) and I remember a couple of times in my life when we were under a tornado warning and piled up in a safe place to wait it out, but I haven't been in any storms here yet that have had me scared or feeling like it was bad enough to take everybody to the basement. So when the alarm sounds I don't think anything of it. I mean, if you took it seriously every time you'd spend your whole life sitting in the basement waiting to die! Ha! I can't live like that... no pun intended. ;-) It's like the "never cry wolf" thing. I'm already used to the sirens and don't take them seriously anymore; one day it'll be the real thing and I'll get blown to kingdom come because I'll be thinking "ri-i-i-i-i-i-i-ight" and won't prepare.

ANYWAY, I got all of the floors cleaned the other day--AT THE SAME TIME! Wa-Hoo! I have a terrible time accomplishing that. Of course, there's always that spiteful rug in the living room. Sister Powell says to just roll it up. Can't do that. It's the only patch of carpet in the house aside from up in the boys' room and I like having it there. Besides, I can't be beaten by a rug. I'm going to win. Even if I have to bleach the whole thing so you can no longer see little balls of fuzz and string and specks of whatever else it is. I'm only kidding of course, Sister Powell--I wouldn't actually bleach your rug. :-) On purpose anyway. I did that by accident one time years ago... Ha!

Sometime this past week James and I must've had a real hankering for Mexican food because he made cheese enchiladas for lunch and I made an enchilada casserole for dinner. Yum. :-)

I've done innumerable loads of laundry this week. It's amazing how much more we go through here! I haven’t had a chance to look for a drying rack yet but I’m under the assumption most people here use a towel once, then wash it. Someone was telling us the other day (you know who you are--ha!) that their kid used one towel during camp one year and "all the others were all still clean," thus proving he had only showered once (and is just as gross as everybody else's kids--ha!). So I did the math. You’d have to have 25 towels for a family of five for five days of Camp if everybody got a new towel every day! Plus wash cloths and hand towels?! Amazing. But then, around here I'm guessing that your towel wouldn't be DRY the next day if you used it the first. Crazy. I have so much to learn. ;-)

Last Wednesday was a long, long day. I got up at 6:30 and took my shower, did my devotions, cleaned house a bit, then vacuumed that fuzz collecting rug before we walked out the door just to see what tricks it might try to pull while we were away. We are praying about whether to trade our van in for one that will last us a while (we've put 38,000 miles on this one in the past year and it may not have another year or two in it) or just stick with what we've got and find out just exactly how long it will go. So we looked at some vehicles that day, drove a Honda Odyssey, then went to the Church to meet Laura (our Alabama realtor as opposed to Jason, our New Mexico realtor).

Laura hadn't arrived yet, so James decided to have everybody use the restroom there at the church so they wouldn't be asking to do it while we were looking at houses. He unlocked the church and tried to turn off the alarm, but he pushed a wrong button. Our church has a VERY IMPRESSIVE burglar alarm, let me tell you. :-) Our boys both just about jumped out of their skin and were across the parking lot and back in the van in what seemed like one swift motion. I called Sister Hopkins to ask how to shut it off, while the alarm company was calling Brother Hopkins to inform him that the alarm was going off and to inquire as to whether they needed to send the cops out or not. He said, yep, send the cops--haul 'em all off. :-) We finally got everything under control before Laura showed up.

We went to see five houses. Two are definite NO’s, 3 more are probably-not's, though we really love the land and setting of two of them, and the house itself but not so much the land and setting of the third. Any of them could be taken and made into HOME for us with enough money. Therein lies the problem. The "enough money" part at the end. ;-) Not that God hasn't blessed us; just that we want to be good stewards of all that He places in our hands and we never want to over-extend ourselves. We'll keep praying for wisdom and for the right house at the right time. Until then, we'll enjoy and be thankful for the blessing of being able to live in the Powell's beautiful home. God's timing is perfect. :-)

After our long day of housework, car shopping and house hunting, we went into church that night feeling so wiped out! It's really a bad idea to pack that much into a church day. I'll try to make a note of that for the future. I think it was VLB service that night (?!) and Brother Will was in charge. He did a GREAT job and I was so blessed by his message. No wait, maybe that was a different day. Whenever that service was I was blessed by it! :-) I do know that after last Wednesday's service Brother Hopkins had a called business conference. I must admit I cringed just a little bit. Ha! Only because a service or two before that I had sat through almost all of the longest business conference in the history of the world. Really—the Bessemer church should have a banner hung on the wall or a trophy on a shelf somewhere or something. HA! Did you notice I said I sat through almost all of it? At the beginning of the conference my kids noticed that all of the other children had quickly scrambled for the back door. They asked if they could go outside with the others and I had to give them one of those Mom lectures. "I know you don't understand this right now and business conferences seem boring to you, but this is The Church of God and the business of The Church of God is important--and it's important that you understand how it works because some day you'll be the ones up there, blah, blah, blah." I finally had mercy on them and escorted them out after about an hour and a half. Well, the two who weren’t snoring on the pew by then. Sam was a goner before the first hour was over. Ha! To be fair, this church has a whole lot more members than what I'm used to and therefore has a whole lot more money--along with a property that needs tended to--and there are simply a lot more things to discuss and make decisions about than what I'm used to. But now it's time to get used to it. :-) Still, I don't know what to do with the kids. I still feel it's important for them to be there... but I don't want them to end up hating Church business because it takes so long! Ha!

This past weekend we had our final District Convention up in Moulton. We left the Charles with Brother Will and Sister Krystal for the weekend. They have a little Yorkie puppy and we thought the two of them would have a blast playing together for a few days. No such luck. Sister Krystal declares that the problem was with both dogs, but from what I could tell Roxie wants to play real bad and Charlie is just cranky with her and wants no part of it. (He is soooooo much like Rusty, Mom!) Dumb dog. Anyway, they said he didn't misbehave there at all ~whew~ so I'm thankful for that! And I so appreciate them being willing to take care of him for us over the weekend!

We left on Friday in the middle of all of the storms. We saw some nasty, foreboding clouds and went through some pretty rough vision-impairing rain off and on, but got up there just fine. We had a good Convention on Saturday with several mini-sermons, which I thought was great. Each local church (five of them in that district) were on for a song and a sermonette by the pastor, along with all of the usual auxiliary boosts and such. They had a noon meal there at the church and I was able to visit with Liz and Josh Anders for a while--though Liz is now a DeNARD :-) not an Anders. It's so crazy that they (we) are all grown up and married now! I think they were about 10 and 12 years old when they came out to Colorado way back when. I was 17 or 18. I used to chase Josh down and kiss him on the cheek because it made him so mad. :-) And I don't know why, but I used to call Liz, Lizard Breath. (Elizabeth--Lizard Breath... can you hear it???) Now we're all grown up and have to try to act like it. Sad. Ha! Anyway, it was great to see them. Especially since they were among the few people that I recognized. Ha! At the other Conventions I knew several people and only had a few "new" ones to learn. At this Convention there were a lot more people I hadn't met yet and it was a little overwhelming. It will help a lot as we're able to visit each local church and I can learn who everybody is in smaller groups. :-)

When Convention ended on Saturday afternoon we went out to eat with the Rollins, the Warrens, and the Masons. I didn't get a chance to visit with the Rollins at all (they were sort of at the end of the table), but I so enjoy being with Sister Mason. And Brother Dustin Warren is FULL of strange, interesting and sometimes downright disturbing stories, most of which involve large and dangerous weapons, dead deer and almost dead deer, unsuspecting bystanders, and victims of heartless pranks. He's GREAT. :-) My boys would LOVE to go to his house and see his entire arsenal, learn to throw tomahawks, go meet his Indian chief--all that stuff. Of course, I have already decided that my children will have no contact with Dustin Warren unless I AM THERE to supervise. HA!

The next morning we visited the church in Russellville. It's a small church and they are currently meeting in a little store front building. It reminded me a whole lot of where the church in Merkel, Texas, used to meet--and it felt very much like "home" to me. :-) We had a good service with such a good, sweet spirit. Afterward we went out to eat with the Bordens at a fantastic Mexican restaurant, something I was thrilled to find. We've tried one other Mexican joint since we've been here and it wasn't very impressive. I'm glad to know there's at least one in the state. We'll keep looking for more. :-)

After lunch we followed the Bordens over to the Spires house to visit for a while. They are a neat old couple and so much fun to be with! He's got that adorable old man thing going on, so of course I loved him. And she is a riot. I don't know how old she is, but she certainly doesn't act it. :-) She's full of spunk and humor.

That evening we drove the 30 minutes or so over to Red Bay for service, wishing some of our western friends could have joined us there. ;-) Several of their regulars were out of town, but there was still a decent sized crowd there in my estimation. James preached on the Church, something he's been doing a whole lot of since we've been here. Okay, so he does a lot of that wherever we are (ha!), but he's done even more of it since we got here. I must confess... I had one of those "this again?" thoughts. Not in a BAD way, just in a "I'm having a hard time focusing on this because I've heard it all a lot recently" sort of way. But by the time it was over the Holy Ghost had really begun to move and this young man...




joined The Church of God!!!

I felt humbled and corrected of God. I'd better not ever get tired of hearing about The Church of God! This is a boyfriend of the pastor's daughter there and although I don't know much about him or his situation, it's obvious that he's been around the Church and has been considering joining for a while. And he just couldn't contain himself that night. :-) He danced and praised the Lord and had a wonderful time--as did several others--and finished it off by taking the covenant to join God's Church. It was beautiful. :-)

After service we went out to eat with the Pucketts, their two kids and Cody/Kody (the kid who joined the Church), and Brother and Sister Grimes. I sat with Sister Puckett and learned lots about her while James visited with the others. It was a nice evening and I so enjoy having a chance to get to know the people here a little bit.

I can't remember what time we left, but I know it was about 12:30am when we got to the Cox's house to pick up Charlie. Is it not CRAZY to go to somebody's house at that hour?! I was raised better than that, I assure you! Ha! But Brother Will is working the night shift this week and they all sort of get on that schedule with him, so they were awake and told us to come ahead. It was nice to visit with them for a few minutes. And see Charlie again. :-)

It was after 2:00am before I made it to bed Sunday night, so I slept in until nearly 9:00 yesterday. It was nice, but not nearly enough! I had a hard time accomplished much of anything all day. By the time evening hit I was ready to crash. In fact, I ended up on the couch and sort of napped between 8 and 9 o'clock last night, not actually going to bed only because we hadn't had devotions yet! We put the kids down and then I stayed up for a little while and headed to bed at 10:00. Pitiful.

Today has been a little more productive after getting a decent night's sleep. Still have that pile of ironing threatening to overtake me (!) but I did get lots of other things done including a nice meal for my family tonight: meatloaf, corn, peas, buttered carrots, baked potatoes, and a blueberry cake with blueberry glaze.



I have a real problem with my cakes "falling" and was hoping it was just an altitude issue that would solve itself once I moved to Alabama. No such luck. I looked up possible causes and cures after this cake came out with a big dent in it and I have an attack plan for next time. Either way, it tasted GREAT and made me feel like a good wife and mom. I like that feeling. :-)

And that's about it. I did it for you, Mom. Mom probably won't have Internet access for the next week. Ha! Oh well, it'll be here for her whenever she gets to it. :-)

One last picture. And he wants people to think he doesn't like the dog. ;-)