Blogging Rather Than Ironing

Again. :-)

It's been a long, long day, so the ironing will have to wait until "tomorrow." I can't count how many days I've said that. I get a little bit done each day, but never can get it completed before I have to do more laundry and add to the pile again. I wish wrinkled was considered fashionable or at least acceptable. ;-)

Not much to report from yesterday. We left early for church as we do every Wednesday, though we didn't pack the day full and end up at church exhausted like we did last week. We stopped by the storage unit to pick up my old Gothard books (we're needing to do some review!) and a few other things, drove by another house (though I can't remember a thing about it, so it mustn't have been very impressive), then stopped by Penney's, Ross, and Target in search of some much needed items of clothing. We found nothing at the first two stops (and I don't think I'll be returning to Ross--it was a MESS), but hit the jackpot at Target: a pair of desperately needed slacks for Joe, a pair of white shoes for Katie to wear on Easter and beyond, and a few other odds and ends.

Then it was time for church. It was Brother Carpenter's CPMA service. I felt tired and a little distracted again, though we had tried real hard to not have too busy of a day knowing we'd be going in to church. I just have a hard time concentrating sometimes, I guess! I enjoyed the scriptures he was sharing about not being fearful but rather trusting in the Lord. I missed the last part of the service because of a phone call from a friend who wasn't aware what time zone we live in (silly girl--ha!) and thought we'd be out of church by that time. She was calling with a prayer request and I was glad I had stepped out to call her back (I had remembered to turn my ringer off in church for a change--thank goodness!), thinking it might be something of that nature.

Got home late again and way too tired to iron. Story of my life.

This morning we got up and around decently early so we could head out for a day on the town. First stop, Centreville so I could get my Alabama license. The lady wasn’t the friendliest ever, but it was relatively painless—though I did come out with a drivers license photo that fits the usual stereotype: hideous. I laughed when I saw it. Oh well. It’s not like it hangs on my wall or anything.

Then we headed up north and drove past several more “maybe, but probably not” houses. There were a few that look really nice and are in nice neighborhoods… but we don’t really want to be in a neighborhood! We’d rather have lesser house and more land—or at least some privacy that would make you feel like there’s more land. We might consider some of these houses, but only if we’re not able to find something in a nice, seclude setting. If these are still around a few months from now we might take a look, but until then we’ll keep searching for location, location, location. :-)

We stopped by a thrift store to search for some of the things we hadn't been able to find elsewhere. We ended up with a shirt for James a pair of shoes and another pair of slacks for Joe, a tie for the boys, a robe for Katie as well as a brand-new-with-tags-still-on white shirt that I think will work perfect with her Easter dress… if I can make the long sleeves into short sleeves without ruining it. ;-)

Afterward we stopped by Pizza Hut to redeem the kids last Book It! coupons for the year and also enjoyed freshly mixed cherry sodas there. Who knew? Cherry Dr. Pepper is actually pretty tasty. Especially with a couple of cherries at the bottom of the glass. :-)

We drove past two more houses on our way home, found another “maybe someday, but not until we're sure we can't end up with more land or privacy” house, then drove to Wal-Mart in Calera to fill our list: groceries, flea collar (just for Charlie, not the rest of us… yet—Charles finally had his first tick a few days ago), a toaster (but they were sold out), and who knows what all. It wasn’t very exciting until James decided to walk down the clearance aisle. He found all together too many great deals on all sorts of junk, mostly learning-type or craft kits and games. We got a $23 game for $3, some craft kits for the same, $14 kits for $1, and who knows what all. On top of all of that, each kid got a $50 scooter for $10… so we got all three for barely over half of what one would have normally cost. Part of me feels great about the bargains, and the other part wonders how much we spent saving so much money. Ha! My only real regret is that the kids were with us. It would have been better if James had discovered this treasure of savings all alone—we would have been all set for Christmas! Oh well, we came home with three very, very excited children tonight.

We got here, hauled all of our stuff in through the rain, then did our best to get the house straightened up a bit before everybody dug into the new loot. In the meantime, James built scooters. We hadn’t been home very long when a white truck came zooming up the driveway. The Dudley boys. :-) The two younger boys anyway, Thomas and Joshua. They had come to return Brother Powell’s chainsaw. We all stood outside and visited for quite a while—and I have now decided that my boys won’t be with Dustin Warren OR the Dudley boys without my supervision. Ha! Maybe I’m the weird one. I never knew you could use a nail gun for recreational purposes such as killing bats, small birds, squirrels—or just shoot it straight up into the air and then run for your lives before the nails come down, or… well, a whole lot of other things. I love teenage boys. :-)

After a while James told the boys to come on in the house and we’d try to call the Powells. Sure enough, they were home! The Dudley boys are really close to the Powells—even call them Grandmother and Granddad—and I know they really enjoyed being able to see and talk with them. Those boys just crack me up. They are so good natured and fun to be around. And they are just all boy—taking great pleasure in doing dumb guy things, wrestling and rough-housing, and taking their food very seriously. We were discussing the time difference between here and South Korea and the Powells said it was about 10:30 “tomorrow” morning over there. Joshua said, “Y'all are getting ready to have lunch and we’re just now getting ready to have dinner.” Then his face sort of fell and he said, “Hey… y'all are two meals ahead of us!” Thomas piped up and said, “Me and Joshua got some catchin’ up to do then, Granddad!” Ha! They don’t measure the difference by miles or hours, but by meals. :-)

James had some house things to discuss with the Powells, but it wasn’t so easy keeping the children under control. Joe picks at the Dudley boys non-stop when they’re around, just asking for trouble. He’s not just real bright picking on boys that size, but he’s in that stage where he’s got to prove how big and tough he is (do they ever grow out of that???) and thinks the Dudleys are a worthy challenge. I keep telling the boys that they are welcome to do whatever they need to do to our children—whatever they deserve. It pretty much turned into a free-for-all tonight and the chaos was beyond my realm of authority apparently because I wasn’t able to regain control at all. They all--three children and two teenagers--ran like a heard of elephants up and down the stairs and from one end of the house to the other, wrestling and laughing and squealing. Okay, well maybe the Dudley boys didn't squeal. ;-)

I went to check on things one time and saw one of my children being held over the edge of the balcony railing. I did what any good mother would do. I ran for my camera. Ha!



Thomas employed a tactic I probably wouldn't have thought of: using one boy to squish another one. :-)





I’m a little ashamed to post some of these pictures. Okay, a whole lot ashamed. The Powells visit this blog and I’d hate for them to see these pictures and think that we’re the kind of people you DON’T WANT living in your house! Ha! But there you see it. Not only is the house far from perfect, but there stands my son, ON the couch, preparing to hurl a pillow across the room. And the mother obviously approves because she’s using a camera at this moment rather than a switch. HA! To be clear, I do not approve. I just took a quick picture before making the little punk get off the couch and put the pillows back. ;-) I’m sure none of this is all that surprising to the Powells (though James will still probably make me remove this picture once he sees it—ha!) since they could hear all of the madness in the background while they were trying to talk to James.



That’s Joshua Dudley by the way (the youngest of the three brothers), being nice and calm, either playing with or tormenting the dog—I’m not sure which. ;-)

Not that it will be any great comfort of mind to the Powells, but I can honestly say that tonight is by far the wildest night this house has seen since our arrival here. I would start to regain a degree of control over the situation, but then somebody (kid or teenager) would do something tiny, like steal somebody else’s hat, and it would break loose into an all out brawl all over again, kids wielding plastic bats and hurling pillows at teenagers, teenagers wadding kids up into little balls and throwing them onto couches, the mother standing by helplessly wondering why nobody ever listens to her… And so on. Ha! We really did have a good time with the boys (though next time the chaos will be limited to the great outdoors, I hope!) and hope they come back very soon.

After the Dudleys left James had Joe help him haul all of the trash out to the road for pick-up in the morning. When the headlights of the tractor swept across the “field” Joe spotted lots of small movements out there. Upon further investigation he discovered frogs/toads (I never can remember the difference) in abundance. It was already way past bedtime, but the kids were sooooo excited. They’d been seeing frogs in the pond for a week or two now but had been unable to catch one, mostly because I had forbidden it. The last thing I want to deal with is a kid falling into the goldfish pond just before bed, which is when the frogs come out. Anyway, I told them I’d give them a few minutes to go catch frogs and it wasn’t long before they were hollering for us to come out to the porch and look.





What a happy day for the kids. We found a shirt that completes Katie’s Easter ensemble (making it possible for her to finally wear that hand-me-down jumper/dress thing she’s been dying to wear), got some new books at the thrift store, then new crafts for Katie, new building toys for Sam, and some night vision goggles for Joe (did I mention that?) due to a phenomenal clearance aisle—ah yes, and scooters for each of them… Then a wild night of having it out with the Dudley boys, shooting bb guns with them (Joe has to challenge everybody to see who can out-shoot who... he won), and then a chance to go catch frogs by the fistful. They should sleep well tonight. :-)

Me, too. G’night!