Just Stopping By

...long enough to say what we've been up to. :-)

Last Sunday was full of church, more house hunting, and church again. No luck with the houses, but we weren't surprised at that. Just doesn't seem to be anything out there right now. Maybe after State Convention. Or the Assembly. Or Ministers' Convention, Ladies' Retreat, or Youth Retreat. That should usher us right into Thanksgiving and Christmas, after which it is TIME to vacate our current residence. So sometime between now and then, we're trusting that we'll find the right place to land. For now, we feel peaceful and settled. ~Aaaaaahhhh~ That's a good feeling. :-)

Monday morning we got up, cleaned house, packed, hopped in the van, and headed for Cleveland--just because we could. :-) By "we" I mean the kids and myself. We got to Mom and Dad's house an hour or two before they got home from their latest trip, so we just moved right in and got busy setting up the puzzle table. That's why we'd gone. Just to "do nothing" with Mom and Dad for a day or two. In the end, we managed 3 puzzles--one 1,000 piece-er and 2 750 piece-ers. Well, almost. There were only about 50 pieces left on the last puzzle when I had to leave. It was killing me to leave it unfinished, but I had to hit the road if I was going to make it home in time for church.

Anyway, we just lazed around and worked puzzles and watched girl movies and a Greater Vision/Legacy 5 concert video--stuff like that. We stayed up until 2:00 something Monday night, then closer to 1:00 Tuesday. Mom fixed us a fantastic elk steak dinner, making us all very happy. Even though she forgot the potatoes. ;-) She also whipped out a skirt for Katie before we left on Wednesday morning. Amazing. I'll have to take a picture of this skirt--I think it's super cute. Joe's not very happy about donating a pair of jeans to the project, but we didn't have time to shop for any at a thrift store this time. Joe IS happy that he was able to get some fishing in at Granddad's pond. I think he caught 10 fish in the day and a half we were there.

We tried to go to Steak 'N Shake for lunch, but they were too busy. ~sigh~ Two trips to Cleveland in a row with no Frisco Melt. That's just wrong. I'll have to make up for it next time and order two of 'em. ;-) We ended up at Cici's Pizza for lunch instead. Then we sent the kids to Headquarters with Dad (scary) while Mom and I stopped by the store in search of some deals. I didn't find any, but Mom did.

It was nice dropping in at HQ and being able to see everybody. I love doing that. :-) I worry about the kids bouncing from office to office, obstructing any productivity that might have otherwise been accomplished (!), so I try to keep the visits there relatively short.

We headed out, gassed up, and hit the road. Mom was kind enough to call and talk to me for a little while to help keep me awake. (She knew how little sleep I'd had!) We got to the church at 5:30. James met us there and I got busy ironing the buntings for Convention. We had CPMA service, then several of the folks stayed around to help us get things all set up. It makes James so happy to have things set up. And days ahead of time!

We were in separate vehicles that night, but we both ended up in the same traffic jam on the way home. There were cops and fire trucks and lights everywhere, but we couldn't see what was going on--and there was no indication of anybody getting through any time soon. So we both turned around and tried to find another route. I had Sean with me, but he never could find a signal so we were pretty much on our own. That would usually scare me (the very thought of being lost and unable to find our way home at 11:30 at night when I'm soooooo tired and desperate for bed was utterly miserable!), but there's so much "civilization" around here. There are roads all over the place, going every which direction, so it wasn't difficult at all to turn back north, find a little highway that took us east for just a mile or so before running into another highway that took us straight home. For once I was truly thankful for all of the crazy roads that are all over the place down here. :-)

Today has been spent in an effort to accomplish something. I'm not sure I succeeded in any way! I can't recall a single thing that got FINISHED. We did several different things, I'm just not sure we actually got done with any of them. Oh well. There's always tomorrow.

Of course, tomorrow is when State Convention starts! I'm excited, but it feels really weird. Weird to not be packing, for one. I'm used to packing to go stay at a motel during Convention. More than that, I'm used to packing and preparing for a week of Camp at the same time because they were always back-to-back. Maybe that's why things feel so weird this time--because it's just Convention instead of Camp, too. ??? Anyway, we're looking forward to a great Convention and trusting God to help us there.

And there you have it. The update. I'll try to take at least one picture at Convention, but no promises. ;-)