Spare Time???

Ladies' Retreat starts in less than three days. The laundry is completely caught up. So is the ironing. The bathrooms are clean. And the floors. The kitchen is spotless. There is no clutter around the house. The rugs are vacuumed. The children who helped with this incredible endeavor are happily seated on the couch with bowls of ice cream, watching a 3o minute western. And I have spare time to blog. How cool is that?!

We had a good Sunday here. Good services and good fellowship, just as it ought to be. :-) After lunch that day we headed to Hoover to do some shopping. I needed staff gifts for Ladies' Retreat and had a feeling that we might be able to find something at Christmas Tree Shops. Sounds crazy, hu? It's this place that just opened up and James insisted on checking out, against my protests. (It was only September--he's always wanting to jump into Christmas way early!) Come to find out, the store is not filled with Christmas paraphernalia. In fact, there are only a few Christmas items right now. It does have lots of decor, mostly fall stuff right now. It also has regular house stuff--throw pillows and sheets and shower curtains and cutesy little nick-nacks. It's got dishes and cooking stuff, some non-perishable food items, toiletries, toys--oh, it's just a crazy hodge-podge of all kinds of stuff. And most of it is CHEAP. We'll be making a few trips there whenever we get moved into a house of our own, I'm sure. :-) Anyway, we did find at least the good beginnings of staff gifts, so that made me very happy.

After church Sunday night we had another business conference to discuss lawn mowers some more. Hahahahahaha! We miraculously made it out of that one in less than an hour, even with the air-conditioner-in-need-of-repair discussion thrown in. And we finally decided on mowers, so I'm thinking we're done with that subject for a little while. ;-)

It was kids-eat-free night at McAlister's, of course, so that's where we ended up after church. Again--good food, good company. :-) We got home pretty late that night, but I had some proof-reading to do. At least I thought it had to be done. There was no rush on it, after all, but I didn't know until I was finished. At least I got it done!

I read until sometime after 1:00am when I finally decided that I was in no condition to catch any mistakes. I went to bed, then got up at 6:30 to finish proofing so I'd have the corrections ready bright and early. Even though it ended up not being urgent, I'm glad that I got that little chore knocked off of the to-do list for the week.

Yesterday was spent mostly on Ladies' Retreat stuff. I crunched lots of numbers to figure out all of the possible ways things could go wrong (ha!) and try to come up with ways of making things work. I was finally able to talk to the campground lady (Campground Bob resigned a few months ago!), but she couldn't really give me any answers until today. I made a list of the goodies I'm going to make to take to Retreat and the ingredients I'll need to buy, worked on name tags, and a few other odds and ends. I got tied up working on some other things in the morning and when we hadn't started school by about 11:00 I knew I was going to call it off for the day! Before too long James mentioned something about it being Columbus day. Bingo!!! "Columbus Day??? Do kids go to school on Columbus Day?" He said they didn't. "Wa-Hoo!!! We don't either!" :-) It just made me feel better about the decision I'd already made to cancel school for the day. It's interesting how we homeschoolers choose when we're going to play by public school rules and when we're not. This time I was all for it!

The kids were thrilled to get the day off and spent almost all day outside enjoying the beautiful fall weather. I don't know what all they did out there, but I do know they spent a considerable amount of time hunting scorpions. Sam wasn't interested in catching them this time (since getting stung by one Saturday night)--now it was all about finding them so they could be stomped on or bludgeoned to death with a stick. Then they switched to catching lizards. When they brought the little insect cage to me I counted 15 lizards in it! It was a grand day at the Powell's house for the kids.

Last night we went to Carino's AGAIN. This time the Parkers, the Coxes, and the Ridlespurges all came, too. :-) It was great fun and the Italian sodas were fantastic. We had the same lovely waitress that we had last time--who gave us a few free refills because she's so nice. Or maybe because we were there last week, then came back this week with 14 additional people in tow. Ha! Either way, we enjoyed some great food, ate LOTS of bread and emptied lots of dishes of that oil stuff with the tasty little crunchies in it (that we all fought over--Kody is the crusty king), and just had a good time being with everybody.

The late night/early morning was catching up to me by the time we got home, so I just took care of a few things and managed to make it to bed before 11:00.

I guess everybody must've been tired because we all slept a little late today. We did our devotions and worked on school off and on all day long while working on house stuff and Retreat stuff in between. I finally got some answers from the campground today and it was good news. ~whew~ What a relief! They have agreed to move us to a smaller lodge that has a lesser minimum requirement and--as a perk--is also cheaper. That will be a blessing! I was on the verge of having to cancel with the campground and just have the 20 ladies come here to my house to retreat for the weekend. (James keeps telling me that I don't have a house--it's Sister Powell's house and I'd have to ask her! He's right, of course, but I feel pretty certain of what her answer would have been. ;-) It will be much easier to have it at the campground, however, and I'm so thankful that it worked out.

House update. I wish I had one. HA! Our closing date is next Monday. Six days from now. We STILL don't have the appraisal report back and we don't know what it will say when it does come back. At this point, the bank is REALLY pushing it to be able to get everything ready and completed by closing even if they are happy with the appraisal whenever it comes in. I'm still holding to the hope that everything will work out and that this house will be the one. Hoping against all hope perhaps, but hoping nonetheless. ;-) I am fully persuaded that God is able to work it out. He who holds the heart of kings and directs the rivers of water, and who is the judge that puts down one and sets up another, is capable of arranging all of the necessary details to secure this house for us. And that is what I'm still hoping and praying for... IF it is pleasing to Him and would prove to be a blessing to us and to the Church here rather than a hindrance. And I know that all things must fall into His timing as well. He knows best. I love it that He does. :-)

Looks like it's time for devotions around here. The kids will be in bed at a decent hour and I'll have a nice, quiet, clean house in which to study for Retreat some more. ~Aaaaahhhh~ Life is grand. :-)