A Happy New Post

That's what I need about now. Something happy to read or write. It seems like there are a lot of things going on right now and this whole week has been really heavy. It feels like I have cried and prayed most of my time away in between chores and sometimes during chores. I've felt so concerned and burdened and just plain heavy. It's a miserable thing, but a wonderful thing because it makes you really bare your heart to the Lord and it enables you to pray with depth and earnestness. For that I am thankful.

But as for the blog, who wants to get on the Internet and read something ELSE that's sad, troubling, or depressing?! Blogs should be happy places where you talk about the crazy things your kids did or the embarrassing thing that happened to you the other day. A place to come and breathe a sigh of relief and see some good in the world, experience something light and amusing and happy. I would love to read a blog like that but nobody blogs anymore (bunch of losers--ha!) so I guess it's up to me to write one.

Don't count on it. Lengthy I can promise. Amusing... well, you never can tell.

Let's catch up.

Tuesday was a red letter day around here because it was the first day in many moons that I actually WORKED upstairs--all day long! It was miserable. ~Bleagh~ I hate upstairs. It's such a nasty place. But I made myself stay and at the end of the day I had successfully swept all of the sheetrock dust off the walls and onto my person, thus revealing once more what I will look like one day once my hair turns completely white. I think white will do me well. It doesn't bother me in the least that I am well on my way. :-) I also taped plastic over all of the windows and outlets and switch covers, then wiped everything down, making the upstairs READY TO PAINT!!! Whoa! How did THAT happen, you may ask. (You may ask...???) There are two answers:

1. I already spent a LOT of time working up there BEFORE we decided to stop going there several months ago.

2. My standards are much, much lower than they used to be!!!

It's true. Even if I work myself the death over it, it's never going to be perfect. We just aren't the kind of people who can pull off perfect. So why kill myself?! Let's just knock off the loose edges and call it good!

We'll see how that works out for us.

I finally called it quits up there and came down to enjoy a super wonderful hot shower. ~Aaaaahhhhhh~ It's soooooo nice to get all clean after you've been soooooo filthy. I was in my silky pj's by 6:30. :-) That's about what time James got home from running some errands. He had picked up a new game so I decided to play it with the kids. A word to the wise: If you ever see a $30 game called Monopoly City on sale for $5, DON'T FALL FOR IT!!! I should have known that any variation of Monopoly would be just as catastrophic as the original, but I'm such a game person that I thought it only right to give it the benefit of the doubt. I knew I had to play with the kids the first time so I could read the rules and teach them to them--so they didn't make 'em up as they went along and therefore fight even more than usual. But it didn't much matter. It ended up the way Monopoly ALWAYS ends around here--a near brawl followed by a severe Monopoly ban (a year or two???), effective immediately. Ha!

Wednesday we couldn't paint--though the upstairs was ready!--because James had other obligations. Though I can't recall now what they were. Since we were at a stand-still upstairs I spent my day helping children with school and installing handles on the kitchen cabinets, at long last. It's sooooo nice to finally have handles! They are all a little crooked and uneven, but I'm good with it. Let's call it "rustic charm" and be satisfied. (See what happens to your standards after 6 months?!)

That night after service we went to grab a bite to eat with the Coxes--and Michael and Zack who were spending the night with us. We enjoyed fellowshipping with them there for a while, then we took advantage of Brother Will's trailer expertize. Brother Powell had brought his truck and trailer to us that night so James could use them to haul off the mountain of bush parts that were hacked down a while back, leaving our poor plants out front very naked and no doubt embarrassed, but ready to grow back into proper sizes and shapes. (We hope.) Anyway, Brother Will managed to back that great big trailer up the driveway and to the carport for us, then they all came inside to check out the changes to the house. We ended up visiting... and visiting... and visiting... ! It was sometime after 2:00am when they left (can you believe James stayed up that late?!) and the kids were soooooo wiped out--ha! We were soooooo glad they came over and we had a great time visiting with them. We need to do that more often.

Joe, Sam, Michael & Zack were up at 6:00 (after being up until nearly 3:00am!) to go squirrel hunting. Weird-o's. They didn't get anything, thank goodness. If they DO kill a squirrel, THEN what?! Bring it to Mom to cook, no doubt. I'm not interested in that AT ALL. I pray for the squirrels around here to live long and healthy lives and to supernaturally evade all oncoming pellets and bb's. May God guard and protect them all. ;-)

James worked the boys off and on all day, loading up trash and scrap from the shed, then later on they started on the mountain of bush remains. He'd work them for an hour or two, then let them play for an hour or two. It worked out well for all parties involved except for me. Do you have any idea what my house smelled like every time the troop of hot, sweaty boys came marching through?! Ha! In the meantime, I was inside putting on the last cabinet door handle (how did I miss one?!) and then magnet closures on each and every door. Some of the doors didn't close all the way and needed magnets but I put them on every door in hopes that the satisfying *click* would inspire my children to start closing them. So far I can only conclude that they must be deathly afraid of the *click* because I'm fairly confident that they haven't closed a single door since then. Gggrrrrrrr. I'm going to have to hurt them.

The ORIGINAL plan was for all of the boys to camp out on Wednesday night, but it had been so rainy that it was too wet to set up the tent. It cleared up and dried out yesterday so we decided to let Michael and Zack stay one more night so they all do the manly camp-out thing they'd been so excited about. I went to Ladies' Prayer Meeting (and was sooooo blessed there!) and when I got home James had set the tent up for the boys out back. It's a COOL tent (we got it last year on clearance 70% off) and had never used it before. The guys were sooooo excited. But then it got dark. HA! All four of them showed up in the house saying that Zack didn't want to stay out there (he's the youngest) because he was scared--he wanted to stay in the house. Then Sam said he didn't want Zack to have to stay in the house alone--he'd stay in here with him, which was his easy and noble way of avoiding the confession that he, too, was scared. But then Michael didn't want to stay out in the tent with just the TWO of them, which no doubt let Joe breath a sigh of relief that Mike was the one to say aloud what he was feeling, too! Hahahahaha! I tried to encourage the older guys to go ahead and stay out there. I told them it was perfectly safe--if we thought there was any danger we wouldn't have allowed them out there to begin with. "And just think how proud you'll be of yourselves and how cool you'll feel in the morning if you make it all night!" I told them to go out there and TRY to stay, but if they just couldn't handle it they could come on in.

They were in the house watching a movie after about 10 minutes.

Hahahahahaha! It just cracks me up. I have to appreciate their honesty though. :-) They had heard voices and somebody walking around and all sorts of things in those 10 minutes. James said he could see the tent through his window in the office and he kept seeing flashlights scanning every which way from inside the tent. Ha! They were in there saying, "Did you hear that???" "You're kidding, right? -- Did you really hear something!" "YES--GET YOUR GUN!!! I'm SERIOUS--GET YOUR GUN!!!" Hahahahaha! (To be clear, they only had bb guns, but it's still a miracle that the tent doesn't have a dozen holes in it from the overabundance of guns, hatchets and pocket knives wielded by wide-eyed, terror-stricken boys.)

Due to their sleep deprivation from the night before, nobody made it through the movie--they started dropping like flies within the first few minutes. :-)

Today James got some more work out of the Farr boys before delivering them back to their family (!) and I worked on cleaning up all of the kitchen mess--sawdust and such from drilling and installing handles and magnets. This afternoon...

(Insert drum roll, please...)

WE SPRAYED PRIMER UPSTAIRS!!!!!!

WA-HOOOOO!!!!! Actually, I'm writing it with great enthusiasm, trying to convince myself to feel it. But I don't. I had HOPED to prime all of the walls, then spray ceiling paint on all of the ceilings (what else) and Bleached Linen (our "white" paint) on all of the doors, mouldings, and trim. But alas, the primer wasn't drying fast enough for us to be able to follow up with the rest. ~sigh~ You know what that means, right? ~BIG SIGH~ It means we have to do the whole thing again tomorrow. ~BLEAGH~ It is sooooooooooooooo horrible to have to spray paint! I mean, it's WONDERFUL for all of the time it saves you in the long run, especially doors--which we have a TON of up there.

"Would you say we have a plethora of doors?"

"Oh, yes. You have a plethora."

:-)

BUT it's horrible because it is SUCH a mess and the clean-up (both of yourself and the gun!) takes forever. Anyway, at least we got everything primed. I already saw some runs and streaks up there. Oh well "From a galloping horse..." ;-) I'll sand down what I can before we paint tomorrow and hope for the best. Maybe TOMORROW I can sit down at the end of the day with the satisfaction of knowing that we are DONE spraying up there. I wanted it today, but I'll settle for it tomorrow.

After I FINALLY got all of the paint mess taken care of and the sprayer all cleaned up (which always feels like it takes as long as the actual spraying!) I took another nice, hot shower and got immediately into my pj's. ~Aaaaahhh~ I came out of the bedroom and James said, "Oh... I guess you're done for the day, hu?" I'm glad he noticed. :-) He had to run some errands and somehow I ended up home ALL ALONE and he took all three kids! Whoa!!! Oh, happy day. :-) So I'm sitting in my pj's, blogging, in a nice, still, quiet house. It's marvellous. It would get old REAL quick if it was the norm, but since it's not--it's sooooo nice when it happens on occasion. :-)

Uh-oh. Looks like it's all over. He just called and said they're on their way home. "Could you start the onions, bell peppers and hot sausage for dinner, Bec, so it'll be ready when we get there?" :-)