Nothing Much

I have become a very, very bad blogger. But it's for the best really since I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY. It seems like it's just the same thing: my house is trashed, I'm working hard, it will be done some day and I'll post pictures. Hasn't that been my story for weeks now? Nooooo... silly me. It's been a year. No, wait. It's been... 1 year, 1 month, and 12 days. That's how long we've been in this house. ~sigh~ Sometimes I think the end is in sight. Other times I laugh... a sort of disturbing maniacal laugh... realizing that the work on a house really never ends. If we all just lived in tents we wouldn't know the conveniences of living in houses and "making a comfortable home" and all that stuff and we'd be content and have a whole lot more time on our hands. ~sigh~

I've run out of steam for the night. It always seems to happen before I've completed all that I had intended to complete, then those things get shoved back to the next day's to-do list. But not this time--we're probably leaving in the morning for Colorado District Convention. The jury's still out on that. Southern Colorado and northeastern New Mexico are supposed to be getting slammed with serious snow storms tonight and tomorrow. Jon said it's pretty much over with in Denver, but there are still winter storm warnings in affect in Colorado Springs until 6:00 tomorrow morning and Pueblo (where Convention is to be held) until noon, or something like that. Coming from our direction (our family would be the only ones coming from the south) our biggest problem would be making it over Raton pass, which is expecting 10-15 inches of snowfall tonight and tomorrow morning. Could be interesting! Ha! Jon (District Overseer up there) is going to wait to see how things actually pan out (can't trust the weathermen, you know) and will decide in the morning whether to go ahead with Convention or postpone it. At which time I'll know whether or not to do a warp-speed packing job so we can hop in the car and get going! I thought about packing tonight... but I just can't make myself do it. I am sooooo wiped out and I just can't bear the thought of exerting any energy that might turn out to be in vain. The thought of packing, then possibly not going anywhere after all is just not worth it! So I'll wait until morning to find out where the day's energy allotment will be used. ;-)

You know, I'm sounding really pitiful tonight. I hate whiny blogs! I didn't realize I was whiny until I re-read some of this--now I know! I'll spare you all anymore. Again I'll say: pictures soon! Just keep in mind that "soon" is a very relative term. ;-)

A Quick and Jumbled Run-Down

Let's see... Sam was sick all night one night, then Joe was sick all day the next day. They both took the following night and day off from being sick, then Sam started throwing up again the morning after that. I had noticed that I hadn't seen or heard anything from Joe in 20 minutes or more so I went looking for him. I found him huddled up in the corner of a closet with no books, no toys, nuthin'. I asked what he was doing. "Oh, just sittin' here... It's a good place to not catch Sam's germs!" Ha! He figured he was next since that's how it had happened two days earlier. I made him come out of the closet and--you guessed it--within a few hours HE was sick again! Crazy! They were both fine the next day, then the day after that it was Katie's turn. She's been off and on since Saturday night, but hasn't tossed her cookies since early this morning. I hope that means it's all over with. This has been the weirdest thing! I'm very thankful that James and I have managed to avoid whatever it is that's been plaguing our household.

In between all of that excitement, big things are happening at our house! The carpet guy came on Thursday and laid half of the carpet (our room and Katie's closet), then came back on Saturday to do the den and boys' room. So now it is officially NOT a garage anymore! Wa-Hoo!!! James smashed two fingers pretty good while installing the baseboard trim and finally decided to figure out how to use that new nail gun of his. Talk about excited. "Who-o-o-o-o-oah!!! Bec, you gotta come see this! This is soooooooooo cool! I can't believe I haven't been using this thing all along!!!" He even went back and RE-nailed all of the trim he'd already nailed with the hammer. The nail gun is to him what the paint sprayer was to me. :-) Anyway, we finished up the trim, then hauled the couch and two chairs into the den and put them in place. That's all that's in there so far, but I already LOVE it! Mostly because it's such a nice, comfortable room with comfortable furniture and nice, cooshy, comfortable CARPET!!! Have I ever mentioned how much I hate tile? ;-) I love our new room. We drug a mattress into the boys' room and laid it on the floor--that's where they've been sleeping since Saturday. Their bunk bed will be here in about two weeks.

We had good services yesterday. James preached a really good message in the morning and my VLB service seemed to go well last night, too. It had occurred to me once we "finished" the den that in the end... it's just a house. Just walls, just carpet, just furniture. I'm so thankful for all of God's blessings and I don't ever want to take them for granted, but I don't ever want to set my heart on these THINGS, you know? So I did a lesson on "abundance." Everybody has an abundance of something in their life whether money or possessions or friends or worries or work or whatever--anything you have an oversufficient supply of is an abundance. Abundance is a good word... unless it's referring to an abundance of worldly things! Material things don't matter--I want to have an abundance of spiritual riches and lay up my treasures in heaven. If my newly completed house burned down tonight, it's just a house. We would recover and go on. I hope it doesn't (!), but in the end it's not really what's important anyway. I want to ever be thankful... but not materialistic!

ANYWAY... That's about it from here. I spent most of the day today cleaning up Katie's room (under the bed, dusting, sorting the dresser, getting the rest of the boys' stuff out, cleaning the floor, etc.) and it's now the only room in the house that's looking GREAT. Our room is coming along. We've got a HUGE and very cool log bed in there (that one James nabbed super cheap from Craigslist) and I have my very own little corner of the room with my very own chair and my very own little table/dresser and my very own lamp to read by. It's my spot. The kids are not NOT ALLOWED in our room and it's the place I can go to and just be alone when I need to. It's so grand!!!

Tomorrow is more of the same, except I'm going to try to throw school into the mix. We skipped it today. I HAD to get the house put back together a little bit before we start bringing boxes in from the office and unpacking them and trying to decide where everything goes. Anyway, we'll get as far as we can this week before we leave for Colorado Convention on Friday, then probably finish up next week. Busy, busy! But it's fun busy and I do feel so very, very blessed. Someday when things are starting to come together I'll post pictures. Not that anybody ever comes to the blogs anymore, you bunch of Facebook traitors!!! That's what I assume has happened to Blogville. Everybody seems to have forsaken it for Facebook and things are really not hoppin' here like they used to. There are some of us who can't do the Facebook thing and would be thrilled to know there's somebody still interested in the BLOGS, you know?! Bunch of ninnies. ;-) And, of course, I'm not speaking to the ones who have been faithful to the blogs... just the deserters. And I must confess, I haven't been just real faithful to blog myself--much less comment anywhere else. Two weeks! Just give me two more weeks to get my life under control and I'll be better! I think. ;-)

Enough rambling. Got to get the kids to bed and work on the Regional Paper. Ah, yes. That's the other thing I'm up to--it's that time again. Lots to do. Gotta run. Just wanted to touch base. Later!

12:35

That's what time it is. I just finished up with the day's manditory work load, crawled into my flannel Coca-Cola nightgown, and sat down. I am soooooo tired. The lack of sleep from last night didn't help matters. Sam was throwing up every hour or hour and a half between 11:00 last night and 7:00 this morning. The first three times soiled his pj's and bedding, so that meant three loads of laundry in the middle of the night besides getting him settled down and back in bed. When he lost his lunch for the last time (at about 7:00 this morning) Joe lost his for the first time. Oh, brother! Sam's been fine throughout the day and certainly hasn't acted sick. Joe, on the other hand, had to run to the bathroom numerous times this morning. He's been able to keep down some broth and Gatorade and got a good nap this afternoon, so I'm really hoping he'll be fine tomorrow. His neck is still stiff and achy. I did have him put a bag of frozen peas on his neck for a little while tonight. (Thanks for the advice!) No word yet on whether it helped or not. Joe isn't typically a fan of ANY method of recovery!

So, really... I'd like to know what's going on here. My brother has been enduring excruciating pain with a toothache for a week or two now. My boys come down sick last night and today. Then I hear from Mom that Dad's got a bum leg--in terrible pain and unable to walk at all there for a little while. I'm thankful that, at last report, Jon is doing some better though he would surely appreciate all the prayers he can get for complete recovery. Sam seems perfectly well and Joe is doing better, too. The Lord really touched Dad and relieved much of the pain tonight and he's able to get around okay on crutches. Still, he needs total healing. It just seems so strange for it all to happen at once! So please pray for my family. We apparently really need it right now!

In other news...

How dumb does a person have to be to spend 10 hours or so wallpapering a closet? However dumb it is, that's me. I have, however, benefitted from the experience in that I have resolved to pitch a royal fit the next time James sees wallpaper on sale and suggests buying some--I don't care HOW cheap it is. This closet cost us practically nothing, but who wants to spend all day wrestling with wallpaper for a closet??? Normal people don't wallpaper closets. I often wish I was one of them. A normal person, that is. Probably by next week I'll be really glad I'm not a normal person--when I walk into Katie's darling closet. But it'll be at least a week until then. For now I'm really wishing I was just normal. Paint would have been so much faster. Oh well, at least it's done. I intended to take a picture, but I was already sitting down when I realized it and I'm just not getting up to do it right now. Maybe in the morning.

James got lots done today, too, but don't ask me what. I was in the closet, so I don't really know. We got the border up in our bedroom, James hung the new ceiling fan (it doesn't even go "clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-whi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ir-clack-clack-thump-whi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ir" like the old one did!) and the other light... Uummm... he got the shelves up in the boys' closet and the second coat of poly on his soda bar... Hhmmm. I don't know, there's been a whole lot of accomplishment going on around here. Frankly, I'm gettin' good and tired of it! I want to NOT accomplish anything for a little while! But we've been under pressure, good, necessary pressure to get a long list of things completed because...

The carpet guys will be here in the morning!!! Wa-Hoo!!! I'm so excited! I want them here, I want them gone, and I want to MOVE IN to my new house! :-)

Well, I'm winding down, so I think I'm going to hit the hay. 'Nuther big day tomorrow! Hopefully it will be a fun, happy day. It's got to improve a whole lot once we can start clearing the STUFF out of the living room. That will make me oh, so happy. The mess is really starting to get to me. If I hadn't been locked in a closet all day I probably would have snapped because of it. I think the carpet is coming just in time! I'M SO THANKFUL.

Pictures soon. G'night!

Blog Therapy

It's the only reason an otherwise sane person would be blogging at 1:00 in the morning. When I'm swamped the most is when I seem to need the "release" of blogging the most. Dumb. Why is that? Why don't I feel like blogging when I'm bored and have nothing else to do? Wait... when's the last time that happened? Hmmm...

I won't lay out all of the details, but I will say that it's been a very full couple of days packed with lots of paint, wallpaper, polyurethane, paint speckled hair, filthy fingernails, hands that are dried out and cracked, beat up knees, one splinter firmly lodged underneath a fingernail, achy arms, and as of an hour or two ago a kid throwing up all over himself, his pj's, his pillow, his blanket, and the rug. Twice. ~sigh~ He seems to be resting soundly right now, so I'm hoping it's all over with for the night. Time will tell!

I do have one kid story to impart. Let me just start by saying KIDS ARE SO DUMB. Yesterday morning while I was wallpapering I suddenly heard the most terrible scream from outside where the kids were playing. It was one of those bad ones--the real thing. I made my way out of the house (no easy task in it's current condition) in time to see all three kids walking toward the porch of their own accord, no broken limbs and no blood, although Joe had a rope wrapped around and around him securing his arms to his sides. Upon seeing that they were all still alive, I became rather unhappy with them. I get on to them all the time for yelling and screaming and otherwise acting like a bunch of crazed Indians--it echoes all across the mountain and I keep telling them that the neighbors simply don't want to hear it. Well, this was mid-morning when all of the other kids are in school and the neighbors should be able to expect some peace and quiet. Nope. It was Joe who had been screaming bloody murder, I could tell by the tear drenched face. And the rope was a pretty good indicator, as well. When they got to the house I told them that I didn't want to hear it. "Just calm yourselves down, find a book and sit down somewhere and be quiet!" It only took a minute for me to reconsider. Since the scream and tears had been so impressive it seemed like I should at least find out what happened, so I asked Katie. I was still rather upset as she began, "Well... Joe had this idea... that Sam and I should tie him upside down from the swing set..." !!!!! Mad or not, when I heard just that much of the story I lost it. Just cracked up. That's all I needed to hear--I could just see the whole thing!!! HA! How could they be sooooooo dumb?!?!? Katie started giggling, too, and Joe (with tears still coming) started laughing with us. Sam declared that he was the one who accidentally let go of the rope. I told them all that it was a STUPID, STUPID, STUPID thing to do and how Joe could have been very seriously injured, but I had to repeat the lecture later once I had regained my composure because the first time around it came through my own tears and laughter!

By the way, pray for Joe! About an hour after the incident I noticed him walking around the house with his head down, chin near his chest. His neck is real sore and sometimes even his back hurts a little--and his head hurts. (Imagine that! From what I can gather, he was probably two and a half feet off the ground--with his arms tied to his sides, mind you--when he was...released.) Anything that jars him at all (even just riding in the car and going over a bump) seems to hurt his head. It's not severe, but it's definitely bothering him. He's NOT the one throwing up, just so you know--that was Sam. Still, I wonder if perhaps he suffered a mild concussion. ??? I don't really know anything about them. I told the horse lady about it today and she wanted to know if it has helped! Ha! We were discussing Joe's absentmindedness and terrible short term memory last week and she asked if he'd ever hit his head real hard or anything. No... But now he has, so she wondered if perhaps it helped him out!

Joe wanted to ride today and practice his reining, but he didn't stay on too long. It was sad and not sad all at once. It meant that I got to finish the rest of his lesson for him! Wa-Hoo!!! I got to ride Daisy for a few minutes today and trot a bit. :-) Life is so grand. Though I do feel bad for Joe. I hate it that he's hurting... but I'm really hoping he's learned a lesson through this! ~sigh~ Bunch of idiot children!!!

That's about it. We've got one more day of breakneck speed work to be done, then on Thursday... THE CARPET COMES!!!!! Wa-Hoo!!!!!!!!! The beginning of the end! It's truly here! They're coming! I'm going to have carpet and be able to MOVE IN to all of the parts of my house that I'm NOT moved in to right now! Currenly my living room contains two couches, four wingback chairs, a rocker and a recliner, as well as a coffee table and piano. Half of the furniture belongs in other places in the house and it's just a wee bit cramped in here. My bedroom stuff is truly stuffed (!) into my bathroom, and as of today Katie's closet stuff is stacked, piled, and strewn all over her bed (all three kids are sleeping in the living room, on the floor and one couch--yes, somehow there's room for that in here!) and floor. Tomorrow things will get even worse, if it's possible, but once we get carpet in on Thursday it should very slowly begin a grand and glorious recovery of every room in the house, even the new ones. :-) If I can just hold on for a few more days in the chaos... I've been handling it amazingly well, I think. Usually chaos doesn't set well with me, but nobody's gotten hurt yet. Except for Joe, and I don't think it was related to the mess. ;-)

Decisions, Decisions

I hate them. Always have, always will. I wish you could live life entirely without them, just always knowing what to make for dinner, if you should buy those jeans or if the kid will grow out of them too soon, should you wear your favorite sweater today or save it for another time??? And my present dilemma: WHAT COLOR OF PAINT IS THE RIGHT COLOR OF PAINT?! That's always one of the very, very hardest decisions--one that I hate more passionately than all of the other decisions I hate to make. I've learned that I usually make a whole lot of bad decisions in this area before the right one ever comes to me, if it comes to me. That's why I tend to use the same colors over and over again. I finally found what I LIKED; why take a chance on screwing it up?! Well, I was ready to branch out and try something new in our bedroom. ~sigh~ I guess I'll never learn. But first...

It's been a good couple of days, all in all. This is what we woke up to yesterday. :-)

Purty, hu? We've still never gotten what I would consider a good snow (5 or 6 inches, at least), but I'm thankful for the little, tiny bits that we've had several times this winter. Some day I'll be able to celebrate them with puzzles and hot chocolate, but not until we finish working on this house. The kids were able to make the best of it, however! They finished school up before noon so they could spend the rest of the day in the snow. Katie and Sam decided that the trampoline was the best spot to go to work.



Sam built the large, muddy snowman at the edge of the yard and Katie transported her baby snowman over next to him. I'm having a hard time thinking it's cute right at this moment because when I see this picture all I really see is that little carrot nose. I pulled that nasty, dirty, dingy, soggy carrot out of a little boys' pocket while I was sorting clothes to wash a little while ago. Bleagh! Kids are so gross!

I spent the afternoon painting the ceiling in our bedroom, as well as the linen closet in there. (Green shelves in that closet--I love 'em!) James was good to occupy the kids, even taking over the next Pink Princess Cookbook project! Ha! White chocolate pretzel dragonflies. YUM. Wow, if I've ever had a weakness I think it's white chocolate covered pretzels. I could eat them by the pound! I never did get hungry enough to eat dinner last night, but I had plenty of pretzels--every time I walked by!



They look like dragonflies... right???



Meanwhile, I was in our bedroom painting one wall red. This is where the I-Hate-Making-Decisions thing comes in. I had it in my brain that I wanted one red splotchy wall in our room, using that same faux technique we do with the brown and cream. It looked gorgeous in my mind, but it's so tricky to get the same result to actually happen in real life! It's hard enough to pick a paint color that's not going to be disastrous once it's on your wall (they all look good on the little cards, you know), but it's 10 times harder to pick two colors, and get the desired effect on the wall with the new color the two of them create together.

As you can see, Plan A didn't work, so we tried every possible combination with every color of paint we had on hand, mixing some of them together to get new colors to mix with the first color. Crazy!!! This is what it looked like when we gave up and went to bed last night. I needed to sleep on it and start fresh in the morning! We ended up not going with any of these combos.
I picked the two that I hated the least and mixed them together to get a whole new combination. Here's a picture of it with our bedspread... on legs. ;-)

Please tell me the wall doesn't look pink!!!!! Purple in the boys' room, now pink in my room... I should be fired!!! Ha! Actually, the flash from the camera makes everything look a little bit brighter than it really is and I don't think it looks so mauvish in person. I keep telling myself that once we get moved in and have that wall covered up with some rustic decor I'm going to love it! :-)

James was pretty busy today as well. He was gone to town for the first half of the day, then came home with some more paint rollers for me... and a really great Lay-Z-Boy swivel recliner for $50! It's in great condition, it's just the right size (not too huge), and the colors will work just right in the den. Wa-Hoo! I was just praying yesterday for God to provide a couple of chairs for that room. Who wants to have a freshly remodeled den with no furniture?! Ha! James also found two green wingback chairs for $20 or $30 apiece (can't remember which) a couple of months ago, so now we have one in the living room and one to go in our bedroom. It's amazing to me that God takes such good care of us. He provides for all of our needs, then goes wa-a-a-a-a-ay beyond that and provides so many things that aren't necessities at all, just "extras," I call them. He's so good to us.

James brought home the supplies to make the shelves for the boys' closet. We struggled to get them hung straight, but we finally just called it good. :-) I got those stained (opted against paint in there) as well as the jail door and some of the trim that needed darkened. It's lookin' good out there!

So now it's Saturday night. My room is painted (all of the walls--I did that after I finally finished the red one), we had Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner (thanks again, James!), everybody has been bathed and the kids are sound asleep. I've got the laundry started, in hopes of being able to complete it between services tomorrow so I can do the ironing tomorrow night after church. That's usually Monday's job, but I've got wallpapering to do after school on Monday so I'm trying to get a step ahead if I can. In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to a day "off" (laundry isn't all that taxing) tomorrow and being able to wear nice, clean clothes and go to church and get my mind off of house stuff for a little while. I'm really ready for some good services!

The Beginning of the End???

It's an exciting feeling and a dreadful one. I'm afraid I'm not speaking about anything spiritual at the moment. No, I'm referring to our house. We've begun phase 1,082. At least, that's what it feels like. It seems all we ever do anymore is travel, come home, and work on the house. I enjoy all of those things... but I'm really growing weary of that last one! I want to be DONE with the house and find out how it must feel to come home and just LIVE in it instead of remodel it! ~sigh~ Some day.

For now, it's a wreck. We have officially trashed it again. That's got to be the worst part about remodeling. You have to trash every room in the house in order to make one of them purty. James is getting very near being finished out in the den, so that means we're getting near to having the carpet laid. I can't begin to express the glee that starts welling up within me at the very thought... I could almost squeal. And I am NOT the squealing kind. BUT... when we have the carpet laid in the den and boys' room we're also having it laid in our bedroom, which means we need to remodel that room as well. In order to do that it must be emptied out, unfortunately into every other room in the house. So we began working on that today. James ran out of steam before he got his computer and a few other things out, but we're getting there.

I had worked for a while earlier today on my plan to try to maintain my living/dining room in some sort of functional order instead of being totally overcome by bedroom stuff. It mostly involved moving a whole bunch of it into the bathroom. I never knew the blessing this big bathroom would be at a time such as this! ;-) This is what you see when you look in the door now.

And this is what the rest of the bathroom looks like. Ha! Crazy, hu?! I filled that great big bathtub all the way up to the brim with stuff, then put the box springs and mattress on top of it. I told James we could just sleep there on top of the tub! Ha! We've had the log bed frame propped against the wall ever since James bought it, awaiting the remodel before we actually put it together and use it. I was amazed that I was able to get all of it in the bathroom as well. It's awful to have to have so much junk in there, but it makes me happy that it's there instead of in the living room.
Ah, yes. The living room. It didn't exactly come through unscathed. I HATE it when it's junked up like this! We are just out of room to put stuff!!! Tomorrow I'm going to have to clean out some cabinets or something and find places to put all of that junk that is stacked and piled hither and yon. It's already driving me batty. That white table on the right along with those two blue bins are the current Regional Office. HA! James is going to set his computer up there until we can get everything finished. It should be a great help, really. His need for privacy and my need for my house back is going to increase the urgency of the house/office remodel considerably. :-)

So the good news is, the next project is underway! I will be quite busy painting and wallpapering again for the next several days... or more, I fear. I'm sooooo tired of doing this, but I'm sooooo ready for everything to be completed! I feel like I'm on the very last lap of the triathlon I was elected for in 5th grade. You know you're getting close, but you... just... can't... go... on! Ha! I'm wearing thin, that's for sure. ~sigh~ I'll be so happy when all of this is over with.

I can't very well end on that note, however, much less those terrible pictures of everything we still have to do. So here are a few of things that have already been accomplished, though most of them still need some tweeking. (Need to darken the stain on the trim and things like that.)

First of all, this is the door James built for the boys' room. Isn't it cool?! I love it!

This is the inside of it--and you can see the border we found to separate the wallpaper from the faux painting.

And this is the inside of the boys' closet. We had enough of that Wanted Poster border left-over from the last house to do the back wall of their "jail" closet.

In Andrews their whole room was like a jail--plank walls and the Wanted Poster border and even jail bars in the windows. It never occurred to us until an inspector mentioned it when we were moving out, but the bars in the window aren't exactly the safest thing. I mean, if there was a fire or something, we've "jailed" our boys in their room with no hope of escape! Ha! So we're forgoing the bars in the windows this time and decided to just make the closet the jail instead. Joe & Sam are already pretty excited about it and keep asking if they can go to the garage to play in their new jail. :-)

Ah, yes. Need to stain that door, too. So many things to be done, I tell ya'! OH. And the other terrible news... we just found out tonight that it could be 3 or 4 weeks until the guys can get up here to lay the carpet!!! Can you imagine?! I'm hoping and even praying that it won't be that long. I sooooo want to just get moved in! Moved in to the den and the boys' room and moved back in to my bedroom and moved OUT of everywhere else in the house where things that don't belong are stuffed! ~sigh~ I need a real strong shot of patience about now, I guess. Hope I get it before I snap and somebody gets hurt! Ha!

Much Better, Thank You!

I was able to go back to sleep after my wee-hour-of-the-morning blog and sleep until nearly 9:00, I think. Spent the morning cleaning house and getting things back in order after our trip, scarfed down some lunch and made it to horse lessons at 1:00. Daisy was there again, so it was another fun lesson with a great horse and lots of trotting. By the time we got home at 2:30 I was sooooo tired! So I sent the kids out to play and I was able to grab a wonderful, glorious hour of sweet sleep. ~Aaaahhhhh~ I felt worlds better when I woke up. :-) Fixed a smothered steaks for dinner (the only thing that could have made them better is if they would have been deer or elk instead of beef--oh, how I miss that!) and did evening school with the kids. :-)

Thanks for the prayers and advice on the stuffy nose thing. But... I'm pretty sure I couldn't make myself sniff salt water--or anything, for that matter! Ha! The very thought of it gives me the willies!!! And I'm happy to say that it doesn't appear as if I'm in need of any home remedies (greatly relieved, as well as happy once I learned of sniffing salt, Kasey!) anymore. I have been breathing clearly and easily all day long. Praise the Lord!

Anyway, about our trip...

We left Friday morning so we'd have time to stop in Carrizozo at the o-o-o-o-old soda fountain that James so loves stopping at. We got ice cream cones for the kids and milkshakes for us--and James ordered a cherry-limeade for the road. James LOVES soda fountains. :-) We were surprised by the cars that were parked all over the roads in town (there's not just a whole lot to Carrizozo--about 1,000 people, I think) until Roy (of Roy's Soda Fountain) explained that they're filming a movie with Denzel Washington there and it was their first day of filming. They've been building sets since December, I guess. We drove around to see what we could see, but it wasn't much. (I wouldn't know Denzel Washington if I bumped into him, I just recognize the name!) From what we could see of the sets, it appears to be a very depressing movie. Ha! Dark and glum--and tons of "extras" standing on a street corner in black and brown, dirty, smudgy clothes. Oh well, it was exciting for a few moments!

We had enough time to get to the motel and rest a bit before service that night. The theme of our Convention was "Come & Dine" and it was just sooooo good! The worship is always such a blessing when we get with our Spanish people. Brother Tanny preached that first night. The kids always love to hear him. They remembered last year's message when he preached about the three little pigs. He always leaves an impression! Ha!

On Saturday we had all of our boosts and a messages by Brother Soto, Brother Banuelos, and James. The Lord really blessed through the Word and it seemed that everyone was refreshed and receiving good things from the Lord. It was such a good Convention!

Here are a few pictures. This is a picture of (some!) of the Hatch group leading in worship.

As always, there is lots of food and lots of fellowship to be enjoyed when we go to Alamogordo! Those people just love to take care of you and are always so happy to provide a delicious meal to however many people attend the Convention. There are just a handful of members there, but they always feed the whole gang and have plenty of left-overs for later... although Brother Tanny isn't allowed to call them "left-overs" because it sounds bad. So he told us to come and enjoy "the food that was left." Ha! He and Sister Coyazo are quite the pair!

Brother Hector, Brother Olivarez, and Brother Banuelos. Oh, and there's Tayde back there, too!

I only got a picture of the last few people going through the line to greet the Coyazos (District Overseer). I always love Brother Tanny's cowboy garb. He's so cute! ;-)

Here's a picture of Erika and Amie. (Is that spelled right, Tayde???) She is a beautiful baby. Of course, Sam Kaufman said, "Wow, that sure is a neat lookin' baby!" I CRACKED UP!!! I've heard people call babies beautiful or pretty or gorgeous or precious (if necessary! Ha!)... but only SAM would say it's a NEAT LOOKING BABY! Ha!!!


And here he is... practicing. ;-) And this is the closest thing I got to a belly shot of Tammy. Ha!

Here he is again, embarassed at being caught digging in his wife's purse. Gotta love it!
HA! And for our last... Tammy was wanting a new profile picture for her blog, so she asked if I'd take a picture of her and Sam. GOOD GRIEF!!! It's easier to get three small children to sit still, behave, and pose for a picture than it is Sam Kaufman! I ended up with 11 pictures total and Tammy wasn't thrilled with any of them. I just kept clicking as fast as my camera would get ready for the next shot. These are just a few in the series...

It was great. :-)

We had a good time playing games with Sam & Tammy and even managed to squeeze one in after Convention on Saturday, before they headed back to Texas. Tammy was sure to gripe (and rightly so) at James a whole lot for scheduling the Convention on Daylight Savings weekend. Sam & Tammy are the only ones who have to travel back to Texas, so they lose an hour going home anyway, but because of this weekend they lost TWO hours going home!

After they left we loaded the kids up and went over to the Coyazo's house and visited until a little after 10:00, I think. ~sigh~ We just have the most wonderful people in the whole world out here! We SO enjoyed our time with them. They are such wonderful, sincere, funny people and we're so blessed to be "members one of another" with such people!

We got up on Sunday morning and leisurely got ready for church, packed up our stuff, loaded the van, and drove on over. We were surprised to see so many cars there so early (15 minutes or so before church) and were concerned that perhaps service started at 9:30 instead of 10:00 or something like that. We opened the door and saw Brother Tanny standing behind the pulpit, just smiling. Everybody was seated and just sort of turned and grinned at us as we walked in. Finally, Brother Tanny said, "Did you forget about the time change?" !!!!!!!!! Can you believe it?!

JAMES RICHARD HORNE FORGOT ABOUT DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME AND WENT TO CHURCH AN HOUR LATE!!! Ha! Is that not the greatest thing you've ever heard?!?!? I was terribly embarrassed and apologized profusely... but the other half of me was so pleased that JAMES had forgotten about it. (It's not surprising at all that I forgot, but James?!)It was doubly great since there had been so much banter between him and Tammy about them losing TWO hours. In the end, we just decided to not observe it at all--now, if THAT won't make Tammy mad...! Ha! I was sure to slug James and say, "Why do you think I married you?!" He's just not good for much anymore, I tell ya'. He used to be sooooo on top of it. Never made silly mistakes or lost or forgot anything... I think it's all of the wonderful Smith influence he's had in his life for the past 9 years. He'll deny it 'til his dying day, but it's rubbed off on him just a bit. Wa-Hoo!!! Life is grand!

We were sorry to have missed Sunday School (!), but thoroughly enjoyed a wonderful message by Sister Coyazo. She is always such a blessing. I want to be like her in so many ways!

After service Brother Tanny insisted on taking us to the Golden Corral, as always. It's Joe's very favorite thing about going to Alamogordo! Ha! We had another nice visit with them before heading over to Hatch. We had a good service with them that night as well and were blessed by the wonderful spirit of prayer they have there. Afterwards we were able to go see Hector & Erika's house (it's looking great!), then go visit with the Banueloses for a while. It was great fun, as always. I just love those people! And, of course, Sister Banuelos fed us yet more good food. I love the kinship that we feel with all of the people out here. There is such a... I don't know how to describe it. When you walk into a Convention you just feel so... comfortable with everybody! So... at home. It's like you are walking into a room full of your very own family and it's just so good to see and be with ALL of them. You can't even pick any favorites (not that you should!) because everybody just loves EVERYBODY so much! It's wonderful.

We stayed at the marvellous Village Plaza Hotel in Hatch (Ha! -- Such great memories we've had at that place over the years!), then drove home yesterday. And that just about sums up our trip! It was a great one. God is so good to us and I always feel so very, very blessed when we get together with His people to rejoice and draw nearer to Him and to one another. There's just nothing to compare! I'm already looking forward to the next Convention. Just two and a half weeks away! :-)

My Apologies... and This is Absurd!

First of all... I'm sorry, Kasey! Did I fail to mention that I was going out of town??? ;-) I really intended to blog the night before we left, but time got away from me and then at the very end I just didn't feel like doing it. Besides, I've learned that even if I write a great, big, long post about great things going on, if I happen to mention at the very end that I'm going on a trip... nobody comments! I guess everyone figures I won't be around to read it anyway, but it's always a let-down, you know?! So I think I'm going to stop telling. I'll just disappear and not say anything. It nabbed me two extra comments this time, even if one of them was only to reward me a Bad Blogger Award for my failure to post anything new. ;-)

Anyway, we've been gone to District Convention, then visited the Alamogordo and Hatch churches on Sunday. Came home yesterday afternoon, let the kids have the day off from school (I wasn't up to it!), got the house cleaned up a bit, all of the laundry done and stayed up way late finishing all of the ironing so I'll have it behind me. Slept for a little while, but...

If you'll notice the time, it's 5:00 in the morning right now. Anybody who knows me knows I am NOT a 5:00 in the morning kind of a person. But I woke up about an hour ago completely stuffed up--I mean unable to breath through my nose at all, not the tiniest bit through either nostril. You know, where you can't even swallow or it plugs your ears and there's all sorts of pressure. What's that all about?! I smeared some Mentholatum on my nose for the first time ever in my whole life. Didn't do a thing. I decided to go sleep in the kids' room because I didn't want to keep James awake--and the kids can sleep through anything. But it's not like I was doing any sniffling. Can't even sniffle--no air at all going through my nose. So I finally just got up. I made some hot lemonade because that was always Grandma Babe's cure for not being able to breath. Then I even boiled some water and put a towel over my head and tried to steam my nose open again. (Just like Stephanie and I used to do to try to rid ourselves of pimples when we were 13, Mom! Ha!) Did all of that without receiving any benefit whatsoever. Been asking God for a little assistance through it all, and finally decided I'd go ahead and blog while I'm waiting. And guess what?! It's cleared up a little bit! I've been sipping my lemonade and typing away and my nose has slowly started to open up ever so slightly. I'm thankful for any at all!!! ~whew~ That's a relief. I'm going to go try to get some sleep, even though I'm scared to move again, particularly go lay down... Things are good right now! Maybe I should just put the computer down and try to sleep in the chair. Hhmmm...

I'll try to tell a little more about our trip real soon! ;-)

OUCH

My nose hurts soooooo bad from blowing, rubbing, and wiping it ALL DAY LONG. ~sigh~ I'm allergic to something. Isn't that dumb?! I don't even believe in allergies!!! Okay, well, that might be expressing it a little strongly, but I hate it when people gripe and whine all the time about being "allergic" to every tiny little thing. Most of the people who do that are the kind who like to be allergic to things, you know? Quite annoying. Ha! Anyway, annoying or not (who am I kidding--this is sooooo annoying!) I'm definitely reacting to something in the air. I've sneezed at least 60 or 70 times today (I'll try to remember to keep count tomorrow--it could be interesting if it goes at all like today!), but that's okay. Sneezing's fun. I've always kind of had a thing for it. Once when I was a teenager I sneezed 9 times in a row. It's my all time record. Anyway, if it was just the sneezing I'd be cool with it. It's all the other stuff, particularly that itchy feeling in your nose like you NEED to sneeze all the time, the runny nose, and the itchy, watery eyes. If I were to judge simply by the tears shed and Kleenex's gone through today I would say I must be in a deep, dark depression of some kind. HA!

Other than that, it's been a good couple of days! Yesterday was horse lesson day and Daisy was there--a really terrific horse with lots of pep. She gave the kids a really good ride and they were able to practice trotting a little bit. How fun! After that we ran to the library and picked up the same assortment of books we always do: snakes, lizards, turtles... Katie has been reading through some of the American Girl series and really enjoying it. She's reading about Molly right now, I think.

The kids were telling me yesterday some of their dreams and aspirations. Katie wants to travel all over the world like her Grandma Bunny has. And she's dying to take a trip to New York with me. I'm game! Ha! Maybe some day down the road. :-) She also wants to be a wife, a mom and a secretary when she grows up. Sam wants to be a builder when he grows up. Or a cop. Or... whatever the last person he saw was doing! But usually a builder. Joe said he wants to travel around the world for Missions like Brother Rob does. "And maybe I'll go to Australia. While I'm there I'll look for deadly snakes because after that I'm going to be a reptile keeper." ~sigh~ I keep hoping he'll grow out of that particular dream!

Joe recently acquired a back scratcher and just loves it. He uses it all the time. This morning he was walking around with it in one hand and a tin cup in the other hand, offering to give you a good back scratch for .10 cents. Ha! I never heard any rattling in the can. ;-)

I was going to get some good pictures of the boys shooting the BB gun and bow and arrow last night, but it didn't pan out. About the time I showed up outside with the camera James discovered a little hole near where he was standing. He stepped inside and grabbed this thing that looked like a 6" piece of dynamite, lit it up, shoved it down the hole, then covered the hole up as the smoke began to pour from it. He then explained to the kids, "Even though I covered it up, all of that poisonous smoke is still going down into the hole. And whatever lives down there--a mole or a gopher or whatever--it'll kill it!" There was total silence for a few moments, then the lips started quivering. We lost two children to total and complete devastation. Sam was fine, but the others just couldn't take it. Joe stood there and cried and cried and I finally decided I wasn't going to get any good pictures (ha!) and headed back in the house--only to find Katie sitting on her bed just sobbing. I told James later that just because he is cold and heartless doens't mean his children are! Ha! We take 'em to the zoo and say, "Oh, look at the little prairie dogs peeking up out of the hole--oh, aren't they cute???" Then we come home and shove a stick of dynamite down their hole so we can kill 'em! Ha! I don't want the kids to be sissies either, but there just might be a better way to approach the issue. Like... not taking such pleasure in the way we say we're gonna kill 'em! And it might be good to offer the reason why we can't have them around instead of the kids just thinking Dad takes some sort of sadistic pleasure in smoking small helpless animals to death. Those things would never occur to James because he's just not the kind of person who can relate to feeling bad for animals, you know?! He tried to fix things with Joe later. "Joe, you want to hunt when you grow up, right? Well, when you hunt that means you're going to kill an animal..." "Well, yeah, but that's moose and antelope and big stuff like that. This is different." James said, "So... you have a problem with little things dying?" Joe just nodded and sighed, "... Gophers. I have a problem with gophers." HA! Crazy kid. He did seem to feel better once James explained WHY he was trying to rid the yard of rodents. I told James to start with the reason next time instead of jumping straight to the kill 'em part. ;-)

When I put the kids to bed last night I kept Sam up with me for a little while so we could just hang out. He's been so rotten lately and I'm pretty sure it's because he's just been sort of lost in the shuffle. He's been spending most of his day to himself or away from very much adult interaction. So we sat and talked for quite a while and just had a good time. He's been much, much better today so it apparently helped to just have some Mom/Sam time!

James took this picture of him this morning...

Today I stained a bunch of wood for James. He built the door to the boys' room. I LOVE IT. :-) I'll take a picture soon. It was miserable out there staining, since my nose had a steady drip (when I was lucky it was just a drip--GROSS!) and I had my pockets stuffed with tissues for easy access. It took twice as long as it otherwise would have because of the drippy nose. ~sigh~ What a pain. (Literally!) Same thing with dinner. I had to stop and wipe or blow my nose ever few seconds, then wash my hands again, then start mixing--only to have to catch another drip! Ha! Pitiful. I'm glad I'd gone easy: tuna casserole. :-)

I also told Katie we could make something else from her Pink Princess Cookbook. Cotton Candy Cupcakes tonight, with some sort of punch with a froofy name. Well, the cupcakes turned out GREAT! They looked almost as good as the picture in the book... at first. I put them in the cake server and put the lid on it. I made sure they were totally cool before we frosted them and added the cotton candy, but it didn't matter. This is what they were supposed to look like...

And this is what they looked like after about 10 minutes under the glass lid!



The cotton candy just melted into crunchy little blue globs!!! How sad! And we didn't even have any extra to re-do it. ~sigh~ What a gyp. If you ever try these things, don't put the cotton candy on until moments before you're going to serve them! ;-)

I was more excited about the punch anyway, especially in the "sugar sipper" goblets. (Dipped the lip of the cups in the punch, then in colored sprinkles--how fun is that?!)



Of course, Joe wouldn't drink out of a goblet (he is convinced they are "alcohol glasses" and refuses to use them--even though they're Tupperware. He's sooooo touchy about things like that! Obsessive compulsive, perhaps!)... but that means I got to have one! :-) All I can say is it's a good thing the sugar was on the cup because that punch was SOUR!!! I think I went a little heavy on the lemon juice. The raspberry sorbet was delicious, but not enough to knock out the pucker from the lemon. We actually ended up stirring in a little sugar! I thought it was fantastic that way, but it was still a little too much for the kids. They drank what they could, then I told them to freeze the rest--maybe they will like it better in popsicle form tomorrow. ???

Here they are, ready to dig in!

And last, but not least, here's a clip for you, Mom. :-)

We had a good but lo-o-o-o-ong Sunday. We left for church at about 9:00, then did some running around town between services and didn't come home again until after our evening service--'bout 12 hours in all. It was a good day though.

PRAYER REQUEST: We really, really need a place to worship! Right now we're renting a conference room at a motel on Sundays and meeting in a home on Thursdays. It's worked out for while we've had to do it, but we really feel like we need something a little more permanent, you know?! A place we can have a piano and chairs--and a REVIVAL and things like that! God knows our needs and we trust Him to provide. It's overwhelming in a city this size though and we really need Him to open the doors for us and guide us to them.

James played a portion of an interview with R.O. Covey during our service last night (CPMA service) and it was so neat. What an amazing man he was! So gifted and able to articulate truths about the Word and the Church in a manner that very, very few men have ever possessed. It made me sad and glad all at once to hear his voice again. I loved the opportunities I had to listen to him teach. He was just teeming with wisdom and wit--and such a beautiful meek spirit. What a blessing that God created Him to be such a minister to The Church of God!

After service last night we went to Sister Galaviz's apartment and visited for a few minutes--and picked up another great pounding. These people, I tell ya'! (And there was no canned ham this time! Ha!) Grapes and cheese and soups and bread and spaghetti sauce and noodles... Amazing. We enjoyed our visit with Sister Galaviz as much as we anticipate enjoying the pounding. ;-)

Today we had devotions, then loaded up and headed to Wal-Mart to do some necessary shopping. I had a list of ingredients for more froofy little princess recipes from Katie's cookbook and we had grown quite a grocery list since being home from Arizona--though the pounding yesterday marked several items off the list for us! Anyway, we once again watched Joe meander through the toy section agonizing over what to spend his gift card on and leaving without anything. Katie marched in and purchased some modeling clay and paints to use with it. Sam only wished he had some money to spend! Ha!

We came home and I started the laundry, then started the kids on school. I only made .01 off of the laundry today. Bummer. I have this little pet peeve about clothes being thrown into the laundry inside out. I feel very strongly that no human being should EVER have to reach inside somebody else's dirty, smelly sock to pull it right side out. I finally cracked about 3 weeks ago and told the kids they would pay me one cent for every sock that came through the laundry inside out and five cents for any other item of clothing (even though THEY still have to come fix them). That may not seem like a severe enough penalty to make most people cringe, but when you're 5, 7 and 8 years old and you live off of nickels and dimes it seems pretty important! I made a decent amount of change the first week, very little the second week, and nothing at all last week. Just the one sock from Joe today. I told James that it's pretty amazing how in three weeks' time I've successfully trained our children to do something I haven't been able to train HIM to do in 9 years of marriage! Maybe I'll start charging him... But not nickels and dimes! Ha!

I sat with the kids while they were doing school so I could help out if they had questions, but they were pretty much on their own today. I spent forever getting the regional paper formatted into Spanish. (Thank you, Tayde!!! You're amazing!) I don't know why it took so much longer than usual (most of the time it feels like a pretty fast, easy job), but it took me a-a-a-a-all afternoon. Oh, and I had forgotten to send a couple of things off for translation, so I had to use an online translator for a few items. That always makes me sooooo nervous!!! I hope I didn't do anything disastrous!!!

After school, Katie spent her time molding "signs" with her clay, baking them, then painting them. The one on the right has a purse in the middle, in case you couldn't tell.

She didn't have time to paint this one, but I just love her face! Ha! I was taking too long to snap the picture and she was working super hard to not blink and ruin it. :-)

And that's about it for the day. Sam created lots of trouble. That happens on days when he doesn't get any time invested in him. Today was one of those days. "A child left to himself..." you know! I do recall finding a pile of tiny grapes in the microwave this evening. He said he was trying to make raisins. ~sigh~