Crazy Thursday

Yesterday it seemed like nothing went right.

I finally got all geared up to take the kids to the pool (we're running out of summer with school starting soon), and when we drove up to the pool, I thought it odd that NO ONE was there. Our neighborhood pool has been packed all summer every time we've been, and all of a sudden no one is there? Well, maybe we lucked out, I thought. To be sure, I left the kids in the open and running car while I made sure there wasn't some reason why no one was there. Sure enough, the pool was closed, with a hand-written marker sign taped to the gate and a giant chain with a pad-lock insuring no one would bypass the sign. I then had to go back to the car where my children were waiting in anticipation, wearing their cute little swimsuits, and tell them that it was closed and we'd have to go back home. But maybe we could still go swimming, if I could reach my friend who lives in the next neighborhood over. We've been swimming at their pool several times this summer. So I got home, left the kids in the open car again, and went in the house and grabbed the phone and started calling and went back outside. She didn't answer the house phone or her cell phone. We were out of luck. (There are other people who live further away I could have called, but I gave it a shot, and didn't want to drive all over just to spend a couple hours at the pool.)

I had already been planning to help my mom set up her classroom at some point in the day, so plan B, to soften the blow that we weren't swimming, was to go visit Nanna's classroom, which they usually enjoy. We had already passed her school on the way to and from the pool. She's an elementary music teacher, and usually has lots of fun instruments and things for them to play with when we're there. Seeing as it was her very first day back at school, nothing was set up at all, and she even had to go digging in her closet to find a box of something for the girls to entertain themselves with. I managed to set up 2 computers, connect her stereo, DVD player and VCR, and help move some furniture, all in about an hour, just long enough for the girls to start getting bored, so then we came back home. That was the only part of the day that really went like it was supposed to (although we should have been at the pool).

After that, we came home and the girls went down for naps. That's always a crap shoot around here. My big girl is really starting to not need them so much, and the little girl doesn't WANT to take a nap, no matter how badly she needs it. If I can just get them both to stay in their rooms and be quiet for an hour, I've succeeded. At least it's some down time (for me and them).

After nap time was over, I had to go get some oil-based glaze for my on-going table project. I'm finally far enough into the redo that I'm starting to see the end product, and it doesn't make me completely sick to think about working on it. I just need to get the faux finish on, then polyurethane, and then it's done. So I packed the girls up and we went to Lowes. I don't know if you've ever looked for oil-based glaze, but they don't have it there. You have to find a specialty paint shop for that. Of course, there weren't any all that close to where I was at Lowes, so I had to drive another 20 minutes to get to one. On this errand-running trip, I asked my big girl what she wanted for dinner (that's the hard part for me- ideas!), and she suggested tacos, so we had to stop and get the stuff for that on the way home from the paint store.

Between the paint store and the grocery store, my little girl fell asleep. Aparently she didn't really nap. She was drooly when I woke her up to get her out of the car. Poor baby.

At the grocery store, my big girl, who is mildly autistic (that's her special need, in case anyone was wondering), needed to go to the bathroom. Well, the poor child is sometimes afraid of public restrooms because they are much louder than residential flushers. (And don't even get me started on the auto-flushers!) Sometimes she does great with it in public, and other times are like yesterday. At the mere mention that she'd have to go at the store, she started melting down. I'm sure the lady coming out of the bathroom as we were going in thought I was being mean to her, but I was just telling her that if she had to go, it was here or in her pants. We were only about 5 minutes from home at this point, but I'm not going to leave the store, go home so she can potty, and then come back. We only had to pick up 3 or 4 things from the store. Anyway, the poor girl was screaming, "I can't go here!!" as she was going there. After she realized she had already gone, she was trying to calm down from that hysterical breathing, and she said, "I need drug!" She's into vocabulary, and in her mind she was saying she needed medicine to help her calm down. (We don't give our kids tylenol when they're upset, but I did give it to a friend's kid when he fell down the stairs and hit his head on the tile at the bottom. In that case, it was to calm him down, but mostly to help him with the headache that was surely coming his way.)

As if that wasn't enough of a crazy, nothing's- going-right kind of day already, when we got home, we had no electricity. The power was out for everyone on our side of the street, I learned from some neighbors outside. No tacos for dinner if I can't cook. (Even though we have a gas stove, I didn't want to light the burners with a flame, that just doesn't seem safe to do if it's not made for that.) So I called my husband on his cell and we met for dinner at Applebee's, where we still had some free kids' meal coupons leftover from VBS. If you're going to have your dinner plans change, going out is always a nice change.

When we came home from dinner, we still didn't have power, but we had a mission to accomplish. Our new sectional sofa was coming Friday, so we needed to move the old furniture upstairs that night. We've had our La-Z-Boy furniture since 2001, and the piping on the sofa has been fraying since about 2003. We like that stuff because all of it reclines, but it doesn't look like a recliner. What we had fit in our old house, which was MUCH smaller than this one, but it was pretty small in the family room of this house. So that stuff got demoted to the game room upstairs (pictured). The backs come off but then you still have to carry the bottom parts with the recliner mechanism inside. My hubby and I carried the chair up the stairs, with me huffing and puffing the whole time, and I knew after that there was no way I could handle the sofa. So we called a friend to help with the sofa. Keep in mind that we still had no power, so no AC. After all that, we were HOT, and didn't really have a good way to cool off.

During the furniture moving, I called my mom to tell her about our electricity issue, and to see if we could stay at her house if it didn't come back online pretty soon. We tracked down the repair man we had seen in the neighborhood and he still didn't know where the problem was, and it was getting to be bed time for the girls. So we bailed on our no-AC house, and went to stay with my mom (Dad was out of town on business).

And that was my crazy Thursday. Glad it's over.

This morning I had to be back home for the couch delivery (YAY! - see picture), and we have power again, THANK YOU, GOD!!

The current song in my head is "Chili Con Carne," a vocal ensemble arrangement. I have 2 versions of it on CD, one by One Voice (1998-1999) and antoher I can't remember who it's by. I haven't actually heard that song in AGES!

Clarity

Some answers have surfaced about last week's horrible tragedy. Nothing makes sense at all until you factor in one thing: ALCOHOL. He was drunk when he killed himself. This young man was not in his right mind. He'd been struggling with alcoholism, and trying to quit drinking. He blew it again, and thought it better to end his life than face the disappointment and anger of his wife.

I'm not a drinker, and never have been. Somehow my mom got it through to me when I was young that nothing good happens when people drink, and I made it through my entire high school and college experience without even wanting to be a part of that scene. I don't condemn anyone for drinking, and I don't think it's a sin unless God has convicted you that it is a sin FOR YOU, but that's none of my business. Drunkenness is clearly defined as sin, along with idolatry, fits of rage and jealousy in Galations 5:19-21. In that list is also dissension. For every "goody-two-shoes" (in the church especially) who has condemned someone for getting drunk, there is plenty of dissension to go around! Just count how many churches there are of any given denomination in your town. They can't all be mission churches, launched in harmony and unity of spirit...

Anyway, the point is that in order to drink too much, you have to drink. So I don't drink, then I never drink too much. This one area of my life is in good shape. There are so many others that are not. It's a good thing that drinking too much Coke Zero is not clearly defined in the bible as sin, or I'd be in trouble! Idolatry is listed, and if my Coke becomes an idol to me (more important than the things that should be important), then I have a problem.

Seriously, none of the people you look at and think are perfect are really anywhere close. No one can stay on a pedestal, there's not enough room to move, and everyone falls off eventually. This is not to condemn all human-kind in one stroke (although the bible does say that all have sinned, Romans 3:23), but however good you think someone is, there are things you just don't know about that person which might change your mind somewhat if you did.

If you ever think the world would be better off without you, that's not true. The world would be better off without your sin (and mine!), but not better off without YOU. If you were to go away, like this guy did, you'd leave behind many lives that would never be the same without you, and not for the better. Look at what this young widow is going through. And her father too, whose best friend just died seven months ago. And that's not even taking into account the young man's parents or brother. Their world is shaken too. So much pain, and so much grief, all because he thought things would be better if he weren't there.

But he wasn't thinking clearly.

School Supplies & Gearing Up For Kindergarten

I'm getting ready to send my oldest child off to Kindergarten (like nearly every other parent who had a baby in the Fall of 2002 or Spring/Summer of 2003), and I had to get school supplies for the first time. Like a responsible parent, I did my supplies shopping early, ahead of the rush, and didn't wait until the last minute. This was somewhat unusual for me, and I'm probably a little too proud of myself.

What kind of a racket are these Kindergarten teachers running? Most of the things on the list made complete sense, and I have no objections. Parents should buy crayons, markers, colored pencils, folders, pencil boxes, glue, scissors and stuff like that that. But there were a couple things on the list that I don't think the kids will be using. Vis-a-vis markers for overhead projectors are not something I'd expect a Kindergarten kid to use. And yet, one marker per kid is on the list. Do the Kindergarten teachers need 20 of those things each? The worst thing of it is that I couldn't find a package with less than 5 of those markers in it at the store. So my solution is to sell as many as I can (up to 4, so far I've solicited 2) to my friends with Kindergarteners at my kid's school to offset my cost, and to keep the extras from going to waste. Hopefully they haven't all done their shopping yet.

The reality of sending the first one to school is hitting me over and over again. Our big girl has special needs, and has been to school before, for 2 years already, but this is REAL school. Everyone goes to school at this age, not just our special kid. Whether my husband wants to think so or not, it's different this time. It's for real. They start counting tardies and everything.

While I'm not looking forward to the emotional part of the start of school, I am looking forward to it for my big girl's sake. I know she'll do very well. She's so much more ready than I am. She'll be glad to have more structure back in her life. I just can't give her that at home. I'm not wired that way. I've tried to keep things predictable for her this summer, like trying to go swimming on certain days of the week, and shopping and stuff like that. And we've been pretty good about rest times (we used to call it nap time, but that doesn't go over as well lately), keeping that at approximately the same time each day. But whatever I can do, it's nothing like school. Sure, she eats at the same times nearly every day, but that's because she's watching the clock and coming to me telling me it's time for breakfast/lunch/dinner. At school, she'll have the teacher watching the clock more closely than she will be, keeping the well-oiled-machine running on time.

For every part of me that is sad for my baby to go to Kindergarten, I am also rejoicing that she is ready for it, progressing through her childhood appropriately. If she weren't starting Kindergarten, something would be wrong.

I'm also getting ready to have my little girl be the only one at home. I think we'll have fun. I hope she'll decide she's ready to use the potty. (Please, God!)

I hope that my earlier wake-up call will result in getting more done. Hmmm... We shall see.

We still have 15 days until school starts. I want to make the most of them!

It's been a while since I've taken the time to think about the songs in my head. They've been there, but some I've been embarrassed to share. I'll bite the bullet on this one, even though it's awful. "From a Distance," by Bette Middler was in my head for the better part of the day yesterday. Pretty bad, huh. I know. I haven't even heard that song in weeks, and when I did, it was only because it was on an episode of Pop-Up Video. Thanks, VH1. That was horrific.

The song currently in my head is the last song I heard in the car, "Rain All Day," by Fleming & John, off The Way We Are. They also recorded this song on their first album, Delusions of Grandeur, but the newer one is a bit longer with an extended intro, a tad slower, and a touch more melancholy, which suits the song better. They also added some auxiliary percussion, like rain sticks and such. They are my all-time favorite band. Amazingly talented people! If I could have someone else's voice, I'd want hers. Go have a listen and see for yourself!

Joy and Sorrow

Early in 2006, my friend, Kim, moved away when her husband got a great job out of town. She was one of my closest friends, and it was so very sad to see them go. This week, Kim and her son came to see us. We had a great time chatting the day away on Wednesday, and then on Thursday, I invited as many friends from our old Sunday school class as I could get hold of, and we had 8 moms and 16 kids in our house. It was so great. Most of the kids were babies when we used to get together, and five of those kids weren't even born yet. Even though we haven't moved out of town, we moved our church membership shortly after Kim and her family moved away, so I hadn't seen many of these friends in a long time either. Getting caught up with old friends is always so much fun.

Then Thursday afternoon, after the dust had settled, and everyone had left, I got an e-mail from my sister-in-law, my husband's sister. Her best friend since childhood was widowed yesterday. They found her husband shot in his car outside the shooting range where he worked his second job. They don't know if it was an accident, suicide or murder. I'm sure they'll do everything they can to find out what happened. He was less than 30, I'm not sure exactly how old. His widow is only 28. They were married 4 years and have no children. My husband's family and this family that has lost their son-in-law have been intimately connected since the early 80's. The dads were best friends, the moms still are best friends and the daughters are best friends. They don't have a son anywhere near my husband's age, or else they'd probably be best friends too.

This young couple sat with us in the hospital last January when my father-in-law was dying. No one would have guessed that this young man would be the next one (of us sitting there) to go to heaven.

For my sister-in-law, her mom and best friend were widowed in the same year. Something about that doesn't seem right.

But who am I to say what's right?

12:16 PM Edit: Officials are saying the death was a suicide. I hope they're wrong.

My Glass Is Pretty Full

As you can imagine from my online absence, I spent the weekend with my husband. We had a nice time together attending a wedding on Saturday, and church on Sunday. It was a rare thing for us to sit together for the whole service, since one or both of us are usually on stage singing or playing in the band. I think we'd both rather be participating in the music, but we did enjoy sitting extra close and holding hands. Oh, it's so good to have him home!

So we're beginning a "regular" week, with Daddy working in town, and coming home at the end of the day. There's a chance we'll have some out-of-town guests, but so far, I haven't heard for sure if they're coming.

Tomorrow it is supposed to be rainy and cooler (thanks to another tropical storm), so I'm planning to get back to work on the table. I have given it another coat of primer since the last time I mentioned it. The progress has been slow because I haven't worked on it when it's 100+ degrees outside. I'm not crazy. And by giving it several days (OK, two weeks) between coats, I know it's dry, and it's going to stick, as opposed to how things went last time. (Let's never speak of that again.)

So my outlook for the week is quite positive. I hope yours is too.

The song in my head yesterday morning was another Weird Al song, "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi." Today, it's "Get Together" by The Youngbloods, but only because I heard it on a commercial a little while ago. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Giddy!!!

I'm so ready for my husband to come home!!! I'm absolutely giddy!!! He should be home around 9:30 tonight!!! That's only 5 and a half more hours!!!

(Please excuse my excessive use of exclamation points!!!)

I Know My God Is Real

Just look at this picture. If after looking at this picture for a minute or two you don't think God is real, then we need to have a talk.

Only God could make that tiny hand. Only God could sustain this little life that isn't quite ready for the real world outside the womb. Only God could unlock the mysteries of what it takes, and what needs to be done by doctors and nurses, but even so, the doctors and nurses can only do so much. They need God to actually keep her heart beating and lungs developing and breathing.

This tiny little girl was born on July 8. She wasn't supposed to come until October. Please join me in praying for her continued development and survival. And praise God with me for the miracle of this little life.