let it go

It's no secret that I'm a control freak. Put me in charge and it needs to go the way I say, in the time I say...blah, blah.

But the good news about me is that if somebody else is in charge of something and I'm just taking part in the fun, I'm all good in letting myself go with the flow.

The director of music at our local church giggles when I say "Whatever you want, boss!"

And I mean it. Who wants to upset her anyway?

Alas, my flexibility is not really what we're talking about here. It'd be a really short post anyway and not really worth anyones time, believe me.

Things are about to change around here; don't worry, it's all good. Or at least it will be.

I got a new part-time job; and after being home full time for the last year and a half, I'm gonna be out of the house making money twenty to twenty-five hours a week.

I'm pretty excited because who am I kidding, I really haven't wanted to be home so much in recent months...but finding work near our home proved to be more challenging than I was ready for, actually.

I got lucky in that the manager of my new job felt nostalgic when he saw on my application that both he and I used to work for the same company. Not at the same time, mind you, but whatever.

See? All good.

Here in lies my problem. My very gracious husband has made it clear that he'll see to it that whatever he and the boys need to do to pick up some of the slack while I get used to my new work schedule, they'll do.

But I have to let them. AHEM.

See my problem? If you know me at all, you do.

So who cares if Jon turns the towels wrong side out as he folds them? At least they're folded. Right now, I care. And last week, I couldn't stop myself from making a comment about how he had done it backwards.

Don't worry, I hated myself for it. And you know what else? In my repentance, I put them away just like they were. And then left them that way. That's pretty big, for me.

It's not just towels, either, as I'm sure you figured. Will the dishes get clean enough if I'm not the one to load the dishwasher....I left veggies for supper every night and no one has eaten a single veggie all week....there is cat hair everywhere, can you not see that?.....

The thing is, I've realized that I can't pick apart my help and still expect to get help. Call it maturity or desperation or whatever...I'm gonna have to channel my mother and just be gracious and grateful for the help. That ultimately means that I'm just gonna have to go with the flow around here too.

God help me.

the rain came down...

We've had so much rain since the boys and I made it home from Michigan that the mosquitoes have quadrupled, in size and number.


Normally, this is the time of year where people around here are complaining about how brown their lawns are and wouldn't it be nice if it just rained so purposeful watering wasn't necessary.

Not this year.

With most of this rain comes the event of some sort of severe weather. Last Tuesday, it was tornado warnings about an hour into band camp at the middle school. Last night it was reported that there was quarter-sized hail falling; we drove into the storm from sunny skies and back out of the storm into sunny skies.


All we saw was quarter-sized raindrops, in case you wondered.

But it rained like crazy again over night. And I know this because I had another one of those nights where I was dead-tired by nine-thirty, so I went to sleep; only to find myself wide awake around quarter after two.


Thank goodness we have DirecTV. Otherwise I'd have to read a book or something.


Fast forward to around ten till seven this morning, Jon kisses me goodbye and walks out the front door. I don't hear him open his car door right away, so I wait...and see that he gets a 6 pack of Coke bottles out of the back of the van.

But then all I hear is "HOLY COW!"

He comes back inside and says "Guess we don't need Eric after all...you gotta see this."

When we talked about taking this tree down on our own, it needed to miss the clothesline post...

and it better miss the wishing well that my Grandpa built for me, or heads were gonna ROLL.

Guess it worked out okay. And we have more firewood to boot. Jon'll just have to uncover the firepit there somewhere. Lucky him.

Wordless Wednesday- you say "toe-may-toe", I say "yum!"

if you build it....

It's no secret that Caleb's medicine is helping him immensely. And wouldn't ya know that after three weeks of sharing legos with cousins, he'd have a new appreciation for the stash of blocks that we have here at home. (Small by some standards, I'm sure; but while no one has sat and counted legos recently, we estimate our stash to be around 4,000 pieces.)

Ask Matthew. I guess he had too much time on his hands at some point.

Over the last several days, I've had everything from an army of lego robots to a fleet of cars spread over my coffee table. Regrettably, I didn't think to get pictures of either of those. But Saturday, Caleb decided that he needed paper for a "blueprint". I got kinda excited when he brought me this:

It's widely reported that not to be outdone, his brother built this:

It was later used to smash the rocket to bits.

Many tears followed.

sometimes you gotta laugh

or you're gonna cry.


Trust me when I tell you that I've done plenty of both in recent days.


The van was in the garage all week. Last night, I finally got clearance to drive it, as the problem seems to be not "drive threatening". That's good. I think.


We've had plenty of rain over the last several days. We spent a portion of Wednesday afternoon in the basement due to a tornado warning in our corner of the county. While we had the radio on for updates we were treated to a waterfall show. Seems that there is a fairly significant crack in the foundation on the west side of the house. Wonderful.


There also seems to be a leak in the roof over the bathroom. If you remember this post, you'll know that I was very happy with the new ceiling.



Now the ceiling looks like this:

I realize it could be worse, but COME ON!

And our 13 year old decided that since he was upset with me yesterday, he'd disappear. When I sent him a text telling him it was dinner time, I assumed he was just a block or so way up at the park. Imagine my surprise when his reply was that he was in the town thirteen miles away.

When I asked him what in the world he was thinking, he said "I was mad at you." Nice.

He's without any tv or computer games and chained to our property for a week. And his phone has been confiscated for an undetermined amount of time.

And the kicker was that he acted like it was no big deal that he took off without a word.

I don't wanna be a grown-up anymore.

promises

I waited patiently for the Lord;
He turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and the mire,
He set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand. Ps 40:1-2

The Lord is my light and my salvation-
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life-
of whom shall I be afraid? Ps 27:1

As for God, His way is perfect… 2Sam 22:31a

All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful
for those who keep the demands of His covenant. Ps 25:10

I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Ps. 4:8

For the pagans run after all these things,
and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness
and all these things will be given to you as well.
Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will worry about itself. Mt 6:32-34a

give thanks!

Money is tight, our options limited but God is still on the throne. In everything that seems to have been going not quite right in the last few weeks, we still have our home and family. We're safe, there's food in the refrigerator and (most) of the bills are paid.

On the whole we are healthy, happy and continually blessed. We refuse to let Satan do his damndest to break up what we have going; our faith in what God has done and is doing and will do for us is bigger than that!

"MY grace is sufficient for you; for MY power is made perfect in (your) weakness." 2 Cor. 12:9

That's good news!

days to weeks

When we loaded up the van for vacation to Michigan on June 12th, we had no idea that getting home would involve one bus ticket, the boys and I would get two extra weeks with family and we'd have just seventeen hours at home before we were away again for a long weekend.

I'll be back and tell you all about it. Just as soon as the house is cleaned, the fridge and cupboards stocked, the bills paid.......