This week I made it over the hump and now I feel like I’m beginning to slide back into routines and “normal.” The week started out pretty rough with Kaleb pushing a few of my buttons last Sunday and me screaming a bit more than is healthy, but as the week progressed, life got simpler and we started settling back into some of our old comfortable routines, which felt pretty good. I so need to be done with the stress, the screaming and the crying. Uff da.
I started taking Grammy J’s advice and used some time each day this week to clean and purge. We have enough closets and drawers in this house that if I purge a location every day it will keep me busy throughout the entire fall and winter, but that’s my goal. I could probably have one heck of a garage sale by the time I’m done, but I hate garage sales so I’m not sure where everything will end up, but I’m definitely motivated to get rid of some things. Kaleb even jumped on the band wagon and held his own private sale – selling me everything he wanted to part with – that way I’m free to do with it as I please after he’s relinquished control. He’s trying to raise money for the three week contest I’ve given the kids in my millionaire class – to see who can raise the most money during that time. I’m sure he’ll win as I can’t imagine any kid having more things to sell than Kaleb. I think he finds it easier to sell things than to work for wages, but either way, it serves me well.
Kaleb did incredible in school this week and even had a pleasant attitude while doing it, which I so appreciated. He reached the mid-term point of his science course and took a big exam, which he did well in. He was a little frustrated though with one of the first questions and didn’t write down an answer because he thought he knew the answer but felt it was too obvious and too easy, so it must be wrong. He said he’d rather leave it blank than get it wrong. I tried to tell him it’s always better to write something down than leave it blank, but he didn’t see it that way. Every once in a while he has some perfectionist tendencies, which scare me, but hopefully he’ll learn a lesson once he gets the test back and sees that he got it wrong by leaving it blank, when indeed he knew the answer but didn’t write it down. I’m just in awe of him and his ability to understand all this chemistry stuff as I couldn’t have answered a single question on that test even after watching the lectures. It just doesn’t compute in my brain for some reason, but it does in his. He also found out this week he got one of the main parts in an upcoming Christmas play at His Place church, so he’s pretty excited about that. Every year he’s been in their Christmas play, but with just a one line speaking role, so this is his big year. He always memorizes every person’s line in the whole play, in case someone is sick, hoping he’ll get to fill in their spot. He says he loves to memorize things, and I know he does, but I still can’t figure out why he can’t memorize when he’s supposed to get in bed, start school and practice his piano lessons. Time management is not his strong suit.
I spent Wednesday down in Seattle with Grammy J again – taking her swimming and doing her laundry and whatever else she needed as she’s still in recovery mode, and will be for many more weeks. It’s such a tragedy that she broke her leg, but on the other hand, it gives me an opportunity to spend more time with her. She’s like the wise Yoda that has an answer to every situation and problem in the world. I’m thankful God can work all things together for good as there are certainly some blessings to be found in this midst of her suffering. And I do believe I’ve been the recipient of an unexplained miracle this week –which I hate to even write about because it defies logic and I don’t fully understand it. But I’ve been praying earnestly for the return of my external hard drives since they went missing two weeks ago. I have faith to believe that if something is lost, God can make a new “whatever” and put it where I can find it. I know it’s happened before in my life, and this week, it happened again - my hard drives showed up! It was the strangest thing, as I had put them in the laptop case when Kaleb and I went to the water park a few weeks ago. They were at the hotel, but then when I got home I noticed they weren’t in the case anymore. I searched the Honda, called the hotel and went through our luggage time and time again. I looked in all our vehicles and everywhere I could think but they just weren’t anywhere to be found. It only made sense they were taken by someone, but today I found them on the backseat of the Lexus. And it would have made good sense to find them there if we had taken the Lexus to the water park (they could have fallen out of the laptop bag), but we didn’t take the Lexus – we took the Honda. I’ve even looked in the Lexus several times in my search for them, so I have no idea how they got there today. It’s as weird of a situation as can be but all I can say is HALLELUJAH! Oh, how thankful I am to have my files back!
Kory was shouting Hallelujah this week too as he attempted to be normal (well, as normal as he can be, anyway.) He washed and waxed the cars, blew leaves off our driveway, cleaned out the gutters and did a few home repairs. He also spent an entire day down at our apartment building in Seattle fixing things there. He’s not quite 100% but he’s close. He still has to lie down a few times a day just to take the pressure off his back, but he’s happy to have a to-do list going and projects to work on.
We had company for three nights this week – friends of friends that needed a place to stay while they visited family in the area. We so love being able to share our house with people and have friends over. Our neighbor, Joan, came over last night for the evening. We’ve had a long standing tradition that during fall and winter she comes over one night on the weekend for a soup dinner and we spend several hours playing cribbage. She lives alone, so it helps break up the long dark nights for all of us. And today our friend Tracy came up from Seattle for a visit so we took her out to a pumpkin farm to get our pumpkins and to see all the beautiful art and displays at Gordon Pumpkins. We’ve gone there every year since we moved to Skagit Valley and every year, Eddie, the owner does more and more artsy things with his place – it’s really incredible (see photo). When we were sitting at a picnic table eating pumpkin muffins, drinking cider today, I said something to Tracy and Kory that Eddie Gordon’s dad had just died recently. Kaleb piped up and said, “You mean his last name is Gordon? I thought it was called Gordon Pumpkins because they sell gourds here!” Where does he come up with this stuff?
Tonight we had our home fellowship meeting, which also contributed well to our sense of normalcy. We love our group and the time we get to spend with them. I guess I like routines as it makes life a bit more predictable and less frantic. But sometimes routines are problematic. Like the one I have now of writing a blog on Saturday night. I completely forgot to do it and went to bed at ten o’clock – then woke up at 12:30am realizing the error of my ways. It’s now 2am and I’m sitting in front of a computer, a slave to my routine. Lord help me.
No comments:
Post a Comment