Day 216

Another beautiful Indian Summer day. I had Jaide & Jared here this morn-ing with me. We went out to break-fast at Frisch's. They had the breakfast buffet and I ordered off the menu. I have tried taking them to Golden Corral on other occasions, but I'm sorry, that place just grosses me out. I can't eat there - or better yet, it's the perfect place for me to go if I want to lose weight. We did a little bit of shopping after breakfast and went home. Before they returned to their home, we watched two more episodes of "Rocky and Bullwinkle". 
I am still working on becoming Rebekah for tomorrow. I've gone over the script - and I figure most of my talk will be ad-libed, but I will still need a few reminders from notes. However, I will make it work. I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out. 

Tonight at 5:00 I got a visit from the oil delivery man. My heating oil had finally arrived. You can see the truck parked on the road and the hose run across the lawn to the pipe. So glad to see him come to visit me. We got 768 gallons of oil today. That was surprising to me, the company thought we only had a 550 gallon tank - so maybe it's a 1,000 gallon tank instead. And we've been putting away money into an account all year long to pay for this so it's not going to be too stressful for us. 

 Peggy took the kids to the Apple Butter Festival in Enon this afternoon and when I went out on the porch tonight, I saw their purchases. Good sized pumpkins (or pumkens) and nice that they labeled them too!  Very cute. 

Day 215

How beautiful the weather has been this week. 

Sunshine all day long, a slight chill in the mornings and evenings, but otherwise so pleasantly warm during the day. The leaves are slowly changing and falling. So pretty - can't wait for a total landscape of reds and oranges. 
Even Wade has said it is slightly cooler where he is now too. Days are in the 100's (low 100's) and evenings in the 70's. May sound hot to us, but over there, that is fairly nice weather. 

Wade and I skyped this morning since it was Friday. Personnel changes are occurring very quickly. Funny how some things seem to take forever and other things happen in the blink of an eye. He is doing good and is preparing himself for changes that may happen. 
After we finished talking, I began to get serious about my Sunday School lesson. I needed to cut some 2x4's - so I put on my big girl pants and went to the garage. I managed to cut the lumber with the table saw, and then sand all the edges with the belt sander (I don't want any children to get a nasty splinter from the wood). Then like a good girl I used the shop vac and cleaned it all up. But, don't tell Wade I did this....I want him to do all my shop/wood working for me when he comes back and I will act clueless..........

Now I needed to work on my 'costume' as well. I am going to be Rebekah telling the story of Jacob & Esau. And I put together my clothes. All the items I am wearing in this picture actually came from Iraq and Wade. I didn't have to spend a penny - well, I DID have to go buy some face make-up. I bought a darker foundation so that I will look a little less scandinavian and a little more mediterranean. 
Tonight Jaide and Jared spent the night. We had dinner with Jason & Peggy - chicken nuggets, macaroni & cheese, and then these delicious chocolate chip cookies thanks to Tiffany's wonderful secret recipe. We watched "The Lion King", "The Return of Nanny McPhee", and then a "Rocky & Bullwinkle" episode. I turned the light out in the bedroom at about 10:15 and I haven't heard a peep out of them. We will get up and go out for breakfast tomorrow. 

Day 214

This morning was "Clean-Up-The-House" time. I swept & straightened up the kitchen. Dusted & vacuumed the bedroom and washed the dogs' bedding. Cleaned the guest bathroom. Dusted and vacuumed the living room. And then I pondered about the furniture in the living room all afternoon - I feel a remodel coming in my near future, I think. 
It's fall season, the yards have some crunchy leaves spread out and it's noisy when I walk out there. The weather is very, very pleasant. And today I had a visit from Luis - (pronounced Loo-eese - with an hispanic accent). Luis cleaned and serviced the furnace in preparation of the eventual winter that we all know is coming. Luis was very good and I was very pleased..... until..... he started trying to sell me on upgrading and increasing the insulation that is in the attic. I'm all for good insulation, just not sold to me by Luis. He was even happy to climb up into the attic for me to check out what we have up there now. Uh............. no. Sorry, Luis, if we need insulation - I'll go to Lowe's, buy it myself, and install it myself. But thanks for checking out my furnace. 
Happy news from Wade - he was FINALLY able to use his debit card. And all it took was 4 or 5 calls by him to the credit union, and then they had to trick the system into thinking that he is actually in Kuwait - which he's not. Oh well, he got to buy what he wanted and he's happy about that.
Angel has found a new distraction in the backyard. She was digging a hole out there and got down far enough that she found some sort of tunnel - mole or gopher or something - but now she has dug a hole that is almost two feet deep. When she sticks her head in there - half her body disappears!! Too funny and she gets so excited about this silly  hole that all she does is pant like crazy when she comes back inside. I hope no actual animal comes out of there because I don't want to find some dead or injured critter in the yard. I'm probably going to get some large rocks or bricks or something and fill it in this next week. I don't mind the dogs digging in their own yard, but I don't want her completely disappearing underground. 
I had my spiritual leadership development class tonight. The numbers in there are dwindling, but we only have 3 more classes until we're done. And I will be missing one of those classes myself. 

Day 213

 You know, this is the craziest bird I have ever seen! Again, the red bird is back. We've got beautiful weather and he's back at the window wanting to come in. Crashing into the window every few minutes. But now the bird is also irritating Opie, the cat. He wants to play with that crazy bird. He can't resist jumping up and waiting to pounce on the window. 
Wade's internet has been down so he's written a little on his work computer but we're hoping for the other one to be fixed. Still he hasn't been able to get a resolution on his debit card either. 
This afternoon I went to the store to get supplies for Wednesday night classes and then some food items for my Sunday School class. After going through 3 stores, I FINALLY found cans of lentil soup so that I can serve that on Sunday. I'm telling the story of Jacob & Esau and I am to be their mom, Rebekah. Esau sold his birthright to Jacob, for a bowl of stew - much like the lentil soup the children will get to taste that day. I've also got some flat bread, and dates. Just a taste of what kind of foods they ate. I need to work on my script and my costume before then. But, I'll think about all that tomorrow. 
Wednesday night went good. I got to play "Trust and Obey" on the piano for the kids while they sang. That's one of the songs they will be singing in the spring. I had the craft tonight and they did good. We had 16 kids so that wasn't too bad. 

Day 212

Tuesday - Wade has been having difficulties with trying to purchase something over there with his debit card. I went yesterday to the credit union and explained the situation. Ok - problem solved......... I thought...........
He tried to make another purchase on his Tuesday (during my 'last night') and nope - declined again. So I called up the credit union this morning and went through the whole explanation again. He has been making some purchases on line and they show up as different locations: California, New York, etc. And then he also paid for a big meal in Georgia when he was on RnR. And now this purchase is showing up as Kuwait and the system is freaking out. Okay, again problem solved this morning. The customer rep said for him to make a smaller purchase to test the system. And again......... ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Declined!! Now, last I heard, he actually sent an email to the credit union and I haven't heard if he's gotten any help or response. We'll see. 
One of the problems is that when the first transaction didn't go through, he paid with cash and now he is short on cash until the Finance People make an appearance at the base. 
So besides the drama of the disobedient debit card, I went to Hannah House and took care of the finances there. I was only there one week in September and I needed to take care of payroll, bills, and reports for all of September. Then Selena came in and we sat and talked for at least two hours catching me up on the new residents in the house. I never saw anyone while I was there working this morning. There are two women living there now and Selena was going to be interviewing someone else this afternoon. 
I went to Hustead Elementary and helped with Sonshine Club  after school and then went to have my nails done - finally. I haven't had that done since before Wade was here and I really needed that. 
Tonight I need to do reading and get caught up before I meet with the others for our Spiritual Leadership Development Group on Thursday night. 

Day 211

Well......actually day 210 and 211. I got home so late last night that I had no desire to write about my day. Sorry. 
But yesterday Tiffany & I went to a new church to visit. It was a great service, a big huge church and campus, and so friendly.We got to park right up front in the first time visitor spot and met someone right inside the door. This greeter showed us around, gave us information, and answered any questions that Tiffany had. Worship and music was good and the message was good as well. 
We went out to lunch after that and said our goodbyes and I headed off for home. I stopped in Emerson for gas and coffee. As soon as I got on the freeway again I saw a light on the dashboard. Oh great............something is wrong and I went to the next exit, pulled off and into a gas station. I got my service manual and looked up the picture. The book said it was the "Check Engine" logo. According to the manual, it sometimes happens after pumping gas, it's got something to do with the emissions, but it could be nothing and might work itself out. At least it wasn't something that I needed to see to right away and that little light kept me company on the way home. 

Here is the dashboard as I'm driving on I75........it's about 9:00 - 9:30 at night and just before I cross the river and enter Ohio. Do you notice my speed?? Those wise guys that plan road contruction have decided that construction might be better at night - so............ I'm speeding along at 10 miles an hour on I75. And there is my little companion - the check engine light. 

This is the view I had while going my neck-breaking speed of 10 mph. That was a long drive and I was glad to finally be home. 
I had lots of running around and errands to take care of today, but I did take the time and skyped with Wade for about an hour. Another good time. He is still trying to work out his jet lag and get on Iraqi time again. It will probably take a week or so for him to get back into the routine again. 
I had bell rehearsal tonight and it was good to be back with the gang again. We had two new ding-a-lings that are joining us too. Yay!!! We need all the people we can get. I also heard that the new worship pastor's wife, Wendy, will be happy to join us too on Sunday mornings if we need her. She has rung bells before at her previous church.  

Day 209

Today was a pretty exciting day. We left the house to go on our big adven-ture. Four months ago I bought tickets for "Wicked" at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. I bought up close, expensive tickets - because, why not enjoy the best things of life?? Here is a picture of us before we left. And we can't figure out why we're not looking right at the camera - we were actually looking at our images on the phone and not the lens. Silly us!! 

Yesterday we went and bought tops to wear with black slacks. We are going to the matinee and I don't think formal dress is required. When we got there, we saw all sorts of different clothing - and a lady across the aisle was wearing khaki capris - we also saw some pretty impressive dresses too - so we were well within the parameters of proper clothing. 

We took about an hour to drive to downtown Atlanta. And I had also purchased a parking ticket when I bought the tickets on line. That worked out very well and we didn't have to worry about finding parking. There was a lot across the street that was charging twenty dollars, but I had gotten our ticket for 12 dollars which was a better deal. 
The Fox Theater holds approximately 4600 people and it was a sold-out crowd. The lobby was full. We were in our seats (Orchestra section - 4th row back - center aisle) about twenty minutes before, so while we were waiting I pulled out my iPhone to take some pictures. Here's what I got:

This was the curtain across the stage. It is a map of Oz and surrounding area.

This was a large mechanical dragon over the stage. During certain portions of the performance the eyes would light up, the head would rotate, and smoke would come from the mouth. So cool.........

This is looking behind us and up to the balcony. This is the theater and not a part of the stage. The walls on the sides looked like a castle and the ceiling was a midnight blue with stars across it. The stars don't show up in the picture though. 
After these, I turned around and the usher was wagging his finger at us..... it seems we're not supposed to take pictures. I didn't think that pictures of the theater were forbidden and I was not planning to take pictures of the performance. But Tiffany called him the "Picture Nazi" and he wagged that finger at lots of people that came in and had the same idea. 
The play itself was so fantastic. We sat for 90 minutes without moving for the first act. It was so mesmerizing. There was a 15 minute intermission and all 4600+ people all converged in the lobby. We tried to get to the bathroom, but it was totally impossible and we just went back to our seats. 
The second half was just as good as the first and there were some great surprises too!! No spoiling it for anyone that is reading this, sorry.......
After the play we went to Pappadeaux's for dinner. It was a great restaurant on Windy Hill Road. 

Wonderful food, wonderful service, AND.......we didn't have to wait for seats on a Saturday night in Atlanta!!! How unusual that is!!!

Here's what we had to begin with:

Fillet mignon Oscar with crab meat and sauce on top,

Garlic Mashed Potatoes,

Asparagus and Green Beans,

Seafood Platter with Crab Cake, Fried Shrimp, Stuffed Shrimp, and Stuffed Crab, 

Loaded Baked Potato

And here's how it looked when we finished. Good stuff!! And the service was great too. Tiffany had ordered a diet coke and two separate times she brought a brand new glass of diet coke and took away the half full glass on the table. Wow!!

So over all it was an absolutely fantastic day. Oh wait.....

on the way home we stopped at Walmart and picked up some things so we could make dessert - chocolate chip cookies. So we're sitting in the living room in our stretchy, comfy jammies and watching a movie and loving life right now. 

What a good day I had with my baby girl.