Day 223

Some days all I can do is just sigh. Today was a 'sigh-ful' day. Nothing exciting happened and I can't report on anything worth reporting. 
In the mail this afternoon this is one of the things I received:

Most of the rest of the mail went right into the circular file, you know credit card offers, sales fliers, bulk mailings that are not very remarkable. But I thought, "Good, something to read and look through this afternoon."...............

Then I opened it and....... "sigh"............ see what's wrong? What's missing? The whole magazine....... I went through all the rest of my mail hoping that it just fell out and got mixed up with all the rest. Nope...... "sigh"...... I can just imagine it bumping around in some mail carrier's bundle or crate  somewhere between here and Iowa......... "sigh".
Sometimes life is like that - just because  -  events that aren't earth-shattering, but just cause us to ...... "sigh". And I seem to think that in ways that's how we're sometimes tested, examined, watched, listened to....... to see how deep our sighs are, how long our sighs are, how emotional........ and what do we do after we sigh. Remember that people are a witness to our sighs, friends, co-workers, family, children. What they see is an indicator to them of what we're really, really like. People are watching our reactions. But also, God is watching. Constantly the invisible witness to everything and He is taking notes too. 
So today's sigh told me, "Big deal, it happens, move on, and think on the good things."
   
"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."  Philippians 4:8

PS: This is my project that I worked on this afternoon and it will be given away tomorrow morning. 

Day 222

I started my new Bible study this morning (Victoriously Frazzled) and I have a verse that I need to memorize this week. It's Psalm 91:1 and says: "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty." But I changed it to fit ME - and I'm memorizing it to go like this: 

"SHE who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty." Much more relevant to me and to us in the Thursday morning Women's Bible Study. 
The weather is a-changin'. We've had rain, clouds, sun, wind, and cold today. A mixture of just about everything, but it is cold enough that I can't leave the back door open while it's just the screen there. I will have to turn the door back into a storm door to keep the cold air out. And all the raking I did??? - well that was changed today all on its own. 
Not a lot happened today. I skyped with Wade this morning. He's going a little stir-crazy. Not enough work to keep him occupied and busy. But he's searching for things to fill in the blanks for now. I'm hoping that something comes up that will satisfy his need. 
This evening I had Jared as my dinner companion. I picked him up at LatchKey at the school and we went to buy some groceries for dinner. We came back and he helped me make pigs in blankets with hot dogs and crescent rolls. We ate those with honey mustard & onion pretzel bits, fruit snacks, snapple, and then little chocolate donuts (the breakfast of champions according to John Belushi). We watched the movie "Zookeeper" with Kevin James. Jaide wasn't able to join us tonight because she was home sick today with a fever. Hoping she will feel better soon. 
So now I'm watching recorded shows and enjoying a diet coke. I'm looking forward to a quiet Saturday. 

Day 221

I woke up this morning - looked at my wall calendar and saw that the box marked October 13th was empty. No plans, no appointments, nowhere to go.......... I fixed a cup of coffee and settled in to look at emails and facebook. And there was a post from Pastor Patty talking about introducing the new women's Bible study beginning this morning......... uh-oh....... I discovered the study actually goes over chapter 1 next week,  but there was to be an introduction this morning and we would get the books so that we could do the first week of homework. Fortunately, I was able to take a shower and get there in time. I was even early enough to pick up a cup of coffee from Speedway before we started. We will be studying from a book titled "Victoriously Frazzled" by Cindi Wood - a six-week study. It looks good. 

 I decided to go out and rake the dogs' yard this afternoon. Here they are and they're excited that I'm coming out to join them. You can see Angel barking at me to hurry up. 

This is what I have to work with today. Just a small area, but with all the leaves everywhere I can't see the other things that I need to 'pick up'. (Meaning everything looks like a leaf with all the leaves everywhere.)

Half-way done and time for a quick coffee break (hmmmm - drank a lot of coffee today). Sheba is laying under the tree in the corner. They are always so happy when someone comes into their area. It had been raining a little bit before I was out there, but I managed to stay dry. 

There, all raked and there are two piles that I'll deal with later.

This is a close-up of the tree in the corner.  Don't know what they are, but we have bushes like this all over the property that are as big as trees. 
So, for starting out as a day of nothing-ness, it turned out to be fairly busy. I edited and prepared Wade's blog and it will be posted this evening before I go to bed. 
Wade is still trying to keep busy and motivated where he is. His day started out 'not-that-well', but he wrote that he was feeling better by the end of the day. I look forward to skyping with him tomorrow. 

Day 220

Wednesday - most of my Wednesdays consist of "what do I need to do to make my part of Wednesday night successful?". Today I needed to buy the following:
4 cans of shaving cream
6 plastic tablecloths
6 aluminum cake pans
liquid tempera paints
paper plates and plastic cups
30 copies of the Bible verse printed on card stock
and then along with that I made 3 batches of jello jigglers. 
We practiced a Turkish art form where the paints were swirled on top of the shaving cream spread out in the cake pans. Then the kids placed their papers face down on the paint and shaving cream. Then remove it and place it face up for about 15 minutes. Then they wiped off the shaving cream...... and viola!!! A twirly-swirly art piece. So cool. And surprisingly all the jello jigglers were eaten too. Yay!! I sure didn't want to take them home. 

The weather today was gray and cloudy and threaten-ing to drizzle all day long. The UPS man came and mentioned that he couldn't see the driveway (it's covered in leaves) and I told him I didn't care if he drove on the lawn anyway. But then after he left, I went out and raked all the leaves off the driveway. So take that! Mr. UPS-man!!! Now he probably won't come for weeks!! Oh well. 

Day 219

It is now totally impossible to sneak anywhere in the yards or on the driveway. The leaves are plentiful and crunchy. I love the sound and the colorful blanket right outside my front door. I wish it would just last longer. 
This morning I skyped with Wade. He is good - a little bored as most of the work is ramping down where he is. His future is up in the air at this point, but hopefully soon he'll get some direction as to where his next step will be. 

This afternoon I helped teach at Sonshine Club. Fifteen minutes before the end a little girl came up to me and I could tell any minute she was going to break out in tears. Poor thing, she wanted to go home. So I asked if she was hurt? .... nope, did someone say something mean to her?...... nope..... so I walked her over to show her the clock and explained how much time we had left. By now the momentum of the tears had increased so I offered to just sit with her. We talked for the rest of the time. She is just in kindergarten, feels as if her teacher marks all her papers 'wrong', doesn't have many friends, and was just feeling very sorry for herself. I was able to talk her into a better mood and I promised to pray for her every day this week. Next week I'll make sure to find her and ask how her week went. What a little sweetheart. 

After Sonshine Club I went to Regal Theaters at the Fairfield Mall and watched Courageous. There were only 4 other people in the theater for that showing. The writing, story line, and acting were very good. I enjoyed it and it is definitely a must see for dads to motivate them to be the good examples that they need to be. Selena (Hannah House) showed me statistics that in 2010, 60% of all births in Springfield had no fathers named. Can you believe that?? Over half the babies born will live in a single parent household. How sad. 
I arrived home at about 8:00 and made some Jello Jigglers for my Wednesday night class. I will have one more batch to cook up tomorrow. I guess they turned out okay - I've never made them before. 

Day 218

Another beautiful fall day. The weath-er creeps up to al-most 80 degrees in the after-noon, but once the sun goes down, the temperature will drop and it feels wonderful. Nice and chilly!
Leaves are constantly falling now. If there is the slightest breeze, it appears to be 'raining' leaves. 
This was a packed Monday for me. This morning I went to Snyder Park Elementary School to meet with my little mentee. This is beginning the third year of us being together. I made arrangements for other activities to be changed so I could see her on Monday mornings, but once I got to school and spoke with her teacher, I was told that this was not a good time. So I'm not sure what my final schedule will be. But, I had a great time with her today. I haven't seen her in about 2 months. Nice to get caught up. But what is fun too, is walking through the hallways, and having other children that I teach at church see me and come to say hi to me too.

After I left the school I went to Hannah House and worked there during the afternoon. Selena was inter-viewing a potential resident. If things work out, she will move in on Wednesday. She was a very sweet young lady and I see her potential and what she could possibly achieve while she's there. I paid all the 3rd quarter payroll taxes and the workmans' comp insurance. I feel good that I remember to pay these taxes and on time too!! That's the important thing. 
Tonight I had bell rehearsal and a church board meeting so I finally arrived home at 9:00. That's just about 12 hours today of running around. 
Wade entertained himself with his NFL Football package that he has. He can watch as much football as he likes and he is so happy about that. We didn't skype today since I was involved with other things. We look forward to talking tomorrow morning. 

Day 217

Sunday is almost over. I was anxious this morning as I tried to get my thoughts together and become Rebekah for my Sunday School class. I think I did pretty good and was very pleased. My costume worked real well although it was slightly warm. On the good side, I didn't have to spend a lot of time fixing my hair because it was wrapped up in a scarf. Not real bad, I've had worse 'helmet hair' after riding the motorcycle. I could do a quick easy costume change so that I was able to attend the worship service afterwards. Good thing there is about 25 minutes between Sunday School and worship.
The skit went good, I am a typical introvert that can really open up and emote when I'm portraying someone else. I love that part of teaching. I love being loud, strange, unusual, and funny just to get and keep the children's attention. 
I served lentil stew with flat bread, almonds, and dates (not all together - everything was served separately). Surprisingly, the kids LOVED the lentil stew/soup I served. It was Progresso Soup. They discovered on their own how good the bread was when it was dipped in the stew. The dates were ignored, but that's okay. All had seconds of the stew. 
And I was called a new name today. One I had never heard before. One of the boys knows me from the class on Wednesday night, but this morning he kept calling me Ms. Gillette. That was funny and a new one to me. 
We had the story of Jacob & Esau, ate the food, and then made friendship bracelets with embroidery thread. All fun things and I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. I have three more Sundays to repeat the same lesson over and over. 
This afternoon I watched the final half of Jared's football game and then the first half of Jaide cheering for her football team. 
We all met for dinner upstairs tonight. I made roasted chicken, baked potatoes, asparagus, cheese toast, and pumpkin roll for dessert. 
Tomorrow is another busy day for me, but for now, I am enjoying some quiet, restful time.