Back To It

Just looked at my own blog for the first time in years.  Decided blogging is so much better than FaceBook, so I'm gonna blog instead of post.

Eric and I are endeavoring upon a new ministry together.   We are looking to launch Student CBS in the North Tampa/Wesley Chapel/Lutz area.  (Check out studentcbs.org to learn more about what we're up to.)  Our first community information event is scheduled for about eight hours from now, so I really ought to get some sleep, considering Ethan has a soccer game in about six hours from now.  Oh, the busy lives we lead!

If my calculations are correct, I should be able to do an actual update in about two weeks.  I'm booked up til then.  Seriously.

Completion of Tasks

My life is becoming about completion these days. We have so many tasks around the house that haven't quite been completed. It's been driving me nuts for many years, but today I decided to have Eric help me do something about it.

We finished two strips of siding from above the garage door that have been missing for about 5 years. The reason we didn't get it done in the first place is because it's about 14 feet in the air and we didn't have a tall enough ladder. So we got it done today with two tall enough ladders.

We went snake-hunting under our house and found 3 snake skins...all larger than the snake we found in the house on Tuesday evening. Yes--that's right....snake in the HOUSE. It was watching TV with us for who-knows-how-long. Then Eric was standing in the living room and looked up toward the front window and said, "Oh, look! A lizard!" I turned to look and thought to myself, "That's not a lizard's head." Then Eric looked a little closer and said, "Wait a minute. That doesn't look like a lizard." As it turns out, it wasn't. It was a little corn snake or some such thing.

He managed to catch it before I lost my mind completely and released it across the street. (The snake--not my mind.) I asked him to look under the house for a pit of venomous vipers (a la Indiana Jones) before he left for work the next morning. That didn't get done and didn't get done, so I sent him under the house today, whereupon he hung two halogen lights from the floor joists, so now we can actually just turn on the lights and do a spot check for venomous vipers or any other critters in the future. He's so handy. (Wish he'd hung them about 8 years ago when I was 7 months pregnant slogging through ankle-deep water that was under the house for some reason which I cannot now remember.)

I also hung the 50 lb. heavy bag that I got last Christmas for Ethan to vent his frustrations. He told me yesterday that since school was starting soon we needed to actually hang it up so he could use it. Sad but true. (Fact of the matter is that I got it for me as much as for him. We hung it a a great height for punching for him and kicking for me.) So we got that done. Not looking forward to feeling like using it, but I'll be glad it's there when that time comes.

I hung up a couple of our fishing rods. I need to get some more clips to hold the rest of them. (And I need to get a pink fishing pole for Rachael. She NEEDS a princess fishing rod, don't you know. Have you ever seen a princess fish? I don't think it happens in real life.

What else did we get done? Eric went through an entire tube of caulk to seal up between the siding the trim on the garage. That will be helpful when the next hurricane comes. Ethan coiled a rope. Twice, actually. His sister got ahold of it in between. I hung a pulley contraption that hangs a bicycle from the ceiling. Love it.

This has nothing to do with finishing anything (except dinner), but we had dinner in the dining room on our fine china tonight for absolutely no reason. That was nice, except Ethan was missing. He's spending tonight at our neighbor's house. (Last-minute thing.) We had talapia with white wine and tomatoes, rice, canteloupe, watermelon, and sweet tea. (The kids drank their tea from our china tea cups. It was really sweet.)

The things that went unfinished today:

* Cutting up the pine tree that fell from our neighbor's yard into our yard. I think I have to leave this to Eric because I haven't run a chain saw before. (One of the few pieces of power equipment I haven't tackled....I don't know....maybe I'll try to learn.)

* Painting the front porch rails that I hired one of our neighbors to build. We already primed them, though, so it's hard to get motivated to paint them white. There will be no visible difference.

* Putting more blocks in our retaining wall. It's only one layer high right now and that layer keeps getting covered over with dirt, so you can't tell they're there. We're adding more blocks as we have time/money/inclination. So far it's only about 25 blocks long. It needs to be about 32 blocks long, so we'll need about 240 more blocks. I think we have 15 to add to it right now. It's going to be a long process. (I started this project about 4 years ago, I think.)

One other thing that got done...getting a picture of my daughter in a dress that was made for my grandmother. (Sorry...I don't have the patience to figure out how to flip this picture so it's up and down. Just don't have it in my right now. Bigger fish to fry.)

It has a flag motif because my Grandma was born on the 4th of July. I think she received it for her 2nd birthday. My daughter is now 3-1/2 (and a tall 3-1/2 at that), so it fits more like a shirt, but we have a picture of my Grandmother in the dress and now a picture of my daughter in the same dress. I only let her wear it for about 2 minutes, because I was so nervous that she'd rip it or something. I think that with the 2 pix and the dress itself, it will make a nice shadowbox keepsake for my girly.

And the final accomplishment of late...we made travel arrangements to Illinois to lay my grandmother to rest. She passed away this past Valentine's day at the age of 86. I love her so much and will forever treasure the woman she was in my life. I am so grateful that God made her my Grandma. I miss her laugh and her humble way. She taught me so much just by living rightly.

Sorry to end on such a somber note, but that's life. I'm done writing because I'm going to go spend time with my family.

Priceless....

It's just been a priceless day from beginning to end.

First, I got the boys ready for school in time to catch the bus so that I could be on time for Bible Study, but I decided to skip the bus and take them to school, thus making myself late for Bible Study. What's important enough to run late for? Giving each of my children a turn on the newly-hung tire swing. We just finished hanging it on Sunday. It is strung off a limb that's about 30-35 feet up in the air, so it has some SERIOUS SWING to it. (I don't want to tell you what I had to pay for that much rope.) It's a lot of fun, though. Totally worth it already and it's only been up for two days. I'll have to post pix later. (Camera's in the van right now.)

Second, I called Eric for an impromptu lunch date and he accepted so I told him I'd pick him up from the office in 10 minutes. I pull up into the circle drive, but he didn't notice me until I got out of the vehicle and called his name. "Why?" you ask? Because I wasn't in my usual vehicle. I was driving a jet black 3.0L Jaguar. I asked him if he wanted to drive. He said, "Where did this come from?" "Your mid-life crisis," I responded. So he drove us to lunch in Brandon at our favorite BBQ joint. I had to get and extra 1/2 lb. of BBQ beef to go as a "Thank You" for my mother and her new husband for letting me borrow their new car. But it was fun watching Eric enjoying a car that goes really, really fast. (I didn't tell him where it really came from until the ride back to the office.)

Thirdly (as recently posted on Facebook), Rachael decided to try out random phonemes tonight. She started with the first sound that's in 'flower' and the last part of the word 'duck' and gave a rather emphatic and breathy rendition of a word that no three-year-old should ever say. Eric whirled around on his heal, about to admonish her when he realized that she didn't know that word and thought better of bringing it to her attention. It was so hilarious I had to sit down to laugh. Mostly because I already had to pee and also because my glutes are really sore from laying a LOT of flooring at my mom's new rental property yesterday.

What a great day! I LOVE TUESDAYS!

God Bless You today!

Pix

Just a quick update with some pix, as requested.

The problem is that I know what's going on in my life, so I don't assume anyone else cares to know. I figure you guys should be wrapped up in your own lives! I sure am in mine!

Working on putting new trucks on Ethan's skateboard.


This is Eric with a tiger above his head. It's a new exhibit at Busch Gardens called Jungala. You can poke your head up INTO the lion habitat. Crazy cool.


My beautiful girlie-girl!


The boys both won a medal at their Pinewood Derby for Cub Scouts. Whoo-hoo!

Back into the Swing

Well, it's the Monday before Bible Study starts again. Nose to the grindstone, pedal to the metal! It's going to be a wild ride! We have Cub Scout round-up on Tuesday evening, church on Wednesday evening, Open House at school on Thursday evening. I'm sorry....when are we supposed to do homework and EAT?! (The boys don't get off the bus until 4:30.) Life as a parent is not what we thought it was when we were children, that's for sure!

So I thought I'd put up a few pictues of my precious kids because they're so doggone cute.



They're looking at a lizard's tail that got dismembered as Ethan and I were trying to catch it to take it outside. He was just a little bitty baby lizard.



Rachael is playing dentist with Ethan.



Ethan made dinner for us on Labor Day weekend because Eric and I were in the garage all day long trying to install a pedestrian door. Finally at around 8:30, Ethan decided he was hungry enough to do something about it and made dinner for the whole family. What a guy!



There's no two ways about it. Seth is just silly.

Brace Face

Got a request over the weekend to put up a photo of Ethan with his braces. Here's one with his brother on the airplane headed for Maine. It was two days after he got them on. He was still in a bit of pain, but he dealt with it with only minimal whining, which I was grateful for.

Summer's Here!

Well, what an exciting summer we have planned! As with last summer, it hadn't even started before it was all booked up. We have a few breathing days (one of which is today), but not much. It should be pretty happy, though.

We started off with Eric's 38th birthday on June 1. It was lovely. We went to a Tampa Yankees game (professional, but not Major League). It was a fun time. We invited his parents along and it was just a beautiful (albeit hot) afternoon. One of his Youth, Joey, was baptized that day, too. Nice present for a relatively fresh Youth Guy.



Let's see...after that, the boys had their last day of school (Kindergarten and Third Grade) on June 4. Yay! Ethan is all As and Bs and Seth is doing fine, except his report card says he needs improvement in writing, which he does. Actually, he does just fine with writing when he can sit still and stay focused long enough to put something down on paper, but he rarely does that. And when I say 'rarely', I mean about twice a year. Suffice it to say that we're ALL glad school is finished for a while.

On Friday and Saturday, Eric ran sound and I coordinated a wedding for the daughter of a lady who goes to our chuch. It was a lovely affair and went off rather smoothly (for a wedding). They're a good couple and I hope they stay married forever! This wedding is the reason that our camping trip in my May 9 post didn't come to fruition. I had forgotten about the wedding that had been planned months earlier. Sort of felt compelled to keep my prior commitment.

On Sunday after church, we went bowling with the Cub Scout Pack at PinChasers in Zephyrhills. Rachael smoked us all. She didn't like the bowling so much, so I rolled the 6-lb. ball with her in my other arm for most of her frames. Oddly enough, I managed to beat myself empty-handed. Haven't quite figured how that works.


So this weeks starts my three weeks of standing in for our Children's Pastor on Wednesday evenings. But the cool thing is that on Thursday, June 19th, our family is leaving for a long weekend at Melbourne Beach. It's on the Atlantic coast not too far from the Space Center. I'm so excited. We got a great hotwire price on the Hilton there.

Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait! This is our official Family Vacation for the year because even though the kids and I are going to Maine in July, Erc won't be going with us because he has Youth Camp with the kids from the church. We're all really looking forward to it! Except Rachael. She doesn't know about it yet. But I'm excited enough for the both of us!

After we get back from the beach, we have less than a week before Camp Extreme, Part One starts. This is a lot of work, but it's fun. I'm helpin to cook for several dozen children and about a dozen volunteers and then running the craft cabana for all of the children. There just aren't words to describe how a woman feels after several straight days where a full hour each day is given to "Miss Julie, Miss Julie, Miss Julie, Miss Julie, Miss Julie, MISS JULIE". It's absolutely endearing and makes me so happy each and every year that I'm not the full-time mother of SIXTY!

Then there'll be Fourth of July. This is where I'm really going to miss my BFF who abandoned me last week. We always met up at the Lutz parade and usually spent the rest of the day together until fireworks were over in Temple Terrace at about 10:00. So our plan this year is to continue the Lutz parade tradition without them and go over to my Grandma's to celebrate her 86th birthday and maybe go up to Dade City to watch their fireworks.

Then we have four days to get ready and pack up for Maine. I have to figure out how to travel alone with a busy 2-year-old, a challenging 6-year-old, and a compliant 9-year-old. (Poor Ethan.) We have to leave the house at 5:00 in the morning. This is not funny to me. I anticipate lots of complaining and lots of audible whining. And I can't imagine how much worse the kids will be than I!

But the good news is that my Mom got me a kayak on a yard sale up there, so part of our plans will include water. I'm really excited to have fun, but I'm really anticipating that I'll miss Eric a lot!

So then we get back on the 22nd of July. Five days to mentally (and otherwise) prepare for Camp Extreme, Part Two. More cooking. More crafting. More fun. Then we have about two-and-a-half weeks until school and Bible Study start back up and summer will be a beautiful memory of time well-spent.

Since you've stuck wih me this far, I'll reward you with some bonus pictures of my cruise back in April.