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| I'm saying that early because I'm guessing I won't have time to do a whole lot of blogging. My in-laws from New Orleans are arriving this afternoon and staying through Saturday, so we hope to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather and showing them a good time. Drew and I thought of a little bit of fun we could have with them when we see them in the airport. Let me just qualify this by saying that they will be two timezones worth of discombobulated, coming off of two long flights, and will have been up since very early this morning. They will also presumably be very hungry, since airlines don't serve food anymore. So Drew and I are going to greet them with the plans of hiking up Mount Spokane this afternoon, with me mentioning that I have a cooler full of peanut butter and jelly and four juiceboxes for us to eat when we get to the top. We have Aaron in on the joke and he's going to tell them that he will want one of them to carry him. If we could get Olivia in on it, we would, but we're pretty confident that she'll parrot Aaron beautifully, as she always does. Oh, and did I mention that they're not at all into hiking-type things? We are pretty darn proud of ourselves for that one!
Yesterday Drew and I did a deep cleaning of the house. We are still amazed at how easy an open floor plan is to clean. It made it even more enjoyable that we did it together and were able to talk and laugh as we cleaned. We have also decided that Maggie needs a love glove -- one of those grooming gloves that all of the hair sticks to, so it doesn't shed all over. SHe won't tolerate brushing, and her shedding is really heinous. To reward ourselves, I made a nice dinner last night. Steaks with cajun seasoning on them, fresh spinach sauteed in olive oil, and a potato recipe I created on the spur of the moment. It turned out really well, so I'll post it.
red potatoes, thinly sliced
melted butter
salt, pepper, herb of choice (I used my herbs de Provence blend)
Parmesan Cheese
Into a greased au gratin dish, place 1 potato's worth of slices, spread out to fit dish. Brush melted butter over the top of the layer, season with salt, pepper, and herbs, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers for as many potatoes as you have (I had four).
Aaron and Olivia are excited to be seeing their grandparents. Aaron would like to take them to Applebee's, his all-time favorite restaurant, for lunch. Olivia votes for pizza. I am vying for Red Robin. Drew will say that he wants food, wherever he can get it. We'll let the travellers make the ultimate choice. Speaking of them, it's almost time to go get them.
In closing, thanks for all of you who prayed for my friend, Jessie. She is pretty much making it hour to hour, but I can tell that she has a peace about the situation, so thank you for asking for that in your prayers. | | |
| Well, not quite, but close enough for me today. It was a 90 degree day, beautifully sunny with a few cottony clouds -- perfect! I have an open invitation to meet a mom's bible study group from another local LCMS church in town, since I'm the only mom of young children at our small church. So I looked at my schedule, saw that today they were meeting at a park close to home today (the same one we went to the other day, by the way) and decided to take the kiddos and go. When we got there, I couldn't find them. But I'm really not surprised, because it was mobbed there. A local continuous curriculum (aka year-round) school had decided to have a field day in the park that day, so it had a bajillion kids, along with their siblings and in most cases two parents and even some grandparents. (sidenote: it was heartening to see so many dads having supersoaker fights with their kids in the parks, because I believe that's one of the primary things dads were created for) So even though it was crazy-crowded, the kids had swimsuits on under their clothes and had been 'sunscreamed' at home before we left, so I let them play for a couple of hours. I had brought lunch, so we had a picnic with that and I sat right up against the water play area so I could see them through all the kidlet bodies. Which means that I got plenty wet myself. Oh well, it was so nice out it felt good.
This afternoon our primary excitement was watching men put the curbing in on what will be our lawn, once it's hydroseeded. It was a fascinating process. They mix the concrete up in wheelbarrows, dump it into a thing that has wheels like a tank (Aaron was especially impressed with that one), and run it to the curbing machine. Aaron and Olivia both agreed that when the machine took the concrete in and compressed it and ran a line of continuous curbing out underneath and behind it, that it looked as though the machine was pooping a curb. I about wet my pants laughing at that one, because they were right. It did look like that. The men working the job all got a good laugh when they turned off the machine and heard Olivia say 'It pooping a curb!'
I then got a sad call from my dear friend, Jessie. I won't go into details, but my heart really hurts for her. Life has been so unjust to her thus far, and it has just been harsher for her than ever before. I wish so badly that I could go over and hang out with her and just sit and listen and be. But here I am, a three day drive away, and all my frequent flier mileage recently used to go to Grandpa Chuck's funeral. If you read this, Jess, my heart and prayers are with you all.
If you feel so moved, please say a few prayers for my friend and her family. | | |
| I was at my dad's church this past Sunday, and he had the prayer below printed in the Order of Worship. I've been saying it before doing my Bible reading and devotions, and it's amazing to me the focus and new eyes it has given me. I wanted to share it here. It was originally printed in a plural format, but I individualized it for my own personal use:
Dear Heavenly Father,
I am about to hear Your Word. Help me to believe that I really am what Your Word says I am. Help me to believe that I really have what Your Word says I have. Help me to believe that I really can do what Your Word says I can do. O, Holy Spirit, make my mind alert and my heart receptive. Because I am about to encounter the indestructable, incorruptable living seed of Your Word. It has the power to change my life. It has the power to melt my heart. And, as Your Word has its way with me, it has the power to fashion me into Your new creation. In Jesus' name, Amen. | | |
| So much bloggable life, so few moments in which to blog them...
Let's begin with the embarassing one. Well, it won't get embarrassing till later in the story, but the good stuff is there, so keep reading.
I made a friend through MOPS. Her name is Melissa. She is a lot like me, and I enjoy hanging out with her. She is a relatively new friend, so we're still pretty outrageously polite with each other, so that gives you an idea of where we are. Melissa invited me last night to a Home Interiors party at her mother's house. Her mother's home was beautiful and immaculate -- she was one of the last people I would have thought needed a Home Interiors party, but anyway...She had incredible food that she had obviously worked very hard on. Things like onion tarts and macroons that were half dipped in chocolate. She also had red punch with beautifully thin slices of citrus floating in it. I got busy with the food, and got myself a cup of the punch. I'm balancing everything, my purse on my shoulder, and go into the living room. The immaculate living room. As I reach the couch, my purse inexplicably slides down my shoulder and lands squarely in the crook of my elbow. It so happens to be the elbow attached to the forearm attached to the hand holding my punch cup, which flies slightly up into the air and sets aloft a glorious shower of bright red punch onto the gray carpet. I could hardly breathe. I immediately set everything down, and started mopping up punch with my napkin. Melissa starts assuring me that her spot bot will get the punch up, I shouldn't worry about it, please sit down and relax. I apologized profusely to Melissa's mother who didn't respond. She just looked at the punch stains. I mopped up the punch the best I could with my napkin and requested some carpet cleaner. Melissa told me to please stop worrying about it and to sit down. Melissa's mom said nothing. I did all I could with the napkin, then got up and weakly sat down on the couch. Right onto my plate of food. I realized it immediately, and hadn't made contact with more than the edge of my plate before I sprang back, but Melissa still had to check my tushie to make sure no food got on it before I sat on the couch again. 
It's my dirty little secret that I'm somewhat of a disaster. If something awkward or embarrassing or ugly is going to happen to someone in any given situation, nine times out of ten it's me. Like falling down the basement stairs at my cousin's house in front of a large audience. Like falling down on the dirt in front of my house in front of five landscapers. Like laughing until I snort beverages. The point is that it always seems to happen to me. So now it happened in front of my new friend. Oh well, now she knows the real Jayne, right?
The kids had friends over today, very active friends, and I'm very very tired. I also taught Aaron to play Mancala today (well, sort of) which left me mentally exhausted. So I think I'm going to defrag my brain and watch a few back episodes of Big Love. | | |
| http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=ac82116dfdd0fef91bf8d&skin_id=0&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url
check out the montage I was playing with making. nothing is high resoluation and it's pretty short because it's a test run, but i am pretty happy with it, considering the minimal effort i put into it. | | |
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