It was a good day.

I've felt like I've been aging all year. Not old--I know I'm not old yet and I honestly don't think I'll ever feel "old". But I've just felt myself aging--gray hair (I found one on my arm two days ago), wrinkles, aches I've never had before. You get the idea. Today I realized it was all in my head. I was at a function without my kids this morning and met a couple for the first time. He asked me "So do you have any children yet?" Yes!!!! I must look at least somewhat newly married! And it was even more gratifying watching their eyes pop when I proudly announced that yes, indeed, I do have children--4 actually. It was a good day.

My multi-talented man

You probably knew (or assumed) that my man could translate Greek and Hebrew, engage someone in a deep philosophical discussion, teach a very interesting Sunday school class and preach a convicting Spirit-filled sermon but did you also know that he could:

• shoot a mighty buck at 125 yards with a shotgun
• make the best homemade popcorn ever
• make balloon animals
• clean out a closet like a mad man
• put trim on a wall with the best of them
• get rid of all the weeds in my yard
• describe in detail every well-known battle from the Civil War (this is especially entertaining when you are at the battlefield)
• drive a stick shift in a foreign country where you drive on the right hand side of the car and shift with your left hand
• butcher the said deer above better than any other butcher I've met
• can say "jalapeno peppers" just like Billy Crystal from When Harry Met Sally
• remembers pretty much everything he's ever read
• and....can run a cotton candy machine (I just learned that today. We needed someone for the carnival tomorrow and who knew my hubby had run one before?!)

I've just touched the surface. What a truly multi-talented guy!!!

BTW, he's also an awesome hubby, truly the best ever--he's whisking me away this weekend!

Question of the morning

If a bar of soap gets flushed down a toilet, how long does it take it to dissolve so the toilet will flush properly?

It's a good thing it's Thursday....

and there is only one more day of VBS. Evidence of this:

• I forgot to eat lunch. Joe reminded me but I was so tired I took a nap first and then forgot.
• I cut my finger with a knife and probably should have gotten stitches. It bleeds every time I take the bandaid off. Does that mean it needs stitches? Joe would probably tell me it just means that I need to leave the bandaid on (BTW, he's not home this evening or I would have consulted him. He is the ER expert in our house.) All I was trying to do was open a bag of frozen chicken.
• I left my wallet in the van when I went to the grocery store. I had my purse but forgot the wallet. Still not sure how that happened...
• I forgot to feed the kids supper. In all fairness they had a snack around 4pm--frozen pizza which used to fill them up enough to be called supper. But since there are four of them and the pizza was small I think technically it was a snack.
• My feet hurt. That probably would have been preventable but I really enjoy wearing my flip flops rather than my tennis shoes.

And now my finger is bleeding again because I'm typing with it. I'm glad tomorrow's Friday!

mid-week update

I thought I'd give you a mid-week VBS update. Today we had 68 kids. We also had at least 4 kids accept Jesus as their Savior! Yeah!

The game of golf...the ultimate distraction

Sara had to get a filling yesterday. She was so scared--I mean really, really scared. By the time we got back to the room with the chair she was in complete tears and pretty much beyond reason--silent tears and a shaking body. The hygentist showed her the "pink pig nose" that would be used for the laughing gas and then left. By her glance at me, I took it as a hint that I definitely needed to step in and calm my child down. We prayed, prayed and prayed some more. We talked about where the fear was from--the unknown. For ten minutes I tried pretty much everything. Then, and it had to be from God, I realized I just needed to move on and talk about something else--ANYTHING else to get her mind off of it. There was a big mural of a golf course on the wall and so we talked about what else--golf. She learned everything I know about golf (which isn't much) but now she actually wants to go golfing. So if you ever happen to be around her and wonder where she learned such a vast knowledge of the sport of golf--it was at the dentist--where else?

She did great by the way. The whole procedure from the time she put the mask on to when the dentist was done took maybe five minutes. Oh, and laughing gas makes Sara, well, laugh!

VBS

VBS started yesterday and I know many of you may be wondering how it is going. We had 41 kids (pretty good for a church our size, I think). They learned "The Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God." 1 John 4:14-15 We didn't lose anyone and no one got hurt. All in all a successful day!

What were we thinking?

I was teaching children's church a few weeks back and it was a lesson on the passage where Jesus asks the disciples "Who do you say I am?". To introduce it, I asked the kids if any of them knew what their names meant. A few did and the question promptly begged my kids to ask me what their names meant. Honestly, Joe & I didn't really look at the meanings of the names we picked for our kids. We mostly picked them because we liked them. So finally this morning, we looked it up on the web. Sara means "princess", John means "God is gracious", Nathan means "God has given". And then we came to Ashley. I desperately searched for an alternate meaning but to no avail. I had to break the news to Ashley. "Your name means 'ash wood'. You were named after a tree."

What else I've been up to...

I realized I forgot to include two more items on my "What in the world have I been up to" list.

First, cleaning up my yard. We have a gorgeous yard with lots of mature trees that provide lots of shade. With the mature trees comes the price of limbs in the yard when a storm comes through. We've had a couple of vicious storms that have come through the last couple of weeks. A week and a half ago the six of us spent all morning raking and picking up sticks. We filled the back of Joe's truck and got to have s'mores later so that we could burn all the additional brush. After our storm last night, it looks like the kids and I will be spending some more time in the front yard. They are raking it in--they usually get around a penny a stick. (Last week we went to a set amount due to the amount of sticks--they were going to end up with more money then we had at a penny a stick...)

Second, Pizza with a Pastor!!! I'm not sure how I could forget this. Joe & I decided we wanted to have our whole church over for pizza--that's around 170 people. So we split the church up alphabetically and every Tuesday in July we had Pizza with the Pastor. The last one and largest group was last night--we had around 40 people and the storm hit right when everyone was arriving. It added some excitement to the night and for a few moments we thought we were going to be having Pizza with the Pastor by candlelight. But I've digressed, over the last four weeks we've consumed 42 pizzas, 20-some bags of Caesar salad, and too much lemonade and cookies to count. We had around 120 total and it was great. It will definitely become an annual tradition. Joe liked it so much that he would like to start fish with the Friar, ravioli with the Reverend, cookies with the clergy.....

What in the world have I been up to?

VBS stuff

Catching up with old friends

Catepillar Power Parade--the kids had a blast!

Froze 16 quart of sweet corn this afternoon. Sara was a power shucker!

I got a new shower curtain. This is a really big deal because it isn't white! You have to understand that between seminary and ministry jobs, decorations in my house get consistently pushed to the bottom of the budget--especially bathroom decorations. When we moved in here I got cool red towels for our bathroom (since we hadn't bought towels in 12 years) and picked out a shower curtain that I really liked to go with them. So then I proceeded to wait for the curtain to go on sale. And wait, and wait, and wait, and wait and wait....you get the idea. So today while we were shopping and I was checking to see if it was on sale--Joe grabbed and said that he was getting it for me. Yeah! I took a picture but I don't think it did it justice so you will just have to come to my house and see it.

I chopped my hair off.

I've started wearing eyeliner. (It's not on in the picture). I figured now that I'm 35, I'm probably mature enough to wear eyeliner.

Did I mention I was getting ready for VBS? It's next week.

We got a bike trailer for our bike so the first thing on the agenda with the kids in the morning is a bike ride.