Sockapalooza

Dancer and I took a couple of days and made a whole slew of slipper socks. 

 

 

We sewed them much like an assembly line.  First, we cut them all out and then sewed one seam on all of them before moving on to the next seam.  One of us would pin and one would sew and then we would switch.  We got a lot of chatting in too! 

 

 

We made 12 pairs for babies, which is great way to use up otherwise unusable pieces of fleece because of their tiny size.  By trying to use every scrap I had, many of them got fun little soles on them like the pair in the front.  I am not sure why I kept all those little pieces but I guess it was for just this project.  We also made 12 pair for kiddos with preschool sized feet.  What did we make all these for?  We sent them to Mexico to missionaries who can use them to open doors to share the good news of Jesus or for anyone in their own church family with cold toes.

Easter Weekend

Dad worked this weekend so I was sort of dreading the whole Easter thing.  While Dad working every other holiday is a fact of life that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Our church meets on Saturday nights, but they have been feeling lead that there are people in the community that would come on the traditional Sunday morning as well.  The Sunday services were going to start this weekend to coincide with Easter Sunday.  Every second Saturday Dad and I are greeters/ushers and Dancer works in the nursery every second and fourth weekend. 

Since Sunday is the official second weekend of the month the pastor's wife called to see if we would be able to do our jobs on both Saturday and Sunday.  Sure we can, we have no plans.  Actually I was sort of glad because it would give us something to do and make the weekend seem a little different.  When we got there Saturday night the pastor's family asked if we wanted to go out to lunch on Easter because they didn't have any formal plans either.  Of course we could, who doesn't want to go out to lunch?

By Sunday after church another couple and a woman, who was attending for the time, joined us.  It was so fun!  Only sorry that Dad couldn't join us.  Spark was even sad last night that the weekend was going to end.

I am still not keen on attending church on Sundays, but have volunteered to do our jobs twice a month for at least three months.  At first I was inclined to say a hearty no, I never have trouble saying no, but then remembered a story about a missionary family.  This family was on the mission field and one day found a huge snake coiled up in their grill.  I thought, okay God, if someone can serve you with a snake in their grill - which would have had me on the next plane home - we can help on Sundays.

I also must say that I like hearing the sermon twice.  It was good to hear it Saturday night, have time to think about it in the evening and then hear it again in the morning. 

All in all, we had a very happy Easter :)  Oh, and the Easter bunny came.  I was a little worried because I made rabbit and dumpling soup for supper on Saturday night.  After I made it I thought maybe it wasn't the best choice to eat one of his comrades right before he was to arrive.  Would that be equal to eating venison on Christmas Eve?

He Has Risen! Resurrection Rolls

These simple and delicious rolls tell the story of Jesus in the tomb and his resurrection.  Supplies needed are regular sized marshmallows, crescent rolls, butter, sugar and cinnamon. 

If you are making these as part of a lesson read John 19 while the oven is heating. 

The white marshmallow symbolizes Jesus because He is pure and white without sin.

Roll the marshmallow in butter that symbolizes the embalming oils.

Rolls the marshmallow in cinnamon and sugar to symbolize the spices used to prepare His body for burial.

Lay the marshmallow on a roll and wrap it up.  This symbolizes, at this stage, the wrapping of the burial shroud around His body.

Wrap these up well and pinch the edges so that the marshmallow doesn't leak out like ours did. 

Put them in the oven for about 11 - 13 minutes at 375 degrees or whatever the instructions are on the crescent roll package.    While the rolls are baking read John 20:1-18.

Wait a couple of minutes after they come out of the oven for the next part because the melted marshmallow is hot.  To roll away the rock at the front of the tomb break off a little chunk of the roll.  It is empty!

Jesus has risen!!!

While you are eating them read 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18. Jesus is coming again!

So Thankful We Ran Out Of Fuel Oil

The kids and I got home from town this afternoon and realized that the it was a little chilly in the house.  I ran down to see if the furnace had blown a circuit breaker but they were all fine.  I hit the reset button on the furnace and it would start for about 12 seconds onlt to shut off again.

I quick called the oil company to have Kenny stop by and deliver some fuel oil hoping that an empty fuel tank would be the cause of our woes.  Sure enough, it was empty and as soon as it was filled the furnace started back up.

So why are we thankful that we ran out of fuel oil?  Because this had the hand of God all over it.  First, Dad was able to pick up an extra shift this week and, while it won't pay the whole bill, it will take a good chunk out of it.  Dad hasn't worked an extra shift for the longest time and just last night he picked one up. When we got home the house had only cooled down to 60 degrees so the furnace couldn't have been out for too long.  If we had run out of fuel oil after 5:00, just a few hours after we did, the oil company would have been closed and it would have been a really cold night.  I called the oil company about 3:00 and Kenny was able to finish up the job he was doing and come right over because he didn't have any more stops and still had plenty of fuel oil left on his truck.  He left at 4:40 and at 5:40 the winter storm we have been waiting for started to roar it's ugly head.  A foot of snow is coming our way, there are already large drifts, and it would have been hard to get the truck out here and in the drive way, and at what time would he have been able to get here.   As he was leaving, Kenny said that he was on our corner this morning and felt like he should stop in and see if we needed any oil but he had someone waiting for a delivery so he didn't stop.  I told him next time if he feels like he should stop to stop.  He said he could feel that we were out so he wasn't surprised when he got the call.  Maybe that is why he still had enough for us left on the truck.  Lastly, we are so thankful our tank was an empty and it wasn't a broken furnace that we would have had to pay who knows how much to be fixed and an after hours service call. Yep, God is good! 

  

Old Fashioned Christmas Caroling

That is what our church did last night.  We bundled up and headed out to the neighborhood around the church.  We knocked on doors and sang them two songs, asked if they needed any prayer, prayed for them if they did and moved on to the next house.

A light dusting of snow fell yesterday which made the roads a little slippery, but otherwise the temps were perfect for a long night caroling, something that doesn't happen very often here in the north.  Our last stop was an assisted living home and no one was complaining when they invited us into their toasty community room to belt out a few songs for them.  I know my toes and fingers appreciated it.

The best place we stopped was at a home where the wife came to the door.  When she opened it she got all excited saying that no one had ever sung for her and for us to wait while she went to get her husband.  She sang along with us and it was truly a joy to sing for her.  At the end when our pastor asked if she would like us to pray for anything, she said yes, her brother had just died and she started to cry.  I think we all got a little choked up when we prayed.  I hope we were a blessing to her this Christmas season.

If someone no came to the door, yes some people did hide from us, although we did come as a surprise and there are times that I wouldn't be properly prepared (insert wearing my jammies) to open my door to a dozen strangers, we just sang extra loud and then prayed a quick blessing over their house.  

After singing we headed back to the church, enjoyed piping hot chocolate and a little fellowship.  As usual we were the last to leave, it seems we are always the last to leave because we talk so much.  It was fun night and we are already looking forward to next year.

It's Good To Be Back

We go to a church that we don't attend for AWANA.  Last year was our first year and it was sort of stressful to walk in and not know where to go or what to expect.  This year we got there and the teachers all knew Spark at the sign in table and greeted him by name.  Dancer went to her class and knew lots of the kids from her class last year, she moved up a class this year so anyone 10th grade and up was only a face to her last year.  Her class last year was huge and so this year they are about half the senior high group.  She is hesitant in new groups so it was nice she was already acquainted and familiar with people.  I always sit in the hallway/fellowship area and all the moms that it took a few months to get to know last year were back this year.  We just picked right up where we left off in the spring, it was really nice.  It is nice that most of the moms there don't homeschool so we talk about things other than homeschooling or the kids, well sometimes we talk about our kids but not related to homeschooling.  I do like to get together with other homeschoolers of course, but a change of pace is also refreshing.  We are all looking forward to next Wednesday already!

Don't Worry

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. - Matthew 6:34

Last week when I posted that we had nothing much on the calendar I didn't mean for problems to come our way because we hadn't anything better to do.  Last Wednesday morning I had sharp stomach pains, enough that after four hours I headed into the doctor.  The doctor wanted a CT scan and since it was late he sent me to the ER.  While there they thought I was having gall bladder problems.  One ultra sound later I was cleared from gall bladder woes.  Next was the CT scan to see if it was an appendix.  No problems with the appendix but, there is always a but, I have ovarian cysts and a kidney stone. 

Next day a follow up with my doctor, I didn't see my doctor the day before, which I hate, but when in pain you go to who has an opening.  The scan showed a 6 cm cyst so we decided I would have an ultra sound and see a ob/gyn.  I thought my ob/gyn days were over but now I am right back there sitting among the ladies with the protruding bellies although this time I am not one of them.  I had the ultra sound the next day and went home for the weekend to wait to see the doctor.

Over the weekend I surprisingly wasn't worried about this.  I kept saying the verse above and praying for God to give the doctor wisdom to know exactly what needed to be done in my case.  I thought it is what it is and no worrying is going to change that.  Not that didn't think about most of the time but it didn't consume me like things can sometimes.  Dancer on the other hand was so upset she had trouble eating.  We talked a lot about this this weekend and by this morning she said that she was feeling okay with whatever happened.

At my appointment today I found out that I actually have two cysts instead of one big one.  The doctor felt sure that they were only simple cysts and that I should have another ultra sound in a couple of months. Trusting his judgement that is what I will do -- and not worry. 

Salt Crystals Experiment

This was to learn how crystals will grow out of salt.  Fill a glass about 3/4 full of water and add salt stirring until no more salt can be dissolved in the water.  Tie a metal paper clip to a cotton string and suspend it in the middle of the glass by tying the string to a pencil and setting it cross ways over the glass.  Let it sit in a warm spot, that won't be disturbed for about a week. 

Here is what is suppose to happen.  As the salt dissolves in the water, the salt molecules should separate into sodium and chloride ions.  As the water evaporates over the seven days,  these two components should recombine in a cubical pattern and crystals should grow on the paper clip which can be ooh and awed over.

Here is what did happen.  Our paper clip hung there and the finish got eaten off by the salt like a car in a Minnesota winter.  I think that we didn't put enough salt into the water for this to work correctly.  We did have it in a sunny window and the water was evaporating.  After about 10 days we grew weary of waiting anymore and dumped the experiment to get our glass back.  We did, however, get salt crystals on the cotton string and pencil.  The water that was wicked up the string evaporated and formed this large salt chunk.

Although this didn't work well as a chemistry experiment we did see a correlation between what did happen and what can happen to us as Christians.  The glass of water represented the church.  If we just hang around the church there is no guarantee that we will retain our saltiness, or that we will ever become salty in the first place.  I think of that saying, "Standing a garage doesn't make you car anymore than going to church makes you a Christian."  When we start acting like the string and sucking up God's goodness by reading the bible, praying, fasting, loving our neighbors,  showing mercy, being humble, being peacemakers, living the fruits of the spirit, etc. we start building up our salt into a stronger and stronger chunk that becomes harder and harder to break.  With our "salt chunk" we will be able to fulfill the Great Commission and withstand persecution if we are ever called to do so.   When we poured the now less salty water down the drain, we thought of Matthew 5:13 where Jesus says, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men."  Maybe our experiment didn't really fail.

A Little Bit of Sadness In Our Life

Spark went out to start the chores this morning and found that Phillip, one of Millie's new babes, had died during the night.  Spark went right away and dug a hole in the middle of the yard, not sure why the middle, for him to be buried in.  We had a few tears and words and covered him up.

While we are sad that he died we were not surprised.  He was so much smaller than his brother so we were thinking that for some reason he wasn't getting all he needed while in the womb.  He also didn't walk well and when we would have them outside he would lay down often like he was just exhausted, eating seemed to make him tired as well.  He also breathed like a little steam train engine.  We wonder if he had some sort of a heart problem and when he was born, and had to eat and breath on his own, it was just to much for him.  Whatever happened, we loved him while he was here.  I try to stress to the kids that we praise God when He brings us babies and good things and God is good and we still praise Him when He takes from us.

It's a big night!!!

Spark finished his AWANA book, got his new one and at the AWANA store he had enough points to get a sock monkey.  He has been saving up points all year to get this sock monkey and tonight was the night.  He worked really hard the last two weeks to get his other book finished, every spare moment he was working on it and reciting the verses to anyone who would listen.  This afternoon he had his shirt on by 2:00 and was out waiting in the car before 6:00 to leave for church.  We are so excited for him!

Watch where you are going!

We were coming home from bowling yesterday afternoon on a township road and we see a car parked on the side of the road about a 10th of a mile away from us.  I thought they were probably checking their mail but they were on the wrong side to reach the mail box from the passenger side and it was MLK Day so no mail.  The car pulls forward and then backs into the drive way, a long one where you can't see the house from the road so probably about a quarter of a mile long.  Again odd, why would you back down that long of a drive way.  We were going along at about 45 mph, thankfully I wasn't going 55, and as soon as we get to the car it pulls forward into the road.  I put on the breaks and lay on the horn but we were probably no more than 20 feet from the car.  I said to Dad, "What should I do?"   As calm as calm can be he says "Put her in the ditch."  I swerve to the right and slam into the ditch.  Thankfully we had have tons of snow this winter and the ditches are full so we didn't roll.  The car though was just buried. This whole incident happened in less than a minute.   I took a deep breath and shoved open the car door as best I could and yelled over to the driver, "What were you doing?!!!!"  I was proud of myself I didn't swear and conducted myself in the respectable manner I wasn't feeling at the moment.  She rolls down her window and says "Sorry, I was looking at a deer and didn't look before I pulled out."  She finally says she will pay for a tow and do we have a phone or do we want her to call.   She can start calling as we can't find the phone book.  I trudge up to her car through knee deep snow and stand at her window.   She has AAA and they are closed because of the holiday.  I didn't even say anything, just looked at her.  She looks at me for a few seconds and says "I will try someone else and I can probably turn the bill in."   She finally gets someone and I go back through the knee deep snow to wait in our car because it is below zero degrees with the wind whipping.   Spark is so upset he is crying and crying.  I needed to get back out of the car so I could hug him and calm him down.  By now I am wet from my knees down.  The tow truck that was suppose to take 15 minutes took over 45.  I took down the woman's license plate number so she knew she couldn't leave, but she never got out of her car.  If I had caused the accident I would have been out of my car so fast and run over to see if everyone was okay apologizing in between every sentence.   

Dad looking to see just how far we are buried in the ditch.  He could barely get out on his side as he was on the passenger side where the snow was even deeper.

The field where she was gazing at the deer instead of looking where she was driving.

The tow truck that finally came.  He dug the snow out of our wheels but the brakes and the engine are firmly packed with snow.  We were less than three miles from home so thankfully the car drove and we didn't have far to go.  Tonight Dad will put it in the other garage and run heater with hopes that it will melt out.

Spark after he calmed down.   I told the woman, as she was calling for the tow truck, that I would have hit her on the passenger side door and she probably, at the speed we were going, would have been killed if not all of us.  At the least both cars would have been totaled and we would have had serious injuries.  She did say yes she realized that but there was nothing she could do about it now.  No, I am sorry or are you going to be alright, is there anything I can do while we wait.  Nothing.  I just hope she learned to look from now on when she pulls out on to a road. 

Tow truck got us out and I said "She'll pay you" and we drove off.  Dad had to work last night so we needed to get home so I could start supper before he left and now he didn't get a nap in.  He and I had sore shoulders on the side that our seat belts were and the kids were fine.  Today we both feel better. 

One good thing that did come from it is the kids will know first hand that when they start driving to be alert.  It also reminded us how quickly our lives could have changed and we thanked God that they didn't.

Giving Thanks Challenge - The Bible

Made by Spark

Giving Thanks Challenge - Our problems

Yep, that is right, I am thankful for our problems. 

Do I like our problems?  No. 

Would I rather we didn't have any?  Yes. 

But they are what the are.

Dancer sometimes complains about her food coloring allergy and how much she wishes she didn't have it and could eat anything she wanted.  Then we talk about how it is much better than a peanut allergy or a glutten allergy or Crohn's Disease or any other host of diseases.  Any kid in a wheel chair etc. would think pfft, food coloring, I could live with that in a heart beat.  To make her feel better we go over how those foods aren't good choices anyway and this is sort of a blessing in disguise.  But she is 13, so I let her have a bit of a pity party because it does stink.  Our culture likes to give out treats at every occasion, or for every little achievement, that it is a hard thing to be strong about day after day.  The grocery store gives suckers out just for being in the check out line with your mom, what kind of achievement is that?  I got off on a little tangent there so back to the post.

Of course, as a family, like every family, we have our share of problems.  We have been quite blessed and they aren't insurmountable.  We also have a good marriage so that when big things do happen we are able to weather the storm and get through to the other side wiser, braver, stronger and more humble.

I read somewhere once, that if everyone threw their problems in a pile and could pick new ones out, they would probably take their own back. 

Thank you God for our problems and that your mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.

Giving Thanks Challenge - Girl and Boy

This is our third year participating in the Giving Thanks Challenge over at South Breeze Farm.  If you want to check it out and join in you should be able to just click on her button and it will hook you right up.  Other years we have made a list on the sidebar but this year we are going to try to expand things we are thankful for into posts.

On to today's post about what we are thankful for.  I am very thankful that we have a girl and a boy.  We never found out what sex our children were going to be before they were born.  For some reason I just never wanted to know.

When I was pregnant with Dancer we wanted a girl and we were blessed with a girl.  She was great, everything we had ever hoped for.  When we were expecting Spark, we didn't have preference on a boy or a girl.  Another girl would have been great because we lived in a two bedroom house and that would mean moving would be an option not a necessity.  A boy would have been great too for several reasons. 

We are so happy now that we have one of each.  Whatever anyone says, boy and girls are not the same.  If we had had two girls there is a whole world out there we would have missed out on.   If we had had two boys there is a whole world out there we would have missed out on.  It is also hard to compare boys to girls so it eliminated the whole comparing one kid to another scenario.  We don't expect them to like the same things, or act the same way, or think the same way, or want the same things, or have the same needs, and the list can go on and on. 

Thank you God for a boy and a girl! 

Packed in like sardines

We got this....

and this.....

packed into these two shoebox totes so we can send them

here, The Lockwood Family.

Psalm 24 with pictures

The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.

for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?  Who may stand in this holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.

He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God his Savior.

Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob.

Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.

Who is this King of Glory?  The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.

Who is he, this King of glory?  The Lord Almighty - he is the King of glory.

A new bible

My bible is falling apart, right in the middle of 2 Corinthians the pages are coming out of the binding.  In it's defense it is over 13 years old and I do open it at least once every day.  Often it gets opened more than once a day because it is the bible we usually use for family reading and studying.  I am not surprised that it broke in the New Testament as that is where I enjoy reading the most. 

I had a hard time giving up using this bible, even though it is now hard to read in bed with the pages sagging below the cover.  For one thing, it was the bible I got new when Dancer was a baby.  I like to write thoughts in the margins, underline passages and stuff it with little clippings, book marks, etc. that inspire me or people have given to me.  I had hoped that it would make it through the 22 years I will be doing hands-on parenting so I could look back through it after the kids were grown and see what encouraged or spoke to me during this season in life.  I also loved that it was purple.  The cover was purple and the book names and chapters were in purple.  In fact, one of the reason I chose the bible was because it was purple.  It also had a few extra details I liked.  It had devotions for moms and list of things to pray for for your children.  I also loved that it was broken in just for me.  It opened right up to Proverbs, my favorite Psalms, and other spots I read most.

The last few weeks I have been bible shopping.  At first I would look at all the bibles and then decide mine would make it a little longer.  Then when I decided, no, I need a new one unless I want to resort to putting a rubber band around mine and having it be loose leafed.  What  I didn't expect was how hard it would be to pick a one out.  First off, I couldn't find a purple one.  The bible I have is still printed but it has a new cover and a new color scheme.   

From here my search got more complicated as I realized  how many bibles there are available.  There are bibles for every kind of devotion you might want intermingled in it's pages.  There are bibles that have a schedule in them to get them read in 90 days, or a year, or what ever time frame you want to read it in.  Famous t.v. religious personalities have put out bibles with their names on them.  There are Catholic bibles, student bibles, teen bibles, kids bibles, recovery bibles, and so on.  I even found a bible for sportsmen that was waterproof.  That was a heavy bible, I would never had been able to hold it up to read it in bed.  I guess if I were a sportsman I would be stronger?  Maybe sportsmen only read sitting up?

A new consideration I have this time looking for a bible, that I didn't have last time, is that I have over 40 year old eyes.  Any bible with little print goes right back on the shelf.  Thin pages you can see through, right back on the shelf.  A font that has thin letters, right back on the shelf.  I need big bold letters with pages you can't see through or else I need bifocal glasses, I am trying to put off getting the bifocal glasses.  I know there are large print bibles but I also want to put that off until bifocal glasses are no longer the answer.

I ended up choosing a plain brown bible with all black print in the same font and non see through pages as my beloved purple bible.  It even has the same footnotes.  I have noticed though, after using it for one night, that the passages are not in the same spots.  I didn't realize I even knew what sides of the pages verses were on or how many words were each of the lines, but I guess I do.

I am sure in time this one will start to feel familiar in my hands.  If not, I can always go get those bifocals.   

Aftermath

My mom and dad came for lunch and when we said good-bye to them at about 2:00 p.m. it was hot and sunny out.  At 2:30 it was dark as night and we were headed in the basement because the rain was coming down in buckets and the wind was blowing it sideways.  We never go in the basement as I like to be watching from the porch or out the slider windows when there is a storm.  I figure the house has been her for about 40 years what are the chances it is going to get blown over.  This afternoon though we changed our tune and headed downstairs.  I did sit by the window though and could hardly see anything outside because the rain was so heavy.  The picture above is after it started to lighten up.  There was about an inch of water on everything, the patio, the drive way, the rocks around the house, every place water shouldn't be able to stand.  We didn't know if we were in a tornado watch or not as the electricity went out before the rain even started.  The whole thing lasted about 30 minutes.  I wanted to see if my parents got home safety but without electricity I needed to use the cell phone.  We don't have good cell phone coverage at our house because we live in a low spot and the signal goes over our house.  To use the phone we get in the car and drive up to the closest hill and call.  When I finally did get a hold of them they said they had to sit on the side of the highway for the 30 minutes it took for the storm to blow through because they couldn't see.  They said that up and down the sides of the highway people were parked.  That is when you know that the weather is bad when everyone pulls over.  I can just imagine how confusing that had to be for my mom.

On the way out of the driveway we saw that we now had water front property. 

We also saw that our beautiful big oak tree at the corner had been blown over and took the power line with it.    It is hard to see on here but that is our power line dangling from the pole.  Normally we don't call the power company when the electricity goes out assuming that someone else will have already alerted them but a line in our yard certainly warranted a called.  Add them to our call list when we get to the top of the hill.  Further down the road there was also a tree laying on a power line but the line wasn't broken like ours.  A little further and there was a line that was sagging over the road, it was so low that a big truck wouldn't have been able to get under it.  Good thing the power was our or there would have been live power lines much to close for my comfort.

 

Lots of trees were down and blocking the roads.  By driving over the branches we were able to just get by this one. 

Here is how nasty the clouds looked after the storm.  They stayed like this until well into the evening and we kept expecting them to open up any minute and rain on us again.

This is the top to one of our fir trees, about 15 feet of it broke off.  We lost a lot of branches and many of them were stuck in the ground so hard we had to tug to get them out. 

The sad zucchini blown up against the fence.  We had some little hail too so it has holes in it's leaves.  The whole garden is tilted towards the east but it came through pretty well with no major damage.

There were lots of trees ripped out of the ground like this one, not in our yard thankfully. 

Water was standing in the corn fields.  This one looks good, many of the fields were laying flat.  It had been such a good year so far too, this is a shame.

The rain must have stirred up the bugs and worms because this flock of turkeys were scouring this field.

More not so friendly looking clouds.  They never did amount to anything else.

This is the worse damage we saw, a tree laying the roof.  From the road we couldn't see how much damage there was.  There is a man climbing up the tree like a monkey.  Don't think that is such a good idea.  The house is for sale, they are going to have to change the listing to a fixer upper!

Our area had the worst damage and our lines were fixed with the power was back on by 8:30 p.m. and our losses were minimal so we are thankful. 

Shopping with Dancer

Dancer and I went to work at the food shelf today, as we do every fourth Monday of the month.  On the way home we stopped at Kohl's to do a little shopping for her since it was just the two of us.  It is very hard to shop when Spark is with, he is very patient and well behaved, but girl clothes shopping isn't anything I expect him to have a very long attention span at.  In fact, that he goes so willingly when he has to is amazing to me. 

Dancer wants to have long shorts that come to her knees.  We have had trouble finding any this spring but have kept looking because if she wants to be that modest I certainly don't want to persuade her otherwise.  We found that Kohl's has racks and racks of long shorts so it was easy to find a couple pair.

Next was on to bra shopping.  She always wears sports bras but they were insanely priced there so we looked at regular bras.  Not having a clue as to what size she would wear in a regular bra I asked a woman wearing a name badge around her neck if they had a tape measure.  Well, she says, they don't have a tape measure in the department but she keeps on in her bag at all times.  Here the woman wasn't a Kohl's employee but a salesperson from a bra company.  She measured Dancer, helped her pick out tons of things to try on and kept checking on her in the dressing room until she had a couple that fit her perfectly.  I wholeheartedly thanked the woman when we were done and told Dancer how lucky she was that we had her to help us.  People pay for professional bra fittings and customer service like that.  It was like having a personal shopper.  Dancer, of course, felt so grown up having this woman dote on her.  She has been saying all night how glad she was that we asked for that tape measure.   I thank God when good things, and people, like this fall into our laps even when we are doing something as mundane as shopping!

By the way, since the woman was so helpful, I will put a little plug in for their company, she worked for Warner's.

Service/repair men make me uneasy

We had a service man out to hook up satellite internet for us because we just can't stand the slow dial up internet anymore. I loved the price, $9.95 a month, but it just wasn't meeting our homeschool needs. He came and put the dish on the house and then needed to come inside to set up the computer program part. It took what seemed like forever and he was right in our dining room also known as where we do school. We did school in the living room but it still seemed weird to be conjugating verbs with a stranger listening to us. Lunch was also put off until after 2:00 p.m. because he was right at the kitchen counter and I felt too odd to go in there and make lunch.



He was barely out of the driveway when it quit working. Dad called him and he was going to try to find a new modem for us and come back. Meanwhile, Dad had to go to bed because he is working tonight. The service man comes back about 3:30, hooks up the new modem and it still doesn't work. He has no idea what could be wrong, but he being a patient, diligent man, he keeps replacing parts, wires, and tapping on the key board etc.



Dad has to get up at 5:45 for diner and it's now getting on to 5:25. I haven't started anything, because once again, I don't want to be cooking in the kitchen with him sitting at my kitchen counter. I also don't want him here after Dad has left for work and it is just me and the kids. That would make me really uncomfortable. I try very hard not to have people come and do work or buy animals when Dad is not home. Actually, I would probably feel the same way about a service woman, it's more just trying to go on as normal with someone else in the house. He was a very nice, polite man whom we had gotten to know over the last seven hours but that doesn't mean the kids and I want to be alone with him in our house. So I pray, "Please God, let this work so he can go home to his family and we can get on with dinner before Dad has to get up for work." I didn't hardly have the last word out when he announced that it was working! He was planning on his day being done about 1:00, and he was still at our house at almost 5:30, so he quickly said to call if we had anymore problems and was off. Good news, it is still working perfectly!