The First "Real" Week of Summer

Wow, I haven't written since TUESDAY?  Huh?  How did that happen?  The week went by so fast somehow even though I was working slowly, but surely, but not frantically at all.  I thought several times this week that this felt like the first real week of summer--time to do what I wanted to do and not what I necessarily had to do.

Let's see, Wednesday I worked on cleaning out the big drawer by the stove that had many (10+) years of stuff accumulated.  I took everything out, sorted much of it, and left some of it for Thursday.  I also switched the basket with the pens for the other pen holder that was in the school room.  A much-needed improvement.  And I threw away a bunch of pens that didn't work anymore, pencils with dried-up erasers, and Sharpies that were lame.  That took much of the day after a walk in the morning.

And I cooked dinner that night too.  We took a meal to a family at church who had a baby, so Jeff grilled chicken, I made cheese potatoes for them and rice for us, green beans, muffins, strawberries.  We took it to them before a church meeting that night.  Their baby girl is adorable with lots of hair!!

Thursday I made myself finish the job from Wednesday.  It was the less exciting part of finishing the sorting of the papers I wasn't sure what to do with, shredding old checks, etc. and then putting stuff away in a real spot.  But I listened to Dave Ramsey while I did it, and as I was shredding the checks, I had fun looking to see where they were written to--mostly all the same places we shop at now.  They were from 2002 and 2003.  Giant Eagle, Marc's, Danceworks, piano lessons, bills for utilities.  For some reason, it made me feel very thankful for how blessed we are that our situation has improved since then and not gotten harder or worse.  Jeff has had a steady, good job all those years when many have struggled for the past several years.  We really haven't had to spend a lot more on things since then--except the phone bill!  Cell phones have added a much bigger expense than we had back then!

Thursday night we met with Anthony to hear about his work on campus.  He is a very encouraging young man, and it was fun to spend the evening with him.  It was cool to hear his story of how he got saved, involved in church on campus, and now is helping to lead too.  Great when that happens!!

Friday, Abby and I cleaned the house after I took a walk earlier than usual because Greta wasn't sleeping well all night.  It was very warm outside, and we had turned the AC on, but it's still warm upstairs even so.  She was panting and moving around and just not letting me sleep soundly all night.  So I gave up and got up and walked at 8am.  After cleaning, we went to the bank and library (had to get more episodes of Gilmore Girls, ya know), and then had French bread pizzas for lunch.  Abby had to work in the evening, so after having a QT, I got to chat with Kaite and skype with Hannah which was lovely!!  Jeff and I had a candlelit grilled cheese (with ham for Jeff) dinner.  Kind of nice to feel like lighting candles for a change because it was actually cloudy and rained!!  We so needed the rain!!

Jeff caught up on the GG Abby and I had watched on Friday afternoon.  In watching it the second time, I noticed in one scene Lorelai throws something at Luke's back to get his attention, and there was a spot on his shirt where she must have had to try it a few times!  Funny!

Today was a very satisfying work day!  Abby and I worked on her room from about 11am-5:30pm.  We went through all of the closet stuff, the boxes under her bed, CDs, jewelry, drawers, etc. etc. etc.  We got rid of things she doesn't use, and organized what she does, so it will be much easier now to actually paint her room.  Hard to imagine what it will look like grey.  I think it will be very peaceful!  Especially with it being all cleaned out too.

After we tackle her room, we'll paint Hannah's/Kaite's yellow room.  THAT will be a huge difference!

And while we were working on that, Jeff was being my hero and fixing our washer.  He took it all apart, replaced the seal, and put it all together, and it works.  He says he just followed the directions of the guy on the YouTube video, but still, it takes some serious work to do all that.  Thanks, honey!

We got Chinese food for dinner which tasted so good because we were all very hungry--ate around 7pm.  Jeff's taking a shower now, and then we'll watch some more GG.  Abby is recording some of the Olympic trials too.  Hard to believe that starts in a month!  And Hannah will be home for some/most of it!! 

Loved seeing Hannah's pictures today!  Such cute kids and such encouragement it must be to them to have all those fun people to play with them.  Praying for great fruit from their time there.

OK, that's it for now.  More later!