Monday, April 23, 2007

Busy, Busy, Dreadfully Busy . . .

Not much time for blogging lately--did I mention we've been busy? Thanks to all your wonderful comments and email responses, Bob was able to pretty much finish his project last night (yay!). He just has to make some slides for his class presentation. And in a few years, when bathrooms in gas stations and restaurants are automatically locked down and steam cleaned, like in a dishwasher, then you'll remember that you had a part in it. LOL!

Bob also took a few hours yesterday afternoon to connect our new garage door to the actual opener bar. There wasn't an obvious way to do it, since the door is not solid, but he figured something out. So now he still has the other door to change out, but that will have to wait until after the finals and the baby!

Saturday evening we were social butterflies. Our new German neighbors had an open house for all the neighbors at 5:00, so we briefly stopped over there to visit, and then we went on a "quintuple date" (is that a word?) with the L's and 3 other couples. The 5 of us wives are all in a Bible study together 2 Tuesday evenings a month, and so this was to get all the menfolk together too. We had such a blast. It reminded us of really how rarely we are just with other adults in a purely social context! We just went out to eat, but the conversation was good, as was the food. Meanwhile, back at the ranch here, Zachary and Jessica were holding things together. Anna was a bit of a pill (she didn't want to go down for Jessica, which doesn't bode well for the immediate future for Anna, when her routine is going to be quite a bit changed, LOL), but the boys and Amanda had a grand time. So nice to know your kids are having as great a time as you are!

In this ladies' study, we are going through Larry Crabb's book Finding God. This is such an excellent book. I went through it at a ladies' study in Ohio, but I was the one who recommened it here because I wanted to go through it again, and also because I thought it would be very applicable to us in the study. All of us are dealing with times of big transition and change (moving potentials, retirement, job changes, etc.), and one woman in particular has had a Job-like few years where her husband's business was embezzled and consequently failed, their house took a year to sell, they moved up here for a job, her husband got prostate cancer which wasn't gotten completely with surgery, and now just a few weeks ago, her husband was laid off his job. Larry Crabb honestly deals with the painful stuff of life, and in particular his own struggles, which makes this book a lot more . . . meaningful, I guess. No empty platitudes, and definitely not a book to read if you are looking for easy solutions to make you feel better. A very challenging book, and our discussions have been lasting several hours, until our poor husbands wonder what has become of us and call our cell phones to check up on us!

This week we are finishing up the boys' test review books, in preparation for thier Stanford test May 7-9. We're also finishing a last few errands, and I'm doing things like switching winter and summer stuff around, moving out-grown stuff from last year down to the next boy, etc. Remind me not to be having a baby right when the weather changes again, okay? It's too much to need to be doing all this switching around! So I'm thinking that rules out April and October. I'm too big and uncomfortable to be down on the floor rooting through dresser drawers and rubbermaid tubs!

The big event to look forward to for this week is Wednesday evening, when Grandma and Grandpa get here!! We are all quite excited about this! It will give Anna a few days to get used to them again before I disappear off to have the baby, which I foresee as being a little hard for her to take. She's been pretty clingly lately, so I'm hoping that will transfer to Grandma and Grandpa with no problems! In other Anna news, she did take one teensy, tiny step by herself (to me, LOL) today. "One small step for a man . . ." We cheered like it was the first step on the moon, of course, and we are hopeful for many more steps in the near future. Maybe Grandma and Grandpa will be able to facilitate that too--they did such a great job with Jonathan's potty-training last year, so surely teaching walking is MUCH easier than that!

That's all that is new around here!

1 comment:

Pilot Mom said...

You have been busy!

Your Bible study sounds excellent. I may need to read his book. Right now UJ and I, well, mostly UJ right now, are reading Larry Burkett's book detailing his cancer journey. Excellent advice tucked into his pages.