Sat., Sep. 15

Four hours is how much time I spent today on preparing both Bible classes for tomorrow. The family that visited with us on Wednesday night - the family with six kids - made promising statements to a number of us that they were, at that time, planning to attend tomorrow's Bible class. Ssssssso, that means in order not to have 11+ children in my class, an emergency sub will have to teach the Early Elementary class. HOWEVER, you can't just drop in, dig through the material, and be able to teach it ... it requires preparation! AND, since I was preparing it for someone else's use, it required a lot more time than if I were just preparing it for myself. It is Dick Ulmer who has agreed to teach it! That's great!! Jeremy and I get super-excited when a man is willing to teach a children's Bible class. Most men seem to either a.) be afraid of it, or b.) believe it's beneath them somehow. And who loses out? Those guys, the ladies who get over-worked taking their teaching turns, and the children who benefit greatly from having a man teacher now and then! I had nice phone and e-mail conversations with Dick this afternoon, prepping him for tomorrow. What a guy!!

And ... how much time does that leave for everything else? >>huh<< Right. See, today was Seminar Workday at the building, from 9am-noon. I'd planned to go until my back acted up so badly yesterday. It is still giving me about 10% of that much trouble today, but WAY better. It takes a little while to get back to normal, even after a chiropractor fixes the problem. I left a note for Jeremy to not wake me early, that I thought I should stay home and not do all that hard work. (There was almost nothing to do that was even lightly-physical.) Plus, I have lots of work to do here at home in preparation for the seminar as well. Preparing my VBS-type class, baking, church secretary work ... all in addition to everything else I'm committed to doing. So it didn't hurt my feelings AT ALL to not show up today. I labored and toiled here instead. ;)

I'd committed to taking Gail and Jewel a meal for their freezer for later this week; Jewel has cancer treatments in Phoenix, so they don't need to have to think about feeding themselves. Thankfully I was able to work that into our regular meal schedule, just made enough for two extra mouths. :)

Natasha and Justus - woah, they were PRECIOUS today. Remember how they were going through that period of "I don't want a brother," and N being annoyed by J, and J trying to figure out how to not be annoying? Well, N got in her head that she wanted to rearrange her room again. It was a big mess from some activities a couple days ago (the birthday party!) and she hadn't gotten around to cleaning it; she would NEVER pick up, I think, unless I made her; she's so much like Jeremy, who has been practicing picking up for ten years - out of pure love for me. (awwww...) So anyway, the agreement was that she could play for 50 minutes of 'each of the next few hours' and when the timer went off she would clean up for those 10 minutes of that hour. CAKE. And she did it, I'm happy to say! Well, when J got to missing her, he asked if she would like his help. She agreed, and they worked sweetly together in her room for about an HOUR!! One thing they did was to divide the table/desk in her room (one of Grandpa's old workroom tables - longish) so that she can do her 'school' work at one end and craft at the other. Interesting! I'm fascinated to see if she still likes it in a week or two. It's completely NOT what I would think to do, but ... it might work for her! :) I do like that the 'school' work end puts her closer to the window (natural light) and allows better light from the ceiling fixture as well! They played with Jabba inside and outside today, and AquaDotted a lot. Justus got his room cleaned up as well, and then Jeremy and J got haircuts in the evening. We're calling it a day. ffffffftt (blink, blink) I'm exhausted!!