Wed., Sep. 12

No pictures today.

I spent about three hours doing church secretary work. I weeded for about an hour; most of the weeds in the back yard are 8" tall tufts of some kind of desert prarie grass whose roots go only 1/8" into the ground! YAY!

The children had "birthday parties" in their respective rooms, creating cakes out of boxes covered in blankets and "jewels", with "gifts" wrapped in other blankets, and even a sign on the wall: "fun Party toDay at My hous!" (NO BACKWARDS LETTERS!!!!) Of course, she thumb-tacked it on the wall without my permission. gr Tons of crafting went along with the parties.... Natasha is getting in lots of 'puppy time' during Justus's naps.

Actually the biggest thing that happened today was that both kids were BAWLING after Bible class. First, Daniel, the little ADD/ADHD/etc. boy who comes Wednesday nights, was TERRIBLE in class tonight. He called Natasha stupid, and it just completely crushed her (Remember: Drama Queen); for the next two hours she continued dissolving back into tears about that, even after continued coaching and explaning and etc. and etc. A new family came tonight, following up on their request yesterday for some financial assistance (need help with two relatively small bills, power and water, during the husband's 'dry time' in his construction business). They have SIX CHILDREN, the youngest five of whom were there tonight for class (ages 9, 7, 6, 4, 3. ... The 10yo was with Grandma.) and they said they'd be there for class on Sunday too! (gulp!) Anyway, the 3yo crunched up Justus's Bible class paper in which he had previously taken much pride. So Justus was crying about that. He was also crying (interestingly), "because those kids were laughing at Natasha!" He couldn't explain to me what they were laughing at her about, but he was MAD and EMOTIONAL about it! Sheesh! So, some good lessons were learned this evening. (sigh)

Happy Day: Elaine gets paid tomorrow, so with her "grocery money" contribution to the household finances, the children and I are going to run some ERRANDS and get some FOOD in this house! LOL (We haven't felt even a twinge of hunger; no worries!) I've even almost enjoyed the challenge of creating meals from the depths of the pantry. And, it's nice to 'clear out' now and then! In The Grocery Game as well as in FlyLady, there are two or three weeks each year that we're encouraged to cook ONLY from the pantry/freezer!! Otherwise if you just keep putting STUFF in the front, you don't even know what you have all the way back there - and stuff goes way past their freshness dates!! Well, we're gonna be good-and-fresh for a while!! :) I guess it's possible the VA $ will arrive in the account tomorrow. At this point I don't care as long as it arrives in time for me to do some Grocery Gaming on Monday and start re-stocking! It's been a fun food adventure, and ... the first time I've been able to feel that way about such a circumstance. [Quiz] Does this indicate a.) more confidence in my ability to put together a meal without recipes, b.) the growth of my faith to the point that I know God will provide, so I can let go of the fear and have some fun with it, or c.) both a and b?