Wed. - Mon., Oct. 24-29

Well, so ... obvious I've not been in the mood to write.

Note: Your reward for reading to the end, should you choose to do so, is two funnies from today.

The last week has been wonderful and awful. Wonderful because there haven't been lots of demanding things, there was one hugely-awesome thing, and we have had lovely 'home/family time'. Awful because (in a nutshell) an anonymous, trusted person in the church betrayed my confidence last week, in a pretty public way. 'Anonymous' because I know not, and actually expect not to ever know, whom it is who did it ... not that it really matters. I'll not detail the story; suffice it to say I've been enduring terrible heartache - with no way to fix the problem - or even know exactly how it was caused. So this is my newest forgiveness challenge, after just in recent months making some good progress on two of my other three biggest forgiveness challenges.

Every day last week I intended to write about in the following day's blog, so each night I quick-listed the interesting things from each day on a Post-It here by the computer. ha

Tomorrow I plan to post pictures and a video, but for today here are bullets from the last week.

Wednesday

• I cooked supper all day. LOL! It was a "Chicken Dinner" meal, and each dish required different preparation and storage.
• Jeremy was sick with allergies, and barely functioned through his day of work.
• The children and I did a good amount of reading.
• N & J watered the garden.
• I made lots of phone calls. One thing that can be done while cooking all day! ??!

Thursday - Awful Day of the Decade

• N, J, and I went to the library, but had forgotten our books to return. ...just a little distracted....
• Made our monthly purchases at the health food store, and then went to Wal-Mart, on a four-day grocery run.
• Upon arriving home we walked the dogs. Jeremy & Justus took Kiana, and N & I took Jabba, going a different routes through the neighborhood; funny! A neighbor's Great Dane JUMPED THEIR 5' FENCE in his excitement to come meet Jabba. Hmmmmmmmmmm.... THAT was unnerving! Unfortunately the dog was so untrained that she didn't even begin to respond to the owner when she burst out the front door calling 'Kira'. Great Danes are SO TALL! I don't know if I've ever been close to one before. I wasn't particularly scared, just surprised/alarmed; it made me thankful for the occasions I've had to practice just speaking to a dog I'm *feeling* afraid of: "Wow! You're huge! Did you want to come and meet us? Well, come and say hello, you big thing," etc. lol ...the stuff that comes to your mind in a moment of adrenaline.... lol
• After supper we played a game! One of our FAVORITE things. The children decided on Bible Trivia, with Justus teaming up with Jeremy.

Friday - The Blessing of a HUGE Bright Spot During a Dark Time

• Laketa came to Arizona and arranged to see us while she was here!! She was set to be in Phoenix, and had some free hours on Friday before her flight back home. She's working as an admissions counselor for Cascade College now! Huh! Who knew? We met for lunch at a Cajun restaurant that had been recommended to us. It was SO GREAT to see her. If only we'd gotten to see the rest of her family.... We've not seen them in seven years, so to have some time with such a treasured loved one - especially during a series of extremely trying days for me - was absolutely a blessing.
• After the drive home we enjoyed a light supper and then played Bible Trivia again! We all enjoyed it so much on Thursday that we decided to play it again! lol

Saturday

• First thing in the a.m. Jeremy and Jim Blount journeyed across town for manure for fertilizing our gardens.
• When Jeremy got home he continued working, now with N & J, in the back yard. They re-buried the irrigation system; Kiana had taken advantage of a couple spots that had come un-buried, and used them for a number of hours of entertainment.... lol (Thankfully she didn't damage anything!!) They also created secure spots to keep the children's outside toys where Kiana can't get to them to strew them across the yard.
• Before lunch, the children and I made it back to the library, this time WITH the bag of items to return. Then we stopped at the park for a picnic and some play time. There were not one, not two, and not three, but FOUR huge birthday parties at the park that day! I mean, balloons attached to the shaded picnic spots, BBQs with great-smelling smoke billowing out, and jumping castles!! lol N & J said, "Ooh, cool! We can jump!" I had to explain, "Umm, actually, no, because these aren't our parties!" lol
• Jeremy and I enjoyed cooking together in the evening. Cajun fish (His hankering wasn't yet satiated! lol), Basmati rice, roasted asparagus - mmm. And then ... I'm seeing a pattern here:
• Bible Trivia! Again!!! LOL! This time Elaine joined us.

Sunday

• I survived. You know, the imagination can do terrible things to a person's mind. I had imagined both extremes -- with people lamblasting me, and then with a zillion people 'rushing to my aid' ... so to speak. Neither extreme happened. So life goes on. I am thankful for this experience because I learned/re-learned a few things. First, be more careful who you trust. :( That breaks my heart because I want to have full confidence in folks I love. Second, when a person *feels* guilty about something, whether or not he/she truly IS guilty, it is REALLY, REALLY hard to function - especially spiritually, if that makes sense. It took everything I felt I had to keep me up and moving those days, and getting ready to meet with the church on Sunday morning felt worse than getting ready for a funeral. So it was definitely a learning experience about how to empathize with someone who is struggling under a h-e-a-v-y burden. Additionally, I am VERY thankful I had already read the Love Languages book or I would have felt rather neglected during these last few days. All I have been craving is floods of people's kind w-o-r-d-s to come and 'wash away' the yuck. And after this experience I'm definitely thinking that my second love language is physical touch, because I still feel in need of fourteen more hugs; interesting. I got a bit of both of those, but mostly my closest loved ones showed me love in their own love languages, which I wouldn't have been able to interpret as 'love' had I not read that book. Lesson: When someone is hurting deeply, give 100% of your effort to show them love in THEIR love language, even if that means hitting all five if you don't know which one or two are their love language/s! I'm NOT over this thing yet, but I can imagine that someday it will be a thing of the past. [So far the words that have meant the most to me were said quietly into my ear by someone who knows the entire situation (not very many people do): "Sssssssso, it seems that we have a traitor in our midst." Hearing that, my body heaved with relief and all I could say was, "That's sure how I feel." I mean, 'traitor' seems a little dramatic. I'm not Jesus being betrayed to my death, you know.... But the feeling is the same basic emotion, I know. --sigh-- ]
• When N & J were taking the trash bins to the street, Natasha didn't get Kiana's kennel completely secured shut and she went running out of the yard! I was washing dishes when I heard N's short, panicked 'yip' of surprise, so I ran outside. Kiana responded not one IOTA to the children's calls or mine, as she was loping down the street. GR. ...too new to our family, still ... and too few minutes spent training her to respond correctly to us. GR. However, by the time we ran in for Jeremy and he got outside to look for her, she had already returned to the house and was basically waiting in the driveway. So, that had a happy, almost funny ending.

Monday. Oh yeah, that was today!

• Jeremy left early to help out a group of church friends with some yard/garden work.
• N, J, and I did some nice reading together today. All this reading over the past, what, three weeks, has dramatically improved Justus's reading! YAY! And with improved reading comes improved reading CONFIDENCE, which is huge as well.
• Justus peetered out immediately after that and had to take an early nap today! He's done that a couple times in the past month. He is such an early riser!!!!!!!!!! Uggh.
• When Jeremy got home, he and N took Kiana for a walk. Jeremy and Kiana 'book-it' on their walks. Jeremy's LONG legs offer a great amount of exercise for anyone trying to keep up with him (Ask me how I know!), including Kiana -- which is great b/c that's the POINT: to exercise her! The rest of us would be holding her back, you know? Well, Natasha has never exercise-walked with Jeremy before, and Jeremy didn't think about the dramatic difference between an 8-year-old walking with me vs. walking with him!! Natasha's comments on the walk made Jeremy crack up: "Wow, we are walking REALLY FAST!" "If I'd known we were going to walk this fast I wouldn't have worn my flip-flops!" "I should have brought some water!" (poor babe! lol) Jeremy had told me her comments before I saw her after their walk, so when she said, "Mom, my walk with Dad and Kiana was fascinating," I wanted to hear her take. I asked, "What about it was fascinating?" She said, "Well, mostly it was FAST-inating!"
• N was all walked-out after that, and not the least bit interested in going grocery shopping with me, so Justus and I went together in the afternoon. We left in time for lunch, so he and I had a little 'date' - a sit-down lunch at ... (cue music) Pizza Hut! It has been a lllllong time since we've had Pizza Hut, and it hit the spot today. Justus was really cute about opening the door for me, putting his napkin on his lap, speaking to the waitress for 'us', etc. Precious memory. When we pulled up at Fry's to do the Grocery Game shopping, he attempted to read the sign which says 'Fry's Food & Drug'. But Justus read, "Fry's Food & Drugs"; I could only giggle. What does he know about drugs???!!!
• Between Jeremy's allergies on this windy day, and lack of sun screen during his many hours in the sun today (still 89 degrees!), he was wiped out and had to go to bed soon after supper - as did Elaine (headache), so it was a perfect night for Battleship. I watched over Justus's shoulder until he crashed at (9:15!), and N & I finished out the game together, with an exciting result: Natasha won her first Battleship game ever! She was beaming. :)