Nov. 20-24, Dec. 3 & 4

So, a blog…? Is that what I hear everyone begging for?? Heh Thank you for your expressed concern, phone calls, e-mails, and prayers. Yeah…. It’s not so often I get sick and it lays me up for a WEEK! (like, never?) Good grief, that was a nasty bug. It was definitely the flu, but not just the flu. It was also very much a cold, and uggh we’re all glad that’s behind us. I slept between 10 and 13 hours per night for five nights in a row last week. That’ll suck lots of hours out of one’s day! It was the entire ‘sick regimen’ of pushing fluids including lots of hot tea, conserving energy, aches & pains, the vaporizer, carrying the Kleenex box around with me, trying to decide when I couldn’t take the pain/misery any more and it was time to pop pills, swallowing spoonfuls of minced garlic before bed, putting Vicks on my feet with socks, before going to sleep, sore ribs (still!) from the coughing, et. al. Jeremy and Justus both seem to be fighting the bug, but are having better success than I did. So far N shows no sign of being sick, for which I’m especially thankful because she has been a little TROOPER, volunteering to help so much!!

Blogger is letting me post no pictures, which irritates me because I have some to share. So I’ll try that again tomorrow or something.

Two weeks ago in a quiet moment, I wrote down that I wanted to blog about how much our family enjoys the show MythBusters, and I wanted to share a comment that came my way as a first-time visitor gushed to me, watching little children file out of the nursery during potluck, “You guys have so many kids!” Knowing Mission Valley’s history, that was a remarkable moment!! And I wanted to direct the members of my family-of-origin to Is. 12:3-6; one of my favorite moments in the Word is ‘accidentally’ stumbling across a passage that I have known before only as worship music.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we finally had access to a bit of grocery $$ [However, to date (Today is 12-4.) we have still not yet received November’s VA check, despite the hours Jeremy has spent on the phone with the office; according to the most recent arrangement we were supposed to have received it yesterday.]. After spending an hour with shut-in Meg Watts on her birthday (turning 91) we stopped at the grocery store. This was an extremely good thing, since it meant I could finally begin working, feverishly, to put together the dishes I had committed us to taking for Thanksgiving…. In the evening we had the privilege of worshiping with the Palo Verde congregation on the East Side; they hosted the Tucson-Area Thanksgiving Devotional this year. Jeremy was the final speaker of three that evening. It was nice to touch base with many new friends we have made this past year.

I will tell some about Thanksgiving tomorrow (hopefully with pictures to correspond!), but for today I’ll just report a funny conversation that happened on the drive home. It came out of a conversation about how Jeremy wasn’t always in school when he was supposed to be during his final couple years of high school. The children asked, “So if he wasn’t in school, what was he doing?” and Elaine was saying, “I don’t ever want to know any more than I already know.” Justus said, “I think he played.” Elaine said, “I think you’re probably right.” Justus said, “I think he played … a game.” … … … How sweet & innocent is that?? Precious.

On Friday when everyone else was at the mall, we went back to the grocery store to finish the job we started on Wednesday. I worked some to clean up/pick up the back yard and Jeremy helped the children do two days worth of household service. Justus went to bed a little earlier than usual that night, so Jeremy and I taught N how to play Boggle, which she REALLY LIKES and can actually totally do! I mean, granted, her total score at the end of 8 or 10 rounds is only “7”, but that’s not bad, considering that’s how many words she found that neither Jeremy nor I found!! In case you’re interested, Jeremy nearly DOUBLES my scores in the game of Boggle. Good thing I’m not competitive, eh?? (sigh)

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Yesterday and today were spent trying to catch up. I’ve been laughing out loud at lots of half-done little projects around the house that I’d forgotten even trying to do. ZERO ‘cleaning’ got done besides keeping the kitchen running, tho’ not smoothly…. Jeremy helped a lot with the cooking and Elaine even did dishes one evening for me! Yesterday N & I did this week’s grocery shopping. In the evening we made make-your-own homemade pizzas, which we like to do and don’t do often. Jeremy and Justus have a tradition where they put a grape on Justus’s little pizza. Weird! It’s taken some effort to get caught up on laundry, but I can say it’s official that I finally am. Today I spent quite a lot of time catching up on e-mails and juggling pictures on the computer, in addition to some church secretary work. N & I also did some Christmas prep, and walked the dogs – for the first time since a dog-walk adventure last week that I will type about later. The menu said crepes were for supper, and Jeremy made them! He just followed the recipe from the cookbook, with actually very little input from me! All I did was make the sausage patties and load the Easy Accent Decorator with Cool Whip to go with the strawberries. Mm! After supper tonight we played Stealing the Old Man’s Bundle until Justus went to bed early, and then Jeremy, N, and I played Boggle again.