I spent Friday at my Mom’s house trying to help get ready for the family reunion.  We organized, put up tents and generally did whatever would be helpful to my mom.  The first couple arrived about 3:00, and I left about 5:00 when everyone else was just starting to arrive.   I had a number of errands to run on Friday night, so Eric and I did that after dinner.  I was absolutely exhausted, so I did very little and went to bed early.  So nice!

Saturday was the reunion day.  Since I’m sure lots of people will mention it today, I’ll just put up a few of my thoughts on the events and activities.

• My husband will (hopefully) make a fabulous dad someday.  He was mauled by the younger kids for the entire day (and I’m sure my mom would never have allowed us to be so ‘clingy’ at that age!).  But he patiently put up with it and played games with them all day.  Such a great guy!!  I was careful to give him some extra space on Sunday to make up for the over-attentive children the day before.  I know, I’m a good wife.
• We have a really big family.  And we were missing at least three of the siblings and their families.  Crazy!
• I really enjoyed chatting with people all day. 
• Kevin and Erik are a formidable cornhole team.  Thankfully, my brother and I squeaked out a win!
• Kayla’s chocolate bath was one of my favorite moments of the day.

Sunday was a very lazy day for us.  We went to second service because the orchestra wasn’t playing, and we had dinner at Tim Horton’s before going home.  (Eric wanted coffee, so we just ate there, too.)  Once we got home, we hung out, read, played on computers, watched some television and generally entertained ourselves.  So, so nice!

Did you miss me?

It’s been a busy week.  It’s amazing how tiring the return to all-day activities is when you’ve been off all summer! 

The meetings were necessary, but pretty boring.  On the other hand, the worship times were very refreshing, and it was great to see all my friends and colleagues again.  I think there is potential to have a really good year.

Yesterday, we had meetings in the morning, and I had lunch with Mom.  Then I went back to my office to do some work.  I spent the first hour fighting with my computer.  Finally, I gave up on what I was trying to do (it wasn’t terribly vital anyway) and got down to work.  I made a huge dent in my preparations for Basic English, so that was marvelous.  I haven’t touched Comp yet, but I have an entire week for that!  Plenty of time!!

After chatting with Mom about the weekend’s activities, I volunteered to head back down to Cedarville today to help her set up for everyone’s arrival.  Some of the Buffalo people are arriving sooner than she anticipated they would, and I sensed she was feeling overwhelmed.  So last night, I ran to the grocery to get some things, made Rice Krispie Treats to take down, and started getting things organized to go.  Eric loaded the Jeep for me, and Karen brought her stuff (chairs, tent, etc.) over, so now I can drive the Jeep down and help set up today.

Anyway, that’s the excitement of my day…hope you all have a marvelous Friday!

All Day Meeting…

So I won’t be around today.  At least not until much later in the day. 

Today begins our march toward the start of classes.  I have meetings today and tomorrow.  Then a week off and then classes start.  My grad school classes will also start around the same time…nothing like doubling my fun, right?

We had the annual President’s Banquet last night.  The food was better than it’s been recently.  The awards ceremony was BORING…and I even knew most of the people being honored.  Thankfully, Kathy sat next to me and we made cracks the entire time.  We entertained ourselves!!

That’s all I have this early in the morning.  Later!

On an overcast Tuesday…

• It is already hot outside.  Very hot. 
• My meeting in Cedarville yesterday was a complete waste of time.  Annoying. 
• I went to my office before I came home.  I couldn’t log on.  My computer wasn’t “registered” with the network, I guess.  It’s supposedly fixed now.
• I went to the library instead of working in my office.
• I talked to my mom for a good long time after the meeting. 
• Today I’m helping Karen clean and set up in her classroom.  I also need to take the recyclables out of my house and garage.  The piles are getting a bit overwhelming!

And about the hair…

• I spent an hour and a half at the salon yesterday morning.  For a $25 haircut, I also got a mini massage, a mini facial, shampoo, cut, blowdry and style.  And I had a gift certificate, so the whole thing was free!

Here’s what my hair looked like before. 

BTW: the facial expression was the result of the cornhole game I was playing at the time!  Eric thought it was hysterical!

Here’s what the cut looked like with the stylist’s version of my style.  They always do “strange” things!

And here’s what it looks like this morning…

I was adventurous on Friday night.  We had fish for dinner.  My mom never made fish (she hates it!), so I never had it.  So I’ve always been hesitant to try it.  But I bought some tilapia fillets last week, and we decided to try them on Friday night (Eric loves fish, generally).  And I liked them.   The texture is a lot different than chicken or pork, obviously, but tilapia is not a “fishy”-tasting fish.  Very cool!

Saturday we headed out to the farm for a visit.  We arrived in time for lunch and chatted with my MIL for a while.  Then we went to the barn to see the new calves and ended up helping Alan by hauling water for the cows.  I even got my hands dirty!   Saturday night, some of Alan’s friends from college came for dinner, so we had a good chat with them. 

Sunday was church and then a Sunday dinner at Olive Garden.  Then we hung out for a while in the afternoon before heading home.  We watched television for a while, then headed for bed.

Today begins my week of meetings at Cedarville.  I have a meeting this afternoon, dinner tomorrow, and meetings all day on Wednesday & Thursday.  Such fun, such fun.

I’m also getting a haircut today.  I’m a little nervous because I’m trying a new salon, but hopefully, it will go well.  Maybe I’ll do pictures later…

EDIT (12:43 pm):  I got two magazines and four books at the bookstore (one will be a gift), and I spent way too much money.  I think I might have to take a book or two back.   We’ll see…  END EDIT

Yesterday was a pretty productive day.  Having finally finished all the beans, I finished cleaning my kitchen, cleaned the counters and swept/mopped the floors.  Whew!    I also did a couple more loads of laundry.  Well, actually I didn’t get very far on that task, but I’ll work on them today!   I also hung out at Karen’s for a bit in the afternoon, which was fun.  Eric grilled for dinner, so we had pork, grilled zucchini slices (yummy!!), and warm bread.  It was a simple, very tasty meal.  So good!

Today, I think I’ll finish the laundry and do the ironing.  I also plan to run some fun errands and go wander around bookstores for a while just because I want to.  I will try not to buy too many! 

And for fun, here are some other pics from our camping outing:

Here’s my adorable husband!!

Here is Kate “eating” a garter snake on our hike.  That’s her husband holding the snake for her.

Apparently, there was a mole digging underneath our campsite…

Cornhole is awesome!!

First of all, I wanted to say thanks for all the encouragement and comments yesterday.  I really appreciated the thoughts and prayers!  You guys are the best!!

For today, I thought I’d include some pictures from our camping trip, just for fun!  So here goes:

This is our campsite (or most of it).  We had two side-by-side so we could spread out.  There were a total of 6 couples.

These are the couples who went on our trip.  From left to right: Kate & Steve, Katie & Jake, Paula & Adam, Kris & Scott, Autumn & Jim, and us!

And of course, what we spent most of the weekend doing: fire prep, food prep, and cooking!

 

I’ll post more pictures tomorrow, I think.  It was taking too long to
get these ones done!  As for the rest of today, I have some cleaning to
do, and I’m going to hang out with Karen and some friends for a while
this afternoon. Should be fun (the friends, not the cleaning!)! 

15 months and counting…

That’s how long it’s been since we stopped preventing conception in our house.  Sometimes that feels like a really long time. 

The last few days have been consumed with baby talk around here.  Lots of baby announcements from friends and family.  A few more suspicions that haven’t yet been confirmed.  More people I know who are trying.  Right now, one couple in our small group has a little girl who is Kayla’s age.  By the time she is 2 (next May), we’ll have 8-10 more babies born to couples in our group.  That’s just crazy!

It’s also a bit hard for me at times.  I’m not looking forward to being child-less in a “couples with small children” group.  And at this point, that’s what it seems is going to happen.  Of course, I could ovulate tomorrow.  Or it might be 2 months or more.  Who knows?  But it’s hard to live with that tension sometimes.

Most of the time, I am content with where God has placed us.  He is good all the time, and His timing is, of course, perfect.  And I always suspected I’d have these issues, so I wasn’t surprised.  So when I focus on letting Him teach me whatever He wants me to know, when I commit myself to living productively and pro-actively where I am right now, and when I keep in mind that children don’t define me, my value, or the validity of my life, I have an easier time waiting, especially when I remember that having children is a trade-off of some of the things that are so great about my life now. 

But there are times, when baby talk invades my consciousness regularly, when I find that it’s harder to stay focused on the truths that keep me from self-pity, frustration, and feeling ‘left out.’  That’s how I felt yesterday.  So I let myself have some time to be sad, and now I have to start refusing to let those thoughts control my feelings.

So, I didn’t actually intend to put any of this on my blog this morning, but there it is.  Thanks for listening.

As for life today, I’m done canning beans, but I have some more to freeze.  So I’ll be working on that today.  I also need to make a quick trip to the grocery for some items to make a husband-requested dinner tonight.  And I’m still working on cleaning up from our camping trip over the weekend.  So I should keep myself occupied!

I spent most of yesterday working on beans.  I ran to WalMart to buy jars and utensils.  I got a couple of other things while there, as well.   Then, I had to clean up my kitchen enough to get to work.  After lunch, I had to start cutting beans so I had something to can.  Then, finally, I started my first batch.  And it worked!  All but one, I think, sealed correctly.  They all sealed, but one might not be totally right.  So I guess we’ll just have to eat that jar now!

Eric got home about 3:00.  I was watching The Pursuit of Happiness (Will Smith movie) while cutting beans. We got it from Netflix weeks ago and hadn’t watched it.  So I figured I would just watch it so I could return it.  Eric got to see about a third of it, but he was fine with that.  And now I can put it in the mail today.

I finished my batch of beans and then got dinner ready because Eric wanted to go see The Simpsons Movie.  So we did that.  He was a bit disappointed, I think.  But our viewing was somewhat disturbed by the people a few rows in front of us who thought that absolutely everything that happened on the movie was hysterically funny.  It wasn’t.  So even the things that might have been funny weren’t because these people (especially a woman who kept screeching) were making such a fuss.  Maybe talking about it at work today will help Eric find some of the humor in it…

Today, I’m having lunch with a friend, and other than that, I’ll be working on more beans.  Should be fun!

Happy Monday everyone!

It was a crazy busy weekend for us.  We left on Friday at about 5:00 pm to head for John Bryan State Park for a camping weekend with some of the couples from our small group.  It was a blast!  I’ll give a brief overview now with  more details with pics later.

Friday night:  Arrival, Set up, Start the fire, Dinner, Clean up, Hanging out at the campfire, Bedtime

Friday night:  a visit from raccoons woke a number of us up.

Saturday:  Breakfast, Hiking, Lunch, Hanging out, Games, Youngs Dairy, Cornhole, Dinner, Games/Hanging out, Bedtime

Saturday night: we were exhausted and slept hard!

Sunday:  Breakfast, cleanup, Broke camp, left John Bryan

See…it was a fun and busy weekend! After we left, we went to my parents house in Cedarville to shower and clean up (John Bryan has less than stellar “facilities”!).  We stayed for Sunday dinner; Deb and the girls came over, too, because Chris was at a NASCAR race with Indy for the day with Deb’s brother.  They left, we picked some green beans from the garden and headed home.  We relaxed for most of the evening…very enjoyable!

Today, my plans include a trip to WalMart, unpacking and sorting our piles of stuff, doing laundry (everything smells like camp/smoke), and attempting to can the green beans we got yesterday.  That’s right, I think I’m going to try my hand at pressure cooker canning.  Wish me luck!!