Tue., Oct. 30

N & J watered the garden. We (gasp!) ... dusted. lol Justus helped me with a cooking project. Jeremy came home early, drugged up on Drixoral for his awful allergies; he crashed into a nap.

We had to make a quick trip to town for a couple grocery items. I let Natasha do all the shopping and the transaction. Cute! :) During J's nap N & I took Jabba and Kiana on a walk. We were out about 45 minutes and ... my hand will take a couple days to recover(!!); Kiana would have liked to pull me across the COUNTRY! Suffice it to say she and I 'bonded' some today. ha! And she couldn't have enjoyed that walk much, since she has a choke collar!! We must have stopped 60-80 times, practicing getting her to just walk instead of pull us down the street. ANNOYING!! All that stopping gave her some good practice sitting. She was sweet when three little kids (> age 7) came over to pet her! But boy, she barked ferociously - hackles up and all! - when another dog started barking ferociously at her from behind his fence. eek! I guess that's the point...? hmm However, I scolded her pretty harshly because she wanted to take off and fight, or something! This is not okay; she's supposed to be more controlled than that. Lots more work to do with her. Natasha, however, did AWESOME coming along behind Kiana and me, with Jabba on his leash. Jabba got lots of sitting practice on that walk, too. He was probably just as annoyed as the rest of us were!

Jeremy and I cooked supper together tonight again. (We really like that.) N helped a TON with supper clean-up - at her request!! Showers, Bible Time, and laundry wind up the day.

Tonight you get this video. We have two 'under-bed'-type boxes that are home to some of the Legos. The children build their Lego creations on the lids of those boxes. The other night when we were playing Bible Trivia, one of the lids was on the floor and Jabba was 'digging' it. Ohmygoodness we laughed at him so hard!

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. :)

Tue., Oct. 23

The day dawned bright, beautiful, and ... COOL. Not kidding. I awoke a little after 9am to the most pleasant atmosphere. It was cool enough that Jeremy didn't have to close the windows when he got up, so (our bedroom boasts huge south windows) it was bright, cool, and there was a fresh air breeze blowing through the room!!!!! Wow. It felt like a June morning in MT. I think heaven might be like that. Bright and cool. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh..... This might have been the first day we had no need for the A/C. October 23. -huh-

Jeremy spent the morning in town getting 4 new-to-us tires for the Rodeo and getting it smogged and registered. We'd not driven it all last month because the tags were expired. It was some kind of record that he was able to do all of that in only an hour and a half! Then he paid the bills and gave me my spending money for November ... and then offered to stay home with the children while I took the money to town. Hooray!! Finally I got to buy the pants I've been waiting for months to buy. Our finances, like our schedule, seem mostly-recovered from those most difficult months we endured last spring/summer. So I shopped. I am thrilled that at Ross (where I dislike to shop and rarely do!) I found THREE pairs of pants that are going to work for me! Each pair could use a bit of tailoring, but they will also work just fine until that happens (sewing machine is 'down'), so. Three pairs of pants -- that will work for me! (skin issues, body style, height, etc.) for $39. That's amazing. And it left me with enough money to go ahead and order a pair of shoes I've been pining over for a while now! My black dress shoes are the same ones I bought when newly pregnant with Justus. They are that old, square-toe style from six years go ... a style I've recently learned is the least-flattering shoe style.... (sigh) So I'm super-happy to have some others on the way!!!!!!

It's been long enough since I had to drive to the far east side that I'd forgotten, again, how big this city is. WHEN WILL THEY PUT A MALL IN ON THE WEST SIDE????? Come on! (Actually, there are some rumblings about such a thing happening, but no ground is broken yet or anything....)

My trip to town took an hour longer than I expected, so I couldn't cook supper! GR! We ate Arby's. Hey, at least I was able to get fast food that had some vegetables in it! Arby's has pretty good salads, and it was right on the way home.... uggh

After supper we played Skip-Bo. Actually, three of us did; Justus has the cold bug Natasha had last week, so he wasn't up for it. He just watched and leaned against Jeremy.

A couple nights ago, late at night, I turned off all the lights and quietly called Jabba - hoping to take him outside for his last elimination of the day. He didn't respond. I wondered, "Did he go downstairs and I didn't hear him?" So I walked toward the stairs and stopped JUST IN TIME. (Since, there on the ledge by the stairway was my camera I immediately picked it up and was able to capture these pictures.

Jabba sleeping on top stair.

Jabba trying to wake, on top stair.

I think I've mentioned before that Natasha, every month or two, will ask us to save the toilet paper rolls to replenish her supply with which to be crafty. Here is what she made last week: a toilet paper roll Jabba.

Drum roll please...

Heeeeeeeeeere's Kiana!

This is a 'before' picture, when we had hoped to keep her tied in our yard until we could get a fence up to keep her out of the garden. She completely chewed her way through the tie-down we bought (nylon), so she earned herself a fence around the garden! I'll take more pictures and post them within a couple days. I think it's funny and creative that Jeremy thought of using bread pans as her food and water dishes until we could get to Wal-Mart for official ones she can't tip over!

Here's a picture (taken from the family room window upstairs) of Jeremy, N, and J putting up the fence around the garden.
Natasha played with Kiana a lot today. Actually, so did Justus. It is really interesting to watch that huge, 'scary-looking' dog play so sweetly with our children. Even when it's time to lock Kiana in her kennel so Jabba can come outside, Natasha just says, "Kiana, time to go into your kennel," and Kiana will sweetly turn toward Natasha and mosey into her kennel. She's so gentle! And, she seems to be less afraid of Jabba by the day. She no longer curls her lip at Jabba through the glass door, alternately whimpering. (SO STRANGE!) OH! But, Kiana has figured out how to open the sliding glass door!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is that unique, I wonder? Justus informed us of this yesterday morning; he came running upstairs, "Dad!! I was downstairs and noticed the back door was a little open! Kiana was opening it!" So now we know to keep that door locked when no one is in the back yard (our habit anyway). However, this afternoon, I'm told, someone forgot to lock the door. Jeremy, N, and J were upstairs when Kiana sauntered into the family room!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so funny...

Mon, Oct. 22

Monday. Jeremy and Kiana went for a long walk around 7am. Problem was, sometime between 5am, when Jeremy first looked out on Kiana, and 7am when they walked, Kiana got in the garden and dug up the kitchen scraps I'd buried. GOOD GIRL, she didn't dig up any plants!! I'm hoping that she didn't enjoy any of what she dug up enough to have any incentive to do it again! However, Jeremy decided to take the day off anyway, and build a fence around the garden. He and the children did that in only a couple of hours this afternoon. I took a picture, but Blogger is letting me upload only this video tonight.

Actually, I broke a blood vessel in my eye, laughing so hard over Jeremy and Jabba last night. This game was just SO FUNNY to us! Especially with the super-dry air in the house these days; Jabba's hair just FLIES!! ohman, it's so funny.

I was able to do some grocery shopping this afternoon, and picked up Elaine from work. It was just a quiet evening, except something is bad-wrong with my stomach. I've been in PAIN in my middle for the past three hours. Uggh ... I'm super-tired, but can't begin to think about sleep because my stomach is so wrong! WHATINTHEWORLD??!

Sat., Oct. 20

Wow, it was an early morning. 5:30am. We got to the resort at Casa Grande about 8:45 and enjoyed an absolutely LOVELY morning/early afternoon with Tucson and Casa Grande church ladies. Wow, I learned a LOT, too!! The theme: "The Bride of Christ". It is invigorating to have one's eyes opened to new concepts and/or illustrations!! Awesome.

The rest of the afternoon was spent transitioning to be the possible new adoptive home to a one-year-old German Shepherd. I know ... don't freak out on me. (sigh)

It seems Jeremy and I have come full-circle in pets, now that we have a reincarnated Freeloader and a reincarnated Koda. hm...

Jeremy finally has his two dogs.... [His 'American Dream' comes together more by the day.] Our next door neighbors have had a dog stolen from their gated, locked back yard; two days ago they killed a snake; upon returning home yesterday after a few hours in town they found their back screen door off its runner. That doesn't happen by accident. At our old house five miles from here, in the span of six months we experienced a stolen vehicle and a deadly shooting on our street. Point: We absolutely live in a very dangerous part of this dangerous city. A German Shepherd is probably one of the least-expensive home security arrangements out there. Kiana is a currently-un'fixed' female, full-bred German Shepherd who is house broken, came with her own crate, and was "free to good home" - b/c the owners experienced a landlord change and a new no-dog policy. She is really good with humans, not yet so good with new little dogs. So it is complicated right now. Also complicating the matter is that those same next door neighbors, whom we like so much (Antonio & Theresa - read them in Spanish! "ahn-TOE-neeo y (and) Tay-RRRAY-suh") are interested in being the owners of this dog. [Jeremy offered her to them last night when he first heard of her, but then we got to thinking about the pros and cons of adopting her into our home if Antonio & Theresa decide not to take her.]

Pros:

• security
• fun
• education/experience for the children
• EXERCISE ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER for Jeremy
• major easy-conversation piece for especially Jeremy to strike up conversations with people with whom he otherwise might not be able to even get a foot in the door, relationally.

Cons:

• Trickiness in getting her to get along with Jabba (but since he's going to be a completely, 100% outside dog that's not quite as tricky as it sounds)
• affording her food (less expensive now than if we'd had to feed her all last year)
• hospitality (shouldn't really matter, since she's going to be an outside dog)
• more training to do, and
• more poop-picking up to do ... both of which there are FIVE OF US with which to help out!!

SO ANYWAY. We will see if we get to keep her, and how it goes. We've already decided that since Jabba the Mutt has already proven himself to be a wonderfully-pleasant pet, if one or the other has to go it will be Kiana.

Supper, showers, LSU game, bed.

Pictures tomorrow.

Fri., Oct. 19

I guess the most exciting thing today is that we finally took advantage of the neighborhood's "Tot Lot", which is two houses to the west and then across the street from us. Our Homeowner's Association fees help keep some GRASS in this section of the neighborhood!! LOL!! Now there's a novelty! (eye roll) We took Jabba along, but pets aren't allowed right in the actual "Tot Lot". Since N & J are old enough not to need me right there with them, I was able to walk Jabba back and forth by the Tot Lot and do some pretty concentrated leash-training with him!

This is what Jabba looks like on grass!

The following three pictures I took mostly just to give you a feel for what the Tot Lot is like. Neighborhood meetings are held there, like the one Jeremy is planning to attend tomorrow morning - a CrimeStoppers meeting! In a couple weeks they are having a Harvest Festival down there too! hm! I'm noticing that I should have taken more pictures of the actual green area/park. Stay tuned. ;)


We didn't have to go ANYWHERE at all today. My favorite thing!! I made ... and burned ... not one but two rhubarb pies for potluck on Sunday. THIS OVEN! I can NOT figure it out! This is a recipe I have made with no problems for ten years, but this oven overcooks some things. I have to figure out whassup with it before it drives me nuts. The pies will be fine. Just, the tops of their crusts will be yummy only to people who like burnt food. blech And ... when I spend that much time making something I want it to be PERFECT, for goodness sake! (Actually, that might be another part of the problem. I didn't make the crusts from scratch this time. We were given some pie crusts leftover from the seminar and I wanted to use them for something to benefit the church. Do you suppose they burned because the crust was different? It's possible, I guess, but makes no sense to me.)

Other somewhat out-of-the-ordinary things today were to spend more time on the phone accomplishing my 'interview' sessions. I'm actually through now, so that's good news. I prepared a couple packages for mailing, had Natasha help me bury the kitchen scraps in the garden (her first time), and did a good amount of reading with the children -- still that mammals book. It's sssssssso interesting. Natasha spent another hour this early-evening making sand drawings on the Dirt Etch-a-Sketch. She and Justus played for hours today with the couch cushions downstairs and the dress-up clothes, along with their light sabers ... each with one finger cymbal attached (by each cymbal's attached elastic band) up toward the end. I asked what that was for. I was informed that they were pretending it was a light to shine on things in the dark. Umm ... okayyyyyyy!?!

Wed. & Thu., Oct. 17 & 18

A couple pictures from yesterday:

Natasha decided these medium-size buckets were drums, and went to TOWN. lol

The children have created a life-size Etch-A-Sketch. there happens to be a lot of loose sand/dirt right off the back patio. When the slide is pulled across it, the sand/dirt smooths out and leaves a perfectly pristine canvas. Sharks, trucks, butterflies, dragonflies, stairs, and all kinds of other things have been drawn into this section of our yard these past two days! When they're through with one set of pictures, one child or the other will push the slide across the ground to erase, and then they begin again.

The animal prints Natasha drew (today) include: dog, jackrabbit, cardinal, and camel.

Here is Jabba sleeping upside down ... which he does a lot. The hair on a Maltese's underside apparently grows much slower than on top (same as humans, from what I read), so when he's upside-down it's easy to see there is still plenty of pink in his coat - from the previous owners' dye job (gr).

I have weeded in the pack yard for two days in a row now! You know, for a place where people don't have grass in their yards, there are sure plenty of weeds to go around! Today's weeding was much more interesting than yesterday's though. Jeremy was talking over the fence to our next door neighbor, Antonio, about the excitement in their yard, including that his male Chihuahua (very friendly) was stolen a few months ago when someone decided to break down his yard gate. (The unfriendly female Chihuahua was not stolen; the thief probably decided she wasn't worth the hassle.) Then, two days ago his wife (who speaks no English) was trimming her rose bushes when a 5' rattle snack slithered out from underneath the bush and between her legs. Antonio came at her call and killed it with a shovel. They skinned it (quite a trophy - he showed us, of course) and ate it for supper!!!!! LOL Well, he said she wouldn't even try a BITE of it. So then yesterday he put a mesh screen over even the little drain of his back yard (It's already over the bottom 3' of his gate - to keep the dogs in) to keep the snakes OUT! Happily, he gave us what he had leftover so Jeremy can do the same with our gate and drain! Hooray! Antonio seems to be an EXTREMELY pleasant neighbor. His wife also seems as sweet as anything.

The children and I had an unusually large amount of reading time together today. Awesome. We are learning a lot about animals from a library book whose one foundational concept seems to be evolution.... It's creating lots of opportunities to read discerningly; happily, the children are pointing out parts of sentences that refer to evolution, so it's good that they're practicing recognizing it, at least. Meanwhile, this book is really fascinating. I'm not sure, exactly, from which material Natasha picked up the following knowledge, but when we arrived at Lucia's baby shower last Saturday there was no one else there whom we knew. We 'ooh'ed and 'aah'ed over baby Micah, and I asked, "Now, how old is he, exactly?" Lucia said, "Today makes one month." Natasha said, "Oh, well then you need to be very careful because his head is still in pieces."

!!

I spent an unusually large amount of time on the PHONE today!! I'm excited for that not to happen tomorrow so I can get more done. ;)

Tue., Oct. 16

I cleaned one fan today. One down, five to go. (!!!)

We spent a good amount of time today, the three of us, reading from the Mammals book. I really like reading with the children. Preciously, they seem to really enjoy it too. YAY!

While slicing onions today (I made French Onion Soup for lunch.) using the Ultimate Slice and Grate withOUT the guard (the onion wouldn't fit into it) - STUPID! - I sliced deep into the tip of my right thumb. The cut is only 1/3" long, but it's deep. That injury actually changed the plan of the day because supper was going to include bread bowls; I decided not to try to figure out how to knead bread with a freshly busted thumb. Instead I coached Justus making cookies (a-hem!) and did some kitchen clean-up that had been postponed. (Rubber gloves were a saving grace! ha!)

I had reasons to talk to Mom, Sydni, Michelle A., and Stephanie all on the phone today! That's some kind of record!

Just as I was putting Justus down for his nap Jeremy called and mentioned that he'd cooked up a movie night surprise for the five of us at the building for supper. Hm! [Earlier in the day I had told him of the change in our supper plans, from soup in bread bowls to ... frozen pizza. :( ] So Justus got to skip his nap - for the 2nd day in a row. He did great!! Good thing he's five! He is such an early riser that he definitely still needs his nap most days of every week, with our children's late bedtime of 9:30 - 10pm.

A few days ago when I was cleaning out a milk jug for recycling, N asked me if she could have it for crafting purposes (always cracks me up). Today she and Justus were playing some kind of military game in which they had tied blankets around their middles, and would 'hide' under them on the ground. So then Natasha got the idea that if she tied the milk jug onto her head, when she laid down under the blanket she could pretend that the jug opening was the firing end of a 'big gun'!! (?? WHERE DOES THIS STUFF COME FROM??!!)

The spinach is big enough to show up in a picture.

The beets are big enough to show up in a picture.

And look at this garlic sprouting!!

It being military day and all (??!), I guess it's appropriate that N took this picture of Justus pretending that the slide (currently detached, since the move - and standing on its back end) was a tank!

There was so much going on out front today that I decided to take a picture of it so you can see how busy our family-friendly neighborhood gets sometimes!! (N & J are on the far right.) (The picture was taken from just inside our garage.)

There are two BEA-U-TI-FUL things about this picture. First, the paper towel holder, hung. Second, aah! - is that a breeze I see coming through the window?? :) :) :) :)


Here are a few pictures of Jabba. Here he's sleeping in one of his favorite sleeping places, on the couch's raised foot rest!

I took this picture to show you how much his hair has grown in the past five weeks!! Aaah! He's due for a haircut already!! We might try to cut it a little shorter next time...? Hm....

I took this picture to show you the huge, fluffiness of his feet! lol We didn't work on trimming them last haircut, so they're really big now! LOL

Sat. - Mon., Oct. 13-15

Saturday went like this.

8:30 a.m. - Drop off Elaine at work

9:00 a.m. - Ladies' Day Planning Meeting

3:00 p.m. - N and I attended a baby shower for a church 'visitor' who, after 14 years, got to adopt a baby last month!

5:00 p.m. - Pick up Elaine from work

5:30 p.m. - Drop off Elaine and N. Go to the building to prep my Bible class room for Sunday's class; then pick up two days' worth of groceries ... all I had time to get.

Jeremy cooked a breakfast supper, cleaned up the kitchen, AND repaired our silverware drawer organizer! I LOVE HIM!


The only unique thing about about yesterday is that, since Jabba peed in his kennel while we were at evening services and had to have a bath ... guess what was found between his toes? A TICK! Certainly he picked it up when we were at camp last weekend. ARGH. It was still small and of course difficult to pick out. Jeremy did the deed, thankfully. I LOVE HIM!


Today, Monday, Jeremy stayed home all day! And played video games practically all day. (hm) Except he was up at 5:00 a.m. to get the trash to the street for pick-up, since I could not physically do it, as tired as I was (asleep by 11:30 p.m.!!), at the relatively-late hour last night that I remembered it. Justus did a larger-amount-than-ever of helping me cook our breakfast. (hm!) I did the big grocery shopping trip I'd been trying to do since last Thursday.... Justus went with me - and got to skip his nap; he was super-sweet company and even somewhat helpful! (hm!!) Natasha had a sore throat yesterday, swallowed garlic before bed last night, felt quite a lot better today, but is diarrhea-ish!, as her body is clearing out the problem. :( Poor girl! She did her seat work this afternoon while the house was quiet, including reading "a lot out of my Bible"! :) That's always a wonderful thing. After supper Jeremy hung the paper towel holder Wayne England gave us ... how long ago, now? YAY!! I'm so happy that's finally done!! Took him long enough!! But still, I LOVE HIM!

Fri., Oct. 12

Jeremy worked only half a day today, so he could come home and square away a lot of Lego mess and lend a hand with some house cleaning ... much of which has been neglected these last few weeks. It was nice!! He laid down some new rules for the children's Lego usage, which should facilitate some changes that will make the family room a little nicer place to be.

Mostly the only thing that needed to be done, cleaning-wise, was vacuuming. I haven't vacuumed since we got Jabba, which we know is a month now. !!?! At this point I will defend myself by stating that whenever there is anything on the floors - any little trash, or a ball of carpet fuzz (new carpet) - we pick it up, so our floors at least *look* good....

We had Stuffed Shells and Roderick was raving about how this was restaraunt-quality food; I was complimented. lol

They did bring Daniel, which was a surprise to us; we thought he was giong to stay home with his 18yo sister. Roderick and Magdalena would have been able to stay longer if they hadn't brought Daniel with them; however, they said he did great by lasting about 50 minutes past the end of supper. I wanted to take a picture of their family, but he wouldn't come when called, so I just shot him doing what he was doing at that moment....

Computer geek :) Roderick is building a Web site for the church!! We got our first glimpses of it this evening. SO EXCITING!!



This video is of Jeremy making Jabba fly, like they do in the movies.

Thu., Oct. 11

Tad (landlord) arrived at 10:30 am, at my request, to help me deal with the foliage on this plot of dirt. I needed instruction about trimming, and one bush that died (no one knows why) needed to be replaced. Instead of coming out to look at the dead plant and then dealing with it four weeks later after who-knows-how-many reminder calls, Tad had been to the nursery already this morning to purchase a replacement plant that took only four minutes for him to put into the ground after pulling out the dead one. Awesome. After he left I trimmed the Palo Verde tree out front for an hour, and got stuck at least 250 times including one in the pad of my right thumb that is giving me fits.

Then I made the menu and grocery list for the next two weeks. I have $150 to work with. (gulp!) Thankfully from the grocery money spent previously this month I have a good supply of meat on-hand, from which to create meals.... Still $150 is cutting it really short. I'm anxious to get this whole Jeep/Valerie financial crisis behind us. It's coming soon - like maybe next month - when we'll be caught up and can get back on a workable budget....

Then the children and I went to pick up a school desk we were given last spring by the Koenigs; they'd set up the deal through Judy Kinnison, who lives close to them ... we'd just not figured out how to get it done -- alllllll summer. lol The desk will need some cleaning and maybe a paint job, but it will be a nice addition to Justus's room; he has no work space or chair in his room.

Then we picked up lunch (9 taquitos w/ cheese for $7) at a little Taco Shop around the corner from the church building [We'd been wanting to try it out for weeks now!] and had a quick lunch with Jeremy at the building before a quick-trip for groceries for tomorrow (company for supper). I'll do the big-list grocery shopping on Saturday.

Elaine cooked supper today! Chicken and homemade noodles. Woah - yum. I am so thankful, too; her timing was excellent since today was so full.

We had a couple hours to re-group in the afternoon before leaving for Northside for their seminar called "A Commitment to Singing" facilitated by -- (trumpet fanfare) Tim Stevens!! aka - lead singer of Favorite Hymns Quartet, a music STAPLE of my formative years. Northside is an anti-group, so it is significant that other congregations were invited to this function! It was enjoyable and edifying. Afterward, when Elaine and Jeremy were meeting Tim, they kept pointing to me, so by the time I got to speak to him he said, "so ... what's the connection here?" I said, "Well, there are two." Seriously, Tim spent about eight minutes talking with me about FHQ, Dane, Boyce, and then he asked some questions about who Jeremy and I are. It was really nice!

I accomplished four loads of laundry today, and after the house quieted down tonight I was able to polish some mirrors, do some church secretary work, and repair the blue couch (my FAVE!) which had been needing to be done for (yeah...) a lllong time now; it had a five spots that had needed some serious stitching in order that the couch will continue to serve us for more years. Do I need to explain how frustrating my timing is, sometimes, that here I am with this nasty thorn-puncture bump on the pad of my right thumb - yet tonight is the night ... of all days ... that I choose to hand-sew our COUCH back together??! ARGH.

Sydni let me know that she has been attempting to travel the path of the sideswept bangs. It freaked me out because ... I have too, these past two weeks!! At my haircut two weeks ago I had the girl cut me some long bangs to train to the side. I'm not particularly happy with them, but ... whatever - they'll grow. Since Chic shared a picture of hers, I shared a picture of mine; we were dressed up this evening anyway, so - finally some GOOD timing. ;) They say evening light is a good time to take pictures. (shrug)

Wed., Oct. 10

We weeded in the front today. I took an hour in the afternoon and read my book that I'd gotten super-absorbed in. ["Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" (Thanks, Chic!) -- WHAT an education!] Those are the only two things about today that were any out-of-the-ordinary.

Here are the remaining pictures from the weekend.

Here are Natasha and Justus when we were heading out for our "Nature Walk". In fact, all of today's pictures were taken on the Nature Walk.

In the foreground is "the field" at Camp Christian Echoes, and I was facing east, if you care. ;)

The following two pictures were taken at the edge of the stream bed. It looks like this is a raging 'river' during monsoon season, and actually in order to get to the camp, one has to drive across the stream bed!! How strange is THAT?? This first picture was facing east. The second picture faces north.

We took a couple of fun pictures together!

Here's fake-smiling Natasha. I took a cute picture of Justus by this fence post too, but accidentally DELETED IT! ARGH!!!

On the way back to the camp we heard a unique, firm 'tap-tap-tap' a few times. It took me a few moments to register that it was a woodpecker - and close! It took me a few more moments to find it in the trees. It had a bright red head, but was too high up for me to tell what kind it was. As I was trying to get closer for a better picture it went even higher up in the tree, and on the top of a branch way above us. GR! I went ahead and shot the picture because in real life I could still see a smidge of red; I wanted to see what would show up in the picture. Sure enough: nothing. So why did I save the picture? I think that's the first time I have seen a woodpecker in the wild!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This picture is to remind me of the moment.... :*(

This is nothing but a thistle. Key: it is NOT a cactus. I think there are ZERO cactuses that grow in the climate where the camp is. (That's one of its most attractive features for us Tucsonians to whom cactus is a part of everyday life!) I was just struck by the size (12" diameter!) and perfect balance of this thistle. I mean, really, it looks like artwork. But then, it IS artwork, created by the Master Artist, right? What does He see in THISTLES?? lol Obviously they serve some purpose...! ??

Tue., Oct. 9

This is the campfire circle at Camp Christian Echoes. There is one set of benches all around it, and then the two benches with backs, on the left. On Saturday night the guys built a HUGE campfire, which was much-appreciated, since it was so chilly!!! That fire started out taller than Jeremy! And they'd taken up stuff to make S'mores, too!! ;)

How exciting do you think THIS was for our children who have been fascinated with bats these last few months???!! There was a bat who chose the Ladies' Showerhouse entrance as his cave for the day. This picture is a close-up; the children think it was a Bumblebee bat, since it would fit into the palm of an adult's hand.

Justus asked me to take these pictures of him playing on the monkeybars.

Here are pictures of Natasha and Justus swinging.

Natasha shouted across the way, "Mom,I'm going to do a trick! Please take a picture?!"

I took this picture to give you an idea how high the children can swing on these great swings!

Today was surreal. Elaine had to work, but not one of us four had to go anywhere today. We stayed home all day. What an accomplishment! In addition, I'm caught up on laundry, and supper was super-easy again!! Ssssssso that meant I got to make some unconventional choices about how to spend my time today! First, Natasha and I took Jabba on his first 'walk' since he came to live with us. At 5:30 just as the sun was setting, the temperature dipped to 84 degrees and we knew we could stand a walk. It was very nice. I spent some time doing some computer prep-work for the first Ladies' Day 2008 Planning Meeting coming up on Saturday. I also got to 'craft' a little bit, finishing up two small gifts I've been slowly working on.

Jeremy was Mr. Mellow. He's not too well today (Nor am I: sore throat), from the weekend of almost no sleep. He slept in until 11am (means he's sick!), and napped from 4-7pm too!! I won't detail the location where he spent lots of the remaining moments of his day. (He's sick!)

N had a 'particularly-productive' day! I told her that since tomorrow is supposed to be a busier day than today, she should do her "orgenis room" event today. What she wanted to do was switch the location of her dresser and her table/desk! She detailed for me the reasons for her choice and I agreed they were logical and that it would work. (Thankfully Jeremy was home today to help move two of the heaviest pieces of furniture in our house!!) She did a great job re-organizing and cleaning her room. Yay! Natasha also multiplied today! It was so cool. She held up her hand and said, "Mom, five fives is twenty-five!" I just blinked a couple times, making sure I heard what I thought I heard, and then asked, "How did you figure that out?" She pointed to one finger and said "Five," then pointed to the next finger and said, "Five. Two fives is ten, four fives is twenty, and another five is twenty-five!"

Mon., Oct. 8

Alrighty! The pictures I tried to post last night actually posted tonight! So I'll tell you a little bit about them.

In this first picture you can see the dining room area. I talk a lot about Travis Campbell (age 25, from Oklahoma, graduate of OC); he helped us move and has been here twice for supper since then. He has been Ina Road's youth minister for just over a year. The first time I saw him, at Mountain Avenue's youth rally last year, I didn't even bother to speak to him because of my own insecurities about the stereotypical jock/football player type. Thankfully that's not who he is on the inside - and I got a good lesson in stereotyping. So, in the picture below that's Travis in the gray short sleeve shirt on the left in front of the screen. The guy on the right in front of the screen is Jesse Warren, the campus minister here in Tucson! He's also 'new', having been hired on in May. He and Desarae (blue shirt in the shadows on the right) got married in June and Jesse started at UA in July.

I'm so glad I took this picture because it reminds me of a hilarious game they played. They said it was a "Pick-Up Line Contest" and got five guys to volunteer to test out a pick-up line on two girl volunteers. "One girl will sit at each end of this 'couch' that we're going to make out of a blanket over some chairs. You will come down and sit between them and try out your pick-up line, but first you have to go outside with Brant and tell your pick-up line to an adult to guarantee its appropriatenes." So the guys and Brant went outside. Then it was announced that this is NOT, indeed, a Pick-Up Line Contest. It is a prank! They lay the blanket over two chairs, one at each end of the 'couch', but leave the middle without a chair (put pillows underneath to break the fall and avoid an injury/lawsuit! lol). OH MAN, it was funny - with the teenage boys walking in all Rico Suave and then falling to the ground between the two girls whose job it was to stand up at the moment he was sitting down. Aaaaaahhh!! LOL

The "Lodge" fireplace situation is very bad and makes me almost not want to even go back. The fire is too far from the chimney hood and most of the smoke just drifts into the room!! It's absolutely gagging and choking. SO BAD. Everyone's clothes, hair, etc. stink, and headaches are rampant (Ya THINK??). A solution DEFINITELY needs to be found for this problem!

Here are Jesse and Desarae Warren. Jesse is doing in Tucson the job Scott is doing in Albuquerque - kind-of; Tucson's campus ministry isn't nearly what Albuquerque's is, yet. Jesse and Desarae are friendly, wonderful people! We had seen Jesse four times before we got to see Desarae. (She works full-time as a nurse - strange schedules and all, you know....) Last time we saw Jesse I told him I thought he had made up the story about having a wife ... that she didn't really exist because we hadn't seen her. So when she got to come up to camp for the weekend Jesse was hunting me down to show me that Desarae is real! lol

Here is a picture of Dave and Jessica Knapp (Yes, Dave is of the same Knapp family Mom grew up with in MT.). Dave is also the president of the board of directors of Tucson's campus ministry. In addition he is a native of Albuquerque, where he was active in the campus ministry there and got to know Scott! lol Dave is as anxious as I am for Jesse and Scott to get to know one another! I am anxious to SING with Jesse and Scott!! :) lol Anyway, Dave is a physicist, and then his wife Jessica, whom he met through the campus ministry here in Tucson, is a professor of mathematics (I think I mentioned that last night.). "They" are the youth ministers for Mountain Avenue Church of Christ, but it's mostly Jessica who is the one most-involved since Dave is so involved with the campus ministry (which is overseen by the Mountain Avenue elders.)
We stayed home all day today. Well, Elaine worked and Jeremy actually spent the day in Sierra Vista with Cecil! (Jeremy was returning Cecil's projector which he had let them keep at camp the rest of the weekend even though he had to go home early.) In fact, in case you're interested you may visit Ina Road Youth Group's MySpace at www.myspace.com/iryg and see more pictures of these people. There is a funny picture of Cecil and Jeremy who was holding Jabba on that first day when we brought him home.

I guess the only interesting thing is how COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED we all are, including Jabba, who slept almost alllllll day!!! In fact, there were about three hours there, before supper, when I was thinking I was not going to make it through the family activities of the evening! But then I had a piece of the chocolate cake Natasha made today (completely by herself, from a box; I answered no questions and gave no instructions - just stayed close-by in case of emergency) and the caffeine in that has me floating, it seems ... which turned out to be a really GOOD thing because Jabba's intestinal issues didn't do any favors for the cleanliness of the hind end of his coat and his care required more time and energy tonight than usual. ...

I think I didn't mention that on the way home from camp yesterday Natasha lost another tooth. Upper left "pre-molar" - even though she hasn't yet lost that canine tooth yet. The girl's mouth looks like such a mess!! I should shoot a picture of it to show you!

Jeremy has terribly sore muscles all through the right side of his upper body. He, Travis, and an older, athletic (former Olympic-training gymnast!) teen, Ben, were a three-man dodgeball team on Saturday that was unbeatable even when the rest of the teenagers all made one huge team the Three Guys still won. lol I think Travis and Ben aren't as sore as Jeremy is today ... because they work out regulary! lol

One thing I did today that was out of the ordinary was to re-work our Daily Schedule/Household Serivce chart. It's been basically out of order since before our move; isn't it funny how much can change within just a few weeks sometimes? So now the children have more unspoken direction, and I have less to 'think' about in order to get some of our basic tasks accomplished. I'd somehow taken on a few of the household chores the children can do ... which isn't best for many reasons. So those have been worked back into our routine and will be a blessing for everyone. One new service the children are providing for our household is to pick up Jabba's poops twice a week. They are also responsible to get the full trash bins to the street and then back to the back yard once they're empty. It's more difficult at this house than it was at the last house for two reasons. 1.) The gate is locked, so Natasha has to fiddle with a tricky gate lock; 2.) There is a TRENCH leading out from the gate; it's to drain the water from the back yard during monsoon season, but it makes it a little tricky to balance especially the heavy trash bins on the way to the street. However, N & J work together to accomplish the task and it goes well. They are to water the garden every other day, and there is one day in the week for them to dust their rooms and another day to vacuum. On one day when Natasha is doing the outside sweeping Justus is to water the inside plants. :) As with everything else about training children, it's always MORE WORK, at first, to have them help. But there is much pride to be had in doing hard work to serve the family!! :) Don't we know it! lol

There are three things I wrote down to include in today's blog. First, something so sad. I asked an unnamed man who was at camp on Friday night why his teenage daughters weren't there. The older one was busy with a school activity, he said. I said, "What about (the younger one)?" He said, "Well, I thought about making her come, but then ... I decided I'd rather enjoy the weekend." Their youngest daughter is giving them so much trouble that they'd just rather her not even be around - even if it's a church function. She's only 15, still! Even in just the small amount of time we've had to observe the situation it is clear there are a number of parental malfunctions that Jeremy and I believe have caused this problem and continue to exaccerbate it. My heart breaks for them, yet I'd like to shake them by the shoulders too since it is so clear what at least some of the problems are!! [lack of consistency, one parent un-doing what the other parent just did, favoritism of certain children in the family, absence of consequences, parent/s' long-term problem of being overcommitted to church work, the 'my child can do no wrong' syndrome...] (sigh) So not only is it really sad to witness, it's also really frustrating because these GOOD PEOPLE have lost at least some of their credibility due to their lifestyle of unbiblical parenting....

Jeremy has a joke he thinks is hilarious. Any time we eat crackers someone will say, "May I please have another cracker?" Jeremy asks, "What'd you call me?" "Cracker!" So this happened tonight as we were eating our grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. It was Natasha who asked for the cracker and had to go through the exchange with Jeremy. lol Then, as she began crumbling her cracker into her soup she said, "I'm making my cracker crummy." Jeremy said, "What'd you call me?" She said, "Crummy!"

After supper we were (exhaustedly, as I said before) sitting around the table before cleaning up the kitchen. Elaine had already left the table, and Natasha had cleared her place and was standing at the end of the table just relaxing, listening to the conversation. Jeremy started absentmindedly tapping out a rhythm on the table with his hands and before we knew it we realized that Natasha was moving to the beat. She had raised her arms out to the sides and was swinging her hips like a hula dancer, bopping her head for four beats to the right, and then switching to the left for four beats and then back again! OHMYGOODNESS we all just started cracking up and laughing so hard!!! Seriously, you know those "Bobblehead" hula dancers that ride along on people's dash boards? THAT'S WHAT SHE LOOKED LIKE!! And she just stayed as serious as she could be! LOL LOL LOL It was really, really funny!! I'd never seen her do anything like that before!