Jesse starts school tomorrow, and he and I have been trying to get up in the mornings closer to our school-schedule time rather than our later summertime non-schedule. I’m already ready for a nap. I’m not having many coherent, much less deep thoughts this morning.

Jason comes home from CA on Saturday!

This time of year is birthday season for our family with Jason’s in July, mine and Jeremy’s in August, and Jesse’s in September. But Jason wanted to wait to celebrate his til he got home, and Jeremy wanted to wait to celebrate his til Jason got home, and mine falls naturally next week, anyway, so we’re celebrating three birthdays in one week!

We almost always celebrate birthdays as a family on the actual birthday, even if there is a party with friends some other time. So even though Jeremy wanted to wait til Jason got here to celebrate his birthday, it seemed a little sad to not to anything on the actual day. So yesterday we went out to lunch at the restaurant of his choice. Then I ordered a decorated chocolate chip cookie cake to take to a church fellowship last night.

I had to scrape the icing off my slice — those things are so sweet and rich!

In addition to all the birthdays, we’re having out of town company. Jason’s very special friend of the female variety is coming up before school starts. They are not calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend — they’re still just getting to know each other. I don’t want to say too much — I don’t know if either of them reads my blog and don’t want to embarrass them or violate their privacy.

But from now through next week will be busy. I have to finish birthday shopping. I almost have Jeremy’s done. Jason didn’t give me many ideas besides gift cards, and that’s fine if that’s what he wants, but it’s nice to have something besides that to unwrap. Then there’s regular cleaning, shopping, etc., plus getting Jesse ready to go back to school, plus cleaning Jason’s room, which has been collecting dust all summer (and getting the stuff set aside to give to Salvation Army off of his bed, where I’ve been putting things as I sorted them all summer), plus all those extra things you want to do when company comes…

So posting may be a little light the next few days. 🙂

I had wanted to get the family room curtains done before company came — I finally got the fabric I liked, the pattern, and the lining (I agonize over most of the decision-making steps involved!) I took the fabric to the dry cleaners because you should always clean fabric in whatever method will be used on the finished product so that it doesn’t shrink after it’s made. But the girl there didn’t know if they did that, so I am supposed to call the manager this morning. I spent an afternoon searching for trim at several outlet places within a half-hour away, but couldn’t find anything that “fit” exactly (more agonizing decisions!), plus the cheapest was $4 a yard — and I need 11 yards for the curtains plus a couple of pillows. I already put a bit more money into the fabric than what I originally thought….so, I don’t know, I make make them without trim. There are a few more places to check out, but I decided I should probably put that back on the back burner and get these other things done. It’s probably more important to dust and vacuum and clean the awful burner pans on the stove than get curtains up at this point.

I’ve been needing to go to the dentist for ages. Sunday morning a filling that has been chipping off lost a good-sized piece and left a ragged edge on one tooth, which has caused a little blister on the side of my tongue. I really would rather wait to deal with this til after next week!! But I may need to see if I can get in before that. Augh. I just hate dental appointments (no offense to our very nice dentist).

My sweet bloggy friend Alice gave me this very nice award for being, as she said, “such a godly Christian woman”:

That is such a blessing and so encouraging, in one sense, that anyone would see me that way, but humbling also because I know I am so far from what I ought to be. Thank you, Alice! I’ll be thinking about who to pass this on to. In one sense I could give it to everyone on my blogroll. 🙂 But I know it’s not meant to be used quite that way. I did want to go ahead and acknowledge Alice’s generous gift, though.

On another note, there is a situation in our extended family that I can’t make public, but if you feel so led, I’d appreciate your prayers that this would work out to God’s glory and the best of all involved and for God’s wisdom to know what our actions should be. Thanks!

I’m off now to work on that to-do list…