I think this is the most time I’ve spent away from my blog since starting it three years ago: with the exception of a quick (but meaningful!) post of a hymn on Sunday, I haven’t posted anything since Friday. It’s been a busy weekend — a busy couple of weeks, in fact. As we were leaving for school this morning, I asked Jesse if we were sure there was nothing extra on schedule for today!

The ladies of our church were invited to a ladies’ conference at another church about 45 minutes away this past weekend. We get a smattering of such invitations, usually in the spring, and, you know, can’t just go running off every weekend, but a few of us usually do try to make this one. They only have it once every three years, and it is sponsored by a church where several of us have friends: it was my pastor’s wife home church as she was growing up, and the pastor’s wife there is a friend from college. Mrs. Beneth Peters Jones was the speaker, and the theme was “Christ My Light.”

I have to say, to my shame, that the theme itself did not generate much excitement at first. I think those of us who have been Christians for a while have to be careful in thinking, “Oh, I’ve heard that before.” Even if we have, we could use the reminders, but often we can learn something new or a new way to practically apply truth. There was much to ponder. I enjoyed the sessions very much, as well as the decorations, music, and food — especially the muffins between the sessions Saturday morning and the men serving dinner Friday night (several of our ladies said, “We ought to have our men do that at our next luncheon!) Seven of our ladies were able to go Friday night and three Saturday morning. The two of us who road together Saturday morning questioned what we were doing driving somewhere at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday — but we enjoyed the fellowship and the meetings.

The rest of Saturday was taken up with laundry, grocery shopping, and enough cleaning to keep the health department from condemning us. Sunday was a regular Sunday, then our ladies’ meeting was last night with more than the usual preparation throughout the day.

And now for the next two weeks there are no outside appointments or obligations that I can think of. It feels so luxurious! I have some catch-up cleaning to do today but want to really dig into the craft room this week. Melli mentioned in an earlier comment that she was still waiting on pictures of it. I said, “Me, too!” I’m still working in it/on it. In fact, we made cards for missionaries last night, and that part of the craft stuff is about all I have organized so far. I did wince at the thought of putting it all in boxes to take to the meeting and now having to put it all back again. But it was for a good cause, and it was a fun time.

I did get a call from the doctor’s office this morning about my knee x-rays. Apparently I do have bone spurs there, and she offered to refer me to someone about getting some kind of shots in them, but I told her they were tolerable for now.

My tendency, when it’s not busy or there are no deadlines, is to drift a little…or a lot…and lose my momentum and not get as much done. But I already have a to-do list for the day, so we’ll see how it goes.

Meanwhile I wanted to share this: I saw it on a friend’s Facebook this morning and thought it looked so fun!

…about 7:30 and said she needed a safe place to stay until about 9:00 and asked if she could stay in her car in front of our house.

Doesn’t that sound bizarre?

What made it seem even more so was that I had just finished making some phone calls on the couch, had just gotten up to leave the room, and was close to the door when the doorbell rang, so it startled me. Jim was in the next room and didn’t know I was in the living room, so he came around the corner, and I accidentally startled him. So we were both a little rattled anyway when we received this strange request.

My first thought was, “I’ve never heard a P.I. ask that on TV,” followed by, “How private is it if you’re telling us?”

Jim told her it was a public street and she could park there if she wanted to. She said she just wanted to let us know what she was doing.

So for the rest of the evening I felt self-conscious every time I walked in front of the living room windows or turned a light on in a room on that side of the house, feeling like someone was watching.

Of course we wonder who she is investigating. Jim said maybe she was just trying to hitch onto our Internet signal.

I don’t know. Weird!

• You know how when you shake a snow globe, everything inside keeps swirling around for a while before it settles down? That’s how my brain feels after a busy week and a half or so. It felt so good yesterday to only have a couple of small errands. Then I thought I’d get tons of stuff done with all my “free time.” I got hardly anything done. I felt like I was in kind of a malaise all day. OK, I thought, I can give myself a day “off.” But I really need to get up and at ’em today. Not doing so well so far.

• We’re having a lot of sickness at Jesse’s school, including several cases of swine flu. Several of the teachers are out sick as well as almost half the third grade. They’re thinking about closing down for a few days to slow the spread of it and give people a chance to recuperate. The kids are all for it, of course. Though if we have to close because of bad weather a couple of times this winter as we often do, we’ll have to make those days up somewhere. And one mom pointed out that with the incubation period, anyone who has been exposed might show symptoms about the time they started back to school again, causing another round. But I guess it would help slow exposure to some degree. (Update: they did decide to cancel school for the rest of the week. I don’t mind not setting the alarm clock for the next few days!!)

• I haven’t even looked up the symptoms of swine flu. I’m one of those people too prone to feel like I have symptoms I am reading about. So if any of us gets sick, then I’ll look up and compare symptoms.

• I got a new purse and wallet a while back and just last night transferred all my stuff over. I am hoping I can find everything when I need it! The last purse was pretty bag-like, and it seemed anything I looked for was always on the bottom. This one has compartments, but sometimes that entails searching several different places before finding what I want. I don’t know which is worse.

• I don’t know how people function with little teeny purses.

• Isn’t this just rivetingly interesting? 🙂

• I have an appointment tomorrow for a mammogram (ugh!) and an x-ray on my knees. The knees are starting to give me trouble if I go up or down stairs much or have them bent much. The office called this morning and left a message on the answering machine to call them back about the appointment. I have several times but it just keeps ringing. What business doesn’t have voice mail these days?

• How can the thermostat show 72 when I am cold one time and when I am sweating another time? It does move around, so I know it is not stuck there. I know it probably has to do with humidity and air pressure and activity level and all of that. I’m not quite interested enough to go looking for an answer.

And that’s how my stray thoughts are swirling today. Any other thoughts are even less interesting except for a couple I am pondering for future posts.

Now…I must get up and operate like a productive citizen and family member. Though I do hear a piece of leftover pie calling my name….

I’m having a leisurely, decidedly non-laborious Labor Day so far, though I need to do laundry and some catching-up from last week’s busyness. The guys are all over at Jason and Mittu’s doing some yard work as they have some overgrown areas out behind them and they don’t have any of their own lawn equipment yet. I’m luxuriating in some rare quiet solitude at the moment, but we’ll all get together for dinner later.

I hope you have a pleasant Labor Day as well! It’s kind of sad in that it marks the end of summer. I love autumn but wasn’t quite ready to make the switch yet, but I am getting there.

Some meme or another asked the question recently, “What is something you’ve never done?” We would all probably have multiple answers to that question. I decided to list a few. I should probably let this post sit for a few days before publishing because I am sure I’ll think of more…but since I ain’t got nuthin’ else today, I’m gonna go with this idea!

Things I have never done and have no desire to do:

Things I have never done but could be talked into…maybe:

How about you? What are some of your “nevers?”

My mother-in-law asks me this nearly every day, and most often my answer is, “Not much!” Just the usual — laundry and meals and dishes and such. But here are some odds and ends of stray thoughts and happenings:

• Our church had a lovely reception for Jason and Mittu last Sunday night after the evening service. Since most of the folks couldn’t go to the wedding in OK and since Mittu wasn’t here for several months before the wedding and we couldn’t do the normal bridal shower, they had this reception. It worked well because Jason was with her and could introduce her to those she didn’t know — she didn’t have to be by herself with a room full of women she didn’t know at a shower. They had just gotten a DVD of the wedding, so we had that playing in the background. We have some incredibly sweet and generous folks at our church!

• I’m still having this odd sensation of waiting for Jason to come home at night, even though I know better. Just habit, I guess. I don’t remember feeling that way when he was away at camp for the summer — maybe because he was actually away then, and now he’s here, but not here. When he was at camp I did actually forget and set the table as if he were here a few times — I’ve only done that once since he’s been married. 🙂

• The newlyweds seem to be doing well. In the “being a mother hen never stops” department, I am hoping the folks in their new “young married” class are friendly and open to them.  It takes a while in any new class to feel a part of things, but I hope they have a very short transtion period. Mittu has been looking for a job, but so far nothing seems to be open in area day cares. I was surprised that there weren’t even any listings in the classifieds. But she’s been submitting applications anyway to some in the area. I’m still trying to find the balance between giving them their space and privacy and keeping in touch. I don’t want to “bug” them and often second-guess whether I should call — but I want to be available and keep in touch.

• Funny how a room looks big until you start putting stuff in it. I’ve been enjoying getting my sewing/craft/guest room set up (though I need to find a shorter name for it!) I’ve got all the major pieces in except a daybed or futon or something for guests to sleep on. Need to go shopping for that. During the summer when I kept feeling inclined to sort through my craft stuff, I kept thinking it would be more efficient to just wait til I was able to move things into my new room, only handling them once that way. I should have gone with my inclination!! Sorting and organizing is what will take the longest. I’m enjoying it, though.

• I mentioned on my nightstand post on Tuesday that I wasn’t enjoying How Do I Love Thee? by Nancy Moser as much as I thought I would.  That changed within 24 hours. 🙂 I would love to just take the day off and read it.

• I haven’t gotten my body clock changed around for the new school schedule yet. I’m getting up earlier but hadn’t been getting to bed earlier until last night, so then I’ve been needing a nap during the day, which cuts into my work time. I should go to bed when Jesse does at 11 — but I like to unwind for a while before doing so.

• Sherry at Semicolon had an excellent, thought-provoking post about using the Muslim thirty days of Ramadan as a time of special prayer for them.

I think those are all the stay thoughts swirling about just now.

Have a great day!

My husband asked me to make a deposit in our account and his mother’s on a day when he was out of town and couldn’t do so.

As the teller handled my mother-in-law’s deposit, she looked at the name and then called me Mrs. H-, which is, of course, also my mother-in-law’s name. I said, “Well, I am one of the Mrs. H–s.”

She stopped and looked up at me and said, “You mean he has two?”

I hadn’t realized how that would sound! I quickly explained that, no, I was the wife and the other Mrs. H– was the mother. She had just been reading a book on polygamy and its problems, so perhaps her mind jumped to that conclusion a little more easily than it might have otherwise.

We had a good laugh over it. She was still chuckling as I left.