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….