Chesed

We had grilled hamburgers for lunch today.  Fantastic, moist, grilled to perfection hamburgers with lots of crisp lettuce, melted cojack cheese, pickles, jalapenos, onions, and tomato slices.  Why is it that when I serve hamburgers I feel as though it’s the perfect, all in one, balanced meal (protein, dairy, carbohydrates, and veggies) but when I grab fast food it feels as though I’m slaying myself with artery clogging fat?

And while we’re on “doesn’t make sense” contrasts, why do girls who do not enjoy cleaning get house-cleaning jobs for a living?

Tomorrow, July 12th, is Christy’s birthday.  And now that she is in SC you would think I would follow my urge and drive down there tomorrow.  I feel just a bit pouty about having to be so responsible for the next few weeks.  There are a few quirks to growing up, or at least older.  Things like being put on the food committee for two years.  Which really isn’t too bad a job all in all.  Or at least in wasn’t.  Until it interfered with my ability to plan a spur of the moment surprise trip to SC.    We’re hosting the youth fellowship meetings in two weeks and it’s tying ropes around my head and body.  I feel a little like I did getting ready for our wedding.  You know, semi-permanently attached to an external brain in the form of a ring-binder.  And a little like I did the summer I did two courses of Biology and one of English to jump start my college experience.  You know, eat, breathe, sleep food committee thoughts.  Now if I could just finagle another honeymoon out of this … or a graduation…..

 Maybe it is hot.  Maybe it is muggy in Virginia.  But I love summer anyway.  I love

playing at the park

picnics

sunsets          

times with friends and family

and weddings

I really do love summer

Get updated here. 

Since today is the fourth, Edenali is having their crews come help clean all the work related vehicles and take an account of all the tools in the forenoon.  We’re having a company picnic at noon for everyone involved including their families and playing games in the afternoon.  Adam was way too excited about finally being able to go to work with daddy.  He begs to go along and David Lee has explained to him numerous times that some men (OSHA) would be upset to have him out there because they have rules regarding safety that would not include having a three-year-old on the job.  I didn’t realize how badly he misinterpreted that until we were planning to stop in one day and he said, “Will the men not be there?”  What men?  “The men that will be mad at me?”  More explaining. 

But for today, he got to be a work man.  I almost did a double-take when I went to his room this morning.  There he lay, sound asleep and I was getting ready to wake him to go to work?????????????????  I started whispering to him and when he started stirring I said, “Do you still want to go to work with daddy?”  Eyes still glued shut and voice all froggy but the answer was clear as day, “YES.”  And so they’re off…. one with coffee, the other with juice. 

David Lee switched the trimmer head to one with a blade so that he could chop through brush getting our place ready for an invisible fence.  Since he was working in the woods tonight and I was planning to stay inside, we deemed it unsafe for Adam until he finished chopping.  I was pretty tired to begin with and after about an hour of being pummeled, crawled over, and jabbed with little elbows, I was wishing it would be time for him to run around outside with daddy.  We decided to check on the progress.  I opened the door.  No trimmer noise to be heard.  Suddenly, I was back in emergency mode.  (You would think that after 3 years out of the CCU I would have honed normal life instincts better by now.)  I could only imagine that some branch had snapped when he cut it and knocked the blade into his leg and he was hemorrhaging.  Last night he lost his phone in the brush so to save him hassle I kindly unsnapped it before he went out the door.  And all I could think was that I had taken away any resources he needed in an emergency.  I grabbed my flip flops and Adam’s shoes and we went marching down the yard, to the edge of the woods and started tramping through the by now well-blazed trail.  Adam was delighted to finally be going to find daddy and jabbered about all the prickers and the woods and whether there were bears under the ground.  By the time we emerged at the mailbox I was beginning to feel sheepish.  Sure enough, there stood David Lee all limbs intact, chatting with a neighbor.

On a more benign note, Mom, Beth and Lawrence met Adam and I at the park for a picnic lunch today after my dentist appointment.  Adam finally got to feed the ducks and I could have laughed to see him hurl his bits of bread and run back in sheer terror that they would come bite him!

When David Lee crosses “door hardware” off his to do list, I might just miss the holes.  They are the perfect “peek in at Adam to see if he’s sleeping” hole.  Perfect, that is, until today.  I quietly peered in and two little eyes stared back at me from the bed.  I tried to hold very still thinking perhaps he didn’t see me but in a few seconds we were both grinning.  Then again, maybe door hardware will keep me from peeking.

I think those “the dog ate my homework” stories are starting just a bit early at our house.  Saturday Adam was playing with Grammie’s buttons, pouring them from the jar into another container.  She discovered the empty button jar in the frig but has yet to find the buttons.  Today she called him in regards to their whereabouts.  “My dog ate them,” he declared.  “See, I just put them in my dog house and the dog ate them.”

 Last weekend we flew to Texas to spend the weekend with Steve and Christy.  No it doesn’t make sense to most people since they are moving to SC as I write and we’d have only about a 7 or 8 hour drive to see them next weekend.  But for Christy and I, it all makes sense.  For years we’ve been dreaming of the trip we’ll do sometime when we visit them.  It hadn’t happened yet and we were loathe to give up the dream.  At least, I was.  It was truly vacation.  Swimming.  Shopping.  Eating.  Talking.  Laughing. Shopping.  Laughing.  You get the picture. 

I was absolutely delighted to find so many things on sale at Hobby Lobby.  I love that store … there is nothing even close to it in our area.  So I sat in the aisle and we created arrangements.

  When were done I took pictures of the arrangements so I could just put stuff up when we got home.  You know how you get something home and can’t remember how you had it and you’re sure it looked it better the other way?  I wasn’t about to risk it.  If I thought I liked my kitchen earlier, I like it about twice as much now.  Which leaves me wondering if I’ll simply want to live there when David Lee gets around to finishing the crown around the cabinets! I tried to take pictures at night without flash and it didn’t work well without a tripod which I didn’t feel like bothering with; but you can’t get the same effect in daylight.

Adam and Zachary had so much fun together.  I loved hearing Adam say, “you’re so sweet” as he cuddled up to Z or watch Z’s face light up when he saw Adam.  I’m so excited that we’ll (hopefully) get to see each other more often now!  And if you have a minute, welcome Christy to South Carolina!

    This is why I’ve been too busy to post even though we’ve officially moved and I should be getting some much needed r and r.  For about a year and a half I have been secretly scheming up a big bash in celebration of David Lee’s 30th birthday!  Mostly, it was mental ramblings amidst the jumble of house plans, lighting decisions, and phone calls about carpet.  As things stretched out, I got really nervous.  I’d sent out invitations in February and it was getting all too close to June.  Hosting a big crowd at the cabin hardly seemed feasible.  Well, we moved, nerves and all exactly ten days before the guests were to arrive.  I frantically planned menus, compiled grocery lists, and lined up lodging.  Shopping, hiding items, hiding lists…. the last ten days were certainly much harder than the past ten months.  David Lee couldn’t figure out why I was pressuring him so much to keep working in the evenings.  During the last few evenings I backed off.  I was afraid if I pushed non-sensical issues any harder (like, we really need door hardware in the guest bedroom) he’d realize something is up.  And truth be told, a sock worked just fine for a visual blockade! 

The best part of the entire weekend for me was seeing him actually be so completely surprised Friday night.  He certainly didn’t help me out.  Tuesday he told me he’d made an appt for the car Fri morning.  I managed to talk him out of that one since the air conditioner did a little better Wednesday.  The next day he told me he scheduled an appraisal with Invisible Fence for Sat morning at 9:00.  I decided, fine.  You can make your own life tough.  But, of if you only knew.  Then he further proceeds to get work scheduled so that he would only be working fifteen minutes from home Wed – Fri.  HELP.  To make matters worse, Thursday eve at the supper table he said he has a really unstructured day.  He needed to get Matt started on Ned’s job (the close one) then go to Tally Ho to do an exterior door knob they wanted replaced.  Help.  Especially since it was Friday I could just see him finishing up around 3 and deciding it wasn’t worth starting anything else.  His Bald Eagle camp friends showed up at 4 to help me out since I expected him home around 4:45.  Amazingly enough, he ended up being home late and didn’t show up til close to 6 when most of the other guests were expected to arrive.  We were all sitting on the front porch waiting for him.  I laughed when I saw him throw his hands in the air as he drove in the lane……..exactly what I’d expected him to do! 

Both our families and friends from church joined us for the evening as well.  The next day he and his chief friends found a good swimming hole close to Crozet …. sort of a recreation of a day off years ago.  It was so much fun to have them here ….there were seven guys who were really close at camp and it would have been so much fun to have the other three here too.  Schedules.  Schedules.  Schedules.  I love watching him interact with his friends from camp.  They’re a great group of people and so much fun to hang out with.  And now a few pictures ….