We’re going to a graduation party on Saturday night for these tired finished wiped out totally brilliant seminarians. Dude, it’s like totally an 80’s party.

I had an 80’s party for Craig when he turned 30. He Who Will Not Be Surprised totally was, and it was a really fun party. We had some 65 people crammed into our small house and it was everything I imagined an 80’s house party to be like because, you see, I never went to an 80’s house party. I was too busy wearing Laura Ingalls jumpers and listening to Keith Green on my cassette tape player.

But being a homeschool-wannabe then didn’t mean I was totally exempt from all the amazing fashion of the 80’s. Despite my fundamentalist roots, I was a firm believer in the big bang; and Keds with colored socks; and jellies; and big round glasses; and a frizzy perm I tried to bring back two years ago, but then realized there was a reason it died in the 80’s.

All that to say that we can do 80’s. But I was worried about this party because I haven’t given it much thought yet (other than that I needed to find a babysitter). Where does one find a banana clip this late in the game?

So, while I was upstairs sewing and stewing over important things such as which shade of blue eye shadow to wear and where I might locate some big dangly earrings to dangle, the gray clouds parted and the sun began shining right into my 10:25pm bedroom. We have Craig’s letter jacket in the trunk in the living room. Oh yes we do. My wardrobe problems for Saturday night are officially over.

I think this, paired with a denim mini-skirt, will do very nicely.

By the way, Woottons, congratulations. Well done!

First the good: I cleaned off my desk tonight.

Now the bad: Everything that was on my desk is now on the table.

In other news, we heard back from the bank today. This process is going to take a while as they aren’t playing fair. They had the price of X listed on the house. We offered a substantial amount below X. They countered with a substantial amount above X. I didn’t even know it ever worked that way. They are smoking something if they think we’re biting on that bait and switch. We can’t afford X, let alone 30K above X. Craig is optimistic, though, and he’s ready to fight. I’m more in a pit of despair which manifests itself by cleaning, thus the desk shot above. Me in despair might be good for our house for a few days, but not for me for very long.

I’m not even sure why I’m this disappointed. Two weeks ago we hadn’t even thought about moving. We’re in a great rental in a great neighborhood and if we end up staying here it’s totally fine. Someone remind me of that, please.

Now then, back to my desk. I don’t know why I can’t keep this area clear. I have a piling disease. Anyone make a pill for that?

If patience is a virtue, I guess that means bad things for me. I can be and do many things. Being patient is not exactly at the top of that list.

Yesterday wasn’t so bad. I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t hear about either of the two things that are the Big Things of the Week yesterday. We had a very full school day which took my mind off of everything and all of us were away from the house last night doing various things (older girls had a choir dress rehearsal, the youngers and I went to a homeschool meeting because I needed to pick up our free Six Flags tickets for this year). So I didn’t think about things too much and even when getting home at 9:30 and hearing that we wouldn’t hear wasn’t too much of a disappointment.

Today things are different. We’ve not had as much school work to do and so I’ve been stopping by my computer every 12 minutes or so to see if there’s been any news. Oh, who am I kidding, I check in about every 9 minutes.

The rational side of me says I might not hear anything today either and I need to live today. I need to do laundry, take the girls to piano, finish my 500 verse pack order for Eagle Lake, live.

The irrational side of me can’t figure out why the world hasn’t stopped until we’ve heard what we need to hear.

We may need to leave the house soon just so I can walk away from the computer for a few hours.

…no news.

Fortunately for me I’d been prepped by two different people that banks can drag their feet on these things. It is really different than buying a house from an actual family. So the bank didn’t move today. According to the realtor, this could be good or bad, but I’ll just take it as what it’s supposed to be and maybe pop some sedatives tonight so I can actually sleep.

Thanks for praying. I’ll keep you updated.

…and also evidences itself by large butterflies playing volleyball in one’s stomach by which said someone who  normally could sleep until 7:30 with very little persuasion pops her eyes open, wide awake at 6:25.

We should hear something by dinnertime tonight. Getting meaningful work done today could be a joke.

We would love it if you would pray on our behalf today. We need the bank to look at our offer as a reasonable one and be willing to let the house go for what we asked.

Crazy week #1 has come to an end. The schedule was goofy with Craig and me slapping hands while saying, “Tag!” on our way to and from one thing to the other.

The girls had their ballet recital on Saturday, and it was fun to see their year of work in action. We’d pretty much decided not to participate in that program again next year before Saturday night came for a variety of reasons, namely that the girls complained more often than not when it came time to go to practice each week. That combined with outrageously-priced costumes (each girl needed two!) and my own hesitation at the costume styles in general pointed us in that direction. Saturday night was fun, though. The girls enjoyed it, they did look pretty cute up there in their costumes, and they surprised me by what they retained from the year.

On top of all the crazy May schedule stuff, we decided to add some vinegar to our baking soda mixture by considering making an offer on a house. I know, it’s crazy - we weren’t even thinking about it this time last week and 7 days later here we are. I’m trying to keep my expectations low and my hopes down because the house is a foreclosure and we’re making a low offer on it which the bank might mark with their “loonies” stamp and send right back to us. Just trying to prepare my heart, that’s all. We should find out something by Tuesday night. I’m hopeful. And nervous.

Also last week, while juggling dancing children and a house possibility, I went through three nights of director’s training for Classical Conversations. I’m hoping our group can meet at my church this year, but there might be a technical glitch that prevents that from happening. The session meets on Tuesday night. I’m hopeful. And nervous.

So that’s the theme for this week: hopeful and nervous. Sure makes sleeping difficult.

I awoke to the gift of poetry from my 9 year old. I thought I would share:

Ode to Mom
My mom is sweet
She makes bread with wheat.
She drives a red van
Mom is also a baseball fan.
Mom home schools us
But, she doesn’t ride a school bus.
She sometimes takes us shopping
We are wild, like a rabbit hopping.
Mom is so nice
She doesn’t like mice.
Mom is so kind
My love and her love bind.
She lives in _____wood
When I fight she always understood.
I call myself lucky, as lucky can be
My mom is so special as special times three.

and then this one:

Another Ode to Mom
Mom loves to read
Most times she’s in the lead.
I love her a lot
Her heart is 1,000 times bigger than a dot.
She is really, really good
Her house has a chimney but no firewood.
If I could give her something, something I would
I hope to give her something if I could.
She sings like an angel
Which is really, really sweet
I love her a lot. And she cooks great meat.

Sometimes love is blind. And grace covers a multitude of relational sin. Amen. Amen again.

Happy Mother’s Day

Hey Jenny,

I volunteered to come up with a fun game to be played by several medium
sized groups of children outdoors next week because I should have a
store of these stockpiled in my brain due to being at Eagle Lake for ten
years. Right? My problem is that I repressed all that stuff and the only
thing I can think of is dizzy bat and the game where the PCs stuck
funnels down their shorts standing in buckets while the kids ran back
and forth pouring water down the funnels to see how much ended up in the
buckets.

Weird, right?

I was hoping you might have a few better memories than me. Can you
think of anything fun that doesn’t involve spinning around upside
down on a bat or stuffing funnels in anyone’s shorts?

Thought I’d ask…

Megan

I’m calling a time out here. Don’t know for how long, could be 5 days, could be 5 minutes, but as I’ve had nothing interesting to write about lately, I’m not going to write about nothing interesting right now.

See you later when I find some words again!

I had a roommate in college who would keep crazy hours, which included her boyfriend in our room until way past curfew. I could sleep through anything. Lights on? No big deal. Two people talking? Not interested. Printer smoking? Not my problem. I could sleep through it all.

So what happened? It’s only been 11 years, yet everything has changed. We live on a city street that, while noticeably busy during rush hours, doesn’t seem too bad the rest of the day. - except that really it is, and the sound of cars driving past at random intervals drives me crazy. I can deal with this okay in the winter, but now that it is the season for open windows, this noise thing is becoming a real problem.

Solution one is to simply leave the windows closed. And broil alive while we sleep (or attempt to).

Solution two is to open the blinds and put a box fan in the window, thereby masking the traffic noise. My problem with that is that I sleep facing that window which introduces my second sleep intolerance issue: store lights. We live right across the street from a Walgreens (really, every one here in St. Louis does - they are everywhere). Don’t get me wrong - I love having my own personal vending machine right across the street, but cannot for the sake of anything fall asleep with that red glow on my eyelids.

Which brings me to solution number three: sleeping in the basement. This seems like a fairly logical solution - it’s cool and quiet and the Walgreens glow does not penetrate. But we had a major bug issue in the basement last summer and I have a good memory.

So solution number four would be what then? Holiday Inn?

All this to say that here I am, exhausted from the first of many Maydays, and worried about not being able to fall asleep. And sort of wishing for winter to come back already.

Both, actually. We’ve officially entered the month where, in years past, the girls and I would begin tapering off of the school routine, playing a lot more, and relaxing. As we’re still on the schedule for the two-day/week school, we still have three weeks to go. Three weeks full-steam ahead. Mayday, Mayday!

Other signs of May for us include extra rehearsals/practices for everything we’re involved in, making the evenings a really fun time to navigate and bringing a whole new meaning to playing “parenting tag” with Craig. Usually everything has a once a week practice/rehearsal, or in the case of school, twice each week. Here are our next three weeks:

• This week: school, ballet, choir, school, choir, ballet, ballet recital - ballet done!
• Next week: school, choir, school, choir, choir performance - choir done!
• Third week: school, school performance, school, school picnic - school done!

Also sandwiched in here are three phone conferences for Classical Conversations (I’m starting a group for next year, so I have to go through training), a third-of-a-semester’s worth of Ancient and Medieval Church History for Craig, three graduations to attend, two graduation parties, and the possibility of a whole family check-in to the local psych ward.

To say I’m giddy about four weeks from now is a serious understatement. We just have to tuck our heads and run through the next three weeks to get there. Wish us luck.

I just came to a strange realization: I am better served in the process of both reading and writing in Word documents when I copy the whole thing and enlarge the font type to 16-point. Is it all downhill from here?

P.S.: No, I really don’t have anything better to talk about these days. I finished my three papers for Music and Theology last week, and am working on a paper for Classical Conversations right now. The most I can do here is confess that the old grey mare, she ain’t what she used to be.

“It will, doubtless, be objected that to encourage young persons at the Pert age to browbeat, correct, and argue with their elders will render them perfectly intolerable. My answer is that children of that age are intolerable anyhow; and that their natural argumentativeness may just as well be canalized to good purpose as allowed to run away into the sands.”

From Dorothy Sayers in The Lost Tools of Learning

Did you all see this? Is this surprising, or to be expected? Makes me angry. Also scares the snot out of me. If they will take your kids away for an innocent mistake like this, anything is game

Hat tip to Light Came.

Craig posted his review for The Weepies’ album Hideaway. I’d like to go on record as saying I picked that album for our collection. I’m pretty darn proud of myself.