We had a very pleasant start to the day where everyone had a chance to talk with my wife on the phone for a few minutes. She didn't have much news to talk about, sounds as if she's trapped in the Navy's "hurry up and wait" mode. I remember that quite clearly from my military days - they would hurry up and rush us to a certain spot, then we'd wait. And wait. And then wait some more. Kind of kills the momentum of all concerned. Not that I'm fussing in my wife's situation - I'd rather her be bored where she's at right now that busy at her final destination. But it was nice to talk with her.
I was also able to share some photos of the gutters and what I'm doing in the garage with her via e-mail late last night - she was able to view them and comment. The gutters do blend in nicely with the house and are quite "un-noticeable" if that is a word. But that is very important in the gutter world! And to her credit, she could see what I was doing in the garage - the photos weren't the best but I did give her a narrative. And we had talked about this project before she left so she knew it was coming.
After talking to their mother for a little while, both girls got up and started getting ready. Breakfast was incident free and all progressed well. It was 50 degrees when the little one went outside and a perfectly clear day. She was happy I didn't make her wear gloves and a hat. Once her bus showed up, I worked in the garage a little while. I got all the holiday stuff up off the floor and onto the decking, swept that side of the garage really well and then started going through stuff on the other side of the garage. My whole goal is to get everything off the floor and on the deck - that will open the floor up completely. I have an 80" projection screen I'm going to mount so we can watch movies and the girls can play video games in the garage. While I'm not turning the whole garage into a playroom, we will certainly have more livable space for the entire house by doing this.
I stopped after about 90 minutes in the garage, got cleaned up and just as I was getting ready to leave the Head Deacon at our church called. He asked if I remembered seeing some brick at the new modular last night when I was there for out meeting. As he told me why he was asking, I told him I was heading down Battlefield to the post office anyway, I'd swing by the church and call him back. I took our nutso dog with me and away we went.
All was quiet at the church - no workers around or anything going on. I called the deacon back and we worked out the situation with the contractor. Of course Casey had run over to visit with Huck, the neighbor's dog, and I had to get her back in the truck so we could continue on.
Zero line at the post office this morning and two boxes were shipped off. What was left of the morning was spent cleaning the house, doing laundry and making sure I had all the bills done for the month. I spent part of the afternoon in the garage moving more stuff around - I'm really liking this project, it is going so well so far!
The little one came home and just as she got into the garage it started raining. We didn't get enough to test the gutters, that should happen tomorrow. I had to start supper early because today was the oldest daughter's first day at work - once she got home, she would have to change, eat and go to work. I'd be the taxi driver - taking her to work, then picking her up a couple of hours later and driving to church for evening service.
Our teenager doesn't handle stress well at all so she showed a little attitude when she got home. One of her teachers had e-mailed me earlier today that she didn't do well on an in-class assignment and it was obvious she hadn't studied. I gave her a little time to get organized and cleaned up, then as we were going downstairs for supper I asked her how chemistry class was going. I got the standard teenager "fine". I asked how she did on that particular assignment and if she was ready for the test Friday - she said that she wasn't sweating it. I asked what she scored and then the attitude popped out "99.9% of the kids did poorly and the teacher didn't seem concerned about the test plus she's not teaching from the book" she snarled! She doesn't give me attitude too often because she knows she rarely wins - I knew this was more because she was stressed about work, school and keeping her chores up so I remained calm. I said that her teacher must care, she took the time to send me an e-mail and in it 7 of 24 kids did exceptionally well which is no where near 99.9% and unfortunately she (my teenager) was somewhere on the backside of the Bell Curve instead of the frontside with her score. She had her chemistry book in her hand - the teacher had included the page number of the chart she was supposed to memorize, so I opened to that page and asked "is this the page she's not teaching from?" Like I've said before - we moved to this area specifically for the schools - they communicate exceptionally well with us and the kids can't pull much bologna. I reminded her who the adult was and who the high school student was, then asked her if she would like to rephrase her previous statement in the form of truth and proper tone. An e-mail from the teacher has a terrific way to stop teenager BS in its tracks pretty quickly. We moved past that discussion quickly with a plan to study for the Friday test.
After taking the teenager to work, we returned home and cleaned the kitchen. I also ironed my slacks and the little one's dress. It wasn't long before we had to return to pick the teenager up and then go to evening church.
The Wednesday night service is a small group of folks but the book we are using is excellent. It is the ABC's of Christian Growth and we are going very slowly. Tonight we started on the letter B - Bible!
Tournament basketball has started on TV - I watched a little of the games on ESPN tonight but wasn't really vested in any teams on. I'm not a real fan of any college basketball team but I will watch Kentucky or Ohio State if they are on. Other than those two, it is just noise in the background.
The girls devotion tonight was "Passing Grade" referencing 1 John 1:5-9. The little one read it to the dog - she'll listen to anything as long as you rub her belly! It talked about cheating at school and our 2nd grader had a hugely long story about a boy who cheated in her class - I asked her if only boys cheated or if girls could cheat as well; she said she only knew of boys that cheated but no Christian would cheat! Nothing like the faith of a child!! I took my devotion book with me in the car as we were waiting on the teenager but left it in there - I'll have to update you tomorrow on it.
Day Thirty Eight is in the books - here's looking forward to Day Thirty Nine!
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