Early to bed... early to rise...

The time zone where my parents live is 2 hours earlier than what it is at home. But they also go to bed very early and wake up very early. So when I am here I pretend like I'm still on Minnesota time and then I don't get myself all messed up. So I go to bed between 8 and 8:30 and wake up between 4;30 and 6 and it seems to work well.

After spending a full day with my parents yesterday running errands, going through old letters and pictures, and talking, we have decided that today we need to at least mention to them that they need to consider moving out of their own home. Bart says I am in denial -- I still think they are doing OK -- but based on years of experience as a pastor and working with people in the same situation he can see signs that we need to do this. It troubles me in a lot of ways. My parents are doing very well for 83 and 90 and I didn't want this day to come.

On the other end of things, an administrator from Job Corps called yesterday and indicated that Tony was going to have to go before the review board and ask for an exception so that he can stay in the program. Apparently he has had some anger management issues (not news to us) and they have caused him to lose many points (that and smoking as a minor)> Hopefully he is going to be able to get his act together because if he gets kicked out of the program when he is this close.....

Being away from the office and from home this week has been hard when so many exciting things are happening at the church. But time with my parents has been good and tonight we get to hang out with some awesome friends from college. We will be home tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow evening Sadie and I will be heading to Women of Faith ...

Time just keeps moving forward......

Claudia's not dead, she's surely alive .... roaring like a lion ;-)

Wow. I can't believe it has been almost 2 weeks since I wrote on my blog. Nearly daily for 7 years and here I am missing two weeks.

Got those taxes done, though, and my budget for my new all-consuming job. Had a couple of very fun Friday nights with friends and some full days -- Isaac's birthday and time with Tim and Sue and Mike and Kari last Saturday, and now Bart and I are in Arizona visiting my folks. Internet has been quite tricky and we're trying not to work too much.

A quick update on things:

John is out of jail and seems to be doing ok. Mike is more stable than he has been in a while. Ricardo is in jail -- we don't know the full story. Kyle and Christy are living in their new home that they had built -- we haven't seen it yet. Salinda still living in an apartment with Gabby -- Rand happy in Mankato in the basement of friends from church. Tony and Jimmy plugging away at Job Corps, Sadie got her GED last week -- YAY SADIE -- will finish Job Corps early -- maybe even in November. Dominyk, Leon and Wilson doing fine -- Leon staying home to take care of the dog this week, Dominyk and Leon with our friends Nick and Joy and loving that! They get spoiled there.

Things at Bart's church couldn't be better -- all kinds of exciting things happening and the enthusiasm is contagious.

I have a full staff now at Bethany -- and while I won't talk about it much on the blog -- it's a very challenging job -- hopefully with great rewards ahead. It is incredibly consuming though -- both time and energy wise -- and I am seldom home. I like living like this but it is a big change from working from home for 16 years.

But life is really good. I just don't have time to tell you about it. I would promise to do better, but can't guarantee it.

Hopefully when I get back home I'll have Isaac's 2nd birthday party picks to upload for you.

Otherwise I hope everyone is doing well!

Taxes

I wish I had time to blog for a long time today as there is much to tell. A bit of family drama, a lot of work stress + exciting stuff, the fact that Bart is coming home tonight after a week in Florida (yay) another big paragraph about our new friends and how much fun I'm having with them, etc. etc. etc.

But I have to have my tax stuff for 2011 to our accountant by Monday and I'm ... well, let's just say I"m not even close to being done.

So today.... it's taxes.....

Rewind

Sometimes you just want to hit rewind and go back.....

I had that feeling this morning. About 3:50 a.m. I was standing not exactly fully clothed in my bathroom trying to shove the faucet handle of the shower back into the wall to keep the water from pouring out like an exploding geyser as it also leaked on to the floor. I was going to fix it and not wake up Bart because he had an early flight and we were going to have to get up at 4:50 anyway. But I couldn't fix it and the bathroom kept getting wetter and so did I.

And I just wanted to be back in Mankato where we could turn off the water and call Mike (kari's Mike not our son Mike) and ask him to come over before work and fix it. But instead I had to call a plummer who can't come until tomorrow. And I fixed it -- but not completely. The water no longer gushes, but as long as the main water is on the shower is running.

It's now 7;10 and I've been up for 16 nad a half hours. And I'm tired. And I have a lot of challenges in my new job and there was a misunderstanding today making the "perfect world" i've been describing seem very imperfect today. And I wanted to hit the rewind button.

But fortunately I've learned somewhere in my 49 years that it all comes to pass. I've learned that some of the best advice I ever learned were the words my mother said to me as a child and young teen "get some good sleep tonight. It will all look better in the morning."

I've also learned that true friends never stop being friends even though locations change... and that new friends, while they don't replace old ones, expand us and make us better people.

And so even though tonight I'm very tired, missing my husband, missing running water, and wanting to go to bed, I recognize that tomorrow will be another day.

But for a minute there it would have been nice to rewind to a different era.....