Sing For Joy

It was a great weekend

After a not so great Thursday night.   Gracie was preparing to take her shower and told us there was a big wet spot on the floor in her bathroom.  I told her ( thankfully) to go ahead and take her shower and we would check it out afterwards.  Upon doing so, Joe discovered a small leak from the toilet tank.  He turned off the water to the tank at the wall and tightened the bolt where the leak was coming from.  Easy fix.  Then, he went to turn the water back on, and the knob broke off in his hand and water started spewing-quickly.  It was not a pretty sight-the water spewing and him in panic mode-something I never see.  The knob is low to the floor and difficult to put something under it to catch the water, but he did the best he could.  We used many towels, too and the entire bathroom floor was covered in water and began to run over to the carpet in the hallway.  Eventually I found a neighbor who could help me locate the place to turn off the water to the house-it was out in the front yard.   What a relief that was to get it turned off.  We managed with no water that night ( this all happened started around 8:45 pm) and by 10:00 the next morning Joe had gotten the replacement part and we had water again.    I seriously thought about taking pictures during the excitement, but I didn't think Joe would appreciate that very much.   By the way, he already had signed up for a day of leave on Friday and we were thankful for that.   

Friday night we attended the Casting Crowns Concert.  It was a huge blessing to all who attended and they were just awesome.   I am so glad we went and took the girls.  They enjoyed it, despite the volume being a little high for them at times.  Thank goodness we took earplugs.  They sang most of our favorite songs and also talked about the people in places like Africa who need clean water and how we can sponsor a child to help with that.  When Mark Hall was talking about it he said, "Imagine waking up in your own home and having no running water."  Joe and I couldn't help but look at each other and laugh a little when he said that.

Saturday morning Joe and I took our usual walk around the neighborhood with Sadie.  Often the girls go too, but that day we let them sleep in.  Joe felt led to pray for our neighborhood, our neighbors and our family as we walked and our usual 5 laps around turned into 10!  It was a great way to start the day.   Saturday night we had dinner with his new boss and wife and another couple.  We had a great time and it is such a relief to be able to talk to them and not feel stressed or uncomfortable.

Sunday we had church and heard another awesome sermon.  He is now preaching from the book of Matthew and yesterday started Chapter 3.  He told us something neither Joe or I knew-John the Baptist is Elijah who is mentioned in Malachi Chapter 4 as the prophet who will come before the Lord.  Our church is going to start making more visits to people who either don't have a church or who have visited our church once or twice.  Pastor K. said we would all be wearing camel hair and serving locusts with honey at these get togethers.   Thankfully then, he laughed.

Sunday evening Joe's "Young Career"  Sunday School class came over to watch the Superbowl.   Joe is their teacher and they are all in their early 20's to early 30's.  They helped Joe and I feel younger and we had such a great time with them and all but two of us were pulling for the Giants-which just led to the fun all night.  I'm so glad the Giants won! 

Testing

I feel like I've been being tested lately-tested in my faith, in my decisions, just plain challenged.

Things started going downhill with the demise of the power steering belt a couple of weeks ago.   Yesterday was the Memorial service for the airman who died after being deployed with the same group as my husband.  The hardest part of the service was the DVD presentation with lots of pictures of him and his children and wife set to songs-especially pictures of him and his baby daughter set to My Little Girl by Tim McGraw.  Not many dry eyes in the chapel after that. 

After the service, the girls and I went to the commissary.   It was funny, on the way in the store, Gracie said, "people are going to stare at us because we're dressed up to shop for groceries!"  I told her not to worry about it and we even saw other people there who had been at the service as well.  Then I sent the girls to get milk and a woman looked at me and told me how pretty my girls were and how nice they looked.  We talked for a few minutes and I learned she is a 6th grade math teacher for the other school district in town, but her children attend the same district as my girls.  I felt so comfortable talking to her, I decided to ask her if she had ever heard of Selective Mutism.  She had not, but when I explained it, she told me her daughter had a friend with similar traits as Ellie, but she didn't know it had a "name." 

Last night when it was time to go to church for rehearsal, I switched from the purse I used for the service back to my everyday purse and noticed my Military ID was not in it.  Replacing that ID is extremely difficult, and would be even more so without Joe here.  I did not need it to go to church, but I was frustrated that I could not find it before we had to leave and I let it distract me. I was so distracted that I didn't even pray about finding it until we were almost to the church.  The rehearsal was a little frustrating too-we did some songs that were not familiar to me and all the frustrations of the night almost brought me to tears while I was sitting at the piano.  But I held back and got through the night.  I'm sure things will be fine by Sunday morning.  When I play with this worship team, I have to read the words to the song with chords-that's it-usually no notes, sometimes the melody notes are given, but not the notes of the chord.  When you have to play a G#min chord on one beat and a C#min7 chord on the next-and  the tempo is quick-it can be frustrating!   Thankfully, I have time to practice before Sun morning and THANKFULLY, my prayers were answered and I found my ID card shortly after we got home from church.  It had somehow gotten inside the folded piece of paper that was my grocery list. 

Last night, I was awakened at 1145 by the sound of a doorbell.  At first I thought it was my doorbell, but it wasn't as loud and I think it was in the dream I was having, but it was "real" enough to make me feel scared for awhile.  Then I had trouble going back to sleep.  I could not sleep in this morning because Ellie's friend was being dropped off at 8:00 before her Mom went to work-plus I'm trying to get the girls-and myself-on a better schedule before school starts on the 27th.  We had already planned to go to the pool on base and I was so glad we did.  It was nice to sit and read and relax.  I also called Joe as a surprise and had a nice conversation with him.  ( I get to call him 6 times a month for free through the Air Force.) 

Finally, tonight I learned that our city is under an order to boil our water before consuming it.  This came out of nowhere and I've never heard of a city this large having to do something like this.  I hope it's only for a short time.  Thankfully I just stocked up on bottled water yesterday.  The worst part was the press conference given on TV when it was announced.  The man just said it was ordered by the State and that it was due to chemical imbalances-not enough chlorine, I think he said.  Then he took questions and could not answer very many of them!  It was frustrating.  It even took a reporter to ask when it started-and the man answered "Now."  It was sad how many times he said " I don't know" to the questions asked of him. 

I know there are so many people out there with so many worse problems than me and I do not like being negative.  But I also know I can learn something from all of this.  And down the road, when I re-read posts from this online "journal" of mine, I'll hopefully be able to look back on this one and smile.

Explanation

I know, I know.  That last post was quite random-true, but random.  I think I was trying to get myself out of a mood-a not so good mood-or at least ignore it for awhile.   I've been stressing about Ellie and her Selective Mutism and starting 6th grade and not praying about it like I should....She will be going through many changes soon-Jr high, changing classes, getting braces, hormones, and she's nervous about all of it-it's only adding to her anxiety and I want to be able to just snap my fingers and "fix" her.

A young airman, 29, who deployed with Joe, died last weekend.  He became very ill and was sent to a military hospital in Europe and passed away there.  It's so sad.  He had a young wife and very young daughter, as well as 2 other children from a previous marriage.  It's been hard on Joe and the squadron and hard on me to not be with Joe and able to support him. 

Driving home from lunch after church last Sunday, the van started feeling strange-and I realized when I took the exit for our house and turning the steering wheel felt like trying to walk through quick sand, the power steering was gone.  A broken belt.  I was able to drive it to the dealer the next day where they repaired it and even did for free, because I had just had the van in back in May for a 90,000 mile check up.  That was a nice surprise.

I took the girls to the base pool today.  It was great to sit in the shade, read a magazine, listen to my IPOD and watch the girls happily play and swim.  Eventualy I got in the pool and had a nice conversation with a couple other Air Force wives.  What a great community we are a part of.  We usually know some of the same people, have lived in the some of the same places and most definitely had some of the same experiences.  It makes us all feel good to know we're not in this alone.  The way I feel about Ellie's situation at times.   

In other good news though, all the results from my recent routine tests came back normal-my mammogram and my cholesterol!  It was, somehow, 11 points lower than 2 years ago.  I was quite happy about that.  I do exercise more now than I did before we moved here, but I feel like I could do better.   

Tonight I watched the movie The Tiger and the Snow.  It stars the amazingly talented and funny Roberto Benigni-from Life is Beautiful.  This movie did not have me weeping out loud like Life is Beautiful did, but it is still very good and has tender moments, as well as hilarious, laugh out loud moments.  I highly recommend it.