From Under the Rubble

I have heard it said that people with children do not take vacations – they take trips. I would concur. I think the last relaxing trip I had (ie: a vacation) was when Paul and I went to Colorado in 2013. It’s probably a good thing I have those memories because they’re going to need to sustain me for the next 13 years (until all the kids are grown). So, last week I took a trip with the kids down to Kansas and Missouri. It was not a bad time. But neither was it super relaxing. Will didn’t want to go because he was starting classes and because, I think, he didn’t want to be away from Arien that long. It saved me money. We went to the Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas. One of my FB friends had posted about this place oh a year or so ago and it caught my attention. It’s kind of a nice little set-up they have down there. I was hoping it would be like the lodge/waterpark we visited in the Wisconsin Dells in 2006 but it wasn’t quite as big or nice as that. But it was still a cute place. In

Friday So yeah, it’s been awhile since I wrote. It’s been a busy couple of weeks. I’ll cover that all in this post. I can write while I wipe my nose. It’s allergy season, but I suspect this is a cold. We got back from vacation (a misnomer, by the way) and today we’re all kind of draggy and coughing and sneezing… Ben has three days to get over his because he starts his job Monday. This is a huge deal. Last week we were in twice, meeting with the manager and doing some paperwork. I talked to the cab company this morning and it looks like everything is set up with them for transportation. Ben will be working 3 afternoons a week. It’s just perfect because now he has something to do every week day. The other two days of the week he’ll be going over to Genesis like he has been this summer. And, he’ll be earning a little bit of money, too, which will be nice for him. I’m still rejoicing over the way God has worked out all these details so perfectly! ***************************** T

A thunderstorm is rolling in – which is nice. Today was awfully hot and humid – in other words, a typical Iowa day in August! I’ve gotten quite a bit done on my paper today for my class. I’ve been pretty concerned and stressed because everything – the paper and my power point is due the week we are going to be on vacation. And then I discovered we also have a final exam due that week! I emailed my professor explaining I would be out of town and she said she can either send the exam early or extend the deadline (I hope she goes for the latter!) so that’s a relief. So, I’m feeling a little better now than I was this morning when I woke up and still didn’t have anything done. We ended up not having class Monday night. We were all there waiting and waiting and the professor never came. We finally got an email saying it was cancelled because our professor’s town had a city-wide internet outage – modern day college issues, apparently! As tiring as those classes are, I was kind of dis

Monday Twenty four years ago tonight we were engaged… It’s been kind of a nutty day. We got back last night from being in Waterloo over the weekend. Will got home around 9 and was surprised when I said something about having been gone all weekend. He had no clue. It wasn’t like I was keeping it a secret! I set the girls and Ben to tidying up the house this morning while Sam and I ran over to the school for his reading. We did that and then I dashed up to City Hall. I’ve got a situation where a couple in town is divorcing and neither is particularly crazy about paying the water bill, so that necessitated quite a bit of phone calls on my part this morning. Why don’t people just stay married? That would make my job so much easier! I also had to do the billing on top of my normal getting ready for the monthly meeting stuff, so I was up there for quite awhile. While up there I had to deal with a water pit that still isn’t working right and someone else that wanted their water tu