GOOD AFTERNOON. At least, I certainly hope it’s a good afternoon. I barely remember this morning, and as for the past few days, they haven’t been my favorites. And at present I’m cranky, too. I think it’s cuz it’s about to become my time of the month. Which is TMI, I know… but I’m a little irate about having it show up in time for Sukkot. I don’t WANT to be unclean for Sukkot. Anyhow, count yourself lucky – you likely weren’t privy to the ‘hot pepper sex’ conversation last week on FB. Yes, I’m irreverent and talk too much. Just don’t call me on it today.
FIL VISIT. I probably should back up and tell you how the FIL visit from last week went: Crappy. He pulled in the driveway, got out of the car with chunks of steel in hand, and the majority of the visit was about machining and ‘shop talk’. He and Brian talked shop in the yard, then at Critter Corner, then in the barn (where they also toured the shop), then back in the yard. The kids said things three and four times, trying to get his attention, and he couldn’t have cared less. Finally, they just gave up and went to go play, and I made sure to pay attention to them to try to make up for their idiot grandfather. I hope that was it – and that he doesn’t come back. Because he SUCKS.
AS FOR MY MOM. We’re well into week five of her not speaking to me. I’m not even sure what I did, at this point. Brian says it’s not that, it’s that she now is caregiver to my brother’s baby (as well as ‘mom’ to my sister’s girls), and we’ve simply been squeezed out. He said he saw it coming, but never expected it to be so soon or so extreme. I don’t know. I guess I’m not as bothered as I should be. We called to wish Pop a happy birthday this week, but… that’s been it. Five weeks. Surreal.
FEAST FEVER!! That’s okay, because we honestly don’t have time, right now, anyhow. Tomorrow we put up the sukkah, Thursday we have a birthday party for Messiah, Friday is Sabbath (and it’s now early enough that we’re switching our shabbat supper to Fridays)… we have something every night thru to October! It’s feast time, and It. Is. Crazy!!!
HIKING! We have been hiking like mad, as well, the kids and I. Okay, just one a week, but compared to before August? That’s FANTASTIC! This week was hike #7, and… mostly they’ve been a good time. The only major crash-and-burn attempt was out at Hall Lake last Friday, when the kids got too close to a hornet’s nest (in the ground, who knew?) and were COVERED in very aggressive hornets. Even then, we lucked out – only eight stings between six of us, and none on Baby Owen (<< that would’ve been BAD, deep in the woods). I was able to clear most of them (or kill them – some were clinging to the kids’ clothes) before they stung anyone. It was scary for them… but they did good, and finished the hike, and have done two others, since then. But it’s just beautiful out there.
SITE PROMOTION. In looking for pictures of the places we’ve been hiking, I found THE most amazing photoblog – it’s called Michigan Sweet Spot. It’s by a woman (not far from where I live!) who wanted people to see what Michigan is REALLY like. I have been spending WAY too much time looking at her photographs of the state, and because of her, there are four more things to go and see now on my bucket list. VERY beautiful site!!
SPOTLESS SUN. Have you been watching SpaceWeather? I check in every morning (habit, really), and for the past few days they put up a fun little statement about how the activity on the sun has flat-lined thru the feasts. Which is really not… right… because we’re at the peak of the solar maximum. You know… MAXIMUM? As in “period of highest activity”. They can’t figure out what’s going on. It’s one of those cases where something NOT happening is supremely astounding. I like those, too.
MORE FROM MOISHE’LA. I don’t know anything about that Jewish autistic (prophesying) boy, but he usually doesn’t put out back to back messages… and he’s shooting them off, one right after another, these days. This morning’s was AMAZING… I was so refreshed by it. You can read it here, if you’d like. But WoW, does it seem like something’s coming, and that boy is getting really freaked and excited (both at the same time) by it!
YOM KIPPUR. During Yom Kippur, this year, I took the opportunity to read the 613 laws in Torah. I got a print-out of them on-line. Either I got the wrong print-out, or there are less than 613 laws… because there were some repeats in there, FYI. And the verses that they said they got some of them from? Didn’t say what they listed was a commandment. It was… not right. And others were just for the priests, and just for sacrifices, so they didn’t apply at all. It was interesting. But did you know that we’re commanded to afflict ourselves during Yom Kippur? That’s why the Jews fast for that day. Apparently the Lord didn’t think that was enough for us. He blessed Baby Owen with a leg ache in the middle of the night that kept three of us up, and then when I finally got to sleep, I woke up with a pulled muscle in my back and spent Yom Kippur holding still on the sofa, and then at about 3pm, Ha’Shem blessed Ethan with the 12-hour flu. So the barfing commenced, and our Yom Kippur was afflicted beyond measure. Hope yours was better.
PRE-POSTINGS. I am working my HINEY off today on getting everything pre-posted thru the rest of September and into October. I know, I know… but I always put up the same explanations of the days, and I… want to clean some things up and make sure that everything is all set and ready to do, whether I’m here or not. And there’s SO MUCH information that I have to share, and I can only give it in bite-sized chunks, so… I’m putting it all together ahead of time. I don’t know if I should just schedule them to post or not, though. I don’t want people to think I’m here when I’m not because the posts pop up at 11:11am every morning, should I be taken.. WordPress doesn’t show a timestamp, you know. But I hate to leave people without the information, should this actually BE the year, on the other hand. At any rate, we’ll see how far I get. So far, I think I’m scheduled thru October 2nd. Which is why this patchwork is late, today!
IN OTHER NEWS… The sidebar has been linked up as best as I can manage at this point! That’s HUGE – it was an enormous project, and there were posts that I couldn’t find… I will continue to try to correct that as I go. But that’s a GREAT thing. Now I just have to get all the stuff from 2013 added to the sidebar stuff, there. Yeah, yeah, in all of my spare time!
TOMATO TIME!! Our tomato crop this year is ENORMOUS!! Brian and I have been making salsa and spaghetti sauce and these roasted tomato bites (which I hope to freeze and add to our pizzas, since I have to buy cheese pizza and add the ingredients, in order to avoid pork. So we are REALLY busy, right about now, with that, too!
THE MACHINE. Brian has the opportunity to buy a CNC machine (that lists on Craigslist) for $15K… and they’d give it to him for $2K. I’m doing a LOT of praying about this, because for us? Two thousand dollars is an INSANE amount of money. And I will not take out a loan. And, hello, we might not even BE here for it to ‘pay itself off and more’. And WHERE can we fit another machine of that size??? I’m going to have to start moving things (like bikes!) into the basement, to free up space in the small pole barn we have, if he is going to be able to fit it in. So… a little stress on that front. OTOH, it’s the kind of machine that runs itself, so he would program it and let it do its thing, and would still be with us… and it’d bring in extra $$, and he could do bigger work that he turns away now… I’m considering these things…
PRESENT/FUTURE. This is always THE weirdest week of my life, I’ll have you know. Because I live in a strange combination of planning to be raptured -AND- planning for life, here, as usual. I confirm with my hiking friend, “And next week’s hike is ______?” knowing full well that I might not BE here for it. I buy skittles to smuggle into the next film we plan to see this weekend, but honestly? I’m hoping to be raptured before the weekend. It’s craziness. We’re thinking of where to go for our anniversary for dinner… and are we going to HAVE an anniversary dinner? It boggles my mind. For the record. But at the same time, it’s kind of fun. Amazing. Exciting.
uPDaTe: If you would be so kind, could you pray for a friend of mine? She’s been admitted to the hospital with autoimmune neuro-muscular disease, and they’re saying she will be there for quite some time. She’s an amazing person, and I have missed her greatly since leaving my (ex) theatre group. I know she would appreciate your prayers as much as I would. Her name is Carolyn. Thanks.
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