some tidbits

Enrique came home for the 12 brief minutes between seminary and time-to-leave-for-school this morning and had a plateful of leftover pasta sprinkled generously with Parmesan cheese for breakfast.

Yonder was asked to drive the two full-time missionaries serving in our area to Nashua for a dentist appointment today, so he climbed right out on the ladder and started painting the house at 7:45 this morning.  He's determined to git'er done before the end of the day.

My eyes are puffy and sting from an array of emotions that happened to peak at bedtime last night... Roonie had the first cross-country track meet of her career yesterday, and I couldn't make it.  I lived through about 35 minutes of panic when she went off the radar screen for an hour after the meet; nobody had seen her, she wasn't where she was supposed to be (for pick-up) and no one could find her.  It was a series of phone conversations, dealing with the unknown and tracking hazy leads that escalated my anxiety and terror before I heard her voice over a kind person's cell phone and learned that she was waiting--and fine.  It took several hours (after knowing everything was okay) to feel the comfort and relief I needed; couple that with the tender heart syndrome I'm experiencing as we prepare to part with our first born for two years, and I'm good for just about nothing today.  Which is fine with me.

I can no longer see my bedroom clock.  From my bed or anywhere else in the room.  I have plastic totes full of off-season clothing waiting to be changed stacked so high that I am keeping time with my body clock.  Thank goodness for my sweet and faithful seminary-going daughter Mesquite who gets up faithfully every morning at 5am without my help.  SHE is my real sense of time--my body clock is completely unreliable.

Our ward choir director (with a fairly common and completely 1950s American name) lives in town.  She moved in about a month ago, and used her cell phone as her main means of communication.  She called me happily to announce that she now had a landline, and to ask one of our daughters to babysit.  I hesitated to pick up the phone the first time she called--since the caller ID function makes it so easy (most of the time) to see who is calling.  I took my chances and timidly said "hello?..." and then laughed when I heard her voice. To me, she is now affectionately known as "Toth Ildiko."

The night I made the pasta dish Enrique ate for breakfast this morning, I bent over to pull it out of the oven as Enrique was opening a new jar of Parmesan cheese behind me.  Before I could stand up, a cloud of cheese *POOFed!* from the space above me, and covered my head and shoulders.  I laughed as I realized what had happened, and casually brushed off the cheese as best as I could and went about my dinner preparations.  Later that evening as I was sitting down with Mister Dub to talk with him as he ate, his eyes migrated to my scalp and he quietly asked "Is it that time of year again?" to which I laughed and felt IMMENSELY grateful that the white-ish bits in my hair were only cheese, and NOT lice.

Today is the first full day of Autumn.  I'm going outside to breathe the crisp air and to artfully arrange the pumpkins that survived "the summer of the groundhog."   I'm also planning (my plans are often bigger than my follow-through) to thin out the jungle of dying perennials to make room for some nice hearty mums.

Enjoy!~