Playing Catch-up

Apparently I have sort of forgotten I have a blog. Life has been busy and full lately, in a good way, so I'm fine with skipping around every so often.

This afternoon I will go to my parents' house to visit and help my mom get the house back to order after being gone for 6 weeks. They're also expecting company tomorrow evening, so there's actually a deadline to get things accomplished and presentable. They have been in California since mid-January working to empty my grandma's house to get it ready for a renter. It has taken literally all 5 weeks they were not on the road, and it's still not completely done. I am kind of looking forward to hearing all the gory details of their adventures in Grandma's basement. I've seen some pictures that have been posted on my brother's Facebook, but there will be much more to see.

We had birthdays last week. In my family "birthdays" means 3/5ths of the family had birthdays within a 3-day spread. I'm now officially only 2 years from 30, which doesn't actually bother me. Maybe it's the fact that I'm starting the parenting thing now, so at least one kid may be out of the house before I'm 50. My dad is 2 years from being 60. My next younger brother is 25. We threw him a birthday party of sorts, and that was a lot of fun. We invited pretty much everyone in our age bracket from church (at least those who are his friends) and had 21 adults and 5 children in our house at one point. It was so much fun, and I know it blessed him that we did something for him, especially while my parents were out of town. It also blessed us to have so many friends in our home. And to have a clean house, which we are still reaping the benefits of this week. It is sliding a little bit, but at least we had a good starting point.

The weather last weekend was pretty crazy; we had snow. We hadn't had snow at all this winter, except some of those big, lame flakes that you can't really tell whether they're snow or big rain drops.

And now I'm wearing shorts and we have the windows open because it is so beautiful outside. If time permits, I may just plant those annuals that I'd had stolen out of my front yard and returned a few weeks ago.

Sunday night we started the "new and improved" version of the Beth Moore Bible study, "A Woman's Heart, God's Dwelling Place", which is a study of the Tabernacle. The women had done this study about 10 or 11 years ago, but I had not done it with them, so I am excited to get to go through it with them. In fact, when I couldn't sleep this morning between 4-6, I got up and did my homework for the day. I hope that I can get out of it what I need to, and that I don't just "do the homework" and at the end have nothing to show for it in my heart. I suppose that since I want to grow through it, God will be able to do whatever work He needs to.
Interestingly it is a 10 week study, which works out to 12 weeks total (including intro and conclusion meetings), and I have only 12 weeks now left of my pregnancy!

In mid-April our church is having a women's retreat, and I'm heading up the registration part of it. The theme is "Love Remains" and the theme verse is 1 John 4:16. I'm looking forward to being involved and just being a participant. Our last retreat, I was playing for worship each session (except for one), and also had one of the primary speaking slots. It was wonderful to be so involved last time, and I learned so much about God's faithfulness and I'm so grateful that He gave me something to share, but I'm glad there is not that much responsibility in my hands this time, aside from some behind the scenes stuff that is mostly preparation beforehand.
Interestingly, I will be 8-1/2 months pregnant at that point, so hopefully everything will be going smoothly still and I won't have any trouble being there for that weekend.

Yesterday I splurged on buying $61 worth of maternity (and large non-maternity) clothes for myself at Old Navy. They were mostly on sale and mostly clearance, so I actually walked out of there with 6 things! I'm pretty excited about having some more options, and having some options that weren't already worn by one of my friends (though thank God for having friends who are about the same size and willing to share their clothes!).

Since it's getting close to noon, and I haven't really done much of anything, I think it's about time to get up from the computer and get moving. I think I'll eat again and go for a walk when Sam comes home, then go from there....