It has been a lazy Sunday afternoon. We came home from church, ate “panima” cheese sandwiches (as Jenna called them), and relaxed. It was nice not to do much else.
MORE CLEANING OUT. The Jones family came in last weekend to do some more work on Pauline’s house. They went through all the stuff in the kitchen and garage. I say “they” because I was busy mowing and taking the kids to see Ben’s ball game. I think if we can get a good three day weekend in we’ll be able to finish up this job.
Vicki and I have also continued to work a lot on Aunt Mar’s garage. It looks a lot better, but there is still a lot more to do. That’s okay, we’re making slow, steady progress.
MORE BIRTHDAY. We celebrated Jenna’s birthday again while the Jones family was here. We didn’t go out, but Vicki did get her a nice cake. A neighbor of ours, Pat Johnson, recently took a cake decorating class and is starting to make cakes on the side. Jenna had a beautiful layer cake which was checker boarded on the inside and had icing that looked like a woven basket around the sides.
Jenna got several presents, but the favorite was the cell phone she inherited from Grandma Jones. Vicki called the phone as Jenna was opening the gift bag as an extra bit of fun.
STUFFITUS. I have touched on this before, but I’m going to write about it again because it is so big on my mind. Obviously cleaning out Pauline’s house has brought this to my immediate attention. To be fair to Pauline, she was not a hoarder of stuff. She had her share of memorabilia from life, but her house is not crammed full of baggage. I have been wanting to have a house cleaning for years, but this has made be look around my own house with a more critical eye. I have literally walked around and wondered if my kids were adults and Vicki and I were to be gone would they really want to go through all this stuff? And left with that job, what few things in this entire collection would be special enough for them to keep?
I wish Vicki and I could take a week off from life and clean out our house. For example, I found several boxes of old textbooks. I had kept the old college books because I had sweated long and hard over those classes. The middle and high school books I had taught from I kept when we adopted newer books. They are all out of date now so out the door they go.
I am going to start looking at things I bring into this house with a more critical eye. And for those adults with whom we exchange Christmas presents -- let’s restrict gifts to pictures or similar memorabilia. Vicki says that gift cards to restaurants are always welcome too.
BASEBALL. We’re roughly a month into Ben’s baseball season. Ben is having fun, but his team is having a bad season. They’ve only won one game. Last Saturday’s game was a blow out, however, they had a game Tuesday night that was really exciting even though they lost 12-13. If some of these boys will ever take a swing at the ball they might find they have some wins in them.
After hearing his coach and the rest of us talk about swinging at the ball Ben asked me to help him get some batting practice. I have a terrible aim. It is so bad I am lucky to throw within 10° of the intended target. I knew our batting practice was a disaster when Ben said, “Now I know why we have to wear helmets in baseball.” Thanks to Facebook and my nifty sister-in-law we now have a Zip-N-Hit which has improved my aim tremendously. Ben has really connected with the ball as we’ve practiced.
CHANGING HIS TUNE. Friday night Nate came into the living room where Vicki and I were and said, “I’m bored. There’s nothing to do.”
Vicki said, “Nate, it’s almost 9:00. It’s time to get ready for bed.”
“I don’t want to do that,” replied Nate, “I’m not tired!”
“I was upstairs in your room earlier today and it was a mess.” said Vicki. “You can go upstairs and start cleaning your room.”
Nate thought about this for a moment and then announced, “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
Vicki replied, “That’s okay. You go on to bed and you can clean your room in the morning.”
“I don’t want to clean my room in the morning,” complained Nate. “It’s Saturday.”
Bottom line: There is never a good time for a seven year old boy to clean his room.
Joe
