Like the day last week I pulled back the bedroom curtains and exclaimed, "What the crap?!" at the sight of snow on the ground.
My Tuesday night ladies' Bible study started Beth Moore's Stepping Up study last week. It focuses on the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134), and so far, I LOVE IT. I enjoyed Esther, but like David, it was much more of a character study and less of a challenge than Beth Moore's personal application studies. Plus, I'm not into the whole woman-power, let's-commiserate, go-girls, let's-bond mentality, and the sub-title under Esther is "It's tough being a woman." Sure, it is. I'm not disagreeing with that. Sometimes, life is like this. Life is a hard trek, for some more than others. My life is smooth sailing compared to those in Haiti right now. Not that the entire study was "woe is me," but that subtitle just turned me off.
I pretty much had forgotten that there was such a thing as spring break until a friend's birthday party last Wednesday night, so I was half-thrilled and half-bummed when I was reminded.
Thrilled to have some days to relax, balance my checkbook, clean and vacuum around the house, etc.
Bummed because I wouldn't be working, which in the subbing world equals no income. Speaking of subbing, I have had no response from the director to whom I wrote that letter. Furthermore, our manager at BBW has had to cut hours for this quarter, which means I only get 4-8 hours a week right now. Considering there's no school in the summer, I'm missing the big sale season at BBW (more hours), and we're going on this trip to Korea (that will be another post), this summer will be tight.
So, the weekend.
Good Friday
I spent the morning mopping the kitchen floor, working on the trim for Baby Josiah's quilt, and straightening things up around the house. Tanya came over in the early afternoon to hang out in the sun with me. She treated me to Subway for lunch, and we brought back our sandwiches (tuna for me and turkey for her, although hers was more of a pickle sandwich than anything) to my house and ate in the back yard. We sunned, chatted, and worked on our Bible study all afternoon.
I ended up not having to go to work (again, cut back hours). The plus side was that I was able to go to the Good Friday service at church with Nich and our teens. We hadn't seen some of them in a while due to school plays rehearsals and performances, so it was good to see them again.
Saturday
Nich and I had a rare Saturday off together. Usually, his Saturday mornings are taken up by men's group and leadership meetings. I'm convinced that the new guy who heads up men's group at our church must have no personal life. He sends Nich about a thousand (okay, maybe more like fifteen) emails a day. He also made these leadership "committees" for every aspect of men's group and wanted there to be a monthly meeting for each committee. Since Nich serves as a leader on three of those "committees", this means he has to give up an extra hour or more three Saturdays a month. Not that there's that much they need to talk about that they couldn't communicate through email or phone. It's just that this guy goes on ... and on ... and on. Pontification. Thankfully, Nich and I are on the same page about this, and he has let this guy know that these meetings will not be happening for us.
So on this particular Saturday, we slept in an extra hour and went on a breakfast date to The Silo, which is very similar to The Cracker Barrel in style. We ran into some friends there, which is always fun, and strolled around the store after a yummy breakfast. Nich had The Southerner and I ate half of my Greek omelette, boxing the rest. We then hopped in the car and drove north to Lake Placid, where we had spent part of our honeymoon almost two years ago. It was an absolutely gorgeous spring day on Saturday. We enjoyed strolling around the town, sipping coffee, and window shopping. While Nich looked at some hiking poles at EMS and relaxed on an Adirondack chair, I popped into Life is Good and got him this shirt. We both really like the store a lot, but we don't often shop there because it's a tad expensive. Nich also never buys himself anything other than Taco Bell, so it's nice to be able to treat him once in a while.
We got a sandwich to share, spread a couple blankets by the lake under some trees, and enjoyed a picnic lunch. Nich took a nap while I worked on my Bible study for the day, and we shared a quiet hour basking in the filtered sun. Near the end of the afternoon, we went to Ben and Jerry's and got ice cream, which we savored on a bench while people watching. One of the things I love about places like Lake Placid is that it's so relaxed. No one's in a hurry. And you hear many different languages.
That night, we found out that the much-awaited Watson baby (for whom I made that pink 'n' cream blanket) made her appearance! What terrific news to end a wonderful day! Welcome to the world, Claire Victoria! And many congratulations to proud papa and mama!
Easter Sunday
We had decided to go to the eight o'clock service, because generally, our church gets PACKED on Easter Sunday with all the Chreasters. It made me wish that our church offered an eight o'clock service every week! I felt like we had a much longer day to enjoy! We came home, changed out of our church clothes, and I tackled the mess of a flower bed in our front yard while Nich trimmed the magnolia and the hedge. I don't think the yard had been touched in the past couple years other than the grass being mowed, because the flower bed was a tangle of weeds and dead former plants. As I dug out the brown on top, though, I discovered some new life bravely trying to make its way through! I don't know what the flowers are, but from relocating some of them, I know that a few of them are some kind of bulbs! I'm excited to see what comes up in a few weeks!
We dozed away the afternoon in the back yard then worked on Easter dinner. This is the first Easter we've had just the two of us, which felt kind of funny and okay at the same time. Does that make sense? We had decided to make a seafood dinner instead of the traditional ham, since neither of us really likes ham. Nich seasoned the ahi tuna we had bought at the newly renovated Price Chopper near us while I prepped the veggies and basting sauce. We had a lovely picnic dinner outside with glasses of wine and the sunset, me with my all-time favorite Prospect Mountain White, and Nich with the delectable homemade wine we received as a housewarming gift from some church friends.
It was truly a glorious weekend in celebration of the matchless gift God gave us two thousand years ago.
If my memory card adapter worked, I would share pictures with you. But it doesn't.
As a last note, why do I always pour 1/3 c more milk than I actually want to drink? This also happens with coffee.
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