A Long Jumble of Goings-On

What a delicious week it has been. The Friday before Labor Day, we held a family meeting to determine what we were going to do to help my Grandparents, since Grandpa was going on hospice care and was told that they needed someone there 24/7. It was decided that we would all take turns, my Mom, Aunts, and the older cousins. This did put me in a bind though, since I was currently holding two jobs, one at the daycare and also working one day a week at the restaurant. I have for a long time contemplated giving up my weekly hours at the restaurant and being solely backup help. So I had to make the decision. I don't like saying good-byes, but telling myself that I could still go to the restaurant anytime I wanted and that once in a while I would be called on to come in to work, really helped ease my mind. I have worked there for almost 4 1/2 years now, so I have made many friends, mostly old wrinkly folks, and you kinda get attached. But this really opens up my schedule to be able to help my Grandparents and visit them more often. It's amazing how one extra day a week can make you feel so much more at ease.

The daycare where I work reopened on Tuesday, after two weeks vacation. The vacation time couldn't have been more timely, with all that conspired during that time. It was good to be back to work, I guess. The school year has started so our "big kids" have all started Kindergarten and it's strangely quite without them. Josh was glad to see "Lange" again and repeatedly asked to go there on Friday, which is the day I happened to have off last week. He, of course, also asked to go to "Bubba's" house. We had been to at least one Grandparents' house a day for a week straight, so he naturally thought we should go visit again. Who could blame him? I love going to Grandma's house too.

Speaking of going to Grandma's house, that is where we went on Thursday. It was my turn to visit... Weird saying it was "my turn", like we were playing a game or something. I was glad to see Grandpa looking so well and it seems that Grandma had an extra burst of energy. I think she has more motivation, now that Grandpa needs her help. Over the course of the day, I watched Grandpa go from perky, to peakish, back to perky. He slept on and off and had a couple of visitors. I set up Josh's port-a-crib at nap time and while he slept I vacuumed the hard-to-reach spots of Grandma's living room. It was nice to feel useful and it seemed to be a good trade from packing chocolates, which is what I had been doing the previous Thursdays. I am glad to have an extra day now to be able to visit them.

On Saturday, I took Josh to the library. We found a couple puzzles to borrow and I set about trying to locate some materials to help me learn Spanish. To learn Spanish is a goal of mine, ever sicne I went to El Salvador. I typically annoy people with me usage of words, especially if they don't understand me. But I am just a beginner and feel the need to practice my newly learned words once in a while. Anyway, back to the library. I have decided that it is not a fun thing to take a almost-two year old to the library by yourself. Especially since that cataloging system, our library has in place is none-so-helpful. I felt like I wasted a whole bunch of time and annoyed the librarians since it is very hard to watch him nonstop when you are trying to find materials. Next time, I will leave him home. Or maybe I just won't go to the library.

After the library trip, we stopped at our local grocery store. It was a rainy Saturday, late morning and the grocery store was packed. We live in a mostly agricultural area and during the fall season, we see many farm workers come and go. Mostly Hispanic or Hatian. And on this rainy day, the grocery store was a popular destination for many of them. Now, I always have my Spanish tracts (left over from El Salvador) in my purse, for these kinds of reasons, but for some reason, I was feeling a bit nervous and only gave out one. (Stupid me, to miss so many opportunities!) But this young Mexican man wanted to know where the church was. (¿De donde es la Iglesia?) And I had nothing to tell him. I don't know where there is a Spanish speaking church in the area or if there is one, for that matter. But it opened my eyes, to an area of ministry that is completely lacking in our area. Here we have a continual influx of people, who don't speak Spanish, who are here only temporarily for work, but there is no place for them to gather to worship our God. And who is telling these folks about Jesus? And so we may be trying to get our church to translate our service into Spanish or at least have a translator available, if thereis a need. It would have been such a blessing to have been able to tell that man exactly where he could come for church, but God could've just used this to open our eyes to a need. (PS, I don't care if they are illegal, they still need Jesus.)

Ok, so rambling on here. If you've made it this far, kudos to you.Oh, and here are some flowers I bought for myself about a week ago. Aren't they lovely? I think I might just get into the habit of buying myself flowers once in a while. I think it's kind of nice.