and these are the days of our lives

wow. expectations. some people are totally fine with flying by the seat of their pants (like my spouse) and others (like myself) are a bit more comfortable with some sort of a plan....funny how God seems to put us opposites together. this summer has been nothing short of CRAZY so far.

I keep wishing I could remember the sequence of events of the last few weeks. I'm often getting to this point of wondering what's wrong with me (why I feel like I can't handle my life) and then I start talking about things to someone and I realize maybe I'm not so weird after all. Mowing with the Mighty Men started a few weeks ago every other day during the week, supposedly from 1 - 5 p.m. ha. expectations. My expectation was that my husband would be out mowing for 4 hours M-W-F. On Tues/Thurs they are at a nearby church doing a summer reading program, but Randy works so I figured we'd be "off" those days - ha. They start showing up at our house for mowing up to THREE HOURS early. Now you're probably thinking "Set some boundaries, Anda, tell them they can't come until such and such time." We have. And am I supposed to tell a boy who has walked quite some distance to my house that he's not allowed to come in when he calls me from his cell phone to let me know he's coming when he's ACROSS THE STREET?! On the reading days, they still show up at random times before the program starts. Yesterday we had the Tubbs (missionaries from Thailand) over for lunch and so Randy left someone else in charge of mowing day and said we were locking our front door. We did, but it didn't stop people from ringing the doorbell, knocking, or just walking in (when we forgot to lock it back) MULTIPLE times while we were visiting with the Tubbs. Their mouths just kept dropping open as they laughed at our little world. A week ago on Tuesday I had just about had it. I was so desperate to escape my house that I took ALL SIX children BY MYSELF to a free movie at the theatre and then to lunch afterwards so that no one would find me home. When we got home we discovered that one of our orphaned kittens (yes, for the SECOND time a mama cat abandoned her 2 babies who were only a couple of days old) had died while we were at the movie. McKenna insisted that I let her go inside and get some milk in a medicine dropper for the other one. I agreed and when she returned she picked up the other one and it died in her arms. So I'm sitting there in our driveway crying with my daughter and a cousin of one of the Mighty Men rides up on his bike just watching us. I explain our sadness and then he drops his bike and starts to run into our house. I quickly yell at him (kindly, of course) and explain that we're not playing today because we need to rest. I go inside (after burying the kittens) and take our little battery operated doorbell off the wall and TAKE THE BATTERIES OUT!

This is just one of many stories. Did I blog about the morning that I left at 5:45 a.m. to meet with a girl from church at Starbucks? On the way out, I passed my husband on the front porch who was sitting with some man I'd never seen before. When I came home at 7:30 a.m. that man was asleep on my couch. He was a homeless, crack-addicted, homosexual with HIV and helped us out with our chaos (before MOWING) all morning until he announced that he wanted to go turn himself in at the jail. So Randy - before MOWING - goes to the jail and watches the guy turn himself in. A little after midnight that night, let's call him "Bob" is back on our front porch explaining to Randy that he didn't have any warrants after all. WHAT?! Randy paid for him a night at the exquisite Vickery Motel. We haven't seen him much since (okay, just three times). Oh, and then there was that day (this was Friday) that the chaos before MOWING was going on at our house and Isaac slipped and fell on some water on the kitchen floor hitting his mouth on the water cooler on the way down. He bit completely through his bottom lip - that's right, all the way through. So while Dinsdale's mom is asking me to get his sister some water, I'm trying to figure out where all the blood is coming from. His lip is cut on the inside and about 2 cm on the outside. So D'Leeland (who can't stand blood) played on the computer the whole time while Isaac was surrounded on the living room floor with quite a crowd. Corey held down his legs, McKenna held down his arms, and I held his head still as Daddy (for the second time in the last month) brings out the lidocaine needle for stitches. Isaac laid there screaming "I don't like Daddy!!" Dinsdale was taking pictures of the whole event. We knew Grandma would be proud. After his lip was dead (or so we thought) we moved him to the kitchen table where Dr. Brown skillfully sewed up his lip while Dinsdale held a flashlight. The last stitch went through some flesh that probably wasn't quite deadened enough - more screaming, but Isaac survived and all the Mighty Men went on with their MOWING! ...that night we had a slumber party for the 6 mighty men who had consistently come for 2 weeks. It started when they returned from mowing, only I couldn't seem to find DR. BROWN. He was cutting down a tree over at Corey's house (you know, the one he's renting out) because a branch had fallen on a power line. Was there perhaps a better time when we could have cut down the tree branch? Rita, I know you know what I'm talking about here! ha!!

That night I took McKenna to a church event at 7 pm. I took her inside and realized while in mid sentence with another mom that I had left Moriah and Isaac in the car. I just sprinted away without saying goodbye (they were fine - it was only a few minutes, but still...)! The event ended at 8:30 pm. I'm sitting telling Julie Butler at 8:50 P.M. about how I forgot my younger children earlier when I realized that I have forgotten McKenna as well! She finally told someone that they should probably call us. Are any of you ready to call CPS yet? Okay, just remember there was slumber party going on at my house! A woman's brain can only handle so much input and I think mine was at capacity that day!

It was important for me to get it down, because her cable was out.--Randy

yeah, yeah.

I'm not kidding, I could tell you numerous other stories, but I've got to go to bed so that we can start all this again tomorrow! :) We are a bit tired and many days a bit stressed, but we are learning about Jesus, life, each other, and what it means to love and pick up your cross daily. I don't know if either of us has ever been more aware of our need to hear from God and just BE WITH JESUS on a moment to moment basis. Randy has really been trying to say no a lot - it's just amazing how people just keep appearing out of nowhere!! I will say that we are looking forward to our little SLNI missions retreat up in New Mexico the first week in July. It will be a MUCH needed break!

Miss you all! Are any of you going to Op Camp? Maybe we'll see a few of you there!

love,

anda