I am doing Elijah stories with the kids at church this month. I had forgotten that I really do enjoy teaching kids. It used to be awkward to have Brianna in the same group with the girls who are 3-6 years older than she is, but now it seems to work better. I always start with doing something and they always start by trying to guess what it has to do with the lesson. So Saturday night we were mixing up cookie dough. One of the girls said, "I know--we're going to make cookies shaped like God!" I said, "Wow--I wouldn't even know how to begin--would you?" One of the girls said, "Well, God might just be kind of round." I said, "Wow! Imagine that--you might have been making sugar cookies shaped like God your whole life and just never realized it!"
Anyway, we made sugar cookie crowns because we talked about King Ahab, but then we ate the crowns because he didn't really deserve to be king anyway.Then they made these cool little ravens while I told them about God sending the ravens with food to Elijah. Brianna just kept saying, "At night, too?"with great awe after I read the verses that say that the ravens brought Elijah bread and meat every morning and every evening. I finally understood that when she was explaining the story to Paul later. She said, "I just can't figure out how those birds could see to find Elijah in the dark." I said, "Well, maybe ravens can see in the dark--I don't know." "Or maybe," Brianna says with sparkling eyes full of the delight of the miraculous, "maybe God made a very very bright star to lead them to Elijah." As Kristen, another grown-up in our community, says, "I've always just wondered what kind of meat the ravens were carrying to him and did he actually eat it?" I've always preferred to just picture something like beef jerky. But who knows, we're in the middle of a miracle anyway, so why couldn't it have been cordon bleu? The other great thing the girls did: when I said, "Well, that's where we're going to leave Elijah this week, there by the little stream with the ravens bringing him food. But next week, we're going to find out that even that little stream dries up." And they all 3 did this huge,"OH NO!" kind of reaction. They left making guesses about how God would take care of Elijah then. Kids are cool.

Well--that was embarrassing. It has been a few days since I have blogged and when I went to log in, I got my password wrong. Not only that, when I tried to request my password, I couldn't even get my username right--not even with several tries. So I dug around in the pile of papers where I jot important notes while sitting at the computer, but I did not find my username or password. I did find my brother's cell phone number and reminders of a few programs I want ot listen to from NPR archives, a list of what to feed cannas to help them bloom better (egg shells, grass, and coffee grounds), a paper that only says "6500 pesos"???, and my favorite random note--"don't worry about permission." Hmmm. I wonder what prompted such rebellion--what did I do without permission? Anyway, after that interesting detour, I finally just asked blogger to send me my username too. So I can finally access my own blog.
We took chocolate cake over to the home of the family we are buying our new home from and inked in the contract. We had a lot of fun. I think we will all become good friends. Paul and Daniel got out Daniel's guitars and played some worship songs. We listened to fabulous stories of Daniel's days in a survival camp in Colombia. Today we ran up and signed loads of paperwork with our lender--not as much fun, but not terribly painful either. We're hoping for closing near the end of August. Our house payments actually will be $100 a month less than our current rent. Cool.

Brianna is taking ice-skating lesson this week through her preschool. So one of the things she had to take was a pair of gloves. Well, we found our gloves in the closet--but none of Brianna's, of course. So we started shopping for winter gloves in July. We tried the thrift store first with no luck. Then we tried sporting goods stores with no luck. Finally--Walmart. Woohoo for walmart--At least ten different styles in Brianna's size, all marked down to 50 cents or a dollar! I was so impressed. Brianna loves ice-skatingand--at least according to her accounts--is already skating across the rink by herself. She has told us several great tips about how to regain your balance and how to stand still. Apparently, she thankfully did not inherit all my non-athletic genes.
We came home from running errands in the triple digit heat a few days ago to find that our front lawn had been mowed while we were gone. Cool! But the thing that really reminded me what a state of grace we are living in was the fact that we didn't know which neighbor to thank because we know either one of them would do something like that! Turns out it was the college student/artist, who clearly has a little more time than the contractor/father of three. The next day we came home and the front yard had all been beautifully edged. And last night, the same guy mowed the back yard while I was resting and Paul and Brianna were at Healing Rooms. We are so blessed. And yes, we're cooking him dinner next week.

Mostly I am just amazed at how very good God is to us. And I mean amazed in the pure jaw-dropping-open sense. Okay, a few months ago, in the process of house-hunting, we ended up being impressed with a certain home-builder company that was doing a new community fairly near Paul's work. Their models were gorgeous, the homes started in the 70's, the community had its own playground, and it seemed just easy and convenient. Although our salesman was really crummy and I didn't trust him at all, we decided buying there would be a good option for us. I never actually felt any peace about it, but I worked very hard at talking myself into it. Eventually we looked at the samples of carpet, flooring, etc., and were not at all impressed. Choice of color on all appliances turned into white-on-white or pay for an upgrade to black-on-white for the only appliances actually included--a dishwasher and stove. You get the idea. Every time we took someone to show them our lot, we noticed that the "available" sign had not been changed to "sold" and we told the management. Since I was not feeling any great delight about the idea of moving into it, I eventually began browsing realtor.com again. When I looked at some of the big, pretty houses with full yards that we could get for the same price that we were ending up with (which was NOT inthe 70's!), I felt like a real schmuck. We drove by one last time a week ago Sunday and saw that the sign on our lot still said "available," and I decided that was a clear enough sign for me. I started to look for something else more whole-heartedly. Paul had a really hard time with the idea of not following through on the commitment we had made and giving up the $500 earnest money. I finally convinced him that it would be worth losing $500 in order to save $10,000 to $20,000. I also argued that the company clearly had made no commitment to us whatsoever. Well, Paul decided to call the management on Friday. He ended up talking with a young woman we had met a few times, and she said that our salesperson was no longer with the company. She didn't see anything about us in the computer. Then she checked his old files, and there was a folder with our contract and check in it. He had never sent it in to the main office. She said the area manger would be coming in the next day to deal with his stuff, so Paul said, "We'll stop by this evening." So we went by and tore up the contract and got our check back! As Paul said, "Boy, God just really takes care of you."
On the way to Waco that evening, I checked the new real estate listings and saw only one thing remotely interesting. We drove by a few of my findings from realtor.com, but ended up discarding all of them for one reason or another. When we got back to Dallas, I put in a call about the one I had seen in the paper, and then we drove over to look at it. It was a townhouse with no association fees ina community where the townhouses do not all look alike (very important to me). We went to Garland Thrift store, which was very near, and I got a new wardrobe for $20, and while I was trying things on, the owner caller and said he'd be glad to meet us and show us the townhouse. SO we went and checked it out.
Goreous pergo floors and ceramic tile, a fireplace, a big living room, a little redwood deck by the front door, a small, fenced-in yard, laundry closet in the hallway, three-car garage, two full baths, each with a privacy door separating the toilet/tub area from the rest of the room, roomy closets, one whole wall of Brrianna's room is a mirror--just like a ballet studio! And, the WAY above and beyond, sliding doors off the master bedroom lead to a private spa/hot tub. The owner does swimming pools for a living, so he brought in tiles from Italy and designed this spa himself. It even has all kinds of special effects lighting! This would always have been a romantic plus, but since Paul has been going to Bally's a couple of times a day for the past month to use the hot tub for his back, hmmmm. It was easy for us to visualize our church/community gathered in the spacious living room. We said that to each other, and the owner heard us and said, "Oh, you're Christians, right? I'm a believer too." I mentioned that I had seen Biblre verses taped up to the mirrors in the master bathroom, and he said, "Yes, we do our best to live our lives according to them." We talked about leading worship in our little house church. He said, "Well, we can do even more to help withthe house." We agreed to get our loan re-approved (since it had expired during the housing community fiasco) and call him the next day. When Paul called him the next day, he said, "Okay--I'm glad you called. I'm actually showing the house to someone right now, but I will stop." So last night, we went to his new home, met his wife and one-year-old daughter, who got along great with Brianna. As we sat down to look at the contract, Daniel (the owner) said, "If it's alright, I'd like to pray before we begin this process." We spent several hours talking and penciling in everything on the contract. At one point, we were calculating the downpayment. He put it into his calculator and said, "okay, so 3 % of 73,900." I said, "Wait, I thought the price was 75,500." They smiled and said, "Well, we lowered it. We don't have time to go back over and fix that screen door that the dog tore up." So, the peciled contract goes to the title company and our lender to check today. Then we'll get together again and write stuff in ink and get things going. Our closing date is August 27. That means we'll be moving on Labor Day weekend. SO come on and give us a hand. Everybody who helps us move gets time in the spa.

Planning for brianna's princess birthday party are progressing well. On Saturday, I went to Claire's while Paul and Bri were eating lunch in the mall. I dug through their clearance jewelry to find the sparkliest necklaces there. When I went to check out, the girl at the cash register said, "Oh, did you realize that a lot of these were originally priced over $10, so they won't be part of the 10 for $5 deal?" I said, "No--I didn't realize that--Let me trade them for others because they are just for a four-year-old's princess party." She handed me my basket and I had started back tothe clearance racks. The store manager was there and he grabbed my basket and handed it back to her and said, "Oh, ring them all up on the 10 for $5--Anything for a four-year-old's princess party!" So that was cool--I think the little girls will be thrilled with them. We also assembling a princess dress for each of them, along with some type of headwear. They'll get to put on make-up, or I'll do face-painting--we're not sure which yet. Brianna's treehouse will be transformed into a castle where they can have their snacks and drink sparkling juice from plastic goblets. I'm planning on Paul taking some group photos with the digital camera and then printing one out for each princess to take home in a fun foam frame that she makes there and ecorates with "jewels". I actually expect it to be alot more fun than Chucky Cheese, but Paul is really wanting to avoid being there!

New favorite Brianna quote: "Tomorrow is gonna be the best day I ever had."

I'm wondering if I should put some kind of warning on the posts that are not Brianna-oriented since some of you might want to just skip them. Hmmmm.

We went to Dallas's Shakespeare-in-the-Park last Thursday. The combination of people who ended up meeting us there was the coolest part. Our little family, six of my students and two of their friends, two of my colleagues and their families, a med student from our church, and a teenager from our church. Interesting. The play was "The Taming of the Shrew," one of my favorites. But the director had interpreted both females a really childish, and it was difficult to put up with them even at a distance. Brianna was more than ready to leave by intermission, and Paul and I really didn't mind. I kind of doubt that I will try the Dallas Shakespeare in the Park again. I have been spoiled. I have too many really perfect memories of Shakespeare in Central Park. This felt about like somebody saying (to a Coke-aholic like me), "Well, we don't have any Coke, but here's a store-brand, caffeine-free, diet cola." I'd just rather do without.

So last night Brianna came in and asked for a snack. I said, "How 'bout a hard-boiled egg?" because I had just found one in the refrigerator and was already peeling it. She said okay, so I cut it in half and put it on a little paper plate and set it in front of her. She said, "Oh, I was hoping it was one of those blue spotted ones. Because you do know how to do that." I thought, "Well, how hard is that really?" so I said, "Go wash your hands and come back," and while she was gone, I put blue spots around on the white part. She came back in a few minutes and said, "Wow! My egg has blue spots! What a great surprise! Mom, you're the best!" Then she decided those looked like eyes on the plate, so she had to draw on a red mouth and some yellow hair and then a bow. About this time, I reminded her that the plan had been to EAT the egg. So she ate it while coloring eyes onto the plate. Along the way, the face became a cat because most good things do. By the time the egg was eaten, she needed another plate for a mouse. She got the mouse's face all set while I was reading the paper.
Then she brought the two plates over and said, "Wanna see my best puppet show ever?" Well, of course. So she carefully placed herself in front of me and said, "Now, you have to imagine that there is a blanket hanging over a string here and the string is tied to something on each side. " [I particularly love this--that she didn't ask me to imagine a stage with its curtain, but instead just what she would have done if she had a bit more time.]
Then she introduced the two characters: "The cat, you see, has a lovely bow. She must be a princess cat because she is so pretty. Now here is the mouse. You see his face is very sad because he's going to get eaten." [Ah--foreshadowing.]
To sum up the plot, the cat devised a clever trap with cheese to catch the mouse. When the mouse went for the cheese, the cat leaped on him [much flailing of paper plates here] and the mouse began crying out in great pain. At this point Brianna paused and in a stage whisper told me, "Now, you say, oh, that poor little mouse." So I did. "Keep on saying it. " So I did. Meanwhile she grabbed a red pen to make many marks on the mouse puppet as she said, "And there was lots and lots of blood. So much blood." Then the cat disappeared, and the mouse slowly came forward and said, "Now I have to go home to bed." I said, "Wait, isn't he dead?" Brianna replied, "Oh, no. . . .But he will be tomorrow." I said, "Didn't the cat want to eat him?" She shook her head, "Oh, no--he tasted much too bloody!"