So this morning while I was getting Brianna some breakfast, I knocked a bowl off the drying rack, and it broke very loudly. My first reaction was,"Stay back!" although it had broken neatly into three pieces. Brianna's first reaction was, "Hey--We can save that to make a collage!" My daughter is so cool! I was actually thinking it would be part of the eventual moonlight-and-stars-mosaic-on-the-bathroom-countertop, but collage/mosaic/whatever. I love the way Brianna thinks!

I am married to the most fantabulous man. On Monday evening, my stomach was not feeling well and he was lacking a few tools and boards, so he took me and Bri home and then went to the new house by himself and pulled off rotten boards from window trim and put new boards up and then even put new guts in a toilet that was leaking. He didn't get home until after 1:00 a.m., and he still got up immediately at 5:15 a.m. when Brianna cried out that her bed was all wet. I am unspeakably fortunate.

Last night, Brianna begged me to tell her a story. Then, of course, she kept correcting me. The story was about a princess kitty named Sparkle. While Sparkle was sleeping, the bad fox came and took her collar. The bad fox would always take the dog collars and cat collars and eat them. I had been concerned that the bad fox might like to eat princess kitties, but no. Trying to get all this straight, I asked, "So what are the collars made out of?" Duh. "Fox food."

The FHA loan people told our lender that they would not approve the loan until the back door was replaced and the peeling paint on the exterior trim was dealt with. Actually, they could have come up with a lot more conditions, so I am grateful. Still, we have to do these things before the loan can proceed, so we will have a busy weekend. We went over yesterday to take measurements and get a better idea about the exterior trim. We still love the house and can hardly wait to "make it ours." I am looking forward to being wildly creative with it. We have been reading a decorating book called "Houses of Belief," which I love, and Paul and I spent most of the drive to Amarillo last weekend talking through shared values and beliefs and specific ways that our home can reflect those. This looks to be a lot of fun.

Today is my last day one-on-one with Redouane. He is working on a paragraph about Aid El Kabir, the sheep-killing holiday. It has been very interesting. When he was trying to explain the religious aspects of it to me the other day, he said, "Oh--I don't know what you call this kind of man in English. Have this in Christian too. You know, in Christian,"--and he stretched his arms out wide and dropped his head to the side. I said, do you mean Jesus? He said, "Yes! Yes! Jesus--so what do you call people like this in Christian." I said , "Well, Christians don't actually believe there are other people LIKE Jesus. Christians believe Jesus is God." Well, that just totally stunned him: "WHAT? Jesus is God? Oh, my God! What--Really? This is true?" I guess I was not terribly culturally sensitive--I didn't even imagine bringing on such shock. Eventually, I brought him out of the shock by saying, "Redouane, you were going to tell me why you cut the sheep's neck." He got as far as the story of Abraham and Isaac, although he didn't know their names in any language, but when I asked if there was some particular meaning or lesson that made the story something important for people to remember through this holiday, he kind of grinned and threw up his arms and said, "I don't read the Koran all the time! Only old people do that. Everybody else in Morocco--we just getup, do the praying, work, play, eat, go to bed, and start again. That is it. We do not think so much about the Koran." I think he is going to try to find out more about the significance now. He is very impressed that Paul was in Morocco for Aid El Kabir and made a slide show about it. (Unfortunately, we have no idea where the slides are--maybe in Bebe's garage?) Well, I am not sure that I have helped him that much with his English during tis summer cram session, but we have both learned a lot!

So the "Last night" entry below was really written on Wednesday, but just now got found a way to get properly connected.

Last night I dreamed that there were not enough classes for all of the teachers here in my program to have a class to teach. My boss therefore asked me to be a student in Anne's class. I remember telling people all the time, "Wow, Anne is such a great teacher!" However, I was really worried that I would not pass her class. The main problem was this: Every morning she would ask a very open-ended question, and we had several minutes to write an answer. Supposedly, it didn't matter how much we wrote. Then she would look at our answers and give them back to us with a grade. I wasn't ever sure what I was doing wrong or what I was doing right when I looked at the papers she returned. But to make matters worse, she had this interesting grading system. Even though she wrote all kinds of numerical grades on our papers, she actually only wrote a zero or a 100 in the gradebook. Everything 80 or above became a 100, and everything below 80 became a 0. I just felt so desperately confused, and I just kept trying harder and harder. Very frustrating.
Clearly this is not about Anne's teaching techniques. Which of course leaves my life. Hmmm. Actually, this is so exactly how I feel right now. It seems like I keep sensing a need in myself or my plans and making a move to meet that need in a way that seems like the best approach I can come up with. But then those approaches rarely turn out to be effective. And nothing seems to be just 30% or 50% wrong--nope, the things that don't work really just totally and completely bomb. And I just keep flopping around in these deperate efforts again and again with no more idea today than yesterday what would really be effective. Sigh. I am clearly a mess. A foggy, frustated, unable-to-succeed, exhausted mess.
If this mess of myself would only live in the truth of Romans 5: "We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand--out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. There's more to come. We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary--we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!"
Just to clarify, I don't feel at all "hemmed in by troubles"--I am feeling quite flooded with abundant blessing. In fact, I keep saying to myself, "There's nothing wrong! Why are you being this way?" But perhaps I am what is wrong. I think I am hunkered down in a corner of those "wide open spaces" with a stubby pencil and a legal pad, desperately trying to calculate how I can possibly "round up enough containers to hold everything" God is pouring into my life. May I begin to throw off the fatigue, depression, and fuzzy-brainedness to stand and sing (I'd rather sing than shout) in the open spaces. In fact, if I'm in the middle of wide open spaces, why just stand there? I want to dance!

Wow! It's hard to believe we got o get Brianna tomorrow. What a quick week. I have been pretty productive (clearly not spending much time here), getting everything in the garage sorted into trash, garage sale, or packed-to-move sites. At least that will be all finished by the time we leave to get Bri! We also got the house inspection done on the new place, and today the apparaisers are there. Paul and I actually left the boxes piled in havoc on the living room floor and went to see "SeaBiscuit" last night. It was the best movie we have seen in a long time. We also had a quiet lunch at Red Lobster on the way to the home inspection on Tuesday, so we have fit in several date-ish times this week.
Brianna decided to go with her Granny to big church on Sunday. She said she wanted to hear a message from God. However, after a few songs and the children's sermon, she had changed her mind. They stuck it out, although I doubt that Granny had a very peaceful worship experience. Unfortunately, Brianna got really sick to her stomach during the middle of the night and threw up a lot. Somewhere during that night, Granny gave her some Sprite, and eventually she did recover. So now Brianna has told me three times on the phone: "Remember, when I'm at your house and get sick, you should give me Sprite because that will make me feel all better. Tell Daddy he needs to keep some at our house." Sprite-the wonder drug.
Well, I need to actually do some work here at my office today. The rest of the world does just keep on going--even when I'm trying to move!