Date Night
By Friday evening I was wiped out so as soon as I got home, we headed out to eat. We spent a relaxing evening at home until about 8 when we took the kids to stay at Scott’s parents. Scott and I came home and went straight to bed. Pretty sure we were asleep before the kids. And that’s how date night went around here!
Serve 7
Saturday morning we spent some time with our church’s Serve 7 project at a local homeless shelter helping them get some projects done. I’d like to say I walked away with warm fuzzies and I did feel good that we were being “hands and feet”. But. I really left a little angry that we as a community (just community, not even Christian community) treat our homeless, and those who help them, so poorly. I mean, seriously. The offices are housed in an old church whose electrical work is so bad that we couldn’t turn the overhead lights on in a worker’s office because it sparks and could cause a fire. And in fact, one of the lights in the executive director’s office HAD caught on fire and had not been replaced. Every piece of equipment had to at least have been 20 years old. There were tables and chairs all in disrepair. Just last week we had a meeting at work suggesting that we *really needed* a smart board and we didn’t have good enough pens in our supply closet. I understand that we’re a for-profit business and they run off volunteers and donations but for goodness sakes! There are children that are LIVING IN THEIR CARS if not for this place. Can we not service them a tiny bit better?? So if you can’t tell I didn’t walk away with warm fuzzies. To be honest, I’m a little angry and embarrassed at how little we care of these office workers that are taking care of people who really, really need help. OK, let me step off my soap box because I could certainly go on. Just trust me when I say I plan not to turn a blind eye to anymore.
Uh, so, whew, that came out of nowhere.
Taekwondo Belt Test
Lexi looking very pensive before her test. You can see us sitting on the wall in the mirror.
We left there and Lexi tested for her yellow belt at Taekwondo. Let me just say that that was actually fun. The kids have to break a piece of wood to graduate to the next level and watching those kids was some of the best entertainment I’ve seen in a while. There was this one tiny blond girl that couldn’t have been more than 5 and I honestly didn’t think she would be able to break it and apparently she didn’t think so either because the look on her face would have won her American’s Funniest Video’s $10,000 when she did because she was SO SHOCKED. Two other little boys had to go to the side after trying and not succeeding. After they came back for a second round of tries, the room erupted into thunderous applause when both of their boards broke. I’m telling you, I was choked up clapping and I had no clue who these kids were. I walked away from there thinking about challenges we all face when we were sure we can’t tackle but just knowing we all have so much more power than we think. Are we being stretched? If not, shouldn’t we stretch ourselves to do something?
Hail Storm
Saturday evening we were surprised by a the hail storm of the century. I have never ever seen a hail storm like this. I’ve heard pea size hail hit our windows in past storms but up to baseball sized hail was heard to have hit in the area. We regularly saw ping pong sized hail being thrown like we were at the busiest range you ever did see.
Carowinds
Today the girl’s and I took off to CAROWINDS! I spent much of my adolescent summers at Carowinds. We’ve taken the kids two or three times in the last few years but really, Lexi just wasn’t up for that much walking. But they are at great ages and seeing that it’s less than 10 minutes away, it suddenly seemed silly to me that we didn’t go. So we went! And boy-howdy did we have a blast. Such nostalgia walking through there and thinking I was my kids’ age when I started going. By the time we left they wanted to ride the “big kids roller coaster” several more times in a row but I promised many more trips. I can’t wait.
Addition
We did nothing on the addition and I have to say it was very nice taking a breather and not thinking of it for a while. I think they are jumping back in with the stone tomorrow and the big electrical switch is supposed to happen this week as well as the start of the drywall. Pretty sure I was saying that last week at this time but hopefully will not be next week!
Hope you guys had a great weekend!
Melissa Brotherton says
Your date night had me cracking up. Friday and Saturday night I looked forward to spending some time chatting with my husband in bed before we fell asleep. Didn’t happen. We were so extremely exhausted! 🙂 Haha!
Sounds like you had a full weekend…no wonder you’re so tired. 🙂
I totally agree with you about resources for those who are poor, or helping the poor. The food people bring to our church’s food pantry are embarrassing. Do you really think they want canned prunes? It seems as if there’s no thought put into it, they don’t view the people as human. As long as they give something, they feel better about themselves and it doesn’t matter what the quality is. {didn’t realize I felt so strongly about this} 🙂
Melissa Brotherton recently posted…God Made a Mistake
Carolyn says
You didn’t say whether Lexi got her Yellow belt or not. 🙂
When we went to the first meeting for the Mission Matthew is taking part in, one of the first things we were told is that the goal is to have the kids feel that they have made a lasting positive impact on the people they will serve. It saddens me to think that those who have devoted their time to helping others feel as if their efforts are hopeless and/or inadequate. It makes it easier to shrug it off as a problem too large to handle. Good for you for bringing attention to it in your own community.
L LOVE Emma’s Silly Bandz! That is quite the collection. 🙂
Amy says
We won’t know about Lexi’s belt until class this week. They have to go over all the results. I was really disappointed the belt presentation wasn’t part of Saturday.
Living the Balanced Life says
Wow, what a weekend! Makes me exhausted just reading about it! And the hailstorm, awesome, but too bad about the car damage!
Bernice
Living the Balanced Life recently posted…Speeding through life