Thursday morning. It's hard to believe Thanksgiving is only a week away! But have I done anything to get ready? Of course not. Really though, I don't have much to do. It's just my own family, and we keep things pretty simple. Nothing structured. We do have a turkey dinner and share what we're thankful for, but that's about it. We are looking forward to having Michael home for a few days though. Jim will pick him up after work on Tues. Yay!

Yesterday I had a few challenges. First, I found out my youngest 3 all had head lice. Gross! Yuck! And such a pain in the patoot to deal with. I know it can happen to anybody, but it still feels like a stigma, like we're not clean enough, or I haven't been a watchful enough mom, or we're just gross disgusting filthy people. Especially cuz this is the second time we've dealt with this. I learned a few things from last time though. This time we went straight to the prescription stuff that you leave on with a shower cap overnight. Too bad the stuff's so expensive. Even with our insurance, it still cost $40 cuz the bottles are so small that we needed two. I guess I shouldn't complain though cuz without insurance it's like $120 per bottle. Insanity! And the stuff smells terrible. I had to have Jim put it on cuz the odor is so strong it gives me a headache. So this morning before Bible study I get to deal with cleaning that out of their hair. Happy happy joy joy!

OK then I ended up having a mini meltdown cuz dinner didn't work out the way I had planned. On Sunday night I had asked Jim to take cube steaks out of the freezer so I could put them in the crockpot Monday morning. But Monday I was still too sick to do anything, so I had him put them back in the fridge. Tuesday we went out to dinner, and yesterday, I just decided I'd wait til night and just cook them on the stove or in the oven. So when it was time to make dinner, I went online to find a recipe, and my computer was just being incredibly slow. Then it took me awhile to find something I actually had the ingredients for. OK I finally found something and went to the kitchen to get started. I was gonna make mashed potatoes, so I grabbed the sack of russets and they were all sprouting. So that was out cuz I'm not sure but I'm thinking potatoes that have started to sprout are probably too old to use. So then I'm thinking OK we'll do rice. I start heating the oil for the steaks, take them out of the fridge and notice parts of them were brown. Then I check the date: use by Nov 12, and I start thinking maybe this isn't a good idea. So I had to do some quick thinking about an alternate plan. Spaghetti? Ok but no spaghetti noodles. Hey that's OK we have elbow macaroni and spaghetti sauce. That'll work. Then I go to get the pot to cook the pasta in and it STILL hadn't been cleaned from when the kids had mac and cheese on Monday! Now there are very few foods I absolutely loathe and that literally make me gag, but THAT is one of them. I can't even make the stuff. If the kids want it, they or Jim have to prepare it. I had specifically told Jim , PLEASE if you guys are going to have that disgusting stuff, make sure everything gets cleaned up cuz it grosses me out so badly to have to deal with it. I do have one other big pot but for some reason it was sitting in the basement bathroom and I had no idea WHAT it had been used for. I guess looking back I could have just thoroughly scrubbed a pan, but by that point I was just frustrated, grossed out, and feeling wiped out. I'm still not fully recovered. So yes, over something absolutely stupid, I burst into tears and had a bit of a meltdown, and Jim picked up pizza for dinner, and I felt like a slacker wife and mom. Oh the mini dramas in the life of a perimenopausal woman!

But yesterday, I did get my entire week's worth of reading and questions done for Bible study, found a ride for us, and had Jim pick up some cookies for brunch. I was gonna make something, but just had so little energy as the day wore on. I decided to hold off on doing my daily portion of reading through the Bible for now cuz there's Bible reading 5 days a week with the lesson, and I figure that's good for now, esp cuz you don't just read the passage but have to answer questions, look up other verses, etc., so you go a little deeper. So now part of what I'll be doing each day is that day's portion of the lesson and sticking with that. So I'm caught up there and can move forward. One tiny area under control, but hey it's something.

Also yesterday I asked Jim if we could start praying together each day. It doesn't have to be long. Even a few minutes is fine. We just need to be consistent. btw--- Consistency over the long haul is a HUGE challenge for me. So we had a great prayer time last night! It was long, but I think that's just because we haven't prayed together in a while. I'm glad we're doing this now because I really believe that when a husband and wife pray together, it's very powerful.

Today I'm going to ask Jim if we can start having family devotions each day too. The younger 3 kids usually enjoy that, but Cory is VERY resistant, so that's going to be a challenge. But I think he still should be required to at least listen respectfully. So we've gotta figure out what to use for devotions for our wide age range of kids ,almost 6 to 15, and when we're gonna do them. I'm thinking after dinner would be good. So in addition to doing my Bible study lesson today and praying with Jim, I need to find some suitable devotional materials. Any ideas?

Well I need to go get ready for Bible study, get the kids up, have some coffee, deal with lice removal and other fun stuff. Happy Thoughts Everyone!

Ruby Tink :-)