Before I get into treehouse news, let me make an apology: I think I may have offended and/or hurt some people with my "Weird Things About Me" post. I apologize! My humor tends toward the sarcastic side, and it doesn't always come across as I intend it in real life, much less in the written word. I am very flattered that anyone would want to know more about me--especially since I feel like I'm in "TMI" territory so often already! ;0) I'm sorry that I probably sucked some of the fun out of the game. Please forgive me.
...so about a week ago, we had some friends over for dinner; one of our Deacon families. On their way down our steep driveway, unbeknownst to us, they nailed our garbage bin with their truck. The full-to-the-brim bin spewed its contents down the super steep road that leads to our house. Add to that that it's pitch black outside. Add to that that it was plumb full of diapers. Add to that that those diapers were filled with Giardia. I can't believe we didn't hear our friends out there in the dark bumbling around with those diapers and all the rest! And I can't believe they didn't come and get us! Evidently, Jeff spent who knows how long getting all the garbage back in the bin, and then, being paranoid about Giardia, dumped hand sanitizer aaalllll over... on his hands, on his truck, you name it! Thankfully, they are such good sports, we were able to laugh haaaard as they told us all about it a couple days later. I actually had tears streaming I was laughing so hard, picturing him out there in the blackness of night wrestling with the Giardia diapers and hand sanitizer. Poor Jeff!
...and poor Micah! He started his 3rd round of meds to try to kick the Giardia. He is going to have a lot of medicine pumped into him in the next few weeks. Check it out:
He started his new regimen on Valentine's Day. Over our Valentine's Day Dinner, Corey and I were talking about ways to save money. (That has been a VERY popular topic for us since I ventured into full-time homemaking!) My cooking tends to be all or nothing: quite tasty, or quite disgusting. I suggested that, in an effort to not waste food, we institute "Survivor Night", where we store up all the nasty things I've made, and bring them out once a week for a "Survivor Night" Dinner! The silence I received in response to this brilliant plan was deafening. Then Corey said, "Maybe you should just start using one wipe per Giardia Diaper to save money instead." Ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa.
Okay, enough Giardia talk for now! Another of my money-saving ideas was for Kendra and I to memorize a scripture passage about love to surprise Corey with on Valentine's Day, instead of buying something. I wanted to do something other than the typical I Corinthians 13, so we went with the fruit of the Spirit, of which the first is love. Feeling rather ambitious, and thinking how good it would be to have greater context, I decided we would memorize Galatians 5:16-26 instead of just 22-26. So a couple months ago, Kendra and I started with verses 16-18, which talk about the conflict between the sinful nature and the Spirit. I knew that 22-26 talked about the fruits of the Spirit in detail, and I just didn't think through the rest of the passage very well when I decided we'd memorize it. Oh, my... So, you can imagine Corey's surprise, when on Valentine's Day, I said, "Kendra and I have memorized a scripture passage to recite to you for Valentine's Day! We've memorized Galatians 5:16-26. Corey, no doubt thinking I hadn't done a very good job of leading Kendra in memorization when here I already had the reference wrong, says, "You mean, 5:22-26, right?" I said, "No..." and his eyebrows almost hit our cathedral ceiling. So, chalk up another parental blunder by Jamie! (If you don't know what verses 19-21 say, you'll have to go read it for yourself!)
On a positive note, it has really enriched Kendra's and my discussions, having the fruit of the Spirit memorized. It is great to be able to say, "Kendra! You are being so kind to your baby brother! That's one of those fruits of the Spirit we've been talking about!" or when she's being too rough, "Kendra, let's remember the fruits of the Spirit: love, (she loves to cut me off and start reciting them herself here) joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness... gentleness or roughness?" She laughs like it's the most hilarious thing she's ever heard and says, "Gentleness! Sorry, Mommy." There is sooo much power in pointing her beyond my authority, straight to God's. Those lessons seem to go down with the proverbial spoonful of sugar when she makes the connection to scriptural mandates rather than just Mommy or Daddy's mandates. It's awesome!
We spent Sunday afternoon and President's Day at the coast with my folks, and it was a wonderful respite. I'll post a few pics from our visit with them soon.
