The last…Simple Little Sunday

Well, this is it! My last Sunday with the youth! It’s bittersweet but needed to happen. My grace is up.

When I first took on the youth group, there were 3 kids. 4 when we did our first Simple Little Sunday. My vision and plan was to build a community and a safe place for the youth to grow and question things – as youth often do. And now, 2 years later we’re up to this. Crazy.

So without further ado…

• Alyssa won her dodgeball tournament.
• Christos received wisdom from the Lord about a flea market in New Haven. He went and realized he can get all sorts of great things.
• Max is in Chamber Choir! He passed the auditions!
• Grace went over Chloe’s house and got to watch Caleb do the Ernie dance.
• Gracie got to see her cousin who lives in Alaska.
• Chloe got an A+ on her math project and it bumped her up to an A.
• Julia had to do a group project at school. She got grouped with bad people but they actually got work done.
• Anna’s older brother is coming home a month early from New Zealand.
• Tim got a new apartment a mile from his work.
• Wendy got into all honors classes for next year.
• Darby got a 90% on her French quiz.
• Caleb went to Chili Fest and saw a bunch of people, including Bethany.
• Leila got to pick her schedule and she’s in AP History.
• Scott aced his social studies test.
• Michael found a dollar.
• Reed found a bulldozer with the keys still in it.
• Josh got new lacrosse gloves from chicago for a good price.
• Dave came home safe!!!! That’s my Simple Little Sunday.

Now, it’s Tim’s turn to build upon my investment. I’m excited to see where it goes!

Complicated Big Wednesday

AKA: My Husbandless February

For those of you who didn’t know, Dave was traveling for work for basically the whole month of February.

Ok, maybe not the WHOLE month, but most of it – the 4th to the 22nd, so 18 days worth to be exact.

This was the longest we’ve been apart since we started dating.

Fun Fact: our history started today, 2 years ago.

The day he left, and the proceeding 4 days, were so ridiculous to me I started to keep a log. At first I was infuriated, overwhelmed, and falling apart; but then things became hilarious to me.

Here’s a general overview of my 18 days of being husbandless.

• Because I’m a girl and my body has impeccable timing, I had hormones raging through me (and everything that accompanies that) the day Dave left. Super fun, right?
• I almost put frozen meatballs in my shake instead of frozen strawberries.
• My car wouldn’t start so I had to take the truck beast for 2 days. To New Haven. And use a parking garage. Pretty terrifying.
• We got snow. Lots of flippin snow. The first storm was wet and heavy and I could barely clear out what I needed to get the truck out. The second storm wasn’t as bad, but still caused me to have to shovel what I could. Note: never did I ever clear the whole driveway by myself.
• Our router decided to shut itself off for no apparent reason.
• One of the lights in the bathroom couldn’t decide if it was blown or not.
• One of the cats was up on the table (where it’s not allowed – and knows it!) and THREW UP on Dave’s calculator.

BUT things eventually started to turn around and wound up being pretty good.

• Michael and his friend Dean came over and cleared the driveway using the snow blower for me.
• Reed came over and got my car started.
• I got to work from home on a few snowy days, one of which wound up being a total blessing in disguise.
• This non-reader finished 4 books. Yes, 4!
  • Sounds Like Me by Sara Bareilles
  • Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
  • Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
  • City of Echoes by Robert Ellis
• I watched 3.5 seasons of Everybody Love Raymond, effectively finishing out the series.
• I watched 1.5 seasons of Will & Grace. This would’ve been more but our Blu-Ray player in the living room won’t open to read discs anymore, so it’s basically just a giant Netflix player at this point.
• I got to have dinner with some of my favorite former coworkers. We pretty much closed out Olive Garden.
  
• I took a day trip to Jersey and visited my Gram with the cousister. We took her to IHOP, played cards, and pretty much made her day.
  

  “Hi! It’s a big day for me!” -Rose

• I got to have lunch with Christine, who I haven’t hung out with since before I got married.
• I had Caitlin over for a workout and dinner.
• I went to dinner with Danielle and we shared stories of how we cope when our husbands travel.
• I spent an afternoon with my mom.
• I cleaned – literally – everything in the house.
• I got to FaceTime with Dave a handful of times. This was always the highlight of my day when it happened.
• I worked out almost every day.
• I got flowers from Dave through Reed on Valentine’s Day.

 

So really, what started out as horrendous, ended up being a not-so-bad time. Of course I missed my husband terribly, and we both worked from home his first day back, but I survived.

Here’s to hoping we don’t have to do this again for a while!

At Last, Simple Little Sunday

• Caleb went to a friends house and made a bunch of Chinese food.
• Chloe was asked to lead and be the teacher for the little kid’s class during first service. They talked about how joy is a choice.
• Max saw a poster about how you should moisturize your skin, drink water and listen to new music while he was doing all 3.
• Christos hung out with Reed last Sunday and bro-ed out…with Anna.
• Reed hung out with Christos…and Anna and Ari last Sunday.
• Julia found a new song to listen to when she’s frustrated – When We Were Young by Adele.
• Gracie has $13 and she feels like it’s meant for something.
• Anna got her second holes pierced and she got a ring for Valentine’s Day.
• Alyssa was really nervous for the talent show but she rocked it.
• Andrew was driving and hit black ice. He was almost hit but they stopped.
• Wendy’s mom bought her a purple bracelet and is paying for her to go to Flight.
• Leila got a rose from Joe.
• Grace got to eat a cupcake that her mom made for the talent show, before the talent show.
• Ari got to hang out with Reed, Christos and Anna and she won her soccer game yesterday.
• Josh watched the dunk competition and it was awesome. He lost his basketball game, but he was ok with it.
• The day after Dave left for Oregon, we got a ton of wet and heavy snow and I have no idea who to use the snowblower. Also, my car wouldn’t start for a few days. That Saturday (the next day), Michael and Dean came over and snowblowed the driveway for me, and then Reed came over and got my car started. I felt so loved!