Quick 5

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America 

  

1.  All of our plumbing issues have been resolved.  Thanks to the awesome help from a friend at church, we were able to bypass the problem on our own, for just about $30 in materials.  That's about $5130 less than what the other guys said it would take to fix it.  We even got the blessing from a real live plumber, so we're pretty confident in how it all works.  AND Lee figured out our dishwasher problems, so we have full use of that too.  Hopefully it will be a long while before I take a fully functioning kitchen for granted again.

2.  There *might* be something wrong with our A/C.  Which always feels a little selfish to say, since there are millions of people without the luxury of A/C, but it's true.  We've been breaking down and turning it on during these many days of 90+ degree weather, but even with it running the temp inside our house climbs to at least 86 degrees.  We've made use of fans and that helps, but just the knowledge that the A/C isn't working properly causes me to struggle to find things to be thankful for in the midst of sweaty days.

3.  At least hot days are good for Popsicles.

 

4.  Every day, as soon as I clean Alaina up from lunch, I tell her to go use the bathroom.  So she troops on in there, and Joya falls in line right behind her.  Amazingly enough, Alaina invites Joya in while she takes care of things.  At all other times of the day, Alaina closes the door for "privacy" and Joya howls outside of it until Alaina comes out.  But after lunch, Joya is allowed in.  Alaina closes the door and then the girls spend a good five minutes shrieking and laughing.  It's one of my favorite sister moments.

5.  It's VBS week for us.  Our church makes it family style, which means it's held from 6:00 to 8:30 at night, and families participate together, including the parents.  Lee and I switched off taking Alaina, since Joya didn't need to stay out until 9:00 every night when she's usually in bed by 6:45.  But it's been fun.  Our church does an amazing job with everything, and it's so fun to witness.  I look forward to the day when our whole family truly can participate together, when there aren't very tiny children that need to go to bed.  It's been a late night for Alaina every night too, but she can handle it a bit better than Joya could.  Just a bit, though.  By the end of the week, the signs of little sleep were obvious.  It was worth it.