Days 28 and 29: Errands, packing, and shooting myself in the foot

I just re-read the mess I wrote and posted early this morning…..

It was the end of the fourth full week and beginning of the fifth week of summer vacation – both Friday and Saturday were busy days. Beth left for her cousin’s funeral in Versailles and I stayed home with the kids. Both had the wrap up of VBS on Friday midday. Olivia had her final two softball games on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, and William had a final merit badge session with his counselor on Saturday afternoon; all the while, we had to finish packing for William and I to go to summer camp early Sunday morning and finish running a few errands before leaving.

I am revising it to be clearer.

Week four had come to an end and week five was just starting, Friday and Saturday were busy and overscheduled.  Beth left early Friday morning to attend her cousin’s funeral in Versailles and I stayed home with the kids. VBS was ending and the final program was midday. Olivia’s final two softball games of the season were on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, and William had a makeup merit badge session with his counselor on Saturday afternoon. All the while, I had to finish packing for summer camp and run a few errands for odds and ends both of us would need ‘up north.’

I hope that is clearer….revising is a good trait to include in your writitng repertoire…..

Before I went to VBS, I mowed the grass, and walked Ivy. I also checked the mail and was excited to find the locomotive and the two boxcars I ordered for our model railroad, had arrived. I knew William (and Olivia) would be excited. We have an N-scale model railroad layout in the basement: which William and I have been working on, and collecting for almost five years. The locomotive a scale model of a special paint scheme the Union Pacific Railroad created to commemorate an exhibit at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in 2006. It is painted in a scheme similar to the Air Force 1 paint scheme and it is very stunning to see on the rails. It is actually a working locomotive and can be seen pulling freight across the Union Pacific lines. The boxcars were cars produced by Micro Trains to commemorate the United States presidents, they issue the cars monthly, and to date they have issued twenty-two rail cars. I had ordered #20 and #22 Chester Arthur and Franklin Pierce, respectively, and our collection is now up to date – until the next car is released in late June – #23 Lyndon B. Johnson.  William plans to run all of his presidential boxcars behind this new locomotive.

Friday was the final day for VBS and it was the final presentation with a video and songs. The presentation also shared how much the children collected the mission – helping to stock the local food pantry. The children collected so much food the food pantry had to send the truck back for a second trip. The children were very excited to learn about the impact they had had in collecting food from neighbors and bringing in to church daily. I know Olivia and William were impressed by the generosity of the neighbors they had asked to help with the food drive.  The program was fun to watch and to see and hear the children sing about what they learned during the week about God’s presence in their lives.

We ran errands afterwards and the hot muggy afternoon made the errands more difficult. Stopping at different stores, getting out, going in, and getting back in the car was exhausting. We returned home and rested before Olivia’s softball game. We took Ivy to the game and she enjoyed being outside but it tired her out – as well as all of us. We had another game Saturday, but it was a makeup game from Wednesday, when the storm came through. After the game, the coaches had invited all of the players to the Dairy Queen for ice cream to celebrate their season.

The weather pattern all week has been warm and muggy with thunderstorms, some severe; Friday night was no exception. Friday’s softball game was warm and humid and overnight we had a severe storm move through. There was plenty of lightning and loud thunder. William came in my room in the middle of the night and asked what we should do and I told him to go back to bed so he climbed in bed in Beth’s place. Soon, Olivia joined us and we all went back to sleep. I checked in the morning and we had received 0.7” of rain overnight!

I got up early and the kids slept late, they needed it. I went downstairs to make coffee, take Ivy for a walk, and work on the blog. As is the case with technology and me, I know enough to make my work more difficult. I had initially set up the blog and began using it, but I had installed the software incorrectly and accessing the site was confusing. While it worked and looked good, it was not easy to access. I wanted the blog to be catchy – making the days count dot com – all in one sentence, so it was easy to remember and thus easy to access. But, I had made a mistake during the installation. So I started with a phone call and soon the site was not accessible and I had made a couple of mistakes and what should have been a one hour job ballooned into a four and  half hour diversion. Now you can access the blog as I intended – making the days count dot com. Hooray! But, where did the time go and what about all of the work that needed to be done? I lost so much time that I knew I would have trouble later. I ended up paying by not getting a few jobs finished that will need to wait until after summer camp.

Friday and Saturday are done and gone. They counted, but not as previous days counted. I certainly could have accomplished more, but I accomplished what I could and I must be satisfied with what I did. Sunday will start early and end late as we leave for Camp Tesomas near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. I will continue to write and update from there. Please continue to read and follow along.

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