Time Divided

So when I said "More to come soon..." on Facebook I think I should have considered what I was up against with my time! And by that I mean the seemingly constant LACK of time. Especially now that I'm back home in sunny (read humid and HOT) Georgia and Brian is still away in Alabama at SOS. My return trip was uneventful enough but as soon as I got home that night and my headlights hit the yard I knew what I'd be doing in the morning - mowing the grass! I didn't figure it would take me the 3 1/2 hours that it did (we have a very large yard and a push mower - makes for a good workout they say...) and I acquired a very nice sunburn on my shoulders. Lesson learned, haha. I then made my trip to the barn where I discovered that my two horses had dropped a lot of weight which in horse terms is never a good thing. On the bright side, I think that I've narrowed down their weight loss to not eating due to being to hot. The struggle will be what to do as the summer heat arrives and doesn't leave :-/ For now we've had a few cool days this past week and I'm feeding them extra so they are starting to look better. I was very happy to see my kids though, missed them! Hopefully I can get them back in shape and start barrel racing within the next month :-) Oh, and then there was the snake incident... I was riding Gypsy near some water and trying to get her to circle smoothly but she wasn't cooperating (abnormal for her). It sounded like she kicked some dirt into a clump of grass near the water but as we came around the circle I heard a rustling noise again and looked over to see a big fat black snake moving towards us out of the water!!! I think that my heart stopped and I was more freaked out than Gypsy! Needless to say, we made a safe escape and did not go back over there. I am now very leery of the water and any future encounters with water moccasins as there are some many stories of how aggressive they can be. Oh, and Abby's not allowed at the barn anymore because I'm pretty sure she would be in the water and investigating those snakes. Ugh... shivers...

Work was work but I have managed to make a habit out of staying up into the wee hours of the morning to work on organizing the house. When Brian's home he makes sure I go to bed on time, which is great, but it also means that we've lived here for about 7 weeks now and still don't have everything put away. My goal is the Kentucky Derby so I can maybe invite my office people over for the race. Brian built us a nice Aspen bookshelf that is now fully loaded, as well as two bookshelves of DVDs, another smaller bookshelf of books, and still more books to put in a closet someplace. Did I mention that we have 2-3 editions of Organic Chemistry, Biology, Anatomy, Physics, Genetics, and several other science type text books? Think that has something to do with the lack of book space.... haha... nerds! But we only keep the ones that we think we might need again. I'll spare you the details of our library but if you ever need a good read for you or your kids just let us know, we're happy to share! I have also managed to get both guest beds cleared off and made up with fresh sheets so we do actually have a place for company to sleep. So really the only thing that remains is organizing stuff in closets and hanging the remaining pictures. As soon as that's done I will post some pictures (May 3rd...?!)

[Birthday Breakfast]

I can't really update you on everything without talking about this past weekend when Brian came home for a few nights for my birthday! We had a great time. I surprised him by driving to Crestview, FL on Fri to pick up Abby; she'd been with her two yellow lab cousins in Louisiana, with Bert and Cindy, while we were away. She was totally spoiled with her own pool... I made us some gluten-free Mickey Mouse waffles Sat morning with berries for topping - so yummy and fun! We took care of the kids, did a little yard work and went to the store for patio stuff. I got an outdoor rug for our deck and we rigged up some shade for Abby and filled up her kitty pool which she seems to enjoy. Then for my birthday dinner we made our own sushi for the first time. It turned out fantasticly! We had leftovers and even have some more salmon in the freezer for take-two. Other than taking some time to prepare, it was really rather easy, and I might be biased but the flavor was on par with most sushi restaurants we've been to! 

[Sushi Chef]

[The China is Finally Used for Fancy Sushi!]

Sunday was complete with a church service from livingstoneskona.com which is a church my Mom has been to and had great reviews on. I've seen a few of the sermons now and really enjoy them. They are about 45 min (better than the regular 20 min sermon you often find in church) and they really dive into the meaning of the scripture. This weeks was about love and the different types of people God asks us to love in all types of relationships - co-workers, boss, politicians, spouse, siblings, etc. The pastor talked about how it isn't our job to change people, that God is the only one that can change people so we are just supposed to love them at the stage they are at (ie us Type-As shouldn't be trying to fix people). Anyway, it was a good sermon to hear, especially considering that we didn't wake up until we were supposed to be leaving for church, oops! Brian and I were also able to have our staff meeting which has been a great addition to our married life. We try to have this meeting once a week (when we're both at home that is) to discuss anything on our to-do lists such as finances, school, house stuff, vacations, big devotional topics that need more dedicated time, issues that we might be having, weekly menu, etc. It's just a great time to have set aside with no distractions to focus on topics that need covered. Brian has found that it works really well (and well for me in turn) because he doesn't like to be randomly bombarded with some of those topics. If he has a time set aside that he knows they will be discussed than he can come mentally prepared. Like I said, it's been a great feature for us so far. Now if we could just quit dividing our time between different locations....