I may still get that dishwasher yet.   Are any of you as crazy as I am, and actually see yourself in your new and improved kitchen using your new appliances?  [Insert a well-tanned June Cleaver here].    After the repair that depressed, but excited me—all at the same time—I ran the dishwasher a couple of nights later.   I happened to come downstairs in the middle of the night to a budding stream that was once our kitchen floor.    Thank God we hadn’t yet invested in hardwood—another of many items on the wish list.   So now I’ve been praying against a spirit of confusion as the repairman returns to repair the repair.    Unfortunately I know how to use my tongue--in the wrong way, that is; many years ago I would pride myself on my ability to put people in their place before the Lord dealt with that area of my not-so-Christian walk.   Now I see Him so faithfully usher in peace to me when I would previously have been quick to speak, and I often don’t even realize that I should be upset or offended until the offender has left my sight, so I can’t “go off” as I once did.

                ________________________________________________

Kids amaze me.   I would occasionally show the kids the blogs of the parents that have written me over these last 9 months, and share some of the funny and sometimes not-so-funny stories of fellow homeschooling moms.    One day the kids took note of several other kids’ blogs, and voila!   Now they’re blogging at singergirl and mbullard.   They’re already getting more comments than they have posts—I’m totally jealous!    Seriously, though, as I wrote to homebydesign, I like the modern-day pen pal environment as I see them write to kids all over the country, and as far as England, Turkey, and South Africa, and I enjoy seeing their perspectives on their lives and happenings.   (I hope that latter benefit doesn’t come back to bite me too badly—YIKES!)

                __________________________________________________

Well, the repairman left with only a nod and a smile.   He and I are both spared from my mouth, praise God.    It looks as if I still don’t have the new dishwasher, but I don’t have to repent of acting a fool over throwing good money after bad.    The kids made homemade ice cream today as a part of their science lesson on Pluto—YUUUUUUMMMMO!    Eating that ice cream took me back to warm memories of my mother, who made an even better batch of home-churned treasure.   Until I moved to Texas and my mouth (and hips and thighs) found Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla, I had never tasted an ice cream that matched my mom's.   Man, I miss her.   Come to think of it, she had a tongue, too, but a bit more discretion in when and how to use it, at least in the latter years.   My sisters would never believe it, but maybe I’m more like her than I sometimes realize.