Weekend happenings

Well, dear faithful blog readers, if you're reading this, that means you haven't given up on me entirely, even though I haven't blogged since last Wednesday. I've finally emerged from my art-cave, where I was obsessively preparing for the church's Christmas Bazaar on Saturday. I thought I'd share a few things from the weekend.

Weekend item number one: Bazaar
God was gracious with the success of my booth. Seriously, by the last hour of the day, it looked almost empty. I was incredibly humbled by everyone's enthusiasm over the crafts and art in my booth. It was pure craziness! It was bittersweet, though, because I found it difficult to socialize at all, or even peruse the other vendors' booths. I soooo wanted to visit with friends (um, didn't get to spend 5 minutes with Kim Hill and Dianne) and to ooh and ahh (how do you spell that phrase?) over everyone's work. So if I participate next year, I'm recruiting the aid of a friend t0 hang out with me and help man my booth. (Must give credit to G-Love, though, who did come by, sit at the booth, and let me pick up a gift of two.) Here's a shout-out to Crissy, Adria, Kim P., Sonya, Mona and the other women of CPC's Women's Ministry, who put this event together. The entertainment, which probably accounted for most of our traffic during the day, was brilliant.

Weekend item number two: Teens at the house
In the midst of the Christmas Bazaar craziness, my two oldest kids had friends spend the night. Friday, we had three teen-age boys around the house all night. Saturday, two teenage girls. Let me tell you about boys baking muffins, and girls pumping gas.

The boys -- As I was working in the "studio" (a.k.a. bedroom totally trashed with art and craft materials) on Friday, the three young men decided to satisfy their sweet tooths with a little homebaked goodness. I know that two of the fellows (uh, that would be the two that don't belong to me) spend a little time in the kitchen, so I wasn't too worried about their cooking venture. But I did find it necessary to warn them about the quirks of my very old, very difficult oven. This oven has always cooked WAY hot (requiring The Cook to decrease both the temperature and the cook time). But now the oven has the added challenge of a bottom element that no longer works. So my instructions to the boys, who were making chocolate chip muffins, were as follows: "Preheat the oven for five minutes on broil (otherwise you'll be waiting 20 minutes for the oven to heat). Then turn the temp down to whatever's listed on the muffin package. Make sure you place the muffin tin on the bottom rack, then place an empty cookie sheet over it so that the top of the muffins won't burn before the inside is cooked through." Sound's simple enough, huh? I left the boys in the kitchen and went back to my crafting. About ten minutes later, I caught a whiff of the appetizing aroma of baking chocolate, and knowing that the boys had gone back to the x-box, I decided I better check on the muffins for them to be sure they weren't overdone. So, I rushed to the kitchen, pulled open the oven door, and found (any guesses?) ... flat muffins. The three teen wonders had placed the cookie sheet NOT on the top rack (as I meant for them to do), but directly sitting on the muffin tin. We all got a big laugh out of that.

The girls -- I left the bazaar on Saturday and had to drive to Trussville to pick up Emma and her friend, Liz. They wanted to shop a bit, so we spent a couple of hours in Target, TJ Maxx and Michaels (ok, that was for me, not for them), before picking up a bite to eat. Then it was time to head home, but we had to have gas or we weren't going to make it home. I was as much out of gas as the van was, so I told the girls they would have to get out in the freezing cold and pump it. Now, mind you, these are two fifteen-year-olds who are learning to drive, so this education needed to happen. Little did I know how much, though. You should have seen the two of them, trying to figure out when to pay (it does say "PRE-PAY" for a reason), how to insert the credit card, how to open the gas cap, even how to operate the pump itself. They were quite a sight, but so proud of themselves for not going a penny over the $7 I told them to put into the tank.

Boys baking muffins, girls pumping gas -- we're a liberated bunch, aren't we?

Yesterday, my adrenaline gave out, and I (VERY uncharacteristically) spent two and a half hours napping. Then I took another half-hour nap after small group. Feeling refreshed, finally, this afternoon. Staying home, teaching my kids, catching up on laundry, answering my 74 unread e-mail messages, and committing to help the G with the support-raising he's been flying solo on for the last couple of weeks. Oh, and looking forward to compiling some good advent resources to post here on the ol' blog. So thanks for reading, and toodles til my next post.