Team Gray!

So, Curtis and I went on our first date in like forever this last Friday.

Thank, you, Steve and Anissa!

You see, this couple of saints from our church volunteered to watch Yasha and the other children so we could have a date.

And they were even more saintly, putting up with mountains of vomit from our two youngest, and then, on top of that, inviting Yanni over to spend the night with their bigger girls after she had spent much of her time cleaning up and fetching clean clothes.

I mean, these people are a class act.

Curtis and I went to this great restaurant run by another person that goes to our church. R. Stanley’s is our new favorite place to eat out. I was privileged to eat their delicious crab cakes, and Curtis stayed faithful to the ribs. I like the barbecue sauce enough to consider ordering ribs sometime, even though I don’t really like ribs. The owner, who’s in a group of church business leaders with Curtis, came out and chatted with us while we waited for our food. The atmosphere in that place is great–jazz playing, intimate lighting, cool paintings; I can tell the owner used to be a bass player.

We left R. Stanleys to catch The Pursuit of Happyness. What a sweet movie! I cried. I cooed over that adorable little boy. Will Smith was finally a different person in a movie. Usually, he seems like he’s playing himself. But, this time, even though he had his real son with him, he was transformed into that other person, who had it really hard, yet he never complained, and he never gave up, and he eventually made it. What a great message.

We followed the movie, which we watched in a brand new theater downtown–nice to be in a clean place with very comfortable seats for $8 a person–with going to Coldstone for ice cream. That’s a weekly tradition, only I usually stay home while Curtis picks up the ice cream.

We were greeted by this beautiful family on the couch upon our return. I almost thought I was in the wrong house(not instantly recognizing all the faces on the couch). I swear, the family that watched our kids is beautiful! They have a little girl a year younger than Xay that likes to play dress-up with the little girls, and she is so pretty, that Esteban is constantly singing about her. The older two girls are also beautiful inside and out, and the little boy is adorable as well.

We had a nice chat with the parents after our return.

It’s Thursday again, and you know what that means! This week, I’m reminded of Esteban and Mike playing together at the Martin’s house. They are sorely missed.

I love the story of Elijah. He had just come from defeating over 400 priests of Baal, when God told him to get ready for rain. God had stopped the rain for three years. The drought was severe. But, Elijah did what God told him, and he prayed for rain. Then he sent his servant out to see if it had started raining. Nothing. Elijah prayed some more, and sent the servant out again. Still nothing. Elijah kept praying and sending his servant out–7 times. Then, the servant said, “now I see some little clouds in the sky.” Elijah was satisfied that it was going to rain, and he jumped up to beat the storm.

I look for little clouds in my life. They tell me a thing’s about to break.

It has been tense around here for the last few months, actually, but it intensified a few weeks ago. I was despairing that nothing seemed to be happening with Yasha. God gave me the word ‘order’ one morning while I was pumping and praying. I found that discouraging, because order has eluded me. Ever since I found out what order was, and that it was something sorely lacking in my life, I have been asking God to establish order in our home.

And our house has stayed disorderly. It would lurch to order for a day or so at a time, and then go back to filthy. I prayed and asked God to establish order in our home again. I prayed for His help, and for order to come when He dropped that word on me.

Then, the last couple of weeks, the disorder in our home has made me ballistic. I’m yelling at children, digging through clutter, delegating, and very distressed about the disorder everywhere.

Simultaneously, I’m distressed about Yasha and various issues about therapy. The physical therapist came this month, and had all these concerns about Yasha’s high tone. (That’s medicalese for stiff muscles). She gave me all kinds of directions for loosening the baby’s arms and legs, and how not normal it is, etc. Well, duh. She’s suffered an assault to her brain, and she’s in need of healing. I guess we wouldn’t expect her to be normal there. . .

But still, it’s been dogging me. Am I to ask for healing, or am I to exercise her arms and legs, or both? I have been crying out to God about what to do; this is really confusing to me.

The other day, as I was pumping/praying, God told me to watch a video with Yanni and Xay. Curtis had put it on my computer days before, and I hadn’t taken the time to watch it because it was 49 minutes long. I decided to watch it while I was pumping, since that’s 45 minutes I have to take, anyway.

It was powerful. It had a Nigerian man who was in a car accident and had died, but was raised from the dead. What really struck me was the phrase Curtis had used in describing the video–rigor mortus. He had said that the man had been dead long enough for his arms to be stiff. Hello! Yasha’s arms are stiff! And the pastors praying for the man to be raised started massaging his arms and legs while they prayed. Then, the man jumped up and ran.

Yasha’s neck used to be so tight that she couldn’t turn her head to both sides. Now she does that with no problem, because we’ve worked with her. I decided to tackle her arms and legs, and I’m seeing improvement already. And an added bonus: on Thursday, Yasha drank 1 ML of breast milk from her bionix nipple at the second to highest setting with no problem! This is huge; she had previously only been sucking to taste, the second lowest setting. That’s one little cloud!

The other little cloud also came on Thursday. I had just started pumping when the doorbell rang. Yanni came and got me. It was two men at the door. They handed me a bottle of laundry detergent, and then asked if I could watch a demonstration so the other guy could get paid. I was hemming and hawing, when they shoved a Kirby vacuum cleaner towards the door. “we already have a Kirby,” I yelled, as the supervisor drove away. He left me with the young sales guy, who went on and on about how he wasn’t even born when our Kirby was made.

I have a weakness for cleaning products. Having grown up in a filthy house, any product that could really clean something was like a miracle to me. This new vacuum cleaner was practically self-propelled, as opposed to the behemoth we currently own.

Despite my weakness, however, I’m not spending $1300 for a vacuum cleaner. Forgetabout it.

And their argument that you only have to buy one Kirby was in jeopardy the longer they pressed me to ‘upgrade.’ (btw, the kirby we have was one Daddy was snookered into buying when I was in High School).

I talked to Curtis on the phone while the guy was here, and he told me to get rid of him. I told him he had to go, and he started packing up, but Curtis got here before he’d left. I had to call his manager to come pick him up. The manager got here, and told me that I am giving a Kirby a bad name by how dirty my carpet was. Then, he proceeded to show me how to use my machine properly! He adjusted the belt, and the height of the machine, and told us that we need a new part on the bottom of it.

Now I know how to make my carpets clean! When the carpets are clean, the house looks a lot more orderly!

Halleluia and Thank You, Jesus, for the little clouds signally a downpour of blessings!