Hot-tober

I wrote this last week and never posted it!  And it is MUCH cooler now!  =)  Enjoy!
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Oh, Southern California, could we just bid a not-so-fold farewell to the 90-100 degree days already??  People are pinning photos of boots and scarves and hot cider and I so WANNA.  But hey, enough whining about the weather, I have a/c!  And cute flip-flops.

I haven't posted much, as there isn't much to post.  In Søren's music class, the very first song they learn to play goes like this... "I step up, I step down.  Stay the same."  (The notes correspond, of course.)  That kinda describes all the Stuff.  Not much movement toward Rancho--we hear Oct. 28th.  We finally received and sent in the new paperwork for Disability.  Now we wait.  The van is in the shop for a few weeks, and the 4-Runner is getting a good little work out.  Did I tell you before that it turned out the accident was my fault?  I was 100% convinced I was making a legal U-turn at the time.  You can see where this is going... So it was a big blow to discover that it was my fault.  But again, that is why we have insurance, and I'm so thankful.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, the ground was cursed because of them.  Weeds grew up, and by the sweat of Adams brow was a living to come forth.  The physical world and our relationship with it was cursed.  Our relationship with Work was cursed.  Even in these small but wearying things I see that brokenness of relationship, brokenness of purpose.  A reminder that this is not how it should Be.  But I think that is in so many ways a comfort.  A relief!  This ISN'T how it is supposed to be!  We were designed for more, for better.  And it will take place!  I've never seen that as poignantly as I have in these last 3.5 months.  Oh, for a better country!  Higher up and farther in!

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We have several fun things in the midst of all the hassle.  I made a 24 hr. trip to Selma to attend my 20-year reunion with my old Immanuel High School pals (and moved a queen mattress in the mean time... that's kind of a weird, other story).  It was even better than I expected.  20 years is when you forget all the Stuff from high school and just enjoy seeing people you haven't seen in ages.  My class had 66 graduates, and 33 of them showed.  I had so much fun that I was shocked to look at the time and discover it was gaining on 2 am.  Even 20 years later I instinctively felt bad for being out past curfew!  But it was a fantastic trip, and I was thankful for people who supported Steve while I was gone.

We have THREE great trips coming up that are serving as very sweet consolation to our summer.  We'll get to go to SeaWorld for my birthday and stay in Mission Bay--the kids will get their longed-for wish of playing at the beach with Dad.  We also were given a wonderful chance to go to Mammoth with some of our very best friends--and I'll get to enjoy being COLD!  And we will get to see my parents--the first time we'll have seen them since Long Beach rehab.  So much joy bound up in that last paragraph.  God has met our needs far beyond the basic ones.  I'm so aware of how intimately he knows our hearts and what we long for.  We have worked to seek him in all of this, and he has added all these things to us.  Piled good things on us.  What a true Father he is.