Monthly Archives: July 2006

"The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Since our house burned down last summer, I have felt like I was in an eternal holding pattern with our lives.  We have been living in a very small rent house, with not enough room to file things in any sort of organized manner.  And I’ve been hoping that we would be  moved into our new home before it was time to order school supplies for next year.  But, it doesn’t look like that is going to be the case.

It now looks like the absolute early we will be in is by the end of this month, which admittedly, is better than, say, October.  But now I realized I am going to have to go ahead and order my school supplies and get started organizing them and getting my thoughts together before we move, instead of after.  So I am having to roll with the changes and redirect my thoughts.

I do feel more ready to start school than I have for the last couple of years, especially last year.  Last year was really hard!  I know exactly what curriculum I want for each kid, and have ordered the book "Managers of Their Homes" (you can find this at http://Titus2.com). I am hoping it will be in very soon, because I am anxious to start making out schedules and getting things in order before they have a chance to fall apart.

It seems like the last two or three years I have steadily gotten worse about staying on schedule and organized.  And honestly, that’s not like me.  My best friend always brags to everyone about how organized I am.  I am really looking forward to getting back to who I used to be.  I know I will feel more relaxed and happy if I get on a schedule and stick to it.

Alex is coming home from camp today, and Faith is coming home from Mom’s.  So tonight, for the first time in three weeks, we will have a full house again!  I have enjoyed my time alone, but am truly looking forward to having my munchkins back.  I realized last night that I must be missing them more than I thought, because we went to dinner at my best friend’s home, and I spent more time talking to her eight-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son than I did the other grownups!

I am really enjoying blogging; it helps to get my thoughts out of my head.  I also really need to set aside some time to get all of my web graphics off of the charter.net space, and store them on Yahoo! or somewhere like that, because we are hoping that by the time we move home, our phone company will have upgraded their services to include DSL, and we won’t have to rely on cable anymore for broadband access.  That will rock, because the cable tends to to out a lot, and so then we don’t have internet.

Well, I have a few chores to tend to before we head out to pick Alex up.  Mom is going to meet us at the camp with Faith, then tomorrow night, we are all going to go see Pirates of the Caribbean 2!  WooHoo!

"We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us." (W.B. Yeats)

Well, today was a fantastic day!  Alex has been at camp for the past two weeks, and isn’t going to be coming home until next Friday.  We have received three letters from him, all of them begging us to come to take him to Mass on Sundays.  The camp provides transportation to Mass for their Catholic Campers, but he wanted us to come get him.

Well, last night my husband informs me that he wants to go pick Alex up for Mass today, because today was our beloved priest’s last Mass before he moves on to another parish.  I thought it was a terrific idea, but we were unable to get an answer at the camp last night.  So, my wonderful husband got up early this morning and drove the hour and a half to our son’s camp, and brought him to Mass so he could say goodbye to his favorite priest.

It was a bittersweet Mass.  I promised myself I would cry, but found myself bawling after the Homily.  Father A has been such an inexpressible blessing to our family.  We will miss him sooooo much.  I know I must be more upset than I fully realize, because I keep having freaky dreams about what the new priest will be like. A few nights ago I dreamed the new priest was a woman, then last night I dreamed he was a young kid with long hair and tattoos!  In the dream I even called him "Fr. Dude"!!

So I guess this is something that freaks me out way more than I care to admit.  Our new priest will be here on Wednesday, so I may go to Mass just to see him.  And I think I will go to morning Mass on Monday and Tuesday, just because those are truly Father A’s last days.

Anyway, Alex got to serve at Mass, and got to say goodbye to Father.  And we got to see Alex!  And since his letters really hadn’t told us much at all, I finally got to find out if he was doing okay or not.  Well, he is doing GREAT!  He loves camp, has made lots of friends, and is already talking about going back next year.  I am sooo relieved and thrilled!

Alex has always been a bit different. He doesn’t like competitive sports, he dances classical ballet, cooks, knits, and is a total computer geek.  We tried the private school route at the beginning of this school year and ended up pulling him out after the first semester, because the kids there made fun of him, and wouldn’t welcome him in.  The principal tried to tell me he had Asperger’s Syndrome, and that’s why the kids didn’t like him. (My brother and his wife are both PhD Psychologists, and neither of them agreed with that diagnosis.)  I think it was just that Alex has always been homeschooled, is extremely intelligent, and couldn’t care less about girls yet. (Hallelujah!)  He’s still content to kill imaginary Orcs and Goblins in the woods with a ’sword’ made from a tree branch.  That is why I was worried. But he’s doing great, and the counselor told my husband what a neat kid Alex is!! Of course, I knew that, but it’s always nice to get affirmation.

So this was all-in-all a fantastic day!  I felt like I was walking on air after I got to talk to Alex and know for sure that he’s okay.  If anybody wants a good recommendation for a camp, I can’t say enough wonderful things about Camp Timberlake in Black Mountain, NC!

And at this point, I don’t know who the happiest camper is: Alex, or me!