Patience

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.
~Saint Augustine

This is something that I need to be telling myself as we get one day closer to the end of the first half of the school year. I also enjoyed the fact that on Sunday the homily was about patience. It is funny how the homilies reflect how I am feeling at the moment.

I will just remember to tell myself to breathe through the next 12 school days. :)

Celtic Thunder

I saw these guys in concert last night and they were AMAZING! I had never heard anything about them until Rosie mentioned that she wanted to go and Laura proclaimed they looked too "gay" to see in concert. I was blown away! Plus who wouldn't enjoy seeing Irishmen in kilts! :)

Kitchen Redo

Back in September, my parents ice maker went bananas overnight and they woke up to the flooding of their kitchen, mudroom, and my dad's room. Then all of that water had to go somewhere and it went into the basement. So after a week of fans and humidifiers running nonstop. The place was finally dried out.

The insurance people took off with the ice maker hoping to find something wrong with it. They also took off with all of the clothes that were "water damaged" in the basement and sent them off to be dry cleaned. The nice insurance people also took pulled off the laminate flooring so that the sub floor could dry.

So now that the kitchen has been pulled apart, it has forced my mom to go ahead and redo the kitchen. She has talked for years how she wanted to redo the kitchen. I just told her the ice maker gave her the shove that she needed to redo. :)

So my mom and I spent yesterday steaming off the wallpaper. We were quite proud of the fact that we have half of the kitchen done. She is having Kitchens Etc. come in and put in new ceramic flooring and granite counter tops. I am hoping that I can get the rest of the wallpaper off the walls and paint before the flooring people come in. However, it takes my mom an eternity to commit to the perfect paint color. I think I am going to go to Lowe's and pick out some colors and slap it on the wall and then maybe I will get an answer out of her!

What still needs to be pulled off:

What was accomplished:

Now if I can get in there this weekend and get the rest of it off, my world will be great. However I have a school function on Sunday that is taking up most of my afternoon. This might be tricky!

A Perfect Day

It was a beautiful day for apple picking. I mentioned to Laura that I had wanted to go apple picking a couple of weeks ago. She told me that she was going with a friend. I was welcomed to come along, but I told her I would be a third wheel. :)

So Laura organized it so that the entire family could go. Despite the icky forecast that we got on Friday, today is absolutely gorgeous!

After about 10 minutes, my parents apple bushel was full and the rest of us had yet to even fill half. We even ran into people we knew.

We had a good time and we came to realization that we probably should have taken a group shot when we ran into the people that we knew after we had gone and left.

Now I have a bag full of apples, and I know that there is no possible way that I will be able to eat all of them. So off to school they go! :)

Laura and Eddie in a search for the perfect apples

Rosie and her tiny apple

Rosie and Steve with the giant apple that he found

Tony and Eddie

Rosie even picked a pumpkin :)

Bike Ride

I had an old teaching friend call me up the other day wondering if I wanted to go bike riding at the Apple Festival in Nappanee on Saturday. She told me that her husband was unable to go because he had to work and she had really wanted to go. She mentioned that there was a 16 mile route and a 30 mile route. I told her I was up for either.

I don't know what in the heck I was thinking! I haven't ridden my bike in over a year. So we set out for the 30 mile route today. Gee was I stupid. Within the first half hour my legs were starting to hurt, but I kept pedaling. About 10 miles into the ride, I figured out that I have been on the highest resistance gear possible. stupid, stupid, stupid :)

We rested quite a bit for my sake and even took a short cut. The funny thing was that while on the shortcut we meet another rider and he is looking and talking to my friend. Then he said that he knew her. So here we are in the middle of a cornfield and they figure out that they went to school together at Washington. It really is a small world!

So after 13.2 miles we stop at the first SAG stop at an Amish house. Which I have no idea what SAG means, but they have some treats and I am more than happy to stop. My friend decided that I should stay while she finishes up the rest of the ride. I had no problem with that.

So I rested, while other riders were coming in and getting refueled. Some riders were even talking about the ride that is happening on Sunday and it is a 70 mile one. What the heck people!?!

Also while I was resting the Amish couple that was providing the treats had three small children playing outside. The one youngest daughter brought her chair and sat it right next to mine and she was bringing me treats and climbed on my lap and enjoyed her juice. She was a cutie!

So my friend gets me after an hour and she informs me that she checked off my name at the finish line so that people don't go looking for me. :) Also she mentioned that there was Amish homemade ice cream and apple pie at the finish line and that the organizers of the ride told her that I was more than welcomed to come and enjoy some pie. They even sent her with Apple Butter for me! I declined going back for the pie and ice cream.

Even though I am beyond sore tonight and probably will have a tough time of walking tomorrow, I really enjoyed my bike ride and catching up with an old friend. My husband thinks that I am nuts for biking that long of a distance. I probably am, but I enjoyed myself. That is what I will keep telling myself tomorrow! :)