Our Three-Ring Circus; and Time with Fred

Wednesday we were expecting guests for supper. Swede knows a family that was headed from Colorado to Iowa, and of course, Nebraska is right between, so he invited them to stop over on their way. The plan was that he would bring them to our place for supper, and then take them back to his place to spend the night.

Meanwhile, our new friend J, whom I haven't said much about, but who loaned me his electric violin to play recently, asked to come hang out with us since Wednesday was his day off. Sure. The more the merrier.

I cleaned house, Hubby and two of the kids went to do tree work. J showed up for dinner (noon), and we planned to have a very late supper, since the folks from Colorado figured they'd be here around eight-thirty.

At nine-thirty we checked in with Swede, resulting in us going ahead with supper, as we were all starved.

J asked to spend the night, since it was late, so we opened up our new futon and loaned him some jammies.

The next day we learned our defunct company had finally rolled in around midnight, so we made plans to try again for supper. They came over around five, and this time Swede brought deli chicken, so I just made a huge vegetable dish to go with it, as well as a mondo pot of tapioca pudding. Very plain, simple food.

Our company stayed till midnight, and we rushed off to bed, since Hubby and GuitarGeek and I were headed to a conference Friday and Saturday. We were in charge of the sound, meaning, we took the sound system and computer visuals for the meetings.

The conference was in a city about three hours from home, and it was VERY windy, and I spend the entire trip working on the 100 songs in my computer, putting in backgrounds and checking the formatting. Can you say "carsick"?

I'm not going to go into detail about the conference. A lot of good things, and some frustrating things, happened.

I had planned to write a long rant about my experiences with a) a worship leader who sends 100 songs for the computer tech to prepare, and then uses songs that aren't in the list, b) software that crashes five minutes before the morning service, and c) a projector that randomly shuts itself off, but God spoke to me about forgiveness and not taking offense, and I'm (truly) glad to say that none of that has any sting to it anymore, and it wouldn't make a very interesting post.

We of course got to bed late Saturday night, only to get up early Sunday for worship team sound check, and to play. However, I had an ace up my sleeve, because our new friend J practically begged to be allowed to make supper for us Sunday, so he came over, groceries in hand, and fixed us an absolutely wonderful meal; which meant I got a Sunday afternoon nap! (By the way, this was the first time in my life that I've had tortellini, and it is an experience worth repeating.)

After supper, we watched a movie (Hoodwinked, if you're interested) while waiting for our food to settle so we could have dessert (LovelyDaughter made this.)

About the time the movie was over, Swede stopped in on his way home from somewhere else, and we ended up having a worship/prayer meeting till three o'clock!

And that, my friend, was the final straw: the cold that had been chasing me for several days at last caught up with me, and today I am miserable, just miserable. My sinuses are trying to powerwash themselves, and I ache all over. Even my skin hurts.

I'm spending a lot of time with Fred. You know, when your nose is swollen and you try to say "friend"? My friend the Kleenex box. It's my fred.

Moan. Groan. Poor me.

And now I have used up all the extra energy I have, which should probably have been used to clean up the kitchen, so next meal time we have dishes to eat off of. Regardless, I'm going to go take a nap now to fortify myself against this virus assault. And I'm taking Fred with me.