In the middle of the ride.

I love the song "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World.

(I am in no way recommending you view the music video for this song, however... I just looked it up this morning and found it to have nothing to do with my interpretation of the song, not to mention it was a tad... disturbing.)

My favorite lines from the song:

It just takes some time

Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride

Everything, everything will be just fine

Everything, everything will be all right, all right.

Bill had attended a church meeting a year or two ago with {Elder Holland, I think... I will have to double check my facts}.

He came home with the perspective that we are ALL currently "in the middle."

The middle of the plan of salvation/happiness,

in between our pre-existence and paradise (or prison).

This middle part, although long, tiring, full of ups and downs, good and bad, joy and pain,

is so so important.

I'm just trying to keep on keepin' on... to endure well... among the crazy business of life.

Anyway, here is what I've been in the middle of the past week:

It was Homecoming week for Legend.

This year Bill was able to come promote himself at the parade... Yay! 

Mar and Cass helped pass out candy and cards. Those girls rock.

 

After all the work Bill has put into promoting his company locally, he has recently found out that he will have to change the name due to some technical legal issues. He is in search of a new name that has NO POSSIBLE problems (trademarks, etc).  I think he needs it THIS WEEK. Ugh. Such a discouraging turn of events. But, to quote my favorite missionary, we will survive.

Thursday night was the Homecoming football game. It was fun to meet up with friends and ward members to cheer on LHS.

Friday night (also the evening of the Homecoming dance), our ward had a special youth temple baptism trip planned. I'm pretty sure that was a bit of a calendaring snafu, but the youth who were NOT attending the dance, spent the evening at the temple doing baptisms.

 We actually had 4 or 5 more youth show up after this picture was taken, so a pretty good turnout considering the scheduling conflict.

On Saturday morning, Mar, Bill and I went to the Parker Road clean-up.

After all the years we've lived here, with our family participating in this event too many times to count, I have to embarrassingly admit that this was my first time.

It went well. It was a lot o' work, and it got pretty darn hot by the time we were finishing up, but we were able to finish with a sense of service to our community and a job well done.

I think I mentioned that I decided to antique/glaze my cabinets. I actually worked on them ALL DAY two Fridays ago, and didn't quite get finished but was literally so sick of working on them that I took all of last week off (not to mention we were just so darn BUSY all week). Here's a shot of a few of the finished ones:

I like them much better antiqued, so it was definitely worth the effort. I have set a goal to totally complete them this week... in the middle of all the other regular busy-ness going on.

Also last week:

I grocery shopped. 5 stores... I'm a bit of a tightwad and always trying to get the best deal. It's so exhausting!

I gave the Sisters a haircut

A family that was renting their home in our ward was given 24 hours to move out of their house, so I spent some hours helping them pack and load up

Celebrated 2 friends' birthdays by going to lunch with them. One of the birthdays was at the end of May... I'm a little behind, don't you think?

I took a dinner + a freezer meal to my neighbor (with the 7 kids)

Went visiting teaching

Spent most of the day on Friday at the temple (4 sessions total)

Just trying to document why I'm so darn busy all the time. For my own memory's sake. Today I am working on a sweet little baby quilt for my newest little granny-daughter, then we are having some investigators over for a lesson with the missionaries tonight, which means a little house tidying is in order.

Gotta run.

Labor Day + a baby sprinkle.

Labor Day 2016.

Bill worked tirelessly on his {little} patio project, which he started way back at the beginning of the summer.

The past few years we've had issues with minor flooding in our crawl space when it would downpour towards the north. We discovered that our patio had oh-so-slightly SUNK over the years, and that rain would pool right next to the house, then drizzle down the vent on the side of the house into the crawl space. For the past several years we have discussed the need to correct this {little} problem, and talked about solutions, most of which cost mucho dinero. Finally this year we made the commitment to git 'er done in the most cost effective way possible, which meant to remove all the flagstone, piece by piece, build up the base, then reassemble and re-grout. Bill finished the puzzle on Labor Day... in the 90 degree heat. Now we just have to re-grout (which I hope goes smoothly). 

Wish us luck.

I cleaned a bit in the house, but spent much of the day preparing for our BBQ and baby sprinkle we had planned with the neighbors that evening.

(Our neighbor Macey did the lettering for the chalkboard signs... she and Britt have similar skills in that area.) 

Then it was time for the party to begin.

In the middle of it I had to run pick up Mar from work, but after it was all said and done, everyone agreed that we should get together more often. We have great neighbors, and we all have such busy lives, it's nice to get together and chat it up sometimes.

And my neighbor who we had the baby sprinkle for? She made it over, too. It was her first day out of bed after delivering her 7th baby less than a week prior. There were some complications with her delivery, so her recovery has been slow. Hopefully she did not overdo.

Things I've learned:

Always have chips on hand. Since Mist and I did the dawgs, the drinks, and the dessert, neither of us made an extra side dish. The neighbors all contributed a side, but they were similar in nature (pasta salad), and on the small{ish} side. I ran over and grabbed the two bags of chips I had in my pantry, and at the end of the day they were gone, baby gone. I was also tempted to purchase a watermelon earlier that day, but talked myself out of it. Should a, would a, could a, didn't. Wished I did.

I've decided to glaze the corners of my cabinets, I'm just working up the gumption to actually begin. I hope I can manage it without removing the doors, but I can't even try until I purchase some more gloves, so as not to antique my hands any more than they already are (I spied some age spots on them the other day).

I am really really tired. Especially of kitchen cabinets. Needing an extra day or two of rest {wink}.

Mission Accomplished {I think}.

It's been another grueling week of cabinet painting.

Ugh. I'm over it already.

The good news is...

(Focus on the cabinets here, not the crock pots -- including that nice blue one we got for our wedding. Just cooking up some Costco-sized pork roasts. And imagine those golden oak floors a dark brown... somewhere down the road.)

...they are pretty much done.

I'm debating... to antique or not to antique.

I've decided I'll live with them a week or two, then make that call.

They are not perfect, but they are DONE. (Unless I decide to antique.)

A huge shout out to my main man, who, after a long day of work, would come home and help attach drawers, doors, and pulls.

I plan on doing the three upstairs bathroom cabinets next, followed by the laundry room, but think I'll give myself a little breaksie for a weeksie haha.

On Thursday we made another trip up to Ft. Collins for the temple open house. This time Bill had invited a couple of his co-workers, and Denise and her daughter Autumn (along with Cory - they are the couple that just got baptized) met us there. I also met up with Sarah - our friend who grew up in Parker, now attending CSU, and whose parents just moved to Arizona.

Again, it was beautiful, and a great opportunity for Bill to share some of our beliefs with some ladies he works with. I am, however, not fond of the drive... especially during pm rush hour traffic. We may have the blessing to go several more times with others we have invited to attend -- I just hope we can avoid that crazy 5-6:30pm travel time.

I whipped up these little invitations in the middle of my cabinet madness:

My neighbor just had her 7th baby, and we decided it would be the perfect time for a neighborhood get together. I'm hoping for good weather tomorrow and looking forward to mingling with my awesome neighbors.

Bill got to see the BYU game last night (we don't have cable, so I assisted in helping him find a locale at which to view it -- thanks, Batemans!!), and Mar attended a Rockies game for a friend's birthday. AND they got on the jumbo-tron TWICE.

I stayed home and decompressed. And folded laundry.

Happy Labor Day!