The Saturday 7

1. I took the week off from facebook. I've been having some anger issues lately that are only compounded by social media. I enjoyed the lack of conflict, but had a fair bit of FOMO. I'm thinking about only checking my notifications during the week and not doing any scrolling until the weekends. Maybe eventually I'll be one of those people who feels so refreshed when they get off facebook entirely. Not there yet.

2. I finally sat down and figured out my pathway to an associate's degree. If all goes as planned, I'm not forgetting any classes, and I don't fail any, I should be done by summer of next year. I'll have to take classes full time this summer, fall, winter, spring, and next summer, but then I'll be fully edumacated! [Side note: there's no red squiggly line under edumacated. Apparently it's a legit word!] This summer I'm just taking Introduction to Microsoft Word, Health and Wellness, English Composition 2, and Social Media Marketing. I'm not excited about Health, but I think the classes should be fairly easy, so hopefully I'll be able to handle a full time schedule while my kids are home from school. I'm putting off the Math class until the fall. Levi will be in school three days a week by then, so I'll have three full days every week to work on math. Haha. Hopefully that's enough!

3. For one of my classes this week, I was supposed to go to a library and look at a book from the non-circulating reference section. I went to three different libraries and didn't find any reference works published earlier than the 90s. 2/3 of the libraries actually didn't have any reference books. When I asked the librarians they gave me blank looks and said, "We don't really carry those anymore because people have the Internet." Lol. I finally told the last librarian that I needed it for a class and she said, "Are you going to library school?" Haha. Apparently wannabe librarians are the only ones asking for reference works these days. The last library did have three books labeled "reference" in the circulating section, so I settled for one of those.

4. I hosted my first "mom support group" yesterday. We had 9 moms and 19 kids. 😲 It was somewhat chaotic, but also great to hang out with other moms and get to know some ladies I don't know very well. We're going through the book Triggers by Wendy Speake and Amber Lia. Books never have all the answers or give me the magic formula I'm looking for to ensure my kids behave and love Jesus, but they keep ideas fresh in my mind and help me to be a better mom while I'm reading them. Haha. I need to keep a constant repertoire of parenting books going so I'm always working on improving.

5. Today was the Celebration of Life for Justin's grandpa (who died in January). I only knew him as an old man, so it was great to see pictures and hear stories about his life before I came around. One story that I've heard bits and pieces of was shared in its entirety today. Grandpa was involved with a steel company that was running a contest. For every certain amount of steel they sold, they earned a chip to be entered into the contest. The story goes that Grandpa's company ended up with 3 chips, when many other companies had way more. The prize was an airplane, and Grandpa insisted that God told him he'd win the plane. I don't take much stock in people who claim God told them something, but in this case, I guess it was the truth, because Grandpa won! He loaned the plane to an aspiring missionary seeking his pilot's license. And once the missionary had his license, Grandpa sold the plane. He bought a piece of land with the proceeds, intending to build apartments or warehouses, but never got around to it. Years later, he was approached by a "major corporation" (word on the street is that it starts with a W and ends with a -mart) who paid him very handsomely to sell the land. A few years later, the roof of Grandpa's church buckled under the weight of a huge snowstorm, and Grandpa had a large part in funding the rebuilding program. He and Grandma were also extremely generous over the years - I can testify to that. It was so cool to hear the whole story, and how God used Grandpa to further His Kingdom and bring Him glory. 💗

6. Tonight I got to go to Girls' Night with some friends. We just hung out at someone's house, ate pizza, drank wine, and talked. When I got home, Lena asked me what we did the whole time. I said, "Sat around and talked." She said, "What else? Did you play games?" I said, "Nope. Just talked. The whole time." Lena could not wrap her mind around that. Lol. It was wonderful, though. We never get sick of swapping birth stories or sharing funny stories about our kids or finding out new things about each other.

7. Pics

I forgot to share this one from last week. Lucy was at a friend's house, Justin and Levi went to his parents', and Lena and I had reading night on the couch.