Playing Catch-Up

The past week was a busy and, at times, unproductive one. That's the way it goes, right? You decide to do something and suddenly nothing and no one want you to do it.

Where there's adversity there's also opportunity. Last week was full of chances for me to reconnect with both sides of my family.

1. On my Grandpa Smith's Fourth of July (which happened on the third), I got to spend time with the whole right side of my extended family tree (to clarify, I consider the right side of a family to be the maternal side, so this was my family, not Josh's), including my aunts and uncle who I almost never see.
2. Josh's brother and his girlfriend flew up from Texas for the holiday.
3. Josh's uncle and cousins drove up from Texas and arrived the day Matt left. We were able to spend some time on Friday talking to his uncle about what we should know before buying a houseboat.
4. On Saturday, Josh took care of Bear and Mom and Dad took Oak, so Emily and I got to hang out at the lake sunburning (mostly me) and talking.
5. Saturday night, Josh and I went to his sister's house and played cards for the first time in at least a month.
6. Sunday, Josh's boss and wife invited us to go out on the (other) lake with them on their pontoon boat. That one was mostly a getaway for me and Josh. It was great.

There was all kinds of trouble with my experiment last week, of course, but there's no need to focus on the bad unless we learned something from it. For example: I learned that kids are germ sacks who will make you sick and then get better while you feel like you're dying. I learned that I can take three two+ hour naps in one day and still be tired. I learned that little boys don't throw as many fits when you pay a reasonable amount of attention to them. I learned that most of mine and Joshua's fights rise out of misunderstandings and unfounded assumptions. And that I miss God--miss him like I'd miss Joshua--when I don't spend time with Him. Also that I don't like watching church over the internet but that's no reason to take it out on someone else. I don't know when any of these new-found facts will come in handy, but I figure knowing them might be the important half of the battle.

Those of you with jobs probably realize that a new week has begun. That means it's time to start over again and apply the things I learned from last week. Just this morning Oak and Bear and I danced and climbed ladders in the living room while singing along with some great praise songs. I had to give up time I could've been writing, but you know what's weird? I feel great. Really, really great.