all sides of my brain

So yesterday was the longest day ever, but I used all the sides of my brain in a plethora of diverse activities.  First of all, however, no side of my brain could conceive of a way to get up and on the field-day field for set up and still get Jan (with a JJJJ) up and fed etc at 7.  I am extrEMEly loathe to mess up his schedule since it is working so wonderfully well.  15 minutes here or there is nothing, but I would have had to feed him at 5.30 or 6 or something and I just couldn’t figure out how to make it work otherwise.  But my colleagues are good and nice and said, no problem.  So I didn’t get there until 7.30.  I ref’ed ultimate all day running all over the field with the kids.  Everyone says “oh you don’t have to run so much,” but I tell you, it is really stinkin hard to see the endzone when you SIT on the sideline and “ref” like many of my colleagues do.  I ask you.  The kids are really great about being kind and helping each other and they don’t swear (because they know they’ll get the crooked finger of DOOM) so, I mean, it could be way harder, but I still have to make “controversial” calls and I think the kids appreciate that I make the effort (who knows; maybe they’d rather I sit).   So that was the athletic-snap-judgement side of my brain.  After cleaning up the field, loading and then unloading all the gear (driving the Havard kids to DQ, yay!!), picking Jan up at Havards’ (the daycare) we finally got home.  A couple hours later David and I drove to church for one of our monthly jazz evenings.  This time the jazz was combined with a forum (?? I don’t know what to call it) so there were LOADS of people there!!  wow!! Typically, we have been getting 20 people to jazz, which is piddly.  Last night we had 60+!!!  wow!  Here is a photo of the jazz folks.  There was a guest trombonist for one song that you see in this photo.

So that was the music side of my brain, combined with the running-around-getting-food-and-coffee side.  It was kinda funny: since it was a forum thing later, it was a tonne of grad students who showed up and they would barely make it in the door before they grabbed coffee and the free food.  Oh and also the part of my brain that was constantly checking to make sure Jan was still sleeping in the nursery.  Good thing he can sleep anywhere.   After the jazz, as I said, we had the forum thing which was about the New Atheism.  Since I was running around as I mentioned, I couldn’t really hear why this turned almost immediately to a discussion about evolution; maybe because that is something Al Plantinga talks about a lot.  Since he and Mike Rea were leading this discussion, maybe it just turned to that naturally.  I didn’t hear a lot of the discussion, but everyone seemed quite pleased, so that’s good.  And that was the academic side of my brain.  Here is a photo of Mike and Al looking like movie stars, he he he.   

After the discussion, we started to clean up and the grad students came to the kitchen looking for plastic bags so they could take the food home!!!  I didn’t mind; if it gets them to church, what does it matter?  It was bought for them to eat and whether they eat it at the thing or at home, it doesn’t seem to matter to me.  It took a while to clean up and David and I finally got home (oh, with Jan of course) by 11.  My goodness what a long day.

We slept in this morning, even Jan, as you can see by this photo: 

Usually he eats at 7 and yes I know I said I was loathe to change it, but my goodness, I did wake up at 6.50 this morning and just thought “I can’t!”  But he was back on track by noon, seemingly none the worse for wear.  This morning we cleaned up all the limbs and branches left from taking the tree down.  We had left it all lying in the front yard so there was a lot of clean up to do.  But we did that and I finished moving all the flooring so we can almost park in the garage.  This afternoon, I must confess that I feel terribly guilty because I took a nap!! and then I did NOTHING!!  other than watch football.  ND lost and didn’t look very good.  Man!  I haven’t taken a nap more than maybe twice in the past year, including pregnancy.  I guess I needed it. So that would mean that today I didn’t really use my brain at all and that is just fine.   I’m not sure what is happening tomorrow; perhaps I will sew the table cloth for the communion table at church -an activity for which I have very little brain, but very many swear words; guaranteed to be a grumpy day.  Oh, and tonight, David is working; he has a Trinity choir rehearsal and then a party, which may not sound like work, but how fun do you think hanging out with a bunch of teenagers is when you are tired and thinking about how much you’d like to be home watching football in your comfy clothes?  So it qualifies as work.  (You’ll notice I’m not there; why the heck would I want to hang out with those kids on the weekend when I see them every stinking other day of the week?  I’m not that committed!  Plus, speaking of activities that require no brain….)  If anything exciting happens tomorrow, we’ll let you know.