The start to Lent

        As I mentioned in my post of 3 minutes ago (no one can say I don’t update frequently enough now!) last week’s start to Lent was something we could have used a break from.  Every year Easter is a crazy crazy busy week at church and there is always some sort of emergency (recall the tree falling, sick cat etc).  Well, we are hoping that perhaps the start to Lent will be our Easter week this year because I surely hope we don’t have to have another one of those.  So let me see… the week we were at the cottage, we drove into town every day so we could sit at McDonald’s (don’t even get me started) and use their Wi-Fi.  In so doing, I arranged a baby shower at school for a colleague that we had last Thursday.  I sent Facebook messages to tons of students who faithfully came through with various tasty treats.

That was Thursday.  Monday was Bible Study, Tuesday was Faculty meeting and after that, I had to take Smeer to the Cat Care Clinic.  Oh yes.  He seems to really have a finely attuned sense of the worst week in which to get ill.  I tell ya.  And this time he even stayed overnight.  It turns out he has diabetes even though he’s had a better diet and exercise than when we were in the old house.  Man.  But anyway, the truly sad part about that is we have given him six weeks to show significant improvement, like to the point where he won’t need insulin twice a day as he does now because we can’t afford it.  There is a chance he will improve that degree, but if he doesn’t….. well it’s been a good 14 years.  He does seem to have perked up a great deal; he actually comes and asks for his insulin and maybe that’s because he gets tuna afterwords, but I like to think he is an active participant in his own healthcare.  Wednesday when I went to pick him up, I had to have a hour long lecture on how to give him needles while Jan danced around the consulting room.

Wednesday was also Ash Wednesday which we arrived at late after racing the cat home, changing Jan’s clothes due to an accident (oh yes, haven’t solved that one yet either), and finally, finally purchasing the last baby shower gift because my colleagues finally came through with cash.  Turns out I had to sing at the service.  Sigh.  Don’t get me wrong, I love singing, but man, what a day.  It was a really nice service, my singing aside.  Oh and I didn’t mention that David had to change the installation at the front of the church so he had to work Monday which he usually doesn’t.

Friday I had a faculty seminar on philosophy and science (AGAIN! I TELL YOU, WHY CAN’T WE READ SOMETHING ELSE???) which was fine (sigh, as I displayed my ignorance yet again.)  and before that ended, David had an art gallery opening at church.  So Jan went to church and hung out and watched Veggie Tales while David worked.

Saturday we all went to church in the morning and all worked, yep, Jan included, at getting the church ready for a Subkirke concert that evening.  We got enough done that we went home for a couple hours for Jan to nap and David and I to do homework.  Then Jan went to Ian’s house (did I mention that the Oglesbees are good people?) where he stayed overnight!! to his extreme delight.  No homesickness in that child!  So then we had a concert, of which I will post a couple pictures below.  There was an opening group called the Suns that will never play at Subkirke again, (’nuff said) and there was the main band called Maps and Atlases.  They were pretty good.  The photos are of them.  I don’t know why, in the one, he chose to sit on the bottom of the organ pedestal.  It was kinda weird.  And no, they didn’t play the whole concert in front of the organ, just a couple of songs.  So we finished that concert and clean-up around 12, oh except, wait, it was the night of the time change, so make that 1am.  Not my favourite time. Then jump up like bunnies a few hours later to go back to Sunday church (where else) because, of course, I was signed up for early nursery duty.  I took it as a sign of God’s presence that the only 2 kids in the nursery were Jan and the other helper’s kid.  The time change clearly affected people.   I have no idea what the sermon was about.

And that brings us to this week.  This week has also been weird because Jan has been sicker than he has ever been just with a nasty sinus infection and cough.  So David stayed home, in addition to Monday as usual, Tuesday and half of Thursday and I stayed home half of Thursday.  Something about being this sick has triggered his naughty side because he has been the naughtiest child I could ever imagine.  Man.  At least now I have something to compare his normal naughtiness to: “oh well, at least he’s not being as bad as when he was sick!” Today seems like he might be on the mend, but is there anything more pathetic than a sick child who just lays on the couch and looks at you pleadingly?  You’d do just about anything.  Until the naughty side comes out and he’s banished to his room.

So whether you wanted it or not, you are now so thoroughly informed about our lives, I bet you even know what we had for breakfast (toast of course).  I hope all is well and my fingers recover from all this typing.