A friend passed along a website where you can register to watch previews of shows - and the show currently was The Blind Side, about Michael Oher's life.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching that with a friend just because it was a chance to get out of the house and go somewhere with a grown up and no kids, true.  More than that, though, it was very moving.

Then I read John Grisham's The Street Lawyer, which I've read before, but we just unpacked it, and so I read it again.  Entertaining, yes, but also convicting.  Now I'm in the middle of reading One Hundred Girl's Mother. **Edit:  This book had very explicit stuff in it, as I discovered when I kept reading.  I would recommend instead finding a true biography of Donaldina Cameron.**

There seems to be a running theme of compassion for and service to those without homes of their own - those who are oppressed.  I'm wondering where God is pointing me - just making me more aware of where my kids' clothes can go when they grow out of them?  Or something more?

Bruce taught his first day of getting paid teaching - he subbed right down the street from us, and rode his bike.  On our way home from picking up Paul from his school, we drove along the front of the other school where kids were getting out, and there was Bruce doing yard duty!  We honked and waved.  I made that man an apple pie to celebrate.  And he'll get to eat it as soon as he gets home from his other job - poor guy.  In between his jobs, he talked to me and said that the teaching was really easy, and the people in the office were very nice.  What a great way to start out!

I'm so grateful that we have insurance, and that Bruce is willing to work two jobs to make that happen while we wait for a full-time job of teaching (that will include benefits).

Paul was sick two weeks ago and pulled through nicely without needing to go to the doctor's office, but Ruth got sick this week and I took her in.  She had a nagging, low grade "elevated temp."  Some doctors think you can't call it a fever if it's not over 100.  Whatever. 

Yesterday I went ahead and kept her home from school, because she'd been awake for quite a while in the night, and even in the morning said that her head hurt.  This morning she woke up all chipper, with 98.6 degrees.  I thought, "Yes, she's going to school, Paul's going to school, Bruce is going to work:  I'll have the morning to myself to run errands at whatever pace I like, without slowing down for the buckling and unbuckling of car seats, or with, if I so choose, the leisurely dawdling down a drugstore aisle without having to watch a child that wants to pick up and touch and wander off to find something more interesting."  But then Ruth said her throat hurt, and her head still hurt sometimes.

Hmm.  So I called the doctor's office to make an appointment and be sure that Ruth didn't have some kind of throat infection, and they were able to fit us in at 1 with the nurse practitioner (who was simply charming with Ruth).  We had the morning ahead of us, and since she seemed to be so chipper, we went ahead and ran errands - paid rent, took books to the library (some of which were due yesterday - but Ruth was sicker then), and went to the drugstore and the grocery store.  By the end of that, she looked a little grim - kind of glassy-eyed and the whites of her eyes were a little pink, and she was flushed.  Her forehead was hot.  So I was really glad I had scheduled an appointment.

When we got there, her temperature was 99.5 or so - really not hot, and she was pretty mellow again - could sleeping for the last ten minutes of the car ride have helped?  Mmmmcould be.  (She fell asleep later when we were taking Paul to soccer practice too.  I made a point of getting her to bed earlier tonight.)

The NP said that her throat did show signs of post-nasal drip, so that was probably the cause of the sore throat.  She did ask about the ongoing headache - confirming that there was no nausea or throwing up, no change in behavior, or walking strangely, or anything else that could suggest ominous reasons behind a headache.  Just thinking about that creeps me out.

So we treat the symptoms - and the NP said that chicken noodle soup (if Ruth liked that) would feel good on her throat, so we went and bought Dora noodle soup, and I'd guess Ruth ate about half or more of a pretty full bowl, so that was encouraging.   Tonight I gave her some Tylenol and some cough and cold stuff to help dry up the dripping while she's sleeping.

In completely other news, we are making progress in escrow.  We'll be glad to be shut of the house.  Well, Bruce and I will be glad.  Paul and Ruth still miss it.  They have only ever known that house. 

But another reason to be glad to leave that house came up the other day when we got our power bill and could look at how much electricity and how much gas we used in the Bakersfield house (that we're not even in!) and how much here, in the duplex that we are actually living in.  We used less here.  How weird is that?

Well, Bruce is due home soon, so I'll sign off.

 

The radish sprouts are up, and the carrots managed to start coming up over the weekend without my help (I was at a women's retreat with some great, great ladies).  Yay for growing things. 

And yay for a chance to think about seeds and think about a quote I heard several times this weekend about sowing your pain and frustration and disappointment and suffering in God, and not in yourself, and letting him bring his own crop of joy and peace from that.  I'm still chewing on it.  How do you sow into God?