Thursday, June 09, 2005

Hot Lipstick

Last evening we noticed that even though the air conditioner was running, it was getting warmer and warmer. Sure enough, the a/c has quit working. Lucky for us, we have a guest room at the other end of the house and it has a small wall air conditioner. So we slept in our own guest room last night.

When I moved the bed to put on the sheets, I found a lipstick on the floor under the bed. Hmm, who could this belong to--I don't wear lipstick. Ma Hoyt, is it yours?? I won't bother mailing it to you, it was nearly gone anyway. I just hope you didn't look too washed out at Ardith's graduation :-)

I called the air conditioning place this morning, but they couldn't come today. They promise to come tomorrow. I have a bad feeling about this...

In the meantime, my friend made me go wedding dress shopping today. No, not for a wedding dress, for a dress for the wedding. I'm looking for an official Mother of the Groom dress. Ugh. I hate shopping.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

A Memory

Apparently some people think reading aloud to each other is oafy. (See previous post.) But I disagree. When my husband and I were young missionaries in the Solomon Islands, we often read out loud to each other for entertainment. Of course, at that time we had no electricity, and only one hurricane lamp, so there was only enough light for one person to read! Ah, the memories of sweating under that mosquito net, listening to The Princess and Curdy. That's lots better than listening to the buzz of mosquitoes trying to get into your cube of protection.

That reminds me once of checking on my sleeping babies. I remember being so personally mad at a given mosquito--how dare she suck the blood from, and deposit falciparum into, my precious child's arm as he lie there asleep with his arm pushed up against the mosquito net? The proboscis on that anopheles was long enough to push through the netting into my child. I don't know why, but somehow that vision is still a fresh memory, though that child is now about the same age I was at the time.

Sometimes I still read aloud to Gary, but now it is because sometimes it is faster for me to read soemthing to him than for him to use the technology he needs to read to himself (very strong glasses, closed circuit TV, big computer montior, special text-to-speech software, etc.).

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Read Me a Bedtime Story!


Happy Birthday!

Rachel and I have decided you're never too old to read a story, or listen to a story. We're reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe out loud to each other, just one chapter a night. Today she talked her dad into buying her her own copy of the book (a nice colour edition) for her birthday.

When we got home from the bookstore, she found these lovely roses from her big brother, who had not forgotten that today is June 7. Then he also called her from Ethiopia to wish her a happy birthday. (He has just gotten a land line at his new house, so that also means he now has internet access from home.) I was way too busy today, so Rachel didn't get a cake, but we did go out for lunch.

Monday, June 06, 2005

A Word of Encouragement from the Lord

Today Rachel and I were having a serious, and somewhat discouraging, discussion about her job hunt. She is pretty sure she doesn't want to apply for a regular classroom teacher job for her first job. So she has been looking at various school districts' websites to see if there are any teacher's aid positions listed. Her idea is that after a year as teacher's aid, she might feel capable of handling her own class. Our conversation included talk about trusting God to provide the right job.

But the websites didn't list any jobs like that, so it was getting discouraging to talk about it. So I let it drop.

About one minute later the phone rang. It was our family friend, Emily, who is a teacher in Arlington, asking if Rachel was interested in applying for a teacher aid job. To shorten the story, Rachel now plans to go to the Arlington School district offices on Wednesday to see if there are any openings for a teacher's aid position in Arlington.

In the meantime, Rachel phoned the Texas Board of Teacher Education this afternoon and found herself 36th in the queue to have her call answered. She is trying to get info about securing her Texas credential.