weekday update

If any of you prayed about the roof situation, thanks. Our first estimate was that it would cost less than a thousand dollars to repair the hole (one guy said he could see into the attic from his perch atop the roof -- oops), AND remove the solar panels. Sweeeeet. Nothing like your daughter's room becoming a swimming pool to spur you to happily throw cash at repairmen. But, much like Ross said at church on Sunday, I had just about that much, plus a few hundred to get the air vents cleaned out, coming from my annual bonus. So, as always, God is faithful and good!

I don't think I've fully mentioned the strange disappearance of our occasional plumber/handy guy, Rodney. Well, he got us all excited about putting a fancy overhang thingie on the front of our house, over the door, then bought the supplies and put up a couple pieces of plywood and some 2-by-4s, then disappeared. And I mean, for months. We heard nothing. We called and left messages until we felt we were being pests. Then we gave him up for lost.
Matt tried calling him again yesterday, for whatever reason. And HE CALLED BACK. Matt asked him where the heck he had been -- broke his hip, had to take care of some family business in New Orleans, where apparently they have had no cell phone service for months (editorial sarcasm -- I don't think he said that), etc. Matt said, "Well, we have a question. We appear to have a hole in our roof..." Rodney breaks in with, "I KNOW it ain't the roof I built!" Matt's thinking, since when does two pieces of plywood constitute a roof... I will grant, however, that it has been less leaky than our ACTUAL roof this month.

In other non-news, I drove Lizzy into town today and Matt stayed home to greet roof estimator guys. This is slightly tricky because Lizzy needs a fair degree of amusement and attention on our little commutes. First, we couldn't get the CD player working. (trust me -- this would have been a very serious problem, but it must've just needed to warm up.) Then, she kept wanting to show me things she was doing with her toys. Once, I turned around for a second juuust as traffic was braking... And just about squished the angel whose extended arms must have been keeping me from rear-ending the person in front of me. I'll look for my skid marks tomorrow. (just after exit 60, if you're heading east on Hwy. 66.) After calming down a bit, I explain to her in that serious Mommy tone that if only Mommy or Daddy is present, and driving, we cannot turn around to look at you, Lizzy. I'm sorry, but it's so that we all stay safe. I make sure she says she understands. Lizzy waits a beat or two, then says, "Mommy, look at THIS!" Aiieeeee. Kids.

Oh, yeah -- Lizzy insisted on the "Larry Bob gloves song" this morning. We have amassed five or six Veggie Tales CDs, and a couple of Sesame Street ones. She has Winnie the Pooh songs coming for her birthday. If I can get hold of the Disney Princesses, I guess that would be the logical next step. So, we have to rack our brains, running all songs from all Veggie Tales CDs through the child filter in our heads, to assess which song she desires. I said, "Can you sing it, honey? How does it go?" She sang a couple of lines, and I realized it was a song that mentions LOVE a lot. It's cute to watch her singing away phonetically to the words, but my enthusiasm for all these neat Christian songs she's learning wanes a bit when I realize that "gloves" and "love" are synonymous in this instance.