Kids, Have Everything Ready When You Go ...

... and we CAN get to school early so you can play outside before school starts! I remind them of this every weekday -- and won't have to this coming Thursday and Friday because there's a teachers' conference, so Sarah, Jeffrey, and all their confreres in Minot Public Schools will have a four day weekend (remember those?) -- but we still end up getting out the door right at or close to first bell!

And yesterday Sasa (Sarah's nickname, pronounced "say say") got me as I was scheduling parent teacher conferences with Sarah's teacher Mrs. Tillema and Jeffrey's teacher Mrs. Braasch and asked me to bring her her glasses. Which I did, but I told her last night this was the last time I'd do it; when I say get ready and make sure they have all they need for their school day, they need to get it done. You have to say that in the voice of Mater from Cars now ("Let's git 'r done!") to make it stick.

I got home last night after work -- been really busy at the office the last week or so, which is good for my continued employment of course! I KNOW what else I want to write out; thankfully Karn wasn't mad at me for not having the play for next week's Parable Playhouse done, but she says she'll be back in town tomorrow -- besides superintending Sunday school at our church she and her husband co-own and operate a north Minot used appliance store -- so I must "git 'r done" today.

THE PLAY, you hose heads! I know the story, after forty days fasting in the wilderness Jesus gets tempted by Satan and He turns him down, and I believe I can use the puppets to communicate the story and make it relevant to the first through fifth graders (I believe I have Jeffrey's class Sunday, a first and second grade mix) over the next few weeks. Get them laughing and get them thinking too.

I just noticed I left that dangling. I got home last night after work and the four of us -- Martha, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I -- settled in for pot roast dinner that I'd had slow cooking all day and catching up on Once Upon A Time via Hulu Plus. (Which brings up something Jeffrey said this weekend; we had one of the McDonald's Monopoly game boards at home and Martha took the kids there Saturday after they'd bought some things Jeffrey needs for Cub Scouts while I was at work.

Sarah commented that the big prize was $1,000,000 -- which we can actually win, since we now for the first time in maybe fifteen years don't have a family member working there -- to which Jeffrey responded that if we won THAT we could afford to get DirecTV again! I think we can afford more than that ...) The payoff for my son and I was the first heart-plucking of the season that we predicted.

That, and the name "Operation: Mongoose". Tonight's supposed to be sloppy joes, after Jeffrey's Cub Scout meeting and my Bible study in Acts. Not a Bible study I lead (though I have written a study of Acts called Unto The Brethren ISBN 9781449996574) but one at my church that I get to after I'm off work at my primary job with a dozen or so other people ... and believe me, I get to learn a lot.

And before I leave for the day, I want to share this definition I read this morning in the 1938 Words of the Bible: A Bible Dictionary for "music" (this specific word because it's such a dynamic in my household, and also because this weekend the people I met loved my use of the word patriarch when I said I'd be the one to light the fireworks -- for more about that, please see yesterday's blog.)

MUSIC. Seems to have been prized by the Patriarchs. Invention of wind and string instruments recorded in Gen. 4:21. An important part of Temple service as well as affairs of state and social intercourse. (Gen. 31:27; 2 Sam. 19:35; Ex. 15:1, 20.) Wind, stringed, and percussion instruments in use. (Job 21:12.)

:)