Summertime, Summertime

I have been MIA from around here, simply because I have been busy and nothing I’ve done seemed to demand a posting. Summer has finally come to the Red River Valley of the North, though it is sputtering along in fits and spurts. We have had a few absolutely gorgeous sunny days, one near 100-degree day and a bunch of wet, cool, cloudy days.

Since I last posted, Atta has bought a pool and it has been delivered. Now M and Atta are trying to put it together. Which we have been saying around here is pretty much a Swede leading a Swede. The spot for it has now been cleared of sod, filled with sand, bordered with 2x4s and screeded nice and level. I got roped into the screeding activity yesterday afternoon and can barely move today. The pool itself is still in numerous boxes in the Morton shed. They have gotten as far as locating the instruction DVD, watching it and proclaiming that “the worst part is done with.” We may have a place to swim by September!

The call committee stuff at HLC never exploded–thank the Lord–and the pastor they offered the position to has accepted. Turns out it is a friend of mine from seminary who I think will do great there. He’ll start August 1st, so my last Sunday will be July 31st. I got a little teary-eyed during communion yesterday at the thought that I only have two more Communion Sundays left there. I will miss the people there a lot.

M’s call at GLC is going really well. I have gotten glowing reports of how much they like him there from odd places. It is close enough to my home territory that I’m willing to bet that 90% of the members of Grace are either related to or know very well someone that I am either related to or know very well. Such is small town life.

Itty has been a pill the last few days. I don’t want to complain, since I know she is an oddly well-behaved child for the most part and we really haven’t had much of any kind of problem with her, but the last couple days have tried my patience right to the very edge.

Yesterday she came with me to church. I was just going to take her by myself and have her sit with a family during worship that she has sat with before. There are a ton of people who would be more than happy to have her sit with them during worship. For some reason, my mom freaked out a bit at that (though Itty and I have done that before with no problem) and hurried to get ready so she could go with us to church. Okay, fine. That eliminates asking if Itty can sit with someone else. Except, Itty would have been much better behaved if she had been sitting with someone else. Amma and Itty sat in the front pew with me, which is where they usually sit when the whole fam-damily comes to worship. During the readings, the first part of the service where I actually sit down in the pew, the wheels fell off the whole operation. Itty insisted on sitting with me and then talked in her usual volume over the reader. During the children’s sermon, I held the children’s book that I was reading up with one hand and had a hold of the back of Itty’s dress with the other hand to keep her from doing a whole song-and-dance routine for the whole congregation and then from climbing on the altar. She hooted and hollered off and on through my sermon, then I told Amma to just take her out. As we sat in silent prayer we could hear her screaming in my office “I WANT TO SIT WITH MY MAMA!” So wonderfully conducive to contemplative prayer!

And that was the good part of the day with her. We had to go to town to get some things after church and between my fit-throwing toddler, my passive-aggressive mother, and the warning light that came on my car (it was just a slightly low tire, that was easily filled at the Cenex) I was almost in tears before we got home. Then, after a very short nap on the couch while Itty sang in her bed, I had to help with the aforementioned pool prep project. Then, less than an hour before we needed to leave, M reminded me that we were going to a concert at his church.

We had used all the hot water that afternoon when we hooked up a sprinkler for Itty and ran it without thinking about the fact that using the hot water spigot along with the cold for all afternoon would make for cold showers later. I hate cold showers with a passion.

Then on the way to the concert I broke another of my interchangeable knitting needle tips. Then at the concert there were two deaf old biddies in the pew in front of us that talked–loudly–through the whole first half of the concert, pissing and moaning about everything. If I had been in a better mood I might have likened them to Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show. As it was, I was ready to clobber them with a hymnal.

I’m not sure what’s the matter with me, other than I have a two-year-old. I have made the observation that the last time I felt like this–like it is all I can do to keep from completely losing it and ripping someone’s head off (usually M’s, but more often complete strangers too)–was during that mission trip from hell three years ago, when, unbeknownst to me, I was already preggo with Itty. Of the three people I have voiced that to I have two “I bet you’re knocked up”s and one “you’re not pregnant, you’re just tired and stressed out.” If I’m still feeling like the Hulk in a few days, I’ll probably buy a stick to pee on. I’m also feeling bloated, exhausted and weepy for no apparent reason. But I have also convinced myself erroneously at other points in my history that I was in the family way. There’s a term for that isn’t there?,

Oh yeah, “hysterical pregnancy.” I’m laughing my head off.

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