Wednesday August 20th

I sent my kids off to school today.  I was excited and ready to have them back in school, but once they were all gone...  it was quiet.  Way too quiet.  I wasn't sure what to do with myself.  Finally Gretl woke up, and she did a good job of keeping me busy all day.

The thing she really really wanted to do the very most was swim in the hot tub.  Usually I can find one of the kids who is willing to go sit in the hot tub with Gretl, but today I was the only option.  I kept telling her we would go after I started the bread, after I loaded the dishwasher, after I started some laundry, but Gretl's wasn't the only voice urging me to go right now.  So I finally went and put on my swimming suit, and Gretl and I sat in the hot tub.

Later that day (probably about the time I would have gotten around
to sitting in the hot tub), it started to rain.  It kept raining all day, so there wouldn't have been another chance to go swimming.  While I wouldn't have felt bad about not being in a swimming suit, I would have felt bad that I put Gretl off until it was too late.  So I'm glad that I received an extra nudge from the Spirit to go spend time with my baby girl now, instead of later.

Also today, I came home from an errand to see the Captain's vegetable booth tipped over.  He came up with an idea to put a little stand in front of our house where people can leave their extra garden veggies, and anyone can take what produce they want.  He's calling it a Give and Take stand.  He's been working on it for a while, and finally got it up today.  It was my job to put a sign on it, but I hadn't gotten to it yet.  So when I came back from my errand and saw it tipped over, I went and lifted it back up and was surprised that it had fallen over.  The wind hadn't been blowing especially hard, and it's a pretty hefty chunk of wood.

As I turned to go inside after lifting the stand back into place, I felt pulled into the yard to look at my flower beds.  It's true I haven't taken the time to really enjoy them lately, so I took a little walk around the yard.  As I came back to the front yard, I saw that a van had pulled up in front of the Give and Take stand.  There weren't any vegetables on it yet, so as the guy got out and opened the back of his van, I was hoping that he was going to leave something from his garden.  Instead he took out a drill and started working on the stand.  Odd.

I wandered over to the two men standing there and said hello.  The one guy said, "You don't want this, right?" and I realized that the other man was using his drill to take the stand apart!  Often in our town, people leave things by the road that they don't want anymore, and people who do want them will stop and pick them up.  These guys thought that our stand was out by the road for anyone to take, and the reason it was laying down earlier was because they had tried to get it into the back of the van, but it wouldn't fit.  They had gone home for a drill to take it apart and come back to get it.  I assured them that we still wanted it, they apologized and put the screws back in, and went on their way.  I hurried in to make a sign for the stand and find a few vegetables to put on the shelf!

As I made the sign and put it up, it occurred to me that if I hadn't taken that little wander around the yard to see my flower beds, I would have never seen the men take our stand away.  It would have just disappeared, and we would never have known what happened.  I'm so glad that the Spirit stopped me from going in the front door today so that I could save the Give and Take stand.  Hopefully it will accomplish some good in the next few weeks.