Hello girls!

I'm getting several emails about my posts not updating in Bloglines. Have you changed the address? My new site is www.apreacherswife.com. I really hope you'll follow over!

Much love,

Lisa

It's official. I have a new home at www.apreacherswife.com! I'll be redirecting soon so if you still have any interest whatsoever in hanging out with me then update your readers, girls!

{Pay no mind to the man behind the curtain}

So I've been working on my blog design for hours upon hours upon hours. I used my test blog to work out a lot of kinks but when I tried to upload it here, my posts went haywire. SO, temporarily, I'm moving to www.thepreacherswife1.blogspot.com. If I can't work out the template issues here, chances are I'll be moving to a dot com. Y'all please be patient with me and come tell me what you think so far!

Lisa

In my little blog hiatus I've been playing around with designing a new website - all by myself!

Just in case you are impressed at my skillz? This isn't the one I'm working on. Mine is much less colorful as in currently my header consists of 'The Preacher's Wife' in a non-descript script. I'm having layering issues in Paint.net. I could read the instructions but that would be way too easy.

I found this template on Gosublogger.com and thought it would be fun to look at for a few days until I can get my ducks in a row and return to full-blown writing. I'm almost ready.

Almost.

Hope you are enjoying your summer!

Lisa

I'm stressed.

That's not exactly the word I want to use to characterize myself during summer break nor do I want to be depressing but it's just the simple truth. Long story that I won't even pretend is short, my debit card was stolen (or rather conveniently picked up by a McDonald's employee in the window where I accidentally left it) and a 22-year-old girl went on a shopping spree that has pushed me right off the edge of compassion into downright unrighteous indignation. My days have been filled with more visits and calls than I care to count between the police department and bank. I'm hoping to be able to soon report that my financial institution has replaced the missing funds. As of right now, they have not and I'm pretty well aggravated that the tax dollars we contributed to buy out the entire industry seemingly have not purchased any accompanying customer service. I'm assuming you only get that if you have more zeros at the end of your balance than we do and if that were the case, this whole fiasco wouldn't be as much of one! If the issue isn't resolved soon, I'll be sure and let you know who it is so you can AVOID THEM LIKE THE DERN PLAGUE. I'm on the fence about whether we will keep our accounts there.

I'm sure they are devastated.

Anyway, instead of also worrying over the fact I haven't written regularly in a while, I am going to give myself permission to relax. I've got some revamping to do so I'll be gone for a little bit but hopefully back rejuvenated and ready to go at it afresh. I want to be sure and thank all of you ministry wives who filled out the Woman Beside the Man questionnaires and to apologize for not posting those as frequently as I should. You are top of my priority list when I return. Thank you for your patience!

Hope you are having a summer filled with everything you wanted to do! I'm having a long overdue yard sale the end of this week to get rid of all the things we've accumulated in the past four years. After that, it's the pool baby!

Be back soon!

Last night our church observed a day of prayer for missions in remembrance of the Pentecost. Judith (our missions coordinator) led the program and showed a well-done IMB video on the fascinating Sayang people of the Pacific Rim. Afterwards, we went to the track next door to prayer walk for this virtually unreached people group.

I took the kids over with me and gave each of them a bullet point on the prayer guide to concentrate on. I noticed Number One (he's 13) looked a little perplexed but then he looks like that often. I've told you about him before, but the best way to describe him is wonderfully, naively, innocent. The kid has amazing book smarts - but the street smarts? Notsomuch.

After I'd told the kids what to pray, One looked at me and said, "Momma, can I just pray with my eyes open so I won't run in to anything?"

Just when I thought I couldn't love that precious boy more...

One guess where we spent Thursday night.

Ball fields, you say?

Why, how'd you ever guess?

This game was a little more exciting because it happened to be a Do Over from an unfortunate second game of a double header. It appears in the coaches' zeal to get two games made up from our schedule, no one (But me! No one would listen!) noticed the other team played with an altogether new and refreshed group of boys while our rag-tag, mad-cause-they-wanted-to-be-elsewhere kids barely drug themselves on the field. Yes, the other team played with an illegal roster and we ended up losing which put us in a playoff situation for first place in our league.

Now I know that I've told y'all I'm over baseball and I really am. Really I am. But, when things get close and your kid is completely invested in the outcome, it would take a Supreme Loser Mom not to care just a little about that. I'm pretty certain I'm in the running for Secretary of the Loser Mom Organization but President is not an honor I'm hoping to hold anytime soon.

So, with all that said, Thursday night was the Boy Two's Do Over. Did I say that already? And yes, we played the Real Team instead of the Stunt Team. I can promise you, however, there was no overconfidence on our part. This photo of the team going face down is evidence of that. (By the way, Luke is the official Chaplain for all our boys' teams. He is the calm one who invites the Holy Spirit onto the field and isn't afraid to have a Come-to-Jesus-time-out with overwrought parents and coaches and a certain nameless Chaplain Wife when things get a little insane.)



Here's Boy Two taking his stand. It's obvious here why his brothers call him Pipes.

Here's Boy Three and his girl, Whit. She's the first girl he has 'gone out' with that I'm pretty sure can kick his tail. That's a must if this relationship is going to make it.



Three's Ex Girl. And yes, they all hung out together for the game. I will forever love Olivia because she is the one who introduced me to the goodness that is sour gummy worms. We shared an entire container of them at the fields last year and my life hasn't been the same since.

And finally, here's Luke - chaplaining. Can you just hear him saying, "Lis, you better not be putting my picture on the blog again."

Sorry, babe. This new camera is fresh crack to my blog addiction and I just can't stop myself. And besides, look how cute you are! If posting your picture and bragging on what a blessed woman I am is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Unless you force me, of course, with those Mad Chaplaining Skillz.

(If I don't come back it's because he's killed me.)

Okay, I'm off to do some summer/winter clothing switch out in The Girl's room and clean out her booby-trapped closet. Just what I'd hoped for on a beautiful Saturday. But, never fear, there is another ball game tonight. It's for the league championship so say a prayer the game is calm. I don't even care if we win as long as everyone loves one another after it's over.

And I mean that.

Really.

But it'd be great if we won AND loved each other.

The End.