Stuff and stuff

It's 9:45 and I'm exhausted, but after being out all evening till just 45 minutes ago, it's impossible to just go to bed without "unwinding." It's a curse I inherited from my dad; I think Lori got it too. So, I'll probably stay up till 11 blogging and reading, then kick myself in the morning when I can't pull myself out of bed. But sometimes just having uninterrupted time to yourself can be as beneficial as sleep. It's sheer joy to have the house all to myself right now. :-)

Jed went to his first Awana meeting tonight at a Baptist church in Nashua. Well, actually, the first one was last week but it was just an orientation. He starts out in a big gym with close to 100 kids (not all are in his group). He's a Sparky this year. They start out playing group games, then move down to a classroom where they have a Bible story, quote their verses, etc. Jed looked pretty overwhelmed when I left him, but he was okay with my leaving and seemed to have a good time. Apparently the verse we'd worked on together--John 3:16--fled from his mind because he wasn't able to quote it. Probably has something to do with being tired and fighting a cold. Oh well, we'll keep working at it. I'm so thankful for this wonderful program that helps kids hide God's Word in their hearts.

You learn all kinds of new things when you're a parent, things you never thought you needed to know. Jed was on a big kick for a while studying about cobras, having watched Rikki-Tiki-Tavi umpteen times. Thankfully I'm not grossed out by snakes (spiders are another story), but it still took some sacrificial love to sit down with Jed and pore over pictures of fangs and long scaly bodies and animals being attacked and consumed. Did you know there's a snake called an egg-eating snake that eats nothing but eggs? It swallows the egg, then a little tooth-like thing inside its throat breaks the shell, at which time the snake swallows its slimy contents, then spits out the shell? Aren't you glad you know that now?

Jed has recently been fascinated by bees, since they're about as plentiful around here as flies right now. Only he's terrified of them! It's been in the 90s here, but Jed keeps shutting windows because he's afraid bees will come in. In true Jed fashion, he has wanted to learn more about these fascinatingly horrible beasts, so we sat down together to read about honeybees and wasps and other insects of the same family. Apparently there are three kinds of bees in a hive--the queen, the worker bees (females), and drones (males). I may be getting these mixed up (if you're reading this, Bria, feel free to correct me!), but the point I'm getting at is that the female bees' job is to care for the hive, feed the larvae, gather pollen and nectar, and generally do all the domestic duties. The male bees' job? Make babies. When I mentioned this interesting little bit of information to Evan, he said, "And now we know why Solomon didn't say, 'Go to the bee, thou sluggard!' "

It's election season, though most of us hardly think about it during non-presidential election years. We love election season in our house; it's a lucrative time of year. My buddy Chad Minnick, whom I worked with on a gubernatorial campaign back in 1996, runs a political consulting firm with his wife, Julie, in Washington State. They have more talent between the two of them than you can shake a stick at. Their job is to help candidates get elected. I don't know all the ins and outs of exactly what they do, but they do design fliers and brochures for candidates. Julie is a professional graphic designer who does beautiful work, and they're both outstanding writers. Whenever they have a flier about ready to go to press, they post it in a folder on the internet for me to download and edit. They pay well, and it's quick and usually fairly easy. So election season is a happy time here. :-)