Summer (and a prayer request)

Summer is in full swing! At last! At last!

Ryley started the long-awaited (and controversial!) guitar lessons a couple of weekends ago…

She loves it!

That very same day, she went horseback riding with her Girl Scout troop.

It was her very first time on a horse. She is insistent that ponies don’t count!

The outing was filled with all kinds of drama (as Girl Scout events usually go). We were delayed by a major rainstorm, so we had Brownies bouncing around in the back of our van for two hours while we waited for it to blow over. Then Ryley’s best friend came down with the worst allergic reaction (to mosquitoes, we think) that I have ever witnessed. But the girls still had fun.

Then, that same evening, my mom arrived in town! She was a God-send, as she was planning to take Ryley to Nebraska for a week so that we wouldn’t have any more office misadventures, like this:

Fun with shredders…

Fun with paper and scissors…

Fun with everything else…

I love my little girl to pieces, but honestly, having her in my office is pure mayhem. She’s very difficult to contain in that environment for more than a couple hours.

So anyway, my mom came on Saturday night, and on Sunday we headed to the mountains so she could get her mountain fix…

Lake Evergreen

It was such a lovely day!

It is striking me more and more what a big girl Ryley is becoming!

My mom and Ryley headed to my grandma’s house in Nebraska on Monday morning. They had such a wonderful time, and Ryley only got home-sick (crying) once, which is a big sign of maturity for her.

While they were gone, Denver received the hailstorm that roofing companies like mine have been waiting three years for. The very next day was insane at my office. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve felt that oh-so-familiar sense of panic when I’ve looked at my desk at the stacks of stuff needed to be done before the end of the day.  And as the day wore on, I began to become more and more depressed about my life/vocation as an office manager of a roofing company.

Do I have it in me to do one more storm? To manage our goal of $1,000,000 of business in four months?

Everyone else was excited. Woohoo! Roofing! All I felt was regret. I feel like I’ve wasted all the time in the last two years that it wasn't insanely busy. I wasted my off time with TV and housecleaning when I should have been using my available off-hours energy for reading and writing. I should have read more books. I should have written a book.

This storm completely changes the way I view the summer ahead. I had been picturing productive but non-stressful days at work, followed by restful evenings of activities and family time, with occasional freelance writing assignments. Now the landscape of my time has changed.  I see more and more stress and less and less writing. More time of my life being wasted and going down the tubes.

Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful for my job. But it’s not rocket science to understand that working for a roofing company isn’t my dream job. :-)  I try to make myself think positively; I try to believe that my keen mind and quick organizational skills and good memory are being utilized. Here I’ve been praying for opportunities that are more along the line of my giftings, and maybe since God sent the storm, this is His way of using some of my giftings (some of my lesser-known, more boring ones!). Maybe He's requiring me to work hard so I can generate much-needed additional income for my family so that at last we can have enough breathing room for me to really look into other opportunities down the line. This storm certainly didn’t surprise God, even though it completely threw me off “my plan.”  Ha ha. I don’t know. But I do know that I’m to do my work as unto the Lord and to do it with all my heart.

I have bad memories of Storm Season 2009...of leaving the office in tears...of sitting at my desk feeling like I was literally drowning...of picking up Ryley at daycare and heading back to the office to work until 7 or 8:00.

Do I have it in me to do one more storm?

One day at a time.

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So my mom is back home now, and life is settling into a summer rhythm. Ryley is in daycare at a lady’s home three days a week, and we’ve adjusted Ryan’s schedule to be home with her two days and then work evening shifts.

Ryley is obsessed with reading “The Sisters Grimm” series, which is actually pretty adorable and fun. She is also learning to cross-stitch, which she picked up a lot faster than I had anticipated…

His and hers….

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If you could, please be in prayer for Ryan’s dad Ron, who is undergoing a double bypass heart surgery tomorrow morning. It is weighing heavily on our hearts and minds, as heart bypasses are always an extremely risky procedure, and this case is no exception. Please pray for wisdom and clarity of mind for the surgeons, for God’s peace to cover Ron, Linda, and all of his children and grandchildren, and for success.

We would really, really appreciate it. :-)