A man works from sun to sun, a woman's work is never done...

Hi all-

Well, I'm finally back home. I have to admit I had some trepidation about returning home. I'd fallen back into the pattern of life up in North GA. However, when I walked into our church this morning, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was ready to be home.

Of course, I began to feel that way last night too, when we had supper with some of our close friends. I'm fairly certain that this summer won't be nearly as lonely as I've worried it would be since I'm not working outside of the home.

But back to this morning's adventures: We go to a small church, but one that is growing rapidly. Even on this summer morning we had 26 people with many missing (including my husband). Needless to say as the Senior Warden, I can't be more pleased if I tried. It was truly like a family gathering. I was so happy to see everyone and stayed almost an hour after the service visiting. :)

But let me tell you about other things down here. I've set up a daily schedule for myself. Tomorrow will be the real challenge of that, because I'm determined to start on a Monday. And many of my friends are going to be out of the country for the next 10 or so days...some are going to Austria and some to Mexico. Josh's and my adventure abroad doesn't occur until July...so...I need to throw myself into other activities and keep busy. But I just have the feeling that won't be a problem.

To give you and idea of what I mean let me tell you about our house and yard. First I want to brag on my husband, he kept almost ALL of our plants alive while I was gone. BRAVO!!!! I think he watered every day or pretty close to it. That's no small feat since he wasn't getting home from work before 10 or 11 at night and leaving very early in the mornings too.

But having been gone for almost three weeks, there are so many things down here that need to be done I almost don't know where to begin. Josh did wash the bed linens, which is another impressive feat. However, the house is trashed. He was so busy that nothing got cleaned while I was gone. There were coke cans waiting to be recycled. AND we've had a problem with our garbage service (they took away our can and want to charge us for a new one!! ARGH!!!). Then there's the garden. The weeks were thigh high. I spent about 90 minutes this afternoon pulling out the BIG weeds. Tomorrow or sometime this week I'll tackle more of the smaller ones...but y'all my garden is growing and thriving. I'm not sure how many carrots and radishes we'll have but everything else we already have baby vegetables or fruits from. Even the herbs are thriving (despite the weeds). Heck, we even have baby watermelons growing!! WOW!!!

The flower beds are also growing like crazy. I need to replace a few that have died off...but I am confident I can do that this week. Of course I need to get rid of the dead blooms on all of the flowers, finish weeding the garden. Then I plan to try to can and preserve vegetables this summer. I need to confirm all the prices for our trip abroad and begin to dig us out from under the piles that have accumulated around the house. Of course, my dear husband has "jobs" he wants done and I don't mind at all helping him accomplish these things. So more goes on the to do list. ha ha!!

I swear men don't even notice so many of the things women do and as a result I do believe that the old saying, "Men work from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done," is SO true. Josh and I went to a friend's daughter's birthday party yesterday. As we were leaving I commented on how good the dip was that they'd served and that I'd like the recipe. My friend's husband commented, "Oh, she didn't make it. She just bought the ingredients and stirred them up and stuff." Ummm....hello? Isn't that making it? Isn't that cooking? ha ha! Men....

And yes, my friend is a stay at home Mom. But what a wonderful job to have!!! And even though that's my dream job, I know it must have taken some adjustment for my friend to accept that as a stay at home wife and mom she's always at work. I'm sure I'll probably find the same (even though I'm not yet a Mom) this summer. One of the reasons I'm convinced of this is that although during the school year when I'm working outside of the home (as is my husband) I expect for him to help out with the chores, dishes, cooking, etc....around here because we both are working full-time and trying to maintain a home. However, during the summer, he's the only one working outside of the home full time so I feel like it's my duty and obligation to take on the majority of household duties and chores. He shouldn't have to worry about those after he's been working hard outside the home each day. Needless say this is a definite shift in the way we handle things during the school year. So my biggest adventure this month will be adjusting to being a stay at home wife (not mom, at least not yet). But I'm confident that I'll love it. Even if it will be non-stop work with the cleaning cooking and helping to turn this house into a safe haven for my dear hard working husband.

But being at home will definitely have it's benefits too. For instance, two of my friends are having medical procedures this week so I'm going to try to cook something for them and send them each a card in the mail. Then there are the activities going on at church. We are just about a week away from hosting the Ellenton Clinic luncheon at my church, we'll be feeding 70+ people. The Ellenton clinic is a group of students and medical people from Emory University that come down here into South GA during the summer and vaccinate and provide medical care to migrant workers. In response the churches in our community provide lunch and supper for these workers. I can't think of anything more beneficial this time of year and I'm so excited to be helping to supervise it while getting back into the swing of things.



Speaking of church though. I learned today that our priest is looking at making preparations for our little mission church to become a parish. AND on top of that one of the members has purchased the house across the street for the church. He told us we could use it for whatever we deemed fit. WOW!!! :) I'm can hardly believe all of the improvements that are occuring.


Another change that I'm experiencing is adjusting to the heat back down here in South GA. North Georgia was still having nice springlike weather, but that's not the case down here. So even though it's nice to be back in South GA, it's HOT HOT HOT!!!!



Nonetheless, I'm off to tackle grocery shopping and cleaning piles of "stuff" out of every room and hunt for replacement flowers (so that I can put new flowers in the place of those that have died). Given any luck I can whip this place back into shape before the week is over. I'll try to keep you posted as I go...