Back to the Mines

As I write this, Ranger is lying at the floor near my feet, merrily gnawing on a beefhide bone. He is very grateful to return to his usual routine after an exciting weekend. Joyce and my mom got here safely on Friday night, carrying with them an old family rocking chair for the nursery. My angel hair dish was tasty, but the pasta had some serious attachment issues, which shot the presentation somewhat. With a late arrival time, not much else happened before everyone not named Phil was ready to hit the hay.

On Saturday, Joyce and Sandi went to Lowe's to buy some spray paint for the 'new' rocking chair. They also stopped at Bojangle's for some biscuits to keep us full before our trip to Knoxville. The dinner went well, and Sandi's desserts were a success. Mark actually asked who had brought the rocky road brownies at the start of the program. We had heard a couple of the stories from the panel discussion, but that does not lessen their impact in any way. We also got the chance to hear from the mother of one of Bethany's birthmothers, which was a perspective we had not seen before. I particularly love how the panelists had the potential to torpedo people's preconceptions of a birthmother; two of the stories involve birthmothers who were over thirty at the time of their adoption placements. The end of the evening's presentation was a video by Christian singer/songwriter Mark Schultz, who was adopted. We also saw a video detailing how the song came to be. If you aren't familiar with his music, the man has a remarkable talent for writing lyrics which reduce me to tears in seconds. Seriously, every other song the guy does leaves me sobbing. After we adjourned, Mark and Terry (I think I have misspelled her name in previous posts -- many apologies) got the chance to meet our moms, and we ended up being the last family in the room. We finally got back to Bristol shortly after midnight and collapsed into unconsciousness.

After we went to church this morning, I had planned to make some skillet lasagna for lunch. I had to substitute pastas, however, and we ended up with skillet macaroni instead. It still tasted good, which is the most important thing. We also discovered that our dishwasher had given up the ghost, so Sandi spent some time comparison shopping online before settling on a new model from the Home Depot. The installation should go down on Thursday, meaning that Sandi will have to rely on the Phil-o-Matic 3000 for her dishwashing needs until then. Incidentally, the Phil-o-Matic 3000 is the single slowest machine available for this purpose -- get yours today!

The moms left at about 4:00 PM, and Sandi basically crashed afterwards. Two consecutive nights awake until midnight caught up with a vengeance. We had supper quite early, and she went to bed before 7:00. I have no plans of staying up late myself, since I have my awesome early class in the morning.

I have (hopefully) embedded some YouTube videos of what we saw at the meeting last night. Enjoy, and make sure to have some tissues handy. Have a great week!