Pt 2

Thursday was a nice day. Man went to the house and waited for the movers. By the time they were done and we got to the house, I was psyched out to tear into the cleaning. Despite weeks of trying to wash all walls, dust all cobwebs, deep clean both bathrooms, and wash all blinds, clearing everything out of the unit was depressingly revealing. What's more, there was a ton of stuff that got left behind including several (clean) trash cans, my hand brooms, cleaning buckets, and many, many pounds of dried food that couldn't be taken because it was open. It was all piled on the front lawn.

I set to with a will and a fear. A pay and go cost $170. Could I earn $170 in two hours? I was sure going to try. I said a little prayer in my heart: “Lord, I am going to do this. I'm going to put my effort into this and the rest is up to You. I'd like to pass inspection and prove to myself that I can leave a place clean. This home has served us well and I'm grateful for it but please, I'm tired. Carry me.”

I started to sing Come, Come Ye Saints.

Come, come ye saints.
No toil nor labor fear.

I thought that this was a very appropriate beginning as I began to wash the floor in the master bedroom. Right in the middle of the floor was a tube of KY Jelly that the movers didn't load up. That was pretty embarrassing.

But with joy wend your way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.

I thought about this. All of the stress of getting medic

al records and clearing quarters, all of the difficulties we'd faced while living here drifted through my mind. I thought about the grace that I'd experienced in the form of friends who I love so dearly, and growth so dearly bought.

'Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive.

After singing that part I realized that worrying about passing this inspection was not a care I particularly wanted to be burdened with. I smiled and suddenly it was easier to wipe more hand prints off of the walls and scrape up ancient nail polish drips.

Do this and joy! Your hearts will swell.
All is well, all is well.

We borrowed a wagon from a friend to ship all of the leftover useful cleaning supplies up the street to a neighbor who could use them and started hauling all of the leftover garbage up to the dumpster that lived several blocks away. The inspector arrived and frowned at the trash all over the front lawn but I set my smile and kept hauling. By the time I came back for the final load, he was done inspecting and was driving away. In my head I was picking a fight with him, thinking about all my arguments for why I should pass regardless of his stinking rules. Man greeted me with a grin, hugged me, and thanked for me saving us $170. I could barely even smile at that, wearily said a “thank you” prayer and finished the last of the hauling. We loaded up the kids in the van and headed home. Home, to our hotel room because that's the place we all gathered together to sing songs and pray that night. The next day, we enjoyed our time as much as we could (meaning, we were virtually comatose from exhaustion) before Man signed out from post, and we started our trip for real.

The drive to Bakersfield, CA was a pain. It was our first real taste of the bitter heat the rest of the nation was enduring. We had to stop to nurse the baby to sleep that night and even 15 mins of parking after the sun had gone down was enough to choke us with plain, stinking HOT. We stayed at a Hampton Inn, which sounded really posh. They had those washcloth fans in the bathrooms and ugly but expensive looking decor.

The one thing the Hampton has going for it in a major way is the really great continental breakfast. They have an awesome, hot, tasty continental breakfast which was easily worth $30-40 for the 6 of us, which made up for how much more expensive the room was.

Saturday, we drove through Nevada and the Mojave Desert. I taught Princess how to put water in her hand and wet her neck and face to cool off. Freida also loved this trick and we learned quickly how to help her calm down if she got uncomfortable at rest stops.

Las Vegas appeared to be just as we left it about 4 years ago: Sin City. I'm sure it has its good points, but the billboards are not one of them.

St George, Utah was a nice town. We stayed at the Hampton again, but this one was newer and wasn't ugly in the slightest. Sunday morning we decided to take an outside table for breakfast which was a great idea, since we ended up spilling so much cereal and juice that I'm sure they had to hose down the ground after we left. This is the hotel where I discovered that Orange and Spice Celestial Seasonings tea with hazelnut creamer is one of the tastiest beverages I've ever consumed. This is also the hotel where we took the kids to the pool an

d Pebbles and Tag learned the hard way that going into the deep end before learning to swim results in lungsful of water. Pebbles hasn't requested a trip to the pool since. No 911 calls or anything, but plenty of coughing and cuddling afterward.

We had an excellent visit with Man's grandparents. I'd never before had a chance to get to know them without a whole lot of other family around and it was neat to see them on a more personal level.. I got to see plenty of pictures of Man's father and heard all kids of stories from the last 80+ years of this nation's history and one man's personal history. I

was surprised at how enjoyable the whole experience was. And it was my first ever visit to Chuck-A-Rama. That was some good eats. Man's grandpa is a man who has known power and control his whole life. His descent into infirmity has been very hard on him. He still attempts to walk with stability and strength and left the room when he had to go on his oxygen or take another handful of pills to ward off what looked like heart attacks. He was so kind to our children and just loved talking about history, politics, weather, geography, and human nature. Grandma is a bright, sharp lady whose understanding, kindness, patience, determination are just brilliant to behold. Her hugging muscles are still working just fine after 86 years of practice.