January 28 – “One for the Money …”

It was pretty cold today, so no work on the house on our end.  We did talk to our contractor, though.  He said the next thing that needs to happen is the plumbing and electricity, followed by the air conditioning and heating.  The roof can't get done until after everybody else finishes poking hole in the roof.  We are supposed to meet with him tomorrow or the next day to go over the specifics of the windows and door order.  We also got the initial bid for the Amish cabinets in an email.  It was pretty impressive to see a picture of what we have been trying to visualize for so long.  Chris is way better at that than me, so I guess I was more impressed than she was.  She had already seen it in her head.  The bid was close to what Chris expected, but I don't know if we can afford it or not yet.  Chris is playing with the numbers.   This morning w spent a few hours with Micah and Jachin.  Their Mommy had a doctor's appointment.  When we got there they were in the middle of a very important video about dinosaurs helping each other out against the evil velociraptors.  Needless to say we couldn't do anything until that crisis was resolved.    We did finally get into some exciting games of chase and "lock Nana in the bedroom."  My favorite, though, was when they brought out the baseball bat and tee and squealed, "Now it's baseball time!"  Got my attention.  We set up in the hall.  The batter stood at one end and all the non-batters sat on the steps and watched.  Jachin went first … and second … and I think he was third, too, before Micah realized that this might be kind of fun and demanded a turn.  Nana and DadDad even got into the rotation.  When it got to my turn, I set up as a left-hander – didn't want to show off too much, you know.  Jachin is obviously left-handed, and he was hitting pretty well.  Micah hasn't quite decided which side is best for him.  He pretty much smacked the tee and took off running.  When he got to the end of the hall he would carefully lie down on his back in a rendition of a slide.  Safe, as far as I could see.  Jachin made  the run down and back, and his slide looked pretty good – bent leg, arms up.  I was impressed.    That made it even more important for old DadDad to make a good showing at bat.  So I took careful aim.  Went into that time-honored traditional chant, "One for the money.  Two for the show.  Three to get ready.  And four to go."  On "go" I let loose with the swing of all swings.  And missed.  Hey, it was a little bat.  So I tried again, same chant, same grunt.  Same result.  That made my determination level increase to the max.  I got the chant going.  I squatted as low as I could get.  And I swung as carefully as I could.  Finally.  I finally made contact.  And the cheers began.   And when Jachin had his next time at bat, guess what came out of his mouth?  "One for the money.  Two for the show.  Three to get ready.  Four to go."    Colossians 1:15 says "Jesus is the image of the invisible God."    Father, I want to be like you.  Amen.