November 30 – “Miss My Wife Monday”

Today was really one of those "I miss my wife" Mondays.  Most of them are when Chris is taking her mom to chemo, but today for some reason I especially missed her.  Guess I'm just a big baby.   I started working on next week's teaching around six this morning.  Mom had to be at a clinic at 8 a.m. for a fasting blood test.  We got there right at eight and she was first in line for the lab.  It didn't take that long at all.  We even had time to swing by the bank and were still home well before nine.  I started back on the sermon and the next time I looked up it was 11:30.  I was pretty stiff, so I got up and fixed Mom some leftovers for lunch.  We're watching her closely the next few days to make sure she gets around after her fall on Saturday.  She seems to be doing fine.   I had two calls right at lunch about the school.  The first was from a Mom in Wyoming.  They are planning to move to Galveston and wanted info on Seaside Christian Academy.  Get this.  She called "Moody Museum," which she thought might have something to do with D.L.  Moody, a famous evangelist.  I guess she got Moody Gardens.  Whoever she talked to knew Clay Thomas was a pastor, so she called him.  When she mentioned a Christian school, Clay told her to call us.  Rather than make her call somebody else, I talked to her for a long time about the school and about Galveston.  They plan to be here sometime in December, and if all works out, their son will enroll in eighth grade in January.   The second call was from our headmaster.  He understood that someone was going to relieve him after the lunch hour from now on.  My understanding was that I was not supposed to go back in a teaching/administrative capacity to make it easier for the kids to accept the new administrator and his discipline.  That means afternoons are not accounted for.  The administrative assistant stayed today, and the school board president and one of the other interested members are supposed to talk about solutions tonight.   After that call I couldn't get back in sync for the teaching, so I went to the garage and started testing tools to see what I have available for carving something for Chris this year.  That decision made for an interesting hour or so.  I got out the dremel – one of the first tools we replaced after the storm.  I didn't have very many attachments, so I tried out the sander.  After a few seconds the sandpaper blew out.  Really.  It was like a tire on a car blowing out.  The dremel was OK, so I took the attachment off and lost the little tiny screw that goes in it.  I found the screw as I lost the little tiny washer.  Then I lost the screw again.  I finally found the screw, but I decided to try something else.  I got out the drill and tried the sander attachment on it.  Worked fine, but the sandpaper wouldn't stay on.  That's when I decided I wanted to use the dremel with the attachment that I had before the storm.  So I went to Home Depot.  Of course they didn't have that one in stock.  I got a few different ones and headed for the garage.  The first one was too little to fit the cap.  It just spun around wildly like it had fallen off a roller coaster and was caught by the seat of its pants.  The other one worked, but it would be slow going.  I used it for some time.  I know it was longer than a few seconds, because when I stood up off my stool, I had one of those pain attacks where every square inch of my body felt like it was on fire.  I'm sure it originated in my back, and it passed fairly quickly.  Ouch.  But then I had an idea.  The skill saw.  We bought that after the storm.  I tightened a piece of wood into the vise and turned it on.  The wood popped out of the vise and the vise popped off the table and fell to the floor, narrowly missing my toes.  Next I found an old coping saw.  Ah, memories.  The first things I carved for Chris, I used a good old, hand-held coping saw.  And this one worked like a charm.  Until the blade broke.  I went back to the dremel again, with that one tip that worked, but seemed slow.  This time instead of sitting on my stool, I stood up and held the wood tightly near my chest so I could control the direction of the dremel.  And sure enough, the tip got caught in my shirt and wound around and around.  It went so fast, I couldn't even find the off switch.  It finally just kept groaning at me while I forced it back around and around until I found the switch.  It never occurred to me to pull the plug.  Now I have three tiny little dremel holes in my shirt.  At that point I decided it was time to text Chris and see how long before she got home.  And I needed a shower.   Psalms 68:3 says, "3 But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful."   Father, Thank you again and again for my wife.  Missing her makes seeing her again so sweet.  Amen.