Exhausted and Overwhelmed

Okay, I am totally exhausted and overwhelmed. Let's start with the exhausted part.

We had a BBQ sandwich fundraiser at church tonight, so my story begins on Friday. Friends from church purchased and smoked the meat for us. I picked it up from them about 8:00 Friday night. After getting settled in for the night, Tim and I got busy pulling the meat. We didn't get started until about 10:00. Tim had to quit about 11 or 11:30 and tend to the boys who were set for a "camp out" in the living room. (No tents. We just all sleep in the living room. They love it.) I finally quit pulling at 1:30 and got in bed by 2:00. We slept in Saturday morning, but I got started again on the pulling about 8:30 and pulled for another couple of hours. This was followed by a rushed trip of shopping for the dinner and picking up crockpots from my mother-in-law. Once home, I inhaled some lunch and took the boys to back-to-back birthday parties from 2:45 until 7:00.

I was so ready to catch up on some sleep, but I didn't make it to bed until about 11:30. Next, Colton woke me up about 1:30. He can't stand to be stopped up and unable to breathe. We moved to the couch where I slept sitting up beside him for about an hour. I later slid over enough to lie down on the couch and finally moved back to my own bed about 4:45. Whew! Finally, sleep.......NOT! Eli comes in at 5:30. "Can I have a drink of water?" "Can you get?" "Yes." and off he goes to get a drink from his water in the fridge. At least I didn't have to do much that time. Next my alarm goes off at 6:00, but I don't hear it until about 7:00.

Sunday arrived. Sunday morning service. Bro Jason preached a wonderful sermon connecting earthly adoption to being adopted into God's family. Hopefully hearts were stirred, and we won't be the only ones adopting for long. The afternoon is filled with last minute preparations. I got to church a little after 4:00 to start setting up. Choir practice was at 4:30. The concert was at 6:00. After cleaning up, we left the church at 8:00.

Now for the overwhelming part. When we got everything put away, I finally emptied our donation bucket to begin counting. By the time I finished, I was in tears. We needed around $500 to meet our self-imposed Phase 1 goal ($6000). Instead of that goal being met, it was crushed. After expenses, we cleared just over $2000!!! Praise God! Not only are we ready to start sending in paperwork, but I really needed that boost of support.

WOW! What a Weekend!