The Week That Was

Wow this week has just flown by!

I've been waking up very early, at around 5.00, falling asleep on the sofa too early in the evening, waking up and trying to stay awake until a sensible time, but generally, I've been dragging myself around feeling a bit jet-lagged. It's one of the effects of anxiety on me.

Monday
Took Jack and his friend off to Art and Drama in Oxford. We found out that a local pastor had lied about our concerts. Decided not to respond, other than to prove to the musicians that he was wrong. The kids went on a church youth outing for bowling and a meal at the noodle bar. They really enjoyed it. Jamie had a rehearsal with the youth musicians. I spent much of the day praying.

Tuesday
Jack and I studied Biology together as he needs a lot of help at the moment. He also worked on his Drama notes, Maths with Jamie who did the late shift at work, and started an acrylic painting for Art. I caught up with housework.

Wednesday
In the morning, I helped Jack think through his Art project and supervised his RS studies in the morning, worked on Life-Songs stuff and took the kids and 2 friends into a local town to swim at the leisure pool. I did my weekly shopping. I am really noticing the price increases lately. Jamie had a rehearsal for the singers. The friend whose house they practiced in said she heard some beautiful harmonies coming from the room the singers were in, which was encouraging!

Thursday
Another day's work planned for Jack but a friend is coming through town and could we meet up for coffee? Jack and I both drop work for a couple of hours in the middle of the day to see her and her and her kids. We had a nice chat and a delicious hot chocolate in the local garden centre. Back to work afterwards. Drove the kids various places in the evening. Jamie went to see a friend about borrowing a laptop and sorting out the song-words projection issues for the concert.

Friday
Jamie on late shift so he drove Jack to Science in the morning. Jamie and I worked on Life-songs before he left for work. No film-night tonight as J wasn't home. The kids relaxed though Jack had some more art to do. When Grace gets home, we have a lovely grown-up chat about college, life etc. Conversations with Grace can often get very confusing and fraught because of her ASD, but today we had a really good talk and it's nice to see how she is maturing.

Saturday
Lots of cooking and cleaning in a concentrated burst for us all today. A full rehearsal in the afternoon with almost all the musicians. A drum kit, several instruments and singers all in someone's living room left me with(even more) permanent hearing loss, I think. Sounded (even unmixed) excellent, though. I remembered why Jamie was such a good record producer all those years ago. He really does have a great understanding of how to get the best out of everyone and an ear for good arrangements. Back home for our Shabbat meal and a nice bottle of wine. I'd even made an apple pie for dessert. A very good, productive day, in which we felt very much encouraged by the progress we'd all made towards the first Life-Songs concert. Now we just pray that people will come to hear it!

Sunday
Church, which had a chorus which was sung at least 50 times (literally) I just don't get that phenomenon. I wished we could have just sung a few songs in the time we did that. A really confusing sermon. We were invited to one of the elders' homes for dinner. They live on a dairy farm, so it was an interesting experience as we spend so little time 'in the country'. As we found out more about the church we started to realise 2 things:
1. We don't think this will be our permanent church home and
2. The kids really love it there.
Ugh! If only there was a good church in our town.
More pain ahead, possibly? We pray not.

Meanwhile Jamie and I debate the whole point of the church. And of churches. And we are starting to see that there is a difference between the two concepts. God loves The Church. But does that mean He loves 'churches'?

I'm not sure where this leaves us. Further out on that limb, perhaps?