He leads me beside still waters, and sometimes on a drive to see them

Saturday, April 4
Quarantine Day 20

Saturday! The day we sleep in without worrying about if we *should* have been getting up!
Even on Saturdays, I still enjoy being up before the kids. Those are the quietest, stillest hours of the day. Coffee and God's word in the morning are my favorite way to start the day. It doesn't happen every Saturday, but it did today. And I'm glad, because it turned out to be a challenging day otherwise.

I spent a lot of this day on the phone!
I had a video meeting with a doula client at 11, and I spent some time last-minute prepping for that while the kids ate breakfast. (Cereal today. Waffles were planned, but I usually don't cook breakfast on Saturdays. If Dale had been up and wanted to make them, fine. Otherwise - cereal!)

I think for most of the morning and into the afternoon the kids were on the Wii.

My meeting went great! I used to feel really weird and awkward meeting by video, but I'm so thankful now to have it!

Immediately after the doula meeting Greg and I had some ministry stuff to sort out. It ended up taking a lot of time and emotional energy out of this day. I think I've already mentioned in the few days I've blogged that my emotions seem to be nearer the surface with all this pandemic stuff going on anyway. I think the uncertainty and stress are hard on everyone, and magnify the rest of life's usual troubles. Strange days we are living in, and I'm glad to remember that God hasn't changed. The same Jesus that calmed the storm and calmed the disciples holds us all in his hand.

After making calls and returning calls I found Greg and Alan. It wasn't hard. :)

When the jam session was done, we all got on shoes and pottied and hit the road to see what we could see. Levi, Daniel, Brooklyn, Tyler and I had not been anywhere since church on March 15. Alan has only been to labs, once. Greg and Dale had a couple of days of work after the 15th, and Greg has gone out for groceries a couple of times.

So, cold and dreary as it was, we still enjoyed the green grass, the newly leafed trees, and the colorful redbuds, dogwoods, and tulip trees everywhere. We saw steep hills, deep valleys, winding creeks, the running river, and a meandering lake. We sang to the radio, and searched youtube for songs the street names made us think of. And returned home over an hour later feeling like we'd been somewhere, even though we never left our van seats!

Upon our return, I quickly threw a lentil soup on to simmer and left Dale with a pinterest recipe for a quick crusty bread and Greg and I went for our daily walk/run. After supper we gathered everyone around to watch Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph. It was free on Youtube for 48 hours this weekend. That is one of our favorites, because Greg played bass guitar in a community theater production of it before Alan was born. A high note (you might say, haha!) to end this day. :)