Angels In Disguise

It was HARD getting up at the usual 6:30 am time this morning, b/c we’ve been able to sleep in the past 4 days.  But, I got Autumn to school on time and then I pulled over in the school’s parking lot to try and get some of this thick ice off the hood of my car.  As you can see in this picture, it’s about 5 inches deep, and that is pure ice, not snow.  I took a big chunk of ice and used it to break off other chunks.  I was worried that w/ the heat from my car that it would all go sliding off onto the road while I was driving fast on the freeway.  I broke up what I could, but the bulk of it was not budging.  As of right now (11:45 pm) it’s still on the hood of my car even w/ the sun & high temp of 40 degrees that we hit today.  This stuff is THICK!

I knew we didn’t have a lot of time for dinner tonight, so Autumn & I stopped at Subway & shared a $5 foot long.  I liked this simple yet really festive centerpiece they had on each table.  It’s funny to watch Autumn put on gloves, b/c she has to try it 2 or 3 times before she gets each finger into its’ own glove hole.  We’re just not used to wearing all this winter gear here in Texas.
 As we were leaving to come home, we had to stop and get a pic of this huge piece of ice that is stuck on this little tiny tree branch.  You can see it going through the big piece of ice and out the other side.  How that piece of ice got on there & is staying put, I’ll never know!  It was the oddest thing.

Autumn & I came home so she could read to me for her homework, and so I could change into grubby clothes & tennis shoes to go pack up Mom’s nativities.  This is the sight that greeted us when we got home, and it may not mean much to anyone else or look like anything special, but it made me almost cry.  Earlier in the day (around 3:30) Curt had called to see what time he & Mary needed to be at the church to help w/ Mom’s nativities.  I mentioned to him that my driveway was blocked b/c our tree had fallen.  He told me to text him my address and he’d see if he could find someone to take a look at it.  I thought he meant in a day or two.  I was so touched that he found someone and that they were able to come and cut up our tree and move it to the lawn in just a matter of a few hours.  Talk about a huge blessing & some angels in disguise.  I spent about 30 minutes breaking up the ice and shoveling it into the yard.  I didn’t finish, but made some good progress.

Some more angels in disguise tonight were the Deckers.  I was going to just take Autumn to the church w/ me and make her sit and play her LeapPad while we packed up the nativities.  But, I realized what a horrible plan that was b/c I knew she would want to help, and I needed to be able to focus on getting in and getting the job done.  So I texted Deckers to see if she could come over there, and they said they were more than happy to have her over.  The girls wouldn’t let me pay them when I picked Autumn up at 10:00!

Here is what Mom’s section of nativities looks like, and this is only SOME of them!!!  It was hard packing them all up, b/c I don’t know which ones have designated boxes and which ones just get wrapped up in cloth and put wherever we can find room.  But, I had a bunch of angels helping me like Curt & Mary & the Sister missionaries & a few other people.  We packed them so well that we had 3 big empty Rubbermaid containers when we were done!  Curt had to leave for hockey practice, but he had loaded a bunch of the boxes into Mary’s car before he left.  We were completely packed up and done by 9:40!  I’ve decided Mom is GROUNDED from the nativity if she’s going to leave it for us to pack up while she goes on vacation.  LOL.  Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be b/c of all the angel helpers we had.

What an incredibly BLESSED day I had & I’m so truly grateful for it!