F-L-E-X-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y

If there is any characteristic I have developed in my life time it is probably flexibility. Maybe that's why I am so addicted to lists - they are one way I can have some control over my life which always seems slightly off-kilter and up for change at any given moment.

The number of people at our supper table, the people living under our roof, whether for one night or a lifetime, have been in constant fluctuation since the mid-seventies when we first reached out to a single dad and his daughter by having them eat with us two evenings a week.

And the need to be flexible still remains. After discovering at the beginning of June that Destiny would again be staying with us full-time for the summer, I readjusted my expectations of accomplishment and went all out to be the substitute mom she would need - trips to the pool, work charts, Bible memory, math papers (which she HATED!), reading from the Little House series each night, time-outs, guarding against too much TV.....

And then on Monday her mommy called and said she was ready to have her back home again. So yesterday morning I took her to her other grandma's house in Lancaster where Enid would be picking her up to take her home to Reading. We will still have her every weekend just like we did all this past school year. So all of a sudden I am in this house for the second day in a row all alone. I have a very long list of things I should accomplish in the next few weeks before school starts.

I should be rejoicing that I can now do them without interruption. And I am - a little bit, anyway. But wow, I guess I really do hate being alone. I really, really miss her. But she was so excited to be seeing her mommy again, which is good. So I am trying to be flexible and get on with all the boring things I need to be accomplishing.