It's a Mini-Twister!

Yet another prize for Madison came in the mail today, another gift from Camille.  Madison was instantly playing this game with her fingers the moment she got it.  I'll have to try it as well, as she was having a good bit of fun trying it out.

It's Twister, but so small that you do it with your hands.  There are even small socks that come with it!  It's surprisingly difficult after several spins.  To begin with, luck can be your friend, and you'll have your fingers in the easiest position.  And then it's RING FINGER RED.  And there's no way you're going to be able to do that...!

The last day of July came and went today, and the time is flying by again, which tells me we're getting used to all of this.  To begin with, the days crawled by in the pandemic, as we were all struggling to figure out how to go about each day.

Today Madison got a bath, and she played piano, and after that there was her leadership class.  Just over the county line, inside Hall County, there was a lot of rain.  We drove into that for the taekwondo leadership class this afternoon, and it rained the whole time.  There were only two students today in leadership class, which on one hand is not as fun as a class with lots of other students to interact with.  On the other hand, it does give each student more one on one time with the instructor, and that was nice.  Daddy met with several others from KidPak there, including Pastor Tucker and Pastor Joey.  Tucker is an instructor there, and Joey is a fellow dad of a student, although his little boy Oliver is much younger than Madison.  We were talking a while, as Madison was swing the kamas around.  I did manage to write at least one devotional entry for "Under the Sea."  I think I'm on the fourteenth one of those, but I'm sort of racing against time to get that done before the start of a new series.

Earlier, I was at the church again - such a big, empty building.  It's been deserted like this for months, and although during the week the numbers are pretty low inside the church, there's this longing inside to see it again so packed and so full of people who have come to worship and meet with God.  Some day we'll be back again.  We're starting a church fast tomorrow, and the goal is a shift in the atmosphere and the trajectory of all of this.  

Anyway, I was at the church to pick up some of our older devotionals, for older series.  I wanted to see how many we had in boxes, and sure enough there were plenty for us to give away at an upcoming church event in two weeks.  We're giving away school supplies and book bags, and we'll have KidPak characters there in the parking lot too.  It'll be the closest thing we've had to a live KidPak service in a while, with families in their cars driving thru to pick up things and say "hi" to the characters.

The rain continued as Madison and I went over to grocery shopping after the leadership class.  We went to Walmart, because that's the only place we can pick up a pizza she likes.  This had earlier spawned a conversation about real pizza and pastries this morning, one Mommy and I were sharing about all those bakeries and pizzerias up north.  Madison would probably prefer this bagged pizza she gets from Walmart.   At this point, Walmart is making every customer wear masks.  Now, if every customer would actually acknowledge these stickers:

I've come to the realization that these stickers are not there for instructive purposes, but in fact there for decorative ones, sort of like the "Back to School" posters that hang up.  People walk by them, read them, and just keep walking.  This is difficult for people like us, who tend to do things that are helpful and aren't complicated.  I mean, it's not like it's an invasion of our rights, and it is in fact someone else's property.  Store owners are just trying to set up a solution to all this, one that allows them to stay open, and of course keeps people shopping at their places.

Boromir is correct, from a certain point of view.  One doesn't disobey the little stickers.  No, instead, literally half the people that walk into  place with these stickers on the ground disregard them.  This has been my observation for the past few months of their existence.  It's like a game.  People like us respect the wishes of the store owners, if we're on their property, and it's not that big a deal.  And yet, these other rebels are trying to make a statement about how they won't be sheep or whatever.  Anyway, these stickers are just another reason why we can't wait for this pandemic to be over with.  

Tonight, Madison and I were talking about Miyazaki movies, and given that I'm writing all these "Under the Sea" devotional entries, we thought it would be fun to watch "Ponyo" again.  We hadn't remembered the movie so much from before, other than the fact that it is loosely based on "The Little Mermaid."  Anyway, we popped some popcorn, and we immersed ourself into Miyazaki's world once more, which is always such an unusual and wonderful place.  We liked the movie, although Madison's favorite is still "My  Neighbor Totoro," while my favorite is still "Spirited Away."  The theory that we have with Miyazaki movies is that the very first one you see is generally your favorite.  We have this collection of them, and surprisingly, there was one or two that we have not seen yet, so we may be doing that in the near future.  

Afterwards, we watched another episode of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D," and then sat down for some reading before bed, including a devotional I wrote about superheroes (tonight's entry was about Hawkeye).  Then some more from the book "Allegiance."  And then prayers, and throwing plush animals at each other, tucking in, hide-and-seek, and all the other things we do each night.