Ephesians 5:21-31: Husbands vs. Wives

I had a week off teaching Life Group today. That was good, as I found it difficult to carve out time to prepare. Grandson #2, Ezra, has been with us since Tuesday, consuming plenty of time—enjoyable time, I must add. Saturday morning he and I worked out in the yard. Of course, at 3-years-old he sees it as a game. Still, he loved picking sticks up off the rocks, breaking them, and putting them in the bucket. Twice he carried the bucket (it's pretty light, even filled) into the adjacent woods and emptied it. Then we worked on cutting down a dead tree. He even helped me with the bow saw. It's about 12 inches diameter at the base, so I didn't intend to do it all yesterday. Then it was lunch and time for a walk. He wanted me to go with him, not grandma. So he and I walked about a mile all together. He insisted going downhill from out house first, which meant we had a big uphill to do, and I had to carry him part way. When we got back he sure took a long nap.

I was ready for something light and easy to do, when I remembered I still needed to complete my mother-in-law's income tax forms, which I do every year for her, Esther. Mine were turned in several weeks ago, but I was waiting on finding a few of her tax documents that were misplaced when she moved to an independent living apartment at the beginning of March. The day of her move I saw that bag and said to myself that I needed to take it. But did I? No. A couple of days later I asked my wife to find it in the new place and bring it to our house. It took her a couple of days to remember to look for it; she found it, but somehow it never made its way to our house and be found. So yesterday, after Lynda, Ezra, and I went to the nearby Mexican restaurant to celebrate Lynda's birthday, we went by Esther's place to make one last look for the bag before going through check registers and bank statements. Alas, we didn't find it.

In the afternoon, while Ezra was napping, I pulled up the spreadsheet I had already began for her taxes, took the tax statements that I had, and began entering information in the spreadsheet. I pretty much completed the Federal portion, not including deductions for charitable contributions and medical expenses, which were the main things lacking. In the evening I began going through bank statements for all entries on the dozen or so charities she donates to, and for payments to doctors, dentists, and pharmacies. Lynda then read off pharmacy receipts to me. She had previously gathered them all and arranged them by payee and date. As I went through the bank statements, and as Lynda read from receipts, I made the entries straight into a spreadsheet on the laptop. We were done around 11:00 p.m., I saved so I could access it from the desktop today, and tumbled into bed, quite exhausted.

It's now Sunday afternoon, around 4:30 p.m. I finished everything on the taxes about a half hour ago. I discovered a couple of changes in Arkansas taxes that resulted in me having to revise my spreadsheet. Missing that bag (which included her Social Security statement), I'm not 100 percent sure the figuring is correct, but it's the best I can do. Her mail is now coming to our house, so next year I shouldn't have the missing forms problem. This is two years in a row that's happened.

By the time I went to bed I was having rib cage pain. It hurt to breath, just at one spot. By the time I rose this morning it was worse, and getting even more worse as the morning wore on. I also felt I had no energy. Sitting in church was painful. Hopefully it's just aches and pains from bending, stretching, and sawing yesterday, not a return of the ehrlichiosis I had about three years ago.

All this is to say that I was in no condition to be studying, preparing a lesson for, and teaching the "Wives, submit to your husbands...husbands, love you wives" lesson. I decided not to study, as it wasn't my week to teach, although my co-teacher sometimes does get called in on large animal or other pet emergencies, even on his weekend off. Fortunately he was there today, and handled the lesson with great skill and grace. He separated the men and woman (all of whom were married and most of whom had spouses there today). In the men's group I summoned enough energy to write a summary of the discussion. Then the combined discussion afterwards was quite good. I'm very glad I didn't have to teach today, as I probably would have handled it quite a bit differently and not as near as well as he did.

It's now time to relax. Ezra will be up soon from his nap, and I'll want to give him some attention. No writing today, unless I get some time to read for research this evening. I may even take a pain pill tonight, something I rarely do.