Hindsight and foresight.

Every now and then something in the course of my day will spark a memory of something in my past.

I'm incredibly nostalgic anyway so most of the time it's a welcome thought; something from the Atown era, or a moment from living with any of several of my siblings. Most often, in my line of work, it's a flashback to my own childhood.

Today I made play dough for the kiddies. They loved it. I let them choose a portion of each of their blobs to dye the colors of their choice. They were occupied for hours. T was home and she joined us and took pictures of them in their aprons and chef hats, standing on chairs at the counter pretending to make pizza.

She and I spent a lot of time gabbing today in between feeding the small ones and her own work on her home computer. I did a load of laundry and discovered that one of my two dryers is broken. The dial no longer moves while it's running; it ran for a few hours before I realized that there was no way those clothes weren't dry.

Holy electric bill Batman.

Several other appliances are warning us that they loathe and despise their existence.

The oven worked for a little bit this afternoon, long enough to burn granola, finish off R's Shrinky Dinks and then crap out again.

The freezer in the basement has been roaring on and off. The dishwasher that was SUPPOSED to be replaced but never has been, is only half-heartedly cleaning anything anymore.

And just so we're all up to speed on my vacuum situation, my new shiny cordless beauty DIED unexpectedly a few weeks ago and has been replaced by a not-as-shiny but also cordless new number, with a hand vac built right in. It's quiet, too quiet, but it seems to be getting the job done.

On the plus side, we have a new juicer which we use surprisingly often. I might have mentioned it once before.

Several faucets have sprung strange, unpredictable leaks.

The refrigerator door has ceased to latch when pushed closed. Also, it now has to be pushed close. It used to just fall shut so nicely...

Our wonderful electrician hasn't been here in a while but a couple of weeks ago he installed a motion light outside the garage so that I can see more clearly when I am coming in late after a night out and slinking along between the back of the car and the garage door and getting stuck to everything.

Only, it doesn't sense motion. It just does whatever it wants.

It also seems to be sharing a circuit with the inside garage light, so both cannot be on at the same time. It took us a while to figure that out.

Now, don't think I am complaining here, because I mean quite the opposite.

I am not very attached to any of these gadgets. And when they break down my nostalgia only increases.

I flashback to Africa and blackouts all throughout my childhood. When nothing is working properly in the afternoon and we just set up camp in the middle of the playroom with sweaters and hot chocolate all I can think about is the time my brothers and sisters and I camped in a tent in our front yard and brought out hot chocolate in tall, plastic Tupperware cups and fought over which color cup we wanted.

I relive stuff like that all the time.

And the best part is, the kids here thrive on hearing stories about whatever I am thinking about.

We had to get a globe just so I could show R on the map exactly where Africa, Pennsylvania and whatever other states my stories took place in are.

And my hope in all this, my most constant prayer, is that all these stories and all the moments spent with these kids and with T, the whole family, will be the gospel witness that I can't verbalize here.

I received my Christmas bonus, which T had wanted so badly to give me in the form of a gift but we couldn't find a time to get us both to the Verizon store, but her card was so nice and this family does love me as much as I love them.

I have been here for six months, as of January 2.

According to our verbal contract at the time of hire, I have 6-18 more. According to T in the course of any given day, it's more like 4-7 years.

We'll see.