well, cuteness must be integral to scientific achievement because millie won 3rd place in the regional science fair on friday. she was a teensy tiny bit upset because she was really tired AND had thought she was going to win first place. seems that some of the judges had told her that she would be going on to state and then when she found out that she wasn’t, as she put it “my hopes were all up”. yes my girl, i know how that can be...
then over the weekend, in an act of totally teenage unthinking with a group of her friends (“but mom, they were all doing it too”), she bruised her tailbone going down stairs on her behind (and a pillow that slipped out at just the right moment so she busted her tailbone). we had a few of those “things that sound like fun and aren’t in the long run” chats. and now she has to carry this lovely little yellow doughnut pillow to sit on at school. yeah, to the public inner city middle school. God be with her....
we had a GREAT long weekend (president’s day holiday). doing almost nothing (except reading a lot AND NOT watching t.v., you will understand that more in a minute). my dad came over for dinner last night. i have introduced him to salmon and he actually likes it! adam and the kids, not so much fans of the salmon (even covered with honey and pecans).
i cried after dad left last night because it hit me that even though i LOVE LOVE LOVE having my daddy over for dinner, he came alone. i have had lunch with him in the past week, and it wasn’t strange to have lunch alone with him. we did that often (and sometimes with mom) before last month. but for only him to come for dinner alone, that was a first time.... and not the last. and that was a realization that hit me hard. i want to have one night a week that is the night for him to eat with us. he is resisting that right now, but i think that would work well. we can ease into it.
some things i can’t ease into yet either... like erasing mom’s cell phone number from my cell phone or deleting her name from my contacts on the computer. i guess someday i will be able to do that. not today. not this morning as i looked up dad’s address to email it to someone and saw both of their names on there... millard and barbara. another hard moment.
i have realized why last week was so hard for me. and i think a BIG part of it was not because of mama (though i do have very real moments of mourning). it was because in the first three weeks after her stroke i had gotten VERY selfish. everyone was doing everything for me, sending food, cleaning ladies, emails, phone calls, everything was focused on letting me be with my family (which was exactly how it should have been). but then when everyone went home and stopped cleaning up after me and asking “what would you like in your tea, princess?” (just kidding, NO one ever called me “princess”), i missed all that attention.
amazing how it only takes a little while for those lovely self focused sins to settle back on me and whoo hoo, it is hard to get rid of them, they seem to like to hang around. i found myself thinking in a really attractive whiney voice “what about me?” a lot last week... that is never good. i don’t have a mug, bumper sticker, and pair of slippers that say “it’s all about me” for no reason (all given to me by a really good friend who actually was here with me during the whole ordeal).
well, in the midst of all this nice whining and complaining and thinking the world should still revolve around me last week, God decided to directly interfere (don’t you love a God who directly interferes with your whining and complaining and total focus on yourself plans, really Who does He think He is?)...
i shared with you all how God had moved me to start getting up early (5 a.m. on weekdays) and how FINALLY obeying Him in this area had CHANGED MY LIFE and my days and how it was all wonderful to obey and why didn’t everyone obey Him always and forever. remember that? after that little step of obedience, He had been showing me another area of obedience that He was requiring of me and frankly i was flat out ignoring Him and trying to rationalize my noncompliance on this issue. one would think that i had learned that doing things His way was BETTER and leads to much more happiness. giving up is WINNING in God’s economy. sounds good until i have to give up sleep or something even more precious to my soul, like perhaps TELEVISION...
He wanted me to give up television (and you all know how MUCH i love my television). and i wasn’t listening to His latest plan for my good future. i had lots of excuses (none good enough to type here, but in my mind they were very valid) and my excuse last week was “i deserve some down time, i have been through a tragedy” (read that in a really whiney voice and you will get the gist of how it all went down between me and God).
well, that was really working for me until wednesday when i was at Bible study (isn’t that God a hoot?) when He smote my television set DEAD. some sort of “power surge”. the microwave went down too (now i don’t think God was telling me not to make microwave meals anymore, but i do think that He is not pleased with my eating habits also, but really let’s just focus on ONE vice at a time). the minute that i figured out that the t.v. was broken, i just started laughing because i KNEW what was up in the spiritual realm and i even shook my fist at the heavens and said something to the effect of “You O God hath smote my television with Your Awesome Right Hand”. really, i said something like that, and i swear that i heard God laugh because i think He is really amused by me sometimes. amused enough not to smite me dead, thank Himself for that!
i don’t know how long before the t.v gets fixed. we have to wait on some guys to pick it up, take it to some shop, and then fix it and return it (that sounds like it might be quite a lengthy process). i will try to figure out when i can start watching it again even after it is fixed because i think i might still be broken. most likely it will be when i figure out what God wants me to do and what He wants me to stop doing. God seems to be pretty direct with me (i am the village idiot) and wants me television less for a while. perhaps so i don’t lay on the couch whining “i deserve this down time watching ‘lost’ all day”...
speaking of which, what happened on ‘lost’ last week? oh, come on, don’t i deserve to know (read that with a really whiney voice to get the full effect).....