The blahs

You ever feel like you are in the middle of the blah and can’t get out? Yep, me too. In fact, I am Mayor of Blah-town right now. The problem is, I know I shouldn’t be! I have a loving husband, cool kids, a job, a second job, stuff that interests me, cute dogs, and wonderful friends. So why do I feel so blah? The answer is, “I don’t know.” And that scares me a bit. Cuz if I don’t know how I got here…how am I going to get myself out?

I decided to take a break from T.V. because I knew I was wasting a considerable amount of time there. I think I need to take a break from books, too, and read my Bible. I try to read a little every day, but I think I need to do more than that. I think I need to keep at it until I get it read through. I’ve got a small Bible that I bought to keep at my desk at church. I think I may use that as my highlighter Bible. I’d like to highlight verse that have to do with parenting and, of course, verses that just hit my heart.

There was a verse in 2 Samuel that got me…2 Samuel 22:29, “O Lord you are my lamp. The Lord lights up my darkness.” Isn’t that beautiful? I just sit back and smile when that bounces around my head. Probably because I feel so dark, so blah, all the time. He lights up my darkness. He continually does things that make me smile.

Lovely

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

From an email I wrote to a friend:

Okay, just so you know. I consider ourselves to be close enough that if you see that I have something in my teeth, or my fly is down or there's a booger hanging out of my nose...that you would tell me. Okay?! What leads me to this soul-baring revelation?

(Sorry if this gets gross.) This morning when I getting ready for the day and was cleaning my ear I noticed some goop coming from the back of my ear. Up until then, there had only been a little puss coming from the front. I cleaned it up, put the antibiotic cream on it and went on my merry little way.

So just a couple minutes ago I had this "thunk" and went to the bathroom and wet down some Kleenex and held it to the back of my ear and sure enough I saw a little goop so I did the best I could at cleaning it up with cold water and Kleenex.

Now I'm not a big "take pictures of myself in the bathroom" kind of gal so when the thought to use my phone to take a picture of the back of my ear came to me, I decided that Someone upstairs was trying to tell me something. Oh. My. Word. Thank the Lord He did. The entire back of my ear was packed with a greenish-yellow crust. I hightailed it to the main building where they have hot water in the bathrooms and did a hot compress and cleaned off the back of my ear and will probably now check my ear periodically (Anal Girl here probably do it every 10 min) to make sure there is no build up.

So as I'm giggling and grossing myself out, I realize that the back of my ear probably looked nasty last night, too.

Hence this email. You have my permission to let me know when there's something whack-a-doodle including, but not limited to, crusty ears, boogers, bad breath, something in my hair,etc. without worrying about embarrassing or offending me. Okay?! Cuz that's how much I love you and trust you!

 

So, I was right. I am checking my ear about every 10 minutes. It involved using my phone to try to take pictures. I am so grossed out. There is a crusty scab in the middle of my ear that is green....GREEN! B-O-O-G-E-R Green! There is no hot water in this stupid pod where my office is located so if I want to do a hot compress to loosen the booger green scab on the back of my ear, I have to traipse up the hill PAST PEOPLE, including little kids who like to point out that you have a booger green scab behind your ear, to the main building's adult bathroom. It located, unfortunately, by the front office so one can only go in there so many times before they start giving you the wonky eye.

 

I still can't believe I poke a freakin' hole in my own ear. But...on the plus side, I may be able to sleep on that side tonight. It's tender, but it ain't screaming at me anymore!

TV and me

Crap. Crap. And, again, I say CRAP!!!

So, I'll confess. I am a TV-aholoic. I am mesmerized that the boob tube. I can spend an entire day in complete bliss with an "a-thon" of one of my favorite mind-numbing shows (Project Runway, America's Next Top Model, Ink Master, House Hunters, oh...the list goes on and on). Add in the pantry being full so I can indulge in any food delight I am craving and I get giddy.

So I'm doing this online Bible study based on the book, "What Happens When Women Say Yes to God." and I'm pretty much stinking at the online part of it. They post things and you are supposed to comment on them to get the most out of the experience. I just didn't anticipate how busy my life would be right now. So I'm putzing along at my own pace.

I'm in chapter 3 (or is it 4?) and the author talks about how she went on a TV-free sabbatical for a time period. And this girl? Said, well, that's good for her but not for me. Now she wasn't advocating giving up TV or saying TV was bad. She was using it as a personal example of something that got in the way of her relationship with God.

This morning I'm in the car on the way to work praying for my day and the people on my prayer list when it hits me. Give up the TV, T. I said the words out loud, I will not turn on the TV (but if someone comes in the room and turns it on or we are doing a family thing, I won't be Debbie Downer). I have gotten into a horrible habit of coming home and turning the thing on and then the to-do list goes out the door. There's always the accompiament of the tube in the background of everything I do at home.

And I'm still cringing. Because I knew that I would back down and punk out on my promise. So I thought I'd put it in writing. Even though no one reads this. But still, it's in writing. I'm going to not turn on the TV until Thanksgiving or until the Lord releases me from this. We'll see how I do. I'm at work where I don't even watch TV but I'm in a bit of a mourning period already.

I'm such a dork.

Dumb and Dumber

Okay, so I'm not proud of what I've done. I feel like an idiot, to be quite frank. I do not know what possessed me to do it but rest assured, I am paying the price to the MAX!

So let me give you a back story...and then another back story. Otherwise this will REALLY make me look like I need a brain scan...instead of just looking like a doofus.

Backstory 1...I have double-pierced ears plus a cartilage piercing in my left ear. I've been thinking for some time that I'd like to get a third level to the piercings but sitting in the middle of WalMart just isn't my style.

Backstory 2...Jo had her ear cartilage pierced a couple years ago. Unfortunately, a keylloid (spelling) developed and we had her remove the earring with the promise that she could get the other ear's cartilage pierced after sports were over. This actually didn't happen until about 3 weeks ago. She was happy, I was the benevolent momma. Then it got infected. We tried to clean it with hydrogen peroxide and swab it with triple antibiotic ointment, but, nope. I was red and inflamed and not happy. So Jo's on a 10-day power antibiotic and I have a piercing earring. That's where my demise began.

So here it is last Thursday. We leave the next morning to take Lorie to American University (sniff, sniff...but I digress). Kenny3 has driven the 2 hours from Point University to be at the house for Lorie's last night with the family (totally bawl moment...again, I digress). I don't know what got into me. I really don't. I wish I could go back and pinpoint what made me do it. I was talking with Kenny3 as  I cleaned out my purse and saw that piercing earring. While we had the conversation (NOT about ear piercing), I rinsed it off in hydrogen peroxide and then proceeded to jam it through my cartilage about halfway between my 2nd piercing in the lobe and my current cartilage piercing. Brilliant, right?! Wrong! Halfway to Washington, D.C. I knew I'd made a horrible mistake. I took the earring out and started picking the scabs that formed. (I know...I'm so embarrassed about typing that. Not exactly first aid 101). I suffered with it Friday and Saturday. Saturday night I raided my sister's first aid kit (sorry, Lori!) and grabbed the only thing I could find...some Neosporin spray. I spritzed my ear down Saturday night and all day Sunday, but I was miserable. Monday found me at the Walgreen's clinic with a raging ear infection. I was given the same antibiotic as Jo and a topical antibiotic cream.

Last night I barely got any sleep. For some reason (karma, much?) my body insisted that it wanted to sleep with that ear down. I tried to arrange myself so that my hand took the weight of my head...but no. Add to that indignity, somehow I got restless legs. I didn't get to sleep until 5 a.m. So here I am at work with about 30 minutes of sleep to my name and a load of work to do once I leave school.

And it's all my own fault. I know it. I feel like a major idiot. But I am fully paying the price for my idiocy. My ear is throbbing and looks a mess between the bright redness and the goopy coating of antibiotic.

Oh but the story gets better. When I was talking about it with Jo, she said that the ear didn't stop hurting until a week later. A WEEK?! Course then I realized that the child got her antibiotic Thursday night so she's only been taking it for 3.5 days (and then she says that she's missed two pills) so I'm hoping that tomorrow morning the day will dawn brighter and happier for me and Mr. Ear.

And I'm done with poking holes in my head. I'm 44...better act like it!

Foot in Mouth and Doofy Brain

Today was Homecoming Sunday. I wasn't in the children's ministry room and worried so much about that. I feel like I should have been there. Plus my mouth and worries kept getting in the way.

Started out the whole foot in mouth thing when my mil comes down to the front while we are practicing and tells us that everything is very slow and there is no excitement. I blurbled that we could either have excitement during practice or excitement during worship. Jeez! I mean, I see her side of things. I do. I've been to all the same seminars she went to 15 years ago at Willow Creek and I know what they said to here. But then I've also had the opportunity that she's never had and that is to attend a larger church and see how it's really done in practice, not just info given in a seminar. Here's the dealio...we are a small church. We only have so many musicians. We are all doing more than one thing at church so there is no time for a musical rehearsal to go over notes and other details AND have a dress rehearsal so we meet Sunday morning. We really can either give her the fakey fake excitement she seems to want so that we are like what she thinks big churches are like or she can let us bang out notes, take things a little slower so that everyone knows their parts (especially with a couple of us not having been on the stage recently) and do what we need to do to prepare so that when worship time comes, we can let go and worship! But still, she didn't deserve me snarking on her.

Kept up the stupidity telling a little girl who was running down the hall with a biscuit that the kids shouldn't be eating in the Sunday school room and then came around the corner and saw that the teacher had ALL the kids eating. Apparently that's been done for years. So I let the little ones bring their food in and, sure enough, there were crumbs all over. Plus, I noticed that someone gave the girls orange SODA to drink. #1...it's breakfast time, SODA? For a 3 and 5 year old? That isn't YOURS?! #2...it's ORANGE! They are 3 and 5. That means they spill. On the carpet. I swear, doesn't anyone think anymore?

Then I didn't say hi to anyone because I was freaking out over the adult in the elementary room not showing up. I didn't say hi. My big thing with this time doing the children's ministry that it was going to be able relationships. And I didn't even say hi.

Finally, after praise time was over and we are getting ready for the sermon, I feel like I need to go around and check the different children's ministry areas to make sure all is going well. I get down to the nursery and the first thing that greets me is a room that looks like it threw up toys. There are 3 adult helpers (one of the deacons stayed to lend a hand), the teen helper and a 3rd grader. I notice the 3rd grader due to the fact that he's stomping around on the toys and then sits on a rocky horse and starts bouncing around. This is his mom's first week in the nursery and for some reason she's decided that it's okay for an 8-year old to be in a nursery that's already packed to the gills with people who are supposed to be in there, babies, toddlers, and toys. I tell her that I'd be glad to take her child to his class since he's not supposed to be in the nursery. Okay, so not most tactful. But then the other helper and the deacon both say that he's a helper! Um, deacon...you were part of the pow-wow about nursery helpers needing to be at least 13 years old and approved by the leadership. Ugh! I did go and speak to the mom after but I couldn't get the situation out of my head during the sermon. Hate that!

So now I'm starting an online Bible study called, What Happens When Women Say Yes to God. I feel like going with the children's ministry was me saying yes. I really am worried about leading this ministry. I got burnt last time. Now I'm getting paid and I feel like there's so much more pressure. I guess I need to pray that God will put a hand over my mouth as well as giving me the strength and leadership I need to lead this ministry.

Oh my.