It has been such a week! and it's only Wednesday!
I am sitting in my favorite chocolate brown wingback chair, listening to harp music on iTunes, with a cup of Sleepytime tea cooling on the lamp table. It feels sooo good to sit down. I've been on my feet all day, going through boxes in the store room, looking for two cookbooks.
This past March we had all the carpeting in our house replaced on the main floor and upstairs, which meant, of course, that we had to pack away all the knick-knacks, books, and whatevers into boxes and cart them to the basement. Yes, I hear you -- it would almost have been easier to move.
The wonderful thing about all that (besides the obvious of beautiful new carpets and floors) was that I used the Microsoft Excel program on my computer to record everything that was put into the boxes, numbering the boxes as we went along. More times than I can count since then, I've needed something in the boxes, and found it quickly enough by just consulting my computer.
However, I have also learned that I could have been more specific with the listings. Instead of "cookbooks", I would have done myself a favor by naming each title in each box. But who has time for that much detail??! Ah, that's where I am now: trying to find my copy of Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions and also the operator/owner's manual for my bread machine.
Beloved, bright man that he is, found the bread machine manual on the Internet in pdf, so I'm okay with that now. But I can't find Sally's book and I find it hard to believe I put it in one of the many trips to the Good Will Donation Center.
Anyhooo (I think I got that word from my sister), if it wasn't enough that a close girlfriend of mine died last week and we went to her memorial service yesterday, we had another death (of sorts) in our family first thing this past Monday morning. Mondays are hard enough as it is, but I came down to switch on Mr. Coffee and he had died!!! Gone. No coffee!! The water and Hazelnut coffee grounds just sat there in a cold coffee maker. I offered to make us some instant coffee (blech!!!) to hold us over until time to get dressed and make a run to Walmart. Understand please, that had I been prepared like my mother with those lovely flavored Swiss Mocha-type instant coffees, that would have been fine. But we just had the cheap stuff that I use on rare occasions, not to drink, but for staining fabrics to look antique.
Beloved would have no instant coffee. We ate our toast and eggs sans the Hazelnut caffeine habit and by then it was nearly 7 a.m. Beloved said with a voice of authority that our Walmart opens at 7 a.m., so he left to make an appliance purchase before The Today Show was over.
Then, since I am writing about the endings of things and people, I'll close with the announcement that tomorrow is my last day with the weekly nursing home ministry's Hymn Sing. Times and circumstances change for everybody (me, especially, it would seem), so several weeks ago I gave my notice to pianist-leader that August 25th would be my last day. We have some traveling to do, then Beloved will be needing me on hand for a month or so to drive him to physical therapy after his knee replacement, and then, and then, and then .... (you get the idea).
One of my dear friends has been in Alaska for the last two-plus weeks, while another watched her mother slip into eternity in the wee hours of the morning, and another learned she has melanoma of the fast-spreading variety. A strained friendship was renewed yesterday, and my sciatic nerve has decided to act up just about every night for the last week or so.
Well, this is enough of my yakitty-yak for one evening. This blog is my 'journal retreat' after all. Sometimes I just need to sit down with my cup of tea and put it all on paper, ah, I mean, computer screen. I am reminded of our Lord Jesus' words in John 14:1, "Let not your heart be troubled..." There is truly a lot for us to be troubled about, but for followers of Jesus Christ, these are truly just blips on the screen. Yes of course we get sad and grieve and hurt and are inconvenienced, but this is just a teeny part of our eternal walk with our Lord Jesus, and it does get better.
As Parakeet shared with me one time: For the Christian, this is the closest to hell we will ever get; for the lost person, this is the closest to heaven they will ever get.
Lord God, I thank You sincerely for what You are allowing in my life. It is sifted through Your wonderful hands for my good and Your glory. As I like to say to my children, these things are meant to build character in us -- and aren't we characters?!!!
