Girls’ Night
Thursday is “Girls’ Night”—several of my friends from work and I get together to go out to eat, scrapbook, or just hang out. For this reason, and the need for some semblance of sanity, Thursday is the only weekday I am unavailable at my second job. Being that every day of the week I have commitments, on occasion I feel like I’ve hit overload and need a chill night for myself.
A Non-Friday Field Trip
Yesterday we took the kids on an all-day field trip to an Art Museum and park for a picnic lunch. After seven hours of mentally counting heads every 30 seconds, overload had come. I needed a “me night” last night, but I had to work my second job, so I had to hold off. I just needed to make it one more day.
Inconceivable!
Before going to bed last night I did the unthinkable…I turned my cell phone off. For me that is just craziness! I e-mailed one of the girls from my Thursday group and let her know I probably wouldn’t be hanging out. I have been going, going, going since returning from training, and am still fighting a bit of a cold that started at the beginning of training. Typically on these days I crawl into my bed after school and sleep for hours and hours, usually getting up to grab some pitiful dinner and then heading back to bed within the hour. However, when I came home to do this, I found that my room was uncomfortably warm. Though it was in the mid-high 80’s today, there was such a strong breeze that I thought I’d be better off outside.
Fitting Life into My Car
After a brief 45 minute snooze, I was feeling rather pensive. I was thinking mostly about how to downsize my room so that I could fit everything I own into my little Kia. I have to drive from here to Jersey in June, and need everything out of my current residency. When this “thinking time” comes along, it is usually followed by industrious action. I am not a “sit still and contemplate” kind of person. I find it necessary to keep moving while I think. First off…the four loads of clean laundry (mostly still from training) piled in the middle of my floor. This lead directly into ridding my closet of the clothes I didn’t think I would need for the next five months, and certainly not during the race. Salvation Army here I come! After folding all of the clean laundry, throwing in another load, and freeing up over 40 hangers, I was feeling ready to tackle the next task.
Just Call Me Emerill
I love to cook! Usually I will cook Thai food, but that typically involves going out to get fresh produce. Considering that I need to get rid of my some non-perishable stuff before I leave, I thought I’d use up what was in the house already. I think I rather outdid myself tonight, though. In two hours I cooked the following: Lemon pepper salmon, garlic toast (with real garlic and olive oil), brussel sprouts in butter sauce, steamed broccoli, Asian sesame noodles, pasta salad with kielbasa, chocolate pudding, and crystal light. By the time I had finished, I was full from all of the nibbling I had done throughout.
Peace
During all of this, I was listening to some worship songs by Shane and Shane on repeat. I feel calm, soothed, and comforted now. I feel as if with a lot of the clothes I got rid of in the closet, that I also got rid of some of the main burden I’ve been carrying—how do I fit my life into one backpack? I’m sure I am not the only one plagued by this thought. It is amazing though, because God has been showing me scripture daily about our trip. Just today He showed me several words in 1 John that spoke clearly to me.
On giving up material possessions:
John 2:15+17
Do not love the world or anything in the world…The World and its desires pass away but the man who dos the will of God lives forever.
On facing persecution:
John 3:13
Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers.
Actions speak louder than words:
John 3:18
Dear children, let us not love with worlds or tongue but with actions and in truth.
P.S. It was really great to see my dad, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew on my way home from training.
