I have just called Michelle and declared that there must be some fun undertaken today. I could spend the day getting ready for upcoming workcamp, running my usual errands and cleaning up around here.

BUT I DON’T WANNA.

Fun. I need fun.

Appetizer: When was the last time you visited a hospital?

I visited the hospital on June 23rd when my friend Kim’s mom was in the ER but couldn’t locate them. Before that, my last visit was in February when Sarah had Audrey.

Salad: Make a sentence using the letters of a body part. (Example: (mouth) My other ukelele tings healthily.)

Leg – Let’s eat grapes!

Main Course: If you were to start a club, what would the subject matter be, and what would you name it?

For a long while I wanted a book club, but I’ve found one of them. I think I would like a Christian women’s fellowship club…a place for women to get together and have fun together on a regular basis. As for the name, all I can come up with is “His Girls”.

Dessert: What color is the carpet/flooring in your home?

Nothing exciting, tan throughout

Our book club chose Bel Canto by Ann Patchett as our next book. I picked it up on my way home from the group last week at the library and devoured it this weekend.

I honestly was unsure of the subject matter – the premise is built around terrorists raiding the birthday party of a Japanese business man at which a famous opera singer is performing. But her writing caught my interest and the relationships that are forged and the character development was really quite good. And there is an unexpected twist at the end…which I shan’t reveal!

I will admit that I am a horrible, terrible reader – I always flip to the back early on to see if I can figure out what is going to happen. This time, my flipping did me no good. I couldn’t figure it out and when I finally read the whole thing, I was so surprised at how it turned out.

Now I am on to The Great Husband Hunt by Laurie Graham. I picked it up because it looked humorous but really I am just plodding through it more than anything at this point. Some of it is interesting and some of it is meant to be shocking…but overall I am feeling ho hum about it.

Update: I finished that one too. Not thrilled but it was a little better toward the end. I think the characters could have been developed a great deal better. They were somewhat two dimensional.

…I did get my project accomplished. With great thanks to IKEA, I was able to do it all on my own, too. I started tearing apart the spare room/office on Monday night and ran off to IKEA on Tuesday morning in search of the perfect, inexpensive organizing solution. I roamed every aisle but finally found it. It’s a metal frame you build and then you buy metal drawers to slide into it. It was complete perfect. And only a hammer (and some muscles) were needed to build it.

I will admit that the organizing is not technically complete. But everything has a home now…those homes just need to be gone through and purged a bit…but everything has a home. What was lost, has been found, much to my relief. I hate having to ask people to give me things again. I hate admitting I am not at all time the organized soul I am thought to be! Or, as dear Liz pointed out to me as we rushed like mad women back to my house the other Sunday while Jim sat on my step waiting for us to arrive a half hour late, I am not perfect. Nobody is.

I read an article today about Ashley Judd receiving counseling for depression. (I’ll admit I kind of skimmed it – I am interested in such things, especially when someone “famous” comes forward and admits that they needed help because it makes me see that they are just real people like you and me…) Anyway, as usual, I digress. Toward the end of the article, she quoted someone who told her that perfectionism is a form of self abuse.

Hmmm.

I can see where this could be true. No one who walks this earth today (and really only One who ever walked it!) is perfect. Yet so many of us try to hard to be, for whatever reasons drive us. And when we fail, it is just that much more disheartening each time. It would be so much easier to cast off the shackles of perfectionism and just be human, fallible and real. But how do you give up something that has been such a part of your life, of who you are? You don’t need to give up quality, to give up caring about the things you do and the things you are. You just need to not berate yourself when things don’t go the way you think they should or you do misplace something or you do miss an appointment…

It’s not the end of the world.

Thirteen things I would do if money were no object. I would:

1. Quit my job.
2. Buy a house. Or two. Or three. One by my family and friends, one by the sea, and one in the mountains.
3. Pay off all my bills and my parents’ bills and my dear friends’ bills.
4. Do ministry full time.
5. Go on more missions trips…more trips, more often.
6. Donate large sums of money and equal amounts of my time to causes and organizations I care about.
7. Visit all the places I have ever wanted to visit
8. Buy my parents a house in Maine to retire to.
9. Buy my parents a fancy RV to get to the house in Maine with all the dogs in tow.
10. Pay for the education of the children near and dear to me (…and maybe others I do not know as well!)
11. Buy a building for our church!
12. Buy an airplane to be used for Angel Flights.
13. Make a sick child’s wish come true, whatever that wish may be.

This list was harder than you’d think to come up with. I guess I’ve never given it too much thought beyond the first few, really.

Man, this long weekend is flying by.

I was feeling under the weather Friday so my early dismissal turned into a rush visit to the dr before the holiday weekend arrived. Everything turned out to be ok, thankfully, and I had several of the ladies from church over to make a little craft for the workcampers to give to their residents as a gift. We decorated terra cotta pots and are going to include flower seeds with a scripture verse on them. They came out really great! I am so thankful for the time and effort my friends put into them. It means a lot to me and to the youth…I know it will mean something to the residents as well.

Yesterday, I decided that a closet makeover was desperately in order. I got rid of clothing that I don’t wear/doesn’t fit and moved some things I need to keep but only wear on special occassions into another closet. I hate when stuff is everywhere and it looks like something exploded in my closet but the end result was good…it’s the in between I hate!

Then I met Kris for dinner & listed to Tommy Conwell for a few hours. We had a great time catching up (& Tommy is always cool, too. I love when he sings Elvis!)

Today I had to teach and the kids were exceptionally well behaved. I ran some errands on the way home and just finished up a meeting with the adult leaders/chaperones for workcamp. Everything is coming together!

Now I feel like I should start working on the spare room/office/horrible terrible mess. But I know I won’t finish and I hate leaving things strewn all over all night. Maybe that will have to be a project for tomorrow. It will get accomplished before I go back to work on Thursday – I can tell you that!

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!