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!

…to us in so many ways. This week, he is apparently speaking to me through blog posts.

I just found Toni’s blog through another today and went back to read her earlier posts. This one brought tears to my eyes. This is what it is supposed to be like; this is what God wants from us, even though it is not easy or comfortable. And, really, what in life that is truly good is? A Broad in Athens: The one

Still fighting the fatigue and trying to get caught up…but in better spirits today than I have been lately. I have no commitments this evening after work and I am hoping my body will allow me to get some things done before I need to collapse – there is much to be done! I’m holding out hope that it will.

Some happy thoughts for today:

Beginning Friday at 1 PM, I am off until Thursday. We are closed Monday and Tuesday but I asked if I could have off Wednesday as well. Sarah & Joe are hosting their annual 4th of July extravaganza and Kim, Brian & Emma will be visiting from Connecticut, so I want to be able to relax and catch up without feeling like I have to rush home and get to bed to get ready for work the next day. Plus there is much to be done at home and I have at least one home improvement project I WILL get accomplished this weekend (if I can coerce my dad or David into helping!!)

I’m having the ladies over Friday night to work on a project for the youth to take to Workcamp and give to their residents as gifts. We are decorating terra cotta flower pots and giving them a packet of flower seeds. Any ideas for good verses to put on the seed packets?? Last year, our kids felt like they were not supported by the church so this year, we are endeavoring to change that in quite a few ways.

I’m having dinner and seeing the great Tommy Conwell this weekend. I love Tommy! And my dear friend Kris has never seen him, so we are having an outing. Outings are good…especially to The Blue Comet!

I am really excited about Workcamp. It’s coming up fast! I’ve really been struggling with that being my only “vacation” scheduled this summer and feeling like I needed to do something for myself (selfishly) when I read Bev’s blog

today. Her post not only convicted me but reminded me that a missions trip can be a vacation – a vacation from the norm, a vacation from not focusing on what’s important as you should and reevaluating how you spend your time. I am thankful for the opportunity to go on this trip and minister to the people we’ll meet…and as always, God brought me that reminder at just the right time.

This weekend passed by in a haze. Friday was somewhat busy in terms of VBS (which was awesome, by the way – so much fun!) and trying to get laundry done and the house back into some semblance of order after my time away. Saturday there was more of that and running errands in the torrential rain. Then yesterday was the quintessenial way my life is sometimes. My friend Robert came to be our guest speaker since Pastor Glenn is now officially gone and we had planned to go out to lunch afterwards with his family. We ended up with about 30 people – which is fine – except the restaurant we ended up at couldn’t accomodate us properly. It was 30 people in several booths, so you had to get up and walk around to talk with anyone. I had scheduled the youth to come over at 2 PM to make tie dye shirts for workcamp (which, as an aside, I had no clue how to do!) but ended up having to move that back until 2:30…but forgot to call one of my kids who was sitting at my house at 2. I felt terrible!

Anyway, the tie dyeing was actually fun. I hope they turn out. They are currently “drying” in my damp & humid basement…we shall see. After that was the race back to church for a prayer, praise & vision night for which I had agreed to coordinate childcare. All that worked out well – many thanks to everyone who helped!

When I got home, I watched part of a movie but then decided to get into bed and work on a new study I am doing, “Small Changes for a Better Life” by Elizabeth George. The title, of course, is intriguing and so far the first chapter has been good. I feel like I need something more structured to get me into the Word these crazy days lately than just my devotional book or online email devotions I get every day. I also bought a commentary this weekend by John MacArthur (at the suggestion of my study – though she suggests a commentary only on Proverbs but I couldn’t see spending the money when I could get an entire Bible commentary.) Cindy is apparently planning to offer a study this summer in the evenings and I think I will seriously consider that as well. I have been feeling a hunger for more lately but we haven’t had anything available that I could participate in in the evenings so this may be a good option, even if it is only for the summer. I miss doing the Operation Timothy study with Cindy, Kathy & Michelle weekly…maybe I need to find something like that as well. I don’t know. I desperately need the accountability of studying with others and I always enjoy the great discussions that come along in the course…studying something on my own just isn’t the same.

Anyway, I digress. I was exhausted when I woke up today – to more rain – and ended up getting a late start. I slipped in the shower and very nearly killed myself – which, let me tell you, is NOT the way I want to go! Then I got halfway to work and realized that I forgot my sweater…which led me to realize that, MORE IMPORTANTLY, I forgot my laptop, which I cannot work without, and which was under the sweater so I wouldn’t forget it. So I had to go all the way back home.

Eegads. I really do need a vacation.

Appetizer

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you like your job?

I’d have to give it a 5. I enjoy the field I am in and think it’s important work. But it doesn’t give me the joy I get from the things I do OUTSIDE of work….

Soup

When was the last time you think you were lied to?

I’m not really good at knowing when people lie to me unless it is blatant. Probably yesterday at some point.

Salad

Share some lyrics from own of your favorite songs.

Here I Am by Mercy Me. I love the chorus – taken from the book of Isaiah (6:9).

On the other side of the world
She stands on the ocean shore
Gazing at the heavens
She wonders, is there something more
Never been told the name of Jesus
She turns and walks away
What a shame [oh yeahh]

Just across the street in your hometown
Leaving from his nine-to-five
Gazing down the road
He wonders, is this all there is to life
Never been told the name of Jesus
He continues on his way
What a shame [oh yeahh]

Whom shall I send?
Who will go for me?
To the ends of the earth
Who will rise up for their King
Here am I, send me
Here am I, send me

Whether foreign land or neighbors
Everyone’s the same
Searching for the answers
That lie within your name
I wanna proclaim the love of Jesus
In all I do and say, Unashamed

Whom shall I send?
Who will go for me?
To the ends of the earth
Who will rise up for their King
Here am I, send me
Here am I, send me

How beautiful are feet of those who bring good news
Proclaiming peace and your salvation

Whom shall I send
Who will go for me
To the ends of the earth
Who will rise up for their King
Here am I, send me
Here am I, send me
Here am I, send me

Main Course

What do you do/take when you are in pain?

I’ve got a variety of tactics to combat physical pain…ibuprofen, Thermacare heat wraps, muscle relaxers, sleep aids, etc.

Dessert

Fill in the blanks: My __________ is very __________.

My house is very messy. I had originally written, “My sweet Norman is very loving and happy I am home.” But the internet ate my post and now I am redoing it all…and looking around at the laundry & luggage & MESS. Oh my.

Home at last! I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am to be home. It was a long week and I am completely exhausted. The furry ones were glad to see me, which was nice, and I was able to go over to the VBS tonight and see what a great job David and some of our lovely and talented youth were doing. I am so proud of them. I am also so upset to have not been able to be a part of this all week long. Tomorrow I have a role in the finale, but it just isn’t the same when you missed most of it.

It always amazes me just how much I enjoy working with the kids. It’s so easy to slip into that persona of “Miss Trish” and just have fun. I helped out with the preschool class this evening and it truly was the highlight of an otherwise somewhat unthrilling week.

Although, on the bright side, I did have dinner out two nights this week with coworkers and that was nice. I hope that friendliness continues when we get back to the office next week. It would really be great to have some friends there! (Although no one will ever replace my peeps from NCCN! Love you guys!)