God Will Supply

Yesterday in a fit of cleaning, I decided to wash my bedroom curtains. These are the curtains I made after we remodeled, which was sometime back in the 1880s. I made the curtains, hung them, and let them be until yesterday, when I decided that the layers of dust had to go.

I thought the worst thing would be that they would be wrinkled. When I took them from the dryer, they weren't so bad - in terms of wrinkle-ness, anyhow. Then I hung them, and realized that wrinkles were not the problem - the new length was.

Apparently the curtains shrank. I realize I probably could have laundered them differently, but I didn't, and therefore ended up with curtains that were six inches too short. Luckily I could still hang them and maintain some privacy, which I did so I could pull a Scarlett O'Hara and think about my problem another day.

I was in no mood to sew new ones. My house is a mess, and creating a new mess was even less appealing that too-short curtains. I went to Target to look at curtains, even choosing a few to bring home in hopes they would do. The problem was that the curtains were 63 inches long, and my windows are 54 (give or take an inch or two). So it looked like I was going to have to sew after all - which did not thrill me with joy.

I decided to shop around a little more and visited a couple of stores with no success. My last hope was Wal-Mart, presumably to look at fabric. While there, I looked at their curtains. I found some which might suffice - 63 inches, though. Down the aisle there were some more - cheaper but still 63 inches. I kept going down the line, finding more possibilities. Then I saw them - a set of curtain panels, and they were 54 inches - the right size. They were also the color of my walls, so I knew they would do. Maybe they weren't perfect, but they were just what I needed at this point in my life.

I could help but think of the Bible verse in Philippians 4:19, "And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus," (English Standard Version). Sure, some may think God doesn't have time to worry with my curtain issues. But I think He does. I think He knew what I needed and provided me with it. He did it because He loves me and wants me to trust Him with everything in my life - from the tiniest of things to the greatest.

It's easy to ask God in the big things in life - sickness, trouble, distress, flying in airplanes. But I tend to overlook Him in the nitty-gritty of everyday life. And yet that's when I should be in constant contact with Him. The more often and more intimate conversations with God create the relationship that I most desire, one of ultimate dependence on the One who created me. After all, He knows me best and all my needs before I do. And because of His love for me, He wants only good for my life. I just have to believe and trust - every day in all things.

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Things that make today great: retail therapy; tending to Rambo; picking up Lindley from day care; veggies and cornbread for dinner

Me, Trying To Stay On A Diet

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Things that make today great: sleeping in until 5;30 and missing butt camp in order to take Steve to the airport; going after Rambo several times; picking up Lindley at day care; Baha Burrito with Molly; cleaning up Molly's patio; loading office furniture into Steve's car; washing the soon-to-be-former bedroom curtains

Big Hat Club

Now if I could only find one for my big ole head!

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Things that make today great: BSC with Lindley; walking Rambo with Lindley; chicken sapa dinner with Steve, Sam, Lynnette, and Lindley; chatting with Maribeth

Oh - You Mean THESE Leaves of Three!!

According to the Mayo Clinic, this is a picture of poison ivy. This pictorial knowledge would have been helpful a couple of weeks ago when I was weeding the yard. Apparently we have this in our yard and I brushed up against it/pulled it thinking it was a weed/rolled around in it. I know this because now I have the resulting rash that says, "Yeah - you were in it!"

I had always heard the phrase, "Leaves of three - let it be." I knew poison ivy had three leaves. However, apparently I did not know exactly what those three leaves looked like. To me, these leaves look like oak tree leaves. Okay, I was absent in Mrs. Lusk's ninth-grade biology class when leaves were taught. And I don't know why I think these look like oak leaves. The point is that I now know exactly what poison ivy looks like. Maybe.

Today's lesson is this: a little information can be a dangerous thing. Leaves of three mean nothing if (a) you don't bother counting the leaves you encounter, and (b) you don't know what the three leaves you should be avoiding look like.

Of course, any information is useless if you don't take it to heart. This isn't the first time I've had an encounter with poison ivy in my yard. One would think after the first encounter, I would pay closer attention to the plants. But I didn't, thus resulting in itchy rashness.

Now I am paying attention. In fact, I think that I will just avoid all yard work in my yard in order to avoid the itchiness that I am now enduring. Rash situations mean taking drastic measures - that's my other lesson of the day.

Oh, and don't be absent on leaf day.

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Things that make today great: hanging with Lynnette and Lindley during Lindley's ear infection dilemma; straightening the living room a little; looking for Rambo in Molly's neighborhood and eventually going to pick him up from the lady who found him; cleaning Molly's fireplace and looking at old house pictures; passing out from cookie coma after dinner

Blowing the Diet

Apparently I am getting quite good at this. So, in case your diet is working and you are sticking to it, here are some tips so you can wallow in failure like me:

How To Justify Blowing Your Diet

1. Go out of town with your daughter and eat at a place that serves comfort food cooked just the right way - full of fat and calories and deliciousness. And sit by a statue with a penis so you can emotionally eat everything on your plate.

2. Go to stores that are not in your town that serve big cinnamon rolls that are really delicious that you don't normally eat and shop for hours in this store with your daughter, thereby justifying the eating of the aforementioned cinnamon rolls that are jam-packed with sugar and loads of calories.

3. Eat the remainder of the sack of M&Ms that were left in the console of the car, because your daughter is passed out from cold meds because she has a cold and you are driving nonstop from your shopping trip and need to stay awake so that you can get home and get the sickly one in bed.

4. Eat the eggs and sausage and waffles and English muffin and bagel with cream cheese from the hotel's breakfast buffet because it was free with your night's lodging, thereby insuring that you got your money's worth.

5. Upon depositing sniffling, sneezing and coughing daughter at her house and husband offers to pick up dinner at Sonic, order more greasy, fried food because you will probably get sick from germ-ridden daughter and need more body fat to live off of during your incubation.

6. After spending Friday and Saturday practicing the above-mentioned tactics, repeat with gusto on Sunday. After all, everyone knows Monday is the day diets begin! Or at least start over!

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Things that make today great: visiting with Lindley, Sam, and Lynnette; dinner from Demos; lunch with Molly at Sonic; moving furniture around at the house