Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
of kids and politics
i hate to own up to the term "undecided voter", but these are the breaks, kids. and so it is, with much love and devotion to the delightful david sedaris and his "undecided voters", i spin you a tale today.
last night while helping me with supper as jason caught up on some news, bella suddenly blurted out, "oh no. not him. he's gonna ruin the whole world."
i was more than a little shocked and asked who she was referring to.
she said "obama".
i asked her where she heard that and if she truly knew who obama was.
i know i'll probably get hit upside the head for the following announcement. and i'm sure it makes me a truly horrible mom. but here goes: unlike the rest of the free world, i chose not to sit my daughter down and hold lengthy discussions regarding this election.
there, i said it.
we've talked about what an election means and who the candidates are, and how important it is to vote, especially as a girl who will one day be a woman. bella's caught a couple of the debates with us & got to take part in *kidz rock the vote* at ETSU over her intercession week, but thats been about it.
reflect *motherly civic duty*? check.
while i agree children should have information, i also believe they should be children as long as possible. i'm not raising my daughter to be some passive conservatist, but i am of the mind that as long as i can stretch out the fact that the grownups of the world are, to a large extent, insane, and many have succeeded in making the u.s. one big hot mess, i'm on board. there's plenty of time for protests in her future. the trouble with that thought train is how it tends to derail with unexpected intervals in the land of influence.
when bella popped that big eye-opening statement,we discovered she'd overheard a conversation between her nana and aunt. the one, citing *devout christianity*, the other, plain old fashioned discrimination. wow. thanks, guys. score one for the ladies.
which, sadly, will play a part in this election, on both sides, no matter how you cut the cheese.
i asked her why they or she thought obama would ruin the world and she didn't know. it was painfully apparent she'd just been paroting. and the last thing i want is for my daughter to go around spouting off misinformation based on ignorance.
and so, what had to follow, was a cliff notes version on our history, and a conversation about difference of opinion and peoples rights to those opinions. that we have 2 candidates that have different ideas of how something should be done. and thats' what we're voting for: who we think has the best ideas on how to take care of our country. we talked about how important it is for us to respect our government and president. how important it is that we pray for him/her, that they will make good choices for us.
but even as we explained this, i felt a twinge of sadness and uncertainty.
growing up, my dad always stressed the fact that you can't be lukewarm; you're either hot or cold. and if you choose to sit out on the fence, then you give up your right to raise your hand and object. that's something that's always stuck with me, and i gave the same explanation to my own daughter last night.
but this year, i find myself edging closer and closer to that fence. ya know, i tend to dodge the subject of politics, whenever possible. not because i'm playing the neutral card or i'm hiding behind the sacredness of my party preference and all it represents, but because i feel as tho when politics enters a discussion, all objectivity just goes right out the door and everyone just sees red.
much like this election.
does that give me a right to sit on the fence? no. but does it mean i prefer obama to mccain in this election, one over the other? no. when bella asked me whose ideas i believed in, i honestly had to tell her right now i'm not sure.
i don't know where you're at in this vote. well, ok, some of you have made it perfectly clear, but here's where i'm at:
i wish we had another option.
i think, to a large extent, that the american population has been blindsided by the unprecidented opportunity we have before us. everything is new and refreshing and a promise for *change*. and anything with "the works" or "bigger and better" in the title.....any change in general, causes a frenzy nowadays. on the one side, you've got potentially the first black president. on the other, a woman for the vice position. never before been seen or done. and because of that, i think alot of the heavier topics on the line aren't even being taken into consideration.
i think we have a huge, monumental decision on our shoulders next week. and i think that either way you look at it and whatever your vote will ultimately be, in my heart of hearts, i feel its just a calm before a storm. unlike any other.
last night while helping me with supper as jason caught up on some news, bella suddenly blurted out, "oh no. not him. he's gonna ruin the whole world."
i was more than a little shocked and asked who she was referring to.
she said "obama".
i asked her where she heard that and if she truly knew who obama was.
i know i'll probably get hit upside the head for the following announcement. and i'm sure it makes me a truly horrible mom. but here goes: unlike the rest of the free world, i chose not to sit my daughter down and hold lengthy discussions regarding this election.
there, i said it.
we've talked about what an election means and who the candidates are, and how important it is to vote, especially as a girl who will one day be a woman. bella's caught a couple of the debates with us & got to take part in *kidz rock the vote* at ETSU over her intercession week, but thats been about it.
reflect *motherly civic duty*? check.
while i agree children should have information, i also believe they should be children as long as possible. i'm not raising my daughter to be some passive conservatist, but i am of the mind that as long as i can stretch out the fact that the grownups of the world are, to a large extent, insane, and many have succeeded in making the u.s. one big hot mess, i'm on board. there's plenty of time for protests in her future. the trouble with that thought train is how it tends to derail with unexpected intervals in the land of influence.
when bella popped that big eye-opening statement,we discovered she'd overheard a conversation between her nana and aunt. the one, citing *devout christianity*, the other, plain old fashioned discrimination. wow. thanks, guys. score one for the ladies.
which, sadly, will play a part in this election, on both sides, no matter how you cut the cheese.
i asked her why they or she thought obama would ruin the world and she didn't know. it was painfully apparent she'd just been paroting. and the last thing i want is for my daughter to go around spouting off misinformation based on ignorance.
and so, what had to follow, was a cliff notes version on our history, and a conversation about difference of opinion and peoples rights to those opinions. that we have 2 candidates that have different ideas of how something should be done. and thats' what we're voting for: who we think has the best ideas on how to take care of our country. we talked about how important it is for us to respect our government and president. how important it is that we pray for him/her, that they will make good choices for us.
but even as we explained this, i felt a twinge of sadness and uncertainty.
growing up, my dad always stressed the fact that you can't be lukewarm; you're either hot or cold. and if you choose to sit out on the fence, then you give up your right to raise your hand and object. that's something that's always stuck with me, and i gave the same explanation to my own daughter last night.
but this year, i find myself edging closer and closer to that fence. ya know, i tend to dodge the subject of politics, whenever possible. not because i'm playing the neutral card or i'm hiding behind the sacredness of my party preference and all it represents, but because i feel as tho when politics enters a discussion, all objectivity just goes right out the door and everyone just sees red.
much like this election.
does that give me a right to sit on the fence? no. but does it mean i prefer obama to mccain in this election, one over the other? no. when bella asked me whose ideas i believed in, i honestly had to tell her right now i'm not sure.
i don't know where you're at in this vote. well, ok, some of you have made it perfectly clear, but here's where i'm at:
i wish we had another option.
i think, to a large extent, that the american population has been blindsided by the unprecidented opportunity we have before us. everything is new and refreshing and a promise for *change*. and anything with "the works" or "bigger and better" in the title.....any change in general, causes a frenzy nowadays. on the one side, you've got potentially the first black president. on the other, a woman for the vice position. never before been seen or done. and because of that, i think alot of the heavier topics on the line aren't even being taken into consideration.
i think we have a huge, monumental decision on our shoulders next week. and i think that either way you look at it and whatever your vote will ultimately be, in my heart of hearts, i feel its just a calm before a storm. unlike any other.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
the beckoning of lovely
my kid rocks. and she's got the photos to prove it. one day in the near or not-so-near future, depending on how the scores go, i promise to scan this in for you, all pretty and clear. but we got her photos back and mounted just last night. me, being the proud mama, took a quick shot of her masterpiece this morning.
some time ago, in reading jen lemens rwanda story, i was introduced to hoperevo.com and was immediately hooked. the whole "kindness matters. make a difference. spread hope. pay it forward" phenomenon appeals to everyone these days, i think. and i'm no different. its been such an awesome outlet to include my daughter in as well. and since joining, bella and i have spent many the fun afternoon drawing pictures and creating little hope notes to leave in random & obscure places. during the summer thru little day trips we took here and there, we moved on to rocks; have sharpie, will travel.
when bella needed a theme for her photography project due in for the schools talent competition, Reflections, i asked her how about including our rocks. she was happy with this idea, as long as this meant a romp in the creek after her *shoot*. and tho i had to help her with position and focus at first, she quickly got the hang of it. it was a gorgeous day and this is the fruit of her labor.
so in keeping with the warm fuzzies, i thought i'd share this with you today. i sat in awe, watching this yesterday morning. its simple, and as the title reads, lovely. scroll down and mute the music so you can get the full effect.
i hope you all enjoy a lovely weekend of your own. carve some pumpkins.
wherein we watch Ghosthunters
aww, look. jason got his ear pierced.
huh. now see i would've never noticed that. i myself was looking for apparitions just now. as you do, when watching a show titled "ghosthunters". how is it that women always notice those things?
because we see everything. we are All Knowing. its a little thing we're fond of calling *keen observation*.
:highly inappropriate, exaggerated rolling of the eyes:
no, its true. for example: we notice when a man gets a hair cut. every single time. unlike certain men, who shall remain nameless, that don't notice when their wife gets like 6 inches cut off of her hair. or better yet, dyes it 3 shades darker.
in my defense, it was 2 shades darker if it was any.
still.
oh i see. kind of like the time when you didn't notice i shaved off my goatee. for Two Whole Days. only the biggest thing on my face.
thats different. i was hormonal. plus, i'm pretty sure you were not on my *happy* list at the time. i was avoiding looking directly at your face. also, you're my husband.
ahhhh. the "love of your life" as opposed to a perfect stranger. say, some benign ghost hunter on tv, for example. mmm. makes sense.
touche, my friend. touche.
huh. now see i would've never noticed that. i myself was looking for apparitions just now. as you do, when watching a show titled "ghosthunters". how is it that women always notice those things?
because we see everything. we are All Knowing. its a little thing we're fond of calling *keen observation*.
:highly inappropriate, exaggerated rolling of the eyes:
no, its true. for example: we notice when a man gets a hair cut. every single time. unlike certain men, who shall remain nameless, that don't notice when their wife gets like 6 inches cut off of her hair. or better yet, dyes it 3 shades darker.
in my defense, it was 2 shades darker if it was any.
still.
oh i see. kind of like the time when you didn't notice i shaved off my goatee. for Two Whole Days. only the biggest thing on my face.
thats different. i was hormonal. plus, i'm pretty sure you were not on my *happy* list at the time. i was avoiding looking directly at your face. also, you're my husband.
ahhhh. the "love of your life" as opposed to a perfect stranger. say, some benign ghost hunter on tv, for example. mmm. makes sense.
touche, my friend. touche.
Monday, October 20, 2008
money money money money
you know what i love? i love the part when you have mountains of laundry to sort thru and treat for stains and you can just throw the boxers or towels or socks in without a 2nd glance.
i love that.
so i was awake, flopping around restlessly, at 5 am this morning, willing my bladder to just go back to sleep. and worrying about, you guessed it, money. oi. such a difficult topic for me.
wednesday night at work, i was bent over in an awkward and unflattering position, straining against gravity, attending to *flow* in the shower. as i straightened up, i heard a subtle, yet all too familiar *snap* and inwardly groaned, reaching up to check the damage.
thats right, ladies. my bra broke.
i swear. i am cursed to have the worst problems with these things. and whats worse, is that thanks to an extra helping in that department, i can't just pop over to the walmart or even victorias little secret (and thats if i had the moulah). no, i am blessed. which means a trip to somewhere thats gonna charge me half a boob to let 'em fit it.
also, i am incredibly picky about my "support system". wires may be the death of me but i stand by them because they hold me at the precise point where i like to think i should hover at.
jen over at breed em and weep said it best:
"you know I had my bra surgically attached to keep the gals from taking the elevator to the ground floor."
ohhhh and i would, if i could. c'mon. they can make em bigger or smaller already, and puhleeze. they can surgically apply makeup now. lets get busy.
this girl i used to work with always bragged about the cutest lil' bras she could catch on clearance and i loathed her good fortune and small chestississ. $6 for a bra. i have never paid $6 for a bra in my life. not even while those puppies were trainin'.
even my wonder woman underoos cost more than that.
so, blargh. unfortunately, this was the only bra i had left, that i hadn't had to pull the blasted wires out of, or tried to reconstruct in some frankensteinian way. folks, it was my One Perfect Bra.
sob.
so all weekend at work, that bloomin wire kept poking me in the side. but i'm choosing to believe that was a little jab from heaven above. a lil' reminder that "hey. pssst. i'm here."
and i'm cool with that.
money and my relationship with it and the lack of it, is hands down, one of the biggest issues i face on a daily basis. during our years together, our finances have always laid heavier on my shoulders. it was always easier for jason to leave that up to me. and despite my efforts at trying to milk trees for dollar bills, at the end of the day, i'd often feel kinda just slammed up against a wall. we've moved mountains thru the years and our struggle with it, or rather God has. and i'm thankful for that. sometimes, i still close my eyes tight & brace myself for that wall, but slowly, it gets easier to let go and let God.
but right about the time my bra decided to crap out on me, jason called about yet another bill from the oral surgeons office.
last feb, i think it was, we had money in hand and finally, thru jasons new job, the dental insurance we needed to have some of his teeth pulled. his mouth is rotting out, seriously. and for 4 months, he'd lived in pain, sucking down anbesol like no tomorrow and sleeping on a heating pad. without insurance, it was going to cost us $1100 to have 2 teeth pulled out. $700 if we went without happy gas. they wouldn't take payments & we didn't qualify for the dental insurance they pedal.
once a month, the free clinic in town takes patients on a first come/first serve basis for dental issues. but as we all know, nothing really comes free and once they took both of our incomes into consideration, the sliding scale tipped over and we didn't qualify. our only other option was the denture place they advertised on tv. for $65 and a shot of general anesthesia, they'd pull a tooth. only catch? again, first come, first serve. we had to keep bella out of school that day and both call into work, jason waiting 45 minutes out in the cold, wrapped up in coats and mittens and blankets, waiting on those steps to be the first one in the door. only to discover it was too impacted and would require oral surgery, not a simple extraction.
next.
i felt helpless. and it was such a crushing blow. i was going thru such an awful depression at the time & was already working overtime so we could barely keep our heads above water. i hated to see him in pain but i could do little more than keep him in tylenol and the dollar tree in business with my enormous anbesol sprees. periodically, i could call our doctors office and ask for yet another prescription of antibiotics so infection wouldn't take over.
so the day jason met his 90 day mark and came home with insurance papers, i was singing halleluiah and making the call. the initial consultation & x-rays indicated things weren't great but not as horrible as we'd anticipated, and that jason didn't neccesarily need to pull everything out and start over. 2 out of 4 in particular needed to be pulled and with the insurance and happy gas, it would run us $165. the day of his surgery, the secretary said there had been a slight oversight and would run $30 more. thankfully, we'd had our income tax to rely on and i wrote out the check.
jason felt a thousand times better and we were elated. but then the bills started coming from the oral surgeon. back and forth, back and forth, with their office and the insurance office.
for 8 months.
eesh. like i don't have other things to worry about. between fielding calls from them and my car payment company over that bill that i'm perpetually behind on, noone else can call.
the last time i spoke with the finance lady, she apologized profusely, saying something about the previous finance lady being fired over certain "imbezzling issues" and that they were trying to resolve the matter. the last insurance letter i got, said something about us possibly oweing $40. the whole blasted thing has just been frustrating, tho, so i filed it and decided to wait on the surgeons office.
so jason called me at work and said we'd got another bill. i sighed and asked him to open it, thinking great. just great. my oil light had been flashing and making this annoying dinging sound all week long, every time i drove it. probably something to do with it being overdue for a change, i don't know. also, jason was needing gas again and owed for the brake job he'd had to get last week and i was out of laundry soap and well, everything. now this.
rip. "what? no waaaaay. "
panic. "what. WHAT. what do they want THIS time!!!"
"its a check. for $155. "
"one hundred fifty five dollars?"
"no. $1.55. "
"whaaaaaaaaat?"
"i'm kidding. yah. $155 for the overage we paid."
i can't tell you how awesome that was. such an amazing God-sent answer to a prayer that i'd urgently felt, but hadn't taken to him in earnest. yet He knew, and He overlooked me and He provided.
that extra money bought jasons gas and paid on his brakes and for my laundry soap.
this weekend at work, for the most part was craptacular. bella had free tickets to the circus and i was glad for that one bonus because i anticipated this week being tight. jasons' check wasn't going to cover the phone bill plus groceries, and i was cursing myself for the $27 oil change i'd had done when maybe i could've gone another week til my paycheck. and for buying the big box of laundry detergent when i could've got the smaller one. or why did we have to pay for the rest of the brake job and where had i gone wrong. that $155 had gone so fast. and then jason was asking me if he could buy something for his dads birthday yesterday and i had to come up with milk and some kind of *filler* for bella's school lunches this week, plus i had no idea how i was gonna pay to have bellas photos developed for her school talent show project. had i handled Gods check with greasy hands?
i came home last night, really weary, for all intents and purpose. i'd been on my feet all day, tending to both of my clients while my other staff person chose to lay around watching tv. i'd cooked and cleaned and assisted with bathroom duty 17 times. i'd wiped bottoms and wiped drool and helped feed and bathe and administer medication....
it was a long day.
but i came home to my sweet family making me supper and bella grinning from ear to ear, holding something behind her back. with a flourish and a "ta-daaaaah", she unfurled a large bag, announcing she and nana had gone shopping at sams club and "look, just look what nana said i could have for school". inside, were granola bars and oatmeal packets and crackers and peanut butter and just a variety of little snack type things and i breathed a prayer of thanks. i sat down with my family to eat and told myself i wasn't going to worry about another thing until today.
so i lay there at 5 am this morning, wondering how this would all play out and hoping against hope that we wouldn't get overdrawn. i finally broke down and graced the loo with my presence and then took a nice hot bath. when the other 2 yayhoos got up, i asked jason for his gas and birthday present receipts ~ his dad had asked for a lampshade and some razors ~ and added them to my milk receipt. i got bella off to school and came back home. 'watched abit of the news and turned the modem on, pulling up a chair and digging out my highlighter and checkbook.
the damage wasn't bad and i thanked God for that. i'd be $50 short on the phone bill set to go thru today. so i breathed a little silent prayer and i called the phone company while signing off our banking site and flipping over to one of my favorite blogs.
as i waited out the automated phone tree, i read thru her entry and just felt so incredibly blessed. another thank you to the Big Guy upstairs. when the customer service agent picked up, i took a deep breath and explained my situation.
i just felt like i needed to give a shout-out to God this morning. the phone company was willing to work with me over a partial payment, which means we won't have to worry about overdraft fees and i will have the money to get bellas photos developed for her project. i was humming a song to *flow* when the bra incident went down and its funny how its come full circle this morning.
my savior,He can move the mountains
my God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save
i know in the big scheme of things,my little blessing and victory this morning is just a speck on the map. but i'm soooo so grateful. and i wish for every one of you, that small blessing today as well.
i love that.
so i was awake, flopping around restlessly, at 5 am this morning, willing my bladder to just go back to sleep. and worrying about, you guessed it, money. oi. such a difficult topic for me.
wednesday night at work, i was bent over in an awkward and unflattering position, straining against gravity, attending to *flow* in the shower. as i straightened up, i heard a subtle, yet all too familiar *snap* and inwardly groaned, reaching up to check the damage.
thats right, ladies. my bra broke.
i swear. i am cursed to have the worst problems with these things. and whats worse, is that thanks to an extra helping in that department, i can't just pop over to the walmart or even victorias little secret (and thats if i had the moulah). no, i am blessed. which means a trip to somewhere thats gonna charge me half a boob to let 'em fit it.
also, i am incredibly picky about my "support system". wires may be the death of me but i stand by them because they hold me at the precise point where i like to think i should hover at.
jen over at breed em and weep said it best:
"you know I had my bra surgically attached to keep the gals from taking the elevator to the ground floor."
ohhhh and i would, if i could. c'mon. they can make em bigger or smaller already, and puhleeze. they can surgically apply makeup now. lets get busy.
this girl i used to work with always bragged about the cutest lil' bras she could catch on clearance and i loathed her good fortune and small chestississ. $6 for a bra. i have never paid $6 for a bra in my life. not even while those puppies were trainin'.
even my wonder woman underoos cost more than that.
so, blargh. unfortunately, this was the only bra i had left, that i hadn't had to pull the blasted wires out of, or tried to reconstruct in some frankensteinian way. folks, it was my One Perfect Bra.
sob.
so all weekend at work, that bloomin wire kept poking me in the side. but i'm choosing to believe that was a little jab from heaven above. a lil' reminder that "hey. pssst. i'm here."
and i'm cool with that.
money and my relationship with it and the lack of it, is hands down, one of the biggest issues i face on a daily basis. during our years together, our finances have always laid heavier on my shoulders. it was always easier for jason to leave that up to me. and despite my efforts at trying to milk trees for dollar bills, at the end of the day, i'd often feel kinda just slammed up against a wall. we've moved mountains thru the years and our struggle with it, or rather God has. and i'm thankful for that. sometimes, i still close my eyes tight & brace myself for that wall, but slowly, it gets easier to let go and let God.
but right about the time my bra decided to crap out on me, jason called about yet another bill from the oral surgeons office.
last feb, i think it was, we had money in hand and finally, thru jasons new job, the dental insurance we needed to have some of his teeth pulled. his mouth is rotting out, seriously. and for 4 months, he'd lived in pain, sucking down anbesol like no tomorrow and sleeping on a heating pad. without insurance, it was going to cost us $1100 to have 2 teeth pulled out. $700 if we went without happy gas. they wouldn't take payments & we didn't qualify for the dental insurance they pedal.
once a month, the free clinic in town takes patients on a first come/first serve basis for dental issues. but as we all know, nothing really comes free and once they took both of our incomes into consideration, the sliding scale tipped over and we didn't qualify. our only other option was the denture place they advertised on tv. for $65 and a shot of general anesthesia, they'd pull a tooth. only catch? again, first come, first serve. we had to keep bella out of school that day and both call into work, jason waiting 45 minutes out in the cold, wrapped up in coats and mittens and blankets, waiting on those steps to be the first one in the door. only to discover it was too impacted and would require oral surgery, not a simple extraction.
next.
i felt helpless. and it was such a crushing blow. i was going thru such an awful depression at the time & was already working overtime so we could barely keep our heads above water. i hated to see him in pain but i could do little more than keep him in tylenol and the dollar tree in business with my enormous anbesol sprees. periodically, i could call our doctors office and ask for yet another prescription of antibiotics so infection wouldn't take over.
so the day jason met his 90 day mark and came home with insurance papers, i was singing halleluiah and making the call. the initial consultation & x-rays indicated things weren't great but not as horrible as we'd anticipated, and that jason didn't neccesarily need to pull everything out and start over. 2 out of 4 in particular needed to be pulled and with the insurance and happy gas, it would run us $165. the day of his surgery, the secretary said there had been a slight oversight and would run $30 more. thankfully, we'd had our income tax to rely on and i wrote out the check.
jason felt a thousand times better and we were elated. but then the bills started coming from the oral surgeon. back and forth, back and forth, with their office and the insurance office.
for 8 months.
eesh. like i don't have other things to worry about. between fielding calls from them and my car payment company over that bill that i'm perpetually behind on, noone else can call.
the last time i spoke with the finance lady, she apologized profusely, saying something about the previous finance lady being fired over certain "imbezzling issues" and that they were trying to resolve the matter. the last insurance letter i got, said something about us possibly oweing $40. the whole blasted thing has just been frustrating, tho, so i filed it and decided to wait on the surgeons office.
so jason called me at work and said we'd got another bill. i sighed and asked him to open it, thinking great. just great. my oil light had been flashing and making this annoying dinging sound all week long, every time i drove it. probably something to do with it being overdue for a change, i don't know. also, jason was needing gas again and owed for the brake job he'd had to get last week and i was out of laundry soap and well, everything. now this.
rip. "what? no waaaaay. "
panic. "what. WHAT. what do they want THIS time!!!"
"its a check. for $155. "
"one hundred fifty five dollars?"
"no. $1.55. "
"whaaaaaaaaat?"
"i'm kidding. yah. $155 for the overage we paid."
i can't tell you how awesome that was. such an amazing God-sent answer to a prayer that i'd urgently felt, but hadn't taken to him in earnest. yet He knew, and He overlooked me and He provided.
that extra money bought jasons gas and paid on his brakes and for my laundry soap.
this weekend at work, for the most part was craptacular. bella had free tickets to the circus and i was glad for that one bonus because i anticipated this week being tight. jasons' check wasn't going to cover the phone bill plus groceries, and i was cursing myself for the $27 oil change i'd had done when maybe i could've gone another week til my paycheck. and for buying the big box of laundry detergent when i could've got the smaller one. or why did we have to pay for the rest of the brake job and where had i gone wrong. that $155 had gone so fast. and then jason was asking me if he could buy something for his dads birthday yesterday and i had to come up with milk and some kind of *filler* for bella's school lunches this week, plus i had no idea how i was gonna pay to have bellas photos developed for her school talent show project. had i handled Gods check with greasy hands?
i came home last night, really weary, for all intents and purpose. i'd been on my feet all day, tending to both of my clients while my other staff person chose to lay around watching tv. i'd cooked and cleaned and assisted with bathroom duty 17 times. i'd wiped bottoms and wiped drool and helped feed and bathe and administer medication....
it was a long day.
but i came home to my sweet family making me supper and bella grinning from ear to ear, holding something behind her back. with a flourish and a "ta-daaaaah", she unfurled a large bag, announcing she and nana had gone shopping at sams club and "look, just look what nana said i could have for school". inside, were granola bars and oatmeal packets and crackers and peanut butter and just a variety of little snack type things and i breathed a prayer of thanks. i sat down with my family to eat and told myself i wasn't going to worry about another thing until today.
so i lay there at 5 am this morning, wondering how this would all play out and hoping against hope that we wouldn't get overdrawn. i finally broke down and graced the loo with my presence and then took a nice hot bath. when the other 2 yayhoos got up, i asked jason for his gas and birthday present receipts ~ his dad had asked for a lampshade and some razors ~ and added them to my milk receipt. i got bella off to school and came back home. 'watched abit of the news and turned the modem on, pulling up a chair and digging out my highlighter and checkbook.
the damage wasn't bad and i thanked God for that. i'd be $50 short on the phone bill set to go thru today. so i breathed a little silent prayer and i called the phone company while signing off our banking site and flipping over to one of my favorite blogs.
as i waited out the automated phone tree, i read thru her entry and just felt so incredibly blessed. another thank you to the Big Guy upstairs. when the customer service agent picked up, i took a deep breath and explained my situation.
i just felt like i needed to give a shout-out to God this morning. the phone company was willing to work with me over a partial payment, which means we won't have to worry about overdraft fees and i will have the money to get bellas photos developed for her project. i was humming a song to *flow* when the bra incident went down and its funny how its come full circle this morning.
my savior,He can move the mountains
my God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save
i know in the big scheme of things,my little blessing and victory this morning is just a speck on the map. but i'm soooo so grateful. and i wish for every one of you, that small blessing today as well.
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