Day 94

Today was too beautiful not to go outside, so that's what my husband and I did.  We put on our tennis gear and headed out to the park for some fun in the sun.  The lovely thing about today was that although it was warm, there was a breeze blowing that kept things from becoming too hot.  After tennis we went out for some southern style bar-b-que, sweet potato fries and sweet tea,  and then finished watching a television series that we had started at my parent's house.  Tonight we are going to separate guys and gals games nights.

Tell me that isn't a great way to spend a Saturday.

May you find joy in Saturdays well spent.

Day 93

To start off your weekend, I'll share a story with you.  Feel free to laugh at me.

My dad and brother returned last night and my mom asked me to pick up some milk for them.  So this morning I hopped in my car and drove the three minutes over to the local milk store.  I was just about there when out of the corner of my eye I see a spider dangling  from the ceiling. Right next to my head.

I didn't react very well.

I guess a better way to put it was that I screamed like bloody murder and started flailing.

Now, let me interject here with my history of spiders. I don't like spiders, I never have.  When I was little they terrified me, but as I have gotten older I feel like I have a more mature attitude about them now.  They don't freak me out like they used to.  I even killed one just the other day that was crawling across the cutting board where I was preparing dinner. (Lesson: Don't mess with Katie when she's cooking).  A few years ago they got replaced as number one on my most hated bug list with moths. (And yes, I know that spiders aren't technically bugs for you smarty pants out there.) So overall I feel like I have gotten over, or at least made strides in getting over my fear of spiders.  Until today.

In hindsight, I definitely could have handled it better.  However, there are several advantages to hindsight, the most obvious being that I am not sitting in a car with a dangling spider inches from my head.  I mean, something that small has to be pretty close to you for your peripheral vision to catch it.  After my intinial flail the spider disappeared, which of course freaked me out more.  The only thing worse than a spider dangling over you is one that was dangling over you and has now disappeared. As soon as I got to the store I got out of my car and started shaking all of my clothes out and brushing at my head in case it landed there.  I was in a public place so I tried not to make a big scene, but I also didn't want a spider crawling across my face when I was getting milk, either.  When I got back to the car I made a careful inspection and didn't see anything, but once I got home I shook out my clothes again and more thoroughly shook out my hair. I'm pretty confidant that I am spider-free at the moment.  It got me a little frazzled, though, let me tell you. I'm better now.

Well, that's my story.  I hope you enjoyed it and have a glorious weekend.

May you find joy in funny stories.

Day 92

Ever since my sister got engaged, I have been very nostalgic about planning my wedding a year ago.  I've looked at the pictures again, thought about the wonderful, exciting time that it was, and have remembered all of the sweet memories leading up to and on that day.  I hate to brag, but I had the best wedding ever.  However, I do believe that you will have or have already had the best wedding ever as well.  You will also marry the best man/woman on the planet, just like I did. It's neat how that works out.

Anyway, I've been nostalgic this past week and it's been pretty fun.  I mean, what wouldn't be fun about thinking about the happiest day of your life?  As a rule, I try not to dwell too much on happy days in the past because it is very easy to fall into discontentment about present conditions, especially when the past is bathed in the sunny light of pleasantly selective memories. However, I consider my wedding day an exception to the rule.  I believe that it is helpful to remember the day when I vowed before God and a church full of witnesses to love and honor my husband for as long I or he lives.  It's also helpful to remember that the wedding ceremony and marriage itself is a picture of the relationship between Christ and His Church.  Yes, instead of merely wistful thinking, remembering back to my wedding day is not only helpful it is also important and even vital to do so.  I need to remember, because like all things, it is all too easy to forget.

May you find joy in remembering.

Day 91

It's March, and it's beautiful outside.  I can't believe that our nice weather has lasted as long as it has, and that it is supposed to keep going for another week or so.  I've been enjoying it so much.  Almost everyday I go outside to read and soak up some sun.   This used to be a relaxing experience, but with the puppy it is now an adventure.  Sometimes he will go for awhile and other times it happens pretty early on, but at some point he decides that the best place in the whole yard to chew on his stick is on my lap.  Suddenly I have a 20lb dog on top of me who is constantly dropping his stick off of the side and who is very happy to substitute my hand for his stick once it disappears.  I don't have to tell you that fending off little teeth and continually picking up sticks isn't the most conducive activity for reading.  Once the lap becomes the location of choice, I pretty much have to give up reading while enjoying the sun and have to pick one or the other.  That's okay, though.  The puppy has probably prevented me from getting sun-burned a couple of times when I've made a hasty retreat indoors to finish the chapter, and for that I am grateful.

I've told you that I could write a book about lessons I've learned from my dog about my relationship with Christ, and this is one of those times.  How often has God put something in my life that is a little uncomfortable, and because of that I move in a different direction than I was planning on and that saves me from something worse? It really makes me think.  God works in mysterious ways, and it is a joy and a privilege when God reveals a little bit of His plan to you and you can start putting the dots together and seeing the picture.  I love that.

May you find joy in finding the dots and seeing the picture.

Day 90

Wow.  That was a weekend.  I don't know about you, but mine consisted of searching for reception sites, preliminary bridal shower and wedding planning long-distance with my sister, lots of entertaining and getting together with friends, and being a movable chew-toy for the dog. 

This morning my husband let me sleep in and for the first time in three days I didn't feel tired when I woke up. It was glorious. Today was similar to the weekend, but it felt much less stressful and the dog didn't chew on me quite as much, which was nice. Tonight we had dinner with friends at our apartment, and as we were leaving I went to go check when I was working tomorrow.  I was in for a shock.  I'm not scheduled to work tomorrow.  I was scheduled to work this morning.  Oh.  Messed up there.

I admit I have mixed feeling right now.  I can't say that I am heartbroken about not waking up at 5:00 o'clock tomorrow morning, but I do feel bad about leaving them hanging at work this morning.  At least I wasn't scheduled for the most important job, which is some consolation, but this is the first time in over two years where I missed work because I messed up my schedule. There's a first time for everything, I guess.  The only thing to do now is to go to bed and enjoy an unexpected full night of rest.

May you find joy in the unexpected.

Day 89

MY SISTER IS ENGAGED!!!!!!! WOOHOO!!! YIPPEEE!!!! YEEHAW!!!

Whew, that felt good to get out.  That is what I was trying to hold inside and why I was unable to write about anything else.  Everything else kind of pales in comparison at the moment.  I can't tell you how happy I am for my sister and her fiance.  Hee hee, that was fun to say.  The coolest part is seeing how God has worked in both of their lives in the past year, both separately and together.  It has been an amazing journey and it has been a privilege to watch it unfold.  I look forward to seeing the next step in their relationship as they prepare for marriage.  AAAHHH!! IT'S SO EXCITING!!!!

May you find joy in God-directed relationships.

Day 88

I'm sorry. I know that the posts on this blog have been sporadic this past week. It's not because I don't have any joy to write about, au contraire, I have great amounts of joy.  I realize that sounds like an oxymoron, but that's the way of it.  I am bursting with joy and yet I can't put it down in writing. Ironic, n'est pas?  (Apparently, also when I can't express joy I start talking in French as well.  Sorry about that.)  So I guess all I can say is that I have a lot of joy and I can't tell you about it.  It's probably as frustratating for me as it is for you.  Stay tuned for a better explaination at a later time.  Au Revoir.

Mai vous avez joie.

Day 87

Cue "Mission Impossible" music:

Dun dun, du du Dun dun, Dah dun...

My mission today was to get a new purse.  The time had come where the handles on my purse were disintegrating, and as much as I loved it and no matter how perfect it was, I knew the time had come to find a replacement.  I am a one-purse kind of woman.  I have one purse which I carry everywhere for a couple of years until it wears out, and then I find a new purse to carry for the next couple of years. I don't have a different purse for every outfit or every occasion.  Because of this, I really need to like my one purse.

I felt like I had high expectations when I left.  I wanted a smallish sized purse with short rounded handles that was less than $30.00.  Yep, those were my qualifications, and from working in the accessories business, I felt like those were rather high.  If you are unaware of this fact, the trend in purses now is for them to be big.  Really big.  Diaper-bag big.  Pack your entire life big.  You get the picture. Bigger is better right now in the purse world.  I don't like big purses.  They are too heavy and provide too much temptation for putting more stuff in them than needed, thus making them even heavier.  My other qualification was short rounded handles.  I spend a lot of holding my purse in my hand instead of over my shoulder, and rounded handles are the most comfortable to hold in your hand.  They also need to be fairly short so you aren't dragging your purse behind you if you are holding it down by your side.

So I started my mission.  The first place I looked I found one that met my qualifications, but it was a weird taupey-grey color that I wasn't sure about.  I didn't have a specific color in mind that I wanted, but I feel like you should be able to positively define the color of your purse for principle's sake. The next store I found one an aqua one I liked, but it turned out to be Italian leather and $55.  The next store was a bust.  The last store I went to was promising from the start.  I found a couple of possibles, and then I saw IT.  It was a metallic champagne purse with a flower embellishment on the front.  It was the same size as my current purse, and it was $25.  Bingo.  It doesn't have rounded handles, but the handles are soft enough so they don't hurt my hands.  It's different. It's girly.  It's me.

Mission accomplished.

May you find joy in accomplishing missions.

Day 86

I was sitting in  my parent's living room, trying to read "The Pleasures of Reading in the Age of Distraction."  Ironically, I couldn't focus on it because I was too distracted.  My parent's house felt like grand central station during rush hour.  Every couple of minutes Tucker would come bouncing in, try to play with me for a minute and then go bouncing out to watch mom mop the floor, which apparently was much more exciting.  My sister left, then came back, and then left again when her boyfriend arrived, which was after my brother got home and right before he left again.  You could see why I was a little distracted.  Once it quieted down a bit I started up again, and I came across this great quote:

"The critic said that once a year he read Kim; and he read Kim, it was plain, at whim: not to teach, not to criticize, just for love--he read it, as Kipling wrote it, just because he liked to, wanted to, couldn't help himself.  To him it wasn't a means to a lecture or article, it was an end; he read it not for anything he could get out of it, but for itself.  And isn't this what the work of art demands of us?  The work of art, Rilke said, says to us always: You must change your life.  It demands of us that we too see things as ends, not as means--that we too know them and love them for their own sake.  This change is beyond us, perhaps, during the active, greedy, and powerful hours of our lives; but during the contemplative and sympathetic hours our our reading, our listening, our looking, it is surely within our power, if we choose to make it so, if we choose to let one part of our nature follow its natural desires. So I say to you, for a closing sentence, Read at whim! Read at whim!"

May you find joy in reading at whim.

Day 85

Last week, my parent's puppy put a couple of holes in my fingers while we were playing.  Those healed up nicely just in time for one of his teeth to tear a gash in that same hand last night, again while we were playing. The little guy is not doing it on purpose, but we are all counting the days until he loses his razor sharp baby teeth.   Moral of the story: Do not play with the puppy if you do not want to see blood.  Second moral of the story: Love hurts.

I know that I have talked about the puppy in reference to joy before, but I am going to do it again.  I think that a dog's outlooks on life can teach us a lot about ourselves, especially in our relationship with God, but that's another sermon for another day.  Today I am going to tell you about Tucker in the garden.

A few days ago I went over to my parent's house to pick up a few things, and eventually my mom, Tucker, and I all ended up outside. My parent's have a raised garden bed and my mom and I were sitting on the edge of it. Tucker absolutely loves jumping on top of the garden, and before long he joined us up there.   First of all he was lying in the dirt chewing on his stick.  Then he started rolling around until he was covered in dust and leaf debris.  You could tell that he was just as happy as a clam.  Once the rolling was completed he started working on a hole that was half-finished in the corner.  He would dig a little bit, then lay in the hole and bury his face in the dirt, decide that it needed to be a little bigger and dig some more, and then repeat the laying down and head burying with some sneezing intermingled when dirt got in his nose.   I enjoyed just watching him.

Tucker's life is not complicated; his main objectives at this point are to be a dog who provides companionship, protection and entertainment and to not destroy things that he is not supposed to.  Simply enough, but with two important lessons for us.  Lesson number one: Tucker doesn't fight who he is or his purpose in life, even though it's not that exciting.  He doesn't question why he was put in that house with that backyard or why he has to eat that food, or why he can't be a guide dog or a dog with a more important job in life.  Um, do I ever do that? Lesson number two:  Tucker thinks that everything in his world is interesting, exciting, and fun to play with.  You can tell that he truly enjoys life.  Yesterday when I was putting a band-aid on my hand Tucker was watching me like I was about to reveal the secret of the universe.  I wish I could live with that much enthusiasm for EVERYTHING.

I love dogs, and I love the lessons that I learn from dogs. I could probably write a book on them.  Maybe one day I will.

May you find joy in learning from your pets.

Day 84

Oh, it was a good day! First and foremost, it was warm and spring-like outside.  I was able to go outside without even a jacket and that made me happy.  I felt like I was in denial about it being cold until about December, and then came the attitude of resignation, and now before I know it it is already getting warm again.  So lovely.  Secondly, I was able to deep-clean the bathroom, my closet, and some kitchen cupboards that desperately needed organizing and now everything is nice and clean and in its place. Ah, the wondrous feeling of being able to walk into my closet instead of reaching in from the doorway and opening a cupboard door without creating an avalanche of Ziploc bags.  Thirdly, I have been needing to get milk for the last three days, but I always hate getting milk when it is not on sale. Lo and behold, when I went to the store it was on sale. Yay! God is good to me.  Also, I was in such a springy mood that I bought some tulips that were on sale for $1.79.  Aren't they lovely?

All in all, it was one of those days where everything clicks into place with an added dollop of whipped cream and a cherry on top.  If only every day could be like this.

May you find joy in whipped cream and cherry days.

Day 83

Another weekend has flown by. 

Another weekend full of family, friends, Jesus, games, fellowship, food, and fun.

Another weekend that reminded me just how blessed I am.

May you find joy in weekends.

Day 82

It finally happened. I kept clinging to the hope that one day it would, and today was today.  Yes, people, today I vacuumed.

Okay, okay, I realize that maybe you were looking for something a little more momentous, something with a little more dazzle or spice.  Well, I'm sorry if you're not as excited about vacuuming as I am.   If it helps I also shook the rugs, swept, dusted, and mopped, but the thing I was most excited about was the vacuuming.

I realize at this point you probably think that I am a complete slob who vacuumed for the first time in my married life today.  Not so.  My goal is to clean the house at least once a week along with tidying up on an as-needed bases.  But a long series of events have kept me from my regular cleaning for several weeks.  It doesn't take me that long to clean, about an hour usually, so you can imagine how frustrating it is to know that I only need an hour to make the apartment beautiful again and being unable to find that hour.  Simply put, I've been busy.  It would have been easy to let it slide again today because I went from having a completely free afternoon to working all afternoon, but I had had enough.  I needed to clean if it killed me.  I found a twenty minute slot and a twenty-five minute slot and made the most of them.  There are still things that need done, but it is so much better, and I am so much happier.

May you find joy in cleaning.

Day 81

It was not a good morning.  The alarm went off at 4:53, I opened my eyes, and immediately I felt depressed.  Now, I wake up to Tenth Avenue North, and nobody should wake up depressed to Tenth Avenue North.  There was nothing unusual about today that should have caused this attitude, but there it was all the same.  I didn't want to get up.  I didn't want to go to work.  I didn't want to go grocery shopping.  I didn't want to freeze the ridiculous amount of meat that I bought yesterday. I didn't want to do anything. 

It's awful to wake up this way.  As you know I have a hard enough time waking up as it is, and adding a rotten attitude on top of it doesn't help a bit.  I did a lot of praying at work today, and it helped some. My attitude improved as the day wore on, thanks mostly to my wonderful husband who rubbed some of the knots out of my neck, made me iced coffee, and helped make dinner, but unfortunately  I didn't experience the level of joy I was hoping for.  I guess I just get frustrated sometimes.  I feel like after being a Christian for so long and especially since joy is something I'm focused on right now that it should come easier on days like today.  I feel like I should be better at fighting bad attitudes and turning them around.  I guess it's a good thing that I still have 285 days to go, because I might need them.

May you find joy on bad attitude days.

Day 80

On our drive to and from California I experienced something new in interstate driving.  Never before have I driven so far and have seen so few other cars on the road.  While we were driving during the day there was the normal amount of traffic, but once the sun went down the highways both going and coming got deserted.  During one hour-long stretch I saw one other vehicle on our side of the highway.  It was a strange sensation to say the least.  

During most of the trip my husband and I listened to books on tape, but there was one part of the trip where the section had ended and I didn't switch to the next one, and my husband was asleep, and all around me was vast, empty, dark space.   Every once in a while I would see the outline of a bluff or hill, but mostly it was just darkness.   Silence and darkness, the two things that most awake people try to avoid if possible.  But I kind of liked it.  It gave me time to think and pray without distraction.  I find that it is so much easier to hear God when He is not drowned out by the over-stimulation which embodies American culture.  Even if I set aside a time to be with Him and be quiet, in the back of my mind there is usually lurking the next thing that needs to get done.   But when I was driving on that deserted stretch of I-70 there was nothing distracting me, nothing else that I could be doing.  It was an ideal situation to listen to God, and listen I did. The time was sweet, if too short.  Unfortunately, the pressing need to fill up the gas tank at the only station for the next 100 miles ended our conversation.  I hope to continue it soon.

May you find joy in listening to God.

Day 79

The day was warm with a gentle breeze slipping through the palm, pine, and cherry trees.  The air was perfumed with freesia, orchids, cherry blossoms, and an array of other flowers.  The stream splashed over the rocks and under the red bridge adorned with deep blue hydrangeas. 

It was a beautiful day for a wedding.

I've been to a fair share of weddings, and I think this one was one of the best.  Not only was the location gorgeous, the food was excellent and the bride and groom accessible, but on top of that it was just plain fun!  The number of guests was smaller than most weddings I have been to, but because of that it felt more intimate and I felt comfortable talking to people I didn't know, of which there were many.  One of the best things was the photo booth they rented for the reception--a great idea that I am going to recommend to friends who are getting married.

There is a lot of time, money, and effort that goes into planning a wedding, and it is always nice to see when it is done well.  The guests have a good time, the bride and groom have a good time, and it gives a wonderful start to two people beginning their lives together.  The last couple of days have been a whirlwind for my husband and I, but we are so blessed to have been able to make the trip out to California to see our friends get married.  God is good and God is faithful.

May you find joy in weddings.

Please look for the next post on Tuesday, March 6.  Thank you for your continued interest and support!

Day 78

My last two days have been a little crazy. On Wednesday night I had a Pampered Chef party, and then I slept for about five and a half hours, woke up at 5:00, worked until 10:30 am, came home and packed and cleaned, left for California four hours earlier than planned, drove eighteen hours overnight and slept a total of about four hours over three different times, arrived in Pasadena around 10:00 am, took another nap, ate lunch at In-N-Out, went to Trader Joe's, attempted to go to Borders to get their awesome hot chocolate, and watched parts of The Godfather throughout the entire afternoon.  Whew.  I'm tired.  But I'm so grateful to God that we made it safely to beautiful Pasadena and are able to celebrate this special occasion with our friends.   It's only because of God's provision that we are able to take this fun weekend get-away and I am thankful for that.

May you find joy in weekend get-aways.