I turned our little loft area into a in-home library, or as I lovingly refer to it, "my office."
This is the space that I retreat to when I need to center myself.
Life gets crazy sometimes and I need to step away for a bit to reflect on the goodness, to remind myself that I am held by a gracious and humble God.The peace that I get from retreating gives me the strength that I need to take on the day.
Yesterday was our first official day back home from the holiday madness. This season we were gone a lot. On top of the normal Christmas festivities that take place with our family members we also added a trip to North Carolina to visit some of Roger's extended family.
We had only one day between getting back from Christmas festivities with our parents and packing up to go to North Carolina for a week, that we were home. In that one day we had to unpack, do laundry, and pack back up, on top of helping the kids explore (put together) their new toys and bagging up their old toys for donation.
After 13hours on the road to North Carolina, a week of visiting, and 13hours on the road back home, I am exhausted. But alas, there is laundry to do, groceries to buy, children to tend to, and class to get ready for.
This morning Anna woke up screaming at 4am. Roger has a conference in Georgetown today (2hrs away) where he is presenting a paper, along with some pretty well known theologians, so I tried my best to deal with the screaming and hysterical 5 1/2 year old by myself. Anna finally fell back asleep around 7am, at which point we had to wake her up for school. I don;t even want to think about how cranky she is going to be when she steps off that bus at 2pm.
On the way home from North Carolina I got caught in what they call a "speed trap." So there I was, minding my own business, when the dreaded blue and red lights started flashing. I pulled over to find out that the 55mph speed limit had gone down, for a brief second, to 25mph. Great! Having had no previous tickets, and being from out of town, I figured I would get a pass. Nope. I was handed a speeding ticket for 182.00. WHAT?????
When we FINALLY arrived back to our home sweet home we settled in for the night only to wake up to a freezing cold house. In the middle of the night our furnace stopped working. GREAT!!!!
We sent to kids off to school and immediately called our go to furnace guy.
Since Roger is going to be out of town, leaving me with the station wagon, he decided to go ahead and get the thing looked at. The station wagon has been making some CRAZY sounds and is in desperate need of new tires.
So, while I dealt with the furnace guy Roger sat working on work at Big O Tires.
Since I was home, and wasn't able to go anywhere because our furnace was being reparied, I opted to tackle the massive mound of laundry that comes with being away from home for almost a month. But when I turned on the washer no water came out. Our furnace guy then informed me that the pipe leading to the washer was frozen solid. GREAT!!!!!!
After a day like we had I decided that for dinner we should have some southern comfort. No. Not whiskey. But close. Beans and Corn Bread!!!!!!!!!!!
At abour 5:30 the beans were done, having simmered all day, and I was preparing to put the corn bread in the oven when all of a sudden . . . . . . . our electricity went out. GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!
At that point I gave up. I called Roger to pick up some cooked corn bread on the way home, and snuggled with the kids on the couch to enjoy the last part of the day light by reading books to them. What better way to escape the stress of life than through a children's book!
In the end the electricity came back on, I cooked the corn bread and we devoured some yummy southern comfort food. And get this,before heading to bed I gave the washer another try and a few drips of water started coming out. I let it run like that for a while and it ended up thawing out. We have clean underwear!!!!!!
After the day we had, Roger and I headed to bed early. I snuggled up in my wonderful electric throw feeling that all was well with the world. Our furnace was fixed, our 2nd car was fixed, our pipe was thawed, and we had clean underwear for tomorrow.
But then, at 4am, the screaming started.
Another day. Another challenge. Such is life.
But at least I have my quiet place to go to!!
A prayer that is prayed by the Missionaries of Charity at the start of everyday:
Dear Lord, the Great Healer, I kneel before you, since every perfect gift must come from you. I pray, give skill to my hands, clear vision to my mind, kindness and meekness to my heart. Give me singleness of purpose, strength to lift up a part of the burden of my suffering fellowmen, and a realization of the privilege that is mine. Take from my heart all guile and worldliness, that with the simple faith of a child, I may rely on you. Amen
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