An Unexpected Day Off

Instead of going to work today, I stayed home, wondering what to do with the time that I had mentally prepared for being at work. I made a couple messes, trying to "clean up" some things. The phone rang and I was free to focus on the conversation with my friend, which meant the outcome of the conversation was good beyond what I expected. But immediately after hanging up, things went downhill again. After a good few hours, beginning to spiral into self-destruct mode, I made a quick exit to my car and went for a drive. 

Some things in the car needed to be dropped in various places. And then I saw a string of letters and a number that reminded me of something my dad had told me when I was in elementary school and was complaining about kids teasing me because I'm so short. He told me that sometimes big things come in small packages. Like dynamite. And he also said something -- maybe it was at a different time in my life -- about how some things take a long time to bloom, and when they do finally bloom, it's a sight to see.

Oh - the symbols I saw were on a license plate: C4AM. I had a good, heartly laugh when I saw that. I just needed to laugh, and thinking about my dad, his humor and the values he taught me, was just what I needed. A short time later, the license plate AM0 brought another smile to my face.

Arriving back home, I began to clean up the messes from earlier that day. Picking up a thread from a text message conversation, I laughed to myself some more.

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Me: What about lemonade? Refreshing and lighter than dairy.

Of course, you can always freeze the lemonade to a semi-solid. Like a slushie. When I was a missionary in Alabama, I had heat stroke and didn't know it. Thankfully, my companion had worked in an organization that took "troubled" kids out to the desert and sort of left them there (with supervision and basic supplies) for 10 days to give them a taste of what life really is.

So, since she was well-versed in guiding young people in dangerously hot situations, she knew immediately that the best course of action was for me to drink, slowly and carefully, a blue Gatorade slushie from the convenience store. It made me nauseous, which she told me as a sign that her diagnosis was correct.

I'm still not a fan of slushies. I do, however, enjoy a good lemonade from time to time.

I remember my companion's name. She was from Arizona, which makes sense, because where else in the U.S. do people leave their kids out in the desert? Anyway, I saw on Facebook at some point that she was married and using her husband's last name. It's the same as my married name, and it's a pretty common name. But .... I mean, if I could figure out the probability of one of my missionary companions having the same married name as me ... I wonder whether you even can calculate a probability like that. It seems there would be more variables than would be reasonable to calculate for.

And is that even the right way to talk about probability? I can't even convert easily from percentages to ... whatever you convert percentages to. So I probably have no business discussing things like probability.

JB: Yes, it would be pretty easy to calculate a probability like that.

Me: Lol. That's wonderful. I love that you know that.

Is it actually useful information, though?

I read a book that used this kind of information for some business application. I think the book was called Freakonomics, and I only remember a few details that were oddly useful. To someone. Though I'm not sure the usefulness applied to my life, especially not at that point since my days were filled with princess dress-up dance parties and trying to get the kids to stay in their rooms at nap time so I could recover a smidgeon of sanity before dinnertime.

Of course, now I can barely get the kids to come out of their rooms, and my sanity is suffering now from too many options of things to do with my free time, but still confned to my home since I can't get the kids to be seen with me in public.

Okay, that's not entirely true. But they do make the outings less enjoyable, since they complain when I start talking about things like Freakonomics with random strangers in the sporting goods store.

And I still don't know why that stuff is useful, but apparently it is because the authors of a book had a podcast and such. Realy, the infomraoin they came up with must be useful to someone.

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At this point, I put my phone on a shelf and walked myself to a neighbor's house, fearing lest I continue writing and begin to dwindle into potentially less interesting drivel.

When I returned from returning the neighbor's belongings, I finished cleaning up the mess I'd made in the morning. And with my car now nearly empty of junk, it was ready to admit more junk. I sent another text message, this time to a different friend:

Me: I think that, sometimes, we get an itch to do something, and it ends up being preparation for another thing. And sometimes I think that the Lord must have been, maybe giving me a slight nudge to do that thing, knowing I would be happy to move on to the next thing.

But I wonder ---- maybe I just make a choice, no nudges from anyone, and the Lord honors the choice I made by making me aware of an opportunity that I am now prepared for? 

SP- attached a heart emoji to my message

Me: Which is to say, I'm cleaning out my vehicle of all the recycling and donations that have been accumulating in it, and I'm looking for opportunities to use my now-nearly-empty, large vehicle.

Or, for real, I can take it to the mechanic now that they can work on the doors wihtout having used electronics and light bulbs falling on their heads.

SP: Beautiful thoughts.

Me: :)

SP: From my experience God honors my choices. He loves it when I use my agency. And if I am going to use it wrongly I will get a prompting letting me know before I go too ar down that path.