I thought you said curling iron.

Have you ever caught a glance of your home as you close the door to leave for work and think to yourself, "I really hope I don't have an emergency today and people have to come in here and see this, because even in a state of comatose, I would be totally mortified!"?  Well, that has pretty much been my thought every morning for the past, oh, ten to twelve weeks.  And today, my fears came true when two hours into the school day, I realized that I had left two sets of hot rollers plugged in in the bathroom and would need back up.  I immediately imagined Layla howling for help while my apartment - with its piles of laundry and dishes and trash and unread mail - went up in flames.

I made a call to my apartment offices, which weren't open yet (Who opens at 11:00 on a Thursday?!  If you can afford to stay closed that long, then you definitely don't need the seven dollar a month increase you charged me for the next year's rent!), and I was redirected to a woman in North Carolina.  When she asked if I had an emergency, I didn't quite know how to answer.  It is difficult to explain the urgency of needing to unplug a hairstyling tool.  Also, when I think of hot rollers, I think of, "mature" women, so instead of telling her that I had hot rollers plugged in, I lied and said it was a curling iron.  You know, because that makes me less crazy.  Why I do things like that, I do not know.  Like it really matters if some woman in North Carolina, who probably already thinks I'm an idiot, knows that I use hot rollers!  Anyway, I apparently got the point across because ten minutes later, I got a call from the on site maintenance team asking if I did, in fact, have an "electrical emergency."

Do I have an electrical emergency?  Why, yes.  Yes I do.  And could you please fix it by going to my apartment, walking all balance-beam-like through the tiny path in the kitchen that is not obstructed by shoes, school craft projects, and bags of donation clothes, then proceed to play hopscotch through the laundry in the hallway until you dead end at the bathroom door, open it slowly so as not to knock over the the-end-times-are-coming-any-minute-and-we-need-to-be-prepared-sized bag of dogfood and unplug my...my...hot rollers?  What's that?  Oh, yeah, I know it says curling iron, but they're actually hot rollers (Did I just hear a laugh?).  Now, you'll have to be careful of everything balanced on the bathroom counter; one false move, and it all comes tumbling down.  Also, I have a hyperactive dog who is prone to escaping, so when you're coming and going, if you could just kind of squeeze yourself through the smallest possible opening in the doorway (that's right, just suck it all in) and use your foot to keep her inside, that would be great.

So, that was my morning.  A little embarrassing for several reasons, but not the end of the world.  My piles of laundry and dishes and trash and unread mail were still here waiting for me when I got home, as was my dog, who is currently running through said piles, grabbing at various items and tossing them up into the air.  It may be chaos over here, but my hair looks fabulous, if I do say so myself!

8 words or less

long day, good run, angry knees, happy girl

wil-der-ness (wil'der nis) n. any barren, empty, or open area

A few years ago, my cousin Katie shared one of her favorite verses with me.  When I say share, I do not mean show.  I mean she let me borrow it, to take what was a special word between her and God and claim it for myself for a season.  In the book of Hosea, God tells his prophet to speak to the Israelites of their impending destruction.  Because the Israelites have made idols from the very gifts that the Lord gave them, God decides to take their blessings away.  But he does not leave them destitute.  After stripping them of everything that has stolen their attention and affections, God invites them into relationship with him.

Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.

(Hosea 2:14, NIV)

I have learned that any time you see the word "therefore," you need to see what it's there for (sorry for the blatant dad joke...the first of many, I'm sure).  So why is God wooing these people?  In the previous verse, God says Israel "went after her lovers, but me she forgot."  So many things speak to me in this passage, the most powerful being the fact that God refers to himself as me.  This scripture could have been recorded a thousand different and less personal ways, but God really makes himself vulnerable here.  I hurt because you chose someone else.  How many times have we felt that?  And how many times have we responded with the amount of grace and forgiveness that God offers?  God's consequence in this situation is a testimony to the type of love that he is.  He is not a selfish love that hopes that we will one day see the error of our ways and be forever remorseful for the one that got away.  He is not an insecure love that needs our affections to validate his worth.  He is not a controlling love that forces us to worship him.  He is a gentle love that pursues us, allures us, brings us to places of solitude and poverty so that we can hear his voice.

Although this verse has been a great comfort to me, it had gone untouched in my memory for quite some time until another verse in Leviticus tapped its shoulder and woke it up.  I have to admit, I was surprised that Leviticus could wake anything up seeing as how it has served as a great tool for putting me to sleep, but I suppose when you pray for God to bring to life the dullest book of the Bible, he comes through for you!  Leviticus 1 through 7 outlines the instructions for offerings made to the Lord at the Tabernacle.  The last verse of chapter 7 states, "The Lord gave these instructions to Moses on Mount Sinai when he commanded the Israelites to bring their offerings to the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai" (Leviticus 7:38, NLT).  When I read this, I thought to myself, what could the Israelites possibly have to offer in the wilderness?  Isn't ten percent of nothing...nothing?  I thought of the times when God has led me into the wilderness or the desert.  In those times, I had nothing to offer.  No money.  No wisdom.  No talents.  No hope.  And suddenly I realized that that is exactly what God wants from us.  He wants us to give him our nothingness so that he can give us his fullness.  He wants us to trust him with our poverty and our foolishness and our ineptitude and our hopelessness.  If we can willingly give our emptiness to him and trust that he will fill, then we can finally stop chasing our deceitful lovers and start chasing the one true God.

And now, time for a less profound confession.  Every time I see the word wilderness, I get a little Madonna song stuck in my head.  I'll let you figure out which one!

something about your summer

Well, today was the first day of school! I won't lie...I had my outfit all picked out before I went to bed last night. See, here it is!

I also had my lunch made!  Of course, my lunch was a frozen Healthy Choice meal that I bought from a gas station, but it counts!

In keeping with my theme of predictable first day of school behaviors, I came up with quite a cliche warm-up activity for the kids: On an index card, write something about your summer that you would like the class to know.  When the kids asked for clarification, I said, "Some people wrote about going on a vacation; some people wrote about hanging out with friends; some people wrote about going to the movies.  Just write something about your summer."  So that's exactly what Kevin* did.  In very neat handwriting, he wrote, something about your summer.

It's going to be a long year.

*name changed to protect the innocent...and highly literal

conversations with cashiers

I have to admit, when I go shopping, I am always on a mission and rarely take the time to interact with the store employees.  This first conversation makes me think I'm on the right track, but the second one leads me to believe that I could be missing out on some real gems!

At Macy's, trying to put a pair of shoes on hold over the phone
Cashier: Okay, what is your name?
Me: Leslie
C: Can you spell that?
Me: L-E-S
C: O-A
Me: No, L-E
C: O-A
Me: L-E-S
C: O-A-S
Me: L-E-S-L-I-E
C: O-A-S-O-I-E
Me: L-E...You know what?  You have it right.  That's it.
C: Okay!  Wait.  Your name is Leslie?
Me: Yes
C: Well, that is not how you spell Leslie.
Okay, a) I am well aware that Leslie (or any other name, for that matter) is not spelled with five vowels and only one consonant, b) you are right...that is not how I spell Leslie; that is how you spell Leslie, and c) if you know how to spell Leslie, why did you ask me to spell it in the first place?!

At Home Depot, buying chair cushions from a chipper woman rockin' some denim shorts, folded down white ruffled socks (apparently they make those in adult sizes), and black clogs
Cashier: That will be ten dollars and eighty-one cents.
Me: Ah, that's the first thing I've paid tax on all day!
C: Yeah, but I hear the tax free thing is only for certain items.  I think maybe just for bras.  I heard those are tax free because school is starting.
Um, does anyone else wonder what the correlation is here?

So, if ever our carts meet in Kroger, you might not want to get in line behind me because I fully intend to chat it up with anyone who sports the logo!

arts and crafts

When I was a kid, my family had a lake house in Livingston.  Normally, there is not much to see in Livingston, other than the lake, but once a year all of the locals gather at the courthouse right across the street from Church's chicken for the annual Pinecone Festival.  I saved my allowance for months in anticipation of all of the one-of-a-kind items that would be set before me on folding card tables - googly-eyed ceramic frogs, necklaces made from yarn and painted wooden blocks, laminated bookmarks, and magnets made from pantyhose that had been stuffed with cotton and twisted into the shapes of plump women's faces.  Oh, to be seven and running around in the teddy bear exhibit with a bag of popcorn and a grubby wad of one dollar bills just burning a hole in the pocket of my neon Yaga jammers!

These days, I'm still a fan of arts and crafts, but I'd like to think that I've moved on to more sophisticated and tasteful pieces.  So today, when my cousin challenged all of the guests at her sister's wedding shower to make a veil out of tissue paper, I thought for sure I would steal the show.  Wrong.  Who new the next Vera Wang would be sitting across the room working magic with some old processed tree bark?!  It's okay though.  Who needs to know how to make a veil?!  I can make lots of other things.  I can make a turkey out of the outline of my hand!  I can make a super stylin' purse out of an old pair of jeans and some puff paint!  I can make a pretty convincing seagull noise!  I can make three trips to Target in one day!  I can make a happy plate!  And sometimes, just sometimes, I can even make myself smile while wearing a ridiculous getup!

Happy Happily Ever After, Sarah!

10 Points Off

I must say, I was disappointed last night when I woke up randomly and realized I had forgotten to write my daily blog entry...and I was relieved when I checked the time on my phone and saw that it was after midnight and there was nothing I could do about it.  So here is the first of what I'm sure will be many late assignments that I turn in to you with my head tucked in shame.  Sadly, I do not have anything profound or witty to make up for my lack of punctuality.

What I do have to say is...my mom is coming to town!  Hooray!  For any of you who know my mom and me together, you know that our activities will require the following items:

credit card (or three) - to buy much needed cute clothes and accessories, 75% of which we will return

Starbucks treat - to power through that mid afternoon lull when your brain tries to convince you that you don't need any more new shoes, when in fact, nothing could be further from the truth!

cordless drill - to hang curtains and reassemble old chairs and tables found on heavy trash day

level - to tell us that the curtains (and chair seats and table tops) are crooked

toothpaste - to fill in the six or seven holes in the wall from all of the crooked curtain crises

paint - to cover up the toothpaste

Hmmm...the last part of our list is sounding a lot like If You Give a Moose a Muffin.  Look for the newest version, If You Give Your Mom a Drill, at a Blogspot near you!