Life in My Head

Apparently life in my head is a fascinating place of fantasy. See, in my head I'm an amazing woman: I'm funny and eloquent, well-spoken and out-spoken. I'm practical and organized. I'm tactful and diplomatic. I'm graceful. I'm fun and spontaneous. And, since I'm being narcissistic here, in my head I'm sometimes sexy as hell. Aah, but then there is reality. In reality I'm less amazing. I am a giant klutz. Things never come out of my head as funny as they might, and no matter how eloquent or diplomatic things seem in my head they tend to come out as rude or bitchy. In reality parts of me are organized but lots of me are incredibly scattered and easily distracted. I love to procrastinate. I'm passive-aggressive. I over think everything. And as for that last part, well, reality definitely falls short. There's really not much point to this post, just stuff I've been pondering lately.

Day Off

I'm having my first day off in 3 weeks! Yay. It's fabulous. I even slept in this morning, which felt great. Now I'm just hanging out, doing laundry, working up the energy to go grocery shopping.

So, life has been busy, but OK for the most part. Yesterday was oldest niece's 12th birthday. She's almost a teenager. How did this happen? It's so not about me, but it makes me feel a little old to know this. Oh well. I talked to her yesterday and she had a good weekend with Mom, so that makes me happy. She and her sisters were playing with the puppy when I called, which is always fun to listen to because that puppy makes them all laugh like mad-women. Too cute.

On Friday I had a meeting with the personnel board. They're calling them "one-on-ones" and they're meant to be check-ins with the staff. Not quite mutual ministry committee, but somewhat similar. It was actually a one-on-two as there were 2 members of the board there. It went fine, but I had anxiety dreams the night before and didn't sleep well. I felt silly.

So, that no day off thing. There are a variety of reasons: Lent, funerals, continuing ed, etc. In seminary we talked a lot about boundaries, days off, self-care, all of that good stuff. It made sense. I had good intentions. Reality seems a bit different. I can't blame it all on outside circumstances, I need to be better about creating good boundaries. Anyway, it was one more reason I felt kind of stupid at the meeting on Friday. Practically I understand all of those previous seminary conversations, but it turns out I suck with the follow-through.

On a different note, we built a labyrinth in the sanctuary yesterday. SP took pictures, so I'll try and post one if I can get some copies. It was fun, and it looks really cool. Our Lenten theme has been stones, and we've been using the labyrinth as the image for journey or pilgrimage, so on Wednesday this week we will have walking the labyrinth as part of the service. Should be good.

I got nothing done today. Which, of course, isn't exactly true. I got stuff done. I had 3 meetings and sang with the kids' singing group. I answered e-mails, and made phone calls. But I didn't work on adult forum for this week, or accomplish any of the other things on my current to-do list. I struggle a bit with days like this. I know I did and accomplished things that needed to be done, but sometimes it feels like I'm not doing anything. Which maybe makes no sense at all. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be more productive in a to-do list kind of way.

In other news...in other news I really don't have other news. This week is much quieter than last week, for which I am grateful. I made it through worship last night without giggling or knocking anything over. Tonight I'm thinking of soaking in the tub and finishing my book.

Oops!

This morning at first service we processed as usual. Normally in front of the altar we have a credence table with glasses for wine, glasses of grape juice and gluten-free wafers on it. During Lent we are communing by intinction, so no need for glasses. Instead of leaving the table we now have a smaller stand that just has the gluten-free wafers. My whole system must have been out of whack because as I turned to go sit down I smacked right into the darn stand and knocked if over, sending wafers flying everywhere. Oh yes, it was such a lovely way to start the service. As if that weren't enough, during communion I leaned over to hand a chalice to one of the acolytes and as I did the whole altar slid forward. I'm the only one who noticed it, but we've rearranged so the altar is right out at the front of the platform it sits on. Oh yeah, that's just what I needed to bookend the service, shoving the whole altar over. Fortunately that didn't happen and between services I scootched it back several inches to hopefully avoid any possibility of that in the future. And I think I'm going to have quite the lovely bruise on my foot from the whole smacking and knocking over adventure. Apparently the honeymoon is over. I was doing so well at being all professional and non-klutzy (and dare I say, demure?) up front, but after today and last week's giggling fest I guess the real me has been revealed. I am such a dork. Sheesh. And I think it might be contagious. After church I went grocery shopping and the checker accidentally lost control of one of my yogurt cartons and it went smashing to the ground. Gloop, and yogurt everywhere. Maybe I'm cursed.

Spring

Apparently I'm channeling my father's sisters, because I'm about to talk about the weather. We were totally spoiled there for awhile with lovely, spring-like weather. Today I woke up to fog, snow and lots of wind. By afternoon the sun had come out and the sky was a lovely blue, but it is so COLD! And the wind is blowing approximately 80 billion miles and hour. Really. My feet haven't warmed up since I got home. And now I will stop talking about the weather.

Nieces!

I took Friday off and went home to hang out with the fam. I hadn't been home since Christmas, and I was having major niece withdrawal. I went home Thursday night so I got to spend all day yesterday playing with the kiddos. 5 year old niece doesn't have kindergarten on Fridays, so she was home, along with another 5 year old my mom babysits for. In addition, the almost 2 year old that was my little shadow the year I lived at home was there in the morning and then we also go to watch her baby sister (who is a month old) while their parents went to soak in the hot springs. Ah...good day. I totally got my baby fix (even to the point of changing 4 messy diapers). The 2 year old even kept my company while I showered. I showered, and she carefully organized all of my bathroom stuff. It was fun to have a little shadow again for the day, even though it used to drive me a little crazy when it happened non-stop. That evening we went to my brother's house to celebrate his closing. Yay! He officially owns his house after a long and very crazy process! So then I also got to hang out with the 3 year old niece, who is still wearing the Cinderella dress from their trip to Disneyland. She's worn it almost constantly since they bought it, and that was several weeks ago. To cap the evening we all went to the movie. It was Hotel For Dogs. Not my first choice, but hey, it was free, and I got to hang out with my favorite people. It was actually cuter than I expected, so that was a plus. Today was a lovely, lazy day, with more snuggling with all of the girls (even the 11 year old who almost never snuggles). It was fabulous until I had to leave an the 5 year old cried because she wanted to have a tea party with our tiaras and she forgot to ask. She was better when I called her after I got back, but still. It made me sad. Despite that, it was still great, and I'm so glad I took the time.

Giggles

Last night I presided at communion. Not uncommon as SP and I switch every week. He preaches, I preside, and vice versa. Worship was going along fine, I did the words of institution, we prayed the Lord's Prayer, and then I started doing communion instructions. For some reason these trip me up a lot, but usually I do fine and make it through. For Lent we are doing communion by intinction, so I was doing the instructions for that. Made it through the first part fine, but then I started to say which chalices had wine and which had grape juice. I looked at the chalices that have grape juice and the only word I could think of was "pottery." I paused, looked at them, then looked at SP. He said "ceramic," so I went with that. Then I moved on to the wine, which was in the metal pouring chalices, and once again my brain went blank. So I just said the "non-ceramic chalices." Then I started to giggle, and several members of the congregation started to giggle, and I couldn't stop. The rest of communion instructions went down hill from there. I just kept giggling until I was done. I always say there should be joy in the sacrament, but this was a little ridiculous!

Lent

So, here we are, already a week into Lent. It's been busy, but mostly good so far. I've given up my usual chocolate and caffeine, as well as trying a couple of new things. I'm terrible at taking on any sort of spiritual discipline (I know what you're thinking Ktjhawk, and I hope you are giggling!). I know a couple of people who are trying to blog every day as a Lenten discipline. Clearly I missed the boat on that one since, like I said, already a week in. I'm just not sure I'm interesting enough to blog about something every day. Seems like a lot of pressure. One friend sort of joked about giving up church for Lent. Sounds lovely, but I don't think it's an option! :-) At any rate, I've been blogging less since January, so I'm going to try to be more consistent about it. We'll see what happens or if I have anything to type about.

Horoscope

aries (Mar. 21st-Apr. 20th)Roller coasters are fun! Emotional roller coasters are not. Well, maybe they are: How else do you appreciate the highs if you don’t have the lows? Just make sure you have the safety belt buckled tight. And stay off the cotton candy, or else you’ll get another cavity. Or throw up.

Mostly I just thought this was funny because of the throwing up part. Not every day that I have a horoscope mention that....