It is Thanksgiving week, and while I am not a holiday person, I can TOTALLY APPRECIATE A WEEK OFF as a teacher. Insert shouts of gladness and an Irish jig here.

The weekend my “vacation” started had plans with a friend of mine. Of course, nothing ever goes according to how they are supposed to, and I was in bed with a sinus infection instead and taking antibiotics. It’s amazing what a week off can do for your morale. Because I was in bed all day Saturday when Sunday hit, so did the cabin fever. I did something I’ve wanted to do since getting my new car and got in it and just drove. I had no intention of getting out of my car, thus looking like a garbage can on fire, and next thing you know I passed all the exits to turn back before getting to Hammond, LA, crossed the Mississippi state line, texted a friend, and spent a few hours hanging out with them at their property. It was one of the best spontaneous days ever, filled with feeding their goats and donkey and getting shown around their “woods”.

I cannot believe this week is almost over, and I am kind of sad about it, but this post is not about sadness. Because I had a week off and could do “nothing,” I also had time to think about recent events and the sudden potential loss of a friend in my life. When life seems to be going great, and you feel everything is in place, you know something is going to crash somewhere but are not quite sure where the devastation will strike. It’s as if we cannot have “everything,” and with gain comes loss, and Ecclesiastes does a much better job explaining ‘to everything there is a season’ than I ever could. God is always pruning us and cutting off the things that will inhibit our growth. It hurts, but it always makes room for growth and better fruit.

I struggled a few days with horrible anxiety, and nothing seemed to help pull me out of it. Knowing this seemed more spiritual than anything else, I prayed and reached out to a fellow blogger for advice. The cool thing about having a blog is it is an uniter or catalyst or a designated space with like-minded people who, over time seem like friends even though I do not know any of you. God has a way of doing that, I guess. I could not believe I was sending an email about something so personal to someone I do not know but also was comforted by the fact that I had a trustworthy Christian person I could talk to. I needed a complete outsider and shared as little information as possible. I wrote the email, pressed send, left my house, and God answered me in so many miraculous ways in a short amount of time, only for me to get home and receive another answered prayer filled with confirmation. The response I received from this gentleman was kindness, understanding, assurance, and “God”. I’m not sure I have words that can accurately describe how thankful I am, but it was then I realized how God provides for us at all times in the most incredible ways and never leaves us hanging. Life moves on and we are to continue running the race at all costs. Thank you, Richard, and not Mr. Rice at Where Living Begins. 🙂 God used you in my life, and you have been a blessing.

Philippians 3:7-11 comes to mind…

This message exchange freed me up immediately, leaving me to enjoy the rest of my time off. The week was filled with being able to do projects I had not had time for. Time indeed shows where your priorities and interests are and what you do as just “you”. It also proves how much time a job and routine take up in your life.

The gentleman friend I mentioned in my last post helped through serial voice/text messages and gave me the courage and confidence to wire and hang a mirror that has been in a chaotic corner for months. While he lives in another state, through the greatness that is technology was all but physically involved in the projects. He ‘went with me’ to Lowe’s VARIOUS times and even helped me find liquid nails… haha. I FINALLY painted that chalkboard I found in the trash during my summer break, stained a wooded border I plan to make as a frame for it, and with plans to hang today. I feel so accomplished and am thankful for God’s provision in a multitude of ways. I am grateful to rest and am grateful for God answering prayers in the most fitting ways.

I am off to soak up the last few days of this time and plan to restock my freezer with homemade chicken stock. I have to finish up my chalkboard and have a bit of time to read a book I STILL have not finished: The Moth in the Iron Lung by Forrest Maready – A biography of polio. When I finish this book, I am looking forward to starting Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyou about the fiasco with Elizabeth Holmes. I found out about her when talking to my gentleman friend and making sure he was not Ted Bundy. His response was asking if I was Elizabeth Holmes which led into one of the craziest rabbit holes filled with more questions I will never answer. If you do not know who that is, you are not alone, but her father was the Vice President of Enron, and that is all you need to know. She speaks in a fake baritone voice which is another detail to fill the black holes of confusion and delusion. She had a whole phantom blood lab ‘Theranos” set up with a board of directors and everything. While I am not a promoter of fraud or deception, I must give applause to her mastermind. It’s a total mind-bender of a story where she conned so many government and financial people.

Somehow, soup always finds a way to be a much bigger deal in my life than necessary.
Spiritually Unmatched – I called it off.

Acts 10: Cornelius was in an Italian marching band and other half truths

Sometimes God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

Someone bought me soup