An Early Thankful Thursday

Just in case I forget this on Thursday. I rarely if ever carry a contact case with me. I put my contacts in first thing in the morning and take them out just before going to bed at night, and rarely, rarely, rarely have a problem.

This morning I put in new contacts after being warned by the optometrist on Friday about how long I wear my contacts. The right one was uncomfortable, but I thought it would get better. It kept getting worse and worse as we went through rehearsal, and then I remembered that I got a case with solution in it on Friday at the eye doctor's office and it was still in my coat pocket. On Saturday I thought about taking it out, but for some reason I didn't.

I was thankful that God had me keep the case in my pocket so that I could rinse the contact lens this morning before church.

In the interest of full disclosure I must say that rinsing it didn't help and it got only worse and worse as the morning went on. I actually took it out after church and drove home with only the left contact in. (Couldn't have driven if I'd done the opposite.) I took it out as soon as I got home, took off all my eye makeup, and rinsed my eye thoroughly. It's still irritated which makes me think either there's something in there, I have an eye infection, or I have pink eye. Thankfully it's not red just itchy and irritated.

Jayne from Handbells, the encourager

This morning was my time to play the piano at church. There weren't a lot of songs to learn, but one especially was difficult. All Creatures of Our God and King has a lot of notes and a lot of stuff going on it. I felt ok after my last practice last night, but it was pretty rough this morning I thought. My consolation is that the piano is usually pretty soft so most people don't hear it much or even know anyone is on the piano. After the first set (sounds like a band!) I sat down beside Jayne from Handbells. I kind of shuddered and said that it had never been worse. She vehemently disagreed--"Nuh-huh! It's been worse before!"

Oh yes, that was a real encouragement.

Then for the song of response after we were supposed to sing four verses of a song with a key change before verse 4. When we have several verses I sometimes lose what verse we are on. I thought we had sung two verses, but the organist went into the key change. It rather threw me, but I played on. She plays for the choir number and asked me to turn pages for her. During the prayer while we sat at the piano I asked her how many verses of the last song we sang. She said three. Then she looked at the Order of Worship and said, "Oh no!" This may sound bad, but I really like it better when others mess up!

Friday Shutdown

It's 8:00 a.m. on a Friday and I typically would be at work, but today is the first of our every other week Friday shutdown.

The alternative is worse. I'd rather live on 90% of salary than 0%.

I Fought the Water and the Water Won

I'm calling Uncle on the water in the basement. I've decided to take down paneling and find the crack. Hopefully they will find it with one sheet of paneling down and not have to pull up carpet. I really like the carpet that is there, and even more so than the cost I just don't want to have to pick out something else.

I'm tired of getting up early to suck up water, suck up more water when I get home, and then suck up water as the last thing I do at night before heading to bed. Even though it's not raining and I'm not getting much water as soon as it rains again there will be more, and I need to keep as much water sucked up to prevent mold.

Who said home ownership is a great thing?

Thankful Thursday

1. I got to meet people from two dealerships in the past week. It's really interesting to put a face with a name. Two of them have really surprised me as not being anything I had pictured with e-mail and some phone communication.

2. Vacation was great.

3. Next week brings more vacation!!! and family!!!

4. The sun has shone a lot yesterday and today. Cold weather is always better (better not good) when the sun is shining. Somewhere I heard that we had more sun in the first two days of March than we did in all of December.

5. Cold canned pears. It may sound silly, but I really like eating the pears and salsa that we canned last summer as well as the freezer jam.

I think this should be the last of the vacation posts, but I said I'd post some pictures so here they are.

This is me at the Mary Kay Museum. I was hoping for a cardboard cutout of Mary Kay Ash so we could look like best buds, but I had to settle for a mannequin in the red jacket--my current MK status. I had to take the picture myself and I had a terrible time getting the mannequin and me in the same picture. She never would smile any more than this.

This is the street where JFK was shot. There are actually two "x"s painted on the street for the exact spots where he was shot. That was a little creepy to me to see and then to drive over.

This is me at the Ballpark at Arlington. I've now added that to my list of major league ballparks. The glass in the outfield on the second and third floors are offices that anyone can rent. Wouldn't it be cool to go to work and be able to look out over the game? I'm sure the offices aren't cheap, and the guy who was on the tour just laughed and said he'd never get any work done.

This is me at the cowgirl memorial outside the cowgirl hall of fame. I guess I've just never been a real cowgirl/boy fan as it's good to say I've been to Dallas/Fort Worth, seen the rodeo, etc. but I can't say I really get into the western scene.

Vacation Observations

A few observations from the trip:

1. I think more people smoke in Dallas than in West Michigan based on my non-scientific observation.
2. Dallas roads are crazy!!! There are so many that cross over each other, merge and then separate in different directions. I think I'm pretty good with directions, but I don't think I could tell you how to get anywhere in Dallas except from our hotel to the dealership.
3. I think I feel about GPSs the way I feel about flying. I'm not afraid of flying, but I don't really like to because I don't like being out of control. I get in a tube, we take off, I don't know where we are, and then later we land at what hopefully is our destination. I like it when there's a screen that shows where the plane is. With the GPS, I put in an address and hope it leads me there; I'm out of control.
4. I realized that I may be more of a natural blonde than I thought while I was in Dallas, but more on that later.