Night-night, Jes.

Last night, around 11 pm, my sister wrote the following post on my facebook:

Will you please write a new blog... I like to lay in bed and read it on my phone before I go to sleep.

Okay J,  here you go.  Consider this your bedtime story.

A long, long time ago there was a little girl named MaryGeorge.  She was sweet and perfect.  So sweet and perfect, in fact, that her parents decided the family would be twice-as-wonderful if MG had a little sister.  MG was so excited about her new sister.  She loved Rosi from the very beginning.  They played and played.  Sometimes they fought.  But mostly they loved, and as they got bigger, their sistership got stronger.

There lived, nearby, a Boring Woman.  She detested the girls and their sistership.  Too much laughing.  Too much playing.  Too much fun.  All the noise interrupted the monotony of her boring life.  If only I could make them stay inside, she thought.  Then they would be bored too, and I wouldn't have to listen to their joy.  So she cursed the sky.  The clouds grew big and black.  Then, with a flash of lightening and a crash of thunder, the clouds broke into heavy rain.

MG and Rosi started running home, terrified by the frightening storm.  Then they remembered a song they'd learned long ago.  If all the raindrops were lemon-drops and gum-drops, oh whatta day that would be.  They mumbled the words quietly at first, then louder and louder.  The song melted away their fright.  Soon they were dancing in the rain as they continued to sing.  We'd stand outside with our mouths opened wide, ah ah ah ahahahahahah.  Their laughter returned, and so did the sun, breaking the curse of Boring Woman.

Furious, Boring Woman raised her fist to the sky, screaming more angry curses.  Immediately, the wind began to blow.  The air turned icy and cold.  The clouds returned.  This time it wasn't rain, but snow, that fell from the clouds.  A blizzard blinded the girls.  They shivered against the wind.  They fought to see past the white.  And again they began to sing.  If all the snowflakes were hershey bars and cupcakes, oh whatta day that would be.  The wind subsided.  The snow became calmer.  The flakes seemed to dance their way to the ground, joining the sisters' song.  We'd stand outside with our mouths opened wide, ah ah ah ahahahahahah.

Boring Woman was appalled!  Even the weather was having fun!  Boring Woman couldn't stand it anymore. She threw all her boring things into her one boring suitcase and moved far, far away to the boring land of Thor, where it was dark and gloomy all the time.  The sisters never saw her again.

The end.

Night, night, sister.

Procrastination... or, avoiding the present at the expense of the future...

I think the key indicator of being great at something is to make it look easy, effortless, to fool everyone else into thinking it was never hard to begin with.  And, generally, we don't get to choose what we want to be great at... it's chosen for us, already determined, predestined.  (For example, I will never be a great singer.  Or dancer.  Or basketball player.)  Of course, this doesn't mean greatness is guaranteed.  It still requires hard work, determination, tenacity, and all the other persistent qualities that accompany its achievement.  I say all that to get to the following:  I am a great procrastinator.  I don't mean to be.  I try to fight it.  But the inevitable is always the victor.  At the end of the day, when I look back at all that time, wondering where it all went, not a moment seems to have been wasted.  I am extremely productive at not getting anything done.  And I make it look so easy.

Take today, for example.

I'm leaving town tomorrow, going to Alabama to meet with a possible sending church.  It's kind of a big deal, you know, since I've been praying and waiting for this opportunity for over 2 years, and since it could lead to a phenomenal display of how God lavishes us with His faithfulness.  My To-Do list was simple.  Clean all my rooms (bed, bath, sewing) and pack.  That's it.  Two things.  Well, four, but who's counting...  Here's what I did in-stead, in-between, and in-addition:


Made this functional and totally unnecessary pin cushion out of a mason jar...
Sent a way-too-lengthy-message to a friend on Facebook...
Watched an episode (or two) of How I Met Your Mother...
Played fetch with Dakota...
Skyped with Craig and Merschon (they didn't enable me on purpose)...
Painted my fingernails green (Happy St. Patrick's Day!)...
Read Denise's new blog post...
Made a smaller, equally functional, and just as unnecessary pin cushion out of another mason jar...
Posted pictures of previously mentioned pin cushions on Facebook...
Watched American Idol with Daddy and Moo...
Etc, etc, etc...

I did manage to get my rooms picked-up and clean... mostly.  My bag is packed... pretty much.  And now I've spent the last half hour writing this little post.  Call it what you will... a last-minute effort to postpone what's coming next... a desperate cry against the limiting nature of time.  I call it a final attempt at greatness.  Destiny fulfilled.

I'm SICK of this!

Sick of being sick.  Three (make that) Four days with a fever.  A real fever.  My sister, Jes-The-Nurse, says you don't really have a fever if the thermometer reads less than 100.5.  She explained it all to me when I called her and said I had a low-grade fever of 99.7... soon after, it was over 101, a real fever.  Of course, there's been coughing and achy muscles and a touch of delirium to go along with it.  I do have one thing going for me though, a secret weapon to help me battle Sick.  My Mooly.

A lot of things have changed as I grow up, and living at home at twenty-seven is a lot different than living at home at just-plain-seven.  But one thing will always be the same: when I'm sick, I need my Mooly.  Just look at that gentle, smiling face.  Who wouldn't need that in a fight against Sick?

Believe me when I say that my Mooly is a mighty warrior!  Her hands are just the right size and just the right cold for my hot head.  When she goes out, she brings me things I knew I needed (like Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream) and things I didn't know I needed (like mac and cheese from Panera... yum).  She massages my back with the electric massager.  She sits on the couch with me and watches hours of Project Runway (okay, we were already planning on doing that, but she didn't complain a single time about my loud-frequent-and-totally-obnoxious coughing).  She plays fetch with Dakota in the back yard.  And of all the times I asked her to get up and get me something, only once did she say, "You can get it yourself.  You need to get up for a little while.  And you probably need to go to the bathroom."  She was right.  I did need to go to the bathroom.

I have the best Mooly in the whole entire world.