Friday Evening, Into the Weekend

I spent a few hours tonight driving around the city, with my roommate in the passenger seat coaching me on the "bad habits" I identified while taking a driving lesson the other night. Things like keeping both hands on the steering wheel at all times - things that probably are never going to matter again if I can just manage to pass the road test I've scheduled for tomorrow.

We also managed to smoke out our apartment while trying to make toast for sandwiches for dinner. Several smoke alarms later I'd managed to set up a fan to blow most of the smoke out an open window.

So, tomorrow morning I have a tech coming that I'll have to refuse at the door. (Again, let me say as I did at the start of the month, DO NOT EVER USE TELUS TV.) Hopefully that will finally settle all the details.

Then the road test in the early afternoon, a bit of down time, and then a big family shindig - the quarterly, "everyone who's had a birthday in the last several months or has one in the coming few weeks" (including me!) party.

Somewhere in there I need to do some cleaning, and build the utility shelf I bought at Ikea last night. And sort through my scrapbook supplies to put on the utility shelf, so that they're not just sitting in boxes on our living room floor.

Oh, and maybe I'll do a bit of reading. Hard to say at this point.

In any case, I haven't been feeling well today, and I think I'm heading for bed.

See ya tomorrow!

Smile List

It's been a while since I've made a "smile list" here. For the uninitiated, a smile list is exactly what it sounds like - a list of things that make me smile - things that I'm grateful for. I started making them ages ago, when I heard a speaker cite a trauma specialist who had done research suggesting that taking the time to list things you're thankful for each day had the same effect on your brain chemistry as taking a mild dose of an anti-depressant.

I've found through the years that making smile lists is also a good way for me to pull out of (or at least bring some control to) a rapidly downward spiraling mood.

I'm needing a little bit of help with that today. It's been a trying week at work thanks to ongoing bumps in the process of the introduction of a new product before the training and staffing were in place to make it a smooth introduction. And I've spent a good part of the morning discovering that the process I need to go through to book a road test and (hopefully) wrap up my drivers license situation permanently is one of the more complicated, red-tape filled, and expensive processes I've encountered in a long while. (All told, I'll be spending around $350 or more to take care of this mess.) And, I also discovered that agents at Alberta Registry offices are not the most pleasant people around - I've spoken with several by phone today, and almost all of them were, if not rude, abrupt and very disinterested.

So, a smile list...

The things that are making me smile (that I'm thankful for) today include:

• a canning jar of daisies that a coworker brought me earlier this week
• casual Friday and jeans at work
• having a "hippy" day with my clothing (while still managing to appear business casual!)
• cream and brown wooden earrings - long time favorites
• a cream colored bracelet, formed from six resin roses
• that it won't be the end of the world if I don't get this driver's license mess sorted out in the next 24 hours
• Hemp hand protector and lip balm from The Body Shop
• the "Mennonite Tonight" video that Rik Leaf put up a while back. "you want passive but you like agressive..." or "a Menno good time costs $3.oo" (so great when you work for a Menno company full time)
• availability of clean, cool water to drink
• a toe ring on my right foot
• an office with a window that means I get natural light during the day
• lunch plans with a coworker
• that it's Friday!
• teasing from my dad who called this morning (I told him I was building another Ikea bookshelf this evening. Having seen the massive bruise I sustained while building the last one, his quick reply was, "Better have the bandages handy.")
• plans to make open faced turkey sandwiches with brie and nectarines, plus a salad on the side for dinner tonight
• that it was someone's birthday in the office today, and that meant that we got cake!
• that my latest piercing (though threatening a few times) has not become infected
• that I have family that loves me
• pictures of the new baby of some friends
• the memory of a conversation yesterday that made me chuckle (a conversation that centered around the fact that I carry a vial of annointing oil on my key-ring) "those are such old scents."
• An ikea trip that only cost me $55.
• the artwork in my office (more on that in an upcoming post)
• an email from a dear friend last night in a moment when I was feeling low and struggling deeply, reminding me that she loves me and was praying for me
• being called by name

That's not a bad list, actually. And it has helped. I'm in a less kerfuffled mood than I was. AND, I'm off to have lunch!

Not the God we would have chosen

Another prayer from Bruggemann's "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth":

We would as soon you were stable and reliable.
We would as soon you were predictable
and always the same toward us.
We would like to take the hammer of doctrine
and take the nails of piety
and nail your feet to the floor
and have you stay in one place.
And then we find you moving,
always surprising us,
always coming at us from new directions.
Always planting us
and uprooting us
and tearing all things down
and making all things new.
You are not the God we would have chosen
had we done the choosing,
but we are your people
and you have chosen us in freedom.
We pray for the great gift of freedom
that we may be free toward you
as you are in your world.
Give us that gift of freedom
that we may move in new places
in obedience and in gratitude.
Thank you for Jesus
who embodied your freedom for all of us. Amen.