The Elevator

 

As some of you know from last Thursday's post, I haven't had a great week (or two), but even when things seem to be overbearing, God usually steps in with something to make us smile.

     Wednesday morning I pulled in the parking lot and the woman parked next to me was putting on her mask. She waited until I stopped my car before getting out. We made eye contact. I got my stuff out of the back seat and so was no more than 3 car widths behind her as we walked across the lot. When I got to the building door I saw the elevator door was open and assumed she would hold it for me, but she didn't. Even if there was some chance that she didn't know I was right behind her, the way our lobby is laid out with mirrors, she would've seen me walking in the door AND she would have heard me open the door. 

     This is the slowest elevator on Earth (everyone says so), so I was a little perturbed that I was going to have wait for it to inch up to the 5th floor, let her off and then crawl back down to the lobby. I was grumbling to myself how rude it was of her not to hold the elevator for me, and what's wrong with people?! Then, I took a deep breath and said a little prayer, apologizing to God for making such a big deal out of something so trivial. I changed my attitude and thought maybe she tried to hit the 'door open' button but accidentally hit the 'door close' one instead. Maybe she was depressed and didn't want to hear my cheery, "have a nice day," as I left the elevator on the 2nd floor. 

     It wasn't but a few seconds after I finished these thoughts that the elevator dinged. I was shocked. That was fast! And then, the door opened, and the woman was still on there! We both looked completely surprised. She said, "I don't know what happened. The elevator just stopped and then went back down. That's never happened before!"

     I got on the elevator grinning from ear to ear. I knew what happened. Isn't God awesome?!

#faith #life #humor #GodWink #GodThing #prayer #patience

Snowmageddon

     Everyone braced for round 2 of snow this weekend, a storm that was supposed to add 3" to 12" of snow on top of the remains of our 8" deep snow storm last weekend. It was all supposed to begin around 4 in the morning, but as of 4 p.m. we still just have rain. Not that I'm complaining, I just feel like we were set up to see fireworks but all we got were some sparklers. It's a bit of a letdown, especially when you consider all of the events and plans that were changed or canceled today because of this impending snow-doom.
     For me personally, it's difficult, because once I have a plan in place, even if it's a plan to do nothing, it's difficult for me to change it. I'm not terribly spontaneous. Since we didn't see snowmageddon today, my guiltless pleasure of hanging out at my parents' house and writing all day had me feeling guilty at the prospect. So, I ran a couple of errands this morning, but I never could get into writing (until now, of course...if this counts as writing). I spent the better part of the day changing my blog theme. If you can't tell what's different, I'll tell you: I changed the top scene from one of snow-covered trees and street sign to one of just snow. I changed all of the fonts of everything and fiddled with the colors. Looking at it, it doesn't really seem like it should've taken hours to come up with, but it did and I can't get that time back, so I might as well let it go. I was thinking of adding more categories to the left, but that just seems like too much effort right now.
     Okay. Just checked in with The Weather Channel and apparently, this storm is real and even has a name: "Snow Storm Harper" and everyone North of here got snow and supposedly, we're going to get it tonight instead of last night.
     It's probably difficult to predict the weather, but what's so sad (& yeah, it's funny, too) is all of the checking in with reporters in various locations, standing in the rain, telling us that the snow will be arriving at some point in time, and they'll be there when it happens, and that it is in fact, snowing somewhere at this very moment, however, they don't have any reporters in those locations to show us snow. What they should do is spin it like "Rain in January? How crazy is that?" and make that the story instead of, "We predicted snow and by golly, we're going to stay out here until we get some." It kind of reminds me of Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin.
     Tomorrow I'll wake up and eat my words probably, but for today, I'm under-impressed.

A Blue Apron Meal

My daughter gets the Blue Apron boxes. (Blue Apron is a meal kit service that's shipped right to your door. It has everything you need to make a two-serving (or more depending on which plan you choose, and this kit came with food for two two-serving meals to make) healthy meal. She gave me one of her boxes because she wasn't going to be able to use it that week, so I bravely embarked on a cooking adventure. For those who don't know me, I am not one who cooks, and often any attempts at cooking come out badly. My daughters once (jokingly) accused me of trying to food poison them. Once, I burned juice. Boiling water is a triumph for me. So, this was a bit overwhelming. It involved some multi-tasking and following directions, but, in the end, it came out, tasted wonderful, and I felt like I accomplished something. Maybe, I even promoted myself (in my eyes) to a new level of cooking mastery (HA!)

Here's the aftermath:

It was worth it.

A Bird Called Wanda

I came home from church Sunday to find this on top of the washing machine...

(Notice the box says "Free Range Turkey"). When I peeked inside, I found this:

A whole lot smaller than any turkey I've ever seen, and still alive.
My husband got home from church a few minutes before I did and when he opened the garage door he saw this baby finch just sitting there. When he approached her, she didn't move so he picked her up thinking maybe she was frozen from the gruesome temperatures we've been having. So, he took her in the house and put her in the box. We went to lunch and when we came home she was still standing there in the same corner of the box. She hadn't moved an inch since we left. We decided to see if she would take any food or water.

She allowed my husband to hand feed her. After her tummy was full, she decided to just hang out and watch the game.

She actually sat there, perched on his thumb for over 2 hours. She drank water from an eyedropper. We deduced that she was blind and unable to fly, so I looked up birdcages on FB Marketplace, found one for sale in town, and went and picked it up. In getting her situated in her new cage, we discovered that she could, in fact, fly. Why she chose to keep that a secret for so long will forever be a mystery. My husband cleaned off her eyes with some water on a q-tip. It must have felt nice because she didn't try to pull away. Hopefully, her eyes will clear up and we'll be able to set her free. In the meantime, she seems to be coming out of the daze she was in. She's now exploring her cage, drinking water, and eating food on her own. One eye still looks swollen, but the other seems fine now. I love these little unexpected blessings.

TGIF

Little Goose in the Big City

There's a new influx of residents flocking to downtown Dayton. No longer just the "in" place to live for Gen-Xers, but now some of our fine feathered friends are reversing the direction of "Urban Flight" back toward the big city.

This handsome single is perusing the town for the perfect place to roost. The suburbs were once the ultimate destination for a high-stressed just-want-to-get-away-from-it-all generation, but for this new breed of city dwellers, downtown is hip, artsy, and only for those individuals who have the discernment and character to appreciate what the city has to offer.
So, "welcome, new neighbor!"

Church Sign

Christian Truth

Daily Humor and Truth

Good Answer

The Croods - Movie Review

I'm not really one of those "deep" movie critics, that analyze a film, explaining all of the nuances and how they correlate to the world we live in.  I really just wanted to say, that I really enjoyed this movie!  I thought it was funny, like in a slap stick kind of way, entertaining, and engaging.  I give it 5 thumbs up.

"The Croods", Written and Directed by Kirk De Micca, Chris Sanders, 2013, Dreamworks

What Beagles Think

Velvet was barking out the window the other night, so I was telling her to get down from there.

This was her reaction.

Velvet: "You talkin' to me?" 

 {{{thinking}}} "I'll just hide here."

At this point, I'm just repeating "Get down.  Get down from there.  Velvet, get down."

Velvet: "What?!"

"Whatev's, mom."

I’ve had a bad day

I’ve had a bad day.  Not bad in a significant way, just more of a Murphy’s Law kind of way.

Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I’m just able to tell that its going to be “one of those days.”  I even contemplate going back to bed, but I never do and always regret it later.  This morning I woke up to foamy, white, little puddles of dog bile on the rug.  I looked at the dog.  She looked at me.  I decided I needed a cup of coffee before I could deal with this.  Then I fed her and took her outside where she proceeded to choke herself trying to get to 3 different locations of frozen poopsicles from the previous day.  I dragged her back in the house and had some more coffee.  

My intention this morning was to do a few computer things on my pc, like upload files to dropbox and update my iphone os.  I knew it would take a little while for it to warm up, so I had some coffee, checked some emails, etc. on my laptop, all the while, Velvet is making these choking/gagging noises that made me think she was going to throw up, but she never did.  In between she sat there and stared at me, like she was trying to use telepathy to get me to feed her again.

Trying to ignore her, I looked at my phone and there were two notifications for breaking news; both involved traffic accidents with trucks.  My BF drives a truck for a living, so my heart always stops for a second when I get these alerts.  Read them, they weren’t him, I breathed a sigh of relief.  Then I went to check on the pc, but it still hadn’t finished booting up.  So, I figured, there would still be time to do everything, I’ll just go ahead and take a shower.  When I finished, I went to my pc and it had finished booting up, but there were windows everywhere, wanting me to upgrade this, search for missing plug-ins, renew my virus software, make recovery discs, etc, etc.  By the time I finished with all of that I didn’t think there would be time to get the other stuff done, so I turned it off.

After breakfast, I cleaned up the puddles of dog bile on the rug, (note to self:  clean rug, or just be sure to wear shoes in there), then went outside to shovel up the poopsicles using a very old, heavy, and awkward shovel; I swear its made of cast iron.  Then I took Velvet out, little determined hound dog that she is, she went around to the 3 places where there once was poo and ate the ice where the poo had sat.  How desperate can she be?  Back inside, she started making the gagging noises at me again.  

Before I left for work this morning, I decided to check my account balance.  I never do this on a Monday because everything over the weekend goes through on Tuesday.  I log in through my phone and the screen turns blood red.  Big, bold alerts, and exclamation marks covered my screen.  I could hardly understand what was going on, but in my mind, I could hear sirens going off and the robot from “Lost In Space” twirling around, flailing his arms, shouting, “danger, danger Will Robinson.”  When I finally sifted through all of the warning signs, I discovered that I was seriously overdrawn.  A transfer I had initiated on Friday was trying to go through 3 times.  That’s just great.  I decided to contemplate what to do over another cup of coffee.  Then, another breaking news alert showed up.  A house fire.  By now, I’m really starting to consider going back to bed, but I think, things happen in threes, so it should be safe to venture out.  I almost forgot to call in my prescriptions.  Got that done, scraped the ice off my car, listened to some calm relaxing music, then realized, I can’t pay for my prescriptions, because my bank thinks I’m overdrawn.  And, one of them I’m completely out of.  

I get to work.  I call the bank about the transfers.  The customer service lady was very nice.  I explained to her that I hit the submit button just once, but then it seemed stuck, so I hit the home button.  The home button took me to the homepage, but then started loading the transfer from where it had been stuck before, so I (guess), I hit submit again.  She said they’ve been having trouble with their system and she would take care of it.  A couple of minutes later she came back and said it was all fixed.  I was so relieved.  This is how the rest of conversation went (all of her responses are said with a smile on her face; I could just hear it):
Me:  Thank you, so the money won’t come out of my account?
Her:  Its all taken care of.
Me:  So will the money transfer?
Her:  It should stay where it is.
Me:  Where is that?
Her:  The correction is immediate.
Me:  Ok, good.  Thank you.
Her:  You’re welcome.  Please allow 2-3 business days for the correction to show up.
Me:  So the money will come out of my account and then be put back in?
Her:  No, it won’t come out.  This is immediate.  Your money will stay where it is.
Me:  Where is that?  Your institution says pending that its coming in, and my bank account says pending that its coming out and looks like its going to overdraw my account.
Her:  Yes.  That’s correct.  Is there anything else I can help with you with today?
I hesitated, but thought this is going nowhere, like the “Who’s on first” bit by Abbott and Costello.
Me:  No.  You’ve done enough.
Her:  Thank you.  Have a nice day.
I hung up and imagined my money floating around in the clouds, like in some kind of internet banking purgatory; a black hole of particles, pieces of data that just linger in the atmosphere until a computer with the correct id and password, with 3 security questions, pulls them into a server somewhere in India.  Just then I get another alert on my phone; this time from my bank.  It says that my bank account balance is below the $100 threshold that I had set.  I thought that was a really nice way to say ‘you’re nearly $900 in the hole and there’s nothing you can do about it’.

Since I was at the office, I decided to get some work done.  I had a project that needed to be finished for an early morning meeting tomorrow.  I was making excellent time on it and everything was going great until around 4:15.  I sent the drawings to the printer and they came out with streaks and little pools of ink everywhere; they were a mess.  It took about an hour to fix the printer, and amazingly, I did it without getting ink on me.  So, I just needed to make about 15 minutes of changes to the drawings, print them, and then I could run my errands, go home, and then relax.  The printer ended up taking 15 minutes to check what I did and make sure I did it correctly (some nerve).  Then, as happens every time I’m trying to get a project out in a reasonable amount of time, everything starts to choke up.  The computers, the printers, the network, one by one begin to fail me.  I lose work that I had done; I tear out my hair waiting for a drawing to open.  It is so stressful.  Two hours later, I’m finally finished.  I decide to go home first before running my errands because I figure by now, Velvet is probably sick and is probably crossing her legs waiting on me.  I get home, and amazingly, there is nothing to clean up.  So, I feed her and take her outside.  While I’m waiting for her to do her business, I look up and see that a gutter nail is working its way out.  I envision it breaking there, allowing all of the snow to filter to the weak point, eventually breaking off the entire gutter.  But, there’s nothing much I can do about that right now.  Back inside, I opened a package I received today.  It was a ring that I’ve been waiting for.  I was so excited it was here.  It is so pretty, and, its too big.  Big disappointment, but just really a drop in the bucket at this point.  

So, then I decide to nuke a frozen meal for dinner.  Every meal says to pull back the corner of the plastic cover to vent, so one would think that the plastic should be strong enough to be able to be peeled back.  Not today it isn’t.  This one takes me like 5 minutes because every place I peel, it tears into small pieces.  At this point, I’m laughing, a bit of a crazy laugh, but I figure, at this point, there’s nothing I can do about it.  I do decide not to leave the house again today, just in case the Universe is trying to tell me something.  I followed the frozen meal with Weight Watchers ice cream (and I may be having about 5 more of those tonight if things don’t improve).

Finally, I’m in my jam-jams, have a beagle curled up next to me snoring like drunken sailor and I’m thinking, this would probably be a good time to call it a night.

Good night everyone.  Prayers for a good Tuesday.

This song always makes me feel better...

The One That Got Away

OR

How I Twisted My Ankle On a Jello Shot

Went to my daughter's house to keep her from going ballistic on the roofers.  Left with 2 trays of jello shots.  When I got home, I tried to balance the trays of jello shots on the railing while I unlocked the front door.  Jello shots do not balance on a railing.  Ended up with jello shots everywhere.  I couldn't tell how many fell off the porch, behind the bushes, into a deep pile of leaves, but imagined a raccoon finding them and getting hammered and I just wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing I got wildlife hooked on jello shots.  So, I turned on the porch light and went in the house to find something to gather up the escapees with.

For some reason, it seemed easier to grab a vacuum cleaner attachment than a rake, so I went with that.  Back outside, it seemed dark, so I turned on the porch light - not remembering or realizing that I had already done that. I turned it off then back on.  Realized I needed a flashlight.  Back in the house, then back to the front porch, one more time not thinking and turned off the porch light, so then back on again.  Stepped off the porch.  It turns out that leaves mask what's underneath and give way under the weight of a human foot.  Down I went, rolled and tumbled.  Laid there in the leaves for a few minutes, having twisted my ankle, and realized, there's no one to call for help, so I stumbled and fumbled and eventually got back to my feet.

Tried to rake in the jello shot with the vacuum cleaner attachment (turns out there was only one jello shot, so the raccoon probably would have survived) and kept losing it in the leaves, however, at this point it seemed sillier to give up than to keep trying to retrieve a jello shot with a vacuum cleaner attachment, in the dark, under a bush, hidden in a pile of leaves, so I persevered until I was triumphant.

Back in the house, turned off the porch light, looked back outside, the porch light was still on, I had turned off the foyer light overhead.  Turned it back on and the porch light off and realized I had lost part of the vacuum cleaner attachment.  Porch light back on, no wait, that was the foyer light, then the porch light, back outside - at this point I don't know what lights are on and which are off and wondering, really, if I even needed them at all, because, hey, just realized, I'm holding a two foot long flashlight.  Found the attachment in the dark, back inside, flick the lights back and forth a few more times, start walking through the living room and hear the sound of leaves trailing behind me.  Remembered, I fell in a pile of leaves, could that sound possibly be because  I'm covered in them?  Lights on and off a few more times as I muddle my way back outside, this time careful not to step in the black hole pile o' leaves just off my porch step.  Clean myself off, back inside, lights off and on and possibly off again by now, (half wondering if the neighbors are watching at this point).

Go to put the little AWOL jello shot into the frig with its little friends and somehow knock out the veggie crisper drawer.  Jello shots out of the frig, bang crisper around the frig a few times to vent; consolidate jello shots into one bin (go ahead and take a few pics because at this point I realize this little snafu is at least going to be posted on fb), sit down, have a banana, showing restraint not to just ingest all of the jello shots.  Stand up, walk through and slip on Velvet's drool from where she was sitting while I ate my banana...seem to have blocked out whatever went wrong after that; couldn't have been good.  Just as well, I feel my entire body turning into one big bruise, so I'm going to call it quits here.

So, long story short:
roofers jello shots intoxicated raccoon porch light flickers leaves twisted ankle vacuum cleaner attachment flashlight banana Beagle drool