(Sort of) About a Dress

Tonight after the women's Bible study I asked for prayer that somehow, somewhere I would find someone to hem my bridesmaid dress for less than $40, and in less than two weeks. 

No big deal, right? Just a little extra pressure?

Except that tonight it turned out I was hiding an awful lot of other things behind the fact of my three-inches-too-long bridesmaid dress, and suddenly as I was making the request I was crying harder than I ever remember crying in public anywhere other than a funeral.

Pathetic and funny at the same time, what with me gulping back tears that must have seemed ridiculous considering my stated request was something like "I need my dress hemmed," and a dozen suddenly solicitous women offering suggestions and assistance. (I do have an alteration appointment now.)

"I'm not trying to be manipulative," I kept saying, especially to the woman who had previously refused my request on the (truthful) grounds that she is so busy just now. 

And maybe partly I meant "I'm not trying to be vulnerable."

Trying or not trying, I suppose I never have been and never will be really able to change that.

Waiting for an open door

This morning I took my car in for repairs and was driven to work by someone who works for the dealership. He opened the door for me when I was getting into the car, and when we arrived at my office he asked me to stay seated until he could get around and open the car door for me. This is what made me sure that I had been driven by this particular man before. I vaguely remember the conversation from the first time he drove me to work—not the exact words, but something along the lines of him asking me to do him the honor of letting him open the door for me.

You would think it would be easy, sitting there while he went around to open the door, but it wasn't. It never is, for me. Because it's not just about how the door gets opened, it's about a whole whirlwind of swirling thoughts in my head. As this gentleman looks more than old enough to be my father and speaks of his wife often, I had no complicating "is he hitting on me" mental chatter. (Funny how I tend to assume that people are nice because of what they think they'll get out of it. Or not so funny.)

This morning I experienced on a heightened level the sort of back-and-forth I have over anybody trying to help me with anything:

• I can do it myself
• But I don't have to
• But I can
• But he wants to help
• I don't need help
• Can you let somebody help anyway
• I don't like people helping me
• Yes you do
• I don't know when I cross the line to manipulating someone
• He offered 

Kindness—especially of the sort that seems to ask nothing in return—throws me off, breaks me out of my "self-sufficiency" a bit, makes me remember God.

God helped before I asked, and He asks me to wait while He opens all of the doors for me, asks me not to open them with my strength and in my impatience. Which is difficult when part of me is screaming to fling open every door on my own.

So thank you, Bob from the shuttle service. I need waiting practice.

Hey, now....

"[My brother] was definitely into comic books, so I was exposed to it, although, you know, I'm a girl, let's face it, so...." -- Gwyneth Paltrow

Things To Do

Maybe non-list people don't understand this, but writing a list can be, on some level, dangerous.

Best example: I have a giant list in my head of things I want to do with my life, but I've been too afraid to write this list down anywhere. To write it on a list is to admit that I need it, or want it, which is to admit that I am not okay as I am, which is...what? Expected?

If I write it down, it means I want to try. 

If I try, I risk failure. Or success. Which could lead to a whole new list.

Then I remember that I told God that this year, this year in particular, I was going to make a sacrifice to God of my fear, to do things that I had always wanted to do, to attempt what I've been putting off, to try without worrying so much about whether or not the trying would work out as I imagined it would.

The list is rising to the surface of my mind. Sooner or later, it will either have to be written or smothered back down.

I want to write it.

Post-study thoughts on 1 Peter 3:1-6

The Christian wife is to be submissive and glad of it, glad to bend her will to her husband's for the sake of Christ. Again I vow I will not bow to anyone who doesn't look like Him.

Submission is a sacred thing. It is holy. It is a spiritual act of worship.

It is hard for me remember that when guys make jokes about how it means I have to do what they say because I'm a woman. Even if I know the guys don't mean it. (Shouldn't we mean what we say?)

________________________________________________________

"Isn't it comforting," I say, "that true beauty isn't primarily external? Otherwise it would peak and then be gone."

"When you find a man who thinks that way," says Jennifer, "marry him."

Holly says not many guys do think like that. She says she sees lots of women with gentle and quiet spirits, but that there aren't many men around who are interested.

________________________________________________________

Eventually, as in all church people conversations about modesty in dress, somebody brings up the inevitable hackneyed phrase: "Men are visual." It is said as though there is nothing to do about it, as though that is how it is and we can't expect any more than that.

I wonder how easy it is for most women to develop a gentle and quiet spirit. I know it isn't easy for me. It isn't easy to live like Christ, or even (some days) to want to live like Christ. But I'm pressing on.

Are we, women of the faith, pressing on alone?

________________________________________________________

This is what I despise about talk of "hotness": that fire consumes with nothing left. A few years, and it is gone. Small comfort being "hot" would be, knowing that it always, always cools. Small respect for guys who emphasize spark over substance...my spark is sputtery and my substance is more me and my skin is thin.

I am in the refiner's fire, which will burn for my whole life and render me more and more beautiful in the eyes of God with each passing year, through wrinkles and creaky joints and greying hair and all. I am a woman blazing and have no time to waste on mere heat.

________________________________________________________

The conference leader all those months ago made a list of qualities women looked for in their "fantasy men," and then a corresponding list of things men looked for in their "fantasy women," and the lists showed totally opposite ideals. How is it even possible to bridge such a gap?

We need Someone who has experience with bridges.

Sometimes I miss physical contact....

I come from what my great-aunt Irene has called "the huggingest family." When I was growing up, I could count on (and take for granted) having a plethora of hugs a day. And I know what it means to have a plethora. College, not so many hugs. But I'm a female, so we do a lot of the casual hand-on-arm stuff in conversations. And I was a theatre major, which ramps up physical contact by a factor of eleventy (that's an approximation).

Now, living on my own after college, I pretty much depend on church functions and hang-out times with select people for hugs. This is usually enough to keep me from feeling contact-starved.

This past month, though...wow. I haven't felt like I needed this many hugs in a long time. A lot of it is connected to the stress at work, I'm sure.

Anyway, it's nice to have Sundays. Because Sundays are when I get most of my physical contact for the whole week. I can usually count on the following: 

• A hug from Rosemary
• A hug from Lisa or Abby or Trudy or Janessa or all of the above
• Several pokes on the head from Brenna and Braelynn
• A couple of hugs from Braelynn
• The female-conversation-style arm touching thing I mentioned

Also maybe a few high fives in there from some of my guy friends. That sort of thing.

Today I got a chance to hold a baby for a while, and one of the pre-K girls was playing with my hair when I got down to help her with her project, and tonight I get to see my little buddy Lucas, who is always good for a few hugs.

So it'll be a good day for getting hugs. Which is good because I had kind of a rough week. Which was just capped off by a phone call from my dad to tell me that my brother's bird died. 

Now I'm extra glad I got to go to Pennsylvania last weekend, so I could see Claude, too. We liked each other a lot. I'm going to miss him...but not as much as Jeremiah will miss him.

Now I'm sad about Claude and sad for Jeremiah and sad for Dorothy, who also liked Claude a lot....

Yeah. This is definitely the sort of day when I miss being a daily part of the huggingest family.

Setting in

I worked 39.5 hours in four days this week, largely due to the fact that I was on vacation on Monday. I have a few more to go tomorrow, but not nearly as many as I anticipated.

Today was good. It started off with a clearing of the air between a coworker and myself, which was an answer to prayer as well as a positive reinforcement from God on my 1 Peter pop quiz at work yesterday. (The women's Bible study I am part of is currently studying this epistle about Christians living under pressure, and last Wednesday's lesson touched on living under work pressure, especially people who are behaving unreasonably. God has good timing.) 

It wasn't the only answered prayer today. Here are a few others:

• I had a positive outlook on the day
• I was able to delegate jobs
• It wasn't raining when I moved my computer
• We packaged up far more than expected

We still have a lot of stuff over at the old building, but everything we really need in order to work is at the new building, and we have until about June 20 to clear out the old place. That gives us almost two months to make little trips out for a day or an afternoon of cleaning and boxing at a much more leisurely pace than we've had this week.

So it was good.

Now that most of the intense bits are over, it's starting to hit me....

I'm not going to work at the old building anymore. Sure, I'll be over for some of those cleaning and boxing trips, but it won't ever be home base again. And I've worked there since July of 2001. I've spent more days in that building than I spent at college. I've "lived" there about as long as I lived at the home where I spent my high school and college years. And there is a growing list of things I will miss:

• The quiet lunch room in which I ate on just about every work day for the last seven years, and was able to read in peace for most of those days
  
• The one-stall bathroom
• The "nap room" I made in an unoccupied office, which consisted of three chairs set next to each other
• Bantering and exchanging stories with our regular UPS driver
• The "cage bars" on our cubes and the way Amanda would hold onto them sometimes when she was telling me a story through the mesh
• All the surfaces for displaying trinkets; comic strips; pictures of Apollo, other birds, and all the kids I've tutored over the past years (Jephri, Daijah, Marshelle, Hassan); etc.
• The smallness of the place...only the five of us there, and all of us within easy shouting range of each other, not that we ever had to shout that loudly to be heard
  

That place saw the two hardest years of my life and heard the worst phone call I've ever received. It was also the site of hours and hours of laughter, and myriads of scrapes and bruises and muscle strains (many of which sparked some of that laughter). Apollo came and visited several times, when I was going to leave straight from work for some time out of town. My parents have been there, and my brother, and my cousin, and even some people from my church, who came by for a pop can drive.

The new place is...well, new. While I have no real resentment of it, I have no affection for it, either. There are high cubicle walls that make me feel like a rat in a maze, and keep me from easily seeing everyone I can hear. There are dozens of people in one large space broken up only by these cubicles. I share a cubicle quad space with two other coworkers and can see four more from where I sit. There are three stalls in the bathroom. All the product swatching I used to handle is now part of somebody else's space and will soon be somebody else's job. It's all so different....

Now, after years of having it on the horizon, and months of work, and one crazy busy week, it seems the mental dust from all the moving is clearing away enough for me to start mourning the familiar spaces.

This Week in My World

I spent last weekend in Pennsylvania with my parents and my brother. It was good to be able to be there, especially as I had thought we would be moving offices that weekend and that I would be unable to join them.

Instead, we are moving offices this weekend. For real. I've been boxing and trashing and organizing for at least a month now, but this week has been high-gear. I was at work for over 10 hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. My muscles are aching, my left hamstring is mad at me (a slight twinge last Sunday has not been helped by all the rushing around and such I've been doing), my forearms are nicked up, and it still doesn't look like all that much has been accomplished.

Today I woke up at about 3:40 and couldn't really get back to sleep, because I was thinking about move stuff and stuff I should have done already that isn't related to the move.  So I'm heading in even earlier than originally planned. (Maybe I can put 12 hours in and still be home before 7.)

I've been getting some help at work, but as far as my division is concerned I've been doing most of the packing, because most of our stuff is "mine," by which I mean product literature, etc. that I've been responsible for almost since I started working at this place. And I have a hard time delegating because I have difficulty believing that anybody else can do things "right" (meaning just like I do them). So that's been tough, too. I could probably have had more help if I asked for it. Probably still can.

I'm working a long day today, a long day tomorrow, a long day Saturday. I don't think I've ever looked forward to Sunday this much.

Please pray that I do my job well, that I behave as a servant of God, and that I stop feeling so sorry for myself over this. Thanks.

Tagged by Sabrina

My good friend Sabrina blog-tagged me with the following.

Six words that sum me up today:

1. Child
2. Saint
3. Pressed
4. Scruffy-looking
5. Excited
6. Uncertain

I would generally tag Sabrina and Kerri for this sort of thing, but they've both done it already. (I think you both took a longer view than I did....)

If anybody else is interested, here are the rules (and no, I didn't follow all of them):

1. Write your own six word Memoir.
2. Post it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who tagged you.
4. Tag 5 more blogs with links (leave a comment on their blog with an invitation to play).

Sunday School musings

I helped out with a Sunday School class today. This is the first time I've done this in years. It's also the first time in years I've been in a room with that many kids under the age of 6. (Hats off to full-time lower elementary and preschool teachers.)

I like little kids. I like the requests for help because they haven't learned how to do it themselves yet, and the stories they tell, and the casual unconcern with which they admit you into their lives (sometimes Chloe's parents stand on her bed to change lightbulbs).

I wish time with these kids wasn't a trade-off situation, but it is. I love adult Sunday School classes. I love the participation and the intellectual stimulation. I still miss college classes, and the adult Sunday School classes are the closest I come to that. As I can't be two places at once, I am only in the children's class now. (I wish Sunday School followed the Harvest Time model of having a leaders' class at a separate time. To work with kids AND to have a forum to keep interacting with the adults...that would be ideal. Sandra, are you reading this?)

Being a Sunday School teacher also means markedly less time socializing in the hallways. I'm okay with the part where I am there to help guide the kids to their classroom. The part where I wait at the classroom for twenty minutes after class...that's the part where I need to watch my attitude. 

I'm a punctual person, as a rule, although Harvest's disregard for clocks has sort of beaten me down a bit. But I still believe in respecting other people by respecting their time, and it can be hard for me to cultivate kind feelings towards my brothers and sisters in Christ who don't come to pick up their kids after their class is over, instead of using the Sunday School classroom for all the free babysitting potential it holds. I have trouble not thinking, "You go home and sit with family. I go home and sit alone. Can you please let me talk to a few people in the hallway for five minutes?" 

Then again, I guess maybe sometimes the parents with so many kids wish they could go home and sit alone, too. 

In my time with the children's Sunday School ministry, I am going to focus on what it means to serve for the sake of Christ. I am going to practice putting these children (and yes, their social butterfly parents, too) before myself. On simultaneously disappearing so that Christ appears, and on revealing myself in some of those vulnerable places I try to pretend don't exist. (Like the place that really liked having people stop by to say hello to me as I stood in the doorway waiting for parents to show up today. I appreciated that a lot.) I'm giving thanks for people who have done this sort of work for years, even though their efforts were often taken for granted. And that's just for starters.

It's going to be good.

EARTHQUAKE!

This morning I was lying in bed, trying to get back to sleep, and then my bed was moving and my dresser was making creaky noises. VERY weird. My first thought was of the relative structural integrity of the building, but then I listened hard and it wasn't windy outside. Then I thought I was imagining things, but I remembered the creaking dresser and the fluttering from Apollo that had followed it.

I went to the local news website this morning to see if maybe it was an earthquake, even though that seemed kind of ridiculous because I live in West Michigan. But it WAS an earthquake! Bizarre! And kind of cool now that the scariness is over.

Anybody else feel that?

Mourning to Dancing

God is gracious, and things are looking up, and today was a humbling set of reminders of how inadequate I am and how much God knows what He's doing.

For now, I am content. (I still covet your prayers on the move, as only God can keep me in this contentment and I feel myself prone to wander.)

Sitting sad and lonely....

Tonight I hung out with the oldest child-teenager-type I know, and we went to this park and ran around in the the dark a lot and scared some creature that scared me back by jumping into the water as I ran past it, and went on swings and flipped playground tiles to read "HI!" and stuff like that. It was nice. Kind of like a dose of antidote to my life for the next few weeks.

Because tomorrow I will go back to work and prep for the big moving weekend that's looming overhead, and I sort of want to cry because I hate moving and I hate change and at the same time I hate how stagnant I am and how my stomach twists into knots over things like not having enough boxes at hand, because how ridiculous is that?

I'm having trouble remembering that I'm not alone, and that I am not the only person pulling her weight, and that this will pass, and fairly soon. I'm having trouble seeing much meaning in the unglamorous drudgery of the next few weeks. I'm having trouble not feeling sorry for myself over working next weekend when my parents will be visiting my brother.

You can pray for me, if you think of it. That helps. I certainly need help. And maybe a hug....

Help Wanted

Last Monday morning Meghan was in a lot of pain, and needed prayer, and so I fasted for her by not slacking off via the internet at work—no checking email or surfing during non-lunch hours, even for one minute segments when I thought I had "deserved" it because of either really boring or really strenuous work I was doing. It was perhaps an unusual sort of fast, but for me it meant more than fasting from food (ironically, I usually see eating as a waste of time). Monday night the news was good, and God had answered the prayers of many, mine included.

So I've kept this up, and every day when I'm tempted to check my email "just once" I have been praying instead. I say all of this not because I am a stellar Christian but because I am a weak one. I know that all it takes is one day to derail all my fine attempts. I also know that I need accountability, which is one reason I'm bothering to write about this at all. 

Another reason is that it helps me to have a main focus for a fasting prayer. Last Monday, for instance, I prayed for Meghan. Today I will be praying for my Uncle Dick, who will be at the Cleveland Clinic undergoing a procedure called deep brain stimulation that will, please God, help calm the tremors in his body for an extended period of time. (If you would join me in this prayer, I know my entire family would be grateful.) 

If you have any specific requests, let me know. Because I need a focus that seems to bring the reality of God nearer, and because I think that's part of the reason He gave us community, after all.

"And He will yet deliver us, you also joining in helping us through your prayers, so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many." (2 Corinthians 1:10b-11)

"If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you."

That is perhaps the most stereotypically female thing I think on a regular basis. And not that I always listen to that impulse, but it is almost always there. Because if you don't know, you haven't tried to know. You don't want to know. You don't care to know, which means you don't care about me, and so if you don't care, then neither do I. (On the other hand, if I don't know, I probably won't ask. Because if you haven't told me, you don't care if I know.)

The above is a good illustration of the meaning of the phrase "a vicious cycle." And is also a nice defensive way of masking the pain that follows barking your shins against the unknown.

This morning I listened to a teacher speak of the inherently unfathomable nature of the infinite (meaning God), and I recoiled inwardly. Even when we continued to elaborate in the class discussion that the fact that God is unknowable means that we will never lose the joy of discovery when it comes to our ever-growing knowledge of God...even when the teacher pointed out that finding out new things about people we know and love can often be enjoyable...even when I thought about how a repetitive task with nothing new to learn begins to wear on your energy reserves.... All of those examples helped, but....

Tonight my pastor spent the first 30 minutes or so of his sermon talking about how the OPC has left "wiggle room" when it comes to origins, so that people can believe in various origins models as long as they believe God created everything out of nothing, and the historicity of Adam and Eve, and some other points that he didn't get into but are in a big report the OPC did in 2004.

And I went home and I cried.

Because THEY CAN'T ALL BE RIGHT. God only created ONE way. And so, whatever you believe about origins, that means that there are a lot of people wandering around wrong. And that extends to other areas of faith and practice, like what you believe about Sabbath observance, or the end times, or the role of women anywhere.

Doesn't God understand that some of us want to know how far we can walk on what days, and whether or not it's okay to lead an animal to water as long as we don't make it drink, and how long our hair should be, and how short is too short for clothing, and what sort of people it's not healthy to talk to and for how long we maintain that sort of distance, if we maintain it, and, and, and.... (Sometimes, many times,  I want the comfort of restrictions instead of this bewilderingly confusing freedom.)

So tonight I cried because I don't know much of anything, and because I have equated knowledge with love. Then came the voice (and I think it must be of the Spirit) that told me I don't have to worry about knowing so much, because I myself am fully known (1 Cor. 13:12b), and because I am meant to know a love that surpasses knowledge (Eph. 3:19).

Someday I will know everything I am meant to know about God and how He has worked in the world. 

Meanwhile, I know everything I need to know, and probably everything I am able to handle so far.

Meanwhile, "if you don't know," I will fight to tell you. Because that's what love takes in this world, and I want to love beyond knowing. And because you might care, after all. You might just be human, like me. 

Fallen. 

Flawed. 

And constantly progressing on our way to greater things (Phil. 3:12).

Holy Dissatisfaction

We are all very good at fixing lives. Even when our own lives are in chaos, it's inspiring to see how ready we are to help others by telling them what is wrong in what they are doing/saying/thinking.

Christians are perhaps better at this than others, because we know Who to talk about. Your problems? No worries! I have an answer for you, and you've known it since Sunday School: God.

My first impulse on hearing a fellow Christian (or myself) express dissatisfaction with their life has long been to rush in and fix it for them. Why should they be sad? They have a Savior. And besides, lots of people have it worse. Cast all your cares, and all that. Buck up.

I don't know about you, but nothing hit my fix-it attitude harder than a bout with depression. A year and a half or so of nothing seeming certain except for God. Yeah, sometimes it seemed He was certain in the death and taxes sort of way, but He was there, there, beautifully and terrifyingly and inescapably THERE. 

Now, on the other side of that experience, I hesitate a lot more to jump in and fix things. Part of this is because I take the cautions of the book of Job much more seriously (the friends who kept attacking windy words and the God who rebuked them for assuming too much). Part of this is because I know how much God did for me in that time. I can look back and see relationships I thought I had destroyed, and I wasn't strong enough to destroy them because God wanted them around and I can't outwit God. Further back, the horrible relationship I had with a college friend who suffered from depression becomes a gift, as I knew He had brought her safe through it and I clung to that promise for myself. I see all I had been repressing, denying, that finally came to a head and exploded because I wasn't being honest with myself or with Him. I see my (still present) desire for control and see the pain that comes from chasing after that desire and the freedom that comes from giving up if you're giving it up into the hands of God.

We don't want to suffer. Speaking for me if nobody else: I don't want to suffer. And nothing makes me suffer quite like uncertainty (uncertainty, which starves my idol of control and makes it vicious).

But at the same time, in the crazy simultaneous way that life works for those of us on the conviction side of the cross, I relish my current uncertainty, and all of the emotions it's pulling out of me (REpression didn't end with the breaking of DEpression). 

I don't want to rush out of it. I don't want to push it under the rug. I don't want to pretend that it's all okay, when it will never be all okay. Not here, not yet.

I want to sit here, wondering where my life is going and what I am to do with it (keeping in mind I am investing it for a Master Who expects returns on His investment), and I want to wait for God to answer. And I want to listen to what He tells me to do. And I don't want to be afraid. He has brought me through worse...and Jesus brought me through the worst of all long before I was even born.

Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.

"My life is a furious ball of nothing." -- Dilbert

In recent news, someone (or some people) I know:

* Entered into a serious relationship.

* Got engaged.

* Got married.

* Are expecting their first child.

[DISCLAIMER: Each of the above happened to different sets of people. This is not all just the same couple over, say, the past two years.]

* Appeared on the front cover of our alumni magazine.

In personal news:

* I bought a Mac.

* Sims Castaway Stories will run on it.

* ...um....

I am a master at creating hierarchies. This is more important than that which is more important than these things, usually but not always adding up to "Their problems/joys are more important than mine." It's a lousy excuse for actual selflessness, but at least I catch myself at it now. And it isn't always exactly jealously, it's just feeling...like maybe I'm doing something wrong. Or maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm too easily satisfied, or too good at repressing what I really want out of life.

But then there's the part of me that says that really, past all the drama I add to my life, I'm sincerely happy for everybody with BIG news.

I think that's the part of me that is also geeked about that computer game. The part that reminds me that I may be a nerd queen with no actual life, but I'm (mostly) happy with that.

Then there's my dad's voice speaking from about 11 years ago, before I went off to college: "If you want something and don't go after it, it's your fault if you don't get it."

I guess he's still right, too.

Buying stuff is hard....

I hate buying...well, I hate buying pretty much anything, if it comes down to it, but I especially hate buying big ticket items. The unknown potential consequences of the decision coupled with the known expenditure are a bit too much for the tight-fisted control freak in me.

I want to buy a new computer. My current model is about four years old, which sounds young to me because I had my previous computer for almost ten years. Of course, I was mostly using that for writing papers in college. The digital revolution passed my current desktop's 40 GB hard drive and 256 MB of RAM a while back. Also, my monitor is even older than four years and has begun flickering in the lower left corner. Also, I've been getting the Blue Screens of Death that I was ignoring all too often on my old computer, right up until it melted down and forgot where to look for its hard drive. So as far as new computers go, maybe it's about time.

I was pretty much sold on a Mac, thanks to both of my major computer geek friends being hardcore Mac devotees, and then today I talked to some friends who were bringing up objections that had been lurking in the back of my mind, too. Things like price, and compatibility, and familiarity, and ease of use due to said compatibility and familiarity. So now I'm all thrown off again. Maybe I could win a computer somehow. That would solve my dilemma. I wonder if somebody would give me a Mac in exchange for writing fanfiction...that's how I got my iPod....

Anyway, as I was saying, I have difficulty with making luxury purchases. The perfect example of how ingrained this is dates back to when I was around 8 years old, and was ogling dollhouses everywhere. I loved the little furniture and other miniatures involved in dollhouse decorating, and I wanted to try my hand at it. My dad made a deal with me. If I would save a certain amount of money, he would match it, and then we could go buy that dollhouse.

At the time, I was pulling in a small allowance from my parents. This, plus birthday and Christmas money, was the total of my income. But I squirreled that money away diligently and made it up to the established savings mark.

We went to The Doll Hospital & Toy Soldier Shop, an excellent toy store on the east side of the state. With my money figuratively grasped in my hot little hands and probably literally in my dad's pocket, I began hunting for the perfect dollhouse.

There were a lot of dollhouses.

A lot.

And the more I looked at them, the more I realized that even if I could come to a decision, I would still have to make similar decisions later, and spend even more money, because the dollhouse would need to be furnished.

I left with double the savings I had when my dad first made the deal with me.

(A few years later, my poor mom would stand in an aisle at Toys 'R Us for approximately an hour while I vacillated amongst three different Barbie dolls that each had a distinctly different hair and swimsuit color.)

I love it when a plan comes together

Apparently this costume was exactly right for the role. I walked onstage and the audience erupted...which was definitely a lot of fun. Somebody told me this morning that I was an "eerily accurate Alice." Sweet.

Barring a few things like microphone problems, the show went quite well last night. The teens did a great job with waiting tables and with their performances, and the audience was rewarding them with lots of justly deserved laughter and applause. I was proud of "my" kids. My main regret is that video can't ever capture the fun of a live performance. But then, I guess that's the beauty of the live performance....

Many people came up to me today to say they had a great time. One of them said she couldn't remember the last time she laughed so hard. She proceeded to tell a friend standing nearby about the evening's final skit (American Idol, featuring myself, two youth group leaders, and three really good sports we called out of the audience to be our contestants, and who all jumped right in to the improvised bit), and then she put her hand on my shoulder and said "Paula did most of the organizing."

And I took that confusion of names as a compliment.

When it comes down to it

The weekend of the banquet arrives.

There have been months of planning, and of telling my friends sorry but I'm busy that night, and of rehearsals that don't happen in the right space, and of staying up late planning or thinking about planning, and of performers who haven't started practicing just yet two weeks before the performance date, and of actors who don't know their lines the night before said date, and of people not understanding what this all means to me....

And then acts start clicking, and I'm laughing out loud and bouncing on my toes, and two people are asked to repeat their thanks because I didn't hear them the first time (always a little awkward), and one says I seem stressed and I reply that most of my seeming stressed at this point is really just shifting into high-intensity performance mode (on the jazz as the plan comes together), and Janessa says "You get more patient with us every year." And I say "That's God."

Sometimes the things I get the craziest about are also the things I love the most.