Where have I been?

I woke up last Friday morning feeling achy. Actually, my joints started hurting at Taekwon-do the night before, but now everything ached. I still got up and took the kids to school. It hurt just to walk them into class. (Because of snow closures, Friday was the only day of class Joshua had last week!) I’m going home and resting, I promised myself.

So…I start up the driveway and I spin out. Okay. No problem, I’ll back down and walk up. WALK? I don’t want to do that thing where I move one foot at a time in a forward motion because it hurts! Can’t just stay in the middle of the driveway though, so I start going back. Straight back. But I’m not steering straight. I’m trying to follow the curve the road does, not go straight back into the…DITCH.

Remember Father Knows Best? Well, he does. I stop just short of the ditch as my dad calls to see if I’ve made it up the hill. “Nope, but I can’t go down either.” He walks down, sliding on the 1/4 inch thick black ice, to help me steer and we come back up the hill, arm in arm. Two hours later, I have to walk back to the van to get Joshua because Oregon keeps teasing that they’ll institute full-day kindergarten and never actually do it.

We made it back up for lunch and left to go shopping. It was pay day shopping. You know the kind. Where the cupboards are as bare and empty as the checking account was the day before. Huge list in hand, we stop at the first store, then the second, then we stand before the doors of WINCO. My first trip to the massive discount food market. Boy, this would be hard without a list. Aren’t you glad you have it all written down right here in the—????

NO! Oh, yes… the list has disappeared. Joshua and I venture into the bowels of the store, listless, and emerge with a cart so overflowing that other kids are pointing, saying, “Look, Mom. Look at that lady’s cart!”

I unload everything onto the conveyor belt and stand there nervously as the cashier rings it all up and transfers it to another conveyor belt on the other side of her. “This is my first time to shop at Winco,” I admit.

“Hmm.” She scans the next item.

Somewhere, in the dark recesses of my mind, I knew I had to bag the groceries myself, but I waited until after I’d paid to start. (Actually, the pricing was VERY good.) Ten minutes later, Joshua and I have managed to fit everything back into the same cart.

“You did a great job.” The cashier smiles.

“I did?”

“Oh, yeah. The first timers always panic. You did great.”

“Thanks.” For some reason, it means a lot to me. In a situation like that–lacking my meal plan, aching all over, desperate to get home–it is only the Holy Spirit who gives me the strength to act pleasant and treat my children well. 😉

I managed to put all the groceries away before I wake up Kevin, who’d gone to work at 2 AM and was taking a well deserved nap, and ask him to get the hotdogs ready. Suddenly, I have no strength. We watch a movie after dinner and I say, “I feel hot.” Take my temp. 103.6

Delirium is a under-rated state of mind. Sometimes, it can help someone through the day. I crashed for the next three days and have just come back into the land of the living.

Random thought: As my fevered body trembled in bed, hacking a dry cough, I pondered how fantastic it would be for the Lord to return right then and there. Mid cough, I’d get a new body and rise up to meet Him in the clouds. Sweet!