28 Days Later

No I'm not writing about one of the worst movies ever made that should be "Eternal Sunshined" out of everyone's head who's had the grave misfortune of being tortured with that waste of time & space. I'm writing about me (duh - it's my blog) and the last 28 days of my life.

Now I'm going to try my darndest not to get too cheesy but hey, that's me so tough noogies if I go there. (But I really will make a conscious effort not to.)

As my co-worker Pete's life coach, I always tell him 2 things: follow your heart and you can't know where you're going until you know where you've been. So let's take my own advice on that second part and rewind about 29 days. I don't remember what I did during the day but I do remember trying to go to sleep that night. It was awful. I bawled myself to sleep. Sometimes "a perfect storm" will happen in your life and there's nothing you can do but just batton down the hatches, take cover, pray that you make it through and wait for it to pass. Your only goal is simply survive. Nothing more. Some people may face it head on. I am not one of those people. So I bunkered underneath the covers where I was housesitting and tossed like a fish around the 6 different pillows this bed had. I felt like Goldilocks that night: each pillow had it's own problem of being too big, too hard, to squishy, etc. So, taking advice of the wooden sign next to my bed at home, when I can't sleep, instead of counting sheep, I talk to the shepard. I'm sure it was a very incoherent monolouge seeing as how I was working myself up and blowing my nose every 2 minutes. (side note: did Jesus ever catch a cold? Another question to add to The List I guess.) I do know that I asked a lot of questions, and the vast majority of them began with "Why". Curious by nature, I love knowing the big picture and just getting snippets of a story or system (in A&P) doesn't make sense to me. But I know I'm not privy to that kind of information. There isn't an old lady living next door that I can go look in her eye and know how it's all going to turn out.

Luckily God has a great sense of humor and I'm sure He was laughing at me on the night of April 11th. Oh foolish girl, just trust me will you? Just give me 24 hours and you will see.

April 12th kicked off 28 days like none other I can remember. They say things happen in 3's. So has it been this past month. Things that I have been completely unworthy of I have been given and when someone asks me how I am, I want to steal the standard response of the same question from a Treehouse leader: "Better than I deserve." (Now here's where I'm going to struggle with the cheesiness. My sincere aplogies in advance.)

Proverb 13:19 says, "A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul" which is what will happen around 2:30pm today. The fam is headed down to Salem to pick up the newest member of our family, Henry. If you're a dog person, you understand. A dog enmeshes itself in your life. It comes it and takes over and you're thankful for that. I've never seen unconditional love like I have with Murphy and Riley. Think of the person you love most in your life. Have they been excited to see you every single time you meet? Are they excited enough that they drop what they're doing and run to greet you? Do they make you laugh until you cry several times a day? Dogs in our family are part of the family. Some people might not get it, but that's OK. Our house has been empty, quiet, dull and simply a house for 6 months (actually 5 months and 29 days). As of this afternoon, it will be a home again. Good thing Henry O'Malley doesn't realize the responsibility he has but if he's anything like our other puppies, he won't have to even try.

I'm pretty sure getting into nursing school could be classified a big moment in anyone's life, especially mine. Seeing the huge manilla envelope and already knowing what it said inside was an odd feeling. When was the last time you screamed and ran around and cried because you were so excited? I can only think of one other time in my whole 28 years. How lucky I feel to be part of the "Elite 8%". How lucky I feel to now have had 2 moments when I could scream out loud and act like an idiot without giving a rip about what anyone else thinks. How lucky I feel to be given my old student ID#, my old e-mail address back and a chance to go through Linfield again enjoying the non-tennis aspects of school and graduate in good ol' McMinnville. How lucky that I did not have to decide where to go to school and that the decision was made for me. Apparently Someone knew I would have picked another school or Linfield so that option was simply taken away from me. Great - that makes life so much easier!

And last but certainly not least, the third is my . . . . .yeah right! You think I'm blogging about that? You're crazy. I haven't done a "what I learned today" post in a very long time so I'll do it here being as vaguely specific as I can. I've learned that: I love sushi, I was right in sticking to my guns back in the day, it isn't about what you do, and most importantly that three is definitely better than two,

Hebrews 11:1 ~ "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."