Why Do I Have To Be So Doggone Timid!

Yeah. That's what I feel like: a soggy wet dog. A soggy, wet, timid dog. Come on, how many perfect opportunities does a person get in a lifetime? If I weren't such a coward I could make the most of all those opportunities! I've run out of fingers to count how many times I have blown it. It being my chance to talk to Mr. P. I had like, one excellent opportunity this afternoon at work, one yesterday morning at work, like three chances the week of Christmas at various times of the day, all in the mock-up room. Sometimes I get so frustrated at myself that I feel like yanking on my hair. Can God just show me a crystal ball that has a picture of my future family in it? That would make it easier...or maybe not... I confess, I'm completely dim-headed when it comes around to anything related with me wanting to be more than "just friends" with a guy. I've never wanted to do that before. Oh tellers of wisdom, or rather, advisors, please pass on the expertise!
Maybe I should take a lesson from the Phantom of the Opera.

Step 1: Find a mysterious costume.
Step 2: Hide out in various locations at Tyndale.
Step 3: acquire detailed information on the subject; or get spies. Spies are good. Then I don't have to be everywhere at once.
Step 4: Find the subject's most favorite pastime, hobby, or interest. Get better than them in it, and "school them" on how to do it better so that I become "the Angel of ________" (fill in the blank).
Step 5: At the appropriate time, kidnap the subject.
Step 6: Get killed by an angry mob... or be forced to live my life in seclusion...

Maybe that's not such a good idea. The Phantom might have been timid, but his plan was bad. Plan B:
Find someone on missions team #2 and create a scheduling conflict for them. Invite them to the president's house or something. Then, sacrificially give up my spot in Team #1 to let that person have it, and then take that person's spot on Team #2. Mission accomplished. Then I'll spend one week being a timid dog and missing the Third Day/ David Crowder Band concert to boot. Maybe that's not so hot either.

Plan C (this is it!!!)
1. Pray
2. Pray
3. Pray (for courage especially)
4. Get bold (ask subject a question they can't evade when passing in the hall or meeting in the mock-up room. Punish myself if I don't. No ice cream for 2 months!)
5. Get super bold (get spy to find out if girl at the banquet was a "special friend" or just someone [please be the latter])
- If the girl turns out to be a "special friend", break down in sadness, cry and get it all out. If not, throw a party and carry out the rest of the plan!! -
6. Bring the Lady Fair to work and have her ask him the question that I dreamed she asked him. Way to go Lady Fair!
7. Pray again
8. Act normal, don't pull into my shell.
9. Take advantage of every opportunity
10. Pray some more

Can someone else just do this for me? I'm feeling chicken. buck bwauk buck bwauk!
This whole business is complicated. I think courtship was set up to weed out the chickens from the rest. I don't want to be a chicken! I don't want to be weeded out! Especially when someone check off so many items on the "potential husband material" list. I try so hard not to set my heart on things, but like I said, it's hard, and where do you find decent people these days? Especially ones who remind you so much of your own brother! If I could marry someone like Anonymous 342, I'd be set for life! (Lucky Lady Fair) Oh, I'm so in a quandary, and I had to spill it all out, my journal couldn't satiate this.
All comments of wisdom are welcome. Please click "comments" and leave me a morsel of courage.

I'd better post this now before I chicken out of it too!

Me, a Missionary?

I just found out that I am going on a Tyndale-sponsored missions trip at the end of February! I turned in my application a couple of weeks ago, and today I saw that I was going. I will be traveling to Biloxi Mississippi to help the elderly and the poor sort through and clean up their homes from Katrina. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll keep everyone updated as I get more information. So far, all I know is that I am going, and I'm going to be housed at the United Methodist Seaside Camp. In a twist of events that I don't understand but God does, Mr. P is going on the trip as well, but he is in team 2, and I am in team 1. Team 2 leaves for the same destination the day after team 1 gets back. I won't say I've been foiled again, because it was never my plan to be foiled in. Maybe someone will have to switch weeks and certain people will get moved to other teams to accommodate their schedule! But since matchmaking is not the reason that I'm going on this trip, I will try to be content. After all, look at all that Lizzie had to go through to finally marry Mr. Darcy!
Speaking of Mr. Darcy, I would like to say hello to Miriam who checked in on my blog. Hi Miriam! Yes, you do have to see Pride & Prejudice! It's so good! (I'm listening to the soundtrack right now, and it simply inspiring!) By the way, I'm drawing a picture of you from last year's recitation. I hope you don't mind that. I'll get you a copy when I'm done...whenever that may be.
And lastly, I would like to take a moment to remember my dear gecko, Stitch. In an emotional moment, Stitch decided that he did not want to live at home anymore. He ran away with nothing but the glass-clinging capabilities that he has to a place totally devoid of glass, believing, on a falsehood, that life under the bathroom cabinets and in the walls of the building in which I live would be glorious and better than anything I had ever provided him with. Without so much as a backward glance, he took off into the unknown, and I have yet to hear from him. Stitch has turned his back on everything he has known, choosing instead to live a wild and reckless life. Where he is now living, darkness reigns, and the light is banished. Doesn't he know that he needs the light to live? His very being depends upon it! Day after day, I stand upon the bathroom threshold and look for him to come crawling out of the depraved area where he has been residing. When (if) I see him coming, I shall kill the fattened cricket and throw a party for him, for my gecko that was dead to me will have returned.

Merry Christmas! Not Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas! None of that vague happy "holiday" junk. What? Is someone afraid that I'll be offended if they wish me Merry Christmas? Hah! Bah humbug you "politically correct" fiends! Merry Christmas, merry Christmas, and merry Christmas to you too.

Yes, Christmas is upon us. Alas, I was farther behind in my shopping than ever this year, but that's all right, I've had a lot going on! This is the time of year when Tyndale becomes a ghost-town. Everybody's off enjoying the...Christmas season. (If you thought I was going to say holidays, you were incorrect). So yeah, I'll be at work, maybe one or two other people will be there. Yep, that's about it. I don't think we'll be having a green Christmas this year. After all, it's not yet winter and we already have had snow. Actually, several of them. That's alright, I like snow. What I don't like are blistering winds! Cold, freezing, bone-chilling winds. The kind that sweep across the midwestern plains in January. But for now it's Christmastime.

Well, I'll be signing off now. Thanks for reading my blog, and have a very merry Christmas. I've got to go do some stuff so that I'll be ready to go watch King Kong. Bye!

Wait... I'm back. I feel like I should write just a little more to make reading this worth your while! Oh! I could write this: Remember in Pride & Prejudice when Mr. Bennet tells Lizzy that every girl "likes to be crossed in love" now and then? Well, he was wrong!

My Week as a Super House-Wife in Training

Yes... That's me, the Super House-Wife in Training!

Yeah right, who am I trying to kid?

Back to reality. It was a crash-course training week in house-wifely duties. Part 2 of a two part training session. Let's have a brief recap:

Monday, Day 1
I take the boys to work with me. They enjoy it, surprisingly! They look around every corner, into every cubicle they pass by, longing for a view at the elusive Mr. P. Lucky them, they got one, and I don't think that they totally blew my cover. He even introduced himself to them. How nice! Now that they've seen him in person, maybe they understand why he's "bewitched me, body and soul", although I tend to believe that he would make a better Mr. Darcy. Ahem. Back to the task at hand. Dinner was provided that night by a kind soul from church. We had Tots with our dinner. "Hey, are you gonna eat your Tots?" Yes, actually we did. We ate every last one. Thanks Napoleon. Then on to choir. After wards I bought the boys ice cream at Culvers because they were good at work and they didn't blow my cover to Mr. P.

Tuesday, Day 2
Rough day really. A co-worker at Tyndale died form melanoma on Thanksgiving and this was the day of her memorial service. Difficult because of 2 reasons: 1) She was my co-worker, and it's hard to watch them suffer their illness 2) She had the same kind of cancer Dad does. Follow my mind if you will. Do you see me imagining the funeral being for someone else much closer to me? If you did, then you saw what my mind did to me at the end. I came home rather a mess, and as Anonymous had to go to school that night, he called the Lady Fair to come and spend the evening with me. How kind and thoughtful of him, foreseeing my need. As you can gather, I only did the bare minimum of house-wifely duties that night, and after the Lady Fair comforted me in the absence of my own dear mother, we watched the Phantom of the Opera (is here, inside my mind) I went to bed feeling emotionally wrung out. Oh yes, dinner was provided again, but I won't complain about it being lasagna. (Although I might call it lagagsa)

Wednesday, Day 3
I've been ambushed! The common cold set a trap for me and caught me, or rather, I caught it! As the day goes on I begin to feel like I stayed up 24 hours in a row, not so, but I felt weary. The day itself went good though. Again, I was spared cooking, we had dinner at the house of Lady Fair and her family. The boys were at Bible study, so while we waited for them, we watched part of Willy Wonka. I was so cold. When we got home, I went straight to bed.

Thursday, Day 4
Gasp! I forgot to make my lunch! Or wait, no, that was yesterday. Whew! Let me sleep for 5 more minutes. La la la la la. Take shower, lolligag at picking out clothes, open shade... Oh my gosh! Snow! It's going to take 10 billion years to get to work! Hustle bustle, hurry hurry! Thank goodness for automatic car starters, I can begin to thaw out Mr. Prix while I'm still getting ready. Leave house, drive on slick road. Reach Rt. 53. Oh...my...word. Did people forget how to drive in the snow? Hello? This road is clear, so why are you gridlocked? 8:15 am. Reach work thanks to an alternate route. Chapel already started, so I have to stand in the back, clearly marking my tardiness. But I am not alone. Mr. P was tardy too. I get home late this day because I have to stay 15 minute extra to make up for tardiness. It feels like detention. I hurry home, no word on dinner. Messiah practice is drawing nigh, oh well, can't wait anymore, I'll cook dinner!! Dat ta daa! The first task of the house-wife: Cook grub! Mmmmm, it was good. The other dinner did come eventually, we still have it in the fridge, it was lasagna again, this time with spinach, a slight variation. We go to Messiah, it being the last regular practice, it goes longer than normal, my big list of things to accomplish goes unchecked, undone. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll still have it, tomorrow, it's only a daaaay a-waaay!

Friday, Day 5
I'm a poor little orphan. Actually, sticking with the house-wifely theme, maybe I'm nearing empty-nester. Imagine, I'm the mom. All my little boys have gone off into the great big world and left me a lone with the cat. No matter, I can check all those items off my list! But first; music! I need some. I ingeniously figure out how to connect my iPod to my computer speakers (detached from computer Geefe of course) and make the iPod play through them instead of the headphones. This does not go without thanks to the adaptor that I had to buy a while ago to connect the speakers to the computer. So I bring the whole kit and caboodle down to the kitchen and put iPod on shuffle. Begin work. Item #1, kitchen: Gasp, what a mess! Brothers don't really understand how to clean (or keep clean) a kitchen. I spend a lot of time here. Dinner comes, I eat it by myself. There were oatmeal raisin cookies too! (I had 4, don't tell anyone, and don't remind me of touch it to your lips, goes straight to your hips!) Then, I did another house wifely thing: I made scones for breakfast tomorrow, and on top of that, I experimented with the ingredients! I put in lingonberry sauce instead of dried cranberries. I'll see what it tastes like tomorrow. I hope they're good! Item #2, make mom and dad's bed. Who's been sleeping in it? They've been staying at their downtown suite with round the clock room service where the bellboys and clerks and maids all wear scrubs! Item #3, cat litter. Let's just say, I shouldn't have left it unchecked for the better part of a week, mistake. Minus 5 points for that, although I do that even when I don't have any house-wifely duties on top of the full-time job. Between jobs, I take some time out to waltz around the kitchen to my music with my kitty as my dance partner. I hope the neighbors didn't see.

So in conclusion, now you know why I haven't updated my blog in a week. I've been practicing house-wifely duties. Watch out for when I'm a real one! I'll hopefully have things a little more under control. Although I thought I did pretty good. Ma has NEVER left us children all alone to our selves in our ENTIRE lives for this long before. A+ for me!

Update:
Saturday, Day 6
Due to ... complications, my on the spot training of house-wifery continues. And so does the common cold that attacked me earlier this week. Um, yeah, I'm supposed to be singing in the Messiah tomorrow, but as of right now, my most powerful voice is this blog. Not good. My blog can't sing the hallelujah chorus, can it? For my duties today, I did all the laundry, and folded it. I don't think I'll get to put it away, or sort it out, but that's okay, it usually takes Mom 2 days to get all the laundry finished, and she's a pro! Hopefully she'll be pleasantly surprised upon her return home to see all the work she thought that she would have to do is already done. And I even had time to spend on my artistic endeavors. Maybe soon you'll be able to see some of my more recent works. I also just finished watching Love's Long Journey with Lady Fair. It was good. There was a beeg stvrong Norvegian man in the movie, and Lady Fair was making fun of me! She has this way of laughing at you that you almost don't realize she's doing it! Some fair lady! She looks at you, with a sort of squinty look, and snickers, and then snorts, and then laughs her head off! Okay, so maybe you do know that she's laughing at you. I guess it is kind of obvious. I love her for it though. The "Beeg stvong Norvegian man" needed "daaker hair though, jah" Anyway, I need to go fold some more laundry to complete my house-wifely tasks for the day. Until later,
-Lizzie