Lauren

Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Do with this information as you will.

Swab the decks! Hoist the sail! So on and so forth……. 😀

Lloyd and I had some errands to do yesterday, and one of them was to donate blood. I had signed us up for a drive in Lincoln. After Council Fire, I completed my Rapid Pass and received a text: “Your blood drive has been cancelled.” DANG IT!!

I did a quick search and found one in Omaha. We got our acts together and got on the road.

It went pretty well. It was in a big mega-church and was happening during the Nebraska game (which we don’t care about). We were in a multi-purpose room and they had the game up on the big screen. The guy who checked us in made a couple of excited “WOOOO!” noises and the lady who was getting me ready scolded him: “Don’t do that when I’m sticking a needle in this person, ok?”

Anyway, it went just fine. After it was over, they had t-shirts for us. Lloyd didn’t take his, but I sure did. When we got home, I put on my grey hoodie and realized something: For nearly my entire 7th grade year, I wore a M*A*S*H t-shirt and grey hoodie. Granted, my hair was a lot frizzier from a perm, and I am much, much older, but still – I embrace the look.

I have new glasses that work just fine, but my trifocal situation isn’t great. The part of the lens for close-up work is at the bottom, and the part for medium distance is also low. Reading is fine, but sitting at the computer, all my angles are wrong. To really see the screen, I need to tip my head back, which isn’t very comfortable. You might remember that I eat breakfast at my computer, so my head is down a lot.

Well, until I can talk to my eye doctor, I have a solution. Wall-Mart sells ‘pince-nez’- style readers to keep handy in case you are stuck in the olden days.

I put their little case on my computer, so I remember to stop craning my neck and slide them between my regular glasses and my face. It’s workin’ out just fine.

(No photo of my face)

There is a ‘wellness’ committee at church that is showing appreciation to different branches of our ministry staff. This past week they have been taking care of the Child Development Center staff, and they’re doing a great job. On Sunday, congregation members were invited to write a little note, and those notes are now hanging up in our work room. (Thanks Deborah!)

We’ve had plates of cookies and other baked goods, and there’s also a large basket of goodies and trinkets that we can take – little bags of chips and popcorn, lotions, nice pens, bookmarks, Post-it‘s, and one interesting thing – stretchy exercise bands.

I grabbed one, because it was easy to put in my pocket, and throughout the day I messed with it. As it turns out, it is a bit of a workout! My arms are really really tired today.

I just hope I don’t get too muscle-y. Hahahahahahaahah!!!!

Technically, it will be a year at 10:45 p.m. Mountain Time.

It is so strange having a parent in heaven. I spend every workday talking to little children about God and his saving love, and how he has a plan to have us with him in heaven forever – it’s a free gift! No matter what we have done, his love and forgiveness is boundless….. much like a parent’s love, only better.

Mom’s there. She’s there with my grandparents and aunts and friends and sooooo many people. In our church, the Company of Heaven is represented in the brickwork in the sanctuary.

The top two rows of bricks stand up like people, surrounding the congregation. Church is when I’m most emotional I’m ok for the most part, until we get to the part of the communion literary that says, ”….then with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify your glorious name, evermore praising you and saying “Holy Holy Holy…..” That part is pretty strange to wrap my head around. She’s part of that. During communion, I am with her.

I love her so much. We lived so far apart here on earth, it’s just like she’s a bit farther away. I do miss talking to her, but I ask Jesus to pass along my ‘hellos’. She was a great lady. My brother Phil alway saw a resemblance to Queen Elizabeth when they were younger. My sister Keren dreams of her often and ‘talks’ to her then. My brother Mark spoke such gentle words to her in her last days, and my Dad was absolutely her rock. 

When we were in Colorado a while back, Dad sent us off with a couple of old iPads for Lloyd to sell at the technology sale. Lloyd wisely asked me to go through them to see if there were any photos I wanted to save.

There are many, but there was this surprising one from 2018. Mom took a selfie! I absolutely love it, and I love her.

We miss you, Mom.

It was picture day at school yesterday. I remembered to give parents multiple reminders, and there were only a few that forgot. No worries – little kids in cartoon shirts are exactly as they should be.

There was one little boy who came in one cartoon shirt that had to change to a different cartoon shirt after the MASSIVE SNEEZE all over himself. As I helped him change (into a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirt), I noticed that he had been wiping his runny nose all over the inside of his shirt.

I guess today’s lesson is going to be about nose hygeine. Again.