DOGGONE AFTERNOON

You cannot BELIEVE the rest of Monday.  I thought a.m. was BAD, but afternoon was TERRIBLE!!!!!!!


First off, Mike (remember last post, a.m. Knight in shining armor?), was putting together shelves for his office.  He came in the front door with them, left the screen door open and, you guessed it, COCO the dog, took the opportunity to peruse the neighborhood (check out for those of you that don't read much).  I was a tad HOSTILE toward my Knight in shining armor for leaving the door open, not to mention he was not moving nearly fast enough trying to find my baby girl COCO the dog.  We looked everywhere and called her name, which was absolutely pointless.  At times she will come when called and other times she will stand, look at you and act like she never heard what you said.  (Sounds like a teenager doesn't it?)  As I passed by one of the houses across the street and about 5 houses down, Lisa was getting into her car to leave with her daughter and son with 2 dogs.  As she called her dogs, they came running from around the back of her house and low and behold, COCO the dog was trailing behind having a great time following these new friends.  I was so mad at her!  If those dogs had not run from behind Lisa's house, we would not have known where Coco the dog was lurking!!!!!!!!  Oh well.  That incident ended with a badly behaving DOGGONE DOG and a quietly retreating husband. (Both remaining in the doghouse for quite some time that day!)


As if it could not get worse, have you ever had a day when you dropped everything you picked up?  Well, that was my afternoon.  I was trying to finish unpacking boxes and putting up pictures.  My sweet nephew, Brandt is coming for a visit and later, some of our  best friends in the world, Linda and Larry Jones are coming.  When we were in St. Pete, they came every year.  I cannot remember them coming to Alabama.  I wonder why?  Oh well, I am so excited about my upcoming visitors.  I have been trying to get all my "stuff" fixed, put up or stored away.  But my fingers and hands have not been co-operating with me.  AND my computer has been down and I have not been able to get my email.   Google absolutely would NOT recognize my user name or password.  Do you know how frustrating it is trying to get back into your account once you are out?  Well I will tell you is it doggone frustrating, especially for a novice like me and I ended up in a crying jag.  THEN along comes my Knight in shining armor.  He cleans up my computer, fixes the problem, gets back into my account and TA DAH, I'm back in business baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (And by the way, he is out of the doghouse.)


I decided my shining Knight deserved a dinner fit for king, so I defrosted steaks from the freezer, boiled some corn and WA LA I knew he was going to love this.  But all of a sudden I smelled a funny smell, kind of like something burning.  The corn was gently boiling, the oven was pre-heating for the steaks, the steaks were sitting on the counter on the broiler pan.  Maybe it was coming from outside, maybe at the neighbors.  THEN IT DAWNED ON ME!  I had left the pizza box with 1 slice of cheese pizza from Sunday in the oven!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I ran to the over and sure enough, smoke was pouring from the oven. I grabbed an oven mitt, snatched the box from the oven and ran out to the open garage to throw the charred, smoking box in the garbage.  Meanwhile I had turned on the vent fan in the kitchen and the smoke was being sucked out.  I just stood there.


O.K.  Lord, what is the deal.  I almost (but not quite, said, what did I do to deserve a day like today.  Why did you do this to me?  Not just today, but the whole series of events I find myself in at this time of my life?)  I had started the day with a migraine and without a quiet time and without reading the word.  Could that be the culprit to my day?  Some of you might remember the words in this song, "Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before, every day with Jesus I love Him more and more.  Jesus saves and keeps me and He's the one I living for.  Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before.".  It is tried and true.  Starting your day with Jesus just makes everything else pale in comparison.  Money, things, events, everyday stressors, they all fade to gray in the beautiful light of our Savior.  


Now this is Tuesday.  It is another day filled with opportunities for service, to witness to seek Him in his word.  Help me  not to get caught up in the workings of the day, but to find joy in each task with enthusiam focusing on one the and one thing only, HIM.


A new day today!
                                                                                                             Kathy in the Kitchen (smiling)