No Heart Attacks Reported!

I did it! Finally! I made it to church this morning! And, what's more, I'm happy to report the minister didn't fall over into a dead faint nor did any of the parishioners. Although - my neighbor up the street from me and life-long friend did ask me when we were doing the "sharing of the Peace" a whispered question. "What knocked YOU out of bed this morning?"

My answer to that - I'm really not sure!

For openers, any one who knows me knows I am a night hawk - a terrible one at that! I grew up keeping late hours and it got worse with age. It's a bit of a family joke that many - or most - members of my Mom's family are night hawks too and we like to say it's a genetic thing. Maybe that is at least partially true as my Mom's one brother and I, when my kids and I would go visit him and his wife for a day or two, would sit up at the kitchen table till at least 4 a.m., often even later than that, just talking, smoking, drinking coffee and in general, just remembering many things about our family connections. A couple of my cousins used to be pretty good at keeping late, late hours too but with age, they seem to have fallen off in that routine and now, I am generally the only one who "burns the midnight oil" regularly.

So, for me to get to church has often been a struggle, even when our church had two services - one at 8:30 a.m. and the other at 11 a.m. But this past year, the Church Council voted to change our schedule of services to one at 7 p.m. on Thursday night and the other, at 9:30 on Sunday morning. And I guess because the THursday service conflicts with dinner time here and things like that, plus I am kind of old-school too and prefer to go to church on Sunday morning but yet, getting there at 9:30 in the morning just seems to create a lot of inner conflicts for me - for my sleep schedule, etc.

Of course, I have other issues too from time to time that keep me from getting out the door and to church. If Mandy has to work on Sunday - somedays she has to go in at 7 a.m., other days she will be scheduled to be there at 11 a.m. or noon and often as note, she also gets scheduled some weekends to start at 3 p.m. Now, the days she has to be at work in the morning hours, generally eliminates my getting out of the house and to church because my son-in-law dislikes getting up early even more strongly than I do and this, after he even goes to bed usually at a much more decent time of night than I may do!

So, if he isn't inclined to get up so someone is then up and awake to feed, change, dress, care for the two little ones, there is no way then I can go to church when Mandy has to work Sunday mornings!

Then there was for 5 weeks -from Christmas night until the end of January - the issue of transportation too as I had no vehicle! After my son totaled my car on Christmas Night, I had no way to drive out to church even if the son-in-law would happen - miracle of miracles - to get up to stay with the kids.

And add to that, occasionally my system in general just doesn't like to be cooperative about my going ANYPLACE, much less to church. So, my attendance there tends to be dictated by whether or not my system is functioning the way it should, if I have a vehicle, if Mandy has to work or not and finally, if I was able to thwart the genetic tendency to burning the old midnight oil!

But today things worked out fine and dandy and the stars, sun, moon, etc., all aligned perfectly and I made it there and felt much better about myself for having done that too!

This afternoon, Mandy and her husband, the two little ones and the older stepgranddaughter all went over to the YMCA in Clearfield where my sil's other daughter was having her birthday party - a swimming party no less - to celebrate her turning 11 this past Valentine's Day. Mandy had purchased a little swimsuit for Miss Maya just for this occasion - it has a picture of Ariel, the "Little Mermaid" on the front of it and she was really excited about this piece of clothing.

Mandy said Maya totally enjoyed the pool though! Although, she also added that when they first took her into the water she was just shaking - trembling - all over and very frightened but she overcame her fears and had a good time playing in the water then. Mandy even got a photograph of Maya in the pool - big smile from ear to ear on my little princess on that picture. She took it using her husband's cellphone and I suppose there is a way to download that picture from the phone to the computer but I am not anywhere near that technically oriented or knowledgeable so if anyone out there knows how to do that and can send me VERY SIMPLE (keywords there VERY SIMPLE) instructions on how to do that, I would be forever in your debt! I'll even remember you in my will - same as I'll do for my kids - in that you'll get a big "HELLO" from me!

And that pretty much says it all for today!