Got a great email from Sarah Funke this morning and, in my attempt to flatter her most sincerely, replied back as follows.
My past 24 hours -
1:30 p.m. Monday - am in the middle of a Student Developement meeting
2:30 p.m. Monday - welcome Rod Jackson into my house for a much-needed catching up on the amazing work God is doing in his life
4 p.m. Monday - commence frantic culinary preparations while trying to call/track down two or three people that I need to talk to immediately while I try to vaccum my apartment...
5 p.m. Monday - realize that all the people I was trying to contact are occupied in taking people to the hospital or studying off-campus and therefore cannot be contacted
5:30 p.m. Monday - welcome a slew of gals into my apartment for Emily Shaw's lingerie shower
7:30 p.m. Monday - shower guests trickle out, stomachs full and abdominal muscles strong with much laughter. I recommence search for aforementioned people I still need to see tonight.
8:30 p.m. Monday - sorting through work emails. Still need to see those two people. Email them.
9:00 p.m. Monday - Mac Council meeting in my apartment. We discuss stuff. Good times, great oldies.
10:15 p.m. Monday - Council meeting over. One of the people I emailed finally shows up at my apartment door. We have necessary conversation. Goes fairly well, still worried about them.
11:00 p.m. Monday - Heather Johnson comes to see me. She gives me a backrub and we howl over how bad my feet smell when I take off my leather shoes I've been wearing since 7:30 that morning.
11:30 p.m. Monday - check family emails. Join in conversations about Schoenberg, feline attitudes, and South Americans who don't speak Spanish or Portuguese. Do a little personal online research for a cabin to spend the weekend in (my boss told me to take a weekend off.) Talk a little while with my sister and some others who are studying in the lobby.
12:20 a.m. Tuesday - am heading to bed when a knock sounds on my door. It's the other person I've been trying to contact all day. We have a good, very long conversation. Things are not wonderful in their life, but I can probably help more now that I know what's going on with them.
1:45 a.m. Tuesday - step out of the shower and into bed. Decide that I'm too wound up to sleep yet, but that I can sleep in the next morning because Tuesday is my day off, so after my Bible reading I pick up Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and read.
3:25 a.m. Tuesday - realize that sleepiness is no reliable indicator of need of sleep. Force myself to shut the book, turn out the light, and pull the covers up. Do not set the alarm.
10:48 a.m. Tuesday - wake to the ringing of the telephone. Decide not to answer, as is my day off.
10:50 a.m. Tuesday - hear a knock on my door. Decide to go look out the peephole in case it's someone non-work-related. Is Linnea. She left her purse here last night.
10:53 a.m. Tuesday - climb in bed because it is so nice and warm.
11:55 a.m. Tuesday - climb out of bed because am hungry and finally feeling awake. Eat. Putter about the apartment setting things to rights, and read the small group book assignment for Thursday.
1:00 p.m. Tuesday - read the few emails that have been sent since last night. Reply to Sarah Funkanova's email. Post it to my blog.
1:30 p.m. Tuesday - go off campus, to antique store (looking for a bookshelf), and to a place I can be quiet and alone to take photographs and write letters and maybe go get some coffee. The weather is beautiful.
I lie prone on the dense carpet
At peace with the air around me,
At peace with God's people around me,
Who are listening together to one story.
My eyes unfocus, focus, focus again
on shapes and movement along the
line of the floor.
The floor is polished hardwood.
Table legs, chair legs, Aaron's legs and Dennis' legs
a forest together
Bifurcated along the line of the floor.
While we listen, they shift, not very much
But enough to bend the origami folds of mirrored
light and shadow
And peace is a kaleidoscope.
~ Bekah Tuggy 8/7/04
This was a good week for reading books. I like to keep several on hand, for when I have fifteen minutes between two meetings, or am sitting by the phone waiting for a return call, or am trying to avoid staring at my macaroni noodles until they boil.
So I finished The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope and The Wizard in the Tree by Lloyd Alexander. I am in the middle of A Midwife's Tale (sort of like A Knight's Tale, but more Puritan and Womanly) by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, and spent far too long last night skimming through Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey.
That last one is one of the most worthwhile books I've ever read and re-read. Ask me about it sometime.
Yesterday, I had no computer in my office, and I had a sink that would overflow even when I wasn't running any water in it. Today, I have a computer in my office, and my sink is doing its quiet, still duty in a manner beautiful to behold. I love Tech Services and the Plumbing Shop! You know, faculty get the glory, but institutional staff get many blessings as I thank God for them.
I love my job. And now, I love my bed.