The Terrible Tues...(Tuesday...LOL)

Tuesdays are generally my first "busy" day of a week. I have things on my calendar that I enjoy doing, one of them going to the Global meeting at "the warehouse" (a part of our church) and hearing what God is doing all around the world. If I am able to, I like to go early for the staff lunch, and fellowship with the other folks there that I'm getting to know...and today I was able to do just that! It made for a fun lunch date of sorts, but as I tweeted earlier in the day - JUST before the lunch, I found out that not only are there TESTS in the Master Gardener class, but HOMEWORK too. UGH. I have a horrible memory, and test terrible, no matter how well I know the material. I think it's still a part of the PTSD that comes out of the closet and my brain freaks out just thinking of taking a test. Homework, I'm just too busy for, and although it's a tool to measure how much I'm retaining, it makes me feel judged (really). I freak out, and feel like a failure...even when I can pull A's in classes when I was in college as an adult. I get majorly stressed.

SO, as I was headed to lunch, I started feeling a headache come on. A MAJOR headache. A stop and get me an ice pack one. I struggled through lunch, made it through the meeting (and hope I wasn't scowling too much - my eyes hurt really bad!!) and shed a few tears (making my head hurt worse) and headed home to make those Apple Dumplings from the Pioneer Woman recipe.

By the time I got home, I felt nauseous too, and it made me wonder if I was getting "the flu" that's been going around here. I took a few chewable children's aspirin and I got to making those dumplings. I only had an hour till class started, and I was losing time as I also had to mess with Abbey. About this time, I realized that they weather looked considerably cloudy, and it was probably going to rain (which explained the headache, but not the nausea, unless it was just THAT bad of a headache...I think it was).

I got the dumplings in the oven, raising the heat a little to shorten the baking time. I polished off the Mt Dew that was left over, thinking the caffein would help the headache (it did), and got the car ready to load with my stuff for Master Gardener class. Abbey was freaking with me packing up to leave (she's had a lot of company the past month, and didn't like that I left her alone. at. all.

The timer went off, and I thought, "I can leave Abbey in the house...it's just for a few hours, and it's raining (lightly) and she'll be happier." LOL. As I was getting ready to take the dumplings out, she was going nuts! I got the pan out of the oven, and decided to pour off some of the liquid since it was too hot to cover with foil, and since I was already outside, I thought I'd just pour it on the wood chips in the border. Well, Abbey broke out of the house (I seriously thought I'd latched the door!) and she came and started eating all this warm butter, sugar, cinnamon and Mt Dew goodness off the wood chips!! I finally convinced her to stop, got the pan in the back of the car (it still looked like there was a lot of liquid in the pan, but I'd poured about 1/2 of it off already). It took some convincing, but I got Abbey in, then out to the back yard and left her there.

And down the road I went to Master Gardeners. I was about 10 minutes late leaving the house. And it was bumper to bumper traffic to get to the highway. Every. Light. Was. Red.

I got on in the right direction (only took 3 - yes THREE - light cycles to get through the left turn onto the highway), and I THOUGHT I was getting off at the next off ramp. When the off ramp was exceptionally short, and made a hard turn to the right that made me slam on my brakes, I thought - "hmmm...this isn't right", but there was no where for me to turn around, or get back on the freeway at that point, so I drove the road to the next road.

OH - little detail. That "slam on my brakes" threw my purse to the floor (upside down, of course) and I thought that the pan of dumplings would be ok, since I poured off so much of the juice...but it wasn't. When I got to the Extension office, I had buttery, sugary, Mt Dew goodness ALL over the back of my car (Equinox, so the very back part). It was a mess. A CRAZY mess!

So, I was late, AND I had a mess in my car that I couldn't do anything about until the class was done 4 hours later.

My headache went away (thank You God) and I drank another Mt Dew to keep me awake (it worked!) and I had a little snack of things that folks brought to share. All but 4 of the dumplings were gone. :) I met a woman sitting next to me that goes to church at the same place we do (New Heights) and her husband works in a poultry support business, and her son is getting a masters in Engineering to do missions. Small world. We had lots in common and I'm looking forward to getting to know her better (although we get switched every week in seating.).

I got home, and addressed the mess of gooeyness on my back space...thankfully I had rugs down so I had to take them out and get into the wash, the pan brought in, and I thought I'd let Abbey come "help" me clean up the back. Oh goodness, she did a great job, but when I was done (1/2 hour or so later with warm soapy water) she was not interested in coming back in. Not. At. All. Crazy dog. So I tried a few things, but had to resort to cheese to get her out of the car. Whew.

Then, the drama ended, and I finally slowed down to reflect on the evening. I think God allowed JUST enough crazy in my evening to keep me from freaking about the class. I didn't have a test (yet) and yes, we do have homework each class meeting time (3x a week!) but it's on an honor system, and helps us to be prepared for the next class meeting time. My 3 inch binder is full, plus new handouts each class, and it's poorly organized (ummm...I think I counted no less than FOUR page 1's in the first section@) ...so I'll have to get some dividers to better divide the sections. But I made it. I managed. I even found that God put the woman next to me with so much intention!! He takes care of ALL the details!!

Now I need SLEEP detail!! Another LONG day, with a morning meeting, coffee with a new/old friend (long time online, but now we live in the same neck of NW AR!) and then a heading for the field missionary is coming over for dinner!! Exciting!! I have NO idea what I'll make, and don't have a clue when I'll have time to shop for anything!! LOL - sounds like I'll need to call out for pizza (or make one from the freezer!!).  ; )

Hospitality. Flexibility. Bravery!! I see ALL of those skills being used again tomorrow!! :)