A Few Embarrassing Moments:

Caution: this is a very long post. But my whole day was actually kind of funny how everything played out, so if you want you can read - if not that's fine with me cause it's actually kind of an embarrassing post. Meant for laughs :) Yesterday morning I awoke in a normal mood, went downstairs for breakfast, chatted with my mom and jules, got ready for the day and headed off to school. In class we watched an upsetting 2 1/2 hr. video of which I won't go into detail and during which I eventually got very bored. I headed to the library at 1:30 and worked endlessly on tests and assignments until 6. (During that time, I leaned back into the couch I was doing my school work on and it almost flipped backwards! The couch had broken! I BROKE A COUCH!? I ashamedly went up to the front desk and said "I feel really fat right now, but I just broke your couch" They came over and put a bunch of books under it to prop it up and assured me I couldn't have been the one to have broken it. Someone probably already broke it and propped it back up. I smiled gratefully, but was thinking, "right - whatever" So beware if I come to your house, make sure you have reinforced the legs of your furniture) (I took these pix with my webcam, so they're not the best - but they're original!) :) When I came home I was in a bad mood, I knew it, but a minute after I would apologize for being crabby I'd go off and say something else crabby! I think I apologized to my mom at least 3 times on the way to church and we only live 1 minute away from it. She was too sweet and understanding and got me to laugh about it before church started. God is very gracious to me - I think this next part may have been my punishment for having such a crummy attitude: I went up front for opening to lead songs for the kids. It can be a bit intimidating since all the adults are with us for the opening and closing, but usually the kids sing out and I don't even think about it. However, this week was different from most because the majority of our kids are gone to camp this week AND I had promised to teach them a new song. It was new to the piano player, Mrs. Clay, as well, so she gave me the starting note and then her and I were - on our own...the song was much higher than I remembered and soon my voice was shaking and cracking whenever I had to go up high. I felt like Danny Kaye when he's nervous or Jamie Kagol (for those of you who know our former KEYC weather man) I wanted to either hide behind the decorations up front with me or burst out crying or laughing at myself (I'm not sure which one). Neither seemed to be reasonable solutions, though, so I just kept singing and asking God to please start singing for me or SOMETHING! Help me stop thinking about myself - but that always seems to make me think about myself more somehow - probably because it's a very self-focused prayer intended to save face...Anyway, I think God was probably getting a kick out of it, along with everyone else! Haha! Thankfully the kids joined me for the second verse - how they got the melody out of what I sang, I have no idea! :) When the song was over I said - "Wow! You guys did a great job catching on so fast! We'll go over it again (meanwhile in my mind: AGAIN! did i just say AGAIN!?) at closing time (at closing time!?) so we can know it really well when we have to teach the teens next week, too!" When I got done with my part up front all I could think was, "Why did I say we'd do that again tonight?" haha! I sat down and Jules was like, "you're sweating!" And I was like "I KNOW! What's up with that!?" During activity time I found out that Mrs. Clay was a little nervous about it, too, so we went through it afew times and were laughing about it - it turned out to be a very good thing that we went over it cause we - or I - messed up plenty while practicing. I then "taught" it to Mr. Clay for practice :) Heehee! Thankfully, it went much better at closing time. At the end Mrs. Clay and I looked at one another with smiles of triumph and relief :) Haha! Needless to say, I got my share of embarrassment last night. It's funny how something you can be so used to, can suddenly be such a big deal. But I learned my lesson - ALWAYS be prepared! I think the kids were clueless cause none of them were embarrassed to come up and talk to me or be associated with me afterwards. Haha! The adults on the other hand I'm sure were NOT clueless, but were still very kind to me and acted like I didn't just make a complete fool of myself. Which I was grateful for and played right along with them. What? Me? A fool? Nah!!!

Mom, Jules and I went home and were ready to crash by 11. I was in my bathroom getting ready for bed. I closed my door and saw a big black splotch on the floor and thought - that can't be....no, please just be a giant fuzzy! But much to my dismay it started moving - it was a big scary hairy black spider with FANGS! okay - no fangs, but very scary! So I just started yelling, "mom!" I soon found that the more I screamed, the faster he crawled, but I also found that the more he crawled, the more I screamed, so soon it was "MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!" ...."crawl, crawl, crawl, crawl..."...."MOM!!!!"..."crawl, crawl, crawl, crawl,"...I grabbed everything up off the floor so he had no where to hide and jumped up on my little bathroom counter - still screaming. Mom soon came to the rescue. But it was one of those clever spiders. He had crawled under my hamper and I had been watching the whole time so I knew he was there even though he was no where to be found when mom lifted it up. She left the room and I balanced myself on the counter while reaching out to tip up the hamper to see if I could find him. Suddenly I saw him crawling up toward my hands! I dropped the hamper and started hyperventilating!...and once again mom came to the rescue. This time she got him crawling again. He was heading out of my bathroom, but I am sure he was on his way to my room! "MOM! Stop him!" Mom stomped on him with only a flip flop on her foot! And then while he was struggling to get his hairy legs untangled, she squished him in a kleenex and disposed of him. THANKS MOM! I had the jitters for the rest of the night - which I rarely have, so Julie kept taking advantage of it and coming in my room to scare me. I finally fell asleep and actually ended up having sweet peaceful dreams :) God really is good - all the time :) Heehee!