A Week in Review

Hello All. It’s another Friday. Time to review the week with…(dramatic pause)…A Week in Review.

For Crying Out Loud
I left the house without putting my contacts in this morning. Unbelievable. This whole time change spring forward thing has me totally screwed up. I have a hard enough time without having to get started at what my body thinks is an hour earlier every morning. My eyesight isn’t very bad, so I can get ready and dressed without my contacts. Putting them in is usually the last thing I do before leaving the bathroom. Today I was driving to work and thought that things looked fuzzy, and then thought, “Did I put my contacts in?” and then realized that no, I didn’t. Good job. I’m literally going through the day in a blurry haze.

Happy Birthday!
Last Tuesday was my birthday, and I had a very nice day. It was actually an accumulation of several nice days. I told you about the Snickers cake at work last week. It really was so good. Saturday Melissa and I went to dinner at Chili’s. We wanted Outback Steakhouse, but when we were told that the waiting time was 70 minutes we said no way man. Chili’s was good. Melissa had been asking me for weeks what I wanted to do for my birthday, and I couldn’t come up with anything inventive, and finally said let’s just go to dinner. She gave me a gift card to the Hale Center Theater to get tickets to a play, which is very inventive. I love it. We’ll do that sometime soon.

I took Monday and Tuesday off, a little gift to myself. Melody and I had dinner together on Monday, and then Marla spent Tuesday with me. We went shopping. There’s a new Nordstrom in town, and it’s lovely. The cosmetics department made me tear up a little, and then I spent some money. Marla sat down in one of the chairs at the MAC counter and got some pampering, and then looked so good. The makeup artist (can you call a department store guy an artist?) was a man, maybe in his mid-twenties. Afterward I mentioned to Marla that I really think that guys do a better job with make-up, which seems strange, but she agreed, and said that it’s because they’re not competing with you. Good point. Women are too competitive.

Later we had dinner at Rodizio Grill. I’d never been there before, had heard a lot about it, but had never gone. What a lot of fun! There are men in baggy pants walking around with big skewers of meat, and they stop at your table, tell you what they have, and then slice some off if you want it. The pork was especially delicious. And, they sang a Brazilian version of Happy Birthday with a bongo and tambourine. Can’t beat that.

When thinking about writing about my birthday, I thought that it would be fun to include some baby pictures. Here they are – three of my favorites.

Here I am with my mom.
I'm about a year old in this one.

And this is me (on the left) with my cousin Kari. We were born in the same month and grew up together playing Little House on the Prairie.

I have to say that turning 39 has me a little freaked out. It's not 39 exactly that's causing the problem, but the fact that 40 is looming over me. I can’t really be 40 years old. It’s so hard to deal with that I don’t know that I even want to talk about it. And it’s not 40 itself that's getting me, it’s the idea of being 40 and single. Oh no, my throat is tightening up. Deep breathes.

But, it reminds me of a story. Years ago when I was a missionary, my companion and I took time every now and then to visit an older lady in our ward, Sister Twila Ferrin. She was in her 80s at the time, and had recently lost her husband. I remember her being so sharp and really admiring her. When she was young, she played the piano in dance hall bands, and one day showed us some of her pictures of those days. Fascinating.

Sister Ferrin was in her early 40s when she got married. She and her husband were very happy together for 30+ years before he passed away. I remember asking her if it was difficult, waiting so long for marriage. She said, “It depends on how you look at it.” That was all, but that was enough. Doesn’t the difficulty of every situation depend on how you look at it? One of life’s greatest lessons is learning how to look at things in such a way that you can deal without loosing your mind, or crying too much. Look at the blessings, and the goodness, at the things you love. I’m still not as good at doing this as I should be, but I’d like to think that I’m getting better with age. Turning 40 might be my ultimate test, but it is still a full year away. I’ve got some time…

That’s it for now. Thanks, as always, for being the better parts of my life. You are loved.