A Week in Review

Hello all. Another week has past, and I feel a need to review it, so let’s go ahead with that. Here is A Week in Review.

Meeting my every need
My coworker Cheryl is the best. She brings me little trinkets for Christmas and Valentine’s Day, and remembers my birthday, and today she’s getting me some bagels. I’ve been craving a good bagel for a few days now, but the ones that are sold in the vending machines are pretty much awful, and I certainly can’t get up in time to go to an Einstein’s before work, so I’ve lived without. Today I mentioned to Cheryl (with no intention of her going, I promise) that I really wanted a good bagel. She said, “Well…it is Easter. We should have gotten Easter bagels. I bet I could go.” And she finished a few things and then went. Good bagels are coming my way! I love that woman.

Oh, and last week she bought me lunch. It’s so nice to have a mother-figure at the office.

Speaking of The Office
I don’t know how I feel about Michael Scott leaving Dunder Mifflin and starting up his own paper company. Dunder Mifflin did treat him like the village idiot (they had their reasons), and so I suppose it was time for him to go, but still, I will miss the office dynamic that came with the whole Scranton group working together. What are your thoughts? Is it troubling when one of your favorite shows takes on a story line that you don’t really like? Do you even know what I’m talking about? We all watch The Office, right?

While we’re on the subject of television, I feel like 30 Rock has lost some of it’s luster this year. I still like it, very much, but last night’s episode gave only one or two good laughs, one of those being when Tracy Jordan said that he had “admonished” Kenneth for something. Someone like Tracy using the word admonished is a riot.

My bagels have arrived. Cinnamon sugar, I’m so happy.

Ironing
I did some ironing last Saturday during Ladies’ Night. Strange, huh? For those who don’t know, Mormon Handicraft moved into our store, in the mezzanine, maybe two years ago. They have little projects during the Ladies’ Night festivities, and this time they made pillow cases. Ladies chose their fabric, and then a couple of women were all set up with sewing machines to sew them together, kind of fun. They needed someone to iron the piece that is the band, just fold the fabric in half and iron it flat. I was scheduled to work on the floor rather than at a register, which is hard to do when there are 500 women in the store. There’s really nowhere to put yourself, and your physical safety is always in jeopardy. The MH supervisor grabbed me from the jaws of death, and asked if I could go upstairs and do the ironing. I said, “Yeah, I think I can iron.” And off I went. It was actually fun, and it got me away from the crowd, and I remembered what it’s like to hold an iron. Seriously, I haven’t picked up an iron in years. None of my clothes need it. I wear a lot of t-shirts.

My dear mother did teach me how to iron; in fact she taught me everything any girl would need to know to run a home, and then some. She’s a marvel of a homemaker. I’ve never met another woman with her capacity for work. The sad fact is, I use very little of what she taught me. You just don’t when you live in an apartment and don’t have kids. I keep the place clean, and of course take care of laundry and other basics, but that’s it. I like to cook, and can do it, but don’t cook for myself. I honestly worry that when the day comes that I have a house and family, I will have forgotten everything Mom taught me and we’ll all be lost. Maybe I’ll just have mom come and live with us for a while, do a refresher course.

The bagels are going quickly, and I’m kind of bugged. What if I want another one? They are mine after all.

Conference
I enjoyed General Conference very much, especially Elder Holland’s talk. It really struck a cord with me, maybe because over the last few weeks I’ve been struggling with a few things. Here’s some of what he said:
“To all such, I speak of the loneliest journey ever made and the unending blessings it brought to all in the human family. I speak of the Savior’s solitary task of shouldering alone the burden of our salvation. Rightly He would say: “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me. . . . I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold [me].”1

My other plea at Easter time is that these scenes of Christ’s lonely sacrifice, laced with moments of denial and abandonment and, at least once, outright betrayal, must never be reenacted by us. He has walked alone once. Now, may I ask that never again will He have to confront sin without our aid and assistance, that never again will He find only unresponsive onlookers …As we approach this holy week…may we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear. This Easter week and always, may we stand by Jesus Christ “at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death,”21 for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone.”

I suppose there’s some sadness in what he said about Christ being alone, but it’s also hopeful and strengthening. It lets us know that he knows what we go through, and how to help. That’s my testimony this Easter that the Lord loves us, and is always close by.

I think that’s it for this week. Thanks, as always, for sticking with me.
Happy Easter!
You are loved.