A Fairly Normal Day

Sometimes a normal day for me is complicated and I have too much stuff being juggled to get it done. Today was a good example of that. But is always try to make people more important than my tasks.

I jumped out of bed at 4:45am. Well jump might be generous, since I am on steroids, I only clocked a couple of hours of sleep. I pulled my protesting body out of bed at 4:45 am and head to yoga class. My lung function was down some more but I wa fully expecting to see an upswing throughout the day.

Wrapping up my yoga class, I drove home, showered and dressed for the day, fixed breakfast and threw in a load of wash. From there I headed to the church where I prepared the Chamber of Commerce minutes for the next morning and then began my online class again. In the midst of the class I had a phone counseling session with a parishioner. I had no sooner got that finished when my first appointment showed up. Spending an hour with one of my ministerial students is s joy and as I prayed with them, I was filled with gratitude for the opportunity to walk with them through their journey to ordination. Waving goodbye to them I waved hello to my next appointment of the day, my other ministerial student who is also a joy to spend time with. Is m so blessed to have these incredible students here following God's call. They bring life and joy to not only me but the entire congregation as they learn and grow.

As we finished up our appointment we received s call that we have a squatter at the church again sleepin in the side parking lot. So I then did a walk around where I found the personal belongings of someone sleeping there but no actual hot body. Telling myself that I would try looking for them later in the day, I headed to the Fire Station for  a quick meeting with the Chief to get permission to recruit our students for my mental health triage team for the upcoming earthquake disaster drill. After receiving his okay I went and touched bases with their supervisors so they would know what I was doing.

Wrapping things up temporarily at the station I headed to my noon Kiwanis meeting that I had missed for several weeks. It was good to be there with friends, but an hour later I was headed back to the station for Union Negotiations. This is always an interesting process and we are making good headway and I am enjoying the negotiating team. But it is very time consuming. As the meeting went on I found myself increasingly uncomfortable and one of the paramedics finally asked me if I was okay? And did I need a breathing treatment? And I found that I really was not okay. I was short of breath, wheezy and very hoarse. So I spent the next 20 minutes receiving an emergency breathing treatment as we tried to continue negotiations. But treatment helped and we made it through and set our next meeting up. I took the time to text the requested update to my dr and realized that I had some other contacts to make as well.

Following the meeting I spent an impromptu hour giving encouragement and support to someone facing a serious surgery. Then I went and found my student interns and recruited them for my Mental Health Triage Team, promising that I would come before the event and do some mental health assessment training with them. I left some fairly excited students who were looking forward to something new and different to learn.
It was at that point that I realized that there was no way I was feeling physically able to drive an hour to Turner Oregon for my 6pm Directors meeting. So I texted my regrets and headed to the store to pick up dinner and head home.

Pulling up to the house I realized that someone had come by and stole my grass today. I do not think I have ever been so grateful at something missing from my house. But sure enough both front and back yards were mowed. So I started dinner on the stove and then went and found my neighbor man who I was sure was the grass thief. (which he was) and spent some time visiting with him. Running back into the house to turn off the dinging timer and rescue my dinner I dished up my plate and sat to watch some tv with dinner. And of course for some unknown reason cable was out. Sighing I picked up the out her remote and pulled up my Netflix account to watch a couple of x-file episodes.

By 7:30 I decided it was time to wash up for bed and read for a while. There I had a short in line counseling session with some in and chatted with a pastoral friend in southern Oregon. Finally picking up my book, I only read a few pages until I was asleep.

And that is my fairly normal day. Very busy with unexpected twists, but really a good day. Full of love and laughter and a sense of Gods presence. Just Connie