Flexibility

Pretty sure that God feels I need to learn more flexibility.  Our choir is on a new schedule where sometimes we are there for the early part of the service, sometimes just for the later part of the service, and sometimes for both.

On Tuesday, we took Rachel for a checkup with her behavioral pediatrician, then when I picked her up from school on Wednesday, she had signs of an ear infection, so we drove back to the same practice to the acute care area to see another doctor - it's about half an hour drive, and between the trip, the time waiting to see someone and waiting for the prescription, it was 6:20 by the time we got home, with Awana starting at 6:30.  I grabbed a rotisserie chicken and bread at the store, then proceeded to drop the bread on the ground.  I kid you not, I wiped it off, then microwaved it a little at home to kill any germs and ate it, anyway.

Yesterday, I was at the Fair with Rachel and my mom when James texted to say his car was dead.  We've put enough into repairing it that we think it's time to finally replace it.  When we were done at the Fair, we walked back to where I thought I'd left my car, and it wasn't there.  Panicked momentarily, then I started observing my surroundings and I realized that the intersection that I'd noted as the one where I'd parked was actually *not* that one - somehow I misread a sign, I guess!  3 more blocks north while remembering landmarks we'd passed earlier, and we found my car.

We were also at the Fair much longer than I'd planned, so yesterday was just a lost day.  But we were having a good time there and Rachel had a blast going on rides, and none of us felt in a rush to get going.  I decided not to worry about the time and enjoy myself until I got tired.

Today I was on worship team at church.  Since we only had 1 working car, I had to leave between church services to pick up the rest of the family for 2nd service, returning with about 5 minutes to spare.  After church we had lunch, then came back home to change, and Rachel and I went back to church for the first meeting and sing-through of our church's Christmas Dessert musical.  We had to leave partway through to go to the car dealership and see about getting a car.  Turns out the one James had already picked out was sold yesterday.

We had an awful experience there - 2 1/2 hours that were full of questions that took forever to get answered, dishonesty about the price of the cars we were seeing and just a huge waste of time.  We headed back home without purchasing anything.  Thankfully our friend and worship pastor Patrick had offered us the temporary use of an extra car their family has, so we gratefully took them up on the offer so that James can get to work more easily this week and so that we can make it to evening activities.

Ranted about the car dealership experience and got a lot of great referrals for car dealers from my Facebook friends (you're all awesome), plus a specific reference from a friend who has purchased his family's last 3 vehicles from a good friend who is a car salesman with great integrity.  We did a little more searching online to see what we could find, then James contacted the salesman and got a very fast response.  We're hopeful that he'll be able to find us the right fit with a price we're comfortable with.

Tomorrow I may or may not be volunteering at Rachel's school - her teacher emailed me on Friday to see if I could help with a project "next Monday."  I emailed back to ask if that was Monday, 9/24 or Monday, 10/1, but didn't hear back, which surprised me considering how responsive she has been with previous emails.  I'm assuming she's had a very busy weekend.  So I'm just kind of rolling with it and, if I hear from her tomorrow morning, I'm planning on being there preparing some reading assessment kits.

I'd actually rather be here tomorrow morning because the hecticness of these recent days, coupled with having an energy-sapping cold that caused me to take several naps during the mornings last week, has left me feeling an urgent need to get caught up on some dishes that need handwashing, clearing some things I've already sorted off of the dining table, and catching up on the receipts and budget-updating that has accumulated in the past week.  But at the same time, if she needs assistance in that way and I can provide it, I'd like to help.

This week also holds 2 mornings of volunteering at the Book Fair at Rachel's school and a dentist appointment for Rachel on Thursday morning, involving the removal of at least 1 baby tooth to allow an adult tooth the space to grow in the rest of the way.  So volunteering tomorrow morning means I have no full mornings to just get things done, but at least I would have some time here and there during the days to work on getting things caught up that need to be caught up.

All these things caused me to start thinking about flexibility and about how I'm not naturally a flexible person. I hate being flexible.  I hate change, especially when lots of change occurs at once.  Rachel went through getting a new teacher (she's in a school with multiage classrooms and was supposed to have the same one for this year as she did last year, but they had to make changes due to having too many 4/5 students and not enough K/1), moving to a different classroom down the hall, having half the girls in her grade move or change classes and getting a new principal.  I was FLIPPING OUT, but she's actually had a pretty good start to the school year, and her teacher, although very different from last year, is really tender-hearted and, I think, a good match for Rachel this year.  I stressed out about it for much of the summer when stressing out didn't do anything, and it's turning out better than I thought.  I also stressed out about Ben starting an extended day at preschool with more demands on him and more therapy, plus lunch.  He's thriving, just really doing well and coming out happy nearly every day, even when he's tired.

I think God maybe thought I'd learned enough about patience for a while and has moved on teaching me flexibility instead.  I think I'll be learning how to just roll with the punches and to be more laid-back about life in general.  Probably a good lesson for me to learn, but not necessarily fun to be learning it sometimes.

So, that turned long and rambly.  I guess that's what happens when one doesn't write a blog post for months.