Milk Comes from Where??

Milk is one of my favorite drinks. I love a tall, ice cold glass of milk anytime of the day. And of course, it's an essential latte ingredient. I drink a lot of milk. When I am an old lady, if I end up with calcium deficiency, it won't be for lack of drinking milk. But, the thing about me and milk is that the milk has to meet certain criteria. First, it has to be ICE cold. Secondly, I prefer skim (1% will do in a pinch), and lastly, it must be pasturized, homogonized, and processed in any and every possible way.

In a round about way, we ended up with some raw milk this week. I won't touch the stuff. I mean, The thought of it squirting, all warm and foamy, into a bucket is enough to keep me away from it. I know, you put it in the fridge and it gets cold like anything else, but then it gets that hard layer of cream on the top. How gross is that? I'm not happy about having to scoop goop off the top of my milk before I can pour a glass. You can readily tell, I'm a city girl. So I did the only respectable thing I could with the milk...I fed it to my kid.

Now my husband, who grew up on a farm, was ecstatic at the prospect of fresh milk. He made a big deal to my son about the fact that this would be the best milk he'd ever had and how it would even be better as chocolate milk. He talked it up as he retrieved the Nestle's Quick and the sugar bowl (yes, he always adds extra sugar...crazy, I know, but he insists that's the way to make proper chocolate milk)

He made a big glass of chocolate milk for my son and as he did, my son got more and more exctited, like a kid waiting for Christmas morning. As my husband sat the glass down on the table, my son could not contain his enthusiasm any longer and jumped up and exclaimed, "Wow! I've never had milk from a cow before."

Luggage Laughs

Last week, I took a business trip to Florida. It was one of those rare opportunities to mix business with pleasure (which I hope to be able to describe more in another post) so a friend traveled with me. Initially, my trip was more about business, hers was more about pleasure. I had to attend conference sessions and training labs and she had to tend to the pool, a hammock, and a novel. Because of this, I had to be a little more obsessed about my clothes. I needed to be dressed for business.

I've come to realize that carrying a hanging clothes bag, with all your shirts neatly ironed does absolutely no good in keeping those shirts looking good. So I opted to iron all my clothes and fold them as neatly as possible in my suitcase and press out the creases when I got to the hotel. I crammed everything that didn't matter into the bottom of the suitcase and then ever so gingerly arranged my shirts on the top. In hindsight, that was wasted energy.

When we checked into the flight at 6am, the ticket lady grabbed my suitcase and slung it upside down onto the luggage conveyor belt. I knew my shirts were doomed. Between flights, we happened to catch sight of our our luggage changing planes every single bag, including mine, was upside down. I'm sure the luggage guys think it's some sort of game. I'm really glad I didn't opt for the hanging bag, because I saw one of those go by and it was twisted around like one of those bread bag ties that you have to use when you lose the flat plastic one that comes with the bread.

All the way there and back each suitcase was upside down, it's like they couldn't tell that the flat part with the wheels is the bottom and the poofy part with the zipper is the top. Perhaps we should spend less time on airport security and more time properly training baggage people how to respect ironed shirts in the top of the suitcase. I could have strapped a stick of dynamite to the top of my suitcase and nobody would have ever seen it because the bag was upside down the whole trip.

I spent a lot of time ironing that week. Luckily for my friend, her swimsuit wasn't wrinkled at all.

Love at the Latte Stand

I know God loves me. I've learned it in Sunday School since I was a little girl. I've sang it in songs and memorized Bible verses that tell me so. God loves me. In real life, however, it's often hard to imagine God being concerned with the daily details of my life. They seem too mundane. Why would he care if traffic was backed up and I was late for work? Does it matter to him that the bathroom sink is plugged up or that the dog threw up on the carpet? Does it move Him to compassion that my tennis elbow has flared up and I can barely move my arm or that I'm a half a cup of sugar short for the recipe I'm making? Sometimes I wonder.

The other morning, I was praying as I was commuting to work. This is a normal habit for me. "Lord," I asked, "I know your Word says you love me. Would you please demonstrate your love for me today in a tangible way? Will you do something obvious that reveals that you do, in fact, love me and care about the mundane details of my life?"

At my office, they make really bad coffee. (My apologies to anyone from work who might be reading this, but you know you can't deny it). The coffee stinks. After praying, and as I continued to drive to work, my urge to avoid having to drink the office coffee, and therefore stop at Starbucks grew. But I knew I was too late. There was no time. Maybe I could drive through one of the local coffee stands? No, that would never work. The Latte Chalet, which is right on my way, is always jammed tight with cars at ten minutes to 8:00. I was desperate...even if I was going to be late, I would brave the line.

As I came down the street, I couldn't see any cars "sticking out" of the drive through, but that doesn't mean anything, because the long line is after you turn the corner and have full view of the place. But, as I came around, I saw an amazing sight. It was 7:53 and there was not a car in sight. At first I thought the Chalet was closed, but nope. I drove right up, ordered my double latte and pulled into my office by 8:00. Now, that's the love of God if I've ever experienced it!

I'm thinking I should pray that same prayer every time I get a last minute urge for coffee, but something tells me that it doesn't really work that way...

Gone But Not Forgotten

Hi, all. It’s that time again. You know, the time when I’ve terribly neglected my blog and have to come crawling back. If you’ve hung around here long, you know it happens every now and then. This time, though, I have a great excuse. Well, at least I have an excuse. I’ll sum it up in two words. Family Vacation. Yep, and when I explain, you’re sure to grant me pardon for my non-blogging time. I’ll try a new exercise and rather than describe the whole thing, I’ll give you some key phrases and you can let your imagination fill in the blanks. Here they are…

4 Day Road Trip with a 5 year old
DVD Player broken after 10 minutes of first movie
12 solid hours of “I Spy With My Little Eye…”
Snow in Yellowstone
Worms on the hotel room floor (lots of them)
Carsickness
Not a Starbucks to be found
Internet Access? What’s that?
Ticks
Full Flight, no seats together
Poison Ivy

Ok, so in reviewing my list, it seems a little unbalanced. There were also these things…

Family time sharing stories and laughs
Observing God’s beautiful creation
The Old Faithful Inn
The biggest Elk I’ve ever seen
Face to Face with a one ton Bison
Friends we haven’t seen in 10 years
Reading
Running in to friends from home while we’re 1800 miles from home. (Weird)
Seeing family we love and miss
Naps
Country cooking and eating until you cant’ stuff another bite in
5 Year Old in the cockpit of a Boeing 737
God’s safety and provision

All in all it was a great trip. I even took my laptop so I could do some blogging/writing. I did a little, but I kept pausing for a nap in between paragraphs, so somehow it never made the final cut to get posted. (That and the fact that there was no internet to be found…life is simpler in Walnut Grove, Missouri)

I’m leaving for a business trip for a week, but I promise when I get back home, I’ll get the posts rolling again. Don’t give up!