Is it a lie if you didn't mean to say the wrong thing?

Normally I go to church on Saturday night. It just fits my schedule better when I work every Sunday. However this week I was scheduled for kitchen duty on Sunday. This happens every 8 or 10 weeks and I get to go to church and have people ask me if I'm new to the fellowship I've been attending for 10 or 12 years.

This weekend was Christmas concert weekend. I was asked to bring some baking for Saturday night service, my usual service. Because I knew I was attending Sunday to do coffee duty, I just dropped off my baking on Saturday night and left.

On the way home, I took a different route home than I had taken to get to the church. There was a road block for the Christmas Counter Attack. The kind officer asked, "Have you had anything to drink tonight?"
"No."
"Nothing, at all?"

Since my mind works approximately 347.82 times faster than my lips, the little red devil on my left shoulder had me thinking I should say, "I just came from the church where they are having a Christmas Concert rehearsal. I keep telling them that if they served beer they'd get more volunteers." But at the same time the angel on the right shoulder reminded that I had just had 2 glasses of wine with my dinner. Ooops. I just lied to an officer. I hadn't really intended to lie. I just didn't think. I certainly wasn't drunk, so it didn't cross my mind to say I had had some wine.

Now what do I do? Do I back-track and confess that, yes, I have been drinking. Or do I carry on with my original statement?

I choked out an answer, "Nothing at all."

My nose grew 3 inches and my face turned red in embarassment in the dark and the kind officer glanced me up and down and I guess he approved of my innocent smile as he said, "Have a good evening."

Have you no idea what you smell like?

There's that perfume that people wear that just gags you when they walk by. You know which one I mean... the one that smells like mildew. It's better known as Patchouli oil. Every time I smell it, I can't help but think, "Person who shares my air space, have you no idea what you smell like?"

The Patchouli plant

I was in the mall the other day and my hands were very dry and in need of a sample of moisturizer. I had no clue that Lush had opened the day before, or else I would not have headed off to Body Shop. But off I headed.

There, front and centre with a large sign saying "BEST SELLER!" was some different varieties of hemp lotions and potions. One was Extreme Hand Protector. Ah yes, just what I needed. I squeezed and rubbed and suddenly realized the unlisted ingredient was patchouli oil. OMG!

Read what Wikipedia has to say about patchouli:

Patchouli oil and incense underwent a surge in popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly among devotees of the free love and hippie lifestyles, since the pungent smell of patchouli is known to cover the smell of burnt cannabis and body odor. During the Vietnam war, American soldiers used patchouli to mask the smell of the graves of enemy soldiers killed in combat. War protesters of the time used patchouli on themselves, to demonstrate that "we are all one race, we are the same as the enemy soldiers." Also, the Hare Krishna movement may have been partly responsible for this surge, as the god Krishna is said to "inhabit" patchouli. It can also be used as a hair conditioner for dreadlocks. One study suggests Patchouli oil may serve as an outdoor insect repellent.

I don't think I had body odour to disguise, and it's been quite a number of years since I have needed to mask the scent of burnt cannabis. (And quite frankly, burnt cannabis and unwashed bodies smell better.) I washed my hands and applied a variety of other products to mask the smell. But no luck. For the next two hours, every person I passed in the mall looked at me out of the corner of their eye and I could tell they were thinking, "Person who shares my air space, have you no idea what you smell like?"

Sleeping in: a fantasty that never materializes.

Tuesday was sleep-in day. It was the first day since I don't remember when, that no one had to work, Jed's lifeskills worker wasn't arriving at the crack of dawn and we had nothing pressing on our schedule. We even let Jed stay up until midnight.

Typically, I am wide awake sometime between 5 and 7 am. But I love the thought of sleeping in being a possibility. However, Tuesday it appeared it might be a reality. I was still soundly sleeping at 7:45... when I heard my bedroom door open and the deep bass voice of my 21-year-old baby says, "What's your plan for today, Mom."

I kept the f-words and other expletives contained within my head while I growled, "Shut the door!" But that was it. 7:45 was my sleep in.

Today I have plenty on my schedule, not the least of which is shopping. Jed has papers to deliver this morning and he also needs to shovel snow at his job at the nearby motel, then he has an appointment at 1:00.

Being the loving and supportive mother that I am, I have offered to help him by driving around while he does the papers. As I called him bright and early to ask him, "What's your plan, Jed." let's just say, he wasn't as graceful at containing the expletives as I had been the morning before.

Good things are about to happen.

At minus 20, this morning was the warmest we've had in about 10 days or so. The thermometer has been bouncing between -20 and -30. Yesterday morning it was hovering about -30 when I went to start my car to take Jed to work.

wrrrr-wrr-wrr--- Nope. The poor little Jet just refused to fire on her 7 year old battery. And I had so many errands and things planned to do. Was I frustrated sitting there in my frozen little car? No. I actually began to get quite excited as I thought of all the things that were about to happen: We are going on a tropical vacation, Alb is finally going to get his ear pierced, we are getting matching tattoos on our butts, I'm losing 40 pounds. How do I know these things? Cuz I'm pretty sure hell is about to freeze over.

Guilt? Or a prompting from the Spirit? Either way I think I'll take action.

Sometimes a guilty conscience can cause you to read more into a situation that is really there. I'm hoping that's the case for today when I got a mental slap upside the head.

As I ranted in my earlier blog, I have not even signed my name to a bought Christmas card, much less laboured over creating the fantastic unique specimens of paper and envelope that I usually send out to friends and family. Today I received a couple of Christmas cards in the mail to add to the beautiful collection that is starting to accumulate on the hearth. One was from my Grandparents...

"Merry Christmas, we love you and we keep informed about your family through your parents...." Okay, perhaps it's just my guilt speaking, but does that not sound an awful lot like, "Merry Christmas, we love you. And you, well it seems you have totally forgotten your Grandparents even exist, for we have not heard from you since last Christmas. And you know full well we do not have a computer so we cannot follow your blog and we do not access Facebook. Love Grandpa and Grandma."

I will sign off now and go find a pen and a box of Christmas cards.

A little calm among the hubbub

Two weeks? How can Christmas be only 2 weeks away. I'm running about two months behind right now. Normally by October 1st I have decided on what colour of wrapping paper to use, and come up with a creative way to tag each present in such a way that no one knows whose is whose. Yes, I said "what colour of wrapping paper to use." Doesn't everyone 'theme' wrap so everything matches?


And boxes. I have but 2 boxes in my collection of empties. I cannot wrap a present that is not rectangular or square. There'll be no misshapen packages or gift bags allowed in my house. Everything has to stack in a neat little pile. Okay, I use the term "little" loosely. The pile is normally about 5 feet high and 12 feet across. Not this year.

So far I have one present bought. One. Just one. And I have ordered two online - I hope they come in wrap-able boxes. Well, at this point I just hope they come, I'm running out of time.

I haven't done any baking. I haven't planned a party. I haven't made or signed a single Christmas card. I haven't even lit a pine or cranberry scented candle. But...

Jesus and Mary and the others have been removed from the cellar and are arranged on the coffee table where they sit quietly amongst the hubbub to gently remind us that He came to bring peace and good will.

This is a test

I can create blogs directly in Office 2007 and have them upload automatically. At least that's the theory. And this is a test.