Uninspired

Sometimes at work, when it's slow because NC ran out of maternity funding so I only have five clients, I read other people's blogs. I think it's entertaining enough to pass the time until I try to write in my own blog. Surprise! Reading the blogs of people who are hilarious (and coincidentally - or not - paid writers) is highly discouraging and humor-dampening.

So if you have high hopes here, move it along. You can come back the day when I post pictures from our weekend trip to Greenville, SC, where I posed with a number of statues and took The Best Funny Picture of Abe jumping in the air next to a sign about hot dogs. (It seems impossible to get that kind of air from a standing jump. But I saw it, and if you know Abe, you know he's genetically-athletically-metabolically some kind of superhuman.) That's not actually why we drove to Greenville; he can be good at sports from home. We went to A Weekend to Remember, and I forgot to take pictures of the cool hotel elevator, which moved so fast I thought I had morning sickness all weekend. (We all need to hope more than ever that I didn't, since I completely tuned out during the session about How To Be A Godly Mother When You'd Rather Be Singing Karaoke. or On Laundry Day When The Washing Machine Just Broke.) That session was my second least favorite thing* about the weekend.

I told Alexis about my first least favorite already. They had set up a "resource center" right outside our meeting room. In every session, the speakers would reference 3-10 books/games/DVDs/Bible studies/family packs that we could and should purchase at the resource center. So by the end of the conference, when they would say "Another key ingredient in a strong marriage is Extravagant Love," or "So what we really need is Enthusiastic Encouragement," I would whisper to Abe "...which is available in our resource center for $49.95." (We also joked a lot about swine flu.)

We came home, and it was so hot in our apartment I think my aloe plants were sweating. Determined not to put on the AC the first week in May, we went to Target and spent an exorbitant amount of money on a fan powerful enough to claim responsibility for all of the world's Wind Chill Factor. And maybe tsunamis. As a warning, in case you are also buying a fan this spring/summer, they have: (1) become very expensive, and (2) remote controls (because when you're hot, you're lazy!) useless until you remember to buy AAA batteries at the store.

Buying AAA batteries at the store is one of those things that none of us ever remember, until we become like my Dad, who carries a post-it stuck in the inside of his wallet where he can list things like AAA batteries and peet moss, and whatever else it is that his heart desires or his remote control needs from Walmart or Home Depot or Lowes or Harbor Freight. It's always with him when he thinks of something to buy, and since it's already in his wallet, he can't accidentally leave it on the fridge when he goes shopping (or at least, it would be hard). This is a great idea and organizational tool that I plan to adopt, as soon as I can remember to buy the post-its.

*Lest you think it was a spiritual waste of a weekend, I actually had many favorite things about the conference, too, which happen to be more, um, personal and less, um, funny. But I can tell you that my most favorite thing about the conference was coming home, feeling ready to do the work to make the marriage God wants me to have. (Also the gallon of strawberries we bought from an old man at a gas station on our way home.)