Life Happens ~ by Heather Oster

Hello all!!  I've missed you and have missed writing.  Given the past week I had, I'm finding my writing is a huge stress reliever and am thrilled to be back, writing my thoughts out again for all of you to enjoy.  I apologize that I haven't blogged for a whole week now.  What happened, you ask?   

Well, life happened; and, not according to MY plan at all.
Lately, it seems like every time I turn around something "unexpected" occurs that requires my immediate attention and/or assistance.  Not that those things are necessarily negative, but they certainly distract me from my daily grind, which messes with the orbit of my world and then my whole solar system goes off line - literally.  I am a very planned person.  I like to keep to a schedule and I usually have my entire week lined out in front of me as to what I will do on what day and so on. So, when something comes up that's not on my to-do list, it throws me for quite a loop!

My week started off with the company of my mom.  I don't get to see her much in the Fall and Winter seasons because of the weather we endure living in Montana (roads are often bad).  So, when she stops down to visit, during those seasons, its always nice.  She had originally said she was coming in last Tuesday, but then surprised us all by arriving a day early, last Monday.  This was no problem as I didn't have anything else going on and I knew my boys would be over-joyed to have her here an extra day.  And, its not like she can't entertain herself if need be.  So, this was not a curve ball in the least to what I had planned out.

However, that afternoon, the poor woman had a car accident and her vehicle ended up in the shop.   While we all have accidents, getting a call of this nature was not on my list of things that would happen Monday.  So, my world went a little off kilter.  I had to run to the neighbors and ask them to get my boys off the bus while I headed into town to help my mom.  We seemed to have gotten everything squared away there and we returned home.  While there was nothing spectacular that happened that evening, everything seemed off-center.  It was weird to say the least.  I ended the day by not being able to sleep and thus started my Tuesday even more exhausted then I was when I went to bed on Monday.  I don't know about you, but I am a person who absolutely has to have their sleep or things just don't go right.

My mom returned home Wednesday and it was time to play catch up on the previous two days of work and sleep.  Well, as you can imagine, that took another two days, which led me right up to Friday.  While I did mostly get caught up on my work between Wednesday and Thursday, I still felt like I was behind and did not recouperate in the sleep department at all.  Friday was the "Celebration of Life" for my husbands Grandfather and I can't say I felt much like blogging.  Its always hard to lose a family member and sometimes even harder to get through that last physical step of the formal goodbye.  I was exhausted by the time the week came to a close; and, as luck would have it, could not sleep Friday night.  I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling for hours - getting up occassionally to check facebook and then going back to bed to try to sleep.  I failed miserably.

I was hoping my Saturday would go as I had planned with a morning soccer game, my youngest going to an all-afternoon birthday party and a mid-day matinee date with my beloved.  Wrong, again.  It had rained all night and morning and, since our house is finally completely healthy, we opted to skip the soccer game.  So, I thought I would tackle our bills and balancing the checkbook early.  Ha!  You ever make an error in your checkbook that you can't find after FOUR hours of searching?  And its not like I don't balance the thing bi-weekly.  Over and over and over again my husband and I searched for the error.  Finally, we gave up and decided we'd see where things were in a week.  I started paying the bills, looked down at the register and there it was!!  The error was now sticking out at me like a sore thumb.  Go figure.  By now, we've missed our window to go to the matinee and decided to watch the rest of the Griz game instead.  Saturday was now shot, but I did manage to fall asleep for about an hour.  Hey - its better than nothing.

Sunday came and I could not drag my tired self out of bed.  It was simply not happening.  My family headed off to church without me and I slept until about 9:30 - which is unheard of for me but I guess I needed it, didn't I?  I got up, did my morning run and came upstairs to make a pot of coffee when my family arrived back home with sad news.  We discussed that for a little bit and then headed out to sight my rifle in as I am going hunting next week.  I had a good time, as I love target shooting, but it was cold out.  When we returned home, I noticed that the for sale sign in front of our house was missing.  After a few phone calls we figured out that the mortgage company we are refinancing with, called our realtor and told him to remove our listing - without notifying us.  By the time we got this all figured out it was almost dinner time and a friend of ours was on his way over to go over the details of a piece of furniture he is going to build for us.  As our mtg was finishing up, it was now nearly 7:00 p.m. and I was ready to go vegetate in front of the t.v. for the remainder of the day.  X-Factor it was.  Not that I am a fan, but it required little participation on my part and worked perfectly. 

What a day.  What a weekend.  What a week.  I managed to get a few things done that I had originally planned, like pottery class, house cleaning, laundry, running, life group, sighting in my rifle and mtg with our friend, but there was little time for anything else with the constant interruptions.  When I considered how much these "interruptions" or "distractions" can throw one's "orbit" off, I remembered reading an interesting quote regarding those exact things.

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Collected Works of C. S. Lewis

 

As I sit here, slightly convicted for being so whiny about what last week brought, I am reminded that these are the things that mold us into who we are.  Its not necessarily the events that occur, but how we react to them.  We can welcome all those "unscheduled" events with a smile or with a sigh.  We can look at every new day with rejoicing or regret.  We can do our best to plan our weeks and our lives or we can let our feet hit the floor with the readiness to handle whatever God brings our way.

 

That being said, I am going to work on trying to do a little less life-planning and a little more trusting God that, with or without my blogging, agendas or lists, my world will continue to orbit as it should and my solar system will indefinetly be on-line.