Patience is not my virtue - but I'm trying

Anyone who knows me remotely well knows I am not a patient person. Give me someone to help and I have the patience of Job but when regulating my own personal affairs, I have some issues.

This is probably why the Lord has seen fit to regularly give me opportunities to work on this dismal shortcoming of mine. I was telling my mother the other day, that I quit Patience 101. It's DUMB. I thought about it later, and realized, after Years of struggling, a few things I think God wants me to be learning. You see, I've always looked at gaining patience almost as a punishment from God. Sort of as though He's in heaven looking down on this poor unfortunate soul saying, "Dang it Sara, you will learn patience whether you like it or not! You won't get married when you want, you won't have children when you want and you won't get a house when you want. You just have to wait!!" I've thought that if I could just learn patience then the Lord would see my efforts, grade them accordingly and let me move on.

But I'm coming to learn that this is a completely false notion. God doesn't withhold blessings just to prove a point. What sort of loving father would do that? Instead, He has a very specific plan with certain milestones coming at very specific times. I've learned that after all is said and done, I kind of like God's plan for me. I really wouldn't want it any other way. But I'm also learning, I need to cultivate a spirit of patience to get through the interim periods with my sanity in check. I need patience for me, not to prove something to God.

I love journals. I love being able to read my mother's from when she was my age and I love being able to read through mine. It's sometimes painful to read, but definitely helps me to learn from my own mistakes so hopefully I won't be cursed to continue to repeat them. I learned through a recent reading through the last three years that I tend to sabotage myself. I give myself random, arbitrary deadlines and then curse God when my life doesn't go according to my silly little plan. This, obviously isn't helping anyone; not my supportive friends and family, not my poor husband, and most especially not me. So, I write this post in an effort to gain some perspective and patience. Life is wonderful, children AND a house are somewhere in the future, and until then, let's party like it's 1999!!

Just Say "You Lose!!"

My current calling at church is teaching Sunday School to 17 and 18-year olds. They are a large but generally highly entertaining group of kids. A few weeks ago we were talking about how to resist temptation and I told them about about a girl who took resisting temptation to new levels. Whenever she felt her good girl resolve slipping, like if she didn't feel like praying, she would tell herself that's just what Satan would want her to do. At this point she would counter his effects by saying with strong conviction "You lose Satan! I'm going to pray anyway!" (said with passionate karate chop motions.)

My class thought this was pretty entertaining, so I challenged them to have a "You lose" moment some time during the week. The following Sunday I got a report from one my students who found his own resolve slipping during his Statistics class. Should he or shouldn't he cheat. So in the middle of class he yells out "You lose!" My other students who happened to be in the same class all busted up laughing while the remaining students were left to wonder what in the world was going on. Now, granted, this boy might have just taken an opportunity to yell at random. But even still, my terribly profound words of wisdom will hopefully be ingrained on their young minds. At least for a few more months.

I Quit Sponge Rollers

So this is kind of silly, but I have decided that sponge rollers don't play nice. A few months ago, my sister mentioned she had tried them with crazy cute results. It brought back all sorts of memories of me as a little girl with really adorable Shirley Temple ringlets. So I went to our local dollar store and invested $3 in sponge rollers. After putting the curlers in, I remembered the other half of the memories of me as a girl suffering through a very uncomfortable night's sleep. The next morning I woke up, took out the curlers and found, to my horror, super duper tight curls that more resembled little pigtails than Shirley Temple ringlets. Only after 12 hours did they finally relax enough to look cute.

Several months later I thought rolling in the morning leaving five hours for drying time would give me the curl I wanted without the pigtails I didn't. No good. Even after blow drying the sponge rollers for ten minutes, only half of my hair was actually dry, leaving my hair looking lame (see above picture). I'm so done. No super duper Shirley Temple curls for Mother's Day. Thankfully I have hats to hide disastrous hair results. So blegh to sponge rollers. Yeah to hats. That's the final determination.

Does anyone want a bag full of slightly used sponge rollers?

I Love

A few things I love these days:

@ I love being able to connect with women who are virtual strangers to me. I love being a woman and all of the natural bonding that comes along with it.

@ I love sunny days. Thanks Oregon for having the wettest April in recent history. And thanks Oregon for reminding me what a joy warm, sunny days can be.

@ I love working part time. Sometimes I forget what a charmed life I lead to not have children and still not have to work full time.

@ I love having time in my schedule to be able to say yes to service opportunities.

@ I love my 17 and 18 year olds to whom I teach Sunday School. I love the exploration of the Old Testament we get to do together.

@ I love the book my husband recently finished. "The Adventures of Jonathan Wordsymthe"

@ I love that I have a explanation to all the joint pain, muscle pain, weight gain, and sluggishness I've been feeling for the last couple of months. Hypothyroidism. Who knew everything would be answered by one simple disorder. I love that my salvation comes in the form of a simple pill I take once a day. I also love that this said pill was free to me because my very kind doctor allowed me to use my mother's thyroid medication she had received but was no longer using. I know it sounds awful and my husband was horrified that my mother was dispensing drugs to me, but I love free drugs that make my whole body sigh with relief.

@ Finally, I love the hope I am allowing myself to feel that this pill might also be the key to my infertility issues. Turns out my thyroid is completely out of whack and may have been for multiple years without my ever knowing it.

Confessions From my Parent's Basement

Tonight, I went to a Relief Society activity filled with food, spa treatments, movies, and lots and lots of girl talk. It was fun to get to know a few of the women in my parent's ward and it made me a little sad to have to leave in a few months to be a Penn Stater. There are some really fun women here and it could be a lot of fun to become invested here. Hopefully in a few months I will be able to say the same thing of the women I'll meet in State College.

But even with the really cool women inhabiting the area, not to mention my wonderful family (including amazing parents, adorable nephews and two nieces) I will be happy to move on.

I love my parents and their basement, I really do. Thank you parents for letting us mooch off of you for the last couple of months. But, is it too materialistic to say that I miss my stuff? My spices and cooking supplies, my bed, my TV. Not that my parent's have inferior belongings, they just aren't "mine" anymore. And I am eager to get back to my stuff.

I'm eager to get into a routine again. For some reason, living in a temporary location makes routines difficult for me - even though I'm pretty sure it's all in my head.

I'm eager to invest myself into a new place. Eager to explore my surroundings and fall in love with what makes it unique. Eager to get to know new people and become part of each other's lives. Eager to become involved in the community.

I guess, in essence, I'm eager to feel like my life is moving forward. It's been hard for me to live a temporary existence. I was raised very much to do something with my whole heart or none at all. I want to give of myself and invest, but knowing I'm only here for a few months brings out the less attractive, antsy side of me. I'm trying very hard to see this time as the blessing I know the Lord intends it to be for me. Trying to see my family as much as I can and make sure I fill my canteen with all the momma and grandchildren and sibling time I can possibly fit in there. Trying to enjoy not cooking every night (shouldn't be that hard right?). Trying to make sure I learn everything I should from this experience before it's too late. So hopefully in a couple of months when we're en route to our next adventure I don't look back and realize I didn't put my whole heart into a very special period in my life.