Random Thoughts & Dreams

I woke up frowning, the wisps of a dream teasing my mind. I had taken my grandchild (don't actually have one yet, so is this a dream of things to come?) to a favorite swimmin' hole back in Kentucky. We were watching our toes wiggle through the clear water (definitely got my wires crossed there 'cause there's no water that clear that I can recall) and having a grand old time when suddenly there was an old high school classmate with her grandchildren. And she looked at me and said, "You didn't hate us any more than we hated you."

And that's when I woke up.

Folks, I didn't hate anybody. But I do remember being disliked (I hate to think they actually hated me) by a good portion of the girls in high school. After attending both elementary and junior high in Michigan, I moved back to my home state just in time for high school.

And spent the next four years ostracized for the most part. The people who didn't mind hanging out with me? The ones who were too stoned to know any better and a couple of Christians who were actually trying to live out their faith. I'm sorry to say that for most of high school I leaned toward the stoner crowd.

Then during my junior year the Lord orchestrated some events in my life to direct me back to Him. For which I am, literally, ETERNALLY GRATEFUL.

But I've always wondered what it was about me that caused such an intense dislike by a large population of the student body? Was it the way I talked? Admittedly, the flat Midwestern way of speaking was in sharp contrast to their southern twang. But is that a reason?

Was it the way I dressed? Cut my hair? Laughed? Okay, the last one could be considered grounds for ostracization. Even some family members cringe when I laugh.

But overall, I was a pretty innocuous kid so their reaction has always puzzled me.

Anyway, odd dream and I can't blame it on the yogurt I had before going to bed. Nor do I have any idea why it came up now. It's not something I've ever dwelt on, particularly in light of the fact I've been able to make friends wherever I've moved since then. Which I've done a lot. Moved, I mean. AND made friends.

So.

The last few days were pretty busy with cleaning and painting. I'm going to have to put a second coat on one of the bedrooms. The paint rollers are interesting. Within minutes of starting to use one, it becomes a loose globby mess that requires some serious work to actually apply paint in an even manner. And the hubby had to buy a second paint brush after a couple days to continue with the cutting in, because the first one simply started disintegrating. We are not buying the least expensive products, people, but the quality sure indicates CHEAP.

While the hubby is in Buenos Aires I'm also going to work on stripping and cleaning the bedroom floors. We hunted high and low and finally found an ammonia-based product that should make stripping the old wax off a little easier. Gonna have to work on my mopping technique though. Here they use a large thick cloth (it's about 18" square) draped over a long-handled squeegy. I can't manage to keep the cloth on the squeegy yet. But I figure, like Spanish, it just requires practice. And I'll get plenty of that while doing the floors at the house.

Wouldn't mind y'all praying for the hubby as he navigates the customs ordeal process this week. The man who's going to help him believes it will just take a couple of days. Sure hope so! Besides missing the hubby a LOT, each day it takes will cost us more in customs storage fees. And the more they charge, the less we have towards a car.

And while I like the walks and it hasn't really been a huge problem because right now we're very close to a main avenue with multiple buses, the house is much farther from a bus stop and there's only one bus that makes that loop once-every-who-knows-how-often. And when hot weather hits, walking during the day will be nigh unto impossible. Hot is HOT here. So we would really, really like to be able to get a car in the next couple months. Which is why I'm asking you to pray that customs doesn't require any more of our car budget than necessary. Thanks for praying!