Green Beans on the Ceiling

Back in the day when my mom fed my sister green beans out of the jar, I learned some life lessons.  Once, Mom accidentally dropped the jar, and green beans went everywhere.  To my four-year-old self, this was fiasco.  The ultimately BIG MESS!  Mommy should have gone to time out. 

But she didn't.  She laughed.  She laughed so hard we had to write a song/poem about it in order for Daddy to fully grasp the magnitude of the mess we (she) made.

Green beans on the ceiling.
Green beans on the floor.
Green beans in the kitchen.
Green beans galore.

There really were green beans everywhere.  We found them splattered on the cabinets fifteen feet away.  We found them on the nine-foot ceiling.  I don't think we could have created such a massive green bean explosion if we had tried.

But Mom wasn't mad.  I panicked.  Mom laughed.  Sure, there was a huge mess to clean up but so what?  It was almost as funny as the time Grandpa sneezed egg all over the wall.

In that moment, she taught me that messes are ok.  She taught me to laugh at myself.  She taught me sometimes things don't happen was we plan but that doesn't mean it's the end of the world.

And she did it all with a jar of green beans.

Learning to decorate with green beans,
<>< Katie

Thoughts from the Bathroom

After six exams, eight hours of packing, and a 13 hour drive I am home for the summer! This means time to re-establish home life with the family. One of our biggest places of contention is the bathroom. It makes sense: I have two sisters. It's also why my parents put two sinks in our bathroom when we built the house. When I'm at school it works well: two girls, two sinks. When I come home, the drama begins as we re-establish the pecking order, I mean bathroom organization.

When it comes to bathroom time, I'm pretty low maintenance: brush my tooth, pop in the contacts, lotion, comb the now-short hair, done. My sisters...not so much. I asked Dad to "handle the situation upstairs," and he didn't know what I was talking about until I showed him our bathroom. I then went to find a shovel to help him get his chin off of the floor. He went downstairs and told my sisters to get some of their "crap" off the counter.

"What crap?" my sisters responded innocently.

"Make-up, bottles, cords, I don't know... girl stuff."

It was their turn to use the shovel. I also think the stuff was levitating because there was no counter visible. The shower was just as bad. Between the two of them there were: fourteen bottles, four loofas, and three razors. I just don't understand.

After they moved their "crap" (and I evicted Mom's "overgrown toothbrush mold" of a decor) I was able to move-in. I opened my drawer and found four open bottles of contact solution. I practically drink the stuff, so I don't have any idea how I managed to get four open bottles (one from home, one from school, one from Dad, and one from some trip? I don't really know), but I do know I won't be needing to buy anymore this week. No promises on next week, though. As I was sorting through the surplus of hotel lotion, unused orthodontia rubber bands, and old contacts God got my attention.

Every August I get new contacts whether I need them or not. Most years it's a not. This means I have an ever-growing stack of out-dated, old prescription contacts that I don't know what to do with. Every August Mom tells me to keep wearing the old contacts to use them up and start the new ones in September. It's a great plan since "your eyes will never be closer to what they were than they are right now" (does that make sense?). Besides, normally I don't know how bad my prescription is until I get the new one. Flaw in the plan: when you go to the eye doctor they fit you for new contacts and you have to prove you know how to put them in. I've been wearing contacts everyday for the last six years, but sure you can teach me how to insert them into my eye... Yes, I'm a fast learner. Anyway. Once you put in the new contacts you instantly realize how much of the world you've been missing. There is no going back to the old prescription once you've tried the new.

You don't realize how messed up your life is until God starts fixing it. But, like with the contacts, once you've seen the new way there's no going back to how life used to be. Like the hymn says, "I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back; no turning back." Once you've allowed Him to work in your life there should be no holding back, no pulling away. No turning back.

<>< Katie

My life is awesome

Author's Note:  All of the following is a collection of achronological stories that have all happened in the last two days.  Minor creative liberties may have been taken but these stories are as true as I can put them to where a reader can understand without having actually been here.  Please don't pity me.  I am cranky, but I am not being sarcastic; my life is awesome.  Enjoy.  <>< K

My life is awesome
Katie: Guys, I just had another bloody nose.
Andy: I'm trained handle that.
Elizabeth: How many times do we have to tell you, Katie: stop getting punched in the face!
Katie: It was Allyson!
(side note: this is a whole lot funnier if you know Allyson because she'd never hurt a fly)
Allyson (butter knife in hand): Do you want me to cut off your nose?  That would help!
Katie: Actually, I think that'd make it bleed a bit more.
Andy: Well, look at it this way: it would hurt and bleed a lot right away but then you'd never have to worry about it again!
Elizabeth: Yeah, 'cuz you'd be dead.
(insert big argument about whether or not it's possible to live after getting your nose chopped off with a butter knife)

My life is awesome
Nikki: Gah!  Why don't I ever date my notes?
Katie: Because they're not male.
Nikki: I never send my notes in the mail.

My life is awesome
Katie: Is that your mom or Andy on the phone?
Elizabeth: Huh?
Katie: Is that your mom or Andy on the phone?
Elizabeth: I still can't understand Katie's man-voice.
Nikki: You mean Kenny's man-voice?
Elizabeth: Talk to me again when you sound normal.
Katie (in the most pitiful stuffy-nose voice I could make): Just because I don't have a sense of smell doesn't mean I don't have feelings!

My life is awesome
If you've never been in an ASL class it's hard to imagine twenty people sitting around in complete silence when no one has died.  Please try to picture it for me.  Oh, and we were watching a silent movie, so... well... we know what happens when videos are shown in class... Anyway, I was in desperate need of some Tylenol.  This cold might kill me, my headache was not helping, and after watching 50 minutes of ASL storytelling on a small tv screen you'd be groping for Tylenol, too.  I was trying to decide if it would have been socially acceptable to take it in the middle of class.  Most classes I wouldn't have cared, but this one is completely silent, so all of my classmates will hear me unzip my personal pharmacy; the bottle rattle; plus, I dropped my Nalgene splash guard on the floor yesterday and haven't had time to wash it, so I'm going to make a noisy mess as I nearly drown myself trying to swallow the pesky pill; eventually I'll give up and the "crunch" will reverberate through the classroom as if we were in a tunnel.  This was my very long internal debate.  I finally decided I didn't care: I needed some Tylenol.  So I uncrossed my legs and began to dig into my backpack, but before I got there I accidently kicked one of the desks in front of me.  "That desk is going to fall and there is nothing I can do about it."  It fell in slow motion and the clang rang through the previously silent classroom.

My.  Life.  Is.  Awesome.

Broken Glass

"You cannot say you've never had the urge to throw a glass against a fireplace," my family said, almost in unison, as all eyes fell on my aunt.

I thought for a second about the question.

Honestly, no. I haven't ever had the urge to throw a glass against a fireplace much less the lack of self control to act on such an impulse. Sure, I've wanted to throw people against walls and sometimes I've thrown other things but never a glass. It'll break.

"You're never so frustrated you just need to break something?" The family continued.

Sure but not glass. Perhaps it's because my mother spent most of my childhood walking behind me, "Don't touch broken glass. Don't walk in the street barefoot just in case there's broken glass. Leave the broken glass alone. You don't want to cut yourself." Grandma has the scar to prove broken glass isn't something I want to be playing with.

"Yes," my aunt confessed. She once threw a glass against the wall out of frustration, "But then I was even more mad because I had a big mess to clean up!" Broken glass is pretty common at her house. When she and my uncle buy wine glasses they always buy two and without fail one is broken on the first use. We tease at her house no one needs individual charms to identify wine glasses everyone just gets an unique glass because no two glasses are the same.

Everyone else concluded the mess isn't a problem for them. Cleaning it up helps relieve the frustration (until they cut themselves and then they're re-living the frustration, I'm sure).

"Dad throws glasses against the fireplace all of the time," Grandma said.

"Once... MAYBE twice," Grandpa defended himself. This made everyone laugh remembering a similar conversation a few years ago. When my mom and her siblings were growing up my grandpa sneezed egg all over the wall. According to my aunt, this was a weekly occurrence. My mom realizes not quite weekly but quite often. Grandpa, on the other hand, swears it only happened once. Just like he only threw the glass against the wall once.

<>< Katie

My printer is satan... well... sorta

My desk is currently a mess. I'm pretty sure there's wood holding it up, but at the moment you couldn't tell that by looking at it. In fact, the heap next to my desk currently consists of two newspapers, my Bible, three pads of paper, three books, two or eight old tests, my cell phone, a game card I'm "borrowing" from the coffee shop (they spelled "Indiana" like "Indianna", call me a nerd, but I was forced against my will to copy it for my "grammar oops" book!), and a plethora of other random papers. This thing is massive!

Last night, I plugged in my printer, told it to print my outline for small group, and walked across the room. Since my printer is up on a "shelf", it usually throws it's completed jobs onto the heap on my desk. Well, yesterday the heap was too huge. I heard the paper fall and knew it was done but the fall sounded huge. I turned around and what did I find: the printer threw my paper all the way across the room. Not just onto my desk. Not onto my chair. Not even onto the floor. No, all the way across the room (just goes to show the size of my room...)

As I bent over to pick it up, I realized the printer had achieved Satan's primary goal. Satan isn't happy to just to pull us away from God a little bit and throw us on the desk. No, he wants to throw us all the way across the room away from God so we couldn't reach Jesus if we tried.

Are you going to let Satan pull you away or are you going to stand firm?

In Christ,
<>< Katie

"Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we have become conscious of sin." -Romans 3:20