Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Dealing with Grumpy People


It was one of those days where everyone I came into contact with us was grumpy.  Grumpy emails.  Grumpy phone calls from crossing guards.  Grumpy youngest child.

I switched my phone off and headed to my hidden hang out...Nordstrom's Cafe.  I love that place soooo much and even though I have never bought anything at Nordstrom's (I know, shocker), I do love to hang out in their cafe.  And their bathrooms...or lounges, as they call them.  I used the very last of a gift card I had gotten for Christmas, ordered myself my favorite berry and fig salad and enjoyed every second of not having to deal with grumpy people.

It was lovely.

I think people are partly grumpy because it has just been SO cold here.  I mean, frigid cold.  So cold that all the baby figs on my tree shriveled up and fell off...but somehow, thankfully, the azaleas in the backyard didn't get the message to stop blooming.

Thankfully.

I've been reading Psalm 139 every morning this week when I get up in the cold and dark for work.  I love that it makes me feel less alone...and that I am here, in this little house on this little street, for a reason.  That I am part of God's great plan...though I still wonder sometimes what that plan is.  To keep house?  To cook and clean and launder things that need to be laundered?  

Is that enough?

Sometimes I just think too much.

(Sometimes?  Who am I kidding?)

=0)

And then, last night Matthew came home to pick up some things and together, at 10:30 at night, he and Alex did a pretty thorough sweep of the refrigerator.  I sat on the couch, watching them stand in the kitchen and talk and laugh to each other while that guy that I like so much grilled up some bread and slathered it in olive oil...which they all inhaled in record time.

It was one of those moments where I wondered...is this why I was knit together by God?  Maybe it's not about the 'keeping of the house'.  Maybe it's simpler...to teach these boys to have a relationship?  That by me being loved, I am able to love them (so much) that they will, in turn,  love others?

Could it be that simple?


3 comments:

  1. I was not grumpy at all. =D

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  2. While you are suffering through "cold" (yes, the quotation marks are intentional!), we are shattering all weather records in Chicago. The usual high this time of year is 50, and today it was 85 glorious degrees. I think the previous record high was 72. It has been one incredibly beautiful summer-like day after another. I don't know how long it will last, but I will savor every day. Is this what it is like to live in a land of eternal summer? Maybe I don't need to move after all...at least until the weather changes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I could live in the Nordstroms Cafe.....That salad looks divine.

    ReplyDelete

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