The Past Week or So

There is so much to say today!  I knew I would eventually have to abandon the listing format.  I didn't think it would be this soon, though.
But have no fear.  The lists will return fairly frequently.  They help me a lot in finding the little things that really do make today my favorite.  When I was a freshman in college, I had a public speaking class where we had to journal every morning on a topic (usually a quote or something) given us by the professor.  Frequently, my journal entries ended up being lists.  I don't know why, I've just always loved making lists.  Anyway, by the end of the semester, my professor wrote a note at the bottom of one of my entries that said "I LOVE it when you list!"  I just smiled when I saw that note and thought "Me too, Mrs. Honeywell, me too."

Okay, on to what I really had to say today.  The past week or so has not been my favorite.  It's just been sort of uncomfortable.  To start out with, let's just establish the fact that I hate hurting people.  I mean emotionally, not physically.  I HATE it.  It's way worse than people hurting me.  And on monday of last week (of course it had to be monday) I felt like I'd given someone a papercut and then rubbed in some lemon juice for good measure.  It was not a beautiful situation.   I almost cried . . . and if I almost cry, that means it's a pretty big deal.
So I lost some sleep (okay, maybe a lot of sleep) on monday night and decided to put things to rights on tuesday.  Bad idea.  Papercut and lemon juice were removed on the other side after an awkward conversation, but things only got more muddled on mine.  I began to feel like I have absolutely no worldly wisdom or common sense - zip, zero, nada.  But that's sort of a good thing, right?
Anyway, so then I didn't sleep well on tuesday night, which messed up wednesday.  The rest of my week was pretty much doomed - I walked around meh-ing randomly because I was so upset about it.
You get the idea and I don't like to dwell on unpleasant things (as you've probably gathered from my blog title).

Then, last night, Sarah and I went to Tyler for some last minute Christmas shopping and to pick up my bridesmaid dress for Christy's wedding.  We didn't even get on the road for Nac until 10:30ish, so night and darkness were already well established.  We sat in the car enjoying companionable silence and Sonic ice cream when suddenly we both gasped and sat up a little straighter.  "Did you see that?"  Sarah looked at me.  I nodded and smiled.  Yes I had seen that.  The one lone falling star aiming straight for the earth in the center of our windshield.  It was beautiful.  (Perhaps the fact that we had just finished watching Voyage of the Dawn Treader contributed to it's beauty just a bit.)
Of course after I saw one falling star I had to look for another, so I looked higher in the sky and there was Orion right above us.  He was such a powerful reminder for me that this world is much bigger than my little troubles and there is so much beauty in it that I miss when I choose to focus on things that pull me down.
I spent the rest of that little road trip singing along with whatever came on the radio and drinking in the long narrow road with walls of strong pines on both sides.