Laura’s Muses

I attended a bible study this morning that I’ve been to a few times before. It’s about fifteen or so women that get together on Wednesday mornings and talk about the gospel and Jesus and how it all applies to our lives. It’s kind of an inconvenience for me, since I have to get up early instead of sleeping in like I usually do on Wednesdays, but by the time I leave there I feel happy and refreshed and really just… connected. Today, though, I was hesitant to go because some of my past mistakes have been coming back to bite me and remind me of who I used to be, and I just didn’t feel like getting out of bed and looking in the mirror at myself. I was afraid these women would see right through me and know that even though I’ve been wanting, and trying to, live the right way, I’m still messily stumbling along. If nothing else, though, I knew I needed to hear what Jesus had to say to me today so I got up and went.

I took a really, really good look at these women- my sisters in Christ, to be more in context with today’s study. These women vary in age from early twenties to probably mid-fifties. Some grew up Christian or in a religious home and some didn’t. Some of them might be married, might even be divorced, might never have been either. Each of them has a unique story, an orginial tale of how they became who they are today. As we sat around a cluster of tables pushed together and discussed today’s study, I looked around at them all and I realized that I respect and value these women more than any women I’ve ever met. They are beautiful and honest people who let the love of God shine from them, and that light spills over to bring me out of the shadows. In this group, I become a real woman, too. I see what it really means to be a woman, and what God wants us to be as women. I cried today because I realized that I have wasted so many of my years looking in all of the wrong places and doing all of the wrong things, only to find the answers to what it takes to be a REAL woman here in this room. I cried because I didn’t feel worthy today of being with these amazing, kind, beautiful women because I have been struggling to be the same way and have mostly just failed miserably. Mostly, though, I cried because they still accepted me, still considered me a part of them, and still told me that it’s OK, God LOVES me, God forgives me, and He will always consider me a real woman as long as I’m living for Him.

My heart has been in the right place lately, I know that now. With Jesus holding my hand, leading me through, I can be everything He wants me to be. With these women to lean on and support me, I WILL be that woman.

I am a bargain hunter, plain and simple. It’s all about the deal to me. I will spend hours at the grocery or the mall, analyzing my choices and comparing prices. It drives Chris banana sandwich, although he is a great sport and always lets me take my time.

Only two things have been deemed by me as worthy of purchase no matter the price, because they are THAT good. One of them is Tide Simple Pleasures laundry detergent in the Lavender Vanilla scent (along with the matching Downy fabric softener sheets, of course). The other is AquaFresh Extreme Clean toothpaste. It’s fantabulous.

The newest candidate for bargain loyalty is a toothbrush made by Colgate. It’s got the the gum massager thing that is kind of like a piece of hard rubber that is intertwined with the bristles. This is perfect for me, because I have a weird obsession with the way I brush my teeth. It’s got to be round little circles, five seconds on each tooth, etc. My dentist actually recommended that I only brush my teeth once a day because I spend so much time brushing my teeth that it makes my gums bleed sometimes. Anyway, this toothbrush is awesome because it gives me that really clean feeling on my teeth without me feeling like I have to scrub them for ten minutes. Something about that gum massager thing really helps polish the teeth, eliminating that “plaque-y” feeling. Now, I can go back to brushing my teeth twice a day!

Photo Credit: Dia 38 RETO LOST -Toothbrush by zaCky ?. Some rights reserved.

Today I was thinking of all the foods I hated as a child and now, as an adult, love. A few that come to mind: Onions, anything spicy, cheeseburgers, brussel sprouts, strawberries… the list goes on. There are probably foods that I loved then that I hate now, but nothing is coming to mind presently.

There is one food, though, that I hated then and still hate to this day. Not for lack of trying, either, because I’ve periodically given this particular food a new chance with the same result. The food? Conn’s potato chips. They totally suck. Does no one else realize this? I remember thinking as a teenager that this company would be out of business in a matter of weeks because the chips suck so badly. They are kind of soft (isn’t it a prerequisite of a chip to be crunchy?) with a weird aftertaste like the oil they fried them in wasn’t hot enough and instead was soaked up into the chip. Ugh. Purely disgusting. It’s completely baffling to me that I can still find them in the grocery store. Who is buying these??

Photo Credit: Food Not Bombs Meal by ccbarr. Some rights reserved.

So, Chris and I decided to have a date night recently, consisting of dinner and a movie. We ended up in Grove City because there was a Halloween store in the area that we needed to stop at first. After our shopping, we headed over to a chain restaurant for some grub before our movie.

The meal was so-so, and as we finished the waitress arrives with the check. She places it on the table, and says the usual, “Can I get you anything else..” yada yada yada. We say no but thank her anyway, and she kind of hesitates. She says something to the effect of, “So are you guys just going to hang out, or …?” and Chris replies, “Oh, we’re just chatting…” At this point we didn’t really understand why she was asking, but were trying to be polite. Her next comment truly shocked me. “OK, well I’m just going to go out and smoke a cigarette real quick, then I’ll be back to pick this up.”

I have absolutely nothing against people who smoke, as I used to be one of them (and unfortunately I still struggle with the urge). However, the fact that we were PAYING CUSTOMERS in a RESTAURANT and she was so casual about asking US to wait on HER to go smoke just seemed, I don’t know… unprofessional. She was a very nice girl, and an otherwise good waitress, so I have no idea why she thought this would be an appropriate comment to make. I’m sure she didn’t truly expect us to wait on her to go smoke, but why offer the information? Why not just say, “Well, I’ll give you some time to relax, and I’ll be back to check on you in a few minutes” or something along those lines. Instead, she left me completely puzzled and a little annoyed by making her cigarette break comment.

Photo Credit: Jack Cig by Bitmask. Some rights reserved.