Heroes, another edition of "perfect purse awesomeness", and being in a funk

Husbands who get up at 4am to kill spiders, with nary a complaint, score BIG POINTS with their wives!!!

I don't like spiders, but I can usually handle grabbing them with a kleenex and flushing them down the toilet. However, when they are big, black, gross baby tarantulas, then I'm out.  (That is not in my job description, and is one of the reasons I got married).  The intruder was in my bathroom sink and as creeped out as I was, I did not take my eyes off it while Mr. Wonderful was waking up and putting on his cape to come to my rescue, because if the thing would have scurried off somewhere and escaped I would have had to move out.

Mr. W took care of it without batting an eye (or even sighing at me) and went back to sleep.  As did I, however my torment continued in my dreams, where the spider's MOTHER, which was as big as my hand, was crawling around on our carpet and I was throwing all kinds of stuff at it to try and kill it.  Vince was not available in my dream, but my son Kyle was sitting in a chair calmly watching my antics as I freaked out about the mother spider.  (That's totally something he would do by the way - he obviously gets his calm demeanor from his dads.)  I don't know if I killed it tho, because all of a sudden my dream diverted to me trying to use our kitchen sink and discovering that the faucet had shot out through the roof of our house like a rocket and got stuck on top of some phone lines above our house. I'm not even going to try to analyze what that means, but it distracted me from the spiders so that's fine with me.

So.

I've been in sort of a funk lately.  I'm not sure why, nothing bad has happened, in fact some really good things have happened.

Like, I got a new purse.

I have been using it for exactly two days and already have decided it meets my standard for "perfect purse awesomeness".  It's been a while since I had one that met my stringent criteria   (you can see previous winners here and here and here), so I'm pretty stoked.  Here is how my new purse stacks up to the criteria:

1) It has to be real leather. Or a fake material that I happen to think is real leather.  This one might actually be real leather.  I mean I got it at Nordstroms so there's a chance.  It's soft and has that wrinkled leather look and feel that I love. Good 'nuff for me.

2) It has to have a short handle.  Check.  It's short enough to carry around like a grandma, yet long enough to fling over my elbow, and over my shoulder if I am in the mood to be annoyed by it falling off 8 times before I resorting to my other two carrying options.

3) It has to have separate pockets for my cell phone and lip stuff on the outside of the purse.  Check.  This has one large pocket on the outside of the purse, which is perfect for my phone and lip stuff.  Score!

4) It absolutely cannot have any sequins or tassels or unnecessary gaudy embellishments.  Check.  Not even a buckle on this baby.

5) It has to be able to zip shut. Well, here is where we deviate a bit from the criteria.  It doesn't zip.  It has one magnetic snap, tho.  We'll see how this goes.

6) It has to have at least two big separate sections - one for my wallet and notes, the other for all my crap important stuff that I don't leave home without - which now includes my planner, iPad, notebooks, and sometimes my lunch.  Another deviation:  this one has just one large compartment.  It's more of a bag than a purse, but that's ok. I have a bag obsession too so a purse-bag is a winner on all fronts.

Another good thing that happened this week is that Vince and I purchased our first vehicle together.  We have had the same two vehicles since the summer we first met, which was 2007...my dark grey Pontiac Grand Prix and his bright red Kia Sedona.  They have both been great vehicles, but the van is approaching 200k miles and after sinking a few thousand dollars into it this year already, when the "check engine" light came on last week and I was told  it would cost $94 JUST TO FIND OUT what was wrong (and me having a subsequent snit about it) we decided that it was time for "Suzanne the Van" to go buh-bye.  Hope named her that, by the way.  She really wanted us to let her have it as her first vehicle, and we considered it, but now we just want Suzanne to find a new home before she overstays her welcome (and we go broke).

Back to my funk.  I get into them from time to time, and every time I do it is usually because of one of two things...either something is bothering me that I am not aware of yet, or I have not been spending time with God. And sometimes both.  I can say in all honesty right now that the latter is true.

I have a prayer table at home that I have set up in our office.

It is an antique table that belonged to my Grandma, and has a matching chair and magazine rack which are on either side of it.  Mom told me that Grandma and Grampa bought this set early in their marriage, which would have been in the 1930's.  I love the idea of this being my prayer table.  I have no doubt that my Grandma prayed at this table, and most likely my Mom did too.  There is a legacy of faith in my family that I am so grateful for...there is power in generations of women who love the Lord.  Power in prayer.  And I can imagine the prayers and tears of the wives and mothers and grandmothers who sat at this table...moving Heaven to intercede for our husbands, children, grandchildren, and friends...for generations. The bible says that our prayers are like incense, rising up to Heaven, and God hears every one.

"May my prayer be set before You as incense, the raising of my hands as the evening offering." - Psalm142:1

I can imagine all the prayers that have been offered at that tear soaked table...my prayers...rising up as a fragrant offering to God. Carrying with them the echo of the prayers of my mother and grandmother.  He receives them, breathes them in, allowing them to mix with His wisdom and love and grace.  And in His timing, He breathes out His blessing...like a cloud of smoke that descends on me as I sit at the table. Desperate to believe and trust that His answers to my prayers will line up with His promises.

I have not been spending enough time at my prayer table lately.  When I go too long without being in the Word and in prayer, well, that is funk material right there.  Things in life start to bother me, I begin to feel "off" and am tempted to fill the void with all kinds of things to distract me (social media, news, shopping, and of course, food.)  I start sleeping less, get more tired during the day, and then want something to make me feel better...and the cycle continues until I find myself here, blogging in a coffee shop figuring it all out.

It's not a bad place to be, in fact it's good therapy for me and helps me clear my cluttered mind and get back to what's important in life.  Like purses and prayer.  And green tea lemonade.  With a splash of raspberry.

Will I ever be able to leave the house again without imagining a bat flying at my face?

Because that's what happened to me on Sunday night.  Hope and I were leaving to go school supply shopping, and as I opened the door to our garage...something dark that I didn't understand at all came flappy flapping RIGHT AT MY FACE.

I shrieked like I haven't in some time and promptly slammed the door shut and did what any normal woman would do in this situation...SCREAMED FOR MY HUSBAND.  He was already on his way, after hearing my shrieking which I would find out later he was quite amused by.  I told him "something" was in the garage and it flew right at me like this (flopping my hands in front of my face) and it was definitely NOT A MOTH.

He calmly said "it was probably a bat, hon."  Which immediately sent my already confuzzled brain into full

Heroes, holodecks, and knowing where I am

Well, it was another great weekend in Iowa.....how often do you hear THAT phrase??? Oooops! SORRY!! Some Minnesota smart-talk coming out there ;) Pardon me while I clean the tomato splat off my computer screen......

Ok, better. Now seriously, I meant what I said ~ I had a wonderful time with Vince & the kids in Iowa! We went down on Friday and spent the weekend at Vince's sister Donna & Dave's house in Cedar Falls. We were able to spend some quality time with them, as well as his other sisters Debbie, Denise & Randy and their kids. I had such a great time talking with everyone (and giving Dave some much deserved crap)! On Saturday we attended Vince's nephew Blake's wedding and had such an awesome time. Hopie was a flower girl and oh my, what a CUTIE PATOOTIE she was!! She was stunning...and daddy got a little choked up seeing his little girl looking so grown up, which I found to be just as precious as she was. The entire wedding was beautiful - it was held in an old theater in downtown (Waterloo? I still don't know where I was for sure, but it was either Cedar Falls or Waterloo...) Anyhoo, wherever it was, it was just gorgeous! Lots of special touches, including the groom singing "You Needed Me" to his bride...which his father sang to his mother at their wedding. Tear. And the father of the groom and mother of the bride also sang a couple songs. The moment Hopie walked down the aisle was so precious....you could just see the excitement, nervousness, and anticipation on her face as she had her moment of glory ~ a princess! I also had the wonderful opportunity to meet many of Vince's former in-laws, who were so very gracious.

On the way to the reception, Vince gave me a tour down "memory lane", driving me past the home where his family lived during his highschool years ~~ Oh! Oh! We were in Cedar Falls, not Waterloo! Whew! I feel better now that I know where I was. We also drove past his old highschool & college stomping grounds, which was very cool to see. The reception and dance was awesome. It was such a joy watching the kids interact with their cousins, aunts & uncles and grandparents....meeting more family & getting to know them a bit....having a very yummy dinner of spaghetti & fettuccini alfredo (the bridal party had bibs with their names painted on them - how cute was that?!) But the highlight of the evening (and of the entire weekend actually for me) was dancing with Vince for the first time ever. And to the YMCA, no less! Ha! And no, honey, you did NOT look like a dork on the dance floor as you feared you would.....even tho you can't do the YMCA ;) What were you doing in the 80's anyway? Playing with your Star Trek figurines??? As Jessie said....you need to go to the Holodeck and type in "1980's dance club" or something and learn it. There WILL be a quiz at our company Christmas party, you know that don't you?? Muah...! I love you, baby!

The only bummer was on Saturday when I had a melt down about missing my boys. I hate spending entire weekends without them when they are at their dad's. I miss them so much sometimes it hurts. Sigh. Tears. But Vince loved me through it, as heroes often do =).
Aside from that, it was a wonderful weekend and went by too quickly, as they always do. Always wishing that there was more time together....and there will be when we go down again for Thanksgiving, this time WITH my boys (yay!)
We.....have.....been.....talkin' it out......on the Barry Gibb Talk Show......talkin' bout chest hair......and crazy cool medallions................