Running Out of Time

This has been a whirlwind week at work and personally. On Tuesday I turned F I F T Y N I N E years old. I don’t really know how to wrap my head around this truth and am one of those people who would like to remain in denial about my advancing age. My heart and brain don’t feel 59 and if it weren’t for my birth certificate and my back, I wouldn’t believe it.

I’d like to continue shopping in Brass Plum and The Limited (except I now mostly shop at socially responsible clothing manufacturing companies, yea Everlane!). See my post how I got to this place. I still like Super Freak, Lionel Richie, Hank Williams Jr, pony tails, and I’d like to think like I did when I was 18. That is, I’ve got forever to do all the things I want to do.

I have adjusted to a lot of things and would say that I am a little bit of an expert on managing change. But my age is not one of them. It’s not because I don’t like the number “59.” There are two things that number represents that I have a hard time reconciling:

1. My aging body – I know. Get over it. We all experience it. This is a fact of life and one must learn to move on. Aging has a way of addressing one’s vain tendencies. And I am moving on, but if I thought a tantrum could put things on hold for just one day, I’d throw one to stall the process.
2. Running out of time – We are all dealt 24 hours in a day. But I’m concerned my TO DO list exceeds the number of hours God has planned for me. I have a condition that causes me a degree of franticness (made up word) that I often have to work through to stabilize and calm my spirit. The best thing I know to do for my condition is to read God’s word. It reminds me that all is well and puts things in perspective. Proverbs 16:2 says, “A man’s heart plans his course, but God directs his steps.”

My birthday fell on a workday where disappointing news about budget cuts and staff were announced. I was grateful for my coworkers and friends who were so sweet and distracted me from my age trauma thoughts. The big question is always, “What are you going to do on your birthday?” My daughter had asked if I would attend a talk about pediatric cancer presented by a dear person in our community at the local research hospital. I wasn’t thrilled to do this, but I wanted to be with my daughter, so I agreed. As the day went on, my tummy was feeling weird, but I wasn’t bed ridden so I was willing to attend. I did ask her once if she was on the fence at all because I would be happy to not go downtown on public transportation after a hard day at work and listen to this important talk. I didn’t lay it out like that to her, but that was my sentiment about it all. Instead I imagined spending a lovely evening with her (and ideally, my son) and watching the Portland Trailblazers in game 2 of the playoff season. But she assured me she very much wanted to go, so I accepted my birthday evening plight. I did take an extra measure of assistance. Right after work when my good friend came by my house, we opened my gifts together and then we decided to pray that Bridgette would change her mind about going.

God knew the plan all along. Instead of the talk downtown, Bridgette and Bradley surprised me by “stopping to grab a coffee” and took me to a family pedicure (Bradley’s first). By my expression you would have thought they bought me a ticket to Italy. I would have been equally happy if the pedicure hadn’t been a surprise, but the relief was an added emotion that erupted into the nail salon. I had to apologize to the patrons for my over the top reaction. They all loved it though.

See the video of my surprise be downloading this link:

Bday 2019 Surprise

Perfect for my work night birthday. A little family pedicure and an evening watching the Blazers.

I’ve not created any items for my Joni T business this week, but I took orders and have some I’ll be focused on completing this week. I’ll share them with you, but until then I’ve created a group of photos from the last few months.

I hope you have a great week, finding a happy place in the mix of intention and knowing God is the master planner.

P.S. I know these pics aren’t very good. I know the layout is wonky. But success is in the effort. These are things for that long TO DO list, and if I wait for perfection, I’ll never get anywhere!