Friday, I had a most unsettling e-mail from a pastor where I guest preached last month. Members of her congregation had been very upset by my (fairly innocuous) sermon. Turns out I was simply bearing the brunt of a lot of angst at the church, but the whole thing just made me question whether I really want to be a pastor at all. As Brendan says, "You never see the landmines until you step on them" and I wasn't sure I was up for all that. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, as well as some wearing of sackcloth & ashes, I really felt drained. I was seriously considering a career in life coaching or motivational speaking by the time J arrived home. She had stopped to get me a bouquet of roses and a big bottle of Framboise, along with a sweet card. I am so very blessed to have her. She offered to make me anything for dinner or take me anywhere I wanted. I opted for Indian food, one of my comfort food defaults, and we headed over to India Garden in Lakewood for some chicken tikka masala and some awesomely good gulab jamun.
In the morning, the idea of rising early after the rough night and a week of early mornings just did not appeal. So, when the alarm went off to summon us to arise for a fun day of art with my Art Gang buddies, I simply shut it off and snugged in deeper. I was disappointed to miss the camaraderie & the instruction in felting, but I just hate getting up early & making an hour-long drive for it. If it ran from 2 to 6 instead of 10 to 2, I would probably make it much more often than I do. If it was nearby, even more likelihood of that. I am such a wuss about mornings. Once we'd gotten ourselves up & fed & ready to go, we commenced our K date. Our first stop was the library, where I instructed J that we would each pick out two kids' movies because our K date was having a day just for the kids inside us. Movies successfully checked out, we moved on to stop #2, Big Fun on Coventry in Cleveland Heights. It's like a big toy store for grown folks. I don't think I'm sarcastic and jaded enough to enjoy it as fully as some other folks might, but it was fun and I would go back. J got some good bumper stickers, but overall I think it was more fun to look than to buy. I had more fun looking at Mac's Backs-Books on Coventry (which carries both Parabola and Found Magazine), City Buddha (where I picked up a very cool gift for my mom) and Coventry Cats (where we got catnip & toys for our 4). We also nabbed a bite to eat at Tommy's, which has the largest selection of choices for vegetarians & vegans I've ever seen. It was cold inside and our waitress was, too, but the food was good. I had a falafel sandwich and J got a meat pie. Mmm. I want to go back when it's warmer & try one of their malts. They look yum.
I had intended for us to split a grilled peanut butter & banana sandwich for dessert at Melt (www.meltbarandgrilled.com) on the way home & we were definitely hungry again after all that shopping. Alas, we had arrived too late in the evening and the crowd had already descended. Melt is a truly fabulous place, but just stopping by at anything like normal dining hours will net you an hour and a half wait, especially on the weekend. I don't know what I was thinking. So, we went on home with our tails between our legs for dinner and cupcakes I'd already made. I made cheeseburger sloppy joes (recipe at www.lunacooks.blogspot.com), tater tots and canned pears for an appropriately kiddish dinner. Then we watched "Nanny McPhee" and "The Spiderwick Chronicles" and loved them both. I was especially keen on Spiderwick & now want to read the books.
Sunday morning, I again had trouble motivating myself out of bed, especially since I was feeling a smidge disgruntled with the whole church thing and certainly didn't want to get into dress clothes and venture out into the cold & snow. Some pastor I'm going to make. But, I figure I have very few Sundays I can opt to sleep in and skip church left to me before I embark on my pastoring career. So, we did get up, but I made lemon poppyseed scones instead of getting dressed for church and we settled in on the couch with the rest of our kid movies for the day. We watched "The Aristocats" and "Bridge to Terebithia" (which made us both cry and which J was not happy with me for choosing, even though we both really liked it). Then, we went to the grocery. I let J go in, since I had chosen to spend the entire day in sweatpants and I do not go out in public in sweatpants, and read in the car while she shopped. When we got home, she made Paula Deen's chicken boudine for our dinner. We went to bed fairly early because she had to go in to work early and I had to drive down to Dayton to help get my grandparents' house emptied of their things in preparation for my cousin's move-in date of February first. I was so happy to unexpectedly get to see my mom!
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