five

1.  I had to have blood work done the other day.
Never had that done before.
The nurse was like, This won't hurt. She lied.
Also, I'm not a huge fan of seeing needles crammed into my arms. Nor am I a huge fan of seeing all my blood sucked out via a needle crammed into my arm. Nor am I a huge fan of seeing rows of vials full of my blood lying on the counter either.
I don't know how vampires do it.
Anyway, the nurse was like, Poor thing. This is your first time doing this, huh?
I gasped for air, wheezed, clutched the edge of my chair, my eyes involuntarily rolled around in my head.
I'm not normally a wimp, I said.
I figured if she could lie about it not hurting, then I could lie about not being a wimp.
Normally needles don't bother me.
But when I said that, I remembered when I was five and Moma took me in to get my booster shots and I saw the needle and it took three people to hold me down while I screamed and screamed and then some seven year old in the waiting room told me I was a baby and stuck his tongue out at me and I hid behind the door frame of the room and glared balefully back at him with the one eye of mine that wasn't hid behind the door frame with the rest of me.
Well... sometimes needles bother me. Like when they're stuck in me, I amended.
Then I remembered the other time when I was seven and I fell off the fence, face first into the sidewalk and Moma rushed me to the doctor and he had to pick the sidewalk out of my forehead with a needle and I started to scream and Moma said, Look at me. Just look at my eyes and breathe in. Now breathe out. Now breathe in. Now out, and so long as I looked at her, I was fine.
Or, sometimes they bother me even when they're not stuck in me. Like when I think they might get stuck in me, I explained further.
Then the nurse wrapped my arm up and told me I could go.
But what about morphine? How am I supposed to get thru the day with my arm throbbing? Look, I'm having to cradle it in my other arm. I cradled my arm sadly.
She was like, It doesn't really hurt that bad.
So I put a few princess bandaids on it and slept the rest of the day.
On a scale of 1-10, my pain tolerance levels are, like, a -3.

2.  I love family.
One of the nicest things about my family is that they are thoroughly convinced that I'm uber talented.
My parents worry that if I don't copyright my blog, someone out there will steal it.
My sisters ask me to write their Facebook statuses for them.
According to them, I'm on the brink of fame.
For instance, I was taking a picture of Derek and Lisa awhile back, and Lisa said, Oh don't let her take it! She'll put it on Facebook.
And Karen said matter of factly, No, she'll put it on her blog. Everybody reads it so everybody will see it. Like 400 people read it...
Then a few days later, I was googling Pioneer Woman (because I stalk Pioneer Woman on my days off), and Wikipedia said Pioneer Woman has approximately 13 million readers a month.
Then I thought of Karen saying 400 people with her hand on my shoulder, staunchly loyal, proud of me and my brilliant accomplishments. I thought of 13 million compared to like 400.
Then I felt all my warm fuzzies start to kick in.
I'm so glad my family is mine.

3.  I've been trying harder to watch what I say.
Sometimes it's not hard. But usually... it's not the easiest thing in the world to shut my mouth when I really wanna say whatever.
I was talking to Karen one day, and she was saying, I hate to think that so-and-so is saying bad stuff about fill-in-the-blank. I wish we could just make them stop.
Yeah. I hate that too.
Then I was listening to a "Christian" husband cut his wife down to nothing and I saw the way his words made her worthless in her own eyes. Made her feel worthless to him, God, and everyone else.
And I hated that husband's words. Honestly, I hated him too.
Then I was reading Proverbs, and I kept seeing stuff like, He that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding... A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards... He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls... The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.
And that last verse is the one that really gets me, that words can be deep wounds. Wounds that hurt for years. I mean, it's like, duh... of course. It's not something I've never thought about before.
God has shown me how He will shut down the talk that shouldn't be, pronto. He doesn't let gossip, malice, swirl around without Himself taking action against it, without Him sucking the life out of evil and making those words ashes in the mouths of those who say them. Great Defender.
But what I've really been noticing in myself is sarcasm... mockery... impatient words. Words that make wounds in little hearts.
For example... I'm standing at my bathroom counter, putting on that last coat of mascara and Lucy, the queen of twenty questions, asks me, Hey Aunt Sunny. Watcha doing? Huh? And then I calmly turn to her and say, Oh, I'm just mopping the floor. You know, with my Swiffer. It might look like I'm putting on mascara, but I'm not. See? Swiff, swiff. And I make mopping motions with my mascara brush and Lucy quietly leaves the room and I'm like, Good riddance. I hate 20 questions. And Lucy cries in the other room and I huff and try to finish applying midnight black mascara but then I poke myself horribly in the right eye with the mascara brush and as my eyes water all over the place, God says, Serves you right. I hope you poke yourself in both eyes next time.
Then I hate the words I said. Then I have to apologize to Lucy.
But the damage is already done. The words are already deep in the intermost parts of her belly, poor thing.
Those are the words I'm trying to watch. I'll let you know when I've figured out how to catch the words and swallow them. I'm not there yet.

4.  Emma is praying for a princess dress. She said, How does that work? Oh, I know. God will just drop it out of the sky.
She's a Pollyanna girl after my own heart.
Bless her to pieces.

5.  Shelly told me that Marianna was being bad.
I was like, Did you beat her little hiney?
Shelly said, No. I took her blankie and cut a piece off of it and threw it away outside.
I was like, Wow. What a meanie you are.
But Shelly was like, Yeah... but then Marianna cried like her heart was broken and then I felt really bad so after she was asleep, I went outside, got the piece of blankie, and sewed it back on.
That's what I'm talking 'bout... Shelly really showed her who's boss.