Madness. Absurdity. Ridiculousness.

Call it what you will, but the last two weeks have been entirely too filled with it. To add to the ridiculousness of this list, I believe all items could be followed by #firstworldproblems.

#1 - One day I spent 10 hours on a full tour bus with 4th and 5th graders which included a dinner stop at Golden Corral.

#2 - I ripped the front bumper off the van by driving over a parking lot paver with re-bar sticking out the top, broke pieces off the bottom of the car, but was able to put everything back together.

#3 - I drove 45 minutes each way to have a child's braces bracket refastened because it had popped off when said child was chewing a paper towel... just 10 days before the braces were to be removed permanently.

#4 - I saw friends I hadn't seen in more than a decade because we gathered to bury a 41 year old classmate of ours.

#5 - A raccoon got into our chicken coop and killed 5 birds.

#6 - We still don't know how or why our friend died.

#7  - My brand new fancy-pants camera stopped working just two weeks after I bought it--right in the middle of our Spring Break trip.

#8 - Our Spring Break trip to New Orleans got rerouted to northern Ohio so my husband and I could participate in the memorial service for our friend. It snowed.

#9 - I will have spent 5 consecutive weekends away from home.

#10 - North Carolina passed HB 2.

#11 - Picture me, pulled off the side of the road in windy Indiana, kneeling with my head on the pavement, tying up the under side of our van with dental floss.

#12 - This list was originally going to be 5 items long.

#13 - I kept forgetting, and when I'd reach my hand into my purse for a pen or breath mint, my search would be confounded by the blue velvet box containing a small urn of my friends' ashes.

Fear Not [no.55]

Fear Not [no.54]

FYI - I skipped 9 "fear not" messages in Jeremiah.

Fear Not [no.53]

How different would Christianity be without hellfire and damnation threats?

Fear Not [no.52]

In church today, we read the story of the talking donkey. Great story not told often enough. Almost heralds Peter's three denials.

Fear Not [no.51]

Fear Not [no.50]

Fear Not [no.49]

Fear Not [no.48]

There is nowhere you can go God does not follow.

Even on a Sunday when church has been cancelled due to snow and bad roads!

Fear Not [no.47] True Love Valentine