We don’t have snow days. We have hurricane days. Well, in this case, tropical storm days. The kids started school last week on Wednesday and I started catching up! Making some serious progress. I was in the zone! Then. School is canceled. So far, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. The kids are VERY happy: Three days of school, a weekend, one day of school, two days off for a tropical storm, two days of school (if all goes well) and then another weekend.
Am I being punked?
So. What do I do when I have to cancel everything because a tropical storm is completely interfering with my “zone?” And my client schedule? And my walking?
Well, I certainly can’t change my circumstance, so I have to change my expectations. I decided to catch up on my blog reading while we still have electricity.
In this case, I was catching up with Amy at God’s Work in Progress. Her post from Monday, entitled “Worth of a Soul – Hope Chronicles 63” included the lyrics to the song “The Touch of the Master’s Hand.” Click on over to see Amy’s entire post, but these words give you a glimpse:
“I see myself as that old violin. I’ve been battered and I’m scarred . . . Hopefully it makes me look at the battered person on the bus more kindly or the woman on welfare differently.“
Amy makes a difference in other people’s lives in a way I sincerely admire:
Take a Child By the Hand one (in the life of an overwhelmed mom),
The One Who Waits, (in the life of a small child in a heartbreaking situation),
Little Girl Lost (in the life of a child she may never meet in person).
Throughout her writing, you can see examples of her selflessness and empathy, while at the same time she is very open about her weaknesses and struggles.
I love the book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”
It sent me on a flash to the past and inspired some writing of my own:
When I was in high school, I worked at McDonalds. I started on “fries and shakes” (back when they actually MADE the shakes – with ice cream and syrup and a real shake machine). Over the years I worked every job, from birthday party hostess to counter to drive thru to grill . . . even manager trainee.
During my senior year of high school, I was assigned to work drive thru with another girl from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. One of us worked the window and the other “filled the orders.” Back then, McDonalds only had ONE drive thru window. Back then, working the window meant taking the orders at the speaker AND taking the money AND handing the orders to the customer. So, one of us stood in the same place for 4 hours every day and the other ran around like crazy, filling the orders. When I worked the window, I would take the order from the customer at the speaker, take the money from the customer at the window, turn around, grab the already filled bag and drinks, hand them out the window and repeat. All the while my friend and co-worker bobbed and weaved through the employees working the counter to grab food and fill the next bag. Some shifts I worked the window and she filled orders, some shifts she worked the window and I filled orders.
WE. WERE. FAST. Our goal was the “30 second drive thru” McDonalds constantly pushed. If the manager kept the food coming from the grill and there was an assigned “fry” person, we were very, very often able to meet that 30 second mark.
It got boring . . .
So, we looked for ways to make things more interesting. First we tried pranks and jokes. Like writing “HELP! LET ME OUT! on an empty bag and placing it where the filled order should go, that kind of thing. That got boring. What to do. What to do . . .
(continued in “don’t react. respond.” over at Pragmatic Communion)
Meanwhile. I hope the generator gets to stay in the shed.
I was wondering how my Florida blogging buddies were faring. I’ll be checking in to see. Right now, though I have to go on the progressive blog hunt to get the end of the story.
May you weather the storm, not to mention the kids at home!