James 4:13-15

James 4:13-15 March 12, 2019

Filed under: Simply Me — Amy Scott @ 12:19 pm

¹³Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” ¹⁴How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. ¹⁵What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15 NLT

Okay, I’ve never made plans that involved going out of town for a year, but I make plans all the time. I could be a professional plan maker. I fill in the days, weeks, months and years like a champ. Give me a blank calendar and I’ll change that in a few texts. However, true to Mom Life, plans often don’t pan out. You can never predict when things are going to go down hill and this was one of those weeks.

As I was teaching my Wednesday night class, I noticed my throat hurt. No big deal. Push through it. It’s all good. But on Thursday, I had to admit that I was sick. And I had a book party that night. I needed to access brain cells that I hadn’t used in months. I needed to be on my game. On top of being under the weather, my computer decided to freak out fifteen minutes before my party. I had ten minutes of sheer panic before I was able to reclaim things five minutes before the party started. I felt behind from the beginning. Lucky for me, my hostess was on top of it. She commented on everything and kept the party active. Despite the rocky night for me, the party was a success. This party was in my top three for sales. That made it was worth it, for sure!

I’ve been processing my thoughts about book parties now that I’ve had a small break from them. I don’t mind doing them occasionally. Especially if it’s just once a month. This way parties don’t overlap and I can focus on one party at a time. The downside of book partying is that it tethers me to my phone. I have to keep up with comments and posts meaning I have to be online more than I would like. While I don’t like being attached to my phone, I do enjoy getting a paycheck. It was good to have this experience after taking a break. I don’t plan to seek out parties, but if someone asks me, I would be more than willing to do one.

I was completely spent after my book party on Thursday night. I was sick. I was tired. The party was hopping so my brain was mush. And then at 11:00pm, Graham threw up. And Owen woke up at the same time, with a fever… Friday was spent with kids throwing up and cleaning up puke and washing nasty laundry and movies playing as the boys slept on and off all day. The weekend morphed into fevers and lethargic kids who just laid around like bumps on a log. This is where “you make a plan, but it might not pan out” verse I shared at the beginning of the post comes in. We had a packed weekend planned. On Friday, I was supposed to drive up north to have lunch with a friend. I was supposed to come home in time to take the boys for a sleepover at Nana & Papa’s house. Jeremy and I were supposed to spend Friday night and Saturday at a marriage conference. None of that happened. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the boys had been sleeping at night, but the fevers have made them restless and sleep has evaded them. Our nights have become like keeping up with two newborns on alternating schedules. One sure fire way to make daylight savings irrelevant is to not sleep the three nights prior to it. At that point, time looses all meaning.

Yesterday, we called the nurse at our doctor’s office. We wanted to know if we should bring them in. After talking with her, we determined this sounds like a virus and it could take seven days to run it’s course. Today the boys woke up with no fevers. The boys even sat up to watch part of a movie. We’ll take baby steps back to health and celebrate the small victories.

Sometimes the show must go on despite illness. For me that meant MOPS & MOMSnext still had to happen last night, no matter what was going on at my house. It was Spa Night and a huge success. We had a Mary Kay consultant do Satin Hands (a two step process to treat your hands and make them soft). We offered a station for moms to paint their nails. This is a special treat they don’t often get to do uninterrupted. We made DIY car fresheners with essential oils and leather. And my favorite part was the s’mores station that very much fit with our Find Your Fire theme. I found these cute little indoor s’mores kits that use Sterno cans for the heat. I had fears of ladies burning marshmallows, setting off the smoke alarms and having the fire department come. Thankfully, that was not the case and the whole thing ran smoothly. I had a bunch of moms tell me both before and after the meeting how much they needed a spa night. It was perfectly timed – thank you, Jesus – for a day when so many ladies needed a little extra TLC and relaxation. Definitely God’s timing there!

The final part of this update is after purchasing five vanities and returning four of them, we finally completed our half bath project! We switched to looking at smaller vanities that were a slightly higher quality then we’d been looking at. The vanity we picked isn’t a perfect color match to our other cabinets, but it’s close. We like the counter-top color and it’s a better product, so it shouldn’t chip as easily as the other ones we’d been getting. The door knobs that came with the vanity were not our style, but we had two knobs left over that Jeremy had saved from our cabinets, so now the knobs match perfectly with the house. This vanity project has been a dream of ours for a year. I am so blessed by a husband who powered through frustrating circumstances and was able to conquer the vanity project. I love it and every time I use that bathroom, it makes my heart happy!

On Thursday before the illness hit, Owen had a snow day. The boys had such a fun day together that I was shocked when they got sick because they showed no signs during the day.