Canteen

At the Rodeo in Warwick, I was volunteering at the canteen for two of the busiest days. They gave me a volunteers wrist band so I could get in, a blue ticket so I could park and sore feet so I couldn't sleep that night.

I was my usual cheerful, probably annoying self, and there was a lot of laughing at my expense, like when I went out to give people their meal and called 89 about ten times before looking at it properly and then calling 98. There was a lot of laughing and chatting, they were mainly women in the canteen, and I wondered if they would normally be that happy at the end of a long week, or was it just that I was happy. I remember mentioning to my brother once that a friend of ours was always smiling and laughing and Matthew said "not really, only when your there." Maybe one of my gifts is to help people laugh at themselves and me. This is a good gift to use, all I need to do now is learn when to use it and when to let people be sad.

That was an odd post and did not turn out at all like I expected. The other thing I learned is why I don't work in hospitality, it is fun for a one off but every day would be stressful

More Traps

Because I was home educated, I was pretty cluey about some things but naive about other things. One of the things I was a bit innocent about was that people would try to catch you doing the wrong thing.

When I was working in a fast food place, I was usually on dining room clean up because I complained the least about it. I discovered an honest way to have a sit down and rest and that was to clean seats. Because they were mainly bench seats, the best way to clean then was to slide along, cleaning as you go. I was doing this one day, out of sight from where everyone else was, and chatting to myself (it is not weird if it is intelligent), totally absorbed in what I was doing (not a busy day obviously) when I looked up and saw a scary manager standing over me. I explained cheerfully what I was doing and that I thought somebody had lacquered over a child's foot print because it wouldn't come off. She laughed at me and went away. It only occurred to me years later that she had probably wanted to catch me bludging and doing nothing.

Happily, I have been taught by my parents and the bible to work diligently all the time not just when somebody is watching. Also there is a certain protection in that sort of cluelessness, it protects you from assuming the worst in people every time they say or do something that could go either way.

Traditions and simple pleasure

We have set up weekly traditions for the times when I have the kids and their parnets are not there. On Monday mornings, if they get themselves ready in time, they get to have a pancake. This is tradition after I suggested it once. They NEVER forget to ask.

On Friday afternoons, when I pick them up from school, it used to be making a cake or biscuits but there was always a squabble about what we make and who gets to do what. Now, we stop off at the shops on the way home to get ingredients for Pizza and then make our own dinner. Friday night is pizza night and there was some disappointment on the part of a child was going to a sleep over on Friday night that she would miss pizza night.

Traditions like these are good, I like them.

Company

For the last four working days, I have had the company of some painters of walls (not artists). I decided I still needed music to function and they could just deal with it. The big tall one sang along with me to Aladdin and the Lion King and we had a lot of fun laughing and talking at intervals between jobs.

The dark brown dog is now partly blue and slightly white (guess what colours the house was painted).

The men ALL thought horses were so much waste of space and one of them gave me some leftover bread to feed a horse that was standing three meters away from him. I asked him if he wanted to feed it to him but he said "I don't do horses"

Also in case you are wondering you CAN hear through glass, I was cleaning the outside of a window and the man on the other side told his friend "she is cleaning the windows, you know, the weird one"

That was a fun four days and I laughed myself silly at them a few times

Music

I have CD's to listen to while I am working in the house. Happily there is a 3 disk CD player so it takes a while for the songs to repeat themselves. I have recently begun to notice though that I can't get into "work-mode" until the music is on. If I don't turn it on, I wander around knowing what I need to do but lacking the motivation to get it done.

This is not a bad thing, music you can sing along to makes most things more enjoyable, plus I know I am tired or depressed if I don't sing along. Also turning on music now acts as an on button for functioning.

House Work is Ecclesiastical

Anyone who has a house to look after will already know this. Mark Driscoll, in his Ecclesiastes sermon series, mentioned that housework is circular and never ending, just like the writer of Ecclesiastes says life is.

This truth, while in theory true, is not really grasped until you sweep the same floor every day and the only change is the size of the pile, wash the dishes every day and the only difference is the amount. The list goes on but it is depressing.

Housework is Ecclesiastical.