Guiding Light

Guiding Light

Monday 8 December 2008

I'm going to confess… Somehow I didn't write this on Monday. It's actually Friday right now and I'm realizing Monday wasn't recorded for the generations to come… and all my adoring fans… So I'm straining my mind back to remember what happened then.

The most surprising thing about Monday was arriving home from a(nother) trip to Lowe's and finding lawn fairies at work weed-eating our front lawn. Joe and Lillian generously donated their time and hard work to a good cause - the Mayo home renovation. It's just the sort of thing my dad would do - showing up at someone's house unexpectedly to do something nice...

I'll record the evening because it was a lot of fun for me. I ordered plane tickets for my mom and dad. Yes, this did require a trip to the church building because no, I still don't have internet at home. I searched for a long time looking for a deal and finally booked them on Continental from January 14-21. It's only a week… but it's better than nothing. The other fun thing was searching online for gifts for my two brothers. I already have John's gift (of course) but Mom wanted to do online price comparison for some items for them and she doesn't use the internet much (…or… at all… if I'm honest.) And I STILL don't have a gift for Ben yet, though I have some ideas. Anyway, I love searching for a great deal and boy did I find great deals! I can't say much about the sites or the items (in case either of my brothers read this.) Suffice it to say that Mom's shopping for them is now complete. Yay!

It was dark when I left church and I had a fun drive home listening to Jason Mraz's most recent CD and singing along. I took a different way into my neighborhood. And it was strange. The sky was so dark. And all the houses looked like crazy, dizzying, blinking arrays of lights. I thought our psychedelic neighbor was bad! But no! He's tame! Ok, I saw a lighted life-size manger scene with a lighted life-size Santa and reindeer flying away from it. THAT… There are just no words for that. And I was wondering if I would ever find my own house! I mean, yes, you would think I could just look for the "black hole," the one dark spot in the neighborhood… But I was blinded! I was driving along wondering where…. And then! Behold! The Sentinel Candy Cane®! Remember the seven foot candy cane my neighbor put on his palm tree? It was a beacon, a guiding light to welcome me home. Thank goodness for memorable, extravagant displays of holiday joy!