“Uh, Ma’am, We’ll Be Needin’ to CUT SOME HOLES in Your Walls…” (Quick! Grab Chocolate on the Brain—Foolproof Recipes for Unrepentant Chocoholics by Kevin and Nancy Mills)
Ahhhh, Monday morning. Some of us dread Mondays, while others cherish Mondays.
Me? If I’ve planned properly, as in NO PLANS but playing catch up, I cherish Mondays.
Last Monday, I happily had no plans. We were just back from a family vacation and there was lots of playing catch up to do…
However (!!!), as Hubster was hustlin’ out the door, rushing to work, he leaves me with, “Oh yeah, plumbers are comin’ today to address that leak.” (The one we sorta forgot about while on vacay.)
Buzz.
Quiet day evaporated.
Sure enough, as John pulled out of the driveway, in rolled the plumbers… Seems we had a wee bit of water in the basement. They’d traced it to an upstairs toilet.
Hollering back and forth between two floors, the two guys would say, “Hear anything?”
Then, what you never want to hear a plumber say, falls out of one of their mouths….”Oh, no!”
Followed quickly by, “TURN IT OFF!!”
Worse, they’re now both dashing downstairs, looking at walls in our living room and dining room. “No! Not the dining room!!! We have NO. SPARE. WALLPAPER!!!” I thought to myself.
Thankfully, they concluded they’d need to cut some holes in the living room wall. I chuckled to myself, as I’ve been toying with lightening up the room paint-wise. I blissfully gave them my blessing…. “Sure! Cut away!!!” (I can soooooo see Hubster shaking his head….)
Honestly, if we only had a very tall, full-length mirror, we could hide the holes with the shiny new pipes now installed. It was all the fault of a very old cast iron pipe which had split “clean in two” as one of the guys reported. Jolly good.
Next up (watch it be on a Monday), Buzzie-the-drywaller will come do his miraculous repair work, followed by our relentlessly faithful painter who might as well move in. There are endless projects in this house, no thanks to our last foray with When You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
So those guys will come to the rescue of our home, but what could possibly save this Monday? Days like these call for prayers for patience plus recognition of unrealized blessings . They will quickly derail your woe-du-jour.
I LOVE how the Message phrases Matthew 5:3 –
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and His rule.” Oh, yes, we could ALL use a little more of God, don’t you think? I often forget to pray, “Lord, please empty me of me and fill me with you.”
May I offer additional “help”? Few things come to my aid more than chocolate. Rich, I know.
My cousin gave me a very fun cookbook you would all love called Chocolate On The Brain: Foolproof Recipes for Unrepentant Chocoholics by Kevin and Nancy Mills. (Mother and Son, no less. Furthermore, it’s no coincidence my maiden name is Mills, either. Surely we’re related….)
Kevin says their book is not for “people who like to nibble, who can eat just one piece of chocolate and move on.
The book is for:
…those poor souls enslaved by chocolate,
who sit at work and think about chocolate,
who hatch plots to get other people’s chocolate,
who buy their loved ones gifts of chocolate only to consume them themselves—
who are rendered powerless by chocolate as if it were Kryptonite….” (At the very least we must be second or third cousins.)
The book is a boatload of fun because it not only has loads of delish recipes, but Kevin’s Mom, Nancy, gives helpful “Mom Tips”. There are also fascinating fun facts and historical dates with explanations of how chocolate made its’ entry into our world. Many of the recipes can be done in less than thirty minutes.
Psalm 34:8 tells us, “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.”
Next time you find someone wanting to blast thru’ your walls, or something equally lovely, pray, and reach for some chocolate. Don’t forget the dark variety is good for your heart. Or go buy some to “share” with a friend.
Smile. Don’t frown.
As my friend Liz often reminds me, “God’s got this.”
‘Til next time!
(Next month we’ll tackle together some back-to-school survival tactics.)