Negative Nelly? Not Today.

I'll be honest. I have a tendency toward negative attitude when things don't go my way. I can be quite childish, actually. But God is always good and this morning He granted me, in all His sovereignty, the state of mind to remain calm and positive in the midst of extremely frustrating circumstances.

Exhibit A: 
Our beloved 1998 Honda Civic is on the fritz. The past few days it's been stalling out whenever I put in the clutch or cruise for a bit in neutral. Not cool. Yesterday, I had to restart it no less than 6 times on a 10 minute drive. We plan to take it in to the mechanic on Monday morning, but we're also seriously considering buying a used Honda Civic Hybrid. Tough decisions, I tell ya.

Exhibit B: 
Due to the state of our vehicular affairs, I opted to bike into work today. Yes, 7.8 miles. I figured it would take the place of my run and it wouldn't cut into Kevin-and-Mel morning time together because he was leaving at 7:20 for a conference.

Within the first 10 minutes of ride, the rusted-out chain of my bicycle had fallen off the gears. Glorious. By God's grace I managed to figure out how to put the chain back on, and I was back on the road.

Exhibit C: 
Back up to an hour before leaving for work. I'm in the bathroom getting ready for the day, and in preparation for putting lotion on, I placed my ring on it's ring holder. But somehow, who knows how, the ring bounced off it's shelf, onto the floor, and right down the rusted-out, gross-looking floor register. (Evidently, we have a lot of rust going on in our lives.)

NOOOOOOOOO. I did NOT just drop my ring down the register. PLUNK. I heard it hit the bottom of the metal duct work. I was hopeful it was just a few feet down, so Kevin and I attempted to pull the vent out of it's position. A seemingly-simple task, right? Not so much. This old vent had been nailed into the floor boards (don't ask me how). I grabbed two sets of pliers and with hulk-like adrenaline strength pulled that darn thing out of the floor.

At this point we discovered the bottom of the duct work was waaaaaay down, all the way in the basement. Kevin set to work taking apart the piping downstairs, but we picked the wrong vent and he came up empty. We're waiting for a maintenance guy to show up and help us out.

Exhibit D: 
Back to the bike ride - I am nearing the construction zone of the "straight shot" portion of my route and I'm hoping I can sneak through anyways. I quickly realize the road is straight-up closed (not just to "through traffic") but I avoid eye contact with the workers and carefully guide my bike through the zone. I make it on time for work, albeit a bit sweaty.

Exhibit E:
The bike ride on the way home from work. Though my friend had offered to pick me up, I thought it would be a nice end to my work week to bike home in the glorious sunshine. Turns out that 74 degrees and 9.2 miles later is not the best thing ever. (Yes, the 7.8 mile ride became 9.2 miles when I opted to take the official road detour and be a law abiding citizen on my way home.) Wow. I was DYING out there.

The ride home took me much longer than 35 minutes--closer to 50--and I was dripping with sweat and felt like Jello.

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So there is my sob story of a Friday, but friends, I'm seriously thankful for the good countenance the Lord has bestowed on me. I could be in a very bad mood, after all. But God is always good.



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