End of Day 6

I will be going to bed soon, so I say Day 6 is over, and again a success!  I did have one *tiny* lapse, but I’ll describe that later…

We have presented ourselves with a few challenges the past few days.  Thursday night, the kids wanted to eat at one of their favorite places, Chick-fil-a.  My husband figured we could handle it, so off we went.  And we DID it!  They had their nuggets and strips, played in the playground, and a couple of them even traded the toy inside the kid’s meal for ice cream!  He and I shared a large fruit bowl, and drank our water!  Friday was relatively uneventful (except the power went out in my building for the 2^nd time this week and I again went home early).  It was the 5th anniversary of our wedding, so my husband and I wanted to go out and be a couple.  In our culture in this day and time, that usually means going out for dinner.  Well, that was out of the question!  We had babysitters lined up, and pre-purchased movie tickets, so we popped our own popcorn, grabbed some water bottles, stuffed it all in my over-sized purse, and enjoyed a few hours of each other’s company.  It was an early movie, so we wanted to go do something afterwards, but couldn’t come up with something to do… Typically we would go get a drink or dessert somewhere…  This left us both feeling a bit empty – and there was a very short discussion about throwing in the towel.  But, we just picked up the kids, came home, went to bed early, and knew that today was another day!

Today was FULL of challenges!  We had a full day planned – 50 miles from home!  At 9:30, we loaded up the car with the kids, the coats, a movie for the road, bananas, cutie oranges, nuts, and bottled water.  And it worked!  We went to a pre-inauguration event hosted by Mary Fallin for Oklahoma families at the Science Museum of Oklahoma.  They served us all lunch there, courtesy of McDonalds.  The kids all got nuggets and apple slices, apple juice or water.  The adults were offered a salad (or nuggets).  We decided we could do the salads; we would just have to pick off the tortilla strips and cheese.  Plus, only one of our kids likes apples slices, so we got those as well.  Picking the stuff off the salad was tedious, so we didn’t eat too much of that – besides, there was a WHOLE museum to explore!

After a few more stops, we decided we needed an early dinner, and headed to Souper Salad.  My husband thought this would be a good choice for us, but it was harder than we expected!  Lots of salad and fruit choices, but also pasta salads, breads, pizza, and more!  We both did well!  My favorite thing I found to eat was a baked potato, then there was a vegan soup on the line today, so I poured the soup over my potato!  YUM!  Our next stop was church, and I had eaten red onions on my salad.  And they were STRONG.  I needed SOMETHING to get rid of my dragon breath.  I fretted about it all the way to church, every time someone spoke to me and when we dropped the kids off at their classes, and I didn’t want to SING with that taste/feeling.  Worship is my favorite part of a service, so I HAD to do something.  I prayed about it, and found some Extra gum in my purse.  So, I chewed it for about 10 minutes, felt SO MUCH better, and threw it away.  Definitely not on the Daniel fast, but it got me through church without any more stress!

We headed home – security! – after attending church, and we both feel revived and ready for another week!  I am excited that at this time tomorrow, we will have been on this journey an entire week.  I am stronger than I thought I was, and God provides.  2 truths I should know, but that are being sharpened by this experience!