My head is spinning in about 15 different directions right now, and just to prove it, here goes:

Yesterday. Okay, yesterday was busy. My busiest, most eventful day of the week is Sunday. And I'm going to need ALL DAY TODAY to rest and recoup! Can somebody say PAJAMA DAY??? So yesterday I got up at 7:20 a.m. and got myself ready for church. Michael has a cold and he's been running himself silly all week, so he stayed home and kept Jacob here with him, but he did help me get Travis ready to go with me. So Travis and I left the house around 9 a.m., almost forgot my Bible and my music book, (I call it a music book...it's more of a lyric book), and drove 30 miles to church.

So I played organ for Sunday school, then we went over to the fellowship hall for the first day of our new couple's class, except I was missing my half, so I didn't feel much like a couple, lol. After class, me and Joy (the other piano player) ran over to the church to run through our congregational songs right quick since we didn't get to work on them Wednesday night since she wasn't there.

Well, the person that I was afraid that wouldn't show up to sing, didn't show up, so this meant we'd either A) Have only 1 special instead of 2, B) I would have to sing something, or C) Find someone else that could do a song at the last second. Well, about 2 minutes before it was time for the first song, Kenneth (the song leader) came up to me and said that Bro. Greg (the Pastor) really wanted 2 specials for Sunday morning, so he asked the Hillers if they could do the song they did Wednesday night, which meant I needed someone to grab my music book and take it over to the piano and turn it to the page of that song and lay it on top of the piano. This also meant I'd have to play the song and the Hillers would have to sing it without having had a chance to run through it AT ALL.

So church started, we played the first congregation song, and then guess who walked into church, late? Yep, the person that was SUPPOSED to sing!!! Well, we ended up continuing on with the Hillers singing, and it actually went great! Hmm, maybe I play better when I don't have time to stress over it, who knows. Then we did the other congregation songs, and the other special song, Joy played, and then when it was time for the sermon, someone had taken my seat which is on the side of the organ on the 2nd to the front row. I mean, I'd sat my Bible and my purse there and everything, lol. So everybody had to scoot down before I could sit down.

So anyway, Bro. Ron Nichols preached yesterday. (In case you didn't know, which you probably didn't, he is one of the brothers of Sam...Michael's cousin that committed suicide back in October.) The message really spoke to me and I believe it's something I needed to hear. Then I ended up playing piano for the invitation song simply because me and Joy hadn't had time to work on the song that was on the schedule, and it was a song we'd never played together before, but I'd played on the piano a zillion times. The thing about invitation songs is we usually go through the entire song about 2 or 3 times before the invitation is over, because there are usually people down at the alter and stuff, so the more times I have to play through a song, the more likely I am to have a chance to mess up, and the ONE song you don't want to mess up is the invitation song. So basically, if a song has 4 verses, I can count on playing the song about 8 to 12 times. I know it's the invitation song, but I'm constantly glancing up at the Pastor, waiting for his cue to let me know it's the last time through the song. And his cue is very subtle. Like, if he just glances over at me, that's supposed to mean that it's the last verse. (There HAVE been times though where he glanced over at me, not really cueing me, but just looking over there for whatever reason, and I thought it was my cue to stop, so I stopped, and then he was like "No, keep going" LOL.)

Anyway, we took up a special offering for funds to purchase a new baptistry. Our church DOESN'T have one...there's the hole back there for one, but there's no baptistry actually in there. Every time someone wants to be baptized, we basically have to have a baptismal service at another church nearby. Before yesterday, there were about $800 or so in the baptistry fund, and after yesterday's special offering, there's now over $1700 in the baptistry fund!! I think they need about $2,000 for the whole thing, so I thought that was pretty awesome!!!

ANYWAY, so after church, me and a few others stayed behind to run over the special songs for Sunday night. I was supposed to play piano for the Crumptons...they wanted to sing "As The Deer", so we ran over that, and then me and Ms. Jenny (the Pastor's wife) were supposed to sing "Who Am I?" and Joy played piano for us. So we ran over all of that, and then I made the 30 mile drive back home.

I stopped at Popeye's to get some chicken, brought it home, we ate, then I had to go to the grocery store because I was supposed to go Friday, but we had helped Michael's parents move, and then Saturday, but we ended up having an unexpected dinner guest, and then finally decided to go yesterday afternoon so that I wouldn't come home after Sunday morning church and want to go to sleep. So I went to the Walmart Neighborhood Market, which is practically down the road from me, and I got a buggy full of groceries. I was in the checkout line, and the checker asked me how I was doing, and I told her I was glad I was finally getting out of the store so I could make it back to church tonight, and she was like "Y'all have church on Sunday nights? That's so weird! Where do you go to church?" So I told her and she was like "Oh, you're Baptist that's why. I go to a Baptist church, too." What part of that conversation made any sense? The girl had to be on drugs because she goes to a Baptist church and had never heard of going to church on Sunday nights? If she didn't know this, then she has never stepped foot into a church in her life, unless it was a church of Satan or something, LOL! So I got the truck loaded up with my groceries and by the time I got out of there, I was pretty thirsty and I wanted a Diet Vanilla Coke, so I pulled into the Mapco which is basically right next to the Walmart. This is where my day went downhill, lol. I went inside to get a Coke, and as I stood there in line waiting to pay for it, a sick realization hit me. I did not have my keys in my hand. Where were they??? And then it hit me that I left them out in the truck, but I didn't think I had locked my doors. So I paid for my Coke, and I told the lady behind the counter that I think I locked my keys in my truck. So she asked me if I needed to use the phone, and I told her I'd go check to see if I actually locked the doors. So I ran back out to my truck, and SURE ENOUGH...the doors were LOCKED. Instant sinking feeling hits me. So I ran back into the store and took her up on her offer to use the phone. The first thing I said to Michael was, "Hey, um, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to get in your car and come up here to the Mapco and unlock me." Are you ready for this? He said, "Um, Candy, I don't HAVE a set of keys to your truck?!?!" I felt about an inch tall at this point. Somebody dig a hole and bury me in it!!! He was right. When we bought it back in Decmeber, they only gave us ONE key and ONE remote. And then he added "WHAT were you doing at Mapco???" and I said "I went in to buy a Coke." and he said "You went in to buy a Coke!" This was more of an exclamation, than a question. I mean, I was THIRSTY!!! GEEZ!!! So this meant we would have to call a locksmith. Boy, that was the most expensive Coke I'll ever drink. I need to put that Coke bottle on a shelf and use it as a fancy vase or something!! I called a locksmith, and he said it'd take about 30 minutes to get there. Michael ended up calling his parents...they were on their way home from church, and as always, they came to the rescue. They pulled up in the Mapco parking lot, and I felt soooo stupid!!! The first think Michael's mom did was laugh and say "Honey, we've all done it a million times!" But if you recall, I had GROCERIES in the back that were going to spoil and melt!!!!!!! So anyway, I sat in the van with my in-laws while we waited for the locksmith to show up. He wanted to see my Driver's License, just as proof that this was actually my vehicle, and I'm like "Umm, that's going to be a PROBLEM...it's IN THE TRUCK?!?!" So he unlocked the vehicle after a minute or two, I showed him my license, and he charged me $48. Yeah, really expensive Coke. By this point it was after 3:30, and I had to get home, unload the groceries, put them up, run through Sunday night's music, and get myself ready to leave again by 4:30. I got home, Michael helped with the groceries, and then he got the kids ready to go because he was taking them over to Mamaw's (his parents) so Michael could go over to Daniel's (his nephew) to watch Wrestlemania 20. Daniel's girlfriend has pink eye, so we didn't want to expose the kids to THAT.

Well I went on back to church...another 30 miles. I always play piano on Sunday night. All of the music went really well, and then after church, we had a fellowship thing and ate hot dogs and chips and played ping pong and chatted. I did finally have a chance to speak to the Pastor about the whole music schedule thing. As it turns out, he was already kind of aware of the situation, and was already planning on relieving the person that had been doing the schedule of that duty, and he WAS planning on turning the job over to the song leader, BUT since I showed some willingness to do it, and the song leader already has lots of other stuff to do, he said that I could do it! YAY! So I plan on getting something tentative together to take to church Wednesday night and have him and the others involved with the music to look it over to make sure they like/understand whatever format I come up with. I explained to him that I didn't want anyone to have hurt feelings over it or anything...I just felt there needed to be a change, and that I thought I could handle the responsibility. So that's something ELSE I've got to work on today. I'm just sooo glad that he was already aware of the situation, so that I didn't have to be the one to stir up a stink, ya know?

So then I drove another 30 miles back home. On my way home, I had to stop and feed/water/play with my mom's cat and make sure everything was okay at the house. While I was there, my Mom called me on my cell and asked me to call today and cancel her eye appointment on Tuesday because she's decided to stay in North Carolina an extra day. (That's a reminder to myself to do that today!!) After that, I stopped at Daniel's apartment to catch the last several matches of Wrestlemania, only to be disappointed because I had missed the Rock's final match. But Michael told me he lost anyway, so maybe it's a good thing I missed it. This was an experience in itself though...going to Daniel's apartment. I'd never in my life been to a single guy's apartment before. Daniel and his girlfriend had all of the lights out, the ceiling fan turned on full blast, the TV turned up way loud, and they were all snuggled up together on the couch, under a blanket, and Michael and I had to sit in chairs on either side of the coffee table, and I was like "Oh, I see how it is...we're married so we no longer get to sit together." Daniel's girlfriend is pretty cool though, and we get along pretty good. I just know more differences between a single guy and a married woman, lol. Whenever I have guests over at my place, I offer them a drink, and make sure they're comfortable. But over THERE, it was like the total opposite! I didn't stay long because I was FREEZING and I was getting a headache from either the loudness of the TV, or maybe it was the brightness of the TV against the darkness of the room, or maybe a combination of both??? And my nose was starting to burn from the smell of stale cigarette smoke. By the time I left, my eyes were watering and my clothes and hair wreaked of cigarette smoke, and I wanted to take a bath and wash my hair, but I was soooo tired by then, that I put on my PJ's and crashed onto the bed and passed out. When I woke up about 30 to 45 minutes later, Michael had picked up the kids and brought them home, and Jacob was wide awake, rolling around in my bed, lol. So I got up and put Jacob in his bed with a bottle and Travis was already passed out on the couch, so I went back to bed and passed out again.

WHEWWWW...I'm glad yesterday is over with!!! On second thought, it might take me ALL WEEK to get over Sunday!!!