Patience

Today I spent all day cooking, which I do not enjoy. I made bread and granola and soup and chicken and applesauce. It involved making several messes and took hours to get it all done and cleaned up. Normally I wouldn't have done all that. Normally I'd say, "I hate cooking and I'm not going to do it." 

However, today is January 3, and I'm still trying to live by my New Year's resolution, which is basically to try to be a better person. That involves doing things instead of just thinking about doing them. 

For instance, in order to try to help the whole family to be healthier, I bought so many vegetables last week. (A lot of them were marked down.) But then Ron & I decided to leave town for a few days and I left all that healthy produce behind, expecting it to be throw-away-able when we got back. 

No such luck. It was mostly salvageable by making a big pot of soup. The soup required a lot of prepping and seasoning, mainly because of so many bean sprouts! Then there were the dreaded "boneless skinless tasteless" chicken breasts, as my dad used to call them. Fortunately, Ron was frying sausage (doing his part for the health-kick) and I was able to pan fry them in the grease. 

I had to make oat-based bread and granola because I am such a genius at buying oats in bulk. Anyway, you get the picture. It was a productive day, even though I wasn't loving it.

Sometimes I have trouble praying, so this morning I was reading a prayer out of a book written to help people pray. The prayer was going along fine--I was in agreement with everything--until, the prayer asked for patience. A lot of people say, "Whatever you do, don't pray for patience!" 

So, I kind of cringed, even though I know it's kind of superstitious. But I continued praying, thinking, "Well, God's not really out to get me, and, it certainly makes sense that I could definitely benefit from having more patience... 

So, guess who had to keep reminding herself all day that I should be thankful that I'm well enough to cook, that we have food to eat, that I have a family to feed, that we have a warm house, that I have a dog to help me vacuum the floors, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?