Pearls of Wisdom or Not

• When the leg & body hair removal cream says "Not for faces", they mean it. The good side is, when the blistering goes away, I may have the lovely skin only acquired after an expensive chemical peel. In the meantime, my Halloween scary face is set.

• After spending a week in bed horribly ill, it is a bad idea to attempt to move heavy furniture no matter how much it's placement has bothered one during one's confinement. The good side is, a couple more days in bed will usually help the muscle spasms in one's back.

• A week plus in bed can help one take stock of their blessings.   Mine are: I own enough BBC and ITV Jane Austen films to get me through such a time; my 12 year-old can cook basics like mac and cheese and frozen pizza to throw at his unsupervised siblings home on school holiday; iphone (insert Heavenly Choir here) to check email and send txt messages to the kids like, "It's getting a little wild down there", "Go outside, the sun is shining!" and "Could you please bring me another water bottle?"; I happen to like broth and water--great blessing.

My first foray back into the world was yesterday-- to run a Harvest Festival at our church. A Harvest Festival that had been calendared the previous year by the Activity Committee that was no longer, so it was passed on to "the youth" which loosely translates, "to the youth leaders" which, if broken down further, means "the youth leaders that are women who won't shirk their responsibilities" of which there are two, myself and my counselor.

Being one of the few key holders, I had the honor of opening the building, getting the heat going and setting up. The other youth leaders showed at the start time of the event.

One of the highlights was a Chili Cook-off.

In New Mexico when you have a chili cook-off, you kind of know what to expect. Deep red-brown, meaty chili with or without beans. "Hot" means sweat drips down into your ears while you eat it.
Here, chili could be spaghetti bolognese or a fish-based sauce with wheat. 
If there's green chili added to the base, it should be labeled as "hot".

While passing out cornbread (that's a whole other post, but believe me, explaining one-by-one to over fifty people that "it is NOT cake and yes, should be eaten with chili" gets old really quick), my daughter tugs on my pants leg and looks up at me to say, "I threw up". I believed her, her breath wreaked of it.

Being one of the few key holders, I stayed for another hour and forty-five minutes longer and was the last to clean up and lock the building while my daughter sat in the car with a bucket--after being in bed myself for 10 days. I'm about to throw my exclusive church key at a few of our leaders...


when my face has healed.

Happy Halloween!!