LoLoCation: GWL, Trip’s Done!

The video kind of speaks for itself, and marks the end of my Great Wolf Lodge saga. It was taken somewhere between Olympia and Seattle on I-5 as we traveled home from our nearly-24-hour vacation. (Is that all it was?!) (Well, it’s more than 24 hours if you count the travel time. I…don’t. Heh.) 

 

It’s Wednesday night…but almost Thursday morning. I’m in my room, relaxing. I’m exhausted, but there always seems to be things to do. Or things to think. Or just…things on my mind. In 10 hours, I will open my doors and welcome guests into my home to celebrate a friend’s new baby. I have been baking and mixing and prepping and planning for the past nine hours. I have one apple cake, one cheese ball, one bowl of artichoke dip and 4 dozen sugar cookies to show for it.  It makes me tired, physically.

 

This past weekend, my church held our Semi-Annual General Conference. Maybe you heard about it? It’s a two-day event, with two sessions each day. There was a session just for the ladies a week prior, and a session just for the men on Saturday night. My friends, that is 10 hours of Listening, to prophets, apostles and leaders. It was lovely. And jarring. At the same time. It was lovely because I was at home, with my family, and listening. I was hearing lovely messages of hope. Peace. Strength. While I listen, I like to hop onto Twitter. It’s really the only time I am on Twitter for any length of time. Fellow church members use the hashtag #ldsconf and we all share snippets and quotes and things that struck us or questions (‘what’s this guy’s name again??’). And this year, a troll joined the party. And sent out mean things into the world, using our little hashtag, so we couldn’t avoid him. And then someone buoyed us up. “Come come ye saints…no trolls nor Twitter fear!” Silly? Yes. Effective? Yes. (And I’d like to think that the dozens of people who re-tweeted those mean comments had no idea that they were broadcasting them to a captive audience of people…who would be hurt.)

 

And there was one talk that seems to have lit up the world. It’s funny, because I remember listening to the talk and what I got from the talk has nothing at all to do with what’s got people so riled up. And now that talk is making  me think more than everything else combined. Because I know what I believe. And I know how limited my life-experience is. And I know how the World thinks I Ought to Be, and what I Ought to Think. And, listening to all these fabulous people share their thoughts and words and bits of scripture…I suddenly realized that first, I believed what the man was saying, and I had forgotten that. (Isn’t that sad?) And second…if it ever comes up in a conversation, I have no idea what I will say. Most likely, it will be the wrong thing. Which is why I still sit here. Thinking. It makes me tired, mentally.

 

So, I will set this to post in the morning. If you have a spare moment, think some Martha Stewart/Betty Crocker thoughts for me as I try to be a good hostess to a dozen of my friends, and their various younger-than-school-age children. And please, think some Clear Headed thoughts for me. And hope that the conversation doesn’t come up before I’m ready for it.