Ten Things Tuesday (04)

You know how it is when you wake up one morning and all you can see are the things that are yet to be?
You look and think, where has all the time gone? And why does it look like I'm still standing where I've been standing for a long time?
I've been on this project for years, why doesn't it look as if it's about to be completed? I thought that by now, this and this should have come through so why does it look like I'm still waiting for them to happen? On and on.
That was how I felt this morning.
Usually it starts with one thought and then another and another....suddenly it takes over your mind and it changes your mood. Your face becomes sullen and downcast....woah! Woah! Wait a minute! This isn't right! I'm letting the wrong thoughts take over. No way am I going to let myself have a bad day today. As a matter of fact, I'm deliberately going to do my Thankful post today. If only to remind myself the good things I have in my life right now. I'm a work in progress and just because it looks as if things are still it don't mean nuthing's happening!

So I snapped out of the mood that threatened to swallow me whole and I began to Worship God. I sang and I prayed until those dark clouds rolled away. I have so much to be grateful for!

• I am grateful for P. who just returned to his base. We were together for a total of 3months at a stretch! We grew together in leaps in those 3 months and we crossed major milestones on our relationship learning curve.
• I learned in those 3 months the 'magic' of deferring to my husband and reaping a bountiful harvest. Oh no! I didn't learn it the easy way. Talk about disagreeing to agree. I'm grateful for the opportunities I get to learn more how to be the kind of Wife God wants me to be.
• Another expectant mother from my list has given birth! Grateful to God for the safe delivery. Mother and child are doing well!
• My younger sister has just been added to that list. Gave Momc enough reason to sigh in relief. I'm ecstatic!
• Another younger sista'll be getting married soon. The introductions took place a few weeks ago and it all went well.
  
• I'd been suffering from severe pain in the pelvic area for a while with cramps that drugs couldn't fix. I attended a healing meeting and now I'm completely healed. Praise God! It's great to have a healthy body. I'm truly grateful.
• I'm thankful for God's provision for P and I. I sure could use a bit more money right now but amazingly God still supplies our needs! He is Jehovah Jireh!
• I am grateful for the Rhema I received a few days ago. I've been rolling it around in my head and analyzing it but I'm glad I stopped that. If God says this is this then I'm not going to question it. Just like Mary, I shout at the top of my lungs "Be it unto me according to your Word oh, Lord! I receive the fulfillment of Your Word to me!
• I'm thankful for my cell group in church. My world is being expanded to include other people and I think it's really beautiful. I'm being blessed every week!
• Regardless of how many challenges I face, I'm still grateful to be alive! My future is bright and all I need to get there has been made available already!

Do you have anything to be grateful for?

6 months and under eh?

I honestly did not feel I'd be among those 'campaigning' for the NBA until I saw the recent post on "Newbie bloggers" and I was like woah! Hold it right there! By Newbie you mean what? Anyone who's been blogging for 6 months and under? Well that's moi!

I definitely am no veteran blogger (on my way there though!), seeing as I can not in anyway be compared to bloggers like Vera, LG, Writefreak, Aloted, Solomonsydelle.......the list is endless! Don't fret if I didn't mention your name, you know yourselves if you fall into the category I'm talking about. I just rattled off the first few names that came to my head.

What I'm trying to say is this. Even though I haven't been on blogville long, the organisers of The Naija Bloggers Award have been so gracious as to include a slot for us newbies! So I thought, why not campaign? That's what I'm doing right now just in case you didn't know - I'M CAMPAIGNING O!

Be nice to this newbie and vote her! You can't miss the slot. It's at the very bottom of the list!

If you haven't voted for your Category A nominees, click the green button at the top of this post and vote. Also for those who have not yet voted in the Category B nominations, the same button takes you there. The links you are looking for are at the top right hand side of the page.

Okay people! Do this newbie proud!

Friendships Lost.

If she had snuck out of school by probably crawling under the barbed wires, we may have been a bit relieved. At least it would have looked like a bonafide crime.

Somehow, we were sure she didn’t sneak out. She was somewhere within the school but for 2 weeks, no one could tell where my friend Q. was. There were several sightings, you know like one would sight UFOs, without proof.

“I swear I saw Q. by the borehole last night”

“2 days ago, just before sports, I saw Q. walking towards the staff quarters”

There were several claims. But did any one of you stop her and talk to her face to face? No.

She was always too far away they said, but they were sure it was her because of her waddle. It was impossible to miss Q’s waddle. We often laughed at the way she walked. It always reminded me of a duck! Mean of me I know but even as I write this, a smile cracks up my face.

It’s been 18 years. Wow! As I quote that figure, I’m suddenly struck by the fact that I’m growing old older. 18 years is really a long time if you consider I’m just going to be thirty in a few weeks. Yup! The big three-oh!

‘Nyways, back to Q.

Every average girl loves girlish things right? I mean that’s a given – at least it should be. Well Q. didn’t! She was fearless and nothing irritated her. Nothing ever made her say “yuck!” Nothing that is, except a mass of black ants. I always thought that strange.

Most girls I know would scream if a big grasshopper hopped onto their bodies and if they ever saw a cockroach crawl past, they’re never going past that path again. Q. loved to torment us and she enjoyed watching us shriek and scream when she got hold of a really huge grasshopper and threatened to put it in our blouses. We would beg as though for our lives but Q. would just wave the monstrous thing at us and laugh.

She loved it when it rained ‘cause after the rain, the soil was moist enough for the earthworms to come out and play. Yup, for Q. earthworms were cute playthings. She held them between her thumb and forefinger and watched them wiggle and squirm. When she got tired of the play, she’d gently put them down and watch them crawl away.

Most people thought Q. was weird but I just loved her! Nope, I couldn’t stand grasshoppers or earthworms. They scared me shitless! But Q. was always ready for an adventure. It was always as though we were thinking the same thing. Even though we were barely in JS 1 (3^rd Term) at the time, we’d explored all the unexplored corners of the school.

The school compound was so large that there weren’t any clear boundaries all around. There was a front gate of course and a wall that seemed to stretch for miles. Q. and I discovered however that if you walked long enough away from the hostels towards the back, you’d find yourself in the nearby village. No wall got to that part of the school, neither were there any barbed wires. We spent hours and hours exploring the ‘jungle’ behind our school and even hoped we’d see live monkeys!

I’m sure by now you’re wondering what we’re doing wandering in the ‘jungle’ when we should be reading! To tell the truth, I had no time for my books. I didn’t even really know I was in school to read! Classes seemed an uncomfortable interruption of my real life. Real life being serving seniors, or running away from the hostel to prevent you from being the ‘available junior girl’ and being sent on errands to death! Real life for me was surviving the intrigues of being in Js1 and the door mat of every senior girl. I was learning to beat the system and I was learning fast!

Classes were irrelevant as far as I was concerned. It was the dream-life where you pretended you’re in another world. Yet when the school bell rang for class dismissal, you were jarred to reality where it was dog-eat-dog!

My adventures where my escape mechanism and Q. was my worthy companion. We climbed trees and pretended we were members of the von Trapp family doing our thing.

It was Q. that showed me the difference between a toad and a frog. Of all things! I don’t know how she knew those things. We were barely 10 years old!

One night we left prep class and took a long walk towards the kitchen area. The doors were not normally locked and since huge logs of timber were used as stoves, the fire never really went out. It was always left smoldering even till the next day.

We walked around the kitchen and Q. pushed open the door. We snuck in under the cover of darkness and found some oil used to fry fish earlier. We also found some corn soaked in a huge basin. We poured the oil in a tureen and managed to balance it on one of the huge smoldering logs then we fetched several handfuls of the corn and poured it into the already hot oil. I guess we thought we could make some popcorn. We ended up burning the corn but we enjoyed eating our burnt corn outside.

“hey you two! What are you doing there?!”

We were startled and the first instinct was to run away. We were done for!

It was the night guard on his rounds. He shone his torch on our sorry faces and was surprised to see us 'little' rats by the kitchen at that time of the night.

From our faces, he shone the torch down at our half eaten burnt corn and you could see the incredulity in his eyes.

I really wasn't afraid of the guard. I was afraid he'd hand us over to our prep prefect or worse still to the head girl. But he was nice. He didn't ask for an explanation but pointed to our hostel and commanded us to be gone before he opened his eyes.

We fled! thanking our stars it wasn't worse. Once we got near the hostel, we just burst out laughing.

It was exhilarating knowing that we really could do whatever we wanted and never really get caught. I can't even begin to write it all down.

'Nyways, just before we started exams, Q. disappeared.

To be continued...