24 Hours

"This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24

6:20 My alarm rings an hour later than normal, for we had a late night the night before with a delightful cello quartet concert, and this week is the ominous, yearly, and much-dreaded "Shut Down" at Papa’s mill, meaning he works twelve hour days...so our usual morning family devotions are on hold for this week. But with the alarm, my very typical untypical day begins.
6:22 I roll out of bed, wiping the sand from my eyes.
6:23 I yawn and turn on my light.
6:24-6:45 My morning routine taken care of, I spend some quiet time with the Lord.
6:45 The phone rings and, perplexed, I run to get it. I’m not expecting a call until 7:30 from Mrs. D., a dear woman who is acting as “mentor” in a college class. Sure enough, though, it is her on the phone, but the early call is better for my schedule anyways.
6:50-8:51 I call Mrs. D. back on our phone so it doesn’t use up her minutes, and for two hours we discuss the character of God as seen in Psalms 1-30, and the authority of God’s Word as seen in that same passage and the book of Joshua. This class is very intense, but I am learning so much, and getting to learn from a woman like Mrs. D., who is passionate about God’s Word, is such a delight! Joshua is such a wonderful book, too--a veritable guidebook to victory in the Christian life.
8:51-9:30 I grab breakfast of yummy fresh bran muffins and a shower…this morning is going by way too fast!
9:30-10:30 I get in my piano practice—if we didn’t schedule people on the piano, it would be in use all day long! I get contrary motion scales and other theory exercises out of the way and work on my memory on Mozart’s Fantasy in D. Yes! I think I finally have the whole thing memorized!
10:30-11:30 I clean the kitchen and get ready for my day.
11:30-12 I sneak onto the piano once more for just a wee bit more practicing! (-:
12-12:30 We eat lunch—grilled cheese and top ramen. How’s that for gourmet? But it’s the kool-aid and the homemade anise cookies at the end that make the meal!
12:30-1:10 We scramble around, cleaning the kitchen, gathering books, shoes and coats—it’s rush hour at our house with preparations underway to leave for piano lessons.
1:17 Mikaela, Melanie, Susanna, Micah and I are off, and only a few minutes late! All of us girls take lessons, and Micah is along for the ride today because, with Papa’s strange schedule this week, we are going to have to take him to cello lessons after our piano lessons.
1:30-2:00 Being the nice sister I am, I agree to go on an errand to the library for Melanie during her lesson. Our library is a wonder—a beautiful brick structure built in the early 1920s, with a beautiful clock tower and three delicious stories of books. I check out a few things for Melanie and the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which several people have been harassing and even bribing us to watch but we just haven’t yet. I seem to check it out every time I go to the library, and every time, we just can’t find the time to watch it. Maybe it’s the Providence of God? (-: I also check out an old favorite of a book—Freckles.
2:00-2:15 I find myself with a few spare minutes, and I’ve been curious lately to see how my parallel parking skills are, since I haven’t actually had to parallel park since my driver’s test a few years ago. I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I pull off onto a few side streets and practice some parallel parking! I nail three out of the four attempts, so I’m happy to discover that parallel parking must be like riding a bike—you never forget. But you never stop worrying about forgetting, either. A few minutes later, when I remembered that I would have to report this incident to you all, I fleetingly thought about simply leaving a blank space of fifteen minutes in my day…but I decided it would be edifying to you all to encourage you to persevere in your routine parallel parking check-ups. Or something like that.
2:15-4:10 I’m back at Mr. K.’s—our piano teacher—and spend the time during my sisters’ lessons doing schoolwork. During my lesson, I play on his turn-of-the-century Steinway grand piano, and it is delightful!
4:10-5:00 We take Micah to his cello lesson. His teacher’s German Shepherd jumps up on the fence to greet Micah, because last week we were early and Micah had time to lovingly scratch behind the dog’s ears. She watches in disbelief as Micah hauls his cello right past her without so much as a "Hey, girl, how are you?"!
5-5:30 We dash home and eat dinner--a smorgasbord of leftovers. Jonah discovers huge candy bars in the “prize box” and is excited until Mama tells him he can only have a particular section. A few minutes later, he brings the candy bar to Mama: “Can you show me a particular section?”
5:30-6 In less time than it takes to tell, the kitchen is cleaned, piano books are put away, shoes are once again found, and we are almost ready to leave for prayer meeting.
6:05 We were supposed to leave five minutes ago, but Papa is upstairs printing something, Jonah is desperately looking for his shoes (so apparently not all the shoes were found), and I’m cleaning out the sinks.
6:13 We’re finally on our way! Mikaela stayed home because her cold is only getting worse, and she decided that it would be better to get some rest. In the car, we chat about the day and I tell Papa about the hilarious cello concert the night before (in particular, this song).
6:30-7:45 Prayer meeting! Everyone is attired in heavy coats and gloves, for the thermostat in our church needs to be changed if we want heat on prayer meeting nights. Oh well, it keeps us lively and awake! One of my piano students, a little five year old, sees me and is excited—“Hey, that’s my piano teacher! Hey, Miss Lauren!” I grin at him, delighted at his exuberance, and we share some smiles. We sing some beautiful songs of worship to get our hearts focused on Christ (and enjoy hearing the cooing of a one year old as she lifts her voice with us!), and then share prayer requests. Then, we enter into a time of heartfelt prayer, worship, and intercession. This time is always so refreshing to me, and I come away energized and encouraged! At the close, we watch a short video from one of the missionaries we support.
7:45-8:15 Our church can never get together without fellowshipping! We chat for a while on every topic imaginable, and then head out into the cold night! We actually got some snow the day before, although it didn’t stick, so our weather right now is quite chilly!
8:15-8:50 We drive home, listening to Dave Ramsey on the way.
8:50-10:30 I do some school, unwind, and get ready for bed. Then, lights out, and Wednesday, March 10, 2010 is over! I hope your day was as action-packed, encouraging, and profitable as mine was! Until the next ringing of the alarm clock...