Admittedly, I had a close-call on Day 5, when I was busy printing and editing and reprinting various items for our 2nd annual school supply giveaway (tomorrow at 10 - woohoo!)
Very late Wednesday night, I was ready to call it a day, but my desk still had notebooks and papers strewn everywhere. (It looked like the "good old messy desk days.") And I was tired and drained and tempted to leave it that way, but I knew I didn't want to start out the next morning with it in shambles. So I took a few minutes to shred the discarded paper and tucked the remaining papers into their proper places.
Transforming the desk also transformed my mood: I caught my second wind and felt relaxed and calm, instead of stressed and exhausted. So I pulled out a daily devotional book to catch up on some overdue reading. I first had to figure out which day of the year I was on. Since my calendar blotter was visible, I determined it was day 209 with just a quick glance. That's a first. Usually it requires moving a stack of something out of the way to find the calendar.
Then I pulled out my new prayer journal and updated it with a prayer request, and then I spent some time pouring out my heart to God...also a little overdue.
In case you're worrying, no, I'm not setting the stage for some variation of the "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" mantra. But having a clean desk did let me spend some quiet time in prayer and meditation. Just saying.
In other related news, I cleaned out the pond pump filters a few nights ago. My efforts were rewarded with crystal-clear water and an opportunity to meet our newest resident, Mr. Froggy.
Alas, this picture isn't of him. It's his stunt double or stand-in, or whatever they call them. Seriously, I didn't have my camera handy when Froggy was doing his underwater acrobatics routine at feeding time. (I have had the camera "at the ready" since I first saw our new amphibian friend, but no frog spottings since. I don't know if he's camera-shy or what; time will tell.) I snapped this picture a few years ago to prove that indeed frogs do hang out on lily pads just like in the storybook illustrations. We almost always have some frogs around the house and pond - here's hoping they catch their weight in flies and mosquitoes each day!
