Update

I'm am officially stock piling blog ideas, but for today, a quick update will have to do.

My head is spinning after a delightfully productive day. Last night I was struck with purpose. I stayed up very late reading the Bible and feverishly jotting down notes. Then, naturally, I woke up early. I have been sleeping a lot recently, approximately 9 hours a night. Thanks to my energy burst last night, I got less than 6. Good at the time, but I am feeling it now. I enjoyed a relaxed morning at least. I survived work, and I felt okay most of the day actually. Then we had a work meeting after regular business hours, which wasn't even bad. Then, on a whim, I had one errand to run and decided to see if I could accomplish two others. The others were errands I was not particularly looking forward too. One involved stopping at a local church and dropping off food donations for the local food pantry. The catch is, if you don't make it to the church on Sunday, it's sometimes difficult to make it when the door for food donations is open. So much so that the Deacons, who take turns delivering the donations, warned me that if you don't make it on a Sunday, you won't make it. I suppose this is perspective: they make it seem like an unpleasant, difficult task and so it is perceived as such. But I always have lunch with my family and grandmother after church on Sundays. I didn't want to miss that, so I just decided I would make it happen somehow. I had casually looked at their calendar of events to see when the door might be open. I didn't remember anything specific on today's date, but I decided I should swing by anyway. Sure enough, the parking lot was full: the first good sign. There was one open parking spot immediately in front of the door I needed to use, so I hastily parked and jumped out to test the door. I had tried the door prior to going to work this morning, to no avail. This time, thankfully, it opened. I unloaded everything from my car and deposited the donations into the building. One task that I was afraid would be unpleasant accomplished.

In a good mood, and with my boyfriend preoccupied for the evening, I decided to use the free time to get another task accomplished. I realized a few weeks ago that I would need additional tablets for my anti-malaria medication for my Africa trip. I've been putting it off, because I don't have a current PCP and the idea of going to the local urgent care clinic just seemed unpleasant. After all, it is the height of flu season here. My parents recently commented on how people used to just stay home and rest when they had the flu, but in our instant-gratification society, no one wants to wait it out. Everyone wants to go to the hospital and be instantly cured, so the idea of sitting in a waiting room didn't paint good pictures in my head. Even so, I drove home a different route so I would drive past the clinic. I knew I would have just over an hour before they closed their doors. As it turned out, their parking lot was fairly empty. You can see the waiting room from the outside, and that was completely empty, so I guessed the cars I could see merely belonged to the staff. So I parked and went in. It went as well as it could have gone. Completely empty aside from the employees (no, I repeat no!, sick/sniffling/coughing people anywhere near me!) I was in and out in just about 20 minutes. Everyone was very nice and curious about my trip. Of course, the PA-C didn't mind that I was such an easy patient either. I only needed two more tablets, but she wrote me a prescription for 5 just incase!

Finally, I came home to eat dinner and an orange for dessert. This Africa thing is no joke: I'm on day 3 of no candy or decadent desserts because my previously mentioned sweet tooth is that bad and, assuming I won't have access to many sugary treats in rural South Africa, I'm cutting out added sugar in preparation. I shot off a few emails, to an old friend from college, to the office in San Francisco, and to the Hub in South Africa. Today's productivity is such a reminder that God is sovereign! As thankful as I am, I am ready to fall asleep any second. With my trip countdown really getting down to the wire, I will hopefully have many more updates in the coming weeks!