For sixteen years I ran a good size Child Care Center caring for up to 150 kids in the summer months.  One staff meeting I handed all the staff a piece of paper and pencil and then held up a very nice prize to be awarded to the winner.  The assignment?   List all the pet peeves of your director (that would be me).   Though timid at first the group really got into it and several had some pretty long lists.  Tone of voice, clocking in late, sitting on the playground watching kids play, and on and on and on the expected responses were written.  There was only one however that was on everyone’s list- always roll the tape on the back of what you are hanging- tape is never to be seen!

To this day if I am working on something with a former staff member I will hear them instruct children or other helpers to roll the tape to hang it up.  In a world overwhelmed with regulations, mandatory rules and every government agency imaginable visiting to see if the water temperature is right the one thing I got across to ALL the staff was roll the tape!  I wanted us to always look our best and I loved decorating with projects made by children.

Recently my sister told me that since she has moved Louisville where I live she has a completely different view of who I am and the realities of my life.  Basically she said I always look happy, prosperous, completely together and now she knows it is often not true.  I love giving gifts and she has discovered I am a master re-gifter when I want to bless someone.  I will choose to go out for lunch, never pass a sale bin, and help out family and friends whether I have money or not and pay the piper later.  Looking happy all the time gave her the impression there were not problems or sadness in my life when the reality is I have experienced serious ongoing heartbreaking issues that exist today.

Yesterday I added something to my pet peeve list- price tags placed on items that are impossible to get off without leaving a scratch where you rubbed with a nail or took paint off using polish remover to get the glue off!  No matter, they look sweet as the tags were on the back so in the photo above you just see the sweet little chicks- not the scratches and the missing paint on their backsides where the price tags were super-glued on! 

  

I hide the tape or other the flaws, once spoke in front of about fifty women  wearing panty hose completely worn out with a gaping hole taped together with duck tape unseen underneath my lovely outfit- took a picture when they towed my car away and I smile when someone I dearly love is seriously suffering and it is breaking my heart.  Does that make me a fake?  It’s real for me.  Real that joy can break through suffering- fulfillment can break through need and beauty can break through without showing its hidden flaws.  

“God is my rock of refuge, to which I can always go; He alone gives the command and saves me, I dwell within His impenetrable fortress.”  Psalm 71:3 Planet Carol Version 

You are His gift to me to share my wonderful life…