lost and found

I just found my camera! It’s been gone for almost a month and since it went missing I thought of nothing else. Grace swimming – where’s the camera? Anna learning to dive – no camera – Ugh! Cole building a bee hive super with his dad at the kitchen table – a lost memory. Truman’s dangling tooth that fell out in my hand (really Aunt Cori, I hardly touched it) happened during the dark month.

This week my thoughts turned to the blog. It’s been my goal all summer to re-balance my life and catch up on a years worth of blogs. It was one of the first things that fell through the cracks when I started teaching last fall. Exercise and date night also went MIA – in order to save my body and my marriage I attended to those first.

The other day while weeding the back garden my mind started playing games… “Too bad I lost the camera because now I will never be able to blog again,” the thought drifted. “I will have to replace the grill and the computer printer before I can slip a new camera into the budget. Of course it will be too late then to start writing or blogging or generally stop feeling sorry for myself.”

“Did you say a prayer to St. Anthony?” Aunt Cori asked. Sigh. I had not.

“Okay, St. Anthony, if you help me locate my camera I’ll start blogging again. I know it’s not world peace, but that’s what I have to offer.” Certainly the quality of that prayer must have gotten his attention. I pictured it being written on a “lame prayer page” somewhere in heaven’s version of Facebook. Or being sent around as a forward on an email titled, “10 most pathetic requests of the day.”

What does St. Anthony care if I blog or not? Besides, I’m still missing that diamond earring and he was too busy to help me find.

Right about that time Cole mentioned that he could not find the charger for his DSI. “I bet it’s with the camera,” I said in disgust wondering what would go missing next – bad things happen in threes right? Then I said, “Okay the camera reward is now up to $10 and the DSI is starting at $1,” the kids went on a hunt while I folded laundry. “It’s pointless,” I said as I put away dish towels and almost didn’t see that right there-  in my dish towel drawer-   sat my camera.

Anna found the DSI charger under a bed so all has been restored to order and there is peace in my mind again. However, I couldn’t go back on my promise to St. Anthony especially since the blog now appears to be a mandate from heaven. I’m happy – and I even took photos of other things that added to my happy today – Thank you St. Anthony!