Well, some know very well that yesterday was a tough day for me, so this won’t be the most uplifting post. I wasn’t going to write at all, but (of course) I woke up writing in my heart, so (again) God’s gotten His way.

Yesterday, I learned some very valuable lessons from God, not in any condemning way but in the most loving way possible. Right off the bat, I realized the mistake I’d made leading up to the craft fair.

For those of you who don’t know, over the summer, I started my own business, and sales haven’t gone up; they’ve gone down, so I decided to reserve booth space at a craft fair to sell whatever flags I’d made, and depending on the outcome depended on the rest of my life. THAT was my mistake…depending on a “day” rather than my God, so you can imagine where this is going.

(Man, I can already tell this is going to be a long post (sigh).)

For the craft fair, I had some friends come help me out, and within the first hour or so, I could tell the day of selling would be a struggle. There were BARELY any people there. Coincidentally, in the same small town, they had like TWO other fair type things going on. One of them was right off the freeway, where the roads were blocked off and everything. Needless to say, not many people made it to ours, and the handful that strolled by now and then were not very interested in flags.

I’m not even sure I made it two hours before I cried. I even told one of my friends, “I guess I shouldn’t base the rest of my life on this one day, huh?” Unfortunately, that had been my mindset leading up to it, and once I was in the day, it was hard to reset my mind.

Because I live my life out loud, there’re so many different opinions about me and how I run the business, and I’ll be satisfied the rest of my life to never hear one of them. I only care about what God thinks, and from what I believe, those are all good thoughts.

Throughout the day, I had a few breakdowns, even went to the bathroom for one of them. I would’ve ran to the bathroom for all of them, but sometimes, tears fall without permission. I was so glad to have people with me…so grateful!

At the end of the fair, I was done but hadn’t “quit,” if you know what I mean. Most of the booths around me hadn’t sold a thing either. As I walked to get my car, I passed by a booth and asked the ladies how they did. Both of them looked up with smiles and said they had a good day. Then, they asked about mine.

I told them how I hadn’t sold anything and explained what I was selling. Right away, they said, “You should’ve been waving them around.” We did that. We had worship music going and always had, at least, one woman at there with a flag at all times. Anyway, they felt bad for me and offered me one of their soaps for free. I hesitated for like a half a second and jumped on the offer.

As I smelled a few, I found one I loved. When she handed it to me, I saw the writing on the tag, “Angel Tears.” How perfect! The funny part…guess what it’s made of…goat’s milk!! If you’ve read my goat story, that should make you smile.

After packing everything up, which took some time because, by this point, I was alone, I ate real quick and headed to my daughter’s band competition. That morning, I’d already missed my sons’ flag football game, so I was trying to make it to her competition.

Along the way, I found out I was too late. I’d missed it. On the phone with her dad, I said, “Well, isn’t that just a smile on the end of a discouraging day. I’ll just go home then” and turned around and went home.

When I walked in, I went straight to bed for a nap. It was one of those days where I just wanted it to end. Even when I woke up, I told Kyle I couldn’t wait to go back to sleep to officially end the day, which made him chuckle, but by the time Carolyn came home, she changed all that.

When she came in, we both talked about our day. It ended up that Nathan stayed at his dad’s, so we had mommy-daughter time (because Kyle had gone to work). We watched a movie and then went to get some frozen yogurt. Clearly…the BEST decision EVER.

On our way home with our frozen yogurt, Carolyn could not stop laughing at me. “Everything” I said was cracking her up. She had yogurt spilling out of her mouth, tears coming out of her eyes, and almost peed her pants…THE WHOLE WAY HOME.

At one point, we were stopped in the middle of the street, laughing. You see, when I laugh, my eyes squint, so I can’t see very well (and my teeth pop out), so as I was laughing and driving, (at times) I’d swerve (by accident), which freaked Carolyn out, so I decided just to stop.

We were so close to home, on our street, stopped…because we were laughing so hard. THAT drive was the climatic part of God’s orchestrated day! [I only splurge for frozen yogurt when I’ve had a really tough day.] It was the best ending EVER!!

When we finally made it home, we put in “Frozen,” ate our yogurt, and continued laughing. It was priceless!