Productivity

I daresay this may have been one of the most productive days I have had in quite some time.

First, I attempted and conquered a large grocery run all alone, which I usually avoid because of the haul required from the parking garage: down the parking deck stairs, across the street, through the plaza, up the elevator, and finally to our 18th floor apartment. By the time I gather food from my many different "fields," I have quite a "basket" full that requires more than one pair of hands to carry. Let's just say that today some of the items had to remain in my car trunk until Neal could help me take up a load after work. Nonetheless, it was 2 1/2 hours of productivity much appreciated by Neal who has been doing his fair share of grocery shopping during my health trials of the last months. And the doughnut I got before leaving the last store was much appreciated by me, having been recently gluten-deprived for six weeks. I never knew gluten was my favorite food.

Second, I set out on a baking project which involved yeast and kneading dough. Exclamation point! Now I know I'm really into something. Some of the instructions on the recipe felt like a reckless jump off a cliff, but it was exhilarating at best, a floury mess at worst. I'd like to say that my cinnamon rolls turned out looking just like Mom and Tiff's beautiful creations, but I think I tested my first batch on the perfect recipients- Neal's RA boys. They took no notice of some of the misshapes and various sizes, and instead gave me an enthusiastic round of applause. I even got a hug from one homemade-treat-satisfied guy! I can't wait to try these cinnamon rolls again and perfect my trial-and-error mistakes.

By the time those crazy rolls were finished, including clean dishes and fresh frosting, it was 8:30pm, no kidding. Insert here the fact that at this point I just wanted to go to bed. After greeting the RA small group at 9:00, I retreated to the other room to prep a pre-marital counseling session for tomorrow. Love the opportunity to work with students in this way, and I promise I will blog more about the pre-marital counseling topic sometime.

All this to say, now at 11:30pm I am not thinking I was any more productive than most people today, but I was overwhelmingly more productive than the me of the past six months. This is an ipsative comparison (comparing yourself to your own patterns) rather than a normative comparison, which is comparing one person's score to the score of others evaluated by the same measure. I know this rather obnoxious piece of information because somewhere between dough-risings today, I studied research methods and statistics for my upcoming licensing exam, hehe!

So now it's midnight. Time to end this day, and thank God with me that He is renewing my health and strength. I've been waiting. (Is. 41)