By Lindsay

Summer in Virginia means humidity & heat that surely compares to the hall way to hell.

So on one particularly miserable July day, I chose to utilize air conditioning for my walk by walking in a shopping center.

I parked at one end, loaded my son into his stroller, then began in the closest store, walking down every isle. My plan was to walk into every store on the strip & go down every isle, minimizing our time under the unforgiving sun.

Seeing one of the last of the stores reminded me that I needed to purchase a few pairs of shorts from there. As I emerged from one of last of the stores, I saw a smoothie shop. Inspired by the heat & my skipping breakfast, we went inside.

My $5 berry smoothie in paw, we strolled into the last store.

We found the women’s section & the shorts I needed were displayed behind tightly grouped racks that the stroller could not fit between.

As I sipped my smoothie, I noticed that the racks had wheels. I began to push one rack aside to make room to bring the stroller with me. When I turned around to move the stroller towards me, I bumped the smoothie cup out of my hand on the rack.

I watched the cup hit the floor in slow motion, yet I wasn’t quick enough to catch it.

The thick dark pink drink exploded upwards like a volcano, covering a light heather gray turtle neck sweatshirt. It had plenty of lava to spray too, as I had barely gotten to drink it.

Stepping backwards to survey the damage, I was relieved I had only ruined 1 item & grateful this happened when I was armed with my diaper bag full of everything I could possibly need to clean up unexpected messes.

I cleaned up the smoothie from the floor, then rolled up the sweater I had just unintentionally bought myself to contain the remaining mess.

The sweater was $50. It was not my taste & was about 2 sizes too big. Sigh.

God calls us to give thanks in all circumstances, so I chose to do that:

I decided that after I washed it, I would donate it & that made me happy.

I chose to be thankful that the extra $50 was in our budget & it didn’t break the bank.

I chose to treasure the baby giggles that resulted when my son watched my cleaning up the aftermath of my smoothie volcano.

♥️