A dream about a stressful morning

I dreamed that we were going to church at the church where I grew up in Shadeland, Indiana. Shannon and Axton were coming with us. Because we didn't have enough room for everyone, Shannon just held Axton on her lap instead of buckling him into his car seat. Unfortunately for Shannon, Axton had a bad dirty diaper on the way there and it leaked all over Shannon's dress. She had poop all over her, even on her face.

I asked Shannon if she had a change of clothes, which she did, and offered to let her use the shower in the annex that had been built onto the church. I told her that Betty Snellenberger (the treasurer at our old church in Clay City, who passed away last November) used to live in the annex and had a nice apartment with a shower. In fact, it had a shower, two bathtubs (a claw-foot one and a modern tub/shower combo) and a jacuzzi. So I left Shannon there and went back to the church.

However, there were swarms of small children all around the church dressed up as little ghosts carrying pumpkin baskets. I asked, "What are all these children doing? Halloween was yesterday!" and someone told me that since it was still dark out, they were out trick-or-treating. They like to trick-or-treat until dawn. They had put up barricades around the church, so I rode around the church on my Big Wheel removing barricades. There were also a lot of other children waiting for the doors to open to the Presbyterian church next door, which obviously had a way cool children's program since the kids had color-coding matching t-shirts on.

Then Betty Snellenberger came walking down the sidewalk, not in her power chair like she used to be. I said, "Betty!" and she cried, "Lisa!"and we ran toward each other and hugged each other and then I said, "Wait--I thought you were dead." All of a sudden she got a really sheepish look on her face and she ran off in the other direction.

Then it was time for church. My family was there and so was Erick's family. I couldn't find my music. I looked all over and asked everyone. Timothy was on Minecraft and didn't answer me. Erick was in a theological debate with his dad and didn't answer me, either. The girls wanted me to run to Walmart and buy a curling iron for Shannon, and I said I didn't have time. I found last week's songs, but I didn't want to sing the same songs I sang last week, so I kept looking.

Finally I found them on Joyce's dining room table under a stack of unopened mail. There were five songs, and I hadn't made any copies of them. The song on top was one I had never even heard of and it was written in three languages. I decided we shouldn't sing that once since we didn't have time to practice, so I grabbed the old stack from last week so I could switch out the first one for "Testify to Love." However, someone had stepped on it in the van and it was so torn and dirty I couldn't even get a decent copy of it.

That's when Erick woke me up, which I was actually thankful for because I was really getting stressed out about the whole situation.

The secret life of the pastor

A few nights ago I dreamed that I had been having suspicions that my husband was sneaking around behind my back. I had no idea what he was up to at first, but one day I discovered a clue: I found an orange curly wig in the bathroom. When I confronted him, he confessed that he had taken a part time job as a circus clown. It was Gus Autry, our children's pastor, who had talked him into it, which did not surprise me in the least.

A concert in the mall

I dreamed there were some bad storms coming, so we were trying to head out of town, when we remembered we needed to go grocery shopping. We turned around and went back to the mall to go shopping. There was a man outside of Staples selling coupons where you could get anything at Staples for only $5, but we needed groceries, not office supplies. We dropped the kids off at the play area at the mall to play so we could shop. We had Axton with us, too, as well as the cat. Then we remembered we didn't have any money.

We decided that in order to make some money to buy groceries, we would hold a church service in the mall and take up an offering. We began to set up our sound equipment, but then the mall owners told us there were two bands scheduled to play before us and that we would have to wait our turn. The first band was Altared, led by Donny Osmond, and he had the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir singing backup for them. They sang, "We are the World" and I could see Keith and Karen Taylor on the big screen, as well as the outreach pastor from Calvary Temple in Springfield waving around their cell phones in the air.

Since there was standing room only, we decided to go yard sale shopping while we waited. There was a yard sale that had a lot of small appliances in bright colors, and we bought a pink can opener, a yellow fry daddy, and an orange toilet seat for Axton.

Then I realized that we were up next, and I suddenly realized I didn't know where my music was. I hadn't seen it since we'd moved! I asked Axton to go check in the van to see if it was out there, because I couldn't find my shoes, either. I looked all over the house and finally decided to borrow my sister's shoes, but the tongue was hanging on by only a thread. Frustrated, I pulled the entire tongue off the shoe and then ran out to find the music because Axton didn't know where it was. Sure enough, my music was in between the front seats of the van, so I grabbed it and hurried back. I also had to chase the cat all over Walmart because she didn't like being stuck in the cat carrier and we had to let her loose.

I never did get to play, because Erick woke me up.