I never leave home without...

Deodorant.



(Seriously, the worst job on the planet.....smelling other people's underarms!!)

 I don't know when I started taking deodorant with me wherever I go, but I do know that it has saved me time and again from inflicting upon the world some funky smells. It has also been a somewhat humorous "Seinfeldish" moment when I have been asked to lend my deodorant to smelly friends! Apparently the world does know that I have a problem and they know where to go when they need some help! Lisa's deodorant to the rescue!

This is a somewhat indelicate topic, one that a lady would never venture to write about, but I write with purpose. Spontaneity is something I'm not very good at. I plan to smell and I am prepared, in the aftermath, to fix the offending odours. Jeremy told me this morning that I hate it when my plans change. While he was relaying this tragic news to me, of course I couldn't really hear what he was saying because I couldn't believe that I was so immovable. I thought I was spontaneous and full of adventure. But after he left for work, I tried to find the truth in what he was saying. He was right. I like to have a plan. I like to have my day mapped out. I like to know what's coming. When I go somewhere, I have a list of things to do and a general time frame as to when I am  going to do them. I carry deodorant in my purse!! I don't leave a lot of room for surprises or fun, so it seems!
I think this all may have started when I had kids. A few weeks after Elle was born, Jeremy and I were in town one afternoon with our sweet little girl. Being a new mom, I hadn't really thought about all the things that could happen while we were in town. I took a couple of diapers and a few wipes never thinking to bring extra clothes for a newborn. As it turns out, we needed more than clothes for a newborn. I needed them too. Elle and I were sitting in the car waiting for Jeremy to come out of a store. I had just finished nursing her and she was laying in my arms. Then....she exploded! Her diaper, that is! It was everywhere. She was wearing a onesie, little pants, a sweater and socks. Everything but the sweater was beyond salvaging. I remember trying to take the little onesie off, over her head without getting nastiness in her hair! Of course, there were not enough wipes in the entire world to clean up the mess. She was crying, we were both covered in poo and I was making a mental list. 1. Always have ridiculous amounts of  wipes at your disposal at any given minute. 2. Always have extra clothes for the baby and for myself. 3. Puke and poo will happen, be prepared! So, I started hauling this absurdly huge diaper bag around, stuffed to the gills with anything and everything I could think of to put in it...just in case.

Long after the diaper bag has been banished, I still plan ahead. I still like to have a plan. I know where all the bathrooms are located from here to Saskatchewan and which ones are the cleanest! We have had adventures, if you could call them that, when things went utterly wrong....like two flat tires on the same hot summer day, plus getting pulled over by the cops, which I can laugh about now, but at the time felt like disaster. I guess that is maybe God's way of teaching me flexibility. Throw things in my path that I cannot possibly handle or plan for and see what it means to really trust......and laugh at how not spontaneous I really am.