When I was in college, I felt that God called me to ministry. In the years since, I’ve struggled to figure out exactly what that means, what God has planned for me, where I belong, how I can serve.

Recently, my struggle has been more about learning to be content with where I am right now, figuring out how I can serve where I am.

As part of my endeavor to get more involved in ministry in my current life instead of waiting for someday to get here, I’ve started writing to a missionary wife that our church supports. I’ve mentioned before that I sing in the choir. Also, Mark and I have started a small group with four other couples.

These ministries are all things I signed up for, things that I have some interest in, some skill or spiritual gift for doing.

The other ministry Mark and I participate in is not so voluntary and not so suited to our strengths. We serve in the toddler nursery.

Every Sunday morning that we go to church, our daughter is taken care of by several fantastic nursery workers. So it’s only fair that we take our turn caring for other families’ children. And while Mark does not enjoy it at all (although he’s great at vacuuming up the hundreds of Cheerios left on the floor after snacktime and following me around with a box of tissues during cold season), I do. I like holding the kids who cry when their parents leave and showing the new kids all the toys we have to play with. I don’t love changing their diapers, but I like hanging out with other people’s kiddos for a couple hours once a month.

But you sure wouldn’t know this based on last Sunday. Or based on the fourth Sunday of February.

Because we forgot to work in the nursery.

Just plain forgot! After I realized what we’d done last month – or not done, as the case might be – I was mortified. I e-mailed our nursery director and apologized all over myself. I expressed my extreme regret and promised not to let it happen ever again. She was gracious and forgiving, and all was forgotten.

So forgotten, in fact, that last weekend, the fourth Sunday in March, I forgot to work in the nursery again.

In my defense, I had out-of-town friends visiting, went to a murder mystery party that went way past my bedtime and sang with choir both services on Sunday. But I knew that. I knew how crazy the weekend would be, and I knew it included nursery. I even told Chelley that when we were making plans for the weekend.

But when it came down to it, I was exhausted. Teresa’s birthday party went late, and when I dragged myself out of bed Sunday morning to get to choir practice, nursery didn’t even cross my mind.

It didn’t cross my mind until much later that night, after choir, after lunch with my friends, after a nap and after Bible study.

But now I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop thinking about how there’s just no way to fix this. No apology will take back the stress that our nursery director felt as she covered for us at the last minute, and no sincere words of regret will change the view she now has of us. And I can’t stop thinking that I should get it together! I should be more organized! I should, I should, I should!

And I can’t help but wonder if maybe I’ll never find myself in a full-time ministry role, because I can’t even be faithful with the small things.

I’m not saying that to get reassurances that everyone makes mistakes. And I realize that the title of my blog implies that I am no longer a perfectionist with sky-high standards for herself. But at least in this instance, I can’t let myself off the hook. I don’t know how. And I don’t know how anyone – or Anyone – else could, either.

UPDATE: My friend Teresa adopted the white puppy, and one of my co-workers is adopting the brown puppy. I’m so relieved that both dogs are going to good homes (and we didn’t have to take that dreaded trip to the shelter)!

Someone dumped these sweet babies in my yard on Saturday.

Chelley and Triple were down for the weekend, and of course the first thing we did when they got here was go to Walmart.

(What? Isn’t that what you do when your friends from out of town come to visit? Compare Walmarts?)

When we got back home, Triple noticed we had a couple of puppies in our shrubs out front and said, “Did you forget to tell us that you got two dogs?”

Yeah right. As both Triple and Chelley know well, I am not, as they say, a dog person. (They know this well because – long story short – Mark brought one home when they were visiting a couple years ago and pert near ruined his 30th birthday.)

But how could I resist those adorable little baby pups?

I can, don’t you worry, but it is hard! I am upset, though. Who dumps two baby puppies when there are these things called shelters that exist solely for the purpose of taking in unwanted animals?!

At first it didn’t even dawn on me that they’d been dumped. They had leashes on, so I assumed they’d escaped their home and some loving owner was franically searching for them. But Triple pointed out that they don’t have tags, and the likely explanation is that someone just decided they didn’t want them.

And apparently, our house looked like as good a place as any to leave them.

Actually, it is a pretty good spot. All of our neighbors already have dogs – we’re a real doggy neighborhood. Dogs bark so often around here that I almost don’t even hear them anymore.

Almost.

Tomorrow morning, Mark will take the puppies to the shelter. They’re super cute, friendly and young enough that I’m sure they’ll be adopted into good homes (or maybe even one home – they really love each other, these babies) quickly.

But still, even though I am not a dog person and I do not want a dog and we absolutely canNOT keep these puppies or get a dog of our own anytime soon…it just breaks my heart a little bit. How could someone look into those faces and just push them out of the car? I hope they at least slowed down. Jerks.
What about you? Are you a dog person? What kind of pets do you have?

Do you like my pretty new blog face? It comes courtesy of a very patient Jo-Lynne of DCR Designs. I say “patient,” because, well, she worked with me.

I’m sure you can just imagine. After all, what could be more fun than designing a blog for someone who has a teensy little problem with perfectionism and expectations? Oh, I know! Perhaps if said perfectionist with ridiculous expectations also worked briefly in advertising, giving her the hilarious illusion that she has an artistic eye.

I knew that I wanted a better look for my blog and after Blissdom, I knew it was a must. I met Jo-Lynne briefly at the conference and realized I’d admired her own blog’s design before. And since her prices fit within my budget, I decided she was the one.

Yep. Lucky her.

One month and 64 e-mails later, Jo-Lynne has left me with a fresh, clean, cute blog – just as she promised. And she was so very easy to work with, which is more than I can say for myself.

I thought that asking for a redesign after I saw the first header would be my biggest gaffe. Turns out, no. Because just hours after seeing the final, finished product…I deleted my nifty new navigation bar.

Just deleted it.

You know what happened next, right? At first, I didn’t realize what I’d done, but when I did? Oh, when I did, I just sat there. In shock.

Next, I do believe I literally hung (hanged? I don’t know.) my head in shame. No one was around to see it, but please believe me, my head was hanging low. And my stomach? It was definitely feeling the “Oh no, I’m in trouble, what did I do? How do I fix this without anyone finding out?” feeling.

And then I sighed. I e-mailed Jo-Lynne to tell her what I’d done and beg her forgiveness. Thankfully, she is much more together than I, and she sent me the code to restore my nav bar immediately.

So, today, I present to you: My New Blog.

What? You’d already noticed? Oh. Well, okay. Check it out anyway. Let me know what you think.

Anything exciting happen to you this week?

And…you’re welcome for getting that song stuck in your head!

I need some help, please. As you have certainly noticed, I’m no longer going by Photoqueen on this here weblog. I’m plain ol’ Mary.

The decision came after much overthinking and overanalyzing, as I’m sure you’ll be surprised to hear. But after a while, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted people to know my name!

Plus, after meeting several photographers at Blissdom, I realized that I am neither a photo nor a queen. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Oh wait – I mean that I’m not really a photographer. Maybe someday. But not so much today.

Anyway, so that’s me. Now I have to figure out what to do about my child. The baby formerly known as Photobaby.

I called her “The Kiddo” in my last post. What did you think about that? Did it feel right to you? Did it seem organic?

Just kidding. I don’t need to be organic.

I’ve seen that a lot of moms who blog (no, I will not cop to being a mommy blogger) have cute nicknames for their kids or call them just by initials. Others just use their kids’ real names.

What do you think? Any ideas? Whatcha got?