Shyloh's Travels

Most everyone who knows me knows that I have horrible directional skills. For example: I have to follow behind someone to get onto the freeway, I have to have verbal and written directions to get ANYWHERE, and I get lost when I am five minutes away from my own house. I have no idea how to get anywhere, except from a starting point of my home, so if I am to the east of my house and I need to get north east, I have to drive back to my road and head northeast from there. Anyways, our church is having their VBS this week and my bosses children are going as well as my siblings. Joslyn and I were talking about how silly it was for both of us to use gas up to drive the kids there, when we live two minutes away from each other. We decided to carpool and worked out a schedule for the week. Today was my day to drive all the kids to the church and then bring them home again. After I picked up all the kids (I had 7 children under the age of 10 with me! And I had NO help) I turned right out of Joslyn's driveway...don't ask why, since I've never even been down that side of the road. Think about it: the freeway, my house, and everything else is LEFT. Why on earth did I turn right? Anyways, I kept driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and...you get the point. I was in FIVE different cities this morning: Ceres, Empire, Hughson, Waterford, and back to Ceres. (Maybe not in that order, I don't remember, roads started looking the same after twenty minutes.) I finally decided to pull over and call my dad (there was NO way I was going to call my mom and tell her I was lost.) Well, guess what? My dad wasn't feeling good this morning, so he called in sick and didn't go to work. So...guess who answered his phone? Yea, my mom. It's really embarrassing to tell my mom that I am majorly lost and I need help. I found out that I was the polar opposite direction of the church, and we were going to be really late. At one point when we were pulled over Bennett (the 10 year old) unbuckled and jumped out of the car and said, "I'm hitchhiking from here, Shyloh." ("Get back in the van and buckle up, Bennett!") The kids were upset with me, because they heard my mom say: "You are going to be sooo late." (She was on speakerphone.) She gave me new directions and we headed back out. The kids were getting antsy and I was feeling sick. (I hate to be late for anything.) I was looking at the clock: 8:48 and I was irritated, because the kids had to be signed in at 8:45. I finally made it to the freeway (and not how my mom told me by the way!) and we were at church at 9:10. How that happened, I have no clue. I've never gotten to church quicker than I did this morning, I think God gave the van wings. By the time we got there, I was ready to go curl up and cry. I brought all seven of the kids in and the VBS "runners" (they sign the late kids in) came running up. While I signed the kids in, they dropped them off in their classes. They made it into the auditorium during the 1st song!! That is amazing. After all the kids were signed in, I was talking with Esther and Mandy. I told them how my morning went, then asked for a hug. They both sympathized with me, gave me a hug, and then Mandy said, "Shyloh, I need to tell you something. You look so good today! That shirt is so pretty on you! And your eyes sparkle when you smile! I just thought that you needed to hear that today!" I slammed a Rock Star while I quit feeling sorry for myself, then was ready to go serve. (I was the sound booth operator today, which was a lot of fun, because I wasn't supposed to be working the sound booth because I've never been "trained." There was a big sign on the sound booth that read: If you haven't been trained as a sound booth operator, please don't mess with anything. Hopefully I didn't mess anything up to badly!) Anyways, picking up the kids went much better than the signing them all in!! The ride home went well, I didn't get lost even once!! When we got back to Joslyn's, I jumped out of the van and ran to tell Joslyn how the morning went, before her kids tweaked the story to sound better. She started laughing and said, "I was wondering why you turned right, I didn't know what you were doing." (Gee, thanks, Joslyn!! You could have called!) Tomorrow is going to go much better!! I am not getting lost again. As Joslyn said today, "You learn from your mistakes, you will never turn right again!"