Gone To The Dogs

It's Wednesday and that means lots of things for those of us in the ministry. For me as the youth minister and minister of music it is an especially long day.

Since this is the 3rd Wednesday, our supper menu is Taco Salad and the youth are responsible for the meal. I went shopping, picked up one of my youth and came home to brown the hamburger meat and make the brownies. In the midst of all this, I was working on homework for class tomorrow. As the hamburger browned and the brownies were coming out of the oven with others waiting to go in, I began to clean up.

I know folks that lived during the Depression and they are as much a stickler for saving things and not wasting as I am about making sure the lights are off when you leave a room and cleaning your mess as you make it.

Everything was back in its place and you couldn't tell I had made 4 pans of brownies and browned 15 pounds of hamburger. The dishes were washed and put up and I could leave the kitchen, after turning off the lights, proud.

I left for church around 4:30 p.m. I guided the young people in getting things together for the supper: making the tea, getting the salad put out, the sauces, the cheese, the sour cream, etc. then it was time for Discipleship Training after which we had a regular scheduled quarterly business meeting. (yippee) After the business meeting, we had choir rehearsal until 9:00 p.m.

When I got home, every light in the house was on and there was no one to be found. My step-daughter was in her room and my husband was in our room. I went in to the bedroom with this question on my lips: "Why is every light in the house on with no one in the rooms that are lit?" I'm not sure I ever got my question answered because my husband began to tell me that when I left the house at 4:30 p.m. the back door didn't catch so the back door had been left ajar the entire time we were at the church.

We have 3 dogs: A Doberman, a Dachsund, and a sweet mix of ugly. While we were gone, the dogs enjoyed free rein of our home which included a trash can full of egg shells from the brownies and breakfast for the last 2 days, the hamburger wrappings, the coffee grounds from the week among other various and yucky things. The trash was scattered from one end to the other. There were coffee grounds all over the rug in the living room, CDs had been knocked over from a table beside my recliner, there was even trash that they had taken out to the back deck. My husband was not happy. They had to vacuum, sweep, mop, re-arrange, you name it. They even got into my step-daughter's room and played havoc in there. (not that you could tell....she's a teenager).

I guess it has finally gotten through the brains of those that live in this house with me that I hate messes. You couldn't prove it by me that the our house went to the dogs while we were gone, but I'm glad it was cleaned up before I got home.

They are too.