A Big Mess and the Miracle of the Brownies and Ties

Today at church our little branch celebrated both Fathers Day and the sending off of a missionary. So after the 3 hour block we all had a potluck lunch for JR Webber (who's headed to the Frankfurt, Germany mission) and I had prepared a big crockpot full of BBQ chicken breasts (along with other sundries). However, I realized during the opening exercises that I brought in everything except the crock pot full of BBQ chicken. So without letting my honey know where I was going I dash out into the parking lot to bring in the crock pot and plug it in. (afterall, how long could that take? 2 minutes tops, right?) As I'm trying to reenter the church by openning the outer door and holding onto the crockpot at the same time, the entire crock pot of BBQ slips from my hands and crashes first into the door (spilling sauce all over it) and finally onto the cement where it breaks the crockery into a bunch of pieces and spills the chicken onto the ground. And of course the sauce goes EVERYWHERE. Up the door, into the cracks of the cement, and splashes across my shoes (which thankfully where some cheapies that I don't really care about). After picking up the largest of the broken pieces and the chicken, I figure I need some paper towels to get the rest of the mess. So, I carefully go in and take the paper towel roll out of the womens bathroom and head back outside where the ants have already discovered the feast. In my first swipe with the paper towel my finger accidently comes in contact with an exceedingly sharp bit of broken lid or crock and slices it open pretty deep. So then I had to grab a new unBBQed section of paper towel to try and keep the blood from staining the church doorway, too! Now with my left hand clenched in a ball to stem the bleeding, my right hand continues (gingerly) to scoop up the mess. When I'm almost done, one of the sisters that I don't know opens the door and of course says "Oh My! Let me go get someone!" To which I reply "No!! Please don't! Really I'm almost done, I just need a bucket of water to wash all this off the sidewalk!" (But really I'm thinking "I am mortified! And I want to keep this a secret, PLEASE don't go get anyone else!! If I ask you to do something else, maybe you'll be too busy to tell anyone!") So I finish scooping and go inside to return the paper towels to the bathroom. When I walk back past the door headed for some water in the kitchen, I notice that the dear sister had gotten her husband and they had both already sloshed 2 big pots full of water down the door and across the entryway, and were wiping the door down with paper towels to dry it. They were so sweet! They said "oh, don't worry about it honey!" and then gave me some ideas about where to check online to see if I can just buy a new crock insert instead of having to buy a whole new pot. Coshocton definately has some great people. :)
Then, after sacrament meeting we experienced a miracle that I'm calling the Miracle of the Brownies and Ties. The RS pres, her other counselor, and myself were responsible for gifts for all the dads today. And here it's tradition to give the dads brownies. So we each made some brownies along with some cardstock 'ties' that we colored and put a little dad poem on the back and laminated for a bookmark. Then we tied it to a zip lock baggie full of brownies for each of the dads and prospective dads. Since it's a really tiny branch, we counted up and figured that 20 would be MORE then enough since the brethren count is usually more like 14, on a good day. Unfortunately, we didn't think to take into account all the extra people a missionary going away brings in. There were 25 brethern in sacrament meeting. So immediately after the closing prayer I trot my BBQ scented sandals back to the kitchen to ask the other counselor, who was giving the baggies to the youth to had out, what we should do. She said "Well, we'll just let the chips fall where they may."

We ended up with 5 EXTRA Brownie bags and ties.

And I checked. No one had left, and everyone had gotten one.
Hallelujia. Just like the loaves and the fishes. :) The Lord loves our hard working dads!! And so do I. Happy Fathers Day!!