And they all go marching...

"Go to the ant...

Consider her ways"

Proverbs 6:6

We had our first ant, um, visitation of the season last week.   My Amazing Boy and I were doing school, and I think he dropped his pencil or something, and when he bent down to pick it up, he said, "Uh, mom....?" in a voice that made me not want to know whatever he was going to say to me.

It was just a couple of wanderers in the dining room where we do school, but as we followed their general path toward the kitchen, we found more and more.  

So I called both kids to order, and we mobilized.  We moved the table and chairs out of the dining room, picked up rugs out of the kitchen, shook them off and took them to the laundry room.  Then we vacuumed and mopped in both rooms, and sprayed a little Raid once we found the lil buggers' point of entry (the ants' point of entry, not my kids').

The ants come marching two-by-two a few times a year, generally when the weather is hot.  Or when it's raining.  So apparently, they come looking for water, or trying to get away from it.   Isn't irony fun?

In this case, they came in because it was raining.  But once inside, they found a crumb in the corner of the kitchen that became their goal.  A little crumb that I didn't know had escaped the last time I swept the kitchen. 

Although, who am I kidding.... I should say, "the last time one of my kids swept the kitchen".  I only sweep the kitchen if I break something.  Cuz why have kids if you're not gonna split the chores with them, right?

That crumb wasn't much.  Not only was I not aware of it, the dog hadn't found it either.  And she patrols the kitchen pretty regularly.  And by itself it wasn't big enough to draw the ants in, but once they were in, they took advantage of what none of us had noticed.

I think life is like that sometimes.  It's called being blind-sided.  Or worse, it's called being hit while you're down.  You don't even know you have a weak spot until something unrelated causes you to realize you have let your guard down. 

In a way, I suppose it's a good thing.  I wouldn't have known I had a crumb to clean up, if it hadn't rained.  I guess I needed something ~ albeit unrelated to the crumb ~ to let me know that the corner of my kitchen needed attention. 

It's hard sometimes, to be grateful for things that seem like a negative.  But there's always a positive.  He gets our attention any way He has to, and draws us to those things that He wants us to work on. 

Then we need to sweep and mop and get it up to His standards.  Cleaned up and feeling thankful, and ready to tackle the next crumb!

~ "Purge the old leaven that you may be fresh...

for Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed" ~

1 Corinthians 5:7

~