This morning I woke up from a dream where I was in a deserted hallway of my old elementary school. Before the hallway I’d been in the bathroom. There was a demon in there, which happens occasionally in my dreams. I was in the bathroom trying to get water to quench my thirst, and then a woman (the demon) came in and said something complimentary to me. I don’t remember what, it just gave me the creeps, like I knew something wasn’t right. It doesn’t take me too long to figure out when it’s demons talking in my dreams. They make it so everything goes into slow motion, and I get the feeling that they’re about to charge at me. This time she didn’t charge at me, I was just suddenly in the school hallway, looking at the door of the school bus, which actually looked like a long train. I grabbed the step railings and did not have the upper body strength to pull myself fully into the bus. I woke up before anything more could happen.

Saying goodbye to the big kids this morning, I remembered my daughter had an appointment at the health department. We’ve been going once a month to get caught up on immunizations. There was a point in Hoyleton where I basically just quit taking the kids to the doctor. Instead of doing their shots at the well-baby appointments, I started doing them at the health department. I liked that better because they let me spread them out instead of stabbing my kids with three or four shots at once, which had really started to bother me at the time. Doctors really don’t like when you mess with the immunizations. I don’t like when doctors don’t appreciate my questions.

Well, at some point I stopped taking the kids even to the health department. We’d been going there regularly for several years, when I simply stopped going. They were the place I went for child check-ups and WIC appointments, which they always combined so I wouldn’t need to make more trips than I had to. I usually looked forward to these appointments. The nurse and receptionist lady were kind to me. You never got the feeling they were judging you for being “poor” or on WIC. We had stimulating conversations, and the nurse always seemed particularly curious about pastor’s wife things and parsonage living. When I stopped going, I kind of thought they’d be proud of me for stopping, like somehow it was showing I was getting back on my feet again and becoming a more productive and less draining member of society. My husband was making money at a real job. Even though we still would’ve qualified, we didn’t need government money for milk and cheese anymore. I could buy that myself now.