Spilled Milkshakes & Lost Lipgloss

I've found it. The alternative indulgence to my usual Oreo craving. The combination of real peanut butter, chocolate fudge and real chunks of banana blended together to create a consistency where I nearly thought I'd bust an eardrum trying to suck the milkshake goodness from the not-quite-big-enough straw. It was ohhhh so good!

I didn't finish the entire thing and I failed to throw the cup away. (There's a couple of lessons here but those are for another day.) Returning to the car, I noticed the cupholder was overflowing with ooey melted leftover peanut butter banana fudge milkshake. I picked up the cup only to find the entire bottom detached and what had once been contained was now dripping everywhere.

It was a sticky mess filling the middle console and as I attempted to remove the broken cup, it dripped and leaked all over the seat, the floorboard, and essentially left a trail from the cupholder to the trashcan. 

In true mom fashion, I whipped out every napkin stored in the glove box and pulled the package of baby wipes from the backseat, quickly trying to sop up the mess.

I had to laugh at the whole debaucle. And, in true Carrie fashion, I had to blog about it. There's a point, I promise.

The thing about the spilled milkshake was even though I attempted to clean up the liquid, it left behind a stickiness that I am STILL trying to scrub away. I wet and wipe and wipe some more but it doesn't want to budge. Have I inherited a permanent reminder of my afternoon indulgence?!

As I tried to remove the milkshake remains from the rug on the floorboard, I saw it. "YAY!! THANK YOU, LORD!" I exclaimed.

There it was. A zippered pouch with contents nearly irreplaceable to me. What was inside, you ask? (Okay, maybe you didn't but I'm going to tell you anyway!)

LIPGLOSS!

Yes, lipgloss. I know. I get it. You're scratching your head, rolling your eyes and wondering what on earth....

A week ago I lost this pouch and all its contents (Pictured below). I searched every bag, every purse and I checked the house, office and car. But it was nowhere to be found. I was - I know you'll laugh - devastated at the thought of it all being gone. We're talking nearly $200 in lip products. (Now you really think I'm crazy.)

As I was mopping up the milkshake mess that had dripped down every crevice of the front of my car, there wedged between the console and the seat was my pouch full of products for my puckered-up-pout! So now you know why I was praising the Lord.

I could have gotten mad about the mess, but the milkshake incident found me laughing at my sticky plight. And now I was rejoicing because that accident lead to the discovery of what I thought I'd lost. WOW!

Sometimes blessings come in disguise. Sometimes what you're searching for comes only after you're cleaning up the mess. Sometimes the plan you had in mind has to come to a screeching halt before you can ever move forward. Sometimes God's Plan A happens, but only after your own Plan B has fallen through.

Sometimes it takes a spilled milkshake to discover the lost lipgloss!

Sometimes what we're searching for is right there - but we just can't see it. It takes a near disaster or another circumstance to get us to the point where we can see, discover, look from a different angle and finally realize what it is we've been overlooking. When my best-laid plans have fallen through and my own steps seem to have lead me down the wrong path, that is when I usually look to God. I'm searching for the lipgloss all over the place but it sometimes takes a spilled milkshake and a sticky mess to lead me to the point where I find it.


If you're cleaning up your own milkshake mess today, I encourage you to keep your eyes open...You may just find what it is you've been searching for all along!


UNRELATED/RELATED STORY: A few years ago I took a flight and forgot to pack the contents of my lipstick/lipgloss collection in a clear quart-size ziploc baggie. I was immediately flagged through security where the TSA officer dumped my zippered pouch to reveal a collection much like that above of prized lip paraphenalia. "Please don't make me throw it all away!" I begged. I would have been heartbroken to see it all go in the trash, not to mention how would I make it in New York City for a week without lip product?! Being the LYH airport, you're bound to know someone...and sure enough, the officer recognized me from singing in the Living Cross! HALLELUJAH! He knew I wasn't an undercover terrorist trying to smuggle bomb-like products onto my flight in the disguise of lipstick tubes. I got to keep them all!

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