UPDATE

Well, no definition coming for "update".  This is simply an FYI to tell my now 8 or 9 regular blog readers that I have not fallen off the face of the earth....just been on, uh as they say about sitcoms, hiatus for a while.  With a floor repair and a vacation behind me now, I have a lot of photos to share and plan to do that before the week is over.  I hope to squeeze in writing time between my doctor's appointments, Bible study, work, and choir practice this week.  So more to come.........just not tonight.

HABITS

I’ve been up this morning for over an hour now.  Yes, I have been getting up at 5:30 a.m. rather than 4:30 a.m. for the past couple of weeks.  It has made a huge difference in how my body handles the whole day.  I needed that extra hour.  Thankful am I for little things like an extra hour of sleep.

Habit.  My online google dictionary defines “habit” as “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up”.

My mind began to think on this on this particular morning as my floor repair began yesterday.  The damaged floor areas have been torn up.  Thankfully, there was no damage to the underfloor (or do that call that a subfloor?) .  Good news.  The hardwood could not be reset yesterday, though, because the floor area was so wet underneath.  So since then I’ve listened to three very loud fans in my kitchen running 24 hours.  It’s a noise, let me tell you , but a small price to pay for a job done right.  And there’s something to be said for a job done right…but not in this post.  I will listen to these fans until the floor technician returns tomorrow.   Taking my Pollyanna approach, I can be glad that these fans cool my kitchen more than just the regular air.  That’s nice.

So at our house, I prepare a cooked breakfast 99% of the time.  Not very smart, I know that.  But it’s my routine…or habit, you might say.   For a few years now, it’s been pancakes on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.  Biscuits, gravy and eggs on Wednesday, and Saturday and whatever I make on Monday and Friday.  And since this is Wednesday, I made biscuits.  Just in case you are wondering, my biscuits look like this:

And lest you think I made these this morning, I did not.  I do NOT make this many for The Husband. These were from another day.

I didn’t mention earlier that to prepare for the floor repair, the refrigerator that caused the problem to begin with had to be moved to the carport.  Luckily, my carport is right off my kitchen.  I went out to the carport this morning to get the buttermilk.   Then I went to put it back and get the sausage.  The sausage went back and I got the eggs.  Oh, and I had to go back for the butter.  And then the milk.   Oh, and did I mention the sandwich meat and mustard?  And the ice?  And the tea for The Husband’s lunch?   It was a never-ending trek back and forth and back and forth to the carport.  I was exhausted and said “Arrghh” more than once or twice.  The funny thing that made me think of a habit is that even after all these trips back and forth to the carport, when I got done with the mustard for the last time, I STILL walked to where the refrigerator used to be in the kitchen to put it away.    I know!  Isn’t the human mind complex?

So I considered my habits.  Habits are like everything else.  There are good ones and bad ones.   I’m not even going to classify habits as we were taught to classify blood sugar readings.  Habits are not classified as not normal or normal.  They are good or they are bad, with a few in between. 

From childhood to now, I was  (and still am) a horrible nail biter.  I never was able to have a manicure until a few years ago because I didn't have enough nail to file.  I had tried painting my nails with that nasty tasting stuff but you know what?  My habit of biting my nails was so strong in me that I still bit my nails.  Ridiculous.  Through the years I have tried harder to master this habit and have improved.  I tried to think of ways to avoid doing it especially during stressful times.   I finally decided that when I began to bite my nails, I would get a pair of clippers and just cut them off.  So that’s what I do.  Once they’re cut, there’s nothing to bite.  So now I know you will all look at my nails.  And you will see closely clipped nails.  And that’s why.  The best solution?  Maybe not.  But it works.   I used to twirl my hair but had a remedy for that when I had it cut short. 

I like to think that I and others have good habits, too.  Maybe cooking breakfast EVERY morning is not so good a habit to me, but it’s one that The Husband enjoys.  Exercise is a wonderful habit that I have slacked on of late.  Eating right is good, too, but on down the totem pole.   Watching certain TV shows—not many—just a few….Chopped, Masterchef, Hallmark channel…is a habit.  I even sometimes classify going to Sunday School, worship service, and choir practice as a habit.  This, however, is a habit I never want to break.  It’s a habit that I look forward to every week and never want to miss.  Lying in bed sleeping late on a Sunday morning just don’t cut it in my world.  I HAVE to have that worship and time with the Lord and my church family. 

I once heard that if one does something for a month, it becomes a habit.  I’ve never counted days or noted that to know if it is true or not.  Sounds like a good plan.  I think that the bottom line is that habits are what we make them, just as life is what we make it.   We must adapt and do the best we can with what we’ve got.  I guess if I look around as I sit here at the computer in my kitchen that is in disarray, I can look beyond that and see the finished result when it’s done and look forward to that.    I have decided I want to work on my habits and try to get rid of the bad ones and hold tightly to the good ones.  No one can do that for me.  I’m the only one who can make that happen. 

“Let love be without dissimulation.  Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.”   
                                   Romans  12:9

DELIGHT

Delight:  “great pleasure”

I’ve noticed when watching old sitcoms that the words “delighted” and “delightful” are used a good bit in their conversations.  Mothers such as Beaver’s mother and Cathy Anderson’s mother use it frequently.  I don’t.  However, some days I wish I could be tidy like June Cleaver and Cathy Anderson’s mother but I'm delighted most days to just hang around the house in my comfort clothes. 

Back before The Girl got married, our refrigerator sprung a leak.  We noticed a slight buckling of the hardwood floor in the kitchen and, after investigation, found the leak.  Then right before revival a couple of months later, the floor between my sink and island began to really rise up.  In a VERY short time, it looked like this:

It was like walking over a mountain. The Husband began to look for another leak.  Surely it couldn't be coming from the refrigerator again but he decided to look there first as it would be the easiest fix.   Well, lo and behold, it was the refrigerator.  Again.  A whole different problem this time.  We had the frig repaired and decided to wait and see if the floor would go back down to it’s original shape.  It didn’t.  It was to the point that it was a real problem so I came up with a temporary solution that looked like this:

Am I clever or what?  It worked for me.  Eventually though when we were assured the boards were not going down, we did research and decided to make a homeowner’s claim.  The adjuster came last week.  She began to snap photos as soon as she came up the walk – not of my kitchen floor but of this in my front yard:

Talk about delight!  These deer have been coming in my yard for a long time on a regular basis and almost have a pet-like quality.  Yes, I love them.   I love them almost as much as I love the birds.  Not quite but almost.  And we all know how much The Husband loves looking at deer.  Deer are a DELIGHT for him in it’s finest form.   Oh and in case you are wondering, my first experience with an insurance homeowners adjuster turned out to be a good one.  Of course, how good is yet to be determined pending communication yet to come.  But I am encouraged.

On that day, I kept a watch out the storm door while the adjuster did her work in the kitchen.  Then I noticed that another mother and baby deer had come into the yard to visit with the first ones.  Those little spotted deer were running around on their little skinny legs playing with each other with no worries or fears.   It was a total DELIGHT to me.  I can’t begin to tell you how my face smiled and my heart felt such joy.  They were like children playing in the yard playing tag. I laughed with utter delight and found it hard to take my eyes away from the scene.

As in so many of my experiences of late, I am reminded that the Lord wants me as a child of His to be happy and joyful in the life that I have.  And I know that that life can only be truly fulfilled if I am in His will.   I am reminded by those little deer that God in his infinite wisdom and knowledge created all things and instilled in them what they needed to live the life that He intended.  I am reminded that many times I fail in doing what He intended for me, often through my busyness of my days or the fatigue of my body.  I need to spend more time with Him and allow Him to delight me through his wisdom and Word. 

I’ll close today with one of my favorite scriptures:

“Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

Psalm 37:4

Amen.

PRIDE

Pride goeth before a fall.  Or as the Proverbs 16:18 says “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall”.    Sounds painful. 

My trusted dictionary defines “pride” as “a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired”.   My trusted Bible dictionary defines pride as “a conceited sense of one’s superiority”.   Now when it is put like that, pride doesn’t sound so good, does it? 

With all that in mind, I think we can all truthfully say that we have experienced pride one or multiple times in our lives.  In my 56.9 years it would be impossible to count the times I have experienced pride.  And pride can be a wonderful thing to experience in some forms but in others, not so much. 

I am always reminded of the teachings in the early time of the diabetes diagnosis.  Everyone teaching how to live with diabetes always tried so hard to teach the patient and family to be positive.  The thing I remember most (and still try to adhere to on occasion) is that you are never to call blood sugars “good” or “bad”.  You are to use the word “normal” or “not normal”.  Well, be as it may some days we are still in the “good” and “bad” mode, no matter what you call it or how you look at it.  So I wonder if one could say there is “good” pride and “bad” pride?    

Since I ended one of my last posts with a promise of a pride story, I decided to follow through.  When I was a young girl sooooo many years ago, I was one of the quiet ones.  Unbelievable now, huh?   I stayed a bit on the shy side, did very little that got me in trouble, and always obeyed my parents.  Well, almost always.  Lest I have implied perfection on my part, let me say there were a few times I had to be reprimanded.  But not many. 

The time I want to relate to is a time when I was in the 7^th grade.  When I went to school (Man, that sounds like I’m a real Senior adult telling a “remember when” story.), girls always wore dresses.  It was unheard of to wear pants or shorts to school.  It would get you in trouble.  Most of my dresses were handmade by my mama and my mema.   One of my favorite dresses was a two piece cotton—well most everything was cotton—that had brown, rust, and maybe green checks.  It was a skirt that was plain but that top was not plain.  It buttoned all the way down the back, had short sleeves, and had a scalloped bottom.  A scalloped bottom.  Beautiful.  I wore knee socks with it.   I was too young in 7^th grade to wear nylons as they called them then.   

Even though life was fashioned so differently then and even though I was shy, I still was like any other girl.  When a new fashion item hit the world, I shyly would wonder what it was like to have it.  The big thing at my school amongst the girls were these shoes that looked liked the white and black saddle oxfords.  The difference in these shoes is that they were two-toned tan/brown suede.  Not only that--there was a fringy looking flap that flipped over the eyelets and shoestrings to hide them.  Oh.  They were fantastic shoes.  And I wanted some.  Bad.

My family’s shopping venue was Kmart down across from the Big Chicken.  Back then it was the closest big department store around.  You could get everything there except groceries.  When we would go, it would be on a Friday night.  So this certain Friday night, my mama and daddy told me I could have some of those shoes.   Oh, imagine my excitement!  I dressed in my favorite two piece brown/rust/green two piece dress along with my knee socks.  I wanted everything to match perfectly.   We headed to Kmart.  I got my shoes and was so excited. 

After we had shopped we were going to the McDonalds on down the street.  Now back then McDonalds were few and far between.  They were “new” to the world.  This particular one was an original with those big yellow arches running from one side of the building to the other.   Oh, it was a fantastic place!  When it was dark as it was then, the lights from those golden arches lit up the world.  At this McDonalds, dine in had not appeared yet.  Fast food was just beginning .   If you "dined in", you ate in your car.  People didn't mind eating in their cars back then.  They were just glad to go out to McDonalds on a Friday night.  Or at least my family was.  So on this particular night, my daddy went in to get our food.   There was always a long line at McDonalds.    I wanted to put on my new shoes and my mama said okay.  I put them on and just gazed at them.  Ah...beauty.   Man I looked good!  Didn’t matter that my skirt hem almost reached the top of my knee socks.  I had on my new shoes….smooth, beautiful suede with a flap so the eyelets and ties didn’t show.  It didn’t get any better. 

So of course, when one wants to show something off, they have to go amongst people to do that usually.  I asked could I go in and wait with my daddy and mother said yes.  I opened the car door to get out.  It had just begun to rain a bit.  I stepped up the step and bebopped happily toward the door....sure that everyone in every car was admiring my new shoes and how great I looked in them. Oh, did I say that my new shoes had new rubber soles?  Uh huh.  They did.  And when my new rubber sole hit that wet slick cement just right and slipped right before I got to the door, my body went down.  My feet in my new tan/brown suede shoes sailed right thru that McDonalds glass door and I lay there on the floor in my beautiful two piece plaid skirt and scalloped edged shirt.  Oh, and my new shoes were toes up on my feet like that wicked witch’s red shoes sticking out from under the fallen house in The Wizard of Oz.  You all know the scene I mean and can picture it right now.  I lay there with broken glass all around.  Oh, I wanted the floor to just suck me under it.  I remember looking up and seeing my daddy as he stood in line look around and look down.  Shock.  Oh.  Sorrow.  Embarrassment.  He quickly helped me up and got me to the car.  Unhurt actually even with all that glass around.  The door was in ruins.  So was my pride.   

The manager was very nice and deemed it a circumstance beyond my control so my daddy didn’t have to pay for that door.  I can’t remember what happened to our supper of hamburgers and French fries.  I was too busy drowning in embarrassment and hurt pride.  My demeanor all the way home was certainly not one of excitement and the joy of those shoes dimmed a bit.  It was a time in my life that I NEVER forgot. 

I imagine not many folks have ever slid through a McDonalds’ glass door.  Hopefully you never will either but if you do, I hope you are wearing exceptionally beautiful shoes.  

FLOWERS

Flowers.  You might see them growing in a yard.  You might see them in a floral shop or grocery store floral department. Flowers might be seen in a hospital room where they have been sent to cheer one who is sick or in a funeral home where folks are sad.  Or at a wedding celebration of joy.  So many places that flowers bring beauty.

No matter where they are, it takes the rain and the sunshine to make flowers grow from little tiny seeds.  The most beautiful of flowers they are and are grown by God's own hand.

I love taking photos of flowers, in case you didn't know.  So I decided to share some of my favorites with you faithful blog readers.  Enjoy....

Remember, friends are the flowers in the garden of life.  Thank you all for being mine!

GOOD DEEDS

No good deed goes unpunished.

We’ve all been there.  Right? 

For years, this has been a regular saying between my good buddy and me.  And for years, I thought how unfair that was.  And for years, she and I have proven the fact to be true.  When I first heard it, I thought “Really?”  That doesn’t sound right.  

Immediately I am reminded of the time when I was delivering a home cooked meal to an elderly widowed gentleman in our church.  I remember it was a fallish sort of day.  It was very hard to pull up his driveway because of the location and erosion so I parked next door at his son’s house.  There was a slight little hill I had to walk to get to the gentleman’s house.  On this particular day, the pine needles had really accumulated.  Here I go, bebopping along in my self-satisfaction of doing such a wonderful thing for someone who needed a lift.  I had the foil-covered delicious smelling food in my hands and my purse on my shoulder.  I start down the pine-straw covered incline and—you guessed it.  My feet slipped out from under me and down I went.  Hard.  My tailbone hurt like crazy and so did other parts of my body.  That ground might have been pine-straw covered but it was still hard.   Really hard.  As I dropped to the ground, I still had a sharp enough mind those years ago to protect that food so I held my arms out straight and held it tightly.  I actually had to sit there a minute as I even felt that my  head and brain goo had sloshed around, I hit so hard.  I managed to get myself up and put on a smile and delivered the food to the door to a very grateful man.  But…no good deed goes unpunished.  I hurt for days.  And days.  And days.

Many other times I have experienced the truth of this saying and I’m sure that you have as well.  This morning, though, I discovered something about that saying that I honestly never caught before.

I was doing my Bible reading and since lately I haven’t had any special thing to read, I just thought and said, “Hmmm, what shall I read today?”  At once, I thought “the Peters”.  So I began to read I Peter.  You will never guess what I found.  Or if you’re a more regular Bible reader than me, you might guess and be correct.  

I Peter 3:17 says “For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.” 

Well, isn’t that a good one?  Suffer for well-doing.  And that is better.  Goes right along with “no good deed goes unpunished” if you stretch it just a bit.    I would imagine that suffering for a good deed is much better than suffering for an evil deed.   Or at least that is how I interpret.  I think that a guilty conscience can be a much worse suffering than a sore tailbone!  Hope I can just stick with the suffering for well doing rather than evil. 

I can’t wait to tell my good buddy what I found…but then maybe she knew it was there already. 

Guess I need to remember, too, that “pride goeth before a fall”.  ;-)   I just might elaborate on that in another post later on.  Look forward to it.

LITTLE THINGS

I was thinking that I needed a subject for a new blog post.  My growing number of five readers are anxious.  As I pondered on, I got to thinking about little things and found my thoughts drifting from one “little” thing to another.

Little Things.  Little. Things.

My thoughts actually materialized as I scratched the back of my arm from a bite I got on Sunday night.  I got this bite sitting on my couch.  In my living room.  I was just sitting there reading the AJC—a miracle in itself as it’s not usually read by me until Thursday and if it’s not read by Thursday, it’s not read.  So here I am early catching up on the news.  Minding my own business with one eye on the paper and one eye on the TV showing one of the all time best shows, The Andy Griffith Show.  I can’t listen to two people/things at once now even though I have two ears but I can watch two things at once with my two eyes.  Unlike my ears, my eyes can still multi-task. 

So all at once I feel this stinging and it gets worse and worse—all in a few seconds.  I’m squealing pretty loud to The Husband who is sitting in the same room.  Of course, he doesn’t understand the magnitude of my pain….the TV is on.  Duh.  He realizes when I jump up and start dancing around that I really have been bitten or stung.  He gets some snuff out of his mouth and puts it on the place.  For you who’ve never heard of that and think, “How nasty!”, it supposedly works on a sting.   And believe me, if you’ve been stung, you don’t mind having some Saliva Snuff put on the spot.  You think about the “nasty” part later.  

The Girl actually got stung/bitten by a spider a few weeks ago and it really was a mess.  I was thinking that’s probably what mine was but mine is not a mess like hers was.  Whew.  I'm glad of that.  We never found the critter even though we looked.  I never felt it crawling but I know it had to have done so.   My bet is that it was very little and scampered away.  It caused a big ruckus and a not-so-fun spot.  Such a little thing, that critter.

Isn’t it amazing how a little drink of water will cool you down and quench your thirst on a very hot day?  And isn’t it amazing how one little tiny seed can grow to be a large plant that will yield quarts and quarts of vegetables for the winter?  Isn’t it funny how one little sneeze done in a quiet place can make everyone there startled?

I was thinking about my Christmas ornaments.  I have so many given to be by so many special children and friends and family and each year as I hang them, I am reminded of those I love.  My very favorites, as The Girl will tell you, are the little glitter sandpaper reindeer and the little popcorn wire wreath.  These were The Girl’s first that she made in preschool so they are probably 28 years old.  They are so precious to me and I hang them high on the tree every year.  I love all my ornaments but these are the “little” ones that make me feel so warm and fuzzy.  And no, they will not move in with The Girl.  They are mine.  

My mother-in-law and my aunt both had cancer at the same time.  My mother-in-law suffered from lung cancer and my aunt from thyroid cancer.  Both of them wanted me to take them to their doctors.  Pretty much all or most of the time.  One lived in Cartersville and one here near me….on some days that could be a real challenge if each had doctor’s appointments at their doctors—one in Cartersville and the other in Atlanta on the same day.  I was burning up the roads on occasion for sure.  Anyways, both of these dear ones have gone on to heaven within about four months of each other….I’ve lost count, maybe 7 years ago?

Through all the painful medical reports and discouraging times with my mother-in-law, there is one time that stands out in my mind.  After the oncologist told her the cancer had really taken over and that all he could offer was maybe some radiation, I took her to the radiation doctor the next afternoon.  I wheeled her in, we sat there, and then the doctor came in to tell her that the radiation wouldn’t help and it was time to call hospice.  I’m sitting there keeping myself from crying as I looked at her and she looked at me.  I knew I had to be tough and strong.  She simply said, “Ok”.  He gave me information and I wheeled her out to the car and got her in and buckled, still not saying a word.  What does one say when your whole insides are crying?  So I said nothing.  I got in the car, buckled up, took a deep breath, looked at her as she sat there quietly and said, “Okay so what do you want to eat?” When one doesn't know what to say or do, just eat.  Eating always seemed a nice solution to most things, even though she was hungry very seldom those days.   She looked up at me and simply said, “I want a chocolate milkshake from that Dairy Queen across the street.”  I said, “It’s yours.”  Forget that she has diabetes, she has terminal cancer and she wants a milkshake.   I’m getting her one.  We still said nothing more, drove across the street to the drive thru and ordered the milkshake.  The girl at the drive thru said, “That will be 93 cents.”   My mother-in-law reached for her purse and I told her there was some change here in the compartment on the dash--I'll use it.  I opened it, reached in and began counting as I removed.  There was exactly 93 cents.  No more, no less.  Exactly 93 cents.  A coincidence?  No way.  That was the Lord letting me know through a “little” thing that He was there and He had things under control.  My eyes still tear up thinking about it.  And I still realize He has EVERYTHING under control.

As for my aunt, she passed on later that year.  She was a Canton doctor kind of girl until she developed the thyroid business so we had to go to Atlanta to the doctor.   One particular time I remember is early, early one morning we got to the hospital and went to the bathroom before going to the test.  When she came out to the sink area and washed her hands, she began to look for the towels.  I told her the towels were in the towel holder.  She was trying to get them out and I explained it was a motion one and all you had to do was wave your hand and that towel would come right out.  Now my aunt had never heard or seen such.  She waved her hand one time and nothing happened.  I told her to wave it again and showed her where and she did.  Out came a towel.  And I will never forget the genuine, huge smile on her face.  It was as if her whole face lit up.  I, too, laughed with sheer joy.  That was special to me because she never REALLY smiled much as long as I could remember.  It was a true genuine smile of joy on her face and I don’t know that I ever saw it exactly like that again.  But on that day that motion sensor towel rack, just a “little” something we take for granted, caused my aunt to smile and make a memory for me that I will never forget.  Every time I use one of the motion sensored towel holders, I see my aunt’s smile.  Every time.

Well, now that I’ve typed all this, it’s amazing to me where it came from.  I didn’t have all this in mind when I started but you know, I think I’ll leave it as written. 

This saying is not a direct quote but goes something like this…

”Take time for the little things because some day you will realize they were the big things.”  

FEAR

On this particular morning I was rushed as I was taking my hot car to the car repair to leave and have a new air conditioner compressor put in.  I expect by the end of the day I will much poorer but much colder when I am in my car.  And cool is a wonderful thought!

My phone rang and of course I looked to see if it could be an early morning political call.  Unfortunately for me, it wasn't but it was my sister.  I can't leave a ringing phone when I know the person on the other end of the line. 

My sister was calling to ask if I had heard of a young wife and mother from Cumming who had been battling cancer.  After hearing the story, my heart hurt so badly.   Seems the young woman, Hannah, had gone to North Georgia College and has some mutual friends with my girl.  She had two bouts of cancer and now, for some reason I didn't understand, the tissues in her extremities have died.  The husband had been updating on facebook and the young woman is having surgery this afternoon to remove both hands and both feet.  She's in her mid thirties.  A wife. A mother. A daughter.  If you are reading this, take a minute and say a prayer for Hannah and her family.

I've had that on my mind ever since the call.  It made me realize that life can hand us some really BAD stuff and it can come very unexpected.  It made me realize that I REALLY don't have a bad problem.  Yet.  But that I could.  Eventually.  And I thought that if or when I did, I hope I will be able to trust in the God that is bigger than life itself.    I will not fear and expect problems but I will trust the Lord in each and every minute of my life.

I find it interesting that I just now saw a very large lizard zip across my office floor.  My heart got all cramped. I immediately raised my feet even though it was many feet away from me.  Thankfully. several feet away.   I don't do reptiles.  Ever.  At all.  Not even pictures of reptiles.  So now I know that this very large lizard is under a certain cabinet.   I will probably have to sit with my feet up all day long.  At least I can take my own Pollyanna approach advice and be glad it didn't go into my tote bag.  Oohhhh.  That would not be good. 

I thought of all the times in the Bible that God said to "be of good courage" and "do not fear".  So many times.  He surely means it.  I want that kind of courage and bravery in all things.  So I will strive for it and remind myself that God is always there and I can count on Him.   You can, too.

Maybe he even takes care of reptiles.

"Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."  Deuteronomy 31:6

MIND SLIPS

Lately, there have been different kinds of things in my life that make me stop and consider.  I think often of my childhood and younger, carefree life and think about the older folks that were in that life—grandparents, parents, and such.  And these days when I consider that in relation to the age I am now, it seems to me that I remember these folks seeming so much older than I seem to myself now—even when I look at myself in the mirror.  It’s often been said, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.  Well, maybe age is, too?  Guess one is as young (or as old) as they feel.

For the past few years, I’ve actually had to subtract the years to remember my age.  After doing a quick subtraction, I realize I will be 57 this year.   Three years away from 60. 60! Some days I still feel like I’m 40.  Or even 37.  And then other times, I realize I’m not 40 or even 37.  Not even close.  I will share that I experienced a whole lot of joy a few days after I turned 55 and was in the downtown Hickory Flat Kroger on a Wednesday.  I think the little teenage cashier was just asking everyone—I hope—if they wanted the “Senior discount”.  I asked what age one had to be to get it (thinking it was 60 like so many other places) and he replied, “55”.  Ahhh….YES!!!!  I was sooo excited and now plan my visits to HF Kroger on Wednesdays.  I save 5%.  Yes, 5%!  Bet you young readers are anticipating the day when YOU get to visit HF Kroger on Wednesdays and save 5%.  Uh huh.

I so get off track with my writing.  Let me get back on track. 

I’ve realized in the past couple of years that age does creep up and does make a gradual change in people.  For instance, I go into a room often and wonder why I came in that particular room.  I have asked The Girl a question and she would give me that “look” while not saying anything.  I say to her, “Uh oh.  I already asked this question.  Can you repeat the answer you answered before?”  I often listen to The Husband tell me things he’s told me time and time and time again.  I’ve learned just to listen time and time and time again.  He doesn’t have a clue so I don’t tell him.  You don’t tell him either.

I was reminded of “mind slips” the other day when I was home and decided to make a carrot cake for The Husband.  He loves carrot cake.  The recipe I have from the church cookbook is really easy to cut in half.  I have small pans that work beautifully and the husband doesn’t need a whole carrot cake.  (The aging process also causes addition of excess weight easily.)  So I whipped up the cake, opened the oven to remove and noticed it looked a bit strange.  I dumped it out on the racks….and let me say that dumped is a true description.  Those two little layers came out in wads.  Just didn’t look right.  Maybe it could be salvaged. So went on with my stuff while it cooled and then went back to put the icing on.  I looked at it and felt it and it seemed really hard and wrong.  So I’m thinking I shouldn’t waste icing on it and went on about my stuff again.  When I walked back into the kitchen, my eyes were immediately drawn to the island and the 2 cups of shredded carrots sitting there.  Uh huh.  What’s a carrot cake without carrots?  A big mess.  I took a deep breath and thought, “Ahhhh…” Mind slip.  And yes, I made another half of a carrot cake which turned out perfectly with the carrots inside.

With the carrot cake episode, I was reminded of a Sunday night several months ago.  Now I’ll preface this story by saying that I love to sew, craft, and scrapbook.  Cutting and gluing paper is therapy to me.  Making something pretty out of a piece of fabric gives me joy.  Many years ago, The Husband closed in half of our back porch and made me a room we call the “studio” in which I could do all these things and leave them out so I could work a little, go back work a little more….you get the idea.  No creative mess in the living room anymore.  So there’s one way into this “studio” through a door in the carport.  Remember this as it’s important.  This particular Sunday night, about 8:00 p.m., I decided I would go out and cut and glue some paper.  I had a wonderful time doing that as I remember the experience.  About 9:45 or so I decided I would call it a night.  I sort of made my desk a bit more tidy and checked the heat/air, turned off the tv and went to the door.  I turned the knob, only to realize it was locked.  The Girl had locked the knob not realizing I was in there.  Okay, so did I mention that the door locks from the carport side?   Uh huh.  So I stand there for a minute and think, “Oh my goodness.   What am I going to do?”  My cell phone is on the kitchen counter.  Inside the house.  Keep in mind that The Husband and The Girl are potentially asleep by now.  The Husband usually goes to sleep in his recliner and let me tell you, if Gabriel comes to blow that trumpet while The Husband is asleep, he’d better blow loud and long to wake The Husband.  The Girl’s room is a ways down the hall away, far from the “studio” with the door shut and the tv going.  So I consider.  I bang on the wall nearest the den.  Of course, it's not right at the den as there's the other half of the screened porch between the wall and the den door.  I bang and bang and begin to shout, “Help”.  Nothing.  I bang some more screaming “Help”.  Again nothing.

I stop and think another minute.  Okay so I have heat/air and I have a 30 year old La-Z-boy recliner that is most comfortable so I technically can have a good night’s sleep here.  When everyone wakes in the morning and breakfast is not cooked, they will miss me.  It will be okay.  Then I remember.  A necessity.  Every 50 something year old woman has to have a bathroom accessible during the night.  It’s a MUST.  And my studio has NO bathroom facility.  So I bang on the wall yet again.  Nothing but quiet.  And then I do what someone else might have done earlier.  I panicked.  Big time.  PANIC.  I'm shaking all over as I go to raise the blind and begin to raise the window.  I get it raised then stick my head out into the dark and yell again “Help!”  I’m contemplating trying to get my body that is larger than the window opening out of the window when the door to the room opens.

Ah….I turned around with panicked eyes and see The Girl standing there.  “Mama, what is WRONG?  We kept hearing a bumping noise.”  Well duh….a bumping noise?  I was hitting harder than a bump. Wrong?  What is "wrong"?  What a ridiculous question.  I walk to the door and see The Husband, awake, standing in the kitchen/carport door smiling.  Awake.  And SMILING.  How dare he?  Still very upset, I reply quietly, “You locked the door and I couldn’t get out.  I was afraid you were all asleep.  And my cell phone was on the kitchen counter.”  I was near tears.  And for me, that’s pretty panicked.  The Girl just looked at me with sympathy, and said, “What’s wrong with THAT phone?” as she eyed the working landline phone on the studio bookcase.  Duh.  Ah.  Mind slip.  Big time. 

I went in without a word and went to bed.  Panic is exhausting.  Especially when one is aging.  ;-) Needless to say, the next night, The Husband changed the knob so it wouldn’t lock from the outside. Sadly, he said  I wasn’t necessarily safe alone there with the knob left as it was. 

I’ve decided that even a slight amount of aging can really slip one’s mind into distress on occasion.  But it’s as I always told The Girl, “This, too, shall pass.”  Eventually.  ;-)

Are you there yet?

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

We are experiencing technical difficulties.  Please stand by.  We’ve all seen that on our TV screens or heard it on our radios.   For sure, it ALWAYS happens right in the middle of an exciting show.  Never fails.

For the past couple of weeks, my computer has been giving me the warning that “your startup disk is almost full”…..then “your startup disk is full”.   Well, all of you who know me well know that I am not a computer guru.   Not even close.  Not even in the ball park.  If you thought I was a computer guru, sorry, you were wrong.  I get excessively stressed inside when I try to deal with such difficulties.

Rewind to 2008.  I had saved my $5 bills for two years in anticipation of spending them for a laptop Macbook computer.  I did that very thing.   I wanted to take my $5 bills into the Apple store and pay in cash, but The Girl said that might not be a very good idea.   She said the cashier AND the people in line behind me would probably do something very not nice.   To me.  So I didn’t pay in cash.  But I happily brought that computer home and learned enough to do what I wanted to do with it.  Mainly send and receive emails and store and edit photos.  And all of you who know me well know that most likely the majority of the time included dealing with my photographs.  Many, many photographs.  I love iphoto and I love taking and working with my photos.

After the happy/sad church service on Sunday, we went to Red Lobster for lunch—it’s our comfort food place.  I enjoyed the four course special which included Key Lime Pie for dessert which I could eat without too much guilt.  Then I came home to put my baptizing photos on my computer.  This was the beginning of sorrows and extreme technical difficulty.  That little startup disk warning wouldn’t stop.  My photos wouldn’t all load.  I was distressed and began to try to find the problem.   For a non-computer-guru, that is not an easy task.  I got out my trusty reference guide, "Macbook for Dummies”.  I spent until 9 p.m. trying....and trying...and trying.  Never did get all the photos loaded.  I did discover with the ones I did load that all I took with my short lens had a fuzzy, foggy spot in the center from the humidity.  Gloom.  Despair.  Agony.   The good news in that is that I think I can edit and make that okay.

I went to cardio yesterday morning for physical stress relief and came home again to the computer.   After researching, trying, researching, trying again, finally last night at about 9:30, I decided I was just going to have to call Apple and pay somebody to help me technically get my computer back on track.  That thought was painful to my pocketbook, but I was at the point of no other choice. 

During all this time, I did learn how to find out how much space is on my hard disk.  I wasn’t overly familiar with how to do that before.   Bad news is that it said there was very little free space.  So this morning I tried to call early.  Apple was not open at 5:30 a.m. so I again for one last time before calling got out my Macbook for Dummies  and sat at my computer.   I kept deleting photos but wasn’t seeing them in the trash.   Then I noticed.  I NOTICED.  There was a trash icon on my iphoto!!!  I NEVER saw it before.   Ever.  So I referred again to my Macbook for Dummies book and alas!  All the photos one deletes from their iphoto do not go in the regular trash but in the iphoto trash for safekeeping should one want to bring them back out.  Really?  REALLY?

Okay, so we’re getting somewhere now.  I began to be hopeful.   Uh huh.  You all know I take a lot of photos but you have no clue how many.   I had 11,000+ on my regular iphoto that I’m not ready to delete.  In my iphoto trash after it FINALLY loaded so I could see, I had 28,983 photos.  That’s almost 40,000 photos on my computer!  No wonder there was not space!  Unreal.  It took that iphoto trash 10 minutes to empty.

I was a bit apprehensive as I clicked to check the space on the hard disk afterwards.  Amazing!  It was a phenomenal decline and I have a boatload of space now.  I can’t tell you how I felt when I saw that.  It was like I had held my breath for hours and finally released it.  It was a relief.  Oh my goodness.   And I didn't have to pay for the advice!   I have just loaded my 300+ baptizing photos and they loaded fast and easy.  I am ready to edit and do my baptizing photo thing.  I am excited!  Ahhhhh……. I will daily empty two computer trash cans so my computer can run effectively. 

Now all that was probably not that interesting to you….especially if you ARE a computer guru.  You are probably rolling your eyes at my not-a-computer-guru status.  That’s okay with me.  I’ve decided I like to write so I thought I’d make it a blog entry anyways.  

When The Husband and I talk about things sometimes, I will make the comment “There’s a sermon in that somewhere.”  And I think we can find sermons in a lot of things in life.  I know there’s one or more sermons in this story of non-interesting  computer problems.  

I’m not going to elaborate on a sermon.  I’m going to leave that to your thoughts and imagination.  There’s one there.   You ponder it.  I have photos to edit!

YAY!!!!