Facebook and Other Worthless News

My blogging machine seems to have run out of steam. I'm beginning to think that the whole thing was necessary to get me through those workless years. Now that I'm back to full-time, I might have more to write about, but also a whole lot more people to offend. It just doesn't seem worth it.

Speaking of offending people, I shut down my facebook account and started a new one. My previous account just had too many issues that the faceless facebook people were not being of much help to fix. The final straw was a rather lengthy form they had me fill out detailing all the glitches I was experiencing. When I hit submit, a new window opened informing me not to expect any help or a reply... my information would simply be used for future facebook improvements.

Yeah. A lot of good that did me in the present.

I think I'm ready to join the husband and venture off the grid.

My Life As A Woodpecker

Yesterday I sat on my front porch talking to my dad on the phone. As I talked, I watched a woodpecker beat his tiny little head on the tree that shades the front of our house. Granted, I understand the basics of woodpecking (?) and know that it was not necessarily the head the woodpecker was doing the pecking, but you get the general idea.

Or maybe you don't.

Just go with it.

I watched that bird and thought to myself,
Give it up, little buddy. You're not gonna get anywhere.

But that's not right, is it?

That bird is going to get exactly what it's after. All that pecking and pounding is for a reason. It may seem ridiculous to us, and yet that pesky little creature has a God-designed mission in life. As long as he sticks to the tree and not my cedar-sided house, I have no reason to break out a pellet gun. No reason to interfere.

I watched that bird and thought to myself,
Pound away, little guy. You're on the right track.

Do you ever feel like you are beating your head incessantly on a brick wall and nobody is paying attention? Maybe they're watching you and thinking, When is that woman ever going to learn? Maybe they're watching you and thinking, Man, she makes me feel better about myself.

Maybe they're watching you and have Tylenol on stand by.

I'm thankful today for friends who wait patiently with pain reliever in hand.

When Your Kid Buys You Dinner

It reminds you of everything that's gone RIGHT in your life.

We may never have money, but we will always be RICH.
Thanking God every day for the peace He has poured upon our household.

Our cup runneth over.

Aggravation

I am watching a football game and rapidly losing my good sense of humor. I blame it all on the husband. I could have cared less about football until he moved me to a place where football is king. Now my Saturdays are spent on the college side and my Sundays with the NFL. My only saving grace is we are antenna-only television so if it's a mid-week game, I don't have access.

Thank God.

Another interception. My good humor is gone.
I've made good use of the red power button on the remote.

I might as well get back to laundry... at least that's something I can control.


Until next weekend anyway.

Breathing Life To Dried-Up Bones

A joyful heart is good medicine, 

but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. 

Proverbs 17:22

I came home grumpy. Irritated.
Wanting to pop something with a BB gun.

And that's the mild version.

The husband put up with me for a while before he asked ,

What in the world is wrong with you?

I said I just wanted to hear some good news. Did he have any?

He had none. This is his week of no work. No work equals no pay. No pay presents unique challenges to paying the bills. Challenges to paying the bills creates a treasure hunt of sorts for things to sell on craigslist.

It's never a dull moment around here.

So anyway, he listened and more importantly, he understood my mood. We fired up the grill, made supper, and fed the kids. It was around that time that my phone rang. It was my dad.

We talked. He told me stories. I laughed. It was exactly what I needed. I repeated the same stories to the husband who (strangely enough) didn't laugh near as much as I did. He washed dishes. I dried. He asked me if I was all right. I looked him in the eye and said yes.

Somehow, in the midst of that unexpected laughter, I found hope.
In hope, I found peace. And in that peace, I found rest.

God's not finished with us yet.

(Fiery) Memories of My Grandma

Tomorrow is Way Too Old Wednesday (aka Senior Citizen Day) at our school. It's all in good fun... just another way to celebrate Homecoming Week and get away from the same old-same old. I've spent the last hour or so looking through my closet and the kids' closets and have discovered a few things about myself.

1. Trying to dress old is lot of hard work, and

2. I have a lot of old looking clothes from which to choose.

I'm not sure what that says about me and my (fading) sense of style, but all this old talk had me thinking about my grandma and how she would dress.

Long-sleeved shirts. Polyester pants. Curlers.

And the occasional ball cap.

Here she is with the oldest clearing away brush from our land. I would bet good money she had a matchbook tucked away in those jean pockets. That little lady was notorious for tossing a lit match in order to clear the land. The husband had to chase her around more than once with a garden hose in his hand. Oh, that still makes me laugh. Anyone who knew her knows how much she loved working outdoors.

She loved to quilt and sew and fish and garden. She would put anything in the freezer rather than throw it away. I remember one time she offered us tea... frozen in a ziploc bag. She would freeze milk if she thought it would spoil before she was able to use it all. She saved peanut butter containers and whipped topping containers and tubs of butter containers. She was not one to waste.

Her house often smelled of boiling onions or cabbage or beets.
Her refrigerator was typically full of a variety of leftovers.
She really did always have something in her cookie jar.

Good grief, I miss that woman.

Yes, tomorrow I will be thinking of her. My entire outfit is modeled after something I think she would approve. I may be missing the scent of mothballs, but I'm hoping to have fully captured her style.

Nothing fancy. Everything practical.

I'll just leave my matchbook at home.

My Co-Pilot & Me

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you probably understand that the youngest is my grandma all over again. Always busy. Usually sewing. Frequently baking. For the last few days she has been tucked away in her room alternating between cleaning, reading, and sewing a stack of quilt blocks. She's out of the house at the moment, but the tunes from her radio can still be heard drifting through the open windows. A song caught my attention and made me think of our road trip last week.

And for the record,

I do not promote girls in in orange shorts, 'shine, or "lightin' one up."

I gotta tell you, though, if we sang this song once, we sang it at least twenty times on our thirty-one hour road trip with the girl and me. She is the official bleeper of any and all curse words and Dr. Pepper is our substitute of choice for any mentioned drink of an alcoholic nature (this is my daughter we're talking about here).

We sure had a lot of fun.

We were tired. We got kinda loopy. We missed an exit once.

We saw a motorcycle fatality which was a sobering sight.
We saw Dale Jr's racing team which was driving way too fast.

We yelled "HOT DOG!" one too many times.

We were stuck in construction work,
stuck in rush-hour traffic, and
stuck in a car for way too long.

I can't wait to do it again.

Thanks for joining me, little lady