Don’t forget, today starts the love offering BooMama has set up for Heather at Especially Heather. Heather is the mother of the Emma Grace whose “Pray for Emma Grace” buttons you may have seen around. Heather just recently found out she has a brain tumor. She had appointments at the Mayo Clinic and M. D. Anderson for further opinions. This love offering is to help defray the costs of those trips and whatever other expenses they might incur as a result of this finding. Details for participating are here. But whatever you do, please pray.
Category Archives: Stray thoughts
An April Day
Spring
The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
—Robert Frost
The past few April days have felt more like the middle of March…or even February!
The yard sale went well, though not quite as well as I’d hoped. I made about $100, Jesse made $20-something. I had come all set up for sitting in the sun, wearing a lightweight dress and having brought sunscreen — but we were freezing! We boxed up what we didn’t sell and are thinking about having another yard sale later on after we have a chance to sort through the attic. Or we might just give it all to Salvation Army — by the time you itemize it and get a receipt so you can claim it on your taxes, I think you probably come out about the same.
I thought families with boys would snap up some of the toys Jesse was selling, but I kept hearing parents say things like, “You have enough toys!” I understand that feeling, too! It’s funny what we get sentimental about — Jesse had about four “army sets” as we called them. One of them looked like a big tank from the outside but folded out into a flat playset for army men and Hot Wheels type tanks, etc., with little hills, turrets, roads, etc. He spent so many hours playing with those spread out all over the living room floor. I thought about saving them for grandkids some day — they are just neat play sets that I don’t think anyone makes any more, plus one day they might think it is neat to play with something that was their dad’s. But I was torn, so I didn’t say anything. Only one sold at first, so I thought we might get to keep the rest. But the last three sold in the last 15 minutes. 😦 Oh, well — I try to remind myself they are just things and hang on to the memories. One friend said it signified “the end of an era,” and I guess that’s part of it — knowing that my youngest is growing out of favorite toys.
I wrestle some times with saving for posterity vs. keeping sentimental things. We really don’t have much in the way of mementos from either side of our family, and I’d like to keep some special things for posterity. But I try not to keep anything that I don’t really think anyone will be interested in or that might break down over time — I figure it would be better for someone to go ahead and enjoy that now, so I give it away. And I remember my kids weren’t much interested in boxes of faded old toys at grandparents’ houses, so I only keep things in great condition that might be timeless in its appeal.
The fellowship also went well. There were a few less than usual, but it was “cozy.” I think our new youth pastor is doing a great job with the kids. His new wife was away for the weekend, and I had been looking forward to having her over, so I was a little disappointed there, but my friend Carol came over for a little while — she teaches first grade and usually just hangs out in her classroom while her kids are at fellowships since she lives too far to make it worth going home and coming back in that time period, so I told her she was welcome to come if she wanted to. So it was good to “visit” a little. 🙂 Before she became a teacher here we used to volunteer once a week at the school, and I really enjoyed working with her and getting to know her — I’ve missed our visits!
I told myself with all the busy-ness of the last week that I was giving myself today “off,” so I am sitting back enjoying my nice clean house and catching up on e-mail and blog-reading. While I was in the shower I was looking at the freshly-painted ceiling and thinking, “We ought to have people over more often!” Not for a while, though — we both need to recuperate! I wish Jim could have taken off today — I don’t know when he’s going to have time to do taxes.
I usually keep up pretty well with the regular weekly housework — meals, dishes, laundry, bathrooms, floors, etc. — and an almost-weekly “extra” job thanks to tackle-it-Tuesday. But somehow I need to incorporate some of the “extra” jobs into a regular routine so we’re not having to catch up on everything before company comes. Yet I don’t like a real rigid system, like every first week of the month this and this are done, etc.
After I got out of the shower this morning, I started having pretty bad muscles spasms in my back. I don’t know if I wrenched something this morning or if this is the result of working the last few days. After an Absorbine Jr. patch, ibuprofen, and a heating pad I am able to move a little better (did you know that when you blow your nose you use muscles in your back? I never knew that until blowing my nose sent a spasm across my already-spasming back!) I guess it is a good thing I hadn’t planned anything for today!
Stray thoughts
- Did you know there is a National Association for Information Destruction? Jesse and I were sitting in the car at a red light on the way to school this morning when a truck with that association’s logo pulled up beside us. The truck was from a company that sheds secure documents. I don’t know why, but the name of that association struck me funny — identity theft and the need to destroy certain documents are serious, of course — but having an association for destroying information sounded like an arm of the KGB or a militant anti-intellectual organization or something. 😀
- I have to “brag on” my husband today. I mentioned earlier this week that we have a school-sponsored yard sale coming up this Saturday and we’re having the junior high part of the youth group from church coming over for a fellowship Sunday night. He took Thursday off to help me with some of those tasks that are hard for me to do. For instance, since TM, I can’t be on my knees for more than a few seconds. I can physically get on my knees, but then an odd sensation sort of like hitting your funny bone shoots through my knees. It’s hard to describe it — it’s not painful — but it’s disturbing, and every instinct is screaming, “Make it stop!!” So, I can sweep and mop, but sometimes the floors just need a hands-and-knees scrubbing. Jim did the kitchen floors, then cleaned the floor and everything in the half-bathroom except the toilet, getting one area around the faucet of the sink cleaner than I have been able to even with straight bleach. Then he went to the other bathroom — that one, for some reason, particularly attracts mold even though we have an outlet fan that we use during showers to reduce the humidity in there. The shower comes clean easily with Tilex, but there were areas around the tops of the door frames that weren’t coming clean for me. Jim tried to clean it, but decided it needed to be repainted. Some of the paint had been blistering and all of the woodwork just needed freshening up. So he ended up painting the doors, frames, baseboards, and cabinet — not something on the to-do list, but it has been needing attention and look so nice!! There’s nothing like a fresh coat of paint.
- At one point when he was on his hands and knees scrubbing, he asked me if I was going to take his picture and post it for a Works-For-Me Wednesday. 😀
- Overall, conquering the to-do list is going well. It really did help to make a master list and look for things that could be done ahead of time. Maybe after about 30 years of being an adult I am finally learning how to do this kind of thing. 🙂 I just know that these days I can’t stay up til two in the morning in a cleaning frenzy the night before an event.
- This has reminded me of a funny story from our early married days. We were having the youth group over after church — this was probably our first time ever doing so — and, of course, the usual furious cleaning had occurred the day before. During the fellowship while they were singing, I noticed I had accidentally left my can of Pledge and dustcloth on top of the bookshelf, which wasn’t that bad in itself, but my dustrag had been an old pair of my husband’s underwear with the Fruit-of-the-Loom stripe very visible. I was mortified. But to go to it and remove it at that point would have drawn attention to it, so I left it and hoped no one would notice. No one said anything. 🙂 It’s funny but now it grosses me out to even think about using old underwear to dust or clean — that stuff gets tossed when it outlives it usefulness nowadays.
- I’ve also learned through the years that I usually don’t get everything on my list done, so I’ve learned to prioritize. It doesn’t look like I am going to get my curtains up, unfortunately. The fabric I ordered just arrived two days ago. I usually wash fabrics before cutting or sewing them, but the recommended care for this is dry cleaning — will they dry clean fabric on a roll? I don’t know.
- I don’t think I’ll be doing the Friday Feast today. It wouldn’t take long to do, but these interactive memes are supposed to be….well…interactive. I really can’t take the time today to go visit around the other participants, so I’d probably better sit this one out. It’s funny how you sort of get to know different people who participate in the different weekly memes — I’ll miss my regular stops and the wave hello. Maybe if my day goes well and I get a lot done, I’ll be able to do it later on.
- I’m off to peruse my Bloglines list, then it’s back to work. Have a good day!
Prayer request
I just read this afternoon that Heather, mother of the Emma Grace whose “Pray for Emma Grace” buttons you may have seen around, has just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. I know the whole family would appreciate your prayers.
A question for those with eye problems
A few years ago at an annual eye exam I was told I was just on the verge of needing reading glasses. Before my next yearly check-up, I experienced two days of sudden double vision. I was told after having transverse myelitis that there was a 20% chance of it turning into multiple sclerosis, so I was really concerned about this vision problem having to do with the optic nerve. Dashed off to the eye dr., and he said the optic nerve was fine, I just needed trifocals. Trifocals? When less than a year before I was only on the verge of needing reading glasses? I kept trying to stress that this wasn’t something that crept up but rather happened suddenly. He was convinced it probably was happening all along but I had just noticed it. 🙄
I didn’t have a lot of confidence in that diagnosis, so I didn’t get the glasses. I’m not opposed to getting glasses, I just didn’t think this diagnosis was accurate. The blurry double vision lasted for a couple of days, went away for a couple of weeks, then returned. I had seen my personal family dr. in the meantime for something else but mentioned this. My eye dr. happened to be someone he knew and had confidence in, so he trusted his diagnosis, but sent me to an ophthalmologist. That dr. told me I had an astigmatism. I wasn’t sure that was right, either. I didn’t want to get prescription glasses for a problem that only occurred occasionally, and I wondered why no one considered there might be other non-glasses related problems that might be occurring.
I saw the ophthalmologist again less than a year ago for a regular check-up. My eyes weren’t blurry then, and I had 20/20 vision.
But the double vision and blurriness come and go. My eyesight in general had gotten worse — I use little Wal-Mart reading glasses generally to read but can’t wear them all the time because everything else is blurry when I have them on.
The double vision is occurring again today. It’s good I wasn’t planning to do much blogging today!!
So I guess my question is — does this happen to anyone else? I know that after passing the mid-40s eyesight begins to wane anyway. And it does seem to occur more when I am tired or haven’t had enough sleep, but I haven’t really kept track enough to say that always affects it.
One of life’s little pleasures….
…..is a crossed-off to-do list:
“The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul…” (Proverbs 13:19a). I had originally desired to accomplish those things by last Saturday, and got all but one of them crossed off. But I just couldn’t get the remaining one taken care of til this morning.
It’s funny how things that have been needing attention for weeks months get taken care of with ease once they are on a list. I had been needing to sew a couple of buttons on clothes here and there and remove a patch from Jesse’s old Awana shirt before giving it away for ages. It only took me a few minutes to take care of that — I just kept forgetting about it.
Of course, I need to make another whole list for this week. But it’s nice to savour that moment of getting things done.
I don’t know why it always seems to happen this way, but so often when we schedule one event when the calendar looks clear, as the time approaches then the calendar seems to fill up. We signed up to host a teen fellowship after church April 15. We had never had one since living in this house because, though the house itself is not small overall, the individual rooms where you’d have company are. We had a family of five over once and ended up with people sitting on the floor. So having a big group over just wasn’t something we felt we could handle. But this year they are splitting up some of the teen fellowships into smaller groups — jr. high and sr. high or guys or girls or one team or the other. So we’re having the junior high over that night.
Then the seniors at our school sponsor a “Spring Fling” on a Friday and a yard sale on a Saturday as a fund-raiser for their senior trip. I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to participate in this year’s yard sale — and found out a couple of weeks ago that it is Saturday the 14th, the Saturday before the fellowship. Aaauugh!!
One problem with going through things in the attic and shed that we know we want to get rid of is that the prime times for doing that, when there is not much else going on, are summer and winter after Christmas. But that’s when those areas are the hottest and coldest. Spring and fall, when it would be easier to get into those places, are busy times on our calendar.
I think what I have resolved to do is spend this week sorting through things for the yard sale as much as I can, reminding myself it’s not likely I’ll get through the whole attic and shed — will just have to have another yard sale later on, maybe, or take the remainder to Salvation Army when we can. Then next week I’ll be getting ready (read: more than basic cleaning — you know how it is when company is coming) for the fellowship. Because I know if I clean the burner pans on the stove today, I’ll have a major boil-over between now and the fellowship and will have to do it again. 🙂
Jesse is on Easter break this week and was going to sort through some things in his room as well as have a friend over one night. Sunday evening he said he had a sore throat and a few sniffles, but we thought it was just allergies. He even had a friend over yesterday with plans to spend the night, but felt progressively worse during the day, then started running a fever, so I guess he has a full-blown cold or flu. We sent his friend home to hopefully come back later in the week. Then last night Jesse asked for the “throw-up pan” because he felt sick — and lost his lunch. I don’t know if there is a stomach bug, too, or is just the gunk in his throat is setting off his gag reflex. Jeremy used to have problems with that when he was younger, too. We were doing cold medicine and acetaminophen on an as-needed basis yesterday, but today I am giving it to him every four hours, so hopefully he’ll feel better than he did yesterday. He hasn’t eaten much — a little applesauce, Jello, and Sprite — and he’s the only one of us who doesn’t have any extra to lose.
The “throw-up pan” is a bigger pan that I don’t use much — somehow when the older guys were little we’d let them keep it near by when they were sick in case they couldn’t make it to the restroom. Once we got alliterative with it and called it the vomit vessel, the barf bucket, the upchuck urn….
Then they’d get really grossed out when I’d use that pan for things like corn on the cob. I’d assure them it had been well-cleaned and sterilized since they last used it.
One thing I am dearly hoping to be able to get done before the fellowship is to get the curtains up in the family room that I mentioned here and here. I did finally order fabric this morning — that was the last thing on my to-do list from last week. In case anyone is waiting on pins and needles to know this ( 😀 ), I decided on this fabric –the blue check with the toile as an contrast lining for the valance — and this pattern (bottom right-hand corner). All the other fabric I looked at around town was more expensive (even at outlets) and I just didn’t like it as well. The pattern is fairly simple, so I am hoping I can whip them up. By the way, Fabric.Com is a great site — easy to use, and no charge for shipping on the first order.
I guess I have rambled on enough and should get busy. 🙂 I’ll post a couple more Easter quotes in a separate post. Oh, and I want to remind you that a month from yesterday, on May 2, I’ll be having a Q&A session with Lynn Walker, author of Queen of the Castle. She’s doing a “30 Blogs in 30 Days” author tour, and I am delighted to be one of her stopping-places. I am jotting down questions as I think of them, but if you have any questions you’d like for me to ask, let me know!
Have a great day.
A Dyson Give-Away
5 Minute For Mom is hosting a contest to give away a Dyson Slim vacuum! Details are here. I had never hear of Dyson before, but this vacuum sounds wonderful. I can’t believe they are giving one away!
Church
I received this in an e-mail a while back:
A church-goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. “I’ve gone for 30 years now,” he wrote, “and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them! So, I think I’m wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.” Signed: Missing the message.
This started a real controversy in the “Letters to the Editor” column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:
“I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals for me. But for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today. When you are DOWN to nothing….. God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!”
I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD. Psalm 122:1.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. Hebrews 10:25.
Dogwood Chapel by Thomas Kinkade
Courtesy of Allposters.com
Pray for Addison
Winter reading list wrap-up
I wanted to wrap-up my winter reading list before the Spring Reading Challenge begins tomorrow.
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. I did finish this and have been working on a review that I was trying to get out today, but just wasn’t able to complete it, so I hope to have that done in the next day or two.
White Chocolate Moments by Lori Wick. Reviewed here. Lori’s always an enjoyable read.
Ever After by Karen Kingsbury. Reviewed here. Not my favorite of hers, but a good story overall.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Reviewed here. Enjoyed it very much and will likely read it again some time.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. This one I haven’t finished yet, so I’ll roll it over to the Spring Reading Challenge. Honestly, so far I am not enjoying it as much as I did Pride and Prejudice, though the film version is one of my favorite Austen adaptations. Hopefully it will get better.
The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 2) by Lemony Snicket. Just finished it today, so I haven’t reviewed it yet. I enjoyed the very clever writing. I was disappointed, though, at the presence of a four-letter word in a book for children, even though it was said by “the bad guy,” it was said again with a seeming wink by the narrator. It just doesn’t need to be there. I was also disturbed by the sentiment that it is “necessary” to lie sometimes, though the situation in which that is said could provide a discussion point with kids about whether that situation was really lying.
These were books I mentioned that I will be reading through the year, as they are laid out in weekly or daily sections:
Queen of the Castle: 52 Weeks of Encouragement for the Uninspired, Domestically Challenged or Just Plain Tired Homemaker by Lynn Bowen Walker. I am enjoying this a lot so far — I had seen it recommended on a couple of blogs during the fall challenge last year. Just to give you some advance notice, I’ll be having a Q&A session with the author, Lynn Bowen Walker, here May 2.
Daily Light on the Daily Path compiled by the Samuel Bagster family. I have read this many years over — always a blessing.
Wonderful Words by Stewart Custer. “OK” so far.
And, of course, the Bible, best book ever.
I am looking forward to changing that winter graphic to a spring one tomorrow!
