Right Again

When my son was 8 we delivered meals for "Meals on Wheels."
This is one of our conversations (6 years ago) as I remember it.
"Mom, can I get a Play Station?"
"No."
"Why? I will pay for it."
"No."
"WHY?"
"Because you are an 8 year old boy and very capable of playing real games. You do not need any sort of virtual reality."
"Huh?"
"You have a very nice back yard, lots of sports equipment, a bike, a shovel, a tool box, an old radio, scrap wood, toys, games and most importantly friends in the neighborhood to play with. You are healthy and strong. Why do you need a Play Station?"
"But Mom."
"Let's deliver this meal to Mr. Williams. You visit with him while I put the meal out."

Poor Mr. Williams, he lost his wife. His children live far away. He can't drive anymore and most of his friends have passed. He had no one in the neighborhood to play with.

Back in the car, "Mom, when can I get a Play Station??!!"
"When you're as old as Mr. Williams."

Today I read that the local nursing home just bought an X-Box and a Wii for the seniors.

I hate to brag, but.......... I was right again...........oh yeah.........

Scratch The Earth, Part II

Part II

Our friend asked, "Will you tell this to your teenagers?"
"Yes, we will."
"I met a man about forty years ago. He always was curious about what I did, but never asked me directly - so I never told him. He knew I was a Christian - but I never told him so. He knew I ministered to others - but never asked me to minister to him. I saw him not too long ago and he told me about some problems he was having. I asked him if I could pray for him. He said 'yes', so I did. When I was done he said, 'You know, I didn't like you when I first met you.' **hearty laughter from all** I scratched the earth forty years ago, and only got to plant a seed now. Build relationships. Scratch the ground. Plant a seed. Tell this to your children."
"Okay, we will."
"Love you guys."
"You know, we didn't like you when we first met you." **more hearty laughter**
"Well, I've always loved you guys." **tears**
"We always loved you too." **more tears and laughter**

Scratch The Earth

Here is a message told to me and my husband by a dear, dear friend of ours who is very sick. I pray I do it justice.

"I have a lot of time to think and pray because I am too sick to do much else. God has shown me many things. One important thing He has shown me and I want to share with you is this: Our best witness for Him is not in quoting scripture, not in shoving a Bible or a tract in someone's hand but in establishing relationships. No, don't beat anyone over the head with your Bible. Saying, 'Here, read this' means nothing, . . . nothing. But if we can talk to someone, build a relationship, that's like scratching the earth. As we grow in our relationships with others, we drop seeds. Then, we sit back and let God do the rest. Sometimes, we get lucky and see the seed grow. All God is asking us to do is scratch the ground and plant a seed. He will tend to the seed, see that it is watered and grow it. Teach this to your teenagers because it is very important to the Kingdom of God. Tell them to have friendships with all sorts of people. Scratch the ground, drop a seed and grow God's Kingdom."

Ridiculous Dialog

"You're ridiculous!"
"No, you're ridiculous!"
"I'm ridiculous?
"Yes, you're ridiculous!"
"I'm not the one who is being ridiculous here!"
"Oh, so you're saying I'm the one being ridiculous?"
"Are you hard of hearing?? You're ridiculous!"
"Wait, why am I ridiculous?"
"I don't know - you started it!"
"I started it?"
"Yes, you started it!"
"Nuh-uhh! You started it!"

Shamefully, this dialog was between an 18 year old girl and her lovely mother. Poor, dear woman, she's a saint.

"She is not!"
"She is too, and get off my blog!"

The Tinkerer

My father was a tinkerer. He had this little workshop in the basement. The room was mostly below ground, with one high rectangular window. The room was always dark, even on the brightest of days. On those bright days you could see every dust particle that floated in the air in the stream of sunlight that came through that window. My father had a bare light bulb that he turned on by screwing it in by hand, turning it off by unscrewing it. He had a soldering tool, a wood burner, old mayonnaise jars filled with nails, screws, nuts and bolts, a saw, a screwdriver, a hammer, some twine, some paint, some turpentine and a vice. He fixed the toaster once, my mother's electric frying pan and the iron. His garage work area consisted of a push mower, a shovel, an electric hedge clipper, a ladder, a bench, scissors and a clipper. He mowed the lawn, trimmed the hedges, pruned the trees, painted the rocks, and made a pond with an old kitchen sink. He worked 9 - 5 and a few nights a week. He seldom got phone calls, never knew a Home Depot, never had fast food or cable TV. Yet, he was satisfied. What he had was all he needed. His wife, his home, his children, his family and his small set of tools. He tinkered with his tools and he was satisfied. It is not in the amount of possessions you have, but what you do with the ones you do have.

I'm Begging Your Pardon

I have just been on a wild adventure. It was exhausting and exhilarating and intense. I was at it for about 4 hours yesterday and nearly 3 hours the day before. I couldn't do it alone so I took along a dear friend of mine (Thanks L). The stamina, the staying power just to get through has depleted me of all energy. You must be curious as to what we've been up to ..........
I booked my family on a 12 day trip to the northwest using Frequent Flyer miles!! You would think I was asking the airlines to give me a private plane! I needed our card numbers and our pin numbers, I needed to find a flight that had flyer mile seats available (it seems I was able to get us to a destination, but not get us back), then I had to hold the reservation, call a different number to "divide out" mileage, call back to make the reservation a ticket - but guess what? one member of our family didn't have enough mileage, so I needed to transfer mileage and guess what? that cost me $165.00. Then somehow in the 1 hour and 15 minutes that it took me to transfer mileage, the airfare went up and so did the amount of miles needed to get a "free" flight (it cost $30.00 per person to get your free flight). Now I had to pay for one ticket and only get 4 free tickets. After all was said and done, I sat back and excitedly said to my husband, "We're booked for a 12 day trip to Yellowstone National Park and it cost us less than $700.00 to get there!" He said, "Great, do we have good seats?" "WHAT? I DON'T THINK I GOT US SEAT ASSIGNMENTS YET?" This is the short version of my conversations with the airline's satellite office in India.
Airline: "gibberish."
Me: "Are you speaking English?"
Airline: "Si"
Me: click
Airline: (with heavy accent) "My name is Natalie and here I am to help you."
Me: (soft prayer to self) "I need seat assignments for my trip. I have 5 confirmation numbers and I'd like us to sit all together."
Natalie: "We have 23 A,B,C,E & F"
Me: "What happen to D?"
Natalie: "I'm begging your pardon."
Me: "Never mind. How many rows are on the plane?"
Natalie: "23."
Me: "I don't want to be in the last row next to the bathroom and in seats that can't move back."
Natalie: "I can give you 18E and F, 19 A and B and 21 F."
Me: "Are these window, middle or isle seats?:
Natalie: "Yes."
Me: "I'm begging your pardon? I mean, I'll just go online and see if I can do better myself."
Natalie: "I am happy today that I am here to help you and if you need anymore service I am happy to help you again. Have a nice day and thank you for calling me."

I'm so tired - it's a good thing I have a few weeks to recover before our trip...............

Take A Hike

Vacations are important, no matter how short, no matter where to, no matter the weather, no matter what. It's important to step aside from the busyness of our lives and to sit back and observe the world from a resting position. It's just not healthy to be in drive all the time. We need to rest our engines, put it in neutral, cool our jets, put it on the back burner, let it simmer, (you get the idea) or just turn it off. God gives us this example in the first book of the Bible ". . .and He rested on the seventh day from all His work . . ." How do you imagine God rested? Did He sleep? Observe the world He just created? Plan man? Eat? Hike? Swim? Fly a kite? Body surf? Have a party with His peeps (you know, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, the angels)? (Is it a sin to call Jesus and the Holy Spirit peeps?) I like to imagine He went to the beach and quietly observed the seas and then went to the mountains and quietly observed the land. And then I imagine He went and contemplated all He had just created and made plans . . . plans for me and for you, for all His children. Imagine, the Creator of the Universe thought of me and you on the seventh day . . . how cool is that? I love vacations - they give me time to observe the world and contemplate....................

Pay Attention

While chatting with a friend, I discovered that I have changed my way of communicating since I have teenagers. I use strategies rather than just plain talking. I'm thinking that part of this is because of the age we live in, there are just too many distractions, but part of it is dealing with teenagers. I'm not sure how effective this is, or how appropriate it is in all situations, but I think it works . . . and I'll be sure to ask the kids the next time I get their undivided attention. So here it is. As I talk to the kids, I fit everything into a neat little paragraph and I move around a lot, and when I think I'm losing their attention, I charge at them and halt right before slamming into them. If they weren't paying attention to me before this move, they certainly will be more attentive after this. Stamping my feet right next to their bare feet works, too. Oh, and the little air horn - works like a charm. But, as in all things, there is a need for balance and boundaries. I mean, someone who was getting coffee at the Quicky Mart would not be at all happy about being startled by an air horn - nor would be the teenager who works there that has to clean up said coffee - nor would my daughter who claims she's already listening. Me, on the other hand, I'd be thrill from the 3 high five's I'd get on the way out from other moms. I just love all the attention ..............

Texting - Part III

Texting is antisocial. There, I said it. I am not buying the argument that (please read this with a high pitched whine in your voice for the full effect), "I talk to more people now than ever before because it's easier to text someone than it is to call them." Ha - that proves my point!! If you don't have enough social skills to talk to someone in person or over the phone you aren't going to learn any social skills by texting someone. Social skills are a learned behavior that takes self confidence and a certain amount of poise which you cannot learn while texting. Social skills are to be practiced in a variety of situations. Texting friends is not really being social. Yes, it's communication, but on a very primitive level. It requires no finesse (and apparently no spelling or grammar either). Half the fun of interacting with someone is . . . well . . . interacting. Maybe if our teens learn better social skills they will find a spouse and leave home sooner (jk). All I'm saying is that teens are way to connected to their cell phones and this does not mean they are being social. It is really the opposite, they talk less in person and have become less comfortable talking to their peeps in person, opting instead to text each other. This is the end of my tirade, if you don't like it, send me a text - I'm not comfortable with confrontations.

Texting - Part II

Texting is rude - as Jar-Jar Binks would say, "How wude!" The whole "multi-tasking" thing is very disturbing to me. It gives people (when I say people I really mean teenagers) the impression that sharing your attention between two or more tasks is okay. In my book, it's just rude. Whatever happen to "undivided attention?" In most parenting books I read back in the late 80's and early 90's, the advice du jour was to give your children undivided attention (now it's quality time - I'm not digging that either - I got issues). Multi-tasking was a no-no. Listen to your children, set aside whatever it is that you are doing and give your child your attention, make your child feel as though they are more important than any task at hand. I followed that advice - I hung up the phone, I let the dinner simmer, I turned off the TV, the radio, the computer, set the bills aside and never interrupted them. I thought that the pay off was to have the same respect from them. Then along came cell phones and text messaging. I liked the idea of being able to call my child no matter where they were, so I was okay with them having phones (that they paid for, of course). But I didn't realize that the costs (texting while I am speaking) would out weigh the benefits. I mean, I really don't like to quote a Gungan, but "How wude!" I see people (and when I say people, this time I mean people) texting while driving, eating dinner out, shopping, walking the dog, navigating busy sidewalks, in the classroom, in the bathroom, in the post office . . . you get the picture. Ugh, it makes me crazy. This is not multi-tasking, it is just plain rude! Are you listening to me??? I can't tell because your fingers are going at mach speed!!! Why is your pocket vibrating while I am talking to you??? You're grounded, text that!

to be continued...............

Texting - Part I

This is my opinion on text messaging . . . if you are one of the millions of people addicted to texting, please skip this . . . text messaging is bad for your mental health and it makes you stupid. How? Well, if every time a thought pops into your head, you text it to a friend, a spouse, yourself, or everyone in your address book, you give yourself permission not to commit that thought to long term memory. You are training yourself to text it and forget it, thus denying yourself full use of your God-given brain, thus shrinking your brain power, thus making you stupid. You never have to make a "mental note" of anything because you just text it. I know people who frequently text themselves. I mean, if you have a disease and you know your brain is not functioning at full capacity, then I see no problem texting yourself to remember something (like "take your meds"). But, if you are a healthy individual, you are just encouraging poor mental health and stupidity in yourself. And, furthermore, is every thought that pops into your head really worth remembering and sharing?????????????? Plus, how bad is it to forget to defrost that chicken (really, that's what microwaves are for). My kids just think I'm too cheap to get text messaging, but really I'm just being smart.