Stories and other stuff

I put the tree up about four days early this year.  I'm not anxious.  I just know that there's a better than fair chance I'm going to be working 12 hour days starting Tuesday.  Maybe even as early as Monday.  Rumor has it, anyway, so I took what day I had to do this kind of stuff and did it.  I'm glad I did.  I found a beautiful tree for a really fair price at Home Depot. I am 6'4" and I like my Christmas tree to be taller than I am.  It necessitates purchasing a larger tree than normal.  I found just the one.  I actually bought the first one I saw because it was as close to perfect as I've seen in years.  It appears to be fresh, too.  I like these trees because when you trim the branches you don't put huge holes in your Christmas tree.  This one doesn't even have an ugly side.  That's a blessing. Putting up a Christmas tree can be an ordeal.  I purposely bought the "Swivel Straight" tree stand the first time I sa...

Well, they're up!  And they're finally on! I finished hanging up my Christmas lights this afternoon.  It took a lot longer than I thought but they're up.  I only had fight with lights for about three hours. I did something this year I always wanted to do.  I went around the street side windows with white lights.  I think it makes the house look neat.  I always wanted to do it but was told no.  Instead I just wrapped the 7 wreaths (one for each window) with lights; four in white lights, three in red. This year, I found some lights we had.  I strung them around the windows instead of plugging in the wreaths.  It looks really neat.  I didn't stop there, though.  I did the garage door too.  And the electric post light in the front yard.  I thought maybe my neighbors might be a little tired of the same old same old so I mixed it up some. You can't be grinchy.

Thanksgiving at our house this year was a bit different.  We ate on borrowed dishes.  We sat on folding chairs and ate at a table the folks at church were kind enough to loan me.  The plates used to live here and I'm grateful to Wendi for loaning them to us.  It was a small touch of what home used to be.  The tablecloths were clean but well worn and stained. The turkey was lovingly cooked in a pan that has seen better days.  We lined the pan with foil and dinner came out well.  The table was a hodge-podge of dishes because Wendi has most of them still packed up.  There are orange and red mixing bowls and baking dishes here that were my favorite pattern these days (on clearance at Wal-mart!).  It beats cool whip and sour cream containers we've been using for tupperware around here.  We had no turkey platter this year, either, so I used a cookie sheet.  June bought drinking glasses on clearance at Wal-mart as well, so we have matchi...

A couple of things happened today that told me I needed to write this blog.  I've been trying to for about a week now without much success.  It's tough enough to think about, but writing about it has proven extraordinarily difficult.  Mostly because I had to deal with some stuff I didn't even know I was carrying around. First off, for clarification, my NO! has a name.  It's Tami Jo.  Actually, she has a new name these days because she's the one that got married.  The title might suggest and after reading what I'm writing, you might be thinking I'm thinking she's the one that got away.  Tami Jo didn't get away.  She wasn't the one for me.  I could, and have, come to think of it, tell lots and lots of stories about broken things, scratched cars, lost jobs, and any number of disasters we faced when we were seeing each other.  Sometimes even talking about seeing each other would result in disaster for either or both of us.  For His re...

This was on my Facebook page just a few minutes ago: Which is just perfect for tonight. My "No" got married. Congratulations!

The interweb is kind of cool for some things.  Like trying to figure out how that last software update screwed up your computer. This is the first kind of issue I've found with a mac that things weren't backward compatible.  Turns out though that my all in one fax copy scanner didn't like the last upgrade to Snow Leopard.  After playing with it off and on for a while, I remembered the little oddity with Apple:  The plist file. I don't exactly know what the plist is for but I do know if something ain't right, the plist file has to go.  After several attempts to re-load the software from HP that's supposed to work with the scanner, I got the scanner to work.  But not with the software that came with it. Apple has two functions that make the scanner work, Image Viewer and Preview.  Both work for scanning and to upload what I had to scan, it actually worked pretty well.  It took a lot of research to find all of this out.  My old friend the ...

I've been very blessed to do a job I really enjoy for the last 30 years.  Granted, the fuel tank gig wasn't exactly my favorite thing, but I was always grateful to have the job.  Lately, though, I've had the opportunity to reflect on a lot of things and in the examination of things that have gone wrong over the last four years, it seems to me that the wheels came off the tricycle shortly after I started at Hill field. In just the last two years, this job is taking it's toll on the body.  I've had bursitis in both elbows at the same time and now I'm laid up with the same thing in my knee.  My right knee and ankle are a mess at any given time and still ache from past surgeries.  By the time I get home from work, I can't hardly move some days.  Those some days are getting more and more frequent. Last night, I went to see the Dr.  After reviewing my chart, she was convinced that I was having a gout attack.  I haven't had too many of those since I ...

I'm such an idiot, but in my defense, it's not my fault sometimes.  In those sometimes, God in His wisdom chooses the right time to show me the error; usually after learning a lesson.  That happened to me this week and I didn't see it until this morning. Since Wednesday, I've been meaning to write a blog post about ignoring lesson eleven in my class "Caring for God's People". I mentioned it in passing the other day.  Last Saturday, the instructor for that day wrote something down on the board.  It's a saying that reads something like "The worst reconciliation is better than the best divorce." Ouch! I met a man on Sunday at church. After we talked a bit, I promised I'd pray for him all week.  I've been faithful to that promise but it wasn't until listening to a classmate give her report that I realized what I'd been doing is using lesson eleven on reconciliation all week. What I'd been praying for, in a very real wa...

I talked about money the other day.  I mentioned that the big check isn't coming.  But I did ask God what I could do with what I had.  Apparently I can do a lot more than I thought I could.  I need to share with you two items taken from my Facebook news feed earlier this morning to set the stage for the story I'm going to tell. The first is a meme: The second is a status update: Walk with Jesus “Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” Luke 21:1-4 Click >>  www.worksoffaith.com  << to make an impact! Like  ·   ·  Share  ·  525 10 57  ·  10 minutes ago  ·  Just as an aside, dropping these li...

I'm having a pretty blessed day.  Me and Bucket are hangin' out on the big comfy bed.  We slept really good last night.  The house is kinda empty and quiet but I got Buckey and we're hanging out watching war movies on TV. The Christmas lights I can put up are hung.  Wires are run.  I'm gonna turn them on once when it gets dark, just to make sure the whole thing works, and then they're off until the day after Thanksgiving.  It was good to hang them up just wearing a shirt.  It was a beautiful day today. The leaves were rounded up into piles.  I used my leaf blower to do this for the first time since I've had it.  And then I decided that just mowing the lawn was easier.  The mower made quick work of those piles of leaves, though.  The size of my compost pile doubled today.  The lawn is mowed for the final time this year and the mower is almost out of gas.  I need to drain the string trimmer and that will be that. I get...

OK, this starts off with a confession.  I did not vote on Tuesday.  Mostly because as far as I know nobody was running for me to vote for.  The elections board always sends out a card telling me where my polling place is for the election.  I did not receive one, nor do I recall seeing campaign signs or mailers for anything.  I didn't take the time to investigate. My councilperson isn't due for re-election until next year if memory serves me, so I didn't vote. So this morning, I had a conversation with a young man, but before I tell you about it, I need to say this:  The verse I shared from 1 Timothy carries an admonition about arguing over words.  Arguing was not what I had intended but the young man in question kind of interjected into a conversation I was having with another person.  The woman I was talking to and I are both federal workers and had some common concerns about the on-going budget discussions.  They young man made some comme...

I hear this about once a month.  It's not mean-spirited.  Actually, the person to whom the check gets written has been quite understanding about the furlough thing.  Still, writing that check hurts.  It's someplace between 20-25% of my monthly take home pay (before overtime).  It's hard to write that check sometimes, but necessary.  Sin has a cost, and the sin of divorce in my life has cost me plenty of treasure.  That treasure may be significant but it's small when compared to the incalculable damage done to my children because of it.  You could never put a price on what I lost with my kids. I was at a mens' conference and one of the speakers said something there that I was really holding onto.  Following the ways of the world, when I was a bigger fool than I am now, I let the evil one take a lot from me.  God allowed me to keep some things but the evil one took the things that mattered most, along with a great amount of treasure alon...

Few things are as constant in life as change.  That little sentence sounds stupid, I know.  But change is happening here at Lark Circle. I was rudely wakened earlier than I wanted to be by two things:  the call of nature and Bucket.  Buckey loves the snow and he was wagging to go outside.  When Buck gets really excited his whole body wags.  It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's quality entertainment. More changes are in store, besides the weather.  Things are happening around here at a hectic pace and in the midst of it, among the noise and chaos, there is something that's been missing: Peace. And an admonition. I was really compelled to open up the Bible this morning and I turned to John Chapter 5.  The passage of scripture that caught my attention was the admonition to the paralytic that Jesus healed when He told the man to stop sinning or something worse would happen to him. And then there was the next passage of Scripture I...