Stories and other stuff

I saw something in a facebook memory this morning that reminds me that, as much as I'd like to pretend I'm in control of anything in my life; I'm not.  The funny thing is it was a memory from two years ago that kind of balled that theme up with the idea of God making me deal with some unpleasant things from the past. I'm mindful that it was sometime this week nine years ago that Wendi left.  It's not a scab wound anymore; it's sufficiently healed to the scarred point.  I realized that when I was helping her chase her little one down in the front yard.  All I did was go out to check the mail and wound up wrangling a kid.  I was eating a tangerine.  Her daughter was crying, so I was then not eating a tangerine but giving it to her and giving her a hug and trying to dry her tears.  That's a long way from nine years ago. I got a text from said ex yesterday about an insurance matter.  It took me until yesterday to finally get her off all my insuran...

I've had the flu before.  But never like this.  When I went to the doctor on Sunday morning, I was in so much pain.  The body aches that come with the flu thought it would be fun if they found the parts of my back that hurt and take up space there.  The fever that came with this was no joke, either. The flu for me has always felt like a cold on steroids.  This time, it was something entirely different.  I didn't have a stuffy nose.  It was all in my chest and not in my head.  I had a dry hacking cough.  Never had one of those that I can remember.  The headache was horrible, and for a day and a half, nothing even put a dent in this.  I was so sick on Saturday, I tried making chicken soup but only got half way through the process.  I finally finished it on Sunday.  Being sick isn't fun, but I'm thankful for two things I bought when I replaced everything last year.  One is the TV in the bedroom which I'm enjoying tod...

Sometimes, you get confronted with some hard, Biblical truth at just the moment you were hoping for something else. I hate today.  Two marriages ended pretty much today, albeit several years apart and for some reason that fact is kind of smacking me in the face today.  Maybe it's the cloudy weather, or maybe it's frustration that things in that department remain somewhat stagnated.  The path still seems to be the path; had a chance to see her the other day, and maybe it's the pain of watching her leave again that's causing old wounds to be a little sore. I was so blessed to give a sermon on loving others on Sunday, and then there was a chance to see something on Wednesday morning that some others might have missed:  There's a married couple or two in our little Wednesday morning group and I'm Facebook friends with one of the couple who announced they were celebrating a longer period of time together than I myself have managed to last in a relationship. I w...

My TV service quit working.  The satellite dish went bad.  For that, I had to call someone out to have it fixed.  My provider sent out a technician but I had to take tonight off to be here when the guy showed up. He came early.  I had just finished mopping the floor, so the house was mostly clean.  I just puttered around putting things away, and I'm glad I did.  My house, for a bachelor who doesn't employ a housekeeper, is relatively clean.  I had some things out on the counter though that looked better put away.  I took care of that while the guy was working on the dish.  He got everything working.  Not sure why he did as much as he did, but he's the installer.  I'm just the homeowner.  In the end, everything works and I'm happy. But then, the sales rep showed up.  Why she was here, I have no idea, unless her job is to talk a lot.  I think the chit-chat lasted as long as it did because the installer was still h...

One of my memories of childhood was that when it was a holiday, the fancy dishes got busted out. We didn't have a lot, but for a time, before they got broken and had to be thrown away, my mom had these dishes that I always thought were a bit odd.  And I was thinking tonight about my affinity with the "good dishes" when I realized that it wasn't my fault.  I was raised that way, so I get to blame my mom. This is a photo of what I remember good dishes to be: Yup, the good stuff had wheat on it.  I think my mom got them from saving Gold Strike Stamps.  We weren't a green stamp family, we were a Gold Strike family.  I remember my mom trundling us into the Gold Strike Stamp showroom and the lady going through the books page by page to make sure no blank spots were there.  Funny what you remember.  I'm not sure where the dishes came from, but they were my mom's; they were for special occasions; after they were washed, they went back into the bo...

My plans get changed frequently.  I've learned to live with that, and sometimes things happen when they get changed that let me know that there might be reasons for them being changed that I might never understand. I'm going with that tonight.  Where I wanted to be just isn't where I was supposed to be.  Where I'm supposed to be is right where I am right now: Home. I just go with things, and I try to understand if there's something behind just having things change.  Sometimes, I don't always understand the reasoning.  I was going to fill in for my pastor friend a few weeks ago.  It snowed and his congregation cancelled church for the day.  I understand that.  The roads in Salt Lake were a mess that day.  I was asked to prepare some remarks for a thing at the Rescue Mission a few weeks ago.  I prepared them, but it was a fight to find the time to do it.  I finally got it done, only to be greeted when I showed up by someone el...

I saw this quote on a couple of plaques in the Hobby Lobby store the other day.  It's a paraphrase of Isaiah 58:11, which reads this way: The LORD will Guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scotched land and He will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail And this week, I've seen this happen in my life.  Except I think, and I don't think it a stretch to say this:  That He's providing for where I'm going, not for where I'm at. I explained earlier about the Chevy and how I came to own the RAV4.  I really like this thing, BTW.  It's at the shop tonight having an item installed that I never knew I couldn't live without until I saw somebody not live without it.  I sprung for the remote start and the dealer is paying 33% of the cost.  I need to interrupt this story to remind you of something else:  about a year ago, I got coerced into rotating to day shift every oth...