name tag baggage

i hate name tags. . . well not the idea of name tags or name tags themselves. . . i hate the placement of name tags - always have.

i remember one of the first times i had to wear one as a kid. i was a visitor at a Sunday School and they gave me a very cool looking name tag and told me to put it right where i would place my hand when saying the Pledge of Allegiance - over my heart.

i thought that was weird.

i thought the palm of my left hand would be a much better place. i could just wave "hi" and flash my name at the same time. if i wanted to answer the sure-to-be-coming bible story questions - the teacher would see my name tag on my raised hand and call me by name - i would just have to remember to raise my left hand instead of my usual right.

i took too long thinking about where to place the name tag so the teacher did it for me.

it didn't take too long for my name tag to find its way to my left hand. as soon as that was noticed, the teacher carefully put it back where it belonged.

soon the name tag was on my right hand and even sooner - it was back - plastered to my chest.

i looked at the teacher. she looked at me. i nodded in acknowledgment that this was over. she smiled acknowledging that i was now acknowledging the correct placement of said name tag.

and then my name tag mysteriously disappeared. "we" looked for it on the floor, under the table, in my bible (i would never have desecrated my bible by sticking a name tag to one of its pages), and under my chair. but it was gone.

but it really wasn't a problem.

the teacher had my name memorized the second time she had to help my name tag find it's way back to it's spot. the other girls in my class remembered my name too.

the teacher made a point of meeting my parents. she told them about the name tag.

on the way home they asked me about it and i tried very hard not to lie while peeling it off the bottom of my left shoe.

as a kid i thought the over-heart-placement was dumb. as an adult i think it is even dumber.

i like the idea of small name tags worn on our foreheads. i only get to know what your name is should i choose to talk to you or you choose to talk to me. i can look at your forehead and then your eyes and engage in meaningful conversation.

and isn't that the point. . .

walking the valleys

i have friends going through difficult, hard, yucky times. . . and not because of poor decision making. . . it's just life. . . no one's fault, no one's goof. . . just life.

and i have found myself saying over and over to them and myself that "there are no good words to make this better." and that is the truth.

being a Christ follower doesn't exempt one from problems - no matter what the televangelists spout.

but being a Christ follower does mean walking with each other through those valleys.

really walking.

the inconvenient kind of walking. . . making time, meals, and way for someone in the very thick of it.

being available. being vulnerable. being flexible.

really it's like being God with skin on for someone.

it is easier to walk other's valleys after someone has walked with us through one of our own. . .

i am grateful today for those friends and family who chose to do the hard thing, the difficult thing and walk with me through my valleys.

are you walking through a valley today?

are you alone?

making time to make change

i thought that being empty nesters who are well aware of the fact that there is only us empty nesters either messing up or picking up, the house should stay relatively clean. i was wrong.

while it has stayed picked up in some areas and clean in others, it has not stayed picked up AND clean anywhere. i do not function well in messiness and where it is obvious that what is lacking is lacking on my watch. so i made time over the weekend to set up my flipper system.

(Side Road: a while back i wrote about different methods to help with living life in a comfortable home - read "how to keep your house clean while raising children, pets, husbands, and plants without losing what's left of your mind" - please look up the old post OR better yet. . . check out this link THE FLIPPER SYSTEM).

i had purchased The Flipper a while back knowing that i needed to make time to set it up. but i have been more than busy and perhaps just a wee bit tired lately from all that extraneous busy-ness. (more about that later). looking back, i realize that i had considered The Flipper being a sort of lucky rabbit's foot (and yes, i see the irony in a rabbit's foot being anything but lucky for its original owner). i somehow believed that the newly purchased Flipper System nicely installed in a place of honor on my home office desk would somehow ward off wretched dirt gremlins and the evil dust bunnies (that dust bunnies do not "protect" one's stuff was a myth that died hard in this home).

but waking up to the fact that those housework elves advertised to clean while you sleep have never made an appearance in the last 28 years and therefore, cannot be counted out to show up now - was both freeing and motivating (read "a gentle kick in the keester") - so i set aside some time and set up The Flipper.

and that's what it came down to. . . making time to make change.

i set it up on Saturday and put it into play on Sunday. it is now Monday, and things are manageable and measurable. and most importantly, my brain has stopped hurting!!!

i'll let you know how it goes. . . or maybe i'll let dave let you know how it goes. . .

God Playing Tennis Commercial

well, i hadn't thought about it. . . but God must have an awesome tennis game. . .

the love of numbers can get a person in trouble

i love numbers. always have, always will. and it has gotten me into trouble on more than one occasion.

i had fresh green beans from Indiana when my folks were here this summer. and it got me thinking about how sometimes a person should keep her ever lovin' mouth shut when it comes to number crunching and "canning."

a group of women at our first church asked me to come and spend an afternoon "canning beans" with them. i was excited but massively unprepared for what i walking into.

"canning beans" meant
picking the beans - from the actual bean plant nestled in the dirt of the garden (and there are bugs in that there garden - more than you would suspect). (side road - and may i just point out that my dad's vegetable garden was big - this farm wife's vegetable garden was the size of Rhode Island.)

washing the beans we just picked off that bean plant nestled in the dirt of that bug infested garden (and yes, i am aware that some of those bugs are really a valuable part of the ecosystem that is a garden).

snapping the beans - and yes, there IS a CORRECT way to SNAP those beans we just picked off that bean plant nestled in the dirt. . . and size does matter here in the world of snapping beans. . . i was surprised to know there was a canning standard as well as personal preference.

filling the "canning jars" with the beans that we had just picked off those bean plants. . . and don't kid yourself here, there are some steps involved in preparing the "canning jars" that i was not privy to, but was told they are important to the process.

adding boiling water to the "canning jars" filled with green beans from the bean plant nestled in the garden. . .

cooking those beans in the "canning jars" placed in a scary, hissing pressure cooker pot. ( i think that the hissing sound could end up being a comforting sound, if exposed to it enough times and if you could associate the hiss with the great taste of home canned green beans.)

you can see where i'm going with this, right? my mind wandered a bit and i stated thinking about. . .
x = number of women involved
y = number of hours spent in process
x times y times $ (minimum wage) divided by the number of quarts "put up" - canning speak for "canned" - gives us "z", cost per quart.
cost per quart against sale price of store bought, generic, canned green beans.
sale price of store bought, generic, canned green beans are cheaper (obviously, i did not take quality or taste into consideration).

and i, of course, pointed this out - pretty much out loud to the group of lovely women - completely missing the point of spending an afternoon canning green beans with friends.

spending time with friends - priceless.

spending time with friends in the great outdoors, picking vine-ripened vegetables out of one of the participants very own "Rhode Island big" vegetable garden - priceless.

spending time with friends in the great indoors, snapping and canning those vegetables while sharing bits of each others lives - priceless.

spending time with friends knowing that during the winter each of you will be sharing a bit of that summer's afternoon with her family over a Sunday dinner of pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, and home baked dessert to follow - priceless.

i guess what i'm trying to say is. . . if you are ever invited to an afternoon of canning. . . the dirt, the bugs, the beans, the hissing pot, the friendship, the comraderie, and the little bit summer you just captured in that canning jar. . .

don't "do the math" - just enjoy the moment.

and if you do "do the math". . . for heaven's sake, keep it to yourself!

i'm committed. . .

so i mentioned that i have been making an effort to stop being such a couch potato and get my body moving again. but did i mention that i don't have much to work with???

this is an almost-50-year-old version of a body that has been somewhat shabbily taken care of except for the 36 months or 3 years - whichever sounds worse - that were committed to 4 non-easy-breezy pregnancies followed by hours and hours and hours of labor getting those children here!!

yeah, no. . . a combined 7 hours of labor between 4 births. . . i exaggerated a tad. . .

but i do not exaggerate the fact that i have used and abused and basically ignored my standard issued human suit - only checking in with it on the rare occasions it acted up. i hate doctors and their offices and their hospitals so the ignoring part was and is easy.

two years ago i noticed that i started to make those noises in the mornings that my parents made. . . you know, the moaning and groaning that comes outta nowhere as you hoist yourself up and out of your very comfy bed. . . yeah, those. bad sign. really bad sign if you are in "middle aged" denial. it has only gone downhill from there. i stood on the sidelines, watching in mortifyingly, bored fascination as my young self morphed into my not-so-young self and then again into my never-going-to-be-young-again self.

so today, i take full responsibility for the condition - or is that non-condition that i have found myself in. BUT this is the first time in my married and mommied life i feel like i can make the time to take the time to invest in my health. sad, i know.

young mothers, do not do as i and so many women who have gone before you have done. . . living our harried parental lives by the mommy martyr creed - "i have given my life for my children, sacrificing everything including my size 2 jeans, to provide them with a good and safe and happy childhood. . . and delicious, nutritious meals and snacks. . . and a moderately priced but miraculously "in" wardrobe influenced by whatever sports or music idol they are aspiring to be. . . and a car and driver available at the whim of their schedules. . . oh, yeah, and an almost clean but comfortable home."

forsaking our own health club memberships in the quest to be the perfect mommies, we laid ourselves on the sacred altar of martyrdom and waited around to see if anyone noticed.

ok, no one noticed and now i find myself carrying around the pound-for-pound equivalent of a small kindergartner around my waist and hips.

so i am committed to sweating - and yes, i said the "S" word- 5 nights a week. and no, it is not to get back in shape. . . i have a "shape" and while i am not particularly fond of it, i am pretty convinced it is my density. :)

i am committed to my walking/jogging/staggering routine because
a. it feels soooooooooo good when the time is up and i get back in my car and drive home.
b. nothing, and i mean nothing reminds me of the mind-numbing, body exhaustion of being "mommy" to a brood of delightfully energetic pre-schoolers like dragging myself around a two mile loop of asphalt TWICE in this almost 50 year old body at the end of long, hard day.

Zoom Episode one - intro

for those who are old enough to remember this kid's show from the 70's. . . who can forget "ubbie dubbie" and musical numbers like "the cat came back?"