Did that really happen?

Monday night of this week, we heard a crash, and then our power cut off. No flickers, no storm, just the noise as if a transformer had exploded or something. We wait a few minutes to see if it will return. It didn't. Bobby checked to see if anyone on our street had lights (school side did, but not anyone on our grid's side) and did briefly see some lights down the road. We waited, and the generator kicked in. After a few more minutes, I call the power company, and am told that 12 people in our area are without power and a crew has been dispatched to find and resolve the problem.  About ten minutes later there's a knock on the door. I tell Bobby to answer it, fully expecting it to be a crewman wanting to know how we have power when no one else on our grid does. (That's actually happened before.) It was a young man who said he had swerved to miss a deer and landed in the woods. His cell phone battery went dead as he tried to make a call, and he was wondering if he could use our phone to call someone. I give him my cell phone, and could hear his side of the conversation. I was a bit shocked. Usually when someone wrecks on our road, people want to know if they're okay, if they've called the police, how fast where they speeding, if they're in a safe location and is it okay if they stay at our place until family/police can get there. There was none of that. They asked if he could go to Chik-fil-A (a ten minute drive away, and it's about 45 degrees outside). He told them the air bag had deployed and the car was stuck in the woods. He didn't mention that he'd hit a light pole and not a tree. I don't remember all the details of what was said, but I got the impression he was left without help. When I went back to get the phone, I realized his nose was bleeding. I don't know if his chin was or if his nose had just been dripping down his face. I got him a warm wash cloth, asked if his family was coming. He said they only had one working car, which he had just crashed, and wanted to know if we could help him or knew someone who could get his car out. We didn't, so I asked him if we could take him anywhere. Since I had heard them mention Chik-fil-A I thought we might take him there to meet his family. He had mentioned earlier he had a relative down the road (where he had left from) and his home was about 25-30 minutes from us. Bobby looked shocked and gave me one of those looks. So they get in the van and off they go. About the time they should be arriving at the boy's house, I get call from the person he had tried to reach. They had no idea where our road was located, and were mostly concerned about the car and getting it. When I told them Bobby was taking him home and they should be there, they said they'd go back home. Fifteen  minutes later I get a text wanting to know where they are and asking if I could call and find out. Since Bobby can't use his phone while driving, I couldn't. I did try to call him, though, as well as start googling the number the boy had called to see what I could find out. I quit answering my phone's rings at that point as I had no answers for anyone. Bobby then called and informed me they were at the police station and he'd update me when he got home.

The young man went to sleep once he got in the van, and Bobby couldn't get him to wake up enough to give directions to his house. So he drove him to the police station, where they eventually searched him, arrested him, and then took him to the hospital. He had 10g of cocaine in his pocket, and I'm not sure what all else. I texted the person to let them know the police had taken him to the hospital. They wanted to know which one, but I had no other information to give them. I didn't mention the arrest or the drugs. We were both wondering the next day if he was okay, and if the injuries were sustained from the wreck or something else. He had to be going fast (which a lot of people do since our road is paved) to have landed that far off the road and taken out the power.

The police were kind of shocked and laughing about a handicapped person delivering a dealer to them. They asked him if he wanted a number. Bobby wants to know if I was trying to get him killed. I simply want to treat people the same way I want to be treated. Had I been hurt and alone after a wreck, I would have welcomed assistance. I hope the boy is okay physically, and I hope this is the wake-up call he needs. My prayer for him now is that someone will introduce him to Jesus, and that he can recover from the bad choices he's made so far in his life. It all still seems like a weird dream.

when things go awry

So far I'm batting 3 for 3, as in not getting things right. Yesterday I was taking a meal to a friend from church. Sometimes when that's on my schedule, I'll make extra and we'll eat the same thing. When we sat down to eat, 2 of the 4 things I prepared did not taste all that great to me. My husband, who is bluntly honest about things, said it tasted okay to him. I'm hoping my tastebuds are just off, but I've spent today pondering whether or not they liked the meal. It's the first time I've ever prepared food for this family, so that made me want it to be extra special.

And tonight I was supposed to call the courthouse to find out about my assigned arrival time for jury duty tomorrow. It's been 2.5 hours since I was supposed to check in, and I STILL cannot get through. All I get is the recording operator, and when I finally make it out of the loop, it either hangs up or I get a busy signal. This is crazy!!!  Several years ago when I had duty, I called, entered a number, and it told me everything I needed to know. So basically, tomorrow morning I'll now have to drive downtown, find a place to park, and hope that I'm supposed to be there in the morning instead of the afternoon. Wake County clearly needs a better system.

Last week, while cutting grass, I began breaking out in a strange rash. And for the three remaining days after that, I'd have new places pop up. It was weird. On day four I called and made an appointment with the dr. Long story short, she wants me to try OTC allergy medicine any time I'm going to be working outside, and I have a prescription back-up just in case it happens again. I often will develop whelps or small swollen spots with mosquito bites, so that I expect to see. But this is unlike anything I've ever had before. Thankfully after I called the dr it quit spreading, though not all of them have gone away.

It has been a busy, although good, summer. Saturday was the first morning since mid-June that we've not woke up to an alarm clock (and that's only because I incorrectly set it the night before and we overslept) and I'm really looking forward to a day when we can simply wake up.

At some point pics will come...just not this week.

9:57pm update...finally got through to the courthouse...no jury duty tomorrow. Yard work instead.

backpack drives

A friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day that the average parent spends $650 getting their child for school. She was aghast. I personally don't believe it. There's simply no way the average parent can afford that. Actually, I know very few people who could afford that.

And with everyone having backpack drives (the local Methodist church in Garner, the First Baptist HOPE group, the library, WRAL, Wake GOP, just to name a few) to help families in need, I can't help but wonder exactly what is going on here. I know not everyone recycles their crayons from year to year like we sometimes did, nor use the same binder from the year before (provided we had "taken care of it"), but there's seems to be an inordinate amount of need.

So using Wake County's school list, here's what it would cost for a 5th grader to go back to school:

2 two inch binders $6 each                                                                $12.00
• Glue sticks (set of 6) .50 for 2                                                          $  1.50
• Disinfecting Wipes $3.97                                                                 $ 4.00
• 1 box of tissues   $1.60                                                                     $  2.00
• 1 roll of paper towels $.97                                                                 $  1.00

• 6 marble composition notebooks $7.00 (4 in a pack)                  $ 14.00

• 1pack wide ruled notebook paper $2.97                                         $  3.00

• 1 box of colored pencils (pre-sharpened) $2.00                             $  2.00
• 24  #2 pencils (shaprpened) $3.00                                                   $ 3.00

• Crayola Broadline markers (set of 10)  $1.00                                 $1.00

• Ear buds or headphones (in Ziploc labeled with student's name) $10.00
Total Required by School:                                           $53.00              

Things people want but not required: Total if splurging: $50.00
Backpack  $25
Lunch box $10
Purse $ 15

Things a child needs that are on sale when school starts:
Underwear: bras $9.00, undies $8.00
Socks $7.00
Jeans (3 pair) $40.00
T-shirts (3): $30.00
Tennis shoes: $15-30.00
Running/gym shoes: $25.00 (recognizing this would be higher for a boy)
Total: $149

Grand Total: $253.00

That's a lot of money, but it's nowhere near the amount my friend had seen. Granted, if you had to pay lab fees and purchase a scientific calculator and locker fees and club fees that high schoolers often pay, the cost would rise quite a bit.  But the above prices I pulled from a Wal-mart and Target sales flyer. If you went to Dollar Tree or Family Dollar, you could bring that price down significantly if you needed to.

Do families need help? Absolutely! And I'm all for helping families out. But it seems to me with every group on almost every corner collecting school supplies, the county should be overstocked on school supplies by now.

disturbing, but not surprising

Yesterday I read a disturbing article in the News & Observer about adults taking (abusing) ADHD medicine for the sole purpose of being able to work more/sleep less. For example, people working in the corporate world, Wall Street is specifically mentioned, do not "have time" to sleep more than four hours a night. Some of them get less. The article also high lights that this is a common practice in colleges around exam time and when many projects are due.

I attended a Christian college. And yet, there were several students in the girls dorm that would buy caffeine pills or stimulants to help them focus when they "needed" to pull an all-nighter. I had a roommate that used them so much her sleeping habits were altered, forcing her to use sleeping pills, which opened up a whole new can of worms.

So here's one thing that baffled me after reading the article. If places of higher education are full of people who are not disciplining themselves to maintain a manageable schedule, to say no, and to be realistic, and have been for years, then why is everyone so surprised and shocked and concerned that the upper echelons of working society are now continuing the same practice they employed in college/their formative adult years?

When I visited third world countries and lived in China, I was often struck at how they perceived Americans as "controlling" or "arrogant".  I asked some of my students once exactly what they meant by that, and they responded with time change as an example. Instead of getting up earlier and staying in sync with nature's time clock, we change our clock and schedules to keep the sunlight and our routines on the same path. They saw that as an American attempt to control nature. I as totally blown away by such a thought process, but since being back in the states, I do observe this "I'm in control attitude" when I never had before my time overseas. And I think this news article is yet another example of that. Instead of admitting that we are human, which means our bodies are require rest and times to recharge, we instead seek ways to give ourselves more energy to become more invincible, all-powerful, ever alert and cognisant, never sleeping, never slumbering. In essence, like Lucifer, we're still striving to be like God.

It's sad that a nation that was once so powerful is now so prideful and unwilling to recognize the dangers of defying nature and natural processes in the name of "getting ahead" and "staying in the game". Days of reckoning do come, whether its an obese person realizing their body is no longer coping with the abuse heaped on it over the years, or a person who has drugged himself/herself to the point of exhaustion and their body shuts down or malfunctions from the neglect and abuse. Wealth without common sense will not remain wealth for long.

medical precautions

The last few years there have been several studies out about how American hospitals are not the safest places to be when you are sick. Quite a few people come out worse than when they went in to the hospital. While we've not had that happen, we have left a few times with a different problem than the one we went seeking treatment for.

One of those problems, we learned the hard way, is quite common in hospitals and nursing homes. It's a bacterial infection called C-diff. It is often an extended result of antibiotics destroying bacteria in the body, including the good kind of bacteria your intestines need. C-diff is highly contagious, and if your body is missing those good bacteria, well you get it. The craziest part of C-diff is that nurses or doctors transport it from room to room. If a patient has it, anyone visiting is supposed to don a gown and gloves (in extreme cases a mask), and trash those supplies between the curtain and door while scrubbing hands before exiting the room. I can't tell you the number of times I watched a nurse come from a different room into ours without changing gowns, saying "It's okay. I'm still in protective gear."  So because you have germs on you from one room, it's okay to walk out into the hallway, touch charts, and into our room because we have the same germs?

I've thought about those 3 CCIU days in a Raleigh hospital a lot today, as the media keeps talking about the nurse in Dallas who has the Ebola virus. Our media has slammed African nations because of their poor hygiene and religions that have tremendously impacted the spread of the virus there. But for all our education about germs, expensive gear, and proper protocols in hospital facilities, a nurse now has a potentially fatal disease because "she didn't follow procedures".  Simply having great facilities is not enough. Rules must be followed, not broken. And I think that will be the monstrous hurdle that will bring America's health situation to its knees. We are a nation that does not like rules or absolutes. Take off medical gowns here or there? What does it matter as long as they're properly trashed?  And hence we spread germs. Wear protective gloves. But what good are those gloves if they're not removed properly and a bare hand touches the germy glove on the other hand? (Yes, they do actually teach that to CNAs and nurses.)

I don't think we'll find Ebola spreading as rapidly or as severely as it's being seen in Africa, but I do think it will get worse. And despite what crazy people are saying about revoking visas or limiting flights in or out of countries, if it does spread here, it won't be from those situations, but rather from our own shortcomings in health and hygiene.

my inner liberal child

I'm very conservative in many things.  I have a lot of ultra-conservative friends. But the older I get, I find my eyebrows wrinkling and my inner child saying "Huh?" when I hear/read comments on current events.

For instance: "the President is on vacation when..."
My uber conservative friends who show nothing but disdain and disrespect for our current President were complaining on social media yesterday how the President, even though he gave a press conference and met with his aides, was on vacation after the beheading of an American journalist. I'm really not sure what they expected him to do. He's already made a decision on what our country's position will be (airstrikes and weapons deals only), has talked with the family, is getting briefed daily (at least), and received multiple phone calls from allies all over the world about the situation. We're already bombing and will continue to do so. I'm not sure what more canceling the family's vacation right before school starts would accomplish.
On the other hand, liberals are actually complaining about him playing golf instead of heading to Ferguson, MO.  They want him to handle the unrest there. Personally, if I were the secret service, I'd be dead set against taking him there. What could be worse than trying to protect the President (or your own skin) in the midst of an angry, belligerent mob who throws urine and bombs on people after spray painting "the only good cop is a dead cop" on walls?  Um, no. That's not exactly the crowd you want to usher the President into, especially not one who has received more death threats than any other sitting President.


Or fundraising.  The whole ice bucket challenge thing has bombarded my Facebook feeds all summer long. The first time I saw it was raising money for a fire station, then for a drug rehab facility, then a group of people stating their charity, then ALS, then it seemed people started doing it just because everyone else was without realizing there was a REASON behind the insanity, and then the media started showing it and talking about the fundraising aspects of it, then people who did it without knowing how it worked realized "Oops! We're supposed to be giving money to this group if we do this" and then the backlash of "ooohh you can't give to that group because they support this or that" started, with the follow-up knee-jerk reaction "I didn't know. I don't support this group or this viewpoint or sand turtles or ..."  (Okay, no one has mentioned sand turtles, but you get the picture.)  Besides the hilarity of all the knee jerk reactions to an hilariously insane way to raise money, is the bizarre reality that people will attempt to alienate groups (almost always medical research groups) that are actually doing some very good things?  Do I support stem cell research? Not in most forms.  But the reality is, I do use information and either I, a family member, or close friends, have been benefited from groups that do (the Miami project, Christopher Reeves Foundation, Susan G. Koman, etc). Almost any medical foundation that is working to eradicate life-altering situations support stem cell research. While I don't agree with their positions on everything, they do offer real life advice and support on things that impact my day-to-day life, and that is something all these Christian groups who are pointing their fingers and shrilly screaming "They kill babies" are NOT doing. They say they are pro-life, but they are doing very little, if anything, to make the life people ARE living more bearable. I've yet to hear of any pro-life groups offering grants for adapted vans or providing wheelchairs or ramps or on-going medical services for people whose lives are impacted for the better by many of these organizations.  And if it were their child, parent, or spouse, who had the potential to have a better or healed life because a frozen stem cell was not thrown away but was instead used in a science experiment that could change their life forever, would they accept it?  The sacrifice is/was already made. It was made when a couple decided to try scientific methods and froze embryos at a chance to have a child. Those extra embryos (they always created them in batches as it often takes multiple attempts) only last so many years, and then are thrown away. It's a sad, sordid mess where there aren't a lot of black or white positions, but mainly grey.  And people who point figures and "take the high road" aren't having to travel the roads full of potholes and heartache that impact the very ones trying to get off those roads in the first place.

and my last rant (for today) is the arming of local police. I have many good friends from high school, from churches, and from my extended family who are police officers. I've witnessed the bruises, cuts and black eyes they get from interrupting a fight, a domestic dispute, or a gang fight. I do read the newspaper and watch the local news. While we only see/hear of a minor meth lab exploding during a raid and think of drugs and its dealers, the reality is, there was a father, a son, a brother, a church member, a youth worker, who was in that uniform knocking on the door that night.  Had that lab exploded a little more to the left or the right, they would be in a burn unit or dead instead of helping their child with homework, taking care of their widowed, arthritic-bound Mom, or teaching a teen Sunday school class this weekend. And that "routine" traffic stop where he pulled someone over to tell them their brake lights had a short in them? (never knowing the woman had a mental illness and was reaching for her gun to shoot the cop as the voices were telling her but stopped short because she thought he looked familiar and upon seeing his badge realized he was related to a pastor...true story) Maybe I'm selfish, but if having riot gear gives my family and friends an extra layer of protection when facing a mob of anarchists, I want them to have it. If having a military rifle, a helicopter, and an army tank will provide them a little more insight, protection, and safety during that drug raid, I want them to have it. After all, the drug dealers have them and are not afraid of using them. And while I don't have family or friends who are school resource officers, I do have a lot of friends and family members who teach in the public schools. And on the high school level, student violence is BAD, and sometimes is drug related. I have no problem with teachers or school resource officers being armed. Are there officers who overstep their bounds and need training in conflict resolution?  Of course. But denying safety to every policeman or officer because of a few crazies is like saying because a few mentally ill people are a threat to society then all of them should be locked up.  It simply doesn't make sense.

And if that makes me a "blazing liberal", so be it. It's what I think and how I feel.

retirement update

Because everyone keeps asking...Bobby's retirement is going quite well.

Most days are like Saturdays...we sleep a little later than before, I do housework, we tend the animals, I do laundry, we take care of errands and business, some days we do yardwork, and some days we find/make time for fun stuff. And we have taken 2 trips to Alabama - one to check on Mom after her surgery and one to see my niece and nephew get baptized, and two short trips here in NC.

That's all I really know to tell you.

I've not started gourmet cooking (and don't plan to), though I did clean/ organize 2/3 of my work room the last two weeks. I never got around to establishing a writing schedule nor getting the wallpaper off the bathroom wall, but that's okay. I'm thinking August might be a good month for that. :)

I will say that in four months, we've only had one week where we both wanted to consistently smack each other upside the head. Personally, I think one week out of sixteen isn't quite bad.

And that, my friends, is how life with a retiree is.

And Bobby's disclaimer: "Why would people think we were going to drive each other crazy? We were both crazy to start with!"

Yes, some things in life just don't change.

the hushed conversations

We normally think about conversations as things that happen over the phone, through e-mail, or in the hallway at church or the aisle near the Targer pharmacy or in passing at the gym. (Yeah, I do live a schedule life.) But lately I've been thinking a lot about the conversations we should be having, but don't. And I've come to the conclusion that it's because these topics are often hushed due to the emotional impact they have. So here's what my brain's been hopping around a lot the last few months.

• The "even if...still" passages of the Bible. I don't think I've ever heard a sermon on these verses. Actually, now that I think about it, it would be a very short sermon, so maybe that's why. But in all honesty, why are we so scared to think about or discuss the phrases where ancient believers boldly asserted God could do the "impossible", but then went even further to say "but even if God doesn't do this, I'll still serve/worship/honor Him."?  I'm thinking of Job and the 3 Hebrews in the fiery furnace here. And I'm also thinking of the 6+ blogs I'm following of family & friends fighting serious illnesses and hardships. It scares me so much to read statements like "I WILL walk to my son's high school graduation. I have faith." (when her son is 5 and she has an illness that no one has yet survived).  So what happens when her faith doesn't give her what she wants? Does that make her faith any less real or valid? When my husband broke his neck 32 years ago, a well-meaning believer informed him they knew God would heal him because he lived a righteous life. (People and churches in the area were praying around the clock that first month for healing.) And when God chose not to heal him this side of heaven, that person cut off fellowship. Their theology wasn't compatible with day to day reality, so they simply tried to shut out reality. It scares me when believers confuse our relationship with God with our relationship with Santa Claus.
• "I want my child to be in God's will, but..."  I have heard this SO much lately, where well-meaning believers pray that God will call their child to preach or to a life of full-time Christian service. I rank that right up there with these Dads who push their child in a sport because they desire for them to be in the NBA or major leagues. There's no encouragement for them to seek out their God-given talents, to develop into who GOD wants them to be. It's just the personal desires of the parents that they seek for their child. Maybe that's too harsh, but I do wonder would they be just as happy for their child if they came home and said "I want to be a plumber." Would they enourage them to be the godliest plumber in town? Perhaps my parents emphasized too much the passage that "whatever you do, do it all to God's glory" so much that I don't see more honor in one job than another. We're all laboring together for the same purpose, or at least we should be.
• Marriage. As I watch my oldest niece struggle through the insane mating rituals of a conservative Christian college (at my graduation from same college, the administration from the college felt compelled to comment that our class was one of the unusual ones because half the class was neither engaged nor married), I want to know why we're not discussing healthy ways to truly get to know people, marriage statistics in the church (and how GLBT community is using those and plan to use those in the future as a way of saying churches don't adhere to biblical principles anyway so we can't exclude them on such grounds), and how to make a healthy marriage. How many young people would rush into an engagement or marriage if they were told that "Marriage is having a forever roommate."?  We talk about the awesomeness of marriage, but not it's heavy responsibilities. I fear we push/encourage marriage before young people are truly ready. Case in point: Why do we ask a young man if he's bought a ring yet for his longtime girlfriend before he's even held a steady job longer than 4 months? How is that encouraging a healthy marriage?

And I'll get off my soapbox for now. But those are the things I ponder, and only occasionally hear another believer quietly mention. And then I know I'm not alone in all my crazy ponderings.

pondering responsibility

I know I'm more than a little cynical about many things in life. But lately I've been hearing stories that make me wonder if I'm truly cynical or just realistic.

In high school, my parents were not band groupies.  They got to see me perform in the band about three times a year. One was during marching band season. Parents of band members were required to work the concession stands twice a year (and they got in to the game free since they didn't actually get to see the game).  Always during one of those times, other band booster parents would graciously send my Mom out during one of the busiest times so she could see my sister and I perform. The remainder of the season, there was simply no money for them to attend a ballgame.  And our Christmas and spring concerts were free. :)

Sometimes it bothered me a little that my parents couldn't be there, but I knew my parents cared. They would always ask how things went as soon as I got home and they made it a point to let us know they were interested in our lives.

So I'm startled quite a bit to see that parents of Olympians are facing foreclosures of homes and bancruptcy, yet they have the  money to travel across the ocean, pay a hotel fee as well as food costs, and buy tickets to get into venues to watch their child participate in a sport that they have been paying a wad of money for them to learn. There just seems to be a very skewed priority order here. I can pay for my child to live with a strange family in another state, pay top dollar for them to study under one of the best coaches in the nation, as well as buy expensive uniforms, but I can't pay own personal bills, such as a house and car payment.  Am I the only one who is greatly bothered by all this?

I recognize the Olympics are so much more important than any high school band concert or performance. I understand that I don't totally comprehend the parent/child bond, but I do know there are things children need to be taught. One of those things is fiscal responsibility, and how better to teach someone a lesson than to model it for them?

I just found these two stories a very sad reflection on life in spoiled America. We no longer seem to understand what is a need and what is a want. It wasn't that many years ago that parents didn't accompany children to the Olympics. I find it hard to believe they loved their children any less. I'm certain they hated to miss the events, but would have been humiliated to go and then come home and be homeless. We may be winning the medal count, but we're losing on the home front.

unintended irony

For those of you who haven't heard about the "Nugget-gate scandal" in North Carolina, last month a preschool child (from one of the More at Four programs, which is a modified form of welfare daycare) was given a school lunch instead of eating the lunch packed by her mother. Stories differ widely from the parents, the teacher, the principal, the health inspector who deemed the packed lunch "inappropriate", the local district superintendent and the media. Evidently this happened to four children on the same day, this is an on-going problem, and despite all the letters and press releases that the health inspector/social worker and the teacher were both simply doing their jobs, the teacher is now suspended.  Two of the children were supposed to only be given milk to drink (the missing ingredient from their lunch), but instead were given an entire lunch, of which the kids only ate the chicken nuggets. I won't digress on a commentary on this.

So now you know the back-story. NC Spin, which my husband watches every Sunday morning and I semi-despise because the men often bicker over each other making it impossible to understand what is being said, at the last moment briefly delved into the whole More at Four program and the political mess that is going on in the legislature and courts over it. One of the panelists mentioned that a private daycare couldn't operate on the funds that the state does because of the state's requirement that lead teachers in daycare have college degrees. Time was up, the news came on, and WRAL's opening news item and picture: UNC students jumping over illegal fires in celebration of their win over Duke.

Yeah. Just because you go to a state-sponsored school that your parents and tax-payers are paying for where you learn to drink and party and burn your butt because you are happy and built a fire in the middle of a road for which you don't have the proper permit means you deserve a better salary and a lead teacher position to teach colors and numbers and crafts and how to wash your hands after pottying to four-year-olds.

Somehow I think the irony and the timing of these two items were lost to Capitol Broadcasting.

the freedom to try

I recently ordered Chris Baty's No Plot? No Problem! (He's the creator of National Novel Writing Month.)  I absolutely loved the opening:

The era, in retrospect, was very kind to dumb ideas...In a more grounded age, my novel in a month concept would have been reality checked right out of existence...We were in our mid-twenties, and we had no idea what we were doing. But we knew we loved books. And so we set out to write them.

Later on in the book he addresses the very reason why the month-long, do or die, mentality seems to work for writing the first draft of a novel. And I found the following paragraph quite thought-provoking:

In the workplace, the emphasis on professionalism makes great sense. No one wants to have his or her cerebellum doctored by a dilettante brain surgeon. But the the emphasis on mastery has certain unseen psychological ramifications on the rest of our lives. You'd think, for instance, that this workday obsession with competence would make our weekends a refuge for floundering forays into uncharted territories. But what do we do when we have free time? The tried and true activities we've already perfected.

Sometimes I think those of us who grew up in evangelical households had the Biblical emphasis of "Whatever your do, do it with all your might." and "Whatever you do, even eating or drinking, do it all to God's glory." driven into our psyche to an extreme. We are so afraid of giving something second-best to God that we often fail to try new things (as if our Creator wouldn't love our whole-hearted attempts).

I used to marvel at my older sister, who was never afraid of anything. Sometimes it aggravated me because she would tackle things she had absolutely no experience in. Many times she had good degrees of success. Sometimes she shrugged and chalked it up as a learning experience. But she NEVER quit trying new things. The older I get, I find myself adopting a few of her mindsets. I laugh when people say I'm talented. I'm not talented. I'm just stupid enough to keep trying new things. Some of them I laugh and leave behind. Others I pursue with a passion.

I've not totally mastered the concept that the learning process (trying things) is not irreverent, but I'm getting there. The emphasis is doing MY best, NOT being the best, and recognizing God gets the glory for all of it. And that is freeing, indeed!

all things in moderation...or not

I enlarged my garden rows when tilling March. Having learned from last year, the rows are further apart, AND I added 1/2 a row. I was going to be sensible. Plant what we want, but in amounts small enough that I can handle. I still have a paying job, after all.

Last week we went to Hudson's to have the push lawn mower repaired. We came home with four biddies. Today we went to pick the lawn mower up, and while Bobby showed the repairman the way to the van, I stopped in to pick up a few tomato plants. I think that's where I went wrong. We only had a few minutes, and I never think or plan well in a hurry. I looked at the prices for small containers and the prices for a flat. The flat looked about right. So that's what I got.

When we got home, Bobby happened to ask how many plants I bought. He was quite shocked when I told him I bought a whole flat. "You bought 48 plants?" WEELLLlllll, no not intentionally. Turns out I overlooked the little detail that each small container has FOUR tomato plants. So one of my bean rows is now tomatoes.

And this puts me in a minor quandary. I already have seed for my beans. I actually have pea seed left over from last year. So do I be conservative and rational and move up the yard a ways and plant 4 more rows for the beans/peas, or do I throw my hands up in the air and say I've already messed things up for this year and will have more than I care to handle and maybe I'll be better organized next year?

Tomato recipes, anyone?