Hop-along–Cassidy

We have a three legged critter for a few days. I was so worried I made Dad take her to the urgent pet care. It’s just a bad sprain. She’s suppose to rest for three days and take her anti-inflammatory meds at bedtime.

Honestly it hasn’t slowed her down much. She’s just not jumping three feet in the air now. Haha. She’s a little more “clingy” than usual, so we’ll use the opportunity to teach her the word ‘heel.’

When life asks for a pause, how do we take it?

“What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.” Ecclesiastes‬ ‭1:15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Each year as the New Year comes around, January brings with it the bitter winds of winter that demand a different lifestyle. For some people this month is for puzzle solving. For some people it’s a month of catching up on all the episodes of an old favorite television show. For others it’s a chance to read books while laying under layers of blankets. For me, it’s a variety of things.

Reading is not as easily done anymore with the lack of giant print books. One of these days i might actually get that library app on the iPad and read some old books that I enjoyed. But I do have a favorite Bible reading schedule that returns to mind this time of year. There are several reading schedules that are quite simple to remember. Here they are:

Ecclesiastes has twelve chapters. One for each month of the year. It’s easy to remember what month number it is, if you read the first chapter of this book near the first day of the month. Each chapter is full of wisdom and great things to contemplate.

Proverbs has 31 chapters. These can be read in succession with each day of the month. So even if you miss a day of reading, picking the chapter for the day, eventually you will read all the chapters at least a few times throughout the year. It is also packed full of wisdom and common sense.

Psalms has a little more complicated reading pattern. This may require a bit of math! Reading a chapter each day, there are 150 chapters, so it will take five months to complete the book. Or you can read five each day just jumping through the books in multiples of five for the day. Another way is as follows: today is the 20th, read chapters 20, 50, 80, 110, and 140. The 25th day would be five additions of thirty. It’s not too hard. I make a cheat sheet marker of 150 and just cross off the already read.

Gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I try to read them by seasons as follows:

winter is for Mark, because it’s the shortest and daylight is short. Spring is for John because I love his account of the Easter Resurrection story. Summer is for Matthew. And Fall is for Luke because I want to read his account of the nativity several times before the holidays.

There are many different reading schedules for the sciptures. Some people use apps or a 365 Bible. I just really enjoy being creative with my reading patters.

While hop-along (the dog) and I spend the days in a more restful mode, I also like to inventory my yarn piles. But on a nice day, i don’t neglect to get some fresh air. So it was a pleasant surprise to find a ball of thread out in the yard while I marched to and fro picking up sticks and other debris. I decided at that point that my puppy was a thief. The thread was none the worse for it’s trip in the elements. I threw away about a yard of the outer strand. Must be time to work on a doily again, I thought.

My crooked nose cannot be straightened. And the above verse came to mind shortly after I began vainly studying my new look. The swelling has finally abetted, and now the sinuses are trying to discover the new breathing tube! Apparently I have begun sawing the logs through the night. I even woke myself up the other morning.

When something is missing it simply cannot be counted. And though i inventoried my yarn supply and pulled out some projects to finish, I hadn’t even missed the ball of yarn the little thief took. Kind of makes me wonder what else she has stolen. We are well aware that she ate the roll of stamps shortly before Christmas. There were only two left to count that remained stuck to her paw. We have really no idea how many stamps that she ate, fo the lacking cannot be counted!

Four paws minus one, makes our eight month old doodle a bit of a silly noodle right now. Watching her hop isn’t easy, but it’s kind of hard not to laugh when she “acts” like life is misery. She had no sympathy for my broken nose. I took her to the urgent care for a sprained paw but wouldn’t go to the urgent care for my broken nose. Go figure that one out.