Baskets, bungees, scissors and glass jars

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Ecclesiastes 6:7 “All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet. His appetite is not satisfied.” I Timothy 6:6 “But godliness with contentment is great gain.”

Baby can sure take up a lot of space. That six pound bundle that only kept mama from reaching into the sink or washing machine, now has a car seat, diaper bag, floor mat, play pen, crib, lazy baby bouncer, and a bathtub to set over the sink. Wow. Who would have thought that she needs her own room now also? But you know mama does not want to continue wearing baby after she already carried him for nine months and her back is so sore!

My Mother is world class pack rat. Maybe that seems harsh. But after emptying every corner and inch of a two and a half story house along with a two car grage…. It’s amazing how good she was at placing every item . And she knew where everything was also. The baskets that held things, the scissors in just the right place, the bungees to keep things tidy and the glass jars filled with their unidentifiable white powder all had to be removed from their hiding places. We lost track of the count really fast.

Now that five days have passed and I am trying to get back to my home life, the overwhelmed by muchness still lingers. Now it is the care of all that I have along with the items that I brought home with me. So much of it will have to be sorted through and given away. My lest of home “to do” is so long I have yet to write one.

The biggest surprise was a butterfly quilt that my mother made early in her quilting days. She must have been unhappy with it as I never saw it before. Whether their are mistakes makes no difference to me. It is now on our bed. Our 33rd anniversary present is beautiful.

While we can all be worried about what comes after us, it is true that many secrets will be revealed during our later years. When others have to take over the care of our “things” suddenly it is brought to light what lack of care has actually been happening. Yet the treasures of one person might be considered trash by another. Some things we keep really ought to have been tossed years earlier. “By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established: by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” Proverbs 24:3-4.

Recently I heard someone say that God does not just love us, He actually likes us. Our character traits and tendencies are a direct reflection of the Creator. We are made in His image. Looking for “God” in others and even in the things that we may not like about another person, is something each person who has a relationship with their Maker should learn to do. Knowing God means looking for Him in others like a treasure hunt.

How God knows us more than we know ourselves is beyond our comprehension. The last few weeks have been riddled with much “dog-a-do.” I don’t know even how to explain myself with words. But when Honey began her constant “rolling” in stench my love for her went right out the door. She is making extra work for me to the point that even this morning she rolled in something and needed it washed off in order for me to stand her. Along with that Kona has been finding things. Don’t know how he does it. But the tiniest clothespins that were in a craft box became available to his him and and took me cleaning out the whole libraby to find the box that they were in. The little craft clothespins is now in the garbage!

God definitely knows me better than I know myself. Or I would never even have dogs. The enjoyment that I once felt has turned into constant work. I am simply not having fun any more. AT ALL! How can I get to a place of gratefulness with this constant labor of clean, wash, lather, repeat. I really hate cleaning. It is my least favorite chore. Yet it was something that my mother once loved doing.

Reconciling bad feelings Is really hard to accomplish. If God is my Lord, and He is in my life to give me peace despite my circumstances, than why am I constantly on edge and angry at the chore of hand, and peace is eluding me every moment of the day?

In all of this, I learned less can be more. I learned just because I like one thing does not mean I need fifty of that thing. I am throwing a lot of stuff away each and every day since I have been back home after cleaning out my mom’s house to sell. And I am even throwing things away in the greenhouse. Making up my planters for display and then I am done with the abundance of geranium babies.

When I figure out if Honey and Kona are actually my dogs or not, I’ll let you know. I already know that Charlie is his own dog. He rarely comes to me exept for cookies or a meal.

Day after day

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Okay, so the past month or so has kept me too busy to write anything worth publishing. There are a few major happenings and I’ll try to get you all caught up.

The biggest time buster was the greenhouse. The hundreds of geraniums that have still not found a home are taking up quite a bit of my time. Just now there are a bunch of starts just showing new colors that that I did not know took root. The other day I found a pretty lilac purple bloom and a two tone pale pink with white and a red dot! I will try to keep all of the unusual ones for more variety next year.

The other big happening is my doodle troubles. She decided to run off and wallow in bad smell. We were fighting the Halo-fence collar and app for a number of days. She is going to wear it more in the day with me going outside to garden etc cetera. She also got her hair all chopped off, somewhat too short. Honey probably won’t do the heat very well today without much fur to insulate, so afternoon will be inside. She also got an ouchie on one leg from Kona jumping up at her face for the tennis ball. So we had to put the cone of shame on her at night.

In other news, Kona decided he was done with the crate during the day and made some real messes. Not good timing or good experience at all. I spent one whole day puppy proofing the house so that he can be inside during my outdoor work, Hubby also bought me a “horse” trailer to put him in outside while I work. It took a few days but he did get used to the pattern of following me around for fifteen minutes and them into the crate for an hour.

We are moving my mom out of her house this next week. My emotions are all over the board for the whole process. My sister just got a roll off dumpster to get rid of the garbage we find. Like an entire box of empty camera film rolls. Really? We moved that box twenty times? It could have been tossed years ago.

My nightmares came back and chased sleep away for nearly a week. Last night was the first full night of sleep that I received in the last month. So I guess I better get busy doing all the things that I could not do yesterday. Sleep is important, but must be over rated when one goes that long without a peaceful night. The nightmares are always similar- something about being lost amongst a whole pile of logs that I can never figure out how to get out of.

Day after day it seems I make an attempt at a journal entry and only get interrupted. So It is now the following morning. Here I go again. Making my outside list and my packing list, and my just be moment is keeping me from doing any of the lists. Most mornings it has been too cold to garden. So I sit on the sofa with one puppy at my feet and the other next to me.

I started watching NDE testimonials on video the past few weeks. Trying to help myself find some hope during this momentary depression. The allergies and asthma have been so bad that days the weight of living seems overwhelming. It is just so much work to fight to live on the really bad asthma days. Heaven seems like a bit of a cop out actually. So I am struggling with putting one step in front of the other. I am struggling with the day after day constant battle to keep moving forward.

Pilgrim’s Progress has been on my mind alot lately. I recently thought about Jesus saying how “foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place for his head.” I know that my mother is now in the “pilgrim’s inn” of living. While she has a place to lay her head the journey on this sod is nearing the end. Meanwhile my dad is also feeling the gravity of earth tugging on his earthly tent. The thoughts of my parents nearing the eternal passing is so heavy some days that I just cry with the weight of it all.

And day after day, life marches on. Little ones learn to ride bicycles, learn to laugh, and learn to express their thoughts in words. It is the joy of a four month old grasping at a toy and being able to make the fingers do what she wills… Today, might be a hard day for you. Maybe it was yesterday. Perhaps tomorrow the weight of living will suck you back under the covers, but today- look for that little tiny sliver of hope. Open your eyes to the cry of the whipper whirl in the trees. Feel the cold breeze brush across your face. It is all so temporary.

Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers, the flower fades but the word of our God will stand forever.”

Sharing -Irth Day

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Yep that is purposely misspelled. Because something like a Christmas baby, or any other holiday, I share my birthday with Earth Day. And believe me I was never very happy about sharing my special day. So I wonder how other people share their special day with some holiday. Do you?

Well, as it turns out I was actually born in a snow storm and Earth Day was not dedicated as a holiday until a couple of years later. So does that make me older than dirt? What in the world is this holiday for anyways?

It was first decided upon to make people aware of the way that they were misusing and trashing the Earth. Well, maybe it should be a National Composting Day or something. That’s how I celebrated. I spent a few hours digging up the compost bin into some black trash cans so that it can “cook” and be ready to use as good fertilizer. Actually even though sometimes life hands you a bucket of worms they make the best soil for growing plants in.

So considering that the pile of compost was tomato, lettuce, broccoli stems and other refuse last year, this spring it was some of the most beautiful black soil that I have ever seen. So yeah, maybe I am older than dirt. So what?

Sharing my birthday with Earth Day usually means that I am ready to plant something. But spring is in full force here and all of the trees in the pollenating nature are making my asthma act up. So I kept my outside time to a minimum. Normally, I am pretty much of a minimalist anyways.

Yesterday while digging the compost soil into the trash bins, my life partner hubby threw Honey’s frisbee into the top of the Walnut tree. That made her pretty upset. She even barked at it for a while trying to get it to come down like the squirrels. I promised her that the wind would blow tomorrow (today) and that she would get it back soonb.

So this morning she kept watching out the front window to see if the frisbee had fallen down yet. When it did in the early morning, she barked like mad. Of course I was busy at the moment. When we went out a half hour later, Honey ran straight for the fallen frisbee. Well, I guess, she does understand some things!

-Irth Day should be pretty special really. The Earth has been pretty good to me today. I did not meet it once (in a fall) so I guess that answers that question. The asthma has made it questionable at times. And today I spent some time enjoying the tulips that I buried in the ground last fall. So the Earth has been nice for sure.

So, do you share your birthday with some other known holiday? How does it make you feel special? Or rather how does it make you feel like someone sabotaged your special day? How has the Earth been good to you this week?

Somethings in my life make it seem like the Earth has not been good to me. For instance all the diseases, allergies, and eyesight problems that I have experienced. But maybe that’s just genetics and the poor earth can’t be blamed for everything. And the scars that my body has can prove that the Earth’s gravitational pull has played a nasty number on me a few times also.

Psalm 90:12 ESV “So teach us to number our days that we nay have a heart of wisdom.”

My Broken Glass

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The other morning my return home greeting was dropping a small juice glass in my farm sink. Yep, it broke. Broken glass is not so bad to clean up when it is contained. I was careful in my search for all of the pieces and put them into the bottom of the still intact vintage glass. No cut fingers for me.

And today I feel much like that glass. Broken and useless. The message I heard on the radio was about spiritual warfare. How appropriate I think for how I feel. We have finally had some seasonal rain and now all the trees are budding and the grass and weeds are in full growth mode. My allergies took a nose dive into the tissue box and my head is in so much pain. Honey did not wake me up for my asthma need this morning, so I slept in until past nine.

“—A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” —Ecclesiastes 4:8b (ESV) The fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes has a lot of little nuggets in it. This is one of my favorite. In the passage, the wisdom is for people to work together in unity. Two people pulling in opposite directions are only striving after the wind. One person cannot stay warm on cold nights without an electric blanket. Two are better than one to defeat an assailant. So many little treasures of advice.

The last two Sundays I was blessed to go to church with my mother. The first week there was a missionary and the second week there were two baptisms. This same week a friend of ours shared a video of a testimony from another church in the same community. Seeing the Holy Spirit working in others lives is so uplifting. Staying the week with my mom and sister and her two little ones was more work than I thought it would be. By the end of the week though my old habit of not being able to fall asleep returned.

The first night there we let Kona sleep on the bed with us. Not very restful considering he has never done that before. In the early dawn hours, he woke up forgetting where he was. His frightful bark and the big fat tears in his eyes told me he had been very scared. I snuggled him into bed with me and he settled back down. The rest of the week he slept in his crate like ususal. Sleeping with dog on bed is not my preferred pet method. We both need the complete night of rest to be able to put up with each other all day.

Kona struggled with kid magnetics the first few days together with my little nieces. By the second day they had learned to co-exist and him not be so attracted to their every movement. By the fourth day a real rhythm had been set and he was learning to cue some things. His alerts at first were a little loud. He finally decided it was okay to inside bark that the baby was awake. He also cued some of the alarms around the house. The best was the “importance” of my mom’s pill minder. The last day he decided to walk outside with my mother. She just picked up the leash and took him with. Hmmm-I though she did not like dogs. And he also began noticing if the door did not shut all the way. That was helpful also. Pocket full of treats kept him very busy trying to earn a treat!

Meanwhile, my dad’s world had some bad news the past week. It was really hard to hear such sad happenings. But the day I called to take care of the flowers, he had had such a rough day. It was a blessing to keep in touch with him and hear him reciprocate my “I love you dad.” He has only told me he loves me a hand full of times. I think it meant much to him that I reached out even though I was at my mom’s for the week.

Returning home was “fruit basket upset” for me. I felt bad for not being happy to be home. The moving about and putting everything back in its place gets me pretty frustrated. My eyes just don’t always see what I think should be there. I took a detox bath, but it really did not help much. It wasn’t close enough to bed time to actually work.

The cutest event of the week was when the little girls were getting ready for bed one evening. My sister was making the bottle, and I was trying to “settle” them instead of wind them up. So I sang a silly song about the sun going to bed and so shall I. I taught them the actions of the sun coming up and traveling across the sky until it hit the floor again, then laid down to fall asleep. The third time the girls had the actions down and even Kona layed down on the floor to fall asleep for pretend. It was so cute watching them all interact so sweetly.

When it’s my time to go, I wonder how I will behave. Watching our elderly parents prepare for “the day” is hard. Some get listless and empty, letting go of the daily duties with quite a struggle. Getting them to understand that food is their first need and let someone else do the food preparations, can be such a battle. Others will not allow a hired help to come clean the house just for “privacy” sake or something.

I know it was hard for me to let go of the green house chores for the week and trust others to water, rotate, and watch care. Each sibling handles letting go of the parents differently also. Some just let go before it’s time to even relinquish their elder to this earthly suffering so that they do not have to watch the falling season. Some hang on so hard they won’t let anyone else take certain “cares” on because they have to have some control. In the end, the broken glass just goes when it’s God’s timing. We never really know when the glass will slip out of our hands and the pieces will be left to discard. We don’t even know what pieces we will be left with. God give me the grace to handle each broken glass with care.

Bowing Their Heads

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I Chronicle 29:20 “then David said to the assembly, ‘Bless the Lord your God’ and all the assembly blessed the Lord, the God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and paid homage to the Lord God, and their king.”

The other day we came home from our day away, and my dear hubby pointed out these poor little flowers. Take a look at the yellow daffodils in the butterfly garden bed. We planted the bulbs two years ago along the edge of the wings. And this year the weather was so warm the first few weeks of March, that the green shoots came forth. Like some long awaited resurrection day, I thought it was so appropriate that they bloomed the day after Easter.

Bowing their heads to pay homage to the creator, the little blooms seemed to declare, “Oh Lord God thank you for this splendid day. Thank you for giving us air to breathe. Thank you for the warm soil, the cold wind, the moisture in rain and snow. Thank You Lord.” Really now, how could I blame them for choosing such a cold and windy day for bursting forth in color and song to the Great Creator!

Not many days ago I heard a message about being on resurrection ground. Rather than looking at the cemetery as a place where the dead are buried, we should consider the fact that there are many brothers and sisters there waiting to be resurrected. Thus we are standing on resurrection ground. It gave me a whole new thought about being out there placing flowers every spring.

How does this translate into my daily duties? Laundry, cleaning floors, dishes, and house up keep is so very tedious and not fun for me. Yesterday I tried to listen to Rich Mullins music while working only to get irritable and turn off the music. There I times that I think about the days that the music bubbled up inside of me like a spring. And sometimes like Old Faithful it would come gushing forth. I just could not stop the new song from happening. I too am a poet and song writer. The words and music just come. But when there is no outlet, no one to share it with, it begins to die off. Like a fruit tree that never gets pruned, eventually the weight of the fruit breaks the branches and opens the tree up for disease and then it dies.

That’s how I feel. Like a broken down tree over laden with rotting fruit on the ground all around me. The trees bow their heads in the strong winds. Perhaps it’s time to be uprooted once again and planted anew by the springs of living water.

Today is pack up and clean up and final preparations for being gone from home for the next week. So yes, I feel like an uprooted plant. All out of the normal. My greenhouse duties are so pleasant for me. I simply did not want to leave. I actually took a couple of phone calls while in the dome. Back at the house the laundry is moved and the body nourished. I just wish I had the energy that I use to have. Packing for the week might be a laundry basket full of clothes instead of a suitcase. It’s easier.

YOUniquely You

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Journal # 285 and over 10K words total is proof that my mother use to always call me a little “wordy!” Here goes for this Monday’s entry. And a deeper dive into what makes me and the things that I say “uniquely me.”

Today is Easter Monday. (I was also pleased that one of the local schools called the day off this on their calendar schedule also.). When I was a child we used to get the day off from school. Super handy for getting that long distance shopping day in or recovering from some spring cough or allergy to rainy season. But spending the day in bed was not part of my schedule. I woke up with the hidden sunrise and heard the raindrops hitting the roof. At least the grass seed that we put out will have a chance to germinate with the moisture.

One of the earliest “quotes” that my parents remind me of is the Sunday that I went to church and boldly proclaimed “Our Daddy left us!” My mother was attending a staunchly German Baptist church at the time with her three little girls. The pews were set up so that no woman ever sat by a man who was not her husband. This statement surely embarrassed both her and any other ears that heard. My dad was gone on an Elk hunt with some very men from the community. He had only left for a two week time frame. What on earth did those stiff upper class folks think of this family of three little girls with such a “man’s man” father?

Today the turkey carcas is in the crock pot smelling the whole house up. We had the meat for the Sunday gathering meal. So today it’s time to cook up the bone broth. I really don’t like slow cooker Monday. It kind of ruins my appetite for eating supper. Smelling the scent all day long does that for me.

Snow holidays are usualy Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, and Valentine’s Day. But ever since we lived in Minnesota for a few years, I am no longer disappointed with Easter Sno. It snowed all four years that we spent Easter up there. When Easter falls in March or early April, one can expect colder weather in this northern hemisphere.

With pleasure a couple of memories came flooding back into my mind today. The turkey smell made me think of how many times my aunt and her sister’s actually killed and roasted a wild turkey for our family Thanksgiving or Christmas gathering. My auntie was such a good cook. And the other memory is of my Grandfather expecting the home health nurse to help him clean the turkey before she could take care of Grandma. Only in western South Dakota would the home health care worker need to know how to clean and dress a turkey along with an elderly fragile person’s care..

I am listening to the Rich Mullins “devotional-biography” that I found on my audible listening app. The first question that was posed to me is: What Makes Me Uniquely Me? Of course the answer is our genes, our lineage, our unique set of circumstances and upbringing. Here I will attempt to answer that question throughout these journal writings.

Moving things around in the greenhouse does not seem necessary when the sun is not shining. But rotating the geraniums is key to a well rounded plant. It is so fun to see all the blooms showing up. I am super happy that some of the two-tone varieties actually rooted up this year. The single colors make wonderful long distant displays from the road, but the bicolor blooms are great table top or stair case plants. Just like each plant is unique in it’s own way, so are we one of a kind. Indeed all of life’s moving our family around when I was a child and as an adult played a part in shaping me. Making me relatable and flexible to each and every church community that I participated in.

Hubby finally sold the junk car this week. It’s been sitting idle for two or more years. Last use was my daughter’s bum car so she could get back and forth to work in bad weather. I am glad to see it go. With only one driver on the farm here, it seemed silly to hang unto it just because… for what? I don’t need a car to drive, because I no longer drive.

This week the little petunias have to get potted up. But it’s so cold down in the greenhouse for working with 50 degree soil. Okay maybe it’s warmer than that but at 55 degrees my hands just get too cold. Hopefully they can make it until Wednesday when the sun is shining.

I know that I am the only ME that there will ever be. Thinking about the special touch of the Creator on my life is key to not blaming my genetic line for all of my “faults” and letting God be sovereign in my life. From letting go of a car I cannot drive, to preparing the greenhouse to be watched over by someone else all plays into my acceptance of who I am today. Sunday morning when I was blessed to play the Easter church service prelude, I found myself truly worshiping God while I played the piano. My three days of practice had payed off and I could give my best to the Master Creator who had made me ME. No longer able to read the music, I had to study it prior to pounding out the chord progressions and then figure out how to move from one to the next with no music in front of me at all. All of my life challenges and struggles had come to that point for me. And I truly did have fun making playing the piano like child’s play.

And YOU are the only you that there will ever be. What about your family heritage made your Easter especially special this year? What about your struggles and challenges makes you a better you than you were many years ago? What about today speaks to your unique time and place and shows you that God’s hand has been there all along leading you up to this day?

God’s Goodness

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Saturday I witnessed a health care worker in action. I was both amazed at her quick decisions and her patience in turn. The fact that she is my niece and “watch” caring for my mother makes it only more blessed in my mind. While everyone is feeling the loss of the changing of seasons in my mother’s life, I am going to focus on the blessings. I want to taste God’s goodness during this season. One time nearly 24 years ago, I wrote a poem that I turned to song about these seasons.

The Spring of the year does not seem quite like the right time to begin seeing the autumn of one’s parents. But along with the fall comes the harvest. And Harvest is everyone’s favorite of gathering up all the goodies that God has blessed us with. So while my parents (all four of them in fact) are going into their season of fall in life, I want to focus on the bounty that God’s goodness has given them all these years.

Railings are such good help when we use them and when they are there. Our back porch and front deck went without such things for the first ten years or more while we lived here. The railing on the front deck was put up first. And we adjusted the steps to make them wider and more functional. The back porch “basket” was done a little later. My eyesight was failing in peripheral enough to make the railings necessary. No more running down or up the steps for me. So getting the railing down the basement steps in my mother’s house was a necessary item that we felt should not be delayed. My husband installed it on Saturday

Keeping aging parents in their home as long as possible can be somewhat of a hardship on the children balancing the watch care. Life becomes something of a juggling act as each one takes turns. There is no sense that life is on hold as the days come rushing by and things need to be done faster that one can think to schedule each day into the calendar. No one is particularly just waitng for the “big fall” rather we are all trying not to miss the balls as they fly through the air to us.

Knowing that my eyesight plays a pivotal role in me even catching one of those flying objects, I hope the others will be nice and roll the ball to me and let me know when it’s my turn to catch something. So here I go trying to schedule my greenhouse care and my doggie duties around traveling. And I’m not a very good traveler. I have already begun preferring to stay home.

I found this verse in my reading time the other day. Psalm 138:8 “The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me: Your steadfast love, O Lord endures forever, Do not forsake the work of your hands.” There are verses about us being the “workmanship” of the Almighty. This verse really brought me peace when I was thinking of the days that God has ordained for each of us to live.

My hubby found a little saying that was a gardener’s “ excuse me.” Many times in life for some no apparent reason something in the greenhouse or in the house, plants just dies. The saying was another persons take on the situation. “You are a really good gardener, that plant should have tried a little harder.” But plant’s aren’t like people. And while some plants tell you that something is wrong, most of the time the disease happens way too quickly for me to respond in appropriate care. Having bad eyesight in the gardening field can cost me a whole crop. Preventive maintenance has to be part of my routine. So this winter and early spring I found a dish soap insecticidal spray and cinnamon are doing their job well to keep away some pest issues in the greenhouse.

Of neglected plants… Here below the first picture on the left is a Kalanchoe that my mother in law was “not” nurturing well. The little thing bloomed it’s head off for over three months. Finally after not receiving water on a weekly basis it decided to start dyring up. Then there is all the tulips at our place that came up the first two weeks of March only to get froze off not just once but three or four times. The first plant to show stress of my mother’s lack of “time” concept was her holiday cactus. She did get it moved out of the house last summer to finish it’s slow death outside. Plants in distress can make such a mess in the house.

Leaving the elderly alone for the holidays is also a “slow” death process. I blame the pandemic for the “keeping everyone safe” mentality that left far too many people alone for too long. I think I’m going to adopt my daughter’s mindset that says life is for living not for trying to stay safe all the time. Most of the elderly I know would rather just see their family than NOT see their family.

This week is the Easter Season, or the Holy Week. I have not been able to focus on the Scripture study that I normally do this time of year. So I’m glad that our Pastor chose a familiar text for his sermons around the special holiday. The 23rd Psalm has been one of my focus studies many times. It seems doubly important during this season of our lives.

I use to ask people around me what “season” of Psalm 23 did they find themselves in?… And right now I find myself longing for the Shepherd’s tender leading as I try to find the right paths to take each every day. The words “lead me” occur twice in the passage, so that’s what I’ll focus on asking Him. Lead me softly, Lord, Lead me gently. Just Lead me!

Side note: Kona got his first professional haircut yesterday. He won the cutest dog of the day award. What an enjoyable little bit of goodness in this season of changing goodness!

“Lord help me to taste Your goodness through each and every day. Even if there are some bitter herbs, lead me through the entire path that You have for me Don’t let me miss anything You have for me to taste!”

It’s Hard To See The Picture When You’re Standing So Close

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We watched a movie about the VonTrap Family a few weeks ago and the main character said this quote above to her young niece. Indeed it seems to sum up all the happenings of the last few weeks. I have tried to write little “snippets” of things over this time frame and nothing seems to flow. Keeping the thoughts relevant to a particular theme for the writing has been hard with only a little moment or two to write.

This morning my mother’s distraction while on the phone definitely attested to her recent mild stroke symptoms. I called her in the middle of her thought process with another sibling, the other phone rang, and the support person there at the house had to take her dog out. Too much all at once and my mother set me down-the phone she was holding the call on. After five minutes of listening, I just hung up. She was not going to remember me at the moment. Ten minutes later, delayed response, she called me back to hear what it was I had called about. Short term memory lapse is sometimes funny. Most of the time just annoying.

So rather than letting my writing be all chopped up and from several different sit-down-type-sessions, I decided to start all over and drop the disrated writing attempts. I didn’t want everyone to feel like they were on a video chat with my daughter, mother of four little ones. Children don’t let mommy get anything done in straight order. Five minute intervals are all one get before someone is crying or needs a discipline action.

My ability to crochet a project has taken a nose dive also. I tried to do some mosaic crochet stitch sampler only to run out of one of the yarns that I was using as a base color. I miss crochet. It is someone of an anti-fret-not-knots for me. So I looked up some of the fret not sayings and studied the meanin. Fret means to work oneself up into anger enough to do damage. Fret not means to let go of the thing “bothering” oneself into a worked up mess. A “fret knot” on the instrument is a way of tying the wire (that is used for resonating sound) so as to allow the wire to accept the tension of plucking to make a pleason sound. My children played stringed instruments so I know the importance of the fret board or the “pegs.” Little kids see those frets and just want to turn the “buttons” instead of leaving them alone. We are all like little kids in that respect, We want to twist up the tension until things break.

How can I take this lesson to heart? How can I truly “fret not” over the future that is in store for me, or others? Especially right now… while I worry about my mother’s recent stroke or any of my other family and their prayer needs. My natural release has always been to crochet. And making the fret knots with my hook usually helps. Until now when my mind is so worried I can’t come up with a project that I am happy with. Like the peg or fret I must find a way to anchor myself in the Lord’s promise that He will hlep me make a beautiful sound when the tension arises.

The other fret not activity for me is my gardening or greenhouse. I have found with Kona that I am not spending the hours of consecutive working in the greenhouse like I use too. And so far taking him with has not worked well. He wants to pick things up that he should not chew on and therefore “ruins” the peace of my sanctuary in the garden dome structure. One day maybe we’ll get this figured out. When he does not behave, I just bring him back to the house and put him in the crate. Someday he’ll learn to be with me is enough. Every dog is a bit of a snoopy during their early years.

And meanwhile all this happenings of disabling busy worrying, my heart has rested on a couple of verses for spiritual food. Psalm 37:7-8 “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him…Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.”

The bigger picture is only seen by the Lord. Right now I am living is the little tiny corner of the painting and I have no clue what else is on the canvas. I am standing so close to the thing, only hindsight will show me the rest of the true view. Because my eyesight often puts this exact phenomenon into play for me, I understand the quote readily. My tunnel vision works that way. When I look at a hymn I have to be close enough to see the note on the line or between the line, only to loose sight of the rest of the stanza. Therefore beign too close to get the full view of the hymns melody.

Two different analogies but very relatable to me with my failing eyesight. The painting or the hymn is best viewed or heard in it’s entirety. We don’t always have that luxury. For now I will simply have to wait on the Lord.

Sentimental Value

Published on by yvonneannetteLeave a comment

Sometimes we keep things way past their point of use. We call that insuring the sentimental value. Why? Well, sometimes it takes ten years or more to say goodbye properly.

When our dog Furbie died the kids were off to college and I could no longer drive anywhere that I wanted to. Life had changed in a very hard way for me. And with the last link to the “girls” gone, I just simply could not stop the flow of tears. I even went to the doctor to try to settle the grief score and the emotions would not heal easily. So we tried another puppy and only got a bad mistake. For the next three years the-dog-that-does-not-deserve-a-name was trying his hardest to make me glad again. It did not work. And because the poor little thing mirrored my emotional upheaval perfectly, he developed a bad gut. (The bad stomach came from an overnight visit to a neighbor who did not understand the no people food rule of small dogs.). We ended up having to put the dog down.

Those few years of lost connections to the days when my girls were about the house were hard. Our first dog died the fall the first daughter went off to college. Then the second during the spring of the second daughter’s freshman year. And then three years into the college gig and the third doggie died of diabetes just after our first daughter became engaged. Rough times but life was marching on and it was time to write a new future for myself.

Don’t feed the bitter roots. This is easier said than done. I think of all the history of this place in which I live. The homestead has so many rich stories of the people who have lived here and farmed and kept the place what it is. All those years of sheep and herdingthe girls and pets around. I did not have time to think of what went on before us. Now time is all that I seem to have

There are some happenings on any acreage that could keep others from wanting to even live there. We ddecided to not feed those bitter roots and bring life to the place. But one of our old friends during our sheep days would say, “when you have livestock, sometimes you have dead stock.” So I began to take the passing of my cats and doggies differently.

All dogs go to heaven? Well, my mind is not so sure about all of that simplistic thought. Perhaps they do. I still feel a little guilty about not bringing Furbie’s body back home to be buried. Sometimes grief really clouds the thinking channels. But animals don’t have a soul like people do. Animals have spirit, personality, and character traits. Some just seem to be larger than life, and are harder to let go of. Like Furbie.

The blanket in the first picture was his special blanket that I crocheted for him after umpteen projects that he would “test” out for me. Every thing that I crocheted had to be tried by his furry little body to see if it was worthy of a nap. Of course, I made a lot of rugs during those days so that was fine with me. But soon even the afghans and blankets had to be tested. So I found this old project from years past, pulled out the yarn and made him his own Zen blanket. (I don’t really believe in any of that stuff.)

For sentimental value I saved the blanket in a ziplock blanket bag in the top of some closet. It took me four months to get up the courage to pull out of the step-stool and look for it. Yep, this little doggie can only be seen on the white side. It’s time to say goodbye to the zen and do a makeover.

Look for positive and join in. This is a great policy in life when working with other people in a work situation or community setting. We looked for a new kind of dog bed that would work in our current lifestyle. So this little “trough” style bed seemed just right to me.

Making it was a trial in and of itself. My poor hubby had a board from up in the attic of the garage come down and bite him in the lip. It took a few layers of skin right off his upper lip. Miserable. Poor thing still can’t pucker up as the pain is bothering him yet. But I think he did a great job on the little bed. The other evening during supper Kona had half his body underneath the bed retrieveing a toy. That was so funny I nearly cried laughing!

Now of course the decision is paint or stain. I think we are leaning towards painting it white-ish so that it reflects light and it is easier to find him. We’ll see what it looks like after the blanket is done and in it.

Keeping things for one reason or another can make for a very cluttered house. Trying to find Furbie’s crocheted blanket occupied my thoughts longer than the actual activity of getting it out of the closet keeper. I am glad we keep it even though I have no special memorial spot for the first few pets, at least this black and white yarn will bring back a smile.

Holding water in one’s hand. That’s what they say about trying to hang unto the past when the present is drowning out old memories. I hope I always have room for the hear and now. And I pray I will seek to make new memories always.

The past four days while experiencing this momentary affliction that life on this earth sometimes has to offer us, I spent a lot of time in the numbness of pain. Not even thinking of the morrow, just looking for the next hour to pass can be feel pretty hopeless at times. Nevertheless, the hours to go by. Time does march on. The stomach bug does flush away to the land of never-ness. Until next time, and I wonder what have I learned from this suffering? How has this made me more like Christ? How did this conform me to the image of the invisible God-head?

Movie Watch: Moonrise, Heaven’s Door and Land all on prime video. We tried a couple on the tv smart stations but they are so old we could hardly handle the language and drunken escapades. Land is about a woman who has given up on people and tries to go live off the land in the mountains by herself. Only to find out that she can still learn from another person. Heaven’s Door is about a family who looses a grandfather just after loosing a baby. The eldest daughter shows them waht is like to have childlike faith in the aterlife and yet in the her and now. Moonrise is also a “grief-loss-gain” movie. A country singer finds his way back to the trade through hiring a horse trainer. What they all have in common is that everyone needs some form of grief counseling simply because we live on this fallen planet. Affliction adn suffering happens to everyone. What we chose to do with it is another matter.

Sentimental Value can have us grasping to hang unto things like water in nne’s hand. I think of this as the yarn slips through my fingers. What was here today may be gone tomorrow. Puppies aren’t forever. Yarn might last more than a lifetime if it’s taken care of properly. What really lasts is the pleasure we derive from such vain things. And may we grasp that even such joy comes from the Giver who can hold the oceans in one hand.