Posts Categorized: Love

I’m Fond of Plants That Are Sturdy

| Love, Peace

I’ve learned my lesson. Well, pretty much. When it comes to plants, I don’t really do “delicate.” I know folks who have greenhouses and hothouses, and they grow beautiful things. I grow beautiful things, too, but they have to be sturdy. I do purchase and plant things that are annuals (they don’t usually live through the winter). But I’m most fond of the perennial plants, the plants that I put in the ground once and they return each spring. This year, of course, things are somewhat different, after the epic ice and snow and very low temperatures we had in February. It’s April now, and if some plants haven’t returned, then I’m thinking that they’re not going to.

 

 

I pointed the shape out to David, and he said that, yeah, he’d noticed it, and, at first, thought it might be a squirrel. When Peter came, a week ago, I called his attention to it, and said that, when I first saw it, I thought it was a cat, maybe. And David said that he thought it might be a squirrel. And Peter looked at us and said, “It’s a piece of wood.” Ah, nature.

Outside and inside, of me, of what surrounds me, the sunrise, the sunset, the grass, the flowers, the trees. Life and love, friends and family. What makes me ponder, what surprises me, what comforts me, what’s worth singing and shouting our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!

 


Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!
Romans 5:10 (The Message Translation)
I am grateful. God is good.

Old Habits Are Difficult to Break

| Faithfulness, Love, Patience, Peace

I mentioned, a few weeks ago, that I’ve “retired” from teaching preschoolers at church. And, since we’ve not yet had a routine sort of schedule for Sundays, I haven’t yet had an opportunity to find a new niche for myself on Sunday mornings. I’ve absolutely determined to stay out of the preschool realm, and am completely confident in the capabilities of the people who are going to be the Sunday School teachers, at whatever time Sunday School starts up again.

However, I do find myself falling into some previous shopping habits. I’ve caught myself, when shopping, distracted by the sorts of things I used to purchase for church.

And then there is this old friend.

Right before Thanksgiving, in 1979, a friend called me. She was the Preschool Minister at a large church in Waco. They had a weekday program, and one of her teachers had abruptly quit. She was desperate. Was I interested in taking the job? I said, no, I really couldn’t take the full time job, but I could help her out, in the mornings, for December and January, and give her time to find a new teacher.

As I tried to get organized, which included getting breakfast done, lunches packed, and two-year-old Jeremy to a friend’s house, I realized I needed some additional resources. I bought this canvas bag to have a place to put things like books, games, and other supplies, so that I could just pick it up on my way out of the house.

After my time at that church, this bag became my “church” bag. It gave me a place to drop in, during the week, items that I wanted to use at church that Sunday. It has been incredibly sturdy! It has been laundered a few times over the years, after one thing or the other has been spilled or squashed down in the bottom. I’ve replaced the handles at least twice.  You can see the tattered upper edge on the right side. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it now. I might frame it: “Best bag ever!”

 

 

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

1 Corinthians 3:6 (New Revised Standard Version)

Come, Ye Thankful People, Come. Or, Shelter, Ye Weary People, Shelter

| Love, Patience, Peace

From all the childhood photos I have, this one on the left is the only Thanksgiving photo I can find. The across-the-street neighbors have come to celebrate with us. On Christmas Day, we went to their house for our holiday meal.

When we were first married, friends invited us to their home for Thanksgiving Dinner. The next year, I cooked and baked for the two of us.

 

 

A few years later, we went to David’s grandmother’s house, in Tennessee. We arrived a couple of days before the rest of David’s large family got there. When we walked into the house, Nanny (David’s grandmother) put me to work. I made pie crusts and filled them, I peeled potatoes, I baked yams, I never left the kitchen for the next three days.

In this charming photo of Nanny and her great-grandchildren, no one wants to have their picture taken. Except Kevin, who is smiling charmingly at the camera.

 

 

And a few years after that, we convinced David’s mother to come to Texas for Thanksgiving, because there were some great-grandchildren that she hadn’t met. Those two nieces (from those photos above) came with their husbands and their babies to Waco. It was a wonderful visit.

 

 

 

The holiday will be different for lots of folks this year. Often, coaches and sports teams will say, after a less that perfect season, “Just wait until next year. Things will be better.” I think most of us are counting on things being better. Much better.

 

Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

Psalm 30:5,b (New Revised Standard Version)

 

 

 

Let it be so.

 

 

 

 

I Said I Didn’t Want It, But No One Paid Any Attention

| Faithfulness, Kindness, Love, Patience, Self-Control

I’ve been doing stuff with kids at church for quite some time: Children’s Choir, Preschool Choir, Wednesday night activities, and, finally, Preschool Sunday School.

I’ve had different configurations of groups. At the beginning, it was 4-year-olds. Then, we grouped Threes into the mix. Then, it was just Threes. Then it just varied for a few years, based on how many kids and how many adults and what sorts of spaces. For the last several years, it’s been Three-year-olds, Pre-Ks, and Kindergartners. A few years ago, I thought: “I’ll keep teaching Sunday School as long as I have Peter in my room.”

Fall, a year ago, Peter, as a first-grader, moved up to the Younger Elementary class. But, I had looked at the incoming Threes, and they were so very cute that I thought, “Okay. One more year. And THAT’S ALL!” They were just as charming as they were cute, and things went along quite nicely until mid-March, when everything came to a halt.

Each week, I would mail them the pages that they would have taken home from church, along with a note, or a game, or some cookies, or some crayons, or some stickers. At some point, I told the Children’s Minister that I would be done at the end of August. “Every part of me hurts,” I said. “My hands hurt. My knees hurt.” And, truly, I felt like I would soon be a liability instead of an asset. I also said that I didn’t want a deal, or a thing, or anything or the sort. I would just be done. She thought that the members of the Children’s committee should know, and I thought that they really didn’t. Because, I didn’t want a deal or a thing. And I thought that was that.

That was NOT that.

I got an e-mailed Agenda for an upcoming ZOOM Children’s Committee meeting which included an item “Gayle’s Announcement.” So, not exactly a private thing any more.

Someone at the meeting thought I needed a deal. The first thing that popped up was a post on Facebook, with a rather LARGE photo of me and the line “Shhhh. Don’t tell! We want to thank Gayle Lintz for 42 years of teaching Preschool Sunday School, by writing her letters, which we will give her later.” (Or something like that)

I e-mailed the Children’s Minister and said, “I AM on Facebook. FYI.”

My nice book of appreciation.

So, it wasn’t quite so secret after all. Then, the next plan was that the letters would be received and collected and given to me. The Children’s Minister recently contacted me and said that they’d like to give those to me during an upcoming worship service. At this point we’ve not been having worship services with a congregation. The staff comes and opens up the place on Sunday morning. There are instrumentalists (piano, organ, guitar, drums/percussion, and horn). There are four choir members who sing (all masked up) from the sanctuary platform while we participate from home via video. There are Scripture readings and a sermon and announcements and prayers. Last Sunday, we went, too. Kevin and April and Peter came for the weekend, also. We sat on one row, towards the front, all masked up. At the end of the service, I went up front and got a lovely book that had all the kind things that people had written for me.

 

 

 

 

And then . . .  I got this. And, for real, I was horrified. Because, over the years, various people have lobbied for just such a thing for one nursery teacher or elementary teacher or preschool teacher or another, and the general attitude as been that there have been many competent, capable, loving teachers through the years and we just cannot cover the walls with all of their names. So, I’m setting a precedent? I believe my response, when they picked it up to show me, was NOOOOOOOO. They were unmoved.

They said it went through the Children’s Committee and the Coordinating Council and I don’t know who all else. And it is a done deal.

 

 

I had insisted, when they said they wanted me to show up (to get those letters), that I wanted to speak. And, boy, did I speak. I talked about how, just because I’ve done the same thing for so many years, it doesn’t seem extraordinary, because so many people in the church have done a variety of things for many years, the sum total of which are just as significant as doing one thing for years. “Everybody does something,” I said. And I gave examples of the sorts of things that members of our church family have done, such as serving on committees, being deacons, being part of the choir (which means Wednesday night rehearsals and Sunday morning anthems), giving financially, praying diligently, and more. “Everybody does something,” I said. “EVERYBODY does something.” And I meant it.

 

 

 

 

Kevin took this photo, after everything was finished, to send to Jeremy, to show him how I feel about this. It’s so large I don’t know exactly where they plan to put it. Maybe they didn’t get that far in their thinking.

As we were leaving, Kevin pointed out the plaque that is on the organ, that honors a long-time organist. (You can actually see the edge of it in the photo above.) Then, in the hallway, he also reminded me of the photo hanging there, that recognizes a church member who, for many, many years, would cheerfully greet everyone who walked into the church and give them a hug.

Across the hallway from that photo, there’s a large plaque honoring the church’s first pastor. And, down in the Fellowship Hall, another portrait honoring a man who donated the money to renovate the that space. And, a large photo recognizing a beloved Minister of Education is upstairs in a meeting room.

So, while it does feel rather awkward, really awkward, I’m trying to become accustomed to the idea.

 

“Wonderful!” his master replied. “You are a good and faithful servant … Come and share in my happiness!”

from Matthew 25:21 (Contemporary English Version)

 

In an interesting, and amusing, mixup, three or four weeks ago, at the end of the video worship service, the Associate Pastor reminded people to send their letters to the church to be gathered to give me in a few weeks. And, again, I thought that they’ve just completely given up on any idea of those being a surprise. This past Sunday, he told me (in case I hadn’t heard it for myself) about that gaffe. He said that after the video streaming was shut off, other staff members came up to him, wide-eyed, to ask why he’d made that announcement, reminding him that is was supposed to be a surprise. He reminded them that there had been announcements and reminders in the church’s e-mailed newsletter for several weeks. Unbeknownst to him, the office staff had been creating special, sans-surprise, newsletters to be e-mailed to both me and David. And I, as always, very much enjoy a good, funny story. So, it all worked out.

Rock-a-bye Baby

| Joy, Love

Kevin was born just a couple of months before David got out of the Air Force. We were living in a furnished apartment at the time. Some people had, a few months earlier, given us a bed. The couple had a king-size bed in their bedroom, but, in their guest room, there was a double bed. They’d recently taken a vacation and visited relatives, who also had a double bed in their guest room. The couple found that bed absolutely too small and uncomfortable. When they got back home, they went and purchased a queen-size bed for their guest room. At church choir rehearsal one evening, the husband told people that they had this bed they were giving away, and did anyone want it. David immediately said, “Yes, we could use a bed.” It wasn’t a new bed, but it was a bed that had hardly been slept in, and we were accustomed to sleeping on a double bed, anyway.

I think we took the bed frame from the bed we had and the new bed’s frame, and leaned them against the wall in our bedroom. And then we stacked the box springs from the bed in our apartment and the hand-me-down bed, and then put the two mattresses on top of that. It was a wobbly few months. When Kevin was born, he slept in a car bed sort of thing we had purchased. Another church friend had given us a used crib, but we didn’t have space to set it up. It was in pieces in a storage space in under some stairs. The only other furniture items we owned were a couple of stools.

On David’s last day in the Air Force, packers were scheduled to come and put all our belongings into boxes to ship to Waco. It took much less time than usual for them, as they typically pack up whole houses of furniture and all the household stuff. We had household stuff, like kitchen stuff and a couple of sets of dishes. When we first moved in, we’d bought a set of plastic dishes, and those movers wrapped every single piece of that stuff, individually, in paper. They were very careful packers.

We did have a broom, and the packers carried it around for a while, not having a good place to pack it. “We’ll figure it out,” they said. Then they labeled all the boxes, checked them off, gave me a list to check, and I signed the form, and they carried all those cartons down the stairs and into their truck.

David came home from work a little while later, walked into the apartment, took off his uniform and put on civilian clothes, and went downstairs to the trash cans, and threw away that uniform. Then we picked up the suitcases and the baby (and the baby stuff) and went to the airport and flew away home.

We lived with my family for a few weeks. We rented an apartment, but had to stay with them until our stuff came. We finally got the phone call from the moving company and I met them at the apartment. Our shipment of household goods was pretty paltry in that great big van. The movers brought in all the boxes and then gave me the official list to sign. All the boxes were there. As we were finishing up, I noticed, at the bottom of the list of numbers representing all the boxes, the word “broom.” I pointed that out to one of the movers.

“Oh,” he said. “Well, there is a broom out there in the van.” So, our broom made the long trip, across the ocean, across half the country, lying loosely among the crates, all the way to Waco. There was a piece of masking tape around the handle that had our shipping number on it. It was definately our broom.

We had a bed and a crib. My parents had purchased some new pieces of furniture for their den, but had saved the sofa and chair for us. An aunt and uncle, who had recently moved to Waco, had a kitchen table and chairs that didn’t fit in their new home, and they gave us that. Mother was also ready to redo my bedroom, and gave us the desk and the chest of drawers from that room. She’d planned to buy us a crib, but, since we’d been given one, she bought a chest of drawer for Kevin’s things, instead.

We were all set, except for that piece of furniture that all new parents need. A rocking chair. We bought a rocking chair for rocking our new baby.

As essential as that rocking chair has been for us, I was surprised to have difficulty actually finding photos.

 

 

We wondered how much it would cost to find a similar rocking chair to put in this space. We talked about trying to find someone to repair it, as my sister and brother-in-law have moved to Seattle. And I brought up the fact that we have another rocking chair. “It’s too big,” he said. We measured all the parts of it, and it’s only a smidgen larger. It came from my paternal grandmother’s house. It’s really sturdy.

And, because I never thought about asking, I’m sad to not know if they bought the chair, if it was a gift, was it handed down from other family members. I never thought to ask the questions. I’d like to know. But, I guess it’s more important that it still does its job as a rocking chair, even with its secret history. And, even if it is only I who rocked a sad toddler, who sat and read a magazine article, who relaxed while the pasta was cooking, who took a moment to thank God for a warm home in winter and a cool home in summer, and a place to rest and relax, even for just a few minutes at a time, that’s enough joy for me.

 

 

Old Friends (cue the orchestra)

| Joy, Love, Patience

Down the street from us, behind the elementary school at the end of the block, there’s a park. There’s playground equipment, swings and slides and climbing structures. There’s a splash pad, too, for warm weather. And there’s a track; folks run and walk on it, parents push their babies in strollers, Peter rides his scooter around the oval. And, scattered about, there are park benches.

The park bench by the splash pad, where people of ALL ages sit, sometimes.

 

A couple of years ago, Peter and I went to the park. As we walked toward the splash pad,  I noticed a couple of men, senior adults, sitting, with their backs toward us, one on a bench, the other in a wheelchair. And, instantly, a song popped into my ears.

Simon and Garfunkel are the musical voices of my young adulthood. At seeing those men, the song “Old Friends” began to play in my head, and I was really tempted to surreptitiously take their photograph. (But it seemed intrusive.)

Meanwhile, in my head: “Can you imagine us years from today . . . sharing a park bench quietly? How terribly strange to be seventy.” I kept on humming, as Peter scootered over to the slides.

And, now, the song is back, wending its way around my hours and my days, even when I’m nowhere near a park bench, quietly or otherwise.

I’ve just turned seventy. And strange doesn’t even begin to describe it. Turning fifty didn’t bother me. Sixty didn’t seem inappropriate. Seventy is, actually, strange.

For quite some time, one of my knees hurts. It’s not excruciating, but, sometimes, it’s uncomfortable. My fingers are taking on a life of their own, skewing, swelling, refusing to bend. And my stylist doesn’t need nearly as much time to cut my hair as she used to. There’s just not as much hair there.  I’m consistently turning the volume up, on the computer, the television, and my phone. (My sons’ mantra has become: “Get hearing aids!”)

“Seventy, thy name is OW!”

Of course, the reality is that not being 70 doesn’t mean being 50 or 60 again. Not being 70 means not being, at all. And, I’d rather postpone “not being, at all.”

 

Meanwhile, back in the late 60’s, I purchased both the record and the music for Simon and Garfunkel’s album Bookends, so I can enjoy the songs whenever I want to. Well, I can play the songs, assuming my fingers will cooperate.  I don’t have a way to play the record. But, that’s what iTunes is for, right?

 

 

 

Listen to Me, house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been sustained from the womb, carried along since birth. I will be the same until your old age, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will bear and save you.

Isaiah 46:3-4 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

 

Thanks be to God.

Traditions Tried and Traditions New

| Joy, Love, Patience

I think the old adage goes like this: When you’re really busy, time flies.

And the antithesis is: When there’s not much going on, there’s not much going on. Today lasts forever and tomorrow is hours and hours and hours away.

And then some.

I was thinking about Easter and how it seems to have been several weeks ago. But no, not even a whole week ago.

I haven’t been completely dormant this week. I’ve done important (but not too interesting) things, such as going to the grocery store, purchasing a limited amount of things, like salad stuff and hot dogs (and buns) and, um, other random stuff. I called in a prescription refill and picked that up at Target.

I’ve done some knitting. And had to start one thing over. Three times.

I’ve done a bit of work outside, but the weather’s been pretty chilly. Unseasonably chilly, as though WEATHER had not looked at the calendar and noticed that it’s April here. I keep thinking that I need to launder and put away the wintry clothing and pull out the springtime stuff. Not yet. (Of course, in just a few weeks, summer will be ready to creep in, and I’ll be complaining about the heat.)

And speaking of Easter, it rained. In the wee hours Sunday morning, a gigantic crash rattled the windows, an epic flash of light illuminated the bedroom, and drenching rain came down. And down. And down. And down.

The first thing I thought about was that I hoped that parents, trying to get ahead of the chaos of Easter morning, had not decided to hide eggs outdoors for their kids to find at the first light of day, which is when children who are expecting treats are going to want to rise and shine.

I was reminded of an Easter when I was a college student. A friend came home for the Easter weekend, and on Saturday, I went to her house and we decorated a lot of hard-boiled eggs and decorated them. She was inviting some high school friends over for a party, and then there would be a grand finale of finding Easter eggs in her spacious back yard. In the dark, with only the limited light from the garage and back patio lights.

Her friends were up to the challenge and eagerly went out to find those eggs. They got flashlights. They looked and peered and hunted.  Nothing. They could not find a single egg. My friend, and I, were shrugging our shoulders and trying to guide them to the places where we were certain there should be eggs. No luck. We were confounded.

She was able to figure it out the next day, when she noticed some movement in the back yard. The neighbors had a couple of large dogs, and they had pushed their way through a gap in the fencing. They were making beelines to the places where, during the early evening before, they had found some scrumptious, crackly, chewy, yummy treats.

She notified the neighbors that their dogs were out. And that their fence needed mending.

Some Easters have been bright and warm, others have been cloudy and damp. Since Easter isn’t a set date in the springtime, anywhere from March 22 to April 25, knowing what the weather might be, is, well, variable.

On our most recent Sunday morning, we had video church, now running for five Sundays. For most weeks, our pastor has preached from the living room (and our minister of music has led us in singing from his living room). Last Sunday, the preaching came from the beautiful back yard. That giant thunderstorm was short-lived, and the sun was shining. Alleluia!

Jeremy and Sarah’s church, in Brooklyn, has been putting Scripture reading and choral music with each week’s sermon and posting it online on Sunday mornings.

Kevin and April’s church has been having their worship services online for the past several weeks. They wanted to do something different on Easter, wanting the people to gather together, but staying safe. They invited everyone to drive to church, park in their larger parking lot, and worship together in their cars. They got an FM transmitter so that people could listen through their car’s radio. The pastor also invited people, when they would have said “Amen,” to honk their horns.

 

Wherever you’ve been, I hope your Easter was just what you needed it to be, to hear just what you needed to hear, and to rejoice in the way you needed to rejoice. Alleluia!

 

And I will be with you, day after day, to the end of the age.

Matthew 28:20b (The Voice Translation)

 

Amen.

We Might Should Be Paying More Attention to the Kids

| Joy, Kindness, Love

Peter came to visit a few days, during his Spring Break. A friend at church suggested a play date on Tuesday afternoon, with her own grandson, who was also spring-break visiting. I suggested a neighborhood park close to our house. There’s a large oval track and a few playground structures with slides and climbing structures.

A few families were there and kids were running and climbing and playing. Our two boys joined in.

There are also benches, perfect for a couple of grandmothers to sit and chat.

She said that earlier, they’d been to a fast-food restaurant with a nice playground which had been busy, busy while they were there. As families came and went, the playground population ebbed and flowed, and with every change in families, children said good-bye to old-and-new friends and hello to others. And as kids re-grouped, they found ways to work and play together.

“I see that they’re doing that here,” she said. Within an hour, most of the children who’d been at the playground when we arrived had left, being replaced with all new groups. Some kids worked and played together on one of the larger play structures. Others raced from one play structure to another, spending just a few minutes at one space, and then leaping up and streaking off to another one.

And we agreed that they are a far better example of getting along and working together than lots of adults we know.

 

Yesterday, I took Peter back to Fort Worth. His plan was that we would go to Central Market, do a little shopping, and get some lunch (a peanut butter sandwich and a salad) and then he could spend time on their playground. The day was delightful, and that is what we did. At any given moment, there were a dozen or so kids, racing from one apparatus to another, taking turns, planning, working together, and getting along.

 

 

But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head—Christ. From Him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.

Ephesians 4:15 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

 

And speaking of growing . . .

 

I’m No Meteorologist,

| Love, Patience

therefore, I don’t know all of the intricate ins and outs of weather. For example, Thursday was pretty nice (rather chilly in the morning, but almost balmy in the afternoon). Whereas, on Wednesday, the wind was epic horrid! (I looked it up at Dictionary.com and this is the appropriate use of “epic.” “Epically,” which I wanted to use, is not an actual word.)

When I look out my kitchen window, I can see, through the back hedge, the red windsock in the yard of the neighbors behind me. When I’m thinking of working outside, I check to see what the wind sock’s doing. Wednesday, the sun was shining, but I knew that the temperature wasn’t all that high. I checked the windsock, which was straining, straight out from the pole, with its little streamers frantically fluttering.

I had a podiatrist appointment at 8:15. I was one of the first patients to arrive, but there aren’t any “right by the door” parking spaces. After rushing from car door to clinic door, I was shivering when I reached the entrance, and stayed shivering. I did have to remove my coat for a blood pressure check, but then I put it right back on. I was sorry I hadn’t brought a blanket. The visit was just a quick checkup, so, in no time, I had to walk back out the door and over to my car, and was back to shivering. I drove straight home, parked the car in the garage, went into the house, and stayed there.

From the National Weather Service National Headquarters information on Wednesday’s weather:

WEATHER CONDITIONS
THE FOLLOWING WEATHER WAS RECORDED YESTERDAY.
NO SIGNIFICANT WEATHER WAS OBSERVED.

“No significant weather?” The largest limbs on the bare, bare trees were bending and blowing in the giant wind!

If we studied wind in some science unit in school, I didn’t get it. I don’t exactly know what makes wind. Or breezes. Or gusts. I did look up and read an article (which was designed for children), and here it is, so you, too can better understand why the largest limbs were swaying uncharacteristically on Wednesday.

What causes windy weather?

 

Praise the Lord from the earth, sea monsters and all ocean depths; lightning and hail, snow and clouds, strong winds that obey his command. Praise him, hills and mountains, fruit trees and forests; all animals, tame and wild, reptiles and birds. Praise him, kings and all peoples, princes and all other rulers; young women and young men, old people and children too. Let them all praise the name of the Lord! His name is greater than all others; his glory is above earth and heaven.

Psalm 148:7-13 (Good News Translation)

 

 

Meanwhile, Tuesday was a lovely day, and I was part of a group that visited the Hebrew Rest cemetery here. It’s a quiet and lovely place, with families who have been part of Waco’s past for generations. As I walked around, I found three separate burial sites for families who last name was “Cinnamon.” I’d never heard that as a last name before.

 

I found these side-by-side sentiments quite touching. Cemeteries aren’t what they used to be.

 

Sometimes, I Forget It’s Thursday

| Love, Patience

This hasn’t been a normal week. (Yeah, I know, lots of folks never have a normal week.)

Monday was a holiday, and a very nice day, and I worked outside all day.

Tuesday, I got a text from a friend that I’m helping with car pool. The message said to please pick the student up at 10:00 a.m. instead of 7:40 a.m. That worked, because, even though on Tuesdays, I have Reading Club responsibility at the elementary school close to my church, that gave me plenty of time. Then, as I was on my way for the 10:00 pickup, another text said that the kid was coughing and seemed sick, so they were on their way to Urgent Care. Later, my friend said that she had taken the student to school (after the Urgent Care visit), and could I pick her up at 4:15, because there was tutoring she needed to attend. And I was glad to hear that, because I’m taking a class (through Baylor, for senior adults) that ends at 3:00 and it’s rather a rush to get to school for car pool. Then, while I was in that class, I got another text that said another friend was picking up the student, because Urgent Care had called and said that she had Flu and Strep. So not only was she going home, but she would be at home all week.

Tuesday, David was gone until really late, working on the local Science Fair. Wednesday, he did that until noon, then raced around getting ready for the trip he was taking on Thursday. I took him to the car rental place Thursday morning. He’ll be back Friday.

It seemed like a good time to try to get better organized with all the photos, cards, and other ephemera I’ve been collecting. (While the definition of ephemera is “any transitory written or printed matters that are not meant to be retained or preserved,” that’s not exactly what happens. The word derives from the Greek ephemeros, meaning ‘lasting only one day, short-lived’.”  On the Google page where “ephemera” is defined, there is also a link to “How to organize ephemera.”) I put all the leaves in the dining table, piled up things by year, and put some things in an album. I used up all the pages and have had to order some more, so I can’t finish. (There is no way I am going to finish. Ever, it seems like.)

But I did divide up the rest of the ephemera by year and put them in Zip-Lock bags and labeled the bags with the year. So, I’ve got plenty of time tomorrow, well, maybe, to get the last things organized. (Not finished, but sort of organized.) Then, at some time in the future, after the ordered pages arrive, I’ll be able to get work done. Nothing like giving organized stuff that was supposed to last only one day a much longer lifespan.

Meanwhile, I lost track of what day it was. Any of the days. Without my normal routine, I was out of sync. More than usual. Several times during the day, I would think What’s today? Is it THURSDAY already? And, yes, it was Thursday already. Which is “write a blog” day.

So I’m folding you in to my out-of-sync week. I’ve been working or organizing photos and stuff for albums that I will enjoy looking at years from now. I would enjoy knowing what you’ve been working on this week.

 

 And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Colossians 3:14 (The Message)

There are certainly garments that are my favorites. A soft sweater, warm leggings, my flannel nightgown (There’s an entirely different list in August.) When I think of how they comfort me, I’m reminded to concentrate on that all-purpose garment of love.