Posts Categorized: Patience

The Square of the Hypotenuse . . . or, A Useful Thing I Learned in Math Class

| Kindness, Patience, Self-Control

Here, it's the slanty side, labeled "c." In Right Triangle Land, the hypotenuse is always "c."

Here, it’s the slanty side, labeled “c.” In Right Triangle Land, the hypotenuse is always “c.”

I don’t know if it happened in some regular math class, or in Algebra or in Geometry, or in all of them, but at some point I learned the term “hypotenuse” and what it meant–which is: In a Right Triangle (which is any triangle that has a right angle [90°]), the side opposite that right angle is called the hypotenuse. And I find the idea useful when I’m walking in parking lots.

When I’m shopping, let’s say at Target, and I leave the store with my bag(s) and maybe a cart, I’ve got to walk across two lanes of parking lot traffic to get to the parked cars. The drivers in those lanes are, of course, or at least we hope of course, driving pretty slowly. One: they’re trying to be careful of pedestrians entering and leaving the store. Two: they’re trying to find good parking spots. Hmm. I think finding the parking spots might be their first priority, and the shopping public a little further down their list of concerns. But, ordinarily, no one is speeding in that space in front of the store’s entrances. (And, there are a couple of stop signs, too.)

When shoppers leave the store, they usually head precisely toward the spaces where their cars are parked, because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line (also a Geometry fact).

 

IMG_4212Let’s say that some guy parked his white car in the spot that’s way over on the left side of the photo. He may have parked there because he’s got to return something, and the Customer Service counter is by that closest door, the one at the front of the right-hand side on the photo. He returns his merchandise and then thinks that he might like to have a latte from the Target Starbuck’s, so he walks on down there. Then, he thinks he’s hungry, too, and a pretzel would be tasty. The snack bar is right beside the farther door, so he gets his pretzel and walks out that door. Then, he realizes that he’s gone out the wrong door, but it’s early in the morning and not blazing hot, yet. So he starts walking toward his car. He walks in a straight line (that being the shortest distance), from the door to his car, i.e. diagonally across the whole length of those lanes. And, if I and someone else are driving up towards him, and a couple of other cars are approaching from behind him, we’ve all got to stop and wait for him to make that long walk. We might be able to inch up some, but basically, at some point, his walking is slowing down both lanes of car traffic. Instead, the more helpful route would have been to leave the building and walk straight across that lane where cars drive (see Side a, above). Then, he could walk down Side b, towards his parked car, still having to cross the distance between the lines of parked cars where vehicles might be driving, but there wouldn’t be quite as much traffic slow-down. Or, he could have walked all the way down the sidewalk in front of the building (side b) and then across the busier lanes (side a). And, obviously, at 8:30 in the morning (photo time), it’s not much of an issue. But, on a Saturday afternoon. Ollie, Mollie, Gollie. It really would help a lot!

IMG_4215

Same thing at the HEB grocery store. There is a much wider space for cars driving back and forth, coming and going, searching for the best place to park. But the grocery store shoppers often have filled-to-the-brim carts and sometimes lots of family members, some of them rather short. Walking straight across instead of opting for the lengthier, diagonal route, would be safer.

 

In Math Classdom, the hypotenuse is famous for its place in the Pythagorean theorem, which Wikipedia defines as:

In mathematics, the Pythagorean theorem, also known as Pythagoras’s theorem, is a fundamental relation in Euclidean geometry among the three sides of a right triangle. It states that the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. The theorem can be written as an equation relating the lengths of the sides a, b and c, often called the “Pythagorean equation”:[1]

 a^{2}+b^{2}=c^{2},

where c represents the length of the hypotenuse and a and b the lengths of the triangle’s other two sides.

The example we got in Math class was a triangle where side “a” was 3 inches and side “b” was 4 inches and the hypotenuse was 5 inches. So: 3 squared (9) + 4 squared (16) = 5 squared (25).

(If you’re at all interested in reading more, and who wouldn’t be, here’s the Wikipedia link.)

 

The inside of the Lord’s temple was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high.

1 Kings 6:2 (Contemporary English Version)

The hypotenuse of that space would have been about  94.87, as per the Calculate the Hypotenuse of a Right Triangle website.

IMG_4208And, something that is not at all germane to this conversation, but look what I found on the front sidewalk this morning. It’s a cicada. It didn’t seem very healthy, but it was early in the morning, and he might have just been fresh out of his little pupating shell. I’ve seen several round holes in the side yard, by the ferns. Maybe it’s cicada coming-out-party time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Time for Everything, A Season for Every Activity

| Patience, Peace

Here it is … Thursday night again. Well, I don’t know, of course, when you’re reading this, but for me, at the computer, it’s Thursday night. Peter’s been here since Monday, and we’ve had Children’s Bible Club each evening at church. I taught in the Pre-K room, along with two other teachers. We had five or six kids each evening, and we all had a very good time.

It’s Vacation Bible School (or VBS), but we call it Children’s Bible Club (or CBC), and it’s a long story why, but it’s the same thing.

We’d discussed earlier in the week how the play dough (green) seemed to be getting smaller and smaller, and how, possibly, we should make some more. So this evening, when the kids had all arrived, and before dinner came (yes, all the kids get dinner each evening), I pulled out the play dough ingredients and the skillet, so we could cook up a fresh batch. We had already decided on the color choice. Pink. When I had asked about color, two girls voted for pink, two boys voted for two different colors. The third boy abstained. So, the pink won.

We put all the ingredients into the skillet, and each kid who wanted to stir, got a turn to stir the play dough batter. (Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that that seems to make a nicer batch of homemade play dough.) When dinner came, I moved the skillet to a counter. I plugged it in, but it seemed to be wobbling. I looked, and one of the skillet’s feet was sitting on, oh, yes, my phone.

As an aside here, earlier, at the zoo, I sharply said to a mom whom we were walking with (and playing with her kids) that I was amazed by and disappointed in the women’s fashion industry. “Why, in this day and age, do clothing designers continue to put inadequate pockets in women’s clothes!?!” She agreed. My phone had fallen out of my pocket … not while I was sitting down (which does sometimes happen, when there’s an inadequate pocket), but while I was walking! That’s how shallow the pocket was. That is a BAD pocket. I have had that dress for a while, and I’m trying to be more careful and conscious when I buy clothes. But it’s REALLY frustrating. Anyway …

The reason my phone was on the counter was because it wouldn’t stay in my pocket. I had taken it out of my purse to have nearby, instead of being in my purse, hanging on a hook on the back of the door. So, I had put it on the counter. The skillet’s not that heavy and the phone certainly wasn’t damaged by having one of it’s feet on it for a few seconds. I lifted the skillet’s edge, by holding the handle, of course, because it was plugged in and beginning to heat up. I quickly picked up my phone.

And dropped it into the uncooked play dough batter.

And yelped.

Another teacher came to my rescue, and began to stir the play dough, so it would cook nice and evenly. I snatched up some paper towels, and began to frantically wipe off my phone. There are all those openings in the case, for me to be able to turn the phone on and off and the volume up and down and take photos. It took many seconds for me to pull the case off, but finally I could begin wiping the thing down. Both things down. I guess it only took a few seconds, because I was done and the case back on by time the play dough batter had become play dough.

 

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4 (New International Version)

It’s been a week of extended laughing and dancing.

And, in an interesting postscript, this evening as I was carefully inspecting the phone to be sure I’d removed all the pink, I discovered a little tiny switch on the side of my phone. “What’s that?” I wondered. It looked like it had some pink play dough batter in it, so I looked really carefully and moved it, and discovered that the pink was a reddish line when the switch was pushed down. When I did push the switch up and down, little pictures appeared on the phone’s screen, saying “Ringer” and “Silent.” Which explains why for ages I have not been able to hear the phone ring. I’ve complained to family members that I miss calls because the phone’s ringer isn’t working right! Sooooo, give me a call. I might be able to hear the ringer now.

The Writing Career, Part 2

| Patience

I went back and looked at my manuscript database. “The Rain and the Rainbows” (the manuscript in question) had been sent out twenty-seven times. Nine periodicals had accepted and printed the piece. Eighteen periodicals had either returned it or did respond at all. I don’t know if that’s par for the course, or a birdie or a bogey (go here for golfing term definitions), but it doesn’t seem too bad to me. But my favorite entries are the “Requested” ones.

Apparently, editors of take-home church papers or leisure reading church publications actually read similar publications from other denominations. I mentioned last week that readers from one denomination aren’t likely to read the material from another denomination. On three occasions, I had requests from editors saying that they had read the piece in another church publication and would like to use it in their own. Could they purchase reprint rights, please? “Of course you can!” And, when one particular editor requested use of the piece, I said yes and didn’t even remind him that I had actually sent it to him, a year or so earlier, and he had sent it back with a “no thanks” note. No reason to be antagonistic.

And, editors being who they are, and with their own word and space limits, and their own denominational Bible version preferences, the piece is sometimes, or, always, a little bit different at each printing. But, here it is, in case you’d like to know what I got paid a whole dollar for, a few weeks ago.

 

 

The Rain and the Rainbows

For the second time in twelve hours, I carried my bags to the airline check-in desk. An unexpected closing of Dallas/Fort Worth airport the previous evening had meant an extra night in Nashville and re-booking on the far-too-early first morning flight. Rain was still falling in Texas, but the airport had re-opened, and we took off.
The sun was rising in a clear Tennessee sky, but soon, I barely could see the ground through the clouds, which became thicker and thicker as we approached DFW. We descended through the gray fog, and rain pelted the windows as we landed. I dreaded the rest of my flight home. A little 15-passenger commuter plane carried travelers from DFW to the small airport in my central Texas town. Sometimes bouncy on nice days, in rainy, windy weather, it was more like a bad amusement park ride. The vibrations and noise of the propellers prevented even a short nap on the 45-minute flight.
The storm clouds were unusually low, heavy with rain. So, instead of flying below the cloud cover, as usual, we rose up into the blue sky above.
I leaned back against the seat, too tired even to try reading.
Then, briefly, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a little rainbow. I looked more intently. Nothing there. I imagined it. But, there it was again. Then gone again. Now there were three. Then only one.
I watched the most amazing little sky show. There were scores of tiny arcs of rainbows, appearing, disappearing, re-appearing. Did the angle of the morning sun cause this? Or was it our closeness to the tops of the waterlogged storm clouds? Does this always happen when it rains?
How did I never know this? When it rains underneath the dark clouds, up above, the sky is full of rainbows.
I watched until the plane headed down through the misty clouds. We left the sunny sky, and raindrops again covered the small windows. At the terminal, we passengers jogged through puddles from the plane to the building. Damp from the rain, we waited for our luggage. The baggage handlers, the airline personnel, and the car rental agents were as gloomy as the weather outside.
They just don’t realize, I thought. It may be dismal here, and all we can see is the dreary weather. But up above the clouds, the sun is shining, and the sky is full of rainbows.
In Matthew, Jesus says “the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.” For me, it’s more like a rainstorm. I may be drenched and feeling weary and waterlogged, but the rainbows are up there shining. I know, because I’ve seen them.

 

God cares for you, so turn all your worries over to him.

1 Peter 5:7 (Contemporary English Version)

 

Things are different now, in most areas of publishing. So many print periodicals have folded and those that are still publishing are more selective. And, in the religious market, most have theme lists, which they gladly share with any writer who is interested. But there are hardly any who will just willy-nilly purchase something they might like, thinking that there will eventually be a place they can use it. So now, I think I’ll go see what the Mennonites are wanting in the next few months. They usually purchase what I send them.

My Illustrious Writing Career

| Patience

There are systems in place for hopeful freelance writers who want to submit their writing to editors.

Publications like Writer's Market and Christian Writer's Market and Writer's Digest magazine have information

Publications like Writer’s Market and Christian Writer’s Market and Writer’s Digest magazine have information

Writers can look for submission guidelines with word counts, editors’ names, and web sites to discover theme lists for various periodicals and book publishers. Back in the olden days, pre-Internet, submissions had to go by snail mail, and there was a system for getting manuscripts to the proper places. First, count the number of pages in a manuscript (and also an author’s cover letter). Then check the user-friendly chart in Writer’s Market to see how much postage you needed. If a writer wanted the manuscript returned, just in case it was rejected (not a positive thought, but if a writer wanted to submit it to a different periodical or book publisher, then they’d have to re-type it), then the writer needed to include a return envelope with their own name and address and the proper postage for the return trip. And be sure the out-going envelope included enough postage to cover the weight of the manuscript and the return envelope. The Writer’s Market chart included both those postage needs. Sometimes I got manuscripts back; sometimes they seemed to come back faster than I thought possible, if someone actually opened the envelope and spent more than thirty seconds actually reading what I had so carefully written. Sometimes, I got the return envelope back, but it had an acceptance letter and a check!

For many years, however, most magazine editors want things e-mailed, and most book publishers want the synopsis and sample chapter(s) that way, too. Maybe they even want entire books e-mailed, which would take lots of time, I suppose, but it’s a good thing to save on paper and printer ink.

IMG_4023I wouldn’t have been able to say when the last manuscript I sent off the snail-mail way got stamped and mailed away. But, I was a little startled a couple of months ago when a manila envelope showed up in my mail box. I recognized it right away by the string of stamps running across the top. The mailing label, addressed to this house and with the same return address, was a sign of a submission’s included return envelope. I was mystified. I did not remember, at all, sending out a submission that way.

IMG_4025I opened the envelope and was startled, and pleased, to see writer’s copies. Apparently they liked what I had sent, and had printed it in the May 21, 2017 issue of an adult take-home paper. There was an acceptance letter and two copies of the paper. The letter said “Thank you” for the article and “enclosed” were my complimentary copies. And, yay, my payment was also enclosed. Hmm. Where was my payment? I picked up everything and shook the papers. And, yes, indeedy, my payment dropped out.

IMG_4026Yep. That dollar bill. That’s my payment. The postage I had put on this envelope was  $1.05. (And they’d had to add 14 cents to it, postage having gone up since I’d mailed it in the first place.) So, there must have been at least $1.05 on the original envelope, maybe a little more, since the return envelope was in there, too. So, I lost money on the deal. I looked back at the database I keep of manuscripts I submit, and I couldn’t find the information. I searched some more, and found a copy of the cover letter I’d sent with the original submission. February 10, 2010. The postmark on the envelope I got was March 3, 2017. So, seven years they kept the piece. Well, a little less. I don’t know how long the choosing, editing, printing process is. But, I can pretty much guarantee that it’s less than seven years.

 

Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men,

Colossians 3:23 (Revised Standard Version)

This particular piece has a long history. I sent it to the first magazine in February 1994. I got an acceptance letter in Feburary 1995. Once I’d sold it for “first rights,” and it was published, I could send it other places (in non-competing markets) with the information that it had first appeared in Catholic Digest in March 1995. Parents’ Magazine and Parenting are examples of competing magazines. The same people are apt to read them. But, in the religious market, the Baptists are unlikely to read things published by the Catholics and the Methodists are not apt to read things by the Jewish press. They certainly might, but they’re not as likely to read them consistently. Over the past many years, I’ve earned over $300.00 from that one piece. Most of the periodicals pay a bit more than a dollar.

 

 

Oh, My Aching Back!!

| Faithfulness, Patience

I thought I had sciatica. A sharp pain ran across my left hip, down the back of my thigh, and on through my calf. I tried thinking that it would disappear on it’s own. It didn’t. Walking didn’t help. My regular routine at Curves didn’t do anything to alleviate the irritation. It wouldn’t go away.

The pain wasn’t severe. At night, in bed, I could always arrange my leg so that the discomfort diminished; I could sleep. I could do what I needed to do. I just was uncomfortable all the time.

The physical therapy place is right by Providence Hospital. Apparently, there is no nice photo anywhere online.

The physical therapy place is right by Providence Hospital. Apparently, there is no nice photo anywhere online.

At my regular checkup, my doctor showed me an exercise that might help and, more importantly, she said she would send me to physical therapy a couple of times. A few days later, therapy phoned and set up an appointment. Therapist Richard did a thorough exam, identified the problem (probably a bulging disc), and explained everything. He gave me a brochure with guidelines for a healthy back, and sent me to the secretary who set up eighteen appointments–three a week for the next six weeks.

The next visit, Richard led me through a few exercises and reviewed the changes I was making at home: how I got in and out of the car, how to lift things properly, and how I should squat instead of bending over to retrieve things I dropped on the floor. I never realized how often I do drop stuff on the floor until I had to squat to pick them up.

A spine with it's hip bones attached

A spine with it’s hip bones attached

In the therapy suite, there are numerous models of various bones and sets of bones. Richard brought over a spine for me to examine.

“If we can stretch out the vertebrae,” he explained, tugging on the lower part of the spine.

“It will give that bulging disc an opportunity to slip back into its place. That will relieve the pressure on it, and make the pain go away.”

He furrowed his brows a little and, with a bit of a question in his voice, suggested we try “mechanical lumbar traction.”

“Fine,” I said. “I want to get better.” He led me to a small room off the physical therapy gym, and we stood together in front of a exam table.

“This belt,” he said, pointing to a wide vinyl strap, “will go around your abdomen. It attaches to the top of the table. This one,” he said, showing me another strap, “will go around your hips. It attaches to this machine.” He pointed to a blinking box at the other end of the table. I looked at him soberly.

“Richard,” I said, solemnly. “This is a rack.”

“Well,” he admitted, “sort of.” And he strapped me in.


Richard explained that the machine would tug for 40 seconds, then relax for 40 seconds. It would repeat that cycle for 20 minutes. He handed me a call button. “You can press this at any time, and it will stop the machine,” he said. “In case it gets unbearable.”

“Is it going to be unbearable?!?” I asked, a little alarmed.

“Well,” he said, “some people feel a little claustrophobic. Sometimes.”

“Ah.”

With that, he walked to the door, switched off the light, and pulled the door closed.

The machine gently tugged for 40 seconds, then rested for 40 seconds. Tugged for 40; rested for 40. I snoozed.

Twenty minutes pass pretty quickly when you’re napping.

Next session, I was ready. I had ear buds and an audio book to listen to while I was mechanically lumbar-tractioned. I loved it. How many times does someone say, “Lie down. Relax. Stay right here for twenty minutes.”

It was certainly my most favorite part of therapy. Besides the rack, I spent time on the squat machine, strengthening my thigh muscles. Numerous exercises, machines, and routines were designed to strengthen my “core,” so my abs would hold me up straight and keep my back strong.

Sometimes, Richard would have me lie down on a large platform, on a pad, and say, “Just for fun . . . .” and then explain some wildly difficult and goofy exercise.

“Richard,” I would reply, “your ideas of fun and my ideas of fun are are as far apart as the East is from the West.”

One such exercise involved my lying, face up, on a long dense foam cylinder, about 6 inches in diameter, that ran from my neck to my hips. With my arms above my head and my feet on the mat, knees up, just balancing on the thing required all my concentration. Then he said, “Just for fun,” (not from where I’m lying, Richard!) “raise your right knee and bring you left hand down to touch it. Then, do that with your left knee and right arm.” As I worked with intense diligence to perform this maneuver, my arms and legs flailed about, and I often rolled right off that thing. I’ve looked online, through several sites that show how to use a foam roller for strengthening and for physical therapy. Out of all of them, only one suggested lying on the thing with it along one’s spine. And they were NOT lifting their legs from the mat.

“Do you ever film patients in therapy,” I asked.

“Sometimes,” Richard said.

“And then do you guys get together at parties and show them to each other and laugh at us.”

“Of course not,” he said, bristling. Hmmm. Maybe I believe him.

Anyway, I needed ten weeks of therapy in all. But I got stronger and the pain disappeared. I do my exercises regularly, and I try to remember to put bags and boxes and my purse on a chair or a counter or a shelf. Then I don’t have to squat down to pick them up again. I’m working on not dropping so much stuff on the floor. And I got a treadmill for walking, which is the best thing for spine health.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

Psalm 139:13-14 (New International Version )

growing

| Joy, Love, Patience, Peace

 

Sometimes, I sort of miss the baby. I miss being able to pick him up and nuzzle his cheeks and carry him around. I miss holding him while he slept. I miss being able to catch up to him, when he was toddling away and all I had to do was walk fast. Those days are long gone.

Instead, I get to listen to him read books. He can walk on the treadmill. I insist that I stand behind him, with my feet on the edges, while he walks, but he can hold on by himself. I get to paint with him, because he still would rather paint with company, instead of painting alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Train children in the right way,
    and when old, they will not stray.

Proverbs 22:6 (New Revised Standard Version)

I once heard Charles Swindoll talk about this verse. He said that adults often approach these words as meaning that they are the ones who decide a child’s “way.” Instead, he said, our job is to be with our children, study our children, appreciate our children’s abilities, and help them become the people that God means them to be. If a parent has always dreamed of having physician in the family, then it might be hard to accept a teacher or writer or businessperson. Between home and school and church, children need to have all sorts of experiences to help them discover what interests them, what challenges them, what intrigues them. It’s a joint effort.

IMG_3864Meanwhile, if the thunderstorms forecast for Friday morning don’t materialize, Peter and I are going to put on our overalls and do a little yard work (in case Peter decides on horticulture).

 

So Long, Old Friend

| Faithfulness, Patience

I’m about to have to say goodbye to an old and dear resident of my closet. (No, not some living thing. Some fabric thing.)

The McCart Family Thrift Store. It's amazing.

The McCart Family Thrift Store. It’s amazing.

Several years ago, I was in Fort Worth, visiting Kevin and April, along with my sister and niece. JoAnne and Natalie were wanting to do some shopping for Patrick’s (the middle child) wedding. JoAnne didn’t find anything (despite April’s strong encouragement to purchase a pair of bright pink cowgirl boots). Natalie did find a nice sundress with a pink and peach floral pattern on it, in the colors of the wedding. The place April had taken us to was a huge, well-organized, clean, and well-stocked consignment store. McCart’s Family Thrift Store. We all did a bit of shopping, and, as I looked through clothing, I made a wonderful find! Denim overall shorts! Giant-sized! They looked perfect for working in the yard and around the house when I was doing messy things, like painting. It was in good shape; I don’t recall what I paid for it, but whatever it was, I’ve gotten great wear from it.

Recently, though, it’s begun to show just how much work it’s done over the past few years. And, it’s beginning to have holes so large that it might be becoming inappropriate for me to wear in public (even if that “public” is in my backyard).

So, I went to the place where I do most of my where-can-I-find-that shopping: Amazon. I asked for “Cherokee (the brand of my old overalls) short denim overalls.” Looks like the Cherokee people do not make short denim overalls any more; nothing matching what I had been wearing for several years came up. So, I tried asking for “denim overall shorts.”

 

I ordered them. Not the largest size, which was 4X. That seemed overzealous. But I did order the 2X. I’m not going for looks. I’m going for comfort, and plenty of space so that I can put my gardening gloves in a pocket and a pair of small pruners in another pocket and my phone in a pocket and my glasses in a pocket. And a couple of shirts underneath the overalls, if it’s a little chilly out. I just want lots of room.

And, news from the front yard …

 

She considers a field and buys it;
    with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength,
    and makes her arms strong.

Proverbs 31:15-17 (New Revised Standard Version)

Okay. It’s not quite a vineyard. It’s an herb garden. And a thyme garden. And a shady place with a garden bench. But my arms are strong enough to transfer a big bag of mulch or topsoil from the car’s trunk to a wheelbarrow, and to cart that bag to the backyard. And spread that mulch or topsoil where it needs to be. While wearing my overalls.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Afternoon

| Joy, Love, Patience

I was returning Peter home last Monday. Rain was forecast for Fort Worth most of the day, but we pioneered on with our plan, which was to visit a nursery first, then go to Central Market grocery store and have some lunch and play on the nice playground they have there. (I know, most grocery stores don’t have playgrounds, but this one does.) We did go to the nursery, and I bought some thyme and Peter gave me some germander to buy. Then, on to Central Market.

 

They have lots of prepacked foods, for people who come in and want to get something quick to eat. For the vegetarian boy,it was pretty much a peanut butter sandwich. He lunched in the race car cart while I did a little shopping. (The race car cart is oversized and a challenge to navigate up and down the aisles. But, very cool for a 4-year-old.) We took our groceries to the car and then I moved the car closer to the playground. To our (well, maybe just my own) disappointment, they have redone the playground, removing the very interesting play structures, one that had a suspended plank bridge connecting two platforms (with sides, for safety), and another that had a curved tunnel-type slide, and a third, which I cannot recall very well, but there were three of them that could accommodate lots of kids. Now, there’s a play structure that does have several manipulative sorts of gadgets, like steering wheels, and a double slide, and steps. And a few kids can play and work there without feeling crowded. Then, there’s a slide. Yes, just a slide. And, between those two things, there are two kid-sized (man-made, which is fine) boulders, for climbing on. I suppose that the other play equipment was getting old, and, for safety’s sake, and lawsuit protection, it might have been time for replacements. Sigh. But, there were kids there and Peter had a good time.

Meanwhile, the weather. Things were good, nice temperature, cloudy enough to not be too hot. Good. Until, abruptly, a big gust of chilly wind blew through. I called Peter over and said he could play for five more minutes; feel the wind, see the sky, it’s going to rain.

About a minute later, the two moms called their kids and said they needed to leave. We all raced to our cars. Peter’s house is very near. By time we got his stuff into the house, and, well, chatted a few minutes, it was raining so much that April took me out to the car with an umbrella.

On I30, on my way to I35 (we were stopped for a moment, so I could safely shoot a photo)

On I30, on my way to I35 (we were stopped for a moment, so I could safely shoot a photo)

 

By time I got to the highway, there was LOTS of rain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was pretty much the situation until I was quite a ways out of Fort Worth, then, no rain, and we could clip along at regular speed. A little north of Grandview, we had to all move into the right-hand lane. There had been an enormous wreck. I could only see one car. I didn’t know if there had been others involved and they’d been removed, but the car there was terribly damaged. It was up against a barrier in the center median, smashed on the back and sides and front. Whomever was in the car had been removed, and there wasn’t any debris left on the road (and there surely would have been debris). I’d have taken a photo, but, seriously, I was driving!

The skies cleared and the temperature went up, the further south I went.

For you non-Texans--You can see where Fort Worth, and Hillsboro, and Waco are. Grandview is right about where that 35W sign is, south of Fort Worth. And West is about where that highway 77 is, between Hillsboro and Waco.

For you non-Texans–You can see where Fort Worth, and Hillsboro, and Waco are. Grandview is right about where that 35W sign is, south of Fort Worth. And West is about where that highway 77 sign is, between Hillsboro and Waco.

On the way up to Fort Worth, I had realized I hadn’t filled up the gas tank before I left Waco. It was about 3/4 full when I noticed it, so I knew I had plenty to get there. I’d planned to fill up before I left Fort Worth, but by then, it was pouring rain. As I was entering Hillsboro, the tank was 1/4 full, but I thought maybe I should go ahead and fill up, so I wouldn’t be anxious as I drove on.

And this is actually, truly, I’m-not-making-this-up what happened:

The car said the outdoor temperature was 76°. The skies were clear. The air was still. I pulled into a gas station/convenience store on the north side of town. I turned off the car. I got my credit card out of my purse. I got out of the car and walked around the front of it, to the gas pumps. I swiped my card. As I picked up the nozzle, kabam! A giant, chilled wind smacked into me. I had started the gassing-up process, so I filled up the car, struggling to hang onto the gas pump and stay upright myself. The tank wasn’t empty, so it didn’t take quite so long to be full. I replaced the nozzle, and, no thanks, no receipt, and struggled to the other side of the car to get in. E-GAD!!

I checked the temperature as I left Hillsboro, and it had already dropped four degrees. I often stop in West, a few miles down the road, to get fruit kolaches for breakfasts and sausage and ham ones for lunches. Not that day. I was a little afraid of the vicious wind that was chasing me. But, it was slower than I, and when I got to Waco, the car’s thermometer said 81° and things were still. The storm made it to Waco in the night.

Springtime in Texas. Sometimes there’s a nice gentle rainshower, and I can sit on the porch and read and enjoy it. More often than not, it just roars through.

 

But they were no sooner out to sea than a gale-force wind, the infamous nor’easter, struck.

Acts 27:14 (The Message)

When I was a teen-ager, a friend and I had back to back piano lessons, the idea being that we could (and we did) learn two-piano duets by overlapping our lesson times. One springtime afternoon, I was in my teacher’s den, waiting for my turn. The teacher’s mother had come for a visit, and she was sitting in the den with me. As we sat, the light began to fade. The backyard got dark, and a newly arrived wind was whipping the trees’ and hedge’s limbs and leaves in a frenzy. I was pretty much in a “whatever” mode, but the teacher’s mother was beginning to seem panicky. She looked at me, wide-eyed, and said, “Is this a Blue Norther?!?!?!” “Well,” I said, looking outside, “I guess so.” I don’t know what she’d heard about “Blue Northers,” but it must have been pretty scary. Maybe they were infamous. But, she seemed to become a little calmer. I guess my complete lack of interest made her think we were going to be all right. Good thing I didn’t say, “Oh, it could be a Blue Norther. Let’s just hope there’s not a big ol’ TORNADO on the way!”

Anyway, I have lots to be grateful for these days–lovely new plants for my yard, good springtime rains so we don’t have to turn on the sprinklers yet (I love it when God waters my yard for me), safe travel without any sort of collision, and a grandson who lives close enough for us to enjoy frequently.

 

“Your Mailbox is Full”

| Patience, Self-Control

IMG_3339Sometimes, when I look out the little window in the front door, to see if the mail has come, there are a couple of pieces, so small that the mailbox lid is down, and I can’t tell if there’s actually any mail in it. Other days, there’s a catalog and a magazine and several bills, and pieces of all sorts of ads and circulars, and sometimes even some actual mail. And I’m glad I’m not a mail carrier, because if everyone gets the amount of mail I do on those busy days, then I’d be too worn out to deliver mail. (Maybe it evens out over the course of several days.) Plus, I’d probably end up sitting in my freezing mail carrier truck in the winter, and setting fire to pieces of mail that I think not one really wants anyway, just to try to stay warm.

 

Screen Shot 2017-03-23 at 4.48.02 PMThese days, some of my mail is electronic. Two or three days a week, coupons appear in my inbox, and I can scroll through them and choose which ones I’d like to print out, to take to the grocery store. I get offers, almost daily, it seems, from the Groupon people and the Living Social people. Amazon.com reminds me periodically that I bought some vitamins from them a while back, and would I like to order some more? And, yes, thank you, I’m almost out and would like to order some more.

Grande Communications is our e-mail provider. When I’m away from home and need to check my mail, I go to the Grande site. When I’m at home, I use the mail app on my computer. (This will be important later.)

Wednesday morning, when I went to check my mail, I saw that nothing had come in since afternoon the day before. That seemed odd. I tried clicking on the “Get Mail” icon, without success. I tried sending a message to Kevin, to ask if there was something amiss and how could I remedy it, but I couldn’t send anything out, either. So, I called him. Wednesday is a work from home day for him, but he had a knotty work issue to sort out, and couldn’t get back to me for a while.

So, I did the sensible thing and called Grande. After listening to several recorded options, I finally got a human. I explained the problem to him, and very quickly he was able to identify the glitch. “Your mailbox is full,” he said.

Hmmm. While I do indeed delete some of my e-mail messages, I’m bad, I admit, about thinking, “Oh, I’ll go back later and read that ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ piece …” but I rarely do. So there are several of those lying around in my mailbox. And some devotionals. And some other stuff, like coupon offers, and things I needed to save, like the worship service volunteers in preschool, for this quarter, but then I didn’t go back and delete the one for the quarter before that, and the quarter before that, and well, you know.

mailSo I said to the nice young man from Grande, “Hmm. So I need to go back and delete stuff. Lots of stuff?” And he said, and I’m including the print out from the Grande web site, so you’ll believe me, “You have seven thousand, one hundred, ninety e-mails in your inbox. That’s 99.97 per cent of your capacity.”

“So, it seems I need to do some deleting, then,” I said. And he agreed. I also asked him, just out of curiosity, if this was the largest email box percentage he ever seen. “Yes,” he said. Up til now, the highest one he’d seen was 96% full. “You should get a plaque,” he said. “Or maybe a trophy.”

I called Kevin, and got him (knotty work problem was resolved, which is pretty much Kevin’s job description–solve those knotty problems). I laughed and explained the Grande situation: full mailbox, 99.97% full, time to delete. And Kevin was astonished and began to look into things. And, to shorten a very tedious, hour-long story, Kevin ultimately discovered the trouble.

Because I have a Mac and use the computer’s e-mail program, when I delete an e-mail, or a hundred e-mails, they disappear from my computer, but they do not disappear from my Grande account. When we looked at my Grande mail page, it showed (after you scrolled and scrolled and scrolled) every e-mail I’d ever gotten, except for a few that I’d deleted after reading them when I was someplace else besides at home, and deleted a message from the Grande page when I was working on some other computer.

Kevin discovered that, if he deleted a message from my Grande account on the Grande page, it did not disappear from my computer’s e-mail. There was a button, on the Grande page, that said, “Delete All.” And, since we’d learned that the computer email and Grande’s email aren’t on speaking terms, he tested out his theory, by deleting some messages from my Grande website e-mail list. They disappeared from my Grande account. But, they did not disappear from the computer e-mail application that I use regularly. He was able, then, to go to the Grande site and hit “Delete All.” They all disappeared. From the Grande page. But, on the Mac mail application, they were there. Well, a sensible number of e-mails were there. Not seven thousand, one hundred, ninety of them.

 

Christ gives me the strength to face anything.

Philippians 4:13 (Contemporary English Version)

 

I understand that this verse really refers to spiritual matters, but I think it also applies to all day, everyday challenges–the things that trip me up and frustrate me and make me lose time and energy and patience. Modern life keeps on slapping me in the face; every time I think I’ve gotten a handle on something, someone pops up and says, “No, you can’t go that way. That’s a one way street;” “Hey, that’s not the right way to do that! You have to go through this door first, then that door!” “Of course you can’t access your e-mail. YOUR MAILBOX IS FULL!!!!!!******” (Insert appropriate emojis here.)

 

 

 

We Took a Little Trip, Part 2

| Patience, Peace

As we were traveling back home from Tulsa, Sunday before last, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel, somewhere in Texas, after we left Oklahoma. When we got out of the car, it was breezy and a little chilly. And I recalled the conversation I had with myself, several times that Sunday morning, in the hotel, as I was packing. “Oh, there’s my jacket. I must remember that my jacket is on the chair. And I’ll need to get it when we leave.” When we left the room, to go down for breakfast in the hotel, um, snack room, I reminded myself about my jacket. “There’s my jacket on the chair. I must remember to get it when we leave.”

After breakfast, when we got back to the room, there was my jacket on the chair. “Oh, yes,” I said to  myself. “I must remember to get my jacket.”

I carefully packed up all my things, and we went down the elevator and checked out and took our things to the car (where the weather was still) and drove away, off to the Chickasaw Nation Visitor Center, where the weather was also still. At the Cracker Barrel, however, it was not still, and as we walked toward the Cracker Barrel door, I was chilly, and I thought, “Oh, yes, I need my jacket, which is … on the chair in our hotel room.”

At the door of the Cracker Barrel, I told David I didn’t have my jacket. And, he knew where it was. On the chair. In our hotel room. In Tulsa. He went back to the car and got the hotel receipt and, from the door of the Cracker Barrel, I phoned the hotel and gave them my name and our room number and a description of the jacket. “It’s sort of a sweater-jacket,” I said. “A knitted thing. It’s sort of a pinkish/lavender jacket, with a hood. And it’s on the chair, in room 212.” She explained that the housecleaning crew had just begun to work, and that they waited until they were completely done cleaning, before they brought things down (apparently, I’m not the only guest who leaves things behind). We went over our home address and phone number (just in case), and, of course, the credit card number, which they would need to pay for the postage for sending the jacket to me. And I thanked her, and we went and had our lunch.

When we got back to Waco, I unpacked and put things away. But it wasn’t until I was getting ready for bed that I began to look around, check my suitcase, look in my smaller bag, and finally accepted the fact that my nightgown had not made the trip back to Waco. I’ve had this “white nightgown” problem before, last May. I had left it at David’s mom’s house, when I went to Baltimore for a family wedding. It had gotten mixed in with some white towels, and I didn’t see it. Same thing in the hotel. White nightgown, hanging on bathroom hook, along with a white towel.

Monday morning, I called the hotel. AGAIN. I gave the lady my name and room number and, oh, yes, they had the white nightgown. “Oh, thank you,” I said. And, they had a white shirt. “WHAT!” I should not be allowed to travel. It was an extra knit shirt I had taken along, in case I got cold and needed to wear it underneath something else (like a jacket, for example). And, same, problem. It was folded up, in the suitcase, and I think that, when I was repacking everything, I may have taken it out of the suitcase, rearranged things, and didn’t notice it on the white sheets of the bed, and just packed everything else up. So, yes, they would pack up ALL my left-behind clothing, and send it along to me.

My missing things: jacket, white nightgown, white knit shirt, all safe and sound back in Texas

My missing things: jacket, white nightgown, white knit shirt, all safe and sound back in Texas

I had hoped the package would arrive by Thursday, so I could take a photo, to put in last week’s post. But, it didn’t come until Saturday. I thought that, after all their traveling, maybe I should just go ahead and toss them in the laundry, to clean them up. And I did that. I’d done laundry all day Friday, so these things just went into the washer all together. The white nightgown. The white knit shirt. And the lavender/pinkish sort of colored jacket. Regular cycle. Warm wash, and cold rinse.

 

 

 

 

 

Right out of the washer

Right out of the washer

Looking closely at the jacket, you probably notice that it’s covered with little white detritus. Apparently, I’d left a tissue in a pocket. Or maybe a tissue in each pocket. Or multiple tissues. There were a lot of little pieces. And I thought I’d just go ahead and put it in the dryer and let the dryer get all that stuff off the jacket. And, then I noticed the white nightgown and the white shirt. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so obvious, if they hadn’t been sitting on top of the white dryer. But, they were sitting on the white dryer. And they were pink. Not really, REALLY pink. But, most certainly–pink.

 

Every laundry room should have Color Catchers. And every launderer should figure out when to use them.

Every laundry room should have Color Catchers. And every launderer should figure out when to use them.

I tried washing the gown and shirt again, by themselves, with a Color Catcher, hoping that, maybe, if they went right back into the water, the pink would just wander right out of the gown and shirt and be corralled by the Color Catcher. Nope. They are still pink.

I was talking with a friend about this and we agreed that having a box of Color Catchers is a good idea. Knowing when to use a Color Catcher doesn’t always kick in.

I checked the tag on the jacket. It says “Wash with like colors,” which means: launder this thing with other purpley, pinkish, and red things, or even blue things. Not white.

 

 

 

 

True, the grass withers and the wildflowers fade,
    but our God’s Word stands firm and forever.”

Isaiah 40:8 (The Message)

THE FIRST DAISY!!

THE FIRST DAISY!!

Small mistakes are nothing. They are gnats. So many more things are more important. And, seriously, I have a nightgown. I have several nightgowns. I have shirts that I wear under other shirts, to stay warm. And if I’m still cold, I have jackets and coats. And socks and shoes. And enough to eat and a safe place to live.

And CHECK THIS OUT——–>>>>>>>>>>>>