THE SUPPORT OF FRIENDS

Update:  Because of my “triple negative” breast cancer diagnosis, I will need radiation therapy even though I’ve already done chemo and mastectomy.  Radiation should start in a week or so, continuing every day till May.

Tomorrow I’m going to church, for the first time in a very long time.  This morning I began to be worried about remembering who sent me a card (that I might thank them when we meet), but then I realized that every single family sent me a card or a gift or a meal.  Everyone.

Isn’t.  That.  Amazing.

And how incredibly encouraging, overwhelming, and encouraging that is, too.

I’ve kept every card. 

The WORDS on the outside & inside are what counts.  Things like:

*  Thinking of you and lifting you up to our loving Father.
*  I think about you a lot.
*  Hugs.
*  I am sitting here thinking of you today.
*  Your testimony of peace and trust in Our Loving Savior is a blessing to all of us.
*  I know God is with you every step of your cancer journey.
*  “I will not forget you.  Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” 
       ~Isaiah 49

*  You’re in my prayers. 
       You’re in my prayers.
          You’re in my prayers.

*  Thinking of you.
       Thinking of you.
          Thinking of you.

 

 

THERE’S A LOT OF FREEDOM IN THAT

For at least 40 years, I’ve used a headband when I wash my face.  That’s to keep my hair out of the way.  It’s a habit so long established, it’s difficult to think any other way.

It gives me a lot of laughs now, when I find myself putting a headband on.

 

 Life has gotten easier in some aspects!

 

 

JUST WONDERING

Have you ever taken an airflight and wondered about the businessmen and their telephones?  They’re the ones who MUST talk loudly on their phone at the very last minute as the plane is taxiing to the runway, because what they have to say is

VERY IMPORTANT

The funny thing is, it doesn’t sound important to me.

You would think the conversation would be something like this:

You did, Tommy?  Did he bring his bike too?  That’s great!  I’ll be home soon, Honey.  Nummy-nummy.…

Or maybe

I miss you, Love.  We’re just getting ready to take off, so I’ll call you when I get to Atlanta.  Kiss-Kiss.

But if the home and family isn’t a draw, perhaps you could expect this talk:

Miss Honeycutt, the pills are in the right-hand drawer of my desk.  Could you send them to my Dallas hotel?

or more business-like:

Miss Honeycutt, could you pull the file on the Jameson account and have Bill go over those figures again?

Instead, he is always talking to another businessman.  So…you would think it would be:

Bill, go over those figures again and see if you can’t find a way to…I’ll call you when I get into Dallas and see what you’ve got.

Nope.  It is ALWAYS pompous talk that is very general.  And loud enough for everyone to hear:

WELL, TOM, DIVIDENDS ARE BACK, AND THEIR RETURN COULDN’T HAVE COME AT A BETTER TIME….AND EVEN IF STOCKS FALL APART (MAKE THAT “WHEN” STOCKS FALL APART, AS THEY WILL AT SOME POINT), THOSE THAT PAY DIVIDENDS WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY HOLD UP BETTER THAN THOSE THAT DON’T. *

Multiply that by 15 men all doing that on the plane at the same time.

It sounds like a lot of hot air to me, I dunno….?

I wonder if anyone is actually on the other end of that phone…maybe they have a “business-man’s agreement” just to confound the rest of us! 

JUST WONDERING!

_________________
* I got these lines out of a magazine.  Maybe they do too!

 

POSITIVELY SPEAKING

Today’s topic as part of Shining Garnet’s Positivity Week is

Your Favorite Positive Quote

and it has caused me to think about how some quotations could be negative to some, while being positive to others.  Here are some examples, along with the positive-speaking quoter:

“The zebra is hurt.”
A hungry lion

“The visitors kept us from our bedtime.”

A young child

“Anything worth doing is worth doing for the money.”
A Ferengi
(a member of Star Trek’s alien race, whose culture is based on profit & trade)

“The heater is broken.”
A penguin

  “The groom has changed his mind.”
A young lady who is NOT his bride-to-be

“It’s raining.”
Someone who lives in the desert

                                                                  

There are also a few happy quotations that could be taken negatively, as in this instance:

“It’s a boy!”
Teen-age girls in the ladies’ room

 

or the kind where one person meant it for ill (Rudolph’s father) and the other

didn’t (Santa):

“His beak’s a blinkin’ beacon!”

Now, for my own favorite positive quotation:  I will tell you, there are so many lovely ones out there that I would not be able to choose just one, and my personality being such that my husband chuckles at me and my 100 favorite [colors, pieces of music, movies, books], I will just give you TWO of many, choosing a theme.

At first, I thought the theme should be Ferengi, but it might be too negative for some readers:

1.           One can never have too much. Expand or Die!
             Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #45:         

2.         Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity.
             Ferengi Rule of Acquisition # 6:
        
So today, since a lot of my friends are murmuring “Doctor Who” in excited voices,
the theme will be about him:

1.          “Are you in charge here?”
             “No, but I’m full of ideas!”
             ~ Doctor Who in Horror of Fang Rock

2.          “They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine.”
             ~ Doctor Who in Army of Ghosts

AMEN!

 

FINDING THE POSITIVE

When I was a young mother, I read that we should keep a small diary of one good/interesting thing that happens each day.  It helps to change the attitude of a sometimes hum-drum life, and it helps us to keep a look-out for good things all day long.

I kept a diary like that for quite some time, and now I enjoy reading excerpts from it:

Found a $5 bill in the snow!
Saw a dead muskrat in the parking lot of Walmart.
27 quarts of blueberries.

Because Shining Garnet is having a Blog Challenge this week, asking us to write each day about a certain Positive Thing, with today’s topic being

Write A Positive Poem, Story, Take A Pic, or Draw A Picture          

I woke up eager to see what positive visuals I might find.  It didn’t take long for me to see two very lovely and positive things in my house:

1.   The kitchen chairs poised as if they’re standing in line for something exciting to happen…

2.    ….and it did indeed; we now have a very beautifully waxed kitchen floor.

 

POSITIVELY READING

Shining Garnet is having a Blog Challenge this week, asking us to write every day about a certain Positive Thing, and today the topic is supposed to be:

A Book That Had a Positive Effect on You

WHOA!  I read a lot, and while admittedly some of it is rather junkish, there are many many many books that have affected my thinking in some way or another.  And what constitutes “positive”?  If the book is sad, is it positive?  If the book is horrible, could it affect me positively?  I think so. 

Books
     Are
          Wonderful.

And the memories are numerous.  Here are a few:

As a child, I read and re-read A Dog Called Scholar by Anne Hitchcock White.  My favorite chapter was when Scholar, who had been trained not to eat the food till someone told him it was “paid for,” visited a birthday party.  When the hostess gave him a piece of cake, the poor animal began to piteously foam at the mouth, waiting for the magic words.  Chaos ensued over the “rabid” animal.

It’s nice to choose a special book to read during the holidays, because then you can remember exactly when you read it.  I remember a babysitting summer reading The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox while sitting on the porch steps.  This book completely changed my thinking about slavery.

Or there was the college Christmas when I read Les Miserables for the first time.  Surely one of the greatest books ever written.

I finished Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy in Las Vegas standing in a casino.  It was during a college summer when I flew to Los Angeles with my mother, aunts, and grandma.  Grandma was a gambler and insisted on a drive to Las Vegas every time she visited her California daughter (always stopping at the Roy Rogers Museum on the way, just in case he stopped in–he did one time, you know).  Grandma was so old by then that somebody had to pull down the handle of the slot machine when her arm got tired.  I myself played the machines with an investment of $5, using the winnings to purchase some beautiful German Christmas ornaments (which still grace our Christmas tree every year).   Then I was able to get back to the true excitement of finding out how things were ever going to get put back to rights after Hari Seldon’s predictions about the future did NOT come true.

The second time I read the Foundation Trilogy, it was as a read-aloud.  My new husband and I always took turns washing the dishes while the other one read aloud.  It took us a long time to read, and we finished it in the long car trip from our house in Buffalo to Indiana at Christmastime.  The book was new to my husband, and we had to keep stopping the car so he could use the restroom–the book made him that excited!!

So many memories! 

*     Finishing T.H. White’s The Once & Future King (King Arthur) while on my first trip overseas in Britain.

*     Enjoying a second round of The Lord of the Rings during a college summer while riding down to Florida with my feet propped up on the dashboard of a pickup truck.

*     Sharing a fourth round of The Lord of the Rings with my youngest son; when it appeared that Frodo had died, my voice broke and I could barely read aloud Sam’s great grief.  We held each other and sobbed (tears come to my eyes while writing this, the pain and sadness was so real).

*     Reading aloud the entire series of Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman (the unexpected widow who volunteers to be a spy for the CIA) while my sons played with Legos on the living room floor.  “DON’T send us to bed!  Read more!  Read more!”

*     Spending two whole days with a sore bottom and stiff limbs during a recent Christmas break, because I was GLUED to the chair reading The Circle Trilogy (Black, Red, White) by Ted Dekker.  I absolutely could not tear myself away, even to eat and drink.

So there you have it, just a little bit of positive thinking about books and their power.  I’ll end with a quotation from a favorite childhood book called Seven Day Magic (by Edward Eager):

          On every hand were what looked like thousands of books, ranged on
           shelves, stacks and stacks of them.

          “Think of all those we haven’t read yet!” said Abbie.

          “Maybe some of them have magic inside, too!” said Fredericka.

          “ALL of them, I should think,” said Barnaby, “one way or another.”

 

THE NEGATIVE POST

Some have asked me to tell my feelings about finishing 17 years of homeschooling and then having one son leave home for far-away Florida while the other son commutes to college every day.  Here are random thoughts I’ve had in the last few months:

*     A friend told me there will be so many exciting opportunities of new things I can try and do, and that I should welcome this new phase of my life!  I thought about it for a few months and decided no.  I really like the phase of life I had.

*     In July, my cousins (who have 2 children the same age as mine) mentioned they might drive over to their daughter’s place and watch fireworks from her front porch.  I looked at them and thought with horror, “How CAN they stand it?  Living all alone in their house without their children??”

*     The day after arriving home from leaving my oldest in Florida, someone publicly made a big deal about how different I am from themselves, free and easy at last, living it up!  I was hurting inside so much, but there is no sympathy for those who are free.

*     Sometimes, I feel like an old woman, a nursing home woman, who has no purpose and who is no longer needed.  Because most of my friends were homeschoolers, the phone no longer rings, I am forgotten, and promises once made to include me in the future are broken.

*     As a Christian, my focus has always been on others, as it should be.  Sometimes I’m now wondering if there must indeed be times when it needs to be “the dwarves for the dwarves”  (as in C.S. Lewis, or is it Tolkien?) and if I don’t look out for myself–well, nobody else is.

*     I saw a mother pushing a cart in the store parking lot, with her 3-year-old son trying to help with all his tiny might.  It reminded me of how my oldest son used to be; I had to stop the car and cry.

*     My husband and I have talked about how difficult losing a parent is, and how nobody really talks about it much.  It happens to everybody, and everyone else is genuinely sympathetic, but at the same time, it seems a part of life that you have to go through mostly by yourself.  I am thinking it must be this way for an “empty nest” woman too.

*     Maybe it’s because the hurt is sometimes so deep that it can’t be talked about.

I don’t always feel this way, but sometimes I do.  On the other hand, I’m still just as busy as I ever was, and I’m still waiting for ALL THAT FREE TIME I’m supposed to get now.  The promise of it does feel exciting!  My future daughter-in-law moved in a few days after my son moved out, and while we’re shy with each other, I am included in the plans for the wedding, which will happen at the end of December.  I am teaching a speech class locally once a week, have plenty of historical balls to plan for, and homemade soap to make.

And plenty of blog writing to catch up with, now that I’ve gotten this out of the way!

 

ANOTHER GRADUATION, WITH PARTY

We celebrated the high school graduation of my youngest son this past weekend.  As do a lot of homeschoolers around here, we had a ceremony and a party at home. 

We borrowed a tent in case of rain.

Dad handed out the diploma.

We gave speeches, had prayer, sang a hymn together, and played volleyball.

The food theme was ICE CREAM!

With all the fixins’

Everyone was asked to bring their favorite quotation.  Younger Son chose his three favorites and those folks won a prize.

We also gave door prizes for the person who unknowingly sat in a specially-marked chair, for the person who guessed the right amount of candy in a jar, and for people who got their ice cream in a special red bowl.

Later on, the extended families of my husband and myself sat around, cooked hot dogs over the fire, and visited.  Since mine are from Indiana, we don’t do that very often.

My speech at the ceremony was to be An Encouragement.  This is what I nervously said:

My youngest son is officially graduating from high school.  He’s got a good heart, a lot of patience, and a great dry sense of humor.  I enjoy him very much.  I know he will continue to do well with his life.

When he was a baby, I often sang hymns to him, and a phrase from one of these comes especially to mind today:
 
“Like a shepherd, Jesus will guard His children; in His arms He carries them all day long.”

This is what I would like him to especially remember and to be encouraged by.

We all have wonderful events in our lives, and sometimes we have difficulties too.  But always–ALWAYS–Jesus will be our Shepherd, guiding us, guarding us, and yes, even CARRYING us through it all.

So, your heart can be filled with comfort, and peace, and joy!  God bless you, Ben!

 

SHOPPING WITH THE ELDERLY

Here is one of my older entries that I thought you might enjoy (January 29, 2006):

It seems to me, that after thousands of years of youngers caring for the elderly, the public sector would have come up with a special code for communication.

You know:  when going to the bank with your 90-year-old mother, wouldn’t it be nice to simply wave your little pinky–and the bank teller would immediately know, “This one’s a little deaf!  Speak loudly!”

Or an arch of the right eyebrow would mean, “My mom’s got the mental ability of a 5-year old–go slow and simple!”

A left eyewink says:  “This old geezer is sharp as a tack, don’t try to pull anything over on him and DON’T treat him like a child!”

My family, being more practical-minded, says it wouldn’t work after a while.  We youngers would grow old and know the code.  “Ah,” but my husband says with a scratching of his chin, “you could counter-code back.  This means ‘I’m not as crazy as she thinks!'”          

 

BITS AND PIECES

A couple of weeks ago, I reached the breaking point, just thinking about the breaking point coming up.  I’m still busy, but with the hope of my mind slowing down.   Meanwhile, here are some thoughts from here and there:

Have you ever gotten home from an event and realized your cell phone was still on–but fortunately it didn’t ring?   Whew, got through that one!

I filled out a Walmart store survey that I was given.  I surely will win $1000.  Does Walmart sell ships?–Because then I could buy a ship, because my Younger Son was talking today about how “when my ship comes in” I can….

After riding for 10 hours in the car to Gardner, MA, (for a Regionals Speech & Debate tournament) when I sat down in the auditorium seat, I reached for a seat belt!

Here are some of us parent judges

 

While at the Tournament, I found a “face in hole” board to add to my collection.  This is Spiderman.

Does anyone ever feel like your email must not be working, because no one replies?

This week we were driving on the highway when a tree branch bent over the road with a squirrel scrabbling for purchase at the end of it.  He lost his grip and fell…BAM! right onto the road in front of our car.   But he got up and ran away before we drove onto him!

Homeschool portfolio and evaluations–done.  with.  that! 

17 years of homeschooling are over.  Both sons are graduating:  one from high school and one from college.  (Rough on ME, more on that later) 

Disney World, here we come!  I’m thinking of this logo to put on t-shirts for us.

In 2 weeks, I’ll have to find a different excuse for a messy house; my Younger Son says my “free pass on account of homeschooling” is running out.

From my window, I recently saw a hawk swallow down a snake.  Envision trying to swallow a looong rope without using your hands…wonder if it’s wiggling inside there?!

“The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.” ~Thomas Moore

I’m dancing as fast as I can.