Eat Candy and Have Fun!

Neighborhoods

 I woke up this morning to cool air and rain. It was 80 yesterday and still felt like sweaty summer but in a nice way. It stays warm in the South for so long.  Watching your blogs over the years the reality of how cold most of the states are has become a living picture.  Reading your posts I often think, "How can they be getting cold so soon it just got warm there?" I think about how each one of us has  some kind of struggle where we are.  Some of us are too cold, and some of us sweat.

Do you remember when you were young hearing old people talk about their bones? My grandparents did. They talked about old bones and rheumatism. My Grandpas hands were gnarled up and they were the hands of a gardener. He was the one who toured me through his massive gardens showing me cute surprises and asking me what I liked. I loved him. I loved those walks in the gardens. It was my first experience as a child of quiet communing. I enjoyed my time with him because he settled me, he quieted me and we walked and talked together. I suppose you could say my grandpa treated me like a person when I was a child.

This year is almost over and I am thinking of how long we have been here, almost 12 years.  For twelve years I have been miserable in the long hot summers with the deluge of bugs, until this year.  This year I made a conscious decision to avoid negative thinking. I haven't accomplished this but I'm working on it.  I can't take credit for this but I heard somewhere, "My mind is like a bad neighborhood, I should never go there by myself."  I love that. Who to take with me into the hood? I can't think of anyone better than the Holy Spirit.  Murmuring is serious to God. Really when we are complaining we are in God's face about our circumstances. The current trend today is to talk about God as Daddy and all the love and grace. That is true, but God is also God, high, holy, and lifted up.  In His physical presence we would be undone.  The appearance of angels causes men to fall down as if dead, how much more so the God of the universe?

That helps me with being a whiner, complainer, negative thinker; when I realize that really I am letting God know in a most disrespectful way that I do not believe.   You might be thinking, "How did she jump to that?"  If I complain about my circumstances then I am not believing and resting in God's sovereign plan for my life.  He is either all knowing and all powerful or not. He is either on His throne and I am in the palm of His hand or not. I either solidly believe He has a purpose and plan for my individual life or not.

That's why the Israelites were in so much trouble in the wilderness. They kept looking at where they were instead of who God is. They forgot about all that He had done before and complained. The consequences for that were a 40 year march instead of a 6 month trip.  Do you think that maybe God takes unbelief seriously?

Each week that I teach my small ladies Bible group I grow in amazing leaps. I don't understand why God is blessing me with this. He is faithful and I am not. Each week He takes my meager portion of study, my two fish and a piece of bread and He makes a feast for all of us.  Jumping in to serve has taken me to places I never thought I'd go.  The Word of God is more alive to me than it's ever been and I am applying it to my life.

My mind is a hood and I don't need to go there alone. My circumstances are not important.  My focus CAN be a sacrifice of praise. When is the last time you really thought about what that means? A sacrifice of praise.  Sometimes we are praising God when what we really want to do is a have big bitch session. We have the choice about what we offer. The miracle happens when we offer the sacrifice.

When we enter that throne room and come into the presence of the Lord of all, and praise, something happens to us. His presence comes upon us like a soft cloud of peace and light drifting gently, enveloping and comforting, it's so soft quiet....holiness.  A place to rest, a place of quiet holy prayer.
There in His presence fears vanish, problems shrink, complaints depart, we are strengthened, and hearts are mended. When we go out from there we are ready to be wherever we are. We are ready to go wherever we need to go. We can endure whatever it is, cold, heat, pain, sorrow, or stress, because we do not go alone and that is reason enough to praise.

It Just Doesn't Look Like Much.

Howdy. I am still a part of planet Earth.

Some days I feel like I'm working on a sinking ship.

I've been so busy. It's ridiculous how long it takes me to get anything done. 

It takes so long there isn't energy to write about it.

Or it's embarrassing to admit it, or both.

Seriously, did I just wake up one day and become an old lady?

I moved back upstairs. I wish you could really see this color, it's just gorgeous and the photo doesn't do it justice. I rolled the walls and my friend cut in with the brush. It's amazing what I can do now compared to six months ago, sort of. 

YES, it put me in bed for a dang week. 

I should NOT have done it but it felt so good to pretend that there is something normal about me. 

 This is the new love in my life. I used to work 12 hours a day. Now I try and work 12 hours a week split into 3 afternoons. I have not had the best attendance record. A real job would have fired me. BUT my girlfriend loves what I do with her sweet little mama so much she doesn't care!  Works for me.

I love taking care of her. She can walk so NO lifting. I get her up bathe her, dress her, give her a pedicure a  couple of times a month and then we go into the kitchen. Oh yeah and I do her hair.

We listen to music while I cook our breakfast. I get to eat too!

FOOD IS LOVE.

After we eat we play puzzles, identify words, play matching games with cards, try and count, talk, cut up and giggle and just have fun.

That's her "therapy."

She is severely demented but her response has been outstanding.

She is talking in short sentences, smiling, laughing, and responding.

IF she is upset which is very rare she babbles like she's speaking in tongues and I just reassure her.

She's sweet and pleasantly confused. 

A perfect patient.

Truthfully I don't know WHO is getting blessed more.

I think it's me.

I make a small amount of money which helps us get gas and a bit of food. 

I don't do it for the money,I used to make that much in 3 hours.

I used to work 12 hours a day. Repeating myself again.

How did I do that?

Seriously, I can't even comprehend doing that much work in day, or a week or a month.

Now I work for the love and the pure joy of it. 

My gardening has changed as well. How do you like this? It's all from the dollar store and doesn't require any water or fertilizer. It took me FOREVER  to just clean up the side yard. Argh....the frustration is intense. To work 10 years establishing an amazing garden and not be able to keep it up is just gross. I want to move. The timing isn't right yet but maybe in the future.

The kids are doing great and they are so much more comfortable in the big room. We tried to have David use the utility room as his bedroom and that just didn't work. We were back to putting the vacuums in any available corner and stepping over toys to wash clothes was too much for me! Man do I remember those days. I think one of the hardest parts of getting laundry done when you are a young mother is the stepping over, clearing a path, wiping snotty noses, and answering the phone..... on your way to the washer; where you never get.

There are some advantages to age.

Here's my latest project or part of it. I am PURGING! Barfing up stuff, gobs of it. I have too many books, too many pictures, too much wall art, an excess of baskets, 3 sets of dishes, and all the stuff my grandmother asked me to "take care of".  

I am over it!

IF I have learned anything in this process it is that too much stuff is a ball and chain around my neck. Yes Ebeneezer Jacob Morley was right.

My brother is coming to get a bunch of Grandma's things my family isn't interested. Then the burden will be his. I haven't even really bought my own style of things because I have so much from other people. I am grateful but I just don't care about keeping all of this. It's work to have things. They have to be dusted and they take up space. I am just over it!

I'm repeating myself. It's a symptom of dementia. I sometimes think my best meeting of the minds is with my sweet demented lady. Hummmmmmmm. I have remembered recently though that I have a blog and I used to write on it, and I liked it. A short moment of clarity and a brief window of time. I am on vacation this week.  The plan is to pack up everything I don't want and get it out of here! and post.

OK the SQUIRREL. I kept the squirrel for 3 weeks. My cats and my dog wanted to eat her.

Yes, this 66 pound handsome boy really wanted a squirrel snack.  Aint he a handsome boy?
 I kept her by herself unless I could guard the cage because it's a lot of stress to feel like a little hamburger with feet. I don't know if squirrels have the brains to realize that a cage keeps them safe. Really.
I found a wild life rescue and turned her over to them. I didn't want to release her and have her come over for a bottle or a slice of banana and become cat food, nawww not.
However the story does have a funny twist to it. I said I thought I had a 5 or 6 week old baby squirrel that was still taking a bottle. When I dropped her at the vet they told me I had a much older squirrel than that. She was a "teenager". MY question was, "Then why is she still taking a bottle?' After all she was still very small and I was feeling like a perfect idiot!

Answer.    

 BECAUSE you are giving it to her!

Naturally, the story of my life, spoil everything in my touch, spoiled rotten.