A Crash in my Glass Box

   There was a huge "CRASH!", the sound of smashing clashing glass, and no one else was home.  I tore into the kitchen to find two decorative goblets in shards, the largest stem had landed in the hermit crab aquarium.
   Apparently our 16-pound cat saw a bug he had to get on the high shelf above the french door.
   I did not find a dead bug at the scene, but I am quite sure that the crabs were trembling wildly in their painted shells.  I mean, never mind how their disgusting water dish emptied by the cat, lay next to a golf ball that the dog probably placed there as he hovered playfully over them.  These are run-of-the-mill type things for a Lee hermit crab.  But imagine the King Kong goblet that had just hit the corner of the counter on it's way down, now fashioned into a weapon as if in bar fight mode, descending in half a crab heart beat.  Prior to this, life had been so good with the dog and cat.  How would they ever clean up such a gargantuan mess in their glass box world?
   I thought about how much this mirrors life.  Things can seem fine in my little world, even with the big things that loom over and drop in, that I've become accustom to dealing with.  And then CRASH.  I thought about how only God can remove some big, jagged things from my life - I just don't have that sort of equipment as a crab in a glass cage, metaphorically speaking of course.
   Wow, I am grateful for God's attentiveness to my little world and how I fit into His much bigger world!

  
   By way of an update, one of the joyful things that entered my world was my son Mitch's wedding.  Welcome to the Lee family Elizabeth!

Swimming Sideways

   Judging from this photo, I know, it looks like we decorate with barbells. But you do what you have to as life rolls along.  In this case a 20-pound weight keeps the fish bowl from completely tipping over, it only leans in a lurch for awhile.  And I know it's a vase, not a bowl, but we won the fish at a carnival and I didn't want to invest in this venture. Forgive me.
   You do what you need to do.
    I got to thinking about the fish, and me. The month of May brings a ton of life changes for me and my family, and sometimes it feels like my bowl...vase...is tipping and  I'm swimming sideways. Today is one son, Mitch's college graduation followed immediately by the baby's prom (sorry Dexter, you understand). Next week is the Mitch's wedding with rehearsal and reception at our home. This is followed by the baby's graduation and party at the house. In this mix has been Wes going into the military, then not going, and now another son moving out west. Alongside this has been the birth of a great-niece contrasted by sudden loss of life for neighbors and family.
    It has been an emotional roller coaster which I realize is to be expected. I have cried a lot.  I have had complete meltdowns when I didn't see them coming. Once, at the bank drive through which is a personal favorite.  "Cash.... please." I said through sobs. I guess I was just doing what I needed to do.
    Walmart is also a great place to suddenly fall apart.  You can cry all the way through the store and checkout, I discovered. Big fat tears plopping out of your red eyes. But that was a couple weeks ago.
    Today is a much clearer day. Maybe I'm on that stretch of the roller coaster like on the Millennium Force (Cedar Point - you must go!) where you got all the screams out at the past-90-degree crazy dip and you sigh on the smooth recovery curve, enjoying the ride.  But I don't know, God doesn't give me a view of the next loop. It could be a doozie. But, I guess I know that it's OK to do what you have to, and sometimes that's a good cry in the middle of a shopping trip to Walmart.

My Quarter is Stuck in the Cart!

   Among the many things in life that don't make sense, here is Zoey (pictured) when she became emotionally attached to a plastic power ranger that Frank, her son, had chewed the head and limbs off of.

   Following the theme of things that don't make sense, here is another recent story that I hope makes you laugh a little.




   There is a smart little quarter system that some stores use to keep carts in an orderly herd near the door.  To use a cart you must insert a quarter which releases one cart from the metal gridlock.

   One day I made a quick stop at an Aldi store to pick up some groceries.  I carried my quarter as I walked toward the entrance and noticed a very normal looking man approaching the cart conglomeration.  I offered him my quarter for his cart, a typical occurrence with Aldi shoppers that saves us all a bit of time.

   "Oh no." he said firmly.
   At first I thought I'd misunderstood, maybe he also was going into the store.
   "No." he said. "See, my quarter is in here." he said, pointing to the trapped quarter on the cart handle.
   "Yes." I said. "Would you like my quarter instead?"
   "No." he kept walking toward the cart formation. "See, I need to get my quarter out. See?"
   "Yes." I said, now with an inquisitive playful face, holding my quarter up between my thumb and index finger. I thought he must be joking.
   By now there were two ladies nearby slowing down to listen in.
   "See!" he said as he removed his quarter from his cart.
   "Yes." I said, holding my quarter up to him, then inserting it into the same cart. "I see!"  I pulled the cart back out smiling at him the whole time.
   I looked over and noticed that one of the women, about to return her cart, had stopped cold.  Her mouth was hanging open in wonder.
   The man just walked away without every grinning or seeming to understand what I was trying to do by offering him a quarter for his cart.
   The other woman was entering the store along with me and she stared at me with complete puzzlement.
   "I'm just glad there are witnesses." I said, and we both started laughing.
   "I can't believe that guy." she said.  "Did that really just happen?...He was explaining the quarter system to you, but didn't want your quarter." 
   My new acquaintance, Jane, and I giggled down the whole first isle, and we guessed that we'd retell that story a hundred times.
  I smiled broadly for an entire hour with laughter just below the surface, and I thanked God for the random factor in life.  You just never know when something senseless will make your day!
  

Dancing

   A good friend of mine and I managed to get our men to go out dancing with us last week.
   A restaurant in Toledo has dancing after nine o'clock organized by a local ballroom dance studio.   Dave and I had gone to a New Year's event where the same studio gave a short dance lesson followed by people dancing mostly ballroom (to apply what you learned presumably).  But we didn't feel too out of place just dancing however we wanted to either.
  Aside from New Year's Eve, Dave and I have taken a few lessons - and have forgotten most of it.  No, that's not true.  We have forgotten all of it. So, now we are in Toledo with our friends, Brett and Lisa, waiting for a short dance lesson. I asked the dance instructor about the lesson and he informed me that they don't do lessons there, but he would take me around the floor for awhile to refresh my memory. I let Dave and our friends know so they could watch and learn.
   I had such a fun time!  Let me tell you what I learned.
   I learned that the instructor is a very good dancer. I learned that I had no trouble following him. I learned that my friends and I were on our own with the dancing that night. So, we just made things up and twirled around with our partners and had fun.
   At one point when we sat down for a drink Brett said, "I don't think we're all doing so bad.  I mean, we're the ones people are watching.  Some people are even pointing at us!"
   After a good laugh we decided we were signing up for lessons soon.
   I got to thinking that a lot of things in life are this way.  It's okay to just enjoy something, but if I want to be good at it I need to humble myself, seek good counsel or instruction, and apply what I learn (over and over and over again).  I also got to thinking how glad I am that God is patient with me.

My Books in the Window!

         On a day that I was feeling really sick I made one last stop in Bowling Green before going home to collapse.  I was bringing business cards to Divine Interiors, where the shop owner is carrying my books in her gift shop.  I'm so glad I stopped! The surprising sight of seven books I have worked on, all in one window, felt like the sun bursting out of me! I could not believe it - felt like medicine for my ailing self.  The only thing better than this in my writing world is when I hear how God uses a story I wrote to help someone.  That is my hope and prayer.  Thanks for reading!   : )

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the dreams come true, there is life and joy."  Proverbs 13:12

Persistence of the Ladybug

   Snow swirled around the big pine trees outside and blew around the half burnt out Christmas boughs still on the fence.  
  "Mom, there's another one of those ladybugs." Dexter said.
   Climbing slow and steady up to the top of the wall in the dead of winter was a dark orange  ladybug.
   "Maybe it's because we've had a mild winter."  I thought out loud, as I cringed at the cob webs I now saw on the ceiling. 
   I'm pretty sure this is about when the dog ran through the kitchen with muddy feet right past the piles of laundry.
   Not only did my house need obvious attention, but there were writing projects coming due that needed my time, and there's only so much evening to work on things.
   There are days when I feel like I'll never get it all done. Then I got a nasty cold,and had to spend my evenings  recovering from my days.  Finally yesterday I started feeling better, and wouldn't you know, there was another ladybug (Can you see her in the picture?  I know it's a horrible shot.).  It crawled slow and steady through the kitchen sink right toward me.
   I love how God's creation has so much to teach me all the time.  This time: just go slow and steady.

I know this is atypical & not  humorous, but I felt like I should share it.  More funny stuff is in the arsenal - no worries! 





  

Christmas Vacation Skating

    Dave and I were out shopping the week before Christmas and saw a little outdoor skating rink.  After I pushed beautiful Rockefeller Square skating visions out of my crazy head, I commented what the ice might be like without a Zamboni to smooth it. A man was pushing a grooming tool around on the rink surface. "He's the Zamboni." Dave said, and we laughed.
    I thought it would be fun to come back to skate sometime.  So, I looked up the info on it, got the hours of operation, and discovered it was totally free.  Even the skate rental  -  what a deal!
   So, my friend Tracey and I rounded up a few of our kids and headed out skating a couple days before Christmas with anticipation for a fun Christmastime experience. We arrived at the little skate rental sheds and put on the stiff plastic issue skates - but no complaints, it was free.

   I noticed a couple of the boys waiting for the rest of us, and they weren't moving on the ice.  I entered the rink carefully to get a feel for the slick surface and warm up my skating legs.  I love ice skating!  Then I realized that something was really off about the surface, I could hardly move.  Suddenly I understood what "Synthetic Ice Rink" meant.  Both Tracey and I assumed it meant something along the lines of man-made.  Which was close.  It was plastic. Giant puzzle pieces of white plastic, plastic just like the skates.  We alternated between laughing and true disappointment for the whole ten minutes we were on "the ice".  We managed to convince a young man to take a picture of us (and part of his finger) to capture the memory.
   The next day we were so wanting to ice skate, for real, so we gathered whoever was free to head over to the BGSU Ice Arena.  I noticed that the word synthetic is missing from their sign, which was comforting.  It was not free, but it was like running downhill with the wind at your back.  So fun!  And Dave was free that day too, so he came along.  It really was a nice thing to do this time of year.
   The synthetic ice made me think how there are many deceptions in life, many things I think will be good that are not good at all.  I am praying more this year for wisdom to see the difference - and that the lies will not snag me into bad situations.
   I hope and pray that your 2012 is a blessed one!!


More Christmas 2011 fun...

Bruce enjoying Christmas morning wrapping

Trev and Wes working on a Trevor's gingerbread house -a finished photo is on facebook.