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.

Redemption From the Pile

     The pine trees outside my dining window were much easier to decorate 10 years ago.  Since they are now so large I thought that I would just hang lights on one of them. I had a pile of odd  lights that I thought might make a nice Christmas menagerie on a tree.  I spent an hour just before sundown untangling and hanging these half-working lights- overlapping the dead spots with the hanging icicle type mixed with the net type.  As twilight approached I could see more clearly, ironically, how awful the project was looking.  I decided to scrap it entirely and focus on something more manageable, and quickly, before my fingers froze off.
   I found an old fake tree with no stand, that sat dangerously close to the trash barrel.  I reshaped it's mangled wire branches, draped the mess of lights on it and bungee strapped it to deck railing.  It shone super bright in the darkness next to my Adirondack chair and made me smile. Redemption from the messy piles - I think that's what Christmas is all about.                                                                     

  On an even brighter note, here is a picture taken during some Christmas shopping time with the boys.  This has been one of the highlights of the Christmas season so far for me - these guys are so awesome!  It gets me thinking that this is just a fraction of how God feels about me.   And that's why He sent Christ to rescue me. To rescue all of us.
   Merry Christmas!!!                                                                                      

 

Shiny Tennis Balls Hanging from the Tree

     Twinkling lights glitter the landscape and Christmas music started playing on the radio two weeks ago.Yep, it's that time and I love it!
     Walmart decorated way before Black Friday, which has nothing to do with the fact that for the first time in my life I was one of those people who waited in line for the equivalent of a day for a crazy deal. But before you judge, let me explain. 

     Our family room TV came to us when one of Westley's friends salvaged it from the curbside.  It has duct tape covering a couple of the buttons so they don't shock you. It was a step up at the time. It still works, but when we had the opportunity to get a nice, much larger TV for such a great price we decided to go for it.  Westley, Dexter and I and our friends Joe, and Taylor arrived at the store shortly after Thanksgiving dinner (now you can judge me).  We were the first in line and there was hardly anyone in the store.  One of the managers told me I couldn't sit on the low shelf. We waited there for seven hours and fifteen minutes until midnight.  We witnessed pandemonium, saw a lot of weird people, stopped caring about the germs on the floor, and used it as a dinner table at one point.  We discovered that you can fit three 40 inch TVs in an Impala with five people. I won't do that every year but it was worth it, that TV is beautiful.
     

Frank

     Frank came home for a visit today and as usual, was asked to drop his slobbery tennis ball outside the door.  He saw the tree in the other room before I could catch up with him. I heard a 'tink' and ran in to find a gold ornament on the floor.  Frank would like to know why there are shiny tennis balls all over the tree...inside the house.  He would also like to know why they don't bounce like tennis balls, such a buzz kill, he says.
     Those are a couple of the lighter holiday happenings that help me smile amidst the heartbreak of loved ones who are hurting, and friends who are deceived and broken.  I'm not telling those stories here, I'm praying over those ones, and doing whatever I can in my small way to help.
     I try to see all this, with my feeble mind, in a way that I think God might see it. 
      ...and I got nothin.
      What I do know is that I can trust Him, and that He gives me joy along the winding way.
     I better go check on Frank now.