NC Visit 11-18-11

It was an enjoyable train ride from Philly to Fayetteville with Allen.  The restroom left a lot to be desired but then, you can't have everything, I suppose.  Jenn and the boys met us at the station and we grabbed a bite to eat before going home.  The last time I was here was back in spring, yet, once we pulled in the driveway, it felt like it was only yesterday.  I love that.  My goodness, how Ian and Daniel have grown!

There were many things throughout the day that I was eager to blog about (humorous and otherwise) but by now I am too tired.  Maybe it's just as well if vivid descriptions of restroom experiences, disgruntled baggage check personnel and my being an obvious 'fish out of water' are better left unsaid.  For now. 

NC Visit 11-17-11

Here I am in Philly, in a Holiday Inn, sipping on some decaf coffee and passing the time while waiting for my son-in-law, Allen, to get off work.  Six-thirty morning chapel seems more like a day or so ago.  The several hour drive here with Cindy went quickly.  Time flies when you're visiting -- and we all know how 'difficult' it is for Cindy and I to find anything to talk about.  Ha!  I hope her return trip is just as smooth and efficient.

Traveling is going to be a little different this time.  I usually fly but, this time, Allen and I will be riding Amtrak into NC, boarding early in the morning.  One difference I have noticed is that packing for train travel is a lot less stressful than for flying.  I'm always afraid I'll forget to remove all my sharp gadgets from my purse or that I won't get my shoes back on fast enough to suit the person in line behind me.  Once, I forgot to take my computer out of my bag so my whole bag was rejected and everything had to go through security a second time.  Then there was the time, while leaving a plane, I absent-mindedly walked toward the cockpit instead of the exit door.  Actually, I'd rather not talk about that except to say, "Let me tell you. . .those people don't fool around!"

I think tomorrow will be fun.  I'm looking forward to it. 

Hearing loss. . .

I feel compelled to write about some of the life-changing effects that progressive hearing loss has had on my life and, one day (when I can devote all the uninterrupted time I need), I will.  But, for now, let me simply say that, since the onset of this fairly recent obstacle, I am realizing more and more how those effects are many-faceted.  Their complexity  invades my daily life in ways I never would have considered had I not had this experience.  Today, I will leave it at that, except to say that in the past, whenever I have considered my life's journey and what might be further down the road, I never saw this coming.  Neither would it have been my choice - naturally.  Yet, there is a choice that does belong entirely to me and that is how I respond: Is my cup half full?  Or half empty?  Or...does it overflow?  With that in mind, I can't keep myself from feeling curious and even just a little bit excited about what will unfold and what I will learn from this unexpected experience.   It's going to be an adventure and I will surely be listening to God's nudges and hearing them loud and clear!        

Obstacles and all. . .

Okay, okay!  Now I'm getting fidgity!  My printer is trying to gobble up the labels for the Memory Tree envelopes!   I think it's time to back away from deskwork for awhile.  Is that some yardwork I hear calling me?  What a beautiful, sunny day it is and here I am, inside.

It's interesting, the way a day can turn on you.  Early this morning, all was well when I left home in the dark.  There was such a peaceful presence as I drove down the mountain through the fog on my way to Curves.  Then, breakfast at the diner with a good friend - something we haven't done in. . .well, about four years!  (Can that be true?  Has it really been that long?  I have gotten out of the habit of measuring time now that some of it has stood still.)

I should have known the day would hold obstacles; some minor ones, at least.  That, after all, is life.  The first was discovering that the cat had thrown up on the freshly steam-cleaned carpet while I was gone.  "Great," I thought.  "Just what I enjoy coming home to."  On a brighter note, the freshly painted closet door gave me an opportunity to indulge in a bit of smug satisfaction.  After that, things were going along fairly well as I busied myself with today's "To Do" list.  That is, until the printer became uncooperative.

By now, the energy that was invigorating and fresh this morning is beginning to wan and the routine tasks of the day seem to require considerably more effort on my part than they did this morning.  Looking ahead and according to my calendar, I see that I have a meeting to attend later that begins at the time I am usually turning in for the night.  So this day is going to be a long one. 

Will it be like any other?  Absolutely not.  Would I want it to be?  Absolutely not.  How thankful I am for this day - this twenty-four hours of time that is unlike any other and will never be again.  How tenderly I rejoice in it, obstacles and all!   

Mouse parts. . .

What?  It's only 8:30?  I have played music at chapel, mooched coffee from Mike & Cindy, met the school bus, set the trash out, pruned shrubs, shoveled mud and disposed of a severed mouse corpse.  Now, let the day begin!

Before I ventured out on this dark, rainy morning, I conducted my morning's routine surveillance of what may have transpired during the night.  Often, there will be tell-tale evidence of cat and mouse games and today was true to form. On the floor near the foot of my bed, I noticed a decapitated, but otherwise whole, mouse.  Since I was running a little late, I chose not to deal with it then.  When I got back home, all I saw was a head, two feet and a tail.  This meant the rest of the little whiskered rodent was either devoured or playfully cuffed around, only to be discovered by me during some future time when I am most unsuspecting.  Neither scenario holds any appeal, in my opinion.  While I detest finding little body parts lying around in my home, I've been glad my cats have shown no interest in eating their prey, due to a conversation with their vet who told me that if they eat the mice, they will without a doubt have tape worms.  Mind you, I have studied those colorfully graphic, larger than life posters in the vet's office and they are not pretty!  These are the images I see with my mind's eye (or...in Superman talk:  X-ray vision) whenever Clementi and Clara Schumann Cat are near me.  I hope these images fade soon.

Meanwhile, the rest of this busy day is calling me. . . . . .       

Mail adventures. . .

. . .always an adventure - opening a month's worth of mail.  In this case, some things are dated as far back as July.  It's such an afterthought these days now that all the important things are being handled online.    I have my own routine for processing the paper mail I receive.   First,  I only remove it from my mailbox every few days or whenever I think my mail carrier can't possibly cram anymore in, so when I do, it's an armload.  Then I bring it inside where nine tenths of it is thrown away immediately.  I look at how it almost fills an empty kitchen trash bag and I visualize myself bundling up those bags every week and lugging them out to the trash can.  "There's something wrong with this picture," I'll say to myself as I realize how much of the trash I set out each week is mail that I neither wanted nor asked for and, quite frankly, I resent being forced to dispense with it.  Once the stack has been narrowed down to a "keep" pile, I  glance through the rest of the unopened mail and stuff it out of the way into a tri-sectioned holder on the wall.  The fact that it has three sections allows me a false sense of satisfaction that I am organized while the truth is that it gets so full that I end up having to improvise by arranging the envelopes  according to their size and flexibility instead of by priority.  Several weeks later, the envelopes make their way to my desk where they are opened and I take care of a few  that are time sensitive.  The rest are sorted into red, blue and yellow folders --priorities 1, 2 and 3 -- where they are handy to work with whenever I feel like taking the time -- which is hardly ever.  Especially if it involves filling out forms.  I hate forms.  They never make sense to me and I always have the feeling they are full of trick questions.  And. . .are you supposed to print between the lines?  Or on the lines?  Why do the shortest spaces require the longest words?  This morning, as per instructions in a letter dated July 22nd, I called a phone number for a stock transfer agent and listened to some automated options that presumably would instruct me on how to become "reunited with some of my assets."  They would send me forms in the mail, however, I perked up at the option that directed me to a website where I could print my own form, fill it out and mail it.  Share transfer made easy, it said.  "This is more like it," I thought; especially the "easy" part.  Well......at first I thought I must have failed to check a box requesting "English" and that I had  gotten the form in a foreign language.  With a little more scrutiny, I not only realized it is written in "legal-ese" and acronyms that have no key code but that it requires notarization, besides.  Feeling frustration setting in, I made the best decision under the circumstances -- I decided to print an accompanying envelope, tuck the whole business under the flap and file it all away in the temporary, red, priority 1 folder and deal with it later.  Maybe next month.   Besides, I'm not sure but I think the assets they are talking about are $69.  Is it really worth an hour and a half of aggravation and a 44 cent stamp?

And that was only one item in the stack!  Have I mentioned what an adventure it is just opening the mail?

  

  

When you can't get it all done. . .

...feeling somewhat better but still under the weather. I slept in until daylight this morning and am just puttering around at home.  It has been so long since I've had a "bug" that, at first, I didn't recognize it. I thought it was my usual allergic bout that happens every spring and fall. When the aching and chills began, so did the realization that I had been tagged by the current "bug" that's going around. It felt odd not to head for Curves, first thing this morning, while it was still dark.  That, together with cancelling choir last night, makes me feel like I'm having a vacation; one that will be short lived, however.  There are a lot of things I need to get caught up on.   

So what will I do with the rest of this day?  There's so much to choose from and it's hard to separate the "have to's" from the "want to's."  At least it is for me.  I don't think Bob ever had that problem.  He was a real  work-comes-first  kind of guy and was often impatient that there could be any question about that.  Sometimes, I can prioritize very efficiently but there are also times when it is difficult for me.  The latter happens when I have extended myself beyond my comfort level, either through my own choices or because of situations in which I am obligated by default.  I recall some words from Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life:  "If you can't get it all done, you're trying to do more than God intended for you to do."  Not only is that true but, further, you may even be preventing someone else from using their God-given gifts.  As I see it, we have a tendency to believe that our selflessness is proven by how much we do, but that is not necessarily true.  When we do more than our share, it may be that we are selfishly infringing upon what is intended to be another's contribution.  I suppose, to some, this may sound like I am assigning justification to laziness.  If so, I have, unfortunately, failed to clarify my point.

Having wasted a portion of this day on a point I have probably failed to make, how shall I spend the rest of it?  I really need to wrestle my palm tree back inside before it gets too cold.  I keep forgetting about that as well as a few other seasonal buttonings up.  I suppose there are more apples that are begging to be picked and maybe the pears on the later tree, too.  I don't think I can reach the pears, even with the double extended picker, and I don't think I'll be climbing the tree...or the ladder, for that matter!

For sure, there will be prayers of gratitude that, no matter what happens, God is good.