Fina-Lee Friday

I'm happy it's Friday...especially this week. 

• Next week, I won't have to drive Nick to and from school, a daily total of 44 miles!  That also means I get to sleep in a wee bit if I so choose :)  Oh but I am SO thankful.  Then he'll have three weeks of school and it'll be Christmas break for two weeks.
• We have clouds today! and some expected rain! it was wet when I went out this morning.  This makes me very happy.  And for the next 10 days, the projection is for highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s - perfection.
• Two more boxes are packed up from the kitchen: some collector tins (repros from the rage in the late 70s/early 80s) and some cookbooks.  In one of the tins - they all had to have the dust washed from them - I found these (see pic below); I'd forgotten I'd put them there.  Do you know what they are?  LOVE BEADS, originals! ca 1970-71. I once wanted to be a hippie...I'm so-o-o glad I outgrew that phase! One set was from a classmate, the other two made by my then boyfriend.  He and I had chokers that he made with small wooden circles with our initials (he wore mine and I wore his) that he'd made and the fishing line was melted together so the only way to remove them was to cut them.  I don't have those any more. 

• I paid the price today for my junk food binge yesterday...ok, I confess, I've been on a sweets kick since stocking up on Hallowe'en candy, and now all the Christmas candy is in the stores.  Mint chocolate M & Ms, Butterfingers, and don't forget the Cheetos and the Pringles, oh my.
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Too Much Work

Before I can pack up my kitchen for that remodel I keep talking about, I need to have a place to put what is packed up.  We have a 3-car garage or so the house description says.  There's a dividing wall between the 2-car side and a 1-car side and these pix are from the 1-car side because we use it as a collect-all-until-we-get-around-to-disposing-of-it-all room, as well as it houses my laundry 'room' and the chest freezer and some storage shelves.  Sometimes, I really wonder if I DO have hoarder tendencies, because I have things in boxes that I look at and find some excuse for not getting rid of.  In all fairness, there are a lot of empty boxes in here stacked willy nilly as I was gathering them up in order to put kitchen items into for storage during the remodel.

The folding chair belongs in the house.  It was here because I needed to sit down while I was sorting; the back and the foot still are painful when used for extended periods of time when standing on concrete and bending a lot.  That orange chair...it's solid, it's heavy, it's ugly.  Have I said I'm not a huge orange fan? How many cat litter buckets do I need?  Maybe they can store something? They're useful...for something.  hmmm, hoarder?  What about that box of college textbooks?  Anyone studying deaf culture or need to learn ASL?  Seems I promised to take them to our deaf ministry ahem, years ago (we get hearing students who sit in during second service in the deaf area with the interpreter, they may be interested in them).

That fan back there.  It hasn't worked in years.  Marty bought a part to hopefully fix it.  It fried it even worse.  Surely it can be recycled for the metals, or someone more capable could fix it. Oh, and anyone need an old Bell & Howell straight tray slide projector?, or a photo enlarger?  Most of the boxes are empty.

All the items on the pallet, except for the empty boxes, are packed with donation to charity items, or destined for an as yet never had, garage sale.  That skateboard doesn't go though, it's Nick's and for some reason it's always there and gets in my way.  Maybe he should have it in his bedroom?

Ok, this side has some legitimate storage shelves, and lots of empty boxes, and some other odds & ends.  The milk can?  I got that from the neighbor, had/have plans for it, but it's sat here for who knows how many years.  He was a smoker, and played the lottery and it has smelly lottery tickets still sitting in it! Yuck! And that's our flag too, it's too big for the holder outside, so we just rolled it up on it's pole and it sits there. I have another milk (in the first picture in a black plastic bag) that I brought home from up north a couple summers ago.  It had been my Grandma's when she sold milk to the local dairy from her farm back in the 1950's.

Ahhh, here's the starting point.  The cabinet on the left with the towel is teak, it's supposed to go into my craft room that has been another project for more years than I can count.  My laundry stuff is on the other side of that cabinet along with the door to go into the house.  The two boxes that have stuff in them?  Well, one is filled with just a few of my daughter's little girl clothes and baby blankets.  I know, I could take a pic of them and pass them on and out of my house, but there's something about their tactile presence, being able to actually touch and feel them, brings back those memories of when she was little, and since she lived with her dad and step-mom in another state after she turned 5 or 6, I think I'll hang onto them a little longer.  The other has pieces of used sweatshirt material and denim...yeah, I still think I'm going to use them in a quilt some day. 

Some day, I will get this all cleared and dealt with.  Some day needs happen sooner than later.  Some day we will get started on that kitchen.

Haaaappppy Birthday

Today is the day that is listed on her 'adoption' papers as her approximate birthday.  So here's a great big happy first birthday to our Flame.  She's staying warm in that box next to my desk.

Themeless Thursday

Or maybe that should read "Thoughtless Thursday" as I have little thoughts for today.  I have no specific plans, and little motivation to do the things that need to get done, other than to get Nick to and from school.  

I was thinking I would like to start a new project.  But I have so-o-o many unfinished ones that I feel guilty thinking  that way.  And I was thinking I'd just open my notebook of projects, close my eyes and choose one randomly...how scary is that!?  

Then I look around and see so many unfinished chores and household projects and think I should get started on one of them.  But then I think "oh, which one?" and lose all thought.  

So, I've accomplished little, but it is still relatively early in the day.

I think I will open the blinds and let some daylight in.  I won't say sunshine because we have glorious and wonderful clouds and a little wetness today - and we expect to have that for a few days ... YAY!!!!

And along with this "stormy" weather, Marty tells me right before he heads to bed last night, that he's taking two days off work and he and friend are heading to a State/National(?) Park several hours away 'for a couple days' and that's the extent of what I know.  What I think about that....well, you don't want to read what I think about that...but I will say I have encouraged him to go, but oh my, a little better communication or conferring would be nice, don't you think?  And I'm thinking I may just go ahead and sign up to take an all day quilt class at a quilt show in March because I have a friend who is planning on taking it and asked if I'd like to join her....and I think I may keep that info to myself until I walk out the door that morning!

Yeah, that's what I think.

Oh Phooey!!

That can describe a lot today, but is intended only to describe my recognition that I haven't posted here again in a week.  No excuses. But there is nothing happening of note either, including no quilting, no remodeling, no broken bones (thank God), no nothing or should that be no anything, lol? 

Nick had his second highest bowling score yesterday though in bowling a 245!  Way to go!  However, they only won the first game and going into the day were only one game in the lead, so have now dropped to at best 2nd place, as they lost both of the next two games and total pins.  His 3rd game of the day was a meager 145 :(  (his middle game was 180-something). The 'junior doubles' league only has five teams of two and Nick has the 2nd highest average at 176 prior to yesterday's scores.  The highest average is held by one of the boys (17) on the team they played against.

This afternoon I will spend some time with my quilting student.  She hasn't been able to meet during the last two weeks because of sick children, so today, we will figure out where to start with what she has :)


Help, LORD, for the godly man ceases to be, for the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.  Ps. 12:1

Lost In Translation

.... or something like that.

Today on my social network page, a friend, someone I haven't seen in over 40 years and who wasn't really a friend but married a friend of my then boyfriend (and that's a long story), anyway, this poor dear woman was explaining about all the physical woes she's experienced in the last month which truly are awful and I'm sure are seriously demoralizing to the psyche, and in general she was just plainly having a pity party and venting.

I posted a comment that I thought I needed to add her to my prayer list. (And I have.)

Someone else then commented, and this is a quote exactly as typed:  "my goodness, i can't imagine prayers and yes you are titled to a pitty party, but bounce back quick..."

Now, when I read that, my thoughts immediately took it to mean that she couldn't imagine prayers would help, and I had all these "well, what an awful thing to say" thoughts run through my head.  Why would anyone post something so, to me, offensive as to say she couldn't imagine prayers? I know the lady is not a believer, but even most unbelievers appreciate that someone would pray for them.  I was tempted to further comment, but restrained and decided, well maybe she closely knew the friend and that was them and their thoughts.  And I walked away from it.

Later, I came back and saw others had added their sentiments, and the friend had "liked" my comment. In re-reading the one comment, it dawned on me that the problem  was not in what was said, but in punctuation!  If you put a comma between imagine and prayers, it changes the whole meaning.  'i can't imagine' becomes a reaction of disbelief of all the poor woman went through, and prayers becomes the commenter also adding prayers.  

I suppose the lessons are 1) deciphering is sometimes necessary to really understand something typed - especially on social media, and 2) I should never rush to judgement about what someone might intend in what they wrote - especially when punctuation is lacking!

Sunday Blessings

 Our pastor relinquished his pulpit to a 'guest' pastor today.  Sometimes when we have guest pastors, I'm inclined to 'play hooky' and listen from home via the internet, but today we went.  Also, our fellowship group  had a morning of prayer with the pastor taking requests and then choosing one of the men in the group to pray aloud for those requests while the rest of us prayed silently.  The guest pastor for our main service is a man of our church and seminary but I don't recall having heard him teach before, at least not in a great many years.  He taught us on Psalm 139.  This passage has been a favorite of mine since shortly after becoming a Believer, and at one time I was memorizing it, so I'm glad we went and didn't play hooky.  I enjoyed the renewed look at the passage, and am placing it here.  May you be blessed by the Word of God.

Psalm 139:

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thought from afar.
³ You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O Lord, You know it all.
⁵ You have enclosed me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

⁷ Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
¹⁰ Even there Your hand will lead me,
And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,
And the light around me will be night,”
¹² Even the darkness is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You.

¹³ For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
¹⁶ Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And inYour book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.

¹⁷ How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.
When I awake, I am still with You.

¹⁹ O that You would slay the wicked, O God;
Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.
²⁰ For they speak against You wickedly,
And Your enemies take Your name in vain.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
²² I hate them with the utmost hatred;
They have become my enemies.

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
²⁴ And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.