I hate being wrong.
I especially hate being outspelled.
And I really, REALLY hate being outspelled by certain people.

I have been called on the carpet for my spelling of coup in the term chicken coup. The funny thing about it is, I always spelled it “coop” until a person I deemed at least my intellectual equal, but quite possibly smarter, spelled it “coup.” I didn’t even research it. I just automatically changed my spelling of the word. Oh, dumb farm girl. Why? Why would you do that without so much as a single Google search? You, dumb farm girl, are an ENGLISH MAJOR. Spelling “coop” is what you do.

And I was corrected by a friend who will always misspell “definitely” under pressure. It’s ITE, not ATE.

It just goes to show one thing: don’t trust Facebook comments for your spelling guidance. And if you can’t spell coop, you shouldn’t have one. This is perhaps what I am taking away from this. I have roosters that have learned to carry weapons. I can’t turn on the hose without almost dislocating my eyeballs with a fierce stream of sprinkler water. And I can’t spell “coop.”

Sigh.

The good news is, the roosters are going to auction. One week from Saturday.

Trust me, that will be worth a report.

Remember, it’s coop. And definitely. Definitely coop.

…you can’t take the city out of the kids.
Or can you?
I don’t know the answer to that. I’m working on it.

For us, summer has just begun in earnest. The kids finished school on Friday after what was the fastest, most jam-packed two weeks ever. I practically lived there.  We went straight from that into a party on Saturday for the kids’ classes. That was a surreal experience. Never have I thrown a party with such a melting pot of people who didn’t know each other. It was interesting.With a few unsung heros that day, it worked and was a pretty big success. Without Truce (names have been changed to protect the innocent. ha.)  in the backfield organizing the 2-hr kickball game, I’m not sure the kids would have had such a good time. At any rate, that party lasted until after 9 and wore me out like I imagine a 10K would Betty White. ( I originally chose “5K” for that analogy, but Betty White is pretty spry, so I upped my distance.)

From that tiring Saturday, we had some family spend the night and by Monday, the kids were all ready for a week in a psych ward. We were shot. But in the last two days, we’ve slept in and slowed down and now–this is summer.

We’ve had some recovery now. We’ve napped and eaten ice cream and watched some movies we had been wanting to rent. So today it was time to clean up a little. Do some chores. Work around the farm.

OK, kids. Come on. Let’s get to work.

It was like I had grown a 3rd eye. They were shocked by the word chores. So I backed off my vocabulary. For today, I would trick them into working. After that, it would somehow become automatic. How, I have no idea.

I was loading up Saturday’s party trash for trash day. Loading the trash is not the small affair it was when I lived in the city. There, my driveway was 25 feet long. Here, the trek to the end of the driveway is more like a 1/4 mile. We have a Rover for that. It helps to be able to drive the trash. Dragging it was a beast.

Mama’s Boy was “helping” me with the trash chore, mostly because he didn’t want me out of his sight. This morning, his variety of help was rather unhelpful. This is when i began to ask myself internally how to put some country into these kids. They were used to the 20 foot driveway and the pavement and scooters and sidewalks. And neighbors.

They are not used to bugs. And biting flies. And dirt.

By the end of the trash thing, I considered calling a walk in clinic for some child-sized valium. The flies pushed him to the edge where he’s still teetering. I’m hoping to bring it back around today.

After the trash, it was  chicken coup time. This is not my favorite job. Truthfully, they scare me. Two of them have become roosters and are very angry beasts. I realize they were probably always roosters. I understand the birds and the bees and the chickens. But we inherited 4 baby chickens from a 3rd grade class. They hatched them and kept them safe. They did not identify their gender. So now I have 2 angry roosters, 2 pooping hens, and 4 babies that always look shell shocked as they watch the larger chickens patrol the coup. The babies are safe in a bunny hutch, inside the coup. I am hoping that soon they’ll be all together in the open coup, but I’m still watching that situation.

They were hungry when I got to them this morning. I guess I don’t have the schedule down properly yet, because they were clamoring. A clamoring chicken isn’t a good thing, in case you’ve never seen one. And the trick to a clamoring chicken…or rooster…is to go into the coup armed with food, throw it, get them away from you and do what you need to do.

Unfortunately for me, the food was stored high inside the coup, which meant I had to fight my way through the crowd of clamoring birds to get to the food.

Carnage, I tell you. It was pure carnage.

I made it out alive, as you already know if you have endured this far. But still there was one task left: cleaning and refilling the water thingies. I figured that using the hose in the garden would be more efficient than dragging dirty water bottle thingies through the kitchen. So I went to the garden. The garden has a splitter set up between the sprinkler and a hose. First you have to turn off the sprinkler and then you have to turn on the hose.

Or so I thought.

While intently leaning down over the sprinkler, 12 inches from the ground, I flipped the switch.

It turned the sprinkler on. The sprinkler hit me in the face and head with staggering force. Well, I guess that wasn’t the right order to do things in. I managed to get the sprinkler turned off, but not before a full body soaking. Then I turned on the hose and washed out the water buckets.  After a few minutes, I had to wash out another bucket. So I turned on the sprinkler AGAIN.

Good grief.

You can take the awkward lady out of the city…

And yet, here I am posting.

I need the rain to stop. I bought plants that I can’t even get into the ground because we are washing away in the downpours.

I need it to be Sunday. I just don’t think I am young or fit or smart enough to do the next 48 hours. I don’t want to die, mind you. Just fast forward. Slowly.

Summer.

So. Thankful. it. is. almost. Summer.

I just did battle with a large insect and totally cleaned his clock. You ain’t messing with a city gal anymore people.

I have decided to go to bed.

I like clear-cut solutions. Answers that are right or wrong. Things that can be fixed.  Formulas.  It’s funny that I like these things, because I am a wordy, philosophical English major. This is probably why I drive myself crazy. I see the problems.  I want the solutions.  And I can’t seem to get from there to here or here to there.

One little microcosm of this issue came to me just the other day when I was talking to my boys about using what we have in God’s service. The context of the conversation was that I have noticed a trend of isolation or privacy in Christian homes as the years pass. People don’t just stay in each other’s homes so much anymore. They stay in hotels. People don’t stay in the home of a stranger if the traveler and the homeowner share a mutual friend. I’m not saying this no longer happens at all. I’m saying it’s happening much less. We are more private. More isolated. More connected VIRTUALLY than we are ACTUALLY.  I was asking the boys what we would do if Christians we didn’t know needed a place to stay. Where would we put them? Where would they sleep? What would we say?

They answered sweetly. They offered to give up their room (wonder if the reality would look as spiffy as the fantasy…). They were all over it.

And then Mama’s Boy threw the question at me that I wanted the formula for. He is like me. He wants the code that cracks everything. He asked me this:

If we are supposed to be generous and share our house and our stuff, then how come you don’t always say yes when someone on the street asks you for money?

Yes. Hmm. How come? What IS my answer to that? What is THE answer to that?

That’s a tough one. I told him so, too. Kudos for stumping me, boy.  I could say what I’ve heard before: that I don’t believe some people will use the money I give them wisely and I need to be a wise steward of my money.  Or I could say that my choices are sometimes random. Or I could try to come up with THE one right answer.  Sometimes I say yes. Sometimes I avoid the situation.

Then it hit me.  Call me dense, because I’m sure you already figured this out.

There is no one right answer to most of life’s questions.

 I do believe in absolute truth and I believe the bible gives the definitive answer on a whole lot of things, including salvation and morality and 1000 other things. But in the day to day interactions with people and the day to day navigation of obstacles, I am just going to have to take it one blip at a time.

But how do I do a good job with that? How do I know what God wants me to do at 3 o’clock in the Publix parking lot?

Suddenly I thought about Isaiah.  I can do it by standing within earshot of God’s conversations.

Isaiah 6

6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³ And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy , holy is the Lord Almighty;
    the whole earth is full of his glory.”

⁴ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

⁵ “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷ With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. ”

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? ”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Isaiah was standing there looking at God…focused on God. He was humble and intent.  Then, he HEARD the conversation God was having. He heard God ask who should be sent. And then he jumped in. He was sent because he was was eavesdropping when the mission was mentioned. He was perched. Ready.

Maybe there will never be a formula. But if I am looking at God and listening for God, I’ll know what to do when someone walks up and asks me if I can spare a whatever.

And that’s pretty much the only formula I need.

I’m going to go wake Mama’s Boy up and tell him.

Yesterday morning, I awakened in a cold sweat. I had been dreaming. What time is it even? It was 5:15 a.m. Ah. that means I have another lifetime to sleep before I have to get up. I should have felt good about this, but the nature of the dream and the resulting cold sweat robbed me of this 11th-hour hunker.

In the dream, I had already dropped the 3 school-aged children at school and had moved on to MOSI. I was frantically looking for a lunchbox I  had left there when on a recent field trip with my fourth grader. Each MOSI staffer that I met would send me on to the next person.

“Oh, yes”, they would say…”we’ve seen that spiderman lunchbox. Why are you using a spiderman lunchbox at your age, ma’am?”
Condescenders.
And I would move on. But I could never find it. They had all seen it and no one would lead me to it.

Suddenly, I looked at my watch. 9:04 a.m. OH would ya look at that? I was supposed to be at the school BEFORE 8:45 for my 2nd grader’s field trip! I panicked.

Paralyzed by my own panic and knowing that my 2nd grader was now loaded on a bus twice as panicked as I was, I tried to think about the fastest way to get to school. MOSI is maybe 1.5 miles from school. Well, obviously running is the fastest way to remedy this situation.

So I took off running. Sprinting like a stiff breeze. Running so fast. Then I began to heave a lot and stop for breath. Why can I not even be agile and athletic in my dreams? They are MY dreams!

When I began to wear out and was almost unable to continue, I stopped again to consider my options. This is when my college degree kicked in. Cheetahs are much faster than humans. So I dropped onto all fours and began running like a cheetah.

In the dream, I did not move like a real cheetah. I moved like an exhausted human imitating a cheetah and failing miserably.

Then I realized it was just a dream and forced myself awake. The day was still fresh before me. My 2nd grader was not upset.  And I was left with only one scar: the knowledge that I am woefully out of shape, even in my dreams.

 

Did you read the title? Weakness does not discriminate. This is important for two reasons:
(1) It’s true. We’ll get back to that in a moment.
(2) I lost my grasp on the word “discriminate” for about 40 minutes today and finally had to call the Informinator while I was ironing to try and describe to her the word I was trying to remember. The fact that I was ironing at all really deserves to be noted here, and though it adds Shock Value to the post, it doesn’t add interest. I’ll move on. So I called the Informinator. I had to wait a good 90 seconds to ask her my question, as two children had shown up at her doorstep to “scare” her. She pretended to be scared. Come on, come on, come on….I’ve got Brain Block, people.

“May I speak to the Informinator, please?” I asked, politely, though urgently.
“Speaking,” she answered, when the Boo Kids had moved on. (We’re formal like this, at times…)
“I need a word. It has left me. I know you can help me. It is a verb. It starts with a ‘d’ and it means to be prejudiced against or show bias or something like that.”
“Ohhh-Kayyyy,” she said, thinking.
“I keep saying the word ‘disintegrate’ in my mind, so I think it sounds like that.” Still nothing from her. I kept going. “OK, OK. It’s against the law to DO THIS WORD against people who are a certain race or gender or handicapped or something. You cannot _______ on the basis of race or gender. You cannot “disintegrate” on the basis of race…” I said.
“DISCRIMINATE!” She shouted out.
“THAT’S IT!!!” I yelled. “Thank you.” I was a whole lot more excited than she was, because now I could move on with my day. And now the phrase, “Weakness does not disintegrate” (I wish it did…) made more sense as “Weakness does not discriminate.”

Which brings me back to Point #1.

Weakness, as a state of being, is interesting. Instead of disintegrating, it actually infiltrates every facet of something. You break a bone and the muscle around it atrophies and the body weakens. If you lie on a couch for a month, which in THEORY should be GOOD FOR A BODY (rest does a body good), you turn into a sickly huff-n-puff.

I haven’t been on a couch for a solid month or anything quite like that, but I haven’t broken any records of impressiveness, either. I’ve been weak. And while I thought that was just a physical thing, it appears to attach its tentacles everywhere. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally, etc. As it turns out, becoming slothful doesn’t just affect the pants I wear. It affects how I think, how or if I pray, my reactions, my productivity, etc.

I’m not sure which came first and gave birth to the others, but my theory is that my lack of care over my physical health has caused me to care very little about all the others. Actually, it isn’t that I don’t care. I actually care a lot. I just haven’t had the gumption to do anything about it.

Until Tuesday night.  That is when I decided I was not going to let the non-discriminatory weakness control me. I was determined to control it. And while weakness is typically a bad thing, there is a weakness that achieves the opposite. By choosing weakness, in denying myself or fasting or something else that might fall in one of these categories, all of the things that have been chipping me slowly into an unrecognizable blob come into razor sharp focus. Where I was too busy checking up on Facebook Friend #156 to pray, suddenly I am too needy not to pray. I have to pray. And where I had allowed myself 2 hours of TV to watch, now I am ironing and trying to remember the words of Romans 12. The ironing thing still freaks me out a little. I’m working through that one. It won’t last, I’m certain.

I know the Bible talks about fasting in secret and not acting all “woe is me” and “Hey! Check me out…I’m fasting!” (paraphrase by Missy). I am not fasting today and I’m not in any way bragging. I’m just sharing some recent observations that pulled me up out of convalescence. In the case that someone else might be where I was, maybe this will help.

I have to remove some distractions. I’m not going to delete my facebook account or join a Trappist Monastery or sell all my iPods (ha) and go sit up on a hill and watch the sky. But I am going to rein myself in. The screen time in this house has been unbridled and that is just as bad as bad can be. I’m not going to declare TVs and computers bad. They aren’t bad. Like everything, they have to be controlled. And I’m not going to to declare that by Friday we’ll have this fixed. I’m not going to declare anything. I’m just going to work toward some things. I found a couple of blog articles helpful that I will be linking to over the next few days.

I’ve decided to try to “fast” from something every day. I have quite a few things I’m addicted to in some way. It’s no Betty Ford Clinic situation, but still debilitating to some extent. Some days it will be food. When you are hungry, you are focused and praying. And God knows you are serious. And answers come. Things change. Some days it will be TV or my computer.  Some days, as strange as it may seem, it will be music. When my car or house is silent, I think real thoughts and pray real prayers. Even music can distract me away from what I should be doing.

Maybe I’m just easily distracted.

It’s time to get back into shape. Physically. SPIRITUALLY. Emotionally. Mentally. It’s time to be back in control again.

Just so you don’t think I’m being all “check me out,” my 4 year old is sitting at the table eating chocolate ice cream for breakfast while watching Super WHY. (It’s dairy…and educational.)

Baby steps. I still have a few things to work on…

Wow. We’ve passed an anniversary. This time last year, I made fun of the Oscars for the first time on my blog. Here we are again. One year later. Same event. Different movies. Has anything really changed?

No.

Last year I said there was only one way to watch the Oscars. With cynicism and at 11:15 for 15 minutes. Last night I called The Informinator and scolded her for not watching every moment. What has happened to me? I’m escaping the stress of moving and running school fundraisers by watching people who bring their body parts to the Oscars like pets to be admired. Good grief.

So here’s my too-involved take on 2012.

• Ben Stiller and Billy Crystal standing on each other’s shoulders are still shorter than the average man.
• Christopher Plummer should stick to white gloves and Julie Andrews.
• Super Duper Loud and Seriously Close might have won were it not for the Terribly Confusing and Awfully Disconcerting title.
• Angelina Jolie is actually already dead and they exhumed her body and hologrammed her in for that presentation. There’s no way that skinny ghost was still alive. I was aghast. Really, ask Todd. AGHAST.
• Robyn Porch made the pie in the opening movie montage. I went to tiny little Florida College with Robyn. How cool is that?
• The Artist? Really? A SILENT FILM? There’s a reason they did away with silent films. It’s called MICROPHONES. Talkies, people. You don’t step back 100 years just to be cute. I don’t cook over a fire now. Why would I do that? I have a cook top. When I do cook over a fire, my marshmallow ALWAYS catches on fire. I think my point is made.
• There were only 2 songs up for Best Song. What’s up with that? Muppet or Man vs. the Rio song? Were there no songs written in adult movies this last year? That’s just weird.
• JLo. I know you got it going on and stuff, but showing half your boobs does not make them more attractive. In fact, they looked kinda smashy and weird and I’m sure you paid $500,000 for that one dress, but I hate to tell you: It wasn’t worth that. Also, put a jacket on.

And the Moscars (that’s Missy’s Oscar) go to:

Best Picture: The Muppet Movie
Best Actor: Walter in the Muppet Movie. He is up and coming, I’m pretty sure.
Best Actress: DEFINITELY Viola Davis. DEFINITELY.
Best Original Score: Mario Galaxy Soundtrack for the Wii. Really perky stuff.

This one is worse.

RESCUESD DOG READY FOR HIS FOREVER HOME HOME (Tampa Bay)

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Date: 2012-02-23, 7:30PM EST
Reply to: gmdgq-2855084343@comm.craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

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Hi I am Mr Sweet. I am a yellow labrador rescue dog. I was SAVED by a nice lady who came and got me from a certain death at a very high kill shelter. Many of my buddies died there as I saw them take them to a room and they came out lifeless. I got so SAD I would be next any hour or any day??!! Then this nice lady came and said you will NOT die today and started calling me by my name (Mr Sweet). I’m a handsome one year old boy,and I only weigh 30lb. I love to play with dogs, I’m ok with cats, and anyone really!!! 🙂 I am a playful boy and aim to please my forever family that me and my foster mom are currently looking for… Can you be my new forever family?? I have been fixed, Micro chipped, and UTD on all my yearly shots. I am a healthy, happy and playful sweet boy ready to come to meet you. Please text or call my foster mom to meet me. 305-896-0463 I look forward to meeting you. There is a one hundred dollar rehoming fee to cover some of my expenses, and for future rescues. Thank you!

Sometimes I just HAVE to read Craigslist. Before I post today’s Certifiably Crazy Ad of the Day, I will tell you the end of the “Got a Dog when I was 6” story. This is the part I haven’t told my kids.

We loved Benji for 11 solid years. Toward the end, he had a stroke of some sort and could no longer walk in a straight line. He walked sideways. That was both pitiful and a little bit funny.

But one late night while staying at St. Teresa Beach, he wandered off. Sideways. And walked sideways across the little highway. A truck not driving sideways hit him.

And it was sad.

But I didn’t post on Craigslist about it.

I just blogged about it 24 years later. And now…….here’s your ad of the day. Grammar has been left untouched. Enjoy.

SWIPER needs YOU ASAP (USF/Busch Gardens)

MEEEE—OOOWWW! That’s cat for hello and I want to love you forever! Try saying it? Doesn’t it make YOU feel great inside too, to know a cat wants to love you forever? My name is SWIPER, just like in Dora, and I am an 11 month old gray wish orange swishes and black ring-tail female KITTEN/CAT (that means I am sooo playful that I still think I’m a new bundle of joy, but my age says I’m almost a full grown cat…hmphf…LOL). My humans adopted me when I was barely 6 wks old and I’ve been loved and pampered ever since, but life has taken a toll on my dear humans. While they love me beyond love, they are raising two disabled little grandsons and are being forced to move away to find the right services for them. They found a new house by a special schoo, but that house won’t allow any pets, even with a special deposit. My humans are CRUSHED, and tried to negotiate, especially now that I am to be a mother myself VERY SOON, but the new landlords said aboslutely NO! I am truly a wonderful young feline, and I don’t cause any trouble…have always been around other cats and know to take the high ground if the dogs want to play too rough, and I like to go outside, but then come in to eat and catch some ZZZZZ’s or snuggle. Although this is my first litter, I have helped socialize other newborn kittens a few different times, so it wouldn’t take YOU much effort to feed me, do my litter and just make sure no other living thing eats my babies…..I will be a FANTASTIC mother! I PROMISE I will be good to you and your family if you’ll love mine too until they are old enough to eitehr keep with US, or to re-home…I PROMISE! My humans are running out of time to find me a REAL home, and I don’t know if my human mom will surivive if she must take me and my unborns to a shelter to take my chances! PLEASE don’t let sadness become the fate of all of us! MEEEE—OOOOOWWW!!! lets make a forever love connection! My humans even have litter to get you started if you want it! PLEASE call ASAP….813-464-5837 and leave a message if the humans can’t answer immediately as they are chasing those grandkids! The pics of me won’t upload here, but if you text, they have pics to share showing GORGEOUS, SPECIAL ME! God Bless my new family when they call…AMEN!

This ad is really kind of touching. If only it weren’t written from the perspective of a crazy cat named Swiper having a load of babies out of wedlock.

You had me at “let’s make a forever love connection.”

No, you did not.