Like my mother....

While I was emptying the dishwasher tonight I pulled out 2 spatulas, and I thought about my Mom.

Mom was more than careful with what she had.  She was so frugal and made do all of her life.  She had one spatula.  By the time I left home I don't think it could be called a spatula any longer. Actually it was always called the "rubber scraper".  But there was only ever one 'rubber scraper' and in time it was actually 'a wooden stick with some rubber around it'. (it was obviously better rubber than we have now on the cheapey rubber spatulas!!)  How could it ever have scrapped anything?  And because it was the only one and used for everything it was discolored and brown.  It was clean.  Mom was very careful with 'clean' but it was an interesting shade of brown.

When we were married we had a rubber scraper.  I don't know if it was a wedding gift or if I bought it but we had one.  After a number of years I came to realize the monetary value of a rubber scraper.  So why the heck did I only have one and why the heck was it just as discolored and worn as my Mom's?  I made a decision to: 1. have more than one rubber scraper and 2. throw them out when the rubber was cracked and broken!

I often wonder what sort of things our Daughter will realize she has been doing/is doing because 'that is the way Mom did it'!  I hope she can smile and do it differently .......

a long day

I have no idea why it has seemed like such a long day!  I swear it felt like it was 30 hours long!  Maybe the post-Christmas blues have hit.  Maybe reality has hit.  Maybe ......

I finally finished the basement.  If repair men weren't coming tomorrow to work on the boiler I doubt I would have been that ambitious.  It seems that unless I have myself some incentive I can procrastinate for a very, very, yes, very long time.  The after Christmas laundry has been done for over a week but I don't like making beds for some reason so the clean sheets have been sitting on the beds, waiting.  And then there is the vacuuming.  But now it is decent, even the bathroom.  

I actually accomplished quite a bit today, didn't sit around feeling lonely or bored but it was a long, long day.

And now people are coming for care group.

I wonder what tomorrow will be like.........

Twenty ten

I understand 'twenty ten' is 'the way' to speak of the new year.  Not quite sure when I started to care about 'the way' of speaking......

As I wrote the Christmas letter in December, I commented on how quickly 2009 had passed. Later I discovered that this was basically the same way I began the letter of 2008!  I hope I come up with a better way to begin a letter at the end of this year.  But it does seem that the older I get the quicker the years go by.

A new year has often found me melancholic and contemplative.  Some times I have been downright depressed.  I still remember and can still feel the night of new year's day 29(?) years ago.  I had suddenly realized that was the year that our first born would begin school.  I began to grieve 8 months before anything happened.  No wonder I found life difficult at times.  I kept carrying burdens that no one, not even God expected me to carry.

I continue to learn to live by faith, to accept the present, to enjoy the moment.  I continue to believe it is a lifetime process and will experience ups and downs in that process.  I was reminded recently that eternal life is knowing God,  knowing Jesus.  (John 17:3 I think!). Eternal life is qualitative and not quantitative.  Well, I realize that there is eternity sometime, somewhere but sometimes I am less sure of what that means too.  More need for faith I think!

And so I wish you eternal life in the coming year.  That sounds rather weird but somehow I think that is exactly what I want for people, not a head full of knowledge but a "knowing" of God and a "knowing" of what it means to be his child.

New year's day, 2010? I don't really recall one contemplative thought!  We went to see "The Blind Side" which did bring some 'thinking'.  We both enjoyed it and for us, to BOTH enjoy and no one sleeping !!!  it was a good movie.  Not profound but a feel-good story based on true life.  After that, we had a meal at the Keg thanks to a gift certificate from friends and were home by 6!  Yikes, we are getting old.