First, I think this cartoon accurately describes the weather we’ve been suffering through lately:
Last night we had a lovely thunderstorm. Greg and I sat out on the front porch and watched it rain for about half an hour. It had cooled off so much that I actually got goosebumps! It was all lovely and romantic and wonderful.
And that’s all I have to say about that. For other topics, follow me!
It’s been another day of fighting through the cloud of illness to function normally. Not that I’ve functioned normally at all today, mind you, but I’ve sure tried. I had rather a nice little rant going in my head earlier that I had intended to post, but now, sadly, it’s all lost. I suppose that’s because I spent my lunch break working on my story rather than writing down my rant.
Part of it, naturally, involved people’s seeming inability to spell anything properly. A couple of people on my Facebook friends list come to mind, a certain M.D. and T.N. I honestly don’t know how T. managed to graduate for as bad as his spelling is – it’s incredibly hard to figure out what he means sometimes. I hate chatting with him online because I have to read what he writes very carefully in order to figure out what he’s saying. For instance, would you have ever guessed that “fencsay” is “fiancée”? Me, either. As for M.D., she’s at least intelligible, but still irritating (spelling “coming” with two m’s, for instance). Pay attention in school, people! Spelling and grammar are important!
And yes, I know there are probably a zillion errors in my writing because I’m occasionally too lazy to take a couple seconds and run spell check, but at least I try.
And now that I’ve come off as a judgmental wench, I’m going to call it quits for the day. I’ve spent far too much time on authonomy today to play much here, and I need to clear my head. I was hoping caffeine would help with that, but when it fails, there’s always screaming baby. And for the record, I blame any grumpiness today on lack of sleep and being sick. I’m really tired of being sick.
(c) 2010. All rights reserved.
So today I was going to try and post something more updatey, but I just don’t think that’s going to happen. Instead, I think I’ll post a column I read in the Iowa Falls Times-Citizen this morning that I got a kick out of. It’s funny partly because it’s true, but also partly because the columnist is just plain funny. So, without further ado, Chuck Humeston’s thoughts on flying nowadays!
Flying has become about as much fun as a toothache.
Last week my wife and I flew to Denver, Colorado. It’s a drivable distance, but flying makes the trek across Nebraska almost tolerable. Driving it, you’re tempted to say, “We’re almost there,” but you’re really not even close. I’m sure the last thing General Custer told his men was, “The bad news is we’re totally surrounded, but the good news is we don’t have to ride back across Nebraska.”
So, we decided to fly. If you can figure out airline ticket pricing, then you’re one up on me. I studied a little economics (actually, as little as possible) in college, too, but this stuff defies all logic. It’s like the pricing depends on the moon phase closest to the equinox in the leap year. Lo and behold, I found a cheap price, even out of Des Moines, two weeks prior to our planned departure, and the airplane was even guaranteed to have wings and two engines! So I booked it.
I bought two coach seats. I’ve traveled first class once in my life only because the jet was nearly empty and the flight attendant asked if I would like to sit in first class as no one was there. Aside from that, I’ve never figured out why anyone would want to pay almost double to get there 100 feet sooner than I get there.
Then there’s the “red carpet” option. Once I saw the ticket agent set up the “red carpet” at the gate. He simply tossed a red floor mat on the floor at the entrance. My visions of the “red carpet,” with a brass band at the gate, someone putting a drink in my hand, and carrying my bags for me were dashed. Sure, you get on the jet before everyone else, but you still aren’t going anywhere until the pilot decides he wants to leave.
Then there’s security. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for tight security for air travel these days. But for a long time, it seemed every time I traveled, I got taken out of the line and searched. I mean, they could identify me, but they couldn’t identify the “underwear bomber?”
One time I got taken out of the line, the guy kept pointing at me and then at a table. Was it a sign language? Was I supposed to sit on the table? I finally said, “Look, I don’t know what you want me to do unless you tell me.” He told me to put my bag on the table. “Has anyone, without your knowledge, had control of your baggage?” Is that a trick question? It’s almost like asking, “So when did you stop beating your wife?” Any way you answer it is going to be wrong. How would I know if it was without my knowledge?
We got through security this time, got dressed again, and got on the jet. That’s become an ordeal, too. Since the airlines have decided to get into the passengers’ pockets for each bag checked, more have decided to beat the system by carrying on as many carry-ons as possible. Some people look like they are trying to stuff steamer trunks into the overhead compartments. Last week someone even dropped a carry-on onto my son-in-law’s head!
We spent a good week with our family in Colorado and our son drove us from Denver to the Denver International Airport. How far is that? Let’s just say by the time you get there, you expect to see a sign that says, “Welcome to Nebraska.” I should have driven.
Happy Thursday, all!
(c) 2010. All rights reserved.
…I finally found a book that, upon rereading, disappointed me. I just finished Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn, which I probably read sometime in late elementary school or early middle school (I don’t remember exactly, because it was a long time ago, so give me a break). At any rate, I think I must have read it when I was at an age to identify with some of the characters. There’s Molly, who is 12; her younger brother, Michael, who is 10; her mother, Jean; her stepfather, Dave; and her step-sister, Heather, who is 7. They move from Baltimore to this little country church, complete with graveyard, where Heather happens to befriend the ghost of a little girl who was just her age and even had the same initials. Both their mothers had died in fires and they became fast friends. Heather was not overly accepting of her father moving on with another woman, let alone of the woman herself (or Michael or Molly). Half the book involved Molly, Michael, and Heather fighting and then their parents ended up fighting. Molly felt like no one believed her because Dave and Jean (especially Dave) always took Heather’s side and after a while, this kind of got on my nerves, but not nearly as much as Dave himself did. He was always making excuses for Heather’s bad behavior, saying things like, “Well, she’s just an unusually sensitive little girl,” or, “She’s suffered a loss and just needs love and understanding.” Well, yes, but that only takes you so far in life. I guess that’s the part that bothered me: no matter what she did that was wrong (and plenty of it was horrible), he was always making excuses for her and he seemed completely blind to the fact that he was being played, that she wasn’t nearly as innocent as he thought. Now yes, she is just a little girl and yes, this is just a story, but it reminded me of one too many people I know in real life who have that same attitude of, “Well, I’ve suffered a loss, so you all should feel sorry for me and let me have my way” and blah blah blah…Apparently I couldn’t identify with anyone in the story this time around and I actually found myself growing mildly offended. Isn’t it funny how our perceptions of things change over time?
In other news, we’re off to the courthouse this afternoon to get our marriage license. Yay! My aunt is going to meet us there and be our witness and then we’re all going out for supper afterwards. Her mother-in-law is in town visiting and I’m really looking forward to having supper with her. She and her husband were like second grandparents to me growing up and I haven’t seen her in a long time, so I hope we’ll have a good visit. Evidently she was under the mistaken impression, though, that supper tonight was supposed to be in celebration of my engagement and she didn’t want to intrude, so my aunt had to convince her that she was invited and that she wasn’t intruding on anything. Besides, anything to celebrate our engagement would have been done a long time ago, like right after we got engaged. I don’t want her to feel like she’s not welcome because she was the reason I suggested going out for supper in the first place, so I hope she’ll have fun.
Oh, I need some more medicine! I woke up with a killer headache this morning and it just won’t go away. I need a pop. For the headache. Yes, that’s it, for the headache…
Sixty days till September 26…
(c) 2009. All rights reserved.
Sorry. There’s just not much to tell lately. I really haven’t felt like writing all that much, which is rather odd for me.
So to update, we’ve finally settled on the bridesmaid dresses. Yay! One thing down, 970 million more to go. Um, I’m being confirmed at church Saturday night. And my tummy hurts. Apparently all the antacid I took after lunch hasn’t kicked in yet. It really needs to, though, cuz I’ve had awful heartburn since yesterday and it needs to go away.
I actually made some progress on my type-up-all-my-old-stories project. I got one all typed up and I started on another one. Oh my God. Seriously. I knew they were bad, but holy crap, I didn’t realize the exact extent of the horror. Yikes! I should be shot for writing such utter drivel. Aside from the fact that every time someone asks my character to tell them about herself, she gives them her life story in one paragraph, well, there are really no words to describe just how bad it was. I kept making remarks like, “It’s a good thing I never got knocked up at fifteen like some people do because I’d have stuck my kid with a truly heinous name,” or, “You have got to be kidding me. What the hell was I thinking?!” And I thought these were good once upon a time? I was out of my freaking mind! Greg asked me why I was typing them all up if they were so bad. I told him it was so that I had a record of what I used to write. “Oh, so you’re not going to have them published?” he asked. “Oh, HELL no!” I replied. “I’d die of embarrassment!”
And I would. They are true horrors. *shudders* And yet, I keep on going…
We got 8 inches of swearing Sunday. This is April, dammit. That’s not supposed to happen. When they said April showers bring May flowers, they meant rain! Not white crap! NO MORE WHITE CRAP!!
Okay, I think I’m done now.
But on the subject of crap, my long-awaited piece of BSB-inspired fluff is nearing completion. Yay! Because everyone loves a good bit of fluff, right? Right? You know I’m right.
*sigh* I hope this afternoon goes by as quickly as this morning did because I just want to go home and curl up in bed. I seem to be feeling rather averse to productivity today. So with that, I think I’ll go back to doing quizzes on Facebook and hope that this time, stupid WordPress will post my entry when I tell it to instead of saving 90% of it as a draft and losing the rest of what I typed. I hate when things of that sort happen. Stupid computer glitches. If I could remember everything that I typed, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, I guess, but my memory sucks, so there ya go. Apparently my computer sucks, too, but I already had suspicions of that.
Friday needs to hurry up and get here.
(c) 2009. All rights reserved.
…After all, I was seriously upset last night. I suppose it’s a stupid thing to be that upset over, but I think the reason it bothers me so much is that music has always been such a huge part of my life that it really irritated me to see a performance where it looked like nobody really cared. They were shooting for mediocrity and barely achieved even that. I was always taught to strive for excellence. Those kids (the fourth graders in particular) had a serious problem with projection; we sat about as far away from the singers as you could possibly get and could hardly hear them most of the time. At one point we couldn’t even understand what they were singing because they weren’t enunciating at all. I remember quite vividly a lesson I received once on enunciation during kids’ choir practice at church. Let me tell you, I enunciated perfectly after that.
It also really bothers me that in so many public places, we are encouraged not to say anything even resembling a remembrance of what Christmas is really all about. Christmas is first and foremost about celebrating the birth of Christ and his life and works. Secondly, it is about spending time with family and friends and thanking God for the blessings you have had and continue to receive. It is not about shopping and buying and spending and receiving. As a kid, I remember not really caring so much about the family part and the religion part. But now that my mom and both my grandparents are gone, I really cherish the times that I can spend with my family all together. Those times are few and far between. And the older I get, the more I can appreciate what God has done for me in my life and the more I find myself…apparently forgetting to take my hot water out of the microwave so I can have some hot chocolate. Excuse me.
Okay. Yesterday I heated up some water twice in order to make a cup of hot chocolate and I forgot about it both times. I think I remembered it as I was leaving work for the night. Today I’ve only done it once so far. Let’s see if I can remember to take it out of the microwave while it’s still hot this time.
Anyway, I think I’m a little calmer now. I am just so sick to the teeth of all this stupid political correctness garbage. Kids don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance in school anymore because “it might infringe on someone’s right not to believe in God.” You can’t have the Ten Commandments in courthouses anymore. Oh, and by the way, no Christmas carols in the annual Christmas concert because someone might be offended. Really, how much farther are we going to let them take this? If you don’t want to hear Christmas music, don’t go to the concert. If you don’t want to say the Pledge of Allegiance because you don’t believe in it, don’t say it! If you don’t like the way we do things in our country, go somewhere else. Otherwise, shut your yaps and do like the rest of us.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the separation of Church and State, but I think in some cases we’ve taken it a bit too far and much farther than the Founding Fathers intended, Christmas concerts and prayer in school being prime examples. I’m not saying I want to live in a religious state, but seriously, people, use some common sense. By not allowing such expressions of faith as singing Silent Night in a school Christmas concert, we are effectively offending ourselves. I’m offended that kids are not allowed to sing a religious Christmas song at the Christmas concert because it might offend someone else. The community in which I live is predominantly, if not entirely, Christian, and I think it’s stupid that we are not allowed to sing Christian Christmas songs during the Christmas concert.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t done being snarky. I’m sure I probably just talked in circles around my main point of wow, we’re all being stupid here, folks, but oh well. I guess I’d just like to know why what was okay for us to sing as kids in our Christmas concerts is suddenly not okay to sing now. For crying out loud, they could have at least sung something like Silver Bells or Jingle Bell Rock or Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! While these are all nice songs in their own way, they’re no Angels We Have Heard On High or O Holy Night, but they’re at least Christmas classics. Where were they in the program?
Okay, okay, I promise I’ll get off my high horse now. I’ve been looking at my archives list and I can’t believe I’ve been blogging for over a year! I know, that’s not much for some people. I have one friend who’s been at it regularly for the last five years. But for me to actually keep something like this going this long is pretty cool, especially given that I haven’t been doing a whole lot of actual writing lately. I so need a free time machine.
And in case you were wondering, yes, I remembered to retrieve my hot water from the microwave so that I can have some hot chocolate. Yummy!
(c) 2008. All rights reserved.
So today marks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month and I have no ideas. Zero. Zip. Zilch. GRRRRRR!
I’ve been looking forward to this since February, but I don’t know if I will make it or not. So much to write, so little time, you know.
I suppose if I’m gonna try, though, I ought to get into prime writing condition. Boy band music – check. Caffeine supply – check. Warm water for soaking tired arms in – check. Looks like I’m good to go! Wait. Ideas – not so much. Hmmm…
Maybe if I stop procrastinating, I’ll come up with something. Or maybe I won’t and I’ll try forcing a story and one will come out and it will be terrible…
Only one way to find out!
(c) 2008. All rights reserved.
The funeral for my grandpa was held this morning. I was asked to say something at the funeral and the following is what I came up with:
I was asked to speak today because fourteen years and one day ago I gave a similar speech. I don’t remember what I said; I really don’t even remember giving the speech. I’m sure I didn’t have anything prepared, that I just winged it when the minister asked if anyone wanted to say anything. I had fourteen years to spend with my grandpa that I didn’t get to spend with my mom. You would think, then, that it should be easier to find something to say. It’s not.
Grandpa was loved and admired by a great many people. One of the things I always admired about him was his ability to talk to people. Grandpa could walk up to a complete stranger, someone he had never seen before and would likely never see again, and converse with them as if they’d known each other for twenty years. I think my mom possessed that ability as well; I don’t seem to have inherited that trait and maybe that’s why I admired Grandpa so for it.
Family was very important to Grandpa. It seemed like every time we got together, Grandpa’s camera made at least one appearance. But it wasn’t just Grandpa’s camera; oh no, it would be Grandpa’s camera followed in quick succession by those of Mommy and Aunt Melissa and if it was a really special occasion, by those of Andrea and Lois as well. I have a complete photographic record of my childhood from birth to age sixteen thanks to Grandpa. He and Grandma were there for every school function, always with camera in tow, and once the film was developed, Grandma and I went through all the pictures – and it always took forever! – and identified everyone for posterity.
Grandpa was a man of deep faith. He was a long-time member of the Gideons and I remember getting up early on Saturday mornings to go to prayer breakfast at Cristo’s with Grandpa and Grandma; that was always a treat. But as James 2:26 tells us, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Grandpa was not only a man of faith but a man who lived up to James 2:18: “Show me thy faith without thy works and I will show thee my faith by my works.” Grandpa volunteered for Hospice after my mom passed away, helping countless people deal with the loss of a loved one. He helped area farmers with planting and harvesting their crops. Grandpa was never too busy to lend a helping hand or a sympathetic ear. He counseled me on more than one occasion to turn my problems over to God and He would provide the solution. One of Grandpa’s favorite verses was from Psalm 46. Verse 1 states, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
Grandpa also hung onto John 14:6: “Jesus saith unto him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.'” At a time when I had lost my faith, Grandpa encouraged me to seek God and I know that Grandpa has found Him now.
Grandpa was one of the best of men. He was a loving husband, father, and grandfather, and a true friend. His life is one worth celebrating and emulating. I ran across a poem the other day that reminded me of Grandpa. We, too, will one day pass away as Grandpa has. Let us all hope that the following can one day be said of us:
Although we loved him dearly,
We could not make him stay.
A golden heart stopped beating,
Hard-working hands to rest.
God broke our hearts to prove to us
He only takes the best.
(c) 2008. All rights reserved.
I know, I know, my poetry sucks, but I was feeling a bit on the creative side today. And the weather is just so beautiful that I felt compelled to write something about it. As I was sitting on a bench this noon, I just couldn’t resist writing about the gentle late-summer breeze wafting through the courthouse square, winding in and out of the trees like a dancer twirling a ribbon. Lovely daydreams consumed my thoughts and consume them still; I really don’t want to be at work right now. Oh, to be at home, napping in the hammock beneath the trees, preferably with company. 🙂 Such fun!
I am so excited! My baby’s coming home tonight! YAY!!! I haven’t seen him in a whole week and I’ve never gone that long without seeing him before. I can’t wait! I missed him so much!
*yawn* I suppose I had better get something done, but I really don’t want to…
*sigh* Can it please be five o’clock instead of only quarter after one?
Nine days till September 3…
(c) 2008. All rights reserved.
I had a decent story idea earlier! Yay! I haven’t had one of those in a long time! Yay! Either it will turn out well or it will descend rapidly into mediocrity and promptly end. Stay tuned for further details…
It’s another beautiful day. President Bush was in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City this morning checking out the flood damage, and I found an article in the Des Moines Register calling young writers to apply for a writing gig. That’s me! I’m a young writer! Well, I try, anyway. I think I’ll apply for it. After all, what do I have to lose? The most they can do is tell me no.
Well, I suppose I’d better get my nose back to the grindstone, though I would really rather just go home and watch The Producers while I wait for my hunnybunny to show up. Seriously, I can’t wait to see him tonight. *sigh*
Forty-two days till August 1…
(c) 2008. All rights reserved.
Suddenly they all died. The end. 