Friends and Light Repairs

Am I crazy? I know my Deep South home sighed and relaxed with me. Over the back fence I knew fields of corn stalks lay beneath icy snow. Above me I thought I heard the rattle-bangs of a Wright bi-plane in flight. I almost savored a single-scoop raspberry, buckeye chocolate and peanut butter cream with a crunch of waffle cone from Graeter's Ice Cream Parlor. Around me friends, dear friends tap me on the arm and chuckle.

This final week of January native Ohioan friends stopped by our home to overnight. Sure I went into hectic cleanse of writer's stacks and piles. I barked orders to my Maria daughter who barked orders to my son Buddy. The multi-week work trip of Beloved Hubby kept him from his natural host duties. Usually I'm a Lucille Ball when it comes to the gift of hospitality.

But this solo hostess gig was almost a wicked rest. The visiting friends had been at our last home for celebrations and rich fellowship. But they also came to repair plumbing when I was solo selling the old homestead as my beloved worked 600 miles south.

When I got the call from Linda saying they were enroute to our new place, I had the temerity to suggest her beloved Richard fix a cabinet. After hugs and Italian Roast, they went to work. One demolished and puttied the interior of an entertainment cabinet to house a new HDTV. The other stitched a button back on a sweater she gave to my Maria. I would have done the latter work, had I been informed.

Instead, I let myself enjoy good company and their gift box of Rocky Road ice cream, bought during Richard and Buddy's trip to buy wood putty. Then we all settled into beds, our guests electing to sleep on fancy airbeds so Buddy could enjoy his queen bed.

This New Year reveals answers to unsettled queries: Why we are here?
Why are we here and not in the sweet cornfield of heaven? One answer: We're here for friends, family, and anybody in need of a bed and a good meal. It's as clear as a blue sky and real as the difference between sheep and goats. As a Rabbi put it,"When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat." This action doesn't save me or crown me "Ms. Perfect Hostess." It's simply what I was made to do.

As for other answers, we'll see what February brings...

Another CLIPD* tip

Keep your resume fresh on CareerBuilder or other job sites. Recruiters look at newer postings. But how do you do that as the months go by? Go in and add a few new descriptors of your work ethic. Put in your middle initial. Rewrite one line in your resume. Then upload the changes.
Your resume gets today's date and a fresh look.

*Cindy's Leanings In Personal Downsizing

How do I write 1,000 words per day?

My weekly blogs hover around 400 or less. 1,000 words a day, that’s what one author recommends as a goal for aspiring writers. Like walking 10,000 steps, a regular goal is a viable way to muscle up and tone healthy in whatever work you pursue. Where to begin?

These days I’ve been more mommy than writer. Especially since my beloved is on a multi-week work trip, thank God he has work.

In addition to handling the finances, I do the errands. I drive the kids to regular fellowship and church. I schedule doctors’ appointments and making the trips to them. A few weeks ago I blogged when I was supposed to be at my periodontal dentist’s visit. Never again. My computer calendar now emails a day ahead, notices of our medical appointments, etc. Doctor and dentist business cards decorate the wall mirror I face each day in the master suite. And I let the doctors’ offices call ahead to remind me.

Days fill with scraps of worded lists: what to buy, where to donate, whom to call, new addresses, more contacts. Check, check, check, check goes my mind morning to evening.


There remains 1,000 written words a day, a goal I failed to reach last year. But I can talk those words. Oh, we women, we talkers easily breathe a thousand words, a thousand opines, or catty remarks, not in one day but maybe per hour.

Maybe we need to check, check, check, check our tongues.

I need my daily appointment with the Doctor whose Word frees my tongue from verbal innuendo, impurity, gossip, four letter rage, envy, strife, “and the like.” On his script is a better list that nourishes me and spreads vitality to others, if I chew the right fruit.

“... the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Note the “and” at the end of the list. Patience is not an option. Not. Neither is self-control. All these fruits are vital to a contented life even in hard times. Hard times and suffering have a greater purpose. They ripen the fruit of the Spirit in us. Hardships mature us, polish us luminous and precious.

Whether a writer or a mom or whatever I’m to be, I pray my 1,000 words a day be selective yet juicy fruitful.

What say you?

Thursday I looked into a face most people seem to shy away from or snarl at.

I first encountered this face a decade ago in a small church the north side of Pittsburgh PA. A few hundred sat and stood in the aisles. Furtive agents hovered about. My skeptical friend stood with her kids and I with mine as we listened to the man speak. Then he came through the crowd as my friend held out her hand and looked directly into his face.

Later she confessed, “I wasn’t sure about him, but I looked him in the eyes and heard him. He means what he says.”

That tiny event led to the first national stop at Station Square downtown. He and his wife and another couple waved from the back of the train decked in bunting, as many cheered and waved back at them with cameras and flags.

Back then the world was a different place, perhaps naïve, more wildly optimistic and sadly opportunistic. Then came Nine Eleven, which seemed to shock us, to temper selfishness, and yet have us wave flags in defiance.

Time and pundits blurred and altered memories, stirred the embers of pre-911 ways. “We are fine, our assets are growing, we can party, we can do whatever we want . . . besides, I know what is best for me,” became our inner mantra.

Still 911, conscience, and conviction focused one man. He kept steering his country into a calm that freed fellow citizens to behave or misbehave. This man’s course stumbled through ideological ice blocks left, center, and right. Opponents had their way. Supporters freaked. Even this writer shied away from news that pictured his face . . . until last night.

I sat down to watch him. Wrinkles deeply creased his brow from the burdened events of two terms. Silver and gray strands tightly threaded a crown of once dark hair. Lips that often gave way to grins some opined as cocky were this night constrained yet gracious as they spoke a farewell address to the nation.

During this historic change, no matter what your political leaning, let God's love so constrain you to be gracious, to “be thankful.” And will you join others who offer heartfelt thanks to the President who considers his greatest title to be “citizen” of his country?

CLIPD Tips in Fuzzy Times (new blog bites)

Layoffs and financial meltdowns hurt, but you can overcome with
Cindy's Lessons In Practical Downsizing

1. Take stock of what you have and use it. Once a friend had her hungry kids cook what was in the pantry rather than go out. They ate soup and crackers and saved at least $25.00, the average cost of fast food meal for four.

2. Use the basket, not shopping cart for quick trips to the grocers, pharmacy or discount store. Economic guru Clark Howard does not push a big cart through a store. Studies show some shoppers get a rush out of filling a cart, buying more than they planned to buy. It's great upper body exercise as well.

Meeting Jesus in our PJs

Jesus came again to our home.
He came at the appointed time, 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. My beloved was already up and gone, busy at the office. However my Maria, Buddy, and I were still in our bedrooms, yawning in our two-piece pajamas.

In Nepal I learned pajamas had their origins in South Asia, the word pajama derived from the Hindustani paijamas or pyjamas. To South Asians, pyjamas are the loose day trousers men and women wear. During the Imperial Era, the British adapted and spread the comfortable pants from India to the world, morphing it into lounge wear, adding loose fitted shirts. *

Nowadays folks the age of my Maria consider pajamas as casual daywear. But yours truly still considers them sleep attire. Thus when Jesus rang the doorbell and my daughter yelled to me who he was, I hid in the room. Meanwhile, my girl ran downstairs, still in her sweatshirt pajamas, to open the door.

I peeked out from my first door bedroom as he stepped into the foyer.

I knew his smiling face, knew his first name, knew the room he needed to be in was a mess.

"Could you wait five minutes?" was my feeble plea to him.

"You want me to wait outside?"

I nodded. "Give me five minutes, okay?"

"Sure." He stepped outside.

In a mad dash I shoved the piles of mess behind doors and drawers and got myself decent. Rushing a comb through my hair, I opened the front door and found Jesus shivering. His hands shoved deep into the pockets like Buddy in his new jacket, only with the hood over his head.

This morning the outdoor thermometer read 39 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius), icy for the Deep South.

In a half hour I finished breakfast while Jesus went to work. I needed food to clear my fuzzy mind. Jesus was so patient with me, explaining what he was doing slowly as his accented speech was not getting through to me.

Later I spoke with my Maria about his lingual accent. "Hay-sus is Cuban," I said. "Like Ricky Ricardo, right?"

"Come to think of it, he did sound Cuban." She knew that particular accent since she once had a Cuban Spanish Language teacher.

My Maria wasn't hampered by how she was dressed when she let Jesus in the house. I was the sleepy maiden with an empty oil lamp. And now, thanks to Jesus, one less satellite receiver box to pay for.

Do you think I had to clean up the mess, my mess for Jesus to come and fix things? I think I should have come to the door, just as I am, without one plea...
What say you? Or sing ye?
* Pajamas, Wikipedia Encylopedia