Showing posts with label updates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label updates. Show all posts

Thursday, August 25, 2011

A Little Bit of This ....

.... a little bit of that.

It's been a busy week.
I'm trying to get caught up on things but there seem to be way too many things upon which to catch.
That's what happens when you're out of town for a couple of weeks .... especially when one of those weeks happens to hold the first day of school .... and you volunteered (weeks ago) to work 2 days of the week you come back.

But heck .... life is mostly .... good.
Mostly.  Not all.
But then .... whose life is all good anyway?

The kids are all doing well.
Very busy, but well.
D#1 was planning on moving to NY but has decided to stay in Baltimore longer.  She got an offer from another theatre there so she'll stay.  She's not too keen on living in NYC, although I was beyond keen.
Dang.

D#2 is back in school getting her Masters in sociology and doing an internship in Ft. Worth.  She is way past busy.
D#3 is teaching again, though this year she has a class of one grade (teaching deaf children) instead of one class of every grade.
I hope it's a better year for her, though it hasn't started off well.  She seems to be experiencing burn out and she's only taught one year.  Although to be fair, her one year of teaching that class was about the same as 15 years of teaching an average classroom of hearing and mostly averaged-behaved hearing students.
She continues to work on her Masters degree at the same time.
This will be an intense year for both of them.

Son #1 is enjoying his last year of college.  He will graduate in May with 2 degrees: accounting and Spanish.  And then he'll be going to law school.
My kids STILL make me tired.  :)

Son #2 is working a lot and hanging with friends when he can.  His boot camp date is still February, but I'm hoping that he gets the chance to go sooner.  He's getting more bored as the weeks go by.

Son #3 decided to not play football this year.  It makes me a little sad.  I enjoyed going to the games and watching him and the team.
He is now a Yell Leader for the varsity team.  Kind of like a male cheer  leader, without all of the clapping and sharp, mechanical movements.  Lots of yelling and running and .... to my new-found-apprehension .... back flips.  He came home today and told me that he now knows how to do one of those.  And offered to perform one in our family room.  The room with the really hard, potentially deadly-to-anyone-who-just- learned-how-to-do-a-back-flip slate.
I told him no.
Sigh ....

He has also joined the tennis team and seems to be enjoying it.
We're going out to play on Saturday morning.
Keep us in your prayers.

I played tennis yesterday .... for the first time in a long time.
I played for an hour and a half.
And then it was either throw up, pass out or quit playing.
I quit playing.
Which is totally unlike me.
I usually tough it out and keep playing.  But I knew that it would be very ugly if I did.  And I was playing with some women who I knew would be ok with stopping after 90 minutes.  Thankfully.

Today I went to drills for the first time since May.  I knew that it would kill me.
Thankfully, God sent rain last night and this morning.
Oh we still had drills.  But the temperature was in the low 80's, rather than the high 90's that it's been in every morning since I-don't-know-when.
Today would have broken a record if we had hit 100 again.
We did not.
Some records are best unbroken.

Our season starts Monday.
It's supposed to reach 105 on Monday.
I can hardly wait.
:-<

The shoulder is fine when I'm playing .... it's the stamina that needs a lot of work.
A whole lotta work.
Hopefully my team mates won't take a secret vote to remove me from the team.
Or pull straws to see who has to partner with me every week.

V and G and R left the hospital yesterday.
Just in time for V's birthday, which is today.
What a great birthday gift, no?
G is doing well and will stay in St. Louis until his "numbers" are balanced and within his new normal range.  Once one has a transplant the normal numbers are different than they are for un-transplanted people.
R continues to do well and is flying home tomorrow.
Thank you so much, Peeps, for praying for them.
And for me.
And for my friend S.
Please continue to pray for her and her family.
Sigh .....

The on line dating saga continues.
And continues to be pretty boring.
Well, it was boring .... until today.

I decided to join Match.com last night.
And then I went to bed.
This morning I woke up to find 12 matches.
While I was on line at 7:30 this morning, looking at the profiles of the men who had been "matched" with me .... or who had "winked" at me (don't get me started) ..... I suddenly saw that someone was trying to IM me.  I didn't even know this site had IM.
I stared at the IM thingee, flashing at me .... and hesitated.  I wasn't sure that I wanted to IM with someone on Match.com.
But then I clicked on it.
And oh. my. word.

The guy on the other end of the IM was a bit ..... oh, I guess the word I'm looking for is .... intense.
He was looking for his soul mate.
He IMed the wrong person.
Seriously.

He claimed to be from NYC, which of course I think is great because I love that city.
But then we IMed a bit longer.
He claimed to be a widower.  His wife and son were killed in a car accident 6 years ago.
I said I was sorry.
Then he claimed to be an army guy (or ex-army guy) and is currently on a peace seeking mission in Afghanistan, but will be returning home in 6 weeks.
And as I read his words, I started to doubt.
And I began to re-read his words .... and note that he was writing the way someone who is not fluent in English would talk.
Call my cynical, but I began to doubt a lot.

He asked me what I was looking for.
I thought about saying, "The meaning of life", but decided to not be flippant.
But it was a question that I was not prepared to answer .... not to someone who had just IMed me for the first time, anyway.
So I played it light and airy and said something like, "Meeting new people, fun .... and world peace."  Actually I left out the world peace thing .... that was way too Miss America for me.
And then I asked him the same question.

Wow.
He's looking for his soul mate (I'm finding that most men on Match .... or .... to be fair .... most men that I've encountered, are looking for their "soul mate".  Gag me with a spoon.

He wrote a lot of other mushy, too friendly words and then he asked me for my email address .... so that "we could get to know each other more quickly and better".
What. Ev. Er.
I told him that I was not comfortable doing that, but that maybe we'd run into each other again on Match.
He then gave me his Yahoo address and asked for mine again.
And again I said no.
And added that I had to go.
He asked again .... he was an insistent little bugger, whereever he's from.
I told him goodbye and added "Have a great day."
Gag.

At that very moment I was IMed by another guy.
And within 2 seconds .... a third guy.
And then a 4th.
I kid you not.

So I just closed out my internet.
Like a big chicken.
It was too much, too fast.
WAY different than the snail-crawling-slowness of eHarmony.

But I'm tired of eHarmony.
There are way more women than men there.
And they match you up .... and then the men sit on their behinds and don't do a dang thing.  They wait for the woman to make the first move.
I did that for the first few weeks but now I'm SO over that.
I refuse to make the first move to a bunch of pansies who can't take a chance and start the conversation.
So over.

But, after 24 hours, I'm close to being SO over match.com.
They don't do any kind of background check, whereas eHarmony does offer that.
So then you get guys who claim to be from NY, and widowed, but who really seem to be from Pakistan or some such place, looking for someone to take complete advantage of.
I am not that person.

Needless to say, I am less than thrilled with the on-line dating thing.
Way less than.

The third IMer tried to start off the conversation with "Hi Pretty".
Double gag.

And then I received a couple of emails.
One from another man who was posing as an American and clearly was not.  He raved about my profile and all of my touching comments and answers in it, in halting English, which I thought was hilarious because I didn't even fill in most of the profile questions.  I just put in a few words and left most questions unanswered.  He had not read my profile.
Or even glanced at it.

As the first guy was demanding my email address he said it was because he wanted to get to know his soulmate better so that he could meet her when he returns in 6 weeks.  I asked him if he really thought he'd know in 6 weeks who his soulmate would be.  He said yes.
I said goodbye.

So much for the online thing.
I'm creeped out by it and contemplating just becoming a nun.

I hear they're in short supply so maybe they wouldn't mind a Baptist/Methodist?Lutheran nun.
Hey, beggars can't be choosers.

OK, that's it.  It's way past my bed time.  Six thirty comes way too early in the mornings.
Tomorrow I go see the R.A. doctor.
The medicine hasn't affected me much at all.
Thank God.
Om the other hand, it hasn't done anything for my pain either.
Sigh.
More test tubes of blood will be draw and I expect that he will tweak the meds, if not change them out to another one.
We'll see.

OK, this post is way too long.
Sorry about that.
I'm tired.  So I tend to ramble.

Thanks again, Peeps, for your prayers, comments, e-mails and good wishes.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Happy Thursday/Friday Peeps.

God is good.
All the time.
:)

Sunday, August 7, 2011

An Update .... and a Discussion .... (now entitled, "Are You Kidding Me?")

.... or at least I hope this will be a discussion.

UPDATE on the update:
Really???!!!  Only two people out there have anything to say about prayer???? (Thank you Megan and Beth!).  I'm hoping that we can generate more of a discussion than the three of us.  Maybe some of you are taking time to think before you write (something I'm not very good at, as I'm sure most of you have witnessed!).
C'mon!!!!  DISCUSS!!!!!!
Pretty please?
: )




First, for the update.

I had a great time at the lake with V and G and think Son #3 really enjoyed having G here to tube with and hang out with.
You all know that we came home a day early, due to the break down of an AC unit.
Well the next day, an AC unit here broke down.
And it was all I could do to hold it together.
But I managed.  Not easily, but finally.

My brother and his family came down from Oklahoma (yes, they have decided to move to Oklahoma, rather than Florida, which is nice because they're closer now) on Wednesday night.  The three Sons and I joined them at the lake on Thursday.  Two aunts and an uncle joined us later that day, too.  And then Daughter #2 came up on Friday.

We had a great time.
I think all of the kids, including my two beautiful nieces, had fun on the boat, tubes, wake boards and jet skis.
And the boat worked fine.  Yay boat!

It was so good to see them.  I hadn't seen my sister-in-law or nieces since the summer before Jim died.  That was our last family vacation .... to Alaska.
I'm so glad we went.

Daughter #2 and I came home this morning.
I had a "coffee date" today.
And it was ok.

Then I came home and did laundry and packed.
And everyone else came here late this afternoon and we all went out to dinner.
One last dinner before my brother drives back home tomorrow.

And then D2 and S! and I went to see "Crazy, Stupid Love" at 10:00 p.m.
I slept on the way to the theatre.
But managed to stay awake IN the theatre.  And liked the movie.
Then we came back home and I finished packing.
And now it's almost 4:00 a.m.
Again.
Three nights in a row that I've been awake until 4:00.
Hopefully I'll sleep on the plane in the morning.

That's when I am outta here and outta this crummy, boiling heat.
I'm heading to San Diego to visit J & L & S, Jim's brother and his family.  Then I'm going to Camp Widow.
And.
I.
Can't.
Wait!

It will be wonderful to see old friends again and to meet newer friends.
Very wonderful.

But before I go you know it's customary for me to leave you with a question for you all to discuss while I'm away.
I'll still have my computer with me, especially as these are the last few days before CW and there is still a bit more work to do.

I've had a few discussions lately (again) about .... prayer.
A month and a half after Jim died I wrote this post.
My belief about prayer and the way I had always prayed changed drastically on December 18, 2007.
They have not returned to my former beliefs.
I pray.
But I pray much differently now.
Still.

Before Jim died I prayed very specifically.
And many, many times, those prayers were answered in the affirmative.
I don't know why .... I didn't know why then.
Maybe it was because I was more "in touch" with God and so I prayed for things or occurrences that were already in His will.
I don't know.
I do know that God has blessed me with the gift of sometimes just "knowing" things .... without being told, or reading something .... just a deep-feeling knowledge, a certainty, that something has happened or that something is about to happen.
Jim learned to trust this gift over the years and to just go with whatever I said, especially when I would say, "I don't know how I know, I just know."
It's defined as the gift of "Prophecy".  It also manifests itself in an ability to read people, to see beneath the surface, to read between the lines, and to tell the "Truth" when I feel God nudging me to say it.

So maybe that "gift" shaped my prayers.
Maybe.

All I know now is that I don't pray that way anymore.
I rarely ask for anything specific.
I don't believe that my prayers cause God to act one way or another.
I don't believe that my prayers cause God to intervene.
I don't believe that my prayers change God's mind.
I don't believe that my prayers cause God to heal anyone.
Not anymore.

I do believe that prayer is for me and for my relationship with God.
I believe that as I pray,  I grow closer to God.
I believe that it's best to pray for people that are hoping for a certain outcome.
So I pray for them and for their acceptance of whatever that outcome will be.
I pray for them to experience peace, love and strength .... no matter what.

But enough about me.
What about you?
What do you think about prayer?
Do you pray?
Do you "meditate"?

If you do pray, why?
And have your thoughts about prayer changed over the years?  How so?

If you don't pray, why not?
And is that something that has changed over the years?

Please feel free to discuss this as much and as honestly as you can.
There is no judging here.
There is no right or wrong answer.
There is just my curiosity on how people pray .... and why.

I think there's a lot of interest in that topic, from the many things I've heard over the last few years.

So please discuss.
Yes, even you lurkers.  :)

And discuss only what you believe, or what your friends have told you they believe.
Please don't comment on what anyone writes .... especially in any negative, critical or judgmental way.
I will delete any comments that are written in that context.
I'm proud to say that I've never experienced that here .... from any of my readers of this blog, so I don't expect any of it now.

You are all wonderfully supportive Peeps and I hope that you'll jump in and discuss.

So, discuss amongst yourselves ..... and enjoy the different viewpoints.
I know I will.
:)

And thanks .... ahead of time.
And Happy Sunday, Peeps.

The next time you hear from me I'll be in a MUCH cooler climate.
YAY!!!!

So ..... Prayer.
Now discuss.
:)