An opinion, that's all it is.....

I was talking with one of my dearest, oldest, and most precious friends today. He's known me since I was a child, and he knows how opinionated I am. Taking a chance anyway, he asked me a question about a comment Pat Robertson had made, when he stated that the recent devastating earthquake was God's punishment for the sins of the people in Haiti.

This was my answer to him:

About Pat Robertson: It is easy enough for religious zealots to point fingers and cast stones. But I don't see them digging through the rubble. The loudest of them seems to only be able to judge, and I don't think we are put here on earth to judge others.

The Old Testament, which has been translated many times by many people before it reached us, uses natural disasters to collectively warn us of the results of the punishments of wrong doing. Do we take those eons old adages and apply them literally? I don't know. Because ultimately it was men who wrote the Old Testament, who is to say those specific words when translated were literally direct from God? Language translations can change words and meanings.

A little 7 year old boy is dying from an inoperable brain tumor. Is he being punished for wrong doing in his short life? I don't think so.

Collectively the lessons from the Old Testament can be applied to humanity. The Ten Commandments come to mind. But to personify natural disasters, and to give them a direct personal connotation is impossible. Who can know that Katrina was sent to punish New Orleans for abortion? Not possible, because abortion is carried out everywhere, and has been throughout history in some form or another. What about the plight of the Jews during WWII? Were they being punished?

Lots of questions and I have no answers. I am very spiritual, but not so much into organized religion for the same above reasons. I can't identify with a loving God who punishes.

If that is the case, where are the miracles? Why aren't they personified? I just don't think God would kill babies to teach the world a lesson. So yes, I think maybe Pat Robertson might be a 'media whore' as mentioned by the blogger, but no more than so many others. Sensationalism, spread far and wide by today's news media.... People say a lot of things they don't mean when a camera is in front of their faces.

So I can't give you an answer. The blog might be an opinion but it is a strong one. None of us is right or wrong, though, we have to form our own opinions and answers to our own questions, and how we live our lives will reflect that. I can't point fingers, nor can I judge. I just don't believe a natural disaster is the result of the wrong doing of a collective people that includes babies and children.

OK, I'm off my soapbox now. Will we be arguing over this?

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I just hope I still have the friendship that we have enjoyed for all these years. Maybe I should learn to keep my opinions to myself

It isn't that I ran out of words this past week, it's that I ran out of time. Some weeks are like that, and I am glad to see the end of this one.

I was thinking about friendships this morning, those important connections that often we take for granted. I was particularly thinking of those of long ago, those that were lost over all our years of yesterdays. We grow, and move on, and we change.

So what is the value of friendships? Can we bring them with us as we grow and move and change? Or do we discard them like old clothes?

I like to think we bring them with us, because after all, their roles in our lives gave us something very precious.

I need to think more about this, and when I do, I'll be letting you know.

A fun day finally...

It's 9 degrees outside and what does one do when it's only 9 degrees? I might as well write.

It was a great day. I ran to the shop full of energy, ready to take on the displays by storm. I particularly wanted to create some interest for the teen generation, so I rushed through some wall decor adding this and that to what already existed. I stuck a few teddy bears here and a few shirts on the wall there, added a blue scarf to a white fun suit, and then I started on a manikin.

Customers were in and out as I dressed the manikin, and there was fun conversation as well. I found some cool jeans to start with, and then the real work began. A tie dyed shirt, a few belts, a purse and some shoes, jewelry, well maybe, a jacket, a hat. She was finally all decked out and lookin' great when in walks a lady who was maybe 40-ish and tiny. She took a look at my newly dressed manikin and said: "I need that shirt and maybe the hat, too."

So the lady bought the shirt, and I frantically looked for a replacement. It is not cool to leave manikins naked for very long. I found another shirt, which called for a purse replacement and also a different belt. Also another hat. All done then, and I went to the back to search for shoes. More customers came in. When I returned to the front, the manikin had no belt and no purse. Sigh. I begin my search for the two additional already sold items, and decided a piece of jewelry was definitely in order.

So I redressed the manikin, and by this time she and I were on very friendly terms. A teacher friend and her daughter came in, and the lovely daughter loved the shirt on the manikin, so she purchased it, and I ran to the back looking for another shirt. This time I took two shirts with me, and I hurried again to redress the naked manikin.

By the time the day was over I had spent 4 hours up close and personal with that one manikin. She was dressed when I left. I hope she holds on to her clothes this time, because I'm taking tomorrow off! I love this job.

No thanks, no meat...

I was getting myself all beautiful to go work in the little consignment shop where I create displays using items the consigners bring to sell. It's a great shop, a fun place where I can be as creative as I want. So I was getting beautiful.

I was almost there when there was a knock on the double bolted front door. Only unknowns use my front door. Those who know me use the door to my studio. So I answered the door.

Standing on my front stoop was a lovely woman dressed in jeans, a warm sherpa jacket, brightly striped scarf and gloves, with her long blond hair in a pony tail. She had smiling eyes.

"Hi, I'm Lisa, and I am with Country Home Foods. We have a special on Omaha steaks today, only $2.50 each, and I wanted to stop by and tell you about them."

Now the thermometer read 9 degrees, but the sun was bright and her eyes were smiling, so I said:

"No thank you, I don't eat meat."

"Oh but we have chicken and turkey and I also think we might have veal."

"No thank you, I don't eat meat."

"Oh, and pork, we have a great deal on pork tenderloin..."

"No thank you, I don't eat meat."

"How about your husband, I'll bet he would love our chicken fried steak or our breaded chicken breasts. Either would be great with creamy gravy and mashed potatoes on a day like today..."

"Ummmmm. I. Don't. Eat. Meat. Ever. And I have no husband."

"Oh, I am so sorry, well, you have a great day and I dearly love your scarf." And her eyes continued to smile as she bounced off my front steps.

I took my well loved scarf and my own smiling eyes and went back to continue working on looking beautiful. About ten minutes later there was a knock on my door....the front door that nobody uses.

"Hi, my name's Lisa and I am with Country Home Foods and we are having a special on O......Oh, I've been here before, you don't eat meat and I love your scarf. You have a great day."

Sigh. I thought for a minute I was caught in a time warp.

An unboring day...

After the excitement of having no heat during a cold January night, and the loud knocking on the door when the gas men came at 4:30 a.m. this morning to relight my pilot lights, I thought it would be a good day to do nothing. I was going to lounge around in my warm jammies, nibble a little on banana nut bread and drink lots of hot tea. And that's exactly what I did, for a few minutes.

When I was a little girl and small for my age, the doctor told my mother to not worry, I just had one of those metabolisms that didn't stop. He told her that she might want to speed herself up a little so that she could keep up with the spinning top she had given birth to, but he had no advice for me.

I try to do nothing sometimes, I really do, but even when I am sitting very still with my eyes closed, my mind is thinking of time wasting. So today I really was going to do nothing.

I started doing nothing by reading a new book while I sipped my cinnamon flavored tea and nibbled banana nut bread, all three of which came my way during the Christmas holidays last week. The first sentence in the book read something like this: "He positioned the camera so that it touched upon the shadows in the corners of the attic."

My camera needed new batteries, so before I forgot it, I grabbed it and ran to the drawer which holds things like batteries and other necessary items of similar usage. I found what I needed and decided to upload the pictures in the camera to my iphoto program since I had it in hand anyway. With that done, plus a little photo editing, I pushed the camera and the computer aside, and sat back down to my new book, my tea and my banana nut bread and read another sentence: "Dust had accumulated in the shadows of the attic, along with the debris of time."

I glanced around my den. There were dust particles dancing in the rays of the morning sun. And not only were there dancing dust particles, but there were a few dangling cobwebs as well.

An hour or two later, my house glistened in the rays of the morning sun, and my tea was cold. I washed my tea cup, placed the banana nut bread back in the fridge, and put the book back in a bookcase, since it obviously was the cause of my failure to follow my plan to do nothing today. I sat back down to do nothing again.

This time, I leaned back in the recliner. I even closed my eyes. Just as my lashes closed over the scene above me, I saw one small reindeer, a Christmas decor leftover, about 8 feet above my head. I sprang from my chair with amazing speed, and ran to the garage to get the ladder. In no time I grasped the leftover reindeer and bounced down the ladder to the ringing of the phone.

"Would you happen to be going to the grocery today? I really need some milk, and I could do with some bread as well. You know I don't drive well when snow is on the streets," said my neighbor friend.

I had a quick shower, donned my clothes, wrapped myself in appropriate knitted garments guaranteed to keep the cold out, wrestled the snow off my car, and drove carefully on slick roads to the grocery. About an hour and $75 dollars later, I delivered milk and bread to my neighbor and brought my own groceries home to be put away. Somehow the day was dying and streaks of a setting sun cast pinkish shadows through the windows of my house. The snow too, what little there was left of it, had a rosy glow.

I baked a pan of cornbread, no sugar of course, and ate it with a bowl of leftover vegetable soup, while I read again from the book I'd started this morning: "He left the camera, turned slightly and placed his right foot on the top rung of the ladder."

Good grief! It was the camera and the ladder again, but I'd already explored both subjects in great detail on this do nothing day. I'd come full circle and I was afraid to read anymore, I don't need to climb up into my attic, and I surely don't need to return to the grocery. What I need to do is nothing!

And I think I need to find another book.

Surviving, with a little help

It's been so very cold here for the first week in January. And last night with the leak in a city gas line, I spent the night shivering.

Last year during the ice storm of the century also in January, we had no electricity for nearly 2 weeks. And the September prior to the ice storm, there were 4 days with the same problem, resulting from Hurricane Ike, who decided to move inland and take a swipe at Kentucky.

I don't remember ever being as adversely affected by weather, and I am a very old woman. I should have said I am a very old widow, but it bothers me to use that word. At any rate I am learning to survive, but only by the grace of God and a lot of help from friends.

It's somewhat interesting to find myself living alone, with my nearest relative more than six hours away, in an economy that has become frightening. After a life filled with people, I had to start all over again. Nothing is the same. It is a time of learning new things.

I've learned that it's quite wonderful to live in a small town where everybody knows my name.

I've learned to depend on those friendships to help me through rough times.

I've learned to turn off my heat when there is a gas leak.

I've learned to keep my cell phone in my pocket when I attempt to climb a 10 foot ladder.

I've learned to climb upon my roof, but getting down is another problem.

I've learned it doesn't matter whether or not one's freezer is stocked to overflowing, if there is no electricity, how much of that food can one 5 foot 113 pound woman eat before it ruins?

I'm still learning.

It's a weather thing...

There is nothing else to blame it on. I came home this evening and had no heat in my house. The weather outside is frightful, with more to come, and I have no heat?? Before I had an opportunity to panic, my phone rang:

"Have you heard? A water line is broken in town and there is a leak in the gas line, but they're working on it. But we have no heat!"

"Did you know? There's a broken water line and a demolished gas line and we have no heat!"

"You're gonna freeze, get those ceramic heaters out of storage, we have no heat!"

Between phone calls, I checked the water. No problem, the water line to my house is fine. But the heat....there is none.

OK, I'm resourceful. It's a little late to be thinking of building a fireplace. And I can't book a flight to Florida in time to make a difference. Besides, there's frost in Florida this week. So....what to do, what to do?

Blankets? Check.

Ceramic heater? Check, two of them.

Cats? Check, three of them.

Thermal underwear? Check.

Robe? Check, two of them.

Hot chocolate, tea, coffee??? Check, check, check.

Friends with fireplaces? Check, two of them.

I think I might survive.....brrrrrrrrrrrrr.