Marvelous Monday: Marvelous Memories

My husband received this in an email. I thought it was so funny, I had to share. I did have to edit a few words because I just couldn't send them across cyberspace under my name:

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways....yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap stuff like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!  

     

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.  You've got it so easy!  I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!   And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet.  If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up  ourselves, in the card catalog!!  

2) There was no email!!  We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen!   Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there!  Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us.  As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass spank us! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes !  If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!  There were no CD players!   We had tape decks in our car.  We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless.  Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby!  Dig?

6) We didn't have fancy crap  stuff like Call Waiting !  If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch  with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!!  Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!!  And then there's TEXTING.  Yeah, right.  Please!  You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!  It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!!  You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics!  Some of us under 45 had the Atari 2600!  With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'.  Your screen guy was a little square!  You actually had to use your imagination!!!  And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever!  And you could never win.  The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!  Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed  out of luck when it came to channel surfing!  You had to get off your ass  rear end and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!!  NO REMOTES!!!  Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon  Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning .  Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rats.

12) And we didn't have microwaves.  If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove!  Imagine that!  

   

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long.  Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort.  And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

    And car seats - oh, please!  Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on.  If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!  

    See!  That's exactly  what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten!  You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in the 50's, 60's, or 70's   or any time before! 

Enjoy this and pass it on to your children. I'm sure they will appreciate it. I can just imagine my children... "yadda, yadda, yadda" roll eyes.

Have a good week.

 

Wood Wednesday: Door Table

At our house in Bridge City, I had a breakfast room. It was big enough for a small table and chairs. I also had a kind of buffet table that folded down when not in use. I finally found a place for it in Friendswood.

This table was made from a 5-panel door.

 

I located the studs in the wall and attached hinges at those locations.

I used 4x4s for the legs and attached them with brackets.

This makes a buffet height table.

 It is perfect for high chairs.

The panel inserts have two pieces of glass to make it level with the door. 

 

There are hinges on the glass so that it can be taken out. I can change the picture insert to coordinate with the season.

I left the original hardware on the door, but it does not look too good after the hurricane. I may have to take the door knob off.

I think Grandson will really like this table.

Links:
Workin On It Wednesday

Finding Your "True Self": God

My Facebook friend, Don Seiler, posted a quote from Parker Palmer. I was so intrigued that I did a Google search. He has some profound words of wisdom. Where he says "true self", I read God.

"Eventually, I developed my own image of the "befriending" impulse behind my depression. Imagine that from early in my life, a friendly figure, standing a block away, was trying to get my attention by shouting my name, wanting to teach me some hard but healing truths about myself. But I-- fearful of what I might hear or arrogantly trying to live without help or simply too busy with my ideas and ego and ethics to bother-- ignored the shouts and walked away.

So this figure, still with friendly intent, came closer and shouted more loudly, but I kept walking. Ever closer it came, close enough to tap me on the shoulder, but I walked on. Frustrated by my unresponsiveness, the figure threw stones at my back, then struck me with a stick, still wanting simply to get my attention. But despite the pain, I kept walking away.

Over the years, the befriending intent of this figure never disappeared but became obscured by the frustration caused by my refusal to turn around. Since shouts and taps, stones and sticks had failed to do the trick, there was only one thing left: drop the nuclear bomb called depression on me, not with the intent to kill but as a last-ditch effort to get me to turn and ask the simple question, "What do you want?" When I was finally able to make the turn-- and start to absorb and act on the self-knowledge that then became available to me-- I began to get well.

The figure calling to me all those years was, I believe, what Thomas Merton calls "true self." This is not the ego self that wants to inflate us (or deflate us, another from of self-distortion), not the intellectual self that wants to hover above the mess of life in clear but ungrounded ideas, not the ethical self that wants to live by some abstract moral code. It is the self-planted in us by the God who made us in God's own image-- the self that wants nothing more, or less, than for us to be who we were created to be.

True self is true friend. One ignores or rejects such friendship only at one's peril."
— Parker J. Palmer (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation) 

For the  three years since hurricane Ike, I have been in this depression. I am now healing. I will probably never be healed as long as I am on this earth, but I am definitely better.

I recently read the book Heaven is for Real. 

This is the true account of a child’s journey to heaven and back. Chapter 19 is titled “Jesus REALLY loves the children.” The message on page 106 has been eating at me,

“Sonja had always been torn between singing on the worship team during Sunday morning services and going downstairs to teach Sunday school for the kids. And while she knew that statistics show most people who profess faith in Christ do so at a young age, it was Colton’s passionate insistence on Christ’s love for children that gave Sonja fresh energy for our kid’s ministry.”

This has also given me fresh energy. I am a teacher of children and that is where I need to be.

 

It is with a sad heart that I have taken an indefinite leave from the Praise Team at church. I love to sing but now I will sing with children. I am going to put my energy and God-given talents into our children’s ministry. I don’t know where that will lead me, but that will be my focus.

 

First I will be helping with our VBS, July 31-Aug. 3. Join us every night at 5:45.

Then I will be helping with our Sunday morning Children's Worship, Route 252. That is every Sunday morning beginning with worship at 10:00.

Pray for me as I work toward being God's "true self" for me.

Marvelous Monday: Marvelous Trip

Last week I told you I was leaving town for a few days and I was not happy. Well, God knows best what I need.

I'll just go back a few weeks. My husband is a licensed investigator. There is a woman in Conroe, TX. who is also an investigator. She has some land in west Texas and invited Brad to go hunt. He is like a child when he gets a chance to go hunting. Kay wanted me to go as another female and for Brad to bring another male to help with heavy lifting. You know, Brad does not know when to quit and often gets injured.

We invited our nephew to go with us. You may remember him as my essential material when building a shade sail. He also loves to hunt. We drove 8 hours across Texas last Thursday. The property is WAY out in the country. We drove 2 hours AFTER we left civilization. The road was up and down and left and right on 2 lanes. I got car sick. The last 30 minutes was dirt and rock road. I NEED my Walmart and Kroger, and Home Depot.

It turned out, the place was beautiful.

 

We sat on the front porch and the animals came up to eat the corn and vegetables that we left.

This is not the season for shooting white tail deer. They are only for looking. The drought in Texas is so bad, they are hungry and thirsty.

Brad was able to shoot an exotic deer. He was so happy. I will enjoy the meat.

 We joked that it looks like Santa got mad at one of his reindeer.

Our nephew did not get an animal, but I think he had fun.

 

I needed to relax and this is the place.

I brought books and handwork. I looked at nature. Pam even let me help her decorate her small house. We rearranged furniture and adjusted a cabinet to fit in her kitchen. You can see it in the picture above.

We ate all the wrong food and had a great time. I might even go back.

Fabric Friday: Fantastic Flowers

This post is going out early because we are leaving town. Brad has a chance to hunt axis deer and I am going to relax. This is one of those places where the directions say, "when you leave the pavement". Not my kind of place. Four days with no internet, no WalMart, no dumpsters to dive, no thrift store, no stores of any kind. I will survive.

It has been a while since I have posted about my fabric flowers. I took lots of pictures and I will just share.

Some are made with zippers.

 

Some are made with yo-yos.

Some have both.

Some are rolled fabric.

When I learn a new skill, I tend to get carried away. I just like to create, then I don't know what to do with it.

Enjoy.

Have a great weekend. I will return on Monday.