The Volunteer

Hi there everyone! It isn't often that the writing bug hits me (bites me?) and I have access to a computer so I thought I'd go for it.


My latest attempt to make myself feel like I have an actual purpose in life has been volunteering. Actually, I have been volunteering, for almost a year, with the twins. We do 3 hours once a week at Granny's Garden School. Of late, however, I have found a bit more time in my life (don't know how that worked and please don't suggest that I clean my house instead of working for someone else; this is my brain we're talking about). I've started volunteering at our local library.


Now anyone who knows me well knows that I love the library! I adore the library! It has been a secret thought of mine that if I ever needed to get a job, perhaps I could get one at the library. Plus, they advertised that they needed volunteers, so there it is. I got trained lickety-split, and in no time, they set me loose in the library. I shelve, clean stuff up, put lables on books, and shelf read. And I find an awful lot of books that I want to read. That's sort of the "down side". I have SO many books out right now. But they're all so tempting and tasty and we all know I have no self-control.


What really made me want to blog today was finding a copy of the book The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes right next to a book on making an atomic bomb. Really! I can't make this stuff up! I checked to make sure that it was not misfiled, but no, that's exactly where it is supposed to be. Weird.


I am going to go return to my volunteer job now. I like it a lot. Except for the backaches I get from hauling piles and piles of books home every week. Gotta work on that self-control thing.

Nizzardly worries

Dear blog,

I just have a minute before I need to disappear to bed but I didn't want to totally get out of the habit of saying hi. It's been a hard weekend. An older lady in our congregation passed on Saturday. We all knew it would happen sooner rather than later and it did. Doug and the kids were there, as were a number of others from our congregation. I was happy for her but I knew that it would be hard on her tender-hearted kids, grandkids, and great-granddaughters. And it was. It still is.

Of course, a death means a funeral and a funeral means a funeral dinner. Which means a lot of work this week. I'm glad we can do it for the family but I'm already exhausted and wondering how I can get what I already need to get done done this week. I'll guess I'll get done what I get done and the rest of it just won't get done. Nothing is so completely vital that someone would die if I didn't get something done.

A friend is getting married in a couple of months and I've been helping with rehearsal dinner plans and wedding invitations. I'm happy that she's found "her guy" but sad that she'll be moving away from us after the wedding. Kind of a double-edged sword there.

It's planting season and I'm not ready. It's feeling like summer outside already. What's up with the weather already? I need more hours in my day.

No, I'm not so completely shallow that I feel swallowed up by these piddling little concerns. Just tired. Which is why I'm going to go to bed and hope that things look better in the morning.

Best,

Lori

Hello Blog

Hello blog

Dear blog,

This is the second such letter that I am framing to you this morning. How I hate and detest computers sometimes! The other letter was of such delicacy, such sublime beauty, that I hesitate to try to recreate it. Nay, I shall not even try, for it shall cause me to break down into tears at the unjustness of the freeze and die of the computer.

What I was talking about was our breakdown in communications. I was remembering the olden days, the golden days, when we visited many times a day...how I miss those days! But life moves on, my dear blog, and I'm afraid we cannot have the same intimate relationship. I'm too busy. I'm too intimidated by those whose blogs are prettier than mine and whose prose is so much more lovely. I do apologize and take all the blame for the downturn in our relationship. No, no, it's really all my fault. I hope you can forgive me.

I've been thinking about you almost obsessively of late. Now I hope that I will not think of you with grief and guilt but with the happy memories and hopes for some new ones as well. Have a happy day!

Love,

Lori

Knock, knock, knock...

Anyone out there?



Well, I'm not surprised. It's been busy here, what with school starting (August) and Rachel's being in a musical (September). Here are a few random pics of what all I've been doing. Hope to be blogging again regularly, if anyone can stand the excitement.

Well, at least the crickets are applauding.

Puzzle

See if you can figure out what I was doing this week:

Hysterversary

In the spirit of the last post, I will proceed to "do it now" instead of putting it off. Ha!

So last Tuesday was my "hysterversary". That is what the website HysterSisters.com calls the anniversary of your hysterectomy. If you're registered with them, they send you a friendly e-mail to celebrate your hysterversary. Last year about this time, if you'd have told me that I'd be celebrating, I don't know if I'd have agreed or looked at you like you were crazy. I had a fun go-around with hormones (or lack thereof) and the absolute end of my reproductive capacity.

But here I am, a year later. I've been working like mad in my garden, teaching the twins (a little anyway) and trying to dig out from under my messy house. I do not have the wonderful decorating skills that my friends have (check out Friend Cherylyn's last post!) but I've figured out that if I get rid of some of this stuff, life will be a lot happier. I'm trying.

Another do it now: the laundry. I had 5 huge baskets of clothes lying around, waiting for the maid or laundress to show up and fold and put them away. Today, I took a bunch of misplaced anger and folded or hung up all of those clothes. I'm talking probably an entire basket just of socks. Oy! And I'm not capable of matching socks that do not match, so I had to evaluate all of them to get them in the correct pairs. And I washed & dried & put my sheets back on my bed. I love fresh sheets! And these are rinsed in a lavender-scented rinse. I can't wait to try them out. So that's where I'm off to. Have a good one, y'all!

Do It Now

I suppose I could be a whiner and complain that Friend Cherylyn jinxed me by complimenting me on how much I'd posted of late, but the truth is that I goofed up. And then I sulked. And then I procrastinated. And here I am now. Told y'all I had an issue with that discipline thing...

I'm especially bummed because that means that I messed up my NaBloPoMo (blog every day for a month). And it was going so well too!

But this is what I was thinking about posting back when I missed the post so I will go ahead with that.

Friend Husband recently...what would be the proper word? Nagged? No. Informed? No. Suggested...yes, that's it. He suggested that we go see this elderly man in our congregation who was bedfast. Now we had tried to see him in the past but he was too busy (he wasn't then stuck in bed). This time he was more than willing and even able to see us.

It is not uncommon for me to balk at the suggestions that Friend Husband makes. It is bad of me, I know, but I'm getting pretty calcified in my ability to shirk doing things when I don't want to. And recently, seeing the sick is not something I've wanted to spend time doing. But I didn't say a word, just made sure everyone was fed and ready to go so we could leave on time.

His name was Luster. Yes, Luster. I kid you not. Luster Orvis. Can you tell he was from the country? He was a nice man, always a smile or a joke, sat on the left hand side of the church building. And he had recently developed a problem where the artery in his leg was about to come open and start spurting blood everywhere. Yes. It was just like that. They told him he could have surgery to correct it but it was not unlikely that he would not survive the surgery. At this point, the tear clotted and he insisted he return home. He felt that he was going to get better, or at least he talked a good game. We had a lovely visit. He shared stories of his baseball teams when he was growing up and showed us a picture of himself and friends in baseball uniforms, as well as the certificate inducting him into his high school hall of fame. We had a prayer and he hugged all of us goodbye, with tears in his eyes. I had no idea he liked us so much!

That was Wednesday night, before services. Thursday morning, the clot dissolved, his artery started spurting, and they took him to the hospice center. He eventually lost consciousness and early Saturday morning, he passed to the next part of his life.

There was a part of me, when Friend Husband suggested that we go visit him that evening, that protested. I was tired. I'd had a long day. I wanted a nap. But the bigger part of me (perhaps the better part of me) said, "Do it now." And I did. I knew when we left there that there was a big chance we'd not see him alive again. I'm glad we went. When I heard of his passing, I was extra glad that I hadn't put it off.

I know it gets tedious to hear me yammering on and on about this, but I've been so depressed the past several years that it's been difficult to get up the energy to do anything. I've grown accustomed to just hunkering down and doing only what I had to do to get by and not a smidgen more. It took too much effort and it wasn't worth it. It hurt. Since I've been working on this depression thing (meds and therapy), I've been coming out from under it and discovering all sorts of things. One of the things I've discovered is that I've lost years and years of my life. YEARS. Can you imagine losing years of your life? And people in my family don't tend to live long, so I've significantly reduced the number of usable years in my adulthood. That is very frustrating to me. It makes me want to crawl back into my hole and give up. It makes everything feel useless. I am fighting against that and all the ingrained habits that I've formed over the past several years but man is it hard.

Then came "do it now". I can't say that it's been revolutionary. I'm still lazy and don't like to clean the house. But hearing the "do it now", obeying it, and having it work out so very well in that instance (and in subsequent applications) has made me think somewhat differently. I try to remember that if I "do it now" that I'll probably get something done, whereas if I think too much about it, I probably won't do anything and will again reap the consequences. It's hard, but I'm trying to do it. Now.

So, Luster's funeral was Wednesday. His daughter wanted one of the speakers to read the following poem.

Safely Home

I am in Heaven, dear ones

Oh, so happy and so bright!

There is perfect joy and beauty

In this everlasting light.

All the pain and grief is over, every restless tossing passed;

I am now at peace forever, safely home in heaven at last.

Did you wonder why I so calmly trod the valley of the shade?

Oh! But Jesus’ love illumined every dark and fearful glade.

And he came himself to meet me in that way so hard to tread

And with Jesus’ arm to lean on, could I have one doubt or dread?

Then you must not grieve so sorely, for I love you dearly still.

Try to look beyond earth’s shadows, pray to trust our father’s will.

There is work still waiting for you, so you must not idly stand.

Do it now, while life remaineth you shall rest in Jesus’ land.

Did you catch the "do it now" in the last line? I did, during the funeral. I hope I didn't jump out of my seat because I was thinking at the time that the big lesson of Luster's passing for me was "do it now". And there it was in that bit of poetry as well.

I've been resisting for the past few days getting back into this saddle. I've messed up for NaBloPoMo, so why bother continuing? Maybe because I've had a good time doing it and it's been nice to get the feedback. Maybe it just feels like a good discipline. Whatever the reason, I did it. It took a while, I didn't "do it now", but I eventually did it. Sometimes I think that I'm not walking back to "normal" mental health but crawling slowly. I suppose that any sort of movement forward is a plus. At least I'm not moving back.

And I will attempt to remember not to put things off, but to do them. Now.

Briefly

It's been such a busy day! I ended up sitting with Rachel's elderly lady from 12-5 today & had to get my own chores done here first. Just got home and need to leave again to go to book club. That caffeine is going to go over very well tonight.

So I think I've mentioned that this lady (Audra) has some dementia. And she gets very irritated when she can't tell me what she wants to tell me. Today I was aggravating her by trying to get her to get up and interact with me. Whenever she'd wake up, I'd pounce on her (figuratively, of course) and talk to her or try to get her to look at a magazine. One time I was doing that and she was closing her eyes and pushing me away. I kept doing it. She finally opened her eyes, looked at me, and told me what she always tells us when we're leaving: "See you later, alligator!" She then closed her eyes and went back to sleep, leaving me laughing out loud. Well done, Audra, well done.