Howdy,
This is a dark day. The most darkest day with the most greatest hope history could ever have.
Today is Good Friday — entitled with that hope in mind. Otherwise, how good?
Good Friday is an important day, grave in its seriousness.
Grave Friday, lifted in its hopefulness.
“This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living. Continue reading
Howdy,
I had that great stretch of being consistent with my back rehab exercises, which I documented on the blog awhile back, but lately I’ve allowed the stretching and strengthening routine to become hit-and-miss.
Which makes it not really a routine at all.
To tell the truth I’m not even that interested in talking about my back rehab routine right now, being out of the flow and whatnot. I bring it up here simply to say—
Well, it’s not that simple and that’s not all I want to say. First I want to make an excuse that life seems to get in the way. Though I want to say that so that I can write it down and knock it down. I am not accepting the excuse. I am acknowledging it but also rejecting it as a reason for failing to be routine.
I am also bringing it up here simply to say that this morning when my back was feeling tight and a bit wonky from sitting writing I went to go stretch my back for a reset on my True Back contraption and I laid down on it right where it was, on top of a children’s play carpet adjacent to the big train track board and scattered Legos. The perfect environment for backstretches. Feng shui, and stuff.
Howdy,
Today I am going to quote quite a sizable chunk out of my Community Bible Study (CBS) lesson “Red Sea to the Jordan River” (Vol. 2) because its commentary had a section and a thought that is challenging to me.
It touches on the idea of making a respectful appeal, and it states the phrase “bitter resignation,” which to me sounded like getting snarky.
I can become snarky when customer service isn’t serving me the customer. (As I double-check snarky in the dictionary, snide works as well. Snide: derogatory or mocking in an indirect way. It’s the indirect that aides in making it so insidious, especially when snarky: sharply critical; cutting; snide.)
Sometimes, rather than take a frustrating obstacle head-on, I slip into this. Snide-and-snarky. Mumbling-grumbling in bitter resignation.
This is a confession, that some of you may already know.
I need to work at fading out this way of working regardless, turning my back on it, but it’s exciting/refreshing/enlightening to consider other ways of approaching such situations (again, usually customer disservice). That sometimes things can be sorted through and taken care of without a smart aleck popping off as first result (assuming that it’s going to turn against him [bitter resignation]), without really ever reasonably working to come to a better or more fair solution through a shared effort that is genuine and generous.
An angle on the thoughts that I’m grasping for and attempting to meld into this idea are also sparking from what I read yesterday from Dave Ramsey about win-win situations, as they tie in with what he wrote about negotiating and the dignity of the other person involved.
In Smart Money Smart Kids, Ramsey writes: “When you model for your child how to negotiate, you are teaching him to face conflict. Negotiating price is a type of conflict. Teaching a child to enter a discussion over price with a win-win spirit teaches him to fight to get the best deal while keeping the other party’s dignity in mind.”
Howdy,
“Every party has a pooper, that’s why we invited you! Party pooper! Party pooper! Every party has a pooper, that’s why we invited you, George Baaanks!” sings Franck Eggelhoffer (Martin Short) in Father of the Bride Part II to Mr. Banks (Steve Martin).
And reminiscent of Jeff Foxworthy’s, “You MIGHT Be a Redneck If” jokes …
You know you haven’t been out of diapers long if …
Howdy,
It’s Opening Day in San Francisco for the Giants today.
The Home Opener.
Does that mean we can not count this last week?
Could we? Let’s do.
Let’s start fresh here, with an Opening Day do-over.
After the flailing of this first-week road trip, the Giants are left with: go big or go home.
Howdy,
Throat attack.
I’ve never heard it as a medical term.
Medically and emergency, we think of heart attack.
But free writing a bit today to get some words written in lieu of posting much today, I drafted the idea of a “throat attack.”
That’s why I’m not planning to write much for today’s blog entry: a throat attack.
Don’t worry, it’s not an emergency, just a stinkin’, clingin’ cough.
Howdy,
Well, so much for “Rub some Padre on it.”
The San Diego Padres are rubbing the San Francisco Giants’ slow start in their faces. The Giants are 1-5 to kick off the 2017 season.
Not expected, but that’s baseball.
Also not expected was a THIRD trip to the automobile vacuums in three weeks: three Saturdays straight.
Today wasn’t the whole family (just me) nor vacuuming the whole car (just the front seat and driving console).
I took my vehicle to the vacuums because this week Jasper brought home a wonderful sunflower plant grown from a seed at school in his kindergarten classroom. One day when I picked him up Jasper carried a genuine smile and a cute clay pot with two stems of sunflowers.
Howdy,
That’s how it feels today, the title, like it’s time to say, “Welcome to the weekend!”
And this time it’s not so much an excited, we-got-plans declaration, so much as, “Yay, we made it.” And not looking for a thrill ride this go-round.
Sarah and I enjoy telling each other “Welcome to the weekend!” most every time it rolls around. And now I use it when Jasper’s out of school for the week, too. Moments ago, I said it to him as he walked in the door. (Of course, I’d just started drafting this post and thinking through the idea, so I wasn’t going to miss welcoming Jasper to the weekend this Friday.)
And sometimes there’s a red, tandem kayak, a beauty, strapped atop the silver Xterra ready to hit the road for a lake or river — though it’s been tooooo long. We need a five-seater these days — and we don’t have enough paddlers for that yet. Yet.
Howdy,
April showers. Bring May flowers?
Kind of like it used to be.
In fairness, that last sentence should also finish with a question mark, so something more like, Kind of like it used to be? Because I wasn’t paying attention to stuff like that when it used to be, and, thus, I wouldn’t know.
I’m better at knowing the cliche, unfortunately.
Or, more positively, the saying.
One sounds so lazy, the other educated.
But all that pontificating about “April showers bring May flowers” and punctuation use to attempt to express a reflection and thought about the saying, simply sprouts from the fact that it rained today — and is supposed to rain tomorrow as well.
Howdy,
Told you Game 2 wasn’t Game 1.
Much better.
Another thing that I won’t update you on every time it occurs is when one of our children turn a month older, but today Riah is 10 months old.
And since he’s so young, every month seems so significant, and it is. Lots of development happening before our eyes in this first year — and beyond of course. But right now it’s like every day is something new, or at least a little bit new or better than he could accomplish it the day before.
A tooth seems to be close. He’s not completely crawling, but it’s close, as he get up off his belly and up on hands a knees more and more. He’s pulling up more, toward kind-of-standing. (Not sure that we want him standing and walking and running and, in all those wobbly stages, banging his head on everything in every house and all of outside yet, but, hey, what can you do? A helmet, that’s about it.)
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