Don't get Sick

It's no fun.  You know that.  Been there, done that -  you got the ugly tee shirt too and don't want to wear it.  Same here.

Truth is, sickness is a fact of life.  You get tired, run down, eat something you shouldn't, get cold, wet, or too hot -  and there you have it.  Your immune system is compromised and caves into a cold, flu, or virus.

So what follows here is not new.  Your mother told you this stuff, your grandmother too . . . things that you can and should do to help stay well during flu season.

Keep Warm.  Wear mittens, gloves and a scarf if necessary.   A dip in body temperature by half a degree can compromise your system enough to catch "whatever."

Stay dry.  Especially your feet.


Wash your hands.  Or use hand sanitizer.  Keep your hands away from your face as much as possible.  Cough into your arm then wash that nasty shirt.

Stay hydrated.

Eat well.  As in food that is GOOD for you.  A car don't run well and breaks down more frequently on poor quality gasoline.  Why would your body respond differently if you eat junk?


Use good sense about unnecessary exposure. Stay away from  sick people as much as possible.

See how simple that was?  There are a lot more good suggestions out there which anyone is welcome to share. A lot of it boils down to good common sense and just not giving into the temptation to fudge when doing the right thing is inconvenient.  I write this as much for myself and my kids as anyone.  Because really - who wants to be sick at Christmas??

Love and Adoption

Now that I've got my "day after getting home" madness out of the way and have had some quiet moments to reflect on the last week's events, I'm finding a lot to ponder.

I spent the best part of the week with my 2nd grandchild who is even at her very tender age an amazing child on so many levels.  And I fell in love again.  I fell in with her older cousin a year ago at her birth and it's just got worse at every visit since.  Last week I fell in love with EJ.  I can't say enough about how sweet and squishy and adorable this big eyed little bundle of energy is.

It was different with EJ.  She came to us by adoption and was several months old when she arrived at her permanent home.  We knew for several years that "some day" there would be an adoptive child. And we loved and prayed for this child, knowing he/she may not even be born yet.  So getting to know EJ wasn't exactly at ground zero. This little person had to get used to me and come to trust me before she would laugh at my fish lip kisses or raspberries on the tummy.  We were just getting to be good friends when I had to leave.  It was hard.  Really, really hard.

All that being said, I have to confess to a new appreciation for the love of my God as well.  It makes so much more sense now about His great heart that He sacrificed so much so I could be adopted into His family.  Like EJ, my original situation was most dangerous.  Like EJ, I was sick.  And I was different than Him.  None of that mattered.  He accepted me and just like EJ will always be a Horton, I will always be a child of God.

It's doubtful our new granddaughter will ever look like either of her new parents, but there's no doubt she will take on many of their fine qualities and mannerisms.  They will raise her to be the respectful, responsible, resourceful and creative person God intends her to be.

I take comfort that God is doing the same with me, that in His love and kindness, even in this stage of life He's still leading me to be the person I'm supposed to be.  He remains the best Parent ever.

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

Well, when I first saw the guy I was assigned to sit by on the plane I thought "terrorist".  Middle Eastern, skull cap, beard, black robes. Turns out he even had an accent.  Other  people were trying to avoid looking at him -  I could tell they were uncomfortable.  So I smiled real big and pointed to the seat between him and the window.  He jumped up,  helped me wrestle my bags into place and let me in.

During all this I saw the ornate wooden cross around his neck so I knew something else was up.  After struggling internally a few minutes I jumped in with both feet - "So you're obviously a  man of the cloth -  tell me about yourself."

And he did. This soft spoken gentle man and I had a nice chat about church history, persecution of believers in the Middle East, life, faith, cultural bubbles, scripture, seminaries and teaching tools.  I even recommended a place he may consider as a retreat for the seminary students he teaches.

So that was part of my very interesting day coming home.  I have my doubts  whether an hour beside a crazy Baptist lady will have any impact for him and in the long run, probably not for me either.  But I did see him soften when I told him about "our people" praying for "his people" and I now have a face to go with my brothers and sisters in the Middle East who know better than I what it is to suffer for the Cross.

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Side note added  later.  For the record, six months after this event in February 2015, 21 of "his people", Egyptian Coptic Christians, were captured by Isis in Lybia and beheaded. 

Onward, Forward

For many years, for reasons of my own, I didn't go around advertising my college affiliation. It's only been in the last few years I listed it on Facebook.  Like including my maiden name, it's so people from my past can find me. (Not that anyone has exactly beat down the door to find me, let alone connect.)  One look at our family photo and the opinion pendulum swings from "Thank God they survived that college" to "Poor things fell from grace."

I have no reason to address either concern.  When it comes to opinions, I take to Kipling's advice, "If all men count with you, but none too much."

That being said, there are many things I'm very thankful for from my college experience, the one which I want to praise today being teacher training.  Guess what?  We weren't taught to use standardized curriculum.  I have marveled in the years since graduation at all the nicely packaged curriculums that have been developed, many for both classroom and home school use - all organized and laid out and ready to use so that most of the teacher's work is to implement lesson plans right out of the box.

We didn't get that.  Many of the teachers I studied under WROTE their own curriculum and our lessons as future teachers were to WRITE our own lessons. While textbooks were used as a starting point for many disciplines, it was fitted to the students, not vice versa.   Even classic Zaner-Bloser handwriting material was supplemented with exercises and practice of our own writing and choosing. We learned to research, to be resourceful and creative. This mindset extended into student teaching where we had to be innovative while nailing the study material.

I left college equipped to teach, but didn't.  By the time I graduated I had a husband and a family which took priority. That's not to say the education was wasted -  it most certainly equipped me to be a better parent and later on to teach adults believe it or not.  In the beginning it was in a career capacity, then ministry, then public service and now  . . . . children.  The same age group I taught back then no less.  All these years I've been practicing by writing lessons and power point presentations for grown ups and now its the real deal - teaching children about God.

And true to the way Mr. Smith, Mrs. Barbier, and my other wonderful instructors taught, the "textbooks" turned out to be a springboard, a starting point to get me headed in the direction God is leading this thing.

I had the blessing of meeting someone I had admired as a youth a few years ago. Jessie Rice Sandberg wrote for a nationwide publication for many years and turned out to be as warm and engaging and down to earth as I had imagined her to be forty years before.  One comment she made during that meeting was that God's (main) purpose for our lives might very well be during these late afternoon and sunset days of our lives. With my own kids all grown and managing their lives without my help now, that gives me hope.  It is a challenge to rise to.

And I thank Hyles Anderson College, First Baptist Church of Hammond and Hammond Baptist Grade School for their part in helping me meet that challenge.

Forty Cents Left Over

I found myself in a government office not long ago taking care of some government business required of law abiding citizens.  Fortunately there were no pending deadlines that cause long lines so my wait was reasonable.

An tiny elderly black woman sat down beside me who had come in with a relative.  She was modestly dressed and prim at the same time and carried herself with dignity and grace. I was glad to share the wait with this sweet lady.

It was also payday for the employees of that office, and upon opening her check one employee exclaimed, "Thank you Jesus I have money left over after paying the bills!"  (For those from other parts of the US this kind of outburst is common and widely accepted in the south.)

This prompted my new friend to start talking, "That's right.  God makes sure there's always just enough.  I remember paying my bills and having forty cents left over and I was soooooo happy because I had something to put in the offering plate on Sunday. People made fun of me because I was so happy to have that forty cents left over, but I knew I was blessed because God was taking care of me.  There was always just enough!"

Today was bill paying day.  After more bills came in yesterday I knew it would be tough to cover everything, but you know what?  There was just enough.  In fact, there was  six dollars and thirty seven cents left over!

$6.37.  Wow.  Probably the exact same amount adjusted for inflation.  You know, I'm very thankful for it, also for a faithful God, and for a valuable reminder from a dear lady.  Betcha know where that money is going Sunday morning!

Of Words and Wounds

I re-learned a word today.  It's actually one I've known a long time but have pronounced incorrectly pretty much all my life.  The word is 'poignant'.   Learning its correct pronunciation took on an added dimension for me today.  

Poignant is an interesting word with several nuanced meanings:

1.  keenly distressing to the feelings: e.g. poignant regret.

2.  keen or strong in mental appeal:   e.g. a subject of poignant interest.

3.  affecting or moving the emotions:  e.g. a poignant scene.

4.  pungent to the smell:  e.g. poignant cooking odors.

Take definition #1.  I experienced that kind of keen distress today.  Mid afternoon I found myself in a state of shock, covered with blood (wearing church clothes no less) and pretty much unable to function.  The whole fiasco was of my own making.  I take full responsibility for the events that led to having to break up a blood bath dog fight and getting injured in the process.

Definitions #2 came into play shortly thereafter.  It was a poignant concern that my wounds get medical treatment and the sooner the better.  Dog bites are no laughing matter.

Definition #3 has defined the rest of the experience and what follows are some poignant lessons from the day.

1.  Proverbs 27:10b.  Better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.   I was already eternally grateful for the family friend who dropped everything to take me to the ER today. Even while I was still in shock his stories helped give proper perspective to the situation and take my mind off the whole thing.  

2.  The curse of sin is alive and well on this earth.  We've lived with enough shelter and peace in this culture that we find ourselves shocked at the capacity for horror that lies hidden in both our own hearts and the precious animal friends that live on this earth with us.  Men like our friend (see #1) who have been to war are more aware of it and somehow manage to live fruitful productive lives despite having been exposed to that.

3.  God is always in control.  Apparently I lost my watch in the incident. I always thought it only told time but today it protected the most vulnerable part of my arm.  It stopped forever when it stopped a dogs teeth on that part of my wrist. That's a dent dead center in the middle. You can't see it but there's a bit of blood next to number "7" between  the pushed down face and where the crystal used to be.

And how did anything as poignant as the pronunciation of poignant come up in all this?  Honestly I don't remember. It was late on the way home.  That's ok -  it led to some good conversation and despite all the negative poignancy about the day the lessons in the school of hard knocks were learned well,  and the kindness and care from both near and far are deeply felt and will be long appreciated. 


The correct pronunciation of poignant may be heard in this  youtube video.  It's worth learning!

Something Else Going On . . .

I'm living a double life.

For the record this isn't my only blog.  I actually have another one,  http://notsewnew.blogspot.com/.  The title is the same as my smaller, less well known etsy store by the same name.  You get to see my heart here at beemusement101.  Notsewnew shows my hands.

That being said I should probably explain that name. 

1.  My maiden name is New.  I was a New girl for 21 years till I married.  I'm still a New by birth and family, but am a Horton now by marriage. In that regard I'm not New anymore.  I'm not New by age either.  Youth has come and gone and I'm older and wiser.  I think wiser is a pretty good trade off since I don't have quite the pep I once did.

2.  I like to sew. Don't have as much time for it as I used to, but like it nonetheless.  So much so that my sewing room is obscene.  Seriously. 

3.  I really like old stuff, stuff that's not so new.  Old sewing stuff, old farm stuff, old bottles . . . if it's rusty, chipped, stained or even broken, I like it and can often find a new life for it.

There you have it.  The story behind the name.  And the link.  See what my hands have been up to while my heart ponders the mysteries of the universe.

"Oh Poop!"

This is as close to swearing as it gets around my house and I'm not going to tell you who says it, just that its not me. Usually.

Truth is, I've been thinking a lot about the mess lately.  It started with Sherah, the ah-maz-ing woman in I Chron 7:24 who built (drum roll please) 3 cities!  A close examination of what all was involved for a bi-racial woman from a family with a bad reputation to build 3 cities in the Bronze Age led me to believe that she probably started by herself with a shovel  - digging sewage trenches.

Poop.  She had to plan for removing the poop if her city was going to offer a decent standard of living. 

Then there's the oxen in Prov. 14:4.  No oxen?  Everything is nice and clean and no work is getting done.  Oxen present?  Work is getting done and there's poop to deal with.  I think everyone who's ever held a job can vouch that there's junk, in some form to deal with even with the best of jobs.

I wouldn't venture to say that it's a biblical principal that work and accomplishment produces poop, but I think it's safe to say that it's an observable life principal.  Even dream jobs have their fair amount of paperwork and/or management issues and/or, well, you get the idea.

The thing about it though, the junk, the poop, the trials, the tribulations, the waste, doesn't have to be wasted.  Remember Sherah's cities?  Those trenches down the hillsides of Upper and Lower Beth Horon ran into plains.  And all that nastiness returned to nature and made the soil healthy and fertile so that it eventually grew  crops that fed many people.

I don't like poop/refuse/dung.  It's nasty and it stinks, and on a farm with assorted animals I'm always checking my shoes to make sure it don't get tracked inside. But it's a fact of life, and would be even if I didn't live on a farm. Crazy thing is, with time and good decomposition it can be valuable and useful, and people even buy it -  in 45 lb bags at Lowes no less!  I like to think that God, with time and His direction, will make the heartaches, trials and tribulation by products of my own life useful, valuable and even life giving.  And I hope its presence means that good work is being accomplished as well.