Elephant Number Two

The second edition in my "Elephant" series... (I've decided to make this a series....) Here's how it goes. Some person in blog land who shall remain nameless (you know who you are...) has suggested that I be more consistent with blog posts.

Here's the deal. I'm in school now. The end.

Where was I? ...oh yes, the elephant... SO....today's elephant (actually you get two for the price of one today...) SO...today's elephants are also residents of a shadow box somewhere in the recesses of my home.

I have no idea from whence they came. They're small (note edge of penny in the background.)

I have not named them. Suggestions?!

Elephant....

I am taking a break from school work to post this tiny elephant....approximately two inches in length, he sits in one of my shadow boxes. He's one of dozens of elephants I have...most are packed away....been collecting them since I was seven. Sheesh! That's a looonnnngggggg time!! Pay no attention to the dust and cobwebs! Okay...now it's back to school work for me!

Counting Down....

Two days. School starts in two days.

BUT...I have already read and studied two chapters in my text for one of my TWO classes.

I sense a theme here....has something to do with TWO.

Don't ask me what though, because my brain is fried from studying and I can't possibly think of even one witty or profound thing to say.

I will say this....I received an email from my professor - a "welcome" email, if you will. In it she said, "I love to see how the text of this course plays out in my office." (She's a Licensed Professional Counselor and our text is Human Growth and Development).

She encouraged each of us to "not blow off this course - especially if we are called by God to be counselors..." And as I read those words...I immediately felt the TANGIBLE presence of God in my living room! In fact, even as I type those words now, I am feeling the Lord's presence. He is amazing! Every time I turn around I'm getting confirmation that I'm headed down the right path.

A Licensed Professional Counselor... In time, that will be me...hoping to one day help heal the brokenhearted...

And despite my fear and trepidation...I can do this! Me and God. Ah...the TWO of us. I knew that there was a theme!!

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

Brillo Man had an emotional weekend.

He had to say goodbye to an old friend.

A friend who has been with him through thick and thin.

Through sunshine and rain.

Through the muck and mire.

In all kinds of weather and in all kinds of storms.

He sold his beloved excavator. gasp!!

Whatever will he do now when he's bored? He will have no 'friend' to help him dig holes all over our property. Alas.

Here he is - posing for one last photo with his friend:



Driving it up onto the buyer's trailer:



Reluctant to leave...



The new owner driving away with Brillo Man's old friend... such a sad, sad day.

Psalm 91

What's in those Eggs Anyway??!

A friend recently inquired what it was that we feed our chickens because the eggs are so very good. She gasped with horror and disbelief when she discovered that we "slop" our chickens....in much the same way that a farmer slops pigs. In other words...we feed them all our table scraps. Well, there are a few that Bentley enjoys...but most of our leftovers make their way into the chicken coop.

As a result of that, we have VERY LARGE chicken eggs. Seriously. Some of the eggs are as large as duck eggs. And they have double yolks. And the shells are super duper hard - it takes a greater effort to break them.

Our farm fresh eggs are delicious - so much more tasty than the eggs one can purchase at the grocery store! In fact, I won't even eat eggs anymore in a restaurant since there is no way that they can compare with our Farm Fresh Chicken-Slopped Eggs!!



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Yep! They for sure are sloppin' those birds...
Just look at the size of those yolks!
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Back in Our Hands

"Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them, and brake, and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude." Luke 9:16

Here's a thought: When Jesus took the loaves and the fishes from the young boy before the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 he blessed them and then handed them back to the disciples and expected them to disperse them to the crowd. Once again...He blessed them and put them back in the disciples' hands. Ah...how many times does the Lord bless things and then expect us to act in order for the miracle to occur?

...just a point to ponder.

Dolce Far Niente

Italians have a saying - Dolce Far Niente, which simply means:

The art of doing sweet nothing.

Oh, how I love that! It's so much nicer to think of time spent doing nothing as an ART rather than considering it a bunch of wasted time! For one, I am Italian and being an artist, I am all about

...I'm thinking I must now go and CREATE!!

Cold

So, I get myself all bundled up to face the frigid air as I walked Bentley this morning...

Coat - check

Hat - check

Boots - check

Gloves - um. no. That's why I have pockets.

Did I mention that I'm allergic to the cold? No? Well, I'm allergic to the cold. Really. Seriously. I break out in hives if any skin is exposed to cold for any length of time. And the hives are not fun. They are extremely itchy and extremely annoying. But - this morning I was prepared! I knew it was cold outside and I had every inch of skin covered (well, except for my hands....that's why I have pockets.)

Halfway up the driveway, I decided to take a few photos of Bentley. He is cute, after all. So, I snapped away with the camera on my iPhone. Of course, doing so would obviously cause me to have to remove my hands from my pockets.



Ah...I know what you're thinking... You're thinking...yep, now she's going to get hives on her hands. She should've worn gloves!!

Nope. By some miracle I did not get hives on my hands - despite the frigid ten degree temperature with a minus something wind chill. No, instead I got a huge hive - ON MY EYELID! Caused my eye to swell shut. There's a new one. Must've been the act of LOOKING at all that cold snow!

On my "to do" list today: Ordering a Ski Mask

Today.

The tree is still up.

Anybody want in on the pool as to when I'll take it down? No idea when it will happen.

Today, I made chili - in the crock pot - with ground chuck which I had cooked several weeks ago and stuck in the freezer. I opened up some cans of kidney beans and garbanzo beans and sauce and added a bunch of spices and chopped up a green pepper. Easiest and fastest chili I've ever made in my life. I'm thinking I'm going to start stockpiling cooked ground chuck in my freezer.

Snow. We've got it. Lots of it. It's white and it's cold and I stayed indoors all day because of it. Well, I did walk Bentley halfway up the driveway while wearing my PJs. Here's proof - note the snow is covering the boots. Did I mention we have lots of it?:



Oh, and I drove Olivia the entire way up the driveway so she didn't have to stand in a snowstorm while she was waiting for the bus this morning. (I am a good Mother. Sometimes.) But other than those two times...I stayed in.

I started to clean off my desk. I found a bunch of things that I didn't know I was missing. Amongst them were these items:



I have no idea why I had plastic Easter eggs on my desk. So don't ask.

Let's see...what else? I've had approximately 14 hot flashes thus far (ten of them being in the last two hours...AFTER I ate a bowl of spicy chili.) (I knew that ingesting spicy foods can increase the likelihood of hot flashes. I didn't care. Then.)

I worked on the afghan I'm crocheting for Olivia. I'll post a photo when it's complete. Don't look for it any time soon.



So...that was pretty much my day. What did you do?

Perspective

As is customary at this time in my life, with the New Year now upon us, I have been thinking -- about a lot of different things. While I enjoyed the Christmas season and all the festivities that went along with our family celebration, I am glad that time has marched on and I can now get back into my regular routine of doing nothing special. It feels good to be sitting in my favorite spot in my reclining sofa with my laptop on my lab and a sleeping dog at my feet. Brillo Man and I just watched an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Olivia is in her bedroom singing along to some silly song in her head and I'm trying to blog.

Aha. And then Olivia appears. "Mom, will you please log onto PowerSchool and check my grades?" All A's and B's. Good for her! I'm so proud of her. And then my heart starts to beat a little faster as I begin to think about what awaits me in just two short weeks... I'll be concerned about my own grades. I'll be starting work on my Masters Degree in Professional Counseling. It's been years since I've been in school. I have moments when I think... "what were you thinking?!...signing up to take classes?...and GRADUATE classes no less??!!" I'll have to do a tremendous amount of writing. And I'm told that my writing will have to follow APA Format (whatever that is!) Oh. Help. My nice quiet evening of sitting on the couch with my laptop in front of the TV with an old Alfred Hitchcock episode suddenly turned into a nightmare.

Did I ever tell you that I don't like to write? Seriously. There was the one time in college when I was required to write a paper for extra credit and my friend offered to write the paper for me (because she was student teaching and had no finals for which to study and she was bored!) And I jokingly told her "sure! write my paper for me!" - and then she actually DID write the paper! It was an ethnography on the Yanomamo Tribe - for my Introduction to Anthropology class. Why in the world I took an intro to anthro class is beyond me. I needed an elective. I was told it would be a fun course. And it was - caused me to actually consider becoming an anthropologist for a second or two. But I digress. My friend did such an awesome job on the paper which I turned in with my name on it...that I received an "A" grade. An "A" grade on a paper which I never wrote. (Don't think that this hasn't bothered me for years - decades even! - for it has!)

So now, in just a few short days, I will be embarking upon a graduate studies career. And I will have to write papers. A LOT of papers. ...I'm wondering if my friend would consider writing my papers. I know where she lives. I could ask... ugh.

And then I started to think that perhaps I need to change my perspective. You see, the Lord has called me to do this Masters thing. It's not anything I came up with on my own. So...He equips those whom He calls. Right? Right. So writing all these papers will not be such a big deal. When I take a few steps back and look at it from God's perspective...it's a small thing.

Sorta like the wind turbines we saw while visiting Brillo Man's family in New York. Small? No. HUGE! They tower approximately 533 feet in the air!! But when one steps back...they don't seem all that menacing.


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This is a small thing in the eyes of the LORD...
-2 Kings 3:18
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