Where is my Pumpkin?

I love pumpkin.  The Libby's in the can pumpkin, not the mix.   It is good for you, helps with digestion and I just love the taste of it.  I find it nature's perfect food.  Well, since Christmas I haven't been able to beg, borrow or steal a can of pumpkin.   I went online to the world's warehouse, Amazon, and found I could buy a case of some no-name organic pumpkin for about 28.00.  However, the shipping was nearly 13.00.  No way. 

So I began looking for a substitute for my pumpkin fix.   Yams?  Too many calories packed in all that sugar and goo they pack them in.   So I may find myself buying squash and trying to cook it.  That was a disaster last time I tried, the stuff is hard as a rock. 

This is something I would normally call and commiserate with my Mom about.  We would probably find ourselves laughing at the silliness of not being able to find something that normally people only think about at Thanksgiving.    My Mom ate lots of pumpkin during her fight with MSA.   Constipation was a constant friend with her.  I know, icky right?  Grow up, everybody poops.   Anyway, I mixed a pumpkin concoction, generous with brown sugar, some olive oil and apple butter that was easy for her to swallow, tasted good and sweet and helped her go the bathroom.   I would go up once a week and make up her week's supply of pumpkin "crap" as she called it. 

I always thought to myself, how horrible that I have to spoon feed my mom in her bed with this mush.   But I look back at the those evenings with sweetness.   I would drive up after work and sit by her bed, watching "Bones" or "Law and Order" on TNT, fix her something to eat so my dad could rest, and make sure I fed her her pumpkin before I left.    She couldn't walk, so she was stuck in her room with her TV most days.   Life wasn't getting in the way, it was just us.  We could just be together.  I would hold her hand, tell her about my day at work, and also allow her to cry on my shoulder.   Mom wasn't a crying person, but this disease made her break down at the littlest things.   I remember one night when we both sobbed at "State Farms, I'll be there" commercial.   I can't watch that commercial now without thinking of her.  As I sit here, the work day winding down, I wish I had to go up and feed her "crap" to her. 

There are lots of things I can't do without thinking of her. 

Even looking for my stupid pumpkin.

Patience is a virtue.....yeah whatever

You ever had days when every single thing is trying to steal your joy and peace?  I started my day pretty relaxed today, but then one thing after another has happened to stick a needle into my proverbial balloon. 

Christians attribute most of this to the enemy, Satan, causing your problems.  Sometimes they are self-caused and sometimes its just the way it is. 

Most of the time, its how you react to it.   I guess I will have to adjust my attitude today not to react to everything badly.  

I can totally relate to Ralph of the Honeymooners right now, though.  "To the moon Alice!  To the moon!"

Easter Week

Palm Sunday has always struck me as a picture of the human condition.   We, in today's world, think we would never be as fickle as the Jews were who were welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem.   A little explanation.  The reason we celebrate Palm Sunday is that it signifies the triumphal entry of Jesus into the city, as the Jewish inhabitants of that day cheered him as their deliverer.  However, they thought he was going to deliver them from the Romans.  He had something else in mind.  In a week they were crying for him to be crucified.  
As they waved their palm fronds and sang their songs, I thought about the recent victory of Butler University in NCAA basketball.  I'm not basketball fan, by any means, but it struck me how easily those palm fronds could be foam fingers and college flags. 
If Butler would have lost, we would have turned on them like a den of vipers, right?  We are fickle.  We like the winner. 

When Jesus went to the cross, they thought he was a loser, so they turned away.  When he convicted them of their sins, it got uncomfortable, so they turned away.   Thanks be to God, not all did, or where would we be today?

I don't claim to be a great theologian, or even an expert on the human condition, but I have eyes.  I can see how people are.  I can see how I am.   I'm fickle too.  I fight against it, but I am.  If someone isn't doing well in my eyes, I tend to give them less attention.  In my business, this is considered good management.  You are supposed to lavish the most time and attention on the employee who is doing well.  It adds more to your bottom line.  Don't waste your valuable coaching minutes on someone who isn't going to succeed anyway.

We, as Christians and people, have to do something different than the throng of the many.  Success isn't always measured by our yardstick.   My mom died in November.  To everyone else, that was a failure of God to not heal her, or she finally lost her battle.  

Friends, its the opposite.  My mom's weapons were laid down.   She finally won her battle.  And in so doing, won the war.  

I'm ok....really!

My mother was a creative lady.  She was a seamstress, she could embroider, she could cross-stitch, knit, crochet, sew, etc.  If it was possible with thread, glue, flower arranging, anything, she could do it.  And do it well.  The past few months, I have been helping my father clean out my mom's sewing room and storage room that housed all the supplies she used for her wedding and floral business, among 65 years of sewing supplies, patterns and various bric-a-brac.  This may sound very simple on the surface, but let me explain a few things to you.   My mother never did anything half way.  If there was a sale on something she didn't buy one, she bought a gross.  She was very frugal when did these things, because, in her mind, all of these would someday have a purpose and possibly be sold or given to a lucky individual.  It all made sense to her.   She also liked to decorate for holidays.  Let's put it his way, if there had been a store for decorations for even Arbor day, she would have had them.   Not putting my mom down here, I can feel her nodding and smiling to this already. 

My point to all this, is that going through all my mother's things hasn't been the easiest thing in the world.   I spent three days at my dad's two weeks ago, just for this purpose.  While he did things outside, I had my computer set up watching old DVD's and happily was sorting into boxes my mom's lifetime of work and supplies.  I say happily, because, as you know if you've read any of my posts, I love organizing things.  So I  was happier than a pig in...well you know. 

But as I was doing this, I ran across little things that made me pause.  The room still smells like my mom and all the memories I have of her toiling away at things for people and myself.   There was the little pin cushion I bought her when I was about 10 for mother's day.  There was the seam ripper I had used countless times to rip out sewing I had started.   The gene for all this craftiness did not pass along to me!  As I found these things, I got more and more sad.  I started to think about the fact my mom was gone and I would never see her again on this side of eternity.   Then the doubts crept it.   Satan likes to give us these to torment us.  Yes, folks, Satan is real.  Was my mom really ok?   Was she alive with God, or down at the bottom of that pit in the cemetary I had just visited the day before.   As I started to tear up and get into a huge pity party, my mom reached down from Heaven and gave me a proverbial kick in the rear.  As I dumped out what seemed like the 100th drawer of sewing thread, I found a piece of paper, about 4 inches square, with words typed on it.   Why was this here?  I thought it was another pattern piece or directions to something, but to my surprise, shock and delight, this is what it said."

"Just think of stepping on shore, and finding it heaven,
of taking hold of a hand, and finding it God's hand,
of breathing new air and finding it celestial air,
of feeling invigorated and finding it immortality,
of passing from storm and tempest to an unknown calm,
of waking up and finding it Home!"

Now I'm not making this up.  This little piece of paper, at the bottom of a drawer of bobbins and thread, could easily have been thrown away years ago.  Why was it there exactly when I needed it be there?  You can all think what you like, but I think my mother was talking to me through God himself.  We don't need burning bushes to have faith, but this was burning enough for me.  For those of you that know what my mom went through in her life and her eventual death, this was like she was standing there saying this to me.  Saying, "It's ok, Deb.  I'm really happy now.  I'm ok, really."  Then a sigh like she used too when I would ask her for the 10th time if she was ok, "Yes REALLY!"

Of course the tears came flowing then.  I still have that little piece of paper.  I plan to laminate it.  It's never leaving my side again.

Basket Bingo

Since this in on the internet, persons reading this could be from all over the globe.  Well, in the midwest United States, we have a little thing called Longenberger basket bingo.  For the uninitiated, Longenberger baskets are a high quality basket created by the Longenberger company.  Local organizations have bingos, where the prizes are these highly sought after baskets.  These are usually fundraisers for schools, or not-for-profits in all shapes and sizes.   Last night, my friend, her grandson and I entered the world of competitive basket bingo.

Don't snicker.  These ladies take this stuff seriously!  We sat behind a table of ladies who, when they heard an announcement of the next bingo coming up, sponsored by another organization, reached into their handbags (properly emblazoned by bingo labels or Longenberger symbols) and eagerly wrote down the next date and time.  Some even brought out the blackberry.   Longenberger ladies are high tech too, don't you know. 

Around us sat several people in differing degrees of indoctrination.  Let me preface by saying that the organization sponsoring this was our local universities student association.   To our right was a table of college age young men, who, either there at their girlfriends urging, or by a professors, groaned and yelled out with the best of us when their letter and number was called-or was not.  This made my friends grandson happy, as he was afraid he would be the only boy.  Not so, young man!  Then there were the other table of ladies that had a bingo marker for each color the rainbow and probably had that lucky troll doll in their purse to ask for the right number.  Those of you that watched Rosanne in the 80s will understand that reference.
Floating around, selling raffle tickets and selling snacks were college girls and boys that I knew were thinking to themselves.  "Man, I hope I don't get this old and boring!"  They'll learn.  For the lure of the Longenberger will get them someday too. 

My friend and I go to one of these at least once a year.  One, there isn't much to do in our town on a work night, and two, its just fun.   Well this time, to my friend's delight, she actually won something.  As did I!

It was raining cats and dogs outside, it was close to freezing in temperature, but it was warm and happy inside next to the warmth of a hand made basket. 

Doesn't get any better than that, does it?

Early Light Devotional - In Touch Ministries - Dr. Charles Stanley 2010

Early Light Devotional - In Touch Ministries - Dr. Charles Stanley 2010

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Rainy Days and Thursdays

When I woke up this morning, I turned over in bed to the flashing of my television that had obviously not been turned off the night before.   It was on the channel I had been watching when I fell asleep.  On the screen was Discovery Health Channel, a personal favorite of mine.  But on the screen was a show about child birth.  Now, don't get me wrong, I like children and I don't mind the act of childbirth-if someone else is doing it.
But it wasn't what I wanted to look at first thing in the morning.   The program that had been on when I went to sleep must have been something to keep my attention, because I had been watching it, right? 

My point being, life is often like this.   We tend to focus all our energies on a project, give it our heart and soul, time and attention, only to fall asleep at the switch as it morphs into something we aren't as thrilled about.   This can be at work or in your personal life. 

Moral of the story?   Follow through.   Excitement and planning only get you so far.   Follow through to the end with the same diligence and you will succeed with almost anything.   

And on a personal note.  Don't assume that person you love and are thinking about will be flickering in the morning like my television.  The OFF button may get pushed during the night.  Call them now.  You'll thank me later.

Musings of the Day

I take great pleasure in organization.  I can hear you now.  "Are you a freak?"  I like things in my life ordered and in their place.   You can imagine my shock when those around me don't always play into my view of life.  Don't get me wrong.  I like the occasional spur-of-the-moment, fly by the seat of your pants plan changes.  But it isn't my number one thing to do.  I find things happier when they are written on a pad before hand. 

My life, especially now, seldom falls into my ordered view.  Since my mother's death in November, my dad, now a widower after 43 years, finds himself alone most days.  He lives 30 miles away, so not terribly far, but with a full time job, I can't be there every minute.  Winter was hard for him.  I was told by my pastor that my father was the quentissential Indiana man.   Hard working, tough on the outside, wry sense of folksie humor, loves to work with his hands and work outside.   After working nearly 60 of his 75 years in one factory or another, hobbies were a luxury he didn't enjoy or pursue.   So sitting alone in a house still heavy with my mom's presence, her smell, her sense of decor, has been difficult.  Spring is blooming, so life is looking up for him as he has things to occupy his time.  But the grief is still there, the pain just under the surface, ready to break through like a plant bursting through the ground to grow into the spring air.

Hardly an organized situation, is it?
I daily rethink my organization theory of life.

The Next Chapter

Let me start by saying, I've always thought bloggers had to be the most self-centered, self important people on the face of the earth.  Let's face it, people blabbing about every moment of their life to total strangers?  Who cares, right?  Well I had, what could be best explained as a, road to Damascus experience when my mother was tentatively diagnosed wtih Multiple System Atrophy.  I say tentatively because most people with this disease don't know they have it until autopsy, but that's another story for another time.  For those of you that are reading this and haven't even cracked open a King James Version or another other version of the Bible, a little translation.  The Apostle Paul was confronted by the risen Christ on the road to Damascus.  It was God in your face on a higher level.  This isn't a sermon, so enough about that. 
Bloggers serve a purpose.  When I found out that not even the doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester knew for sure what why Mom had, I started looking for those around me that had the disease for help.  I happened on a yahoogroups list, but also upon a few bloggers telling their story.  It then dawned on me, not unlike our friend Paul's experience, that articles on WebMD or hours of watching Mystery Diagnosis on Discovery Health aren't the same as hearing the day -to- day experiences of someone going through the disease.  So my mind was changed on blogs forever.

So if you are confused to my purpose and point here, take heart.   This isn't a blog about MSA (though there will be many mentions of it here) and it isn't a blog about the Bible (though it will be quoted liberally here) its about me and about my mother.   Someday I hope to write that book of my mom's life.  But for right now, this will have to be a good start.