Need a Laugh? Here you Go :)

I wasn’t going to post this morning, but this is just too funny to keep to myself.

I’ve been slow to get moving this morning,  just now getting around to doing my normal face routine–toner, moisturizer.  Nothing fancy, takes just a few seconds.

So I grab the big plastic bottle of toner, fill up my cotton ball swab, and swiped away. It felt unusually cold, but I was thinking of other things and kept going, over my nose and to my other cheek. But my nose said, “Hey!  Cut that out!  What are you using, you birdbrain?”

The smell was so sharp it made my eyes water, so I, being an above-average intelligent woman,  took a second look at the bottle in my hand.

It was fingernail polish remover. Acetone. On my FACE! Oy.  Same size bottle as my toner, and boy, do I feel silly!

Washed my face three times, used my toner, used my moisturizer. It still feels tight.  I just hope it doesn’t make my skin disappear like it does my fingernail polish 🙂

Did you laugh?  Did you smile?  You’re welcome.  Did you shake your head wondering how anyone could be so dumb?  Just wait.  Juuuuuuust you wait 🙂

Sunday Solitude

So.  I’m home alone this morning, because of a nasty little infection.  It’s already responding well to the medication, but I’m just not feeling quite the thing.

And I’m trying to be positive about this, so here are some of the things for which I’m thankful:

1. A doctor who knows me well enough to listen to my symptoms and be willing to prescribe over the phone
2. A pharmacy that filled the script quickly.
3. Insurance that pays for most of the meds
4. My comfortable bed
5. General good health, so my body is responding well to the meds
6. Being alone in my house.  It’s unusual since Terry retired.
7. Being able to read my Bible without interruption
8. Being able to go back to bed when/if I feel like it
9. Getting this taken care of before I have to start prepping for Thanksgiving
10. Knowing that God made me; that He knows what’s wrong, and that there is a way to fix it.
11. A husband who is frustrated that he can’t really do a thing to help. Not thankful he’s frustrated, but that he wishes there was something he could do. Terry’s a fixer.  Bugs him to death when he can’t fix something 🙂
12. I got all my groceries yesterday, so tomorrow I think I’ll feel good enough to start on some things ahead of time.
13. I’m an independent contractor, so I can take off whenever I choose to do so.  I always take off on Thanksgiving week.  Very nice.

I love Thanksgiving.  I think it’s a shame that so many stores are planning to be open all day, taking people away from family and friends on this very special holiday. I will not be doing any shopping on Thursday.  Nor Friday.  Black Friday and the Black Plague are about the same in my opinion. Most of my gifts are already purchased, and the online sales carry Black Friday prices for two or three weeks prior to and following Thanksgiving.

I’m thankful to be able to look forward to a calm, restful day.  No one who will be here is an avid football fan, so that won’t be a focus.  We’ll probably play some games, maybe do some Christmas decorating, enjoy the food, and think about why we have this holiday.

It will be a good day.

 

 

Friday Counseling Issues: When it Goes Well

Another topic suggestion from Kathleen Duncan:  What has been the most encouraging outcome you have seen in one of your cases? Pick a case you thought might never get better, but they did! What made the difference?

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After  nearly 14 years in the counseling field, that’s a tough one. Since the newest memories are the freshest, I think I’ll tell you about a couple I just started seeing about a month ago.  We’ll call them  Dan and Fran.

This is funny if you’re not fighting about who does what chores, or if, for instance, the husband objects to doing any houehold chores!

This is a fairly young couple, both working at responsible jobs although not being paid as much as they’d like.  I’m not going to go into detail about their issues.  Let me just say that it was clear they had developed a habit of talking AT each other instead of WITH each other; that they had persistent habits in their efforts of communication that I have often referred to as “the crazy dance.”  It’s as if someone had choreographed their statements and responses, and they had learned the routine so well that they just didn’t know how to break it.

They’d been together for a long time, since high school.  No children.  Dogs they adore. A house that needs a LOT of work that they can’t always do without some professional help. He’s more laid-back; she’s more uptight. She’s ordered, he’s catch-as-catch can.  In terms of personality, you have a strong choleric/melancholy (Fran) married to a strong sanguine/choleric (Dan).  That’s a strong leader type, detail-oriented perfectionist with a happy, people-oriented  leader who isn’t quite as strong as she is.  He has no problem with missing a dish or two when he has kitchen duty. It drives her crazy when he doesn’t do the whole job.

Are any of you recognizing yourselves?  Most of us have this type of conflict to some degree.

To complicate matters, she was struggling with some pretty severe depression. She had medication, but wasn’t faithfully taking it. So there were all the difficulties associated with depression.

Here’s what we did:

1.  Take your meds.  You won’t sleep well or be able to function well until the fog lifts off your brain. Promise?  Yes?  Good. (She’s following through, and the difference is visible)

2.  I introduced them to one of my favorite communication techniques, called Active Listening, or Speaker/Listener.  You can learn about it here, or from hundreds of other sites if you just search “active listening.”

3.  We discussed their nonexistent sex life, and I suggested they have dates with the ultimate goal of intimacy. If you schedule it, you will think about it ahead of time.  It’s one of the best aphrodisiacs I know. (And they have to kick the dogs off the bed and out of the bedroom!  Good grief!)

I shared with them  that what they are experiencing is SO normal! I got them laughing with my own stories of fussing over different ways of folding the towels on putting the toilet paper on the spindle. How silly is it to fight over these things?  They are not the hills you want to die on! They are so insignificant that the best way to deal with them is to laugh.

There are some basic principles I always emphasize in marital counseling:

1. If either partner HAS to win ALL the time, the marriage is doomed.  No one wants to be the one who HAS to lose.

2. You don’t have to attend every fight you’re invited to.

3. Not every disagreement needs to turn into an argument/fight.  Sometimes, you can agree to disagree as long as neither partner is hurt by doing so.

4. You need to learn/develop the gift of forgiveness; you need to be able both to give it and receive it.

5. Humility goes a long way toward smoothing a rocky path.

6. Humor is a great aphrodisiac.

7. How you disagree isn’t as important as how you make up afterward. Mercy, kindness, forgiveness, and letting go are far more important than winning.

Obviously, we’re just scratching the surface here.  I could write on this topic for a long time.

One thing I don’t want to leave out, though, is spirituality.  I am a Christian, and my counseling is always strongly based on biblical principles and values. If the couple I’m working with share those beliefs, then of course we weave God’s Word throughout the whole process (One thing I never do, though, is start by preaching “wives, submit. . . .”  There’s a right time and a wrong time for that. Something else I could spend a lot of time writing about.) The truth is that God created male and female, and He ordained marriage.  He loves it.  He told us how to do it.  When I can use the Word, the counseling process is a joy. If I’m dealing with someone who objects to “religion” in their counseling, I can still teach biblically sound behaviors and ways of thinking.

This couple is doing very well.  They like Active Listening, which, when properly used, eliminates anger, debate, accusation and pain.  They’re learning to separate the important from the unimportant. They laugh a lot in my office, which is a total delight to me.

Believe me, it’s not always like that. Not at all. And those times, those couples, are enough to break my heart.

Cleaning. Blech.

Renovation requires a lot of cleaning up. We won’t really tackle the dust until the sanding is done, but we’re constantly sweeping, wiping, trying to keep the dust tolerable.  My major allergies are house dust, mold, and mildew.  Not a good combo here in PA where it’s often humid, summer or winter.

Today, home from church and lunched and changed into work clothes, I decided to replace the stuff I keep under the kitchen sink. Our new sink will be coming with the new counterop, sometime in the near future, please.  In the meantime, I’m thankful to have hot and cold running water again.  The new sink base is ready to fill up, so I decided to be a good housewife and wipe down all the jugs, bottles and spraybottles of supplies one typically keeps under the sink.

Ick.

Really ick. When I was taking this stuff out, I knew it was a little dusty. I was in a hurry, so didn’t pay much attention. Putting it back, though, I find I’m giving everything a hot soapy bath. Even things in cardboard containers, like SOS pads.  I’m also promising myself I’ll not let it get this bad again.

We’ll see.

So anyway, I’m thinking about all the stuff I keep in my own personal, inner “kitchen sink.” You know, the little sins that  don’t get a whole lot of attention until it’s time to do an all-out revival-type “search me, O God, and try my heart” kind of cleaning.  Bad attitudes about things like the weather.

May I ask, please, how it has EVER changed the weather for anyone to have a bad attitude about it?

Bad attitudes about work, for which I should be nothing but thankful. Bad attitudes about certain people who, God bless them, just don’t seem to understand some things. Bad attitudes about the news. Well, do you think maybe God will give me a pass on that one right now?  Really.

Bad attitudes about my dearly beloved, who is the best man in the whole wide world for me. No one else would have tolerated all my bad attitudes all these years 🙂

Come on, you know what I mean. The sponge that gets tossed in a little holder under the sink but that you didn’t rinse out very well?  After a while, it starts to stink.  So do our “little sins,” The little foxes that spoil the vines (Song of Solomon 2:15).

So while I’m wiping down, scrubbing, drying and replacing, I’m wondering how often God has to do that in my heart, and does He ever get weary of doing the same task over and over and over?

Or does He just love me?

Just for Fun

People are still having trouble with this link.  I’m not a techie, so I don’t know why.  Try this:  go to Godvine.com and in the search option type “they thought her prayer was over”   This worked for me.

I was just informed that the link takes you to a “page does not exist” message.  Be patient.  I’ll try something else. . . beep beep boop. . . . .

Ok, if you copy and paste the link into a new tab, it will take you to the video.  Worked for me.  Good luck.!

Please do yourself a favor and go to this link.  You’ll have a good laugh, and you’ll be glad you did 🙂

http://www.godvine.com/They-Thought-Her-Prayer-Was-Over-Until-She-Said-THIS-About-Getting-Old-HILARIOUS–6136.html

Refrigerator Rant

So, Gentle Reader, my refrigerator has just gratefully received its unpredictably-timed bath. I hope it is duly thankful. It’s a job I detest. Why? You didn’t say it out loud, but I heard it in your head.

First, I do NOT enjoy housecleaning of any variety. I do it out of dire necessity. I dislike wondering if the veggies growing on my kitchen floor are radishes or carrots.

Second, housecleaning is futile. You see, even though my refrigerator will smile at me in complete innocence when I go back there in an hour to get supper under way, I know–and IT knows—that in the dark watches of the night when I’m having nightmares about fridgey gremlins, there will be REAL ONES waging a full-scale battle in the deli drawer, the meat drawer, the fruit drawer, and the veggie drawer .Anything not consigned to those drawers will be oozing gunk onto the shelves, laughing hysterically at the effort I went to today.

It was easier before plastic.  I remember metal with longing.  You took the shelf out, washed the metal racks, cleaned off the doodads that the shelf rested on, and easily slipped it back into place.

Now?  Please!  Plastic. Plastic and glass, either of which will shatter if you don’t say “Please” and “Thank You!” when you handle them. There are millions of places that oozy gremlins can seep into. When that happens, the whole gizmo has to come apart. Not terrible. But putting it back together?  TERRIBLE!  AWFUL!

My fridge has a little plastic-coated wire thingy that the produce drawers  rest on. Pardon my grammar.  I don’t care.  If you don’t know what I just did wrong, don’t worry.  Be happy.

Anyway, it’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together while I’m wearing a blindfold. I can’t SEE the wire, and I can’t SEE the part it’s supposed to mate with. It’s an intricate process of easing the drawer down to where you hope the wire is, and when you hear a SNAP!  you can let go and do a happy dance.

You need to understand that about ten years ago, I had both my knees replaced. I will be forever thankful for that.  The one thing I can’t do, however, is kneel.

I’m now contemplating the bottom of the fridge, before putting the produce drawers back in. There is some serious cleaning that needs to be done.  With a sigh, I lower myself semi-gracefully to a sitting position so I don’t have to stand on my head to do this part of the job. The whole time I’m down there, I’m dreading the trip back up. It’s not pretty.  Not even close to semi-graceful. When you absolutely cannot tolerate any pressure on your knees, it limits your graceful thing.  So first I offer a serious prayer that no one will decide to come into the kitchen while I do what needs to be done. Then I roll onto one hip and brace both hands on the floor. The hip I’m resting on is connected to the leg  that will push me up. The other leg gets braced, foot flat on the floor, for balance. Getting the hip-resting foot under me so I can push up is quite a process. But eventually I feel safe enough to heave ho, and up I go.  It must be hysterically funny. Not to me. This is serious stuff.  I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on the floor.

You know, it’s actually pretty amazing that I can do this gymnastic move.  After all, I’m 67; not a lightweight; and once I’m on my way up it’s really a breeze. It’s just getting all the parts under me and balanced that’s tricky.

Anyway, the fridge is clean. Who knows? In another month, once I’ve recovered my normal good humor, I may tackle the oven. (Pssssst.  Self-cleaning!  Why can’t they figure out how to make a self-cleaning refrigerator?)

Thou Shalt Not Use Poor Grammar!

(I wrote this for the WordPress daily writing prompt,  over at lindaswritingblog.wordpress.com,  and thought you might enjoy it here as well.  More serious stuff coming later, if I have time. Very busy today.)

The Eighth Sin

Remember the seven cardinal sins? You’re given the serious task of adding a new one to the list — another trait or behavior you find particularly unacceptable, for whatever reason. What’s sin #8 for you? Why?

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Since God has already done the job so well, I don’t think I’m going to be serious about today’s prompt.

Here’s a disclaimer, though, that  I hope you will take seriously:  I do not now, and will not in the future, make it a habit to correct the  poor grammar that abounds all over cyberspace.  I will, if anyone asks, offer the correct usage. I do not offer unsolicited editing.  I do not make it a habit to correct people who are speaking with me (unless it is a grandchild, for whom I have a second-generation responsibility.)  I try very hard not to annoy people, even though I am a fully licensed and credentialed Grammar Cop. I take my job seriously but I will never embarrass or provoke any of you, when I read your daily posts, by correcting your grammatical errors. My agonized wail of horror will be completely private. All I will ever do is to set the bar high with my own pristine writings. Even there, I do make the occassional typo.  If I’ve ever made a grammatical error, it was not my fault. 

What you may ask, are some examples of poor grammar?

The first one that comes to mind is someone’s incorrect word choice in the phrase “to bear arms.” The word bare is to unclothe or uncover. Bear is the correct choice.  It means  to  carry in this use.  If, for instance, you ask me to bare with you,  I’m going to be highly offended and call the Morality Cops to come and take you away.

Some of the funniest grammar errors involve misplace modifiers.  What in the world does that mean?  It means that the descriptive word or phrase is in the wrong place, or it hasn’t been made clear what it describes.

Examples abound.  They’re usually quite funny.

All Abraham Lincoln ever wore was a tall black hat. Really?  Poor man must have been pretty chilly in the winter.  Correct:  The only type of hat Abe ever wore was a tall black stovepipe style.

The man rode in on a horse wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a thick moustache. No kidding. Was the horse nearsighted? Did his moustache ever get in the way of his oats?  Correct: The man with wire-rimmed glasses and a thick moustache rode into the ring on his horse. 

I heard the police are looking for a man with a broken arm on the radio. Well, that has to be kind of uncomfortable, and I’m guessing the suspect won’t get too far if he’s using a radio as transportation. Correct: I heard on the radio that the police. . . .

She’s been sitting on the phone for almost two hours!  Aww.  Poor lady. Why is she doing that?  Doesn’t she have a chair? Correct: She’s been using the phone. . . .(this one isn’t truly a misplace modifier. It is a poor word choice.)

And here’s a favorite of mine, seen in the stall of a rest stop in Colorado.  I’m not going to fix it. Have fun figuring out what’s wrong: This was a sign inside the door of the stall I was using:

Toilet flushes upon leaving stall. 

Ok, let’s move on to apostrophes, and then I’ll stop.  I’ve probably bored some of you to tears already.

Simple: Do not use an apostrophe to make a word plural.  One girl. Two girls. A hundred girls. Just, in most cases, add an ess. You’re done.

Do use an apostrophe to show ownership. The hat belonged to the girl.  It was the girl’s hat. The hats belonged to the girls. They were the girls’  hats.

Learn the difference between words that sound alike. Your and you’re are good examples. Your is a possessive pronoun. That is your car.  You’re is a contraction for you are.  So don’t write  your welcome  unless the welcome belongs to the other person. Don’t write you’re car unless you are telling a Buick “You are car, me Tarzan.”

It’s endless.  Oh, there’s a good one. Its and it’s. Watch carefully:  It’s interesting to watch a cat lick its paws.  The first it’s is a contraction for it is. The second its simply shows ownership. It doesn’t need an apostrophe.

One word on quotation marks and I’m done.  Quotation marks are highly overused and abused. I simply don’t understand what people are thinking sometimes. Example:  The congressmen and their “wives” all went to dinner together. I actually read that sentence in a newspaper years ago. So what was the reporter telling us?  That the women were not actually the congressmen’s wives, that’s what!

I almost forgot.  We alsotend to use the ‘s construct with, for example, biblical names that end in s. We don’t need to.  When you write, “It was Moses’ worst nightmare,” you can leave out an ess following the apostrophe.  Best example, one with which we’re all familiar, is  At Christmas, we celebrate Jesus’ birthday. The temptation to write and say Jesus’s  is overwhelming, I know. Resist it.

Just for Fun

Can’t Sleep

Ah, sleep. One never appreciates the beauty of sleep until the years begin to pile up. With the years, I’ve also gained achey bones, jumpy legs, and for the last five months, an awful sinus problem.  It’s pretty hard to sleep when you can’t breathe.

This whole mess started in January, when my Germany family came to stay for a week. It was wonderful to see them, so I won’t send them cold germs in an envelope or anything. A couple of the kids picked up nasty colds from relatives they’d seen in Ohio, and guess who found those germs.

In the last maybe ten years or so, my colds almost always result in swollen tissue up high in my nose. Can’t breathe through my nose, and it’s not pretty. Mouth-breathing is something one should do only in private, and not in front of a mirror! So as the cold symptoms began to clear up, I started using a popular nasal decongestant spray.  Works like a charm to reduce swelling and allow me to breathe,  but you really aren’t supposed to use those things much more than three days in a row.

Five months later, I’m still gasping like a beached fish.

Now add to that misery the difficuties I’v had getting a Medicare card.  You can read about all that, if you like, here and here. The bad news is that the second post, in which I felt hopeful of success, may lead you to believe it was all settled. Yeah, well, that didn’t happen.  I’m telling you, folks, if you really think government can take care of our health better than the private, free enterprise system can, you just wait. One of these days you’re going to need a card or a document that you won’t be able to get your hands on.  My nose could have fallen OFF before I finally got my Medicare card!

We finally returned to the Social Security office (that’s where you apply for Medicare) in which we originally applied. We were assisted by a fine woman who had been there for 40 years. Amazing!  I had my card, with all the right numbers and letters, in three weeks. Sad that it took until mid-April, but hey. I owe this lady big, and I’m going to send her a thank-you card.

At last, I can go see my doctor. In the meantime, I’ve been supporting all the people who work for the paper tissue companies, as well as all the families who work in the company that makes my nasal spray.  

Anyway, my wonderful and patient doctor put me on a typical combination of inhaler and steroid nasal spray, and told me to take a daily antihistamine. She also orderd a nebulizer treatment right there in the office.  Never had one of those before, and I was amazed at how much better I felt right away.  I went home with high hopes. 

Alas.  Nose is still all swollen up inside.  I waited a full day, hoping things would improve, but they didn’t. So I called the doctor’s office and spoke with the nurse, who gave me the sad news that the spray will take two or three days before it begins to kick into full gear. In the meantime, I’ve used saline spray (helpful for a few minutes)  a neti pot (helpful for maybe half an hour, once the solution was able to trickle through my swollen sinuses) and a cold pack on my nose (Rudolph effect, but not much help).

When suddenly, I felt the AIR going into my nose when I breathed in!  Oh joy! Oh happiness!  I can breathe, I can breathe!

For a while.Using the inhaler does help with the sinuses as well as the wheezy pipe organ in my chest, on which I can play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor!  No, really.  You should hear it–amazing!  I probably should be in Ripley’s Believe it or Not 🙂

 

All this to say, it’s Sunday morning here on the east coast of the USA. I’ve been awake since 3:30. It is now 4:30 a.m. and I can use my inhaler again soon. Maybe then I’ll be able to get back to sleep for a while.

 

 

I HATE HOUSEWORK!

First written on April 14, 2014; republished 1-30-2022

Really, really hate housecleaning.  Being so short complicates matters.  Not being able to get down on my knees complicates matters. So anything above eye-level or below knee-level tends to suffer.(I’m adding text here to see if I’ve learned anything about reformatting so my print stays where I want it.  So far, so good.  Now let’s try another one. )

 

I wish I could figure out how to put my words under, around, and between all these pictures.  Too much white space. (Yay! I think I understand !)

Seriously, haven’t you ever wished you were Samantha from Bewitched? Wiggle your nose, the dust is gone!  Waggle your fingers, the bathrooms are shiny! Circle your arms, all the rooms in the house neaten up and vacuum themselves! Wave your arms, the windows are washed, the curtains washed, dried, ironed and perfectly hung.  I don’t think that’s asking too much!

 

(Oh joy, oh happiness!  I love it when I learn something new and it actually WORKS! There’s this neat little gadget in the editing option that says “Add Media.”  When I use it, it lets me size the pictures that I’ve already posted; and, best of all, my text types around the pictures!  Doing a happy dance!)

 

 

I love it when my house is fresh and clean—–lasts for about five minutes. Bleagh. Grump. Snarl. Growl.

There.  Made you feel a lot better, right?  I aim to brighten your day. 🙂

And anyone who can tell me how to format a page will have my undying gratitude.  No housecleaning included.

(Until now, I’ve just been doing the cut/paste or copy/paste with pictures.  Works fine if you only want to use ONE. But if you want a whole bunch, and you want to type around them, cut/paste won’t let you do it.  Only the “add media” tool has given me what I wanted. I’m sure all you smartiepants people out there had this figured out.  And by the way, I didn’t have to delete any pictures to make this work. I just clicked on “add media,” then clicked on the picture in question, resized it, and kept typing. Woo hoo!  I could type all day.  State of euphoria here! )