Why We Should Have Company Every Week (then the house might get cleaned once in awhile)

I have definitely figured this out: it is necessary, if our house is ever to get cleaned, for us to have company once in awhile. Not just your average company, but people that have never seen your house. It's kind-of like when people meet you for the first time....from then on, that informs their impression of you. I have seen this first-hand many times. 

Recent example of clothing impressions (I'm chuckling just thinking about this):  I had been doing a good bit of painting and art-related work for a growing company. They had had me in numerous times for painting, consultations, and the like. Pretty much every time, I was in my paint-covered clothes with a bandanna on my neck and sweat running down.... there was an editor there that I wanted to talk to about my book, but every time I was there I was in said clothing and didn't manage to show up in any other garb. So even though I met him and said the proper niceties when he would walk down the hall, I never broached the subject of writing. Finally, a couple of weeks ago I decided to bite the bullet. I emailed him some questions and he recommended I come to their office and see him. I got up earlier than usual, dressed up, went to the shoe store and got some new black pumps, size 12W. We Slate girls have really good foundations, by the way. Try to tell somebody you're not big-boned when you wear that size shoe..... digressing, I'm really NOT big-boned. If you don't agree, that's because you've never seen my bones, haha. 

 Anyhow, the editor -- after walking in all glammed-up, we ended up having a nice, hour-long conversation. During this time, I alluded to the fact that I had done a good bit of work for them. I told him I had met him before as well, without actually telling him I was the "paint girl." He didn't remember ever meeting or seeing me before. It was all I could do not to bust out laughing. So, you see, whether we like it or not, those impressions really do count. This guy didn't even recognize me when I was in two different contrasting outfits. I guess it was fortunate that he didn't remember me as the lowly servant girl? I have found that if I show up for a quote in my flowy-artist-girly clothes, people have no problem with me when I show up to work in my paint-splattered rags. They seem to have already type-cast me as the businesswoman artist. But if my first greeting is in my work clothes, I am looked at in a "lower" way. 

The unfortunate thing is that this is just the way we are....we can't help ourselves. We make impressions of people by their outside garb or our first contact with them. I have been guilty of judging people because my first impression of them indicates that they are cold or snobby. Later, as I get to know the true person and find out that they are wonderful and complex, I am shocked at my initial thoughts. You'd think I'd quit doing that. I'm trying. I DO hate snobbery, but I also hate my own tendency to judge. Cracked person! God have mercy on me! 

The Victorians, houses, and the redemption of a sinner

The Victorians were high in their assumptions about beauty. No mere moulding or simple fireplace would do. Their door placement, the size of the windows, the scope of each room and floor were paid very close attention. My job at this house has been to try to calm down the walls and to cause "flow" to happen between rooms. There is enough drama already. Stained and mullioned glass, five gorgeous fireplaces, octagon-shaped rooms, floors that speak of craftsmanship and intricate thought. A generous, living-room-sized front porch, a gothic wrought-iron fence. So many details that could not be replicated today without massive expense. And we bought it with the cash that we had... from 28 years of sweat equity put into numerous other homes, which included the help of many friends and family over the years....particularly our children. The furniture and knick-knacks that we have acquired over 30 years of marriage fit into this house like they were bought for it. The traditional and vintage things that I gravitate to are perfect in here. That is one more sweet gift from the Creator of it all. The One who knows us intimately and knows our cracked, helpless state but loves His children anyway.

We live in America, the land of excess. And one of my large failings (and probably will contribute ultimately to my demise), is that I am the Queen of Excess. If a little is good, then a whole lot must be a party and VERY good.

He loves me. I know, better than ever, now that I am getting older...that my true nature is plain wicked. I am a liar and a thief, a gossip, a glutton, a divider of friends. Rebellious, selfish, indulgent, uncaring, irresponsible. That's just for starters. I used to actually think I was pretty good, compared to the average Joe. But I am not.

I am at the mercy of Christ. My only hope is at the foot of His cross, where He has paid the penalty for my sin. He is the King of the universe, but He stripped off His royal robes, became as one of us....for the sole purpose of bearing our sin and redeeming a people for Himself. People don't often understand who or what He was. He was God and man, all at once. He felt the pains of manhood, the weaknesses of manhood, but He also created the universe. He wore two crowns, one of royalty and one of thorns.

I began to understand the meaning of redemption one Christmas about 20 years ago....when the Christmas story was being played out at church. There was a manger and a lamb together. The lamb who bore our sin. My sin. My sins. If I could pull myself up to goodness, then He had no need of coming. As it was, and is...it is His righteousness and His price that paid and pays for me. This is the simple Gospel. I have heard it all my life. Amazing that over and over, it comes around to astonish me again. I was a child, 8 years old, when I was enveloped by the love of Christ....but as each decade turns, each challenge looms, each wonderful or terrible season winds down....I see another facet of Him, and am rescued anew by Him.

Why it's not a good idea to take a long nap on Sunday...

What a truly blissful week this has been! The weather is not to be believed....so we have taken most of our meals outdoors on the back or front porches. There are really only a few days a year that are like this....so I want to savor them. I've been burning citronella candles like crazy, to keep the mosquitoes away. That's what I'm telling everybody. But really I think that candles are romantic and beautiful, so I use any excuse to burn them. What is it about a flickering flame? It makes you breathe deeper and slow down.

Okay, so I bought a new vacuum cleaner. My word, this is awesome! My old one was several years old. Poor baby, it had numerous problems:
-  one of the wheels fell off. I had it stuck in a closet but kept forgetting to put it back on. Actually, I think it was broken anyway. 
-  to keep the power nozzle hooked to the handle, I had to twist a fat bungee cord around it
-  it had a peculiar smell, sort-of like burnt hair
-  Ken recently had to replace the plug-in part because I've been known to just step on that smart little thing that causes the plug to retract (without actually unplugging the machine) -- it whips around and pulls the cord out without me having to do it myself. Hmmmm. Ken was/is not thrilled with these kinds of methods.
- when I would clean out the small filter, I would go outside and tap it on a tree....okay, well, beat it on a tree. Otherwise it just didn't seem to get very clean. It was starting to look pretty rough.
- and last, but not least, it had taken to shocking me when I plugged in the power nozzle. I would try to muster through that, but when flames starting coming out of it, I thought I might ought to surrender it to the landfill.  

So, since we're doing Dave Ramsey and budgeting and all that, we waited. And waited. I was still using the bare-floor attachment, but the rugs around here were looking pretty sad. So this was the week. I did my research on vacuum cleaners, cheap ones...and ultimately found one that seemed to dance and sing and do the dishes as well as vacuum. I ordered it and found it on our porch late Friday night, about midnight. 

So at midnight Ken puts it together and I'm vacuuming rugs. After just three rugs, a red light starts beeping on the vacuum cleaner. It's defective! But no, I checked it and the whole sucker is FULL of dust, after only three rugs. I emptied it then vacuumed three more rugs....again, full of dust. This vacuum cleaner was practically pulling me across the floor, it has so much suction.

There are so many things in life that don't work, or take too long, or really stink. It's fantabulously fun when it turns out awesome, at least for today. Now I'm just hoping that the old vacuum cleaner doesn't have the means to communicate with the new one.... or that there are no laws against vacuum cleaner abusers.    

When did I get wrinkles (or -- hey, I thought I was still in grade school)....

Seriously, all these old people used to tell me to enjoy my babies and to hang on to the moments, because life is going to pass you by like a blur. Now it seems like that's all I talk about! One minute, I was in third grade, getting in trouble talking to Johnny-somebody, and suddenly I can't get out of my chair because my hip joints are killing me. I feel like a kid inside, but something tells me I better get responsible real quick-like. 

I've had more time for introspection in recent days....and I've realized that my big problem is that I never wanted to grow up. That's why I want to eat fudgesicles and hot dogs all the time, rather than juicing kale and lemons and such. That's also why I want to go outside and lay on the porch and look at the hummingbirds fly around, when what I need to be doing is vacuuming the floor and cleaning out the gutters. But then, what is Ken gonna do if I do all that? Bad thing is, I will vacuum the floor and scrub the toilets, but I do it in a whirling dervish and usually not when it is convenient for anyone else.  "Get out of the bathroom! I've gotta clean that thing RIGHT NOW!!!" And if the whim to do said cleaning gets interrupted or passed by, then you just don't know when it might come around again. But back to the growing up thing. When I was a kid, I had a seriously happy childhood. When I think of my past, I remember sunny, warm (actually sweltering) days in the summer, playing softball in our front yard, going to my Daddy's ballgames at various fields around Atlanta, playing in the dirt, playing "Run Away From the Orphanage" with my similarly dusty cousins, gathering Coke bottles across the railroad tracks from our MawMaw's house and turning them in for nickels, picking blackberries and muscadines from the fields behind our house, riding bikes all over the neighborhood with my best-friend sister, playing like my baby brother was my own personal baby doll, and coming back to a clean, well-lighted place which was our secure home. My Daddy was a giant kid, who actually played ball and fished with us. Our Mama was the quintessential homemaker, whose main focus in life was a clean house, warm meals on time on the table, and making sure that we behaved. So we had secure lines built into our lives; rules, but not a lot of them, and a fun Daddy to top it off. Saying all that, what kid would ever want to grow up? And I didn't want to. I remember the eve of my thirteenth birthday. We were playing out in the yard; dusk was coming on, and it was a warm, wonderful spring day in April. The lightning bugs were starting to come out and I didn't want the day to end. I sat out in the dark and cried because I didn't want to be thirteen. I didn't want to grow up and not have these kinds of feelings anymore. And somewhere in there, I knew that I would struggle with being responsible, without a parent to make me behave or do things. So I guess that's why I married Ken, besides the fact that he was a stud-muffin. He was a nutsy, fun guy, but under all that was this military dude that attracted me in mysterious ways. God is good, because He was merciful to me in all the things that He led me to.... Now I'm, well, fifty-ish and He still lets me linger with the fireflies and the hummingbirds.