It has been like a revolving door around here. We have had fun having guests over, precious family and friends and friends of friends, to see our new old house. It also causes me to clean up and plan for my next project. Inside the house, I have only one more room that needs overhauling, well, except for our long-term plan to put a bathroom in the closet in our bedroom. That is so exciting, given where we started. Since it's winter, I need to get hopping on working on the study. When spring comes, I SHOULD be ready to start on the outside painting, haha. I'll think about it tomorra.....
Someone gave me the bright idea to make a plan for my life. Hmmmm. So I got a big piece of foamboard and wrote three project areas that are my priorities, besides the normal, survival-type priorities that seem to fill up everything else. These projects are (can you tell this is all another way to remind myself I need to do this?):
(1)- House projects:
o Study -- pull down what wallpaper I can, Kilz everything with oil-based Kilz, repaint with textured paint or something
o Garage -- bleach and clean off the mold (pressure wash), patch all the bee holes in the trim, paint trim & paint walls
o Exterior of house trim -- pressure wash, scrape, sand & repair, paint! (colors are moss green for the trim, mahogany brown for the window sashes and columns, golden brown for the fishscale shingles)
o Master bathroom -- acquire old furniture piece for vanity, toilet, sink(s), plumbing fixtures and lighting, tile for shower, etc., etc. then get to it....
(2)- Etsy Business
o 20 pen-and-ink miniatures....of flowers, insects, birds, etc. Have them printed up, then hand-color them. (by April 13, 2013)
(3)- Book
o "When We Were White Trash" -- about when we lived in a camper for two years with four children and built our home on five acres
I am a person who tends to forget what isn't right in front of her, so I put this board by my computer to remind me every day of those goals. It's like our garden. When it was way in the back of our property, though within walking distance, I would "forget" about it. But when it was tiny and right beside the back door, I actually tended it, weeding it and watering it and picking the produce when it was ripe. Even though it was just a small garden, I got way more veggies out of it because it was in my peripheral vision. Isn't that some kind of sickness?! Either way, this is the way that I am, so I have to work at helping my weaknesses any way I can. I pray that my loved ones can find a way to forgive me for all my forgetfulness. I do love you and I do want to remember stuff, I promise. Now what was I talking about?.......
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Friday, January 11, 2013
Random, politically incorrect thoughts
The culture wars that seem to be raging all around us are frustrating and puzzling. Our American culture has changed so much in the last 20-30 years, I don't recognize it anymore.
I can't help but think of the French Revolution, where one regime climbed over the other, scorching the earth behind it with the blood and bodies of those who didn't happen to agree. If, on social media, I put an opinion about anything that is not politically correct (read: abortion, Chick Fil-A, gay marriage, Christianity in general) I get either major props or scathing put-downs. It is not safe in this country anymore to openly say what you believe... particularly if it happens to be of a Christian nature. If you stay firmly on Biblical conviction, you stand to lose your business if it goes public. It does not matter that people gave their life's blood to gain free speech a few hundred years ago. The laws of our land do not support that if you are a corporation (see Hobby Lobby). It remains to be seen what will happen in the future to a pastor or speaker who decides to read the Bible publicly concerning gay marriage or abortion. Hate crimes legislation has a holy aura about it that will be our undoing unless something changes its course.
We have been homogenized as a society. Lumps of people, government-trained in government schools, discouraged from thinking outside the box (unless, of course, it's the moral box).... entertained, fed, cossetted, raised by an assortment of nannies, underpaid daycare workers and liberal-leaning educators. Bread and circuses, isn't that what lulled the Romans into complacency? Way back in the 70's, Francis Schaeffer tried to warn us. We're on the edge of losing the freedoms that made this country great, the work ethic that molded it, and the integrity that went behind the good people that poured the footings.
There have been many wrongs in our country's history, too many to list, slavery being at the forefront. The bitter roots of that injustice are sucking the marrow out of this society... Bitter people that are angry at things that were not done to them. That's the funny thing about bitterness. It puts out roots that go deep, much deeper than anyone knows. To extricate oneself from those bonds takes an act of God and much grace.
I was working at a home this week where the owner talked to me about the spectre of an apocalypse. She said that if mayhem comes, she doesn't want to cling to survival but would rather go out with the first wave. I have never heard anyone say that. We generally want to live, to cling to even the tiniest shred of existence that we can muster. We make and go to movies about the most horrible circumstances of survival possible. Everybody is trying to live, to eek out the bits and pieces that they can. It's awful, dirty and miserable, but the will to live gasps for another breath. I've pondered her words all week, particularly in light of so many attacks on Biblical Christianity that I have seen in recent days. I can't help but think about Rome, about Hitler's Germany, about the French Revolution. Much less Stalin's Russia.
The heart of man is wicked. Who can know it? How quickly things get turned upside down to where right is wrong and wrong is right. We see recent examples in history that horrify us now (the Holocaust, Rwanda, etc)....but we conveniently don't see the bitter roots creeping out of the ground about us, quietly muffling the good and fertilizing the bad. Just keep plugging us with food and entertainment and "education".... keep the peace at all costs, keep quiet about what is not politically correct. Don't think for yourself. Don't actually read the whole Scripture (just use parts). Don't speak the truth or rock the boat.
Heaven help us.
I can't help but think of the French Revolution, where one regime climbed over the other, scorching the earth behind it with the blood and bodies of those who didn't happen to agree. If, on social media, I put an opinion about anything that is not politically correct (read: abortion, Chick Fil-A, gay marriage, Christianity in general) I get either major props or scathing put-downs. It is not safe in this country anymore to openly say what you believe... particularly if it happens to be of a Christian nature. If you stay firmly on Biblical conviction, you stand to lose your business if it goes public. It does not matter that people gave their life's blood to gain free speech a few hundred years ago. The laws of our land do not support that if you are a corporation (see Hobby Lobby). It remains to be seen what will happen in the future to a pastor or speaker who decides to read the Bible publicly concerning gay marriage or abortion. Hate crimes legislation has a holy aura about it that will be our undoing unless something changes its course.
We have been homogenized as a society. Lumps of people, government-trained in government schools, discouraged from thinking outside the box (unless, of course, it's the moral box).... entertained, fed, cossetted, raised by an assortment of nannies, underpaid daycare workers and liberal-leaning educators. Bread and circuses, isn't that what lulled the Romans into complacency? Way back in the 70's, Francis Schaeffer tried to warn us. We're on the edge of losing the freedoms that made this country great, the work ethic that molded it, and the integrity that went behind the good people that poured the footings.
There have been many wrongs in our country's history, too many to list, slavery being at the forefront. The bitter roots of that injustice are sucking the marrow out of this society... Bitter people that are angry at things that were not done to them. That's the funny thing about bitterness. It puts out roots that go deep, much deeper than anyone knows. To extricate oneself from those bonds takes an act of God and much grace.
I was working at a home this week where the owner talked to me about the spectre of an apocalypse. She said that if mayhem comes, she doesn't want to cling to survival but would rather go out with the first wave. I have never heard anyone say that. We generally want to live, to cling to even the tiniest shred of existence that we can muster. We make and go to movies about the most horrible circumstances of survival possible. Everybody is trying to live, to eek out the bits and pieces that they can. It's awful, dirty and miserable, but the will to live gasps for another breath. I've pondered her words all week, particularly in light of so many attacks on Biblical Christianity that I have seen in recent days. I can't help but think about Rome, about Hitler's Germany, about the French Revolution. Much less Stalin's Russia.
The heart of man is wicked. Who can know it? How quickly things get turned upside down to where right is wrong and wrong is right. We see recent examples in history that horrify us now (the Holocaust, Rwanda, etc)....but we conveniently don't see the bitter roots creeping out of the ground about us, quietly muffling the good and fertilizing the bad. Just keep plugging us with food and entertainment and "education".... keep the peace at all costs, keep quiet about what is not politically correct. Don't think for yourself. Don't actually read the whole Scripture (just use parts). Don't speak the truth or rock the boat.
Heaven help us.
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