Do you have a spouse who tells the same old stories over and over again?

This childhood experience must have made a lasting impression on Ted because I’ve heard him tell this story more than once.  He tells how his mother, one day, made a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  The first batch went in the oven, and as soon as the heat hit the cookie dough, the dough oozed and melted all over the cookie sheet until it was one mess of liquified cookie dough spread over the entire surface of the cookie sheet.  There was no “cookie” to emerge from the liquid mess.   Oh no!  A quick glance at the recipe and ingredients revealed a most obvious oversight:  Ted’s mom had missed adding the flour.  Okay – she must have been busy or distracted by Ted’s sisters or, most likely, by little Teddy trying to steal chocolate chips.  Mom quickly measured and added the flour and got the second baking sheet of cookies in the oven.  They baked, held together, and came out of the oven looking like cookies … but resembling rocks in texture.  Mom had added all the flour the recipe called for but forgot to account for the first batch of cookie dough that was already missing from the batch.

I think the reason Ted remembers this story is because of the great heartache it caused at not getting a decent fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie that day!  The batch was pretty much ruined.  Mom would probably have done better if she would have just thrown the whole original botched batch of cookie dough out and started fresh.  I’m not sure if the resulting rock-cookies were even edible.

Sometimes you just have to throw away and start over.

Those of you who know me, know that I am a list-maker.  Sometimes my list gets very long with items scratched off and items added on.  It can get to be a scribbly mess.  In my attempt to stay organized, my to-do list is suddenly so confusing and scribbled that looking at it suddenly sends me adrift in the chaos – as if I myself am swirling in the swipes and swoops of my pencil lines.

So I throw it away and start over.

I will take a new look at all that I have to do.  Tasks get put in order and I write out a new, tidy, orderly, easier to-do list.  <sigh>   All is now well with the world!  Order has been established.

Now, in the continuing saga of my contact lens experience:

Some of you have read about how I am new to contacts but I am still in the trial stage of seeing what kind and what prescription works best for me.  Up to yesterday I had 2 different lenses for the right eye, and 3 different ones for the left.  I did not know which was which.  This morning I visited the eye clinic with my bag of lenses and a desperate plea for help with unraveling my chaotic collection of lenses.  Guess what the girl did?

She threw everything out and started over!

Well, she also called the ophthalmologist and, after speaking to her, she got me a fresh trial pair of lenses.  She then explained to me what was different about the other ones I was to still try – but I would get those next week and she was going to give me extra cases for the lenses.  In addition, she was going to clearly mark each lens – both the package it came in and the exact side of the contact case it was to be stored in so that I could methodically try each lens, keep them identified and stored correctly, and ultimately find my perfect set.

Whew!

Next time things get out of hand or chaotic, I suggest throwing out and getting rid of the old – and starting over!  Sometimes you just have to take a step back and re-analyze … clear your head … and then do things right.

I mean, who wants to eat rock cookies?  Or decipher a scribbled mass of instructions?  And, of course, the ultimate goal is to see things clearly!

just Laurel

Ecclesiastes 3:1a, 6  There is a time for everything … a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away.

That’s one thing I hate! All the noise, noise, noise, noise! ~ The Grinch in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”(1966)

It’s noisy around here lately!  Remember the great abundance of acorns on my driveway that I previously told you about?  Well, they continue to fall at an impressive rate.  I used to have a black top driveway.  Now picture a gravel driveway – only with acorns!  Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating but the driveway is quite covered.  They ‘noisy‘ part is the constant PLUNK, PLUNK, rattle, thump, rattle, thump, PLUNK, PLUNK, thwack of the acorns hitting the roof.  Amanda heard the sound of several acorns THWACK-ing the roof this morning and said “What is that?” And I told her it was the acorns on the roof.  She replied, “Wow – all those crazy squirrels in our yard!”  After a brief discussion, I came to understand that she thought the acorns were being removed from the trees by the squirrels and they were bombing our house.  I had to explain that acorns simply fall off like the Fall leaves, or wind-blown apples.  We couldn’t blame the squirrels.  PLUNK,  rattle roll, rattle roll, PLUNK PLUNK. 

Carl Fredricksen: Hey, let’s play a game. It’s called “See who can be quiet the longest.” Russell: Cool! My mom loves that game!~ Up(2009)

This afternoon my Pop and I were hunting down the source of a strange noise his computer was making.  He described it as a beep beep beep.  Amanda heard it after spending a short time on their computer.  Pop went to investigate and when I went to the computer room a few minutes later I found him on all fours on the floor with half his head stuck in the computer tower.  Listening.  Listening for that darn noise.  He made me take a turn.  Oh – and it was decided that it really wasn’t a beep beep beep but a squeak-whirr squeak-whirr.  After getting down on all fours and sticking my own head in the computer tower (and watching out of the corner of my eye the little fan on the top side of the inside of the tower) I figured it out.  Noise identified!  The advertised “whisper quiet fan” was not spinning in a whisper, but stuttering loudly with each start and stop as it was thermostatically controlled.  Ted is going to have to help Pop with fixing that one!  Funny how a relatively quiet little whirr-squeak sound can disrupt and annoy while sitting in front of your computer.  But it does!

It’s wabbit season, and I’m hunting wabbits, so be vewy, vewy quiet! ~ Looney Tunes cartoon character Elmer Fudd (1940)

According to the Free Dictionary online, ‘noise’ is defined as “Sound or a sound that is loud, unpleasant, unexpected, or undesired.”  Okay, so a noise might make you hold your ears, scrunch your shoulders (like fingernails on a chalkboard), make you jump (like a firecracker) or drive you crazy (like a squeaky computer fan).  Life would sound pretty boring without them.

I hadn’t really noticed that I had a hearing problem. I just thought most people had given up on speaking clearly. ~ Hal Linden(2005 interview)

Have you ever been asked that ‘what if’ question that makes you think about, if you had to lose one of your senses, sight or sound, which one could you live without?  (silly question, I know)   I’ve always answered that I had to have my sight.  I hate bugs and if I was blind in my own home, how could I see those little creepy things if I were blind??  Okay – there were other reason I’d choose my sight over sound, but I always chose sight.  But as I think about hearing noises – acorns plunking on the roof and identifying quirky computer noises, I think I might find it rather empty without the ability to hear those sounds. 

Sometimes life gets noisy.  Enjoy the noise and look forward to the quiet.

just Laurel

When all the noise is gone there is only God.  ~Author Unknown

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  God is
the friend of silence.  See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in
silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence…. We
need silence to be able to touch souls.  ~Mother Teresa

I love those ‘change the light bulb jokes.”  For example:

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?  One!  But only if it wants to change!

I had a day full of lots of changes.

When I left for work this morning at 7:10am it was pretty mild out.  I got to work and it was freezing!  I mean goosebumps all day freezing.  As I would take blood pressure cuffs off of patients, I kept noticing how warm their arms felt beneath my touch.  Of course, we give them those big wonderful warmed-up blankets!  But I also had a few patients say to me, “Oh!  Your hands are cold!”  Sorry.

The day was winding down and I was one of the nurses allowed to leave early – Yay! – and as I literally opened the door to leave, it began pouring down rain – like buckets – like cats and dogs.  Yeah, and I parked all the way at the back of the parking lot to give the closer parking to patients.  I had sandals on and jeans.  I went as quick as I could to my car through the waterfall of rain and threw myself into the driver’s seat positively drenched!  Oh boy – not only was I cold; I was now freezing cold and wet.

I drove home in a torrential downpour with my heater at full blast, trying to warm myself up and dry my clothes.  My feet were the worst – so cold and wet.  It was a crazy day of changing “weather.”  From mild conditions, to Arctic breezes, to rainforest downpour, to Florida heat wave.

And then there was this issue of my contacts.  I am still getting used to them.  The right eye lens is just peachy.  The left – well I had one lens to wear for a few days so I could get used to wearing contacts until my actual prescription lens became available.  The prescription one was a stronger lens then what was originally given to me.  So, I picked up my correct prescription trial pair yesterday – and they gave me 3 new lenses:  another one for the right eye and 2 more for the left.  Well I opened one box yesterday marked -L- for left and put that slippery sucker in my left eye.  Hmmm …. vision seemed worse and not better.  But I wore if for the whole day.  It was not as good as the one I had in my eye the day before.

Then – I LOOKED at the two boxes marked -L- and realized they were different.  Huh?  So today I put the THIRD contact in my left eye – figuring perhaps THIS was the right prescription (it had a bigger number on the box – so it must be stronger/better- right?)  and I still could not see as well as contact number one.

It was funny – there I am working at a place that does eye surgeries and as I was helping an elderly man post-surgery, he asks me, “Why are you squinting?”  He said it bothered him that here he was at an eye surgery place and one of the workers is squinting.  Haha!  I told him I was getting used to contacts – he was joking about it and not really seriously concerned.  But it was funny.

So in the past two days I have changed my left contact three times.  I don’t know which one is the correct contact.  And worse – I have two contact cases and because I’m trying to figure out which one works best, I’ve kept all three in the case(s) when I take them out – but – I don’t know which is which.  Right now, (sorry for the swearing here, but this is how I told Ted and it just defines where I’m at with these contacts) “I don’t know what the hell is in my left eye.” – I just keep changing them around to see which one works best.  I hope the eye doctor can tell them apart.

So – it’s been a day of change and changes.  The weather.  My left eye contact.  But it’s all good.  Better to laugh and be flexible.  At least my feet are warm and dry now.  🙂  And I can see what I need to see.

Change?

How many Chinamen does it take to change a lightbulb?  Thousands, because Confucius say many hands make light work.

And for my Lutheran church friends:

How many Lutherans does it take to change a lightbulb?  Change???????

just Laurel

Malachi 3:6  I the Lord do not change.

 

My husband Ted sleeps with a c-pap machine.  It keeps him from snoring, and it keeps his airway open so he doesn’t stop breathing at night.  I guess that’s a good thing.  (Of course, it’s a good thing!)

Except – when the darn mask slips and the air seal is broken and – he snores from under his mask.  >sigh<   The snoring wakes me up and I usually can give him a shove and as he moves around, post-shove, the mask slips back in to place and the snoring stops.

Except – when he has a bad cold.

Ted has a bad cold and with his airways swollen, he is snoring at night and no amount of shoving stops it.  I couldn’t stand it last night.  Two in the morning, I am wide awake listening to his snoring.  But, because he has a bad cold and I was showing mercy, I didn’t want to give him the usual shove because I wanted the poor sick guy to sleep.  In the past, I would end up on the couch.  But this time I wanted my comfy bed!

Ah-ha!  I remembered the earplugs I had in the bathroom closet.  So, I pull down the covers (snore) sit up on the side of the bed (squeak of bedsprings followed by a snore)  stand up next to the bed (snore) take a few steps (floor creaks beneath my footsteps) when suddenly Ted asks, “Where are you going?  What’s wrong?”

Really?  He can sleep through the whooshing sound of his own c-pap masked face overlayed with the sawing noise of his own loud snores, and when I try to sneak out of bed he can hear me??

So then this afternoon I was in the bedroom folding laundry while playing my rehearsal music cd for this Sunday’s service.  Now our bedroom is situated at the back corner of the house.  Outside that corner of the house we have a tree that the neighbor kids love to climb on.  I had the music turned up and was loudly singing along to a new song I needed to learn.  When there came the quiet pause between songs, I heard voices outside my window.  I think I did.  Oh I definitely did!  I peeked between the curtains and saw kids in my tree.  “Oh Lord,” I thought, “I hope they didn’t hear me!”  A few minutes later I poked my head out the back door and yelled to the kids, “Hey I hope you weren’t listening to my singing!”  “No,” they replied, “We were listening to the band playing.”

Huh, what?  The band playing?  Ohh … there was some high school band thing going on and, since we live so close to the high school, we could hear the lively marching band music coming from the stadium.

And then there was the time….

There was this girl who used to go to our church; I will call her Irene.  Irene loved to talk.  And talk.  And talk.  I remember so distinctly the time when, as I was ascending the steps from the church basement, Irene was descending.  Our paths crossed in the middle of the steps.  Irene started talking and said “Hi Laurel, how are you? Did you …. …. ….” and she continued to talk.  And talk.  And talk.  I think I tried to speak a few times but as she continued her descent while talking to me, I could only continue my ascent and merely bob my head a few times in reply to her non-stop chatter.  Irene disappeared around the corner and I stood there, absolutely flabbergasted that this person had just delivered a five-minute monologue and I hadn’t uttered a word.  I was stunned.  I’ve never forgotten that.

So what do you listen to?

I later asked Ted how and why he could wake up from the sneaking-out noises I was making and yet sleep through his c-pap whooshing and his rumbling snoring.  He said it was due to the ‘mother’s ears’ I always told him I had when I would always hear and wake up when I heard our young children in the middle of the night.  Usually, even now, I get up if I have heard Amanda up sick and he was alert to me leaving the bed in case he could help with Amanda.  He was listening for me 🙂

And the kids outside my window?  Oh I am sure they could hear me – they just weren’t listening for me because as they sat up in my tree, they were catching that cool breeze full of marching band music.

And my friend Irene?  Well, she was just listening to herself!

Every day we are presented with a lot of noise, sounds, voices, whispers, music, laughter, and all kinds of racket.  What do you tune out?  What do you hear?  Can you hear when your spouse needs help?  Do you listen to what’s happening nearby, or let your ears catch the far-off sounds that filter your way?

Do you listen at all?

just Laurel

Proverbs 1:5a …let the wise listen and add to their learning…