St. Valentine’s Day

Valentines DayIn case you have been out of the country and haven’t heard, Saturday is St. Valentine’s Day. The day of love. The last two weekends have been full of stories about the local Father/Daughter dances and parties in the communities around Beebe.  I am happy that for the past two years our church has held a “You’re Special to Me” Dance.  Anyone can come with anyone they love. It’s a great success.

Friday, children will tote their Valentine cards to school to exchange with their friends. They will have a party with packaged treats (parents can’t bake cupcakes any more), and experience a sugar high not known since December.

A few years ago, on the game show 1 VS 100, a young man won $1,000,000 because he knew that the largest number of greeting cards sent was at Christmas. The crowd had guessed Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day.

I would have guessed Christmas, even though many people have stopped sending cards and settle for a group email or a “Merry Christmas Everyone” on Facebook.

I send about 50 Christmas cards, mostly to old friends and family I won’t see during the holidays. My mother sent twice that, adding many of my dad’s business friends and associates to the list.  But I digress.

I mailed only one Valentine this year … to my great grandson, Noah. I included a few Valentine stickers I knew he would enjoy. It’s up to his parents to see that they are stuck only in appropriate places.

I will spend February 14 with three of my favorite people, my writing group. We meet every 2nd Saturday at the Faulkner County Library in Conway. We will surely exchange tokens of our friendship and love for each other before we wield the red pencils.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

I wish you love.

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Words Words Words

When my youngest son was in 3rd grade, the teacher would give the class new spelling words each Monday. Their assignment was to return on Tuesday with their  definition of the word. Then the class would use the dictionary to see how close they had come to the correct meaning.

One week, ‘disappoint’ was on the list. Phillip said the meaning of that word was “to make someone mad at you.” I got the message. Someone — probably me or a caregiver — had said to my little boy “I’m disappointed in you,” in a voice that conveyed not disappointment but anger.

When I shared this with the teacher, she said more than half the class gave similar answers.

We hear a word used in a certain context and either because of body language or context we assume its meaning. I was grown before I realized that ‘cohorts’ didn’t mean ‘partners in crime,’ my frame of reference being Jesse James and his ‘cohorts.’

According to my F in Exams daily calendar, a high school student answered a test question: Romeo and Juliet is written entirely in Islamic pentameter.

An acquaintance once told me she had been invited to several holiday parties and needed ‘to retaliate.’  I’m sure she meant reciprocate, but then again . . .

I read this week that ‘irregardless’ is now a considered a word. Not a particularly good word, but it has been used enough to gain that distinction. That’s sad.

Does all this mean that when someone facebooks ‘time is going to fast’ that it might indicate life is swiftly passing us by? Or does it mean it will soon be too late to take part in an ancient spiritual discipline?

Sigh.

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Perspective on Bad Habits

We’re just past the middle of January, 2015. So how are those New Year resolutions working out for you?

I love January. It feels like a second chance — a time to start again and do things better and stop doing things I shouldn’t.

Well, I read this week that some bad habits aren’t really that bad. They just might need a little tweaking to make them acceptable.

For instance, skipping breakfast. “Breakfast is vital — if you’re baling hay.” Seriously, if the most physical effort required of you each morning is to turn on the computer (or TV) then  you should be allowed to eat when you get hungry — like mid-morning.

Or, binge-watching television. Studies say people who “watch more that 2 hours of TV each night have greater incidences of diabetes and heart disease.” Okay, I’m done for.

But maybe the issue is not the TV program but the inactivity. That can be fixed by getting out of your chair during those 5 minute commercials. In 5 minutes you can load or unload the dishwasher, put in a load of laundry, or run up and down the stairs a couple of times. (Well, best not run, maybe.)

Another bad habit we try to conquer is losing our tempers. But we all know that suppressing anger isn’t healthy either. When things eat at you, find a trusted friend and vent, call a help line, or journal.

There is great benefit in writing through your feelings. One is that you can ‘use’ it later in your stories and another is, when you die, your kids will know just how irritated you were!

For those of us who think we need to do more, be more, excel, and win (and be in control): “Multi-tasking is a fantasy. The brain can’t do more than two things at once. Trying to do more strains the memory and limits the performance.”  So trying to do too much means we might not only forget to do something but we won’t do a very good job of what we do remember.

So. HAPPY NEW YEAR! Take it easy! Enjoy life!

 Material for this post was taken from an article, The Good News About Bad Habits by Jodi Helmer; AARP the Magazine, January 2015

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Shopping Online

Shopping OnlineDuring the season just past, I did the bulk of my Christmas shopping online. Friends and family have been touting this for years so when my email inbox was flooded with ads on Cyber Monday, I decided to give it a try.

Other than the occasional book I buy from Amazon.com and Tom’s Shoes when I had a teenager at home, I had not shopped in this manner. I had certainly never needed to browse and choose gifts from pictures and written descriptions. (Come to think of it, sounds like the old Sears Roebuck catalog.)

When my family gets together each year (usually about the 4th day of Christmas) we all exchange gifts with each other. It is an event. Everyone is able to take part because we stay in the low dollar range. Of course, we have found that to do this, one has to be more creative about shopping than if one were buying tablets or laptops. It’s easy to spend lots of money on gifts, but to search Hastings’ sale table and find just the right book for someone is truly an accomplishment.

I bought from three different websites, paid no shipping, and everything arrived promptly and intact. A trip to Marshall’s in Cabot and I was done. The brand new Dollar Tree in Beebe furnished the stocking stuffers.

In the past my mode of shopping was: Visit the mall and look at everything in every single store; decide on the appropriate gifts; try to remember where they were; and go back and purchase them (if still available). This approach was quite time consuming, but I relished it. I really enjoy buying gifts for people I love. I didn’t think it would be as satisfying on a computer.

But it almost was. When the packages arrived from the various dot-coms, it was exciting. I got to open, examine, wrap and tag everything. And what I bought was well represented in the pictures online. (One does have to read the specs to know the size.)

The only down side to the whole gift buying scenario had nothing to do with the internet. It seems Marshall’s attaches price tags that absolutely do not come off easily (or at all). I had to peel and scrape (gently so as to not damage the gift). I do hate to give someone a book or frame that smells like Goo Gone! Perhaps I will suggest to Marshall’s that since they have such a nice array of merchandise for gift-giving, they might think of using price tags that don’t have to be sand-blasted off.

BTW, we take turns opening our gifts one at a time so each can see who gave what to whom.  That way, the fun lasts longer.

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The Fourth Week of Advent

Mary, the Chosen One

God sent the angel Gabriel to speak to Mary. The message Gabriel brought? God wanted Mary to play a special role in his divine plan. Even though she was an unlikely candidate for the job. Females in Jewish society were not seen as persons of much value. They were often considered property. They had no rights of their own; certainly a woman would not be seen as one who could have a hand in saving the world.

How shocking that God chose a young virgin to bear God’s son. But, that’s the way it is with God. He calls unlikely people. God didn’t ask Mary if she was willing. He expected her to obey.

Mary asked the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, but he didn’t explain exactly how the Virgin Birth would work. He told her God would take care of things. God would be with her.

That was enough.

With a gigantic leap of faith, Mary accepted God’s call.

When God calls us to a task, may we be as courageous as Mary and Joseph.  May it be enough for us to know God will always be with us and that with God nothing is impossible.

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