My husband bought me a few new books to read with children. One book cover features a picture of a cube. The title reads, “This is a Ball: Books that Drive Kids Crazy” by Beck Stanton and Matt Stanton. The book features pictures of recognizable items but the words don’t match what everybody surely understands to be true, hence the cube identified as a ball. One example that excited my 5-year-old granddaughter was a drawing of an elephant with words stating that the eyes and the tail are things dogs have so it is definitely a dog.
The rain was absolutely pounding the west side of my house this morning and it was especially loud against the window. Our poor dog was a bit freaked out. Usually, during a storm like that, she is under the bed or under one of our chairs. Hubbie was asleep behind closed doors, and I was on the exercise bike so she had no idea where she could go and feel safe. As I rode, I talked to her, assuring her that I was staying close by and that we were safe, but my words did not bring her any peace. All she knew was that the world scary and she was afraid.
Occasionally, someone asks, “What movies have you watched more than once or twice?” There are of lot of them on my list. “Groundhog Day” is one of those movies and I was thinking about it recently, I’m guessing many of your readers have seen it as well. There is something refreshing in the silly notion of getting to do a portion of my life over and over and over again until I get it right — without affecting the rest of the world in my time loop.
Raccoons are believed to wash their food and thus are deemed clean little animals. This is a misnomer, but that is a story for another day. The reason we believe this story is because raccoons are often observed dipping food into the water rolling it around in their paws.
Many years ago, Granny noticed that the little grocery store down the street had bananas for ten cents a pound. Since the store was just a short distance from home, she decided it was a great time to challenge the grandson with a little of responsibility. She reached into her wallet and retrieved a dollar bill. She called her grandson in and explained that she was trusting him to go directly to the store to get some bananas and come straight back home.
My friend, also a female pastor told me a story about standing in line next to a preteen boy at a potluck lunch. She had been watching him through the years and at the prompting of the Holy Spirit began a conversation right there in front of the meat balls. She told him that she could see some special qualities in him. She had his attention and continued the conversation by telling him she thought he would be a great pastor. The boy stopped and looked at her with an expression of surprise. After a moment of contemplation his response was a shock.
My load of laundry switched to the spin cycle when it began the deep throbbing beat of an imbalanced load. It made me want to dance, yet I hurried to the laundry room opened the machine and recentered the load. When I restarted the machine, the dance party was over and once again laundry was just a household chore.
For most of the last forty-nine years, I have spent the middle of September in a tent north of KS Hwy 160 in Winfield, Kansas. That is when fifteen thousand friends gather at the Walnut Valley Festival for folk music, crafts, and tons of fun. In recent years, our daughter, grand-children, and I have moved into the same general area. Often. we are close to the same neighbors who have been close by for years. The countdown has started—in ninety-four days, “I can’t I’m goin’ to Winfield!”
