Dirty Jobs

Our dryer is acting funky.  It doesn’t dry clothes adequately.  Of course the first thing I think of is cleaning out the vent pipe.  I mentioned it to Brian, but he couldn’t do it right then, and I got impatient.  He took the kids off to tennis, and I dove right in.

Cleaning out the dryer vent pipe on a hot July evening is a dirty job almost worthy of Mike Rowe.

After I got it all apart and cleaned out, I realized that connecting it back together again is really a two-person job, since one person has to be in the basement and one has to be in the front yard.  Then the two people have to yell at each other, each trying to find the part of the pipe that the other is moving erratically.  At least, that is how I imagine it goes.  He hasn’t come home yet for us to try this out.

I’ll let you know how this goes.  I hear the car coming up the street just now.  Back to the dust!

Pondering This:

Take this quote from C. S. Lewis (Mere Christianity), which I ripped from Jared Wilson’s blog:

We must not suppose that if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world.

How far do I as a Christian go in trying to make other people nice?  Some people call it seeking Social Justice.  End slavery.  Keep children safe.  Feed hungry people.  End discrimination.  Protect workers.

I am not trying to make a point in this post, other than to say that people all over this planet are suffering because of how we have messed up God’s place and God’s people.  What I’m mulling over is how I should be a part of it all.

It would be pleasant to have a nice world.  But I’d rather have slaves loving God than suburbia ignoring Him.

Still, God says many times in His word that He loves those who alleviate suffering and hates those who oppress.  So there’s got to be some action there.

Could it be the two go hand in hand?  Sharing the good news about God’s desire for reconciliation, as well as sharing my energies with those who need my help?

Again, I am not trying to make a point.  Just typing out my thoughts, hoping to get some clarity.

Nothing To Do With Anything

While looking for something completely different, I came across these adorable images from the 1971 Sears catalog.  Not having been alive in 1971, I can indisputably say I had nothing to do with any of them.  But they are great, and I want to share them with you, Dear Reader.

In case you can’t read that, these are kind of plastic stockings that are supposed to fool people into thinking your mom bought you really cool boots.  Yeah.

That kid is NOT getting up till he produces!

The “body thing” scares me.

I’m impressed by the lid on the top one.  I wonder if you could just toss a tablecloth over the top and serve chips on it?

Do not attempt to adjust your monitor; these are the actual colors.  My parents had one of those changing tables for my brother and me, but it was a normal color.

Yes, these are “practically indestructible”!  Even when you try your hardest, you just can’t kill ‘em.  I’m particularly fond of the ones on the top right.  The ones that look like chromosomes.

Oops, I think I stepped in an Elmo!

I hope you had as much fun as I did looking at these pictures.  It’s the little things that make our days worthwhile.  (Actually, no it’s not, but didn’t it sound nice?)

To The Thawing Wind, by Robert Frost

To The Thawing Wind

Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snow-bank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate’er you do to-night,
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ices go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit’s crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o’er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.

Robert Frost, 1915

You Know Your Getting Old When…

Okay, so yesterday Brian bought me flowers and had them sent here while he was at work.  (Yes, I know I have said this a lot lately, but it was just so cool and unexpected and sweet.)  I was delighted and immediately put them in a vase, at Acadia’s suggestion.  (Her lightbulb idea was, “Mom, we could put them in a bottle!“  No, we don’t see many cut flowers around these parts.)

The vase went on the dining room table.  As I stood back admiring the lovely tulips, Gannon came over.  He took in the view of the tabletop, which is where we do school, of course.  Not to mention where we eat breakfast, feed the baby, toss our wet boots, and brush our teeth.  Okay, maybe not those last two.  But it was kind of a mess.  Gannon looked at it all and had this suggestion.  “We should take a picture of this and put it online with a big FAIL.”

My eight-year-old knows of the FAIL Blog.  And he uses this information to trash my housekeeping skills.

Aren’t they pretty though?  I think they look nice against the background of the upturned yellow highchair tray.

Kid-Speak

Kids are great for coming up with alternate lyrics to songs.  They don’t always understand what the voices on the CD are saying, expecially Acadia.  For instance, in “He Is Born, The Holy Child”, she was sure that the words were something about being “smelly”.  Then there’s the character names.  According to Acadia, this guy goes by the name Archer Bob.

What I Need Today

PSALM 146

1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

3 Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.

5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

10 The Lord will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord!

PROVERBS 8:15, 16

By me kings reign,
and rulers decree what is just;
by me princes rule,
and nobles, all who govern justly.

EZRA 7:27   “…God…put such a thing as this into the heart of the king…”

How to Avoid Skunk Spray

Acadia: Mom, when have I been sprayed by a skunk?

Me: I don’t think you have ever been sprayed by a skunk.

Acadia: That’s because I don’t like tomato juice.

Acadia in Boston, by Gannon

We Went to Boston.

Here are some pictures of our little getaway we had this weekend.

The kids on the T.  This was actually taken on the way out of the city.  On the way in, Acadia clung to her daddy’s chest like a marmoset.  At least I think she did.  Or maybe I am thinking of the word marsupial.  Anyway, she was a little nervous.

Harbor seals at the New England Aquarium.  We keep calling them sea lions, though.  I hope they are not offended.  After all, we live in a landlocked state.  What can you expect?

A fountain in the Rose Kennedy Garden.  The kids wanted to run around and around on that bench part.  I, being their mom, would not let them.  It is my job to forbid all sorts of fun things like that.

The kids splashed in it instead.  Acadia found three pennies in the fountain and put them in her pocket.  I hope that does not mean she is now responsible for granting the wishes associated with those coins.

A man in the park.  He later took a nap.  I found him interesting but was too timid to go talk to him.  So I took a spy picture of him instead.

We tried to leave Gannon locked behind this iron fence, but he made so much of a fuss that we relented.

Looking out into the harbor.  At least, one of us is.  The other is asking repeatedly to be lifted up.

Gannon enjoyed looking at boats in the harbor, especially the tugboats and Coast Guard.

After that, he used it to shoot down a helicopter.  That’s my boy!

This guy…I don’t know what he was doing.  I really want to know what he’s got playing in his headphones.  He stood in the middle of this compass rose for quite a while, facing east, eyes closed.