Chaos Once Again in Pensacola
I believe the word that will ultimately characterize this year is chaos, and the struggle to bring order out of chaos. You might have noticed I have not been able to blog. Once again, chaos has hit Pensacola, this time in the form of our Doha shipment.
Good news for all my expat friends, concerned about packing out of Doha, or Kuwait. This has been the very best move, ever, and the second best move was the move from Kuwait to Qatar. I rate this one higher only because it was so much longer, and across a sea, and there is so much potential for damage – humidity, being left out on the pier in a storm, a leaky container, theft, lack of careful packing . . . not a single element was wrong with this shipment. Not a thing missing. Not a single thing damaged.
For your information, we were packed by GAC. We marvel at how carefully they packed even the most humble drinking glass. 🙂
So here is what we look like right now:
Chaos in the entry – we have all our artworks stored here, except for the really large pieces, and most of the large ones we already know where they will go . . .
It seemed like we had a lot of cupboard space, until this shipment arrived. I had left room, but . . . not enough. More donations to the Pensacola Junior League Sale coming up!
Most of this is my stuff, a tiny bit of winter and evening clothing and . . . a lot of fabric which will move to the quilt room when there is room . . . My quilt room used to look so big!
Now, for AdventureMan’s chaos – we are heading to his office:
Yes! Yes! Hide your face, AdventureMan! All these boxes . . .
I can see the end in sight. Once I have all this put away, there is just one more shipment, all my strays from Seattle. I have a storage locker there, and things left at my mother’s, and a whole underbed area at my sister’s house. Who knew they would be inconvenienced this long? We are going to drive up and haul all this stuff back, and at that point – the move is complete.
Sorting Through Our Lives
At lunch, on our anniversary, AdventureMan and I played a game, a game we call “the top three”. He started it. “What are your top three thrills in our life together?” he asked . . .
We came up with contenders, debated relative merits, but agreed on #1 – the birth of our son. Then there were the top three vacations, the top three surprises, etc. It’s always fun; and together remember things you wouldn’t remember on your own.
Every now and then you get a glimpse of what makes life worthwhile, and you are additionally blessed by knowing how happy you are at the time you are happy.
One of those days was today.
Yesterday, we went by to see our son and his wife and our little adorable grandson had a cough.
“Do you need for us to take care of him tomorrow?” we asked.
Oh! If we could take care of him in the morning, that would be wonderful! And so, promptly at 0730, we were at their doorstep, and our morning passed – oh, happily! – taking care of our adorable grandson. He has a bad cough, but he is on the mend, and we had some fun.
He loves his jumpy-thing, which we call a Johnny Jump-Up, but it isn’t, it’s like calling all tissues “Kleenex” or all copies a “Xerox”:
He has discovered his hands and feet; I love watching him, it’s pure motion, every leg and every arm going at once:
Well, he can’t talk yet, not clearly, so he blows bubbles to tell us how much he loves us:
“Oh!” exclaims AdventureMan, “You have to take a picture of him while he is sleeping, he is so beautiful.”
LOL! I had swaddled him, and he tried to tell me I had done it wrong, but I didn’t listen. When I went back 10 minutes later, he was still squalling AND he was no longer swaddled. I re-swaddled, this time, doing it right and tight, and before I even put him in his crib, he was sound asleep.
He did manage somehow to get one arm out:
On the way home, we picked up some roasting chickens for dinner, to roast with fresh rosemary and basil from our own garden. Yummm. AdventureMan will deliver one to our son and his wife around dinner time.
We are happy AND we know it. It’s a great day in Pensacola.
Credit Card Fraud
The call caught me totally by surprise, so much so that I suspected that the call was a scam.
The caller asked for my husband or me by name, and asked if we had charged two thousand plus on our card. Ummm. . . nope. That card is now closed down.
I suppose the good news is that our credit card company has such excellent security that they identified the fraudulent charge immediately.
The bad news is that we have had this card for a long time, and I have the number memorized. There have been a couple problems previously, small things. One time I found some calls to a phone sex number. They showed the number the calls were made from; I called that number. The woman who answered assured me that no calls were made from that number to a phone sex number because her husband had promised her he wouldn’t do that any more. I called our credit card company, told them what had transpired, and my account was not charged for the calls.
Another time, the company called and asked me if I was trying to make calls to Nigeria using my credit card. Nope.
But this time, their solution is that the card has to be shut down, and new ones issued. Oh aarrgh. I will have to memorize a new number.
Our credit card company’s security division never asked for any information a scammer would ask, like the security number on the back of the card, the expiration date – none of that. They already know that information.
OOops! Ops!
The silence tipped him off.
He had just finished referring to his study as “The Command Center.”
The silence continued, then I broke it, quietly asking “and just whom would you be commanding?”
“Ummm. . . err . . . Ops Center! Operations Center!” he corrected himself.
We both laughed.
We’ve been married 37 years. 🙂
Pray – then Listen
(Warning – this is religious based musing; if that is offensive to you, skip this post 🙂 )
Jesus often used the phrase “if you have the eyes to see” and “if you have the ears to hear” after telling his listeners a metaphorical story.
Yesterday, AdventureMan and I had another huge surprise. We filed for a tax exemption, and we were told that for this year, the previous exemption would hold, and then next year, our exemption would start. You would think that might be bad news, but in our case, the previous owner had all kinds of wonderful exemptions, and in a year with a lot of expenses, not having a huge property tax bill sounds really good to us.
“Humd’allal!” I said to AdventureMan as we left the building. (Thanks be to God!)
When we knew we wanted to retire this year, we began praying about it together every morning before AdventureMan headed off to work. We specifically asked that God be in every detail of the move – and as you can imagine, a move back to the USA from Qatar has a lot of details. It was more complicated than “just” a move. We had a huge storage shipment which needed to meet up with us in Pensacola, a cat that needed to come with us. We needed to buy a house, and to do that, we had to sell a house, and we needed to buy cars, and basic household appliances; we needed to start up all over again with groceries, and with cleaning supplies, and gardening supplies, and the most basic items you take for granted every day in your well-established lives. There were a LOT of details, an overwhelming amount of detail, and, by the grace of God, every detail was covered.
Some details, like the total rewiring of our house, may not seem like such a blessing, but, by the grace of God, we had the money to cover the need, and we are glad we could get the rewire done before moving in, and we are really really glad not to have to worry about fires happening in our electrical system. If and when we need to sell this house, having had it rewired helps its salability, too.
Some people might call it good luck. We don’t think so. We think it is God, answering prayers, in control of all the details, and blessing us in ways we can’t even begin to imagine. Every now and then, we have “the eyes to see.”
Rise in Single Teen Age Mothers in US
Excerpts from new study out from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found on AOL National News are below. To read the entire article, and for a link to the original report, click on the blue type above.
(June 2) — Attitudes among American teens about birth control, sexual activity and pregnancy have remained largely unchanged since 2002, according to a new federal report.
Stalled progress is bad enough, but some subtle changes also have experts concerned.
Most notably, more teens than ever are using the “rhythm method” to prevent pregnancy, and a growing number of teen girls approve of underage childbirth. . .
After dropping steadily for more than a decade, the teen birth rate in the U.S. rose between 2005 and 2007. Compared with other developed countries, the U.S. posted the remarkably high rate in 2007 of 42 babies per 1,000 teen girls. In Canada, by contrast, only 13 babies are born per 1,000 teen girls. . .
Laura Lindberg, senior research associate at the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute, speculates that the growing number of glamorous celebrities bearing children — especially as single mothers — is having an impact on the attitudes of America’s youth.
(Article contributed to AOL by Katie Drummond)
Hurricane Season Begins Today
As if the oil spill isn’t enough, today is the first day of hurricane season.
The hurricane guide tells us to have three days worth of food and water stored to get people through a hurricane and its aftermath – loss of electricity, highways blocked with fallen trees, etc. We have a safe room, a large closet next to an outside wall. We have a 7 gallon water storage container, and matches. I’m still working on the rest; I don’t want to be one of those running to the supermarket the day the hurricane might hit.
The good news – for us – is that we did not buy a house in the evacuation zone.
You cannot imagine how seductive some of these houses are. We had assumed we would buy a house on the water. Our beautiful 10th floor apartment on the Arabian Gulf in Kuwait gave us a taste for an endless water view, and that’s what we were looking for:
House 1
House 2
House 3
Every house on the water faces the possibility of serious damage in a hurricane. Two of the houses had damage from Ivan, one had ongoing damage from the dampness of being adjacent – well, almost inside – the wetlands. The wetlands are encroaching on two of the properties. One house, we totally loved. We could see ourselves living there, even facing the danger of hurricanes. That is, until we visited the basement, felt the humidity, saw a rotting pillar and realized we would face an unending battle with rot. The doorframe to the outside was rubbery with dampness:
It was a real blow to us giving up our dream.
On the other hand, it is a relief, now, knowing we are not in an evacuation zone.
There are no guarantees against a direct hit by a hurricane. All we have done is improved our odds, somewhat, which is about the best you can do when you live in a hurricane zone.
Healing Power of Compassion
From the time we were early-marrieds, we have subscribed, when we could, to Bottom Line and now that we are back in the USA, we have subscribed again. (When we lived overseas, we subscribed, but many of our issues never reached us; now they do!)
I almost didn’t reprint this, but then I saw a message included which said we are welcome to forward this information to friends, family, etc. Well . . . aren’t you my friends? 🙂
This technique is wonderful. Helps others, helps you as you practice it.
May 23, 2010
The Healing Power of Compassion
Charles Raison, MD
Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD
Emory University
Thinking empathetically about other people improves your own health, research shows. Regularly meditating on the well-being of others reduces your body’s inflammatory responses to stress — and that lowers your risk for heart disease, diabetes, dementia and other stress-related health problems.
The goal of compassion meditation is to reshape your responses to other people by concentrating on the interconnectedness of every human being.
It’s easy: Try the following technique for 10 minutes a day, three to four times per week.
WEEK ONE. Sit comfortably, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Think about a time when you were kind to another person — for instance, helping a loved one through a crisis or simply holding a door for a stranger. Recognize your great capacity for goodness. For the last few minutes of your meditation, repeat, “May I be free from suffering… may I find the sources of happiness.”
WEEK TWO. Repeat the same exercise, this time building compassion toward a loved one. Think about someone close to you — your mother, daughter, dear friend — and focus on what a blessing she is in your life. Then think about any suffering she is experiencing… and what you can do to ease her pain. Recite: “May she be free from suffering… may she find the sources of happiness.”
WEEK THREE. Think about someone with whom you have only a minor connection — a bus driver, a waiter at your favorite café. How is he a blessing in your life? How might he be suffering? How can you ease his pain (for instance, with a smile and a sincere word of thanks)? Conclude with the recitation.
WEEK FOUR. Focus on someone you dislike — a whiny neighbor, a critical cousin. Identify blessings, perhaps as lessons you have learned about being patient or not judging others. Consider how the person may suffer… for instance, from being a quitter or having few friends. Finish with the recitation.
MOVING AHEAD. Continue to practice several times weekly, incorporating all four types of compassion into your meditation.
Bottom Line/Women’s Health interviewed Charles Raison, MD, clinical director, Mind-Body Program, Emory University School of Medicine… and former Tibetan Buddhist monk Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD, senior lecturer, Emory University, and spiritual director, Drepung Loseling Monastery, all in Atlanta.
The Missing Piece
I have a beautiful wrought-iron etagere which I had bought in Tunisia. It has made it through so many moves, but this time, I haven’t been able to put it together. It has glass shelves, and two iron pieces that hold the braces together, one at the top and one in the middle.
We had the sides, the top and all the glass shelves. I couldn’t put it together. Well, I could, but without the one wrought-iron piece to keep it from slipping apart, the glass shelves would slip out and crash and break. I’ve gone through all the boxes. I’ve gone to the garage and looked and looked.
AdventureMan had a project this week; he wants our garage to be ORGANIZED. He wants to know where things are. (I fully support him in this and commend his efforts, especially when Pensacola is HOT and HUMID and he is out there in the garage toting boxes here and there, putting up shelving, figuring out what will go and what will stay – it is a BIG job.)
“I have something special for you,” he said, and slipped the wrought iron bar in my hand. He always knows what I like. 🙂
AdventureMan Wishes He Were There
I love our road trips. We always catch up on thoughts and pursuits that may seem to trivial in the activities of our normal busy days. It’s a time to talk over dreams, and hopes, and to sketch out some broad outlines of goals and calendars.
“Sometimes I read your blog,” AdventureMan starts off (and I never know where it will go!) “and I think ‘oh what a fun woman! I wish I were there with her having that adventure!’ and then I realize I was there!”
LLLOOOLLL!
People have told me I can make something out of nothing. I think the gift is knowing you are having a good time at the time you are having the good time. 🙂
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