Since I am searching for part-time writing/editing work to do at home, I joined several job boards.

One board suggested I take tests to rate my skills. High test scores on an applicant’s Profile impress potential employers.

Sounds reasonable, I thought.

I opted to take the tests.

Tests for writing or editing included Spelling, Word Usage, Punctuation, Grammar, etc.

Cinches.

I began with the Spelling Test. Not only did I score 100%, but I completed the test faster than any other person did.

My confidence increased. I moved on to the Word Usage Test.

This test contained 40 sentences with blanks in them and several word choice options for each blank. The timer gave me 45 seconds to select a word, and that choice was final. I could not review my answers after I finished the test.

My hope of scoring 100% on this test dissolved by the time I completed five sentences. I approached panic by the time I completed ten.

In my defense, these were challenging word selections. No affect/effect, between/among, bring/take, can/may or other easy choices.

One test item required me to select the best word from these options: endless, everlasting, interminable, never-ending, timeless, eternal and unending.

In 45 seconds.

This was synonym nitpicking.

I scored in the 80-something percentile.

So now, beside my 100% rating in Spelling on my Profile, will appear an 80-something percentile rating in Word Usage.

Hoping to hone my writing skills, I bought ProWritingAid, an online editor and personal writing coach.

This program tests the quality of my writing based on these qualities: Style, Grammar, Readability, Overuse of Words, Clichés, Wordiness, Diction, Sentence Lengths and others.

Based upon its evaluation, ProWritingAid gives me an overall score and suggests specific improvements.

The first time I scanned this blog post with ProWritingAid, it assigned me a score of 68/100.

The writer of this post, it said, used too many words, lacked style, and didn’t vary her sentence lengths.

Admitting I am a not-as-good-as-I-thought-I-was writer stings.

Why?

Scoring high on a word usage test and meeting the standards of an electronic editor gain me nothing.

But my performance on them holds the power to make me either ecstatic or miserable.

Is it pride that causes me to aim for perfection?

Do I expect being a good writer to affirm my worth?

I sometimes ponder those unanswerable questions, but mostly I ponder issues like this one.

Should I write “I was sad, or I was melancholy?” Sad is too general, but melancholy is flowery.

“I was disappointed?” No, disappointed is weak.

“I was unhappy?” No, I was much more than unhappy.

“I was crushed?” No, I’m not discussing pretzels.

“I was inconsolable? No, too many letters.

Then my scrutiny leads me to have this conversation:

“Hey, Dan, listen to this. Which sounds better?

“I was sad.”

“I was melancholy.”

“I was disappointed.”

“I was unhappy.”

“I was crushed.”

“Or, I was inconsolable.”

Dan:   “Don’t they all mean sad?”

Deb:    “Yes, but which one sounds best?”

Dan:   “Well, if you were sad, why don’t you just write ‘I was sad’?”

Deb:    “No! Sad is the worst choice! Anyone can write I was sad.”

Before you assign me to a home for the ridiculously insane, name the meaningless, prideful longing that torments you because you can’t achieve it? Is it:

• Receiving “exceeds expectations” on your annual review?
• Aching to be thinner than your girlfriends?
• Trying to earn more money than your siblings?
• Striving to outdo other teachers, dancers, or piecrust bakers so you can be best?
• Having your house guest-ready all the time?

Does failing to meet these goals make you feel sad (melancholy, disappointed, unhappy, crushed, inconsolable)?

My long-term goal for years has been to write and to have an outlet for my writing.

I have achieved those goals.

“Why,” I ask, “am I not content?”

Dan answers, “Deb, you need to learn to just be.”

“Be what?”

“Just be.”

“Okay. Tell me how to just be.”

“I can’t tell you how.”

“Okay. I’ll work on it.”

“You’re missing the point. Don’t work on it. Just be.”

“But I want to just be better than anyone else does!”

 

 

 

 

 

For Christmas, I asked for and received an adult-size, three-wheeled bike. I figured I had passed the age of being able to ride safely on a two-wheeled bike and was sure this oversized tricycle would be a cinch to handle.

I pictured myself pedaling confidently around the neighborhood, waving at the neighbors, my hair ruffling slightly in the wind, and pounds melting off my midsection at a record rate.

But. . .

I no longer believe those people who tell you if you have ever ridden a bike, you’ll always be able to ride one.

I cannot ride this bike. It is heavier, harder to steer, and much wider than a two-wheeled bike.

We live in a neighborhood with paved, flat streets and little traffic. If I can learn to get on, steer, stop, and get off, I should be good to go. I more than likely won’t need to change gears.

For some reason, once I plant myself on that bike seat, I freeze in fear. I am told that though it isn’t impossible to turn the bike over, it won’t tip over easily, and I don’t need to worry that it will.

I was on the bike at least half a dozen times before I pedaled it any distance at all. I was stiff, and terrified of not being able to stop the bike when I needed to.

Dan says I don’t sit straight in the saddle. I hunch my shoulders and lean markedly to the left and that’s why I always run off the driveway on the left side.

He suggested I practice riding in the cul-de-sac, but I wasn’t ready for neighbors to watch me.

Plus, I could imagine someone driving innocently by in a car and suddenly, like a bat out of a cul-de-sac, a big yellow machine maneuvered by a hunched over, left-leaning, crazy woman careens smack into their passenger side door.

I asked my adult daughter Lara to help me with it. She straddled the bike and was all the way down the driveway and headed toward the house next door before I could even ask her if she thought the seat was too high.

She watched me attempt to ride the bike from the center of the garage to the garage entrance.

Then she said, “Get off, Mom. I think you may have some neurological deficits.” (She is an occupational therapist.)

She set me in a chair and tested me by having me mimic some arm and leg movements she demonstrated. I was able to do each exercise easily.

We went back to the bike, I got on it in the driveway, and positioned a foot on each pedal. I sat.

I told the grandkids to go stand on the front porch.

“Go on, Mom,” she said. “You won’t tip over.”

Before I had ridden three feet she said, “Stop, Mom. Why are you hunching your shoulders and leaning to the left? You’re going to ride off the left edge of the driveway.”

I stopped, and she straightened me upright on the bike. She pushed my shoulders into the right position and told me to go.

I pedaled one or two rounds of the wheels. The peony bush on the left side of the driveway trembled.

Lara said, “Stop, Mom. You’re still hunching your shoulders and sitting on the left edge of your seat. And why are you looking down at the front wheel?”

I stopped. She readjusted my posture and lifted my chin, so I looked straight ahead.

“Try again,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I’ve had enough for one day. I’m going inside to take a nerve pill and lie down.”

This getting old business is the pits. I’ll bet I couldn’t even manage to fall off a log backwards.

THE BEAST

I am thankful for the five senses God gave me: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

I am envious, though, of those lucky people who possess a sixth sense.

I am not referring to ESP, but to a different, equally inexplicable sense some people demonstrate: a sense of direction.

I do not possess that sense.

In fact, I am probably the most directionally challenged person you will ever meet.

I never know exactly where I am in relation to other people, places, or things. I am not even confident of my location when I stand in front of one of those mall signs that read: You are here.

I attribute my lack of navigational skill outdoors to the fact that I grew up in rural Arkansas where every highway eventually became an unpaved road which eventually became a rutted, grassy lane which eventually ended at some creek.

We had no house numbers, no street signs, no traffic lights, and nothing we referred to as an “intersection,” although we did have several places where two roads met up with each other.

When people asked directions to someone’s house, we said something like, “Drive past the cemetery until you see the shot-up, cardboard deer that is used for target practice. Veer left there and drive until you get to the house where all the dogs run out and bark at your car. Then turn right and drive over the cattle grid, The first house you see is the one you want.”

Now that I live in a town, people expect me to find my way around using street signs.

Street signs, as a rule, are not helpful to me. Often the sign is missing when I really need it, or else the sign post has become twisted, making it impossible for me to tell which street is called what. Such signs only confuse me and make me suspect that what I originally thought was correct is probably wrong.

My lack of a sense of direction inside buildings may be even worse. When I leave an exam room at my doctor’s office, I see exit signs  all over the place. But these signs lie. Every exit sign I follow leads me to a new hallway with an exit sign at the end of it. I can exit all day long and never leave the building.

I hate big arenas that have gates, levels, doors, and rows labeled A, B, C,  or 1, 2, 3, etc. Sometimes words like north and south get thrown into the mix, making finding the place I am looking for even harder to locate.

An usher says to me, “Go to Gate C-16 on Level B-4,” as if she thinks those words mean something to me. When she sees my confusion she adds, “Just take elevator 9 on the north side of the building.”

My lack of a sense of direction does not mean I am mentally deficient.

I can work long division problems and convert the remainders to fractions or decimals.

I have won spelling bees.

And I would be a tough competitor in a game of Jeopardy if the categories were Nursery Rhymes, English Grammar, The Bible, Columbo Episodes, The 60s, and Neil Diamond song lyrics.

But unless that Jeopardy contest is held somewhere within sight of my house, someone else will have to drive me there.

I won’t find it on my own.

 

A follower provided some of the visual imagery for this piece.   Thank you, Jane C.!

I want a clean and tidy house.

But as I write that sentence, I am reminded of a theory I accept as truth.

Except in extreme cases which are out of our control, we usually manage to obtain what we want.

We buy a new coat. We pay someone to paint our living room. We learn a new skill.

The common factors in attaining what we want are these: a strong desire to have the thing plus the willingness to do what we must do to have it.

I desire a clean house, but often I am not willing to do what I must do to have it.

My plans for this day were to pick up and put away various displaced items; vacuum all carpets; mop my kitchen floor; and wash, dry, and put away a load of jeans. That sounds like a reasonable list of tasks to accomplish on a Saturday.

It is now 1:10 p.m. So far today I have:

1. Slept late. (I had not been sleeping well and took a sleep aid last night.)
2. Gone to visit my grandson and granddaughter.
3. Written this blog post.

Nothing is wrong with doing those things, other than doing them prevented me from reaching the goals I had set.

I have the desire to see my boring and onerous to-do list accomplished but achieving that goal would have cost me extra sleep, a visit with my grandchildren, and time spent writing.

I elected not to pay the price required to have a clean house.

Tomorrow is Sunday, and the chance that I will choose to pick up, vacuum, mop, and do laundry then is slim. I will instead go to church, visit with my kids and grandkids, do some writing, and take a nap.

Unless I deliberately elect to do something else, those are the things I will automatically do. They are my default settings. I am often shocked to realize I’ve spent hours doing them when it seemed like mere minutes.

Cleaning, mopping, vacuuming, doing laundry, etc. are tasks I must take care of at some time and I will. When I absolutely must.

But I am not drawn toward those tasks. I will not look at a clock and realize I have spent three hours dusting shelves when I had no intention to dust shelves.

I challenge you to determine what your default settings are. Do your findings surprise you?

If, while taking this inventory you discover your true passions are cleaning, vacuuming, mopping, and doing laundry, get in touch with me immediately.

Reminder: 

Visit www.upperroom.org on Friday, March 2, to read my newly published devotional based upon 1 Corinthians 2:12.

 

Dan and I got into the car this morning to drive to our son’s house.

As he started the engine, Dan looked through the windshield at his workshop that sat directly in front of the car.

“Hmmm,” he said. “That light always looks like it’s on even when it’s off.”

I looked toward the workshop.

“I don’t see a light on,” I said. “The only light I see is a little red indicator light on one of your tools.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“I just said the light in your shop doesn’t appear to me to be on.”

Dan shook his head.

“It never fails to amaze me how often you misunderstand me,” he said.

I braced for the next line.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Well, I looked at my shop, at the exterior light above the door of my shop to be exact, and said it appeared to be on.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Then,” he continued, “instead of looking at the prominent exterior light above the door, you looked all the way through the window of the shop, all the way to my work table in the back of the shop and saw a tiny red light.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “The way you said I looked ‘all the way through the window’ and ‘all the way to the back of the shop’ sounds accusatory, as if I should have known better.”

“Well,” he said, “Why wouldn’t you have looked at the closest light, the exterior one above the door of the shop?”

“I don’t know why,” I said. “Why didn’t you specify ‘the exterior light above the door of the shop’ when you made your first statement?”

“Because I thought you would know what I was talking about.”

“Well, I didn’t. Obviously, we miscommunicated, but my point is the way you said I looked ‘all the way through the window of the shop’ and ‘all the way to the back of the shop’ indicated to me that you think I was stupid to misunderstand you.”

“For crying out loud! I didn’t mean to indicate I think you are stupid. I don’t think you’re stupid. I simply don’t understand why when I said, ‘the light appears to be on even when it’s off,’ you wouldn’t assume I was talking about the light closest to us. Let’s not talk any more about it.”

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s talk about it a bit more.”

Dan groaned and laid his head on the steering wheel.

“You think this miscommunication is entirely my fault,” I said.

“No, I don’t. It just seems to me you should have understood what I was talking about without me having to explain it.”

“Well, when you realized I had misunderstood, you could have simply said, ‘No, I don’t mean the light inside the shop. I mean the exterior light.’”

“I wish to high heavens I had said that.”

“I wish you had too, but you didn’t. Instead, you emphasized that I missed the obvious and very unreasonably looked all the way into the shop and all the way to the back of the shop.”

“I wish I had never even mentioned that light,” he said, backing out of the drive.

“I wish you hadn’t either,” I said.

————————-

Please understand, readers, that I don’t always push my point as hard as I pushed this one, but occasionally I feel I must.

Especially when we are discussing important things. Like workshop lights.

My daughter says the thing she hates most of all is being cold. I believe her. When I ride with her, summer or winter, the temperature inside her car is at least 100 degrees.

What I hate worst is having to look for things.

My history of losing things goes way back. When I was in high school, I loved writing with fountain pens, fine point ones with blue ink. I still do, in fact. Back then, I almost looked forward to doing homework if I had my fountain pen.

I got off the bus about 100 yards from my house. One day when I got home from school, I discovered I had lost my pen.

I retraced my steps back to the bus stop to see if I had dropped it while walking home. Sure enough, there it lay, my red fountain pen, completely squashed in the middle of the road. A car had run over it.

That was a sad day, but here is the pathetic part. The exact same event occurred a few weeks later, this time with a blue fountain pen.

I routinely lose my car in parking lots. I try hard to remember where I parked my car before going into a store. Yet invariably, I later wind up pushing my loaded cart up and down parking aisles, frantically pressing the unlock button on my key fob, listening for the familiar beep signaling me that my car is nearby.

Often, I get myself lost.

I grew up in the country and our house was situated on a dirt road. I knew nothing about towns being laid out on grids. Most of our roads had no names. They were referred to in terms that made perfect sense to those of us who lived there. My friend, for example, lived on the dirt road near the old field where Mr. Shelton used to keep his cows.

Therefore, though I’ve lived in a “gridded” town for many years, I don’t trust the people who laid out those grids. To be on the safe side, when I drive to a new place, I turn around and return home by the exact same path.

Recently I picked up my four-year-old grandson from his preschool. I parked in front of the house in which his school is located. When we left, I drove halfway down the block in the same direction, turned my car around using someone’s driveway, and started home using the same route.

My grandson asked, “Grandma, why are you turning around in someone’s driveway?”

I answered, “So we can take the same street out of this neighborhood.”

He said, “Why don’t you just drive to the end of this street, turn right, turn right again, and you’ll get to the street we need?”

“Because that’s too hard,” I said.

Top among the things I look for is my phone. I average making a phone search five times a day.

My kids and grandkids laugh because whenever someone asks, “Where’s Grandma?” the rest of the people in the room join in a chorus of “Looking for her phone.”

I would consider wearing my phone inside a fanny pack except my hips are already wide enough. I carried it inside my bra until one day, while digging through a bin of frozen chicken pieces at the grocery store, I accidentally sent my sister a picture of my chest.

Remembering each time where I laid the phone down is, like making three right turns in an unfamiliar neighborhood, too hard.

If I could pull together all the hours I spend looking for things, say one hour each day, I would have an additional seven hours per week, 30 hours per month, 360+ hours per year to do other, more enjoyable, things.

Like recording a detailed inventory of everything inside my house using a fine-tipped fountain pen with blue ink.

Ahhhh

Dan and I cannot help each other on the computer.

Neither one of us is particularly adept in this area. He knows what he learned from working with pharmacy computers for many years.

I know what 25 years of trial and error, error, error, error and error have taught me. Mostly I know how to use Microsoft Word.

When we try to sync our knowledge of computers, we crash.

We both know how to Google, how to send and receive emails, how to create and save documents, and how to use the scanner and printer attached to our respective computers.

He knows how to upload photos from his camera to his computer, and I know how to upload photos from my iPhone to my computer.

I routinely send my photos to Walgreen’s or some other place to have prints made. I then put the photo prints into albums.

Ordinarily, Dan does not have his photos made into prints.

Last night I sent about 100 Christmas photos to Walgreen’s to have them made into prints.

Shortly after I finished sending them, we discovered that Dan had some Christmas photos on his camera that were different from the Christmas pictures I had on my phone.

“Why don’t you send those to Walgreen’s and have prints made?” I asked him.

“I don’t know how to do that,” he said.

“I can show you. Sit down at your computer for a minute.”

“Oh, you mean ‘why don’t I send these to Walgreen’s and have prints made RIGHT NOW.’”

“You don’t have to do it now, but I’m going in about an hour to pick up my prints. If you send yours now, I can pick up your prints too.”

I should have known by the way Dan grimaced and ran his hand down the back of his head and neck that this was a bad idea.

We positioned two chairs in front of his computer. We sat.

“Go to Walgreen’s photo website,” I said.

In his search window he typed www dot Walgreens dot com.

“No, not that website,” I said. “Their photo website.”

“I’m sure I can get to their photo page through their main Walgreen’s website,” he said.

Sure enough he could, but it seemed like the long way around, to me.

The photo website opened.

“Now scroll down,” I said.

He scrolled.

“No. Wait! Stop! Go back up.”

“You said scroll down.”

“I know I did but you scrolled too far.”

He went back up.

“See where it says prints and enlargements?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, you want to have prints made, so click where it says prints and enlargements.”

 He clicked on prints and enlargements. A new screen appeared.

“Now, click on prints and enlargements again,” I said.

“Why?” he aked. “I already clicked on prints and enlargements.”

“I know you did,” I said, “but you have to click on it again.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know why. That’s just what you have to do,” I said.

“Why can’t I just click here where it says upload photos?”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “Sure. Click there.”

He clicked. He was then instructed to select photos.

His computer’s Pictures folder opened.

“Now,” I said, “This is where you go into your Pictures folder and select the pictures you want to have made into prints.”

“My pictures aren’t in my Pictures folder,” he said.

“Sure they are,” I said.

“No, they are not,” he said. “They are in Picasa.”

“Oh,” I said, “then go into Picasa and get the ones you want.”

“How do I do that?” he asked.

“Well, you just find your photos and select the ones you want to have prints made of.”

“I know,” he said. “How do I do that?”

“What do you mean ‘how do I do that?’”

“How do I go into Picasa and select photos?”

“I don’t know, Dan,” I said. “I don’t use Picasa but you do, so just open Picasa, find your photos, and select the ones you want to have prints made of.”

“I understand that, Deb,” he said. “What I am asking is HOW do I do that?”

This is where I made a big mistake. I reached across his chest, clicked his mouse, and opened his Pictures folder.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m opening your Pictures folder.” I said. “Your pictures have to be in there.  That’s where pictures always are. That is why it is called your Pictures folder.”

“My pictures are not in my Pictures folder,” he said. “They’re in Picasa.”

His pictures were not in his Pictures folder.

“All right, Dan,” I said, “show me the Christmas photos on your computer.”

He showed me.

“Now, click on the photos you want to have prints made of,” I said.

“How do I do that?” he asked.

“How do you click?”

“No, I know how to click.”

“Then click,” I said, “on the pictures you want to . . .”

“Deb,” he said.

His face was getting red.

“You are not listening to me.”

“Yes, I am,” I said.

“No, you’re not,” he said. “You are not answering the question I am asking you.”

“Yes, I am,” I said.

“No, you’re not. I feel just like Nicky in that Lucille Ball movie about the long trailer. You’re not making any sense.”

I stood and walked into the hallway.

“I’m going to Walgreen’s now to get my pictures,” I said.

“Thank goodness.”

 

(From my iPhone)