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)

I’ve been a bit miffed at my pharmacy lately.

Early in the week I received a text advising me to come in for a pneumonia shot. My not-so-young age now renders me more susceptible to this bacterial infection.

I went into the pharmacy and a young technician approached the window to help me. She asked what I needed and I told her. She spent several minutes looking at my “profile” on her computer screen. Finally she asked the pharmacist to help her decide what should be done.

After the pharmacist had studied the screen for a while he said, “You cannot receive your pneumonia injection yet. You need to wait a full year following your first injection before you get your second one.”

I couldn’t remember if or when I had received my first injection, but I took the computer’s word for it when it said I shouldn’t yet have a second one.

A few days later I received another text that read, “We are still holding your pneumonia vaccination for you. Please come in as soon as possible to receive the injection.”

This time instead of going to the pharmacy, I called. A technician answered.

“Tell me again what we said in the text we sent you,” she said.

I told her.

“No,” she said. “We are not holding a pneumonia vaccination for you.”

“But I received a text from you stating that you were holding one.”

“I see no evidence that we sent you a text,” she said.

Now before you jump to the conclusion that I was at the wrong pharmacy, allow me to assure you I was at the right one. I use the same pharmacy for all my medications. This time it is the other party, not I, who is responsible for the confusion.

I am confident the pharmacist will untangle this mess, and I will eventually receive the second pneumonia injection as recommended by the CDC.

I am taking this opportunity, since this is a pharmaceutically-themed article, to address those of you who frequent pharmacies for your prescription medications.

My husband Dan is a retired pharmacist, and the following points are based on conversations I have had with him.

• Most pharmacists are extremely busy, probably busier today than ever before due to the growing list of federal and state regulations they must follow. They are not allowed to cut corners when filling prescriptions simply because a long line of customers has formed at the counter.
• Your pharmacist knows much more about prescription drugs than the non-pharmacist person standing in line behind you telling you the pharmacist is giving you bad information.
• Your pharmacist has no control over your insurance company, who determines how much you will pay for your prescriptions and how often you may have them refilled. Neither can he/she control your ex-spouse, who has stopped paying insurance premiums, thus rendering your children uninsured. No amount of yelling at the pharmacist will change these facts.
• Please resist embarrassing yourself, pharmacy personnel, and other customers by calling your offending ex-spouse or insurance company on your phone and reading them an expletive-filled riot act while you stand at the pharmacy counter.
• Do not plan to stop by your pharmacy to pick up your prescriptions on your way out of town for an extended time. Take care of this important pre-travel task ahead of time. Any number of situations may cause the pharmacist not to be able to fill the prescription while you wait. Lamenting that your family is waiting for you in the parking lot in a car packed for vacation will not make a difference.
• Please comply pleasantly when pharmacy personnel ask to see your ID. They do not make the laws regarding the purchase of certain drugs. They merely enforce them. Yes, you still need to provide ID even if you use the drive-thru window and even if the time is after 10:00 p.m. Dan once had to explain this to an angry drive-thru customer who shouted back, “No one carries their ID with them at night!”

Pharmacists deal with unpleasant people every day. In fact, being forced to deal with those people is one reason my husband retired earlier than he had planned.

Though I am sure you are not such a person, maybe these reminders will help you be a bit more patient with pharmacy personnel.

Sometimes a little patience is just what the doctor ordered.

I grew up in the South, and as a child I heard words, phrases, idioms, etc. that are not commonly heard in the North, where I now live. One such phrase is fixing to.

I hear the single word fixing here in Indiana, but seldom do I hear the phrase fixing to.

For example, in the North people fix flat tires, fix dinner, and fix their hair, just as people do in the South. Northerners also speak of fixed rates and fixed incomes. Rarely, however, is anyone or anything in the North fixing to do anything.

The phrase fixing to is essentially the same as the phrase about to, but with a slightly stronger meaning. Fixing to as we used it when I was growing up in Arkansas carried a sense of immediacy that about to didn’t quite capture.

The phrase about to worked fine in some sentences. For example, a Southern woman might have said, “Guess what! I’m about to become a grandmother!”

A few moths later though, that same woman might be heard to say, “I’m fixing to tell my daughter to put a cap on that baby’s head!”

Down South, we routinely heard sentences like these.

“It’s fixing to rain.”

“School is fixing to start.”

“I’m fixing to spank your bottom.”

I don’t know what we would have done without that useful phrase. For example, if Mom asked me if I had done my homework, I often responded, “No, but I’m fixing to.” Enough said.

Dad often told us kids to clear all of our stuff out of the yard because he was fixing to mow. Dad didn’t need to add the words “right now” to his instructions because we knew if he was fixing to mow the yard, he didn’t mean later today.

On Sunday morning we kids were encouraged to get a move on because “It’s a quarter to ten and we’re fixing to be late for church!” We complied because we knew anyone walking into church late was fixing to get the evil eye from the on-time arrivers.

Most of us grew up using terms that other people are not familiar with. For example, some people (not I) say, “I carried my grandpa to the grocery store.” Of course they mean they drove him there. Other people refer to shopping carts as buggies and to bottles of pop as bottles of soda. (How can some people be so wrong?)

And depending upon where you grew up, those Sunday get-togethers when church members take food and share it after the worship service are either potlucks, pitch-ins, basket dinners, or covered-dish meals.

I try to be tolerant and sensitive with word anomalies used by people who grew up differently from me, but it isn’t always easy.

A few years ago I taught the Cradle Roll class with a woman who grew up farther south of the Mason-Dixon Line than I did. One Sunday she and I were using a flip chart and leading our baby students in singing the song, If I Plant a Button, Will It Grow?

When we came to the end of the song, I sang: “A button’s not a living thing so it won’t grow. God didn’t plan for buttons to grow.”

My friend sang: “A button’s not a living thing so it won’t grow. God didn’t aim for buttons to grow.” Same theology expressed in different words.

But her “aim for” struck me as so funny I had to turn and look away because I knew I was fixing to laugh.

I am not a fan of social media.

First of all, I dislike social media because it was not designed for people my age. We resist buying things that cause us to pull out our hair and run screaming for help from our kids.

Please understand that I am not opposed to all electronic devices. After resisting, I finally learned to use three remote controls to operate our TV. I have made peace with using a “virtual teller” at the bank. I have even become a little less impatient when listening to a recorded list of menu options before talking to a real person on the phone.

But becoming accustomed to electronics wasn’t easy.

I know it was easy for you in the under-50 age group. That is because you are “native” electronics users. You cut your teeth on an iPod. I, on the other hand, am an “immigrant” to this land of electronics. I don’t know the landscape and have not learned the language. I am not sure I want to live here permanently, as if I have a choice.

I do not like social media because I rarely see anyone’s face anymore. What I see are the outer edges of a face that appear around the phone in front of it. This is particularly disturbing when the person is driving a car or leading a toddler across a busy street.

I don’t like social media because it gives people an opportunity to rant, criticize, campaign, promote products, forward other’s people’s opinions, brag, and inform anyone who is interested that they are going to Starbucks for a pumpkin cinnamon latte. Can anyone say TMI?

I do not like social media because in some cases, the use of it ruins lives. People fall victim to scams and unwittingly expose their children to sexual predators. Marriages are ruined when one partner connects with an old love interest and rekindles a one-time romance.

I do not like social media because it provides yet one more way for people to know specific details about me without actually knowing me. Via Facebook you may learn I am a fan of the Dateline series and enjoy scrapbooking, but those facts reveal little of who I am.

Truly knowing me requires personal interaction, eye contact, body language, and sincere back-and-forth conversation. Most of all, it requires time spent with me.

Some people think because I resist using social media, I am not engaged with the world around me. They assume I don’t care about current issues; I don’t want to stay in contact with friends and family; and I am, in fact, ignorant and antisocial.

I suspect I have lost friends because I failed to accept their friend requests.

But true friends should know I was not rejecting them. I was rejecting the social medium they were using. I reject that medium for the reasons I have already listed.

If you are my friend, it is not because you requested, via an electronic device, to be friended by me. It is because I know you well and I care about you. I look forward to seeing you and receiving your hugs, which social media will never be able to provide.

Don’t even try to tell me that { } is the equivalent of a real hug. If you do, I may give you a virtual punch in the nose.

My husband and I have reached that unenviable age when the sense of hearing diminishes. Rarely does either of us get to say anything only once. The most often heard questions in our house are: “What did you say?”, “What’s that again?”, and “Don’t you know I can’t hear you when I’m in the bedroom and you’re in the kitchen?”

Because Dan and I were having trouble hearing/understanding each other, I had my hearing checked. After the test the audiologist told me my hearing fell within normal limits, but there was one particular tone I could not hear in either ear.

I explained this test result to Dan and speculated that maybe that singular tone is the tone into which his voice naturally falls. That could explain why I fail to hear him.

So now, in addition to calling out to Dan, “What did you say?” and “Speak up!” I can also legitimately yell, “And don’t talk to me in that tone of voice!”

I love it.

Hearing well is important. In fact failing to hear or mishearing can be dangerous and lead to comical or unfortunate results. “The mare will be shod at noon,” can be heard as “The mayor will be shot at noon.”

I am reading a novel in which the main character, a musician, got a chance to play his guitar with a well-known musical artist at an outdoor concert. It was evening, and the sky played with the sunbeams, creating many beautiful colors.

At some point while he was playing, the amateur guitarist heard his idol artist say, “Man! This guy’s great!”

He savored that compliment for years.

Eventually though, he realized that what the renowned musician had actually said was not, “Man! This guy’s great!” He had said, “Man! This sky’s great!”

I am a word nerd and enjoy, in a sick sort of way, hearing mispronounced and misused words and phrases. Very often I hear, “For all intensive purposes.” The actual phrase is “For all intents and purposes.” Though some people say, “Nip it in the butt,” the actual phrase is “Nip it in the bud.”

Hymnal lyrics are often misheard. Low in the Grave He Lay becomes “Low in the Gravy Lay.” Gladly the Cross I’d Bear is heard as “Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear.” And from Victory in Jesus, instead of He Sought Me and Bought Me, some hear, “He socked me and boxed me.” (All right, I stole that last one from Google.)

As I have already indicated, I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to the written and spoken English language. I once bought a Sara Lee cheesecake and read on the box Nobody Doesn’t Like Sara Lee. I had heard that jingle a thousand times when I had perfect hearing, and I knew the correct words were Nobody Does It Like Sara Lee.

I called the company’s 800 number to set them straight. The woman on the phone listened to me patiently and then told me, “Our slogan is Nobody Doesn’t Like Sara Lee.”

“What?” I asked. “But that can’t be right!  Nobody Doesn’t is a double negative!”

“We know,” she said, “but it works for us.”

I hate it when wrong is right.