Are You Smarter Than A Japanese I.T. Worker?

At my job, I work with a lot of extremely smart people. Especially around there, I don't consider myself to be anything but average. But in general terms, I know that God has given me a logical mind. I know that I'm able to think, reason, and learn. If I were to speak honestly, I would admit that I'm no dummy. However, I sure felt like one trying to solve this IQ problem my co-worker gave me. If you're brave, click this link, download the test and see how you do. (You need Microsoft Excel to view the file). Good luck!

No Justification!

I'm learning a bunch of new things in my writing class. They tell me it's the proper way, but I'm not so sure I believe them. I've posted before that because of what I like to call my "Monkish" tendencies, I have this compulsion to keep things orderly. I believe in my heart that paragraphs should be justified on both sides. Nice and neat. Perfectly straight. However, my writing mentor says that I should not justify the right side of my paragraphs. I'm not sure I believe it's true, but in the name of education, you'll notice that my paragraphs are no longer fully justified. I'll hold to the teaching as long as I can stand it. It's a jungle out there...

Age is a Relative Matter

Getting old stinks. Those of you who are younger than me are probably thinking, "Yeah, I bet it does, old lady." Those of you around my age are probably thinking, "Girl, you got that right." and those of you older than me are probably thinking, "You ain't seen nothing yet!"

In the long hours that I waited around the hospital while the pastor had open heart surgery, I have to admit, I felt pretty young. There weren't very many other 37 year old wives sitting around the cardiac waiting room (actually none). I felt proud of myself each time I climbed the 60 stairs to the 3rd floor where his room was, rather than ride the elevator with everyone else. (When you hang around ICU with a loved one who has just had heart surgery, you have this sudden and overwhelming urge to do healthy things like "take the stairs".)

Since we've returned home, the chores have fallen mostly to me (and any help I can scrounge up). One thing we're very excited about around our house is the arrival of what passes for a lawn. It's not perfect; It has some weeds mixed in, but hey, it's green and we mow it and we're thrilled after 2 years of mud and dirt in the yard. However, this new, exciting lawn is large and needs to be mowed often, so I've found myself pushing a mower quite a bit (which I really haven't done much of since my little brother got old enough to run the lawn mower for my Dad and I was relieved of my mowing duties in about 1985).

In the midst of all this stair climbing, lawn mowing, and filling in for my husband as my son's wrestling partner while Daddy is healing, I've noticed something strange. My left hip hurts. Those words sting, even as I write them. "My HIP hurts". That's something I didn't figure would be coming out of my mouth for another 20 years, at least! This can't be happening. I'm young. There's no way my hip can hurt. I can have sore muscles, I can be tired, I'm even okay with an achy lower back...but my hip....no way!

I guess I'll have to take some Tylenol Arthritis along with my cholesterol medicine from now on. I might as well add Geritol to the growing list of pills I take. Getting old stinks.

Blogging from the "Heart"

I suppose it's about time I got back to my blog. Many of you know the reason I've been away for a few weeks...quadruple bypass, open heart surgery. Not my heart, but my husband's. They prepared us that he would be in the hospital for 5-7 days. I knew I would have hours on end of boredom, so I figured I'd get in some good blogging time. I didn't expect what actually happened (isn't that an understatement that's true of our lives?). The surgery was very successful and I patiently (well, sort of patiently) sat and waited during the days of recovery in ICU and CCU. I had a thick book and my laptop with me for those long hours of sitting. I figured I would read and write the hours away. Wrong. I tried to read and couldn't concentrate for more than a page or two. I tried to write and couldn't put a coherent sentence together. It was a strange feeling and one I can't explain. I couldn't do anything. I just sat there.

It's 13 days past surgery and the pastor is doing well. He's bored beyond belief, but each day he makes progress and we're praising God for his protection and provision. You can tell, I haven't completely got my blogging game back, but life is slowly returning to normal (whatever that is) and maybe someday soon, I'll have something worthwhile to say. For now, thanks from the bottom of our "hearts" to all our family and friends who have been praying us through.