And You Are . . .?

I don't know how many of the possibly 'just a handful' of people reading this blog paid any attention to the user name I gave myself for here -- The Scribbler -- but if they have, they'll see it has changed. The Scribbler was a rather random name, one I came up with when I was feeling as though I scribbled more than anything else. But pretty near anywhere else I post or write or comment on the internet, I use the moniker of crosscribe. So hence the change by the lovely black-and-white picture of the coffee cup. :-)

It has been a topsy-turvy week in my neck of the woods. My dad is in a hospital two hours away awaiting a surgery which was supposed to happen last Friday, was postponed, and is now booked to happen in 'the next day or two'. All this is after the surgery he was supposed to have the Friday before *that* was scrapped in favour of another surgery being performed. To say it has been crazy does not fully cover it. I am amazed at my mother's strength. And it's not that she hasn't become frustrated or impatient . . . but she doesn't stay there. She prays, she seeks wise counsel, and she carries on.

Breaking

It's hard to break habits. Granted, the habit needing to be changed was not formed overnight, so it would follow it won't be changed overnight (if such were not the case, the 'self help' section at bookstores would be much smaller). But do not be fooled -- the working out of the old habit and the establishment of a new one is going to take, well, work!

Yet one does not need to be discouraged, for as Paul wrote in Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

And as a rather . . . flighty fish said in Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. . . "

Relax

My husband and I, for the second year in a row, were blessed with the opportunity to create some Ukranian Easter eggs this past Sunday (Google if you don't know what they are). And I must say, I'm pretty pleased with how they all turned out. True, both of us can nitpick with our a bit and let each other know why this or that doesn't look as it should on them. But given we don't do this on a regular basis, I'd say we did pretty well with them!

Part of the difference for me this year was I managed to relax about the whole process a bit more. I didn't have it in my head I needed to create a work of art or anything. I just needed to (or try to at any rate!) take my time and just enjoy the process. And I could just have fun with it.

I'm starting to realize, too, how I need to be this way as a Christ-follower. No, I'm not supposed to be lazy, sitting around and letting all those around me go about the work of the kingdom. But I'm not supposed to compare myself to others (Gal. 6:4-5), nor am I to carry around all my worries and/or concerns (1 Peter 5:7). I'm to be who God created me to be, doing what He made me to do. Because when I compare myself to others or worry about this, that and the other, I will often end up finding myself confused as to God's will and wandering down some road I need never to have travelled.

In Psalm 119:11 the psalmist wrote of how he had hidden God's Word in his heart so he would not sin against God. And that's what I need to remember to do for all areas of my life, too. When I focus on God, get His Word into me and allow it to be worked out in my life then I'm not all in a knot about what others are doing or what I'm not doing. Why? Well, I'd dare say it's because I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and my focus is right.

Oi, I could ramble on for a bit here (and with the time since my last post, could afford to!), but speaking of getting some work done ...

Hmpf

This whole 'post on Friday' thing, as you may have noticed, is not exactly working out. Maybe I should just aim to update on a monthly basis instead . . .

Ahhhh!

So here I am at home, happily clicking away on my computer with this 'n' that before realizing, once again, I have not managed to do a proper blog update on the new update day. :-P

Not good, to say the least.

But a teaser of what's to come: Sometimes God likes to do things backwards. Okay, more accurately, He does things in a way which seems backwards to *us*, but when we take the time to actually take a proper look at things, it makes a grace-full amount of sense.

A New Day, Perhaps?

So I'm sitting here with many things around me that need to be taken care of, and I'm realizing I need to change my schedule. Oh, not my work schedule because that's set by people other than me and I really have no complaints about it. No, I'm realizing I need to change my 'non-work' work schedule. You know, housework and writing and family time and all that.

I used to clean houses for a living, and found the most popular days were immediately before or immediately after the weekend. The former wanted things to look nice for any company and the like, the latter wanted things cleaned up after the company had left. Some people had me come on both a Friday and a Monday, to experience the best of both worlds as it were.

Growing up, my mom got her laundry and the 'big' cleaning of the house done at the start of the week. She still does, in fact. Then it's done and out of the way and she only needs to spiff things up as the weekend approaches. I used to do that myself, but have tried other things the last little while that haven't worked out too well (a.k.a. working on my mad procrastinating skills, which I need to change!). Honestly, as the week progresses I want to be able to tackle other projects. And one of those is writing.

As such, a new goal will be to update this blog on Fridays instead of (in the fits-n-starts I had been accomplishing the task) on Mondays.

So all three of my followers, you have been notified. ;-)

Musings

I grew up in a small town
Wheat fields for a downtown kind of place

--Paul Brandt, “Small Towns and Big Dreams”

Under the auspices of doing research for a novel I'm working on, I headed out to the town I grew up in awhile back to refresh myself with the scenery. It was the first time in recent memory I was there without my husband, parents, and/or siblings. I wasn't going with the intent of looking up any of my old friends who still live there (though I did see a couple of familiar faces). I wasn't so much trying to reconnect as I was trying to re-familiarize myself with things. I wanted to see how good my memory actually was in regards to some of the 'particulars' – an important thing for me to do as the town has changed over the years.

And yes, there was a degree of nostalgia mixed in as well. Driving around the building I spent the last five years of my pre-university education, I remembered waiting for the school bus – and later heading out to the car in the parking lot on the days I was allowed to drive in – mixed in with visits with friends and the faces of teachers. There were the things I thought were so important back then (the usual things we stumble through, I think, on our way to adulthood) and the confines I am, quite frankly, thankful to be free of. And I realized not only has the physical location of my 'growing up' years changed, but I have changed as well. I've married. I've moved to a different small town. I've made new friends, done things I never thought I would when I first ventured out of my home town and away from the expectations of others. And I thank God for where I am now.

There is truth to the saying about not being able to go home again. Okay, physically you can go home again. But what I think the saying means is you can't go back to your past. You can go to your childhood home, but you may find your room has been converted to the grandkids' room and the bitty TV is now downstairs and the layout of the kitchen is totally different and sure, get rid of the squeaks in the hallway floor now that we're all out of the house!

Ahem . . .

So I can go and visit my parents in their home and wander down the streets I would often hurry down on my way to one place or another. But I can't recapture fully who I was back then or the way things were when I was growing up. I'm further up the path with new things to see and old things to possibly see in a new way.

To quote a certain fictional traveller: Allons-y!