Animal Angels

Has anyone else noticed that the most uplifting world stories lately usually involve animals? This past week I have read about the female sperm whale who after divers had worked hard to free her from a life threatening entanglement of fishing lines and traps, returned to the boat after a joyous swim and thanked each and every person by nudging them gently.

There was the story of a small abandoned dog who had adopted a five week old kitten and refused to be rescued without it. Then a story of a chimpanzee rejected by it's mother. Zoo keepers placed it with a mastiff who had a litter of four pups. The chimp is loving and being loved by the mom dog and it's dog siblings. There are so many stories of cross breed mothering.

I remember the story from a few years ago of a lioness who went without eating for a number of days while it tried to keep a baby gazelle alive. Nobody knows why. This week there was also a piece about a terrier and a baby fox who have become great friends after the dog's owner found the fox pup.

Who can forget the story of the mother dog that made numerous trips into a burning building to carry out each of her babies. Or the dog who picked up a garbage bag and carried it home. It's owners checked the bag and found a newborn baby! Or the dog that slept on and around an abandoned baby, keeping it warm in the cold, dark night until they were found.

Then there is the story of the grieving pitbull who stayed by it's dead mate for over 12 hours. She had been run over by a car that didn't even bother to stop but her companion would not leave her. We've all been touched by the dogs who mourn their owners passing by visiting grave sites to touching coffins to waiting for them to get off the train.

Hundreds of stories abound of animals saving their humans from all kinds of danger. The ones that touch me the most are the dogs that sense subtle dangers. There was the dog who went crazy in his owners bedroom until they woke up and checked their new baby who had stopped breathing.

Or the newly adopted cat (just adopted that day) who sensed his new owner slipping into a diabetic low in her sleep. This cat sat on her chest and slapped her face until she woke up enough to call for her son. The son, however, did not hear her. This cat ran to his room and sat on his chest slapping him until he awoke and checked his mother. In some cases it can be said that the animal is so familiar with it's owners that it knew something was different. But not this time. This cat was completely unfamiliar with the people and it's surroundings and yet, it knew. It was an older cat and had been someones beloved pet so the shelter must have truly felt like prison to it. I think it was so grateful to be part of a family again that it bonded quickly and was determined to show its gratitude.

I watched a montage of pictures involving our troops and the cats and dogs that they befriended in the war zone. Even in hell, God sends reminders of gentler, kinder times. These animals help them to retain their humanity in an inhumane place. They bring comfort and love when it is most needed. And our soldiers give love back.

My favorite story of the past week happened somewhere in South America. A young girl walking home was grabbed by an older man and being dragged off. We can probably guess for what. A pack of wild street dogs heard her screaming and ran to her rescue. They attacked the man, who let go of the girl. She ran home and the dogs moved on. Who says there aren't angels?

So, today, I thank God for animals and the lessons they teach us, the unconditional love they give us, and for the wonderful examples of how we should really be. They are still listening to their small inner voices even when most of us are not. As a matter of fact, I think that the animals are becoming more human and the humans are becoming more animal like. Does anyone remember “Planet of the Apes”?

That's the view from my side of the street, what's yours?

Choose to Love

“Each and everyday we have a choice, we have a choice to either love that person in front of us or not. It is the relationships that you build over the years that is the most important thing in life. Everything else is just an illusion.” This is a statement made recently by a dying man. It is one of the most true things ever uttered.

In my teens, I read a book called “On Death and Dying” by Dr. Kubler-Ross. She had dedicated her life to learn as much as possible about the process of dying. Her research changed many things about the way doctors viewed terminal cases as well as setting a standard that helped clarify the grieving process. It was a remarkable book.

One of the most valuable lessons in the book for me was that when someone knew their days were numbered they took great care to spend those last few precious hours carefully. They chose to use the time left to them in meaningful ways. They shared feelings, thoughts and stories that had never been shared. They looked back and regretted the things that had diverted them from family or friend time. They all seemed to realize the truth of what was important. Not one of those she had interviewed said they regretted not spending more time at work. Most of them wished they had spent more time with their loved ones.

This hit me hard at the time. I had recently lost a beloved grandmother. She had helped my single mom raise me. We were close but the last year of her life found me busy with high school, activities and dates. She had not been ill. There was no reason to think she wouldn't be around for awhile. And being a typical self centered teenager I had not made much time for her in my life. Then she was gone.

My regrets were overwhelming. I realized the hard way that nothing I had been spending my time on was more important than the time I could have been spending with her. The time now lost to me for the rest of my life.

The years have seen me losing important relationships for many reasons. The holes that are left by those losses can never be filled. Be grateful for the relationships you have. Tell people you love them. Make time for them. Because we never know when that opportunity will be lost to us. That's the view from my side of the street, what's yours?

The Rythyms of Life

Until January of 2013, my husband worked for a local ConAgra food plant in the trucking division. His schedule was pretty erratic. We never knew what day he was getting off until the night before. He left home at two-thirty pm every day to start work at three-thirty. This was our only constant. His return home was anytime between midnight and four am.

We adjusted our lifestyle to fit the job. He slept most days until one-thirty. I did quiet things during his sleeping time, writing, reading, exercise etc. I usually stayed in my pajamas until after he left. I did all my housework while he was gone as well as my outside the home stuff. My usual bedtime was midnight after I had made a meal of some sort for him to eat upon his arrival home. I didn't get up until around eleven. I wanted some sleeping with my husband time. This was awkward but we made it work.

Since the first of January my husband's already erratic job has become even more so. He was switching positions and shifts to help keep the old company keep going. Mostly we had a few days warning, sometimes not. This affected all areas of our lives, transportation, family events, sleeping patterns, even how and what we ate became involved. My shopping habits had to change. My refrigerator kept being rearranged to accommodate the “new” food that best suit our schedule with each change.

May brought even more changes as the new trucking company took over and we had to adjust to their way of doing things as well as different shifts and positions as again he helped the new company get started. His job became a day to day change. He even had a few days that he was told he had off only to be called in by someone else who had him on the schedule.

June brought my two daughters full time for six weeks into the mix with their own busy schedules. I've already written about that. I didn't realize how much stress this had all been to me until this past week. I have a plaque that reads, “Blessed are the flexible for they shall never be bent out of shape.” I am pretty adaptable.

But last week the girls went back to their dad's house and my husband finally started the job he had been hired on to do. I realized how exhausting it had all been and kind of crashed. Hence, no blogs and not much of anything else.

Our new schedule is one we've never had in our almost nine years of marriage. And neither of us had it in our past marriages for quite a number of years. It is the much coveted (much dreaded) day shift! Our days now start at 5 am, a time I haven't seen for a long time. He now comes home for dinner every night (another thing I haven't had to do for a long time) and we are in bed by ten pm. I am changing everything again but hopefully this will stick for awhile. I'm not quite ready to take the blackout curtains off our bedroom windows but I am thinking about it.

People for generations lived with the regularity of rarely changing schedules. The rhythms of life ebbed and flowed with the seasons of life as well as with the seasons of the earth. There was a surety and a simplicity that built great foundations in everyone's lives. It was important.

Today's world has lost those valuable rhythms. After the last six months I know why everyone has sleeping and depression problems. We are out of sync with those rhythms and it's making us crazy. That's the view from my side of the street, what's yours?

Little Things

A new friend came to my home for the first time recently. She and her young teenage daughters had just moved here from a big city in the middle of the country. She loves small towns. My small town is a pretty awesome one and as I listed it's amenities it sounded even cooler than it is.

I told her about the quilting club, the garden club, concerts in the park on Monday nights, movies in the park on Friday nights, our popular 4^th of July celebrations, our community garden and anything else I could think of. I took them to see our beautiful marina park and campground on the Columbia River. I showed them favorite swimming spots. They were impressed and fell in love.

I shared with them the summer activity schedule for children and youth set up at the park every year. There is even a bus to transport kids to and from. I took them to see our police department, city hall, banks, hardware and grocery stores.

Then I brought them home. They said my home was homey and welcoming. They loved the chickens, bunnies, dogs and cats. They loved my tiny garden. The girls were in awe of my girls ability to drive the yard tractor around. My flower beds were praised. It was generally thought that my home was a peaceful, beautiful spot and again they fell in love.

And I think I did too...fall in love again with my home and my town. It is so easy for us to slip into the hole of seeing all the things we don't have or all the things that are so hard or all the things we are waiting for or the projects we haven't done yet. When this happens, we lose sight of all that we have. We forget about our daily blessings and settle for the discontent of “if only”.

I just found a plaque that reads “Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things.” I'm hanging it in a prominent place in my bathroom so I can read it every day. I'm hoping that I'll be able to live it. That's the view from my side of the street, what's yours?

Ant Wars

I have a favorite gratitude attitude story I share often. It is taken from Corrie Ten Boom's “The Hiding Place”. If you have never read this book I highly recommend it. It's in my top ten list. Corrie and her sister are in a concentration camp for hiding Jewish people during WW2. The first night there, they promise to continue their nightly ritual of thanking God for everything in their lives. It is Corrie's turn to pray that night and her sister insists that they thank God for the fleas that are epidemic in their barrack. She feels that God is in charge of ALL things so the fleas must be there for a reason. Corrie gives thanks for the fleas very grudgingly.

Much later they find that the flea epidemic is the reason that the guards rarely come into the barracks. This is a blessing in a number of ways, not least is the fact that they are able to have nightly devotions to God with the other inmates and a smuggled in Bible. At that point, they truly felt thankful for the fleas.

I recently had a similar situation. I have written before about the regular invasions of ants that is a part of life in this area. In fact, we joke that the entire town of Boardman was built on an anthill. It's not far from the truth. The first year in this place was a nightmare until we got things under control. Since then, we have had seasonal sporadic bursts of ant activity in the kitchen but nothing that some poison traps and cinnamon couldn't handle.

The day before the 4^th I noticed increased activity which I blamed the high heat for. I opened up a few extra poison packets, placed them strategically and went to bed. I couldn't believe my eyes the next morning. We, literally, had hundreds of ants parading across the counters, through the cupboards, down the walls and across the floor. They were everywhere!! I did what I could in the little time I had that day. I found a few food sources and quickly eliminated them. I placed out every gooey ant bait we had. By the end of the day, baits that usually lasted for months had been emptied in one day. I wanted to torch the house!

We got through our day somehow. The next day found me at Home Depot filling my cart with outside poison powder, inside spray poison and more of the sugar baits. I had declared war!! I spent the next two days cleaning everything, pulling everything (bookcase, appliances, furniture, dishes, food, etc.) out and spraying the entire perimeter of the house.

I did the same outside with the powder stuff. I spread it around the whole base of the house, in the gardens, even in places where they were bad in the yard. I did not enjoy this because I truly hate to kill anything but it was self-defense. The ants had fired the first shot. I was not going to lose this battle.

The good news is it worked. I am ant free except for the few that come in on the dog or us. I have decided to follow this regime every fall and spring to avoid future invasions. I hope we don't die of toxic shock in the meantime.

The best parts, though, are the blessings I received because of this invasion. My girls finally cleaned their rooms. Yeah! My house is clean in areas that haven't been touched for a long time. My books are all better organized because we had to remove them to move the bookcases. I found some I didn't know I had ( I'm reading “Gone with the Wind” now). I got rid of a bunch of stuff. I organized my “office” space in the living room, something I've put off for awhile. I found many “lost” items and also some very precious family memorabilia. In short, looking back, I realize that I am indeed, thankful for the ants.

If only I can remember this lesson the next time something like this happens. That's the view from my side of the street, what's yours?

Summertime Parenting

If there is anything harder than having a house full of teenagers, it has got to be having them part-time. It is hard enough being a part-time parent. Contrary to what my girls believe, I don't sit around the house just waiting for their visits. I have worked hard to fill the void that not having them around causes. Maybe too hard because my already full life bulges and threatens to break at the seams when it crashes into the full time parenting of summer.

And having my girls for a couple of weekends a month doesn't help much. I can devote most of my time to them during those weekends. This spoils all of us because we can't follow that pattern in the summer or nothing would get done.

So each summer finds us readjusting to living with each other full time. It's hectic and tumultuous at first. Their father's home and mine have very different operating principles. Habits formed there must be left there. I don't accept them here. My ordinarily quiet alone days are now full of noise, activity, TV shows and arguments.

One daughter was trying to convince me that I knew a lot of songs from this one singer. I didn't recognize his name and I only knew one of his songs. When I mentioned that I don't listen to the radio much she balked. “Mom, you have it on in the car everyday.” I replied that I was only in the car everyday to take her to cheer practice. She just couldn't believe it when I said that many weeks I only go to the grocery store and to church. Both five minutes away in my small town.

But we do adjust. We begin to relax and open up to each other. I have a chance to get to know my daughters in a way that four days a month don't allow. The days smooth into a daily rhythm and all is sweet for a few short weeks.

Each year finds us scrambling to get them ready for Girl's Camp, something that is done on my time and with my church. It's important and faith building. I wouldn't have them miss it for the world but it does take a big chunk of my precious time. This year, they will go to camp and then back to their father's the next day. I dropped them off yesterday morning and came home to my quiet, orderly home, devastated once again at having to say good bye so soon. It never seems long enough.

It is impossible to measure the wear and tear that my mother's heart goes through with all of these arrangements. I can so understand the parents that stay away from their children. In the short run it saves the anguish of the never ending good byes that feel like losing them all over again.

But in the long run, it hurts the children so much more to not have involvement with both of their parents. And I am holding out for the long run. As a matter of fact, the long run is what keeps me hanging in there day after day, heart break after heart break. I want what will be best for my children here on earth and in the eternities. Life is not a sprint, it is an endurance race.

So I will go to my bed and sob my pain out. I will beg the heavens to give me the strength I need. I will beg that same strength for all my children. I will work hard to put the pieces of my fragmented life together and trust that someday it will be a beautiful picture with all the pieces of the puzzle complete. In the meantime, I better find some tissues. That's the view from my side of the street, what's yours?

Heaven...just a click away?

When I was little I imagined heaven to be a sunny window seat with lots of cushions placed in an endless library with an equally endless supply of fresh crisp apples. Spending eternity reading and learning everything I wanted to know was as close to perfection as I could imagine.

As I grew and the world around me changed, I added a movie screen to my heavenly room. I wanted this movie screen to show real events that had happened in the world. I wanted to be able to see and experience events I had not been around for. I also wanted to experience things I might never have a chance to here, like...Broadway plays...a night at the Met...watch how movies are made, etc.

A little older and I decided that the ability to see places and to meet people from all around the world must be added. Circumventing the globe might not be something I could manage in my life time but I wanted to. If I couldn't do that in life, well, I'd settle for doing it in heaven.

Add a few decades and a whole lot of moves and a new heavenly requirement popped up. I wanted to be able to keep tabs on people I have cared about throughout my life. I just kind of wanted to know what they were up to and how their families were.

Now my regular readers know that I'm not a huge fan of today's technology. I have seen it's devastating effects first hand. I have clung tenaciously to some of the “good old ways”. So imagine my surprise this week when I realized that I have fallen in love with my computer and it's capabilities! I still can't believe it but my laptop is all the things I wanted to find in heaven. It is an endless supply of places, people and things I will never see or do physically! It is a never ending supply of information and knowledge! Social media gives me the chance to check on loved ones regularly.

What brought me to this epiphany, you ask? A week of 110 degree weather, my very old double wide and a lousy air conditioner. I literally spent the week in front of a fan and on my laptop. Yes, I'm on my laptop everyday. Usually I check out the news, my blogsite, facebook and not much more. The past few months have seen me using it to look up specific info on things I want to know (a new talent). But desperation and sweat drove me to new Internet heights.

I introduced myself to Amy Winehouse's music which I loved (especially in her early years) and watched her devastating slide from a beautiful fresh faced girl with enormous talent to the empty slurring shell of the woman she had become. I watched a number of Broadway plays, old and new. I finally saw a live performance of “Sweeny Todd”. It was so much better on stage than on screen. I learned a bunch of songs from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and watched a stage performance (not better than the movie).

I went on an African Safari, visited a few zoos, checked on the latest Bigfoot sightings, saw both the 10^th and 25^th live concerts of “Les Miserable”, read up on a number of medical breakthroughs, watched the happy homecomings of a bunch of returning soldiers, looked for a job all over the country, read up on some laws (especially overtime regulations because Brent's new company refuses to pay it even when they have worked him over 70 hours a week).

I've spent time keeping track of an old friends newborn grandson born with a number of health problems and other friends and relative lives. My daughters hooked my husband on “Mythbusters” and me on “My Strange Addictions”. I learned that I'm not as crazy as I thought and that we did go to the moon!

On Facebook a few months ago, I saw something like this, “If a person from the fifties came back today,what would be the hardest thing to explain to them?” The answer was “That we carry a device in our pockets that hold all the information of the world and we use it to look at pictures of cats and to argue with strangers.” I laughed at the irony of this statement. But I'm realizing now that I too have not fully appreciated what I have at my fingertips. I have what I thought I'd have to wait until heaven to gain- an endless supply of information and knowledge with just a click of a button.

This isn't always a good thing. The information can be false, the paths we take can be evil but as with all things it it left to us to chose for ourselves. My biggest concern is that now I've made this discovery, how am I going to tear myself away to do my normal living? Oh, well... That's the view from my side of the street, what's yours?

Independence Day

Tomorrow is the United States of America birthday. It is Independence Day. The moment that the great men who started this country signed the Declaration of Independence they became criminals. They and others like them were committing treason and were ready to lose everything including their lives to fight for the freedom they believed in. They had to do wrong in order to do what they thought was right.

Families, friends, neighbors were divided by these beliefs. While many wanted freedom from England, others wanted to stay British citizens. There were some who didn't care. They just wanted to be left alone not taking sides. Those who did make a stand did so with great courage and conviction.

In honor of the day, I found some quotes made by these men and women who put everything on the line for freedom of thought, beliefs, religion, etc. I felt that they were all still relevant today.

“He is an American, who, leaving behind all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.” St. John de Crevecouer.

“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no other way of judging of the future but by the past.” Patrick Henry

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” “Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.” “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.” “Honesty always makes the best policy.” Benjamin Franklin

“These are times that try men's souls.” Thomas Paine

“Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.” Jonathan Edwards

“Labor to keep alive that little spark of celestial fire, called Conscience.” “I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an “Honest Man.” George Washington

“Honesty, sincerity, and openness I esteem essential marks of a good mind” John Adams

And finally from Thomas Jefferson- “The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.”

This 4^th I'm going to think about the things that are important to me and what I would be willing to fight for. I'm also going to be thankful for those who risked everything to establish a land of liberty and those who gave their all in defending it. That's the view from my side of the street, what's yours?