It’s Just Chicken Salad

 My husband delights in getting a lot of meals from a whole, cooked chicken from Sam’s. From servings on his plate, to sandwiches for Jo and me, to Tasha, to chicken salad. I have known from the day he bought the chicken that I would need to—and want to—make some chicken salad. But as lazy as I have been over the past couple of months, it took some real determination to get it done.

I am in a constant battle recently with the use of my time. Today, I knew I had to get a load of laundry done, clean up the kitchen, and make the chicken salad. Such small tasks. But it is perhaps that view of their significance that has thrown me off. Because, the truth is, I do know the value of checking things off of my list, of accomplishing these small tasks. So I’m not sure why it becomes such a battle for me.

I get it that laziness does not honor God.
I get it that overeating does not please Him.
I get it that making excuses or putting off tasks for no reason is not the way I should behave.

Today.

laundry
kitchen
make chicken salad

Done, done, and done.

MindUP with Goldie Hawn

Something on Facebook gave a link to Goldie Hawn’s MindUp program I had no idea she was involved in such a program. Without any indepth study, the foundations of the program seem to be legit. It seems to emphasize a state of mind, reminding me of self-talk. There surely is much more that we have the capacity for:

• bodily regulation
• attuned communication (both others and self)
• emotional balance
• fear extinction (after being traumitized)
• flexibilty (pausing before you act)
• insight (into self, connecting past, present, and future)
• empathy
• morality
• intuition (the creativity of intuition)

 Of course, religion is not part of this. But I do find it interesting.

Credit Cards for Business

Ahhhh. Okay. I’m back again.

I have been considering getting back to blogging, but I keep waiting for odd particulars to fall into place. And yet so much has happened. Important only to me, I realize.

We have avoided accepting credit cards for our business for years. We have manged with checks and PayPal. But we also have lots of money that has not been collected. We have known we should look into it, but feared the fees. Today I spoke with a Vantiv rep, who took about thirty minutes telling me about it. We ran very rough numbers for what it would cost. Then I looked at our expenses for the past year with voluntary customer payments via PayPal. Though it is a complete different set-up, with no monthly fees or costs other than the 30 cent transaction fee and the percentage, it would certainly ensure that we are paid. Perhaps only prior customers who prefer to send a check would be allowed to pay by check. I am not fond of the fees it would cost us, but I am pretty certain it would be worth it. So I just looked through the outstanding accounts for the past year and ran some numbers, trying to learn how it might look for our situation.

I just looked again at Square as an option and compared the costs of PayPal, Square, and Vantiv for a $100 order and a $49.85 order. We are hit hard because our payments must be manually entered. Still, I think I am ready to make it happen.

More research to be done.

Clearing Stuff Out, Bit by Bit

A number of things have put me in motion again on clearing out.

1. With Andrew’s departure on February 16 and the absence of increased overnight company during the fall, I can lay things out to be sorted, knowing I can come back to them. No more needing to keep packing things up for the sake of tidiness. Oh, I do like tidiness! And I intend to get it done, all the way to the yardwork and the garage.
2. The Happiness Project. I am reading this book with Joanna, though it is hard to fit in! I shall write more on this topic in the next week or so. But it has refreshed my determination and, already, inspired me.
3. I am carefully weighing the value of selling on eBay (with the work of pictures and writing the listing), having a garage sale, selling on consignment, and donating to charity. 

I have taken twenty or so items to consignment in the past three months. Jo and I have sorted through some of her things and we have about thirty items of hers to be consigned. We are planning to do that on Monday after I get off work.

This shows things I donated on Saturday:

The box has two sets of Bible on cassette, Stanley sermons, Psychology of Living kit, two board games, three coffee-table books, and thirty hanging file folders. Then some clothing and a couple of king-size pillowcases that we came with a set of sheets.

Ready to drop off on Monday are these items:

Several bags and purses, a telphone, a pair of loafers, a black sweater, and the badminton/volleyball net.

Consignment tomorrow will be from this closet:

The back of the closet is men ’s clothing, which my consignment shop does not take, so it will probably be donated. The other items from the black pants up to the men’s blazer will go tomorrow evening.

This is greatly satisfying. These items were stored in a large garbage bag and a spare laundry basket. The books and cassettes were on a bookshelf with other things that might be sold. Some items still may be worth listing on VegSource, Amazon, or half.com. But I would say I cleared about two cubic yards of stuff that has been waiting for my attention.

Tugging Away

From the time our children were wee things, we read to them every evening. For a number of years, we would take turns, one night Dad reading to my dauighter while I read to my son, the next night the reverse. Around this time, Bill had been reading something by Mark Twain—probably Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. The wonderful descriptions were part of the delight in reading Twain.

This event took place on January 5, 2005, when she was babysitting some little boys in our neighborhood. As she related the story to Dad, he saw a charming picture with spiritual application.We live in a rural area, where homes are on lots that are at least an acre in size. Neighbors own goats, pigs, donkeys, chickens, even emus, in addition to the horses you would expect to see. She babysat two little neighbor boys for a couple years. She often took them for walks around the neighborhood.

On this particular day, they walked to a field where a couple of horses grazed in a field edged with a split-log fence. She had taken the boys to see the horses many times before. The older boy was brave enough to touch the horses, but it had always been hard for the four-year-old to muster the courage to reach out to the great beast and touch it. He knew he should be able to do it. He liked to see the horses but he wanted to be bold enough to touch them. This time he told her, “You take my hand and make me touch the horse. I’ll be tugging away, but you take my hand and make me do it!” Even though he knew he would be resistant—tugging away—he wanted her to help him overcome and do what he knew he had should do.

In our communication with God, our prayers should express the desire to have God’s help to accomplish what He wants us to accomplish—despite our resistance. It is similar to when we asking a friend to keep us accountable. The attitude is the same. We want the friend to challenge us to do what is right. In the Christian walk, we know that we want to change a habit, do the right thing, stop laziness, and have a closer walk with Him. Why is it that we keep resisting—keep tugging away? But we can ask for God’s help.

“God, please keep taking me toward right behavior. Please make me do it—give me the strength. Help me to claim the power I have in You, God. I may be tugging away, but take my hand and make me do it!”

At the very least, this applies to any excuses for disobedience or even laziness in my walk with God. “God, please keep drawing me to You, to Your truth, to obedience. Even when I pull away, even when I resist of disobey in rebellion. Even when I am lazy or tired, and I make excuses, draw me close to You, for I desire to worship and obey.”

I want God to keep taking my hand, keep drawing me closer to doing what I know is right, what I know I should be doing.

Inspiration for Today

Yesterday ashes, tomorrow is wood; only today does the fire burn brightly.

an Eskimo proverb

But I heard it at church, shared by Grace.

Just Do It!

I have not been making the best use of my time, though I do accomplish a lot. But I am realizing I need to come back to this page to keep the big picture in mind. Kind of a “can’t see the forest for the trees” problem. I was keeping my daily checklists on this page—the trees—but losing sight of the bigger picture of what I am trying to accomplish—the forest. It feels like it might take a little effort to get back on task. But I surely must back off and look at things from a broader viewpoint. I have also discovered that I’ve felt so “accomplished” at what I get done with my Weekly Planner, that I have not even been taking time to consider what other tasks need to be moved higher on the list.

I have fallen a bit behind on bookkeeping, which entails business expense, business mileage, medical expense, and monthly expense. I have been much occupied all summer with taking care of Medicare and supplemental insurance, insurance for J and A, issues with my job (which have now been resolved), and trying to keep the house presentable for the short-but-more-frequent visits from A’s lady and a visit from my sister and brother-in-law.

Despite all the things I do getting done, it is when I cannot keep up with paperwork that I feel most like I am not accomplishing what really should be done. Too many weekends have passed with my attitude of  “This week I really must catch up!” or “Next weekend will finally be the weekend I can caught some paperwork done!” And the weekends just keep slipping by. Today I was tempted to take a nap, which is not a bad thing necessarily. I also wanted to watch one of the movies recorded from television for some day. But instead, I have been doing bookkeeping.

I also created another blog page, for the Weekly Planner, and get back to writing on this blog page.

’Tis good!