Chaos Follows Them

So my in-laws have been hanging out at our place quite a bit lately for one reason or another. It's funny (well, not really), but these are the type of people that chaos seems to follow. They seem to spin in circles ALL of the time. My mother-in-law is the main culprit it seems. She is constantly undecided about EVERYTHING! She is WAY to busy (doing almost nothing) for someone who is retired. She takes in to consideration about 100 pieces of advice on decisions and then always seems to take the advice that she got from one of her son's (who must always be right I guess). She literally does things the hard way FREQUENTLY. It is maddening to see and be a part of. The sad thing though is that we are beginning to see its effects. The mom-in-law is beginning to become so overwhelmed and confused that a lot of the time she seems paralyzed and ineffective. My father-in-law is very dependent and confused after he suffered a brain injury in a major motorcycle accident in 2001. So he leans on her a ton, and it just adds to the mayhem. We have been trying to help and trying to ease some of the decision making and confusion, but the thing is, we are not so sure that they want a different way of life in this respect. So do we continue to offer a helping hand or let them go about their way of chaos and confusion? It is very hard to watch. Not sure what to do.

Pet Peeves

A fellow blogger has inspired me with her lists. Today I am feeling a bit feisty so I thought I would purge myself of things that are bugging me!
1. Women who are checking out your man when you are right there
2. Things that fall apart when you have barely used them
3. White people who act like they are black
4. When people need help and you know it but they are too proud to ask
5. Being schmoozed
6. Boob jobs that are simply for seductive purposes
7. Hidden fees or sneaky ways of getting you to pay something
8. When you go to some one's house and the TV is constantly on
9. Patronizing
10. Being manipulated
11. Being lied to
12. Pretty boys
13. Crotch Rockets
14. When people commit to something and they don't stick with it
15. Birds that make super annoying calls i.e. crows and that one that sounds like a squeaky door
16. Women that are overdone--over-tanned, over-makeupped, over-sweet, over-feminine, over-June Cleavered, over-exercised, over-Mommy of the Yeared
17. When people act super interested in what you have to say and you know they could care less
18. Low fat, low calorie, 100 calorie.....
19. Dripping faucets
20. When I lose something

We have made ourselves too available

So I have been thinking off and on lately about just how "interruptable" my life is. With four kids it is to be expected, but it is not so much that. It really is a product of the gadgets in my life. Now anyone who reads this has the same gadgets. You are reading this post on one of 3 or 4 of them. But in this world of IM, text message, cell phone, and e mail, I realize that we have allowed ourselves to be CONSTANTLY interrupted, and the impression is that we must always be AVAILABLE. Well, there are times that I simply refuse to be a slave to the gadgets and don't answer the phone, or text or whatever. Just because the technology exists does not mean that we must always allow ourselves to be distracted by them. Think back to the day when we didn't have all of these distractions. We could live without them, and dare I say, we would have more peace and sanity without always feeling like we have to answer something or be in constant communication. I think this has soooo much to do with why the contemplative lifestyle is foreign to most of us. We have allowed the problem. Perhaps it is time to unplug a bit?

Life Lessons from the Garden

So God used my garden to teach me or reinforce for me some life lessons. For those of you who don't garden, bear with me.
1). OK, so last year we had a "brilliant" idea, or so we thought. We had lots of green and yellow beans that were left on the vine too long and they got "woody". So we decided to shell them and dry the seeds for planting this year. Well as we were planting them this year, a friend told me that it likely wouldn't work because most seeds in the store are hybrids and aren't intended to fruit except for one season. Well isn't that nice I thought as I finished the planting. Anyway, I thought we would chance it and the plants started to grow like everything else. Great I thought! Well that is until I realized they weren't flowering, which in vegetable gardening means...no veggies. I was really sad, because we love green and yellow beans and I hardly got any. I did plant some straight from the pkg.
2). I have not fertilized at all and I have barely weeded due to heavy rains causing mammoth amounts of weeds to grow. I got overwhelmed and just let the weeds grow along with the veggies.
3). The heat this year made gardening a bear. Consequently, I did not tend to the garden like I should. So because of that, my radishes all went to seed and a lot of my broccoli did the same.
WOW, bad year for gardening! But the lessons to be learned.....If we don't tend to the garden of our life (personally and with Jesus), the weeds will grow and grow, and sometimes become overwhelming. Proactivity is key. Fertilizing is a must for good growth and healthy fruit . AND weirdness of all weirdness, just this last week...last week of August might I remind you, the green bean leaves started to sprout flowers! I was going to tear them all out of the ground because I thought it was useless. In spite of my ignorance and lack of tending, there still was fruit. Amazing!
Oh and did I mention that there was a sneaky snake in the beans today? Hmmmm.

And by the way did you know that according to Webster's Dictionary, proactivity is not a word?