Rolling with the Punches...

The saga continues...

So...we (he) made an appointment to have that cracked windshield fixed on our car and literally (not metaphorically) we were rear ended by another vehicle the morning of the appointment.

What I noticed about the incident/accident is that while my husband and I both showed kindness and compassion to the young man who failed to use his brakes at the red light, instead allowing our back bumper to do the job for him; we weren't all that kind or compassionate to each other. We weren't mean but we were nicer to the man who hit us than to one another. Both of us have had car accidents that were our fault when we were younger and I think this allowed us to remember how it felt and gave us compassion for this young man. I am glad as I think he needed it.

Where we failed, was being there for each other. I am not complaining as I am as guilty as the Hubby...we weren't there for each other. To give credit to one another , we didn't realize we needed it. But...why do we married people sometimes show more compassion to a total stranger than to one another?

We kept going...I mean we have this giant TO-DO List..and DO we must!

But, later I felt achy... not from the accident but I think just from being so tense about the experience of the accident.

So, I took a moment to really thank God that no one was hurt, that my husband is a gracious man who can be kind to a young man who makes a mistake and that THIS...thankfully is no big deal! A peace came over me...

My windshield is fixed like brand new...and Monday morning my car goes in for repairs to fix my smashed rear end!

We will keep rolling on and doing our TO-DO List...

Cracked Glass...and Other Crack Ups!

My husband picked me up from work for a quick lunch the other day and I noticed the spot where a rock had hit our windshield had become not just a little spot but rather an inch long crack.

"Whoa...How did that happen?" I asked.
He said " I must have hit a bump...and it's spreading! "
"Well, our insurance pays 100% of your front windshield replacement and we should just take care of that! " I commented.

Now, I said we...but I meant he. We nor he has taken care of it. More importantly...I did not take care of it! (There is no "I " in teamwork...wait that's not what it means...) that was a week ago....
it it now about six inches long.

I looked at it yesterday and I have decided that the crack in the windshield is a metaphor for our lives right now...

I am just hoping the windshield doesn't land in our laps!

Our to-do lists keep growing and we don't seem to have enough hours in the day...

Easter... New Beginnings

Today a young man sang a song in church that moved me to tears...it wasn't the words although they were beautiful...it was the way he sang the song. He put everything he had into it, using his gift from God to his fullest potential. I wish I could sing like that...I so... can not! It's not my gift and certainly it wouldn't be from God if I did break out in song.
A yet, a new song is in my heart.

His song did remind me that for awhile, I haven't been using my gifts from God, to my full potential. I haven't any good excuses but rather instead deluded myself in thinking...that either my gifts weren't needed or worse maybe I never really had them to begin with. The trouble with this line of thinking is that while you may not use your gifts...God will make your passion bigger and bigger until you have to use them!

My husband and I have made some changes, for some time now we haven't worshiped at the same church as our children. They have each married wisely and they have each picked churches that were right for their families. While my head has understood all of this...my heart has missed them at every turn. I refer to this as "the ghost of children past". I have spent about 5 years missing my children in the halls of our church! I love our church and consider the people there our family but for the last two years, both my husband and myself quietly thought of leaving. Neither one of us wanted to hurt the other by bringing it up but this heaviness in our hearts persisted.

Our passion for serving the homeless led us to a new church where 200 are fed every Sunday morning, even Easter...or should I say, especially Easter! Their mission statement is simple and easy to remember... Making God's love real. It was our passion that led us to this church and our passion will lead us to serve there.

I will miss our old church family, as I miss worshiping with my children but I do know that we, together will always be a part of God's family!

I welcome new beginnings....Happy Easter!

Hi...My Name is Ronda and I Use to Blog!

Hi...My name is Ronda and I use to be a blogger, now I am having trouble finding where to type a new post. This struck me as funny as I use to post daily but that was when I owned my own time! I now no longer own my own time or my own business, well I still own it but it's more like... Owning the debt one incurs from owning your own business.

I work for someone else now and I still try to do the other things as well... I am having time management problems. I am having a time management problem right now as I am choosing not do laundry or clean my house on my day off and blog instead! Life is all about choices...just remember there are ALWAYS consequences to the choices we make!

My husband and I have made some painful choices recently and that has taken some of our time. We have chosen to include God in our choices because we have found that in the past where we haven't included God, we didn't like the "road NO ONE would have taken"!

I started this blog almost two years ago, on my 50th birthday and I want to continue on with it! I want to be better about the choices I make, my time is precious and I want to make the most out of it and blogging again is part of that plan.

Have a great Holy week! God is in the house...well, As for me and my house...

Sunday Salon, Bloggy Book Club and All Girls Book Club Combo

I read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen for this month's Bloggy Book Club and for the first ever...All Girls Book Club, which is a book club that meets once a month. While I have loved blogging for Sunday Salon and for Bloggy Book Club and I love reading the comments of fellow reading enthusiasts on this blog and others...it was very gratifying to hear every one's opinion about this book in "real time"!

Water for Elephants was a great read...I know that I do write that phrase many times ...I am not a critic...I enjoy reading a story and I am led easily into it. I take the story for what it is...

In the Authors Notes in the back of the book, Sara Gruen writes that the idea of this book came about unexpectedly while researching for an entirely different book. The Chicago Tribune ran an article on Edward J Kelty, a photographer who followed traveling circuses around America in the 1920's and 1930's. The photograph that was included fascinated her so much she began researching Circuses and had abandoned her first idea for a book entirely instead deciding to write about the train circuses.

This is a story about a young man and his loss of both his parent's during the Depression and his adventure of running away with the circus. Sara Gruen contrasts the world of a showman's glamor and equestrian pageantry with the senseless cruelty of a sleazy sideshow.
This is also the story of an old man and his aged memories and his real fear of losing control of his mind and his life...and those memories he holds so dear.

The All Girls Book Club met and discussed this book at length and all of us either liked or loved this book very much! It is a great historical fiction and I liked it very much!
We decided that we will all go to the movie that is being made out of this book starring Reese Witherspoon, Sean Penn and Robert Pattinson

Sunday Salon...Read Along

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is a great book that I am re-reading ...The subtitle of this book is How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.
I enjoyed this book when I first read it and reading again at a new place in my life has been rewarding for me. I love to watch people and how they respond to one another...this book will make you see those interchanges in a new light! Change is inevitable but it is human nature for most of us to not respond favorably when we feel it is happening.

Because I like driving myself somewhat crazy and I just plain love to read...I am reading three other books right now...all good!
I am missing a great Sunday School class today because I am working but the book we are reading for that class, and while I am only on the second chapter it has been very interesting! It is by Paul F. Knitter and it is called Without Buddha I could not be a Christian.
It's probably an intriguing title to Christians and to Buddhists but I have found it to be sensitively written and very thought provoking!

I am reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen for Blogging book Club this month and for my brand-new-no-name-yet-in-real-life-thank-God-I-have-it-book-club!
I do like it and I will share more later in the month!

The fourth book I am just finishing up is a must-have for any young woman leaving college or as I am, any woman reentering the work force. It is Cathie Black's Basic Black...this book is terrific and has given me just the pep-talk I needed!

I am off to work today and I am actually happy to as I will be at the Florida Fairgrounds working at a booth for work ...which is fun for me!
Happy Sunday and Happy Reading!

Bloggy Book Club...so late!

When last we left our sweet heroine she said something about reading The Lost Symbol for Bloggy Book Club and that was way back in November...

Well, she ...uh, I did! I just didn't blog about it!

So...Bloggy Book Club for November was The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and I did enjoy it with some small reservations.

From the front cover: When Langdon's beloved mentor, Peter Solomon- a prominent Mason and philanthropist- is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept this mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him. Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and-never-before-seen-locations- all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth.

Sounds good....doesn't it? It was! I enjoyed it because of the interesting, historical and mysterious plot but this is my third time reading about Robert Langdon's experiences and frankly it read a little formula-like and became very predictable for me and that was disappointing. Even though the story is somewhat different...you basically know who the "bad" guy is and what is going to happen, because it is a very similar story line in all three books! This was an interesting storyline about The Masons and I did find that part of it intriguing.

But, the most annoying part for me is that while telling the story Dan Brown chooses to only honor some of Robert Langdon's past...he always has these characters who appear who are old dear friends who weren't mentioned in his past books. You then find recent characters you just read about in the last books aren't mentioned in the new book, which would be fine if he didn't reference events that occurred in the past book. It annoyed me that the author mentioned details from the last books and then doesn't mention anymore about any of the "dear friends" from the other books! It seems odd for his character to have these relationships that don't carry over to the other books.
This may not bother others...just me but it did distract me from an otherwise great storyline!

It is a great historical, fiction who-done-it?

For Bloggy Book Club in January we are reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Join in by blogging Sunday, January 31, 2010... Happy Reading!