My dear sister Karena sent me this poem this afternoon - a very timely source of encouragement.

He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater
He sendeth more strength as our labors increase
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy
To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father's full giving is only begun.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

Quiet, Please!

So, since last time I wrote about life in the office, several million more temps have joined our space. At least, that's what it feels like. Mercifully, I have been moved to a different space along with Miss Quiet, who I am getting to know better and enjoy more...and even so, the noise from down the hall is sometimes unreasonably loud. It's enough noise to fill a large shopping mall- and it's all contained in a ten by twelve room. She and I smile and roll our eyes and plug away at our tasks, which have gotten more complex. We are getting better at problem solving these days.

Mr. Loafer stopped by our new digs the other day, and commented about how it was getting on his nerves that the talking in his room never stops. He particularly mentioned one new guy... and how he just won't shut up. I thought it was the greatest of ironies. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. How hilarious. Miss Quiet and I were most amused.

This one new temp who just arrived yesterday was a problem from the get-go. Complaining, negative, foul, derogatory...It provoked me so thoroughly and quickly that it made me want to beam and burst into song, just to counteract all the bleeccchhhh vibes she was putting out there. Oh yeah- and give her a massive tongue lashing simultaneously. I don't know how that would have all worked together...But ANYWAY. She was behaving like the most maddening leach. She happens to be white and she seemed to think that I was the only person she could come to with issues. HELLO! I'm NOT a supervisor! It made me very uncomfortable. I just wanted to be as far away from her as possible. And thankfully she was situated in another room.

At the end of the day, she cornered me and asked me what the procedure was in a case of workplace discrimination. I sweetly told her who she should approach, and went on my merry way. I did not ask for details but I have a vague idea of what probably happened. I can almost guarantee you that it was a simple personality conflict. I think there is a tremendous amount of damage done in the world today because people cannot discern the difference between a personality conflict and genuine discrimination. People are so hyper-sensitive and rights-oriented that they seem determined to become a victim. I felt like saying," Hello! I've been here for almost three months and have been a minority here from day one...and while I felt a little culture shocked at first, I didn't fancy myself as a victim of racial prejudice...Do you think that suddenly, today, because you happened to arrive, that there is a sudden outburst of discrimination? Do you think perhaps that there is another issue here besides the color of your skin?" If only I could free myself to be so brutally honest. But somehow I can't. And it's probably just as well.

Many Happy Returns of the Day

Happy Birthday, dear Brad! I'm so glad you were born.

That kind of day

I knew just what kind of day it was going to be when I poured skim milk on my cereal this morning, and it came out way thicker than skim milk usually does. I ate it anyway. And yes, it was a true prediction of the day.

I bought some new milk today. Tomorrow's cereal will be better.

Did you know...

...that cashews are distant relatives of...mangoes? WHAT?! It's true- according to Alton Brown of the cooking show "Good Eats." We love that show. Anyway- I just thought that was so bizarre. How does he trace that family tree?

Swimming Is Jolly

Last night after a herculean struggle with the weedy patch of nature under my mailbox ( I was helped in the weeding process by two volunteer neighbor kids, bless their little hearts), I was very warm. Brad was still at work, so I called upon my dear sister-in-law, and we scampered down to the community pool.

It was just after darkness had descended; there were only two other people there, but they soon left and we had the entire place to ourselves. What joy! It's the first time I've been swimming since last summer at Sal's camp. It's a very large pool but only something like five and a half feet deep at its deepest spot. We both were wearing our glasses when we arrived and so we took them off when we got in the water. We are both blind as bats without optical aids, and there weren't a lot of lights around the pool so we could have played a legitimate game of Marco Polo with our eyes open...It was a bit disconcerting because sometimes we couldn't tell whether the blurry white object over yonder was a person, or... wait...no... it's just a fence post...or a life preserver on a fence post. We had a great time floating, swimming, and doing handstands.

Swimming on a summer's night is one of life's must-have experiences, I think.

The Great Escape

Call me a bad wife, but I don't make Brad's lunch. The thing is, I offered once or twice before, but he said no because of some technicality or something. Like there was no fridge at work, or there was no room in the fridge or ...whatever. I think at one point he told me I didn't ever have to make lunch for him. Plus, he's like a food camel; give him a powerbar and he's good for most of the day. Whereas me, I'd be dragging myself around with a headache and getting super grumpy if all I had to eat was a powerbar. Power, shmower. But I digress.

Last night as I made my lunch, I asked Brad again if he wanted me to make lunch for him, and he said yes! So I made him a sandwich, and put it beside a yogurt in the fridge, and put some crackers and an apple in a bag on the counter.

At about 11:00 last night, as I was drifting into pleasant slumber, I heard one of those classic bumps in the night. Immediately, I was wide awake, picturing burglars climbing in one of the kitchen windows...So I had to go down and investigate. Pretty dumb. No gun, no baseball bat or anything. Just lil ol' me...versus a vicious piece of fruit. Turns out, Brad's apple had somehow escaped the bag and rolled off the counter onto the floor. The apple took about three hours to work its way out of the bag in a vain bid for its freedom. ( When I told him later, Brad was like, "You HEARD an APPLE fall on the floor DOWNSTAIRS?" Yes. Yes, I did. Above the noise of the sleep machine, too. Well, it was a hefty apple.) But how did this happen? It remains a mystery to this day.

Brad and I were talking on the phone today and I asked him about his lunch. To make a long story short, he cringingly confessed that he ate the sandwich and the crackers...FOR BREAKFAST! What? What??! Sigh. The nocturnal, troublemaking apple, however, he did not touch. I don't know if he noticed the yogurt. Not sure if this Good Wife Making the Lunch Routine is going to last much longer.

Nothing But the Truth

If it's not already a saying that "A little bit of knowledge is worse than total ignorance," then I am going to coin it on the spot. Coin it, patent it, charge you money to use it, whatever. Because it's SO true.

All my life, my father has had a great loathing of the mainstream media, and has not kept this aversion secret one bit. I never really understood his agitation; sure I knew that they were blatantly biased, dyed in the wool wackos, unabashedly liberal but painting themselves as objective journalists, not telling the whole story, rotten to the core, and all that...But for some reason, I just calmly accepted it as inevitable, and tried to ingest enough Rush Limbaugh as an antidote. Recently, however, I have found myself getting more and more enraged as I see the effects of the liberal media on people around me. For example, the man in my office I refer to as Mr. Loafer/Slacker/Chatterbox. He will come up with the most off the wall stuff that has about 16% truth and 84% twisted lies which have the fingerprints of the media all over it. It makes me almost literally sick. I try to choose my battles because I don't want to be in constant outward battle mode...( it's hard enough to be in constant inward battle mode) but I have gotten into several discussions lately. For one thing, I couldn't let his comment slide about how what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians is like what Nazi Germany was doing to the Jews...WHAT? HELLO! The Jews weren't blowing themselves up in the middle of Berlin and trying to wipe the Germans off the map! Sorry but your analogy makes about as much sense as...as...as...*splutters into silence as she can't even think of something nonsensical enough to compare it against...*

So anyway, at least the whole office knows where I stand now...But sometimes I just have to turn up my music on my headphones so I can just drown out the garbage around me because it's just too much. That ipod was the best Christmas present ever.

As much as I love history, and as much as I enjoyed studying it in college, sometimes I wonder if I should have majored in something else that might be a little more utilitarian, as far as money making is concerned. ( Seeing as how I am not teaching...) But then I encounter a situation like this and I think, " I am SO glad I know some history. I am SO glad I know the bigger picture." And I know I wouldn't trade my history classes for all the oil in Saudi Arabia.

So, Daddy, I'm realizing that I've inherited another thing from you: a stomach churning hatred for half truths, and along with that an appreciation and love for the whole truth.

Dog in Need of a Scouring

Last night, as we were driving by a carwash, we ( and by we, I mean Brad) saw a couple attending to a DOG in one of the carwash bays. How cute and chucklesome. Too bad we didn't have a camera on hand. That NEVER happens- Brad without a camera.

What is it with sleeping?

It is almost ten o'clock which means that it's time for me to be making my lunch and going to bed. But I'm doing neither. I have blogsickness. It's like homesickness, but for writing. I've been way too busy recently to do any blogging, and I miss it very much.

Brad and I were talking on our way home from Wednesday night meeting tonight how absurd it is that the majority of the time we have together is spent in an unconscious state. We are awake all day and very much apart. In fact, we hardly see each other at all. And then we come home, have a few hours awake together, ( and if he works the night shift, it's more like half an hour) and then we fall asleep. It is so maddening! We are right next to each other all night, but we are totally unaware and unable to enjoy each other's company.

Sigh. Wish I had more time to write. But I should go visit my husband for a few minutes before I am reduced oblivion for fewer hours than I would like.

Happy Fourth!

A Happy Independence Day to you all! We celebrated by going out for coffee this morning and then doing lots of chores around the house. At 11:00 we drove down to the end of our street and joined Nate and Pen watching our subdivision's parade. It consisted of a fire truck, an ambulance, and a horde of kids on bikes etc. and their parents following in their wake. Kind of like the FamCon parade, it seemed there were more people in the parade than there were spectators. Good times.

Well, this has nothing to do with the Glorious 4th, but a few little blogworthy things have been accumulating in my brain's blog bank.

First, the other day, I was talking to Brad about food, telling him that I have been slowly realizing that the old saying is really true that I am what I eat. He said, " Well, you must be eating some pretty beautiful things then." Awwwwwwwwwww! What a husband I have. Sorry, all the rest of the women of the world; he's mine.

Yesterday at work, the subject of death came up. Mr. Africa started saying something about its inevitability and I said, "Yes, nothing's certain but death and taxes..." And he was like, "What? I've heard that said about death, but I've never heard that about taxes!" I thought that was quite amusing. To be fair, he has only been in this country for the last ten to twelve years or so...It's interesting to me what cultural things are passed on to immigrants and which ones take longer to register.

And then the conversation turned to the desperate state of things in the world. As the conversation was winding down, Mr. Africa said casually, " Yeah, that's why I'm looking for the New Jerusalem. This right here doesn't cut it." I just about fell out of my chair at that point. I was quick to add that I quite agreed.

He mentioned a couple more times throughout the course of the day, that he was looking forward to the New Jerusalem. Every time I had to do a sort of mental double take. Here is a man who is a little off - to put it mildly- on some vital issues, but incredibly, he has the wit to somehow recognize that the New Jerusalem is an imminent reality...and he mentions it as if he is talking about the advent of a new grocery store opening up in his neighborhood. And here I have been taught from childhood about Jesus' second coming and the future that lies in store for us...and it doesn't even occur to me to mention the New Jerusalem in this conversation about how the world is going to heck in a handbasket. What a lesson for me. What a funny combination of being humbled and inspired.