A Strained Cinquain

One more week of freedom from work,

that’s 5 days left of a 40-day respite;

If t’had been a sabbatical, I’d feel less of a jerk

But subtract 8 days of “PD” (an MA, in spite)!

Breathing each day requires more force than effort!

One-Week Goals List

Recently we visited our daughter in El Paso, a visit for which we had a list of 13 goals to get completed on her house within which time. The following blog is part memoir, part check-off list from that venture.

1. To begin with, we discovered that, between the two of us, we each had a number of what are considered “staples” of any junior-high/high school literature class reading list which at least one of us had not read. Therefore, since we were tackling this family project week by means of an automobile, my husband and I had a long drive to make (8 hours) just to begin our work-week. Being the task-oriented folks that we are, we naturally had to approach this drive-time as an opportunity to check those previously unread books off our lists collectively. So to start with, we “read” (listened to) these 3 books while on the way to Maggie’s house: 1) The Martian Chronicles (by Ray Bradbury), 2) Fahrenheit 451 (also by Bradbury), and 3) The Animal Farm (by George Orwell). [This third book was not finished until our return trip to Fort Worth.] Naturally we discussed the books as a part of our drive-time. And I think I speak for both of us when I say that I feel better for having been exposed to what I missed out on in my school years. (For me, the books I hadn’t read were both of those by Orwell. And I must seriously admit–I feel a blog about at least one of those coming on some time! Talk about being still relevant! WOW!!) A fourth book we also listened to on the way home was 1984 (by Orwell).
2. Caught up on some much-needed sleep after that 8-hour drive. Lee was not feeling like sharing the drive with Stephanie, so he drove the entirety by himself!
3. It seems appropriate to follow my entries above with a third item “we” accomplished that has relatively little to do with the work on Maggie’s house; I discovered the poetic technique called “The Golden Shovel” and was able to carefully craft one of my own with reference to Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son”, and an unveiled allusion to the work of Harlem Renaissance author Paul Lawrence Dunbar (“We Wear the Mask”). Rather than detail how The Golden Shovel works and/or copy my composure herein, I will hurry myself on to the next of our accomplishments–this one having to do with Maggie’s house.
4. We replaced two bedroom windows and the front room window with energy efficient ones. Each of these windows alone was a 4-6 hour project in and of itself. Let’s just say that the Master builder who installed them never meant for them to go anywhere! More expressive of the size of this job is the image of her front room window–it’s 68″x61″! (Personally, I would worry about children and baseballs in the neighborhood, except the neighborhood is exceptionally quiet…)
5. Another major accomplishment was replacing the toilet in the main bathroom. We put in a water-efficient Kohler about which we were especially excited since we personally know the workers who put together the itemized contents of the Kohler box! (More about that in my Facebook post some other time.)
6. Installed curtains, some of which were blackout curtains–remember she lives in El Paso where the sun shines down exceptionally hard!
7. Installed a dishwasher. (Nothing fancy; it was used, but in good, working condition.)
8. Replaced the CV Joint in Maggie’s truck. (This was an unplanned addition to our goals list–YIKES!)
9. Celebrated Maggie’s 25th birthday at Los Bandidos/A.K.A Carlos and Mickey’s. This location is a routine “Must-Do” for any of our trips to El Paso. We highly recommend it to all!
10. Went hiking along the Franklin Mountains Loop. (Hiking is another of our required elements any time we visit the area. The most exciting part of the hike this time was petting a live, wild Pocket Gopher–REALLY!! Check out the picture:  And, yes, our dog Luna was with us. She understood we liked the gopher, and it was NOT FOOD. That didn’t stop her from almost accidentally inhaling the poor critter on our 2nd pass back through the terrain! She accidentally stepped on it, and it naturally went into self-preservation mode rearing up at Luna; at said time, Luna thought about snapping it up, but the human reactions going on at the time impeded her from taking up this appealing opportunity.
11. Back to the work we did on Maggie’s house: tore out the tiles on the walls in her main bathroom and replaced the shower/bath fixtures. We began re-tiling the walls, but this part of the project remains for Maggie to finish on her own, now that Lee has taught her the basics. See the picture below: 
12. Recaptured our run-away doggie. Lesson Learned: always close the gate after bringing through large items. Luna hadn’t gone far and didn’t put up a fuss about returning home; she was rather self-satisfied that she had finally gotten the walk she’d been needing for the past few days. (This was a little while after the hiking trip, but please bear in mind that the hiking trip we did was far more driving than hiking. We human passengers were so involved with the butterflies and gorgeous views that we did less hiking than driving. Poor Luna. No worries; she got even when she got loose. 😉
13. Left two projects unfinished so that Maggie will have to finish them at her own chosen time. One of those projects is the bathroom tiling shown in the picture above, the second project is simply to hang the outdoor decor we bought for her a while back:  Maggie is amused at the thought of hanging this outside of her house. She says people are already confused when a young white woman answers the door; she thinks this decoration will make it seem even more like a contradiction! [She lives in a Hispanic portion of the town, and her house is Hispanic in structure already.]
14. So, now that this tally of work/projects/events is finished, it seems even more ironic that the Rosie the Riveter “We Can Do It!” puzzle we began when Maggie first moved into her house is STILL NOT FINISHED! Rosie the Riveter can apparently accomplish much more than we can! And for the record, I did complete one more puzzle piece while on this trip!

Transforming VBS

Each year I dedicate one week out of my summer to volunteer as a teacher for my church’s Vacation Bible School—VBS. This has been the case for roughly 30 years now since I started doing it as a youth volunteer back at Guthrie First United Methodist Church in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Nowadays it is practically part of my job description as a pastor’s spouse. Especially given that I am a teacher by profession! Throughout this time I have experienced a multitude of VBS settings running the gamut from minuscule VBS programs to thriving ones.

Having been a member of rural churches (one whose average weekly attendance was only 13, even! [Agra First United Methodist Church, Agra, OK]), to urban churches such as Memorial United Methodist Church, White Plains, NY, to suburban churches including the church about whom this blog post is centered—Bedford First United Methodist Church in Bedford, TX , it goes without saying that I have seen VBS done many different ways. But this year’s VBS was exceptionally remarkable. I am thrilled to blog about it now! I can’t even decide which aspects were my favorite–those that dealt with the ‘how’ it was so special, or those that pertain to ‘what’ made it distinct. But I’ll begin by sharing a snapshot of how this VBS was so unique to my former VBS experiences.

One obvious component that set Bedford First UMC’s 2017 VBS week apart from all others was that this session was compiled of 3 major organizations—Bedford 1^st UMC children’s program (of course), to which were added the children of Bedford First United Methodist Church Early Childhood Academy, and, lastly, the children of Project Transformation, (a collaborative enterprise of the Central Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church). This last component, Project Transformation, that is, was an entirely new experience for me. And I loved it! Church members interacted with children in their local community whom they had never met, underserved children were introduced to the experience of VBS while also practicing their reading, and many lives were transformed. Even the “regular” students noticed the difference!

As for the students noticing the difference, one student (whom I will call Brad [not his real name]) remarked to me on day 2 of VBS that, “This [i]s the best VBS yet!” Brad did not explain why he felt this way, but he repeated this several times throughout the rest of the week. Through the unified efforts of the three organizations, we saw more than just an increased creativity level, but we reached significantly higher numbers of VBS children. In fact, our student participation level was nearly double that of last year. Read on to hear more comments like those of Brad.

Summer Reading Plan, installment #1.

After finally sitting down and committing to the first book on my SRP (Summer Reading Plan), Sarah, Plain and Tall was a sweet book. It was a very quick read and  heart-warming, to boot. Whoever described it in terms of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie certainly set me up for the theme well. Being from the country (it was 30 minutes to the nearest town) in Oklahoma, I appreciate taking such mental vacations back to my origins, now and again.

After making mention of my country origins in somewhat of a comparative fashion to this book (as well as comparing it to Little House on the Prairie), however, it seems appropriate to draw a few distinctions; Wilder’s book is narrated by a young female character (Mary), while Sarah, Plain and Tall centers mainly around the youngest child in the family–a little boy named Caleb. Further, Little House… took place mainly in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. And while Sarah, Plain and Tall takes place in the Midwest generically, no specific state is mentioned as the location of Caleb’s and his family’s home. We only know that it is in the Midwest in a prairie atmosphere. We also know that it is somewhat far from Tennessee, where another of the characters in the book originates. (Maggie is a neighbor from Tennessee who provides a little bit of comfort to Sarah, as she relates with the concept of being a mail-order bride and missing one’s origins.)

So, enough of all this rambling about Sarah, Plain and Tall. The fact of the matter is, it was a breeze to read, and as soon as I finished reading it, I rushed to return it and check out other books on my list! Hence, I need (“need”) to get busy reading.

Next on my list:

1. 

And #2:

(Who cares what order I originally said I would read them in. That was before the excitement of actually completing a book set in!!)

By the way, I am still waiting for some book recommendations from my teacher and reader friends!! Hint, hint!

“Down by the SEE-EA, yeah!”

I recall the first time I ever saw the salty spectacle known as the Texas Gulf Coast. As far as I was concerned–to this 13-year-old starry-eyed teenager from land-locked Oklahoma, this was the OCEAN! Forget about its coordinates and such paltry details as its being surrounded on 3 sides by land; the water is salty, there are seagulls,  and you can’t see land on the opposite side! South Padre Island was the ocean. And it was heaven to me!

“Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun, I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ come; watching the ships roll in, and then I watch ’em roll away again…” *Otis Redding, “Sitting On the Dock of the Bay”

To my mind, that was all that was required to qualify something as the OCEAN. I had never seen it before, and might never see it again! So I had to experience all it had to offer.

I threw handfuls of bread to the seagulls. 

I collected sea shells and sand dollars.

I drew hearts in the sand.

I wrote my and my boyfriend’s names in the sand and watched as the ocean washed them away with its next surges.

I breathed in the beautiful, misty air as I imagined that the ocean hadn’t washed away my boyfriend’s name. No! Of course not! Elimination is not how the ocean plays. Not at all. Rather, it had collected my and his names safely into its eternal archives of forevermore! There our names would be safely stored away for all of eternity.

Ahhh... Touching, right?