There is a Season by Konnie Enos

Today, our Sunday school lesson was on Ecclesiastes. To start the class the teacher played “Turn, Turn, Turn” by The Byrds. I won’t try to quote the whole thing but go read Ecclesiastes 3:1-11. Then listen to the Byrds song. Turn, Turn, Turn

Between both of those I remembered a book I read years ago when I was maybe thirteen, “A Time to Love, A Time to Mourn” by Paige Dixon. You’ll cry, but you really should read it, great story.

Then I remembered a conversation last week with some ladies we go to church with. Last Sunday she was mentioning the recent marriage of her next to youngest son. She also, not too long ago announced her only daughter giving her a grandchild. The thing is her youngest son is about nine years younger than his next youngest sibling and he is only in middle school right now.

I asked her and she confirmed, all of her other children are now married and except for the one newly married they all have at least one child. One of the other ladies there commented she’d be an empty nester if not for her surprise baby.

Then I went home and was scrolling through Facebook. I happened to see a post by one of my cousins many children congratulating her and her husband on all their years of marriage. It included pictures, of my cousin, her husband, their children and all their grandchildren (counted seventeen). She has at least one still in high school and she once mentioned her younger kids going to school with some of her older grandchildren.

My cousin, like the lady at church, is in about her mid-fifties and still not an empty nester. Only my cousin doesn’t have any nine year age gaps between any of her kids.

Then there is me and my husband.

My prolific cousin is younger than I am by a couple of years and my five children were all born within the span of a decade. (My oldest will soon be 27 and my youngest turned 17 just a few months ago.)

In case anybody hasn’t counted recently, I’m far from an empty nest.

Of my four adult children only the oldest, the nearly 27 year old has moved out. She is in fact, as of this month, married for a full year now.

My second child moved out briefly but health issues forced her to move back home and she has been unable to move out or otherwise take care of herself, at least financially, since. She is hoping and praying to find the means to move out, preferably soon, but it hasn’t happened yet.

My next to the youngest, who turned eighteen just before last Christmas, insists he and his best friend are going to move in together just as soon as they both find full-time jobs and they can find an apartment. The job issue is holding things up at the moment.

My youngest son? One, he isn’t an adult yet. Two, he insists he’s never moving out. (Autism spectrum, he hates change.)

The only other child we’ve got is my youngest daughter. Starting in high school she began telling us her plans for college. At first she was saying she would move off to college right out of high school, but as she investigated her options she decided it would be cheaper to live here and start at the local community college.

She’ll graduate next May.

She’s been saying since she started at this college she’d move out and on to where she plans to continue her education as soon as she finishes here. HOWEVER, she has also, on occasion mentioned the possibility of getting her bachelor’s degree locally and still live at home for two more years. She hasn’t said she’d for sure be staying for quite some time but until she actually settles on a university, there is still the possibility. (After all we do have universities and four year colleges here.)

This all brings me to something my husband said the other day. “We could be empty nesters in the next year.”

After considering everything I just stated I concluded: Only if the three with plans to move out don’t have those plans thrown awry or they never come to fruition because, two, you never know what surprises life is going to hand you. AND three, if the one not planning to move out actually changes his mind OR we move out.

And then in my mind I heard. “To everything there is a season, Turn, Turn, Turn…”

Kind of funny that very song would be played as part of our very next Sunday school lesson.

Now tell me why I chose a fiddler on a roof for the picture for this post.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

My Chaotic Life by BL Hamilton

Not too long ago a friend came to my house to help me out for a little while since I wasn’t feeling well and really needed a few things done. At one point, we were talking and I apologized for my place being a bit of a disaster area. She laughed and said my place was more, “Organized chaos than disaster” then said, “I bet you know just were everything is.”

Well, yes and no. My spare bedroom is a huge mess, and will take a long time (if I ever get to it) to clear that up and organize it. The hall shelves are another mess, but yes, I pretty much know where everything is, I have lived here a while and I do pass that a lot. I can’t help but see it. And another huge mess is my couch, most of the time.

Frankly, give me a warning before you come to visit, otherwise the only seat available will be the recliner across the room. Well, and the kitchen chairs. There is literally no room for anyone else on my huge, monster of a couch because spread out next to me are a ton of things I use or need at hand’s reach on regular basis, starting with my blood pressure cuff, my equipment to check my blood sugar, and my medicines.

I also keep my laptop and my reader, and a few reference books. (Let’s face it folks sometimes books are better!) And, during the day, I usually have a couple bottles of water with me. Of course, sometimes one is empty, but with two, I don’t have to get up as much.

Okay, yeah I’m lazy! Not! I only take one bottle with me when I’m out and about to do errands, unless I know I’m going to be more than a couple of hours, and hey, I don’t want to run out. No, I keep two bottles at my side, because I don’t want to interrupt my writing that often to get a refill.

And there are other things that have found a home on my couch, instead of somewhere else, because I simply haven’t put them away, or they just plain belong there.

Like Scotty, my big shaggy Scottish stuffed dog which was a gift from my husband years ago. And the throw pillows, most of which are on the other end of the couch. And of course, my phone’s base is on the sort of shelf at the back of the couch, within easy reach. It would be easier if I remembered to keep my phone on the base because then I wouldn’t have to search for when it rings.

It would also be easier if everything on the couch stayed in the exact same place, but I’m constantly tossing through this stuff looking for either my remotes or phone, or both.

Why is it always those things that are buried? Okay, honestly, unless I’ve straightened up the mess recently, I generally end up searching for something. About the only things that doesn’t get lost in this mess are my laptop and the zippered binder I use to try and keep my finances organized. But that, like everything else, only works, if you remember to use it.

Yeah, my life is a mess and try as I might, I think it is going to remain this way for a very long time, mostly because I can never seem to stick to any one task for very long. Take yesterday morning when right in the middle of fixing my breakfast it dawned on me I didn’t get any laundry done the day before, even though I had gathered and sorted it. And that I really needed to get that going, before I forgot again, so I set aside what I was doing and to just real quick get a load in, figuring it would only take a couple of minutes, since after all it was already sorted.

Yeah right.

When I finished getting a load in, I remembered something else I’d forgotten and the next thing I know I’m getting a little light headed and there’s my breakfast half fixed sitting on the table. Yeah, that wasn’t a good start to the day.

I’ll try harder today.

Happy writing everyone! :) 

As The World Turns

Living alone it’s easy to form a habit of writing every day, there is little to distract or pull you away from the goal, but the problem with that is if you get caught up in the writing you are doing and put off all the other chores that need done.

Dishes, and laundry, still need washed. Floors need swept, or vacuumed, or mopped, and bills need paid, checkbooks need balanced; the world doesn’t stop moving while we’re concentrating on our fictitious worlds and sometimes that catches up to us, sometimes in heart stopping ways.

The other day I got a call from sister-in-law, her asking or a ride to do some errands was no big deal, I do that all the time, but I about had a heart attack when she said, “Today after my appointment.”

Today! I instantly racked my brain, positive I’d looked on my calendar that morning to be certain when her next doctor’s appointment was, and I was sure it wasn’t until the following day. So I was reaching for my planner as I asked her if she’d read her calendar correctly pointing out what day of the week it was.

She groaned, “It’s tomorrow isn’t it?”

Her calling for a ride was one thing. She doesn’t drive, I chauffeur her around all the time, but her mentioning an appointment I didn’t have on my calendar? That’s a whole other problem, and the fact is, I’ve spaced her appointments before. That’s why I’d specifically checked my calendar, I knew one was coming up, wasn’t sure when.

But such is the life of a writer. She needed a ride to run errands, I thought it would be easier to do them on separate days, so I took that day to run her errands, the next day was her appointment then I woke up this morning and moaned. Today is Wednesday!

Yeah, sometimes life just gets away from us. J

Happy writing everyone!