Categories Everyday Life

Thanks a lot, Jack

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I woke up yesterday with a dozen things to do–finish my morning routine, empty out my car, take the car down to Walmart to get his oil changed and everything checked, grab some last minute groceries, pack everything into the car (including last minute items), clean out the fridge, turn off my computer, vacuum the dirt from the planted pot I knocked over the night before, take out the trash, lock up the house, and fill the car up with gas–all before 9 am when we would be leaving.

I dropped Anna and Debbie off at Mom and Dad’s house to hang out with the others while I filled up with gas at the corner gas station. I filled up and got into the car. I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. No radio, no lights, nothing. Certainly not the engine turning over. I jiggled the gear shift and repeated. Nothing. I turned the steering wheel and repeated. Still nothing. I called my parents in desperation. Joseph and Daniel came out to help–and discovered that they couldn’t do anything either. Thanks a lot, Jack.

We decided to go in Dan’s car instead. We transferred all our stuff into his car and pushed my car into a parking spot. Mom called Dad to let him know what we’d decided to do–He said, “Good luck. If Danny’s car dies on the way, leave it there.” If you haven’t guessed, my Dad doesn’t have that much confidence in Dan’s car. Nonetheless, we made it there safely–and even in time for Rachel’s homemade pizza before Aaron’s eighth grade graduation.

I mentioned our car situation at the dinner table, and Uncle Steve’s Dad pipes up: “Well, that could be just a loose battery cable.” I said I hoped so. When it was about time to go to bed and I took out my cell phone to recharge it overnight, I saw that I had missed a call from my mom. Her message said that Dad had gone to look at Jack and that it was just a loose battery cable–so it’s all fixed now. Thanks a lot, Jack!

Not that it’s really been that bad. Debbie and I didn’t end up driving ourselves on the way up–Dan drove us instead. That meant we didn’t get good private girl time–but it also meant we didn’t have to drive, or follow Joseph’s less than stellar leadership (that is, as a leader of a caravan). And Dan’s car does get better gas mileage than Jack does–especially a plus once we reached Illinois, where gas prices range from $4.009 to $4.299 per gallon. Ouch! So I suppose, other than teaching me a bit about humility and flexibility and forgiveness, the switch wasn’t that bad. Thanks a lot, Jack.

Categories Reflections

Road Trip

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Debbie and I have been discussing going on a road trip for years–probably 4 or more. But we’ve always discovered problems that have kept us from doing so–our crazy schedules, her unreliable car, Benny (my old car) going on the fritz, my dad and hers feeling uncomfortable with just the girls traveling alone. So we haven’t gone.

But tomorrow morning, that’s all going to change. My Cousin Matt is graduating from high school in Illinois this weekend, and I decided to go up for it since I have Memorial Day off and have a few vacation days at work. I invited Debbie to come with me–and it just so happens that she was able to arrange to make it too. So we’re finally going on a road trip.

We’ll be taking Jack (my car, short for Clive Staples) and caravanning with my cousin Joe (Matt’s brother), my brother Dan, and Joe’s girlfriend Dana in my Aunt Patty’s van. We’ll drop my sister Anna off in Omaha at the airport for her flight into San Antonio for the national conference of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (and to spend time with her college roommate Emily). Then we’ll be on the road. We should get up in time for Matt’s little brother Aaron’s 8th grade graduation Thursday evening.

Matt’s graduation is on Saturday, and we plan on spending Saturday and Sunday with the family. Joe, Dan, and Dana will return to Lincoln on Sunday–and Debbie and I will stick around until Tuesday. We’ll head into Chicago on Friday or Monday or both. It just so happened that Debbie’s work really needed her on Wednesday–and my work offered to pay for me to get some ServeSafe training on Wednesday–so it works well for both of us to return on Tuesday.

It’ll be fun–a memory making trip, a chance to catch up, a chance to make good on old dreams, and a chance to cross another item off my list of things to do before I die. I’ll return home and type “DA: May 27, 2008” behind “Take road trip” in my “Goals” file. Date Accomplished. One of my favorite things to type. The day when talk became reality and dreams came true. And that day–well, it all starts tomorrow.

Categories Faith, Family & Friends, Reflections

Love Languages

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Looking at “Love Languages” comes and goes in popularity at my church. We hear a bit about it and then hear nothing for a long while before we hear it again. Each of the times it rises again, I take the test again, hoping to ascertain my personal “love language”. Every time, I am disappointed–as with every attempt to categorize myself, I find that I am on the border–or maybe I just want to think I’m different so I intentionally sabotage the results.

Then there are those people you can immediately place into a category–not because they are stereotypical, but because they abound so very much in that certain area. My friend Michelle jumps to mind. I don’t know how anybody who thinks about it could not see that her love language is gifts.

I’ve been helping Michelle move this last week–and as we’ve been packing or unpacking, she’ll find something she no longer wants and offer it to me. Or she’ll think of someone else who could use it. “This will be perfect for…” “I bought this for… but I forgot about it…so now I’ll give it to…” “Do you think … would enjoy this?” She’s so generous with everything–abounding in giving.

She reminds me of the chapter in II Corinthians where Paul speaks of the generosity of the Macedonians “that in a great trial of affliction…their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. for I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing…” (II Corinthians 8:2-3) Michelle is far from rich–she lives on government assistance and disability. She has what she needs–just barely. But even as she experiences want, even as she struggles under huge physical and emotional burdens, she searches out ways to shower gifts on others. She’ll go without so that she can give. That’s just the kind of person she is.

That’s certainly not my love language. I like giving gifts, and I like receiving them. But they’re not a way of life with me. I’m not sure what my love language is. I used to think that it was physical touch. I was always a very physically affectionate child–wanting hugs and kisses and sharing nose juice with Daddy (Eskimo kisses). My brother John’s love language is definitely physical touch–and that hasn’t lessened as he’s grown older. I don’t think my language is acts of service–that’s my Mom’s and I’m nothing like her on that count. I like to do stuff for people–but I generally don’t like receiving acts of service much–or at least, it doesn’t communicate love to me like it does to her. Which leaves quality time and words of affirmation. And those two are hard to determine between. I love spending time with people–I love a good quality chat–a chat of hearts to hearts and minds to minds. I like to do things together–like quilting with Joanna, or scrapbooking with Debbie, or eating lunch with my Dad. But I also really value the words–when someone recognizes something I’ve done, when my Dad compares me to my favorite role models, when I’m told that I matter.

I guess it isn’t so important that I know my own as it is that I know others–after all, what good does it do to know my own love language? A Love Language is something that one speaks involuntarily. I don’t need to learn how to speak my own language. Instead, I must seek to learn others’ languages–so that I can translate the love that I might easily speak in my own language into a language they can understand.

So tell me, what’s your language?

Categories Following Christ, Reflections

Questions, Comments, Observations?

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In our 20s Sunday School, I’m fond of asking for “questions, comments, observations?” as we read each passage. But sometimes I forget to answer my own questions when I’m doing my personal reading. I read the word as I would a novel, taking it as it comes, doing it to pass time–or because “I’m reading every book in Eiseley Library.

I want to know God, to have an encounter with Him in the Word. I want to see God and to hear His voice through the Word. I want the Word to come alive. But it doesn’t seem that it is so–and even asking for it seems so often to be another dry religious ritual. Either I’m passionlessly asking for passion, or I’m conjuring emotion. It feels fake.

Sunday morning in Sunday school, I shared a bit of my struggles with the class–that just happened to be Debbie and two of my brothers. And I resolved yesterday that I was going to keep on seeking, keep on knocking. I resolved that even if I go through the flames, I will worship God and Him only.

Last night I read Matthew 4–and for the first time in a long time, I asked myself for questions, comments, and observations. And, to my surprise, I discovered a lot.

For instance, have you ever noticed that verse says that Jesus was “led by the Spirit into the wilderness”? The Spirit was leading; Jesus was following–and He ended up in the wilderness. So often when I end up in a wilderness, I get depressed because I figure that either the Spirit isn’t leading or I’m not following. I end up either mad at God or full of condemnation towards myself. But the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness.

And then I noticed something new about the first temptation. Jesus had been fasting 40 days. He was hungry. The devil comes to Him and says “If you are the Son of Man, command these stones to become bread.” Now that’s a strange temptation. What’s sinful about making stones into bread? Jesus made water into wine–working that type of miracle apparently isn’t taboo. So why not just do it?

Jesus’ answer was deeper than the devil expected, I’m sure. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” The devil was urging Jesus to give into His body’s hunger. Satan would have loved for Christ to be ruled by the needs of His body, by the cares of His flesh. Satan would have loved it if Jesus had become concerned about what He was going to eat, where He was going to sleep, what He would wear. From the devil’s perspective–it would have been great if Jesus had lived for food and by His body’s hunger.

But the devil’s wish was denied. “Man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” I can see a bit of a double meaning in Jesus’ answer. Man can’t live on physical food–He must also be fed by the Word–that’s our traditional interpretation (and it’s correct too). But isn’t it also true–and do not Jesus’ actions illustrate that man cannot be led by his hunger for physical food–but He must “live by” and be led by the Word of God.

It was and continues to be a moment of slow epiphany for me. I “knew” the first meaning–and that’s why I kept plugging on with reading the Word–but the second meaning was lost in the shuffle. I was being led by my body–by going to work to pay the bills and coming home and keeping the house clean and eating meals and fulfilling all those things my body (and flesh) demands. I was simply seeking Maslow’s hierarchy of “needs”. But I was not living by the Word of God–I was not being led by the Word–such that at God’s word I travel or stand still.

Help me Lord, to live beyond bread–beyond the worries of this world. Help me to live by your word–hearing Your voice and obeying, following Your leading–whether to the garden or to the wilderness.

Categories Technology

bekahcubed v.6

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It’s been a while since I last updated my site. The current version (v.5) was created in early 2006. But even that is a bit deceptive. While I have made changes to the organization and content of the site in progressive updates, I have not updated the layout since v.3–in 2002.

So, a bit has changed since 2002 when I was last doing layouts. Using tables for formatting was standard then–and CSS was new. Now CSS is the only way to go. I learned rudimentary CSS for v.3–and used it for font attributes, backgrounds, etc.–but I still have a lot to learn. CSS Layouts require a special attention to nesting and organization of elements that I wasn’t used to in my earlier days.

And then there’s the browser problem. None of the popular web browsers are completely compliant with the W3C standards for CSS. So I created my template testing against Firefox (the most standards compliant web browser–you should consider switching to it if you haven’t already). Once I had the look I wanted in Firefox, I opened it in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7–and got a page with layout elements stacked on top of each other every which way. IE7 ignored my directions for specifying “heading” headers and “body” headers and instead stacked all of my headers in absolute position at the top of the screen–not exactly what I was going for. So I had to tweak my code to work around IE7’s issues.

You can take a look at my template page (with a little text pulled from my “pregnancy” file. Don’t freak out–I’m very interested in midwifery and doulas and the like–but I am certainly not about to become an unwed mother.) I’m not even bothering with tweaking for earlier versions of IE or other less common web browsers–unless a reader points out a difficulty. So let me know via comments or e-mail if you have problems viewing the template.

I have not started using v.6 yet because I’m doing more than just a layout change–I’m updating my offerings a bit, and working to make my code generally more compliant and user-friendly. For example, I have been “blogging” in one long paragraph that fills the entire page–using breaks for divisions between paragraphs you read and bold formatting for headers. Version 6 will use headers and paragraph code as they’re supposed to be used–hopefully making bot catalogueing and regular browsing a bit easier. I’ll also be translating all my code into XHTML compliant code. So I have to do a bit of copying and pasting and tweaking code for individual pages.

So, for now, enjoy the sneak preview, prepare for v.6 to launch within a month or so, and thank God that you didn’t decide to prepare your website manually!

Categories Everyday Life

Home Depot or Menards? You Choose

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The north side of Lincoln has two big “lumberyards”. They’re located right next to each other with nothing but a Shopko separating them. Home Depot and Menards? It’s a hard decision to make. After all, they’re right next to one another–location certainly can’t be a deciding factor.

So which do you choose? When you need to buy, say, a ten foot length of conduit, where do you go?

[If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m asking for feedback ;-) For those of you who are new to this whole “blogging” thing, that means you click on the “comment” link at the bottom of this post and say something!]

Now, because I’m an honorable sort of journalist, I will declare my own biases. I have made my decision largely based on the jingles of each respective store. “Save big money, save big money when you shop Menards”–it’s repetitive but catchy. And it appeals to my base inner frugality :-P Home Depot’s on the other hand–“You can do it, we can help”–
seems to be trying at empowerment. But it strikes me as a bit patronizing.

My choice for when I need to buy a ten-foot length of conduit? See for yourself.

conduit in car at Menards

So what about you? Which do you choose?

Categories Faith, Health

Coming off the happy pills

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It was sometime last November that I realized I needed help. The day was Thursday–it was a day that seemed straight from hell. I woke up and went about my morning activities feeling more than a little off kilter. I ran into a wall, and tripped over my own feet on the way down the stairs. At 6:30, I left for work. My whole body felt tense and my reactions times were slow. I felt sure I was going to hit someone. I parked my car and began my walk into work. I clung tightly to my bag and stepped carefully, sure all the while that I would fall off the bridge and break my head open.

I made it to work, but I was strung so tightly I could have snapped any moment. My boss noticed my tenseness–but I couldn’t tell her what was going on–only that I seemed really paranoid that morning.

It took twice as long as it should have to prepare my assigned recipes because I kept having to search for my ingredients. I was into the walk-in three times before I found my spaghetti sauce ingredients–on the stack in the corner where they always are.

I rushed from work to class–ate my lunch in lecture. Forgot an apron for the cooking lab so I got points docked. Class got out early–I had two extra hours before I had to be at my next job. Usually I only had a half an hour.

I went home and took a nap–and even though I had set my alarm, I overslept. I was awakened by a call from a coworker. I was 45 minutes late to relieve him from his shift. I felt awful. The day kept running through my head until I finally got off at 9.

I got in my car and turned it towards home on autopilot. But I couldn’t go back to my house. I knew that if I did, I would crawl into it as if into a hole–and never come out again. Instead, I went to my parents house and spent the next two hours bawling.

That’s when I realized I needed help. The next day I cut my hours at the one job and gave up as many weekend shifts as I could at the other. And I set up an appointment with my physician assistant.

I came away from my appointment with a diagnosis of depression–most likely seasonal affective disorder–and a prescription for Zoloft. Within a week on the meds, I was coping much better.

This morning I took my last half pill of Zoloft. I’m going off the happy pill for the summer–maybe longer. I don’t know. The questions and judgments surrounding drug treatment of depression–and even the diagnosis of depression itself–rise in my mind once again. I had pushed them down, ignored them during the winter because I couldn’t afford to be philosophical–I needed the pill.

Now, when the sun start shining again and I can wake up without three alarms, when I have energy to carry out my daily activities, and even to dream and plan for the future–Now the demon reemerges to condemn me for my reliance on a drug to see me through. “Don’t you trust God? Can’t He heal you? Depression is all in your mind. It’s all your fault. You weren’t even really depressed–you just didn’t want to face the music. You’re a hypochondriac. You did it to yourself. And now you’re relying on a quick fix drug to ease your pain. How different are you really from someone who drowns his struggles in the bottle?”

Depression is a diagnosis that I’ve feared, hated, and gladly welcomed. Antidepressants are a cure I’ve despised, despaired over, and depended upon.

I fear that I’ll never have a winter of relief–that I’ll have to rely on my happy pills every year. I fear that it’ll extend–and I’ll always be depressed, not just in the winter. I fear that maybe the cause isn’t physiology–that maybe the problem is me. Maybe I just can’t cope, can’t manage. I fear that I’m deficient. I fear that depression is a sin–that all it means is that I’m not trusting God.

But the Bible says that perfect love casts out fear. Lord, may I bask in Your love. May I trust that Your arms will hold me fast even as the enemy attacks my mind with condemnation. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” I believe. Help me in my unbelief.

Categories Uncategorized

No more than three times a year

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I was showing a friend some of the photographs of old documents that I took while I was at Grandma and Grandpa’s house–and came upon this:
My great-grandpa Pierce’s Social Security Card.

Which reminded my friend that she needed to get a new card, having lost hers.

I whipped open my internet browser to the SS administration website to find her the information she needed to know–and found this useful tidbit: “…You are limited to three replacement cards in a year…” Now I don’t know about you, but that just about saved me from disaster. I had been planning on using the three I’d ordered in the last couple of months in a decoupage project and ordering another. Now I know that I’ll have to wait until next year to get that project done. After all, never know when I might be switching employers and need another SS card.

Additionally, parents should take note that only 10 replacement cards are allowed in a lifetime. So if you’ve been letting little Johnny use his or your cards as a teething biscuit–you’ll have to be aware that unless you legally change names or maybe change immigration status, you will not be able to obtain an eleventh card.