June 13, 2016 · 1:43 pm

Did you pack the…of course not!

I am getting ready to take off for an extended vacation in the next week or so, and therefore it has become my painful duty to do the one thing I hate the most in the world…plan ahead.

I have never in my life gone on one single trip where I was not encumbered by the necessity of either doing without whatever I forgot, or running out to frantically try to replace it. The number of drugstores in strange cities where I have been seen, running down the aisles, searching frantically for pantyhose, a headache remedy or some sort of makeshift gift would be a staggering figure.

This last weekend may illustrate my problems with remembering. We were on a trip to the Twin Cities, but we were going to an unfamiliar area. We had all kinds of maps and instructions, but we decided we should take the GPS anyway. Roy gathered the chargers, the stand, etc. and put them in the car. Halfway to Minneapolis, he turned to me and said, “Did you pack the GPS in the trunk?”

“GPS?” was my vague response.

We made it where we were going, but it was touchy. It’s the same every time. It’s not because we are more than ordinarily forgetful; no, our problem is much more elementary: I do everything last minute, including packing. It doesn’t matter how much warning I’ve had, I still wait until the very last minute and then I try to remember everything.

Sometimes I make a list in advance. This is extremely helpful. I make the list, promptly lose it and so my last-minute packing leaves something out. This has resulted in my wearing sneakers to a wedding, using my fingers to comb my hair and always and inevitably forgetting my deodorant!

The upcoming vacation (and it’s coming fast) will include several days of camping before an air trip to New York and some Broadway plays. That means I must remember camping equipment, food, and dress clothes…all in the same trip. I just hope I don’t show up at a Broadway theater in my walking sweat-suit!

I have a daughter who likes to be meticulously organized. I maintain that someone switched her at birth because she cannot be mine. She makes lists (and hangs on to them), plans her events down to the last detail and is always months ahead of time in her arrangements. I wish I was like that, but I am not.

So, on the last day before I leave for vacation I will be frantically throwing fry pans, eggs and bacon, dress theater jackets and my favorite ratty old pajamas in the suitcase and it won’t be until I’m well on the road that I will remember that I should have brought the coffee and that I don’t know if my dress shoes are in the suitcase or not!My husband has been asking me not-so-subtle questions all week like, “Do you have all the laundry done that you need?” (I have been known to throw dirty clothes in the suitcase and rinse them out in a motel sink). Or, “Say, dear, have you brought up the suitcases yet? You know, so we can get started packing?” (That’s so silly, because frequently I will not have unpacked from a previous trip, so when I get the suitcase, I find not so fresh clothes in it or discover that THIS is where my spare toothbrush went.)


I’ll get around to packing for this trip, but I know without a doubt that my husband is going to turn to me when we are in the car, much too late to turn around and go back, and say, “Oh, by the way, did you pack…oh, never mind, we’ll have to get along without it!” Happy vacationing, everyone!

 

 

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June 6, 2016 · 2:20 pm

Let the Sun Shine In

It’s been coming on for a long time. The creeping darkness, the constant cluttering. I’ve been slowly becoming more aware of the gathering gloom. It was time to take charge. It was time to clean those windows.

I’m no fan of any household chores, but the one I think I despise more than any is cleaning windows. It’s such a thankless job. You clean and rub and polish and then you walk away, only to glance back and see more smears. It’s like rolling a heavy stone to the top of a hill and then realizing that you let go of it too soon and it’s rolling back down! Frustrating, to say the least.

Because of all the aforementioned fun times, it is a fact that at my house the windows get pretty gloomy before I’m finally forced to do something. And this week, we reached that wonderful point where it was impossible to see enough to determine if it there was a mud smear on the window or if there was just a heavy, silent rain coming down!

So, on Saturday morning, I took a deep breath, trembled as I downed my coffee and said to my husband, “I think it’s time we clean the windows.”

“So soon?” he enquired, “It seems like we just did that…I don’t know exactly when, but I know it was the year Tracie graduated. When was that? Three years ago?”

“Ten years ago,” I said. “I’ll get the rags and soap, you bring the buckets and ladders.”

“The windows haven’t been washed in ten years?” he was horrified.

“Of course they have been washed…on the inside…some of them…a few times,” I muttered.

We started with the highest windows and I’ll give Roy his credit. He took the outside, clinging to a ladder in a progressively increasing wind and giving the outside a good scrub. Apparently those kind of heights make a person crabby, though, because when I kept pointing out spots that he had missed, he finally invited me to come out and do it myself. Given that incentive, I soon learned to regard the windows as perfectly fine!The upstairs windows were dirty, but they were nothing compared to the basement windows, which sit nearer the dirt on the ground. Taking them apart and cleaning them meant removing a few layers of mud and cleaning the sills of all the sifted-in dirt.


“Come on, aren’t you ready to put this window back together yet?” Roy, sensing the end of the task was near, grew impatient with my lack of speed.

“Just hold your horses, will you? I’m on an archeological dig here,” I told him, scooping up hands full of packed in dirt.

“An archeological dig? What do you mean?”

“I mean I digging in the dirt and the artifacts are plentiful,” I answered.

“Artifacts?” he stuck his head in the window, looking at the array of pennies, nails, combs, pencils, ect., that I had dug out.

“And not just artifacts,” I added. “Some of these bug bodies have been here long enough to qualify as mummies. I don’t know whether to throw them in the garbage or call a museum.”

We’re done with the windows now and the house is filled with clean, sparkling light. We’ve discovered that we have new neighbors and that some of our trees have grown up and there is actually a house behind ours now. It’s so nice to see out the windows again.

“So, when do you suppose we’ll have to do that again,” Roy asked as he relaxed in the living room next to the gleaming windows.

“I don’t know, how do you feel about doing it on Tracie’s 20th anniversary of graduating from high school?” I’ve never been an ambitious kind of person!

 

 

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May 23, 2016 · 2:32 pm

Non-techies unite!  Grab a pencil and some paper and follow me!

I am writing this blog tonight on a computer and I intend to post it online, but I want all of you to know I do it under protest. For an avowed non-techie like myself, the time has come to rebel.

Everyone has known for many years how I feel about computers, but I think this week we have reached new heights. I say that computers are taking over the world and those of us who don’t use them continuously are being discriminated against.

I wanted to sign up for a class this summer. It was one I have been interested in for a while. I took my admission papers for the school and tried to follow the instructions. The main instruction is to sign up on-line, not by calling the school. I went to the WebAdvisor page and followed enough instructions so it got my name right.

The next instruction said to “Click Here” to sign up for the class. I “clicked there” and got to the class page. I clicked on the class I wanted. It sent me back to the WebAdvisor page which instructed me to “Click here” to sign up for the class. For an hour and a half I continued to “click here,” with each click getting me nowhere in particular and always taking me back to the WebAdvisor page which advised me to “Click here.” By then, if I had owned a revolver, I would have pointed it at the computer, put my finger on the trigger and invited the computer to “click here.”

Of course, eventually I had to contact the school who discovered a “little glitch” in my program, so they signed me up for the class. This happens to me frequently; apparently I have a spot on my computer which invites me to “click here for the little glitch!” The whole point is that in the end, a person signed me up for the class.

The same thing happens whenever I attempt to use the computer for such transactions. I went to get a ticket to a play I really wanted to see. I had to set up an account first and then “click here” to get my ticket. I clicked. The little swirly circle swirled and I thought we were all set up. Two weeks later, no ticket had arrived. I took a chance. I called. The lady there said, “No, you didn’t buy a ticket. Too bad, we’re all out. You should have called.”

Trouble is, of course, phones are no better these days. They are all little computers just dripping with apps and programs and even cameras. And they are truly dehumanizing the country. I eat lunch alone in restaurants a lot. I don’t like it but it’s often necessary. When I sit in those restaurants, I watch the people at tables around me who come in together, but who are also eating alone. Or they are eating with their preferred companions, their phones. It’s too sad to be funny.

Discrimination is the hot topic of the country. We should have consideration for the differently abled, racial tension, gender identity, etc. We should have consideration for those groups, but what about those of us who are simply not in step with all this technology? We need a voice to speak for us as well.

The crowning moment came this week. I sat down to do some work on my computer (yes, I have one) and it couldn’t be accessed. It was busy “updating.” It’s done this before…usually takes about 20 minutes. Except that this took five hours and when it was finished, it announced, “We have updated you to Windows 10.” Now, that was unnerving, to say the least. My computer made a decision for me and then tied up my programs for five hours to do something I didn’t want done in the first place.

After it was finished, there was this creepy little message which now sits permanently on the bottom of my screen: “I’m Cortana. Ask me anything.” It sounds a little like a sexual come-on, but if I were to ask Cortana something, it would probably be to give her a suggestion of what she can do with herself.

Non-techies arise! We must do something before it’s too late! Give me my paper and pencil back—or at least, let me have my Windows 8!

 

 

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May 16, 2016 · 8:16 pm

No pictures, please; One week to fixing it

My back spare bedroom has the door closed and it is difficult to get open. It’s full of boxes and bags and stacks of stuff I have been putting back there “until I have time to do something with them.” Of course, the school year has proceeded and I haven’t fixed it yet.

My living room is covered in a fine layer of dust that hasn’t been lifted since Easter. I have it on my list of things to do, but to be honest, it will be last thing on the list because I have written the list in the dust on my library table in the living room. Wouldn’t want to wreck that.

I have three piles of laundry lying in different places—in a chair in my bedroom, on the spare bedroom bed and in a basket on the couch. It looks terrible and everything is getting wadded up and wrinkled, but I’ll get it all fixed. In another week, everything will get done.

My cupboard is bare and my sink is full. I read this week that there’s a new app on the phone that will allow you to check inside your refrigerator while you are at the store, just to see what you need. That sounds ridiculous. I don’t want to look inside my refrigerator when I’m in the kitchen; I sure don’t want to see it when I’m out in public! But even that will be fixed in another week.

You may ask, why am I waiting a week? Well, because this mess in my house has been building up for the last nine months and next week school is out for the summer. At that point, I will no longer have stacks of correcting to do, tons of lesson plans to make out or any of the four thousand other things teachers get to do when “school is over” for the day. It’s never over at 3 o’clock for a teacher, and it’s seldom over at 10 p.m.

I will have fun with my summer. I won’t get at the housework right away, of course. The first week I’ll just sit on the back deck with a pot of tea and stare into space. I won’t be looking at anything in particular and I might chuckle every once in a while, but no one should worry about that.

I’ll get the dishes and the laundry and the dusting caught up gradually as the summer progresses, but the refrigerator and the bathroom will probably be put off for last. I have thought many times about getting a cleaning lady to come in once a week, but I always end up rejecting the idea. I don’t have the time to clean the bathroom and the refrigerator once a week before she came in, because I sure wouldn’t be letting any cleaning people see those two things as they are. They’d call the health department.

So, things pile up. I have a stack of letters, invitations, appointment cards, junk mail, ect., that I just leave on the desk. I sort out the important stuff, but when I’m done with anything, I add it to the pile. In another week, I’ll get around to shredding, discarding or scrapbooking the things in the pile that need it, but for right now, that stack just keeps getting higher. It’s the dog’s go-to spot when she’s looking for something to rip up, but she can’t read, so she always ends up shredding the things I wanted to keep.

And that brings me to the stairwell—the site of her shredding escapades. The steps are so full of bits of paper and cardboard that I’ve forgotten what color the carpet is. It’s strewn with half-destroyed toys and shreds of her latest kennel bed. In another week, I’ll get around to clearing it away, but for now, it’s just going to have to continue to look like a tornado site.

There will be no pictures to go with this blog, so you’ll have to take my word for it, but my house looks pretty bad. Any picture I could take, you just wouldn’t want to see. But it’ll all be fixed. Final bell for the year rings in a week!

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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May 2, 2016 · 2:51 pm

Anxiety of Change…

The spring of the year seems to be a time of change for many people. If they are going to move or change jobs, spring is a good time. Schools end, summer jobs start, graduates are jumping from academic pursuits to on-the-job challenges. And with all that, comes anxiety. I have had conversations with at least four people—three of whom are younger than me, on the topic of anxiety just this week.shutterstock_101041396

How do we eliminate anxiety? Especially when we are a country of such monumental change…all the time? Personally, I hate change so much I wear my shoes until they have holes in their holes and I keep my toothbrushes until the last bristles fall out. Do I have anxiety anyway? Of course! Who doesn’t?

I also have a philosophy about anxiety. (It’s not really mine…I read it somewhere.) With the increase of our mobility as a society, our anxiety has intensified. When our ancestors roamed the world, they didn’t worry about change, they worried about enough food and adequate shelter. Once societies developed, they worried about family ties and social traditions. Today, we worry about all of those things plus we have the added need to search our souls, keep expanding, take care of everyone else, excel at our jobs and all the while wondering how to avoid trashing the planet or blowing it up.

The good news is that today we are smart enough to provide aids when the anxiety gets too overwhelming. Everything from talk therapy to physical and medical aides can help give an edge over anxiety and most intelligent, educated people make use of them when they need them.

The underlying issue of change leading to anxiety is the same, though. We all worry about making the right move with every decision. The only trouble is, anxiety doesn’t help us in making the decision. In fact, it can stop us from making the decisions that are best for us.

I’ve spent so much time in my life letting my anxiety get in my own way when it comes to the things that I want. And do you know what I’ve discovered? That my anxiety doesn’t improve when I refuse to make decisions and refuse to change…in fact, in many cases in my life it has been worse—because I failed to “choose the road less taken.”

This column isn’t too humorous, but at this time of graduation when so many are making choices which are so important to their futures and when we all face a plethora of changes, I thought it might be worth mentioning that we all have anxiety and it isn’t always easy to control. It will never go away, so the secret is to learn to control it—by whatever means you can—so that it doesn’t control you. Take it from someone who knows, anxiety and uncertainty can take many disguises, but if it can, it will try to take over…don’t let it. Go out and get everything you want and let your anxiety worry about maintaining itself!

Have a great week—I promise I’ll be funny next time!

 

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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April 25, 2016 · 1:15 pm

About my new underwear…

I think it’s fair to say most people would state that I indulge my grandsons a little….okay, so maybe I indulge them a lot. And because of this tendency to indulge them, I may have been the victim of a vicious prank by my children.

It all started with a bunch of little rescue dogs collectively known as the “Paw Patrol.” My grandchildren, while not abandoning such old favorites as Curious George and Wild Kratts, have become huge fans of the Paw Patrol.

They watch the episodes so much that I can say the words along with them and I have been grilled repeatedly by the boys as to which one is which. “Which one is this, Grandma?” asked my younger grandson in his best teacher voice on Skype one night. He was pointing to the little canine grinning at me from the front of his shirt, but fortunately, before I had to reveal my ignorance he was so eager to share, that he answered his own question. “That’s Marshall, Grandma,” he told me importantly and I nodded as though I’d known it all the time.

It turns out that the members of the Paw Patrol are a million dollar franchise, to which my grandsons are devoted in their efforts to collect them. They collect stuffed toys, action figures, pillows and blankets, rugs, shirts, hats and socks. They even have some Paw Patrol bubble bath that they use at Grandma’s house.

I thought they had reached the limit of Paw Patrol paraphernalia, but as usual, Grandma was behind the times on Paw Patrol. As my faithful Paw Patrol expert informed me one day, “I just like Paw Patrol unnerwear, Grandma!” Paw Patrol underwear! Grandma went in search of it and sure enough, all those little rescue puppies are decorating some pretty cool pairs of undershorts.

Grandma was able to relax. I had provided my sweet little boys with the ultimate in Paw Patrol gear. That was the end of it…or so I thought.

It seems that my quest for Paw Patrol “unnerwear” had given my younger daughter and her partners in crime (her husband and her best friend) an idea for something they could do to torment Grandma. On a visit to my town, they all disappeared for several hours at the friend’s house. I didn’t think too much of it until they came back to my house with a little gift for me: my very own “unnerwear” which they had decorated with Paw Patrol iron on stickers.DSCN2397

To make sure that I would not be able to refuse, they had my grandsons deliver the underwear to me. The boys, were of course, confident that I would be thrilled with my new stylish underwear. They brought it to me, exclaiming over how cool it was that now Grandma had Paw Patrol underwear, just like them. Although my  older grandson did point out that there was one significant difference, “It’s such BIG Paw Patrol underwear, Grandma!”

Needless to say, I have not attempted to wear the Paw Patrol underwear. Why? You may ask. I think it would be extremely awkward to put on the underwear featuring the little rescue canines, but even worse would be for me to get into an accident in those things. No, I think this Paw Patrol underwear will remain in the back of my drawer…at least until my daughter and her friend celebrate their birthdays; then they are going to get a Paw Patrol special delivery!

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

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April 18, 2016 · 3:13 pm

Slipping him a mickey…

I drove home from Minneapolis this weekend. It’s unusual for me to drive the majority of the trip when we go to the “Cities” to visit our kids. Usually Roy drives and I give him a short break now and then.  But today, I’m proud to say that I did the vast majority of the driving…however, it wasn’t exactly by choice.

It all started with Roy’s backache. He’s been struggling with upper back muscle tension for several days, but this weekend he was particularly uncomfortable. So much so that he actually allowed me to give him some pain medication on Friday—something he prefers not to do.

Nonetheless, he struggled with sore muscles all weekend. I worried. I always do that…I overthink an eye twitch into a stroke or a bug bite into a fatal rash. So of course, a muscle ache could be any number of terrible things and I worried all weekend.

Then, of course, there was the abnormal sleeping. Usually on a trip anywhere away from our beds, we both sleep poorly and he is always up early. He declared both nights we were there that he slept soundly and had trouble getting up in the morning. And he napped every opportunity he got.

This morning was particularly rough. He arose late and was extremely grumpy. His muscles were still bothering him. We went to church and he sat down and fell asleep. That was odd because he doesn’t ordinarily sleep in church. And he was so deep in sleep that he didn’t notice when his son-in-law got up and left the sanctuary because he was overheated. He was really out and he missed a terrific sermon.

We went for a walk after church and he sat on a bench and fell asleep. Since his grandsons were there and he likes to watch them play, I was worried that he fell asleep. Then, when we went back to my daughter’s house, he fell asleep again, so deeply that he was hard to wake up to go to lunch.

He fell asleep on the hard benches we sat on to wait for our table at the restaurant and even when we woke him up, he still acted groggy. My worry finally reached its peak when we had to head out of the cities in heavy traffic and he admitted that he was afraid of dozing off if he tried to drive. Since I normally nap while he drives, this was particularly unnerving.

After this admission, I, of course, took the wheel. I drove and he fell into such a heavy sleep I had to work very hard to get him to respond if I needed something. I was frantic. What medical problem was he having? Should I be stopping in one of the towns along the way and seeking medical assistance?

In my mind, I ran back through the day, searching for something that could account for his grogginess. I remembered giving him some of my over the counter pain medication that morning and suddenly it became important to check the label on that. Maybe it was reacting adversely with a prescription med he takes. I stopped the car and got out the bottle of pills. It was my regular over the counter pain medication…only it was the PM version. In other words, I had been giving my poor husband pain medication with a sleep aid additive the whole weekend!pills

So I had, in effect, slipped my husband a mickey that morning and then tried to put him behind the wheel of the car. As I was driving along, still coming to grips with this, he suddenly woke up. “Do you want me to drive?” he asked in a sleepy voice. “No, I definitely don’t,” I answered, “I’m going to be driving this time.”

He’s back to full alertness now and has a new appreciation for how cautious he should be about whatever pills I give him. He also informed me that it’s illegal to drug someone and then transport them across state lines. I hope I don’t go to jail for this!

 

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

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April 12, 2016 · 2:18 am

Wide Awake

The thing I miss the most about being a toddler is nap time. I have looked back across the vista of my life at the number of times I had the opportunity to nap or go to bed early and I wonder why I fought it so much.

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Today, half my time is spent in finding ways to sleep anywhere and at any time. The rest of my time is pretty much wasted.
I had a particularly intense session in sleep techniques this weekend. Whenever I have a weekend tournament with my oral interp students, it is a tough weekend for everyone. They, because they must perform and me, because I must stay awake.
I started it out as usual by being unable to get my wake mechanism to shut down the night before. That is a new and clever way I have devised to say that I didn’t get any sleep the night before. I’m always paranoid that I will miss the alarm or get a flat tire, be late in some way. So, I spend the night waiting for the time to get up and go, counting on the chance to get in a nap on the bus on the way.
I rousted the kids out at 6:15 and they showed up…all of them. Most were still in their pajamas and had pillows and blankets, so they were planning on sleeping too. Trouble is, tired as I was, sleeping on that bus was impossible. I don’t know how many of you have tried riding a school bus lately, but the best of them ride so roughly that I would have better luck falling asleep on a pogo stick!
So, I spent the day sitting in a chair at an oral interp meet trying to sleep without appearing  to be asleep. All of the children leave their valuables with me as they go into rounds, so I always try to find ways to protect them. I sit at the table and wind bags around my wrists and ankles. This isn’t totally comfortable, but I do this on the assumption that if someone tried to take something, I would wake up. I’ve never had it tested out, at least I’m pretty sure no one’s attempted to steal and the students never complain about missing anything.
There are only three positions a person can assume when attempting to sleep at an oral interp meet. My favorite is the upright, head back. This involves finding a brick wall and putting your chair against it. I have slept with my head propped against a rough bit of brick many times and it is not too bad until you really fall asleep and your head slips to the side. That leaves some nasty examples of brick burn.
Then there is the straight chair position with head down. I don’t like this position because in the first place, it’s really hard on the neck to hang your head down and secondly, it can be misleading. I once woke from sleeping in this position to a student tapping me gently on the shoulder and saying, “Excuse me, Mrs. Fauth, I hate to disturb you while you’re praying, but I need to look at the schedule again.”
The final position is my least favorite, but the most effective. That’s the full-out, take off your glasses, cross your arms on the table and sleep with your head down. While I get the best sleep in this position, it’s also the one for which there is no faking that you were doing anything but sleeping on the job.
The interp meet was successful and the students were well-satisfied with their work. We went back home on the same rough bus, so I was awake the whole way. However, when I got home, my husband said to me, “What should we do tonight?” My answer? I gave him no answer. I had already slipped into bed and was completely unconscious. Now THAT was the greatest possible way to sleep…and I didn’t have five bags wrapped around my arms and legs, either. See you in the morning!

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April 4, 2016 · 6:15 pm

And that ends today’s exercise program…

Every once in a while, I get the feeling that I should exercise more. Mostly I get this feeling when I step on a scale (usually by accident) or put on my favorite clothes…which refuse to close. It’s then I get the exercise bug. Not just the “go on a few more walks, big girl” kind of bug. I mean the “get out the mat and start sweatin’ you oldie!” kind of bug.

Well, last week, my favorite pair of navy pants expressed its displeasure with my weight gain by popping the waistband button and shooting it across the room. Very well, I can take a hint. I looked up some exercises on the Internet. “Tighter abs, smaller waist and hips in just 7 minutes a day.” What a great title and it didn’t sound too difficult.

First, I turned off every electronic device in the house. There is no way I want someone to hack into my account, film me wallowing around on the floor like a beached whale and put it on You Tube or something. It wouldn’t go viral, I’m sure, but it would probably be recommended viewing for anyone wishing to lose their appetite!

I unburied my exercise mat in the bottom of the closet. As I rolled it out, I know it said, “Oh seriously, lady, not again!” I got down on the floor and that only took three minutes. Imagine my outrage when I realized that those three minutes don’t count in the seven minutes of the workout! Certainly I raised a sweat getting down there!

First, I had to bend my knees and touch my ankles from either side. This one wasn’t too bad, except I didn’t make it quite to my ankles. Okay, to tell the truth I had a little trouble bending my knees, but I waved at my ankles from either side and began to “feel the burn” as they say.

I had been somewhat worried about the dog bothering me during this process. I shouldn’t have concerned myself. She disappeared into the basement the minute she heard me grunting and groaning, no doubt supposing that I was dying slowly and painfully from something she didn’t want to catch!

Next were two exercises requiring me to connect opposite ends of my body. I must make my right elbow touch my left knee. Well, I’ve already explained about the knee-bending thing, but the elbow was much more cooperative. I managed to get my bent elbows almost over my bosom and my knees ended up somewhere in the region of my hips. I’ll get better as time goes on, I suppose, but somehow, I am not expecting a knee-elbow reunion anytime soon.

From there it just gets worse. The next exercise wanted me to bend my knees again (they were obsessive about bent knees) and then sit up and stick my hands as far as I could between my thighs. Now I had some problems with this. First, there was the problem of being able to sit up far enough to do this and then, when I could, it looked like I was performing some weird, sexual ritual. Definitely don’t want to do that one around anyone else!

The final torture…I mean, requirement was to do something called a plank. This is where you get up on your toes and your forearms and hold your body in a straight line—the plank. I had just done ankle touches, elbow and knee bends and another exercise I don’t like to talk about. Nonetheless, I decided to do the plank. I got up on my forearms and my toes. Unfortunately, I had slipped down on the mat, so that my toes hit the linoleum instead of the mat. I pushed up into the plank and observing myself in the glass of the door, I could see that I resembled a camel with my butt as the large hump in the middle; it didn’t look very much like a plank. As I began to count, my toes slipped on the linoleum and I fell on my face.

And that wraps up this session of my exercise program. Any bets as to how long I can keep this up?

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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March 28, 2016 · 3:53 pm

It’s Finally Happening…

 

Before I say anything on this subject, let me assure you that I know what Easter is truly about. I know it’s not about the Easter bunny or who wore what to church or anything like that. I know Easter is the celebration of the fact that my Redeemer lives. Having said that, I have a few more comments on the holiday.

As a child growing up, Easter was always the time of year when we got new clothes—something fancy for Easter, because my mother insisted that new clothes on Easter Sunday was an important tradition.

For me, it was more often the cramming of my body into clothing that was stiff and new and most definitely not of my choosing. There are pictures of me as a child in little green sailor dresses and pastel plaid skirts with pleats and little headbands full of flowers, etc., you get the picture.

Worst of all, believe it or not, were the shoes and stockings. We couldn’t just wear regular ones—it was either socks with stiff decorations on them that made my ankles itch, or even worse, white panty-hose stockings that made my legs itch all over and which invariably had a large blot of mud on them somewhere that I got by climbing carelessly out of a farm vehicle. The shoes were no better, white patent leather, black patent leather, it didn’t matter. They were stiff, uncomfortable and frequently made my stockings snag.

My mother dressed me up in these outfits in the name of “Easter Sunday Fashion.” She couldn’t help it; it’s what her mother did to her and probably what Grandmother’s mother did to her. It was a family tradition of misery that went way back, and while we celebrated the Risen Lord, we itched, scratched, tugged and stained our way through that fateful day.

We usually went to some family dinner or another after church, which meant we had to keep those miniature torture chambers on and try not to get our ham dinner on them—for me an impossible task. We were allowed to change into more comfortable clothes after dinner, but usually I was too stubborn for that. I continued to wear the dress-up clothes and sat tugging at my collar and itching my legs while everyone else ran around and had fun in their old jeans.

When my own girls were growing up, I tried once or twice to go the dress up dollies route, but it seemed I was either too broke or too busy to get the job done right. I was pleased with myself. I hadn’t forced my girls to wear silly headbands or gender-defining tights (at least, not very often.) By the time they could voice a real opinion, they thought that if the jeans were Silver Jeans, that was dress-up enough. As for flowery headbands—forget it. I once used ribbon and a headband base to make them fancy, braided, elegant headbands with elaborate bows on the ends. Those little engineers were far more interested in how they had been made than how they would look in their hair. It took little time for them to deconstruct them, discard the headband base and use the ribbon for something more fun—like, decorating the dog!

No, I was not like my mother. I was not going to force my daughters to dress up as I had to. I was feeling pretty smug about this until today. Today, I was sent a picture of my grandsons, enjoying the Easter holiday. And what were they wearing? Little suit outfits I had sent them crowned by the bunny ears headbands I had put in their Easter baskets.

Hear that splash? That’s the dam breaking as my mother starts to leak through!

© Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In the Well, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Wells-Fauth and Drops In The Well with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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