Midlife Musings

I am attenuating. That’s today’s new word. I looked it up, and it doesn’t mean to attend, as I thought. Attenuate means to make slim. (The drug tenuate is based on this word.) I am doing that over at CassKnits: trimming the pile of posts I need to re-categorize. As I make a new post on any blog, I run over there and re-cat 10 old ones. Slow and steady will have to win that race, because I will go insane if I try to do it all at once. Considering that I started this project with over 1600 posts, I’m satisfied with the progress I’ve made. And in five minutes or less, there will be just 434.

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I watched this movie with DD#1 Monday night. Ya’ll my one word synopsis is: gross. Lots of gore and nastiness, and I am glad I wached it without a big-screen and accompanying HDMI cable. Johnny Depp was a little more stilted in this movie than in others I have seen him in. It may have been the role. Over all I found him much more relaxed as an actor in “What’s eating Gilbert Grape?” I’d really like to see that one again. Sigh. I let DD#1 take it with her to Colorado and while she came back, the movie did not.

Technorati Tags: Johnny Depp

When I was young, I did not like peanut butter. It actually made me gag. I think it had more to do with the texture than the taste, because I loved peanuts in any other form, and still do. My Granny used to babysit me while Mama and Daddy were at work, and she served peanut butter sandwiches for lunch almost every day. She would never believe me when I said I did not like peanut butter, because “everybody likes peanut butter.”

I was also sick a lot as a child, and when I was sick, I would go stay with my Grandmother. Even after I quit being so puny, I stayed with Grandmother and Granddad almost every weekend. Compared to Granny, Grandmother was like that wonderful nanny, Mary Poppins. She fed me grits. She fried bacon up crisp, just like I liked it, and she did not grumble when I crumbled that crispy bacon up into my grits and ate it watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Back in the day, nobody had ever heard of live-in nannies and I still don’t know a single family here who uses one. Those are the only two sitters I really remember. My mom kept me with her mostly. I’m not sure if that’s a regional thing, or what, the expectation that you will be the primary caregiver for your own children, but it feels right to me.

Oh, how did the peanut butter sandwich thing work out? Well, when I was 12, I stopped staying with Granny. I forget what the catalyst was, but it was sudden and final. One night I was told “you won’t be going back”, and I never did again. My sister and I would get off the school bus, she would go to Granny’s and I would go on home. We lived right behind Granny at the time. I continued to eats grits and bacon at my Grandmother’s until I left home.

Technorati Tags: peanut butter sandwiches, grits, nannies, Grandmother

Welcome to the February 27, 2007 edition of Carnival of the Redeemed.

Paul Ferree presents God Doesn’t Need Your Money posted at How To Become A Missionary.

jang bok jae presents Where are You? posted at Listening..Learning..Living.

Angie Mecklenburg presents The Last Sin Eater posted at A Bit of This and That.

My own is entitled Hands Across Time.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
Carnival of the Redeemed at the Carnival of the Redeemed page. The next Carnival will be published on March 13th.

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carnival of the redeemed, blog carnival.

What do you feel is the biggest waste of time?
If I knew then what I know now, I ….
How do you feel your life has changed over the past year?

Oh boy. Hands down, internet and tv. My family chooses one poison and I choose the other. At least they can pretend they are doing it together, while I am forced to admit my folly is a solitary pursuit.

would never have let myself got so far behind. Each day has enough in it to keep me more than busy without adding “catch up” to the list.

Stress. I am much more stressed. Sleep. I am not getting nearly enough.

Colossians 3:1-11

1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.

8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

1) You as a believer are identified with Christ. Jesus is an example to us, a model, and also a challenge. Paul is telling us to be careful to act like Christians, to put away the the acts of the natural man. Even Paul struggled (see Roman 7:14-21).

2)You are responsible for your condition before God. He provides the opportunity for relationship and He holds us in that relationship, but we are responsible for taking off the old man and putting on the new.
[tags]sunday sermons[/tag]

The small woman sat in her rocker. The chair itself was made of wood, and squeaked rhythmically with her motions. It was a pleasant squeak, one that reminded her children of days gone by, when they were the baby rocked to sleep on mother’s lap. The cushion was needlepoint, old and faded, but still comfortable, and still telling lovely stories of skillful hands intent on making beautiful things.

Beside the chair was a table, surface satiny from age and smooth with use. It held her Bible, her spectacles and two antique table lamps. Their warm yellow glow illuminated the planes of her face, as she rocked and waited, waited and rocked. The waiting was the hardest part, and the lines on her face showed that she had been waiting a very long time.

Under the table was a basket, and in that basket was her handi-work. There was bright red wool being knit into a sweater for her youngest child and a thinner, duller wool being knit into socks for her middle child. In her hands, for she had taken it out of the basket to work on it, was a lace cap being knit with fine white silk to add to the pile of small baby gifts that were waiting, as she was waiting.

Technorati Tags: short story, creative writing

Ya’ll may have noticed the new category “cass works”. I’ve tried not to talk much about my work on this blog, and I’m changing that. Work is very much a part of who I am, and so it deserves a place here on this blog that is all about me. Working on-line just makes the ultimate sense to me. The internet has been an enjoyment to me for along time, and I enjoy writing on my many blogs, and the study that goes into making good posts.

In addition to writing, I also occasionally participate in paid online surveys. That link will get you started if you would like to share your opinions via surveys. It’s not as lucrative from day to day as writing, but it does help pad the coffers, and doesn’t require a huge commitment of time and mental energy.

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