Friday, December 7, 2007

DUST OR NO DUST?


I love decorating for all occasions, but I especially love decorating for Christmas. Gramps has always said that I get my taste in colors from south of the border. He's right. I love bright colors in all hues and in many combinations.
When Christmas comes I decorate anything and everything that doesn't walk, talk, and move around on two legs or four legs. Actually when I'm in the middle of decorating, Gramps tells our family and visitors that they should always keep moving because if they sit or stand still long enouth I'll decorate them. It's very tempting, really.
Today I found a perk to overdoing the decorating and being as garish as I want to be. I decided that it would be a waste of precious time to dust anything that I'm going to decorate because the dust will be hidden by the abundance of decorations. Fortunately, dust is not one of our personal antigens, so it's no health hazard to Gramps and me. With the blinking lights which I put on everything and the garish colors in the plethora of decorations that adorn the inside of our house, no one will know that there is a layer of dust under all of it. What you don't know won't hurt you. If guests start to sneeze, I'll just offer them a Benadryl without any explanation except that it must be the Oklahoma winds blowing something in.
The bonus of my new discovery is that I won't have to dust again until close to the middle of January because we observe Twelfth Night and leave the Christmas decorations up until then. Yea! That means I can delay my least favorite chore of dusting for at least thirty more days. That makes sixty days total, since the last time I dusted was before Thanksgiving. No one will know the difference unless you or I tell them, and I never reveal my secrets to anyone except my most trusted friends.
By the middle of January I'll put the decorations up in storage boxes and get the Pledge out and clean and shine everything that doesn't walk or talk or move around, so the timing will be perfect.
You just have to figure these things out as you get older.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

MISTAKES

"Neil is a successful businessman now"

Our grandson Neil has always had great wisdom, even when he was a little boy. He spoke deep, convicting wisdom to me one time and I think maybe it came from heaven because of its importance.
Gramps, Neil and I had gone to eat at a fast food place, Neil's favorite one. Gramps had inadvertently locked the keys in the car and we were miles from home. After calling several neighbors and family members who weren't home at the time, the only thing left to do was walk home.
I began joking with Neil, trying to lighten the mood of everyone involved in the experience, and I said, "Well, Neil, what are we going to have to do to Gramps for locking the keys in the car? Can you think of anything we could do to him?" My objective was not to really punish Gramps, just get Neil's mind off of the long walk."
The following words came out of the mouth of Neil, seven years old at the time, "Grandma, everybody makes mistakes and next time it might be you."
Wow, did that stop me in my tracks! Such great wisdom from a child. I congratulated Neil on his mature insight and asked him to forgive me for my curt comment. Of course he did.
The good news is that we stopped at a store on the long walk home and the owner let us borrow his car to drive home to get our keys.
I think that Neil's wise comment set up the solution to the problem because it took all guilt off of Gramps and all sarcasm off of me. That cleared the atmosphere for the solution to appear. I learned a lifelong lesson from Neil, not to hold anyone to their mistakes because I might be the next one to make a mistake.
Thanks to Neil for his wise words and the courage to say them.

Parking Space Angels

"Jesse"

Gramp's and I have always instructed our grandchildren to look for our special parking space right up front at malls, stores and athletic events so we won't have to walk too far to the front door. We always have a space right in front and it's still astounds the grandchildren that we always have one every time we go someplace.
Gramps and I just take it for granted that we will have a parking space close to the front door. We've never doubted it and we've always trusted our parking space angel to provide it for us. We've never wondered how he does it, we just accept it by faith and go on expecting it.
One day when our grandson Jesse was six years old he commented out of the blue that he finally figured out how the parking space angel does what he does for us. I was curious as to what he had figured out, but I was amazed that he had been stewing about it for years.
His assessment of the working of the parking space angel was this. He said, "Meme, when you decide that you want to go to Wal-Mart or some store, your parking space angel leaves you and goes to the store and whispers in the ear of a person who has a close parking space, 'It's time to go home. It's time to go home.' Then that person pays for the purchases and goes to his car and pulls out of the parking space just as you get to the special space. Then you pull in. That's how it works."
I was amazed that he had come up with that wonderful description of the interaction of heavenly angels with earthly beings. I told him, "Jesse, you are exactly right. That's exactly how it works."
I'll always appreciate Jesse's spiritual insight into the matter of the parking space angels. Now that I know how it all works, I really have faith for my special parking space when I go shopping.
"A little child shall lead them," the Bible says, but I experienced that a little child can also teach us.