What's Going On?

It's really quite amazing how much we CAN fit into our lives.

Sometimes when I'm driving somewhere--just because I decided I want to do it-- and I consider the distance and the time it will take me to get there, I stop and think of how just one hundred years ago there would have been NO WAY I would have decided "on a whim" to go and get back home in the same day.



Or, if I want to talk to someone-- and if I can think to do it-- I can pick up the phone and call hundreds of miles away. I say "if I can think to do it" because I'm just not a phone person. (I was never one to talk on the phone at all until I had a friend who did like to and for that phase of my life, I spend more time on the phone than I have all the rest of my life put together, but it was not something I ever really gravitated to.)

Back to my amazement.

I really do marvel at how much we fit into even one day now that we couldn't have dreamed of even fitting into our lives at all before. It opens up more doors of opportunity of things to do that we enjoy but it also opens up more opportunity for commitments we never could have made in time past.

There's NO WAY I could have gone to work--eighteen miles away-- left work and gone to Jeni's--another eighteen miles-- and had time to spend all afternoon with her and the kids and then drive the 36 miles home in time to get a few things done at my house before going to bed.


When I got home, I didn't have to "draw" my bathwater.















(Which reminds me of my childhood. We didn't "draw" water. We pumped it and we went to a spring a few miles a way with 5 gallon stainless steel milk cans and filled them with water to drink. Daddy also had barrels sitting under the downspouts from the roof to catch rain water. I guess Mama used it to wash clothes with. )










When I got home, I didn't have to worry that I didn't get my clothes washed or dried, because I could toss a load in, get them washed and dried, before I did the things I do before going to bed.






(I remember once when I was a child, getting my hair caught in the wringers of Mama's washing machine. Thankfully, it has a reverse.)













If you wonder why there seem to be more people with A.D.D. now, stop wondering. There are so many more things to take a person's focus away from what they need to be doing. There just didn't used to be so many things bombarding minds bidding for attention. So many choices of things that could actually be done -- if you hurry-- in a day's time. And, this is another biggie, kids were disciplined. Their help was a NECESSITY. Their parents made sure they stayed focused on a job until it was done because the job HAD TO BE DONE. Now, they are not needed for survival, so they are free to let there minds jump here and there and wherever. The lack of discipline creates a greater lack of focus.

Nowadays we hurry, hurry, hurry.... and pile on more and more.

Anyway, what's going on with me?

(Did I lose my focus at the onset?)

Besides going to work every day and church twice on Sunday?

I went shopping in Arab one night--12 miles south. (I actually saw Josh and Tesia out there. Rare circumstance.)

I went to Florence the next day--two hour DRIVE-- to see Sister Fowler, who is being cared for by her daughter there.


























I went to breakfast with my brother at a local cafe and then added up invoices BEFORE going to work--18 miles.


Sunday morning I got up early and worked on sales tax some more. I finished that up after lunch on Sunday just in time to get it mailed by the (Monday) 20th deadline.

Monday I pushed hard at work to get everything ordered that needed to be because we'd had a huge scrapbooking ad the week before and I had a ton of stuff gone. Monday evening I did nothing but laze around.

On Tuesday, after work, I went to the grocery store to buy all the ingredients I'd need to make banana splits for Brad, Sam, Zack, Rachel and Autumn. They were already at my house when I arrived. This was a planned afternoon "relief" for Jeni because it was her birthday. Jef took the afternoon off from work so they could spend some time together.

I enjoyed my grandkids until almost nine, when their parents returned from an enjoyable time together and collected them for the trip back to Toney.

And then on Wednesday I woke up VERY EARLY. I got up and did my devotions, got all ready for work and went off to HURRY, hurry, hurry and see just how much of that huge order I had done on Monday I could get out before I had to stop and recover.

I took a short nap before going to church.

This morning.... well, here I am. This may not be the most "profitable" use of my time right now, but it IS one of my choices and I made it.

But I do have to go to work. And I do need to pray and read my Bible. And I do need to fix my lunch. And I do need to do a few other things.

So off I go.

Much of what I did last week would not even have been possible for me to consider doing a hundred years ago! Certainly there's no way I'd be blogging.....