A Look at forty days

In my own words, Lent is about sacrifice, devotion, perspective, and reflection. Instead of giving up something, most years I try to do something new (or add in something regularly such as reading a daily devotion conveniently provided by the church's Lenten devotional booklet). 

Most of the time I don't give this choice much thought until Ash Wednesday. Then I sit there going, "hm what did I think of last year that I should do this year?" Because inevitably, I think of something great on Easter Sunday.

This year, I saw a post on Greg's Instagram of Lent 2015 Photo-A-Day. Each day has it's own word assigned to it. Each day, anyone can post a picture that represents that word on Instagram. It will be great fun to see what Greg posts, because I find his artistry to be magnificent. 

I saw something on my way to work this morning that I want to write about, because I couldn't take a picture of it. I'm going to try to blog about each word, every day during Lent (minus yesterday). That will be a challenge for me, and a sacrifice, so I'm willing to take it on.

This morning the sun is shining, the sky is a pale blue. Lake effect snow is to the west of us, but we sit here in this tiny sliver of light. As I head east to work, into the beautiful sun, I spot something. Dropping out of nowhere is a rainbow. I am wearing my sunglasses, so it wasn't too faint. It stretched out of a pale-barely-there cloud and fell toward the earth. I looked at it without my sunglasses and could barely make it out. I put my sunglasses back on and enjoyed the beauty of this small reflection. 

I wonder, how many other people saw this glorious wonder? How many people were too busy to notice? 

Isn't it strange that in order to see it I had to put on my sunglasses? How many times do we talk about what we see through "rose-colored glasses", which I have always taken to mean what are we seeing because someone else is telling us how to see. But maybe I've misunderstood that phrase. Maybe it really means to put on glasses to see clearly the things around us. With glasses, one who has poor vision is able to see clearly. 

Whoa, deep right?

Then I looked at today's word.

It's look.

Oh  my, well doesn't that fit? From that, and my lack of ability to take a picture of the rainbow that I could see, I decided my sacrifice this Lent is to write about the words. Not that I'm better with words than I am photos. 

I hope you'll join me on this journey. Be sure to look around and see what is right in front of you.

Things I can't wait to do...

I am not complaining. Please understand, I know how blessed I am to be healing. Every time a wounded soldier is on tv, I am quickly humbled and reminded of my minor discomfort. But it doesn't stop me from thinking of what I'm looking forward to doing once I can use my left hand again.

Tie my shoes.
I've been wearing slip-on shoes. Or boots. At first I wished this had happened in the summer so I could wear flip flood, but I quickly realized winter is better. Pants hide my legs which were bruised and are now hairy. I can ask Bill to tie my shoes but the last time I did that we went shopping. I left him in the coffee shop and walked around by myself (he was meeting a friend), and when I went to try on clothes I realized I couldn't. If I took my shoes off, I couldn't get them back on.

Wash my hands.
Yesterday, I asked Bill to wash my right hand. It felt so good to have the back of my hand washed, I didn't realize how much I had missed it.

Put on lotion.
This goes (pun necessary) hand-in-hand with the hand-washing previously stated. This time of year, no matter how much we run humidifiers, is so dry. I can only put lotion on my finger tips, thumb, and a portion of my palm. It's not enough.

Put in my contacts.
I cannot hold the bottle of solution in my right hand and hold my contact. It won't work. Instead I've been wearing my glasses. I am glad that I replaced them just a few weeks before the accident.

Wash, exfoliate, and dry my left hand and forearm.
Whew, it's not in a cast but it sure smells like one. I took off the "arm sock" and brace and soaked my arm/hand last week. I'll soak it again tomorrow, but I'm guessing this is just the smell of dead skin cells. I really hope I'm the only one that can smell it. And if I'm not? Everyone has been very nice to ignore it. Or run out of the room gagging without me noticing.

Cut my own food.
Again, I can hold my toothbrush or a piece of paper, but anything heavier is too much for my now very weak left hand. Cutting food is out of the question. Bill (or someone sitting next to me) has to cut it for me. Fork-tender is a much appreciated form of cooked food that I am currently interested in. Or soup. Or sandwiches.

Typing.
My few years of piano lessons are coming in handy. But a keyboard on a computer is obviously different then a piano. My hand often blocks letters and I think I'm hitting one key, but I actually hit the one next to it. Which can sometimes be obvious to spell check, until it's a word like of or if. I've used the delete button quite a number of times. Or I've hit enter too quickly and shared complete nonsense.

There are plenty more but, as I just shared, typing is difficult and I'm ready for a break.

Leaves, toads and bugs oh my!

Part 1

The summer between 5th and 6th grades was (and still is) beginning band. It was/is when students in my school picked the instrument they wanted to play.

I had the correct embouchure for the flute and thus began my tooting.

hehe, I said tooting. Have I mentioned that I work with Jr. High students?

 Anyway, back to the post; this one's gonna be a two-parter so I should try to stay focused.

I continued playing the flute through Jr. High and on into high school. The summer before my freshman year we had marching band practice. Our school was small enough that if you were in band you were in marching band, pep band and concert band. No separation or segregation. We were all one band.

Not long after we began marching, I quickly realized that wearing glasses and marching did not go together. It probably didn't help that I had large, circa 1980's, glasses (yes, the frames were red). I had to change this dilemma of my glasses sliding down my nose when I was supposed to be standing at attention in 80-90 degree weather.

The problem was my sister. Being completely fair and diplomatic, my parents gave me the same rights/privileges that they gave to my sister, when I reached the same age when she had received them. For instance, she got her ears pierced when she was twelve. Therefore, I had to wait until I was twelve to get my ears pierced.

Cyndi had gotten contacts when she was 16. Apparently driving meant responsibility and being responsible meant wearing contacts. (That sounds a little trite, it really isn't meant to be, I'm not a fan of 16 year olds driving cars, especially in todays distracted world.) That meant I had two years of marching band in glasses.

That would not do.

I went to my parents and proceeded to explain to them why I couldn't wait, why I was responsible, how  much contacts now would improve my marching, etc. I won them over with my wit and smarts and at some point that fall, I was wearing contacts. (Not before school pictures, I might add, but that's okay.)

I still wear contacts, usually I just wear my glasses at night. However, when I started working from home, and stared at a computer screen for eight hours a day, I stopped putting in my contacts everyday. If I wasn't going anywhere, I didn't see the point. I thought I'd be saving my eyes from bifocals and, maybe that worked?

Even now, when I'm home and don't plan on going anywhere, I don't wear my contacts. But I don't necessarily wear my glasses either.

Many times, when I go run I don't take the time to put in my contacts. I can see, things are just blurry. Which leads me to see things on the sidewalk that aren't really what I think they are.

Leaves take on different shapes. I see toads, animal poo (no one wants to step in that), bugs, dead birds, giant bugs, dead toads, odd shaped poo, and on and on.

It doesn't help that I have an active imagination.

All of those things I listed actually turn out to be leaves or sticks. Except the poo. I have seen that, but most of the time what I think is poo is just a pile of leaves or a leaf on a stick.

I bet I look pretty silly jumping over leaves and avoiding sticks. But I wouldn't know because I can't see myself...

groups of things

Bill and I blogged on this topic on our joint blog, here.

This morning, while I was putting away the dishes, I had a new thought. After opening the cupboard with the dishware and chuckling to myself about all the glasses we own (approximately two shelves worth), I thought of what a group of glasses is called.

Are you ready for this?

Can you guess?

A spectacle.

A group of glasses should be called a spectacle.

Get it?

Did you go look it up?

Is it really called that?