June 20 – “To balance … or to ask?”

Friday meant yard work … again.  Welcome to Galveston in the summer after a minor tropical storm passes through.  The lawn mower was doing some struggling in some of the really high patches of St. Augustine, but old Bessie made it through.  Chris started out edging, but we traded off when the string ran out on the weedeater and finished each other’s jobs.  Then I switched to trimming hedges.  The ones in our front yard, that we planted right after Hurricane Ike because Chris thought the yard looked lonely, had grown about five inches higher than Chris wanted them.  They were beginning to cover the windows.  We don’t have one of those power tools devoted strictly to trimming hedges, so I attacked with the manual clippers.  For something that look so easy, it is quite the energy-consuming task.

Fortunately I had a break right in the middle hedge.  All the neighbors came out and we had a grand summit, standing in a little circle in front of Mom and Dad’s old house across the street.  I could almost sense Mom and Dad there, and Alice Whiteman, and Hedi Kunz, and Jay and Mary Kunz, and Neil Goodman, and Lorraine Cagnola, and Hilda Farrell and Al Glinski.  We have had quite the array of neighbors over the years.  The current tenants of the old Vaughan house, Mario and Carolyn, are planning to move next week.  They have been great neighbors.  They really fixed up the curb appeal.  Too much as it turned out.  The owner is now going to sell the house.  We will miss them. 

After lunch (took us a while to recuperate) we went up into Texas.  I had to have some blood drawn for my rheumatologist to make sure the medicine I take isn’t becoming toxic to my body.  After that we went over to Sears.  It was finally time to replace our garage door opener.  They had one on sale that essentially matches the one we had that got fried by an electrical storm.  Now the trick will be to get it installed.  Back in my younger days I installed a set of attic stairs by myself.  Balanced them on my head while I hammered the nails in with one of those old-fashioned hand-held hammers (no nail guns back then).  Boy, was I ever a dumb youngster.  Now I promise to do the sensible thing.  I’ll balance anything that needs balancing on my shoulder instead.  Should be a piece of cake.  Or maybe … only if all else fails … I could ask for help.  What a concept.

Psalms 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Father, thank you for being there any time we need to ask for help.  Amen.