January 7 – “Bending, scooping, cramming”

Ah, Monday.  One thing about Monday … I always know that I have something to do.  So yesterday was no exception.  I dove into all my usual Monday work tasks.  If I ever retire I think Monday will be the hardest day for me.  Or maybe the easiest.  Waking up without a plan … hmm.

We did take a walk again.  It has been a while, but we managed two miles.  I squeezed it in somewhere between updating my church newsletter page and point two of the teaching for Sunday.  Chris then spent most of the day cleaning house, but sometime late afternoon we ventured out into that most unusual of January tasks on a beautiful island paradise … mowing the grass.  Yep.  First week of January and we are outside doing yard work.  Gotta love it.  The one thing that made this particular foray into the outer lands different?  Leaves.  Our sycamore tree is in full-on Fall mode.  I guess you could say they are “covering lots of ground.”  That means those huge leaves that provide such awesome shade all summer are now providing shade to our yard … and yards all over the neighborhood.  Now we always leave the leaves in the flower bed to protect the upcoming flowers, but we felt it necessary to do that dreaded of all chores … raking.  As it turned out we ended up with four pretty big piles.  The trash cans were already full, since last week was Christmas, and the youngsters of course opened their presents and happily discarded the packaging.  So we had to do things the old fashioned way - stuffing all those leaves into trash bags.  Bending, scooping, cramming.  Bending, scooping, cramming.  Over and over again.  We got it done.

And last night after a hot shower, we both crashed on the couch.  We stumbled upon a new show that was fun.  Kids’ Baking Championship.  Little kids around 10 or 12 years old have to bake cakes and stuff and are judged.  One is eliminated each week, and the last kid standing wins $25,000.  Their answers to “What will you do with all that money?” were great.  One girl was going to give some to her teacher and save the rest for college.  A boy was going to help his parents finish remodeling their kitchen so he would have somewhere cool to cook.  My favorite answer was the youngster who said, “I don’t know.  I think I’m going to buy something just for me.”  Honest answer, kid. 

We stumbled to bed at our usual time, but I had a difficult time falling asleep.  And Chris’ aches and pains kept waking her up.  I have to confess, I am sore this morning.  But maybe that’s just because it’s cold again outside …

2 Corinthians 9:6 says, “Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”

Father, thank you for these sore old muscles.  Reminds me that I’m still alive and kicking.  Amen.