"Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Writing Well"
Here’s Kevin scoring the screws …
… so the boys can get them out.
And shortly after I taped this video, our cabinets arrived!!!!
Our cabinet guy called, he’s going to come by in the morning and start tearing out our cabinets, which means, now it’s time for my job – emptying out the cabinets.
Everything is moving fast!
We’ve talked about doing this for so long, I can’t believe it’s actually happening!!
Fiction under 250 words.
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“I love this cake platter from Pottery Barn. Don’t you love this cake platter, honey?” Babette carefully placed the piece on the center of the table and smiled at her husband.
“Uh huh,” Robert mumbled.
“And just look at this cake,” Babette said as she opened the carton and slowly lifted out the confection. “Our first anniversary cake. It couldn’t be more perfect.”
“Right,” Robert said.
“And can you believe that the bakery was able to exactly match our wedding colors? Remember, honey? Lavender and eggshell white.” She lovingly placed the cake on the cake stand and reached for the decorative candle shaped into the number one. She methodically pierced the cake with the candle and stood back to take a look. “Perfect,” she said with satisfaction.
“Babs, we need to talk,” Robert said and glanced at the Victorian-style grandfather clock sitting next to their lush, leather sofa. “I tried to call you several times today. Why didn’t you answer?”
Babette waved him aside and focused her attention on striking a match and lighting the candle. “We can talk later. We’re celebrating right now.” She blew out the match and smiled at him through the curls of smoke. “Can you believe it’s been one whole year?” She released a dreamy sigh. “One whole year of wedded bliss. We’re so lucky.”
“Right. Lucky. Look, Babs…”
“Ready? Let’s blow it out together.”
They both leaned over the cake and blew the flame out.
“Perfect,” said Babette.
“I want a divorce,” said Robert.
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Want to play? All you have to do is write 250 words (no MORE) about any scene you heard, witnessed or imagined. You can either post your own flash fiction on your blog, or post it in the comment section!
Either way – do it now. Don’t wait. Don’t make excuses.
Actually, the only thing in our air right now is tile dust, but I digress.
So, how was your Valentine’s Day? We? Did absolutely nothing.
And I’m absolutely okay with that. Not to sound cliché or sickeningly sweet, but every day is Valentine’s Day in my marriage. And that’s mainly because we MAKE it that way. It’s a conscious decision and most times, it’s hard work, but it has paid off in spades over the years.
We’re still together (nearly 20 years) and going strong, so we must be doing something right. Which is sort of funny considering neither one of us has a clue what we’re doing. 😀
Kevin and I woke up yesterday, kissed, said “I love you,” and went about our day. That was the extent of our Valentine’s Day to each other. Actually, we do that every day and that’s my point – we show each other we love each other every day. We not only say it, we SHOW it.
Did you know that love is not just a feeling? It’s “an unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another.” And when you love someone, it’s important to SHOW them how much you love them.
Personally, I think the whole concept of love has been diluted over the years. The concept of love has been thrown around so much that people have become immune to what it really means.
“I LOVE her hair.”
Well actually, you don’t. You LIKE her hair, a lot.
“I LOVE chocolate.”
Really? Don’t you mean you LIKE chocolate more than many other kinds of sweets?
“I LOVE winter.”
How can you love a season? Don’t you mean you LIKE winter perhaps more than the other seasons?
“I LOVE my car.”
Does your car LOVE you back? (If you answered yes, then you might seek professional help). Don’t you really mean, you LIKE the car you’re driving more than the other cars you’ve driven in the past?
Love is in relationships, not things. When people say they love someTHING, it actually demeans the meaning of pure LOVE. I know it’s just a saying, but the more we hear how people LOVE things, the more we become desensitized to what love really IS.
Here’s a video that says what I’m trying to say:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
(RSS readers – I had to input this using VodPod and it doesn’t show up in readers. Please visit my blog to view video. Sorry for the inconvenience).
I was lurking on Twitter yesterday, just idly watching people update their statuses, and it truly bothered me the number of women who were all, “What did you GET for Valentine’s Day?” And then they went about comparing the material value of such-and-such gift.
Or worse, the women who bemoaned the fact that they didn’t GET anything, or what they GOT was ONLY such-and-such.
Have we really reduced love to material things? Do we really equate the dollar value of a gift to how much someone loves us?
I find that incredibly sad.
Now granted, some complained because their husbands (wives?) didn’t even acknowledge Valentine’s Day and yes, that’s sad and aggravating. But I’d like to pose a question to those that complained – did THEY themselves acknowledge the day with their spouse? You have to give love to receive love.
What’s that famous quote by Tolstoy?
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
If you want to be treated a certain way, then you must treat the people around you the same way. And that goes doubly for your spouse.
This lesson has taken me YEARS to learn. I used to get so irritated with Kevin when he didn’t make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day. Like I expected him to stuff that one day with every possible feeling of love he’s ever had for me in the past year to the point where his feelings would nearly explode from the pressure. Somehow THAT would prove to me that he loved me.
When in fact, he had been showing me the other 364 days of the year that he loved me, I was just too stupid and clueless to see it. He showed me by mowing the grass, by cooking dinner, by loading the dishwasher, by taking me to lunch, by listening to me, by giving me the last bite of cake, by …
You get the picture. Love is about SO MUCH MORE than feelings, it’s about DOING.
I think my marital expectations changed whenever I learned that valuable little nugget.
Oh sure, it’s great to have that ONE day to show your loved one how much you love them, but I think we all need to adjust our expectations and only view it as a reminder, a gentle nudge not to take each other for granted, an excuse to go out to dinner and enjoy each others company as opposed to the be-all-end-all definition of how one feels for each other.
And it’s certainly about so much more than flowers and/or fancy gifts and then bragging about the monetary value.
I think, and this is just my opinion of course, that some people are so bitter about Valentine’s Day because they truly don’t understand what love really is.
Love is a VERB.
Think about it.
Make it a goal to turn every day into Valentine’s Day in your relationship. You’ll LOVE the results, trust me.
I’m hobbling around like an old woman – THAT’S how much fun I had over the weekend.
*wink-wink-nudge-nudge*
Okay, let me banish the naughty thoughts I’m sure you all are having right about now.
We, and by WE I mean ALL OF US, worked all day Saturday demolishing our kitchen tile. (If you follow me on Twitter, this is old news. My apologizes). We probably didn’t have to do it ourselves, we could have hired someone (and I wish we did now), but we figured we’d save a few bucks by doing it ourselves and we had toyed with the idea of putting in the new tile ourselves but you know? No. I talked Kevin into hiring some professionals to do it.
In the meantime, we needed to get our old tile out of here so Kevin rented a tool from Home Depot, some sort of jack hammer looking thingie, and he broke up the tile into sections and while he took a break, me and the boys shoveled it out. (Well, Jazz had to leave after the first 1/3 to go to a birthday party).
Once we got the crap, er, chewed-up tile out, then Kevin came back in and started working on the next section, thereby giving me and the boys (i.e. me and Dude) a break.
We did run into a snag though – we didn’t think far enough ahead and once we got to the shovel stage and all of our buckets were full within minutes we thought …… now what?? We should have rented one of those big dumpsters from the trash company, but since we didn’t and we needed some way to dispose of our tile as soon as possible, we ended up making a run up to Kevin’s work and dumping it into his industrial-sized dumpster. (Hey, he’s the boss. It’s all on the up-and-up).
We did grab four huge trash bins from his office and were able to use those for the rest of the floor, so Kevin only had to make one more trip back to the dumpster.
Still, it would have been a much smoother process if we had thought to rent a dumpster in the first place. Oops.
Anyhoo, everything went like clockwork. I have lifted more these past several days than I think I have in the past several years and I was worried about my back going out, but as of today, I’m sore, but still mobile so it’s all good.
The worst part? Was by far … the dust. OH. MY. GOSH. We had (and still have) dust everywhere.
Luckily, the weather was pretty mild on Saturday, so we were able to open the doors and allow most of the dust out that way. And even though we hung dust cloths over the entrances, everything still ended up with a thick coat of dust. I’m going to be dusting for several days. (I’ve already dusted twice so far! And still, I find more dust!)
But, we were able to pull up all of the tile in our kitchen and return the jack hammer thingie back to Home Depot by the allotted time – Kevin was pretty impressed. He was pretty sure we were going to end up having to rent the machine for two days but nope, we all pitched in and we got through it pretty fast.
Here’s a shot of our kitchen before we took the tile up:
And a shot of the kitchen after we removed the tile:
See how the stove is sticking out? Kevin and Dude pulled the stove out to get to the tile under neath and couldn’t get it back into place. But no worries, that sucker is going to be hauled off in about a week anyway.
We can’t walk into our kitchen without shoes on. I’m too afraid there might be shards of sharp tile lying about and I don’t want anyone to cut their feet, so we’re taking our shoes off right outside the dining room entrance to the kitchen in the meantime. MAJOR pain in the butt, but remodeling anything is a major pain in the butt so we’ll deal with it.
My in-laws came over yesterday and we talked over a few points with them and they thought that having our entire kitchen tiled was a better option than having tile put in around our cabinets (Kevin was worried that we might want to change the tile at some point in the future but honestly? I’m done with tiling. We’re sticking to whatever we decide). So now, that’s the plan. Only, we don’t have anyone lined up to do our tile yet, so that’s where Kevin and I are heading today – to hunt for tile and to find someone to come in and tile our kitchen after the old cabinets have been taken out.
We plan on checking out quite a few stores and doing a lot of comparing because we want to pick out something we can both live with, well, for the rest of our lives. (At least, I hope it works out that way). I’ll let you know how it goes.
We’ve also decided to put in some heating elements under our tile too, especially around the kitchen table and one strip down the main part of the kitchen. Our kitchen is always the coldest room in the house so we’re really looking forward to having a toasty floor to step on.
(I wonder what happens if the heating element goes out. How could they replace it without ripping up the tile?! Hhmm … yet another question to ask. Do any of you know?)
So, that’s where we are on our remodeling project. This next week will be pretty busy. Our cabinets are scheduled to be delivered late tomorrow afternoon and the demolition will start a few days after that, I’m sure.
This is going to be tricky, moving old appliances out, getting our new tile put in, the cabinets installed and then the new appliances put in. I think I’m the most stressed about swapping out refrigerators; I’m just hoping I can coordinate it so that I’m not stuck with a garage full of food and no place to put it.
Kevin uploaded these video snippets for me. These were both taken shortly after we got home from the boys’ class Valentine’s Day parties. I believe Dude was in the third grade here and Jazz was in the 1st grade.
It cracks me up how Dude watches me from the corner of his eye to see if I’m watching him. He still does that – always looking for my approval.
And this is pretty accurate with Jazz – I’m always trying to talk to him and he’s always wanting to do something else. 😀
Ugh. Their little boy voices KILL ME. I miss those little boy voices. They have “man” voices now.
*sigh*
Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.
If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.
Let’s get started:
Growing up in the church, I remember hearing a lot of talk about love, so much so that it almost seemed to be a buzzword. It really didn’t mean much to me, however, beyond the fact that treating other people properly was what I was supposed to do. But two years ago I noticed something interesting when reading 1 John 4, it was simple, yet generated something of a “paradigm shift” for me.
1 John 4:11 and 12
(11) Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
(12) No one has ever seen [1] God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.Consider the first half of the bolded sentence. You would almost expect John to say something along the lines of: No one has ever seen God; but one day we will. Or maybe, No one has ever seen God, but I can tell you what he probably looks like. Instead he says, “No one has ever seen God, but if we love….” What does love have to do with seeing God? Keep in mind the context of this section of Scripture. Go back a little and start reading from verse 7. The context is all about others! Allow me to paraphrase 1 John a bit:
“No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, people WILL see him, because they’ll see in us the love and care that can come only from him. They will see what God’s character looks like in physical reality and they will understand who he is.”
The ancient Greek language contained four different words for “love.” In this article, I am referring to what the Greeks called agape. This kind of love is not based upon how you might feel toward another person! In other words, whether or not you have the “warm fuzzies” is irrelevant. Agape means choosing to love someone in obedience to God. E. W. Bullinger’s Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament says: “Agape denotes the love which springs from admiration and veneration, and which chooses its object with decision of will, and devotes a self-denying and compassionate devotion to it.” For us, the greatest example of agape is the redemptive work of Jesus, loving his captors from a cross that was anything but warm and fuzzy. [2]
Many of us (including myself) were drawn to the good news of Christ for precisely this reason. Remember 1 John 4:8 where it says: “God is love!” Some person in our lives made an effort and showed a concern for us that we had not seen before, and that caught our attention. On page 9 of the September/October 2006 issue of The Sower, there is a definition of love that very much mirrors 1 John 4: 11 and 12: “Loving” someone is to obey God on another’s behalf, seeking his or her long-term blessing and profit.
Jesus declared that the greatest commandments focused on loving God and loving one’s neighbor. Note, however, that the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Why? Because, by nature, loving God involves loving people [3] (1 John 4:20). I am reminded of Matthew 25:35 ff: “…whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Just as in human relationships, loving God involves being concerned with what he is concerned with, which is people! God always has His people’s best interests in mind, and He asks us to do likewise (Luke 6:35 and 36).
Unfortunately, many of the Jews of Jesus’ day did not understand this. While they were concerned about loving God via their strict adherence to the Law, they weren’t really loving because they had very little true concern for their fellow man. Consider Romans 13:8-10, where Paul says, “…for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law…Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Micah 6:8 is just as powerful: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” See also Hosea 6:6 and 10:12; Jeremiah 22:15b-16; Philippians 1:9-11; and Galatians 6:2.
Even more unfortunate is that many people still do not understand this today, because legalism, a supposed adherence to the commands of God that actually are the doctrines of men, abounds in the modern church. My question to all of us is, “How are people going to see who God is unless they see it and learn it from us, the people He has commissioned to show them (Rom.10:13-17)?”
In contrast, 1 Corinthians 13:1 shows us what acting or speaking without love does to people: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” If you have ever been in a middle school band room, you can relate to Paul’s analogy. Clanging cymbals cause you to do one thing, and do it quickly—plug your ears and leave the room!
This brings us full-circle back to 1 John 4. Keep in mind that we are the only Bible that some people will ever read. [4] Loving will take some time and effort (learning a person’s culture, understanding his views, putting aside your own plans to help someone else, etc.), but is it not worth it for the possibility of saving someone’s life? Christians have a new, spiritual nature that was created in us when we became born again, and we can live a life of genuine love. As we do, it will be a blessing to us and those whose lives we touch. It is worth the effort to learn to live in love, so people can see God, and then we can say we are becoming like Christ.
You can read the original article here.
If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page, their YouTube Channel, or follow them on Twitter.
Thanks for reading.
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