Senior Humor | by Linda Brendle

I’ve often said that getting old is not for sissies.  Neither is caregiving. Getting older and caring for the elderly are not laughing matters, but sometimes there are moments. In fact, seeing the humor is a great defense against the dark side. When I co-facilitated a caregiver support group several years ago, I collected a little senior humor from the Internet and sometimes opened meetings with a joke or two to lighten the mood and take our minds off the latest caregiving crisis. Here are a few of my favorites.

10,000 Views Celebration | by Linda Brendle

Woohoo! 10,000 Views!

I passed 10,000 views on my blog yesterday. I thought I was going to hit it a couple of weeks ago, but the traffic dropped off a bit. Waiting for those last 200 was like watching the clock on the wall of your last class on the last day of school. It was also a bit like watching your odometer as it approaches that 100,000 mark. I wanted to see it happen, but I looked away for a few minutes and missed it. There were no balloons or streamers or anything, but it was exciting anyway, so I thought I’d have my own little celebration by looking back on what’s happened in the last seven months.

Stop the Bureaucracy, I Want to Get Off | by Linda Brendle

Getting the proper documentation to operate a vehicle can be a delicate dance through the red tape. When we moved back to Texas from Florida last year, we debated about what to do about our driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations. We signed up with Good Sam’s after we got our RV and took several extended trips. Good Sam’s is a travel club that offers special services for frequent travelers including mail forwarding. They assign you a personal mailbox, and when you’re on the road, you have your mail forwarded to them. When you stop somewhere for a few days, you let them know where you are, and they send the mail on to you. Full time RVers use their mailbox as a permanent address. When we left Florida, our plan was to spend a lot of time on the road, so we left our registrations in Florida.

Saying Good-Bye to Frodo | by Linda Brendle

Leanne, a good friend of mine, recently started a blog called “Being Sam”  based on Sam Gamgee in “The Lord of the Rings.” In her blog she explores what it means to be Sam, to walk alongside another, to be “swept up in another’s journey and struggle.  The journey is not mainly [Sam’s], but he walks alongside Frodo faithfully and stubbornly.” That’s a perfect description of Leanne. She’s spent her life helping others, as a teacher, as a counselor, as a caregiver, and now in Blue Cord Ministries,  a counseling ministry that serves those in the midst or aftermath of cancer.

How to Tell when It’s Time to Stop Spell Talking | by Linda Brendle

Sometimes it’s hard to know when it’s time to stop spelling. On the other hand, sometimes it becomes quite obvious.

I was recently watching TV when a commercial came on for a tablet. I don’t remember which one it was, so the commercial must not have been very effective. What I remember is the situation. A small child was playing with the tablet, and his parents were watching. The dad was concerned that this might not be a good idea, and he and the mom were discussing it. As parents of small children do in sensitive situations, they were spelling some of the critical words, but the dad got tired of it.

How Am I Doing with My Messy New Year’s Resolution | by Linda Brendle

According to most of what I’ve heard and read, most New Year’s resolutions don’t last more than a couple of weeks. We’re a little over six weeks into the new year, so I thought I’d check and see how I was doing. In case you missed it in my post called “Wishing You a Messy New Year,”  here’s my resolution:

Victims of the Texas Drought – a Photo Essay | by Linda Brendle

One of the things that attracted us to the 2+ acres we now call home was the abundance of trees. Out of curiosity, David once took an inventory and counted 85. Now we have two less.

The Arrogance of Charity | by Linda Brendle

I’ve been getting a lot of “social justice” input lately. In addition to Christian’s blog which focuses a lot on the subject, a friend lent me the movie “The Help,” another friend lent me the book by the same name, and Blockbuster finally sent us “Blind Side” after months on the waiting list. All that input gave me a lot to think about. I had at least one awake-in-the-wee-hours morning along with several unproductive session at the keyboard trying to organize my thoughts into something coherent. After working for several days on a post about the lack of choices available to the disadvantaged, I realized how arrogant it was of me to try and understand the problems of those who have never enjoyed the privileges I have. I also realized how arrogant we privileged sometimes are in our acts of charity, assuming we know what others want and need without giving them a choice.

Peeing In a Bottle | by Linda Brendle

I’ve been thinking about Mom a lot today. She’s never far from my mind, but she’s been in the hospital for a few days, so she’s closer than usual. It’s nothing too serious, although I guess at 90 years old everything is serious, but it’s not imminently life threatening. She had shingles, and although the doctor was able to get rid of the shingles virus with meds, she wouldn’t keep her hands off the itchy places, so she developed a topical bacterial infection. She’s been “in” for 6 days and is getting better, maybe enough better to go home in the next day or two.

Pray Hard | by Linda Brendle

One day last week I was reading one of the blogs I follow and saw a word cloud based on Romans 12. One particular phrase jumped out at me: “Pray hard.” This is a phrase that I’ve seen and heard quite a bit, especially over the last few years, and it’s always raised questions in my mind. What exactly does it mean to pray hard? Being the deep theologian that I am, it evokes images of a 5 year old in the toy department, his tiny fists clinched, his face red with tense emotion as he implores his father.