She Was Smarter in the Book

Thanks to a recent winter storm, our family hunkered down each evening after everything on the farm was too frozen to anything else and had a movie marathon. Our 16-year-old volunteered her collection of The Hunger Games movies.

For three consecutive nights, we fired up the DVD player and watched as Katniss Everdeen took on The Capitol and tried to figure out where her loyalties should lie. In her search for happiness, Katniss took turns kissing Peeta and Gale. This infuriated Hubby and our boys. “That wasn’t just a friendly kiss!” was repeated over and over, while Maggie tried to explain that Katniss and Gale were “just friends.”

As all movies based on books do, these films diverged from the plot and our sweet girl took it upon herself each time to say, “In the book…..,” and then proceeded to retell the novel version. This added to the hysteria of comments from my husband and sons.

As the peanut gallery continued with their heckling of Katniss’ escapades in Mockingjay Part 2, my daughter exclaimed, “She was smarter in the books!”

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Recognizing There is a Hole

Have you ever been down and gotten lucky enough for someone to recognize that you needed a lift?

Recently, Hubby discovered a calf that was stuck in a hole. He rescued the poor guy from a situation where the calf couldn’t see a way out.

The crazy thing about Hubby finding this calf was that if he hadn’t paid attention to the entire herd, he would not have noticed the mama cow off by herself. Hubby knew she had a calf and it was odd for her to be alone.

When he sought out the cow, he discovered the hole AND the problem.

Walking through the field the fallen calf could not be seen. It was not until Hubby investigated the lonely mama’s situation that he recognized the cause of her duress hidden by the tall grass around the hole.

(The orange arrow marks the calf’s location.)

Because he took the time to see what was wrong, Hubby was able to lift the calf from the hole and reunite the mama with her baby. He found a way to relieve their stress and help resolve their problem.

How are you at recognizing there is a hole in someone’s day?

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Don’t Be a Parrot

Last summer as my friend Jackie was recovering from a very serious health scare, I pleaded with her to tell me how I could help. She said, “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not a parrot and I can’t just say what you want to hear.” I told her I didn’t want her to be a parrot, I wanted her to be honest with me about what we needed to do to get her back on track. I asked her to give me two or three things I could do to assist in her recovery. And that’s where we began.

I think we’ve all been in situations where we didn’t know where to start or what to say. Sometimes finding a starting point seems harder than reaching the finish line. All too often, we play the role of the parrot telling others what we believe they want to hear because it’s easier than asking for what we really need.

When I had wrist and elbow surgery last December, I had friends and family ask how they could help. I didn’t want to be a burden, especially during such a busy holiday season, so I just told them to pray for me. (Prayer is always a GREAT idea.) However, once my arm was in that cast and I was feeling the pain of recovery, it was a whole lot easier to ask for what I needed. We shouldn’t have to feel pain in asking for help.

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