My Big Green Pocketbook

I love the story of the little girl who goes out for a day on the town with her big green pocketbook. At the beginning of the day, the purse is empty. As the day goes by, though, she fills the pocketbook with goodies, mementos and special reminders of the day. When she gets home, she finds her pocketbook is missing. She left it on the bus.

"My whole day was in there!" she moans. Lucky for her, the bus drivers swings back by and drops off her pocketbook with all its goodies still inside.
Happy ending.

I thought that's how my story would end. My computer was my pocketbook. When I got it a year ago, it was empty of content but full of possibilities. I filled it with stories and pictures, slide shows, spread sheets and homework assignments. It was just starting to feel comfortable to me. And then it crashed.

"My whole year was in there!" I moaned, but not too loudly. After all, the girl in the story got her pocketbook back. Yay for her.

I waited patiently for a month. Today, I got my computer back. Only, it's not really mine. None of the stories or pictures or any of the other items I'd carefully placed inside came back with it. My "pocketbook" has been emptied. My hard drive was irreparable, the data irretrievable.

What seemed so full of hope and possibility a year ago now feels empty and stripped.

Even though all is lost, all is not lost. I'm a writer, after all. I've got more words where those came from. But the thought of losing a whole year of my life has me in mourning. Where is the heroic bus driver who will return all my missing thoughts to me?

If you're looking for me, I'll be holed up in my room, trying to recapture Roberta's story before it escapes me. It was brilliant if I remember right. Who's to say the fresh draft won't be even better?

Maybe it wasn't in my pocketbook after all. Maybe it was in my imagination.

Update

In case you're missing me, here's a quick update. The computer doctor called the other day and said my computer is still going through its diagnosis. It's about 60% of the way through the first test. My guess is in another 2 weeks I'll know if it can be saved or not.

On the home front, the phone guy is scheduled to come today and find out why our internet isn't working a lot of the time.

So, if you're waiting for me to write something clever or interesting, hang in there. It may happen again, just not this week.

In the meantime, I'm still making an effort to post every other day on my website. Check out my stories over at pattyslack.com if you're missing me.

A short Hiatus

Between computer problems, internet issues, and just plain busy-ness, I'm going to take a week or two off from writing on this blog. Hopefully I'll be back with all my equipment up and running before you know it.

In the meantime, be sure to drop in at pattyslack.com where I'm posting true stories about God at work in his people on a pretty regular basis.

See you back here soon!

Too Many Oranges

This is our first week of school. It's usually a very busy time of getting books organized, pencils sharpened, and routines established.

Not this year. This year, it seems, is the year of too many oranges, all up in the air at once with no hope that any of them will be caught. I blame it on my crashed computer. My brain is in there. Meanwhile we're sharing a computer that spontaneously restarts several times a day and that only charges if you hold your tongue right.

Day 1 -

The older kids get up and do science and math on their own. Done by 10. Hmmm... maybe they need to do more work each day.

Science, math, handwriting and history for the little one. Check.

Field trip to a life-sized replica of the tabernacle. Interesting setup. Heavy emphasis on prophecy.

Make chocolate chip cookies as per 1st day of school tradition. Double the recipe, but quadruple the number of eggs. Messy, but they taste great.

Day 2 -

The older kids are done by 9:30. I help them do a science experiment to prove something they insist they already know. Send them back to do more work. Done by 10:30. I really need to get their other subjects ready.

Little one does a science experiment. Decides it's taking too long to get to the human body part of the book. Can't we just skip the history of anatomy? History, handwriting, an errand or two that turns into 5. Tears over still having math to do when the neighbor kids have early release day.

Day 3 -

Older kids done by 10. Really? I've GOT to get them more work to do.

Little one gets her own breakfast--a victory! I let her use the calculator to do math, not that it's any help. When did they start teaching algebra to 3rd graders? She draws a pretty good picture of a cell, plays a song on the piano and recorder (history activity).

All 3 jump into Grandma's car at 10 to learn canasta. I get 3 hours of quiet. Ahhh.

Bible project with all 3 in the afternoon, then some other stuff I can't recall. Nagging feeling that I'm forgetting something. Huh.

Little one goes out to practice roller blading. I work a little on 6 different projects I've committed to. Do some grocery shopping. Get a note that we missed the little one's Awana class tonight. I knew I was forgetting something. Write it on the calendar for next week.

At nearly 11, I say to myself, "What time is it?" and 2 kids answer me. Must establish school year bedtime better.

Maybe next week. Next week we'll be organized.

Patience, Patience, Patience

Alas, my computer is at the doctor and the prognosis is not promising. The computer guru is in the process of physically deconstructing and reconstructing my failed hard drive. Praying for a quick and painless solution. Praying I don't lose months and months of work. (I don't really want to talk about the importance of backing up your work right now.)

As if I needed a reminder of the virtue of patience, when I looked out my window a few minutes ago, I saw a hummingbird perched on the feeder.

Unremarkable, you say? Well, yes... except that I hung the feeder 5 months ago and have seen exactly zero birds feeding at it from then until today.

Welcome, little hummingbird. Thank you for brightening my day.

Once and for All?

Apparently Stephen Hawking has written a new book in which he says that the laws of the universe, including gravity, made it possible for the universe to spontaneously create itself without any help from an outside being, a creator.

It comes as no surprise to me that he believes that. What did kind of strike me funny is that NPR posted a poll about it.

I took the poll, expecting it to read:

Do you believe the universe spontaneously created itself?
Yes.
No.

Instead, it said:

Stephen Hawking says God didn't necessarily create the universe. He is
Right.
Wrong.
I just don't know.

First of all, what kind of a loosy goosy question is that? There are loopholes in that big enough to slip a galaxy through. "Didn't necessarily?" Really?

Second--and this is what jarred me--God's existence doesn't depend on what we believe or don't believe about him. You remember what he told Moses?

I AM. I AM has sent you.

Our polls and opinions, our experiments and discoveries, do not alter what is true.

Timeline

It's that time of year, when school supplies overflow into our hallway and good intentions fill my mind.

I just got a timeline put up on the wall since this youngest is starting history this year. She's eager to delve into Egyptian history. She's already been sneak reading chapters of Cleopatra's biography. Egyptian history will start at the beginning of the timeline and over about a third of its distance.

When I look at how much of the timeline my own life takes up, it's less than a couple of inches. My daughter's life so far could be measured in millimeters.

We're so blind to history, we who think of ourselves as the center of time and importance.

"All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever."

I Peter 1:24-25