Chris Loehmer Kincaid's Blog, page 116

What's your "best by" date?

Some of you may remember the blog I posted in August of 2012 in which I was cleaning out my freezer. From the frost on some of those packages, it’s hard to believe that I had ever emptied the freezer. Additionally, I did have dates on some of those packages and they were from before the millennium. Oh, my.
Apparently, my kitchen cupboards aren’t in much better shape.
Just like with the deep freeze, I know that I cleaned this particular cupboard in the last – five years at least. But no, the date on each of these items declares that the “best by” date has long passed. My question is: what exactly does “best by” date mean? Once that date has passed, can I still cook with all these spices and seasonings? And at what point do they need to be tossed?
At least the molasses was an easy call. I know it is supposed to be thick, but honestly? It was more the consistency of two day old pudding. And those bouillon cubes? Should they be as solid as a bar of gold bullion? The only thing I do know is that baking powder really does expire and will lose its power to raise (and lift and separate?), but it’s only six months past the date. It should still work, right?
-Sigh- Here I go again. And wondering if I am closing in on my own "best by" date? Or am I just getting better with age? 

The Lord is Our Shephed

Many years ago, a few of my co-workers started a Bible study on Tuesdays at seven a.m. at the clinic. People have come and gone from the group and we’ve lately been averaging anywhere from four to ten women each week. Only myself and two other women remain from the original group.
We’ve studied books of the Bible and read other books. And some mornings we never get to any book; we spend the hour in prayer or support of each other’s needs.
The book we are reading now is “The Power of God’s Names” by Tony Evans. The chapter the group just started is “Jehovah Rohi: The Lord is My Shepherd”.  I’ve struggled with a few of the chapters, but I think I got this one.
  The Lord is my shepherd;I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures;He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul;He leads me in the paths of righteousnessFor His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,I will fear no evil;For You are with me;Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;You anoint my head with oil;My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow meAll the days of my life;And I will dwell in the house of the LordForever.(Psalm 23, New King James Version)  I think a lot of us Christians have these verses from Scripture committed to memory. But don’t take them for granted; they are beautiful words which we need to take to heart.
I was going to break each verse down and give you my spin on it, but I don’t think that’s necessary. I don’t think I have anything else to add.

Lord, You are our shepherd, our guide, our protector, our provider. We would be hungry and cold and lost without you. We worship You, we praise You. We thank You. Amen

Juggling

Every morning, after I make the bed and invite the dog up on it, where he sleeps the entire day, I throw a toy or ball or something on the bed next to him. I don’t know why because he knows where his toys are and he is totally capable of getting them himself. Besides, as already mentioned, he spends the entire day sleeping on the bed and not paying much attention to any of the toys which are or are not there. The cat usually joins him, and she’s probably better company than the inanimate objects anyway.
Yesterday morning, when I threw not one or two but three toys up on the bed, I asked Dino if he thought I should juggle some balls for him. He answered that no he was okay and I was just weird.
I always wished I could juggle. It would be so cool.
Unfortunately, I am juggling and it’s really not so cool. The day job (with the switch to a new electronic medical record), my writing (and the novel coming out sometime in the spring), my upcoming trip to Africa (which is good stress, but stress nonetheless), and the major stressor which I am sworn to not share on social media. It’s all a lot to juggle and I am failing miserably at it. I’m dropping everything and it’s rolling under the bed to be consumed by dust bunnies. Not a pretty picture.
What to do? Learn to juggle? Let the dust bunnies have their way? Get a bigger purse so I can stuff everything into it and carry it around all day?  (Oh, I guess I’m already doing that.)
I don’t have a bright answer. If it were possible, I would carry around one thing at a time and leave the rest of them under the bed or even on the bed with Dino. But I think that being a responsible adult means you can’t leave your problems with your dog each morning. I think being an adult means you have to deal with the stress – whether bad stress or good.
I’ll keep on doing it, juggling things, I guess, coming home to this bed and this dog and that stupid cat each night. And knowing that God will catch the balls that I drop. 

When the Analogy Just Pops Up

-Sigh-
Over the weekend, I wanted to write a manifesto and share my views on the world situation, particularly the current state of affairs here in the U.S. I don’t get politics. I try to understand it but I have a misfiring synapse in my brain. Oh, I know what it is, I’m basically a good person and I have common sense. I don’t think we see that combination in Washington anymore.  Or in the media.
But I wasn’t going to go there today. I was going to go back to Africa instead.
I think with all the craziness in the world, now is the time to travel to another country and make a difference, bring change. I know it doesn’t make sense. But Life is just too short to sit around and worry and wonder. Am I going to be okay?
A lot of people do question my sanity. Why would you risk your life to travel to Africa now?
Why wouldn’t I? And am I really risking my life? Or anything?
Are there really people out there who took a chance and whatever the outcome, said, I shouldn’t have done that? Coz I think there are way more people who said, I should have taken the risk and done that thing I was afraid to do but which was pressing on my heart.
If you know me personally or have been following me on social media, you may realize that I have been under a lot of stress lately. Last night, I had a dream about a tornado coming down the street at me, which should say something about my mental status. What probably says even more is that, in this dream, I ran back into the house to get my camera.
I guess that’s why I go back to Africa. No matter what tornado – or trial  or task - is on the horizon, I’m going to turn my back on it just long enough to grab my camera – or my guts or my faith. When I’m ready, I’m going back out in the street and meet it head-on.
Huh. I really didn’t see that analogy coming. I thought it was just a crazy dream about my stress. 
There is still time to donate to our volunteer trip in April. We need $6,500 to complete the rabbit project, $1,200 to cover expenses of our team leader and another few hundred to purchase all the fun merchandise we bring back to sell for fund-raising. You can mail a check made out to Tumaini Volunteers, Inc. to PO Box 726, Wausau, WI  54402, or donate directly to our website here. We are currently only about $1,000 short, so every little bit will help. 

How's Your Job Going?

 Servants, you must respect your masters and do whatever they tell you—not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they are tough and cruel. Praise the Lord if you are punished for doing right! Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong; but if you do right and suffer for it, and are patient beneath the blows, God is well pleased. This suffering is all part of the work God has given you. Christ, who suffered for you, is your example.1 Peter 2:18-21 Living Bible
I don’t write a lot about my day job. If I did, I am afraid it would be mostly to complain. Instead I should be happy and grateful that I have the job that I do, that I am ‘gainfully employed’. Overall, I have a good job and like it most of the time. However I do feel justified in complaining about it yesterday.
It was Saturday, and the way our schedule works (or used to work before we became so short-handed), I should only have to work one Saturday every other month. God gave us caller ID for a reason, yet, even after knowing who was calling at 8:22 yesterday morning, I still answered the phone. And I went in to work when my manager asked me to. And the day went downhill from there.
Then last night I read these words in 1 Peter. As horrible as any of my days at work may have been, no one has ever beaten me. Not physically anyway, maybe brow-beaten, but I still don’t feel I should complain. Not when considering the beating which Jesus took for all of us.
Lord, thank You for giving me a job which helps to support me and my family. Help me to be grateful and respectful of my employer. I know I need Your help with that. Amen 

Don't I Wish

If you are on Facebook, you occasionally see questions bounced around by your friends, such as do you still wash dishes by hand or do you have an artificial Christmas tree? These are put out there, I suppose, as conversation starters or to see who you have what in common with. Another such question I’ve seen is “do you still remember your house phone number from when you were a child?”
I always find it hard to believe that someone wouldn’t remember that number. I suppose the current generation of young adults were raised on cell-phones, so they won’t understand. But for anyone raised in the eighties or before, for any of us who were born and raised in the same house, or even the same town, forgetting that phone number would be like forgetting our birthdate.
And for a lot of us, it might still be the number we call when we need to talk to Mom and Dad.
When I was in my early twenties, living in Colorado with a new husband and a new baby in a new house, I would call that number and as soon as I heard the ring on the other end, I felt like I was at home. I was safe and secure. I could be a kid again coz Mom or Dad would answer that phone back in Wisconsin and they would still take care of me.
Don’t I wish that was still the case. Instead of things being the other way around.   Mom and Dad with their dog Mac the first time they came out to visit me in Colorado. Garden of The Gods, Colorado Springs, 1984

Who is For Us?

Once again, I was wandering through various Bible passages, looking up ones which would give me strength in my weakness and remind me that God has got it covered, He has got my back. I found a verse from Romans chapter 8 and ended up reading the entire chapter. Though I picked out a few verses, because the chapter is a bit long to reprint here, I think you need to go find your Bible and read the entire chapter yourself. Or click here to read it in Biblegateway. Then maybe commit your favorite verse to memory.
From Romans 8, New International Version (NIV)
10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Go, Pack, Go

In follow-up to Sunday’s blog as well as a certain football game Sunday afternoon, I found a story which I have yet to share.
I went to my first Green Bay Packers game sometime in the mid-seventies, with my mom, dad and sister Pat. I don’t remember much about the game except that it had to be early in the season – maybe even preseason – because it was warm and sunny and Mom was worried we would get sun-burned. I think we played the L.A. Rams.
I returned to Green Bay on December 22, 1990, for the tenth coldest game in NFL history. When the Packers were trailing the Lions at the start of the fourth quarter, we called it a day and headed to the warmth of our car.
Sometime before that frigid day, we took my son Nick to his first Packer game. Or my cousin did. Here’s how it went down.
I don’t know where we got four tickets from, but we offered one to my cousin Dick who wasn’t living too far from Green Bay at the time. He had come home for the weekend and offered to drive Nick, who couldn’t have been more than five at the time, to the game. My husband and I would drive our car down and meet them at the stadium.
We were driving a Ford Tempo at the time, which had been a lemon from day one, so we were starting to look for something different. On the way to the game we stopped at a dealership between here and there to see what they had. We thought the little Honda Civic looked pretty good, so we thought we would come back the following week to check it out when the dealership was open.
Didn’t turn out quite that way. See, the Tempo died in the parking lot. From somewhere, because this was way before cell phones, we called my sister and then another cousin who lived in that town, to see if either had a vehicle we could borrow for the day. My cousin loaned us their beast of a sedan which had a ridiculous oil leak. I think we added two quarts on the way there and two on the way home again.
We would have skipped the game altogether, but my five year old son was already there, with no ride home.  I don’t remember a thing about the game. Though Nick says he remembers that day, I wonder how much he really does.  Oh, and we did buy that Honda Civic.
Glad Nick has made it to a few more recent games. And good luck, Packers, this Sunday. 

What a mother treasures

  But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 
Luke 2:19

 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. Luke 2:51 (New International Version)
My son, my firstborn, will turn 31 years old next week. I remember the night I went into labor with him and the early morning hour when he was born. I remember rocking him in his grandmother’s rocking chair in his bedroom. He was a good baby and didn’t need much rocking. I’m the one who needed that time to just hold him and study his tiny round face.
Babies grow up way too fast. Before a mother knows it, they are walking and talking and spending part of the summer with his grandparents, 1200 miles away. He doesn’t remember that summer, but his grandma still does.
Yup, before a mother knows it, her baby is off to kindergarten and in a blink of the eye, he is graduating from high school. In all those years, the moments to be treasured add up like the stars in the sky.  









What moments did Mary treasure? And could she imagine the pain she would experience when her Son was in His thirties?
Lord, God, Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Your one and only Son to live life her with us and to suffer and die for us so that we may know eternal life. Amen.    

And here's the rest of the story

Christmas 2010

If you follow my writing blog or follow me on Facebook, you probably already saw most of the pictures in this post, but I wanted to share the rest of the story.
For starters, for many years I wore this sweater vest at Christmas, thinking that it was kind of cute. I had an epiphany shortly before the holidays this year and realized that this could qualify as an ugly sweater. Time to upgrade my wardrobe. 





However, the Hubby and I were invited to a party this year, where we were asked to wear our ugly sweaters. I thought about resurrecting my standard sweater vest and leaving the Hubby on his own, but then I had an idea. One I came up with on my own, by the way, without consulting Pinterest.
We found the sweaters at St Vinnie’s. If you haven’t been to one of the thrift stores run by St Vincent De Paul, I suggest you go find one. My plain red turtleneck was $3. Hubby’s was marked at $4, but was 50% off clearance.   This was what I hoped to put on them. Most of which were items laying around the house. The little round ornaments on the tree and the grey buttons on the snowman are recycled from the clinic I work at. They are the tops off of vials of injectables. What can I say? There were a lot worse things I could have slipped home in the pockets of my scrub pants.    
 I’ve been planning these sweaters in my head for a couple weeks, but couldn’t start work on them until we had purchased the blank canvases, which was Wednesday. I spent Friday gathering supplies. 

 Then when Hubby got home from work, we had to model them with the tree and snowman pinned on. I worked Saturday morning, so didn’t start sewing until Saturday afternoon, forgetting that I also needed to put together a dish to pass at the party. But that’s how I roll.
 Didn’t get the snowman’s hat on in time. 
But took care of it Sunday morning, before I packed away the sweaters until next year.   Don’t you just want to invite us to your party?