Janet's Blog

I hate house cleaning!  It seems so useless, because it's never really finished.  Just when I think the house is relatively clean, some child (and I use that term loosely, because children come in all sizes and ages) comes in and destroys my strenuous efforts in ten seconds or less.  Or, the dog raids a garbage can, stringing chewed Kleenex all over the house.  Besides, even looking at a vacuum cleaner or dust cloth makes my allergies and asthma kick in.  House cleaning makes me sick! That's why I decided, several years ago, when I started working full-time, that I would use some of my wages to hire someone to clean my house.  It was one of the best things I ever did for myself.  What a luxury it was to come home from a long day at work, into a sparkling clean, fresh-smelling house!  I remember talking to my Grandma Vawser about this same subject, many years ago; Grandma told me how liberated she felt when she was able to hire a house cleaner in...

I never thought I would say it, but sometimes I miss Michigan winters.  During the six years that Bill and I lived near Traverse City, we could count on snow the first week in November, and we didn't see the ground again until May.  The first year we lived there, it snowed every day for three months.  We never needed to check a forecast, because the weather was always the same: temperatures in the twenties and an inch or two of new snow.  The wind rarely blew, and the temperature never varied, so the snow piled up and stayed put, all winter long.  As far as we were concerned, the first official day of spring was just another snowy winter day; spring didn't really arrive for us until well into May. That first winter, I think we suffered from culture shock.  There was a good reason why no one else wanted to rent that picturesque chalet in the woods.  Whenever he wasn't working, Bill was blowing the snow from our mile-long lane. In northern Michigan, ...

Victoria says that she usually reads the summary of my blog to see if it's exciting enough for her to read the whole thing.  Hmmm...what can I stick into this first paragraph to spark her interest?  Shoes with 12-inch heels?  An adorable, furry puppy?  A picture of Justin Bieber? Yikes!! I love new shoes, too, but because of my poor balance, I can no longer wear heels higher than an inch or two.  To tell the truth, I've never worn heels higher than three inches, because that was never the style when I was young enough to try.  To Victoria I say, "Go for it!" now while you're young and physically able.  And don't forget to thank your big sister for searching the internet to find shoes she knew you would love! I adore tiny, furry puppies, and kittens, too.  Unfortunately, they grow up to be dogs and cats with plenty of needs of their own.  One cat and dog at a time is enough, thank you very much, and when we add them to our one headstrong t...

On the way to church this morning, I listened as a radio personality expressed this thought:  "Out of the thousands of things God does for me in any given moment, I might happen to notice three."  Three!  I laughed to myself because, in reality, there are many times when I don't notice anything God is doing at any particular moment.  It is impossible for me to keep my thoughts on God 100% of the time.  Even when I pray, my thoughts often wander off on some tangent before I rein them back in to focus again on God. And yet, where would I be without him?  What if he took his eyes off of me for even one second?  Where would I be then?  Poof!   Nowhere, of course, because there is no life of any kind without God. I can't begin to list the countless things God does for me in just the blink of an eye.  I'm thankful for the sun's warmth and the ground that I walk on, but  I rarely think about either one.  I give little thought to ...