Note to self… a little bit of fertilizer goes an awful long way. Less is more, my friends. No wonder Eustace is always so tired, what with trying to manage this vegetable bonanza.
While I certainly don’t wish for our resident camel to overwork himself, I’m secretly drooling over those giant squash. What I wouldn’t give to see this kind of produce on the shelves in Walmart.
Maybe Eustace has stumbled upon something amazing, and together we will take over the world, Pinky… oh, wait… that’s from Pinky and the Brain, sorry.
If you think I’ll be able to eat all this stuff, you’re mistaken because I don’t think I could get past even one of those squash. This leaves the rest to all of you, so strap on your feedbags, as they say, and dig in…
Though I’ve no desire to reminisce about the differing places my shoes have been, I am able to reflect on the ones I’ve worn over the years.
I do still have my first pair of baby shoes tucked away in a box…
From baby booties til now, I’ve moved from sneakers to cowboy boots, and back to sneakers, again. Then I went from sneakers to differing ladies fancy shoes, but soon returned to sneakers.
I even tried going from sneakers to moccasins, but still found myself back in sneakers!
I’ve finally come to rest on living a shared sneaker/slipper lifestyle.
I keep em as long as they’ll hold up! No one should ever give up on a garment just because it looks a bit faded or worn. Quite honestly, my shoes don’t feel right until after they’ve been stretched, stained, and well broken in.
My sneakers average a life of about a year, but that’s pushing it… and I usually own twin pairs so they will last longer. I walk alot!
Right now, I own a pair of fluffy slipper shoes that a friend gave me last year. They are stained from my coffee spills, but oh so faithfully comfortable.
There ya have it, folks, more information than you ever wanted or needed to know about the life of my feet.
Here, have a cookie that my feet have NOT been anywhere near…
though there have been a few squirrels involved in presenting them.
A word caught my eye this morning, as I was reading. When I first saw the word duplicity, my word rolodex spun up, and then shuddered to a stop.
Whenever I read a word that makes me pause, I find it’s a good idea to look it up, just in case I’ve misunderstood a thing. It happens to everyone, I’m sure, what with the English language having so many words, meanings, innuendos, and side rules for certain words and letters. Why they had to make things so darn hard, I’ll never understand.
But, I didn’t make the rules, so there’s no point in griping about them, right?!
Well, when I thought on what was bothering me about the word, it’s meaning fit in the context of the sentence I was reading, but I kept wanting to read it as duplicate, even though that word isn’t necessarily a negative one.
So, yes, I googled it!
First things first, I looked up the actual definition for duplicity…
So, in the light of what I was reading, duplicity certainly fit, but why did my mind go to duplicate? Look just above this sentence, at the bottom of the definition. I guess my mind was triggered by the old form, which apparently was called doubleness. What does doubleness mean? Well, I checked…
doubleness /ˈdəb(ə)lnəs/ noun: doubleness
the quality or state of having two parts; duality.”the focus is on puns that reveal the doubleness of the poet’s meaning”
I get what doubleness means, and in a negative light such as duplicity reflects, I agree with the words usage.
Why then, did I get stuck on that silly word, duplicate, when I knew it was not the right word? Most likely, it was simply the similar spelling of both words. I deduced that part in the first five minutes, but went down a tiny rabbit hole, provided by none other than Google.
If I’m to share the definitions for duplicity, as well as, doubleness, we have to look at duplicate… just to be fair.
du·pli·cate adjective: duplicate /ˈdo͞opləkət/
1. exactly like something else, especially through having been copied.”a duplicate license is issued to replace a valid license which has been lost” Opposite: different
1. one of two or more identical things.”books may be disposed of if they are duplicates”
a copy of an original. “locksmiths can make duplicates of most keys” Opposite: original
verb: duplicate; 3rd person present: duplicates; past tense: duplicated; past participle: duplicated; gerund or present participle: duplicating
Did you know that duplicate is considered an adjective, a noun, AND a verb, depending on it’s usage? Call me crazy, but I didn’t realize this, til I looked it up this morning. I also discovered that I’m not the only one who has come upon this little conundrum. It’s true! There’s already an explanation out there for the difference between duplicity and duplicate… go figure!
Check this out, and then I’ll leave you alone.
The word duplicate is derived from the Latin word duplicare, which means to double. Duplicity means deceitfulness, treacherousness, underhandedness, fraud or dishonesty. Duplicity is a noun, a related word is duplicitous.
This made more sense than all three of the other definitions. I wish I had have read this at the beginning of my research… sheesh!
I like to turn this song way up and sing along, whether the cats go running or the dogs start howling. My soul just wants to worship, and the lyrics are spot on!
While I could regale you for hours with all the times I’ve performed over the years, would it be worth the mention if my only audiences were fictional ones?
Well, they weren’t all fictional, to be totally fair about things. My performance career began very early on, where I learned to hone my speech and drama skills on any and all of my baby dolls.
From there, I branched out over the years to include any living animal that was either willing to stay and listen or coralled long enough to endure my theatrical onslaught!
Eventually, my poor audience members would run when they saw me preparing for one of my performances, leaving me to talk to myself… which I readily did!
If you were to ask any one of my adult children, I’m sure they would attest to my ability to give such lengthy speeches that they wished they could escape, just as all my childhood audience victims had done!
So, there you have it, my friends!
As the title of this post reflects, as far as performing and/or speech giving… The world really is my oyster.
… like the frozen peaks of a mighty mountain range. Sadly, little can survive there.
What about finding church in nature?
Can all that quite beauty and solitude become a church, of sorts? Meditating in peace, while trying to safely navigate this lost and fallen world?
Can Church be found in a book, but not in a heart?
What about where 2 or more are gathered?
Do I fit into the Church, or is the Church supposed to reside within Me?
Google says that the Bible mentions the word Church about 120 different times.
Somebody on Google also says that there are estimated to be between eight and 16 million actual church buildings in the world.
Another person says that there are 37 million churches throughout the world.
Oh yeah, and I also read that there are more than 45,000 Christian denominations in the world. I think I found all this information in under 5 minutes on the great World Wide Web. What started out as my morning quiet time in the word, turned into 2 days of trail walks, another day pondering my own church experiences, and then finally, the above mentioned 5 minutes of “Google is your friend”!
Honestly, at this point, I was feeling like a deer caught in someone’s proverbial headlights! I know we all believe that google is our friend, but let me tell ya, not only is it your friend, but EVERYBODY’S friend! Electronic Overshare Overload is what I will consider reality! Jokes aside, the web can be a great resource, within reason. Too much of a good thing can be not so good for us. Well, at least that’s how that old saying goes, anyways.
I am realizing that I am not interested in what the WWW thinks, nor am I certain as to where I stand with my own beliefs, regarding this subject.
However, here is the awesome truth about faith… I do believe in WHO God is and what He says to me! If I am to believe that the Bible is 100% truth, it goes to show that I will find the honest answers to my questions within this very book, right? Within this one book are my answers, written down simply and clearly, assuming I am truly seeking the HONEST answer.
With this truth upon my heart, I am embarking on a journey of knowledge, that I may see with clarity a Godly understanding of Church, His purpose, and how I fit into the body of Christ (His Church).
You know I will not go all the way to some clarity, without returning with some really great stories for you all. Keep a weathered eye out for me, and I will see you on the (metaphorical) flip side…
Hands down, I am far happier feeling the dew of the morning while walking along the shoreline of a beach, than I am about drinking that wretched beverage!
Forgive me if you like this drink, as I meant no offense, but the prompt asked… so it’s their fault, really.
If I’m asked to show my preference between the two… so be it!
To be fully honest, as well as to be fair to the beverage companies, I’ve lost the taste for beverages with sugar in them… aside from the French Vanilla Creamer that goes in my morning coffee. After my caffeine requirements are met for the day, I switch to either Peppermint Tea or good ole fashion H2O. I like sugar, so don’t get me wrong here… I just don’t enjoy it in my beverages.
Well folks, there ya have it! Far too much useless information about me that no one really needed to know, sort of like asking whether I prefer the mountains over the beach. What an absurd question to ask, when both locations have their very own beauties about them, ya know?!
Anyways, have an awesome weekend, everyone. Oh, and don’t forget to grab a goodie on your way out…
After the grocery shopping debacle that morning, her good mood had soured and gained a downward run that she knew would not improve. Her shopping cart wheel had given out in just the right spot coming off of the curb in front of the store letting everything in it simply fly, full force, into a passing car in the parking lot.
After completely re-shopping, off of her crumpled receipt that had a piece of old chewing gum in it, she hurried home in an attempt to unload before her youngest child awoke from a very brief fake nap.
Driving home, the officer did not appreciate the narrative she reeled off as her excuse, giving her a speeding ticket anyway.
Once home, groceries unpacked and children playing, she tried to find solace in a piece of chocolate cake that she had reserved on top of the microwave the night before, only to discover that the cat had peed on the front of the microwave. And yes, she had already eaten the cake when she discovered this bit of information. It had been one of those days!
When she walked into the room to check on her children as they played, she was certain that she heard her 5-year-old say to her Barbie doll, “You #@*ch!”
In shocked horror, the stressed out young mother began to let loose with a scolding lecture regarding language. Looking up from the dollhouse in confusion, her daughter asked, “Mommy, if I can’t call this a bench, then what am I supposed to call it?”
Perspective!
I so want to go back to having the perspective and imagination of a child, without all the grown-up things that derail the good stuff.
That’s a perfect world, which this is not, but the beauty of the human soul is that it can learn, recover, forgive, and grow.
Are you kidding?! I absolutely do NOT trust my own instincts, which have gotten this girl into more trouble…
I was sure I knew what I was doing, and where I was going.
When things didn’t feel like they were right or I realized the direction was wrong, instinct told me to bury the errors and just keep going, which only took me down another wrong path…
When God pointed out my predicaments, my instinct was to argue my case and continue trying to do things my way!
If I have learned one thing through all of it… it’s that I can ONLY do all things through Christ, who strengthens me! My instincts are not and will never be enough to navigate this thing we all call life.
Instincts get surrendered to God every single morning, for this recovering runaway. The new rule of thumb is to seek the council of God throughout the whole of my day. Scripture warns NOT to lean on our own understanding, and I’m learning to listen!
Journey With Me! 