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I can hear it, can you?    

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bell, Jingle all the Way....

We just love Christmas Carols in our house.  This will be the second year with no full-time piano player.  And this is a little sad for me.  Our daughter Ruth and our son Samuel both can play the piano, but, Ruth was the one who was always playing the piano.  Any time of the night or day she would play.  Since she has taken lessons since she was 5 and played for numerous different things, over the years you can imagine that she has quite a gift.  But this is not what I want to speak to you about today.

Today I want to talk about the problems that are developing in our families from multi tasking, and from being spread, or I should say from spreading ourselves to thin.  I wasn’t necessarily planning on this but… First my daughter said something about to much not being a good thing, and then I heard a program on the Lancaster Christian radio, and then something else occurred and I thought gee, this needs to be addressed.  So here goes.

First of all please understand that these are my views and not necessarily the accepted views of the greater population.

I do believe that it is a good thing to limit, if you would the number of acquaintances our children have.  I can remember when my daughter Jonquil was a young teenager, she had a lot of friends, and we didn’t have a computer, that was about 20 years ago, or so, and computers were around, but not like they are today.   And Jonquil had a lot of friends just from being a very social person.  Looking back I believe it would have been better had she had fewer good friends, than so many acquaintances.  Then we have my next two children, please remember that these are my biologic children I am speaking of, Samuel had a lot of friends, but boys don’t seem to be the social butterflies that girls are. 


Piney Winter

 Why is it that when someone meets someone else they are instant friends?  To me a friend is someone with whom we should cultivate a relationship.  It isn’t instant.  I think that the word friend is being greatly miss-used.  I am on Facebook and I have a lot of acquaintances on there, and only a few what I would call friends.  Frankly I use FB more as a tool to keep up with my children and to see new ideas.  But I really wouldn’t even need this since I have everyone’s email addresses except FB seems to be looked at more often than email.

I look at these paintings that my husband did, and I can’t help but think that the Amish and the Mennonites know something, and have something that the rest of us have lost.  But if they aren’t careful to guard themselves they will lose it too.  The Amish don’t use electric in there homes, they use a lot of propane and batteries, so that they can have a refrigerator and a stove like the rest of us have and I have no problem with this, however when you start to invite computers and computer games, and movies, via lap tops or by using the internet into your homes, you are inviting trouble into your homes.  There is a separateness about these wonderful people, and I can understand this to a degree, not totally but somewhat.  I think that perhaps there children may be happier because they are more limited in there level of “outside” activities.  And this I think may be the key.

I used to feel that it was wise to keep my children busy, but, do we keep them to busy.  Now it appears that when there is quiet time or down time, all you hear is I am bored…
Ohhh…I hate that statement!  There is so much to do, but because we have trained our brains to constantly be entertained by outside source, we, as a people no longer seem to be able to entertain ourselves.  What ever happened to putting together a puzzle, of playing with Lego’s, or simply to looking at or reading a book?

It is time to slow down and move over into the slow lane or perhaps as I would like to do, start driving only on little back roads.  My boss says to me, “It shouldn’t take you that long to get there…” and then I tell him how I go, and he says, “no wonder it takes you so long, why don’t you go that way?”
I go the way I go because I don’t really like traveling on big highways and if there is a way for me to go that isn’t on a big highway, I would rather go my way.

Everything in Moderation, what ever happened to that phrase, my guess, it’s not convenient anymore.  How sad is that?

I think I would like to atleast visit where ever this little red row boat is anchored.  I think I could handle this.  Am I getting old, do I value things that are no more.  Well if I am, so be it, i miss my old friend Ronnie, and Andrea...I have not had any fun words with them in a long time.  I have my lady friends at church, but we aren't social friends, not really, I could probably cultivate some into close friends...I will have to think upon this . 

In the meantime I will be content with going to work and enjoying whatever this world has for me today.  And of course I will be a blessing to someone today, how about you?