Dusting is to Blogs as Chores are to ???

March 15 – Now that the most recent trifecta series of blogs is out there for all to read, I will try to write up another. Whenever I hear younger folks ask older ones to do the jobs waiting to be done, “because I work and have a job, so I just don’t have time,” I wonder about the hours in the day for everyone. Not 24 for one, and only five or six for another! We’re all in the same boat as far as having the same amount of time to work is concerned, and it’s the same the world over.

[ Task: making marmite butter ]

However, I surely am not trying to say that a person who faithfully puts in 40 hours or more each week on his job, has the same spare time (if there is such a thing) as those who are retired. I just want you to think about the time you really do have to choose work or play or fun, or whatever you do to fill your hours.

A good bit of everyone’s day is spent on your choices. How well I remember the many tasks I just HAD to accomplish in a certain number of hours, and then in the few hours that were not spoken for, I could be the boss of that time, deciding what I wanted to do and accomplish. These days are very much the same, actually. Outside of getting the food ready, the clothes washed, doing the dishes (and I don’t even have a dish washer, but Dale is a great dish dryer), keeping things tidied up, and helping with outside jobs from spring through fall, I do not have to report for duty every day.

Now why did I pick that topic to write about here at the end of the week? Maybe I had kind of a guilty conscience as I thought about the fact that Dale takes care of the dusting along with his other “duties,” while I do the washing, etc. as I just mentioned. So that’s why I am mentioning the dusting this morning.

[ Nicely dusted brass pieces ]

We have so many curios, mostly from Africa, and shiny brass animals and other things that really glow in the sun! As they are polished and then returned to the place where they will sit until the next dusting time, it makes a real difference. Since our house is close to the road, the wind blows dust all over the place, and somehow it manages to slip under the outside doors, trying to make me work harder than I choose to. Now sweeping and vacuuming, need to be done, but that dusting is something I really couldn’t say I enjoy doing, until the job is over, and that brass stuff really shines! THEN I’m glad!

But now there’s where some problems might arise. I really do enjoy working every day, but I am the one who chooses how to use those extra hours. And sometimes when I just don’t feel like writing or sorting the files, or keeping in touch with folks, I have a hard time just going on my merry way, because questions like these keep popping into my head: “When are you going to finish the church bulletin? When are you going to write a letter or send a card to Tom or Ben or Susie? Have you answered the cute note you got from one of the church kids? When are you going to write another blog?”

[ African curios ]

Three and a half years ago when our son David suggested that Dale and I write a blog, we agreed, and all went well. But what a change in the number of blogs from the first year to this, the fourth one! In the beginning I had the idea that I had to write a long one just about every day! But that doesn’t always work out for a number of reasons.

Through the years we have cut down, until now we might be writing only once each week. Maybe that’s not good because many of our friends look forward to the blog, and when they don’t have another one to read, they worry that we might be sick! A number of times we have received e-mails or phone calls to make sure we are OK. So just as polished brass is beautiful, so is friendship with so many folks everywhere showing love and kindness to us. If we need help, they are ready to give it, not because they have to, but because they choose to! – CHRIS