Transformations

BEFORE

AFTER

The Widow Douglas, whose house you see there, is no doubt very happy that we finally got around to mowing again.

Strategic error:  BEFORE administering the icing, one should put the cake on the cake plate.

As soon as I brought my son home from college, I dashed out the door with Younger Daughter to her final theater class.  I left instructions with Son to make a chocolate cake for his Dad's birthday.  My husband had specified that he wanted "chocolate cake with appropriate icing, and no candy on it."  And that is what he got, all made by Son.

Here it is, AFTER maneuvering the cake to the cake plate, using several spatulas.

Success!

The birthday man himself decided on a major transformation.

BEFORE

AFTER - he looks 10 years younger

Both Son and Younger Daughter had the same reaction to this change in facial hair:  "AAAAH!"  I love him either way but it seems like it would be cooler in the summer without the beard.

Older Daughter saw this photo...

... and painted this.

Weird Passages of the Bible: Ezekiel

As part of my Lenten discipline, I am reading Ezekiel.  I picked it because I wanted to read a part of the Bible I hadn’t read before.

First I have to mention that a verse I read yesterday uncannily predicted our actual weather of yesterday:

There will be a deluge of rain, great hailstones will fall, and a stormy wind will break out. – Ezekiel 13:11

Enough weather report.  Here are my impressions of Ezekiel so far, through Chapter 16. 

This is not a section of the Bible you are going to hear a sermon preached from very often.  It’s just too weird and scary.  The book begins with a vision of fire, humanoid winged creatures, and wheels with eyes on the rim.  ‘Ezekiel saw the wheel,’ but the song doesn’t tell you how bizarre the wheels were. There are other visions, and the Lord commands Ezekiel to symbolically act out the coming destruction.  Chapter 5 features a symbolic haircut.  I am glad I discovered this for my research on Hair in the Bible.

How does this book portray God?  First off, God appears as fire and radiance.  Holy and supernatural, which would be appropriate for God.

And God is angry.  Throwing the furniture around and setting things on fire and cutting up stuff with swords kind of angry. Why?  Because of the people’s rebellion against God’s laws, their ingratitude, their vile rituals, their idol worship, murder, and injustice.  Chapter 16 is a looong chapter portraying Jerusalem as God’s unfaithful bride who has become a [5-letter word beginning with ‘w’ that will not appear on this blog].  The text says that Jerusalem is more sinful than Sodom, heretofore known as the poster-city for iniquity.

Thankfully, Chapter 11 has a brief word of mercy.  After God scatters the people, and they have had their punishment, God will gather them together again. 

I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. Ezekiel 11:19-20

So that’s the first third of Ezekiel.  Only 32 more chapters to go.  

Theological Cleaning thoughts

Today was the day to clean the master bathroom.  I often think theological thoughts while cleaning the bathroom.  Who doesn’t?  First I redeemed the time by praying earnestly for several friends and family members who are going through troubles and rough spots far more difficult than cleaning the bathroom. And the people in Haiti who still don’t have access to a proper bathroom.  And friends and family who aren’t going through tough times.  I asked for God’s blessing on all of them.

Insert historical gratitude pause here:  gratitude for the people who invented indoor plumbing, and flush toilets in particular.  This invention may have done more to further civilization than anything else.  And that is all I am going to say about toilets.

So while I was sanctifying the shower stall walls, I prayed intercessorily.  I want to add that I do pray for y’all at many other times, not just while cleaning the bathroom.  This was prayer and bathroom sanctification double-tasking, which should be biblically okay, since it says somewhere in there “pray continually.”    

Long-time readers of this blog, of which there is only one, will note that the last time the bathroom on this blog was cleaned was November 1, 2008.  No comment.

One thing I dislike about cleaning the shower stall is that I get wet.  I’m on the tall side of “petite,” which here does not mean cute, small and pixie-like, but short, middle-aged, and wide.  I have to reach way up to scrub the higher parts of the shower stall, and the water always drips down my arms.  Blech. Then while scrubbing the floor of the shower, inevitably my pants knees get wet.  The only solution I can think of would be to clean in my skivvies, but I don’t even know what skivvies are, and besides, I like having some fabric between my bare knees and the scum.  We must be in the scum, but not of it.

Then as I scrubbed the bathroom floor, I thought that I should do a biblical study on hair.  Our bathroom floor accumulates a lot of it, for some reason.  I think it comes in through the air vents from the nearby llama farm*.  Surely Lent is an appropriate time to study hair in the Bible, with everybody wearing their hair shirts for repentance.

On second thought, I think I’d better go do some real repenting.  It’s time to fill out my tax return.  Which is the real reason I was cleaning the bathroom – it’s much preferable to filling out the tax return.

* about 120 miles away.

Thoughts while cleaning

Many thoughts enter the mind of the Common Household Mom as she is cleaning the bathroom. Such as:

- Why is there so much hair on the floor?
- Who clogged the vacuum?
- I do not feel like scrubbing the shower stall.
- Chocolate.
- I am not going to scrub the shower stall.

What do you think about while you are cleaning the bathroom?