No butts about it...

It’s no good to have a walk-in closet when you can’t walk in it. I realized that weeks ago, but just remedied the situation this morning. Along with thinning out my collection of clothes and shoes yet again, I moved things around to make navigation a little easier. Now the carpeted floor is visible! (...took me long enough to get sick of stepping on things!)

Since our move in mid-June, I haven’t found a good place to store our clean towels and extra rolls of bathroom tissue. So this morning I remedied that situation, too, by installing a shelf over the closet door. Now I have nice stacks of clean towels at the ready. I just have to stand on a little stool to reach them is all...

The bathroom tissue/toilet paper storage issue was solved by installing a similar shelf in our water closet. Yes, it’s a water closet. At least I guess that’s what it is called. Maybe it’s a bathroom stall. Or a toilet room.

I like calling it a water closet. Sounds kind of impressive. Like maybe we have a fancy, big house, which we don’t. But hey, if bathroom talk is meant to be impressive...I’ll settle for water closet.

As I began to unpack the boxes of spare bathroom tissue to put on our new shelf, I had a revelation. We have entirely too much toilet paper for only two occupants!!! There are two bathrooms in this house and 41 rolls of paper. Yes, you read it right. 41 rolls. And that isn’t counting the packages from a Knoxville wholesale club that are on a shelf in our garage. How did two people (with one bottom each) end up owning so much toilet paper? I have no answer. But I won’t have to put that on our shopping list for quite some time to come!

How many people spend their valuable time counting rolls of toilet paper? Your answer doesn’t count if it has anything to do with stocking retail shelves or working for Charmin. It’s just that as I began putting the rolls on the new shelf, I realized there was a ridiculous amount of the stuff!

But compared to the news out last week from NPR, my collection of toilet paper isn’t so unusual. I just wish it were for such a noble cause...
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is buying 50 pounds of fake poop to test high-tech toilets they're creating for third-world countries at their ‘Reinvent the Toilet Fair’ next week. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/watersanitationhygiene/pages/reinventing-the-toilet.aspx

Read even more by going to: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/08/08/158447235/why-is-the-worlds-largest-foundation-buying-fake-poop?

And how many people spend valuable time reading about funny names for toilet paper? Me, for one. The following are actual trademarked toilet paper brand failures...not the paper itself, just the names.
Tainted Love Bath Tissue
Butt-It’s-Soft
Bear In The Woods (Oak Scented, Extra Strong) Toilet Paper
Quilted Arse-A-Nol
Mr. Poopy Posterior E-Z Single Serve Buttwipers
Cottony Soft Sphincter Delight
Justin Beiber’s Bum B-Kleen

I’d love to wrap up this blog posting with something really funny or clever but I’ve got nothing.
Unless it would be to say that I’m wiped out and just can’t type anymore.
Yep.
That’ll do.



Always remember that if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Make your life count!

Joe and I moved into our new house on June 19th. A month later and we’re still surrounded with more boxes than we’d like...stacks of things that haven’t found their place in the place...and a few odds and ends that we may just have to be rid of before the house can look more like a home.

I found a good dry-cleaner, a grocery store (that has a wicked-good deli), a bakery (which I didn’t need to find) and a favorite gas station. I’m not looking for a new hairdresser because when you find the perfect person to take care of your hair...why in the world would you want to look for another?!??!? Same deal with my dentist...except he doesn’t really care about how my hair looks. We even have a new family physician...one I found because my daughter works at HGTV with his son. So, all in all, it looks like we are settled in for the next six to eight years.

One thing I dreaded looking for was a new kennel for Dobie to visit when we’re out of town. Dobie is our toy poodle who really doesn’t know he’s a dog. We’ve never told him. The last place we boarded him is the only place he’s ever known. Dobie was born in January of 2004. My daughter informed me that I bought him as her replacement when she would leave for college that fall. Maybe. Maybe not. One time she jokingly told me that she thought I might love that dog more than her. I assured her I didn’t love him more. Sometimes I might have liked him more...but I never loved him more! (insert smile here)

Back to the kennel.
I asked a friend who used to live in Cleveland to recommend a good kennel for us to board Dobie. She had just the right place, so I went to visit the facility and found exactly what we needed for our little guy. He spent one night this week and did great! He even came home with a report card! Yes, these folks sent him home with a “Happy Camper” report card, complete with checkmarks for eating well, making new friends and being the paw-fect pet! There was even a picture of him included in the card!

I call him my baby-dog. Even when he gets scolded, he soon forgets about it and comes back to cuddle. I should learn to forgive and forget so easily!

I wish I knew who wrote the following so I could give credit where credit is due. But I think you’ll enjoy this...


ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM MY DOG

1. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride. 


2. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.


3. When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.


4. Take naps and stretch before rising.


5. Run, romp, and play daily.


6. Be loyal. 


7. Never pretend to be something you're not.


8. Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. 


9. If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it. 


10. When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently. 
11. Thrive on affection and let people touch you - enjoy back rubs and pats on your neck.


12. When you leave your yard, make it an adventure. 


13. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do. 


14. No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout...run right back and make friends.


15. Bond with your pack. 


16. On cold nights, curl up in front of a crackling fire. 


17. When you're excited, speak up. 


18. When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body. 


19. Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.



I have #8 and #18 down really well. Especially #18...because I can wag my entire body even when I’m not trying! It wags when I walk! In fact...it wags for a few moments when I stop walking! My upper arms wag whenever I’m waving. My thighs wagging against each other could start a small fire.

Okay, okay...I know I shouldn’t make snide remarks about my body. According to Psalm 139:14, I am “...wonderfully made...” and my daughter was one of the first to point out to me that self-deprecating humor is unbecoming. In fact she said it to me in front of my mother who couldn’t hear too well. Mother replied, “Self-defecating humor?!? What kind of humor is that?”

Mother wasn’t really too far off the mark on that. She got to the bottom of that kind of humor, so to speak.




Always remember that if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Make your life count!

Blueberries made me cry yesterday...and if you keep reading you’ll find out why.

As I type this blog I am sitting on a comfy, familiar sofa...in a messy unfamiliar house. But it’s my house. Our house.

On Tuesday, Joe and I moved our comfy, familiar sofa (and everything else we own) from 17 years of living and loving a church family and community in Alcoa, Tennessee...to our new home in Cleveland (Tennessee, not Ohio, for the benefit of all my Ohio readers). Joe is the new District Superintendent for this area in the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church. He has 69 churches and 45 ministers to look after. Those 45 ministers are our new church family...and already many of them have stopped by or made contact with us and helped us feel at home.

Even with this warm welcome and beautiful home, I feel as though there is a big sheet of glass inside me that just one little push could cause it to shatter and break. I am feeling on the verge of tears at every moment. I know this will soon leave my being, but I suppose I am grieving...

Grieving that I’ve moved an hour and a half from our only daughter. (...and that for this summer her husband is interning in NYC and she is lonesome for him every moment of every day.)

Grieving that I’ve left an amazing church family behind.

Grieving that I left a wonderful neighborhood with exceptional neighbors.

Grieving for a ‘history’ of life in Blount County, Tennessee.

I’m also grieving for some kind of order...a feeling of normalcy. This house is filled with boxes and piles of things that I must slowly move through, unpack and make this new house a home. I’ll have to take my time so I can get it right.

And in the midst of this grief...I am so excited! This assignment for Joe is a wonderful opportunity to be a minister to ministers! Isn’t that a blessing? I know he will be effective as a Cabinet member. He is 62 years old and has stepped from his comfort zone...from a church he served happily for 17 years...and into a whole new arena. I really admire him for this leap of faith.

I’m excited about my role in all of this...to have time with the ministers’ spouses of the Cleveland District. Joe and I have been in ministry for nearly 40 years, so maybe there will be some way I can encourage or motivate. Who knows? Well, I think God does and just maybe that is why Joe and I are in this place at this time in our lives.

I will still miss my daughter.

I’ll have another church family...many, in fact!

I’ve already met several of our new neighbors and everyone is so nice! There are three boys, aged 6 to 8, that live nearby...Hayden, Jackson and Caedon...with lots of energy and personality. As 8 year old Hayden was walking off last night he turned around and said, “It’s a great neighborhood! You’ll like it here!” And yes, Hayden...I think I will.

And as far as a ‘history’ goes...I must remember that when we moved to Alcoa 17 years ago, I left behind a history in Radford, Virginia. I then proceeded to make a new one, and will do the same right here in Cleveland!

As I continue to find my way around the maze of boxes in this house, the virtual sheet of glass inside me that I felt could shatter at just a touch, will soon disappear. I’ll be fine. I’ll never stop loving or missing Alcoa...the same way I’ve never stopped loving and missing McClure and Dryden, Ft. Oglethorpe and Radford and our church families in those appointments!

Not long after it was announced the we would be moving to the Cleveland District, the wife of another cabinet member told me that the spouses of the cabinet call themselves the ‘Spice Cabinet!’ I quickly replied that “...now I must be a Spice Girl!” Remember them? I’m not Sporty Spice, Brown Spice, Posh Spice or Baby Spice...I think I’ll be Nutmeg Spice. The “Nut” part because I am. And the “meg” part because that is my monogram! (for Mary Elizabeth Green)

My sweet hubby, Joe, said I should be called “Old Spice” but I hope he’s had time to think about that one.

And about the blueberries...
The first Sunday at our church in Alcoa, the families there gave us a “pounding” which is where food is brought to the new parsonage family. “Pounds” of potatoes, sugar, flour, fruit, pasta, meat, etc. were shared with us.

The Hitchcock family gave us a pound of blueberries. John and Brenda, with sons David and Brian were the folks who gave us our first fresh fruit when we moved to Alcoa. The berries were delicious! They were grown right there behind the Hitchcock house. That was in 1995.

Fast forward to this past Sunday afternoon...
Brenda Hitchcock dropped by with a bag of chocolate chip cookies and a bag of blueberries. The cookies were a nice treat as we worked on the last of packing up the house in Alcoa. I saved the blueberries though. And today, I pulled them out of our new fridge to enjoy with lunch. I put several berries in my mouth and bit into their juicy goodness.

Then I cried.

Joe asked what was wrong. I couldn’t say, exactly. All I know is that those blueberries made me think of Alcoa. They reminded me of Brenda and her sweet family...John, who is now in Heaven; David, who travels to various parts of the world for Apple; and Brian, who is in Seattle, Washington with his wife.

Brenda’s blueberries made me cry. But they brought back a sweet memory from our move to Alcoa.

That was a new beginning in 1995...and in 2012, so is this one. We did fine there and we’ll do fine here. I’ll likely have blueberries for breakfast tomorrow and maybe I won’t cry this time. But if I do, Joe won't have to ask why...




Always remember that if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Make your life count!

Purging and packing...

This month is momentous for us on so many levels:
My husband Joe, a minister in the Holston Conference of The United Methodist Church, is set to become a District Superintendent in Cleveland, Tennessee. Because of that appointment, we are leaving a church and community we have loved for 17 years. I’ve never lived anywhere for this long. It breaks my heart to think of leaving, yet I know we are meant to go. God’s hand has been traced through every circumstance surrounding this move. We sold our house (didn’t even put it on the market because a friend bought it) on a Friday morning and closed on another house (in Cleveland, Tennessee) the same day!

For the first time, we will leave our daughter behind. The farthest we’ve ever lived apart was the 20 minute drive to UT’s campus when she was a freshman in college. Now we’ll be 90 minutes away. Of course, she is nearly 27 years old, has a husband, a job, and a life of her own...but it’s still weird to think about. And before long, she will likely make a move with her husband to a new city and a new life.

We’ll go from one church to 69 churches and 45 ministers and Joe will be a “pastor to the pastors” for the next several years. Alcoa First UMC is likely the last church where he will serve full-time. After this job, he’ll likely retire. (But he’ll never stop being a minister...he’ll find a little church and keep on going just like the Energizer Bunny.)

I have known since late January that we would be moving. I slowly began to develop a plan of action. Slowly is the key word here. I’ve been sorting items that need to go to our retirement home in Virginia and things that need to move to Cleveland with us. I’ve also found out that 17 years in the same house causes one to collect a lot of STUFF!

I have too much stuff. Thankfully, I don’t have so much stuff that I could be on an episode of “Hoarders!”

I have stuff that is still packed from our last move. I’m not sure why I still have that stuff! I’m not sure why I thought I needed that stuff! And since I’m not sure...it’s out of there!

I have stuff that belongs to our daughter that she might want to add to her pile of stuff.

I have stuff that belonged to my parents that I cannot bear to part with, so I’ll keep moving it with me till I die. Never have I seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul, so someone else will have to purge THAT stuff.

I read several things about “stuff” in the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus...
stuff: noun
1 suede is tough stuff: material, fabric, cloth, textile; matter, substance.
2 first-aid stuff: items, articles, objects, goods, equipment; informal things, bits and pieces, odds and ends.
3 all my stuff is in the suitcase: belongings, (personal) possessions, effects, goods (and chattels), paraphernalia; informal gear, things.

How could that Thesaurus nail me so easily?!? It’s as if some one from Oxford came to my house and looked around...opening closets, drawers and cabinets! It’s uncanny!

And if something happened to my “stuff” I know I would survive. I’d probably be sad about it being gone, but I could live without my stuff.

I recently sold some antiques that I had purchased over the years. A friend asked me how I could have let one particular item go that I’d enjoyed so much. I told her that I have memories of it and it’s likely in a picture somewhere, but that it is just a thing. And it’s time for someone else to enjoy that thing.

There are other items that I cannot imagine letting go of...and they are just “things” too! But I believe I’m finding a balance here, and if I can keep the momentum going for the next week, I’m all set! The moving van arrives in 7 days!

My brother shared with me a quote he’d heard: “We endlessly define ourselves by what we keep and by what we throw away.”

Uh-oh.

"Houston, we have a problem..."




And always remember that if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Make your life count!

What if I hadn't tried it...?

I first began my radio career, in Pennington Gap, Virginia at WSWV AM/FM. It was kind of by accident that I began being paid to talk! And if that’s the case, by now I should be a millionaire!

My husband had a weekly broadcast on the AM station and had lost his voice one day when he was supposed to speak, so I sat in for him. For 30 minutes, I was the host of his program. I had music picked out for the guy in the control room to play to start the show. (LP’s...remember those? Long play, 33 1/3 rpm.) I talked for a few minutes, did a devotion, then had more music...interviewed a preacher that was at our church for revival, and closed out with more music and a prayer. All that in half an hour!

The next week, the guy in the control room told my husband I needed to drop by and talk to management about getting a job as a deejay there. When Joe came home and mentioned that, I just laughed. The next week, he brought home the same message. Again, I laughed...but this time Joe said maybe I should seriously consider something like that. “It might be fun,” he said.

But I still didn’t go in to talk with them. And then one Saturday, I was asked to help with the American Cancer Society’s Radio-Thon. I went in and helped answer phones and the two guys running the program handed me a microphone. I started talking with them on the air, and found out my husband was right...it was fun! It was an all-day affair so when it came time for dinner, the guys looked at me just before the next on-air break and said, “You take this next break. We’re going for pizza.” They were so matter-of-fact with it that I thought they were kidding. But they walked out the door! A guy in the control room called out to me that I was “...on in 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1.” Silence. I stared at him and he just gave me a look that said: Well, are you gonna talk or what??!? So, I talked!

I found out later that those two guys - David Hartley and Wayne Sizemore - had picked up a pizza, then sat in the radio station’s parking lot, eating and listening to me on the air. At the end of that very long day, David offered me a job. He said I’d have to learn the ropes, get my license from the FCC, and then he would like me to work on Sundays to get used to being on the air.

Sunday afternoons on the AM station were filled with preachers.
Lots and lots of preachers.
All afternoon.
Preaching.
They’d come in with people from their churches and have singing and then preaching. Sometimes it was quite loud preaching. Loud, as in sweatin’ and hollerin’ loud.

On the FM station was almost always Cincinnati Reds baseball, which made me happy for a couple of reasons. I like the Reds. While getting the feed from WLW, my favorite Cincinnati radio station, it would make me feel a little closer to home. And I knew that my mother and daddy were likely listening to the same baseball broadcast that I was feeding to the listeners of our little radio station in southwest Virginia.

I was to do a local Station Identification at the top of the hour. If there was time, I was supposed to give our local weather forecast. On way too many occasions, I’d flip the switch on the microphone in the wrong direction and instead of local weather on the FM, our listeners would get Cincinnati weather from the WLW feed. And on the AM, while the preachers were giving it all they had, I’d talk over them and give the weather forecast. I didn’t know it. They didn’t know it...or hear it, thankfully). But our AM listeners did!

I finally got the hang of things and went on to enjoy a career in radio that wasn’t planned, but turned out to be one of the best things that could have happened to my life. After a year at the station in Pennington Gap, we moved to Chattanooga, where I worked as a reporter, then a deejay at several stations, and doing voice-overs for commercials...which I still do today.

And those two guys that went out for pizza, then sat in their car and listened to me that Saturday afternoon during the Radio-Thon? Together, they taught me the things I needed to know, coached me, cheered me on and became two of the best friends I’ve ever had.

In those early days while I was learning how to “do radio” on Sunday afternoons, I knew that the ballgame was over when I’d hear Joe Nuxall say, “This is the old southpaw, rounding third and heading for home.” I hadn’t thought about that phrase until recently...

My husband began praying two years ago (shortly after his 60th birthday) about what was next for him. As a United Methodist minister, he’d served five appointments in the Holston Conference over a period of 36 years. He felt that he wasn’t done yet. At 60, many of his peers were talking about their future retirement from the ministry. But Joe wasn’t ready for that. He prayed daily about ‘what was next’ for his ministry. For two years he reminded the Lord “...I’m not done yet. I’m rounding third and heading for home. What’s next?”

In January he found out what’s next. We have served at Alcoa First United Methodist Church for 17 years, and in June, he will become the District Superintendent for the Cleveland District of the Holston Conference. He’s stepping out of his comfort zone. And I’m stepping out with him.

I’m getting ready to embark on an adventure with my hubby that neither one of us ever aspired to. Just like I didn’t set out to be a deejay, Joe didn’t have his eye on becoming a District Superintendent...yet that is exactly where he is headed. Next time I write to you, I’ll likely be on that adventure...or at least sitting on the edge of the riverbank, ‘getting my feet wet.’


Until then...remember that if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Make your life count!

Friends and Soupbeans

Do you have people in your life that you’re close to even though you aren’t with them often? Maybe you haven’t seen them in years, but when you’re together it’s as if you were just conversing the week before. I enjoy friendships like that. Being in the ministry with my husband for 38 years has allowed me to know lots of wonderful people. Last week, I was with a couple who were our very first neighbors when Joe and I began our life together. John and Dena had two little boys who were adventurous and polite and we loved them. On our very first Easter as husband and wife, they invited us to have lunch with their family. They helped us feel like we fit right in. Today, John still has that same sweet, humble spirit that we came to love in him all those years ago. He’s a man in love with Jesus and his wife...and it’s obvious.

His wife, Dena, was one of my very first mentors as a new bride. I’d go over, sit in her living room and talk about anything and everything. I’d ask questions. She’d give me wise answers and encourage me. When my husband asked me to fix him some “soupbeans and cornbread” I was clueless. So where did I go? Across the road, of course, to Dena...who told me how to fix what is still one of Joe’s favorite meals.

She’s had some health battles but I have yet to hear her complain about any of them. When skin cancer required extensive surgery on her nose...it never quenched the sweet smile and tender spirit of this woman! Even skin grafts - which I’m sure had to be very painful - didn’t change her attitude. This week, I saw her not long after she woke up from having her left breast removed because of cancer. Her right breast had been removed years earlier. I walked into her room and there she was...smiling. There was no spirit of tragedy in that room. The surgeon felt he got all the cancer when he took the breast and one lymph node. The only thing I felt in that place was the sweet feeling of three friends visiting with each other...catching up on one another’s families and sharing our hearts. Nurses were ministering to Dena’s needs while John and I talked. He still has that calm, gentle approach to whatever we are talking about. I haven’t been with either one of them for many, many years, yet when we were together there in that hospital room, it was as if we’d never been apart. Facebook has helped in that way because we’ve been able to stay in touch. Thanks to that social media...I knew to drop by the hospital in Kingsport on my way back from our home in Virginia to our home in Tennessee. Many people are praying for Dena to recover well and I am one of those people.

Before I left the room, John asked me to sing one of his favorite songs “Because He Lives” so I did my best for him, prayed with them...kissed them both when I was finished and walked toward the elevators. I felt good inside. I’d just spent a few moments with special people that I don’t see nearly often enough, yet who made me feel as if we’d never been apart. Those are the kinds of friendship every one of us needs...am I right?

Now you and I both know that I cannot possibly post a blog that won’t at least make an attempt at putting a smile on your face...so here goes.

When Dena told me how to make soupbeans in 1974, she said to buy a bag of beans and “rock them” so the immediate picture in my mind is me sitting on a rocker holding a bag of dried beans. To this day I smile when I pick the rocks out of my bag of beans!

She also told me that the beans needed to soak before cooking them, so I figured if I wanted a bowlful of beans I should soak a bowlful of beans. I covered the beans with water, left the bowl overnight on top of the counter and came out the next morning to see beans everywhere! I didn’t realize that by soaking them, they would expand! Theodore (our deaf cat that deserves a blog posting all to himself someday) was crouched down on the floor nibbling away at those beans. I don’t remember if it did anything to his digestive system. But I do remember that I cooked up so many beans, we ate them for a week! You can guess the rest of that story, my friends, because Beano hadn’t been invented yet!



Always remember that if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Make your life count!

Singing in a bank...

I walked into a bank today, saw a Martin guitar in an open case sitting atop a table...picked that beauty up, sat in a chair and serenaded the customers and tellers. I know I wasn’t dreaming because in a dream I might have been taking a test I hadn’t studied for, speaking in front of a crowd unprepared or walking into a room filled with people when I was suddenly naked. I’m sure there is some psychological reason I would have a dream about being naked but let’s not go there because I have enough problems.

The bank was in Dunlap, Tennessee. The guitar was on display because it is being raffled off for charity. My friend Joan works at the bank where Tom (her hubby) and I dropped in to pick her up for lunch. He encouraged me to play a few chords on the guitar and she asked me to sing the “Chik-Fil-A Song” for her co-workers. After my performance, they asked for another...so the ham in me complied. I shared the latest song I’ve written which contains the lyrics “...if my body were a car then I would trade me in for one with a better warranty.” It contains descriptions of bodily functions, so I hope the bank employees were okay with that. From the reaction, I guess it was.

I like my life. It’s never boring.


And remember this...
If you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Make your life count.