i miss my teenager

i miss my teenager.

• the phone is not ringing as much
• no one is stopping by
• we're not getting up from the TV to pick her up from work
• left-overs stay around longer
• there's plenty hot water for my shower
• there's no mail (because i don't remember to pick it up)
• no one is home to watch the baby while i take a nap
• there are no clean dishes (because i don't remember to turn on the washer)
• there's lots of trash in the house (because i don't know when trash day actually is)
• i had to shovel my own driveway
• there are no mysterious odors coming from her bedroom
• i am not abandoned of toilet paper

i miss my teenager for many reasons, but mostly because her absence has left a void in my life. i love her and her absence heightens my longing to have her back home in our family.

God, bless the team in mexico--especially my teenager. she's only gone a few days, but we miss her so. what will next year bring when she starts life on her own? we've only had her for a year-and-a-half. i can't imagine the longing if she'd been ours since birth. bless her life and her work.

the down-side of blogs

i haven't been blogging for very long, but i've already discovered/encountered the #1 problem with blogging: there are too many people like me--opinionated.

• my opinion is that there should be some sort of federal application process that will weed out the really bad ideas from bloggers.
• my opinion is that i should earn at least a 6-digit income to head-up this new branch of homeland security.
• my opinion is that people who think like me (aka "the chosen few" or "the approved") will be the prototypes and templates for all blogs world-wide.
• my opinion is that dumb blogs would be deleted without prior consent or permission of the blogger AND if they ever experience one such delete, they would have to reapply for blogging rights (which, of course, my people would deny).
• my opinion is that bad grammar, misspelled words and poor sentence structure will be punishable by torture, if not by actual death.

maybe i'm just in a bad mood this morning or maybe i'm actually a genius who's on to something good here. share your thoughts and comments, but realize that on my blog, they are all subject to the rules posted above.

a sad day

yesterday we had to put our cat down. riley had been fighting sickness for sometime and finally began to show significant signs that she was loosing the fight. it wasn't a hard decision. in fact, it was a easy decision, but hard to motivate the necessary course of action. and it's been hard, especially for rhonda, to deal with the emotions of loss.
i'm not wanting to get into a debate about the principles of pets going to heaven when they die, for that is not my purpose in writing today. my point is this: there are choices in life that have clear right and wrong answers. we should always choose what is right. just because we may feel a loss, or a pain, or a disturbance, or a whatever--always do what is right and let God take care of you.

my Comforter, send us your peace as we mourn our loss.