Tag: freelance writer Pennsylvania

Maybe you should pay attention when a friend starts posting depressed social media updates after all

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings7 Comments

This weekend a person in our small county killed three of his family members and then himself. He’d been posting depressing cries for help for more than a month on his Facebook account and people who knew him said he was suffering from PTSD, possibly from his time in the service.

A veteran suffering from PTSD in our area is not new and it’s also not unusual to be reading yet another story about one of them killing themselves or someone else. Almost as common as the obits of young people dying of heroin overdose in our area are the obits of military veterans, of all ages, dying at their own hands.

Comments about this latest case ranged from “what a freaking psycho, I don’t care if he had PTSD or not” to “why didn’t someone help him?” and “how can I help someone who has PTSD to keep this from happening?”

There was a lot of hurt, a lot of anger and even more ignorance about mental health showcased on social media following the murders and suicide. I think one of the most common misconceptions about mental illnesses like depression is that the depressed person is always going to show they are depressed and they are always going to reach out for help, before they do something drastic. Depressed people don’t seek help most of the time, period. What they might do is try to send messages to those around them to let them know how down they are getting. They throw out a lifeline, but many times those lines are never picked up

Hurt people hurt people. Period. The first time I heard that phrase I was angry. I didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t want to think about how or why the person who hurt me was hurting inside. My exact words were “screw that. I don’t care how hurt they are, it never excuses what they did.” And it’s true. Being hurt doesn’t excuse you from hurting others. What that phrase does is explain that people aren’t always simple jerks when they do something that devastates another person. It’s more complex and deep than the person simply being a horrible person.

I also notice in this world that when someone is labeled as “depressed” or “needing meds” it seems to coincide with the feeling they aren’t worth dealing with, worth associating with, worth reaching out to. I guess we feel that if we can’t “fix” a person then we shouldn’t even bother dealing with them at all.

I can’t tell you how many times I posted on Facebook while depressed, hoping someone would pay attention and call me. Was it sad? Yes? Did I feel like a loser trying to get attention? Yes. Did anyone ever call and check on me? No. I sometimes got a comment of “so sorry you’re feeling that way…” but I can not remember even once a friend picking up the phone and saying “What is going on? How can I help?”

The bigger question – was I ever suicidal? No! Thank God, I never have been. Never. I can assure you of this. I’m a Christian but I still fear death, especially if I did it myself. I’d doubt God would smile on that. But if I had been suicidal, there wasn’t one person who would have stopped me. Why? I don’t know. Because they didn’t think I really would? Because they didn’t want to deal with me? Because – they really don’t care if I am here or not? I don’t know. What I do know is that it seems people don’t care until the person is gone and then they feel guilty, when they might have been able to say something before they read the obit or the news story.

Certainly this guy who killed his family was sending messages on social media in the months leading up to the murders and his suicide. And it was clear by comments made after he died that most of the people in his life wrote him off as a freak and never tried to actually help him.

Comments made on the man’s social media page after the crime are why the depressed and anxious continue to live their lives in the dark no matter how many celebrities suggest they “reach out” and “seek help.”

Help?

Or judgment?

Help?

Or mocking?

Help?

Or being told you’re not a good Christian because you’re depressed?

Most of the time depressed people, especially Christians, will not seek help because we know we won’t get it. We will be handed Bible verses to show us we are sinning. Pressure will be placed on our shoulders with statements like “I can’t wait to see what God is going to do with your life through this.” Well, that is just great. Not only do we have to survive a traumatic life event but we also have to somehow use it in the future to help others.

Maybe waiting until the crisis is a little more under control before declaring that the person in pain will eventually share their pain so one day the rest of the Christian community can dissect it and judge it like you’re doing.

Christians who deal with depression are tired of the stigma, tired of being looked down on and really tired of being ignored and walked away from. We know the authority we have over the dark. We get it and we try our best to wield that authority but some days we are tired and other Christians reminding us that our weakness is a sin because the Bible commands us to always rejoice and never be anxious is simply not helping.

Maybe if someone had paid attention to that young man’s pleas for help – no matter how subtle they seemed (though I don’t think letting people know in a Facebook post that a murderer doesn’t go around telling everyone of their plans, they just do it, is subtle.) he and the rest of his family would be alive today. But then again, maybe they wouldn’t because as much as I hate to be judged, I can’t imagine judging the family that remains. Most people who are depressed don’t hurt others or even themselves.

I’m sure that man’s family could have never imagined he’d do what he did and they may have even tried many times to get him help. In fact, I have a feeling they begged him to seek help many times. A person has to want to seek help.

It’s sad to think, though, that maybe one reason he didn’t seek that help was the fear of being treated just like he was in death – like a “loser” who “couldn’t get it together,” and “didn’t deserve to live.”

My fellow Americans, almost all national media is ‘fake news’ right now

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings5 Comments

A disclaimer for this post – it is not meant to be political and no, I don’t plan to make this blog one that focuses on such issues in the future. This is just a “one-post” you might say.

‘Do I hate the term “fake news” as a phrase espoused time and time again by our president? Yes, I do. Do I hate hearing his supporters scream that the media is the enemy of the people? Since I have family in the media and I was once a member of it, yes I do. But, let’s be honest: almost all national media – yes, even FOX News and CNN –  are FAKE NEWS now. There is no “real news” anymore. This is something all Americans should understand.

When I was in college earning a journalism degree some *cough* 20 years ago *cough* (didn’t bother to count how long ago because I don’t have enough chocolate to console me) we were taught one important thing: keep your opinion out of the hard news stories.  Writing an opinion piece or an editorial? Fine, express an opinion. Writing a straight news story? Then write a straight news story. We were to present what we saw, the facts from both sides, and then – that’s it. Yep. That’s it. We reported this person said this and that person said that and then guess what – we left it to the public to decide what all of that meant.

That doesn’t happen anymore. The lines between objectivity and opinion are so blurred they run together like the characters in a chalk painting during a rainstorm.

Every cable news network and mainstream newspaper has their own agenda and they are pushing it on you. Look around – the conservatives watch this channel and read these papers and the liberals watch that channel and read those papers. It’s an echo chamber.

Don’t believe me?

Watch an actual, live, FULL press conference and see what is actually said and then turn to Fox News or CNN and watch them clip what was said into sound bites to fit each of their agendas. It’s real and it’s happening and yes, I’ve watched it happen in print media for years. Do I mean journalists are purposely trying to mislead you? No, not always. Sometimes it is an honest mistake while they are trying to fit all the news about an event in a time frame or in a certain amount of space. Details get dropped to fit the time or space and therefore meanings get changed. It happens and it isn’t always done in a nefarious way.

But by and large, the news isn’t about informing anymore – it is about selling, or as my husband said about the national news “It’s not about informing the public. It’s about inflaming the public.” He’s in local, smalltown news, and that’s a different ballgame, especially where he works now. The goal really is to inform the public because smalltown newspapers haven’t completely lost the plot yet when it comes to journalism.

This isn’t new, in some ways, of course. The media has always used its power for bad, as well as good. The problem is that people used to be a little discerning about where they got their news but now they just seem to follow the news outlet that espouses their agenda like sheep. People, we can not simply trust the media anymore. You have to do your own research. In the same way we have to be our own advocate for our health, we  need to be our own advocate when it comes to our news.

What’s my suggestion then? First, stop watching sound bites and start watching the actual events the reporters are reporting from.

If you can find the full press conferences, the full hearings, the full statements on a situation by whomever you want to hear the full story about then do that. You can find links to full press conferences on Youtube from a variety of sources. I am not endorsing FoxNews because they are biased as well, but they do post the full press conferences on their channel more often than CNN and MSNBC. CBS is another one who posts full feeds of hearings and press conferences after they’ve run live. I challenge you to listen fully to people you do not even agree with or support. I do. I may not always agree with a certain political party or a certain politician but I listen to the full hearings, the live press conferences, and the live statements as much as possible. If I miss them, like I said, there is usually an archive of it somewhere on Youtube.

I’ve been finding a way to watch the full versions of events and I’ve been amazed at the information being left out by media outlets. I’ve been amazed at how we are able to demonize the other side based on sound bites that reporters and producers chose verses demonizing them on what we heard with our own ears. I mean, let’s demonize them if we must, but not simply because of what we saw on CNN or FOX (or the other outlets – whoever they are.).

I suggested this to someone not long ago and instead of listening and accepting that I was trying to remain neutral, the other person launched into a tirade about the party I’m a part of. I hadn’t attacked their party – I’d said both parties were making me angry, but apparently being neutral in your opinion is unacceptable today. You either want to make Trump a saint or you want to cut his head off in the square. You either want to vilify all Democrats or Republicans or you want to take them with you on your boat on the lake and kick back a few beers. There is no in between. It’s clear that you can’t be in the middle anymore. You can’t dislike both parties or their tactics. Pick a side or face the wrath of both, is what I’m learning. Or do what I’ve chosen to do for the future (after several run-ins) and just never talk to anyone about politics and keep your opinions close to the vest.

If you don’t have time to watch the press conferences, or simply don’t want to, at least look at how each channel covers the stories and then compare. Somewhere in the middle is the truth.

Bottom line? Ditch the major news media outlets. Dare I say it, even though our family is supported by the media? Yes, I will say it – ditch the major newspapers too. The national newspapers that is.

Keep your local ones. They probably have some really good stories about important local issues, if they are a good newspaper, or at least some really good feature stories about interesting, real people in your neighborhood.

Look at your news like you look at your food – buy local – and we all be a bit better off.

 

 

A new beginning for a small Northeastern Pennsylvania farm

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, farmers, The Farm Project13 Comments

” Don’t worry,” the 14-year-old told me as he climbed in the driver seat of the doorless Ranger all-terrain vehicle. “I’m a better driver than my mom.”

He grinned.

I knew he was talking about the bumpy, high-speed trip his mom had taken my husband on about a week before when the family’s cows escaped the pasture while my husband was there to do a story for the local weekly newspaper. His mom, Eileen Warburton, assured my husband that the escape wasn’t his fault, but rather the fault of an exuberant family dog who had startled the cows .

She didn’t normally drive so fast, she told me, but it was important to get ahead of the cows to try to herd them back into the fenced-in pasture. I couldn’t help wishing I had been there to see my semi-city slicker husband holding on to the grab handle of the Ranger for dear life, a look of sheer terror in his eyes as they careened over the dirt roads and muddy cow pasture.

I know, I have a warped, slightly sadistic sense of humor.

DSC_7836

More than once since visiting farms in our area I have been amazed by the knowledge, politeness, and efficiency shown by children who grow up on a farm. They are well spoken, mature and handle themselves better than many adults. They engage visitors to their farm with wisdom and a sense of professionalism that most businesses don’t even possess. Children who grow up on a farm are eager to tell you how the farm works, what the livestock eat, how they herd the cows, milk to the cows, feed the cows or pigs or any other variety of aspects of a working farm.

They are also almost always confident and not in the least bit intimidated to talk to adults. I’d have to say that most of the credit for the demeanor of a child or children who grow up on a farm goes to their parents and grandparents or whomever else they work with, and live with, on the farm. They are taught, first of all, hard work and with that hard work often comes a love for God, family, country, the land, and their livestock. For families who farm, especially on a small family farm, farming isn’t only a source of income, it’s an entire lifestyle.

“Is that mud on her side?” Eileen asked when the 14-year old, Blaine, walked their prize Jersey cow Cardinal out of the barn that day. “I guess we’ll have to wash her again.”

I don’t live a very exciting life so the idea of watching a cow being washed was exciting. I trailed along behind the boy and the cow somewhat like a giddy child who has been promised a trip to the playground. I’ve visited a few farms in the last couple of years while taking photos for a personal photo project focusing on the joys and trials of family farming. I’ve apparently grown accustomed to the smells of barns because I barely noticed when Cardinal decided to deposit a large amount of fresh manure while patiently waiting for Blaine to finish brushing and spraying her down. I am either accustomed to the smell or my clogged sinuses, courtesy of spring allergies blocked it from me.

DSC_7839

DSC_7812DSC_7816DSC_7820DSC_7823Off to one side of where the cleaning was happening, and behind the main barn, was a pile of stone and the future site of the family’s bottling facility for a future-planned business in processing A2 milk. According to the A2 Milk Company, all milk contains two different kinds of proteins – A1 and A2. A2 milk comes from cows who only produce the A2 protein.

Some dairy farmers say A2 milk is more easily digested by people who otherwise have difficulty digesting milk with both proteins. Those with lactose intolerance may be able to digest the A2 milk easier, but because their intolerance is to the sugar (lactose) in the milk, they would still need to consume the A2 milk with caution and maybe special enzymes, Eileen told me. Most people with lactose intolerance are able to drink lactose-free milk, such as the brand name Lactaid milk.

A quick search online will show you there is a quite a bit of controversy about the benefits of A2 milk for those who otherwise have difficulty digesting milk. Consumers seemed thrilled with the prospect of having access to milk that is potentially easier  to digest, but there are those in the dairy industry who are skeptical that there is any superior benefit of A2 milk. Some a market to promote it as a threat to the overall dairy industry.

“It’s just a theory at this point in time,” Greg Miller, National Dairy Council Chief Science Officer recently told CBS news. “There is no science that really says that there is any value in a2 protein milk relative to conventional milk. The two studies that were done were with a small number of subjects with different variables that don’t give us the answers we need to tell whether this is really true or not.”

For the Warburton family, scientific research wasn’t necessary. Anecdotal evidence was enough for them. Eileen’s 4-year-old son Marshal has been unable to digest milk or soy since birth, which presented a unique challenge for a child living on a dairy farm. When Eileen read about A2 milk being used in New Zealand she decided to explore the benefits of it further. She tried to order some of the milk for Marshal but the fees to ship it overseas was astronomical. That’s when she began to wonder if any of their own Jersey cows could be producers of A2 milk.

DSC_8064DSC_8067_1

She pulled hair from the tails of the cows, sent it to be tested and was told that out 10 of the 14 cows tested were A2 milk only producers. The proof would be in the chocolate milk, so to speak, something Marshal had always wanted to be able to consume like his older brother. When Marshal didn’t react to the special treat made with the A2 milk from Cardinal Eileen knew they were on to something. Her family began exploring options of bringing the milk to the area to benefit those with similar digestion issues as Marshal.

I was standing in the Warburton’s cow pasture on a warm May day to photograph the boys with their first A2 cow, Cardinal. Photographing Cardinal alone was also on the agenda. Like I’ve said before, it doesn’t take much to excite me so when we headed to the upper pasture with the boys and a wooden bench I was giddy once again but this time to see all the cows gathering around us like five-ton, manure covered and smelly, curious children.

Big brown eyes looked at us and broad noses sniffed and nuzzled to see if we’d brought any hay or grain. Once Blaine sat on the bench the ladies gathered around him in a semi-circle to see what their boy was doing.

DSC_8097_1

Standing on the hill, overlooking the rest of Forks and Overton Township and the Warburton’s farm, I thought about how blessed my family is to live in an area where children are taught from a very early age about hard work and respect for the land, animals, and nature. We are blessed to have people living around us who have personal knowledge of, and a part in, where our food comes from.

I’ve learned in the last couple of years that working and living on a small family farm is not easy, but it is worth it in ways that have nothing to do with money.

DSC_8125DSC_8083DSC_8042DSC_8053DSC_8035DSC_8059DSC_8028DSC_8008

DSC_7855DSC_7852DSC_8104DSC_8100DSC_8140

DSC_7936DSC_7914-2

 

To learn more about A2 milk, visit A2 Milk Company’s site HERE or check out the story below that CBS Morning featured in 2017. The Rocket-Courier also published a story about the farm on their site today and that story can be found via their website HERE. 

 

 

To read more of the posts I’ve featured about farming or farms in our area, click on the following links:

Tell Me More About . . . Mark Bradley, dairy farmer

The Heartache is Real as Family Farms Start to Fade Away

The Farm

The State of Dairy Farming in Pennsylvania

Tell Me More About . .  . Engelbert Farms, Nichols, N.Y.

 

 

Newspapers: the job that chews you up and spits you out; or trying to remember the good in the midst of a lot of bad

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings5 Comments

I wouldn’t exactly say my parents encouraged me to go into journalism, but when I decided that would be my major in college, they didn’t fight it – too much anyhow.

“It’s a pretty tough job, you know,” my dad said.

And he was right. Fourteen years later I can definitely understand how some who have left the field can say that newspapers chew you up and spit you out and never look back. It is indeed true in many cases, including mine.

Both of my parents reminded me journalism probably wouldn’t be a lucrative career unless I went to a big publication somewhere, which they knew was unlikely since I was a mama’s girl who hated being far away from home so much I picked a college about an hour and a half from where I grew up.

These warnings came 20 years ago. I can’t imagine what the warnings would have been had I announced I was going into journalism in 2019.

“You know you will have to pick a side – conservative or liberal – and only cover the news from that angle, right?” my dad would have said.

“Run as far away from  journalism as you can, okay honey?” My mom would have implored.

Even by the end of my college career, a degree in hand, it was clear my being in journalism might be a challenge for my family when Dad commented that the BS initials for “BS in Mass Communications with an Emphasis in Journalism”, which was what final degree was in, was fitting for more than the words “Bachelor of Science” when it came to the term “journalism.”

By the time I’d graduated, I already had a full-time job at the smalltown newspaper near where I’d grown up. My last semester of college I commuted, taking classes mainly in the morning and then going into work at the paper, working until midnight some nights, then getting back up the next morning, driving the 90 minutes to school (60 minutes if I really gunned it … um…which I didn’t because I’m a good, law-abiding citizen. The previous sentence was added for Mom), and starting it all over again. I survived on fast food and coca-cola and chocolate from the vending machine in the basement of the paper, near the pressroom. I also survived on very little sleep. It’s no wonder my thyroid died years later and I started to pack on weight on like a pregnant manatee.

How I ended up working at three newspapers in our small county of about 60,000, in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania throughout my journalism career is a long story. I met my husband at one of the papers. Shortly after we married we cut ties with the first paper I had worked at. That story is a bit long but I’ll summarize it with this: boss with a lazy eye yelling at me (or the wall, I’m not sure which) that my husband and I had neglected our “professional responsibilities” by driving one day down to my grandmother’s funeral 600 miles away in North Carolina, staying one day, driving one day back and getting stranded in a snowstorm in a suburb of Philly, therefore delaying our return by one day.

“You had the responsibility to be here when you said you would be here. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I do,” I told him.

I understood he was a horrible man yelling at a person who had just buried her grandmother. I walked out of his office to the front desk, picked up the phone to call my husband at the satellite office he worked at for the paper and told  him “I’m quitting.”

“I am too,” he said.

A couple of weeks later the editor who had tortured us with constant yelling and berating received two two-week notice letters on his desk. I started job searching and my husband started working at the competition, which was actually the first paper he had worked at but was now under a different editor than he had worked for before.

I finished my career at the same regional paper my husband ended his career at about a month ago, though I walked away almost seven years before him.

In many cases when you leave a newspaper your co-workers don’t celebrate. They don’t feel sad either. You aren’t given a cake or a party. Sometimes you get a card and they wish you luck, but honestly, after so many years working with the public, there is little left inside a person to feel true emotions, even when a long time coworker finally escapes.

My husband worked at the paper 16 years, and a few years beyond if you count the years he worked there right after high school. On his last day, he received a card on his desk, signed by his co-workers. No cake, or well wishes.

He did, however, receive a kind farewell, complete with gifts and cake and streamers, from the coworkers at his part-time switchboard job at the local hospital, where he had worked off and on for seven years.

What was not surprising about his departure was the snide comments written on the newspaper’s Facebook page about him when he departed because one thing I’ve learned working at smalltown newspapers is there is no shortage of people who want to tell you that you suck.

I have less than fond memories of working at newspapers, mixed in with a few positive ones. I remember once, as a new reporter, after misidentifying someone in a story, apologizing to the person I had misidentified and being told my apology wasn’t accepted and that I didn’t, I quote, “deserve to breathe anymore.” I remember writing a lifestyle column and having someone scribble their dislike of it all over the newspaper with a black marker, which they had folded over to make sure my column was on top and shoved in the front mail slot with the words “No one cares about your stupid teddy bear or your stupid kid.” To make sure I saw it my “kind” co-workers propped it up on my computer so it would be at face level when I sat down. I tried to pretend I didn’t care, but I went home later that day and cried and wished I had listened to the career test I’d taken in high school which listed journalism as the top job I should never take.

These were the same co-workers that didn’t know I had come in early and was sitting at my desk on the other side of the partition when they called me a liar for calling in sick for morning sickness when I was pregnant with my first child. I almost went over to their desk and puked on them to show them how real the sickness was. I didn’t have morning sickness when pregnant. I had “all day sickness.” I still wish I had puked on them in some ways, though the relationship with them did improve somewhat in the future.

Not long after the note was left on my desk about the column, the publisher called me into his office and told me to stop writing about my kid because no one cared. I stopped writing the column altogether and tried not to look anyone in the community in the eye because I didn’t know who was sitting at home with too much time on their hands, hating me for writing what I thought were funny stories about my kid and his and my childhood. I honestly thought they might like a break from the dismal news that usually appeared in the paper. Apparently, not.

I was walking in Walmart one day with my son in the cart and a woman stopped me and said: “Oh, is this the little boy you write about in the paper?”

I thought she might be mocking me so I was afraid to admit it, but when I did she said, “I just loved your column. It always made me think about the good times I had with my children when they were growing up.”

She asked me why I wasn’t writing it anymore so I told her what my publisher had told me. She told me he was wrong. As the years went by I still had women stop me, most of them with adult children, and tell me how much they missed my column. I always told them ‘thank you’ but that I’d never write the column again. It had been made clear to me what I had to say was “stupid” and “unimportant.”

There is a long list of the cons of my years in newspapers – from being yelled at about mistakes in obits that I didn’t make (we copied them from the funeral homes), from being told more than once to go back where I came from (I had lived in the county my whole life so this one always puzzled me), to being threatened by a convicted murderer’s family (that all worked out, but it was scary at the time); to being told I deserved to die for a misquote; to spending nights crying myself to sleep after I’d had to write about a fatal car accident or a story about two county sheriff’s deputies murdered; that time I was cheated out of benefits by my boss because I had to cut my hours when our daycare provider got busted for not having a daycare license; those times I provided an idea, only to be pushed aside and then have a man come in with the same idea and hear the man congratulated for his amazing idea; and, of course, the many times I got yelled at for writing information provided to us by the police because the person arrested insisted they were innocent.

Throw into those cons that night a drunk guy threatened me because I accurately quoted him at a local school board meeting during the public comment section.

“If you…if you print what I say .. I’ll..I’ll….” he slurred into the phone.

“You’ll what?” I asked.

“I’ll..just …you better not print what I say,” he said.

Mixed into the negative were a few positives – nice people met, friendships formed, appreciation expressed for stories written, a husband met, skills learned (like the ability to compartmentalize emotions, shoving them inside until I could have a proper cry later in the darkness of the night before falling asleep.

I learned how to work fast, how to be semi-organized and you would think I would have grown a thicker skin, and in some ways I did, but in other ways, I simply decided people were better off to be avoided because eventually, they’d find a way to tell you that you suck.

Someone once asked me if I miss working at newspapers. I told them, “Sure. Yes. The same way I would miss a bullet in my brain.”

“Would you ever go back into newspapers full time?” someone might ask me one day.

My answer would be simple: “Not even if I was offered a million dollars.” Okay – maybe only IF I was offered a million dollars.

I hate to sound so negative about newspapers  because my husband recently started a new job at a newspaper that I worked at (and have the least negative memories of) and there are aspects of small-town newspapers I wouldn’t mind participating in again – like maybe writing a lifestyle column, although that could bring me hate mail over any tails of teddy bears I might share again.

Newspapers were good to me over the years – gave me a job that was never the same from day to day; helped me learn a little bit about a lot of things; helped me hone my writing skills (yeah, I know – keep honing); led me to a husband and from that to two amazing children; and helped me meet some amazingly kind people.

But I still carry the teeth marks and I can’t imagine ever placing myself back in that lions’ den, especially now with so many lions ready to eat journalists alive.

 

 

 

Favorite blog posts from the week

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings5 Comments

It’s time for my favorite blog posts from the week. This is the post where I share some of my favorite posts from other bloggers from the current or past week (or so). I’m trying to make it a regular feature, but honestly, I’m not sure I’ll keep up with it like I should. All I can do is try.

Favorite posts this week:

The Pioneer Woman: I buried the lede

I have followed Ree’s blog for a very long time, even before she was Food Network’s golden child. I was once a strict mommy blogger and she was doing the same – blogging about her life on her ranch and photographing it as well. I followed a photography feature she had at one point. Though her name is now big business she still blogs from time to time. In this post she writes about her oldest daughter graduating college and her and her husband’s new ice cream shop.

This post by The Lily Cafe about miscarriage hit home for me. She writes about what she could have used after her miscarriage 26 years ago. A hint: it wasn’t comfort or talking non-stop about the miscarriage.

Michelle at Blessings by Me wrote this great post about vertical gardening which interested me because my daughter wants a garden this year but I don’t want to dig up the ground since we could be moving in a few months.

Jenni from The Wilde Way, a new blog for me, caught my attention with a post called Mother’s Day: A Reconciliation. I could relate to the idea of not being sure if I liked Mother’s Day because I often felt like I didn’t deserve the honor.

Another one that hit home for me was from Brittany at Ordinarily Extraordinary Mom about making friends later in life. Boy, could I appreciate the advice on how to make friends when you’re no longer a kid or a young mom. I’m in a period of life where I have no friends so I can use all the help I can get.

How about you? Read any cool blog posts this week that you’d like to share? Let me know in the comments or link me to one of your own!

 

There are a few bad things about getting back into reading

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings21 Comments

In the last several months I’ve cut way back on social media and found myself very lonely. The loneliness sometimes leads to depression, which isn’t good, but what is good is the fact I’m now back into reading and writing.

I find I now look forward to bedtime, not because I have time to mindlessly scroll through social media without feeling guilty that I should be spending time with my family instead, or not because my old age makes me want to sleep more. Now I look forward to bedtime because I can escape into a good book before sleep. In fact, thanks to the diminutive appearance of my Kindle I can escape into a good book almost anywhere.

I can not tell a lie – I feel a bit of a rush of rebellion when I stay up late with a book and I know it’s because of all the nights I spent with my head under the covers with a flashlight so Mom wouldn’t catch me up reading pass my bedtime. To this day I still feel the urge to pull the covers up over my head when reading a book after midnight. I realize I probably need therapy. My mom wasn’t against reading, in fact she read so much it’s probably why I have a love for it, but she was against me being very tired for school the next day because I had been up too late reading.

 

Rekindling (pun intended) my love for reading is almost entirely a good thing. Still, it does have its’ drawbacks.

First, there is the fact I often stay up too late when I’m caught up in a good book and pay for it the next day when grogginess causes me to forget to turn on the stove to cook dinner or that I put the dog out an hour ago. Much to my chagrin, I have to admit my mom was right about that needing sleep thing.

Then there is the fact reading, much like blogging and writing short stories, is yet another way for me to procrastinate cleaning the house, folding laundry, loading the dishwasher or feeding my children. Why are kids always so hungry anyhow?

Another drawback to returning to the love of reading is the reminder of how stupid I really am because I have to keep highlighting words in the Kindle dictionary to learn the meaning of them. Truthfully, I could skip the word and keep going but since that nifty dictionary feature is already built into the Kindle it seems a shame to let it go to waste the same way I apparently let my brain go to waste.

Then there is the drawback to being able to look up words with the tap and slide of a finger: realizing you’re not only stupid for not knowing words but also because you keep trying to tap and highlight words when you are reading an actual, hard copy of a book.

Yet another drawback is when a book either is too exciting or jumps the shark and leaves me laying there in the dark all pissed off, tossing and turning, fuming, writing letters of disgust in my head to the writer. I was recently in the midst of a very well written Christian fiction book when it went off the rails into fantasy territory and I was left all theologically pissed off because miracles don’t happen like that in real life. So there I laid lost in deep thoughts about why we don’t see miracles today, instead of accepting that it’s JUST A BOOK! Hello! I decided then I needed to read less theological books before bed, instead focusing on books like The Cat Who… books or The Mitford series.

Despite the disadvantages to becoming a voracious reader again, I’m glad to have a way to escape from both the mundane boredom of my own life and the insanely, way too exciting events of the world around me. Currently, I’m switching between a Cat Who book by Lillian Jackson Braum ( a series of books about a newspaper reporter and his crime-solving Siamese cats) and the fifth book of the Mitford series by Jan Karon.

How about you? In the midst of any books you are using to avoid the responsibilities of life?
____
To read more from some readers who read more and write more about what they read, you can click over to Readerbuzz’s Sunday Salon on her blog, or on Facebook.

Why I have gray hair – reason no. 30

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, motherhood, Mothering is hard, The joy of motherhood6 Comments

I heard it before I saw it and knew at that moment I’d made a mistake letting my 4-year old jump from the couch to the metal barstool we’d never actually used at a bar since we didn’t have one. I saw her hanging over the bottom rungs of the chair, now on its’ side, like a limp rag doll, and yelled for my son to help because I figured that in his youth he could move faster. He wasn’t there, though, and by the time I got to her she had lifted herself up and was standing with her hair in her face and her mouth open while she tried to scream, but no sound would come out.

A bright red river of blood was streaming a path from her nose to her mouth and I wasn’t sure if she had ripped her nose or her lip open.

Always cool under pressure, I started to scream “Help me! Help me!” over and over, yelling for my son to call his dad at work. He, having been upstairs for what he’d hoped to be a relaxing visit to the bathroom, was a frazzled mess and stumbled to find one of our phones.

“Grace. Face bleeding.” He shouted into the phone and hung up.

Somehow I had mentally slapped myself out of my hysteria and asked for a box of tissues, snatched one and held it against my daughter’s nose, noting I had smeared blood above her eyebrow as I’d pulled her close for a hug and examination.

I knew that in order for her to calm down that I had to calm down and suddenly I went into robot mode. Wipe face. Hold nose, ask what hurt and what she had hit. She said her nose and her ear so I examined both appendages and saw blood caked along the edge of the nose and the tip of it swelled some, but otherwise it seemed fine. The ear didn’t have the gash I worried I would see. 

My husband burst through the door a few minutes later and we checked her out together while she cried. A popsicle and a cartoon helped her calm down.

A half an hour later she was in the kitchen twirling in circles next to the counter, an inch from smashing her face in again.

“Excuse me. We’ve already had one bloody nose. Are you trying to get another one?” I asked.

And that’s when I felt it – another gray hair pop up on top of my head.

DSC_4295

Fully Alive Part 3

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, risen3 Comments

For the first part of this work in progress click HERE. For the second part, click HERE.

This is a work in process and there will most likely be typos and changes to it in the future.

The busy sounds of people rushing by to complete their daily chores quieted as Jairus pushed the door to the synagogue closed. He leaned against the door and closed his eyes for a moment as he tried to quiet his racing thoughts.

Jairus focused on the words he had said to Josefa the night after the teacher had healed her.

Healed her? Brought her back to life?

Is that really what had happened?

Even now it was all too unbelievable to him.
He wondered, did he really believe this man, this Jesus was the true Messiah as he had told Josefa?

Maybe he had been wrong to say so. He’d spent his whole life studying the scrolls, learning of Moses and Elijah, about the prophecies of the Messiah. Now here he was almost completely convinced the man he had followed in the street, begging for him to come and heal his only daughter was indeed the Messiah. He knew he was being ridiculed behind his back by the other leaders of the synagogue for asking for Jesus’ help but he couldn’t deny what he had witnessed that day.

He remembered Josefa’s fever and how she’d no longer been able to stand. Miriam, his wife, had soaked cloth and laid it across Josefa’s forehead, hoping the cool water from the stream would revive her. For days they sat by her cot, holding her hand, Miriam weeping as Josefa moaned and faded in and out of consciousness.

 

“You know I told you about this teacher, this man they call Jesus? Miriam, are you listening? He’s been healing people. I saw him heal a man’s hand in the synagogue last week. The leaders were upset because it was the sabbath, but I saw the man’s hand. It was diseased, scarred, withered but Jesus held it, touched it and the hand was whole again.”

 

Miriam dabbed her eyes with her shawl as her husband spoke, barely listening as she watched her daughter’s breathing become more and more shallow. Dark circles were now under Josefa’s eyes.

 

“I will go to him, ask him to come,” Jairus was speaking again. He was pacing the floor, rubbing and pulling at the hairs of his beard as he always did when thoughts overwhelmed him.

 

“Do we now believe in such men who call themselves healers?” Miriam asked, weary from worry.

 

Josefa’s body shuddered with a convulsion. Miriam rushed to her, held the girl’s small frame against her chest. Josefa’s breathing became labored, shallow. Jairus saw the panic in his wife’s eyes and felt it rising in himself as well.

“We are losing her! Go! Go to this teacher and ask him to come!” Miriam’s voice was filled with fear. “He’s our only hope now!”

Jairus’ heart pounded as he ran from the house, out onto the crowded paths, pushing his way through travelers and locals and animals being led to market. He could see a crowd around a man in front of him. They were all moving one direction, calling out “Jesus!” Questions were being asked, some voices mocked, some sounded hopeful.

An image of Josefa’s pale frame flashed in Jairus’ mind and he tried to move faster, pushing more people aside. His chest felt tight, his breath more labored. Was this man he was trying to reach a heretic as the synagogue leaders and other rabbis said? What if he was crazy like the man who was called John the Baptist, who was covered in dirt and smelled and had spoke of a healer and prophet who would come to save the Jews?

Jairus’ foot caught a stone and he felt himself falling. The sand flew into his face and pebbles cut at his palms. As he pushed himself up he felt tears hot and stinging his eyes. He would never reach Jesus now.

He saw sandal clad feet before him and looked up.

“Let me help you,” a man with kind eyes and a smile held a hand out to him.

Jairus took it and stood slowly.

“Thank you,” he barely looked at the man, instead searching the crowd to see where Jesus had gone.

“Do you seek Jesus?” The man asked.

“Yes,” Jairus said, breathless.

“Come. I’m one of his followers. I will help you to him.”

Jairus looked at the man, noticed his unkempt beard and slightly frayed clothes. He nodded at him, seeing kindness and concern in his gaze.

The man gently touched the shoulders of those around them and people began to move aside. Ahead of them Jairus saw Jesus had paused and turned to the crowd. His eyes focused on Jairus who suddenly felt unsure, uneasy. Jairus dropped his gaze to the ground, overwhelmed with worry for his daughter and overwhelmed with the presence of a man who had performed so many miracles. His body felt weak from running, from being awake for so many days watching over his daughter.

He felt his knees give way and he fell to the ground before Jesus.

Sobs wracked his body as he lost control of control his emotions.

“Jesus,” he gasped out the name.

A sob choked his words and he thought he wouldn’t be able to finish.

“Jesus, my little girl is dying. Please. Come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.”

He felt tears rush down his face and he was startled by emotions he usually tried to keep locked inside.

He felt a hand on his head, on the covering he wore there.

“Come, rise and let us go to her,” Jesus voice was calm, gentle.

 

His followers helped Jairus to his feet and Jesus motioned for him to lead the way to his home. The crowd surged around Jesus and they all began to move with him, as if one combined force, following Jairus. Several moments of chaos followed and Jairus felt a rush of frustration as the crowd pushed between him and Jesus.

“Jesus! What does God ask of us?”

“Jesus, what happens when we die?”

“Jesus, will I find wealth?”

People cried out as they walked. They pushed against each other, each person wanting to get closer to the man so many were talking about.

“Who touched me?”

Jairus faintly heard Jesus’ voice over the noise of the crowd but he could barely hear what he was saying. He tried to push forward in the crowd, looking over his shoulder every few steps to see if Jesus was following.

“I felt power go from me,” Jesus spoke louder to one of his followers. He stopped and turned to look behind him. “Who has touched me?”

The people in the crowd murmured and grew quiet.  Jairus stopped to see why Jesus wasn’t following.

“Master, there are people all around you and you are asking ‘who touched me?’” one of Jesus’ disciples laughed slightly as he spoke. His tone was incredulous, tinged with annoyance.

Jairus knew this was the man called Peter – a local fisherman who now followed Jesus. Many whispered surprise Peter, known as brash and abrupt, was following a teacher of God.

“Somebody touched me, for I perceived power going out from me,” Jesus said.

His eyes scanned the crowd around him but no one answered. They looked at each other confused and unsure why Jesus was concerned.

A woman’s voice could be heard softly, barely above a whisper.

“It was me.”

“Who is speaking?” One of Jesus’ disciples asked. “Please, come forward. Answer the teacher.”

The crowd moved aside and a woman, head down, moved toward the front. She dropped to her knees, her head bowed low, her clothes tattered and stained. She clutched her hands before her and tears dripped off her face and into the dirt.

Jairus felt anxious. He wanted to grab Jesus by the arm and drag him forward, back to his house and his daughter, but at the same time he was entranced by the scene unfolding before him.

The woman glanced upwards at Jesus.

“It was me,” she said softly.

“I knew if I could just touch the hem of your robe…”

Her gaze fell again on the ground.

“I’ve been to every doctor. I’ve been bleeding for 12 years. No one will come near me, teacher. I am unclean.”

Some in the audience winced and a few stepped away from her, covering their mouths.

Tears continued to stream down her face.

“I have tried everything. I heard of your miracles and I knew – if I just touched the hem..”

Her fingertips grazed the edge of his robe again. She could barely speak as she sobbed.

“Master, the bleeding. I can feel- it’s stopped. Something is … something is …..different.”

Jairus felt his heart pounding heart and fast. If this woman was sure she had been healed, if she was saying simply touching the hem of his garment was enough to heal her then he was indeed a powerful man, a messenger of God. If healing flowed from him so easily then there was hope for Josefa.

Jesus kneeled before the woman, reached out and took her hands in his. He touched her chin and lifted her face toward his.

“Daughter, your faith has made you well.”

Jesus kissed her forehead gently and wiped the tears from her face. He stood and helped her to stand with him.

“Go in peace.”

A sob escaped her lips and she kissed Jesus’ hand as she held it. She backed slowly away.

“Thank you. Thank you.”

A hush had settled over the crowd. Some of the women dabbed their eyes and men talked quietly to each other, shaking their heads with furrowed eyebrows.

Jairus felt a sense of urgency rushing through him, tensing his muscles. He needed Jesus to hurry. He felt at hope at what he had seen and he wanted the same for his Josefa and his family.

“Jesus, my daughter… please …”

Jesus turned toward him and nodded.

“Of course, let us go…”

Jairus felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Josiah, his servant from home, standing next to him, his face stained with tears and dirt.

“Master, there is no need to hurry now. Josefa-“ his voice trailed off and Jairus began to shake his head.

“There is no need to bother the master now,” Josiah said. “She’s – “

“No! No!” Jairus wouldn’t let him finish.

He felt bile rushing up into his throat and his hands began to shake. He pressed his hands to his head, as if trying to wake himself from a dream.

“Josefa…” he felt the tears hot on his face and he clutched his robe against him as pain seared through his chest. “Oh God. God help me.”

He looked up as Jesus touched his arm.

“Do not be afraid. Believe.”

Jesus’ eyes were kind but Jairus’ mind was reeling. If only Jesus had moved faster. If only that woman hadn’t stopped them. Josefa would still be alive and her laughter would still fill their home.

“She’s gone,” he told Jesus. “We cannot save her now. You can not heal her. If only – ”

Jesus looked over Jairus’ shoulder, his gaze moving above the crowd.

“Come, lead me to your home.”

Jairus did as Jesus told him but his legs felt as if they were weighted down. Before they even reached the corridor where his home was he could hear the wailing and knew mourning had already begun.

 

Mourners were outside the home, trying to comfort Miriam, who was clearly in shock as she pulled at her clothes and repeated “no. no. no.”
Jairus rushed toward his wife, grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her against him. She clutched at his clothes and shoved her face into his chest.

“She’s gone. She’s gone. Oh, Jairus. Our little girl is gone.”

Jesus pushed forward in the crowd. He laid his hand against Miriam’s back to comfort her.

“There is no need for tears,” he said with a gentle firmness. “The girl is not dead. She is merely sleeping.”

An angry voice shouted over the noise of the crowd.

“She’s dead! You give these people false hope!” a man shouted.  “You are a liar and a fool! Like all who have come before you!”

Other voices joined in agreement.

“You say you can heal but you only bring hallow promises to these people,” a man sneered.

Jesus stood with his back to the crowd, kneeling down beside Miriam and Jairus.

“Send these people away and come inside with me,” he instructed. “Peter, James, John, come with me.”

Jairus opened his eyes to the sound of someone moving inside the temple, interrupting his thoughts and memories of that day.

“Jairus? Is that you?”

He recognized the voice of Ezra, another leader in the synagogue.

“Yes, Ezra. Good morning.”

Ezra walked toward him holding scrolls.

“Have you come to help me organize these for the scribes?” his mouth lifted in a wry smile.

“I did not but I am glad to help,” Jairus said returning the smile.

The men laid the scrolls on the table next to a bottle of ink.

“I do not know how so much has become in disarray in here – and outside,” Ezra said.

He looked at is friend and noticed Jairus was pulling at his beard, as he often did when deep in thought.

“Tell me, Jairus. How is Josefa recovering?”

Jairus smiled. “Well. She is well. It is – dare I say it? A miracle indeed.”

Ezra nodded but his expression grew serious.

“Jairus, I must ask you – I’ve heard many talk of what happened with Josefa. Is it true, what they say? Was she dead before Jesus arrived?”

Jairus felt his muscles tense. He was unsure what Ezra hoped to learn with his questions. He pondered how to answer, but knew telling the truth might encourage Ezra to help him understand more what had happened.

“Miriam and her hand maiden said there was no breath. She was cold when I entered the home and I felt no heartbeat beneath my hand. Her skin –“ he felt his breath catch in his throat and he paused to choke back emotion. He shook his head as if to shake the image from his mind. “Her skin was pale, tinged with blue. And… so cold.”

Ezra put his hand on his friend’s arm and squeezed it slightly.

“You’ve been through much, my friend,” Ezra said.

He opened a scroll to read it’s contents, rolled it again and stuck it back in a space in the temple wall.

“What do you believe happened that day?” Ezra asked.

“I don’t know, friend. I truly don’t. All I know is she was gone and when Jesus came she arose at his bidding. He took her hand and instructed her to rise and live and she did.”

“After all you have seen .. .” Ezra paused in stacking the scrolls and turned to look to Jairus “After meeting this man who calls himself the Son of God – who do you say he is?”

Jairus realized he didn’t know how to answer. He had seen Jesus do miraculous things and heard of even more. He believed his daughter was still living because Jesus touched her, but was he truly the son of Jehovah or was he simply a great teacher, so holy Jehovah used him to heal.

He looked Ezra in the eyes, opened his mouth to answer and then closed it again.

“Ezra – I wish I could say, but truly, I do not know what to believe about this man.”

Zooma the Wonder Dog takes over to lift the winter blues

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Zooma the Wonderdog2 Comments

It’s been a while since Mom has let me take over the blog. For those of you who don’t know who I am, I’m Zooma the Wonder Dog and from time to time I like to take over the blog so you have something actually interesting to read. Shhh…don’t tell Mom I said that. You can read more of my posts (you know, the good ones on this blog) here and here and even here and oh yeah..here too.

dsc_1723

You’ll notice I’m calling Mom Mom now and not “mommy”. That’s because I’m finally a teenager and my childish ways are behind me. Mom says my childish ways are not behind me since she’s caught me in the trash more than once and chasing the cat more than once, as well, but I ignore her because, well, I’m a teenager. I don’t have to pay attention to what my parents say.

I know, I know. Some of you may claim you saw me running around the yard the other day, being silly and acting like a young pup again, but you’d be wrong. I was simply working out to keep myself young and trim and looking good for the boy dog I saw walking by the other day.

Mom is such a killjoy. She says I can’t be around boy dogs until I’ve been spayed. I don’t know if she has a lisp or what, but I can’t figure out what being spayed has to do with me liking to bark a hello at the boy dogs walking by. I mean spaying is what they do to keep you clean right? With water and a hose? I don’t know for sure but Mom says I’m going to be spayed in a couple of days so I’ll find out then.

I saw a dog get spayed on TV on one of those shows Plaything 2 watches and that dog had soap and warm water so I hope I get spayed like that. I’m not a fan of baths, or soap, but being spayed with water might be fun. I’ll let you know what I think about it all in my next post.

Since moving here I’ve grown pretty fond of – I mean, I’ve grown accustomed to living here with my human family. Mom and Dad are pretty cool. Dad is grumpy sometimes when I wake him up early to pee but then he’s even grumpier if I let him sleep and pee in the living room. It takes a lot to make him happy it seems. Mom doesn’t like when I rip toilet paper up all over the bathroom floor or the backyard and she keeps telling me to leave The Beast alone.

The Beast has started to love me. She has. Don’t let her tell you any different. She misses me when I’m gone – like when I went to Grandpa and Grandma’s for something everyone called Christmas. There was a lot of food there but Grandpa and Mom were the only ones who gave me any. Grandma kept reminding Mom of that time Mom said it was bad to feed me from the table.

Now I know where Mom gets her fun-killing attitude. I can’t imagine why it’s bad to feed me from the table.

dsc_9783

The new human Kim was nice and if I didn’t love my current family so much I’d have gone to live with her. Of course, I decided going home with her wouldn’t be so much fun since the other new human (who Mom called Butthead, but I don’t think that’s his real name), said they live with a beast even bigger than The Beast and that it would rip my face off. I don’t want my face ripped off. Then  I couldn’t sneak food from Plaything 2’s plate when she leaves it down, which is always, because she’s almost like a teenager, like me, and doesn’t listen to Mom and Dad.

Wait, did I say I love my family back there? Um…yeah..well..I know I’m a teenager, but I guess I sort of do love Mom and Dad and my human brother and human sister. And of course Grandma and Grandpa. Mom says Grandma isn’t really a “dog person” but she is now because of me. That makes me proud. I’ve clearly charmed her.

Just don’t tell my family I said I love them.

Talk to you soon.

Can’t wait to tell you about the spay and if it really makes my fur feel better or not.