A Poem for Sunday
From Janell

2 Chronicles 36:11 – Ezra 3:13

Way back in the day around 600 B.C.
Israel began the Babylonian Captivity
They’d been forewarned, make no mistake,
There was only so much that God would take
They’d failed to give the land a rest
Each seven years, as God said was best.
But of all the things that they’d done wrong
The lowest was breaking Number One;
They’d worshipped the gods of other nations
And that was the worst abomination.

So God finally said, “Well. Okay. Fine.
If you like their laws better than mine,
You just go on and be taken away
By the heathen Chaldeans this very day.”

It was in 597, to be exact
When Nebuchadnezzar launched his attack
‘Twas many an Israelite died by his sword
And he stole precious things from the House of the Lord.
He destroyed, by fire, the Jerusalem Wall
And heartlessly watched the great Temple fall.

So for seventy years, the story went on
While the Israelites live in Babylon.
Then Cyrus of Persia sent out a Decree,
“All of you Jews better listen to me.”
He said, “God gave me all the kingdoms of earth
And THIS job He gave me has priority First:
To rebuild Jerusalem’s Temple for Him
So get ready to go back to Jerusalem again.”

Cyrus returned the Precious things
Nebuchadnezzar had stolen in the previous reign.
So Israelite Leaders, families and priests
Set out with the greatest down to the least.
The Levites, Gibeonites and Solomon’s slaves,
Singers, Servants, and Gatekeepers set out one day;

They left the cities of Babylon
To rebuild the City of Jerusalem.

In the year five hundred and thirty five
In Jerusalem, the people finally arrived,
“The first thing we should do, so that we don’t falter,
Is re-establish the Burnt Offering Altar.”
Zerubbabel did just that and then
The twice daily offerings began again.

They collected supplies for the next two years
And masons and carpenters began to appear
At last (they’d feared, the day might never come)
The Foundation was laid, the work had begun.

It had been fifty years since Solomon’s Temple stood
They were careful to make this work extra good.
When the foundation was laid, the builders called out,
“Let’s celebrate this! Let’s sing and let’s shout!”

So the Israelites gathered all around
The Temple with cymbals and they made a joyous sound
They gave thanks to the Lord that this would not sever
“His lovingkindness upon Israel forever.”

But some of the Old Folks began to say;
“It’s not as grand as in Solomon’s Day!”



So the shouts of joy and cries of shame



From far away both sounded the same.

Ruby Tuesday
(And a few observations)



This is the sign over the door at the store where I work. I think it was nice of them to make it red so that I could use it for Ruby Tuesday, don't you?

Personality Types and Belt Loading Styles

I’ve taken a few personality type tests in my day, but I’ve noticed that maybe all that diagnosing could be done if a psychoanalyst stood at my cash register and observed the manner in which people load their groceries onto my conveyer belt.

Note: None of these styles is gender specific. Instead of using the cumbersome politically correct he/she, I used he in some parts and she in others.

The Angry Tosser: This person is angry about something – maybe got into a fight with the spouse before leaving home or stressed out from work or possibly the high price of groceries. Whatever it is, she takes it out on the groceries. She drags her cart into the lane rather than pushing it from behind, positions herself between the cart and the belt and then grabs items out of the cart and literally throws them onto the belt, so that they land with an angry thud. Some of these people bend over the cart and throw things backwards over their heads, giving extra punctuation to the sound of them hitting the belt – especially the frozen things. When finished unloading the groceries onto the belt, she stomps over to the cash register (leaving the cart behind for someone else to move) and glares at the cashier. She watches the screen behind the cashier with frown lines growing deeper with every beep of the scanner. When the total is announced, she lets a little puff of disgust escape her lips and starts digging in her purse for a debit card. She rips the card through the card scanner and punches in the PIN as if stabbing the life out of a pesky rodent.
And – what a surprise – neither the Angry Tosser nor the cashier feel any better for all this venting.

The Liner-Upper: This person likes the belt to be moving constantly. They place their groceries on the belt one at a time, in single file. You can imagine what this looks like when we have single-serve yogurts on sale at 20 for $10.00.

The Stacker: This is a person who has too much time on their hands. They can be found in line behind an elderly person who takes too long to write the check or needs help with scanning their debit card. While I (the cashier) am helping the first customer figure out how to scan the debit (or EBT) card the Stacker is arranging his groceries in tall stacks, sometimes in alphabetical order on the belt. He is determined to use only half of the length of the four foot belt, so he somehow manages to get $200 worth of groceries compacted into piles three feet high. The first stack contains apples, apricots and bananas. Next, they load a pile of cheese, cookies and crackers. The Stacker doesn’t usually create a problem until he reaches the soft drink category of his groceries. He likes to stack his three 24 packs of pop or beer in order: i.e. three cubes of Pepsi followed by three cubes of Budweiser followed by three cases of bottled water. At this point, the stacks of 24-packs begin to tower over my head, and become increasingly unstable with every movement of the belt. The stacks generally come crashing down before they get to me, thank goodness, or I might have to demand hazardous duty pay when faced with The Stacker. Sometimes I wish the Stacker would take lessons from the Liner-Upper.

The Plop & Finish: This person is in too big of a hurry to bother picking up a cart or basket on their way into the store, so she has to carry everything in her arms. She approaches the grocery belt loaded down with several boxes of mac & cheese, a bag of potatoes, a few pounds of hamburger and a couple bottles of condiments. She plops this collection on the belt – and then abandons it to get “a couple things I almost forgot.” By the time she gets back with another overflowing armload of stuff, the first collection is scanned and bagged and there are usually two or three people lined up waiting….and waiting…and waiting for her to finish her shopping.

So there you have it. Which one are you?

Your attention, please.


If you have sent me an email within the last seven days, I'm sorry, but I just deleted it. I don't have any explanation for it - other than that I wasn't paying attention when it said "Delete all?" , but they are absolutly gone.

I apologize.

The other thing you need to know is that I'm going to let my Facebook page be deleted. I find Facebook to be a little cumbersome, although I do appreciate the pictures. I'm probably one of the reasons it's "slow to upload".

On the other hand, I love my blog. Please come back.

Ruby Tuesday

I pulled out all the stops for this one.




Really.





You don't want to miss it.




Keep going.






You're almost there.








At the corner where my road meets the blacktop:




On the way to work:



On the way home:




Get it?




Pulled out "all the stops?"

He he he.

Janell’s Insomniac Ramblings

I can’t sleep.

I’m hungry.

The satellite does not improve the programs offered by 3 AM television.

If the current administration is to blame for the gas prices soaring to record highs in July, who gets credit for the 40 cent DROP over the past three weeks?

They tell me that we shouldn’t bother to drill for oil here at home because even if we start right now, it will take ten years to produce energy. Well, won’t we be needing it ten years from now? And who was in charge ten years ago and should have gotten started on it then? Hmmmm……?

Rick Warren’s interviews with Barak Obama and John McCain ROCKED. If all you’ve been seeing of it are the sound bites, you really missed out.

Strange pain assaulted me on Thursday. I laid down for my pre-work snooze and when I got up my left hip was stiff and hurting so badly I could barely walk. It was still stiff and aching on Friday morning, so I went to the Dr. He poked and prodded and did some range of motion tests and x-rayed it, all of which was inconclusive. He prescribed an anti-inflammatory drug of some kind or another and scheduled me for two weeks of physical therapy. Now here’s the really weird part: when I got up Saturday morning, I was almost completely recovered. No, I hadn’t taken the drug yet because it was specified to be taken with food and I didn’t want to take it at work because I wasn’t sure what it would do to me; “may cause drowsiness, etc.” So what the heck is up with that?

I don’t know why I haven’t blogged since last Tuesday. Either too busy or too lazy.

I have some really cool pictures to put up for this week’s Ruby Tuesday.

I think I might like to have a tazer. Do you have to have a permit for one of those?

Back in May, I planted six tomato plants. Today I harvested six tiny little tomatoes. How sad is that? I’ve got my garden in a bad location – not enough sun. I don’t think I’ll bother with it next year.

A few weeks ago, I bought a cheap little charcoal grill/smoker. Yesterday, I smoked a beef brisket and a pork loin in it. I used mesquite chips and charcoal. They cooked for about 8 hours and boy did they both turn out good.

Emily went riding with me today and she had her hair in a braid. I grabbed the camera this time and got it recorded. (I blogged about this a few posts ago.)

I might be ready to go back to bed now. I just yawned. No, wait a minute, I might just be bored with this post. And if I am, then you are too so I should just end it and put us all out of my misery.

Ruby Tuesday

From Janell

Well, it’s been an exciting and busy weekend, so my visits to the Blogosphere were put off until today.

Retracing my events: yesterday afternoon Bubba and I went to Arlington and rode with our Saddle Club in the Washington County Fair Parade. I almost backed out because at home, when I was hitching up and moving the trailor, he started acting up. I had him tied to a fence post and he was rearing up and pulling on his rope and being an all-around BRAT about the whole deal, but I decided to just ignore it and went in anyway. I’m glad I did, because by the time we got to Arlington (about a 15 minute drive) he was settled down and reconciled to his fate. He was very well behaved throughout the whole event. And if you’ve ever been in a parade, you know that 70 % of the time, you are at the staging area, waiting to get started. Once you get in line and actually start going, you spend 25 % of the time at a stand still, waiting for the line to start moving again. The other 5 % of the time you are moving along, smiling and waving. Now, waiting patiently for anything has never been Bubba’s strong point. Standing still annoys him beyond his ability to deal with it. He ends up tossing his head up and down, pawing the ground and we usually end up walking in circles. On the trail, his second favorite thing to do is to walk along at a pretty fair pace, usually at the front of the line. His favorite thing to do is trot. Our place in line happened to be at about the middle of the line of 20 horses or so, walking in twos. Yesterday, he very politely stayed in line and didn’t even try to bump the horse in front of him. He even stood still without all his usual rudenss. In fact, he was so well behaved, that one of my friends, who was a little nervous about being in the parade with her inexperienced horse, said, “We’re going to ride beside you so your horse can be a good influence on mine.” That’s one of the nicest things anybody’s ever said to me.

The other fun thing about being in a parade it that as we go along, I can see people point at us and say, “Oh, that’s the prettiest one.” (They are, of course, referring to Bubba.)

Yesterday morning, my friend Renee and I sang a special musical number for our 8:00 church service. We sang the Selah version of “You Raise Me Up” with our church’s summer intern Music/Worship Leader, Josh. It was his last Sunday before heading back to college. He has been such a blessing to our church and to me personally. More about that some other time, maybe. His late grandma was one of the best friends I had at church and it still makes me sad to write or talk about her very much. Just need a little more time before I can tell that story without my heart breaking all over again.

Saturday afternoon, Jack, Randy & I cleaned ourselves up and went to the fairgrounds. We strolled through the exhibits, had some fair food (Gyros, egg rolls and a snow cone) for supper and then went to the Rodeo.

Now any musical presentation requires practice, so Saturday morning was devoted to singing practice with my gospel quartet and with Renee & Josh.

So, with all that going on, I spent Monday morning doing all the stuff, like mowing, laundry and blogging, that I usually do over the weekend.

Going back into last week, we were without a toilet for 4 days. It was ugly. And that’s about all you’ll be wanting to know about that.

So there you have it. Life in the Redneck Lane.

So how was your weekend?

Janell's Ruby Tuesday Offering

My buddy Jim (link in the Friendly Blog list at left) suggested that we post pictures of red things on Tuesdays and call it "Ruby Tuesdays." I think that sounds like a fine idea, so here I am with my son Jack. As you can see he is looking handsome in his RED shirt. He has a new blog (link in the Family Blog list)
http://ernestntrue.blogspot.com.



Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Go here: http://peoplewhowearhats.blogspot.com/
to see my hat looking good on Blogstock participants.



Mary; you really need to come over and show me how to do the "insert live link" thing.