P.S. I was right...

May I introduce the S-bag varieties...

Hello Friend!

How are you?  I missed you while I was away.  Lack of planning left me without any writing to post during my absence, but I thought of you frequently while I was gone.  Is your summer going well?  We are finally starting to warm up in the Pacific Northwest, it’s been rather odd weather here of late.

Lots of things have been peculiar quite frankly.  When I’m not utterly overwhelmed by your Nation’s politics, I find myself perplexed by current events, news stories and most recently the mass influx of people with phones who have suddenly come outside and in order to chase imaginary monsters.  The girls and I took a walk at the marina our last night away and we counted 42 teens chasing about the park with their phones.  Previously, we could have counted those belonging to the under 50 set on one hand.  

In a rapidly changing world, the continuity of friends and family brings me deep comfort.  I should add a qualifier because every now and then, family causes contention.  Recently, my eldest decided to teach herself how to play the ukulele.  As a homeschooling mother, my heart was thrilled she would take on such a challenge.  It was a praiseworthy undertaking yet my sanity was somewhat taxed by the fact my entire Canadian vacation acquired a new sound track.  You haven’t experienced true mental acuity until you’ve had to deal with 2 senior citizens’ medications, homecare staff and three children while simultaneously blocking out the ukulele version of “Riptide.”   My hubby is generally a balm to my fragile state of mind but even he took a kick at my mental health when I asked him to buy me some cleaning supplies online.  

Online shopping is both brilliant and evil.  Brilliant because I can run to my computer and purchase a product when I remember I need it, evil because one day a drone will attempt to drop a box of sandwich bags on my doorstep and I will get in trouble for catching it and drowning it in my bathtub.  My man is good at online shopping and I asked him to purchase some vacuum bags to save me a trip to the store.  He has bought them in the past and some form of computer wizardry allows him to repeat order certain items.  Our computer is wicked clever that way.

It came as some surprise then that when I needed one a month later it didn’t seem to fit the machine.  I examined the bag and tried repeatedly to squash it to make it work.  That night I asked my man, 
“Babe, you know the vacuum bags you got me?  They’re not right.”
“What do you mean not right?  I got the kind we always do, the S-bag.”
“Well it says S-bag but it doesn’t fit.”
“Are you sure you’re putting it in right?”
“Well no, but even if I’m wrong, it can’t be right.  It doesn’t work”
“I think you must be putting it in upside down darling. I got the same kind we always get.”
“Think you could check later?  Upside down doesn’t account for the shape not working.”

To this day, I’m unclear if it was the conviction with which my guy spoke, or if I got distracted but for some reason I let the matter drop...  until I faced my vacuum again.  No matter what I did, the bag wouldn’t go in.  I got a box cutter and filed down the offending piece until it fit my vacuum.  I started the vacuum at it screamed like an asthmatic elephant. Surprised, I turned it off and kept wiggling cardboard sections until at last I could get the appliance to suffer in silence.  It worked.  Sort of.   

So I continued to vacuum with a patched together connector until one day between the sick elephant, the staggering amount of teen hair wrapped around the beater bar and a plastic bead that refused to disappear up the stupid hose, I lost my patience and sat in wait for my husband to come home from work.  
“Hi there!” He smiled as he walked in the door.  “It doesn’t work!” I shouted at him, pointing to the offending appliance.  “What doesn’t work?” He froze, looking around for the offending object, surprised and somewhat defensive. Poor man.  I didn’t care, context meant little at this point.  “The vacuum!  You said they are S-bags!  They can’t be!  They don’t fit, it doesn’t work.  It says S-bag but it’s lying.  Please could you look and order me the right bag.”  My man, wise beyond his years came over and gave me a hug.  “Yes.  I’ll go check.  Just let me change and I’ll be right out.”  He tiptoed out of the room quickly, not saying the word crazy, but looking back over his shoulder and smiling encouragingly.  I bit my lip and did not scream. 

It was after dinner when the matter finally resolved.  “Honey, you were right.” He called across the kitchen while sitting at his computer.  “I ordered the right type of bag but it was the wrong model.  Those bags won’t work.”  “Oh they work,” I replied.  “It just takes some creativity.”  Vindication wasn’t even sweet at that point, I was amazed with myself for not complaining sooner.  

It was a perplexing experience,  being told I had the right product even though my experience was telling me the opposite.  When I contemplate the world my children are entering, it is easy to become overwhelmed at the hash moral relativism is making of things.  Sometimes I take for granted the blessing of having a text to turn to when I feel the push and pull of politics, politicians and political correctness.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:12-13

Might I encourage you for the sake of your sanity, to spend some time in your bible this week?  Tuck into your favourite scripture and let what is temporary fall away as you focus on the eternal.  As things on the planet develop, divide and deceive, the presence of the Lord will keep you.

I’m praying for you this week.

xoxKaren