What shall we then say…

In my frustration at not finding time to write on here, I realized that I could probably figure out a way to multi-task blogging.   Doing it while I’m watching my two granddaughters is the first level but that can only happen if I find a way to speed up the process.  It has to go further than that.   If I just go ahead and publish my rough draft, i.e., ‘wing it,’ that would help tremendously but at what cost?   I wonder what dire results would come if I just do it without preparation, forethought, sufficient information, or experience!    That’s what ‘winging it’  is all about. 

 It has to be understood at the outset that I relate to Moses who was “slow of speech and of a slow tongue,”  and from childhood had to endure such comments as, ”What’s the matter, did the cat get your tongue,” or “Shirley, you’re so quiet I didn’t know you were there.”   Having said that, I will say that progress has been made–I can give a decent talk in church, I can teach a lesson, I am more relaxed in conversations than I used to be–sometimes. 

I think blogging has the potential to be very therapeutic.  I think if I make a fool out of myself, it will be okay.  And I will.  I already have.  I’m doing it now!  What am I revealing about myself with every word that comes out of my ‘mouth?’   Oh well, better late than never!   Why do I want to stay hidden, closed, blind!   I want to be open–that’s the best. 

I’ve been a late bloomer in other areas.  This is just one more.   Yes, I can do this!!   And I’m not spending two hours on something that will take  two minutes to read! 

I used to work at a local middle school–20+ years ago–as a lunch cashier.  One day the secretary called the three of us cashiers in for a little meeting.  She was pleased with our performance except that it was too good to be true.   She noted that  our figures always matched up. 

It was part of our job to keep a tally of how many students got lunch with a ticket, how many paid cash, and any extra milks we sold.  Well, when we would figure it all up, if we ended up with 80 cents over, we just put down another kid.  If we were 80 cents short, we would take away one.   If we had a dollar too much we figured we forgot to put down a kid and a milk.  If we had a nickel or a dime too much, we left it, so we weren’t <i>always</i> perfect, just most of the time.  

So we got called in and had our meeting.  She said we must be ”backing it in.”      After we found out what that meant, we admitted that we were indeed doing that.   I bet we were right most of the time, too.   Of course, there was a tray count going on, too.  Perhaps, there were discrepancies we didn’t  know about.  We just had a way to see our mistakes and then we could correct them before anyone else even knew about them. 

 I wonder where I’m going with this…All these years I’ve had this little incident stored in my memory bank and it seems like once in a while there would be a situation where I would think “Aha, that’s ‘banking it in.’”  Now I get a chance to put it in a blog and I don’t know if there is a profound message in there or not!  I’m not remembering.  Help!

Well, I will try to make a new one up.   I think maybe, in my desire for acceptance beginning back in elementary school or perhaps even sooner, that I somehow thought I had to be ‘perfect.’   All the little ‘nickles and dimes’  that would have given me a personality  I must have thought were unacceptable, so if there were too many or too few, I backed them in and ended up in my own little world, not credible to those around me. 

Okay, well, this will be a work in progress.  I’m satisfied that I did not get all the meaning out of this concept but that’s it for now.  I would be very interested in what others might see. 

I am excited to have this opportunity to say a thing or two now and then.  A big thanks goes to Ben, Holly, and the people at WordPress!   I hope that I will be a “fellowhelper to the truth.”  I found that scripture (3 John 1:8) just a couple days ago and thought what a fun word–fellowhelper–and also thought what a good description of the power of blogging. 

Yikes, this is scarey, though!  Oh well since this is my first post, I will let you know about the picture and and name of my blog.  The picture, I chose because I didn’t like the choices for this blog style provided by WordPress.  It is a picture of me in Germany with a new little granddaughter–too bad you can’t see her, she was really cute.  This was in 2000.  The background is castle ruins which I thought looked pretty cool.    

It took me a couple weeks to come up with a name for my blog.  I wanted it to be about saying something–because that’s what it’s all about.  I thought of “Something to Say.”  Google let me know that several other people had, too.   Then I found this scripture by Paul.  It’s in the book of Romans.  He usually said “What shall we say then?” but this was more fun so I picked it.  

Okay, I will get this first one out of the way, so that I can free my brain up to write about all kinds of good things like religion, history, health, nutrition, books, movies, music, politics, etc.   Ideas for great titles have already started coming to mind but I just need to get so I can do the rest of the post in less than four or five days!