Author: Shirleyjdietz

I'm still finding out what I'm about but I think it has something to do with writing and connecting with people and serving God. I don't believe I have to understand it all in order to do it and am pretty content with what comes my way, day by day. I believe there is a God who created all of us, the world we live in, the science we think disproves Him, well, everything. I know my natural tendency is to think I don't need God and I need to be saved from that. I know I need a savior and I'm thankful I have one. The small glimpses I get from the here and now of what my real home is going to be like when God restores it all - that's what fuels me, stirs my sense of adventure, and keeps me going. Until then, I write about what is.

Something Good in February

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It’s 2021, it’s February, it’s still winter. I’m challenging myself to find something good to be celebrated every day this month, in the interest of mental health. I need help, and thinking on good, deserving things is going to do wonders. Yep.

A lot of my southern friends have felt sorry for me, having to live “up north” in the winter. I will be the first to admit that the winters are long and can get pretty cold, but there are bright spots to being here.

Entering Wisconsin from the southern border, most of what one sees are farms, lots of farms, and small cities and towns. About 2/3 of the way north, things change and when you finally reach Hayward, you find… trees, lots of trees. Real forests, that go on for a long ways.

Mosquito Brook runs through the forest. There were no mosquitoes. None.

Thirty years ago when I was living here, logging was a huge industry. I used to see the logging trucks, fully loaded, on the roads, and wonder how there could be any trees left in the forests. That was years ago and there are still as many, if not more, logs being hauled out. The forests are so well managed, and so BIG, that there is no apparent shortage of trees.

Back view of sweet machine

And now for the bright spot. Today I got to go out in the forest with my brother on his snowmobile. We rode tandem for two hours. On the way home we switched places and I got to drive. Miraculously, we did not fall off the trail. The experience is a cross between riding a boat in choppy water, riding a dirt bike on rough roads or maybe a bit like posting on a horse with a rough trot. All done out in the forest, at speeds between 0 and 30 (40) mph and at temperatures usually below freezing. We call it winter recreation.

Recreation is pretty big here in the Hayward area because there aren’t a lot of other ways to make a living. People take ice fishing, snowshoeing, skiing and snowmobiling very seriously. There are about eight snowmobile clubs in this northwest corner of Wisconsin that have found ways to get from here to there, mapped them, created apps and invited the “world” to get up here and have fun in the snow. On good weekends the motel parking lots are full of trucks and trailers from as far away as the Dakotas, and the sound of snow machines is in the air. The trails are groomed often. Some are like the “interstates” of the forest and some are “one laners” complete with mile markers and signage.

Not exactly crowded out there, but we weren’t alone either.

My brother’s new machine has heated seats, hand grips, and the throttle (for that cold thumb). Even the helmets plug in and stay warm. It’s a very comfortable, maybe even luxurious, ride. However, they haven’t yet learned how to make them quiet. We live close to a major trail into town and I hear the snow machines a lot. I can only imagine what the deer, bear, wolves and coyotes are thinking now that their forest homes have been invaded.

Groups of snowmobilers travel for hours, stopping for “refreshments” and fuel at designated resorts and bars, bringing a lot of business to our area. All this happy influx of business hinges on two requirements. There has to be snow, preferably quite a bit of snow, and it can’t be so cold that it’s no longer fun but dangerous. This winter has not been bad so far, but we have February to get through yet.

I did enjoy my ride today. The forest was wild, the trail was full of twists, turns, hills and ravines – just beautiful! Most of the time I had no idea where we were, but I was glad to be there anyway. Something good happened today, just sayin’…

Donating (again)

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Today I donated, not to Salvation Army or Goodwill or Humane Society Thrift Shop. Today I donated to Memorial Blood Center. I’ve done it several times since moving north, since I’ve stopped making trips overseas and since my hemoglobin number has been high enough. It’s kind of strange to think of my blood being shared with someone else, from my body to theirs. It’s strange and amazing to think that I have that much extra, and that I can make more so that it’s hardly even missed.

I became aware of a new kind of donation called double red because my brother had given in that way and told me about it. I wanted to help meet the demand for red cells, which I was told was high, and I qualified so I went online and got on the schedule. That kind of donation has to be scheduled because it takes considerably more time on a special machine called an apheresis machine. Blood is separated into various components and some parts are collected, in this case it would be red cells, and the rest of the fluids and plasma are returned into the donor’s body.

Pulling into the parking lot today, I was a little excited about doing the double red thing. As a nurse, I’ve seen a lot of blood and transfused a lot of blood so I’m not upset or queasy about the thought, but I’ve never been the one hooked up to the machine either. I registered at a table manned by the bus drivers (yes, they do multitasking when the bus is parked) answered my online questions and was sent to one of the buses to get the process going. I had quite a wait and started thinking about the apheresis machine and wondering how it worked and how they cleaned it, wondering if it ever malfunctioned… was even getting a bit anxious (deep, slow breaths, calm thyself…).

Then due to a scheduling mistake they told me they couldn’t get me on a machine and asked me to donate whole blood instead. So, short story, that’s what I did. It was over in a few minutes and was familiar to me. I was fine with that.

The most common blood type is O+ and it also happens to be the one most easily shared with others. I am type O+ and am blessed to be healthy enough to donate, to give back. There’s also a little something to be hopeful about – people with O+ type blood have been showing more resistance to COVID19 and are among some of the most long-lived people as well. I’ll take that.

Oh, and I got a T-shirt and a snack. Just sayin’…

A little wrinkled. I wore it already – a good workout shirt.

Coming Back to Center

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Yesterday I finished working a lengthy project. Today I am re-centering. I started to describe it as finding my own life again, but that is not true. It’s all my own life. Choosing to immerse myself in work away from home and my usual routine is choosing how to spend my life, my minutes. Things, like this project, that seem like they could be distractions are really important parts of the main thing. They are my life. Stepping outside the norm challenges me to be resourceful and flexible. It brings new experiences, new thoughts and emotions, reveals areas of needed growth. And when it’s over, it makes coming back to “normal” sweeter and restful.

Be totally honest now, do I look centered?

Today I started back to center. I spent time talking with mom, and praying with friends. I took out the garbage, washed the dishes, found the washer and dryer under a rather large pile of stuff and started reading a new book to the husband. I watched snowflakes float down. I cooked broccoli, zucchini and salmon for dinner. I got a package ready for the mail. This too was all my life. One of my favorite sayings describes it perfectly. “It was all fun, and fun is good.” Just sayin’…

Survival Kit

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Today, as I was looking through items from the friend’s house, I came across some small bags. They were labeled “Survival Kit”. A small brochure inside gave crucial survival information, tips, advice, and a list of what should go in the kit. I found it very interesting .

Is there room for some hay in there?

It was obvious that it was written back a while. This, for instance, among “items that might also prove useful” – quarters for emergency phone calls. Right. I wonder if recent generations would be able even to guess at how one might make a phone call with a quarter.

But most of the ideas were amazingly still good ones. I think that’s because survival is questionable only in a true crisis when the things we normally depend upon just aren’t there. The brochure called out several situations we might label as being critical, but followed up with this comforting advice:

“And remember, you can live through almost anything. Most survival is simply an inconvenience. Unfortunately, it is usually the individual who turns the survival situation into a life or death circumstance.” How true. How important it is to think clearly, avoid mistakes, and not panic, to conserve energy and resources for when they are most needed.

Then I had to laugh (and marvel) at the wise inclusion of this general rule of survival. It is probably the most universal and still practiced action, even by those who haven’t prepared for it. Here it is…

“Regardless of personal belief, most people confronted with survival have found great strength in asking for God’s help.”

Imagine that. What a timely reminder.

The Final Mess

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It’s not done till it’s all done. This is not a political post. There are other messes.

How many of us have never moved from one house, one location to another? Those few who have stayed put all their lives have not experienced the final mess. I have seen it multiple times. Maybe it’s possible to learn to avoid some of it’s aspects, but… no, I think there’s always a final bunch of weird stuff that turns into a plague at the end.

Sometimes I have gone room by room, trying to collect the most valuable items and making sure they are packed. That is not the hard part. As the “keep” boxes stack up and increase in number, I start looking for a way to sell the “not so important” stuff. That can take a while and is a skill, a real job actually. Then there is the stuff that can’t be sold and I beg my friends to take off my hands, followed by the stuff that I have to load up and donate or take to the landfill. When it goes to the landfill, I am paying for it to be taken off my hands.

Who would have thought this little storage chest would have created a buying frenzy on the marketplace. I must have had it priced too low.

Lastly, there are the things that didn’t make it into any of the above categories – probably just hidden somewhere, or forgotten. This stuff is sitting on the floor, because all the furniture is gone. The boxes are all used and gone so there is nowhere for it to be packed. I’ve picked these items up a dozen times and not known what to do with them, and I still don’t know what to do with them. No one is around to want them, but they are good enough to cause guilt if put in the trash. They are the final mess.

I’m almost there with the project I’ve been working on – packing up a house for friends of mine. The last two days I listed big furniture on Facebook marketplace and spent most of both days answering questions, texting and meeting people as they came to pick things up.

The wise people bring pickup trucks, preferably empty, and a team of men. Other people, well, maybe being wise is optional. It will all fit in there somewhere.

This load… what can I say? Luckily they didn’t have far to go.

Since this has not been my own house, and I am uncertain what the final destination of some items should be, I am taking them home. My house is starting to look like their house, my garage like their garage. My closet smells like mothballs just like their closets did. I’m hoping if they remember something they still want, I’ll still have it here somewhere.

I wish I had been thinking more about writing as I was dealing with this house project. The April A to Z Challenge is coming up and I should have taken pictures of items through the alphabet as I was packing them. I’m sure I could have covered every letter. As it is, I will have to think of another theme.

Not Wasting Time

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Time is a very strange commodity. I always think about this with birthdays and anniversaries, and of course with the turning of the year. When time is gone, it’s really gone and we have no control over its passing. It’s so impersonal. Yet we do have control over what we do with the present moment.

I was thinking about that over the last weekend when my brother posted a writing to all of us siblings. It was about not postponing the things we want to do thinking we will always have time to do them later. Being in your 50’s, 60’s, and yes (gulp) 70’s, we should begin realizing that there’s not a lot of “later” left.

I was especially considering that when I went outside on Friday, New Year’s Day, to take a walk in the snow. It was a perfect snow day. There were a couple of snowmobiles being noisy out in the wetlands. Seeing them zip around made me remember the days when I used to ski, and how much easier that was than plodding around in my boots. I wanted to ski again but wondered whether it was a bit too risky. If I fell and broke something it would really impact others in my life. Recent experience had made that pretty clear.

My skis, my boot, my thumb.

Talking it over with God, in my mind, drew my attention to fear and how it could keep joy away. I’m not sure it was all God’s doing, but I found myself bravely walking into New Moon Ski Shop. It conveniently adjoins our wetland property. More surprisingly I found myself walking out with skis, boots and poles. Three days of skiing have not only been very fun, but I also have not fallen even once. There are no hills to speak of, and the poles are there for balance. It is great exercise and will make my long winter much more bearable. I am so glad I did not leave this for a “later” time that probably wouldn’t have come.

Time is a construct that God understands much better than I do. I believe he wants me to respect and value the time he’s giving me, and he’s not against creative enjoyment of it. I’m so grateful for that. I love the line from the life story of Eric Liddell “I believe God made me for a purpose but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure.” I’m not a world class skier, but I know what it is like to feel God’s pleasure when I’m out on my skis, in his world, being grateful. It is anything but wasted time.

I see beautiful things everywhere.

A Story for the New Year

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“When you ask God for something, when you put the matter in God’s hands, you must then be aware that what happens is his doing and he deserves credit.” My paraphrase of something I heard Joyce Meyer say.

We have spent many days readying our friend’s house for sale. The friends are in Florida now, and expected to come back and live in the house in the summers – be snowbirds. That plan changed. The house was put up for sale and a cash contract came within two weeks. The house was very full of twenty years of shopping trips (they were collectors) and a home daycare business that required many toys, children’s clothes, videos, DVD’s. We knew they couldn’t return to empty the house and we were willing to do it for them. My brother and I, and even Mom, have spent many hours sorting, and dispersing things.

Earlier this week we had two strong, young men helping us take furniture from the upper story of the house down into the garage. One of them came down to me as I was working in the basement and handed me $500 and an envelope with a card in it. “We found this when we removed a drawer from the dresser. This envelope had $500 in it.”

I was elated. The owner of the dresser (soon to be 95 years old) had asked me to search carefully in those drawers because she had a “feeling” that she was missing some money, had perhaps hidden it and forgotten where. I had looked in the drawers but had not taken them out.

I opened the envelope to see who the card was written to and found another five hundred dollar bills! I texted the owner, shaking my head and laughing about this crazy, but happy discovery. I put the bills in my front pack. The card was too big so I discarded it in one of the many trash bags being filled. I went about the rest of the day in the house, to the store, to the thrift shop, outside to get the mail, in and out of the truck numerous times. I often reached in my pack to get keys or credit card. Mentally, I was aware of having a lot of money in my possession.

That evening as I took the money out to a safer place, I was mystified to find only $500, not $1,000. I did all the usual purse and pocket and car searches, and finally went back to the house hoping to find the card. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention and had left money in the card? I dug through bags of trash and finally found the card but it had no money with it. I went to the store (Walmart) and asked. My prayer was “Lord, if I dropped that money without noticing would you please provide an honest person who had to turn it in.” I figured it would have to be the Lord’s doing if that happened. But it was not at Walmart, although I got a great deal of sympathy from the lady at the service desk.

Zeb prays too.

I told my brother and asked if he had seen the money and picked it up. He had not. Discussing the situation with him, and with Mom, I began to wonder if there really was $1000 or if I was seeing the same $500 twice. There was so much going on, so many interruptions. If some of the $1000 had fallen out, why would there be exactly half of it left? Why not $300, or $600? I started to doubt what I had seen and done, and honestly that bothered me the most.

However, I decided that having prayed and asked God to help me, I would just let him help in whatever way he wanted to. I wasn’t finding the money but I had told my friend that she had $1000 coming and that’s what she was going to get. I made up the difference from my own funds. I didn’t stop wondering what had happened, but I didn’t stress out like I normally would over that amount of money.

Today I went out to my vehicle to get my water bottle and saw, on the floor of the backseat, a bank money holder with my friend’s writing on it. In it was $500.

Right away I thanked God for letting me know I was not going crazy (yet). And now I’m thanking him for the lesson in trust. I didn’t know that the money would be found, because I have lost things dear to me that haven’t been found (yet, again). But I’m learning to trust God’s ability to take care of situations in ways I can’t think of. He can take care of me, and of other people effortlessly, and money is not even a consideration.

Just like saying thank you is always important, it is doubly important when I know I have asked for help. Credit where credit is due is a biblical principle that I love and adhere to. I find it in the words “in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path” Proverbs 3:6

I’m still wondering, and would love to see a replay of how that money got where I found it. But I am content for now to acknowledge God’s goodness, his ability to teach effectively and possibly his sense of humor. Thanks God, just sayin’…

Goodbye December, Goodbye 2020

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I did my 10000 today. And look at that daily average! I never would have thought it.

Thank you so much to everyone who read and watched from the sidelines this month. I definitely felt the needed pressure not to give up as I watched for views, comments and likes. You all were great! Zeb thought so too – he’s smiling and that hardly ever happens.

Doing a hard thing, on purpose, usually has payback. Challenging myself to be more active this last month has been hard but I have learned some things about myself that are good to know – even better to remember. Here they are:

Challenging myself publicly, does make me work and produce results. I can use this little bit of information to get all kinds of things done! I may not meet my goals perfectly but I go way beyond what I would do without a challenge. This is actually exciting stuff! I’m considering what next month’s challenge ought to be and the possibilities are wide open…

The excuse of not having enough time to do something probably isn’t true. I have often thought that I didn’t have time to put in 10,000 steps a day, and thinking that kept me from addressing inactivity. For a whole month I was able to find creative ways (and times) of meeting that goal most days. Over the month I averaged 3.5 miles a day. Needing that hour to walk had me looking for time wasters in my day, and I found them! They are gone and I don’t really miss them.

Physical activity helps me be more focused in areas of life other than the challenge area. There was a big project going on this December and I had the energy to get stuff done on it day after day, without getting discouraged. When I was home, I had to focus on cooking dinner, or housework. Not at home, I made my lists for errands and groceries and coordinating activities with other people. Mental focus is just a natural benefit of increased circulation to the brain, duh!

More things keep coming to my mind, but I think you get the picture. It’s not just about December either. Hasn’t this whole year been challenging? And haven’t you adopted some new and good practices as a result of being challenged? I have.

So, I’m saying Happy New Year to all. Twenty-twenty-one may turn out to be as full of hard things as 2020 was but it’s possible we could choose those areas where we want to see good work done in our lives. Some challenges could be of our own choosing. I’m going to pick some out while I’m waiting for midnight, just sayin’…

December Wreckage

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I crashed. Taking off from my walking challenge was intentional Christmas Day. I don’t know what happened the day after that but no walking was done then either, (Oh, that’s right, it was the husband’s birthday. He got my walking time.) By Saturday night I was like wreckage. I sprawled in the recliner and looked terrible, felt terrible, and probably acted terrible. I was complaining and practically weeping as I tried to explain it to mom and my brother and niece. The frustrating part was not knowing why the sudden drop in energy, motivation, positivity. Was I sick (Covid, aaaagh!) or was I having endorphin withdrawal? Was that even a thing?

Yeah, two in a row. Not good.

I forced myself back on the treadmill last night and tonight. I guess I feel better, but it was really strange and I’m not completely out of that bad space yet. Honestly, it was having to report in here that kept me from quitting – and the fact that my family was laughing at supporting me and being sympathetic. Thank you guys.

After my pity party over at Mom’s I was walking back to my condo and momentarily all the bad stuff was forgotten. The snow that had been drifting in all day, and the dark, and the lights were so arresting I had to stop in the freezing cold and just look. The snowflakes were so large and flat that the light reflected off them everywhere. The dark sky was a complete contrast to the glittery, sparkles on the ground. Winter moments like these are the reason I can stand to live up here.

I wish pictures could do justice to what I saw. Not even close…

White and Cold

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This morning the snowplows were running before daylight, when it’s still kind of hard to see where you’re plowing. I shoveled myself out and had coffee with Mom. My brother got off his snowblower long enough to join us and then went back to work.

But the sun did come out. Walking outside seemed a possibility and I did have some things to deliver at our church, which is only about a mile away. I put on every possible winter layer, including a mask which, for once, was a help, not an aggravation. There was a breeze which was chilly when I was walking into it. Our temp was about 5 degrees F.

I stomped into the church with frost on my eyebrows and semi-numb feet. I didn’t realize that I had arrived at the same time as the work party for the coming Christmas Eve event. By the time I delivered my envelopes to the office I had also been given a job. I had nothing better to do so I put up lights, erected a wooden menagerie of animals, and carried decorations here and there. Every time I took off my mittens, even for a few seconds, I was amazed at how fast the cold became painful.

Can you imagine celebrating Christmas Eve outside when it’s below zero weather? Blame COVID for that.

By the time I set out for home, my feet were more like blocks of ice but I hadn’t gotten my steps in for the day. Hitching a ride was out of the question. I knew I could make it, and I did, but it was the fastest section of my walk for the day. My app said I was walking 5.5 miles per hour at one point, but that would be more like running so I think it must be wrong. All I could think about was getting warm again… fireplace, hot drink, my “blankie”.

It is beautiful after a snow, and I did snap a few pictures because I couldn’t not do that. (There are times when nothing says it better than a double negative.)

I might rest tomorrow instead of taking a walk. It’s supposed to be even colder. Just sayin’… May you all find a blessing in your Christmas celebration.

My view right out my front door. Clean, white, and cold, very cold.