“God’s in His heaven — All’s right with the world!” ~ Robert Browning. My version would be like this: "God's in His heaven, the wife has returned home, All's right with the world." Thank you very much.

It's Monday and here I am to greet the day along with those tuning in to today's episode. This one gets a label stuck on it that says it is July 30, 2018. That went by really fast. I'm talking about the so-called weekend. It's actually made up of the last day of last week (Saturday) and the first day of this brand new week (Sunday), however, people persist in calling it the weekend, therefore, I will acquiesce but still contend it really went by fast. How fast was it? Here is a little story to help quantify how fast. "These boys were boasting in the schoolyard. Each was bragging about how great their fathers are. The first one said: 'Well, my father runs the fastest. He can fire an arrow, and start to run, I tell you, he gets there before the arrow!' The second one said: 'Ha! You think that’s fast! My father is a hunter. He can shoot his gun and be there before the bullet!' The last one listened to the other two boys and shook his head. He then said: 'Sorry, dudes… but MY DAD is the fastest. He works for the government. He stops working at 4:30… and he’s home by 3:45!'" I found that one on the internet. It was unattributed. Be sure and know I am not making fun of government employees. I used to be one. And, as best I remember, we did not, for the most part, operate our business in the stereotypical fashion that has become synonymous with laziness. My point? It went by way too fast, but, the good news is the wife returned on Saturday and now our daily functioning, unlike Humpty Dumpty, has been put back together again.

Last Thursday afternoon I came in from work and prepared myself to mow the yard. It was either that or call in the hay baling people. The feels like was around 100 so I decided to wait until some shade was available. Our yard is the wife's domain. She takes care of it, period, end of story. So much so, I had never even seen closeup the lawnmower she bought last year. On top of that, I had never been on the riding mower she's been using for several years. I had to get our middle son Jimmy to help me figure out how to operate her equipment. I waited until around 6 p.m. to get started. It was still hot. I thought I would use the lawnmower only since I more or less knew how to operate it. It didn't take many trips forth and back for me to decide to get the riding mower out. Never try to train an old person by telling them how simple it is to operate. I did get the hang of it and felt pretty good about the fact that I only ran into a few things. Literally. One of those was the mailbox out next to the roadway. It's a little wobbly now but Jimmy was good enough to brace it some. It took me a good 90 minutes to do what I did. I didn't do the weed eating, edging, or blowing everything off. I would not want to deprive her of things that she enjoys so much. You most likely did not know I was such a considerate person, but, as my grandfather used to say, "You learn something new every day." One more thing, I don't think I will be needing that treadmill heart test after all.

Speaking of daily functioning, I have a question. Which one is it? Do we have a genuine need to be going crazy all the time trying to get everything done every day or have we become enslaved to a system that requires this of us? It's as if we feel unproductive if we are not busily chasing our tails. We don't measure up if our schedule of appointments and projects doesn't compare favorably with our peers and friends. There's a Greek and Hebrew word for that. It can be transliterated: HOGWASH! Let me ask it another way. What came first? The actual need for doing many of the things we find ourselves doing or we do them because we have the means and they deem themselves to be important? I'm not longing here to be totally off the grid, but, when we get caught up in the merry-go-round of being busy for busy sake, the only call we hear is of the urgent with little regard for the truly important things in life. Yep. I hear what some are saying. "Just step off the merry-go-round." Sounds simple enough, however, it's harder to do than one might think. We go to bed thinking about all the things we must get done tomorrow. We get up and make sure we get everything done including filling up our schedule for the next day. What is that old definition of insanity? It's doing the same things over and over thinking you will get a different result. Oh well, I need to get back to my scheduling since that seems to be what we mostly do these days. Just thinking out loud. I know. I need to turn the volume down and go back to sleep. Not a bad thought. Enjoy and may God bless each one. Amen. ...More later.