This area of our beautiful country is desperate for rain.  The farmers need it, the homeowners need it.  The Governor of Alabama has ordered a ‘NO BURN’ ban throughout the whole state.  In my town, there is a watering schedule and certain days no one can water.  My plants that get a good drink late, late at night, are drooping miserably by noon.  We really need rain.  And, I am thinking of other places in our country that are in the same boat.  The areas where the wild fires are need the rain to help stem the fires…and they need it NOW!

What can we do about this? Nothing.  We can do nothing.  This is something that is out of our hands.  I have never liked the feeling of being ‘out of control’…but here we all are…needing rain and we are not in control of causing it to happen.   So, what will happen?  Will it rain or will it not?  Will all the crops die, or will some be salvaged?  Will the fires continue to burn out of control, or will the raindrops come in time to prevent more damage?  We can try to hold on to the water we have and ration it .  But, we cannot make the rain.

What will this cause you to do?  What will this do to you attitude and to your outlook?  Will it make you BITTER…or BETTER?  Will it cause you to curse the Maker of the rain or will you look for lessons in these hard times?

When I began thinking about this post, this song came to mind.  I have always thought it beautiful…but the words have taken on new meaning.  And, the meaning I have found in these words…are words that need to be stamped on my heart.

GRATITUDE

Send some rain, would You send some rain?

‘Cause the earth is dry and needs to drink again

And the sun is high and we are sinking in the shade

Would You send a cloud, thunder long and loud?

Let the sky grow black and send some mercy down

Surely You can see that we are thirsty and afraid………….

But maybe not, not today

Maybe You’ll provide in other ways

And if that’s the case . . .

We’ll give thanks to You    With gratitude

For lessons learned in how to thirst for You

How to bless the very sun that warms our face…….If You never send us rain

Daily bread,  give us daily bread

Bless our bodies, keep our children fed

Fill our cups, then fill them up again tonight

Wrap us up and warm us through

Tucked away beneath our sturdy roofs

Let us slumber safe from danger’s view this time

Or maybe not, not today

Maybe You’ll provide in other ways

And if that’s the case . . .

We’ll give thanks to You    With gratitude

A lesson learned to hunger after You

That a starry sky offers a better view if no roof is overhead

And if we never taste that bread

Oh, the differences that often are between

What we want and what we really need

So grant us peace, Jesus, grant us peace

Move our hearts to hear a single beat

Between alibis and enemies tonight

Or maybe not, not today

Peace might be another world away

And if that’s the case . . .

We’ll give thanks to You     With gratitude

For lessons learned in how to trust in You

That we are blessed beyond what we could ever dream

In abundance or in need

And if You never grant us peace

But Jesus,  would You please . . .

Song by Nichole Nordeman…Album…Woven and Spun, 2002

It is available to be listened to online. It is very easy to find by just typing in the name of the song and artist.   If I were more proficient in computer-ese, I would provide a link.  But, unfortunately, I’m not able to do that at this point.  But soon…hopefully…..

I love my pool.  I love to be in the water.  I love to be in the water when the sun is beating down.   I love to be in the water, in the sun, when the water is not over my head….or I’m floating on a raft.

So, in light of this fact, I went to the store with the big red target on it and bought myself one of those easy to fold, light weight floats.  I bought the one that was full size and had pretty Hawaiian flowers.  I was set.  Ready for the next time I decided to hit the water and lounge around like a lady of leisure.

Well, Lucy Jane came to visit this week.  When she walked in the door she was holding her new froggy swimming aide…and her matching froggy towel.  She had all intentions of swimming at some point in the 4 hours she was there.

“Can we go swimming right now, Aunt Tonja?  I’ve got my suit in the closet and I can put it on quick.”

“Let me finish up a few things and then we will go.”

“I can go ahead and get ready and then I won’t have to get ready when it’s time to go?”

“Aunt Tonja, where do you want me to put my froggy stuff?”  “Do you want me to put it out by the pool?”

“Aunt Tonja, do we have some toys to put in the pool?”

“Aunt Tonja, did you get a new raft?”  “Want me to open it up?”  “I can blow it up.  I can.  There’s just air on the sides.”

“Aunt Tonja, I sure do love you.”  “And I sure do love to go swimming in your pool.”

And, so, I told her to get ready…and I got ready…and we went outside.  I helped her get her froggy on, and then she said,”You need to go get Alex and Wild Man.” (‘Wild Man’ is what she calls Finn.  Which is much closer to an appropriate name than Finn.  Really.)  So, I got back out and went to knock on Alex’s door and told him we were swimming.  Patty had graciously offered to blow up the sides of the raft for me.

Lucy Jane and I had a few minutes of quiet playing in the pool…and then the Wild Man and his boy set upon us.  Out came Alex and Finn.  Now Alex moves kinda slow, but Finn……..he shoots out the door like a bat out of a very hot place!  I got back out of the pool to help Alex get in.

*****when we built the Creekhouse, and the pool, I fully expected there to be a rail somewhere to steady myself as I entered the pool.  And, I didn’t need one as much as Alex did.  But, someone  decided we did NOT need a rail.  And, so we do not have one.  So, Alex has nothing to hold on to as he is entering the pool.  His balance is such that he has to hold on to something to steady himself all the time,  And going up or down the stairs is even harder.  We should have a rail.  I thought I made that clear as we were building.  I’m sure I have made it clear several times since then.  But, we still have no rail.  Which we need.  Desperately*****

Back to the pool.  Lucy and her froggy suit is in.  Alex is in.  And, I am in.  And, here comes Patty with my float.  It looks so inviting…just what I wanted.  So I begin to pull it over to the shelf so I can get on , when I hear a LOUD SPLASH! We who were going swimming were already in….so where did that splash come from?  You don’t even have to guess do you?

Oh, yes it was Wild Man, hisownself.  The Mighty Finn!  He was coming to swim…so we had better be ready or get out of the way!   He swam all around, but he began to have a desperate look in his eyes.  Where was his boy?  Where was he?  Alex walked over and held him.  Whew!  He was safe now!   But he was struggling, because there was no solid ground here in this pool.  No place where the feet could make contact with a surface, and be still.  No…this stuff kept moving!  So Alex, being the kind soul that he is,  just picked him up and plopped him down on…MY NEW RAFT!!!!!

And, so we gathered around and watched a dog on a float in the middle of the pool and talked to him and oohed and aahed at him like we had all completely lost our ever loving minds!  And, Patty made pictures from the sidelines….she had pretty much lost her mind, as well.

Oh, how Finn felt the adoration and praise that was being heaped upon him by those he loved the most….. he was one proud dog.  He wished those other dogs in the family could see him now! ” Jo Jo,this is the way to do it! —-  Look Charla!  Are you jealous?— What do ya think about this, Jezzabelle?—    Hey Kaki, bet you can’t do this! ” And the feeling was so wonderful, he actually floated off by himself for a minute or two and thought of how grand he looked and how his family was safe and secure as long as he was around!  He stood tall and proud!  Now,  THIS was living!  “Look at me, I’m King of the pool!”

Lost as he was, admiring himself as the best dog ever…He barely heard Mom when she said,” Alex, if that hound tears up my new raft with his toe nails, you are buying me two new rafts.  One to replace this one and one to make me feel better! ” UH! OH!  He knew  she meant it, too.  This may not last too long…..better enjoy it while I can!

And, he stood as tall as he could at the front of the boat.  He was the Master!  He was the Captain!  He was the King!   He would see this family to safety.  He would guard them as they swam.  He would banish all intruders who may encroach upon their watery kingdom.  He would be the !!!!!SPLASH!!!!!, he was back in the water!  Pride had been his downfall.  He was so intent upon his new found leadership, that he stood too close to the edge of the raft.  And when the edge went under, he just floated right on out.

And, Finn, the mighty and the brave, took off swimming.  He swam with all his might!  He knew where the shelf was to get out and he was heading that way…FAST!    “WHEW!”  He made it !  The family was safe, too.  He was tired.  He was waterlogged.  He was sleepy.  And, since he was King of the Pool…he would just make a royal decree…”NAP TIME.”

This is not what my post is about.  But, I just need to say it.  Why, out of all the things they make in this great, big, wonderful world of ours to put medicines in, do they have to use those little packages that have writing on the back and clear ultra-super, heavy-duty, industrial strength plastic on the front?  I don’t expect an answer.  There is no answer.  Then there is the tiniest little slit at the top where you are to align 2 fingers on either side and commence to tear it down…through the afore described plastic….and retrieve your medicine.  And,then, if it will not tear…and trust me, it WILL. NOT. TEAR., you search for the scissors to cut it.  Now this should be an easy task since you have probably 42 pair of scissors in the house.  Are any of them in the room in which you are?  Why, no.  Of course they are not.  When you do find them…you must cut straight down…THROUGH the plastic, BESIDE the pill.  Heaven forbid you manage to accidentally cut into the pill.  Because, NOW what you have is a partially opened hump of plastic, filled with fine green POWDER!.  Why?  Because, even though you can buy the pills with a lovely coating on them, so you do not have to taste the foul things as they slide down your throat, that is not the kind that you have.  And they also make a lovely kind that are actually capsules.  Again, no taste.    They even make some that are teeny in size and are in a similar  type of packaging.  However, it is very easy for you to gently push the tablet from one side to the other and take your teeny little pill with no additional upset…other than what is going on in your tummy which is why you are taking them in the first place.However…these have a well known brand name on them…But, do I have the lovely BRAND NAME medication for ‘lower tummy distress’?  Why, no. No I don’t.  I should, but NO,  I have the knock off, lower price version that says ‘compare to…’.  It is cheaper.  It is HUGE and hard to take. It is nigh unto impossible to get out of the package.   It saves about $1.25 on the box.  Do you think I bought this cheap imitation of the real drug for such a thing as ‘lower tummy distress’?  Well, if you said yes, then you do not know me very well.  Since Alex doesn’t drive, and I did not buy them……I’ll give you 3 guesses who did buy the counterfeit drug.  I’ll give you 3 guesses who thought it was a grand idea to buy this forgery.  I’ll give you 3 guesses who is going to get an envelope with exactly $1.25 in it for Father’s Day from his wife.

Well, sorry, I did go on and on, didn’t I?  I have a tendency to do that when I am very aggravated by something, and it really should not have happened.

I think I’m just going to sign off for now…..I’ve got to start working on opening up the next dose.

By the way, this is what my post is about!

We had Adam and Suzanne over for supper this week.  It is always such a treat when the 3 of them are here!  This little butterbean was sound asleep when he came in, so we just let him be for a while.

After he woke up, and after we had all finished eating, Suzanne decided to let Levi have his first taste of the pool.  And, lest you think it was not warm enough to swim…yesterday the temp here was 101….yes, 101!!!  It is approx. 5:00 p.m. right now and it is 102 degrees!  So, yes, it was warm enough!

I bought him a little swimsuit when I was in Maui, and Suzanne put it on him.  And, out we went.  I was afraid he would cry when he first got in the water, but, he never made a whimper!   He loved it!  See what you think…

After he was in for a few minutes, we got him out and dried him off and he got a good snuggle in with his granddaddy.

And, I’m not sure, but I imagine that he was dreaming of his first swim before he got out of the driveway!

I posted this article as a status on FB a few days ago, but I think it is of such importance, I want to post it again to be sure more will see it.  If you feel it has merit, and desire to do so…feel free to repost this on your blog.

The new captain jumped from the cockpit, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the owners who were swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”
How did this captain know, from fifty feet away, what the father couldn’t recognize from just ten?

Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect.

 The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story.

 Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.

The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D.,  is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water.  And it does not look like most people expect.  There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind.  To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: 

 It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult.  In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). 

 Drowning does not look like drowning – Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine, described the instinctive drowning response like this:Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. Th e respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.

Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.

Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.

Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.

From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.
(Source: On Scene Magazine: Fall 2006)

This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble – they are experience aquatic distress. Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long – but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in there own rescue.  They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are n the water:

Head low in the water, mouth at water level

Head tilted back with mouth open

Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus

Eyes closed

Hair over forehead or eyes

Not using legs – Vertical

Hyperventilating or gasping

Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway

Trying to roll over on the back

So if a crew member falls overboard and every looks O.K. – don’t be too sure.  Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning.  They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. 

One  way to be sure?  Ask them: “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are.  If they return  a blank stare – you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. 

And parents: children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

IMPORTANT  FYI: 

Water wings, floaties, whatever you call these things…are NOT designed to be life preserver.  Do not depend on these to to do what a life jacket will do.  It is easy to find a Coast Guard approved life jacket.  I have seen them at places like Target, Wal-Mart and Dicks.  These are fine to use if you are with your child, but I have seen these pop while on the child.  Be careful!