Twenty six days, and counting since I checked into the hospital, twenty six days, before what I thought would be a fairly simple kind of surgery I was already familiar with, from having had it once before. Everything went as it needed to. I was able to come home extra early, and was priding myself on how well everything went, until an infection changed everything.

Ten days of antibiotics took care of it, and now I'm trying to put rehab and how life was before surgery back on track. Like other parts of our lives, I think we can learn from it. Having so much "down" time affords me the pleasure of contemplating serious things of life, like "when I grow up, what would I like to be". I say this in a poking fun at myself kind of way, but those who really know me, understand I could not be more serious.

These last few days I've felt like most everything has fled from seriousness. I've battled the frustration of dealing with creatures, or critters, depending upon your perception of how important or non-important they may be.

I am weary of this. My son has done what he can to help with it, and "The Bug Man" company stands ready to haul off anything caught in the baited trap. Partly jesting, my son said the way to make whatever it is leave, would be to strategically set up delayed popping firecrackers and sirens sounding, as this uninvited thing climbs stairs from the basement. Being kinder hearted, I suggested we wall off part of the basement and get a lawyer to make an animal lease required for anything that wants to stay here. To help me feel safer, I think, my son ended his advice by saying he does not think skunks and squirrels chew through wooden floors. I am still trying to decide whether he meant it as solace, or down home (pardon the pun) humor.

This time I've been away from work, while it requires stretching dollars, has been more valuable than many moons of paychecks. One might think before they're my age, they might have figured this all out, but logic denies that. I think most of us find ourselves in a hamster cage kind of existence so busy pushing those unceasing pedals, we don't get around to considering how we'd like to live, or, if we even do a little imagining, it remains untested.

For years I've straddled those ever turning pedals, thinking I was getting somewhere. There is satisfaction knowing you're doing something that helps others, a work that's even considered somewhat godly, but God also insists that we revere ourselves, not because we're perfect, but because He made us, and I've not been doing that.

The book I happily started writing last year, I've so neglected I can't even find the copies I made. But I have done one thing that I think will help me get going with it again. I've decided to just write the next chapter, and the next one after that, and leave corrections til later. Not worry about perfection, just tell how it was, even if, maybe especially if, some of it was raw. My confidence is not very high yet, but maybe as I create what I'm yearning to tell women, it will grow.

Having everything exactly in place has never been required by our Lord, but only that we do our best. You will hear more about this as I'm able to share it.

But now, back to this unhappy problem in my house, that more and more (really) smells like it's a skunk, I am setting down my literary dreams for the night, and in a few minutes will start a CD, a Bruce Springsteen I wish would run all night, so it might go some place more quiet, or at least I won't hear it if it starts chewing something, or I may just crawl under the covers, and pray really hard that God keeps me safe through the night, and I deal with tomorrow, tomorrow.