la la la, springtime {and snow}

I spied my first red-breasted robin of the spring today.

Apparently, he has the same amount of faith in modern weathermen and their forecasted chance of snow for tomorrow as I do.

i'm cheating again by just posting a quotation....

Original Morgan posts will resume - hopefully - in a few days.

"The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word 'love', and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. 'Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.' We were not made primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest 'well pleased'. To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled, by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable. We cannot even wish, in our better moments, that He could reconcile Himself to our present impurities - no more than the beggar maid could with that King Cophetua should be content with her rags and dirt, or a dog, once having learned to love man, could wish that man were such as to tolerate in his house the snapping, verminous, polluting creature of the wild pack. What we would here and now call our 'happiness' is not the end God chiefly has in view: but when we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy."

- C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

where typos go to become fatal

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint." - Mark Twain

the unconventional sticky note

My ceiling fan is dusty. It probably is more often than not, but I rarely notice because I can rarely tell.

You see, my sister and I run our fan 24/7/351, taking exception to two weeks in January and February. Our fan is running until we actually might suffer from hypothermia as a result of turning it on.

As the Two Weeks of No Fan have dragged on, I have been constantly reminded by the sight of the still blades that I need to clean the fan.

But you see, cleaning ceiling fans can be a daunting and dangerous task for short people.
Oh. Yes. Siree. Stop laughing. It's true!

I have to go to the kitchen to confiscate a swivel bar stool, first. Then I have to stand on the swivel bar stool to clean my fan.

When I was younger, I was told to never stand in a rocking chair. And I never have.
Someone should have told me the same thing regarding standing in swivel chairs.

But my fear of swiveling chairs is not the reason why I haven't cleaned my fan more recently. And it isn't that I have forgotten about it.

The truth is, is that every time I catch sight of my fan and its dusty blades it reminds me of a million others things I have yet to do.

"Ooooh, I need to clean the fan... and I also need to call Mrs F.... and Mrs. M.... and I need to email Mrs. F... and I need to follow up on..."

It is hilarious, but true. I have never had a better to-do list reminder.

The fan still needs to be cleaned. But once I get through my to-do list, it will get cleaned... which at this rate will probably be next year over the Two Weeks of January and February.

lighting useless fires on the altar

I catch myself at it all the time. And I know that I don't catch myself half of the times that I do it.

I pick something easy to do. It is easiest option, often enough. And then I do it, whatever it is, with a wholeheart. Or at least, I think so. Or at least, I want to think so.

But I know all along that I am copping out of something else.

I'm taking the easy path. I am filling up my entire calendar with the easy path. And then I am doing the easy path with 101% of myself

But when I know - when I know - that I am taking the selfish way out, that is when the rubber hits the road. It doesn't work; it doesn't fly.

Perhaps, the easiest option is tough. Perhaps, it is pretty counter-culture itself.

But that still doesn't justify my weakness. It doesn't justify my inability to take on the challenge presented.

I am taking on the [true] Turkey Trot when I should be training for the marathon.

"Look at this, Lord. I am doing Option A for You with all my heart. Oh, please don't notice that I have noticed that You really want me doing Option B instead. But, hey, I sure am doing Option A wholeheartedly. It is pretty impressive, isn't it? It all makes up for me running away from Option B, right?"

Who am I pleasing when I operate that way?
Who am I fooling?


"Hello, Option B. My name is Morgan, and I think we are about to become very good friends..."

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." - G.K. Chesterton

Today is Wednesday because my hands smell like Latex gloves. It absolutely cannot be Wednesday unless my hands smell like Latex gloves by mid-morning. If you ever wake up expecting it to be Wednesday, and you find out that it is instead Thursday already - well, you now know where to send the thank-you note to. (Morgan's Hands, C/O Morgan G...)

Anyway, because my hands smell like Latex gloves that means that I cleaned this morning at the pregnancy resource center, and that means that I had to leave early this morning with Lexi to go clean. Yes, for insanely confusing, illogical logic.

Right before the estimated departure time, I was in the kitchen getting my coffee when I remembered that the oil in car needed to checked. Normally, my dad handles that for me.

But he wasn't up yet. And the oil really needed to be checked.

But that's okay. Because he showed me how to check in one time. And I have checked it a few times since then.

We can handle this, me, myself, and I.

I may know nothing about cars. I may have no idea what advantages a V8 has over a V6 engine. (I actually just had to google "V8" to figure out what the other "V" was... wow.) I may have no idea why they still even make stick shifts.

But I can check the oil.

I stuck my coffee in the microwave. (Coffee left over from the Resident Law Student's earlier morning, three hours before, can be a little cool.) I grabbed a paper towel and went outside.

Okay, it was cold and raining. No, it was colder and rainer then you just imagined. To the power of 10.

Everyone in the world who check their oil in covered, enclosed garages - I envy you.

I delicately walked across the boggy ground (again take what you just imagined as boggy ground and take it to the power of 10), and popped the hood.

There are two things in the world I have yet to master: lighting a match and opening a car hood.

One day I will remember what I actually push - and which way I push it - to open the hood. Until then I will continue to look like a fool.

A freezing minute later, I am checking the oil.

Oh. It is low. It needs more oil.
Wait. Let me check again. Just in case. I mean, I don't think dipsticks can be wrong. But you never know.
Yeah, never mind. Dipsticks never lie.

I got the oil from the trunk, avoiding the newest Great Lake with a bit of success.

Everything is great. Until I realize that the cap for the oil tank is child-proof-esque. Seriously, wasn't child-proofing the hood enough? I don't handle child-proof stuff very well. Those plastic covers people put on door knobs - those are actually like people-proof in my mind. And don't get me started on Tylenol lids.

Hmmm...

Finally, I got it off. I set the cap down on top of some other tank inside the hood, and began to add the oil.

Great. I had a huge smile on my face as I finished adding the oil. I did it. Yep, you just call me Mechanic Morgan.

As I straightened up, my elbow brushed the oil cap off of the tank.

And it fell somewhere inside the ENGINE.

Oh. My. No. Way.

I looked down into the black abyss.

Finding a black lid inside a black car engine on a cold, rainy morning is no small task. I think I will take The Needle in the Haystack Assignment first.

Perhaps, it fell all the way through to the ground? I got down on all fours to look.
(And, yes, I realized the irony of going from proud little Miss Mechanic of the Year to being on my knees in the mud in thirty seconds. I was just asking for it.)

Squelch.

Oops. It reminded me of that time I got ready to go to work, and then walked outside to see a beautiful sunrise. I went back in, grabbed my camera, and quickly snapped some shots. Later at work, I glanced down to see two huge grass stains on the kneecaps of my jeans. The dewy grass hadn't been kind.

No cap.

I popped up, and looked back under the hood. It is hopeless. Seriously.

And as appealing as it is, I can't take off without the oil cap in place. For all I know, the car might explode.

Well. This is a nice fix.

There was no way I was going to spy it if it were still somewhere in the engine.

Perhaps, though, it is on the ground closer to the other side of the car.

Squelch.

YES, there it was, sitting on top of the grass. I stretched out and grabbed it.

Fear not. Crisis #29023984 in Morgan's life has been averted.

I resolutely screwed the cap back on. (Though, I have noticed that child-proof lids never really tighten in a normal way... they are 100% unnatural.)

For some reason, every since I had woken up my mind had been following a very Pollyanna-ish train of thought. "At least after this experience, an uneventful oil check will seem heavenly..."

I rescued my coffee from the microwave, and Lexi and I got in the car.

Shortly after I started the engine, my dad came outside.

"Did you check the oil?"
"Yes, and I added some."
"Great. You put it in the right place, right? You didn't put it in the water tank, or anything?" he said with a smile.
"Yep, I put it in the right place."

(Oh. Dear. I did put it in the right place, right?)