Mama always said not to “judge a book by it’s cover.” I’m usually pretty good at doing that with people. Meaning, I don’t judge someone just because of how they look. In fact, it annoys me when people do that to others.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I realized I missed on that one big time! There is an older gentleman who has guitar lessons at the music store the same time my daughter has banjo lessons. He’s a sweet, Christian man in his 70’s, and is always dressed in cowboy garb. In my mind, I saw him as a sweet grandpa who spent many years ranching, never getting out much, and was trying to pick up a hobby. You get the idea, right?
Wow, was I wrong.
Until two years ago, he was a professor. In fact, he told me that from the time he was in kindergarten until two years ago, he had never spent a year out of school. Let me give you the bio that is on the back of one of the books he has written (which he gave us for Christmas).
J. A. K…Â holds a PhD in New Testament and Greek from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and a PhD in Social Psychology from Louisiana State University. He taught courses in the family, social psychology, counseling, and child abuse and neglect at the University of North Texas and Southwest Baptist University in Missouri. He spent summers teaching courses in psychology at an Orthodox Jewish University in Jerusalem, Israel. For thirty-five years, he had a private practice in psychotherapy dealing primarily with family counseling. He now lives with his wife, Rachel, and two dogs in Nacogdoches, Texas. His hobbies, besides writing and doing weekend workshops, include gardening and woodworking.
Yeah, I missed.
This Thursday morning, my kids are joining his church group, The Lighthouse Singers, to sing and perform at one of the local nursing homes. He has been a delight to get to know, and am praying that we will be able to stay in contact for a long time.
Names…
I’m not into name dropping. In fact, that kind of annoys me too. (I’m really not an easily annoyed person. 😀 ) However, yesterday I inadvertently name dropped – and got great results!
Hubby needs to go to the doctor to get his prescriptions updated. His doctor from NE won’t refill because he needs blood work. Since we don’t have insurance, I was going to go through a community medical clinic. While that would save us money, I was distressed at the amount of personal information they were asking from not just him, but the kids and me as well. They also couldn’t get him in until sometime in January. Not good – he only has two more pills left. 😦  I asked one of my bosses (who works as a health insurance agent) who would be a good doctor. He recommended two, and said one would be more likely to get us in sooner than the other, but that both were great doctors. He also gave me tips on how to get a discount for cash-pay. I called the doctor’s office and found I could get hubby in next Tuesday. Yay! Then I mentioned I was cash-pay and asked if there was a special rate for cash-pay patients. The receptionist told me that the doctor was not currently taking cash-only new patients at the time, but that he was starting a new program for that the beginning of the year. I started to ask if she knew what other doctors in the area were taking cash-only patients. I mentioned where I worked and that (bosses name) had referred me to him. “Oh, please hold for just a minute, ma’am. (I really didn’t mean to name-drop, I wasn’t finished with my statement, but she cut me off as soon as she heard his name.) A few minutes later she came back on the line, “We would be very happy to have you and your husband as our patients!” Hehehehe. When she asked if we would be getting insurance soon, I told her we wanted to go with a Christian Health-sharing plan. Then I found out that that was the program the doctor was starting come the first of the year, and she told me what plan he was establishing himself with. Yay!
Yesterday afternoon, while talking to Mr. Author/Professor at the music store before lessons, I received a call from our local health food store. My dish soap had come in. (Another YAY!)
Now, why am I yayying dish soap?
Well, our dishwasher doesn’t work well. We have to buy the most expensive brand of dishwasher detergent and use two packs for it to get the dishes clean. Many times there are still bits of food still stuck to some of the dishes. I see that as a waste of money, so I bought some ‘natural’ (supposedly) dish soap. Unfortunately, that dish soap had sodium laurel sulfate in it. I’m allergic to sodium laurel sulfate, and it’s in many cleaning products. It’s even in toothpaste. It peels my skin off. If I use regular toothpaste, my mouth is in bad shape. I did dishes with the ‘natural’ stuff, but my skin still peeled… and hurt. So, I special ordered some without it. We ran out of dishwasher detergent, and I refused to buy more (much to my kiddos’ dismay) and they had to do all the dishes by hand since I couldn’t help.
I missed doing dishes. I actually (don’t faint now) enjoy hand-washing dishes. It’s a time where I can spend some time alone (because no-one wants to help 😀 ) and look at the beauty outside. And now that the dish soap came in, I have been doing dishes like a mad woman. Well, maybe not quite like that. And it’s been so nice to not have peeling hands.
Well, I had better go for now. I need to head to the church to work on my sermon for Sunday.
The Joy of the Lord is My Strength 