Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV)
Fun Monday’s theme today is chores you hate. While I don’t like much housework, about the only chore I really hate is cleaning blinds. Sometimes, I buy the $5.00 blinds from Wal-Mart just so I can throw them away when they get dusty. That makes me sound pretty wasteful, doesn’t it? Being wasteful makes me think about chores I do like. Anything that has to do with the horses is fun to me even if it involves manure or cleaning scum out of water buckets. I did both those kinds of things this morning. Since I had the day off I could take my time and really enjoy the barn chores. I don’t mind picking up poop and cleaning stalls. To me, it is relaxing and restful. My dogs have another opinion of it though. They think I am being wasteful and greedy. They like to eat manure and get upset with me when I pick it up and throw it away. I can almost hear their minds turning wishing I would just leave a little for them to eat. Why does she have to take it all away? Why does she put it in the cart only to dump it out where we can’t get it? Doesn’t she know how much we love it? After getting stalls all neat and tidy, I scrubbed water buckets. The horses prefer the big water trough in the pasture over scummy buckets. I also cleaned the feed room and swept out all the old hay into the pasture. I picked up a couple of rat’s nests which was both gross and interesting to see all the little pieces of stuff woven into the hay. Shreds of plastic, twine from hay bales and bits of paper. Hopefully, I won’t find anymore because I put out poison a few weeks ago and for a while, we had dead rats everywhere. I hated to do it, but they were eating my tack. After I got the barn all tidy, I went to the feed store and bought fourteen bales of hay and stacked them on pallets in the feed room. Well, I didn’t stack them, youngest son did. I just supervised. All this time, the horses were up front by the house enjoying what little grass survived last week’s freeze, and the dogs followed them around like cattle egrets hoping to scarf up some poop. All day long, the theme of waste kept circling around in my head. Whether it is real waste like manure or wasteful living, when I think about the people of Haiti, I keep coming back to one thing. I have so much, and they have so little. If you feel the same way, you can give through the Red Cross or you can give to Samaritans Purse, one of my favorite charities. Or you can give directly to this orphanage in Haiti run by people from our community. Whatever you chose, give of your excess. And be glad that you can.
http://www.samaritanspurse.org/
http://pyesinhaiti.blogspot.com/
Thanks for playing.
Yes to this post. We're with http://doctorswithoutborders.org/
but I am about to go check out your links.
I knew there was a reason I didn't want a dog.
I am so with you on the blinds. I didn't think about those because, well, I don't think about them. I ignore them until they are so awful that it takes a major clean to make them okay again. A little dust doesn't bother me, but once they start looking DIRTY, I pull them down, lay them out in the yard and hose them down. Rats. We may be getting to that point again.
What is it with dogs and poop? And then they want to KISS you!
Yes, cleaning the blinds can be tiresome. At my old house, which was quite dusty, I would take the blinds out in the summer and spray them woth the hose. In the colder weather, placing the blinds in the shower seemed to do the trick.
Frequently, donating for causes through a church allows 100% of the donations to go directly to the cause UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, is one such agency.
http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor
Ugh…cleaning blinds, I didn't think of that, it's not something I like either!