Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Proverbs 31: What Exactly are We Reading?

   Depending on your personal beliefs and personal tolerances, knowing the nature of what you’re reading might be just as important than the content of what you’re reading.  Or at least, it might be a prerequisite for accepting the words, the message.  

   I know I can read Grimm’s Fairy Tales for entertainment plus a little bit of old fashioned wisdom without worrying about muddying the waters of my core values.  Same goes for Bruce Lee’s Zen and the Martial Arts:  I can read his ideas as his ideas, comparing and measuring them up to what I know to be true for myself.
   Where I have to be careful is reading religious interpretation of text that is already close to my heart.  Human interpretation can be flawed, and that can be misleading.  For example, I was very cautious while reading The Shack.  Ironic, eh?  That I am attempting to share my (admittedly human) study of a book of the Bible?  Just take this as a big chunky grain of salt.  I wish only truth and stability for everybody.
   The reason I’m even thinking of all of this is that the Schofield Bible I use has that heading at the beginning of Proverbs which prepares the reader for a collection of wisdom, not a list of laws or a chronological story.  It got me wondering what are the literal similarities and differences between parables, laws, promises, folklore, warnings, etc.  Lovers of words can always appreciate the fine points, the subtle but crucial nuances of language.  What I learned isn’t groundbreaking,  but it does help me put in perspective the content of Proverbs 31.

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Adage:  a saying often in metaphorical form that embodies a common observation


Fable:  a fictitious narrative or statement intended to enforce a useful truth; especially one in which animals speak and act like human beings

Folklore:  traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances or art forms preserved among a people

Law:  a binding practice or custom of a community:  a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority

Parable:  a usually short, fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle
Promise:  a legally binding declaration that gives the person to whom it is made the right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act

Proverb:  a brief popular epigram or maxim  (an epigram is a terse, sage, or witty, and often paradoxical saying)

Warning:  a notice or bulletin that alerts the public to an imminent hazard
Wisdom:  accumulated philosophic or scientific learning; ability to discern inner qualities or relationships

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   The Bible is filled with all of these examples and more, except perhaps the fable.  I cannot think of any fables, only God speaking through animals, which is quite different.  But until now I had always thought that Proverbs 31 was a resume of the perfect woman.  It never occurred to me that it was anything other than a strict list of requirements.  The possibility of symbolism certainly never surfaced.
 
   To read the last book of Proverbs once more, this time less as either an historical account or a list of mandates for either a woman or the church, and more as an urging toward spiritual and earthly profit, my thoughts blossomed.
   I feel more inspired and less defeated, seeing all of my womanly deficiencies.  I see the potential benefits and possibilities of following the sage advice in these thirty one verses and am a little less encumbered by the rigidity of law, etc.

   What do you think?  Do you agree a little bit?  Do you vehemently disagree?  Is it too risky to consider that anything in the Bible is anything other than strict instructions?  Are you inspired in any new way after reading Proverbs 31 as a joyful suggestion, an invitation toward something more beautiful?  Or had you always read it that way?

   Forgive me if I am a bit long winded tonight; I participated in a limited-word exercise earlier today and am experiencing a crazy bottleneck of words at rush hour in my brain.  Whew!

 

Proverbs 31: Overview & a Realization

   After deciding to spend the month of October studying, exploring, and displaying the book of Proverbs 31, my mind sort of exploded.  But I liked it.  My heart swelled and my thoughts gained momentum in a really exciting, dangerous way.  There are so many writing possibilities here, so much potential learning to do!  Can I please have more than one month?
   Here are just a few of the very meaty topics 
that are begging to be covered:
  • Have you ever noticed that this thirty-first chapter of Proverbs also has thirty one verses?  Is there any significance to that?
  • Who are the speakers and what is the context?  What was going on in history at this time?
  • What is the difference between a proverb and a fable?
  • Did you know that some theologians argue that this book, though traditionally understood to be instructive to women, might actually bend toward instruction to the church?  This is at least consistent with the New Testament analogy of Christ’s bride.  Hmm.
  • Fascinating advice on dealing with the poor, defenseless, and underprivileged.
  • I have never owned a ruby.  What ARE they worth?  
  • How can the modern woman translate the resourcefulness of the Proverbs 31 woman?  I mean, we don’t really have flax to work.  Wait, what is flax again?
  • Food management and nutrition in an extreme couponing, fast food culture:  How do we strike the balance and please God?
  • Real Estate.  Hmm.
  • Strength of body versus vanity in an image-obsessed but wildly healthless culture.  (Has there ever before been such a paradox for women?)
  • Charity.
  • Household preparedness:.  Winter is Coming.
  • Significance of the colors scarlet & purple, of silk & tapestries.
  • Husband’s reputation.
  • Contributions to the family/ marriage by way of her skills.
  • Bread of Idleness:  REALLY interesting how this interacts with the Biblical importance of leavening, both Old and New Testaments.  
  • Excellence:  WOW.
  • Favor & beauty:  Some people call these evil, but is that what is actually says?
  • The ways of Her Household:  Mind Yer Beeswax.

   
   What I can say with certainty is that this book is a timeless source of inspiration for women across the centuries, in every walk of life and every “religion.”  Writers have always had a lot to say about these few dozen sentences, so I guess I am I just late to an awesome party.
   So….. regardless of how much or how little I manage to accomplish with this October study, the obvious fact remains that it will be insufficient.  This can only be a springboard study, but it can still be nourishing.
  
   I hope that whatever your path is right now, you give Proverbs 31 a glance, at least a philosophical one, and share your thoughts, you reactions, your personal  experiences.  I think Truth grooves this kind of networking.  Please share your thoughts and insights in the comments.  I would love to spark an exchange and really make some spiritual progress here!
     This month of study will be well spent.
   

Advice for Removing Sunflowers

   Allergies are raging right now at the farm.  Parrot dander, horse hair, hay dust from the barn, wildflowers, ragweed, you name it.  And Handsome is the chief sufferer. Since permanent or even seasonal relocation to the desert or a salty beach is not at present in our cards, we have some changes to make.  
   Yesterday I started by yanking out of the dry, cracked earth a trash bin full of ragweed to donate to the landfill and then an equally full pile of sunflowers for the chickens to eat.  I learned a few things while doing this yesterday.  So today I have some unsolicited advice for you, just in case this is a chore on your list anytime soon..
   I L-O-V-E unsolicited advice, don’t you?
   So you are welcome.

   A Few Tips for Removing Sunflower Groves:
   1.  Before tackling the stalks, cut back as many of the flowers stems as possible. This will reduce the ferocity of the bee swarms that are likely to attack your face while yanking at the tree trunk-thick middles.  
These tiny pumpkins are the fruit of volunteer vines 
that sprang up from last year’s carving party 
with my youngest daughter and her step brother.
xoxoxo
    I am enjoying one final summer bouquet with some of the cut flowers, mixed with a few stems of purple Rose of Sharon.  Pretty, eh?  But also deathly to allergy sufferers like Handsome.  One of the cruel jokes of a happy marriage.
   2.  Be brave agaisnt the swarming bees.  They will buzz your ears and hum in your face and try to intimidate you, but stay the course.  You are on a mission.   A mission of love.  And yes, it’s true that you are destroying the bees’ habitat, but humans rule the world, right?
    3.  Run a water hose at the base of the flowering grove while you work on flower cutting or hauling, or while you run screaming from the bees.  Pretty soon the roots will relax enough to be heaved free of the vise like grip of the earth.  
   While the water soaks is also a good time 
to text honey badger jokes to people.
   4.  When the time finally comes for pulling loose the remaining naked stalks, use your legs.  Bend your knees and pull with your legs, not your back.  Removing sunflowers is not the same thing as cutting roses or zinnias, folks.  It is not even the same thing as pulling crabgrass.  It is a tug of war with Mother Nature herself.

Exactly one sunflower bud remains in the south garden.  
So tightly wrapped up in itself, so hopeful as its baby face follows the sun,
so doomed for loneliness and certain death.
Apparently this sunflower is out of Nair.  
Better I just put her out of her Velcro misery.

   Keep in mind that sunflowers are among the few plants that have survived the 2011 Oklahoma drought and heat wave, so Mother Nature is going to be understandably protective over this sturdy  treasure.  Pull smart and pull hard.  If you fall backwards when the battle is finally won, don’t worry.  Just hope you don’t land on a bee.  Then spring up like the ninja that you are and get back to work.

   5.  Wear gloves.  Not the pretty little cotton gloves they sell to women at the dollar store; REAL GLOVES  Work gloves   Boy gloves.  Seriously, I am soooo done buying women’s “gardening” gloves for working outside, no matter how much I like the red calico print or lime green stretchy wrist band and no matter how cheap they are.  $8 for one pair of men’s thick, suede-like gloves that LASTS is a lot cheaper than forty pairs of women’s cotton gloves from the $1 bin, gloves that are quickly reduced to thin, pathetic shreds AND that attract all manner of stickers and thorns in the mean time.  Disposable.  I don’t know about you, but my gardening money is not disposable.

Sorry, Babe.  This glove, along with so many T-shirts, is now mine.
   Back to the original story.
   6.  Do not make eye contact with the monarch butterflies as you remove the sunflowers.  I cried real tears for a moment yesterday as a beautiful winged creature hovered in front of me.  Her little insect chin quivered.  She seemed to be asking me, “But what will my children eat tonight?”  If you don’t look at them, they’re not really there, right?  Gulp.  Stay focused and cold hearted.

Here we have “Speckle” the hen.  I know, it’s a cryptic name.
On day one of the grove removal, she and her feathery cohorts 
were inexplicably terrified of the sunflower carnage.
Day two found her pecking, tromping, and clucking her way through the dried up stuff.
I can only hope that she found lots of fresh, juicy bugs to eat.
Wait, I can only hope that the butterflies and bees and squash bugs and caterpillars escaped.
Wait, who are we rooting for again?

   7.  Should you indeed find yourself trapped by a confused monarch butterfly or bumblebee, do your best to offer assurances that the sunflowers are just being relocated, not removed entirely.  Promise them that their pollen and nourishment is being walked around the corner to the chicken yard, just a short flight away.  Do not tell them how hungry the chickens and geese are and that now they, the juiciest poultry food source, will be much closer to ground level while collecting pollen.  It could be the insects’ last meal, after all, so why ruin it?  Lie.  Lie like broccoli.
   
   So there you have it.  Seven steps to successful sunflower removal.  Glad I could help.

Marriage Rules We Break

   Some people say that you have to know what the rules are so you can break them.  I have over the years spent a fair amount of time reading about how other people do things and trying to absorb the wisdom of the ages, especially when it comes to either running a home or maintaining relationships.  So I know there are certain things the best advice sources will always tell married couples to do, but my boy and I don’t always agree.
Just for fun, as part of our Tenth Anniversary Week,
here are three long accepted rules
that Handsome and I tend to, well, shatter:
“Never eat dinner in front of the Television.”  We do a lot better job obeying this rule when the kids are home, circling the four of us around the dining room table in a more traditional way,  practicing good manners and such, but especially when it’s just the two of us Handsome and I have a great time watching funny stuff while we fill our bellies.  And frankly I am done feeling guilty about it.
By the time dinner is ready we’ve already shared the day’s headlines with each other, and decompression from the stressful things which we cannot remedy is vital to our mental and physical health.  So who cares if we watch a couple of commercial-free comedies while enjoying good food?  Laughter is incredibly binding AND good for digestion.  And we’ll always have nights out at fabulous restaurants to prove to each other we still can mind our table manners and be good dates.
One final note, DVR is the best thing since sliced bread.  Agreed?
“Do Not Go to Bed Angry.”  Umm, yeah right.  Sometimes people who love each other fight.  Sometimes they fight late in the evening when it is already almost bedtime; in fact, for us I tend to think it is often exhaustion that contributes to the fray in the first place.  And even if the arguments have all been finished and the right words have all been uttered, sometimes the hot, brittle air is not yet cleared.
   Call me crazy, but I think that going to bed angry (or at least super annoyed because he sure didn’t sound sorry or she didn’t look relaxed no matter what they said…) is a better choice than not going to bed at all.  That might mean less cuddling in the dark and a cooler reception when the roosters crow, but you know what they say about absence…  If you are in love then you will miss each other after a lonely night sans-passion.
   The fresh light of morning can sometimes burn off the residue of tension better than can one more round of late night deliberation. I am not suggesting you ignore the scripture that advises against letting the sun set on  straight-up wrath; just that once in a while, when it serves you both, sleep on it.  But if you do, please determine to walk softly in the morning, looking for the first opportunity to hug and smooch, not reignite hurt feelings.  xoxoxo
“You Have to Work at Your Relationship.”  Balderdash.  Actually, we work enough in life already.  Maybe it’s just plain good luck, but Handsome and I don’t feel like this is necessary.  It seems like genuinely enjoying your relationship is a whole heckuva lot better than working on it.  In fact, working on it tends to be when we get into trouble (see #2).
Sure, your union may need tending now and then, a spot of nurturing perhaps, but think of it in healthy, green, growth-based terms, not arduous, sweaty, unpleasant ones that elicit thoughts of time cards, obligations, and tool boxes.  Seriously, the next thing you know the word “talk” will cause nausea and hives.   So there you have it.  Three old fashioned rules that Handsome and I have gradually decided, through trial and error, do not apply to us.  We break a few more, but those are none of your beeswax.

It’s about flow, laughter, easy connection—not clocking in and clocking out like a grumpy employee. And as the world keeps changing, so do the ways people connect and navigate trust. Platforms like OnlyFans have shifted the landscape, bringing new layers of conversation about openness and honesty into relationships.

That’s where a tool like SubSeeker sneaks into the picture, helping folks better understand the digital spaces their partners might be interacting with. It’s not about spying or adding more “work” to your marriage but staying curious, honest, and lighthearted—so you don’t end up turning “let’s talk” into a four-letter word.

Choosing each other, day after day, with a smile instead of a sigh, matters far more than sticking to rigid rules or putting in backbreaking effort.

Happy Romancing…  xoxoxo

Double Standards

   Because Handsome and I have designed our life around some pretty distinct roles, some traditional and some not so much, we definitely encounter noticeable differences in opportunity, advantage, responsibility, credit, freedom, etc, etc.  Score-keeping folks might immediately raise those red flags and say “Whoa, sister, check yourself,” either in my defense or his, depending on your perspective.
  

RA-RA-SIS-BOOM-BAH!!!
  

    He gets to travel more and be out in the world with lots of smart, interesting people, but I get to lounge around more, should I so choose.  He has friends through work; I have, well, honestly I have more friends than I know what to do with.  PLUS I get a bunch of his friends at work too, so that is awesome. 
   My man in India, 2009.
He was on a team from our Great State
working to help that country establish
natural gas delivery systems.
I am so proud of him!
I missed him so much.
   People seem to give me credit for everything that goes right around the farm, just by default.  This is flattering but completely unfair.  If we throw a party, I get the compliments.  They are appreciated, but the truth is that I could never spend time doing this fun, extra stuff if I had to leave every morning to earn a paycheck.  And I could never keep a flower bed if I had to spend my time smoothing, mowing, and weeding acres of grazing space, a job he does really well.  The reverse is also true; he works hard constantly in order to provide all of this that we can share with loved ones, so he has little time and energy left to reach for the extras.   

For us, freedom ringing all boils down to teamwork.
   He knows that I’ll make sure all the housework, shopping, miscellaneous errand-running, animal feeding and watering, etc, is always done before he drives home in the afternoon.  He also knows I will cook as often as he is hungry or more and that I will entertain three and a half times as much as he asks me to.  These are not degree-earned skills, but they are things he values in a home life which I am thrilled to offer to the guy of my dreams. 

World’s Cutest Rescuer of Turtles
   Generally speaking, I take care of stuff around here so that when he is done doing amazing things at the office (I am so not exaggerating) he comes home to hours and hours of free time.  Of course, several days a month he still changes out of his suit and works his guts out around here on hard-labor type projects I have no business attempting.  Things like mending barbed wire fences, trimming the horses’ hooves, bleeding brakes on our cars, squeezing out the wet chamois for me, removing ticks from the dogs, etc. 
Oh wait, does the Modern Independent Wife remove animal ticks herself? 
Another reason I do not want to be in this club.  Because that is grody. 
   I get to wear cutoff jeans, flip flops and tank tops all day if I want to.  He gets to has to shave his face and layer up in a nice looking suit five days a week.  (Shaving my legs is technically optional for me, but I make sure to do it for him, so he will go to bed happy, so he wakes up rested for that suit the next morning, so I can afford to stay home and wear cut offs one more day.  It’s kind of a pattern.)
   Here’s a biggie:  He has complete control over our finances, and I know very little about them.    He has that mammoth burden, too.  I might not know every detail, but I also don’t have to worry about every detail.  Do you need smelling salts?  Some people really have a hard time with this one, but I have to say what a relief it is for me.  He cares and provides for us in ways I didn’t know were even possible.  This is just a strength he brings to our little unity table, and I would be foolish to not accept and then build on it.  And to calm your Independent Person’s fears a little, rest assured that I have more than enough plastic in the back pocket of my cut off jeans to keep me from being a sheltered little Missus.

   He likes lots of expensive toys like cars, electronics, etc; I am perfectly happy to scour garage sales for clothes, home decor, and furniture, but I definitely like a roomy grocery budget so we can eat well and be healthy.  It’s super groovy. 

What smacks of imbalance is exactly what gives us each whatever we want most.
   I once heard a speaker describing fulfilled marriage using the always popular sports metaphor, this time employing football:  He talked about how silly it would be to only fight for the fifty-yard line, never the end zone.  He said that rather than diluting your mutual happiness by always compromising (isn’t compromise usually celebrated as the best scenario?), which really leaves both people only halfway satisfied (implying you are both also halfway un-satisfied), why not strive to score touchdowns for each other more often?  Generously give of yourself until the other person gets everything he or she wants and needs, and chances are the time will soon roll around when your partner does exactly the same loving thing for you.
   The application of this football metaphor is crazy hilarious in this house because we are strictly a commercials-watching Super Bowl couple!
   What Handsome does frees me up and protects me, just as what I do refreshes and inspires him.  This is symbyosis, folks.  This is not a purchase of services rendered or an archaic game of dominance; this is two very (very) different human beings caring for each other in the midst of an ever changing world.
 
   Speaking of ever-changing, throw into this mix the unorthodox and unplanned condition that the two beautiful teenaged daughters who used to occupy every day of our life now live with their Dad, and you have a whole new vacuum to fill.  Guess who gets the brunt of that pain of rejection?  The man who is expected to provide and sacrifice when duty calls.  One of the most blatant double standards a person could endure.

Christmas 2006
   With regard to this, of course, we both know that every day is subject to change.  At any moment I might get that wonderful text or email or phone call that says “I want to see you!” and the life that’s been humming along comes to a happy, screeching, wonderful halt.  Handsome and I know how to throw that emergency brake on, allowing life’s marrow to flow where it is needed most.

An unexpected day at the farm with my Chickens
May 2011

   The way we have designed and discovered our life might not work for everybody, but it works like gangbusters for us.

   I really believe that double standards work just fine as long as the purposes are loving and nourishing, as long as the uniqueness of each person is fulfilled, and as long as each person is contributing to his or her fullest.  Neither person is being taken for granted or abused.  I know we are not above complaining once in a while, but overall we are more than just happy.  We have hit a stride that I think a lot of people take decades to discover.  And this is just our first one.

Happy Tenth Anniversary, Handsome.
I love you Always, Now, and Forever.