Wednesday, March 13, 2013

To Fly a Mockingbird or Give Leadership to It

Think I am going to name our mockingbird Boo Radley.  He takes up the cause of the doves and fights for them.  It's a time of a mockingbird hiding in the knothole of a tree located next to the NOT ramshackle home of Buddy.  And this is when I met Boo Radley, the bird.  Boo watches from a distance and then jumps to action. 

How weird is this?  I have a pinched nerve on my outer thigh.  It hurts like the dickens.  Who knew?  I have had pinched nerves over the years but those were mainly in my shoulders but I have to say this pinched nerve in the thigh is one of the more painful things I have ever experienced and I have a high threshold for pain.  It feels like a huge contusion without the bruising.  If I sit still for too long a pain that I cannot describe in any other way than it feels like an ice pick is stabbing me.  It gets worse at night and every time there is that pain like an ice pick, my whole leg jerks and wakes me up.  The only remedy is an over the counter drug like Tylenol or Advil and I cannot take either one of those in conjunction with the meds I am on.  Oh and wear loose clothing.  Not a problem on that. 

I went to Whole Foods this morning and picked up a couple of dinners for the coming days.  The peeled oranges and tangerines got a ride home to our house too.  I spent less money than last week, so that's a good thing.  I came home and put the food up and then headed to Enchanted Garden to find some drift roses.  They also had some snap dragons and geraniums that looked good.  I need to finish clearing out the back flower bed and we need to raise it up a couple of notches so I can plant roses back there.  I loved having all the flowers all over the flowerbed but it was a pain to weed and that means Roy has to weed.  I may put in another raised bed closer to the patio this spring.  Guess I'll have to wait and see. 

After my delicious chicken salad sandwich for lunch I decided to venture out on the trek.  I made the first round of the water feature, which has a name.  Found this out on the trail.  It is the Cedar Grove Creek.  Who knew?  Then I rode down to the new elementary school and back across the street and began on a journey I have never made.  I went on the other side and rode on the north side of the lake.  Steeper slopes but I made it and decided to return home via Rancho de Five Blvd and then take the tunnel across the street to get home.  I emailed Roy when I got home and told him.  He sent back a blank email.  He was speechless.  To tell you the truth so was I. 

So now it is Wednesday morning.  It's a beautiful sunrise and I'm contemplating a little ride around the water feature.  I used this spray liniment that I bought at Cracker Barrel last year on the way to the Biltmore.  It's that Watkin's brand and that stuff worked.  I never woke up last night from shooting pain in my thigh.  For the next few days if you are around me and the lovely fragrance of liniment greets you, well then you'll know it's me. 

One of my favorite sayings to make fun of besides 'amazing, amazing' is 'giving leadership.'  I will now use it in a sentence; On this project I am going to give leadership to it.  Translation, you are going to do all the work but run stuff by me so I look like I am in the loop and when it comes time for kudos...if the project is successful and why wouldn't it be because I gave leadership to it,  the leader takes the majority of the credit.  I remember sitting in a staff meeting years ago and the person in charge of a particular ministry tool was given time to explain why this ministry tool is important and how to use it.  She could explain it but she couldn't do it.  Why?  Because she had given leadership to her admin.  This person went through a whole lot of admins because they became wise to her ways in a short period of time, they quit before she could fire them.  At least most of them got the jump.  Then came that day not too soon after the demo or should I say lack of demo, in the the words of Duck Dynasty...she gone.  Seems to me there are a lot of business terms bandied about in the church world that doesn't keep the original intent of the term.  Churches like business models it seems but when the business models don't fit into what they want to do, BAM!!!  They retreat back into church world.  I don't know why I am even thinking about this except this morning in an exchange of emails with Roy we both were using the term 'give leadership' to each other because neither one of us wants to make the needed phone call.  So in true form I went to church world and pulled the 'women can't be leaders or take leadership roles' excuse.  Not that I think that but it did work nicely for me.  Now I'm off to give leadership to Buddy and see if she will pick up the sheep she scattered about the house last night.  Who am I kidding?  She'll totally pull 'cat world' out of the bag because cats are the kings and queens of the universe. 

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