I am still reading blogs, just not doing much blogging myself.  It comes down to, what is more entertaining to me, in the few minutes I take as a break for myself while trying to help Ronald pack?  Reading other people's blogs, most definitely.  I haven't been doing much commenting on those blogs, for the same reason I haven't been writing on my own blog.  But that doesn't stop me from reading the blogs. 

One thing that does get in the way of my working is trying to pack books.  Every time I go to pack books, I catch myself reading them instead.  Not a good way to get work done.  Poor Ronald is getting very frustrated with me.  I am not able to help him with the hard stuff (he moved the Wurlitzer piano by himself, for example), but I have been packing the books, papers, and breakables.  Except when I find an old book that I haven't seen in awhile, and get sidetracked.

As far as books go, I have over sixty boxes of paperbacks now, with most boxes holding about 60 books.  Mostly science fiction, fantasy, and horror, of course.  There are still two more bookcases to go (about a dozen boxes per bookcase).  Ronald wants me to sell a bunch of my books, as I once did when we were first married.  I don't know if I can or if I want to.  Jessica and Christine have both said they want some if I am getting rid of any, but Ronald sees all those boxes and sees dollar signs.  I see my books.  My books.  It would be like cutting off one of my arms to part with them.

As far as hardbacks go, I think I only have about five boxes of those, with between 20 and 30 in each box.  I never could afford them, so I rarely bought them.  I was told that they last longer than paperbacks, but that hasn't been my experience.  For some reason, hardbacks attract the dogs more than paperbacks.  Several have obvious puppy teeth marks.  Though the dogs ate on the paperbacks too, they really munched on hardbacks. 

Ah well, back to packing....

Tell me, if you were driving down a road at night and a SHINY HALF WHITE 250 pound animal is standing in the road, wouldn't you at least avoid it?  Or, at least TRY?  Well, the whomp noggin that hit poor Shorty didn't. 

Our fence had been pushed down, and the horses taken or just gone, and we had tried to go find Shorty, Belle, and Chokai (the little stud colt), when Ronald said he heard an animal get hit on the road.  A few minutes later, he wouldn't let me go back outside (good thing, at the time, I was bleeding internally and didn't know it).  Well, as it turned out, it was Shorty, but Belle and Chokai almost got creamed too, but Ron managed to shoo them off the road. 

Was the driver sad that he had killed a young girl's friend?  Hell no.  He was pissed that his daddy's car was messed up.  Their car insurance people have called us and tried to make us feel responsible.  But it just doesn't work that well when we know the guy was speeding, so far overdriving his headlights that even a 250 pound half white shiny fat mini horse doesn't show up in his headlights in time for him to react.  In fact, the father called and tried to make me feel responsible, the night before I ended back up in the hospital, bleeding internally.  Last name of Avila, or something, I think, out of Alvin.  Tough luck.  I don't.  I feel bad for my daughter and for her Shorty, a dear friend since she was a child.  But I don't feel sorry for you or your car.  Next time, you might consider how your son drives at night before giving him the keys to your car.

...and back toward the side of Science, with a capital S.  I have no "belief" in evolution, like it is a religion or something, I am quite satisfied that it has been proven to me beyond a reasonable doubt as existing.  In fact, when it wasn't until I was in sixth grade that I found out that my mother believed in creationism, and I was completely mortified, horrified that any of my friends' might find out that I had such an unscientific, backward mother. 

In reality, most of them would have been delighted--they would have believed that they have finally found a common ground with such a strange child as I was, but I didn't know that then.  Their mothers believed in the Creation, they believed in the Creation, and they would have been shell shocked to find out that I didn't.

My best friend from sixth grade until her death shortly after we graduated from high school knew how I felt. Becky felt I was going to Hell because I didn't believe in the Creation.  I also know she prayed for my soul nightly.  But even she misunderstood.

I don't disbelieve in the Creation.  I just don't think the people who put down The Word understood what the heck was being said to them. 

Think of it this way:  I have these lovely, cut lead glass cobalt blue dishes.  They are beautiful, hand made, hand cut, the whole deal.  If I were to show them to a baboon, would the baboon understand why I think they are beautiful?  Could the baboon explain to me what makes them beautiful?  If I handed them to the baboon and say to the baboon, this is beautiful, show all the other baboons and tell them what make these dishes beautiful, what would happen?

The baboon would smash the glass and carry around little bits and pieces of pretty glass and cut all of his friends and enemies with the glass.

That is what what we have done every time The Word came down.  We used Someone's words, broken out of context to cut each other to smithereens, forgetting the beauty that was the whole Word, the whole Meaning. 

I can't follow shards.  I can only do the best I can do.  It has been a long, horribly long month on me, and I have had to do a lot of thinking about things I don't often want to examine too closely in myself.  If I can only do the best I can do, I must make sure it really is the best I can do. 

Honesty is the best policy.  Some of my Internet friends may no longer talk to me now that I am being open to say 'Hey, I am NOT a creationist.  I think we read that shard of the Word wrong and it got twisted and melt and remade by people who wanted it to fit their little monarchy (to say they were the anointed of the Lord) or whatever, but it just doesn't fit.  That doesn't mean I believe The Word is wrong, that means I believe time has warped what come down to us.  Now it is time for us to listen with our hearts and see with our eyes.  Things we developed to learn how to interpret our world to help serve everyone else.'  Pretty strange things for a conservative to say, huh?

Evolution is part of this world, and as such, I believe it to be part of The Word.  I wish I didn't feel like such a minority in my own party on this issue.