Mothers and Daughters

It feels like our weather just can’t make up its mind. We are experiencing all the springtime cold snaps we Southerners are fond of naming Dogwood Winter, Locust Winter, and Blackberry Winter--it just seems like they are coming a bit later than usual this year. This has poor Nate all confused as evidenced by his question to Vicki the other morning, “Mommy, do I wear long sleeve pants or short sleeve pants today?”

MOTHER’S DAY. Sunday was a busy day for Vicki. It has been a real treat to watch her step into her new job at church. She had interviewed several kids on video tape about their mothers and had me edit the footage for an opening video to Sunday’s service. She asked the kids several questions (What drives your mom crazy? How do you show your mom you love her? How do you know your mom loves you? etc.). I think the funniest ones were the kid who thought his mom made the best Hamburger Helper in the whole world. Then there was the the boy who responded to the question about what drives his mom crazy by saying, “Oh man, where do I start!”

Vicki also had all the kids come down to the front of the sanctuary where she delivered a short lesson/devotional for them before having them pass flowers out to all the women present. She also lined up Mary Alice Yates to take mother/children portraits for anyone who wanted one. Have I said I am proud of my wife before?

Speaking of being proud, Jenna played Amazing Grace in both services on Sunday. She did such a good job. (She’s practicing putting the left hand and right hand parts of the Pink Panther Theme together as I type and doing it really well.) I went home feeling really good about both of the women at my house.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM. Mom celebrated a milestone birthday Monday. The church staff had a surprise lunch for her that day. We all went out to eat at the Catfish House last night. I think Mom is finding it hard to believe that she’s been around for eight decades now, although the waitress guessing her age at 65-67 made that pill a bit easier to swallow.

PASSWORD REPERCUSSIONS. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we have new email at work. I had a hand in setting up our new email addresses in that I helped to generate the file containing all the address names and passwords to be imported into the server. Wanting to keep the passwords pretty secure I created random passwords for everyone based off one of the Seven Dwarfs followed by a number (e.g. happy123, doc345, or sleepy947).

You know, I never dreamed we would have so many people who would be truly grumpy about the password they got. At least their sense of humor came back when the naming scheme was explained and that it was completely random and not a personal attack. Of course, one teacher voiced this complaint in a faculty meeting which opened the door for a colleague to quip, “We’ve all been wondering why you were grumpy for years now.”

If this job ever comes my way again I am going to use the fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22) or something.

Joe