The High Price of a Day…Each Day

Dear Reader:

Some days I think remind us of a past day so we can better understand how priceless the wonder and mystery of any ordinary day can be.

This is the beginning of a new day.

I have been given this day to use as I will.

I can waste it or use it for good.

 

What I do today is important.

Because I’m exchanging a 

day of my life for it.

 

When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone

forever leaving in its place whatever I have traded

for it. 

 

I pledge to myself that it shall be;

Gain not loss; Good not evil;

Success, not failure; Love not fear

in order that I shall not regret the price I paid for this day.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

On patriotic days we hear much discussion about the high price of freedom in human lives and immediately images of names on tombstones and memorial walls flood our memories.

However…as observed in the prose above…don’t we have the choice to make every single day of our life the best day we can possibly make it…so if it is our last day…”we shall not regret the price we paid for it?”

While going through some old blog photos a couple of days ago…a picture of a Thomas Jefferson puppet doll stared back at me, with a pair of earrings on it…I started giggling and then completely burst out laughing because yesterday had just repeated itself again.

The Jefferson doll picture accompanied one of my old blog posts about the antics of little Eva Cate when she was about five…(four years ago.) She was a “tinkerer, a putterer“…nothing brought her more joy than finding loose coins, jewelry, scraps of paper, markers, pebbles, etc. She would  take them from the spot of discovery and move them elsewhere. She could spend hours doing this over and over.

After Eva Cate spent one weekend with me (during this time) I was running late for an appointment the following Monday morning and couldn’t find my favorite clip-on earrings.

I had left them on the computer table…where were they? Just when I was about to give up and put on the “pinchy” ones I noticed that the Jefferson doll looked differently…he was wearing my favorite earrings. Case Solved…Culprit Caught….Eva Cate.

Saturday morning…I was folding laundry on my bed and putting things back in their rightful drawers or closets. A Fed-Ex knock on the door sent me scurrying to the front to discover that some earrings I had ordered on-line (wooden ones) had arrived.

I tried them on, really liked them, and decided when and with what I would wear them first. Since Rutledge and Lachlan weren’t here at Easter two of the stuffed rabbit/eared dogs were lying at the foot of the bed. I placed them on one of the pillows to try to remember to put them up to have for next Easter.

Yesterday when I went to get my new earrings the box was there but no earrings…what in the world could I have done with them….I was beyond frustrated with myself…I had just had them the day before in the bedroom.

 

Suddenly as I gazed around  at the bed covering…there on one of the pillows was the stuffed dog/rabbit ears with two wooden earrings on top. Too funny! I have become Eva Cate I thought to myself…the putterer “acorn” doesn’t fall far from the tree!

 

 

So until tomorrow…In defense of all of us “putterers”…our “condition” does bring us closer to God in prayer.

Oh God please help me find my car keys so I won’t be late for this or that“Oh God…please tell me that I didn’t leave the car windows rolled down halfway this afternoon now that it is midnight with torrential rains and gusty winds blowing. “Oh God…I know I am a lamebrain…but You do know that I love you, don’t You?…and this child scatterbrain of Yours appreciates everything You do for me every single day…I couldn’t get through a day without You.” 

Yep, we putterers and tinkerers are lost little lambs when it comes to remembering where things are…but we never forget Who keeps bringing us back in the fold.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

P.S. I hate to admit it but Eva Cate has gone from putterer to organizer these days…thank goodness she is turning into “her mother’s child.”

About Becky Dingle

I was born a Tarheel but ended up a Sandlapper. My grandparents were cotton farmers in Laurens, South Carolina and it was in my grandmother’s house that my love of storytelling began beside an old Franklin stove. When I graduated from Laurens High School, I attended Erskine College (Due West of what?) and would later get my Masters Degree in Education/Social Studies from Charleston Southern. I am presently an adjunct professor/clinical supervisor at CSU and have also taught at the College of Charleston. For 28 years I taught Social Studies through storytelling. My philosophy matched Rudyard Kipling’s quote: “If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” Today I still spread this message through workshops and presentations throughout the state. The secret of success in teaching social studies is always in the story. I want to keep learning and being surprised by life…it is the greatest teacher. Like Kermit said, “When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot.”
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4 Responses to The High Price of a Day…Each Day

  1. bcparkison says:

    Isn’t it fun ,and interesting, watching our grans develope into their place in this life.

    • Becky Dingle says:

      It is amazing to see the different versions of who she will be one day pop out…it is like she is trying them all on to see what is the best version of her… who will become her.

  2. Ging Edwards says:

    Love your new earrings and also where you found them…

    • Becky Dingle says:

      Too funny…and good grief..I have never heard anything remotely close to your stove predicament…even the originator of the phrase “try try again” would have said…”Give up!” 🙂

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