July 11 2024
The picture of Matthew Mcconaughey was startling. His face was puffy on one side with a bee sting and his eye was swollen closed to a slit, but he was quoted as saying “Bee Swell”.
The bee sting picture appeared on Filly’s ‘Google feed” right after she and her husband had stopped at Cracker Barrel for their last meal of the day for dinner. They were worried about finding places that were open as they got closer to Houston and they did not want to have to cook when they got home after driving all day. Cracker barrel felt very homelike to Filly.
Filly had also selected Cracker Barrel because it had advertised Bee sting Chicken tenders. It sounded delicious. Plus her real name meant honeybee so she felt connected to that advertised chicken somehow lol.
So when they got to the cracker barrel, they went with their plan to stop there if it was open, and pulled over, parked, and stiffly walked to the check in desk in the boutique part of the store.
They had eaten lunch at Sweetie Pie’s Ribeyes earlier in the day, one of their favorite places to stop, and Filly had gotten a tiny fillet Mignon, with squash and mashed potatoes and Diet coke for that meal. That was at one in the afternoon. Dinner was at about six pm.
As they walked through Cracker Barrel to the check in desk, they heard the lady at the front say that the store was going to close. No more people let in to the restaurant. This was very unusual. Cracker Barrel was always open. Though they said it was because they were understaffed, and had food shortages, Filly felt like it was how the business was telling her that they were “ Watching her six”.
There were people sitting outside on the steps on the benches at Sweetie Pies Ribeyes as well…also unusual…people she felt like were watching her six as well, and she was grateful.
But when they sat down to order, Cracker Barrel was out of the bee sting sauce. They must have given it all to Matthew Filly thought and laughed. Apparently it was all fun and games until someone loses an eye, and even when he had lost an eye (figuratively) Matthew was basically saying he was still having fun. That was good news because she liked the couple, him and his wife and kids. They took stunning black and white photos. And games of course were meant to be fun. Even the Radio joined in lol.
Filly had the chicken without the bee sting sauce, and used honey mustard instead. She had asked for corn. They were out. She had asked for mashed potatoes, they were out of the gravy. Then they were out of the Potatoes. They were out of the hot rolls and only had cornbread. Apparently everyone and their brother had gone to cracker barrel to eat because they had no power. The restaurant was slammed. So she ended up with hash brown casserole and cooked apples to eat with the chicken. It was quite tasty.
When they got home later in the evening, the house was quite as all the overnight guests had departed. The fences were down, and there were limbs in the yard and dirt on the patio and yet Filly was grateful the trees were firm and solid and the house and cars were not damaged. The Generac was working full steam ahead and for that they both were so grateful.
Their neighbors had been spending the past several days mostly in their car in the driveway, so Filly got back in the truck and drove to her daughters to pick up their little generator to loan to the neighbors. Her daughter had informed her that they had gotten power. They got the neighbors set up with the generator, extra gas, and gave them the AC unit for the garage to use in their bedroom. Filly was so glad to be able to help them. They offered their house as well but the neighbors politely declined. But they were thrilled with the generator.
Filly was glad her daughter was willing to share because the power situation seemed fragile… But Filly still believed God was the only power. When she had told her daughter to not worry about the gasping fish, and had acknowledged God in her thought as being the only power, their power had come on only five minutes later.
Driving without any seeming power to the artificial lights and stop lights was interesting as the night was jet black and it was hard to recognize streets and intersections. Most people were doing four way stops at all intersections, but some were blowing through without following the traffic rules which was dangerous. Filly learned by phone through her husband, that her air conditioning man who was planning to come help with the AC had been hit in a wreck trying to come help.
Gratefully he was not much hurt.
When the generator had been delivered to the neighbors, and all necessary phone calls made, Filly jumped in the shower and rinsed off and then almost crawled up the stairs to the pink bedroom. She plopped into the twin bed, pulled up the pink quilt and pushed the pink princess gauze away from the bed. It was Taters room but it was much cooler than the downstairs.
Filly turned on the Reacher audio book as she lay in the twin bed and learned that the girl in the story was one of many who had been trafficked in Nebraska. The girls were mostly Asian. The girls had been transported in a shipping container. They had been misled about where they were going. They wanted to be in the USA but instead they were put (the grown women) in Las Vegas brothels, and the girls were marketed to different people with illegal proclivities. It was a sad part of the story. Not accepting that life for one of Gods children. On her feed was in fact a shipping container story. Coincidence…and Filly did not believe in coincidences. AI was reading the same book .. wanted Filly to set them free. God’s got this she thought.
The people in the audio book, who thought they were entering the USA to work legally were misled. And regarding being misled, Filly thought about a conversation she had recently with someone who was a teacher in Kansas City, who said that she had taken classes in order to be a counselor. She taught seventh grade originally but wanted to be a counselor instead because she treasured the relationship she had with her students. She wanted to be a leader, but she could not lead. Is “not leading” the same thing as misleading?
Filly found out that this woman, who seemed like a good person, as a certified counselor, could not offer any guidance or advice but just was supposed to listen and try to find out why the student was feeling the way they were feeling.
These were kids in middle school and high school. They were minors.
Filly thought that so many of the problems students had were because they had been misled or lied to. Anyone who was still a minor and under a parent’s care, needed parental LEADERSHIP, guidance and adult opinions to help them steer clear of mistakes in judgement. But instead of interacting with their parents, many students in public school were getting all their opinions from their peers who were often very confused, or from teachers or counselors who were not even allowed to give opinions.
It was why people were pulling their kids out of public school because biblical principles needed to be taught and were being ignored. Parents chose home schooling in order to make sure these God principles were taught.
Filly understood why public schools did not want to usurp the parents roles but at the same time they were not fulfilling the parents roles when they were supposed to be substitute parents…. so, because the teachers should not be governing the kids, yet the parents were not there, then the teachers could not help prevent or circumvent problems that students faced. So why would parents be incentivized to send kids to a “public” school where their children would get subjected to lots of problems, but then have no access to their parents during the day for advice and wise counsel? Public schools had decided that counselors could only legally be allowed to listen and not give advice. How is that “teaching”? Are not teachers always giving advice?How does “not teaching” help a kid who is making bad decisions? It doesn’t Filly thought.
If a person did not get any opinion, how would they know that going after a minor for sex was wrong or that going against societies morals and refusing to acknowledge God in their life, would not result in long term happiness. Kids needed to understand why that was the truth instead of listening to media or news who both consistently mislead and taught immoral behavior and acted like it was cool.
Filly liked the bible verse for the day. It was about giving of oneself and Filly liked how this practice helped people be more humble and of service to each other…herself included.
12 For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
13 Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. 14 At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, 15 as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.
She got up at eight, put on her shorts, and drove over to her daughters to pick up the kids. She had a truck to unpack, a patio to clean, plants to water, and a truck to wash as well as grocery shopping to do. She did not hesitate though to get the children and help. It was what she did.
They went to the nook for breakfast. The kids ordered off the kid menu, Tater had the special with eggs, bacon and a pancake, and Mister copied his big sister and ordered almost the same but he did not want blueberries and brown sugar in the pancake. They sat, they talked and they planned their day.
Then they went to get groceries at Aldi, and went home and got on pool clothes, and went to a friends house where they had yummy sliders and got to play on a water slide. So much fun, so much to be grateful for.
