Gertrude McFuzz and We have a Winner

Ahh, finally, the giveaway is over and Our Little Heaven won. So that was fun.

So if you didn't know before, you are quickly learning. I am a Dr. Seuss fan. Just a side note, I am a very big non-fan of my computer right now. (So if stuff doesn't quite make sense, it's because I'm a phrase or two or three ahead of the all-wonderful computeing brain of my computer and therefore I cn't see my spelling until it's a line away and then to try and go back is sheer torture for my instant gratification self. So?...) And by the time, I had all that typed out, the computer had mostly caught back up, but I decided not to correct myself on the basis of I'm not sure what.

Also of note, is the UPS man was just here and I'm rather anxious to see what he brought. I've been waiting on a couple books that I am to review. Even though I have five staring me in the face, I have six out there yet, I believe. The one is only a coloring journal and I am simply waiting until September as I was asked.

Enough of the blah's of life and back to Dr. Seuss. So when I bought Yertle the Turtle, the book comes with three lovely life lesson stories. I really need to read them to D, perhaps he would enjoy them more than the rhyming stories that Amber is hung up on now. Books like "But Not the Hippopotamus", etc. Anyway, Gertrude McFuzz is a very unhappy bird. Why? Because Lolla-Lee-Lou has two feathers on her behind and Gertrude only has one.

This is a problem that has been present since the day Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. Why did they sin? One reason I could see is because God knew more than they did and Satan convinced them that that wasn't good. So Gertrude sees Lolla-Lee-Lou with one more feather and she is completely discontented and unhappy. So she goes to see Dr. Dake and he tells her to go to the pillberry tree and eat a berry after telling her that her tail is just right for her.

So off to the tree goes Gertrude and sure enough

"Yes! There was the vine! And as soon as she saw it
She plucked off a berry. She started to gnaw it.
It tasted just awful. Almost made her sick.
But she wanted that tail, so she swallowed it quick.
Then she felt something happen! She felt a small twitch
As if she'd been tapped, down behind, by a switch.
And Gertrude looked 'round. And she cheered! It was true!
Two feather!  Exactly like Lolla-Lee-Lou."

And as is so often the case, when we get what we finally think we've always wanted, we quickly become unhappy and want a little bit more or a little bit better.

"Then she got an idea! 'Now I know what I'll do...
I'll grow a tail better than Lolla-Lee-Lou!'
'These pills that grow feathers are working just fine!'
So she nibbled another one off of the vine!

She felt a new twitch. And then Gertrude yelled, WHEE!
Miss Lolla has only just two! I have three!.....
She snatched at those berries that grew on that vine.
She gobbled down four, five, six, seven, eight, nine!
And she didn't stop eating, young Gertrude McFuzz,
Till she'd eaten three dozen! That's all that there was.

Then the feather popped out! With a zang! With a zing!
They blossomed like flowers that bloom in the spring.....

And still they kept growing! They popped and they popped
Until, 'long about sundown, when, finally, they stopped. ...

Then she spread out her wings to take off from the ground,
But, with all of those feathers, she weighed ninety pound!
She yanked and she pulled and she let out a squawk,
But that bird couldn't fly! Couldn't run! Couldn't walk!"

"To lift Gertrude up almost broke all their beaks
And to fly her back home, it took almost two weeks.
And then it took almost another week more
To pull out those feathers. My! Gertrude was sore!"

But in the end she was smarter because she realized that she had been made with only one feather for a reason.

How often is that? We get what we think we want, but it only drags us down until we can hardly move. We're mired in, either with the weight of financial debt, emotional baggage, relationship crisis, whatever and we can't go anywhere. And not only that, but generally it is a very lonely spot to be. We are all by ourselves. Thankfully, Gertrude cried out and somebody came to her rescue, but sometimes we hide and try to act as though everything is normal when inside we are crying out for a friend.

I'm not going to say that sometimes we don't have these things weighing us down and it wasn't because we were searching to have the latest and the greatest. I recognize that these things can happen apart from our poor mistakes, but in this example we're talking about things that we pursued that left us lonely and helpless.

I believe it is Ravi Zacharias who says, "The loneliest moment in life is when you have done that which you thought would deliver the ultimate and it has let you down."  Gertrude McFuzz thought she was going to be the coolest chick in town with her array of beautiful feathers and in the end all she had was a sore bottom.

Okay, I'm pretty sure quoting Ravi and Dr. Seuss in the same blog post isn't "politically correct" or in this case "bloggerly correct" but hey, I think it fit.


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