A Quote

I read a quote today by Lucille Ball that said you had to love yourself first to
get anything done.  The bible says to love God first and to love your neighbor
as yourself.  Maybe she really meant self-repect rather than love.  It's important
to have self-repect.

Time Travel

If I could travel back in time, what time in my life would I want to live over.  Would it be when I was young with nothing to worry about.  Would it be my high school years, spending time with old friends I knew then?
Would I want to spend a day with my family when all of us were still at home?  Would it be when I was dating my future husband, feeling the joy of falling in love?  Maybe the time when my children were small?  Perhaps the day the Lord saved me or the day when my husband was saved.  Maybe the day we stood in the hospital and viewed  our first grandchild.  It's a good thing that we don't have that choice because I'd spend the rest of my life just trying to decide on one.

Left Overs

When I was cleaning the kitchen this morning, I decided I needed to clean out the left overs in the frig.
While I was doing that, I thought "why do I keep these little dabs of food that I'm never going to eat".
They just clutter up the frig and take up room that I need for things that I'm going to use.  But I keep
putting them in there, throwing them out and then having to wash up the dishes they're in.  I need to
stop that habit.

It made me think of left overs in my mind that should have been thrown out years ago.  Old painful
hurts that keep coming back from time to time.  Things I should have done better, if I'd have been
smarter.

Poems

When I was a sophomore in high school, we had to memorize and recite a poem in English class.  Of course I chose one by Longfellow.  It was entitled "The Builders".
.  A classmate chose "I Have A Rendezvous With Death" by Alan
Seeger.  I thought, oh why did she chose that one.  I've read that poem several
times since then and I feel differently about it.  We all have a rendezvous
with death and none shall fail that rendezvous.

The Old Rugged Cross

We sang" Thhe Old Rugged Cross" at chruch Sunday and everytime I hear that song it reminds me of the
first time I ever heard Bill sang a gospel song.  It was in the early years of our marriage.   He was just sitting playing his guitar and singing as he did a lot when he was home.  He sang "The Old Rugged Cross".  I was surprised that he knew the words to it.
I said, When did you learn that song?  He said I remember hearing my mother sing it when I was growing up.  Of course they did go to church when Bill was growing up.  I guess I was just surprised because I'd never heard him sang a gospel song before.   That was the first gospel song I heard him sang but certainly not the last one.  If there was a gospel song I wanted him to sing at church, he would always learn it and sing it.  When he got sick he was working on a song I wanted him to sing at church.  I had heard the Wilburn Bros. sing it.  It was titled "Don't Go Home Unsaved".  He didn't get to sing it at church but maybe he'll sing it for me when I get to heaven.

Solomon

God gave Solomon much wisdom.  Yet I don't understand him writing Ecclesiastes.  He writes so many times that everything is meaningless and chasing after the wind.  He says one upright man amoung a thousand but not one upright woman amoung them all.  Maybe he married too many women.
Solomon was wise.  And the conclusion of the matter, he said "Fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing whether is good or evil.

A Dream

One night I woke up and I had had a strange dream.  I was going on a journey and I was walking.  When I started there was a man walking along in the same direction and I knew that if I needed him, he would help me.  Along the way I took a nap and when I woike up, I was alone.  Apparantly the man had went on.  I knew I should not have went to sleep.  I went on but I didn't like being alone.  I met people along the way but
they stayed and I kept traveling.  The day got later and it got darker.  Finally there was no one but me.

I was standing in the beginning of a forest and somehow I knew I had to go through it.
I had stopped and I didn''t want to go any farther alone.  I woke up.  As I lay there thinking about the strange dream, I thought that dream is like life.  This life is like a trip and you need someone with you.  You need God.  He will not leave you, He'll stay with you all the way.

Red Raspberries

I bought some red raspberrries this week.  I ate many blackberries when I was growing up but never red
raspberries.  The first time I had those was after Bill and I moved to Milan, IL.  There was a Dairy Queen just before you left Milan to go upon the bridge into Rock Island.  Dairy Queen's were just drive-ins then, and they just had icecream, sundaes, shakes and icecream cones.  Bill loved dairy queen icecream and that was the place we went a lot in the summer evenings.  Bill just wanted a cone but I wanted a raspberry sundae. 

A Sentence

I was reading this book by a author that I had never read before.  I read this sentence and it intrigued me.
The sentence was,"From the day we're born we should all be afraid, but not of dying."  I thought that is
right.  From the day we're born. we have to face life and life is hard.  This life has happiness but it also
has sorrow, pain and loniness.  There are hard things to face in this life but if you're God's child, death is
Heaven.  No more sorrow, grief, or pain.  I don't know what the author meant when he wrote that sentence but it is true.

An Empty House

I woke up this morning and looked at the clock.  It was 6:30, I thought of the days in Milan how busy
it would have been at this time of the morning.  Bill would be leaving for work and the children would be
eating breakfast.  The morning would be busy four children getting ready for school and myself getting
ready for work.  This morning the house was quiet, no traffic going by, no alarm had gone off.  There
was no one here but me and there was really nothing I had to do.  There were things I should do but
it wouldn't really matter if I did anything at all.

The Forties

I sometimes think of the forties when I was still in school.  That was a different time and I think it was a better time.  Of course the forties was also the time of the Second World War and that caused lots of sadness.  Many young men in our community was gone and when they came back, it was to a hero's welcome.   Our community didn't have electricity until 1948.  So of course there was not TV or any of the things that keeps children occupied these days.  We made up our own games and we played outside.  It was cooler under the shade tree than in the house with no air-conditioning.  I remember my grandchildren saying they were bored.  I never remember being bored.  There were books to read on a rainy day and inside games to play and of course there were chores to do, since we lived on a farm.

Most all families went to church back then, now there's families that have never gone to church.  Sometimes
the Preacher was there for  Sunday dinner and we always had fried chicken on those days.  Sometimes neighbors would drop in to visit, unexpectively because there was no phone to call and say they were coming.   Well, time marches on and times keep changing but when you're old sometimes it's hard to change with the time and there's some ways I don't want to change.

Memory

When you get old, memory is an important thing.  I guess it's really important no matter what age you are.  When you're in school, you have to remember your lessons.  Now that I'm old it's the everyday things that I can't remember.  Common words that I use everyday but sometimes they just aren't in my brain at the time I'm trying to say them.  The thing that really baffled me is the things that I don't won't to remember are the the things that stay.   I'd like to wipe out some memories.  Why is it the hurtful things that seem to stay? 

I can't understand memory. 

Old Age Driver

I can't believe the problems I'm having, getting my license renewed.  If this is going to be every two years maybe I'll just retire.  Go into an old folks home and let someone else drive me around.  The eye doctor failed to fill out something and no driving test again.  A drive to Cape and the doctor was on vacation.
Is this supposed to tell me something?  If my mind is going this is not helping it, it's just helping the going
along. 

I'd think with all the trouble they've caused me they wouldn't give me much of a test but I don't think that
will happen.  They marked a x accross the paper the doctor had filled out and gave me another one.  Now
he's got to start all over.  His office could have looked up the information and finish filling it out but now I
have to wait and wonder "Am I going to pass that test".  I only have to the 28th of this month.

I haven't seen better on the right side for years.  If I couldn't see it on the left, I just said it was on the right.
Maybe I should not have been honest this time around but then maybe I'm getting paid back for not being
honest all these years.  There's got to be an end to this eventually.

Driver's Test

I have to go and take another driver's test.  I just took one four years ago and after this one expires
I'll probably have to take one every two years.  I can remember driving without a license but I'd be
afraid to do that now but I did it a long time before I got my license.  When Bill was playing in bars
in the Quad-Cities sometimes it was safer for me to drive home without a license than for him to drive
with one. 

One day he bought the second car and most of the time he left the new one at home, drove the old
one to work.  If I wanted to go to the store or to the laundermat, I just got in the car and drove with-
out a license.  I must have had more nerve then than now.  I would not do that today.  If I don't pass
my driving test, I'll be stuck back in the boonies.  I'll have to sell this place and find a new place to
live. 

High School Reunion

Saturday I went to a Joppa High School Reuion.   It was for anyone who had gone to school there.  There wasn't many there that had gone the four years I had gone.  There was only  three others that had been in my class.  It made me think of all the ones that are no longer living and they were so much a part of my
life in those four years.  Even though the school is sitting on the same ground, it is not the building that I walked across the stage to receive my diploma. 

I remember the laughter the friends, the teachers, the lessons.  Was life really that simple back then?
It really was a different age.  I have a lot of good memories of my high-school years.  I remember the
way we were back then, good friends and good times.

Ugly Feet

This morning I put on sandals, just straps to go to church and I thought of when Dad took  me to get my dress shoes for graduation.  I tried on different shoes but the clerk was very specific about what kind of shoes I should get.  At first I said I'd like  heels but he said "white heels should only be worn for formal evening wear.  So then I said I'd like sandals with straps.  Then he said "No, you should only wear them when you have pretty feet and you  shouldn't wear them.  I thought "Well he's telling me I have ugly feet."
I ended up buying wedge heels with just the toe out and a strap around the heel.  They covered up most of my foot so I guess he thought they covered up most of my ugly feet.  If that happened today I would say  I'm spending my money and I'll buy what kind of shoes I want.

Driver's License

Yesterday I went to take my driver's test but I didn't pass the eye test.  They made me angry, they didn't explain anything.  Just gave me a paper for my eye doctor to fill out.  Now if they ever let me take my test it's going to be harder to stay calm while I'm driving one of those women around.  Well for eighty years I've run into things I don't understand so why should I think this life here will ever be different.  Maybe my eye
doctor will fill the paper out and sent it back and they'll let me take my test and maybe I'll be able to drive
for the next four years, but maybe after four more years I'll just move somewhere where I won't have to drive.  I'm not ready for an old folks home but maybe my body thinks it is.

Strawberries On The Manley Farm

As long as I could remember when I was young, Daddy raised strawberries.  He took them to Grand Chain and shipped them on the train.  I don't know where they went but I bet that who ever got to eat them was happy to get them.   Strawberries were much sweeter back then but not so large.  I think they tried to make them larger and took the taste out.  Mom always made strawberry shortcake and it was so delicious.
The last time I helped to work in the strawberries was the spring after Bill and I were married and he took me by Dad's of the morning as he went to work.  These days when I'm putting strawberries in the freezer I think of how many berries I've picked.

Gettin' Old

I was getting new books ready to be put on the shelves in the library and I saw a book entitled "Gettin' Old Ain't For Wimps".  One Sunday coming out of the church a man made a remark very similar.  He's gone in to a home for elderly now and I don't think he's in good health.  My 80th birthday is coming up soon and I wonder what happened to those eighty years?  Did I really live them?  Maybe I need to read that book, maybe I'll learn something from it.

Job

We've been studying Job in Sunday School.  Three friends came to sit with Job and at first they kept quiet.
When Job spoke then they all had their say and they were diffinitely not helpful at all.  Poor Job had done nothing  for all this to happen.  God had let the devil test him.  When you have bad things happen to you
does your friends think it's your fault.  You can do some things that harm your health but some things just happen and nobody has the right to judge you.  I think maybe when God answered Job, he wanted him
to understand the different between God and man.  Maybe  that is the lesson we need to learn from Job.
We cannot question God.

Sad Thoughts

I went to a funeral today.   This man was fifty years old but in my memory he was still that teenager
who hung out with my son.  His coffin was closed so he'll always be young to me.  The pall bearers
were Scott and other men that went to school with Robin.  One of them had a long gray beard.  I
recognized all but one of them.  He spoke to me and I think I know who he is, I just can't remember
his name.  One of the preachers who spoke at the funeral was one of the boys in school then.  I
didn't know he had became a preacher but I was happy to hear that.  Those boys were all so  young
when we moved to Dongola.  Where did all those years go?

Psalms

I love to read in Psalms.  I read a verse last night that said "My life passes as swiftly as the evening shadows."
I thought that is very  true but was David old when he wrote that?  There are so many beautiful psalms,
I wish I would have memorized a lot of them when I was young and could.  When my eyes are dim and
I can no longer read then I could have repeated them to myself.

Sheep

The Bible refers to humans as sheep.  I've never been around sheep but I've read
that they are not a smart animal.  They will stray and get lost and they can't really
defend themselves.  They don't know danger when they see it and isn't that how
we are sometimes?  The Bible is telling us we need a shepherd.

Memory

Well there was something I was going to write on this blog but I had trouble getting on. 
It's still on my old address and I couldn't remember it and I couldn't get it to come up.
Then finally it did come to me a couple of days later and now I can't remember what I
was going to write.  So now I'm on my blog but nothings on my mind.  I guess I'll just
have to get off and maybe what I was going to write will come back and I'll still remember
my address.  Well guess that's the problems for old women.

Bow The Knee

In church this morning, we sang a song I had never heard before.  The title was "Bow The Knee".  Most of the time when we sang a new song, I'm not crazy about it.  We only sang the chorus of this song but I really liked it and when I got home I looked it up on the computer and listened to the whole song.  I liked the whole song but I want to memorize the words of the chorus because it's good advice and I want to remember the words when things happen that I don't understand.

The words of the chorus is:  Trust the heart of the Father when the answer goes beyond what you can see
Bow the knee,  Lift your eyes toward heaven and believe the one who holds eternity, And when you don't understand the purpose of His plan,  In the presence of the King, Bow the knee.

God Of Wonders

I saw this show on Netflix and it was amazing.  One of the things that really surprised me was the fact
that Congress printed the first bibles in this country.  They printed them for schools.  I wonder when that was.  Probably when our country was young.  What has congress done since then?  Our congressmen back then must have been good men.  What kind of congress have we had since?  Now we can't even have a bible in our schools.  If our forefathers would come back, would they recognize this country at all?

Memorizing

I 've always enjoyed poetry and when I was young it was very easy to memorize it.  I also liked music and if I heard a song a few times, the words would just stay with me.  In the 70's the church where we went started a memorization course to memorize scripture.  I thought "Oh this will be a breeze."  Well it was't
Bill did better than I did.  I tried to tell myself that he could take his book to work with him and study it while he was getting his truck loaded and I couldn't do that. 

A couple of years ago, I was reading Psalms chapter 100 and thought I'd like to memorize this, its so beautiful.  So I worked on it for ages, if I could repeat it one day next day I couldn't.  It would not stay in my memory.  I've heard an older person say your brain gets over-loaded as you get older.  I've decided that what happens when you are young, your brain is soft and things just soak in, even when you don't really try.  As you get older your brain keeps getting firmer so remembering is not so easy.  Then when you get really old, like me, your brain must be hard and slippery and things just slid off and nothing sticks at all.

Dogs We've Had

I was thinking last night about Dusty, the last dog we had.  Really she was Bill's dog.  They were all Bill's dogs.  I was never crazy about animals but we usually had a dog.  The first one Mrs. Willet gave us.  She was an older lady who babysit for me if I went with Bill to play music.  I was at her house and her dog had had puppies.  I was shocked because this sweet older lady was cutting the tails off the pups with a butcher knife.  I took
one of the puppies but did not want it's tail cut off.  I wanted to see it wag.  Every dog we had was Bill's dog, I guess they could tell where the love was.  That dog would follow me to the grocery store which was just up the road and I walked there.  I would go in the summer and buy a ice cream bar and sit on the back step to eat it and Snoopy would sit and look sad because he didn't have any so I always gave the last of it to him.  Sometimes we let him in the house in the evening and Bill and I would lay on the living room floor by him and no matter so close together we could get he would wiggle his way in between us.  That was just a game we played with him.  We didn't have any children at that time. 

The second dog we had was a little black and white dog.  It was a female and we called her Tippy.  We still lived on Ginger Hill and she followed Debbie and I everywhere we walked.  The older couple that lived next door raised tomatoes and we walked down there to buy them.  One day the dog followed us and as she walked in their garage where the tomatoes were, this cat jumped on her back and rode her out of the yard.  Apparantly they didn't like dogs and had trained her to do that.  From then on when we would go after tomatoes she would follow us until she saw where we were going and then back to the house she would go.

One dog we had was first Lora's but we took it because she wasn't supposed to have a dog where she lived.  She was a beauty, a sheltie and of course she was Bill's dog.  She followed him around the farm
where we lived and if there was a mud hole she would not step in it.  Bill would pick her up and carry her across it.

The last dog we had was really JoBeth's or was supposed to be but she moved away and he became Bill's dog.  He was just a mutt but a smart mutt and if you listened to Bill he was a amazing.  We never had any other critters to deal with because he took care of them.  If we had a mole in the yard he would soon have it dug out and killed and I could certainly use him now.  When Bill went into town he would sit out on the hill and watch the road and when he saw the truck turn in the lane, he was off down to meet it and race it to the house.  When Bill got sick he would meet the truck everytime we came in and somehow he knew that Bill was no longer on the drivers side he would sit and wait for me to open Bill's truck door,  He would sit there for Bill to pet and talk to him for a while then Bill would tell him to move out of his way and he would.  He didn't live very long after Bill died.  I guess he thought I wouldn't be as good a campanion to him and he was probably right.

Jonah

Our Sunday School Class has been studying the book of Jonah.  I've known the story of Jonah most of my life but I learned a lot from this study.  Jonah really wanted God to destroy the city of Nineveh.  He must
of hated the people there.  They were wicked people, but God still loved them.  Jonah didn't want to preach to them so he went the other way but you can't run from God.  Jonah must have preached harder because he didn't like them and maybe that was why God chose him to do the preaching.  He was mad because they repented and God didn't destroy them.  Why did Jonah stay there?  Was it because he  wanted to see God destroy the town?  Then God sent the worm to destroy the plant that was shading Jonah and he was mad again.  So God told him that he didn't do any work to get the plant that was shading him.  God ask him why shouldn't God care about the great city of Nineveh.  The Bible doesn't tell us if God ever got through to Jonah but He did get through to me.  There are people that I've held things against but studying Jonah has taught me that God loves those people too.   There are things that you just have to let go.

Earrings

I was putting my earrings in this morning and I thought about the time Debbie ask her Dad if she could get her ears pierced.  He said "If you get your ears pierced you'll have to get your nose pierced.  You never heard of that back then.  Later years he'd have never said that because people were actually getting their nose pierced.  I've seen people with their nose pierced and thought, what would you do if you had a cold and had to blow you nose a lot.  Yuh!  Even though her Dad didn't really give his permission, she got her ears pierced anyway.  Not too long after.

False Teeth

I've lost my upper jaw teeth.  I've been going to the dentist to replace them for over three months.  I never thought it would take this long.  Next Tuesday I should get the partial.  I'm not really looking forward to that day.  The last time I was there the dentist put the partial in my mouth with teeth but not the permanant ones.
It felt awful.  I thought I'll never be able to eat with this.  I couldn't even talk plain with that junk in my mouth.  I never expected it to be this hard.  I thought it would be a good thing.  Will I ever get used to something like that in my mouth?  I can't chew food without jaw teeth and I'm so looking forward to being able to eat things not being ground up.  I thought when I got them, I wouldn't have to go back except to
get my teeth cleaned.  The dentist said I'm getting them the first of the week so I'll be able to go back right away if they make my mouth sore.  I hadn't even thought about that.  I must have been dreaming thinking that I could just put them in my mouth and everything would be great.  This whole process seems to be taking aas long as it took for me to get the teeth I used all my life.  I hope finally they'll work as well as those did.

Battles

I was reading the bible this morning, reading the story of David and Goliath.  David said "the battle is the Lord's".  It made me think back over my life and I thought about the battles I tried to win on my own.  One I tried for many years on my own and never won.  When God came into the picture, He won it for me.  Just depend on God, his battles are never lost.

The Tea Kettle

I was taking my shower this morning and washing my hair and I thought about how we did that in the fortys.  Living on a farm with no indoor plumping, nothing was modern.  Baths were not daily.  Did just a wash pan of water get you that clean?  I don't know but that's all we had.  You couldn't turn on the faucet and get hot water.  You had to heat it on the stove in the tea kettle.  Come to think about it why did we call that a tea
kettle?  You didn't make tea in it, you just heated water in it.  It set on the stove always filled with water and if you used all the hot water and didn't fill it back up, someone was going to be mad.  Today tea kettles are obsolete but they were inportant things back then.  We wouldn't have had any hot water if we didn't have a tea kettle.  I bet you would have found one in every house.

Rainy Days

There's an old song by the Carpenters entitled "Rainy Days and Mondays".  Today is a rainy day and it's Monday.  It made me think of that old song.  Rainy days do always get me down.  I like to see the sun shine, even though the farmers are wanting rain because our water table is low.  But couldn't it just rain for a short time and the sun come out.  Yesterday was a rainy day, tomorrow's supposed to be a rainy day.  Winter in Southern Illinois is always dreay.  I'm so ready for Spring.  I want to see the sun shine and the flowers blooming.

Vitamins

When did vitamins get so large?  I used to take one a day vitamins and they were little round capsules, not hard to swallow at all.  Now the doctor expects me to take two calcium pills a day and they're huge.   When I was carrying my children, I took those every day and I don't remember having trouble swallowing them.
Now when I take one I'm not sure if they're going down or if I'm going down because I've choked to death.
I try to take fish oil capsules and they are the same way.  Way too large.  Is there a company out there that can make some small capsules that we need to take.  I wish but apparently not.

A Puzzle

One of my granddaughters got me a puzzle for Christmas last year.  It was one thousand pieces.  She knew I used to work puzzles  when she was little.  She used to help me.  The weather was bad and I was housebound.  I thought this is a good time to work that puzzle so I got it out.  When I finally got all the pices laid out on my table, it covered it.  I looked at it and felt, maybe I should just put this back in the box.

It took me a long time just to get the border laid out.  I kept working, once I start something I feel like it has to be finished.  It's been almost a week and I have it all finished except for the sky and the sky is a lot.  I think there is only three different shapes to the pieces.  They just all look alike.  I keep telling myself I'm not too old to get a puzzle put together.  When my family comes for my quake will this unfinished puzzle be still  laying on my table.

A Painting

I was sitting in the dentist office, waiting for him to come in and there was a print on the wall in front of me.  It was the only thing I could see.  The title was "The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh".  I thought in my life time I have seen lots of starry nights.  I've never seen one that looked like that.  On a clear night, the stars are sparkling in the sky.  Only God could make something that beautiful.   I looked up Van Gogh's paintings on the computer when I came home.  He painted some that wasn't that bad, why did whoever decorated that office pick that one?

A Song For Me

Tonight I heard Alan Jackson sing a song he had written for his wife and it made me think of the time Bill was singing with the band.  Ronnie Gulley had a song he had written for his wife and he sang it every once in a while for her.  Donald Miller would sing a certain song for his wife.  I had told Bill several times that he should sing a song for me.  One night the guys were playing.  We were celebrating Ronnie's retirement.  When Bill stepped up to the mike he said, "I'm singing this song for my wife."  It was a Hank Williams song that was talked more than sung.

It was entitled, "Why Don't You Make Up Your Mind".  Some of the words were:
When I agree with you honey, it makes you mad
And when I don't, it makes you sad
When I argue back you pack and leave
And when I don't you pout and grieve
There just ain't nobody knows what I go through
Will you please make up your mind what you want me to do

That's just the first verse, some of the verses talk about him getting kicked around
Everyone thought that it was so funny that he was singing that for me and he thought
it was funnier than anyone.  When they took a break, he came and sit down by me
and I said "Just don't sing me anymore songs".  Well we did have some fun back then
but that really wasn't the kind of song I wanted him to sing for me.

October

                                                    
This is a glorious day.  It made me think of a day in October, 1953.  It was just a day like this in the Quad-cities.  There wasn't many nice fall days in the north.  That day I walked from 11th st. down to Slivkans, where I worked.  The weather was warm and the sun was shining and the leaves were drifting down, red and gold and I was young.