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.