Jonathan, David's dear friend, was killed along with his father Saul, and two other brothers.  Which left the crown in doubt.  Saul's fourth (weak) son was crowned, but Abner, Saul's top general, ran the country.  And since David's armies outnumbered him, Abner decided to try and make a truce.  A truce that would reunite the kingdom of Israel with Judah.  Abner wanted to be top dog over all the armies.

So Abner sent a delegation to David outlining his plan to reunite the kingdom without war.  David accepted--and eventually was crowned as God's rightful King of Israel.  He had already been crowned as King of Judah.  Israel was now a reunited nation.

But Saul's armies had a hard time accepting David.  They had been loyal to Saul, and had spent years hunting David down with the intent of killing him.  David didn't push.  He slowly regained their trust by his skillful handling of problems that arose.  It took years and years.

Politics.  Behind the scenes rumbling.  Deals.  And more deals.  Human nature hasn't changed in three thousand years.  The thing we have to remember is that God always has a plan.  And nations rise and fall according to their ability to come in line with His plans.

When we look back on history, it is apparent what a nation should have done--but didn't.  America is going through a series of events that have taken her out of the will of God.  There is no way we can be "One nation, under God, indivisible...." at the rate we are heading down the primrose path to moral destruction.  One step at a time.  Intellectually compromising what God says is right with our rational explanations that "He really didn't mean what He said."  Until someday, what God says is no longer relevant.

 It would be a shame if someday, years in the future, students will read about the nation of America and say, "Such a shining example...but she went wrong.  She abandoned her integrity."

Has this already happened?  Or do we as Christians have hope of turning this thing around.  Just like Saul and David, We Americans are at war with each other.  Someone needs to call a truce and get us back on the path that God would approve of.

In my Sunday class, we have been studying David, Saul, Samuel, Nathan and next week Jonathan.  I find teaching history very difficult.  So many people besides the main characters, and so many funny sounding towns.  And funny sounding battles.

I like to teach application, and I didn't think there would be much of that in these historical stories--but I was wrong.  I guess when you look at the lives of people and their successes and failures, there is an application to be made.  Saul was really a sad case.  Anointed by God, he left the truth of how he got to where he was as King of Israel, and put God on the back burner.  He forbade sorcerers and fortune tellers, but when he needed help, that's who he went to.  So sad.  A sad story of a man who had it all, but forsook God and ended up with nothing that really mattered.

And David.  Good heart, faithful to Saul as God's anointed, but weak when it came to choices.  In his favor, he was always repentant.  ("Sorry" is not repentant.  Sorry means you got caught.  Repentant means you won't do that again.  Ever.)  Even though God had taken his blessing away from Saul, and anointed David, David didn't overstep, but waited for Saul's death before he tried to unite the nation and claim the crown.  He appealed to Saul's army to accept him as King--by treaty, not war.  It worked.  And then there is his mid-life crisis--Bathsheba.  That mistake cost him the life of a son and the lost respect of another son--a son he adored.  You may be forgiven, but there are consequences.

And Saul's son Jonathan.  How difficult it was for him to believe that his father would want to kill David.  He just didn't believe it until the proof was right in front of him.  David and Jonathan were friends.  Best friends.  David wasn't about to go after Jonathan's father and retaliate--even though he had a right to do so.  Anointed by God, David waited.  On God.  On God's timing.

That is the hardest thing I have to do as a Christian.  Once I know what I am going to do, I barge ahead.  Even though I know what I am doing is the right thing, the thing I am doing is not being done at the right time.  I get ahead of God.  All the time.

Good thing God doesn't give up on us.

Some birds flew over my yard, left a poop-present, and strawberries sprouted.  The strawberry plants have grown prolifically and are spreading like ground cover over one of my front planting beds.   My neighbor came over and picked strawberries the other day.  I didn't tell him where they came from.

My okra is up to my waist.   Another foot and I'll have okra.  I picked my first tomatoes--bright red and luscious.  I eat kale almost every other night--so sweet and delicious.  I am in the best time of year for me.  I love it.  All the work I have done is bearing fruit.  I do my part then God does His.

It has rained for the last three days.  Frog strangling rain.  My Koi pond is running over the rim--it is deep--and eight feet by twelve feet wide.  Rain is free water for me.  Edmond's water bills are very (Very) high priced.  Forty five dollars higher (at least) each month than in Pryor.

Squig has spent the last three days shivering from fear.  It's bad enough that he's afraid of the thunder and lightening, but he is terrified of rain.  Stupid dog.  I have to go out on the back porch and literally throw him into the grass when he has to "go," and he stands there quivering and shaking, looking back at me to see if I really mean it.  Only then will he do what he has to do, then make a bee-line back to me.  We do the same thing every few hours.  I'm winning, but he isn't giving up easily.  I do love that dog.  I must?

I've spent the last five days taping and pricing fabric.  This afternoon, I'm taping and pricing fringe, trim, ric-rac, seam tape, etc.  This sale will be over this week.  The other one in July.  Some times it is fun to help.  Sometimes it isn't.  Today, nobody had scissors for me to use, or masking tape, or plastic bags--actually they had forgotten to bring everything I needed.  I had to bring it all home with me.  That's when it isn't any fun.

And when I get stressed, I eat cookies.  Vanilla Oreos.  I wouldn't eat them if I didn't buy them.

Actually, I'm pretty happy.  My grandson and his wife are looking at the house across the street from me. It isn't on the market yet, but will be by next week.  I hope they buy it.  I think they are going to.   That's enough to make any grandmother happy.

My friend Becky Bacon came in on Sunday.  Her eyes again.  The ophthalmologist found that a piece of scar tissue was the problem.  That was a great relief, since that is a problem that can be fixed.  We celebrated the good news by watching Hallmark movies for two days.

The scripts are totally predictable--and they are all alike--ending when the guy kisses the girl.  We ended up in stitches, emoting our versions of the dialogs.  Chick flicks.  Silly and goofy--Hysterical laughing probably a result of our relief (!)  that her last surgery hadn't gone wrong.

She has been here so often that she stores her favorite oatmeal and snacks in the pantry.  I don't have to worry about what to feed her, she rummages through the fridge when she's hungry and fixes her own coffee in the Keurig.  She comes in the front door with her suitcase, takes her stuff to the back bedroom and then settles on the sofa.  We should all have guests like that.   Actually, she isn't a guest any more, if she ever was.  We've been friends over 20 years.

She'll be back in three weeks to have the scar tissue removed.  I'll line up the Hallmark movies and record them so we can spend the week she is recovering, laughing,  It is a great thing for me to look forward to.  Laughing is therapeutic.

I called Joe and told him that the house across the street was for sale.  That it could be their summer home.  Edmond's only a couple of hours south of Pryor, but that should qualify as a vacation house.  He didn't hang up.

I do miss my Pryor friends.  But I am finally making friends here.  My new friend Jeanette has been struggling with the shingles. She has been miserable.

Carolyn has had her third foot surgery and been in a nursing recovery unit for the last week.  Her daughter is holding the fort down at home.  She was able to come from the East Coast to help Carolyn when she returns home.

I'm the only one of my friends who is doing great at the moment.  Praise God.  Thank you Jesus!!!

A number of you have called, emailed, or texted me to cut the hole in my wall and install the  door.  A couple of you said, "You are not nuts."  It was all the encouragement I needed.  My carpenter put me on his list.  I'm getting the door.  Thanks to all of you.

I woke up Sunday and my watch was dead.  Dead as a door nail.  The face didn't have anything at all on it--it was milky white.  What time was it!!??  I looked outside to check by where the sun was.  But it was raining and the clouds blocked the sun.  I have no clocks.  I began to look for my phone to check the time--gone.  Becky had brought a ton of fabric over for me to fold and price for an estate sale, and I had spread it out all over the living room floor to sort--so I assumed that my phone was somewhere under the fabric.  And until someone called me, I didn't know where to look.

I went in the kitchen to look at the time on the stove, but the storm had bummed up every electrical device in my house.  The timer said 11:45 and I knew that wasn't right.  I got partially ready for church not knowing what time it was, and finally my brain kicked in and I turned on the TV.  Sure enough, the time was in the corner of the screen.  And found that it was 9:24--to late to make it to church by 9:30.  I finally found my phone.  Plugged into the charger next to my bed.  I always unplug it first thing each morning.  I always carry it with me, then go get the paper and make myself a cup of tea.  I have a "get up" ritual.  So I never looked on the charger.

It reminded me of Ken saying that a pilot would occasionally come in to land with his wheels up because of the list in his head for landing--he was sure he had put his wheels down because he had gone through his check list.  Even when the tower would tell him his wheels were up, the pilot wouldn't believe the tower--but sure enough, he hadn't lowered his wheels.  I hadn't unplugged my phone and carried it with me to get the paper.  I was "wheels up" because of the list in my head.

One of my friends came over the next day and helped me sort, wrap, tag and price the fabric.  It was overwhelming.  The lady was a quilter, I think she must have taught quilting because there were quilted sample blocks of every pattern known to exist.  And finished quilts that needed to have the edges bound.  And a zillion tiny cut pieces ready to be put together.  This estate sale is going to attract every quilter in Oklahoma.

People don't take pictures anymore--pictures you can hold in your hand and look at.  They are all inside their cameras--saved to a cloud, whatever that is.  My camera has pictures saved on it somewhere.  I never look at them.

But the pictures I took years ago, the pictures my parents took, I look at those.  You can touch them.  I don't like pictures I can't touch.  They don't seem real.

I have pictures hanging in my living area on walls, on buffets, on side pieces and end tables.  They are reflections caught from a moment in time.  There is one of my grandmother and grandfather.  Another of their entire family--my mom is probably fifteen or sixteen.  I have one of Craig and Steven on a street in Paris thirty years ago--he is leaning over his son (30 yrs old now) who is in a stroller. There's one of Becky leaving for college as a Freshman the day Jon is going to kindergarten.

There is one of my mom and her sister Ruby--Ann's mom--walking down main street in Ft. Smith.  They are dressed to the nines, strolling in step, arm in arm.  They have just found out that my mom is pregnant with me.  They are smiling.  They were best friends all their lives.  They are gone now.

I have a picture of my four children.  Young, their futures before them.  And in my bedroom, one entire wall is covered in wedding pictures.  My parents, Ken and me,  my children, their children, my aunts and uncles, and cousins--all on their wedding day.  Everyone is so happy.

I don't want pictures in my camera.  I want them out where I can see them.  And touch them.  There is a picture of Ken and me passing under the military arch of swords, of us cutting our wedding cake.  It is almost like I am there again.  I am young and have no idea of what is to come.

Moments in time.  Caught forever.  And someday, someone will ask, "Who were these people?"  I know that is true because when my mom and dad were gone, I was the one who cleaned out their house and went through their pictures.  I asked everyone in the family if they knew who all those people in the pictures were.  Nobody knew.   My mom had all her high school pictures of friends in an album.  I kept them for awhile, just in case.  I wonder who they were.

Yesterday I hemmed a pair of pants that I love--they had gotten ragged on the bottom.  I don't know when I have repaired something I wear.  But I couldn't think about not having this pair of pants.  Funny how you have a closet full of clothes and you wear the same things over and over--till ragged.

I heard someone say that once a year, they turned every thing in their closet around so that the hangers were hanging backwards.  Then at the end of the year, they removed everything that was still hanging backwards because obviously, they hadn't worn it in a year or they would have hung it up correctly.   I think that is a good way to get rid of stuff you don't wear.  Donate it to Goodwill.  If you aren't wearing it, there is someone who will, and who needs it.

While I was hemming my pants, I noticed that each stitch was exactly one quarter inch long.  Years and years of sewing, and I hadn't forgotten exactly what a quarter inch looked like.  And how that practice of stitching had given me an eye for measuring things in other ways.  I am glad that God gave me the gift of sewing.  Even though I sew very seldom anymore, I know how.  I will always know how to construct and know how to sew.  Once you learn something, you will always know how to do it.  You may get rusty, but with a very little practice you can do it perfectly again.

I am also tearing a dress apart that I haven't worn in ages, but it is a dress I love.  I decided that if I am going to keep it, I need to fix it.  So I am.  The sleeves are too short for me.

There are things in our lives that we need to fix.  They need to be torn out and be replaced with new behaviors.  It takes a lot of reevaluation to figure out what you need to do.  But it needs to be done.  We need to examine ourselves and decide what needs to be kept, and what needs to go.

We need to make peace with our fellowman in a time of great conflict in our nation.  We need to have a softer voice when we disagree.  Or maybe it is time we kept our mouths shut.  We need to love one another even though sometimes we are unlovely.  If something needs to be changed, get busy changing it instead of talk, talk, talking about it.  Get busy fixing.

"A little less talk and a lot more action."  (Yes, I admit--I listen to country music when I'm in the car.)

It is a precious gift to be loved.  Loved with no restrictions.  Loved completely and faithfully.  That is how Ken loved me.  I will never again be loved like that.  He is gone.  So I will now be a family of one.  I have no interest of being a family of two again.

The thing I miss the most is "Not talking."  Being in the same room and looking up to see that he is there.  Me doing one thing, him doing another. It is a peaceful quietness of togetherness without any need to say anything.  Just knowing he is there.  Knowing you are not alone.  Confident in the love of another person.

Before Ken died, my friend Carolyn (who knew Ken was dying) told me that there was no way to prepare yourself for being alone after 57 years.  "People will say that they know how you must feel," she said, "...but they don't.  You have to have had a wonderful marriage for many, many years--and then have it stop and turn into something strange that seems like a void.  Like you no longer exist."

She lost Wayne over thirteen years ago.  "People will say, he's gone.  You need to move on.  Someday they will lose their mate and know that it is almost impossible.  You never get over it.  You can't erase a lifetime.  Yes, you have to make new friends.  But in most cases, your couples friends will move on--since you are no longer a couple."  She was right.  It's true that some people marry again.  Maybe I would if God plopped someone down on my doorstep and said, "This one needs you."

It takes a lot of getting used to.  And sometimes, I don't think I ever will.  I look up at his empty recliner and wonder who I am.  I sometimes feel like half of nothing.  I'm not whining.  Most of my days are good.  But every now and then, when I lift my eyes to speak to him and he's not there, I am confused.  It's okay.  What I had to say to him was nothing anyway.

I like my life.  I fill it up with things I like to do.  I have always been able to be happy when I am by myself.  I am not necessarily lonely being alone.  But before, I always knew I was not alone.  I knew Ken was there and that I was special to him.   And that made me special.  It gave me freedom to be myself.  I'm just not sure who that is anymore.  People don't want you to talk about things like this.  It makes them uncomfortable.  Feel free to delete this blog.

I have a snake that lives in my back yard.  A good snake.   He is a four foot long garden snake.  I've seen him twice now.  He comes to the Koi pond to drink water.  He eats bugs, and keeps mice away.  Although there aren't many mice around--maybe because I have a "pest controller" in the yard?

He has a yellow stripe down his back, but is otherwise dark in color.  My daughter has a six foot black snake that lives in her back yard.  He crawls into the hen house and eats her eggs.  I asked her what she was going to do about that, and she said that an egg or two every week was a small price to pay for keeping the mice away from her hen house.

Every one seems to be afraid of snakes.  I think they are interesting.  I like frogs and earthworms and such.  One of my friends had a son that used to bring me earthworms from time to time for my garden.  He would knock at the door and hand me a coffee can full of dirt and wigglers.  I would rather have a can of earthworms than a dozen roses any day of the week.

I think the fear of snakes comes from a mistaken idea of the serpent in the garden of Eden.  The serpent was a beautiful winged creature.  Said to be the most beautiful of all creatures.  There is no way that Eve would have been tempted by something ugly.  Certainly she wouldn't have been tempted by a snake.

But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God cast them out of the garden and condemned the serpent to forever more slink around on his belly in the dust: hence the name "serpent" was wrongly attached to a snake.  Genesis 3:14-15  Evil was disguised as a serpent, beautiful, and above all other creatures.  You yourself will never be tempted by something ugly and repugnant.  The devil tempts us with things that are alluring to us.  And the alluring things of the world lead to our downfall.

That serpent knows you well.  He knows your weak spots.  That's where he will tempt you.  "Be sober, be vigilant...your adversary, the devil walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." 1 Peter 5:8

I read something today that I find disturbing.  Oprah said that, "There are many ways to God."  The reason I find it disturbing is that millions of people will hear her and believe her--and look no further.  Her words will be the only words they will ever hear on the subject because they neither go to church nor read the Bible.  They will believe her because she is famous.

In the Gospel, John 14:6, Christ said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No man comes to the Father except by me."  Jesus was telling us something true.  He was telling us that God had made a way to reconcile us to Himself.  One way.  Through Jesus' death on the cross.  He is our sin payment.  God designed The Way.  And then, He died for it.

There is no other religion that address our nature--which is sinful.  There is no other religion that offers a solution to our nature.  There is no other religion that makes a sacrifice on our behalf.

Statements like Oprah's are going to give those who hear her words--and believe them--a false sense of security that will ultimately separate them from God--a God who loves them and sent His son to be our way back to Him.  The only way.  God has said so in his word and He didn't ask for Oprah's opinion on the subject.

I am reminded of the first time we heard someone else declare her "Truth" which was diametrically opposed to God's truth.  It was in the early 50's in a column by "Dear Abby."  She declared that sexual deviance occurred because "people were born that way."  She kept saying it over and over until people everywhere accepted what she said as truth.  Dear Abby said you are born that way, so it must be true.  But God didn't ask for Dear Abby's opinion on that subject either.

We have become a nation of people who do not follow God.  People listen to the "Stars" and follow them and their words, their messages.  It doesn't seem to matter what God's truth is.

It makes me sad.

I am dead set on knocking out a wall and putting a door from my dinette into the back bedroom--that I never use.  I think I would use the room as a music room if it was more accessible.  When I bought the house, I wanted to do it, but everyone talked me out of it.  Now it is three years later, and I still want to do it.  But now, I will have to deal with all the dust it will incur.

I am reminded of the time I tore down a 27 foot wall in a house we lived in when Ken came back from Nam.  I had built the house, drawn the plans for it and decided I didn't like the wall.  So one morning, I got a crowbar and a hammer and started tearing out sheetrock and studs.  Had it done by 4:00 PM and all the studs and sheetrock stacked on the curb next to the street.  When Ken came home, he looked at me, then back at where the wall had been and asked, "Was it load bearing?"  I had no idea.  I'm lucky the entire roof didn't fall in on me.  (Ken never cared what I did to a house.)

I know about studs, sheetrock, electrical lines and unexpected water or gas lines in a wall because that wasn't the only time I've torn one down--or put one up.  But I can't do that anymore.  However, I have a wonderful handyman with two twin 13 year old sons who can do it.   The boys are my I-Phone gurus.  I have them on quick dial.

Question is, am I wrong.  Everyone thinks so but me--and I am starting to lose my confidence.  Maybe I'm nuts?  But as it is now, my marimba is in that room, and I can't get it out without tearing it all apart into separate pieces--which is no easy task.  It won't go through the bedroom door without breaking it down.  And there isn't any other room with a place where I can put it.

I carry my small marimba around in the trunk of my car, so I can play it when someone wants me to--about once a month.  If I had a wider door to the back bedroom, I could roll the big marimba out and take it in one piece through the front door as well, and have someone pick it up in a pickup. Done.

Why not just keep playing on the one in my car trunk?  Because it is two and a half octaves and the big one is four octaves.  The large one I practice on, and when I play the small one, the keys are so narrow that I struggle.  And the big one has a beautiful deep tone.  I think cutting a door is reasonable.  I am not nuts.

I worked at Edmond Antiques today.  A man came in who was obviously very bright.  We got into a conversation, and after talking about Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Descartes, etc., and their theories, I asked him if he was a Christian.  The ensuing conversation was fascinating.

He had read the Bible, searched for answers, could discuss many of the scriptures--it was obvious that he knew scripture.  And he answered my question and said, "I want to believe.  I have an inner desire to believe in something that is true--true like the absolutes of mathematics, or quantum physics.  But I can't find any absolutes in the Bible.  I can't find anything that I know for certain."

I have never had a conversation like the one I had with this man.  He talked for an hour about science, philosophy, physics, humanities, and on an on.  I tried every way I knew how to talk about the things he knew and pointed out that:  all of the things he believed came from reading and accepting what he read.  And pointed out that although the men who wrote the accounts in the four gospels told the stories that they remembered differently, it was obvious that the events they were talking about happened, were real, and that they each one saw those events.

I questioned his reasons for accepting the writers of all of the men we discussed from science and asked what he thought the difference was between them and the things he had read in Scripture.  He didn't know.  I pointed out that everything we know comes from reading, or experiencing.  Again, he said, "I want to believe.  I just wish I could accept the fact that there is a creator--as a fact.  I wish I knew that there was a God who heard prayer--but it doesn't seem that there is a way to prove that.

Then, he put his hand out and thanked me for the conversation and said it was one of the most insightful discussions he had had in a long time.

I held his hand, looked up at him and said, "I am going to pray for you."  And he said, "I know that you are going to do that."

And I have been praying for him all day.  And will continue to do so.  That he can find his way out of the darkness he is in and take a step of faith.  If that happens, he will then know the truth.

Proverbs 27:17  "Iron sharpens iron; so a man (woman) sharpens the countenance of their friend."

Sally Casey is my friend.  I love her.  When I first met her, she was a newly converted Catholic who knew nothing much about the Bible.  But when she was converted to Christ--the man--and not to a particular church, she was more eager to learn scripture than anyone I had ever met or taught.  I have had the privilege of watching her grow into the full stature of Christ.  And now, she is a totally new woman, full of grace.  And knows more scripture than I do.  She studies constantly.

I told her the other day that I agreed with a friend of hers who had called her a prophet.  The Biblical  definition of a prophet is not someone who makes something up that isn't in the Bible.  It is someone who shares Christ.  Who shares the Bible's truths.  That is Sally.  She speaks up when the rest of us are still asking whether we should say something.  She speaks up when the rest of us are still trying to figure out what it is that we should say.  She is so bold in the Lord that you have to be in awe of her.

When I first met her, I was her teacher.  Now she is mine.  Sally is my friend.  I love her.

There have been many women in my life that are my friends.  Those I have left behind in other cities, and those who have left me to move to another town.  I think of Carolyn, of course, and Becky Bacon, and Kathy Mitchell...and once I start naming them, there is no end.  I will leave someone out. It is a far cry from the post I wrote two weeks ago of being a new bride with no friends--and finally making a friend of Lib.  Lib--who said, "Get up.  I'm going to bind your breasts so your milk won't come in.  You aren't dead yet.  You have two little girls who need you."

My friends teach me.  Things I don't know.  The more friends we have, the more we learn.  I was working an estate sale last week, and my daughter-in-law Stacy was taking pictures for my friend Kathy Mitchell to show her things she might want to buy.  I said, "Stacy, don't just take frontal pictures.  Take pictures from every angle and every side.  Kathy will want to see that."  I could say that because I know Kathy.  The more we know about someone, the better friend we can be.  (Stacy said, "I know!")"A friend loves at all times..."  Proverbs 17:17.  Even when we can no longer be close.

I often wonder who is out there reading what I write.  I know that Scott reads it.  He forwards it to his friends where he works. This is post 1,412.  One thousand, four hundred and twelve.  How in the world can that be?  I just get up in the morning and write 6 inches.  That's it.  I edit so that I don't go over that because I know that is about all anyone's brain can handle at one time.  Six inches.

Today I picked kale from my garden, and sautéed it in bacon drippings.  Exquisite. I had never done that before.  Of course bacon drippings is the premier Southern oil.  I fried okra in it for years until I found out it might kill me.  Now I use canola oil--but nothing is as good as bacon drippings.  Except bacon itself--which I think should be one of our food groups along with vegetables and fruits.  Seems like everything that is good, is bad for you.  Why is that.  God could just as easily made bacon and pie, and cinnamon rolls, and chocolate, and cupcakes, etc. be health foods.

I am not really a sweet eater.  But bread.  Bread is the staff of life.  I love bread.  I adore bread.  And Jesus endorsed eating bread (!!):  "Jesus took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, 'Take eat; this is my body'."  Matthew 26:26.  I could easily eat an entire loaf; however, I don't think Jesus was advocating for me to eat all the bread I want to eat.  He was about to die, and wanted his disciples to remember Him.  Especially when they ate bread.

Now we recognize "The Lord's Supper" and Baptism, as the two ordinances that Jesus left for us to do.  To remind us of Him, and what He did for us.  At my church, when the pastor baptizes someone, he usually says, "Buried with Christ in baptism," as he submerges the believer--and "Raised to walk in the newness of Life," as they are lifted up out of the water.  This symbolizes death to the old way, and resurrection to a new way.

I wish the "new way" would let me eat anything I want, any time I want it.  But no,  I have to use discipline.  I don't like being disciplined.  And that sums up the nature of us human beings.  Thank goodness I have a new nature which is at war with the old.  As Paul said, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to do according to his purpose." Philippians 2:12-13.  And "Christ in you, the hope of Glory." Collosians 1:27. That inner voice is what keeps me skinny.  Otherwise I would weigh 500 pounds from eating bread.

On June 6 this year, I remembered D-day again.  I was going on 7 years old when it occurred.  I remember it well.  A child of 7 doesn't remember very much, but some things are important.  I saw the pictures of the landing when I went to the movie on Saturdays.  Nobody had a TV back then, just a radio.  We went to the movies to see the news in pictures.  Moving pictures.  Of course, the "Landing" pictures were edited.  And they were very heroic in nature.  The next few years of my life were filled with images of the war.  Every Saturday.  The movie news was what we had.

We supported the war by buying "War Bonds." (Which the government had no funds to pay back.) But everyone knew that this was a war that we couldn't lose.  The Nazi's would control all of Europe if we lost.  They would expand their ungodly pogrom through every country. That was unthinkable.

A few years ago, I went to the beach in Normandy where the landing occurred.  And I realized that those pictures at the movies had been completely, almost totally edited.  As I stood on the top of the cliff--the terribly high wall--that our boys had to cross the beach to climb, I couldn't stop crying.  It was so real.  I could close my eyes and almost see our 18 year old young men being mowed down by the guns from the concrete bunkers on top of the cliff.  I don't know how any of them got across the hundreds upon hundreds of yards of beach alive, much less up the wall of the cliff.  Where do such brave men come from? How did they have the strength to keep moving as soldier after soldier was mowed down beside them?  How did any of them survive crossing the beach to the cliff?

But cross it they did, and climbed the wall.  The day I went to Normandy there weren't any other people around.  The beach was empty, but still strewn with remains of the war--left there to show that it was a historical place.  I started crying when I stepped out of the car and saw the hundreds upon hundreds of crosses where our dead Americans had been buried.  I was still weeping when we got back in the car to go back to the train station.  It was an experience that broke your heart.  D-day.

Maybe it hit me so hard because it was the first time I had ever seen the remains of a war, and realized that it wasn't a cleaned up picture you go see at the movies.  That it was a horrible thing to face and try to do your job and survive--and Ken had done that in two wars and numerous deployments.  It became real to me, and it was so very tragic.  I understood my husband better.  He seldom talked about it.  You almost have to see it to believe it.  War.  The horrible remains of war.

I have learned a super respect for children's teachers.  I've been helping in Bible School all week with the kindergarten age group.  Chaos.  Utter chaos.  Why anyone would choose to work with children that age is a mystery to me.  They can't stop moving.  They can't pay attention.  Half the time they can't hear you.  Most of the time they don't listen.  And they never, never ever stop moving.  We had 12  six year olds in our class with four teachers.  Trying to get twelve of them going in the same direction at the same time is impossible.  It took all four of us working full force just to control them.

I can't imagine a single teacher managing a class of thirty.  What are we thinking!  What on earth are we thinking when we ask school teachers to manage a room full of 30 wigglers like that--much less teach them anything.  It is impossible.  They don't listen.  Period.  They make too much noise.  And someone has to go to the bathroom every ten minutes.  Sometimes they make it on time.

I guess that's why God made us all different.  Give me teenagers.  Any day of the week.

I am now a certified failure as a Kindergarten teacher.  If it hadn't been for the three other teachers in the room (of only 12 kids) I don't think I would have made it.  And it only lasted for four hours each morning.  I didn't have to do anything but corral them.  We changed rooms every thirty minutes--and there was a well prepared teacher in each of those rooms to engage them in something.  I didn't have to prepare anything.  Just point the kids to the right room and line them up to move down the hall.  Have you ever tried to line six year olds up?  It can't be done.

I don't have to do this again for another year.  And if it wasn't for my grandson, you couldn't pay me enough to do it.  My grandson is spending the week with me and he definitely fits in with the noisy, wiggling, not paying attention crowd.  I love him or I'd quit.  Give up.  Declare myself a kindergarten dropout.  I am going to trade time with someone next year.  If they will take my place with the younger kids, I'll do their time with Junior High, High School and anything else they signed up to do.  And I'll give them double time.  I'll do two weeks for their one.  And even then, I'll feel like I am getting a great deal.  I hate it when I fail at something.  I like to be competent.  Successful.

God bless elementary teachers.  Especially kindergarten through grade one. I salute them.

 Married at 18, first child (thirteen months later) at 19, second child at 21, third child at 23, and I was 25 when I had Scott.  I was drowning in children with no clue what to do with them.  I really wish I could go back and do a do-over with the first two.  I didn't have a hand book, and no family.  And few friends--really, I was on my own.  Ken was always up in the air somewhere.  Literally.

By the time I had Scott, I kinda knew what I was doing.  But nothing I had learned on the others applied to Scott.  He didn't play with toys--ever.  He threw them.  Into planters, light fixtures, vases, etc., etc.  I would buy him puzzles with cars, trucks, animals, I tried them all.  He threw the pieces.  When the girls and I would play Monopoly--Scott threw the hotels, motels, game pieces and anything else he could get his hands on.  He didn't throw randomly.  He threw to hit something that was empty.

He wouldn't let me read to him.  The girls loved to read or have me read to them.  Not Scott.  He wanted out.  OUT.  I kept trying, and failing.  But his accuracy in his tosses got better.  He could stand in the yard and hit the chimney--inside the chimney.  One day I heard something splatting, checked, and he was throwing tomatoes towards the roof.  Thank God it wasn't eggs.

When he got a little older and found out that there were games that had names (!!) that at he could throw stuff in--he was ecstatic.  Names like football, fooz-ball, baseball, kick ball, any-kind-of-ball.   Then it was just a game of bribery to get him to read, and in school, to do his work.  It was a tradeoff to him.  If he made good grades, he got to go out for recess.  If he made good grades, he could play ball all year round.  So he made excellent grades.  No problem.

I never had to bribe the girls.  They did what they were supposed to do because they loved to read.  Loved school.  Loved to learn new stuff.  Scott endured it all to play ball.  And by the time he was nine or ten, he would tell me that the other guys on his baseball team didn't try--that they weren't any good.  I explained to him that it was their first year--that he had been throwing a ball since before he was two and had a head start on them.  It didn't convince him.  He just thought they just didn't work hard enough.  Raising Scott stretched me to the limit.  He was a fantastic ball player.  A true natural.  He still plays.  Referring, or Umping, running up and down the field like he was still ten years old.  Loving every minute of it.  Doing what he has to do to get out there on the field.

I made drapes for every house we ever lived in.  Nothing I made would do at the next one, so I was constantly sewing every time we moved.  The drapes got progressively more intricate as I learned how to fit them to odd shaped windows.  I had known how to sew since I was 10 or 11 when I told my mom the dress she made me was ugly.  She handed me the dress, pattern, thread, scissors and said, "When you know what you like and don't like, you can sew for yourself.  She never sewed for me again.  I learned two things.  1. To sew.  2.  To keep my mouth shut when she did something for me.

I made intricate little dresses for my girls.  Smocking, embroidered trim, etc.  I learned how to make a pattern from scratch.  The other day Becky called and said, "Mom do you want to put that dress you made for the Marine Corps Ball  in 1964 in the Estate Sale?  I know I can get three or four hundred dollars for it."  "No," I said.  "I don't.  I like to look at it every now and then and touch the fabric."  I had designed the dress pattern to fit me like skin with a fishtail bottom.   It had painted silk on the edges.  I can't remember where I found the fabric--just that it inspired me. (It is gorgeous, if I do say so myself.  No brag, just fact.)

I had put one of the dresses I made in the Antique shop not too long ago.  It sold for a lot of money, but I regretted it.  I don't sew anymore.  And it's nice to look at something intricate that I once made and know that once I was really good at something.  I doubt I could sew a strait stitch now.  We get sentimental about dumb things as we grow older.  We also lose our skills and feel expendable.

But Becky said that an expert in retro-design wanted me to teach her how to make an invisible stitch. So maybe I still have some of the touch.  At least Becky thinks I do.

Long after I quit sewing, I became a math professor for twenty years.  Now, I am a writer.  A complete surprise to me.  It makes me happy.  I hope it makes you happy as well.

I still haven't decided what I am going to be when I grow up.

During the time that Ken was in Viet Nam, I started college.  The girls were in school, and Scott was in Pre-school.  In 1967, I was no longer the girl I was in 1956.  As they say, I had seen the elephant.  I had spent 11 years holding us together--I got to be a stay-at-home mom if you could call it that.  I was more like the director of a traveling circus.  Trying to keep on juggling and keeping all the balls in the air.  We never were in one place long enough to think about college.  Or a job I would just have to quit after a few months.  I couldn't make enough to cover child care for three kids anyway.

When we got married, Ken had asked me if I wanted to go to college, or start a family.  He was concerned that by the time I finished college, he would be an "older" father.  And I didn't have any desire at all to go to school.  I was sick of school.  We started the family.  It was an easy decision.

But eleven years later, I had a different perspective on that.  I could see that if we were to send our kids to college, I was going to have to work.  I figured that if Ken made it home, I could be half way through if I applied myself.  And if he didn't make it home, I was going to have to find a job.

At the age of 18 when I married Ken, I had never even thought of the future.  It never occurred to me.  I had no plans for myself at all.  I just married him and lived one day at a time.  Everything was so chaotic that I could hardly function in the day to day.  Eleven years later, I functioned very well.  I was an expert at functioning.  I was no longer under any illusions about the future.  One way or another, I had to get an education, or end up in a low wage bracket trying to make ends meet.  College looked like the thing to do.  As it turned out, I loved being in school.  I loved the classes.  I always took six classes each semester to maximize the time, so I could finish in three years.

My girls say I never write about myself, that I always write about their dad, or someone else.  Well, I've been writing about myself for a week now.  I find it boring.  I find Ken's life interesting.

I guess we all think other people have exotic lives compared to our own.  I covet each day now.  I can read books, work cross-word puzzles and do anything I want.  I lead a calm life now.  I love it and I thank God for it.  I've seen the other side and made it through.

The men and women who serve in the military pledge to serve at the pleasure of the President--whoever that happens to be.  He is the Commander in Chief.  Period.  Over 21 years, Ken served under a number of Presidents.  Some wise, some not so wise.  But whoever it is, those men and women serve.  Those of us who stay home, have no idea what they are called upon to do.  Sometimes it is good.  But sometimes it isn't.

When Ken left for Viet Nam, the protests of the young people in America were just starting against the war.  Those in the service who were serving in Viet Nam served at the mercy of the President.  Actually they had served at the mercy of a number of Presidents.  No one in leadership could figure out how to get out of Viet Nam, and our young men kept dying.  Same as today in Asia.

I never heard Ken say anything derogatory about anyone except Jane Fonda and Robert McNamera--who was Secretary of Defense from 1961-68.  You have to read up on your history to understand why.  But he continued to serve at the pleasure of the President.  That's what Marines signed up for, and died for.  But it was difficult.  And when they came home, people would wait at debarking and spit on them as they got off the boats.  It was a sad time in American history.

And those of us who waited on them to come home were caught between a rock and a hard place.  We didn't ask for support from anyone.  You didn't know who was on which side of the issue.  I was on the side that just wished it was over and Ken could come home.

And when he did, he said very little to me.  I only remember one thing he said:  "God willing, I will never again kill anyone or anything."  And he didn't.  Even if there was a bug in the house, he would get a newspaper, scoop it up and carry it outside.

He had a few months to do on 21 years, so we moved again to California, El Toro, and Scott would go to the end of the runway and watch his dad take off.  Ken would call home, tell me when his lift off time was, and I would walk Scott to the runway--which was a few blocks from our house on base.  I didn't watch.  I never saw him fly.  I just counted days until it was over.  Until he was completely out of harm's way.  He was a heroic figure.  I was his wife.  It was difficult.  For both of us.

Although life for me was wonderful, 1963-1966 was smack dab in the middle of difficulties in America.  Beaufort was 72% Negro, and their conditions were deplorable.  I had never been exposed to such poverty and hopelessness.  There were no jobs.  A white mob burned down their school while I was in Beaufort--I think it was to send a message that "they" better not get any ideas?  Martin Luther King was trying to rectify conditions for black people, but it wasn't helping them in Beaufort.

Many of the black people lived across the bridge in Frogmore, an island where some of the people still spoke a dialect--that supposedly came from Africa--called "Gullah." The going wage at the time for blacks was fifty cents an hour.  $4.00 a day.  Deplorable.

I drove to Oklahoma a couple of times with my three kids when Ken was deployed.  One time I stayed all night in Montgomery, Alabama with a friend.  The next day as I was leaving was the day of the Montgomery march.   I learned first hand--those three years I was in Beaufort--exactly what black people were marching and dying for.  It was so sad.  It was awful, and if I hadn't had my three kids, I would have marched with them.  There was a bad cloud over the South.

Another  cloud that loomed over my life was the fact that Ken was practicing delivering A-bombs.  America wasn't supposed to know that.  The government placed a verbal restriction on the squadron--but I couldn't help but know, from the way they did, and said, things "differently."  And the places they went.  Cuba had just been a big deal: we had lost a landing force, the Russians had just backed down from delivering nuclear launching pads to Cuba, we were in the middle of a cold war with Russia, and the guys kept going down to Roosevelt Roads to practice maneuvers.  Duh.

I asked Ken one day, "Say that you had to deliver an Atom Bomb--just saying...how would you deliver it and how would you get out of it.  "Well," he answered, "If a fella had to do such a thing, he would go in fast and low to keep from getting hit by ground fire, and at the last minute, he would jack it straight up as fast as he could fly.  And when he had almost stalled out, fire the thing straight up, do a flip and head home."  I asked, "And what are the chances a person would make it," I asked?  "Well, if he was lucky and everything went as it should, it would be about fifty fifty."  I didn't ask anything else.  What was the point.  So even though it was good for me in Beaufort, it was really bad as well.