My grandson in Kansas called to wish me a happy birthday today.  "The redbuds are blooming in Kansas so I know it's your birthday," he said.  Another grandson called me yesterday to wish me a happy birthday because the redbuds are blooming in Tulsa and he saw them on the way to work.

I like that better than them remembering a day.  They were off only a little bit.  They will think of me for the rest of their lives when the redbuds bloom.  I think that is wonderful!!  They started blooming here in Edmond today.

The adjuster climbed up on the roof to see what those tennis ball sized hail stones did.  The roof is trashed.  And it's almost new.  But with tornado and hail season just beginning, I'm going to wait because it could get trashed again.  Unless it starts leaking--then I'll have to fix it.  I just don't want to have to replace it two times.  Or more.  That would mean I would have to pay a deductible every time.  It also ruined the roof on my shed. 

Friday mornings are garage sale day with Ann.  I don't know the streets here very well, so I told her if she would drive every week, I'll get the coffee and breakfast.  She said she texted, (or called?) Scott to get us our Jet Star tomatoes.  It's supposed to freeze here Sunday, but I'm planting them after that.  I hope it doesn't freeze again--in April.

I got my succulents planted outside.  My "Hen and Chickens" make it through the winter every year, so I don't have to bring them in.  The others, well, I don't know.  Come winter, I will divide them and bring half of them in.  I don't know if they will survive the cold or not.  But I'm going to find out.

I'm rambling.  Who wants to hear someone ramble.  Boring.

When they installed "Word for Mac" on my laptop, everything changed on it everywhere.  New stuff appeared on different apps, on different things I opened.  I despise change.  I've had so much change in my life over the last eighty-one years that I am reeling.  Just when I adapt, something else changes.  I grew up in a time when you didn't throw stuff out.  You repurposed it. And it isn't because I am growing older.  I never liked change at any point in my life.  Ever.   

I can deal with the big stuff, like moving, (I've moved 27 times) buying a new car, reworking the landscaping.  It's the little stuff that gets me.  The red, yellow, green dots on the top bar of my Mac don't look the same.  I don't like it.  The drag and drop is gone.  I have to choose Cut, Copy, or Paste every time now on Blogger.  Which makes me nuts.  

I just got a pop up that all of you out there are going to have to do something different to get this blog--Pat's coming over today to set it up--otherwise it would vanish.

I am the proverbial "stick in the mud."  Leave everything the way it is so I don't have to learn some new way to do something.  The only improvement I have adjusted to is my phone.  And I hadn't got a clue how to use everything on it before they upgraded it.  Who thinks this stuff up!!

I do like the "ding-ding-ding" on my car when I back up. 

I'm glad God doesn't change.  He is the same "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow." I don't have to constantly relearn what He wants from me, or how I am suppose to live.  How I am supposed to treat people.  It is comforting.  He doesn't change.  His words are always true.  

The world is what changes.  I'm not sure it is for the better.    

Yesterday was my birthday.  Ta-da.  Everybody has one.  Some of us have had more than everybody else.  In my family, everyone calls and sings "Happy Birthday to You" on the phone.  I love to hear my grandchildren and great-grandchildren's voices singing to me.  So sweet.

My son Scott was the only one of my children that forgot. (And he never forgets.)  He said it was God's fault--that was a new excuse!  He said it was because the redbud trees aren't blooming.

When my mother had me, it was snowing when she went into the hospital.  It was not an easy delivery.  Back then they didn't have the knowledge or instruments needed to correct the problem.  

After twenty or so hours, the doctor came to the waiting room and told my dad (and uncle Cleo who was waiting with him) that he had to choose.  He couldn't save us both.  Of course, my dad chose my mom, and he and Cleo began to pray.  Back then, it wasn't unusual for women to die in childbirth, and my mom was weak from being in labor for so long.

When the doctor began the procedure, I turned.  And was born.  Cleo and Dad said that when they went outside, the snow was gone and the redbuds were blooming.  So every year, when the redbuds start to bloom, I get Happy Birthday calls.  Whether it's the right day, or not.

So, this year the redbuds are late.  Who knows why?  Scott is blaming his forgetfulness on God.  I think I would be afraid to do that!!  However, he tells me that he associates my Birthday with the redbuds and not with a day.

So did everyone else in my family back in 1938.  So did everyone in my family for my entire life.

While we were waiting on the storm to hit, a man I had hired was busy moving dirt and building a raised bed for my garden.  He got most of it finished before he had to head home ahead of the storm.

He is going to finish it tonight.  And then...and then...I get to put tomatoes in the ground and plant okra.  It's like Christmas for me.  I can't get "Jet Stars" here in Edmond.  Scott will get them for me in Pryor.

Brady already planted the potatoes and parsley.  I'm going to plant green peppers, yellow and red ones, too.  And kale.  I gave up on squash.  The squash bugs always get it and I'm tired of fighting them.  

I don't like cucumbers, but I love sweet pickles.  So I'm going to plant cucumbers for the first time ever.  I have a friend in Pryor that makes sweet and sour pickles.  I'll get her to give me her recipe.  Then, of course, I have to make the pickles.  Which I've never done before.  It may be my first and last time.  Depends on how hard it is.  It's been a long, long time since I canned anything. I'll have to buy jars if I do this.  There are still things in life I've never done!!

I am going back to the Apple store this afternoon and get an external hard drive.  Now, when I say, "External Hard Drive," I know what it is.  The language of computers is like Greek to me.  I learned "Flash Drive" a few months ago from Pat.  Just when I get comfortable with the name of something, it becomes obsolete.  

72, 75, 78, 33, 45's, tapes, disks, etc. for music.  The older you get, the more stuff there is in your head that you don't need anymore--taking up space in your brain.  It's that way on every subject.  I don't have a delete button.  Stuff just rattles around up there in the old noggin doing me no good.  It makes learning new stuff seem like a waste of time--because in a little while, it will be obsolete.

On Saturday, I was watching TV randomly, mostly just to have background noise, when I looked up and saw the weatherman all excited, pointing his finger in every direction.  Weathermen in Oklahoma live for the opportunity to predict tornadoes.  They warn us and over-warn us.  Which is good, but it sometimes makes you complacent.

When this storm got on a predictable path, it was going to come over the top of my house.  It was five miles away and zeroed in on me.  That's when I decided to get my phone, purse, and dog and go across the street to the Bryce's who have a cellar, and finish watching it on their TV.

If you have been through a tornado or two, you watch the path, the uptake height, and rotation.  There usually will be a looping hook on the tail of the storm.  The higher the uptake, the bigger the hail will be.  This storm had it all. And our block was in its path.  The hail was the largest I've ever seen, and I've lived in Oklahoma most of my life.  It was somewhere between golf balls and tennis balls--on the tennis ball end.

Of course it damaged my roof.  It broke windows around here.  It was a doozy.  And though the wind was rotating, it didn't touch down thank God.  But we were all reminded that it is March in Oklahoma.  You can never forget that in this state.  Tornado's are coming.  It's just a matter of where, and when.

And even though we get irritated at the weathermen getting all hepped up, we are thankful for accurate predictions.  I grew up back when there was no Doppler, no predictions, no nothing.  Every time there was a cloud, my Mama started frantically rounding up her little chickens--us--and heading us to a neighbor's cellar.  Sometimes we were in the cellar for an hour or more.

Now, I watch it arriving, and only need five minutes to take cover.

My friend Jeanette has spent the entire week calming me down.  I don't get upset very easily, but my computer has been ornery.  I have had it eight years and didn't know anything about computors--and didn't know I needed to back stuff up.  So:  Here I am, writing a book, and through God's mercy I didn't lose it because I didn't back it up.  

I went to Walmart to get a back-up hard drive, got home, and it won't install.  Now I have to go back to Apple and buy an expensive one.  Which is fine, I just want it to work.  I'm tearing my hair out.  I don't do stuff like this well, and when it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, I shut down.

I'm going to start over on Monday and try to do better.  What with spilling my tea on my "almost" white carpet, turning my chair upside down and retrieving my charger cord--disturbing every muscle and joint in my body, four trips to OKC with my Apple and that's just the surface, I've been ruffled.

But Jeanette has calmed me down at every turn.  She's calm to begin with.  I've got a friend for every shortcoming in my life.  God is good.  I need friends.

Brady and I got the potatoes planted.  He also planted the red clover and the parsley.  He had a blast watering it all.  There is nothing quite like a seven year old with a hose.  Water, water, everywhere.  I had a dozen packages of flower seeds that are at least ten years old.  I handed them to him so I could take a break and who knows where he planted them, or if they will come up!  He will forget all about it before he comes back again.  He just wants to get into the mud and water.  Power to him.  However, he got the mud all over his shoes and came in and tracked across my cream colored carpet.  I've been there before. You don't raise four kids without a little mud here and there.

Today, my grandson Brady, is coming over and we are going to plant potatoes.  It will be the first thing I put in the ground this year.  I have twenty-six other things that need to be transplanted, and if we get all of that done, I will go over to my old house across the street and dig up the asparagus I planted three years ago.

Asparagus takes three years to grow before you can pick it.  The roots need to strengthen.  Jennifer and David don't care if I go get it.  I checked!  I bought them another dozen asparagus plants they can stick in the ground.  I don't think I can wait another three years for the new bunch to be ready.  They can.

It is a moot point, because I don't eat asparagus very often anyway.  I'll pick it when it comes up in my garden, and give it back to them.

I love to find things that I can do with Brady.  And he likes to do stuff with me.  When the potatoes are ready to harvest, I'll call Jonathan to bring him back over to help me dig them up.  Brady will love that.  His brother Tate, two years younger, is interested in one thing.  Cars.  I will have to figure out something I can do with him when he is a little bit older.  Tate is a carbon copy of Ken, so I understand his personality perfectly.  Single minded.  Focused.

Brady, on the other hand has a personality like his grandmother--me.  Jumping from one thing to the other, running in circles, bored easily, but ready to do something fun with someone else.  Tate entertains himself.  A loner.  

They are my two youngest grandchildren.  Jon started late, married late, had children late.  But then he is nine years younger than my other three.  My first grandchild is thirty-seven, my youngest is four.  Quite a span.

When we explore the written, artifact, or any other of the types of the recorded history of man, the Jewish history of the Old Testament is unique.  We don't have any other historical log that comes close to approaching it in continuity, or accuracy.

When archeologists dispute some town, king, or other ancient piece of mideastern data, it simply means they haven't dug up the proof yet.  So far, the accuracy of data in the Old Testament documents is exceptional.  Over and over again it proves itself a true account of history.  

In my lifetime, I have read a multitude of statements on how "this or that" is inaccurate.  Only to find a recant of that statement in a few years later when a piece of scroll, hieroglyphic, or stone engraving proves the accuracy of the Biblical account.  It is the most accurate writing we have from the past--by far.  Without question.  It is unique in it's historical accuracy.

Archeologists in the mideast kept a Bible in their hip pocket in the days before computers allowed them to pull up Biblical data.  It was, and is, that accurate.  So if it is archeologically accurate, we can also depend on it's social accuracy:  the story of the Jews.  Where they came from.  What they believed, and why.  Their prophecy of a coming Messiah--dozens of prophecies, that came true in the life of Jesus.  The statistical relevance of that is mind boggling.  He was born in Nazareth, he fled to Egypt, he was a descendant of David, and a dozens of other prophecies that were facts in Jesus life.  For those prophecies to cumulate in one man would be statistically impossible.  There statistically haven't been that many people born yet.  But they came true in Jesus.  He was the Messiah.  Sent from God to communicate with us.  To show us what and who He is.  He is God's communication with the world. 

 My third point from yesterday:

 3.  So...If there is a higher power...and if He is good, then:  How could a good God leave us humans on earth with no answers as how to reach Him.  Communicate.  Know what He expects of us.  The question is:  Does, or has, He communicated with us. 

Most people who try to reach out for those who don't know much about Biblical things, want to start by telling about Jesus.  However, in today's world, people are much more informed than they were back in the days of His story.

People are asking things like: "Where did we come from?"  Or: "Is there something out there--ET come home." Or maybe: "Did someone in the galaxy land here long, long ago."  There is  an indwelling question of recognition that we got here in some extraordinary way. 

Evolution theory seems to be at the forefront of the questions.   However, that is not the big question.  The big question is What, and Where is Space?  We are floating around in it.  We breathe it.  It goes on forever.  People study it.  But nobody knows where it came from or where it ends, or if it ends, or why it is here.  The fact we live in it is incidental.  We are in space.  It exists somewhere.  Why???  Where???

So the ultimate question:  1. Is there a God?  2. Is He good?  3.  How does He communicate with us?  Some say, "In nature."  True.  Some say, "Through our thoughts.."  Religions are formulated looking for answers when right there in history is a man, who says He was sent from God.  Who answers questions in a way never before or since have been heard.  He was remarkable.  History records that he actually healed people.  Caused the lame to walk.  Caused people to come back to life when they had stopped breathing.  There has never been anyone like Him.  Ever.  We count years of time from knowing him--before, and after him.  So why don't we want to acknowledge that this God we are seeking has, in fact, actually spoken to us through His Son.  Personally, I think it is because if we acknowledge Him, He would expect something of us and we actually want to be our own God.   

There are three questions that I offer those people who ask about why I am a believer.  If they are being argumentative, I usually don't engage.  What's the point.  They just want to argue.  But if they are actually interested, I give them the path that everyone has to take sometime in their life to make decisions about God.   Three questions:

1.  Do you believe that there is some power out there beyond human existence?  Call it a creator, God, Supreme Authority, etc.  If they answer no, the conversation is done.  But if they say yes, then I ask....

2.  Do you believe that "God power" is good or evil?   Of course, you have to assume that the person can tell the difference between good and evil.  There seems to be a universal agreement as to what is good and what is evil.  If they say evil, you can agree that there is an evil power in the world where humans are concerned, but for the rest of creation, trees, the world, space, moon, stars, etc.  The creator of all of that--most would say is good.

3.  So...If there is a higher power...and if he is good, then:  How could a good God leave us humans on earth with no answers as how to reach Him.  Communicate.  Know what He expects of us.  Notice my mathematical interjection, If-then.  

Sometimes at that point you get to explain how you got there.  1.yes, 2. yes, 3. yes, point of discovery in your own life.  I like to tell about my journey to figure out if Jesus was God--since Jesus is the only voice in history that spoke for God, and was good, and exhibited authority over a bunch of historic laws that were a burden to people. 

I love this one: you can help a cow out of a ditch on the Sabbath, but not a man.  That would be work.  I guess you just let him lie there with a broken leg or whatever until the next day.

The apostle Thomas was the answer to that question for me.  Give me a good doubter who asks the right questions. Thomas questioned, and ended up saying, "My Lord and my God."

Have you ever had a day that started off awful, and just got worse?  A few weeks ago, I got my charger cord caught in my recliner mechanism--where I sit and do all my writing.  So I had to spend ninety bucks for a new charger cord.  

This morning, the new cord got caught in the mechanism again, but it hadn't yet severed the cord.  I turned the huge (HUGE) recliner upside down, got down on the floor and held the back in place with my left foot, while I tried to keep the metal mechanism in place with my right elbow and pick between the folding metal with a nail file in my right hand while I held the flex portion of the recliner in my left hand.  I worked in that position for thirty minutes.  But by the grace of God, I got the cord out, bent but not broken. And didn't cut my fingers off.

During the process, I knocked over a full cup of hot Darjeeling tea onto the carpet--which I couldn't do anything about because I was holding the chair, trying to keep it from cutting my fingers off.  The carpet is light cream colored.  What a mess.  I didn't have the strength to upright the recliner, so I left it where it was and used every dishtowel and paper towel in the kitchen to soak up the tea.  I had an appointment with Apple, so I walked off and left it all.

The Apple store tried to install Word for Mac--unsuccessfully--and sent me home with Mohave (?) half installed, telling me it would pick up my home WiFi and finish.  Which it didn't.  I spent an hour on the phone with Apple and still don't have Word installed.  Come to find out, my Mac is obsolete(!)and nothing works like it should.  I am not computer literate.  Which compounds the problem.

They have been trying to call me for the last hour, and can't seem to get me on my phone, so I keep receiving emails from them.  In the meantime, I am so sore from the recliner fiasco, that I can hardly move.  I hurt all over.  Tomorrow is going to be a better day.  Don't try to do what I did after you are eighty. Your body quits bending into the position I was in by the time you are thirty.  

Bill McMann was killed because he didn't eject.  There were twenty or so pilots in a squadron at El Toro who had to carrier qualify so they could go overseas for thirteen months.  They had two weeks to get it done.  Ken was the LSO who was qualifying them.  Landing Signal Officer.

He would wave them aboard, or wave them off.  This was before carriers started using mirrors to do that.  The LSO had Glo-paddles that the pilot could see from far off.  The motion and position of the paddles told you what to do--if you were too high, or got a wave off for being too low.  Or the deck was pitching up instead of going down.  The LSO had to have landed every plane that the Marines and Navy flew onto a carrier himself, before he could be qualified to wave someone else aboard.  That's a lot of planes. 

Ken had been an LSO for years.  Ever since Korea.  There were only three of them in the MC at the time, so they got a lot of practice.  Ken had also spent three years teaching cadets how to get aboard without killing themselves so they could qualify to receive their wings.  Stage 10 of aviation training.  Carrier quals. 

In that two weeks of trying to get carrier qualified, before they went overseas, four planes were destroyed.  One pilot broke his back on landing.  Deck hands tore two planes trying to get them down the elevator, and Bill McMann was killed.  He came in on a rising deck against signals from the LSO, caught his hook on the end of the carrier and pulled it out clear up into the fuel reservoir.  He added power with Ken yelling "Eject, eject,"  which he didn't.  He probably thought he could bring it around for another pass.  Planes quit flying when they run out of JP fuel.  They called the bay Skyray Bay.  I've forgotten how many Skyray planes ended up there.

When I remember all the friends that were killed, my heart hurts.  Where do such men come from?

Another friend that Ken got really close to was Rhon Iverson.  They were together in a number of squadrons.  This friendship came later in their careers.  They were both family men, and got to know each other when they got transferred overseas.  Neither of them were drinkers, so when the other guys hit the bars, Ken and Rhon used their R&R to explore the countryside, bringing back pictures of the places they had been and people they had met.  Both of them enjoyed Japanese drama productions and I think they saw them all.  

Ken wrote me a letter telling something Rhon's wife had shared.  Seems their kids had bunnies.  Rhon's wife heard a terrible screeching, and went outside to see what it was.  Their two boys were bathing the bunnies and hanging them on the clothes line to dry.  By their ears.  (If you are young, you probably won't know what a clothes line is.  It's an external couple of poles with wire strung pole to pole.  Wind is the dryer.  Clothes pins hold the clothes on the wire.  Everything comes in the house wrinkled when it is dry.  White rectangles were cloth diapers that had to be folded.  Over and over again.  Nobody I knew had ever heard of disposable diapers and if they had, they wouldn't have paid for them.)

Anyway, the last time Ken and Rhon were returned stateside, Ken went to Quantico, and Rhon went TAD to the Air Force, teaching them air to air combat, which the Marines were known for and the AF wasn't.  The services traded skilled pilots back then to cross train.  AF pilots weren't used to quick jinks I don't guess, because one of them hit Rhon in a close air maneuver.  A midair.  Ken was the body escort and it almost undid him.  I think that was the death that broke Ken's heart.  There were so many.  But some were harder because you had taken a chance and become a close friend.  Rhon kept his robe and horseshoes at our house for when he flew cross country.  He and Ken would play cribbage for hours.  They were the two finest examples of Marine Corps pilots I knew.  Now gone.  God Bless America.  God bless the Marines. 

When Ken was in Korea, he had a best friend named Pete Olson.  Inseparable.  Everybody called them "The Gold Dust Twins."  Where one was, the other wasn't far behind.  When the Marine Corp caught up with them and found out they had way over a hundred missions (Max you were supposed to fly in combat), they put them on the mail run flying putt-putts back and forth to get the mail. I think they were flying OE's

Pete came back from a run and was telling Ken where the station was and where you were supposed to pick up the mail.  He described the landing strip, etc.  Ken was supposed to take the next run.  He did.  And found a place that looked like Pete had described.  It had a number of air planes on the edges of the strip  Only thing, it was a very short runway.  VERY.  Surrounded by fence.  Ken flew around the facility a couple of times sizing it up and figured out how to get on it.  Come in low, clear the fence and cut the power so he dropped onto the concrete.  " If Pete did it, so can I."

Turns out, it wasn't the post pickup place at all.  It was an airplane repair facility.  All the planes on the tarmac had been trucked in, not flown.  So there he was.  Did he admit what he had done?  Of course not.  He had the mechanics clear the hanger, and pushed his plane to the back.  With the added length of the hanger interior, coupled by the repair lot, there might be enough length to take off.  Clearing the fence was another problem.  But if he could get his wheels up quick enough, well maybe.  It beat confessing.

The mechanics said it couldn't be done.  "Then I'll die trying," Ken told them.  He revved up the engine to max and began his take off.  He later said, "It actually couldn't be done--I don't know if my tires missed the fence.  God must of smiled."  But it was such an accomplishment, he had to tell Pete.  They flew back to the repair strip so Ken could brag. You can't keep something like that to yourself.  A year later, Pete went to the Blues and killed himself in a roll a few feet off the ground. Seems like what they flew in Korea rotated around the fuselage.  The Blues plane rotated on the wing tip.  Not enough room.  Maybe Pete thought for a second he was back in Korea flying F9's.  Sad.

I went to a "Tomato and Pepper" lecture at the plant nursery with my cousin Ann.  It was boring, so while Ann watched, (she is more tolerant than I am), I went exploring around the nursery.  Which always ends up costing money.  But I had a $5 off coupon, and a $28 refund from last year on a ticket they give you when you return something.  So it didn't end up costing an arm and a leg like it usually does.

Some women like to go to clothing stores.  I like to go to plant stores.  I got two new kinds of succulents, and four pots of burgundy clover--which I have been trying to find for over three years.  My church has the clover all around in the shrubs.  It is supposed to be an annual, but it comes back every year and spreads.  Like a ground cover.  So even though the lecture was boring, I enjoyed the plant discoveries.

The only problem is that it is still cold here.  So I can't put them out yet.  Last week, it got below freezing a couple of times.  Plants don't like that.  I don't either.  So the plants are by the kitchen sink, waiting.  We are going to have a late spring.  But the daffodils didn't get the message, popped up and are in shock.

Tornadoes are moving east.  Last year, and already dozens of them this year as well.  It looks like the entire "Tornado Alley" is moving east across Alabama, Mississippi, and other states east of the Mississippi River.  Oklahoma usually gets hit first--and heavy.  But not last year, or this year so far.  I am sorry for other state's tragedies.  Hearing about them and experiencing them are two different things.  We are tired of the experience here in Oklahoma tornado alley.  Is global warming responsible for this?

I refused to sign the book contract--but the publisher is eager to change the things I object to and is calling tomorrow to get on board and make me happy.  I don't want the word "adapt" in the contract any where.  I don't want my name on something that someone else has the right to "adapt."  I've seen books adapted.  That is not for me.

I'm ready to get publishing on the road, but not at any price.  Adapting could mean using words that I find objectionable.  As well as video.  Nope.  Ain't gonna happen.

Today, I got my eyebrows tattooed on.  Again.  I had them done ten years ago when I lost my hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes.  (Chemo)  But the tattooed eyebrows had faded, and new wrinkles had distorted the shape of my brow.  Wrinkles are the price you pay for living.

My hair eventually grew back--somewhat.  Thin, but never again like it had been before.  The lashes and eyebrows didn't.  The upside was that I was alive.  Not having eyebrows, or eyelashes, is a small price to pay for being alive.  Fix it if you can. Accept it if you can't.

Life is full of unexpected losses.  If you are not able to roll with the punches, or are unable to move on with what you have left, you will be miserable in the middle of something good that you are missing.  Because we have much to be thankful for.  Concentrating on what you have lost is a way of living in the past.  Forget it.  It's done.  Over.  Get on with it.  

I don't have eyelashes, but I have eyes.  I don't have thick hair, but I have a great smile.  I have fantastic friends.  My family loves me.  I have over thirty pairs of shoes. (Trivial, but very nice.)  I have a house that is paid for.  I have a dog that I adore and that adores me.  When you get discouraged by something you have lost, count the wonderful things you have left.

The last two weeks, I have had pneumonia.  But (!) with the help of doctors, antibiotics and God's grace, this week I am better.  I'm going to plant a garden soon.  It's March and seeds and bulbs in the ground are just waiting on the weather.  I have a man who has agreed to come build me a raised bed for my garden.  And rototill it to boot.  Life is good.  My grandmother had a wall hanging that said: "I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." Psalms 37:25   It is still true today.  I have been young.  Now I'm not.  But I bet I can grow a lot older if I keep my attitude in the right place.  I'm working on it.  Eyebrows help.

The baby blue Jag got traded for a brand new Cadillac.  Which meant that we didn't have any money because all our money went in car payments, which we couldn't afford.  We couldn't afford the Jag either. The problem with the Jag was it was a two seater.  And Ken's German Shepard (Blitz) got the second seat.  I protested.  

A Marine Captain who had been living with a German Shepard for his companion, and was very attached to his car and his dog, hadn't worked out the kinks in obtaining a wife.  It was me or the dog.  As it turned out, it was the Jag.  Ken bought a Cadillac so I had a seat.  The dog got the entire back seat.  That was okay with me.  

But the payments killed us, and when we moved to California, he sold the Cadillac and bought a very (very) old Lincoln.  We finally weren't car poor, but the car was a clunker.  We went to San Diego one day and Ken let me off to go in a store.  He was going to go around the block and pick me up on the corner, but the car died, so he drifted down the hill with no power until he rolled into a used car lot, called my dad to get him a loan at a Pryor bank--we had no credit in California.  Dad did, and two hours later Ken picked me up on the corner in downtown San Diego.  In a newer Lincoln.  (The car that got caught in the rain.)

The biggest problem with the two hours (that I had no idea where Ken was) was that he had our new baby with him.  I was fairly frantic.  No phones back then.  No idea where he was.  All alone, nineteen years old with no emergency skills.  And worse, it was (and is) a Navy town full of young men looking for women.  I'm standing on a corner in shorts and a tank top, and yep, if I had been in the business, in two hours, I could have probably made enough money to pay for the car.  I was in tears.  And scared.  Pretty well scared stiff.

Ken finally came back, driving the new car with the baby asleep on the back seat.  I was crying like a baby myself.  God protects stupidity I guess.  We didn't ever actually own a car until Ken traded the VW for the Chevy.  We paid it out.  We finally owned a car.  

My only other experience of new car buying was one that I did by myself.  Ken was overseas for thirteen months, and the car we owned got caught outside in one of those Oklahoma rainstorms that don't come down, they come sideways. 

One of the windows was slightly cracked open--not a problem in a normal rain.  Big problem when the rain is almost completely horizontal.  Oklahoma wind.  If you don't live here, you wouldn't understand.  

The sun came out, the car molded.  Grey hairy looking stuff.  Up to then, it was a lovely car. Lincoln, 1955 or 56, I can't remember.  Just that it guzzled gas.  Comfortable, however.

I drove the Lincoln  to Tulsa into a Rambler car dealer.  (Money, i.e.. mpg spoke my language)  They must have seen me coming.  Out came a "million miles to the gallon" beauty.  Pink.   I bought it.  I married Ken in '56.  Our china was pink, my poodle skirt was pink, the world was pink in 56.  I thought it was pretty.  Don't ever buy a car for "pretty."  Don't ever buy a car for mpg.  You'll just pay dollars for mpg in some other way.  It's always a trade off.  Lower mpg comes with lower weight, bumpier, horrible ride and no longevity.

When Ken came home, the car lasted two weeks.  Pink was not a favorite  Marine Corps color.  You would have thought that he had learned his lesson (after I bought the pink Rambler) when I told him I wanted a Volkswagen Camper.   But no.  He always wanted to make me happy.  For some unknown reason, the guy was madly in love with me.

But love has its limits, and pink was the limit.  From then on, after the VW camper incident, Ken bought the cars.  

When I married him, he was driving a Jag XKE Convertible.  Baby blue.  He had good taste in cars.  Apparently, I didn't.  

In the 60's, in the middle of the "Hippie" movement, I caught the bug.  The real Bug.  I talked Ken into a brand new Volkswagen camper.  That huge flat nosed rectangular box "Bug."  Aerodynamics were nonexistent.  You can't get one of those boxes up to speed with a flat front.

I was enamored by the advertising.  It was a house on wheels that we could drive cross country, which was a regular occurrence in the Marine Corps.  Throw the kids in the back and off you go.  Reality was another thing, however.  

It had no passing gear; well, it did, it jus took 10 minutes to activate.  And you didn't want to jerk or swerve the thing, it might roll over.  As an automobile, it wasn't very effective.  Unless you were a hippie.  I almost rear-ended a semi trying to stop it on Hy.1 in Virginia.  Floored the brakes, threw Becky--who was in the back of the bug--into the table (Yes, table) split her head open and ended up in the emergency room.  It could have killed her.

We moved from Virginia for South Carolina in it, and then went on to Oklahoma to see family.  When we finally, (Finally) got there averaging 5 miles an hour (maybe 10mph) Ken let us all out at my folks house and said, "This thing has to go.  I'll be back soon," and left us there.

He came back in a brand new 1963 Chevrolet sedan--loaded.  It was the floor room special of that year.  Gold, to celebrate 50 year.  Their 50 years in production.  Every dealer got one (1) to sell.  We got Pryor's dealer special.  It was special alright.  Don't try and sell a bug in the middle of a conservative town where everyone drives a Ford. There isn't much to trade "up" to. 

Ken never said I was stupid for wanting a VW camper.  He simply got rid of it.  Good riddance. I never again suggested what car we should buy. It's expensive.

I have been housebound.  Ice, ice, and more ice.  My next door neighbor puts the newspaper on the porch every morning so that I don't have to go get it.  I wouldn't go get it anyway.  I am not going to take a chance of falling like that.

My traveling daughter left in the middle of the ice for Russia.  My job is to fret over that.  And I can think of a million things about that to fret on.  Everyone in Russia wants to come to America.  Why go to Russia?  You can see all that stuff that's over there on TV without freezing to death.  Or being locked up.

I have no control over any of my children.  All of you out there who have little children, be assured that before long, you won't have any control either.  And eventually, you'll be glad of that.  It relieves you of any responsibility for the dumb things they do.

If you think they won't do dumb things, take two aspirin and call the doctor in the morning.  Christianity isn't heredity.  You can't catch it from your parents.  Parents can lead you right up to the cross, but they can't make you kneel.

I thank God that all my children made a decision early in their lives to accept the gift that comes with believing.  Because by the age of fifteen, they know everything.  You become automatically stupid.  All those hugs from your five year old, cease to exist in a few years.  You did a good job, they are just testing their wings.  Don't be discouraged.  God's not done with them yet.  "Train up a child in the way he (she) should go, and when they are old, they shall not depart from it.  The operative word is "Old."  Just keep praying that they don't do something that permanently ruins their lives in-between.  

 

 Day 7 for being sick--it's the pits.  Day five for antibiotics.  Two more days to go and the meds will have once aging pulled me out of this.  I finally got dressed today for the first time in a week.  Pneumonia is going to get me someday.  I have no patience for this.  I feel my body is out to get me.

When I have a bad attitude, (Yes, I sometimes do) I sing.   We all have a favorite hymn.  Mine is not too well known.  But last week, oddly enough, someone texted it to me.  I just like the words--because for me, the decision is done.  No need to argue about it with anyone.  It goes like this:

My faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed,
I trust the ever living one, his wounds for me shall plead.
I need no other argument, I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me.    It's enough.

Sometimes I find myself humming, repeating the words in my head.  My faith has found a resting place, and when I am sick and irritated about it, the song calms me down--I trust the ever living one.

That doesn't mean faith and trust are going to heal you (Physically).  It just means that whatever happens to you, it's okay.  God's got it.

I definitely do not like being sick.  It makes me mad.  Yes, I am a control freak.  That's why I hum soothing songs.  Or go sit at the piano and play hymns for a bit.  It evens me out.

On the bright side, I sign a contract today.  What could be better.  By two thirty this afternoon I will be an author and not just a writer.   And because I've been down with this lung thing, I have had 7 days to do nothing but write and am almost finished with the first draft of a second book.   Sometimes things happen for a reason.  I wasn't able to leave the house.  Jeannine and Linda--my neighbors, brought me food every day.  Nobody expected anything from me, so I did what I wanted to do.  Write.  "In every thing give thanks, for it is the will of God, in Christ Jesus, concerning you."