My neighbor who lives across the street that is always bringing me something for dinner--she finally let me buy Chinese for us.  Finally. 

I had given her my credit card last year so that when she went to the grocery store, she could charge what few things I needed.  But she wouldn’t charge dinner and bring it home for us...which meant that I couldn’t ever return the favor.  But I’m persistent, and she finally gave in.  She used my card to buy our lunch.  Chinese.  Delicious.

People have been so good to me during the pandemic, and the ice storm during October, and the week of freezing weather and snow.  I don’t know how other older people who couldn’t get out of their houses made it.

Becky brought me breakfast this morning.  She is trying to coax me into eating more protein.  But I don’t like milk products--at all.  I force myself to eat eggs.   If it is sweet, I don’t want it.  Jeannine brought me peanut butter cookies last night.  Those are the only cookie I will eat and she knows it...everyone is trying to get food down me.  Jeanette brought sweet and sour chicken over rice yesterday. 

Wednesday is bean day for Linda Kerley.  She lets me make the cornbread---so I am not totally useless.  They are all such a blessing. 

Carolyn has been mailing me the ken-ken puzzles from her newspaper.  I only get one of them on Sunday.  But the Tulsa paper she takes raised her rate to over 300$, so she quit them---and I won’t get any more puzzles.

I went to the book store to get a book of them, but they didn’t have any.  They have every other kind of crossword and puzzle, but no ken-ken.

And my mathematical mind craves number puzzles.

The only kind of puzzle I don’t like is figuring out what to do on this computer.  This morning, I was writing and my power went off and I lost what I wrote.  When I finally was able to figure out how to retrieve it, it came up with two copies!!.  One with the original title, and one titled with the name of the first chapter.

Solution:  call Pat.  But she is packing up to go to a horse clinic and can’t come help me.  I would take a class, but the problem with those classes is that they never tell you the thing you want to know.

This Mac-pro has too many options.  And too many titles to things you can do.  Choice after choice after choice.  And a language all of its own.  I need something with an on/off switch.

After Ken retired--twenty one years in the Marine Corps and another 30+ years teaching college--if you asked him what he was planning on doing the next day, he would say, “I plan on getting up with nothing to do and going to bed with it half done.”

I read a comment in Reader’s Digest that fits my plans for what I am going to do tomorrow.  “I’m going to finish procrastinating the things I didn’t get finished procrastinating yesterday.”

That’s one of the things I love about being retired.  After moving all over the United States and back again every time Ken was transferred (I’ve moved 27 times in my life), and raising four kids, going to school, teaching full time and running a house with a million things to do everyday, I never seemed to catch up with it all and never had a minute to just do nothing.

Now, nothing is pressing.  Calm reigns.  I love it.  It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Time to think.  Time to just “be.” 

On the other hand, after a hectic life, I admit that sometimes it is boring.  But boring is good.  I like it.  Time to write is a bonus.  I don’t know that any of the things I write are memorable, but I enjoy doing it.

I have enjoyed teaching the Gospel of Luke.  He was my kind of writer-- always trying to get everything down--in order.

He was so thorough that he went around to every person and place that he could--to find out the story from each place and person where it occurred.

He wrote over twenty five incidents and stories that the other three gospel writers did not include.  Mark, on the other hand, only included two things that none of the others did.

Luke was systematic in his approach.  He started his gospel by saying that he wanted to get it all down from the mouths of the people who knew Jesus personally.  He wanted first hand accounts.

It is one of the few books in the Bible that you can read and get the idea that you were an observer.  It is personal.  Luke, a physician,  made sure that the people who read what he had written could be sure that they were reading a true account of what happened.  A true man of medicine, Luke wanted to see people spiritually healed.  We owe Luke a debt of gratitude. 

I have posted, as of today, 2113 times.  I am sure I am repeating myself by now.  What started as an explanation of the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis has evolved....

I just wanted to tell everyone how it might have happened.  Since we know that dinosaurs lived, (and that the Bible is true), it seemed good to me to place those animals before verse two.  Back when God created the heavens and the earth...

And then something happened that wiped everything out all at once sixty-six million years ago.  Probably the asteroid that hit the earth on the north edge of S. America on the gulf.  There are traces and evidence of that event all over the earth.  Darkness of burning smoke and chemicals were in the atmosphere and lasted sixteen years.  I have written a booklet on the subject, and if you are interested go back in my blogs to read that.

Then God looked down and decided to reconstruct the wobbling, sloshing mess we call earth.   "And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, (waters)."

So God began to "Reconstruct--not create--the earth."  After verse two, the first chapter of Genesis is the story of that reconstruction...and the story of us.

 I got up with one thing to do...taxes.  Which, since I am so disorganized with paper, meant that I had to go through every piece of paper, bills, receipts, etc. from the last year.

Which I did.  Shredding.  Sorting.  Stapling.

It is in order.  Now all I have to do is to do it.

That's the hard part. 

I've been applying what Paul said to my own life this week--as I've been stuck inside.  

I thought that after I got the second shot, that ten days later, I could return to my normal life.  But....no....we got the storm of a lifetime.  Worst on record.  29 degrees below wind chill factor.  13 below actual temperature.  There are at least 8 inches of packed snow on my roof, and the yard and driveway have six inches.  I'm wondering if the roof will fall in from the weight??

Paul said, "For the good that I would do...I don't do.  But the bad which I would not do...that, I do."  Romans 7:19 (My paraphrase)

Which applies.  I am looking at all my paper...I'm just not doing anything with it--like filling out my tax forms.

I have been without TV or internet for days.  Besides that, it has been up to 13 below zero.  Squig is so small that he sinks up to his belly in the snow.  His zip-suit just acts like a shovel.  He comes in near frozen and packed with snow.

My next door neighbor is a computer engineer and came over and got me on line again.

Stay warm.  I'll think of something interesting to writ about in a few days.  

My brain is frozen.

I'm ready for this to be over.  Next time I am going to do better about preparing to feed and water the birds.  They are in the trees out back freezing their tails off....

On Sunday, I read a verse to my class that I had heard my husband Ken teach a lesson on.  When  Ken told about his experience, it made the verse come alive.

Luke 7, parts of the verses from verse 2-7.  "A centurion's servant..was sick and ready to die." He said, "Lord, trouble not yourself; for I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof....just say a word and my servant shall be healed."  Then in verse 8 the centurion says, "I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say..go and he goes; and to another, come, and he comes; and to my servant, do this and he does it." The centurion was a ranking officer of Rome.

Ken said that when he was the commanding officer of a Marine squadron, he had many men under him who obeyed his orders to "Go, come, and do."  Ken followed that statement and said that the centurion--who commanded hundreds of men--was telling Jesus, "I know the power of your authority.  You have the power to do whatever you decide to do.  When you say "go, come, or do" your word is final.  You are God."

Ken said, "I served as a commanding officer in the United States Marine Corps as a Lt. Colonel due to appointment by a higher power.  And in that position I had the full authority of the United States government behind every order I gave."

The centurion recognized that Jesus had the full power of God behind every word Jesus uttered.  And even though he never met Jesus, he knew that nobody could do the things Jesus did unless appointed by God.

This weekend we are going to have the blizzard of a life-time.  30 below zero.  After a week of sub-zero numbers.  It is really cold.  They say it will break an all time record low temp.  Can't wait till this is over.  I hope my heating system doesn't give out.  It's been running for hours and hours without a break just trying to keep up.

It was so cold last night that Squig stayed underneath the covers all night curled up in a ball.

He doesn't like his jacket.  It zips up--and he doesn't want to wait until I get it on him--until he goes outside and then--he likes it.

He sleeps most of the day now.  He is getting old.  Thirteen next month.  Over 90 in dog years.  If he isn't sleeping, he wants me to give him a rub-down in his shoulders and neck.  I'm sure he hurts, but he never complains.  He just closes his eyes and sighs.

I understand the feeling.

    Brrr...Baby it's cold outside.  Most of you young'ens won't remember that song.  Just walking out to get the paper out on the driveway was a hazard this morning.  Mist was falling to the ground and freezing the moment it hit the pavement.  I was careful, but wondered if doing the crossword was worth the chance of falling....

    It was.

    I'm going to spend the day under an electric lap robe turned high, in my easy chair.   Squig is already curled up on the sofa in the quilted jacket Becky brought him.  Cozy.

    Stay warm.  Probably shouldn't drive.  

    

     

I watched my first Super-bowl.  I was never an athlete.   In the 9th grade, I played (if you can call it that) basketball because my mom was a great basketball player and told me I had to do some sport for exercise--which I don't like to do even now.   My coach put me in as a guard only when he wanted a forward "taken out".  I wasn't very good at that either.  He didn't care if I fouled out because I wasn't a real player anyway.

I married a super athlete.  All state.  Two sons--All state.  One daughter, all American.  Only Pat and me are normal nerds who read.

But my friend Carolyn who lives in Pryor called and told me I had to turn it on and watch it with her...from afar...she didn't want to watch it by herself. It's called "watching on the phone." I had seen some football  as I walked through a room where the boys were watching...so I kinda know the game.  I had to go to a zillion when Jon was playing.  (Scott was baseball--football only for kickoffs and field goals--but still I went)  

I enjoyed watching Brady.  Calm, precise, thoughtful--he put a team together pulling players from retirement (?) and rookies.  It was interesting.  I'll watch it again next year just to watch someone who knows what they are doing.  

Can't wait to get out there again and do something radical...like go to the grocery store, eat at Olive Garden, get the oil changed in my car or something equally exciting.  See people's faces.

I hope this vaccination turns the country into normal again.  Whatever normal is.  Some people have a reaction to the second shot.  I didn't even know I got the first one--I didn't even feel the needle or have soreness.  But I was one of the unlucky ones on the second shot.  Misery lasted one day...I'll give up one day to live the next year vaccinated.

Everyone has been so good to bring me food.  One day last week, I had home baked bread for breakfast--Becky Bacon.  Soup for lunch--Jeannine Bryce across the street.  Lemon ravioli for a snack--Daughter Becky.  And Chinese chicken something or other for supper--Jeanette Harder.

Friends.  What a blessing.  And my daughter Pat called to say she was taking a day off work to drive me and bring my home next week when they do the medical ablation thing-a-ma-jig on my back. 

I've had seven ablations already on my heart.  None of them worked--so I hope--with reservation--that this works on my back.  I'm applying the power of positive thinking along with prayer.  It doesn't cure the problem, it just cuts the "power-cord" that transmits pain.  Works for me.

Old people stoop over and look "bent" because they hurt.  I used to think they were broken...they aren't.  But when people look "funny" we assume they are stupid as well.  My bad.

    

 

Today I get my second Covid shot.  The first thing I am going to do next week is go to the beauty shop and get a hair cut.  Can't wait.  My hair has never been this long since high school.  It is awful.

I've tried to do my part by staying home.  The worst thing that happened is that I unwittingly spoiled my dog because I sat in my chair three times a day to eat, and he learned that if he looked pitiful enough, I would give him a bite of what I was eating.  I've created a monster.

They say that "natural selection" favored the dogs that have eyes that look forlorn and pitiful.  They look at you and you can't resist them.  Those were the dogs that survived, because people pampered them.

Squig is a master at the droopy, sad, pitiful eye look.  You just know he is suffering because he is starving...even though he gets two bowls of food each day.  And not just any food...he is on a special diet because he has had pancreatitis in his past and has to eat low-fat.  A bag of it costs a fortune.

We have each other.  What more can I say.

The righteousness of the people on the sides of the two parties that select our nominees for government positions is sometimes hard to swallow.  Everyone on both sides in this past selection was so bloody righteous.

I failed to hear a real discussion of issues in the process.  People on both sides just jabbed and poked and prodded each other.  It created a very caustic environment that lingers.  "Something is wrong with YOU."  

People attacked their friends and family members who didn't agree with their choices.   It finally wore me out.  I quit listening to those people. 

I grew up in an age where the conventions selected their nominees.  They decided who was qualified and who would run.  In the fifties, that ceased.  TV became the format for selection. You got on TV, said what ever you wanted to, and promised things you couldn't ever hope to do.

Eventually the TV stage and forum became a place to stab and demean your opponent--not to discuss ideas and platforms. One-liners now rule.  Just get on TV, and rout out your opposition.  The parties lost control.

Who knows what anyone really stands for anymore.  All I heard--was what was wrong with the other side.  Not what anyone earnestly believed in and what could actually make things better each day for the American public.

I have been working on the book I am writing about my brother.  I have taken pages and pages of notes, but putting it together in some form that someone would want to read has been difficult.

There are so many isolated incidents--usually unrelated to anything.

Today I wrote about one of them.  In the upper mountains of China, there was a village where the Yao women had huge mounds of hair on their heads.  A perfect example of "top-heavy."

They kept their ancestors hair and handed it down through generations, weaving it into their own.  A type of ancestor worship.

Once a month, all the women gathered at a small brook for a hair washing ritual.

Cultural differences such as that were a picture-taking opportunity for the volunteers my brother took into China.

He was always recruiting doctors, nurses, EMTs and such to donate their time and help set up clinics in rural villages.  And there was an unending supply of people who wanted to go with him.  Bill was looking for permanent people who would come back.  For most it was a vacation.

Where is God?  People say He is in heaven and point up, but that is "down" for the other side of the earth.  Where is heaven?  Is it all around us?  Where will the kingdom be?  The Bible says "A new earth."  

Others say he is everywhere.  If so, our loved ones who have passed are with him...are they everywhere too?  Those who know me say I think too much.  Probably.  We are not only body, but spirit.  I'm not sure what the spirit looks like...can you only see the spirit with spiritual eyes?

Where do you look when you pray?  Or maybe you close your eyes.  I look up at the ceiling when I have already gone to bed.  I look through an east window at the sky when I am sitting in my chair.  I like it when the sun is coming up. I never close my eyes unless I'm in a group. I don't know why.

Jesus says he will be coming from the east, so the east seems a good direction to check in the mornings??

I'm ready for a new heaven and a new earth.  I am appalled by the level of open debauchery and sin in the world.  I didn't grow up in a world like we have now.  There are no curse words left to be banned by TV.  I was watching a film on TV of a mob, and every curse word you can think of was used.  There were no warnings ahead of time that it was coming.  God's name is no longer considered holy by the general public.  Sad.

Becky Bacon showed up at my house Saturday with a recipe for bread.  She brought the yeast with her, walked in, threw her bags in her bedroom and made home made bread.  She is one of those visitors who show up,  make themselves at home.  And make bread.

I always say that she is the one person who knows the second word I am going to say, so I don't have to finish sentences.  We read each other's minds.

Our husbands were--Joe still is--pilots.  Both served in Nam.  Joe is the full blood Indian who grew up in India.  Adopted in Texas and transported to India where his dad was America's Agriculture Ambassador.  Joe was flying back and forth to England when he was thirteen, and never stopped flying.  England ruled India at the time.  The pilots let him fly with them.  Actually they let him fly the transports.  He's been flying ever since.

Becky and I became friends, then Joe and Ken became cohorts of old air escapades and tall tales. Ken said Joe was the little brother he never had.

I love it when Becky comes for however long.  This time three days.  She is family.  God has given me wonderful friends.  They are precious.