My computer has been goofy.  I haven’t been able to post.  

Will try and do better next week.

 Finally went to see the doctor.  She went over me with a fine tooth comb, did a Covid test--I don’t have it--put me on two meds and said to let her know if they didn’t take care of the headache and upset tummy.  I’ve really been under the weather for weeks.  

I woke up this morning with no bad symptoms.  Hallelujah.  Gimme’ the pills.  She thinks I  stressed my entire body dealing with the back pain for so long.  Sounds reasonable to me.  I am a stress bomb anyway.

I was supposed to get blood work, but forgot.  Got all the way home and had to turn around and drive back to get it.  No wonder I am a stress bomb sometimes.   I do it to myself.

One of the things that occurs as you age is keeping up with what is breaking down.  Old people talk about their ailments because they are always occurring.  It’s one thing or another.  God’s way of getting us ready to travel--to heaven.  Ken always said--especially in terms of going to war, “Don’t threaten me with heaven.” 

He was the bravest person--man or woman--I have ever known.  He never talked about his exploits unless it was to tell a funny story.  And some of his escapades were really funny.  As for ailments, he was post flighting an A4 in Viet Nam to see if there was battle damage.  As he walked around the back of the plane, it “burped” a ball of fire.  Burned his entire body.  One of the men doused him with water and they put him in a shower.  I heard that one after he came home.  Among other mishaps. 

The divide in the nation seems to be getting larger.  It is unlike anything I have seen in my lifetime.  And based on terrible misinformation coming at you from every angle.  I have heard all sorts of things that normally wouldn’t be given the time of day.

It takes years and years to do a study on the results of a vaccine---we don’t know anything about that yet.  But things are being brandied about as absolute facts after five months.  One of the latest is that it will make you infertile.  You can’t possibly know that in five months!!  Five years maybe.  Yesterday, I heard that the vaccine if filled with something that makes you magnetic.  Where is this kind of stuff coming from??? 

I’ve never seen anything like this.  Trump introduced “Warp Speed.”  It was a resounding success.  It worked.  Biden acted on that and those who got the vaccine (including Trump and Biden) aren’t going to the hospital.  98.2% of deaths are from the unvaccinated.  If you don’t want a vaccine, okay.  But why get on a soapbox about it?  What this has to do with politics escapes me.  But then, I am a scientist.  I’ve worked in labs.  I know how lab science works.

America seems to have lost faith in itself.  Perhaps it will cause us to turn to God again.  I’m tired of all the division between people over stupid stuff.  Let’s talk about things that count in eternity... 

I called my friend Carolyn last night and told her I was getting little spots on my legs that peeled.   She told me it was a fatal disease for which there was no cure.  Old age.  It’s nice to know what is going to kill me.

I hadn’t checked my garden in a couple of days and when I went out there, there were twenty or so ripe tomatoes.  You can only give so many away and then you have to do something with them...which I’m not going to do.

But my cousin Ann makes salsa, so she is going to take them.  Fridays we go to breakfast, but this morning I fixed a spinach, tomato, mushroom and bacon omelet for us and finished it off with. toast.  Yum.  She likes to go to the weekend sales...and I go along to keep her company.  She doesn’t like to do it by herself.  I’d be doing nothing at home anyway.

We seldom buy anything...but she is always looking for things that are cheap for her “basket.”  She keeps it by her piano for her students and when they do what they are supposed to do and do it well, they get a “prize.”  Everything she buys at the sales is brand new.  

It is amazing what people buy and never use.

I am hooked on “Married at First Sight.”  I can’t imagine someone marrying a person they never met.  Maybe it intrigues me because after Ken spent twenty-one years as a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps doing super-sonic crazy things, he chose to spend the rest of his life as a professor in Sociology--of all things!!!

He had been the commanding officer of three different squadrons of men--one of those in the Viet Nam war--officers who were also pilots, and hundreds of enlisted men, and was fascinated by the interaction between the human community and what motivated them. 

So when he retired, he went back to college and got a degree in Airspace studies and his Master’s in Sociology.  I spent many an afternoon in his office at the end of the day, waiting on him so we could drive the fifty-five miles back to our home, listening to him discuss different points that intrigued him.  Listening to his expertise on the subject of sociology.

Why do people do the things they do?  Why do they think the things they think?  Why do they believe what they do?  Why do they react the way they do? He would walk into a new class and say, “The basic question that all mankind must answer before they can answer anything else is: Is there a God. It affects every other thing you build your life on.  I believe there is a God and it will influence how I teach this class.  If that bothers you, then go to the administration building and find another teacher.”  I loved the guy--what can I say.... 

Pat decided that she better come look at me.  Sometimes telling her I am okay isn’t enough.  It’s not that she doesn’t believe me, she just knows that I am self-sufficient and sometimes wait until it’s sometimes too late to yell.  She stayed all night, declared me fine and went home this morning.

Becky came by as well.  She is doing an estate sale this weekend and said there were already over 100,000 hits on the site photos.  It is a really big one.  If you haven’t ever been, look on line at Swan Estate Sales.  She works on it all the time.  The houses are sometimes left after years of neglect and have to be cleaned--it is hard work.  She hires a lot of people to help.  Two more in August.

Amy called Pat this morning to get instructions with tending the horses.  Pat can’t easily leave them, and one of them that she is boarding needed a swift kick.

Horses and estate sales.  I don’t understand my daughters.  But what can I say...they both have always worked hard at what they do.  Me?  I like cleaner venues in which to spend my time.

I like retirement even better.

Headache is almost all gone.  Hallelujah.  I’m through running into walls full speed.  Nose cartilage is still sore--probably cracked, but what the heck, it didn’t kill me.

Ann saved me some eggplant parmesan--yum.  And Brad--Jeanette’s son--sent me Chinese.  Enough for five or six meals.  So I don’t have to figure out what I am going to be eating for the next week.  Thank God for the people who remember me that way.  I had an ear of corn for breakfast with toast.  My unconventional solution to the morning.

If you have older single people in your neighborhood, take them a plate.  It means the world.  They’ve quit cooking.  They’re eating frozen dinners.  Peanut butter sandwiches, grilled cheese, etc.  A hot meal is a delight.

I used to do that for neighbors without any idea what it meant to them.  Now I know.  Maybe what goes around comes around???

I did get up this  morning and put green beans and potatoes on.  I fried a pound of bacon yesterday and have fresh tomatoes.  So I will share it with someone.  My mother taught me to use frozen green beans. Add bacon grease and they taste the same as fresh if you do it right.  I fry the whole pound of bacon so I can have BLT’s for lunches.  Yum.  Pigs are one of God’s best inventions.  Ham, bacon, pork chops...

 The Monday after my Thursday back injection I woke up with a splitting headache.  I had a regular appointment with my GP that morn and she was concerned that I might be leaking spinal fluid from the injection.

I decided to wait it out.  The headache persisted.  I was scratching my face and noticed that the bridge of my nose was extremely tender and reflected on why that might be???  Then I remembered...Sunday night I got up in the middle of the night on my way to the bathroom in pitch black darkness and ran head first into a wall.  Wham!

It dazed me, but I went back to bed and forgot about it.  Wrong thing to do.  I think I have a concussion.  I called Scott--who holds the record on concussions and he told me where they hurt and that’s where I hurt.  So I am waiting this out too.  Don’t run into walls in the night is what I learned.

I remember a concussion Scott had.  Running on a hit, he put two guys in, rounded third full bore and stretched charging headlong into the catcher.  I saw him go limp up in the air as he fell back to earth.  Out like a light.  Six hours later, he came out of a coma in the hospital, looked up at me and said, “Was I safe?”  That’s all he ever cared about.  Baseball was his life.  All-state.  Drafted by the Red Socks.  Chose college and tore his knee up, dislocated his shoulder.  OU coach said he had the best arm he had ever seen.  Glory days.  He was really good.  Now he refs and loves it.

 The teachers I meet with in Wednesday’s night class always have something original to offer.  I generally learn something new.  I am the only woman in the class--I’m sure they don’t think from my perspective. 

But one of the men said something interesting.  He noted that when Job’s wife told him, “Curse God and die,” that she had lost everything.  All of her children, her husband’s wealth, her position in the community due to Job being outcast due to his boils, and her future.  And one more thing...

I offered one more thing that men don’t experience as often as women do--and that is a need for protection.  In today’s world women are more independent, but for all our feelings of competence, men are bigger, stronger, more aggressive and more capable of interaction in war.  We’ve seen that with the inclusion of women in our military forces.  They--for the most part--aren’t capable of lugging the wounded off the front lines.

I consider myself independent, self sufficient and capable.  But in a fight, or if I have an intruder, I want  a man.

Another thing I have missed since Ken died is the feeling, the confidence, that someone has my back.  I feel alone in certain situations.  I don’t know how men feel when they lose their partner, but they don’t seem to need that kind of protection.  They need someone to cook for them.  The older “alone” men in our church seem to love the pot luck dinners we have more than any other service of the church.

I could be wrong.  I just liked it better with a man in the house.  Or maybe it was just that it was Ken.....

I have been watching Nova and Discover this week.  We are indebted to the photographers who sit on site hour after hour for one or two seconds of film that makes it to production.  Those moments we get to watch.  Which otherwise we would never experience.

Today I have been watching the sharks of Hawaii and the fish that are found only in those waters.  And the volcano pouring lava into the ocean with steam rising above it. 

I  took my three children to Hawaii when Ken was in Viet Nam and he got R&R to the island for a week--but even then saw nothing like I see on TV

It reminds me of an analogy I use in describing the Trinity.  H2O--water--comes in three main forms.  But it is always H2O.  1. Steam (fog), 2. ice, and 3. liquid.  Each has a different purpose--but it is always H2O.  One thing in three forms.  

I had someone tell me that the word “Trinity” isn’t in the Bible.  As if that mattered.  It is a word that describes a single thing with three forms or purposes.  We know what it means.  God--the father.  God--in human form come to earth.  And God--within us in Spirit.  One God.

So glad I had them inject my back.  Pain level is actually bearable now.  I’m back!!  No pun intended.

Can’t remember if I told you...I got a publishing date for 11/2/21.  The publisher sent beautiful cards with the front of the book, description of what it was about and an author recognition.  There it was.  “The Letter,” and underneath that, Janie Jacks.  Wow.  I’m pumped.

The cards are in color.   She sent them for me to give to my class of ‘56. It’s going to be a hardback!  It’s taken two and a half years.  But librarians say I have to write off 2020 because printers went bankrupt all over America and small publishers did too.  

Bookstores were closed and profits in the industry went flat.  On line readers cut into that also. I prefer a book in my hands to Kindle, but some don’t.

If you are thinking about becoming an author to make money, forget it.  Half the price goes to the book store.  Twenty-five percent goes to the publisher.  Another large percent goes to the editors and the printers.  If you get a dollar a book, you have done well.  I don’t care about that.  I just want to see it printed and read.

 The procedure on my back yesterday went well.  Not sure what they did, they knocked me out.  I had called his office and said, “Schedule me for the next step in the process you are doing,” without asking what it was.  I had already ok’d the sequence.   They did.  I was too groggy to ask.  I’ll see him soon and find out what’s next.  The goal is to achieve no pain.  We are getting there.

I’m still a little dopey.  

I’ll write something intelligent on another day.  Maybe.

You have a gift.  God gives everybody a gift--to do something.  I was at teacher’s meeting last night and my director Jerry Miller was saying that he couldn’t be there Sunday because he was doing the music at a church that was having some problems.

I said, “Sing, Jerry. When you sing everyone’s heart is lifted to the gates of heaven.”

He said, “Oh, Janie, you are just being sweet!”  And I replied, “No, I’m not being sweet.  It’s your gift.  God gave it to you.  I didn’t get it.  Nobody else got it.  It’s yours.  And you are the only one who can use it.  Sing, Jerry.  Lift people’s hearts with your gift.”

Sometimes we forget that our gifts are given to us to use for other people.  Sometimes we forget how special our gifts are in the sight of others.  We forget that others need us to bless them--just like they sometimes bless us.

We need to get busy “blessing.”  It’s the reason God gave us a gift.  Let your light shine.

My daughter and hubby called at 6:30 to see if I was up and wanted to go to breakfast.  Of course!!!  Great way to start a day.

My Sun Gold tomatoes are going crazy.  I pick a cup or two of them every day.  Little round orbs of sweet.

Out of fifty or so okra plants--twice--five or six made it.  The rabbits are fat and happy.

I have another procedure on my back tomorrow.  When ablation (two), Physical therapy (months) and steroids don’t help, then--and only then--will the insurance allow and pay for a transmitter.  How that works, I don’t know.  But at this point, I’m up for it.  Seems like a lot of wasted insurance money when the doctor said none of it would help anyway.

Can’t believe it is July.  Time has evaporated since 2019.  2020 was a loss.  2021 is half over.  Unbelievable.

I am going to teach the last two lessons on the book of Job this week and next.  I am glad it will be done.  You can cover the point of the book in one day--bad things happen to everyone.  Bad people, good people, and so-so people.  God isn’t punishing you because something bad happens.  Job lost everything and he didn’t do anything wrong.

But God does use the events in our lives.  And there are consequences to the things we do.  Rob a bank?  You will spend time locked up in prison.  The punishment is the result of the action.

If you don’t believe you are in charge of certain events in your life, you are misled.  You control much of what happens to you.  Your actions make a difference--if not, why do we have the book of Proverbs to warn us. 

I call Proverbs the book of “buts.”  If you do “this,” the result is good; but if you do “that” the result is horrible.  The book of Proverbs teaches us right from wrong.  We get to choose.  God does not foreordain your choice.  It’s yours.  And it does have outcomes.  People tell me, “God knows ahead of time what you are going to do.”  He could know, but what if he chooses not to know?  He can do whatever He wants to know.  He’s God.  I can’t find any Bible verse to support the idea that we are not in charge of what we do.  We are.

    My friend and I left last Friday for Pryor for our high-school reunion.  Class of 1956. The traffic on the freeway (4th of July) was horrendous.  Back to back semi trucks, not counting every family in Oklahoma who were on the roads.  And every time a semi wanted to pass a semi, it took 5-10 minutes to get it done.  With traffic backed up for miles.  Same coming back home.  Surviving was all that was in your mind.  Crazy.

    My publisher actually got fifty post cards for me to give people.  And they had publishing date printed!  Nov. 2, 2021.  That was encouraging.

    I stayed with my brother and woke up with his chickens.  I now know that driving to Pryor--a two and a half hour trip--isn’t going to happen again soon.  I was whipped when I got there.

My friend Kathy baked me three huge pans (30 per pan) of home-made yeast rolls.  I told her “No, don’t do it because I can’t come get them, I don’t have time--I’m going home.  But if you know Kathy--she baked them and delivered them to the fair-grounds where the reunion was being held and put them in my car!!!  I’m going to gain fifty pounds if I’m not careful.  It’s nice to be loved--I dearly love her too.  Pryor is home.  It always will be.  I miss all of the people.

 My friend from high-school, Suzanne, is going to stay all night with me tonight.  It will be fun to visit with someone from the same era.

I’ve been shocked at the generations since then who know nothing about the conditions of Americans who lived during WW2.  But in their defense, I know very little about WW1.  Just what I have read.

 I know that paregoric was legal (narcotic) because my great uncle fought in the war and told us that soldiers with bad teeth were given the drug to rub on their gums to ease the pain. Many came back addicted, and it was legal to buy over the counter.  That’s it.  That’s what I know.

I won’t be posting again until Monday.