We are going to have rain today...storms and wind.  Now that I am older, I finally understand why the old timers talked about the weather.  It’s the biggest event in their day.

Once you are retired, everything you do each day depends on what the weather is going to be.  I turn the TV on each morning to check the weather.  So I guess that makes me an “old timer.”

When you are young, you are going to do what you planned to do that day no matter what the weather is.  You are going to go to work, go to school, or anything else that is on your list.  Not so...when you don’t have to...we don’t want to get wet, hot, or cold.  Sedentary describes us old timers.

Today is the last day of September and for the first time this week, I don’t have anything that I have to do.  Next week will be different. Among other things, Squig is going to have his teeth cleaned and a couple of them pulled.  I am very nervous about that because of the anesthetic.  He is older than I am.  But his gums are bad due to the teeth.  I used to get his teeth cleaned every year, but hesitated when he passed 80 in dog years.

I can’t believe tomorrow will start the month of October.  It is hard to believe the year is in the last quarter.  Time has flown.  We are all one day, one year closer to heaven.  Or......?  Get your life in order with God.

So far this month, 499 people have read my posts.  I had never looked at the numbers before.  I didn’t even know I could check them until today.  Over all the time I’ve posted, more than 66,000 of them have been read.  That is humbling.

I’m just an everyday person who reads the Bible, teaches a class every Sunday and have been doing that since I was 18 and got kicked out of my church class because the teacher said I talked too much...the preacher put me to teaching nine year olds, and I’ve been teaching ever since.

It was an advantage to be raised in a Christian home where every one in the family taught on Sundays and discussed the lesson over lunch after church.  It turned me into an excellent Pharisee...I kept the rules.  But that isn’t salvation.  I was twenty three years old before I knew what God expected of me--and it wasn’t just keeping rules. 

Too many times we judge other people by the rules they keep.  They look good from the outside, but what is going on in their hearts can’t be seen.  God starts on the inside.  The world and church denominations start by cleaning you up on the outside.  I was twenty three before it all became personal and I finally “got” it in my heart and became a new person.  Thank God for grace.  We wouldn’t be “new” without it. 

I figure I’ll get some flack from someone over yesterday’s post---but I just decided it was worth it if it guides someone to some truth about doctrine that is anti-Bible.

I am surprised at how many people don’t read their Bibles.  It is the most published book in the world and people fail to read it.  Get a simple translation.  Read the Living Bible.  Don’t try to decipher King James.  Read a modern transliteration rather than a translation.

A transliteration doesn’t try to translate word for word, it gives it phrase by phrase in modern language.

It is better to read something you understand than plow through something you don’t understand.

I was raised on King James...but when I want to get the meaning of a passage cleared in my mind, I go to the Living Bible.

Just read it!!  You can’t stand up to people who give you false doctrine if you don’t know what the truth is.  And actually know what you believe and why you believe it.  Your source is scripture, not preachers, TV evangelists and false doctrine.  Trust the eye witnesses who knew Jesus.

Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons do not believe that Jesus--the man--was God.  So when they knock on my door, I greet them with my Bible and say, “I know you mean well, but the Apostles  saw him after he rose from the dead, and they testified that Jesus was God.”

And then I open my Bible to 2nd John 1:10 and read, “If anyone come unto you and brings not this doctrine, (that Jesus is God)  do not receive him into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that bids him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.”

Jesus is God.  He lived, he died, he rose from the dead to intercede for us with the Father.  He paid for our sin.  That is the doctrine--anything else is  considered to be false.  John goes so far as to say that spreading a false doctrine is an evil deed.

They may be good people.  Well-intentioned.  But they do not spread the true gospel of Christ.  And it harms those who accept a false idea about Jesus.  Only God can conquer death.

I don’t argue, the scripture gives me the authority to speak up.  I close the door, and hope they re-read their Bibles.  We have become so afraid of offending people that we sometimes don’t stand up for truth.  You don’t have to argue with them, just read the Scripture. 

I get my hair done on Fridays.  Breakfast with Ann, run around to garage sales, hair and home by noon.  It means that there is no time to do the crossword or puzzles in the morning, and I go into withdrawal.  But it also means I have something to do in the afternoon that is fun.  You can’t have it both ways.

Yesterday I pulled the last of the weeds in the front flower beds.  I pay later for bending over.  Time to mulch and be done for the year as far as gardening.  I made stew and used the last of the tomatoes. 

I thought 2020 vanished.  But 2021 has slipped through my fingers as well.  The days used to be shorter, but the years were longer.  Now, the years fly by and the days are long.

I took my car in to have the oil changed yesterday.  I do it at the Lincoln dealership because they wash it.  When I got the bill, they didn’t charge me for the oil.  I will have to call and straighten that out today.  Maybe they forgot to put oil in it???

The only thing I can count on any more is Jesus.  Everything else seems to be hit and miss.  The Lord never fails.  He is faithful.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart...and love your neighbor as yourself...

“As I love myself???”  There are a lot of people who have never come to terms with caring for themselves.  They abuse their bodies, their minds, and their time.

It’s hard to love others when you don’t love yourself very much.  Identify the things about yourself that need attention and get with it.  Start by cleaning up your act.

We discipline our children...by leading them in the direction of what is best for them.  But disciplining ourselves...that’s another thing.

Examine yourself.  What needs work.  What things about yourself do you find irritating in other people--but forgive in your own behavior.

I’m always on time, but if a task needs to be done, I procrastinate.  I have a wonderful excuse for that...”I work better when I’m under pressure.”

Amazing all the excuses we have for ourselves and all the criticism we have for other people.

I found six sets of lamp-shades on the top shelf of the closet I have cleaned out.  Twelve shades.  Why do I have those!  Who needs spare lamp shades.  It is odd what I kept through all my moves.  Strange.

But that room is now empty.  The chest of drawers is empty.  The bed has  a Christmas wreath under it.  And the closet is bare.  If anyone wants to move in, I have a room for you.  I can put the wreath under a different bed in another room.

I found batting for quilts and fabric that I will never use--out it goes.  It feels like I have lost weight.  Becky brought me a sewing machine that I will never use.  When I need to sew something, I go across the street to Jeanine’s house.  She has everything set up and threaded.  I don’t know how to use the machine Becky brought me anyway.  It’s too fancy.

It has to many options.  All I need is straight, zigzag, backstitch and length adjustment.  I can't tell you how many formal drapes I made for my 27 moves.  Or how many dresses for the girls...but never again.  I was an expert at one time.  Now I am a happy has-been.  No more sewing.

And it’s almost that bad on the cooking front.  Every now and then I make stew with lots of veggies.  Or fry an egg.  My sewing and cooking days are almost completely over.  Hallelujah!  

My grandson just took a new job and needed to hone his pitch.  So I was his practice client.  He’s so good at what he does he almost sold me on the product...and he gets no commission!!!  He has one of those personalities that could sell ice to an Eskimo.  Calm, honest, and would tell you right off that you are someone who doesn’t need what he is selling.

 He has moved back to Edmond because most of his family are here.  Mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law and grandmother.  His wife is under contract for a few more months in Dallas, so they are back and forth every weekend until spring.  She has a job offer here, so all they need is a house.

And of course houses in Edmond are at an all time high.  I guess it is like that all over.  But buying more than you can handle right now with the interest rate so low is the same as buying a year from now when the rates go up--per the monthly payment.  No point in waiting for prices to come down if the rates go up.  Unless you are paying all cash.

I’ve never seen rates so low as they are lately--not in my lifetime.  I remember the 70’s when the rates were 18% for credit.

Real estate in heaven is free.  Be sure you have turned the management of your life accounts over to God.  Jesus has already paid for it.

This week, I am going to call, or go visit, the new members in our Sunday class.  We combined two classes and made one bigger one.  Some of the class we absorbed haven’t attended since the pandemic began.  Some, didn’t like having a male teacher.  Some couldn’t get there because they had quit driving.  Some just felt left out.

Most had legitimate reasons.  I’m going to try and encourage them to get back in fellowship--because they have tended to become isolate.

I have always believed that people come because someone asks them.  They don’t necessarily come to learn about religion, Jesus, or doctrine.  They come for fellowship and learn about God in the process.

We need to make people feel welcome.  Most of us are looking for some connection with other people.  The neat thing about church is that we generally become better people in the process.

Two of my members have put meeting and making people at home to work.  They have asked people they meet to join us and a number of times, they have formed relationships with new people. 

Jesus said, “Go ye therefore...”  Our class pushes us to be aware of that.

Ann has started picking me up at 7:30 on Fridays for breakfast.  We use to start at 8, but have met people at Jimmy’s Egg restaurant that are fun to visit with and we sit and visit longer.  And the waitress, Julie, is the sweetest person.  She calls us by name, remembers what we want to eat and makes the morning pleasant. 

I’m not a breakfast kinda’ person.  Dry raisin bran without any milk is about as exciting as I get--unless I have left over pizza.  I eat pizza for breakfast a lot.  When I go to Hideaway Pizza hut, I always order an extra and freeze the slices.

Squig is going to have to have his teeth cleaned and a couple of teeth removed.  Price:  $450.  Ridiculous.  But...is he worth it?  He is priceless to me.  I dread having him anesthetized.  But the infection isn’t going away and waiting will just make it worse.

My class is having a pot-luck tomorrow.  Two people are coming who are new.  I hope they like us!!

 

Squig is going to get his yearly exam and shots today.  I’ll probably spend all afternoon holding him in my lap.  He has a special squeak for when he wants a full body massage and “squeaks” that he wants a rub down at least once a day.  I understand the phrase, “It’s a dog’s life.”

I pulled up the entire garden yesterday and took tomatoes to my neighbors.  They were pretty pitiful, but it’s better than no tomatoes at all.

I called the newspaper this morning and for the first time was able to get a live human.  My paper hasn’t come for three days this week.  I think I am the only person on the block that takes the paper and I do--for the crossword and puzzles.  Yes, I could buy a book at the bookstore, but then all I would do all day would be solve puzzles.  I need one a day.  I have no ability to stop if I have a whole book...?

And to read whatever idiotic, crazy, nutty question is posed to Dear Abby.  The world is full of idiots--I must be one of them to read what she writes.  But it is always so absurd that it is like a magnet.  I can’t believe these people really exist.  I am preparing myself for possible interaction with one of them someday.

I’m going to tackle the front flowerbed today.  Preparing for fall.  My spider lilies are blooming--bright red.  God is still in control.

Well, my “clean up” of the two back bedrooms “was” complete-----until I looked under the beds.

When I moved here from across the street five years ago, I moved dozens and dozens of boxes myself.  My neighbor loaned me a push-dolly, I loaded it with boxes--packed and labeled--and made trip after trip across the street to my new house--by myself.  I really don’t know how I did it all by myself.  But I did.

I stored them in those two back spare bedrooms with the intention of opening them someday and deciding what to do with the stuff.  I thought I was through last week.  But forgot that the big flat ones went under the beds.  Mercy.

This morning, I got back at it.  It is amazing how much we save in a lifetime.  No one wants it, but we just can’t throw it away.  Well, those boxes are open now and they are having a bonfire at the dump.

I am the one who has never put anything in the attic in over fifty years.  Every move (27) I cleaned  stuff out and threw it away or gave it away.  So there wasn’t that much to do....

But most of this was paper from Ken’s Marine Corps days. Someone else is going to have to do that.  I can’t.  It’s what I have left.  That and a few caps that he wore.  The good thing is that the most valuable things I have left are memories.  Priceless.  God is good.

 Everyone has someone in their family or friends who says, “I told you that, you have just forgotten.”  Or, “You are getting forgetful.”  (We all need people in our lives to tell us that when we pass a certain age???)

Of course, there is no reply that is acceptable.  Everyone else in your world may think you are absolutely amazing at recalling events, scripture, etc., but when you reach a certain age and someone says something like that...there is no acceptable reply to the words: “I told you that already.”  You have been pre-disqualified by your age.  

They may be one hundred percent wrong, but it makes no difference.  Thank God we have other people in our world who don’t seem to have a need to make us feel insignificant and past our “due date.”

The one I love the most is, “I sent you a text.”  I can check that one, and so far, I have never been wrong.  There was no text.  

You just have to accept it.  You will never win that discussion if you are over 60, or 70.  Once you are past a certain age you are free game for everyone younger.  Ahhh...the joys of aging.  

Am I forgetful.  Yes.  But not much more than I always was.  I have always been absent minded and inattentive.  I have always wandered around in a fog not noticing what is happening around me.  I can’t tell you what I wore or ate yesterday.  But it is not a factor of age.  It is a factor of me.  There is a lot going on, it’s just inside my head.  Say something interesting and I won’t forget.  But if I did forget--please--just tell me again without the negative comment like you do with your younger friends when they forget what you told them. 

The west coast is afire and burning, the east coast and gulf are drowning.  Oklahoma used to be the tornado capital of the entire world, but as of late tornado alley has shifted east of the Mississippi river.

Maybe that is why home prices in Oklahoma have gone through the roof.  Houses that sold for 180k a year ago are going for 235k---thousands over what they were.  That’s a lot of money.  I bid on a house last month that was asking 140,000.  My bid was 151,000.  It sold for 160,000 +.  $160 a square foot.  My grandson was trying to move to the area and I thought I’d get him started.

They say it is because the cost of lumber has skyrocketed since the forests are burning down out west.  Whatever the reason, everyone wants to move to Oklahoma right now.  Maybe now that it is September, the crisis will settle.  School has started.

During WW2, People rented their garages out in Pryor.  There was no place to live.  Tents went up in the park and people lived out of their cars and tents.  Now, I don’t know how people working at minimum wage are going to survive.  

Help the really poor person you know. You can’t save the world.  Food, transportation and housing is the starting goal.  But it doesn’t help if they can’t get a job they are qualified to do.  I’m ready for Jesus to come on back.  

Becky brought me a Kurig coffee maker yesterday for my Sunday Bible class.  The women were having to walk a really long way to get coffee on Sunday mornings and some of them have a hard time doing that.  Their ages range from 50 to 97! 

I have almost finished cleaning out the closet in the spare bedroom.  Tomorrow, I am going through all of the things that Ken left.  Books, papers, etc.  It’s time.  Anything I don’t know what to do with, I’ll put in one of those under bed plastic containers on wheels.  Maybe someone else will know what to do. They named the Pryor, Mayes county American Legion after Ken.  Maybe they would want it.

I found a million letters he wrote me.  He was gone on two 13 month deployments and wrote almost every day.  And some other three month deployments as well.  That would be 365+30+365+30+90 +++.  He was really good to write.  I did too, but he didn’t have a way to keep the letters I wrote.  They are gone.

I want to read them again someday...but probably never will.  The ones from the Vietnam war should be interesting historically.  He wrote about the air strikes he ran, and everything else imaginable.

I am going to have two completely empty bedrooms when I get through with this clean out.  It feels like I am on a diet and have lost 100 pounds.

It is amazing what we keep.  All of the Christmas stuff is going out except one little tree.  I can’t manage decorating anymore.  It’s actually a relief.

I am really making headway in cleaning out my closets.  I found around 15 scarves that we wore back in the 70’s-80’s.  Who wears those any more.  Not me.  

Also found a stack of hats from my chemo days.  I’m sure someone would like to have them.  Because I’ve decided I’m 13 years clean and I am not going to need them again.  Praise God.  So many women who get breast cancer don’t survive.

If you live to be 90, I think you will have had every disease known to mankind.  I’m halfway there?

I have now emptied two bedroom closets.  With four bedrooms, what do I need two of them for.  I only use one of them when people come over to stay the night.  

Actually, I live in three rooms.  Master bedroom, kitchen and family room.  The dining and living room and three of the bedrooms--I never go in.  The house is too big for me, but it’s what I have.  I am thankful.  I live close to three of my children.

Jeanette brought me Chinese for lunch.  Her son Brad always makes enough for me to have some.  Family and friends are a blessing.   

Something came over me yesterday!  I got up with “intent.”  I decided to empty (I do mean empty) out a closet in one of the bedrooms where I had stacked everything I didn’t want to deal with when I moved in this house.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been because I had labeled the containers and had used those plastic pull out drawer kinda boxes.  

But before you can do a job like that, you have to rearrange where you are going to put stuff you want to keep.  So I started with the closet in the master bedroom that has two twelve foot shelves near the ceiling and a bunch of four foot, and two foot shelves at either end.  It is a huge closet and I had just been tossing stuff up there I didn’t know what to do with.

I threw stuff out.  Repurposed purses and shoes I never wear to Goodwill and took clothes there as well.  Once the shelves were empty, I reevaluated the things I was removing from the other bedroom and started a Godzilla transfer of what was worth keeping.

I bet you have a job like that you need to do--that you have put off for years as well.  If you do it, you will end up so sore the next day you won’t be able to get out of bed.  I hurt in places I didn’t know existed.  But.....I’m going to keep at it today and work my kinks out or die trying.

I was teaching 1 John, chapter one, and found another “if.”  Which is not unusual.  I often find things when I reread something.  So my count at this point is 17 “if’s.”  Conditions for knowing you are a Christian.

My count for “Write, written, declare, message” is 17 times as well. 

John has a unique way of writing his messages to other Christians.  No other writer expresses themselves like John.  He wrote five of the books in the New Testament and as you read them, you notice the words he repeats over and over.  

Another word he uses is “abide.”  Another is “love.”  Another is “know.” I’m still counting those words. I’ll give you an update.

I color the words the same color as I find them.  “Write” is blue, “know” is dark pink.  “If” is yellow.  And so on.  Green is verses I have memorized.

When I go back to that book later, the words jump off the page.

I don’t know how you study scripture, but this method works for me.

Everybody needs a study method.  I respond to color.

My ladies who clean for me every two weeks came today.  They don’t speak English, the lady who runs the company does but she is rarely here and so I can’t communicate with the cleaners to tell them what I want.  The company head says they are documented.  I certainly hope so.  I point, and they nod their heads like they understand.  Who knows.

I caught a second mouse today.  I don’t know how they got in.  This house is the most air tight house I have ever lived in.  It never gets dusty.  I am going to reset the traps tonight.  I need a cat. 

Two of my neighbors commented on how they would never set a trap or throw a mouse in a trap away.  They wanted to know who got rid of the mouse.  “I did,”  I told them.  They thought that was horrible.  They’ve never had a husband who was deployed for 13 months at a time.

The thing I didn’t like to do was fill the gas tank.  Ken always did that.  But if you are alone, and living in a strange place, you learn a lot of things you never knew about.   

You don’t know how to appreciate living in your home town until you don’t.  Everyone there knew me.  Nobody knew me in most of the towns we were deployed to.  It’s harder without good friends in a strange town.

The letter, 1 John, will clear up all the doubts you ever had as to whether you are a Christian.  He wants you to have no doubts and starts with the fact that he personally has seen, heard and touched Jesus in the flesh.  He uses those three of the five senses to accentuate that.

He continues with the fact that he is declaring, recording, telling, but mostly writing it all down so you will know. (He uses that word “know”  40 times in King James)  John doesn’t want you to have any doubts that what he is saying is the truth and he wants you to have a written record of what he is saying.

John then starts by saying “If” 16 times. Chapter 1:3 says, “And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments.”

Chapter 3:12b “...if we love one another, God dwells in us...”

Chapter 3:20a  “If a man says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar...”

Chapter 1:8a “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

There are 13 more “if” statements...look them up.

The description of what your life looks like when you let God in is very clear.  John was the one whom Jesus loved.  John doesn’t pull any punches.  If you keep doing the same old things you always did after you say, “I believe,”  You need to reconsider whether you are changed, or not.

My friend Jeanette and I have been working on a sewing project for the last three weeks.  We finished it yesterday--finally. 

If you are a seamstress, you know that if you aren’t an expert yet, it is because you haven’t ripped out at least one mile of stitches that were not done right.  Rip, rip, rip...and you will never make that mistake again.

I am sure it is the same for carpenters, carpet layers, brick layers and any other precision skilled worker.  Redo requires tearing apart what you have just done--and doing it over again--the right way.

I consider my self an expert seamstress.  I made everything my girls wore when they were small, and much of what they wore as they grew up.  I remember making my son Scott a suit, and when he tried it on he said “I  can’t wear this, the buttonholes are on the wrong side.”  I had not remembered that men and women had buttons on opposite sides.  I threw the suit in the trash.  Hours and hours of work--for nothing.  But I never made that mistake again.  I made every mistake imaginable--once.

The Christian life should be like that.  When we realize that we have made a mistake, we realize it, repent, start over and do right from then on.