Still not feeling well.  I think I have a bug of some sort.  My two youngest grandchildren called at 7 this morning and woke me up.  They have to get up early to make it to school on time.  I had gone to bed the night before and couldn’t go to sleep before one.  Kids have been waking me up at every moment of the night for 65 years--wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m in charge of getting the mail for my neighbor.  She is a couple of hours away taking care of her 95 yr. old mother-in-law.  Walking to the mailbox to get my junk mail is the most exciting thing I do every day.

What is the deal with these car warranty calls???!!!  I get four or five a day.  And the leading sentence is, “This is the last courtesy call we are going to give you.”  I wish I could get rid of the calls.  They come from all over the USA.  I block them but they don’t stay blocked.

 

I had a very bad experience with a local pharmacy yesterday.  They wanted me to scan something---I have never scanned and didn’t know how...then fill out multiple pages of information about myself.  On my phone.  My hands occasionally shake and I couldn’t do it.  It was information they didn’t need and had no right to, but they wouldn’t process me unless I told them my entire medical history.

I was so upset by the time I left, I was physically sick.  I will never go back there again.  Customer relations are important to older people--we grew up in a different age and are not very computer handy.  I usually go to Walgreens.  They are very nice and helpful.  But they didn’t have what I needed so I was forced to go somewhere else.

I’ll do without before I go through something like that again.  It does have one positive effect if you are trying to lose weight...which I am not.

Being nice takes nothing.  Why are so many people not nice?  I don’t get it.  However this generation has grown up not interacting with real people, just texting, playing video games and doing all communication on a computer.  My generation were very heavy on being kind to others, always saying please and thank you, and smiling.  I don’t know when I’ve seen a young person smile.  I think I’m over the hill and sliding down the other side.

Do you have someone who doesn’t like you?  Have you figured out why?  That is the thing that is hard to do--because you, and I, are all likable(?) But when someone decides they don’t like you, reversing their opinion is difficult.  If not impossible. 

We are who we are.  But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take a good look at ourselves and consider doing things, or saying things, in a different way.  Self examination never hurts.

Through the years, I have learned that I don’t have to answer ever question immediately.  And some questions I don’t need to answer at all. There are people who don’t want answers to the questions they ask...they just want someone to listen and agree with their perspective.  And when I don’t agree with their perspective, there is no reason to give them mine.  They don’t want it.

Some people aren’t looking for answers, they just want to build a coalition of people who agree with them.  Or they want sympathy but not change.  I’m not good at that kind of listening.  Basically because I don’t want to listen to someone whine.

I need people around me who make me better.  You do too.  Maybe that is why our inner circle of friends is small.  Start with Jesus.

I’m taking the rest of the day off.  I left the house at 7:30 to go to breakfast and estate sales with Ann, got home in time go go get my hair done.  Returned for 10 minutes and went back out the door to get a CT scan and finally sat down and held my dog at 1:30.

He can’t take my coming in and out.  He has anxiety when I leave.  I picked him up and held him for thirty minutes and he finally calmed down.  Dogs can’t tell whether you have left for good or are coming back.  

Leaving him three times in one morning was too much.  But he has always been insecure.  The family who bought him from a breeder, had just gotten married and had a blended family of five kids and five dogs--they got rid of the newest dog.  Luckily I got him.  Best thing that has happened in the last few years.  Squig is my best friend.

If you don’t have a dog, get one.  I didn’t let my kids have a dog--and I have repented.  I had never had a pet growing up, and “Didn’t Get It.”  Oh my stars.  There is nobody more loyal, faithful and true.  They love you even when you don’t deserve it.

Pat is on her way from the East Coast today, and she said that the trip isn’t so bad because she has her dog Oscar in the front seat next to her. You can talk to a dog and they always agree with you. 

 

Carolyn got me a subscription to Reader’s Digest.  Once each month I have something interesting to read.  I used to subscribe to it all the time, but between four kids and a husband (who had stopped being deployed every month or so and retired), and a job (55 miles from where we lived) came into my life, reading sort of slipped by the wayside and I didn’t resubscribe.  Carolyn knew what I needed!!  Good friends are a blessing.

I’ve always posted in the mornings, but lately, I haven’t even gotten dressed before ten or ten-thirty.  It doesn’t make a difference when you read it anyway, today or tomorrow.  It doesn’t really make a difference if I get dressed either.

 

My lawn man mowed today and I had him blow out under the upright freezer in the garage.  Mice had taken up residence there.  It’s a wonder that they hadn’t started an electrical fire.  They had brought a zillion acorns in, cracked them, and left the shells.  I didn’t know mice ate oak acorns but they do.  It was a mess, but I got it cleaned up.

I have to get a new seal on the bottom of the garage door.  There is a crack in the tube seal big enough for a skunk, raccoon or anything else that wants to get in the garage can get through--as it gets cold.  And it has started getting cold.  It’s been in the fifties lately.  This time last year we had the biggest ice storm in the history of the state.  I’m thankful it isn’t freezing yet.  I am dreading the cold.  “If winter comes...can spring be far behind.”  Who wrote that, and why do I remember it?  Shelly?

 

The more people in your family, the more joys and more heartbreaks you will have.  Sometimes I feel like a pin cushion. And sometimes so full of happiness I feel like I will burst.  And the longer you live, the more of both you will have.

The cardiologist cleared me for surgery.  Said my heart was excellent and strong.  For a heart that doesn’t beat on its own, that’s good news.  I’m due for my fourth pacemaker.  Thank God for medical science.  Now I just have to decide to let a doctor operate on my back.  I’m almost there.  But having a doctor in the family (my brother) clues me in on all the things that can go wrong.  

My brother Bill has had every surgery that can be done on a person’s back.  And the fusion done on his discs has broken down.  He said he saw an x-ray of his spine recently and realized that it is totally shot.  He will have to live with what he has at this point.  I just wonder if trying to fix my back is worth it after watching all Bill has been through.

Ken, (a true Marine) always said that pain is just weakness leaving the body.  He even had a pillow embroidered with that sentence.  It’s in a chair in the back bedroom.  Every time I pass through I see it and remind myself of that.  And consider the source--Ken was tough.  Getting old is not particularly pleasant...I’m trying to do it with grace and some days I succeed.  Others...well the alternative is to die young and I’m blessed that didn’t happen.  I’m at what they say is a ripe old age.  Ripe.

I went to Hideaway Pizza  and ordered three pizzas, then wrapped individual slices and froze them.  I now have breakfast for 18 days. I alternate days so that should last me for a month or so.  I no longer worry about what is good for me.  At my age, what difference does it make?  I still try to eat healthy--except for pizza.

All these people going into space must have a screw loose.  Millions of dollars for twelve minutes.  Think what that money could do!  I guess they would say I missed the point.  That would be right on.

I’ve been reading the Psalms.  David is the most down to earth person in the Bible.  Probably all those years herding sheep gave him a realistic background for being king.  He knew what real life was like.

And I’m teaching about Abraham on Sundays.  He, like David, is held in high esteem.  But both were flawed.  Abraham told his wife to lie.  To say she was his sister so that the Egyptians wouldn’t kill him to claim her.  He just sat back and let her go to Pharaoh to be his wife.  Every lesson we do on Abraham, I keep thinking about what Sarah thought about her husband Abraham.  I would have been very irritated.  But women had no rights back then, much like in the mid-east today.  They were, and are, property.

     Monday.  I have dozens of housekeeping chores that I have managed to put off for a week.  Folding clothes is one of them.  The ladies that clean my house--every two weeks on Friday--strip the beds and I have to wash sheets--which isn’t a problem, but folding them is.  Something that used to be easy isn’t easy any more.  I usually wait until someone comes to see me and get them to help me fold.

    Sunday, we started the study of Abraham.  God told Abraham to go to a country where God would send him.  I can just hear the conversation that evening at suppertime.  “Sarah, you need to pack things up.  We’re moving.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?  My friends are here.  Our family is here.  I don’t want to move.”

I know what Ken would have said, he would have said, “I have orders.”  I heard him say that a bunch of times.

Abraham and Sarah moved.  To a place where they had no friends; to a place they had never been.  Because God gave orders to Abraham and he  listened to God, believed God, trusted God, and obeyed God. God gave him 7 promises that we call the “Abrahamic Covenent.”

Becky Bacon left late this morning.  I hate it when she leaves.  She is one of the most peaceful people in my life.  She says that she comes to see me so that we, “...don’t fill the air with talk.  We just sit--and know each other is there.”  Occasionally one of us will get up from where we are sitting and cross the room to show each other something.

We get what we want to eat, sometimes fix each other a plate and enjoy the peace of comfortable friendship.  We ate the rolls Kathy sent, and I sent Kathy a sewing machine I wasn’t using back with Becky.  Kathy wants to teach her granddaughter how to sew.  My sewing consists of crossing the street to use Jeaninne’s sewing machine.

It is the end of another week.  2020 flew, 2021 evaporated.  The only difference I can tell from 2019 is that I trimmed the crepe myrtle in my back yard back then and the bermuda grass has grown up to the trunk of the bush.  It used to be a fifteen foot dirt patch.  Now my lawn is lush and green everywhere.

God has done such a beautiful job of creation.  I plant stuff.  He grows it.  And color is such a gift.  Color and music are two things that God gave us to brighten our days.  “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”  

   

 

 I flat out forgot to post yesterday.  I must be over the hill.  Today I go see the pain specialist and I am finally going to talk about hips.  He has been wanting to do that for a couple of years.  He keeps telling me they are shot.  I don’t mind the surgery but  rehab is another story.  Am I going to do it.  Maybe.  Pain can be a real motivator.

Becky Bacon came in yesterday and brought rolls from Kathy Davidson.  I ate three of them immediately and two more within five minutes.  I am happy.  I’ll have rolls for breakfast this morning. And while I’m eating rolls I will do the ken-ken that Carolyn sent me. She cuts them out of her paper every day for me.  Life doesn’t get much better than that.

When I went out to get the paper the other day, a little snake had made his way up to the top of the hedge along the front walkway and he didn’t seem to know what to do next to get down.  I picked him up and put him back down on the ground.  The next day, he was belly up on the walkway.  I guess he died of trauma.  I know how to pick up a snake.  I didn’t hurt him, but between me and the hedge-climb, he didn’t make it.  It made me sad.

Becky Bacon brings her own coffee with her.  Little packets she gets at the Korean grocery store.  I can’t tell it from the real thing. G7 coffee three in one. Coffee, sugar and cream.  But I’m hooked on Darjeeling tea.

Tuesday.  They come around so fast.  I feel like time is dripping through my fingers. It was January just last week.  And summer flew by.  We finally had a tornado warning Sunday night--this has been a year when we didn’t have but a couple of those.  Which is good.

Scott called on his way to work to agree with me that the book of Job is written like a drama.  Like Beowulf.  ( Did you have to read that in high school?  They say it is the oldest drama that we have.  People stand up and speak, sits down, then someone else speaks, etc.)  

I think Job was about a real man who met real tragedy.  But I think someone wrote it down to present it as a play and they did it in Beowulf style.  One person speaks, stops, and another speaks, stops--and so on.

I have a problem with the play director introducing the play with Satan coming to the throne of God and having a discussion and God giving Satan permission to test Job.  Satan and his angels had been cast out of heaven and damned.  How could a holy God let evil come before His throne?  

I think the writer of the play (about a real man, Job--and it is a true story) wanted to introduce the story and chose that way to do it.  In Isaiah, it says that, “...the Lord’s ear is not heavy that He cannot hear you...but your sins have separated between you and your God and he will not hear you.”  How could God listen to Satan.  I believe the Bible is true from cover, but since that “Job” intro is about Satan bargaining with God, I think the story was put in the form of a drama.  I could be wrong...it won’t be the first time. 

If if hadn’t been for brown beans, I would have starved to death when I was growing up.  My mom was a big roast, meat and potatoes cook.  I don’t like meat very much.  But once a week, she made brown beans and cornbread.  Along with, fried potatoes or okra...or greens with bacon.  I ate leftovers off and on all week.

I put beans on this morning.  With ham...but I won’t eat much of the ham.  I don’t like sugar or milk products either.  I love brownies with pecans, but that’s about it for sweets.  I guess you would say I am picky.  But I’m really not, I’ll eat anything rather than cook.

But this Thursday, Kathy is sending me homemade rolls!!!  My favorite thing in the world. Becky Bacon is coming for the weekend (hopefully) and bringing them.  And Becky picked up the Ken-ken puzzles from Carolyn.  She saves them for me.  I love puzzles.  Carolyn cuts them out of the paper every day for me.  Puzzles and yeast bread---all in the same day.  Becky, Kathy and Carolyn are three of my BFFs.

The girls in the church office have gotten excited about the book I wrote about my brother Bill.  They are getting the Southern Baptist Press involved.  Maybe it will come to something.  The preacher praised it...so that may help.  All I can do is hope.  He is the writer of current Sunday educational lessons.

I doubt--at this point--I’ll ever get a book published.  The print company that was printing the book went bankrupt.  The publisher is having a meltdown and I am stuck in the middle.  I think this is what life is all about, one thing after another.

I am teaching the book of 1 John; my preacher wrote the material for the denomination.  He presented six things we can be sure of, because John, an eye witness, tells us what he knew.  He starts his letter by saying that he (John) saw, heard, and touched the risen Christ.

The book is written to Christian believers that John had discipled.  He calls them “Children.”  You can tell he loves them.  He reassures them of the truth, the reality of God’s promises and Christ in whom we believe.

In the last chapter, he says that he is writing to those who believe, so that they can know--so they can believe.  The stages of Christian growth.  We believe, the evil one wants to make us doubt, we reassure ourselves by reading a letter written by an eyewitness, and our belief is strengthened.

The Biblical account is a marvelous piece of eyewitness testimony.  Think about how many things you believe that don’t have an eyewitness.

My poor little dog coughed and rasped all night after he had his teeth cleaned.  All I can figure is that they intubated him and his bronchial tubes have been scratched.  He was miserable.  Yesterday I held him all day  Today he is better, but has no energy.  They pulled at  least four teeth so his mouth is sore as well.  I feel sorry for him.  I knew it was going to be tough and put it off as long as I could. 

Today I bought groceries which I am able to do, but unloading and putting them away is a killer.  I eat most of my meals out, so I don’t buy that many things, but getting it all into the kitchen and freezer is still difficult.

Have any of you ever tried to cook for one person?  I end up putting leftovers in small containers when I do cook, but when I take a container out of the freezer, I call it “Surprise a meal” because I don’t label any of it. And that gets old.  So I share it with my neighbors.  That works.  They share with me as well.

I wouldn’t have made a good Israelite.  Can you imagine eating manna for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Ugh.  When Joshua went into the promised land, God stopped the manna.  They had to live off the land from that point on.  No turning back.  I bet the food was the biggest motivator that they had...they were probably sick of manna.    

Squig is going to get his teeth cleaned this morning.  I’m nervous.  He is 93 in dog years.  But his gums are sore and a couple of teeth need to be pulled.

Bad part is that he got up at six thirty and wants breakfast--and of course, he can’t have anything to eat before surgery.  He is sitting at my feet making squeaking noises.  Telling me to get with it and get his breakfast.

Which makes me feel really bad, because he trusts me to take care of his every need.  He’s just a tiny bit spoiled.  Tiny bit.

I called my friend Kathy last night to tell her I have a half-pan left of the rolls she made me.  When I am really, really hungry for something special, I go to the freezer and get one and pop it in the micro-wave.  I love hot bread. She cooked 3 full pans of rolls for me when I went to Pryor on July fourth.  Yeast rolls are my love language.

I have to get dressed and go to the vet.  I am nervous about this.  God knows I love this dog.  He is my best friend.  We spend every moment of every day together.  He is agreeable, does what I tell him to do, and loves me.  What more could a person ask for.

 

Today they were supposed to install my last two blinds.  One went up, the other was broken beyond repair.  I ordered them at the beginning of the year and they have come out four times.

First...wrong order.  Second, wrong sizes.  Third, incomplete order.  And today, broken blind.  The company I got them from is national, reliable, and competent.  The manufacturer hasn’t been able to get parts, supplies, workers and so on.

Amazing what a virus has done to us.  Groceries prices have almost doubled because workers got sick, died and nobody could prepare the chicken.  The chicken couldn’t get to processing because farmers couldn’t get chicken feed.  All the way to the consumer like me, the food chain fell down.

This week in Reader’s Digest, there was a story about tractor problems for the farmer.  They can't repair their own tractors.  Manufacturers have made it mandatory that they are the only ones who can do repair a tractor.  Making it impossible for a farmer to control his own equipment.

The Oklahoma paper had an article a few weeks ago about how many acres that China now owns in America.  It is startling what is happening to our country.  It’s a good thing God is in control of the world.

I have difficulty convincing myself to try and give a restaurant that I’ve never been to a chance.  I want to know ahead of time that I will like it.  Obviously, that is not possible.

Today some friends were going to Joey’s in Edmond for lunch and asked me to join them...so I did.  Good Grief!!! It’s very close by and I’ve been missing out on delicious food because I didn’t want to take a chance.

 I’m an “In a rut” kind of person.  I’ll do the same thing over and over again just to keep from experiencing the unknown.  I don’t like change.  You might think it’s because of my age, but it isn’t.  I’ve always been like this.  It makes me feel secure.

I’ve never enjoyed adventure.  No wonder why people ask me if I am really Scott and Becky’s mother.  Those two were always into something.  I once told Becky not to stick her finger in a light socket, so she stuck our sterling silver butter knife in the socket and melted part of it.  I can’t begin to enumerate the things Scott did.  It is an endless list of crazy.

Six Flags was difficult.  But I went. And Ken had me cover my eyes up to get me off the Texas tower.  I don’t want to do the “Tickle-your-tummy” rides either.  Maybe I am just a chicken.  But I like calm and secure.