The reason I haven’t written is because I have been very sick for months and had nothing to give...I just stayed exhausted.  It started with a month of diverticulosis.  A condition that I will deal with from now on...but they put me on antibiotics--which triggered a horrible condition called C-Diff.  (Short for something you can’t pronounce.)  I prayed for the first time in my life for healing for myself.  I have prayed for others, but I guess I just figured God was going to do in my life whatever He was going to do--which was stupid.

And after I got better, and thought I was going to live...I got Covid.  Yes I had the shots and all the boosters.  Doctor said that is what saved me.  Personally I think it was God’s grace.  But so many of you have asked me to start blogging again that I will try.  I am still very weak, but maybe my brain still works.  We’ll see.

Thought for today.  God loves you.  God loves me.  He is waiting for you, for me, to talk to him.  He created us for companionship.  He’s the best friend we will ever have.  And yes, when I prayed for myself, he answered.  I’ve got to do more of that.

 .And while I’m at it, I will be at “Best of Books” bookstore in Edmond on Danforth street to sign books tomorrow from noon till three (? I think).  They are featuring my book for Veteran’s day.

In and out of the hospital.  Two weeks of misery.  But as of today, I am going to live.  If you are still with me, I will try and post again.

You can’t finish something that you don’t start.  I have two pairs of pants that are two or three inches too short.  They have been lying in plain sight in my closet for a year.  So....while I have been laid up sitting in a chair for two weeks, I cut them off and hemmed them.  I feel like I am still useful!!.

I used to be 5’ 6’’, but with my back out of whack, I’ve become much shorter.  Under 5’ 4’’.  So nothing is the right length.

I have also used the time to read Neiamiah.  That’s not spelled right.  It was an interesting re-read.  He single handled pulled a nation together and rebuilt a wall around Jerusalem.  Inspiring people to build a few feet near their homes.  And they got it done.  I was amazed at what one person, inspired by God, could do.  So I am going to try and blog again, if I have not lost all of you!!!

I imagine you think I vanished. I have been really sick.  Which is not a really good time to be trying to write something.  Things are better today.  They have me on “Boost”  Don’t do the vanilla.  It is awful.  But the chocolate is bearable.  Three times a day.  I don’t have any appetite anyway so it doesn’t matter.

I walked around the block yesterday--stupid, stupid, stupid.  I need to forget about walking and get my mind back in gear and start telling you my stories.

I got a text from Austen McCauley (New York Publisher) that the book about my brother Bill (The Macau Mavrick) will be published in November.  Do I believe that?  No.  I’m just hopeful.  His life was such a sacrifice...the world should hear about it.  I hope to be at Hardy’s book store and sign copies when it comes out.  Hope...I’m hopeful.  Bill will turn 80 on Nov. 27...the story needs to come to readers...now.

    I actually found a box of gluten free blueberry mix.  And now I remember why I’ve quit cooking.  Stirring something rotates the arm---which rotates the entire spine.  And an 85 year old spine doesn’t rotate very well.  I’m trying to recover right now by doing nothing!!  No more stirring for me.   

    I found dozens of choices of gluten free stuff at the store.  I am on a new journey.  Trying to find something that tastes good.  The bread isn’t bad if you toast it.  I made stroganoff, I found all the ingredients that were approved except for onions.  There will never be a substitute for onions, so I will have to get used to doing without them.  I really wonder what people did with this diet fifty years ago when nothing was available.

    I’ve learned to like popsicles.  I bet it’s been fifty years since I had a popsicle!  And if you don’t know about Fairlife milk, check it out.  It doesn’t go bad for months.  I’m not a milk expert, but it’s pretty good.  Enough.  You don’t want to hear about this unless you are also gluten and lactose intolerant!!!   

    

    I went to Walmart this morning.  I think that is the first time I’ve been there in three years.  My neighbor Jeaninne buys my groceries...I am totally thankful for how much she helps me.

    The thing that shocked me was how big it is.  Overwhelming. I wanted to find gluten and lactose free foods to make an adjustment to my new food regulations.  There are lots of choices, but the most important thing on my list was mushroom soup and sour cream.  Which I doubted I would find.  Surprise! They have those.  Of course they were at least three times as expensive as the others, but I am thankful.  I can make stroganoff.  I can have rice--so I am in business.  Even at three times the cost, it’s cheaper than eating out.

    I am sure that in the past, people who had those restrictions were not able to manage at any price.  But by having an aisle in the grocery of gluten free products, and many milk products that are lactose free, it was not as bad as I thought it would be.  I am just going to have to learn how to adapt--which is not one of my better qualities.  I’ve been relatively pain free since I gave up and did what the doctor told me to do.  I am going to have to conform.  I’m trying.  Everyone tells me I am strong minded and independent.  I think I’m going to have to agree. 

I would be surprised  all of you haven’t given up on me.  I’ve been really sick for weeks.  But today---maybe I am going to be back to normal soon.  I hope so.

We have been in the book of Daniel for the last few weeks.  The first chapters are okay, but the last ones are about the second coming---and there is no way I can figure out for sure what it is saying.  Daniel even said that he didn’t understand his dream.

Applying historical data (about a figure in the Old Testament) to everyday living is difficult.  Carolyn says the lesson for next week is that the evil in the world is strong, and we need to pray that God will lead our choices as to what  we are doing.  I agree, but as a teacher, there isn’t much to say, and it sounds “preachy” to tell people to pray more.  Even if that is what we should do.  I looked ahead in the quarterly and we are going back to the book of John.  Hallelujah.  I am a New Testament teacher.  “How do I apply this to my life,” kind of teacher.  I know Jesus is coming back again, but I need to stay connected to God Today.  There is an entire chapter in the N.T. about the word “Today.”  Apply what you know.  Learn more to apply.  

I hope I have not lost all of you.  I have been very ill for a week.  I had a procedure on Monday a week ago, and go back to the surgeon today for evaluation.  I don’t have cancer...Praise God in heaven above.

We are studying Daniel.  As brave as he was, you would think we would hear more about him.  He was prepared ahead of time--for the problems and danger he faced.  

God is not an insurance policy in case of fire.  You can’t wait until the moment of danger to get acquainted with him.

One thing I have learned is that He is there for me.  He cares for me.  I used to think that “God so loved the world...” before I came to realize completely that, “God so loved me...” It is not just a general statement, it is very personal.  He loves me.  He loves you.  That’s what is behind everything he does.

Trusting God is easy to say and hard to do.  We know what we want, and when we tell God that we are putting things in his hands, it is sometimes so difficult.  In other words we take our problems to the Lord and when we get back off our knees, we take them back with us.

Basically, we sometimes want to treat God like an insurance policy.  We want Him to be there when we need him, but we will take care of everything else.

Depending on God means not relying on yourself every time you have a problem.  There is peace when you really give a problem to Him.  But you have to let go of it.

We usually pray, “Lord I want your will...but...”  I’m working on that.  He has a bigger picture than our momentary desires.  There is purpose in what he does, and we are not the center of the universe--even though we think we are.  It helps to keep in mind that he really loves you.

After over 2500 posts, you would think I would find an easier way to do it.  But if it involves research, it ain’t gonna happen.  So every time I start to write to you all, I have to set the font size and type of font.

I eat in spurts.  One month (or two) it was sliders.  Then Quiche, then sweet and sour chicken, then fried rice, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and so on.  This month it is beef stroganoff.  I’ve eaten that every day for the last two weeks.

But basically, I’m not hungry.  I remember one time I asked Ken what he wanted for supper and he said, “Whatever you fix.”  He never complained.  But he followed that statement with, “Eating is just a habit, anyway.”  I guess being on the go, as a Marine jet jock, you ate whatever you got whenever you got it.  He just ate whatever I put in front of him.  Looking back, I appreciate that.

Today’s problems--according to today’s newspaper are: Making ends meet, and making meetings end.

I went to a meeting a few weeks ago that I never did figure out what the person in charge was trying to say.  Turns out, it didn’t matter anyway.

I had to get a new phone.  Craig took me to the AT&T store and a lovely young man was so patient to explain it to me.  However, I have been back there twice today already.  Technology passed me by and I didn’t even know it was coming.  So far, the new phone is driving me nuts.

The years I grew up in were so much simpler.  Carolyn and I talk every day about how difficult simple things are anymore.  My biggest problem every day now is figuring out what to eat.  Any time I cook (rarely) I freeze a bunch of small containers and when I pop one out of the freezer I call it a surprize-a-meal.  I never know what it is going to be.

We have been in the book of Daniel for the past few weeks.  The first six or seven chapters are interesting...the last are about the second coming.  What should we be doing before he comes back?  Will we be ready when he comes? Interesting to know about.  I’m not much of an end times teacher...I like to teach application.  But when I get up in the morning, I check the Eastern sky...maybe it will be today? 

The next weeks are from the book of Job, and one of the women said, can we skip that and do something from the New Testament?  I said, fine with me.  We will probably do Hebrews.  Wonderful book.  We just aren’t sure who wrote it.  

At the age my class now is, they want “now” teaching.  All of the Bible is wonderful, but some parts of it are more wonderful than others.  We did the stories about people when we were young: David, Solomon, Esther, Ruth, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Sampson...and so on.  They teach us good things, but Paul, John, Luke, Matthew, Mark...are wonderful writers.  And they tell us about Jesus.  That is the important story of the Bible.  

I must have told all of you--sometime in the past--about how Ken taught me too tie a bow.  Being a girl, you are supposed to know such things, but I could never get a bow to come out right. 

He said, “Would you like for me to show you how to do that?”  Always polite from the first day I met him.  

He stood behind me, reached around me to take both sides of the bow strings and said, “Hold the loose ties in each hand.  Cross the right tie over the left and then under.  Make a loop with the tie hanging down and hold it, and then wrap the right tie around and push it through with your thumb and tighten the bow.  Perfecto!

I’ve tied bows for my whole life and they are always perfect.  Who would ever have thought a Marine would know how to tie a bow.  They probably had regulation  bows for their combat boots?

    There was a buffet at the church last night that my class ended up not going to.  Jeanette had baked cherry pies--she is the number one pie master in the world.  So we are coming over to my house today to eat Jeanette’s cherry pie.  Yum.

    The lesson yesterday was over Daniel ending up as a slave after growing up in an upper crust royal family.  I noted that people (who don’t have to till the land or work at hard dirty jobs) have free time.  They have time to read, read and read. 

   We didn’t have much in the way of money when I was growing up, but I didn’t have to do housework--but as long as I was reading a book, I didn’t have to dust, or wash, or cook. As a result, I didn’t know how to do anything useful when I got married---but I had read all of the classics.  Different families stress different things.  My mom and her sisters--my aunts--pushed reading as a priority.  I don’t know if that is why I love to read--and now write--but I’m glad I was given the freedom to do that.  God uses what we were given.  Whatever it is.

 Posting on Fridays is always late.  Ann picks me up early, then I get home in time to let the dog out.  Then I go get my hair done--then come home and eat--and finally get around to writing around one o’clock.  And I am wondering why the word o’clock has a mark after the o?  Our language is just a bunch of words that we borrowed along the way from other nationalities.  Probably it is mostly English, but...

I finally got the paper I was writing on Moses edited.  Then sent it to Carolyn.  She is my master editor and rewriter.  If it doesn’t make sense to her, she will fix it.  That’s why her name is in the acknowledgments in the back of my book I published.

I imagine everyone who has seen “The Ten Commandments” movie pictures Moses as a hunk like Charlton Heston?  Well Moses wasn’t confident.  He had a hard time figuring out who he was--Egyptian prince, or Jew.  He chose his Jewish heritage, killed an Egyptian, and lost both identities and ended up tending sheep on the backside of the desert.  Dirty job.  Bottom of the kinds of work in those days.  And they weren’t even his sheep.

    Wednesday.  Every Wednesday morning, my friend Jeaninne across the street, comes over to help me start my morning by helping with my medications--or I will probably forget.  She has it on her phone to remind her.  Where do friends like that come from!?.  God alone.  He takes care of us by sending angels unaware.

    Filling pill pacs is my responsibility.  I do them six weeks at a time, morning pac and evening pac.  I never thought about pills a few years ago.  Growing up we had iodine, vicks, aspirin, and merthiolate.(spelled wrong)  If those didn’t do the trick, you were out of luck.  Put a bandaid on it.

  Now days, they treat you for every little thing.  Take a pill for this, take a pill for that.  And every time I see a doctor, we go over the list with me begging to take some of them off the list.

    So far, no.  They must be afraid?  They’ll give it to you, they just won’t take you off of it. And every speciality has their favorites.  And there is a specialist for e v e r y t h i n g......

    I pulled into a drive through to get a burger today and the car in front of me (stopped at the speaker to give her order) had huge white lettering all over their back window.  Big letters you could read from a long way off telling me that our government had killed all the people in Hawaii.  Telling the world that the government was our enemy and using the worst cuss word over and over...(probably her age was in her 40’s, early 50’s)

    As she drove off, there was such vitriolic printing on the other windows as well.  Along with web sites you could go to.  I was in shock.  Good thing one of our service people weren’t behind her.  I wonder where such hate comes from. I guess I am naive, but I’ve lived through Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, Trump, and Biden--fifteen presidents--and I am still an American who loves her country.

    We are better than people like the woman in the car in front of me.  We get to vote.  We can protest.  We are free to move, travel, work, make friends, go to any church we want to, and get a hamburger at a drive through.  Being married to a 21 year career Marine who served at the pleasure of the president--no matter who he was--taught me to be thankful for our country. It may not be perfect, but it is ours.  We can change it with a vote. And we do that on a regular basis.  God bless America. 

    Sunday, the lesson was about Abigail--who was married to a wealthy idiot who “dissed” David the king.  She took care of the situation with humility and wisdom.  I was thinking of all of the women of the Bible who were honored by being wise.

    Esther.  Ruth.  Mary the mother of Jesus.  Elizabeth. The woman that touched the hem of Jesus’ robe...I could go on and on.  The list includes women who were prostitutes.  Mary Magdalene. Rahab who helped the two spies by hanging a red cord from the window. The woman at the well in Samaria. 

I can’t think hardly any women in the Bible that weren’t elevated by the writers.  But it seems today, that denominations have a problem elevating women.  And yet, the very first people to tell the story of the resurrection were women.  And they took to message to men!  If you have a job to do, a woman will get it done.  Maybe I am biased?   

 I broke a crown off my tooth--the dentist said the root had to come out.  You all know the drill.  Get your checkbook out.  

It has taken three months to get the partial, but it is amazing how they do it now.  Instead of biting down on a mouthful of goo to get an imprint, they do it with a machine of some sort.  I didn’t think it would work...but it is an exact fit.

I am out of it in the world we live in today.  Last night my computer went blank; I tried every thing I knew to get it up.  It took a trip to Becky’s house, and she and Craig had it up and going in fifteen minutes.

Part of the problem is that I’m tired of learning new things.  I don’t know where to put them.  I've got so many “old” things overloading my brain (that aren’t worth anything any more) that I’ve run out of room.  I have brain over-load.  Carolyn said that she had all of the answers, but nobody asks those questions anymore.  So true.  Lots and lots of useless knowledge rattling around inside my head. 

Hot, hot, hot.  How are people living who have no homes?  It’s too hot to live in your car. They have no where to go.  And we haven’t solved this problem in our government.  It has just gotten worse.  Instead of being able to get a down payment on  home, now it takes twice as much and the rate is twice as high.  God help us solve this.

And the people of Hawaii, how do they prove who they are.  No birth certificate, passport, credit card, SS card, check book, admit to savings...and on and on.  They may have cash in the bank, but how do you get to it? They’ve lost everything.  Burned up. Where do you go when you have no identity?  How do you get your identity back?

Our lesson yesterday was on the fact that we are citizens of heaven. (Phillipians 3)  We don’t have to prove our citizenship.  Jesus will vouch for us.  We are His.  We are members of his kingdom.  Praise God for His son Jesus.

I got a text from my publisher  this morning and am pretty well stoked--and floating on air.  She said, “Congratulations.  You have been chosen to be the Oklahoma fiction  author at the 2024 Oklahoma Library Association’s Oklahoma Author’s Luncheon! You talk will be about your book ”The Letter” on March 7, 2024, in Tulsa.”

That means all the libraries in Oklahoma will push the book on their reader’s list.  

The book’s world-wide publication will be in September, next month.  I am over-whelmed. Those of you who bought one in Pryor or Edmond were part of an introductory release.

I decided to celebrate and ordered a Big Mac--I hadn’t eaten one in over fifteen years.  That was a mistake.  Ugh.  I’ll never do that again.  Live and learn.

I wish I had a coach on how to find things on this computer.  I don’t understand files.  There is a little icon at the bottom of my face page that says finder, but I don’t know how to use it when I’m looking for something.  I’m always afraid the entire thing is going to blow up.  I can use “Word” to write, but that’s it.

Molly has learned the word “sit”.  She does it (if she wants to).  We are working on who is in control.  She can heel (kinda), and come--most of the time.  She knows the word “no” really well.  That’s good.  She just has a hard time with who is in control. Which is a toss up so far.  I control the treats, so she is coming along, but she is really independent.  She was on her own for so long that she is a surviver at heart.

I made a meatloaf this week that was terrible.  I think I’ve forgotten how to cook.  But she loves it.  I’m bribing her into obedience.  So far, so good.

One thing a dog does for you is that they force you into a schedule.  At six in the morning, Molly starts wiggling around in her crate, no verbal noise, just enough motion to wake me up.  She has been very polite in the mornings.

Next step--all my morning rituals of getting up and dressed while she waits on me---I am very aware that she is patiently waiting.  And then I let her out and head for the back door.  She has learned the routine and knows what she is supposed to do and that a treat is waiting when she comes back in.  That done, I take my four “first thing in the morning” pills.  And think that I should eat something--which I don’t.  That thought keeps running through my mind until about nine o’clock when I finally eat something.  In the meantime I usually blog, figure out when I am going to do my “three” things that I laid out the night before.  All the while, Molly is laying on my lap with her head tucked under my arm.  She loves the routine. I kinda do too.

When I go to bed each night, I always plan out three things to do the next day.  Things I don’t want to do--and have been procrastinating.  It’s 8:00 AM and I have already finished doing one of them.  Hallelujah!!  I always feel relieved when one of those “I don’t want to do” tasks is completed.  Now...on to the other two.  I can put them off the rest of the morning....or maybe I’ll get on to doing the second thing.  I have all day to do them....and am an expert at procrastinating.

Molly has learned to “come”, “heel”  and (kind of) to “sit.”  She is smart.  She has also learned the “go outside” routine...that if she does what she is supposed to do, she gets a treat.  She comes back inside, runs to the refrigerator and sits in front of the door and waits. I’m slower than she is, but she is patient.

Dogs are a lot of trouble.  But I think it’s worth it.  She is so happy all the time, I can’t help but smile.

We all know people who are a few feathers shy of a full duck. I  told Pat it’s because they don’t want to work.  She said, “No, it’s because they don’t know they are supposed to work.  Everything has been done for them.  And also, they don’t know how to work.  This generation has been raised without chores to do, and with expectations for success that aren’t realistic.  

She said that when she asks them to sweep the barn floor at the arena, they don’t know what a broom is.  “I have to get a broom, explain the concept of removing dirt from the floor and show them how to do it.  There are dozens of things like that that they don’t know how to do. 

She said we have infanticized them with the concept that everyone gets a trophy and they haven’t learned the pleasure of doing something that you do well.  Better than others.  Work brings a self satisfying reward that they haven’t had the opportunity to learn.  It was an interesting conversation.

When I married Ken, every day when the newspaper came, he would do the crossword.  I had never done one.  He did it in ink.  “Always do what you do in ink.  You will make very few mistakes that way.”

That’s true.  And now each day as I do the crossword puzzle, I do it in ink.  And the cryptograms, the Ken-Ken’s, the Suduku, etc.  All in ink.

It is interesting the things we remember.  I was married to him 57 years, and there are a some things he said (like that) which come back to me. Of course, he was so smart he made very few mistakes.  Like his check-off list for landing.  “You make the list in your head so one thing comes after another and you never land wheels up.”  He came in once and the tower told him to lower his wheels, and he said “I did.”  The tower said, “Sir, your wheels are not down.”  Ken said, “I only did that once.”

I just finished reading “How the Irish Saved Civilization” again.  I’ve now read it three times.  It is so interesting.  While Rome was crumbling from within and being raided by Huns, Irish monks worked in solitary--copying manuscripts by hand, embellishing them with curly-Q designs.  Hand written books were all they had.  We wouldn’t have the books we have today if not for those men.  How time-intensive that was before we had the press. And the size of our books today was determined by the size of a sheep-skin back,(parchment) cut into a rectangle, and folded down the middle. 

I had seen their work when I went through museums in Europe, but didn’t know “why” they were so embellished with jewels, fancy lettering, etc.  They had time, and they created beautiful works of art on the first page you saw.  After libraries were burned in the dark ages, Irish books remained in small isolated Irish hands.  Some are still being found that were buried when Ireland was ransacked.  I love old things done by hand.

Pat calls each morning at 7:15 on her way to work.  Carolyn calls every morning at eight to to make sure I’m up.  And Scott called this morning to see how I’m doing.  It’s nice to have someone call even when we don’t have much to say.  Lisa calls every evening at five fifteen when she gets off work and is driving home.

Every night when I go to bed and put my phone on charge and get the covers over my feet, I call Carolyn and tell her, “You can go to bed now.”  Then I call Jeanette and ask about her day.  And then I call Jeanine across the street--to tell her I’m done for the day.  She always checks to see if I have turned the outside lights on.  She takes care of buying my groceries when I need something.

People are what make life good.  I am thankful to have so many people who care about me.

Yesterday was one of those days--you know...every time you turn around you spend money.  I was over a thousand and hadn’t even gotten started.

The car had to have shock absorbers.  Cha-ching.  The dentist wanted a check to order a partial where I had lost a tooth.  Cha-ching.  And then I went to Walgreens to pick up meds.  Another Cha-ching.

I’m staying home today.  If I don’t leave the house, I don’t spend money...or it seems like I don't.

But, I’m not going to cook, so I have to order something or raid the fridge.  Which is low on stuff I want to eat.

If the first day of the month looks like this (!) I’ll be broke before I get started in August.  August !!!! Where did the first half of this year go???

Yes, you can listen to a sermon on TV.  Yes, you can read your Bible at home.  Yes, you can gather your family around you to pray, Yes you can sing praise songs by yourself...But...

There is something about assembly that God as asked us to do.  We do it for “others” to strengthen them.  To give them fellowship.  To give them a sense of belonging.  There is strength in numbers.

Over the years, the best friends I have, I have met in church.  Those are the friends that have lasted, supported me when I needed something, been there when family has died, been sick or faced some difficult event in my life.  God says it this way:  Hebrews 10:23-25 “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith...let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works...not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is...but exhorting one another...”

Profess, consider, provoke, assemble, exhort one another---are done in a group.  It’s not always what we get at church, it’s what we give.

Good morning.  My grandson Stephen has convinced me to go outside in the morning before I do anything else and look toward the sun (Not at it) and get light in my body.  He has a guru that shows scientifically what sun light does for the system.

I’m not a guru follower, but I’ve been doing this for a week, and if nothing else, I like doing it.  It feels good.  I’m a hermit by nature, so maybe it is just jarring me out of the house!

I had the worst restaurant meal I ever ate in my life yesterday at Longhorn.  Texas Roadhouse wasn’t open or we would have gone there.    I explained that I couldn’t eat any spices.  All of the food was covered in every spice imaginable.  I ordered a small sirloin--I usually get the prime rib, but thought I would try something else.  It was so tough that the serrated steak knife couldn’t cut it.  I brought it home and put it through the processor to grind it up for Molly.  I usually give a place another try.  Nope.  Not this place.  Molly liked it.

Today is going to be a good day.  I am not sick at my stomach.  I should have been more sympathetic with Ken when he had ulcers.  But it is hard to know about something you haven’t experienced.  I’ve never had a stomach ache in my life.

Pat spent hours on the phone with me yesterday going over every prescription I take.  What a blessing.  Now I know which ones to get the GP to eliminate.  The prescription that is supposed to cure you is killing you.

They say they can tell you if two drugs interact, but if you take more than that, nobody knows.  You have to figure it out yourself.  Pat did that for me.  I don’t have the patience to do things like that.  Praise God.  Maybe there is a solution to all of this.

 Do some of you out there have organized lives.  I feel like I am on a ferris wheel.  Going in circles--but doing it up and down.

Molly loves being here with me.  My lap is her favorite place, and when she gets tired of that, she crawls in her crate.  I think she must have been mistreated, and the crate feels safe.

Her stitches have healed.

Pat took me to eat lobster yesterday, or was it the day before?  It tasted really good. I dipped it in a ton of butter, and ate butter and sour cream on a baked potato.   Everyone is trying to put weight on me. 

Who would have ever thought that they would try to gain weight.  Everyone is trying to lose weight.  Either one is difficult. 

Molly had a tough post surgery day yesterday.  She is pepped up today, but still wants to sit on my lap and sleep.

My publisher came by the house yesterday.  She was thrilled with the way Pryor received my book “The Letter.”  She asked if anyone had said they liked it and what they thought?

I gave her my third book, “The Corsair.”  I had it printed at UPS for her.  It is a rare thing to have a publisher take this kind of interest in you...I am blessed.  She may not like it, but at least she will read it.  

She said she visited Chris Hardy in Pryor and that he had only a few signed books left.  (If you want one.)  I won’t be coming back there to sign any time soon.  “The second book, “The Macau Mavrick” is coming out this fall and if he gets it, I’ll come to Pryor and sign them.  It was fun to see everyone.

Today, Molly goes to the vet for her surgery.  She will be sore when she comes home...but guaranteed that she will not be a puppy producer.  I’ll also get them to chip her.

I hope all goes well.  I don’t think I could go through losing another dog.  I know.... they do this all the time-----but just not on my dog.  That’s different!!!

I have done my part.  No food for her after 10 PM, nothing to eat or drink this morning.  When she gets home, I’ll spend the day holding her.  So she can be calm and still.  I can do that.

Everyday my prayer is that we don’t lose the electricity for the air conditioner.  Poor people who have no homes and live on the street are suffering in this horrible heat.  The news said that the 15 hottest days in the history of the world have happened this month. We haven’t taken care of our world much less our poor people.

Well, Becky didn’t know Molly was a runner...and opened the front door.   That was entertaining.  Everyone in the neighborhood was involved.  She refuses to “come.”  However... she will get in a car.  I finally came back to the house and got the car and drove down the street and told her to “get in.”  And she did.  We’ll work on that.  I think she thinks we are chasing her and it is a game.

By the time we “caught her” (or she agreed to be caught) I was stressed out of my mind because I had an appointment with a doctor that had taken me three months to get--and we were going to be late.  Which is a critical issue for me.  My mom said being late was breaking one of the commandments, “Thou shalt not steal” because you were stealing someone’s time.  It stayed with me, and I ended up nuts because we were going to be late. I wonder if everybody’s mom stuck something in their head like that???

I was at the store and they had large pork roasts on sale...I bought one.  Never again.  What was I thinking?  About all I can handle is a small pork chop.  I must have had a moment of thinking I was cooking for six people again.  

Six people are long gone.  It’s just me, and I have cooked my last pork roast.  Period. 

I took the bones out to the trash and--within a minute--when I got back in the house, Molly had hopped on my chair, hopped on the counter and run off with a huge chunk of meat.  She is a survivor.  Pat found her in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere and she was skin and bones.  She hasn’t realized yet that three meals a day are going to be her future from now on.

I’m going to have to be more careful about leaving temptation on the kitchen counter.  She isn’t a thief, she just knows how to take care of herself.  I have fallen in love with her, but there are some things we are going to have to work on.

The big news....Turkey agrees to let Sweden into NATO. 

When he invaded Ukraine, Putin didn’t plan on Europe coming together and revitalizing NATO.  Things that have been in the works for decades and decades look like they may gel.  

Maybe it will be a United European military front against aggression instead of simply counting on America?  We would become helpers instead of the main thing! That would be nice.  As usual, just when I give up on the sanity of the world, God steps in.  I’ve been wondering what God’s plan was...maybe it’s this??...Europe putting their big boy pants on.

Slowly, since I lived through WWII, Europe is recognizing they are stronger working together than apart.  My generation remembers the details of WWII.  Bad.  

Molly slipped out the front door when Tony came to put a new drain in the bathtub...we ran after her, but she took off.  However, when I turned around and gave up and opened the front door and went in.  I said “come,” she came in the door with me.  Maybe running is a game for her???  

She does know the word “come.”  And is coming when I say the word.  That is a big thing.  BIG.

We are learning each other.  She trusts me now completely.  Which is a good thing.  She got on the kitchen counter again, but she has  trained me not to leave anything there.  So I’m not sure who is training who.

After she ate the entire bowl of ground chicken on the counter that I was going to make chicken salad with, I learned.

In all my life, I have never seen a July like this one.  It is pouring down rain again.  At 5:00 AM.  Everything is green.  When you go for a drive, the world is fresh and green, not brown and crispy.

I wish we could catch all the rain and save it.  It seems like such a waste to watch it run off into drains in the streets.  If July is like this, I wonder what August will be like.

Molly went to the groomer’s yesterday.  He didn’t have time to cut her hair, but she got a bath--which was badly needed.  I can’t lean over the tub and do it anymore.  Everything in Edmond is twice as much as it was in Pryor.  $25.00 for a bath.  Somebody is making money in this town.  But they have to turn around and pay for what they buy, so I doubt anyone has much left over.    Carolyn says she pays half what I do to get her hair done in Pryor.  Why did I move?  I wish I could remember...

Molly and I have come to an agreement.  When I open the back door, she goes out into the yard and does her business.  So far, she is doing everything I ask her to do except “come.”  She will hop in my lap when I ask her to, but if I am standing up, she won’t come.  We’ll get that straightened out.  Food is a motivator. 

Today the agenda is to call the vet and see about getting her spayed. And getting whatever shots Pat didn’t get for her after Pat found her in the middle of the road.

I left her loose in the house when I ran to Braums to get some milk, and when I got back, the chicken I left on the kitchen counter was gone.  Molly said she didn’t eat it!!!

How did she get on the counter??? She is very tiny.  12 pounds, maybe 13.  I have an ingenious little scrapper.  I’m going to have to rethink things.  I’m probably going to get trained instead of Molly.

 

 My daughter Pat has drug home wounded animals ever since she was able to walk.  Everyone in the family now owns a dog that Pat picked up on the road on her way to work.

Yesterday, she said that she was bringing me a dog.  I said “No.”  I now have a dog.  And I do admit, she is my dog.  Someone treated this animal with cruelty and she is so thankful to have me.  Lying on my feet as I write this.

She is definitely a mutt.  No papers for this one.  And her foot is cut, she has bite marks under her neck.  She got the worst of whatever happened to her.  She is thankful to be here with me.  And I am thankful to have her.  She has yet to bark.  She yelped when I rubbed her ear.  We are going to the vet on Monday to get everything done.  Pat took her to the vet to get shots and all of that, but I’ll get her fixed and see what is wrong with the ear and foot.  This is going to be a “throw money at the problem” for a few weeks I’m sure.  But it will be nice to have some company for a change. 

Jeanette and I went to Pat’s house, (farm-horses-chickens, etc.) and had barbecue at noon yesterday  with mexican corn, slaw and baked beans, banana pie and were stuffed by mid afternoon.  Then on to Becky’s and hamburgers with a million sides and homemade Porter peach ice cream.   I’m still stuffed.

My new great-grandson Ken Jack Johnston found very quickly that I would feed him my ice cream with a spoon and stood by my side with his mouth open---like a little bird!

My plan for today is to read the paper and work the puzzles.   I brought enough food home to feed me the rest of the week.  And Jeanette brought me a container of home made lemon curd.  Which I love, love, love.   I don’t have to figure out what to eat for four or five days.  Sweet!

The fourth of July.  Our forces are all volunteer.  You have to join to be in the military.  We haven’t had a draft since the 1960’s.  Almost 65 years. 

Ken always said that every young person should have to serve their country a year--preferably  in a third world country.  To get an idea of how blessed they are to be American.

They could do all sorts of things--it wouldn’t have to be to fight or bear arms.  Just live somewhere else where the conditions are not perfect.  And learn how blessed they are to be American.

Ken joined.  As an enlisted person.  Korea broke out and the Navy and Marines didn’t have pilots because WWII was supposed to end all of that and we hadn’t trained them.  A few enlisted who could pass the equivalency test of college got to go to flight school. Ken passed it. He didn’t get a college degree until he retired and went on the GI bill and also got his Masters.

God bless those who serve their country.  I don’t know if I would be brave enough to do it.

Joe Mike and Becky Bacon came and spent the weekend.  The worst part of that is that you have a wonderful time--and then they leave.  And it makes me so lonesome.  Joe bought all three of us reserved seats to the Blue Angels...of course I couldn’t get from the car to the seats--too far to walk and too hot.  They went and didn’t stay because of the heat.  Joe just wants to talk to the pilots (B-52s) anyway.

When I married Ken we lived in Pensacola and I watched the Blues every day practice over my house.  Chuck Hiett (Hayet?) was the first Marine to fly with them, Ken was the second to be asked to fly the solo position.  He turned them down (!) because he was just back from Korea and didn’t want to live out of a suitcase.   He was teaching cadets to hook wire on the carrier and told Zeke (who was head of the Blues) that he felt like he was more useful to the Marine Corps teaching critical tactics on the carrier.  Then, told him to call his best friend Pete Olson, that he had flown with in Korea--who was stuck in DC as an aide (and not getting to fly).  Pete took the solo spot, and was killed. Spun an F-9 into the ground off shore at Corpus Christi.  There was no record of it because the Blues had stood down in the war and were just getting going again.  When I wrote about him in my book “The Corsair” I couldn’t find any info.  I called Scott--who jumped in and got Pete’s info into the Blues history.  He even found a picture of the headstone in Oregon, covered with weeds.  That’s rectified.  If you want something to do with Marines--call Scott.  He’ll get it done. 

 I can’t seem to get my self back on schedule.  Sleeping on a strange pillow is hard.  Nothing like your own bed and your own pillow.  I haven’t even got all of the crossword puzzles done yet. And can’t seem to get anything else done until I have finished the puzzles.

Regimen.  It keeps me in line.  But Jeanette brought me some lemon curd...so I eat a bite every little bit to keep me going.

“The Macau Mavrick” about my brother will be out in the fall.  And then on to the next book: “The Corsair Pilot.” which is about Ken. And as soon as that one is out, then “The Jersey Cow,” about my grandmother. I’m on a roll.  As long as I have characters, I can make a story.  But I’m running out of characters.  I tried to start one about my dad, but he was such a quiet man...there’s always my mom.  She was a character.  It all gets me up in the morning!!!

I still can’t talk, I have a frog.   I said so many words at the book-signing event on Saturday, I ran out of steam.  And those of you who know me well--that’s hard for me to do.

It was an humbling experience to say the least.  I have no idea  how many people, but at times they were backed up to the door--and I was at the back of the building.  Then when it was over, Chris---the owner of the bookstore, brought a huge stack of books that were pre paid and ordered for me to sign--and I thought I was through, and then he brought a case of books to sign for those who couldn’t make it.

My right arm is numb.  But what an  exciting event.  I got to see almost every one I knew--even Sally from Mississippi and her two girls.  To all of you--you really made my day. Let’s do it again in the fall when “The Macau Mavrick” comes out.

My friend Suzanne (Rucker) is coming up from Lubbock Texas today.  It’s a long drive.  She will stay all night and tomorrow we will drive the rest of the way to Pryor together.  We did that two years ago. She told all the people on her list (the to-call-list to remind them that we eat together on Friday before the reunion on Saturday) and told them that if she can get to Pryor from Lubbock that surely they could make the effort to come.  

The two of us have done this for years because we like to see the people we went to high school with.  But for some of them, it doesn’t seem to mean as much.  Some of them I don’t even remember if I had a class with them.  But the thing is, all of us lived through the 40’s and remember the same things.  The town, the food and gas stamps, the shortages of everything, the war in Europe, the people who were our teachers.  The ones we liked, the ones we didn’t.  The high school building that burned down.  All of those things are gone now--and unless you are in your 80’s you would have no idea what that felt like.

Memories are strange things. Some of us like them. Some of us don’t.

Becky Bacon said that she bought three books on Tuesday, someone else was there and bought four and another person  came in and bought more before she even got checked out.  I hope the book store ordered enough for everyone who wants one can get one.  People seem to be buying them for birthday gifts, etc.  I hope they don’t run out. 

But whoever was running the store said they only ordered 48.  They assured me there would be one hundred.  I don’t think I have it in my physically to drive to Pryor twice!! to sign books.  But if that happens, I’ll try.  The publisher said they would be available on the general market like Amazon in the fall.  Seems like the publisher wants to give my home town first go at it.

This is strange for me.  To write a book, have it published, and have people want to read it.  Flattering to be sure, but strange.  I am having to readjust to all of this.

Yesterday the wind blew so hard in the night that there were leaves all over the yards on our block.  I have reached the age that I sleep through it all.  It is a wonderful age.  Unless the whistle blows.  Then I walk across the street in the rain to Jeanine’s house and watch the news with her.  She has a cellar if we need it.

It’s not like the good old days when everyone was in a panic every time a suspicious cloud appeared. Now we can watch its path  on TV as it approaches and don’t have to  get in the fraidy hole with the spiders and wait until its over.  Remember how dark and wet those cellars were.  Slimey.  You never knew what would crawl by you.

Carolyn has a stray duck.  She has always had the town’s stray cats because she feeds them every morning.  But this stupid duck sits on an electrical wire in her back yard.  It doesn’t seem to know that it doesn’t have the kind of feet to do that.  It’s feet are flat.  They don’t curl around the wire.  She sent me a picture of it.  A duck sitting on a wire.  The question is “Why?”  Why not a pond, or on the ground.

I woke up at six, came into my recliner and woke up again at nine!!!  That’s what old people do.  So I guess I’m there.  Last night when I went to bed, I told Carolyn not to text me before 7:30 in the morning because the buzz wakes me up, but I guess I’ll have to change the time now.  She gets up early.  I used to do that, but I don’t seem to have a rhythm anymore.

We are studying relationships on Sundays.  Moses and his father in law.  Moses and Joshua.  And this coming Sunday, Eli and Samuel.  Relationships are the whipping cream on our lives.  People ask what Carolyn and I talk about every day.  I have no idea.  Nothing ever happens here.  She sees people every day at the dinner that the city throws for retired people.

I don’t see anyone during the week very often. I’ll see all you Pryorites on Saturday.  I’m afraid someone will say “Do you remember me?”  I beg you, don’t ask me that.  I barely remember my own name!

Okay...I’m late in the day, but here I am. I joined the Rusty Keys group today, and it is so interesting.  There is one lady who plays a fantastic fiddle hoe-down, then switches to classical violin.  She also plays the harp.  The talent in the group is amazing.  They sing, they play classical piano, and there are some who are just beginning to renew their instruments after many, many years.  It’s interesting.

They seem to like my marimba music, but getting it out of the trunk (in seven pieces) and getting it set up is daunting.  I told them I would play again when we meet at my house.  I have a full size marimba there.  The one in that I keep in the trunk of my car is smaller--and over 70 years old.  My folks bought it for me when I was 13.

I had been playing every month before the pandemic...so I left the marimba in pieces in the car.  But with the pandemic, we quit going to gatherings and I just never got it out of the car trunk.  I guess it is as good a place for it as any.

 I think I’ve turned over a new leaf and am going to start blogging first thing in the morning again...we’ll see if I can get back in the groove.

This Sunday, the lesson on relationships is about Eli and Samuel.  Carolyn asked me why Eli’s sons turned out to be so evil when Eli was an exemplary father figure to Samuel.  All I could think of is that sometimes, when we have our first child, we have no idea what we are doing.  Sometimes, children just don’t end up being the people we intend for them to be. 

When I had my first, I was in the boonies at Camp Pendleton, California.  I had never held a baby or anything else to do with babies.  I had no friends, no family, and Ken was somewhere in the air showing ground troops how to call in air support when they were in combat.  A neighbor got me to the hospital. I was nineteen.  

I brought a little piece of humanity home and did my best.  She turned out just fine, but I was a nervous wreck.  It’s a God given miracle we both survived.  She cried with colic--no one warned me about that.  I sat up night after night jiggling her--what do you do with colic? Ken couldn’t take off work to help.  I don’t know how that young girl did it.  I guess when we don’t know what we are doing, we just do our best.

 My friend Carolyn has a number of police, sheriff, etc. members in her family.   The other day, she was walking her dog--who controls everything in her life (much like Squig controlled mine) including when he wants his leash on or off.  He escaped, ran down the block, exercising his civil rights to do whatever he wanted. 

A neighbor a ways down the street saw the dog in his yard at the very moment a police car drove up, nabbed the critter, and put the dog in his car.  “First time I ever saw a patrolman arrest a dog,” the man commented.

Most of the time, Pablo, the dog, only eats if Carolyn hand feeds him.  There is no end to what we will do for our dogs that we would NEVER have done for out children.  But after raising four children myself, I can assure you that raising Squig was ten times easier than raising any of my four.  Or Carolyn’s three.

 

Okay, already!!  I am a delinquent blogger.  Somewhere in the last few months of being so sick, I lost my taw--as my mom would say.  Which for those of you who have never had a taw, it is your shooting marble.

Nobody plays marbles anymore.  Or hide and seek after sundown.  Or hopscotch.  Kids are glued to their phones.  They interact without seeing each other!!

So after over 2500 blogs, I am slowing down.  I hope you put up with me.

I plan the next day when I go to bed each night.  Yesterday I went to an appointment, had the carpets cleaned and wrote Carolyn a letter.  But today....nothing.  I have nothing written on my calendar.  It is lovely.  I am going to do the puzzles in the paper, the crossword, and work on a book I have started about my dad.

I love nothing days.  Kinda.  For an hour or two and then they get boring.  I’ll try to do better about blogging.

I’m rather excited.  I made the Oklahoma best seller list again for the third week in a row.  They have run out of books at the bookstore and the second edition will come out soon with revisions.  

The publisher and I finalized the revisions last night.  For the first time in over three years, I’m done.  No more editing.  I have now let go of it.  It isn’t mine anymore.  It’s out there and is public now.  Those of you who read it, the name Jacks has been restored to replace a substitute name.  Publishers are hesitant to use real names...but they finally agreed.

I went to a new dentist yesterday.  Hard to do.  But ending up in the hospital with and infection in my jaw bone was traumatic.  I don’t like change and other than moving, I don’t remember ever changing a doctor before.  It takes a while to get to know each other and I find that difficult.  Oh well, I have to adjust from time to time.  I don’t like adjusting.  I’m basically a hermit.

Carolyn called this morning mad at a bottle cap. “Why do they seal theses things so that we can’t open them?!!” She asked me.  I had just tried to open something myself and was more than ready to yell about it.

“They put a plastic wrap around the bottle that you have to use a knife on to get started peeling it off.  Then, when you get the exterior plastic seal off,  it takes a vise grip to turn the lid.  And when you get the lid off, there is a paper seal-cap glued to the bottle that the only way you can get it started is to stab it with a knife.”

I agreed with her and told her that this morning I couldn’t get the seal broken to open the lid of a cranberry juice bottle and had to lay it down and beat on the lid with a hammer.  Turning the bottle and hammering the lid on every side.  Of course when it came loose, it leaked.  Who are we protecting anyway?

What happened to May???  It’s always been such a wonderful month and this year I feel like I missed it.

I have slowed down on posting...I know.  Once or twice a week seems to be all I can manage rather than five days a week.  I’ve posted over 2500 times.

I’ve been reading the Psalms every night when I crawl into bed.  They are such a comfort.  At least some of them are.  I need to start skipping the war and rebellion of some of the Old Testament books.   I told someone the other day that once you reach my age, you need to concentrate on the happy books and the application books of the New Testament.  What we want is peace and there doesn’t seem to be much of that in the world anymore.  I’ve lived through too many wars...starting with World War two. Enough already.  Greed...money (or land).  The root of all evil. 

Being in the hospital--and a week or two of “sick” since then--has messed up my schedule.  I am back on my feet.  Infected bone where the dentist cut a tooth out started sepsis again--which I am prone to.  The cure to all that ails us is: don’t get old.  Everything wears out.

I’ve been teaching my Sunday class by phone...and that has worked out okay.  Everyone stays with it and doesn’t want me to quit...but I fear my teaching days may be coming to a end. 

People tell me to get a Podcast.  Whatever that is.  Learning something new seems overwhelming.  I did get the book about my brother (The Macau Maverick) to the publisher--final editing.  And “The Letter” just hit the Oklahoma best seller list for the second week in a row.  I’ll be in Pryor on June 24 to sign books in the afternoon.  That’s the plan.

Since it is Friday, Ann always picks me up and we go garage sale hopping.  Or, she does, and I sit in the car and do the newspaper puzzles and the crossword.  Sometimes I get out if the driveway is flat  and short.  

Last thing I bought was a 100 package of one serving plastic freezer containers.  Every time someone brings me what they think is one serving of dinner (friends have been awesome) I divide it into two or three servings and freeze them in my garage sale containers.  Handy.

Eating enough to gain weight is difficult.  No matter how many times a day I eat a meal, I can’t seem to gain any of my weight back.  We spend our entire lives as girls trying to lose weight, so I have no training in gaining weight.  I can’t seem to do it. I started at 145 before all these medical things happened to me and now I am stuck at 128.  Nothing I eat--or how much of it--seems to help. Jeanette agreed that lobster dipped in a gallon butter might help...so we went to Red Lobster last week and I ate two tails with a baked potato soaked in butter and sour cream.  I dipped every broccoli spear in butter as well.  Surely that is worth a pound!! I’m working on it.  

 I spent three and a half hours on the phone with the publisher today making corrections.  Second edition with all of the mistakes fixed will be at Pryor book store on the 24th of June, and I’ll be there as well.

What a journey...and it is almost over.  I can focus my attention on the book I have written about my brother Bill.  It will be out in the fall sometime.

My friend Jeanette brought me a jar of lemon curd she made.  Delicious!!.  She knew I had been stressed out.  I’m ready for Kathy, Kim, and Carolyn to make another road trip to come see me.

I’m going to do nothing tomorrow.

 I said this yesterday, but am still floating.  My class reunion is June 23.  My publisher is going to try and set up a signing date for my book there in Pryor on the 23 or 24th.  Corrections will have been made in the small errors in the book (by then) and those from a second run will be printed.

I have been amazed at the success of sales.  I made the Oklahoma best seller list at number five!  The other four were known authors including Tom Hanks for two different books--#1 and #3.  I am kind of floating.  

If you want a hard back, tell the Pryor book store to reserve it.  They don’t print many of those for a first time author.

If I sell a million books, I will make enough to keep the house in kleenex.  The publisher, printer, and bookstores get all but my one dollar!  Don’t try writing books to make money unless you are John Grisham.  I never did it for money anyway.  I just wanted to tell a story.

I’m back...I think.  After three days in the hospital, I ended up going back after they released me two days later.  But....I think I am on the mend.  All over a tooth that had to be removed from bone.

One good thing happened...although I missed the open house at “Best of Books” bookstore for the introduction of my book “The Letter”, it made the Oklahoma best seller list anyway behind Tom Hank’s book.  I’ll take that!  Thank you--if you were one of the ones who made that happen.

If you haven’t bought it, the only place it is available is at best of books on Danforth in Edmond (for now)  I get one dollar for every book sold and will gladly return your dollar!  The book store, publisher and printer divide the rest...that’s okay...books get printed because of them.  If you want it signed, let the bookstore know, I’ll drive over and sign it.

I’ve been in the hospital with my arm (again)

 for three days.  I’m taking a break from posting this week.

 So, in light of the attack on our faith in the word of God, we need to rectify the truth of the story of creation.  And here it is:  Where do the dinosaurs fit  in? We know they lived.

Perhaps our problem is that we expected God to tell us everything about everything and  He didn’t.  He said, “In the beginning...” and that was a long time ago.  Those who believe the world is only 6000 years old reject that.

When God “did what he did” in the beginning, it included life that is different from life now.  And then it was destroyed.  Strata contains dinosaurs, not pigs chickens and cows.  Those animals didn’t come along until late in Chapter 1 of Genesis.

In the second verse of Genesis, the world is dark, empty, void, and without form.  Something had happened to the world God created in verse one.  God didn’t give up on the world and began  to restore it.  He didn’t “create” anything else until he got to the animals in verse 21.  He made things, and let things happen, and got the world ready for when he created man.  (Read it again in light of those words: create, made, let...)

The earth was covered by water (verse 2) , fish were there (verse 20) 

So when 6000 year “earthers” get to the story of Noah, they have a problem: how did Noah get those dinosaurs on board?  He didn’t.  They were long gone between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2

I started this blog to share what I learned about the creation story with those who wanted to know.  At the time, I was teaching seniors in high school who were being told that we had evolved.  Evolved from “what” no one knew, but it had the effect of causing our young people to doubt the Bible.  And if you doubt one part, it might cause you to doubt the rest.  It seemed important to me to “Know.”  

So I drove over to Oklahoma Military Academy, asked to enroll--and you can imagine what a turmoil that caused.  A woman!!  I reminded them that taxes paid for the academy and after a bit of constitutional  explanation, they were out of excuses and gave me a full scholarship.  The academy was now coed.  Them, and me.  Thirty years later they invited me back to speak to the graduation class about all of that struggle, how I did it, and how I became the first woman and first president of the Honor Society. (Those of you who know me would say “stubborn?”)

I took all of the science classes.  I had no idea about atoms, and molecules, and such.  Class after class...and because I couldn’t pay my loans...I kept going.  They had a rule that if you took 6 hours of credit, you didn’t have to pay them back until you graduated...so I kept changing my major so I wouldn’t graduate.   I was always one class away from graduation.  Comparative anatomy, organic chem. Bio-Chem, etc. and finally by accident had a double major in Pre-med and zoology.  I knew about the dinosaurs--a lot about the dinosaurs.  And began a booklet about them.  Which I gave away to anyone who was interested.  Where they fit into the Bible.

 Well, it’s really going to happen I guess.  Sunday’s Oklahoma paper had a blurb  about Janie Jacks (!) and “The Letter” and that the book will be available at Best of Books bookstore on Sat. May 13th.  I’ll be signing them if anyone shows up to buy one.  I’m rather nervous about the whole thing.  

I get one dollar for every book sold and I’ll give you your dollar back if you will buy one!!!  I just want people to read it. 

No, I haven’t seen it.  Just a loose leaf that the publisher brought by the house a couple of weeks ago for me to check on last minute details.

I have no idea when it will be available elsewhere.  She said anyone can buy it through book websites.  The publisher is Roadrunner Press. They want the local bookstore to have first crack at it.  Then Tinker--since it is based on military families.  I hope I last long enough to get it all done.  Barnes and Noble in Tulsa soon.

I just found the comments section on my blog site!!  Thank all of you for your kind words.  One problem seems to me is that it doesn’t tell me who said anything...just their comment.  Maybe you all have not given the site your name??

The other day, I had an impulse and did something before I thought about it.  I don’t know if it was right or wrong.  If it was wrong, I’ll blame my right arm.  I had gone in to a quick oil change place  full of  rough looking white dudes  and one lone black fellow who looked a little lost.  He opened my car door to get the milage sticker and I reached up and touched his face with my right hand and said, “God bless you.”

I don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I think he almost cried as he whispered “Thank you.”  An old, old, white woman blessing a young black fellow.  Sometimes God gives us an impulse at the right moment.  I think that had to be one of those moments.  I hope so.  He was smiling when I left.

I went over 2000 posts without missing one.  Then...I will try to do better.  So many of you have stuck with me from the beginning.  

I told a friend that the reason we have a hard time praying is because of the pictures we saw as a child...God sitting on a throne, with a crown and a robe.

God is not sitting around on a throne doing nothing.  The Bible says that God is a Spirit and those of us who worship him must worship him in Spirit.  He is all around us.  Loving us, upholding us with his right hand and leading us in the the paths he wants us to follow.  It’s a big job because to be honest, we aren’t much to work with. 

I do it by thinking of God as being where I am.  It makes Him close.  And then we talk.  Just talk...I never have anything very big to say, because nothing very big happens in my life.

 I think I’m going to join a group named “Rusty Keys.”  A group of women who learned an instrument in their youth and then let it go and get “rusty.”

I played my marimba for them last month and they invited me to come back.  I think I will get my piano skills back to work.  I played the piano for the church before I moved here to Edmond, and then I quit.

I did some interesting Piano pieces before I got married a million years ago--which definitely qualifies me as rusty.  I think I can get Claire de Lune back in shape if I try.

Why do we let things slip?

 I’m editing.  Will get back to blog next week.  Bear with me please.

Mondays are the longest.  Or maybe Saturday.  When you have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and aren’t cooking for someone, you end up inventing things to do to fill the time.

I think that’s why people decide not to retire.  2020 and the pandemic taught everyone that working from home is lonesome and just that--work.  If I could go back to the classroom and teach math again, I would do it in a heart beat if I didn’t have to drive to get there.  But just two days a week.  Another thing we learned is that we need more time for doing nothing.  

The only problem for me with being retired and not cooking is: What am I going to eat today.  It usually ends up being shredded wheat or rice krispies.  Cheerios for a change.  

My Sunday class has turned into a discussion group in a number of ways.  It is interesting.  They have all been Christians for years, and nobody hogs the floor.  I just direct traffic.  

 Today is breakfast with Ann, then garage sale day.  I mostly just sit in the car and read the paper.  I’m getting rid of stuff, not buying more!!  Then the hairdresser. It is always time for lunch before we get back home.

And the rest of the day I will edit.  This publisher sent me final copy to read and it is full of mistakes.  I think they must have used A.I.   That’s what they do now.  Artificial Intelligence.  One place where I said to put a comma, they wrote out the word comma.  This will take the rest of the day to fix all of it.

My asparagus isn’t doing well.  I think I cut it too soon.  I should have waited another year--but that is hard to do.

 

The publisher wanted a picture of me for the web page.  She wandered through the house looking at a million pictures of me with children.  Four of my own, ten grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren.  All of them next to me in some way.  On my lap, with an arm around my shoulders, etc, etc.  There seem to be a zillion of them.

She wanted to present me in a certain way since the book is about children and families who are left at home when their fathers go to war.  She chose a picture of me and Ken Jack.  Named after his hero great grandfather.  I thought that was fitting.  But of course I had to call his mom and ask permission.  She, Jennifer, was thrilled to death.  But who knows if that will really happen.  At this point in the publishing journey I am reluctant to hope.

We’ll see. 

 The publisher has decided on the format for a web page for me.  I’ll let everyone know. She suggested I put my blog on the web page, but I’m not going to do that.  I write too many personal things.  Maybe it is the same, but???

I woke up at 3:00 this morning.  Too many bees in my brain, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the meeting yesterday with my publisher.  It was really good.  She wants books signed at a local book store for the Saturday  before Mother’s day.  I don’t know if they have an opening that day or not.  Then go to the book store in Pryor.  Then Barnes and Noble in Tulsa--my grand daughter runs that store.  This is all too much.  But I have to sleep or I will be worthless for anything.  I am too old for this kind of excitement. 

 Today, something is supposed to happen that is humongous.  My publisher is coming to the house for lunch with the first book.  The one she signed a contract on three years ago.  I am anxious.  Unsettled.  Is this really going to happen?

And what does it mean?  Are we going to print?  Are we just approving something?  Are we just having lunch?  She said she is bringing the layout for my web page.  What does that mean?

There are three ways to publish.  You do it yourself on Amazon.  You hire someone to do the editing and legwork to publish. (I don't need an editor--I have Carolyn Brown who is an expert.) Or third, by some miracle, a publisher reads what you wrote and says they want to publish it.  Which is what happened to me three years ago.  And from what I understand doesn't ever happen to first time writers unless you are already famous.

I have learned that in publishing, patience is critical and I don't have any patience. I am anxious right now.   

We were in the book of James yesterday in class.  If you read the Bible, it helps to pay attention to who wrote what you are reading.  These were real people who wrote what they had to say from their own perspective. It would be like you and me being there and each of us writing what we saw about Jesus or what He did.  God inspired, yes...but writing in their own style.

James was very Jewish.  He wrote this book to the Jews, to the 12 tribes.  Whereas--Luke never met Jesus and has a different vibe.  Luke wanted to know things that the women had to tell.   James was very big on rules and had a hard time accepting the Gentiles becoming Christians without adhering to all of the laws the Jews followed.  The new laws Jesus gave came down to loving God, and loving people.  James said you had to have the proper attitude.  The proper source--God's words.  He spells things out for you.  He writes in a totally different way than the other writers.  But what he says is true.  It's just more black and white than the other books.

Asparagus is up.  I had a raised asparagus bed in Pryor with probably 25 plants.  They have to grow three years before they are mature enough to produce.  Those were ten years old and healthy.

When I moved to Edmond, I tried to dig some of them up, but the roots were so deep and tanged, I couldn't do it.  So when I sold the house, I hoped someone else would enjoy my wonderful asparagus.

The people who bought the house took the raised bed down and plowed the asparagus under.  It mad me sad because I had put so much time and effort into it.  What a waste.

Funny thing is...i don't even like asparagus very much.  But I loved to pick it and give it away.  And my neighbors thought I was awesome--and never found out any different!!! 

The cleaning ladies come today.  I always dread it because of the noise...but am glad when they leave because the house is clean.  But it forces me to pick up everything that is out of place and put it where it goes so that they can dust.

Paper is everywhere.  And when I pick it up, I stack it, only to have to re-sort it later...which sometimes doesn't get done.  This new generation just takes a picture of it and keeps it on their phone.

Yesterday I called Carolyn (who is my right hand editing authority when I write) and told her to sit down because when I read her the text I just got she was going to faint.  The text was from my first publisher who said, "I'll be at your house Tuesday with your book."  Three years...and maybe this is going to happen.  She also said that she was bringing the draft for my web page for my approval.  I've been disappointed so many times I'm afraid to hope it will happen.