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?