Sunday we were in Ecclesiastes.  There are two sections that are interesting--and the lesson given to us in our quarterlies wasn’t either one of them.  One is Chapter three.  “A time to live...a time to die... and we counted the number of times the word “time” was used.  Translations are different but there are over 27 times is is used in one chapter.

The other section is  the last chapter where the parts of the body are discussed with “falling apart” as the topic.  The “grinders are low” etc.  It is talking about our teeth as we age.  You wouldn’t know what Solomon was talking about if you didn’t know that all of the comparisons were about aging

I don’t know why, but the “powers that be” who decide what the message is to put in quarterlies, didn’t use either one of those topics. 

There are some parts of the Bible that are interesting, and some that aren’t very interesting.   I keep going back to the New Testament when I start reading.  And the Psalms.

I miss my home town...Pryor, Oklahoma.  I knew everyone and everyone knew me.  Moving to a new town when you are in your late seventies is not a good idea.  The only way to meet people is at church or at a bar...and I’ve never been in a bar.

Those at your new church raised their children together, taught Sunday School together, went to ball games together, and as a new comer, you have no past.  It is difficult.  I did join a group called “Rusty Keys”...a group who are trying to restore their old piano or violin, etc. skills.  That is good.  I am glad I did that.  As a new comer, you have to take the initiative. 

But you have to take the reins of your own life.  It is too easy to sit and watch TV and order take out.  And there isn’t anything good on TV, and take out gets “greasy.”

I think I’m going to have to start cooking again.  But my neighbors are so good to bring me food.  I’m not complaining, just telling it like it is.  I’m looking forward to coloring my Bible on Moondays with Jeanette.  Our new word is “Mercy.”  Now we just have to decide what color it will be. 

The weekend seemed so long.  I number my days by Sunday to Sunday...Church and Bible study.  When you have a three day holiday weekend and you live alone, it seems to stretch.  But...and this is a big but...I have felt better for the entire week.  I had looked up every time the word “heal” was used by Jesus and just asked God to feel better myself. 

Craig grilled steaks.  Baked potatoes and green beans.  And strawberry shortcake.  And of course when Becky does that, she always whips real cream.  I can eat that with a spoon.

Jeanette and I are going to start coloring our Bibles again.  We had done the word “faith” in purple.  The word “kingdom” in golden yellow and started on other words and somehow got stopped.  But on Monday mornings from now on we are going to do that again.  Our next word will be “mercy.”  I am looking forward to that.

Does anyone wear galoshes anymore?  When I was growing up, every kid in school had to have a pair.  Where did they go?  I haven’t seen any in years.

We had pencils with erasers, and Big Red notebooks.  Where did they go?  I had stationary to write thank you notes to people.  Heaven help me if I didn’t write a personal thank you note when I got a gift.  

Remember the ink well on your desk at school--and the guy who sat behind you dipping your hair in his ink well?  I bet most people don’t even know what an ink pen with an interchangeable end where you could insert a new tip.

Our desks were bolted to the floor.  The top of the desk lifted up so you could put your books and supplies inside.  My friend Carolyn and I talk about the things most people have forgotten or never knew.  We have a lot of useless junk rattling around in our heads.  With new stuff coming along every day.  It gives you a headache.

I think I am just going to accept the fact that I’m not going to blog every day.  I forget.  Stay with me.  I’m trying to do better but it isn’t working.  I used to have a pattern, but since I’ve been so sick the last three months, my pattern has gone splat. 

I’ve been watching a lot of TV.  I don’t recommend it.  Everyone is arguing and nobody likes conversation.  They just emote.

I got my Reader’s Digest Saturday.  It is half as thick as it used to be, and I don’t get most of the jokes!  Which says that I am over the hill.  I just don’t know which hill I went over.

Carolyn buys RD for me, and I get Time for her.  I just cancelled the Time, and got The Saturday Evening Post for both of us.  It isn’t much better.  Maybe I actually am over the hill?

Friday.  I usually wake up around 5:00-6:00.  Get dressed, take a handful of pills with a cracker or pudding and then....I walk around the block.  I’ve only missed twice when it was raining.

It’s  a good time to talk to God.

Then I get cuddled up in my recliner and do nothing for an hour or two.  I’ve been re-reading “The Saving life of Christ,” by Ian Thomas.  I first read it in 1965--it changed my life.  I was already serving Christ.  I was “Baptist Housebroken” and kept all the rules.  But I was doing things for Christ that He was waiting to do through me.  It’s an exhausting way to do Christianity.

The deal is, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”  I was pulling myself up by my salvation bootstraps all of the time.  I was a rule keeper.  Saved, but exhausted.  “Come unto me and I will give you rest,”  works better than  “OH! Let me.  I’ll do that for you.”  Say that often enough and you will soon be worn out.

 Well, obviously I am not going to blog every day even with the best intentions.  I forget.  My “forgetter” is operating on high.  My brother ordered a new round of medications for me to start taking and along with the zillion pills I am already on, It has become a full time job keeping up with all of them.  I had been scooping up a handful and just choking them down and forgetting to eat something with it.

So...I am now taking two at a time with a cracker, or something to eat--and it is driving me nuts.  But thank God, my gut isn’t being torn up.  You would think that someone with a pre-med degree would have realized that taking pills on an empty stomach was stupid, but I was doing it and wondering why my stomach was so upset all the time.  Three days now (of paying attention to what I am doing) has paid off, I’m better!!  Duh.

But it has affected everything else I have to do--like blog.  Because I’m always thinking about the next round of meds.  But...by next week, I should be off of some of them.  Hallelujah!  I’ll try to do better.

Remember porches?  That was pre-TV.  People sat on the porch after supper (supper, not dinner) and those who were out walking would stop and chat for awhile.  The weather, what happened “down-town” that day.  What they were planning on for tomorrow.

There were swings hanging on chains from the ceiling.  And they swayed back and forth in a slow easy rhythm.  Life was slow.  Nobody was racing to get anywhere.  There weren’t very many places to go.  And if you did go somewhere, you filled the car up with people because even tho gas was cheap, you needed everyone to chip in.  

My dad had five other guys he commuted to work with.  One of them didn’t have a car so he paid.

When did things get so hectic?  What did we gain?  We spent the money on things inside our houses that are pretty but nobody sees.  We need to get back to the porch.

Friday.  It seems to come around really fast.  When you are no longer working outside your home, there don’t seem to be any way to figure out what day it is.  I usually get lost around Wednesday.

But I get my hair done on Friday, so I set my alarm to remember...or I would miss it.

Ann and I went to eat catfish yesterday.  It was disappointing.  People in this part of the state don’t know about croppie.  Or do you spell that croppy?  Northeast Oklahoma is the capital of the world for that.

We will try another place downtown next time.  Or we will have to drive to Pryor to get decent fish.

 As I have been cleaning out all the shelves in the house full of all the junk you don’t throw away because someone might want it, (of course nobody wants it) the thing I have avoided ( and I bet you do too) is the pictures.  People used to take pictures.  Now all of them are on our phones.

I wonder why my mom, my grandmother, my aunts, didn’t write the name of the people in the pictures.  There are some of my great grandmother--I just happen to know what she looked like.  So I have put names on some of them.  But every time I start writing names on pictures, I don’t get very far before I give up.  Someday someone will throw them all out anyway.  Pictures you can hold and touch aren’t popular anymore.  We carry them around with us on our phones so we can show everyone how cute our grandchildren are.  And we can hit a button and send them to anyone we want to.

But I guess I am old school.  I like to touch them.  I found a picture in the stack of Ken and me that was taken a month after we were married. It is so cute.  We were so young.  It was taken by chance by a professional photographer at a squadron awards ceremony.  I framed it and set in here by my chair so I could look at it and remember.  It makes me happy.  A picture on my phone can’t do that.

 

I don’t get mad very easily---I always figure that people are just having a bad day.  But last Friday I made an appointment with the Lincoln service department to check my air conditioner...it needed freon.  They said to have it there by 8:30 Tuesday.  It’s now 1:30 and they  texted me to say it would be 24 to 48 hours before it would be ready.  And....they would call to give me a price before they did anything.

I am totally upset.  Why have it there at 8:30 in the morning?  And not get it back before tomorrow.  My plan is to either go get it and never darken their doors again, or suck it up and let them walk all over me.

Two days without a car is impossible.

I think I better go get my Bible and read the Psalms for a while and calm myself down.  

I went to breakfast with Ann this morning--as usual on Friday mornings--and ate an entire meal for the first time in a long time.  I-Hops, eggs Benedict.  It was really good.  Then I got my hair done for the first time in weeks.  I feel like a new woman.

I am going to keep the trend up and go to get a hamburger and fries.  I’ve lost 25 pounds and I was at normal weight when all of this started.  I am doing the opposite of most people--I’m trying to gain weight now.  It’s harder than losing it.  I’ve never been in this position before.  Bring on the fat!!

I wish I had never moved to Edmond.  All my friends are in Pryor.  I have two friends here--thank God.  But my girls wanted me to move here so they could take care of me.  However--I rarely see them.  They both have full time jobs.  What I miss--is that in Pryor, everyone knew me.  And had known me for a zillion years.  I didn’t have to prove anything. It just made life easier.  Sally has moved back to Oklahoma.  She feels the same way.  We both just want to go home.

I haven’t been able to pull myself away from the gymnasts in the Olympics.  Gold again...so thrilling to watch Simone Byles.

I probably spelled her name wrong?

Everything here is so dry.  My yard looks like dry wheat.  Even when it rains it doesn’t seem to help because it is so hot.

Do you remember Ernie Pyle?  The war correspondent in World War II.  Most of you aren’t old enough?  Anyway I am reading a book he wrote as he moved through Italy with the ground troops.  It is so interesting and so tragic.  I have no idea why people want power so badly that they are willing to sacrifice so many lives.

Why can’t people live in peace.  I don’t get it.

Wednesday.  I’m going to edit today.  The publisher wants me to do a book on the Vietnam era.  Truly a horrible war.  We had no real reason to be there, and so many young men died.

Ken only got hit once.  He took a 50 milimeter through the cockpit--which looked like smoke when the canopy  disintegrated.  He said he leaned forward to pull back on the stick or it would have cleaned the earwax out of both ears.

Sounds like something he would say.  The only other bad thing he had was being burned all over when he was doing his post flight check.  The plane had been shut down, but as he walked around the tail, the plane “belched” fire and he got it.  They threw him in water which probably saved his life.  Almost 60 years ago, but some memories don’t fade.  I thank God he made it home.  So many didn’t.

I walked around the block again at 7 this morning.  As long as I do that I give myself a pass for the rest of the day to sit and watch TV.  I don’t actually do that, but I could if I wanted to!!!

I have been watching the Olympics.  The men’s gymnastics has been obscured by the women’s team for so long that it was exciting to see them medal.

The newspaper is the most exciting event of most days.  But they have a new crossword person who likes to ask for the name of current figures in movies etc.  That really isn’t fair.  Who cares.  I need real stars like John Wayne, Heady Lamarr, Bette Davis, etc.

It’s no fun anyway when they ask for names instead ideas and definitions.  But it still gets me out of my chair to go outside and get the newspaper.  Unless it’s raining...then it’s a toss up.

Yesterday’s lesson was about Deborah.  A female Judge for Israel.  Obviously she was before her time.  Being a female “anything” during those times (and these times) was a rare occurrence.  She sent the Israel army to fight a group that was much larger than they were. Also the enemy had chariots.  And she went with them to be visible as the appointed voice of God.  They won the battle.

I read in the newspaper a few weeks ago that one of the largest denominations in America was going to make a rule that a woman can’t pastor any of their churches.  I’m sure that will cause a split--especially among predominantly black congregations since many of their pastors are female.

I can’t imagine what higher boards of denominations are afraid of--that women are a threat???  There were four different female judges over Israel back then.  They survived it!!  

 I spent all of my time today cleaning up my kitchen floor.  I dropped a quart of sweet pickles in sugar juice all over the floor.  I can’t even describe the mess.  And the floor will still be sticky for ever I fear.

I have kept walking around the block this month at seven in the morning before it gets hot.  Missed once when it was raining.  I hope it helps me get my strength back. I’m so non-mechanical that it took me two weeks to figure out that the walker handles could be adjusted up and down.

I’ve been eating mashed potatoes for breakfast.  “Idahoan” brand.  I have a hot water tap at my sink...so it is instant.  I love things that are instant!!! Food is my biggest problem.  It is hard to cook for one person.  And my mama taught me never to throw food out---which is impossible anymore.

My publisher came by yesterday.  We are trying to get my next book on the market.  I sent an e-mail copy to my brother Bill, and he found over twenty mistakes--that’s after I had edited it myself over and over.  I can’t find my own mistakes because my mind reads what I “want” it to say.  July is almost over.  Where has this year gone?!!?  

The aging process is a enigma.  You never know where you are.  In your 80’s, you realize that time is not on your side, but on any given day, you feel great...and then next day the you don’t.  And you ask yourself, “Is this it?”  I think I am doing everything a person can do to stay healthy,  but my body sometimes doesn’t agree with my mind.

You don’t dare complain.  People don’t like to hear complaints no matter what your age is.  And you really don’t know if you have something going on that you should complain about!!!  Maybe it is just a bad day.

My dad lived to ninety-four and the only complaint he ever made was once: he told me about the plate of leftovers I had set on the table for him.  It was something he didn’t want to eat.  So I fried him an egg and he was happy.  I wish all of us could be satisfied so easily.   

I joined a group named “Rusty Keys.”  Women who learned to play an instrument in their youth, got married, had kids and got “rusty” playing their instrument.  I had been so sick this last year that I had quit going.  But today (I’m better) I played the marimba for them.  My marimba had been in the trunk of my car for a year.  It comes apart into six or seven pieces.  And for the first time in my life (I got the thing when I was fourteenI) of playing it, I flubbed up.  You can’t leave something in your car trunk for a year and expect to take it out and be fantastic.  The redeeming fact is that everyone there played an instrument  and flubbed up.  I think that’s where the group got the name “Rusty.”  They are a fun group.

I would give the marimba away ( I have another one in the family room) if there was some child who would like to learn and stay with it.  It was used when I got it and I’ve been playing it for 70 years.  It’s time for someone else to play.

I’m ready for the election to be over!!!  I can’t get anything interesting on the television.  It seems like every channel has been preempted and you have to sit and wait for the show continue.

I’ve been watching old movies.  It’s amazing how TV programing has changed.  And with playback, I have learned how many minutes of a show are used for advertising.  Over half of the time--for some channels.

I like Discover, Shark Tales, and anything nature or science.  Back in the “good-old-days,” we only had three channels, and news once in the evening.

The weathermen predict the worst possibilities all day long, so you really don’t know what the weather is until it happens. Everyone tells me to pay up for ad-free TV.  I would if someone would do it for me.  I don’t want to learn how to do it--and end up owing someone a million dollars. I’m a perfect scam target.

When I write, I edit it constantly.  And when it is finally ready to print, I give it to Bill to read.  That’s when I find out that it isn’t ready to print!  He has already found over 25 mistakes.  It is so helpful to have someone do that for me.  I can’t catch my own mistakes.  

My publisher is supposed to bring me a contract this week.  I hope so.  I’ll give her all of my brother’s corrections and be done.  “Done.”  Becky says “done” is her favorite word.  I agree.  

And now that it is “done” I have started writing again.  Something fresh and new.  My mind if freed up to start inventing another story.  I am not particularly a writer, I am a story teller.  My girls say, “Give mom one fact and she will turn it into 300 pages.”

 I walked around the block early 7:00 AM this morning.  It is so hot here by 8:00 that you can hardly breath.  The tip ends of every plant and blade of grass are brown. 

My water bill was over $200.  I got the bill yesterday.  I immediately turned my sprinkling system off.  The grass and shrubs are going to have to make it on their own.

Pryor, Oklahoma is a cheap place to live.  Edmond isn’t. I have an old paper the lists Pryor one of the most economic  places in the USA to live.  

Edmond is one of (if not the) most expensive places in Oklahoma.  I wish I had never left Pryor--I did because both girls live close by here.  I had been ending up in the hospital over and over and they wanted me closer to where they live so they could take care of me. I’m so independent, however, that I just take care of myself.  I wish I had stayed in Pryor.

 

 

I walk around the block every morning and meet all of the neighborhood dogs.  I remember the dogs names  but can’t seem to recall the owners  names. 

 I have to get myself a  dog.  I just don’t know where to go to get it.  I don’t want a puppy.  I can’t do that again.  I want a female that is small and doesn’t shed.  No more males.  Squig ruined the skirt on my loveseat--I could never catch him in the act.  I can clean up the floor if a dog makes a mess, but furniture is impossible.  Iv’e tried all of those products that they advertise.  They don’t work.

Bill (my brother) is editing “The Corsair Pilot” for me this week.  I can’t do it for myself.  I can’t see mistakes. Carolyn will give the book another read and edit as well. I want this thing out of here!!!  Once I’m done....I’m done.  I’ve started on another book.  But I haven’t gotten my mo-jo back yet.  All I want to do lately is eat Cheetos.

 I think I have found the draft of The Corsair.  It took me all day yesterday.   Thank goodness for “Finder.”  I will have to read every page all 300 of them to know for sure.  I need a better filing system!!...which means I don’t have a filing system.

Today I go to breakfast with Ann.  She will be her in a few minutes.  Then I get my hair done, come home and eat lunch   and start reading, reading, reading.  I hope I have found the right manuscript.

I finished the book “Killer Angels,” last night.  Pulitzer prize winner.  But hard to read.  The version in the history books about Gettysburg don’t tell the story at all!

I wish I could go back and look at the field again.  “Little Round Top,”  “Big Round Top” and Seminary Hill.  Oh well, I probably wouldn’t know much more than I do now because I am not a warrior. 

I had written a book about Ken, (The Corsair) and the publisher wanted a different ending.  That was last year...so I spent months rewriting it  ... she wanted Vietnam included with the first part which was about Korea.  

Yesterday, she came to see me and said she had been wrong. And she was sorry.  She said adding another war made the book too long.  So “Let’s go back to the original,” and write another book about Vietnam.  I haven’t written anything in months because I couldn’t figure out what to do.

Ok.  I was so happy.  That’ what I wanted all along.  It should be out in the fall!!!.....But after she left, I opened my computor and couldn’t find the original.  It has to be somewhere...but where??? I’m going to spend all day looking and then probably take it to Craig and hope he can find it.  He says it’s in the cloud wherever that is.  But....I am energized.  And so happy.  I liked what I had written in the first place and it’s hard to please someone besides yourself.  I’m so, so, so, relieved.

We lived in Virginia for three years, right across the Potomac River in Woodbridge.  And Ken was fascinated with the Civil War and wanted to go walk every battle field within driving distance.  I knew very little about that war. But he knew every detail.  Especially the battlefield layouts and the men on both sides.  Where they were positioned and how they advanced.

He took me to Gettysburg and went over the positions of Lee’s army, Longstreet, and the northern generals.  I was unable to understand what the ridges and positions meant, but I tried!

I am now reading a book about that battle.  Each general.  Each tactic.  And after 62 years I am starting to understand how uncertain the outcome was, and how much the personalities played a part.  And how our nation’s future was at stake.  I have never been a history student; math was my field, but this book is very interesting. I wish I had been able to play my part better.  He would stand in a position, tell me which general I was supposed to be, and of course, he adored Lee.  It wasn’t about the north and south, but the character of General Lee. 

 The fourth is over.  There weren’t as many fireworks here as ususal...maybe because it rained.  And it rained again yesterday.  In July!!

 

I’m eating Cheetos for breakfast.  My daddy used to eat cookies, so I guess it is OK. I have never liked eggs.  Or milk.  Which makes breakfast hard to do.

Tomorrow, my publisher is coming at 1:45.  I pray she does.  She has cancelled the last four times.  The book I have written about Ken is ready to go.  I read the letters he wrote me from Viet Nam to find things that he said about the war while he was in the middle of it.  From 67-68.  I hadn’t read them again in all this time. It was sad.  So many deaths.

I’ve been reading my way through the New Testament again, and finally got to Revelation.  Tough reading.  Everyone has an opinion and I got to hear the very best of scholars in the late 1940’s.  My pastor was Ken’s dad and he had huge linen bolts of fabric, hung from hooks in the ceiling at our church.  They read from left to right, with very artistic colored pictures that depicted the prophecies of both Danial and Revelation.  And in the years since, I have heard and read many differences of opinions.  But my go-to guy on the subject now is my son Scott.  He’s who I call when I have a question--which I did last night.  In one of the Revelation prophecies there were 45 missing days and I couldn’t figure out where they went.  I won’t go into it, but he answered my question and in the discussion said, “You notice that Dan is not included in the twelve tribes of Israel in Revelation Chapter 7.  He was cursed as a serpent in the Genesis 49, and Judges 18--because he led his tribe into the worship of idols.”  Well, no.  I didn’t remember that and had never noticed it when I read Revelation chapter 7.  Scott has become a Bible guru on details like that.  I guess we can learn from our children.  

Monday...and it is July.  I don’t know how that happened.  I still don’t know where January went.  Time is passing faster for me than ever before in my life.  And I’m accomplishing less!!.  As Ken would say, “I get up every day with nothing to do and go to bed with it only half done.”

We had a wonderful discussion group yesterday in our Sunday class.  As we have been together for eight years now--we know each other really well, and instead of me being a teacher, I just throw out questions and we search Scripture.  It is a much better way to do class.  We just stay in agreement with the word of God.

Most of the classes I have taught in the past have been filled with people who didn’t study  their lesson very often.  This group always comes prepared.  I look forward to Sundays.

 Fridays are stressing.  I am out of the house at eight A.M.  and not home till twelve thirty.  Today I stopped and got a hamburger and fries and when I finished it, I then proceeded to spill a bottle of thick, gooey chocolate Boost all over me and the recliner.   I didn’t get it on the carpet was the only bright spot.

By the time I cleaned the mess up, it was 1:30 and I hadn’t even read the paper or done the crossword.  Much less post.

I don’t have anything wonderful to say, except that the banquet last night left me disgusted with myself.  I couldn’t remember names of people that I should remember.  One lady talked to me about how much she enjoyed the choir with me and loved hearing my marimba.  I don’t remember her at all. Another said she enjoyed working Bible school with me--then introduced me to her husband.  I couldn’t even remember where she worked until the conversation was over. I came home feeling like a dumbo.  Does anyone out there do this???  Names are getting harder.  And it is so insulting to the other person when you don’t remember their name.  I’m going to try to do better.

Most mornings, I go outside and check the flower beds around the house to see if any dandelions have worked up the nerve to sprout.  If I get them soon enough, they don’t have time to run their root down and get hold.  The root is always at least three times as long as what is above ground.  Nasty little buggers.

I think children are the same.  They are always learning, putting down deep roots of “knowing things” long before there is any sign of growth on the outside.  By the time they get to first grade, they have five or six years of learning under their belt--  from watching their parents.  And we wonder why there are so many problems in the schools today.  Parents aren’t what they used to be.  The world isn’t what it used to be.  When I grew up, every woman on my block was my parent.  Everyone helped “grow us up.”  We couldn’t get away with anything.  Everyone went to Sunday School. The Bible’s instructions on behavior were the bottom line.  And the school teacher was respected.  It’s so bad now that we can’t find people to teach.  There used to be a line of teachers who wanted the job.  Not any more. Why apply for a job where you will be constantly abused? We have lost something in our society.  It’s sad.

Sunday, my lesson was on some Old Testament story about when the Israelites had been in wandering around for months after Moses led them out of Egypt.  It was all about places.  So I did that in three minutes--then told them to turn to the book of James and we spent the rest of the hour talking about people who wrote what we read and call the “New Testament.”

If you don’t know who is writing the letters in the New Testament, you won’t completely understand why they say the things they do--and how they tell the things they tell.  Paul wrote in most part to the Gentiles.  James wrote to the Jews.

I call James letter the book of “ifs.”  Every thing he writes is conditional.  Black and white.  If this....then, that.  If-then statements.  I had them circle all of the “ifs” as we read them.  And we only got half way through. I’ll finish it up next Sunday.

Becky Bacon drove all the way from Pryor to stay with me for a few days.  She is so easy to be around.  We both read our books, and look up every now and then to say something or ask something--and then go back to reading.  She likes to listen to the people on the Bill Gaither hour sing as much as I do, so we have that on in the background.

Pat brought me a dozen rolls from the Texas Roadhouse, and Becky brought stew (with okra) so we are going to have that for supper.  She got the recipe in Saudi Arabia where she and Joe lived for a number of years.

Tomorrow we are going to go to Red Lobster with Jeanette and load up on calories.  

 

 I slept ten hours last night and I am almost a new woman.  At least I feel like I can function.  Which is good because my publisher is coming at one to finalize some things on my book about Ken.  “The Corsair.”

Fridays are always good.  Ann and I go to breakfast, then I get my hair done, and then....nothing-usually.  Except today. I’ll be editing all afternoon----probably.  Maybe she won’t come.  I can live with that. 

The publisher has one more book I have written.  I wonder if we will ever get around to that one.  “The Jersey Cow”  About my grandmother coming to Arkansas from Tennessee in a wagon pulled by a cow.

Have a great weekend.

Done!!!  Tate and Brady are going home.  I am going to bed and sleep for three or four days.  I am amazed at how tired I am.  I thought I could do Bible School--no problem.  Well, I now know my limits.  I can’t do this again.  I will have to drop them off next year at the door.  And not volunteer to help.  I guess there is an end to everything.  And I am really at my end.

The boys were awesome.  They were so good--and sweet!  Every time I got out of the car, they would run around and each of them take an arm to assist me.  My kids weren’t that observant.  But Tate and Brady have been raised to be polite.  They said “We want to be there if you need someone to lean on.”

The next generation looks like they are going to be okay.

 I must be doing ok.  A young man, a high school senior, asked if he could take a selfie with me.  He is one of the helpers, and every day when the children file into the room that I monitor, I tell them to be good so I don’t have to be a grumpy enforcer. (!)  They all laugh--but get the idea.  When this young man goes in with them I always say, “You better be good so I don’t have to come in and get you.”  He gets tickled.  An 86 year old woman up against a buff 17 year old.  

I asked him why in the world he wanted my picture and he said, “Because you are so nice.”  Which made me laugh.  He took our picture and said, “I want to show my mom who you are.”

So I guess I am doing ok.  Just being nice seems to be working.

One more day after today.  I’m counting.

Day two...here I go!  They will give me a new assignment today.  I told them that I couldn’t do second grade or younger.  God didn’t give me those skills!!!

Brady had to go home to a soccer game, he will be back tomorrow.  He sat and talked to me nonstop yesterday for four hours. Interesting stuff.  He has grown 6 inches since last year--twelve years old and just shy of six feet.  Tate is in the third grade and looks exactly like Ken’s pictures at that age.  And so cute.

Two more days after this and I’ll start gearing up for next  year.

My oldest grandchild is 40 and then there is Tate who is nine.  And then there are eleven great-grandchildren.  The Bible says, “Blessed is the man (woman) whose quiver is full of arrows.  If so, I am fully quivered!!

Today I started Bible School.  My job was to be a hall monitor and take care of problem children.  Luckily, there weren’t any problems today!  Tate went with the third  grade, but Brady was too old for the school,  and they used him as a guide with the second graders to get them where they were supposed to go. 

I asked Brady how that went, and he smiled at me.  “They make a lot of noise,”  he said.  I asked him if he wanted to go back tomorrow and he said, “Yes.”  I might say, he is a trouper.

I haven’t worked in Bible School in two years.  I am not the girl I used to be.  But I can sit in a chair and moniter!!  At least I have a chair.

This afternoon, Brady is going to teach me to play Chess.  He said you can’t do if you don’t have a few brains.  We’ll see how I do with that.  Maybe I’ll have some luck.

When I was growing up, people had big porches.  From one side of the house to the other.  Sometimes they had what were called “Wrap arounds.”  My grandmother had a wraparound.  One end went into the living room.  The other end of the wrap went into the kitchen.  People sat on their porches in swings and visited with each other...or those who were passing by.  

TV ruined all of that.  Houses were no longer built with big side to side porches.  No more swings.  No more visiting with the neighborhood.  We became more isolated from each other.  Something was lost that we have never gotten back.

Nobody talks much any more with their neighbors.  Some of us don’t even know who our neighbors are.  In the late forties, you knew everybody.  Everybody knew you.  Kids acted better because if they didn’t, their mom knew it immediately.  I wish we could recapture some of that time.  I’ve lived through over eighty years of social interaction, and what we have now is social in-action.  It seems like a phone or a computor is “man’s best friend.”  Or some game.  I know...you can’t go back.  But sometimes I really wish we could.  I miss Pryor, Oklahoma back in the forties and fifties when everyone knew me and I knew everybody.  It was a blessed time.  

We used to write letters. From 1956 to 1969 (When Ken came home from Viet Nam) I wrote every week to my Mom, and to Ken.  For the last few months I have been reading those letters, and throwing away the “Blah-blah” ones and putting the ones with information in a folder for Pat or Becky.  They can throw them away if they want to.

Today, I am going through 1960.  I have at least separated all of them into the date stamp on the envelopes.  1960 was the year Ken came home from Japan and Okinawa--flying F4-Ds.  A plane that was actually a rocket. It killed a bunch of pilots.  They called it the Sky-Ray--and called the water outside El Tora “Sky-Ray Bay” because so many of the planes ended up in the water off the end of the runway.  It could climb to altitude faster than anything the Navy and Marines had ever had, but when something went wrong, the plane ended up in the water.  Luckily most of the pilots knew their chances and were ready to hit the eject button.  I went out to the squadron one day, and one of the pilots came through the door soaking wet carrying his helmet.  I asked him where he had been?  He said, “In the bay.”

Anyway, I’m trying to keep the letters that have something interesting in them, but almost all of them do so it’s hard to throw them away.  But you can’t keep everything.

On Fridays, I go to lunch with my cousin Ann--Ann East.  Her mom, my mother’s sister was a fifth grade teacher in Pryor.  Ruby East.  Having her here in Edmond is one reason I moved here.  We grew up together and having someone who remembers the things you remember is a comfort!!  Carolyn Brown and I were friends in the ninth grade...she was a year behind me.  So I have two people who “remember.”

Ann and I go eat breakfast, garage sale.  It’s something to look forward to.

I’ve been on a Cheetos binge.  I bet they aren’t good for me, but they have a lot of calories, and I’ve been trying to gain weight for a year.  I’m stuck at skinny and nothing seems to stick to me.  Everyone is trying to lose weight but me.  And back when I was thirty pounds heavier, it was hard to lose weight.  Now, I can’t put it on.  Anyway, the upside is that I can eat all the Cheetos that I want.  I don’t like the taste of sugar, so sweets aren’t tempting.  Everyone says that’s a blessing.  Maybe it is if you are on a diet--which I am not.  So Cheetos are going to make some money off me for a whilt.

I am adding something to my diet.  Flax.  It is supposed to be a wonder “seed.”  When I make chicken salad, I add a couple of tablespoons of flax seed to the mix, along with the cranberries and pecans.  I’m making an effort to eat healthy--which I have never done.  

Carolyn keeps me in pecans.  She has a pecan tree in her back  yard that is a “super-producer.”  When she gets to the point that her freezer is running out of space for more stuff, she sends me pecans.  And she also adds me to her   “Reader’s Digest subscription.  And I add her to my  “Time” subscription.  But both of us are fed up with Time.  “Time” has started listing  people who are famous for “something or other” in the last half of the mag and neither of us care about that. Boring!!!  So I am going to have to find another mag to send her.  I took “Smithsonian” last year, but I’m not going to do that again either.  Maybe we are just growing tired of the “same old stuff.”  If you live to be into your 80’s like both of us have done, you want to read books and mags that are uplifting.  Like Bugs Bunny.  Or Wonder Woman.  Reader’s Digest still makes the list.

It is pouring down rain--without a tornado warning.  It is just a quiet splash-splash on the roof and sidewalks.  So peaceful.

The week before I married Ken, I decided to make a “Squaw” dress.  Do you remember those?  I used a nut beige cotton with gold ric-rac and gold and white trim.  I sold it a few years ago when I had a booth for ten times what I had in it.  Becky said, “Mama I wish you wouldn’t sell it!  (But you can’t keep every thing.)

Today, Becky sent an exact copy of it in the form of a doll dress.  It was uncanny.  Same fabric.  Same trim.  Same ric-rac. She found it in an estate sale.  Only thing I can figure is that I must have seen the dress in a book and copied it, and someone else did the same thing.  But the doll dress was done by two people.  One who knew what they were doing, and another who didn’t.  Maybe a grandmother and grandaughter making a doll dress.  It is a puzzlement!!

I have been sorting paper.  I was motivated because my daughter Becky does big estate sales and always has to go through tons of paper that has been left over from a lifetime, and I don’t want her to have to sort through all of mine when the time comes. (That sounds depressing--no...I’m not depressed, I am motivated.) It is amazing all of the stuff we keep-and the reasons we haven’t thrown it away.  

I put all of my transcripts in a folder.  My mom was always wanting me to make perfect grades and I guess I kept the transcripts to say, “I did it.”  Who cares anymore...I’m not applying for a job.  And there are a zillion release forms from hospitals and doctor’s offices.  Why do I have all of that.  But the things I haven’t thrown away are the notes my children wrote to me.  Those are priceless.  And the notes from a creative writing class I took...I had forgotten that I had written stuff a long time ago.  But there are bags and bags of paper that is useless.  And the things I am keeping are in files with titles on the file.  At least I’ll know where to find the useless stuff I am keeping.  Even if I don’t know why I’m keeping it.

I have a number of sweaters that I slip on when it is cool.  My three favorites are cotton.  And the cuffs of all three are ragged and torn.  Chewed would be a better word.  For some reason, Molly loved to chew on cuffs and buttons.  She was very selective.  Now when I put one of those sweaters,  I know that Molly was there.  I feel love.

No!!!  I won’t throw them out.  If people think I am tattered and lowlife, that’s okay with me.  I know I am special.  Once upon a day, a dog loved me.  And I loved her.  And she chewed up my sweaters because they were mine.

I will get another sweater someday.  But there will never be another Molly.

When we see those pictures on TV of the devastation that tornados do, it is hard to imagine what those families are going through.  But Saturday, my friend Carolyn Brown’s son Paul lost everything.  The wind leveled his home and killed his two dogs.  But he and his wife got underground.  It is heart-breaking. There is nothing left standing.  Where will they begin?

We think in terms of “things,” but how do you even prove who you are with no birth certificates.  Or what you can prove you owned--without papers for insurance.  What a mess.  What a loss.  We can be thankful they are alive, but my heart breaks for what they are going to have to go through putting their lives back together.

Where do you start?  God will be with them, but there will be times when they will not know which way to turn next.  Please pray for them.

 Carolyn called me first thing this morning to give me the horrible news.  The tornado that tore through Claremore came to the west of Pryor and destroyed her son Paul’s home.  Nothing is  left.  She sent me a picture of it.  Horrible. Horrible.  But because her son’s grandson was staying with them, he felt the boy’s parents would want them to take cover, so Paul took them to the cellar.  They barely made it.  Their dogs didn’t.  Last I heard, some of the cows didn’t either.

You see pictures on the news of things like that, but when it is one of your own, it takes on an entirely new meaning. Besides all of the physical things, there are papers.  Birth certificates.  Deeds.  Etc. etc.,  that will take months to replace. Pryor is a small town, so everyone will help, but still...what a terrible thing.  But they are alive.  That--in the end--is what is important.  Everyone wants to help.  But what can you do?  People have already gathered and are gleaning the fields, looking for things...and things are turning up.  But...a lifetime of memories are gone.  Tornados all over the USA are tearing up lives.  It is real and tragic when one hits home.  

I have been digging and transporting flowers that have overgrown their environment.  They come back every year and were from my mother’s garden.  I give them away when they have invaded the rest of the flower bed.  Too much of a good thing.

It’s Friday.  I get my hair done on Fridays.  There is less and less hair to do!  Last week I told her to cut it short.  She did and there isn’t much left.  I got a perm so that disguises the thinness somewhat.

Why in the world am I writing about hair!!!  I was telling you about transplanting and got sidetracked.  When I dug up some of the hen and chickens succulents, the container was full of ants and they crawled all over me.  It’s an hour later and I am still fighting ants.  Luckily they weren’t fire ants--which I hear are in the area I live in.  Last year I brought the containers in for the winter, and had an entire ant family of ants come in for the winter.  They stayed in the containers most of the time occasionally tromping into the kitchen for crumbs.  I tolorated them until the got on the cabinents--that was a bridge too far and I put the containers outside.  And everything froze.  Except the ants.  You can’t kill a nest of ants--they just dig deeper and wait until you give up.  I guess it’s a live and let live situation.  If I try and kill them, I kill the plants.

 Rain.  Lots of it.  My flower beds are beautiful.  And Ken Jack, my great grandson who is two and a half, (named after his great- grandfather)  came over and planted okra in my raised garden.  (A garden that I had given up on this year.)  Last year, when the okra got three inches out of the ground, something ate the stalks.  That had never happened before.  I guess it was rabbits.  I decided that was it.  I was through.  So Ken planted.  And his mother took him to Lowes and they got tomato plants and planted those as well.

It is good.  It seemed a shame to let all the money I had spent on getting a raised garden go to waste.  But I’m just not up to it this year.  I took a picture of him with a tomato plant in his hand bending over to help put it in the ground.

We used to take “real” pictures.  And the family--when they got together-- would sit around and look at them and remember.  But now, all the pictures are on someone’s phone and nobody looks at them together.  I miss “real” pictures.  I miss sitting around looking at memories together.  I miss a lot of things from the past. 

Becky is working an estate sale (setting it up) and the owners said she couldn’t bring her dog while she was doing it.  Emmy Lou always goes with Becky to work.  So, anyway, Emmy Lou is with me this week, and I’m not doing everything exactly to suit her.  I’m trying, but I need a little time to figure out her dog language.  It has been good to have a dog underfoot.  I’ve been so lonesome for Molly.  Emmy and I are working it out.

I went to the optometrist this morning and my eyes haven’t gotten any worse!!!  I didn’t have to buy new glasses.  Every morning when I wake up, I use the first few minutes to thank God for what is good in my life.  My feet don’t hurt.  My knees are good. (Everyone I know is replacing their knees and hips lately.) My fingers don’t have arthritis so I can type very easily. I have perfect hearing. If I don’t start the day with the things that are right, I’ll give too much attention to what is wrong.  We have so much to be thankful for.  I’m doing okay for 86. 

During this time that I have been so sick, I have taught my class at the church by using the phone and connecting everyone.  The problem with that is that you can’t see their faces.  I had never taught by phone before, and I didn’t know how much I depended on their facial reactions when I made a statement.

Now I know.  It’s extremely important.  Slight motion.  Slight raising of an eyebrow.  Slight flipping a page of a Bible.  Just a huge number of small motions that allow a teach to move on to the next point--or expanding on what you are saying.

I went to church Sunday, taught my class and was thankful to be there in person.  The discussion was good.  The faces were expressive.  I don’t ever want to have to teach by phone again.  But the women in the class understood that I was not able to be there and by phone was better than not connecting at all.  It was so good to be in the house of the Lord.

Seven days.  A week ago at 8:00 in the morning.  I have got to  quit grieving and get myself together.

I called a breeder Ann knows and asked them if they had a female Schnauzer that needed to stop having. puppies.  Schnauzers don’t shed and love to cuddle.  I don’t want a male dog.  Squig just about ruined the dust ruffles on my loveseats before I caught him--and explained the “Way of the Lord” to him. 

Since I quit blogging (I was just too sick to do it and stick with it) last year,  I have thought of a zillion things to say.  But this morning, I don’t  know where I stored those things in my brain.

I did find out that “The Letter” has made the third cut for a national award as a recommendation for book clubs to read.  That’s exciting.  It’s nice to have made the final list.  Maybe it will be chosen.  But I am thrilled that it made the list.  

 Pat found Molly on a dirt road in the country a year or so ago.  She was just sitting in the middle of the road, lost.  Someone had abused her. kicked her teeth in.  She had a broken rib and open sores.  And of course, Pat picked her up and brought her to me.  Healing began.  

Over the last year she learned a number of things.  Sit, come, get in your crate,  let me put your leash  on you. Get in the car.  She would bark to go outside.  But she wasn’t always obedient when we would walk on a leash...too many things to discover and sniff.

Every morning, I look for her, then remember she is gone.  She was  my friend.  She liked for me to talk to her and would cock her head from one side to the other as if she knew what I was saying.  Giving into me was a really big deal because she was so independent.  But she chose...chose...to do the things I asked her to do.  She chose me.  I was loved.

She is now in charge of the dogs in heaven.  She has probably rounded them up and is explaining how things should be done.  And she has her eye on the gate...waiting on me.

On Monday, I took Molly to the groomer on a leash.  As we were going in, she  broke loose, ran into a main throughway and was killed instantly.  My heart is breaking.  I still haven’t been able to stop crying.  When I wake up in the morning, I reach for her on my feet and she isn’t there and I start to weep.

She was just a puppy, undisciplined, but learning.  She had decided in the last few months that she trusted and loved me and would curl up every night at 6:00 and go to sleep with her head under my chin, snuggled up against my chest.  At peace.

She was a rescue--when Pat brought her to me ,she had been beaten, had broken ribs, scars, and wounds.  She was scared, leery of people, hiding in corners...but slowly, love brought her around.  She was a mess....and I loved her.  She didn’t want to go to the groomer, asserted herself, ran in the road and it was all over in a second.  I picked her up and she was lifeless.  Limp.  Molly was gone and my heart is broken.   There are animals in heaven.  Lambs and Christ is coming on a horse.  Molly will be trotting beside Him, looking for me.

 In October last year, I became sick.  Very ill.  Everything I was doing fell by the wayside--including blogging.  I was so sick and nothing helped.  I was hospitalized, in the emergency room over and over and I basically gave up and decided that this was the way it was going to be.  I’m 86 years old, so it was easy to shut down and accept it.

But last week they hospitalized me again, and my brother Bill told me to have them give me a certain medication.  The doctors listened and after months and months of horrible illness, I feel normal---what ever that is for my age.  I’ve had four bearable days in a row...Praise God.  I’m going to try and blog again.  I’ve probably lost half of my readers, but maybe they will find me again.

I wish everyone had a brother like mine.  His brain is like a camera.  He sees something, records it and never forgets it.  The rest of our family are normal.  The reason nobody prescribes the med that he wanted me to take is because a dosage term costs $2660.  Bill called the Navy and explained that they were spending more on me for hospitalizations than the drug cost and they reduced it.  Praise God.  It has made all the difference.  I’m back.  I hope.  I hope...hope.

Today is my birthday.   Eighty-six years young.  It is a wonderful thing to have a long life.  You get to welcome your great-grandchildren into the world.  Halley and Hailey spent Saturday with me.  They are eleven and eight years old.  It was fun !! They are wonderful girls.  I have ten grandchildren and ten or eleven great-grandchildren.  ( I need to count them again.)

The only bad thing is that all of your friends are leaving you behind as they go to meet our God.  I guess that explains the old saying that you are “The last leaf on the tree.”  That’s what I am.  But it gives you time to see a lot of prayers answered.  I always tell God to answer me “Now.”  But sometimes He has other times in mind.  And what a blessing it is to live long enough to see your prayers answered for your loved ones.

My plan is to do nothing else all day.

All of my determination to reform and blog every day have gone by the wayside.  I am really sick.  All I can do at this point is try to get well, and it isn’t working.

Pray for me.  Please.  In five days I will be 86.  I would like to get there in good health...and it is possible.  The medical community can’t figure out what is wrong with me.  Maybe a good prayer would be for them to have wisdom.

Jeanette told me that a little boy said, “My mama always kisses the toilet paper before she throws it away.”  We were talking about funny things children say.  Of course his mama was blotting her lipstick.

Learning a language is always a trial and error kind of thing.  We start a little one off with Mama, or Dada, and add words one at a time.  But sentences are another thing altogether. 

The Bradford pear trees have been blooming in all of their glory for the last two weeks, but today the blooms are losing their white petals and they look like snow piling up along the curbs of the roads and like snow flakes flying through the air.  And then they will be gone...they do their once a year thing--like the daffodils.   

It is time for the redbuds.   They are always in bloom on my birthday.  People start calling me to wish me a Happy Birthday when the first blooms appear. This year they are early. But I’ll take a “Happy Birthday” whenever I get it.

My yard person is coming this afternoon to get the flower beds in order for spring.  He will trim back all the shaggy branches of the shrubs, mulch and top off the Crepe Myrtles.  And I will plant parsley.  That will be the extent of my gardening this year.  Just enough to keep me in Tabouli greens.  If Lowes gets asparagus in, I’ll plant some of that as well.  But it takes three years of growing before you can pick it.  It’s an insurance policy--that I’ll be around in three years!!! 

My speech is over.  Thank goodness.  My biggest critic (Me) thought I did okay.   I had worked myself up into a frenzy.  And when I got to the downtown Tulsa Hyatt Regency and walked into the lobby and my picture was on an overhead film feed, and my picture was on ten foot high posters throughout the building, my nerves took another turn South.  I knew it was a big deal, but not that big a deal.  I knew that my book “The Letter” had been chosen by the Okla. Library Association, but had no idea how many people were involved.  

At this point, the book is in the hands of God, and in the hands of all of you out there who recommend it to a friend to read.  Word of mouth determines most of this kind of thing.  And all of you have been overly gracious to me.

The publisher picked up two other books that I have written.  One about Ken, (The Corsair) and another about my grandmother (The Jersey Cow).  It gives me a reason to take care of my health--I hope to see them in print.

My posting has been erratic--I know.  And I used to do it first thing every day.  But somehow with all of this sickness I’ve had, I am out of whack.  I am trying to get back on whack.  Maybe when today and tomorrow are done, I will be back to my old self.

Today is a meeting of all the librarians in Oklahoma and I am supposed to meet them in Tulsa and “get acquainted.”  Tomorrow, I will be speaking to them about my first book, why I wrote it, what it is about etc. etc.  It is “up” for some kind of an award.

I don’t like things “out there” on my calendar.  I feel like I have a ball and chain around my neck.  People tell me that this is just a symptom of old age.  Maybe...but I know this...I like peace and quiet. A visitor every now and then is nice, but I tire out really quick.

After I speak to all of the Oklahoma librarians tomorrow, I’m going to do nothing for a while.  Maybe I’ll get back to writing.  My granddad, my father’s dad, was murdered.  Someone shot him and they never found out who...or why.  That might make an interesting book????

I have made myself a wreck of nerves over next Thursday...I am supposed to go to Tulsa and speak to all of Oklahoma’s librarians.  They chose my book as the “big deal” of the year and want to hear what I have to say about it.  My publisher asked, “Why did you write it?”  Like I would know.  I don’t have a clue.  I just started writing.

The only answer I could come up with was that Americans were spitting on our servicemen as they came home from Vietnam--calling them every bad word imaginable, and cursing them as if they had something to do with America’s policies.  Poor guys got drafted.  They went to war.  Or left the country to get away from it.

I was thinking about the children that they left at home.... and since Ken had nineteen years in the Marines, he got sent.  I was thinking about our children.  How awful it must have felt that their country was blaming him for the war when he had nothing to do with it.  In WWII and Korea, we had parades for our servicemen.  In Vietnam, they got spit on.  All three wars at the mercy of the draft.  We don’t have the draft anymore.      

 I found something out last night as I was preparing my lesson for next Sunday...Over half of the words in the New Testament were written by Luke.  I would have guessed it was Paul.  But counting just words, it was Luke.  The book of Luke, and Acts.

He is my favorite writer.  Paul is my favorite also...just a little behind Luke.  I like the way Luke is concise.  Orderly.  Like when he was the only one who said “If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross DAILY and follow me.  The others didn’t get the “daily” in there. 

We know he wrote the book of Acts, which is the only history book in the New Testament.  He calls his writing a “treatise” about all that Jesus began to do and teach.  He is writing to a friend named Theophilus to catch him up to date.  Luke was an investigator.  He went to the source for what he wrote.  Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, etc. It is doubtful that he met Jesus personally, but he was a solid believer and we can be thankful that he preserved his research about the Lord.

I was able to go to church yesterday.  What an uplifting experience.  I have always been a three-times-church a week in the past.  But with all the sickness the devil has been throwing at me--coupled with the cold weather--I couldn’t get from my car and into the building.  So I taught my class by phone.  That is terribly difficult because when you can’t see a person’s face, you don’t know how are receiving it.  We tried Zoom--it didn’t work because only one person could talk at time and this class is a “jump right in” group.

February is almost over and I haven’t let go of 2023.  Time is in a speed race of some sort.  I’ve been watching less of TV.  It is so depressing.  Those of us who are in our 70’s and 80’s are wondering why we didn’t see this coming.  The 1940’s and 50’s were so wonderful.  Everybody seemed to love their neighbors and kids played outside up and down the block.  We didn’t have anything to fear.  But when the “God is dead” movement took hold in the 60’s and 70’s everything went down hill and nobody trusts anyone anymore.  And children are afraid.  You would never let a child walk a mile to get to school.  We did.  If anyone touched a child to harm them, they would end up dead.  Every ya-hoo in Oklahoma who drove a pickup had a rifle rack in the back window, but I never heard of anyone using it.  

 I will be in Tulsa on March 7.  If you want a signed book, give me a phone call and I will try to meet you somewhere.  I don’t have any of the books, so you will have to bring your own to me.

This entire “book” thing has been an education for me.  I am hundreds of dollars in the red mostly from gasoline and postage and shipping...but at least there are books in the bookstores and on Amazon.

I have finished a third book, but getting it out there is so difficult.  Even if you have a publisher who is working with you, getting it into their hands requires finding a time in their schedule to go over each page for editing.  And at my age, time is precious.

I appreciate everyone of you who are helping me.  Reading the books, and telling others about them.  Bless you.  Thank you--each one--for your positive encouragement.  It means a lot.

 I got my tax stuff mailed to the accountant.  I will never understand how anybody could endure four years of agony in econ. and accounting classes to become a tax specialist.  But--I am glad they did so that I don’t have to figure it out.  My sister did it, and is the top dog of payroll in the city of Jenks. 

I never did like arithmetic.   Memorizing and remembering all those adding and multiplying combinations.  Mathematics, however, I enjoy.  Many people don’t see the difference between arithmetic and mathematics.  Arithmetic is to math what letters are to words.

Molly does math.  Each evening, she crawls in my lap and conks out at exactly 6 o’clock.  When the sun starts going down, she has figured out that it is bed time.  I don’t know how she figures daylight savings time out in that formula, but she seems to know what time it is.  When she crawls in my lap, I tell her, “Go get in your crate,” and she runs to the bedroom and crawls in it.  It is her only redeeming quality.  We are working on the other qualities.

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People in the news have started using a new buzz word.  “Calculus.”  They say things like, “It’s just not in the calculus at this time,” etc. etc.  Or something like: “The calculus isn’t working.”  As a person who taught calculus over my 20 year career at NEO A&M college, I have no idea what they are talking about.  And I am positive that they don’t know what they mean either...it’s just one of those words that someone used and every one in the news liked the way it sounded and started using it.  And have no idea what calculus is.

Many of my students didn’t understand the word either...but they were able to use the principle involved to go on to upper division math classes that use calculus.  And to complete Physics and engineering classes.

I wish someone on the news desk would say something like, “Calculus?  What do you mean?  What are you saying?   What is the calculus of what you are trying to say?......I”m waiting on that.

 Every time I leave the house, I have to Molly-proof it.  Her favorite target is cords.  Lamp cords, charging cords, house-robe sashes, etc.  She especially likes the cord on the electric blanket I keep on my chair to warm my feet and the electric blanket on the bed. So I have been taking her in the car with me when I leave the house so that I can contain her.  And she gets cold, but won’t let me put her sweater on her.  The only thing she isn’t interested in is shoes.  It makes me regret that I didn’t brag on Squig more while he was here.  He was such a good dog.  The only thing he ever ate was the the cover and first five or six pages of a leather Bible.  He was filled with the word of God.

I miss him.  He was calm.  Loving and tender hearted.  Molly is a mess.  But she is endearing in her own way.  Just stubborn.  She is growing on me.  When 6 PM rolls around, I say, Molly, go get in your bed.  And she goes and hops in her crate.  At 2 in the morning she needs to go out and when she comes back, I tell her, “You can get in the Mommie’s bed and she crawls under the cover, wiggles down to my feet and never moves again until I get up in the morning.  It’s the only time she is good.  We’re working on the rest of it. 

Becky Bacon fell today and cut her head really bad.  She has a concussion and is really weak.  Pray for her.  The only good thing was that at the time, she was taking a donation check to the EMT’s, Firefighters, or Police--something like that--and the place was crammed with EMT’s who knew immediately what to do.  She said her clothing was so blood soaked that she threw everything away. 

I watch myself carefully anymore.  They say that the number one thing that older people do that is dangerous to their lives, is to fall.  

I received notice yesterday that my book “The Letter” has made the list for a national award.  This is so strange.  I am the same person as I’ve always been.  Nobody.  And then I turn 80 years old, write a book, and people read it.  and I’m having a hard time taking it all in.  Who would have ever thought such a thing?  I didn’t write it to sell books.  I wrote it for all of the people who were children back in the 60’s---and saw their parent walk out the door to go fight in a war that nobody wanted.   And get spit on when they came home. 

When the disciples (concerning Prayer) said, “Teach us how to do that.”  It was because they had a background of having to go to the temple and having to have someone else intercede for them.  Talking to God went through a priest.  You had to go to the temple.  On the Sabbath.  They didn’t have a daily prayer time.  Only rarely in the Jewish religion did people speak to God.  (David being the exception.)  So the disciples wanted to know how Jesus just wandered off somewhere and talked to God directly.  “Teach us to pray,” they asked him.  We want to do that, too.  

The book of Hebrews is a masterpiece.  All about the removal of priests from the lives of Christians and the insertion of a HIGH Priest--Jesus.  The writer lays out a brand new contract on how to reach God--how to pray.  It is through the High Priest Jesus.  He has replaced the old prayer channel.  He is the new way.  He is the High Priest forever for you and me.  “In Jesus name.”  Not some earthly priest who is himself a sinner, but a perfect lamb, slain from the foundation of the earth for our sins.  The holy of holies on earth was just a prototype of the heavenly holy of holies.  Read Hebrews.  Under line the words High Priest. Hebrews is not like any other book in the Bible. It lays out a new covenant between you and God.  Your covenant, contract, is sealed in blood. The blood of Jesus.  Our lamb.

And after Becky and Kathy brought tea and hot rolls for me, Carolyn brought me a stack of ken-ken puzzles to feed my brain.  She had cut them out for me, every day, for weeks and weeks.

I’ve been trying to teach Molly to do what I tell her.  She thinks she is in control...and regularly proves it.  This morning, I took her to the groomer where a big dog was going in the door. (she weighs 14 pounds--she is little)  She tore the collar off her neck and pulled the leash out of my hand and ran to check him out.  I like to never got her back on the leash.  I  just don’t know how to bring her under control--and it is a problem.  She is not afraid of anything.  She may have to go to obedience training.  I’m wobbly on my feet and I’m afraid that she is going to pull me over--all 14 pounds of her.  I’ve never had a dog that seems to be untrainable.  

I would send her to the pound, but she has come such a long way I hate for her to adjust to another family.  She is a street dog that was abused, broken ribs, deep cuts.  Wounded, and she loves me.

    Friends are the most important part of my life right now.  They take care of me.  Like I said yesterday, at the book signing, Becky Bacon brought me tea, Kathy Davidson brought me rolls.  When I got home, Jeanette texted that she had made me a coconut custard--which will be breakfast for the next week.  Six eggs and a cup of heavy cream and toasted coconut.  Delish!!  And Josh brought me french fries last night.

    Jeanine--across the street calls every time she goes to the grocery store.  I gave her a credit card to keep.  I haven’t been to a grocery store five times in the last six months.  She won’t even let me come to her house to get the sacks.  She delivers them.

    What would I do without friends!!??  And I also have two daughters close by.  My girls both are working full time, but take off when I need them.  Pat drove me to Pryor for the book signing.  She had to take a personal day off.  Becky drove me to Oklahoma City (downtown) to a doctor’s appointment.  I don’t drive in Oklahoma City.

    We need to be thankful for what we have rather than what we don’t have.  I may be shot physically, but I have family and friends.  And today, my physical therapist dismissed me.  She declared me “fit.”  I just have to keep on doing my exercises.  Which I will do--even though I really, really, really don’t want to.

    The book signing on Saturday was a lot of fun.  Dozens of friends came to visit.  Becky Bacon--who knows that I love darjeeling tea brought a thermos of it, along with a porcelain cup for me to pour it into to drink.  She knows that I always (always) drink out of bone china.  No mugs for me--ever.  So I sipped tea and signed books.  

    Then Kathy Mitchell Davidson brought two pan of fresh baked rolls she baked that morning for me, because she knows my love of her bread.  I popped one out to eat with my tea and everyone in line wanted one...the pan got passed and Kathy was dubbed the bread queen.  I got home with a pan and a half.

    What did I ever do to deserve such friends?  It takes a life time.  And I regret moving to Edmond every time I visit Pryor.

    One fun thing is that when the stories start, you find out things that you never knew! About everybody.  Even about myself.  

    My brother came and everyone wanted him to sign the book as well.  He said, “I didn’t write this”  They answered, “The book is about your life!”  He relented and signed the books as well.    

I always saved the best until last.  But Ken always said, “Eat the best you have, wear the best you have, go to the best place you want to go...” and so on.

I asked him, why would you want to do that???  I told him: If you save the best till last you will always have something to look forward to!!! The best is on the horizon.  

He said, “If you eat, wear, do etc...the best, then----the things that are left will have a best thing in them.   And you can do that next.  That way,  you will always be enjoying the very best of everything.  Every day.  All the time.

He had a way of looking at things that changed the way I thought sometimes.   I guess we grow up hearing something,  and think that is the way things ought to be...but sometimes we need to rethink.

I am going to Pryor on Saturday and will be signing books between 11AM and 1 PM---The new book about my brother, “The Macau Mavrick.”  I hope to see you there.  I probably won’t be back to Pryor again that I know of.    

Because....I have to get someone to drive me.  Friends and family don’t want me on the road in case the car breaks down.  I understand that, but I don’t like it.  As you age, you lose more and more of your freedom because you can’t handle the consequences.

I don’t particularly like it, but I accept it.  I’ve always heard that youth is wasted on the young, and I think it is true.  Not because young people are at fault in any way, but because there is no way--when we are young--that we can appreciate our freedom and health.  We take it for granted because that is all we have known.  

Maybe aging is God’s way of making us accept the next step in our journey.  Maybe that’s why the promise that he gave us was that, in heaven, we would get a new body?  He could have promised a zillion other things, but when your earthly body is growing feeble, a new one is a rather attractive enticement.  And no---I am not depressed.  And I’m not ready to check out.  I’m just irritated with old age.   

Well, I missed blogging yesterday.  Monday.  So I repent.  I am doing all of the exercises that physical therapy has me doing.  And am sore.  Every muscle that hasn’t been used in the last three months is sore.  I am counting my steps.  And I do feel better.  

This Saturday, Feb. 3, I will be in Pryor at the bookstore to sign books.  “The Macau Mavrick” is out.  Reviews from all of you that have read it have been exciting.  I have even convinced my brother Bill Swan to be there as well---since the book is about him.  

I spent three years writing and rewriting it.  And every thing I wrote, I had to rewrite and edit at least a dozen times.  I went to bed every night thinking about how to say something about what he had told me, and I woke up every morning re-thinking it.  Three years.   Writing something that someone will enjoy reading is a lot of work.  When I started, I didn’t know that.  I learned. 

Nobody will probably remember your grandparents if you don’t write about them.  And the generation before them...gone.  My great-grandmother’s name was Sarah.  She was left to raise five children by herself when her husband was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. (It is a long story--he really was innocent.)  He died in prison.  My grandmother--as a result--was an orphan when her Sarah died.  My grandmother married at fourteen (she always said “almost fifteen) and she and my grandfather also raised five children and put them all through college in the twenties.  Unheard of at the time back then for anyone to go to college. As a result, all five of them stressed education.  I was the only one in the next generation that didn’t go to college right out of high school.  I got married, and didn’t start higher education until I was 27 and Ken had gone to Viet Nam.  I was the family failure because I didn’t immediately go to college.  All of my aunts and uncles kept after me until I enrolled.  When I got my first set of grades, I remember that I brought the report in,  plopped it on the kitchen counter and said, “There.”  Of course it was all A’s.  I may have been late, but I wouldn’t have dared made a B.