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.