Well, I thought I was over that eating and digesting problem that had been going on since a year ago September.  I had five normal feel-good days in a row last week.  So I know it can be done.  In June this year, I started a daily diary of everything I put in my mouth to see if I could figure out what was upsetting me.  No luck.  I’ve been super faithful to record everything--every day.  No clues.  Oh well--it is such a habit now to record everything that I am going to keep it up.

You really don’t praise God for the things you take for granted.  It’s when you lose something that you are reminded to thank Him for your blessings.  I’m not blind.  I have perfect hearing.  I haven’t had a hip or knee replaced like most of my friends.  I can walk around the block.  I don’t have arthritis in my hands so I can type.  And on and on.....thank you Lord.  My children all seem to like me and call.  And I have friends.  Friends are critical.  Going to Pryor made me lonesome for the friends I left there.  I don’t have very many here---but the ones I have are awesome.

Frustration.  I can’t seem to get this next book out.  Dates with the publisher keep changing.  Editing keeps changing.  Old people do not like change--and I am one of those.

When I go to bed at night, I think about a dozen or so things to blog about.  But when I sit down to blog, I can’t think of any of them.  Frustration.

I’ve been thinking about why I don’t get attached to houses.  It’s because I’ve lived in so many of them that none of them are “home.”  Home is Pryor.  It’s not a house--it’s a place--I lived in 7 different houses in Pryor during my life, and twenty other houses.   I’ve been so lonesome since I got back here from going “home” last week.  I have friends here in Edmond, but only two like in Pryor.  I went to “Card” with Carolyn last week and People there knew me.  It is a wonderful think to be “known” and not have to introduce yourself.

 

I stopped to see my brother and Janet but they are in residential care at St. John’s hospital for a week.  Then they are going to try and go home and get someone to help them every day until they are on their feet.  It has been a long journey for both of them.  I am just praying they both can get on their feet.

I had forgotten how much stuff you have to pack to go on a trip.  It is unbelievable the number of items you have to pack.  How I ever managed that with three children back in the military days I don’t know.  And add to that the medications.  It is a mess.  It took me an hour to get it back in place when I got home.  But I slept.  Soundly.  Which was wonderful.

Scott put me in their guest room and came in a little later with a goose down pillow.  Heaven.  It takes me four pillows to sleep--I lie on my right side all night.  One between my feet, one between my knees, one to lay my left arm on, and one under my head.  I have to have four.  That’s the way it is.  Period. I’ve lost so much weight that I can’t stand for my skin to touch my skin.  I am high maintenance I know, but Scott understood.

I am home again. If I ever...ever...say I am going somewhere again would someone hit me over the head!.  The traffic on the Turner Turnpike was awful.  Simi trucks nose to nose for miles and miles.  And then...I got lost after I got to Tulsa.  I’ve driven it a zillion times, but I got lost.

So I stopped at a building in the middle of nowhere, with a locked glass door, and the man inside couldn’t understand me.  He was mideastern, and his English was so bad he couldn’t understand the difference between Choteau and Choctaw.  And then I realized I was in a building in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know where I was, and nobody else knew where I was.  And all around me were glass jars full of white powder lined up shelf after shelf--and it wasn’t flour.

Long story short.  The man was very gracious, finally let me out of the locked door and got me on my way, and instead of sending me to Choctaw I got to Choteau.  Yes.  I did something stupid.  I won’t do that again.  I understand now why all the doors were locked and it took identification to get in.  And no, I didn’t buy any of the “white powder.”

I keep promising Becky Bacon that I will come help her pick out flooring for her living room.  So this week I am going to do that.  I hope to see my brother while I’m in Pryor.  The hospital released him and Janet and they are home for a couple of days and then going to assisted living until they get on their feet.

I hope I can do a two and a half hour drive by myself.  I’m leaving the house here to Josh.  He will take care of everything.

I’m taking my Mac so Joe can edit all the plane numbers.  My publisher wants him to do that.  So do I!  I think I remember them all, but Joe will.  The A-4’s, F-9s and so on--that Ken flew.  I keep thinking I will get this book out, and then one thing after another happens.

Becky bought me an exercise outfit to wear.  It is so soft and doesn’t rub my knees when I walk.  I’ve lost so much weight that I have skin on bone and everything hurts my knees when I walk.  Getting old is not for sissies they say.  I agree.  I’ve gained three pounds!!!  I took my neighbor that does my grocery shopping to Texas Roadhouse yesterday and ate ribeye--I need to do that more often.  

Every time I go out the front door to get the mail, I go by my piano--which has the lid down over the keys.  I rarely open it to play.  It is amazing all of the things we spent hours and hours learning how to do, we have left behind us. 

Occasionally I play.  When I married Ken, the next Sunday when we went to church for the first time, the director learned that I could play, and I was immediately put to work as the church pianist in Pensacola (Warrington) Fla.  And many other times as we moved--other places in America didn’t make their children learn to play the piano like Okies did.  I didn’t have as many opportunities as we moved, but played when they needed me.  And then a few years ago, Roy Jackson asked me to take over the services in Pryor and play.  I did, and renewed my ability because I was playing every Sunday.  When I moved here, one of the older departments needed a pianist.  I played for them.  But now, my piano sits there gathering dust.  It seems a shame.  For a while, I played my marimba for the church’s ministry group.  Now, the marimba is in the trunk of my car.  Seven pieces.  Waiting to be put together and used.  I just need someone to need a pianist or a marimbist. 

Bill and Janet both are better.  The entire world was praying for them. Probably every underground Christian in China where they spent 37 years. Thank all of you who prayed.

I have done nothing today.  All the hours I have now--that I do nothing--I needed when I was raising four children.  And now I don’t know what to do with all the time.  Yes, I write, but I have to be inspired somewhat to do that.  My publisher is calling tomorrow for the two of us to do final editing on The Corsair Pilot.  I want it done.

I have started a story about my dad, who came home from school one day to find that someone had killed his dad.  Shot him.  They never found out who.  I will have to call all my cousins to get their versions.  I did see the newspaper from 1917...but it is “iffy” ....if this, then that.  Who knows.  I’ll have to make something up? 

For those of you who know my brother--The Macau Mavrick--he is in the hospital with an infection in his kidney that has spread into his blood.  And his wife, Janet, is also in the hospital on a respirator.  They tried to take it out, but she can’t breathe on her own yet.

Please pray for them.  This is in the hands of God.  I am sure they are both very stressed worrying about each other--and not being able to do anything about helping each other.

Their son Matthew has come from Kansas and is there overseeing their care, which is a blessing.  (He is also a doctor.)

Just pray.  Please.

This morning, I mailed the edited manuscript for “The Corsair Pilot” to my publisher.  Praise God!  It has been hard to get it like I wanted it.  My first book “The Letter” was about children who have a parent who has gone to war--and how it affected them.  My second book “The Macau Mavrick” was about my brother’s 37 years in China.  This third book is about Ken and his time in the Korean war, and the Viet Nam war---and I wanted very much to do him justice.  And the publisher said I had to do it in sixty thousand words.  I have struggled.  I finally got it to sixty nine thousand--and can’t do any better.  The publisher will have to eliminate words.  I just can’t do it.

But when I hit “send” this morning, I felt like I had lost a hundred pounds.  It took a lot longer to write this than the other two books.  I’ve been working on it for three years.  Long enough.  Time to print.  You can get the first two on Amazon, or Chris Hardy in Pryor will have them.

I guess I will just have to accept that I can’t post like I used to post.  Everything in my life right now is hectic.  The Macau Mavrick--my brother Bill--almost lost his life and has been in the hospital.  And now, his wife Janet quit breathing, they did CPR and she is in the hospital as they try to stabilize her.  But thank God, they changed my meds and I am better.  Much better.  I’m going to shoot for posting once a week at this point.

Sunday, we covered chapter 4 and 5, and I told them that if they were ever forced to give up all their Bible except one book, choose Romans.  And if you had to give up all of Romans except one chapter, choose chapter five.  And if you had to give up all of five except a couple of verses, choose verse one and two.  It covers everything.  When Paul says “Therefore,” he is summing it all up.  Justification, faith, peace, Jesus, access to God, grace, rejoicing and glory.  It is comforting.