I’ve been hearing and seeing a lot on opinion sites about Nobody and Everybody.  Everybody loves this tv show. Everybody is flocking to see that movie.  Nobody likes our president. Nobody believes a thing he says.  Nobody goes to rallies willingly.  They are paid.  Everybody wants a woman in the White House. Which woman?  Everybody loves this new food, book, tea, laundry detergent, store etc., etc.

Just who are these Nobodies and Everybodies?  And why don’t I always agree with them?   I went to a movie once that Everybody was raving about and it even won an Oscar.  Most boring movie I have ever watched and some people even got up and left when full frontal nudity came on he screen.  Who are these Everybodies? Don’t they have any taste?

I went to a restaurant Everybody said I should not miss. It would be the highlight of my life.  Worst food and service I have ever received.  Everybody was wrong, evidently.   Maybe I am a Nobody.  Because I don’t always agree with all the Everybodies.

What do you think when you see something advertised and it is said that Everybody loves it?  I immediately become suspicious because these Everybodies have steered me wrong more times than not.   I hear that Everybody is getting a certain vaccine.  Well, I haven’t and I probably won’t.   Some vaccines have been proven to be more harmful than helpful in the long run. I got vaccinated for something a while back only because a friend had been affected by this particular disease and told me I really must get vaccinated against it.  So I did. A few weeks later I heard that getting the vaccination could CAUSE you to get the disease. What????!!!

Who are these Everybodies and Nobodies?  Where do they live. Do they live in a nicer house than me, have a better dog, car, cat, refrigerator etc?    How did they get so smart that Everyone wants to follow Everybody?    And the Nobodies are just party poopers.  Really.

So the next time you hear something advertised and someone says, “Everybody loves it, or wants it, or has used it, etc.,”  just remember, if you aren’t part of those Everybodies, it isn’t true.

As for the Nobodies. Nobody listens to them anyway. Bye.

Now I don’t have the best of hearing, but the world seems inundated with noise of all kinds nowadays.    First the alarm clock blasts us awake in the morning telling us another busy day has begun.  I will have to admit, I very rarely wake to an alarm clock any more since I am retired. David sets his alarm, which I hardly ever hear, and goes to work early.   But back in the days of school and a business and working, the alarm clock woke me every day.

Doing the laundry is no longer a silent job.  Just opening the washer lid sets off a dinging telling you the lid is up.  Then, when the wash load is completed, there is another ding to remind you that you put clothes in the washer.  Same goes for the dryer.  Open the door and there is a ding.  Clothes dry, ding again.

Driving a car use to be pretty easy.  You got in the car, turned on the lights if needed and drove.  Now the car warns you your door is open, your seatbelt is not on and if you left your lights on before getting out there is a loud ping-ping-ping that won’t let up until you turn off the lights. If you forget and leave your keys in the ignition, there is another warning sound that is so irritating, you can’t get the keys out fast enough.  And I’m sure many of you have heard the check engine ding that may or may not be warning you about something.   David ignored that ding for years in his truck and has never had any trouble.  A tire low, ding again.  Gone are the days when you were responsible for checking the pressure in your tires or remembering to turn off the lights or take out the key.

Have you listened to any news on tv lately?  What’s with the steady beat behind the reporting?  It seems the news cannot be reported any longer unless there is music or drum beats going on in the background. Sometimes it’s so loud, it’s hard to hear the reporters.  Same with movies and television shows.  The background music is so intrusive, it drowns out the voices you are trying to hear.  I read once that the makers of movies thought the loud music would make it more of an experience for the viewer, drawing them in.  It makes me want to leave.  Sometimes the music is so loud in the movie theater I have to cover my years. Is there an insidious effort to make us all deaf or deafer than we already are?    I also have been noticing a subliminal sound of a telephone ring in the background of some things I am watching.  David doesn’t hear it, but I have heard it clearly several time.  I am not going nuts.

Loud music in passing cars.   We sit on our porch quite frequently and a car will go by with the bass playing so loudly, I fear for the occupants inside.  When I can feel the beat in my chest from a car passing my house, it must be a tad too loud.

Trains.  I love trains.   I have lived by train tracks for almost my entire married life and enjoy seeing the trains go by.  But lately, it seems the train whistles have become much louder and longer in duration.   I wonder about the engineers who really lay on the horn and keep it going from one crossing to the next.   Why is it necessary for them to keep the horns going after they have crossed the track?     It’s a noise that is causing some problems in my city because there are more trains going through than ever before.  The city fathers are trying to find a solution, but I don’t think they will do anything with the crossing by my house as we are too far out of town, even though we are considered in city limits.

Dogs barking. Okay. They are my dogs.   Some day I will have to tape Molly when a train goes by.  She is louder than the train, if possible. It’s almost like she is enjoying the howling and will continue it long after the train has passed.  She doesn’t do it when I am outside with her.  I am sure the train whistle hurts her ears, but she should be getting use to them.

Talking heads on tv.  They are just noise.  Who are these people that others take them seriously and listen to them?   Watch one show there is one view. Watch another there is an opposing view and the more controversial the topic, the louder the voices get and they shout over each other.  Noise.  I find myself turning them off more and more.

Cellphones.  David and I rarely use our cellphones except for long distance calls and we do take it with us on trips in case we have car trouble.  But I see people with cellphones on continually, whether playing games or scrolling through pictures or checking Facebook or twitter.  Kids wear earplugs in their ears continuously listening to the latest music.  People turning on and turning out everywhere.  It’s not noise, but it’s another distraction from real life. I notice even in church people are sitting there scrolling through their cellphones and I know they are not all reading the Bible!  And sometimes a cellphone will ring right in the middle of the sermon. Noise.   Distraction.  We have become a nation of watchers, not doers.  Many people aren’t in the moment anymore.  If it’s not on their cellphone, it’s not life for them.

I’m as bad as the next one. I have to have background noise on most of the time whether it’s the tv or radio.  Lots of times I’m not even really listening.  Noise.    I must make a concerted effort to turn off the tv and radio and listen to the silence for a while.  I don’t know how anyone is creative anymore with sound blaring constantly all around them.  Some of the best inventions have happened when people were bored and were sitting quietly, thinking.

I hope I don’t sound like a curmudgeon.   Yesterday probably wasn’t any better than today, but it sure seems like it’s a lot noisier today.  Who listens to the birds singing or the patter of rain on the roof or the wind blowing through the trees?  If it all isn’t done with background music many probably won’t listen.    Noise. How has it affected you today?

I am a crier.  I don’t cry every day and sometimes I go weeks without crying, but I cry quite often.  Sometimes when I am happy and most times when I am sad.   I don’t really like to cry, but as one author wrote in his autobiographical book,  his bladder was close to his eyes, and I guess mine is too.    A sad story, a happy story, tragedy,  others’ sadness, my children, my husband, friends or family members passing, all have made me cry.  Sometimes I cry for absolutely nothing.   If you ever watched Everybody Loves Raymond on television, Deborah, Raymond’s wife was sitting on their couch one day just crying and Ray saw her through a window and wondered what was wrong.  When he found out she was just crying because she wanted to, he was dumbfounded and couldn’t figure out why she would want to do that.  My husband is uncomfortable when I cry because I am usually a strong, cheerful person.

I have seen friends and family go through some horrible times in their lives and I have cried with them.  Some things just seem unbearable at times, but I find that a good cry seems to let go of some of the grief held inside. One time I was going through a particularly bad time, I won’t go into it, but I was attending a Bible study with several women and all of a sudden, during the study I started sobbing.  I mean a complete breakdown with tears that would not stop. I finally got up to leave and one of the ladies followed me and asked me what was wrong and I told her.  She didn’t tell me not to cry. She commiserated with me.   The strange thing was, that after that good cry, things started looking differently and I felt much better. I didn’t know how much grief I had been holding inside.   I believe God gives us tears for a reason.  One day He will wipe away all tears.

Never tell someone not to cry. I have had friends who have lost their husbands and people have told them not to cry. How awful.  I would never tell anyone not to cry because to do so would be to hold all that grief inside. It’s not good for you. A friend told me the worst thing people told her after her husband had passed, was not to cry.

I was watching a movie on Amazon Prime the other day and there was a song on it called, “Let Me Cry.”  It’s about letting someone cry even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.    They need to cry.  It’s by Hillary Wells, someone I had never heard of before, but I looked up some of her other songs and they are tear jerkers.   I sat there, all alone in my living room and bawled my eyes out.   I told David about it later and started crying again.  He didn’t know what to do!

The movie, “Marley and Me” is one I cannot watch.  We saw it at a movie theater and  when it got to the really sad part, I got that choked feeling in my throat and then I sobbed.  One day at my daughter’s house, they wanted to watch it, but I had to leave the room when the sad part came on.  I hope you know what I am talking about. It’s a good movie, but sad.

So, do you cry?  Do simple things make you cry or do you need a big, awful thing to happen for you to cry?  I don’t know what you are going through now, but if it deserves a good cry, let it out.  Don’t hold back.   Then blow your nose and go on living. That’s all anyone can do.

I promise my next post will be about happier things.

From a crier and not ashamed of it. Bye.

I write this blog for me and for my family to know what is going on in our lives. I don’t write it for popularity, to sell stuff or for recognition or awards.  And I write truthfully.  I write what I feel and I write what I believe and after reading so many blogs about gun control and bashing our president, I decided to put in my two cents, for what its’ worth.

First, I will tell you I know several teachers, in my family and friends. My brother taught math for years in high school.  I have grandchildren in public schools and grandchildren in a Christian school.  I worry about them all.  The shooting this week has rocked a lot of people and once again the Democrats have seen an opening to remove guns from honest, law abiding people.  A boy was bullied at school.  Then I watched as those children in that school bullied adults and shouted “Burn her, ” to one of the women who spoke for the NRA and I wondered, which one of those children were bullying that boy who shot up the school?    I wonder, is it because prayer and God has been removed from government schools?  I noticed the violence has escalated since that happened. We never had school shootings in the middle of the last century before school prayer was removed. My brothers would have their guns in their cars to go hunting after school.  No one got shot.

I wonder why taking guns away from all of us will keep the guns from criminals.  I wonder if the same people who are so upset about the murders of 17 children in one school are as upset about the millions of babies who are ripped from their mothers’ wombs every year? It seems the outrage is only popular if it’s liberal outrage.   I watched those children read questions that had been given them(you cannot make me believe that one boy wrote that question for Marco Rubio.)  I was horrified how people acted at that rally and it was a rally.  Don’t try to tell me any differently. A rally against guns.  Gun control.  That is the liberal mantra now.

I don’t know what the answer is for all this shooting. They never have told us why the Las Vegas shooting happened. That has been kept rather hush hush.  That man’s girlfriend disappeared and we never heard another thing about her. Some very strange things are happening in our country and it’s not President Trump’s fault.  ‘

Just how do we keep our children safe at school?  I have some ideas.  We have many veterans in our country who have been trained in the use of guns.  Many cannot find a job.  We could hire veterans to guard our children during the day. Besides keeping our children safe, it would teach children about the sacrifices our veterans have made.   The doors on schools should be locked at all times.  That boy just came in a back door. He shot the one guard. One guard for a school of  over 3000.  Maybe there were others. I don’t know that.   Teachers who want should be able to conceal carry and no one should know who has the guns.   I know this all sounds radical, but when you take God out of schools, satan walked in and now we are dealing with the consequences and since the liberals won’t allow God back in,  our children need protection.   If you have any better idea besides unarming every person in our country who is law abiding, I’d like to hear it.

I am praying for our children, our teachers and our schools.   Our teachers have a hard time of it.  Many parents with problem children cannot admit their child would do anything dangerous. I have heard stories about violent children in schools who cannot be removed because it isn’t politically correct.  And I hate the term politically correct. It’s harmed our country as much as anything else.   We need to get rid of it.  It was created for liberals to shut up the voices of conservatives. Well, I am not going to let my voice be quieted.

And all you who hate our president, just remember. Obama was not well liked by millions of us, but we didn’t get violent,  form groups, do rallies, or march with silly hats on our heads.  We just kept working and when time came for us to vote we ran to the polls and voted and that is what we will do again.   The more we are attacked, demeaned and obstructed, the more we cannot wait to vote.  This shooting is  wake up call, but it’s not the wake up call many think it is.

Now the Olympics.  I use to love the Olympics like I use to love the Academy Awards.  Not any more.  It’s all become political. I find it disgusting that an athlete, who lives in the greatest country in the world, who has had opportunities many of us have never had and who is blessed with a physical ability would use his or her platform to bash our president and while doing so, dismissing the millions of us who voted for him. The millions of us who use to love watching the Olympics. To be asked to the White House is a great honor. How many people get that chance. Even with Obama in the White House, if he had asked me to come, I would have gone. But no, there were some spoiled athletes who said they would not go if asked and now some of them won’t be asked anyway because they bombed at the Olympics and I don’t feel sorry for them. And those two who attacked Vice President Pence when he went to watch them perform were just being mean and they lied while doing it.

I know some of you who read my blog are saying, “Bye-bye” now and that is your prerogative.   I quit reading some blogs because they were so nasty about our president.   You can look back at all my blogs and I never said anything nasty about Obama or the Clintons who I believe are the biggest crooks in our country.   I probably won’t get political again for a while and at least I warned you.   Just wanted people to see there are other beliefs than what you have been seeing on CNN this week.

If you believe in God and are a praying person, I do ask you to say a prayer for our school children this week.  They are under attack and they need to be protected.  And God needs to be back in our schools.  For three hundred years the Bible was taught and prayer was allowed.  It needs to be that way again.  Bye.

David and I have lived through our vows of in sickness and in health this week. We both have been battling the flu or something.  I think all you ladies reading this know that when a man gets sick, it’s the end of the world.  When you get sick, the laundry still manages to get done.  It took me three days instead of one this week. The food gets prepared,  the floors are swept, etc. etc.  When a man gets sick it’s twenty-four hours of “Whoa is Me,” and it’s a miracle if he gets bathed. Of course, what he has is always far worse than what you have.  Okay. I’m done with my pity party. This has been the looooongest week.  David got sick just as I was beginning to feel like returning to the world and then I got to feeling bad again and it was a vicious cycle. If David is not better tomorrow, he is going to the doctor, although I don’t think there is a thing that can be done with this flu.    I feel like I lost a whole week of my life some how.   I did manage to drag myself to the grocery as we were low on the healthy food, but my legs got like rubber while I was standing at the checkout line and I was hoping I would make it home.  I did.   But it was nice to just get outside.  We have been nowhere all week!    Today I am feeling better and went outside in the fresh air and played with Molly and Belle.  They have been so neglected, poor babies.

While we have been suffering illness, our daughter’s family was also.  But they had an even bigger catastrophe happen to their dog.  Their Golden Retriever, Oliver, started to roam a while back. They live next to a big forest, so he could roam without bothering anyone.  He didn’t come home one night and they were so worried, but he returned the next morning.  I found out yesterday he had disappeared again and had been missing for two weeks.   They were certain he had met up with some coyotes or some other disaster and he did.  The animal control officer in their county brought Oliver home.  He had been caught in a coyote trap for two weeks without food or water. The trap was attached to a tree and Oliver managed to get it pulled from the tree and he managed to crawl to a road where some poor woman found him and called 911. He was in pretty bad shape.   It sounds like something you would see in a movie because it’s really a miracle their dog made it.  They took him to the vet where he had to have his leg amputated.  Now he is home recuperating and Sara says he is doing pretty well.  He is just very thin.   The vet asked my daughter and son-in-law if they wanted to go public about this.   The vet belongs to a group that is trying to get rid of traps. She had just removed the toes from a horned owl that had been caught in one.   I think traps are the most inhumane way to kill any animal.  I have no problem with hunting when the animals you hunt will be eaten and they are killed outright without suffering, but with a trap, the animal can suffer for weeks before it dies.  Anyway, it’s going to be a story in their local paper and I hope it helps to get the news out how dangerous these traps are. What if it had been a human walking that woods?  No  one had better set any traps in our woods.

I really don’t have much to write.    I just hope the last two weeks of February will be far better than this last one has been.  Here’s to health.  You really miss it when you don’t have it. Bye.

We are standing on the threshold of a brand, new year. It’s like getting a new box of crayons, a new unmarked journal, an unread novel, a bright, shiny penny, a new fallen snow that no one has walked on.  It’s so fresh and new you can smell the hope in it.

I am leaving 2017 with gratitude, relief and a little sadness. It was a good year in many ways, but a sad year also as we lost several church friends and a family member.   It’s been a year of ups and downs with mostly ups, thankfully.  It held many surprises, some tragedy and some comedy.

This year I want to be more faithful, less fearful of new things, more determined in my quest to walk 10,000 steps a few times a week and more happy in my circumstances.   I managed most of these in 2017 except for the walking bit. I kind of slacked off on that.  Right now we have the most frigid temperatures we have ever had to endure the last few years so it’s hard to want to get outdoors and walk.  Oh, and I want to knit lots and lots of socks!

We are planning our trips for our fiftieth wedding anniversary. So far we are planning trips west, south and northeast.  It’s going to be a busy year.

I wake up every day thinking “who can I bless today.”   I write this blog not to make people think how wonderful my life is.  My life is just like yours.  I have my good days, my great days, my lousy days and my sad and lonely days. Some days I’d just prefer to stay in bed, but I get up and get going because I don’t want to be a slug.    But even through everything, I hope I have touched someone in a way that will help them.  We aren’t alone on this planet.  Everyone wants to be loved. You are.  Everyone has pretty much the same needs. I am interested in all of you.  I hope your year will be kind to you. I hope you have good health.  I hope you have someone to love.  I hope you never feel so alone that you think no one cares.  Someone does.  I hope when 2018 is over you can look back and say, “I made it through and it wasn’t so bad.”   I really hope you can look back and think, “Wow, what a year!”

Love, don’t hold onto anger, forgive, take chances, and remember the One who is always there for you.  Happy New Year, everyone!  Bye.

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are always a blur to me.   It seems like when Autumn gets here I should put on my running shoes and take off with a bottle of water in my hand to keep me hydrated as I scramble through the days.

I am really not the busy, I don’t think.  I don’t have a job.  I don’t have children I have to ferry here, there and everywhere.  I don’t even have a very demanding husband who is always asking me to do things.  I’m just saying, the days seem to fly by like the wind and when a week is over David and I look at each other and say, “That week went fast.”  Maybe it’s our age and the space, time, continuum thing, but I can almost see the world turning, it’s going so fast. I also tell David I can hear God’s voice whispering to me constantly and I am wondering what He is telling me.

I don’t watch that much tv although I have gotten hooked on The Crown on Netflix and have been watching that.  Man, am I glad I was not born into royalty.  I would have hated all my time planned for me every day.  And not being able to leave your house without the media watching all the time would make me downright crazy.  And your privacy certainly is not private.  Poor Elizabeth and Phillip cannot even have an argument without someone noticing and reporting that their marriage is on the rocks. If David and I were watched like that, people would think we were getting a divorce all the time because we do argue a bit at times.   Don’t all couples?  But if you are royalty you are expected to be happy all the time and give a good show to the public. That is not for me.

We also finished watching Longmire on Netflix.  We always watch a show during our evening meal because that is the only time David and I watch anything together.   I really hated to see Longmire end and I won’t give anything away, but I was not happy about something that has bothered me the entire series and it bothered me at the end.  That is all I am saying.  I had kind of a crush on Longmire. That handsome, rugged, cowboy look set my heart to pitter pattering.  David, if you are reading this, you make my heart go pitter patter all the time.   And one other show I have been watching while I knit is the Roosevelts.    It’s  a Ken Burns documentary and I am learning a whole lot of history about our two Presidents Roosevelt and their lives and their families and the times during which they were presidents.    There is something about Teddy Roosevelt that reminds me of our current president.   In a good way, of course because I am not a Trump hater.

But back to time.  I have worked on Christmas gifts for weeks and finally today I am finished buying and making presents and next week David will wrap them.  I don’t like wrapping.  David does a great job and is very meticulous and his edges are crisp and he does not waste paper.  My wrapping looks like a two year old had a tantrum and had some paper and tape handy.

We have attended a couple of our grandchildren’s Christmas programs at their school.  That always gets me in the Christmas spirit.  I have been taking lots of pictures and one day soon I will put them on here when I have time.  There are some things I just cannot show right now because there are people who should not see things before Christmas if you know what I mean.

Hope your days are going well.  All of you all over the world who read this blog, I just want to tell you, I think about you and wonder about your lives and hope all is well in your part of the world. At this Christmas time I wish the world and our country could all come together for a few days of peace.  We all need it.   I like to think if all those who read my blog could get together, we would all like each other and have a great time getting to know each other.  Wouldn’t that be fun?     I’ll bake the cinnamon rolls. Hope you aren’t gluten free or carb free because my cinnamon rolls are to die for.  Bye.