Monthly Archives: February 2014

What I Find

I have been walking for several years now.  Well, I’ve been walking since I was about nine months old, but I mean I have taken up walking as a hobby.  I got up to five miles a day for a while, but this winter it has been hard to get outside and walk very far without slipping and sliding.  Now I am training for a 5K walk and am trying to walk several times a week.

I usually take a dog with me.  Belle has been walking with me since she was a pup.  She very rarely pulls or tugs on the leash, unless she sees a rabbit or a squirrel, so she is a fine companion.  We have walked hundreds of miles together. I use to walk with Bonnie, but the farthest she wants to walk now is to the car because she thinks we are going to the vet or to our daughter’s house in the woods.

Through the years I have found several things alongside the road.  When Bonnie was a pup, she found an American flag.  I brought it home and washed it and still have it.  Once I found a pair of scissors.  I found a really big knife once.  I was a ways from home and got odd looks from people as I walked down the road carrying a knife.  I found a really nice pair of pliers once that I gave to David.  I don’t know how someone lost a pair of pliers alongside the road, but they did. This is a different story, but once when I was cleaning our church and taking out the trash I found money laying all over the church parking lot.  Bills.  I gathered all that I could find and took it to the office in case someone came asking if anyone had found any money.  My daughter and I found a purse in a parking lot in a cart at a store once and we could see a big wad of money in it.  We took the purse, with the money, of course, inside to the office, but I have always wondered if the person whose purse it was, found the money in it when she picked it up.  I should have had them call her before I left the store.  Hope they were honest.

One day a couple of years ago I was walking with Belle when I saw something flying up in the sky.  I watched it come closer and closer and then it began to drop lower and I could see it was in the shape of a fish.  It kept coming down and landed in the parking lot of a business across the road.  I went to see it and saw it was a rather large shark.  It was a remote control one.  It had lost all its air.  I took it home to use one day.  I don’t throw anything away.  This past summer when we had our family reunion, we put helium in it and set it free.  I wonder who found it this time.

I found a complete set of keys laying in the street last fall.  There were probably ten or more keys on it.  I took it home and asked David if he would go over and ask at the businesses across the street if anyone had lost some keys.  There was a man who had just done a good deed for someone by returning their dog who had gotten loose and had put his keys on top of his car and had not been able to find them.  He was so happy to  have them returned.

I find change all the time.  I have a jar I put the change into and when it is full, I will take a European vacation.  Ha.

I have seen gloves, socks and yes, even underwear on my walks.  I have picked up trash along the road.  This weekend David and I are going to go pick up a chair someone lost off a truck last fall and it’s been along our highway all winter.  We will break it up and put it in the trash.

I have been chased by dogs, asked by a couple of men if I wanted a ride, (I didn’t, of course) and have screamed as my dog tossed dead moles at me she has found along the roadside.  One time I was walking with one of my grandsons and Belle found a huge mole and began to sling it at us.  We tried getting her away from it, but she kept throwing it up in the air and we were screaming and laughing so hard some man stopped his car beside us and asked if everything was okay.

I have watched Belle fight a baby raccoon.  I have seen a skunk, a fox and a deer on my walks.  Yes, I have had some interesting walks.  One of my favorite walks is when a particular road is closed because it is flooded and the bridge is out about a mile from our house.  It’s about a two mile walk to the bridge and there is no traffic because the road is gated.   Belle can be let loose and she loves running everywhere sniffing everything and getting in the water.   It may be flooded this weekend with all the snow melt and rain we have had.  I will have to walk there to see.

Today I found a large, blue rubber ball that had probably blown out of someone’s yard because of the winds we had last night. I found it in a woods.

Take a walk today.  You never know who or what you might find.  Bye.

I’m a Believer

Today I am going somewhere completely different from what I usually write about.  There are things going on in this world that cannot be explained.  There are portents of things to come in what is happening all around us.  Those of us who have studied the Bible are not surprised by what is happening.  Did you know the Bible mentions ghosts?  Not the Holy ghost, just ghosts.(Perhaps I should clarify that yes, the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Bible.)  When Jesus first appeared to some of the disciples, they thought at first that he was a ghost.

There are some things I believe in.  I believe there is a God, that Jesus died for me and that He sits at the right hand of God right this minute.  I believe in angels and I believe there is a devil and his demons who roam the earth wreaking havoc on all people.  I believe in heaven and in hell.  I believe there is a battle going on all around us that we cannot see between angels and demons.  I believe there are many things we cannot explain.  I believe God does not want one of us to perish.  He sent His only Son after all.  I don’t think I could love that much to give up one of my sons to die for everyone.  But God did.  But this post is not about that.  I hope you will know I am being sincere in what I am telling you.  I couldn’t make up things I am about to tell you.

There are many things that cannot be explained through science or through practical knowledge.  We are all spiritual beings whether we are believers or not.  Some have just shut off the spiritual side of themselves and I believe they are missing a lot of what God has planned for them. But I am not talking about this kind of spirituality.

I have never believed in ghosts.  That said, I have some really strange ghost stories to tell.

Years ago, our family went on vacation and we stopped at this park where there was a fire tower that we wanted to climb, but our daughter was too little.  So David walked up with the boys taking the camera with him.  He took a picture of my daughter and me standing beneath the tower.  When we got home and had the pictures developed, we noticed something odd about the picture of my daughter and me.  It appeared there was another figure standing beside us.  A very distinct shape of a person.  There had been no other people around us that day.

We live in a 100 year old house.   From the very beginning of living here I began to see a cat running in the house.  Up the stairs usually.  We had cats later, but at the time, we had no cats.  Then a few years ago I was sitting in our living room and saw a cat run across the room right into the wall.  The hairs went up on the back of my neck.  I called to David in the kitchen and said, “You are not going to believe what I just saw.”  I don’t think he did.

When my father died, a few nights after his death I was lying in bed and heard who I thought was David walking into the room. I lay there with my eyes closed.  Suddenly, I felt a presence standing over me and felt the most wonderful feeling of love.  I opened my eyes and David wasn’t there.  He was downstairs.  I have always thought it was my daddy coming to say good-bye.

One night I was in my bedroom in bed and heard David come into the room and when he didn’t get in bed I opened my eyes and he wasn’t there.  I got up and called downstairs and asked him if he had come upstairs.  He said he hadn’t.

Something happened that makes me think we have something going on in our house.  Our grandsons stayed overnight one night and the next day going home one of them said he didn’t want to stay overnight anymore because a bad man came into his room.  That sent the hairs on the back of my neck up because our daughter had the same experience once when she was small and had screamed from her room one night waking us all up from a deep sleep saying there was a man in her room. We searched everywhere.    She doesn’t remember it now.   Now when I ask her about it, she says it was bees in the window, which did happen once, but not that night.

Well, this week two things happened that were really strange.  Okay, more than strange.  David and I were in the kitchen when out of the corner of my eye I saw a man in a white shirt  with dark hair coming into the kitchen.  He seemed to be surprised that we were there and backed out immediately and disappeared.  I said, “David, there was a man there just now.”  He just laughed.  Soon something strange would happen to him.

Yesterday I was out in my shop and David was in the house.  He came out to the shop and said,”Were you just in the house?”  “No, I said, why?” ” Someone whistled at me at the back door and I whistled back.  It sounded just like you.”  Okay.  Ummmm.  I don’t know what happened, but he definitely heard someone whistle. So we have a cat owning, white shirt wearing, whistling ghost I guess.  As long as he’s friendly, I will be okay.  Sometimes I think someone is standing right behind me while I type here.  I feel nothing scary about it.  It just is.

The husband of a friend of mine is a doctor and he ran into a ghost with no feet floating down the hallway at the hospital.  He smelled gangrene.  He said the ghost was just as surprised to see him as he was to see the ghost.  I’m not the only one seeing them.

When my grandfather died, my mother said she saw him at the foot of her bed just standing there looking at her.

Do you have a ghost?  Do you believe in ghosts?  I really don’t believe in them, but what is happening at my house?   The explanation must be supernatural.

I saw a show on Netflix about a guy who one day started to see angels, demons and dead people.  It was causing him much angst.  He was really having a horrible time about it.  He went to a psychiatrist who said he was mentally stable.  He went to many people to have his brain studied. Everything was fine.  What makes one person see these things and another doesn’t?    He did say that angels are very tall, beautiful creatures with large wings and they sparkle.  That is what I think angels would look like.

I believe there are things going on all around us that most of us cannot see.  There are battles being waged.   I have heard that all time is going on at the same time, just in different dimensions.  Could it be that someone or something gets caught in the wrong dimension?  God sees it all from the very beginning of creation to the end of time as we know it.   We only see a very tiny bit.  Hope I haven’t scared any of you because I’m not scared. Much.  Bye.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Today is a day for love.  I don’t know why we just pick one day when we should be loving on people all the time. Have you a loved one with you today?  Or are you alone and thinking no one loves you?  That isn’t true.  Have you lost a loved one this year?  Has someone spurned you that you loved?  Just remember this.  There is someone who loves you more than anything.

If you are alone today, get out if you can and go somewhere and just smile at people.  Do you know there are people in this world who never get one smile in a day?  Not one.  If we were the one to smile at them then quite possibly we could make their day just a little bit brighter.  Or even say, “How are you today?”  Have you ever said that to someone who was checking you out at a store?  It makes all the difference in how they treat you and it makes them feel like they are a person instead of just someone doing something for you.

Do you have a talent you could share?  Do you knit or crochet or quilt or play the guitar or anything?  Teach a child how to do something today.  Hug a child.  Hug your mother and your father.  Are your parents gone?   Love on some older folks whose children aren’t around.

 You see, Valentine’s Day isn’t just for couples.  It’s for everyone to try to show love to others.  Jesus loved each of us so much He died on the cross to take away our sins so that one day we could be with him in Heaven.  What greater love is there?  I never feel unloved.  I do have a husband and family and friends that love me, but even if I didn’t have them, I know I am loved.  You are so loved today.  I love you for spending some time here.  If you could be with me I would bake us some biscuits and cook up some of my chickens’ good, fresh, organic eggs.  We’d have a cup of coffee or tea and sit a spell and talk.  I bet your life is more interesting than you could ever imagine.  Every life is special and God loves you.  Talk to Him today.  He’s been waiting.

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   Here’s some flowers for you.  I hope you like them.  I wish you the very best today.  Happy Valentine’s Day.  You are loved.  Bye.

A Short, But Busy Month

February, the month of love.  It’s a short month, but so much seems to be packed into each and every day.  The days are getting longer.   Thoughts of gardening and flowers and the warm sun on my back as I work outside are on my mind.

I planted some tomato seeds this week.  Each day I check on them to see if the seedlings are coming up.  The promise of juicy, red tomatoes in our future makes me happy.

The chooks are laying fewer eggs right now, but we still cannot keep up with them.  Egg salad sandwiches have become a staple at our table.   I never tire of egg salad and it’s so easy to make and almost free.

We have had some crazy weather this month.  We have had so much snow this year.

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We go from this and then a few days of sun and then snow again.  It is suppose to snow tomorrow again.

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We have frosted dogs looking in our windows.  Doesn’t Belle look like she has been sprinkled with powdered sugar?   She is telling me here that it is time for her to go into my warm shop.  I think the dogs have forgotten they have an insulated dog house in the back yard.  They refuse to go back there. But that’s okay. I like them in the shop with me while I sew and craft.

Speaking of crafting, I have made several needle cases in the past few weeks and this in one I made this week.

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I liked making it so much, I made two.

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You see, I have this bag of luscious wool felts that are calling to me to make something.  I have it in my head that I would like to try hat making.   Wouldn’t any of these felts make a pretty hat?   I watch Downton Abbey and see the beautiful hats the ladies wear and I wish women would wear hats like that again.  I wore a hat to church a few weeks ago and then I saw another woman wearing a hat the next week.  We women need to start a revolution and start wearing hats again and getting dressed up when we go out in public.  I am so tired of seeing people in their pajamas when I go shopping.

My mother always wanted us to look our best when we went out in public.  In those days, girls would wear those huge rollers in their hair and go out in public and my mother thought it was TERRIBLE.  My mother taught me to take pride in myself when I went out.  If I don’t have nice clothes and lipstick on, I don’t think I should be seen by anyone.  I like to dress up.  Always have.

Anyway, I would like to make a hat or two or three if I can find out how to make them.  I’ll look online where I find out how to do everything else.

I have been knitting like crazy.  In the past few weeks I have made three hats, one turban and a scarf.  I am working on another turban and another hat.  I had forgotten how much I love to knit.  Only problem is, when I am knitting, I am not quilting.

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I am training for a 5K race/walk in May.  Actually I walk a 5K several times a week when the weather is nice.  I walked one day before yesterday.  There use to be Volksmarches here in our city and my daughter or my husband and I would walk them and get medals when we were through.  I am really looking forward to the walk in May.  It sounds like it will be fun.  It’s called Color Blaze and they tell you to wear white.  I don’t know if they spray you with color or what, but they do something to make everyone colorful.  We shall see.

We celebrated the Beatles’ fifty year reunion.  Well, Paul and Ringo.  The show was kind of sad for me as I remember how it was when they first came on the scene.

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Here they all are with Ed Sullivan.  We need another Ed Sullivan to find good talent again.  He brought the Beatles to the United States.

Now I have to say something about Shirley Temple who passed away this week.  When I was growing up, her movies were on television all the time.  Wee Willie Winkie,  The Little Colonel(one of my favorites) Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Heidi.  Who can forget when Heidi was being taken to the gypsies by her evil aunt and her grandfather running through the snowy streets trying to find her?   Who can forget Shirley’s sweet voice singing “Animal Crackers in My Soup,” “When I Grow Up,” “Try a Little Happiness?”  Her movies just made you happy.  They were wholesome and fun.  And her dancing.  When she danced up and down the staircase with Bill “Bojangles” tapping each step.  Captain January where she lived in the lighthouse with two old codgers.  I could go on and on.

Shirley was a big part of my life.  I still watch her movies when they are on, but sadly, they aren’t on very often. I know I can watch them on the computer, but it’s not the same.  I wish some movie theater would show them on the big screen.  I would pay to go see them.

Thank you, Shirley, for making us so happy.  For being a lady at all times.  For having class in a sometimes classless society.  For bringing joy to so many around the world.  We love you and you will be missed, but I am sure you are exactly where you should be now.  God Bless.  Bye.

 

She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah Yeah

Has it really been fifty years?  Fifty years when I was fourteen and heard about this group from England who was taking our land by storm?    The new British invasion?

My family watched the Ed Sullivan show every Sunday night.  That’s where all the new entertainers and musicians would either make their mark or flounder.  Ed Sullivan seemed to have the knack to pick winners.  That night four young men, some teen-agers, would perform in front of a live audience of screaming girls and the rest is history.

I waited all day that day for night to come so I could see this group.  My parents thought it was all silliness, but they sat right there with me and watched as I went berserk when the Beatles finally came on the show.  I literally screamed myself and my family were laughing at me, but I didn’t care.  I Want to Hold Your Hand.  How simple were the lyrics, but to a teen’s heart it was total rapture.  If only lyrics today were so innocent.

Soon the soda shoppe was carrying teen magazines with the Beatles plastered all over the front of every one.  Then they started their American tour and I just knew I had to get tickets.  In those days, you sent away for them and I bought two tickets, one for me and one for my best friend.  They cost three dollars each.  The cheap seats.  The seats next to the last row in the big coliseum at the state fair where they were coming in August.  I didn’t care.  I was going to see the Beatles.

All summer I waited in anticipation of the big day.  Finally it came and my brother, Andy, drove my mother, my best friend, Carol, and me to the state fair.  We did all the state fair things but when it was almost time for the show Carol and I got into the mob that was waiting outside the coliseum.  Girls were screaming.  Someone would say, “Is that one of them?” looking in the doors. Of course, it wasn’t but it just made the crowd more unruly.  Girls vomited.  Ugh.  Carol and I were squashed int the mob and could not move left nor right.

Finally, they opened the doors and everyone flooded in and ran to their seat.  Mother and Andy would wait for us outside.  Little did I know at the time, but Andy got a ticket from a scalper outside and got a seat way down in front.  When I learned about that afterward, I was so jealous.

Anyway, Carol and I climbed Mount Everest to our seats waaaaay up in the high altitude seats. Wooden chairs.  Every single seat taken.  The opening act came on.  I don’t remember who it was.  There was so much screaming, you couldn’t hear it anyway.

Then, then, then the BEATLES!!!!!!!!!!!!  Four tiny figures came on stage and we knew it was the Beatles because the roar was so great the roof of the coliseum almost came off.  At least that is what mother told us when we came out after the show.  She knew exactly when the Beatles came on stage because the screams were so loud.

The girl next to Carol and me jumped up onto her wooden chair and proceeded to jump up and down until the chair broke.  Carol was not amused.  In fact, I think she was wondering what she was doing there.  Flashbulbs flashed continuously.  The screaming never ceased.  The Beatles played and every time another song started the cacophony rose higher.  It was totally the most fun I have ever had.  Ever. And I have had a lot of fun times.  If it hadn’t been for the screaming I would have heard the Beatles singing.

When the show was over, Carol and I, sweaty and exhausted from the constant screaming and jumping up and down, came out with big smiles on our faces. We had seen the Beatles.  Live.

It was a moment in my life I will never forget.  I got many of the Beatles’ albums and listened to them until the words were worn off.  Years later, my son took the covers to school for a history class.  History.  Yep, I lived through some pretty neat history.

Which Beatle did you like best?  I loved Paul.  I think he was the oldest.  When the Beatles played on Ed Sullivan that night, they scrolled their ages on the screen and I believe it said something to the effect ” Sorry, girls, he’s married” when Paul appeared. (It was John who was the oldest and married.) Next I liked George and then Ringo.  I never really liked John and I am going to say something almost sacrilegious,  but I simply hate the song “Imagine.”  Hate it.

The year I was a senior, David went off to boot camp and one day my mother, sister, Joanne, and I were shopping and they actually had loud speakers playing outside the stores and the song,  “Michelle” was playing.  That was one of my favorites. So romantic and I was into romance.  Still am.

The Beatles were a big part of my teen life, but as all things go, you grow up, move on and other things become more important, but last week on Laura Ingraham’s radio show she was asking people what their favorite Beatle song was and playing them all and it brought back such a feeling of nostalgia.  The Beatle’s songs wove themselves in and out of my younger years and I don’t think any other group has ever been so popular.  I heard that at one time on the top billboard songs the top five places were taken by Beatle’s songs.  No other group or person has ever done that before or since.

I still have my Beatle’s ticket stub.  I still have all the albums I managed to buy.  And I still have a place in my heart for the group that sent teen-age hearts aflutter fifty years ago today.

Later the group split.  Paul continued to write and sing.  So did George. One of my favorite’s by George was, “I’ve Got My Mind Set On You,” in the eighties.  John was killed by a mad man and left his wife Yoko Ono.  Ringo had a popular song or two and I think he may have been the most grounded of them all.  You never heard anything bad about him.

Thanks for the memories, John, Paul, George and Ringo.  We loved you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bye.

Juggling

Right now I feel like a juggler, juggling several different things at once.  And it’s all my fault.  No one makes me do these things.

I am a creative person loving to sew, quilt, knit, embroider and do just about any handwork.  My problem is I love to start something, but I don’t always get it done.  Right now I can say  I have at least ten quilts that need to be completed.  Probably more.  One I just have a very little bit of quilting to do and it just sits there waiting on me.  Making me feel guilty.

Then there is the knitting.  I just started knitting after years of not knitting a thing.  Suddenly I am in love with yarn and the working with the two needles row upon row as a hat or a scarf takes shape.  This week I have made three children’s hats and a scarf.   I want to start another hat.  I’m thinking these hats would be nice to put in Christmas boxes for Samaritan’s Purse. I only knit at night right before I go to bed, but the problem is I don’t want to go to bed until I get a hat done.  I can knit one in an evening.  They’re small.

Then I decided I needed to make a couple of new ironing board covers.  That entails making almost a twin size quilt and cutting it down to size to fit the ironing board.  I almost have one done.  I don’t waste any time when I get an idea in my head.

Then I went to a fabric store last week with some friends and got an armload of felts and decided I needed to make needle holders right away.  Today I cut out two, plus a scissor holder.  They will be so cute, I think, if I get them done. Lots of handwork on these.  I will show them to you when I get them finished.  They are not the hand needle holders I made last week and showed you.    I bet you are wondering what I am going to do with all these needle holders.  I have a plan.

Now I am on a roll and want to get a Christmas quilt completed before gardening time gets here.  I almost have the quilt top finished.

Today it suddenly hit me I have way too many things going at once and need to finish a few and tidy things up a bit before Spring.  Plus I have been neglecting the pups and the chicks.  They demand my attention and I have given them very little in the past couple of weeks.  And I need to get to the beauty shop and get my hair cut or it is going to be to my waist before I know it.  Plus my “true” color is showing and I can’t have that.  But every time I think I will make an appointment,  we get another big snow and I don’t want to get out in it.

I need to plant tomatoes now.  Before we know it, we will be in garden planting season and last year my tomatoes were late getting out.  I had cherry tomatoes clear up to frost last year, but so many of them were wasted that way so this year I hope to get them out earlier.  The chooks really cleaned out the old garden and even flattened the compost pile so I won’t have much cleaning up of the garden before we till it.  I am amazed what good little dirt turners they are.  They have scratched up every inch of the garden area.  That is why you don’t let chickens into your garden when something is growing there.

I am sounding rather hyper here, aren’t I?  I said a while ago I have never been bored.  Now I see why.  I am where I think a boring day might be nice.  A long day of nothing. Maybe just me, a hot bath and a good book.  Sounds pretty wonderful.    But that isn’t going to happen for a while. Next week I start a new Bible study for six weeks.  Since it is going to be at my house this time I am going to have to do some cleaning.  And some baking.

Our Sunday school class is going to a dinner theater and I am so excited about that.  I love plays and musicals and things like that.  This is a special one for Valentine’s Day.

My chooks are doing well in this bitter, cold weather.  It doesn’t seem to affect them much.  We do have a heat lamp on in the sub zero temps.  They are still  laying from three to five eggs a day. I still have to give eggs away because we cannot eat them fast enough.   I notice someone is molting because I see a lot of loose feathers when I clean their coop. And it sure isn’t me!

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Finished my granddaughter’s book.  I find myself excited about reading the next one to see what is going to happen next to her main characters.  She is a really good writer.  As she matures I see her writing more and more and getting the public’s attention.  Her book is geared toward middle school aged children, but she used some big words I had to look up.

Another snow is expected this weekend.  Feed the birds.  They can’t find food under the snow.  I have the fattest birds and squirrels around because they are always feasting.  The squirrels just look at me when I go out to fill the feeder and just keep on munching.  I guess by now they know I don’t eat squirrel.

Here’s to sewing, quilting, knitting, reading and never being bored.  Bye.