Monthly Archives: February 2018

I’m Going to Get Political Here

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.

In Sickness and In Health and Traps Aren’t Made For Animals

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.

Happy Valentine’s Day or How Being Sick for Three Days Really messed up the Amour

It’s Valentine’s Day. The day for lovers. The day you send special greetings to the one you love. Flower and candy companies make a killing.

David and I have been sick since Sunday.   The full blown flu with body aches chills, temperatures, coughing a lung out and just general malaise.   I’m not sure where we picked it up. At the doctor’s office or at church or at a restaurant where a little girl in the booth beside us was coughing so hard I thought she would hurt herself.  Wherever we got it, we got it good. I spent two full days in bed trying to stay warm with the heated matress  pad set on high, a heating pad at my feet and three blankets covering me. David actually took a day off work, something he NEVER does no matter how he feels. I didn’t think he should have gone back today. but he did.  Our daughter just called and her whole family has been down with the flu.  Our oldest son was in the hospital with high blood pressure.  Yes, we are a sickly family right now.   Today I feel halfway to normal and hopefully the worst has passed.

The really sad thing was the first day I started to feel poorly, I went out to feed and water my chickens and Shannon, my big, beautiful, white Brahma was lying dead in the yard and all the other hens were cowering in their nests three to a nest.  I knew something very traumatic had happened in the coop, but since they couldn’t tell me, I will never know.  But Shannon had been murdered that was quite evident.  I really felt so sad because she was the one who was always afraid and I hate to think what her last few seconds of life were like.   I am wondering if it was a hawk.   It doesn’t matter how many times I find a dead chicken, I always get a sick feeling in my stomach and a feeling of loss.   I still have ten hens left.

I came downstairs today to find this.

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Roses and a card. David wrote some really romantic things on the card that I won’t share here. Just know I didn’t think he could be so romantic!  It was a nice start to Valentine’s day. I decided, despite how I felt, he deserved a home cooked meal.  I haven’t cooked for a week.  I made fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, peas and cranberry sauce.   David was very happy.  He’s been living on leftovers, cold meat and frozen food for days.

I have been working on some little projects for Valentine’s decorations.

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Little felt hearts.  These were so fun to make while I watched tv.

Then I made this with them.

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A heart garland.  I have to make the other half to cover the entire fireplace mantle.

The postman brought me a treat.

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More sock yarn.  And then a few days later….

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More sock yarn. I am seriously loving this yarn. David wanted a pair of socks from it, so that is what I am doing.

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Really loving how this is knitting up.

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And look at this wonderful yarn.  I have enough new yarn for seven more pairs plus I can use the leftover yarn to make patchwork socks like I have done with these….

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Three or four different leftover balls of yarn to make these socks.  I’m loving these, too.

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And this was some self striping yarn I had to make these socks.

And a while back I wrote about some Christmas socks I wanted to make with this particular yarn.

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It wasn’t as Christmassy as I thought it would be.  Too much pink so I ordered some new yarn that does look like Christmas colors.

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I sit in my knitting chair and look before me at all the wonderful yarns to work with and I am loving it. There is my Christmas yarn on the left.   I know, we just got done with Christmas, but it is always on my mind since I do tend to make a lot of presents.

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I do a lot of online shopping and order almost all my clothes online as I don’t like to shop and am an impulse buyer. I have found I save money ordering online because I don’t buy a lot of stuff that I don’t need.  Well, I ordered this denim jacket and it is my favorite all time purchase online ever.  I put it on when it arrived, wore it all day, wore it out to the store and kept it on all evening.  It will look good with just about any top I have and it is so comfortable. Great jacket for Spring.   Plus I love all things with flowers on it.  There are flowers on the front and back of this jacket.  I wrote a great review for it at the online store.

I hope you are having a wonderful Valentine’s Day. No one buy you a Valentine? Buy yourself one.  You deserve it.   Just know I love you all that are reading this today and I really think about you and your lives and hope with all my heart that life is treating you well. Hugs and love. Bye.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Who?

I am sitting here typing, not feeling so well. Stomach is upset.  Why? Was it because I went to the doctor today or that I just ate Mexican?

I am a terrified patient.  Weeks before my doctor’s visit, I think about it and worry about it. I have to go every six months, whether I want to or not, because I am on certain medications.   Today was my six month check-up. I had worked myself into an almost panic attack state so it’s no wonder my blood pressure goes up.

I got to the office and walked inside and noticed some things were different. For one thing they did not have the sheet to sign in on anymore. I also noticed that a new doctor had moved in next to mine.  An infectious diseases doctor. Oh, joy.   Just what I needed to be around.  The nice lady at the desk told me they were going completely computer. All the files were gone and her office looked almost bare.  It was like I was a new patient and had to tell them my life’s history once again so they could put it into their new system.   She asked for my social security number and I asked for a piece of paper to write it down because I did not want a waiting room full of people to hear my SS number.  She obliged and I wrote it down and she laid the paper down and for all I know it sat there all day for anyone who came to her window to see and read my SS numbers!  I told the doctor about it when I saw him and he said, “I don’t let anyone have my SS number.” And I said, “Well, why do you need mine, then?”   I really like my doctor, don’t get me wrong.  We have this back and forth that probably sounds like two old married people arguing, but I know he listens and he has made me well many times in the past decades.

So then, when I was called back into the room to see the doctor, once again the computer.  They had to put all my meds into their new system again.  I think the girl who was doing it was a trainee as there was another girl just standing there watching her.   She took my temperature and blood pressure and felt my pulse, which by then I thought was beating very rapidly. “Sixty beats!” She said, which I think is normal for a woman.   After I saw the doctor, I had to have blood work done and the girl who came in was getting things prepared and she asked me if I was afraid of needles.  I told her, “No, I have had so many needles stuck in me through the years, they don’t bother me any longer.”   Years ago when people had to get multiple polio shots, I remember being terrified of the needle. It didn’t help that my sister teased me, telling me the needle was about a foot long and the shot was very painful!

So, the girl taking my blood said and I quote,  “I am terrified of needles.”  I was slightly alarmed and said, “And you are taking blood with a needle?”  She just laughed and said she was only afraid of the needles that were being stuck into her.    She did an excellent job. I didn’t even feel anything.

Finally I got to leave and I checked out and got my date with the doctor in six months. The girl who filled out the appointment card did it very carefully, coughed on it and handed it to me.  What in the world.    I washed my hands when  got home.

Tonight we went out to eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant and I ordered a beef burrito with refried beans and rice.  When it was brought out it was on three separate, loaded plates and I guess my eyes looked surprised. The waiter was a jokester and started to put David’s plate in front of me, too.  We all laughed. Ahem.  I started feeling sick after a few bites and brought most of it home with me.

It’s been a wonderful, Spring like day.  I noticed some flowers are coming up on the south side of my workshop.    I worked all afternoon going through my library in preparation to move the bookcase in my shop so I can do more painting..  So many wonderful books.  I will write about them soon.

Here’s to good doctors and the patients that keep them in business.  Bye.

Some Things Are Too Sad

I had a whole other post I was going to write, but this week has been up and down, mostly down and there are just some things too painful to write about.  Another church friend’s husband   passed away this week and I helped with the funeral dinner.  He was such a nice man. Talked to another friend, who was helping with the dinner, who had lost her husband just weeks ago.  The pain these women have had to endure is more than I can imagine.

But it got worse when some friends from church lost their son in a tragic car accident.  I can’t talk about it.  I taught that boy in Sunday School and his parents are two of the nicest people.  I will leave it there and will keep them tightly in my prayers.   We never know when we will have the last conversation with someone we love or will see them again on this side.   Too often I forget that and when something like this happens, I think long and hard about how I treat people.   I never want my last words to be mean and hateful.  I was taught that lesson in a very hard way years ago when I was a young girl.

Now I loved my daddy and still do, but when I was growing up I could be rather sassy.   Daddy said something to me or made me angry about something one day and I told him I hated him. The very next day he almost died.  He was overcome with exhaust from his little Ford tractor and collapsed in the barnyard.  At that time it was very difficult to get an ambulance out in the country. It was a long distance call and my mother and her friend, who lived down the road, tried and tried to get an ambulance to come.  Meanwhile, my brothers and I were taking blankets out to cover my daddy and talking to him. He had bubbles coming out of his mouth and I was sure he was dead.  Finally, the ambulance came and took Daddy to the hospital and he got better, but I have always remembered that and that my last words were ones of anger.  It’s a horrible thing to think the very last words a loved one might hear from you are ones that hurt them.  So, I try to never leave someone with anger. I’m not saying it hasn’t happened, but I always pray afterward that they will forgive me and that God will keep them safe.   I never told my daddy I hated him ever again. In fact, my very last words to him before he passed away were, “I love you, Daddy.”  So glad I have that memory.

There have been other things going on.   I try to keep busy to keep my mind off sad things all th time.  I have been working in my shop trying to get it painted.

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I wish all my shop looked as freshly painted and organized as this part from the wall to the end of the grey paint. Unfortunately,……………

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This is how the rest of it looks. So much stuff.  As I was trying to walk around my shop I was thinking it was like one of those hoarder’s houses they show on tv where you have to climb over and around stuff to get to anything.  It will NOT look like this when I am done.  I have to move all this to one side to paint and then will have to move it all again to another side and then try to get it all put on shelves or get rid of some things.   That rooster picture is going in the hens’ house.  They will appreciate it more than I do.  The little brown cabinet under the cutting table holds my mother’s sewing machine. The very one I learned to sew upon many years ago. It still sews wonderfully.  If I could get to it.  I expect it is going to take me weeks, if not months to get the shop the way I want it to be.  And that cutting table is going because David is going to make me one about twice as wide so I can pin King-size quilts on it.

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The Grandboys were here to celebrate David’s birthday.  They had learned to play the game, Spoons.  I played it many years ago and had forgotten how, but soon learned and we had fun playing it.  I’m glad I have grandchildren who still like to play games.

The people where David works got him some things for his birthday. Now David is a sugarholic and absolutely loves milk chocolate covered cherries.  Here’s what he got at work.

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Five boxes of chocolate covered cherries, four boxes of Junior Mints, which he loves, too, and three bags of Dove cherry candy.   I had also given him several boxes of chocolate covered cherries because I didn’t know he was getting all this.

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A man and his riches   We laughed about this and the card was about texting since they know David and I don’t text.  I think he was a happy man.

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Valentine’s Day will soon be here and if I can get it in gear, I plan to send out some cards. I haven’t sent Christmas cards in years, but for some reason, I really like sending Valentine’s Day cards.  People don’t expect them.

Here’s a book I just finished.  I really like this author and she has written several books so I have a few more to read.

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I am reading “A Week in Winter” by her right now, plus I have a murder mystery on my Kindle I am reading.  I never want to be without a book to read.   We are studying Revelation from the Bible also, so my mind is going all different ways.

Hope your days have been going well. Hug your loved ones or give them a call.  Bye.