The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

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It is, you know.  The most wonderful time of the year.  The season of giving and peace and love.  Oh,  you look around the world and see all the evil that is going on, but what you don’t see very often because it doesn’t make a good news story, is the good that is going on.  The nurse in the hospital who gives a lonely patient a little extra time and patience, the boy on your street who helps his elderly neighbor clear the snow off her walk,  the man who pays the tab for a soldier eating at the next table in a restaurant,  a teen-ager who calls his grandma and asks about her day.  There is a lot of bad, but if you look, you will see the good also.  There will always be sin in this world.  Jesus said there would be wars and rumors of wars.

We can all make this world a little bit better.  It’s the small things that count.  A smile, patience for that slow driver in front of you, a kind word, a pat on the back, a hug.  What if everyone decided that they were not going to be the problem, but the answer?  That we would all decide we would get along with our neighbor, that we would look on the bright side of things for a change, that your life really isn’t so bad if you can get up in the morning and do something for others.  It’s time to stop being so self-centered.  To stop wondering when things are going to get better.  You can make them better.

I decided quite a long time ago that I was not going to look at the glass half empty.  My glass is always half full.  If I don’t feel well one day I think I am no better than anyone else and cannot escape the trials of man and accept it.  I have lived through tragedies, sadness, pain, separation, and most of the other human ills.  We all must face these things at some time in our lives.  It is how you face them that counts.  I know people who have the most awful diseases who wear a smile on their faces in their adversity.  There is one thing they have.  They have Jesus in their heart.  It makes a difference, you know.  At this season rest in the knowledge that God loved us all enough that He came down to earth as a tiny baby and lived among us for a time.  He died a wretched death on the cross and took every one of our sins upon Himself.  He died but He arose the third day and now lives in heaven.  One day He will come back for those who believe in Him.  I believe.  He makes my life complete.

I love Christmas because I can give presents to friends and family.  I love making gifts and this year I went all out.  I can’t show most of what I have made, but I have already given some things away so those I will show.

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I made felt ice skates for the children in my Sunday school class and filled them with candy and little toys and stickers.

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I have a friend who loves cats so I made her this little ornament out of felt.

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The lady I help in Sunday school got this because I told her she was an angel.

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Another friend keeps bees so, voila!  When I found this pattern I immediately thought of her.

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I was on a roll and made another ornament.  I may make more before I’m done.  I love working with felt.

I’ve been knitting up a storm too.

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Hats and scarves for the children in my Sunday school class.

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A year or so ago, a nice lady from my church gave me a big bagful of quilt blocks, embroidery floss, a whole quilt that she had cross stitched and several other goodies.  She said she gave it to me because she knew I would get some good out of it since I love to quilt.  There were enough of these school house blocks to make a full size quilt  So, I did.  I asked her who had made the blocks and she told me her grandmother.  I knew I could not keep this quilt for myself.  It belonged in her family so this Sunday I gave it to her.  It made me so happy to see her smile.  The quilt was probably started in the 1950’s and now sixty some years later it is finished and the family can enjoy it for years to come.

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I think my brothers had pajamas made from material like this back in the day.

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There were plaid blocks.

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One block was made with a satin or crepe de chine.  Is that spelled right?

Yes, I have been a busy beaver.  And I have enjoyed every bit of the making.

In other news.  Molly Marshmallow continues to grow and grow.

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Doesn’t she look adorable here?  Wellllllll.  This dog loves wood.  She chews on wood every chance she gets.  She has chewed on our house, around the windows, the wooden deck benches.  She goes out in the yard and drags up pieces of wood and chips them like a beaver all over our back deck.  She climbs on top of the woodpile, I don’t know why.  Maybe she is planning on working her way down it.  Anyway, today I took hot sauce and a brush and painted it all over the back of our house.  Molly immediately started licking it up.  Finally she decided maybe it wasn’t so good.  I am going to hot sauce everything I don’t want her to chew.  She loves chewing the heels of my shoes as I walk so on will go the hot sauce.  I hope I have found the remedy to her constant chewing.  It’s not like she doesn’t get toys and rawhide bones to chew.  I just hope she outgrows this affinity for wood and me.  I still love her, though and get a lot of laughs from her antics.  If you walk by me and I smell like hot sauce, you will know why.

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I look at this face and I cannot stay angry with her.  She is a puppy and chewing is what puppies do.

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My Santa rests on the couch before the big day.  He’s been asked at the store for stickers and other toys.  Little children think he’s the real thing.

A big package came to our front door the other day.  David and I had gone to a Christmas party and when we came home there was this box sitting on our front porch.

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It was for me!!!!!!

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Do not open until Christmas.  Oh, no!  I feel like a kid again waiting for the big day.

I knew it had to be from someone I knew who knew I liked chickens because this was on the package……

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A rooster made out of what looks like an old quilt.  Interesting.  Hmmmmmmm.  Well, I guess I will just have to wait until Christmas until I can open it.

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Couldn’t let Christmas go by without dressing up one of the hens for the season. This is Ada and she’s the only one who will allow me to pick her up now.  She got a little squirrely toward the end of the photo shoot and finally flew out of my arms, but David got a good picture of her.

 

Must go.  Just four more days.  Hope you are ready.  It will come whether you are ready or not.  See you on the other side.  Merry Christmas.  Bye.

 

 

 

 

I’m Here

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Oh, I just want to have some time to upload some pictures and get some things written down here.  I have been sewing my fingers to the nubbins and baking and decorating and taking the dogs walks and trying to throw some feed and water at the chooks as I pass by.  My hens haven’t had a lot of my time lately.  When I go out in their yard they all surround me and you should hear the clucking, tsking, and garbled talking.  I actually thought I heard a word come out of one of their beaks the other day.  I looked at her and said, “Penninah, what did you say?” and she just kept clucking up a storm.  I heard a bird last summer as it was swooping down and I felt like I was Snow White and the bird said something to me. It was really weird.  I am sure you are thinking I am weird, but I know what I heard.

Anyway, I cannot believe Christmas is just four days away.  Is it earlier this year?  Seems there was no time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I want to grasp the meaning of the season and keep it close for a while.  I watched the Mormon Tabernacle choir’s Christmas special the other day and it was amazing and really was filled with the true Christmas spirit.   On the same channel there was a story about Handel and how he came to write the Messiah.  I have never heard the entire thing.  I have sung in a choir that sang the Halleluhah chorus and have heard it many times, but there is so much more to Handel’s Messiah.  It is the story of the Christ and why he came to earth and died for us all.   Handel gave proceeds from some of his concerts to pay the debts of those in debtor’s prison.   He paid the debts he did not owe for them who owed and could not pay.  Sounds exactly like what Jesus  did for us on the cross.  He paid our sin debt so that when we die, we won’t have to pay it.  We all have sinned.  Not one of us gets out of this life without sinning.  A tiny babe comes into the world wanting only what it wants.  Unless it is shown the proper path, it will continue a lifetime of sin because of its sinful nature.  That is how we all are born.  But Jesus paid our sin debt.  That is why we sing Halleluhah to Him.

Speaking of animals and birds talking, when I was a little girl I heard a story about how the animals talk at midnight on Christmas Eve.  I always wanted to go out to the barn and hear if our cows, pigs or dogs were talking to one another.  What if I go out to the chicken coop this Christmas Eve and peek in on the girls and maybe I will hear a conversation that is going on like this….” Well, did you see the egg Ada laid today.  What a show off.  She thinks she’s better than all the rest of us because her eggs are larger than ours.”  Another hen will answer, “Now, Jemimah, it’s Christmas and we should love one another and just try harder to lay bigger eggs ourselves.”  In which Abigail will pitch in, ” Would you ladies please stop your talking?  I’m trying to roost over here.”  Phoebe will laugh and say, “Hey, it’s the only night of the year we can speak.  Too bad there isn’t any humans out here to hear us.”  I will be giggling softly to myself as I listen to them, thinking I need to teach them some grammar.  Then suddenly Freedom, being the watcher and protector of them all screeches, “Zip your beaks, ladies, we have company!” and suddenly  all becomes quiet in the chicken coop.  Anyway, that is what I imagine I would hear. Then I would walk back to the house and suddenly my dogs would start singing Christmas carols to me.  Now that would be a fun Christmas Eve!

My next post will have pictures and I still have that story about Christmas when I was a little girl.  Hope you are getting things wrapped and baked and visiting with family and friends, but  save a little time to give to the babe who was born two thousand years ago just for us.  Bye.

Down Memory Lane

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While decorating the Christmas tree I always get nostalgic remembering Christmases past.  David and I have shared so many together with children and without children.  It was so much fun having children to get us up early Christmas morning and watching them racing down the stairs to open the presents that Santa had left.  It’s not quite the same with two “old” people who get up later and creak down the stairs and make coffee and eat something before we open our presents to each other, but I would not want to change anything for the world.  Christmas has always been special to me.  I love the carols, the church services that celebrate Jesus’ birth, the Sunday school parties where grownups act like kids sometimes.  I love that we celebrate Christ’s birth even though we are probably a few months off on when He was born.

Hanging each ornament on the tree reminds me of a past Christmas.

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Santa on a stork.  David’s grandmother gave this to us when we were expecting our first child, our older son.   The son who did the 5K with me on Thanksgiving day.  I have kept it and put it on the tree every year since.

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This little snowman candle looks its age.  It use to hang on my grandfather’s tree.  One year Daddy, my brothers and I went back in the woods behind my grandfather’s house and cut down a tree and brought it back to decorate.  I don’t remember my grandparents having a Christmas tree very often, but I remember this one particular year.  The ornaments were few, but I loved them and when both my grandparents had passed away, I was fortunate enough to get their ornaments.  I have two of these snowmen.  They are probably seventy or so years old.  I love them.

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A friend traveled to Europe and brought back this cute little wooden doll.  Pull a string and her legs go up.

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Our grandchildren made both of us an ornament one year.  We found one broken this year which made me sad, but we still have this one.

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McDonald’s gave these away in Happy Meals one year.  I kept this one and put it on the tree.  A Christmas mouse.

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We made a trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania one year and I bought some tree ornaments.  It was the vacation when, as we were driving there, our younger son sat up and said, “I think I left the freezer door open.”  We had this big freezer that had a door that was hard to shut and I was always reminding the kids to shut it tight.  I guess it had been ingrained in our son’s head and he thought he had left it open and panicked.  David and I just looked at each other and said, “Well, it’s too late now.  If all the food is defrosted there is nothing we can do about it.”  I actually even forgot about it the rest of the trip and when we got home, the freezer door was closed tightly and all the food was fine.  But it makes for a funny memory.

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Things our children made at school always get put on the tree.

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A few years ago we went to the Virgin Islands and I bought this wonderful sailboat with Christmas lights strung on the sail.

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Through the years I have made ornaments.  This is suppose to be a reindeer with twig antlers.

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A tiny manger scene I have had for years.

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One year my daughter and I decided we didn’t like all the “old” ornaments so we went to Target and bought all new balls and decorations for the tree.  David did not like that tree so he put up another one with all the old ornaments on it.  Now I very seldom use the new ornaments we bought although I do love these particular ones.

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I love our tree.  We considered not putting it up this year as we had put a tree on the new porch, but it just didn’t seem right not to have a tree in the house so while I took a three mile walk last Sunday with Belle and Molly Marshmallow which became a drag me three miles walk, David put the tree together(yes, it’s a fake tree)  and we decorated it and I am so glad we did.  It sits in my girly room where I can see it while I work on Christmas projects.

Christmas memories are wonderful.  Sometimes they make you laugh, sometimes they make you miss someone, and sometimes they just make you happy.  Hope you have more happy memories than sad ones this Christmas.  Bye.

Dusting Out the Cobwebs and Christmas Thoughts

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Whew, is the time going as fast for you as it is for me?   My blog has a few cobwebs from being neglected for several days.  I have stories to tell and pictures to show, but I have been extremely busy or at least it seems like the days are going by so fast that I think I must have been busy.   While we were getting the tree set up today, David and I were commenting on how it just seemed like we had put it away.  The years are starting to run together now and time is speeding up.  I don’t know if God is winding the world down and getting ready to send His Son, but it seems something is happening.

I have noticed a strange, but lovely glow lately.  I got up the other morning and rays of light were streaming in the upstairs windows.  Not your ordinary streams of light.  Very different.  I went downstairs and the same thing was happening there.  I just stared at it and thought to myself, God is getting ready for something.

As we prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth I have a fear that there are too many who don’t believe Jesus is God’s Son and that He was sent here specifically to die for all mankind as a human sacrifice for all our sins.  He really lived on earth and talked about His Father in heaven and taught us how we should love one another.  But, did you know Jesus talked about hell more than he talked about heaven?  He does not want one person to go there, but sadly, many will.  And it won’t be anyone’s fault but their own.  God does not send anyone to hell, they send themselves.  I know this is deep stuff for the Christmas season, but it makes me think of why Jesus came to earth as a tiny baby in a manger over two thousand years ago and though after He became an adult, He only preached and taught for three years,  He made such a huge impact on the world that He is still touching people’s lives today.  No man who has lived before or since has made such a difference to the world.

As we prepare to celebrate His birth, put aside the presents, the tree, the lights, the sometimes goofy Christmas movies and think about this man whose life has touched us all in some way.  He even touches atheists lives because they spend so much of their time denying Him and trying to get Him out of the public arena.  Funny that.  To try to get a man’s name removed that they don’t even believe in.  Jesus did live on earth.  Many witnesses attested to that fact.  Many saw His cruel death on the cross and then the empty tomb.  No one ever saw His grave because you know what?  There isn’t any.  He rose from the dead and now sits at the right hand of his Father in heaven.  One day, and it could be very soon or it could be a thousand years from now,(since a day is like a thousand years to God)  He will return and take those of us who believe in Him to Heaven to live with Him forever.  Because of God’s timing, Jesus has only been back in Heaven for two days so it may be a few more of His days before He returns.

I am thankful God sent His only Son just for us because He loves us so much.  You, me, everybody.  I love the Christmas season just because of that.  If it weren’t for Jesus, it would be an empty holiday for me.  Some say, well, Jesus was probably born in the Springtime.  Perhaps, but December 25 is when Christians have chosen to celebrate His birth and I can accept that.  Some have made a mockery of the holiday.  Some think it’s just about presents.  But it is much more important than that. Giving gifts is fun and represents the greatest gift God gave us all.  But if next year, I did not get one gift or could not buy one gift for another, I would still celebrate Christmas for its true meaning.  Some say it’s a pagan holiday.  Perhaps at one time it was.  Some still treat it as such, but for Christians around the world it is a holy day.  One to remember the greatest gift of all.

I will soon be sharing a Christmas story from when I was a girl in the fifties.  Christmas has always been special to me and always will be.  A light shines at this time of year that doesn’t shine at other times.  Enjoy it for what it is.  A special time for family and friends.  A time to remember loved ones with whom you shared Christmases past.  A time of joy for those who truly believe.  Peace, love, joy and Merry Christmas.  Bye.

 

Talking Turkey

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Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  Ours was very nice.  It started out early with a 5K walk put on for a senior project by one of the high school students in our town.  It was a cold, but beautiful morning.  The runners and walkers met in one of the parks we have here.

DSCN9844   The park has a covered bridge.  The original bridge that was here was set on fire several years ago by vandals and the city had to find one to replace it.  I like the new bridge even better.  It looked so pretty in its Fall setting.

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The river was running swiftly that morning.  This river floods the park about every year or so.

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I went here to get my number and my shirt.  Registration included bringing at least five cans of food for Love Chapel, an organization that helps needy people. They gathered over four thousand cans of food that day.  How great is that?

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I am beginning to get a collection of 5K shirts.  I hope I can walk in a few more next year.

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Our son arrived from Cincinnati with a friend and her son.  My son was not a happy camper about the run.  But because he’s the one who talked me into doing it, he was compelled to run it.  Yes, he would run it.    I would walk it.  I don’t run if I don’t have to.

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There were around four hundred people participating in all ages and sizes and clothing choices.

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Shawna and her son walked with me.  We were bundled up against the cold.  I think I had about four layers on, but my legs still got cold.

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Some people really got into the theme of the race by dressing the part.  This man looked like he was riding a turkey.

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There were several different turkey hats.

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Even cooked turkey hats!

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Here we are completing the walk.  I think we were the last ones as everyone else was running.   See that boy behind us?  He probably walked four miles as he meandered all over while we walked the trail.

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Then we went home. Dogs were played with.  We ate a huge meal.  I have not been hungry all day today.

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We played Dizzios.  I lost as usual.  I keep telling my one grandson that one day I will beat him.  He is really good at this game.

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I love these two.  They made David and me turkey pictures.  They are so cute.

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When I looked around our table, I knew exactly what I was thankful for.  Family and friends.  What would the world be like without them?   And love.  That’s what it’s all about.  Bye.

 

Excitement at the Coop and a Frazzled Hen

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If you have read my blog for very long, you know I have chickens.   I love my chickens.  Their names are Dorcas,  Beatrice, Phoebe, Freedom, Penninah, Jemima, Abigail and Ada.  I take very good care of my girls.  They are a little spoiled.  If I open the back door, they come running to the garden gate to wait for their treats.  Treats being leftover salad, pumpkins, sunflower seeds, bread(they go wacko over bread),  or anything leftover from meals that the dogs won’t eat.

I check them once or twice a day to be sure they have water and feed in the feeder.  Every night David goes on chicken patrol to be sure all the hens are on their roost.  They are usually in their house before the sun is completely set.  But tonight, one of them was missing.  Abigail, the Silver Laced Wyndotte.  The most beautiful chicken I have.  Where was she?

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David took a flashlight and began looking for her.  In every tree, over the neighbor’s fence(if she had escaped the yard we might never find her), all over the yard.  I put on a coat and got a flashlight and began to look too.  I looked behind and under and on top of everything in the yard and garden.  I rechecked the chicken coop to be sure we hadn’t missed her.  I couldn’t believe how awful I felt that Abigail might be lost to us forever.  This makes me think of a story in the Bible about Jesus looking for the lost sheep.  That lost sheep was so important to Him he left the others to go and find it.  That is what I was doing with that lost chicken.   Then, I said a little prayer.  I said, “Dear God, please help us find Abigail.   She won’t survive the night outdoors.”   Then I looked some more and then I looked behind a piece of lumber in the chicken coop and there she was.  She had flown between the shed and the fence and gotten wedged in and couldn’t get out.  Her wing was caught in the fencing.  She must have been there for quite a while and put up quite a struggle because she looked frazzled and almost dead.  In fact, I thought she was dead for a second.  My heart dropped. Then David touched her and she clucked.  He had to pull her out and if a chicken could scream, she sounded like it.  She was tramatized I could tell.

David placed her on the roost in the coop.  She was breathing so hard and was all fluffed up and her head hung down.  Poor girl.  Chickens have a way of beating another chicken when it’s down and Freedom hopped up on the roost and started picking on Abigail.  I brushed her off the roost and told her she better leave Abigail alone.

This is the first time I thought I had lost one of my hens and I realized I am entirely too attached to them.  My dad never mourned a dead chicken.  If one got eaten by a pig he’d just say, ” The pigs got another chicken,” and take a big bite out of the chicken leg he was eating.   If he found one dead in the chicken yard he would throw it over the fence to the pigs.

Speaking of chickens, I have been cooking one all day to make broth to make chicken and dumplings for Thanksgiving.  I didn’t know this particular chicken so I don’t feel bad about eating it.

Hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving and give thanks to the One who provides all we need.  Bye.

 

Requiem for a Maple Tree Part 2

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It finally happened.  They came and cut the big maple down this week.   When I got the phone call they were coming, I almost felt like I had heard of someone’s death and that night all I could think about was that the next day the big maple would be gone.

We have lived under the shade of the big maple for decades.  In the Summer when it would be hot outside, the big maple would shade the north side of the house and make the house a little cooler.   In the Autumn, the big maple would drop its leaves and allow the sun to shine on our house to give a little warmth.

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I took a final picture of the tree.   It looked so beautiful against the blue sky.

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My last view of the tree through our kitchen window.

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Then it began.  The saw began its cutting of the smaller branches first.

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Each branch was carefully lowered down with a rope.

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One by one the branches came down.

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The smaller branches were put into this industrial strength chipper shredder.  Wow,  I wish I had one one these.  David does not think it would be a good idea for me to have this for a playtoy.

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Then the big branches were cut.

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The big maple was a mere skeleton of itself.

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Finally it was down to the large logs.

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Logs too big to lift.  These will have to be split.

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I’m not sure what this tool is called, but it was used to move the large logs.  These logs are still beside our house.  David has his work cut out for him.  The men asked me if we had a log splitter and I said,  “Yes, my husband.”

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We ended up with a lot of fire wood.

Now the yard is bare on the north side of our house.  Next Spring I plan to plant a whole new perennial garden with lots of fall color.  Sumac, Japanese maples that come in all shades of reds, oranges and yellows, hydrangeas, maybe a fir or two.  Color will return to the yard by next Autumn.  And I won’t have to mow there any longer.

I will leave you with a poem I found online about cutting down a tree.  It’s kind of how I feel.

Tree I was

That shed its leaves

In winter to let

Sunshine enter

 Your home

 To brighten life.

Tree I was

That grew leaves

To provide shade

In hot Summer

 To cool your home

 Providing comfort.

 Tree I was

Where birds made

 Nests and lived

And you said

 How lovely it is

This lovely tree.

Yet you forgot all

 And didn’t hesitate

 To cut me and slice

For the timber needed

 To build your

Vacation home.

 Tree I was

That lived a while

Tree I was

Tree no more.

Tirupathi Chandrupatia (2014)

   Except for cutting down the tree for a vacation home, that’s my sentiments exactly.  Here’s to beautiful trees.  May there be more of them.  Bye.

Eating is Elementary

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Today David and I drove over to Bloomington to our grandsons’ school to eat lunch with them.  One is a kindergartner and the other is a first grader.

We stopped at McDonald’s and bought the first Happy Meal with Gogurt and chocolate milk and headed to the school.  After signing in and finding the cafeteria, we sat down and waited for the first grandson to come in.  Suddenly here came little children talking and laughing with some carrying their lunch boxes.  One little boy noticed the Happy Meal and proceeded to tell us he had the toy that was on the outside of the box.  Evidently he thought we really ought to know it because he came back and told us again that he had that toy.

Finally our grandson came in and sat with us.  His friends sat all around.  His little friends were very friendly and talkative and so cute.  Foster talked about going to Book Fair today where the children could buy their own books.  We spent thirty minutes with him and then they all had to pack up and follow their teacher out.  So with a big hug and kiss we said good-bye.  Then David had to make a dash to McDonald’s again to get our second grandson his Happy Meal with Gogurt and chocolate milk while I sat waiting for Tristan.  Suddenly, a little boy came up to me and said, “You have my seat.”  I looked at him and our empty table and he said again, “I have to sit where you are sitting.”   The woman who was working came over and said she forgot that I was sitting in this boy’s assigned seat.  I guess he had gotten in trouble some time and had been told exactly where to sit.  Well, I just moved then.  I found out later his name was Mao-Mao.  Another little boy quietly walked over until he was across from me,  coughed on me and then quietly went back to his seat.  I don’t know what that was all about, but I do seem to attract children with colds who like to sneeze and cough on me.  In Sunday school I have had children sneeze directly into my face.  I tell David that day don’t be surprised if I get sick.

I watched the cafeteria workers while I waited.  There was one woman and one man who were in charge of cleaning the tables and floor before the next groups came in.  I was fascinated how quickly and efficiently they worked.   The woman washed down all the tables and seats with the man coming behind with a sweeper cleaning up under the tables.  The tables could be raised in the middle to be easily cleaned under.  I told them I was impressed.  By the time the next groups came in, the cafeteria looked like no one had eaten there.

David got back with the Happy Meal with Gogurt and chocolate milk just as Tristan’s class was coming in from the playground.   The children all smelled like the outdoors. Like sunshine and fresh air.  They all had worked up appetites.  David had gotten an extra Happy Meal because I wanted a plain hamburger so  I gave my Gogurt  and toy to Tristan.  He gobbled everything up lickety split.  His friends were very friendly.   One little boy came up to me and pointed to my grandson and said, “He doesn’t like me.”  I turned to Tristan and said, “You like him, don’t you?’ and he said, “yes.”  I then looked at the little boy and told him we liked everybody.  That seemed to satisfy him and he kept coming up to me to talk.

It was a fun time watching the children interact and being with our grandsons.

After we left, we went to the daycare where our daughter teaches.  She has a nice little class of four year olds and they were eating their lunches.  Afterward, they all had their very own cots on which they were to nap or lay quietly and look at books.  We left so they could take their naps.

We headed to the orchard and got some apples, some frozen rhubarb for pies and apple cider.

When we got home we started moving the wood from the old maple tree that was cut down yesterday.  I will write about it my next blog. Our big, beautiful maple tree is no more.  We have several ricks of wood.  Much of it has to be split before we can even move it.  I love being outdoors loading firewood.  We built a campfire,  after we were finished stacking wood for the time being, and we sat beside it and rested after a very busy day.

Eat at an elementary school one day.  It’s a fun experience.  Bye.

Impossible

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Once upon a time a little baby girl was born.  She was simply the most beautiful baby girl in all the world with dark hair and bright blue eyes.  She was the apple of her mother and daddy’s eyes and her grandparents thought the world of her.

Then one day, or at least it seemed like a day, the little baby grew up.  She became a beautiful teen-ager.  Every time her grandparents would see her it seemed she had grown taller.  It seemed impossible that the little baby was now this young woman.

Now the girl sings, dances, write books and gets good grades in school.  This week she performed in Rogers’ and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.

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David and I attended the musical Friday night.  It was amazing.

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Our granddaughter was one of the townspeople in the musical.   Isn’t she lovely?

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One of her friends did her hair for the show.

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There were lots of curls in the back.  So pretty.

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She sang.

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She stared at the handsome prince.

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She danced with him.

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The clock struck twelve and the ball was over for Cinderella.

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But we all know how it ended.  Cinderella ended up with her handsome prince.

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Then it was time to take a bow.  I was so proud of our granddaughter.

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The cast was amazing.  I can seriously say I have seen professional musicals that weren’t as good as this one was.  The only glitch that night was that the king’s microphone batteries died, but it was taken care of and became part of the act.

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Afterward I had to get a picture with the “star” of the show.  When did she become taller than me?

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Her brothers were there.  I wouldn’t be surprised if one day they are in a play or musical.

It was a grand night.  It’s possible that a tiny baby can grow up to be a beautiful young lady.  Impossible things are happening every day!   Bye.

Weight

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I have never been what you would call skinny, although when I look at younger pictures of myself, I look pretty slim for me. I have even had friends tell me I was tiny, although I think that is an exaggeration. Funny, though, even then I always felt fat.  We women do that to ourselves, don’t we?

I have done so many diets through the years.  I tried the Adkins diet until I almost destroyed my kidneys and my doctor ordered me to get off it.  I did lose inches on that diet, but the thing about it is, you gain the weight back and sometimes even more.  It is not a healthy diet.

When I lived in Richmond years ago, a friend and I took a weight loss  class at the YMCA once a week for a time.  We got recipes that included cauliflower pudding?!  That was awful.  There were some tuna recipes that weren’t too bad.  Neither of us lost any weight.

When we moved down here I took an exercise class and learned to run.  I did not like running and still don’t.  I did finally run a mile, but that is as far as I have ever run.  I don’t run anymore.

I gained weight with each baby and it became harder and harder to take it off.  Besides that, I love to eat and have a hearty appetite.  My mother was such a good cook that I always had good food to eat while growing up.  I was very active and spent most of my time outdoors playing so I stayed pretty slim.

Then I married and had to cook for a family and was always in the kitchen with food.  I cooked like my mother.  Foods that were high calorie and high in fat.  Not good for someone who puts on weight easily.  But I stayed relatively slim until I hit the big “M.”

I joined an exercise club that David had given to me as a gift for Christmas because I had asked for it.  David has never said anything about my weight.  He loves me thick or thin as I love him.  He’s had his issues with weight also.  I will have to tell you some time about the time when he was in the National Guard and he went away on his two week training sort of chunky and came back looking very thin and I thought something was the matter with him.  He had just decided to lose weight and cut down on eating while in the woods and the weight dropped off.  That’s what happens when men diet.  It’s so easy for them, it seems.

Anyway, I went to that exercise place for weeks and exercised like mad and guess what?   I lost not one pound and only three quarters of an inch on my waist.  I quit.  From that day I decided I was not going to be a slave of the scale any longer.  I have not weighed myself since that day and when I get weighed at the doctor’s office, I don’t look and tell the nurse not to tell me my weight because I don’t really care.  You don’t know how freeing it is when you aren’t thinking about food all the time and you aren’t fretting over that pound or two you gained.  I never worry about my weight any more.  It’s been decades and I still don’t have a clue how much I weigh.  Honest.  Cross my heart.

 

Weight came on and didn’t go off.  Then, something happened to my metabolism a couple of years ago and I started to lose weight for no reason at all.  I wasn’t sick, I just didn’t feel like eating much and I lost pant sizes it seemed overnight.  When I went to my regular doctor’s visit, he told me I had lost eighty pounds.  Eighty pounds!!!!!!!!  That’s a whole kid.  He asked me how I did it and I really couldn’t tell him. I still didn’t ask him how much I weighed.  I had begun the 10,000  steps a day walk routine and I believe that is how it happened. That is all I could think of.

I began to have people ask me how I lost weight and I couldn’t tell them.  It was really weird.  I had people commenting to me about how little I was.  For some strange reason that made me a little disturbed.  I didn’t like the attention.  I was still the same person.  I didn’t even care that much that I had lost weight other than I got to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe.

I walked daily and kept the weight off.  Then I pulled a muscle in my leg and could barely walk a mile.  I got lazy then and didn’t walk as much as I had been.  I had been walking five miles a day several times a week.  Now I have had to work up to three miles a day again because I am getting ready to walk a 5K on Thanksgiving Day.  I have walked two 5Ks this year.

I gained some of the weight back although not as much as I was and now I eat only two meals a day.  Breakfast and one when David gets home.  I hope when I go back to the doctor in March that he will say I have lost weight again.  I won’t weigh myself every day though.  I will never do that.

My downfall is that I like sweets.  David and I are both sweetaholics.  I could just eat sweets every day and be happy, but that wouldn’t be healthy, would it?  So I try to eat a salad every single day and lots of vegetable.

Do you struggle with weight?  Don’t allow it to become your whole world.  There is so much to enjoy in this world besides worrying about how other people think of us.  I have learned that the people who like me like me for myself not because I weigh a certain weight.  I can honestly say, I never look at a person and thought, wow, they are overweight.    In fact, I generally don’t even see if someone is overweight if they are a friend of mine.   Life is way too short to judge people by their weight.  A good heart can be enveloped in some fat and that’s okay with me.

My daddy was thin all his life and he still died of heart disease.  I think it’s hereditary, but so far, I have a really healthy heart.  I took a stress test years ago and passed it with flying colors.

What I am trying to say in this long commentary is that weight is not all that important in the scheme of things.  If you are grossly overweight, it might be good for you to lose some pounds for your health, but I see too many women worrying about a pound or two they have gained.  There are whole industries playing on women’s insecurities.  I refuse to play their game.

If you disagree with me, that’s okay too.  That’s what makes us all different.

Now I think I will go eat a piece of that pineapple upside down biscuit I made the other day.  Bye.