Thankful

We, were told by a priest that when you pray, you should always start off by being thankful for all you have before you start praying for what you want or need. We have been doing this and it is amazing when you start thinking of all the things you are thankful for, just how many things there are. We both had a very bad year in 2007, she with cancer detected in December 2006 and me with surgery and a long stay in rehab from July 27th, 2007 until December 23rd, 2007. We are so thankful we are both doing so much better. We owe it all to God and all the people that prayed for us, even those we have never met, through our recovery process. My wife has been Cancer free for over a year now and although I am not completely healed up, I am stronger and feel better than I was when I went in for surgery. We are also so thankful for our children, their families and our grand children, all 13 of them. We are also thankful for us being able to live in our home and take care of most things we need done. For those things we are not able to take care of we are thankful for having friends and family that are willing to help out. For the bigger jobs we are thankful that we are able to hire those things done. We are thankful for being together for 25 years this August 13th and plan on at least another 25. We are thankful for each wonderful day, with or without rain, and if it does rain we are even more thankful. We are also thankful for being able to get around without too much help and do our shopping and driving where we need to go. We are very thankful for good friends and the fun times we have together with them. I am very thankful that I have a sister that I can talk to as often as I want, even though she lives far off. My wife is thankful for her 9 siblings and the fact they live close, for the most part, and she is able to keep in touch.

Waiting

It seems as if we spend way to much time waiting, we wait on the phone to ring, on the rain to start/stop, for the mail to arrive, on the dog to do his duty and come back in, on a loved one to get home safely, in line at any store, for your doctor to to see you, for the dentist to come back after he has deadened your mouth and tongue, for the computer to work faster than a crawl, for a TV show to start and the last one I can think of for now is waiting for the time when you don't feel like you are going to bed too early. I am sure you can think of others, so add your own if you wish. I have heard that humans spend nearly half their lives waiting on something, don't know for sure but don't doubt it. Well, let me tell you, when you are retired you don't mind waiting so much, it gives you something to do, besides napping in the chair off and on all day. I even look forward to going to the doctors office so I can wait, or the store where I wait while my wife shops, anything to get out of the house. You are probably thinking, boy he needs a life, but I will tell you I have a great life. I am happy and happily married to a wonderful person. We live the simple life as I have commented on before, but this is the way it is. At this time I have run out of anything to say, so I guess I will go find something else to wait on. Have a great day/week.

Started me thinking

I have not written a blog in several days now, but after reading my sisters current blog, it started me thinking. How fortunate I am that all of our children stay in very good contact with us. I don't know what I would do if they were "lost from home". For several years after Barb was married and moved out of the house in Lubbock, we lost contact for several years. I was just at that age where running around with friends meant more than family time together. There was a time when one particular friend and I would join my parents and their friends in playing card games on a Saturday night, that was great fun. Then I got married and my then wife didn't get along with any of my family, especially Barb. After we moved to Wichita, I didn't have any real contact with Barb until I got divorced and started taking the kids to visit mom in Lubbock, after my dad had passed away, at least once a year. I wish I could have been closer and visited more often, but I wasn't and couldn't. Then my sister and her husband and I moved mother to Tulsa and I became reacquainted with my sister. I don't know what I would do now without talking to her at least once daily, sometimes more. I have been collecting pictures and information on my family history and have realized how much I miss them all. I have wished in my later years, I would have sat down with my father and taped his remembrances of his childhood. Well, low and behold, my cousin in Amarillo sent me a CD that was taped in 1964, during my roaming age, of my father and his living family sitting around just talking. Oh how I wish, now, I would have been there for they could sit and talk about old times for hours. When I had to around them I thought those stories were so stupid. Now in retrospect, I see how important they all were. Let us all never forget how important family is and never loose touch with each other. God bless you all.

Simple Minded

I sent a joke e-mail to my sister and she replied that all men are simple minded. This particular joke was about the difference between men and women, which I thought really hit the nail on the head for the most part. I took it that she especially meant me as compared to all men being simple minded. Well, at first I took offense at the statement, but as I think about it I suppose I am pretty simple minded. Let me explain, first I don't like any turmoil in my life, simple truly fits the way I live. I don't have a large house, to most people it is too small, again a simple home. I don't have to drive a new car every year or two or even every 5, I drive a vehicle till it won't drive anymore, my truck is simply my only mode of transportation. My extended family, all the kids and their kids are also pretty simple, honest and hard workers, no criminals just plain simple good American families. I came from just such a family, my father was a very simple man coming from a simple hard working mother and father. His father was a very strict man, that left home a the age of 13 and worked driving cattle. He worked in the Oklahoma Territory punching cattle with the likes of Will Rogers, truly the most simple down to earth of men of our time. My father learned a lot from his father, as I learned from him. Lead a simple life and be an honest hard working citizen. I hope my children have learned this from me, and I believe they have. I married a wonderful yet very simple, honest and family loving lady. She too comes form a very simple down to earth family. So, I guess if you want to call me simple, go ahead and I will take it as a compliment.

Blogging

When I started this thing called blogging, I thought it would be hard coming up with new topics. Well, after the very first blog my mind was swirling with ideas. Now, three days and two blogs later, I can't think of all those things I had going thru my mind. What happened, where did they go, who took them from me? I thought maybe if I just started writing about something, this is it, at least one of the many topics would return to my brain. You see, it is my belief that as we get older, we have had so much input that as one gets something new entering your memory bank, something has to leave to make room. Surely, that is what has happened to me. I simply know too much!!!

We spent all day Saturday and Sunday doing absolutely NOTHING, but watching TV. Since getting our new high definition television I seem to be doing a lot of watching. I watched almost 100% of the British Open golf tournament. By this morning, I had to get out of the house. So, as I do too much of the time, I went for breakfast and took it to the park to eat and read the huge Salina newspaper. Well, 10 minutes later that was done and once again nothing to do. We have no place to go or anything to do today. I sure hope the bank statement gets here today!!! I will call our x-neighbor Bud to set up lunch with him for tomorrow. We try to take him out at least once a week, he is getting older and enjoys getting out, just like me. My wife on the other hand would prefer to stay home and read or do her Sudoku puzzles. She also does games and puzzles on the computer.

Our very good friend DeAnn is in surgery right now having an operation to constrict how much she eats so that she can loose weight. It is not the lap band surgery but I can't recall what the name, see more information in, information out. Please pray for her, her doctors and nurses. She should only be in the hospital until Wednesday. If you would like to learn all about what she is having done, there is a link to her blog on my blog. She is very good at explaining things.

Also, while talking about prayer, please pray for our grand daughter Chelsea, she is in an eating disorder clinic in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is 15 and a very sweet loving girl and needs all the prayer we can give her and her family. She ask for help, so that is a very good and mature sign.

By the way, none of those missing ideas returned, just too much knowledge!!!

Well, I started with nothing to say and ended up saying a lot of mostly nothing. So, to everyone, have a really good week and God bless all of you.

Worry

When I was younger and the kids were very young, I worried about how they were going to turn out as adults, are they going to be good parents, then when they were teenagers I had a whole new set of worries, where are they, are they alright and will they get home safe. Of course, some made me worry more than others, just as some came home when they were supposed to and others didn't. I'll let them figure out which ones. I can remember one time when my son was 16, or maybe younger, he got a job as dishwasher at Big Boy. He rode my motorcycle to work each night, well this one night he didn't come home and it became very late, like 1 AM, and I started thinking of all the things that could have happened. He could have gone somewhere after work and not called, he was to come straight home. He could have had a wreck and was injured and no one had called me. Finally, at 2 AM I went looking, luckily the first place I went was to Big Boy and thru the open back door I could see him slaving away. I was relieved and at the same time upset that they were working a young child that late. I don't remember what was done about it or how much longer he worked there, but was glad when he didn't work there anymore. Then there was the time he and a friend were out way past 12, and they were on foot somewhere. The other boys parents and I were looking all over and when we met back at my place, there they were, innocent as ever so they thought. They soon found out we were not happy. Oh, they had just been at the park talking to girls. Not to pick on my son all the time, the daughters were not innocent all the time either, like the time one of them was celebrating graduation and wrecked her car, at least she had enough sense to call me to help her. Then the one that never came home when she was told, usually not real late but 30 minutes at least except for this one time when she was out with her best friend and after she took her home she stopped by the college because she saw a boy she knew and the time just "got away" from her. When she finally got home at 3 AM i made her call the police and tell them they could quit looking for her because she was home now. I'm not sure that made as good an impression as I had hoped. Not to leave the baby out, she was the best about doing what she was supposed to do except for the parking the car thing in a strange neighborhood and going to meet her boyfriend at some lake. That time made the impression on her I wanted, think.

OK, so I've told all my stories, but you may ask why did I worry so much, It's because I never slept until everyone was in place where they should have been. Mom on the other hand let me take care of all the worry as she slept thru it all, luckily she wasn't around for some of the previous times, or she would have been up with me.

When they grew up and left home, I thought wow they are all gone and I can quit staying up at night waiting for them to get home and stop worrying about them, this worked for a while, now there is a whole new set of worries for me. I don't have to worry about how they will turn out because they all turned out to be great parents and hard workers. but now I worry about my grand kids and how are they going to turn out. At least I don't have the coming home thing with them, I'll leave that to their parents. Also, I know God has a way of paying back so I know my children will find out all about it some day.

Have a great day!!!
r

A Little Bit of a Party or " MEN WIN"

Yesterday, Friday, we celebrated one of my longest and dearest friends birthday. Her name is Mary, but she is referred to as "Little Bit" due to her little size. I hope she doesn't mind but she turned 76 last Saturday. She is truly amazing, not only does she not look 76, more like 56, but she refuses to act 76 too. I met her husband Clint or "Tater" in 1966 when I worked for Boeing in Wichita, Kansas, but that is another story.

We always, unless someone is sick, get together with this couple and also Paul and Carol on all birthdays, anniversary's and for any other reason we can think of to play games. Actually, we met at Coyote Canyon in Salina to eat and then all gathered at Paul and Carols for games. First, we played Chicken Foot, a domino game played with double 15 domino's, which the women won, barely. You see, the men have a theory "let the women win at least sometime or they won't play with us any more". The next game was Canasta and the men won handily, it wasn't even close. Then we ate again and finally finished the day off with a game of Call Your Partner Pitch. We also won that with an even larger, bigger, astounding scoring difference. All though some of the games we play are individually scored, we always have to add the men vs women scores together to see which is the overall winner. Of course, it is usually the men. Hey it's my blog and I'll tell it like I want to.

A great time was had by all.

To everyone reading this, I hope you have a wonderful and safe day.

Morning Person

I love mornings, not to get up and get going in a hurry, but to just be up and take my time getting around. I worked for 22 years for Sears and had to be up and to work by 7:30 or 8 at the latest. Sometime, if I had to open the store it was even earlier. Then, I retired and didn't do anything but play golf and do odd, part time, jobs for a year. That was really great, at the time. Finally after a year off, I went back to work as a police dispatcher working mostly the 2:30 to 10:30 shift. That is when I discovered how much I enjoyed not having to rush around to go somewhere. Now that I am retired again, and for good this time, I really enjoy just doing what I want when I want. The only problem with retirement that I have discovered is that you get no days off or paid holidays. It seem as if we are always busy going here or there and doing this and that. So busy in fact that I don't have time to read my sisters blog daily, which she writes in almost every day and can't believe I don't read daily. I doubt I will be as good at keeping up with blogging as she is, but I will try.

Well, I was talking about mornings. I have a set certain routine in the mornings, first I get dressed, do some stretching exercises , then I leave my wife sleeping and go to our "office" where I check e-mail and take care of whatever bills need to be taken care of. I just love busy work and even look forward to balancing the checkbook once a month. If it rains overnight I empty the rain gauge that is right outside my window and record the rain on our computer calender. Last night we had 1.61 inches, which is more rain than we have had since June 11 when we had 1.5 inches. After the e-mail, banking and any other task in the office I go to the living room and change the date or our daily calender bird, one of those perpetual things, and then bring in the paper, fix something to eat and start my day. On some days, if it is real cool out, I will go get something for breakfast and sit in the park in my truck and eat and read the paper.

My day is officially started!!
Have a great day and bye for now.