For Today

remember that in the midst of all your pain and heartache, you are surrounded by beauty, the wonder of Creation, art, music, culture, the sounds of laughter and love, of whispered hopes and celebration, of new life and transformation, of reconciliation and forgiveness. - Exerpt from "The Shack" by William P. Young

Today I was on Facebook when I happened upon a quiz that wanted you to put down 5 things you wanted to see gone forever. I wrote mine down but what caught my eye was 5 things I liked. I didn't even have to think about it. I typed them all in and sent it to my page. Then I went back to my homepage and started to catch up on what other people were writing for the day. This piece from a good friend seemed to jump at me. Why? Well my 5 things were 'knowing God; my family; my friends; country living and little children'. Don't you think they are covered in this excerpt? I was so excited. I have this book and I enjoyed it but now I believe I will re-read it. There is so much truth in these few lines but we don't think of it. We certainly don't live it. How many of us live in surroundings that we take for granted? I love this place where my daughter lives. A lake in front of her home and one behind. Flocks and flocks of geese visiting, children playing in the pool across the street. Trees and flowers, the beautiful sky above, wonderful rich green grass under our feet. It's all beautiful. Live in the city? Surrounded by buildings? Then look at them. At the architecture, the windows. Even these homes here, I can picture the owners; when they were being built, looking at every space with excitement as they spoke of what was going where. To us it may be just a house but to them it was their dream. I wrote on one of my profiles that I have a passion for all God put here for us. And since I do, I can see beauty in everything. I am so thankful I don't live in a blackened clouded world. I have a friend and former classmate on FB; Bob Grodin. He loves critters. Talks about them a lot. He sees the beauty in their lives and tells the rest of us about it. It's wonderful. Thanks, Bobby, for sharing. I know we have rough times, tough times, sometimes bad times but let's not overshadow all the good and the beauty with it. That was a lesson I had to learn because I've had a lot of rough, tough and mostly bad times. But I always say, I would rather have them than someone else who may not be able to handle it.
The last thing I want to say before I end is this: My children, sisters, my nieces and my nephews are more important to me than anyone. I have had the privilege of watching them grow and laugh and enjoy life. I am so proud of all of them and I love them more than they will ever know. They are life to me.
If you get a chance to read the book "The Shack", do so. It's certainly different but what you can learn from it is priceless!!

Sadness

The news has been so full of celebrity deaths lately. Ed, Farrah, Michael, Billy, and now Gale Storm (best known as My Little Margie). But amidst all this; there are deaths occuring close to home. My best friend's son-in-law just lost his dad. He wasn't old or sick. He may have hit his head in a fall. Did he get dizzy or trip? They don't know yet. Takes the medical examiner time to sort it all out. My heart goes out to them. He wasn't famous to the world but he was to his children. And he will be sadly missed. I didn't know him but I know his son. If he helped raise Jasonn , then he was a man of honor and integrity because that's how his son is.
I love you Jasonn, Rauna, Jodi, Tyler and Chris. My prayers are with you.

Having A Great Time

I am having such a great time, here in Kentucky. For those that didn't know, I came out here to help my sister with her son. He has Downs Syndrome but you would never know it by the way he acts. He is one smart little cookie. Well not so little. He is 24 and gives me a run for my money. He loves to aggravate me. And I love to give it right back. He's always saying, 'good grief' so I asked on FB what a good grief was. Then I said I don't believe I've ever had one. Guess not many people have cause I only got one response. Josh is so full of fun you just have to have a good time around him. Sometimes he sits in the chair and acts like he's asleep by snoring. So, in my screechiest, high pitched, operatic voice I sing "We All Live In A Yellow Submarine". That gets him awake (lol) and started. 'Jan will you please stop it. I'm trying to sleep over here'. 'Well if you snore, I sing'. 'Good grief' is always the answer. See what I mean? He's on my bed right now trying to agitate me. He kisses my elbow and I yell that he's burning me with his prickly beard. He does a Roscoe P. Coltrane laugh (he loves The Dukes of Hazzard). Or he will come in here and start taking stuff, hide it behind his back and tell me he has a surprise for me. So I have to close my eyes and the whole nine yards so he can surprise me with my own stuff. Then he laughs cause I puff up and say 'Josh! You little thief'. Yesterday he said he had a fat belly; then he added just like Jan's. I busted up. You never know what the turkey will say.
I always admired my sister Nancy for the way she has taken care of and managed this guy from baby-hood til now. To me she is remarkable and very special. God knew what He was doing, as always, when He gave Josh to my sister. And He knew what He was doing when He sent me out here so I could understand myself how very, very special my nephew is. In more ways than one . I am so blessed to have the family I have.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have been pretty busy the last month or so but I think about my journal every day. It's my desire to keep it up I just don't always find time to get here. For one thing, I have moved to Kentucky, temporarily, to help my younger sister. I also spend quite a bit of time on my family sites; learning about my ancestors. Along with that, myspace and facebook take up a good chunk of my time and a dear friend just invited me to join 'twitter'. This is how many of my friends, classmates, family and I keep in touch. But the biggest amount of my time is spent studying. I am studying the Word of God. I had a study going at my house, in Lawton and when I moved it just wouldn't work by phone. Now my best friends daughter has started an online study for us and it is truly wonderful. We are using a book called "Returning To Holiness" that has been a tremendous help in opening our eyes as to how we live, talk and act. Added to that, we have begun reading the bible in hopes to read through its entirety. We just finished Genesis, chapters 1-5. We read a chapter a day. It was so good. Now we go to the next 5 chapters. When we finish we can go to our site and write about what God has shown us or what we feel we have learned. We are also able to read each others entries and that makes it more enjoyable. Of course, I still maintain my own private studies also. Through all of this, I do want to keep writing. I love it and I can't wait to read the comments I get from it. I believe I'm having more fun now than I have since I was a kid. Can't ask for anymore than that!!

Give it your best shot

It's a glorious day. I'm sitting on the couch, in the livingroom, with a cup of tea. It is very windy out, very cold and very gray. We are expecting a blizzard. It has already started in parts of Kansas and Oklahoma. I look out the window at the lake and watch as the wind blows the water, first into ripples, then into small waves. There are no geese out there today. I don't know how much snow there will be but I see on the TV that they have been closing things down, in parts of the area since last evening. I love snow. It doesn't bother me. I don't like ice.We had an ice storm in Lawton a few years ago and we had no work for the week. Took longer than that for it all to melt.
I remember once when I stayed with my brother; a friend that I was dating came to see me and something happened with his car so my brother offered to take him home. It was snowy and ice under that. Very cold. My brother warned my friend to be careful as the stairs were still very slippery. He said he would then they got ready to leave. My brother and I were talking and they started down the steps. All of a sudden, my friends feet went up and he went down. In a sitting position he hit every single step. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! The sound was magnified because the house is in the country and it was late. I caught my breath, prayed he didn't hurt his spine or anything else and did what all good friends do. I started laughing. As I am now and every time I think about it. I know it sounds terrible and I still feel bad but you had to be there. Now I pray that it doesn't happen to me.
So, leave the ice but bring on the snow! Give it your best shot!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone. What a beautiful day it is here in Kansas. 2009 has started out very well for me. I am so blessed. My daughter-in-love graduated from nursing school, I had my 3 year old grandson for three weeks and my 6 year grand daughter for a week. My daughter and her fiance have been so gracious making sure I am comfortable in their home and my son is settling well in a job he really likes. He and his wife are looking at a certain home to buy. There are exciting things going on for everyone. My 14 year old grandson got his permit to drive so on and on it goes. What a great time we are living in. I do enjoy watching all that takes place around me. Children growing, learning, becoming mature. I look back to the years I had with my nieces and nephews. I wish I had been this aware of things in their lives. I am thankful though that I have my computer. I know what many of my family is doing through myspace, facebook and the family site my BN started for us. I see pictures of great nieces and nephews; great great nieces and nephews. It's all so awesome. I also can keep up with classmates and that means so much to me. I will be going to our 45th class reunion in July and I can't wait. I know I will cry but they will be tears of joy.
And to all of you....my family, my friends, my classmates; Thank You! Thank you for sharing your pictures, your life and your time.
I love you all.

Do You Remember?

AAH...the good ole days! A friend sent this to me. My classmates discussed quite a few of these things from our younger days; on the site we used to have. I believe I remembered them all but, maybe. one. How many can you remember?

Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?' 'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him. 'All the food was slow.' 'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?' 'It was a place called 'at home,'' I explained. 'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.' By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it : Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis , set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died. My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). We didn't have a television in our house until I was 19. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a.m. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people. I was 21 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called 'pizza pie. When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had. I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line. Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was. All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6AM every morning. On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day. Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive. If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing. Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?
MEMORIES from a friend : My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it.. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.
How many do you remember?
Head light dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards..
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Older Than Dirt Quiz : Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom..
1. Blackjack chewing gum & Teaberry also
2.Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines on the telephone
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels [if you were fortunate])
12. Peashooters
13.. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S& H greenstamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

I might be older than dirt, but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

Decisions and Changes

I have been doing some thinking the past few days and I have made some decisions that will change things in my life. For the last 12 years, I had worked for a public school system; monitoring special needs children on buses. I loved it and it was very fulfilling to me. My co-workers were awesome. The best you could ever find anywhere. When I had to leave my job, it was one of the hardest things I've done. Everyone was sad, lots of tears and promises to stay in touch, much like you would expect when you graduate from school. I did get several addresses, phone and cell numbers; along with email addresses. But, sad to say, it hasn't worked out that way. I have tried to call and send pictures but I have, only 2 friends that stay in touch. One writes because she doesn't like to text; the other calls. It isn't that I find fault. They have busy lives and as I've learned through life, the best made promises 'fall to the wayside'. We all meant well at the time but things happen. I love them, they were my family. Many of them always will be. But now it's time we are let off the hook of those promises. It was good for then. They have left a mark in my life and on my heart forever. So, I say farewell to another wonderful chapter in my life, ready to get on to the next.
The next decision I made was to let my Facebook and Myspace go. It isn't that exciting to me. I go on myspace now, only to mess with the music and facebook, well, to me; it's boring. If I put more of myself into it, I surely would get more out of it. But, I need more. I need things that challenge me, teach me something or snap up my interest. Even my journal has not interested me in the way it did. Sometimes you can have so much going on that it takes away from other things. I find myself flittering from one site to another. I intend to write but I will be taking some idle time to refocus. While I do that, I'm staying in my family sites that my BN worked up.
When I come back to my journal, I hope I will be able to extract a few comments from people besides my sister and niece. My objective was to have a journal that we could all share. I just want to write a thought or memory but spur others on to share their thoughts and memories , as well. That's what would make this journal more exciting.
This is a bit of what I have going on in my thoughts and a bit of what's in my heart.

More Mish-Mash

Originally I wanted to write about a few more things I remembered about growing up but I read an article in one of my magazines and I started thinking about it. Actually, it does touch on my growing up years so I thought I would toss it out to all of you.

The article is entitled, "Dinner Time". It talks about having dinner together as a family. Most families today, do not eat meals at the same time. When I was young my family had dinner together every night. The article claims that family dining is disappearing. Teens are reported as saying it's because 'parents work late'. Parents, on the other hand, state the reason is 'conflicting schedules'. The other reasons are: families choose not to eat together, interference of teen activities, too busy and the all important- television watching that just can't be missed. My daughter has made sure her family does sit down at the table together. My grandson practices wrestling every evening after school but we do not eat until he comes home. It's very important to have that family time. It opens the lines of communication. You find out how days went, how school was, talk about classes or whatever else you want. Unless you communicate on the run. Kids running up and down the stairs....'hey how was your day', 'yeah..ok'. Gone. In and out the door,' want to talk about anything? ' no time'. That's what I've heard at some of my friends homes.
When I lived with my sister or my brother, meal times were special. We always ate together and we talked. I notice some families don't talk because the news is on. How sad that they lose out on the days activities in their family lives. Yes, local and world news are important but not as important as your family. I also learn a lot about what happens by accident. I can now catch up on what went on in my daughters teen years that I didn't know before. Imagine that!!

Mish-Mash

I'm going to attempt writing more tidbits of growing up. I hope I don't repeat many things but I haven't re-read any of my entries on the subject of memories, so forgive me if I do. When I was young, til my mother passed away, clothes were always hung on the line to dry. Didn't matter if the weather was; freezing, scorching, or windy enough for the clothes to slap you in the face, my mother put them outside. She loved the softness and smell of them when she brought them in. Her fingers and hands would be frozen and beet red in the winter but she didn't mind. She also washed floors on her hands and knees. Never used a mop. If you were on your knees, you could see better and get right in those corners easily. Mother never dusted or vacuumed around things. They were always moved. I remember when the curtains were washed and put on a stretcher thing we had. There were little nail like things you attached the curtains to. Man did they ever hurt. CF may know what the name of it was. I always called it the "curtain stretcher" and I could not keep my hands off it. That's how I know it could hurt you. I liked to do things back then because I thought it was fun. Til I had to do it. Like rug beating. Mom would put the rugs on the clothes line and give them heck. So, I wanted to do it too. Man... your arms sure could get tired. My youngest sister and I had to share a bed and we did that until I moved out at 16. But most of the time, I didn't mind. She wasn't a blanket hog nor did she sprawl out all over the bed. We got along well, usually.

I lived with my older sister Joan, a couple of times. The first time I was in high school. I slept on the couch. One morning I had no idea I would be in for a rude awakening. My oldest nephew came over to me and BAM.......hit me right in the head with a metal truck. Oh yeah; I was ready for the day. It's funny now but I don't believe I was laughing very hard at the time. I think it was after that, my sister let me have the sun porch for my room. He was only a couple of years old. How mad could you get? And he was so cute. I used to let my 3 nephews wrestle around. The older and younger somehow always managed to gang up on the middle child. So, I would take him aside and tell him what to do. Still, with 2 against 1, it was hard. Eventually I had to stop that activity. When I moved to my brothers house, to take care of his 3 girls, what a difference it was. One time, my oldest niece was around 9 or 10, I believe, she came into the house crying. I asked what was wrong. Her friend that came to play with her slapped her in the face. And she came in the house crying?? Oh no. Don't think so. I got hold of her, but her friend left by then, probably ran home. I told her at that time the next time anybody hit her she was to lay them out or she would be when she got home. If anyone ever hit her after that I never knew about it. And my niece was no lightweight. She wasn't heavy but she could have held her own with anyone.
Times were fun back then. Well for some of us, anyway. I'd love to hear how your younger years were. Let me know.

New Year, new ideas, new things, new..new..new.

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to my journal. My prayer is that 2009 will be wonderful for you, will bring you lots of happiness, and good health.
I have a lot to be thankful for. My first great grandchild (a girl) was born Dec. 12th, 2008 and we spent Christmas together. My son and his family were here so I got to have Christmas with them and my daughter, her family and her fiances family as well. I had 8 of my grandchildren here then 2 more came later; so I got to see 10 out of 14 of them. I keep saying I have 13 grandchildren because I don't know how to count (or there are so many I lost count). HAHAHA. No, no, no. You can never have too many.
Anyway, our Christmas was great. But what was also great to me was that one of my co-workers and good friend called me around Christmas. What a treat. I was so surprised. And very pleased. I don't know how long Billy has worked at transportation but we finally got to work together once. I had a good time. He's funny, yet you can have a decent conversation with him without him acting like "he's all that",(as the kids say now days). Several of us used to go to lunch together after our noon runs, which ended around 1:00 or so, then gulp something down and get back out on the buses by 2:00. What a mixed up, motley crew we made. But I had the best times then. I miss all my friends at transportation; so thank you Billy for making my holiday a little more pleasant. I love you, buddy.