inspiration

I am newly inspired by the yarn harlot blog. She is on a spinning challenge. I think, maybe it is time I dug out the stash of fibers and spun them up. I currently hide them behind the lace cover on the table in the dining room. There's lots. I don't mean hide in the sense of nobody knowing about them, but just keeping the stuff in one place. Spinning well prepared fibers is very peaceful and my fingers are tired of knitting.

Mary Beth, as you go on your mission trip, Dad says take tools, well marked (he actually says paint them maroon and white) as he lost a lot of his. He also got a lot of use out of a wheelbarrow. Of course he was breaking up sheetrock and hauling it out to the street, so the house could dry out and the walls be replaced. He says to take a pillow too. I bow to his superior knowledge. I was teaching at the time and didn't go on that trip. Keep us all posted on how it goes.

I am reading an interesting book - Under The Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. It is the story of Mormonism and really shows it as a violent faith. He also wrote one called Into Thin Air, which Dad is reading.. This is his story of his trip to the top of Mt. Everest in 1946. I may read this also, tho I usually stick to fiction and biographies. I think I am going to learn more about the Mormon church than I ever wanted to know, and it is already making me sick to read some of this stuff. It takes brainwashing to be a good Mormon, I think.

We had training tonight for serving as LEM at church and taking communion to those who are ill, either at home or in hospitals or nursing homes. My job is to sing to them after communion. We have actually not been doing this quite the way they want us to, so training is a good thing.

Blessings...........

looking up

Things are doing that!. Looking up, that is. Somehow when MB was here we managed to get most of the floor of the studio visible. Although it may decimate the vacuum, we will proceed to try to vacuum in here. I have shelves and cupboards. Typically, books on shelves, yarn in cupboards, but I want to see the yarns. All the time. MB suggested moving the books to the cupboards. They have odd hinges and it would be a maassive undertaking to take them off. I may call the staff here to do that, tho. I think it comes under their purview. If I can see the yarn, I won't have to take out the huge bag of greens, or purples, or greys, or whatever and just play with it and plan projects.

Mary Beth will be back in September and we are so glad. Nancy and crew are in the middle of offering computer camp at her school. This is a yearly thing. There is one for adults also at another time. She keeps a grand website from her classroom and parents (or anyone) can log on and find out what is being taught, how and how they can help. I am in awe. If you read the funnies, this mornings "Zits" was wonderful. It was a teenager twisting himself into a pretzel to keep from exploding as his parents tried to decide which control to use for some electronic. Frankly, we have two and I try not to touch them. With one you turn it on and control volume. With the other you change channels. Why is this hard to remember? If you have an answer do tell me.

Off now to have a "discussion" with our pharmacist who charged George $187 for one of his meds, and I don't think he is in the 'donut hole' yet, so it should have been less. Or maybe Januvia is not even covered on our program. Before you all get old enough to use the Medicare related services, be sure someone in the family has a PHD in how to figure all this out.

Grace. love and peace.......

Tagged

Mary Beth tagged me for this. Here are the rules:

1. List these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog.

So here goes.......

1. I read about 10 books every week. The library loves me! I've never had any problem leaving the messes all over the house while I read. After all, what is really important?

2, I laugh loudly and often and sometimes wet my pants when I do. Oh well, nobody is perfect.

3. I have the greatest children in the world. All five of them. No, yours aren't better than mine, but they can be as good.

4. I grew up in Tallahassee, Fla, and it was a small town then. You can't replicate the feeling of being able to go out to play for the whole day, all over our part of town, knowing that you are perfectly safe.

5. I have more yarn in this house than most yarn shops. And I need all of it.

6. I was Governor of Florida Girls State in 1948, went to Girls Nation and was Secretary of Defense. And yes, I shook Harry Truman's hand in the rose garden. Yeah, I know that was 60 years ago. Aaaagh!

7. My husband thinks I am really weird because I talk to myself all the time. I tell him I am far more interested in what I have to say than anyone else can possibly be. He also thinks it is weird because I talk to my dead grandfather, too, but as long as Grandaddy doesn't answer me, I think I am safe from the men in white coats.

I can't tag anyone else, because the only people I know with blogs are some of the Revgals, Cathy and MB.

Progress

This stole is progressing apace. I have no idea what it will look like when I finish. This is an 'eyeball the yarn' process. There are some I wish I hadn't used, but I had the sense to use very little of it. I think it will be pretty. I may even wear it instead of giving it or selling it. Unless one of the children wants it. I am reading the 'yarn harlot' blog and I love reading it, but this woman thinks nothing of ripping hours of knitting out in order to get it just right. In weaving we call these people 'structure people'. And there are those of us who are 'texture and color people'. That's me. I like working with yarn because if it doesn't do what you want, you just sorta push and shove it until it suits you. More or less.

Church activities are beginning to wear on me. I never thought I'd say that. I am giving serious thought about resigning some of the things I do. I used to go to Braeswood Assembly of God on Wednesday night to find somebody who talked about Jesus - they had a rule that no one could serve in more than one capacity at a time, based on the theory that if one does two or more activities, they are depriving someone else of the opportunity to serve. Interesting. This was, and probably is, a huge church, so that works for them. I can't help but wonder if it would work for me. We talk about Jesus all the time. I know Fr. Stan is aiming for building a replica of the original church in which the church members are truly one's family. Some of this meeting situation is getting a lot for me. Also a fair number of us are elderly (there!!! I said it!!!). Because most of our congregants work, meetings have to be at night, and by nightfall, I am ready to stay in. We have another problem here. Many of our congregants live out of town in one of the smaller surrounding areas, and want to meet at 6:30 so when they go home they can stay. I sympathize, but..... its early to get dinner ready by 5:30.

We do have two soaking prayer sessions a week and I feel moved to go and have them pray for this clot of cholesterol which is threatening my heart. I want it gone and so does God, I am sure. My doctors are still quarreling about what is best for me. Agggggh!

Another woe??? My wonderful maid didn't show up today. I hope she hasn't had troubles. I keep calling but no one answers. I'll pray about this one. I don't want to lose her.

God bless you all.

changes......

Yesterday, I was slumbering peacefully when the shop called to say "wasn't I supposed to be there working?" I wasn't, but it was sort of a fruit basket turnover mixup. I went out for the afternoon stint and learned to my shock, that the store is closing. The 50% off sale starts Tuesday, so Stella told me to take what I wanted at that price. Apparently they have not been making ends meet, much less a profit. It was such a great idea and a great store, but things sort of changed from antiques to cutesy little stuff. There goes my sometime Saturday employment. Our priest and I will go out on Tuesday and look at the hand thrown sets of paten and chalices. I hope we find something he likes.

At stitchers guild last week, I had to pull out knitting. This may sound easy to you, but it is an article of faith with me that I don't rip out stitches I have put it. I say things like "it's a design element' or 'I meant it to look like that' or 'isn't that an interesting effect?". I just don't rip. And I had to rip. Was making a stole of oranges (AGAIN!) and put a bit of purple in it. Honest, I have a photo of one and it is loverly or I would never try that. I just got a bit too much purple and some needed to come out. The yarn was knotty stuff and wouldn't come out. A couple of times I had to cut it. I didn't cuss, but I did snarl and grouse and grump. I'm sure everyone was glad I was there. Never again, I hope.

A couple in our church threw a 'belgian waffle party' after church for the choir and we just made it home. It was a wonderful party - this couple really knows how to entertain and their house is grand - it would be hard for us - it is on about 6 levels, counting the decks, but then we don't live there. There is a one floor elevator in it.

We filled out forms at church for a consultant to tell us what we need to do to grow. I hope he comes up with something good.

The coming week looks good. Sarah is supposed to come and get the hot tub and I plan to make the back patio/porch look nicer and hopefully spend some time out there. Have a new cleaner and I would kiss her feet if I could reach them. But I think she is happy here without that. She even moves big chairs and cleans under them. I am in awe.

Peace, joy and love to you all....

This is a big family.....

Sarah and Marshall have just departed for home, after almost 4 days here. We enjoyed having them, and tried to let him see as much of the area as possible. We went to Nancy's one day for hot dogs and swimming, then on to the ranch for him to see some of it and for us to see all the changes Nancy and Scooter have made to the hunting house (used to be their home). Marshall and Dad played gooney golf and also some pool at the clubhouse. I did some diagnostic work with him and find him to be very ADHD and to have some visual tracking delays. He and Sarah and I went to the teachers supply house and she found some things to help him. We also took him to Hastings - he really loves the place. The last day, we did a tour of Fort Concho and I think they both really enjoyed that. Mostly I sat, as they took the tour on an extended sort of golf cart. He found some wooden toys he decided to buy and is good with them. At night we played all sorts of games. I think he likes aggravation the best. He listened to some of my Harry Potter books on CD's and Sarah went ahead and bought the first book for him. He so much wants to know these books, but can't read well enough to read them. I think they listened to the book all the way home.

A consultant is coming to church on Sunday and 50 of us have been selected to do a survey to find out what we need to do to grow. George and I will participate. Our choir gets better and better and it is really happy making to sing with these folks.

We're still enjoying the peaches Sarah left (from Weatherford). Tomorrow is an extremely necessary trip to the library and then just rest.

No real excitement here, but joy at a chance to get to know a grandchild I have not been able to get to until now. I look forward to more of this.

Music is the icing on the cupcake of worship.

Saved.........

I found it under a stack of books. Yes, I still have stacks, just not in the middle of the floor. Well, on the edge thereof.

Dad snidely suggests that I attach it to a chain and wear it around my neck. I do lose it sometimes and it's always panic time.

All is well, however.

Aaaaak!!!

The wonderful lady who came and helped me whip this house into shape was as advertised - wonderful. But, but, but------- I neglected to tell her that the calendar/phone list was sancrosact and please don't put away. So now I have no idea where it is -and worse, I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing when. Maybe I will just stay home. No, that won't work. Or try to reconstruct calendar and apologize for what I miss. Oh, me.

Rejoicings

Today I have a lady helping me clean this house! It has been a long while. The last helper is in jail, bless her. This one is lovely and well recommended and we have to shovel this place out as Sarah and Marshall will be here on Tuesday. I am not trying to impress them. We just need the table for eating and not piling papers and the sofa and chairs to sit rather than to pile yarn. We are making great progress. Praise God for people who are willing to help.

What's Happening?

Here are some things that are happening to me as I get older. I find that I don't really want to go anywhere, at all, at all. I enjoy the few things I do, but best of all is my green (sorta) chair and all the loverly books I get at the library. I like to look out the window at all the green out here, go and see what is blooming in my teeny garden, I do a little necessary maintenance (deadheading roses, fertilizing, etc.) when I have to but no sooner.

I once loved to go to the grocery store. I could rhapsodize over the fresh vegetables and fruit, smell them, feel them, etc., to my heart's content. Now, I just want to get in, get what I absolutely have to have, and get myself out and back home. I once spent hours in fanciful thought about what I could cook and how to do it, and how to present it. Now, I cook because I must, and the quicker and easier it is, the better I like it. And George usually cleans up the kitchen, so that's done.

There was a time when I would have been jumping up and down to get to go to Canton to shop. Now, I do absolutely not want to shop. Taking me to Canton would once have been like taking an alcoholic to a bar, if I could walk all over Canton. Today, I would run away screaming. I can't and I am not going. I shop from the many catalogs for what I have to have. When I use a catalog, I can turn down the page, wait a day or two and go back. Chances are, I will turn about half of them back up. A few more days, and do it again. If I actually decide to order something, chances are good that they are all gone. Happy day! Then I can pitch the catalog. Too much consumerism makes me a lot nutty. We are like the poem-

the world is too much with us, late and soon,
getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

Who? Wordsworth maybe? I never can remember, but bits of things are stuck in my memory . We do lay waste our powers. We buy things we really don't want or need because they are there, thrusting themselves in our faces as we go in shops. And then these things sit in our homes and haunt us. Solution = stay out of shops. Now, wasn't that easy?

Then, besides reading, I can knit and play with all my yarn. Right now it is strung all over as I try to decide what (orange/yellow/green/) to put with the orange I am knitting. It's a funny thing. I don't even like orange, and I find myself knitting with it a lot. I am puzzling over this. Then I can spin some and decide what stitch to use when I knit it, or if I will make it my weft on the loom. I can spend a lot of time playing with all this. Besides, all this yarn makes me really happy to look at and to feel. If I actually made all of the items I dream about, I could have flooded a third world country. Not a bad idea, actually. You do understand, don't you, that yarn is exempt from the shopping ban? Well, it is. I actually don't buy yarn, it attaches itself to me and insists on coming home with me. I control this by not going where yarn lives very often. It works pretty well.

I have such a peaceful life. My bed is just too comfortable. DH is getting this way, too. He will announce that tomorrow is golf, for sure!!! Golf for him is like yarn is for me. But the next morning when I get up, he is still sacked out. When I lift an eyebrow? he says that the bed was just too comfortable.

Get old and you too can turn into us. We aren't vegetables, but we like p&Q. Sometimes I shout at politicians on TV, I constantly correct and coach the contestants on Wheel, I stare intently at the insides of people on hospital shows (always wanted to be a doctor) to try to figure out what is going on. When I have to have shooting and war on the TV I go somewhere else. Easy peasy.

Come and see us and try the quiet life. You may like it.

Be peaceful and all will be well.

Brace yourselves.....

Today I am going to reminisce. You children have heard these stories forevermore, so I guess I am writing for the grands. I think maybe the oldest five read this. Two are temporarily in delayed adolescence, and four are too young. However, to proceed.

I was born in 1931 and Herbert Hoover was president. He was elected on a promise of 'a chicken in every pot'. Not. We were in the midst of an awful depression. Being a depression baby, I was raised on a ditty
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.

And mama really meant this. We were definitely not a consumer society. I grew with FDR as president, and still think he was a great guy, though toward the end he was not always 'compos mentis'. We didn't see much of the WPA which he set up, they mostly built dams (Hoover Dam ring a bell?) and did large scale things. But, we had lots of CCC guys around, They built most of the
public campsites that exist today. These men were housed and fed and paid minimally. The pay went home to their families. These programs kept many, many people from starving. We also had had hobos who had our house marked and several times a week someone knocked on the back door asking for food for work. Mamma always worked them hard, then she filled a place so full I don't know why it didn't slide off. Then.....she added 4-5 slices of what we called 'light bread'. Really white bread and it was a status symbol to have it in the house. Nobody knew it has about as much food value as cardboard. It was new to us then and a real mark of modernity. I stood on the back porch and watched them eat.

As the depression wore on, we entered WWII. The war is what really pulled us out of the depression. This is when I learned to knit, much against my will. We also became 'army brats' moving from camp to camp as daddy was transfered. Then, from Manhattan Kansas, we came home as he was sent to England to help plan the Normandy invasion, in which he took part. A year or so of fighting and he was sent to Paris when it fell to the GI's and commanded two or three POW camps till he got home.

Being in a war was different in lots of ways, Rationing was one. The army rationed the things they had to have. So we did without very much sugar, butter and meat. They sent us huge 3 pound chunks of white margarine with a packet of red stuff which had to be mixed in to make it yellow. I suggested we eat it white as the mixing job was mine and I hated it. It still tasted like lard,even yellow. It was really nasty stuff. I didn't win that one. Also rationed were tires and gasoline, which meant you walked anywhere you went - or you could skate. Had to be careful about bicycle tires. Also--------shoes were rationed. You see, there were no plastic shoes or tennis shoes - they hadn't been invented yet. We all wore all leather shoes and the GI's needed leather. I remember having holes in my soles and cutting a new piece of cardboard every morning before school to fit in my shoe to cover the hole. We ran barefooted all summer - shoe rationing was really just an excuse. We liked it. I still have some rationing tickets somewhere. We had no penicillin and modern medicine was just starting. Our typewriters were all manual - and you had to bang them really hard and keep your rhythm or they messed up.

Every family dug up part of their backyard and grew their own vegetables, and then we canned them for winter. If you had fruit trees, well and good. Grandmamma used to send mamma a crate of guavas every year for her to make jelly. Our gardens were called "Victory Gardens'. Lots of hype and hoo hah for being patriotic.

I do remember howling loudly when I couldn't come to Tallahassee to my grandmamma's funeral. It was hard for me to understand how difficult it was for my parents to get seats on a train, daddy probably had to pull rank to get them. I doubt they could have secured one for me, but even if they had, there was no way we were going to miss school, unless we had bubonic plague or something. Education was revered. There was no gas or tires for the car.

Enough of this, except to say that before the war and during the war, we were not consumers in the sense we use now, we were really content. There was one department store in town, no malls, no service oriented businesses ( like nail places, etc. ) No keeping up with the Jomes because they were just getting by too. And while they may have had more money, they didn't have any more ration tickets. It was a great equalizer.

Aren't you glad I told you all of this? Thanks for listening.

Focus on peace, and maybe less consumerism? ok?

Fredricksburg

It was really, really great! Mally had a birthday celebration Friday noon when we met with Nancy and her class for lunch, and again that evening, when she had a chocolate moussey thingy with a candle in it. We all sang loudly. Since her class stayed late on Friday, they finished their work and she was free on Saturday. She really wanted to go on home, but the children had to do their thing of hitting the shops. We had a good time, saw a lot of junk, some of it really expensive, and I sat a lot of the time. I know she was glad to get home. I think she has a week off between summer semesters. This will all be over for her by the end of next May. She is graduating in two places, I think. Whatever. I know she is ready to be through.

For some reason, I am very, very tired. Maybe I need more caffeine. Or something. Meanwhile, I am just doing a lot of sitting. Next post, I will try to move a photo of the children on here for you to see.

Hug people a lot - it makes you both feel better....