Flu

I have the flu. Have ben sick for a day or so and hope to improve soon... Prayers would be appreciated.

3 Days

Friday, Richard and I went to a car show in Lakeland then drove on over to Tampa. It was a nice outing. He's been going to work earlier and getting off in time for us to enjoy the afternoon and evening times together.

Yesterday, Athena and Brian were here for dinner, and, as usual, they introduced us to a new and interesting game. New to us, anyway. I think it was called Blue Moon City... or maybe New Moon City. We both liked it enough that we're going to try to find a copy.

With their help, we got the giant, hand carved teakwood fish up on the plant ledge in the living room. It looks great. The fish used to hang from the ceiling of a Red Lobster. My brother works with a crew who builds and remodels Dardin Restaurants and gave me the fish after he had salvaged it from the dumpster where some unthinking workmen had left it. I've had it for years but never had a place to put it.

It always blesses me to see my children and their families. We have wonderful and fascinating kids who are all adults now. They are each quite different from the other, which is a pleasing arrangement.

Church was great. Always is.

Loss of Freedom

In Portland Maine, an eleven-year old girl can obtain birth control pills without the knowledge or consent of her parents. Read the article here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/18/national/main3379737.shtml

Read it carefully and if you're a believer, prayerfully...

I am dismayed! Richard says "There's something wrong there!" Schools have been gradually usurping parental perogatives over the past several decades, but this takes the cake. Not only is it medically irresponsible since we are talking about girls as young as 11, it is morally indefensible, not on the grounds that I feel it encourages young people to be sexually active outside the bonds of marriage (you already know how I feel in that regard) but that it debases the parent-child relationship, teaches kids that the only consideration of their sexual decisions is pregancy and totally ignores the horrors of STDs. In short, I think it's nuts!

What will we allow the "state" to do next? They already can tap our phones, hold us without due process if Homeland Security decides we look like a terrorist, and are trying to profile those who can and cannot get on an airplane. I love this country enough to die for her, but I am increasingly concerned at how many basic freedoms have slipped away.

Imaginary Furniture

Richard got home from work early in the afternoon and we both had a nice nap. He tells me that when he was in Viet Nam, everything stopped after lunch for a snooze, even the war seemed to be on hold. He was there early in the "conflict" as an advisor. There were not so many soldiers there when he went. He was one of only six Americans in his advisory team which worked with about 400 military Mountangard (mountain people) in the highlands of South Viet Nam.

After our nap, we reset the living-dining room into a more functional arrangement. I am not an interior designer, much as I would like to be, and Richard has no sense of color, space or design in anything from clothes to furnishings... No, I'm not running him down, he just doesn't care about such things. I, on the other hand, care a great deal but cannot seem to come up with an arrangement that is both pleasing and functional. In my head is a vague notion of a stunning home such as might be done by one of HGTV's design stars (new or old), but the operative word here is "vague."

Oh well, it'll all work out and we are not even using real furniture for the living room... we have place holder furniture. By that I mean a futon is pretending to be a sofa and the other seating is imaginary at the moment, but I have a mental place for it, so to speak.

Tomorrow, I am going to paint parts of the other house. Our addition has yet to be painted and some exterior areas need touching up. I probably won't get the driveway done because we're going to a car show in the afternoon, but I can finish painting it Monday.

The cats warm up to us at some times and yet seem almost hostile at other times. They're cats and they have no intention of letting us know what they're thinking or what response to expect from them. One minute they're cuddling and the next their hiding under the bed. Like I said, they're cats.

We have a new grocery store! Publix opened today just a mile or two from us. I'm truly pleased with this because the only other close stores are Wal-Mart and Winn-Dixie, and I refuse to shop at Winn-Dixie. I went in there just after we moved here and loaded up my buggy with what seemed to be real bargains only to discover at the checkstand that you had to have one of their shoppers cards to get those prices. Sure enough, on the sale signage in small print was the requirement. I left my buggy right there. If they won't give everyone the same price, I won't shop there. I don't want to be coerced into signing up for their card.

I love Wal-Mart, but they really don't have the variety of brands and sizes I like in grocery items, so I prefer a supermarket for food shopping. Luckily, I think Publix is wonderful and shopped there all the time when we lived in Kissimmee, so I am highly pleased they are just around the corner now.

Dayful of Fun

Yesterday we adopted Callie and Jasper, two sibling 5 year old cats. Jasper is a jet black male and Callie is a pale female calico, and they both have stunningly beautiful, luminescent eyes and luxuriant fur, soft as a baby's breath. Right now they permit us to pet them when they approach us, not vice versa. They are coming to us more often all the time though, and it won't be long until we'll be able to make overtures toward them that are not rebuffed.

Baby Snooks, our aging bulldog has enjoyed friendships with cats all her life and would like to bond with this pair, but right now, they are not in the least bit interested. The cats have no prior social history with dogs, so they are not predisposed against dogs. They ignore Snooks rather than fear her.

Richard and I browsed around downtown Kissimmee today. We ate at a little down home type cafe and poked around an antique mall sort of place plus a generic style second hand store then went over to the Magic Kingdom this afternoon and stayed for part of Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party this evening. Had a great time everywhere we went.

The only downer of the day was that Richard dropped his cell phone in the toilet and it now only works part time. My brother dropped his in a lake one time and had to replace it. I am praying over Richard's phone and have faith that it will recover.

Tomorrow I'm meeting my Red Hat Society group (We call ourselves the Vintage Violets). This month, the outing is to the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa. Half of us are already half deaf anyway, so we needn't worry about the terribly loud music finishing the job. I missed our last meeting, so am really looking forward to getting together with my friends again. I won't have to worry about forgetting what we're talking about because you can't hear a thing in that casino with the hard rock blaring full blast and all the machines whistling and clanging and ringing away. It'll be great!

Then tomorrow evening is Bible Study, so I will probably have neither the time nor the energy to post a blog. Talk with you Thursday.

Could I Kill?

My granddaughter, Tia wrote an amazing blog recently. Not only is she a totally talented word crafter, she can be extremely thought provoking at times. This time after considering the effects of war on people called on to fight, she was searching her soul (and inviting her readers to do likewise) to discover if, under certain (or any) circumstances, she had it in her to actually, knowingly kill another human being.

Initially, I thought I knew my answer: I could kill to save a life, mine or someone else's; I could kill in defense of my country or another sufficiently worthy cause. Then I considered more diligently my own history in that regard and began to wonder...

Long ago, a man molested Tia's mom and I went to his hotel room with every intent of blowing him into eternity. I knocked on the door. The 357 was in my hand. My finger was on the trigger, and oh, so ready to pull. But when he opened the door, I simply flipped the weapon, handed it to him butt first and walked away. God defused my rage and granted me the wisdom to know my children would only suffer more if I were in prison.

During my truck driving days, I was twice robbed at knife point. Although I kept a loaded revolver strapped along the right side of my driver's seat, on neither occasion did I reach for it. Again, God stayed my hand with the understanding that my material things are not worth a human life.

Settling such accounts is the business of the Almighty. He will either forgive the penitent, for whom He has already paid the debt, or allow the unrepentant to reap the harvest they've sown.

On further self examination, however, I do feel my initial assessment was right on. I could indeed kill to protect a life or in service to my country or like cause. I pray I am never called on to do so, and should it ever be, I would be forever changed, but I really have no doubt about this part of who I am.

A Simple Sunday

Church was great! It seems like forever since I've spent time with my church family. I sure do love those people!

After church, I stopped by the other house to check on things, water the plants and get the mail. There was a big black plastic bag of faux fur things laying next to the grill. Muffs, stoles, etc. Not wanting to leave them there to be rained on or filled with bugs and lizzards, I put them in my car and will take them to the park office tomorrow for I suspect someone left them at the wrong address.

When I got ready to leave, I realized I had locked my keys inside. I was still in my "church clothes" but had to climb in a window nonetheless. This was not a low window, mind you, and even though I stood on a plastic patio chair, it was quite a stretch to get my leg hiked up high enough to poke my foot in the window... and all my strength to pull myself on in. I'll bet I was a sight!

Athena left a me a voice mail message and said they would like to come over for a bit. Of course, I was thrilled, but we never connected. Our phones went out and we could not even reach customer service. Must have been a BAD DAY FOR SPRINT. We have service now for which I'm grateful, but it's a bummer we never connected with Athena.

Well, Athena just called. She knew of others who had Sprint problems. Usually we're pretty happy with our phone service, but any company can have a temporary service disruption now and then.

We're probably going to adopt two cats. We'll go meet them tomorrow afternoon. We miss having cats. Snooks likes cats, too.

Too Much to Tell

Every time I sit down to do a blog, I'm overwhelmed, not knowing where to start and how to pare it down to a reasonable size. There's just too much to tell... so I'll simply say our trips were wonderful. Both brides were lovely and the grooms charming and handsome. Our children and grandchildren and greatgrandchildren were delightful and spending time with them always thrills me. We were so blessed to get to be at both wedding festivities. We had to wait until Sunday to see Scott, but the visit was well worth the wait. We have a wonderful family and are so proud of them. Okay, I know that sounds trite, but it's SO TRUE!!!

Since I can't seem to adequately summarize all that's transpired, I'll just leave it at that.

After much trial and retrial, we finally have an office. The room is set up so that storage and printeres are in the closet and the work spaces are clutter free. Although not the largest, it's the most workable office I've ever had and I'm so pleased with it. Now I just need to dig through boxes of "office stuff" and paperwork to get it all put away.

We got dining room and bedroom furniture off of craigslist.com (love that!) but we almost lost the two arm chairs of the dining room set. We had them in the back of the pickup and nothing could move. Runnung at freeway speeds down the ever-busy I-4, Richard happened to see the chairs flying end over end high in the the air before crashing and skidding onto the pavement. We stopped, backed up the shoulder, sure we'd find nothing but splinters... but the chairs were only scraped. They were as sturdy as could be! God certainly had his hand in that!!!

So, our kitchen, bedroom, office and guest room are fully furnished now, although not yet accessorized. We still need a china cabinet, buffet or server for the dining room, and nearly everything for the livingroom and entry... but God is providing the perfect pieces as we can afford them. His timing is always just right!

So, soon, we'll be settled and I will begin choosing wall colors and accessories. Maybe it'll be all done in a year or so... but it's a fun project and I am absolutely thrilled to have this home to work on and live in!