Dee's Witty Kittys

LIFE IS GOOD

2011-05-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

The days go by so fast sometimes we don't even have a chance to sit back and appreciate all of the blessings we have in our lives ! It is just the first of the month and then the next thing I know it is the end of the month. Now, lo and behold, the year of 2011 is nearly half over. Where has it gone.

LIFE IS GOOD ! Our God is in control of every little detail and all we have to do is trust Him for every day and we are secure in His arms.

We have had a busy year so far but it has been good. Started out with a great (belated) mid January Christmas with all of our family at a beautiful spot in a lodge on the mountain. Snow all around ...what could be more Christmasy!

Then came spring.... I love spring. It always makes me think of Mom as she loved spring. The daffodils push their golden heads up thru the ground brightening up every day even if the days are still gray and sometimes even rainy.

Then a little later our goldfinches arrive at the bird feeder. They add more golden cheer to the days. Yesterday I saw eleven of them all trying to feed at the same time. That just doesn't work so some of them are hanging on the wire that holds the feeder until one of the others leave so they can have a chance for their breakfast. We had to buy a new feeder this year because the old one we had held too much seed and they were emptying it by mid day.... this one is harder for the BIG birds to feed at (they eat TOO much) and our smaller birds have more of a chance to feed. The seed gets spendy so now they are on a limited diet : )

So LIFE IS GOOD... Everybody is happy and moving on in life. Our grandkids are growing up so quickly. We have #4 (Tanner) graduating from high school this year. That puts us 1/2 way thru graduations.... Four more to go after Tanner this year and they will ALL be out of high school.... Time and generations march on....

So such is life on this special day. I say "special" because each and every day is special but we so often forget that. Live each one for the beauty it has in it and don't worry about the ones gone by (there is nothing we can do about them) and don't worry about the ones coming up because the Lord had them all planned out for us and remember HE KNOWS WHAT IS BEST FOR US and He has the rest of each of our lives planned out to every last detail for us ahead of time so we can just rest in His arms and enjoy life to it's fullest.

Love you all !

A Kitty's Rough Life

2011-04-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

Poor Chester. He leads such a traumatic life sometimes. But he brings it all on himself as he just doesn't trust anyone but Bob and I! What can I say. Humans are just NOT his thing....although he does love and trust us as he sleeps on the foot of our bed every night but is outside most of the day coming in on occasion for food, love and/or his favorite treat..
Today was not one of his good days, however. We had some work done in the yard and he couldn't be outside while they were doing it so last night he came in as usual BUT this morning we couldn't let him outside and he was not a "happy camper" to say the least. First he goes to the door and just meows which gets louder and more forceful and when that brings no response from me, he starts in with this HOWL !!
It gets louder and louder trying to get my attention until he finally gives up and jumps up on the back of the couch so he can at least LOOK at his outside domain.
Today, however, he sort of lucked out because yesterday he got a postcard in the mail asking him to let us know it was time for his yearly shots and exam at the vets office. SO I thought to myself....if I could possibly get that scheduled today he would only have to stay in one morning! (He usually disappears for most of the day when he goes out so to be sure he is here for an app't, we have to keep him in.) Anyway , just taking a chance, I called the vet to see if I could possibly get him in today so we could (so to speak) kill two birds with one stone and he would only have to stay in one morning. And sure enough, they got me a 10:15 time slot.
So we took a little drive to the vet's office (1/2 a block down the road) and he got that all done including some extra grooming which means getting all of the hair mats off of his belly as his long hair always gets all matted over the winter and he won't let ME touch his belly to get them out but he is so afraid of the vet and her assistant that he just trembles and lets them do whatever they want to him.
She said he won the "Best Kitty award of the day with his behavior." I was very proud of him!

So we got all that done, I ran to the post office with him in the front seat of the truck (in his carrier, of course) and went for a latte before bringing him back home because he still couldn't go outside here. I brought him in and let him out of his carrier and he immediately RAN down the hall and disappeared. We did finally find him hid under far side of the guest bed in the first bedroom. Then when he could go out and we went to find him, he was gone so we had to do a house search. I am still not quite sure where he had been hiding the second time, but he finally came strolling down the hall with BIG eyes observing everything to be sure there wasn't some big monster waiting to grab him before our eyes.

I let him outside and I haven't see him since but you can be sure he will be here for his treat later in the day and hopefully forgive us for his rough day. Oh, the life of a cat can be SO complicated sometimes !!

It's Me Again - Surprised ?

2011-03-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

Well, here I sit again thinking of nothing to say.... what have I done lately ??
Had a really fun weekend with three of my favorite gals.... We spent the whole weekend - from Friday morning (after we got home from our tsunami alert evacuation that is)until Sunday afternoon just shuffling paper, photos, adhesive, and other misc items to hang on to those precious memories that we enjoy and then forget a lot of the details as the weeks, months and years go by. It is so fun to relive those special days, vacations and remember all of the great moments in life the Lord gives us !! The process was fun and the company very special. I managed to get 56 pages done in my last years vacation album. Now I just have to put it together and it will be all finished. What an accomplishment. Feels really good.

Oh, you are curious about our little tsunami episode?? We heard about the Japan earthquake before we went to bed Thursday nite when our weather alert radio alarm went off in the hallway... Bob stayed up to watch the news awhile and nothing was predicted to hit here until morning so we got up about 5 am to check on things and they were suggesting an evacuation to be safe. We headed up to our new Costco parking lot which is high ground, with Bob checking into the net with his amateur radio so we knew what was going on. Nothing happened here but it did serve as a great drill to see how prepared or not prepared we really are here. Southern Oregon did get some waves that did a little damage but nothing severe.

Things are back to normal now.... had a great thunder storm yesterday.. There's just something about a good thunder storm I enjoy. It just reminds me of God's fantastic power and how He can get our attention. From the tsunami to the thundering clouds the next day we know HE REALLY IS IN CONTROL and He can do pretty much what He desires to get our attention !

I'll never forget our thunder storm on Dow Road when the lightening hit our house when the kids were little. That's one thing in life one never forgets. The deafening crash, ozone smell, the flash all at one time and then the outlet in our bedroom catching on fire. Oh everything turned out ok but it was a bit scary at the time.

OK, enough for today. I have lots to do today and not a lot of time to do it so I am off....good to talk to myself today.... Have a good day if anyone reads this !

Do It Now

2011-03-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

Do it now - that was the last entry I did on my blog last year. Why have I not blogged for so long. No real reason. Sometimes nothing comes into my head and guess I have just been too busy to even think about blogging but then that isn't really a good excuse either so I REALLY don't know why I haven't. I suppose Facebook has sort of taken over but it will never replace a spot where one can really sit down and ponder what has been going on in life and just sit down and put it on paper. Facebook doesn't really replace the thought that can go into a blog.
I get frustrated at times when people come up with a one liner and it is never explained what is going on. I don't call that communication. It just makes me wondering what happened or is going to happen and it leaves me feel like...OK, what is going on here. Is this something I could be praying about or something I could be celebrating with this person. Leaves my hanging....that is frustrating !

I went back this morning and read some of my former blogs and they were actually sort on interesting. One wonders sometime how much of life goes by and we sort of forget about all of fun little interesting little things that go on.
So I have no agenda at all this morning as I sit here with my cup of coffee listening to the winds we are getting this morning. We just had a 58 mile an hour gust they just said on the radio. Of course it is garbage day so our can is sitting by the road waiting to be picked up by the garbage truck.That may or may not happen as he doesn't get out of his truck and if it is laying on it's side it just stays there. It has already been picked up out of the driveway twice this morning because the wind blew it over. Luckily, ours is always in plastic bags tied shut so it didn't spill out onto the road. The neighbors down the road had things flying all over their yard. Plastic bags, cartons etc just enjoying a little trip flying thru the air to land where ever. (OHHHH - there went ours again - another THUD and sure enough it is on it's side. Maybe Bob will be up soon, it's his turn I think !!)
See, now wasn't that one thing you really needed to know this morning..my little episode with our garbage can. Sometimes I wonder why my friends (one especially !!) keeps bugging me to blog. I know you just wouldn't have been happy going thru this day not knowing I am having a battle with my garbage can ! I'm sure that will REALLY MAKE YOUR DAY ! That was really one piece of info you just couldn't live without today, right ??

Life is good. We continue to keep busy...I have cut back on some things to just have more time for some other things but I still have enough to more than keep me busy. I am enjoying more time to myself though. I still go to the Animal Shelter every Tuesday. I just realized the other day that I started going out there every Tuesday in 2004 right after I retired. I had a gal going to my WW meeting that volunteered out there and she told me about it and then Chester and Samantha (our two little feral kittys) showed up on our doorstep as wild as could be and I went out there to get a trap to catch them and have them neutered and spayed so we wouldn't get more feral kittens around and put in a volunteer sheet and began working shortly thereafter. I still love going out there. I volunteer in the kitty room just socializing and petting them so they are feeling loved which makes them adjust better to their situation and therefore easier to get adopted. It was hard at first because you feel sorry for them and want to take them all home but it doesn't take long to realize that is not possible but I can make their lives better while they are looking for their new "forever" homes.

Other than that I still have my Weight Watchers job and enjoy that very much too. Keeps me hopping sometime but It is a very rewarding and fun job.I have a great team that works with me and we really have grown close to each other.
Ok... Bob just walked into the room (sent him out to get the garbage can this time) and I can't concentrate now so this will be it for today.
(Are you happy, Jan !! )
Hugs
Dee

Do It NOW !

2010-08-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

This is my new motto ! I have gotten so bad about putting things off it is driving me crazy. Like when the dryer stops - my resolution when I retired was to not pile the clothes in the clothes basket and set them aside but to fold them as they come out of the dryer (well - That didn't happen) Although that one doesn't bother me too much as that is one thing I can do when we sit down to watch TV.. so I am pretty much ok with that one.
BUT the clothes that I hang on the hook so they won't get wrinkled do tend to hang there way too long. It really doesn't take anymore time to go hang them right up instead of putting them on the hook in the laundry room and then look at them each time I go thru there.
We all have things I'm sure that bug us - little rituals we set in our minds as important. I remember Mom's was always a dirty bathtub. Now think about it - how many dirty bathtubs do you really ever see but that was her hangup. She always said if my bathtub is clean I feel good. Well OK that doesn't seem to be a problem for me...Not that I often have a dirty bathtub but it just isn't my particular hangup.
However, dirty dishes in the sink is.... Somehow I just don't like to see dirty dishes in there for some reason. It just takes a second to rinse them and stick them out of sight in the dishwasher.
Or how about mail that lays on the table waiting to be decided what to do with it.
Get it in the wastebasket if it isn't important and if it is then put it where it won't get lost! That's my motto. I have solved that one by putting it in a basket where it is safe until we forget about it - then go thru it and half of it isn't really as important as we thought and it gets sorted out then.
Now then - we get to people that are always late.... That one REALLY gets me. I like to be EARLY if anything. We had some people that were always late for our Bible Class at our old church and someone said "Well, we should start later." No Way Hosea - They would have just arrived later yet as that was just their practice. Let them sheepishly tiptoe in late if they can't leave on time !
Then there is even my cat with his "late" problem only he isn't late really, just stubborn. Cats live their own lives you know and sometimes they give in to our desires but not usually. He will come RUNNING across the yard when I call him like he just can't wait to come in THEN he comes to a screeching halt right outside the door which I am holding open for him - STOPS and SITS DOWN and looks at me with his sweet little face ! Then after awhile he stands up, stretches with his front feet, then leisurely with his back feet and then sits down again. By then I usually shut the door in his face and then open it up again and usually he will slowly tiptoe in at his own pace. We can get even with him though if Bob is sitting in his chair I ask him to shake Chesters "treat" jar so the way to get him in is thru his stomach!
Clutter is another thing that doesn't get along with me much although I have PLENTY of it around. Sometimes my desk gets so I can't even see the top. Then I just have to sit down and start going thru it. Why can't I just put things neatly in a file drawer or a box instead of piling them up in a stack to "put away later because I'm in a hurry now." In a hurry for what ?...
Then there's our new coffee pot. It is a "one cup at a time" pot (LOVE IT!) but when it is low on water you have to take out the canister and fill it and it always seemed to be out of water when you wanted your coffee the most SO now I fill it when it is half full and that problem was solved! There are solutions to what bugs us if we can just be flexible and think about ways to make life more enjoyable and not always just get uptight!
My time is pretty much used how I want to spend it. There's not too much I am tied down to when it comes to time. Just in my head I think "I'll do that later !" WHY? WHY NOT NOW ? It takes no more time to do it now and then it is done, out of sight and I feel good about it...Life is funny sometimes. We do things that bug us and then never really wonder why we get upset with ourselves because things aren't the way we want them to be.
RELAX - ENJOY LIFE AS THE GIFT THAT GOD HAS GIVEN US AND DON'T GET HUNG UP ON THE LITTLE THINGS. They aren't really that important in the real scope of things.
Save yourself an ulcer or worse....Go with the flow and ask yourself "Does this really matter enough to get up tight about it ?" JUST DO IT NOW AND IT IS DONE!

Life At It's Best : )

2010-07-29T09:59:00.003-07:00

What a bummer. The last time I sat down to blog I ended up with a nicely length for a blog..after many months of blank space in my head. Pushed the publish button and it TOTALLY disappeared so if this one does that I am really going to be upset.
Can't even remember what I wrote on that one or I would just ditto it....
BUT here I sit - totally blank... in front of a blank blog with no thoughts of interest to anyone or myself --What a bummer !
But I promised to try and get one off so here goes --- ramble - ramble !

Guess I could do like Cathy does sometimes and just post "random thoughts."
Probably not of interest to anyone but at least it will be something.

1. WEll, I CAN DRIVE AGAIN - GOT MY FREEDOM BACK. BOTH BOB AND I ARE BOTH SINGING PRAISES. Bless his heart, he has been packing me around for over six months and I had been going stir crazy for some alone time too. LOVE IT !

2. Why can I drive? I have a new "kicker bumper" - WEll, I guess I should say I got a pacemaker to keep my heart beating on a regular rhythm.. It's pretty cool actually. I have a monitor by my beside and every night it checks how things are going and my Dr in Beaverton checks it periodically and makes sure all is normal. No regular trips to the big city. It is all done remotely. Only have to check in once a year if it is doing ok. Pretty handy, huh ? (So no more fainting spells yippee !)

3. Weight Watchers - still plugging along with my three meetings at least until the end of summer then think I will get to go back to my two regular mtgs. It has been enjoyable but keeps me pretty busy each week. Then I also have been doing a lot of subbing for other gals so some weeks it is REALLY interesting. One week I ended up with seven meetings. Two across the river, one in Knappa and one in Seaside besides my three. That was quite a week !!

3. Our yard. It is a MESS - I have the name of a guy from church that does garden work for people. I need to give him a call and see if we can get something done to it. I can't do any pulling or heavy lifting so can't really accomplish what needs to be done out there. Our sweet gal, Jackie, is mowing our lawn for us (Thanks Jackie) but she has her own yard to take care of so we need to call in "the troops" and see what we can have done.

4. Church - VBS was a blast ! Had about 200 kids throughout the week. 20 decisions for Christ. Bob did the coolest video to show to the parents on the closing day. We have a baptism at the lake coming up in August. They are so fun ! I'm sure there will be some of the VBS children taking part.

5.Kittys - We found our neighbor kitty, Mia, up on our roof one day recently.... She was totally content to sleep up there in the corner where the garage roof meets the house but we finally had to get the ladder to get her down. She is a sweetie. We still can't figure how she got up there.

Chester is doing fine. Is a bed hog at night sprawling out full length across the bed totally inconsiderate of anyone else that might want to stretch out and get some leg room.

Shelter kittys - have had a pretty good summer. Had six or so adopted in just the past week or so. Judi and I still enjoy every Tuesday going out to love and snuggle with them. Kittens have been slow so far this year and go fast when they come in.

6. New things - We finally got our act together and purchased two new recliner chairs for our living room. Came to the realization we got our old ones shortly after we moved in here in 1991. Bought our old ones at Montgomery Wards in Longview. Does that tell you something. They are no more... They have served us well but it is time for a change. Bought our new ones right next door and J & S.

7 Pretty boring year - didn't take any trips to speak of.. Just old "home bodies" for some reason... Nothing currently planned - BUMMER ! Now summer is nearly over....

8.Rural Excitement !! We looked out the window awhile back and saw a HUGE BLACK BULL in our front yard. I mean HUGE!! He was just munching away at our lawn (maybe the answer to our yard upkeep ?) He had escaped from the pasture behind our house. The city sent out a patrol car to watch him until the owner could get over here to round him up. I wasn't about to mess with him. HE WAS HUGE. Every time I would go out on the deck to check on him, he would raise his head and look at me with drool and long weeds hanging out of his mouth. The patrol car played tag with him keeping him off the street until his owner arrived. This is the second time he has come to "visit" I know ! I know! Small town excitement !!

9. That has been my "interesting" life recently. NOW you know why I haven't blogged Who would be interested in this anyway !

Love all you faithful check in people even if I don't blog !

2010-07-29T09:59:00.001-07:00

So sorry !

2010-07-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

I just spent 20 minutes posting and then lost it.
I'll try to get back and redo it later. I have too many things to do this am!

APRIL 12 - A SPECIAL DAY

2010-04-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

Today is my Daddy's birthday. He would have been 98 today.
He went to be with His Lord October 3, 2001. I still missed him.
He was always my rock when I was growing up. Somewhat gruff at times
but he always loved us kids and I could always depend on him.
He could fix ANYTHING and love to work in his garage on all kinds
of projects. He was always puttering out there with something for someone. He made
beautiful things with wood. Furniture, lamps and all kinds of beautiful things.
He and Mom moved us to a six acre farm when we were little and he drove
all the way thru our town and a neighboring town to get to work each day,
but we all loved the farm. We had animals and six acres all to ourselves.

He loved Mom with all his heart and cared for her up until the day she
went to be with the Lord.

He was my big strong oak tree with branches sheltering me from life for
the first 18 years of my life and even after I moved out, I knew he was
always there for me! LOVE YOU DAD !!

It is also my daughter-in-laws birthday but I consider her just "my daughter".
She is such a beautiful part of our family. I love her dearly and she
is all I could ask for in a daughter. I'm so glad she shares Dad's birthday.
It makes the day EXTRA SPECIAL. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LA CHEL !

Chores

2010-03-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

Chores are funny things Some are regular little things you HAVE to do each day...Others lurk over your head saying "I need to be done, don't ignore me" and yet I so often do just that. They can dominate and frustrate us beyond belief if we just ignore them and they often just hang there in the back of the mind.
I tried making lists of what needs to be done but that usually doesn't help either.
Time just seems to disappear sometimes and those pesky little chores just remain out there saying "Don't forget me, Don't forget me, I need to be done and I'm not letting you off the hook until they are done."
So what do I do with my time, who knows, it just disappears, right gang!I got up this morning, fed my kitty and let him out. Took my shower, had my breakfast, checked my e-mail to be sure I didn't have a message from one of my WW staff saying that they couldn't be there tonight for some reason, left a quick note on Facebook, then had my devotions. Then my day was open until about 2 pm.
What to do - what to do ?? Such decisions!
Well, I looked at my desk, I could clear it off (what a mess it gets to be),I could do some scrapbooking (that's always an option) I could clean the kitchen floor (that didn't sound like fun.) So now I sit here deciding to do what to do with what is left of my day before I leave for my mtg. Then I spotted something that has been lurking on my desk for months. Bob pays the bills but when he is done with them they get stacked on the upper shelf of my desk to file. WELL, guess what, that is one that has been lurking there since the end of last year so the light bulb went on and I scooped them up and got them sorted out this morning. WOW, what a chore but now it is done ! Maybe I shouldn't let them go so long, you think? One down, but can you believe this, my Christmas cards are lurking in my desk drawer waiting to be recorded in my list book. Maybe that should be next.
And then there is my scrapbook room in desperate need of reorganization so I can find what I need when I need it !
Oh well, life is full of things to do and sometimes organization isn't always at the top of the list. As organized as I like to be, I have learned there are more important things in life than always having everything in it's place every second of every day. (Even though I would love that sort of life.)
OOPS Bob just got up, had his breakfast and now it is time for our devotions .. back in a minute !
That is how my days go. Always something coming up that seems to leave all those little chores undone.
One chore I don't have to deal with anymore is the vacuuming! We recently bought a "Roomba" Have you seen them ---a little circle of love as far as I'm concerned. He sits in his docking station and when I need to vacuum I wake him up, block off the room I want done, push his little clean button, he chirps back with a cute little tune and takes off across my floor and I go back to whatever I wanted to be doing.
He buzzes around the room until he finally has it all clean, beeps again and goes back to his docking station with all the junk from the floor in his tummy to be emptied later.
It was so cute when we had our little stray gray kitty that lived on our front porch for awhile was here, he would look in the sliding door and his head would go back and forth watching it move across the floor. I'm sure he couldn't figure out what it was. There was a spot on YouTube awhile back of a kitty that rode around on it as it cleaned. It was really cute. Don't know how he kept his tail from getting caught in it though as it just trailed along behind Roomba on the floor.
So such is life in the Carson household. Things getting done eventually...
Not to worry. There are more important things in life that having everything in the exact spot it should be and every hair in place.
Enjoy life, put God and people first and you will live a fulfilling life that will honor him.
Have a good day today....and maybe try to squeeze in "just one little chore that will make you feel happy and fulfilled today."

Stressed or Not Stressed - That is the Question

2009-12-14T10:50:00.000-08:00

IF

IF you can get along without pep pills
IF you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains
IF you can resist complaining to and boring people with your troubles
IF you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it.
IF you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time
IF you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you when, through no fault of your own, something goes wrong
IF you can take criticism and blame without resentment
IF you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him or her
IF you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor one.
IF you can face the world without lies and deceit
IF you can conquer tension without medical help
IF you can relax without liquor
IF you can sleep without the aid of pills
IF you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, sex, color, religion, national origin, gender preference or political parties

THEN YOU HAVE ALMOST REACHED THE SAME LEVEL OF DEVELOPMENT AS A DOG OR CAT.....

Don't you need a friend like this? Learn to deal with your stress as you stroke a kitty on your lap - Consider adoption of a kitty or dog for Christmas.

You will NEVER find a more faithful friend anywhere ~~~
MERRY CHRISTMAS

DO YOU HAVE AN EAGLE LURKING OUTSIDE ??

2009-10-19T09:30:00.000-07:00

Don't you just love it when God uses ever day things in your life to prove a point when you begin to question things ???

In our church small group study this fall we are going thru a book called "Respectable Sins."
Last night we studied a very thought provoking chapter. It was on anxiety, frustration and worry....basically the opposite of trust in God thru all things that take place in our lives ! It says anxiety is a sin because it is a lack of acceptance of God's providence in our lives. He is orchestrating all events and circumstances in our lives because He loves us and knows what is best for us.

But think about that, do we really act like that when some of our plans change and/or we get bad news about something or someone and we get anxious and worried about the situation. When thing don't go as WE planned! Usually we get all frustrated and worried when something doesn't go right - traffic is tangled so we are late for a very important meeting... or someone in the family is going thru a crisis and we can't understand why God is allowing that!
How could God allow that if He really loves us."
We had a great discussion last night about how God often intervenes in our lives with circumstances when we have no idea He really is controlling the situation (good or bad) because of His love and care for us.

This morning He reinforced that in my life with my sweet kitty and an eagle.
Chester had been in all night and I let him out when I got up as usual. Then noticed a short time later he was at the door wanting back in. So I opened the door...he went to his dish and ate a short time, then headed back to the door and meowed to go out. JUST AS I OPENED the door in the closest huge evergreen tree near our back yard I saw the huge wide spread wings of one of our local eagles that live close by as he landed in the tree. We see them quite often flying over but they usually don't get this close.. He fluttered his wings a bit then settled in on the top branch so he could see over the whole neighborhood.

Now, let me explain, one day awhile back while I was at the animal shelter we had a lady call all shook up because she had just watched an eagle swoop down and grab her kitty right out of her back yard....SO what immediately came to my mind. "Sorry, Kitty you are not going outside while he is sitting up there." The screen door was still closed, so I shut the inside door - much to his dismay. He always goes outside in the morning and is out most of the day.

So he looks up at me with those pitiful big eyes of his as if to say " Well, let me out."
Now I tried to explain to him that it was dangerous out there for him right now and I was keeping him in because I loved him and wanted him safe and it was for his own good......it was not a good thing for him to be out there right now. Do you think that he bought that !!!
No way, I had changed his routine for the day. He immediately began meowing at me. Now he generally has this tiny little meow that you can hardly hear but when he gets upset that soon grows into sort of a howl he drags on and on with. It can be very grating on the nerves... but I was determined he was not going out as long as that eagle was looking for breakfast!

SO for the next 45 minutes I kept trying to keep him on my lap, convince him that his plan right now to go outdoors was not a good idea even though I had changed his plans, upset his whole day and ruined his agenda. HIS idea was not my idea of what was good for him right now !
That's when it hit me. That was exactly what we were talking about last night.
He was frustrated with me because I had changed HIS plans.
Don't we do the same thing with God when He changes our plans. All we see is our point of view not God's overall knowledge of what might be on 'the other side of that door and up in that tree."

So folks, the next time your plans or agenda doesn't go as planned, sit back and think about my kitty just knowing what HE wanted but totally oblivious to what was lurking outside.
We really do need to put our trust in God when things don't "go our way" and be willing to "give up our agenda" and trust Him !

YOU MAY HAVE AN EAGLE LURKING OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR AND GOD IS WANTING TO KEEP YOU SAFE....

You know God really does love us and knows what is best for us in all circumstances whatever the reason we get our noses bent out of shape with anxiety, worry and frustration.

"Cast all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7

Day By Day Life

2009-10-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

OK OK - So I don't blog much anymore. I guess Facebook has sort taken the urgency out of it but there you can't really get much detail into what is going on. But no one ever comments on my blog so I assume I'm just doing it to use as scrapbook journaling which isn't a bad thing either.

Had a fun visit with Jean and Harvey last week who drove up from Louisiana at the end of September to visit Mark and Debi and all the rest of us "northerners." It is always so good to see them. It is such a long trip but they faithfully drive out each fall.

What else is happening.... Life is busy....... but fun. Have been doing some subbing for Weight Watchers so picking up a little extra "mad money." Have gotten season tickets to the Liberty Theatre for this season and also for the Cannon Beach playhouse. We always enjoy them. It keeps us busy but is a lot of fun to attend each of them.

We are still enjoying our new church very much. Have started leading a small group in our home this fall on 'Love and Respect" - marriage related. Has been very good. Really makes you aware how much we take our spouses for granted and the importance of communication.

We have also joined a different group that meets on Sunday evenings studying "Respectable Sins" Wow, I think that is going to be a real eye opener ! Has also been really good fellowship and a great chance to really get to know our associate pastor and his wife as they lead the group. What a great couple - just everything you would expect from a pastor.

What else is happening. Bob had a chance to take a really neat trolley trip which took them all the way out to Tongue Point on the trolley on some old train tracks. He got lots of great pictures. It was just for trolley drivers not the general public.

He is still busy with lots of tours at the Maritime Museum and his regular shift on the Lightship greeting visitors from actually all over the world at times.

I'm still loving kittys weekly at the local animal shelter. Each week there is a new sweet and dear kitty it seems that needs love along with those that have been there awhile. It has slowed down a bit now that school starts. Thru the summer Moms tend to bring kids out "for something to do" with no intention of adopting a kitty. Which is fine but it does get to be a bit busy at times when we are trying to let each kitty have some play and snuggle time with us. My favorite this week was a BIG black boy named Lottie. He came out of his kennel, crawled on my lap and laid there just as long as I sat there. What a dear! Long black soft fur with big eyes that stare right into your heart. Anybody want a kitty ??

Well, enough for today. Nothing very exciting but sometimes that is good too. Life moves on and all is well - what more could we ask for.
God Is Good !! Hugs to anyone that takes time to check in. Love you all !

Slow Down - I Want To Get Off

2009-08-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't really really want to get off. But it could slow down a bit.
Life is good but why does it go by so fast.
Here it is fall again (My favorite season of the year) but it came so quickly this year.
I got up this morning early to meet a friend and it was DARK ! Had to come home from my meeting last week after dark too.
But I love the beauty of the fall leaves and the cozyness of being at home after dark as snug as a "bug in a rug.". Just always something special about that for me.

Life has been so busy lately. I guess that is why it is going so fast. All good things happening
but it just seems like the days, weeks and even months just whiz by !!

What are we doing ? I don't really know. Just living daily life but we are totally enjoying it.
Love our new church and our activities there. We will be starting a small group at our home
in three weeks. A marriage seminar and it really looks interesting from our first glance at the material. We are praying for just the right mix of people to really bond and be able to share ideas, problems and solutions while making new acquaintences that we pray will be lasting friendships. Totally enjoyed the church picnic and baptism last Sunday. How inspiring to see 20 or so people step into the waters of baptism from a 7 year just saved at VBS this year to an 85 year old lady who had been a Christian for a long time but had never been baptized. God is so good....and it is so refreshing to see our church reaching out to the community in a way that is so what God commands us to do !

I'm loving my Weight Watcher job. It is so much fun each week...I have been substituting for another leader the last two weeks and have one more week to go SO I have been leading four meetings a week. Wouldn't want to do it on a regular basis but it has been fun to work with different people and get to know the members that attend there. I love my staff - we work so well together and have formed REAL bonds of friendship above and beyond our working relationship.

Haven't really done too much traveling or exciting things this year but it has been a good summer! Had the joy of our oldest grandson, Cameron, propose to the sweetest little gal and we are so excited for them. A new grandaughter !! We love it. Life moves on and it is so fun to see them around each other. Brings back fun memories of when we got engaged. Bob was in the Coast Guard and had been away at ET school in Conneticut. I was in my senior year of high school. He bought my ring with the travel money he got to come home. We had known for a long time we were meant for each other, after all we had gone together for about two years but there is something very special when the ring really comes ! Happy Memories and hard to believe we will have our 50th wedding anniversary next June 18 ! Talk about time flying by - that really confirms it !! Wouldn't trade a day of it for anything !!

LIFE IS GOOD -

Garage Sale Fun

2009-08-03T09:21:00.001-07:00

Just finished up two weekends of sales in our garage. The first just a normal old 2 day garage sale with assorted items and odds and ends...the second focusing on craft/scrapbook supplies. We just left all our tables set up after the first one was over and set up again for just a one day sale. Had a blast at both. We just enjoy seeing and talking to all of the people that come to shop.

Like:
* The Bike Man - He stopped by because he needed a blanket. (yes, he found one) He said he had had a heart attack awhile back and decided he needed some exercise so he was riding his bike all the way down the coast. Interesting man !

* The Alligator Man - He stopped just to see if we had any type of alligator (stuffed, statues, etc)
He had some throat surgery awhile back and said he sort of sounded like an alligator when he tried to talk after his surgery and got sort of interested in alligators and had started collecting them! (Sorry, no alligators)

*The Cat Lady - Came looking for cat items. She has a refuge home for cats (think she said she currently had 18) Not a cat "hoarder" like we hear of sometimes though. She has a regular little house her husband built for them full of toys, climbing things etc and loves and pets spends time with them regularly.

*The Joke Man - Came in with his wife and while she was looking around, he came up and started talking. Then shared a silly little joke with us and when we sort of chuckled, he was encouraged and told us another one. (Don't laugh, if you don't want another joke : )
His wife finally came, bought some items and rescued us ! )

We really do enjoy seeing and talking to everyone that comes. We have one most every year and now are getting a regular following of people that know we put out good stuff and come regularly when they see our ads and signs. We have the ideal place at our house as we catch not only the newspaper ad people but bring in gobs of people who are just shopping at Costco and Freddy's on weekends. We have big yellow signs that are all alike and have big arrows that are easy to follow. Lots of people comment on our good signage....

BUT it is good to have them done this year.... Had a good year money wise too. People are looking for bargains....

Take 2 - Got some pictures !

2009-06-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

Got some pictures in but they aren't in the order I wanted them in. Will have to work on that I guess. #1 The first one is all the "loot" he got. We had people bring 70 of whatever item they wanted. Ranged from 70 pennies from a friend to 70 chocolate kisses from me : )
People were very creative with their ideas.
#2 Then we have the whole gang outside after the party.

#3 is Bob's entrance at the party with everyone hiding off to the side.
#4 is the fantastic poster Ken had made up.
#5 his cake. HE BLEW OUT ALL 70 CANDLES WITH ONE BREATH !

WHAT A RELIEF !

2009-06-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

What a relief is right. The kids actually pulled off Bob's 70th Birthday Party without a hitch!

It was a total surprise to him. We had 43 people in attendance at the Warrenton Community Center on the day after his birthday.... We had gone out to dinner on his birthday with friends so he wouldn't think we weren't celebrating and be suspicious. It was a blast. From friends we hadn't seen in ages to very new friends from our new church.

One will never know how many slips there were before that could have led him to know that something was up but they all seem to go right over his head never expecting anything like this.
The kids brought it up months ago and we set the date, reserved the room etc and then tried to keep him at home and not doing anything that day to pull it off.

I know it was a lot of work for the kids but it meant so much to Bob just to know they would take the time, effort and travel to honor him in this way.
THANKS KIDS FOR EVERYTHING.... IT WAS VERY SPECIAL !

So sorry -- I had pictures to add to this and for some reason, it won't load pictures. Will try later..

I'm Coming, I'm Coming

2009-06-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

I am so far behind in blogging I can't believe it
Haven't shared Bob's birthday party or a zillion other ideas I have had.
But things are still busy, busy, busy !
I will be back -
don't give up

WHAT'S THE CHANCE !

2009-05-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

TIMING IS SUCH A FUN THING ! You go somewhere and do something entirely thinking only of the event or place you are going to.
Then paths cross -- unexpected paths. It is so COOL !
Wednesday we were in Beaverton for an appointment. A one time thing probably,
to a buiding we had never been in before. We were early so we walked upstairs and the door was locked for lunch hour so we walked back down the stairs to wait in the car.......WHEN just as we walked out of the stairway door into the foyer (THE SUSPENSE BUILDS !) the door opens and a tall young man walks in the door from the outside. WE ALL PAUSE --- But just for a second, and then we hear "Carsons?"
Standing there right in front of us was Jeff Capellan. We hadn't seen Jeff for years.
He was there with his briefcase in his suit all ready to head upstairs for an appointment on the second floor. He lives out of town - we live out of town. We had appointments on the same day, at the same time, at the same place. We were early so went back downstairs.... WHAT WAS THE CHANCE OF THE MEETING HAPPENING. It was so fun and we just laughed about it. We hugged, chatted a bit and all went our own way.
ISN'T LIFE FUN. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT IS AROUND THE CORNER !

Christian Heritage !

2009-04-27T09:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think we forget how important a place people in our past have on our spiritual lives.... Some gone long enough we don't often stop to consider how their lives affected ours even though we may never have recognized it.
Our spiritual walk was basically non-existent as we began our life together and yet we were being brought before our Lord without our even realizing it... to a point to where God finally led us thru the circumstances He planned to bring us to Him.
Faithful prayers of faithful warriors. One such as a little 5 foot lady (Bob's Grandma Rose) who loved the Lord and I'm sure prayed for Bob for years beginning when he was born premature and she went to the nuns at the Catholic hospital and asked them if they believed in prayer and lifted Bob up in prayer for him to make it thru those first few days of life. One whom I am sure added me to her prayer list as Bob and I started dating and were then married. One who way back prayed for her son as he was overseas in WWII facing battle after battle in the Army.
One day last week I was in our guest bedroom which is my "heritage room" of beautiful old things from our past and noticed the calendar of hers on the wall from 1945. Something made me take it off the wall and look thru it - although I had done that many times before it just jumped out to me to be looked at that afternoon.
It is all pictures of the men on the battle field in the Army and, bless her heart, as usual she had written all over it in her precious own handwriting which I have learned to love. Hard to read as she writes in circles sometimes on backs of pictures when she runs out of room but when you sit down and take the time to study her writings, there are precious little bits of our and her past that would be lost without her "hen scratches" of writing.
So I want to give this gift to you of her love and trust in Christ to keep her loved ones safe.... It goes like this in her own handwriting .......
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"He made it thru all the hell of war and came back safe to his little family Bob and Dennis and Elsie. Thank God for His care to Clint and the rest of us. I found myself on my knees many a nite at 3 am praying for Clint's safety, pouring out my need to God in prayer for my boy so far away from us. But always near to God. Since he came home much has happened to Clint. Nearly killed by a log at the West Coast Plywood Mill. It was God's will for him to live. Oh, that he may see God's goodness for him to carry out in his life on earth to the glory of God.
Now October 6th, 1961 his son, Bob, is in the service in Alaska. I pray for his safety now and always. And God's will be done in Bob's life. Not our will Oh God, but thine..God bless and keep him in your will. Keep him in our wonderful USA when the dark clouds of war still hang low over our heads. O Prince of Peace, do grant peace to all the world. In Jesus Name we ask. Amen
(She goes on)
By Rose Cole, In October 1961 a great grandmother twice.
In 1974 a great great grandnother to 10 and a sick husband to pray for and brother Dave too. My faith in God is as strong as it was on February 13, 1936"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Possibly the date of her accepting the Lord, I don't know -
She passed away in 1994 still trusting her Lord. She served God actively in the Salvation Army for many years before she went home to be with her Savior. What a precious lady in our heritage !!
Little do we know how much impact her faithful prayers had on us as we were drawn closer and closer to our Lord and then took the step to salvation in the fall of 1964.
Never underestimate the power of your faithful prayers for others !!

Kitty with a Bad Dream ?

2009-04-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

The other night I was sure we were going to have an earthquake. I have heard of cats and dogs predicting things like that before they happen.
Chester woke me up at 3:30 in the morning just meowing and meowing.
He never wakes up until at least 6 or 6:30 to be let out. It was pitch black and he was out in the living room. I got up to see what was the matter and he was just acting weird. I picked him up and held him for awhile, then took him back to bed. He usually sleeps on the foot of our bed but this time he walked up to the pillow where I was laying, wanting to be petted again, then settled down in his normal spot.
I figured THE BIG ONE was out there waiting to happen but once he settled down, I went back to sleep. SO DO KITTYS HAVE BAD DREAMS ??
YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE ! He was fine the next morning and has been ever since.

The Truth Project

2009-04-05T15:54:00.001-07:00

We are just finishing up a 12 week study called "The Truth Project" at our Small Group this coming Wednesday night and we found it such a thought provoking study wanted to recommend it to anyone who has a chance to go through it. It is put out by Focus on the Family and is an In-Depth Christian Worldview Experience. It starts out with lesson 1 is "Veritology: What is Truth" and covers a different area of truth each week.
2 is Philosophy and Ethics: Says Who?
3 is Anthropology, Who is Man?
4 is Theology, Who is God?
5 is Science, What is True?
6 is History: Whose Story?
7 is Sociology: The Divine Imprint.
8 is Mystica: Am I alone?
9 is The State: Who's Law?.
10 is The American Experiment.
11 is Labor: Created to Create.
12 It finishes up with Community and Involvement: God Cares, Do I?

It has been such an eye opener to some deep thinking that I hadn't thought much about before. It dealt with four fundamental issues: Truth, God, Man, and the Social Order. At first I thought "Wow, this is deep." But the more we got into it, it became very clear that the ultimate goal was not to simply gain knowledge but to look upon the face of God thru it all - and be transformed in the process. Very rich teaching and very thought provoking.
If you ever get a chance to attend it, don't miss it !!

Besides the study, we had a great time gaining friendships with a really neat group of people. Everyone was very regular and we formed a bond with the group very quickly..
Had a surprise birthday party last night with the wife of the leader and had more time to just visit and grow closer together as a group in a social setting. We have had one couple over for dinner last week and found a lot in common with them. We sorted of bonded with them as they were as new to the group as we were. Most of the other folks had known each other in church for a long time and had been in previous studys together so we as "newbys" sort of hung together at first especially. God is so good to help us develop new friends and begin to heal from leaving our past church.

There is so much excitement here at NCFF and we are eating it up.
Attended a baptism a month or so ago where about 20 or so people were following the Lord in the waters of commitment. A week or so ago we had the Children of the World concert tour with about 20-25 children from Uganda do the both morning services. Fantastic!
This morning our Sunday School children all came down the aisles waving palm leaves and singing hosanna and did a song on the stage. (It's great to have so many children around.) Had our weekly "new baby" born announced the bulletin today. At least, it seems like it is almost weekly, we have so many young couples (Pastor Glen says " Don't drink the water !")

Next Sunday for Easter, both services will be held in the Seaside Convention Center. Reaching out to the community is the main emphasis of the church and it is being executed in SO many different ways. That is Pastor Glen's real passion - to reach those in need on the coast as well as cultivating the lives of the Saints.

Can you tell we're excited. We picked up membership forms a bit ago and will be getting them in soon.
Hugs to you all...

Be Careful !!!

2009-03-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

I have been cleaning up all the stored stuff on my computer and came across this article I got on e-mail quite awhile back and realized how important this info is and I had forgotten most of it. So bear with me and read thru this because these are good things to have in our heads before we get into a problem and can't think straight !!

Because of recent abductions in daylight hours, refresh yourself of these things to do in an emergency situation.
After reading these 9 crucial tips , get them them to someone you care about. It never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in.

1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do :
The elbow is the strongest point on your body.
If you are close enough to use it, do!

2.If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM . Toss it away from you.... chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and start waving like crazy. The driver won't see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives.

4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping,
eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook,
or making a list, etc. DON'T DO THIS!)
The predator could be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR , LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE.

a. If someone is in the car with a gun to your head
DO NOT DRIVE OFF, repeat: DO NOT DRIVE OFF!
Instead gun the engine and speed into anything,
wrecking the car. Your Air Bag will save you.
If the person is in the back seat they will get the worst of it .
As soon as the car crashes bail out and run. It is better than having them find your body in a remote location.

5. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot,
or parking garage:
A.) Be aware: look around you, look into your car,
at the passenger side floor , and in the back seat
B.) If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door . Most serial killers attack their victims
by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting
to get into their cars.
C.) Look at the car parked on the driver's side of your vehicle, and the passenger side. If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back
into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY.
(And better paranoid than dead.)

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs.
(Stairwells are horrible places to be alone
and the perfect crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)

7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control,
ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target)
4 in 100 times; And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a
vital organ. RUN, Preferably ! in a zig -zag pattern!

8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic:
STOP . It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played
on the sympathies of unsuspecting women. He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often asked "for help" into his vehicle
or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.

9. Another Safety Point:
Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her
"Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." The lady
then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street
and get run over. The policeman said, ! "We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby's cry recorded
and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby.He said they have not verified it,
but have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby's cries outside their doors when they're home alone at night.

Please pass this on and DO NOT open the door for a crying baby ---- This should probably be taken seriously because the Crying Baby theory was mentioned on America's Most Wanted this when they profiled a serial killer in Louisiana.

Be reminded it is a crazy world we live in and it is better to be safe than sorry !! Pass this on to everyone you love and care for.

Don't You Love the Little Things

2009-03-27T12:45:00.000-07:00

In my walk with God I have seen many tremendous prayers answered -
You know the biggie kind that just blow you away and think to yourself WOW - THAT WAS REALLY GOD WORKING! Those really build up my faith....
BUT then there are those little bittsy ones that I think sometimes I don't even realize are answers unless I am on my toes...
Hence my fun little answer this week came on Tuesday morning.
I have seen subbing for the WW leader in Long Beach this week as she was off with her kids for spring break. This meeting is 20 miles away across the river so I am on the road early to get over there in time to set up and be ready for the meeting with weigh in starting 30 minutes before the meeting does.
SO guess what - my quiet time just didn't fit in before I had to leave.
SO I start the car and the radio comes on and after being in Portland the day before it just happened to be tuned to a Christian station we had on driving home and there was a really interesting pastor giving me my daily devotion.....
HOWEVER as soon as I got across the big bridge and behind the hill the station faded. I had to laugh and just told God "OK, if you want me to be able to finish my devotion time, you just better bring my radio back in range."
And You Guessed It ---- before I had gone 50 feet it was back, clear as a bell even though I was still behind the hill.
I really think God does have a sense of humor and that he enjoys our sense of humor too. We have a great, very personal God !

Need A Good Laugh ?

2009-03-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

THESE REALLY CRACKED MY UP.
HAVE A CHUCKLE TO BRIGHTEN YOUR DAY

Grandparents and Grandchildren

She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under the watchfuleyes of her young granddaughter as she'd done many times before.After she applied her lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, "But Gramma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper goodbye!"

My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, "62." He was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, "Did you start at 1?"

After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. Finally, she threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice, "Who was THAT?"

A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like: "We used to skate outside on a pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods." The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this all in. At last she said, "I sure wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo while I asked, "No, how are we alike?" "You're both old,"he replied.

A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story. "What's it about?" he asked. "I don't know," she replied. "I can't read."

I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me and was always correct. It was fun for me, so I continued. At last she headed for the door, saying sagely, "Grandma, I think you should try to figure out someof these yourself!"

When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, "It's no use, Grandpa.. The mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights."

When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, "I'm not sure." "Look in your underwear, Grandpa," he advised."mine says I'm four to six."

A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother,"Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today." The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool."That's interesting," she said, "how do you make babies?" "It's simple," replied the girl. "You just change 'y' to'i' and add 'es'."

Children's Logic: "Give me a sentence about a public servant,"said a teacher. The small boy wrote: "The fireman came down the ladder pregnant." The teacher took the lad aside to correct him."Don't you know what pregnant means?" she asked. "Sure," said the young boy confidently. "It means carrying a child."

A nursery school teacher was delivering a station wagon full of kids home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog's duties."They use him to keep crowds back," said one child."No," said another, "he's just for good luck."A third child brought the argument to a close. "They use the dogs,"she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrants...

Having a Bad Day ?

2009-02-26T12:07:00.000-08:00

No day is so bad, it can't be fixed with a nap !!!

Just ask Chester....

Whatever Is He Thinking?

2009-02-23T09:23:00.000-08:00

Will you look at this little guy ! This is a little tulip blooming in my back yard. Doesn't he know that tulips bloom in late March or April ?? But there he is - small with hardly any stem but it just goes to show perserverence will always win. If you want to bloom bad enough, just put out the energy and it can happen. A good lesson for ALL OF US ! Never give up. If you really want to do something just GO FOR IT AND YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH GREAT UNEXPECTED THINGS !

How Important is YOUR coffee Filter ?

2009-02-06T09:25:00.000-08:00

They come in all sizes and shapes BUT have you really thought much about them lately. Oh sure, you pull one out when you want a pot of coffee and push it rudely into the little plastic cup BUT do you really appreciate it ????
I went to a Gal's Nite Out at church Monday night and found out how important it really can be in your life! We each were asked to share some sort of organizational tip that we use to keep our life in better order. From the 25-30 ladies there things ranged from super simple recipes to how to color coordinate and arrange each and every single item in your closet and drawers(phew) And then one lady stood up and handed us a little sheet of paper with 14 ways to use a coffee filter. Now this is practical stuff !
Check these out!!
1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microware.
2. Clean windows, eyeglasses and mirrors. Coffee filters are lint-free and make them sparkle!
3. Protect china. Separate your good dishes by putting a filter between each dish.
4. Filter broken cork from wine, vinegar or whatever if you break the cork while opening. (Don't think I have ever broken a cork but guess I will file that one away - just in case : )
5. Protect cast-iron skillet with a filter to absorb moisture and prevent rust. (Like that one, Chel? )
6. Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free filter.
7. Recycle frying oil. Strain oil thru a sieve lined with a filter
8. Weigh chopped food by placing the ingredients in a coffee filter on the kitchen scale.
9. Hold tacos. Makes convenient wrappers for messy foods.
10. Line plant pot with a filter to prevent soil from going thru the drainage holes. (This was my favorite!)
11. Prevent Popsicles from dripping by poking a hole in the coffee filter and sticking the stick thru it.
12. Place a few on a plate and put bacon, french fries etc to soak up the grease.
13. Keep in the bathroom as they make great razor nick fixers (What on earth do you do here .. stick the filter on your leg?? Not quite sure how that would look. Wouldn't it would flop when you walked?
14. My Least Favorite! Use strips of coffee filters in place of expensive strips to wax eyebrows.... OK - I have never waxed my eyebrows in my life so not sure how this works. Don't think I will file that one.

SO you can see how impotant a coffee filter can really be in your life? So the next time you stick one in the plastic holder of your coffee pot, TAKE A MINUTE TO THANK HIM FOR HOW VERSATILE HE REALLY IS !We do things for granted, don't we !
Have a great day - I know you ALL really needed this information.
Hugs

WE DID IT !

2009-01-27T15:26:00.000-08:00

We have settled in to North Coast Family Fellowship in Seaside and it feels SO RIGHT!
We should have done this years ago but it was a very hard decision for us.
We are so excited about the atmosphere and the feeling of worship that goes on at NCFF ! It is just a breath of fresh air every week we attend. We visited around for several weeks and nothing felt just right until we got there. Yes, it is a big church but we are finding already that it isn't that hard to get acquainted. We turned in a form they have in the bulletin for new people and that Monday received a phone call from a lady in the office just wanting to get to know us. I talked to her for probably 30 minutes about how you get to feel at home with so many people you don't know and especially how we would ever get to know the pastor. She had some great ideas and
then said would you like to have coffee with Pastor Glen sometime to get to know him.
Later that day he called but we weren't home so he e-mailed us and we set up a time to meet with him. Spent a good hour with him at a coffee shop and came away feeling like we knew our pastor! He is a great guy....enjoy his preaching very much. He is going thru the book of Romans right now.
Later that same week we got a call from the Sr Connection group (because we had put our ages down) inviting us to their weekly meeting at the church and then we received a card from a prayer group on Friday saying they had prayed for us. Immediate responses! They are doing all the right things to make people feel welcome and included.
We signed up for a small group study and have gone two weeks now and have met a neat group of people there. We meet every Wednesday night. They really focus on small groups because that is where the intimacy comes with the body. (Like our Care Units at BBC years ago ! ) That kind of fellowship is what it's all about! The last two weeks we have attended the morning adult Bible Study on Sunday mornings before church and that has been good too. Another way to get acquainted. We are going thru the book of Ephesians.
I love the worship and atmosphere of the whole worship service on Sunday mornings too. The music rocks at times but they still incorporate some of the good old hymns and older songs in the service too.
We have twice in one morning seen people come up to a person that is ill and pray with them standing right in the hall. Not just, we will be praying for you this week. Which I'm sure they did but we were impressed that they also prayed right then and there for them too.
The love and concern seems so genuine among the body that it just radiates thru the church.
Pastor Larry (the associate pastor) always greets everyone at the door when you leave and when we first started he wanted to know if we were new in town and we told him no we are just sort of in and out checking for a new place of worship.
So he said one week, "Oh yes, you are just in and out, right " and we told him "No - we are in!" Our decision had been made!
So, of course, we got a welcome to NCFF from him.
God is so good in helping us over the hump. We have season tickets to a monthly concerts at the Liberty Theatre in Astoria and last month was our third concert. The couple that has season tickets sitting in the row right ahead of us introduced themselves to us at our last concert saying, "Well, if we are going to sit in front of you every month, we may as well get acquainted" so we all introduced ourselves. Well, you guessed it. The very next Sunday we met them at church for the adult study. Yes, a familiar face in the midst of strangers. God is good !
Actually it takes us about the same amount of time to get there as it did to BBC because although it is a little farther, you go highway speeds so it only takes about five minutes longer. Well worth the extra time !
As I said before, this was long overdue and the feeling of freedom and worship is permeating in my life.
God is faithful if we just but listen to his instructions ! SO ALL IS WELL AND AT PEACE!

Question for Today ?????

2009-01-20T09:02:00.001-08:00

You just lost your entire phone number list to a cyber gremlin.
Who 's number would you look up first and why ??

Cute Huh !

2009-01-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite bear.....His name is Rumples. When Lorraine and I redid our bedroom we used a beautiful picture of a mama bear and three cubs as our focal point so I decorated with some bears I had before to compliment the picture.
This special bear has been around for a LONG time... and is very special because Bob gave him to me years ago.
The circumstances are what made it so sweet. We were in Portland a long time ago - just the two of us, don't remember why none of the kids was with us - but for some reason we had a spat on the way up. When we got to Portland we both had different stores to go in to so we went our separate ways... I got back to the car first (or at least I had thought I had) but when I reached the car and unlocked the door this big fuzzy bear was in my seat all seatbelted in. Yes, Bob was forgiven and all was well again because of this big, soft bear.... Thanks Bob for this fun memory ! What a sweet thing to do.
Rumples still has a special place in my heart....as does my very special husband!

Snow Fun !!

2008-12-26T10:08:00.000-08:00

Look at these poor little ducks. They sit on our back porch throughout the year but I think they are unhappy with this season of the year!

Waiting for tomorrow night ?? : )

2008-12-23T16:19:00.001-08:00

They are just resting up before Santa calls them to work tomorrow night.........

Not really - they're not even reindeer, just our local elk enjoying an evening rest.

We saw them awhile back when we were driving down to Cannon Beach and pulled over to get this picture. Aren't they beautiful !!

Happy Birthday, Grandpa Clint !

2008-12-21T15:50:00.000-08:00

December 21 - today is Grandpa Clint's birthday. (Bob's Dad-my Father-in-Law) He would have been 90 yrs old today....
Yes, his birthday was close to Christmas and I learned VERY EARLY after meeting the family, it HAD to be separate from any resemblance of Christmas.
He was such a fun person, pretending to be crusty but really a softie inside. He was a great bowler and had many trophies to prove it.
He was in WWII but never talked about his time overseas. When he was returning his troop ship was anchored in the Columbia River right off of the Longview - Kelso area and was quarantined because of an outbreak of something on the ship. It was Christmas time, his wife and two small sons were living in Kelso but they had no idea he was on the ship sitting in the river....I'm not sure how long it was before the troops got to leave but I can't even imagine how he felt, coming home from the war and having his family right beside him but couldn't even contact them.
He LOVED his grandkids. Always had pictures with him to show anyone who would look at them!
He and Grandma often came down to watch even the Jr High football games and then any other games the kids would be playing including coming to watch Cathy cheerleading at the games.
He always gave the grandkids the little cardboard box of assorted flavors of Lifesavers at Christmas..... When he was caretaker for the Aberdeen Water Shed our kids would go out and spend time with him and Grandma and they loved it. He would take them fishing (where fishing was prohibited, of course, because it was in the water shed) But if you just went around the bend above the dam, no one could see you and there he would take them out in his boat and fish in the lake.
He was just as proud of his great grandchildren. As you can see here in this picture you can see him rationing out jelly beans to Kyler. He was always teasing them with pieces of candy. Grandma would get mad at him for teasing them but he loved every minute of it and so did they.
After he left the job at the dam, they lived in a small trailer in South Aberdeen where he gardened and grew the most beautiful dahlias and other things in his greenhouse. He loved to raze people with anything he could think of... He was a great guy and a lot of fun!
I could not have asked for a neater Father-in-law. He was always supportative and loving.
He has now been gone since Feb 20, 2002 but he will never be gone from thoughts and our hearts
Anybody have a favorite memory of Grandpa Clint they would like to share ??

News Headlines

2008-12-11T08:29:00.000-08:00

Recently Seen Newspaper Headlines !

Final Stock Session Sluggish

Berserk Man Kills Self, Stabs 5 in Shopping Area

Nation Reeling from storm

20 year Old Venice CA man Walks Out Friday After Being Lost on Mountain

Don't Start the New Year Dead Drunk, Call Care Cab for a Ride Home

Reagan adds Grenada to Caribbean Aid List

Police Looking for Green River Clues to Compare Recent Killing With Previous Women's Deaths

As This Year Begins Soon, Our Hopes Are Raised Aloft That Peace May Bless the World
(Whiteside Memorial Chapel)
Sale Going On !
Blowout Recliner Sale - Deluxe Chair - $297 Standard - $247

Apartment Listings!
Ranging from $235 to $425 per month - Don't miss out on these low rates !!

SOUND FAMILIAR !
Most things don't change a lot thru the years. Well, sort of, huh. At least until you get to the prices.

I got all of these headlines in an Aberdeen Daily World newspaper from December 3, 1983 that lives in the bottom of the box where we keep Grandma Young's ceramic Christmas tree throughout the year. It was packing to keep the tree secure. I have saved that paper each year even though it is really beat up and I look thru it every time we get the box down at Christmas. It was a Saturday am edition and it cost 25 cents.
It just makes me happy to realize Mom and Dad (Grandma and Grandpa) read that paper !

"Pay Ahead" Fun !

2008-11-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

Ever had a "pay ahead" experience.....How Fun!
This am when I left Curves I dropped by the Starbucks Drive thru for a latte, had to wait for several cars and when I got to the window handed my card out the window and the gal said
"Actually the car ahead of you paid for your order !" So I said Wow, put the car behind me on my card then...... That was so fun. I had heard of that happening but had never had it happen to me.

WELL - Jackie and I were heading out for a "play day" across the river later this morning and she wanted a latte so she drove up and it was the same lady that I had in the morning so I asked her how long the line on "pay ahead" cars had gone after I left. She said it went 15 cars after me and I had been number 6 so 21 cars "Paid Ahead" for the person behind them.
Then she said some lady drove up and when she was told someone had paid for her drink she said "How Nice" and drove off... finally breaking the chain.

I had heard of this recently in some big city (can't remember where it was) and the line had gone 106 cars before the chain was broken. There are a "lot" of really cool people in this world and little fun things like this just sort makes ones day! I hope the person that started it somehow found out how many people followed suit !

TURKEY TALK !

2008-11-21T13:57:00.000-08:00

OK, SO IT IS THANKSGIVING AGAIN

What do you first think of when you hear Thanksgiving?
Probably pumpkin pie, or getting together with family, or Grandma Young's green jello -OR maybe even one of the 45 million turkeys that are eaten each year at Thanksgiving.

SO how much do you really know about that turkey that lands on your table every year in November? Let's find out !

1. What is the long fleshy skin that hangs over a turkey's beak called ?

2. What color does a wild turkey's naked head and neck area change to when it mating?

3. When turkeys reach maturity they can have up to how many feathers?

4. How fast can a wild turkey run?

5. What is the average weight of a turkey purchased at Thanksgiving?

6. What is the percentage of white meat in an average turkey?

7. Male turkeys gobble. What do female turkeys do?

8. Do turkeys have heart attacks?

9. How big was the heaviest turkey ever raised?

10. Does eating turkey make you feel sleepy after your Thanksgiving dinner?

READY FOR THE ANSWERS ?? OR DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW YOUR BIRD WELL ENOUGH TO NOT NEED THE CHECK THE ANSWERS?

1. Bet I fooled you on this one. I thought it was a waddle? Nope, that hangs below the beak.
The part that hangs over the beak is called a "snood!"

2. This area turns blue.

3. WOW, guess I won't try to pluck my own turkey soon. A mature turkey can have up to 3,500 feathers. (Who do you suppose counted them to find out?) With my luck, I would get to 2,940 or so and then sneeze. GADZOOKES!

4. Wild turkeys can run to to 55 miles per hour! How did the pilgrims ever catch them?

5. The average weight of a turkey eaten at Thanksgiving is 15 pounds. - I would have thought it would be larger than that.

6. A 15 lb turkey usually will have about 70% white meat. It never seems like it when we cut ours up.

7. This was a new one for me. Turkeys gobble, right. Yes the males do but the females make a clicking noise.

8. Turkeys do have heart attacks. Who would have thought! The Air Force was doing test runs and breaking the sound barrier. Nearby turkeys dropped dead with heart attacks.

9. The heaviest turkey was 86 pounds. Can you imagine what he looked like. He was about the size of a large dog.

10. Last but not least - No don't blame the turkey. It is more likely all of those CARBS you are downing than that turkey bird.

I used this as my opener at my Weight Watcher mtg last night and we had a blast with it.
I actually condensed it here. There were 22 facts but I didn't even get all 10 of these answered right when I first took it!

SO enjoy your bird in a different perspective this year. He now has some personality rather than just being a big hunk of meat on your plate. HAPPY THANKSGIVING

HOLY, SMOLEY ! WHAT AM I DOING UP HERE?

2008-11-17T10:58:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago just for fun we went to a weekend marriage seminar at a local church. After we got home we had to do a "flag page" that asked a bunch of questions and then it analyzed our personalities. It is taken to help you and your spouse understand each other better so you can relate to one another easier.
Mine mailed me to the wall ! It was SO me. I quote one small paragraph:
"Dee enjoys a routine life where nobody notices her. She lives in a conscientious manner so she won't rock the boat. Staying in the background creates peace for her. She is usually good at what she does and likes to be able to predict what will happen next.

SO WHAT ON EARTH AM I DOING UP HERE !!

The Setting: Weight Watchers Annual Innovations meeting for everyone in the our area which includes two WW territories which means the whole large banquet room at the Sheridan Hotel by the airport is filled with WW staff.

The Reason: To introduce staff to the brand new program and things that will be coming soon for the new year.

The Time: After lunch, The new things have been revealed and awards are being handed out. You know, all the little pretty trophies etc are lined up on the table and person after person comes up and gets hugs etc. (you know the routine) After while it sort of becomes - Ahhh, Isn't it time to stretch etc. OK, just a few more items and we're done.
Let's just get this over so we can go home.
SO in a sort of semi conscious state I suddenly hear MY NAME and see it listed with a group of other leaders from all over both territories who are receiving the "Diamond Leader Award" and the next thing I know I am up on the stage in front of all those scary people out in the audience !

My first thought: Whatever do they give these out for. It is one of those things you read about in our monthly staff news magazine that leaders way out there get for doing fabulous things and you read no further because that has to be leaders who lead ten million meetings a week that have fabulous centers and gobs of beautiful skinny successful people in their meetings.

Conclusion: So after I got my pretty gold pin with one small diamond in the center of the WW wave logo and another small diamond on the 2008 attachment, I actually had to come home and look up in our staff news who they really give these thing out to.

Quote from our last Staff News Bulletin:
Diamond Leader Award
Presented to the top 20 percent of leaders in each territory who exemplify the Diamond standard: The highest percentage of their members reach lifetime status, and they have the highest member retention rate. A Diamond Leader leads at least two meetings per week, is a supportive team player, attends staff meetings and follows Weight Watchers policies and procedures. The Diamond Leader aware is given annually to all qualifying Leaders in that year.

OK: I have to admit that was sort of fun and yes, even an honor BUT I'm ready to crawl back into my little comfortable hole now with my two little meetings and my fabulous staff of gals that really deserve this too because they make me look good : )

FUN - FUN -FUN !

2008-10-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

I'm still having problems getting pictures where I want them and getting more than a few onto my blog but here are a couple from our recent cruise. I wanted the ship first but they are in the complete backwards order but here goes anyway.
We had a real blast although the last day of being at sea was VERY rough...It was the roughest we had ever had on a cruise and there were a lot of "sick" people.
Our group picture was on the formal night....
Always fun to dress up and play "like the other half " once and awhile. (Aren't the guys cute !) I love that picture ! What a blast. We had Tom and Judi, Steve and Cindy, Betty and her sister Sharon with us. It was so much fun. We plan on doing it again sometime. Anybody is welcome to join us next trip. The more the merrier.

I'm Still Alive

2008-10-16T12:53:00.001-07:00

Wow, I haven't blogged for so long there probably isn't anyone checking any more anyway. Life has been a whirlwind since our cruise. Have some great pics to post.
(It was a blast, by the way, More later)

After the cruise we headed right over to Spokane for the weekend. Was home Monday nite thru Thursday. Then left Friday am for the Women of Faith conference in Portland. Fantastic - (More later) Got home Sunday nite

I'm running over to Jackie and Chris's twice a day until next Sunday to feed and play with their four kittys while they are on vacation - What a blast they are!
(More later : )

Actually had Monday to breathe - Tuesday was at the shelter with the kittys
Yesterday we had a fun morning with some long lost shirtail relatives that called Tuesday asking if they could come down and compare Family Tree notes and pictures. She is Bob's 1/2 cousin on Grandma's side. They live in Satsop, WA. Had a blast sharing things. Got some great new pictures (More later)

On top of all that, I got called for jury duty again next month .
Well, I need to finish up my Weight Watcher lesson and have some lunch.

Looks like I have plenty of topics to talk about as soon as I get an extra minute.
Phew - life is busy, busy, busy!

Bob just popped in the door and said he filled up the pickup at Costco and gas was 2.95 a gallon WOW ! That IS fantastic news!

Hugs to all

Private Bath, Please !

2008-09-27T08:52:00.001-07:00

This little guy came to the birdbath one am and thought to himself "WOW! a private bath. BUT
little did he know it would not last long... Soon Mo and Jo joined him just for company and THEN
Lo and Behold - the whole family came for a community bath !
The picture is too small to really see the flutter of the wings in the water in the third picture.
I enjoy my birdies bath in the mornings.
They often go rub in the dust of the driveway and then come to the birdbath to clean off.
What a blast they can be when they all hit the tub at the same time !

Memory Lane

2008-09-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite pictures of all time.

It was taken when Bob was on Attu in the Coast Guard.

We had only been married a year and two months when he left for a year of isolated duty in Alaska.

This was taken in his room. Don't know who took it but I told him he had to have at least one picture of himself with every set of pictures he sent home.

IT WAS A LONG YEAR !

I was in Aberdeen for the year. We had been living in Seattle where he was stationed when he got his orders. Rather than stay in "the big city" Mom and Dad asked if I wanted to come back to Aberdeen and stay with them while he was gone so we took them up on it. I went back to work at the D & R with our former boss finding me extra work thru the week for more hours. I also worked at a florist shop that was right near the theatre. It was just a little one man shop and he needed some help on days he had big orders so

he trained me as an apprentice. I loved working there... especially the days we got new orders of flowers in. I used to smell the roses when they first came in and he said I would soon get over that but I never did. They were just so pretty I couldn't resist a sniff each time!

We got thru the year but seem like forever. Before we got married we had been separated for three months while he was in boot camp, then for six months while he was in ET school in Groton, Conn. so we were used to separation but that didn't make it any easier.

One reason he didn't re-enlist is we knew as an Electronic Technician it would mean another year of isolated duty if he stayed in. We weren't ready for that again.

So what happened, he got stationed on the Coast Guard Cutter Winona when he got home with only four more months to go. And guess what in November they went to sea for a month.

Oh well, that is history and we got thru it ok... Even tho at the time it seemed like the end of the world every time he had to leave.

Slow Down the Pace

2008-09-05T19:15:00.001-07:00

Things have slowed down around here a bit. With my not being able to drive....
it is a little more difficult to be in the "rat race." It is all working out with some planning
and I am having fun getting a lot of Scrapbooking done since I can't be out and about
very easily anyway.

I finished up my two capitols from our Calif/Nevada vacation. I now have 22 capitols in my album - almost half way.

Caught up on a mini book we made in my scrapbook class last month. Used some of the
autumn pictures from our New England trip. Turned out rather pretty, if I say so myself.

Got numerous chronological pages done and feel a lot more caught up.

Sat down and went thru some recent pictures we had taken, got the ones chosen I
want to use and got them all printed up at Walgreens. So I am ready to Scrap !!

I'm at a point where I can go in and just sit down for a few minutes and have something
to do. When I get behind then I don't know where to start when I do have a little chunk
of time available so I am feeling really good about now being ready.

Had my receptionist that drives up from Seaside for our early WW mtg pick me up for my meeting Thursday and Bob picked me up when I was done.
So things are working out - I have an appointment with the neurologist the 17th so hopefully I will be able to drive after that.

Yesterday we had all our "cruise buddies" over and got all the preboarding paperwork done on line so we won't have to stand in line when we get to the cruise office the day we leave.
We are all getting excited now. We leave one the 29th of this month.

I'm feeling better and my large banana shaped eggplant colored bruise is beginning to look
the color of a human body again and it isn't hurting as badly as it did at first.

We enjoyed a visit from Ken and La Chel last weekend. Always love to have "kids" come home.
You are all welcome at any time around here!

So things are sort of enjoyable for the time being. Sometimes getting out of the rat race can be a good thing for awhile.

Identify This, Kids !

2008-08-28T10:37:00.000-07:00

OK, Kids - identify this.
The first one to respond with the correct answer gets a Tootsie Pop!
Hint - We took this when we were visiting Pat and Lyle on our way up to our our weekend at Ocean Shores.
We were sitting out in front in the car looking at the house and a guy came out and asked if he could help us.
The house is up for sale so guess he thought we were thinking of buying it....
I tried to talk him into letting us go thru it but he said we would have to go thru the Realtor. He said the guy selling it has totally redone the inside. The side garage is now a bedroom and there is a bar between the kitchen and the domed living room. They totally redid the foundation.
I was dying to get inside....
What do you think?

Meet Henry : )

2008-08-21T11:21:00.001-07:00

This is my little friend, Henry. He lives on or around my hose in the back yard. He comes every year and often I forget to check to see if he is on the hose before I water my plants in the morning. Then, guess what, he goes for a little ride as I unwravel the hose to reach the flower beds.
He doesn't seem to mind too much but I always feel bad when I start to rewind the hose when I'm done with it and I see him clinging to the hose or the side of the holder looking a little dizzy.
Sometimes he just sits on the side of the house clinging to the siding.
He is a cute little guy and comes back every spring to live there. Guess he likes the moisture he gets from the rocks under the hose. I was hoping he would show up when the grandkids were here so I could introduce them - and Lo and Behold - he did but it was early in the morning when I went out to water and none of them were up yet. But just in case he didn't stick around, I took a picture of him on Savannah's camera so I could at least show them the picture and sure enough he was gone before they got up.

MEOW - How Cute is This

2008-08-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

We have had Savannah and Ethan here since Sunday. Today we will be going up to Longview to meet Lorraine and get Kyler.
Friday we are going out in the RV just for fun -
Then we have to return the kids on Monday.
We've had a blast.
Yesterday we went out to the animal shelter and spent two hours just loving the kittys.

OK It's short but sweet today. We are heading over to Jackie's to love on her kittys this am.
Hugs

It's A Grand, Grand Day

2008-07-30T15:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just have days like this... all is well with the world !
(In spite of the fact I have had gremlins doing really weird things on my computer the past few days. Some of which have even stumped my live in "computer whiz.")

The sun is shining. I got in a little early for a haircut app't so walked the river walk awhile. The ships were gently moving up the river, the birds were on the pilings, the water was lapping along the shore. I love Astoria!
After my app't I stopped in for a latte at the little coffee shop next to the hair salon. It was funny as I was getting hair cut you can hear the coffee machines as they are right beside each other. I asked Vicki (my hair dresser) if that was the latte machine. She said "Oh no that is the Smoothie machine. The latte machine makes a clacking noise." She knows them all by heart.

After getting my latte, I walked over to get my coupon scanned at JoAnn's so I will continue to get their ads. Found a really cool plum basket for behind my chair for 1/2price (My old one is falling apart)and a really neat pkg of 12 x 12 paper with fall and Christmas paper that was way COOL.

On the way back to the car stopped to look in a window of a small little store on a side street to enjoy two large kittys both sleeping along the window glass. One big tabby up front with his fur pushed up against the window and on his tail again pushed up against the window another big black one end to end - both SOUND asleep. I couldn't go in to love them a bit as the store was closed but they made my heart happy!

My Weight Watcher lesson is done for this week. Always a good feeling to be prepared before the "day" of the meeting. It has been doing great this summer. We have averaged with both meetings about 90 members a week...usually around 50-55 first mtg and around 40 or so second meeting. Wondering what will happen in Sept when all our vacationers and our "I've blown it all summer and want to look nice for the holidays"
people come back. I challenged them all (baiting them with prizes along the way) to come 12 out of the 14 weeks before Labor Day and they seem to have taken the bait : )
But we still have LOTS of new people after school starts and the routine begins for everyone.

Our garage sale was a HUGE success last weekend! Had four of us with things in it and we ran two days putting out new things on the second day. One lady came by three times and bought each time. With all four of us we were about $10 shy of selling $900 worth of stuff! Not bad for things we wanted to get rid of, huh ! We met Kevin Pierce from J & S next door in Dairy Queen Sunday night and apologized for all the cars coming in and out and even parking in their lot. He just looked at me and said."Oh, we expect it at least once a year." They are such good neighbors.

Anyway Bob is filling in on the Light Ship with an unexpected shift this afternoon. Dinner will be as soon as he gets home as we have a concert tonight at the Liberty Theater here in Astoria. What better day could one ask for -
GOD IS GOOD !!
HUGS !!

What A Life !!

2008-07-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

This must be how the other half lives !!
I'm sitting in the window overlooking the ocean with a cup of coffee while my favorite man snoozes... The room is quiet, the ocean waves crashing in on the sand, a mama deer with her fawn feeding below our fourth story room which looks up and down the beach. Our bed will be made by the maid, breakfast will be served when we go to the dining room....There is a boardwalk to the ocean, our room has a fireplace and we watched a gorgeous sunset from our window last night over the ocean!
We are at the Ocean Shores Resort as a freebie from Bob's 50th class reunion prize.
We drove up on Friday am, visited Pat and Lyle over lunch in Aberdeen then headed on up to Ocean Shores. Yesterday after my 30 minute (free) massage, we headed into town and played around. Visited the Interperative center, had huge ice cream cones at a little place called Murphy's which made us feel like we were back in the 50's, played 36 holes of miniature golf - meeting a really fun couple about our age that was playing right behind us that we visited with at each hole as we waited for the party ahead of us to finish each hole. Then came home to keep our reservations for dinner (free) in the resort dining room. Really a fun get away -
We will head home this afternoon and back to reality....
(Cathy, we are about ten miles from the house you were checking out as a potential Christmas setting if anyone is interested - so we plan on driving by just for fun since we are so close)
(Steve/Lorraine - We found a really cool campground (Ocean City State Park) with lots of trees and green grassy spots along the beach here in Ocean Shores with spots way large enough for our RV and several tents -will talk to you about it when we get home. Has potential unless you think it is too far away. Ocean Shores is about 45 minutes from Aberdeen)

Plan on a cemetary visit on our way home thru Aberdeen. Haven't made it up to check on things for awhile. More when we get home
Hugs to all

Want An Eyeball on The End of Your Finger?

2008-07-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

Just got home last night from a weekend with Steve, Lorraine,Spencer and Riley camping at Stub Stewart State Park up near Vernonia. We tend to look for closer RV parks now with the cost of gas and this is one we had never been to before. It just opened a year ago so everything is nice and clean and new. Nice park! A little bare of trees right now on the RV field but they have planted some for future shade.
It does have beautiful forests all around and lots of trails although it was really to hot to do much hiking.
Saturday we drove in and did the town of Vernonia (in about ten minutes : ) It is a quaint little place but too small to have much to do. We hit a few antique shops and a pet store where a cute little bird pooped on Steve's arm but that pretty much covered the town experience.
We played games ... waited on Spencer to make the most possible points rearranging his cards : ) playing Quiddler, laughed together playing a game called "What Would You Rather Do?" What a riot! Can't remember for sure the first part of the question but it was - something like "Would you rather have white eyeballs or AN EYE BALL ON THE END OF YOUR FINGER. NOW this intrigued me! No question here. I want an eyeball on the end of my finger! JUST THINK OF THE POSSIBLILITIES HERE - with an eyeball on the end of your finger you could see around corners, look down the back of your neck if you had an itch, look in small places for a lost item, sneak a finger to the next page for an answer to a test and other numberous options. Why didn't God think of how convenient that could be !
Then we ended the last evening with S'Mores around the campfire. What more could you ask for on a camping trip. That's what memories are made of !! Fun Times Together.

Garage Sale Treasure

2008-07-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

Forgot to tell you about my "cool find" at a recent garage sale. Judi and I went to one in Astoria that was several blocks long with sales on both sides of the street. Really cool as we just parked and did all the blocks at one shot.
Anyway I found a really cool metal lamp with a really pretty shade for the table beside my living room chair for $5 bucks. But when I got it home I couldn't find a switch anywhere even on the cord where I figured it must be but when I plugged it in to be sure it worked (which he promised me it did) I accidently bumped it AND IT CAME ON. Bumped it again and it got brighter and again - brighter still.
I have seen these but had no idea this was one of them. I LOVE IT ! He had two more there and if I had known they were so cool I would have picked up another one.

We had a blast that day. Hadn't been out garage saleing (how DO you spell that?)all year and just took off on a whim after going to a sale our Close to My Heart lady had at her house one Saturday morning. We just goofed around all morning and I found all kinds of little fun things without spending a whole lot of money.

Now we are in the middle of prepping for ours which will be July 25 -26. It is always a big job but a good feeling to get to downsize and sort things out. Always feel "so organized" when we are done.

Organization! I love it but don't do nearly as much as I wish I could. To many other things crowding in. "Clutter drives me up the wall" - Found a saying in a magazine the other day I am hoping to live by more and more. It said "IF IN DOUBT, DUMP IT
YOU WILL REVEL IN YOUR DECLUTTERED EXISTANCE AND HAVE FEWER ITEMS TO DUST."
I love this but I MUST tell you I had to move a whole pile of papers and books on my desk to find it under the glass where I tucked it so I wouldn't lose it before I could share it with you. OH DEAR - guess I certainly haven't reached my goal yet, huh!
Hugs to you all today!

The Great White Hunter

2008-07-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

The Great White Hunters Greatest Fan

Winning The Mole War !

The other day we mentioned to Jackie we had a mole starting to invade our yard. She went home and told Chris and she said he got a smile on his face... Mike Seppa had just shown him the secret to catching the pesty little things. So when they came over to celebrate Jackie's birthday yesterday he brought his trap and set it. We had a BBQ
dinner, watched a movie, opened gifts, had dessert and they were getting ready to leave when Chris decided to check the trap. LO AND BEHOLD - one pesky little critter had met his match !

It was our Great White Hunter!
Thanks Chris !

Rebekah's Mom

2008-07-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

I'm reading thru Genesis in my QT and there are so many tiny little things I miss that Scripture always has something new for me.
This am I was in chapter 24 and didn't get very far because I began to ponder the story of Abraham's servant and Rebekah. I've read it gobs of times but never really thought about Rebekah's Mom in this whole episode....
I was thinking of the picture on Cathy's blog yesterday of her hugging Savannah and her caption
"Love this gal." So Cathy how would you respond if a man rode up on a camel (oh, lets change that to drove up in a Camry instead of a camel) and told you God had told him to bring your daughter immediately to a foreign land to marry someone you'd never met. Rebekah's Mom at least tried to buy some time "Can't we wait 10 days or so"
Nope - Got to leave in the morning. And Rebekah was willing so off she went.
WOW - sometimes I often forget the little details of the stories behind the words in Scripture and the impact of those people that are affected by God's directions.

Like earlier in Genesis I read the account of God telling Abraham after all those years they were going to have a son. Amazing news !!! BUT note that when the two angels came to talk further about this (no time frame listed) Sarah was totally surprised. HE HADN'T EVEN TOLD HER ABOUT THIS AMAZING EVENT ABOUT TO HAPPEN (isn't that just like a man !!)
Oh yeah, honey, I forgot to mention that !

So many fun little details I often miss. Someday I will ask Abraham why he didn't tell her.
Maybe God told him not to but it isn't recorded if He did.

PS - It's Easy

2008-07-01T07:51:00.000-07:00

Just challenged you all to comment on my last post.
Just so you don't have the excuse you don't know how
IT"S EASY !
Just type on "comment" on the bottom of the post. Type in the comment box
Check where it says NAME/URL any type in your name
Then publish.

Sometimes it will give you a silly little code thing to type "what you see"
but you can figure that out then just proceed from there.

COME ON = BE BRAVE
TAKE THAT FIRST BIG STEP ! TALK TO ME........

What Kind of an "Oholic Are You ?

2008-07-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

Come on, I know all of you out there are some kind of an 'oholic - I know that isn't a real word but you have to fill in the first part. Hadn't really thought too much about this but when we were on vacation it sort of hit me. (Do you always take the pens from the motels ? --And the shampoo and lotion even if you don't use it. You should see all of the cute little different shaped bottles of shampoo I have under my sink.
Do you go to home shows just to see what kind of gimmicks they give away (with their name on it, of course) You know all of the little freebies that you probably never use....
Or can you never pass up a new bag or container (or whatever your 'ohlic is) of some kind at a garage sale. After all, it is only 50 cents and I just might need it sometime. Purses just jump off of the shelf into my cart at stores. They really need to train them to stay put when they display them. MY garage sales are usually full of ones that I found out I really didn't need. My sock drawers are FULL but then they have such cute sox now days and EVERYONE knows that your sox must match your shirt so it takes a lot of them. (And my scrapbook room - we won't even go there !!!)
But come on - be real and honest - you all have something you collect whether you need it or not. Come on - fess up. I rarely ever hear from any of you so BE BRAVE - BE BOLD - EXPOSE YOURSELVES - LEAVE ME A COMMENT. WOW, does that scare you.... I know some of you read my blog because I often hear "Oh I heard that because I read it on your blog.
SO I know you are there but lurking in the shadows. Cathy bribes people with prizes just to draw them out of the woodwork. I'm also too cheap to do that. Pretty sad, huh !
But back to addictions and and 'oholics guess we all have our odd little quirks in life.
But then, whatever, at least I'm not out there sitting in all those casinos we saw on vacation wasting my money. I'm just too cheap to give up the money in my hot little hand to try because I know those big fancy places are not built without lots of customer money... Face it - chances of a BIG win is pretty slim. And then if one does win, there is the greed of maybe I can get more and so go on until all you won is gone too. So whatever --- we all have our vices.
So I'm off today to the animal shelter to catch up on two missed weeks of being a "kittyoholic."
But that's a fun one I'm not giving up.

ME HOME TOO !

2008-06-25T18:56:00.000-07:00

I just checked Aubrianne's blog and she said she guessed she should blog and tell everyone she made it home -- duh --- guess I should be telling you we are home too.
Made it home a day early actually. We were heading out from Carson City to Grants Pass when we noticed our motel reservation there was accidentally made for Monday night not Sunday night so when we got there we decided we would just drive on thru to Eugene instead of stopping there. So we cancelled our Monday reservation and put in a 500+ mile day and arrived in Eugene about 7:30 or so. It worked out better for everyone as Ken and La Chel had a really busy day Monday and wouldn't have been home until Monday at dinnertime so we would have had all day to waste until we would get to see them.
It was so good to see Aubrianne again and we got to look at a lot of her pictures that night.
We got to see pictures of some of her friends and all the families she stayed with and also some fantastic shots from Rome and her other extra excursions before she left Slovakia.
Didn't have time to look at all of her pictures and will look forward to seeing more at another time.
So we are home and getting back into our routine again. Lots of things on the agenda coming up so we are back to life at home. Fun to be gone - had a great time - but love being home again !!
Chester was glad we were home too !!
Hugs to all !

Forty-Eight Years and Counting

2008-06-20T22:41:00.000-07:00

Can't believe it....48 years ! When I walked down that aisle so many years ago I never dreamed it would go so fast. Unbelieveable but here we are as of last Wednesday (the 18th ) It as been such a fun road to travel. With family there to support us and three wonderful children to light up our lives it has been a blast to say the least. Oh sure, there have been some rough times and everyone has their ups and downs but when the Lord entered our lives five years after we were married we found a whole new realm of our traveling on this good old earth.
We had a really fun anniversary this year - very different as we were on vacation and spent a really great day in Fresno, California celebrating. We were staying in Oakhurst for several nights and had just finished our visit to Yosemite and decided to drive into Fresno for the day. It was only about 50 miles from our motel. Years ago when we visited Bill and Willa Mitchell there they had taken us to a dinner theatre and we wondered if it would still be there so after some checking found out they were still there and open..... So we had a very delightful evening with a delicious buffet dinner and then watching a great performance of "Annie Get Your Gun" live on stage. What made it even more fun was we sat a the same table with a family that was celebrating their kids engagement so thru the evening we toasted them and they all toasted us. They were Christians too. Their wedding will be the first on November. It was just a really cool evening. We got back to the motel a little late but it was a beautiful warm evening so the drive was very nice coming back too.
Tonight we are in Carson City, Nevada. Got the capitol pics this am then drove up to Virginia City to play around. Tomorrow we will do some things here in Carson city and maybe drive up to Reno just for fun if we have time. The weather has been hot every day.... LOTS and LOTS of sunshine of course. It was 90 today and supposed to be 93 tomorrow!
Have a great day everyone !

Stay on Your Side of the Road Please

2008-06-19T16:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged since we have been on vacation because we have been sending our e-mails and I think everyone that reads my blog is on our e-mail list anyway.
But this afternoon we are in Carson City and Bob is taking a nap so I will take time to jot off a note here. We had a beautiful drive today (if not a little "scary" at times) Our "lady" routed us up to Carson City on a route that looked quite a bit out of the way so we changed her mind and found a closer route. Closer yes and a bit more "interesting" to say the least.
If you ever decide to travel Hiway 4 from Yosemite to Carson City prepare yourself for quite an experience. It started out as a very windy horseshoe curved road but a nice wide road....
Took us a little longer than we planned and stopped for lunch at a cute little sandwich shop in Arnold, California.... glad the windy road was behind us - it was such a long windy road and miles from anywhere of any size. Asked the gal in the sandwich shop what they did for excitement up there and she said"work,, and we like to swim in the river. (She was just a young gal)
Sitting at the table next to us two young people were playing chess. Guess that is the exciting thing to do in the little wayside called Arnold, California. HOWEVER, little did we know this was not the end of this adventure. Later we were glad we had lunch there as we weren't "out of the woods" or down the mountain yet - in fact - it was just the beginning. As we headed on there was a sign saying something to the effect of ---- Very steep, windy, narrow road, not recommended for rigs longer than 23 feet in length. OK no problem, right, with our little Honda. What an exciting beautiful trip it ended up to be. It WAS a VERY steep, windy and narrow road..didn't even have a center line down it. Guess they figured we would feel guilty driving over it going around some of the corners hoping no one was coming the other direction. Also it was over the Sierra Nevada moutains so the drop off was RIGHT THERE and guess what - they don't believe in guard rails in California. At least not on this road. It was beautiful and after being in busy California around Sacramento was a quiet, gorgeous drive but quite a "pay attention to the road" situation for Bob around all those curves. It sort of puts you in touch with the beautiful creation God made before man got ahold of it and made the concrete jungles. But if you are in a hurry, listen to your GPS and trust her to get you where you want to go. It was indeed an interesting drive : ) Tonight we are in Carson City and will be off to get our second capitol tomorrow.

JUNEUARY

2008-06-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

That's what the news calls our weather - I agree ! January in June.
Heard someone comment the other day they were really tired of this weather.
He was asked how long he has lived here. His reply "All My Life!" Yes, even the locals are getting tired of this spring. We did have summer though - one weekend in May -It actually got the upper 80's in Astoria. Those poor people who were out of town that weekend totally missed summer this year : ( But now school is out so it has to rain a bit before it can clear up!
Anyway we are on our way in two days to find some summer and land sakes is it ever out there. Bob just checked Sacramento (our first stop for several days) It is in the 90's and 100's. OK folks - Let's be realistic - we would totally be happy with mid 80's !! Or even upper 70's so we coastal people won't melt as we try to enjoy their city. But guess we shouldn't complain - we are seeking summer. Looks like we are going to get it. I just took out one pair of long pants and replaced it with another pair of capri's.
We actually enjoy our automatic air conditioning here on the coast but this year has been a bit trying even for us. We had another slight wind storm one day this week and one of the weakened trees came down on Hiway 101 between Cannon Beach and Seaside and hit a car. The road was blocked for some time but no one was injured. Now we have to contend with all the trees that almost toppled in the "big" storm and watch all those that are were on the verge of going over topple at the slightest wind. It has been a year to remember weather wise.
Chester came in the other night to "go to bed" and we just had to laugh and laugh at him. He had been out hunting I guess and it was pouring down rain. He looked so pitiful - he looked like he had been dunked in a barrel of water. He looked very skinny with his hair soaked on his back but his head and mane stuck out like little points sort like he had stuck a paw in an electric outlet.
Needless to say he got a GOOD rubdown before he was allowed on the bed.
OK - I'm off. Have lots to do today to get ready to go. Probably won't be back here before we leave. We have wifi at most if not all of our motels along the way so may check in somewhere along the way. WE'RE OFF TO FIND SUMMER !!

New Love

2008-06-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

I was just reading Cathy's blog about Warren at 70 years twitterpated and anticipating a new marriage. It IS refreshing to be around people with that new love. As you know we were with Mark and Jill this weekend who at 50 years (for Mark) and 43 (for Jill) were united in marriage (each for the first time) in January of this year. . Interestingly enough that is almost the amount of time we have been married. (not quite - we're up to 48 this month) But as Cathy said it is fun to be around people who have just found each other. Always brings back memories. 48 years ago we had the world by the tail and was off on our own adventure which is still exciting and fun even after all this time. There is never a dull moment it seems. The love never dies it just matures from the twitterpated to the solid rock of marriage and the realization of how that love can grow each year.
We had a delightful time with Mark and Jill. We had about 40 people out for the reception and everyone had a great time meeting Jill for the first time. She is a real sweetheart. They stayed until Monday about noon then headed on back to Coquille. I made them a scrapbook of Mark's life since we have known him (met him in 1982) for a wedding present. Now let me tell you, he IS NOT an easy person to scrapbook. He has been in so many countries back and forth, had so many graduations from assorted colleges, seminarys etc that they all get confusing. Hopefully I got them all in the proper order. I made it for Mark but also to help Jill catch up on his life prior to their meeting. It was a delight to make and I think they enjoyed receiving it.
So far the rest of this week has been another busy one. We have had something every day including a day back to Portland to replace one part of his new computer that wasn't working and today a trip to Longview to the Honda dealer to see why our airbag light is now on continually and the book says take it to the dealer immediately as there is something wrong. We are to leave on vacation next Friday so needed to have it checked out. The time has g0ne so quickly it doesn't seem it is almost time to begin packing.
Speaking of time, I'm off to begin my list for the day.
Have a great day everyone !

Big Stuffed Dalmatians : )

2008-06-01T07:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend is a busy one to say the least -
The annual Amateur Radio Convention is in Seaside all weekend, with a benefit speghetti dinner Friday night, there is a concert by the Columbia River Brass Quintet Saturday night and Sunday night is our reception for Mark and Jill at the church which we are pretty much in charge of.
But "busy" is fun.

We're now half way thru all these events. The dinner went great. We got down there a little after three and got home about 9:30 or 10. Didn't have as many as was planned but it ran 300 - 350. All we knew was they were lined up around the corner and we had no idea where the end was but the line didn't go away until about 7:30 and the doors at 5. Some people
straggled in after that but that was when the line around the corner ended. Bob ran the cash register and I handed out the door prize tickets as they came in. We did have a break to eat but that was about it. They had so many door prizes donated, they were calling off numbers about every 30 minutes at first - then at the end about every 10 minutes to give them all away. They had gobs of raffle items so needless to say, they did well on the money end. They really needed it because a lot of the equipment, antennas etc was lost during the storm so some of that can be replaced. It took a lot of volunteer help to pull this off but it was success enough to plan on one again next year.
It was kind of cool because it was in the Seaside Fire Station so they just moved the fire engines out in the parking area in front and we got to see all their equipment, hats, coats etc all lined up hanging on the walls ready to go and even had a call for the ambulance to go out on while we were there. (They have a big stuffed dalmatian in the office - he rides on the fire engines in parades) Really Cool !

Bob was back down to seminars etc on and off all day yesterday....he will go back after church today for the drawings etc. The concert was fun last night. Just a group of guys (in nice shirts and ties, how refreshing - seems you see mostly blue jeans often full of holes on everyone nowdays even as performers.) They were all young men, one of them was Allan Stromquist, whom we are assuming is part of the Stromquist family from the high school here as they said he was from Astoria. Fun concert with some really neat songs.

Tonight is the final event of the weekend. Mark and Jill will be here after church today and we will get to celebrate again with them and get to know Jill a little better. They have to head home tomorrow though. He said he had so many weekends off flying back and forth to Cincinnatti while they were courting that he is out of vacation time. Will give a report on that later....

Hope everyone is having as much fun this weekend as we are.
Hugs to all

Indiana Jones

2008-05-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie yesterday. We waited several days because we figured it would be busy. We were right. We almost got claustraphobic !!! There were 43 people in the theatre - two of which were sitting in OUR seats.
Yes, we are spoiled - we always go to the matinee and we feel crowded with the four or maybe even five (on a good day) people in the theatre with us. Can you imagine that. Not many people go on weekdays late afternoon. Ocassionally we have the theatre to ourselves. (the fun of being retired) Makes us remember the fun days of working at the theatre when we met. We would go up in the balcony (which was closed except for really busy days) and watch movies alone. Really cool ! The manager got mad though if we took our hamburgers up there because the french fries would smell.
Guess theatres just never got out of our blood ! Too many fun memories of when we worked together when we were dating. We are so excited to see our D & R theatre in Aberdeen when they get done restoring it. That is where we met. Had our first kiss backstage on New Years Eve 1957. How's that for a memory! They had the new marque up when we were in Aberdeen last fall. Haven't heard any more news of how it is coming along now. It is a very beautiful theatre inside and I hope they restore it basically like it was in it's hayday.
It is so interesting how minds work alike after 48 years of sharing life together.... We saw a really shiny, totally polished black car in town the other day and were both quiet for a minute and then Bob said "Does that make you think of Mr. Evans?" My mind was just pondering the thought but I hadn't mentioned anything yet. Mr Evans was our boss at the theatre. He drove the shiniest black car anyone had ever seen and he had a special parking spot in front of the theatre and no one dared to park there when he was in. It wasn't marked but everyone knew NO ONE parks there but Mr Evans. He kept the car absolutely spotless, I never saw a speck of dirt on it.
Anyway back to Indiana Jones. Very typical - constant chases, fighting, swinging from trees, going over three waterfalls - coming out dripping wet and yet having a match to light the torch when they get to the dark, scary, full of creepy things, cave....
Yes, Indiana Jones is older and not quite as agile as he was in the last movie and they don't hide the fact. He even makes some boo boos but then we all do as we get older. He's just my age in real life but I don't plan on jumping from car to car or get stuck in quicksand anymore. Like I ever did !)
As you can see, it is full of action and entertaining very "Supermanish" but that's what makes it fun. Good movie if you like action ! Worth taking in for a night (or afternoon) of entertainment.

Giraffes

2008-05-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite pictures. It was taken at Wildlife Safari one year when we took Aubrianne and Tanner.

I am learning to put a picture in my blog and this is my first try... I named it "giraffe butts" !

Thirteen - No Wait, Fourteen

2008-05-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

Fourteen - that's how many organizational books I found on my shelf recently !

Sounds like I'm a really organized person doesn't it ?
Not really BUT after all, I did find all fourteen books !
Actually I only have 13 but I have one really fantastic one that is duplicated.
Guess God really thought I needed that one. Have I read either of them , well -sort of. How about the other 13? Have I applied any of the suggestions, --- not sure about that. BUT I love thinking I am organized. Everybody thinks I am.(boy, do I have them fooled) Linda Pattison always said everyone thought she was so organized but she had to be to find anything because she was so unorganized. That's sort of the way I feel most of the time.
So according to the dictionary the definition of organize is "to arrange in an orderly way - to make into a whole with unified and coherent relationships." That means, I guess, to get it all together in some sort of "make sense" order huh !
I usually have this 'get organized' kick in January. I just can't stand the house and go after
it with gusto. But for some reason that feeling has hung on into the month of May this year
and I still do not feel under control.
It's getting harder the older I get because when a person reaches a certain
age these "little gremlins" move into your house and they like to reach out and
grab things when you lay them down and run off with them. They do it right under your nose
and you never see them at all ! They usually put them back somewhere close when
you are not looking just to tease you or sometimes they just hide them away never
to be seen again.
Oh yes, I went down to our Weight Watchers storeroom the other day and labeled all
of the tubs we keep our product in so we know when we are running low and need to reorder
and labeled the drawers on our rolling cart so we can find the paperwork we need
in a hurry but that was only because it helps us be more efficient during the meetings
so that doesn't really count.
If I turn around and look at the left side of my desk, I have a paper holder thingy that is
running over with things I put there to "file later." The basket behind my chair runneth
over with magazines to be read. (at least they are in a basket!) I have dropped four
or five of the magazines I used to get for lack of time to read them. My scrapbooking tote sits waiting to be unloaded in my scrap room from last weekends crop. I haven't even had time to look at the pages I got done let alone compile the book. (Has to be done by next week so it will happen) There are just to many other things that are top priority this week.
Whoever said after you retire you will be bored with nothing to do !! My goal when I retired was to fold my clean clothes as soon as they come out of the dryer. Has that happened. Not really - maybe sometimes but that is something I can do later in the day when we are watching TV so they usually wait until then.
I do love to be organized - it feels so good to know where things are and be able to go
get them immediately. But sometimes I have to just go and replace something because
it has just disappeared.
Yes, my sox are sorted in my drawer by color but that is just because quite often I'm in a hurry in the morning to get somewhere and everyone knows your sox must match your shirt !
My biggest problem -- not putting things away immediately, thinking I will come back to do
it and it often just doesn't happen so I'm still working on that and in the meantime the "little gremlins' are having a blast in my house hiding things from me that I didn't put back right away.
Oh well, one of these days the garage project will HAVE to get started because Judi and I have our annual garage sale planned for July. That not only gets the garage straightened out but makes me go thru everything and get rid of a lot of stuff that is no longer necessary to clutter up the house.
After that I will again feel somewhat organized at least for a little while !

Mothers Day

2008-05-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Mothers Day. A day we celebrate important people in our lives. At least that was always how I felt about my Mom! She was my sweetheart and people loved her so... I miss her a lot and think of her often. I miss my mother-in-law too. She was very special in our lives. A very quiet gentle person and a little more reserved than my Mom but always there for us and a great mother-in -law! Her having two sons, I was her first daughter and that was fun to share with her. But they are both gone now and it is time for a new generation to share our lives.
We had a "most fun" day with the younger set as Cameron and Kate came down to spend some time here on the coast for their one year anniversary of dating. We had such a fun time with them. They brought me a beautiful bouquet of carnations for Mothers Day and for having them ( The treat was ours !) We visited over a big bowl of popcorn Saturday night, had breakfast at the Pig and Pancake Sunday morning (you can't come to Astoria without eating at the Pig and having their bacon.) Went to visit the big noisy sea lions on the 39th street dock and then walking thru the opening day of our Sunday Market. Thought of riding the trolley but Cameron said we can't do that unless Grandpa is driving and conducting so that will have to come at another time.
Then we ended our day by celebrating Bob's birthday with Chris and Jackie and Tom and Judi as (get this) last night was the only day in the next two weeks we could all get together. (are we too busy or what) Anyway Jackie and Christ brought dinner from the Bowpicker, we had angel food cake with lemon filling, visited and watched part of the video Bob took on our vacation in New England last fall. Looked mainly at the trolley museum in Kennebunkport, Maine as I had just finished a scrapbook album for him for his birthday full of trolley pictures from our Astoria trolley and also from the Kennebunkport trolley museum. It was a fun album to make and made me even more anxious to get to the rest of our fall vacation. Have a scrapbook crop coming up this weekend but it has another priority album I have to finish before I can start on our vacation. There just isn't enough hours in each day to do everything I want to do.
Life is good - lots of beautiful people in my life. What more could one ask for.
God has blessed us above and beyond expectations.

Birds in general

2008-05-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

Just read Cathy's blog about her unusual little bird pecking at her window.
Birds are funny things. Our goldfinches are back but all the big birds keep eating the food so fast they hardly have time to come around. Our crazy birds take dust baths in the driveway -rolling around and around in flopping their wings. Don't know if it gets rid of mites or if they are just itchy or what but they look quite goofy and don't like to move when we want to drive out of the driveway.
Friday when I was driving into town down the side of the road just past our stoplight on 101 there was a mama duck with three little ducklings waddling along behind her. They were so cute They are the first ones I have seen this year.
Our eagles are still around. Didn't see them for awhile after our storm last fall. But they are back.
Bob said there was a beautiful one sitting on the pilings along the river when he drove trolley last week and it just sat there for several trips much to the liking of our cruise people visiting our area. What a show they make with their white bald heads gleaming in the light.
The cruise ships are really coming this year. We have already had a bunch and three more are coming in this week. They have limited them to one at a time in port for security reasons. It is hard to keep watch when so many are in port with limited available personnel.
Had a blast over the weekend at my scrapbook crop Friday night and Saturday. It was at Long Beach. Got lots done and just enjoyed the time with Jan Anderson to catch up and chat.
That's it for today. Just had noticed I hadn't checked in for a long time. Where does the time go and where did my thoughts go last week. Just nothing came to mind to post so I just sort of sat here feeling blank thoughts and couldn't think of anything to post. Have a good day everyone!

Capitol Quest

2008-04-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

We're off again. Well not qute yet but just got our trip planned out for gaining two more capitols.

We will head out on June 13 to Sacramento, California. Then on to Yosemite National Park.
We have never been there. We tried once and got part way up and had car problems so had to leave and head on home. This time after our expensive little job on the Honda he better get us there with flying colors. Anyway we are looking forward to finally adding this to our National Park list too. Anybody been there that has some "have to do" things at the park?

Then we will head on to get the capitol at Carson City, Nevada - play around at Virginia City and Reno several days and head on home. We will be back on Monday, June 23
Hoping to maybe get another trip back East next year. We'll see. They are so much easier to get back there as the states are much closer together.

Then we should be home pretty much until our cruise in September....
Any and all are still welcome to join us for that. We are gathering a number of people
who have never cruised before so that should be fun.

The evening of June 1 we will be having a reception/open house for Mark and Jill Elefritz. All of Astoria has been waiting for a chance to meet this lucky lady who finally won Mark's heart after all these years of bachelorhood!

Home at last

2008-04-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

Seems like ages since I have gotten a blog off because ....

We left early Friday am for Longview, took our car to the Honda dealer for his 90,000 mile
"surgery"..... They had him from 8:45 am until 3:30 pm so he is now in spanking new shape.
He will be around for awhile. Expensive but beats car payments!

Friday night we went to a show at the Columbia theatre in Longview with an illusionist.
Very entertaining and we appreciated him calling them illusions not magic !

Then on to Vancouver to spend the nite with Steve and Lorraine before heading to Eugene
Saturday morning for Tanners' school play. They performed Shakespear's "A Midsummer Nights Dream." VERY FUN ! Each performer looked like they were totally enjoying every minute of it as we all were too. (Ask Tanner about being a "wall.") She did a great job !!
Then had the privilage of attending the Ballet.Magnificat! performing The Scarlet Cord (version of Rahab) Sunday evening. What a treat that was! It is the ministry of Keith and Kathy Thibodeaux and we were privileged to spend some time with them as they were staying with Ken and La Chel. What a delightful couple, full of the love of the Lord ! It was a fantastic performance ! A total delight to watch.

Arrived home Monday evening and today got a phone call from Mark Elefritz and we got a date for them to come to Astoria to finally inroduce Jill to everyone around here. They will be coming on Sunday, June 1. We are looking forward to that.

So that has been our life the past few days. Back to normal again today and trying to catch up on some things.

PS Chester has a girl friend! When we got home the neighbors cat (we think) a cute little calico was rolling around and playing with him on our deck. Not sure what she was looking for but she won't get any cooperation from Chester : ) But they weren't fighting so guess she is good company for him.

Daughters

2008-04-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

DAUGHTERS : )

Daughters are special people and today I have to tell you about one of mine. She is a very special young lady and she came into our lives when our son was in high school. He was turning out for the school play and rehearsals were after school so since we lived in the country and he was bussed to school it made sense for him to stay after without coming home first. Little did we know at that time that "staying after school" would change our lives. Because for some reason he chose to go to a certain young ladys house to wait for rehearsal.
One thing led to another and sure enough a few years later she made our life complete becoming our second daughter-in-law and the perfect wife for our Ken. Let me tell you it is always a little scary when your children begin to date. Parents always sort of begin to look at that person with different eyes and say to themselves "what if he/she is the one." Sometimes that can get a little scary. But each time this happened to us, we couldn't have been happier with their selection.
So back to our La Chel - she is a very special little lady to us and is a great match for Ken.
After all, Ken was never too interested in fixing things etc as he grew up and how many of you know a young lady that would buy a beautiful new dress for a prom and then returned it so she could buy a tool box full of tools. God does pick our mates to compliment us.
She fit into our family like a glove fits one's hand and we are so proud of her and she has now given us two more beautiful young ladies to have as our grandaughters.
You are a very special person in our lives La Chel - We love you
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY

Oh Dear, Oh Dear !

2008-04-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

Oh Dear Me ! Yesterday was a busy morning with a 7 o'clock and a 9 o'clock obligation and then our internet was down in the afternoon so I missed getting an important message off to a very important person in my life.... One that arrrived way back on April 9 1964 ---- That's right our firstborn came into our lives. SO HAPPY "DAY LATE" BIRTHDAY, STEVE !!
What a very important day that was for both of us. Especially after having the loss of our first child thru a miscarriage in December of 1962. I wasn't very far along but it was still a hard thing.
We were living in Port Angeles and were in the Coast Guard at the time. Bob was out at sea for a month on the CG Cutter Winona and I was visiting Mom and Dad in Aberdeen for a spell and while he was gone we lost the baby. Being the first I think it was even harder as then you begin to question if this was just a fluke or were we going to be able to have children.

But our God is gracious and sure enough in July of 1963 while we were living in Seattle, Washington (Bob got out of the Coast Guard in February and had gotten a job working as a civilian for the Coast Guard at Base Seattle) we found out we were pregnant again.
Things were all fine and dandy and then.... we found out there was a job opening in Astoria, Oregon and we decided we didn't want to raise children in the big city so at eight months pregnant we transfered and moved to Astoria.

Now I would not recommend moving eight months into a pregnancy but it can be done. When you are young and crazy you do those sorts of things. Had lots of help and managed to get moved into a little house on Clover Lane (isn't that a fun address - when we lived in Wildwood, New Jersey we lived on 146 W Crocus Road, that was a fun address too - but I'm on a bunny trail now)
Back to my story, now moving into a new town expecting a baby in a month, finding a Dr was on the top of the list. I first went to one, I did not care for at all so I got the assistance of our neighbor who had two children and she directed me to the "Baby Dr" in town. Yes, our good old Dr Kettelkamp who delivered all three of our children.
You know, the first delivery is always sort of a "what have I gotten myself into" sort of experience as you are laying there with each contraction. But as usual God took control and Bob felt useful in the pre delivery room timing contractions (which I don't think the nurse ever looked at, it just gave him something to do to feel important)
So at 9:55 am April 9, 1964 Steven Glen came to join our family at a walloping ten pounds!
(I know, I know big babies run in our family. I was 10 pounds at birth, Ken our second born was 10 lbs 6 oz, and then there was our grandson Ethan who beat us all at 11 pounds 4 ounces born to our daughter, Cathy)
But back to Steve - What a blessing he was to us. We had been married almost four years. Bob had been on isolated duty for a year (which means no wives) in the Coast Guard in Alaska) so that slowed us down a bit on having children. So Steve was a precious bundle of joy for us when he arrived. He was the first grandson on Bob's side of the family and that was a special blessing too. All of the grandparents were totally taken in by him ! I can remember after he was born the nurse laying him in my arms and his eyebrows were shaped exactly like his Dad's. How cute!
We soon learned the ropes of parenthood with Arlene Graham, my neighbor, being there for all of my stupid new mother questions. After all, she had two children and had all the answers.
He was a good baby and was a total joy to us. Each new thing he would do was so fun to watch from his first words to his first steps and then watching him grow thru his childhood.
Now he has grown up into a fine young man, married a beautiful young lady, loves the Lord and serves Him well and has given us three precious young men for grandsons.
What could make parents more proud..... SO HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT BIRTHDAY, STEVE,
THANK YOU FOR BEING SUCH A GREAT SON - WE LOVE YOU.
Hugs to you and Lorraine and the boys !

Thank You Someone

2008-04-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

Many years ago when Cathy and I were going to the YMCA to attend the Mom and Tot swim program I started attending an exercise program during the mornings she was in kindergarten.
We often just used the gym but occasionally on nice days in the spring, we would leave the Y and jog up to the corner on 11th and Irving where the road makes you go either left or right leaving a big hill with steps going up the hill. The steps went on both sides of a flower bed at the bottom then joined up a piece and went on up the hill.
Right in the middle of that flower bed was a pink flowering tree that was absolutely beautiful each spring. I looked forward to seeing it every year.
BUT LO AND BEHOLD ! The first time I went into town after our December storm
IT WAS GONE ! I MEAN REALLY GONE. THE STORM HAS TOTALLY WIPED IT OUT !
It was like losing an old friend...one I enjoyed every time I saw it. It made me sad !

Then one day recently I drove into town and guess what !!! That's right, someone has
replaced my big beautiful tree with a little sapling with his tag from the nursery still on the
trunk of the tree.... What a fun thing to find. My big friend tree is gone but I now have a new one to watch grow up and celebrate spring with me.

Sometimes change is hard but there is always new things to encourage us and let us know God cares about the little things in life and often will replace the things we love with new things for us to enjoy.

So welcome little tree and a big thank you to whoever put him there for me.

The Balance of Life

2008-04-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

Can life really balance? That would be so cool but probably doesn't happen to us very often in this busy, busy time of living we are in nowdays.
What made me think of this is how much fun we had last week with the grandkids here....
Sometimes you forget how precious the sound is of children (and teenagers) laughing, and playing and yes even scrapping at each other. The house is alive and vibrant with questions like: Can I have a snack - Make him stop bugging me - Can I get on the computer - Can I set the table for you, Grandma - and even the simple little sounds as a young man quietly builds a a big lanky alien out of plastic sticks before anyone but me is up.
Yes, the cat hides for the week and we trip over the unending pile of shoes by the door and the poor dishwasher says "what are you doing to me?"but we love every minute of it. Hang in there all you parents. Enjoy your children because before you know it you will have the other side of the coin. (Thanks for coming with the kids, Cathy)
Yes, the quiet side..... Just as preciously needed as the noisy side but a balance would be nice.
Yes, we need the side where we can stop and reflect on God's Word and what He is doing in our life daily and just days when we can wake up and say "there is nothing I really have to do today.
Believe it or not, that rarely happens around here even though we are retired. It seems our days are busier than when we both worked but at least that is our option.
What happened to the days when people sat on their porches in the evenings and watch the sun go down. The neighbors would go for a walk and stop for a chat. (That was even before my time, I'm afraid, but it sounds great.) Everybody knew everybody in the neighborhood.....
Now how many of us know very many if any of our neighbors more than to just maybe wave as they drive out the driveway. There needs to be a balance of busyness and noise verses the quiet and comtemplative hours in our lives where we can examine where we are in life and where are we headed.
Our recent storm really brought this home to me because without lights, heat and many other things for 36 hours your perspective changes. You know what happened !!! People actually talked to each other, opened their homes to those in need, helped in community food kitchens to get people fed and donated time to be sure others were safe by manning amateur radios all over town 24 hours a day to keep people in touch with the world when they no communications with all the phone lines down (yes, even 911 was the first thing to go).
So from enjoying laughing children to having quiet times alone with God and others we need balance in our lives. Time to enjoy, time to reflect and just time to live the lives God intended us to live - with balance in all things.
It's the tyranny of the urgent, folks ---- The urgent will always demand our attention and it must be done but the important sits quietly aside waiting for us to make time for it.

What is important in your life? MAKE time for it - whether it is taking time to love your kids or grandkids, visiting people, spending time alone with God, taking time to really talk to your spouse or friends without distractions or just personal time to think about where you are in life and how can you improve the quality time of you're own life or someone else's life you love.
How is your balance ??

Don'tcha love surprises !

2008-03-26T14:02:00.000-07:00

Surprises are fun not matter what shape they come in. I think everyone loves them.
Come on, girls, isn't it fun when your husband comes home with a dozen red roses for no reason at all. I know that one made brownie points for my husband when he did that way back when he was working out of town a lot and had been gone for some time. One dozen long stemmed red roses. How could he go wrong there ! Very impresssive it was, I must say !
Anyway, today I sat here looking at my e-mail etc and thought I really should blog something but all was a blank. So I got up and started doing other things. I guess God looked down and said "OK, I guess I'll give her a surprise and she can blog that.
So about an hour ago He started sending big - I mean BIG - silver dollar size snowflakes coming down. Like, I mean, this is six days into spring - Jackie mowed our lawn twice already this year -and believe it or not this is our first snowflakes of the year (including all fall and winter of 2007) Is that a surprise or what !!
But He knows I love snowflakes so I think he did it just for me. It has been snowing big flakes every since and the lawn and trees are all white. My birdies are scuddling under the trees and Chester is sleeping under the house, not on the porch in the sun like he has been doing in the afternoons. Bob put gloves on and took a cup of hot coffee instead of a soda to do his lightship duty this afternoon.
So I finished my WW lesson for tomorrow night, now I'm home alone, the house is quiet, soft music is playing, just fixed myself a latte. What a beautiful afternoon. Just wanted to share this afternoon with you all !
Hope you are all having a good one too !

It's daffodil time

2008-03-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

I have two beautiful tubs of daffodils blooming outside of my door. I love daffodils. When I visited Steve and Lorraine the spring of 1989 (when Cameron was born) to help out for awhile there were no daffodils. I had not realized that daffodils bulbs had to have cold weather to be able to bloom I learned not everybody has God's gift of daffodils in the spring. I love daffodils. I love spring (fall is still my favorite season but I do enjoy spring too)

One of the main reasons I love spring so much is it makes me think of my Mom (Grandma Young to most of you). She always loved spring and I see her in every daffodil, tulip and lilac bush when they bloom. She would sometimes say to me as she got older, "Just don't forget me after I'm gone. " As if I ever could. She was such a special person and I still miss her terribly. It doesn't seem possible she has been with the Lord now for 7 1/2 years.

The times I really miss her is when something special happens. I find myself thinking how much she would have enjoyed this or that if she could have been there. Especially when we go to things the grandkids are doing and knowing how proud she would have been of them . She would have just been thrilled to watch Aubrianne and Tanner dance. She loved to watch dancing on TV. And she would have enjoyed our energetic Savanna on the soccer field and she would have been so proud to have watched Cameron and Aubrianne graduate last spring. She would have claimed hugs from Spencer and Riley and Kyler and Ethan any chance she could have. I am so glad that all of our grandchildren were born before she left us so she did get to see them all. Ethan was just a baby but she still got to hold him and love him for a short while. They would all have enjoyed her so much.

She was just that type of person she was. People loved her. Kids loved her. I can not even remember how often I would come home from school and find one of Jean's friends sitting at the table with Mom even when Jean wasn't at home just talking to Mom. My girlfriends went to visit her long after I was married and out of town just to be with her. She was quiet and behind the scenes but so full of love and gentleness and always ready to listen.

Many times when something special happens I still find myself wanting to share it with her but that will have to wait and when we get together again it's a good thing we will have eternity to talk because we will have so much to catch up on.

Love you , Mom. - Enjoy the daffodils in heaven - I'll be along eventually and we'll catch up.

Do angels drive SUV's ?

2008-03-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

We drove over to Spokane on Friday last week and spent the weekend with Cathy, Asia and the kids. It was so fun to watch Ethan in his wrestling match. He did such a great job. He is quite the go getter ! Came away with a silver medal. GO, ETHAN ! Gold next time ?
We headed home Monday am early as I had a class at 6:30 I wanted to be back for. No problem - we do that often always arriving on time.
BUT - heading down the freeway about 70 miles or so we began to hear a loud roar. We both looked front and back for the truck we expected to see - but lo and behold - NO truck.
What is that noise !! I looked up as it sounded like a huge airplane going overhead.
No airplane ! Everything seemed fine except for this loud roaring sound.
Bob pulled over, hopped out to check things and found our right front tire flatter than a pancake.
No indication of a flat = no flop, flop of rubber you would expect - no pulling of the car to the right which could have been serious doing 70 down the freeway. Just the loud roar !
So the trunk was unloaded - jack and tools brought out and Bob began to undo the lug bolts.
The cars and trucks were zipping by, of course, everyone hurrying as the world does now a days.
Then suddenly this big black SUV lurked on the horizon and the next thing we knew he pulled over ahead of our car - the door opened and this big strong young man jumped out heading toward us saying "Everything under control or could you use some help ?" Bob said, "No, I think we are ok." "Well" he continued " Why don't you go get your spare and I'll loosen those for you."
Upon the arrival of the tire, he promptly took it, plopped it on the wheel, tightened everything up, shook hands and was off after letting me give him a hug. All in about 15 minutes.
"Angels do appear out of no where !"

Anway we proceeded on our little donut tire (which by the way had about 20 pounds of air left in it ) When did you last check the air in your spare ?? Limped to the next service station, got some air - then proceeded to good old Les Schwab in the Dalles and ended up buying two new front tires. They were both worn on the inside due to being out of alignment he said.
I arrived about 15 minutes late for my class and they were waiting for me so it all worked out great. We do have a great God. He really does care about every little detail of our lives and is always there when we need him !

Aristarchus ? ?

2008-03-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

Do you know who he is. Along with Tychicus, Epaphras and Justus.
All very special people to the Apostle Paul in the book of Colossians.

As I read thru these guys names this am during my quiet time suddenly I got to thinking
about these very long some unpronouncable names of people in the Bible.
I realized I tend to skip over a lot of them in certain parts of Scripture not
really thinking about them being just as real as us and holding a
very special place in history and many times in our future.

Take the "begats" for instance. We get to Leviticus in a 'read thru the Bible"
attempt and many times it is easy to get bogged down during this section.
And yet every word and name in Scripture is put there for a very specific
reason.

Can you imagine how you would feel if your name was included in the Holy
Bible - WOW - These guys and gals are very important.
I'm afraid I have some research to do before I get up there and one of them
heads over to me and asks me how I felt about his/her comment or his/her story
that was related in one of the books of the Bible.

How very special every person is that's listed in Scripture. Take note
next time you get to reading and check them out. Who were they related to, what can we learn from them and how can we glean more information about our precious Lord because
of their relationship to Him. What could be more special than to have that personal
relationship with our God and Savior in the flesh!
Gives me goosebumps just to think of having that opportunity.

March 6 - A Special Day

2008-03-06T08:40:00.001-08:00

Wow !
41 years ago today I was in St Mary's hospital here in town waiting for my second son to arrive.
How time flies. He didn't arrive until 2 o'clock in the afternoon but I had already been there for some time by 8:45 AM.

I can remember dropping Steve off at a neighbor's house where he was going to stay but when we got there we had forgotten to bring his big stuffed "purple mouse" so in spite of being in labor we had to go back to get it before he would quit crying about not having his mouse with him. He was sort of his security blanket. Fortunately, it wasn't far back to the house.

Finally my big ten pound 6 ounce baby boy arrived. That was before the days when Dad's were allowed in the delivery room so I bopped this young man out all by myself (with Dr Kettlekamp's help of course) That dear man delivered just about every baby born in this town
so he was well qualified.

That was also when we spent three days or so in the hospital before arriving home which wasn't really such a bad idea. Gave us time to get acquainted with our new sweet little guy and also get some rest before bringing him home to big brother, meals, night feedings, diaper changing and all of the other tasks a new baby brings into the house. I can still remember the soft feel of his little head I would stroke as he was feeding in the wee hours of the night when just he and I were up.

I remember it snowed the day we brought him home. March is late for snow here and it didn't amount to anything but it was pretty coming down as we brought him home in our big old beige station wagon to our home on Dow Road.

What a joyous time that was. He was a good baby in spite of it being hard to keep him filled up.
He emptied the little baby bottles quite easily (that was before breast feeding was in)
and there was lots of formula to fix each day.

But those days are precious to us and so is the beautiful young man he has turned into.
We are so proud on him and his family and their walk with God as they travel thru life.
What more could parents ask for. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KEN.

PRECIOUS MEMORIES TO BE SAVORED ALWAYS !

Yes, March 6 will always be a very special day for me !!

Mark and Jill

2008-03-04T08:51:00.000-08:00

We had the privilege of attending a reception for Mark and Jill Sunday night in Portland.
What a special evening to be able to meet the young lady (finally) who knocked him off his feet and won his heart. I used to tell him when he would begin to question his relationship with someone that he had to quit analyzing the whole situation and just "fall head over heels in love"
and quit questioning so much. Then finally one day last summer he called me and said "Know what, you were right!" That lucky young lady is Jill.

Now they are married and that long awaited event spurred a special ceremony Sunday night with four members of the past Bible Baptist "Blues Brothers" group from the 80's that were at the reception officially announcing their group had their MISSION ACCOMPLISHED after all these years. Each and every member of the official Blues Brothers was finally married.
The Blues Brothers name was officially set to see all the unmarried Bible Baptist young men married so they would be 'blue no more' - It took awhile but was finally accomplished in January when Mark got married ! It was quite a night of celebration to see to that mission succeed!

Jill is a very special young lady and we look forward to having her in the family. They will be coming to Astoria to meet everyone up here as soon as we can get a date set.

SO after 25 years of praying for this young lady, I finally know who she is and she was worth the wait. We do have a faithful God. Never give up when you ask for something and it just doesn't seem to happen. It is all in God's timing !!

Rain and Racoons

2008-02-28T08:04:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning to a rainy day. Not too unusual for around here but it meant I had to haul out my two remaining "in tact" flower pots onto my front porch in wet weather.
I had five pots full of flower bulbs out there but now only have two remaining as our local racoons decided my bulbs would make a good snack so I have been sweeping up dirt and remaining bulb pieces off my deck lately. SO last night I decided to bring my two last pots
indoors and set them in the den for the night.

However when Chester (our kitty) came in he began sniffing them and I was afraid he would decide to use them for a litter box so I hauled them out into the garage. I just carried them back
out - not too sure how long that will last but I really do want some spring flowers.

The daffodils in front have large buds on them already and will soon be open but they are in the ground so the racoons don't seem to bother them.

Oh well, we all have our space and they just decided some of mine was theirs so I guess we can share. They are Gods creatures placed here for a purpose so I guess they have some rights too.

Off for a busy day - will be on the run from 9:30 am to probably 8 or so tonight.

Tuesday -One of my favorite days

2008-02-26T08:32:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning with joy in my heart. That sounds funny but Tuesdays always make me happy. It means that I get to go out and be with the shelter kittys. It used to be hard because I wanted to bring them all home but now I realize after four years of volunteering out there that how I can serve them best is to give them the love they will get when they get a new "forever" home while they are waiting for God to lead the right person to bring them into their home.
It is scary for them to be in a new setting and most of them just sort of huddle in the back of the kennel when they first come in but it is fun and rewarding when we see them begin to accept their temporary safe surroundings and their personality begins to come out and they get bold enough to come out and play. That is the reward of being there when they decide you are their friend and love them. That's when they will curl up on your lap to be petted and get some of that love.
Except for the kittens who are usually too busy chasing each other or bouncing off the walls until they get worn out - then they flop and fall soundly asleep totally exhausted. I guarantee you cannot be in the same room with a kitten for any length of time before you will have a SMILE on your face. They are so full on fun !

So if you need some sunshine in your life, don't overlook adopting a little (or big) ball of fur.
The reward will be yours and I can promise hours of fun and companionship.

So I guess you see why my blog has kittys on it. Yes, I am a kitty lover .
Cats of all sizes (especially tigers in the big variety !)

Anyway, that is my thought for the day. Enjoy your day. I'm heading out for some "kitty love" because I benefit as much as they do with our day together.

Have a good Tuesday !

Monday Morning

2008-02-25T11:16:00.001-08:00

Hi everybody ! That's sort of redundant since no one but Steve knows I now have a blog!
He set me up this Saturday while Jan, Lorraine and I were out sprucing up Jan's living room and visiting furniture stores. Guess we should tell someone I am up and running, huh Steve !
Thanks for getting me on.

This the first time I had a chance to sit down and try it out so here I am feeling
sort of like that recent post of Cathy's where she has the cartoon with the guy staring out the window looking for something to post.

Can't guarantee how often I will get on here but suppose it will come with time.
Like I really have anything going on around here of interest but we will see.

Thats it for today.

Hugs to you all
Mom

My first post

2008-02-23T17:00:00.000-08:00

Hi This is a new adventure