The road not taken.

 As I recall Robert Frost wrote something like this, "Two roads converged in the yellow woods and I took the one less traveled and it made all the difference."  I think that is pretty close.  But if you stop and think about his poem, it pretty well mirrors our lives, at least mine.

When I left high school for the real world, I was dating a boy named Gene.  He joined the Army and I pledged to wait for him.  Of course I did not.  He sent me a silk pillow from Germany, but by the time it arrived, I was married to my first husband.  After 10 years I returned to Hutchinson and several years later I was given the opportunity to host a television segment in eastern Kansas. Not wanting to uproot myself and my little family  I opted out of that move.  So all these years later here I set in Pueblo, Colorado.   I am not sure how it happened, but 40 odd years slipped away from me and left me here an old woman with kids that live some where else and a 2400 square foot home on an acre of ground to amuse myself with by trying to keep the weeds from taking the place. 

I do sometimes think back to the road I did not take and wonder where I would be had I married Gene when he came home.  Would we have lived happily ever after?  I rather doubt it.  I did not really know much about him except that he lived in the south part of town with his mother and sister.  I close my eyes and try to picture him and I come up blank.  I think he had brown eyes and I know he had a buzz cut because he was in the Army.  I always wanted to marry a sailor so I do not know how I ended up with a soldier.  Guess he was the one who asked me!   Duane Seeger came into my life as a friend of my brother Jake's.  And three weeks after I was introduced to him, we were in front of the minister at the Presbyterian church down on Sherman Street.  But then I did not end up with him, did I?  No, my last husband was  Marine.  

I do like my life because I do not have a lot of roads to choose to take.  I am here.  I am settled and I am too old to want a lot of changes.  Occasionally I think of uprooting and moving back to Hutchinson, or Nickerson, but having to do the actual selling and uprooting is just more than I am able to fathom.  

I like to think I have aged gracefully, but I am not sure that is exactly how it happened!  What I think is that I married Kenny and he gave me my first real home.  So, I took root.  When I lost him 20 years later, I still had kids at home.  That gave me a reason to stay put.  I began doing charity work and then the kids grew up and soon the last one was in love and moving out and here I set.  I do look back at the roads that brought me to this little acre out here on the Mesa and wonder if I could go back, would I do anything different?

I think not.  I think I may actually be turning into a recluse.  I am invited out to eat, because that is the one thing we all do for sure, but I rarely go.  It is just easier to get up in the morning and slip into something comfy and try to figure out what I should do today.  One day turns into another and before I know it, I am off to church again, and then it starts the whole thing again.  Sometimes the tedium is broken by the need to buy goose food, or replenish my own supply of whatever it is I am eating this week.

For several years I volunteered at hospice and I think about returning to that venue, but I do not drive at night and people tend to want to die at night, so that is pretty well out the door.  I do have a grandbaby a couple days out of the month which definitely breaks the monotony of my solitary existence.  And sometimes I go to lunch with a lady friend.  Even went shopping one time with Kay.  But other than that, the sun comes up, I sleep through Jeopardy!, the sun goes down and then I go to bed.

So when it comes to taking another road, that is pretty much a moot point!  I am doing very well staying on the path I am on at this time!  So, Mr. Robert Frost, I wonder what you decided?  If you had it to do all over again, would you?  Would I?  Would anyone?

I recall a conversation with my mother once and it went like this:

"Why does she put up with his bullshit?  Why doesn't she just leave?"  And mother, in her infinite wisdom said this....  "It is like setting in a pile of warm shit.  As long as you are in it, you are warm, but if you try to move out of it you find it is cold and smelly as you move away.  So it is just easier to set there and not move."

So, I think whatever road I took, it still would have brought me here!  Been a lot of twists and turns, and bumps and tumbles, but I am here, I am warm, and I am not leaving!

Where have you gone, dear David?

David Stevens

7/19/1947 - 9/14/2017

Rest in peace, my little friend.

I do not remember when I met David.  Time means very little in my world and marking time is not something I do well.  I know I met him when I came to First Congregational  from Christ Congregational and I know it has been 10 years or so.  The important thing is that I met him and he made an impact on my life in a way few men have.  David was special.

David was special in more ways then one.  He was a big man, but I can not say how big as the wheel chair he was confined to did not allow one to measure.  I know his hands were big and he loved his cowboy hat.  I do not know how many years he was in the chair, I just know I never seen him without it.

He lived in a home with other people and he liked to help them.  I would like to say I met him when he came to our church, but I am not sure he wasn't there before me.  At our church we have a microphone which we use to let the congregants make announcements or report on someone in need of prayer.  David loved that mic!  Any Sunday he was in church he would pick up the microphone and tell us that his parents and everyone were in heaven, but he had a new family and that was the members of this church.  We were his family now.  He would tell of his former church where he used to be a greeter, but now he was a greeter in this church and that made him very happy.  He was an usher and while he could not manipulate the wheelchair on his own, he smiled as broad as any man and enjoyed being a greeter in his church!

And you know what?  That made me very happy.  David was a simple man, with simple needs and he always put others before himself and isn't that what it is all about anyway?  A lesser man would have been sad to be confined to a wheel chair and to be taken care of everyday.  A lesser man would have perhaps rebelled at his lot in life.  But not David!  David started counting the days until his next birthday on the day after his birthday.  He looked forward to that more than Christmas, I think.

I am sure that David is up there (wherever up there is ) telling God that he used to be a greeter at this church and that we are his family.  He is probably explaining to his mother and father that since they had gone, he had found a new family and they should not feel bad because he did that because he missed them so much.  And I bet that is one happy reunion around that dinner table, but David, if you are listening, know that while we miss you, and our church will always have an empty place on that back row, we are very happy that you are where you are and we want to thank you for taking care of us for the very short time we had you.

Rest in peace our little friend and know that you were loved and you are sorely missed, but we are happy you are free at last!

New beginnings! Mats for the homeless.

YouTube is a real eye opener at times!  While surfing one day I typed in homeless and then mats and came up with my newest project.  Our church has toyed with all sorts of missions and we do a few.  We buy Christmas and Birthday gifts for every client in a series of group homes.  We do hygiene bags for Los Pobres as well as collect clothing, shoes and household goods all through the year.  We have a preschool which operates the same schedule as schools in the district.  But we needed more.  I drove by the soup kitchen down town one day and noted that the parking lot was full of men, women and children waiting for their daily meal.  That made me think....where do they go after they eat?  Most of the homeless have everything they own with them.  There or stashed back at....where?

Where do they spend the afternoon?  Where do they go when the sun goes down?  Where do they wake up in the morning?  What comforts do they have?  What could our church do to help the homeless?  I knew there were places in town that fed the homeless.  There were coat drives.  And of course there was the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, but was that enough?  When people are homeless, whether by chance or choice, it is a 24 hour a day condition and it last 365 days a year.  What do the places that deal with this problem on a day to day basis need to keep functioning?  Oh, of course they need money, but what else?

I started researching on YouTube.  Amazing tool, YouTube.  I learned how to rebuild the back of my stool on YouTube.  I learned how to caulk the tub on YouTube and now I am learning how to help the homeless.  I do not know where they live, but I do know it is outside and they sleep on the ground.  YouTube taught me that sleeping mats for the homeless can be made out of plastic grocery bags and a crochet hook!  Not even an investment required, just the commitment of time and talent.

So the call went out for empty plastic carry bags.  They have to be straightened, flattened and cut into what turns out to be circles.  For this I relied on the ladies at church.  Most of them do not crochet so that was left to me.  These are then linked together and rolled into a ball.  Then the fun part of crocheting them into a mat 3' x 6'.  I must confess, by first mat took me 6 weeks to make and is not 3' x 6', but does seem to be about 4 foot square.  I took it to church and pastor Kevin blessed it.  Off I went to the Posada Homeless Center. 

Anne Stattleman and her sidekick Sal, were most happy with my little endeavor.  They now have a youth group which is homeless youth that hang out in the center and cope with being homeless.  A spark!  A spark!  My little pea brain took flight.  Young people need to learn a skill!  I have lots of crochet hooks!  So I went back the next morning in search of the young  people who were going to be my project.  I would teach them to cut the bags, string the bags and crochet the bags!  But alas!  My plan was thwarted because they were not there!  One wandered in and he gave me direction!  I will meet with the whole group on Monday at 4:00.    We will make this a social event!  Yes, we will all work together for the common good!  I am excited!  Monday will be the christening, but I have lots of plans for these kids!

Our church is going to have an ice cream social on June 3 and I am going to invite all my little friends to come by for ice cream.  That should be fun, don't you think?  Our church wants to do some sort of neighborhood thing every month and Posada is in our neighborhood so I can see all kinds of things going on here.

In the meantime, I have devised a plan whereby I can weave one of these mats in two days.  This is the first one.  It is way too thin though.  This was woven with hemp thread as the warp, but I have an new plan.

If I can make the warp out to the same thing as the body, it will be thicker and more durable.  So I am working on that.  I will teach the kids to crochet, thus freeing me up to build a warp out of plarn which is the word for plastic that is made into yarn.  PL arn.  Get it?

So tomorrow this one goes to Kevin to be blessed and then to Anne and Sal to give to someone.  By this time next week we should be in full production.  I will keep you posted.  Tomorrow or Monday I will be blogging about my new helper down on the loom.  Her name is Icarus and here is but a screen shot of how she helps me.  Stay tuned.

                                        

Another High Tea is in the books.

The tea cups patiently await the tea drinkers.

The tea pots are lined up to carry the brew!

Scones are trying to get out of the bag.

And away we go!

Classical music is provided by Jerome.

Sorry you missed it!

Check it out here!

January is about behind me, thank God.

Well, it has been a very rough start for this year.  We lost Pastor Jeannine Lamb right before Christmas.  Her sudden passing threw me into a new low both at church and home.  I spent a lot of time over the holiday with her life partner, Kathy.  That helped me work through it some what.  Of course now comes the work of finding a new pastor.  Kevin Olsen is doing pulpit supply for us until we can find an interim ministry so that takes a load off our shoulders.  Does not make life easier though as there are meetings and more meetings.

Also passing was Rae Flanagan, whom I had gone to church with for years.  Very nice and very classy lady.    Lee Dorsey was the last of the people I had gone to church with and my heart breaks for his beautiful daughter, Bernadette and her husband, Jesse.   I also lost a client, Irene.  On the upside, I got a new great grandson.

Ended the year having a new furnace installed.  House insurance and car insurance both jumped up 25%.  Never had a wreck in my life, but my insurance keeps going up.  Not the social security check though,  That just keeps getting stretched further to pay utilities and buy groceries.  We all know how long this cheap gas is going to last, don't we?

As I look forward to the new year left ahead of me, I can hear the limb rubbing on the back of the house roof and know that is going to need to come down and that means more money.  Car has 105000 miles on it so needs to have all kinds of little things done to it.  I think about just selling and moving into town and that scares me.  When I do that there is no going back to the big house in the country with 2 dogs, a cat and 9 geese.  It is easy to downsize at my age, but up sizing is out of the question.

So I am going to set here in my big house surrounded by all my stuff I have accumulated and think about what is going to happen this coming year.  I have lots of big plans and lots of things I want to do, but time will tell as to what happens.  Who knows, maybe next year I will be the one not here and someone else will be missing me!  That is the fun part of life; not knowing.

So for now, I am going to keep loving all my friends and acquaintances and if one of them falls by the wayside I will know I did my best and if the "fallee" happens to be me, they can shed a tear and know that we parted on the best of terms.

We are not promised tomorrow.  We have only today.

Goodbye to a wonderful woman

September 28, 2014

Goodbye to dear Sammie Cody

Hard working hands to heaven borne.

And left us here to mourn.

A saint  among our saviour's best

Hard working hands have gone to rest.

I shall miss my friend.   I met Sammie a couple months ago, but she had a tremendous impact on my life.  Her faith was so simple, so kind and so all encompassing that I was immediately drawn into a family filled with love.  Through her our church has grown.  We prayed for her and she for us.  She has opened my eyes in a new way to know that I just need to turn it over to God, assume it is taken care of and prepare to reap the benefits.  

I will write more about Sammie later.

Plevna, Kansas, Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield

I know I have written about my Plevna years, but in case you missed it let me go there again.  Grandma Haas, who was Mother's mother, had a stroke mys last year of grade school.  Great Grandma Hatfield was pushing 100 and could not take care of her alone, so I was sent to stay with them and do what I could.  This meant I started my Freshman year in the little Plevna High School.  The whole high school was less then 40 kids.  Plevna was a farming community and all the kids in school were farmer's kids.  I stuck out like a sore thumb.  But it was what it was and there I stayed.  I do not remember any of those kids I went to school with.  There was a family named Smith that lived catty cornered from the grandma's and I went over there sometimes, but was under strict orders not to look at their television because that was the work of the devil!


The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and a whole bunch of girls.  I can recall 5 for sure.  I never saw a boy, so that may have been the family.  There may have been a son some where but I do not recall.  Mr. Smith had one blue eye and one brown eye.  That was something I had never seen before and have not seen since.  I see it occasionally in dogs, but never in a human.  Of course, I do not actually seek the phenomenon out, so it may slip by me undetected.

There were several things that amazed and intrigued me about the Smith family.  The first was the size of the house.  It was a two story that had never seen a coat of paint.  It must have been about 10 rooms and was lathe and plaster.  I know this because the ceiling of the foyer fell down and we were then relegated to using the back door because no one cleaned up the mess.  Later the ceiling in the front room would fall also.  That was more serious as Mr. Smith was napping on the couch under it when it collapsed and received a small cut.  We did praise God that it was not more serious!  One room contained a quilt frame which always held a quilt, but I do not know if anyone ever quilted or it was just there.

As in most homes of that era, the plumbing consisted of a privvy out back and a pump by the back door and usually one in the kitchen.  This was the other thing that amazed me about the family dynamic.  There were several wash tubs located in the kitchen.  They were there to hold the dirty dishes.  On Saturday, they heated water and washed all the dishes.  It was a bee hive of activity on that day as all the women folk were there and working feverishly to get the chore done.  When the dishes were all washed, dried, and put away it was time to heat the water and wash the clothes.  Saturdays were definitely work days at the Smith house!  Mr. Smith stayed in his chair by the window looking out at the back yard.  The dog stayed by him so it did not get stepped on by the scurrying women.  I did not go over there on Saturday.

Sunday I was expected to attend church.   Mom and dad would come for a visit about once a month.  They brought the 3 younger girls.  This was always special to me.  Dinner would be on the table when I got home.  It was always a feast and always the same fare.  Great grandma fried chicken and the rest of the meal materialized around that.   You know the comfort food thing?  Mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, green beans, homemade dinner rolls, butter, jelly and pudding of some sort or another for dessert.  Some times a cake or pie.  Celery stuffed with peanut butter.  Pickled beets and sweet pickles.  The poor table would be groaning from all the food.  Never went hungry at Sunday dinner.
As I recall we never ate after the sun went down.  Dishes were washed and back in the cupboard in very short order.  The men folk, which usually consisted of my father, sat in the rocking chair with his thumbs hooked together over his stomach.  Grandma died in January of my freshman year.  Aunt Mabel came from Coldwater and took great grandma back with her.  I returned to Nickerson and the bosom of my family.

My father.  As I recall, my father was a big man.  His skin was very white and his hair had at one time been mostly red, but not a bright red.  It was more like a reddish blonde with a tad of brown.  He had freckles on his hands which were very white and not calloused at all.  I don't remember his eyes.  He had a big stomach and always wore overalls.  He wore brown, high top shoes.  Funny the things we remember from our childhood.  I think he may have been English with a bit of Irish, but who knows.
I do not think he liked me very much.  I know Mary was his favorite, but Mary was everyone's favorite.  Mother kept all of us girl's hair very short, but Mary was allowed to let hers grow long.  We were all so jealous!  Dorothy was the baby.  Donna and I were just there as  middle children.  Josephine ran away and got married very young.  Jake forged his birth certificate to show his age as 17 when he was 15 and joined the Army.  That made me the oldest of the youngest kids at home.  I relished in that and was very bossy.

At night we played "kick the can"  with the neighbor kids.  That is a game of hide and go seek which entailed placing a can on the ground and the one who was "it" counted while everyone hid.  Then the "it" person had to find each one and bring them back to "base".  While the "it" person went to search for the remaining hidden, some one could sneak in and "kick the can" which freed the ones who were stuck in the "jail".  Game sometimes went on for hours.  In day time we had "clod " fights.  This required a freshly plowed field.  We usually chose small clods which had dried and threw them at each other.  They usually crumbled on contact, but if they had been baking in the sun several days, they tended to be a little harder and left marks.  As tempers flared, the clods got bigger and more then one tear was shed either from pain, frustration, or from an eye full of dirt!  Brother Jake decided at one time to pull out his .22 rifle.  Little shit!  The game was over for the day and he was the winner for sure.

More about Plevna later, but now I have to go tend to the geese.

cooking and cleaning can wait for the morrow, for babies grow up, we learn to our sorrow

And that is what I woke up with, stuck in my head, this morning!  I did the online search and nothing turned up.  Does anyone else remember this poem?  Oh, crap!  I am the oldest one here and this is all I remember, so what are the odds that you can tell me the name of this?  Probably two; slim and none.  I can remember cross stitching this, but that is about as far as the memory goes.  I think I probably did it when Debbie was a wee one, but it could have been last week.  No, not last weeks since the fingers no longer curl around those teensy, tinesy needles which would make no difference since I can't see to thread the damn needle anyway!

Life certainly does throw us a hardball towards the end of the whole mess, doesn't it?  When we finally get our crap together and know what we want out of life and have a pretty good idea of how to get it, we are too late and the need to do the "bucket list" thing takes over.  While my mind is remembering winning dance contests at the sock hops back in high school, my reality is searching for something to loosen my joints up enough so I can tie my shoes!  While my mind is grooving to Gene Vincent, Fats Domino and Elvis Presley, my reality is singing "Shall we gather at the river?"

I am becoming better at checking expiration dates because I do so want to outlive the gallon of milk in the refrigerator.  Back in the mind, we called them "ice boxes" because that is what they were.  They did not get plugged into a socket some where.  We had a card that had 25 on the top and 10 on the bottom.  It was designed so that if we wanted 25 pounds of ice Mother placed it in the window which reflected the 25 right side up and the 10 would be upside down.  The ice man pulled up on the chosen day, looked at the sign, got his ice picker upper (which I have of course forgotten the correct name for [TONGS!!!!! I remembered when I reread this!]) and picked up the block of ice and brought it into the house, through the door which was never locked, and put it in the ice box, picked up his money from the top of the ice box, and went back out the door which did not lock behind him, and left.

The reason the door was not locked was because if some poor soul was in need of a drink of water, or shelter from the rain, or cold out of the heat, or was very tired and needed to rest they could  get in  the house.  If they could find something to eat, they were welcome to it.  See, back in those days, people trusted each other and crime was almost non-existent.  Horses were protected more that personal property.  And guess what happened if you stole a horse?  The towns folk would catch you and hang you, or so I heard.  Never really saw it happen.  Horse thieves were the most horrible kind of despot!  Wonder what my grandma would think about what goes on today?

The fact that the pump was out on the porch gave them access to a drink of water.  There was also a pump at the stock tank, so they really did not need to go in the house for water, but it was being hospitable, and that is what we did back then.

Bet you are wondering why I never said "use the facilities"  aren't you?  Well there were none in the house.  They were "out back."  Stands to reason that if we had no running water, we had no use for a toilet that flushed.  The school and the people in town had them and they were really nice.
 
Try to remember that we were the poor people outside of town, growing up.  I preferred to think of us as just like every one else, dirt poor.   I learned later that I was "white trash", but no one ever called me that.  It was after all, just a term they used.  I often wondered at the term and I am sure it was racist.  That was another thing;  Nickerson, Kansas, to my recollection, never had anyone except very white people.  Oh, there was the family that lived in the boxcar up on the curve, but they were Indians.  I loved to go to thier house.  The mother was very clean and even swept the dirt in front of the door.  Since we had a step and 2 feet of sidewalk, we were considered rich.

But I have once more digressed from my purpose.  If you remember this poem share this post on facebook and I will see it.  Or contact me over there on the left.  I will probably not remember what I asked, but that, friends, is how it goes in my world!

People who forget the past tend to repeat it.  ;)

Welcome to my world!

So this is why I have no hot water this morning!  Better call Black Hills who has my service contract.  I know the water heater is on there.  That is why I have it.  Oh, wait while I am on hold let me just read my contract.  Yes the water heater is covered.  No, the tank on the water heater is not covered.  The tank leaking  caused the pilot light to go out which they will come and light, but it probably will not stay lit with water dripping on it from a tank that is not under warranty!  Ya think!

This is the sump pump Jesse put in for me several years back so if the water heater went south the sump pump would pump the water outside and I would not need to sop it up with this towel.

See how it is located right beside it?  To bad it does not work.  I used to pour a gallon of water in it and watch it empty just so I knew it would work.  Hmmm.  Guess it only works when you watch it.

Ater got clear over into the sewing room.  I feel so damn special!

Oh, wait a minute!  Today is Sunday!  Do plumbers work on Sunday?  Better yet do they work on SUPER BOWL SUNDAY?  Some how I think the Karma Gods have got me over a barrel here.  Ah, but there is hope.  I do not have to shower before church.  Or after church.  Or in the foreseeable future!

So those of you who have actual hot running water, enjoy!  And I will not say "Go Bronco's" because that would be like putting a curse on them.  What I will say is 

Enjoy the game!

A day in the life of a madwoman!!

5:15 AM Decide I might as well get up since I can't sleep anyway.
5:16 AM Turn on computer.
5:30 AM Get my first cup of coffee.
5:36 AM Breakfast consisting of 1/4 cup glucosomine for the joints, 2 Tablespoons flax seed for the inner workings, toast with 9 grains and 4 kinds of nuts for the carbs, butter cause I like it, 2 eggs for protein, and milk for the bones.
5:40 AM Into the bathroom for my first round of DMSO (Liniment) on the right hip and right knee. 
5:41 AM Brushing of the teeth (amist much gagging and such).
5:42 AM To the computer and boot up AOL.  (You may notice I skipped the one part in the bathroom about the relieving of myself and that would be because I was up half the night taking care of that little chore.  Seems my bladder works best when I am in a prone position!)
5:44 AM Open email and check for sales on eBay.  Print out paypal payments and then go to personal emails.  Two sentence answers to those.
5:54 AM Check the downstairs for anything I forgot to finish last night.
5:55 AM Crank up the wii exercise thingy.  Do the body test thing.  I have lost 3.5 pounds since yesterday and appear to be 48 years old according to the wii test.
6:05 AM Back to the computer to see if anyone read my blogs last night while I was sleeping.  Yes!
6:07 AM Take pictures and list one Anita Goodesign CD. Check to see how the other auction is doing and how much I now owe ebay for thier magnamously helping me in my endeavor.
6:40 AM Notice there is a bird dropping on the INSIDE of my window.  I do a cursory look on this level and find no feathers or other signs of a bird in distress.  No signs of that damn cat either.  I make a post it note for the lower part of the computer screen reminding myself that if I smell a strange odor in the next few days that there is no doubt a bird body somewhere.  I make a mental note to myself to kill that damn cat when I find it.
7:35 AM Wander out back to let out the geese and start the water in the tank so it will overflow and make them a puddle which they like.  While I am out there I fill the feeder and make a note that I need to go by Big R and buy three more bags on Tuesday.  It is cheaper on the second Tuesday, but I never seem to run out and God forbid I buy anything ahead.  Every time I have to wrestle those 50 bags of feed around I make a mental note to myself that I need to get married again.  First I will need to tear the post it note off the bottom of the microwave oven reminding me not to get married again.
8:37 AM Decide I have had way to much coffee this morning and I need to do a blog.  And now it may be done since I need to get in the shower and get ready for church. 

Thank heaven for church (I can grab a much needed nap!) as it is the one constant in my hectic little life.  When I get home, after meeting Ross and consulting with him about some electronics over on Howard, I am going to start sawing away at the apple tree out front.  Seems when I planted it I managed to plant it right over the sewer line and now it is running roots into the line and plugging it up. 
So there you have it in a nutshell.  My life may not be organized and it may not seem like much to you, but it is my life and I would not have it any other way!
************************************************************************
This is the novel I have for sale on Amazon.  Do not be confused by the title.  Chapter One simply means this is my first book.  There may never be another, or there may be many more.  I am very proud of this endeavor and guarantee you will enjoy the book in it's enirety.   Lou Mercer

From the back cover

Chapter One...Loose Ends
Lou Mercer

Meg Parker led a simple life.  She was a widow of three years and lived on a chicken farm at the foot of the mighty Rockie Mountains.  Life was good and her little store on eBay made her extra spending money.  But snow and wildlife were not the only things lurking in the forest above her house.  Nor did it stay in the forest for long.

Marshall Purcell came home a wounded veteran from vietnam.  He still had his dreams, but they were of an incestuous past that threatened to consume him.

When Meg and Marshall met it seemed an inconsequential meeting, but it changed both their lives forever.  And change is not always a good thing.

This is adult fiction at its best without all the sex.  Well, maybe just a little bit. 

About the author.  Lou Mercer was born in Nickerson, Kansas. She came to Pueblo, Colorado in 1977 and is now a product of the majestic Rockie Mountains

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! and meet Steve Parke!!

Well,  here is my little friend, Steve Parke!  Today he is going to be conducting a program on his trip to Ireland a little while back.  We will get to see lots of slides of the Irish side of Steve, but I bet they have been censored.  Oh, not really.  He is a really great guy but I bet you would never guess by that ornery look on his face that he is a retired minister, would you?
He has lots of irons in the fire and genealogy is only one of them.  He plays a mean guitar and does the coffee shop strumming thing.  Open mike nights are his forte.  He also works with the little kiddies in our "Mothers Day Out" Daycare program.  He really likes that and the kids think he is superman!
Steve is an avid ski bum.  (I did not say skier cause I am not sure how to spell it.)  Winter time comes and Steve is up in Gunnison, teaching and doing the down hill thing. 
I do believe he is starting to stay in town a little more in the winter which is a good thing because we are always happy to have him in our midst.  He has put out an album which I had for sale in my store for a while.  I can sing along on all those songs.
So this afternoon I will be whiling away the hours in Mayflower Hall, learning all about the Irish roots of the Parke family.  And that is a good thing to do because as I understand it, we are all Irish on this day!  Hmmmmm....Can Haas, Gagnebien, and Hatfield actually be considered Irish!

See you later today, you wild little Irishman , you!

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4 Year celebration of the shared ministry of First Congregational UCC and Christ Congregarional UCC in Pueblo, Colorado.

Today was a very special celebration honoring 4 years of a shared ministry between two churches who are separate but equal.  The slide show should convey the comradery that transpired today.  The first two years was spent working out all the logistics and then we hired the Reverend Jeannine Lamb, who has served both churches for two years this coming May.
The history of the United Churches of Christ here in Pueblo, Colorado is one best gone into at a later date.  First Church started in 1878 and in 1957 the more progressive Christ Church splintered off from the First Church.  Needless to say, all you need to know at this point is that we been around a very long time!
Pastor Lamb conducts two services every Sunday.  But this is about our celebration.  The mere fact that 4 years later we are still here and still in a committed realtionship while remaining completely seperate is enough to make me scratch my head, but here we are. 
Tom Rehling, the Conference Minister was an active participant in the festivities.  Retired Reverend Will Green and his wife Delores attended.  As did retired Reverend Bob Howard and his wife Evelyn.  My personal favorite was the retired Reverend Faye Gallegos who was twice the Interim Minister at First Church when I attended there.  I love her and I am going to do a blog on her soon because she actually marched with Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
I had a wonderful day and now I am very tired, so I want you to enjoy the slide show and I will write more tomorrow.  Just know that this is a good day!

Dolly wants a new black and white purse!

Ah, Dolly decided she wanted a new purse, so I told her I could most definitely accomadate her in that area as I had just finished making several new ones and I was sure one had her name on it!  Dolly and Jerry attend the same church that I attend, or I should say I attend their church since they were there a long time before I showed up on Sundays. It does not take long to figure out just what I do in my spare time, cause I am happy to share that news.  I am now making purses which I shall offer for sale on eBay, but my friends get first choice and they get a break on the price.  And let me tell you, this little Dolly is just that!  She is the sweetest little person I think I have ever laid eyes on and her husband, Jerry, is absolutely devoted to her as you shall see in the last picture on this post. 

So here is Jerry telling her, "Sure, honey, it that is the one you want, cost is not object.  What ever you want is what I want."  Or something along that line.  You should know that they very recently celebrated an anniversary that took my breathe away.  Seems like 65 years or something like that, but look at her!  She is not old enough to have been married that long.  She is just as fresh and dewy eyed as she can be.

.

We had discussed whether the handles were long enough since some women do like to hook thier purse on their shoulder.  I do, but I expect to look for a shoulder bag.  So Jerry, since he is the one who usually carries Dolly's purse decided to model it.  So he did and he pronounced that it was just about perfect.

And since the deal is struck, here I am getting a check for my wares.  Ah, everyone fared well on this little transaction, although I did rather hate to part with that purse as it was one of my personal favorites.   But  if it must go to a new home, I am sure it will be happy at Jerry and Dolly's house.  Besides, I will probably see it again next Sunday!

 

Here is Sister Mary in her new jammies all ready for bed!

You should know that one of the favorite past times around here is going to bed.  Just love to do that, you know.  This is my sister Mary who lives in Wichita, Kansas most of the time.  This is January and it is very cold every where, so she has come to stay with me for a while.  The first night she was here it got down to -20 and the second night it was -13.  So I am sure she is not here for the heat!  She is here because she likes me and likes to come stay with me!  I think a lot of it is the cooking!

See, my mother used to come a couple times a year and stay.  She would con someone into hauling her out here and leaving her for a couple weeks.  When she stepped out of her conveyance, she would have a piece of paper clutched in her bony little fingers.  This was handed to me before the second foot hit the ground.  It was the "Things I want to eat" list that she had been working on.  She need not have bothered since it was always the same.

1.  Cream puffs with that filling you cook.

2.  Tomato soup made with home canned tomatoes and milk.

3.  Salmon patties with onions like I like.

4.  Potato Salad and don't put Miracle Whip in it or sweet relish.

But this is not mother, this is Sister Mary and her desires are different.  She will eat what ever I put in front of her.  Well, not the beets.  And she does not eat enough to keep a bird alive.  That may change.  She sets at the kitchen counter while I am in the kitchen and nibbles at Carmel Corn that her daughter, Tina made for her. We got a bag of Clementines she also likes.  And coffee!  Girl is coffee hound.  Someone gave me some coffee beans for Christmas and we had a bit of a problem there.  I use my coffee grinder to pulverize Habanero's for a dip I make (and sell to a choice few).  Now, I do not think she was real fond of that first pot of coffee!  Then there was the problem of getting it just the right degree of strongness.  Finally solved that problem by buying a can of Maxwell House Breakfast Blend!

My mind does tend to wander.  I was going to tell you about the new pajama's Mary has.  She got them for Christmas and they are pink.  I know the picture does not show pink, but they are.  I think Mary's favorite color must be pink!  Yesterday when we went to church she wore a pink sweat shirt with Gingerbread men on it that says, "My grandkids are Sugar and Spice."  Very pretty little lady she was!  She likes my church cause it is very old and the people are very nice.  Course they are very old also, but that is what God put us here for, I'm a thinking.

Well, I better get off of here cause she is going to be getting up in just a little while.  I went yesterday and bought her the bread she likes.  She likes the 7 or 9 grain bread, but we found some yesterday with 12 or 14 grains and it is very good.  So I will make her toast and she puts her own jelly on cause I use to much.  I do not actually eat jelly, but I think that people who eat it should put lots on the toast.

Ok, I am off to go play with Sister Mary.  I have a friend who thinks Sister Mary should be a nun!  I will sing her a song.  That always makes her smile.

Have a good one, because I intend to!