The worst part about old age is getting there.

Did you ever just stop and think, "Where did the time go?  When did this happen? I am old!"  I did that today.  I realized that I am no longer young!  I did not feel old this  morning when I got up, but suddenly came the dawning of the realization that there will be no going back, no second chance at a first anything.  This is it and it is down hill from here to the end.  From the cradle to the grave sort of thing.

It seems like only yesterday, I was a little barefooted kid running the streets in Nickerson, Kansas without a care in the world. I do not remember being cold, but I don't remember being warm.  I do not remember being hungry, but i don't remember being full, either.  I went to school and apparently I learned something.  I remember babysitting to buy my mother a stainless steel mixing bowl because I had broken her glass one.  I remember clod fights, kick the can, watching the calf die, and eating green peaches.  I remember Howard Fein poking his false teeth out at me and scaring me half to death.  I remember many things, but I don't remember getting older.

I remember having babies, catching fish, and getting divorced.  I remember burying my brother, sister, father, mother, friends, husband, and pets.  I remember tears and laughter, good times and bad times, having money and being broke, but for the life of me, I can not remember growing old.  It just seems like one day I was young and the next day I was not.  The body that used to jump the fence, run a mile, dance to the twist, and unload 50 pound bags of feed, just quit cooperating.  The mind that was so quick with a comeback has slowed to a crawl.  Now the body seeks creature comforts of warmth and a soft bed.  The mind likes to drift back to another day and time.  Back to when the kids were babies and all I needed to be happy was a roof over my head, food in my belly and hope for tomorrow. 

Now my life stretches before me like a long black, endless ribbon of a highway with no beginning and no end.  Do all people face this mortality?  What a waste!  We start out as helpless little babies needing someone to care for us and move through a maze called life to end up as helpless old people needing someone to care for us.  Oh, the irony of it all!

I wish I had it all to do over!  If I could have another chance I would seize each day and savor it from dawn to dark.  I would examine every minute of every day and write each night in my journal and plan every tomorrow so that every day would be important to me and to everyone I knew.  I would hold my mother tight.  I would sing to my brother.  I would rock my children.  I would have been a missionary to the poorest of the poor and the sickest of the sick.  I would not have shed selfish tears for myself, but would have wept for the world and would have made it a better place instead of just drifting through in my own willful way.

But, alas, I can change nothing.  I set here a lonely old woman with my delusions of grandeur, and wish it were different.  But all my wishing changes nothing.  I just hope that when I get up to the pearly gates I can remember the one quote that fits this situation:  "Of all the things, of mice and men, the greatest of all, What might have been."  Or something along that line.

Jingle Bell Boutique all stocked up and ready to go!

Here is what a craft sale looks like when it is all stocked and ready to go!  Looks different than it did yesterday, doesn't it?  Today I am going to go around and take pictures of things that I think are special.  I bought a little sign that says, "Sarcasm, just another service I offer."

 This is my little corner of the world and I am really doing pretty well there.  Course I am a pusher, you know.  My arch enemy (Bet you did not know I had one of those, did you?) was in yesterday and we did a very good job of ignoring her.  Funny part was , Lyn stopped by and her arch enemy was also there at the same time as mine!  How fate works to try and set our Karma's to rights and how hard we work to keep it from happening.  Almost humorous.

Ok, I got to hit it.  If you get a chance hop on out to Pueblo West, 127 Spaulding in the VFW Hall!  I will be there until 5 and then I am out of there.

Have a good day, and be kind to each other.  Do as I say, not as I do!

The Jingle Bell Boutique is doing #32 in Pueblo West today!

 The Jingle Bell Boutique is starting today, but this is what went on yesterday!  This is the VFW Hall in Pueblo West where this little shindig will happen! This is at 9:00 yesterday morning.  Do you notice how bare this place is?  That is because the workers are not here to set up the tables.  Oh, Wait!  I am none of the workers!  Grand daughter Deven and I are going to get to help!

The unique things about the craft fairs that you walk into, searching for that perfect little something, is that they all start out the same way, in an empty room.  Somebody has to show up and set up tables.  Here you see all the tables set up nicely.  Bear in mind they are not where they belong, but see those 2 guys back there?  When they get through hanging that lattice or peg board, the tables will start being placed.  Now see this happy little lady here?  This is Mary Jo Cavender.  She belongs to the church I used to go to so I have known her for several years.  She is without a doubt one of the best cooks in the world.  I think that is one of the reasons that I put off changing churches.  But she will ply her wares here and I will no doubt be sick when I leave today!

Now you can see some of the tables back there all covered and placed.  Today when I go in I will take a shot of how the place looks.  You are going to be amazed at the transformation.  This is the 32nd annual Boutique and my first year.  So I am a virgin of sorts on this one.  Finally!

Now, not everybody gets to do this boutique, so I consider myself very lucky.  Of course I do have a rather unique product and an in with one of the ladies there, Marjorie Bratzler.  Marjorie makes handwoven baskets and those alone are worth the trip to Pueblo West.  She is an artist extraordinaire!  Whoa!  Hope I spelled that right! 

If you get a chance run out and see us today and tomorrow, that is November 19 and 20, 2010.  We will be there from 9-5, just like the working girls!  I am going to watch the door for you and bring me something to eat that is not chocolate and full of sugar.  As luck would have it my little corner is right across from Mary Jo!

Laughter is the best medicine!

Oh, it is now official!  I always thought that laughing was good for you.  At least unless you laughed at the wrong time or place, but now I know for sure.  My copy of http://www.realage.com/ came over the Internet today with tips to keep me younger than I think I am.  Had something to say about how good Butternut Squash was for me, but I promptly blew that one away and glombed on to the one about laughter.

It is a fact that laughter will lower your blood pressure 10 points in 20 minutes.  I have perfect blood pressure and take nada for anything.  Oh, one little thyroid pill which without, I am very tired.  That is to be expected at my age.  Lord, I have kids that are on all kinds of stuff for all kinds of things.  I have friends who look like a walking pharmacy.  But here I am, the happiest little thing you will ever come across and now I find it is good for me.  I know if I do not interact and laugh with my friends I just get a little blah.

Life in my little corner of the world is usually rather pleasant.  I keep the bills paid and the wolf away from the door so it is mostly a day to day thing, but if I keep an open mind and do not dwell on the mundane I can get a chuckle out of about anything.  Icarus the cat jumped on Elvira the dog and got a free ride one morning.  Goose tripped over a duck and landed in the pond.  Bret seen a spider in his room.  Now granted, I probably have a sick sense of humor, but it is humor none the less.

I think I am getting ready to make a point here.  Life is short.  Life is simple if you let it be.  When it gets complicated, you loose control.  So there is much to be learned from the KISS theory, which you all know means Keep It Simple, Stupid!  My biggest problem is trying to think for someone else.  I basically want to please every body, but it does not work like that.  I learned in seventh grade that "You can please all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can not please all of the people all of the time."

I also learned that you never really know anybody, you only know OF them.  I can not be inside their brain so I can not know what they think.  Know what I do sometimes?  I should not tell you this, but I will.  Pretty sure I will live to regret it, but I am banking that most people who read my writing, chuckle and forget what I say.  Sometimes if I am listening intently to something you are saying that is boring me to tears, I have a little smile on my face and nod and interject my one word comments.  My mind is a million miles away at that point.  Know how to tell if I am really with you?  If I laugh.

If I laugh, I am listening, because sooner or later everyone I know will say something that my twisted mind can get a laugh from.  If I laugh a gut wrenching belly laugh, you truly have my attention.  If I touch you, you are home free.  I rarely meet anyone I can not laugh with, and if I do, I only see them once cause next time I will make an effort to get out of their way.

So your assignment for today is to lighten up!  Shake loose and get down!  Life is short!  Life is wonderful!  What does not kill you will make you strong!  So get out there and carpe diem!  And whatever you do, find the humor in the situation!

Oh, Joe! You are a human after all!

Well, the Internet was a buzz last night!  Get online! Joe just committed political suicide!  And at first glance it seemed that my very dear friend Joe Seiwert from district 101 in Reno County, Kansas had done just that!  Having won his re election bid by 79% it seemed that he was truly the golden boy.  Now, those of you who do not follow my hometown as closely as I do will no doubt wonder what the boy did to warrant such an outcry.  Gonna tell you here.

He forwarded an email!  Can you believe that!  Unfortunately, he is a politician and this email contained an essay on the Muslim customs.  He did not comment on it in any way, just hit the forward button and off it went to 40 people!  They ought to tar and feather that fellow! (Sarcasm, for those who do not recognize the form I write in a lot!)

Now here is the deal, folks, how many emails do you forward in one day?  I shudder to think how many I get, glance at the first paragraph and hit my forward button sending it off to one of my lists of receivers.  (Can't call them friends because I have about 2, 000 in my address book and I am sure some of them do not even like me and vice versa!)

OK, back on subject here!  I am not sure this email never came across my sight.  If it looked boring, I deleted it.  If I read the first paragraph and it sounded like a conservative thing, I sent it to my conservative friends.  If it sounded radical, I got a bunch of them also.  Bear in mind that this looks boring to me, so it probably got the delete button early on in which case it is a moot point.

You know the routine on the forwarded stuff.  If it ends with the admonishment that " If you are a good christian, you will forward this!"  "If you believe in God, you will forward this!" "If you love America, you will forward this!" all of those will be deleted.  If people question my love of God or Country they did not read it, so I delete it.

But there is the small contingent of people who, when faced with that selection, will forward it because they do love God and country or are afraid God or Obama may actually be watching what they do.

Footnote:


The Muslims have said they will destroy us from within.

SO FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.


THE MARINES WANT THIS TO ROLL ALL OVER THE U.S.

Please don'tdelete this until you send it on.

In red is the last sentences in the actual email!  Use your own judgement as to whether you would have forwarded this!

I want to go on record as saying Joe Seiwert is one of the most intelligent, caring men I have ever met.  Granted he is a Republican and I am a Bleeding Heart Liberal, but we are eye to eye on many things.  Well, actually, most things! I only pray that the people of Kansas can get their thinking caps on and realize what a treasure they have in this man!  But in the outside chance that they want to ride him out of town on a rail, send him to Colorado, because we could sure as hell use an honest man out here!

I love you Joe!!!!!!!!!

Dear Bret took these for me to enjoy!

I have always been fascinated by the powers of the Universe and by the beauty of the skies, especially the cloud formations. I spent many years taking pictures of these beauties and had a bunch of them in an album. Now this was back in the day when you took the roll of film out of the camera and took it in to the store to be developed. At that time you got an actual 4" x 6" picture that you could put in an album.

                                                           

One of the most beautiful pictures I had was one entitled "The Wyoming Cloud". Now granted the skies in Montana are one of the most spectacular sights in this world, but the Wyoming Cloud was a true work of art.  Alas, like all things bright and beautiful, my album was doomed.  Enter a son in law!  Open season for the Bronco's.  Stir up my natural desire to wager.

We started out small, "Here is a lovely shot of a cumulus over  Pikes Peak. " Well rats!  What are those Bronco's doing?  "OK, this Buttermilk Sky over Fowler on the way to Kansas the day after Al died."  Crap!  Now I was sure the Bronco's could not lose every game, so I was finally down to the wire.  "Alright, Jimmie, the Wyoming Cloud against all the others you are holding.  This will put me back in charge of my album!"

What is that famous poem that says something about "Ah, somewhere birds are singing and somewhere children shout, but there is no joy in Mudville, for mighty Casey has struck out!"  Or something to that effect.  Who would have ever dreamed that the mighty Denver Bronco's could lose every damn game!

So there I sat, a defeated woman and the new son in law!  Now one would think that a boy in his position would have been eager to please, but such was not the case.  I have the album and a few scraggly clouds that no one really cares about and somewhere over at Jimmie's house in the bottom of a box buried in a closet is the beautiful Wyoming Cloud, lost and forgotten.

But Bret took these for me one afternoon while I was gone and he just thought they were pretty.  I had one as the wallpaper on here until he got his new bike and now he sets there on his Harley smiling so I can see the $6,000 worth of dental work.  And why did I get up this morning thinking about that cloud in Wyoming?  I miss the days of dropping my film off to be developed.  I miss the jumping in the car and going somewhere far away on the spur of the moment.  I guess the cloud represents a part of my life that is gone and forgotten and it is just another thing I need to let slip away. 

 Life does take it's little twists and turns on the way from the cradle to the grave, doesn't it? 

Here is my Mohawk!!

Hey, look at that! Bet you think this is my mug shot, but it is not! This was taken when I renewed my drivers license.  You should know that a lot of thought went into this.  I have always thought of hair as a necessary evil and envied the men who could go bald and get away with it.  I can pass male pattern baldness to my son, but I can't enjoy the benefits myself.  Is life really fair?

For 25 years my late husband had gone to the barber out here on the Mesa named Louie.  He is right up there by Brian's Small Engine Repair on the South side of Santa Fe Drive.  Forgot the address and if you think I know where the phone book is, you are giving me way too much credit.  Just drive out Santa Fe and watch on the right.  Blende Drug, Frank's Meat Market, and pretty quick you see the turning pole.  Go in the back door and tell him Lou sent you.

Back to this tale.  Louie did not want to do this.  I actually had to get firm with him.  After much haggling he got out the clippers and this was the result.  Not the end of the story by a long shot, but I left there with the first Mohawk I had ever had and I felt good!  Life is too short to not try the things I want to, if you know what I mean!  First stop, step daughter's house.  Whoa on that reaction! 

"What have you done!  I was going to take you to the fair and look at what you have done! I am taking you no where!"  I was crushed!  This would have been my first outing with her in 23 years and I had blown it~!  Laugh Out Loud on that one!  Next I was reported to the son-in-law who came and rang my doorbell.  When I opened the door, he just started laughing.  My kind of boy!

I loved that Mohawk and I put that sticky crap on it several times a day so it would stand up nice and tall.  I knew this needed to be preserved for posterity, so since it was drivers license time, off I went to the DMV.  The guy taking the pictures was a little cool at first when I explained that this was my first Mohawk and I wanted the best picture ever on my license.  Bless his heart, he took several shots before he got the one he was happy with.  Tell me the government does not love us little people!

I want you to know right now, that an old lady with a Mohawk will draw a lot of attention.  The people at church were astounded!  They soon recovered.  This was Lou after all, and she never did like hair.  Ok, this was people I knew and who knew me.  Off to the grocery store next.  Safeway on the East Side.  Tough place to play too since it is the East Side.  I was amazed at how many of the little "wannabees" and "gang bangers" in the parking lot smiled at me!  First they looked at me with their hard little eyes and I smile at them, and they everyone smiled back!  I think if we all got a Mohawk we could solve a lot of problems.  Could be wrong, but it was fun.

I still like to watch the faces of people who need my identification when I hand them my drivers license.  First they look at it, then they immediately look at the top of my head!  I just tell them "My wild and crazy days, last week!"  I am thinking I really want another wild haircut, but this time I will have Louie just shave it all except two circles in the front and I will shellac those suckers up good and  make me 2 horns.  Secretary at the church shakes her head when I say that, but the preacher thinks I might.  Tell me what you think!  Hit the comment button down there and if I get 2 yes votes I will do it and put it on my next license.

To my friend online who did not know I ever had a Mohawk, I first blogged this back on October 21, 2009, so it is no secret.  You just thought you had read all my blogs!  Now you got a picture to go with it.