I thought I was the adult here!! My mistake.

Yesterday I drove myself to Florence to go fishing with Bret, Amanda and the baby.  As you can see Bret and I were busy with the fine art of casting and Amanda was documenting our outing.  Now you all know what happened here!  This innocent little baby of 6 tender months, is the worlds youngest photobomber!!  And he looks so harmless!  I can see what he is thinking.  "Oh, they are busy catching my dinner and mommy wants a picture!  Pick me, mommy!  Pick me."

Course about as soon as he jacked up the picture of mother and son in a bonding adventure, he went to sleep!

The scenery was fantastic.  Here is a picture of the fish Bret caught.  Now that is one big fish!

Here is mine that I did not catch!

The restrooms we used and the one we did not!

Amanda is in charge of packing and unpacking the car loaded with things to make the little Jiraiya's life most comfortable.  Bret and my job was to eat chicken apparently.

Kind of a water fall here.  We were at the Florence Water Park.

  I got home about 3:00 and the miles per gallon on the dash reported in at 49.7.  Can't get much better than that!

Life is Good!

I have been farther then I have left to go!

I woke up this morning thinking about how many family members, friends, and just acquaintances I have attended funerals or memorial services for.  Do not ask me for a number, because the figure would make both our minds reel   And this is not to discount the services I did not attend for one reason or another.  I guess this all started forming in my little mind last week when I was up on the mountain with a friend and he wanted me to see a water fall higher up the trail.  Little cars like mine only go so high on rocky roads so we had to walk a ways.  So off we started.

Pretty soon I was huffing and puffing like "the little engine that could" did in that book I used to read to the kids.  I thought we were probably almost to the top and turned around to look back at where the car was.  Hell!  I could still read the small print on my bumper sticker!  We were 7 minutes into our hike and I was pretty sure it was going to be a long day, but with him cheering me on and by sheer determination on my part I made it a few more yards.  I looked back at the car and back up at the mountain.  I knew who was going to win this one and it was not me!  I muttered something about being a little out of shape and the dear soul took pity on me.  He was not going to make me march all the way to the top of Mount Princeton or wherever we were. ( I think he knew who would be carrying my lifeless body back down and he was not really up to that task.)

He left me setting on a rock and came back very soon to tell me that there was a beautiful view right around the bend in the road.  Thank the Lord for small favors.  So we spent a little time enjoying the babbling brook and just communing with nature.  The glory of the mountains is the serenity and the closeness of God.  There is no need for conversation with the majesty of the beautiful Rocky Mountains surrounding you.  It is something I wish everyone in the world could enjoy for just a little while.  It is a peace that stays with me for a very long time when I come home.

So once more, with my feet firmly planted on the terra firma of my flatland home, I can access the situation that brought me to the realizations I face this morning. 
#1.  I am fat and out of shape.
#2.  I am, while I hate to use the term "old", definitely over the hill and picking up speed.
#3.  The beautiful vistas of my home state of Colorado may best be viewed from the passenger seat of an air conditioned car parked on one of the scenic overlooks the National Forest Service built for my enjoyment.
#4.  The rod and reel I bought when I got my fishing license (which is also another story) may just stay over there in the corner because I may not be agile enough to climb up and down the banks of any river where said fish may be located!

But once more I have digressed, but would you really expect anything less of me?  No!  And therein lies the beauty of why you continue to read these blogs!  You think I may actually someday say something worth repeating.

Peace to all of you and may the road that lies before you be one you are eager to travel!

Saturday afternoon activity at my house.

 Yesterday I decided I was hungry for Molasses Cookies.  So I proceeded to make a batch of cookie dough.  Having a lovely Kitchen Aid stand mixer sure makes my life easier.  Thank you, Cindy Kerr Darrow!  Molasses cookies have to set in the refrigerator for at least an hour so the flavors meld.

Now while I was making the dough, Elvira and Icarus were sleeping soundly in my chair.  They like to do that, you know.

Daisy much prefers to stretch out on her foam mattress .

 

You can see activity at my house has reached a brand new low.  

 Which did not last very long since the smoke detector decided to start beeping and I am really not sure which one of the 6 it was that was beeping at me.  As you know, life is never easy in my world.  The first challenge in this little chore was to find the ladder.  I have 9 foot ceilings which always helps.  After a trip to the tin shed and no luck, I made a trip to the garage with no luck.  So into the closet I went with no luck.  Second trip to all the usual places and there it was where it belonged in the tin shed.

So here I set on Sunday morning.  Some of them take AA and some take D and it seems that I bought a big supply of AAA which fit absolutely nothing.  So I shall give this up until after church when I will go to Sam's and buy battery's , hot dogs and buns, and whatever else I need. 

For the record I want to say my life is good!  The cookies were good!  It is just the batteries that are dead around here.

Peace!

Sad, Sad little dog!

It is apparent that my house is a flop house for all the animals.  Here you see Elvira who is on top of 2 pillows with her head down on the floor.  She appears to be defromed, but she is not.  She is just very damned lazy.

This shows Icarus up on the buffet and the visiting Woody on the bed down below.

Here is Icarus at her finest!

And Icarus and Daisy so tired they are sleeping on a bare, hard floor.  Where did I go wrong? 

I see people with animals all alert and protecting thier masters.  Not so around here.  The geese do occasionally honk, but even they can not be depended upon to rouse me in case of a crazed killer charging my property.  

Well, I guess they do hold the kids down!

And Daisy is good for a laugh!

Life is good.

Sure been hot here lately.

To be real honest, it has been hotter then hell!  My central air keeps the house just the right temperature, which started me to wondering what we did back in the days before air conditioning was an everyday necessity.  I do not remember us even having the luxury of a fan.  When we went to church there were little card board fans in the music racks.  Remember them?  Usually they had some sort of advertising printed on them.  Most often it was from the local mortuary. School started in September usually right after the Kansas State Fair left Hutchinson, Kansas headed for Oklahoma.  By then the summer had lost its grip and fall was near.  School let out in May when it was just starting to get hot, so we did not suffer much in school.

But what about at home?  There were windows on all sides of the house and they were open as far as the could open to get a cross ventilation.  It must have worked because I do no remember being overly hot, ever.  We played under the trees and we could always  sneak off and find a creek some where and dangle our feet in the water and hope an old snapping turtle did not come along.

I can remember momma having a scarf tied around her head to keep the sweat out of her eyes.  What I am neglecting to tell you is that back then we cooked on a wood stove in the kitchen, so we had the added heat of a fire in the stove when it was already hot enough to choke us.  Course I do not remember a lot of cooking going on except on Sundays.  I am not sure what we ate through the week, but we must have eaten something and I am sure mother cooked something.  You can not feed 8 people and not cook.  I do remember mother used to give us a "sugar teet" when we had sugar.  That was our idea of a real treat.  She took a small piece of fabric and put a spoonful of sugar in the center and then pulled up the edges and tied a cord around it.  We chewed on that and thought we really had something. It is amazing that back then I did not even know we were poor, but I look back now in sheer horror.  How did we survive?  Why did we even want to?  My mother had to be the strongest woman in the world to eke an existence for her family out of absolutely nothing.

What amazes me more than anything is that I set here in my air conditioned house with the television playing in the background and my car outside waiting to take me some where.  I have 2 freezers downstairs full of food, money in the bank, clothes in the closet and I think back to Nickerson, Kansas, as the good old days and thank God for giving me those memories.  I only remember being happy.  I do not remember being hot, or cold, or hungry, or lonely.  I have a very happy memory of a coat my mother made out of something she took apart.  It was a bedspread or something and it was a light aqua color.  Dolly Partin had her coat of many colors, but I had my coat of corduroy.  I do not remember much about any other clothes I had, but I am sure I had them.  We wore little dresses back then.  Even when we worked in the fields, we wore dresses.

Yep.  I do not care what anyone thinks, those were my good old days. They were the days when I did not have to worry about anything of anyone.   I have always deluded myself into thinking that it did not matter that we were poor, because everyone was poor, but  that is not true.  People were poor, yes, but we were dirt poor. Facing the reality of that has just taken place in the last few years.  Some times it makes me sad.  I wish I had told my mother what a wonderful job she did when she was here to tell, but I did not.  If I had been just half the woman my mother was I could have changed the world.

Life would be best lived in reverse.

Lou Mercer Words of Wisdom: School lunch

Lou Mercer Words of Wisdom: School lunch: I woke up in the middle of a dream this morning.  It might be more accurate to say "My nightmare woke me up!"  I dreamed it was t...

School lunch

I woke up in the middle of a dream this morning.  It might be more accurate to say "My nightmare woke me up!"  I dreamed it was the first day of school and I was trying to make a check out for school lunches.  I knew I had 5 kids and lunches were $3.29 each, but Patty would not eat meatloaf so I would need to pack her a lunch that day, whatever day that was.  Debbie wanted to take her lunch and she only ate mashed potatoes on home made bread.  Donna, Sam and Susie were happy just to eat.  I was out of cat food and the dogs were barking their heads off about some silly thing or another and I better get out of this bed or I was going to be late for work. I was very relieved to open my eyes and look up at my lavender ceiling and remember that my kids were grown and gone and I was alone here on my acre.  Well, not happy to be alone, but very happy to remember that I had raised my kids and they had raised theirs and school lunches were no longer a daily problem for me to face.  Maybe I was dreaming I was my mother.  God sends me those dreams a lot!

I remember growing up on Strong Street and Mother would be frustrated and she would say "I hope some day you get married and have a bunch of kids and they all behave just like you!"  In later years I was to tell her that the curse worked.  I had  5 kids, just like she did; 1 boy and 4 girls.  I had always thought I was such a sweet little thing growing up, but here were these 5 kids and they were the busiest kids I had ever seen.  What I had done growing up, was called survival and as I look back I guess they were doing the same.

We had run the dirt roads in our bare feet and our idea of fun was a clod fight.
My kids egged the neighbors house.

Jake decided one day to bring his 22 rifle and see how close he could come to the top of my head.
My kids took 10 month old Susie down to Cow Creek to baptize her one night before I got home from work.

I watched a Black Widow spider hatch babies behind the door of the chicken house.
My kids gave the cat a bath.

I smoked Catalpa beans.
They stole the neighbors flowers.

I used to run across the top of the pig sty's at the neighbors house and upset the old hogs.
Don't think the kids topped that one.

We used to spy on Hank Wingate when he milked his goat.
My kids watched Saturday morning cartoons.

Howard Fein used to make his false teeth jump out at me and scare the livin' pee wadding out of me.
My kids cleaned their room by shoving every thing under the bunk beds and pulling the top sheet down to the floor.

So, now these many years later I am still haunted by my mother's curse.  I wonder if I every cursed my kids like that and scarred them for life?  I must have because I had 5 kids on my own and they have produced 8 total.  I have 8 grand kids that sprang directly from my loins (This is not to count the step, adopted and foster) and my grandchildren have given me a total of ...OK, this is where I lose count.  I adopted a grandson who became my son who now has a son that is legally my  grandson, but if he were not my son, this would be my great grandson.  So when you ask me how many grand kids I have I will tell you 20 grand kids and a lot of great grand kids. And it is way to early in the day to start off confused when all I wanted to tell you was about the school lunches.

And there, dear people, is the reason I am screwed up like I am.  It is the curse my mother put on me all those years ago.  She did, before her death, apologize many times and I told her many times that it was quite alright because I have a good life and my kids survived my raising them.  Of course I sometimes hear them recounting the memories of growing up in Hutchinson and Garden City  and I wonder how they survived my raising them!

Sorry, kids, but momma did the best she could with the knowledge she had at that time.  Sam taught me that.