This Blog is Not Working!!!!!

When I started this I thought this would be a great way to express thoughts, frustrations, and pain that has accompanied living life.  I thought it would be a way to do it and nobody  would  know who I am.  Screw that - what I have learned is that from reading your blogs and your comments on my blog and other blogs that I feel you do know me  and that we are friends.  When you think about it, it is amazing that you can feel that you are friends with people you have never met and probably never will meet.  I find myself wanting to make sure that each of you are ok and nothing bad is happening.

Speaking of bad, I received one of those phone calls.  You know that kind that comes at 3:00 a.m. and you know it can't be good.  This lovely lady that I feel blessed  to call a friend had three children.  She lost her only daughter to lung cancer about two years ago. Last week she had called  to tell me that her  oldest son was in the hospital. He lives out  of town.  She went to see him.  I had a bad feeling about it but wanted so much to believe that he would be okay.  That 3:00 a.m. phone call was her telling me she had lost him.  She has been on my heart this whole time.  It is such a helpless feeling when you want so very much to "make it all better" for those we care about  and can't.  All  I can do is listen when she needs to talk and keep her in my prayers.

Just once before I die I want someone to call me at 3:00 a.m. and tell me something truly wonderful  has happened to them.  But maybe truly wonderful things don't happen late at night.  I just know it has to be possible.  Anything is possible isn't it?

Feeling sorry for myself.

Today is one of those rare days when I am feeling sorry for myself. I usually don't do that, but right now I do have a lot on me and I am not sure I will make it this time. So, for today I am going to allow myself to feel sorry for me.

We all make choices during our life. Ironically you can compare two people who made the same choices and their lives turned out very differently. So much for telling people just live your life in a good way and everything will be OK. That is not always true.

Today I just need to keep reminding myself that I have put my burdens in God's hands and that he has always taken care of me. Believe me taking care of me has been no small task. Like I said in my first blog, all I have to do is get out of bed in the morning for things to happen. Since I am someone who has always taken care of me and the people I love, it is very difficult for me to just wait for things to happen. Maybe that is what God is still trying to teach me.

At any rate I will just wallow today and hopefully I will be back to myself tomorrow and can write something positive. Everyone have a great and blessed weekend.

Forgotten Memories

March 11, 2010

This can become addictive. (Gracie get your paws off the keyboard. I am using the computer now.) Gracie the cat likes to sit on the keyboard and hit the keys. If this blogs becomes more entertaining it may be her at the keyboard and not me. Smokey just watches he doesn't get on the computer.

I feed a stray cat in the apartment complex (don't tell anyone or I will get in trouble). I have a flower pot on my patio that does not have a plant in it, just dirt. Stray cat likes to curl up and sleep in that flower pot. I put a rug on the patio but she prefers the flower pot with the dirt.

I have been reading some of the blogs and I am delighted to learn that a lot of our young women are into sewing. That makes me so happy. I don't remember when I learned to sew because I was so young. I learned on an old Singer pedal machine. My mother loaned that to my sister-in-law. After she had had the machine for a long time I called her for no particular reason and asked if she was still using the machine. Always listen to the little voices that tell you to do things. She said no and that she had taken the machine to the dump that day. I immediately rushed out the door to the dump where she had taken the machine - it was already gone. Obviously there was someone at the dump that was smarter than my sister-in-law. This machine was in pristine condition with all attachments. I made it a point to never loan her anything again.

Back to what I was saying about sewing. When you sew you get a real sense of accomplishment and pride from creating something. I think it makes us closer to our pioneer relatives who sewed for themselves and their families. They sewed at night by candle light and the light from an oil lamp. They sewed by hand and later by machine. They usually did this after working a full day of real labor. They never tossed away a piece of fabric. They saved the little pieces for quilts. You would not believe the little pieces of fabric I have saved - never made a quilt in my life. I started several but never finished one, but one day if I decide to I have the little pieces of fabric.

My mother made quilts. When she was trying a new pattern and she could not get it to go together correctly she would go to my father. Imagine walking in and here is this big man sitting in the middle of the floor with quilt pieces trying each until he figured out how they went together. Oh, and my father had no patience as a general rule but with the quilt pieces he had the patience of Job.

It took me 3 years of begging to get my mother to agree to make a wedding ring quilt for my queen size bed. Of course I wanted it to be the size of a bedspread not a normal quilt. That is how I got my navy blue and peach wedding ring quilt - a lot of begging. After she had finished putting the pieces together I went out to help her do the actual quilting. She had put the quilting frame up in the living room because the quilt was so big. It took several weeks of working on the quilting to get it finished. While working on it one day she told me that a lady had knocked on the door asking for directions. When she saw what my mother was working on the lady offered to buy it from her. She told my mother to name her price. Thank goodness my mother said "No, this quilt is for my daughter." I still have it and it is beautiful.

It is late afternoon here and it is dreary outside. It is the kind of day that you just want to cuddle up with a good book and a cup of hot tea. Now that I have finally sat down to post something my mind has gone blank. I had so many thoughts I wanted to put down and now they seem to have disappeared. They were really important thoughts - probably would have changed the entire world. Maybe they will return another day. In the mean time I will do the best I can.

I want to thank Eva for being my first follower and I must warn you it may be a bumpy ride. I have definite opinions and it seems that I think all the time - never take a coffee break.

However, I am OK with that because it seems there are too many people that never have a unique thought of their own. There is nothing more exciting than the free exchange of ideas and opinions between people that actually use that brain that the good Lord gave us.

I do want to say that my heart goes out to the family and loved ones of the people who passed away this past year that were not honored during the Oscars. If it was a time issue I think most people would have been willing to give up some of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin's time to honor these people. They entertained us and were a part of our lives and I think they earned that honor.

It is unusual for me to be able to work at the computer and not have one of my two rescue cats up here helping me - they like to sit on the keyboard and watch the screen. It would be wonderful if they could actually type their thoughts. I know they have them. You can tell the level of intelligence when you look into the eyes. They amaze me at times because they know how to get me to do what they want. Like I said I serve at their pleasure. But that is OK the joy I get from them is totally worth making sure they are happy. I was always a dog lover but when I lost my last little bundle of job I decided to stick with cats - you don't need to walk them. My one concession to getting older.

I feel my blog will get better. There are so many things that I want to put out there. It will take me a little time because I am such a private person. The anonymity will in time allow me to get things out that I have kept inside for a very long time and perhaps those things will actually help someone else.

It's Saturday evening and I am wondering if I really have anything worth saying. After 60 years of living surely I do. My life has been interesting to say the least. All I need to do is get up in the morning for things to happen - some very good and some very bad. I guess everyone feels that way but I know that my life really has been different from most of the people I know.

I can only describe myself one way - I am a survivor. The fact that I am still here is proof of that.

When we are young we have our lives all mapped out in our head. We just know how it will go and what will happen. Then life kicks us and we find out that we don't have quite as much control as we think we have. However, it is the ups and especially the downs that mold and shape us into the people we become. That person is a work in progress that is never finished. I know that I am still changing every day. That is both scary and exciting.

I now know that I am so much the same person I was at 30 - old is just the outside. Mentally I still feel the same as when I was 30. What has changed are priorities, discovering what is really important in life - that really changes as we get older and wiser.