Done-But exhausted, will not miss them

Moving Day!!! I WILL NOT MISS THESE STAIRS!!!!


I am not sad to leave these stairs behind. I will not miss them when I want to go to bed or to the sewing room or full bath.

I am glad my current kitchen does not look like this anymore, but is all put together.

But this room I still have to face. My husband just laughs when he sees it, declaring I will not be able to make it all work.
Guess time will tell.
But not tonight.
It will take me a bit of time to sort this stuff out. (I have only misplaced one item that I can't find.) My address book.....Yes, Kim I'm working on your list, but it would be much faster if I could find my address book. I know where it was at the old place, but have yet to find it.
Within time I am sure I will find it.

Glad the stuff is all moved, and 3/4 of it is where I want it. I am anxious to put a quilt in frame for my future grandchild. But first I must get this room where I can set the frame up.

I am exhausted, but am working today again. The phones are busier,since the weather has turned cooler. Seems people are thinking of having their furnaces checked before they want to turn them on.

I promise, I will get to reading all my blogging friends blogs soon.

I AM SO HAPPY

When a young lady living at home with mom and dad , my sister and I were ask numerous times to sing.
We most defiantly didn't always harmonize, but we didn't care. We would sing--praising our Lord.

One song we used to sing was sung to each other.

Martha: I Am so Happy

Verna: Tell me why you're happy.

Martha: I am So Happy

Verna: Won't you tell me why.

Martha: I am so Happy.

Verna: Tell me why you're happy so I can be happy too.

Martha: Here's the reason.

Verna: What's the reason.

Martha: Here's the reason why I'm Happy today.

Together: Jesus died to win me, now he lives within me and that's why I'm Happy
Today.


That makes me very happy!



The other reason why I am so HAPPY TODAY IS:
The answer to prayer. I GOT A GOOD MAMMOGRAM!!!!!! When my husband called to tell me I got a letter from the Hospital telling me the good news.

I LET OUT A BIG LOUD YAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

So I guess I'd best keep up the Homeopathic and Natural Medicines for Fibro-Cystic Breasts that I found on line and started doing after all the problems that I had in prior years. Not that God can't give me good mammograms every year, but that I must do my part in keeping my lymph nodes open.
I need to do my part in staying as healthy as possible so that I can serve him more and more each day.

So, now if I can get that excess weight off, perhaps I can reduce my blood pressure meds too? I'll keep trying and keep praying.

The Secret

Years ago (in grade school) yes, I know that was a long, long time ago since I am ancient. ....sigh...smile.....

Anyway we had to learn this poem. Then as I got older I could not remember it to save my life.......So, I wrote my school teacher friend and ask her if she had ever heard of it.

Neither of us knows who wrote it, but I have always thought it to be cute.


THE SECRET

We have a secret, just we three,
The robin, and I, and the sweet cherry tree;
The bird told the tree, and the tree told me,
And nobody knows it but just we three.

But of course the robin knows it best,
Because he built the ---- I shan't tell the rest;
And laid the four little --- something in it ---
I'm afraid I shall tell it every minute.

But if the tree and the robin don't peep,
I'll try my best the secret to keep;
Though I know when the little birds fly about
Then the whole secret will be out.

Author unknown.

Slow Me Down Lord

Here it is Saturday p.m. and I am alone and should be doing tons of things, yet here I sit and read my favorite blogs instead of working and getting anything done.

This past week in the midst of going thru some of my things I found this real old wall hanging. I do believe - Bernice gave it to me years and years ago. It's all wrinkly and stained, but I most definitely do not want to forget it's message:





Slow Me Down Lord:

Ease the pounding of my heart by the
quieting of my mind.

Steady my hurried pace with a vision of
the eternal reach of time.

Give me, amid the confusion of the day,
the calmness of the everlasting hills.

Break the tensions of my nerves and
muscles with the soothing musinc of the
singing streams that live in my memory.
Help me to know the magical, restoring
power of sleep.

Teach me the art of taking minute
vacations---of slowing down to look at a
flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, to
read a few lines from a good book.

Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to
send my roots deep into the soil of life's enduring
values that I may grow toward the stars
of my greater destiny.


unknown.

Hoping for good results this year.

My grandmother, Mother and Sister, all three died from cancer. Across the years, I have been very faithful in getting my mammograms done.

In past years the results were not good, and I have a number of procedures done.
Last year they did the Mammotome procedure....(OF which I do not know if I would let them do it again or not). They didn't get it numb and I could feel them cutting away. I was not allowed to move, not even scratch my nose.

They placed a marker (They say the size of a pin head), to mark the spot where they did the work. I say it feels the size of a golf ball and it sticks me from time to time.

They declare I cannot feel this tiny marker, yet when I get my mammograms done, I can tell them exactly where it is. And they have confirmed that "Yes, It is right where you say it is, but you are not supposed to feel it".


If I were a swearing person, I surely would swear that it is much, much bigger then they show that it is. So it must be in there just right so that it will stick me occasionally and let me know that it is still there.

After doing the procedure a year ago, and placing the marker, they did an additional mammogram, and told me I could go back to having this done yearly instead of every 6 months.

Today was squish me flat day, and take those photos.
Am hoping just for a letter telling me I can wait another year and not a phone call from the surgeon that they want to go in digging again.
But, the squishing has once again stuck me like they were poking a needle or pin in just as hard as they could.

I keep wondering, what should happen if this little marker moves? Can it move and if it does will it come out? (Guess if it ever comes out I will scotch tape it onto a piece of paper and save it for a souvenirs)....hee,heee. :)

NOW WE WAIT......... Hoping for good results this year!!!!!!

9-9-09

Today would have been a good day to retire. 9-9-09 -- But Julie tells me NO WAY I need to wait till at least 11-11-11.
My words were if I wait that Long I want to stay till after Christmas and get that Christmas bonus.

Selfish aren't I?

As I open my e-mails this morning, I see that I won the give away from Lynette Kraft at Dancing in the Rain, and that the subject is where you first lived when you got married.

How appropriate since TODAY....is Forrest (Bud) and my 31st wedding anniversary.





31 years ago this evening it was 90+ degrees and the church had no air conditioning.
Yes, while kneeling at the alter when the lady was singing the Lord's prayer, I had sweet rolling down my back.

Someone later told me they wondered why we chose this lady to sing at our wedding, but when she opened her mouth to sing the Lord's prayer they knew. Said it was awesome. (Do you think I remember her name? no way, she worked at the same place Bud did at the time, and since I didn't know very many singers here in town - I said sure I'll let her sing the Lord's Prayer for us.)

We were to leave for Spring Green, Wisconsin to go see The House On The Rock that night. Reservations were made for a hotel in Bloomington the first night. However, God must have had other plans for us.

After the wedding and reception


We headed north out of town. Got as far as the mall. YEP, only about 4 miles from where we started. And my Chevy Chevette overheated. So, we had to have them tow it back to the place I worked and they took us back to our apartment. Now we thought we were going to be gone, so there were some visitors staying at our house.

Mary Dawn slept on the single bed in the dining room and David slept on the sofa.
And we slept in our own bed that night.

OH & YES, he was hungry so at midnight on my wedding night I made him an egg sandwich.

Since I had the week off and we didn't know what all was wrong with my car. We hitched a ride with his friends from St. Louis and we ended up going the complete different direction from where we were planning to go. We stayed in St. Charles, Mo and walked all over town.

Pat and Donna did take us to a fancy restaurant and they played the violin for us.

OH MY, later we found out that the motel we were scheduled to stay in at Bloomington had fire that night. (We were not supposed to be there), and much later we found out that the restaurant we ate in with Pat and Donna also had a kitchen fire the next morning. (It took over 2 years before Pat got that bill on is credit card, and when it did come there was a copy of bill attached and it had scorched edges).

So on our honeymoon we
l.) Hitched a ride with friends.
2.) Walked all over town.
3.) Took the bus to downtown St. Louis to see Corporate offices of Bud's employers.
(We were the only white people on the bus).
4.) Amtrac from St. Louis to Springfield ( to go home)
5.) Trailways bus lines from Springfield to Decatur.
6.) And a taxi cab home (Tho we could have walked it was less then a mile).

When we arrived at home we find a 5 day eviction notice on our door. They had sold the duplex and wanted to remodel it. Now I had just moved my stuff in the week before and got it all unpacked. Wham, now I get to do it all over again.
So we rented a one bedroom apt in the complex his mom and step dad lived in.
It was a lower level apartment and the windows looked out ground level.
I don't remember much about the apartment except that some dog wanted to use the bush right outside my kitchen window for his potty and I didn't want the smell in my kitchen, so I threw hot water out the window at him. And he never came back to use my kitchen window shrub again. Or at least not when I was home.

That was only the start of all the moves we have done in the past 31 years. (But that could be a totally different blog entry.

I do remember that Bud suffered a detached retina 4 weeks after we married and had to have major eye surgery at Barnes in St. Louis.

So hop on over to Lynette's blog and check out other peoples stories.

Our 1,280 mile adventure

Sunday- Sept. 6- the alarm goes at 3:30 A.M. Oh, I did not want to get out of bed. But, if we are going to do this mission we must get on the road.
Our bag was packed ready to go.

Bud was already tired from the previous two days. Friday p.m. he picked up some guys at the O'Hara airport in Chicago. Coming out of Chicago at 4 P.M. on a holiday week end. It was trying.

Saturday he had taken some people to St. Louis to the game. And it was past midnight when he got to bed Sunday morning and up again at 3:45 to go again.

4:20 A.M. we filled the truck with gas at Circle K and head north on 51. It is raining very hard. The lightning show we saw the first two hours was amazing.

After the rain stopped, we were having to watch out for Bambi too. We did not want to hit a deer.

Into Iowa we decided to take a different route from what the map directions originally gave us. We have been to Sioux Falls, South Dakota many times since I normally go to Canistoda to the Ortman Clinic once a year. So we knew servel different ways to go. One thing we knew---- We would rather travel some of the back roads and stay of of I 80 ---I35 is crazy so we cut up the 218 to almost Austin, Minn, then cut over to I 35 for the last 1/2 hour before getting to I 90 west.

The directions to where we were to pick up the Cadillac were from off I 29 and we were coming in from the other direction. So I boot up my computer to see how to get to the guys house from the east. Was having some difficulty seeing the computer screen since it was so bright by then.
So this is what I did so I could see the computer:

I hooked my sweat shirt hood over my head and worked on my computer underneath, so that I could see the computer screen.

We got new directions and into Sioux Falls we go, street by street, oopps that street is blocked so we have to detour back around the other side, and we drive right up to the guys house. We do not see a Cadillac there that is for sale. Are we at the correct address??
Bud ask the young girl playing outside if this was the Swartz residence, and she said yes they lived in that side.

The car was in the garage, Oh, what a beautiful car! Heated seats, heated steering wheel. The man we were going for to get the car bought it off line. Sight unseen.
So it was Bud's call if the car was what the guy really wanted.

YES, It is beautiful! Bud got into the Cadillac and I got in the drivers seat of our truck. Now I must do the driving, no more riding on this trip.

By then Bud is so tired he states we will only be able to go a short distance toward home. We got directions from the guy the shortest way to get on I 29 South.
Stopped for gas in both vehicles and headed south. Sioux City, Iowa was about 1 hour south, and that is where we stopped at the Super 8 for the night.

Walked across the street to the truck stop for food and within 30 minutes after we got back, Bud was out---Totally out. (Yes, I even checked a number of times to see if he was still breathing). He was exhausted.

I watched TV, played on the computer---they had free Internet, so I didn't have use up my Internet minutes on Verizon.

Decided that when we woke up, we would get up, but did not set any alarm.
Like all other mornings our body clocks get us up early. But we did not leave the motel till about 6 a.m.


Construction on I 29:
It's about time. That road is like a wash board. Now I remembered why I never went that way. They are tearing it up - totally destroying sections of it and redoing it. In places it looks like someone stole the interstate.
So, with lots of construction ---two lane at the construction sites, it slowed us down a bit.

Slowing down for construction sites:
Violators will get fined. More then once I had a long line behind me because I refused to drive over speed limit. And they could not pass.
Just as I got out of one construction zone--- up ahead I could see flashing lights. Then they turned off, and up ahead I see a cop come across and go back south ahead of me. The construction speed limit on the other side was already in effect. He turns his lights on and cuts back coming toward me..... Another speeder.

I'm sure people thought - this is Labor Day nobody is working why do I need to obey the construction speed limit. Well, I am sure this guy found out--- That cop was giving out tickets. It's posted Construction speed limit 45 or 55 and fines will be enforced.





I don't really like following anybody and traveling together. So at times he was 1/2 mile to 2 miles ahead of me.

But the drive was a pretty one,
We went South on I 29 to US 36 in Missouri and headed East. US. 36 takes us all the way back to Decatur.
Bud uses 36 whenever possible it is a lovely drive.
Yes, they are working on it also, and there is a section that is still 2 lane, but it sure beat the traffic we knew would be on I 80 coming across Iowa.



Passing people on interstate:
IF you are going to pass me, that is okay. But please do not sit in my blind spot and please do not sit beside me for any length of time!!!! Step on it and get around me!!!! Not like these two guys.... They sat side by side for over 20 miles.
It took forever for the guy to pass me then the other guy did the same thing.
They were between Bud and I. I simply shook my head.... Step on it and get around me. I hate it when people sit in my blind spot!


Coming down the I72 There was a cyclist on the side of the road. So I moved over to the left lane. It was a state trooper leaning on his motorcycle and pointing a radar gun our way.
Why isn't he getting these guys who must be running 75 and higher that just passed me a few moments ago? Just standing there like a bump on a log pointing his radar gun down the highway.

Road Kill:
Normally it is the deer that we see the most of. This trip it was raccoons. Tons and tons of raccoons that didn't make it across the highway.

Next it was the skunk smell--- only saw a couple but smelled a bunch.
Then Bambi's who didn't make it. So sad!

We arrived back in Decatur at 3:45 p.m yesterday, Thankful to God for another safe trip.

Misc, and a gluton for punishment?

This has been a busier week for me, but then I did all but two of the 10th payment checks. So I actually spent a lot of money. Thank goodness it wasn't mine!

Sorry boss, but that is what you hired me to do. Spend your money and keep the bills paid every month.

Thursday mid morning I heard my co worker on the phone, then heard, "Oh, my God, you are kidding me." When she gets off the phone she states that her middle son, Kyle just swallowed a magnetic marble.

After calling the doctor they told her to take him to get an xray to make sure that the marble actually went all the way to the stomach.

2-3 hours later she came back to work, but they had not told her that it had gone all the way to the stomach. She would have had to wait another 1/2 hour to one hour to find out the results.

Friday morning, she brought him to work with her, he stated that his chest/stomach hurt. After speaking to the doctor, the doctor assured her that he would pass it, and it probably would be painful as it made its way through his intestines.


So everybody around her was teasing her about what a shitty job she had. She was on poop patrol.

Last night at 8:26 p.m I got a text message: "We found the ball!"
Ya, now he won't have to go back for additional ex rays.

But, the valuable less this almost 5 year old learned. When things don't come apart, don't put it in your mouth to help separate it. The two magnetic balls were stuck together and he couldn't pry them apart with his fingers, so he tried to use his teeth and it popped off and that is how he ended up swallowing it.

So, that ends well.

Unless it starts to rain (Severely) here I will try and go watch him play soccor this afternoon. Last week he made 7 goals in two games.
Perhaps he is catching on to what to do. (Last year the 3-4 year olds just wanted to stand and do nothing. That wasn't very interesting to watch when the other team simply would stomp them.

NOW - Am I stupid or a glutton for punishment?
I have a 3 day week end, I have promised to go with my husband to pick up a car.
623 miles one way then I have to drive 623 miles back alone in our truck as he will be driving the caddy back.
Yes, Rand Mcnally says 9 hours 55 minutes one way. Am I a glutton for punishment or just plain stupid? Yes, we will get paid for doing it, but there goes my week end. We leave here early in the morning and come back on Monday. So much for doing much work around this place this week end.
Sioux Falls, SD here we come. (I have driven this road many times in the past since I have gone to the Ortman Clinic out there for a number of years now. Just not driven it out and back in two days. Normally I would stay a week before coming home).



I am making ice and doing laundry today, plus have been to Walmart for a few necessities. Bud is taking some of the guys to St. Louis to the game. Yesterday p.m. he made a pick up at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. Coming out of Chicago on a Friday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. wasn't the nicest, but he got home before 8.

Then he just called a bit ago and tells me that he has promised to go to South Carolina on Tuesday and Wednesday to pick up a puppy for a guy.

So for the guy that two years ago hated to drive 2 1/2 hours to St. Louis he has become what the car dealership guys call "The Road Warrior".
Off to another adventure for another pin to put in his map as to where all he has gone to pick up vehicles.

So, be it stupid or a glutton for punishment, we will have one day together going out and hopefully able to stop at a motel/hotel with a pool tomorrow night, or I should say a hot tub. Then back home again on Monday.
Something I don't normally do on a week end, but it will be okay.


P.S. Forgive me if I have misspelled words or didn't use the correct terminology.