Another year down the tubes!

Counting today, there are only 5 days left in this year.   

Momma nailed it when she said "When you are over the hill you pick up speed."  I look back over the years and try to find that skinny little girl that ran up and down Strong Street barefooted.  If only my life could be lived in reverse!  I see all my missed opportunities and think, "Woulda', coulda' shoulda' ", but I didn't.  Now it is too late!

When I came to Colorado all those years ago, I did so on a temporary whim.  I would come and live, but if Charlie and I parted ways, I would move back.  We parted ways and I stayed, but only temporarily.  But then one year turned to 2, and then 3.  I stayed and married Kenny, but with the goal in mind that when he passed I would return to Hutchinson.  When he passed, I didn't leave.  Things and commitments kept me here.  I own my home.  I have 2 kids here, 1 in Lakin, two in Longton, one in Texas.  My last husband is buried in Memorial Gardens and my name is on the other half of his tombstone.

I live all alone in a 2400 square foot house.  My friend list gets shorter every year.   We adopted Bret.  I also acquired 37 ducks and 7 geese,.  I built a pond.  Kenneth passed away.  I said when the ducks and geese were gone, I would move to town.  The foxes ate the ducks.  I said when the geese were gone, I would move to town. We are at a standstill now! I have 7 geese that are ageless!  I keep buying feed and they keep eating it.  Every night I close them in their house and every morning I let them out.  Once a month I go to Big R and buy 3 bags of grain.

My grass is dead because I forget to water it.  The 98 rose bushes I had at one time are all turned wild and been dug up and tossed on the heap.  Bret married and moved away and started his second family.  I just keep getting older.  I think about going back "home".  Where is home?  Hutchinson?  Nickerson?  Garden City? Lakin?

Every year I think back to what I should have done and didn't.  It is probably a little bit late for me to put the toothpaste back in the tube.  So, I get up every morning and go to bed every night.  Habit, I guess.  I know any one of my kids would like me to come and live with them, but I just can not see that happening!  I keep hoping I will get lucky and just not wake up some morning, but so far that is a pipe dream!

So, I close this and go let the decrepit old geese out, throw a rock at the neighbors cats that have wandered into my yard and look west at the beautiful mountains and remember why I never packed up and moved back to the flatlands of Kansas!

Peace!

As another year ends....

 Another year is drawing to a close.  As I reflect back on this past year, I realize how much I have changed.  You may not think so, since my appearance is much the same.  Oh, a few more gray hairs and my complexion just a tad more leathery.  My weight remains the same and the hair is still white.  The changes are inside.  The changes are subtle.  I suppose it happens to all of us as we move forward from the cradle to the grave.

I moved into this house in 1982 with Kenny Mercer and my two kids, Sam and Susie.  They were both still in school.  Sam would go on to graduate college.  The kids are both gone.  Kenny has since passed and I remain here on my "Gods little acre."  with 7 geese and a calico cat for company.  The grandson that Kenneth and I adopted together is grown, married and has three  children of his own.

Today was Sunday, December 24.  Yesterday was December 23.  On December 23, 1983 Kenny Mercer and I exchanged our wedding vows in front of retired minister in Canon City, Colorado.  It was 15 degrees below zero.  We topped the ceremony off by enjoying a doughnut at the local donut shop. Susie was in middle school and Sam almost ready for college.

Sadly, I lost Kenny in 2002.  I have spent over half my life in this house.  I look around at where I am in my life journey and wonder how this happened.  It seems like only yesterday that I was surrounded by a vibrant loving family and the token dog and cat.  How many sunburns did I suffer while on a weekend fishing trip?  The children are gone, replaced by grand children and even great grand children.

I set here in my 2400 square foot house with a detached garage and an acre of land and wonder just where this will all end.  I can't sell the house and move into town, because I have 7 geese left from the good old days when I had 17 geese and 47 ducks and a pond.  They have only known this little acre  of mine as their home. 

And if I should move, where do I move to?  Do I go back to Hutchinson, where I have only one sister left?  I have no friends that I have kept in touch with.  Do I  go to Garden City, where I spent many years with my husband who is the father of my kids?  He is since deceased.  Do I go to Lakin where I have one daughter?  Or Longton where I have two daughters.  I have one daughter here and one son.  And one son in Dallas. 

Life would be so much simpler if the good Lord had not given us free will.  We should be born with some kind of handbook on how to do this.  But we weren't so I am stuck.  Guess I will just keep putting one foot in front of the other until one day I just cease to be.  Then it will be someone else's problem, won't it?

Peace!

The hidden lessons from Momma

 I was just watching something on the early morning show about sharing.  Sharing is good and makes you feel good, but I already knew that.  I remember when I was but a wee tot and momma would occasionally bring home something she received from one of the ladies at the end of her day.  Maybe a few cookies, or a small amount of candy.  It was meant for momma as a little treat, but she always brought it home to share with her kids.  Usually it was a few store bought cookies, but it was always a treat for us!  Momma would hand me a cookie and say "Share this with Mary or Dorothy, or Donna.  And she always stood there as the cookie was broken in half.  I measured carefully and then handed the chosen sister the biggest half.  

It was an engraved in stone rule that the one breaking the cookie took the smallest half.  This taught us many things.  
#1  Always try to break it carefully.

#2  By giving the biggest half to the sister we were showing generosity.

 #3 We were not greedy. 

#4  We learned sharing and humility.

One day I had to go to cousin Paralee's house after school.  Momma was cleaning Paralee's house that day.  Paralee knew it was my birthday so she had planned a small party for me.  Suffice it to say that in my younger years it was the only time my birthday was observed.  I received only one gift, but I treasured it for years.  It was a red cookie cutter in the form of Cinderella.  Needless to say I never used it, but treasured it nonetheless.

Momma has been gone for many years, but she is always right there on my shoulder.  I hear her many times a day and try as I might, I can never forget the lessons I learned at her knee.  If I taught my kids anything, I would hope it is this:  "That small voice in your head that is telling you to share, to be kind,  to be helpful and understanding to others, to respect your elders, never lie and always talk to God, is probably my mother talking to you!"

Maybe someday one of my kids will be writing this blog and remembering me as a wise, caring, honest person.  I can only hope!

Peace!

Minerva is right at home!

 So I have a puppy!  She is about 6 months old.  So far she has eaten the carpet on the stairs, 16 branches of the cotton wood tree, a hole in the wall, and many other things that I will no doubt discover at a later date.  She is a heeler and puts the geese to bed each night and wakes them up every morning. She has found my sewing room and the cat's litter box which is 3 floors below me.  I have barricades in place to keep her from that level, but it gets tiring to move a wooden barricade every time I need a pin, or something out of the freezer.

She is a very loving little dog, but she is a registered blue heeler and those of you on a farm know what that is!  I would love to take her to my daughter, Dona, who actually has a farm, but she has 3 dogs already and has her hands full with those.  Sadly they are just petting dogs and not working dogs, but it is what it is.

Right now I am at the computer with a cat on my left who will wake up and walk across the desk and step over the keyboard to set on my lap.  This will cause the dog to put his freezing cold nose under my right elbow and root it out of the way so he can get closer.  And that has now happened!  I left the computer briefly, but they await my return!

Now, she has moved her Puppy bed to the stairs and after falling out of it and rolling down the stairs 3 times, she has given up on that endeavor.  I was going to take a picture and post it for you, but this computer is way smarter than me and has hidden everything in a cloud some where and since John Tenorio passed away, I have no one to guide me through this process.  

So now here I set, wondering just what I had on my little mind when I started this blog entry.  I am sure it was important, but I think all I actually succeeded in doing is to make another copy of the 63,224 photos I now have in triplicate, and gave myself a headache.  I do now know that today is Saturday,  which came as a big surprise, since I thought I was on Friday!

So, off I go to let the geese out, after which I will shower and then wonder why I bothered since I have no where to go and nothing to do.  That is how it goes in my world.  How about yours?

Peace!

And that is not right either!!

 I finally got signed in so I can write my blog, but sadly this will not last long!  I am locked out of every bank account,  facebook, etsy, paypal,  my mail, and anything else I ever hoped to do!  My internet went south on me for a few days and when I got it back up and running everything else was new to me!  

I  had something I wanted to tell you, but I forgot what it was.  I do have a new dog.  Her name is Minerva. .  She is a black and white Heeler and she actually likes me.  Sadly she tries to hug my legs when I am walking, which makes me a little nervous since I have brittle bones and stuff!  Not sure I can pay for a broken hip on my budget.

So hopefully, the Internet will stay up for a while and I can get in a few of my accounts and life will be good again.  Sure missed writing the last month or so.

Right now I am very sleepy so I am going to bed.  Hope to be in touch again tomorrow with lots of catching up to do!

Peace!

It is morning!

Click here for the music! 

I seem to function best back in the 1940's.  It was the tail end of the depression and we had nothing, but that is where I was happy.  Maybe not so happy, but secure.  I was safe.  I think that was what draws me back to that era.  We were together in a 2 bedroom house with a wood stove in the dining room, front room, and in the kitchen for cooking.  We carried water from a pump out back until we finally got a sink and pump in the kitchen.  

A coal oil hurricane lamp in the middle of the dining room table gave us light to do our home work.  My fondest memory is setting at that table with a red Chief tablet and a fat pencil  printing my ABC's.  I wrote about that years ago and a wonderful lady, Linda Kelp, who is Michael McQuire's cousin sent me  4 Big Chief tablets from her home up north.  I still have them!  I do not use them.  I wrote on one page of one tablet where they came from and that is all.

It is sad some of the things I do and the things I hoard!  My cupboards are full of cottage cheese containers because I can not bear to throw them away!  We did not have them back then.  I do not know when we became a nation of disposable everything.  I remember when the city dump was a designated area outside of town and that is where people took their tin cans.  Everything else was reused.  Today we call it recycle, but mostly it just goes in the trash and is hauled to the dump.  I understand it is then pressed into a big block and either buried or dumped into the ocean.  I do not see either one of those solutions as being permanent!  Burning it pollutes the air we breathe, so you tell me!

Well, once more I have gotten off track!  I started this wanting to tell you how safe and secure I was as a child even though we had very little in material possessions, and end up wanting to clean up the world and save it for our children.  This old age is not conducive to stringing and article together to a cohesive conclusion!

So, I guess I will make a pot of coffee and start my day with the local news followed by the national news, neither of which I can do anything about!  I am better off just listening to Merle Haggard sing me back home (click that).

Peace and love!

Security?? For me or From me?

Just spent several hours locked out of most of my accounts because I wanted to share a bit of good news on my blog!  I must confess that after changing passwords on several accounts so I could get to his site, I have forgotten what the good news was!  Not only have I forgotten the good news, but I have forgotten all the passwords and I rather doubt that when I get through posting this, that I will give a big rat's patootie!

Life was so simple when I first ventured into the blogging arena!  But now, I find my desk covered with notes I have written myself, giving myself little hints on how to get into my account.  I must admit, my life was sure a lot simpler back  when I  was stupid and no one wanted to steal my identity.  Right now I do not even want my identity!

When I first ventured into this world of secret words and stuff I signed in to everything with "password".  Worked for me and no one stole my identity.  I could not imagine why anyone would want to be me!  Hell!  I did not even want to be me.  As life in the world of secret passwords began to take on it's own life, my passwords became more and my attention span became shorter.  It was not long before I hated the computer and all it's demands for longer and more complicated passwords.  Gone were the days when one password would open any program.

Last night I got on to pay a bill.  It should have been a 3 minute job.  Needless to say, it did not end up that way.  They insisted I change my password (in case it had been compromised).  That having been done I then had to tranfer money from my bank account to the bill I was paying.  Then I had to change the password on the bank account.  

Now, I am going to post this.  In the good old days I would just add a few labels , state my location and then hit the publish button.  Hopefully this will publish and I can hit another key and it will appear on facebook.  

The sad part is that I do not even remember at this time what I wanted to say to all of you.  I know it was important, but that is all I remember.  

So, until we meet again, Happy Trails and all that.  May the wind be at your back and the road rise to meet you.  The password for today is totalconfusion!!!!

Peace!