Tasty Morsels

A Paul Noth cartoon.

More Funny Stuff

My friends send me some funny material. They don't know it is material for my blog. But, hey, some things are too good to read and throw away. Photo found on Google.

Like this:

In this life I am a woman. In my next life, I'd like to come back as a bear. When you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.

Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat as much as you possibly can, until you are falling down full. I could do that.

When you're a bear, you birth your children, who are the size of walnuts, while you're sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that.

If you're momma bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could do that.

If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat. Wow.

Yep, gonna be a bear!

Is Sleep Writing Like Sleep Walking?

Just after I turn out the light at night my tired old brain decides to become active. Creative. One, two, three and more posts get written in record time in the silence of the bedroom. Sometimes I force myself to get up and write a post while it is fresh and flows. But most of the time I tell myself to remember what I just wrote in my head but in the morning I can occasionally call up the subject of the post but that is about all.

Acceptance is a big part of recovery. Therefore, I accept that all the great posts I write just before falling asleep are my best work. I wish I could share them with you. I know you would be delighted with at least most of them. You will just have to take my word for it that I wrote some awesome posts.

Photo found on good ol' Google.

Pleasant Surprise

Hubby grew a beard for awhile at the beginning of winter. The beard came in dark auburn like his hair, whereas his mustache and goatee have been getting lighter for the past couple years.


This week hubby shaved off the beard. The beard was just an experiment. It was a change and to me he looked great.

Two days ago hubby decided to shave off the mustache and goatee. I had never seen him clean shaven. Ever. I didn't know his face looked like that. In a few days he will grow the mustache and goatee back. The biggest surprise for me has been to watch him walking outside doing chores and inside the house with a smile. With the hair on his upper lip and chin, I had no idea that he was smiling all the time.

Cool, huh?

The Bread That Is Delivered

Before we moved to this little town, I scrolled through the archives of the town paper to become familiar with the events in the town in the previous year.

One article of interest was about a woman in a nearby town. She and her husband have a farm in a town smaller than this one. Over the years the woman made bread and gave to friends as gifts. She started a business out of her home making bread to order. She has several varieties to choose from. Her husband delivers the bread. So it is a team business.

After we moved to the new little hippie house in the little town, I tried to find a phone number for the bread lady. In the little phone book here there are surrounding towns represented in the phone book but not the town where the bread lady lives. So I called the office of the local paper and asked if they had a way to contact her. They gave me her phone number that they had in their files.

My first conversation with the bread lady was not only enlightening but lots of fun. She is a wonderful woman. I placed an order for three different types of bread. She and her husband delivered the bread on the scheduled day and hubby and I proceeded to eat her bread.

The oatmeal bread makes the best thick-slice French toast with cinnamon sprinkled on it. The cinnamon raisin bread is the best we have ever tasted. The potato pugliese can be used so many ways and it is amazing. She uses all fresh ingredients, they have chickens and many other items are from their farm. She uses honey and olive oil and fresh butter. Oh my. The day she delivered our three loaves they were freshly baked that morning.

We have since ordered pumpkin/raisin/cranberry/nut bread that will be delivered this week. All those ingredients in one bread. And delivered to the door. The one after that will be sour dough bread.

There are so many extra nice benefits of living in this town. We are discovering and enjoying them as we find them.

Later, with more little town benefits and news.

Note: The photo looks exactly like the bread we ate but we did not take time to get any photos. Oink, oink. This picture was found on Google.

The Little Old Lady I Am Destined To Become

My daughter and I had recently moved to a different state and were just settling in there. Instead of taking our car, I left the car with her sister who lived on campus at university. My son already had a car.

So daughter and I proceeded to find a used car in the new small town in the state we had not lived in previously. Some very nice people pointed us in the direction of a man who sold cars as his father had done before him.

We picked out a car, paid in cash, went on our way. Two days later as were trying to find our way from one town to another town out in the farm areas with no street signs, the engine died. Plenty of gas. No sign of engine heating. That was about all I knew to check for.

Daughter and I got out and walked to where there were houses. We knocked on a door. No answer. Next house. No answer. Next house, an elderly gentleman answered the door, timidly listening to our dilema, but holding the door partly closed. I had no way to call anyone, and this man was not able to help us as he was too old to drive. Actually I remember thinking, thank goodness he would not be out on the streets driving as shaky as he was.

My daughter who was fourteen at the time did her little please help us we are stranded and new to town routine and got the man to let us in to use his phone. As soon as we stepped into the house a woman screamed. "Who are these people and why did you let them in?" Yikes.

He pointed to the phone on a small table and we called the only people we knew who owned a business in town and had to interrupt the scene behind us between husband and wife long enough to be able to tell our friend where we were. She said she would be there as soon as she could. Whew.

Then the man began wiping down the woman's wheel chair, kept rubbing it all over as if in his nervousness at what seemed to be her usual behavior. The woman put her arm on the arm of the wheel chair while he was adjusting things in her chair and talking soothingly and quietly to her and he did not see that her arm was now right where he started rubbing.

The skin on the woman's arm was paper thin. Transparent. Bony wrists. As the cloth moved over the skin on the woman's wrist, the skin rolled back and blood slowly oozed out. Dang.

The woman began simpering and moaning. She scolded the man and asked him why couldn't he watch what he was doing. His eyes behind the coke bottle glasses looked like they would pop out of the sockets. He was in shock. He began wiping at the bloody wrist with the dirty cloth.

My daughter and I looked at each other and silently agreed that we wanted out of there. I quietly thanked them for the use of their phone and she and I walked out the front door and walked a couple houses away to wait for our friend. We don't think the older man and woman even noticed our departure.

My daughter and I talked about that elderly couple many times over the years. It was a touching scene and it felt like we were intruding on something intimate between the husband and wife.

Now that I am in a private and personal relationship and getting up in years it seems natural to see myself with hubby twenty years from now, not driving, helping each other as best we can, in sickness and in health you know, and attending to each others needs, devoted to a cherished and faithful relationship.

Oh yeah, the car? I called the car salesman and told him he had to take the car back and give me a reliable car. He told me that wasn't how it was done, I bought it as is. I told him I would never leave him alone until he made it right. What, I paid a thousand dollars a day for a car and then had no transportation? No way. In the end I got a different and better car.

Note: Illusion graphic found on Google.

How Did We Get To This Place

My heart is sick about the extreme hate and violence in this country today. The past ten years have gotten worse than anything I could have imagined growing up in this country. Growing up in a dysfunctional family was difficult, but there was a patriotism that we learned by example from adults around us. Listening to the adults talking about politics did not seem to cause anger enough to get a gun and shoot someone.

This is a sad time for our country. The news channels that are supposed to be channels of information for the public have for so many years been pushing violence and hatred and have developed following of people being led like sheep.

What happened to the belief that every human being born has rights. God given if you believe in a god. Not one person is worth more than another. I don't agree with lots of politicians and media personalities but I do not want them dead. I do not hate another human being. Nor do I wish anyone harm. There have been some horrible deeds done to me a few times in my life but I still do not hate any of the people responsible for my pain.

How did things get to the place that violence is exciting, and thrilling, and laughed about? Blatant disrespect and threats are tolerated like never before. I feel so sorry for the young people growing into adults in the country today being taught to ignore education and hate Jews and blacks and Mexicans and Muslims. And on and on. That white people are the only ones who are worthy, and the founding fathers didn't mean some of the things they put into the constitution. What is going to happen to this earth we all have share when all the Jews decide to hate all the rest of the people and all the Mexicans hate all others and the Blacks hate and on an on? This type of thinking is putting people back in the days of the first settlers arriving in a country already inhabited by human beings. Settlers who brought egos, hatred, dishonesty, disease, and believed their god wanted them to take what they wanted in the new country. Technology continues to make progress while intelligence and acceptance and humanity are sliding backward.

I am sending this letter to everyone I know. All of us were shocked by 9/11 and it will not go away. But going to the extreme hatred brings us to the place of being just like the people responsible for 9/11; murderers, terrorists, intent on destroying lives and families and cities and a unity in a country. Using 9/11 as an excuse to kill today is worse than ignorant; it is a lie. Grow the hell up and stop acting like ranting, spoiled, bitchy children.

This is a simple little letter and it won't hurt my feelings to be laughed at or ignored. I still have a right to speak out. I am a child of the sixties remember. If we as a people have not learned how to get along since that time, heaven help us.

Will There Ever Really Be Peace?

Did you send Christmas cards this past year? Did you receive holiday cards for whichever holiday you and your family and friends celebrate?

Did you notice how many cards have the word or symbol for PEACE on them?

More than half the cards we received had the word PEACE on them somewhere and/or a dove.
We sent cards with a dove on the front.

Has sending holiday cards become like so much else in life now; words with no meaning, no feeling behind. Insincere. Prayers said over and over so you can think about something else while you pray. Salutations said but not meant. Endearments spoken but not special.

I don't want that in my life.

Is it really possible to eventually have peace in the world or have things gone too far away from sincerity, honesty, honor? I used to believe that one person could indeed make a difference and then reach out to one person at a time. Is that still possible or is it now an impossible dream? We as a people were taught respect for each other when I was growing up, and we were taught to be tolerant of each others beliefs and political affiliations. In my opinion people have lost their voice, their voice of honor, and have allowed others to lead them to a place that they yell "get rid of them" and "reload" aimed at people who don't think as they want them to or do as they want them to do or vote as they want them to vote. The weak and ill people who follow the dissidents are easily led to hatred and violence.

I will never stop believing that we all matter; no one is more important or more worthwhile than anyone else, even if some people think they are.

Happy Birthday, Son

Today is my son's birthday.


He shares his special day with:

Elvis Presley
Soupy Sales
Stephen Hawking
David Bowie
Robby Krieger (guitarist with the Doors)
Bob Eubanks (game show host)
Jose Ferrer (anyone remember him?)
Little Anthony Gourdine (and the Imperials)







Dear Son,

The photos I have kept of you when you were a baby and a toddler are so precious to me. They bring back such wonderful memories. And when you were in elementary school you and I had some times just for us, like the times you and I stayed up later than the rest of our family and watched a scary show together or watched sports that the rest of the family did not care to watch. Watching you overcome your extreme shyness and accept that other children looked up to you, partly for your height and for your gentle nature, was a joy for me as your mom. The way you were so quiet and did not have much to say but when you did say something it was profound.

We live so many miles from each other. 3800 miles between us does not change my love for you and my appreciation of all the caring and considerate things you have done for me through the years. I sympathize with the painful lessons in life you have had to learn; I applaud your success in overcoming traits in yourself you did not care for; I admire your ability to forgive others and absolve them of their cruel intent and I wish you success and happiness in your life.

With much love now and forever,
Mom

Splash

She and her small circle of friends were twelve years old. It was required that every student participate in the church fair in some capacity. She volunteered to sit in the "hot seat" at the dunker tank.

Each pre-teen spent one hour in the "hot seat" and three hours off. The fair was two full days. Two days meant more money collected. A fun way to pass the collection plate.

She was a good swimmer and outgoing, challenging people strolling by the dunker to throw balls at the lever.



She was dunked over and over and there was a queue to throw balls, men and women and children. The dunker was a huge success that year and she had never enjoyed a church fair so much.

There was a picture in the town newspaper highlighting the church fair. She was famous!

Not this photo, this was found on Google. In the photo, she and her friends were throwing darts at a wall of balloons. She had discovered at age six at a small fair in North Dakota that she had a gift: The gift of aim. Every dart broke a balloon and every shot with the water pistol hit the target.

Tell me about when you were at the fair.

I'm Walking; Keep On Walking Onward And Upward

READ THIS POST FROM BOTTOM TO TOP.

IT WON'T MAKE SENSE IF YOU READ FROM TOP TO BOTTOM.

SCROLL UP INSTEAD OF DOWN.

Free at last
Soaring with the eagles
Accepting what I cannot change
Discarding the last of the load
Strength in knowledge of self
Now a challenge but achievable
A few ruts and pebbles
Roads now less rocky
No longer struggling
No longer climbing
Taking big steps easily
Eyes clear, posture erect
Stand tall, big smile
Let everything else go
Keep a few warm and fuzzies
Release more burdens
Reach one goal and keep going
Look up and have goals
Less discomfort
Walking taller now
Let go of more baggage
Four more steps
Take deep, even breaths
Four steps easily
Walking upward is easier now
There, better isn't it
Let go of some if it
You are carrying weight
Ahh, you noticed
Keep moving
Concentrate
Two more steps
Breathe
A second step
One step up

New Year 2011

Enjoy Josh Groban singing You Are Loved.

And you are.

Like a ripple effect, we can help make another person's day a smidgen better. Smile at someone. Everywhere we went yesterday, someone smiled at me. I was so full of smiles and joy when we got home I began to think of how I could share that with others. Via email. Or mail a note. Phone calls are not my thing so much, but I will make a few calls and do some texting today.

The words of the song remind me I am loved. Enough to share.

May we all have a year of love and good health in 2011.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, DEAR BLOGGERS.