Random Thoughts and Observations: February 1, 2009

It’s been a busy weekend. So much so that I haven’t really had a lot of time to compose my own thoughts even though I updated Lucy’s Blog. Sometimes it’s just easier to see things from her perspective that to think my own thoughts. I really enjoyed this weekend and the company that we had. I just wish I had another day to do laundry and rest a little. It would just make the week seem a little less long. I can’t complain though. I don’t think that I’ve worked but maybe a couple of full weeks since Christmas for one reason or another. Anyway, here are just a few random thoughts for today:

• I think that cities should have an ordnance that states that developers cannot build a mini mall until every other mini mall within the city has full occupancy. I saw another mini mall going up today on the way to Farmington, and saw several along the same road that have maybe one tenant. I loathe seeing land developed for these stupid mini malls that have no tenants.
• I much prefer Puppy Bowl to the Super Bowl. I just don’t care for professional football despite my love of college football.
• I’m hoping that this week will be normal and calm. You know, no rear endings, no colonoscopies, no ice storms, no disasters or issues at all. I just want to go to work this week, have a calm week at work, come home in the evenings, play with my dog, prepare dinner, do the dishes, iron, cuddle with Bart, and call it a day.
• I’ll be happy when the dirt road in front of our subdivision is repaved.
• I love Rick’s Bakery sugar cookies and sausage rolls!
• I still get a kick out of talking to my niece, Emma, on the phone. She’s a card.
• I love my family, both blood, my marriage, and those friends who’ve become family over the years.

Listened to: The Heart of Life from the album “Continuum” by John Mayer

Listened to: Waiting for the Next Drug from the album “Not Only… But Also” by The 88

Fireside Nothings: January 25, 2009

Listened to: Vegetable Car from the album “Simple Times” by Joshua Radin

I have many things that I’ve wanted to blog about the, and I feel that I must do it now because tomorrow we’re supposed to be blessed with ice, a lot of ice, to the point where we may not have luxuries such as electricity or cable and cable Internet in a few days. So I must blog now if I’m to do it at all. Hopefully, just hopefully this preventative measure will be for not.

Bart

I want to say a hearty thank you to everyone who has been praying for Bart the past few days. His colonoscopy went well, or at least it went as well as can be expected considering the type of procedure that it is. Thankfully, there was nothing cancerous down there, but they did find two spots of inflammation from which they took biopsies. We’re actually hoping that they come back posiive ( I think) because that would mean Bart has inflammatory bowel disease, which is somewhat more treatable than just irritable bowel syndrome.

It was rather interesting to be the person responsible for Bart after his procedure. He would probably be a funny drunk if either of us ever wished to take up drinking as a past-time. Oh, the things that he said to me ranged from despite the fact that he didn’t have “ovarians,” he felt he needed to impart to his doctor that there was a family history of ovarian cancer. Of course he almost forgot about the grandfather who actually did have colon cancer and the uncle who died of liver cancer. it certainly made for an interesting day, Thursday, that’s for sure.

Blogging

At Bart’s suggestion, I started a blog for Lucy, Lucy’s ‘Splanations. This is only further proof, I think, that we need to have a baby. God’s still teaching us patience in that arena, though, and in the meantime I think it’s fun. I wish that I had started it when we got her because there have been so many fun incidents in the past year that would have made fun reading. Also, pets are with us such a short period of time that we should cherish the time we do have with them and keep record of it. I wish I had kept if not a blog because it was the eighties and nineties, but a journal of my adventures growing up with my lab-chow, Jetta.

Also, I’ve been working at converting WordPress export files into Blogger ones so that I can cross post to my Blogger Blog. I started my first blog, almost four years ago at Bllogger. Then they changed Blogger to where I didn’t like it. Also, I’m always wanting to try new things. I’ve moved to Vox, then here to WordPress. Somehow, though ecto blogging software, I managed to copy all of my vox posts here, and now I’m wanting to do the same, but with the comments to Blogger. I don’t know which I’ll keep, possibly both, if for no other reason that between the two I should be able to keep and move my entire blog when and if I want the change. Don’t get me wrong, I love WordPress, but Blogger has improved a great deal, and I can actually edit my template there more. If I do a complete move, it won’t be for some time. Getting posts converted to Blogger takes quite a bit of time and effort, but I’ve made a good start.

Writing

Also, I’ve been creating a website for my own fan fictions, starting with Once of Ingleside. Along with just posting my works there, I’m editing them (which they badly need) and revising them just enough to clean them up a great deal. I still want to finish my own WWII fic based on Anne Blythe’s grandchildren, but I’ve spent so much time away from them that I need to go back and get to know them again. There’s nothing that I hate more than for characters to change so completely because their creators have lost all touch with them. Also, I’ve fallen into that trap of having rather too many characters. I may have to not feature some quite so much in one series of fictions and let each or a few maybe have their own individual stories, not unlike Cath’s Cecilia and Bertha stories and Louise’s concurrent Jane and Meggie stories.

Life in General

Again, we’re under a Winter Ice Warning, so I don’ know how much blogging will be done in the next few days. So, I just want to say that I’ll be happy if I can just sit here on the couch with the fire burning to my right, Lucy in my lap, and a good book in my hand. There’s just something nice about that. Oh, and I guess that it’ll be nice to have Bart here too. I couldn’t do without him.

Marking Milestones

We’re always reaching milestones in our life; points where from there forward, things are at least slightly different than they were yesterday and will always remain different. It seems that my family’s week is full of milestones. Just yesterday Bart officially finished is Masters, thus ending (for now) his formal education, while today our youngest niece, Emma, is starting Pre-K. As one education is ending, another is just beginning.

Emma just turned four Sunday, she had her school shots yesterday, and now she’s attending “the green one” Greenwood Elementary in Tahlequah with her older sister, Kelsey. Today is the fifteenth birthday of one of my two sets of twin cousins, Devyn and Charity. I recall the day they were born with the utmost clarity. It was the second day of eighth grade. I went to school, anxious for word because we knew they would be taking the twins that day, and when Mom picked Heather and me up at 3, I couldn’t wait to go to the hospital to see my two new baby cousins. Last Thursday was their first day as Freshmen at Dear Ole’ Heavener High.

The final milestone was the passing of our great-aunt this past weekend. I’m not sure, but I think she may have been the last of my grandparents’ generation still living. At least she was the last in the vicinity. Her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren now must grow accustomed to the fact that every day forward, she’ll no longer be here. Some milestones are more bitter than sweet, though they can rest in the knowledge that she is no longer suffering.

No matter our age, no matter how much we think we’ve learned and accomplished, there will always be some milestone to reach.

“What a cute little bunny rabbit”

    My mind has been jumping from one random place to another lately, so bear with me if it seems I’m chasing rabbits.  I like chasing rabbits, anyway.  They hop and hop, and I just want to hug them, and squeeze them, and pet them, and name them George.  I will never forget the first time I saw / read “Of Mice and Men” and realized that the snowman in theBugs Bunny cartoon, “The Abominable Snow Rabbit,” was a play on Lenny.  That was about the time that I realized most of the jokes in cartoons that I always thought were funny were actually a sort of homage to something else.  Consider the first rabbit chased while he made “that left turn atAlba-koi-kee.”

    Chasing rabbits also brings to mind Lucy’s cat and mouse, or rather dog and bird game with some robins that nest near our house.  She obviously finds them very fascinating,and I don’t know if she wants to kill them, but I do know what wants to play with them.  They, on the other hand seem to enjoy teasing my poor puppy.  They shouldn’t be mean to her though.  She’s cutting her molars and hasn’t felt too well lately because of the pain.

    The subject of rabbits also makes me think of Easter, which we celebrated this past Sunday.  As you know from an earlier post, I’m none too keen on celebrating it so early.  Nonetheless, we did, and though the day has passed, the sermon remained with me.  By chance my iPod played a song from an oldCindy Morgan CD, “The Loving Kind.“  This is a CD that was released ten years ago, but the music and especially the message are both so timeless.  The entire CD focuses on thePassion Week as seen through theGospel of John.  In my opinion, the best song is the title song, based onPeter’s experience that week, and the forgiveness that he and all of us are given so freely by and through Christ.  It reminds me of how insignificant I really am, yet Jesus still endured the pain and humiliation of the cross for me, and would have even if I was the only sinner -ever.  I tend to not think about that as often as I should.  I become too self-absorbed in my own self-importance.

    I’m not that important though. None of us is as important as we think we are, not a single person.  We are all fragile beings, and life is a gift given to us by the Creator of All Things.  we don’t appreciate exactly how fragile and precious that gift is.  We take each other for granted too much.  Ten years ago, I thought myGranny Scott would be alive forever.  I believed that I would always be able go to her house on Sunday afternoons and holidays and spend countless hours just being with my family.  It’s been almost eight years since she passed away, and I think I miss her every day.  I miss hearing the unique hum her little, yellowOlds Cutless Ciera.  I’ve never heard any other car with that distinct hum, and honestly I hope I never do because it was a part of Gran, and there’s never going to be anotherher.

    Thinking of Gran makes me think of home.  Everyone wants a place to go back to that they consider home, and IwishI had such a place.  I don’t just mean where I live now, because it is very much my home now, but somewhere that knows me.  I would love to be able to go back to the place where I grew up, to walk the grounds where I made me first steps, both literally and those first steps into life.  Last week, I was talking to Neile before the five, as we are wont to do, and we were discussing our Easter plans.  She asked is I was going home, and I let out a sad, somewhat bitter laugh.  I told her the truth, that I really had no home in which to visit anymore, at least not in the sense we were discussing.  Since I graduated high school, my mother moved from my hometown.  Since she retired, she has since moved twice more to a town I absolutley abhor.  Where she lives now has no sentimental value to me.  It never will.  Though I cannot fault my mother completely for wanting a fresh start of things, I don’t think that she understands how her moving has totally separated my sister and me from our roots.  I think for many people going home to visit parents is also a way to go home as see other people and places that you miss.  I can’t be faulted if nothing else pulls me to visit my mother, therefore I’m not inclined to do so very often.  Well, someday I’ll go home to a home that no one can take away from me.

   

"What a cute little bunny rabbit"

    My mind has been jumping from one random place to another lately, so bear with me if it seems I’m chasing rabbits.  I like chasing rabbits, anyway.  They hop and hop, and I just want to hug them, and squeeze them, and pet them, and name them George.  I will never forget the first time I saw / read “Of Mice and Men” and realized that the snowman in theBugs Bunny cartoon, “The Abominable Snow Rabbit,” was a play on Lenny.  That was about the time that I realized most of the jokes in cartoons that I always thought were funny were actually a sort of homage to something else.  Consider the first rabbit chased while he made “that left turn atAlba-koi-kee.”

    Chasing rabbits also brings to mind Lucy’s cat and mouse, or rather dog and bird game with some robins that nest near our house.  She obviously finds them very fascinating,and I don’t know if she wants to kill them, but I do know what wants to play with them.  They, on the other hand seem to enjoy teasing my poor puppy.  They shouldn’t be mean to her though.  She’s cutting her molars and hasn’t felt too well lately because of the pain.

    The subject of rabbits also makes me think of Easter, which we celebrated this past Sunday.  As you know from an earlier post, I’m none too keen on celebrating it so early.  Nonetheless, we did, and though the day has passed, the sermon remained with me.  By chance my iPod played a song from an oldCindy Morgan CD, “The Loving Kind.“  This is a CD that was released ten years ago, but the music and especially the message are both so timeless.  The entire CD focuses on thePassion Week as seen through theGospel of John.  In my opinion, the best song is the title song, based onPeter’s experience that week, and the forgiveness that he and all of us are given so freely by and through Christ.  It reminds me of how insignificant I really am, yet Jesus still endured the pain and humiliation of the cross for me, and would have even if I was the only sinner -ever.  I tend to not think about that as often as I should.  I become too self-absorbed in my own self-importance.

    I’m not that important though. None of us is as important as we think we are, not a single person.  We are all fragile beings, and life is a gift given to us by the Creator of All Things.  we don’t appreciate exactly how fragile and precious that gift is.  We take each other for granted too much.  Ten years ago, I thought myGranny Scott would be alive forever.  I believed that I would always be able go to her house on Sunday afternoons and holidays and spend countless hours just being with my family.  It’s been almost eight years since she passed away, and I think I miss her every day.  I miss hearing the unique hum her little, yellowOlds Cutless Ciera.  I’ve never heard any other car with that distinct hum, and honestly I hope I never do because it was a part of Gran, and there’s never going to be anotherher.

    Thinking of Gran makes me think of home.  Everyone wants a place to go back to that they consider home, and IwishI had such a place.  I don’t just mean where I live now, because it is very much my home now, but somewhere that knows me.  I would love to be able to go back to the place where I grew up, to walk the grounds where I made me first steps, both literally and those first steps into life.  Last week, I was talking to Neile before the five, as we are wont to do, and we were discussing our Easter plans.  She asked is I was going home, and I let out a sad, somewhat bitter laugh.  I told her the truth, that I really had no home in which to visit anymore, at least not in the sense we were discussing.  Since I graduated high school, my mother moved from my hometown.  Since she retired, she has since moved twice more to a town I absolutley abhor.  Where she lives now has no sentimental value to me.  It never will.  Though I cannot fault my mother completely for wanting a fresh start of things, I don’t think that she understands how her moving has totally separated my sister and me from our roots.  I think for many people going home to visit parents is also a way to go home as see other people and places that you miss.  I can’t be faulted if nothing else pulls me to visit my mother, therefore I’m not inclined to do so very often.  Well, someday I’ll go home to a home that no one can take away from me.