I hope someone makes a room-with-a-view in heaven for this lady.
Just when our worries of political past, present, and future are nourished by bogged down, obsessed, and bent tendencies, we get this lady – one Kaziah Hancock – to come along and deservingly kick us in the seat of our britches.
To one of my consistent blog readers…happy birthday OFGaP JaiJai. Lunch is on me today. Continue reading
My of my, we spent a 5 day weekend in Kansas this past week. What great family time spent together, golfing and BBQing…talking and celebrating!
At the May’s, it was golf. At the McRae’s, it was being at the farm.
This is a story without the bickering of politics, rumor-izing, sharp-tongued disagreements, and doom and gloom predictions…isn’t that what Christianity is all about? I trust this will put all our daily lives into some kind of perspective, and affords an appropriate reminder of one of my favorite Bible verses and songs: This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! (Psalm 118:24).
Email Inspiration Received (EIR) and checked out on snopes.com and truthorfiction.com…my kind of story for sure despite the discrepancy between Buzz Aldrin being Presbyterian or Esipcopal – he’s a Christian regardless of the church doors he walks through!
This from an email received from my friend David S. – the pictures are from my personal photo library.
Continue reading “EIR: Communion”
If this doesn’t make you smile, laugh, and appreciate life, you’re probably already dead.
Email Humor Received (EHR) and Email Inspiration Received (EIR) from OFGaP Jayne…thanks lady! This made my day, week, and month!
Instead of fueling the fear for what tomorrow may bring, I will first read this book.
Instead of the incessant spread of political hate, lies, half-truths, and sarcasms, I will first read this book.
Instead of stirring the never-ending sports smack pot between differing fans of favorite universities and pro teams, I will first read this book.
Instead of losing my health over national healthcare, I will first read this book.
St. Patrick’s Day proved to have some luck for me – ya know, I’m really beginning to believe in this fate stuff lately. You see I am a wee bit Irish there laddie, which may explain my likening to have a listen (and sing along) with U2, Mary Black, Celtic Woman, and a tendency to take down a mess potatoes like no one’s business. But if you ask me about Notre Dame, I will tell you my two favorite teams on game day are K-State and whoever is playing ND.
OK, there is a leprechaun’s pot of gold to this post. St. Patty’s night, about 11:30 pm, marked the 10,000th hit to the blog! Continue reading “mileSTONED again”
As I sat down last night to catch a few minutes of PBS before the 10pm news, I picked up on a show “already in progress”. It was a 30-minute filler mini-documentary on the late humorist and journalist Erma Bombeck. This show caught my attention in particular because my Mom adored Erma’s writings and humor.
Please understand, Mom would speak often about an Erma story read from the local newspaper…and occasionally clip a column that somehow spoke to her, only to give us boys and dad something to ponder the “why this article” as we went through Mom’s personal items months after she died.
I thought, what better way to gain some insight into the mindset of both Erma and Mom than to give a listen to this short television program.
Tis the season of Christmas…it has always stirred emotions in me. Not just for the religious joy it brings, but also for family traditions, memories, anticipations, sadness, and pride; they all swell from my withins and give a unique reflection on Christmas each year. It was some 12 years ago – December 14, 1997 – when this family lost a daughter, sister, wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and friend – Mom was all one in the same person, our life-long Santa Claus that brought joy to us all. Christmas will forever be her time in my heart.
Without permission, I boldly speak for my family in saying we have learned to cope, heal, and continue our lives over those 12 years. Our loss was made even more difficult in knowing Christmas time was an incredibly special time with our family. We’ve had our share of sadness as we have also reaped blessings of joy since her death. Many times we don’t realize either of those emotions until they confront us, with all the bluntness and suddenness a life changing event can muster. When that happens, we have learned to celebrate a life shared, a life lived, a life blessed, a life remembered. Continue reading “A Christmas Made More Difficult, but We Celebrate”
My personal favorite month is just about over. It has found me taking 856 photos so far this month (as of this day and time of morning).
It is a time of year when nature starts preparing for winter. Animals fatten up (including me), the sugars in leaves make for admirable fall colors, kids seem to get more energetic with cool days and chilly nights. You gotta love it. Continue reading “October is the best”
Email Inspiration Received (EIR) today from my good friend David (Stapp), whom I haven’t spoken face-to-face with in probably 8 years, but have recently been forwarding emails to each other. Here’s how this message goes today:
_____________________________________________
A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.
He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.
After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight. Continue reading “EIR: This explains why I forward jokes…”
Who knew this? Today’s Full Moon (10/4/09) is called a “Hunter’s Moon”. Native Americans of New England and the Great Lakes refer to the full moon at this time of the year because the deer are fat and it’s time to hunt (as well as many other animals). Since all the crops are harvested, it’s now time to gather food by hunting animals…but it’s all kind of contrary to the weekly observance of 10/26: Give Wildlife a Break Week.
October is an incredibly busy (and popular) month for special occasions and observances. I trust y’all will be joining me in the on-going daily, weekly, and monthly holiday and event celebrations in October. Of all the observances going on this month, I would like to point out a few of particular interest to me:
Who knew? Today, July 7th is Bonza Bottler Day! We have twelve of those a year…apparently it gives good reason to go out and party with your family and friends. It’s when the day of the month is the same as the month number (today is 07-07). And there’s even a website for this day: Bonza Bottler Day Website.
Celebrations should be on-going today, this week, and this month. According to my reliable sources, it is:
Continue reading “Oddities of the Day, Week, Month for July”
For those of you blog regulars (that are still with me), you know I have a good friend – Jai Jai – that seldom holds back on commenting on most of my postings. Ya gotta love her…agree with her, no…but ya do gotta love her.
Well she’s needing some blogger love, thoughts, and prayers. The girl’s advisors (doctors) decided to give her a surgery opportunity yesterday – a couple weeks ahead of time. Just know, she would probably rather have been talking college football over lunch than dealing with this “recruiting violation”. Some chronic health issues lead to yesterday’s surgery and this morning’s text message saying she’s “sore but I’m in good spirits” was welcomed. Atta a girl!
OFBgrs: one of blog faithful could use a bit of healing thoughts and supportive prayers. Little Natalie had heart surgery on Thursday: see Amy’s Two under Two. A friend of Amy’s, Jenna, has updated her blog that Natalie’s surgery went well, but neither blog sites have since updated Natalie’s progress.
Amy, our OFGNe Eli’s heart surgery tugged heavily on all our hearts. With a successful surgery and recovery, he’s now more kiddo than can sometimes be handled…and we absolutely love it that way, as will you. Continue reading “Natalie, and Amy, and Trenton, and Landon”
Yup it is. Along with Scottish, Indian, Afro-American, and Hispanic folks populated by the railroad industry. Stopping short of a Texas history lesson of the town and region, let me just say this: we went, we enjoyed, we will go back…and the Bluebonnets are up!
Deb and I ventured to McGregor for a short weekend. Actually, one of Deb’s “Dinner Dames” friend and husband asked us to come visit them and the beautiful new home they are building outside of town. The true intent of our invitation was for Jayne/Rusty to get advice on how to landscape their home.
Note to others with similar intentions…I love to dole out landscape advice to friends and family, but please lets have a discussion not an argument if you don’t agree with the free opinion I offer. I’m too old and grouchy to argue with you about my expertise. I look forward to going back to McGregor with the landscape summary of my thunkin’ for Jayne and Rusty.
It was an interesting weekend to say the least. Here’s a abridged version:
The life of this blog has provided an outlet for many different emotions over the few short months of its existence. Through my stories the blog has tried to make you smile, laugh, love, remember, cry, enjoy, celebrate, relax, reflect, anticipate, honor, and most of all think. This evening, I find myself working through all those emotions. The weekend had a roller coaster of ups and downs worth of emotion. An accident 500 miles away and a third birthday only 15 minutes from home made for an trying time for all of us when all said and done; wrap the weekend and put it on the shelf.
My great niece Madison (Deb’s niece’s daughter) celebrated her third birthday with mostly family this afternoon. “Madi” is a charm of a kid that can melt even the hardest of hearts. Fortunately, a Madi-party has attendees that she’s already mushed their heart. So we all just sit, watch, and hope we get a long hard hug from her when it’s our turn (a few of us try to capture just that right picture of her). Three years old – oh my – and she’s already able to tame a heart, heal if it’s broken, and instill hope in the hearts of all who know her. Many of us struggle our entire life just trying to accomplish one of those attributes.
On February 28th America lost an iconic, legendary radio man. No one, not his son, not Gil Gross nor any other sit-in voice (Dallasite Ron Chapman) will replace the incomparable Paul Harvey. Many young people have missed out on his folksy, comforting, fatherly, friendly, familiar voice delivering the News! and “the rest of the stories”. It is sad to think the youth of today will know not what they’ve missed.
I for one took great comfort listening to Paul on the radio. My commute into Dallas each day was not complete without Paul telling me the day’s stories at 7:30 a.m. on The Big WBAP 820. While on my way to work, I remember a fateful day in the mid-80’s when Paul reported a Hollywood-style kidnap and murder event in western Kansas over the radio. I took interest because of the story’s geographic closeness to home. It was an incident involving ex-cons, sheriff and state police, and one innocent man. That man – the victim of a violent shoot out – coincidentally was my wife’s uncle. Paul Harvey hit a little closer to home that day with his News! than he usually did. It was his comforting grace – a grace for the family that would be expected from a compassionate preacher at an emotional funeral – that eased the mournful shock and started the healing.
Slap on some rouge and plaster the lips, this old man has given in to joining the Facebook cosmetic line. Much to the dismay of perhaps family and peers, after reading Mark Davis’ article in Sunday’s Dallas Morning News (don’t anyone tell OFB Tony that I read and listen to conservative talk show host Mark quite often) and his recent membership to the legion of some 150 million population of Facebook, I did it anyway. The CEO of Facebook – one 24-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg – says “If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth-most-populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia, and Nigeria”. I’m now the 150,000,001 member – yeah right, and I would like to announce my candidacy for President of this new found country. I guess it’s OK to join – it’s free and they welcome all ages (I’m good with both of those qualifications).
It’s a new socializing and networking opportunity for me; and I certainly only intend its use as yet another venue to “express” myself and maybe just find a few long lost friends. Oh yeah, and I think nearly every nephew and niece I have (on both sides of the family) has a Facebook account. IF they accept me as a “friend” (because they don’t have a “Crazy Uncle” option), perhaps I can annoy them on Facebook much like I do some of my regular, as well as infrequent or new blog readers. But not to worry all the pretty little blog heads that do read this stuff…at this webpage, by no means am I giving up WordPress, Flickr, SnapFish or any of my other Internet “socializing and networking opportunities” already in place.
Those that read this, know her. Next to OFSIL Becky, she is the most frequent commenter and is in the top two (along with Bec) regular readers, that I know of, of this hogwash. We all know her as J, JaiJai, Gal Pal, and Queenie. And she has finally decided to start her own wordpress blog to compete with me and steal all my readers. Check her out…she doesn’t scare me (only her friend Vinny does): Baylorjai02’s Blog. You will most likely find her a better writer with an enjoyable story or two. Oh, and I’ve got her on the side Blog … Continue reading Reaquaint with a Friend
21 
