Death Talk

Can you see what Hunka Hunka is doing?  

To me me it looks like he is unfolding a bodybag!

 I wonder who he plans to put in it?

 

The other day we were discussing how expensive funerals are. Because of the expense and our lack of life insurance, cremation seems to be an option for us. When I asked him what song he would like played at his memorial service he decided on "Were it Not for Grace".

It's a beautiful song about Jesus' grace and where we would be without it.

 He in turn asked me what song I would like.

I told him it didn't really matter; whatever would make him feel better.

He thought for a few SECONDS (not minutes, mind you)  and said,

 "I've got it. I know the perfect song!"

And with gusto he belted out  Alicia Key's, 'This Girl is on Fire".

 

I hope he was talking about the cremation process and not where he thinks I will wind up.

 

I told him I had changed my mind and would have "Burn,Baby,Burn"  played at his.

 

 

 

 

Talking to Ourselves

I know that as we age we tend to forget. Some forgetfulness seems to encompass all older adults. Just mention your memory problems around your peers and you get all kinds of stories; forgetting where you put your keys, forgetting why you walked to another room in the house, forgetting the name of an acquaintance, stopping at the end of the driveway to remember where you are going. A lot of this I am told is because older adults have mastered the art of cruise control. So little catches us by surprise that we literally coast through the day on auto-pilot.

But let me ask you....is it normal to be taking a shower and all of a sudden you are standing there looking clueless because you can't remember which body parts you have washed?  You reach up and feel your hair to see if you have shampoo in your hair, none there, so you assume you are farther along. For the life of me I couldn't figure it out so I just started all over again!  I hope I got everything washed, but who knows?  I hope I didn't stay in the shower an extremely long time, but who knows?  I hope this hasn't happened before, but who knows? 

Maybe that's why so many of us older folk talk to ourselves. It's not always because we want to converse with someone intelligent and funny. It's because we hope we are listening to ourselves so when we ask ourselves "now, what was I doing? now, where was I going? now, who is this?, now, what did I come in here to get?" that we will know the answer and answer ourselves.

Never too Old

Hunka Hunka has developed an interest in "pallet upcycling". That's fancy talk for the old phrase "turning trash into treasures". Or as I tell him it's taking junk nobody wants and making junk people want but don't need. (However, I have told him wifey has dibs on the shoe rack and the deck tables.)

For several months I have tried coaxing him into looking on Pinterest for pallet ideas. He thought he was too manly for Pinterest until I showed him a few pallet ideas. Now he has his own pinterest boards filled with all kinds of amazing wood projects. (I'm beginning to think I may have created a man who searches for Pinterest projects more than he actually works on projects.  Then again, who am I to judge when I have enough pins to decorate three or four homes complete with photos arranged on the wall, great walk-in closets, beautiful and spacious white kitchens, laundry rooms that do everything but wash clothes, and enough recipes that I will need a 12" binder for each category.)

I digress. I often come across a pin that makes me laugh out loud. Since something has to be really funny for me to laugh out loud he always says, "Well, if  it's that funny let me see it."  Tonight was a jackpot night for funny pins. Hunka Hunka asked me if you could literally put anything in the search engine and someone would have pinned it somehow. I told him I figured it was just as smart as Google, Yahoo, or Bing and everything would be on Pinterest because it was basically just shortcuts to websites and blogs.

And that's when I did it. I put the word "boogers" in the Pinterest search engine. No surprise that quite a few boards popped up. There seems to be a great snack called Boogers on a Stick. You learn something new everyday.

 And then I hit major paydirt. I found a pin telling me how to get dried boogers off the wall.  How did I make it 60 years without this knowledge.

Moral of the story. It is true that you are never too old to learn something new. It may be totally useless knowledge, but it is there for us if we just search for it.

And, no, I will not tell you how to get dried boogers off the wall. You can do the research yourself.

INTERVENTION TIME

It has been several months since I have posted on my blog. I have many reasons for this.
1.  I sit down with my laptop and decide to check my email before I get started.
2.  After spending 10 minutes checking my email I decide I might as well check
     Facebook and catch up on all my friend's lives.
3.  Two hours later (this once took much longer, but I have culled my friends down
      to 253. I hope if you're reading this that you made the cut) I decide I might as well
      play my Facebook Games.
     Yes, I am a Candy Crusher and a Words with Friend addict.
4.  One hour later I decide I might as well check out Pinterest since I have run out
     of lives on all my games.
5.  Three hours later I realize I am looking at some of the same Pins that I looked at
      the night before and check the clock on the wall. It is almost always 10:30 and
      I have to get my Jimmy Fallon fix.
6. Yikes! Now it's 11:30 and if I don't get to bed soon I won't have time to read my    
     novel before I go to sleep. (doesn't novel sound much more intellectual
     than saying book?)
7. My days are filled with babysitting grandkids and my weekends are filled
    with fishing, shopping and Criminal Minds marathons.
IT'S SUCH A VICIOUS CYCLE. SOMEBODY NEEDS TO DO AN INTERVENTION.

KFC Conundrum

Have you seen the latest KFC commercial? A family is sitting around the table enjoying their meal and the wife/mother looks at you and says something like this

 "tonight it's all about me and that means no cooking." 

 But did you notice what an awful wife/mother she is?

 It's OK by me for her to take the night off from cooking and it's even OK by me for the kids and hubby to eat greasy take-out. I've been there and done that more times than the average mom/wife.  But somewhere along the line this lady failed.

. The family gets to wolf this humongous Kentucky Fried Chicken meal

 with all the fixings down  and they have to do it without anything to drink.

 Is Mom the only one that knows how to put something to drink on the table and everyone

 has to do without when she has a night off from cooking?

 Did they forget to buy the drinks, were the drinks too expensive,

 are they a liquid-free family,

 or were they all too lazy to at least get a glass of water for everyone?

 Maybe a beverage is a special treat in this household or is saved for

 birthdays and anniversaries.

 Do you think they eat their snacks without liquid sustenance?

I can't help but wonder what advertising agency decided

 that your average family  sitting around the dinner table looks better

 with no tea, cola, spirits, or water on the table?

 It's a conundrum I may never solve.

Hunka Hunka is so Confused!

Since it has been a couple of weeks since we've been fishing we threw the fishing rods

and trolling motor in the back of the truck along with the battery and

 the tackle box (and a snack) and we headed to the pond..

OKAY, OKAY, we all know Bob got everything ready but the snack.

 But let's face it, I do snacks a lot better than I do organizing a truckbed.

 

 Anyway, it was a great day for fishing. Thank you God for letting it be an overcast sky. I forgot to put on sunscreen which usually means I become a shade dweller while fishing. And I don't like to do that because half the fun of fishing with Bob is sitting in the back of the boat thinking up ways to either aggravate him (SEE LIST BELOW) or to make him laugh.

 

Anyway, I found out today that sweet Hunka Hunka is so confused. He was a bass fisherman when I first met him and has been a bass fisherman for the past 40 years. I can't even think about how much money we have invested in rods, reels, tackle, boats and snacks! 

 But today he just couldn't seem to remember what we were there for

.

Anyway,  he starts off fishing with a Zebco. WHAAAT? That's right, the Ambassador, the Shimanos, and the recently acquired AbuGarcia were left unused. The lowly, cheap Zebco was the star of the show today. First Hunka Hunka catches a stickfish.(for you nonfishing peeps,

 a stickfish is a stick or limb you hook and get into the boat.

 Anything you hook has to make it inside the boat to count in the lineup)

 

Anyway, the first water swimmer he catches is a turtle measuring about 7 inches across. That's right, folks, a turtle. He hooks the creature not in the mouth but under the front shell super close to its mouth. I never knew turtles could hiss and try to attack while hanging in the air.  Next on the agenda is a few bream and a shellcracker or two. Becoming even more confused, he adds a catfish to the lineup. Then he reaches up and snags a cork someone

left hanging in the brush hanging over the water.

 

Anyway, he FINALLY catches a bass, but it is only about 5 inches long. (unbelievably this was bigger than one of the bass I caught with my breambuster) 

 He catches a crappie and the big bass of the day  (a little over a pound). 

Sometime during the day he also catches a shrub. 

But he didn't get the shrub into the boat so I don't guess it counts.

 

Hunka Hunka has always told me that there is definitely a difference in rods and reels. Today I found this to be true. Baitcasting reels know that they are to be used with artificial bait to catch bass. Zebco combos don't know what in the world they were manufactured for so they catch at least one of everything they can and make the user look like they are a confused fisherman that doesn't know what he came to the pond to fish for.

WAYS TO AGGRAVATE A HUSBAND WHILE FISHING AN ALUMINUM BOAT
1.Clean the moss off  your artifical worm  by splashing it in the water sideways and spraying water   over your hubby; more than once or twice.
2. Cast your line towards the front of the boat and let your line fall at the top of his ear.
3. Sing.
3. Always add an extra fish to your count and always subtract one from his count. And, yes, it is always a competition to see who catches the most.
4.  Cast over his line.
5. Spill earthworms all over the boat.
6. Freak out because you are close to a spiderweb. (he claims most of these are worm webs, but it looks like a spider web so it counts as a spiderweb.)
7. Act like he almost hit you in the face when he swings his rod back to cast.
8. Put anything at all on top of the battery.
9. Tickle the back of his neck with the tail end of your worm; more than once or twice.
10. Sprinkle cold water from the ice chest over him.

to poo or not to poo? that is the question.

Today I'd like to discuss something that has been bothering me for most of my adult life.

 

During my lifetime I have visited numerous public restrooms. 

 

I have been to the awful smelling restrooms at football games and wondered how a room

with open windows could possible manufacture such an odor.

 

 I have been to hospital restrooms that smelled so strongly of disinfectant that it

 burned my eyes and yet it didn't quite mask that same odor

 I smelled at the football restroom.

 

 I have been to service station bathrooms that would gag a maggot. 

 

Movie theater bathrooms usually smell of  burned popcorn.

 

The bathroom at my daughter's orthodontist smelled like a

 super strand

 of grape potpourri.

 (I've never understood how anyone ever came up with a grape scent.

 I've never eaten grapes that had much odor.  Do the grape smell test in the privacy of your own home. You can get funny looks in public. Just saying) 

 

I've been to elementary school bathrooms in my tender single-digit years that smelled like that oily red stuff they would sprinkle on wet stuff (mainly wet stuff like puke, vomit, throw-up; whatever you want to call it) and in my double-digit years the high school bathrooms smelled like an old lady's powder puff. I think the high school smell was a combination of  hair spray, cologne, deodorant, etc. mixed with the you-know-what smell. 

 

The bathrooms at my church smell nice. (The lady that cleans uses a Renuzit fragrance that I like.)

 

 I've been to the bathroom at the IGA in my hometown and it is always clean and smells OK. 

 

Chinese restaurant bathrooms for some reason always smell not exactly sour,

 but more like they never rinse the mops. 

 

The restrooms at Mexican restaurants are usually clean, but it almost always has only one toilet. (it's like they don't know what Mexican food does to the digestive system of the majority of Americans.) 

 

 The old police station bathroom I visited smelled like old wood and Pine-Sol.

(No, you may not ask how I came to find this out.) 

 

But my quandary is this: Why, in a public restroom,  can we ladies tee-tee and not poo-poo and toot?  How did we as American women evolve into ladies who could tee-tee in a stall next to a friend or complete stranger and never give it a thought; after all it is a natural biological function and everybody does it.  However, it is a major, major, major faux pas to let out a tiny bubble of gassy air or a little poo-poo. Who got to decide this was a no-no? I have spent a few painful moments waiting for a restroom to empty  (and you can wait forever for a WalMart bathroom to empty.) 

I bet men don't have these problems.

God watches out over fools and idiots

Found myself doing the silliest thing the other day.

I know, hard to believe I would do something silly. Totally out of character for me.

 Look at the pic below and see if you can figure out where this is going.

 

This is a three foot section of our Laundry/Pantry/Storage Place to put any other junk we don't know what to do with but we better save it just in case we might need it one day room.

 (Nothing to do with the post but I do like the way Hubba Hubba's brown shoes

 look like they are floating in this pic.)

 The item I'm going to discuss is the pair of  white Reeboks on the right under the high chair.

(Nothing to do with the post but  I think I have finally figured out the "keep it cause I might need it one day" purpose of this chair. I'm thinking about painting it and making it a time-out chair. We'll see where my good intentions take me.) And just in time because the chair is 28 years old.

 I do hope it's the oldest item in this room.

 The Reeboks are my fishing shoes. I always, always, always

 (because of my enormous fear of arachnids)

 pick them up, run my hands all the way in to check for spiders

 (cause the shoes stay out here for days without being used

 and would make a wonderful nesting sight for black widows),

 and then yank them onto my feet without untying the laces.

 Off we go fishing!

 

 I have done this for years. (not with the same pair of shoes; I do occasionally

 replace the old pair with a new pair of old shoes.

 I like that statement-replace the old pair with a new pair of old. Ha!).

 

 It dawned on me a couple of weeks ago that I was being so foolish.

  I bet you have already figured it out.

 It's only by God's good grace that a spider hasn't already bitten me on my finger

. Why would I try to protect my toes from a spider bite by offering the spider my fingertips?

Surely the venom from a bite would reach my heart and lungs

 faster from my fingertips than from my toes.  

 

It must be true that God looks out over fools and idiots.

 

I wonder what other actions I take to protect myself that are actually placing me in more danger?

Newest addition

Our newest addition  (even though you can hardly see her).

Having grandchildren never gets old.  Knowing this will be the last grandchild is bittersweet, but we have been blessed with the 6 sweetest and most beautiful grands in the world. And it's true that grandchildren keep you young. You take walks and look at butterflies and bugs and ants. You stretch up to see airplanes and birds. You run to be the first one to the potty. (you never win at this). You sing songs and act crazy and do funny faces and voices. You laugh with your teenage grands, take great joy in their accomplishments and pray, pray, pray for them.  Through the years we have constructed thousands of lego and tinkertoy thing-a-ma-jigs; only they know what they are building. And I've learned how to get down in the floor and play.

 (more amazing is the fact that I have learned how to get up off of the floor unaided).

 

Just like life being OK without kids; life is OK without grandchildren. But having grandchildren is like having kids; you can't imagine how you got along without them or what you did with all that love that is now theirs forever.

BURYING MY KILLER INSTINCT

A few weeks back my sweet Hunka Hunka and I went to Luverne

 (that's pronounced loo verne, not la verne) to have lunch with my sister. 

 

On an  aside: We can count this lunch as community service or a good Christian deed since she had spent several days in the hospital with her mother-in-law. (just in case God needs reminding of our good deeds and will reward us when we reach a certain level of points.)

 Yes, I know that joke might be offensive to some of you, but it was still a little bit funny.

 

Back to the story. My lovely sister picked Subway for lunch. Great choice; close by and you could have a sandwich or a salad.  We're chattering on and on and occasionally even letting Hunka Hunka have a say as we work down the line, choose our bread, choose our cheese, hot or cold? Then we notice the super slender, young, nose-earringed and in a tank top with tattoos in various places guy in front of us. He's ordered a footlong sandwich and is piling on everything in the display. That sandwich looked thicker than one out of a commercial. Seriously!  It was so thick the man fixing the sandwich could hardly close the top over. He could have definitely used some of those thick, thick rubberbands  to hold it together. Lovely sister starts a conversation with him. He must be hungry, going to eat lunch and dinner (cause they don't eat supper where she comes from)

 from one sandwich, etc. Da, De, Da, De, Da

 

On an side: I'm thinking he must be feeding a family of four somewhere and that's tells you how big the sandwich was because ya'll know I can eat humongous amounts of food at one sitting.

 

Back to the story: The nice young man replies back (and this is where I have to look way, deep down inside myself and find the strength to bury my killer instincts). He says it's all for him. He will eat the whole, entire sandwich himself at one sitting and be hungry again in less than TWO, yes, I said TWO hours. He will then eat again every two hours and probably wake up during the night hungry. He eats 5,000 calories a day, at least. He has a very high metabolism, he never gains any weight,

he wishes he could gain weight.

AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

 

On an aside: Now do you think it would have been wrong of me to kill him on the spot? Just swat him like a fly and grind him underfoot? I didn't know there were people with this problem out there and I sure as heck didn't know they considered it a problem!

 

Back to the story: We managed smiles (this was not hard for lovely sister as she is a much nicer person than the writer) as he left with his 7 lb. sandwich.  But I thought of this young man last night as I read this quote on Pinterest (and if you don't know what Pinterest is you have my sincere congratulations on being a person that actually does things instead of collecting pictures of what everyone else is doing. I have quite a collection of what everyone else out there is doing).

 

THE QUOTE: MEN THINK THAT ALL WOMEN WANT A GOOD-LOOKING SUPER RICH MAN TO MARRY. WHAT WE REALLY WANT IS TO EAT ALL WE WANT WITHOUT GAINING WEIGHT.

 

Can I get an Amen, sisters?



National Holiday

I haven't been on here in so long I am surprised it recognized me when I logged in. Even more surprising is the fact that I remembered my password.

Here's an idea I want to get the government and everyone else to push for:

NATIONAL DRAMA-FREE DAY!

Don't you think that would be great? Heck, let's  make it:

NATIONAL DRAMA-FREE WEEK!

My brain is in overdrive. I better take a break.

I have taken three "sister trips" with my 5 sisters and my sister-in-law. It's always a fun time.  Our husbands think we spend the time talking about them (either how stupendous they are or how inept they are). 

The truth is that we never talk about them, except to discuss their health. I just realized this the other day when we came back from Mentone, Alabama.

These are the topics we generally cover:

1. Who is constipated and who has the fastest moving bowels.

2. When and where to eat. (first night has to be a super tasty, out of the ordinary meal)

3. How much weight we have lost. How terrible it is that when we find our lost weight it 

    has made friends with extra pounds that it insists on bringing with it. 

This topic is covered during our "vacation meals."

These are super calorie meals that we claim we do not eat at home.

4. Who has the most things wrong with them. (other than our poop situation). 

5. When and where to eat. (Do we get cereal and eat breakfast in or do we go out again?)

6. What medicines we take for what is wrong with us.

7. Sleeping arrangements. This usually takes only an hour.

 (unless you stick the sister-in-law under an alcove on the smallest bed).

8.Who snores the loudest. (I am always a top contender)

9.When and where to eat.  (eat a big lunch and have sandwiches for supper or vice-versa). 

10. Whose turn it is to say grace.

11. How beautiful God made everything. 

(except for the Mobile trip; rain is only beautiful for one day)

12. The name of every flower or pretty plant we see.

13. Relative and classmates that have died, who is in trouble with the law,

      what's happening with our kids, our churches, the weather, blah, blah, blah,

(but it's fun, people)     

14. When and where we will eat. 

(Are we in a hurry to get home and want to skip a meal, do we

      really want to eat after the big snack we had,

do we go back to the place we really like or try something new..........)

It's a girl thang!

I sometimes wonder what our decendents in a couple hundred years will think when they look back on photos of our newest generation. They stand with their head tilted slightly to the side and their hand on their hip. It's kinda like the "Little Teapot" song without the spout.  It makes you wonder if  three friends have their pic made together if the middle person is secretly bummed out because she knows she will look older, plumper, dumber, or shorter. 

 It's also funny that it never crosses a guy's mind to pose to look better. He either has a fish hanging from his hands, or he's hanging out of a vehicle covered with mud, or he's on the beach sunburned with oily hair, or he's holding a canned drink raised to the sky, or he's standing straight up tall beside the girl posing with her hand on her hip.

I guess it's a girl thang.

Pants on the Ground

Pants on the Ground

Pants on the Ground

Call yourself a cool cat

With your pants on the Ground

My Grandbabe

Lessons Written Down

I was looking at one of my older Bibles today and found some good stuff jotted down in the back.

I am sure they all came from sermons I have heard.

I will share some of them and hope you like them, too.

     Christians are called to lead a supernatural life with Jesus.

Anybody can lead a regular life without Him.

    God is the great "I AM" -- not the great "I Was" or the great "I Will Be".

    We don't question our blessings - should we question our trials?

    God is shaping us here on earth with different, sometimes difficult circumstances

 to make us what He wants us to be when we're with Him in heaven.

    Let prayer be your first choice, not your last.

    Pray retail, not wholesale.

    God won't tell you what to do until you do what He has already told you to do.

   Do I "have to", or do I "get to", do it for Jesus?

   Who am I keeping from Jesus by my life?

Character is who we are when no one is looking.

The part of the Bible you believe is the part you do.

We can endure anything if we have something (heaven, in the believer's case) to look forward to.

Live your life so much like Jesus that your pastor won't have to lie at your funeral.

I should believe God more than the doubts and fears that Satan tells me. God said He will NEVER leave me or forsake me; He WILL supply ALL my needs according to His riches in Christ.

Grace is God not giving me what I deserve. Mercy is God withholding judgement on me.

Sometime healing comes slow, sometimes healing comes fast, sometimes it comes when we reach heaven. But to all who believe, it comes.

This world is not my home. My home's been made at heaven's throne.

This life is not my own. I am His and His alone.

Come now and walk with me; together we our Lord shall meet.

Nothing, absolutely nothing can separate me from God.

Let the waves roll; let the winds blow; let the lightning flash;

 cause Jesus is carrying us to the other side.

If Jesus was as picky and choosy about who He showed love and compassion to

as I am, where would I be?

Worth the effort?

It's Sunday and it's kinda been a busy day. I messed around too much this week and didn't get my Sunday School lesson prepared until last night. This is no small task; you better study your background material cause you will be asked questions that only  3rd or 4th grade child could think of. I also had to make a sample cross for the craft we were going to do, also.

Needless to stay, I worked through my sleepy time and it was after 3 am before I fell asleep.

Good news for me - only had to get up one time to go potty and only woke one time having to fling the sheets off of my hot body. (and I mean temperature hot, not bodacious hot).

Bad news for me - I finished my book and now have to find something new to read tonight.

So........that means my alarm was set for 8:15 so that I could get every last minute of sleep possible. Church starts at 9:30 so that gave me plenty of time to shower, makeup and dress and to get in one or two snippy remarks to Hunka Hunka.(a regular Sunday Morn ritual).  He leaves to pick up our Granddaughter because Grandson is sick and their Daddy will stay with him. He also has to stop and get gas because the low fuel light always decides to light up on Saturday night.

But I digress; back to my main subject.

I manage to get to church only 5 minutes late. We have a great Sunday School class - neighboring class brings us plates of birthday cake and chips and Sunny D.(and that is why the kids never want to move up to my class).  Much better breakfast than the little bowl of shredded wheat (who could eat a big bowl?) I consumed while putting on makeup. We have time to complete the lesson (fourth grade boys can usually interrupt numerous times - this week they had all been to the Rattlesnake Rodeo here in town, so you do the math on the interruptions we had today.) It's amazing how they can answer the review questions at the end of the lesson correctly every Sunday.

I digress once more; back to the subject.

We have a super wonderful worship service with testimonies and singing and just so great you hate to see it end. We get out around 12:30 and head over to the fellowship building for the children's Easter Egg hunt. (although we adults enjoy it, too).  Mrs. Carolyn always does a great job with the egg hunt.

This year each child found 6 eggs with letters on them that spelled E-a-s-t-e-r. They had to wait to open the eggs when they came back inside. They opened them one at a time and she explained the contents; all about the Resurrection. 

Here's a pic of a few of the precious kids waiting for the hunt to begin.

But I digress again - back to the subject.

I arrived home about 2pm. We have to be back at church at 4pm. Not much time - if I nap to make up for lost sleep I will not be able to sleep tonight. Besides, less than 2 hours is not enough time to start anything.

THE BIG QUESTION - with less than two hours before heading back out is it worth the effort to take off my shoes and bra and relax in style and comfort? 

Ladies, this is what we in the South call a no brainer. Yeck, yeah!  Oooh, Aaaah!

Putting on mascara

I think life is full of humor. I like it the most when it is someone else, but in this case it is me. I really should get someone to take a pic and post it of me putting on my mascara.

I have poor vision. OK, very poor vision.

An aside: I was hoping Emma would specialize in lasik surgery and help me out with this, but noooooo, she won't do it. Come on, Emma, what would it take; another 2 or 3 years of school?  It would work out great for me. I would probably be old enough for medicare to cover part of it by the time you completed your specialization. (Is that even a word?)

Back to the subject. I used to be able to put my makeup on without wearing my glasses or contacts. 
The vision became more impaired. I could see to apply my foundation and blush, but not my mascara. So I had to improvise. I perfected the technique of putting on my mascara with my glasses pushed a little ways down my nose. This gave me enough room for the mascara wand to do its job of making my whitey wisps into gloriously lush black fronds.

The vision became more impaired. I began to notice my foundation was on a little too heavy and the blush a little too bright when I would put my glasses on.  Hence, the contacts would go in and I would
put all my make-up on.  I discovered I needed to stop with the black fronds and try a more natural brownish color. (if brown can be considered natural on white eyelashes. I think it can because my hair is turning darker on the underside in the back and everyone thinks I just dye the top layer of my hair, so brown could be my natural color, right?)

The vision became more impaired. So I improvised. I bought a mirror that magnifies about 20,000 times.  I put on my glasses, find my contact case, take out the first contact, get it on the end of the right finger, take off my glasses, get the magnifying mirror and put in my contact. I can then see the case and can get the other contact in. Whew!

An aside: I can't tell you the number of times I have taken out my contacts, put my glasses on and found out I completely missed the contact case. I used to put the contacts in and screw the lid shut before I put on my glasses. This resulted in a contact being caught in the threads and being rendered unusable. A missed contact case is much better than a shredded contact.

Back to my subject.
 Next I put on my foundation and blush, pick up the mirror again and check for caked foundation and blushy bright spots. After this is corrected, I put on my mascara. This is where it gets tricky. You have to hold the wand in the right hand and the mirror in the left, with the mascara tube facing outward between a victory sign you make with the left hand. (this is to make sure you don't cover the hair beside your cheekbone and left eye with brown mascara. And you will hit your white hair every time with this glop if you hold it between your thumb and pointing finger. Trust me on this.)  Then you take a Qtip and get all the mascara you have smeared right above your lid line. (Something else I found out I was doing when I started implemented the magnifying mirror technique).
I am a bit worried. If my vision becomes more impaired I only have a few options.

1. Go without any makeup and risk scaring everyone I meet.
2. Hire a live-in makeup artist to put on my makeup. 
3. Growing my hair over my face.
4. Going with no makeup, no glasses, no contacts and having Bob lead me around everywhere.

Number one would not be conducive to a good self image.

Number two would be somewhat expensive.

Number three I am working on.  My hair, when combed to the front will hang to my chin. It is hot under there and I shed like a shetland pony.

Number four - Hunka Hunka would probably tell me I needed a service animal and would supply me with a wolverine or something else that I would think was a dog, but in reality was an animal that seeks out the weakest (in this case the blindest)  in a group to kill and destroy.

I think I better started taking Ocuvite and eating a lot of carrots.

Family Pics

 FAMILY

May God bless this family

and the love and laughter we share.

Family is my only treasure on this earth.

Our first son, Michael, and his wife Sherry



Our first grandchild, beautiful Brooklyn

           

Our second grandchild, handsome Brady



Our fourth grandchild, Pretty Layne



Our third grandchild, cutie pie Andrew



Our second son, Matthew



Our fifth grandchild, sweet Adelyn



Our first daughter and third child, Jessica, and her husband Jarrod
(and baby #2 hidden inside)

To God Be the Glory

For His Wonderful Goodness

to Me and Bob.







Miracles Still Happen

I have been married 33.5 years. Some people think that is an amazing accomplishment and I guess it really is considering who I am married to.  Ha! Ha! Ha!   People who know me well also know that Hunka Hunka of  Burning Love is the one who gets the credit for the longevity of our marriage. Although I can remember asking him when he popped the question if he was sure and I told him I was a b*#*h and very selfish; selfish with his time, not with money and possessions. So he was forewarned.  And I did  tell him it was forever because it was a vow with God unless he cheated on me; and I explained the repercussions to particular body parts of his if this occurred. In my family we know that 33.5 years is child's play. My parents and sisters have far exceeded this total.  That said,  marriage itself is fairly easy if  you love, love, love your Hunka Hunk like I do mine. Love forgives much.

But all that is way off the subject I want to talk about tonight.  My husband has told everyone how I think he is a god because when we first met I kept putting burnt offerings in front of him.  I have repeatedly over the years tried to make biscuits. This is something I could do very well as a teenager - I don't know what happened when I moved from home.  Sweet Hunka Hunka has literally thrown my knots of bread (an attempt at biscuits that went really bad) against the wall and they didn't crumble or break. He threw them outside to the dog and the dog sniffed and walked away!  At times I have gone years in between attempts. 

Tonight I tried again, and while they were not pretty by any means, Hunka Hunka deemed them delicious. I warily tried one and when I broke it open it smelled like my Mama's biscuits!  So I put a bite in my mouth and this time I was able to eat the entire biscuit; with only butter. (and this time the butter was used to enhance the flavor, not disguise it).

So here is a picture of a miracle that is over 30 years in the making.

Whoop! Whoop!

Church Kids

This is what I spend my Wednesday nights doing.  I don't know what age boys start to hate having their picture made, but it sure isn't the 6 - 8 years old sector of humanity.  After years of teaching I can only surmise that  every boy in grades 1 - 3 are natural-born comedians.

And the child below in the cap is from my Sunday morning class.  However, I can't take the credit for this. It was taken at our Kid's Christmas Party.  When future girlfriends are shown this pic, he will not be able to blame it on Miz-a-Ree.

That's actually what the little beginners used to call me. They tried to say "Mrs. Marie" and it just came out "Mizaree".  On rare days, the title was quite appropriate; misery was there. But helping the kids at church grow spiritually over the years has been one of my greatest blessings.  It's absolutely amazing how much kids can understand about God.........

And, yes, this is another one of my boys on Sunday morning. I did not give him whatever that is he's trying to blind himself with. But if I could think of a way to integrate it into the lesson I would most definitely do it.