Erma Bombeck still stands as one of my favorite authors.  She could easily have done story-stand up comedy with her exquisite way of looking at life, and especially how she shared little bits of her own life as illustration.  One of her books is: If Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries, What Am I Doing In The Pits?  I cannot think how many times in my life I could easily relate to that title and thought.

As I contemplate what and if I will try my hand at writing again, and I look back at some of my partially written works I recognize comedy has always been some part of my work.  Even working on a murder mystery, I seem to add in something light-hearted here and there.  Life can seem inordinately harsh without finding and expressing our sense of humor.  At funerals when we are at our lowest, humor often comes to our rescue

When I've been at my most serious, is when I've probably been at my most stress-filled.  Solutions don't come then, generally just a round-robin of how many ways things will only get worse. I see that rehearsal of misfortunes as our greatest hindrance to true peace of mind.  As I read about and study health and how best to achieve it, getting out of stress is Number One on the docket.  And, of course, it's in the very act of struggling to find our way out of stress that we bring on more stress.  Not a good way of dealing.

Not sure where this post is leading, but I can tell the writer in me is wanting out of her box.  I've been playing with the notion of joining a writing class again at Writer's Village University just so I'll have assignments with due dates.  I've always been a writer needing the discipline of a publishing date to keep me going and on track.

Ah, at my age the one thing I know about me is if I have recurring thoughts, they eventually materialize.  It's that Divine Spark of Creativity in me (and in all of God's children), that just has to show up or we go by the way of the grave.  We either grow and thrive, or we shrivel and die.  Creative creatures must create or chaos ensues creating entropy.

So let there be light.  I look forward to my creative process and its outcome.

It's that time of the year . . .

Hark the Herald Angels Sing . . . Ah no, it's not Christmas, it's April 23, and Earth Day is officially behind us. But I have to admit, it's been so long since I posted a blog, I feel like I've been lost out of time and space. Perhaps I can re-establish my desire to write short stories by committing to my Rocking Chair Ruminations again.

By-the-way, it wasn't until I wrote "Hark the Herald Angels Sing . . ." that I once more realized the significance of "herald". Angels are, by definition, messengers, but these were heralding the great news of our new born king--what an honor, what a task they were given, to let the world know God was now with Mankind in a way He had not ever been before--He had laid aside His position in the god-head, and took on flesh. And when He finally cried out from the cross "It is finished" and on the third day arose and ascended to Heaven to present His blood on the altar--there was from that moment on through all eternity, a Man in the God-head! Hallelujah! Well, that was worth writing this blog today--made me pretty happy.

I have my dear friend, Dreamweaver (http://northstardreamweaversweb.blogspot.com/), to thank for the inspiration to post a blog again. Hopefully some of you will look up her blog and begin to follow her adventures in life and share your comments.

God is good, All the time; All the time, God is good--if it's good, it's God!

Spring has sprung . . .

Spring has sprung
The grass has riz,
I wonder where
The flowers is?

Not sure how well known that little spring verse is in your part of the world, but when I was growing up in the fifties, Iowa, it was a big spring time hit. You would hear it often recited by as many adults as children while they chatted over fence lines and clothes lines on some of those first warm sunny spring days.

And today, as I sit here working at my laptop, the sound of our riding mower and that of our neighbor’s riding mower, are humming away outside my open window. So nice to have the windows and doors open, airing out the stuffiness of a long hard winter. The lilacs are working on blooming--they’re just beginning to “show”, and I’m sure before the weekend is over, their fragrance will be wafting through the house carried on these gentle spring breezes.

All the apple trees, including the Crab apple trees, have been in bloom for part of a week or so. If you go anywhere near them, their scent will intoxicate. Funny how they don’t quite “broadcast” as the lilacs do. However, if you’re out driving with the windows open, once in a while, when you’re passing a large grove, their fragrance will sweep through the car, and your head will immediately turn in their direction, and you will be rewarded with the sight of their white and pink blossoms en masse along a hillside.

Mm, the smell of freshly mown grass has just gotten up to my second-story window. All that mowing is paying off in olfactory delight. For my dear hubby, all of it amounts to heading straight to his antihistamine supply. But for me, it fills me with sensory delight, and memories of a very happy childhood sprawled out on a blanket in our big backyard, watching the clouds roll by. Nothing quite like the contentment that would come from spending a lazy spring day soaking in the warmth of the sun after a winter of little sun, and being bundled to the hilt to stay warm.

I do believe my outdoor flower pots are calling. Today will be a good day to head to the local nursery and pick out my tomato plants, some flowers for my big barrel pots and some to line the garden path borders. Once home I’ll get last fall’s residue of late coming weeds and this spring’s early weeds out of the garden spots around my house. And I can work up the flower pots so they’ll be ready to plant tomorrow.

Ah yes, Spring has sprung, and I know exactly where the flowers is! Ain’t it grand!

Life's Little "oops" . . .

I’m not sure if it’s my age, “the” age we live in, or . . . ? But it seems in the past few years there have been more “surprises” thrown at me.

I know some of it has to do with the age of my mother, and her going in to a nursing home. All those little Life surprises that my two young sons used to bring into my day, have now been replaced by all those little surprises my almost 99 year old mother seems to add. This week, on Monday, bright and early, I received a call they were taking my mom via ambulance, to the hospital. That sent me into a scrabbled morning as I tried to cancel and/or re-arrange MY Monday, and get going on the road to cover the over hour drive to the hospital, so I could be there with her.

And that is kind of how the rest of the day went. There was a lot of hurry up and wait, of course, once you’re in the E.R. and they’re working through tests to determine what’s up. As I entered the E.R. room one of the blood lab technicians was working to get three vials filled with Mom’s blood. Mom is a tough one to find a vein, so the gal was having problems as they’d already started an I.V. in Mom, and that was her one fairly “good” vein. I walked in the door, and as Mom looked up and realized it was me, she let out with, “Thank God you’re here, they’re trying to kill me.”

She had already endured being temporarily catheterized, simply to get a urine sample, which later she sat on the bed pan and could have freely given them all the sample they needed SANS the invasive procedure. I tell you folks, it’s not a good idea to be in the hospital without someone “healthy” and vocal with you--they just take over and do things to their heart’s desire, and you’re just “at their mercy” so-to-speak.

It was finally determined she had pneumonia, and they admitted her into the hospital--and, of course, there went the rest of the day. And there went the next day, and the next. Gratefully she is responding very well to the antibiotics, and they determined they could switch her off the I.V. administered antibiotics and put her on orally given medication. That meant she could go back to the nursing home today. And that meant all the things I was suppose to be doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and today, are being done TODAY as best I can get to them. Needless-to-say, some of it will be finished up tomorrow along with the “usual” Friday venue.

I’m grateful it wasn’t a bigger Life “oops” and that Mom is responding to the treatment very well. I’m grateful that other than being inconvenient driving the two plus hour round trip three times this week, spending money on gas that was not in my weekly allowance, and eating out with funds NOT in my budget NOR in my “allowed” food’s list, things weren’t any worse, and it’s all been covered.

I really need this weekend to be peaceful. I could stand to take the weekend “off”--but I see that spring has finally sprung and the grass is growing up, up, up. Translated, that means I’ll be spending a great deal of Saturday astride my trusty lawn tractor, mowing a fourth of our town (well, our family members own a fourth of the town, so I’m the one who mows all of our properties). I’ll be singing at the top of my lungs as I merrily buzz along. It is just as good if not better than singing in the shower! And in truth, it will probably feel pretty darn good being outdoors instead of sequestered in a hospital room as I was much of this week.

Viva la Oops! As I live through them, I become stronger--well, at least I become more grateful for all the non-oops days.

What was that . . . ?

This morning, April 28th, I got up, headed downstairs and went to the kitchen. Outside were three of my four dogs, all looking at me through the French doors with rather sad puppy dog eyes. My DH had evidently let them out, but had gone off to other chores, and now they looked very cold and weary of all the “fresh air”--time to come in.

As I opened the door and stepped adroitly aside so as not to be run over by the horde, my attention was drawn to the skies--what was that? It was snow--only a few flakes flitting about--but what in the world . . . This is April, no time for snow, not even a few flakes!

We have been having some fairly decent temperatures. However, the extreme amount of rain has been making streams and creeks over-flow their banks, flooding fields, flooding parks, and then glutting the larger rivers like the Mississippi River turning them into muddy roiling messes.

But today, after putting up with all the wet mess, we have to put up with snowflakes. Granted, they haven’t amounted to anything (I’ve been told they did accumulate up in Minnesota, which is a very good reason NOT to live that close to Canada). However, let me say, when I’m figuring out where to put my new blueberry bushes, and whether I want to put in a new section of garden this spring, I do NOT want to see snowflakes. I’m really done with winter--really truly deeply earnestly DONE with WINTER and any sign of it.

Oh yes, and if snowflakes flitting about wasn’t insult enough, I had to put on warm clothing today before I left the house. I had already broke out my Capri pants--my short-sleeved shirts--my light-weight socks. I had put the snow scraper in the trunk of the car and had thought seriously about bringing my spare coat and my gloves back in to the house for summer storage. And they say tonight will be a hard freeze--please, enough already with the cold.

For those of you living where the trees are fully leafed out, where the flower buds are beginning to make their appearance, where you actually have flowers not just poking their stems up out of the ground, but flowers blooming, ENJOY all of it. Just the minute it gets to Iowa, I intend to drink it all in and relish every moment of it--right up until it turns humid and sticky and sultry and bugs are every where and you can’t sit outside in the evening because the mosquitoes will drain you of your life’s blood . . . Then I’ll be missing those little snowflakes I suppose.

Country Folk and the Big City

There’s a great concert going on in Chicago April 30th. It’s suppose to take place at the Navy Pier Grand Ballroom--on the Lake front downtown Chicago from what I can tell on the map. It looks like an amusement park of sorts, and the event is in the ballroom at the end of the pier.

I really wanted to go. I probably had enough warning that I could have secured some pretty decent seats, up close where I most enjoy being in a concert. Money for gas and food and lodging would have added significantly to the cost of the event--but it’s a group of performers I would truly like to see LIVE. AND, it’s going to be video-taped, so eventually when I would buy the DVD, I would know that I had been there in person and witnessed the entire event. How cool!

HOWEVER, in the paper recently, as in as recent as this past weekend, there were something like 26 shootings in Chicago. And that, according to the article, is NOT unusual there in the area. They cited how many shootings there had been in the past couple weekends--all double figures. The shootings were not all in one place--they sounded over-all gang related, yet it was not only gang members that were the victims.

I understand I’m a country gal, so I’m not a big city fan--but really, why would I seek out going to a place where they have THAT kind of thing going on regularly? I know there are a lot of great events going on in Chicago--many of them I could see me wanting to take part in. BUT, why would I put myself in that kind of danger? Is there really nothing that can be done?

The article, if I remember correctly, quoted a police officer as saying there were just too many guns in the area for anything effectively being done to curtail the shootings. When I finished reading the article, my impression was: too bad about it, but we can’t do anything to really get it stopped, so this will no doubt continue, and probably escalate.

Is that acceptable? Is that attitude acceptable? I know I’m Miss Small town and Rural Girl’s poster child--but I just can’t believe big city folk would be willing to accept that kind of response considering this is where they live, work, recreate, and function daily. Is it true that NOTHING can be done?

Anyway, I’m not going to my big event. They will come somewhere else I can get to without thinking my life is at stake to see them. In this world today I understand there are always risks being out in public anywhere, even Small town U.S.A. However, there are cities that appear to be keeping their crime to a dull roar--where a person can go to an event and expect to live to tell about it. Color me old fashion, but I choose to believe the American public should expect better living conditions whether living rurally or in the big city.

NEW FACE

OK, it’s the same face I’ve had for a very long time--however, today I ordered new glass frames--and that is kind of like getting a new face. At least it will change my looks--kind of sort of . . .

I say kind of, because it amazes me how many times friends and family members have gotten new glass frames, and I’ve not noticed. This could be completely me, Miss Non-observant. However, I’m sure I’m not alone in this department. Am I?

Of course, there are some glasses that just draw your attention, whether they’re “new” or not. But many people I know that wear glasses really don’t try to have “outstanding” frames, but rather ones that blend in to their face, or at least don’t make a spectacle of their face (OK, I could have helped myself, but I didn’t--it was a blatant use of the word to elicit a smirk, giggle, chuckle . . .).

As a very pleasant young woman helped me with my frame’s choices, her first response to the frames I liked best was that they were “too large” for my face. She said that the top of the frame covered up my eyebrows. I told her if she’d look closely at my eyebrows, that wouldn’t be considered a bad thing. I also told her I have rather outstanding peripheral vision, and that small frames tend to stay in my sight and bug me as I’m attempting to look out at the world (not at the frames). I also thought the color went well with my hair (as in marble-looking white frames matching the increasing white mixed in with my past-prime brown/auburn hair).

AMAZINGLY, the store manager and prime sales person immediately began to see my point, and could see all my points as being VERY well-thought out. At her quick concession speech, I reached for my cell phone and called my cousin, who was elsewhere in the store shopping, to come give me HER opinion!

The first words out of my cousin were: “They go really well with your hair.”

I felt that was good confirmation, as I have to say my very first thought on trying on the frames was that they went well with my hair.

NOW, how good is it that frames match one’s hair? Is it a valid selling point? Possibly not a primary one, but then again, they were large enough NOT to affect my peripheral vision (you do remember that good point, right?). And did I add that they were from the Sophia Lorenz line of designer glass frames?

I have to say, as the conversation continued to come back to the size of the frames on my face, I finally had to let the young woman know, I have worn glass frames MUCH larger than these in my life. Back in the tortoise shell plastic frame days, I looked like I was wearing massive underwater diving goggles. And during the early sixties, the “wings” on my glass frames rivaled the “wings” on my dad’s car (fins they were called on the cars--but the affect of the sweeping upturned expanded metal was pretty equivalent on both the car and on the glass frames).

Of course, during the end of the sixties, the turn in design had been in large part due to John Lennon’s “granny glasses”--which were pretty much duplicates of Benjamin Franklin’s half-glasses I think. John had pink lenses in his, other people had blue, and yellow, and purple, etc.--but they were tiny and a direct revolt against the wings of the early sixties style. I had them too--no colored lenses, but they were barely large enough to look through--which must be true as I think they were forever hanging off the end of my nose and I looked over them more than through them.

And in a week, I’ll be wearing my spiffy new Sophia Lorenz designer glass frames that go with my whitening hair. You can see some of what’s left of my eyebrows, which are also whitening. I think I’ll be very happy--with the glass frames and my new face.