Let Us Be Thankful

I've experienced "writers block" again this week.  I'm not sure if there has been too much social media and Fake News or I'm running out of ideas!  All the same, lot's of thought has been spent to prepare for this week's tome.  My goal is to transfer my thankful heart into words.  This is Thanksgiving for heaven sake, so let's be thankful!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, hands down.  The expectations are few; no gifts to buy, not much in the way of decorations, just good old fashioned food and drink with friends who are dear.  Since my family is sparse and I rarely see them, the friends I celebrate the holidays with have become the family I choose.  The last two years in Seattle, I spent Thanksgiving with Mike and Jeannie and other friends.  We had such fun, Jeannie is a great cook and never failed to out do herself.   Mike and I still play Words With Friends, he wins more than I do but what the heck, he's a good opponent.  I'm truly thankful I have stayed in contact with them.  Thank you for your friendship!

This year Thanksgiving will be spent with old friends who were classmates and some new friends.  Jeff and Susan will be hosting us and the class of '73 will celebrate together.  As in the past, we'll all bring something to the table.  Mom's mashed potato recipe and my cranberry sauce will be my contribution.  I'm saving the cherry pie for Christmas.  My Boise family will be celebrating together with good food, plenty of football and hearty laughter.  Different this year yes but it will be wonderful in a whole new way.

So as I move us into the holiday season, let us be thankful.  What are you thankful for?  I'm going to list a few from my heart to yours.

1.  I'm thankful to be alive and I didn't as yet, get the dreaded Covid.  I know people who did,  a couple elderly folks sadly died because of the virus.  The rest thankfully survived with little or no problem.  A couple even had it and never had a symptom.  Praise God!

2.  I'm thankful for my former life in Seattle and the friends I left behind.  Jane and Jon, Toni and Joyce to name a few are forever in my heart.  Your love and support over these last few years will never be forgotten.  I miss you.

3.  I'm thankful for this year's life experience and the lessons learned.  I'm stronger, wiser and still in one piece.  I wouldn't trade one minute of the last two years.  There is a blessing here and I'm thankful.

4.  I'm thankful for my Boise home.  I'm thankful for the process I went through to buy it and I'm thankful it's the perfect place for me to rest my bones, heal my heart and start over again.  This little house has been the perfect gift for me.  

5.  I'm thankful for the new friends I made over the last two years.  These are dear souls and I'm so thankful they still want to continue a friendship with me.  I won't name them but if they read this, they'll know who they are.  I never wanted to infringe on the good intentions behind meeting them but all the same, I'm grateful and very thankful they continue to be in my life.

6.  I'm very thankful for Ginny, Wendy, Jeff, Susan and other SMHS friends I've reconnected with.  These Boise peeps are now family to me.  Thank goodness we all agree for the most part, like and respect each other.  Ginny has been my rock and I believe I've been hers over the last two years.  I can never, ever thank her enough for her ear when I blubbered and shoulder when I cried.  Bless you girl.

7.  I have old friends from the past still in my life that I am truly thankful for.  My girl Robin is another rock.  45 years later and we can pick up right where we left off.  Love you my dear friend.  What would we do without each other?

8.  I'm thankful for my sweet and lovely daughter.  I love you sweetie and wish you were going to be home more this year.  We will celebrate Christmas together with friends.  You have grown up and I've accepted that.  Life does move forward and growing up is part of change.

9.  I'm thankful for the parents and grandparents who gave me a loving home and guidance throughout my life.  You live in my heart and will forever.  

10.  Finally, I'm thankful I live in the United States of America.  Even though we're going challenging times that no one in their right mind would have ever imagined, we still live in the USA and for that we should all be thankful.

The Daily Word published the following affirmation and accompanying verse on November 26, 1942.  It still holds true today:    

             The spirit of Thanksgiving increases my good and fills my heart with gladness. 

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise.  Psalms 100:4

 

Happy Anniversary

Today's blog is a escape from last week's drama.  This is a love story of sorts, an honest account from my heart.  No sugar coating, just the real story.   So bear with me as I pay tribute to the man who gave me much more than a wedding ring and memories.  This is my thank you to my late husband who offered me the chance to live the dream, blessed me with the greatest joy I could ever have and the opportunity to begin again 26 years later.  

I'd been a career type girl you see, dated, played the field of sorts and enjoyed my life.  I was a hard working single woman, had a decent job and plenty of friends both male and female.  I wasn't too interested in getting married, I was self sufficient and completely at peace with my life.  I had just bought myself a small condo and was going to enjoy decorating it (something I love to do), settle in and wait for the next shoe to drop.  It did when one afternoon I needed to stretch, take a break and check on my team.  I don't normally drink coffee past 10am but that fateful day, I was desperate for a cuppa joe.  John was on the phone with a guy in my office.  They were reserve sheriff deputies together and I guess fixing a meeting schedule.  Something funny was said as I walked through the room and John asked Cliff if I was single.  One thing lead to another as it always does, and I was suddenly on speaker phone with him.  I guess looking back, I asked him out.  I had never asked a man out before but this afternoon I did.  We went out a couple of weeks later and never looked back.

John had been living with me in my condo when we found out we were going to have our little blessing, our bundle of joy.  I was not about to walk down the aisle looking 8 months gone so we quietly arranged a small wedding and there I was all the sudden married, a ring on my finger and decorating a baby's room.  Funny the path life takes, God's will of course and the dedication it took to hold our little family together through thick and thin. 

We went on for the next 19 years.  Marriage is no picnic, not a bed of roses or the sweet story we see in the movies.  It's takes hard work, dedication to a goal and a basic like and respect for one another.  We were friends who created a family together.  We were happy and content with life being what it was.  I did then and still now have a huge amount of respect for this smart, decent, funny and caring man.  Sadly neither of us really appreciated each other.  We were two very different people with different likes and dislikes. As it turned out, we weren't really that match made in heaven but we made it work.  We were friends.

When we found out John had pancreatic cancer, we were devastated, more for our daughter than us.  We had lived the seasons of our life together and this was our final season. Ten months from diagnosis date, John died. All day that last day, he had been looking in the corner above the Yankees clock, reaching for something that we couldn't see.  I was asleep on the couch next to his hospital bed, when he woke me up somehow.  He wanted to tell me he was leaving; woke Kristina as well.  He was still looking in that corner with outstretched arms.  At the end of his life, he had accepted Christ.  I like to hope it was Jesus's hand he took for the final journey home.  

Kristina and I have moved on now.  We are best friends, which is what her dad wanted. Life has changed in so many ways but the constants stay the same.  We miss him, his jokes, snide comments and love for the New York Yankees.  He'd be surprised I've been retired for 6 years,  living in Idaho and would enjoy talking planes and flight with Kristina's boyfriend Michael.  He would be teasing me for being a Seahawks fan, my love for the Dodgers and be complaining about my preference to like the house neat and clean.  We know however,  he's in his eternal home and at peace.   That's the blessing for us to hang on to.  So Happy Anniversary to you my friend and thank you for the life you gave and continue to give today.  XXOO

~For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven~                                       Ecclesiastes 3:1

God Bless America

As I sat this morning, pondering what I wanted to write about this week, I had so much on my mind but had no idea where to begin.  2020 The Year That Was is now becoming 2020 The Year We Lost America.  Do not scoff at me my friends, this is very real and me along with many of my friends, are in total agreement.  We all have become very concerned about the direction our beloved country is traveling.  We are concerned if our children and grandchildren will continue to enjoy the freedoms we grew up with.  What has happened in the United States of America this week, as I compose this blog, could be an attempted coup.  So, after careful thought and prayer, I decided this week I'd write about  America, the American way of life and America as a global leader.  

The United States of America was and is the greatest experiment ever created.  We are a free people, ALL of us, since 1865.   We've fought internal wars, global wars and became the peace keepers of the world.  The United States of America's people are the most generous, most compassionate most free thinking people in history.  Using our liberties, freedoms and God given rights, we have perhaps brought peace and prosperity to ourselves and to our friends throughout the world.

What happened this week is a travesty and nothing short of voter fraud, intimidation and frankly criminal intent.  Mal educated people believe that we live in a democracy, no we live in a Democratic Republic.  Mal educated, uninformed people believe that a corrupt old man with cognitive issues should become president.  Mal educated people believe that his running mate, a socialist, condescending, corrupt individual is appropriate to be vice president.  Her record in California speaks for itself.  Mal educated people believe that we should keep counting ballots until their side wins, even if dead people cast the ballot.  Mal educated people are becoming the norm in this country and want to lead us.  Mal educated people are bringing down our country and will crash it, willingly.  Sorry folks, this is a fact not fiction.  

I'd like to ask a question out loud, how does the side opposite of me justify all this?  How is the other side going to react when their old man steps down due to "health issues" and an avowed socialist becomes president?  How is the other side going to react when the current Speaker of The House (if she holds her seat) becomes the new vice president?  Probably with glee but the consequences will be drastic, un-sustaining and frankly folks devastating to our country and the world.  The state these two women represent is in a free fall, economically bankrupt and frankly folks, a Shit Hole.  Parts of the city of San Francisco are now slums with feces, urine and needles littering the streets.  Criminals run rampant in their state and businesses are escaping as fast as they can find a new home.  This my friends is what is going to run our country.  This my friends is the beginning of the end of the greatest experiment in the history of the world.  This my friends will be hard to ever recover from.

I'm very glad my parents, grandparents and those before them did not live to see America's destruction.  Many of my family were war veterans, starting back to the Revolutionary War (further back to Bacon's Rebellion).  These patriots fought for the same freedoms that are being given up so easily to socialism.  These patriots are crying in their graves now, knowing their own DNA voted for this garbage and support it.  These patriots along with others are heartsick and frankly angry at the destruction, that is foreseeable in the not so distant future.  

I don't mean to sound bitter but I'm angry.  Mal educated, complacent Americans have let this happen.  Mal educated, complacent Americans are not going to like the life they find so attractive.  Mal educated people really do not understand that what they support will turn the USA into Venezuela, Cuba or any third world dictatorship.  Mal educated, complacent Americans will be the first people to scream they can't buy toilet paper, staples for their pantries or fuel to run cars, trucks, planes and trains.  These same people will cry the blues when more businesses go under or move to states friendly to economic prosperity.  These same people will be crying when they can no longer worship God in their favored houses of worship.  These people have been deluded by destructive media propaganda, censored social media and left wing colleges with a left wing agenda.

So what can we do moving forward?  Wake up and look around and begin to understand that what you now have could be gone in the blink of an eye.  Wake up and understand that socialism is communism without a gun.  Wake up before your rights are gone and we live like zombies waiting to be told what to do next.   I woke up a number of years ago, long before it was cool to be woke.  I went to sleep for a short period but re-woke when the noise from the other side got deafening.  Wake up my friends, America is worth saving.  America, the greatest experiment ever created is the saving grace for world peace.  I pray in my heart; God Bless America.

Sunday July 4, 1965, The Daily Word's affirmation was: "GOD BLESS THIS COUNTRY AND ALL THE WORLD WITH NEWNESS OF VISION, GREATNESS OF SPIRIT, AND ABUNDANCE OF PEACE."    The words of America The Beautiful rang true then as it does today:

"O beautiful for pilgrim feet; Whose stern, impassioned stress, A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the Wilderness!  America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!"