End of an Era

I confess to very mixed feelings about this.  My ball team is not going to have a ball team this year.  I have been with these boys since 2006.  I know they are getting older as I have mentioned before.  And the truth is it is getting harder to field a team due to various health issues among them.  And yes, I know with my dual citizenship it would be more difficult to keep up with the team than in years past.  However, with all that, I am going to miss these boys.  I am going to miss being on the ball field with them.  I am going to miss their wives.  They have been so good to me over the years but as in all the other things I find myself facing as I get older, life goes on.  I will miss them.  I will miss the camaraderie of the ball field and I will miss seeing dear friends.  As they are not fielding a team this year unless I get recruited by another team this will be the first year since oh, 2002 that I have not been to Raleigh for Sr. games.  I am going to miss this.  Another way that time marches on.

Jr. Horse Trader

I picked my grandsons up at school yesterday and had a very enjoyable afternoon and evening with them.  Brought them home and as is the rule at Aunt Connie/Granny's, you do your homework the first thing when you get home.  We left my house at about 4:30 to go meet one of the sisters and then go see Mama.  (Now go see Mama is the right term because there is no going to visit Mama)  The plan was go see Mama then go eat supper.  We were going to a pizza buffet place that has a little game room.  I did not tell them where we were going and before we left I filled my pocket with quarters.  As these boys get older it really is awesome to sit back and watch the different personalities develop.  Thing 2 had went with me the last time that I went to see her and he told her before he left that the next time we came he would bring his brother with him.  This child really is just a gentle soul.  He is very comfortable in the nursing home environment.  Thing 1 used to be but as he is getting older, not so much anymore.  I can understand and appreciate this.  We walk into Mama's room and Thing 2 walks up to her and hugs her then tells her, "Tristan is here, Mamaw, I told you I would bring him and I don't fib".  A little bit later the lady across the hall who is 100 years old rolled over to the door and he goes to hug her just like he did the last time.  Both boys visited with her and when she became upset, (another story) they both hugged and loved on her till she forgot what she was upset about.  (As a side note this child is 6 years old and when we left he told her that the next time he came he would bring his Mama and Daddy.)

We left and went to the pizza place and after they ate I divided the quarters between them.  It was about $5.00 each.  Thing 1 wins a stuffed animal in the 'grabber' machine and brings it to show it to me.  Let me stop here and share a couple more incidents with this child.  He is a wheeler dealer.  Always looking to put  a deal together.  He got in my truck one Sun. morning for church and was showing me  a bracelet he had made of paracord.  I asked him how much he was going to sell it for.  He replied, $6.00 but you can have it for $3.00.  WTH?! And no I did not buy it, told him to sell it to somebody else that he could get the 6 for.  About a month ago he had some stickers in church that he put on a sheet of paper, priced them, and came up with he had $14.00 worth of stickers.  After much haggling I paid him $3.00 for them.  I even heard the words out of his mouth $5.00 and we will split the difference.  At that point I told him his Uncle Gerald would be so proud.  Now this kid has made $3.00 on something that he had absolutely NOTHING invested in because I gave him the sheet of paper to put them on.  Let me correct that, he had about 5 minutes of time in it.  Which brings me to last night.  He shows me this stuffed animal and tells me, I kid you not, "Look what I got Granny, you can have it for a dollar."  I told him that I had just give him about $5.00 to win the blooming thing with there was no way that I was going to invest another dollar in something that I already had 5 in.  Followed by again, 'Your Uncle Gerald would be so proud.'  Suggested to him that he give it to his Mama for Valentine's Day.  He took it home and did just that.  On the way home he tells me that he is going to work with me when he gets older, not in insurance, not in the store, but he is going to help me sell horse stuff.  I think he might have a future.  His Uncle Gerald would be so proud!

Ponderings

It is a for the most part a calm quiet Sat. morning which allows for the mind to ramble and wander.  Yeah, I know that can be a very scary thing.  I find that on quiet mornings like this it is almost like a rewind of the previous week and sometimes longer.  It just a good time for remembering and reflecting.  It is those moments of reflecting that I find myself thinking about a menagerie of things but not the decisions that have to made or the things that need to be done but aren't.  I have been pondering on several things this morning, kind of a rewind if you will. 

I called to mind a conversation this week with my sister-in-law.  Just for clarification this was the lady, and she is in every sense of the word, that lived with my brother in OK.  They did not have a government contract for their union but she will ever be my sister-in-law.  I feel a kinship with this woman.  She asked me if there were any more dates with the potential new man.  I told yes indeedy there were.  This lead to a conversation between the two of us about how different dating is at our ages.  During this conversation I shared with her that this journey of widowhood that I have been on for 3 years, 4 months, and 18 days (but who is counting) has been a good time to get to know me again.  It has been a time of rediscovery and the conclusion that I have come to is that I like me.  I like that I am a work in process.  I said for a long time after Bobby died that I never intended to remarry or even get seriously involved with anyone because I never wanted to put myself in a position to ever, ever hurt that way again.  But, as previously mentioned time does help.  I am at a point in my life now that it is hard to imagine spending the rest of my life alone.  Am I husband hunting?  Nope.  However, I do have a conviction that when the time is right, things will work out as they are meant to.  But yeah, the consensus between the sister-in law and myself is that we like me.

In reference to this journey of menopause, I still say that I am in some stage just not sure which one.  Had a hot flash this week that even had sweat running down my socks.  Not fun, not fun at all!  And, keeping the fore-mentioned consensus in mind, I will confess that there are times with the hormones in flux that I feel like a grade A bitch.  Most folks will never know how hard I work not to unleash that beast!  Fortunately she doesn't come around that often.  With that being said at those particular times I DON'T LIKE ME!

One more short note.  All of ya'll know how much I enjoy a good laugh!  If you don't you ain't read enough on here!  Went to my friends Dean and Elaine's last night to just hang out for a bit.  She and I got tickled and after that it seemed that almost everything was funny.  I am talking about bent over double, take the glasses off to wipe the tears, take a deep breath and do it again laughing.  Sometimes you just need it!  As mentioned previously a good cry is necessary sometimes but I will always say there is as much healing in laughter as tears and a good laugh is good for the soul!  Have a fantabulous day.  I have a date later today that I am looking forward to!  TTYL

Nobody Cares

As I may or may not have mentioned before I sometimes do the children's message at church.  Sunday morning I was on Facebook and saw something that gave me an 'ah, ha' moment.  I sent Janelle a text and asked who was doing the kid's church, her or the other girl that helps.  It was her so I asked can I do it this morning which was fine with her.  You see our niece who just turned 10 was down this weekend and was going to church with me on Sunday morning.  This niece belongs to the brother who died in Sept.  When she was down here at New Year's we had a long talk that I won't go into here but the synopsis of it was that nobody seemed to understand how hard the past year had been for her, that nobody seemed to care, and she just didn't understand.  I tried in my own feeble way to assure her how loved she is, how even though it doesn't always seem like it that there are people who care and that no matter what God always cares and is there for us.  To follow is the message I did for kid's church and I think you will see why I was compelled to do this on Sunday morning knowing this niece would be with me.  Not to be boastful about it but we talked about it later in the day and she did seem to take some comfort in it.  Ya'll have an awesome day and it is my prayer that this will help you also in those moments that you get discouraged.

Nobody Cares

Have you ever felt like nobody cares? You may be going through some things and it just seems like nobody is interested or has time for what you are dealing with. I can ask the adults the same thing and the fact of the matter is at some time we all feel that way. We each get caught up in our own lives sometimes that we forget to show compassion, sympathy, or empathy toward others. We forget that other people have problems too just like they forget that we do. I want to share some scripture with you that shows that no matter what people do or don’t do that God is always there, He always cares, and He loves us more than we can ever understand.

1. Every day God thinks of you. Psalm 68:19

“Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Se’lah.”

2. Every hour God looks after you. 2 Thessalonians 3:3

“But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.”

3. Every minute God cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7

“Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”

4. Because every second He loves you. Jeremiah 31:3

“The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved you thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”

And then I am reminded of one of my favorite verses that I call to mind when there are things that I just don’t understand. Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

So when we are facing things that just don’t make sense to us and feel like nobody cares. Just remember that God has a plan, God’s plan is perfect, and that there is never a time that He is not with us, doesn’t care about us, and doesn’t love us.

Prayer thanking God for his love, mercy, and grace.

Do the Math

Good morning all of ya'll!  One year ago today I looked at my blog stats and had just had my 1000 view.  Why, I even did a post about it.  Looked this morning and the count is now 4650.  Is that not just awesome!!!  So if you do the math that averages 10 views a day for the past year.  Thank all of ya'll!  You have come back to read even during those times in the past year that I went weeks without writing.  That pleases me that you are interested enough to come back and look again.  As has been documented last year was difficult to say the least but, also as documented this year so far is showing potential to be better.  Part of it is attitude I am sure.  As you have heard me mention in the past, life is all about choices.  I still choose to try to find the good in every situation, granted sometimes you have to look a little harder but trust me it is there.  I mentioned to the potential new man the other day that I had counted my blessings and could only come to one conclusion.  The scales are tipped very heavily in my favor.  He commented that he was glad that I was feeling so good and wished that he did but he was just tired.  My reply was that I didn't say I wasn't tired and my arthritis was hurting but I chose not to let it win!  My niece is sleeping soundly this morning and we will start getting ready for church here shortly.  Will stop and pick up the grandsons so they can spend a few more minutes with each other.  Its gonna be a good day, I can feel it commin' on!  (that is a line from a song).  Thank all of ya'll again, looking forward to seeing the count next year!

As I Have Mentioned Before

I really do love and appreciate a sense of humor and to be perfectly honest I enjoy a good laugh at my own expense.  Saturday afternoon I had several errands that required a short road trip and I asked my friend Elaine if she wanted to ride with me.  She was able to and we took off about 2 in the afternoon.  There was not one single place that we went to that we did not get at least one good laugh.  To give you an indication we almost came to the conclusion that our first stop should have been for Depends!  There are people that pay really good money to go to a comedy club that did not get to laugh the way we did!  I finished the day off with a good laugh also!  I was puttering around the house and looked at what I thought was the clock and it showed 9:29, I thought.  Decided I was just going to go on to bed.  Did my night time ritual, one last cigarette for the night, go to the bathroom, brush what little enamel is left on the teeth, put my pjs on and crawled in the bed.  Now my cell phone stays on all the time (that is the number the nursing home has) so I leaned over to plug my phone in the charger and it lit up.  The time was 8:37.  Yeah what I thought was the time at 9:29 was actually the radio station 92.9.  After a good laugh about it I said to heck with it, I am already here, picked my book up, read a few pages and went on to sleep.  Reader's Digest nailed it when they said laughter is the best medicine.  Have a fantabulous day!

It Is All Good

The date went well for those of you who might be interested.  I would best describe it as a pleasant evening spent getting to know each other.  Dating is just so different at this age.  I know that numerically I am soon going to be entering the "golden" years of my life but my mind just cannot wrap itself around that.  There is just too much life left to live.  I did set 2 goals yesterday.  1st is that for my 54th birthday (yeah that would be the next one) I am going para-sailing.  The 2nd is that on my 55th I want to do a tandem skydive.  I have mentioned before I want to live and experience life not just watch it go by.

On a humorous note, I have chuckled several times today about this.  Dumbass and I were discussing outdoor toilets and I will not go into the full conversation but I mentioned that growing up we had a 2 seater.  He asked was there a wall between and I answered no, just a two-seater.  His response was, 'damn, no wonder all ya'll are so close'.  As I said I have chuckled several times over that.  Yep, that could explain it, but probably not.

All of ya'll have a great day.  Got several errands to run.  TTYL

I Can Not Decide

That I can't decide something, might to those of you who do know me, come as a surprise.  Let me 'splain it to you.  I have a date tonight.  First date that I have had in, oh, a little over 6 months.  Remember I told ya'll after New Year's Eve it had potential.  Well we have talked and texted daily since New Year's Eve and are going out tonight.  Told my friend Elaine this afternoon that this is just sad to be 53 years old and excited about a date.  She did remind me that I ain't dead yet.  What I can't decide if this nervousness I am feeling is sad or cute.  I mean really!  I still have 35 minutes before he gets here and I am showered, lotioned, make-uped (well to the extent that I get) and have all but brushed the enamel off of my teeth.  I find this rather humorous!  I am sure there will be an update to this.  Wish me luck all of ya'll!

I Strive For This

 

 

I sometimes have to remind myself of this.  And then when I do stop to remember sometimes I am overwhelmed by the truth of it.  Have a fantabulous day!

It Has Potential

The new year that is.  We are 4 days into the new year and so far it has been very good!  I did bring in the new year and with a bang I might add.  I had planned to bring in the new year with my friends that I mentioned before.  And I did but with a twist.  I love this couple!  About 3:30 on my way down the road we talked and she told me that they had been invited to a party and it was my call if we wanted to stay at their house with the porch party that we had planned or go to the party.  I told her I was fine with going to the party that I liked to meet new people and it would be fine if she was sure the host did not mind.  She assured me that it would be cool.  As we were leaving her house I asked what was the possibility of meeting my next husband or just someone to keep company with at this shindig.  Well the possibility was there.  I had a ball!!!!!!!!!!!!  I got to dance like I have not danced in years and it was great.  A good bit of shagging, the twist, and yes a few slow dances.  I did meet a gentleman that we will see but we have talked every day since and will probably go out next weekend when I am back down south.  There is a concert at a night club in Charlotte that I had wanted to go to on the 8th but could not find anyone to go with me but last night my son-in-law knew someone who had tickets and is going to babysit so my daughter and I are going to this concert Tues. night.  How cool is that?  Then today when I get home I got some news that I have been waiting for 6 months to see if it would be good or bad and it was way better than good.  So yes, the new year has started off great.  I am posting this and then may very well just go to bed.  I am excited about this year so far.  We never know what each day holds but I was deliriously happy to give my family some good news today.  Almost to the point of being giddy.  I am sensible enough to know that every day or even every week can't be like this but it is a damn good start.  TTYL