Saturdays

Working folks in this part of the world look forward to Friday.  I enjoyed Saturdays, especially after I married.  As newlyweds, we often spent Saturday afternoons shopping.   After all, those were our gathering years.  Until we were married a year, we rented furnished apartments.  At the end of the first year, we moved into an unfurnished apartment.  We purchased a sofa, two chairs, and a footstool at Haverty's Furniture in Richardson, Texas.  Around the same time frame, we purchased a mattress and box spring from Johnson Furniture in McKinney, Texas.  That first anniversary weekend we purchased a dining set from Levitz Furniture in Dallas. We picked a bedroom suite from Harrington's in Plano, Texas.  After waiting for 3 months and still, nothing had arrived the order was canceled.  

Grandson #1 on table, 2007

Back in those days, there were newspapers filled with ads on the weekends.  We went to a favorite little store, Weir's, in Highland Park, Texas.  And there was the exact bedroom I wanted.  Hubby liked it, too.  Knowing the Johnson's carried the same brand we returned to that store.  Within a week we had the bedroom suite as well as the coffee and end tables to complete our little apartment home.  Except we still needed the accessories like lamps, pictures, and the bric-a-brac that most hubbies hate.  

The sofa, chairs, many of the original pictures are long since gone.  We do continue to use the coffee and end tables purchased 53 years ago.  Still have one of the original lamps purchased during the gathering years.  The dresser and armoire of the first bedroom suite still hold socks, undies, seasonal wear, and pj's as they have for the past 53 years.  Not the same socks, undies, seasonal wear, or pj's but what fits now.  And every time I dust and polish the pieces I enjoy them as much as the first time I did.   

circa 2006

Eventually, we quit shopping on Saturdays.  Work schedules had us on different shifts, even working on Saturdays.  Then came our son and the activities as he grew into a young college student.  Oh, the days of walking next to the band as it marched in all the local parades in the fall and again at Christmas.  While Hubby worked the weekend shift, I used the time to build our backyard garden.  With retirement came a realization, every day is like a Saturday.  

Wishing you folks a lot of good Saturdays and you live your life!

Peace and Love,

Janice

Windows Open

What a glorious couple of days we have had here in Central Texas.  Mild temperatures but more important, low humidity.  Our home is about 138 miles (222 km) from the shore of the Gulf of Mexico.  Surprisingly, that distance is short enough to give our area high humidity, above 70%, most days.  Add in temperatures in the 90 F, 35 C, and it can be pretty miserable outdoors.  Makes for frizzy hair, also.

Hubby and I discussed the temps and humidity and decided we could enjoy the pleasure of fresh air.  We had purchased and roll-down screen for our front door several years ago.  Good thing I purchased the style when I did as I cannot find one like it to post.  I could get off my duff and take a photo except this chair is surely comfortable.  The apartment has stayed cool even while I cooked dinner.

Today was haircut day.  The hairdresser's shop is a one-chair room so it is just the two of us.  Both of us have been vaccinated so we were able to talk without masks.  I still am challenged with my throat or something making it difficult for my voice to have much volume some days.  This was one of the days.  

Misti entertained me with tales of her recent vacation to a small lake in East Texas.  The property covered 580 acres (235 hectares).  The bungalow sat next to the lake and came with a dog.  Well, it was not noted that there would be a dog but it did run around the property.  There was even notice about Blue the dog in the bungalow.  "Blue is friendly, on a diet so, please, do not feed. "  Blue showed up almost immediately.  Misti became his favorite human.  When nighttime arrived, it seemed Blue wanted to come in for the night.  Misti and her hubby decided just to leave Blue outside.

The next morning Misti visited the main office to pick up the dune buggy they had rented she ask about Blue.  Seems as though each time there are folks at the Deer Lake Cabins Ranch, he picks his favorite human.  Misti had won the lottery of Blue for their visit.  Blue spent the remainder of the visit with Misti and her hubby.  Blue even went for a very early morning boat ride with Misti leaving her hubby by himself!  And there was even a very low fog on the lake making it so romantic!  Misti said her husband shook his fist and said, "Damn you, Blue!"  Then laughed loudly.

As nothing more exciting than we opened our windows, hope you enjoyed the tale of Blue and Misti.  It left me with a smile.  The haircut gave me a few ounces less hair to get fuzzy the next time the humidity goes up.

Y'all all stay safe.

Peace,

Janice

Updates

At the beginning of spring, I had posted about Sis #1 having to begin chemo.  Later a series of radiation treatments were required to stop bleeding that had developed.  The cancer was working hard to claim her.  There is great news.  Sis #1 has now had three PET scans.  Each scan has shown a reduction in the size of the tumor.  Fewer lymph nodes are showing to be affected.  This is amazing considering she was given just weeks to live without chemotherapy.  Is it the power of medicine or the power of prayer?  I do not feel it has to be either/or.  It is just a miracle for each day we have her.

Sis #1 on her 85th birthday.

In the same post, I mentioned our Adcock grandsons.  Grandson #1 has spent the summer months being a river rafting guide.  He has absolutely loved the job.  He will be moving into being a ski guide during the winter months.  Living on his own in a state two days drive from his parents.  He is a man now.  

Grandson #2 returned home from the 3 months in rehab.  Within just about 3 weeks he needed two different minor surgeries.  One of which was hernia surgery.  He is now in his 11th year in school.  Rather than going back to the same high school, he is now attending a small private school.  He played an American football game last Friday night.  It was homecoming.  And he now has a girlfriend.  He attends AA meetings to keep himself clean.  

#2 will do fine as he makes friends easily.  We are hopeful he has learned all the skills needed to control his impulses.  Impulses to fight, drink or smoke.  He did see a fellow player become aggressive on Friday during the game.  #2 helped to stop that player before things escalleted. 

Grandson #3 may have a touch of Asperger's.  He is really sensitive to touch and has some challenges socially.  He is soooo very funny.  His humor has a funky edge to it.  Last week we had picked him up from school.  I was having some trouble breathing so I was using my rescue inhaler.  It was taking some time for the inhaler to improve my breathing.  I was still coughing.   #3 who seldom gives hugs or much positive feedback just looked at me.  "Grandma, I need you to hang around for a few more years, please."  

#3 is the young man just outside the circle of kids.  He was attempting to engage with this group.  Hoping for the best as he, too, had to change schools.  Not that he needed to,  His mom id not want him attending the school where #2 was introduced to drugs.  

Bonus Granddaughter just had her 21st birthday.  She is carrying a 4.0 average in her 3rd year of college.  Bonus Grandson is in his final year of high school.  He is working during his spare time.  He is applying to different colleges.  Has already been accepted by two of them.  Neither is in Texas.

I do not know of any other subjects that need further updates.  Hubby and I are healthy.  Guess that's about all for now.  Oh, I did bake oatmeal and peanut butter cookies.  Hard to resist!

Peace,

Janice

Windows and Change

Today as well as the past several days have brought the feeling of fall to our area.  For this part of Texas the change is a drop of maybe 10 degrees F in temperatures.   The bigger change is the angle of the sun.  Our patio is next to an entrance to this building.  Apartments to the south are situated about 30 feet (9 meters) closer to the east.   With the change of the angle of the sun combined with the L shape, our patio is in the shade by around 11 AM.  As the days progress our patio will only have morning sun.

What does the season change have to do with windows?  Nothing, in a word.  It just seems as seasons change it is time for cleaning.  Starting last Friday I decided blinds, bedroom windows, patio doors, and transom windows needed cleaning.  And did they ever!  I ran out of Windex for the windows before the task was completed.  Tuesday the refill came with the grocery order so I was back at it today.

In the area of the transom, there are collections of mundane glassware.  Canning jars used by my MIL.  Bottles of glacier water from the Athabasca Glacier in Canada.  Glass milk jugs.  A couple of glass insulators.  Granny Chandler's glass snuff jar.  Three wind chimes.  Lovebirds were a gift to my parents for their 50th wedding anniversary.  One small cruet from Uncle John Chandler's homeplace.  All those items were covered in dust, too.  

It is evening and I sit looking across the distance.  Sitting in the comfort of a recliner with a glass of iced water.  Enjoying the clean glassware and windows.  Tomorrow I may need to wash the curtains.  Cause it feels as if fall is on the way and a clean house just feels good.

Peace and love,

Janice

Hay Bales and Fall

Daddy told a story about baling hay in Honey Creek bottom fields.  Bottomlands were areas that would frequently flood during the wet parts of the year.  The soil was rich and produced bumper crops of hay for feeding livestock through the winter months.  Hay harvest depends on the type of grass crop as well as weather conditions.

My two older sisters had to work in the fields.  Sis #1 remembers parking the tractor when she was 5.  Sis #2 fell from the tractor and was almost run over by the stalk cutter pulled by the tractor.  A pure miracle she was not horribly injured by the cutting blades.  Both sisters hoed fields, bucked hay, drove tractors, whatever was needed to keep the fields and crops growing.

The year our family went on vacation to Yellowstone National Park my sisters wanted to go to the lake with friends.  Daddy was a hard taskmaster.  He said no to the lake visit.  In fact, Daddy made the girls, 14 and 10 years old, hoe the field by the main road to the lake.  They had to see all the cars go by filled with friends going to the lake.  Daddy hoed, too.  Decades later Sis #1 and Sis #2 gave Daddy a bill with interest added for the July 4th day's labor.  It was a running joke for years.

Back to the hay baling tale from Daddy.  During the late 1940s and 1950s hay bales were rectangular bales. Bales were between 40 and 75 pounds (2.8 - 5.4 stones) in weight.  That is a heavy load to toss to about shoulder height!  The worker would use a hay hook to grab the bale by plunging the point of the hook into the hay bale.  Once Dad missed the hay bale and plunged the hook under his knee cap.  He missed a few days of hauling hay.

Oh, my.  I continue to digress.  Daddy's story was about the farmer who worked the bottomland.  The bottomland grew other things besides the hay.  Snakes.  Not just the good snakes but copperheads and cottonmouth.  Both snakes are poisonous.  Daddy said it was not unusual for copperheads to be hanging out of the bales.  The snakes had been picked with the hay/straw and were embedded in the bale.  The snakes would attempt to strike as the workers came near the bale to buck the hay onto the trailers.   There may have been a gun or two to dispatch the pit vipers.  Daddy never said for sure but it is Texas.  Guns likely involved.

Any of you folks planning on bucking hay, please, watch out for the snakes.

Peace,

Janice

September 11, 2021

Twenty years since the four planes became instruments of death.  The tragedies of that fateful morning have been revisited for the last week.  The phrase "Never forget" has become the yearly mantra on this date.  For many, it is heard as a call to arms to fight the 'Muslims.  For others, it is a call to show compassion.  I am left to wonder how the nations in the Middle East feel about 9/11.

There is a statistic from Brown University that 897,000 lives have been lost as a result of the war on terror.  That figure is quoted in a lengthy article from Vox at this link.  Those are mostly civilians.  Just as the humans in the twin towers were primarily civilians.

It is difficult for me to fathom what it has been like for the people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and the other nations affected by the war on terror.  Do not get me wrong to think I am accusing just our nation of causing deaths and injuries to the citizens of those nations.  Both the Taliban and the US Military bombed hospitals in Afghanistan.  Radical groups with nothing more than rocks and knives kill innocents.  I suspect that any remaining friends and/or family remember the dates of life-ending or maiming attacks.  They will remember who took responsibility for the actions causing their loved one's death.  And they will, just as we do, always remember.

Praying for peace,

Janice

September 9, 2021

Well, here it is September already.  Our life is about the same.  Hubby had his 81st birthday recently.  And that arrived quickly, too.  He was only 25 when I first met him in August of 1966.  He was less than a month away from turning 26.  Those years were passed more quickly than I wanted them to pass.  Some years were full of joy, hopes, and plans.  Some were tough, very tough.  We considered divorce a couple of times.  Being basically lazy folks we decided divorce was more trouble than the end result would be worth!  And practically speaking, staying together is more cost-effective.

When we were expecting our only child we purchased a wrought iron patio set.  About 20 years later we purchased an umbrella to be in the middle of the table.  We sold that patio set and the umbrella during our move in 2013.  The set was 40 years old, the umbrella was about 15 years old.  Once moved to Texas,  I decided a counter height table would be nice.  The table was smaller in diameter than the previous patio set.  The glass top table fit better on the small patio.  A Market umbrella met the need for morning shade just fine.  Within a couple of years, a wind knocked the table, umbrella, and 75 lbs of rock over against the railing.   The pole of the umbrella broke.

A replacement umbrella was purchased.  In just about 4 years that umbrella was blown against the patio door.  Pole damaged but patio window did not suffer damage.  Hubby did a bit of hillbilly engineering and repaired the umbrella.  Another wind and the umbrella was broken.   In 2019 a replacement umbrella was purchased.  Today a gust of wind took out that umbrella.  We have decided to not have another umbrella.  The umbrella material is okay so we may just finagle a way to attach it to have shade in the mornings.    

Figuring out a way to attach the material may take some mind power.  That can actually be a bit of fun, getting the little grey cells moving around in my skull.   And practically speaking, not buying another umbrella and just hanging the material is more cost-effective.

Y'all all stay safe!