Happy Birthday, Dad!

Dad has been gone almost 23 years but I still miss him.   He would have been 96 this week.  I still carry those precious memories of him.  I suppose my first memory was when I was about 4 or 5 and I had seen someone curling their hair.  I remember being on the dresser looking in the mirror, with bobby pins all around me trying my best to get a bobby pin to stay.  Dad saw me and said "Daddy's girl trying to make her some curls?"  He picked me up and said he like my hair just like it was. 

He worked at a saw mill and Mom cooked his lunch and we brought it down the road to him.  He always let me get a salt tablet.  I don't know why I wanted a salt tablet.  Except that's what Daddy  used when he worked.  That salt tablet was like an  M&M today.  We watched the men make boards from logs.  I thought 
my Dad was something with that ruler in his hand measuring the width of the trees.  Dad was a Math whiz.
He did not have a lot of education but he really did not need any in Math of any kind.                             
In high school the whole class was stuck on an Algebra problem.  The teacher would give anyone that got the answer correct an A.  Even the smartest kid could not get it.  I gave the problem to Dad.  He looked at it awhile and gave me the answer.  "Dad, how did you get it?"   "I just did and it is right."  The next day I ask the teacher if that was the right answer.  She said "Yes."   I told her my Dad gave me the answer but could not tell me how he figured it out.  I did not get an A, but I found out what a smart Dad I had.  


I remember at about 14 I wanted to learn to drive.  He took me out a few times and showed me. This was with a  stick shift.   We lived just a few blocks from town.  One day we were sitting on the porch and I ask him if I could drive around the block.  He pulled out the keys and told me to go for it.  I made it around the block.  Mom was on the porch asking him why he let me do that.  I would wind up wrecking the car.  He looked at her and said,"She made it, didn't she.?"  

We would sit in the swing in the evening together.  Sometimes we  sat in silence,  sometimes we would talk.  He was always petting his dog.  But those silent conversations  meant a lot to me.  Just to know I was sitting by my Dad.  He gave me some valuable advise.  One time especially!  That advise saved me a lot of 
heartache down the road.  I am so thankful that I listened.

 Why kids don't listen to their parents this day and time is beyond me.  I am speaking of kids raised in the church with  Godly parents.  They seem to want to go their own way and do their own thing.  But down the road they have a lot of heartaches.  Had they only listened!   I learned early in life that my Dad was the boss, not me.  That has made it so much easier for me to obey my Heavenly Father.  

I love the conversations I have with my Heavenly Father.  Just like my Dad, I know that my Heavenly Father has my interest at heart and if I listen I am so much better off.   I still have to be chastised by my Heavenly Father at times, but it is for my good. 


Tomorrow is the day we all go and worship the Lord.  I hope you have a blessed week end with God's blessings flowing down from above.  Go with your cup right side up.  Blessings!
 

Can you believe, Chicken Feet?

I know that I need to write on here more often but seems I am at a standstill in my thoughts.  I have just been doing the ordinary daily things.  Who wants to hear about that?  Well, here goes!  
Just got through ironing my husbands Sunday shirts.  Since he is an usher he has to wear suit and tie.  Does your husband hate a tie?  Silas wore one for 35 years to work and when he retired he said "No more."  But`~~he was in for a surprise when he was ask to take an usher job at church.  Sometimes we don't always  get what we want in life, do we?


I still iron everything we wear.  I know ~ most of it is permanent press.  I still spray starch and iron.  Guess it was instilled into me when I was growing up.  The days when you made your own starch, hung the clothes on the line to dry, brought them in and sprinkled them, put them in the freezer and the next day iron for a family of eight.  I actually enjoyed seeing the clothes line up as I ironed them.  I know the younger generation  only has heard about those days.  You really missed some fun!  Do any of you remember the pants stretchers?  Wish I had a couple pair now.  I would put Silas' jeans on them. 


I remember when I met Silas ~ his Mom had a clothes line that you pulled to you and hung and pulled some and hung.  I thought that was neat.  I need one of them now.  Nothing like good old sunshine towels.  I can smell them now.  Everyone hung clothes back then.  I keep telling my husband I need a clothes line.  I might just get online and look for a pulley line.  

One of our roosters crowed for the first time last week.  We should be getting eggs at the end of August.  We have such a combination of hens.  I 
 have enjoyed watching them grow and trying to guess which one was a rooster. I think we have at least two out of nineteen. 
Silas lets them out in the day so they can peek around and play follow the leader.  One seems to be the leader and wherever she goes they all follow.  We have one that looks like a bird of some kind.  I wanted to get his picture but never could.  It will be interesting to see


There is one that my daughter named Fluffy.  She sits on her steps and Fluffy has ventured up two steps and she gives him cat food.  She was able to pet her yesterday.  Stephanie always had a way with animals.
She has a cat and the cat and chickens play a game of  something.  They are amusing!

I took this on purpose.  Can you imagine eating chicken feet?  My sister and her husband were here last week and we took them out to eat at a Chinese and seafood restaurant.   Some things I just will not try.  Octopus for one!    My brother in law will try anything.  One thing he had no idea what it was.  We though maybe it was octopus.  He tasted it and said it tasted good.  Finally he ask the waiter.  She said -  yep, you guess it.  Chicken feet.  The Mexicans fixed it somehow in a gravy.   I don't believe I want to try it.   Have any of you eaten any?   Just curious to know.

I am going to leave you with this much.    I  have certificates to make for my Sunday School girls.  It is almost promotion time again.  
Have a blessed week end. 

I'm still here.  I thought I would get back before now.  Seems time passes so fast.  The older you get the faster it flies.  I  wound up the school year, we had camp meeting,  I made Green Tomato Pickles.  I made some tomato juice  and slice tomatoes. ( We really like the Green Tomato Pickles.)  We even had fried green tomatoes.  Delicious!
I work at the church office two mornings a week.  I will be filling in the next 6 or 7 weeks.  The secretary is going to have knee replacement and she turned it over to me.  I  will need a vacation by that time. 

I am trying now to work in my house and clean closets.  Redecorate my living room is next.  Do you ever get tired of the way things are and change around?  It is really a good way to clean as you go along. 

If you haven't look on Caring Bridge to see about Logan Watts, he has been moved to New Orleans.  They are doing all kinds of therapy.  He is progressing slowly ~ but making progress.  He can hold a tract between his fingers now.  Britany, (his Mom) was strolling him in the hospital and as they went passed the gift shop Logan pointed to the candy.  She said it about kill her not to be able to get him a piece of candy, yet she was encouraged that he is alert and knows some things.  Today they had to do a little procedure on his eyes.  He still does not talk but is taking speech therapy also.  He gets frustrated when he can't get the words out.
He has had trouble swallowing.  One side of the throat muscles is okay and they are working on the other side so he can swallow without regurgitating. 

We are all waiting for the day that he is back with us and can tell us what he went through.  His accident not only changed a family's life in a few minutes but it has touched lives all across the states and overseas.  It has touched our whole church family.  We have ached along with this family, we have prayed, we have seen a miracle because God answers prayer.  Doctors lives have been changed.  They know they did not heal Logan.  Divine intervention was what these doctors saw.  Logan's life has been a testimony to a lot of people.
He still has a good fifteen months to go with the therapy, so keep him in your prayers. 

We don't understand God's ways but we do know that He knows exactly what He is doing.
If we can't feel His hand, we can trust His heart.  Sometimes we feel all alone in a trial and can't seem to feel His Hands upholding us.  But we can trust that He is working behind the scenes. 

Blessing until next time.