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Love come softly, brush against my heart
Yearning for its closeness, not ever to depart
In God’s Infinite Wisdom, I place my life,
And trust for tomorrow, what be, what might
Whatever path this love may go
It carries with it the willingness,
to let it go
And hope that one day, it will again, brush against my heart ....
To stay forever.
Karen A. 05/30/06 
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MY UNCLE DAD
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Jul 25, 2009 8:50 am
2419 Views
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If you've been around for a while, and have read my blogs, you may know that when my Dad passed away, my Mom remarried, and to my Dad's younger brother, Darrel. I immediately began referring to him as my Uncle Dad.
He is a kind man, and has been very good to my Mom. They have a very companionable and loving relationship.
A couple of weeks ago he began experiencing some discomfort around his shoulders and neck, and his breathing was painful. He was taken to emergency and tests were done, and after a couple of days, diagnosed with having Pneumonia. They sent him home with antibiotics. Then, when he didn't seem to be getting any better, they started giving him penicillin shots. Monday, Mom took him back to emergency when he woke up with more pain. More tests were taken. X-rays had shown at that time that he no longer had Pneumonia, but because he was dehydrated, the doctor wanted to keep him over one more night. Later yesterday, when Darrel's son and wife were visiting him, he was again complaining about the pain, and he was having labored breathing. About 10pm last night my Mom called to speak to the nurse and expressed to her, the concern we all had that he was not improving and his just being dehydrated didn't seem to be acceptable for what he was experiencing. While my Mom waited on the phone, the nurse went to check on him, and he had fallen while attempting to go to the bathroom. The nurse got hold of his doctor and by the time my Mom and I reached the hospital, Darrel had already been x-rayed again. It was that x-ray that revealed a blood clot in his lungs, and fluid around his heart.
So, I am asking those of you who believe in the Power of Prayer, if you would pray for him. God is Good ... and His Mercy endures forever. I know that He is with us. Also, if you would remember my Mom as well. I am concerned for her health, with the worry of this.
Bless you for your prayers,
Karen
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COMMENT ON THIS FOTO FRIDAY - FLOWERS
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Jul 24, 2009 2:44 pm
2005 Views
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Well, I don't have a submission for this weeks Foto Friday, so I've just been enjoying all the ones that everyone else has been posting.
Since there are so many, and I haven't even finished yet, I don't have the time right now to place a comment on each one. So, I decided I'd blog about it.
We have some very talented photographers out there .... and some very unique, and beautiful flowers presented. Thank you everyone for sharing the beauty you have captured.
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FOTO FRIDAY - PETS REMEMBERED
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Jul 17, 2009 12:44 pm
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This is a photo of my cat Sissie. She was my faithful, loving companion for eighteen years. When she died, I decided to write her story. It was a way of documenting my memories of her, as well as helping me through the grieving process. I blogged her story the first year I was a member on this site. With this picture I am including the final chapter of that story.
Sissie's Story
Chapter 7
You decided to leave this life here on earth one hot and sultry August Saturday in 1992. You had been slowly weakening and I knew that day that you were dying. I called a friend of mine, in tears, not quite knowing what to do. I didn’t want you to suffer, but I couldn’t afford the expense of having you put to sleep. You didn’t seem to be in any pain. My friend suggested that I just be there with you, loving and comforting you and spending your last hours with you. Periodically during the day I would sit down on the floor next to you and pet you and talk to you, and tell you how much I loved you. I had to feed water to you from a little eyedropper because you didn’t seem to be interested in drinking any on your own. I had just given you some water when you made your way slowly into the little entryway of the house where it was darker and cooler for you. As I was checking in on you a little later, you began to convulse. I realized then that your little heart was giving out. I began to cry and told you it was okay…. That you could go. I wish I could have spared you the pain of those last few seconds and I will forever feel bad that I didn’t take you to the Vet so that you could die peacefully.
I don’t think I had ever before experienced such pain and loss. It was as if I had lost one of my dearest friends. I was crying uncontrollably and continued to mourn your death for days. I remember while at work having to excuse myself to the ladies room where I had more privacy and could cry without anyone knowing.
You were buried up on my folk’s property. They had loved you too. You had been just as much a part of their lives as mine. My Dad and I went looking for a resting-place for you. I wanted to place you somewhere near the house, but was afraid to even suggest it, thinking that maybe down closer to the river would be more appropriate. However, Dad walked over to the side of the house, near an ivy covered tree stump and asked me what I thought of that area. I was so thankful for his sensitiveness to the sadness I was feeling. After the hole was dug, I gently placed you in it and both Dad and I tossed a handful of dirt on you before he finished covering you up with his shovel. When your spot was covered up, Daddy took one of the stones that marked the pathway leading to their house and set it upright in the ground to use as a marker. I don’t think I ever loved him more then that moment for the care he gave in giving you a proper burial and resting-place. He understood my sorrow, without words.
You and I had eighteen years together. You were my companion, loving me unconditionally. I used you as a sounding board, I cried in your fur and loved you as if you were a child of mine. I know only pet lovers will understand when I say that I felt a real “kinship” with you. I felt as if you knew me better than most of my friends, in that when I needed some TLC, you were right there beside me. I remember you lying up at the head of my bed and at times you would place your paw on me just to feel connected.
Thank you Sissie, for being my special friend for eighteen years. Thank you for loving me without condition. Thank you for entertaining me and being the warm spot in my bed, purring softly to lure me to sleep. I miss you even now.
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MY FOTO-FRIDAY SUBMISSION
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Jul 10, 2009 3:14 pm
2152 Views
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This is a picture of the famous Sundial bridge here in Redding, CA. It was officially opened to the public on July 4, 2005. The two ladies in the picture are the wife and step-daughter of a long-time friend of mine. I have enjoyed many walks across the bridge and down around the walking trails along the river banks.
The bridge has a thick glass bottom, and it is lite up at night for those to enjoy a leisurely night time stroll and view the Sacramento River.
Here is a little blurb I took from another site.
"The 217-foot pylon acts as a sundial, telling time on a tile covered garden border on the north side of the bridge. The designer of the bridge, world-renowned architect Santiago Calatrava, has said that, to him, the bridge resembles a bird in flight, and symbolizes the overcoming of adversity. The bridge is also environmentally sensitive to its river setting. The tall pylon and cable stays allow this unique suspension bridge to avoid the nearby salmon-spawning habitat."
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FOTO FRIDAY - BABIES
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Jul 3, 2009 3:33 pm
2123 Views
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This is my oldest grand nephew. It's not really a baby picture, but I thought I'd submit it, along with a repost of a blog I wrote about him some time ago.
TO BE A KID AGAIN
April 2006
I'm not a Mom. It would have been nice to have been one, but it just wasn't to be part of my journey here on earth. I do have a nephew and a niece for which I have enjoyed some great times with.
My nephew and his wife live in another state. They have a six year old named Devin. I have not met my nephew's wife, nor Devin, but we talk on the phone weekly and I have grown to love them very much.
It pleases me to no end that my grand nephew likes to call me. He had a little bit of a problem with his speech for a while and still tends to talk a little to fast, but we can carry on a fairly decent conversation.
He called me today to tell me he lost his first tooth. Apparently, he and a friend were playing and had a shoe tied on a pole, swinging it around. Well, guess the shoe got a little too close to his mouth, and whack ... tooth out. They think he probably swallowed it. When I responded with excitement for him, he said "Yeah, well it's about time!" I laughed. I guess all his little school buddies were losing their teeth and he was feeling a little left out.
That's what is so neat about little kids .... every "first" for them is like winning the lottery. I love it.
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DANDEE HERE'S MY HIPPY DAYS PSYCHEDELIC POSTER PICTURE
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Jul 2, 2009 2:00 pm
2156 Views
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Hopefully the system here has corrected itself and people can now view DanDees blog post Hippy days are here again - 1973 revisited. I scrounged around some old photos of mine and found one to post. Gosh, and I thought I was fat then. I'd give anything to be able to show those legs now! LOL
This was taken back in July of 1970. It was the first apartment I moved to when I left the nest, and I shared it with my friends Vic and Sue. Our place was pretty bare of furniture and wall hangings, but we made do with what we had. Notice the hair curlers .... We must have been planning a night out cruising downtown Portland on Broadway street. That's where all the "kids" hung out back in the early 70's. We'd spend all evening cruising Broadway. I have some crazy memories of those times. Lots of hanging out the passenger windows waving and flirting with the guys. One time we even had a caravan of cars follow us back to our apartment for a party. Needless to say, we got in trouble with the apartment manager. Lots of noise, too much drinking and certainly no curfew! LOL
sorry the picture is a little blurry.
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I AM SO BEHIND THE TIMES, I COULD RELATE
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Jun 12, 2009 1:11 am
2183 Views
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This may have recently been posted as a blog, if so, my apologize for the duplication. I got such a good laugh over this, I had to post it. It is a cut and paste, of course. Its a little bit long, but I think many of you will relate one way or another.
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Things are spiraling out of control. I think I have become lost in a world of electronic madness.
One of my sons informed me this week that my cell phone has become obsolete and I must head down to the Cell Phone store and get a phone that is contemporary with the time.
I pointed out that the fancy Razor/Slimline phone with camera built in that he made me trade my perfectly good flip-top Motorola cell phone for two years ago still works perfectly fine.
Well, except for the camera thing.
Never could figure that out. Even the few times I actually did take pictures but couldn't figure what to do with them and gave up.That is except when I would push the wrong button and take a video of the ceiling or my feet.Seems the issue is that I am unable to text with the tiny little 3-character buttons.
“Hi, son,” would come out looking like, “Gh Qmo.”
My grand kids have even spoken to my wife about Poppa’s crazy text messages. Give me a break. Whatever happened to actually talking on a phone? Isn't that what they were invented for? They want me to get one of those phones that you can turn upside down and sideways and has a typewriter keyboard with keys about one-eighth the size of my pinky finger.
One of my four sons is a realtor whose real occupation is fly-fishing. “Way to go, son.”
Or in text language, “Xbz um Io, rmo.”
We were floating the Yakima River in his guide-quality drift boat south of Ellensburg , Washington. We were miles from anything remotely resembling civilization. Rock canyon walls were on either side of us.Bear with me as I try to explain this strange thing.
His “Blackberry” rang. It was blue and I asked him why it wasn't called a Blueberry. He shook his head with that ‘dealing with an elder despair’ look I get a lot these days.
It was another realtor who called to say that the sellers he represented had agreed to my son’s client’s changes and he had the signed documents in hand. My son told him to FAX the papers to his office and he would get them signed and Faxed back, to close the deal that morning. A minute later the phone rang and he hit a few buttons and looked over the FAX, now on the Yakima River with us.
He then called his clients and told them he was Faxing the papers to them to sign and asked them to FAX them back to his office. While he was waiting, he hooked into a fat rainbow and was just releasing this 22-inch beauty as his phone rang again with the signed FAX from his clients. He called the other realtor and told him he was sending the signed papers back by FAX. The deal was closed. He smiled and just said, “You are a little behind the times, Dad.”
I thought about the sixty million dollar a year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures or communicated with Facebook or Twitter.
I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids,their spouse, 13 grandkids and 2 great-grandkids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space. That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree,Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix andsomething that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.
My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation.
I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it’s red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Nobles talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and I got a little loud.
I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, “Re-calc-ul-ating.” You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me.She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GSP lady,at least she loves me.
To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven’t figured out how I can lose three phones all at once, and have run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundrybaskets when the phone rings.
The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves, but this sudden “Paper or Plastic?” every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth re-usable bags to avoid looking confused but never remember to take them in with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me,“Paper or Plastic?” I just say, “Doesn’t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.”
Then it’s their turn to stare at me with a blank look.
Have a nice weekend.
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PICNIC
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Jun 7, 2009 2:21 pm
2419 Views
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I'm off to a church picnic. I've got everything ready and just waiting for my ride to pick me up. Thought I'd come in and say hi. Lots of blogs I want to read, but I'll have to wait until I return later.
It sure has been great to see so many interesting blogs full of great pictures and stories.
So, what is your favorite Sunday past time? Unless there is some event, or I receive an invite to do something after church, I usually take a run down to my folks and visit with them for a few hours. Its always a nice way to spend the day. If the weather is nice, we sit out on their front porch and watch the birds as they eat off the bird feeder. They even have quail that skoot around in the bushes.
So, whatever you're doing today, I hope its something fun!
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ARE YOU BILINGUAL?
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Jun 6, 2009 9:23 am
2398 Views
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I have always admired those who speak another language other than their native tongue. This includes those who Sign.
I believe it was my sophomore year in high school (way too far back to really be clear on) I took French. The school only taught two languages, French and German. I wish I'd chosen German now, since that is where my ancestry goes back to, but, it sounded more romantic to take French. I knew from the onset that it was not going to be an easy class for me. I had problems diagramming English sentences, and now I was going to take on French? Oh mon dieu!
My French teacher knew right away that I wasn't going to master it very well, and she was the type who had favorites. So, you can guess where I was on her list.
Now there are only a few phrases I can recall. I use to be able to read it and understand much more than I could in speaking it. Its been so long now, even those phrases are fading away.
One benefit of taking the class though was having a French pen pal. She was far better with her English than I was with my French, and unfortunately for her, most of my letters to her were in English. She would write her letters part in English, and part in French. At one point she wrote "please write some to me in French" because it took her a while to read my letters when they were all in English. I'm sorry to say I never did master it, and eventually my French pen pal and I quit corresponding. However, I do remember her fondly and I still have the letters she wrote, plus a couple of pictures and the doll pictured below. The doll reminds me of that time, and I wonder what became of her.
So, do you speak another language other than your native tongue?
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ONE OF MY FAVORITE PAINTINGS
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Jun 5, 2009 2:31 pm
1933 Views
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Back in the early 70's when my folks still lived in the town that I grew up in, there was a local restaurant we use to go have breakfast on occasion. The walls of the restaurant were covered with artwork from local artists. The picture here was one of them. It was my Dad's favorite, and he often mentioned how much he liked it every time he was in the restaurant. If I remember correctly, the painting cost around $75.00 at the time, which was pretty expensive for any of us to take on by ourselves, so between my Mom, and my brothers and I, we were able to purchase the painting as a Father's Day gift for Dad.
I loved the painting too. I'm not sure what the title is ... the paperwork is on the back, and its too high up for me to take down to check for sure, but I believe it is called "Tollgate Park." It is actually a painting done of Tollgate Park, just up the road about 1/2 mile or so from the town of Rhododendron, OR. The artist did an absolutely wonderful work replicating the mountains in the background, and the way I remember how they looked at the skyline. This picture was also painted after the flood of 1964, and shows the barrenness of the rivers edge, ravaged by the flood.
For over 20 years, this painting graced a living room wall of my parents home. When my Dad passed away, and my Mom remarried and moved here to Redding, the painting came with her. When I was asked if there was anything I wanted of my Dad's, I began to cry, and tell her it was the painting. I already had one of his pipes, and a pair of his glasses ... oh, and his favorite coffee cup. However, as much as I loved the painting and appreciated the artists work, I wanted it because it had been my Dad's favorite. Also, because it was a piece of "home." Now, the picture graces my living room wall.
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To link to this blog (Ola2006) use [blog Ola2006] in your messages.
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