Alone in a Sea of People

Today I feel like I am alone in the world

This was sent to me

This was sent to me and I want as many people as I know to listen to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6QOscKvUjU

Ups and downs of life

I think sometimes how hard it was growing up on the plains of North Dakota.  We were poor (but really I didn't know that until I was in high school).  My parents worked hard yet with so much sickness with their children and no insurance they had little money left over for anything.  We were on a farm so they grew most of their food.   As a kid, my sisters and I would spend hours helping my mom weeding the gardens and then in then when the produce was ready helping pick it, shell peas, tip and cut up green beans, washing and  cleaning carrots for canning and cucumbers for pickling.  We would spend hours picking potato bugs off of the plants and then we were all out there picking the potatoes to be put in a huge bin in the basement to last for the winter.  Usually a cow and pig were slaughtered in the fall and that was the meat for the winter and Mom sewed most of our clothes.  I wonder if Mom felt disappointed with her life.  I wonder if she ever felt like she could have done somethings better.  I am sure she did however being so busy all the time she probably didn't have much time to think about that.  I wonder if she ever cried over the decisions us kids made.

But as hard as it was on the farm in North Dakota, I think living in suburbia not having all the physical work to do but to see all that comes up to tempt, entice and make us restless is probably harder to cope with mentally.  I really am not a "stuff" person.  But I find myself comparing myself and my life to others around me.  Comparing my children and grandchildren with friends and family and sometimes I hate to admit feeling jealous of them.  Yet when it comes right down to it, I have 2 GREAT kids who both love God and have 8 grand kids that are so loving and kind and really good. 

I guess if I want to live content, I need to not look at others, but look at God and all that He has blessed me with.

Day 2 with Grandgirls

Well Faith and Brianna spend last night and today with us.  The 2 girls had so much fun.  I didn't get a chance to interact with them alot as they were so busy having fun.  Last night when it was bedtime, both realized they had not packed jammies, so Mamma lent her a couple of hers.  It did the trick!!

 This morning I found the Aebelskiver pan so I made them for the girls for breakfast

 After breakfast they were playing and at noon Grandpa Jim took them to see Journey 2 Mystery Island.  I talked about it so much they all decided they wanted to see it. 

When they got home I took them to Target for a little shopping trip giving them each $15 to spend.  They bought swords!!!   That's my girls.  We were then going to take them out to dinner but they asked if they could forgo dinner so they would have more time playing at our house before they had to go home.  So a little before 4 it was time to pack up and bring them to their various places.  I felt so good when Faith came up to me and said "Mamma, I have had a really good time".  That is music to my ears.

Grandkids for an overnight

 Well today I brought Joe back home.  He had spent the night with us and today just he and I hung out.  I don't know if he had a great time, but I know that I did.

 Here he is making chocolate chip cookies

 A new bionical Lego man

 A trip to a used book store for some books

 We watched a movie together and now it was time to go home  :(  He is so good to have around.  I love this young man to bits!!!

 When I dropped off Joe I picked up his sister Faith.  Jim went and picked up his granddaughter on the way home from work, so now we have these 2 young ladies for an overnight.  Here they are catching some TV in Mamma and Gpa's bedroom while dinner is being made

After a dinner of spaghetti, green beans and garlic toast it was outside for some bball (what else??).  In a bit we will be heading to the DQ for a treat.

I wonder if when we bring these 2 home if we will have 4 come back.. OH NO.. Not in the same weekend!!

A Prayer by Billy Graham

To which I say AMEN and AMEN

'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable... We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from sin and Set us free. Amen!'

Things that are stressing

In the course of a lifetime there are many different things that stress a person.  The ones that stressed me in the 20's and 30's seem hardly like a memory anymore.  Now the things I am stressed about, when I was 20 and 30 I never gave a second thought to. 

The things that stress me today is the fact that I will soon be 66.  And after making a deal with my boss when I was 65 to continue working until I was at least 66 I am still working.  He did this by offering me to work Mon through Thur and I didn't have to take a cut in pay.  That is an offer that is hard to turn down.  I have 2 bosses and I know that hands down they are the BEST that anyone could ever have.  I feel so blessed to be working for them.  Which makes my desire to retire even harder. It seems that our children even tho they are grown still need help from time to time and we are happy that we can do that.  I grew up in a very monetarily poor family.  I guess I really didn't realize we were poor until I was in high school because we were so loved at home and living on a farm, we always had enough food and we were never cold or without enough clothes.  I guess today, our kids generation is one that thinks they should start out in life where we were after working 10 or 15 years.  And the fact is many do have that opportunity.  My kids didn't, so I am not talking about them in that aspect.  But times are tough now.  Things have gotten so expensive.  Oh I know that wages are much higher too.  I guess I am just rattling as the thoughts come to my head. 

Another thing, I am not sure I could be home day after day after day.  Isn't that crazy?  I am used to going to a job and getting kudos there.  Who will give me kudos (because we all need them) once I quit work? 

Yet every morning when the alarm goes off I think, I really don't want to get up right now.  But once up and moving I am fine and I enjoy my job.  The commute I could do without. 

Another stress is that when I held my first born baby, my little girl, the life I envisioned for her certainly has not come into being.  Oh she is a GREAT person.  I am proud of her I don't know if I know of anyone who is a stronger person then she is.  She is planning to move back to MN and I would LOVE LOVE LOVE that.  But I am worried about Abbe her 12 year old daughter.  I want her to be happy and it is a rough time for a move.  But I know that if God is in it, that it will all work for good.  She is the sweetest happy young lady anyone could meet.  She rarely cries and when she does it breaks my heart because she cries like her heart is broken.  Oh my how I love my grand kids.  I want the best for all of them.  Why cant we just make decisions for them?  We have lived much longer then they have and we can see the roads that they are walking and the ones that they need to get off.  I pray for my children and grandchildren everyday so I know that God has them on His radar.  I just hope and pray that with all the "free will" floating around that He gets through to them.

OK,, this has been a rambling post and will probably make no sense to anyone but me.  But it feels good just to write it.

10 Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today, I lost the husband of my youth.  I keep thinking one of these years I wont remember that this is the day and it wont ache in my heart and the tears wont fall next year. But next year comes and all through the year I don't forget. I know that I never will. How can one forget the person you shared your life with for 36 years? And I really NEVER want to forget, but I have to admit, I don't like that ache that comes sometimes. I guess it is that ache that makes us hungry for heaven. But I am sure when I get to heaven, Gil wont be the first one I want to see. It will be the One who died and gave His life for me that we can spend eternity together