A Conversation with my 6 year old Grandson

Last night my darling daughter and son-in-law and my two grand kids that are visiting, took me to Chevy's for dinner. As we left the restaurant, my grandson ran ahead to the car and opened the door for me. I said,"Thank you very much." I was very impressed with his manners. When we got in the car I told his mom that Papa must be rubbing off on him because my husband always opens the door for me. My darling grandson replied, "No I learned that in my mind." "Do I get paid because I opened the door for her because she's old?" His dad said, "You don't say that!" He replied, "Why not, she's really old!" We were trying really hard not to laugh, but we weren't succeeding very well. Oh the innocence of children!

Songs of my Youth

For some reason today, I can't get some songs out of my head that I learned when I was a teenager at church. Don't get me wrong, I love the music today but for some reason I can't remember the contemporary songs I've learned in church in the last ten years but all the songs I learned 40 years ago are flooding my soul.

Heaven is a wonderful place
Filled with glory and grace
I want to see my Savior's face
Heaven is a wonderful, Heaven is a glorious, Heaven is a wonderful place.

Teenager are you lonely
Do you need a friend
Take Jesus as your Savior
He will be there till the end
He'll be your guide
Stay by your side
Teenager take Jesus today!

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever
I will sing, I will sing
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord.
With my mouth will I make known
Thy faithfullness, Thy faithfullness
With my mouth will I make known
Thy faithfullness to all generations.
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord.

Oh Lord my God
When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy power throughout the universe displayed
Then sings my soul
My Savior God to thee
How great thou art, How great thou art!
Then sings my soul
My Savior God to thee
How great thou art, How great thou art!

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see.
When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Then when we first began

By the way, what was up when we were kids of only singing the 1st and 3rd verses of a hymm? Anybody know or was that just in the interest of time. I always felt like I was missing some good music when we skipped the 2nd and 4th verses.

BUSY, BUT FUN DAYS AHEAD

This morning I got up at 6 am with the thought in mind that I would finish my quilt block for my 1st Saturday QBM in Winters. Not happening. I cut the material out last night but for some reason, I just can't finish it right now. I have to be in Winters at 8:45 so I guess I have to pay this month. When I finish in Winters, I need to come home and make a grocery list and go grocery shopping. Yuk!

Saturday, Nov. 13th, darling daughters number 2 and 3 will be visiting us with #2's darling husband and two beautiful grandchildren and #3's boyfriend (that we haven't met yet). Darling daughter #4 will also be dropping in (since she still lives in the area)and we wish darling daughter #1 could also be here with her beautiful family. Since we will be having 3 of the four girls here, we are going to celebrate Thanksgiving on Sunday, the 14th. So I have a lot of cleaning , shopping and cooking to do in the next week. We are planning some fun things to do with the grandkids, like a trip to the Jelly Belly factory and baking Christmas cookies together. I want to take them to ride the carousel at the Nut Tree and I'm going to try to take them to see A Christmas Carol in 3D.

It will be a great time and I can't wait to get started.

Bad Things Happen to Good People

Last week I got an automated message on my phone from the Vacaville Police Department, warning me that a man had been spotted in my neighborhood, knocking on doors. If someone answered, he would say, "Oh sorry, I have the wrong house." Then he would be on his merry way. However, if no one was home, if he could get in the side gate to the back yard, he would look for an open window or door and come in and steal everything he could carry out. He knocked on my next door neighbors house and the great grandma that lives there took a minute to answer. When she walked aroung the corner of her living room, he was standing there looking in the window next to the door. He gave her his rehearsed speech and left. He also went to the neighbor 4 doors down from me and knocked on their door. The daughter was home and asked who it was and he left her house too. She was quick thinking and ran upstairs and got a look at him through the window. Unfortunaly, he came back to her house yesterday while no one was home and he and whatever accomplices went through their side gate, and kicked open their side garage door and proceeded to ransack the whole house and steal them blind. We have had 20 of these robberies in our neighborhood and no one sees anything because they do their homework well and hit between 10am and 3pm while everyone is working.

This is so frustrating. We have an alarm on our house and two large dogs but we spent time last night making more improvements that we shouldn't have to make, but we don't feel safe in our own home. We weren't the only ones. Our neighborhood will be locked up tighter than Fort Knox. One good thing about this is that we are all making an effort to meet and know are neighbors so we can prevent this from happening in our neighborhood again.

Eagle Run and the Pumpkin Patch

I got to spend a week with my darling daughter and her wonderful husband and two of my beautiful grandchildren during the first week of October. The weather was pretty nice and I had a great time. The day before I left, the kids had their major fund raiser at school. It's called Eagle Run. They raise money by getting pledges and running around the circular driveway in front of the school as many times as they can. I didn't actually get to see the race because I was at lunch with Munchkin while Little Man ran his race and then I went to lunch with Little Man during Munchkin's race. They also had lots of fun things for the kids to do while they were waiting for their turn to race, like a cheerleading demo, a fencing demo, martial arts demo, volleyball, and gymnastics to name a few.

The next day, before I had to fly home, we took the kids to the Pumpkin Patch where they met their friends and we were able to go on a hay ride and pick out some good pumpkins. It was a little muddy but the we all had a great time.






Munchkin, Soccer Star, Little Man and the Big Kahuna








Bobby and Karen

My Brother, Mental Illness, and Homeless

My youngest brother is mentally ill and homeless. Writing these words makes me feel terrible. I'm eleven years older than him and I remember when he was born to my mom and stepdad. He was the cutest baby and we all adored him. Unfortuneatly, as he grew older, there was clearly something wrong. He probably had learning disablities but in the 60's kids like him didn't get the help they needed in school, so they failed. When he was 2 years old he got very sick and had fever convulsions. I think that probably was the cause of his learning disablities. There was also something else going on with him but my mother and stepdad kept it secret. I suspect he may have a chromasome abnormality. My stepdad was ashamed of him because he didn't live up to being the son he wanted. He was damaged goods. On the other hand, he was not disiplined for doing things he shouldn't do and when he wanted to find a job as a teenager, they wouldn't let him. So he grew up with no disipline and no responsiblity.

When my stepdad died in 1995, he left my brother a mortgage free home, two paid for cars and about $50,000.00 in the bank. By this time, my brother had been diagnosed with bi-polar disease and was spiraling out of control. I think his father was trying to make up for the way he had treated him all his life, but he didn't have the good sense to put that stuff in a trust, so my brother would be able to hang on to it. My brother had plenty of friends during this stage of his life and lost everything he owned within two years of his dad's death. His life just got out of control. He lived with my mom for a while until he was so abusive to her that she threw him out, and then he lived for a while with my grandmother. Grandma felt so sorry for him but he was abusive to her too, and had to leave. He wouldn't stay on his meds and he got addicted to internet dating and started traveling around the country to meet these women. It always ended the same.

My mother died in 2003 and he thought he would get everything she owned, but he got a big surprise. Mom didn't leave him any money and he only got a few things that he promptly sold and spent the money. By this time, he was so out of control that none of us wanted anything to do with him. He would have violent outbursts and you just couldn't trust him. We lost touch with him until about a year ago, when I got a phone call from him, telling me that he was in Denver and in a program at the Rescue Mission to get his life straightened out. I kept in touch with him and he wrote me how his life was changing and that he had accepted Jesus as his Savior. I sent him a Bible for Christmas and told him that someday we might be able to see each other again and encourged him to stick with the program. They were helping him so much. He was on his meds and for the first time in years he was really better.

Then he got into the phase where they started job training. You see, over the years, my brother has become one of those people who think everybody owes him something. He is entitled because of his illness to collect whatever money or help he can get from people and not have to work for any of it. He promptly went off his meds, got a cell phone, which he knew was forbidden, and got kicked out of his program. He called me six times last week and I missed everyone of his calls because I was at work. I'm really bad at checking messages, so I didn't get his messages until yesterday. The last call he said he was in Atlanta, Ga and was headed for the Rescue Mission in Nashville, Tn. He also said he didn't know what to do, that he was really messed up and he had three bottles of pills with him that he was thinking about taking. I called the Rescue Mission yesterday to see if he was there, but they couldn't tell me if he was because of confidentialty. I left a message for him to call me if he can.

I don't know how to help him and it's so frustrating. I can't take him into my home because of his violent tendencies and you never know what's going to set him off. I can't finacially support him because we just don't have the money. It makes my heart ache to think of him wandering the streets with no place to call home, but what can I do?

My 100th Post!

This is my 100th post...and it only took me three years to get here! Suffice it to say I haven't been a very avid blogger. Over the last three years, I've blogged about loving Frankie Valli, my kids, my dogs, Tuesdays with Dori, trips to Italy, Alaska, Nashville, and Asheville.

I've talked about my love for photography, quilting, reading and anything grandchildren. I don't think I've had many readers and sometimes I feel like I'm just talking to myself, but that's okay.

I still have a job as a bus driver and I'm thankful to God for it. I will be starting my 22nd year in November as a bus driver and I've had lots of experience with all kinds of kids. Sometimes I've had bad times as a driver but most of the time it's been a great, fulfilling job. Hopefully I've made a difference in some of those kids lives. I know I've had some kids that have made a difference in my life. Here's some pictures I just wanted to share.