Fatherless on Father's Day

In Genesis 48-50 Jacob, the father of 12 men, blesses his children before he is gathered to his own fathers. He speaks over them the history of the world – his blessings, his curses, his cautions, his favoritism - and the words are so powerful that they shaped the future of mankind - a father’s words. In Deuteronomy 26 and 27 God makes provision for the fatherless a law to be obeyed; being fatherless was a handicap requiring an entire community to underwrite. Later in Deuteronomy 32, it is made clear to us that God is our Father – our creator. The two words go hand-in-hand.

In Psalm 103:13 and Matt 18:4 God ascribes to himself the compassion of a father and in Prov 3:12 the discipline of a father and in Luke 15 the forgiveness of a father. There is so much more. Bottom line, fathering is essential to understanding who God is.

Today on Father’s Day, my first without my Father, I remember lessons he taught me. He taught me to love God above all else, to care about the least of humans, to find humor in everything, to value family, to be responsible as a servant, to stay healthy, to be a sacrificing grandparent, to be present in the lives of my family for important occassions, that you are never too old to have fun, that doing something outrageous is okay, and that to die is gain Dad, pretend you just climbed Mt. Everest.

Let's get a good look at you Emma!

Proud of his daugther graduating- no matter how old she is.

Buddies forever with Great Grandpa.



Blessing Emma at her Baptism

Never too young to start exercising.

It's hard to say good-bye to Grandpa and Grandma

This is why it is hard to say good-bye!

Writing secret notes to Grandpa - and her daughter did the same.

Big Brother

When we were toddlers, people thought we were twins; my older brother and I. We were buddies. Or so our parents would tell us. We were the Saturday night live of 1952. I would throw a toy out of the playpen and Bob would run and fetch it, being silly, rolling on the floor or jumping wildly while I laughed and laughed at him. He threw the toy back in the playpen just to have me throw it out.
Big brothers play a special role. I guess that is why I always think the boy should be born first - to protect little sister - to blaze the trail and clear the path for her to promenade through childhood. We had some good childhood times - like running through the horse pasture trying not to get bit, burning down an oil field across the street from our home, painting the neighbor's garage red, making fig mud pies and trying to get baby brother to eat them, sneaking out the window and dropping a typewriter on the head - Bob was in the emergency room with that one. Rolling into the street in a big cardboard barrel- and all that before the age of 5!!!
God had His hand on us alright. Somebody had to have a hand on us. We were wild little comanches, cowboy hats, my Annie Oakley gun set, boots and vest. Mom had a lot of faith in our Lassie of a dog - a half-breed named Tippy. There were many other venturous escapades but we survived to adulthood.
I love getting family together when Bob comes. He has the ability to laugh at just about everything in life. Nothing escapes his sapient eye! And no one is immune to his infectious humor. My sons must have inherited some of the wit. We can laugh and laugh at just about nothing! ......and everything. We remember the things that made us laugh as kids, young parents with our own kids, young grandparents - and I suppose someday we will laugh at aging - or wheelchairs or senior diapers.
Life has been a bit tough for him, but oh, Lord! May I always find the humor in life - despite where I have been, what I am in, or what I am facing - just like my big brother. Here we are. Do we look like twins now??

My! How Flies Time

People say time flies - I think flies time! Have you ever looked at a fly closely? He's quite the cute-ugly little creature, ever busy stimulating his little nose with two of his thready looking little appendages. Their timing is impeccable. As soon as you set out a fresh plate of fruit to eat, they suddenly appear skipping across it, leaving little microcosmic trails of nasty residue that we eat anyway. You seldom see them sneak in with their stealth dives - only after they have had their bellies full and are too heavy to do their "disappearing" act. Then you swoosh them away and with speed at about 2 miles an hour faster than your hand, or your newspaper, or your swatter, they continually tease you.

I sometimes think they sit on the wall chuckling and say, "Watch this, Vern!" In fact their ability to evade the swat of death is indelibly memorialized in fable history by Disney's the Brave Little Taylor who got seven in one blow.

The first horror movies used flies. They enlarged the screenshots so they looked like alien monsters eating triphods. Well here is my ode to flies:


Who flies by but the fast little fly?
Fluttering fancifully, without catching my eye.
Foraging my table he favors my pear .
Swat! Phlat! - I fail flattening him each time I try.
With a fidget and flit he's off - vanishing in air!

It's Over!

It's over! Yeah! Better Body Beat up your Booty Boot Camp! Now I have no one to answer to for weight losss and exercise. I don't know if that is good or bad. Good...I think...because now I have to answer to myself...the hardest task master of all. I probably won't do situps and pushups but I will keep going because I have had some success. I still feel like a loser - and I don't mean weight loser because I could not keep up with the exercises. I finished at home rather than keep going because my past injuries interfered with keeping up. Well - now I have a another goal. I have some nice summer clothes that are two sizes smaller than I am now - so I am on a roll.

Speaking of rolls.... I love buttery tasty croissants and fresh from the oven potato rolls - especially from Publixs - and biscuits - though they aren't even really rolls and I love sweet rolls especuially cinnamon...and there I go again.

Well my clothing heaps are bound to have another pile. That's the put away until next weight gain pile. But the good news is I get to open the box of put away until I LOSE weight pile!

Work is crazy for me right now....so my blogging days are rare and few.

Life Lessons in Clothing Heaps

I looked in my closet a couple of days ago for something dashing, unique, highly professional, and edgie to wear. Of course it had to make me look 10 pounds thinner and 10 years younger. The deeper I went the more dismayed I became. I looked around my clothing heaps and came to some philosophical conclusions about myself. I did find something to wear – but by 9:00 AM I was wondering how I could escape and buy a new outfit before anyone else sees me….

Lesson #1 – Don’t wear your depression. It’s too depressing.
I have a large heap of too-big clothing, mostly dark and drab. It helps me hide when I feel guilty, unworthy, like a failure or I let someone down that I highly respect…such as the boss, or the daughter, or the hubby or the….well all of them. So I wear my frumpiness because it helps me maintain my attitude. You see, I am generally a cheerful person and holding on to depression or a grudge takes a LOT of effort for me. Clothes do help – but eventually my logical side wins and off they go to the back of the closet.

Lesson #2 – Discipline takes more than a little black dress waiting for me to fit into it.
My favorite heap is all the clothes I’m gonna wear! They are colorful and perfect fitting (on somebody about one size smaller than I). They all have their tags. My brain knows better than to be derailed from its eating interests for a cheap trick like a little black dress – but my emotional buying side keeps trying. I have been disciplining myself a little better these days….but it take a lot of work and definitely prayer. (You know – better body beat up my booty campy-d-camp)

Lesson #3 – Planning is important in all aspects of life
My second favorite heap is my unplanned buying pile. It is a bunch of good buys and nice fits that don’t match each other. Somehow none of them go together and they were all such a good buy I hate to spend money on something that matches because then the good buy part is lost! I pick one out now and then and try it with this or that. I can always tell when I fail. I walk into work and everyone gives me the once over but politely says nothing…except Jen – she is as honest as they come. God bless that one!

Lesson # 4- There is value in the same-old.
My last heap (worth mentioning) is the same-old stuff I wear every week. I have no fancy jewelry or matching shoes! Oh my goodness! Shoes…that is another disaster for me. My daughter has tons of shoes…she probably wouldn’t have picked many of them but they have all lied to me in the store – saying, “Pick me! I am easy to wear; I match everything and I am comfortable too!” I don’t keep liars in my closet! Back to the clothes heap….. once in a while in a shopping moment you make music with your selection. You wear it week after week and know that if nothing else will do you can always wear it. Some of these are all worn out – but you hide the stain, safety pin the rip and hope nobody notices the fading because you just like the same-old outfit. There is comfort in knowing an outfit well – how it behaves in public, in the cold, in the rain, when you are hot and sweaty, when the wind blows.

So, what do your clothes tell you? What have you learned?

Better Beat your Body Boot Campy

So I promised to complete my saga on the boot camp. I have lost a few pounds and a whole lot of face! I walked out because I could not do the exercises. It is true I have injuries and impingements to health - like a serious inflammation disease...but I still feel like I copped out.

So what do I do? I go pay the muscle monkey to beat me up one-on-one at the Fitness center. How stupid is that? Now there is no hiding in numbers and pretending to do all those bicep curls...I have to do each and every one of them because he is standing there counting.

I kept asking myself - why? why? would I do this stupid thing? Then it occurred to me. I ate so much face being a quitter that I swallowed my brains and have none left. I plan to finish up with the group the last week of this Boot Camp. And I think I am going to "show 'em!!"

So - tomorrow I go back for my own personal beating. I think I need prayer.

Here - have a flower. I like my flower.

Like Rain

The expert memory maker

Memories are like rain. We saw a lot of rain on our Arkansas trip.

Mostly while driving. I saw too much of the butt end of a windshield wiper blade.

But memories are like rain.
It starts with droplets one by one, clearly landing - distinguishable , separate; faster and faster they pellet until you cannot see today at all.

Then swoosh – the intermittent wiper action clears the path and today

comes into focus once again.

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Sometimes you wonder why it takes so long when someone is so important to you.

Where do you sit after a long afternoon of water skiing...on the stone wall of course!

What do you see when you are sitting on the stone wall?

The Lake I lived on or should say in all summer 1966-1970

Where my brother worked, my father shared his ceramic brilliance by creating glazes,

and where I remember special one-of-a-kind collectable pottery.

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Memories are like rain.

They clear the air of all the dust and pollen so the world around you is brighter, greener, fresher. They come like a flood then trickle to an end as today

bursts forth rallying the senses to come into the moment and enjoy it’s newness. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I cleaned cabins at Knollwood Lodge when I was 16 and 17. Here is one cabin, the one we had - untouched by remodeling-a timecapsule of memories.
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Memories are like rain. They soak the dryness, steam the pavement,

and plump the landscape of all that happens today.

They make provision for tomorrow like the buds of today that are tomorrow’s flowers. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The greatest joy of my teen years was centered around my horse, thoroughbred racers, and the early mornings at the track.

Lookout Point - where you make-out with your boyfriend or make-up your

dreams of the future, overlooking Hot Springs from West Mountain.

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Memories are like rain.

Sometimes they come like a surprise shower in the middle of a sunny day.

Sometimes there are signs that gradually awaken you to a coming cloudburst

like birds taking shelter in their nests,

or a change in the wind or the sudden shadowing of the sun.
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A fresh drink of water from heaven. First place I hit in town after a semester away at college.

So that’s what the trip was about for me. Memories for my mother to share with her friend, memories for me to share with my daughter and memories for my daughter to make with her daughter. We made as many memories as I recalled. Check out Christy’s blog for a day-by-day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Mom and Anne Kastner - friends for 40 years.

Making memories as Emma walks with G-ma to Anne's cabin.

Making memories with Grandma on West Mountain overlooking the whole city.