Let Spring Ring

 The lilac bushes are now blooming profusely filling the air with that lovely fragrance. I cut a few of the blooms last night and now the downstairs is filled with the fragrance of the season. The blooms are helping the air purifiers this morning. The scent met me on the landing of the stairs. Such a brief season but so enjoyable.

One of the benefits of these assisted hearing devices is listening to music. No uncomfortable headphones for me...haha. Since we are on sabbatical for the choir I don't listen usually to music while getting ready for church and since Roy has found an interest in scripture praise songs, I don't want to do anything to keep him from enjoying that. Yesterday, I thought I'll listen to KHCB, Christian radio station in Houston, for their Sunday morning music. All throughout my life I have had a love/hate, no just dislike with KHCB. My mom listened to it sometimes when I was a child. Then as teenager I liked to listen to different pastors preach, and then about college and through young adulthood, it was old fogey music, get with the times! Now, at that time The Gaithers were considered CCM and I can remember my parent's church fighting, I mean discussing, whether the choir should sing any Gaither songs. Think that has changed now. Roy and I would catch Stories of Great Christians in the car if we went anywhere in the early evening. The production of the fifteen minute show was all cliches, with organ music for background sound. They would announce, Stories of Great Christians and then play, on an electric organ in Christ There Is No East or West. When we moved up here at times I would listen to By Request on Saturday afternoons. KHCB is now run by younger people with the same vision as Pete Steygeral and then Bruce Munsterman, who recently retired. Imagine my surprise mixed in with great hymns, great praise and worship music as well as gospel music. What an enjoyable morning of music. What a morning of singing praise to God!. Poor Roy, he only heard me but he said I was mostly on tune when I sang. I sang with Total Praise and felt I was hitting the alto notes. 

 We went to TJ's in Mars Hill. We came home with strawberries and three packs of zinnias. I really wanted to get the whole tray but we still have blackberry winter ahead so for now I am content to plant these twelve plants in containers to be easily whisked away to shelter when the chance for frost comes. 

I replaced the little round white thing under the dome, rubbery ear piece, of my hearing aids. The little tool makes it easier than I thought it would be. You do this about once a month but I decided to do it a few days early in case I had a problem. I have a dentist appointment this week and would just be up on the next floor if anything had happened. Love having most of my doctors in one place. 

Looking through my memories from 2009, I think, on FB, I will leave you with this story. Mustang Sally was our first Mustang but now we have Mustang Sam. 

A Chance Encounter

It was a chance encounter this morning. Such a beautiful day to have the top down on Mustang Sally. I had just been to Tanglewood Gifts to mail our tax return, then to the cleaners, and a return trip back home. I was home just long enough to pick up something and back on the road, still with the top down. Driving down Memorial singing with 92.1 when something fell from the sky and hit my arm. It was a lizard, a chameleon, basically when you get down to it, a reptile. Well it is in my book. I screamed bloody murder and flipped my arm to get the creature off of me and out my car. He landed on the passenger side door and looked as if he would be moving underneath the dash board of the car. I screamed again and I think I was driving, I'm not too sure. All I know is this, the Bible believing, Word speaking, verse claiming side of me came out in full force. If speaking in tongues would have helped, I would have. I HATE these creatures. So I am watching that lizard and speaking over it. Oh such things like, In Jesus Name I command you to stay on that door, no moving! You do not exist or move or have your being at all in this car. God gave man dominion over the earth and since there ain't no man in this car I am speaking dominion over you and you cannot move in Jesus Name! That lizard stuck to that door. I pulled into the North parking lot at church where I was picking up Cassi for lunch. As she came near the door I asked if she was afraid of lizards. She said no and I said get that thing out. Well, by this time I am out of the car doing the little nervous dance when my hero Jerrell Altic comes by my car. We told him the happenings and came over to my car and flipped that pestilence off my door and into the shrubbery. Thank yous abounded from me and Cassi. Cassi and I had lunch at the Ashland House and we sat outside with me nearest the shrubbery. There were some anxious thoughts going on in me like what if that stupid lizard has sent messages to his friends and family and those lizards surround us at our table. Those anxious thoughts left rather quickly though. We sat down for a great visit and great food. I went all Southern and got the veggie plate which had collard greens, corn, sliced tomatoes, black beans and fried asparagus. Yum, yum... and there was room for coconut cake with an orange filling. I went back in the church with Cassi to see Melinda Scurlock. She's tempting me to work in VBS for registration and the snack room by offering me a t-shirt. Girl knows the way to my heart, only thing, the t-shirt is burnt orange. I am worried that I might have to wear a hair net to work with the snacks. I don't know if I am up to that. I don't look good in black net on my head.


A stupid stinkin' lizard fell on my out of the sky. What the heck??? What are the chances? I know that if I was going any other speed than what I was going that sucker would have fallen into my hair and I would have driven into a tree for sure and all would be grieving my untimely death...yes, she beat 9/11 and a bad heart, but she couldn't overcome a lizard near her gizzard.

That's all I have for now.

Ballet, Spring and Remembering

 Many evenings before hitting the bed, I watch ballets. Just snippets and mostly what comes through the time line is the portions of famous ballerinas and famous ballets. Some of the reels are almost documentary like showing how toe shoes are conditioned and used or showing the work that goes into learning some of the hardest moves. Behind the scenes where only the toe shoes are heard and ballerinas that have to lock into one position while the main dancer or dancers perform. What makes me smile is when the female dancer has done thirty two spins in a row called fouettés, the male dancer comes into view and kind of does a ta da move showcasing the dancer's moves but with a sense of, he made it happen. And sometimes, when women in church are doing a lot of hard work, making things happen, covering up screw ups, and all sorts of that kind of stuff, sometimes after doing "spiritual fouettés" they don't even get a ta da. The guys carry on like no mess was made here and if it was, well, that is women's work. You can hear that a lot in these parts. I think about this kind of stuff every April when it is Administrative Professional Appreciation, especially church admins. Love that our pastor calls Elaine the church admin, the CEO and she is. I will add that working in church for female directors of ministries, cause they ain't going to call them ministers in a Baptist church, can be difficult as well. More insecurity or something. Moody and sometimes downright unfair and well...I am thinking of the B word, too. Haha, the B word is Baptist. I watched one of those big blob kind of men, with the gruff, know it all of life and the Bible on Reels. I don't know why so many men who become blob like have the same similarities. I've seen this guy before and his rhetoric is KJV only and Bible men shouldn't be sissies. He was reading out of Jeremiah but he had the wrong reference. He got mad at the congregation for his own mistake. I wonder if he knows that King James authorized that version to unite Puritans and the church of England and King James was thought to be gay or bisexual. Jesus did not speak KJV English.

It is that time of year when it is warm enough to really, really want to plant flowers but you really, really know one shouldn't. Our red bud trees bloomed and then were stunted with cold temps in the past few weeks. Now the leaves are coming out so at least they are doing well. The snowballs bushes have buds on them and the Japanese snow balls are blooming already. My 2020 Covid flowerbed project is slowly returning to grass. It kept me busy during those days and I kind of thought it would work but alas, it did not. Now, we need to move or rather have someone come and move the rocks that surround the area. Since I have a lot of harvested sunflower seeds, I put some out in the side flowerbed. If half or even a fourth of them make it, that's going to be a lot of sunflowers.

The new assisted hearing devices use is going well. Love the Blue Tooth feature and I am excited to actually hear conversations again. I wrote on this previously but I kind of thought at first it would be a difficult transition for me but when I thought of this as flourishing, it hasn't been a problem. Getting a little older, haha, is interesting reading. There are kinds of lists to consult on if this happens, this is what that means. Those lists are at both extremes. Leg hurts, it's nothing. Leg hurts, you have gangrene. Oh no, it's too late. 

Looking back on FB Memories on this date 16 years ago, the memorial service for Dan Duncan happened. It was an extraordinary service for an extraordinary man. He was the founder and leader of Enterprise Products in Houston. Most people have never heard of the company but those in the stock market that love MLP's love EPD. Up here if we mention Dixie Pipeline, people know that because it is the pipeline that supplies propane to this area of the country. EPD owns that pipeline. Anyway, today I thought I would include my thoughts I wrote back then after attending the service. This is the company that Roy worked and retired from. 

God Honoring, God Glorifying- One Man's Life

I have just a few minutes because I need to get ready to meet Casi for lunch but I wanted to get my thoughts down about yesterday. We went to the memorial service for Dan Duncan. Lots of Enterprise Product folks had the same idea we had, go early to Second Baptist, get a parking spot and then walk over to Cafe Express for lunch. The paper said this morning that over 3000 were in attendance. The 3000 heard the Gospel yesterday. I believe the DVD of that service could be sent out and used to teach and many would come to know the Lord. Dr. Young was impressive as always but Jan Duncan, the widow of Dan, gave the eulogy and she knocked that baby out of the park! Wow! Neither Roy nor I had a pen because if we'd had one, we would have been taking notes. She emphasized that we are God's love to those He has put into our lives and that we need to use those gifts God has given us to express His love so that others may know Him. She said to give or to be giving is put into each one of us by the Lord and if we have trouble being generous with our lives, time and money, we have handicapped our hearts. Jan quoted from her favorite book, Conversations with God frequently throughout her talk. The music, just everything was so God honoring and glorifying. I think I am still trying to process all that I heard yesterday in that service.
Afterwards in the reception with the family we were able to see so many friends. I was on a very focused hunt to find Dub and Mary. I played tennis with Mary and her sister Marti. Dub retired from Enterprise several years ago as the CEO. The country life is agreeing with them, they both looked rested and refreshed. In 1999 on a girl's night away, I was sitting on the porch at their ranch house in Brenham, early in the morning, the dew and mist covered the rolling valleys. Only Mary and I were awake and we shared conversation and coffee that morning. Mary went back to the kitchen to bring us more coffee and in those moments alone, I prayed for Roy, who had just been laid off. Actually, this story really begins in the summer of '99. Roy was on a huge project and he called to vent frustrations over progress or maybe lack of progress. I told him, shut it down, come on home and let's go out to eat. We did just that and we had dinner at Escalante's, where Dub and Mary had just been seated. We all had dinner together and Roy and Dub talked about the implementation project he was on. Of course Mary and I talked of much more interesting things. Well to us, anyway, back to the story, when Mary got home from the ranch she mentioned Roy to Dub. She talked about his upcoming interviews in Long Island and San Francisco. The rest of the story is history, good history, and Roy certainly has been blessed. But I love those divine appointments that God has. And to even top it off, the divine appointments were fun.
We also ran into Linwood and John Olson. I played tennis with Linwood and we share the love of Southern fiction together. She is the epitome of the Southern lady. John is one of the first analysts that recognized the problems with Enron. We were able to visit with them a little. We saw the mover and shakers of the city and state, in law, in medicine and in business at the reception. There were others there like us, nobodies, but having the same respect and admiration of a humble, hardworking and honest man. Rest in peace Dan Duncan, well done thou good and faithful servant.

Still Love Me Some Teen Girl Squad

 I still love me some Teen Girl Squad quotes and do find some of them work in everyday conversations even if the person you're talking with has no clue about Teen Girl Squad. The exterminator came this week and as he was spraying the yard he found a dead possum near the back porch but out of the sight line from the window. The ever popular, I met a possum. Good for you line kind of worked because Roy went out there to pick up and dispose of said possum. When Roy returned from that job I asked if the possum was really dead or was it playing possum. 🥁I'll be here all week, thank you! 

https://youtu.be/tHZwHUMeGGQ?si=4RP-4MjF-I4jsOvt

Now I need to spend some time reviewing, once again, Teen Girl Squad on You Tube. It is clearly plain and simple sophomoric humor but done so delightfully. A text or a visit with CourtneyS may or may not include references to these things. I have not told her about the dead possum but did text the picture from Beth Moore's X account of a possum up her tree. 

Our Maundy Thursday service last night so very meaningful. We gathered to remember the new covenant which Jesus put into place within the last supper. The musicians are doing a great job as we miss our music director, Debbie. Talked with her yesterday and she is in good spirits. 

We usually do not root for South Carolina being LSU and Baylor fans but we took SC over UConn. Wow! The ending not on the court cause it was decided but Gene A having a 70 year old acting fit and argument. He reminded me of old men who stand outside waiting for one person to step on their lawn, yell and shake their fist. Even with video evidence that the things he was saying were untrue. He has probably acted that way all his life and from the references to Pat Summit, it sounds so but once you get older and act the same way, it doesn't work. It doesn't look good. It's time to retire. The same ol stale jokes don't translate either. Earlier this week I finished up James Cagney's autobiography. Enjoyed it and hearing the stories that make up some of my favorite movies of his. After he retired, he only came back once when the American Film Institute honored him for life time achievement. He told several stories in the book about big name stars that thought they could still do what they used to and their name would add to a production but he said, sadly, some people do not do well in seeing things how they really are. He gave good advice and it sounds like he lived out the rest of his life enjoying the little things. Although, he was estranged from both of his kids. Now that situation, I'll just leave it there cause that's a rabbit hole I no longer desire to travel down. 

Now, Monday morning and the views are a bright and splendid green from the rain. It was a rainy Easter morning. I wore a black and cream colored Easter dress and boots because the rain made the temps very cool. It just seemed silly to be wearing those bright spring colors. Next Sunday is supposed to be warm, so I think the spring colors and clothes can come out. This must be dogwood winter cause the dogwoods are blooming and soon enough when the blackberry bushes bloom, we will have blackberry winter and then we should be good to go with planting and working in our gardens. 

We watched the Natty game yesterday and so happy that UCLA won. Now I am really happy that I don't have to watch basketball until later this year and that will be sparse. Never have been a fan of basketball, wither men's or women's, but March Madness is different. 

Yesterday's Easter service was low key and high powered. No choir, well that's a given for many churches, but since Debbie is healing from a broken hip our regular musicians played and did a fabulous job. A treat was the middle school young man that played It is Well With My Soul on the saxophone during the offertory. Skip preached from I Peter and Jesus exalted. 

Today, I loved the Joy Circle meeting. We talked about our walk with God. Very meaningful. I look forward to attending every month. Afterwards, I walked around the church and in the parking lot. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. 

Hearing Once Again and April Fool Thoughts

 Today, I had a follow up visit at the audiologist office. Met with the assistant and she helped me get the APP and my phone in sync to use all the bells and whistles with this hearing aid. My goodness this is not my grandma's hearing aid. She asked me about noise and stuff and none of it bothers me. Just so glad to be able to pick up words and oh my, when the birds sing, it is fabulous. We discussed when and where to wear them and the piece they call the dome isn't as fragile as I told myself it is. Got the cleaning kit and now here is to good hearing and listening...and good balance. God has certainly made miracles with our brains and we don't even notice the agility of it as we learn and create new pathways. I was asked if the noise was too much? Never! The birds, the sound of the shovel hitting dirt for the flowerbeds, even hearing Roy chewing his dinner...it's all good! Well, maybe not the chewing part.  

So, in this parking lot that for years we used as tourists to turn around when we missed the entrance to I 40 is now our medical center. I am also thankful that this time and it is the third time a charm, that no weird happenings happened in the first floor bathroom. The first instance, the guy in the women's bathroom...not transgender, not identifies as a woman but a guy looking for someone young...thank goodness I am old and not cute! Last week a very talkative woman cornered me in that bathroom, standing in the entrance of the door, talking to me about the hand dryers they use instead of paper towels. Well, I wanted to point out to her she didn't even wash her hands but she made that point that it was just "them" trying to control us and change our behavior. Oh, yep, I think there is some of that kind of thing that goes on but not with the hand dryer. It spreads more germs than paper towels so when I think of it, I bring some paper towels from home. I finally had to make her move and she followed me till I turned into the hearing office, she peeled off and went out the front door. 

*****

April 1st, nine years ago today my father passed away. When my brother called I wasn't sure at first that this wasn't some huge April Fool joke, but my father had a rough couple of days beforehand. We always thought it was appropriate that he passed away on this particular day. My brother felt that our father had realized the error of his ways and Doug had a good two years with him. They told me during that time that Dad had changed but for me, it was no thanks, been there, heard that...When he had his lawyer serve us with legal documents severing the relationship, he hadn't counted on, we would take him at his word. The last addition of his very mean living life began for us on March 27, 2012. His cardiologist's nurse called to let me know my father had not shown up for his appointment. I happened to be in Houston that day, so I took off toward his home. After searching every route and calling who I knew to call, I was at his desk writing down phone numbers to begin calling whomever to locate him. He came home, saw me at his desk and I knew what I had to do. I showed my work that I was working from his rolodex, not anything else. I realized then I didn't have his license plate number nor what medications he took. I sat there with him getting that info. My energy ebbing and knowing I needed to return home...I was in the midst of getting used to new medications and such for my heart and I had X amount of energy. He watched me drive away and I could tell by the look on his face, this wasn't going to end well. The Lord spoke to my spirit and said, this is the last time you will see your father alive. It was just a matter of a few days before being served. Thus began the process of answering questions from Adult Protective Services, the Houston Police checking into elder abuse after he filed a report and his lawyer asking questions and the constable's office calling. He told his remaining friends lies and thus began false reports of us going to their houses too. It was a lot and my heart took a beating, so to speak. All came back as false reports. APS told me they had never met such a good liar in all the years. The policeman called me back, gave me his cell number in case my father came to our home threatening us. In all of this a couple of his friends called me to warn us that my father had posted letters at all his doors and he kept guns nearby in case he had to stand his ground. His pastor friend was so concerned and hesitated to tell me, he hates you. He has hated you since you turned five years old. He told me this in case I decided to go to his home unannounced. I assured the pastor this was not news to me. What I didn't know until much later is how deep that hatred extended. I mean, this is the man who swore all to secrecy, not to tell me my mother was in the hospital dying. My brother found a creative way to let me know and how funny is it that the knowledge came in the form of a prayer request on FB. 

Several weeks ago as we were leaving the Publix, I saw a man that looked exactly like my father. Had Roy look over that way and he said, oh my goodness, your father didn't die, he's been living here in NC. That is how much the resemblance was. Only thing, this man was not well off, using a walker to barely move trying to keep pace with his wife. I contemplated taking a pic but decided not to. In some ways I took this as a spiritual road mark, this look had been my father all along. Crippled with so much hatred and insecurity. Lashing out the only way he could. Through these last nine years as more information comes out about narcissistic behavior I understand. Being the scapegoat/black sheep was my role and now knowing who his biggest helper was, puts things in perspective of his treatment of me and of course the scourger of his plans, Roy. 

I didn't go back for his service. Roy didn't go either. There were friends of his there that would never, ever believe anything else but what he had told them. His closest friend did believe the truth after she talked with my brother and she and I talked several times as well. I love that every time she saw him at the assisted living place she shared the gospel with him, to make sure he was really saved. Gee, I sure hope so. After hearing about him stealing things at assisted living and accusing others, it is true what they say about narcissists, they accuse others of what they are really doing.