Nurse Of Hope

I grew up in a small town of about eight thousand people. When I married I lived in towns of four hundred and two thousand. I think you get the picture; very small town girl.

My sister was a registered nurse. She had a gift for healing.

Her hands were the most soft and caring. They were just like my dad’s and looked like my dad’s.

Once in awhile she would call me and invite me to lunch. We lived about eighty miles apart, so that involved having to get a sitter, so it didn’t happen very often. Rosie was in charge of a lot of patients in a large hospital. One day I arrived at the hospital early and sat on a bench to wait for her. I couldn’t believe the lady in a white uniform and a nursing cap and half glasses on the end of her nose was my sister. She wore a taffeta dress uniform, white hose and shoes. Her shoes were blue from being polished so many times. She walked very quickly. As my sister walked she “swished.” Her walk was fast with a predetermined destination. I felt almost sorry for someone that did not care for Rosie’s patients the way she ordered.

My sister had some sadness in her life, the loss of her husband for one. She decided to work for hospice and make the end stages of life easier for people.

One weekend I went to Des Moines with her. She was the keynote speaker for a Hospice convention. It was an excellent speech. After the speech was over, we went to lunch. This all took place in Hotel Fort Des Moines.

It was a beautiful place. It was like a palace to a small town girl like me. I will explain that the tables were decorated with style and beautiful china.

At the end of the meal, the waitress came with a small plate of strawberries and a bowl of melted chocolate. She handed me a tiny fork, and waited. While she waited, I waited, I looked at my sister, and she looked at the waitress too. Finally the waitress explained to use the small plate on the table to place my strawberry on. My sister and I looked each other in the eye and started to giggle. I think it took a good twenty minutes for us to quit acting like school girls.

The school girl routine happened to us every now and then. What memorable fun!!

The Cat: Part 2

Good morning. I  thought some of you that are animal lovers might be interested in the continuing saga of "The Cat." Fran is so soft hearted; was heating our big porch and feeding the cat and continued to pet and encourage the cat to come to him. I was the big meanie in this story because it costs a lot of money for propane and Maggie our little dog was unable to play on the porch with her ball. The cat was swiping at her with her claws and I was afraid for her. I finally called the vet and they said that they often placed cats. She said as a matter of fact there was a man in our area that had reported his cat missing. Viola!!!  Fran took the cat to the vet in Maggie's cage. The gal at the vet's just reached in and the cat went right to her.  Fran couldn't get over it. The vet examined it and it was a neutered cat. They were sure that it was just lost and the  man will be so happy it was well taken care of.

Don't Bite It In The Middle

When I was a little girl we lived on a farm in Iowa. My dad milked a few cows and was a grain farmer. We were poor but we always had enough food to eat. My mother always baked homemade bread for us to eat as well as the bread and rolls she made to sell at the grocery store.

As a special treat she would buy peanut butter at the grocery store and would make us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The jelly or jam that we had was homemade and absolutely delicious. She would slather butter on the bread that was about three quarters of an inch thick and then the peanut butter and then the jam or jelly. The sandwich was a double Decker She would  give us an ice cold glass of milk to go along with it of course. Sometimes my dad would join us for our snack. I loved my dad so much, but I didn’t want him to join us then. He was a sticker about two things, I couldn’t sing at the table and I couldn’t bite my peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the middle. He just didn’t understand how delicious it was when you did that. You see when mom put the jelly on the bread the majority of it would migrate to the middle, therefore, when I took a big bite in the middle I got jelly squirting out of both sides of my mouth and both ends of  my sandwich. Oh I can just taste it now. As a matter of fact, I can. I just had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and ate it just exactly the way I wanted it and it was slathered with butter too. I do not want to visit about high cholesterol today, either. Uhm, it was so good.

Can Coveralls Shrink In The Closet?

My husband is such a good stepfather to my youngest son. Last night my son called and said he had a chance to buy a used furnace and central air conditioning unit for a hundred dollars. Well, if everything works, that was a steal. The lady that owned it wanted to go totally electric.  Mike wanted to know if Fran would store it in our shed until he got the venting done etc. Fran said, of course.
The next step is today and that is cutting the pipes so that the furnace can be taken out of the house where it is. Where it is is in the country with no power. No power means by the time they get there it will be dark. Hmm that means flash lights or lanterns. Like I said, Fran is a wonderful stepfather.
The weather is not cooperating either. We are smack dab in the middle of the plains. Our wind chill last night was twenty below zero. Fran needed to go out and get the built up snow off the pickup. It had snowed again last night with horrendous winds that swirled around and made little drifts all over my car and his pickup. The doors on the pick up were frozen shut. He needed to get in there to get saw blades to use on that furnace.
He knew that the temperature was just awful outside, so he went into the spare closet to get his coveralls. He said, “Well I gave all my coveralls to Mike.” I said, “Mike is thirty inches around and you are about a half a foot bigger.” Fran said, “Well, I am sure they would have fit.” He found some coveralls that he put on. He did have to admit that they were a little snug. He had to wear a coat lined with sheepskin over the overalls. Oh, he was so cute. I thought, “If he loses his footing, he will just roll down the hill!”  It is just amazing how his overalls shrunk in the closet.

Where Are You From?

As most folks that have a blog or more, I have a stat counter, or blog counter. I am absolutely fascinated with it. I can travel sitting in my easy chair and loving every minute of it. I look to see how many people have read one of my posts and find a town I have never heard of. Then I look it up on the computer to see where it is and what the population is and what the people there are most proud of.

I find cities, towns, and the other day a village. How fun! I have lived in cities, towns and villages.

I am hearing from relatives that I have not heard from in years or at least not very often.

I always wonder how you find me. I have networked blogs from Facebook, however, I think a lot of people “blog-hop.” I love to blog-hop. It is one of the most fun and interesting things I have ever done. My goodness, you all have such unique lives and are doing things I used to do and things I never thought of doing ever in my whole entire life!

I read about people that collect things; I used to do that. I had to get rid of my collections. When you downsize in homes you have to do things like that. The collecting I look at closely, I still have pieces that I collected long ago.

I read about young moms and their children; I had three children and had all kinds of things happen that I didn’t think anyone would like to hear about. I guess I just thought it was a normal way of life.

Any way I just think it would be so much fun to hear from some of you that read my posts. I love the comments and the counters. Hopefully, I will see you tomorrow.

Retirement

Our friends for the most part are retired. If they aren’t retired, they are married to a spouse that is.

I was one of many baby boomers that did not think it was necessary to have a 401k etc. etc. I had always had a good job, but had not made good investments.

There was one thing, however, that I was passionate about. That one thing was that I should have a house in my name that would be paid for before I retired. In order to do that, I would have to look in a little bedroom type small town to be able to pay for it in three years. A few years prior to this “feeling” I had bought forty acres of land and sold it for a large profit. I used that money to remodel my “new” little house. On the month that the last payment was due, my ex-husband left me. Thank goodness, I had that “feeling.”

Now that I am retired, I rent that little house for a small income to help my very small social security. Smaller now in 2010 than in any other year, because the government says that there is no cost of living increase. If that is true, why are the members of congress entitled to a cost of living increase in their pay checks? I love living in the United States. I think that we live in the best country in the world, but I do have difficulty understanding some things especially why my check is smaller and my bills are higher. That sounds like an increase to me.

The Lost Treasures

Years ago when I had to put my mother in a nursing home to rehab from a fall, I eventually found that her temporary stay needed to be permanent. That was one of the most difficult decisions for my brother and I. The loss of independence is horrific, not only for the person, but for the family also. The family has difficulty with an impending sense of denial. For instance, surely Mom will be alright, she has just had a short term problem and then she can go back home when she is better. Often times that just doesn’t happen. Again often times, the patient adapts easier than the family members.

My mother’s house had to be gone through and cleaned out. She had lived in that house for over thirty years. Her things had to be sorted for keep piles and throw away piles, and sell piles. There were things that needed to be read and sorted. Among the many things I found were love letters that my father sent to my mother before they were married. I had no idea he was such a romantic. I read a few of them and thought I was intruding on their private life and stored them in Mom’s Memory Box where I found them or so I thought. That box had been moved three times before I thought of those letters. I now had time to read them. The letters were gone. I was so disappointed. The contents of the letters helped me know my parents more than you can imagine. Another thing, my parents had always seemed old. They had always had white hair and kind of straight laced; little did I know. The only thing that was missing were the return letters from my mother to my father.

I have been writing stories about material that I found in Mom’s Memory Box this year. Much to my surprise, I found the letters again. I had put them back in the box. They are in perfect condition and are almost eighty years old. In fact they will be this year.

One of the most fun things I discovered was my dad’s sense of humor. He sounded like one of those people you see and hear about in the roaring twenties. This is a quote from him that tickled me. “ Well, hon, I have oceans of love for you and there is a kiss on every wave.” What, that didn’t sound like my dad.

Then I discovered a letter that was written on tablet paper. He wrote a regular letter then he turned it upside down and wrote on the bottom side of the top side. You could hardly read a word of it. At the bottom of the letter he apologized and said that he thought it would be fun to do that.

I am sure you realize that the depression was going on during the thirties when my parents were in love. My father did any job possible to earn enough money to survive. He often worked in the fields, but reading these letters I learned he sold Christmas cards too. He would go house to house peddling these cards. One month he told my mom he had earned five dollars doing this. He also was very verbal with mom about one of his bosses. Oh, he didn’t like him. That just didn’t sound like my dad either. My dad was very laid back and easy going. Oh, I forgot in the thirties my dad was very young, maybe not so easy going.

My dad eventually got a job working for my mom’s dad on the farm. He had been hankering for that job for years. But what kind of thanks is that, you hire a guy to do farm work and he steals your daughter!