They Don't Just Do What We Say?

If you want your child to accept your values when he reaches his teen years, then you must be worthy of his respect during his younger days.

Benjamin Franklin came to a personal conclusion that the lighting of streets would not only add gentility to his city, but also make his city safer. In seeking to interest the people of his native Philadelphia in street lighting, however, he didn't try to persuade them by talking about street lighting. Instead, he hung a beautiful lantern on a long bracket before his own door. Then he kept the glass brightly polished, and carefully and diligently lit the wick every evening just as dusk approached.

People wandering down the dark street saw Franklin's light a long way off. They found its glow not only friendly and beautiful, but a point of helpful guidance. Before long, other neighbors began placing lights on long brackets befor their own homes. Soon, the entire city awoke to the value of street lighting. The matter was taken up with interest and enthusiasm as a citywide, city-sponsored endeavor.

Just as Franklin lit a lantern for his city, soo too, our actions as parents are like beacons to our children. What they see, they copy. And when what they see is good, what they copy is also good!

For those of you who've watched Smallville, then hopefully this will make a little sense. If not, it'll probably sound like strange. But hey, what's new...sometimes life is just a mystery!

Lately, the people that I once trusted and thought of as great friends are going off the deep end. It really is like they have been bitten by a bug or smelled the fumes off of a plant and are all of a sudden not the person I once knew. It's kinda sad in some ways but as I've gotten older I guess I've observed that people do change. Or maybe it's not that they change, maybe it's that I just didn't really know them.

Other than that, things have been so good. I went back to Karate for the first time yesterday, so I'm paying for that. I keep telling everyone I'm too old for Karate, but they won't listen....they just make me go. LOL But the girls are doing so good in Karate. I always knew they would but they were so involved in softball in previous years that there's no way we had time for both. I think Tarah is more interested in competing in forms while Maegan and Faith lean to the sparring more. It's exciting!

Well, I'll write more later. But gotta run for now.

Gettin' Back to Normal

Whatever normal is!!!

I can't figure out why driving, sight seeing, eating and sleeping makes you so tired. But it does. So I'm resting up now.

I did go into work today. My favorite sister made me some coffee. She and Maegan make the best coffee! Sonya and I usually drink our afternoon coffee together and I love that. But while I was away on vacation, she said she went back to her old ways of getting her coffee from Waffle House. But thankfully she made me some today. It was really good.

Well, it's time to watch Smallville with the fam. Better run before they start without me!

Sun City AZ to Louisville KY to HOME

Well, we left Jo & Buck's home, in Sun City, AZ at 12 midnite GA time.

It was a great visit, as always. With all they had going on (her son had surgery the day before we got there, and was having another surgery the day after we were leaving, and plus they were also leaving on Friday for a journey south to Buck's family reunion) they took time share half a day with us, and prepare a home cooked meal.

We had planned to spend the nite, but after hearing all that they had happening, I insisted that we just stop in for the afternoon and head out before bedtime.

After such a wonderful evening, it was very hard to leave. But they promised to stop by our house and visit on their Nashville trip. I am looking forward to that.

David's been looking for an 05 Mustang for a couple of months and for some reason while we were on our trip, he and Maegan decided to scan the internet for the states that we would be going back thru on our way back south. They found a car in Kentucky that sounded like what we were looking for. So when we left AZ, or destination was Louisville KY, to take a look at that car.

We drove a straight 29 hours to get to Louisville at 5 am, stayed at a camp ground and got up right after daylight to meet the Mustang owner.

To make a long story short, we bought the car! I really didn't think I would be so excited about a car. Most of you that know me, know that generally things like cars are just not things that I get excited about very often. I guess I wasn't really expecting to find the car just yet.

So, we left Louisville around 2 pm...destination HOME! Got home at 10:30. It's great to be home. The trip was awesome, and it's so special to have 2 weeks of time to spend with the fam. But still, home is truly home, sweet home.

Oh yea, one other thing I want to remember is on the drive from Louisville, I drove the Mustang most of the time with Maegan and Tarah switching out keeping me company. One time Faith wanted to ride with us. She was in the back seat, starting to look bored. So I told her that she didn't have to feel like she had to stay with us, to feel free to go back to the camper. I knew she had lots more to do in the camper (smallville, games, toys etc) but for some reason she felt that she needed to ride with me some. She has this thing about being fair. Anyway as soon as I said that she said, "Oh, well how would you work that out?" I explained that we would just stop and she could go back to the camper. She looked pleased with that. Then she said, "Yeah, well it's been 2 hours or 3 so I guess I'll go to the camper." It was so cute cos she had been with us for maybe 15 minutes.

From Montanta to Yellow Stone to Vegas to Sun City AZ

Just arrived in Sun City, AZ to visit my sweet Great Aunt Josephine and Uncle Buck. I'm so excited to get to see her again. She is the Poster Lady for joy! You'd never know the heart aches that she has endured, by the love and peace that pours from her heart.

She found out at 15 that she had TB. Had to leave her "sweet heart" in GA to be quarenteened in the AZ desert. Her father then contracted the TB and died in a short time. She says she used this time to bring as many to Jesus as she could. She prayed most often for others. She was pretty sure that should would simply die in this "desert place" as she calls it. But God wasn't done with her. She was healed, eventually got married and was blessed with two children.

Years later, I mean YEARS, like over 30-40...she was again single and she begin writing a book. In the process, she had wanted to include the "sweetheart" that she had left in GA, to get his permission to use their info in her book. A short time later, his wife was killed in a car accident and somehow by the help of both of their children, Josephine and her high school sweet heart was able to see each other again. Newspapers and radio stations were there covering the story.

Within about a year, they were married. And to see them today, you would think they would have been together their whole lives.

I won't go into all the detail of the sadness and rough times that Aunt Jo has endured. Because I will honor her in attempting to share joy, as she does. She chooses to deal with the sorrow, then focus on the good. I sure need to take some lessons from her.

We are almost to their home, now. So I will catch up more later.

Badlands SD to Billings MT

Tuesday nite we stayed at the Badlands in S. Dakota. It was beautiful. Reminded me of a small version of the Grand Canyon. We stayed at a KOA right outside of Badlands. We left Wednesday morning for Mt. Rushmore. That reminded me of Stone Mtn, GA. Our friends from Chatty town that we meet back at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, found us again at Mt. Rushmore. That was kinda neat. They want to try and catch us again in Vegas if not before. We at dinner with them at the Mt. Rushmore cafeteria and left there at 8:00 eastern time headed for Red Lodge, MT. We talked to Ben Kiker and he highly recommended that we stay there.

Our phones and internet service has been very limited today and that's been a little difficult tryin to help problem solve with everyone at the office. When we're away on a trip like this it becomes even more clear to me how much problem solving David does on a daily basis. He is so patient and so good at working thru things. I need to learn more from him, he is such a good leader by example. I thank God for him.

And we owe a special thanks to Sonya, Anne and Josh for making this possible too. Also, thanks to Josh M. and Sonya for getting addresses, checking the house, taking care of Miss Daisy and General and all the other good stuff.

Well, pretty much all for now. We are planning an all nites drive tonite to make it to MT. I will post more later.

Update From The Road

So we left Saturday evening for our roadtrip. David and Maegan drove til midnight, then Tarah and I took over and we made it to St Louis, MO about 5 am. We rested at Wal-Mart. I called my perfect sister because she had been to St. Louis and told us there were some things we needed to see if we ever went there. She said we had to go to the Arch, not just go there but go up to the top. That sounded like fun so we buy our tickets (10.00 adults-3.00 child) and got in line. Now obviously I could see the Arch was very high, but I never thought, "How are we gonna get up there". Faith is excited cos we're gonna have a roller coaster ride. So, we're standing in line and this little tiny door opens for us to get in. No, tiny, I mean the door is shorter than me. Tarah and I look at each other (with fear!) but everyone just shoves us in. I am somewhat closterphobic, Tarah is worse than me. The five us us barely fit into this little "room". Then they shut the door! Oh my g'ness! It was a long four minutes up to the top, 640 up. Needless to say we made it up and back down, but I doubt anyone can talk either me or Tarah into that again. So yeah, thanks perfect sister for NOT telling me all the details, cos I would not have went. Smart. Now I can call you my Smart and Perfect sister.

We left St. Louis about 4pm. Heard a noise in the front passenger tire. Got to a Petro truck center in Columbia MO. After they took the wheel off they adivsed not to drive any further due to a bad bearing. We stayed at a camp ground in Columbia MO, got up early and went to the Ford dealership. They had lots of Mustangs so we kept ourselves entertained. They made us an offer of 29,300 for a GT. Nay, too much. Finally about five hours later they tell us there's nothing wrong with our wheel and send us on our way.

By now it's 6pm and we decided we could use a sit down meal. We ate at Olive Garden. Hit the road again. About 5 min after we get on interstate 70W and David says, "Do you feel a bounce?" This is an ongoing thing with David and I. He's such a perfectionist, sometimes I have to convince him it's just in his head.~laugh~ But this time, there was no convincing. So, we spend the rest of the day looking for a "desirable" tire place to get our tires balanced. We hit Sam's and Wal-mart too. That was in St. Joseph MO. (Tires Plus). By now it's 8:30 pm. We arrived in Sioux Falls, SD about 1am and rested at Wal-mart. Got up 7am and after hitting Wal-mart AGAIN, left Sioux Falls about 10:30am. It was very cool, mid 40s. We all had to change clothes~grin~

So far we like Sioux Falls very well. It seemed to be a very conservative place. People looked normal and everyone we came in contact with was courteous.

It's 11:30am eastern time. We're on 90, headed to Corn Palace, SD. Then plans are to go to Wall Drug store, then on into Rapid City to Mt. Rushmore.

Dad's Motorcycle

The weather is just beautiful today. It's almost perfect.

Sold dad's motorcycle. That was tough. But I've justified it by knowing that I'm gonna put the money on an 05 Mustang. My thoughts are that he would be please with that decision. We never rode the bike, and maybe someone else will get some good times with it. Plus, my perfect sister helped me by reminding me that most likely a motorcycle isn't something he would have been sentimental about. He was more practical than that. So thanks, perfect sister for helping. I guess the bike wouldn't have held so much sentiment to me either, except that he drove it down to the office the day before he left this world. He wanted to sell it cos he wanted to buy a Harley.

It's hard to belive that as of Oct 29th dad will have been gone for 11 years. And an interesting thought is that even after him being gone all that time, I'm still concerned with what he would be "pleased" with me doing. I've never thought about that. Wow, is that normal? Oh, what's normal, anyway! It's true so....

But as a child growing up I would have thought, "Who cares what my parents think, I'm gonna do what I WANT to do, after all it's my life". So, deep inside it's obvious that I did care what he thougt. That's encouraging in at least one way for me...even during those moments when I may feel, "who cares what I feel or think", there's a good chance that my children will. That makes me smile.

And BTW, girls, I don't get that "who cares" feeling very often, because you all are so good about taking others into consideration. So thanks!

Gotta run! Blessings!

Plastic People

Our children are watching us live, and what we are shouts louder than anything we can say.

This is so true. I saw a random post this morning and a guy referred to some christians as "plastic people". And that hit me as such a simple way to put what I see so often. And I feel that the people that are hurt the most when we pretend are our children.

So my prayer is that I will be real with my children...it may not be easy, it may not be popular, but I know they can deal with truth much better than deceit. Help me, Lord to be the mother that they deserve.

Never Be Afraid To Do Something New...
Remember, amateurs built the ark; professionals built the titanic!