Song of the Day?

While driving to Omaha to get my mom for the first time in a long time, I listened to my mixed-USB in the car. Up came one of the most beautiful renditions of a very popular song that was sung first by Judy Garland. It has been recorded by many, many people over the years. The woman who sang it as I heard it today has one of the most versatile, powerful voices I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy. It was. My brother Tim had it sung at his wife’s funeral. It was Laura’s favorite song, and it was quite fitting. I’ll always remember Laura when I hear this song. I’m so glad I had her for a sister for a little while. Very special woman.

Laura Elliott Kraft Jewell

My mom was able to purchase all of her cleaning supplies, dish soap, hand and body lotion, and garbage bags. The supply she got should last her for awhile. If I’m guessing right, she really wasn’t out of these things. She used to keep one item open for use, a second as a backup, and a third as a backup backup. You never know. I suspect she may have opened a backup and needed to rotate her stock again. Now she has no cause for anxiety until she thinks of something else. I’m sure it will be something. Poor thing. I hope when I’m old and alone that I go to the assisted living facility and don’t worry about anything. I’ll eat ice cream every day, and the world will be wonderful. You have to make it that way. Bless her heart.

It is actually a beautiful day today, not too windy or hot. I’m hoping Billy McGuigan and his brothers have a great opening night for Rave On at the Drive In. Omaha Community Playhouse is sponsoring a parking lot drive in concert. I love the idea. At first I thought no. But I miss live music too much. The Babe and I will look at going next week, I think. Here is a link to The Omaha Community Playhouse. You can never go wrong going to see Billy McGuigan and his bandmates. All the people who play in any of his band selections are exquisite musicians. They just all play well together. Check it out.

Just saw the weather. This is a first. It’s 88 degrees out, with light humidity. In fact, it feels like it’s only 85 degrees out. Gosh, hope there’s no wind chill! This is perfect weather for an outdoor drive in concert. Hope the boys have such great weather throughout their run.

I hear Black Diamond watermelons are in stock at Huffman’s Produce. I’m after one ASAP, because they are unbelievably good. Our little group of friends at the VFW have talked about how hard it is to find a good watermelon the past years in memory. You’ll be pleasantly amazed. I was.

Tomorrow will be a day I hope to spend at home. Home with the dogs. The Babe will go to the Post for awhile, and then we’ll decide how to spend the days of the weekend. I’ll make sure to write a lot earlier tomorrow than I did today. It just goes better, I think. Thanks for reading today. I appreciate your time, and will see you tomorrow. Take care of one another. Wash your hands. Socially distance. Be Kind. Be Mannerly. Be Civil. We all deserve it.

Telling Tuesday

Oh, boy! Just found out a sibling’s been exposed to someone with a deep cough. Not sure if any other symptoms, but they all need to stay home. Probably more people should stay at home than do. I don’t want anything to happen to anyone I love because they didn’t follow guidelines. Kind of how men love to stand outside during a tornado warning and see if they can see anything. Only you can’t see this invisible enemy, this virus. You cannot duck out of the way at the last second before it sweeps you up.

Things happen, don’t they? Hope I can get Mom through one last day of PT tomorrow, then we’ll both be able to stay at home. I’d prefer that to taking a chance. We all have different information depending on who we listen to. I’m going by our Nebraska Medical Center. They have the biocontainment chambers that have been used thus far. They are working on a vaccine, etc. I feel good they are right here where we are. I believe we will all be ok. We need to be positive. Things will be back to normal. I hope it is a new normal where we respect each other more, we are more kind to each other, where we show love before hate, and where we can once again, give people the benefit of the doubt without it being catastrophic for us. Anything can happen.

Goldie needs us to cut back on her food. She weighed 58 pounds when we had her spayed. She does seem like she just changed into a fire plug overnight. We cut back a noon feeding, which was one cup of dog food. Don’t want her to have a lifetime of bad health. It will take a little time, but I’m sure she’ll even out nicely. She was sort of a stinker this morning. She got Dan’s VFW magazine and ran outside with it.

Naughty Girl!

She eventually gave it up for a little treat, but my! She can run from you when she thinks you’re playing her game. The Babe still takes her out on the leash in the morning after the paper arrives, and she does her business and picks up the paper. We get it from her before she can run with it. See what scattered color we are seeing here in the past week? The grass is greening up nicely. I’m so happy about that. Yes, having dogs makes it take a bit longer, but here we are, and it’s starting up. Flowers won’t be far behind. Cross your fingers the hydrangeas grow back!

I’m going to take my characters and write a chapter about each of them. I think this will tell their individual story within the novel of how they fit together. The book may only include paragraphs about each person, but I want the whole story available, should I want to publish with a chapter on everyone. Right now, I just don’t know. Katie appears to be the main character, as she is telling a lot of what she remembers growing up to her younger and older brothers. The other characters each play a big part in the story of their family, and the reader needs to learn about them, their flaws, their strengths, and their downfalls. They all have at least one.

Don’t know about you all, but I just love baby toes! I love rubbing them, nibbling on them, and watching the baby learn how to make a face when they see you do it from their “stinky feet.” They are such delicate little things, and those feet grow to take you miles and miles through your life before it is time for you to go at the end of your life.

Miles to Go Before You Sleep!

So today I’ll write a bit about the oldest brother, Patrick. Patrick, being the oldest, was the test child, as the oldest often is. He was born in January, 1949, right before the great blizzard that made everyone think spring would never come that year. Patrick was very intelligent, and liked school. He did not like the nuns, however. In high school, when his mother was very busy with the rest of the children, Patrick skipped school often as he could, and frequently drank with his chums. He wasn’t a bad kid, he just wanted school over with and a job to go to everyday. He also loved his girlfriend, Rosemarie. Rosemarie lived up the alley, and her parents had their hands full too. All the families at that time did. Rosemarie became pregnant and they married the day after their high school graduation.

That’s a little bit of it. Don’t want to get too carried away as I find no way to cut and paste into or out of WordPress. It has to exist somewhere, but I’ll be darned if I can find it was yet. Until I do, I’ll just share small parts that can be re-typed quickly. Thank you for reading, hope you’re well. I appreciate your time today. I’ll be back here tomorrow, so I hope to see you then. Until then, “This Little Piggy Stayed HOME!!”

Thankful Thursday

All things considered, it’s a good day to be above ground.

Some days, some folks will have to dig deep to find something to be positive about. And Lord knows, we NEED to remain positive about things while we deal with this COVID-19. As a person who blogs daily, I can tell you, it’s hard to ignore that it’s out there. It is consuming our airways, our conversations, and our lives. In talking with Mom the other day she said, “I’m not dwelling on it. I just don’t know why I’m not sleeping.”

Our Mom is from the generation of women who wore worry as a badge of honor. I have had concerns about my kids and family, but have never lost sleep over their decisions and so forth. Mom has lost sleep over what my brothers and I haven’t – and it’s been about our lives. My attitude has consistently been God will take us through things. He’ll be good to us. Miracles happen every darned day. And they will continue to. How do you get to that place?

I think my first thing has always been to believe in God. Faith is everything. Faith needs to guide you through things you don’t understand, be it loss, a pandemic, or cancer. Don’t try and wrestle the problem away from God. He’s waiting for you to hand it over to Him. Pray. Do good things for others. Distract yourself. You may need some practice. Just note how you feel when you’re living life, even being self-quarantined, vs. how you feel while you’re sick with worry. Or sleepless with it.

It takes extra work to try and have a normal life right now. Do it. Do it afraid. Be grateful. For today, I’m going to concentrate on the miracles we see with medicine in our times. Just the fact that scientists and doctors have been able to identify this COVID-19 is a miracle. The fact it didn’t have to kill millions before it was discovered is a miracle. The fact we’re self-distancing is such an easy thing to do, if we adhere to it. We will not be ill if we don’t go on Spring Break, to the beach, in Florida. A friend who lives there told the Babe yesterday that he went on a motorcycle ride yesterday and the beaches were packed. And now, younger people are becoming ill. I know most of them are smart enough to follow directions. I know many of them don’t care, and at the same time, many more DO care what happens. They don’t want their parents and grandparents to take ill. As a grandparent myself, I’m thankful many of you are that thoughtful. You can always go to the beach when this is all over. And it will be, trust me.

The Polio Epidemic was the first time I remember something that was big and scary. I was maybe four years old? Mom, my older brother and I walked to his school for kindergarten, and we waited in line for what felt like forever. When it was our turn, a nurse in a crisp, white uniform, complete with starched nurses hat, gave all three of us a little cup like they serve nuts in. It had a clear liquid in it. We all drank it and left. And that probably protected us from that horrible epidemic. We knew one man who was affected by it, and it left one hand useless for the rest of his life. Despite that, he was an incredible carpenter, handy man, and artistic creator. I think he was one of two “away from work friends” my dad had. They were fast friends until Martin moved his family back to Florida. We all survived Polio.

The second memory of something scary was the Cuban Missle Crisis. Living less than twenty miles away from Strategic Air Command and the underground at Offutt Air Force Base, we knew this area would be hit first by enemy bombs. I was in ten years old at the time. Younger than our oldest grandchild. I was in fourth or fifth grade. Being Catholic, the nuns spared no details from us. We were to pray, and be calm because God would take care of us. Little did we understand at the time, there would be no survival in bomb shelters. We would have all died. Looking back, that was a lot for such young kids, but still, we knew the reality of our world. It probably helped us more than hurt us. We survived this crisis.

I’d like to share my trust and faith with anyone who is afraid right now. You can overcome your anxiety. If you are working with a medical professional to do so, good for you. I’d like all of us to come out on the other side of this with some life experiences that are good. Reconnecting with people is a great thing to do right now. Do that. Reach out if you can. Talk to your family if you can. Watch videos of babies laughing. Watch some music videos. Try a different genre, expand your horizons while you’re social distancing. Let’s use this time to grow and be grateful we live in these miraculous times.

I want to thank you all for reading today. If you have a minute, share my FB post about my blog with your friends. I’d appreciate it very much. I’ll see you again tomorrow, and I’ll let you know how my writing went. It’s where I’m headed now. Be safe. Be healthy.

Hope this gives you a good laugh and something to talk about.

A Weird Wednesday

Hump Day! In a world that was pretty normal just two weeks ago, we now have social distancing, self-quarantine, COVID-19 where Coronavirus used to be and a whole bunch of other stuff. People don’t know what to tell their kids, and in a society where we pick up and go wherever we want, whenever we want, America may have a lot to learn. I heard this morning, in Nebraska we are not to have gatherings of more than ten people in public until after April 30. No Church services. No school. No doctor appointments unless it’s an emergency. My ortho doctor called me to see if I wanted to come for my last Orthovisc injection on Friday. I told him as long as he would have me come in, I’ll go. Being two thirds through an expensive treatment, I feel in the long run, it will help me put off a knee replacement longer. I’m pretty good at avoiding people at the Bergan Clinic. I don’t think it will be a problem.

It just feels so eerie. The grocery shelves were not bad in Walmart in Gretna. I couldn’t find rubbing alcohol or clear Aloe Vera lotion, or hand sanitizer. I gave my mom my hand sanitizer to carry in her purse. It was a perfect travel size. Not a lot of traffic out, and I did witness a couple of teenagers or early 20’s on I-80 from 42 Street to 84 Street traveling at least 85 MPH. You see them on weekend nights after 11 p.m., like it’s a thing they do from Iowa to Gretna. Very dangerous.

The Babe has further endeared himself to me, as if that were possible. Doing the housecleaning while I’m taking Mom. Our cleaning lady is on leave for at least two weeks. He may have himself a job if she’s gone longer. I’d love to help, I just can’t do much stuff like that due to my back issues and injuries. He’s the best gift in the world, and there’s no one I’d rather be self-quarantined with. Check back in a couple weeks and see if that’s still the case! And it goes both ways, folks. I may be living in his shed if things fall apart from his end.

For me, I know I need to do what makes me feel better about everything. I need to create. Really sit down for two to three hours at a time and write. Twelve to fifteen hours of good writing, it will make a world of difference. And then, I need to sew my Poppy Quilt. Everyone needs something, and mine is creating.

Sometimes in the depths of my imagination, my characters will speak up in a way I wouldn’t have thought of, they say something or do something, and I get excited and think, “This is cool, I wonder where he’ll go now.” It’s as much of a surprise for me as it will be for you when you read it. It is amazing how much time it takes to make sure things are just right. Then you talk with your editor. Sam is so gentle, and kind with her critique. I know it will not always be that way. I just appreciate that so much about her. I’m so disappointed the Nebraska Writers Guild had to cancel the Spring Conference. I was going to get to see her again there. We’ll figure it out. Maybe meet for an outdoor meeting on a beautiful spring day in April or May, somewhere between Gretna and Lincoln. At any rate, the conference will be later in the Fall, we hope.

In the midst of writing, it sounds a little weird, but you are supposed to read as much as you can. Why? I’m sure seeing why lately. The things I’m learning about writing are reflected in what I’m learning about how to write. It’s funny sometimes, I’ll be reading and think, “So THAT’s what they mean . . .” And it sticks in my mind for next time I write. The whole thing about this is the amount of things I’ve learned. It’s just so cool. I don’t ever want to stop. That’s when they’re throwing dirt over you.

This screenshot from Facebook reminds us. We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to be courageous. It’s difficult to say, “Yes, I’m good at this.” And then let people read. That takes real courage.

With that, go draw, write, or learn a new thing. Be courageous and share it with someone. Even if you share it with a child. They appreciate everything. Great place to start! Thank you for reading today. I’m back at it again tomorrow, but it should be earlier. The next four days should yield a good twelve or more hours in here writing. Gotta meet goals, make those dreams happen! See you then.

Monday Measures

The Internet is becoming one of the most important commodities we have right now. No, you can’t eat it, drink it, or anything like that, but we can communicate with it. We can learn with it. We can be entertained with it. We can learn what is going on in the world while we practice social distancing at home.

So what does this all mean, the world changing so dramatically in the past seven days? We need to be grateful. By that, I mean that although the media could have been crying the sky is falling in the beginning, at least we have had some advance warning about this terrible virus. I’m most concerned about my mom, who is almost 91 and, well, she’s old. She’s been to the grocery store and to physical therapy. Period. Her parish priest visited her on the First Friday of March, after returning from South America. I must say I think the priest has some extra protection, not only because he’s a priest, but because two of his brothers are top-notch epidemiologists. He’s got the best insider information that exists in the State of Nebraska!

Many things have changed. For one, I no longer have to look up the word epidemiologist. I’ve always been a good speller. In fact, I beat one of those now-epidemiologists in a spell down in grade school. I was so thrilled! I’ll never forget it was the word “satellite.” He must have had a brain toot or something, he spelled it with one l. I won a statue of the Virgin Mary, a Holy Card, and the sweet taste of victory. I had a lot to tell my mom after school that day. I also lost a tooth that was ready to fall out, making way for an adult tooth. Fourth grade was quite memorable. Isn’t it funny how we remember some things so well?

Our Nebraska Writers Guild may cancel our conference this Spring. I’m so sad about that! I had such a great experience at the Fall Conference, I was so looking forward to it. Since the CDC has suggested banning gatherings of fifty or more, I’d say we’re doomed. The Board will meet today and email us later today. Teleconferencing may be an option.

All any of us can do right now is be calm, wash our hands, don’t hoard household supplies, and be patient. Since we’re more or less at home constantly for awhile, be patient with your housemates, children, spouses, partners, and medical workers. They are most at risk and they are our best chance of regaining our health. Be respectful, they deserve it.

Mom will have therapy again this morning and Wednesday. I hope they are open. The clinic has no waiting area in the PT area, so I must wait in the reception area of the clinic. That said, I choose a seat in a row, by the windows, with a table on one side, and I put our coats and purses in the chair next to me. No one will sit beside me, and I feel pretty safe doing that. If that seat is not not available, I will simply go wait in my car. Safety first, folks!

Love this beautiful picture!

I have a project for the Babe when he gets home later. I hope he feels like hanging all the pictures we haven’t re-hung since we had the house painted inside. He might not, since he took our Goldie this morning to the Vet to be spayed. We can pick her up after 3 p.m. It’s so weird with only one dog here this morning. I’m glad we have the two, and I know Goldie will be different when she’s older. Right now, she sure keeps us moving! We can hang our art later.

Thanks for reading today, I’m off to pick up Mom right now. I hope you have a good day, whatever you’re doing. I’ll be back tomorrow and hope to see you then.