Thursday, December 23, 2010

Cave Towers --Cedar Mesa Utah

About 60 years ago the Reader's Digest published an article about ancient, square, stone towers. The Anasazi built these supposably for defense. They showed signs of a fire. They found a lot of arrow points. Archaeologist seemed to think a battle took place and the people that survived left the area.

Sixty years ago my sister and I spent an evening eating buttered crackers, and drinking tea. We were reading the article about the stone towers. We wondered where the stone towers were and what happened to the defenders of the towers. This was a memory very firmly etched in my mind.

I opened my Archaeology magazine today and found a small article. Talking about Cave Towers also called Mule Canyon Towers. These are along the mesa tops of the Utah/Colorado border.

This ruin is not high on the list of developed sites. The site is very fragile and visitors are not encouraged. The archaelogist still haven't discovered the answers to my questions of 60 years ago.

The mystery continues and small articles 60 years or so apart still keeps my interest in the stone towers. I know where they are and that it wasn't my imagination that they do exist.

At times in the past I have often thought that it was my imagination that the stone towers existed. Now I know that they do exist. TTFN.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Christmas Music 1950

New Mexico is sunny and warm this year for December.

The first year I was married 1950 sunny southern California. I was certainly not feeling like Christmas. (I was use to the hussel and bussel of the music store. With Christmas song being played on the outside speakers so all the bus transfer people would it enjoy it. That also made them come in and buy the latest Christmas records.) The radio in the car was playing Christmas music, hubby and I were singing along. It began to feel like Christmas. We bought a puppy for our Christmas present darling red cock er. Unfortunately she had worms and didn't live too long.

Grandson found some old Christmas cassettes in among the Christmas stuff. Tennessee Ernie Ford's album. Brings back memories of driving to Long Beach to a barn dance and seeing him. It was way before he was popular,- but what a thrill.

Christmas treat for the Marine base was Bob Hope. I was allowed to attend with hubby we were on the first row of bleachers. Hubby had his feet strung out in front of him they were just seating people behind us. No one should have been walking up the aisle. Someone stumbled over his feet and almost fell we did know who it was until he went up on the stage. Hubby's claim to fame Hope Bob fell over his feet.

We are playing Christmas music at home now but I do miss the Four Freshman album that we played so much on the record changer in Colorado.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

RELIEVING THE PAST

My friend Shari tells me I live too much in the past. We were talking about decorating for Christmas. I would rather talk about what I did in the past to think about now. I feel like it is rather useless for me to decorate for just me. I can't see that that is living in the past.

Son's blog showed someone from India wanting to read his blog on Penni's Story. I turned to it and it was clip from Dallas Morning News. It was one I seemed to have missed. Of course I read and cried all the way through it. So much was sweetpea's reaction to what was going on and she even told the counselor about her grandpa and how much she missed him.

I so hope sweetpea can be the bubbly happy little one she was then. Penni would have wanted it that way.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Free again, Free again

I visited my heart doctor this week. He seemed to think I am doing better. He also told me I could stop using oxygen. I haven't talk to my lung doctor yet. I have been doing without since last Wednesday. I bought a gage to see how my lung oxygen level was. My level has only been really low once Heart doctor told me getting short of breath just encouraged me to make my lungs work harder.

I feel like I have been set free. Dragging that oxygen around was so debilitating life was not worth living. I am not sure anyone can talk me into using that again.

Grand daughter has been staying with me this week. She needed to get out of her house for awhile.

We had another girls day out. We all went to a craft fair they had 150 booths. It took us 3 hours to get through everything.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

INDIAN SUMMER

Cottonwood trees turning gold, yellow and red of others. Sunshine filtering through the leaves and the last days of summer. My favorite time of the year. Hubby and I had announced our intentions of getting married. Daddy with his new 16mm movie camera had to record this time for posterity at Mother's urging.

Mineral Palace park and its beautiful grounds, was chosen as a back ground for the occasion. Blocks of stone rock walls and walks courtesy of the great depressions public works. Roses, calla lilles, mums, goldenrod and lots of others. Hubby in is green Marine Corp uniform. I in the latest fashion the Gibbon Girl look, long skirts and blouses with billowing sleeves. Hubby and I strolling through the gardens was the theme of the pictures our engagement the subject.

My grandmother took advantage of the sunny day outing and came along for the ride. Daddy took lots of pictures of hubby and I strolling through the gardens, he also took pictures of Mother and Grandma. It was a glorious sunshiny day with all the days of our life ahead of us.

Today would have been our "Sixth" Wedding Anniversary.

Monday, October 18, 2010

I Hurt for my Sons

I have been a turtle with my head in the sand for awhile. Sometimes I just need to hid from the world. Reading my sons blogs today I can't help hurting for them. One retiring early. Escaping a school district that has forgotten its purpose of teaching. Letting a teacher teach instead of teaching to a test that means nothing. Hubby could have never survived in this kind of system. He is searching now for something to of with the rest of his life.

I know how that feels I went through that myself and I didn't do too well. I got sidetracked before I could find out what to do. I spent those years as a caregiver and time has passed me by.

Oldest son his blog is like reading a epitaph. He spent the first part of his life training to be a professor. He was a victim of greed not his but a few men who saw money and how they could get it. Then there need to control the masses, politics and change our country. Greed took over and bankrupted our country. But back to those first greedy ones, now they want to control our country. It looks like they are going to succeed.

I hurt for my sons that this time of there lives should have been more rewarding. They both have good kids and grandkids but they should have more satisfaction in their professional life.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

New Post

I haven't had anything to talk about. But reading every one's blog and facebook today has been very interesting.

Monica has postings on her facebook about the plastic in the Pacific Ocean it make you want to bury every piece of plastic you can find. It says it will take forever for it to disappear. A plastic patch twice the size of Texas is now in the Pacific ocean and the pieces are so small they can't be retrieved. What are we doing to our planet.

Pat has a good posting about our election going on. I tried a few years ago to get him involved in politics but it was a bad time and I wasn't around to push him. He has some good ideas about what needs to be done locally and nationally right now. I am going to try and get him involved with a couple of retirees groups and see if he has time to try politics. Momma thinks he would be good.

Pat went to lunch with me to meet Diane thursday. We didn't get to talk to Diane Dinish and all of my contacts are long gone. I will have to try and get some new one.

I have been slowed down with having to drag oxygen with me everywhere. Other people seem to do it without any trouble. I just have to try and figure it out for myself.

A helicopter is circling around and around my house. I hope they aren't looking for someone.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Deja vu

I have only experienced this feeling twice that was so strong that it is imprinted in my mind.

I don't understand the philosophy of previous lives. It might be something to explore sometime.

When I was about 9 years old I had two experiences that were explained to me as deja vu. The summer of 1941 my family took a vacation to several places and visited family along the way. I had measles the first week of the trip. The highlight of the trip was several days in New Orleans. My father hired a guide to drive our car with all the family aboard a neat trick as our family consisted of my parents, my material grandmother, my sister and I. We were crammed into a 1941 Plymouth green sedan. I was small enough to sit on someones lap. This would never be allow today. He drove us all over city of New Orleans. I remember the St Lewis Cathedral we had a tour inside. First time I had been in a Catholic church I was fascinated. We walked along some streets and could looked into tropical courtyards. How I thought that would be terrific to live in a place like that. I loved the sweet treat of pralines. We went to visit one of the homes of Huey P. Long. That name did not register with me I knew nothing of him personally or politically. My family was not involved in politics. My only political knowledge was what my father told me. Republicans were for the rich people and Demo crates were for the working people.

We walked from the house along a brick walk beside the courtyard out to the street. I kept wanting to go back to that walk and courtyard I had been there before. That is the first time of deja vu. I ask a million questions about the feeling of deja vu. It was the first time I had heard the term much less had it explained to me.

I must have been a horribly inquisitive youngster. I must have driven my father crazy on that trip. I don't remember a lot of it. My father was a big tease, there was a little black boy with his feet in the Mississippi river. We were walking on the dock. My father stopped to talk to him. He ask him if he was afraid he would make the river muddy. The river was already muddy and the little boy didn't under stand him. I am sure the adults near by did. It was a terribly racist comment but he just wanted to say sometime to the little one. How times have changed.

The next time I was visiting a friend who lived several blocks away from me. We had just heard on the radio that President Roosevelt had died. He had been President all of my life. That was a scary thing to a 9 year old. I was raised by a over anxious mother so I lived with fears that tore me apart. I was sitting on the curb of that apartment by where my friend lived. I again had that feeling of deja vu. How both of these were connected I don't know or if they are connected. I would like to explore some hypnosis some time to see if I have some previous life or lives that would account for these feelings. I had been in the apartment many times, but I had never sat on the curb. Why we were sitting on the curb waiting for someone or something I don't remember.

I never had those feelings again I don't know why. I have often wondered if I outgrew them. Were they related to dreams that I don't remember? Or just the results of a over anxious mother that I absorbed so much of. My daughter once told me she didn't see how I had become a some what normal human being, after my childhood. My daughter knew me better than anyone, how I miss her.

Monday, September 06, 2010

Labor Day 1971

We had just moved from Hendrix to Hermosa. Second son was senior in high school and was worried about getting to participate in sports at his old high school. I didn't have money for school clothes for P who was starting second grade.

My favorite place for fabric was TG&Y they had bolts of fabric but also a large table of remnants. I dug through them trying to find pieces large enough to make a garment. The bigger pieces were the wrong colors and prints for a little one. Grey, hunter green, and strange prints, pants were easy just like the PG pants. Tops were smocks that was the style for little girls her age.

Our new house had a screened in back porch which opened out into a walled small back yard. P was happy to play in the new backyard. I drug a card table, sewing machine,and small TV out to the screened in porch. Jerry Lewis my favorite comedian had a telethon on TV.

Labor day was spent cutting out and sewing 3 sets of pants and smocks. P spent the day in the yard and helping me watch Jerry Lewis's telethon. She wore them all year and loved them.

I wonder how we got through those years hubby was going to school and working. I was working. First son was in college and second son a senior in high school, P going into second grade. I was working and trying to keep every thing going at home. One of my favorite labor days.

I have spent this labor day digging through paper work at home trying to get things cleaned out.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Vacation

I'm going to Las Vegas to spend sometime with my sister in law and her family. She has a new great gran and we haven't seen.

Grandaughter is going with me. She is going to help me with oxgen and misc. We are only going for a few days. She wants to see a show while we are there, maybe but it is very expensive.

I'm trying to get my secondary insurance to pay for that stupid ambulance ride last September. I've been trying to get medicare to pay it for ever. The packet of all the stuff to go to insurance is big enough to be a book. I need to have it weighted to see how many stamps it will need. I could have taken a taxi for about 10% of what they charged.

Doctors appointment have been everyday and forever. I hope some of this helps.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Friday, August 13, 2010

5th time in a year

Hospital again that makes the 5th time this year. I am not going again without kicking and screaming. This time they did every kind of test there is on my heart. My heart is good I still have the leaking valves but not too bad.

I never had a blood clot the other doc took a x=ray and said there was a 85 percent chance of a blood clot. So they just thought I did and told me I had a blood clot. They put me on blood thinners and I am tied up with having tests for that. I have an appointment with my primary doc next Thursday. I am hoping he takes me off of the blood thinners. I got all the medical records from the hospital for the primary doc.

I am dragging a oxgen tank around with me. I have put off as long as I can without taking oxgen. I can't get a smaller pack that I can carry over my shoulder until I see a lung doc. I am having trouble getting an appointment. I have one in about 10 days. That is better than Nov. when the hospital got me an appointment.

I am having strange dreams I don't know if the oxgen has any effect on that.

Second son went to Bible study with me yesterday. The ladies loved him he filled in so much history around our lesson and they took his word for gospel. That is better than the TV preacher that one of the ladies had some recording of. Isaiah was fortelling of the building of the Aswand Dam.

Yesterday was three years after hubby's death. I didn't think of it yesterday but today it came home loud and strong. It was not as hot yesterday or today like it was then.

Grandaughter is going to Las Vegas with me to help me lug the oxgen tank around. She is thrilled first airplane ride and first time in Las Vegas. She is old enough to get into the cassino's. The last time hubby and I were in Las Vegas we didn't gamble any at all. That was a couple of weeks before hubby was diagnosed with cancer.

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Home from Hospital

I have had enough of hospitals to last me a life time.

I am really slow in getting back on my feet this time. But I am bound and determined to beat this thing. I have to get back on my feet a little bit at a time. I have so many things I want to do.

Eddie and company were over helping me today. They went to the grocery for me and we had lunch.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Greetings from theHospital

Last Thursday I felt very weak, when I first got up. I called son and we went to urgent care. That was a waste of time. We wound up at the ER in the hospital that I really despise. They ran tests and were ready to release me when I compained of chest pains. That was one of the original complains. They read another blood test and said I had a blood clot in the lung. So they admitted me and I have had first one thing or another and I am still here. They have started me on blood thiners and that lowers my blood presure and because I have low blood presure anyway. Well you can guess it makes my blood presure down to the high eightys. I can't even walk around when it is that low. I am trying to keep it up today so I can go home tomorrtow.

Will keep you posted.

I don't have my speller with me.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Struggling

I am having so much trouble with this lesson for Sunday. The 12th chapter of Hebrews.
I can't seem to separate the word discipline with punishment. Believe it or not my friend that knows the lest about the Bible has the best answer. She say discipline is guidance and punishment can be corporal punishments.

I had a little fender bender this week. The way the policeman wrote up the report I won't be able to collect from her insurance. Policeman says cause was in attention on both our parts. My car has a good size dent and her big suv has a scratch on the bumper.
I dropped the collision on my car some time ago and the dent is probably below the deductible anyway.

I used the last of hubbies life insurance to pay off the credit cards the interest was eating me up. The plan is to take what I was paying on the credit cards and put in the savings account. But, thing like this stupid accident keeps coming up.

I was turning right on a green light she was turning left on a green light and she hit me. She pushed me down the street and then continued chasing me trying to hit me again. It took a half a block before I could stop. She said I hit her and when I replied she hit me she started screaming liar, liar, liar, I tried to call son and he couldn't hear me for her screaming. When I was doing claims the person turning left was always in the wrong, but the way the policeman wrote it up she will probably get away with it.

I went to meditation class that night and it helped to calm me down. I felt worse the next day so I went to Urgent Care and my blood pressure was higher than it has ever been before. I think I am calmed down now but it still upsets me to think about it.

Monday, July 05, 2010

Pleasant Surprise

My oldest grandson moving from coast to coast per request of Uncle Sam stopped by to see me.

I was so surprise to get a phone call from my oldest grandson. The family here was excited to see him also. I don't think he expected so many relatives to descend on him at once.

I took him to my favorite New Mexican restaurant. He enjoyed the food very much or else he was very hungry. I took him for a tour of the volcanoes and the petroglyh park. When we arrived back home my grandson here and family visited for awhile. He got to play with the little great grand daughter. We spent a lot of time visiting and catching up. I don't remember the last time we had such a good visit.

I loved hearing about his time in Hebrew school and the birth of his little one. He carries on the family name and the traditional first name to go with the family name. His little on has the middle name of Joseph so they call him Jose. He has a little bit of the Hispanic feature and with Jose. It is so funny to me that he carries on the family name. My hubby would have loved it. I would so like to see the little guy.

I have been invited to visit when they have moved and are settled, but I am hesitate to commit to traveling any more.

Doctors now think my on going tummy problems is my arthritis medication that I have been taking for 4 years. In talking to my counselor this week it made since that I have had this problem for 4 years and I have been taking this medication that long. Why has it taken so long to figure that out. I am as slow as my doc's at realizing this. The week long bout of staying on the pot is so draining.

I managed to help at church yesterday for the big picnic. I had a good time visiting. My Sunday School Class has ask me to teach the next one or two lessons in the book on Hebrews. Our regular teacher which is great is going to to be out of town. I am honoured that they think I can do it, I just hope I can live up to their expectations.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

June 1950

I have been told I live too much in the past. Maybe I do but I remember the day the Korean War started.

Beulah, Colorado a little village, Pueblo residence had summer homes located there. I shouldn't call them summer homes more like cabins or dormitories.

My boy friend's mother had one of the larger cabins that you could call a dormitory. Upstairs there was a kitchen with benches all around the room, cushions on them for the girls. Down stairs was the boys quarters with make shift beds, wall to wall.

That June Sunday, there were 2 couples of us with his mama as chaperon. I had just graduated from high school. We were learning to play Canasta, it was the latest card game out. Mama was fixing sandwiches for us. Music was playing on the radio until the announcement of the beginning of the Korean war. I didn't know how that would change my life.

Later after I was married to a Marine and had two little boys my father had a cabin. I do mean a cabin, a room with a kitchen and couch and a bedroom with a bed and dresser. The dresser was an antique with a marble top (too bad it was sold with the cabin.) My boys spent many a summer day playing in the stream that ran beside the cabin and running up and down the mountains around the place. We took them horseback ridding, once a summer. We had to rent the horses and that was all we could afford.

My fathers cousin who we called Uncle Frank lived in a small travel trailer on a lot in the main part of town. He took the boys and I places while hubby was overseas, He had the boys looking for gold in the rocks around the little village. They found lots of fools gold.

Hubby and I went back one of the last times we were in Pueblo and the place had grown up. My fathers cabin was still there but locked up. The outhouse was now considered too close to the stream for anybody to live there.

Lots of memories tied up to Beulah and the date of Korean War brings back lots of it.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Devastated

Just read my e-mail from son-in-law. My sweetpea grand daughter won't get to come this year. She has summer school and David is getting married. He has a lot on his plate he is trying to work and go to school. Sweetpea has been a handful this year.
She has had so much happen in her life. 2007 hubby her playmate for all of her life died. Eight months later I moved back to New Mexico for reasons I have stated before. I had been a steady presence all of her life. Her momma died in 2008. She moved from the house and school she had known most of her life, last summer. I am not surprised she is having trouble in school. She has had so many disruptions in her life

I understand the financial problems and the time restraints. I feel like I don't have that many more summers. My oldest great gran isn't getting to come this summer and now my sweetpea. I am just devastated.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Brag on my Kids

First son is always in the news,radio and now TV (when they show it). I am kinda use to his exposure it just keeps growing. Last Monday night I went to Writer to Writers with second son. His speaker canceled at the last minute and he had to fill in. He couldn't have done better if he had been planning and working on it for weeks. It is good to see other people appreciate him as well. First son gets lots of appreciation and he deserves it, but I don't see second sons appreciation it is not that visible.

I have trouble talking to Penni's friends because they always want to tell me how much they loved and appreciated her. Today I had a conversation with a lady that doesn't know me that well and never met Penni. I was trying to tell, her why I don't like to look like my mother. So, I told her without thinking that because I didn't have a great mother God made up for it with my having a great daughter.

I never understood why my mother couldn't love more than one person in a family. In our family it was my sister. In my family it was second son. With grand kids I guess it was first grandson here, others were away and she didn't see them that much.
She missed so much in getting to know the rest of us that, she couldn't be bothered with and we missed having a mother and grandmother.

With my kids they are all special and have a special place in my heart. They have raised good families. I have tried so hard to see each one as a individual and I appreciate each of them.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

June 9, 1932

My birthday, some standout in my mind but most of them were just another day.

My 9th birthday my mother was busy getting a formal for my sister for her first formal dance. My birthday was completely forgotten. My grandmother reminded her of the day and she said. " well, I was going to get her some war stamps but I forgot."

My 18th birthday my boyfriend took me to dinner in a Colorado Springs restaurant which had been a old church. I had a special dress orange with white flowers down the side one of my special memories.

My 21st birthday I was pregnant with my second son. We were living in military housing, outside our house was a gardenia bush. Hubby brought me a flower off the bush.

My 75th birthday Penni gave me a garden party for my birthday.

This birthday was quiet and happy I had dinner with second son. First son called and we had a nice chat. I answered phones at the church all afternoon. I walked Missy when I got home before I went to bed.