Lot of things have been going on

We had company last Tuesday. Saturday we went to a church party at a member's home. I ate too much!! My step-dad fell down the bottom step going into the basement. Gary offered to take him to ER but he didn't want to go. Sunday morning he called at 5:30 a.m. and wanted Gary to take him to ER. Gary is really good at helping him. They went to the ER in Wichita and sat for almost 3 hours. There was a lady there so sick that she was laying in the waiting room floor. They left and went to a new hospital in the city where we do assistant living lesson. The X-Ray showed that his ankle wasn't broken .... which is really good. He wanted to stay at his house but we told him that he needed to stay here. I told him that I had taken the sheets off of the bed and put clean ones back on. lol The ER doctor told him to go to his family doctor about water on his knee. Him and Gary left, going by his house, and then going to the doctor at 11:15. He is wanting to stay home but I told him he could stay here until we go to assistant living in the morning. Nothing like home, is there? lol

My step-dad got up early this morning and Lakota was guarding his door. He was able to walk around him and go in the bathroom. He went back to bed. When he got up the 2nd time he had to call Gary because Shawnee was blocking the hall way and would not let him come into the dinning room. She was not being mean... just being stubborn and not moving so he could get through with his walker. lol He normally does not use a walker but is using it now to take weight off of his ankle.

Well, I had best get up and get something done... even if it is not right! lol All of you are in my prayers. Love, hugs, and prayers, Janie

Air Balloon

Thank you Sugar for the beautiful tag I snagged a long time ago. :) Hugs, Janie

Wow! I feel just like a air balloon coming back down to earth. I am in slow gear right now. I did not get as much done today as I wanted... but it felt nice to sit a little. Hope all of you are having a blessed day. Hugs, Janie

Only 1 week ago??

Thank you Sugar for the beautiful tag. :)

It is hard to believe that it has been 8 days since I received a call about my aunt's funeral. It seems as though at least 2 weeks have passed by. Saturday I started cleaning on the house for company Tuesday. Good thing I have company once in a while so I will do some deep cleaning on the house. LOL I got the extra bedroom and the bathroom cleaned very good, used the sweeper, and did some picking up and swiping things down. By that time I said... forget the dust!!! haha!

The air conditioner and heater was in by the time I got back from the funeral Friday. Sunday we went to church twice and I sang "He Touched Me" in the morning service. Late Monday night I went on line to check emails and ended up looking at the news with the guy and Craig's list. WHAM! I got a virus!!! Ugh! I did not have time to deal with it since we had to go to Assistant Living and company the next morning!! Virus ware said it could not clean it up or quarantine it!! Trend said it was a temporary file. I went to the control panel, cleaned my hard drive, went to Internet options and deleted files and add on. I then updated my virus ware and spy ware. I then turned off my computer until yesterday afternoon. Yesterday I did 2 virus checks, windows defender, and spy ware check. Nothing! I took it to Best Buy this afternoon and they could not find the virus. They said I must have deleted the file. It was not a real bad virus .... just something that would make my computer act crazy!!

I sat here and waited on the county inspector from 8 until 12 this morning and he did not show up. I took my computer in, went to Aldi's, met Terry Ann at IHOP, and by the time I got home we met the 2 couples for dinner. Busy week!! lol Through it all I am just glad that the virus is gone... and I have a half way clean house. lol

Hope all of you have had a blessed week. All of you are in my prayers.

God Bless & hugs, Janie

Home

In the last 8 months we have had 6 funerals to attend. Out of the 6, I have sang at 4 of them. Yesterday when I took the CD to the church the lady said.. "This will be the microphone that you will use." I told her that I would not be singing them because I was recorded on the CD. She said... "Oh I was hoping that you would sing live". With Sharon laying in the coffin next to me... I explained that she and I were the only small children in the family until we were 9 years old. We were only one week apart in age. There was no way that I would be able to sing them live. She said she understood.

Things always go wrong. lol I had all the music for the funeral. We HAD to leave at 9:45 to make the 2 and sometimes 2 1/2 hour trip. Terry Ann took Carlie to school at 9:00 and pulled up at my step-dad's house at 9:43. lol We were leaving at 9:45. WooHoo!! Things looked great! We drove 11 miles and were stopped for road construction. We sat there for about 15 minutes. I made the statement that it was making us get there at 12:15 and the funeral was at 1:00. I told Terry Ann and Bill that we were where we were suppose to be at that time. As long as we were able to walk in at 10 till 1. I could always wear the jeans that I had on. lol We pulled into Coffeyville at 12:00. Wow! We made great time. We stopped and got a cup of coffee at the Quick Trip and Terry Ann said that she would like to go through a drive through and get something to eat. I pulled into a KFC and ordered. We sat there for about 15 minutes. Terry Ann said she thought we should just leave. (I have never done that before after ordering. lol) Bill spoke up and said... "It is 12:21 and if that funeral is at 1:00, you might want to get going." I pulled out of line and headed for Gary's mom's house. She passed away in 2004 and her home looks just like it did the day she passed away. I think her kids have finally thought about selling it this year. It is a older little house. It took me 10 minutes to throw on my slacks, change blouse, and change shoes. We got to the church around 10 till 1.

We were going to stop at my mother's grave site and my aunt had told me to stop by the funeral home and pick out a plant. I forgot all of that after the dinner at the church. I was going to go through town a certain way but there was road construction.... it got me side tracked while talking to Terry Ann and Bill. I just headed for home a different route?? No one said anything to me because they thought I was in a hurry to get home. I felt really bad about forgetting... but when I remembered I was standing on Bill's front porch!! lol

Hope all of you have had a blessed week. All of you are in my prayers. Hugs, Janie

Funeral Friday

My aunt passed away at 3:00 a.m. this morning. My Aunt Betty said that she did not suffer. Hospice was there with her. We had a lot of things to do today. I recorded music from 3:30 until 8:00 tonight. It took me a long time to record myself singing the songs. Emotions run high. Finally I got the 3 songs recorded on a cassette. I then had to try and record it to a CD. Hmmmm things always happen. lol Tried recording one CD and it did not record. I changed cords running from the Karaoke to the CD recorder... that was the problem. Finally got it recorded. It sounds better on a CD because of the clicking from stopping and starting. Taking both the cassette and the CD. Always go prepared for something to go wrong. lol The CD might not play in the CD player at the church??

The first song is "In The Garden", 2nd song is "On The Wings Of A Dove", and 3rd song is "Roses Will Bloom Again". The funeral will be at 1:00 on Friday. I will have to make a 2 hour trip there. We are having the furnace and air conditioning put in Thursday and Friday. Gary will stay home. Terry Ann and my step-dad Bill will go with me.

Hope all of you have had a blessed week. All of you are in my prayers. Love, hugs, and prayers, Janie

Prayer Request

I had a message on my voice mail today when we got home from the Assistant Living. I have a aunt that is 1 week younger than I am. She is 65 years old. She is Down Syndrome. Hospice is with her now. He body is shutting down. My Aunt Betty went to see her last week and they talked about death. Sharon smiled and told my aunt that she would get to see Momma and Daddy again when she got to heaven. She has been in an assistant living since my grandmother passed away. She has been very happy with her life at the assistant living. She considered it her home. She will have a lot of people at her funeral. Her and I were more like sisters. My uncle has taken care of her needs for many years. She has had a lot of things to keep her happy. It has been hard on him the last couple of years as he has a heart problem. Please keep all of us in your prayers.

Hope all of you have had a blessed week. All of you are in my prayers. God Bless, Janie

Miss Gracie wondering what is going on!! Fire

I will delete these after a couple of days. We were very lucky! The fire trucks did come out early Saturday morning. Gary was going to go to Promise Keepers that morning but I left a note saying that it would be pretty scary if the fire came on our land. The fire department would have had to open the front gate and Miss Gracie and Harley would get out! For once he listened to me and stayed home. It was real wet Saturday morning. If the huge cedar trees would have caught on fire they would have gone up like a bomb!! There is a big row of cedar trees near my neighbor's house! It would not have been too bad for us; but it could have set 2 neighbor's homes on fire. We have had so many fires in Kansas that they have decided to regulate them... thank goodness. Our neighbor set our field and 2 other neighbor's fields on fire twice. Fire trucks came out and the neighbor could not even be found!! The first time he set fire to our field... and his did not even burn... our dog let us know that it was on fire!! He set it on fire 10 minutes before we were leaving for church. I actually think he was planning on burning us out! He was crazy! Him and his wife got a divorce and they are having to sell the place.

Smoke of fire Saturday

Videos and photos of fire next door

Just a quick entry with some photos. Yesterday evening the neighbor told us they were going to burn their field. I guess the fire department came out this morning before I got up. Their field has many trees and stuff on it. Last week 2 men set fire to field and it killed one man and other is critical in the hospital. To see fire coming toward you is really scary!! All of the horses and Harley was watching the fire. It looks small compared to the real thing. The videos are real short. No talking ... just from my digital camera... not video camera.

This is the beginning: Hmmm videos would not load??


Well I hope this comes out alright... doing it html. HAPPY EASTER. HUGS, JANIE

Something unusual Thursday

Thursday Gary & I got around and went to the Social Security office around one in the afternoon. Gary went to the bathroom and I found a place to sit behind a slim looking guy. As I walked past him we looked each other in the eye and half way smiled. The back of his head was facing me. Since I have cut Gary's hair the thought went through my mind... "he just got a hair cut recently" Just had that look... sure you women know what I am talking about. lol

Gary came around the front of us wearing his black western hat, jeans, and western work shirt (not really dressed fancy). As Gary passed him the guy said... "Are you a real cowboy?" I am snickering softly. Gary was kind of dumb fonded and really didn't know how to answer him. lol I spoke up and told him that Gary was a drugstore cowboy. The guy asked Gary a couple of questions. Then the guy tells us... "I am older than what I look. I am 33 years old. I just got out of prison. I have been in prison since I was 17 years old." That kind of makes you take notice when someone tells you that. lol I am sitting there wondering why he was in prison for 16 years. lol Then he said he was an artist. He said he could look at us and airbrush a picture of us in about 2 1/2 hours. He said that he could also paint animals... anything that he looks at. Hmmmm I am thinking the whole time he is talking to us. I seem to always try to analyze everyone that I meet. hehe

He noticed my turquoise watch and said that he had made turquoise jewelry and leather purses. He said that he donated things that he made to children's benefit and etc... and said... what good is $1000 to someone in prison? I asked if he knew anyone from around Coffeyville, Kansas and he named someone by the name of Collins. I asked about a Bill Collins that Gary knows and the guy said that one of his stepmother's was his daughter. He mentioned the small town where my Grandmother lived. One of the first things that I did was ask him his name. I will remember that name. I was glad that he did not ask our name. He then told us that he had just gotten a hair cut because his hair was in a pony tail and that the top was braided. As I was watching him I took in details of his face... slim, some decays in his front teeth, glasses, checks sunk in, and not good looking. He would have looked a lot better if he weighed 50 pounds more. I told him that our son was going to be 33 and did not look his age either.

Then he said something about someone taking care of his dad... or something to the effect about not worrying. He then said, "I accepted Jesus Christ and I am not the same person as I was when I went in prison." As soon as he said that a young woman came and told him that someone with her was wanting to go to Wal Mart. She had been sitting in the parking lot waiting on him. He smiled and told her he didn't have anything to do and what ever she wanted to do. He shook hands with Gary... and I extended my hand to shake hands with him. As I watched him walk away I could tell that he was really thin. Levis were half way new. Of course all kinds of questions were going through my mind.

I told Gary that neither one of us had on a cross or anything. I have a ring that is praying hands but it is so small that I don't think he saw that. I remember kind of keeping my arms folded while talking to him, just a habit of mine.

I started thinking about when I sang at the prison... that was around 1991 (I think??) so he would have been too young to be in there. Gary said he was more than likely at the jail in Hutchinson since he went in when he was 17. When I sang at the prison there was one young man that stood out... and I am wondering if it was 1991 that I sang there?? Wow! Prison could sure change some one's looks. My family threw a fit when I went into the prison to sing. I would not want to go sing there now. lol Lord had a reason; I just don't know why yet.

Well, wishing all of you a blessed Easter. All of you are in my prayers.
God Bless, Janie

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE