General Conference Oct. 2016

      What a blessing it was to watch the General Conference of the Church this week-end. Two sessions yesterday and two sessions today Sunday Oct.2, 2016. It is such a blessing to listen to a prophet of God speak and give counsel to us. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet as surely as Moses, Abraham, Lehi, and all the other prophets in the scriptures were. We also heard inspirational messages from the Apostles and other authorities of the church.
      President Monson is getting old and more feeble now and I believe he won't be with us for much longer. Our church is a church of order and God will appoint another to take his place and there will be no disruption in the order of things.
      Most people in the world do not realize what a blessing it is to listen to a prophet speak. Just as our physical bodies need food to grow and perform and stay alive, our spirits need nourishment too. We provide our spirits this food by reading and studying the scriptures, praying to our father in Heaven, and listening to his servants here on the earth. All of the speakers today talked about Jesus and how we should always follow him and his example. How can anyone say that we are not Christians. He is the very foundation of our religion as anyone can know if they have the desire to know.
     While I was sitting and watching today I thought about Jerry a lot and wondered what he is doing. I know that he is not flying around and praising God continually. I believe he is doing missionary work and whatever else Jesus wants him to do. When we leave this earth and go to the spirit world we are busily engaged in saving souls until the time of the resurrection. I believe he is also working to better himself and to become more perfect. We don't automatically become perfect when we die. We take the same personalities with us that we had here and still need to perfect ourselves. It's still hard for me to comprehend that he is no longer with us here and I miss him so much. But I know he is where he's supposed to be right now and I will see and be with him again in a few years.
    On a lighter note, I said to Katherine last night "Jerry better not be up there checking out other women". She just laughed and said "well if he is you can let him have it when you get there". We both said that we bet Faye really fussed at Junior when he got there for marrying again.
    I just want my descendants to know that I know God lives and has a wonderful Plan of Happiness for all his children. He sent us to earth to get a physical body, find a mate, and provide bodies for other of his spiritual children. And he wants us to come back to him as families when our time here is done. All we have to do is follow his Son and our Redeemer Jesus Christ and we can make it back home to him. We can withstand any temptation, sickness, adversity, trial, sorrow, and hardship through the Atonement that Christ made for us. Jesus suffered all that any of us will ever suffer and He knows how we feel. I hope that we will all remember this.
    I love all of you and pray for you daily.

School days 2014 and memories.

Well, school started today. It seems to come around so fast. Time is flying by. I said a prayer this morning for all my grandkids in school now that they would be protected from any harm or evil and that they would be good examples to their peers. And that they would especially befriend and defend anyone who was being picked on and not treated right. It has been a long time since our youngest, Rita, finished school. I can still remember my own schooldays which I never liked very much. My first grade teacher was Mrs. Opal Tillery and I loved her. She went to church with us so I knew her outside of school also. The big yellow school bus came down to the end of the road in Kelsey where we lived to pick us up each morning. It would turn around in our front yard and go back up the road stopping here and there to get our neighbors and other kids. We knew everybody who lived in Kelsey. We went to school in Gilmer which was about seven or eight miles away. When we were old enough my brothers milked cows before school and my two sisters and I hung clothes out on the line before school. So we were up early. Every day when we got home from school, Mom had fresh rolls right out of the oven. The best smell in the world is the warm yeast smell of baking rolls. Mom cooked a big supper each day and always has dessert too. We would have a snack, do chores, eat a big supper, and then do homework before bath and bed. Supper was our night time meal, not dinner as we call it now. Back then dinner was at noon time. Mom cooked a big breakfast too. She always had oatmeal and gravy and biscuits. Sometimes eggs but not always. We ate a lot of food and it's a wonder we weren't fat. But we worked hard and burned those calories off.

 

Each year before school started, we got to order new clothes and shoes out of the Sears catalog. That was when I was little and I don't remember when we stopped doing that and started buying them in town. But we didn't get to buy a whole lot like kids do now. With ten kids that was impossible. I was so glad to finally graduate from high school. My grades were good all through school but that is not true of my two years in college. But that is another story for another day.

Catching up.

Well, it is now August 25, 2014.  It has been a long time since I have written in my blog and I need to catch up. A lot has happened since I last wrote. Jerry and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in February. And we gained two new granddaughters, Alex and Louisa, one in February and one in March. We now have 16 grandkids and one great grandchild. We went to Dallas and met Alex a few days after she was born and we took a trip to Santa Fe to see Louisa a month or so after she was born. It was great to meet her and visit with Sid, Lizzie, and Marjorie. They are both sweet little girls. Grandkids are great!

Our nineteen year old grandson Cole moved in with us in early spring and moved out this past Friday. He moved into a house with his two girl cousins so he can help pay the bills. I hope it works out there. I am now cleaning up his bedroom here. What a mess! You know how teenage boys are.

We took a trip to Galveston in July. Rented two condos there to accomodate us all. Jerry and me, Vicki and her family, Luanne and her family, Angie and her family, and Katherine and Mylah. It rained a good bit of the time we were there but it was still nice to hang out together. I'm sure a lot more has happened but those are the highlights.

 



                                                                 School Days
                         
                           Well, it's time for school to start again. "Up in the morning and off to school, the teacher is teaching the Golden Rule". Do you kids remember your Dad singing that to you the first day of school each year? It was a tradition for him to take you the first day. I don't remember if he started that with Susan or later on with the younger kids. Susan didn't want to go to Kindergarten and I was so clueless that I didn't make her go. At that time it was optional. But I don't think it hurt her that she didn't go. When she started first grade she refused to get on the bus the first morning so I told the driver to go on and I took her to school. I took her out to the bus for several mornings and the same thing happened. Then one morning she said "I'm gonna ride the bus today" and she did from then on. Guess she had to get her courage up and it took a few days. The next year Sid went to kindergarten at the Oakland Heights Baptist Church which we had to pay for. If I remember correctly it was started in the public school system by the next year when Marjorie started. I do remember that I took Rita to school her first day of kindergarten. She was very attached to me and that must be why I took her instead of Jerry. The first day she would not go into the room and I think her teacher was finally able to coax her in. One of the things I hated the most about school starting was the books I had to cover. Ya'll would bring your books home the first day with some covers and I had to cover them all. There were never enough covers and I would use brown paper grocery sacks to cover them. Do ya'll remember that? I don't remember at what age you would cover them yourselves. Another thing I hated was all the papers a parent had to fill out the first week of school. And also packing the lunches every day. What a chore! I always liked it when school was out because we didn't have to stick to a schedule. I hope that all of our grandkids get off to a good start tomorrow on the first day and that the school year will be a good one for all of them. I can remember my school days back to the first grade. I never liked school but if I had to pick my favorite year it would be first grade. That might be because of my teacher Mrs. Tillery who also went to church with us. She was so sweet and nice and I enjoyed that year. So glad those days are over for me.
                                  
                      
                 

Turning Seventy

 

                             Oh my, where did the years go? On July 8th, I had my 70th birthday and it seems like just yesterday, almost fifty years ago, that I was getting married. As I look back it seems like the years flew by. We have raised eight children in three different houses. We have fourteen grandkids, one great-grandchild, and are expecting two more grandkids. So I feel like my life has been productive and, although there are some things I would change if I could, I am mostly pleased with the way things have turned out.

 

                             Our kids gave their Dad a surprise party when he turned seventy years old two years ago. I told my daughter Katherine, who lives the closest to me, that they better not give me a party when I turned seventy and she assured me that they wouldn't. They know that I am sort of anti-social and don't like being the center of attention. So she and Susan, another daughter, and my granddaughter Mylah, took me to La Finca for a quiet dinner and that was good and I thought that was it. Little did I know that they were planning a big party in Dallas for me. Of course, they let Jerry in on it. We were going to Dallas, which is a two hour drive for us, for our grandson Daniel's first birthday party on a Saturday. So Jerry says "let's go on Friday and spend the night in a hotel instead of rushing on Saturday morning".  So I said okay. So our daughter Rita and Katherine, who had already gone to Dallas, called and said "why don't we meet at the Spaghetti Factory restaurant and have dinner on Friday night" and we said okay. Well, when we got there, Katherine came out to show us which room we were going to eat in. When we walked into the room it was to a room full of people and an Elvis Impersonator singing to me. I was totally shocked and surprised. I looked around and there was my son Sid and my daughter Marjorie from New Mexico, Angie and her baby from Hondo, Luanne and her family from Rockwall, Vicki and her family from Mt. Enterprise, Susan and her husband Pap from Marshall, as well as Katherine and Rita and their families. Also Jerry's sister Nelwyn and two of her kids and families. Elvis sang to us for about an hour and I even sang with him, which surprised me and everybody else, and after he left we had a good meal and visited. Vicki had put together a slide show of my life and it was great. All the kids had a part in planning the party and it was just great. I really enjoyed it and am thankful to them for caring about me enough to do this. Katherine did the decorations which is what she does for a living and they were wonderful. I have always loved Elvis so the Elvis Impersonator was icing on the cake. But the best thing was having all my family there except for two grandsons who could not come. The fact that Sid and Marge came all the way from New Mexico was very touching.

 

                       The next day we got to go to Rita's house for Daniel's party. It was fun hanging out with everyone again and eating lots of good food there. Family is wonderful and I feel sad for those who don't have anyone to care about them. I made mistakes raising my kids but they all know that I loved them then and love them now. And I hope and think they love me too. God is great and I am so blessed!



My Mother's Beauty Secrets

My Mother turned 70 yesterday, but seriously she does not look much older than 50 years of age! She has had eight children, and some of these kiddos did their best to age her with all their crazy running wild antics! I won't say who out of the eight these happen to be. :)

She did not age on the outside, although on the inside I am sure she was beside herself most of the time with worry and grief! But enough of that. Lets talk about her beauty secrets. Ever since I can remember people have commented on how nice and un-wrinkled her skin is. Even now at seventy she may have some small wrinkles, but really hardly any!

Every morning and again at night before bedtime she would apply to her face Oil of Olay. I don't think she ever skipped a day. As I got older I asked her several times why she didn't switch to a more expensive "better" skin care product, but I always got the same answer. That answer was that Oil of Olay was just fine with her. No other explanation needed! She also stayed out of the sun pretty much her whole life, meaning she was not one to sunbathe or sit in the sun unless necessary for some task. When she worked outside doing yard work she wore a brimmed hat and long sleeves. If you asked her how she has maintained her smooth complexion she will tell you these two things. Oil of Olay and stay out of the sun. I have heard her say this many times over the years.

Pretty simple, huh? From looking at her you would think she has used all kinds of numerous beauty products!

One more thing I have to tell. There have been several times my parents have been out together when someone such as a waitress has thought Mom was my Dads daughter! My Mother gets a kick out of that!

  

The Bottom

 

                  Well, you might ask "what is the bottom?" I don't know how big our farm was as far as acres goes but I though it was pretty big. From where our house sat as far as you could see to the south was our land. And that is what we called the bottom and I remember it being pretty and green. All over the bottom is where our cows grazed and lived.  It had a really pretty creek with clear water running through it with a wide part not very deep that we liked to wade in. We had a plank across a narrower part that we could walk across also. This wide part ran on and deepened into a place deep enough to swim in and this is where my brothers learned to swim. I never swam in it and I don't think my sisters did either. It had water moccasin snakes and it's a wonder that the boys were never bitten by them. Anyway, this creek cut our land in two and we had to cross it to get to the other side. Across the creek our land went on until it reached a very high hill. We used to like to go up on this hill and see all over our property. Arrow heads could also be found on it so I reckon the Indians were there at one time. When you got to the top of this hill and a little farther on was where our property ended.

                 There were a lot of berry vines growing in the bottom and I went with my mom many times to pick berries there. We would put on long sleeve shirts to protect our arms from the briars and also hats. When I was really young I thought this was fun but not so much so when I got older. Of course, I loved the cobblers she would make from the berries.

My dad had a big pond dug in the bottom later on. I was probably a teenager by then. Randy disappeared one day and we couldn't find him. So Mama sent one of the boys to look in the bottom for him. He was on the dam of the pond sunk down in the mud and could not get out. So he was rescued. He had taken his little red wagon with him and thrown it in the pond and it was gone forever. Another time he went missing and was found in the bottom surrounded by cows. They were in a circle around him and he didn't know what to do. I don't know if the cows were mad and going to hurt him or not. It's a wonder that he lived through those years. Heavenly Father was certainly watching over him.

 

Getting The Cows Up

 

Daddy and my brothers ran the dairy. Every day, twice a day, they had to "get the cows up". That meant they had to go down into the bottom and drive the cows up to the dairy barn for milking. It was early in the morning before daylight and mid-afternoon that they had to do this. When we girls got older we helped with this sometimes although we didn't do it in the mornings, only the afternoon shift. And those cows were all over the bottom although if I remember correctly they stayed pretty much together. But it was a job driving them up to the barn. But once we got them pretty much together and going in the right direction. it wasn't so hard because they would follow each other. We just had to make sure that none of them strayed. They were turned back out into the pasture as each one got milked. On time, when I was dating age, I was taking a nap one afternoon and Mama came and woke me up and said I needed to go help get the cows up for milking. Well, I wouldn't get up and I don't know why unless I was just extra sleepy because I generally did what she asked me to do. She told me if I did not get up that she would not let me go out the following Saturday night. I still didn't get up and she stuck to what she had told me. Guess I didn't believe her but I sure found out. You people have not lived until you have gotton the cows up from the bottom.