Zada--Time for you to launch a subject--stop being so lazy!

We need a new subject.

Well, a little faster please.

How about holiday travelers and the trouble they cause on the highway?

Actually, please, if you are traveling this Holiday weekend. Plan ahead, be safe, and don't take careless chances.

Get to your destination and back home alive and well.

We will try.

I just heard from Zada. I think she's on her way here!

Quit picking on Zada. She's a commentator.

Dick, you flatter me!

Alice, sometimes I have more important things to do--work on my next book, feed animals, go to the feed store for cow chow, stock up on food items for tomorrow, mow our 2.5 acre (approx.) yard, paint, pack for our move, help with the last of the remodel, and the list is never ending!! I still have some cooking to do--a pineapple upside down cake for my hostess--thank heavens it is cooler here today than yesterday when it hit 99.5. I will get to that later when it cools down!

In the meantime, I will try to think of a good topic.

Dear Zada,
Your life sounds a lot like mine. The wonderful part about the whole thing is that you have stuff to do. God bless stuff to do that you have to do. It makes the day wonderful and full. I have so much to do that I can not imagine what it would be like not to have anything at all to do. I would probably look around in a daze. I would feel that my life had no meaning, I would think no one needed me at all, I would start calling people on the phone with phone-itus just to validate that I was still part of the human race.

Most of the stuff I do, the world could do without my doing. But, there I am. I do what I do. Lately, I have been canning. canning, canning, canning. I refuse to have all those tomatoes, corn, peppers, green beans, et al go to waste. I have invented places to store all of that. The pinto beans are lovely, the limas are coming on, and I have so many jars of black-eyed peas that my whole family and David's would not starve for about three years. In fact, I could probably save Duette if it ever came down to that.

I have make so much home-made ice cream of different flavors that I could open a shop. Strawberries are still in the freezer and I have Peach, Vanilla, Blueberry and Strawberry out the yazoo.

I know what it is to have stuff to do.

I find it amazing that we both have time to write anything and post here with our friends.

Well, truth be known, these friends and you feed my spirit and I feel that I am more than just a slave to the labor of living, but a person with a bonefied brain and a thought or two that has nothing to do with vegetables or food or cows or dogs or children or grass or hay or anyother thing that makes our lives go day to day. I step outside my day and there you all are!
Shining.

Love,
Betty

Betty, you are truly beautiful.

This forum and all who post here are a salvation of sorts for me and help me escape the horrible news that seems impossible to ignore and day to day chores.

I hope the horrible news you speak of is not personal horrible news.

Love,
Betty

No, Betty. My personal life is not so horrible, but Al has the world news on most of the time. It is all very depressing and horrible. People at war with their children and spouses. Dogs mauling humans and and other dogs. It is never ending, and just part of the human condition I suppose. But it does get to you.

Once in a great while a good heartwarming story will air. People helping others and animals rescued. They just don't broadcast enough of them. Maybe if they peppered the good in with the bad, it would not be so severe.

But, Zada, there is good news too-- Sarah Palin resigned as Governor of Alaska.

Betty, as I just mentioned on another thread, you have a wonderful way with words. You take the simple, everyday things and bring them to life in a tender way that no English major could hope to do. Don't change your style. Nothing and no one could improve it.

Zada, I understand how you feel about the bad news, but it's always there and we have no way of changing it.
In 1945-46 just after the war ended in Europe I was an MP in Germany. Many nights were spent in a guardhouse with 20 or more former Germany soldiers who had been hired as civilian guards. One, a kind and gentle man, was 38 years old. He spoke a little broken English so one night he showed me a photo of his 18-year-old sne who was lying in a bed. He had been a crew member on a submarine that was blown apart by depth charges. he escaped to the surface and was rescued by other members of the crew, but his mind was gone and he came home as a vegetable. His father smiled and said, "But now he is safe."
It's all in the viewpoint. Americans were pleased because a German submarine was destroyed. A father who had survived some of history's greatest battles was pleased because he was home again and his son was safe.

I suppose you are right, Dick. But some days the really horrendous stuff just seems to all pile on top of each other.

I know what you mean, Zada. There has been so much of it lately. And I still think our little microcosm reflects those happenings. We get testy here, and say things that are completely out of character. But what I like about this place is that we can do just that, and we are all still part of a community that accepts our individual imperfections and recognizes our contributions.

Ann

Ann, you are a very wise woman.

Zada,

It's good to see you back on the boards. I know how busy you are taking care of your place and the animals, plus all the writing you do. I'm excited for the new adventure you'll be taking soon when you get in your home on wheels and ride!

I agree with you, Betty, about being lucky having things to do. I can't imagine not keeping busy with projects or work. My mom did a lot of canning of all the vegetables and fruits from the trees that we had in our yard. We always had fresh fruit and cut up veggies on the table. One of the best joys of summer!

Thank you Helen. What on earth would we do if we had no work to do? Probably fade away in our chairs!