Now isn't that the way!

New Shower

 Frank is telling us this is the last day of construction. I am sure there will still be some curing time but by now we are getting used to washcloth-in-sink baths. Not liking it for sure but making it work. So it is a beehive of activity around here. I will wait to take pictures until the whole process is completed. The end is in sight for sure!

Butch's Biopsy

 Butch found the results of his biopsy for his recurring rash. It isn't anything internal or external on his body. He has a hypersensitivity to unknown substances. So what does that mean? We are not sure. Most likely he is having angst about all the activity we have been undergoing since we arrived although it started before we left Iowa. It is being treated with pills and creams. So there you have it.

On a Scale...

We must give the weather a ten on a scale of one to ten! This is the finest January we have had for several years. The highs are in the low 80's and the lows in the low 60's.  For the past 3 years, we have had much colder than normal weather for sunny South Texas, which has been disappointing. This year so far it is making up for it. 

We have had a couple of cold spells but they were never more than 4 or 5 days and then we were back to paradise.

So now I must warn you that if you do come down and bring that nasty stuff with you, your popularity might wane. Just sayin'

Worried?

One of Colleen's Columns

Not all of you know my friend Colleen. For about 3 years we walked 2 miles every morning at 7:00 AM on the bike trail in Jefferson Iowa discussing everything from soup to nuts. It was the perfect way to start the day. She recently replayed this column in Greene County News Online  and it reminded me of our early morning walks and talks. It is the finest example of one of our discussions and I felt compelled to share it.

Same news, different faces

December 28, 2022

 ~a column by Colleen O’Brien

 A quarter of a century ago, I wrote the following column:

“Politicians could address issues”                                                               

June 19, 1996

Among all the other indecencies in our lives, it’s an election year. We would welcome it, though, if politicians spoke to the issues and not the emotions.

 It started with the bombastic Buchanan, that scary guy who can goad anyone into incivility. When it comes to know-it-alls like him assuming the pose (rude, mean spirited and full of facts with no sources), I find it nearly impossible to be civil myself. I descend right to their level and the irresistible longing to stick my tongue out at them.

 When my mind clears, I recall the precepts of our beloved but beleaguered First Amendment. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion in this free and democratic country and being urbane about it is not a requirement.

But, oh lord, would I like to see some white hats vying for the White House. I dream about a strong, honest, far-seeing, intelligent, compassionate, wise woman as president. Being more realistic, I envision a good-natured, calm man leading our country, someone steeped in history and knowing that war and weapons sales are not the answer, an individual with a strong will, a gentle soul and a world vision. Where’s a statesman when you need one?

Historically, we’ve had to wage war to come up with statesman-like leaders. Not a solution. That’s why we’re supposed to study history so we don’t repeat it.

The difference between politics and statesmanship is compromise for the good of the whole (not the special interest). The will to listen to and respect the ideas of those who don‘t agree with us is a lost art, even though it doesn’t take a saint or a genius to understand it. As author Duane Elgin says, “…the fate of the individual is ultimately connected with the fate of the whole.”

Gosh, is he saying we’re all in this together? What a novel idea. No man is an island? The more crowded the world gets, the more meaning these phrases have.

So, when I read about Sen. Bob Dole’s tired old complaints lambasting President Clinton for something so feeble as not supporting a Constitutional amendment to protect the flag, I figure he’s going to run a campaign of emotions and non-issues; he’s not going to get to the important stuff.

The flag is a symbol, a visible sign for something invisible, such as, oh, maybe freedom of expression, to name one. The flag is an arbitrary token, a metaphor chosen to represent our right to burn the flag as a visible sign of our disagreement with our government. Burning a flag is as symbolic as the flag itself. When Abraham Lincoln heard of a man who had been arrested for tearing up a copy of the Constitution, he had the man released from jail and brought to Washington for dinner in the White House. Lincoln was saying, in a symbolic action, that the very existence of the Constitution reserves one’s right to rip it asunder.

I’m not a flag-burning type, at least as far as I know, and most of us aren’t, so why bother [with them]? Besides, Constitutional amendments aren’t about restrictions. They enumerate individual and states’ rights not named in the Constitution.

Can’t Mr. Dole think of anything important to talk about? Everybody else I know can. The grassroots conversations in this country center on health care, education, the environment and campaign reform. Working class people are worried about air and water quality affecting the health of children, about insurance companies controlling health needs, about American business going offshore, about losing jobs, about a two-class country made up of rich and poor, about a religious minority wielding power in a government where church and state are not kin.

In the face of these kinds of worries, who cares about a flag-waver? The canny American voter knows that whoever’s spouting the flag, or anti-choice or English as an official language is (1) covering up something, (2) unwilling to talk about complicated problems, (3) uninformed about the real issues that concern us mightily or (4) so arrogant he’s unaware we can spot condescension a mile off. We are a literate people who care about our future, both individually and as a whole. Flag burning, the government having ANY say in women’s reproductive decisions, English as official language – these are either no one else’s business or non-issues, and we certainly don’t want to hear about them in an election year.”

Internet Begins

 Years ago I became an Evernote user. I was prone to using new offerings in those years. Today I was looking it over and changed my password and came across this "story".

Enjoy!

INTERNET BEGINS (posted in 2013)

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of
Abraham Com did take unto himself a healthy young wife by the name of
Dorothy.
 
And Dot Com was a comely woman, Large of breast, broad of shoulder and
long of leg. Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com.
 
And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why dost thou travel so far
from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever
leaving thy tent?"
 
And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags
short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, dear?"
 
And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in
between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will
reply telling you who hath the best price. The sale can be made on the
drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."
 
Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with
the drums.
 
And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all
the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from
his tent.
 
To prevent neighboring countries from overhearing what the drums were
saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew. It
was known as Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed
a language to transmit ideas and pictures - Hebrew To The People (HTTP).
 
And the young men did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy
horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical
Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS.
 
And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the
deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were
going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who
bought off every drum maker in the land. Indeed he did insist on drums
to be made that would work only with Brother Gates' drumheads and
drumsticks.
 
And Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken
over by others."
 
And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or eBay as it came to
be known.
 
He said, "We need a name that reflects what we are."
 
And Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."
 
"YAHOO," said Abraham.
 
And because it was Dot's idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com.
 
Abraham's cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic
Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot's drums to
locate things around the countryside.

It soon became known as God's Own Official Guide to Locating
Everything (GOOGLE).
 
That is how it all began.
 
And that's the truth... give or take a lie or two...

This is my writing time...

 When we put our house in Iowa back together we bought a shower apparatus that set the temperature, allowing us to shut it off and back on without having to readjust the water temperature. We wanted this because after 10 years of "Navy Showers" it grates on us to waste water. 

In case you don't know...

A Navy shower is a method of showering that allows for significant conservation of water and energy by turning off the flow of water in the middle portion ...

So we are having a new shower done in the park model and Butch wanted the same kind we have in Jefferson so we started looking. We bought the one in Iowa in 2014 at Lowes. It is a Delta. We had no luck at Lowes in McAllen. None in Home Depot either. So it was suggested we try Rio Grande Plumbing Supply in McAllen. So we popped in there this morning and they had one on hand and the price was reasonable. Now I know that sounds simple on the surface but the reason they had one was because someone from Mexico ordered it months ago and hadn't come yet to pick it up and he was fairly certain he could get one ordered for them before they would. And then when we paid for it we were pleasantly surprised to find it cost $46 less than we expected. It was just one of those days! Heart and Head in right place = a day full of things to be grateful for once again.

Another weird thing was that Butch put the box containing the shower hardware in the back seat and when we arrived home the car flashed "Check the back seat". Now we assume it is a safety feature but weird nonetheless, I wonder if it would do it if it was ice cream we were putting in the back seat. For us that could be very important. 

Take a moment...

 My 2nd cousin Joanna posted this on Facebook and I snipped it because it is so perfectly written.

“It's a living book, this life; it folds out in a million settings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn't matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were . . . and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you never again will be.

So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the Author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers about how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification.

And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?”

Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

Whew! 2023 is here!

I keep thinking things will smooth out soon and life will take on a gliding-like quality. But nooooo! We are into a new project. A new shower. It is a project we planned to do at some point but sometimes things fall into place and we are off and running. "Fall into place" might be a clue because we do not want a repeat of that adventure. Friends of ours have a project going and Butch was visiting with the contractor. His name is Frank, and Frank didn't let any grass grow under his feet. He came right over to see what we wanted to be done, and within two days gave us a bid, and said he could be here Tuesday, January 3rd. Frank has 5 crews so it isn't like he was pulling anything away from our friends. The picture below is our current shower and as you can see there is quite a step up to get into it. Butch measured it and it is nearly 12 inches. The new one will be floor level or close to it.

So this next week will be hectic. Or should I say more hectic? It will be nice to have a new shower...

Happy New Year 2023!!

Gonzales (no name) Burgers

 Last week sometime we had the timing right to stop into Gonzales Burger on Silver avenue in Donna Texas. We have been there many times over the years but due to Covid and many other things it had been years since we had been there. There is no name on the outside of the building so you usually are introduced to the place by someone else. It is not a place you would just stumble upon by accident even though the place has been in business since 1945. 

They have a given amount of hamburger that they sell and when the meat is gone they are closed. They open at 10:30 AM Monday through Saturday. 

Butch and I order one cheeseburger and fries. I cut off 1/3rd of it for me and it is plenty for both of us. Their prices have gone up over the years but they are still worth the money.

We were surprised to see the sprucing up done to the place. Maybe I should correct that to I noticed the changes. Butch didn't seem to notice.

Here are some photos I took while we enjoyed our very tasty burger:

New Clock

 I have wanted to buy one of these clocks ever since we moved here. I do not have a bedside table on my side of the bed, and I am used to half opening one eye during the night to check the time. I think that is a habit of light sleepers. So it was delivered yesterday and Butch has a reputation for reading directions and getting things set up in the proper method. I do not have that reputation. Now the time appears large and clear on the ceiling. I love it! 

Lime Jello with Cottage Cheese

 This recipe has been around for a long time and I ran across it a few weeks ago and decided to make it for Christmas dinner. I did not think Butch would even touch it because it has cottage cheese and pineapple and those are two things he would never consider edible. But then he tried it and liked it! Surprise! I love the stuff and cannot leave it alone.

Lime Jello with cottage cheese

Ingredients

3 ounce package lime gelatin

1/4 cup granulated sugar optional

3/4 cup hot water

8 ounces crushed pineapple = 1 small can, undrained

1 cup whipped topping defrosted

1 cup cottage cheese

Instructions

Dissolve gelatin in sugar and hot water.

Stir in pineapple and chill until mixture begins to stiffen, but is not firm.

Whip lime mixture using an electric mixer. Add cottage cheese and beat all together.

Fold in whipped topping.

Pour in a flat pan, we use a square 8 x 8 or 9 x 9' pan. Chill.

And then...

 We had a very pleasant holiday with friends Alex and Renie. After our dinner when we all ate too much food, we played cribbage and then we played the card game Golf which I have grown to like and we finished up the day playing Bridge. 

It was reminiscent of the holidays at the Brooker house, not the Butch and Barb Brooker house so much as the J.R and Marion Brooker house, Butch's parents. Every holiday and even just a visit it would not be long before a card game was in progress. It was the way it was and all frequent visitors knew it was going to happen. I loved his parents. 

When the bulk of your life is behind you instead of in front it brings about reminiscences of nearly everything. And when you see Grandma or Grandpa dosing in their chair it might be they are having a peak back at 1950 or some other decade and enjoying the show.

And that's the way it was, and is!

Christmas Wishes

Merry Christmas

 I imagine that many of you are busy getting the details of the Christmas celebration just right for friends and family and we will be too when the time is right. We are having friends come over as we did for Thanksgiving.

Now that we have some age on us we look back on those long-ago Christmas celebrations remembering some more vividly than others. Looking back takes on nearly as much importance as the here and now at times. So remember the memories that were and the ones you are making now and value each in a special way. Merry Christmas to all!

What a difference a day...

 ...makes. Yesterday, Renie and I were sitting on her deck discussing the condition of her foot/ankle she suffered an injury from the week before. She had just received word she could safely put some weight on it so she is on the way to recovery. 

I walked over to her place, sun shining, jacketless, beautiful south Texas day. Everyone knew we would be giving up the temps in the 70's for those old familiar "up north" temps in the 30's We were all bracing for it. They predicted 28 degrees with strong north winds. Butch and I showered early and then watched TV. We heard it coming. The wind arrived in full force and we watched the temperature drop each degree and then the lights went out. That will bring everything to a halt. We did have our kindles so we both read for a while and then went to bed.

We were grateful we showered before the lights went out! The lights were out for about an hour as we could tell by the clock when it came back on. I woke up at 6:00 am and noted the outdoor temp was 32. I set the water for a slow drip to keep it from freezing and I just noticed the temp is now 31 so it must still be on the decline.

Fortunately by Monday we will be back on track with our weather.

Misc. Photos

 Bootsie likes Butch and she is a bit fussy about who she does like. Bootsie is the pet of Paul and Sally Kelleher. She is perhaps the fattest cat I have ever seen.

I have taken up a new hobby this winter. It is called Diamond Art. I like doing it very much but I can see where eventually it will be an issue as to what I do with it after I have finished it. It is a bit like painting by number using beads. These are coasters and the first project I tried.

 

On our first trip to Mexico this fall I took a picture of the Rio Grande River as we walked across the bridge.

Another Bootsie pic...

How Trivia Works...

I wrote this as a promotional object for Trophy Gardens but decided on putting it here in case some of my peeps in Jefferson want to share it with friends for next summer. Once people find out it is Pub Style they seem to have more interest in it. I have to agree that other formats pale by comparison.

How Trivia works:

The trivia we play is called Pub-style. We play 4 rounds of 5 questions each with 5 different categories. ( Sample; Animals, Sports, Geography, Presidents, Movies) There are teams of 8 people playing. The number of people on a team may fluctuate, however having more people is not necessarily an asset. It is a courtesy of the teams to make sure all team members have a chance to share their input. A number value (2, 4, 6, 8, 10) is assigned to your answer and the numbers may only be used once for each of the 5 questions in a round. The point values are double in round 4.

Anyone may come to play and if you do not have a team to join we can help you find one. Everyone is also welcome to come and observe.

The rules are simple. 

Please do not shout out the answer.

No Cell Phones. One answer per team, one team per table.

All answers are final. No answers or point values may be changed once your answer slip has been given to the host. We will put in the smallest available value if your answer slip doesn’t contain a point value.

Tuesday Trivia is played in the Main Hall at 6:30 PM. Hosted by Barb Brooker and Renie Stinson- Ya’all come now, ya hear!