Celebrate

For some time we have been contemplating the celebration of our 50th wedding anniversary. First of all, the count must be off. It can't possibly be fifty years since that hot dry day in western Kansas in late August of 1961. I graduated from high school in 1960 and then went to college in Salina, KS for my freshman year. It was a good year especially after we had our first date in January or February. By August we were married and by the next June we were in Germany, guests of the US Army. Well, that was a roller coaster start and from there it just kept going, sometimes uphill, sometimes down. But without a doubt, it was a steady climb until we suddenly had six children, had cared for a couple foster children, both of us had gone back to school. Ron completed two degrees and I became a nurse, and soon Ron retired from Dillons, opened the book store, and now it has been fifty years.Of course, there were a few other things like emergency room visits, trips to visit the kids, emergency appendectomy, a new knee, a lot of car wrecks, traffic tickets, and many, many visits to different college campuses where kids were happily doing their own things. Well, I guess it might be fifty years after all. They say time flies when you are having a good time. Yes, it has been a very fine journey and we will celebrate heartily in a few weeks with the best things of all, all of us together. There will be lots of teenagers, lots of babies, friends, family, and the proud originators of this fine group. We are sorry to be missing our parents but they would be proud of our fifty years.

Peace?

As I sit here and watch the riots in Egypt, I wonder. I wonder why it is so difficult for peoples of the world to just tolerate each other, much less love and care for each other. I wonder if I will live long enough to look around the world and see no conflict. Yet, I have lived long enough to know that, because we are the human beings we are, it will never happen.
What really makes me sad is that really we all have a responsibility to contribute to that peace. It begins with me and the peace in my heart that feeds the hungry. Tonight when it is zero degrees outside did I do anything to give a bed to those living beneath the bridge? Peace comes in little pieces. How big is the piece I have to offer?

Another New Start

It seems that life flies by but looking back one wonders how so much could have changed in such a flash. As a child my family had the first telephone in the little French-Canadian village in western Kansas and now my phone goes with me everywhere.All this technology has had me really baffled; fortunately I have a great roommate of nearly 50 years who is pretty savey.We went to a presentation this morning to get ideas on how to use social media to benefit our book store. Since I have a recently new iphone, I am determined to keep up.So tonight,I can buy my Starbucks coffee with my phone, have a new e-mail account, and a blog started.I really do enjoy e-mail,Facebook,working on learning Twitter, and appreciate the ability to compose, save, or send my midnight thoughts,to where ever I want.I am fully aware that I am only tapping the surface of available technology but I am a midnight person and my best little bits of wisdom come then.I think I owe that partly to having a large wonderful family and have spent many nights up for various reasons and realized that I enjoy the absolute quiet and isolation that midnight brings.I hope to share some of those thoughts and stories with you.