Random thoughts for Aug 31, 2010

It is the end of August and in a way, the end of the summer. It has been one of ups and downs, rain and very hot weather. There have been joys - seeing and spending time with my oldest son last week and my daughter the end of June. We built a natural swimming pool/pond and did very well. Then the hot weather hit and there wasn't much landscaping going on. We took some time off to visit my mother-in-law for her birthday and my father-in-law's birthday, Aug 20 and Aug 18 - 2 Leos that like to be the center of attention even at 80 and 82. It's no wonder they divorced 37 years ago.

Kansas provided nature at its finest with swarms of thousands of dragon flies, butterflies of all colors, grasshoppers flying in your mouth, praying mantises in abundance, cicadas keeping you awake on the warm nights, gold finches, night hawks, and blackbirds, and a parent coyote giving the pups a singing lesson on full moon night. Sunsets were varied and beautiful as usual. We tried to stay up many nights in a row to see the full moon next to Mars - no Venus - no Saturn - no the last official claim was Jupiter. I lost track of which one it actually was. On Thursday night it was supposed to be the biggest. I stayed up. It got to a certain point in the sky and then they started moving across the sky in the same position - it never got close. Then someone said the idea that it was going to be as big as the moon was an Internet hoax. On the other side of the sky Mars, Venus, and Saturn were almost lined up and bigger than Jupiter. But the night sky was full of stars and clarity. We saw something move across the sky several nights in a row that kind of bounced around with one big white light. We have noticed this before in Kansas. It doesn't move like an airplanes and they moved across the sky in opposite directions as the strange light. The airplanes usually have 3 lights, a red, a green and one white - not as big as the bouncy thing. We always end up wondering if our eyes are playing tricks on us when it starts bouncing around.

It was good (sort of) to see the family. The dynamics were the same BS and several people make no effort the have a better idea. In the midst of all of that, as I was able to get online, I found out that a high school classmate had passed away suddenly. He regularly posted on the class website funny stories and was in his own way quite a writer. (See previous post.) Before my trip I learned that my favorite published writer, Ted Andrews had passed away last October. I was very sad at the news of both of these men about my age.

I found myself screaming inside "Life is too short and can end without a warning for all of this childish petty bickering. Yes, all the drama gives you something interesting and different to listen to but find some joy to focus on and some love - if nothing else the beauty of the land!" But it isn't my place to judge or to tell others how to live their lives. I found myself increasingly hiding away in our little vacation like house and riding alone on the red 4-wheeler to the farm. It was fun except when that white pick-up truck would come flying down the dirt road and I would eat limestone gravel dust for five minutes. One day I put on sunblock before I took off for my ride - I had arms that looked like they had a coat of concrete on them after the dust from the trucks.

I am back in Georgia now. My 14 plus year old cat, Autumn just came by for a little holding - she doesn't like holding very often - and her kisses on the top of her head. She gave me some smiles and licked my hand and now she is washing me off of her. But that is Autumn. Zeus and Oden are more affectionate than usual and Precious is her usual hug me self. The dog is still mad at me and not eating yet. She does this for a few days when I leave her - though Buzz stayed here and she wasn't alone. She just has such a good pout when I displease her. When the act doesn't get anywhere she eats all of her food as long as no one is looking.

So life goes on. I choose to see the beauty and enjoy it. I want to make some changes and my husband and I want to produce income in more consistent ways. There are things we want to do and places we want to go. I look at it this way. If life as we know it is going to end in 2012, then let's live it up. Who knows what kind of life we will end up in next time? I choose to believe in moving forward to a new and better idea - right now right this minute. It is all good and all God. There is only One Power and I choose to use it for happiness. Katherine Ari

To honor Paul Lewis and thoughts about God

August 26, 2010
Yesterday, August 25, 2010 I turned to my high school class website. I am on a vacation this week in a tiny rural Kansas town where there isn’t much to do except, thanks to my brother-in-law, I can get on the Internet or just fight chigger bites. I had commented on a couple of subjects posted by some former classmates that carry on about local Hugo, Oklahoma stuff and so I went back to see if they had answered me. I scrolled down to see what posts followed my last story to find that two hours earlier one of the most regular posters, Paul Lewis, had died. The day before he was posting pictures and planning the next Hugo ’69 supper club meeting as usual.
I was shocked and saddened and frankly in disbelief. “This can’t be,” I thought as my mind tried to wrap itself around such a sudden announcement.
I didn’t know Paul really in high school. I knew who he was but I doubt if I ever had a conversation with him other than a hello here and there. The class had other reunions but for reasons unknown to me I never knew about them until last year in 2009 when someone found me online. The other classmates say Paul was a big help at the gatherings.
I got to know him on the site. He was really wise and funny. I wrote him that he should get his stories and jokes published. Some were not his own but it didn’t matter. They seemed to come from him. I know I frequently go to the site and I always look to his profile for new posting or at the least look at the profile list to see who has last posted. If Paul had a recent entry I was excited and eagerly went to his to read his latest.
The Message forum regularly had postings by him and Larry Lee and a few others who obviously are good friends, the men holding down the home front, the ones who stayed and kept Hugo their place for their adult lives. Their funny stories and conversations kept all of the Class of 1969 connected. Here is what was going on in Hugo. I felt connected and was a fan of Paul’s humor. He really didn’t know me but I felt I knew him.
He loved his grandchildren and children in general. I can’t imagine going to our website and not reading posts from Paul. It will not be the same. And I know that his close friends are totally at a loss for words. To lose a good friend is not one you prepare yourself for. I have said before death is the pits. It is the one thing that medical science has not figured out a pill to take to make it go away. My son says “death” is the pill itself, the way to experience grief and get through it. There is no easy way and everyone experiences it in their own way. There is no prescription, nothing but time itself to make it better and no matter how much others try to decide how much time we need they can’t. No one knows but me how much and how long it takes to grieve when someone I care about passes away.
And I do feel sad about Paul Lewis. I know his beliefs and mine did not necessarily match much or our lifestyles. Our religious beliefs differed. But as a writer myself I don’t have to sit down and talk in person to know the inner person when I read his writings, his stories, and his anecdotes. He told us a lot about himself on the class site. He shared a lot of love and I am grateful to have known him and his love for his family and friends through his words, his funny stories and jokes. I felt I knew him and that was okay.

We will all miss him and I send my love and prayers to him family and friends.
Page 2
As others have posted on the class site and I am sure more will comment, there are comments about his love of God and that he is now in a better place. I began to think about what I would want said about me if I were to transition to another dimension.
My spiritual beliefs are not traditional and I find myself wanting people with traditional beliefs to understand me. I believe that what works for one person may not work for the next but that there are truths that when the dogma and interpretations are removed, are the same for anyone.
I do not believe in a man God out there in the clouds. I believe that “God” is a Universal force that is responsible for everything in creation. We can agree on that. God is responsible for everything and is everywhere present all the time. I believe that Jesus found a way to completely connect with the Divine power all the time and his teachings say that we can do the same. He was one of us and not separate from us or above us. He promised we could do the same things as him and even greater things than He did.
I believe that this God force is impersonal. It can be used for good or bad but it is all God. There is only Power in the universe and we can use it for good as I think we should or we can use it for things that will hurt others. Do I love God? God is Love. I know love and I know that God is in me all of the time and that I choose to use the God in me to love, always love.
Going to a better place is the idea of heaven after we die. I don’t believe I have to die to get to that better place. I believe heaven is what I create in my life while I am alive. It is joy, peace, fun and enjoying life. I see beauty and love and peace of mind. I want to create these things and that is what I choose to see. It isn’t that I look at life though rose colored glasses and never see the dark side of life. I just choose to find the good in everyone and every situation. I believe the more I focus on joy, on good health, on happiness, on beauty, the more I experience a good place now.
And when I die or pass on, well I believe that the body dies but the Soul which is the part most connected to the Universal Power does not die, can not die, and like God is infinite. I don’t know where God will take me next. I hope if there is karma that by living a life of love that where I go next is a beautiful place but I don’t know. I haven’t gone there yet. All I really can control is how I experience the life I have right now. I choose to believe there are solutions to conflicts. I choose to see love and wonder and growth. I choose my thoughts and my actions. There is a fertile field that is my mind and it is constantly in a state of being ready for a new crop of productive thoughts. I decided some time ago to make every effort I can to control what is planted in the fertile field.
I am grateful to have known a man named Paul Lewis. He made me laugh and feel good. He contributed to my growth and some healing as I soaked up a new and better idea about being from Hugo, Oklahoma and the Class of 1969. I believe he shared his stories unconditionally and that was pretty cool. He felt comfortable telling them and didn’t fear that someone would not accept him. That pretty well says a man who had come to accept himself. It is an example we all can follow and a direction we can strive to accomplish in each of our lives. I am blessed by getting to know him through his writings.

Updates and On my Mind

Greetings readers and friends-
I have been absent from the blog for a while doing other soul searching and making some lifestyle changes. I have some great ideas for something new and have been concentrating my energies on finding funding for the project. It will take between $30,000 and $50,000 to shoot a pilot for an interactive virtual exercise program. My ideal is to contract with Sony-Play Station to make it and it will work on any kind of home exercise equipment, but I have to jump thru some hoops of fire, cross my "t's" and dot my "i's" and find them to do all of that in order to get this idea benefiting many people and many programs. I find out about many different programs that are benefiting certain charities and once I get the idea going, it will benefit a non-profit organization - that of the National Parks System - but I have to manifest the program.

Part of this idea would be very valuable for the effort to stop obesity in children. I know that the school systems are responsible for a large part of a child's day, but the real place that diet and exercise start is AT HOME. Parents must take responsibility to change their own diets and exercise habits and not depend on the schools to take care of the obesity problem. BUT it doesn't have to be gym type exercise that only 12% of society uses. It is a big task but all of society will benefit if we ALL start eating better, stop eating junk food, and start growing healthier children. It is also true that when we adults eat cleaner whole foods that we think more clearly and feel younger, look healthier, and make better decisions. It all works together.

I would like to find supporters - both financial and moral for these ideas. Good diet an exercise starts at home and I have some ideas of how parents can do more at home. I am also looking for contacts with Sony - Play Station, with Michelle Obama, with some of these successful business men and corporations that look for philanthropic causes. I have a good idea and want to find a way to present it without worrying that someone will steal the idea from me. If you have some connections or ideas, please let me here from you.

Hey Readers, Listen UP!

Message to my readers:

On my blog I have a way to check my readers/hits. Many days the numbers are low but sometimes, I have had readers but I never hear from you. If you want to comment – or just say hello – just comment and add that you don’t want your comment published. I would like to hear from you and every comment is forwarded to my email for approval before it appears on the blog. If there is a subject on your mind, even if it is not something I have covered before, just ask. I love to open discussions about things important in our lives. Thanks for dropping in to my “Aha!” moments. Katherine Ari

You Are What You Eat

You are What you Eat by Katherine Ari, February 6, 2010

Have you ever heard the expression, “You are what you Eat”? Have you given that much thought? I am here to stand on my soapbox to tell you that it is time you do think about it. What we eat goes into our body to make it function. If we eat food that is really not food at all, your intelligent body and mind does not know what to do with non-food. We would like to think that it just goes on through in body waste – but that is not the case. What happens is that is goes into fat cells. Considering we are becoming known as the nation of obesity, there are way too many of us that have been eating things our body does not know what to do with.

Some of you may say, “I’m not fat.” First of all, you don’t have to be overweight to have too much excess body fat. I have met many a person that appears lean that has other health problems. Another response is I don’t have any particular health problems but it will catch up with you. But even beyond the promise that bad eating and drinking will eventually catch up on your body, is that the bad food (and drink) choices do influence your life now. When you eat a clean diet, you think more clearly, you feel more alive, and it is a lot easier to tune in or hear what you inner higher power tells you is the right decision for anything in your life. You are more stable emotionally and think clearly.

I have studied many diets. I have tried many. I lost weight. But the weight returned eventually. The right way to eat is not just about losing weight. You ARE what you eat. If you want to be a whole healthy vibrant and energetic person, then you should eat whole, healthy, vibrant and energetic food. White sugar, white flour, white processed rice, chips loaded with fat and other processed or artificial ingredients, anything that is so far removed from the original grain or fruit or vegetable, food loaded with preservatives, foods with things on the ingredient list that you can pronounce much less know what they are, fats that are not naturally occurring, and the list goes on and on are NOT whole foods. They are sold to get you hooked and addicted to eat more and spend more and more money on them. Then add the foods laden with hormones, drugs, artificial colors, and fake whatever like BHA and GMO laced with pesticides and other unnecessary things. These things are not things the human body’s computer – the brain - knows how to digest. They go to fat and in other parts of the body throwing it out of balance.

Every pimple, every skin problem, every health problem – EVERY HEALTH PROBLEM can be traced back to prolonged bad diet. For a very, very long time the medical community denied that food had anything to do with medical problems. But food has everything to do with health issues – EVERYTHING! To get healthy is a permanent lifestyle change. You can’t eat clean for a few weeks or months and then go back to eating junk food and heavy sugar products. I know I can’t go back to eating sugar ever. It is an addiction like alcohol for the alcoholic. It will literally kill me. Non-food indulgence will undue in one meal everything I have accomplished and my progress for months. The more of us that refuse to eat junk food, the sooner the food industry will have to change what they sell, what they grow, and what they make their money on. You are what you eat and I can help you make the change you need to make.

Book Review, Dieting, and Reality Shows - part one

Reality shows have been around longer than the media like to admit. The Academy Awards and the Emmys as well as other reward shows are reality shows. There are unexpected turns of events and you don’t always know who is going to win. Certainly televised football games and other sports are reality shows. Any game show, daytime or nighttime, is a reality show. I confess. I like reality shows – well, some of them. I don’t like the ones where people are playing mind games and acting like jerks. I don’t like the ones where the “star” got the show because he can use a power trip and yell constantly at the contestants. Yet, with some of them like American Idol, So You Think you Can Dance or Dancing with the Stars, and America’s Got Talent, though the judges are sometimes too blunt, the criticisms are mostly honest – not vicious.

When The Biggest Loser entered the list, I really liked Bob, but Jillian’s get in their face attitude turned me off. I have always fought weight issues and know just what the contestants are going through. They already feel bad about themselves and her screaming at them seemed to be for the dramatic effect to stir up interest but harsh. Then for some reason she left for a season and they had this Barbie doll, Kim. She was sweet but didn’t get the results Jillian had with the players as well as the ratings NBC wanted. So Jillian came back and led the team that no one chose – the black team who came back and dominated the challenges.

Next season it was Jillian and Bob. I imagined trying out for the show, but could someone my age – a baby boomer get on the show? But then I considered what it would be like to have Jillian as my trainer and I didn’t want her screaming in my face. But over the many seasons it has been on, they have allowed her to show her other side. I still don’t understand why she and Bob feel they have to make the contestants hurt – other than the show has to move them fast and the drama helps the ratings. But beyond the hype, Jillian has shown herself to be compassionate and smart. They have to promote the sponsors but once I got one of her books I believe that she doesn’t really believe in some of the stuff they put on that show.

I was particularly drawn to her book, Master Your Metabolism. My husband, Doug, and I have spent many years and many dollars studying nutrition and all the diets out there. He has had times where he was over weight but currently it is his blood pressure, dark circles under his eyes, and weakness in his muscles with lots of fatigue that concerns both of us. My weight, blood pressure, late onset acne, and another issue I won’t go into are my concerns but I really just want to be healthy and live life to the fullest.

I read the book and studied it. Doug read it. We have long believed that raw food is really the best, but all the food prep and time involved as well as trying to maintain the regime while working on landscaping jobs has pulled us off the program over and over. I liked the idea of mostly raw organic food when available with some animal protein. Most of the raw food “experts” are strict vegans and have volumes proclaiming why you should not eat any animal products. Yet, in the back of my mind I remember a Cherokee elder woman saying if you have Type “O” blood type and have Native American Blood in you, you will find it hard to be 100% vegetarian. When I am eating the raw diet and sticking with it, I really don’t crave the meat. But when we are doing heavy labor jobs and too tired to make food when we get home ten or twelve hours later, the men especially want some sort of animal protein. Nuts and seeds and veggies just aren’t enough. And none of us feel like preparing anything much less have the time to do it. We go get the chicken house salad or some other form of chicken meal.

Jillian Michael’s book left me with many questions and comments but I have yet to find a way to directly inquire with her. Of course there is the disclaimer in the front of the book, but, one, I don’t have the money to go get my own endocrinologist and have an exam and tests done, and two, the comments and questions I have are not so involved that I should have to pay someone for the answers. The idea of our metabolism being out of whack is right and I really agree with the basic premises. But just making the changes she suggests does not detoxify a lifetime of issues in your body.

For example, Doug handled a lot of pesticides working on the farm when he was growing up. Though the food on the farm was mostly homegrown and not full of preservatives, he had a steady diet of white sugar in deserts and white flour in bread. I suspect that Kansas mothers and grandmothers did like most post World Ward II cooks did and add lots of sugar to everything - and fat. He was breastfed, but his brother and sister had a bottle. I had a bottle filled with Pet Milk and Karo syrup. So until I ate food, which was pushed very early, I was mal-nourished. Is it any wonder I had a potbelly like the malnourished tribal people in other world countries? And what I was fed when they started me on solid food was starch, fat, and sugar. It was what they did in those days. It is not any wonder that I have had weight problems all my life?

The food plans in the back of the book are good starting points but she is a little tiny woman. How can someone Doug’s size and being a man or someone my size eat such a small amount? Just reading the lists makes me hungry. There just isn’t much food – like 3 pieces of nitrate free bacon and half of a grapefruit are suppose to be a breakfast. And the idea of eating such small amounts every four hours AND exercising inbetween or working on a labor job does NOT work. In our case, we would get crazy or collapse. I do believe in portioning the servings but get in trouble when I get out shopping or paying bills and get beyond the four hours unexpectedly. Then I get really weak and shaky – and irritable. As with all “diets” it is about establishing your body’s needs into a rhythm that works for you.

All that being said, the Metabolism diet secrets are still the most effective way to make some changes in your lives. The reality is that if you want to be healthier, whether you are over weight or just unhealthy, you have to be ready to make a lifestyle change that is PERMANENT! No diet works if you think you can diet for a while and then go back to the old habits that caused the problem, whatever it was, in the first place. But we are stubborn. We rebel against never having those wonderful deserts and fried chicken we love and crave. We have always eaten for comfort, because of unhappiness or stress, or to be like everyone else. There is a list of excuses we make. Let’s be honest. It isn’t easy when the rest of society is out there eating crap and not worrying about it. Someone I know who is in my family says, “Just eat what you want” but boy does he get ugly about fat people. But you can’t just eat what you want if the imbalances in your metabolism have caused excess weight or high blood pressure or diabetes or acne or circles under your eyes or tumors or any other undesirable health condition.

If you have read my previous blogs, you know I believe in a spiritual connection with everything as well as belief systems and core beliefs. I will get into that more in future blogs. The most general thing I can say about this diet plan to balancing your hormones is eat whole foods, organic when you can get them and watch portions. That means eliminating the white foods – white flour, white sugar, white rice, and all the variations of processed food that are not real food. When you are watching what you eat, you don’t crave the sugar and non-organic whole grain bread as much. In fact, I can make an organic loaf of whole grain bread last 3 or 4 weeks. Fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, baked or grilled chicken and meats, organic dairy – I won’t eat any dairy if it isn’t organic, and no snack foods like chips and crackers are easy enough to find.
(end part one)

Book Review, Dieting, and Reality Shows

January 26, 2010
Today’s topic – Reality Shows and Health and Dieting- part two

I just spent a week with my in-laws in the Florida Keys. They like to go out to eat because they don’t like to prepare food after a long day at work. The restaurants have many tempting things that torture a person trying to diet. Some choices are okay, but it was really hard because ordering salads that are 90% white iceberg lettuce can burn you out on salads – blah! Most places have grilled fish but the fried conch fritters or fried calamari are tempting tidbits and the family likes to order appetizers. The side dish choices are baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, white or yellow rice or fries usually. One place had fresh green beans. The family also loves to order a desert for everyone to have a bite or two – mostly because one person in particular like sweets and wants everyone to eat some so he won’t be the only sugar eater. But I just can’t do that. My husband complimented me on turning down the deserts. It helped that I really don’t like Key Lime pie. But on the last night they also ordered a cocoanut custard filled cake. That one was torture because cocoanut custard is one of my biggest former loves. And sometimes you order something that seems harmless enough and then it obviously has sugar in it. When you are a sugar-a-holic, one bite does you in. And you don’t want to waste the money paid for the food by not eating it.

Then there is the general stress of being in a family situation. There is eating the mother-in-law’s favorite appetizer she always fixes. There is eating when you are bored or wanting to avoid talking. There is wanting to try something new like conch fritters or catch of the day with almandine sauce, asking for a small baked potato and getting a large one, ordering crab and it turns out to be fake, sugar sweetened and artificial colored crabmeat. Field greens are listed as the ingredient of the salad and it is white lettuce and one little piece of romaine when they bring it out. The tomatoes are green and awful and HMO grown. Cheese on a salad is cheap processed fake cheddar. No restaurant has a salad dressing that isn’t commercial. Organic dairy is findable and it is a good thing you won’t be there long because it is too expensive to use it regularly. But you want to have a good visit with the family’s once a year get together and you don’t want to complain and bitch about the food choices. And you come home feeling like crap, tired, and having to go through withdrawal once again feeling like your clothes are tight because as hard as you tried, you still ended up eating food, or too much food, you didn’t want to eat.

When Doug came home for two weeks for Christmas and New Years, he read the book but I found it harder to stay with the metabolism program. For one thing, he doesn’t need to lose weight. He needs to lower his BP and gain muscle mass back. He is a 6’1” man and needs more calories. He wants to eat in the evening especially after 9 p.m. – a habit he needs to break but he is working in FL living with his dad. So all the challenges I spoke of above being with family, he has all the time, every day. I have added some organic cheese and Greek yogurt but he can’t eat any dairy. Many of the recipes at the end of the book contain dairy.

I can do most of this because right now it is winter and our work is the work Doug is doing with his family in Florida. I have time now, but the truth is that I don’t like to cook all the time. When we are working, I don’t feel like cooking. I get burned out on cooking very easily. I would rather sit here and write about food rather than go to the kitchen and fix something. Last night I found myself eating something after 9 p.m. – not because I was hungry but because there was something in the frig. After I heated it up and started eating, I asked myself, “why am I eating this?” The routine is off after the week with family. I thought I could return to the routine the next day – but that hasn’t happened yet.

Eating the right foods is essential to living a healthy long life. When my mother started having health problems in her sixties, she asked me for some alternative ideas – but I knew she wouldn’t do anything I suggested. She had always refused to change her diet in any way making all the excuses in the world or just down right arguing with me about the sugar and white flour and all the cake and fake ice cream she always had in the house. If you asked Daddy if he like spinach and vegetables, he would say he did like them but Mother would argue that he wouldn’t eat them. I don’t know if he wouldn’t eat them or if it was her that didn’t like them unwilling to change her rigid habits. I answered her that she wouldn’t like the answers we would give her about her health when she wanted a quick fix. If she wasn’t willing to make some changes, then she needed to take the pills and advice of the Medical doctors. Their treatment plans were for someone with a Standard American Diet and lifestyle – not necessarily healthy but what mainstream society was doing. I hated it. She died of cancer at 72 and Daddy died one week after his 79th birthday of congestive heart failure. She had slight diabetes until the cancer treatment and steroids shot her insulin up into life threatening ranges. Now my in-laws are in their eighties and their comments and thinking are slipping. Just a conversation with either of them is a challenge. As many excuses I can list for not eating right, there really is not other choice. It means that I have to find other things to do for fun, to soothe myself when I need comfort or am lonely, and find foods that taste good. It means I have to prepare my own food and not eat out – that is a disaster waiting to happen on healthy eating. And I have to watch my thinking – take control of my thoughts and not let random thoughts draw to me things I don’t want in my life.

If you are ready to take charge of your life and your health and make PERMANENT changes, then I recommend Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels as a starting point. Then contact me with questions and get some personal support with your decision. For many people, the ideas are so foreign that they may turn back to the old habits really quick. For us, it isn’t such a stretch because we know so much already and most of the book supports a natural lifestyle we already believe in – even if we haven’t always been doing the program. That is why I feel I can help others no matter where they are on the path to good health. Reading the book I have finally decided I do like Jillian Michaels and hope someday to get to talk with her. Meanwhile, it is time to make some healthy lunch and I have a full refrigerator to choose from.

Happy New Year

I'm back to the blog and have many things to talk about but the first thing is to say to all Happy New Year. As we start the new year with resolutions and dreams and hopes to see the economy improve and our own individual circumstances, I am reminded that one of the ways to keep the flow going is to be grateful. It is important to make a list daily of what we are thankful for. Start with the easy stuff and keep writing until you have said thank you God for everything.

Thank you God: for a warm home, electricity, natural gas, water, a bed, a computer, a TV, music, food and coffee.
Thank you God: for my family, my cats and my dog, for my children, and adopted son's son who has brought joy to the whole family.
Thank you God for Love, for Peace, for Joy, for prosperity, for abundance, for sunshine on a cold day, for sunshine every day, for the bird that wakes me every morning even though it seems so cold outside you would think it wouldn't be happy - but still it sings its morning song - thank you God. Thank you God for the blue jays and crows who seem to be around a lot keeping watch over my yard and me.
Thank you God for the rest of the family that help us through these lean times.
Thank you God for my friends and my spiritual community, SLCA, and for every blessing I receive from that big group of happy non-judgmental people.
Thank you God for my education, for my dreams and thoughts and ideas. Thank you God for the opportunity to grow and to learn and to share with others and to get better and better. Thank you God for Love and for showing me how to give love to others.
Thank you God for my good automobiles, for the city and state who provides good roads and good utilities. Thank you for my cell phone and the internet. Thank you for good books and good music.
Thank you God for good and perfect health for me, for my family, especially for my pets as they age.
Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God for everything for I KNOW that God is all there is. God IS ALL there is! It is so.

Announcement

Just checked my analytics of my blog and saw there are a few checking in. I have been preoccupied with the holidays and having my husband home and a few other things. Keep checking back readers as I will be posting new blogs in a day or so. Hope all are having a great New Year and do let me hear from you. K

Remembering Thanksgiving – Old AND NEW Traditions

I was home alone for Thanksgiving this year. I sat down at the piano, played the favorite hymns of Daddy, Mother, and Doug, and I cried. I remembered Thanksgiving always at Grandmother’s house and someone always had to go get Mrs. Idy. The women cooked all morning (and several days before) and then collapsed after the meal. The children had to lie down and got spankings if we weren’t quiet. When we finally got old enough to be outside unattended, we were allowed to get up and go out to play, weather permitting, after an hour of lying down.

The food sat out on the table mostly uncovered except the Jell-O salads and maybe the desserts. It’s a wonder we didn’t get food poisoning. Later we came back and picked around at the food. Sometimes we all had to sit down together for supper. After an unwritten length of time, we would pack up and go home – five miles away. It wasn’t like they had anything new to talk about. They saw each other several times a week.

There weren’t any toys so we grandkids had to make up games. I don’t remember any time that was particularly fun – mostly bickering that would evolve into fights. Then the adults would have to come separate us and give someone or all whippings.

Grandmother was diabetic in her later years. Dr. Waters knew she would “just a little taste” herself into too much and so he always upped her insulin for the holidays. There would be turkey with dressing, canned cranberry sauce and whole berry made from scratch, corn bread and biscuits, a ham and candied sweet potatoes and some orange pecan sweet potatoes. There would be some mostly iceberg lettuce with Thousand Island dressing. Sometimes there would be cold slaw, sauerkraut, and boiled cabbage. No, greens were not a popular fall thing in Oklahoma. There would be green beans, green bean casserole, and corn from the garden both on the cob and creamed corn. There was always a plate of home canned pickles, usually several varieties. There were usually some navy beans and baked beans (like we needed more gas) and certainly some sort of squash something. There may have been some noodle or rice casseroles. Biscuits and cornbread weren’t enough bread. They would add brown and server rolls and white bread. There were mashed potatoes, new potatoes, and canned peas. There sometimes was pea salad, carrot salad, and grape/cranberry salad. The Jell-O salads changed from year to year but someone always made orange Jell-O carrot salad that no one every ate or liked.

Then came the desserts. I remember Mother making an apple pecan cake every year. The banana nut cake got replace with a Scotch chocolate cake with pecan sugary icing. That was replaced with an Italian cocoanut pecan cream cake with cream cheese icing with pecans and cocoanut. Aunt Margie would make a cocoanut cake or chocolate cake or strawberry cake too. Mother wasn’t very good a piecrust but that didn’t stop her from making pies. When frozen crust became available at the stores that made it even easier. She made lemon meringue, chocolate, a really good cocoanut cream, banana cream, and one called Jefferson Davis chess pie. Sometimes she made pecan and pumpkin pies too. There were frequently chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies. Aunt Margie brought many of the same kinds. There was ice cream and whip cream (later cool whip).

One year Grandmother decided to make a pie. The sisters said she made them every year but had stopped when the diabetes came on. It was a butter chess pie – butter, eggs, and sugar. It was decadent – and really good. Mother and Daddy had to hand churn butter when they were growing up. They grew to hate the tasted and smell of butter immensely. They didn’t care for the taste of the butter pie so Grandmother never made it again. I was disappointed but it wasn’t like there wasn’t anything good to replace it.

All you can eat buffets have nothing on a Southern Oklahoma Thanksgiving dinner that shows influence of the tribal potlash ceremonies. There was this Italian Yankee at O.U. who tried to claim his Italian family gathering had an unbeatable spread, but he hadn’t been to one of my family’s holiday dinners. The “potlash” ceremony among farming tribes was a “being” by itself. They were such abundant holiday traditions.

So this year Doug was down in Florida with his family. Azure, Kyler, and Miko have moved away and so has Jeremy. I was going to be alone. Azure sent friends. The first came with a plate of food and the second brought a card and arrived while the first was still here. They left and a while later all of Jeremy’s siblings and girlfriends and cousins came bringing me some of Big Mamas Southern Soul Thanksgiving cooking. As they left another young man arrived. I gave him some pie and found out later that he had stayed home and not had any Thanksgiving dinner. I had a smoked breast and some cranberry sauce and the plate from Jeremy’s grandmother had enough for several meals that I could have shared had I known. I had a wonderful day. I didn’t have to cook but I still had a full dishwasher. I was pleasantly full and tired but so happy.

Thanksgiving memories and traditions – sometimes don’t change, but kids grow up, grandparents and parents pass away. The kids grow up and move away following their own life journey. Sometimes couples have to be apart. It’s sad when you spend Thanksgiving thinking about what was. It is more fun to make new traditions. I didn’t cook for days. I received some Thanksgiving dinner from other families without having too much leftover food along with dirty dishes, pots, and pans. I had a wonderful day. And next year? Well, we will see. It will be filled with some more New Traditions!