OlympicMania!

Who else has been glued to the TV since Friday evening?

I've always enjoyed watching the Olympics in the past, but it's always been a take it or leave it type of thing. I enjoyed watching if I happen to turn it on, but didn't really think about it otherwise. Not this year! I just can't seem to get enough of it. I'm already sleep deprived from staying up late and it's only a few days in. I'll probably have huge dark circles around my eyes by the time it ends.

Saturday two of the grandkids and I watched volleyball and cheered and yelled and jumped up and down and clapped our hands as if we were really there. I'm even thinking about decking the livingroom out patriotic for the duration of the games. I just can't get enough!

I'm finding myself enjoying more than just the main sports...who knew there was more than gymnastics, swimming and volleyball?? Sycrinized diving was interesting, but I was afraid the men were going to dive right out of their little bitty speedos. There is a woman who hit 99 out of 100 clay pigeons, that is awesome! She also has won a medal (not sure if they were all gold) five times in a row. I even watched soccer at the Mexican Restaurant while I was eating..in Spanish. I still was glued to the TV.

If you haven't yet watched the games, get the family together, pop some popcorn and take the time to do so and cheer on Team USA!

"Now now Johnny" doesn't work

Soap Box Alert!

I was brought up with parents who loved us enough to discipline us...regardless of where we were. I was also brought up in a time when it was socially acceptable to discipline your children and make them behave. Because of that, my parents were able to take us children into public to grown up places and not for one second worry if we would act inappropriately. And if we had a brief moment when we started to get a bit naughty, off to the bathroom we were marched and got a spanking right there. It's how all the children I knew were raised and we all seemed to grow up without any major defects because of it.

Unfortunately, that is not the case anymore. When Johnny is in a restaurant and throwing his food and banging his fork on the table and yelling and running around, mom and dad only say, "Now now Johnny, we don't act like that. Now now Johnny, let's not throw our food at the nice lady. Now now Johnny, if you quit running around and yelling I'll take you for ice cream".

SERIOUSLY??

What happened to the good old days of actions and consequences? When children were taught from a young age what is and is not allowed? When going for ice cream was a treat, not a bribe to stop bad behavior. I am a firm believer that bad behavior should never be rewarded.

I may sound like an old fuddy-duddy here, but what are these children being taught? How are they going to grow up to function in society if they have no concept of right and wrong? If children are not taught young, how will they ever make good choices when they are older? If they have a sense of entitlement, how will they ever understand when things don't go their way~and know how to deal with it?

There seems to be so much anger in younger people. Could it be they were given life on a platter when they were children, and now as they get older, not have a clue how to deal with being told no and not having it all their way?

I'm happy to say not all parents raise up their children this way. My foster daughter is tough on her children..and we can go out in public with no worries. They understand what 'no' means, and the fact that disobeying it comes with consequences. I applaud all parents who still take a firm stance on child rearing.

Another thing that seems to have gone by the wayside is a good old fashioned spanking. Believe me, I had my fair share of them growing up and I am very thankful to my parents for it. Well, I'm thankful now, wasn't so thankful then. We knew if we got too out of line, off to the bathroom we went. My mom only used her hand, never a spoon or belt or switch or any other object. We were never beat, we were never abused. We received spankings and learned right and wrong.

You may be wondering why I am on my soap box today. Well, I can't really say. I don't have any certain event setting me off. I guess it's just a concern for our young people and the effect 'Now Now Johnny' parenting is having on them. How they are not being taught life has boundaries and just because you want something doesn't mean you are going to get it. They are not learning how to cope with rejection.

Please, please, please, if you are the parent of underage children, it's not too late. Please love your children enough to discipline them. This doesn't meant as your children grow into adults, they are going to be perfect people. Nope, not at all. What it does mean is they will have the knowledge in them of right and wrong. They will make choices, not all of them good, but they WILL have knowledge inside of them that can help in those choices. Without this knowledge, they will make choices only on knowing they should always get what they want and there are no consequences for bad behavior.

Soap box talk is over, thank you for listening. (Smile)

Bike Time

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START SEEING MOTORCYCLES

With the mild winter we have had here in Illinois and the above average temperatures we are experiencing, motorcycles are are out and about already. Please look and double-look when crossing intersections.

That said, I had my first ride of the season last night. Papa Bear was a sweetheart and did all the maintenance on my bike this year to get it running before July! Unfortunately, his wasn't quite ready to go so I took my first ride of the season by myself *sigh*

Looking forward to an evening here soon where neither one of us have anything going on so we can get out and ride.

Thankful Thursday

If you are my friend on FaceBook, you already know the excitement we had over the weekend. If not, you will soon understand why I am so very thankful.

I was woken Saturday morning with a phone call by my 20 year old son, who lives 13 hours away from his mom, saying he had been in an accident and was in the hospital. He and a friend had been out drinking and were stupid enough to get into a vehicle. They both fell a sleep. The truck went off the road, hit a field turnout and went air born. My son (who was not seat belted) was thrown from the truck. His friend (who was seat belted) was pinned inside and had to be cut out.

Both are out of the hospital and healing. It is only by the grace of God these boys are alive. I have told God thank you about a cagillion times already, and will continue to do so.

There is a silver lining here, my son is taking this all very seriously. He is publicly telling everyone about the drinking and his stupid actions. He wanted to see if the truck could be parked near the high school as there is a real problem with teenage drinking in the town he lives. He realizes he was given something his brother wasn't...a second chance at life. He wants to see why God has kept him here and what is in store for his life. He understands there will be huge consequences to his actions and is ready to accept them.



My son and his friend lived through this and I am so very thankful they did. Thank you Lord for your shield of protection!

Love my Bear

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Today is the day for love. Mmmmm...I sure do love Papa Bear.

He's my rock. He's my calmness in a storm. He's my grounding. He knows my good sides, my bad sides and my weird little quirks, and loves me anyway. The Lord definately blessed me when He put Papa Bear in my life.

Happy Valentine's Day Honey, I love you!

Do you need an ambulance?

One of the worst feelings to have is the feeling of helplessness when a loved one is hurt. Unfortunately, I have seen this over and over again. As many of you know, I'm an EMT on our local volunteer ambulance service. When we respond to a call, there is certain information we try to obtain either from the patient or the family. When the patient is unable to respond, and the family has no clue, that helpless feeling is written on their face.

Sit down with your loved ones and discuss some of the following. It's also an excellent idea to have it all written or typed on a paper that is handy in an emergency. Some people carry it in their wallet, put it on the fridge door or in the medicine cabinet. Gosh, you could even have a copy of your spouses sheet with your own in your wallet.

Name
Birthday
Family doctor
Allergies
Medication and dosage
Medical history: diabetes, heart, COPD, surgeries...
DNR: Copy MUST be shown to EMT's

This information is important in the care of patients. Make sure medication list is kept current. If not 100% sure it is, grab a bag to put the medications in to be taken to the hospital with the patient.

Also, when following the ambulance to the hospital, keep in mind you still must follow rules of the road! The ambulance has lights and sirens...we are both seen and heard. The car following behind us with a worried driver at the wheel is nothing more than just another car on the road. No special privileges apply to you. If you follow an ambulance through an intersection, there's a good chance you could be in an accident.

Family dinner, skate key and 3 TV stations

I would like to share an e-mail with all of you. Some if it was a bit before my time, much of it though I remember well.

'Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?'
'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him.
'All the food was slow.'
'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?'
'It was a place called 'at home,'' I explained.
'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it :

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck . Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.


My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer.

I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 9.
It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a.m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.


I was 11 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called 'pizza pie.'
When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.


I never had a telephone in my room.
The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home, but milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers including me, six days a week It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents + tips. I had to get up at 4am every morning. On Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Thanksgiving pizza

Pizza from a bar was our Thanksgiving feast this year. I would normally hang my head in shame after saying that statement, what do you do though when you enter a town on a holiday that has nothing else open?

Papa Bear and I drove 13 hours to visit Ben in South Dakota over the long weekend, not knowing we would be in the middle of nowhere at least 7 of those hours. At one point, we had traveled so very long and not come across a town, I thought we were going to have to pull over on the side of the road or I was going to wet myself right there in the truck! Good news for the truck, we came to a gas station that was open. Before you laugh at me, if you have ever been at that critical point, you know the relief I felt and I didn't even care it wasn't exactly the cleanest restroom I had ever been in.

Upon arrival in Ben's town, we quickly realized the hotel and the bar were about all that was open. Since the hotel didn't serve any food, that left us with bar pizza. Oh well, we got the pizza, went to Ben's house and enjoyed time together.

It did this Mama's heart good to see her son. I'm still not completely sold on the idea of him being 13 hours away, but I'm not completely horrified by it anymore either. Our visit and time together was much too short, and Mama had tears when it was time for good-byes. Thank goodness for phones and texting. (Should I mention that I texted him just minutes after our leaving to let him know I missed him already??)

Why is it the offspring enjoy the cutting of the apron strings much more then the parents do?

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Keep it to yourself

DO NOT ANNOUNCE YOU ARE GOING TO BE GONE

Yesterday I said it was the season to be jolly...it's also the season for a rise in break-ins. Thanks to social media sites, our comings and goings are being made public for the whole world to see. This includes people who might have a bit of a dishonest side to them.

I know we are all excited to go over the river and through the woods to grandmas house, keep it to yourself until you are home. Once home, feel free to blow up Facebook and Twitter with the fun times. If you announce it before-hand, you are announcing to the world of your home being left unprotected. You are announcing to the world to please come break in and take everything that is important to us. By the way, since we are gone for a few days, feel free to sleep and shower, I'll leave food in the fridge for you.

If you can, it's also a good idea to put some lights on a timer making it look as if someone where home.

Take all the precautions you can while gone, it would sure ruin the trip to grandmas if you came home to a break-in.

Hanging of the lights

Christmas in October? That's what seems to happen anymore, Christmas items come out in the store the same time as Halloween items. I'm a firm believer in each holiday getting to have their own time. Easter eggs should not be hid in July (eewww, can you imagine the smell of the ones not found?), Tom the Turkey should not be running around going gobble gobble gobble when the Ground Hog is trying to see it's shadow, and Fireworks should not be going boom boom boom while the Valentine heart is working it's magic (well, on second thought, maybe those two should go together).

After saying this, I almost hang my head in shame to tell you today, three days before Thanksgiving, we are putting the Christmas lights up. Does it make things better to say they won't be on until after Thanksgiving? Oh yeah, no decorations will be going up...there, that makes it better...right?

I love love love driving around to look at homes decorated for Christmas. I would love to have one of those beautiful homes. For now, I am content to be able to have lights on the house, for now. I have some very dear friends who are into the whole outside decorating, maybe if I rub elbows with them some of their creativity will rub off on me. That would be super cool.

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20 Years ago today...

20 years ago this morning, my youngest son made his appearance into this world. He gave us a good scare, not taking any breaths....I should have known right then and there he was going to be a stubborn one! I won't say life has always been rosey, but he sure has kept it an adventure for us!

Now, 20 years later, he is no longer my little boy. He is growing up and living on his own in a totally different state...much to the dislike of Mama Bear. I do believe it just might be time for me to get those scissors out and cut that apron string. *sigh* I think he's been trying to untie himself from it for the last few years, but Mama has a bit of a stubborn side to her also and has been ignoring him.

So my dear son, Happy Birthday to you! Mama and Papa love you very much.

Free Movies

Who doesn't love free? I'd like to pass on to you, my dear friend, a site that has gobs of free movies to watch.

http://emol.org/movies/freemovies.html

I've been eye-balling a few of the movies already, now just need to find the time to sit and watch them.

What a great way to spend a little time with the family that is absolutely free! So, pop the popcorn, grab your beverage of choice and relax with a good movie.

Enjoying Life

For those of you who know me, you know my life is generally crazy busy most of the time. Papa Bear and I don't spend a whole lot of time together because of it (and because of his crazy schedule). The last couple of months though have been like a breath of fresh air. For one reason or another, I have gone from being busy three or so nights a week to only maybe one! Can you hear the excitement in my voice? Yippee Skippee!!

Because of this freedom on my time, Papa Bear and I have been able to spend much needed time together. We camped the last two weekends...something we hadn't been able to do all summer up to this point. We've been taking rides on the bikes. I ride with him to Menard's just 'cause I can.

I'm sure this will not last long as Boy Scouts is starting back up soon, but I am going to very much enjoy it while I can.

Wednesday's Word

Today isn't exactly scripture, however, it is something worth thinking about.

You can't truly love someone unless you respect them.

How many times have we shown disrespect to our loved ones in the form of either words or actions? How many times have we cut down our spouse to our friends? Discussing a problem with a friend is different from cutting down/disrespecting someone. "My husband doesn't do things right." "My wife is the worst housekeeper." These are the types of things that are disrespectful.

Before opening up and saying something about someone you say you love, consider if you would say it if they were standing right there with you.

Treat night

It's late and I should be in bed, but had to take a moment to share my special treat with you all. I got to have two of the grandkids over for a sleep-over!

We went shopping for ball gloves to stay here at our house. The boys got a chance to see their Uncle Benner who moved to Kansas in February...they just love him. We went for a bike ride, they had a fun playing bath and then a nice big supper. The youngest and I played while the oldest was allowed 1/2 hour of computer time to play on Lego.com.

Of course, come 10:00pm when they were both a bit fidgety in bed, I was regretting spoiling them with a soda at 8:00pm.

*sigh* I just love being Nana!

Sick in Texas

Papa Bear is on his way home from Texas and I do believe I may have to put a temporary stop to his trips. Last time he was down there, our son in law and Papa's brother got food poisoning and were very sick for about a week. Thankfully, Papa Bear didn't get it. We do believe potato salad was the culprit.

Last night, Papa Bear, two of his daughters and a granddaughter all got sick. They are traveling today with yucky stuff coming out of them.

Wonder what my chances are of standing in from of Papa Bear and blocking the door next time he goes?

Heavy hearted

Today I come to you with a heavy heart. Today, a dear friend and confidant was put to rest. Lucky, our 18 year old Black Lab took her last breaths. We found out about 6 months ago that her kidneys were shutting down. Because of medication, she was able to have 6 more months of quality living...and we were able to have 6 more months of love with her. Today though, she was no longer living, just existing. It was time.

We adopted Lucky 5 years ago when she was 13 years old, never dreaming we would have this much time with her. She has been a source of so much joy and love.

Her spot under the window is empty. George (our younger dog) has never been apart from her and is lost. My heart is sad. But...there is a happy, pain free dog running with the angels! Enjoy yourself Lucky!

Thinking-Changing story

Hillbilly Housewife is a site I have enjoyed for many years. I was just over there doing some looking around when I ran across a story that has made a huge impact on me. I won't go so far as to say it is life changing, but I will most definately go so far as to say it is thinking changing for me.

I do hope you will grab a cup of your favorite reading beverage and take the time to read this story. I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts.

http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/queens.pdf

A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said:

'Doctor, I have a serious pr...oblem and desperately need your help! My baby is not even 1 year old and I'm pregnant again. I don't want kids so close together.

So the doctor said: 'Ok and what do you want me to do?'

She said: 'I want you to end my pregnancy, and I'm counting on your help with this.'

The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said to the lady: 'I think I have a better solution for your problem. It's less dangerous for you too.'

She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request.

Then he continued: 'You see, in order for you not to have to take care 2 babies at the same time, let's kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is born. If we're going to kill one of them, it doesn't matter which one it is. There would be no risk for your body if you chose the one in your arms.

The lady was horrified and said: 'No doctor! How terrible! It's a crime to kill a child!

'I agree', the doctor replied. 'But you seemed to be OK with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution.'

The doctor smiled, realizing that he had made his point.

He convinced the mom that there is no difference in killing a child that's already been born and one that's still in the womb.

The crime is the same!

Happy birthday dad

70 years ago today my dad was born. Happy Birthday Dad...I love you!