It’s 3:00 a.m. and we’re off to Dallas where I’m scheduled to have surgery at 7:00. It will be my 3rd this year. I’ ve been waiting four months for this one.

Just to recap…in December, my doctor talked me into having a colonoscopy. It was several years overdue. Now, I’m a semi-colon. (My doctor’s joke.)

Next, I had a mammogram. The result being, I’ll never have to have another one.

Today, I’m going to have more tissue taken from the left chest area. The pathology report didn’t show an area clearly and the doctor wants to re-test it.

If that does not reveal cancer cells, they will finish up the reconstruction part. Fortunately, insurance pays for it. Unfortunately, it’s not the Angelina Jolie kind of reconstruction.

I am blessed that both the colon and the breast cancers were caught early. It hasn’t been fun, but it could have been so much worse.

With the prayers and support from family and a wonderful family of friends, I’ve been able to walk through the experience with very few fearful moments.

If everything goes well today, other than CT scans and bloodwork every three months and a colonoscopy once a year, (at least for a while), I’ll be able to put this behind me.

Please don’t put off having the tests available to you. They are the reason cancer is no longer the death sentence it used to be… yet people are still dying or going through surgeries and treatments they might not have to.

Oh…and while you’re at it, have your eyes checked and your teeth cleaned.

I’ll keep you posted on today’s outcome.

Kip is inside getting one of Quicktrip’s good cinnamon rolls.

“I want to have a small wedding.”

Dad said, “Good…that’s all you’re getting.”

He went online and found a venue,

Picked the flowers and chose the menu.

His budget was now getting slim

So he asked Aunt Sue to sing the hymn.

Who would play, “Here comes the bride?”

(The wedding was to be outside.)

He had to buy a wedding dress.

Where could he find her one for less?

Finally, all the plans were made.

The date was set, the bills were paid.

 “Daughter, all you have to do is show

and say your vows. You’re good to go!”

She said, “I don’t think you understand.

I still have to find a man.”

Snapped this picture while walking with a friend. It needed a story.

If you’re interested in this venue, please call,

nine-nine-nine…nine-nine-nine-nine.

(Butt can is extra.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve decided to give the blog a rest. I can’t give it up, but I need some more time off to accomplish a few things. I’ll begin posting again in a few weeks, unless I feel compelled to share something before then. I have been pouring over the yearbooks Tammy Van Dam sent to me. I want to organize my thoughts and stories about what those good old high school years were like back in the old days…

I’m doing fine. Cyndie has her ups and downs, but we’re both enjoying life. Kip is holding up well. At least I think he is.

We are both very fortunate to have what we feel are pretty meaningful lives…all due to having wonderful friends and family. I’m sometimes blown away by how blessed we are.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Mom and I miss Cousin Valerie, so I’m going to rerun a poem I wrote about our mothers, who were sisters and friends.

Gus, Mom, Aunt Ella, and Uncle Jeff

I know the Little Murdo Girl and her brother Billy, really love their Mom. Billy took her to the races for Mother’s Day, but really, what could be better than a heartfelt poem from your daughter?

Hi Mom, I called to…Mary is that you?

Yes Mom, I want to…I called Ella today. I had some “news” to tell. To get a word in edgewise, I really had to yell!

Well, Mom how long…Oh, we talked an hour, and it was on my dime. If she wants to talk again, she’ll have to call next time.

So, Mom…I’d tell you what she said, but it was blah, blah, blah. If you really want the truth, I forgot it, ha, ha, ha.

I only have a minute Mo…I went shopping with my coupons. I thought I’d save a ton. They told me they were all expired. No more two for one. Say, last time I saw you, I was constipated. Did I tell you aloe vera juice is highly overrated? I use Metamucil now, two teaspoons to a cup. You should try it dear, you really sound bound up.

I have a question Mo…I have a tickle in my throat. I’m sure that I’ll start coughin. It’s been fun catching up. You should call more often.

I’ve been trying to reach you Mom, but it’s been really hard….

Oh never mind, this Mother’s Day, I’ll just send you a card.

I heard her hang the phone up. She was in a tizzy.

I knew if I called back again, the line would still be busy.

She’d be calling sister Ella, so they can talk in rhymes.

I know for sure that every day, they talk at least three times.

Aunt Ella and Cousin Valerie Leckey

I haven’t been ignoring my blog. Well, yes I have. The truth is, I’ve been working on a project and it takes me multiple times of trying to get things right before I come reasonably close or give up. I get really frustrated sometimes. I try to read instructions, but beyond the 3rd step, I’m usually lost, which frustrates me even more.

This knowledge of myself only reinforces how important it is for me to live the simple life. I have made a little headway there. I’ve designed a mudroom for my almost tiny home.

Kip loves it! He has four pairs of shoes plus dress shoes and he’s always wearing one pair, so they all fit in the basket.

I’m a real basket person. Everytime I walk through the door with a new basket, Kip groans. “Where are you going to put that?” He says. ” If you put one more under the bed, it will raise it off the floor!”

“The cat outgrew hers.”

“Besides, I’ll need several for my she shed. (My she shed is currently on hold while Kip finishes making a rock walk in the backyard and fixes some things in the motor home. Plus, I upset him a little and Mary’s Manor went from #2 to #8 on his priority list.

Meanwhile, my plans are getting more elaborate and my treasures remain in his way in the garage. In a couple of weeks, I’ll start pounding nails in the shed and that’s sure to move me up a little on the list.

I’m not really manipulative. I prefer the word, motivator. And I don’t nag. I make suggestions. I never whine, either. I’ll manipulate or nag before I’ll whine.

We’re getting our picture taken today for the church directory. We’ve used the last one for twelve years now. People who don’t know that, will think we’ve really aged. I guess when you get to be our age, aging becomes a good thing.

Thanks God, for helping me make it through the day. I know it can’t be easy.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Some tell a longer story.

The image… person, place, or thing, is never ordinary.

While looking through a lens, someone makes a snap decision,

And forever captures everything within that narrow vision.

Decade after decade can come then disappear.

Everything is different, but the vision remains clear.

Most pictures tell a story that will change with each new teller.

It can bring few words to mind… or be a new best seller.

I treasure all the pictures I found from my childhood.

Stored in a little wooden box, their quality’s still good.

These days we snap hundreds but we barely take a look.

We don’t save the special ones in a photo book.

We store them on the web where they remain neglected.

And never look again at those treasures we’ve collected.

If you lose those precious visions someday you’ll be sorry.

Because without the vision you might forget the story.

Yes a picture’s worth a thousand words to you and those you know.

They bring back all the memories of good times long ago.

A favorite picture of two of my granddaughters, Olivia and Charlie

Ryan Constance, granddaughter

Grandson, Hudson with my hat on.

Billy and I flew to California after I ran the Boulder Bolder in Denver. Mom snapped this picture of me with Gus when I got off the plane.

Kip and I had a long day in Dallas yesterday, but we had a plan for after my doctor’s appointments.

Our anniversary was last week and since we knew we had to go to Dallas this week, we decided to wait to celebrate. We wanted to stop at one of our favorite restaurants on our way home.

Bubbas in Ennis serves really good Texas barbecue, but we love their steaks. They season them just right and we always have them with a baked sweet potato that’s slathered with cinnamon sugar butter. They serve it with a fresh salad and Texas toast.

Barney was always in favor of stopping a problem before it started, which is where his catch phrase came from. He always said, “Ya gotta Nip it! Do you hear me? Nip it! Just nip it in the bud!”

I asked the server if she would snap a picture of us. I said, “we’re sort of celebrating our anniversary.”

Kip said, “Sort of? That’s a funny thing to say.”

Yes…we ate it all. We were starving and we nip, nip, nipped in the bud. That phrase can help us get through more than one life situation.

If you’ve got a little problem, you’ve got to do your part to nip it before it gets out of hand

Thanks, Barney. I’ve missed you.

I spelled potato with an e last night. I decided years ago not to spend my last $100,000 on a college education and sometimes it shows. I used to be able to spell most words, and add and subtract in my head, but those abilities went by the wayside. I can, however, remember a lot of the past.

Last week, I received something very special in the mail from Tammy Lindquist Van Dam. She sent me various annuals that were extras at the school. I’ve had a great time going through them and remembering all those bright young faces.

A while back I wrote about the doohickey that came loose and caused my hose to sag, which threw off my saxophone performance and resulted in my getting less than a superior score.

Well, you won’t believe this…

I often meet someone I find I’m connected to through family or friends. I have a few incredible examples. This is one of them.

The young man who accompanied me on the piano as I butchered my solo, was Sydney Iwan. I ran across his picture in one of the annuals Tammy sent.

In 1986, Kip and I bought a house in Richardson, TX. A couple of days after we moved in, the lady next door came over to introduce herself. When she discovered I was from SD, she said she grew up in Bonesteel, SD and was a family friend of the Applebees. We drilled down a little bit more and discovered the Iwans (not from Bonesteel) were her cousins.

Sydney Iwan

Coach Applebee

I told her that Sydney and his family lived across the street from the high school and he had accompanied me a few times when I played solo’s at music contests. (I didn’t tell her about the doohickey incident.) Sydney also accompanied different choruses and glee clubs.

Sydney’s stats

I said Mr. Applebee coached Football, basketball, and track, and taught history throughout my high school years.

Mrs. Peters

I wanted to show you a picture of Mrs. Peter’s, who as far as I know, is not related to any of the above. I had her all four years in English and English Lit. She was a great teacher. I’ve used her name for my password several times. Oh, look who is standing next to her…Pat Penticoff!

Anyway, as most South Dakota people would be, Judy and Everette were great neighbors. We lived next to them for ten years. You have to admit it’s rather remarkable that someone from Murdo, SD, a town of about 800 at that time, and someone from Bonesteel, which was probably equally as small, became next door neighbors in Richardson, TX. I think the Dallas metroplex population was about three million back in the eighties. It’s now twice that and Bonesteel and Murdo are less than 1000 combined.

I’ll keep going through the annuals.

I was reading a story written by someone just a few years older than me, and I began to realize that even in a small town, each family has it’s own characteristics and can operate very differently.

The writer’s mother operated a mangle and pressed their sheets. She ironed their dad’s shirts and all of their clothes. She kept house and cooked three hot meals a day. She also taught her daughters how to do these things. On cold winter days, they all read books.

I never had a chance.

As the little old lady that lived in the neighborhood south of highway 16 said. “Those Sanderson girls (my mom and her sisters) never learned how to do anything useful.”

Mom sent Dad’s shirts to the laundry in Chamberlain and they came back pressed, folded, and wrapped. I had no idea sheets weren’t supposed to have wrinkles.

Breakfast was whatever we could find after we brought Mom coffee in bed. I didn’t mind. I loved cereal. At one point she thought Billy needed to eat eggs but he didn’t like them, so she mixed up a raw egg in his cocoa every morning until I told him.

Once, while driving me to band, Dad asked if I’d had breakfast. When I said, “no ” he whipped into Fern’s Cafe and bought me a sugared donut and chocolate milk. No better way to insure your daughter has a nourishing breakfast. I loved Fern’s sugared donuts.

Most of the time, Mom cooked a hot noon meal, though sometimes it was something like a Swanson’s chicken pot pie and a baked potato. Supper was leftovers or chipped beef on toast. None of us liked sandwiches. I find it interesting that Dad became a good cook and my second father, Gus, is a great cook, too.

Mom was not what they now call a helicopter parent. She didn’t stick close by me to wipe my nose or ask me unimportant questions like, “What grade are you in?” She let me get into my own messes, but I also had to get out of them. This curbed my impulsiveness a little bit.

The interesting thing is, when my boys were born, she wanted me to be a mangle mom. She did not want me to work while I raised my kids. She didn’t get her wish.

She had fun with them, though. She took them to the movies with a hundred dollar bill. When they got home, the boys said, “Grandma didn’t even have to pay because the theater couldn’t break a hundred.” That worked a couple of times. She also fed them nourishing snacks like raw carrots dipped in garlic salt. You couldn’t get within ten feet of them for a week.

When Mom called the house, the kids would yell, “It’s Grandma.”

“Which one?”

“The crazy one.”

She loved it!

Mom said she just wasn’t made for hard work. Maybe not, but she was smart and a good business woman. All the cousins and I worked for her at the motel at some point and we all learned things that served us well in later years.

Craig, me, and Mom having tea. (Mason was there too.) Swimming off our boat. With Gus, by the pool, with Mason on her lap, and at Karen Lindquist’s one year birthday party.

My friends came marching one by one, Hurrah, Hurrah

My friends came marching one by one, Hurrah, Hurrah 

 

Down old sixteen they came, they came,

Now it will never be the same,

Oh they all cayayame….to Murdo town.     

 And they had the nerve to wear a crown 

   

They went to the Pioneer Auto Museum, hurrah, hurrah

I sure hope nobody did see’em, hurrah, hurrah

Did they sit in the red convertible?

Did anyone tell them it’s time to go?

Or did they wear those crowns all over town?

It sounds like they really got around.

They went to get a rhubarb shake, hurrah, hurrah,

They’re at the diner for heavens sake, hurrah, hurrah

They also got a burger or two

Lav, they spent more $ than me and you.

Oh, they won’t remember us in Murdo Town

The next time we happen to come around.

Hurrah, Hurrah.