Sunday, August 17, 2008

This is a continuation of my earlier blog.

How does one set such a lofty goal and achieve it as Michael Phelps did? Phelps and his coach say it is all part of setting goals yearly and working at reaching them. This applies to all of us, at home, at work, at play. Setting goals and reaching for them is one of the things that keep goal oriented people on top of what they do. It is reaching a goal and the sweet sense of accomplishment that makes on realize how important setting it really is. If you haven't tried it you should.

It is a beautiful day today, the crops are soaking up the 90 degree heat and ripening. Just what we need with two men coming home at harvest time. Ardmore says the wheat is green though and has new growth in it. Where did that come from? It all looked so good. We will now have to swath the wheat instead of straight heading it. What a lot of work and more expense. I hope that we can do this while the guys are here.

I walk down memory lane often my best friends from our teenage years. This past week one of us had a family reunion in Hoyt Lakes. I had really wanted to go down but decided against it. I don't know if I am ready for a 5 hour one way drive myself and can't see Ardmore coming with me at this time of year. My knee is just too sore and my back has also be acting up a bit, more about my back later.

As we chatted on the phone, we talked about how we all wore these nylon black jackets. They were our trademark that we were stick like glue friends. I'm sure we thought we were hot! Oh, but we had such good times together. I remember we walked every where, no wonder we were so skinny!

Things of my youth that I remember most:

1. Country dances at town halls like Markham, Zim, and Britt.

2. Lunch at Allison's cafe, they had the best mashed potatoes and gravy. My three best friends and I (here after refered to as the four of us) would squeeze into a booth and chat the lunch hour away, then leave enough time to run to the corner Standard Gas Station to share a cigarette. Naught! None of us smoke any more, but one of us got caught by smoking long past the time she should have and now has emphysema. She had become a hermit due to how sick she gets every time she goes out. She must take her oxygen tank with her always. Life is just not fair!

3. I was a carhop at Mary's Drive In in Aurora, my first job. I did that for 3 years. It helped me purchase my clothes in high school and learn to get along with all kinds of people.

4. The four of us sitting on the grass by the Hoyt Lakes community center peroxiding our hair. I was a peroxide blond for years. Now I dye my hair the natural color to cover the gray. So much for that!

5. Chocolate or cherry cokes from Sunny Cherro's store.

6. Working at Cherro's during my lunch hour when I was in high school. The crowd and the smell of fried hamburgers was overwhelming.

7. My tumor surgery when I was 17. The doubled over pain I suffered with before I finally went into the doctor. I must have scared my friends to death. Poor Nancy, when she visited me in the hospital and I had all these tubes running out of every part of my body, she almost passed out and never did come back and visit me! I had so much company it made me sicker and I finally told the nurse that I only wanted my parents and Ardmore to visit me. After my surgery I had some stomach pain and ended up back in the Virginia Hospital and nothing showed up. I think it was from the scar now. No, it wasn't cancer.

8. The four of us listening to the same song at whoever house over and over again. It must have driven our parents nuts. We, of course, had phonographs and listened to vinyl 45 records by the hour. Now I have an Ipod and I still do the same thing, only listen to the same album over and over! No one hears what I am listening to and I use it to lull myself to sleep at night listening to Bach in the Bath (Michael Maxwell) and Come Away with Me (Norah Jones).

I will have to finish this list at a later time, there is so many wonderful things to think about. I need to shut down, I hear thunder and where there is thunder there is lightening.

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