Anybody out there?

Just seeing if this works, so that I don't lose my accounts wen google does their thing about inactive accounts. 

Pretty Sure I'm Done

I've been blogging for a few years now, and lately there really isn't anything that I want to blog about.  Things are going good, nothing worrisome.  I just don't seem inclined to blog lately.  So, I may occasionally post.  But for the most part, I'm probably done.

It's been fun!  But I think it's time to quit.  At least for a while.

#METOO

I can't find the original source for this and it is not my quote, but it is what I want to say:

"If you've been sexually harassed, assaulted or raped, write "Me Too."  Maybe folks will realize the magnitude of the problem and stop telling us we're "overreacting."

This part is me:  #METOO.

Pray for Texas

My beautiful TEXAS is hurting.

So are we, even if we are 500 miles away - we are still and will always be TEXAN.  It's in our dna.  It's in our blood.  It's in our hearts and souls.

Now, TEXAS needs help.

Salvation Army

United Methodist Church Relief (UMCOR)

End of Summer, Sort-Of

I know I said I would try to blog more often.  But it just hasn't happened!

It's been a busy summer.  July was really busy.  We had been looking at options since Bill has not been able to find a job.  There are a few jobs out there, but not really what his degree is for.  He has been looking, but what we discovered is that his degree in Electronics Engineering is not going to amount for much, if there are no jobs in that field.  When he got his degree, electronics was projected to be the up and coming field and the job outlook was very good.  It didn't turn out that way.  Computers were supposed to also be a very good field, and they were for a while.  But then as things evolved, the computers and electronics devices became cheaper to replace than to repair.  Which really limited any employment futures.  We didn't realize that until Bill started putting out feelers to look for another job, which he started doing when we realized that things were going bad as his then-job.

After his job was eliminated, which was a blessing from God considering the really bad situation it had become, he qualified for the buy-out they were offering and we also were able to access the teacher's retirement which he had been part of because he worked for a school district.  We have our own retirement program set up, we had gotten out of the teacher's program several years ago because it was not well administered and it looked for a while like it might actually disappear.  It did not disappear, but our plan was/is much better so we stayed with ours.  What we had put in to the teacher's plan sat there for years and it drew some interest.

We have spent the last several months building up the pachinko repair/restoration business and using the retirement funds as a supplement.  We were thinking he would be able to find a job before this, but as I mentioned - the jobs just are not there.  Unless he wants to work for minimum wage in an electronics assembly job, for literally not enough $ to pay for the gasoline to get there and back.  So, we decided to look at our options.  We talked about selling the house, but we decided we don't want to do that.

What we have done is to refinance our house instead.  We refinanced about 9 years ago, with a 15 year mortgage. The idea was that it would be paid off about the time we hit retirement age. But the payments were pretty high.  We talked to the bank and they said that we would have no problem refinancing, even though Bill has been out of work for 16 months.  He's been able to bring in some $ with the pachinko business, and I am in a job I have held for 23 years.  We have not been late on anything and we have a good credit rating.  So, we decided to go for it.  We had a couple of other things we paid down/off and the upshot is that yes, we have a 30 year mortgage but we have a much lower payment.  Which means that with what Bill is bringing in with the business, he can stay self-employed and continue to concentrate of building our business.  We don't intend to let the mortgage go 30 years, we can (and will) pay extra towards the principal.

This is another instance of what we see very strongly as God's hand.

That's the leap of faith we took.  It's been a series of leaps and we've taken them.

Jumping in with both feet

leap of faith

noun

1. an act of believing in or attempting something whose existence or outcome cannot be proved.

   
   

   "anyone investing in new media today has to make a leap of faith"

Friday. Finally.

Hard week, glad it's over.  It's finally Friday.

Not a moment too soon.

Maggie agrees.  She made a new friend today.  There is a cat in the neighborhood that may be a pet, or more likely, is a barn cat that one of the neighbors brought to control the "pests" in the neighborhood.  Yeah, like squirrels and birds!  We've actually been considering trapping it and giving it to the city, they have a program where they provide traps and then the cats are taken to the shelter - our shelter is pretty good and tries to find homes.  But this morning, I let Magsters out in the back yard for a few minutes and when I went out to get her she was interested in something under the tree.  Which I could not see, but she was locked in on.  That can mean snake or something unpleasant.  So I went over to the tree and she was nose to nose with the cat.  The cat was happy to see her and they seemed to be getting along.  I called her (a few times) and finally grabbed her collar and aimed her to the door.  She went willingly, but slowly.  The cat followed her for a few steps.  I guess we'll see over the next few days if there are any issues with the cat, but we have already wondered if it might be coming in Maggie flap door.

June Already

I'm not sure where May went.  It's June 3 already!!

I'm making an effort to blog more often.  Or at least I will when I remember! :)

The most exciting thing lately is that Maggie Moo had to get her annual shots and since the vet said he has to give her an exam with one of the shots, we took her to a shot clinic at a local agricultural/farm/pet store chain.  She's seen the vet a lot and had several exams, so he was fine with us taking her to the shot clinic.  We probably would have anyway, since it is cheaper and this year that matters.  I took a copy of the shot record to the vet and they will add it to her file so that she stays current.  She's fine, she was not happy with the shots but she did enjoy the fact that there were a lot of other dogs there.  She usually says "hi" to a couple of them and then she's quite content to wait in line.  As Maggie gets older, she's 13 now, she is still playful but not as much as she used to be.  She seems to enjoy seeing other dogs occasionally but she actually does a lot better as an only dog than we thought she would.

Wow

I have not posted since January!  5 months, nearly.

I forgot my password and had to get blogger to send me a new one.  That's not why I haven't blogged in so long, that just happened today when I tried to sign in.

I am still here, Otter is still here (25 now!), Bill is still here and Maggie Moo the Wonder Beagle is still here.  Otter is still dating J, I think she said they are going on 4 years now?  I'm not sure if it is 3 or 4.  She still works for the same hardware store and has consistently moved up.

Maggie Moo has had a few health issues, but she is 13 now.  She had what was basically a skin tag on her left front "elbow" and the vet was watching it.  He did not want to operate because of her age.  He tried a couple of things including a steroid shot which did shrink it quite a bit.  But then she started licking it again and it started to grow, so he decided to go ahead and remove it.  He tried a different anesthesia that was safer for older dogs and she did great.  She had to wear a Cone of Shame for a few days,which she did not like!  But she's recovered very well and she's also lost some weight.  We had been feeding her Iams brand and we noticed that a) her weight ballooned up, b) she was pooping larger amounts than she was eating and also the vet was concerned that c) her liver enzymes were up.  We took her off the Iams brand, put her back on Pedigree and she's lost several pounds, does not poop mountains anymore and her liven enzymes are dropping a lot although they are not quite back to normal.  But they are getting there.  She's more playful also.

I have toyed with the idea of quitting blogging altogether and I've also thought about just creating a new one.  At this point, I am just going to continue this one although maybe not posting that often.  I'll try not to wait 5 months, though. :)

What have I been doing?  Lots of crochet and quite a bit of crafting.  We've been enlarging the pachinko business and it's going strong.  I've found more time to go to the library, something I try to do on a regular basis.

Normal stuff, in other words.

But I have made a change in a lot of my opinions.  I am still (and will remain) Christian.  But I am trying very hard not to be a judgemental one.  We were sort (ok, not just sort of) of heading in the direction of fundamentalism.  One of the things we were doing was observing Saturday Sabbath.  That's not the only thing but it was one of the bigger changes we made.  Was, not is.  It was something we tried for several years, the fundamental route and not just the Saturdays.  For various reasons, I realized that was one route I did NOT want to go down and so did Otter.  Bill took a little longer, but we all realized that it was a mistake and was potentially a HUGE mistake.  Most of those mistakes have been rectified, and one of them included changing churches.  We are still Southern Baptist, but not fundamental.  The church we belonged to was not officially fundy, but it had a lot of things in common with fundies.  But there were a lot of things that happened, which I have documented, and it started with the minister seeming to "check out" of doing anything beyond practically phoning in the sermons.  That was what got me thinking and since Otter was really unhappy with the church, I started observing things there a lot deeper.

After Otter moved out, I basically just said that I was quitting a lot of things we were doing and the Saturday observance was the first "casualty."  All the Saturday observance was doing was to make me (and Otter) miserable.  It caused more problems than it fixed, and it really did not do much of anything constructive.  A few Saturdays after I quit it, Bill said he realized that I was making sense and he quit observing it as well.

We were already looking for a new church and I really did NOT want to stay Baptist.  We visited a few Methodist churches but we really did not find "the one" so we quit going at all for a while.  We did not quit our faith, just attending the church.  We decided to visit a small-ish Baptist church that is a couple of miles from home and were very pleasantly surprised.  The first thing we noticed is that they observe Advent - something almost no Baptist churches actually do.  There was a Christmas Eve candlelight service.  There are a lot of other rituals and observances that have always been very meaningful to me/us.  We met with the pastor, he came over to our house, and we had a very nice talk with him.  We decided to join and we did, on January 1st of this year.  So yes, we are still Baptist.  But not fundamental and not stuck in what felt like a dead or dying church.

Among other things, while I am still and will always be pro-life, I'm not going to be militant about it.  I believe strongly that life begins at conception.  But it's between each person and God how they feel, and what they do.  I do not have an issue with birth control, at all.  I don't consider abortion to be birth control.  And I do as much as I can to donate to and assist groups such as the local ones that help teen girls who are pregnant.  But I'm not the type to picket the clinics, etc., I never really have been.  But I will continue to pray for all concerned in that situation.

I'm also basically going back to beliefs that I have held for years.  We can all love who we want and it's nobody else's business what anybody does in the privacy of their own lives.  That is something that I never really had an issue with.  I think a lot of the reason I ever changed my mind on that issue to start with is when I lost a very good friend to AIDS.  He was in his early 20's when he died.  It was a few years before I decided that his lifestyle was wrong.  But recently I have realized a few things, and one of those things is that it was his life and he had the right to live it as he wanted.  And that goes for everyone.  I have a very good gay friend and I told him (on inauguration day) that I supported him 100% and I meant that.  He's not the only one I support in that sense.  So, the basic thing I saying (or trying to) is that we all have to live our lives in the way that works for us.  And that I am not here to judge anyone.  What really matters is how we treat each other, that is the basic truth that a lot of people miss.  I missed it for years.  I'm not missing it any longer.

And I am sincerely sorry to anyone who I may have hurt.

Politics

I haven't posted much lately and I have not been political when I did post.  It was a really bad political season and it seemed to go on forever.  It should be over today, but I don't think it is. Not by a long shot.

I did the one thing I said I would never do.  I voted for Hilary Clinton.  I absolutely can not stand her and there is very little that she stood for that I agreed with.  But I dislike and distrust Trump even more.

I was surprised when he won and not surprised at the same time.  I'm not quite sure where to go from here, I guess we'll have to figure that out as we go along.