On Just About Everything
I seem to be on a Pickles streak here but it is nice to see something focused on us seniors. Almost everything else is for the 18 – 35 crowd. :) Over 85% of the people in the U.S. claim to be religious. But just what are they religious about? That is the question. Continue reading About being Religious
Here is a well used Indiana barn. Continue reading Indiana–June 2009
This is my favorite view of our homestead. I call it “up on the mountain” as it is the highest point on our property. This is where my outdoor glider resides and is where I do most of my spring/summer/ fall reading and the corresponding naps. :) I ache to get back to my mountain home. Given the warm weather lately, hopefully it will be soon. But that is probably wishful thinking. Continue reading Anxiously awaiting…
(Here is a post from the past and on another of my blogs. Find the original here http://waiting4god.net/2010/10/04/10410/ ) I heard an interesting sermon this Sunday. It was about waiting for God. As you know this is a topic dear to my heart. Some examples given in the sermon were all the prayers to stop the BP oil leak and the many amber alerts that take place in the U.S. nowadays. The sermon thread seemed to be that we are always disappointed in the silence of God when it comes to our prayers. Why didn’t God stop the leak earlier? … Continue reading Waiting For God…
There has been a lot of press lately about how Facebook was used during the Egyptian protests lately. Showing its affect on democratic reform definitely put a positive spin on this social network. But then I go to my Facebook homepage and I see something entirely different. There are no great social causes being espoused there. Of the 50 or so “friends” I have there are a few organizations who try to promote common causes but not many. I do want to admit up front that I am not very active in Facebook. I post occasionally just to let people … Continue reading The Thing about Facebook…
I have had many interesting meals and cherished friendships at the GD Grill. I also got “popped” there one year for my birthday thanks to my friend Dave R. I haven’t been there in 15 years. We will have to plan another visit there sometime in the future. Continue reading Guadalajara Grill–October 1994
This is where our democracy started. It is a very spiritual type place. This was my second visit there. Continue reading Independence Hall Philadelphia–April 1994
Some probably think that the phrase “More with Less” is a recent invention but I was brutally hit with it in the 1990s. As my team around me was constantly shrinking the workload was constantly increasing. The above term was almost nauseous to me during that time. I wish I could have come up with some of the things in the Dilbert cartoon at the time. The last couple of years of my corporate life were not pleasant. I was working sixty hour weeks to do “more with less” (less meaning I was never paid for the extra hours!). No … Continue reading More with Less
We came across this barn while visiting a Tractor show with our good friends the Hoffmans. Continue reading Elmora Indiana – June 2008
I just came across this comic strip a few weeks ago. It is not one of my favorites but it does from time to time give me some ideas. Better done well or not at all has been around for a while now but i never thought of applying it to me senior years and especially as far as my hubby is concerned. So I will be putting this one on the back burner for use when it is most appropriate. And the journey goes on. Tags: or+not+at+all, Pickles+comic+strip Continue reading I didn’t know I had a choice…
Here is an excerpt from a book entitled “If the Church were Christian” by Philip Gulley. Several years ago I visited a museum and saw the skeleton of a dinosaur. As I read the plaque, I learned only a handful of the bones were original, that the remainder had been fabricated based on a paleontologist’s extrapolation from the authentic bones. In many ways, this is similar to what the church has done. There are only two passages in one gospel (Matthew 16:18 and 18:17) where Jesus mentions the church, and even those references are dubious. Many scholars suspect the Matthean … Continue reading Is the Church Christian?
I just watched a episode on FrontLine (on PBS) about multitasking. Kids today insist that they can do many things at the same time and almost all of them involve some form of electronics. The FrontLine episode basically said the kids think they multitasking very well when in reality they don’t do any of the things well at all. The brain is just not meant to do multiple things at the same time. I’m definitely not a kid anymore but I too can multitask if I need to but I prefer to work on one thing and then get it … Continue reading Multitasking??
Let’s pick on the TV folks for a few posts. I have always enjoyed seeing the new HGTV Dream House each year. But this year seemed to be different than the past. I watched about five minutes of this years show and found myself a little dizzy and still wondering what the house looked like. It seemed that every time I saw a picture it was either zooming in or panning out and lasted for no more than a second or so. I tried several times to watch but the result was always the same. Thank goodness for the … Continue reading HGTV Dream House 2011 Intervention…..
This is one of my favorite barns. It is located in the Living History Museum outside of Des Moines Iowa. Yeah, that me going it. Continue reading Des Moines IA–June 2010
Here is a simple picture taken a few weeks ago during one of our many recent snow storms. It is simple yet elegant in its composure. Continue reading Hanging on… (Homestead January 2011)
I am having trouble with my project of comparing what Jesus said to what Paul said. There are several reasons for this difficulty. They, for the most part, didn’t appear to address very many of the same issues. There is so much baggage associated with this topic it is hard to not be prejudged by it all It seems I must extrapolate the two men’s actions as well as words to make any comparison. This leaves me with some basic questions. Did Jesus leave it up to Paul to fill in his blanks? Did Paul take it upon himself to … Continue reading Jesus and Paul Comparisons – Harder than it looks..
One piece of trivia stuck in my head for a good number of years is the one I used as the title of this post. It was coined by an English guy in the mid-1880s. It is good to see that it still applies today. Pens tend to be sharp instruments both literally and figuratively but they are not as deadly as our ever-loving weapons here in the U.S. And they are a lot cheaper too. We could use the extra money for taking care of this medical quagmire we have gotten ourselves into or cashing in our IOUs to … Continue reading The pen is mightier than the sword.
There is one book about retirement that I keep handy and look at almost every week. It is entitled 101 Secrets for a GREAT RETIREMENT by Mary Helen and Shuford Smith. One of the dog eared pages is on number one hundred – Become wise. One of the things old people are supposed to be is wise but to tell you the truth I have a way to go on that topic. I think I am more in the process of growing wise than the end result. Here are some of the words found on that secret. The heart of … Continue reading Become Wise…
I am going to admit up front that I am going to pull a “sneaky” here. That is I am going to use some data in a way the author never intended. I can just hear you say “I am so surprised, that has never been done before!” Okay, okay you are not really doing that. More likely you are not terribly surprised as this sort of thing happens all the time. But anyway here goes. As the title ( I added the “or not”) indicates the originator of this graph intended it to shock us into the action he … Continue reading The Risk of Growing Entitlement Spending (or not)…
Yvonne and I have been here several times so we have many pictures of Pleasant Hill. It is one of our favorite historic villages. Continue reading Pleasant Hill KY – October 2002
I spent today housebound recuperating from my recent rib fracture so I had a lot of time on my hands. Much of it has been spent sprucing up my various blogs. This one got a new header and captions. During my hours at my computer today I glanced at the penny on my desk. I don’t know why it is there but it got me to thinking about the phrase used as the title of this post. E pluribus unum is latin for “One of Many”. No, I couldn’t read that phrase on the penny, my eyes are not that good anymore, … Continue reading E pluribus unum
We were one of the unfortunate States to be hit with the recent ice storm. Even four days after the event everything is still coated! To make matters worse I fell and fractured some ribs so I will be laid up for quite some time. Continue reading Ice Storm…..
No, I’m not talking about some new cocktail here I am talking about the ice storm that recently raced across the U.S. For this particular senior the combination is very unpleasant indeed! One of the results of my deafness is that I have no sense of balance anymore. I cannot walk in the dark as my brain needs some reference point. The balance mechanism in my ears don’t do that anymore. So, long story short I took a serious spill on the ice this week and cracked some ribs. This is not the first time so I knew what to expect and … Continue reading Ice and Seniors Don’t Mix….
To me the title of this post is the perfect blend of words. We must acknowledge that Jesus is our Lord and we must also acknowledge that he is our Savior. Those two conditions are very different so lets study them some here. Jesus Christ is my Savior — Jesus was very clear that one of the reasons he came was to die for our sins. That is something that I have trouble really understanding but I take him at his words. Accepting Jesus as our savior is a leap of faith that requires not much else. It is big … Continue reading Jesus Christ – Lord and Savior
Ok, how many of your old married guys thought of your wife when you read the BC comic above? Come on now fess up. After twenty five years of marriage one thing I have come to the conclusion about is that women think they were placed on this earth to “fix” the men they married. According to my wife I need a lot of fixing. :) It is a long term process so after twenty five years she is only just now getting started. Another thing I have found out after many years is that most wives don’t think they … Continue reading Ah Perfection…….
Can you imagine a democracy that was the result of the people living the country rising up and not from an invasion by the U.S.? What happened to the Bush Doctrine? I thought we were the democracy builders for the world? What are those Egyptians trying to do put our military out of business? Glenn Beck and his crowd were right up front cheering the invasion of Iraq to “free” the people but it seems when its done the old fashioned way he is against it. Unfortunately when you let people form their own democracy it sometimes doesn’t come out as … Continue reading Democracy, The Old Fashioned Way
I have spent some time with my comparisons between Jesus’ words and Paul’s. I will be posting my first comparisons in the next week or so. But I wanted to talk a little about what I have found so far. As Sam, who commented on the last post, indicated I have found that a big part of the differences between Jesus and Paul lay around the way we look at Paul’s words. Do we take each and every word to be for all circumstances and for all eternity or was he just addressing a particular situation in one of the … Continue reading Jesus and Paul – Some Initial Thoughts
Just me and my hubby during our visit to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. It was fun to wade in water which in a few months would end up in the Gulf of Mexico. Continue reading Itasca State Park, MN – 2005
While I was doing my usual volunteer thing at the local soup kitchen a few weeks ago I mentioned something to the folks there. Well it seems that my story is making the rounds there now so I thought I would talk a little about it here. Now that I am in my senior years my morning prayers seem to be more frequent and more focused. I think my warranty expired when I turned sixty as now almost every part of my body seems to be going haywire! I have had more tests in the last four years than I have in … Continue reading Thanks God….
Rep. Kucinich Sues Over Olive Pit In Sandwich ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press January 26, 2011 WASHINGTON — Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio is suing a congressional cafeteria for dental damage he says he suffered after biting into an olive pit in a sandwich wrap he bought there. Kucinich’s attorney, Andrew Young, declined to comment Wednesday on the lawsuit seeking $150,000 in damages from companies involved with the Longworth House Office Building cafeteria. A spokesman in Kucinich’s congressional office also declined to comment. The civil suit filed earlier this month in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia said the … Continue reading Ohhh, the pain and suffering!!!
Just your typical well used Midwestern barn Continue reading Wisconsin–October 2009
WASHINGTON — To hear the Republican leadership tell it, the once-sacred Pentagon budget, protected by the party for generations, is suddenly on the table. But a closer look shows that even as Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, insist on the need for military cuts, divisions have opened among Republicans about whether, and how much, to chop Pentagon spending that comes to more than a half trillion dollars a year…….. The discordant Republican voices on military spending have bred confusion on Capitol Hill, among military contractors and within the military itself, where no one … Continue reading Republican and Their War Machines…
I am going to start yet a new category on this blog called “Jesus and Paul”. I will try to pull out words from Jesus and then corresponding words from Paul to see how the words and their corresponding meanings might differ. From my initial look at this topic I was somewhat surprised to find what I have. This will be an interesting place to go in my study of the Bible. Many Christians today, especially those who call themselves Evangelicals and Lutherans in particular, like to say that “all the words in the Bible are the words of Jesus”. … Continue reading Jesus and Paul…
With China presently holding more than $1 trillion of our debt the above cartoon is probably more reality than any of us would like to believe. Someday they may just call in all our IOUs. I read an article recently about how the Chinese are now convinced that they have the purest form of capitalism and have very little to learn from the U.S. anymore. This is kind of like a chicken/egg type thing but it is no wonder our government is drowning it debt. I read someplace where the average citizen now has over $5,000 in credit card debt! That … Continue reading China, Can I make a suggestion??
I think this is my favorite shot of all the pictures we took on the Grand Canyon. We couldn’t get to the North Rim as it was snowed in the week we were there. Planning another trip back maybe this year or next. Continue reading Grand Canyon–December 2005
This picture was taken from our front porch of our neighbor’s barn. I think this barn inspired us to take pictures of others. Continue reading Owen County Indiana–January 2004
We spend 40 time more per citizen on our military than any other nation and hundreds of times more than most other nations. How can we say we are devoted to peace with this gross disparity?? Something just doesn’t seem right here? Where are all the peacemakers? Title quote from American Friends Service Committee http://www.afsc.org Continue reading If we are a nation devoted to peace, why are so many of our resources devoted to war and militarism?
I am going to keep this post simple and just put out some verses about doing good deeds. This time I am going to also pull up some words from Peter and Paul. Matthew 5:14-16. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in … Continue reading Doing Good Deeds
Dear Mr. President On the chance that you got time to see my last post I wanted to come through on my promise to give you a sure fired solution for our deficit problems. This one seems like a no-brainer so it is surprising that no one has come up with it yet. Before I give you the solution we need to look over some graphs and tables. After all both government and private corporations thrive on graphs and tables. These graphs show military spending by country. Something seems to be very strange here? It seems that the U.S. spends … Continue reading Do you need a little more help President Obama??
This was taken during our trip to Peoria and Bishop Hill in central Illinois. Central Illinois is flat, flat, flat. But I guess that makes for good farms. Continue reading Peoria, IL–Dec 2008
With winter in full force now I need to bring out some pictures to remind me that Spring will eventually get here. This picture was taken in 1993 showing all the daylilies at the end of my veggie garden inside the fence. Those flowers are probably what Yvonne misses the most about our home in Fishers Indiana. Continue reading Is Spring Around the Corner?
Dear Mr. President I know you are pretty busy creating your State of the Union address for next Tuesday so I thought you could use some free advice from someone outside of the beltway. No, I don’t have an MBA degree from Harvard or other Ivy league college although I did manage to graduate from Purdue University about more than forty years ago but that hardly counts now. Up front I must say I actively supported you in your run for office in 2008 but to my disappointment you seem to have gotten off message quite a bit since then. … Continue reading Do you need a little help President Obama??
Baltimore Sun – January 20, 2011 by Thomas Stitz With the new U.S Congress looking for ways to cut the deficit, we should demand that they eliminate their own health insurance from their benefits. If Republicans are so hell-bent on repealing the new health care law, they can give up their own health insurance. After all, they are essentially independent contractors, hired on for a two- or six-year stint, and most of them are rich enough to pay for their own insurance. Why should the taxpayer pay? And why do we pay for premium lifetime health benefits after they’ve served … Continue reading Want to reduce the deficit? Cut Congress’ health care
I have discovered another nice blog about retirement. It is http://retiredsyd.typepad.com The blog is called Retired Syd and is by a young lady (at least by my standards) who choose to retire in her 40s. She was an accountant in her working years. I didn’t realize accounting paid so much that you can retire with less than twenty years in the business! Maybe that fact would help one endure the boredom of all the number crunching (ha). Anyway, Syd is now on my regular view list. She definitely has a way with words. More power to her. I retired more … Continue reading Living Day to Day…
I am going to do something unusual here and do a post primarily by merging the thoughts of two posts of my fellow bloggers. I read these two blogs back to back today and could not get over how well one message meshed into the other. The first one is by Bill Birnbaum from http://www.adventureretirement.com entitled Senior Citizens and Technology. The second one is from Quaker friend Raye from http://www.quakerquaker.org entitled Time For A “Station I.D.” – When Speaking Of Personal Experience Let’s start with the first post. As the title implies Bill was talking about how senior citizen’s deal … Continue reading Seniors are a Complex Group of Individuals…
