Opinions & Comments

I am a bit perplexed.  Someone posted on Facebook a comment about abortion "it should be totally abolished and anyone who performs an abortion or has one should be charged with murder."  Definitely a hot topic and I hesitated before responding but I did.  I replied "I don't think we can make blanket statements about such personal things.  As a 17 year old who was raped by my step dad on numerous occasions I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt had I gotten pregnant due to those rapes I would have had an abortion."

And boy did I get a response "murder is murder and anyone who commits murder should be punished.  Abortion is murder!"  and then she quoted scripture upon scripture.  I told her I didn't want to argue.  She would never change my mind and I would never change hers.  She came back two more times saying how wrong my thinking was, that I needed to forgive my step dad and move on.  Now nowhere in that dialog did I say I had or had not forgiven my step dad (and I have but that is a post for another day).  I replied for the final time "I hope you are never faced with the situation of being raped ~ and till you are you really don't know what you would do."  She then replied "what about this scenario: a man & woman are married, they have a child.  3 years later he becomes abusive to the mother and she decides to kill the child."  Now what do you say to that.  I did not respond.  I don't believe the two scenarios are any where near the same. 

So then I started thinking ~ I sure hope I have never tried to force my opinion/beliefs on someone especially  if I have never walked in their shoes.  If I have, I am sorry.  And I hope I never do that in the future.

Ramblin'

Thought I would just write about what we have been doing and what is on the horizon ~ hopefully not too boring for y'all.

Work is going well.  New Assistant Managers, Gordon & Diana arrived on Friday, September 16th and started working on Monday, September 19th.  They seem to be catching on pretty well.  Training has been very uneventful.  Tomorrow and Friday we are going to be hanging in the motor home and let them do their jobs without us hovering.  We will be close by though in case they have problems.  Then next week they are working on Wednesday as I have a doctor's appointment with the cardiologist ~ Dr. Emily, here in Hondo is concerned about my high pulse rate - it is beating between 100 & 144 beats pretty consistently.  And then they start working on Saturday & Sunday's, October 8th &  9th so the office will be open 7 days a week ~ the start of our winter hours.


We have good friends arriving on Friday. They are going to stay in the little B&B about a mile from us here in the park. I am looking forward to seeing the inside ~ have thought of doing a weekend retreat there all by myself so I can take a couple of long hot baths ~ sure miss my tub and a long soak with a good book and a glass of wine

Patrick & Patricia will be here till Monday morning. On Saturday we are going into San Antonio. Will go to the Alamo and the Riverwalk. When we took our grandson to the Alamo he was not interested in reading all the history and stuff. We know we can do that with P&P. And of course we will go for some BBQ somewhere. Any of you who have visited San Antonio know of a good BBQ place?

I am going to use Thursday as a day to do some cleaning and sorting of the rig. They (the park) have a big flea market/yard sale on the 12th of November so I am want to see if I can gather enough stuff to have a table or else I will donate it to the park table. I have also decided to go through all my clothes that I have in the rig and also in two big totes in the storage shed here - I don't need to keep carrying all these clothes that I don't wear very often or at all any more. And then I need to get busy and clean out all the cupboards in the rig. Feel free to ask me how the cleaning/purging/sorting is going - a little accountability never hurt!!

And of course pictures are always fun to show.  Sure hope you enjoy them.

Opal - she looks so much like her daddy!

Grandpa asked to be slapped when he said "just like a typical woman - yakking on the phone"

Danayln, Max, Brandon, Treyson and Christopher - we love how Danalyn always coordinates their clothes for family pictures.  Grandpa thought she should have picked something besides Carolina Blue.

Brandon with Treyson.  I took this picture while we were on Skype together just a couple of weeks ago.

Well I guess that's all for now.  Hope you enjoyed catching up with us.  Take care and have a great day!!!

A Productive Weekend

We have had a good and productive weekend.

Saturday found us going to San Antonio for a Costco run.  We had not been since the end of June.  Usually when we go we only buy bottled water like Propel or Gatorade, toilet paper, paper towels, dry goods and of course, Ron's beer.  But this time was different.  A couple here at the Lone Star Corral have offered us the use of their side by side fridge/freezer so this time we were able to buy some meat and frozen fruit & vegi's.  This will help me so much with meal planning and saving money. 

One of my goals for the month of September is for us NOT to go out to eat unless it is a special occasion.  We ate out way too much in July & August.  Like last week I went out Friday night with a group of gals from here in the park.  And this next week, we are taking Jared out for dinner to say thank you for all his hard work this summer and for covering while Ron was in Idaho & Oregon.  So far we are up to 16 of us going to H.ermann's & Sons.  It should be a good time.  But I digress - so after grocery shopping and figuring what all we had in the shed, the storage bins and added what we bought I am now planning our meals for the month.  After all that shopping we had a quiet evening at home.

Today was a busy day.  After sleeping till about 8:30 I got up and decided to do some cleaning today.  I did some deep cleaning of the kitchen and bathroom, and organizing my books and cleaning off my nightstand I tackled the dining room table, benches and underneath the table.  And swept the motor home - I can't believe how dusty things get even with the windows closed up - with running the air conditioner 24/7 for almost three months straight I was really surprised but the dust bunnies are all gone now - at least for a little while.  I then went and did six loads of laundry - usually we have two loads.  Thank goodness for  having six washer & dryers in the laundry room - took me just over 2 hours but it is done for now.

I then spent a few hours on the computer before Ron started scrounging around for something to eat.  It was after 5:00 p.m.  So I put together dinner - roasted chicken with green beans w/mushrooms, fried potatoes with onions and something new.  Hank & Euona Rathjen had made us a plate of okra w/onions and bacon.  Ron and I had never had it - we were pleasantly surprised - it tasted really good.  Definitely going to add that to our menu. 

We ended the evening watching John Wayne in McClintock.  So fun to see a well made movie and so many famous actors. 

So as  Ron's mom used to say - "we had a perfect day."  Hope you did too.

The Sweetness of Friends

You never know how your relationships with people will develop.  I belong to many different groups on Facebook.  Some of them include: Families on the Road, Nomadicmomma's, Jiggly Bits, Where Two or More are Gathered as well as many others.  All the ones listed above have one thing in common - many of us in those group are RV'rs and have never met in person - but our friendships are just as sweet as ones I have with church friends, school friends, or work friends.

And today one of my fellow RV'r friends went way above and beyond.  As y'all know, we had a  baby boy who died when he was 3 days old.  We were stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas at the time Royce was born and died.  And because of life and situations we have not been able to go to the cemetery where Royce is buried only three times.  

Well today, my friend Carolyn Sasek took time out of her busy day and went to the cemetery in Las Vegas and put a lovely bouquet of flowers and a sweet balloon on our baby's grave.  As well as a single carnation from his momma right on his marker.  Just like I would have done.

What Carolyn didn't know is that carnations are my favorite flower.  We have always used carnations for special occasions - our wedding, the and if Ron buys me flowers he usually buys be carnations.

Thank you so much Carolyn for going above and beyond and doing something so sweet that I am not able to do.

Mini Update

Am really struggling with knowing what to write and telling myself I should just write whatever.  And then I ask myself who am I writing for - I write because I like to write, I like to talk and I like to share what is going on in our lives so this raises the question - Why then don't I just write a small post each day just for me???  So that is what I am going to do - just write something, anything and write for me not for others.  If others like what I write that is great, if not, so be it.

The last couple of weeks have been frustrating here in the park.  While Ron and Jared were working on the drain/water system surrounding the clubhouse last week Ron broke a propane line.  This meant the water and propane to the clubhouse had to be turned off.  Thinking it would not take long to fix we put a sign up on the laundry room explaining the laundry room was closed till further notice and put the same notice on the sign board outside the office.  Well two days turned into five, turned into eight days.  

Needless to say we had some unhappy campers.  Especially the one who went into use the laundry room and didn't know it was closed.  Seems someone opened the door to the laundry room (the sign was on the outside of the door) and this person didn't know the laundry room was closed.  OK, no big deal right - well no, we had to refund their money and while Ron was climbing on top of the washer to disconnect it from the electricity so he could get the washer open so she could get her dry spinning dirty laundry out he smacked his head a good one against a nail sticking out of the wall!!  A nice  1 1/2" gash on his head.  My question was "why would someone open the dang door to the laundry room if it was closed?"  of course no one could answer me and of course no one would fess up to doing it.

So after multiple trips to Hondo (16 miles round trip), one trip to Uvalde (66 miles round trip) and trying multiple fixes it was successfully repaired late Wednesday morning.  I have 5 or 6 loads of laundry to do but wanted to wait for the rush to die down - think I am going to try to do laundry tomorrow late afternoon.

And of course we are on fire alert.  Earlier this week we had a large fire in San Antonio about 45 miles from us.  Today has been a bit more scary as there is one burning about 25 miles from the Lone Star Corral.  You can see the smoke from that fire all the way into Hondo.  We have talked about an evacuation plan.  Ron figures we would need 30 minutes notice to hit the road ~ in that 30 minutes we would just toss things from the shed into the rig, move stuff around in the rig so we can have access to the driver/passenger seats, hook up the Jeep and hit the road.  Besides getting all our stuff in the rig I have made a list of what I need to grab from the office: the Emergency Contact Book, the money, the checkbook and the little safe.  If I have the time I would also grab the desktop computer - it is only the hard drive and the screen.

So we pray:

1.  For rain - we desperately need rain.

2.  For safety for all the firemen/women responding to these fires

3.  For 45 minutes notice to evacuate if it comes to that

4.   For peace of mind no matter what comes our way

If you are a praying person, please join us in praying for Texas and the weather/fire danger and I would also ask for your prayers for those on the East Coast who are dealing with floods, with no end in sight.  For people to remain calm and not let their emotions rule what happens.

So that's it for tonight.  Talk to y'all soon.

In Shock :(

Last night Ron and I found out a sweet dear friend had passed away.  Needless to say we were/are in shock.  And so I found myself writing...

When I heard Cory had passed I sat in shock.  How? When? Why?  Karen must be devastated and numb.  My heart goes out to her.  We first met Cory when he was our son, Jamie’s 3rd grade teacher at Dick Scobee Elementary.  A few memories that quickly come to mind was the day I got a call from the secretary telling me I was needed at the school and not to be alarmed when I arrived and saw the paramedics in front of the school.  You may be asking “what happened?”  I quickly drove to the school and went directly to the office.  There I was greeted by Cory and a paramedic explaining that after lunch Jamie was walking back to the class room, tossing a quarter up in the air and as kids will do – his mouth was wide open in excitement and voila, the quarter went down his throat and he started choking.  911 was called, Cory stayed with Jamie till both the paramedics and I arrived.  And after lots of reassurance going around the room, Jamie went back to class.  Late the next evening Jamie came out of the bathroom and said he had to call Mr. Crawford.  He wanted to let him know it was not a quarter but a nickel  - no big deal now J. 

The next memory is probably the one that has meant the most to my husband and I over the years.  Jamie had a pet rabbit that passed away about two weeks before Christmas.  Jamie went to school that next morning and was very upset.  Cory asked him what was wrong and Jamie told him his rabbit died.  Cory called that afternoon and asked if he could take Jamie out for an ice cream cone and to spend some time with him.  And of course I said o k.  A couple of hours later Jamie and Cory came into our home.  I met them at the door and Jamie said “Mom, I told Mr. Crawford about our little Christmas tree.”  I looked puzzled as we had spent the previous weekend cutting down an 11’ tall Christmas tree and decorating it with many lights and decorations.  Jamie took Cory into the living room and he just laughed and hugged Jamie.  We often talked about how Jamie pulled a joke on Cory.

We were also privileged to attend Cory & Karen’s wedding in Portland, OR.  Jamie felt so grown up being invited and included in such a special day.  We have kept in touch with Cory & Karen over the years.  Jamie is now 34 and has a daughter of his own.  Last year found my hubby and I working and traveling with Funtastic shows, the carnival that is at the Puyallup Spring Fair and the big Fair in September.  We made arrangements April 2010 to stop by the school on the hill and see Cory.  It was a busy day for him as kids were doing some special testing.  He took about 20 minutes out of his busy day and we were able to visit and get caught and show off pictures of Jamie, his girlfriend and his little girl, Opal.  Cory was so excited to see and hear about how one of his students and grown into such a wonderful young man.  After the big Fair in September 2010 and before we headed off to a much needed 3 week vacation we met Cory & Karen at Applebees on the hill.  We had so much fun visiting and sharing about our lives, where the Lord has led us in such different paths and rejoicing with each other that God is good and faithful even through the difficult times.

And then we heard about Cory’s death.  Shock is what we felt.  Sadness to know Karen is alone and having to eal with some difficult days, weeks, and months ahead.  Yet in our shock, grief and sadness we know that God is faithful and is in control even when we don’t understand.  Our prayers are with you Karen and the rest of Cory’s extended family.

Love and prayers, Ron & Alice, Jamie & Brandon Workentin

I just got off the phone.  He wanted details.  I have none.  He too has a special place in his heart for Cory Crawford.  And after hanging up the phone I remembered another conversation that Cory had with Ron & I when Jamie was in 3rd grade.  It was parent/teacher conferences and Cory said he had a dilemma...how do you tell a student he can't read right now...it is time to do xyz.  You see, Jamie was and is a voracious reader.  Cory never wanted to tell Jamie he couldn't read but yet there were sometimes other things that needed to be done like math, science, language.  We have often chuckled about that conversation.  And we are so thankful that Jamie grew up loving to read and that he still does read, everything he can get his hands on.  Thank you Cory for not squashing Jamie's love for reading.

If you think about this post in the next week or two, please say a prayer for Karen and the rest of Cory's extended family  and friends who are dealing with this unexpected loss.  The memorial service for Cory is being held next Saturday in Puyallup, WA.  I know our thoughts and prayers will be with Karen that day.