Sunday, January 31, 2010

A nice sunny day.


It is a nice sunny day. The temperature is about 40 deg f. I am still happy that the big storm of last week passed to the north. There is plenty of water on the ground, we need a few days of sun to dry everything out, I am beginning to get antsy about starting yardwork. Our worst winter days are yet to come, in February and March. I saw one of our cats, Bijou, looking out the window, meowing quietly. When I looked into the yard there were crows. When I was a child crows would get in your garden and try to eat newly planted seeds. When a pasture was mowed they would show up to eat the insects and lizards. Now days crows have become mini-buzzards, eating carrion from from roadkill. Crows are tribal, they fly in flocks, and the flocks will have scouts in the front, to the sides, and in the rear, in true Rogers Rangers tradition. It is hard for me to take photos of crows, because they are very wary of humans. I would have taken more photos, but a squirrel came down out of a tree and scared them off. This is one of the things I love about living in a rural area, the fact that I get to see wildlife.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Lazy Winter Day

The temperature is about 30 deg f, there was a little sleet on our cars as I looked out this morning, I am so glad we have been spared the ice and snow that have shut down Oklahoma City and Little Rock.
I have spent most of the morning suscribing on iTunes to spiritual classics by Librivox. I have no idea when I will have the time to listen to them. Hmmm, maybe instead of reading secular things for diversion at work, during my lunch, thank you, I should listen to the words of Chesterton or Belloc?
One of the blogs of note was about a young woman, Amy, age sixteen, who is sailing by herself around the world, she is from California. This amazes me to no end. When I was sixteen, I was working part time, going to highschool, and ready to leave home for the world. What also amazed me is that there is another young woman, Jessica, from Australia, who is also sailing around the world alone. So now, I have two people to add to my prayer list. I pray the good Lord watches over them.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Telford In The Morning

When driving down 98 near the Telford Unit, you always have to be
careful, because the employees will almost always run the stop sign
and pull in front of you. There is no predicting when this will
happen. The speed limit at that spot is 65 mph at night, and 70 mph
during the day. No matter, day or night it is hard to shut down when
they pull out in front of you doing 30 mph after they have run the
stop sign. Are Telford Unit Employees given a special dispensation to
enable them to run stop signs?
New vehicles come equipped with fog lights, it is annoying to meet
vehicles with their fog lights on, when there is no fog. I do wish
there were fog light police.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Non nobis

Non nobis, non nobis, Domine
Sed nomini tuo da gloriam.
Not to us, not to us, o Lord,
But to your name give glory.

Sunday Morning

It is a sunny day. Rain has been forecast for Thursday. The driveway is still wet from the rain yesterday. I have been having bouts with depression in the mornings. I am fine when I get up but by about 9 to 10 a.m., I am in full depression mode. After lunch I am usually fine for the rest of the day. I wonder if it is dietary? What am I eating or failing to eat that may be causing this?
Today is the Sunday for my wife to cook sausage and biscuits for Cowboy Church. There was drama again with the coffee machine. Last week the old coffee machine quit working, this week the new coffee machine did not work properly. I am sure it will be fixed by next Sunday, which is the fifth Sunday of the month. I like Fifth Sunday, because I love to eat and on Fifth Sunday there is a potluck dinner after the regular church service. (For people not from the rural south, dinner = lunch, supper = dinner, we dine at noon, and sup at dusk.)

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Various things

I had a nice day. We went into Texarkana and bought a couple of tires for my wifes car. We ate dinner at the Asian Buffet, I like this resturant very much. Then we went to Target for a few baby clothes and a little bit of groceries, cheese and milk. Then on to Home Depot, where I bought a new limb trimmer. It was made by Fiskars. I am very pleased with everything Fiskars makes, I hope to add more of their tools to my small collection as I am able to afford them. One day I hope to retire to full time yardwork, in my own yard. For supper we had saltinas, a bolivian dish, like a pot pie, but in no way like a pot pie, it is a totally bolivian dish. I am learning that I like bolivian food. Also we had handmade tamales from Mt. Pleasant.
Tomorrow is Sunday, and I am thinking of my resolutions for the week. My yearly resolutions rarely last more than a week if that long, so I am trying weekly resolutions. I keep reading about spiritual growth involving a personal rule of life. This is something I need to look into. Some of my weekly resolutions are:
1. Pray the morning offering when I put on my scapular each morning.
2. Pray the rosary at least once a day.
3. Spend time blogging or journaling once each day.
4. Take one photo of something each day and post it somewhere.
5. Read the bible and the catechism each day.
6. Pray the prayer of St. Jude many times each day.
7. Pray constantly, especially if I catch myself thinking unkind thoughts about anyone, I plan to turn those thoughts into prayer about that person.
8. Eat like a grown up, not a human waste disposal.
9. Look into starting the Liturgy of the hours again.
10. Donate my soda pop allowance to something worthwhile.
11. When I wake up in the still of the early morning, pray until I fall back to sleep.
12. Limit my time on the internet, and what time spent there only for positive things. Facebook is a new facination for me, I have rules for that:
A. Have as friends only those who are kinfolk and friends or people who will enhance my spiritual growth, for example, priests, Catholic authors or bloggers.
B. Never add someone as a friend just to meet requirements for the games on facebook.
C. To never mindlessly add people because they request it.

Enough for now.

Please pray for me.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Shotgun House

I wonder if anyone knows or has lived in a shotgun house. When I was young, my father, my brother, and I lived in a shotgun house. It is called that because the rooms in the house are in a straight line and if you were at one end of the house and shot a shotgun, the pellets would go through all the rooms of the house and hit the other end of the house. This house had a kitchen at one end, the bedroom was in the middle room, and I can't remember what was in the third room. The bedroom had two full size beds that were about 2-1/2 or 3 feet apart. I do not remember anything else in the room. It was in the rural south and people visited and spent the night. The house had no television or porch.
The house was about 50 feet from an Assembly of God church, back then we called it the holiness church. I remember we used to sit outside and watch the church services. Unlike our church, the holiness church had music, they had a piano, and someone usually brought a guitar. To this day, one of my favorite hymns is "I'll Fly Away".
The next house in line from ours was an old aluminum trailer house that had a shed over it and a small porch in front of it. I was never inside but I am willing to bet that it was smaller than our house. I remember the night it burnt to the ground. The next house had two rooms. We lived in that house also. Oh, neither house had plumbing, we carried all the water we used, it came from a well in front of the store. I don't remember the toilet for the shotgun house, but I do remember the two-holer for the two room house. It was near a plum thicket. It was not an orchard, it was a thicket. There was a garden in the pasture, it had a fence around it to keep out the livestock. I do not ever remember eating anything from that garden.
I do not know why I had this memory in my mind. In the last two days, I finished the two secular books I was reading, and now is time for me to start reading books that promote spiritual growth, are written by a saint, or are either the bible or the catechism.
Haiti has had a terrible earthquake. Haiti is a terrible country. It would probably be better, if we went there and rebuilt the whole country, from the ground up. The people there are suffering, and with the earthquake they are suffering even more. I will pray for them when I pray. I feel bad that I have not already been praying for them.
For me growing old has not caused an increase in wisdom, it makes me realize that I have been and still am a fool. As a person matures, they should put away foolish and prideful things. I didn't do that, now it seems as if I have jumped off the cliff of maturity and all at once, I have to suck it up, and be an adult and a Christian. It would have been a lot easier if I had, had the sense enough to do this in a gradual process, instead of the spiritual roller coaster I feel I am on now. I thank God that I have been realizing that there are numerous areas that I need to improve. So now with the grace of God, let the work begin.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

I can now blog using my cell phone

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Tigers vs Pirates

I came home after work, fed the dogs, counted the cats and headed to Mt Pleasant to watch the Lady Tigers play basketball. After a nice supper at Burger King, I met my beautiful wife at the highschool gym and watched the Lady Tigers play the Lady Pirates from Pine Tree. The final score was the Lady Tigers 48 and the Lady Pirates 34, it was a good game.
Cold weather is predicted for the rest of the week, I hope the predictions are wrong. I don't drive well on ice and snow. O well tis all in God's hands. I was able to pray the Rosary two times today, on the way to and from work. I often think the reason my drive to work is so long, is to give me the chance to pray.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Winter Weather

This morning there was ice on the overpass over I-30 at New Boston, Texas. Scared me to no end. Near the roadside park on Highway 8 there was also a patch of ice. The bridge over Red River had been sanded by Arkansas' highway department, I think there was a little gravel in their mix. Oh well, it was better than no sand at all.

First Work Day of 2010

Today was not that bad. Thank you, Lord, for a good day at work. My goal for this week is to exchange worry for prayer. When I catch myself worrying about something, I am going to stop, say a Hail Mary, or another warm up prayer, and then pray about the thing that is worrying me.