You know how when a teenager takes a stand for stating their own identify it's sometimes called "rebellious".  My question is, can someone in their 60's be labeled rebellious?  Maybe they would be "eccentric" instead.

You may think of other adjectives to use for a person that marches to the beat of their own drum.  Someone that doesn't care one iota about conforming to the image that others precieve they should.  They are comfortable in their own skin, confident in stating their opinion on any given subject and do not worry about "keeping up with" anyone in appearances.

As a teenager, I don't consider myself to have been very rebellious.  But, I seem to be making up for it in my 60's!  Every few months, I'm finding something to rebel against.

My most recent has been all the stores that require you to sign up for "their card" in order to get the sale prices on items.  I just decided that I wasn't going to carry around one more card in my wallet.  If they can give the sale price to one of their card carrying customers why can't they give it to everyone?

So now my wallet is empty of all these cards.  They all got the scissor treatment like Dave Ramsey would have all people do with their credit cards.  My wallet is a lot lighter and neater.

Not long after I had rid myself of these cards, I was in one of the office supply stores that you would know if I mentioned their name.  The check-out person kindly ask "Do you have a ______ card?"  Not wanting to get into the ugly details of my card cutting up frenzy, I just said "I don't have it with me."  So, she informed me that I didn't actually need the card in my possession - just give her my telephone number.  So I caved and gave her my phone number! 

Does this mean that I lost my "rebellious" status?  I surely hope not!  I've started to kind of like this eccentric, rebellious teenager senior citizen that I've become!

Last Thursday when 8-year old grandson Will came to spend the day, he discovered a bird's nest in the bush beside the front porch.  He proudly informed me about the nest that contained 3 blue eggs and identified it as belonging to a Robin.

All this information was being given to me as he went to the dining room window and raised the blinds.  Then he announced with wonder that you could see directly into the nest from this window.  I quickly came to view this wonder and there the beautiful blue eggs lay.

I've been checking on the progress of the eggs each day since then.  Most of the time when I would think to look, the mother bird would be sitting on the nest.  But this morning, she was gone and much to my amazment there were baby birds poking their tiny heads out of the nest.   So now her hard work begins...finding food for these hungry mouths!

I tried to take a picture with my digital camera through the glass window but you probably already know that it didn't work very well.  It just sent the mother bird into a frenzy so I quickly stopped.  This view that I am privileged to see I won't be able to share with you.  Maybe I can enjoy it enough for everyone!

Two and half year old granddaughter Emma spent the night with us on Wednesday night for the first time ever.  She is such a loving girl.  Even though we don't see each other all that often she is always happy when she visits.  She didn't cry at all at bedtime as I had expected.

I always try to think of something new to do with her and this time I decided we would learn to cut with scissors.  She gave it her best shot as I cautiously watched her.  Try as she might though she just couldn't get the hang of it.  I had gathered up some old magazines for us to cut pictures out of.  No, she only wanted to try and cut white paper.  So to make the gift that I planned for her parents, I had to do the cutting of the pictures but she gladly did the glueing making quite a mess in the process.

Do you think that maybe I make to many pictures when she's visiting?

She wasn't ready to leave when her Mother came for her.  I know I shouldn't feel so good that she cried when it was time to leave.  I must have done something right!

My husband and I decided to drive over to Gibson County, TN to visit a town called Bradford.  My great-grandfather, Henry Ward, and my great-great-grandfather and grandmother are buried there in Bradford Cemetery.  I know very little about this branch of my family.  My great-grandfather died young in 1889 at the age of 28.  My great-grandmother remarried and moved here to Hickman County.  These days it's about a 2-3 hr. drive between the two depending on whether you take the "slow road", Hwy. 70, or the "fast road", Interstate 40.

This being my first visit to Gibson County and the town of Bradford I decided it more appropriate that we should drive the "slow road".  When my great-grandmother along with her new husband and her 2 young daughters made this trip from Bradford to Hickman county, I don't have any idea how the trip was made.  I don't have the year that the trip occured but I believe it was approximately 1900-1901 which would have made my grandmother 5 or 6 years old.  She was born in 1885.

The train tracks run along side Hwy. 70 for a great deal of the time and I'm sure that in those years passenger trains were a major means of getting around especially for distances such as this trip.  But driving the "slow road" gave me a sense of the landscape that my grandmother's family passed through.

The closer we got to Gibson County the flatter the land became.  Even though the fields were not cultivated yet you could see the remains of cotton from a previous years crop.  Modern tractors and equipment could be seen at these large farms where the tasks could be accomplished in hours where in the 1900's it took farmers days or weeks to accomplish.  A lot of the farm land had been eaten up by houses, but in my mind I could just see the size of those fields back then...as far as the eye could see.

When we arrived in the town of Bradford, I didn't know exactly where the cemetery was only having directions that I had obtained online at the Tombstone Transcription Project website.  It took us a few trys in different directions but we finally found it and as it turns out it was the first street we turned down but just didn't go far enough.  Bradford is a small town so I never doubted that we would eventually stumble across it.

I knew that their graves were in the old part of the cemetery which sits on a hill.  As luck would have it we almost walked directly to them.  Using some of the tricks that my friends from "Preserving Family History" gave me, we cleaned the moss off the old stones as best we could without damaging them.

Standing there reading the names of people that I know so little about made we somehow feel a closer connection to them.  I'm so glad that we made this trip on a sunny, Sunday afternoon and took the "slow road" to get there.

I love my quiet time, no TV, no radio --- just solitude, especially first thing in the morning while I’m drinking my coffee. This morning I remember what it’s like.

I don’t hear my husband talking on the telephone in his home office or hitting the keyboard or any of the other “people” noises that come from working or worse yet coming out to share my coffee time. I wouldn’t dare tell him but his company really isn’t wanted during that time. After a dry spell, he has finally had to go out to a job site and I have the house all to myself this week. Oh, what a treat!

I’m not sure why I have a need for solitude. I remember that my mother wasn’t much of a talker, a hard worker but not much of a talker. She spent a lot of time on chores outside the house. I always thought she just enjoyed working outdoors but maybe that’s the only place that she could get any solitude in out small home. For her to have gone into a bedroom and closed the door would have been strange.

Growing up I spent a lot of time in the warm months just roaming around by myself on our 100+ acre farm. It wasn’t unusual for me to be gone for hours by myself. I don’t ever remember anyone being worried about my absence. It probably just seemed normal in those days for me to go about entertaining myself. I guess that’s why to this day, I’m comfortable being alone -- no people, no distractions, just me.

I worry about my second oldest sister who will turn 80 in May. Her husband died in 1983 and she has lived alone all these years except for the occasional child or grandchild moving in temporarily. In April, she will be giving up her home and moving to Georgia to live with her son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and grandson not to mention another grandson and his wife who are living there right now. She will have her own bedroom and bathroom that’s on one end of the house but no separate kitchen. I suspect that she will have a hard time getting use to the noise of living with other people.

So for now, I’ll enjoy my days of quietness and solitude, not being interrupted unless it’s of my own choosing. I’ll enjoy my morning coffee time where my thoughts can wander without distraction. I’ll enjoy being alone. But, my soul will be renewed and I'll be a better person for this time and ready to welcome my husband back home from his travels.

Did any of you catch the news story on NBC last week about a church in Schamburg, IL?  On the "Making a Difference" segment, Brian Williams talked with the pastor of Waterfront Community Church where 100% of their offerings go toward helping the needy, both church members and non-members.  To view the story, go to www.waterfrontcc.com.

The only thing that I wouldn't like about this community church is the style of worship service.  For me, I like a traditional service -- no rock music for me, no hand raising, no dancing like moves.  I'm of the old school but I respect the rights of people to worship in a manner that brings them closer to God.

What I do most certainly like is that they aren't spending the majority of offerings received on a building that's probably going to be used no more than 5 times a week and a large number of personnel.  In the story they didn't mention any paid personnel including the pastor.

We haven't attended church in a couple of months.  I miss it but we could no longer agree with the way our church was budgeting the money.  In the last budget the amount in the budget for the benevolence fund was 1% of the budget.  Another 8% went toward associational and cooperative programs but I'm sure that not all of this was used to directly aid the needy.

Even before we decided to leave that church, we had made a decision to adjust our giving so that not all of the amount we gave would go to support the church but we had sit aside a certain amount for charities we felt did the work we wanted to support. 

Now some would say that you shouldn't do that.  I would say to them that a church must be good stewards of their offerings.  If you just took half of the money it takes to have and maintain a church and used it to aid the needy, what a difference that would make.

I would love to find a church that has a love of helping people as this one but I don't hold out much hope.  One thing that we will do before considering becoming members of another churh will be to ask about how the money is spent and how much goes toward helping people. 

You know how it is --  we think "I don't eat that much" -- or "it must be my thyroid" -- or "it just runs in my family.  I delude myself into thinking there couldn't be that many calories in what I'm eating or that I'm not eating all that much.

But now my "fat jeans" are tight and the scales aren't being very friendly.  It's to expensive to buy new clothes.  I can save a lot of money if I just eat less and lose weight.  So it's time to face reality.  I've got to get back on the bandwagon.

I've got my notebook back out and my calorie book and my calculator!  What a pain!  But it's the only way that I have ever been successful at losing weight.  I've done it before and hopefully can do it again.

I just checked my calendar for 2008 and last year at this time I weight 8 lbs. less that I do today.  Now isn't that just depressing!!  My new rule HAS to be that I don't put anything into my mouth unless I know how many calories it contains and I MUST weight every day.

Wish me luck  --- I'll need it!!

My husband started the second week of his manditory 2-weeks off this week.  In an effort to keep afloat during these tough economic times, the company he works for has made some changes for the first quarter of 2009.  One is that every employee must take two weeks off without pay.  They are calling it a "furlough".

Now, I had always called being off without pay "laid off".  I don't know when this term "furlough" came to be the hip term for it.  So I decided to go to Webster to see just what the definition was.

According to the newest dictionary that I have, which is Webster's II New Riverside 1984 Edition, the definition is "furlough" a leave of absence from duty granted esp. to personnel of the armed forces".  OK, so that goes along with my thinking that "furlough" was used in connection with a leave for someone in the military.

So I thought I'd look in the oldest dictionary that I have, which is Webster's New World 1966 Edition, the definition is about the same "a leave off absence; esp. in military usage, a leave granted to enlisted personnel".  Again.....agreed with my thinking!!

Well, I didn't think there would be any chance of finding the defination of "laid off".  But low and behold there it was in the 1984 dictionary......"lay off" - 1.  To dismiss (a worker) from a job, esp. temporarily.  2. Slang. To cease: stop. 

Ok, so now to the 1966 dictionary.  And once again, there it is "lay off" - 1.  to put aside.  2.  to discharge (employees), esp. temporarily.  3. to mark off the boundaries of.  4.  to cease.

If anyone has a newer Webster's that has a different definition given for these words then I rest  my case and have proven myself to be right (once again)!!