I sure didn't feel very good today. I can't get warm and my head and throat are throbbing. The last thing I want is for Rich to get this!

I have slept and slept and slept. Hope that means I will be better tomorrow! Wanda called this evening and she had a bad cold. She stayed home today too. Get better Ree!

Food Storage

This morning Rich and I got up early and headed to Fort Campbell in Kentucky so that we could go to the commissary there. It was a very long drive, a very long time in the commissary, and a very long trip home - 13 hours in all - but very much worth it I think. We stocked up on canned goods, meats, and other staples. I really don't have a clue about how much food storage we have - but we are doing pretty well I think.

We also stopped at Costco on the way home - I sure love Costo! I am not a Sam's fan but I really like Costco - wish there was one closer. We also had lunch a Jack in the Box. I wish there was one of them closer too.

After we got perishables put away we settled in for a movie that we had recorded off of HBO called Temple Grandin. It was really good. Based on the true story of Temple Grandin who is a professor in Animal Science and has autism. I sure would like Felicia to see it and Suzanne and Nathan too.

Well, I am heading to bed - can't get warm - thinking I don't feel really well - maybe I am coming down with something...hope not.

I worked on quilts today....seems like I do that a lot. I am still in the "incubation" phase with Kathy's - I just don't feel really settled about it - so I am sitting on it. So, I thought I would do the "block of the month" for my Civil War quilt - but there is a reason that you follow the directions - and I didn't so it is taking much longer than I thought it would LOL.

Rich and I went to lunch at the Soup Kitchen - a quaint little lunch place here that gets tons of business and serves homemade soups and breads. It was nice to get out...I've been trying to fix meals and have us eat at home - both for nutrition and for costs - so this was a nice break.

This evening we watched tv and I worked on a quilt - got to love it!

Dad and Quilts for Kids

I talked to Mike tonight about Dad. Dad had called me and I got the whole "Shauna?" thing again LOL. However, he didn't seem as distant and disconnected as he was last night. Mike said that Dad had called him early this morning and told Mike that he needed help and asked him if he would help him. Of course Mike told him he would be right there. As it turns out Dad had been up most of the night with urinary tract problems and by early morning I think he knew he had to have help. Mike told him that one of the medications that he had refused to buy the day before was to help with the urinary problems. Dad then asked Mike if he would go buy it for him. Yea! Isn't that so like most of us? When things are going pretty well we think we can get by - but when the problems return it is a whole different story LOL. By afternoon Dad was feeling much better and things should be on the upside if he will continue to take his meds. However, taking his meds is not as easy as it seems. Mike doles out his medications in the weekly containers in hopes that Dad can keep things straight - but that is continuing to prove very difficult - so Mike or Shauna have been trying to get in there every morning to ensure that he gets them. Bless them.

Mike is also concerned with Dad having been off the aricept for these few weeks - we hope that memory and cognitive function return (at least to the state before he came off the meds) but we just don't know for sure. Mike told him he couldn't drive today and that caused him to be a little frustrated. I know when I talked with Dad he admitted that his driving "isn't what it used to be" but I don't know that he is aware of how impaired it is. Truly we are going to be facing some hard decisions soon.

We are expecting a winter storm tonight, tomorrow and Saturday. We had thought that we would head up to spend some time with Joey and Carlie this weekend (actually we were planning on going to a commissary and the nearest one is about 2 1/2 - 3 hours away and so we reasoned that if we were going to drive that far we might as well drive an addition 2 1/2 hours and see them - I know - that is such Bainbridge reasoning, huh?). But with the storm and the weather north is supposed to be even worse and for just 1 1/2 days? So, upon looking over the calendar we discover that next week is a 3 day weekend for Rich (President's Day) and so we're changing our plans and going then. Maybe I'll get the quilt done!

Speaking of quilts - Last Friday I went to a quilt store in Knoxville and the owner asked me if I wanted to see a quilt - when don't I? She took me to the counter and there was a gal there with 3 quilts (child size) that she had pieced and the owner had quilted on the store long arm. They were cute kids quilts. What was remarkable was the fact that she had received the fabric and pattern from a charitable organization called Quilts for Kids and it is teamed with Downy Fabric Softener. This organization is trying to provide quilts for children and hospitals throughout the United States and they have organizations that provide the funds for the fabrics but need quilters. I signed up on Saturday via e-mail and I received a kit on Tuesday. I put this out there because I know that there are times when we want to help and we have a half hour a day but that doesn't seem like much time to be really "charitable" but a half hour a day would complete one of these quilts in a week or two. This is a great way to provide service, hone skills, and spread the word through our friends and families, even church groups or friends...I got to thinking that I could do one for the church humanitarian projects with some of my quilt stash the same way and double my efforts. If anyone is interested you can go to http://www.quiltsforkids.org/ to check it out. I'll post a photo when I am done with my quilt. Hey! Bekah and Rachel, Joseph and Gideon - you guys could even do this! :)

Cunundrums

I spent most of the entire day doing my quilt - got the first border on but am not so satisfied now. I think it's not long enough and that I need to add another couple of rows...darn...I am going to have to let this sit for a day or so and see what I think...that is how I work sometimes.

I tried talking to Dad again today. He is going downhill fast. I can just feel it. I told him I would come out and get him and he retorted, "You don't need to do that! I can get there myself!" I know that he would like to think so - but I don't think he could now. He called me the other day and said, "Shauna?" I responded that it was me and asked him how he was - to which he told me that he would hang up because he didn't want to run up my phone bill. I told him that he had called me and he said, "Really?" Then he hung up. They have taken him off the aricept because of some possible side effects and Mike says that he can really see a sharp decline in just those two weeks. Yesterday they put him back on the exelon patch - I am hoping it helps. He is back to having difficulty with distinguishing the phone from the tv remote and can't always tell which phone is the one he is using. Getting old is no fun - and I think this is particularly hard. I would love to have him come and I make the most sense - but as intensely modest and private as he is I don't know how much he will let me help - but without bringing him here I will never know. As soon as they get the medications stabilized I think I will head out there and investigate the situation.

I really wonder how much of this was already happening early on - years ago. I, along with everyone else in the family, just thought that it was his hearing. But I am having some serious doubts now - not that it matters much. I think of Mom and all that Dad was trying to do to care for her - and he was very devoted. But she accused him of forgetting her once and that really bothered him when she passed away. I attributed that to Mom just being so sick - but now I wonder - I just wonder. I don't want him to be alone any more than he has to and I am beginning to be afraid for his safety. Mike and Shauna and Tristen and really everyone there are angels - but the time is quickly coming that he can't live by himself. Yet, I wonder what moving him here will do to him - will it be like what happened to my Grandma when we moved her to Aunt Juanita's? It just seemed to accelerate the decline. I just don't know. It is times like these that I wish I had my own Urim and Thummin!

One Penny

I have been thinking about "little things" lately. I had been in line at the store when a gentleman ahead of me pulled out of his pocket some change. When he did many of the coins went rolling and he and I quickly bent down to retrieve them. The quarters and nickels and dimes were picked up first. As all the "big stuff" was collected he was less concerned about the pennies. I was still trying to collect them when he just waved his hand saying, "don't worry about them." I have thought about that on and off, wondering if that is kind of a type for what is happening in our country now.

When I was a young child my Mom would often see a penny or some other coin on the ground and encourage me to "see a penny, pick it up...all the rest o' the day good luck" (it went something like that LOL) or "a penny saved is a penny earned." And a penny was worth something back then - a candy bar probably twice the size of our current .89 bars was only a nickel (I say probably twice the size because I can twice remember candy makers cutting their sizes). The premium candy bars - Mounds, Snickers, Milky Way, etc. were a dime. An individual sized bag of chips or Fritos was a dime, as was Twinkies or Fruit Pies. I remember my Mom and Dad buying gasoline at the corner gas station where the station attendant checked your oil, washed your windows, and filled the car while you paid .19 a gallon. A first class stamp was .04. Milk was about .20 a half gallon, as I recall. And my folks paid $10,000 for their home. When we moved to Germany in 1966 my Dad earned $600 a month - and we thought that was wonderful.


When Rich and I first married we bought a new car - his was a stick shift and I didn't know how to drive it - a 1973 Ford Maverick. It was a great car. We called it "Morty" - don't ask me why - we just did LOL. But we paid about $3000 for him. The hotel we stayed in, in Oklahoma City on our way to South Carolina, (it was a nice hotel) cost us $12 - that is compared to the DIVE we stayed in the first night we got married that cost us $7 - it was a dollar extra because we chose a TV! (We actually had to go down to the manager's office and roll the tv back to our room - and - oddly enough I don't think we even turned it on! LOL) Our first home in 1975 cost us $26,000. Having a baby cost $600 - that was the cost of the hospital, anesthesiologist, physician, everything for an average 3 day stay. If it was a complicated birth requiring a C-section, the price went up to $1000. You paid those costs over the course of your prenatal care so that when the baby was due everything was taken care of. Most people didn't have insurance - that was just the way things were done.


Obviously prices have risen over the course of my life - a penny or two at a time. However, I was around when the super-inflation of the 1970's - 80's hit. It wasn't pretty then. We bought our first home at 8% interest. We bought our next one 3 1/2 years later at 11% - it had climbed from 9% to that 11% in the time it took us to build it - we sold it without ever moving in - the interest rate made the payments prohibitive. We found a home in Salt Lake that qualified for an FHA 235 loan at the 11% rate but the government program subsidized the interest which allowed us to once again purchase a home. A few months later people in our neighborhood moved in and ended up having loans at 17 and 18%. Then people started to lose their jobs and the market faltered. Many of the homes in our neighborhood were foreclosed on and families struggled to make it during that time.

While those times were no where near as bad as that of the depression - they were difficult. I am afraid for what very well may be ahead of us now. President Obama came out with the budget for 2011 - a whopping $3.83 TRILLION budget! That is at least $1.27 TRILLION more than the government will take in, with taxes on everything conceivable item and activity and assumptions that will be nearly impossible to meet. Nearly 4 TRILLION dollars - how many pennies is that????? I am very anxious that the debt that is being incurred and the spending that is spiraling out of control is going to bring us to an economic disaster that will make the depression look like a mild downturn.

When Elder Oaks came to our Stake in Westminster to change the Stake Presidency he talked to us very candidly about the economy. He urged us all to get our food storage, get out of debt, learn how to garden and put in fruit trees, berries, and nuts, learn how to sew and repair homes and cars. He talked about inflation and how much of our (the U.S.) debt is held by foreign countries (especially China). As he spoke I remembered being in Germany and my brothers and I found a 1,000,000 DM note and being so excited - we thought we had just won the lottery LOL - but my Dad told us that the money was worthless. We couldn't really understand how that could be. He then gave us a small economics lesson and told us that during the height of that inflationary period a wheelbarrow full of 1,000,000 DM notes couldn't buy a loaf of bread. We just couldn't wrap our minds around that. He then cautioned us that that time would come again and to make matters worse there might actually be nothing to buy with our money either. As I write this my mind floats back over our trip to East Germany with the kids and giving them the $10 to spend however they wanted - and there was NOTHING to buy!

What are we doing to ourselves?????? And to make matters worse we are hamstringing ourselves with bureaucratic red tape, regulations, and law suits that strangle the spirit out of us - it boxes us in, crippling us so that we can move quickly enough to the quickly ever changing market forces that are now global in scope instead of just national or local. Why take the risks to start a business or expand one if you have a hassle on every side or will be sued or pay everything back in taxes? This is crazy!

I just can't understand why we need a Department of Education, and EPA, the EEOC... The layers and layer of bureaucracy, waste, and money - who are we joking? We are bankrupt! We have been borrowing from the Chinese and they don't even want to underwrite our debt now! You don't keep spending when you don't have it! You can make a case for any of the programs or expenses that the government is doing - but that isn't the test. There are precious few things that our constitution calls for...the rest are nice...but not essential! And if it isn't essential - WE DON'T NEED IT!!! WE CAN'T AFFORD IT!!!!


I have been reading Sarah Pallin's book, "Going Rogue." I like one of the attitudes that is so on display in it - she talks about the sacred trust of "the people's money" and how she wanted everyone in her administration in Alaska to remember that this wasn't just money that grew on trees or that just came out of an ATM - it was the hard earned dollars and CENTS of the people. It reminded me of when I was Stake Relief Society President - I had gone with my Stake President to a training meeting in San Diego where we learned about church welfare. I was impressed with a statistic that the General Authority gave us about how well managed the Lord's funds were - at that time they believed that our Bishops throughout the Church were benevolently caring for the poor but were mindful that these were the sacred funds of the Lord and that there was only about a 3% waste. How sad that Washington, D.C. and our state and local governments don't seem to even recognize the sacred trust that they hold! It is like they think there is some kind of account that just magically fills for whatever pet project or whim they have!


Perhaps even more scary is what as happened to us - one little thing at a time - one little attitude at a time. Quickly we have come to believe that it is the government's role to provide cars, houses, daycare, healthcare, education, jobs for our citizens.... More and more we have come to believe that we can't do these things for ourselves. And, we have become more and more complacent and willing to just turn over our money as our contribution. More and more we have turned over our sovereignty, our free will, to act for ourselves, to choose what we will do. We are becoming enslaved and we will rue the day that we bought the lie that government could do these things for us better or easier than we can do for ourselves.

Every year in Seminary you have the opportunity to teach about the Lord's plan, the United Order, the law of consecration. Every year you have an opportunity to expose Satan's counterfeit plans of socialism, communism, and fascism that have been introduced (usually just about the same time as the Lord's plan is being introduced) and to show the differences between them and teach about the outcomes. I just didn't ever think that I would see such a naked attempt to bring about these counterfeit plans in our own country so quickly and be so promoted and adored by so many of our citizens. I feel like I'm living in the twilight zone!

Our government, that was inspired by the Lord for this promised land, has been corrupted and is now promoting the coveting of our neighbor's property and if our neighbor has the good sense to want to hang on to his money and property (believing that he earned it and it is his to do as he chooses) our government is trying to smear him with lies and falsehoods - and if that doesn't work they are advocating the outright theft of his goods! And what is so appalling is that so many are taken in by the lies - they are actually believing that it isn't "fair" for someone to have more than another! How is it possible that we have sunk this low this fast? It wasn't that long ago that everyone I knew believed in an honest days work for an honest days pay, helping someone in need, that you got ahead in life by working hard and doing your best - being prepared for the opportunities when they came your way, being honest, the little things - that if you saved the pennies then the dollars would follow.

Perhaps that is one of the problems in our current situation - the numbers are just so huge that you get to the point that you just can't believe that one penny is all that important. But it is.

This evening Rich and I took out the people (a single gent and a single lady and in their early 70's -neither act like it) on our home teaching list to supper. When we first met them last year we thought they ought to get to know one another and this proved a great time to do that. It turned out to be quite an enjoyable evening - not nearly as awkward as I thought it might be. Both of them have children - hers are in Virginia, Indiana, and here, his are here and in Knoxville, and of course we are empty nesters too.

I can readily see how difficult it is to get a single adult program off the ground. The responsibilities and ties that we have to those we are intimately involved with are still extremely important and we want to take every opportunity we can to be with and for them. Unfortunately however, there are many long hours and days with little to occupy one's mind or time unless one chooses to overcome the barriers of age, illness, finances, transportation, etc. and to get involved. I think back to a talk I heard at conference a long time ago - can't remember who even talked about this (except I think it was a Sister - so maybe R.S.) - who was talking about self reliance and mentioned that one of the best things that we can do is to develop talents, hobbies, and interests that we enjoy doing and that can be done independent of those we love or of other people. It made good sense to me then (and I was a middle aged mom) but having a desire to do things was not a problem - time and money was. But as I move more solidly into this next phase of life I can more appreciate the wisdom of this counsel. Again, time and money are factors - but I certainly have MUCH more time than I did just a couple of years ago (an money too) and I have tons of things that interest me and I like to do - now the quest is to safeguard health so that I can engage in these for as long as I choose.

Time - that elusive commodity. So easily wasted. So easily wished away. So precious. I guess the same questions about our use of time are appropriate for any age. What are we doing of value with this very precious gift? Are we choosing to help and lift another or are we engaged in time-wasting activities that have little return on our investment? Are we improving ourselves, anxiously engaged, or are we just going with the flow?

I remember watching a moving a long time ago - it had Meryl Streep in it (I think) - called "Defending Your Life." In some ways it was quite thought provoking - it was about a couple of people who had died and now were engaged in reviewing and defending their lives. Both my Mom and Rich's Mom had reached points in their lives when they "were ready to go." Both expressed satisfaction with their lives - and I wonder if that says something to me about my life - I have too many things I need and want to do and I wonder if I would be satisfied with my choices - or if I would have lots of regrets - not so much about what I have done - but what I should have done or wished I had done...it just seems that there is so much that can and should be done...and I sometimes wonder (and perhaps I ought to ask this question always LOL) what Heavenly Father would have me do...would He be proud...what did I turn away from because it was too hard, I was too tired, or lazy, or self-centered, or proud, or I just didn't see a way to accomplish it and I didn't think to ask Him how? Ahhhhh...these melancholy moments! Live so that there are NO REGRETS!

On a lighter note - yesterday the tv was on and Rich was half heartedly listening to an old Alfred Hitchcock program. Anyone reading this is way to old to remember him...but the series was a staple in homes across America in the late 50's and early 60's. It was usually pretty entertaining and had a twist in each program. But what sparked my memory was the drawing of him at the close of the show - it is a line drawing - a cariacture really - easily depicting his rotundness - he was obese. Well, when my brother, Mike, was about 4-ish he thought that he would give my mom a compliment. He told her that she had a "head just like a basketball." After a while I guess he thought that had not come out quite like he thought it would and so he told her that she "had a bottom just like a drum." Mom knew that he was trying his best to be complimentary - but she didn't anticipate that her less than enthusiastic appreciation for his compliments would bother him so much that he kept trying to find ways that expressed all the love he was feeling until he told her, "Mom, you look just like Alfred Hitchcock!" Oh Mike - you need to learn to stop when you're ahead! Kids really do say the darndest things! LOL