memorial day, sadness

Today is a day of parades and remembrances here in the U.S. of A. In our little town, the parade will feature the fire trucks and ambulances and the boy scouts, and the girl scouts, and the middle school band. The high school band used to look pretty spiffy in their ancient uniforms, but due to budget cuts...no more high school band. It is a sad affair, especially because the whole town gathers for this event....

The real sadness in my heart today is because we lost a friend yesterday. He and his wife raised ten children, a couple with hearts of gold. She was away in another state with her dear grand daughter, as this grand daughter lost her battle with cancer and went on to heaven. Her husband was at our church conference, and on his way home, he was struck by a vehicle which pulled out in front of him....his poor wife. Reg was such a kind and considerate and faithful man, he was a true gentleman. Emmy, his wife, I am crying for her today. A marriage of over sixty years....what heartbreak.

When these things happen, the normal daily trials and situations seem so trivial. It is sobering.

We did get our garden plants. We now have one pepper plant planted. The rest will go in today, if the rain holds off. Or perhaps in the rain we shall plant. We wanted to use the roll of plastic mulch stuff, but we are using seeds for most of the garden, how do you use that with seeds? blah, we don't know anything about this. We will probably try the newspaper with dirt on top to help prevent weeds....

I talked to my soldier son Benjamin last night. He heard about Reg's death, and was very saddened. Other than that he is doing well. He says it is 98 degrees with humidity, and they have to do drills in all that gear...blah. He is heading out for the last phase of Medic training, which is camping in the wilderness and practicing saving people, carrying 250 pound patients for one mile, complete with night time "attacks".....good times.

He should be home in a few weeks, for a few days. I cannot wait to see him!!! We are going to get a nice family picture this time! No matter how much they grumble and say, "MOM...mom...mom...", we shall get a good one. We are having quite a party on the Sunday he will be here, one of these days we should think about getting some things done around here....one thing I want is a new grill. Our grill has only one burner, it works, but only in two spots. Paul says if I buy a new one, I will be disappointed because before long it won't work very well. I say that if I get a four burner grill, at least after a while it will work in EIGHT spots.

I should NOT be sitting here. But after my hot and sweaty walk with Rosie this morning, my chair looked so inviting....Rosie and I met a huge snapping turtle this morning. It was as big as my lap top, or bigger. Turtle did not like Rosie. Turtle moved quickly, so I held Rosie back. Rosie was about to get snapped. I had to drag her disobedient little butt away by the scruff of the neck.....on the way home, Turtle had moved into the tall grass, but we could still see it...I really wanted to snap a picture with my phone, but Rosie would have used the opportunity to go get her nose snapped......

So...off to the parade we go.