CAMPING BUDDIES!

Our first contact with our good friends, Bill and Dorotha, and Chuck and Katie were first initiated by going out "church calling" and visiting new comers that recently attended our church.

Bill and Dorotha had recently had a baby and I wanted to bring something for the new arrival. I had whipped something up on my trusty sewing machine. It really was a "nothing" gift, but it was received like it was very "special gift". I would have not remembered this, but was told about it years later.

Our first introduction to Chuck and Katie was one day we went visiting newcomers to our church. Chuck was at work and we just visited Katie and her two small boys that particular day.

Little did we know at the time that these two families would be our life long friends and "camping buddies".

Well, first of all, Bill and Dorotha had never gone camping, so we took them out with us one weekend in our 12' X 12' tent. I furnished the food and they just had to pack their clothes.

We all slept in the tent (all 8 of us). We had 4 cots (adults slept on these) and the kids feet was telescoped under our cots. The next morning, our neighbor campers were amazed, they kept seeing people coming out of this tent and thought it was like the Volkswagen car that had all these people coming forth.

"THEY WERE HOOKED" from that weekend forth. Their reaction was the same as ours when we took our first camping trip years before. Only they went out the very next week and bought a "pop up camper".

Wisdom--Greet newcomers and welcome them to your church, who knows they may be your buddies before long.

WHY CAN'T I STAND UP?

These words were called to me one day when our older daughter was on the floor and she couldn't stand up. Since she was so young, I thought it rather strange.

I helped her up off the floor and wondered what her problem was. She said at PE she ran and hurt her leg and maybe it was just part of the healing. Well, we took her to the Pediatrician and she had her leg ex-rayed. Nothing showed up on the ex-ray and she didn't have any problems after that one incident, so we dismissed it.

The year she had gotten married, she had just finished Junior College and was going the the University to get her degree for the next two years, along with her husband which was getting advanced degrees.

Yet that year they got married they rented an apartment in a city close to where he grew up. He had a summer job until he could return to college. We had gone up to visit them, and our older daughter was fine, but by evening she was in quite a bit of pain and she was limping and having trouble stepping off the curb. She hadn't done anything unusual, but here she was once again having problems. We insisted she go to the doctor and find out what was causing this since she was way too young to be limping for no reason.

They operated on her knee and found out she had an early torn cartilage injury and this was what her problem was. I guess the cartilage in your knees doesn't show up in ex-ray exams. So this was what was causing her problems years earlier. It had been damaged in PE class many years before.

Thought--We were thankful that they took out temporary health insurance during the summer months, since this operation would surely have set them back financially, if they hadn't done this.

"HARVEY"--OUR GUEST!

Not everybody gets to entertain "Harvey", the well known invisible rabbit for dinner. This was quite the privilege! Our daughters were ecstatic over having Harvey to talk to and visit with one day.

Let me first give you a brief introduction on how we happened to have Harvey for dinner. We had invited my brother and family for dinner this particular time, and we must have gotten our signals mixed up and there was a "NO SHOW".

I had made a special dinner and set the table up in the dining room and was ready for our guests. Since they didn't come, I thought the girls were disappointed, so I told them that we did have a "special guest" at our table. His name was "Harvey". You remember the movie that Jimmy Stewart played in and he had an invisible rabbit that he kept talking and visiting with. Well, THAT VERY SAME RABBIT "HARVEY" was our dinner guest that day.

Did we have fun passing Harvey the food and talking to Harvey about things in general.

Instead of being a "downer day", we had an unforgettable guest and it turned out to be unforgettable "fun" time!

Thought--When life dishes out lemons, make lemonade!

VULNERABLE!!

Our girls were about Junior High/High School age and my husband was working either 2Nd shift or overtime and I needed to go out to deliver Avon to my evening customers that wasn't available to reach during the daytime hours.

Since they were babysitting age, I thought it would be OK for me to leave them for a few hours.
I informed them that under NO CIRCUMSTANCE should they ever let anyone into the house.
I thought that they knew this was not a very good idea!

After delivering the orders I came back and asked them how it went. Well they said that someone came to the door and wanted to use the telephone to call for a repairman to fix his car. DUH! Does this sound like a good idea to let him into the house to phone? They let him in to use the phone. They were VULNERABLE!! All the preparation and warnings flew out the window that evening.

They claimed that the guy was in front of our house with the hood up inspecting the engine, and it was obvious that he needed a repairman. Thank heavens he truly did need a repairman. In this case they should have said, that they would call the repairman for him and to wait in his car.

WISDOM--You can't give enough warnings out for "Home Alone" children. The car problem could have been staged. I dread to think of how many "Home Alone" children there are that may face just such an event and it could be tragic. Now, most people have cell phones and can call repairmen if they truly need help. It is sad that one has to be skeptic these days to help another person out.

BABYSITTING "TAILS"!

Sometime when the girls hit Junior High they started babysitting. I will try to recapture some of these tales or I mean "TAILS". They usually babysat children that they knew or closer by our home.

This one particular time one of our daughters was babysitting and they had a baby and a younger child. It was a two story home and the changing table was upstairs. One of the instructions was that she was not to let the dog out of the house under any circumstance. Well, the baby needed changing and while she was changing the baby upstairs, the older child went down and let the dog out of the house. Now she was frantic wondering what she should do about the dog. She called me up since we were close by and thought I might have a solution. I told her that her first responsibility was to take care of the children and by no means go out looking for the dog. I proceeded to go over to look for the dog. I found the dog, but don't know whether there was any damage done by the dog getting out of the house.

On another occasion, the same daughter was to "CAT SIT" a neighbors pet. She was to make sure the cat had plenty of food and water. The first morning she went over, she couldn't find the cat anywhere. She called me and asked me why she couldn't find the cat. I told her that perhaps its under a bed or hiding. I went over to help her find the cat. THAT CAT WAS NO WHERE TO BE FOUND!!!! IT JUST PLAIN DISAPPEARED! A few days later the cat was back at their doorstep wanting to be fed. Somewhere in the process, communication was lost and they forgot to let her know the cat was outside.

Another occasion, I was being helpful to my neighbor back of us and was taking care of their canary while they were on vacation. I was to feed the canary and see that it had water and change the paper in the cage when soiled. They were gone a week or two and each day I checked out the bird. The day they were to come back I had gone over early on Sunday morning and fed the bird, etc. All was well. My husband said in the afternoon, "I think I will check on the bird just before they arrive home". He came back and said, "You won't believe this! The canary is dead!" Whoa! I couldn't believe it! Now what was I going to do? I offered to buy them a replacement canary. They said that they knew the canary was not acting right before they left, but just didn't mention it. I felt so bad. Moral to this--Don't ask me to take care of a pet, unless you want it to die.

One more story--

Our older daughter was in early High School and she babysat at this home. This was referral from someone. The wife had a parent that was quite ill and she went to the hospital to check on her parent. The husband left for someplace else. A few hours went by, and then the husband showed up at the home. My older daughter was thinking that he would drive her home, since he was back home. They sat in the living room together, she was knitting and he was reading the paper, etc. Each time she mentioned about him driving her home, he threw her a dollar. After a few dollars, she said, "Well if you aren't driving me home I will call my parents up to come and get me." She didn't see any reason why they needed her, when the husband was there to take care of the children. She did call me, and he got on the line and said he would bring her home. I didn't have any time to think this through before he hung up. He did as he said and she came in rather upset. I questioned her about what had happened. I had asked her if he had been drinking. To this she replied, "How would I know?" I told her that she could smell the liquor on his breath. She then said, "What does it smell like?" I realized we had sheltered her quite a bit down through the years with that question. He actually was trying to keep her there because his intentions were to go out later yet that night. He knew his wife probably was going to stay at the hospital due to the condition of her parent.

Wisdom--Children that are babysitting age still needs a backup when they are babysitting. They also need to check the locks on the outside doors to the premises, etc. We aren't living in Kansas no longer. Stay tuned--I have another tale to tell!

BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED!!

Yesterday at church a lady brought me a Dahlia from her garden. It was 10 inches across. Somehow these bloom so beautifully for her.

My thought was, that's just what we are supposed to do with our lives. No matter where we are and the circumstances that surround us, we are to make the most of it and BLOOM WHERE WE ARE PLANTED!

This lady that gave me the gorgeous flower is doing just that where she is planted. From early on she has had her neighbor child come and eat with her and her husband on a regular basis. What an impact she has on this child. She is a grandmother figure to him.

I think of people in the past that has served faithfully in the nursery so the children will quickly identify with them. I had a close friend (Reva) that served for years and years in the baby nursery. Another friend was legally blind but served as an organist past the time she was declared legally blind. She didn't let this stop her and she sewed toddler clothes and sold them. Now I can see, and I am telling you that she sewed beautifully long after she was told she couldn't see. She could have said, woe is me, and folded her hands, but not Eileen. Eileen has had so many operations that one stopped counting, but she always had an uplifting spirit about her. Both of the above people have passed away within the last few years. Eileen passed away last month and both are forever with their Lord.

Wisdom--In I Corinthians Chapter 12 it speaks of the Spiritual gifts and one gift is no less important as another and all are given to honor Christ. Truly, both these ladies did just that!

"HYPOCHONDRI-ITIS"

Our younger daughter when she was in the fifth grade had to stay home from school due to Pneumonia. We had her in a steam tent and she kept up with her school work at home. She was home about a month until she was better. This was in the spring of that year.

In the fall, we decided to take her to the doctor for a thorough examination, before the flu/cold season began. All checked out well at the doctors office.

One day I found her up in her room reading. She was reading the "World Book Encyclopedia". I thought this was a strange book to be reading. I checked what particular subject she was reading. Well, of all things, she was reading about cancer. She thought she had cancer. She had complained about this and that hurting her. It was never the same place that she was complaining about. She wanted to go to the doctor to see if that is what she had. I had told her that we had just had a thorough check-up and she checked out fine. She wanted a 2ND opinion!

I asked her, "If we go to get a 2ND opinion, and they don't find anything wrong, would she be OK with that?" She said she would. I had told her that I thought she had a good case of "Hypochondri-itis". She said, "Oh my, what is that?" I told her to look it up, since she was so adept with the World Book, I knew she would be able to locate this in the dictionary.

She looked it up and I asked her what it was. She said, "It is when you imagine you have something and it become so real you develop symptoms."

We had kept our promise to her, and took her to a well known Clinic in an adjoining city. They ran tests on her and one of the tests was checking her out for allergies. Well, she had tested out that she was quite allergic to all kinds of things. We started giving her allergy shots. Our friend Lucile (I wrote about her the other day) would give her weekly shots, since she was a former nurse.

Our older daughter had allergies (See ONE BIG PUFF). Allergies run in families.

Later I was selling Avon to a lady that had acute allergies and she said that allergies sometimes make one part of your body hurt and then another day, something else hurts. Bingo! This is why none of her aches she was describing was in the same spot.

Wisdom--Always be alert and check out things that your children are complaining about. It might be something that is easily controlled.