Sandi Chats

Recently I had two Facebook posts on my timeline that pointed my thoughts to my parenting skills. One of them was posted by my daughter, April, which said "Tag a mother and let her know that she's the best!!!" Another, which I can't find now that I am looking for it, said something about letting mothers everywhere know that they are doing a great job.  My child rearing years, 32 of them to be exact, are now a memory...a great memory in fact. In retrospect, we tend to remember the good stuff, the places we went, the quiet times at home, and the most precious memories of all, the times when I held them as babies. It takes a little more digging around in my memory banks to recall the tough times of parenting, the times we had to practice tough love, the spankings (I hear a gasp from modern parents), and all the blasted work that went with raising kids. Raising kids isn't easy, and I believe it's getting tougher every year! Kids have a way of worming themselve...

Christmas 2017 is in the books. Actually it was done before Christmas even officially arrived as we had all our celebrations a bit early which left us home alone yesterday.  On a day that didn't even register out of the single digits, that is exactly where I was happy to be! Grandkids Taylor and Merrick are staying for a week's visit. Now that they are in school these visits have to be relegated to summer and school vacations, so I am home being Grandma this week! It's reminding me of those days when we had small children and how much chaos they can create in such a short time! I am truly beginning to feel old. The two daughters who were here for Christmas argued who got some of my dishes when I die! I haven't really felt the grim reaper breathing down my neck but maybe I need to check closer. The way things go around here I will probably break them before I die anyway. One train of thought always comes to mind after having a house full of company...we need a bi...

It is now December 4th (or 5th or 6th, depending on how long it takes me to organize my thoughts), and it's always about this time of year that I pause to think, "What in the world happened to this past year?!?!?" It seems that the pages of the calendar have flown off at record speed, and the past January seems only a few weeks ago. But here we are, once again, with another year of our lives gone. Completely GONE!!! This is time we will never get back to relive or make better use of. What's gone is gone and there are no do-overs. I've heard a lot of people mention that time seems to go faster as you get older. In reality, an hour is still and hour and a day is still a day, so time is not truly going faster, it's all in the perception. In my case, I believe that time is the same, I am just moving so much slower. I'm like the rancher who told me one day "I'm so far behind I'm about to catch up." Yes, life is lapping me! So what di...

I have been 65 for about two weeks now. Birthdays don't really bother me much, and this one has been no exception to that, but it has brought about a few changes for us. Mike and I turned 65 within three days of one another, with me being the elder of us---by three days! So it's always kind of a joint celebration, one we would both rather just skip over. This year, even though we tried to fly under the radar, word seemed to get out that this was the Big 6-5! Our Fast Draw family staged a bit of a celebration the night before my birthday, making us feel very special. We spent the weekend at a shoot in Mitchell, and Facebook helped to spread the word so there were many birthday greetings and a vase of flowers from a good friend...thanks, Susan! There were invites to lunch which I enjoyed but sure didn't need the calories! Facebook was filled with birthday greetings and we got the usual shower of old-age joke cards. Even got a phone call from my favorite son and...

I am totally aware of my age, especially since I just had a birthday last week...the big one, 65! There was just no denial of my age since I had to get signed up for Medicare and all the extras that go along with it. And then, for some reason, everyone picked up on the fact that it was a big birthday for us (Mike's birthday is just three days after mine and he is the same age!) and made a big deal out of it.  So, signing up for Medicare...that was an experience! The Part A wasn't too terribly difficult, and I managed to negotiate the online sign up without too much trouble. A representative paid a visit to the courthouse, and we signed up for Part B through him with his advisement. But then there was the Part D! The rep made it sound like it was a piece of cake, but I beg to differ!  First of all I put in my meds and location, and it offered me choices...23 of them to be exact! 23 different companies which had all kinds of options, prices and a whole bunch of stuff I didn...

This past weekend we attended a couple of social events known as a "potluck dinner". They can also be called "fellowship dinners" or "carry-in dinners". One was a carry-in dinner to honor a couple of friends' recent marriage. The second was a potluck dinner at church to give the congregation a chance to visit with a visiting missionary family.  I am not really sure how wide-spread a potluck dinner is in our culture, but in our community you can probably find one to go to at least once a week. Everyone arrives bearing at least one, if not three or four, dishes to share, meat items, casseroles, salads, desserts, dinner rolls, appetizers, relish items...the list of possibilities is only limited by your imagination! Young women in our community are taught to cook. They learn from their mothers who learned from their mothers. Consequently, many of the dishes are made from recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation. For a potluck...

We've all heard the superstitions: "Step on a crack, break your mother's back". It's bad luck for a black cat to walk in front of you. It's bad luck to walk under a ladder. Breaking a mirror will bring seven years of bad luck. And I'm sure you can add many more, but you get the idea. We have our superstitions. Well today is Friday, the 13th. That is considered, in our culture, to be the ultimate day of bad luck. Supposedly we should all stay home in bed to avoid becoming victims of any unfortunate events. And since most of us can't shirk our duties and stay in bed we just have to get out and take our chances. Where did this superstition originate? I wondered that myself so I Googled the question. (How did we ever find out anything before Google?) According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia of knowledge, this superstition has only existed for the past 150 years or so, which in the whole scheme of time is only a short time. It was based on an...