Dot`sThoughts

Christmas is over and New Years Day has passed. Now it is time to think about what I want to accomplish in the new year. As soon as I lick this pain in my hip and right leg, I am hoping to get back working in my wood shop. I want to make a small pull out section between two cupboards for holding the plastic bottles that hold the flavored water and the soda drinks. While Christmas shopping , I found the small casters to put under the bottom of the pull out section. I have enough wood left from my last project, so just need to be able to do the work. Dr ordered ex-rays today, so should know the cause soon so I can start working on the cure. I was happy that one of my daughters drove me to the Dr`s office in the morning and again drove me back in the afternoon for the ex-rays so I never had to clear out the snow in front of the garage doors. We only got about 4 more inches over night. Hope I feel up to shoveling that little bit tomorrow. Wasn`t enough to make it necessary for anyone to shovel out the driveway for me. But, we may get more snow again tonight.

I still haven`t made it to my brother or sisters homes with their gifts. But they all understand what is stopping me from visiting them. I wasn`t walking to well at the Funeral home even though I tried to hide it. Now, If I had been able to make all those trips up and down the porch steps I could have packed all their gifts into my car before I drove down for my uncles Funeral. Two of my sisters brought their gifts for me and put them in my car as we were leaving the Funeral place. I knew I couldn`t drive on down to their homes after I left there because I had to get home for my dog as I had left her inside while I was gone. She is getting old and I didn`t want to leave her out when it was so cold. I do have hay in her dog house , but that morning it was way too cold to leave her outside.

I received a lot of useful items for Christmas, plus some just to enjoy. I hope they like their gifts as much as I liked mine. I always love the newer pictures the grandchildren give me of my great grandchildren. Having new pictures means more than any expensive gift would to me. I did manage to take a picture of each part of the family that made it to my home. One member of my family has a very polite young man visiting them from China. He is in America to attend a college. I enjoyed chatting with this young lad. For one so young, he sounds very educated. He must have wonderful caring parents from the kindness he shows to everyone he meets in our family. You can tell that he had a very good upbringing from the way he acts. He mentioned that in the college he is attending some of the teachers look out for the students like they were a second set of parents. Now, that sure is a nice tribute to our college teachers. Being an only child, it must be hard for his family having their only child so far from home. I remember how I worried when one of my sons joined the Navy . I guess , no matter how much we hear from them through letters or phone calls, we still worry until our children are safely back home. My daughter let him use her phone to call his parents. I am not sure how much longer he will be visiting here before he has to report back to the college. I think it is great that my daughter and her family had the chance to meet someone from another country. We can learn so much more about other countries from it`s citizens than we could from reading about the country in books. Books are so matter of fact without the normal living ways that most people have to face in their day to day living. Books don`t show the feeling that people face while growing up. it never tells the little things that happen that have so much to do with how a persons life unfolds. I have always found it very interesting learning more about other countries. That is one of the things I love most about having a computer- the education you receive from meeting people from all over - both my own country and around the world. I guess I never realized how different it can be growing up in another state that has different kinds of plants, flowers, birds, animals and trees, and so forth than we find in our state. In school you learn what different things each state is noted for, but you do not learn the different ways people talk and the kind of foods they prefer eating that you do not find in all states. I have a granddaughter who was so young when they moved that she has the southern way of speaking while her older brother and sister went to schools in the north and therefore learned to speak like a northerner. You never learned , that growing up in a different state can make such a difference in how you pronounce words or the kind of foods you learn to love. Those are things you learn from experience, or from other people, not from books. I remember when i was a child in Girl Scouts and we had penpals. Mine was from England. After writing to this pen pal for a few months, I received letters from two other girls from England and for years the three of them and I kept contact with each other through our letters. Somehow, after we grew up we lost contact with each other. Today, while looking through some old saved memories from my school days i came across two post cards one of the girls had sent to me. One of them was of a large beautiful church and on the card it says " The Chancel, Nantwich Church". On the other post card is a picture of people swimming in a huge pool and it says "Brine Swimming Pool, Nantwich". I received these from a friend named Ursula crawford, the date was 1946. These cards were published by the Johnson & Son , Stationers, Nantwich, under License granted by the Ministry of Supply. These post cards were printed in Great britian. I have always valued these cards because they were sent to me by a great friend. So, I learned at a young age that you can have a wonderful friend even if the two of you never meet in person.