We are called to repect our parents, sometimes it is harder to do than one would think.......

I was raised to love and respect my parents and I do but sometime it is harder to do than others.  I didn't know on many levels any other way as that was just the way it was and what you were to do.  I was raised with an iron fist when it came to doing what you were told and if you didn't you paid the price for not doing so.  I know that we all make our biggest mistakes with our oldest child and my parents were no different.  I was raised with the rule of very little lee way in absolute compliance.  I did notice that as the more kids came the rules seemed to change for each.  I understand this as I have always had one on one rules with my kids but not the way I was raised.  The rules in my house were the same but applied to each with their personality included.  The rules as we grew up on were much more odd.  My parents raised three family units, us older kids which included 5 and at one time 6, then there were the three little girls and finally the triplets.  Each division a unique unto themselves a different family.  We olders had a basic set of rules but it was most definitely applied to each differently.  I had the strictest rules, and it went down from there.  I think one of the examples, that makes it the clearest to me, was when I was 18 I had gone to a dance at the fair, it ended at 1:30 and I didn't get home until 3:00, I had to be at work at 5:30.  My dad meant me with the belt, no excuse I made could, or would, change that I was in trouble.  I got a whipping, I am thinking it was the closest I ever got to being beat and not spanked.  I had black and blue strap marks from my hip to my knees.  My mom was not happy with me and I was disciplined to her satisfaction.  The next night my sister went to the dance didn't not come home any sooner and not a word was said about her being late.  The only sympathy I go in the whole matter was the compassion my sister gave me knowing that the punishments were not the same.  I might add that that was the last "spanking" I ever got, funny how many adults can say that?  I do know that my brothers and sister in the older set were subject to many of the same rules and disciplines.  The little girls rarely got spanked at all and they could say things to my parents that none of us older kids would ever have said to them, and most of us wouldn't to this day.  The triplets, I not sure have ever gotten spankings and the foul way those triplets speak to my dad would make a criminal set up and take notice.  They have absolutely no respect for him and treat him like he is the garbage. 

I am not sure that that much mellowing of the rules is normal.  I find that I can not go visit my folks, I truly can not abide the mean spirited way that my dad is treated.  I am truly not sure if he doesn't understand and has slipped into a bit of Alzheimer's or dementia or if it is just easier for him to pretend he has so he can survive the day.  I do know that I am no longer able to endure the pain of being in mix of how they live their lives.  I do know that one of the things, or maybe the most important thing I learned as a domestic violence advocate was the you can't help a victim that is not willing to allow you to help them.  I can't help so I don't allow myself to be the victim of watching it and not being allowed to change or help the situation. 

My parents are moving from Paradise to Charlot's heights.  We lived there when I was about 4 so I am sure there is lots of loving memories there and maybe they are hoping to rekindle that part of their lives.  I have be told as, my mom only allows the kids she can get the most out of to help her at any given time.  I am of no help and probably currently the enemy so am one of the kids not in the loop.  I am also told I am not alone, and the others left out were not happy about it either.  I am actually not upset but a little relieved to not have to help.  I did hear the move is for a bazaar reason but that is normal not out of the ordinary.  I digress.  They are moving and doing it in their own style.  My parents had a car wreck last week, no one hurt, my dad got a lecture from mom and the identicals, oddly the third was at home alone awaiting their return from the gas station.  I won't expound upon that because I am to aghast.  The car was totalled and they are getting a different one tomorrow.  A big glitch in the move I am thinking.

I did hear one more bit of gossip, I am not sure it is gossip when you do care about the process of your parents aging and their choices but maybe it is.  My mom has decided for the 100th different time in the last 11 years, that is how old they are, that she should maybe make arrangements for the triplets if she or dad should die,  They have as you know had health issues, one a heart attach, a second, and the other one a stroke.  Mom uses the placement, or has in the past as a big reward to her children., I am thinking with their gentle and loving personalities, they would not be a reward but a conviction, but again I digress.  Mom sent out the edict that she is going to leave her girls, if anything should happen to them, to the following.  A mother that doesn't work, to some one who does not live in Mineral County, some one who would not make them go to public school, someone who would not adopt them, etc.....  Can you say Power and Control.  I am thinking that I am so glad I live in Mineral County, whew what a relief.  I do try to love the three of them, and do one on one but as a group of harpies that attack my dad not so much.  I am having a bad morning maybe or maybe it is just one of those where the injustice sets me up for hours of trying to understand the hows and whys of ageing. 

It amazes me how some older people are the epitome of wisdom, grace and aging.  It further amazes me that some people get so lost they no longer resemble the person they once were.  How is it that age and time can cause such extremes?  How can you respect, which is a commandment, what you can't even fathom or comprehend?  How to you help when you are not ask but perceived to be as the enemy? for what you have no idea?  How do you love when you can't even understand?  I spend a lot of time praying for all of them, I know my mom would say I am a liar, and a sinner for even my beliefs at this point but I do.  I do know that in the end it is all in Gods hands and I have no concept of his will.  I do wish them whatever it is that they seek and know that I am not welcome in their current lifestyle.  It does not make me miss my folks the less but it is sad to have said your last good byes, in ways, years before the actual loss.....tomorrow.

Did you ever play that game as a child.....

Funny thing on Sunday the Preacher was speaking of that game people play with children, or I suppose you could with adults, where you get a line of participants, old or young, stand them in a line and tell the first one a story.  You get each to repeat once as quickly as possible the story to the next one down the line.  The Preacher assured us that the story changes in many respects from one end to the other.  Did you ever actually try it?  My dad did once when we were little.  I was about 14, or so at the time, he stood us all in a line from oldest to youngest.  I think at the time the youngest allowed to participate was 5.  We went down, 14, 13, 12, 11, 8, 5.   He started with a story about three little bears.  The story ended up being about several monkeys.  He got the results that are assumed by one and all, that tell of this experiment, but my dad took the process one step further.  He took each of us aside, one at a time, to see where the experiment went awry.  It was not the supposed process of each adapting the tale at little having not heard it correctly or from embellishment.  The story that was recounted to my dad one on one was clearly the same story from one to the next except for one participant.  The ones above the changer of the tale all had the same story, as did all of the ones below the tale changer.  Was that the results that were expected?  Why did only one of the participants in the experiment change the tale?  Do we assume that the outcome will always change and that each participants adds to the tale or changes it because we assume that is how tales move about in our society?  Well I am here to tell you having participated in the great experiment, in actuality, that we should never assume tales are a communal thing.  Tales can be a communal thing but they can just as easily be the misinterpretation of one individual.  Tales can be and are the results of gossip but they can also be the mistelling of one person who just got it wrong so judging gossip to be gossip is just that judging.  That brings me to the thought that took me down this road to begin with.  Are we for the most part honest?

Do you live an honest life?  Are you, number one, honest with yourself?  I can't imagine living a life being dishonest with yourself.  Do you live a life of self deception?  Do you see thing so narcissistic that you are not even honest with yourself?  I know that 95 percent of what we believe about others thoughts about ourselves in in our own minds, so only 5 percent of what we think some thinks about us is true.  Is that honesty or human nature?  Does that mean we think to much about what others think of us in general?  I know that the less I care or think about what others think about me the happier I am.  I spent a lot of my youth worried about offending some one, my mom, my dad, my siblings, my friends, my ? ?  Ironically the only person I can ever remember never worrying about what he thought of me was Poppie, some would say he should have been the most important opinion of me and that I should have worried about that the most but truly, no.  I never had to question what he thought of me, he just loved me the way I was, he never tried to change me.  I can't say in all honesty that I was so loving of him,  I tried to make him quit smoking for 30 years, and until he did it for himself nothing I ever did made any difference.  He did grow from a scared boy into one of the best men I know, but that was a subtle and evolving change nothing that just happen overnight or in any one way.  I think that I changed  to meet him that same way but again not overnight or like an epiphany, it was life and love that did that.  I wonder if anyone is ever truly honest or is it a game of degrees.  We all are as honest as our self examination makes us.  If our measure is that we are better than our neighbor that bar may not be that high.  If it is that we let others decide for us maybe that measure is too high and unattainable.  I think maybe we have to be honest to the degree that God ask of us.  I know that is exacting, but is it?  What does God ask of anyone one on one?  Is my honesty to love my kids, and Poppie to all that I am?  Is my honesty to never tell a lie period, or to never tell a lie that causes undue pain for just the principal of being perfectly honest?  Is it honest to tell a child that you had to kill it's pet just because it was convenient at the time?  Or was it just as honest to say that your pet has passed on or has gone to sleep and at the will of God?   I know that little white lies are "sins" and hardcore purists will tell you that, but isn't it a sin to hurt some one just because you can as well?  I think that honesty is a grey subject.  I am not sure that you, me or anyone can be honest to the letter for just one day little own our whole lives, and judging what is and isn't a lie in someone else's life is none of our business.  I think God is so much bigger than the limitation we put on others because they don't abide by our sense of right and wrong.  I think that God is so much bigger says it all......tomorrow.

Bubble on the mend we hope, Cubbie has pre-school.

I was so excited I got to go outside for the first time in a long time, Poppie allowed me to go.  We visited the new babies, Samson, Jack, Caliope and Coral.  The two little girl twins are the smallest but the feistiest.  They follow Cleo around and try the hay.  Jack and Samson both big singles are lazy.  Samson the biggest is the laziest of all.  He just lays and sleep awaiting his mom to come feed him.  They are all very pretty.  Not sure when more are coming.  We had put Rootbeer in with the does but Mokie took him out and took him to her place so not sure who wasn't breed.  We then put Caesar in just before he died so unsure who got breed and who didn't.  I think it is a blessing either way, some need to have babies and some may need a rest.  I got to pat Miss Chops she is getting ready to have her babies.  We locked her in to the dry half of the pen so she doesn't have babies in the mud, her favorite part of the pen.   She still has a few hens that share her grain, and the little Berkshires got out of their pen and were visiting her part of the day before Poppie called them to get back in their pen.  They can push the door open but it has a spring hinged so it closes and they can't get back in.  Red is growing fat and sassy in his own pen.  We lost one of the piglets to a ruptured rectum, we think Red laid on him when it got cold.  So Red is alone as we don't want him to hurt the two smaller Berkshires.  They are still together until they get older and are breed able, then we will split them until breeding time.

Bubbles is here this morning, she threw up all weekend and had to go to the Dr yesterday.  She has finally stopped throw up and is pleasantly sleeping in my bed.  Cubbie is awaiting Pre-school she loves her time to learn.  Miss Pre-school always makes if fun for her and she gets to be one on one with some who just wants to teach her things, she actually wants to learn. 

I am hoping to get some cleaning done, even at their best Poppie and the Ladies just don't seem to see all the things that bug me that aren't clean.  I know that things that don't bother me drive others crazy so I get to see a  little of it in reverse. 


I got my newest book by M. R. De Haan, had read all the others I had gotten so am excited to get into this one.  This one is about the book of Ruth,  I have always liked the book of Ruth she was such an inspiration.  This book promises to be great. It is told from the perspective of Naomi being Israel in prophesy.  I am excited to read the perspective.  Our daily Bible reading is coming along great and the Ladies have started new parables to learn.  The longest ones yet, 16 verses each.  The parable of the talents.  I love that they learn so much in their memorizing.  Off to start the day and await Pre-school.  I hope the Lord comes into your life in a new and exciting way, he will you know its all for the asking.....tomorrow.