the prowling Bee: I got so I could take his name –

the prowling Bee: I got so I could take his name –

Been so long since I have been in.  I am still here.  Life goes on hectic as always.  More babies....  I still long for the quiet side of life.  My family needs my help in NY and I don't care for CT.  Yet; the next generation I created in CT...well some of them need me here.  So what do I do.  Hopefully we will be in a position to move on in our lives soon.  :)

What Goes Around Comes Around Sometimes in a Good Way.... Please Share

So it is time to update.  I wrote a long message down below here....  :)  Should have made a new blog!

Yes; life goes on.  It has a tendency to do that.  It starts where God chooses and ends accordingly.  Not in our hands.  It all seems long and the curves are many.  :)  Curves ...I have had a few....are plentiful right now.  Sewer issues in the house...basement if you will....waiting for the contractor.  Temporary fix in place, old cat had surgery, furnace needed repairs.  All these in the same month and all quite expensive.  Good thing I already said that Christmas is to be simpler this year (understatement).  I did decree a couple years ago that I Have decided each family birthday should be big...and that Christmas is to be about others....not ourselves.  In other words, focus on what we as individuals and a family can do for others.

My big issue right now is "how to family with adult family".  I say that I did not really experience and definitely did not experience well "adult relationships" in my life with adult relatives.  Distance separated from family once I was married.  There were no extended family generations in the lives of my boys and I have little to emulate in that regard.  So too often I feel like I am winging it.  Along with the "tatoo":  "Does not play well with others" that I should have had at birth...I probably should have had one to the effect of "Lays down for others well".  :)  I mean I tend to let myself be doormatted as others would say because I am a peacemaker at heart.  I have five sons.  They are biologically/physically all adults now.  They range in age from 26 to 34 years old.  Two of them are married.  One has three children.  Two have one each. Two have none but are now in committed relationships involving no children.  Two are married.  My granddaughter who just turend seven lives with her Grampie and I.  We let her Dad live here too.  :)  My problem of late is the ones that don't liev here I don't hear from.  I don't see them.  I go months without hearing or seeing them anywhere.  Yes; they live quite locally with the exception of one.  I don't ask. I don't beg for sure.  I leave them go because rejection hurts...to oversimplify.  Their Dad's chosen activities (and I am still with him) is alot responsible for the way this family is now.  Let's say it played a big part in forming relationships we have I think.  He was a closet alcoholic for many years.  Being Mensa IQ (as are some of the boys) he was very good at it like he was/is many things.  Then he had a widowmaker and now literally has 60% of a heart (how ironic huh?) but I stayed.  I am still here.  I did alot of kicking and screaming for a few yaers but when all was said and done I am still here.  We have our differences.  There are places I would much rather be (most specifically the Fingerlakes Amish Area of NYS where I grew up close to...but suspect as years go on (life and all that) does not look good for me to get there while I am still mentally and physically competent.  :)  So all that says...what do you do with adult children who when they finally show up don't behave like a guest in your house.  Even though they grew up in your house...should they not (as longtime nonresidents) respect certain parameters and etiquette boundaries all things considered? 

So that is finally said/asked after rambling so long.  :0  I hope some of this made some sense and hit notes with some of you.  I would love to hear feedback. 

If you want to see my church updates...please read my other post from today.  It is spelled out there. I pormise to make a new "Blog" about it soon.

Mel

And so here I sit.  One more post on yet another day.  We survived Hurricane Irene.  We are like an oasis...firs my home and now my town/city in a desert of drought.  All around us are without power ...whole towns.  Our municipality has it's own Urilities and they got things up and going quickly.  Around us they have CL&P and they have not done a good job at all.  They are in the hot seat.  All that said, we have another storm, I believe called Tatia, being watched for a possible rerun of Irene in five to seven days.

Hope all are well.  Keep the faith.  Just a brief update, found a church ..well kind of.  :)  Looks promising.  And; more little Chinese stores in town!  Once you get the bug you can't have too many.  The Chinese are here to stay.

Mel

Church Thoughts......

I have often wondered and wondering now...whatever happened to church as I knew it?  I have come to the conclusion that people as they age want things to remain like they were...certain things at least.  The things that made them comfortable.  We are after all what we have lived....  as much as what we live.  When I was little I went to an old style country Methodist Church.  That "dinosaur" is a thing of the past.  That little church that served the members and the community as it faded away is a thing of the past.  The sixties came and they literally tore the building down and paved the lot for parking...  I miss that church.  After that, in the sixties, I attended a very "milk toast" church.  No spirit there at all...  Just folks coming in to do their time on Sunday morning.  The only real "spirit" in the sense of knowing God was there was in the heart of the organist/pianist and her family.  The rest were just well "doing their time".  Then came the seventies (have you guessed my age  yet?).  In the seventies the Nazarenes came to town.  The little church in Alfred Station with the poverty pitching preacher that bent over backwards hauling "sheep" in but did not know how to deal with them when they got there. His heart was in the right place as he did the best he knew how...which ended him up now in Florida I think.  :)  That church is gone.  But; I learned from that church what sticks with me today.  I learned that God was meant to be shared....  Don't hide the light under a bushel.  You should be out there sharing and inviting folks to share the "love" with you.  As I tell my granddaughter now all the time, she being six, if you hold anger in your heart you are taking up the space that "love" needs.  Afterall; hearts are for loving.  So while the drama of it all was intimidating and a big put off at the time; now I miss that.  I can't find it anywhere.  Where did "church" go.  If that is the church I seek, the church of my youth so to speak, where is it? 

After highschool I ended up back what was then the new Methodists....milk toast with sugar...  Folks who drank and partied on Saturday night and came in to do their very routine and "guessable" church on Sunday morning with the sermon from the barrel written years before...nothing spontaneous...    This compared to everything made up as it went along in High School's Nazarene Church.  That ended badly.  When the preacher's family disowned me as a friend the church literally drove me out.  Left a bad taste in my mouth to say the least and I did no church for many years.  Then; about eight years later I began looking again.  I tried again Nazarenes whose first impression was that my three little boys were going to you know where (before the age of five) if I did not "dedicate" them to the power of the church...  Sigh... again... I walked away....  Remembering I sought them. Noone ever reached out to me in adulthood for church purposes short of Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses going door to door.  I tried a few others spending a long time with the Continuing Congregationalists here in New England.  The key being again that "I" sought them out and had it pointed out to me regular initially that they did not know what to do with us because noone had ever sought them.  Again I ask....where is the religion of my youth?  What happened to sharing God and reaching out?  Well I fought to fit in that church for a good ten years with NEVER an invitation to join that church as a member.  I finally got my old Methodist membership of my own volition and transferred it to there...where it sits today.  I don't sit there however anymore.  I finally gave up.  Ten years of trying to feel at home finally ended...  Guess I am difficult? 

So that brings us to the present.  The present is where I sit.  I can honestly say that in 33 years in New England states, CT to be exact, the only "religions" that have reached out and solicited or shared God (their version granted) with me are as follows...  The Mormons (door to door) but they quit coming some years ago...  The Jehovah's Witnesses who have all but quit, and believe it or not the Catholics.  I forgot to mention that I had my boys in Parochial school for mega years without ever getting an invitation to be part of that church.  Now; my granddaughter is in parochial school in another town.  Believe it or not that "Father" is the first man of the cloth to reach out and offer to share his religion with open arms to my family in over thirty years.  Perhaps that is the direction I am meant to go.  You see I have looked....  and lookd...and tried and tried.  Obviously I have done something wrong ...my technique is lacking...my heart is deficient... I don't know.  But; well if it were a contest for the one branch that reached the furthest to try and fit us in a church family it would be the Catholics....  Thanks Father Tito.  Religion is alive and well in my part of CT in the heart of a Catholic Priest and a small group of Sisters.  Don't know what happend to religion in this state but it is well hidden....not like where I grew up....  Maybe it's afraid of the "son light"?

Melody

Oh Freedom...

Ran across this today and wanted to share it. It is said to have been authored by Sarah Shepherd, mother of Ella Shepherd first pianist with Fisk Jubilee Singers ...also believed that she authored Swing Low Sweet Chariot...

O’ Freedom!

O’ freedom! O’ freedom!

O’ freedom over me!

And before I'd be a slave

I'll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

No more moanin'!  No more moanin’!

No more moanin’ over me

And before I’d be a slave

I’ll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

There'll be singin'

There’ll be singin’

There’ll be singin’ over me

And before I’d be a slave

I’ll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

There'll be shoutin'

There’ll be shoutin’

There’ll be shoutin’ over me

And before I’d be a slave

I’ll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

O’ freedom!  O’ freedom!

O’ freedom over me!

And before I'd be a slave

I'll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free