Fast Food?

Do you like Steak & Shake? Do you even know what it is?

Well in the middle of the country it is a chain of hamburger joints. Hamburgers made with steak instead of hamburger.

Then what is hamburger? Good question, I'm not sure I want to know the answer.

Back to Steak & Shake.

Monday Pa, HT and I dropped off my HHR for some repairs. Steak & Shake was close by. It reminds us of home, so I wanted to spend the money for the over priced burger and the great skinny fries.

We have never been in that joint but what you didn't have had to wait and wait for your food. Monday we walked into a almost empty restaurant, thinking this shouldn't be bad and it wasn't since we had All evening,
Today we went to get the car and guess were we ate. Yep S&S only it was full today and surprise surprise we got our food fast.
During the meal we over heard a waitress say "sorry we're understaffed today"

I think for now on we will only eat there when they are busy and understaffed. But then again I'm not so sure that today wasn't the exception.

Moving Day

Today Pa, Bubba and a couple of other guys moved a new friend into our house.
Our friend is a 50 inch up right piano. She (as she looks like a lady) will be staying with us until such a time as AO can move her to another new home.
For now I get to look at her and enjoy her architectural beauty.
Art and I have talked about the day when she can be restored and enjoyed as she was meant to be. We have wondered how long it would take and just how much it would cost. WOW is my guess. We both think it would be worth it. Perhaps some day one of the children will sit down and play beautiful music for us to enjoy.

Princess has also moved. She is now in the Blogger neighborhood.
http://thelifeandtimesofht.blogspot.com/ Go by and say hi.

How Fw and Princess got their Names

Pa and I settled on a boy's name real early on. We then spent the rest of the time trying to find a girls name we both liked. We would pick one and then spend a few days trying it out. You know Billy Bob YOU GET DOWN, Billy Bob Attorney at Law, Dr. Billy Bob and so on. After a few days out the door it would go. There were certain names that I really liked and wanted to use for each girl. Well, after a long winter and spring half over it was time to get a name she would be coming soon.
Pa and I meet at college my second year. We quit school for 2 years and then went back, so there were still a few old friends around. One Sunday night after church I was talking to a girlfriend. We not only grew up together but also ended up living just down the hall from each other in the dorm. Near the end of our conversation C. was talking about one our girlfriends from the dorm. We said our good byes and when I got in the car I ask Pa if he remembered this girl. He did after I told him that she was a cousin to two of his buddies. I ask if he liked her name and said she would be a good person to be named after. He said he did and FW got her first name. Then I added the middle name and for a few days it was settled.
Pa told me he didn't like the middle name. I wasn't real happy with him and started working on another name along the same line. I picked out her new middle name and Pa didn't say a word but you could tell he needed to. He finally told me that the name I picked out was his last girlfriends middle name. To which I said I liked M. and wouldn't mind naming a girl after her. M. and her husband were also our next door neighbors in Married Student housing. We were close friends. M.'s big brother was also Pa's best friend and roommate back in the dorm. We were just one BIG happy family.

Princess, who was our surprise, also got her first name from college friends. R and B are from Texas and had come to Illinois for graduate work. We met just after moving back to school. In no time B. was my new best friend. The end of that year they had a girl. The next year was my turn and B. got me through those 9 months. I did not know anything about babies and B kept telling me it would come to me.
School was out, baby born and we moved home. Bubba came along and then the Big Surprise. When I found out I was having a baby I told Pa that if it was a girl we were naming her after R.and B. little girl. He said that was fine so we just needed a middle name. Now at the time I didn't miss the Walton's and loved watching one of the girls. That is were Princess got her middle name.
All the names being pick, the time came and she was born. Pa called the family with the news. We got home with new baby and Grandma took the older 2 home with her. One day, I'm talking to Mom on the phone and she said that my oldest brother wanted to know why I had named my child after a cow and duck. I thought he was crazy and ask what he was talking about. There was a duck on TV who's name was close to babies name and Mom use to get milk from a diary who emblem was a cow with babies name. Princess's nick name became Ducky Moo Moo, NO, she hasn't had to go to counseling, Because Bubba changed it to Bill,

Valetines and History

This being the month of love, Black history and my birthday I shall tell you the story of my name.

My dad is 78 years old. He grew up in the back woods of south central Illinois. Almost everyone farmed and did other odd jobs to add to the family income.
Now back in those days there were not many black folks in that area of the country. Those that did live there "knew their place" and could live quietly for a time if they followed the rules.
I'm guessing"quietly for a time" was one of the rules, since black folk did not stay long.
I was a grown woman the first time I saw a black person in my folks hometown. My uncle told me they were not allowed there. Later when I ask, Dad told me about the county history. What a surprise. I just figured that black people didn't farm because of slavery. I had never seen a black farmer and all the black kids I knew lived in the same steel city we did.
Now when dad was small, a family lived down the road from them. Hard working folks with a bunch of kids. Kids being kids they soon knew each other well. The Mrs. helped grandma with some of her big chores and their big girls would tend to the children, from time to time.
My dad lost his heart to one of the older daughters. From the way he tells the story and the soft sound in his voice during the telling, there must still be a piece missing.
This one sided puppy love did not get to play it's self out as most do. Dad's love "just upped and moved" for reasons unknown to him. Leaving him with a sore heart and the sweet memory of first love.

When I was young Mother would tell me that Dad named me after his lost love. Sometimes he would say "that isn't true" then other times he would just smile and say "I don't remember her name. I was just a little guy".

you can't trust them

I just found out you can't trust the blogger test things. What a surprise I'm broken over this. Here all this time I have been taken those test to find out just who I am. Today, because I couldn't get it to post here, I take the same quiz twice and get 2 diffrent answers.
To say the least both answers were So NOT me. Acording to them I could have ruled the world and cared less who liked it or not. All out going and big.
Most days I'm more like Piglet, then Pinky's friend The Brain. There are days when my Petite Realm is just to big for me.
I am sorry if I have just busted your bubble about those test. Perhaps you should just look up the word noble that's were you will find out who you are.

I don't like St. Valentine's Day. To many bad memories and to much pressure.

I liked it when I was a kid.

Mom and Dad were all dressed up and going to church for the Sweetheart Banquet. It was exciting they looked so sparkly, even if they were wearing the same clothes that they wore on Sunday. I'm guessing the sparkle came from not having to take all of us kids with them. A whole evening of fun with other adults, at any rate it was exciting to me.
Then came the years when I was supposed to be going to the banquet with my sweetheart.
THE BAD YEARS
Yes the sweetheart of my youth was in love with Judy. She was a little tiny thing with blond hair you know the girl all the boys wanted to date and Tommy was dating her.
From 7th grade to college that boy broke my heart time and again. Of course there were a few fill in guys while I was waiting for Tommy to find out he was madly in love with me but they were only temps.

Tommy came to my house one day to talk to me. Our years out of high school had changed him. He was in love, it wasn't Judy it was Denice and she was a friend of mine. They married and lived happily everafter.
My heart didn't break to much, it's only been 30 some years and now I can talk about it. NO! really I'm OK I'm over it... honest... I'll be right back...

Changed from the Inside Out

Max Lucado

When you believe in Christ, Christ works a miracle in you. You are permanently purified and empowered by God himself. The message of Jesus to the religious person is simple: It's not what you do. It's what I do. I have moved in. And in time you can say with Paul, "I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20).
If I'm born again, why do I fall so often?
Why did you fall so often after your first birth? Did you exit the womb wearing cross-trainers? Did you do the two-step on the day of your delivery? Of course not. And when you started to walk, you fell more than you stood. Should we expect anything different from our spiritual walk?
But I fall so often, I question my salvation. Again, we return to your first birth. Didn't you stumble as you were learning to walk? And when you stumbled, did you question the validity of your physical birth? Did you, as a one-year-old fresh flopped on the floor, shake your head and think, I have fallen again. I must not be human?
Of course not. The stumbles of a toddler do not invalidate the act of birth. And the stumbles of a Christian do not annul his spiritual birth.
Do you understand what God has done? He has deposited a Christ seed in you. As it grows, you will change. It's not that sin has no more presence in your life, but rather that sin has no more power over your life. Temptation will pester you, but temptation will not master you. What hope this brings!
Hear this. It's not up to you! Within you abides a budding power. Trust him!
Think of it this way. Suppose you, for most of your life, have had a heart condition. Your frail pumper restricts your activities. Each morning at work when the healthy employees take the stairs, you wait for the elevator.
But then comes the transplant. A healthy heart is placed within you. After recovery, you return to work and encounter the flight of stairs--the same flight of stairs you earlier avoided. By habit, you start for the elevator. But then you remember. You aren't the same person. You have a new heart. Within you dwells a new power.
Do you live like the old person or the new? Do you count yourself as having a new heart or old? You have a choice to make.
You might say, "I can't climb stairs; I'm too weak." Does your choice negate the presence of a new heart? Dismiss the work of the surgeon? No. Choosing the elevator would suggest only one fact--you haven't learned to trust your new power.
It takes time. But at some point you've got to try those stairs. You've got to test the new ticker. You've got to experiment with the new you. For if you don't, you will run out of steam.
Religious rule keeping can sap your strength. It's endless. There is always another class to attend, Sabbath to obey, Ramadan to observe. No prison is as endless as the prison of perfection. Her inmates find work but never find peace. How could they? They never know when they are finished.
Christ, however, gifts you with a finished work. He fulfilled the law for you. Bid farewell to the burden of religion. Gone is the fear that having done everything, you might not have done enough. You climb the stairs, not by your strength, but his. God pledges to help those who stop trying to help themselves.
"He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6.) God will change you from the inside out.

From Next Door Savior

Migraines

I just read this article in the NY Times
http://migraine.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/arms-at-rest/

I hate migraines. I had my first one 26 years ago. I look forward to the day when I am free of them.
The first time I had ever heard of them was when my friend W. told me about her head hurting so bad that she couldn't even stand the little movement of the bed when J. came to check on her. It was hard for me to believe that she could have been in that kind of pain. Little did I know.

My first one was something like W.'s and it scared me. I did not think people could live very long with that kind of pain.
It was almost a year later that I had the next one. Then came more and more until I went through almost 4 years of non-stop migraines. FarmWife started calling them "my drug days" after I started using Imitrex shots. For me the shots were a God send until a year ago when I started having rebound headaches from the years of use. Now I have been on a couple of diffrent med.s but haven't done as well as Imitrex and yet they still beat the "drug days".
Those days were usually 3 days of heavy duty drugs then a trip to the hospital were I would get a shot that would knock me out for day and the migraine would be gone for about 24 hours and another would start. It was not a fun time in our house.
FarmWife became the mom to Bubba and Princess and the house keeper. To much for a 8th grader to take on.
Pa was on a new job that kept him away for to many hours a day so our happy little home was anything but happy.
After reading the article I think I will give magnesium and B6 a try to see if they will aid in the death of my migraines. It Could Happen.