That the ability to verbalize does not bestow an ability to think should be at once apparent.

Charles Walters

Flag Counter started April 3, 2008

HER DIARY

Tonight, I thought my husband was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a bar to have a drink. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment on it.

Conversation wasn’t flowing, so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk. He agreed, but he didn’t say much. I asked him what was wrong, he said “Nothing”. I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said he wasn’t upset, that it had nothing to do with me, and not to worry about it.

On the way home, I told him that I loved him. He smiled slightly, and kept driving. I can’t explain his behavior. I don’t know why he didn’t say, “I Love you too”.

When we got home, I felt as if I had lost him completely, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there quietly, and watched TV. He continued to seem distant and absent. Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed. About 15 minutes later, he came to bed. To my surprise, he responded to my caress, and we made love.

But I still felt that he was distracted, and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep; I cried. I don’t know what to do. I’m almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster.

HIS DIARY

Missed a big deer today, but at least I got laid.

And click here for some great cartoons of what “s/he said and s/he heard.”

Since it’s been so cold and won’t get above freezing for a week or so anyway, Richard brought home some grain to see if it might help stretch the stockpiled fescue grass. He doesn’t have a lot of hay either, and needs to stretch all the resources to their best ability. The cows quickly learned what was under the electric fence and how to eat it!

This morning we had quite a lovely sunrise. “Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.” And it came true when the snow started about 11 am!

Welcome to the world Sheldon Charles Avery! Born about 9:50 pm Jan 29, he weighed 9 lb 8 oz and was 23.5 inches long.

Since the birth was by cesarean section, there could just be 2 visitors at a time after he was born.

Here’s Laura, Sheldon and Phyllis, Laura’s mom. Phyllis and I were able to share the day with Laura as she labored.

This is my favorite!

Click here for the web page of the MO Electric Cooperatives report on the Ice Storm. We are in Southwest Electric Cooperative. You can read details of how they dealt with the storm damage in the “Outage Updates” links. Remember the outages listed here don’t count Empire Electric which covers most of the smaller cities (including Bolivar) and Springfield City Utilities which covers Springfield.

Click here to view some awesome photos of the ice.

Richard and I have been reading to each other from the book, “Call to Duty, the Sterling Nobility of Robert E. Lee” which we bought on our visit to Gettysburg. One passage is taken from a letter General Lee’s wife wrote to General Butler who had written to comfort her on “the untimely death” of her husband—

You speak of my husband’s “untimely death.” We must not deem that untimely which God ordains. He knows the best time to take us from this world; and can we question either his love or wisdom? How often are we taken from the evil to come. How much of care and sorrows are those spared who die young. Even the heathen considers such the favorites of the gods; and to the Christian what is death but a translation to eternal life. Pray that we may all live so that death will have no terrors for us.

I couldn’t help but compare what she said to our situation of loosing John at such a young age and find both tears and comfort.

Richard and I have had two brief opportunities to share in the joys of being out of electricity. Granted, not nearly to the depth as people who were here and not enjoying West Virginia weather like we were! Sunday night our power went out for about 1.5 hours. Luckily, we had finished cooking dinner and so quite enjoyed the candlelight dinner. Richard cleaned up and lit the kerosene lamps that are usually just decoration in the house (but which are full of kerosene and ready to go). We decided to go ahead and get the Coleman camping lantern out, and the power came back on just as Richard was lifting it from the box.

Last night the power went off again for a longer time. This time it went off before dinner was cooked, but it was also still light so we were able to collect needed items easily in the daylight and get all set. I was a little worried about dinner, but found that the frozen bag soup stuff cooked great on top of the wood heating stove, so we had a great hot meal without having to break out the camp stove. Richard and I have been reading to each other from a book on Robert E. Lee we bought at Gettysburg, and it was Richard’s turn to read. So, we didn’t even miss watching CSI (we can catch it on re-run).

Another good thing about the power going off before dark was that we knew the lights weren’t on and so they didn’t blast on when the power came back on waking us. We don’t even know just when during the night the power came on, though it was on when I woke at about 1:30 am. We sure did enjoy the morning shower and all that, and we appreciate only getting little doses of the power out effect.

I guess those who are just now getting their power back on will glower at our small time without power. Sorry! I hear on the news there are still quite a few people in SW Missouri without power from the storm exactly 2 weeks ago.

I enjoyed a walk and photo-taking event this morning.

Here’s our clothesline totally destroyed by the tire-swing tree limbs. Lucky we have a line on the back porch to get us by until we can build another clothesline. We do our part to cut down global warming by line-drying all clothes!

On the right you can see that the tire swing is quite intact, and the damage to this tree doesn’t even look that bad. However, from the other side (above) you can see lots more damage. I sure hope this tree survives as it’s a great shade to the house.