When the Rooster Crows

Today started very early. Around 5:00a.m early. That might not seem early to many of you but for me that is an early start. Why so early? Today was the day that my mom was being honored by the Red Cross for her community involvement. It was downtown at the Marriott. A breakfast and ceremony. It was great. It takes along time to get downtown from my house and with all the freeway work being done I wanted to make sure I could be on time. Well I heard on the radio that there was a traffic jam on the MILK exit so I decided to take grand Ave. to downtown. Well I forgot that when you get downtown that grand is a one way street going east so you automatically end up on locust. This great revelation did not occur to me until after the breakfast and I was looking for the parking garage where my car was parked. I digress. Sorry. The Red Cross breakfast was called Heroes of the Heartland. The heroes received an award and while they were being presented with the award a 3 minute video was playing of them talking about what they did to receive the award. It was really very interesting to see the different things that people did. None of them did it to be honored. In fact all seemed to think that they where just ordinary people who were doing something that they felt they could do to help other people.
And they were just ordinary people doing just that. None of there projects were huge things making the headlines of the paper and bringing in millions of dollars. They were good neighbors, people using there gifts to make other people feel like they matter. It was inspiring. So back to the parking garage. After the breakfast I thought I knew the direction of the garage. I didn't bring the ticket from parking with me I left it in the car in the garage. So I started out in the skywalk I walked quite a ways but realized I didn't even know the name of the garage. So I went down to the street and walked and walked and finally found the entrance to the ramp. Only it was the entrance for cars only. So I walked on around the building thinking that there would be a door. Wrong, just another ramp. So I went back to the first ramp and asked the man who takes your money how I could get to my car.
Well he said to go into this building next door and not to take the escalator but to go clear around to the left and take the elevators to my floor.
At last directions from someone who should know. I followed his directions exactly and walla....there was the elevator to take me to the floor my car was on. But standing there I had a horrible feeling that I had been at this very spot before. But it was not just a feeling. It was true. I had been right at that very spot on my skywalk tour. I was so frustrated. I was late picking up Mackenzie and I felt ridiculous. I didn't know this was the right spot because I left the ramp a different way. Not only I had I been at this spot before but the Marriott was just down the walk way and to the right. I had walked forever earlier trying to find the Marriott.
I finally made it out of downtown and got on the freeway. I made my way out to Sara's office and picked up Kinzie. We went home to pick up the boys and turn right around to leave again.
We grabbed both of the dogs and headed to the groomers in Waukee. Duke need a professional cut in places that I just can't do. So we left him there and we were off to our next stop.
Conner has been haveing trouble with his eyes not being able to see far away. He had an eye appointment and found out that he did need glasses. We were not surprised. Continual squinting is a dead give away.
After that we did some shopping for glasses and then we had to hurrry out to make sure we picked up Duke in time and off for home we went for the second time today.
I gave Conner instructions for making dinner and I left again(time #3) to meet Larry at the funeral home for Terry P. dad. We saw some others from church and Terry's son Jonathan who we had not seen for awhile and caught up with him.
Finally we returned home for the 3rd time today and we stayed. Conner had dinner and Brendon had picked up the living room. Ahhhh. Home Sweet Home. It is good to be here.

Please pass me the kleenex

Sorry that I haven't posted very much this week. On Sunday night I started to come down with a cold and by Monday it was in full bloom. This was a humdinger of a cold but today I am feeling a little better and I think I am on my way to recovery. I
really hate colds. But thinking about that I would rather have a cold than the stomach flu. Anything but the stomach flu. Tonight is church. I really would not want to miss church tonight as Pastor is continuing his series on the Holy Spirit. I am looking forward to that and I usually feel better after I have gone to church.
tomorrow is going to be a busy day with my Moms award breakfast and Conner's eye appointment. We are going to a funeral visitation tomorrow night. But on Friday I will be posting again.

What am I doing here on a Sunday?

How did I end up here, posting on a Sunday. I was just looking at some railing for our house and found myself looking at blogs and went to post. I have started to find this almost relaxing. In some strange way looking forward to putting my thoughts down here. How weird is that!
Friday was a very relaxed day for us. Usually I have millions of errands to run on Friday afternoon. This Friday only several hundred.
Really I didn't care if I accomplished them all there was not any real rush jobs to do so I concentrated on groceries and that was all. Brendon had a party to go to so we needed to be home by 3:30. We did our usual route, Costco and Fareway with side of Kolhs thrown in. My Mom thought they were having a good sale so I went to check it out. Its weird because lately I go shopping and look at things and think to myself, I can live without this. Even if its a great deal. I can live without this. However a couple of weeks ago that is no what I said at Younkers in there shoe department. But to be fair with myself I have been looking for shoes and I found some at a great price so I grabbed them.
I hadn't been to Costco for awhile so it was load up time. They have good pizza at there little food dealie. Its not expensive and the pieces are huge. Brendon had not had lunch so he grabbed a slice. He always has his cut in half so he can eat it easier. He ended up eating it in the car because we were trying to keep on schedule . As we were pulling off of the freeway on an exit ramp we saw a homeless man standing on the side of the ramp holding a sign that said "cold,hungry,help a homeless man." Just before we saw him Brendon had said that he had eaten only half of the pizza and was stuffed. Then when he read the sign he said "I wonder if he would like the rest of my pizza." So we rolled down our window and offered him the pizza. He was very gracious and seemed thankful.
I watched Brendon. It seemed to me like this was for him an everyday occurrence. Just roll down the window and give what you've got.
Maybe its because he is a kid. Without any preconceived ideas. He sees a sign, thinks I can help with that and does it.
Maybe it is because of Richard. Richard was a homeless man that we meet through my Moms ministry, Hands of Help.
Mom meet Richard one day when she was doing some work at the warehouse where she had Hands of Help located. She looked outside and saw two men looking through the dumpster. She asked them if there was anything she could do to help them. She offered to let them come inside and look through the clothing to see if there was anything they could use. It was beginning to get cold outside and the ministry had coats and gloves, hats you know winter stuff. They did and Mom began to talk with them. She found out they lived down by the river in a little camp that they had set up. One of these men was Richard. Richard would walk around downtown quite a bit so he would stop in to the warehouse to see mom and say Hi. They developed quite a friendship and have it to this day. Richard has since moved to Omaha were he has some family and has begun to renew family relationships that were once torn and hurt. Our boys meet Richard on several occasions and really liked him. They got to know a lot about his lifestyle and how he got in that spot. He became someone that they considered a friend. In fact if we went to the warehouse and he was not around they were disappointed.
Brendon was not afraid to reach out because he was familiar with the homeless. To him this was another Richard. How incredible is my Mom. During the summer different people would give her hams etc and she would take them and have them shaved into sandwich meat. She would then take the meat, put it in individual servings and freeze it. Then during the week she would take bread, meat and other things down to the guys(we called them her river guys)so they could have sandwiches. Then during the winter she would make sure they had something hot to eat at least once a week. There was so much more. She found them blankets and tarps to keep warm, someone gave her firewood for them to use during the winter and pans to cook with on the fire. She would wash his clothes for him so he could go on job interviews and take him to McDonalds when he was craving a chocolate shake and fish sandwich.
You know what Richard said in a recent letter to my Mom? He said that through her friendship he learned that God did love him and cared about him. He said that it meant so much to him that Mom didn't judge him.
Through all of this rambling I just realized what I saw in Brendon that day.
He didn't judge that man on the side of the road.

Maybe I can learn something from an 11 yr. old after all.

Just "B"

Just B

Hey I just read a comment left on Mariahs blog by Mrs. Edgey. She called me just B. I think I like that. I think I will use that as my new way of signing off.
Thanks Kim