SkyWatch #43

Welcome! These SkyWatch scenes come to you from northeast Iowa, USA.

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Last evening, this was the view looking east as thunderstorm clouds were moving in from the west:

A few days ago, this dark pancake of a cloud settled over our farm in early evening. Though sporting a rather menacing look, it but brought neither storm or rain.

Finally, here are the twin spires of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Eldorado, Iowa. This photo was taken on Wednesday as my husband and I were driving past that tiny town. To see an interior shot of the church, go to this Flickr page.

Thank you for stopping by! Please visit the official SkyWatch website to find this week’s list of links to beautiful sky photos from around the world.

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Happy Odd Day!

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Today is "Odd Day":

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Read about it here.

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Be proud to be odd.

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Lawnmowing Can Wait

These flat Skechers are currently my most comfortable pair of shoes. (They were a clearance rack find.) Normally, flats are not my thing, but this pair is amazingly comfortable for some reason. I got the chance to wear them yesterday…..read on to find out why.

Yesterday morning, as I was scraping cow manure in the barn and morosely contemplating the lawnmowing job that needs tackling, Husband suddenly asked, “What’s on tap for your day?” Uh…..hmm……he rarely asks that question, so what is going on? He better not want me to do fieldwork because I HAVE A LAWN TO MOW, so I announced with flourish, “I need to mow the lawn.” He wasn’t fazed at all by that, and proceeded to say, “I feel like taking a drive.” I nearly dropped the scraper.

Actually, his plan was go to Fort Atkinson to buy parts for the haybine---the machine which cuts hay---so I tagged along because he said we could drive around for awhile afterwards. I threw together sandwiches and drinks to take along….plus the camera, of course…..and off we went. Drive-by shootings, here we come!

This blue-shingled barn looked quite fetching against the greening trees…..

I’m sure you all clearly recall my Fort Atkinson post, so I’ll not include photos from there, or from the nearby ruins of an old limestone church.

After Husband bought $600 worth of parts at the implement dealership in Fort Atkinson, we headed northeast out of town, thinking we’d end up in Spillville. A closed road sent us detouring in an easterly direction and soon we came to an intersection with Highway 52. I expected Husband to turn south to start meandering towards home, but to my surprise he steered the pickup north towards Decorah. I certainly didn’t care which way we went……the further from home, the better!

The scenery was a pleasant treat……that part of northeast Iowa is very rolling, much more hilly than our own home territory to the southwest.

As we traveled further north, billboard signs for businesses in Decorah began to appear, prompting Husband to suddenly say, “Why are we getting near to Decorah? I thought we were heading south.” I was stunned speechless for a moment (like most guys, my husband NEVER takes wrong turns) then found my voice and said, “Dearest, you turned NORTH at that intersection back there.” He shook his head saying, “I thought it was south.” Weird.

Quickly, I devised a plan to take advantage of the turn of events…..we could stop at Walmart in Decorah to pick up a couple grocery items and then head south on W-42. Husband was OK with that idea. Speaking of Walmart, practically every semi-trailer we saw today had “WAL-MART” printed on it, including this disabled one.

Husband snoozed in the pickup while I went into the store and grabbed Cheerios and a jug of orange juice. Then we continued our round-about journey towards home, with me now at the wheel.

A few miles southeast of Decorah we came upon the Washington Prairie Lutheran Church…..established by Norwegian settlers, I presume. Across the road from it was this quaint old limestone church building and I simply had to brake for some pictures.

Quite a story etched on the ball-topped gravestone……

Five children of A.K. and Julia Anderson---Rudolph (age 17), Florence (11), Adella (13), Helma (4), Anders (19)---died in 1886. Their epitaph states:

THEY ARE NOT LOST---BUT GONE BEFORE. These children may have been taken by diphtheria or some other disease. What a heartache that must have been. It would surely be a story too sad to tell. The parents’ epitaph reads:

OH, ‘TWILL BE SWEET TO MEET

ON THAT BLEST SHORE,

ALL SORROW PASSED ,

ALL PAINS FOREVER O’ER

I almost had the chills as on down the road we went. As we came over a hill, the perfect photo opportunity presented itself---a herd of Holstein cows grazing in a pasture in front of another old church! But, for some reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to reach for the camera. That scene will have to wait until another time.

Further on, we saw this old brick church building in the town of Ossian:

South of Ossian, we had to detour onto a gravel road for awhile and ended up spotting this silent old schoolhouse, guarded by a silo.

This final picture is a doozy! I realize my drive-by shots are often off-kilter, but these farm buildings appear to be rather lop-sided to begin with!

Needless to say, I did not get any lawnmowing done yesterday. Hopefully, today.

Thanks for all good wishes for my son’s “almost” pneumonia. He continues to cough, but has no fever anymore and feels generally improved. He did go to school yesterday, but not to track practice.

Enjoy your day!

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Corn Planted!

The guy who plants our corn showed up yesterday afternoon. See how he steers his tractor to follow the dark line etched in the soil by the arm which extends from the side of the planter. That’s the secret to creating straight corn rows!

With his 12-row planter it took about 5 hours to plant our 73 acres of corn. There must be a math story problem in there somewhere.

He finished right about sunset, as a bank of clouds was invading the sky from the west. Rain is in the forecast…..hopefully not the gullywasher type which would wreak havoc in newly-planted fields.

Though blue-and-green is my favorite color combination, purple-and-green runs a close second. Yeah, it surely is the season for violets right now. Though they display lovely, delicate flowers for a time……we should not be deceived…….they are actually very aggressive weeds.

My son has had a fever, aches, and coughing for a few days, so he saw the doctor yesterday morning. After my son described the course of his symptoms, the first thing the doctor asked was if he’d been out of the U.S. lately! It must have sounded like flu, and possibly the notorious H1N1.

It was determined that he has the next thing to pneumonia; the doctor prescribed an antibiotic and sent him home for the day, with instructions against track practice or meets for a few days. What does my son do then but send texts and a Facebook message to his friends saying, “I have pneumonia!” Nothing like stretching the truth in an attempt to fish for sympathy.

He studied and watched TV off and on all day, and coughed, coughed, coughed. Golly, that grated on my nerves after awhile. The doctor had advised him to stay well-hydrated, so I kept vigil over his water glass, filling it regularly and pestering him to keep drinking.

Other than the excitement of corn planting and having a child stay home from school, yesterday was my day to work on paying bills…..fun, fun. The encouraging thing is that milk prices apparently hit bottom in April and are just now beginning to inch up a bit.

My goal for this day is to bite the bullet and attempt to psyche myself up to mow the lawn for the first time. For some reason, I always dread that first mowing. Its like breaking a new trail or something, and then once the mowing begins it lasts until October. Hip-hip-hooray. Its becomes my main focus all summer long. Each mowing takes several hours, that’s what’s especially exciting about it. Of course, if the rain materializes today, it will provide a reprieve of one more day……and the grass will grow even shaggier!

Happy day to you!

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Pickin’ Up Rocks & Treasures

Its the time of year for picking up rocks where needed…..after fields are tilled and before row crops are planted.

My married daughter (from Des Moines area) was home over the weekend. Was she here because she missed seeing Pa and Ma? No……she needed rocks for a landscaping project. She couldn’t have chosen a better time because Husband’s work plans for the weekend included picking up rocks.

Residing permanently in the middle of one of our fields is this massive boulder. We believe large chunks of it were blasted away years ago to provide foundation stones for the original buildings on this farm. Several of those large blocks now reside in the landscaping near our house. I like to imagine that ancient people may have sat on this boulder and surveyed the adjacent low-lying area.

We believe this hole in the boulder was drilled for the placement of dynamite:

Daughter chose rocks to take home from the piles surrounding the large boulder. Then she went to the other end of the field and helped her dad pick up rocks in the areas of ground that had been disturbed last fall during the excavating done to dig in new strings of drainage tile.

Here’s some of Daughter’s choices…..they will look better once they’re cleaned with the power washer:

I decided to start working on the closest tile ditch. Much to my surprise, the first rocks I found were the two large flat ones shown in the next photo, each about two feet long and one foot wide. Honestly, I have never found rocks this shape before, and more odd yet was the fact that there were TWO of them right next to each other! As if God had stowed away a spare pair of tablets for The Ten Commandments, right here in the soil of our farm in Iowa! Sasquatch was curious about them, too, and proceeded to plop right down in the shade of the upright stone which promptly toppled over on her!

The less visible stone was embedded too tightly for me to dig it out. Husband had to do it.

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Since childhood, I’ve been involved in more annual rock-picking expeditions than I care to remember. When I was growing up, our “back forty---and it literally was a 40-acre field located at the back of the farm---produced a new crop of rocks every spring. We kids would glumly take our spot on the flat-bed trailer for the bone-jarring ride to the field. The thoughts going through my head then always included, “Maybe I will get lucky and find an arrowhead this time”…….but that never happened. Sigh. That hopeful wish still lives inside of me, however……and GUESS WHAT!! I may have found a Native American artifact on Saturday! Its not a projectile point, but I believe it could be a cutting tool or scraper. I spotted it not far from where the two flat rocks were. Its edges are VERY sharp (I could use it as a jack knife, for cutting baling twine, etc.) and one side appears to have been deliberately chipped.

We left piles of interesting rocks on the edge of the field to pick up later.

Eventually, the colorful rocks in the creek bed caught my attention, too, but I decided to come back another time to retrieve some of those…..if I can find a pair of boots that don’t have holes in them!

The trunk of Daughter’s car was well-weighted down by the time she left.

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Here’s two round stones I found a few years ago……down by the creek. They could be tools from the past (or prehistoric golf balls).

Here’s a link to a video about a cache of ancient tools that were dug up in Boulder, Colorado, during a landscaping project.

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[Related coincidence: On Sunday, the day after we picked up these rocks, our pastor's sermon text was Acts 4:11: This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.]

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Have a rockin’ good day yourself!

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Thrasher In The Maple

This will be my last mention of maple buds and blossoms……I promise…..I think. The problem is their delightful shade of green. Its irresistible! Someone else thinks so, too, and was melodiously singing about it yesterday morning high in the tiptop of a soft maple tree:

I believe this bird to be a Brown Thrasher, sometimes erroneously called a Brown Thrush, and nicknamed “The Mockingbird of the North”.

Read about it here and here.

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“However the world goes ill,

The thrushes still sing in it.”

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My Birds of Iowa Field Guide by Stan Tekiela states that Brown Thrashers are “prodigious songsters”. No kidding. Its song caught my attention as I was walking out to the field to pick up rocks, causing me to be delayed several minutes in getting started with that exhilarating task. Thank you, Thrasher!

The field guide also states “the male Brown Thrasher has the largest documented song repertoire of all North American birds, with over 1100 song types.” Quite impressive.....an iPod with wings! (And, yes, I’m well aware that the photos are not crystal clear……its the best I can do with the photographic equipment at my disposal.)

Here’s one of them bloomin’ maples again. The unfurling leaves look a bit like lobster pincers here:

Its a hard maple variety…..possibly a Norway Maple, but I could be wrong about that. Right now, a maple syrupy scent fills the air around this tree, too.

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Here’s how the buds look right now on another hard maple tree in our yard, next to an even different one which was transplanted as a seedling from my parents' farm thirty years ago. I should do a search to learn what these various hard maples' proper names are, but am too tired at the moment.

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Have a blessed Sunday!

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SkyWatch #42

This meadowlark welcomes you to our farm in northeast Iowa, USA!

The trees are becoming more green by the hour, it seems!

Blue, green, black, brown......the colors of spring on the farm:

We had several inches of rain on Sunday, causing the drainage ditch to run like a river!

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Thank you for stopping by! Please visit skyley.blogspot.com

to find the many other SkyWatch links for this week.

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Acedia & A Belgian Video

Lately, I've been reading books by Kathleen Norris.....first The Cloister Walk and now Dakota. I feel at home in these books and find the author's insights to be refreshing and original. Right now I'm searching for Norris' book, Acedia and Me, and am about to call the library to see if its available through the interlibrary loan system. Acedia is an ancient word---rarely used nowadays---roughly meaning, "spiritual listlessness/apathy". A bi-polar blogger has written a four-part review of the book......it can be found here, here, here and here. I'm sorry.....the subject interests me, that's all.

A Google search of "kathleen norris acedia" led me to another excellent post by a writer/blogger who heard Kathleen Norris speak at a workshop. Go here to read the post. There's a humorous description of midlife hidden in the post; watch for it! Also intriguing is "The Commonplace Book" idea. I have lots of similar notebooks filed away in desk drawers, but have never heard the term, "commonplace", before. If you have time, read the comments to the post; the one from "Jane" is right on target for me; I need to start "demolishing" piles of clutter in my own living quarters!

A more recent post on the above blog featured this video filmed in the train station in Antwerp, Belgium:

(Perhaps reader Regis was there!)

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Fred & Bessie Stay Informed

Fred and Bessie seem very happy to be back together again. Currently, they are riveted by news reports of the "Swine Flu", relieved the nasty bug is not called “Bovine Flu” and doesn't appear to infect cows.

Fred and Bessie are not surprised to learn that pork producers wish the news media would refer to the "Swine Flu" by a more accurate name---such as “Hybrid Flu”---seeing as the bug contains bird, human, and swine flu viruses. Last evening I was visiting with a farmer friend at a track meet and he told me that hog prices are falling because people think they can get the flu from eating pork. NOT TRUE! And, here is an interesting BBC article containing reports from people who are currently in Mexico.

I interrupted Fred and Bessie's session at the computer screen to inform them of what I had learned from listening to the NPR program, "On Point", yesterday morning in the barn. Influenza experts were fielding questions from around the world. I learned that the influenza virus originally developed long ago in the intestines of water birds. Over time, the bug passed to land birds like chickens and turkeys, which later became domesticated, with humans and swine eventually becoming susceptible to the flu virus. The current flu bug is a new combination---never before seen and for which no one has complete immunity---a mix of a bird virus, a human virus, a North American swine virus and a European swine virus. Some people MAY have partial immunities, however, from previous flu shots.

Sunshine is effective in killing flu viruses, the experts pointed out. Maybe we should pray for the sun to shine mightily in the weeks ahead to help eradicate the new bug. The experts said the flu will diminish during the summer---as flu usually does---but that this "Hybrid Flu" will most certainly return to action during next fall and winter's flu season. Hopefully, a vaccine will have been developed by then.

The major factor in the development and spread of this new flu virus is, of course, the mixing of people in public places and the crisscrossing of travelers around the globe. Lucky for me, my usual routine involves staying home most of the time, though I must remember to be more faithful about handwashing, especially during and after shopping and such.

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Well, I’ll be swizzled! Talk about a drastic change of subject! Fred and Bessie found an absorbing MSNBC article called, "The 10 Best Places to Kiss", about a subject near and dear to them.....smooching! Oh, why didn't I log off the MSNBC page sooner. Can you believe someone went to the trouble to write such an article (and--duh--then I go and blog about it) and got paid!!......not to mention how much at odds the kissing subject is with "social distancing", the proposed strategy for avoiding the flu.

If you must know, here are the ten amazingly original suggestions from the kissing article:

Readers are urged to try smooching.....On a roller coaster; On your desk; At a museum; In the middle of a crowded street; In a dressing room; On a pile of coats; Upside down; In the back seat; In a downpour; In bed, while one of you is asleep.

I 'spect you'll run right out and try some of these......Fred and Bessie told me they want to try "on a roller coaster". Too bad the amusement parks aren't open yet. Their next host will have to make arrangements for fulfilling that kissing fantasy!

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Have a great day! STAY WELL!!

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Questionable Award

Thanks, Kat. Thanks so very much. Just what I’ve been dying to blog about. Ahem. Kat challenged me to “get my sexy on”. Ok, sure, here goes……

Its amazing I can even bring myself to type out the word “sexy” here on my keyboard, because saying it out loud is…..well…..rather difficult. That would be due mostly to my proper Baptist upbringing, not to mention that I simply would never think of using the word "sexy" to describe myself. Many women probably have similar feelings about themselves. “Unsexy” would be much more like it, though a guy once told me I had “nice” ankles and a regal face……maybe that qualifies as slightly “sexy”…..probably not the regal face, however; “regal” misses the sexy mark, I’d say.

It seems that farmwife and “sexy” do not mix very well in the first place…..they’re like oil and water. Usually, I’m dressed in clothing appropriate for the barn and outdoor chores, walking, loafing…..jeans, t-shirt, sweatshirt, boots. If that’s sexy, I’ll eat my chore gloves! Make-up and I never managed to develop a workable relationship, either; at most I wear translucent face powder to counteract shiny skin. I tried eye make-up a few times in the past, but due to the habit of rubbing my eyes, I ended up with the living dead look from smeared mascara. Its just not worth it. Same with lipstick…..it looks messy and totally out-of-place on me. Ble-e-chh!

God bestowed an odd-shaped head on me, and wouldn’t you just think He could have been considerate enough to provide thick, full-bodied hair to disguise my goofy head, but, NO, my hair is baby-fine and wants to do nothing except lay boringly flat. I use thick mousse in hopes of persuading the stubborn hair to stand up and appear larger than life, but rarely to much avail. Maybe I should use Elmer's glue! Most Sundays I leave for church, doused in much hairspray and thinking my hair is somewhat erect, but when I return home afterwards and look in the mirror, the hair is forlornly deflated, and I think, “Egads…..is that how I looked to everyone?” And, don’t tell me to get a perm; I did that for years, and grew dreadfully tired of the frizzy look. Definitely unsexy! On the bright side: so far, my head possesses only a moderate amount of gray hair, and it remains easy to hide with home coloring kits.

Some people see sexiness in bare toes and feet…..not me, however. I am horrified at the no-hosiery trend which now grips the fashion world. I’ve been stockpiling a supply of my favorite nylons in case hosiery factories suddenly shut their doors for good. Do the fashion designers think all women have flawless calves and feet to display to the world? Good grief…..heredity and four pregnancies have left my legs and feet looking like road maps and I certainly can’t afford cosmetic surgery to remove the landmarks and etchings. In church, I see women MY AGE exposing bare feet in strappy sandals....ack….I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that. My toes and veiny foot-tops are given full-coverage. Sure, I wear sandals with casual outifts in the heat of summer, but certainly not with a skirt or good slacks.

Skimpy attire is not my thing, either. I honestly cannot recall the last time I wore my swimming suit. The kids are grown, meaning no more trips to the pool (thank goodness). Our neighbor woman is older than me and she wears a bikini top while mowing the lawn in the summertime. Yeah, my husband likes to shake his head and make choice comments about that. Maybe I should surprise him sometime and dress that way for lawn-mowing, too. Haha. No, I could never do that……the pastor would drive in for sure, that’s how my luck runs. Only once in my life….that’s right, ONLY ONCE....I walked out of my house with a tube-top on, and ended up having the most embarrassing experience of my entire life……on a quiet, normally-deserted country road, no less. The trauma rendered me unable to look a person in the eye for years and years and years, to my eventual regret, for I ignored someone I should have been paying attention to. Why I took it all so seriously is a profound mystery to me. The culture and my upbringing are major factors, plus my innate stupidity.

Let’s see…..what else its there to say on the subject? Hmm. Let's not even talk about my unsexy fat neck or the little grove of man-whiskers that poke out of my chin from time to time. Hmm. At night I wear flannel……in order to stay warm! Flannel’s not sexy, either, but it is cozy and comfortable. I can’t summon the the bravado to show cleavage…..many women and teenaged girls do, and if they don't overdo it, it looks OK on them, but I would feel sinfully guilty and like an immodest idiot doing such a thing. I worry people would think, "Well, what on earth is SHE trying to prove?!"

I’m looking around my house and don’t see anything that qualifies as sexy, either. Sheesh…..I can’t believe I’ve typed that word so many times in this post. Most likely, I’ve missed the whole point of the sexy blogger award, anyway. Kat’s post is much better…..go check it out!

If you are reading this and have a blog, consider yourself a recipient of this award. “Get your sexy on” or your "unsexy" on and blog about it. If I can do it, so can you!

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Bessie at the Conference

Bessie returned safe and sound---although quite exhausted---from the women’s conference. She forgot herself at first and asked me to be her bellhop, but I refused. She can carry her own suitcase, for goodness sake!

Bessie searched through the suitcase and finally found these photos from the conference. They were stuffed underneath some other mementos…..her namecard and placemat from the closing banquet. I never understand why folks save stuff like that, except as free souvenirs.

Shown in this next photo are the speakers from the first session, “Empowering Your Better Self”, all about being better, thinking better, choosing better, eating better, etc., etc. Somehow the panel discussion veered off onto the subject of finding better men to get involved with. Jasmine advised the audience to NEVER take up with a lad in the mood to take a girl riding on a flying carpet; she said it can be an absolutely hair-raising experience……much too stressful! Dredging up those memories was so upsetting that Jasmine had to excuse herself from the panel.

The auburn-haired Maid Marian offered to speak next. In no uncertain terms she urged all women present to never date a guy who wears tights and is named after a bird. Marian was in dire need of coverings for her bare legs, but Robin would not even consider offering his green tights to her. Robin and Marian got into a terrible tiff and Robin FLEW AWAY, tights and all, never to be seen in the hood again!

Pink-attired Prudence of the Prom was all smiles, though she had let her hair down and allowed her date the liberty of removing her hairpins and tousling her tresses, something she admitted to regretting the next morning. She advised women to “Stand by your hairdo!”

Olympic Barbie’s speech was all about staying in better shape and finding a fellow who is fit and trim. Her motto is: “Don’t settle for less!” What she actually meant was: “Don’t settle for too much!” And, she does have experience to back up those words……she formerly dated an Olympic weightlifter who specialized in the “snatch” and the “clean and jerk”. She admitted he was neat and clean, but he became a jerk in her eyes after he utilized the “snatch” move one too many times. She couldn’t take it any longer, so she cartwheeled to freedom one day when he wasn’t looking.

Poor Princess Pocahontas, of course, fell for an older, foreign chap. She even ended up risking her life to save his, but afterwards doubted whether her efforts were appreciated by him at all. Bessie said there was not a dry eye left in the auditorium by the time Pocahontas finished telling her moving tale.

Mermaid Lady brought this session to a close. Bessie was quite taken with her, wondering how on earth a mermaid gets things accomplished in this out-of-water world of ours. I urged Bessie not to ponder too long over that. Evidently, Mermaid Lady does rue the day when she dared to emerge from the sea. She advised women that its better to stay within their natural habitat.

After that first long session, Bessie said they took a dinner break, grazing over the conference center’s delicious salad smorgasbord. Her favorite dish was the wilted lettuce with alfalfa sprouts and corn nuts. After eating, there was still an hour of time to kill, so Bessie and the other women took a peek inside the attached gambling casino. Thank goodness for the fact that Bessie had no extra cash with her and that she has holes on her back instead of a slot.

After the break, there was an extra special guest speaker……a lovely young woman named Belle. So said Bessie, anyway. Belle had a most interesting story to tell, the moral of which is: Don’t judge a man by his looks. Belle somehow got involved with a beastly-looking guy who turned out to be a very nice person. He simply had an off-putting appearance. Belle said, “Give those beastly guys a chance!” Bessie wasn’t sure what to make of that advice, but she listened, anyway.

These next two ladies are the famous story-singing duo, “Ariel and Esmeralda”. Their lovely voices blended perfectly, Bessie said. They sang about their experiences with certain men in their lives……Ariel had escaped from a tyrannical father and Esmeralda had fallen in love with a hunchback. Bessie was spellbound by the atypical love story of Esmeralda and Quasimodo. It has opened up a whole new world of thought for her……in fact, the entire conference seems to have had that effect on Bessie. I am so happy about that. I expect Fred and Bessie’s relationship will benefit immensely.

Lastly, Bessie said she listened for a few minutes to this young single mother discuss the challenges of trying to raise a child all alone. Its doubtful that Bessie would ever find herself in a similar situation, given the strong magnetic relationship she has with Fred. He would be unable to leave her.

Whew……I’ll tell you what……I was about done in after listening to Bessie relay all this information about the conference. She was exhausted, too, and fell right to sleep next to Fred. Not a smooch to be seen. Thank goodness. Maybe Bessie has learned to set a high standard for herself rather than simply caving in all the time to being Fred’s smooching partner. Let’s hope so.

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Have a wonderful day! Aspire to all things BETTER!

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