Sunshiny Day Finally!

Bob and I are going to Joplin this morning so I am leaving soon but want to post this interesting analysis. I have been reading a book by Marcus Borg and he has some interesting comments I found helpful. This is another way of looking at the gospels as well as the stories we were often taught as children about Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.

Precritical naivete:: A childlike acceptance of metaphorical narratives such as Santa Claus and the tooth fairy as “true”.

(the next stage happens naturally and automatically as we mature and grow up.)

Critical thinking: a stage involving evaluating things we believe and were taught in childhood.

Postcritical naivete: the ability to hear the central stories of childhood as metaphorically “true” again. One knows the stories may not be historically factual but one also knows that their truth does not depend upon their historical factuality. This is sometimes known as “narrative theology”.

Postcritical naivete provides a way of hearing the gospel stories of Jesus as deeply true. The gospels and the Bible generally are full of stories whose truth is known in Christian experience.

As a Native American storyteller once said, “I don’t know if it actually happened this way or not, but I know this story is true”.

Bob and I went to Joplin this afternoon. We walked the mall and then went to Olive Garden for lunch. We had a good lunch there of salad and soup. I had my favorite, Zoopa Toscana. We got home about 4:45 and he evidently took a nap. I got the Reader's Digest and read it and then took it over to him. He had fallen asleep while watching TV.

Tomorrow we will go to church.

Friday Hair Appointment Day Again

This morning I will drive back up to Independence in about a half hour and get my hair done again. In this weather, my bangs just curl up like sausages and my head itches.

I don't exactly know what we will do for lunch. I imagine I will thaw some chicken and fix that with some potatoes and gravy and veggies. I have set the chicken down from the freezer.

I am very bored. Why, I don't know. I met Gay for lunch yesterday. I think it is the rain. Today I will go to exercise class after I get home from Independence and maybe go to Utopia for coffee after that. Who knows? Anyhow, I am sick of the rain.

More later...

I got ready to leave for Independence and Bob came over and offered to drive me there. He was afraid I would run into flooding or deer or some other catastrophe in the dark. I relented and let him. I was glad for the company too. The roads were open and tenth street road (the closest way) was open too. We took it coming back.

Thursday Lunch?

I'm supposed to have lunch with Gay at 11:30 in Cherryvale but right now it's pouring down torrential rain. There's lots of thunder and lightning. We have been under a flood watch lately and today just might be the day.

I went to the senior center yesterday afternoon and we played Skipbo. I had never played it before but it was fun. I played with Maxine, Connie and Marilyn. Connie and Marilyn are my neighbors here in the fourplex. I rode into town with them. The bank that sponsors these games provided root beer floats for dessert. I did not eat my usual smoothie after that large root beer float.

I saw Keith, a boyfriend from my youth, at the games. I barely recognized him. He would be about 84 now and has changed quite a bit with age. (Haven't we all?) I have seen him from time to time around town but not for quite awhile.

I didn't get a nap yesterday so I went to bed fairly early. I woke up several times for a trip to the bathroom. Finally I got up shortly before 5:00. There was absolutely nothing on TV worth watching. TV is worthless except for PBS. It's a good thing my landlord pays for it.

I did a couple of loads of laundry yesterday and changed my bed. I washed the sheets and am now washing Missy's throw. She lays in the recliner and gets hair all over it. I wash it at least once a week. It does keep the bulk of the cat hair off the recliner though.

I did go meet Gay for lunch. It was fun. We caught up on a lot of news. We had not met since before reunion (church camp). Scott called during lunch and I had a short visit with him then.

Now I will go watch some TV and hope to get a short nap.

I did get a short nap. I must have needed it. Bob came over after that and told me he mad managed to mess up his new notebook and could not get online. He brought it over and I got it working for him again. I don't know what the problem was. I never did figure that out. He does get a weak signal over there. He is using my router signal. He wil be over later this evening and we will watch the John Denver Concert from his Japan trip. I sure miss John Denver. I have several of his CDs that I play in the Bose system.

Wednesday exercises

It's Wednesday again. How time flies! Later this morning at 9:00 we will go to exercises. But before we leave I will put my roast on to cook. By the time we get back, it should be done. I will put potatoes, onions and carrots in on it too. I still have cottage cheese so we will have some more of that too. I will make some pudding to go with our cookies for dessert.

Bob came over last evening to watch the news with me. After that he went home to watch his TV. He gets more channels then I do. I took my bath and watched an old movie on TV while I played solitaire with my laptop. About 9:00 or after, I went to bed. I did take an Aleve though.

My arms have been aching some again. I have just been putting up with it since it's been much better but last night I wanted a better night's sleep so I took an Aleve. I will ask the pharmacist for the paperwork with my new blood pressure med. It may have kicked in and started the arms aching again. It's a mystery.

It rained again last night. The river is full and out of it's banks. We have flood warnings out.

Tomorrow I will go to Cherryvale to meet Gay for lunch. I don't know whether Bob will go or not. Tony will not be coming. Bob can certainly go if he wants to. But we will have leftover roast and he can also just have that. I will ask him later.

Tuesday Hair Day

This is the day I get my hair colored and cut. It really is all out of shape. With all the humidity, it's been a mess too. It rained again last night and we have been warned of flooding. Bob is going to get a haircut too so he will go with me and we will leave early to be sure we can get through. We are also going to go the Tyro way to get there. It's ten miles out of our way but there is no place where we would run onto flooding that way. After our appointments, we will eat at Big Cheese.

I watched "The Civil War" by Ken Burns on PBS last night. There was nothing else decent on even though I had already seen it. Then this morning at 4:15 someone called me on a wrong number. Why anyone would want to call someone at 4:15 is beyond me. I did get back to sleep though. I slept until 5:05.

Bob and I will look at a notebook at Wal Mart in Independence this morning after lunch. He is thinking about getting online again. He only likes to surf the net and do e-mail and is not interested in doing anything with Microsoft Office. I think a notebook would serve that need and they are cheaper.

More later...

Bob and I did go to Independence for our hair appointments but before we did that we went to Wal Mart and he bought a Notebook PC from Wal Mart there. When we finished lunch at Big Cheese we came home and I configured it for him. It was very simple. It actually almost configured itself. I might like Windows 8 after all. When this laptop dies, I may buy one with Windows 8 after all.

Computer Problems

The laptop computer is having a little problem this morning. I've rebooted a couple of times and run a utility and everything is working fine except Quicken. It won't open. I use it to back up my checkbook. I hope I don't have to remove the program and reinstall it. I would lose everything. It's been too large to backup on a thumb drive so I've just backed it up on my D drive. Maybe I can access it from there. I've defragged and done about everything I know to do. I'm running AVAST now.

I got up at 5:00 this morning. I had my coffee and went outside and Missy came out too. She and I stayed out long enough to see that there were no foxes and I drank my coffee and so I came back in to work on the laptop.

In about an hour Bob and I will leave for exercise class. He always drives.

More later....

We did go to our exercise class and later when I got home, I fixed the porcupine meatballs. They turned out very well. We also had our corn. It too was good. I fixed some fruit for dessert and we ate it with cookies.

I worked on my computer and got it working well again. I have Avast on this computer and it does a good job. Also I have a free program recommended by PC World magazine. It is called Glary Utilities. It is a very good utility that dolves a lot of problems.

This afternoon I also took a short nap. The noise from my landlord's mower woke me. He is back to mowing twice a week again. Last week the lawn got very high before they finally got it mowed. They had been mowing out at their ranch.

This evening I will watch TV if I can find anything to watch. We are also under a flood warning. It seems odd to have a flood warning in August. This has been a very strange summer. I'll bet we will have a terrible winter.

Another Rainy Sunday

I am thoroughly tired of rain. The only good thing about it is it tends to cool us down at least temporarily. When the sun does come out though, it is steamy. Today, I will go to church and afterward probably eat somewhere with the group. Then I don't have a plan. I went out to John and Leslie's yesterday afternoon and got some ground beef from them. Tomorrow I will fix porcupine meatballs for lunch. She also gave me some more roasting ears and we will have them too.

Missy, my cat, wanted to come out on the carport with me this morning. She is not entirely happy with the rain but still it's a welcome relief from staying in the apartment all the time. Usually she eats some grass but the grass is wet so she is foregoing that.

I read my Sunday Reporter this morning and when the rain abated awhile ago, I took it over to Bob. Then he takes it to church for my son-in-law to read.

After I get back from the dinner, I will do my weekly letters. Then perhaps I will get a nap.

More later....

Well I got a nap and watched a little TV before going to bed at 9:00.