A soldier I will never forget

While shopping at the local Walmart this past Friday the 13th, I met a very special young man I will never forget. He was wearing United States Airforce fatigues and I walked up to him and said thank you for protecting us. His response, which took me completely off guard, was “No ma'am, thank you. It's my pleasure.” I walked away without saying a word because I did not want him to see the tears forming in my eyes.

We are so lucky to have soldiers like this young man protecting us and our country. They are thrust into harms way all the time, faced with horrific attacks and combat situations in far off countries of which the inhabitants are so quick to spit in their faces and condemn their presence. If captured, they are tortured and brutalized in ways that are only shown in horror movies. And our soldiers are not only at risk in other countries. They are also vulnerable here at home. This was proven at Fort Hood where the enemy was walking amongst them. Yet here is this young man that despite all the risks he is faced with utters “it's my pleasure”.

I encourage all who is reading to take just a moment of your time to thank our service men and women whenever you can. I do not know the name of the young man I met or where he comes from, but I will never forget him. We are blessed to have these protectors serving us and I pray for each one's health and safe return home. I hope all of you will do the same.

Big Valley

I have been hearing about a remake of the Big Valley TV series for the big screen. I cannot believe that the producers are attempting to cast new actors to take the place of the originals. They cannot find any actor out there that will replace any of them especially Peter Breck as Nick Barkely. I cannot think of any actor out there who could be Nick except Peter. I believe that the only way this movie could be a success at all is to have a prequel or a sequel with flash backs using the original actors from the original series. This is the only way most of us Big Valley fans, or this Peter Breck fan, will spend money to see such a movie. I think they should leave the Big Valley alone.

Men who watch animals fight are wimps

Has anyone wondered about the men who bet on the dog fights, cock fights and now bird fights(little saffron finches and canaries). I believe these same men are a bunch of wimps who are afraid to be in a fight themselves so pick on animals, birds and anything or any person smaller than them to feel like a man.

RETIREMENT

This is all very new to me. I worked on computers for 25 years and never knew how much information there was on these things till my daughter got me going on Google. We were watching what I call the cowboy hell station, Encore Western. Big Valley was on and I mentioned that Nick was my favorite actor then, my daughter told me to Google his name and find out more about him, I was very happy to find out that he was still alive, after my husband told me he wasn't. I found he had his own web site, so that was really cool. Now I spend a lot of time looking stuff up on the computer something I never would of done while working because I hated looking at a computer after working on one all day. Then my daughter told me about Blogging, so here I am.

I retired in June of 2008, that was the best thing of the year. Other than that 2008 was a living nightmare. My best friend passed away in April, my Mother in May and and my uncle that came over for coffee every morning at 7:15am passed away in October. I guess everyone has to have one of those years. Retirement is a time where you have to get use to being with your husband more, and that is a challenge sometimes.

He retired three years ahead of me and was really retired until I retired, you know how women find a lot of things to be done, not saying he always does things, but promises he will so I will be quiet. What I enjoy the most is watching my extended family granddaughter. She is six and the most beautiful and smartest little girl in the world.

My extended family consists of mother, father, two teenage boys, and little girl. How they came about is because my two kids would rather be home with me and not produce, so I adopted their best friend, not really, had a great big party to welcome them into our family so I could have grand kids. My son and daughter are great kids all kidding aside, they both work, and contribute to the household, and pay rent. I never had a big problem with them even growing up, very lucky Mom. My extended family even spoils me. When we go camping my son does all
the cooking and my daughter-in-law makes all the drinks, which are very powerful.

The world around us is not that great, I believe we just have to hang in there, be positive and things will get better. I really feel sorry for all the people out of work and losing their houses.