A Message of Hope by Bonnie Le Hamilton

This too will pass.

Every bad time is followed by a good-times. This bad time will pass. We just have to have the faith of Little Orphan Annie.

I always loved “The Sun Will Come out Tomorrow” it’s a great song, but might I point out that the original story was set during the depression? The sun did come out. Look at all the economic growth we’ve had since then!

Bad times do lead to good times, it will happen. Have faith.

And think about it, having to stay home to avoid a deadly virus isn’t as bad as say living in a war-torn country, or a natural disaster.

I say everyone needs to calm down. There is no need to panic if we follow the rules set down. Stay home if you can, keep your distance when you do have to go out, and please, the stores haven’t closed! So, think about the needs of the next person to enter the store, and only take what you need. Leave some for the rest of us.

I do understand that some of you are not used to staying home all day, every day. Frankly, of late I hadn’t been staying home a whole lot. But for me, I’m kind of enjoying getting to stay home.

Hey, I’m a writer. I suddenly have a lot of time to write, read, and do crafts! This is great. And I certainly don’t mind being alone.

I feel sorry for Konnie who has to deal with a high-risk husband who is an extrovert, they are having trouble keeping him home.

Actually, introverts of the world are having a gay old time, unless they have to deal with extroverts stuck with them.

Sorry, Konnie, but you picked him.

If Tom were still alive, he’d probably high tail it for the mountains! If he had heard social distancing, he’d have packed all his camping gear and went out to the mountains. I promise, he wouldn’t have stayed home, but he also would have avoided contact with other people more so than most.

Actually, I’m surprised that the outdoorsy types having considered this route. Then again, if everyone did that, it might be hard to find room in the great outdoors. Just saying.

And then there are the people who can’t go camping for health reasons.

For the last several years of Tom’s life, he was going camping alone. There was no way I could go because I needed my oxygen. Back then I was on it full time. And even now I still need it at night.

Anyway, it is possible to find the silver lining even during the hard times.

All we need to do is keep our faith, and look for the good in life.

Like the good Samaritan who overheard my sister-in-law say that she’d have to put the chicken back because she didn’t have enough money, and this wonderful lady paid for ALL her groceries, not just the part she couldn’t afford.

There are good people out there, there is sunshine in the world.

Keep your chin up.

And for all of you have some faith in prayer and God, our church is having a world-wide fast and prayer on Good Friday (this Friday) to control this pandemic, protect the caregivers, strengthen the economy, and normalize our lives. 

A fast is generally to go without two meals, this means, nothing to eat after dinner on Thursday, until dinner on Friday, 24 hours. That is how we normally do it in our Church, but of course, some of us can’t go without food, we need to eat to take our meds, and or to regulate our blood sugar, or because we have a baby to feed. Any pregnant or nursing mother shouldn’t fast either.

For all such people, like Konnie and I, give up something else for those 24 hours, and during that time read your scriptures and pray.

The president of our church issued an invitation to the entire world, not just to members of our church this past weekend, so please join us! All are welcome. We need everyone to pray.

And remember – The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow!

Anyway, that’s all I have to say this week.

I hope you all join us in this fast.

I for one am giving up social media and TV for those 24 hours. What will you give up? Will you even join us? I know some people don’t believe in God, and I’m certainly not asking you to believe, please don’t be rude to those of us who do.

Happy writing everyone!   

Of Mice and Early Morning Surprises by Konnie Enos

I stepped on a mouse.

Not something I thought I’d ever experienced, but there you have it.

If you’ve ever lived in the middle of a grain field, you know that you have a good chance of getting mice in your house. You are going to see them running through your kitchen when you turn on the lights first thing in the morning. You’re going to find them hiding in your laundry hamper. And yes, you just might step on one. Of course, this is most likely to happen if you stumbling around in the dark half asleep trying to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night without waking anybody up.

Yes, I’ve lived in the middle of a grain field. I can also remember a blood-curdling scream waking me up early one morning, all because our stepmother had inadvertently stepped on a hapless mouse in the dark. (Funny thing is she never repeated that unfortunate experience when we later moved into the house in the middle of grain fields.)

I, fortunately, felt his existence before I put any of my weight on it, unlike my stepmother’s experience so many years ago. I’m sure I would have panicked if I’d felt a mouse squished to death under my barefoot.

I’ve also seen her jumping on to chairs because one was spotted somewhere in our house.

I, however, have never once come close to a scurrying rodent and, since I now live in a large city, had not anticipated ever having the experience myself. But the fact remains while stumbling to my bathroom in the middle of the night, without my glasses on, hence not being able to see, I inadvertently stepped on one.

For me feeling something far too soft to be our bathroom floor come in contact with my foot, I immediately pulled back. I also made an effort to see what was on the floor.

Not easy when your whole world is blurry. (Note, the lack of glasses.)

While I could not make out the things long tail, I could see its general shape and color. Plenty of information to discern what I had stepped on.

From there I was able to figure out how that hapless mouse got in my bathroom, not to mention on the floor in front of my bathroom sink. Not that it was difficult.

I fully pin the existence of a mouse in my bathroom on Tiger, our cat.

You would think a middle-aged cat, who is terrified of leaving the house for any reason would not be finding the time or energy to be chasing mice, but the evidence was there. Not far from the inert mouse, you can see a small blue ball with a bell in it. There is even a small bar, hanging where Tiger can get at, with a dangling string and another bell at the end. So there is plenty of evidence to say Tiger still likes to play. Therefore, I can certainly blame him for my close encounter with a mouse.

As I write this, the mouse is still somewhere in my bathroom. On one or two occasions I’ve seen it get as far as the hallway by our laundry area, but for the most part, said mouse and Tiger’s other toys manage to stay in the area of the bathroom.

One would assume from this that Tiger isn’t energetic when it comes to dealing with his toys. However, I have to say I never seen Tiger playing with any of them. Although, as I’ve said I have caught his mouse in the hallway. I’ve even found his ball in my bedroom. One must assume he does play with his toys, though when no one is looking.

I will, of course, have to tell my daughter, Tiger’s Mom, about my close encounter with his mouse. Though I’m assuming she’ll just laugh about it.

I’m telling you that little soft, round, blue body with orange ears and long orange tail sure gave me a start.

Yes, I’m talking about a tiny cat toy.

Now that you’ve had a good laugh for the day, have a great April First!

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Totally Chill by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Okay, I don’t understand why so many people have panicked. The stores didn’t say they were going to close for any time at all, let alone an indefinite amount of time. They have instituted special hours, but I haven’t heard of a single store closing indefinitely.

And I honestly thought I’d seen panic when I lived in Virginia.

Our first winter there, we had a good laugh while people panicked when the weatherman only predicted about a couple of inches.

I did go the store during this panic, it was time for my regular shopping trip. One woman saw how little I had in my cart and frowned at me. “Are you sure that’s going to get you through until the stores open again? Lord only knows how long we’ll be snowed in.”

“Lady, as warm as it is, if it lays, I’d be surprised,” I said and walked away.

Another time I was in Navy Exchange food court when I noticed teeny tiny flakes falling and melting into the planting bed outside the window. I mean it was melting, so no problem. Seconds later, a chair went crashing to the floor as another customer noticed and jumped to his feet announcing that it was snowing.

Within seconds I was the only customer in the place.

One of the employees approached me asking me why I wasn’t leaving yet.

I glanced out at the gridlock in the parking lot then glanced at my watch before facing her and saying, “The roads will be clear in about twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes was how long it took me to drive from the base to my house, so I figured if those people who panicked were twenty minutes ahead of me, I’d be fine.

I was.

The funniest incident was the year we went to the circus. Two years prior, a skiff was predicted for opening night – we got more like two inches. The next year, a couple of inches was predicted – we got more like six inches and everyone had to stay in the Scope until the plows could come through.

We had tickets for opening night, and a blizzard was forecast.

I insisted we go early, so we’d be able to get a spot in the limited underground parking, so we wouldn't have to traipse through the snow leaving.

As we got out of our car, I noticed a lot of people with sleeping bags, pillows, and coolers stuffed in their vehicles, and as we got in line, we found everyone discussing what preparations they’d made for getting stuck there overnight.

They looked at us, a young couple with an infant, and asked my husband what he’d brought just in case.

His response?

“My Idaho driver’s license.”

Enough said.

That night we got a skiff. Just enough to make it a little slick driving up out of the underground garage. But no problem, three or four employees of the garage were at the exit to manually push the cars up to the road. In front of us was a Jeep. We waited for it to be pushed out, then before the guys could get behind our little wagon, Tom drove out of the garage.

I looked back to see the stunned expression on those workers’ faces. And we might have laughed all the way home, but Tom was too busy doing all he could to avoid all other drivers who were fishtailing all over the road.

They didn’t know how to handle the snow.

Now I suppose some of you are thinking that I might have panicked if a hurricane came by Norfolk while I lived there because after all, I am from Idaho.

Well, guess what, I endured both Hugo and Andrew. The only time I panicked was the first time, and that was because I didn’t know how to protect our windows. And yes, I had to run to the store of supplies, once I knew what I needed for the windows, but I didn’t need things like batteries or bottled water or even groceries.

I married an Eagle Scout. “Be prepared” is their motto. Let alone that we’re LDS and we’re supposed to have a year’s supply. Ergo the only thing I didn’t have was what I hadn’t known I’d be needing.

And aside from Tom being an Eagle Scout, our church has a scripture that reads, “If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.”

We also have a scripture that says everything The Lord says is both temporal and spiritual. So, the above scripture means if we are prepared both spiritually and temporally, we shall not fear, because we’ll have no reason to fear.

Ergo, even though I’m at high risk, I’m totally chill enjoying a few days of being able to stay home and write.

Happy writing everyone!

Of Celebrations and Milestones by Konnie Enos

As humans, we make a habit of celebrating events and milestones in our lives, from a baby’s birth, through their first tooth and on through graduations, marriage, etc. As the years pile on, we celebrate those. Some more than others.

I’ve personally celebrated numerous events and milestones in my lifetime. Milestones like graduating high school or getting my associate’s degree in both arts and science. Events like birthdays, marriages, baptisms, and anniversaries. I even remember the momentous occasion of celebrating our nation’s 200^th birthday. Thanks to when our birthday is, we also celebrated our 14^th birthday that weekend.

I’ve celebrated my silver wedding anniversary with all my children around me. (This was a few years ago before any of them were married, or had boy/girlfriends.)

You can celebrate triumphs (like graduating), or remember anniversaries, some happy (marriage) and others not so much (9-11).

We celebrate and remember a number of events in our lives. People say for every day of the year someone, somewhere, is celebrating or remembering some event.

If you look at holidays, I think August is the only month of the year (in America) where there isn’t some sort of holiday unless you add in Jewish holidays. Some months have more than one.

Some people celebrate being “over the hill”. I can remember throwing such a party for our mother when she was 30. When we hit 30, they’d moved that mark to 40. With more people living longer, I expect them to eventually move it to 50.

Wedding anniversaries are always celebrated. When I was younger, people noted the first anniversary than paid little attention until they made their silver and golden anniversaries (25 and 50 years). Today radio host Delilah will sing a special ‘anniversary’ song to anyone who calls requesting a dedication for 10 or more years of marriage. You see newspaper articles about couples who’ve made 50 years of marriage. They should do one on my aunt and uncle who’ve been married at least 60 years now. (Apparently, today it’s far more common to fall short of 10 years of marriage than it is to exceed it.) My husband and I will be celebrating 30 years in November.

But by far the most common celebration for each day of the year is someone’s birthday. People produce lists, even books, about famous people “born on this day”.  Families make videos of a child’s first birthday. (I did once but I never had a camera to do so with my other children.) They do videos to celebrate learning the gender of their unborn child. Videos of multiple life events are all over social media.

Bearing in mind just how many people could have a birthday on any given day, not long ago my son told me he’d met someone born on the same day I was. I pondered that for a minute. To the best of my knowledge, I have met exactly one other person, in my entire life, who has the same day of birth that I do. Bonnie. I’ve met dozens of people born that week, either before or after my birthday, but none born on that day. All things considered a rather amazing thing.

Of course, when it comes right down to it, nobody thinks about or remembers dates/events with no meaning to them.

We remember the bicentennial because it was such a huge celebration, but we find it hard to remember exact events from all the other July 4’s we’ve celebrated. I can remember events from the Christmas I was ten, but others are harder to distinguish.

Few people old enough to remember that day can’t remember exactly what they were doing when they heard on 9-11-2001. Just like those old enough to remember JFK’s assassination or the attack on Pearl Harbor.

We etch the biggest events in our memory forever.

 We all have such days, both big and little. The monumental ones whole nations can’t forget and the little ones that only mean something to you or your family.

So today, I’m asking you to ponder tomorrow.

Does March 19 bear any significance in your life or is it just another Thursday?

Personally, I shall always remember March 19 as the day I finally became a grandmother to my beautiful, precious, and very gorgeous first grandchild. My darling Emma May Plagmann who is one year old tomorrow. Grandma love’s Emma.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Patches by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Sometimes writing is hard, it’s even harder when there’s someone in your life begging for attention. You have stuff you need to get done, but try telling that to a cat. All Patches knows is that he wants attention.

Have you ever tried to move around a small apartment with a cat scampering around your feet, yowling for his breakfast? Here is how that generally goes:

Patches yowling and moving in my way.

“Yeah, I know what you want, now get out of my way so I get it.”

I push Patches out of the way and open the tin where his food is. He gets in the way again. I gently move him aside with my arm, but still manage to spill a little, can’t be helped, since Patches pushed back, he wants his food — now! He acts like I’m going to forget to feed him. I never forget to feed him, but some days I get the feeling he expects me to do it before my morning trip to the bathroom or getting dressed.

Breakfast isn’t the only time I have problems. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stepped on him because I couldn’t see him down there. Like this incident:

Me: walking toward the kitchen sink.

Yowling.

Me: jumping back and looking down. “Well stay out from under my feet!”

He scampered under the table. Well, at least he’s safe there.

But even getting up in the morning is an issue. For starters, beginning way before my alarm goes off (don’t ask me the time, I don’t sleep with my glasses on) Patches starts climbing on me and shoving his nose in my face, working hard to get my attention. The second I open my eyes he's meowing for food, and underfoot as I try to do things like empty my bladder in the intended receptacle instead of down my leg.

Thanks to him, I don’t always make it, especially the time he charged ahead of me and jumped up on the lid! I had to shoo him off so I could use the facilities.

But that is nothing to yesterday morning when I stood on the scale (as I do every morning) only to look down to find him standing on the scale too! Like that helps.

Of course, he was trying to get my attention, it was breakfast time after all. Try telling a cat that I don't feed him until after I take my vitals every morning. As far as he’s concerned, he’s hungry, it’s time for me to feed him.

And all that doesn’t count all the times I’ve had to search for my phone while the alarm was going off, because Patches knocked it off the nightstand. I just wish it didn’t happen most mornings. Dang cat.

And while some days, he doesn’t even attempt to go outside when I open the door, others he dives out the second I open it. My big complaint is the days when he dives out the door as I opened it, but by the time I had the door closed and locked, he was back wanting to go inside. Or there’s the other day where he never even attempted to go near the door as I existed, but when I returned, he dove between my feet.

Then, when I had to leave again, I stood outside and called to him. I waited a couple minutes with no response. I closed and locked the door, and suddenly he’s at my feet wanting in. This is my life.

And with how often I leave my place during the week, my door is opened a lot, but I never know when he’s going to go outside, let alone how long he’ll stay outside. Most of the time, he comes back when I return or open the door, but not always.

Anyway, living with a cat, and said cat being the only other living being around, means I spend a lot of time talking to him, but it usually seems to be on the lines of, “Get out from under my feet!”

Or like when I’m trying to write, and scenes like the above picture happen, or worse, he decides to walk across the keyboard.

I have long since started closing my laptop if I leave it even just long enough to get more water because if I don’t, I’ll have to do a ton of deleting when I get back. That is if I can get to my keyboard. 

Once he tried to take a nap on it.

Why not? He naps on the thing when it's closed.

And right now, he’s napping on the back of the couch, right behind my head.

At least he’s letting me write.

Anyway, happy writing, everyone.

A Matter of Perception by Konnie Enos

Have you ever noticed how the vehicles you see the most on the road are the same color or same make and model of your car? If you are thinking about young children, or have them in your life, you are more likely to notice them around you. The same goes for say, handicaps, or eye color. Really, anything close to you could be a focus for what you notice in the world. Your focus affects what you perceive the most.

For example, when I drive around in my car I happened to notice a lot of white cars or Chevrolet Cruzes. Guess what my car is. I’m also seeing children under the age of one in large numbers. Do you want to guess why?

Do you want to guess why we both notice twins?

Here are some facts.

The only multiple births in our area the week we were born were the two of us. When we were in high school and the local paper wanted to do a story on twins, there were only two sets in our high school and a total of four in the two local high schools. (The one set in our high school were fraternal, boy and girl set.)

We’ve been in the newspaper an additional time because we’re at least the fifth generation straight in our mother’s family who were twins.  

One time a stranger in the park where we were holding our Great Grandfather’s family reunion thought it was a twin convention. (One, this is our father’s side of the family. Two, I wasn’t even there. Bonnie was though.) We have a family picture, taken by our father, with at least four sets of identical twins in it. Only one set is boys. Three sets were dad’s cousins. The youngest set was Bonnie and me.

The last large reunion (Great, Great Grandpa’s family) I went to I counted at least half a dozen sets in attendance and knew of at least that many more not there or not both of them were there, us included, Bonnie wasn’t there.

You can see why we notice twins, all the time.

That’s why I noticed the senior lady pushing her double in a wheelchair when I was out shopping. That’s why I regularly spot twins when I’m out, usually kids with their parents. I think the senior ladies are the only time I’ve spotted adult twins. However, I have seen more than one video on Facebook showing a young child’s reaction to meeting their parent’s twin. (I so which we had videos of such events in our life.)

I’ve even noticed when people I know had twin grandchildren.

Recently a co-worker and I were talking about multiples. He has multiple sets in his family tree, though in his family it skipped a generation. He was, like so many people, assuming that old wives' tale was true. (Obviously not if you look at our family tree.)

He mentioned all the sets in his family. I believe it was three sets.

Without even knowing all the twins in my family by name, I can come up with that many in one generation on dad’s side of the family, and Bonnie and I are the fifth generation on our mom’s side.

I only mentioned to him that I was a twin too.

He commented that twins are becoming more and more common.

Yes, they are. Now if someone wanted to do an article on twins they could find more than four in two high schools. Look it up. New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois has a graduating 2020 class with 44 sets of twins and 1 set of triplets. (twin article)

There are more multiples in the world today. At least one reason for it is fertility treatments. Another reason is health care. I’m sure there are a number of twins today who would not have survived birth 50 years ago. I’m also sure that 50 years ago it was far more common for mothers to lose one baby and still be pregnant. Today they are more likely to be able to save both babies.

Therefore, there are more multiples today than there were even 30 years ago. However, it’s also true having multiples in your family is going to focus you on noticing them more than someone else might.

I see them everywhere and just have to smile when I do.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Bad Luck by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Okay, life is hard, but sometimes I feel like someone is picking on me.

This last couple of weeks have been horrible, and Konnie calling me at 10:30 at night didn’t help any.

There I was getting ready for bed and my phone rang! My first thought was it must be important for Konnie to call me this late. I honestly answered expecting her to convey some bad news.

The only bad news was that she hadn’t been looking at her clock, and/or forget that I live in mountain time, not pacific. So here I was yawning and having trouble keeping my eyes open, and Konnie called just to chat.

The second I said hello, she realized how tired I was, and noticed the time. Dang right! I never call anyone after 9 PM and if they have small children, I refrain from calling after 8 PM. Of course, my 9 PM is her 8 PM, but still, she usually doesn’t call me that late unless it's important, so I know she hadn’t been paying attention to the clock.

Too bad that wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me in the past two weeks.

Starting with Patches needing a trip to the vet. He can’t stand the car.

The second it started moving, he started yowling.

He was in his carrier on the front passenger seat, so I kept trying to calm him by running my gloved hand over the mesh and trying to soothe him with my voice. When that didn’t work, I took my glove off and opened the zipper on the door, just a little. Too bad to be enough to get my hand in the carrier, it was also enough for him to wiggle out!

Try driving when you have a cat trying to climb down around your feet!

I know why he was aiming to where my feet were, that’s his favorite spot.

So, I ended up trying to drive while fighting off Patches. At a stoplight, I managed to wrestle him back into his carrier. But that didn’t end the struggle. He was quiet whenever I stopped, but the second my foot hit the gas, he was yowling again. And that was just the trip to the vet!

Ain’t life grand?

Patches needed his ears cleaned and medicated because of ear mites, and I think he hates getting his ears cleaned more than he hates a moving car. I don’t know about the vet’s assistant, but I came away scratched.

Then my plans fell through, then I spent an entire weekend not feeling well, and thinking I’d have to make some phone calls Monday morning. Fortunately, I was feeling better by Monday.

And I thought all the bad stuff was over, I had a pretty good week, and even managed to edit two more chapters on my manuscript Friday afternoon.

Saturday afternoon, I couldn’t open that file! All my changes, eighteen chapters, and I have to start all over with the edits. At least I still have a copy of my editor friend’s critiques, and a copy of my manuscript without all these edits, so at least I don’t have to recreate the whole story, but dang.

And Konnie’s late-night call wasn’t the only problem. Yesterday, while I was doing my work at the book scanning center, my phone kept dinging at me, and who’s texting me?

Konnie.

She forgot that I work at that place on Monday and Tuesday, even though she visited with me for just over a week back in September. Tuesday afternoon I am there.

Then again, a few weeks ago I sent her a text during the day knowing full well she was at work.

It was something I didn’t want to forget to tell her, and I knew she was work, so I sent a text with the information. She instantly, texted back that she was at work. I knew that,, that’s why I sent the text instead of calling.

Okay, I guess it wasn’t bad that she texted me while I was at my “work” since I did the same thing. I just never considered how unnerving that dinging is in an otherwise quiet room.

Everyone knew I wasn’t doing my work; my phone was dinging.

And it was dumb to think anyone would be bothered by it, mostly because I’ve received calls from family while working, and some of my coworkers have too. It isn’t a problem for me.

Then again, Konnie’s job is for pay, and I’m sure she’d get in trouble receiving phone calls during work, which is why I sent that text. I couldn’t wait, because if I did, I’d have forgotten.

But it got worse! I took my glasses off to read the small screen. When I put them back on, a temple broke off from the hinge.

And life goes on.

Happy writing everyone.