Saturday, August 29, 2009

Christiansen's Comments Hinds County Gazette August 27 2009

Above is a picture of the limb mess....


Picture of the old pecan trees in my front lawn...


I recently discovered facebook. Facebook, for those who do not know, is a social web site that makes it easy for folks to stay in touch … with their friends, their friends friends, relatives and total strangers….on the computer. People share the happenings in their lives….with the whole wide world. I thought the concept was silly…Wondered who would do such? Put their life out on the www for the world to see?…and who cares what folks are up to? Well!!!! I do! .




In fact, before I sat down here to chat with you…I turned on the computer and signed into facebook to see what my friends had been up to…and let know them what I was doing…“making pickled eggs and fix’n to feed cats” and I up loaded pictures of my cats Scout and Harper Lee and my golden retriever Charlie. I just knew folks were dieing to see pictures of my animals. Yeah, that’s the type of stuff that is on facebook. Really, you know what it is like?…It is like meeting your friends and neighbors at the Post Office or the grocery store. I love it!




Keeping all of the limbs, branches and twigs picked up, that fall from my pecan trees , is a job….A big job! Several weeks ago, I had a big limb to fall, it was too big for me to cut up…and I can cut up some pretty big logs with my bow saw…but I had to go ask Bob Kemp to come with his chain saw, to cut this limb in to manageable pieces. We had lots of rain so it was too wet to bring my truck in on the grass, to haul it off…so we stacked where it fell…Then a couple of days later, I took a notion it needed moving or it was going to kill my grass, so I hauled it a piece at a time, over by the Leyland cypress trees, where grass doesn‘t grow anyway…I was getting sick of looking at that pile…So last week I moved it in to the woods. That pile of logs and branches had been moved three times!




I said that, to say this….I have often wondered of all of the places in this world, why? oh why? did I wind up in Edwards Mississippi? Of course we know God has a plan… I am guessing, He put me in this house surrounded by big old pecan trees,…because He knew I would need something to keep me occupied in my old age……So instead of me being out and about, up and down the streets worrying folks…I am on this hill, happy as if I had good sense, moving piles of limbs and sticks from first one place to another.




Hey I gotta go… I have to check and see what my facebook friends are up to now!
Call if you need me
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Betty Jean Tatun Hill




Betty Jean Tatum Hill, 79, died Saturday, August 22, 2009, at Hospice Ministries in Jackson, MS. Funeral services will be held 2:00 p.m. Tuesday, August 25, 2009, from the Edwards Methodist Church. Visitation will be Monday, August 24, 2009, from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. at Wright & Ferguson Funeral Home High Street and at the church Tuesday from 1:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m. Burial will be in the Edwards Cemetery.She was born to Mary Eliza Tatum and John Henry Tatum in Edwards, MS in October 1929. She attended Edwards Public Schools, MUW and The University of Mississippi. She was a lifelong Methodist.She married George McLaurin Hill in 1950. She worked at Kenningtons department store for a brief time and then stayed at home to raise her three children, Mary Laurin, Betty Jane and George Jr. After they were grown, she was an independent sales representative for several educational publishers, until her retirement.She is survived by her husband, George M. Hill; daughters, Laurin Ripley of Sarrasota, FL and Jane Seale of Starkville, MS; son, George, Jr. (Mac) of Nashville, TN; grandson, Clay Seale of Batesville, MS; granddaughter, Crisler Seale of Madison, MS; and great grandson, Matthew Seale of Batesville, MS.Memorials may be made to Hospice Ministries, 450 Towne Center Blvd., Ridgeland, MS 39157.
Published in the Clarion Ledger on 8/23/2009
Notice

Brain or me...



This morning, I am not on the front porch with my lap top, I am coming to you from the room at the back of the house, I call “my office”…I can’t hardly call it “my Office” with a straight face. “Office” sort of implies you have important papers and such to deal with….


I watch the Home and Garden TV channel occasionally…That’s where I became aware that every house must have a media room and an office. I don’t have a media room, I don’t even have a flat screen TV….But I am looking…..for a BIG one….I’ll take it home hang it on the wall, in one of the under utilized rooms in this house…Then run over to Utica, to see Kevin at Cane Ridge, pick up a few miss matched chairs, set them up, facing that TV, I plan to acquire from a road side trash pile. And Voila! I have a media room! Nobody need know the TV does not work…all that really matters is I will have the must have “media room”.



In an attempt to make this room come across as an authentic office/writer room. …I have office type paraphernalia spotted around the room, there is a big old dictionary on a stand, I bought it at a second hand store and , a Roget’s Thesaurus, that I carefully placed on the desk, to make it appear that it in use frequently….(I could not tell you the last time ether one was actually used for anything…. except to press flowers)…it is so much easier and faster to go on line to get answers my lexicon questions. Also on my desk I have pencils and pens standing in vases….quite a nice wooden box, full of paper clips, I have two staplers, nether has staples in it, but they do not need to have staples…I do not have any important papers to staple… Behind me on a narrow table, I have papers and files in baskets….Like I have important business to tend to.
But all of that said, I do feel more like a “real” writer, in this room.


I don’t know how I got off on that tangent …


My brain use to work quite fast…not necessarily well, or accurately, but fast. And I always have been pretty good at interpreting instructions, even quite complicated ones……But some months back I became aware my brain had slowed down significantly …It has slowed down to the point I began to get concerned...it can’t be the chemo…those effect should have wore off long ago…I do occasionally take a Benedryl…some authorities believe Benedryl may have an adverse effect on our cognitive skills….


But, While riding the lawn mower the other day it came to me why Brain is so much slower now then he use to be! He at some point stopped taking information in and instinctively acted upon that information….to where, now, he is thinking in full and complete sentences! Occasionally with punctuation! Like !!! and dot dot dots…

I never thought in sentences, not back in the day.! I didn’t have time! You just do not have time for full sentences, not when you are tending to a house, cooking, yard, and babies.
But Brain is thinking in full sentences Now! And he repeats himself, he may change the words around a bit, but it is still pretty much the same thought….He asks questions and he does sometimes answer…but often when an solution doesn’t appear after he has repeated himself several times….he declares “I will come back to that…” and he makes Me say it out loud…..


Maybe it did begin when I was under the influence of the chemo…Brain had to work hard back then. I remember one time Brain and I were attempting to put a DVD in a Netflix envelop, so it could mailed back…Brain was struggling…. He could not figure out how to put the thing in the envelope where the bar code would show though the little window…I finally had help him by laying it down on the counter and lining it up….even then, it took awhile…we were both just before asking John for help.


I don’t know what to do about brain and his time-consuming, rambling sentences…I suppose it is to late now, I have let him get by with it for far too long. Brain use to get irritated with me, because I was so slow…but even with no parts on this body working as they once did…knees, hands, even my elbows sometimes hesitate…I, at times, am faster then Brain. Now he annoys me!….I am ready to go and he is still rambling on and on and on….



Fact is, Brain and I are both on a down hill slide…..
Brain has been wondering, who will depart this world first him or me.
Call if you need me

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Hinds County Gazette's Christiansen's comments August 13 2009


Felder United Methodist Church
Felder Campground Summit Mississippi







My toes on the saw dust covered ground....




The week with Garrett and his patched and stitched together arm went quite well, all things considered….by the time he got here, the wound was no longer bleeding or draining, except for a spot just above the elbow about two inches in length. To my great relief Garret was able to tend to his own wound care.

Garrett is at his Papa Rigby’s this week…he is staying with us, not so much that he needs looking after, but he needs entertainment….and rides to his appointments and to the book store etc. His arm works fine, so he could drive, but he is still on pain meds, for when he goes to physical therapy….

Last Thursday, I took Garrett to the Pavilion at University Hospital to meet his dad for his doctor appointment. You all, It is clean, the workers are friendly, and helpful. The office clerks were not sequestered behind sliding opaque glass panels daring us to disturb them. Garrett’s accident was my first real experience with UMMC, except for seeing it on the news…..related to people who had been shot or stabbed. They have the only trauma unit in Jackson, maybe the state, so that is where they took Garrett after the wreck. I have got to tell you I am impressed with every thing about the University Hospital…..the hospital, the doctors, nurses, the clinics…. everything.

I had heard and read about camp meetings all my life… I went to my first preaching at a Camp meeting, this summer…down at Summit to the Felder United Methodist Church Camp Ground. They go and spent 10 days or so every summer….Sort of a reunion, revival, and vacation.
The scene was just like I had pictured….little cabins around a common area…. kids playing and folks sitting on the porches of the little cabins…in the middle of the common area was an open pole shed, saw dust on the ground, when the bell rang, folks young and old, came from all directions, Bible in hand to hear the sermon….The preacher was from Norway…the sermon was from Proverbs…Very interesting…he has me reading proverbs again.

Here I go to the Post Office… my head hanging low in shame…I am locked out of my P O Box...I must not have paid the rent.
I have a photograph of Garrett's arm....I thought it was a bit too graphic to post here, but if you want to see it I will send it to you.
Email me at GloriaChristiansen@gmail.com and I will shoot the picture right out to you.


Sunday, August 9, 2009


Edwards Presbyterian Church Bible School resignation:
Dale, Angie and Robert Edward



The Lesson Rev. Dean Rydbeck and Dale Robinson


The children singing



Linda Dickson playing the piano..



Fun time!!!

Photos courtesy of Lesley Cannada




Well, ready or not... I am back….I took off July just because it is so blamed hot and miserable…and I knew you all didn’t want to listen to me whine. August is hot too…so I will still be whiney, but perhaps be a bit more cheerfully whiny? The days are still hot, but they are getting shorter. ...so perhaps more tolerable.... We will see.

I am on my front porch. My computer, Ruby is her name, has finally caught up with the old fashion tablet and pencil……Ruby is a lap top, and it can be toted any where a pencil and paper can go….but to use the internet she had to be connected physically to a phone line.

Until Now!!! I recently acquired a wireless router! ( I already had a router… in the shop, the purpose of that router is to shape wood. The two routers do not perform even remotely similar tasks, so why the same name? Maybe the techie guys didn‘t know the word “router” was already in use…do the techie guys not get out much?)

This new router thingamajig sits on my desk in the back of the house, and some how enables Ruby, un-tethered, by a tangle of wires, to function perfectly any where in the house. As I understand it, other folks and their computers can come play too and be connected. grandson Garrett is coming with his computer, we will see.

Garrett, you may remember was in a car wreck last October, he had to have more surgery, his mom and dad tended to him last week…they have declared him sufficiently improved enough that I should be able look after him this week. I don’t know about changing the bandage….I have a weak stomach…the incision is from his shoulder to his elbow. …I keep telling myself it can’t be any worse then a full diaper….we will see.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge…literally…(7or 8 inches)...since I was last here…but the most fun, was Bible School…we had Bible School in Edwards for the first time in years…It was a GRAND success…we had 29 children to attend.

I love Bible School…I no doubt have told you this before…as a wee little child, I learned all I really needed to know about Jesus at Bible school… “Jesus loves me, this I know because the Bible tells me so” , “The B I B L E” that’s the book for me. I stand alone on the word of God, the B I B L E” The Bible was taught to me, in simple language, with plenty assuring words, by compassionate Christian ladies that loved me…bandage my knees, give me hugs when I needed one, poured my Kool aid and gave me cookies…Bible school taught me, I can snuggle up with Jesus any time…

Call if you need me…
 
 
GloriaChristiansen@gmail.com