Enjoy the ride, there is no return ticket

I got this emailed to me from my Relief Society President, Julie Postma.  The cute part is that she didn't recognize George Carlin.  I guess we ran in different circles.

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.  

'How old are you?'  ' I'm four  and a half!' You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key.

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

'How old are you?' 'I'm gonna be 16!' You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life  ! You  become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony.YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!  

But then you turn  30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. . What's wrong? What's changed?

You  BECOME  21, you  TURN  30, then you're  PUSHING 40.. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you  REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.. 

But! wait!! !  You  MAKE it  to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you  BECOME 21,  TURN 30,   PUSH 40,  REACH  50 and make it  to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you  HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You  get into !  your 80's and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; 'I Was JUST     92.'

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. 'I'm 100 and a half!'
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!  

HOW TO STAY YOUNG   
1...  Throw out nonessential numbers.  This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.

2.  Keep only cheerful friends.  The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning.   ! Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever, even ham radio. Never let the brain idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.'  And the devil's   family name is    Alzheimer's.  

4.  Enjoy the simple things. 

5. Laugh  often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6..  The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7.  Surround yourself with what you love   , whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever.Your home is your refuge . 

8.  Cherish your health:  If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9.  Don't take guilt trips.. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.  
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER: 
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,   but by the moments that take our breath away .   
And if you don't send this to at least 8 people - who cares? But do share this with someone. We all need to live life to its fullest each day!!   
 



Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand - strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO - What a Ride!

Another Good Guy Laid to Rest -- Goodnight, Bishop Miner

Bishops have to be creative to be sure.

When we were twelve, there were a bunch of us -- probably twenty of us who went to Sunday School.  And few of our parents went to church at all but most of them sent us to Sunday School to get us out of the house.  Unless we had the grippe or some such thing.

Quite a number of us were scary, too.  Names could be named.  Names of several have probably been to jail, or possibly prison.  We were a blue-collar neighborhood in Provo, Utah with houses built right after World War II.  

Little tiny houses right at the base of Y-Mountain, almost all alike; two bedrooms, one bathroom, living-room, kitchen a little hall adjoining all and almost everyone's dad worked at Geneva Steel. And like I said, almost no one went to church except for the kids who went to sunday school so the parents would have some peace and quiet on Sunday morning.  All the kids went to church, I might emphasize.

Anyway, no one wanted to teach our class.  We were awful.  Loud, crass, awful.

So the good Bp. Gordon B. Miner called my father, Ben R. Cannon and Ted Bandley to be the Sunday School teachers.  They were neighbors and buddies and of course never went to church.  They accepted the call.  After all, Bp. Miner evidently liked and trusted them to do no real harm, so how could they say no?

Every week, Ted would read the lesson right out of the manual without ever looking up.  Dad would run the room, hurting people if they dared step out of line.  I remember one week, Jon Hall was high up in the window sill, and dad lifted him down, just by two fingers by Jon's forearm, slowly and carefully, Jon hanging and flopping like a trout.  Jon, too tough to cry or yell, just took it.

Dad would squeeze the thigh, or shoulder of anyone who looked like they might try to act out of line.  That class never behaved better before or after that year.  It was an inspired call.

I don't know why everyone continued to come.  I imagine it was because no one dared tell their parents about what was happening at church.  I think once they got the gist of what was happening, the torture really didn't need to happen very often.  The parents didn't want their kids home and they also didn't want their kids behaving badly at church anyway.  They knew Dad and Ted and knew they'd treat them the same way at home anyway so what was the problem?  Those were different times anyway.  Those were the fifties.

Bp. Miner died last week at 92.  I bet God welcomed him home with open arms.   Who doesn't want a good man like that around?

I think my Dad and Ted welcomed him home, too.  How could they not like the guy, too.  He was just a really good guy like that.  He liked everyone.   He was just a really nice guy who wasn't judgmental like sometimes religious people can be.  He even liked that class of twelve-year-olds.  Enough to have them taken care of by a couple of guys who could do it.

Launching a Lunching Marathon

Suppose you  were approaching your fiftieth  high school graduation reunion.  What would you do?  Panic?  Cry?  Put balm on your aching muscles?  Maybe not.

You might do what I'm doing.  You would go on a mammoth and historic lunching binge that knows no end.  Partly it has to do with planning the event.  But partly it has to do with realizing the people you went to high school with so many years ago were really quite likable people.

Bob Valentine is really to blame.  He's in charge of the whole event and he's done an amazing job of getting us back together, finding out email addresses, phone numbers, getting people on Facebook, locating lost souls and, of course, find out who has passed on. There are those, of course, who don't want to be found and would just as soon, forget about us all, but there aren't too many of them.  And we are sorry they feel that way.  We hope they change their minds before July 2 which is the big day.

The truth is, by now the cliques are kinda over with, we've kinda forgotten the old feuds and who was wild and who was pregnant a little too early, who was a little too judgmental, who were the brown-nosers, who were the goody-goodys, and who, well, you know.  And if we remember, we don't much care.  And if we care, I guess that's our problem because that's jerky behavior now just as it was then.

And we just want to get together and catch up.  That's all.

We're finding out that friends at first are friends at last and that is what reunions are all about.  It's not the event itself.  It's these fun little lunches that happen along the way.

BTW:  Thats back row:  Linda Holm, Jayne Wright Neeley, Kathy Davis Allman, Carma Banks Smith Bush, Linda Cannon Aukschun.  Front, Susan Black, Kathy Ostler Fryer, Naoma Gammon Bird, all at Thanksgiving Point on Tuesday, February 23, 2010.

Billy Joel and Elton John Come to Salt Lake and Me In Concert!

Now folks, understand this.  I am so glad I downloaded my Bick lighter app on my IPhone in advance because I used it liked crazy during the concert at the Energy Solutions Center.  I also screamed like crazy.  These two guys are not old and neither was I for three plus hours.  It was fabulous.  My ears are still ringing.  

They are a natural together.  Just as the two girls in the picture below said, "They're like Ranch and carrots."  The whole night was perfect.

They started out singing a few of each other's songs in duet perfectly, then Elton took over for an hour, then Billy was on for his hour, then Elton returned and  the two of them went at it together for three, or so more songs.  I was screaming like an crazy schoolgirl.  I don't know where it came from.  Carl even commented, and he usually tries to stay out of my business.  

The girls sitting by me kind of dumbfounded me because they loved John and Joel.  The wondered in the beginning if they would like them as much as they liked Fleetwood Mac!  I asked them how old they were and they thought that was pretty funny, but they were really cute the whole night.  I couldn't have sat by better people. They screamed, they danced, they drank beer so they got funnier and funnier.  It really was a cute little perk.  They took our picture below.  But I digress.

"Rocket Man", "Tiny Dancer", "Daniel", "Philadelphia Freedom", "Crocodile Rock", "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", all made me crazy as I loved Elton.  

"We Didn't Start the Fire", "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me", "She's Always a Woman", and "Only the Good Die Young", were Billy's with power, beauty and style.  

Together they finished with "Uptown Girl" (I guess that Joel can't do that one alone anymore, what with Kristie Brinkley and all), "Bennie and the Jets", and "Candle in the Wind".  I knew that was about it and I wanted to rush the stage and beg them not to stop.  I know now how addicts feel for sure.

Look at this face.  Am I not an idiot?  That is pure joy, I tell you.  I know what Elton said a day or so before about Jesus, but I bet Jesus himself loves Elton just because he knows Elton is a little cracked and  . . . just because he can pound the socks off a piano and can make life just glorious for three hours.   It was wonderful.

I Got Phished

Well, if that wasn't embarrassing enough, I was IMing with my son when he suddenly received  a message from me inviting him to check out a website  where he could procure a "male enhancement" product that would be certainly something to his liking.

Holy Cow!!

Glad he mentioned it.

But it was even bigger than that.  Turns out it was some sort of Phishing expedition on my Twitter account that went out to everyone who follows me there.  That's dandy.  At least it didn't go out to my "Facebook Friends", but my apology to my Twitter followers did which do include some family and friends who do deserve a little explanation.  Arghhhh.

It didn't take much to to resolve the thing.  A change of my password did the trick.  I had more trouble taking care of the password on my IPhone because it's not quite so obvious as just changing the dang thing, but it's not really hard.

I do understand the dorks who do it.  They're just having a good time.  It's kinda funny to them and a little entertaining to others WHEN IT DOESN'T HAPPEN TO THEM!  But when it does, it's a huge pain, a lot of embarrassment and really lots of trouble getting things straightened out.

I think I'll go lie down.

It's Amazing Our Parents and Grandparents Ever Got Married With These Tips

Sorry I didn't get these up in time for Valentine's Day

http://all-thats-interesting.tumblr.com/post/390563220/dating-tips-for-single-females

For Julia and Her Diet

With much love, of course