"There Shall Be Showers of Blessings.  This is the Promise of God!"

So why am I always so surprised by all of the blessings that come down?  Take Saturday, for instance. . . Roy and I had the entire day planned for an "us day."  We got up and went to our favorite restaurant for breakfast--IHOP!  We had decided to take advantage of the Blue Star Museum recognition of military families, so we headed to Indianapolis.  The evening before, the weatherman from RTV 6 had been live at the City Center and had shared that at 10:30 on Saturday morning, a walking tour would commence in front of the Chocolate Shop and traverse the monuments with a knowledgeable guide sharing facts and trivia.  So, Roy and I pulled into Market Street around 10:22 (I'm driving).  Finding that we could not park on the circle, we looked for a parking place.  Found one with a meter!  Nope, Roy checked it out and it would cost $1.50 per hour!  LOL  We continued to a parking lot, but nope!  It was $4.00 an hour.  By this time, it is 10:35, and I'm getting a bit frustrated!  I'm thinking, "I've saved all of this money by researching the museum sites, and Roy will not even pay $1.50 to park!!!"  We both are getting a bit tense and terse.  We drive back to the original parking meter place, pull in and blessing #1 arrives.  A nice lady pecks on our window and sweetly informs us that she has paid for an hour parking and that she is leaving after only a few minutes of shopping and that we are welcome to her parking place with minutes to go!  Sweet!  We park, visit the monument in the center, go to the observation deck, and descend to  take pictures of the various sights.  We meander over to the walking tour, the guide is speaking for a moment or two, and the tour is finishing up!  The awesome man, a volunteer mind you, upon hearing that we had wanted to join the group at the onset repeated many of the stories and interesting facts about Indianapolis (we learned so much), and directed us to the Columbia Club!  Did you know that during Presidential campaigns, the constituents would come to the candidate rather than the reverse?  The Columbia Club was "the place" or hub where the Republican candidate met with his voters.  Every Republican President since the election of Harrison? has visited the Columbia Club.  Wow!  Beautiful and stately inside. 

As we left the area, some kind teenagers were standing on Market Street giving bottles of water away to travelers!  Not just any water, but Dasani!  LOL  Blessing #2!  We were parched and thirsty!  This day is just getting better and better as we move to the museums on Washington Street.  This time, Roy (driving) pulls immediately into the underground parking lot where the entrance of each of the Blue Star attractions could be accessed from the parking structure itself.  If you are unaware of what I am referring to concerning the Blue Star, there are hundreds (?) of museums across the country that participate in a program providing free entrance to military families.  Google Blue Star, and you will be able to view the stipulations tied to the program.  Back to my husband, the penny pincher, who, as I said, pulled into the underground parking without a blink of the eye and no questions asked.  He surely had read my unspoken thoughts about the parking meter incident!!  We entered the Indiana State Museum, the Eiteljorn, and then the Hall of Champions at the NCAA building.  Can you guess what blessing #3 could be?  Bha-ha-ha-ha-ha!  God decided to make Roy's day!  Thanks to the Eiteljorn on this day, at least, our parking time card was validated not just to take off a percentage of the fee but to give us FREE parking!  Now, I had read everything there was to read online in planning this trip, and everything I had read only indicated parking to be kept to a lower dollar amount due to validation from the museums!  I love when God plans my life!

And the blessings continued to come down!  We had been given a gift certification for Outback, so as we traveled to the restaurant in Greenwood, suburb south of Indy, my dear, sweet husband called the restaurant to see first if they were open and second if they gave a military discount!  If you are a reader who has traveled with us when we transported youth groups every year to our denomination's National Youth conference all over the USA, you know that if Roy can not save money, he will find another place to eat!!!  No military discount is to be had!  I resigned myself to choose another place to eat, but no!  we pull into Outback!  We are seated, order, and as we are eating our blooming onion, the proprietor ( Lee Blackwell) comes by, greets us and very nicely informs us that our blooming onion is complimentary (my husband is in uniform, so we just think he is being so nice).  Well, well, well. . .he is a Christian, so we continue to talk of ministry and military service and then he moves on to other guests.  A little later, he returns with a huge piece of Outback's new Keylime Pie!  It is another gift!  If you are counting, then this is blessing #4 or maybe #5 if we are separating all of the food groups.  In one hand is the Keylime pie, and in the other hand is an envelope which he  places on the table while saying, "when you return from Egypt, I want you to come back and eat with us here--on the house!"  You can tell that we have spent a significant time talking because he knows what seems (I only say seems because guess what!  the military can change its mind) to be my husband's next adventure in this new ministry and, by this time, we know about his family, wonderful things about Outback and how they work with troops as well as Operation Homefront.  God bless Lee and Outback!  So, you must be asking yourself is this it?  All of the blessings?  Wait for it!  #6, the last one, has to do with gas prices.  In our area, gas on this day was $3.39 and up.  To make a longer story short,  Thanks to God and Kroger, we acquired gas not only for 10 cents off per gallon, but the full price was 6 cents cheaper than any gas that we were able to purchase in our area!  Now, I enjoy the blessings of the Lord daily, both spiritual and otherwise, but the number of great things coming our way in one day was over the top even for this Child of the King!  "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow. . . .Amen."

Retirement--March 1, 2012

Yes!  I am definitely off of my rocker!  On March 1, 2012, I retired from the world that had been mine on a daily basis (except for summer breaks)--teaching! The reward and recognition from my district for reaching retirement was a choice of a clock or a rocker.  I chose the rocker.  I left teaching after my 57th birthday;  some would say that the fact that I left my tenured job before I reached my 60th birthday and full retirement would prove that I'm blond, flaky or just plain "off my rocker."  However, when I married my husband in 1978, I made a commitment to be a wife.  Frankly, we have enjoyed 34 wonderful years of marriage. In the fall of 2010, my husband was commissioned in the Army National Guard as a Chaplain, realizing one of the greatest dreams in life.  He, also a teacher at the time, in September of 2011, was placed on active duty in Butlerville, IN as the Chaplain of the Patriot Academy.  He had my full support, but here was my difficulty:  if he had been sent to Afghanistan or Kuwait, I would have been content to stay in our home and continue teaching and providing care for my adult children living at home during that transition year between the college degree and the real world job!  But no!  He was three hours away, and I was so close but yet so far away and missing out on my commitment of being a wife and missing out on the life of adventure that we have enjoyed all of our lives together!  So, I retired mid-year, packed up just those pieces of furniture in our perfectly chosen retirement home in KY that we rarely used and moved into a 1960's ranch-style home desperate for attention and modernization!  Yes, both my husband and I are metaphorically "off our rockers," but once I hit the town of North Vernon, IN, I have literally been off of my rocker!