Tuesday, January 31, 2006

January 31, 2006

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell 1-31-06
This week we have been on the road. It seems that once you make plans, something else comes along to add to them. We had planned to go to Tulsa to visit with Jim’s mom, Donna, as she is there for more tests. We were to leave on Friday, so I got the feeding done, I had some things to do at the church, the rental house was having some problems we had to check out, had a low tire had it changed to find out that one tire was ruined and the other back tire had two nails in it. That meant we needed to buy two new tires. We finally got on the road a little after, 4:00. We got to Tulsa in good shape had a nice visit with Donna. Before we left we found out that Jims, Uncle Alvin Blundell, passed away. His service was to be in Ulysses and the burial in Springfield Colorado on Monday morning.
While we were waiting for the service to start one of the pastors looked familiar. I kept looking at her and I told Jim that I thought I knew her, Jim was not as sure. When the service was over I got a chance to visit with her and I was right I knew her, it was Suzie Woods. Suzie and Jack lived here for a few years. Jack worked at the Peoples Bank. Suzie is a pastor at a church in Walsh Colorado. You never know who you will see when you leave town. Suzie said to say hello to everyone so ‘Hello’ from the Woods Family.
Jim’s dad, Vernon is one of seven children 5 boys and 2 girls and this is the first sibling to pass away. He has lost one brother-in-law, Hank Eds. That is amazing that they all lived to see their children grow up and enjoy grandchildren. All families should be so lucky. The oldest son, Carl James, was born premature and they put him in a shoe box and kept him in the warmer of the stove. That was before you had babies in hospitals with all of the medical staff and equipment. The warmer was not entirely successful, but he did survive. I told Vernon that his mother must have been a great woman. She passed away in 1965 in a flood.
I cannot imagine having that many children. Having seven children means that poor woman was pregnant for 63 months. That is 5 years and 3 months of morning sickness, mood swings, food cravings, water retention just to name a few. Now most of you men may not think that is so bad unless your wife gets a little testy during that time. I know Jim would not go through it again as there were a couple of times his life was truly in jeopardy. My sister had a dog once that when she was expecting her litter of pups she would, if she could, lure a cat into her pen and would rip off the cat’s heads and play with it. That pretty much explains my attitude with my last child, who now we know as Jeff. So that would be why we only have two kids. Now you know the rest of the story whether you wanted to know or not.