by Sharon O | Mar 26, 2016 | Uncategorized
We start our weekend out with a birthday breakfast for our grandson Josiah, he turns eight years old today.
The tradition is for each grandchild to go out for breakfast with grandpa, the choice is theirs where to go.
Then we will go to his house for a party with his family.
After that we have softball game for our grand daughter Hannah who is 12.
Then we will get ready for our ‘dinner’ for tomorrow, the traditional ham and potato’s and assorted dishes to go with that.
Tomorrow will be Easter service then home for dinner and relaxing.
A good weekend that is both busy and full of family.
Happy Easter to my faithful encouraging readers.![IMG_20160325_145717 [2843460]](https://sharono-somethingtothinkabout.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/IMG_20160325_145717-2843460-360x632.jpg)
![IMG_20160325_145813 [2829557]](https://sharono-somethingtothinkabout.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/IMG_20160325_145813-2829557-360x205.jpg)
[Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him, for the Lord is your life.]
by Sharon O | Mar 23, 2016 | Uncategorized
As I mentioned in the last writing we moved to a two story home on a corner lot, with larger rooms to live in.
Now that I think of it years later, we were funny to do this kind of move when our other ‘home’ would have worked for us.
No point in thinking backwards, we have been here now for many years and this feels like home to me.
When we first moved here I didn’t like it. It was dark, the sun had different ways coming into the windows, it was not our home, not the home we built or raised our children in.
I don’t do change easily probably because of the background I came from. I like things to stay the same.
We both worked fulltime so we were here evenings and weekends.
There is a lot more yard to take care of and having two stories was a new experience, that I thought I wanted. Now I am learning differently.
A single level would be perfect with no stairs. As we get older the up and down is not safe anymore, I always have to hang on to the railing.
We became grandparents in this home, the only home they have ever known for us.
We struggled through the year of our 25th anniversary then a baby came.
It brought us hope and a new meaning of grandma and grandpa. We worked on our relationship and continued to make it work.
After Faith was born I stayed home to be with her for close to four years, it was the beginning of healing for me.
To sit and rock and love on that precious tiny baby, it was good for me to slow down and rest.
In this house we have had a variety of different surgeries and illnesses.
In this house we have learned about hospice, and healing on many levels.
In this house we have lost pets, and gained some. We have lost parents and friends.
We have grown apart then back together again.
We have had, the good times and the bad and yet we remained together.
The journey has not always been easy but no journey is.
In this house I began my writing process and have created a place for ‘sharing my heart.’
Larry was the one who suggested it.
After I left my last job I didn’t know what to do with myself.
The grand children were all in school. I watched my nieces little baby and yet I needed something else.
He suggested that I write. He wanted me to tell my story or at least a part of it.
When I was working there was never time or energy to do anything like that.
I took advantage of her nap times and then shut myself in the den room, and began the process of ‘writing’.
It has been quite the learning process. I focus on topics and self made deadlines.
I love being my own boss.
In this house we are growing old together. We are creating memories and finding who we are as a older couple.
Soon Larry will be retired, he will have one more serious surgery and then we will begin the time of recovery once he is home.
It will take time but our hope is the ability to travel and see things we have never seen. And of course move one more time.
God will guide us to the right home, and the right setting with the right ‘people’ to help us move.
It will be good. It is always good when we follow his leading.
by Sharon O | Mar 22, 2016 | Uncategorized
Learning to be a parent was a job like no other.
You cannot read a book and be prepared for it, unlike drivers ed you cannot take a class, practice and pass.
We learned by trial and error as we moved through the days and nights of hard and exhausting work.
Not that children are difficult, but it just takes a lot of energy to do the job of parenting well.
I had very low energy when they were little and a small amount of experience from a few babysitting jobs.
We learned to navigate through the baby stages, then to kindergarten and grade school, and then big school.
I did daycare to help with our budget, so I could stay at home with our children.
Sometimes they even liked and played together which made my job easier.
I didn’t go to a work setting till Sarah was about 1st grade, which would have made Christopher around 4th grade.
There were a few jobs I tried, but I found I didn’t like leaving them.
Oh I also tried to sell Tupperware, or Avon but decided I am not a sales person.
The first clue was when I hung the Avon bag on the door and ran after ringing the door bell, hoping no one would call wanting me to go back.
Whenever I thought of leaving and going to work I couldn’t get a right peace in my spirit.
For years I stayed home and did other things to help our budget.
Eventually I found a job that worked with Larry’s schedule. He worked an 8-5 job and I worked a 6-2:30 job.
He got the children up and moving in the morning and I was home in the afternoon.
When they had days off from school, Larry left for work as they slept, then he was home for an hour lunch, and I was home at 2:45.
Leaving them very little time for trouble. That worked for a long time for us.
We were living in our home that we built and schedules were finally working really well.
They walked home together when they could, we felt with Christopher being 3 years older he could be the responsible one.
They grew and life continued and they were busy with activities like cheerleading and jazz band.
High School brought many new experiences for all of us.
As parents we had to learn to challenge them and direct them and lead them into making good decisions.
We also had to allow them to fall and make mistakes and learn from those ‘wrong choices.’
After graduating from high school Christopher went to college, and Sarah moved in with some girl friends.
The changes a family goes through in 12 years as a child grows up is amazing.
Yes there are challenges, and yes some were harder than others. But we walked it together.
Through those good and not so good times, we made it.
We found ourselves one more time, just the two of us, in our cozy little home, then I wanted to move again.
So we sold the home we built and bought a two story, and over 20 years later we still live here.
We both see the need to move again, one more time back into a single level style home.
As we have aged it is important to get back into the more simple life with no stairs.
Family life brought us many changes and challenges and blessings beyond our comprehension.
We are proud of our ‘now grown’ children.
Both are parents with their own changes and challenges that children create.
The circle of life continues as we move through the process of being a family.
It is my hope in sharing all of this that the theme remained, we made it.
We walked it together as our vows had said on our wedding day.
Through good and bad, we will do it together.
Till we are old and our stories are just memories, we face the challenges with each other.
God has been with us and will continue to give us strength and courage to face the future.
What ever that will be.
by Sharon O | Mar 21, 2016 | Uncategorized
We continued to grow as a family, of four. God blessed us with Christopher then Sarah our daughter.
We moved to an apartment when Sarah was tiny, she learned to crawl and try to walk there.
It was in this house we also inherited a dog named Noah and a black cat. We found Noah at a pet store, where we walked by one day. The ad said, ‘cockapoo puppies’ and I thought that would be a wonderful ‘play dog’ for our children.
To this day we have a little laugh about our ‘choice of’ puppy, he was definitely not what the store had said they were selling to us. We learned we should never trust a pet store.
There was NO poodle or cocker in him. We think he was a mix of shepherd, corgi or beagle.
He was a wonderful dog for us for many years, giving us many memories for our children. He left our ‘home at age 15 or so’, the beginning of our many good-byes.
Our cat arrived on our back porch patio. One day we found a litter of kitties as we looked out the door and I don’t remember how many or the fine details of the story but we ended up keeping a runty size black one. Then we found homes for the others.
We named him Spook. Here is a very old picture of him.
He was a mighty hunter and when we moved into our first home of our own, you would often find him outside guarding the home.
We called him our guard cat as he would chase dogs and other ‘unwelcome’ pets off our property. One day he even brought home a pheasant.
He looked like he won but there was a great fight in the process. Poor guy he had the battle scars to prove it to us.
Oh it was a fun little life, of children, and a dog and a cat and wood stove too.
In this house, our first home God protected us two times from a house fire. The first was in our garage and the second was in our kitchen.
This is also the house where every Saturday night we would faithfully play, the Old Southern Gospel radio station on KPDQ and the children would go to sleep listening to the old ‘down home music’ as they drifted off to sleep. There were many memories of good and some bad but that is the way it is when we live life together.
The story continues and moves on, into more learning as parents and living as a family.
by Sharon O | Mar 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
Our wedding cake was made by Larry’s mom. She did a wonderful job of decorating and setting it up.
Hard for me to imagine how she did that, now that I know the pressure of making a cake and also being the groom’s mom.
She did an amazing job and had the colors all matching and the flowers it was a simple white cake with white frosting, I remember she used to shop at the wilton cake store.
Then we had the normal ‘dishes of mints and nuts’, coffee and tea, served on church glass dishware.
After the receiving line, which I hated, (never know what to say to some people) we changed our clothes and left.
Larry was totally shocked when he saw our car covered in crepe paper. Especially black because it was raining and it ran and smeared all over our yellow vintage baracuda car.
We headed to our first night as a married couple off the river at Jantzen beach in Portland, then moved from there to a few nights at the beach.
After that we came back to my mom’s house for a ‘unwrapping of the gifts’ party.
Yes Larry did have plaid pants on and yes there were a lot of gifts to open and unwrap.
After that we moved it all to our first apartment which was a basement apartment under a very large stately home. Our new little place was a one bedroom with a small kitchen, and small living room. I think we shared the laundry facility. I don’t really remember I just know it was small and furnished very moderately. We lived there about six months then they asked us to move when we were expecting our first baby.
Our second home was a tiny little home behind a home. We basically were in their back yard.
Now time, they would call it a tiny house.
It was about 680 square feet and it was cozy and very pink. I actually loved the vintage look which included a porcelain claw foot bath tub.
The living room was small. The kitchen was cozy, our room was almost big enough for a dresser and full size bed, you had to go through the bedroom to get to the old fashioned bathroom. The babies room was two crib lengths long and one crib length wide. Christopher loved his room till he was about three, then baby number two came, we put the cradle on top of our dresser, it had a flat bottom and it fit just right on top so I didn’t have to bend too far. We had a son and a daughter and then they asked us to move. They felt the house was too small for a family of four. It was cheap about $80.00 a month and very cozy.
Both of our babies were born there and it had ‘good memories for us’.
After we left they tore this little house down.
It was a sad thing to hear, and I would have loved to have kept that porcelain bathtub.
Our new life was beginning as a family and the story continues.
by Sharon O | Mar 19, 2016 | Uncategorized
The invitations were hand made by a friend of mine. She as a very gifted artist and I wanted her help.
We were in art together then in graphic art class so we spent a lot of time ‘together’.
I told her what I wanted, a couple, simple picture and a cross. This is what she drew.
Then I wanted to make the thank you notes simple and very much like the invitations, so we made these.
Then the scroll that was handed out as people came into the service was hand made. It was a song by the Carpenters. Karen and her brother.
A good friend of ours sang the song at the end of the service. It was a ‘saying of good-bye and a thank-you’ at the same time. I would share the song for you at the end of this series if I can find it.
Our service was beautiful, very surreal and very interesting.
I am not sure if I was walking down the aisle in great anticipation, can you really know what is going on at age 18?
It was more like, “I am not sure about this, I am kind of scared, I am in love but do I know what that means?”
Which are very fair questions when one is young and not sure.
I had my sisters and he had his brothers, it was a family time. The service was traditional and nice and a new time for us to begin as a family too. My mother wanted me to have a bible covered in flowers, so we could have a picture of it. I have never taken it apart. After 42 years it is still in my hope chest together. The bible and the flowers all wrapped together in a protective bag.
Our wedding was beautiful I always loved the cross above us, I saw it a symbol of protection and covering and peace that would carry us through the years to come.
My sisters and my best friend Joyce were with me, and I felt like all was going to be fine in this new life we were forming together.
I haven’t been able to find Joyce, have no idea where she is now. Would love to connect with her. We were very good friends back then in the 1970’s.
I don’t even know where to look for her, or what her name is at this point in time.
Ward gave us a big hug and talked to Larry after the service. It was so sweet and I still remember his big arms circling around me.
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So young and so not ready to start a life of as a young married couple. God was with us.
by Sharon O | Mar 17, 2016 | Uncategorized
As I continue on the story of US…my husband and I in our ‘beginning years’.
We dated the rest of my senior year of high school and since I was in art and also in a graphic arts class I made our wedding invitations by hand.
I printed them off and also at the same time received a triple A because of the class project and because I was in the class three hours.
The financial burden of the ‘wedding’ was on me and I did work part time at a Christian Yellow page business.
I worked on a typesetting machine and a printing press.
It was a long three hours as I had to transfer onto several city buses to finally get to the work site.
Kind of silly now when I think of it as a young teen, working only a two hour shift then heading back to the bus to go home.
I am sure my ‘wage was low’ and I can’t imagine why I actually did all that for a small amount of money.
The grooms family provided rehearsal dinner. Our rehearsal was very simple and the meal was even more simple. I think it was sandwiches and finger food and maybe a vegetable platter.
I would graduate in June from high school and we would be married by early November. I was age 18.
Ward our youth pastor at the time, gave us some counseling and then he said we were ready.
Are you ever ready to start a new life, leave your old and begin again?
I was ready to leave as my mother had gotten married and it was time.
As the days moved closer my grandmother made my dress.
It was a hand made, hand sewn beautiful dress by her.
Custom designed as the McCall patterns did not have dresses for 85 pound brides.
Grandma had to redesign it to fit me.
Since she was a designer at Jantzen she knew what to do and how to do it.
I always hated that paper she used for measuring with scratchy pins… holding the pattern pieces securely.
She was a wonderful seamstress it was just a challenge to get it to fit me. The bridesmaids wore the same pattern only in different colors.
Our wedding was not really ‘ours’ since my mom did most of the planning.
Most of the time she had a ‘I am in charge attitude’ and I didn’t have enough voice back then to fight it.
I am sure it was fulfilling a dream of hers in one way or the other.
I did have some opinions but very few.
I wanted my grandpa to walk me down the aisle, I felt like he would have loved to play in that role, but she said no. I couldn’t ask him.
It made me sad but again I didn’t fight it.
I didn’t have my dad he never saw me as a young bride. In fact he never saw me on many special events, but that is for another blog post.
It was a ’empty’ place in my heart, not a healing one for sure.
She had me walk down the aisle with her husband who was not my dad and not my choice.
I didn’t feel safe with him, so it created a ‘dissonance for me,’ on our wedding day.
I am not sharing this to be mean or critical, I am just telling my story as it was at the time.
I did know my best friend and two sisters would be in the wedding. He had a few brothers too who would be in it.
(They had five boys in his family so the older ones were a part of our wedding party)
It was always a bit surreal to me. As the story continues.
We were young and heading into a ‘marriage that was new’ to both of us as we began a lifetime together.
When I saw Ward our old Youth Pastor, a few weeks ago, I began to walk down memory lane in my head and in my heart.
Stay with me if you are interested, as we continue to journey through the story.
by Sharon O | Mar 15, 2016 | Uncategorized
The last blog writing was a part of my story that very few knew about.
The how I became a Christian, and when I met my boyfriend (who is now my husband), and how my sister left ‘one more time’.
I really believe that if I had not received a firm answer to my prayer from God, who was the only one who knew where my sister was, I would not be who I am today.
It was a life changing moment. A moment where one has to say, “I called and he answered.”
We sing a song at church that has the words, “I called and you answered, and you came to my rescue and I want to be where you are.”
I couldn’t deny it. The answer was so clear. When my sister showed up in our home after I said a simple prayer, it was an amazing moment.
I didn’t ask for her to stay long, I only asked to see her, to know if she was even alive.
I kind of remember our conversation the day she left, and she would leave many more times after that.
She told me she wanted me to go with her.
Of course that was not an option.
Go where? she didn’t have a plan, only a street and probably some friends who didn’t have her best interest in mind. For years she would leave and then come back around the holidays, then I would see her again.
The not knowing was the worst.
I remember looking out the windows day after day, as the rain and cold winds pounded the ground, wondering and worrying about her.
Was she warm or fed, was she safe or hurt. So many years we didn’t know.
Things got bad for her and she could have ended her life many times.
I believe God had his hand of protection over her and sent his angels to protect her.
At age 63 she is now living in an assisted living home, healthy and alive.
I often tell her, if she was a cat her nine lives would be way over the limit.
In high school I dated my ‘boyfriend’ for a few years, breaking up and getting back together, being the typical ‘teen couple’ who are learning how to be committed to each other.
Neither one of us was ready for a ‘real’ strong relationship as in most teens we didn’t know what that meant.
By the time He was near graduating from high school, he went into the navy and I began to date someone else.
I was a year younger than he was and even though he left our area, I always thought we would end up getting married someday.
He lasted 46 days, it was during the Vietnam war and they could not keep him if he couldn’t serve.
He had hurt his knee during basic training and spent most of that time in the hospital.
So he returned back home, and we started to date again.
By that time my sister was back home for a while and she got to be a part of the engagement plans.
My other sister was already married to her high school sweetheart and to this day they are still married after 45 years. It is amazing to me that my husband and I have been married 42 years.
We had so much to over come and deal with as a young couple with two different histories.
There were very few role models to learn from, we just went into the relationship knowing it would be a commitment for a long time.
My parents divorced when we were young and I told myself that it would be something I would never do.
I pray I don’t reveal too much when sharing our life’s journey.
I want to share just enough, to let others know a little bit more about who I am and how God saved me.
The continuation of the story is important as we move down memory lane.
by Sharon O | Mar 11, 2016 | Uncategorized
At the memorial service for Frances there was a guest there who was invited to give the eulogy.
It was a wonderful surprise to see my youth pastor from high school, Ward Hill.
![IMG_1046 [1127794] ward and I](https://sharono-somethingtothinkabout.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/IMG_1046-1127794-ward-and-I-360x480.jpg)
He was a great influence for me as a young teen.
My family life was broken and I had a lot of questions to ask him.
When I began to go to the youth group I had no idea what to do or how to act.
Eventually I joined the youth singing group called the open door singers and we traveled all over Oregon for concerts.
It was a good and positive time for me.
Ward was a kind, gentle man. He had a wife with four children and they lived as a family together.
I watched with great amazement how he worked with the children and they worked together as a team in the youth group, then our singing group leaders were also married with two children.
So I was able to see the interaction between ‘a healthy family’.
I lived at home with my mom and sister’s, my dad had left many years before that.
My mom was remarried in my sophomore year of high school and that was both uncomfortable and unsafe.
As a young person I had many questions and many concerns, about life and struggles that were day to day.
At one point in time I met ‘my boyfriend who is now my husband’ and I also gave my life to Jesus and became baptized.
God gave me peace and also a life changing moment after I had said a prayer from my heart.
Testing him. Basically throwing a fleece out to him to see if he KNEW what I needed to believe.
Only a God who knows our hearts could ever answer a prayer like the one I said.
To this day many years later, I believe HE knew I had to have something tangible and real to hold onto in order for me to believe.
The story is in this:
Before I became a Christian.
My view of God was full of skepticism and unbelief.
He was like a Santa who gave things to people when they asked.
He was very far away and not an all knowing, GOD.
Jesus was a man in a story book.
I was not raised in a Christian home. Yet I do remember walking to a small church as a little girl to Sunday school. As I listened to the stories of the bible on flannel graph boards,
God and Jesus were unreachable to me.
They were characters in a hard backed book. I couldn’t touch them or feel them. They were songs sung to the music of an un-tuned piano. Jesus loves the little children… only I was not one of them.
The way God reached out to me is a wonderful and powerful reminder,
that HE does indeed listen to the prayers, of those who do not know Him.
He listens to the heart cries and He is moved with compassion.
In my freshman year of High School, I began to search the meaning of life. We had moved again to a new rental home and another new school. It was at the bus stop while waiting for the bus I would engage in conversation with a girl there. She was an honor student who lived with her parents in a normal stable family. I was very different. I would wear the Diana Ross ratted hair style, fake eye lashes (yes I did say that) and white eye shadow. Every day this girl would ask me questions. Pursuing me. Forcing me to ‘think’ about God and church and life.
Every day I argued with her.
My life experience had been much different than hers.
My concept of ‘love’ was not something she could understand. We were two friends speaking different languages.
She talked often and gave me lots of questions to think about.
As our friendship grew I began to listen to her and then I decided to test her ‘GOD’.
My sister Mary had been gone for many months on the street, living life as a drug addict and runaway. I missed her greatly and wanted desperately to see her. We didn’t know if she dead or alive and it was a heart ache I couldn’t take care of on my own.
I remembered this girl told me ‘GOD hears all prayers’.
I didn’t believe it but what could I lose by not trying?
One night as I was going to bed. Not knowing how to pray or how it all works for Him to hear you.
I prayed a simple prayer. A bold one. A searching from the heart prayer.
I said, “God I would believe, I think I can believe you, if you can find my sister.
The girl tells me you know everything, you see everything. So you should know how to find her. I want her home.
IF you are God. IF you know everything then YOU can bring her home tonight.
When I wake up in the morning I want her sleeping in her own bed. IF you can do that, then I will believe.”
I went to bed and fell into a deep sleep. Unusual for me at that stage of life.
You can imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning, and saw her across the room sleeping in her own bed. The police had found her in the middle of the night and contacted our mother. She had been beaten badly but she was home, sleeping in her bed, in our room.
It was a miraculous reunion of sisters. A cry from a young persons heart to a God who hears.
We were always hopeful she was alive, but never knowing.
Mary didn’t stay at home very long. She left soon after the first night, but my prayer was answered.
Now I had to deal with ‘the girl at the bus stop’. I made the phone call telling her what happened.
She told me about God, church and her youth group.
I believe God knew the only way I would trust, was for Him to show me an answer to a simple prayer.
From a simple heart. HE can do the unimaginable. I trust Him. The journey continues.
The girl at the bus stop is now my sister in law. We married brothers.
The years after God came into my life were not easy. But because of the strength
HE gave I was able to trust Him through the process. He was hope when I felt hopeless.
He was my peace when it wasn’t peaceful. He was love on a Cross saying to me, “I care deeply for you”.
His ways are mysterious and wonderful and I am always in awe of His love.
I have never regretted that first life changing prayer. I hope this finds you encouraged.
Our God is a God who hears the simple prayers of faith.
It doesn’t have to be fancy or elaborate it just has to be from the heart.
(I know this was long but the story had to be shared, Frances was my sister in law’s mother.)
by Sharon O | Mar 9, 2016 | Uncategorized
In my last writing I mentioned our son.
Today is his birthday, 41 years ago we brought home a tiny little baby boy all six pounds and nineteen inches long.
He was our first, we learned to be parents, of course we made many mistakes and struggled in our new role.
He was our blessing, a perfect tiny little person.
We learned by doing and hoping we would make it from one day to the next.
Being a parent is hard, there is no manual to read like in drivers ed. You don’t get a ‘You did it, you made it’.
We brought you home into our tiny little house, and we learned together.
You were our dimpled boy and our delight.
You grew and continued to bring us joy and laughter and many memories.
You had an incredible sense of pretend, there were no ‘electronic devises’ back then, other than our box size television.
You played and you had a wonderful imagination.
Some days you were a cowboy, some days you were riding your ‘bike’, some days you were a rescue person like on the show emergency.
You were our joy.
You grew and each year there were many new experiences for you.
You played the French horn for 8 years and I learned to love the mellow deep sound of the instrument.
You had your dog Noah who followed you and who helped you climb the rocks and hills outside our home.
Then we watched you graduate from high school, then go to college and then meet your love, still married many years later.
It has been quite the journey to walk with you through the many adventures and joys you have had.
We are very proud of you son.
We have prayed with you, walked with you, advised you and challenged you.
It has been a good 41 years. May we have many more.
Christopher which means Christ bearer, you have grown, your love for the Lord, your family and your country is what we are proud of.
You have become a wonderful husband, father and son and brother… God be with you and protect you always.
You will always have our love.
