Happy thanksgiving

Happy thanksgiving!

My Happy Thanksgiving Card follows:

I write as a 68 year-old import into the Broadus clan, having been intimately associated with a  most wonderful example (Carolyn Broadus Snow) of this family for nearly 50 years. We have together, with the grace and mercy of the Father, been able to bring forth, nurture, and provide for five contributions to the planet. Each of them exhibit greatness in their own right. They are all, at this writing, alive, intelligent, educated, fairly healthy, independent and either employed or with some form of regular income. And this group of outstanding citizens has brought forth both grandchildren and great grandchildren, for which we are grateful.

I am writing this today, in some anticipation of seeing many of their bright faces in a little while. And to the ones we will not see, we have talked to via the miracle of electronics. I am grateful for the very existence of that technology, as well as for being able to afford to use it.

Some things I am grateful for are our children, now grown men and women. There is Russell who is helping to further the amazing world of science and technology being in the fore of the design of some other techomarvel, the likes of which I do not have a clue. I salute him for his efforts. There is Randall helping the world economy doing his part in oil and gas exploration to keep us in power to move and be. The work is hard and dangerous, and I salute his tenacity. There is Richard who gave up a great deal in the service country. He has a heart for the down and out. I salute him for his contribution to a better world. And there are the nurses Nancy and Amy who give of themselves daily in service to those who are weak and sick, helping to ensure some measure of dignity and worth for their patients.

I am thankful for life, for breath, for health, for our home (did I mention paid-for-home?). I am thankful for an abundance of things all around us that have been provided. Some things are necessary to survival and some are merely toys with which we amuse ourselves. Whatever the category, I am grateful for them.

I am thankful for family, my family and Carolyn’s family. I am grateful for those who have gone on before and blazed a trail for us ahead of our time and I am grateful for those who remain to whom we can look up to and I am thankful for our siblings on both sides that we can share with.

I am thankful for God, the Father, Who made it all. I am grateful that He gave His son to die that I might be empowered by that act to become a child of the Living God and to be able to call Him Father. I praise God. I thank God.

Thank you Father, for life, and that more abundantly. And thank you family, for each of your efforts in making my life very worthwhile.

David Snow

What day could it be?

Why we had grilled hamburgers rather than turkey this thanksgiving.

THANKSGIVING 2005!!

This Thanksgiving I am the most aware of my many Blessings! I am aware that my two Best Friends are together in the same place. One of them I now have a limited access to while the other I have all the access that I want! I am the MOST Thankful for this. I can come boldly into the throne-room of the Most High, JESUS! I thank HIM for this open-door policy that HE has with me and with many of you! He allows and invites us to draw close to HIM. This is where I have the opportunity to ask for forgiveness and I am cleansed. I can petition and give praise and I am heard. I am loved and accepted and so are you. I encourage each person in our family to take a personal inventory today. If you know you don't have this kind of love and acceptance from the creator God, please do ask HIM to cleanse you and to make HIS throne at home in your heart. This is the day of Salvation. Don't wait! Satan wants to steal kill and destroy. Jesus came that you can live an abundant life of love and power with HIM .
I am thankful for every family member and friends that the Lord has blessed me with. Have a great day! Consider yourself hugged!
Alice Ann

Thankful

In thinking about what I am thankful for I was reminded of something that happened to me a little while back.

I always try to give blood when the Bloodmobile comes to where I work. My religion was founded by a blood donor after all. When you give blood they give you these really nifty armbands in really bright pastel colors to hold the little ball of cotton to your arm. Waste not want not, I guess.

Also, I have started wearing my hair really short. Like in the jelly picture. I started out with it almost bald. It makes getting ready for work much quicker not having to mess with hair.

Anyway, after I gave blood Alice Ann wanted to meet for dinner at our favorite restaurant - On the Border. We are sitting there talking after eating our fajitas, and a lady comes up to me and says, "Hang in there, I have been where you are now." At first I thought she was referring to being very satisfied with a great Tex Mex dinner, but she went on, "I too was in chemo for three years."

I replied that I wasn't in chemo but just gave blood and liked my hair short. Then I asked how she was and praised the Lord that she was totally clean from cancer after all this time.

Then, yesterday I was talking to a guy I work with on my new project at work. He is 29 and lost his wife last year to ovarian cancer. They battled it for four years. I was talking to my insurance agent on Monday, she lost her husband of many many years to cancer back in April.

You asked what I am thankful for, well tonight I will snuggle up next to the most wonderful woman in the world as I have for 17 years. God only knows what tomorrow will bring but we have been healthy and together for many years.

So I am thankful for what I have and what I don't have.

HOW DO I COUNT THE WAYS?

I have so many things for which to be thankful that I scarcely know where to begin. I am, at 60 years of age, most thankful that I was born into a loving, Christian family that, despite tragedy at an early age, managed to stick together and keep the family traditions of love, community, and fidelity to the faith of our forefathers intact.
Yes, I know that many believe I have left the faith of my fathers, but I rather like to believe that I have deepened it. In 60 years of living through many dangers, toils, and snares, most bought on by my stupidity and hard-headedness, I can happily and thankfully say with the Psalmist and my namesake, David,

I have been young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor their seed begging bread.

• I am thankful for relatively good health, considering the way I have mistreated my body over the years.
• I am thankful for a wonderful job--the best I have ever had.
• I am thankful for a family that loves me and puts up with my often opinionated self.
• I am thankful for a country that is still relatively free, compared to the rest of the world, and for a government that is doing all within their power to keep it that way.
• I am thankful for my two cats that keep me company, even though they have a mind of their own and ignore me more often than they obey.

A DEI GLORIA

Thankful for What?

There was a question on the little card that comes in the program at the Sunday church service, the usual Thanksgiving question: What are you thankful for?

I have been thinking about that all week. So far, the list is long and far from complete. The obvious things--family, friends, place to live that is paid for, food all come to mind, but it is more than that. Today, for instance, I went to the local high school to confer with the principal regarding a matter involving a grandson. It is a nice place, physically, but not somewhere I would choose to be, so I am thankful that I don't have to be there, either as a student, teacher, or staff member. Actually, my first thought upon going in there is that I really don’t understand why we make them go there everyday. Luckily, their friends (girl) are there, so they see a reason to go. Personally, I think they could learn more in home schooling.

When I took a person to another nearby town to register for a class in alcohol awareness, a class that is taught in the probation office, I am thankful that someone a long time ago convinced me that alcohol (and cigarettes, for that matter, along with other drugs) are not good for me, and for the most part, I have made it just fine with only a few prescription drugs along the way. I am also quite thankful that person has made tremendous progress in the last year.

When I inject myself with insulin to control my blood sugar levels, I am thankful for the advances in treating diabetes. Our grandfather didn't have those advantages to treat his diabetes, and died early from a stroke.

I am thankful that even though I did not start college until my fifth child started first grade, that the opportunities for education were so available that I was able to work through to the completion of a doctorate, work for more than thirty-five years, raise those five kids, and still retire while I am able to be active.

Splenda. I am thankful that even though the sweet tooth probably has not helped my health, I am able to indulge it without repercussion, at least as far as the sweet part is concerned.

Although it is confusing and probably over-hyped, I am thankful for Medicare Part D, the prescription drug part. It may not save a dime, but then again, maybe it will.

Although I have never brought myself to write a Christmas letter, I am thankful that I have enough good things to fill one. If I were to write a Christmas letter, it would be much more realistic than most of the ones I read.

I am thankful that our town has a community Thanksgiving service, and maybe next year we will get the time right and not walk in for the last song.

I am thankful for our NoLongerMobileHome, paid for, warm, cool, and certainly not like anything anyone else lives in. Have you ever seen an L-shape mobile home?  

I am also very thankful for each and every member of my family, even though there are a few I rarely see or hear from, and especially the one who is my constant companion and partner. Life with him is good.

I am happy that

• Samantha (granddaughter, Amy’s daughter) is moving from Tucson, Arizona to Fayetteville, Arkansas. That is much closer to Marshall, Texas.

• Ashley (Amy’s daughter) is working at WalMart in San Marcos and living the life she chooses.

• Jami (Nancy’s daughter, our granddaughter) is getting close to graduating from Texas A and M in Commerce, and for her marriage that started this year.

• the place where Beth (Jami’s daughter, age 1 ½) stuck the pencil through the roof of her mouth healed, it wasn’t the quarter inch over that could have killed her, and that she really didn’t have scarletina.

• Aron (Nancy’s son, our grandson) and Melissa’s baby Hailey arrived safely in May, and is such a sweetheart, and that Aron’s gout is better.

• Dave took me to see his chiropractor and I am MUCH better.

• we got to meet Ed and Junie in St. Louis and saw the places we lived there and spent a nice day at the Forest Park Zoo.

• I got a White Castle hamburger on the way home.

• someone else paid for us to stay on the Riverwalk in San Antonio for three nights, that we got to go on to Corpus Christi and see old friends as well as Dave’s sister Linda and family.

• we have beautiful pictures from the digital camera; that I have a new serger; that Dave has a new (used) Gulbransen organ; Amazon and Ebay for buying and selling.

• Habitat for Humanity for giving me something useful to do; Second Story Software for making my annual correspondence with the IRS easier, and Makita for making good power tools at reasonable prices.

• For Lowe’s.

Can’t imagine anyone reading all this nattering, but if you have, I hope it inspires you to share yours; you may remind me of yet more.

Happy Thanksgiving

potpourri

Happy Holidays to all, & please accept my apologies for taking so long to get back to this.
I have to confess that I forgot how to post and each time I thought of getting back to it, I just simply drew a blank. Of course I have been gone quite a bit lately.
But, I guess the aging process can also be blamed.
I want to say that knowing Bertha was such a privilege and I am sorry I missed getting to know the daughter of such a lovely personality.
As you mentioned, Betty, she was always cheerful around us and made my stay in Kansas more bearable.
It was my first time away from my Mother and being as immature as I was, I had a hard time coping.
I have meant for some time to write about the depression as I cannot remember ever knowing anyone with a more cheerful and unsufferably optimistic person than Don Broadus.
It certainly didn't surface in him and both our daughters seem to have bright outlooks on life too.
My depression on the other hand, began very soon after leaving California.
I really was fascinated by the snow which occurred four days after we moved there since my previous experience with this substance was limited to the refrigerator freezer compartment.
However, my lightweight summer clothing and the necessity of leaning forever into the wind soon made me quite miserable, which of course blighted my outlook considerably.
The daily struggle to stay warm without prior "winter savvy" and worry over a new baby doubled my anxiety and the pleasant times with Bertha & Jim were refuge and will always be a warm memory to me.
The Durlings were equally hospitable to me and they too, will always have a special place in my heart.
Don was always coming up with new things to enthuse over, so thru all the usual highs & lows of any young married couple, we passed several years there before moving to Longview, Texas to be nearer my parents who had moved from California back to their roots in East Texas.
To the present.
Kelly has started her new job with Interstate Distribution which is based out of Tacoma, Washinton and we both are traveling alone now. The price of fuel made it impossible for the truck to support us both and Kelly was off quite a while with her sleep studies so it has make it difficult on both of us. Even so, thankfully we have our health and she has lost some weight and is feeling much better and since both of us are getting more restfull sleep now, it is better than before.
Also I may sell several acres of land to ease things a bit.
Christy found a place in town which is about fifteen minutes from her new job at a television station and now has more time for herself and cooking since she no longer has to spend almost 3 hours a day driving to and from work, plus the gas saving is considerable.
Teri and Crystal started setting up the Christmas tree a little while ago and got crossways about some aspect of it and wound up finishing with teeth gritted.
She (Teri) is building up her Home & Garden Parties quite well and is holding at least one a week & sometimes two. Crystal helps her with the themed parties and last time I was home I altered a granny dress and got out my grandmothers old sunbonnet for her to wear at a pioneer party. They have alot of fun.
Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and political correctness or not, I will continue to use that phrase for all time that I draw breath.
I too, had a shattering Christmas experience.Of course, like any kid, it was magical to me and I used to imagine that I saw Santa's footprints in the yard. Mother & I never put out cookies & milk but she always strung red & green crepe paper chains from each corner of the ceiling and hung a couple of crepe paper foldable bells at the center. She wasn't a very good cook most of the time but made a graham cracker based fruitcake that I still love to make to this day.
My Dad was always a dark & brooding figure to me, though I never heard him say "bahhumbug" he seemed to radiate it just the same.
Mother always covered our tree with the silver icicles which I delighted to stroke while watching the charming effect.
The year I was seven as I was excitedly anticipating the big day, my older brother unexpectedly told me the truth about Santa. Worse yet he said it was my Dad, whom I avoided most of the time. I was aghast.
Of course, the naive little girl didn't take the blow too well. The magic was gone and I was introduced to depression with a bang, though I didn't recognize it at the time.
Of course, Mom tried to soften the blow by telling me I was a big girl now, and could do more grown up things. But.......
I found no consolation in drying the dishes after supper and making up my bed which she had done up til then.
Ah.......growing up. What a miracle.
Well I know this has been somewhat disjointed but I agree with Jami that it is quite pleasant to look forward to news of the family and I will try to remember how to do it in future.
Best to all.
The outlawed inlaw.

Betty and Adam in Cairo

The lovely and gracious lady on the left is Betty Tegtmeier (nee Peck, daughter of Jim & Bertha Peck, nee Durling). The gentleman at the grand piano on the left is Czech concert pianist Adam Skoumal, in concert in Cairo, Egypt. Adam has adopted Betty as his grandmother and chief groopie.

This picture was posted by David Broadus at the request of Betty who is still a bit Blog challenged, but making incredible progress for a 74 year old woman. Considering the way the pictures are placed, I am a bit Blog-challenged myself, at least when it comes to posting pictures.

Where Am I?

I'm in Prague; where are you? I'm glad you wrote, Jami. I was beginning to think I'd scuttled the site! Nothing happened for such a long time after I asked a serious question. So you've made me feel much, much better! Thanks!

Thanksgiving greetings to everybody! This is not a holiday familiar to Czechs, but, never mind, they just finished a long-weekend-National Holiday commemorating the protest gathering that kicked off the downfall of the Communist regime here. However, little by little I'm introducing friends, one family at a time, to Thanksgiving turkey and all the trimmings. There are now four or five restaurants in Prague that serve The Works, and I use the size of my all-purpose microwave oven as an excuse to take people out for turkey dinner. This year, my guests will be the family of Adam Skoumal (incredibly talented concert pianist/composer masquerading as my piano teacher) and his family--parents (Anna and Mirek), sister (Tereza), and his fiance (Miluška).

We'll go to Red, Hot, and Blues Restaurant, owned by an American lady from Houston; dinner cooked by the amazing Ukrainian lady who cooks much better American than I do. Her usual menu features a lot of Southern dishes, and, of course, Thanksgiving dinner will even offer SWEET POTATOES! First year I was here---couldn't find any anywhere--and I was starved for sweet potatoes. Second year, a fancy food store, Fruite de France, stocked fresh sweet potatoes. They were worth MORE than their weight in gold, and I was stunned to see the busboy carrying out plates that were licked clean---for all but the tiny dab of mashed SWEET POTATOES! It was really hard to keep from reaching out and snatching some of those plates. Now, after 15 years, sweet potatoes, especially terrific yams, are in all the supermarkets and Czechs clean their plates at the restaurant---drat! Being a true Southerner, Laurie (owner) plans the traditional pies for dessert: pumpkin, mince, pecan, and apple. I think the apple is for the less adventurous Czech diners.

So that's what's happening here on the Czech Front. Stay tuned. Film at 11.

Y'all have a great Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year now, y'hear?

Love,
Betty

Where are you?

I feel like there is a "white elephant" on our blog, and there shouldn't be. I am glad that Busterdog realized he needed help for his depression and got help for it. I also think it is wonderful that he shared that with us, it made me understand a lot about him that I didn't understand before. I know we have a very strong family with strong bonds, and I know that we shouldn't stop sharing with one another. I may be just projecting this because no one has written in a long while and I think this may be the reason. I miss opening the blog and finding notes from the family. I don't know many of you, and I would like to get to know you better through our blog. I miss you all, please start sharing again. That said, we are all doing well. I can't wait to go home for Thanksgiving and see my family. Beth will be 2 on Dec. 3rd, and she is quite a little fireball. Khrystalynn has matured so much over the last six months that it is unbelievable. She even keeps her room clean without any interference! I feel absolutely blessed every day that God has given me the family I have, and I love you all.