Relief, Release...

As nice as some things were this past week for me, there were still a whole lot of ups and downs in my life then and especially over the 2-3 weeks prior.


Tension within me was high -very high -and I could feel so many bad feelings racing within my mind, my body, each trying to get the upper hold/grasp on my last nerve for sure. The result of all the turmoil I was experiencing really hit its peak -or so I thought -last weekend and the damned depression issues I've dealt with off and on over the past several decades now, was the emotion that finally won out.

If you've never had to deal with depression, I will pray for you that you never do have to experience that as it is one horrible thing to contend with, for sure.

I spent 95 percent of the weekend in a constant state of tears -not a good way to feel and to try to pull yourself out of the pit that it does feel like has become your permanent residence.

I felt like I really could use a whole building full of chairs4worship in the hope that maybe at least one of them might contain some really strong magical potion that would free me from the tumult attacking me from the inside out.

It has not left me completely yet, but does seem to have lessened somewhat -at least for the time being. I'm sure it's far from having run its course this time but these episodes -when they hit -don't really come about overnight but build quietly, sneaking along, permeating in little ways sometimes over a very long period of time so, with something that is so surreptitious in the way it builds up, isn't going to just up and disappear completely in the blink of an eye.

I know that from past experience but it is what it is -just something that is apparently an inane part of me and I'm still learning albeit it very slowly, how to deal with it.

Monday, Monday!

Rainy weekend ahead for Saturday and Sunday -so they say. Hopefully Monday will be at least clear. I know we always need rain but not several days of rain and gray in a row, please.

This coming Monday is one of those days that comes around every year and which I'd kind of wish it would skip a year now and then. But it won't so I have to face up to the fact that, provided I'm still above ground this Monday, I will be another year older. Doubtful that I will have acquired any in the way of skills, learning, etc., just will be another year older and probably just that much deeper in debt. (as one good old song from my era of music says.)

Monday is also my cousin, Joan's birthday too -a little thing she and I share and Thursday is her brother Ray's birthday  (same year as mine but I was the lucky one who arrived first I guess) and then, next Sunday is my cousin Barb's birthday (would also have been my late cousin Dave's 66th day had things gone differently than they did) and after that, next Thursday -the 18th -is my granddaughter's 9th birthday, which is then followed by my niece's 9th birthday on the 22nd and my favorite Red-Headed cousin adds another year on the 23rd! Boy -a whole lot of libras there, aren't we?

Monday of this past week now though was a special day for me too -my good friend and former classmate who I refer to often as "Bella" had a birthday and a couple days after that -not sure of the date though -it was my late uncle's great-nephew's birthday (we call each other cousin but technically, we aren't -unless you count what I call a "backdoor" relational status as being a "cousin."

Yeah -a whole lot of years packed in there this month.

But this past Monday was a special day for me thanks to the last "cousin" I mentioned who -along with his parents -were here visiting for a few days.

And while they were here, that cousin Eric and I -as I wrote the other nite -went exploring, grave marker hunting here.It was a nice day and also was successful in that we were able to locate his great-great aunt and uncle's gravesite and marker.

Before Eric and his parents left to return to their motel room down in Indiana, PA -I told him if he had a chance to look at a telephone directory down there, to look up another cousin's phone number and tell her who he is and what he family he is researching. Told him, if he's lucky and finds her at home, that she would definitely recognize many of the names in his family tree.

And as things played out, Wednesday morning, with my cousin's phone number and address in hand along with directions to the street where she lives from someone on the staff at the motel where they were staying, he went for a short drive, located the street where she lives as well as the house number and decided to "live dangerously" and go forward and introduce himself to her.

I figured out that he met her when he sent me a message saying "Your cousin sure does get an early start on her getting out and about as she was ready to roll out and do things for the start of the day around 8 a.m. and he added this, "She sure is a heck of a darned good baker too!"

The quip about her being a good baker told me that he had definitely met her!

I laughed and wrote back that I certainly would never argue that point with him as she is,truly, a great bakers! Just a great all-around cook she is! And, she operates exactly the way her own Mom did when someone unexpected visitor would come knocking on the door.

In this case, with my cousin, she had no clue who this guy was standing on her doorstep but for some wild and crazy reason, she opened the door and ended up inviting him in. And after that, she even fed him and sent a package of rolls she had baked back to the motel with him for his parents! Like her mother before her, I can envision that she probably was able to pull a 5-6 course meal out of her refrigerator at the drop of a hat, have it all heated up, perfectly, and on the table in front of him in 45 minutes or less! And then, she probably swooped down and around him, passing plate after plate to him and telling him, "Here, have some of this; try that and just a taste of this, maybe!"

Yeah, that exactly how my aunt would have done and it's the trait I remember best about her too! It's that trait in her daughter that my kids know oh so well and could never pass on anything she passed under our noses either!

After hearing of his successful meeting with this cousin of mine, I told my daughter I was going to have to call her and talk to her about that visit but last night, before I even had a chance to pick up the phone and call her, my phone rang and a glance at the caller ID told me it was her calling me, and I figured correctly too that she would be laughing and telling me all about her day when she answered his knock at her front door, surprised her with his questions about people she knew from way back when and hadn't probably thought about in many, many years too!

I so enjoyed hearing her talk about their visit and she told me too what things she had also sent to the motel with him for his parents -more freshly baked rolls that she had, along with cheese as well and a few other things.

Sure made my day to read about this from him and to hear about their visit from her.

Gives a body renewed hope then that Monday, Monday isn't a bad thing after all, is it?

Work Wanted...

This week, I did something I really hadn't thought I would have to do again -ever. I went searching on my computer for copies I had on file of my resume.

I had to retire via disability back in 2004 (actually that dates back to March of 2003, but what difference does a couple of months make. Right?

Anyway, because of the health issues I have had over the past 9 years now, as well as now being of an age when I am considered to be "retired" and no longer collecting disability but rather regular retirement social security, apparently I figured I would never again have to update my resume because if there's nothing changed on the old one, no need to upgrade it.

Right?

But all things considered in my life today -like it or not -whether I am actually capable of handling either a full-time or a art-time form of employment, my income and budget is such now that applying for employment regardless of the number of hours offered, all too many of the jobs advertised in this area either involve more physical labor than mental -it seems -and to be honest, I'm really not sure if I can handle employment now after being out of the job market for close to 10 years now.

However, my budget dictates that I need to at least apply, hopefully be granted an interview for pretty much any position.

Recently, I was told of a position open within an agency here that works with clients who have issues along the mental health lines and I was also told that this company doesn't actually need more than a bachelor's degree in some type of counseling -which is the area of my major -and so here I am now needing to update my good old resume.

Apparently, I had figured I wouldn't need a resume ever again though but at least it does look like those thoughts were of the incorrect because to apply for the above position, I have to submit an application for employment along with that dreadful thing called a resume.

Frankly, all I really want to be able to do now is to find some type of employment that would possibly, preferably use my resume and what qualifications I think I still have and not something like washing dishes or perhaps ringing up sales for various little convenience type stores in this region.

Truthfully though, all I really want is the opportunity to once again be in a position whereby I have to fill in employee attendance forms that would indicate I am once again gainfully employed some where in some capacity!

And if that employment happens to be with this particular counseling agency, that would make me one very happy camper.

Now, how can I word things on my resume that would create a believer from that agency that I can still be a good employee, that I still have knowledge and ability along with wisdom and common sense to be able to secure employment with said agency?

I hate resumes and trying to word them in a way that -in my mind -does nothing but overglorify the work a person has done and doesn't take into consideration the things a person has learned without the good old  job force. I mean really now -how can you word the duties required of what you did as a waitress in such a way as to show the inner workings of that type of work and portrays them as having significance in the working world as we all know it? That hits me pretty much like listening to political candidates bragging over and over -often lying over and over too -about "see me, what a great job I did and how difficult this work is" as being the bottom line.

But, I really do need a job and this one does seem very much like the kind of work I wanted to do all along with my particular degree and my course of study. So, please, give me ideas as to how to word this thing -the resume -and my previous work experience in such a manner that my kids can say too, "yeah, my Mom did that -or this or something else.

Any and all offers of assistance in the art of writing what in essence would probably turn out looking like a "snow job" for the employer I am asking nicely to at least grant me an interview and hopefully -actually see that I am indeed, a very viable potential employee.

Yeah -I can see that working! Can't you?

Exploring!!!

I'm pretty sure I have mentioned at least one or two times on my blog that I am into Family Tree Research stuff, haven't I?  Well if you missed those posts or skipped them or whatever, I do enjoy family tree research very much. I'm not a true fanatic with it, but I like to learn things about my own roots whenever I can and also, I do enjoy helping others find information about their roots as well.

A few years back now, a very nice young man -well a good bit younger than me, he is anyway -"found" me and introduced himself to me as being the great-nephew of my older aunt's husband! This through the miracle of the internet and Ancestry.com!

Now that particular uncle of his (and mine) and my aunt lived all their married life in Jamestown, New York and for a time, back in the early 50s, I lived with them while my Mom lived up in Niagara Falls, NY with my younger aunt and her husband. From October of 1951 until the spring of 1952, my grandparents also lived with my aunt and uncle -and me. But by May of 1952, my Grandpa was antsy as all get out to return home -to his house -the one I live in today -here in Pennsylvania. He wanted to be here near to his older brother and to the soil he loved and to getting his garden dug up, harrowed and planted! And when my Grandpa made up his mind about something like his vegetable garden, people better follow through and get him back home when he said he needed to be here!

The whole deal about Grandma, Grandpa and I going to Jamestown came about because my Mom wanted to try to rebuild her life, to make a life for herself and for me, independent, on her own but her siblings didn't approve of that idea, nor did my Grandparents. So the summer of 1951, when she actually went to the Falls to begin working there, living with her younger sister and her husband, my Grandparents felt that wasn't a good idea to take me there too and insisted I stay behind with them. But as fall rolled around, my aunts and uncles didn't feel my Grandparents were strong enough to handle being in charge of their old house -and me -what with the rigors of a coal-fired furnace, taking out ashes and general maintenance at their ages then so it was agreed that we would go to Jamestown to stay with their oldest child and her husband over the winter months, at least.

And so,for the next year then I ended up living with my aunt and uncle. And in the process of living with them, I also got to know almost all of my Uncle Butch's family -his brothers, sisters and many nieces and nephews of his too, many of whom had migrated up to Jamestown to make their homes there.

I mention this to explain how it came about that I knew a good deal then pertaining to Uncle Butch's family tree and the thing is, I still remember much of what I learned about his family then to this day.

And so when Uncle Butch's nephew Eric initiated contact with me, I was able to explain help him a good bit as he was working on researching his great-grandfather and a whole lot of other ancestors on that tree with him. Since we first met via Ancestry.com, it seems more like I've known Eric virtually forever although I think it's perhaps only been 6 or 7 years or so but he lives in Phoenix -I'm here in Pennsylvania -and he has been here to find his roots and such on several occasions now during which visits we have gotten together to try to track people down from his family trees.

So for me, when he had contacted me about 2-3 weeks ago to tell me he and his parents were coming to PA for a short visit, and when he said he wanted me to go exploring with him in search of a sister of his great-grandmother, I knew exactly where he meant we would be heading with that search.

Of course -to the local cemetery affiliated mainly with the church I belong to -Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran of Lanse, PA!

And yes, I was quite right about my assumption there too!

Now there are a lot of other relatives of Eric and my Uncle Butch's too who still live in these parts but they are all people who Eric has never met before too. And it just so happens I know a lady who is related to Eric and who I had connected them up via e-mail and Facebook but they had never had the opportunity to meet. And, because I also know this woman is like Eric, very interested in family tree research, I contacted her and asked her if she would be interested in meeting him.

You'd almost have thought I had just given her a small fortune when I asked her that questions. Sure, she most certainly would love to meet him and so we made arrangements then and there that she would join Eric and I in our search at our cemetery to see if we could then "find" his Aunt Justina.

And so, that's how Eric, his cousin Jean and I spent this past Monday afternoon -walking through the cemetery in search of a marker somewhere there for his great-grandmother's sister, Justina Swanson!

For quite a while, Eric was getting a bit worried that this was going to be a futile trip and search as we weren't have any luck in locating a marker for this woman at all. Then I asked Eric if he knew what year her husband had died and he told me "1900" so I said then, if he died that long ago, I thought we'd be better off walking/searching in the lower quadrant of the cemetery -referred to as the "old" section of the graves. And so, we three grave searchers started in that specific area, checking markers, old headstones of all types and all of a sudden, we found the marker indicating it was for this woman's husband!  But, there was nothing on that marker for her! Oh rats was pretty much our initial reaction until someone spied a smaller and flatter -newer type of stone and there it was, with her name on it and the date of her passing -1949!

Here then is a not so good a picture of Eric between the markers for his great-great uncle to his left and his great-great aunt to his right! I do think though you can see by the big smile on his face how happy he was to have found these markers can't you?

After our success with finding those markers, we continued walking around the graves as I pointed out many stones to him who also were markers for other people from the past who I knew had various connections as well to his family tree.

Then, as it was getting late and I needed to leave to get home to be there with the kids when they returned home from school, we stopped an took ta couple of pictures then too of the marker for Eric's great-great-grandmother too. I'm not very knowledgeable in the Swedish language however I can read enough of the words to understand that it says, basically, Anna Gustafson -born in Frandefors Sweden, and her birthdate is shown there and that she died here in May of 1910 The wording across the bottom though is way beyond my level of understanding however, a lady I have met and who works in a museum in Mellerud, Sweden as a geneology researcher is going to be visiting here, probably on October 16th so I am going to try to be sure to show this stone to her and get her to translate the bottom lines on it then too for me -and for my cousin, Eric, for his family tree research!

After Eric and Jean left I then tried to figure out where, in this little village, his great-great-aunt had lived but for some reason, he had it that she had lived in Lanse and any of the people I know from that little town who might be old enough to possibly remember her had not recollection whatsoever of a woman by that name living in their little town.

So I went to good old Ancestry.com and began trying to find some other type of records for the aunt and finally Tuesday afternoon I managed to come across the obituary for her published in 1949 in our local newspaper. Lo and behold, she hadn't lived in Lanse at all but rather had resided in the upper section of Grassflat, where I live. Through that obituary I was able then to learn she had a son, who in 1949 was living in Corning, New York and with whom she had been living apparently for quite some time.

So between the searching at the cemetery, then in the old news papers records and finding her obituary, Eric can now work on finding her son and if he had any family -children, etc., perhaps build onto his family tree line and who knows but what he may then be able to locate more relatives, some who may even be living  today!

Now isn't that fun to learn who the people were who lived at the time of your ancestors coming to this country and also, to learn that there is a possibility of even maybe some day finding a current descendant from those people in their family tree?

Well it sure makes for a very enjoyable day for me anyway!

Bold Little Thief!

Poor Kurtis!

The little guy has been having a tough time lately, trying very hard to make "wise choices" as his TSS, Miss Dawn tells him over and over -and OVER again, daily. It's hard to remember exactly what wise choices are though sometimes for all of us, but especially when you're only six years old and also, very excitable at times. Okay -change that to most of the time!

He apparently has been having a string of bad days this week at school. Not paying attention. Trying to outdo other kids as the class clown of the day. Making messes in the bathroom at school with a couple other kids from his class/age range. All kinds of little tricks he's been trying and also, getting caught at them too.

I think Miss Dawn has either sent notes home to Mandy about his homework (instructions) or text messages to her daily since Monday about his behavior and needless to say, all this leaves his Mom in a not so very good mood.

Tuesday night, he was warned by Mandy that if she got any bad reports today on him, he was going to lose the tv set in his room. The only thing that would be considered worse -in the punishment lines -to Kurtis would be if Mandy told him she was going to take Bear-Bear -his very special bear rug shaped pillow that serves as his major comfort zone. And, let's face it -only someone who was looking to inflict cruel and unusual punishment would ever even think of taking away a child's comfort zone.

Right?

Well, the tv set in his bedroom is also a comfort thing for him too -soothes him gently off into dreamland, ya know.

Unfortunately for Kurtis, his actions today at school -for which he got reprimanded not just by Miss Dawn but also by Miss Renee, the therapist who was his second TSS and who is now the behavior specialist who is over Miss Dawn in setting up goals and plans for Kurt's progress! Now Kurt loves Miss Dawn -no two ways about that. But she is with him every day in school and she is the one who generally administers the punitive stuff on him when he's acting up where he should be working, reading, studying. Miss Renee, on the other hand, he sees maybe in passing throughout the week and he knows her quite well, but he also loves her too. And since she isn't usually the one responsible for reprimanding him, he kind of wants to appear to be the sweet little fellow to her and not the grumpy (somedays) and rebellious little boy he often is with Miss Dawn. So when Miss Renee caught him doing something he shouldn't have been doing today, at school, and the word got back to his Mom about that this afternoon when Miss Renee arrived here before Kurtis even got home from school, he knew, I'm pretty sure, that he was gonna be in big trouble!

And so Mandy reprimanded him and then, reminded him very quietly, very calmly too, about what she had told him last night -one more bad report from school and he would be losing his tv in his bedroom.

She told him her bad news for him while Miss Renee was still here today and you could see the hurt in him as his expression changed with the news. Initially, she told him she was removing the tv "for a while" and he had to ask then if that meant "for a day?" And she told him she wasn't quite sure yet just how long but he had to push that envelope some more and then she said probably for a week.

His response to that was "Till tomorrow?" No, buddy -a week, seven days.

"For a long, long while then?" was his next question and she nodded that yes, a week is a long, long while -seven days, seven nights, start counting 'em off, Son!

He willingly went upstairs to go to bed tonight but once in his room and the realization hit him that tv set was missing, the tears, the crying then began. It lasted a little while, then finally was quiet.

But close to 11:00 p.m. I heard the unmistakable sound of him, coming down the steps and then, into the living room where he announced "I'm thirsty!" And Mandy told him to go out to the kitchen and he could get a drink of water.

Katie -his oldest sister -happened to be out there and was in the process of getting herself a big glass of ice water so Mandy told her then to get him a drink while she was out there. She sat her glass of ice water down on the counter while reaching for a cup to get water in it for Kurtis and just that fast, when she turned around to get an ice cube for hm, she saw him standing there, nice as could be, draining the glass of ice water she had just got for herself!

It was in the blink of an eye and the Katie's glass of ice water was gone and he was on his way back upstairs, back to bed too. And nary a thank you to her for that cool drink either!

Let's face it. When the boy wants a drink, he means it. And if he can make that disappear that fast, just think what he'd be like in oh, 10-12 years from now if he would happen to ask for and would receive a debit card for teenagers! Boy, at the rate he went through that glass of water and with the idea then that money flows easily with a card like that, he'd have it drained in nothing flat then, wouldn't he?

A New Bride!

This past weekend, my Facebook was all a buzz, big time, with wedding pictures taken of a cousin of mine on my Dad's side of the family as she and her fiance tied the knot on the sandy shore of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. From the photos everyone and their brother was sharing of Bev and Don on their wedding day, it was a simple yet very beautiful ceremony! Made me wish I could have been there to share in the joy of their wedding day for sure!

But, it also got me to thinking of some other things too. And you know by now, when I start thinking, well who knows what I'm liable to come up with. See first off, I've never been to any of the beaches on the Atlantic coast except for Rehoboth (in Delaware -which was my favorite beach back in the 60s) and I've been to Ocean City, Maryland and also to Atlantic City, New Jersey -but those escapades were all a long, long time ago, in my much younger, very carefree years.

I'd love to have a chance some day to visit some other beaches on the Atlantic coastline and especially those in North Carolina and South Carolina -mainly because I do have a cousin who lives in South Carolina and it would maybe open an opportunity to visit him and his wife for an afternoon or so and a very good friend of mine from high school lives in North Carolina so I could also use a trip south to include visiting her and her husband too.

 But, here's what I really was thinking about! My cousin who just got married this past weekend -well she and her new groom along with a lot of other cousins on that side of my family are very big into going to the shore every summer -usually doing it as a pretty large family-type affair at that. Plus, she just fairly recently got her license to be a Real Estate agent and taking that into consideration, maybe she could be convinced to think about the idea of her and her husband -with their love of the Atlantic shorelines -to consider looking for houses for sale in outer banks and finding a good deal that they could buy for their own usage (of course) but also, one that they might then consider letting family rent it at oh, maybe a bit of a reduced rate that some of us poorer ones in the family might actually then be able to afford and have the opportunity to enjoy the luxury of at least a long weekend sometime in that area.

And for me, well that would -as I think I laid out in my above words -would offer me the best of all worlds, wouldn't it?

Rant Hall of Fame?

One of my good Blogger friend, Jim -AKA Suldog -sent me a comment this morning in reference to a comment I had made to his post late last week. Doing what I'm known for doing from time to time, I exercised my option to do a mini-post on his post in the form of my comment. His response to me was that my comment to his post really should go in the Rant Hall of Fame! Well, I don't know if any such place exists but if it does, I'm sure Jim would be one of the first who would qualify, hands down, for many entries into such a place because when he decides to state his mind about things, he lets fly and Katie bar the door then! So, anyway, I decided to take him up on his suggestion to share my little rant-comment here with everyone! Meaning maybe Jim and the 3 or 4 others who still read my drivel! Jim's post -titled Troglodyte -is about his wife's recent purchase of a cell phone and his thoughts/theories on that subject. I do recommend you read his post before moving on to reading my comments on that post though -things will make a lot more sense that way. My comments constitute my opinion about cell phones which isn't really something I love and adore! Cell phones and I are not best buddies! I have a cell phone now and I think in the year since it was given to me (by my son and his girlfriend for my birthday last year) I think I have made maybe 6 phonecalls at the most on it! They got it for me because they thought it would be a good thing for me to have so if my car breaks down -or I get lost someplace out in the boonies around here -I can call someone for help! Fat joke that is! For openers, if I were to get lost out in these boondocks, odds are generally NOT in favor of my being able to call for help because ....Verizon needs to do a whole lot more of the "Can you hear me now?" work in this area. If I were to need emergency help at my house, I would have to drive my jeep out of the village -up the hills and over the creeks to Verizon's service available site you know in order to call for an ambulance or whatever! And to reach one of my kids via their cell phones? Oh pleeeaassee! Give me a friggin' break as they always are having one problem or another with their cell phones! (BTW, my son got my phone as a freebie, offered to people of a certain age and up -as an emergency convenience. I get 240 freebie minutes per month and right now, my available number of minutes available for my usage is around 1500 minutes or some such equally obscene number. And don't even think about trying to tell me how much cheaper it is to have a cell phone than a land line either! I've seen my daughter's phone bills (cell type) as well as my son's) and no way did my phone bill come close to what they pay each money since younger daughter got caught having run my landline bill up with over $90 in long distance phone calls back in the day when there was no such thing as "free long distance calling coast to coast." (I told her to please get an f'ing friend whose number did not involve dialing "1" at the beginning of the call -not that it worked exactly, but the calls she made did subside a little bit anyway! A really long story -maybe even worthy of a blog post on that topic provided I remember having mentioned this here tonight as I'm trying to medicate my nerves into sleep with my second triple shot of Kaluha on the rocks! Also another long, long story which doubtful that it will be post worthy -ever! Oh and if you ever do get a cellphone of your own, with text capacity, be very careful of what you choose to use as your signal that you have incoming text. Daughter's phone gives out with a whistle that had me thinking every freaking time I heard it that our neighbor was out in the yard whistling for their dog to come home!

Amazing? And, Colorful Too!

Earlier this evening, Kurt was busy at the dining room table with some construction paper and crayons. Eventually, he flitted into the living room and flashed before me the fruits of his labors.

Seems he'd just completed making a special birthday card for his little buddy, Ryan, my son's girlfriend's younger son, who will be having a birthday party this Saturday to celebrate that he'll be 4 years old!

The card was pretty simple -as greeting cards go. Across the top, in bold print and each letter a different color, was his name -"RYAN: and under that, in a little smaller print, it said "Happy Birthday."  Good job in that he had all the important commodities showing. The fun part was first that he read it to me and in Kurt's way, it read "Happy Birthday, Ryan." Although, if you or I were to read it, the way he has it set up, it reads "Ryan. Happy Birthday."

Not a big deal there -just a matter of semantics, isn't it?

But after he showed his production to me, Kurt then turned to me and asked me, "Am I amazing?"

Why yes, my little sweetheart, yes indeed you are.

Then he had one more question for me. "Am I colorfull?"

Yep, Kiddo! That too!

Which got me to thinking about some other things around that are amazing as well as often colorful too and I thought for a change of pace, I'd show you some of them!

Here's Kurtis at our Sunday School Rally Day Carnival about 2 weeks ago after having had his face painted - a big yellow truck on one cheek and I think maybe he had a dinosaur or something along those lines painted on his other cheek. Definitely amazing and also, a bit colorful, don't 'cha think?

And here's Maya, watching with an eagle-eye as the Sunday School Director (Danielle) gets just the right color of paint to draw a lovely butterfly on Maya's face!

Here's Maya and Kurtis -and Kurt's TSS in the center there -enjoying the activities on Labor Day at the one and only, Labor Day Picnic that's been held out at Cooper Grove in Drifting (a tiny village that is really the "blink and you missed it" kind of place) and this event has been an ongoing thing since back in the late 1800s around these hills!

Here's some evidence that the Labor Day (or Cooper) Picnic offers a little something for everyone and every age range too as these two ladies were volunteers for a magic trick done by the gentleman in the center. The two women? Well they just happen to be two people who were members of my high school graduating class -Carol (Folmar) Nadzom and Betty (Samansky) Danko -who were the good sports to participate in this little bit of fun!

This is Kurtis in a shot that -for him -is truly amazing in that he isn't acting like a little clown and making all kinds of funny faces at the camera. This is him showing his best and sweet, loving side!

And finally - here's one of Maya holding our sweet little kitten -Tavia! Nothing extraordinary about this other than the smile on Maya's face shows quite well I believe how much she loves this kitten!

I had some other photos I planned to put in here but then Blogger began to act up on me and was very contrary so, I'll save them for another time when I'm in the mood to show you some more things that -to me -are both colorful and/or amazing!

Peace!

Sashaying Around!

Does anyone out in my reader's world do any crafting -like say, knitting or crochet?

If so, do you just love to look at, touch and feel, yarns and ok, let's be honest, drool over them? Or am I somewhat of a lone ranger with this fetish of mine?

Odds are though if you are into any kind of crafting you know exactly what kind of reaction I'm talking about here though, don't 'cha? Come on, be honest, you know you do all of the above and also, you know the temptation is there too regardless of how much "stuff" (Yarns, fabrics, kits) you already have on hand in your private little (or large) stash, you know it's difficult to look at these things and walk away without adding oh, just one more piece of material or a couple skeins of this yarn, or whatever the craft is that pulls at you unmercifully!

True confession time here now as I will 'fess up to what constitutes my own "stash."

I used to sew -a lot -lately, not so much but I still have my sewing machine and I have about 3 fairly large boxes filled with patterns I could use and I also have at least 3 large plastic tote containers too, each filled to the brim with fabric pieces I have collected over the years -some probably dating back as far as when my youngest was a toddler I suppose. Yes, I bought fabric like an insane person for many years with big ideas and plans of what I would make from this or that piece for myself, for one of my kids, for some other person or special occasion and of course, kind of like that proverbial child at the dinner table who's eyes are bigger than their stomach, I didn't get around to making a damned thing with the coveted fabric I just had to have!

The same applies too with yarns as I have at least 2 other large tote containers filled with yarns purchased with the same general plans for using that stuff as well. Until of course, I ran out of ideas, energy or time -which ever came first -and then the yarn sits and still waits for me to get a really bright idea, some energy or time -none of which seem to be forthcoming anymore most of the time.

For the past 3 years or better I have expanded my crafting medium over to now include embroidery and I have yet another large tote packed to overflowing with embroidery kits of all different types but mostly they are kits for tabletoppers or table cloths, although I sometimes do venture into doing tea towels or pillowcases and occasionally, even cute little trivets. There are a few kits of the counted cross stitch variety too but not very many of those as much as I love to look at counted cross stitch, it wearies me to do it and usually makes me feel like I am going crosseyed in the process too.

A while back -oh probably about 6 weeks ago now -I ventured into the crafts section over at the local Walmart and what did I see there but some new type yarn along with a display scarf made of this new yarn and that scarf was really intriguing me too!

This yarn is called Sashay and when one works with it -to make the scarf on display -it works up into a creation of ruffles upon ruffles -really pretty (my opinion there anyway) and very feminine. Hmmm. I eyed up the yarns available -the colors -and tried to imagine making one of these scarves, all the while, praying silently to "Please let me walk away without purchasing this stuff!"

On that occasion, my will power held out and I selected then a skein of some other yarn -called "Spirit" yarn, and I got it in two colors (in one skein) that had been part of my alma mater's (high school) colors -red and blue! It was only $3.99 a skein and the Sasay was $4.99 a skein so the base price plus the fact I hadn't a clue as to how to work with the Sashay stuff told me I could make more use out of the Spirit yarn. And I did that too. I made -crocheted -4 hats using that yarn -one was in red and blue and the other three, I added in some white yarn to make those three hats (little beanie type things) into a tri-color striped hat of red, white and blue -our school colors -and at our "night before" event over our class reunion weekend, we raffled off those four hats to some "lucky" classmates.

About a week later, I found myself back over at the good old Walmart and there I was, staring lovingly once again at the display of the Sashay yarns. This time the will power went right down the drain and I came home with a skein of the pink variety of this  yarn,

I tried to figure out from the instructions on the package how to use this yarn, how to knit with it, but to no avail so off I went to the computer and looked for some videos on Youtube showing how to knit with this stuff. Finally, I found one and using that, figured out then how to knit a scarf with this yarn that I thought was just so darned pretty!

Six days later, I finally finished this scarf!

Keep in mind that was six days of working on this item for anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, off and on, daily and it still took me 6 DAYS to finish it! Sheesh! I can take a skein of the Furry boa yarn and in 4-6 hours, tops, whip out a scarf even longer than this ruffly thing is!

My final conclusion then -I've had my fill of the Sashay yarn and never again will I indulge in purchasing that stuff.

Enter here a fellow classmate -who now lives in Colorado and with whom I communicate fairly frequently. She -like me -is one who is a crafter with a stash like you probably wouldn't believe too! And she loves yarns too -just as I do. And she had the nerve to send me a message on Facebook making about my love of crafting and how it led her down the garden path and how she felt compelled to buy and try making something too with this Sashay yarn.

However, in her hands, the yarn apparently just fell into place nicely, easily for her -unlike with me where the needle kept slipping off and away from the yarn causing me to drop stitches, I couldn't find a comfortable way to hold the yarn to make the knitting a trifle more comfortable to my purposes and thus, make the work a little easier.

Where I had come to the conclusion that I would never again be tempted by this yarn, my friend had succumbed and was now the proud possessor of at least 4 skeins of good old Sashay and was merrily working her way through scarf after scarf of this yarn.

My theory there?

My friend has just proved to me that she is, by far and away, totally insane!

But insanity or not, she knows I understand completely how she got sucked in to loving the finished product!

I Told You It Was Good!

Supper -any meal here for that matter -often is a fight as Mandy and I both try to convince one or both of the kids to try something different, some food prepared a little differently from what the kids are accustomed to eating.

Once in a blue moon, those meals meet with a modicum of success -usually the success is with Kurtis but more often than not, anything new on the table is  met with lots of disdain and refusals to even taste it by Miss Maya.

To say she is stubborn, especially where food is concerned, well that's more than a bit of an understatement I guess!

Tonight, was no different from the norm with respect to a new type item on the menu.

I had fixed chicken-flavored rice-a-roni -which both the kids usually will eat without too much prodding and had corn for our vegetable du jour, along with applesauce -all three of those things are generally acceptable to both kids.

For our main dish though, I had fixed chicken -making my own chicken tenders and browning them and that too is usually an okay substance.

Tonight though, I added a little something to go with the chicken from a recipe I found called Chicken ala orange or something like that. All it consisted of was the chicken tenders and a sauce made from a little bit of orange marmalade mixed with corn starch, a little orange juice from a can of mandarin oranges and then, add the mandarin oranges in till just heated through a bit and serve to be spooned over the chicken.

Well, Maya allowed us to put a couple tenders on her plate but the sauce -there was no way that was going to come near her lips! Kurtis, on the other hand, allowed me to dribble a tiny bit of sauce over his chicken -which his sister, Kate -who is visiting here for a couple days -had cut up for him.

The rest of the meal consisted of Kurtis eating all around the chicken and every 2-3 minutes or so, he would ask about the chicken and the sauce, asking if the sauce tastes like mandarin oranges, if it was made from mandarin oranges, if it looked like mandarin oranges -you name it, if he could think of a question to ask and include about the mandarin oranges in it, he did that!

All the while, he still was avoiding tasting the chicken. He asked each of us at the table if the chicken tasted like mandarin oranges -which it didn't unless you put the sauce on it, ya know -and also, he would ask if he liked that.

We each kept reinforcing his questions by telling him to just taste it and he would see what it tastes like and that he would find it to taste good too.

Finally, after what seemed almost an eternity, he did get around to taking a small bite of the chicken and getting it in his mouth.

Slowly -very, very, slowly -he began to chew the chicken and then, took forever to swallow it too then but once he managed to do that he put his fork down, looked directly at me and announced, "See, I TOLD you it was GOOD!"

Needless to say, his wording there completely cracked the rest of us up but he did go on to finish eating his chicken tenders complete with a little dabble of orange sauce on each little bite of the meat!

The things one has to deal with to get a little bit of a healthy meal into a 6-year-old-system, huh?

The Flight of Time....

Time flies, doesn't it -especially when one is having fun. Or so goes another old adage of which I tend to quote a lot of those from time to time.

Well, once again, time sort of got away from me -fly right by and didn't even wave a hello! How about that for some nerve, huh?

I really wish I could explain what I have been so busy doing that I forget to write posts to my blog, forget to make phone calls I should make, forget I have appointments on certain days and then, make another appointment virtually for the same day, same time and not realize it until the last minute.

And people wonder then why I say I must truly be getting senile because on the surface, it sure doesn't look like I have all that much to do but yet -somehow -I keep managing to fall further and further behind!

Take this past weekend for an example!

Mandy and the kids took off Friday afternoon and went down to Lebanon, PA to visit with her best friend there. On Saturday, she and the kids visited another old family friend -Amie -and her little boy, Payton plus they managed to squeeze in a tour of the Gettysburg Battlefield and a stop at Hershey, PA as well before returning home Sunday evening.

So, that meant I had the house all to myself -nothing to do for anyone except for me, and the ability to do whatever I wanted to do -be it baking or cooking, sewing, embroidery, crochet, knitting or reading -all of which are some of my favorite things to do and all of which I'm often complaining because I don't have enough time to do any of these things anymore -or so it seems.

So what did I do most of the day Saturday?

I SLEPT! Yes, talk about a wasted day, I sure blew that one away big time just by napping every time I turned around -or so it seemed.

Did I get anything accomplished?

Well, around 11 p.m. Saturday night, since I had nothing to show for my day, I did manage then to sweep and then mop the kitchen and dining rooms floors anyway!

And it was kind of nice in that the floors actually stayed clean then too for about 18 hours until -of course -the family returned home. And even then, they stayed pretty clean then too until late Monday afternoon when I noticed a couple of spots on the tile but got them "spot-cleaned" then so as of tonight, the floors still are looking a little bit on the decent side anyway!

Last night though, after supper, I sat down in my lovely old recliner and before I knew what was happening to me, boom -I was out like a light, just like almost always seems to happen to me lately. Tonight, a rerun of last night except that my nap Monday night only lasted about 15-20 minutes whereas tonight, I slept for about 2 hours! And to add insult to injury, I had even taken a nap this morning after the kids left for school too!

What is it about this sleep thing that I just can't seem to get enough of it?

Ya know, sometimes I really do think my need for sleep, more and more and still more sleep, is my body getting itself conditioned now -early preparations maybe -for a really big long sleep coming towards me as I watch the time just whiz past me now!

Famly Photo Fun!

This past weekend, from Saturday evening thru Sunday evening, the older grandson was here with us. Always nice to have him be able to come up and spend a night with us now and again -not near frequently enough but at his age, he's also involved in a lot of other activities so we're just happy to get him here for a night and most of the next day then ya know.

Often though when he does come up here, it's because Aunt Mandy has made arrangements with him to help her do some things around the house that would be more than a bit difficult for her to manage to do alone.

And this Sunday -her game plan, with Alex to help her -start working on cleaning out the basement!

Now, in my opinion, the only job worse than this one here would be cleaning out the attic! Oh wait -we did that back in June in advance of the workmen from the Community Action program arriving here to put all kinds of insulation in the house from the attic right on down to the basement! And, a lot of the things that were taken out of the attic and which we still wanted to keep around for oh, another generation to worry about whether they were good or important or not, ya know are still tucked away in the bathroom, the hall closet out off the sunporch, in a corner of the dining room and oh yeah, in the basement too. They can't go back up into the attic until we get a couple sheets of plywood I guess to put down over the rafters there so any stuff we put back in the attic then isn't going to be sitting, resting, directly on the insulation!

So, the end result of Sunday's work then was a nice big bonfire Mandy and Alex did manage to have in the lower part of the back yard.

Last night though, Mandy showed me a couple of things she came across in the basement that she saved from destruction -thankfully!

One was this little tiny book containing a different fortune for every day of the year, that had been published in 1938, and given to my Mom's older sister apparently as a little birthday gift from a friend of my Aunt's in 1939! That was neat to look up different people in our family's birthdate and read what whoever had put the book together felt was a reasonable fortune for anyone born on such and such a date. And my Aunt had penned in by many of the days in that book, the birthdays of this or that family member. Brought back a lot of memories then reading the names of family members, remembering then oh yes, this was Uncle Oscar's birthday, cousin Karen's, my Mom (okay -I remember when her birthday is without that reminder, I'm not quite THAT far gone on the senility trail -not just yet, anyway.

Along with coming across that little book, Mandy also stumbled upon a fairly good-sized box too filled with -of all things -old photographs too!

Now that was a nice discovery she made there in my mind! There weren't tons of pictures dating back to the early 1900's of ancestors who were unidentifiable to me, thankfully. But there were a goodly number that seemed to start in the late 30s and worked their way up to about 10 years ago!

And they were a nice mixture of pictures too -some of cousins of my Mom's, some of Mom's siblings, my children too when they were growing up as well. And in looking at some of those pictures -of myself when I was preschool age along with several photos too of my older daughter, it reminded me once again, how much my older daughter looked like me when she was little -as well as how much Miss Maya looks like her Aunt Carrie still today too!

I scanned a good many of these old photos last night and tried to match some of the pictures of me by age to a few of the pictures of my daughter at about the same age -did them side by side, ya know -so I figured I'd show you a few of those picture here tonight. I haven't gotten around yet to looking through pictures of Maya at the same ages yet -mainly because there are way too many pictures of Maya to even think about getting that done in a matter of a couple of hours time!

So ready or not -here goes! (Keep in mind, these are old photos and some aren't the best, for sure, but they are clear enough I think that you can see the likeness in each one fairly well anyway.)

First off -the picture on the left is me when I was probably 8-10 months old. The photo on the right side then is my daughter Carrie, sitting in my Aunt Ethel's lap and was taken at our family reunion probably in 1968, when Carrie was just a little over a year old. (The lady beside my aunt is a cousin of my Mom and my Aunt but who was referred to by my kids and me as "Aunt Dee" although she is not really an aunt to us.)

In this picture above now, that's me on my tricycle taken in 1946 -when I was almost 2  years old and the picture taken of my daughter -standing near my old Chevy Nova -was taken of her when she was just over 2 years old. A whole lot of looking like there are clones involved there, right?

And then in this one, the black and white picture of me on the left, holding the cat I had back then -with the really original name of "Blackie" (he also had a playmate too -called Whitey, but no photos of that one. Both cats mysteriously disappeared sometime about that year and my Mom told me that they had run away from home because they didn't like the big dog we had then -a collie/shepherd mix, also with a very original name too of Lady. I was in my 30s before I learned my Mom had actually given those two cats to a neighbor and had asked him to get rid of them for her! We won't discuss here exactly how naive I was nor how nasty I thought my Mom had been when I learned what had really happened to those two cats. I'm thinking though she probably did that on orders from my grandmother who was very far from being a cat lover!)

Anyway -back to the photos -the one of me was taken when I was 4 and the one of Carrie -well not exactly sure if she was 4 on that photo or 5, but in that general age range anyway.

And the last photo I'm going to share tonight though is one of my daughters, all three of the grandkids around their grandfather -who they rarely see but who happened to come east when Maya was about 4 years old or close to that age, Kurtis was just over a year old and Alex -the older grandson, was then 10.

I do happen to like this picture of at least my girls with their Dad -a rare thing to have of them together! But anyway, that Mandy on the far left, holding Maya, Kurtis is sitting on Poppy's lap, then Alex and finally Carrie. Too bad my son, Clayton wasn't present then too so we could have had a full family photo then! But if you look at Maya on this picture, you can see how much she looks like her Aunt Carrie there and look up at the photos I posted above too at Carrie at ages 2 through 4 and you can see the look -a-likes there then too. And Alex, my older grandson, looks very, very much too like his mother -more so it seems every day!

Want to know something else I find fascinating but can't locate the picture of this right at the moment to share it is a photo that was taken back in 1918 and it is of my Dad, standing behind an old sled with his baby sister seated on the sled. My Dad was 16 or 17 years older than his youngest sibling so on that particular photo, he is about age 18 and my aunt, only a year old and on that picture of her, if you  were to compare it to any photos we have of me at that age, my daughter Carrie at that age and of Maya and Alexander too, you'd definitely be able to see in each baby photo, the resemblance that is/was there. What's more, on that picture of my Dad, his stance, the way his hair is combed but falling sort of in his face, the way his shirt even isn't quite tucked in to his pants the way it should be and the look on his face -if compared to a photo of my son at about the same age or actually, many even more recent pictures of Clayton, you can definitely see how much my son looks like my Dad's side of my family! And yet, in many of those same things I mentioned, one can also see that my son looks very much like his Dad too!

Gotta love the way genes show up in each of us don't you? It's a process that totally amazes me, for sure!

As I have time to post more old photos on here, I'm going to try to share more of the old pics we came across because seeing so many of them last night, really took me back to times in my life when I always felt safe, secure, with so many of my Mom's cousins, my aunts and uncles and my first cousins -all frequently around me, keeping me in such a great frame of mind. Seeing so many of those old pictures brought out the realizations again and again too of how much I miss each and every one of those individuals who were all so important in my life for so many years too.

Not enough years though -but then, is it ever enough?

 

Learn Something New Every Day!

Been busy for way too long here and not having time to post on my blog like I really should be doing. I thought once I got through the madness of my class reunion planning and the event itself, things would settle down, but guess I was wrong on that count!

Last week, I was supposed to do something really simple -like just make a couple of phone calls and wouldn't you just know it, I forgot to do that too! Finally, late last night, I remembered I should have called this one lady from church about some important stuff, and again, had forgotten to do that, but then, I remembered something about her. Hey! She's on my Facebook so I could then send her a message via Facebook and thus eliminate -maybe -for a little while the phone call, plus I could send that message to her at 2 in the morning and definitely didn't have to worry about waking her up.

Of course, there's another side to that issue too in that I don't know how often she checks her Facebook so I suppose I should try to put her back on the "Please call as soon as possible list" just to be on the safe side, shouldn't I?

Going back in time a bit -to try to get up-to-speed with a lot of things -I was telling Mandy today about a conversation I had with the lady I normally go to when I need to get my hair cut, trimmed, a perm -you name it! She and I are old friends from way back so she knows too that it is rare that I will call her for an appointment a while in advance of needing said appointment. Nope! When she hears my voice (or sees my name/number on her caller ID) she probably immediately starts thinking of when she has the earliest possible opening available that she can then fit me in.

Yeah and that's exactly what happened to me the Thursday night before the weekend of my class reunion as I called her about 9 p.m. that night to ask if she could squeeze me in sometime Friday -preferably -but if not then, at least on Saturday the latest!

Lucky for me, she wedged me in to a slot at 1:30 on Friday afternoon so when I went to our class "Night Before" event then on Friday night at the Moose, I had a brand new look via a new hair cut as well as a perm! And, I gotta say, she did a bang up job on it/me too!

Anyway, we got to discussing -my hairdresser and I -about a lot of things -some serious, some not, some stuff I never thought about at all before but somehow, they came up in our chat that day.

One of those things was about the tanning bed she added into her shop a couple years ago. I haven't even a clue now how that came up for discussion but it did and in the course of that, she said about tanning bed supplies and how many things along those lines she now has to stock for that part of her operation! I didn't believe her but she told me to look it up on the internet so I did and by gosh, by golly, she was right on about that for sure! I had no idea that so much stuff was available and that you really should have this, that and some other things -a bunch of those other things! Darned good thing she has a really good sized house with a full basement she can use then for storage for that along with her supplies for her hairdressing needs too!

See how you can learn something you never thought about before just on the spur of the moment some days!

And while I'm on the subject here of learning things every day, tonight I had the pleasure of working with Kurtis to help him with his homework. Tonight, that involved reading and he had this little book he was supposed to read. Well, it wasn't until after we'd gone through the whole darned book -all 8 pages of it -that he then whips out this piece of paper that I had to sign, swearing that I had witnessed his doing the reading ya know. And as I signed the paper, I saw that apparently he was supposed to do the reading of this book -actually, I'd call it a booklet rather than a book, based solely on the size of the thing. But anyway, we were supposed to be doing the reading in segments -one specific area tonight, another tomorrow and a third area then on Thursday so all those things would then all be done by Friday of this week!

Boy, sure do wish he'd shown me that paper earlier this evening!

Do you have any idea how difficult it can be to get kids his age to simply focus on the task at hand and also, to remember how to break a word apart and sound it out!

I had forgotten completely about that part of the learning to read process so by the time we finished working on this booklet, reading those 8 pages, it had us close to 90 minutes to finish that project!

Stop and go. Stop and go! Every word -very slow!I know with him, part of the issue is his comprehension of the procedures at times and once it does settle in and he understands things, then he surprises the heck out of you because it seems like he just learned it right then and there.

But let me tell you this, I am hoping his comprehension of sounding words out, step-by-step, kicks in pretty quickly because ya know, I'm not all that patient a person about some things!

I know it will come -eventually -but I want it to come to him now and for him -hopefully -to get a good grasp on those principles of reading and learn to love it and to love books too like I always did! Actually, he does love books already -just doesn't like to do the work to learn this process called reading!

And I know that how? Because tonight, he had been reposing in my recliner earlier, a nice book in his hands and leafing through it, in a very nice, rather loving manner as he scanned over the pages and pictures and such. Later, while we were working together on his reading assignment, I caught him not even looking at the words but rather studying the pictures in the book -which I didn't want him to get involved in the pictures until we had read the paragraph on each particular page. I could see he was often just glancing at the first letter of a word and then, just tossing out a word he'd seen earlier that started with the same letter -but not being the same word. So I called him out on that and asked him if he was trying to play tricks on Grammy to make her think he was really reading.

His answer to me? "Yes, I am, Gram!"

Well you little stinker! Not nice to do that to me Kiddo!

Oh and one more thing before I go to bed tonight too and along the learning something new every day line. Come February, Mandy is going to be a stepgrandmother and I'm going to be a step-great-grandmother -to a baby girl!

It's official now from the ultrasound Katie had done today that the baby is a GIRL! Kurtis is rather nonchalant about this coming event but Maya -well Maya has already found a website -on her own -with names -I think it was called "Naming Your Baby" or something like that and she has been sifting through that site, writing down on a separate paper the names she likes now to give to Katie so she will have a good selection of names to select from for her baby!

Can you tell she is quite excited over the prospect that she will have a niece?

Cool!

It's Here!

This is going to be the shortest blog post I've ever written!

I just wanted to share one particular picture with you from my class reunion last Saturday.

This photo was taken by the husband of one of our classmates and he has also taken the group photo of our class at each and every one of our other reunions except for our 35th when for some odd reason, we didn't get a group photo.

But anyway, this picture arrived in the mail yesterday and I wanted to share it as soon as I could because I really liked this one of our class.

I'm not going to go into major identifications here -just first names only.
Starting with the bottom row, L-R: ME, Denny, Patsy, Claudia, Kate, Lori, Carol and Jean.
2nd row: Art, Joe, Nancy, Bernie, Betty, John and Ernie.
3rd Row: Susie and Mary.
4th Row: Cheryl and Rose
Back row: Charlie, Tom, Durv, Betty, Arlene, Doris, Herb, Harold and John.

Those of my class I talked to yesterday after they had received their copy of this photo too and I decided that we definitely have the best class ever in all respects -looks, brains and personality!

No conceit in our group at all, is there?

Who's Who?

Last Saturday, as I was gathering up the things I needed to take over the the Elks Club in Clearfield -where my classmates and I were to gather that evening to celebrate our 50th Class Reunion -I hauled out -among other stuff -a photo poster board I had put together five years ago on the occasion then of our class's 45th Class Reunion.

When Maya saw me dragging it into the dining room, her interest level rose and she asked me "What's that thing, Gram?"

So I explained to her that it was all kinds of pictures of the people I had gone to school with -some pictures from back in our elementary school days, some from high school and even some from since high school that many of my classmates had been nice enough to respond to my request for pictures of themselves or other classmates for this project.

At first glance at the posterboard, Maya lost interest quickly saying "Oh, I don't know anyone on there."

Au contraire, my dear! Yes, actually you do know some people on there I told her and then had her look closer and see if she didn't see some people she knows.

That was a hard job for her to do though because she's not knowledgeable enough just yet to look for ways to tell if this picture of a little girl might be Grammy or maybe Kate or Rose, two of Grammy's good friends that Maya knows. So I decided I'd help her out a little bit and I pointed to a photo of my friend, Rose and her husband, Durvin, on their wedding day. Maya knows both of those folks plus neither Rose nor Durv has changed all that much in appearance over the years -other than one losing a little hair and the other, having a few streaks of gray that make for lovely accents!

When I showed her that photo and she studied it very closely -things registered with her that these were not current pictures and that she had to think about what people look like today and make the connection but she was able to do that and she then told me "Okay, that's Rose and Durb." (That was her mispronunciation of Durvin's nickname -being "Durv" not "Durb" as Maya had said it.

But anyway, I was pleased that she had figured that out so I told her to look at some other pictures and see who she could identify. Pretty soon she had spotted several other pictures of Rose plus quite a few of another classmate -my good friend (forever), Kate! She was on a roll then for a while but then, the fun for her petered out when she thought there was no one else on that board that she knew.

So I pointed to a photo at the bottom left hand corner -of a couple that she'd met exactly twice before and she took a look at that and immediately turned to tell me "That's Donna and that's Herbie!"

Boy, this kid is never gonna let me forget that slip-up I made the first time I took her with me down to the office of my classmate, Herb's fuel oil company when I had referred to him, jokingly, as "Herbie-Baby!" At least this time, she left of the "Baby" with his name though!

Here's some pictures of the photo posterboard so you can get an idea of what Maya had to look at!

And yes, a whole lot of work went into putting that masterpiece together but the reception it got at our 45th reunion was so good that my friends I was working with to put our 50th reunion together felt it deserved another viewing by the classmates.

See anyone you know on there?

Like Mother, Like Daughter? NOT!

Lots of things happening around here of late. So many, it's kind of difficult for me to decide where to begin and equally hard to find time to do anything of consequence too. Or so it seems.

So, I figured tonight maybe I'll just start with the most recent and try to work my way, in and out, backwards, then maybe forward again. Oh, who knows! Whatever comes to me that I can find a way to write it up I guess.

Let's see now -the events tonight actually began right after the kids returned to school and Maya brought a paper home for Mandy to read and sign -allowing Maya to sign up for JV Cheerleading lessons!

Say what? JV Cheerleading? Holy rip, the kid is only starting 3rd grade; she'll be nine in October. Isn't that a trifle young for cheerleading lessons?

Apparently not because Mandy signed the sheet and Maya was enrolled! They have practice two evenings a week from 5 p.m. until 6:15, learning how to clap their hands properly, how to move in cadence with arms waving, hands clapping and certain foot movements that go with the counts too.

Initially, Maya liked this because it gives her a chance to do some of the dance moves and splits she has learned to do -practicing in the living room -by watching various videos of things from ballet to current dance moves. That she can do a split absolutely amazes me because when I was a kid, it totally hurried me to try to touch my toes with my fingers. Know what I mean? No, I was definitely not the most coordinated kid on the block, that's for sure.

Mandy was pretty shocked at Maya's abilities and interests in dance steps as well as cheerleading too -none of which was ever something high on Mandy's interests lists. Especially not the cheerleading stuff because Mandy pretty much disliked that aspect of school life plus -she never held any interest at all in watching high school football games either -and for that matter, neither did her brother. (Although Clate would insist on attending those games -strictly so he could walk around the perimeter of the football field in search of good looking girls he could maybe meet and hopefully then be able to pick up!

But anyway, here's Maya now at this young age all gung-ho on learning cheerleading stuff.

Well, for the first week she really liked it. This past week, when I picked her up from practice on Monday, she informed me that the boys had it better than the girls because all the girls have is cheerleading and all they get to wear that is special for that is a red tee shirt that says "West Branch Warriors!"

But the boys -well they have it made in her opinion because they get to wear these great big things on their shoulders and these heavy pads on their legs and a helmet and these special shoes even that have cleats and all that, ya know!

Hmmmm. Wonder what she's getting at there?

Thursday after practice though, as Kurtis and I were walking back to the Jeep with Maya, Kurt asked me "Can boys be cheerleaders too, Gram?" Sure they can, Baby -no problem! But Maya told him in no uncertain terms then and there that when he is in the 3rd grade, he will be able to play football then and wouldn't he like to do that?

Kurtis just gave her a look that pretty much said he thought Maya was nuts!

But moving on, tonight was Sports Recognition Night at the the High School Football game which entailed recognizing apparently all the various school sports group and that included the kids in the JV Cheerleading group as well. So, those young girls were all to be at the school by 6:15 p.m. (game time I think was 7 p.m.) so their coach could get them all lined up because -are you ready for this -they had to run out onto the field -through the tunnel, ya know -and each one of these kids also then had their name called over the PA system too!

Mandy said later that when they called Maya's name, it brought tears to her eyes hearing that and then watching her baby run out onto the football field to be introduced then to the parents/grandparents/fans/students,etc.

Here's the picture Mandy got of Maya -all ready to roll for her big intro!

Yep -that's my little Maya in the middle there. She's not so little anymore, is she?

Tomorrow should be interesting though to see how well her interest in cheerleading -or even football -holds up because she's supposed to be up at the school at 11:45 for the JV game which I think starts at noon and the weather forecast for tomorrow -Colder, with RAIN!

I don't know about her but that's about enough to dampen my spirits.

Over and Done With!

I know for the past so many months now I've been rambling a lot about the big 50th Class Reunion some of my former high school classmates and I have been working on putting together but now, finally, you can relax -along with me -as I tell you the big event(s) came and went this past weekend!

However, considering the fact that I alone too 76 pictures at the reunion only -don't expect that this post will actually be the end of the tales from our big get-together!

I will however make this a fairly short post tonight and will reserve other posts in the days to come for stories and photos from this auspicious occasion.

Suffice it to say tonight that it was a great night spent at the Clearfield Elks Club with 28 of my former classmates and 18 guests. At least, I think that's the final tally anyway. And thus far, all the comments about it have been that everyone totally enjoyed the evening!

We had two gatherings -one on Friday night at the illustrious Moose Hall here in the village where I live -good old Grassflat. Some folks initially didn't like the idea of having our "Night Before:" party there mainly because the building -inside and out -doesn't really look all that much different today than it did back when I was just a child! In appearance, it is a bit on the frumpy looking side. However, just like with people and their appearances, that can be a bit deceiving, can't it?

The young woman who is the manager of the place bent over backwards to see that whatever I wanted or needed for our group was available! Her sister, who does the cooking most of the time did a bang-up job with the food items that those who ordered dinners or just sandwiches were well satisfied.

My good friend from our high school days and with whom I have remained close over these 50 years and her husband got one of the big meal surprises of the night when Mitch ordered the daily special -which was chicken and waffles, mashed potatoes, gravy, a vegetable, tossed salad and rolls and butter. Sounds like a rather simplistic meal, doesn't it? Well I wish you could have been there to see the look on his face when the waitress delivered to him a very large platter, filled completely to the brim with the waffles, mashed potatoes and a huge serving of chicken gravy that was loaded -and I do mean LOADED -to the gills with chunks of chicken! The old expression "his eyes almost popped right out of his head" definitely rang true of the look on Mitch's face, for sure! I didn't check back to see if he managed to eat all of the food on that plate by himself but he did remark the next day that it was "very good!"

Unfortunately, I won't be sharing any photos with you from that particular event though because, in my infinite wisdom and due to a case of nervous energy that just wouldn't quit, I went to the Moose with my camera in my purse and was having such a great time visiting with those classmates who attended that party that I forgot completely about having my camera with me. Apparently I was not the only one with a severe case of forgetfulness though because no one else thought to take any pictures that night either! Crazy, huh?

Saturday evening the hall where we had our reunion looked great -very pretty candle arrangements on the table gave a nice cozy atmosphere for us to start out the occasion.

We had the best time meeting folks as they came through the door -sharing hugs and even kisses too with people who we hadn't seen -some not since we graduated in May of 1962! Laughter began almost immediately to fill the air and that ambiance remained throughout the entire night there!

The food was very good -no one had any complaints about that which is always a big relief considering one reunion we had a few years back, many of us still talk about how terrible the food as well as the room we had to use that night were!

Finally, the time rolled around to where it was time to do the "program" -if you want to call it that. I couldn't talk anyone of our classmates into being the Master of Ceremonies and I suppose because I had been the one who had the honor (not sure my classmates would have called it that) of doing that job for our last two reunions, this year I got to try and be informative without being totally boring.

This year though, one of our classmates offered to handle the sound issues for us and as a result, he had a laptop connected up to the sound system at the Elks along with a couple of wireless microphones that he had borrowed from the church he belongs to so with that setup and using a cd that a friend of mine had given me with a recording on it of the school band -which, by the way is an award-winning marching bad in this region -when I gave Ernie the signal, he put that CD on and the music began to play of the Band doing our school's Alma Mater!

I had copies on the tables at every other place setting with the words -all four verses -of the Alma Mater and told everyone that they had to join me in singing along to the music! I also added that if I saw anyone who wasn't cooperating, wasn't singing the words, I was going to take notes and write down names which I would then, the next day, be out in search of the grave of our high school Algebra teacher who was a fanatic about the student body learning the words to the Alma Mater and I would put my list on his grave then so Louie could come back and haunt anyone who didn't join in and sing along.

This in itself marked a first for me as for openers, I had never used a microphone before in my life much less trying to sing into it too. But, I gave it my best shot in hopes that whether these were blue microphones or not, I couldn't tell you but all I know is the alto voice I once had sure isn't exactly up to par these days! Probably from way to much use and abuse from yelling at my kids and now grandkids or too many beers and cigarettes over the years as well!

I was so busy with the mike I had in my hand, trying to remember to keep it fairly close to my mouth without shoving it in there and to keep my hands still, I forgot all about watching to see who was singing along with me and who wasn't so anyone who didn't go along with that part of the program -well, they can rest easily because no names were taken!

Our Reunion bagan at 4:30 in the afternoon -dinner was served at 6:15 and by 10:30 that night, it was all over but the shouting! All the things my fellow planners and I had put together were loaded up and out the door and away we went, content in the feelings of so much goodwill that was passed around the room on a very steady basis that entire evening and that everyone was leaving with smiles on their faces and a whole lot of great memories of an evening very well spent!

I got home shortly after 11 p.m. and the first thing I did then was find my tube of BenGay which I then used to slather it on my feet, legs and back because that many hours in which I was on my feet for 90 percent of the time had those areas of my body aching like toothache! Apparently the BenGay did what it was supposed to do though because when I awoke Sunday morning  I was actually able to move and to WALK too!

And I don't regret having acquired a single one of those aches and pains as the good vibes, the happy faces, made that all very worth while!

Soft Kitty...

Considering the popularity of the tv sit-com, "Big Bang Theory" I'll wager I am far from being alone when I say I really do like this show. Be honest now and 'fess up if you like this show even a little bit or perhaps, as much as I do. I try to catch the regular weekly broadcast and I think I know just about every other channel on our cable system that carries reruns of this program too -and I try to watch most of those shows as well.

Face it -I'm as addicted to this program as I was -okay, still am -to Law and Order too! Just ask my kids and they'll tell you that if either one of these shows is airing, odds are that I have my tv set tuned into that station at that time.

But neither of those programs really has any bearing on my post here tonight. Well, Big Bang Theory sort of does because of course, there's that song about the "soft kitty" that Sheldon always wants Penny to sing to him in his moments when he feels the extreme need for comfort of some type.

And right about now, as I am trying to type this post, our newest addition to our family here -a sweet, fluffy, adorably loveable little kitten -which the kids and Mandy named "Octavia" but who gets called "Tavie" -a name which, of course, she pays no attention to being addressed and just goes her merry little way, bouncing around from one piece of furniture to another, antagonizing the dog into chasing and playing with her, pestering the other cat -Miss Pearl -who is the ultimate in regal attitude and elegance and extremely adept at totally ignoring the antics of this kitten -little fool is probably how Pearl regards Tavie.

Well tonight, after almost upending me out of my computer chair while I was going down through Facebook postings by jumping up on the back of the chair and I was sort of leaning back in the seat at that point in time and well, it jerked the chair and I almost landed upside down with the chair on top of me and the kitten being the potential cause of it all. Fortunately, I regained the balance and equilibrium with the chair and didn't get tossed to the floor as I had thought initially was going to happen to me.

No, I sat here and the kitten squirmed around behind me, sharing the seat of the chair for a while until she managed to get around to my front and decided she wanted to be sweet and loving and needed a nice, fairly large, very soft (apparently) place to lay her head and go to sleep and to her, it is pretty safe to say that she found my bust to be just the ideal spot to repose!

To top it all off, the darned kitten also decided now was a really ideal time -and place -to do a little bit of kitten stuff -kneading!

And all of her actions, nice and sweet as she must have thought she was being to me, really weren't what I was wanting at that point in time.

Especially since as I was rubbing the back of her neck and top of her head, I felt a couple tiny but tell-tale kind of lumps indicating she had other friends she was bringing along to our little nestling party here.

Yeah, the poor kitten has fleas!

So, at almost 1 a.m.  I decided now was as good a time as any to give her a dip in the tub and a little rubdown with some good old flea shampoo.

Because our other cat, Miss Pearl, the queen of the household, responds totally differently to getting a bath -she will stand perfectly still in the tub and wait and watch while whoever is bathing an animal at the time gets through with the shampoo and rinse of the dog -or another cat too, if that were the case.

But little Miss Tavie not so docile! Matter of fact, she squirmed and scratched at me, at the rim of the tub, fought me tooth and nail,she did but I finally did get her wetted down, shampooed and when it came time to rinse, she was a mite calmer. Once out of the tub and wrapped in a big old bath towel, she was pretty quiet and seemed to hold no grudges against me.

I let her go and since I had the tub half-full of luke warm water and had the flea shampoo out, I decided the time had come -actually it was very, VERY overdue -to give Sammy, the little mutt, a nice flea shampoo bath too.

Now Sammy's response to a call to come get a bath is such that nowadays, he tucks his tail between his legs and tries to slink off, looking for a convenient place to hide where whoever wants to dunk him will have issues trying to reach him. Tonight, he apparently thought by going into my bedroom where there was no light shining directly down on him, I wouldn't think to look for him there but too bad, so sad,sorry for your luck there, Sam!

He forgot I can still pick him up and carry him into the bathroom which is what I did.

It used to be he would come willingly into the bathroom and once in there, after having his collar removed, often he would just hop into the tub of warm water simply because it was there,waiting for him. Not so tonight. Although he didn't fight me, I did have to lift him up and deposit him in the water. However, once I got him well-soaked and then lathered up, he stood very still and allowed me to give him a really good "rub-a-dub-dub:" and hopefully, got rid of a few of those darned pesky little fleas that have been causing all kinds of itching on the poor little guy.

So I got him out of the tub, tried to towel dry him a bit in between his decision to do a crazy race and chase routine in the bathroom, as he ran from one place to another and then would race back to me and do the whole racing/chasing routine all over again. It was more than obvious that he felt pretty good about his nice clean appearance and maybe even was already feeling a mite of relief from the damned old fleas too.

So, with both those animals all nice and clean, I decided I would play a couple games on the computer while waiting for my eyes to get heavy and be able to go to bed without worrying about being unable to fall asleep.

I was busy playing this one game I like -where you hit a ball and try to break all the different colored bubbles -when lo and behold, here comes the kitten again!

Only this time she immediately jumped up on my chest, did a couple little twists and turns to make darned sure her tail was waving ever so nicely directly in my face, right across my glasses as a matter of fact -and totally obscuring my vision!

I tried to get her rearranged so that  I could have a little bit of a sighting of the balls I wanted to aim at, but after several tries to get her to move with no success, I ended up unceremoniously dumping her little butt off my chest and on to the floor.

Only to have her immediately take up her old position on top of me all over again.

And that's exactly where she's been laying now -ever since I started to type this piece! Just snuggled up as nice as can be,with her backside tucked ever so nicely directly under my chin.

Yes, Tavie -you are a nice kitty, and most definitely, right now, a very soft kitty too,as a matter of fact.

I wonder now if she will maintain this pose after I go out to my room and crawl into bed?

Probably not! She'll probably launch directly into her "flying cat" routine that she likes to do when jumping off my bed in the middle of the night!