I am very angry and upset tonight and all of it stems from a "White Tree" in Louisiana.
I was reading my blog favorites today -one of which happens to belong to a cousin of mine and her husband who live down in Tennessee. It's on my favorites list then for obvious reasons - a means to keep in touch with them, see how much their little girl has grown, exchange a few family pleasantries now and then as well as show our mutual support of our favorite university and football team. Cousin Erika and I are both graduates of Penn State University and I think you all know by now I'm a big Nittany Lion fan.
Today, when reading Erika's husband's post, I noted in the comments section a reference to a website and a request to support the "Jena 6." I had no idea what this was about but being curious, I copied the url over and opened the site.
What I read there was this article about racial injustice that is alive, very well and kicking furiously down in Jena, Louisiana!
I'm not going to write the details here - you can go to this website and read the articles for yourself - all very well written, detailing what has transpired in this little town.
I will say this much about the situation - and somehow, referring to it as a "situation" makes is seem so much lighter, less important than this really is but I am at a loss for words how else to describe it. It is appalling, absolutely appalling to read about the gross miscarriage of justice taking place in that community in this day and age.
What is wrong with people -people who are in elected positions on school boards, holding high office like the district attorney, the general citizenry of the community at large that they can't comprehend the illegality of their actions? What on earth has to happen to make people understand racism is not just immoral, ethically wrong but carried out the way it was in this town by the legal system, it is illegal!
Please, take the time to read this piece and if you are in a position to step forward and help -even if it is just to make people aware of what happened and is continuing to happen to these people in Jena, Louisiana, maybe it will help in some small way.
http://www.countercurrents.org/quigley030707.htm
To leave this type of treatment continue to be carried out in this country really shows the inhumane side of many people in our society today.
Peace. Please!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Mid-Week Mumblings
Wednesday, already! Where the heck does the time go?
My "favorite son" left about 3:30 Tuesday morning to meet up with his boss and co-driver to start their week's run and we've not been able to reach him via his cell phone since. This irritates the living daylights out of me when his phone either isn't charged or he hasn't cleared out his incoming messages or he just has it set to automatically go to voice mail. Not nice to do things like that to your mother -or to your two sisters who worry their collective fannies off about him as much as old Mom does too.
The thing of it is I actually have something I really want to tell him - not just "where are you, where you heading" type questions that usually are what flies back and forth between us the first day or two after he and his boss go on a run.
Yesterday morning, the older daughter called and began talking about someone in a manner that told me she was assuming we (younger daughter and I) knew whatever news she had but we didn't. I'm wishing I hadn't heard this news flash too though once she got around to explaining the situation.
She'd spoken to a very close friend of hers yesterday morning and had found out the father of their close friend had died suddenly the night before - Monday night, that would be. This man's daughter is, along with the young woman she'd been talking to Tuesday morning, the older daughter's closest friends. The man's daughter is also my next door neighbor too. That, plus the fact I've known him for well over 50 years now through church, and such, and he was only five years my senior, it all came as a major shock to hear this. I'd not heard of him having any major health issues, not even any somewhat minor problems really. As it turns out though, apparently he was having some problems with his lungs, had a coughing attack and died as a result of that.
Just hard to believe things can happen to us that change our life's landscape in such a fast order, isn't it?
Hearing what happened to my old friend, "Zippy" (his nickname as long as I can recall) did give me pause though especially since I am currently dealing with the cold aftermath - the horrendous cough! I'm really going to have to rethink my position on the olde nicotine favorite addiction of mine I guess but boy, thinking about dropping a "life-long friend" (seems like the smokes have often been that to me) and actually doing something about it -i.e. quitting - is a hard, tough ball of wax for me to tackle. Only those who are or have been smokers can probably understand my thinking process there.
Yesterday, the lady who is the main honcho (I think) of the program run by a local agency here that Maya has been enrolled in for the past 2 plus years now was here to do the first intake on the baby. Yes, we have noticed several markers that could be indicative of either developmental delays or autism or both. With the paperwork now done, the team evaluation of him is going to be just around the corner and after that, most likely he will be in a program just as his big sister is today. He doesn't have quite the same issues as Maya had -at least he does do a little play with toys that is "purposeful" whereas she didn't do that at all. But he has very poor eye contact, doesn't do a lot of interaction with us in terms of responding to things the way most kids his age would do - doesn't point to things like his nose or eyes or other body parts the way most kids his age do well before this, no vocabulary. He was also a late walker too but doesn't do the toe walking that his sister still does. Similar things, different things but all together rolls up into a bundle that looks very much like there will be a strong possibility of an autism diagnosis in the future for him too.
Miss Maya is still loving the pre-school. No problems at all getting her up, dressed, ready to go out and wait for the van to pull up and for her to head off to Clearfield to spend five hours with the teacher, aides and six other children in her age range, all who have a diagnosis of being somewhere on the autism spectrum.
Last night, I fell asleep early - like around 11 p.m. which for me is very early - but was awake at 2 a.m. for a bathroom call. After that, I had problems falling back to sleep and by 4 a.m., I was up, playing on the computer, reading new bloggers posts and such. Around about 5:30 to 6:00 a.m. I started hearing voices though and at first, it really had me a bit befuddled until I realized what it was I was hearing. Yes, it was a voice and it was Maya. Mandy has the intercom in her room and instead of having the receptor to it in her bedroom the way it used to be, she moved it downstairs and it sits on the mantle here in the living room.
But what the heck was Maya doing jabbering at that early an hour? Was she really talking or perhaps dreaming and talking in her sleep was my initial thought. However, after listening to her for better than a half hour, I knew she was awake -not dreaming, not talking in her sleep - and it was really fun to sit here and listen to her. Especially so when she decided to entertain whoever was able to hear her by singing many of the little songs she has learned now too.
Listening to her trying to sing - over and over - the "Pollywog Song" is really cute and very comical. She leaves out several words, mispronounces a good many too along the way, but she does have the basics on the melody down pat so you can figure out what song she's working on at any rate. "All a day, all a day" then "Gone to leesana, see my sue-sue anna, sing Polly wah all a day." No mistaking that there now is there?
It all serves to remind me just how far she has traveled over the past two years, but especially the last year of that time. A year ago, her vocabulary was just really beginning to come in. About this time last year, I was working on her trying to get her to learn how to sing "Happy Birthday" and by late November she had learned that along with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. In December, she learned the bulk of the words to Jingle Bells. Over the winter months, we taught her "You are my Sunshine" and she picked up the Tim McGraw song "One, Two, Three" from watching the Country Music Video channel. She has other songs too now that she has learned - mainly from a little children's songs video she has that she loves to watch, to listen to and to imitate. Often, she is singing these songs and we aren't even aware of it because at times, she is quite subtle about this but it's always so much fun, such a treat to us when it dawns on us exactly what it is she's repeating.
Thanks again to the two therapists who put in many hours working with her over the past two years to bring her to this point now. They really are "miracle workers" in my book. There simply are no words to adequately say how grateful we all are that this program exists, that people like Kerri Cowfer and Amanda McCartney Curtis have learned how to work with children like Maya and who take so much pride in the work that they do too.
Kudos to both these fantastic young women!
And to anyone reading this post who may be concerned about a young child not acting quite the way they think the child should be doing for a specific age, worrying that it could be a problem like developmental delays or autism or some such other issue, please take the steps to contact your physician, don't be afraid of voicing your concerns and try to get the child evaluated, enrolled too in a rehabilitatory type program because they sure do help - very, very much so!
Awareness of the issue is key to getting the best responses possible from each child who may have these issues and do it as quickly as is humanly possible too! I just can't stress that enough.
Now, I'm going to go let the new batch of cough medicine Mandy got me hopefully start winging its way through my system so I will no longer feel every time I start to cough that I'm not just going to cough up a lung but also half of my intestines too!
Peace!
My "favorite son" left about 3:30 Tuesday morning to meet up with his boss and co-driver to start their week's run and we've not been able to reach him via his cell phone since. This irritates the living daylights out of me when his phone either isn't charged or he hasn't cleared out his incoming messages or he just has it set to automatically go to voice mail. Not nice to do things like that to your mother -or to your two sisters who worry their collective fannies off about him as much as old Mom does too.
The thing of it is I actually have something I really want to tell him - not just "where are you, where you heading" type questions that usually are what flies back and forth between us the first day or two after he and his boss go on a run.
Yesterday morning, the older daughter called and began talking about someone in a manner that told me she was assuming we (younger daughter and I) knew whatever news she had but we didn't. I'm wishing I hadn't heard this news flash too though once she got around to explaining the situation.
She'd spoken to a very close friend of hers yesterday morning and had found out the father of their close friend had died suddenly the night before - Monday night, that would be. This man's daughter is, along with the young woman she'd been talking to Tuesday morning, the older daughter's closest friends. The man's daughter is also my next door neighbor too. That, plus the fact I've known him for well over 50 years now through church, and such, and he was only five years my senior, it all came as a major shock to hear this. I'd not heard of him having any major health issues, not even any somewhat minor problems really. As it turns out though, apparently he was having some problems with his lungs, had a coughing attack and died as a result of that.
Just hard to believe things can happen to us that change our life's landscape in such a fast order, isn't it?
Hearing what happened to my old friend, "Zippy" (his nickname as long as I can recall) did give me pause though especially since I am currently dealing with the cold aftermath - the horrendous cough! I'm really going to have to rethink my position on the olde nicotine favorite addiction of mine I guess but boy, thinking about dropping a "life-long friend" (seems like the smokes have often been that to me) and actually doing something about it -i.e. quitting - is a hard, tough ball of wax for me to tackle. Only those who are or have been smokers can probably understand my thinking process there.
Yesterday, the lady who is the main honcho (I think) of the program run by a local agency here that Maya has been enrolled in for the past 2 plus years now was here to do the first intake on the baby. Yes, we have noticed several markers that could be indicative of either developmental delays or autism or both. With the paperwork now done, the team evaluation of him is going to be just around the corner and after that, most likely he will be in a program just as his big sister is today. He doesn't have quite the same issues as Maya had -at least he does do a little play with toys that is "purposeful" whereas she didn't do that at all. But he has very poor eye contact, doesn't do a lot of interaction with us in terms of responding to things the way most kids his age would do - doesn't point to things like his nose or eyes or other body parts the way most kids his age do well before this, no vocabulary. He was also a late walker too but doesn't do the toe walking that his sister still does. Similar things, different things but all together rolls up into a bundle that looks very much like there will be a strong possibility of an autism diagnosis in the future for him too.
Miss Maya is still loving the pre-school. No problems at all getting her up, dressed, ready to go out and wait for the van to pull up and for her to head off to Clearfield to spend five hours with the teacher, aides and six other children in her age range, all who have a diagnosis of being somewhere on the autism spectrum.
Last night, I fell asleep early - like around 11 p.m. which for me is very early - but was awake at 2 a.m. for a bathroom call. After that, I had problems falling back to sleep and by 4 a.m., I was up, playing on the computer, reading new bloggers posts and such. Around about 5:30 to 6:00 a.m. I started hearing voices though and at first, it really had me a bit befuddled until I realized what it was I was hearing. Yes, it was a voice and it was Maya. Mandy has the intercom in her room and instead of having the receptor to it in her bedroom the way it used to be, she moved it downstairs and it sits on the mantle here in the living room.
But what the heck was Maya doing jabbering at that early an hour? Was she really talking or perhaps dreaming and talking in her sleep was my initial thought. However, after listening to her for better than a half hour, I knew she was awake -not dreaming, not talking in her sleep - and it was really fun to sit here and listen to her. Especially so when she decided to entertain whoever was able to hear her by singing many of the little songs she has learned now too.
Listening to her trying to sing - over and over - the "Pollywog Song" is really cute and very comical. She leaves out several words, mispronounces a good many too along the way, but she does have the basics on the melody down pat so you can figure out what song she's working on at any rate. "All a day, all a day" then "Gone to leesana, see my sue-sue anna, sing Polly wah all a day." No mistaking that there now is there?
It all serves to remind me just how far she has traveled over the past two years, but especially the last year of that time. A year ago, her vocabulary was just really beginning to come in. About this time last year, I was working on her trying to get her to learn how to sing "Happy Birthday" and by late November she had learned that along with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. In December, she learned the bulk of the words to Jingle Bells. Over the winter months, we taught her "You are my Sunshine" and she picked up the Tim McGraw song "One, Two, Three" from watching the Country Music Video channel. She has other songs too now that she has learned - mainly from a little children's songs video she has that she loves to watch, to listen to and to imitate. Often, she is singing these songs and we aren't even aware of it because at times, she is quite subtle about this but it's always so much fun, such a treat to us when it dawns on us exactly what it is she's repeating.
Thanks again to the two therapists who put in many hours working with her over the past two years to bring her to this point now. They really are "miracle workers" in my book. There simply are no words to adequately say how grateful we all are that this program exists, that people like Kerri Cowfer and Amanda McCartney Curtis have learned how to work with children like Maya and who take so much pride in the work that they do too.
Kudos to both these fantastic young women!
And to anyone reading this post who may be concerned about a young child not acting quite the way they think the child should be doing for a specific age, worrying that it could be a problem like developmental delays or autism or some such other issue, please take the steps to contact your physician, don't be afraid of voicing your concerns and try to get the child evaluated, enrolled too in a rehabilitatory type program because they sure do help - very, very much so!
Awareness of the issue is key to getting the best responses possible from each child who may have these issues and do it as quickly as is humanly possible too! I just can't stress that enough.
Now, I'm going to go let the new batch of cough medicine Mandy got me hopefully start winging its way through my system so I will no longer feel every time I start to cough that I'm not just going to cough up a lung but also half of my intestines too!
Peace!
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Of Cameras and Cats
My kids and I are relatively "pet oriented" as a family. Over the years, we've had a goodly number of cats who resided with us as well as several dogs. My older daughter and I, though we both do love cats, tend to be more "dog" oriented but my two younger children (son, Clate and daughter, Mandy) both a very much more in the "cat lover" category. Right now, we have two cats - Gracie, who will be 16 years old this fall and who is a beautiful, furry (very) black cat with gold speckles in her fur and who is the Queen Bee in this house. She's also getting somewhat senile, or so we think, judging by some of the behaviors she's been displaying recently pertaining to her bathroom habits. This past June, we added a kitten to the family - Nina - an orange cat, short-haired and quite an ornery little cuss she can be too.
The first cat who lived with us was a black short-hair cat we named "Aces" - something to do with the ace of spades or some such logic like that. My son was about 28 months old when we got her and he immediately bonded with that cat. She liked him well enough - or so it seemed - but most of her attention to him was in the form of finding ways to torment him. She had the older daughter as an ally in that respect. Carrie learned early on that if she was back in her bedroom and would call to her little brother to come back there because she had cookies for him, he would take off at a fast trot for that present and Aces would, upon hearing him moving down the hallway, lay in wait for him to pass by the doorway between the dining area and the hall. As he went by that doorway, Aces would immediately spring out and pounce on his backside, trying to gather a free ride down the hall and Clate would end up squealing half in delight, half in fear at having been scared by the silly cat's actions.
Aces also probably scarred the poor boy for life too by the things she would do to him while he was seated on his potty chair - often for the bulk of the day in what seemed to be a futile effort to get him "house-broken" - because the cat would come up behind him and swat at his bare butt that was exposed for all to see in the opening between the seat and the back of the potty chair. It amazes me that for the poor boy having had to endure that from that cat he still grew up to become a mega cat lover!
Now, cameras in this house are something else too.
I've had a couple different cameras over the years - none were a high quality type camera mainly because what few cameras I did get that were a little bit better always seemed to have something happen to them causing them to get destroyed in the process. So, that's one reason I've never tried to acquire a digital camera as yet - that and not really having adequate funds to splurge on a camera of that type and of a good quality.
When my kids were growing up, taking pictures was somewhat of a luxury thing. Cameras and film were used somewhat sparingly because of the base purchase costs plus the developing and my income not being all that high. That plus the fact that Mandy had a tendency too then - still does for that matter - to using cameras with film in them not exactly in the best manner - therefore, wasting film, developing costs, etc.
She loved to take pictures -yes, still does - but she never learned basics of photography in doing that. Centering the subject for example is something that still eludes her. Trying to have the area around the subject not become the subject of the photo instead of the person or object she thought she was photographing. Hope that sentence there makes sense. Translated, it simply means she never bothers to remove clutter around or behind whoever or whatever she has as the subject of her photos; she doesn't bother to see that if she is taking a picture of a person that she actually manages to get all of the person's necessary parts into the photo - like the face and head for example. We have lots of pictures she's taken over the years with part of the top of the head chopped off or it's a photo of someone's legs but not much else to identify who the legs belong to. Little things like that, ya know.
One time, back in the late 80's, older daughter Carrie had borrowed her boyfriend's camera for some reason or other and after taking a couple snapshots, had laid the camera down someplace that was within range of Mandy spying it and absconding with it to take some photos. When the boyfriend got the camera back, finished off the roll of film and got it developed, imagine his surprise when there were several pictures of Mandy's cabbage patch dolls in various poses on the couch, on her bed, etc., along with pictures of the neighbor's dog, tied up at his doghouse, the neighbor's front door of her sunporch, shots of people standing in front of another neighbor's home but only "leg" shots as she hadn't bothered to focus on the whole "person" there so the only way we know who these people were was by identifying the front of the house and then, judging by the sizes of the legs we knew it was that neighbor's older daughter, younger daughter, the dad, the mother, etc.
Nope, a professional photographer is never going to be in the cards for that kid!
The older daughter, after her son was born, decided I, as the proud grandmother, should have a nice camera to be able to use to take pictures of the very photogenic little "Prince Alex." So, she bought me a nice Kodak camera kit for Christmas when Alex was about 16 months old - one of those that takes the panoramic type photos, you know. That camera lasted for about four months and then, for some inexplicable reason, it just stopped working. Changed the batteries in it - nothing! Just wouldn't work at all. It had a roll of film in it that was almost used up but to get it to release, when I took it to a developing center, they had to break the camera open in order to release the film. Kodak replaced that camera as having been defective.
The second camera - the replacement unit - lasted a little bit longer but it bit the dust too after about 16 months of use when the beast pup my younger daughter had brought home managed to snag said camera from its resting place on my computer desk and he chewed it - thoroughly mangling it beyond repair and use!
Carrie later bought me another camera kit - not a panoramic one this time - just a nice little but decent 35 MM deal which also stopped working after about 4-5 months. Just died. No explanation whatsoever.
Since then, we have decided there is no point to my getting a camera that has a high price tag or even a moderately high price tag since either the house or the users of cameras here tend to jinx them. We've been heavy users of the nice little disposable units for several years now.
I thought I had some of Mandy's "lovely" photo gems saved either on a cd or to my computer but apparently I must have decided they weren't worthy of the space required to do that 'cause I couldn't locate any of them. Maybe sometime in the future I'll stumble across them and will think about posting some of her photography greats then.
In the meantime, here's some "Cat lover" pic of our two feline residents for your viewing pleasure. Use these as a guide perhaps on how not to take great photos, maybe?
This is the "Queen Bee" cat - Gracie, trapped at the moment in the playpen with Miss Maya.
Here we have a very ticked off Gracie - not impressed at all with having her photo taken, can you tell?
And here we have my son, Clate, holding little Nina the day after Mandy and Katie brought her home to live with us. This was before she discovered how the grandson always kicks his feet constantly while sitting in the high chair and what a great target they make for her sharp little feet to bat back and forth at them then too. Keep in mind, she hasn't yet been to the vet for declawing and getting her fixed too so we won't have more feline furballs running the place!
So there you have it - a couple little tales about the not so photogenic family that belong to here and a couple of pics of the two little creatures who are a big part of our happy family too!
The first cat who lived with us was a black short-hair cat we named "Aces" - something to do with the ace of spades or some such logic like that. My son was about 28 months old when we got her and he immediately bonded with that cat. She liked him well enough - or so it seemed - but most of her attention to him was in the form of finding ways to torment him. She had the older daughter as an ally in that respect. Carrie learned early on that if she was back in her bedroom and would call to her little brother to come back there because she had cookies for him, he would take off at a fast trot for that present and Aces would, upon hearing him moving down the hallway, lay in wait for him to pass by the doorway between the dining area and the hall. As he went by that doorway, Aces would immediately spring out and pounce on his backside, trying to gather a free ride down the hall and Clate would end up squealing half in delight, half in fear at having been scared by the silly cat's actions.
Aces also probably scarred the poor boy for life too by the things she would do to him while he was seated on his potty chair - often for the bulk of the day in what seemed to be a futile effort to get him "house-broken" - because the cat would come up behind him and swat at his bare butt that was exposed for all to see in the opening between the seat and the back of the potty chair. It amazes me that for the poor boy having had to endure that from that cat he still grew up to become a mega cat lover!
Now, cameras in this house are something else too.
I've had a couple different cameras over the years - none were a high quality type camera mainly because what few cameras I did get that were a little bit better always seemed to have something happen to them causing them to get destroyed in the process. So, that's one reason I've never tried to acquire a digital camera as yet - that and not really having adequate funds to splurge on a camera of that type and of a good quality.
When my kids were growing up, taking pictures was somewhat of a luxury thing. Cameras and film were used somewhat sparingly because of the base purchase costs plus the developing and my income not being all that high. That plus the fact that Mandy had a tendency too then - still does for that matter - to using cameras with film in them not exactly in the best manner - therefore, wasting film, developing costs, etc.
She loved to take pictures -yes, still does - but she never learned basics of photography in doing that. Centering the subject for example is something that still eludes her. Trying to have the area around the subject not become the subject of the photo instead of the person or object she thought she was photographing. Hope that sentence there makes sense. Translated, it simply means she never bothers to remove clutter around or behind whoever or whatever she has as the subject of her photos; she doesn't bother to see that if she is taking a picture of a person that she actually manages to get all of the person's necessary parts into the photo - like the face and head for example. We have lots of pictures she's taken over the years with part of the top of the head chopped off or it's a photo of someone's legs but not much else to identify who the legs belong to. Little things like that, ya know.
One time, back in the late 80's, older daughter Carrie had borrowed her boyfriend's camera for some reason or other and after taking a couple snapshots, had laid the camera down someplace that was within range of Mandy spying it and absconding with it to take some photos. When the boyfriend got the camera back, finished off the roll of film and got it developed, imagine his surprise when there were several pictures of Mandy's cabbage patch dolls in various poses on the couch, on her bed, etc., along with pictures of the neighbor's dog, tied up at his doghouse, the neighbor's front door of her sunporch, shots of people standing in front of another neighbor's home but only "leg" shots as she hadn't bothered to focus on the whole "person" there so the only way we know who these people were was by identifying the front of the house and then, judging by the sizes of the legs we knew it was that neighbor's older daughter, younger daughter, the dad, the mother, etc.
Nope, a professional photographer is never going to be in the cards for that kid!
The older daughter, after her son was born, decided I, as the proud grandmother, should have a nice camera to be able to use to take pictures of the very photogenic little "Prince Alex." So, she bought me a nice Kodak camera kit for Christmas when Alex was about 16 months old - one of those that takes the panoramic type photos, you know. That camera lasted for about four months and then, for some inexplicable reason, it just stopped working. Changed the batteries in it - nothing! Just wouldn't work at all. It had a roll of film in it that was almost used up but to get it to release, when I took it to a developing center, they had to break the camera open in order to release the film. Kodak replaced that camera as having been defective.
The second camera - the replacement unit - lasted a little bit longer but it bit the dust too after about 16 months of use when the beast pup my younger daughter had brought home managed to snag said camera from its resting place on my computer desk and he chewed it - thoroughly mangling it beyond repair and use!
Carrie later bought me another camera kit - not a panoramic one this time - just a nice little but decent 35 MM deal which also stopped working after about 4-5 months. Just died. No explanation whatsoever.
Since then, we have decided there is no point to my getting a camera that has a high price tag or even a moderately high price tag since either the house or the users of cameras here tend to jinx them. We've been heavy users of the nice little disposable units for several years now.
I thought I had some of Mandy's "lovely" photo gems saved either on a cd or to my computer but apparently I must have decided they weren't worthy of the space required to do that 'cause I couldn't locate any of them. Maybe sometime in the future I'll stumble across them and will think about posting some of her photography greats then.
In the meantime, here's some "Cat lover" pic of our two feline residents for your viewing pleasure. Use these as a guide perhaps on how not to take great photos, maybe?
This is the "Queen Bee" cat - Gracie, trapped at the moment in the playpen with Miss Maya.
Here we have a very ticked off Gracie - not impressed at all with having her photo taken, can you tell?
And here we have my son, Clate, holding little Nina the day after Mandy and Katie brought her home to live with us. This was before she discovered how the grandson always kicks his feet constantly while sitting in the high chair and what a great target they make for her sharp little feet to bat back and forth at them then too. Keep in mind, she hasn't yet been to the vet for declawing and getting her fixed too so we won't have more feline furballs running the place!
So there you have it - a couple little tales about the not so photogenic family that belong to here and a couple of pics of the two little creatures who are a big part of our happy family too!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Sleeping with the Earth Beneath
A certain "cheeky little Brit" as my blogger pal, Linda the dispatcher referred to this young lady (I loved that description of Claire, makes me giggle every time I see that) posted something Sunday night that brought back some memories to me. She was talking about her recent camping expedition and the "dark of night" when one is out in the wild or boondocks camping.
I'm not a big camper type person. Ok, I enjoyed it. Back around 1978 I think it may have been, I purchased a tent, sleeping bags, camp stove, cooking equipment for camping, a special "camper's light," folding table and some camp chairs through a special sale J.C. Penney's had that summer. This was prior to my ex and I splitting up and I though perhaps camping might possibly be a fun thing for the kids -and also for he and I - to enjoy, heck, maybe even reconnect. That camping gear, sad to say, got used exactly one time for a weekend when the kids and I camped out at a state park all of about 8-10 miles from where we live. The kids liked it well enough. So did I. The ex - well he decided he wasn't about to interrupt his weekend schedule of carousing the local pubs, hustling the femme fatales (there's a joke for ya) that haunted those places by sleeping on hard, lumpy (rocky) ground. Over the next couple of years, the kids did use the tent a few times by pitching it in the back yard and have a sleepover/camp out there.
The tent got destroyed somehow or other a few years later too while set up in the back yard. Someone (or perhaps something) came through and just virtually sliced it. Either a bear, possible but not really probable in my book could have clawed it but as my next door neighbor said after she and her husband looked at it, it really looked more like someone had come through with a knife and just made slashes in the tent.
So for many years then, that put an end to any possibility of the kids and I doing any serious camping cause I couldn't afford to purchase a new tent.
In the summer of 2002 though, several of my cousins were expressing a desire to camp out at the little local park where we always held our family reunion. I talked about this to my daughter Mandy and her husband if they thought it might be interesting, fun for us to camp out there too perhaps with several of our cousins. They thought it would be ok so I went shopping for another tent. I lucked out and found a decent sized one that all of us would fit into and the weekend of our reunion that year, we camped out at the park with several other cousins along with my older daughter, her then husband and the older grandson. We really did enjoy that experience too. Enough so that we planned to camp out at future reunions then.
In 2003, my son-in-law pitched the tent but that summer, I didn't partake of the camping experience as I'd just had surgery a month earlier (colon resection) and somehow or other, about 2-3 weeks after the surgery, my back went south on me. Tests revealed I had two herniated discs and was having a terrible time with that issue, recuperating from the surgery and well, overall, I was just a royal mess that year.
In 2004, the step-granddaughter and I camped out at the park. My daughter and son-in-law were going to try it but Maya was just a baby then - about 10 months old - and she refused to settle down in her playpen in the tent to sleep that night, so Mandy packed their stuff up and returned home that night. Surprisingly enough, for all the back problems I'd endured in the previous year, sleeping in a sleeping bag - no air mattress under it - on the hard ground actually didn't bother me any more than sleeping on the mattress on my bed at home. So, when the reunion of 2005 rolled around, I decided I was going to camp out again.
Mandy said she wasn't even going to think about trying to sleep in the tent that year with Maya, so she and Bill planned to come back to the house after the activities of the day wore down. I don't remember where the step-granddaughter was that year - maybe it was her weekend at her Mom's or something because she wasn't there. But the son-in-law pitched the tent for me and I was going to spend the night alone in it. There were two tents there - one, a cousin from New York state and her husband and the other was my cousin from Maryland's son, his nephew and his son. So I wasn't "alone" at the park, just alone in the tent.
Cousin Brett, after having managed to calm the two younger boys down, got them settled in for the night, and I sat around a campfire he'd built, talking about lots of things we both remembered about family and such. Remembering his grandfather who was the last of my Mom's siblings to pass and who my kids had loved dearly. That uncle had a roller skating rink in Maryland and every year, I always managed somehow to scrounge up a little extra money so we could go down there and spend usually two days visiting with him and his wife. The kids would spend the time skating in the rink and my uncle and I would sit up till 4 or 5 a.m. drinking coffee, smoking, talking about his past. It was a wonderful time for me as my uncle would share stories about the way things were when my grandparents were young, raising their kids, the hardships they all endured and just generally sharing lots and lots of memories.
So, Brett and I kind of did a re-enactment of sorts of the conversations I'd shared over the years with his "Pops" and in doing that, we also indulged in some liquid refreshments but not the caffeine stuff his grandfather and I had always had. No, Brett and I did this while sharing a couple beers. No, I didn't get tanked or anything like that. I drank two beers, knowing that more than that and my stomach wouldn't handle it very well, so I was quite well-behaved and sober.
About 1 a.m. or shortly thereafter, I decided to retire to my tent. Found my way in there, no problem. Got all situated in the nice little sleeping bag and off to sleep I went.
However, I forgot something that was often giving me issues back that summer. But I remembered it all too well when about 4 a.m. I awoke with a need to get moving, quickly too, down to the shelter building where the bathroom facility was located.
The problem though -and this was something I had not given a whit of thought to when I went to bed that night - when I am down whether it be on the floor, on the ground, whatever, for me to manage to get myself back upright, I have to have something to grab hold of to pull myself upright. The joints stiffen up, resist doing that task easily like they used to do ya know.
And in that tent, there wasn't a single thing I could find in the dark no less to grasp on to that would give me even the slightest amount of support to pull myself up!
I rolled around, trying to get on my hands and knees and thinking there had to be some tiny bit of a flap there someplace that would give me just a teensy bit of support to get up but it took me almost - or it seemed like - forever before I did find something above one of the tent "windows" that allowed me just enough to use to pull myself up.
Then, with no flashlight handy (being the total idiot I can be at times, I'd forgotten to bring that piece of equipment), trying to root around in the tent to find my shoes was yet another time-consuming task too. Finally, I managed to slide the old sandels on and made my escape from the tent, heading down to the building shelter.
There was a big spotlight on down at the shelter, so once I got outside the tent and moving towards the building, I did have some light then - kind of like the "north star" ya know - to guide my way over the rocky path. But it was not a fast walk because my gait has slowed considerably over the past couple of years. It wasn't an easy walk either because the path as mentioned above is somewhat rocky, also has a lot of tree roots and stuff there that one can easily stumble over.
I finally did make it down to my destination in time - well sort of. Try walking as quickly as you can, when you can't walk fast to begin with and try doing it all with a full bladder too. Not a really good combination.
To make matters worse, once I got to the bathroom and got situated, all that activity along with the myriad of foods I'd ingested the day before set my intestines into a bunch of turmoil too. So all of that made me decide once I'd finished up in the bathroom that I'd had it for the night with camping. I made my way back to the tent, found my purse, closed the flap tight and got in the car and came home. I figured if I had another bathroom call it would be much easier for me to roll over and off the bed, to get my feet on the floor than to try to get myself up and moving again.
The upshot of that whole episode though was that two days later, I awoke with virtually every muscle and joint in my legs stiff, sore, barely able to move at all! Apparently all that rolling around on the ground, twisting and turning trying to get myself up on my feet, had used many muscles not normally put into action and I spent several weeks going to the chiropractor after that to get my legs to functioning semi-decently again.
Needless to say, that was my last camping experience! At least, the last time I will camp out alone anyway or without some type of chair or some such item to have positioned in the tent to be able to grab in the event I need to get up and moving quickly.
Oh - and I'll also remember to bring a flashlight too if ever I do get brave enough to try camping out again!
I'm not a big camper type person. Ok, I enjoyed it. Back around 1978 I think it may have been, I purchased a tent, sleeping bags, camp stove, cooking equipment for camping, a special "camper's light," folding table and some camp chairs through a special sale J.C. Penney's had that summer. This was prior to my ex and I splitting up and I though perhaps camping might possibly be a fun thing for the kids -and also for he and I - to enjoy, heck, maybe even reconnect. That camping gear, sad to say, got used exactly one time for a weekend when the kids and I camped out at a state park all of about 8-10 miles from where we live. The kids liked it well enough. So did I. The ex - well he decided he wasn't about to interrupt his weekend schedule of carousing the local pubs, hustling the femme fatales (there's a joke for ya) that haunted those places by sleeping on hard, lumpy (rocky) ground. Over the next couple of years, the kids did use the tent a few times by pitching it in the back yard and have a sleepover/camp out there.
The tent got destroyed somehow or other a few years later too while set up in the back yard. Someone (or perhaps something) came through and just virtually sliced it. Either a bear, possible but not really probable in my book could have clawed it but as my next door neighbor said after she and her husband looked at it, it really looked more like someone had come through with a knife and just made slashes in the tent.
So for many years then, that put an end to any possibility of the kids and I doing any serious camping cause I couldn't afford to purchase a new tent.
In the summer of 2002 though, several of my cousins were expressing a desire to camp out at the little local park where we always held our family reunion. I talked about this to my daughter Mandy and her husband if they thought it might be interesting, fun for us to camp out there too perhaps with several of our cousins. They thought it would be ok so I went shopping for another tent. I lucked out and found a decent sized one that all of us would fit into and the weekend of our reunion that year, we camped out at the park with several other cousins along with my older daughter, her then husband and the older grandson. We really did enjoy that experience too. Enough so that we planned to camp out at future reunions then.
In 2003, my son-in-law pitched the tent but that summer, I didn't partake of the camping experience as I'd just had surgery a month earlier (colon resection) and somehow or other, about 2-3 weeks after the surgery, my back went south on me. Tests revealed I had two herniated discs and was having a terrible time with that issue, recuperating from the surgery and well, overall, I was just a royal mess that year.
In 2004, the step-granddaughter and I camped out at the park. My daughter and son-in-law were going to try it but Maya was just a baby then - about 10 months old - and she refused to settle down in her playpen in the tent to sleep that night, so Mandy packed their stuff up and returned home that night. Surprisingly enough, for all the back problems I'd endured in the previous year, sleeping in a sleeping bag - no air mattress under it - on the hard ground actually didn't bother me any more than sleeping on the mattress on my bed at home. So, when the reunion of 2005 rolled around, I decided I was going to camp out again.
Mandy said she wasn't even going to think about trying to sleep in the tent that year with Maya, so she and Bill planned to come back to the house after the activities of the day wore down. I don't remember where the step-granddaughter was that year - maybe it was her weekend at her Mom's or something because she wasn't there. But the son-in-law pitched the tent for me and I was going to spend the night alone in it. There were two tents there - one, a cousin from New York state and her husband and the other was my cousin from Maryland's son, his nephew and his son. So I wasn't "alone" at the park, just alone in the tent.
Cousin Brett, after having managed to calm the two younger boys down, got them settled in for the night, and I sat around a campfire he'd built, talking about lots of things we both remembered about family and such. Remembering his grandfather who was the last of my Mom's siblings to pass and who my kids had loved dearly. That uncle had a roller skating rink in Maryland and every year, I always managed somehow to scrounge up a little extra money so we could go down there and spend usually two days visiting with him and his wife. The kids would spend the time skating in the rink and my uncle and I would sit up till 4 or 5 a.m. drinking coffee, smoking, talking about his past. It was a wonderful time for me as my uncle would share stories about the way things were when my grandparents were young, raising their kids, the hardships they all endured and just generally sharing lots and lots of memories.
So, Brett and I kind of did a re-enactment of sorts of the conversations I'd shared over the years with his "Pops" and in doing that, we also indulged in some liquid refreshments but not the caffeine stuff his grandfather and I had always had. No, Brett and I did this while sharing a couple beers. No, I didn't get tanked or anything like that. I drank two beers, knowing that more than that and my stomach wouldn't handle it very well, so I was quite well-behaved and sober.
About 1 a.m. or shortly thereafter, I decided to retire to my tent. Found my way in there, no problem. Got all situated in the nice little sleeping bag and off to sleep I went.
However, I forgot something that was often giving me issues back that summer. But I remembered it all too well when about 4 a.m. I awoke with a need to get moving, quickly too, down to the shelter building where the bathroom facility was located.
The problem though -and this was something I had not given a whit of thought to when I went to bed that night - when I am down whether it be on the floor, on the ground, whatever, for me to manage to get myself back upright, I have to have something to grab hold of to pull myself upright. The joints stiffen up, resist doing that task easily like they used to do ya know.
And in that tent, there wasn't a single thing I could find in the dark no less to grasp on to that would give me even the slightest amount of support to pull myself up!
I rolled around, trying to get on my hands and knees and thinking there had to be some tiny bit of a flap there someplace that would give me just a teensy bit of support to get up but it took me almost - or it seemed like - forever before I did find something above one of the tent "windows" that allowed me just enough to use to pull myself up.
Then, with no flashlight handy (being the total idiot I can be at times, I'd forgotten to bring that piece of equipment), trying to root around in the tent to find my shoes was yet another time-consuming task too. Finally, I managed to slide the old sandels on and made my escape from the tent, heading down to the building shelter.
There was a big spotlight on down at the shelter, so once I got outside the tent and moving towards the building, I did have some light then - kind of like the "north star" ya know - to guide my way over the rocky path. But it was not a fast walk because my gait has slowed considerably over the past couple of years. It wasn't an easy walk either because the path as mentioned above is somewhat rocky, also has a lot of tree roots and stuff there that one can easily stumble over.
I finally did make it down to my destination in time - well sort of. Try walking as quickly as you can, when you can't walk fast to begin with and try doing it all with a full bladder too. Not a really good combination.
To make matters worse, once I got to the bathroom and got situated, all that activity along with the myriad of foods I'd ingested the day before set my intestines into a bunch of turmoil too. So all of that made me decide once I'd finished up in the bathroom that I'd had it for the night with camping. I made my way back to the tent, found my purse, closed the flap tight and got in the car and came home. I figured if I had another bathroom call it would be much easier for me to roll over and off the bed, to get my feet on the floor than to try to get myself up and moving again.
The upshot of that whole episode though was that two days later, I awoke with virtually every muscle and joint in my legs stiff, sore, barely able to move at all! Apparently all that rolling around on the ground, twisting and turning trying to get myself up on my feet, had used many muscles not normally put into action and I spent several weeks going to the chiropractor after that to get my legs to functioning semi-decently again.
Needless to say, that was my last camping experience! At least, the last time I will camp out alone anyway or without some type of chair or some such item to have positioned in the tent to be able to grab in the event I need to get up and moving quickly.
Oh - and I'll also remember to bring a flashlight too if ever I do get brave enough to try camping out again!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Sunday Morning - Comin' Down
Years ago - back in the "married days" that is, Sunday mornings were usually a fairly pleasant time in the house the kids and I shared then with the ex. He would generally be the first up, make coffee, raid the refrigerator to see if we had the makings for a great omelet and then, he'd set to work to putting omelets together for anyone who wanted one - or if the kids preferred just eggs, he'd cook them to order for them.
All the while he was doing this kitchen puttering thing, he had the big stereo going with an array of albums, generally Tom T. Hall, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. My older daughter gets a far-off look in her eyes today when she talks about those mornings. They were probably the only real "family" time we had during the "married years."
After breakfast was done, the kids were ready to leave for Sunday School - which Dad would drive them out to the church for that and immediately after dropping them off, he would head down to the local Moose (L.O.O.M) here in town so he could attend what he referred to as "Mass at the Moose with Father Paul officiating." (Father Paul was a local guy - obviously not a priest -who would kind of "hold court" you could say every Sunday morning from about 9 a.m. until around noonish with whichever of the other locals preferred to start their drinking process early. They would delve into all types of discussions there - everything from soup to nuts. In retrospect, knowing which locals generally showed up for this impromptu meeting, I can understand why the ex enjoyed it so much - a lot of fun discussions held there back in those days.
Meanwhile, I would usually be at home, clearing up the breakfast mess and trying most Sundays to get ready to go to church myself. If I was planning to attend services, the ex could figure on spending the bulk of the morning with his cronies because I would gather the kids then and take them to church with me. But, if it was a day I wasn't figuring on going to church, he'd have to excuse himself after about an hour and drive out to pick the kids up, bring them home, drop them off and then, return to his "Sunday morning comin' down" affair.
I'm happy to report MY TEAM - those wonderful Penn State Nittany Lions - led by the one and only Joe Paterno, had their third straight victory yesterday. Go Lions! Yay, yay!
And, if you'll recall yesterday I was also bemoaning the fact I didn't know if the game would be broadcast in this area due to a conflict between the Big Ten Network and the local cable companies, none of which are carrying the "Big Ten Network" for those who are truly dyed-in-the-wool Penn State Fans. My blogger buddy, Tomcat, up in Oregon sent me a nifty little gadget showing tv listings for just about every cable channel there might be, which covers each day, on an hourly basis! Pretty cool, it is really. Ok, a few things missing on it that our cable company carries but overall, it's a better way to figure out what's on the old boob tube throughout the day than it is to try to decipher the listings in the local newspapers - which don't even show most of the channels we get here on our cable. Check it out sometime and see how it operates in your neck of the woods:
http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/ And a big thank you to Tomcat for sending me that!
To bring all up to date on my lovely head cold/cough issues, things are definitely getting better! Mandy got me a package of Mucinex DM cold tablets last night - these are the 12-hour variety and work pretty darned good. She couldn't find any of the Mucinex DM cough syrup though but we have a bottle of it in the cupboard of the children's variety so I have been using that now - just taking double doses of what is prescribed for kids (up to 12 years of age.) This seems to be calming the cough a good bit so I don't feel like every 5-10 minutes I'm going to hack a lung up or something.
And, to answer a question posed in the comments yesterday by my Canadian friend, Latte Girl, unfortunately, my cough is made worse because, yes, I do indulge in that particular substance - nicotine. I know, I know - I should quit. I did quit as a matter of fact about 9 years ago for all of three months. But then, temptation took control again and I returned to the habit. Back in the early 90's - when we still had a post office here in the village - the postmaster was getting on my case one morning when I waltzed in to pick up my mail, telling me in his authoritarian manner how he had quit smoking, easy as pie, so good for one to do that and that I really should pick up the mantle and follow his lead. Yeah, yeah! I turned to him and told him "Tom, we all have to go sometime, ya know and since I've long since determined I'm not going to die of an overdose of sex, it bloody may as well be from something I enjoy!" And with that said, I turned and walked out leaving him to pick his chin up off the window ledge from which he did his postal business. He never said another word to me again about quitting! Wonder why, huh?
Now, with all that said and done, I'm going to take the time to post the Bushisms for the coming week here. Get that done early so you all have something to refer to during the week of wonderful quotes from our Fearless Fosdick Leader!
Monday - September 17 , 2007
"There's no such thing as legacies. At least, there is a legacy, but I'll never see it." - To Catholic leaders at the White House; January 31, 2001
Tuesday - September 18, 2007
"It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America." - Dakar, Senegal; July 8, 2003
Wednesday - September 19, 2007
"[A]s you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say." - Washington, D. C.; October 28, 2003
Thursday, September 20, 2007
"We're spending money on clean coal technology. Do you realize we've got 250 million years of coal?" - Washington, D.C.; June 8, 2005
Friday, September 21, 2007
"So on behalf of a well-oiled unit of people who came together to serve something greater than themselves, congratulations." - Remarks to the University of Nebraska women's volleyball team, the 2001 national champions; Washington, D.C.; May 31, 2001
Saturday/Sunday - September 22/23, 2007
"I'm also honored to be here with the Speaker of the House - just happens to be from the state of Illinois. I'd like to describe the Speaker as a trustworthy man. He's the kind of fellow who says when he gives you his word he means it. Sometimes that doesn't happen all the time in the political process." - Chicago, Illinois; March 6, 2001
Now there's some good food for thought for ya'll. I especially LOVED his remarks for Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - wonder how many descendants of former slaves in this country had any idea of what wonderful direction their ancestors had as they were brought here kicking, screaming, in chains and being sold. Or did I study a different American History course somewhere along the way?
Anyway, I leave you now to mull over all the above "words of wisdom" and start the week out, hopefully, on a good foot forward.
Peace!
All the while he was doing this kitchen puttering thing, he had the big stereo going with an array of albums, generally Tom T. Hall, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. My older daughter gets a far-off look in her eyes today when she talks about those mornings. They were probably the only real "family" time we had during the "married years."
After breakfast was done, the kids were ready to leave for Sunday School - which Dad would drive them out to the church for that and immediately after dropping them off, he would head down to the local Moose (L.O.O.M) here in town so he could attend what he referred to as "Mass at the Moose with Father Paul officiating." (Father Paul was a local guy - obviously not a priest -who would kind of "hold court" you could say every Sunday morning from about 9 a.m. until around noonish with whichever of the other locals preferred to start their drinking process early. They would delve into all types of discussions there - everything from soup to nuts. In retrospect, knowing which locals generally showed up for this impromptu meeting, I can understand why the ex enjoyed it so much - a lot of fun discussions held there back in those days.
Meanwhile, I would usually be at home, clearing up the breakfast mess and trying most Sundays to get ready to go to church myself. If I was planning to attend services, the ex could figure on spending the bulk of the morning with his cronies because I would gather the kids then and take them to church with me. But, if it was a day I wasn't figuring on going to church, he'd have to excuse himself after about an hour and drive out to pick the kids up, bring them home, drop them off and then, return to his "Sunday morning comin' down" affair.
I'm happy to report MY TEAM - those wonderful Penn State Nittany Lions - led by the one and only Joe Paterno, had their third straight victory yesterday. Go Lions! Yay, yay!
And, if you'll recall yesterday I was also bemoaning the fact I didn't know if the game would be broadcast in this area due to a conflict between the Big Ten Network and the local cable companies, none of which are carrying the "Big Ten Network" for those who are truly dyed-in-the-wool Penn State Fans. My blogger buddy, Tomcat, up in Oregon sent me a nifty little gadget showing tv listings for just about every cable channel there might be, which covers each day, on an hourly basis! Pretty cool, it is really. Ok, a few things missing on it that our cable company carries but overall, it's a better way to figure out what's on the old boob tube throughout the day than it is to try to decipher the listings in the local newspapers - which don't even show most of the channels we get here on our cable. Check it out sometime and see how it operates in your neck of the woods:
http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/ And a big thank you to Tomcat for sending me that!
To bring all up to date on my lovely head cold/cough issues, things are definitely getting better! Mandy got me a package of Mucinex DM cold tablets last night - these are the 12-hour variety and work pretty darned good. She couldn't find any of the Mucinex DM cough syrup though but we have a bottle of it in the cupboard of the children's variety so I have been using that now - just taking double doses of what is prescribed for kids (up to 12 years of age.) This seems to be calming the cough a good bit so I don't feel like every 5-10 minutes I'm going to hack a lung up or something.
And, to answer a question posed in the comments yesterday by my Canadian friend, Latte Girl, unfortunately, my cough is made worse because, yes, I do indulge in that particular substance - nicotine. I know, I know - I should quit. I did quit as a matter of fact about 9 years ago for all of three months. But then, temptation took control again and I returned to the habit. Back in the early 90's - when we still had a post office here in the village - the postmaster was getting on my case one morning when I waltzed in to pick up my mail, telling me in his authoritarian manner how he had quit smoking, easy as pie, so good for one to do that and that I really should pick up the mantle and follow his lead. Yeah, yeah! I turned to him and told him "Tom, we all have to go sometime, ya know and since I've long since determined I'm not going to die of an overdose of sex, it bloody may as well be from something I enjoy!" And with that said, I turned and walked out leaving him to pick his chin up off the window ledge from which he did his postal business. He never said another word to me again about quitting! Wonder why, huh?
Now, with all that said and done, I'm going to take the time to post the Bushisms for the coming week here. Get that done early so you all have something to refer to during the week of wonderful quotes from our Fearless Fosdick Leader!
Monday - September 17 , 2007
"There's no such thing as legacies. At least, there is a legacy, but I'll never see it." - To Catholic leaders at the White House; January 31, 2001
Tuesday - September 18, 2007
"It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America." - Dakar, Senegal; July 8, 2003
Wednesday - September 19, 2007
"[A]s you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say." - Washington, D. C.; October 28, 2003
Thursday, September 20, 2007
"We're spending money on clean coal technology. Do you realize we've got 250 million years of coal?" - Washington, D.C.; June 8, 2005
Friday, September 21, 2007
"So on behalf of a well-oiled unit of people who came together to serve something greater than themselves, congratulations." - Remarks to the University of Nebraska women's volleyball team, the 2001 national champions; Washington, D.C.; May 31, 2001
Saturday/Sunday - September 22/23, 2007
"I'm also honored to be here with the Speaker of the House - just happens to be from the state of Illinois. I'd like to describe the Speaker as a trustworthy man. He's the kind of fellow who says when he gives you his word he means it. Sometimes that doesn't happen all the time in the political process." - Chicago, Illinois; March 6, 2001
Now there's some good food for thought for ya'll. I especially LOVED his remarks for Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - wonder how many descendants of former slaves in this country had any idea of what wonderful direction their ancestors had as they were brought here kicking, screaming, in chains and being sold. Or did I study a different American History course somewhere along the way?
Anyway, I leave you now to mull over all the above "words of wisdom" and start the week out, hopefully, on a good foot forward.
Peace!
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Fog Lifting
When I awoke today - depending on which time it may have been, 2 a.m., 5 a.m. or almost 10 a.m. - my head was in various states of fogginess. At 2 a.m., I was still feeling pretty crappy with this lovely head cold. By 5 a.m., when I awoke again and took some more cough medicine and more cold tablets, I noticed I slight difference in that I didn't feel as much of the vice that had seemed to be pressing on my head and eyes for the past two days was there and by 10 a.m., as I took more cough medicine and the next two cold tablets, my nose was not operating like an open faucet and my vision seemed a lot clearer. Now, to just get rid of the tickling sensation in my ears and I figure I'll be just about back to normal once again.
When I got up at 10 a.m., the weather here looked very grey, almost ominous, and I was thinking oh brother, not a dreary, chilly and rainy day but within the past hour, it's amazing how even that has cleared off and now, the sun is shining brightly, a stiff breeze blowing (a bit chilly though) and things are looking up all around me.
Well, except of course for the "let's hang on for dear life" cough that no doubt will persist for the next couple of weeks. Things like that always take forever now to leave me - or so it seems.
My morning cup of coffee in hand, I settled in at the old computer to check my e-mail, read the morning's new too on the CDT and then, head on to check out my favorite bloggers to see what they have to say today.
At noon today, my Penn State Nittany Lions will kick off against the Buffalo Bulls and hopefully, will have another check mark in their win column when all is said and done with that game. So far this year, so good -they're 2 and 0. I know, it's early in the season and all kinds of things can happen but I've been a Penn State fan for many years prior to becoming an alum and like all Penn Staters, the world over, I like to see Joepa and his "boys" do well, ya know.
If I can figure out now if this game will be televised on any of the local networks or any of the sports channels on our cable, it'll make for some good Saturday afternoon viewing for me at any rate.
One of the things I found when I opened my e-mail though today was a "Weather alert" - sent to me by my good friend from high school -and also another Penn Stater -Sharon Rolley. This alert had a picture of a beautiful blue sky, with a huge white cloud and the formation of the cloud was such that it looked like it was someone's hand and it was giving one of those gestures we frequently get (and give) while driving -that good old "finger" and under the picture it said, if you see this when you leave your house today, you might want to go back in and just have another cup of coffee.
And, considering the fact that now, the weather outside seems to have reverted back to the greyish skies, winds picking up, no sun showing, I'm hoping that isn't an omen for changing tides in the game today too.
ROAR, Lions, ROAR! Go Penn State! WE ARE!
Now, cross my fingers and pray, huh?
When I got up at 10 a.m., the weather here looked very grey, almost ominous, and I was thinking oh brother, not a dreary, chilly and rainy day but within the past hour, it's amazing how even that has cleared off and now, the sun is shining brightly, a stiff breeze blowing (a bit chilly though) and things are looking up all around me.
Well, except of course for the "let's hang on for dear life" cough that no doubt will persist for the next couple of weeks. Things like that always take forever now to leave me - or so it seems.
My morning cup of coffee in hand, I settled in at the old computer to check my e-mail, read the morning's new too on the CDT and then, head on to check out my favorite bloggers to see what they have to say today.
At noon today, my Penn State Nittany Lions will kick off against the Buffalo Bulls and hopefully, will have another check mark in their win column when all is said and done with that game. So far this year, so good -they're 2 and 0. I know, it's early in the season and all kinds of things can happen but I've been a Penn State fan for many years prior to becoming an alum and like all Penn Staters, the world over, I like to see Joepa and his "boys" do well, ya know.
If I can figure out now if this game will be televised on any of the local networks or any of the sports channels on our cable, it'll make for some good Saturday afternoon viewing for me at any rate.
One of the things I found when I opened my e-mail though today was a "Weather alert" - sent to me by my good friend from high school -and also another Penn Stater -Sharon Rolley. This alert had a picture of a beautiful blue sky, with a huge white cloud and the formation of the cloud was such that it looked like it was someone's hand and it was giving one of those gestures we frequently get (and give) while driving -that good old "finger" and under the picture it said, if you see this when you leave your house today, you might want to go back in and just have another cup of coffee.
And, considering the fact that now, the weather outside seems to have reverted back to the greyish skies, winds picking up, no sun showing, I'm hoping that isn't an omen for changing tides in the game today too.
ROAR, Lions, ROAR! Go Penn State! WE ARE!
Now, cross my fingers and pray, huh?
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Infected!
I knew I should have steered clear. I knew I was getting just a trifle too cocky about this stuff and saying how lucky I am that it rarely bothers me. But doggone it anyway, wouldn't you just know it though it's happened.
I got a head cold!
Last Thursday, a mere two days after she started attending the preschool over in Clearfield for autistic kids, Maya came home with a head cold. She promptly shared it with her little brother. He and Maya both decided (apparently) that I don't have enough things going on in my life, in my body what with all the other weird aches and pains in my back, my leg, my ankle, etc., so they both gave me this wonderful gift now too. (It's either that or I got it via a virus on my computer through a certain Canadian blogger who, two days ago, announced she was suspending blogging till the head cold she had broke up and the cotton feeling in her head cleared up!)
So anyway, here I am now with my right nostril blocked, my throat getting raspier by the minute, all kinds of stuff that Claire, that "Cheeky little Brit" as Linda called her on her blog last night, told us she had going on in her head, ears and throat a good while back! And feeling sluggish as all get out here is what I'm dealing with too right now.
The cold tablets I'm taking say on the advisements on the package that these could cause insomnia - among other lovely and wonderful side effects - like an increase in blood pressure, rapid heartbeat and the like.
With me, these particular tablets along with the cough medicine - and don't forget to add in the grandson's penchant at times for waking up about five to ten minutes after my head hits the pillow and keeping me up for anywhere from a half hour to two or three hours in the middle of the night -well, these meds apparently work in the reverse then on me - they make me drowsy, very, very drowsy.
Which is one reason I always liked Contact! The package for them warns that Contact could make a person drowsy but it always seemed to give me a buzz, wake me up! Actually, Contact usually reminds me of the days, way, way back when (almost four decades ago) that I used to love to take neat little pills commonly referred to as "Christmas Trees" and a few other types that had very politically incorrect names for them too but gave me loads of energy and the ability to stay awake for days on end!
Sometimes, I miss those good old days ya know so much so that there have been times in recent years I kind of longed for a good head cold so I had an excuse to take Contact and get that nice little buzz plus lots of energy to boot.
Today is not one of those days though.
I just want this cold to cease and desist - just Be. Gone. Now.
Know what I mean there?
I got a head cold!
Last Thursday, a mere two days after she started attending the preschool over in Clearfield for autistic kids, Maya came home with a head cold. She promptly shared it with her little brother. He and Maya both decided (apparently) that I don't have enough things going on in my life, in my body what with all the other weird aches and pains in my back, my leg, my ankle, etc., so they both gave me this wonderful gift now too. (It's either that or I got it via a virus on my computer through a certain Canadian blogger who, two days ago, announced she was suspending blogging till the head cold she had broke up and the cotton feeling in her head cleared up!)
So anyway, here I am now with my right nostril blocked, my throat getting raspier by the minute, all kinds of stuff that Claire, that "Cheeky little Brit" as Linda called her on her blog last night, told us she had going on in her head, ears and throat a good while back! And feeling sluggish as all get out here is what I'm dealing with too right now.
The cold tablets I'm taking say on the advisements on the package that these could cause insomnia - among other lovely and wonderful side effects - like an increase in blood pressure, rapid heartbeat and the like.
With me, these particular tablets along with the cough medicine - and don't forget to add in the grandson's penchant at times for waking up about five to ten minutes after my head hits the pillow and keeping me up for anywhere from a half hour to two or three hours in the middle of the night -well, these meds apparently work in the reverse then on me - they make me drowsy, very, very drowsy.
Which is one reason I always liked Contact! The package for them warns that Contact could make a person drowsy but it always seemed to give me a buzz, wake me up! Actually, Contact usually reminds me of the days, way, way back when (almost four decades ago) that I used to love to take neat little pills commonly referred to as "Christmas Trees" and a few other types that had very politically incorrect names for them too but gave me loads of energy and the ability to stay awake for days on end!
Sometimes, I miss those good old days ya know so much so that there have been times in recent years I kind of longed for a good head cold so I had an excuse to take Contact and get that nice little buzz plus lots of energy to boot.
Today is not one of those days though.
I just want this cold to cease and desist - just Be. Gone. Now.
Know what I mean there?
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
A Hateful Society
Every morning, part of my normal "waking up" routine is to get myself a cup of coffee to sip on while I read the Centre Daily Times newspaper online. The CDT comes out of State College, PA and is a daily paper geared to Centre County, the county adjacent to where I live. Since I worked for many years, attended college there, etc., I'm pretty familiar with that area as well as my home county.
This morning, under their "Breaking News" headline was the story about a young woman in West Virginia who was abducted and tortured by a group of people in what the authorities say they will look into prosecuting those arrested for a hate crime. Read below for a portion of the article that appeared in the CDT this morning.
BIG CREEK, W.Va. --
A young black woman who authorities say was tortured for days at a remote hillside home, sexually assaulted and forced to eat rat droppings was not a random target, the county prosectutor said Wednesday.
One of the six suspects arrested in the case, Bobby Brewster, had a previous relationship with the victim, Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham told The Associated Press. He said Brewster had been charged in July with domestic battery and assault after a domestic dispute involving the same woman.
"She obviously had some sort of social relationship," Abraham said. "That is based on the fact that she was present at his residence on a prior date."
Megan Williams, 20, was found beaten and bruised at Brewster's mother's home in rural Big Creek on Saturday.
Abraham said he plans to pursue kidnapping charges against the suspects, and the FBI is looking into possible civil rights violations.
According to the criminal complaints, Williams' captors, all of them white, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial slur, poured hot water over her, made her drink from a toilet and made her eat dog feces and rat droppings. She was also beaten and sexually assaulted during a span of about a week, according to the complaints.
It wasn't until an anonymous tip led Logan County Sheriff's deputies to the property on Saturday that her ordeal ended. She limped toward the deputies, her arms outstretched as she cried, "Help me!"
Now, I don't know about what others who read this may think, but frankly I was appalled, completely shocked by what I read about this young woman and what was done to her.
This just goes beyond belief! Who on earth, in their right mind, would incur things like this on another human being?
Two women, mothers of two of the people accused in this crime, have also been arrested in conjunction with their children and the others.
How can a parent possibly not just approve of their offspring's actions and not just approve but also, assist in their actions?
Doesn't it just make your head spin to think there are folks who have such hatred inside their hearts that, in what is supposed to be a "civilized" society, they would perform acts like this on another person?
It truly just boggles my mind.
This morning, under their "Breaking News" headline was the story about a young woman in West Virginia who was abducted and tortured by a group of people in what the authorities say they will look into prosecuting those arrested for a hate crime. Read below for a portion of the article that appeared in the CDT this morning.
BIG CREEK, W.Va. --
A young black woman who authorities say was tortured for days at a remote hillside home, sexually assaulted and forced to eat rat droppings was not a random target, the county prosectutor said Wednesday.
One of the six suspects arrested in the case, Bobby Brewster, had a previous relationship with the victim, Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham told The Associated Press. He said Brewster had been charged in July with domestic battery and assault after a domestic dispute involving the same woman.
"She obviously had some sort of social relationship," Abraham said. "That is based on the fact that she was present at his residence on a prior date."
Megan Williams, 20, was found beaten and bruised at Brewster's mother's home in rural Big Creek on Saturday.
Abraham said he plans to pursue kidnapping charges against the suspects, and the FBI is looking into possible civil rights violations.
According to the criminal complaints, Williams' captors, all of them white, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial slur, poured hot water over her, made her drink from a toilet and made her eat dog feces and rat droppings. She was also beaten and sexually assaulted during a span of about a week, according to the complaints.
It wasn't until an anonymous tip led Logan County Sheriff's deputies to the property on Saturday that her ordeal ended. She limped toward the deputies, her arms outstretched as she cried, "Help me!"
Now, I don't know about what others who read this may think, but frankly I was appalled, completely shocked by what I read about this young woman and what was done to her.
This just goes beyond belief! Who on earth, in their right mind, would incur things like this on another human being?
Two women, mothers of two of the people accused in this crime, have also been arrested in conjunction with their children and the others.
How can a parent possibly not just approve of their offspring's actions and not just approve but also, assist in their actions?
Doesn't it just make your head spin to think there are folks who have such hatred inside their hearts that, in what is supposed to be a "civilized" society, they would perform acts like this on another person?
It truly just boggles my mind.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Six Years...and counting
I doubt there is anyone, anywhere, in the blogosphere today who doesn't remember what took place six years ago on what appeared to be the beginning of a gorgeous, sunny day - beautiful clear blue skies overhead -certainly not an omen of what would become the backdrop of one of the most horrific events ever to unfold, certainly in our lifetime.
Just as I remember exactly where I was when JFK was shot, when Dr. King was gunned down as well as Senator Bobby Kennedy a mere two months after Dr. King, I will never forget where I was, nor my reaction either, to the news as it came over the TV screen that September morning.
I was at home, watching the Today show. It was my day off from what was to become the last gainful employment I was to have.
My younger daughter was here with me and both of us were enjoying our morning coffee, talking about this, that and the other, when the first broadcast came across on the Today show about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center tower.
By itself, the report of the first plane was a jolt to the system but then in rapid-fire reports came the news that a second plane had crashed into a tower as well as the plane hitting the Pentagon.
Now, watching that unfold, my daughter and I sat upright, both our mouths just hanging open in dumb shock and horror because you just knew there was no way something like that could have been an accidental thing. It had to have been very well planned and orchestrated.
We watched and listened as Katie Couric and Matt Lauer continued to try to bring updated reports on what happened, what was happening.
We sat, still numb, dumbstruck, and in horror as the towers both fell to the ground.
Little did we know then how horrific the attempts to rescue people from the collapse at the towers would eventually become.
I think it was two days later that I returned to work - don't recall if that morning was my first day off or the second day of my "rest period." But when I did return to work, one of the first things I did was plan out a cake I baked to put on the dessert bar of the restaurant.
It was a huge sheet cake - white - iced with white icing and using strawberries and blueberries, I made it into one big flag of the United States. It drew many comments from the customers - locals and truckers - at the plaza where I was working then as an assistant manager.
For days to come, more than I can recall, it seemed the only topic of conversation among the help at the restaurant and between the customers were the events of September 11, 2001.
One night, close to a week after this whole situation began, we got a group of guys who came into the restaurant, firefighters and emergency personnel, enroute to New York City to relieve those others who had been working non-stop at Ground Zero to find bodies, wherever, whenever possible. I don't remember exactly where this group was coming from - other than that it was someplace in Illinois -but I do remember they asked us about how many hours away they were at our stop from New York City and we told them, under normal conditions, roughly about another five, maybe six hours.
They thanked us for the information, for the service, meal and when they asked for their checks, we told them there was no charge.
It was the very least we could do to help in some very minute way to aid them as they headed off to do such a heartbreaking task as lay ahead of them.
Just as November 22, 1963, the events of April and June of 1968 will never leave my memory, so to will this day stay with me forever.
My prayers then were, and still are today, for the innocent victims of that tragedy - those on the planes, the people in the towers, the pentagon and those firemen, policemen and others who gave their all to try to be of assistance and especially too, for the families of all who died on September 11, 2001.
Heroes, every last one.
Just as I remember exactly where I was when JFK was shot, when Dr. King was gunned down as well as Senator Bobby Kennedy a mere two months after Dr. King, I will never forget where I was, nor my reaction either, to the news as it came over the TV screen that September morning.
I was at home, watching the Today show. It was my day off from what was to become the last gainful employment I was to have.
My younger daughter was here with me and both of us were enjoying our morning coffee, talking about this, that and the other, when the first broadcast came across on the Today show about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center tower.
By itself, the report of the first plane was a jolt to the system but then in rapid-fire reports came the news that a second plane had crashed into a tower as well as the plane hitting the Pentagon.
Now, watching that unfold, my daughter and I sat upright, both our mouths just hanging open in dumb shock and horror because you just knew there was no way something like that could have been an accidental thing. It had to have been very well planned and orchestrated.
We watched and listened as Katie Couric and Matt Lauer continued to try to bring updated reports on what happened, what was happening.
We sat, still numb, dumbstruck, and in horror as the towers both fell to the ground.
Little did we know then how horrific the attempts to rescue people from the collapse at the towers would eventually become.
I think it was two days later that I returned to work - don't recall if that morning was my first day off or the second day of my "rest period." But when I did return to work, one of the first things I did was plan out a cake I baked to put on the dessert bar of the restaurant.
It was a huge sheet cake - white - iced with white icing and using strawberries and blueberries, I made it into one big flag of the United States. It drew many comments from the customers - locals and truckers - at the plaza where I was working then as an assistant manager.
For days to come, more than I can recall, it seemed the only topic of conversation among the help at the restaurant and between the customers were the events of September 11, 2001.
One night, close to a week after this whole situation began, we got a group of guys who came into the restaurant, firefighters and emergency personnel, enroute to New York City to relieve those others who had been working non-stop at Ground Zero to find bodies, wherever, whenever possible. I don't remember exactly where this group was coming from - other than that it was someplace in Illinois -but I do remember they asked us about how many hours away they were at our stop from New York City and we told them, under normal conditions, roughly about another five, maybe six hours.
They thanked us for the information, for the service, meal and when they asked for their checks, we told them there was no charge.
It was the very least we could do to help in some very minute way to aid them as they headed off to do such a heartbreaking task as lay ahead of them.
Just as November 22, 1963, the events of April and June of 1968 will never leave my memory, so to will this day stay with me forever.
My prayers then were, and still are today, for the innocent victims of that tragedy - those on the planes, the people in the towers, the pentagon and those firemen, policemen and others who gave their all to try to be of assistance and especially too, for the families of all who died on September 11, 2001.
Heroes, every last one.
Monday, September 10, 2007
"Smile"
Blue Monday? Monday morning gotcha down? What to do, what to do?
The answer: Just SMILE!
I got up this morning -correction, I was awakened several times between 5:30 a.m. and 6:45 a.m. by the heavy thud, thud, thud, thumping sounds of the almost 16-year-old here with the heaviest foot tread, I swear, in all of creation! There I was sleeping away, so nicely, and she comes thumping, thudding, clumping, clunking back and forth from her room to the bathroom, to the kitchen to the bathroom, to her room again, then back to the bathroom, the kitchen, the bathroom. You get the picture, I'm sure! But, I had to SMILE cause the kid at least got herself up, ready to go to school without the help of anyone else.
The son-in-law actually got up today WITHOUT any assistance from his alarm clock too! Now there's a record breaker to start the day. Normally, his alarm starts going off about 6 a.m. and continues going off, for what seems to be forever before he hits the snooze button. I think he hits the snooze button about ten seconds before the timer says for the alarm to go off again on the snooze button or something like that. But this is definitely a first I do believe for him to "rise, shine, make coffee" all without that horrible loud alarm clock of his going off virtually non-stop for about 45 minutes to an hour. That was definitely worth a big SMILE!
Shortly after 8 a.m., I could hear the granddaughter upstairs talking - this would be my little Princess, Maya. She was jabbering at first, then launched into song doing her favorite numbers - "Twinkle, Twinkle, little star" - she reviewed that song several times and then went into the "Polliwog" song, which I really get a kick out of hearing her try to do that one. Finally, shortly before 9 a.m. her mother brought her downstairs and she was SMILING, big time, which always makes me SMILE when she gets up in good humor. Usually means the odds are that today will be a relatively nice day that way.
Then around 10 a.m., the phone rang. As seems to be the norm of late, it was this one particular bill collection agency and obviously, the callers are people working at an "outsourced" job because none of them can pronounce my daughter's first name - or her last name - correctly and neither name are difficult or strange by English-speaking standards. The caller always asks first for my daughter and I always tell the caller "She's not here." Then the caller always asks if she has a spouse and would the spouse be available. Nope, he's never here either. The last question is if there is a better time for them to call and really, quite frankly, as long as I am the one answering the phone, no, there is no better time because I'm always gonna tell ya that no, neither one of them is here. Today, when the caller asked if there was a better time to phone them, I said perhaps six a.m. or after 10:30 p.m. The bill collector thanked me and hung up. And I told my daughter if the damned phone rings now at 6 a.m. some morning this week, I'm really going to kick myself for having made that time suggestion there. But if they don't call back for a long time, that will really also make me SMILE!
What's the point now behind all this business here and the repetition of the word SMILE?
Well, it's all because, you see, my blogger buddy, "Smalltown RN" up in British Columbia gave me an award today - The "You Make me Smile" award and just as her blog almost always brings smiles galore to my face, I wanted to let her know that I do think a SMILE can go a long, long way to making for a nice - or nicer day. Don't you agree?
So with that in mind - here then is the "You Make Me Smile" award I received:
Now, I'm going to veer off the beaten path here and not assign this badge of honor to any one particular blogger on my list of favorites, but rather to ask anyone who thinks a SMILE can make your day or someone else's just a little bit better to take it, put it on your blog and SMILE all the while you're doing it. When things maybe seem not so nice, not so easy, not so friendly, just come back and look at it on your blog and let it ease some of those troubles away. Okay?
And don't forget too about the "Warm the Globe Through Friendship, one blog at a time" campaign. Pick up the emblem for that and display it on your blog; add your name and blogsite too the list on my post below here about this new and innovative idea Vic Grace at Cariboo Ponderer has about spreading friendship around the world through our blogs. Check it out and join us in this little venture, won't you? Come join our growing group to help make the whole world a friendlier place.
And, whatever you do, just try to SMILE!
The answer: Just SMILE!
I got up this morning -correction, I was awakened several times between 5:30 a.m. and 6:45 a.m. by the heavy thud, thud, thud, thumping sounds of the almost 16-year-old here with the heaviest foot tread, I swear, in all of creation! There I was sleeping away, so nicely, and she comes thumping, thudding, clumping, clunking back and forth from her room to the bathroom, to the kitchen to the bathroom, to her room again, then back to the bathroom, the kitchen, the bathroom. You get the picture, I'm sure! But, I had to SMILE cause the kid at least got herself up, ready to go to school without the help of anyone else.
The son-in-law actually got up today WITHOUT any assistance from his alarm clock too! Now there's a record breaker to start the day. Normally, his alarm starts going off about 6 a.m. and continues going off, for what seems to be forever before he hits the snooze button. I think he hits the snooze button about ten seconds before the timer says for the alarm to go off again on the snooze button or something like that. But this is definitely a first I do believe for him to "rise, shine, make coffee" all without that horrible loud alarm clock of his going off virtually non-stop for about 45 minutes to an hour. That was definitely worth a big SMILE!
Shortly after 8 a.m., I could hear the granddaughter upstairs talking - this would be my little Princess, Maya. She was jabbering at first, then launched into song doing her favorite numbers - "Twinkle, Twinkle, little star" - she reviewed that song several times and then went into the "Polliwog" song, which I really get a kick out of hearing her try to do that one. Finally, shortly before 9 a.m. her mother brought her downstairs and she was SMILING, big time, which always makes me SMILE when she gets up in good humor. Usually means the odds are that today will be a relatively nice day that way.
Then around 10 a.m., the phone rang. As seems to be the norm of late, it was this one particular bill collection agency and obviously, the callers are people working at an "outsourced" job because none of them can pronounce my daughter's first name - or her last name - correctly and neither name are difficult or strange by English-speaking standards. The caller always asks first for my daughter and I always tell the caller "She's not here." Then the caller always asks if she has a spouse and would the spouse be available. Nope, he's never here either. The last question is if there is a better time for them to call and really, quite frankly, as long as I am the one answering the phone, no, there is no better time because I'm always gonna tell ya that no, neither one of them is here. Today, when the caller asked if there was a better time to phone them, I said perhaps six a.m. or after 10:30 p.m. The bill collector thanked me and hung up. And I told my daughter if the damned phone rings now at 6 a.m. some morning this week, I'm really going to kick myself for having made that time suggestion there. But if they don't call back for a long time, that will really also make me SMILE!
What's the point now behind all this business here and the repetition of the word SMILE?
Well, it's all because, you see, my blogger buddy, "Smalltown RN" up in British Columbia gave me an award today - The "You Make me Smile" award and just as her blog almost always brings smiles galore to my face, I wanted to let her know that I do think a SMILE can go a long, long way to making for a nice - or nicer day. Don't you agree?
So with that in mind - here then is the "You Make Me Smile" award I received:
Now, I'm going to veer off the beaten path here and not assign this badge of honor to any one particular blogger on my list of favorites, but rather to ask anyone who thinks a SMILE can make your day or someone else's just a little bit better to take it, put it on your blog and SMILE all the while you're doing it. When things maybe seem not so nice, not so easy, not so friendly, just come back and look at it on your blog and let it ease some of those troubles away. Okay?And don't forget too about the "Warm the Globe Through Friendship, one blog at a time" campaign. Pick up the emblem for that and display it on your blog; add your name and blogsite too the list on my post below here about this new and innovative idea Vic Grace at Cariboo Ponderer has about spreading friendship around the world through our blogs. Check it out and join us in this little venture, won't you? Come join our growing group to help make the whole world a friendlier place.
And, whatever you do, just try to SMILE!
A "Woo Hoo" Day!
Wow! What a day it was today. Aggravating, scary, fun, exciting, interesting and in the end, really aching and tiring to my old bag of bones held together by a whole lot of excess fat cells!
Let's start at the beginning.
I woke up shortly before 7 a.m. and headed to the kitchen to put on my first pot of coffee for the day. What did I find awaiting me right smack dab in front of the stove, on the floor? Well it was a lovely little pile of cat crap, nicely deposited there by our old cat, Gracie the Senile! Damned cat anyway! Well at least I saw it and didn't step in it which usually happens to me when I go zipping out to the kitchen, in my bare feet and always manage to step right in her little puddles of pee she likes to put down in front of the sink. Why this cat is doing this is beyond me! Last night, I watched her head into the litter box, and with her butt hanging out over the edge, she proceeded to whiz there so of course, not a drop of the whiz hit the litter! This evening, she managed to bump her nose on the front screen door, which she has now figured out will open at that little bit of a tap and she escaped to the great outdoors only to come back in and the first thing she did - well naturally, she headed to the kitchen and right in front of Mandy no less, she took a dump in front of the stove again! She's really got her wires crossed big time, I'd say!
Ok, cleaned up her morning constitutional, made coffee, headed into the computer to begin my day of checking e-mail, reading the CDT online, checking blogs, maybe getting around to writing a post if I don't go braindead in the process. I heard the coffee pot making its little noises -hisses and tiny clink/clanks that indicate the coffee was done and away I went for that first cup of the day. I get to the kitchen and the other cat, still a kitten really, Nina, was busy batting her paw under one of the two bar stools at the kitchen counter. What the heck was she playing with under there? I moved the bar stool slightly to see what was fascinating her and lo and behold, out scrambles one huge, really, really furry SPIDER! And Nina was chasing it, batting it about, grabbing at it with her mouth and I was scrambling, trying to locate the paper towels in hopes if the spider came in my direction and close enough, I could bend over (there's a painful act all by itself) and catch said spider in my web of paper toweling. However, about the time the spider would head in my direction, Nina would spy it again and being the whole process of batting the creature around some more. I never did catch it but warned Mandy when she came down about an hour later not to be surprised if she saw this ugly thing curled up in a ball someplace under the radiator, the table or scurrying about trying to escape her or Nina! About an hour after that, Mandy announced she'd come down, seen and conquered the spider. Hip hip hooray! (I HATE SPIDERS!)
We didn't make it to church this morning - Maya is in mid-stream with the normal head cold all kid tend to get within a week or two of being exposed to several other children in a school setting so she was not feeling up to snuff early this morning - Kurtis has since been deemed a beneficiary of Maya's generosity in germ sharing and no doubt, I probably will be next in line to be so blessed I suppose.
Today was the opening game of my Grandson, Alex's Pee Wee League football season. Their game today was at Bald Eagle - Bellefonte Raiders against the Bald Eagle school "little Eagles" and the grandson's team won - 34 (or was it 35?) to 14! The whole family went down there to watch him play in their season opener and Maya was really excited about this. The whole way down there (about a 30 mile drive) she kept saying "Alex? Woo Hoo! Woo Hoo!" The skies were gray all day, and it was hot, very, very muggy which had me really feeling sorry for those poor kids there running with all that equipment on and sweating their butts off! The kids did a good job - both teams though and it was a lot of fun to watch (with lots of pride for the biggest of my grandkids) do his thing on the football field!
After the game, we all stopped out at the truckstop restaurant where I used to work - a long, long time ago or so it seems now - as the assistant manager. Three of the waitresses who worked there when I did were on shift today as well as the lady who took my place and they all came out and greeted the family and me. It was really neat seeing these folks again as it has been several years now - probably about 3 years - since the last time we were there and had a chance to see any of my old co-workers. Got caught up somewhat too on the gossip at the place while eating supper there too.
But, by the time we got back home, my back and tailbone were aching, my left ankle had swollen up about double its normal, already swollen size, and it was aching plus, having had that big meal there, it was working on my stomach as well as trying to tell me that sleep was something I really, really needed, right then and there! So I headed to my room, crashed on the bed there for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours! I did feel a lot better after the nap and thankfully, the ankle swelling started to drop back a good bit too.
And now, I'm hoping I didn't sleep so much that I won't be able to drop off tonight. The little guy is asleep at the moment but having a hard time of it tonight - stuffy nose, sweaty and miserable - you all know the drill there how it feels when a yucky head cold is coming on and I figure it's probably twice as hard for a little one like him - or his sister - when they don't understand what's wrong with them too.
And thus ends my big "Woo Hoo" Day! It really was that ya know!
Let's start at the beginning.
I woke up shortly before 7 a.m. and headed to the kitchen to put on my first pot of coffee for the day. What did I find awaiting me right smack dab in front of the stove, on the floor? Well it was a lovely little pile of cat crap, nicely deposited there by our old cat, Gracie the Senile! Damned cat anyway! Well at least I saw it and didn't step in it which usually happens to me when I go zipping out to the kitchen, in my bare feet and always manage to step right in her little puddles of pee she likes to put down in front of the sink. Why this cat is doing this is beyond me! Last night, I watched her head into the litter box, and with her butt hanging out over the edge, she proceeded to whiz there so of course, not a drop of the whiz hit the litter! This evening, she managed to bump her nose on the front screen door, which she has now figured out will open at that little bit of a tap and she escaped to the great outdoors only to come back in and the first thing she did - well naturally, she headed to the kitchen and right in front of Mandy no less, she took a dump in front of the stove again! She's really got her wires crossed big time, I'd say!
Ok, cleaned up her morning constitutional, made coffee, headed into the computer to begin my day of checking e-mail, reading the CDT online, checking blogs, maybe getting around to writing a post if I don't go braindead in the process. I heard the coffee pot making its little noises -hisses and tiny clink/clanks that indicate the coffee was done and away I went for that first cup of the day. I get to the kitchen and the other cat, still a kitten really, Nina, was busy batting her paw under one of the two bar stools at the kitchen counter. What the heck was she playing with under there? I moved the bar stool slightly to see what was fascinating her and lo and behold, out scrambles one huge, really, really furry SPIDER! And Nina was chasing it, batting it about, grabbing at it with her mouth and I was scrambling, trying to locate the paper towels in hopes if the spider came in my direction and close enough, I could bend over (there's a painful act all by itself) and catch said spider in my web of paper toweling. However, about the time the spider would head in my direction, Nina would spy it again and being the whole process of batting the creature around some more. I never did catch it but warned Mandy when she came down about an hour later not to be surprised if she saw this ugly thing curled up in a ball someplace under the radiator, the table or scurrying about trying to escape her or Nina! About an hour after that, Mandy announced she'd come down, seen and conquered the spider. Hip hip hooray! (I HATE SPIDERS!)
We didn't make it to church this morning - Maya is in mid-stream with the normal head cold all kid tend to get within a week or two of being exposed to several other children in a school setting so she was not feeling up to snuff early this morning - Kurtis has since been deemed a beneficiary of Maya's generosity in germ sharing and no doubt, I probably will be next in line to be so blessed I suppose.
Today was the opening game of my Grandson, Alex's Pee Wee League football season. Their game today was at Bald Eagle - Bellefonte Raiders against the Bald Eagle school "little Eagles" and the grandson's team won - 34 (or was it 35?) to 14! The whole family went down there to watch him play in their season opener and Maya was really excited about this. The whole way down there (about a 30 mile drive) she kept saying "Alex? Woo Hoo! Woo Hoo!" The skies were gray all day, and it was hot, very, very muggy which had me really feeling sorry for those poor kids there running with all that equipment on and sweating their butts off! The kids did a good job - both teams though and it was a lot of fun to watch (with lots of pride for the biggest of my grandkids) do his thing on the football field!
After the game, we all stopped out at the truckstop restaurant where I used to work - a long, long time ago or so it seems now - as the assistant manager. Three of the waitresses who worked there when I did were on shift today as well as the lady who took my place and they all came out and greeted the family and me. It was really neat seeing these folks again as it has been several years now - probably about 3 years - since the last time we were there and had a chance to see any of my old co-workers. Got caught up somewhat too on the gossip at the place while eating supper there too.
But, by the time we got back home, my back and tailbone were aching, my left ankle had swollen up about double its normal, already swollen size, and it was aching plus, having had that big meal there, it was working on my stomach as well as trying to tell me that sleep was something I really, really needed, right then and there! So I headed to my room, crashed on the bed there for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours! I did feel a lot better after the nap and thankfully, the ankle swelling started to drop back a good bit too.
And now, I'm hoping I didn't sleep so much that I won't be able to drop off tonight. The little guy is asleep at the moment but having a hard time of it tonight - stuffy nose, sweaty and miserable - you all know the drill there how it feels when a yucky head cold is coming on and I figure it's probably twice as hard for a little one like him - or his sister - when they don't understand what's wrong with them too.
And thus ends my big "Woo Hoo" Day! It really was that ya know!
The Week Ahead in Bushism Language
Here's this week's group of Bushisms for every day! Aren't we all ever so lucky!
Monday, September 10, 2007
"Governor, thank you very much. I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport." - Arlington, Virginia; October 2, 2001
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
"I've coined new words, like, 'misunerstanding' and 'Hispanically.'"" - Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner; Washington, D.C.; March 29, 2001
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
"I'm not a very good novelist. But it'd make a pretty interesting novel." - Austin, Texas; December 5, 2000
Thursday, September 13, 2007
"And so, in my State of the --my State of the Union --or state --my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation --I asked Americans to give four thousand years --four thousand hours over the next--the rest of your life --of service to America. That's what I asked --four thousand hours." - Bridgeport, Connecticut; April 9, 2002
Friday, September 14, 2007
"Anyway, after we go out and work our hearts out, after you go out and help us turn out the vote, after we've convinced the good Americans to vote, and while they're at it, pull that George W. lever, if I'm the one, when I put my hand on the Bible, when I put my hand on the Bible, that day when they swear us in, when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not--to uphold the laws of the land." - Toledo, Ohio; October 27, 2000
Saturday and Sunday, September 15/16, 2007
"Many of the punditty--of course, not you--but other punditty were quick to say, no one is going to follow the United States of America." - Washington, D.C.; January 21, 2003
And there you have it - just a little fun -jocularity at its finest, perhaps - from the Commander at the White House, the big DUBYA! Ain't it grand?
Monday, September 10, 2007
"Governor, thank you very much. I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport." - Arlington, Virginia; October 2, 2001
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
"I've coined new words, like, 'misunerstanding' and 'Hispanically.'"" - Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner; Washington, D.C.; March 29, 2001
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
"I'm not a very good novelist. But it'd make a pretty interesting novel." - Austin, Texas; December 5, 2000
Thursday, September 13, 2007
"And so, in my State of the --my State of the Union --or state --my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation --I asked Americans to give four thousand years --four thousand hours over the next--the rest of your life --of service to America. That's what I asked --four thousand hours." - Bridgeport, Connecticut; April 9, 2002
Friday, September 14, 2007
"Anyway, after we go out and work our hearts out, after you go out and help us turn out the vote, after we've convinced the good Americans to vote, and while they're at it, pull that George W. lever, if I'm the one, when I put my hand on the Bible, when I put my hand on the Bible, that day when they swear us in, when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not--to uphold the laws of the land." - Toledo, Ohio; October 27, 2000
Saturday and Sunday, September 15/16, 2007
"Many of the punditty--of course, not you--but other punditty were quick to say, no one is going to follow the United States of America." - Washington, D.C.; January 21, 2003
And there you have it - just a little fun -jocularity at its finest, perhaps - from the Commander at the White House, the big DUBYA! Ain't it grand?
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Warm The Globe!
Warm The Globe Through Friendship
Here's a new concept, started by fellow blogger, Vic Grace, from British Columbia.As we are all aware, blogging does give us the opportunity to reach out and yes, "touch someone" by our words, pictures, links in our blogs and by our comments to fellow bloggers as well.
Think about this - in a world today that is too often filled with news of wars all over the world, fears about terrorism, following newspaper and tv news reports about crime, gangs, and you name it of all the bad things we hear about everyday, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if we, each of us blogging in our own little space, could actually spread the word through friendship and help, through that little bit of effort, to bring people together, united in a common goal of international friendship?
If you like this concept - and who wouldn't, really - then add this badge to your sidebar, along with the link Vic has provided there. Then copy the text below and put this into a post on your blog. Follow that by tagging other bloggers to start sending this message around the world- hopefully, in less than 80 days too!
A good way for a blog to get established is to have backlinks.
All you have to do is copy this post with the list of links below and add your link at the end.
As others do the same we get the word out about a lot of great blogs. Eventually we may circumnavigate the globe.
That’s it, then just sit back, and watch the links grow, over time.
That's it folks! That's all you have to do to take part in the friendliest effort yet in the blogosphere!
Here now are the bloggers I am tagging to help get this movement on its way.
Vic Grace at "Cariboo Ponderer"
Me, my life, my garden
Author blog
A little piece of me
The BiPolar Diaries
Turning the Pages of Life
Debo Blue at "A Blue State of Mind"
Sasha at "A Day in the Life of Sasha Stinerova"
Maddie at "Whitterer on Autism"
Singing Owl at "Pastorette Ponderings"
Barb at "Skittles Place"
Mau at "It's About Time"
Jen at "Creatif"
The Meloncutter at "Meloncutter's Musings"
Sognatrice in Calabria, Italy at "Bleeding Espresso"
Keith at "10 Years Running Blind"
Dave at "Rather Than Working"
Linda at "Are We There Yet?"
Dorothy at "Overthehill Boomer Chick"
Patois at "Whee! All The Way Home"
Stine at "Mother's Home"
Smalltown RN at "A Place I Call Home"
Shelby at "Time With Shelby"
Any Apples
BoggyWoggy's Cache
Erika Jean
My Dogs Keep Me Sane
Rambling Shan
Random Autumness
The Turtle Parade
Dottie's Place
Michael C at The Wonderful World of Nothing Worthwhile
Tales From a Former Michigander
KSHIPPYCHIC
Meeyauw
A Purple Shade of Black
"And Miles to go Before We Sleep
Beth & Cory's MomThe Middling Monettes
Twist & Skewer
Akelamalu 
Buzzqueen
Josie
Leslie
Lynne's Little Corner of the World
A Southern Girl's Guide to Almost Anything
Welcome to My World of Dreams
Charming & Delightful
Jeni at "Down River Drivel"
Now, Everyone, go forth and spread the word!
warm the globe thru friendship
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Sleep!
Finally, last night I fell asleep around midnight and so did the little guy here! I did wake up about 2:30 as I had to go use the bathroom but fortunately, it didn't wake me up enough that I couldn't fall back to sleep afterwards, which is usually what happens. Maybe it was a combination of factors at play there, one being that I'd only been asleep for a little over 2 hours whereas normally, this mid-sleep wake-up usually happens after about 3 1/2 to 4 hours of sleep and two, perhaps it was also because I'd been operating all day Friday on a minimum of about four hours of sleep total. Anyway, whatever the reason, I went back to sleep and woke up then around 7 a.m. feeling pretty refreshed, actually.
However, and of course, you know there has to be a catch to everything that seems to be working on the decent side, certain other elements of my system decided to pay no attention to the fact I was awake, fairly well-rested and all as they decided to act up - my stomach was just out of sync the better part of the day - not sick exactly, but not feeling right with different aches and pains and such. By 2 p.m., I headed for my bed to lay down as my stomach and abdomen were really annoying me, figured if I lay down a while, maybe grab a quick nap too, a little more rest of the body wouldn't hurt a thing. And I think that helped too because now, the tummy still isn't up to par exactly but it's not feeling as achy as it was this morning so that's progress.
In checking my e-mail today, I received several neat nifty things from my good friend and also, just happens to be my son's Godfather - good old Theo down in Tampa Bay area. He's got a really great sense of humor and is really a master of puns, "all things punny" should be by his name. Well today, he sent me three really comical videos along with a story. I decided the story he sent was worthy of being shared though so I've copied it over and will post it here. You can then decide for yourself if it was a good story or not.
A seminary professor was vacationing with his wife inGatlinburg , TN.
"Where are you folks from?" he asked in a friendly voice.
"Oklahoma
"Great to have you here inTennessee
"I teach at a seminary," he replied.
"Oh, so you teach preachers how to preach, do you? Well, I've got a really great story for you." And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the couple.
The professor groaned and thought to himself, "Great ... Just what I need ...another preacher story!"
The man started, "See that mountain over there? (pointing out the restaurant window). Not far from the base of that mountain, there was a boy born to an unwed mother. He had a hard time growing up, because every place he went, he was always asked the same question, 'Hey boy, Who's your daddy?' Whether he was at school, in the grocery store or drug store, people would ask the same question, 'Who's your daddy?'
He would hide at recess and lunchtime from other sudents. He would avoid going into stores because that question hurt him so bad. "When he was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to his church. He would always go in late and slip out early to avoid hearing the question, 'Who's your daddy?'
But one day, the new preacher said the benediction so fast he got caught and had to walk out with the crowd.
Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher, not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him, Son, who's your daddy?
The whole church got deathly quiet. He could feel every eye in the church looking at him. Now everyone would finally know the answer to the question, 'Who's your daddy?'
"This new preacher, though, sensed the situation around him and using discernment that only the Holy Spirit could give, said the following to that scared little boy.. "Wait a minute! I know who you are! I see the family resemblance now. You are a child of God."
With that he patted the boy on his shoulder and said, "Boy, you've got a great inheritance. Go and claim it."
"With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time and walked out the door a changed person. He was never the same again. Whenever anybody asked him, 'Who's your Daddy?' he'd just tell them, 'I'm a Child of God.'"
The distinguished gentleman got up from the table and said, "Isn't that a great story?"
The professor responded that it really was a great story!
As the man turned to leave, he said, "You know, if that new preacher hadn't told me that I was one of God's children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!" And he walked away.
The seminary professor and his wife were stunned. He called the waitress over & asked her, "Do you know who that man was -- the one who just left that was sitting at our table?"
The waitress grinned and said, "Of course. Everybody here knows him. That's Ben Hooper. He's the former governor ofTennessee
Someone in your life today needs a reminder that they're one of God's children!
"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of God stands forever." ~~Isaiah
YOU'RE ONE OF GOD'S CHILDREN!!! HAVE A GREAT DAY!
Now, aren't you glad you just read that? I think that's a message we all could use at least from time to time - better yet, copy and print it out, put it someplace where you can see it everyday as a nice reminder that each is special, that each of us, well we're all one of God's children!
It's quiet here this afternoon and will remain that way till later this evening too. A friend of Mandy's asked her if she and her kids could take Maya and Kurtis to their house for the afternoon and evening. The timing for that mini-vacation for them (and me) couldn't be better. It will allow me the luxury of being able to follow the Penn State game with Notre Dame this evening then. All I have to do now is try to figure out if the game is actually going to be telecast over our cable system. I can't find it listed anywhere in the tv guide section of the newspaper though so, with my luck, I suppose it won't be broadcast in this region.
I fell asleep trying to find a channel with the Penn State game on and woke up about 8 p.m. and voila, there was the game on one of the Sports networks. Of course, you know I had to have missed a good bit of the game which apparently has been a really exciting one too cause the score right now is Penn State, 24 and Notre Dame, 10.
Once again, just my luck! But, at least at the moment, Penn State's luck is holding good. Let's hope it continues in that direction.
WE ARE! PENN STATE!
However, and of course, you know there has to be a catch to everything that seems to be working on the decent side, certain other elements of my system decided to pay no attention to the fact I was awake, fairly well-rested and all as they decided to act up - my stomach was just out of sync the better part of the day - not sick exactly, but not feeling right with different aches and pains and such. By 2 p.m., I headed for my bed to lay down as my stomach and abdomen were really annoying me, figured if I lay down a while, maybe grab a quick nap too, a little more rest of the body wouldn't hurt a thing. And I think that helped too because now, the tummy still isn't up to par exactly but it's not feeling as achy as it was this morning so that's progress.
In checking my e-mail today, I received several neat nifty things from my good friend and also, just happens to be my son's Godfather - good old Theo down in Tampa Bay area. He's got a really great sense of humor and is really a master of puns, "all things punny" should be by his name. Well today, he sent me three really comical videos along with a story. I decided the story he sent was worthy of being shared though so I've copied it over and will post it here. You can then decide for yourself if it was a good story or not.
A seminary professor was vacationing with his wife in
"Where are you folks from?" he asked in a friendly voice.
"
"Great to have you here in
"I teach at a seminary," he replied.
"Oh, so you teach preachers how to preach, do you? Well, I've got a really great story for you." And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the couple.
The professor groaned and thought to himself, "Great ... Just what I need ...another preacher story!"
The man started, "See that mountain over there? (pointing out the restaurant window). Not far from the base of that mountain, there was a boy born to an unwed mother. He had a hard time growing up, because every place he went, he was always asked the same question, 'Hey boy, Who's your daddy?' Whether he was at school, in the grocery store or drug store, people would ask the same question, 'Who's your daddy?'
He would hide at recess and lunchtime from other sudents. He would avoid going into stores because that question hurt him so bad. "When he was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to his church. He would always go in late and slip out early to avoid hearing the question, 'Who's your daddy?'
But one day, the new preacher said the benediction so fast he got caught and had to walk out with the crowd.
Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher, not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him, Son, who's your daddy?
The whole church got deathly quiet. He could feel every eye in the church looking at him. Now everyone would finally know the answer to the question, 'Who's your daddy?'
"This new preacher, though, sensed the situation around him and using discernment that only the Holy Spirit could give, said the following to that scared little boy.. "Wait a minute! I know who you are! I see the family resemblance now. You are a child of God."
With that he patted the boy on his shoulder and said, "Boy, you've got a great inheritance. Go and claim it."
"With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time and walked out the door a changed person. He was never the same again. Whenever anybody asked him, 'Who's your Daddy?' he'd just tell them, 'I'm a Child of God.'"
The distinguished gentleman got up from the table and said, "Isn't that a great story?"
The professor responded that it really was a great story!
As the man turned to leave, he said, "You know, if that new preacher hadn't told me that I was one of God's children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!" And he walked away.
The seminary professor and his wife were stunned. He called the waitress over & asked her, "Do you know who that man was -- the one who just left that was sitting at our table?"
The waitress grinned and said, "Of course. Everybody here knows him. That's Ben Hooper. He's the former governor of
Someone in your life today needs a reminder that they're one of God's children!
"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of God stands forever." ~~Isaiah
YOU'RE ONE OF GOD'S CHILDREN!!! HAVE A GREAT DAY!
Now, aren't you glad you just read that? I think that's a message we all could use at least from time to time - better yet, copy and print it out, put it someplace where you can see it everyday as a nice reminder that each is special, that each of us, well we're all one of God's children!
It's quiet here this afternoon and will remain that way till later this evening too. A friend of Mandy's asked her if she and her kids could take Maya and Kurtis to their house for the afternoon and evening. The timing for that mini-vacation for them (and me) couldn't be better. It will allow me the luxury of being able to follow the Penn State game with Notre Dame this evening then. All I have to do now is try to figure out if the game is actually going to be telecast over our cable system. I can't find it listed anywhere in the tv guide section of the newspaper though so, with my luck, I suppose it won't be broadcast in this region.
I fell asleep trying to find a channel with the Penn State game on and woke up about 8 p.m. and voila, there was the game on one of the Sports networks. Of course, you know I had to have missed a good bit of the game which apparently has been a really exciting one too cause the score right now is Penn State, 24 and Notre Dame, 10.
Once again, just my luck! But, at least at the moment, Penn State's luck is holding good. Let's hope it continues in that direction.
WE ARE! PENN STATE!
Friday, September 07, 2007
Blog Worth Zip!
Quite some time ago, I added the little widget thing on my side bar that asks the question,
"How much is your blog worth?" And for many months, it sat there showing my blog to be worth a little over $5,000 -or maybe it was $8,000 - I don't know, cause I don't remember the exact amount.
Well, about a month ago now or maybe six weeks - again, memory fails me there - I decided to check on that widget again, run it through the paces so to speak, and see if the worthiness of my blog had increased at all.
The results then said it was worth over $15,000 so I decided that I'd best re-install that widget. Why would I want it sitting there saying this blog was only worth $5,000 to $8,000 when in actuality it was now worth over $15,000. So, I copied the html text, opened the customize label, went to the area in my layout where that widget was resting - peacefully too, I might add - and I entered the new html code, clicked save and all that good stuff.
Imagine my surprise then when I re-opened my blog and now it said my blog was worth a big fat NOTHING! What's more, it didn't even show the spot to click on there to go to the area where one can get the code to install that widget like it had shown before.
I tried several times to reinstate the amount in my blog's worth - all to no avail.
I even went so far as to e-mail the creator of the "Blog's Worth" - Dane Carlson - to ask him why my blog was refusing to show the amount the instruction page said it was worth and further more, why it didn't even give the link back to that instruction page either.
Now, that was about 2-3 weeks ago that I did that and so far, Mr. Carlson, has yet to respond, apparently has no answer for me as to how to correct this little issue.
Tonight, I decided to give it yet another try to have my blog's worth showing up there. I went through all the steps and saw my worth had even increased up to over $25,000 now. Plugged everything in according to the direction and when I went back to my blog to check on this - after being told my changes had all been saved, etc., I find my blog is still worth NOTHING!
This is really depressing me now folks! It's bad enough that my checking account generally runs on the very low side but to think the code says my blog is worth over $25,000 when I try to plug that in, and then when I am finished, it says it is worth zip -well, you can just imagine how lower than low that tends to make me feel.
And the fact that the creator of this lovely little widget won't even respond to me, won't even show his face much less try to help me fix this - well I find that rather upsetting too. Wouldn't you?
So, if anyone out there has a clue as to what to do to correct this on my blog, please, feel free to come forward and help me get this fixed. NOW!
Sure would appreciate it.
"How much is your blog worth?" And for many months, it sat there showing my blog to be worth a little over $5,000 -or maybe it was $8,000 - I don't know, cause I don't remember the exact amount.
Well, about a month ago now or maybe six weeks - again, memory fails me there - I decided to check on that widget again, run it through the paces so to speak, and see if the worthiness of my blog had increased at all.
The results then said it was worth over $15,000 so I decided that I'd best re-install that widget. Why would I want it sitting there saying this blog was only worth $5,000 to $8,000 when in actuality it was now worth over $15,000. So, I copied the html text, opened the customize label, went to the area in my layout where that widget was resting - peacefully too, I might add - and I entered the new html code, clicked save and all that good stuff.
Imagine my surprise then when I re-opened my blog and now it said my blog was worth a big fat NOTHING! What's more, it didn't even show the spot to click on there to go to the area where one can get the code to install that widget like it had shown before.
I tried several times to reinstate the amount in my blog's worth - all to no avail.
I even went so far as to e-mail the creator of the "Blog's Worth" - Dane Carlson - to ask him why my blog was refusing to show the amount the instruction page said it was worth and further more, why it didn't even give the link back to that instruction page either.
Now, that was about 2-3 weeks ago that I did that and so far, Mr. Carlson, has yet to respond, apparently has no answer for me as to how to correct this little issue.
Tonight, I decided to give it yet another try to have my blog's worth showing up there. I went through all the steps and saw my worth had even increased up to over $25,000 now. Plugged everything in according to the direction and when I went back to my blog to check on this - after being told my changes had all been saved, etc., I find my blog is still worth NOTHING!
This is really depressing me now folks! It's bad enough that my checking account generally runs on the very low side but to think the code says my blog is worth over $25,000 when I try to plug that in, and then when I am finished, it says it is worth zip -well, you can just imagine how lower than low that tends to make me feel.
And the fact that the creator of this lovely little widget won't even respond to me, won't even show his face much less try to help me fix this - well I find that rather upsetting too. Wouldn't you?
So, if anyone out there has a clue as to what to do to correct this on my blog, please, feel free to come forward and help me get this fixed. NOW!
Sure would appreciate it.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Third Day in Paradise
No, I don't mean that today, having been the third day since Maya started preschool that life at home is "paradise" - although it is considerably easier to cope with one 17-month-old than it is to do that and keep track of where a little speed-demon, almost four-year-old is all the time and what she's into wherever she might be within the confines of the house.
The "paradise" is actually what Maya must be experiencing as she is very excited about getting up in the morning, getting all dressed up, her hair combed so pretty and then, waiting patiently for Mr. Fred to arrive to take her in the minivan -along with another little boy about her age - over to the school
Maya does not come and tell us anything that takes place during her school time. She will, occasionally, be able to answer a question now and then. Some things we've figured out too based on some of her actions or reactions to things. One thing we knew the staff at the preschool would be working on with her and the others though is the potty training issue and last night, when I was changing her, I asked her if she'd like to sit on the potty chair and her response to me was that she began to count, counted up to ten and then she laughed and called out fairly loudly -"Yea!" So, when I told Mandy about that we figured that when the staff takes the kids to the bathroom, once they get each child, in turn, seated, they make the child count (slowly) to ten and upon completion of that much being "on task" they clap and say "Yea."
I've tried to entice Maya in the past from time to time to sit on the potty and we'll count - which is something she generally likes very much to do (counting, that is) - but apparently those quality moments with Gram don't measure up in her book as she wouldn't sit still and count for me.
Today, Mandy had occasion to talk to Pam, Maya's teacher and she found out a few things that Maya is doing in school. The teacher said Maya is the only one thus far in their group of seven pre-schoolers who already knows the names of each of her classmates and she can say most of their names well enough too that the staff can understand her. She's been saying something here to us that we couldn't figure out - it sounded like "Kuzzie" -and Mandy learned that's what Maya called one little girl in her class whose nickname is "Kenzie." So we got that mystery word cleared up now here.
Her teacher said she's been doing very well with the counting, the alphabet and general introductory things, all of which comes as no surprise to us because she's known the alphabet to recite and identify for over 14 months now and the same goes for numbers - she's been able to identify all numbers (0 thru 9) and variations of them or combinations I should say which enables her to count to well over 100. Actually, she is usually very fascinated by numbers too with one of her favorite things to do being to take a walk along our street and go to "see the 25." The "25" being a speed limit sign along our street which she loves to go and look at. Go figure how that is so exciting but in her world, it rocks!
The teacher also told Mandy a little story of what happened with Maya yesterday. She has a certain stance she gets when she is trying to have a bowel movement - kind of leans forward, hunches over a bit - and the staff had seen that last Thursday when we were all over there visiting the school, getting acquainted with the teacher, aides and the classroom settings, etc.
Yesterday, it seems one of the aides noticed Maya was going into that particular stance so she grabbed her and rushed her down the hall to the bathroom. She got her there before anything had actually happened and managed to get her to sit on the potty there. Luck was fully with her too as Maya managed to do her business in the potty - a first for her in this respect.
When she was finished, all wiped and clean, the aide told her they would then flush the commode and for Maya to turn around and push the handle to flush it. In doing that, she glanced down into the water and saw the "fruits of her labors" there and immediately started to scream and cry as her initial reaction then was one of fear. Maybe that's why although she would on occasion sit on the potty here, she would never do anything nor would she come and alert us before hand either although she would come to us when she was done and request "dry pants."
Again, it's one of those little things - quirky things - that we learn more about every day in working with and teaching Maya the ways to grow up and be a big girl.
At least it does give us something positive to look forward too ya know!
The "paradise" is actually what Maya must be experiencing as she is very excited about getting up in the morning, getting all dressed up, her hair combed so pretty and then, waiting patiently for Mr. Fred to arrive to take her in the minivan -along with another little boy about her age - over to the school
Maya does not come and tell us anything that takes place during her school time. She will, occasionally, be able to answer a question now and then. Some things we've figured out too based on some of her actions or reactions to things. One thing we knew the staff at the preschool would be working on with her and the others though is the potty training issue and last night, when I was changing her, I asked her if she'd like to sit on the potty chair and her response to me was that she began to count, counted up to ten and then she laughed and called out fairly loudly -"Yea!" So, when I told Mandy about that we figured that when the staff takes the kids to the bathroom, once they get each child, in turn, seated, they make the child count (slowly) to ten and upon completion of that much being "on task" they clap and say "Yea."
I've tried to entice Maya in the past from time to time to sit on the potty and we'll count - which is something she generally likes very much to do (counting, that is) - but apparently those quality moments with Gram don't measure up in her book as she wouldn't sit still and count for me.
Today, Mandy had occasion to talk to Pam, Maya's teacher and she found out a few things that Maya is doing in school. The teacher said Maya is the only one thus far in their group of seven pre-schoolers who already knows the names of each of her classmates and she can say most of their names well enough too that the staff can understand her. She's been saying something here to us that we couldn't figure out - it sounded like "Kuzzie" -and Mandy learned that's what Maya called one little girl in her class whose nickname is "Kenzie." So we got that mystery word cleared up now here.
Her teacher said she's been doing very well with the counting, the alphabet and general introductory things, all of which comes as no surprise to us because she's known the alphabet to recite and identify for over 14 months now and the same goes for numbers - she's been able to identify all numbers (0 thru 9) and variations of them or combinations I should say which enables her to count to well over 100. Actually, she is usually very fascinated by numbers too with one of her favorite things to do being to take a walk along our street and go to "see the 25." The "25" being a speed limit sign along our street which she loves to go and look at. Go figure how that is so exciting but in her world, it rocks!
The teacher also told Mandy a little story of what happened with Maya yesterday. She has a certain stance she gets when she is trying to have a bowel movement - kind of leans forward, hunches over a bit - and the staff had seen that last Thursday when we were all over there visiting the school, getting acquainted with the teacher, aides and the classroom settings, etc.
Yesterday, it seems one of the aides noticed Maya was going into that particular stance so she grabbed her and rushed her down the hall to the bathroom. She got her there before anything had actually happened and managed to get her to sit on the potty there. Luck was fully with her too as Maya managed to do her business in the potty - a first for her in this respect.
When she was finished, all wiped and clean, the aide told her they would then flush the commode and for Maya to turn around and push the handle to flush it. In doing that, she glanced down into the water and saw the "fruits of her labors" there and immediately started to scream and cry as her initial reaction then was one of fear. Maybe that's why although she would on occasion sit on the potty here, she would never do anything nor would she come and alert us before hand either although she would come to us when she was done and request "dry pants."
Again, it's one of those little things - quirky things - that we learn more about every day in working with and teaching Maya the ways to grow up and be a big girl.
At least it does give us something positive to look forward too ya know!
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Opening the Door
Yesterday - Tuesday morning, September 4, 2007 - was a big day here in this household. My son got up early to come down and have coffee with his sister and me just so he could be here with us to see our little Princess, Maya, off on the beginning of what I hope, for her, will be her finest adventure.
Maya started school yesterday. She's attending a school over by Clearfield - in Hyde - in a class of seven other children, who like her, are all on the autism spectrum.
We were a bit worried how she would react to getting into the minivan and leaving us behind in a trail of gravel and dust. When the driver pulled up in front of the house though, we were all out there to help get her settled into the car seat. She was happy, smiling - being a real trooper - even gave each of us big, big kisses good by too. And as Mandy pulled the van door shut, the look on her face then seemed to change to one of a little bit of confusion as well as some consternation there. It appeared that she was having some second thoughts as to what the heck was really going on there.
As a matter of fact, the look on her face was something like this one - taken two months ago at our family reunion where she met more people than one could shake a stick at that day, all who are related to us but at her age, she has no clue about things like that.
Although we didn't see her cry when the van pulled away and the driver told Mandy yesterday afternoon when he brought her home that she'd been fine, I can't quite say the same thing for Maya's Mommy, her Grammie or her Uncle Clate, as all three of us had tear-filled eyes as we made our way back into the house to begin waiting for her return.
Mandy and I didn't get any still photos of Maya yesterday although she did get some video of her ready to leave the house to wait for the bus. Uncle Clate however did get a really cute picture of her with his cell phone, once she was all strapped into the car seat and ready to roll.
Now if he could just figure out how to send that picture to me, I could have posted it here!
This morning though, Maya was still excited about going back to school. She got dressed and was ready and waiting for Mandy to take her out to wait for the van to arrive and pick her up. I went out to stand by the road with them and when I saw the van rounding the curve up above our place, I told Maya to look. When she did, she immediately recognized the van and said "There he is. Mr. Fred!" (Her driver's name is Fred so we taught her to call him "Mr. Fred.")
She got into the van, no problems. Mandy strapped her in, no problems. She gave Mandy a big kiss too. Then I asked her if she had a good bye kiss for Gram and her response was "All done, all done!" Guess I know where I stand in the general scheme of things.
Mandy pulled the door closed and we were waving good by to a little girl with a smile across her face, from ear-to-ear! A very happy little camper. Kind of like on these pictures taken a couple weeks ago.
And not to be outdone in the happiness department, here's little Kurtis who is reveling now in getting lots and lots of undivided attention while Maya is away at school. He's getting a lot more play time out on the floor instead of being relegated mainly to the playpen out of safety concerns when Maya is here and has her stuff strewn all over the floors - wall-to-wall, ya know!
Maya started school yesterday. She's attending a school over by Clearfield - in Hyde - in a class of seven other children, who like her, are all on the autism spectrum.
We were a bit worried how she would react to getting into the minivan and leaving us behind in a trail of gravel and dust. When the driver pulled up in front of the house though, we were all out there to help get her settled into the car seat. She was happy, smiling - being a real trooper - even gave each of us big, big kisses good by too. And as Mandy pulled the van door shut, the look on her face then seemed to change to one of a little bit of confusion as well as some consternation there. It appeared that she was having some second thoughts as to what the heck was really going on there.
As a matter of fact, the look on her face was something like this one - taken two months ago at our family reunion where she met more people than one could shake a stick at that day, all who are related to us but at her age, she has no clue about things like that.
Although we didn't see her cry when the van pulled away and the driver told Mandy yesterday afternoon when he brought her home that she'd been fine, I can't quite say the same thing for Maya's Mommy, her Grammie or her Uncle Clate, as all three of us had tear-filled eyes as we made our way back into the house to begin waiting for her return.Mandy and I didn't get any still photos of Maya yesterday although she did get some video of her ready to leave the house to wait for the bus. Uncle Clate however did get a really cute picture of her with his cell phone, once she was all strapped into the car seat and ready to roll.
Now if he could just figure out how to send that picture to me, I could have posted it here!
This morning though, Maya was still excited about going back to school. She got dressed and was ready and waiting for Mandy to take her out to wait for the van to arrive and pick her up. I went out to stand by the road with them and when I saw the van rounding the curve up above our place, I told Maya to look. When she did, she immediately recognized the van and said "There he is. Mr. Fred!" (Her driver's name is Fred so we taught her to call him "Mr. Fred.")
She got into the van, no problems. Mandy strapped her in, no problems. She gave Mandy a big kiss too. Then I asked her if she had a good bye kiss for Gram and her response was "All done, all done!" Guess I know where I stand in the general scheme of things.
Mandy pulled the door closed and we were waving good by to a little girl with a smile across her face, from ear-to-ear! A very happy little camper. Kind of like on these pictures taken a couple weeks ago.
And not to be outdone in the happiness department, here's little Kurtis who is reveling now in getting lots and lots of undivided attention while Maya is away at school. He's getting a lot more play time out on the floor instead of being relegated mainly to the playpen out of safety concerns when Maya is here and has her stuff strewn all over the floors - wall-to-wall, ya know!
Monday, September 03, 2007
"It's a Viral Thing!"
Its a Viral Thing
Rules:1. Copy and paste the story below, and the rules, on your blog.
2. Find out who you're going to tag. (2-3 people, or more, if you wish)
3. Write one or two sentences to continue the story, and use the titles of the blogs you're tagging or any word(s) associated with them as keywords in the links you include in your part of the story.
4. Remember to tell your taggees that you've tagged them!
5. Feel free to use this and start your own viral link story. I'd very much appreciate a link back to Mothers Home! if you do. (Or a tag, if you prefer!)
Mothers Home! the cave troll yelled. I have been out all day strangling chickens like CRAZY! for the evil Empress. All i want now is a MOment to myself, but i keep getting Linda talking Drivel, but that is better than a certain someone Mooing.
All I could think of was that everyone seemed to want A Little Piece of Me these days. It's no wonder I was feeling down a bit Blue, you could say. I was ready to contact an attorney but rather than working he was over at the rink -of all places! Meanwhile, that left me in a heck of a bind, running short on time till I finally found him sitting there, so calmly turning the pages of time with his socks all sweaty no less and he looked up at me and said "It's about time! " Then, he even had the unmitigated nerve to ask me "Are we there yet?"
Not quite was my reply but my Inner dialogue said Buddy, you're going to be squealing and crying Whee, all the way home! And now, I'm late and it's time to see if Mother's Home yet. Enough of this Drivel from an old avon lady!
Okay folks - your turn is up now!
Claire
Debo Blue
Dave, the lawyer
Rinsem
Mau
Gene
Linda at 911
Latte Girl
Patois
and Mum
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)