The Wedding Shower

There was a wedding shower Saturday night. After having seven grandsons and one granddaughter (Thank You, Lord), the first one has finally embarked on the path to matrimony. At last, some females to offset the testerone around here. It was the most unusual shower I have ever attended. It was held in a Bead Store! We all were given $10.00 to start picking out beads to make a bracelet or a necklace with help from the staff. Then, we played the usual wedding shower games (at which I absolutely stink). There were lovely fresh fruits to dip in a fondue pot of chocolate, and cheese cubes, BBQ meatballs, petite fours and punch. After the fun and games, my new almost grand-daughter-in-law opened up some really great presents. Invitations had specified a particular time of day to buy a gift. Since I was 9:00 to midnight, I stayed away from Victoria's Secret.and gave her one of my king sized quilts. Here it is --- thrown over a queen size bed, so I know there is lots of room for a king. I think her mother wanted it, but I hope Laura likes it. (She is a real cutie)The fabrics are all batiks from India ,I think) and they cost an arm and leg. I have at least three other quilts waiting for someone to marry, but I have to finish four more before I am allowed to die. If I would stop playing on the computer with all you lovely bloggers and I could knock them out in half the time, but I'm not going to---I love you guys!

I've Been Tagged

Loving Annie tagged me for some fun. Here's the rules:

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*We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

*Players start with eight random facts/ habits about themselves.

* People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

* Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged and to read your blog.

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Random Fact #1. At seventeen, I eloped with my school bus driver after dating him for six weeks by forging my parents' permission and stamping the permission with dad's notary seal. He was a lawyer.- I'm going to jail! That permission is still on file at the courthouse over the state line, but we are still married after almost fifty-four years.

Random Fact # 2. In high school, I was a gymnast and walked a slack wire (as opposed to a tight wire). I could do the splits, swing sideways with the wire across my feet, sit down, lie down and get back up. Now, I find it tough to get up from the floor.

Random Fact #3. I went to nursing school when I was forty after being a stay at home wife and mother for twenty-two years. When I started working in a hospital as a nurse, I would have done it for free. Luckily, they didn't ask me to forego the paycheck.

Random Fact #4. I am an extremely fussy eater. No salad dressings, ketchup, mayo, sour cream, pickles, tomatoes. I eat most things totally plain, but have found out that there are a bunch of people just like me and it is genetic thing. Picky eaters like me are a pain in the butt have a funky response to bitter. I used to think I was weird, but my oldest grandson tested me in freshman biology and discovered my genetic trait.

Random Fact #5. I am an expert seamstress. Quick pat me on the back, before I break my arm trying to do it myself I started sewing at twelve by copying my sister's shorts pieces onto newspaper, cutting up a roll of my mom's tea toweling fabric and sewing the seams by hand with a needle using back stitch. I have made everything from leather coats to a wedding dress. After many years of sewing clothes for myself and my family, I have gone over to quilting --- because quilts last forever and are meant to keep people you love warm.

Random Fact #6. Reading is my life long passion. I have read medicine bottles, if detained in the bathroom. I must read at night to fall asleep. The written word is a thing of beauty. That must be why I read so many blogs. I caught my daughter today with the word "antimacassar" --- she never heard of it. Have you?

Random Fact #7. We live half the year in Ohio and half in Florida. Whichever state I am in --- I worry about our home in the other state and desire to be there. I don't know which one is my favorite --- Ohio is bigger, on a golf course and the furniture is more expensive, but Florida is easier to care for and life is really relaxed without a condo association to argue about every little thing. I think Ohio has to win, because my children and grands live here.

Random Fact #8. I am a perfectionist, but am learning that I can't keep it up forever. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is older than dirt weak.

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Now, I tag these bloggers to carry on:

Matty

Teri

Big Dave

Momofalltrades

Carine

Summer

Molly

Betty

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FIRECRACKER!

July 4, 2007

She's fifty! She's fifty! She's fifty!

This is the child that I dreamed of, waited for, tried for over three years ( it was fun) and finally on a wonderful 4th of July, 1957 at 9:17 at night, God finally gave me the perfect child I had dreamed of having. We had started out wanting six children. I had thought a girl to start, a girl to finish and however many boys who would happen in the middle. Remember, I told you that I wanted to make clothes (I made this dress) and fuss with little girl's hair? Well, she was so beautiful, that I sewed far into the nights and fixed those pretty blond curls to my heart's content. She was a wonderful baby, but I found it hard to put her down for even a few minutes. I remember asking the doctor at six weeks, "How long will it be until I can safely go to the bathroom and leave her alone?" Motherhood took every minute of my day. She turned three a few days after my third child was born and I had thought that she was very grown up and helpful with the "little kids". She always seemed so self confident that I didn't know until recently about all the little insecurities she had as a child. Through the years she has mentioned how frightened she was if I had a baby sitter and left them alone for a couple of hours before her dad came home from work. Children today are brought up with day care from six weeks old until they marry and leave home. But in the early sixties, moms stayed home and the kids became very attached to their security blanket parent. For all the little things that frightened you, Lesley --- I am so sorry that I didn't see it or know that you were not old enough to know how safe you were. But, I am very flattered to know that I was her whole world.

One day when she was a preschooler, she was very bored and I told her that when she learned to read, she would never be bored again. She took me at my word and learned rapidly to be a voracious reader. By the end of the first grade, the librarian gave her special permission to read from the junior high area of the library and she read over 100 books that summer. The school gave state proficiency tests to the primary grades when she was in the second grade and her teacher called me to school. I was so afraid that she had done something wrong, but the teacher just wanted to tell me that she had the only student in the three grades who had a perfect test ----my Lesley! (And she beat the third grade kids!)

My dad bought her a flute when she was in the fifth grade and she started flute lessons at school and piano at home. The high school had a program where the eighth grade band kids would attend marching band camp for two weeks in the late summer and then be allowed to play with the high school band for the first football game. She was afraid to go to band camp, but I told her that grandfather had bought the darn flute and she would go or I would wrap it around her neck. She loved it! The older girls each took a younger one as a little sister and shepherded them through all the important things, ate lunch with them and generally made them feel at home. This was just the thing a kid needs to feel like they have a hand up when entering high school.

Lesley was an excellent student (Honor Society), an officer in the band, a majorette in the marching band and worked in a restaurant by sixteen. Working gave her the idea to pay for college herself. We didn't know if she could make it, but by going to a local college and keeping a semester ahead of the tuition, she was able to go to England and Scotland for a study tour between her junior and senior years. She arrived back home from London with fifty cents in her pocket, because she purchased the in flight movie for $3.00. College took only three and a half years, because she had tested out of so many courses at the beginning.

Graduating mid-year made her available when a local school district staffed a new school for a March opening. They had over three hundred teachers apply for five jobs and Lesley got one of them. She is a lively chatterbox and I think she charmed the superintendent into hiring her. She married that next summer and had three boys in the next few years, but unfortunately the marriage went south. So, she has raised three boys, taught school full time and received her Masters+ in Reading (big surprise) in order to earn enough to handle the single mother job.

We are so much alike in so many ways, --- like reading and sewing, but she knows way more about old movies than I do and she loves almost all music from the classics to all the latest things.

One thing she started in our family is left handedness. There had never been any in either side of our families, but all three of our children are southpaws. I think the other two copied her when they were little, because they do some things one way and other things right handed. Lesley does everything as a lefty. She had to have left handed scissors and I couldn't teach her how to knit or twirl a baton without having her switch it around to her way of doing things. I'm not smart enough to switch it, but she did everything automatically.

So, she is fifty and she is a wonderful woman, but she is still the little girl who holds our hearts in her hand. It has been a fantastic fifty years. We love you, Firecracker --- Never stand in the window waiting for us to come home, because we are always here. Dad and Mom

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STACEY!

Stacey will be forty-seven at exactly 2:00 p.m. today. I actually had a doctor's appointment at that exact time, so you could say that Stacey kept my appointment for me. This little cake looks so sad compared to today's birthdays with acrobats, organ grinders and moonwalks. Possibly, things got out of control that week. Matt had turned four a couple of days before this and had fallen off the ladder of the neighbor's swimming pool during "the birthday party" and had a concussion. Notice the shiner on his left eye. But, this is about Stacey and the joy she has brought into our lives. Since she was due just one year after the second child, my other half wanted another boy to keep him company. I, on the other hand, already had a baby boy in the house, so I wanted another girl to make clothes for and hair to fix in girly ways. She made the hair impossible by cutting her own bangs right to the quick the week of her annual baby picture sitting. She did grow it out after the disaster, so I suppose it is not the worst thing that can happen in a mother's life. Stacey gave us the best of both worlds by being a pretty little tomboy. One Christmas, I had made her a red wool double knit dress with picot edging on the collar and sleeves. She came out with her lace tights, French fold hairbow and MaryJane shoes looking like a child model. Then, up came her skirt exposing her six-guns and holster strapped on underneath. The two younger kids played with Legos and Matchbox cars for hours out under the evergreen bushes, while her sister played with her Barbies inside like little girls do. I have read that some of the moms in blogger land have trouble training their kids. (Probably because "Pull-Ups" have made it so handy for the tots to stay untrained) Since Stacey was my third in three years, she announced at eighteen months that "I wan siouk pants like Lesley". I bought her silk panties with a little bow on the side and put them on her and that was that. She was dry day and night, but I still had to convince her brother to get out of diapers at night. I was watching "Kate and John" the other night. They have two six year olds and six two year olds. Three of the sextuplets are girls and three are boys. She tackled training the girls first, because boys are harder. I don't think they are harder --- they just lack the incentive of silk panties!
Stacey moved on to bigger things after we moved to a bigger house in town. The neighborhood guys would come over and holler for "Staaaceeey" to come out and play a little street football or a pickup game of basketball in our driveway. I think having an older brother made her think in terms of sports or perhaps it was her Dad's influence. To this day, she can name almost any athlete, which school they played for, what position they played and where they went as pros. In high school, she ran track, high jumped and played softball which made Dad happy. Then on Friday nights, she became a majorette in the marching band with a cute little short skirt which satisfied my girly instincts.
She followed me into nursing, got married and after several losses of babies, finally has a wonderful son. Her life is spent working with the senior high youth of the church and the Bible quizzers, because she is gifted to work with kids.
Until tomorrow night when we have the birthday party (lookout blogger buddies, my first born has a birthday this week, too) this will have to do for today --- HAPPY BIRTHDAY STACEY! We love you, Dad and Mom

Happy Birthday Matthew!

Forty-eight years ago today at 12:46 in the afternoon, my only son was born. Through the years, we have talked exactly at that time. It will be 12:46 in less than half an hour, so I am going to go look up the number of his office. This is one of my favorite pictures of him. These are his boys and he has one beautiful daughter. (Thank you, God!) There is an old saying---"Your son is your son, till he takes him a wife, but your daughter is your daughter for all of her life." So, moms give your sons to their wives, but keep them in your heart and keep loving them, even when they are getting a bit long in the tooth. Luckily for me, my daughter-in-law is a real gem and shares him with us. I gave him his "birthday cookies" a couple of days ago, but I know he reads my blog occasionally. So, today ---
Happy Birthday Matthew!
Love, Dad and Mom

The Dreaded Church Picture

Let me give you youngins' some advice. When they tell you that you need to have your picture taken for the new church directory, never get a haircut about an hour before the actual sitting. I had written about the dreaded frizzy perm that I wanted to allow me to swim and dry in Florida without all the fuss and bother of hairdryers, brushes and such. I had gotten to the place where I could in a few short hours handle it a bit, but never knew how well I could do my "do". Enter another thought into my feeble brain --- get a haircut and the stylist would do my hair for the picture. My guy (I love him dearly) does my hair with the chair turned backwards, so the outcome is always a nice surprise. I suppose he wanted me to really look great for the picture, but he went for broke and did my hair in a way that I never wear it. My darling hubby calls this look "my football helmet". There are worse things than having your hair about three inches taller than your head, I can't think of one right now but not when the picture will be in the directory for around five years. Since we are seventy-one and seventy-five, we might not even be around for the next big event, but if I am --- I'm doing my own hair! Don't you just hate mandatory pictures? My last driver's license was really a great picture, but the church doesn't want it --- there is a hologram in the middle. Why didn't we appreciate the younger years, when we didn't think twice about pictures or anything else for that matter? So now, we are retired and every day is Saturday (except for Sunday) and we didn't see old age coming. Enjoy your youth, have fun and don't save any of your big desires for a better time. There is no time like the present. Never wait for the "when we can afford it, we will have enough time for it or when we have the free time". Do it today and have the memories to keep you warm when your days are long, but your time is probably possibly short.

E-Mail Nut on the Loose

I hate it when people forward bogus warnings, and I have even done it myself a couple times
unintentionally...but this one is real, and it's
important. So please send this warning to everyone on your e-mail list.
If someone comes to your front door saying they are checking for ticks due to the warm weather and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around with your arms up, DO NOT DO IT!! THIS IS A SCAM!! They only want to see you naked.
I wish I'd gotten this yesterday. I feel so stupid!

His name is Steven

There was a little boy named Steven, who was the firstborn grandchild in our family. I thought I would really like being a grandmother, but I had no idea that he would become the "Light of My life". Children are very different from when I was raising mine. They are free spirits, that will go anywhere, anytime, because they have been to day care and are outgoing. We were living on a small horse farm when he was born and suddenly the grandma who swore she would not be a full time babysitter was open to his staying overnight anytime or all the time. We had so much fun together and he was game for anything. We cleared the brush from a small copse of trees with his tiny hands in rubber gloves to keep him from touching the poison ivy. The child was a pyromaniac and loved to clear the brush and have glorious bonfires. We dumped large limestone rocks down an old, existing cistern to fill it up, so no child would accidentally stumble upon it and drown. We took the boom box outside and played tapes of Christian pop music. The child was certain that he sang exactly like Sandi Patti. Sure he did! Day after day we worked with such camaraderie, that the task became joy --- just being together. One day when we had finished about twenty feet of clearing small saplings and debris, Steven in the wisdom of his four years said, "Would you look at the size of that uthwum?"As I turned to see his amazing earthworm, he gave a final rake to the now barren ground and in tones to waken the dead screamed, "It's a snake!" and jumped into my arms.

His Grandpa spent many weekends showing quarter horses at conformation shows, so Steven kept me company and never seemed to miss his Mommy and Daddy as long as he had me to cuddle him and make him "my special boy". He slept in our king sized bed and we stayed awake late at night and watched his favorite things on T.V. --- the QVC channels --- he loved keeping track of the number of items left before the clock clanged doom. I should have known that we had a huckster on our hands way back then. I admit to being a sneaky Grandma. His mom and dad had a few problems, but my daughter was too proud to tell her parents that all was not well in paradise. He was telling me about the day his dad was looking for a certain shirt in the dryer and he pulled the clothes out and dropped them on the floor as he looked for that shirt. To which, I asked, " What did your Mommy say when she found the clothes on the floor?" With a serious face, he said, "Why that asho!" It certainly is hard to keep a straight face when you are priming the kid for information and gossip drips innocently from his lips . I never came right out and asked my daughter if they were having marital troubles, but eventually (after three boys in four years) they divorced and I knew that my fears had been well founded. She took care of the kids, taught school full time and got her master's degree + in the next 2 1/2 years. I took full advantage of the situation to keep one or two of the boys for overnights , whenever I had the chance. All three of my children had baby boys when Steven was two. They are all college age and treat each other as cousin/brothers. One of these days I'll get to some of my other wonderful grandchildren and bore the be jabbers out of you with their exploits. But, for now ---the only constant was the thing Steven and I had between us. He would come in the back door and through the living room with a look of determination on his face and a fast pace in his feet---looking for his "Mamaw". About five, he stated with a solemn face, "You're not my Mamaw --- You are my Drandma ---- Right Mamaw?" I can't even explain how he made me feel. I loved my own three children dearly, but I had no time to spend just basking in the light of a young child's love for me. One day I dropped a bowl of homemade vegetable, beef soup and it sprayed up and over the counter, the cupboards and the floor. Green beans were hanging at rakish angles from the window over the sink and corn was sliding down the cupboard doors. I started to laugh and said, "Did you ever see such a colossal mess?" He replied with a stricken look, "My mom wouldn't say that!" I was afraid to ask what she would have said!

I want all of the young mommy bloggers to know that the children in your life are just the beginning. Children grow up too fast, so savor every minute with them. Steven is twenty-five now; just about to start law school after having worked for our Governor in Washington for the last three years. He is out of our daily lives, but never out of our thoughts and hearts. I wish I could have a mulligan for those early years.

We Never Forget

Courtney would have been twenty-three today. So much has happened in that time, but we never forget that for today, we had hope for her. My daughter and son-in-law were great parents, but they were not destined to hold her here on Earth for very long. I will always be grateful for the courage and faithfullness of my children in caring for my granddaughter during her nine and a half years here. She lives with God and we never forget her.

Life is a Journey

By now, most of you have heard about the little girl in Washington State, whose parents have decided to have her surgically altered in an attempt to keep her small and manageable. Her prognosis is to be a mentally handicapped child for her entire life. The problem is that normal parents cannot handle a full grown adult infant, as they themselves age and lose strength. These parents had their daughter's uterus, appendix, and breast buds removed and massive doses of estrogen given in an attempt to keep her "little" forever. It was not a decision made lightly, but with the help of medical ethicians. It is being called The Ashley Treatment. This family loves their little girl and takes excellent care of the child. I went to their site and read the comments by perfect strangers and was stunned by the freedom other bloggers feel in forming opinions and being disgustingly frank with these well meaning parents. There were comments like "Cut off her limbs, too --- that would make her smaller" or "How do you know that menstruation would be painful for her --- let her grow up normally". What words did these people not understand? This child has a condition that will never allow her to do anything and caring for her is a huge problem. Unless they have walked in these parents' moccasins, they have no right to an opinion.

This picture is my youngest daughter as she and her husband awaited the birth of their first child after suffering an earlier miscarriage. May of 1984 was a time of great joy and expectation. Every week she went to the doctor and then stopped by our house to tell me what the doctor had said. Her due date was around the 24th of May and she was hoping to have the baby on the 30th, because her birthday, her husband's birthday and their anniversary were all on the 30th of different months. When she missed the 30th, the appointment on the 31st was rather anticlimactic --- but, she didn't come to my house afterward. After a few hours, I told my husband that I was worried and we decided to call her house. She answered and sounded nothing like my daughter. When I asked if something were wrong, her only answer was ,"We're coming over". She was crying and distraught. I am a nurse and she is a nurse --- all sorts of awful things went through my mind, but I could not imagine what the actual problem was. They arrived and my son-in-law went around the car to help the expectant mom out of the car. Her face was blotchy with swelling and tears and he looked like someone had just shot him. "Mom, I had an ultrasound today and the baby has hydrocephalus". My mind was flipping through all the pages of child and infant care from my training and I knew there was hope for this type of handicap with shunts and good neurosurgeons. After a quick discussion of where we were with this (already a week overdue), I called the doctor for her and asked if there was any possibility that the baby could be delivered the next day, since nobody could eat or sleep until the baby was safely here.

Fast forward to the next morning and the birth of a lovely baby girl by C-Section. Things looked pretty good when the neurosurgeon said that a shunt would take care of everything Then came
the CAT Scan of Courtney's brain. June second, the neurosurgeon waltzed into my daughter's room and stuck the films against the window, where sunshine streamed brightly and illuminated a skull with a large amount of empty space. He said, "Unfortunately, this child has almost no brain and I'm not sure we should shunt her". With a shunt, she would live about two years and without the shunt , she would live about three months. The decision was taken out of this young family's hands. The federal government had passed "The Baby Jane Doe" ruling that required that medical personnel notify the authorities, if physicians did not do everything possible for newborn babies. Ironically enough, women could kill their fetuses inutero, but families could not withhold treatment from children who could not possibly live. The cephalic shunt was done the next day and the excess cerebrospinal fluid was drained from her skull and absorbed in her abdominal cavity. This allowed her fontanels to close and her skull to become a normal size. She would never be able to see, hear, eat, speak, roll over or even know she was alive. This is a picture of

Courtney at a couple of months old. Cute, huh? Yes, she was lovely and lovable, but the trick is

--- she is being held up for the picture. She was never even able to hold her own head up. My kids struggled to feed the baby by

dripping formula down the throat of a child who could not even suckle. By eight months old, the doctors finally realized that she would starve to death, if she was not fed by gastric tube, so they operated again and she was fed parentally by machine for her whole life. Her life was a series of specialists from every type of medicine, but nothing could be done to change the prognosis for this little girl. Even with very good health insurance, her medical needs took two paychecks, so my daughter worked part time at the hospital and the kids moved in with us to save money and have help caring for Courtney. Friends and family took CPR and learned to work her Apnea Monitor and G-Tube, so they could babysit occasionally to relieve her exhausted parents. Her medical condition caused seizures and the inability to have feedings while awake. If she coughed, she vomited, so feedings were done at night while she slept. I could hear my daughter and son-in-law running to her bedside all through the night to keep her from choking or to clean her up after vomiting. By four years old, she tipped the scales at nineteen pounds and remained easy to handle. I wonder how hard it would have been to care for a child who grew normally, but never was able to move and was a total lift.In this picture, you can see the plugged G-tube that was her lifeline for

feedings. By forcing her to be shunted, the government rules condemned her to nine and a half years as a prisoner inside a tiny body that did not function. She was loved so much and her family suffered terribly from this enforced slow death by well meaning souls who have no idea what they have brought upon such children. We watched as she writhed in convulsive seizures and wondered each time, "Is this the day?" Families of severely handicapped children need to be free to make educated decisions regarding the medical and surgical issues involving these children without input from the public at large. I feel that the parents of Ashley in Washington should be applauded for their choice to keep their daughter small and manageable in order to care for her at home.
This picture shows Courtney as she was getting older. You can see the spasticity in her body and know that she had no cognitive function by the way her hands are curled in decerebrate movement. If she had been born in an earlier time without medical intervention, she would have passed quickly from this world of pain. Once again, one of God's special little ones was snatched from the jaws of Heaven by do-gooders without knowledge of her best interests. Courtney lived for nine and a half years suffering through pneumonias, abdominal surgeries for obstructions and clam shell braces for a scoliosing spine. Her family watched helplessly while she suffered with multiple difficulties. How can anyone say what medical procedures should be done to a child, if they are not the ones who have to live with the consequences? Our family has lived through the heartache of birth defect and we would support Ashley's family's decision to prevent her from becoming adult size and necessitating care outside a loving home.

I first wrote this in January of 2007, when I heard about Ashley's family on television and the problems they were having with public opinion. This week, I heard that the hospital where her surgery was done is in trouble for not having a judge approve of the surgical procedures done to the child. The world has so many problems to handle --- why can't they leave this family alone to deal with their personal difficulties and to care for their child?

"I Am the Lucky One"

Happy Mother's Day to Mom, the original seat belt! Today is Mother's Day and this is the card I got from Numero Uno child. It really cracks me up, because I spent their formative years throwing my arms across the chest of the child sitting next to me on the front bench seat of the car to prevent their being thrown through the windshield. Lord knows how they managed to live through no car seats and certainly no seat belts. One absolute rule was that they couldn't sit too near any door, because who knew whether or not the lock would hold and one could possibly fall from the car during a turn and get run over by the back wheels. However did I manage to get them safely through infancy, school, college and to the altar without killing anyone?

I think motherhood started for me when I was about ten or eleven and our neighbor had a baby boy. I was allowed to play with him on a blanket in their backyard while my Mom chatted with the new mother.

I fell in love with the smell, feel, touch, the enchanting smiles and the cuddly little body of any baby. Little girls are preprogrammed to desire babies in their lives. Shortly after marrying at seventeen, my mind turned to thoughts of having my very own baby to cuddle and smell and love. Luckily, God knew that we were not ready financially for parenthood. He made me wait until I was twenty-one, before He felt I could be trusted with an infant of my own. I couldn't believe it when after all those months and years of trying, I finally knew I was pregnant.

Every since that very first day, when I knew there was a baby coming to our home, I have been the most blessed of all creation --- a mother. If there is to be a special day --- it should be a day for rejoicing in the fact that God has seen fit to give us children to raise and love and then set free. This is a picture of me with my first child when she was two years and six weeks old. My second child was only six weeks old and I was six weeks away from getting pregnant with my third. How ironic that after almost four years without children, we had three in less than three years. Motherhood has been a joy every step of the way and I am still thanking God for the children he sent my way almost fifty years ago. I love you Lesley, Matthew and Stacey and the ten children you have brought into my life in the last twenty-five years. The pastor praised moms in church this morning, but it is we who should be thanking God for the privilege He has given to us. I cannot imagine a life without my children. To quote Ben Folds, " I Am the Lucky One!"

Going Home, Going Home

We really are headed in the right direction .... up I- 75 from

Ft. Myers to Ohio. We had an hour and a half delay outside of Atlanta, because some poor (probably old) dude had turned over in his pickup truck while hauling his vacation home. It took up a four lane highway and thousands of cars and trucks waited for hours. It sure seems that the Highway Patrol would reroute traffic or at least direct the mayhem created by such bad accidents. Next, we were toddling on down the road when the local radio station started telling us that there was a tornado warning for Big Booger, Tennessee and hail in French Gulp County. We knew that Texas had been having really bad weather earlier in the week and that it was moving northeast. So, I pulled out the map and discovered that we were only about fifteen miles from Big Booger and doubted our ability to find a safe place before Knoxville. Happily, we discovered a Days Inn in Oak Ridge with Hi Speed Internet. Tomorrow, we will be going home early in the day before the storms start up again. My "Honey" is as happy as a pig in mud, because the motel has FOX News and he hasn't seen a nice conservative newscast for six months. See you in Ohio!

Here we come, ready or not!

It's that time again ... the move back to Ohio. Everyone there tells me that it is colder that a witch's t** and raining, too. I am packing a big dose of sunshine in my suitcases and will treat all those Ohio Valley people to some rays. I have lain in the sun in two hour increments for the last couple of weeks. Most of the people here have glistening skin about the color of a kiwi without the fuzz. I, on the other hand have a collection of brown, red and white spots that sort of mimic a tan. I figure that when they all run together, I will look just like George Hamilton. My teeth will look like a string of pearls next to my beautiful brown skin. When my perfect house guest, Lesley, was here , we went to the pool every day for two hours. She got a wonderful tan ---- I got sun poisoning by the third day and spent the rest of her time here waving goodbye as she blithely sauntered to the pool. Of course, I have been a raving maniac trying to remember what I brought down here six months ago and why in the world would anyone in their right mind even consider bringing a couple hundred dollars worth of quilt fabric 1200 miles and never opening a single quilt book?

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that we are going to the land of civilization, where people actually wear appropriate clothes in public. No Capri's and backward ball caps for senior citizens there. Maybe, this is really more fun! See you in Ohio.

Home Sweet Home!

Spring Break in Ft. Myers

Springtime is beautiful in Ft. Myers. The weather is hot, hot, hot, the sand is white as talc and the water is warm. We wait all winter for these last few weeks in the tropics. Snowbirds tend to leave for home around the first of April and the college kids have been and gone by now. They leave in their wake locals who are underage and in jail for drinking and partying with the big time college kids. Our oldest daughter flew in the 30th of March for her Spring Break from school. She had been held hostage by a band of renegade third graders since last August. Here she was; free at last. If you really want to have a great house guest --- give birth to the perfect home companion. Her idea of a wonderful time was watching TV until the late news, reading until sleep grabs her by the eyelids, sleeping until she awakens of her own free will, more reading and a little counted cross-stitch, suntanning beside the pool, eating out and having her mom and dad sit and appreciate her presence. I insisted that we had to go out to Ft. Myers Beach, just for the sudden view as the crest of the bridge is reached and the Gulf of Mexico lies spread before us like a glittering jewel to be tucked away in the recesses of our memory until the next occasion to behold such beauty. We went after dinner and strolled along the beach as we awaited the sunset with many other romantics. Since I am an old lady, I plopped down on the sand --- it is so soft and white that it is a wonder that people don't try to bake bread with it. It is so fine and powdery --- it sticks to your bare feet, to your butt and hides in your pants pockets. I am not proud! In the presence of natural beauty, who cares if you get a little gritty?

As we walked around the end of the island through Bowditch Park, we came upon this image of family togetherness. Dad, Mom, one little girl with pink sandals and one tiny little girl with a white sandal at each end of the grouping left their shoes to wiggle their toes in the wonderful white sand. People scan the sand bars as the tide goes out and the sand dollars appear and occasional shells beg to be picked. Most people pick shells just to prove to themselves that they actually were here.

The daughter did her obligatory visit to the beach and crossed it off her list of things you have to do when in southern Florida. When you are the single mom to three grown sons, Spring Break means just that --- stop whatever you have been doing for so many months and flop until you are revived to go back and start all over again. I told this child when she was four or five and bored that once she learned to read, she would never be bored again. She took me at my word and has a Master's Degree+ in reading. She read three books while she was here, but I think she brought eleven or twelve. It's hard to believe that she is only a few years from retirement herself. After eight days of revitalizing sunshine, we took her back to the airport on Easter morning. She is back at her desk with her brood of nine year olds, but summer is only two months away and she will be able to recoup until next August.

Today, I made a zillion chocolate chip cookies to send to my grandson in the Air Force and I am starting to drag things out of their hiding places to pack for our return to Ohio. I just don't understand why we leave Florida when things are just getting really good here. I want a Spring Break!

On, No! Flamingos!

In the land of sunshine and blue skies, people in double wide, pre-fab homes (trailers in all other states) tend to put all sorts of junk in their front yards and flower beds. I have been guilty of being a lawn snob and snickering at the people who stick tacky junk out in front of their homes.
So, what did I do yesterday? I went out and bought a few things for our porch. It was the last place in our Florida home that was stark raving naked. My flamingos can be forgiven, because they are so tasteful and are not pinky-orange. Truly, they really are cute, aren't they? The colors are pretty and also, they match the fish I bought for the wall above the futon. ( That is the futon I had to buy for my grandson's visit) Today, I hit JoAnne's Craft Store and bought a vase and some greenery for the end table. We have owned this place for about eighteen months and I have just about run out of things to buy. I know we have run out of money. See, --- how cute is this fish? The shop in Punta Gorda is new and has a ton of adorable do-dads for around the house. How am I going to stay away from this shop when there are so many things I really, really want? Oh, well, I can't have

everything --- but, I have the flamingos and the fish!

For all the good, caring cyber friends I have out there, I have good news about my frizzies. I can manage my hair (the hair of the too tight perm). When my darling daughter gets here for her week in the sun, I'll swim and sun and my hair will be wash and go. (Providing that I get a quick trim next week) Have a great day y'all --- Spring is upon the land!

The Control Freak

This is not a very good picture, but it shows the true definition of a control freak or a true man's man. Notice that he sleeps. Also, notice that he sleeps with the T.V. controls balanced on his right knee, so nobody can change the channel while he is watching something really important through his eyelids. Husbands --- you just have to love them!

The Frizzies

The grands have been and gone for a week since their spring break here in the land of sunshine and alligators. We have a couple of weeks before our own firstborn will fly in for her spring break from teaching the third grade. The grand kids are fun, but I look forward to seeing my very own kid, because she will want to do the things that I love --- laze around the pool, get a tan, read some good books, go out for dinner and sleep late. While thinking along these lines, I started thinking that having to do my own hair every day after the pool would be a whole bunch easier if I had a perm and could let it air dry, then apply a curling iron. Keep in mind that I haven't had a perm in ten years and I have really thick hair, but my mind was remembering how cool the last one was. I would let it dry and then just brush the curls into place. Those days were before my "honey" retired and money was no object. I could go get my hair done all the time and a professional blow dry lasted forever. My frugal husband keeps telling me that he loves the way I do my own hair better than the salon dos. It occurs to me that he is cheap and wants to spend our money on frivolous things like --- uh, golf and buckets of balls. Is he cheating me, maybe? Ya, think? So, in the spirit of future savings, I decided that a perm today would save me hours of future work and only cost $85.00. When the little curlers came out, the stylist was oohing and ahing over my lovely curls and sent me to the dressing room to get my smock off and into my own clothes. Oh, for pity sakes! I looked like I had an Afro! Where were those lovely little ringlets that occupied my mind's eye? Tonight, I look much better after the application of a curling iron, but I know there are frizzies lurking under this thing. I'll know in the morning whether or not I have wash and wear hair for poolside or whether I will have to shave my head. How can you live this long and make such bad decisions?

Look Who's Coming to Town!

My blog has been temporarily put out to pasture. The reason for my lack of time is #5 grandchild. Spring break is upon us and the college students are winging their way southward. This cute, curly haired blond is the last of my oldest daughter's three boys. Her oldest is twenty-five and lives in D.C. He worked for Gov. Taft for three years and now is heading to graduate school for his law degree. We keep trying to talk him into coming back to the midwest and attending a local college, but the political bug has bitten and unfortunately there is no vaccine for that. Her second son is twenty-three, in the Air Force and has just completed eighteen months of Arabic language school and heading for something secret, but he is not allowed to tell us anything about his job. Luckily for the U.S.A., this guy would never tell anyone anything --- he is the original closed mouth dude. He says, "If I tell you, I would have to shoot you!" I believe he would do it. Lastly, we have her twenty year old guy, who works two jobs and is a junior in college. We have put everything on hold and have stocked up the fridge, because we get to see a grandchild and his lady friend for the next week. (She is absolutely adorable!) I have cooked and frozen until the freezer door won't close any more. He is a year older than this picture and has grown the scruffy hair stuff in the middle of his face --- people are calling him "McSteamy". because of the guy on Grey's anatomy. I'm excited to see them here in the land of sunshine and we will finally have an excuse to hit the beaches. Old people just don't go to the beach and flop on a towel, without an excuse. We have arranged for a boat trip out into the Gulf of Mexico for Sunday and I'm thinking of renting Segues over on Sanibel for some fun. If that doesn't pan out, we might go kayaking in Matlacha Pass. Anyone have any good ideas? After these kids leave, I have three weeks until the next spring breakers. If you want to see your children and grands, move to Florida and I guarantee they will come see you. Okay, Ryan--- hurry up!

The Best of Times

We moved to the country when our
youngest daughter graduated from high school. The other half had always wanted to own horses and take care of them himself. Our children were very happy in their school, so we waited until they were done with high school to build our country house and small quarter horse barn. We owned a few acres and had a pond for swimming and playing. The grand kids actually learned to water ski behind Sea-Doos in the pond. There is nothing like a small body of water in your back yard to soothe the savage beast. The sunsets were spectacular in the winter when the sun was in the southern sky and the big red ball reflected in the pond. Life was good and we were living in a style we had never dreamed of when we were young and very poor runaways to the closest altar. HRH (His Royal Highness) was in seventh Heaven with a couple of horses in residence. One of them was always expecting, so I should have foreseen the coming of more and more equine types. Eventually there were mares in every stall, with foals on their side and another one in the oven for the next year. I never thought I would be shoveling horse manure. The things we do for love! Our children started marrying within a year of the move to the country and the grand kids started arriving within three years. It was a wonderful place for the grandchildren to visit. There was plenty of swimming in the summer and skating in the winter. The horses had foals, the Australian Shepards had puppies and the calico cat was always having kittens in the loft of the barn. The little boys in the picture are my first two grandsons --- also known as the lights of my life. If I had known how I would feel about grandchildren, I would have had them first! Steven and Greg are standing in the doorway of the barn in front of the horse's treadmill. Did you know that horses have to be exercises on a treadmill when the sun is too bright and would ruin their hair coat? Our total number of grands ended with eight boys and two girls, but we have lost one little girl and one boy to birth handicaps. As they grew older, we added swing sets and volleyball to the yard and a large hot tub to the deck. The little guys thought it was great to "swim" in the hot tub at Christmas time. Soon, we had to sell the place in the country because as HRH says, "The mower broke". I was the mower and I developed asthma at sixty and could not continue mowing all the yard and pastures. But, the real reason was that the city was encroaching on our country life. People were paying outrageous prices for land and building mcmansions in the wheat fields across the street. There are times in your life when you suddenly have a revelation that it is time to sell, before you miss the golden opportunity to triple your money. We had nineteen years in our little horse farm and still tripled our investment. The only costs were taxes ---I don't think you can ever get away from taxes. My husband still wishes he could have a horse or two of his own, but we moved to the fifth tee of a golf course and they frown on tethering horses on the fairways. HRH thinks that those were the best of times, but I have loved every stage of this life we have shared together and today is the best of times for this day.

From Jury Duty to Nursing School

I was over at Matty's place (Running on Empty) and she wrote a great piece on Canada's hunt for a jury for a mass murderer's trial. They must find people who are capable of sitting on the jury for a year. He confessed to his crimes and has expressed no remorse for his multiple murders. The good citizens of Canada are to spend buckets of money for a fair and proper trial for this dude. Matty thinks that the only people who can spend a whole year on a jury are retired folks in good health and a few other assorted souls. If they seat enough people and then someone dies (old people tend to do that), they will have to start over again! Good Heavens! Most seniors really can't afford to give away a year of their pitifully short life expectancy. Personally, I couldn't sit still for whole days while the lawyers (or do they call them barristers there?) go through all the hanky-panky they learned in law school to get the guilty and depraved off. This is all a prelude to telling you about my experiences of being on juries.

I was called for jury duty when I was thirty-nine. I had been married for twenty-two years and had children who were a sophomore and junior in high school and a freshman in college. In those days, stay at home mommies were the rule rather than the exception. I made their beds, hung up their clothes, washed their nylons, ironed all their clothes, cleaned the house, cooked the meals and did the dishes for my husband and family. It was working very well, because my kids were very involved in their schools, sports, music, honors courses and worked in a restaurant. They all saved their money and totally paid for college themselves. We wanted them to have the very best experience in school that was possible, because I had been forced to do multiple household duties as a teen by the poor health of my mother. Then the summons for jury duty came! I panicked. How would my family get along without me for a whole week? How could I get up at the crack of dawn, get myself dressed, go downtown and still stay up late enough to maintain our home as we knew it? There are no excuses to get out of jury duty. If you were not ill and of reasonable sanity, you got the job. Off I went on the first day and found myself hoping that they would like me well enough to choose me for a jury. I believe we received $8.00 a day for serving. That almost paid for parking and lunch. Right away, I found myself seated on a civil jury. Oh, the joy of being in the middle of a real soap opera! The case consisted of a plaintiff charging that a cement truck had hit a car driven by an elderly man, who was taking a patient to a local hospital for a chemo treatment. This gentleman danced around at the scene while insisting that he was just fine and needed no treatment. However, the paramedics took him to the hospital with the injured woman. He sat in the waiting room of the E.R. for several hours, declining treatment and when the hospital got around to checking him over ---- they admitted him for observation, due to his age. Apparently, he suffered a blood clot in his leg that let loose and traveled to his heart. Dang! He died! Our feeling (in the jury room) was that he misled the medics claiming to be fine and the hospital neglected to diagnose him in time to prevent the embolism. The fact that the truck had actually hit his car did not cause his death, the delay in treatment caused his death. The accident was little more than a fender-bender. The lawyers wanted lifetime care for a retarded son, who was left after the accident and since the truck was from a large company, the lawyer went after everything they owned the big bucks. The jury decided that the request was outrageous and found for the defendant. Ironically, the truck driver, also had a handicapped son and would have lost his ability to care or his son, if we had given them what they asked. The dollar signs were positively rolling around in the pig's lawyer's eyes. When the verdict was read, the defendant cried and we were dismissed. As we tried to leave the third floor of the court house, the plaintiff's attorney was in the elevator with some of the jury. He started raging at our lack of compassion (his lack of big buck fees) and actually chased us down the sidewalks of the courthouse shouting, "Which one of you is going to take this man home and care for him for the rest of his life?" I was scared out of my skin. We told the judge the next morning about what had happened and they filed a grievance. The actual depositions from the jury took six months to get going and when they were done (parking, driving and lunch out of our own pockets) nothing happened to this attorney. I felt abused by the law.

The next two days, I was seated on a criminal jury. After the experience with the civil thing I was frightened to be on the second jury. It involved a black man who had been living with a black woman and had stolen her household goods one day while she was at work. The witnesses for the prosecution and the defense all knew each other and sat together outside the court and ate lunch together. It was one big happy family for everyone except the jury. When we returned a guilty verdict and started out of the courthouse, all the witnesses were laughing and scratching, while going down the sidewalks. I was seriously frightened to walk to my car. If they had started to yell at us as the civil attorney had, I think I would have gone back into the courthouse and asked the judge to walk me to my car.

The amazing part of this was the fact that I was able to get out of the house and into the world ---- and my family did not perish in my absence. This led to my husband making a call to the nursing school and getting an application for me to take the admissions test. I loved reading anything (medicine bottles, if I am detained in the bathroom) and have always been curious about medicine. But, I had married at seventeen ---- long before I knew what area I would have liked to study in higher education. If I were starting out today, I would head right for medical school. By being a wife and mommy for twenty two years, I had the best of young motherhood, and going to nursing school at forty made me an absolute fool for learning. I got the best grades and couldn't get enough of the books. The human body and the disease processes are fascinating. I have been retired from hospital nursing for almost ten years and still read everything I can get my hands on. I never thought I wanted to teach, but I love teaching people about their illnesses and treatments. Every family needs a patient advocate in the medical community and believe me, Florida is crawling with seniors, who don't know s**t from Shinola when it comes to their health. Their doctors never give them a reasonable explanation of their orders --- they need a middleman. I help neighbors here, because I was called for jury duty over thirty years ago.

I was called for jury duty again a couple of years ago. I spent the morning in a back room with the rest of the jury pool --- all the time knowing that I couldn't be on any jury in that case. It involved the Highway Patrol and my son-in-law (a Sergeant involved in the case) was going to be one of the witnesses, but I couldn't even tell the other jurors that I knew what the case was. After four hours of sitting in a crowded room, we were dismissed for the day --- the case was postponed and remanded over to a court in a different city. Never make the mistake of thinking that the law knows what it is doing!

Smack that Brat!

We were out in the car tonight, when the 6:00 o'clock news came on the radio. One of the items reached right out and grabbed me by the throat. It was the story of a three year old girl who threw a tantrum on an airplane that was about to leave the gate here in Ft. Myers. The parents could not get her to sit down and get buckled into her seat, so the plane could leave. Everyone must be strapped in for departure. The mother wanted to hold the child on her lap for takeoff and calm her down, which is against FAA rules. Every passenger on the plane was detained while this family demanded time to deal with their child, who showed no signs that she had ever been taught that certain rules govern public behaviour. I know it is considered bad form these days to use corporal punishment on children, but if a little smack had been used previously on this child --- she would have known who was in charge and could not have held a plane full of adults hostage. The airline finally had to remove the entire family from the flight and they had the nerve to complain. The airline did send them on their way on the next available flight and also gave them three tickets to anywhere in the USA for free! What? People are being rewarded for bad behavior? Get in line folks! The louder you scream and the worse your manners, the more you are rewarded, just to keep the peace. When I was a kid, I did get spanked by my parents, the neighbors, my teachers and any other responsible adult. I never had a ride on an airplane or was allowed to be loud in public or anywhere else. I was sometimes seen, but never heard. Most of my time was spent alone --- hanging out in the neighborhood. Come to think of it --- I literally hung out in any convenient tree! I listened to "The View" this morning and those four women of modest intelligence all supported the idea that children should never be hit. They were in agreement with the California Congresswoman, who has sponsored a bill forbidding
the spanking of any child under four. What do you do when your child has not learned by the sound of your voice
that something bad is about to happen?
They will not run into the street as a car approaches, if your tone implies that they are about to get a smack. They might think it is the "mother is at the end of her tether" and gonna belt me tone, when it is really the "look out sweetheart" tone that saves their life. Do parents of modern children not see the anguished looks on the faces of other adults when their child is raising Cain in public? We bite our lips in an effort to keep from yelling "SMACK THAT BRAT!" I am probably a throwback to the dark ages when we disciplined our children in love to "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it". Proverbs 22:6 I believe that children are a gift from God and we are obliged to teach them the things that will make their later lives happy and fulfilling, instead of self-centered monsters. The day is coming when the government is going to decide our every step --- what we can eat, where we can go, what we can drive, where we can live, how much we must earn, how we can raise our children, et cetera. If I were young, I would think twice about bringing children into a socialist state.