Dot`sThoughts

Another rainy day. Expect tomorrow to be the same. So. just doing some washings and pick- up around the house today.
But, yesterday was a nice day. Feeling pretty good, so I decided to get out of the house for a change. Left home right after Lunch and took some flowers to the cementary to put on my mother`s and father`s , plus my Husband`s Graves. Years ago I had made and decorated a beautiful large flower box for my parents. Lots of people asked me where I bought it. They were surprised when I said I made it. Had it there for a couple years. I had just had my hand operated on when I painted it so I knew I could do better. So , one year I repainted the whole box and added better painted designs onto it. Had taken it down and a few days later when I went down I found that someone had stolen it. I was so dissappointed that I didn`t make another one to be stolen. So I bought one and just painted a design on it and have used this one for the past 4 or 5 years. I will never understand how someone can steal off a grave in a cementary. When I was talking to some people who lived next to the cementary I was told that kids in a car often had beer parties out in the back empty place in that cementary, so who knows, they might have taken it.
I did make a flower box for my husband 4 yrs ago, and so far that one has remained. This time I decided to put both Walt`s name and mine inside of a heart on one side to discourage them. I figured the box would be harder for anyone to bring home without questions with our names on it.
While I was there I clipped and trimmed the two bushes on each side of my parents stone. Now they look nice and neat. They sure have grown a lot since they were first planted over 10 years ago. One of my brother-in-laws used to do the trimming, but he passed away 2 years ago from a fall while climbing a ladder he had leaning on a tree in his backyard. He was a nice person.
Well I noticed that none of my family was taking care of the bushes, so the past two years I figured I should do it. After the bushes were trimmed, I watered the flowers the rest of the family had put there. There is one very tall monument there with my grandparents names which I also keep clean. I keep them all clean, but this one is quite old and got so bad a few years ago that you couldn`t read the words on it. A daughter helped me brush it clean again last year. Took us over two hours to get it really clean. It was so hard to do , that now I check it every time I go there. Then I went over to my Father`s parents and wow, my other grandmothers stone was so coated that you couldn`t even read her name or the date. I went to the car for the brush and then I remembered I had forgotten to bring the monument stone cleaner with me. So, I worked hard using just the brush and some water and did manage to clean the entire top of the stone so now the name and date are easily read. Next time I will need to bring the cleamner and do the sides of the stone, along with her second husbands stone. It is a shame when people let the stones get covered with moss and look that bad. I can`t understand why it never bothered the rest of my family.

i remember one year when my youngest daughter went with me. She was in her early teens. She saw where a bird had left it`s mark on my Father`s stone (this was while my Mother was still living). She started to cry until I got some water from the pump and cleaned it off. She had been real close with her grandfather.

Once I finished watering all the flowers , trimmed the bush and scrubbed so hard to clean the top of that stone, I was tired. Then I went over to my Husbands to place the flowers there. I noticed that someone had removed the picture out of the plastic that a granddaughter had left there. She had a picture of her kids there. It was starting to fade a bit, so I am hopeing she is the one who removed it or she will be upset the next time she goes. I noticed that someone had put some cut red roses there, but they were already dead flowers when I saw them. Now I am wondering which one left them-- almost sure to be either one of our girls, or maybe the granddaughter went and her or her bro from Florida might have left them. I know this grandson gave me some beautiful cut flowers when he stopped to see me, so maybe he also visited his grandfather with flowers. Hadn`t seen him in over 5 yers. These wonderful grandchildren are the children of my step daughter.

When I left there I went over to water the flowers on my brother-in-laws. A lot of walking to go to all these places. By then I was tired , but still didn`t want to head back home. So I decided to drive down to my oldest bros home. I visited with them, then went down the same road to visit first with my other older bro and then across the road to visit with a sister and her husband. I left for home just in time to make it home before it got dark.

It felt good to get away from the house and visit with family. I really should do it more often. I noticed my cars muffler is getting to sound louder, so guess I better get that checked. I have a wonderful Tec who will check it for me for nothing-- he is engaged to one of my daughters and they are planning on getting married next year. Just waiting for a nice day when it isn`t raining for him to crawl under the car. I always keep large sections of cardboard for them to lay on under a car.

Well, guess that covers yesterdays travels.