Dot`sThoughts

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Ever notice all the creaky and funny noises you here when you are in the house alone. I don`t just mean those you might hear at night, but those you hear in daylight.
I was sitting here working on a 1,ooo piece picture puzzle.This puzzle is a hum-dinger. Now, don`t ask me where I picked up that word " hum-dinger", because i have known it so long that i don`t know where I picked it up.Must have been from either my father or one of his brothers or sisters, because it isn`t one you would have heard mt mother`s family use. But then, when i think about it, one of their husbands might have. The more I think about it, it probably came from my Dad. Well, ever do a puzzle where the pieces often fit more than one place. That is three sides might fit. Then you wonder is this piece in wrong, or is it the piece that fits the other side which doesn`t fit the pieces next to it. OH, what a mess. I finally have the blue sky, the grass, the barn and the trees finished. I hunted for a long time for one certain piece and had one extra green piece that wouldn`t fit in the one green empty space. I did some hunting and finally found a piece already in that I could switch and ended doing the green.
Now what it left is over 500 pieces of mountains- dark blue, black, purple, pinkish all over them. But since the colors change, even on the same piece, it is a hard job knowing what might go where.
When a daughter stopped in yesterday and I showed her what little I had done, her reply was " Bet you will glue that one together once it is finished". Who knows, I just might do that since it is a barn scene with mountains in the background. It would fit well with my country/ horse pictures already on that wall. Some of those pictures are actually puzzles I have done. One is in the shape of a horse and has lots of horses, eagles, trees, water, mountains , colored sunset, and more all over the body of that huge horse. That one has only 800 pieces. but is three feet long from the mouth to the tip of the tail and is 24 1/2 inches high from the feet to the top of the mane. It had no outside pieces to help, running shaped legs , flowing mane, ears erect, head held proud in the air as it runs, somewhat of a puzzle to figure it out. A puzzle that is a puzzle to solve. Many of the actual pieces were shaped like a horseshoe. It is called "Sedona Gallop" by John Van Straalen. Made by the Spiklsbury Puzzle Co.. Think I will look up his name on the net and see what other paintings he might have done.

Well, guess I did get far from those noises I was hearing. Funny, right now I can only hear the freezer running, a dog barking out back, two clocks which are out of tune with each other. One sounds like someone lightly knocking on the door ( glad it is in front of me and the door is behind me), the other has a tick , tick, tick, tick sound as the hands move. The birds are brightly chirping outside my window. I looked out and saw them sitting on my electrical wires where they connect to the pole on the edge of my house roof. I can hear a light hum noise coming from the electric heater sitting behind me ( yes it is still too chilly here in my kitchen). Oh, now the freezer has stopped and the frig is running. That reminds me of when kids would phone someone and ask them "Is your refrigerator running " and when they answered yes, they would tell them " you better go catch it then". Another one was "Is your refrigerator door open?' "You better go close it- your salad is dressing". There sure were a lot of others. They have been around a mighty long time. They must have started with my generation since phones weren`t around with single service when I was real young. It was all party lines back then so no one would have dared to try playing jokes on them as too easy getting caught. Party lines would be sure to reveal who was making the calls and you could be sure they would have told your parents. I came home from grocery shopping one time and heard one of my sons saying them on the phone. So, other parents must also remember them for the next generation to know them. Wonder if any of the younger generation has made those calls? My grandchildren or great grandchildren`s generation.
To get back to the noises, I usually don`t hear all these noises because I either have music playing or the TV running. Some days the quiet gets to me, so even though I seldom actually watch the TV, I still put it on just to hear some voices back in the house.
Yesterday we had rain instead of snow for a change. So, the splatter noise on the windows and the drip, drip noise on the kitchen roof added to the other noises. Walt always wanted a tin roof so he could fall asleep listening to the rain on the tin roof. Me, all a tin roof meant is a rusty roof unless you kept painting it - so a lot more work. But, must admit that if he had wanted it real bad, he would have had it. I seldom said no-way unless it was over something much more important than my not wanting a tin roof. The rain did a good job of lowering the snow banks and I can even see some grass starting to show in the little woods across the road from my house. Good, maybe spring weather is finally going to show it`s shiny head in place of old man winter constantly reminding us with more snow as soon as we thought the last snow might disappear. I`m not saying the snowy season is over for good yet, as we have had snow in the past as late as in April. I hope not this year. I am ready for some nice weather so I can safely get outside enjoying myself and uncovering the rose bushes and having the flowers and trees starting to bud. Isn`t spring lovely with everything starting to grow again? Of course that means using allergy meds, but I still love seeing everything waking up after the long winters sleep.
Now the furnace noise has added to the other noises, It sure is never silent even when there is noone making a sound. I even hear the click of my keyboard and now there is a dog barking on the other side of the road and the one out back has stopped. Looking thru the trees across the road i can see someone walking, so the dog must be barking at him. Maybe not, as he went into his house and the dog continues.
Well, it is after 12:30 and my stomach is telling me it wants some food. So, guess I will post this and go find something to eat. Of course as soon as Sassy hears me moving around, she will hit the kitchen begging "What`s for me". She thinks every time I am in the kitchen I am supposed to be feeding her again and again. No wonder she weighs over 50 pounds. She does a lot of pouting since I cut down some of her treats so she wouldn`t get heavier. She has finally learned what " No, you are all done, now it is my turn" means. She will hang her head, look mornfully at me and walk back into the other room. Boy is it hard not to keep giving in to her. She is worse than a kid. Vet says her teeth are real healthy for a dog her age, but with all the chews she gets to clean them, they should be strong and healthy. If only there was a food that could cure her cataracts, I would be pushing it at her. Many people have told me that dogs can make out pretty good with cataracts, but I feel so sorry for her. I know what she is going thru, but then I never knew mine were as bad as they were before I had them removed from both eyes. My Dr told me he could have given me papers for the legally blind as they were that bad. He said he couldn`t understand how both my eye Dr and my reg. Dr. did me wrong that way. He said they both should have recognized eyes with cataracts as bad as mine were. Wish there was a cure for my Diplopia ( double vision) and Sassy`s cataracts. I checked on the web and read they can do dogs eyes, but it is so expensive and by then the dogs are too old already to be going thru an operation like this. Some times you just can`t win no matter how hard you try.

Jac, Here are a couple pictures of the Amnerillas. This one had three large blossoms on the one stalk.

Yesterday, I came across the paper where one of my Daughters first put me on line. I remember wondering how hard it might be to learn all I would need to know to make good use of her hard earned money. I look back and am surprised how easy it was to learn. WOW, that was over 7 years ago. Time sure does fly by.

The same Christmas she put me on line, she also put in Cable for her Dad. She insisted on paying for it for the first year, but continued until her Dad passed away. Since then I have still kept both the internet and the Cable. How she managed to win that battle was easy. She gave us the money on every Holiday, Birthday and Christmas. I must admit that it did bother me. I kept telling her to keep the money, that she had better places to spend her money. She was raising her two children alone and everyone knows how expensive raising kids can be. Today she is a grandmother of 4.

Thinking of grand children and great grandchildren makes me realize how many of our grandchildren Walt never had the chance to meet. Six great grandchildren who never had the chance to meet their grandfather who would have loved them dearly. Most of the other great grandchildren were so young that they probably won`t remember him as time goes by. I was about 14 when my step-father passed away. What I remember most about him was that he had a glass eye that seemed to just keep staring at you all the time you were talking to him. If only they had invented the eye replacements that looked real, back then. I wonder if maybe they might have been able to replace his eye with a working eye. How different my memories of him might have been. The other thing I remember most was his Funeral. I had an older sister who was in High School at the time. I remember my Mother saying she shouldn`t have to lose a day of school to sit with her at the funeral Home. So, my father asked me if I would be willing to do it. How could I say anything but yes when my Dad was doing the asking. I knew how bad he felt that he couldn`t take the day off work to be with my Mom. There were sisters and brothers of my Mother there with my Grandmother, so I never could understand why Mother needed one of us kids there. My first Funeral. One I will never forget. I was the only kid there except for a few who came and left with their parents. So, there I sat with my mother, grandmother, Aunts, Uncles and some of their husbands and wives. I was expected to sit still in that chair which was right in the front row in front of the casket. I remember sitting there wishing I could get out of the room, or at least sit somewhere else so every time I looked up I wouldn`t see my grandfather laying there. Both of my real grandfathers, plus my other grandmother had passed away long before I was born. So, all I ever knew was my Mother`s Mom and her step Father.

I hope my grandchildren remember more pleasant things about their grandfather. I remember how he (Walt) often would pick up one of them and hold them on his lap while he watched TV, and the time he cut out some paper dolls for a granddaughter at one of her Birthday Parties when she was small. I remember him playing with them and joking around with them. I remember him telling them he had their nose while he had one finger poked up between two fingers and wiggling the finger. When they were little they often would feel to see if their nose was still there, or even tell their mother to make grandpa give back their nose. He once told a granddaughter, who at the time was living with us, that she couldn`t go outside as it was dark out and the monster would get her. She got so scared that I had to calm her down. I told her to shut the door or grandpa would get her because grandpa was our monster. That got her laughing and telling her Grandpa that he was the monster. He felt bad. He never thought he would scare her. He watched what he said to the little ones after that.

A few days ago my oldest daughter brought up the time her Dad cut out the paper dolls. She told me she still had the picture she took of him cutting out the paper dolls. Funny how some things remain in your memory while others which might have been even more important might be forgotten. I have a picture of him holding two of those large monkeys that came on sticks so you could make their arms and legs move. We had taken a vacation to North Carolina to visit the step-son and his wife and kids. The two granddaughters had just received the monkeys a couple days before we arrived. They showed them to their grandfather and left them on his lap. I couldn`t resist, I took the picture of the three of them with the monkeys.

After we closed the bike shop, the grandkids often showed up asking their gramp to fix something on their bikes. This made Walt feel so loved and needed. Even after he retired, kids sometimes showed up asking him to look at their bike. I remember one lad showing up at the funeral parlor with his wife. He walked over to tell me how sorry he was and said " You probably don`t remember me". Of course I did. He had been in my Cub Scouts and also in Walt`s scout troop when he was just a kid. He was so surprised that I still knew who he was and he told me he will never forget all he learned from Walt and I . It felt good to know all our hard work was appreciated and that he wanted his wife to meet me.

Last week my daughter who lived next door told me my cellar light was on. I asked her if she was making up for all the times her Dad used to tell her that. She laughed and said he also kept telling me to keep everything away from the furnace. She had some boxes packed down cellar and he was always reminding her not to put any near the furnace area. The kids were always calling to ask their father for help with something, like the furnace or pump, or car. But if it had to do with re-pairing or building, then they usually came to mother. Dad was great at helping, but he was more of a cobbler, while I was more on taking the time to do it right. Had one neighbor who once rented from us who would call Walt every time a fuse blew. He thought She was afraid to unscrew and re-screw in a new fuse. One time her little son told me his mom was waiting for Walt to get home from work as she had blown another fuse. So. I went over and changed the fuse for her. She acted mad, so then I started wondering what she was up to. I later found out that she was using the fuse problem to get him to lower the rent. I decided to bring home all the extra fuses , plus remove any old blown ones left around the cellar. I didn`t believe she was blowing any fuses at all. The next time, just before the rent was due, she again asked Walt to put in a fuse. When he got there and found no fuses, he asked me where the fuses went to. I asked the neighbor where she put the fuse she had removed. She had tossed it in the garbage. I went and took it back out, and of course when I screwed it back in, it worked fine. That was when Walt finally believed what I was telling him. He thought I was just jealous of him helping her, --he was way too trusting. After that time, she never called about a blown fuse again. But, we decided to update the electrical box with breakers because we no longer trusted her. We often noticed she was taking off with another guy while her husband worked and she was leaving her three kids alone. I kept a close watch to be sure they were alright. They were usually playing with my youngest daughter anyways. I knew it wouldn`t be long before one of her kids would tell their Dad. One time their Dad told me to come over the next night when he got home so he could pay me the rent. When he tried to give me the full amount ( before Walt lowered it), he was surprised when I gave him back some. He told me he wondered what she was doing with the extra money since he was giving her the full amount for us every ,month. Guess he started asking his kids where mommy went. They moved soon after he heard and he started buying a home for them. He hoped moving away from the one she was running with might help. Well, it wasn`t much over a year before I heard he filed for Divorce, guess she never changed. He told me once that he would support his two, but he was no longer going to support the last one that wasn`t his, he said it was time the real father supported her. I asked him if he was sure she wasn`t his, he said positive as he knew she was running before this and had an op so he couldn`t be left with more kids to raise if she ever left them. I told him that I had heard of times when the op didn`t work, so he went for another check-up. I hated seeing a little girl getting hurt if there was any possibility that he was wrong. He was a nice lad. He passed away a few years ago. His daughters and son are all grown with families of their own today.
Today, my daughter owns that house so I no longer have to handle the repairs or other expenses for that home. Walt and I had decided to leave the house to her in our Wills. She had lived there , paying us rent, for many years. With what she paid us, she could have easily boughten herself a house. I decided to give it to her before I died so she wouldn`t have any problems with the others. Rumor had it that the step-son was talking. Only responsible for my own place now. One less thing to worry about. And it is nice having family living next door to me should I ever need help.

Expecting snow again. A couple days ago I had my daughter re-strap my shoulder so I could drive my car the 2-3 miles to the grocery store. When I got home I used the wide ice scraper to break up some more of the top ice coating off my kitchen roof. Last year I stopped climbing thru the upstairs window onto the kitchen roof to paint the end of the house or to shovel the kitchen addition roof off. But, I can still use the long handled wide ice scraper thru the upstairs open window. Under this ice coating was about 4-5 inches of snow that was left from the last snow storm. I knew the snow wouldn`t melt off unless the thick ice coating was broken up enough to allow the sun to reach the snow underneath.

I never realized all that snow and ice were still covering the roof until I happened to go upstairs to check on all the Amerilla flower plants I keep up there thru the winter. They require a few months rests in a dark cool place to enable them to re-flower the next year. Well, it is cooler in that bedroom, but the large desk the Amerillas sit on is not in a dark place, but in front of the south window. I seem to get just as many flowers with them sitting in front of the window as I did when I had the desk sitting in the dark in the attic part. I water them very sparingly during the winter months. They all go outside for the summer.

Over a week ago, I brought down three plants in different stages of flowering. The first plant had two blossoms , which have since died. The double flowers on the second plant are slowly dying now. The third plant has three blossoms still in the opening process. I love those beautiful large flowers. In the past I have had some with four huge blossoms on one stalk.

This morning I went upstairs to see if any more plants were getting to bud. While up there, I again checked out the north window in another bedroom and all the ice and snow are finally off the kitchen addition roof. I am so glad the snow from the last storm is finally gone before we get the next snow storm this week-end. It was worth the work breaking up some of the thick ice coating. it rained all last night and all morning which helped to melt the snow off the roof. And, this week-end it will probably be all back, ice and all. I can`t wait for Spring to get here. Next week should be the first day of Spring and here we are expecting snow. As they said on the TV, we didn`t have snow for Christmas, so we are getting it for St. Pattricks day. Crazy weather.

Last week I wasn`t on my blog because there was a lot going on. First my bro who had the leg re-moved fell getting out of the shower and the Ambulance took him to the hosp.. One of my daughters came over to see if I needed a ride to the bank for anything. Told her yes, but I had just received a phone call saying they sent my bro in the Ambulance. So off we went to the bank and on to the hosp., where we stayed with my bro while they did x-rays. Luckily no broken bones, just a bad contusion over his ribs on the left side of his back. Badly bruised, swollen and blood under the skin, so will be sore for quite a while. We ended up giving him a ride back to his home. He might get his prothesis on Friday. I hope the painful back and shoulder don`t prevent him from starting the walking exercises.

On Monday my step-son had a heart by-pass at a Hosp about 50-55 miles from home. and on Tues. a d-in-law who lives in N.J. had more stints put in to allow the blood to flow better to her heart. Both are doing well.

My oldest daughter has her elbow badly swollen and bruised from falling on ice in her yard when she was heading off to be at the hosp. with her step bro. She badly damaged that same elbow while working a few years ago, so I was glad she finally went and had the x-rays done. Thank goodness she didn`t break it again. She was the daughter who was taught at therapy how to tape up my shoulder, so this last time I had to ask another daughter to do the taping for me. Seems like there is never a dull moment when you have a large family. They sure keep me worrying, but they are all worth it.

I can finally look at my kitchen floor without feeling ashamed of it. Stripping it did the trick. One son told me he has some professional wax I can have. Told him, I wanted to re-do the floor once more before putting on the wax. But first, I will need to get back to the wood place where I found the good Armstrong professional stripping that worked so well. I had tried many floor cleaning solutions in the past with no luck. So, I want to go back for the same kind again. Find something that works- stick with it is my motto.

Today, March 8, 2007, was a weird day.

It started out with the phone ringing while I was on the computer. I have Call Wave on my comp. so I won`t miss any important calls.
Today, I was really glad I was on the comp for Call Wave to answer my telephone for me.

The first call gave a strange phone number that started with "+52". Since we have no numbers with that strange beginning, I didn`t answer it. It left no message and after they hung up, call wave said the call came from Mexico. I know no one in mexico.
Next came an 800 number that I also didn`t recognize. It also left no message. The 800 is usually someone selling something.
About an hour after the first two, was a call from our local neewspaper. Since I know my account with them is paid ahead, I wasn`t interested in what they were trying to sell.
So, today, I was thankful I had call wave answering the phone for me.

But this was just what happened this morning. Afternoon wasn`t much better.

About an hour ago I finally went out to the mailbox to get my mail and todays newspaper. One envelope was for Walt. It came from the US District Court Jury Administrator. When I opened it, I found it was a questionaire for Walt to fill our for jury Duty. In July it will be 5 years since he passed away. Shows how little they keep their records up to date.
But the best part was where it gave information what to do if the person is deceased. It said to write Deceased on the questionaire and mail it back in the provided envelope. Since it was from the US District court addressed to Walter, can others legally open it? I know I could have just written Deceased on the envelope and have it returned to sender, but without opening it I had no idea what was in the envelope.
If no one is supposed to open other peoples mail, is the deceased supposed to write deceased on it and mail it back? Why don`t they just have a place on the outer envelope where you can check if the person no longer lives at that address telling you to return it to the sender if undeliverable or not living? Would be much politer than upsetting a loved one as it sometimes can do. You see I went thru this before a few months after Walt passed away. I could understand them still having him on their mailing list back then, but almost 5 years later?

Oh! I forgot to tell you that it had to have been left in the wrong mailbox first, as It was partly opened and I could see someone had already opened it and tried to reseal it. They tore the flap and tried to glue it back closed. This doesn`t bother me as most people have opened someone else`s mail by mistake at one time or another. I remember one time when I was opening my mail and noticed one was for someone else from the Welfare part that handles baby formula. Since that time, I usually make a point to check the name and address on each envelope before opening it to be sure it belonged in my mailbox.
Well, I did as they asked and wrote deceased on the questionaire and tomorrow I will mail it back to them. Hope they are smart enough to remove his name from their mailing list so I don`t need to go thru it again in a couple years.

I used to get other peoples mail a lot , a few years ago. It was happening so often that I finally called the post office. When the girl answered, I told her I was getting tired of delivering their mail up and down our road for them.
She asked me if I was one of their regular delivery people. I told her "if you are asking if I am one of your paid mail people, no I am not. But I get everyones mail left in my mailbox and I am tired of delivering them into their correct boxes." She checked to see who our real mail person was for our street and told me she would leave a note in his box. She also apologized for the mistakes. I told her she didn`t owe me an apology as it wasn`t her fault. Guess her note helped as I didn`t get wrong mail for a long time after that phone call. Plus that mailman didn`t last long. So, I figure others must also have complained about his service. Long before i made the phone call, I had even added a message to the postman saying " Please don`t delivery mail to this box for anyone except.. and I wrote Walt1s and my names. But it didn`t do any good.

A long time ago when we were younger and raising 5 kids, the Internal revenue sent us a paper asking us how we claimed 5 kids on our Federal Income Tax return. I wrote all their names and ages again, telling them they were our children. But the day before I mailed the paper back I saw in the newspaper that another Walter had died in a town miles from us and he was 92 years old. So, I reopened the envelope and asked if they might be confusing us with the one who was 92 and lived in Indian Lake. It must have solved the problem as we never again heard from them about it.

Then a few months ago I received a call asking for Walt from The NY City police Dept asking for donation . It was the same voice that had called me at least three times in the past 4 years. Each time I told him again that Walt had passed away. Each time this fellow told me to put Walt on the phone. He told me that Walt would give him a Donation . I had hung up on his rudeness in the past. This time I was still going to Therapy for my shoulder and I was in a lot of pain when he called and I told him again that Walt had passed away, and still he insisted that i put him on the phone. Again he said if I let him talk to Walt , Walt would give him the Donation. I finally had enough. I told him if he wanted to talk to Walt, then he better go to the Moss Street Cementary in Hudson Falls and if he thinks he can get money from him there, be my guest and then I told him to never call here again or I would turn him in for harassment and I hung up. Same voice, same rude man each time. I give to our local Police Benevaliant dept. to help give a better Christmas to poor needy kids in our area. I also donate to the Marines for the same purpose and to the Ones who help our disabled service people. But, after all I have gone thru with the rudeness of that fellow, I do not give to the NY City police dept..

March 2, 07

This evening when I went to shut the window shutters in the dining side of my kitchen , I noticed there is a full moon out tonight. I remember we used to call a full moon - a lover`s moon. Funny how I never before wondered how that expression started. Guess you just take things as they come when you are young. Age seems to get you more curious about things. When you think about it, small kids are curious and always asking questions. We feel it is good because it is their way to learn. Then comes the teen-age years when some think they know a lot and don`t need to be asking anymore. Then as we get older, we again start to want answers to questions.
To get back to the light of the full or lover`s moon, who decided to connect it with lovers?
I wonder if it comes from the fact that you can see better with a full moon even though the moon doesn`t light up a lot, like turning off the bright lights in the house and seeing with the soft glow of lit candles.
Another question emerges- "Who started the expression of using lit candles for a more Romantic evening?"

Funny what goes thru your head when you are sitting around doing nothing. Guess being laid up with the shoulder is giving me way too much time to think.
Today is one of my sister`s birthday. I called to tell her Happy Birthday, but no one was home. Maybe her husband took her out for supper. I hope so. Or maybe they went someplace with our younger sister since I heard she is back home from Florida-where she was visiting our oldest sister. Now is that getting a bit confusing. I have one older sister and two younger sisters. I`ll have to try reaching her later this evening. I usually go to see her on her birthday, but still can`t drive my car that far yet. I did mail her a card and added an angel pin with her birthstone on it. Mailed it a couple days ago, haven`t heard yet if she has received it. Hope it reached her today.

When I awoke this morning it was snowing, but a few hours later the snow had turned to sleet and tiny hail stones. My daughters intended plowed me out about 6 am before he went to work and then about 8 am and again at 4 pm my daughter came over and shoveled the ice coating off the driveway before it hardened on too much. Have you ever heard of pouring hot water with dish detergent in it over your porch steps to keep the ice from forming on them? Well, a friend gave me this tip a few years ago. At first I thought it sounded crazy. I thought that once the water cooled off it would freeze and cover the steps with solid ice. So, the first time I just tried it on the back porch steps that are seldom used in the winter. I was soo wrong. It must be the dish detergent that keeps the water from freezing and doesn`t allow any ice to form . I use Dawn dish detergent, but I am sure other makes will also work. On real bad days, I sometimes pour the hot water/dish detergent solution over the steps a second or third time. But today, the once did the job. I poured it over all three sets of porch steps. One good thing about this mixture is it never ruins my floors if it gets tracked in.

Well, I hope someone somewhere is taking advantage of this full moon and using it as a good excuse to act romantic with the one they love. I used to get a smile from Walt when i would tell him there is a full moon out tonight. Do you think the coyotes are howling at the moon tonight. Don`t have coyotes where I live so if they are, someone else will have to tell me. A few years ago they re-stocked our mountains with wolfs. My son has seen a few where he lives in the mountains. Noone who lives near the mountains wanted them back, but the state did it just the same. Guess they forgot why the wolfs had disappeared years ago. The wolves were killing livestock and families pets. But those bright people who decided to re-plenish them here will never need to worry as they all live miles and miles from the mountains.
Seems like the state is good at changing things in areas where they don`t live and don`t seem to take the feeling of the ones who do live here into consideration. Like they are planning on changing the two lane road near the northway exit into four lanes. Boy, will that cause problems. It is hard now to turn onto that road with all the traffic. So they think adding two more lanes will help with the traffic. As far as I can see, it will just make it more impossible to get to the other side with three lanes to cross. If you can`t get across one lane to the other side, how will adding two more lanes to cross make it easier. It may move the traffic faster off the northway, but it sure will cause bigger problems for us who live her and need to be able to cross that traffic to get to the other side of the road. There is little we drive to above us and so most all traffic needs to cross to the other side of that road to get anyplace.
About twenty years ago the state made a circle in the center of a small city near us and the people who lived there tried to stop it. Well, I read last summer that the state has now decided that circle is causing too many accidents so they want to remove it. I wish there was a law that anyone who works in that department has to live at least 5 years in an area before they can vote to change things there. Would be a lot less messed up changes done.
Well, that large full moon is being wasted at my home. Hope it is bringing smiles for others.
I just looked out the window and it is so foggy out that i can hardly see the house on our corner, but that moon is still shining up there even if it is looking a bit smaller now. Was in the east, and now it is almost overhead above my house.

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

I found a site where you can have fun playing a piano. It even has the extra instruments to use if you want their sound added.
Here is the site for anyone who would enjoy trying it out:

Virtual Keyboard
The instruments are: Piano, Organ, Saxophone, Flute, Pan Pipes, Strings, Guitar, Steel Drums and Double Bass.
Below that you have Drum Beats 1 through 6 that you can choose from and below that are the keys of the keyboard.
On the left hand side, you’ll find three buttons: Chord Mode, Play Chord and Instructions.
The Instructions page will pop up and explain how this works and how you can use your keyboard to play the keys on the piano. You can also get a great description on how the Chord Mode works.
Either way, it was a lot of fun to try and remember how to play the piano from brief lessons in high school. I think this would be a great site for kids to play around with too. Have fun!
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/res...piano/index.htm
Have fun!!!!!
=====
I did go in the site and play for a while. I own a large Lowry floor model organ with the genie 88 which has loads of Instruments and other settings. Must admit that I don`t play it as often as I did when Walt was here to tell me he enjoyed hearing me play. I am no pro, but he still liked hearing me play. I remember the day I put on my head phones while playing so I wouldn`t drown out the western he was watching on TV. Think it was a Tom Mix one that day. I had never seen a Tom mix western before they came on TV. When I started going to the saturday afternoon movies Gene Autry was popular and a few years later Roy Rogers and Dale Even`s westerns came to the movies. So, Tom Mix was before my time. Ever hear the saying "What ever happened to andolf Scott". One day when my Husband said it, I asked him " Who the devil is Randolf Scott". He thought it strange that Ihad never heard of him as Walt only 5 years older than me. I guess a lot happened in those 5 years before I was born- Randolf Scott, Tom mix, and others.
Well, to get back to the headphones-- Walt came out from the livingroom, picked up the earphone on my right ear and asked ' Whats the matter, you don`t want me to hear you playing anymore?" I told him Ijust knew he liked the westerns and I didn`t want to drown out the voice on him. He then told me he had seen that movie before and would rather hear me play. Needless to say, I never put on the earphones again when he was in the house to hear me play
I went thru a lot to learn to play. Started out learning how to play the piano. I was a teenager at the time. When my older sister ( 2 yrs older) wanted to play piano, she was given 2 years of lessons with Virginia Murry who was the tops in our area. A couple years later when I wanted to learn, there just wasn`t money to pay for my lessons. it wasn`t just a line, as my brother had spent over a year in the hosp. and my parents had huge bills, plus they took out 2 mortages on their home to help pay the hosp bill. So, I was sure my learning was not going to happen.

Then an older cousin who was both a school teacher and a music teacher asked me if I would be willing to help clean her home for free piano lessons. Boy! Would I !! So , every Sat. morning for a whole year I rode the same sister`s bike ( I never owned a bike) up to my cousins home about 2-3 miles away. I went up and house cleaned to pay for my music lessons. I will never forget those velvet feel couch and chair in their living room. So beautiful, but they picked up the lint from all the music students coats and jackets. It seemed as fast as I got them real clean, another music student would arrive, toss their jacket onto either the couch or chair and I would need to clean them all over again. Even sitting on them often left lint from their clothing. The kind of furniture you wished had a plastic covering over them. I promised myself that I would never buy a set with that material covering it. But I can still remember how beautiful and rich looking it was. My cousin had one of those coat racks for them to hang their coats on, but there was always a few who just tossed it down. I thought they probably weren`t taught to take care of their coats at home . They probably just tossed them on the first empty chair. Of course I knew I could be wrong since I had never been in most of the homes. But I felt it showed lack of respect for other peoples property the way some slumped all over the furniture. I even saw some putting their feet up on the couch just to tie a shoestring. While we had nice furniture, we didn`t have that kind of expensive furniture in our home, but we were still taught to keep our shoes off the furniture.
Well, to get back to the paino lessons. I had a full year of lessons and learned a lot from my cousin. I will always be grateful to her for giving me a way to have lessons. I knew she couldn`t just give me the lessons free as there were way too many other relatives that would have also expected her to teach their kids for nothing. A few years after I got married, once we had built our own home, my father gave me the piano I learned on. Many years later after my oldest daughter was married and owning her own home, Walt bought me a small organ. A few years later he bought me a much larger and more costly organ. That was when I gave my fathers piano to my oldest daughter. I just didn`t have room in my home for both that large up-right piano and the larger Lowry organ. Years ago, he wanted to trade my lowry in for a new modern organ that had just the push spots like a microwave instead of keys. He felt it would be much easier with the arthritis in my hands getting worse. My older sister had the newer model and was soo confused trying to figure out the newer style rythms. It was so different. I told her she should have accepted the free lessons that came free with it. But, when I was going to take those free lessons with mine, the teacher ended up telling me I already knew more than she did, so maybe my sister would have been told the same thing. Who knows? I knew I could have played the newer organ, because I had figured out enough to help my sister begin playing hers. But, the one thing I noticed most was the great difference in the tone of the notes and rythms and I liked my Lowry sound so much better than my sisters newer one that I decided to keep the one I had. I did try out one in the Music store and while it was easy to play, I still prefered the one I had. So, I thanked my husband for his nice thought and he understood why I didn`t want the newer more expensive organ. I remember my sister`s husband once telling me that my sister never played her organ anymore. Maybe she would also have been better off keeping her older model that she was playing a lot. I felt the newer one just was too over-powering to her with too much left to figure out. Maybe if we had lived closer I might have helped her feel more comfortable playing her new organ. But we live about a three hour or so away from each other. In the winter she lives in Florida and is lots farther away.
The first organ I ever played on belonged to an Aunt. It was so beautiful and had the tall pipes above it like the old Church organs. It was large like the old church organs. This was before I learned to play. I never understood my Aunt letting us kids play or should I say strum on it since none of us knew how to play it, but she was the sweetest person. I am sure she was glad when I knew how to play instead of just making up the tones I played. I think I played on it more than the others who visited them. I sure loved that organ, but it sure needed a large place to hold it. My Aunt lived in an old large farmhouse. After my Aunt died, I once asked my cousin what her dad ever did with her moms organ. She said she had asked her dad for it only to find he had already sold it to one of his friends. He wouldn`t give her the organ, but still she was the one who took him in and cared for him during the last few years of his life. Even though he wasn`t a good husband or a good father, my cousin was a wonderful daughter and her Mom ( my Mom`s sister) was a sweetheart. My cousin took after her Mom. Even she is gone today.
Well here I sit with a full load of cloths waiting to be removed from the dryer and folded and put away. So, guess I better get up and get something done. Had to have my daughter come down and re-tape my shoulder as using it so much was sure making it ache again. this morning I was able to do the band exercises a little easier with the shoulder taped. Guess it isn`t healed as good as I thought it was. I read on line that it takes about 6 months to be fully healed and it has only been about 3 1/2 months now, so maybe I am trying to rush things too fast. Guess I need to learn more patience if I want it to heal properly. I want to get back working in my wood shop soo much. Have that large work bench over half done and so want to finish making it. But, I am thankful I was able to finish the 7 tables for the kids Christmas gifts before I fell. Glad I started making them long before Christmas. I was also happy that all the kids loved receiving them