Dot`sThoughts

July 3, 2011 , Family Re-union Picnic

2011-07-10T21:16:00.002-04:00

This year our family re-union picnic was held at my sister Ginny`s ( Virginia).
We held our Family re-union this year on July 3rd. About 66 attended. I can remember when we would often half as many as 150 attending years ago. Each family re-union is another reminder of all those loved ones who are no longer with us. Seems as we lose more loved ones, we also have more new little ones attending. So many new ones for every one to meet, some for the very first time. Must admit that this year many of the new ones were from my family. But there was also a few new ones for me to finally see. Since every one brings something to eat, there were many different kinds of food and always some left over. There must have been at least 18 to 20 little ones, but not even one argument nor one ending up crying. They all played together and got along great – both with the ones they had known and also with those they had just met. Great watching them playing together and getting along so great together, all different ages laughing and enjoying spending the whole day together.
Rained , sometimes real hard, even a little thunder a couple times. Thought the day was going to be cut short when we first heard the thunder, but it stayed off in the distance and stopped almost as fast as it started, but the rain did continue. Glad it was a warm day so the rain wasn`t a chilly rain. A nephew brought a huge
tarp where he set up all the chairs and tables under. So, there was a place for everyone to get in out of the rain when we had the downpours, but the kids were loving running around chasing each other in the lighter rain.
Some had to drive about 4 hours to attend, glad they made it. Food was delicious. Nothing like having pot luck picnic style food filling three picnic tables. The grills were kept busy cooking meat. Of course hot dogs and hamburgers were the favorites. Everyone seemed to like what the others had brought. Some good cooks in our family. Some of the younger ones were making food to bring for the first time.
One granddaughter laughingly said “ gram, I forgot we are now adults and it is our turn to start bringing food”. LOL. For many years they had been our younger children and only the adults brought food- a dish large enough to feed your own family was expected for sharing.. Now they have grown and are also the adults with a family of their own, so it is now their place to add to the food quantity.
It was great seeing my grandson driving his own car with his mother ( my oldest daughter)as a passenger. He now has the special controls on his car so he can drive using just his hands. He has learned how to put his own wheel chair in and out of his car all by himself. Makes me happy to see him accomplishing so much more all the time. I am so happy he hasn`t given up and is still constantly trying to accomplish more and more. He now works a few hours three times a week which is giving him more confidence in himself and in what he wants for his future. I still haven`t given up hope that one day he will gain back the use of his legs. He sometimes gets feelings which is a good sign. Keeping the prayers going for him and I do believe in the power of prayers.

One great yearly family picnic . Everyone kept remarking on what a great picnic it was and how much fun it was. Already looking forward to next year.

Yesterday, June 26, Bird Watching

2011-06-27T20:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, June 26, 2011, I was wishing I had thought of getting my camera sooner. My back porch is off my laundry room and I keep bird feeders on that porch. I was in the laundry room working with the inside door open, when I noticed a small bird asleep at one of the small feeders. His head was tucked under one wing. Since I had never seen one asleep at any of the feeders before, I kept watching it for quite a while to be sure it was ok. Then I thought to take a picture, but by the time I got back to the door the bird awoke and flew away. If only I had gone after the camera sooner.

A couple weeks ago while sitting in my car in front of a daughters home we saw the cutest thing. It had rained hard the night before and there was a small rain puddle near the end of her driveway. While my daughter was standing outside my car talking with me, I happened to look up into my car mirror. There were two small birds playing in the rain puddle just a few feet from my car. They seemed to be splashing each other and playing together. After a while they stopped and took bathes, wiggling themselves in every direction in the water. Once their bathes were over, they both flew away. I had just came home from the cemetery and dropped my daughter off at her home. We both had our cell phones with us, but neither one of us thought to take pictures. We were having such a good time just watching them. It lasted for 5 minutes or more.

Such wonderful sights to see. Something you seldom see, but am thankful I was lucky enough to be at the right place both times. This year I have seen some new birds showing up that are not usually seen where I live, plus the regulars , many have stayed around my feeders all winter. My husband used to like watching the birds at my feeders. One bird especially pleased him with it`s warble that sounded like it was saying “Whipperwill, Whipperwill, over and over. Never was sure what the proper name was for this bird, but my husband always called them Whipperwills. Wish he was here to have watched the sleeping bird with me and the water playing birds with my daughter and I. He sure would have enjoyed them very much.

Father`s Day, June 19, 2011, Emptied grave decorations

2011-06-26T20:19:00.002-04:00

6/24/11 Father`s Day was Sunday, June 19, 2011 this year.

Fathers day was a great disappointment to some of my family this year. Daughter Theresa, her husband Gino and myself rode down to the Moss Street cemetery in Hudson Falls , where most of my family relations are buried, including my husband. Some of the family had placed objects on his grave, some had been there for nearly 9 years with no complaints. Oldest daughter Linda rode down with me on May 30th and everything was still neatly arranged, just as I had left it on my last visit to the graves. Our stone has a base slightly larger than the top stone, leaving about a 3 inch ledge all around, Items had sat on this ledge over the years. The only rules we ever knew about placing things, was no artificial flowers were allowed. At that time there were also many flags all over the cemetery that were put there by the VFW and other veterans associations for Memorial Day. These flags usually remain for many weeks, but they were also already removed before Father`s Day.

Well, to get back to what was upsetting us so much- When Theresa, Gino and myself arrived on Father`s day, the only items on my husbands was the eternal light and the light that turns on at dusk, plus my homemade wooden planter containing the flowering plants. Things had been removed from everyone`s graves. The once warm friendly cemetery had suddenly looked like a cold barren looking- like those cold military cemeteries you see in pictures. Only difference is there were all kinds and styles of grave stones in place of the crosses you see in the pictures. It took me a couple days to calm down enough to call the Funeral home to see who was in charge of the cemetery. I knew the one in charge also worked at this Funeral Home. I was told that someone had complained to the city and that the city had rules saying no decorations could be placed on any cemetery lots anywhere in that Village. Once someone complained, guess the city had to enforce their rule that apparently was placed on the books many years ago. No one I spoke to had ever heard of these rules. I also was told one light was allowed for each grave, that was why the eternal light and the dusk to dawn light was allowed to remain on our grave lots. Also bothers me that all the planters were set between the stones down the row even with the stones. No one can tell which flowering plants belonged to which stones, the stones on the right side of the stones or the stones on the left of the plants. Flowers setting on the west side of the stones are sheltered by the stone from the hot morning sun so they live longer. Those sitting on the east side would need watering every day to stay alive. But the stones run in rows going from north to south, so the flowers sitting in the open between the stones get the hot sun continually all day, so probably will not last all summer like they have in past years.
I found this out when I asked why the lantern was re moved from my husbands, but the two I placed on my parents, the ones I placed on each of my brother`s were left there. The last time I was down all the flowers in my oldest brother`s urn had died, so I had picked up everything setting on his grave and used them as decoration inside the urn. I noticed none of those were removed. I was also told that the fellow –Paul- would be calling me to set up a time and date for us to pick up the items that had been removed and bagged. He was not working when I called last week, guess I should phone them again since I still haven`t received his call. Some of the items cost a little, so would like to have them returned. I heard it was posted in the newspaper, but I never saw the notices.

Here it is, Sunday, June 26, and I am still feeling up-set over how everything was changed at the Moss Street cemetery. All , because one person complained. Not sure who, or what their complaint was about. Only know it effected everyone who has a loved one in that cemetery. First it cost a lot to buy those two grave lots, and then we paid much more for the nice double heart stone that Walt and I had chosen back when we first bought the lots. I didn`t want our kids to have to go through picking them out and handling everything. I wanted as much already paid for and done as possible ahead of time. When I lost Walt, I was so glad we had done it together. Then to have someone else decide what we could and couldn`t put onto those lots. It seems so unfair. As I told the fellow at the funeral Home, we buy the lots and stone, thinking they then belonged to us, only to learn strangers have more control over them than the owners do. If some were leaving their lots looking messy or unkept, I could understand making them straighten up their lots. Another thing I noticed was that someone had pushed a planter with dead flowers up under one of the bushes on my parents graves. They left two other dead planters sitting in front of my parents stone, plus mine with live flowers sitting where I had set it, behind the stone ( where my mother had always told me she wanted it when I was first just taking them for my Father, so I continued setting the planter there for both of them. Those hadn`t been moved, so why move the planter I put on my husbands. Why different rules, or hadn`t they gotten to that road yet. Will things start disappearing there later, and if so, how will they place that huge urn my sister-in-law placed on my oldest brother`s lot. It sure will not fit in the smaller place between my oldest brother and and my other brother`s stone. What will they do with all the other flower pots that other members had placed on our parents. Will they remove some. I still have a lot of questions to be answered once the fellow in charge calls me back to set up a time and day for me to pick up everything that was removed from ,my husbands.

Well, time to start thinking of happier thoughts since I cannot do anything about the changes, it just upsets me. I told the fellow I did speak to that I am sure that one complainer will be nothing compared to all the complaints they will probably get now from unhappy relatives that visit their loved one and find things removed.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

2011-05-15T16:32:00.002-04:00

Sunday, May 15, 2011
Been quite a while since I wrote in my blog. Been staying busy trying to get a lot of things accomplished. Started my garden seeds
in the house at beginning of March and now have four kinds of tomatoes growing- Beefstock, Delicious, Rutgers and Cherry
tomatoes. Cherry didn`t grow first time, so I planted more, some of which are growing. Cherry seeds not doing as well as they used to. Last couple years they were hard to find locally and the local places also were not selling the cherry tomato plants. Haven`t checked there this year. Had a problem getting zucchini seeds growing this year, usually have good luck with them. Son Walter had good luck this year and gave them to me- said he only grew them because I wanted some. Last week gave some of my tomato and a couple lettuce plants to sister Ginny (Virginia) and her husband Walt. She doesn`t care for zucchini and the pepper plants weren`t large enough yet then. . Yesterday I gave some tomato, lettuce and pepper plants to daughter Theresa and her husband that live next door to me. For the past 5 or 6 years his father has been sending up some tomato plants for me, that he had grown in his greenhouse. He is in his 80`s now and getting too hard for him to work that much in his greenhouse, so he decided to buy his this year. I will always be grateful to him for thinking of me that way. Before that, I used to grow my own.
My youngest great granddaughter finally came home from the Hospital a couple weeks ago and has gained weight and now weight 7 lbs. . Little Lacy Mae whose birth date was expected to be not until July, was born early on Feb. 04,2011, weighing only 2 lb 4.4 oz. She has such nice coloring and is soo active and doing so good now. Went with Theresa and Gino to their trailer yesterday to visit her, her 3 brothers, her mom and dad ( my grandson). Have another new great grandson, Lucas James, born on March 06, 2011. Have only seen pictures of him so far since they live in Virginia. He is beautiful like all my other great grandchildren and also my grandchildren and even my own children. Guess some might say I am prejudiced, maybe I am. . His mom is one of my granddaughters . Never made her wedding because it was around the same time as a grandson ended up in an accident with his motorcycle and was then in bad condition and I felt that his mom, my oldest daughter, needed me more. I would have loved being at her wedding. This grandson is the youngest of my grandsons and today is confined to a wheelchair. Won`t be a year until July, so, God Willing, I am still hoping for a miracle for him to walk again. Seems like there has been more cycle accidents lately, have to wonder if kids are being more careless, or in some cases, maybe some vehicle drivers are showing less respect for cycle drivers. Had two brothers and two sons who owned them for years, but only my youngest daughter owns and rides one today. I do remember how much I enjoyed driving them when I was younger, so can understand them loving it. My youngest daughter works as a Prison guard. I don`t let myself dwell on where she works, that way, I don`t worry as much, especially when I hear on the TV of riots there, or other things happening that causes a lock Down of all prisoners. Youngest son works in Construction, also one to cause worry especially when doing roofs in the snowy or icy winter conditions. Glad I don`t know when he is working outside this way until the jobs are done. Wish all roofs would stay in good condition till warmer weather and all new houses were built also in nicer weather, but then carpenters might end up with no work all winter, and how would they feed their families that way. Makes me feel that all carpenters should receive more gratitude for the dangers they face while building or re-pairing. Then there is talk about closing some schools and some prisons, hope neither one affects the places where another son and the youngest daughter work. Live is getting so much harder for the younger ones with work being less jobs available. Makes me wonder how much things like computers and other inventions have replaced many of the jobs that were available when I was younger. Now they have made it available to pay most bills on line with the computer, what will happen to the post offices and mailmen when less mail is being delivered. You can read the newspaper on line today, so will the newspaper keep being delivered to the door in the future, or will they cut out the delivery jobs ? When I was younger two of my brothers had newspaper delivery routes to earn spending money, then all three of my sons delivered them. Today most delivery people are men driving cars instead of the boys on bicycles. So many jobs being replaced by machines today, leaving less and less jobs for the next generation to find.
Weather is slowly warming up, after such an awful cold winter, now, even getting into the 40`s and 50`s F. seems warm when the wind isn`t blowing. . Worry this might make it harder for people to handle the hotter 80`s and 90`s this summer, when they get here. Hope this cold weather we are still having doesn`t make our garden growing season shorter than usual. Never has lasted long enough to grow as much as we would like to. Cannot plant until after May 30th, due to frost danger, and it starts getting colder usually by September . Only 3 good growing months, can sometimes extend it by covering the plants on Sept. nights. Love having the fresh veggies, and even better when have enough to can or freeze for winter.

All the thinking of starting my garden brings back lots of good memories from when I used to go out and help my mother pulling weeds in her garden. She never once asked any of us kids to help in the garden even though we all enjoyed eating what she grew. We were expected to help with the normal house chores such as sweeping floors and doing dishes, but never asked to help in the garden, rake leaves, shovel snow, etc.. But we often did do them without being asked. I remember thinking how much fun it was working beside my mother in her garden, in her glower beds, or going with her to pick those small delicious wild strawberries and blueberries, or some dandelions greens for her to cook- tasted a lot like spinich the way she cooked them. I remember one time when she was in her 80`s and I drove down to spend time with her. When I arrived I found her in the back room standing up on a step ladder with wall paper thrown over her head to allow her hands to hold the brush (used to press the pasted wallpaper against the wall)as she climb the ladder. I told her to stay on the ladder and I would put the paste on the back of the paper and hand it up to her. That way I was able to hold the paper straight while she used her brush to press it in place on the wall. She had always used pretty patterned wallpaper, often with flowers, so the wallpaper had to be cut wherever it was needed to make the pattern fit together nicely.She was so good at it that the pattern never showed where each sheet stopped and the next one started, always looked like one pretty wall with the extended pattern continuing perfectly. I remember telling her to phone me the next time she planned on doing any such job and I would gladly come down and help her. So glad I enjoyed helping her so much or I wouldn`t have so very many wonderful memories to look back on today. This is the month that always keeps her on my mind, not only is Mother`s Day in May, but my Mother`s Birthday was May 14th (yesterday) and she passed away on May 10th, 1995, just 4 days before her 92nd Birthday. I feel so lucky to have had two wonderful parents with good rules to follow and good reputations and good standards for us to follow- and they let us know we were expected to raise our families with the same goodness. Like the old saying, the name was clean and respected when they gave it to us and we need to keep it that way for our children, which is what all my brothers , sisters and myself managed to do. Feels good just thinking how we never had any bad reputations to live down. Thanks to Mom and Dad for accomplishing that.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

2011-04-10T21:50:00.002-04:00

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Had today all planned before going to sleep last night. Decided to cut out the two shelfs for the smaller kitchen cupboard. Getting to hard to see and get things from the very back. I use this cupboard for things like cereal, spaghetti, macaroni, crackers and other boxed grocery items. So, decided to make a slide out bottom
shelf to bring everything out in sight , so easier to find what I was looking for. Also decided to make an adjustable shelf for turning the cupboard into a two shelf cupboard. Went to the shop and did the first cut. Then when started to do more cutting, suddenly the table saw motor started smoking and there was a screeching sound from the saw. I stopped and hooked up the vaccumn and cleaned as much sawdust off and out from under the saw as was possible. I do this often. Still the smoking continued. Unhooked the saw and disconnected the saw and case from the standard. A granddaughter and her little daughter stopped to visit and she helped me remove the last of the 4 bolts that held the saw case to the standard . It was giving me a hard time. Then I tried blowing the sawdust from the motor, but didn`t do as well a job as I wanted. So, next will be to remove the motor itself to clean it better. Checked table saw book, shows motor parts, but not how to remove it from the table saw framework. Looks like a lot of places that will need undone to remove it. Wish the book had a better description.

While thinking about it, I noticed it started getting too warm in the shop with the heater on. I had been wishing for a warm enough day to wash the car and even though it was only in the 50`s, no wind, sun shining, no storms, so felt warmer than it actually was. So, I decided to let the saw wait for another day and get the car washed and shined. I am finally satisfied with how nice my car looks. My Aveo is a 2009 model, but I bought it in Sept. 2008, so will be 3 years in September that I have owned it and doing my best to keep it looking like new. Took me years of saving to afford it, but was worth waiting for. I love it and the way the bank seat, or just half the back seat can be dropped to make the hatchback trunk long enough for me to carry boards and other larger things for working in my shop. It replaced my over 10 year old hatchback car that was starting to rust just from age.

By the time that was done, I felt too tired to go back to the shop. So, I went on the computer to write in my blog. Had this about half written when the same granddaughter and little great granddaughter stopped to visit again. I do enjoy their visits.They have now gone back to her Mother`s home ( my daughter Theresa) next door. At one time Walt and I had bought that house to keep any more unkind people ( like the ones who had lived there) from ever living there again. We had rented it to many nice people over
the years and then we rented it to this daughter and her family. After losing Walt, I turned the house over into her name. I had previously told Walt that I felt that house should be left to her since she probably could have boughten her own home with the
years of rent money she had paid to us. I also told him that she had been handling all the repairs the last few years which helped us. He finally gave in and we origionally had left her the house
in our wills. But, a few years ago I turned it completely into her name. Never told anyone my real reason for wanting to leave her the house- it was to be sure one of the family was living next door to look out for Walt if something happened to me and he was left to care for himself. I wanted to be sure he ate right and took care of himself. Then it was him who suddenly started having medical problems and it was me who ended up alone. Still helps having her and her husband living there when something comes up that I need
help with. I can phone any of my children and they will come and help me. I feel soo lucky to have such great kids. Of course I should be saying great adults, most are grandparents today.

Seems like we often make plans for what we wish to accomplish the next day, some times we get them all done, but, like today, sometimes we end up changing the plans and still end up with a feeling of accomplishment- just a different accomplishment. Life
is great , I feel, as long as I can continue accomplishing the projects that can make my life or the life of others a little easier. I often find myself silently saying to myself
"Thank you God" when I have been able to do what I set out to do, or even when I find something I was hunting for. This is one trait my family probably never realized. They know I am a believer the way I used to get them ready for Sunday School when they were kids. Later the Church built a new Church farther away from where I live.Must admit that today I watch my Church`s Sunday sermon on the TV.. I believe it isn`t as important where you go to pray, as what you believe.

Remembering Last almost 9 years of Home Repairs

2011-04-08T10:53:00.002-04:00

April 8th, 2011- Posting Date-Remembering Past Repairs- those famous words Remembering Past.

Here it is Wednesday, Aptil 6, 2011
Seems like the work on and in the house is always more work to do. Yesterday I had to repair the kitchen sink drain. Rog had put in the new drain pipes for me about 2 months ago. Two weeks after that it fell apart and Walt came down and re-connected it for me. Now, a few weeks later it slid apart again. This time Walt gave me a new rubber ring washer and I was able to get it back together myself and tightened up better. Should stay together good this time. Last week, Walt stopped on his way to work to replace the drain pipes on the bathroom sink. Now, I am hoping the tub drain lasts a long time since it was put in the same time the sink drain was. When you own your own home, you have to expect things like this. Reminds me of something husband Walt once said. I was trying to get him to have some small house re-pairs done. His reply to me was " It will last as long as we will need it, let whoever gets it next do the re-pairs. Well, I sure have had a lot of house re-pairs done since I lost Walt back in 2002. Have had sons replace the house roofing shingles, the kitchen addition roofing shingles, the leaking shop roof, replace rotton main boards on the back of the house and one outside shop wall. I replaced the bathroom window and framework, painted the bottom half of the house, plus the new shop wall, added insulation to the attic and replaced insulation in the kitchen addition ceiling. Taken down and washed and painted the drop ceiling tiles in kitchen, re-nailed up the falling ceiling sheetrock in the laundry room, fixed the cellar outside door and doorway, bought a new kitchen stove, made cupboards- one bottom cupboard done for kitchen, one sliding door 2 shelf cabinet for bathroom, large 4 door cabinett in living room, made a bookcase style for holding comp items and cassetts etc., made one to hold horse collection, another one to hold canned goods, added mopboard, and door casings and ceiling trim in bathroom, floor standard for holding roll of bathroom tissue at proper height instead of on wall, added high narrow long shelf in kitchen to hold my Horse stein and cup collection, made 7 small close-up tables for kids and myself, replaced top board on back porch railing, added a log shed to side of back porch, made the large covered waste basket for kitchen, new screen and new window framework for double window over kitchen sink, made a 2 shelf cabinet for my wood magazines, made a large plant station for my back porch to hold empty pots and for replanting, made new planter for cementary, made a new large work table for shop and so much more. WOW, I didn`t realize myself how much I have done in the last almost 9 years since I lost him. First project was the huge farm mural I painted that covers two 4 feet by 8 feet garage doors. Started as soon as the sun started coming up and kept painting till could no longer see with the porch light, took three weeks and is what kept me going when I first lost him. Plywood doors are now -almost 9 years later- starting to show a few small crack places. Know he would have loved seeing it, as I had never tried anything this large before. Only had 4 paint colors, but with mixing them was able to make lots more colors. Some times it seems like forever, other times it feels more like 4 or so years without him. Guess time to stop thinking or might be writing here all night.

Next projects should be adding a slide out bottom shelf in the smaller kitchen cabinett ( getting hard bending to floor to reach things in it) and a center adjustable shelf in it, plus making some sort of slanted covering for the outside cellar way so won`t need to worry about the snow melting and possibly flowing into the cellar way. This year was first year I ever had to use boards and cover it to keep the snow out,and was constantly shoveling snow off the boards and back away from the opening. Want to prevent that heavy shoveling there next year in case the time comes when I can no longer do any shoveling. Must always plan ahead as one never knows what the future might bring.

Walt might be surprissed with all I have done since losing him. But, maybe not, since I once overheard him telling someone that I could build a house if I put my mind on doing it. He never knew I heard him that day, never did tell him. I know he was over stating what I could do, but it felt good knowing he was proud of what he had seen me do. That was before I did all listed above. Back then it was little things, like making the two long standards to hold the garden planters up off the ground where I could tend them without bending to the ground, made lawn ornaments which he enjoyed working on with me ( sold a lot of them back then), made wooden planters, had added a separate set of wood steps to side of the side porch for dog to use, made the huge dog house for my beloved Border Collie- she used it for 14 years- still sits out ther in case i get another dog-, and so much more. Those were the kind of things along with helping him replacing sheetrock, painting ceilings and walls and other such house re-pairs with him, that he was talking about. Who knew back then that I would be the one who ended up still owning our home when the repairs needed to be done. So, guess the joke was on me, but then I am very thankful to still own my own home and still be able to stay living in it. Who ever thought I would be almost 80 years old and still able to comfortably live alone without needing someone caring for me. I am thankful to God for that and Pray it continues as long as I do so I never become a burden to my kids.I know they wouldn`t feel that way, but know I would.

Guess all that exercise from doing so much has been good for me as has being able to still grow some of my own fresh garden vegetables with none of those chemicals used to keep store canned good from spoiling. Have been able to either home can or freeze some of my vegetables to help in the winter. I do love garden vegetables much more than store boughten canned ones. Hoping to have good luck growing again this summer. Have some seedlings already growing in the house, waiting for Memorial Day, May 30th to get here for moving the plants outside and being able to start more vegetables in the outside 8 garden Earth Boxes.

Thought worst thing to handle was the night thought I was dying right in bed with Walt, couldn`t talk or move to let him know I was having heart trouble. Then years later , worried when my eyes developed double vision - Specialists said from a minnie stroke-, then having glasses with prisms in them brought the two pictures back into one so I could again work in my wood shop. Last check-up I was told I have a wrinkle in one eye and one now started in the other eye. Then the eye specialist told me he had never seen it before, had no idea what was causing them or what to do for them. Now, my latest prayer is that the wrinkles never get so bad I have to give up using the power tools making items. But, I have two even larger prayer wishes- one for my 20 year old grandson who still has no feelings or movements below the waist from the motorcycle accident he had back in July, 9 months ago, other prayer is for my great granddaughter who was born in Feb., 2 months old on the 4th, who weighed only 2 pound 4.4 ounces at birth and still in Albany Med Hospital preemie ward, so far doing good. God bless them both.
Hope if one day some of the grandchildren or great grandchildren read this it will give them the pat on the back, if needed, to show them that what I have done, they can also do. They should remember they have the same inherited talents that I inherited, who knows, maybe they have lots more that they just never realized. I never grew up thinking I could do as much as I have, learned lots watching others at work. Watching, asking questions, you never know what helpful things you might learn from others. Today I get lots of wood working mags to keep learning better and easier tips for doing things. All that is needed is the love for making things and I sure do love working in both the wood shop and the garden boxes. God give me the strength and wellness to contimue for as long as I am here to enjoy them. I give Thanks to God each time I accomplish something new.

Springtime tomorrow/ March 20,2011- still snow on the ground

2011-03-21T15:08:00.004-04:00

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Mostly in the 20`s Fahrenheit at night and in the 30`s to 40`s days, but days are getting longer and sun is shining brightly out today. 39 degrees F now, colder out then it looks. Been above freezing the past three days, so the snow banks are gradually decreasing. Across the road there are a vew small patches where the grass and dirt are showing. Today is the first day of spring. Weather should start warming up more soon.

Started some of my garden vegetables in the house yesterday- green peppers. three kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, zuchini squash, plus a couple flowers ( sweet peas and morning glories to plant by the side porch). They should be large enough to plant outside by the time the last frost is out of the air. Here we can`t plant a garden until after Memorial Day (May 30th). Also bought other seeds to have them ready when planting time arrives. Hope this year to have more for either canning or freezing for next winters use.

Still praying for grandson Shawn to someday get back the use of his legs. Been 8 months since he crashed his new motorcycle (July ). I know the longer times goes by, the less chance there is, but have seen miracles happen in the past, so am not giving up this soon. He is getting more discouraged every day. Things should improve soon when he can get outside more often.
Also still saying a prayer for my great granddaughter Lacey Mae who is still in the Albany Hospital preemie ward. She is now 7 1/2 weeks old and so far is doing well. She only weighed 2 pound, 4.4 ounces at birth, now weight 3 pounds. The one time I put my finger in the palm of her hand she tightened up her very tiny little fist around my finger. She has been very active, moves her arms and legs a lot and one time last month I noticed her trying to get her fingers into her mouth. When the nurse heard me saying she was trying to suck on her fingers, she gave her a small pacifier which she sucked on for quite a while.

Working hard trying to keep up with all the new babies. For many years I have been knitting the hooded baby sweaters that zip down the back. Made them not only for my own grandchildren, but also for many nieces and nephews babies, plus a few friends babies. Did two more , one pink, other blue, for the new great grandchildren born last July and Halloween night in October last year. Have three more almost finished, one for the newest great grandson born on March 1st, which I first heard was going to be a girl, later learned a boy. Had a pink one almost finished when I started making a blue one. Before finishing this one I received an invitation to a nephews daughter`s baby shower. Not taking any chances this time, so making a red sweater to use for a boy or a girl. Told a daughter that from now on I will probably be making all red sweaters. Got the zippers sewed into the blue and the red one this morning, then just finished embroidering a cat on the front, next will be the flowers to add above where the grass design is. Maybe I will keep the pink one and finish it for the great granddaughter to wear when she gets big enough and healthy enough to leave the hospital. Getting harder and harder to hold the knitting needles, so wonder how much longer I will be able to keep making them. Can no longer hold a regular sewing needles to hand sew in the zippers and hard getting the thick thread under the sewing machine zipper foot to sew it on the machine. Managed to sew two zippers in this morning on the sewing machine.
Three more flowers to do and sew up the back of one hood. Then one needs to be sent out to another state, the other for the shower this coming Saturday. Then hoping my hand get a rest for a while. Hope they like them as much as everyone has in the past.

As I look at the 2 Ameryllis blooming on my window sill and have 2 more starting to bloom upstairs until I find more room downstairs to place them, I am reminded of the brother we lost last year. He used to have loads of Ameryllis plants. When I first started growing them it was with three plants that my brother had given to me many years ago. Then oldest daughter Linda gave me one - think was for Mother`s day quite a few years ago. Today must have around 20 plants since they keep making more babies. Gave away a lot of them over the years and some animal ate a few of them last summer when I had them resting on the ground near the back porch. Have been sitting them there out of the direct sun for years without a problem before. The first plant this year only had two large blossoms, second one has three blossoms opening. Wonder what the other two plants will have and wonder how many more plants will bloom this year. They are usually about three years old before they start blossoming. By the time some get too old, there are usually more already oldest enough. So have them blossoming every year so far. I often wonder how much longer I will be able to care for them properly. They need a rest period every winter and should be placed in a cool, dry, fairly dark place, so I carry them all upstairs every winter and lug them all back down again every spring. Takes a lot of trips up and down the stairs. I expect to keep doing it for as long as my arms and legs are able.
Had a lot of memories I intended to write about, but they will have to wait till another day.

Here it is a few hours later and the two sweaters- red and blue ones are finally finished.
March 21, 2011, First ameryllis plant with the two blossoms is finished blooming, the second plany has the three blooms over halfway openedand now a third plant sits in the window waiting for the blossoms to open to see how many this plant will have.
A bit colder out again today and snowed out all morning, has now stopped, so more snow to be shoveled. Spring started yesterday, so it should warm up before much longer. As my mother used to say, it can`t warm up till the snow is out of the air. Hope that happens soon.
Sitting on my table is the beautiful large poinsettia plant I received from my S-I-L on Christmas Day and it surprises me that it is still looking great. Largest one I have ever received before and can`t remember ever having one stay so pretty for so very long. Almost two weeks ago another daughter told me she was surprierd how great it looked then, because hers was already dying. Maybe it has something to do with the coolness in my kitchen/ dining area, or that it gets watered nearly every day, or maybe because it sits out of the sun. I have another smaller Poinsettia plant in bloom that is two years old now, the third plant is nice and green with no red flowers on it. All came from the same S-I-L over the last three years. This year my daughter ( his wife) told me she didn`t want one this year as he usually buys them for her, I think for his own mother and for myself. They know how much I love flowering plants.

winter Feb.26, 2011 snow picture

2011-03-08T14:44:00.003-05:00

Winter of 20010-2011

2011-03-08T14:16:00.001-05:00

Sunday, February 27, 2011
Been a long time since I have added to my blog and much has happened in that time. After losing my third and last brother on August 20, 2009 less than a year after losing my second brother, and then my Aunt in May of 2010, her husband (my last Uncle) had died between my brothers in 2008 and she just never did well without him after 67 years of Marriage. Also lost other relatives in the last couple years. I think the worst thing about getting older is losing so many loved ones. I am happy that I still have my three sisters, one older, two younger, but still miss my brothers and parents and other loved ones.

Since all this happened something soo painful happened. One of my grandson`s was in an accident with his motorcycle. He had just traded in his old bike for a larger one for his Birthday. This happened on September 21st, 2010 and left him unable to walk. We are still praying for a miracle to give him back walking abilities as he was only 20 years old at the time. Here it is 5 months later and he is still in the wheelchair. Dr`s do not give us anything for hoping, but I do know miracles do happen, so we haven`t yet given up.

After all this, came another heart breaking event. Another grandson`s wife had their baby daughter in distress and to save the baby, the Dr had to do a cessarrian at 26 weeks. Baby only weighed 2 pounds 4.4 ounces and was rushed off to a Hospital 50 miles from home - they have a better preemie care ward than our local Hospital. That happened on Feb. 4th . So far , the baby is doing good and we are praying for her to continue doing good. Can`t mention her on Facebook as her father does not want any pictures of her, or talking about her there. I feel safe mentioning her here in my memory blog since the family never reads it, so he will never know. I just want to keep the dates here in my own memories which I print off for family to read in the future. So if you happen to be reading my blog and also belong to Facebook, please do not mention this to anyone there. Thank you. They already had three sons, this is their first daughter.
Woke up this morning dreaming about my mother and her birth father , who I was never lucky enough to meet since he died when my mother was still in High School. Isn`t it funny how a dream can seem so important when you first wake up and sometimes you cannot even remember the full dream later in the day. Her dad was in charge of the boat travel that went up and down the Barge Canal near where I grew up. He operated the barge ( boat) and controlled the opening and closing of the Locks on the barge. I remember the only thing my mother had that had belonged to her Dad was the small gun he kept for safety while doing his job. After the death of my last brother , who had remained living in the home place, I am left wondering what became of that gun. I am left wondering if someone in the family has it, or if it was sold when closing out the house. Either way, owning it today would be illegal, but still I wonder who has the last memory from my grandfather`s life. Hard thinking of my mother`s special gun not being kept safe within the family. One of these days I should solve this puzzle by asking the ones who first starting checking out the home place before I was there. Wish it had been placed in one of our local places where other history items are kept for show. l am sure they could have gotten a special permit for showing it and know it would have pleased my mother to know it was being well taken care of.

Now for our winter weather this year- 2010-2011 winter months. We broke our old record for how cold our area gets. In 2005 we had a cold record of -25 F, we out did it this month by getting down as low as -30 F.. Seems likle every year our winter`s are getting much colder. Two days ago we had another snow storm- this time it added 12 inches to our already snow amount. Last night we received another 4 inches to add to the already very high snow banks. Problem is the banks are now soo high we are having trouble finding someplace to shovel new snow to. Even the large snow blower is having a problem throwing snow over these high piles and my front yard looks like just a high high bank of snow. Crazy looking out my kitchen window and seeing the high bank without even getting close to the window. Have managed to keep the snow a ways from the house, but who knows for how much longer if we keep getting these big snow storms. Took a picture of the snow in my front yard yesterday, then we added on 4 more inches over night last night making it even worse than in the picture.
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Well, here it is already Tuesday, March 08, 2011 and I still haven`t posted my last write up yet.
We got another foot of snow overnight Sunday and into Monday. We keep wondering where we are going to put the next snow and now we are expecting even more on Thursday. Been one cold snowy winter. Hardly any snow on the ground at Christmas time, but we sure have made up for it since.

Now for some better news. I have another new great grandson born yesterday in the state of Virginia. Sure would have liked to have been there to greet the beautiful little one, but too far away. I had a new great grandson and a new great granddaughter last year and so far I have another great granddaughter and now also a great grandson already this year. The others live closer to home. My family just keeps on growing. Isn`t is something how your heart can always find room for more amd more to love? I have such a wonderful family. I feel so lucky.

Started knitting a pink baby sweater when we thought the new baby was going to be a girl. Had it all done except for sewing on the zipper when learned it was going to be a boy. So, here I am working hard to get the blue sweater finished. Everyone seems to love these sweaters. Have been making them for many years- for the grandchildren, plus for many neices and nephews babies over the years. They are hooded sweaters that zip down the back. Have made them in many colors and sizes. My arthritic crooked fingers seem to act up more when knitting than when crocheting, but for sweaters, I think the knitted ones are better. I know the day will come when I will need to stop knitting, but not ready to give in yet. I will be 80 this year, so I feel very lucky to still be able to do all the things I do. My daughter who lives next door to me sent her son over to shovel my driveway yesterday. This morning I learned why. She had seen me shoveling around my back porch and the outside cellarway and was scared I might have a heart attack from working so hard. This snow was heavy from all the rain we got before it turned to snow. She said she never left the window till I was done and when i first finished she couldn`t see me and got scared till she saw me on the porch. My grandson had just stopped to visit his mother. I wish the kids wouldn`t worry so much. My only wish is that I can still be on my feet , living here a in my home, doing things I enjoy doing for as long as I do live.
I am looking forward to warmer weather when I can again work in my wood shop. other winters I worked out there all winter, but seems much colder this year even with the heater. I guess I get my love for making things from my beloved Dad who was a mechinist at work, a mechanick at home, plus he was great at repairing and making items when necessary. I don`t know how he ever found the time for all he accomplished. When I look back, seems like he was always working on something. When I find something complicated, I think-What would my Dad do- he wouldn`t give up, he would find a way. That keeps me trying. There are times when I wish he was here to tell me how to do something, he often knew faster or easier ways. He taught me so much while growing up, then after I married, he continued showing me how to do things, starting with how to prime the well pump, how to re-set the burner on the fuel-oil heating furnace and how to clean it. We bought a new furnace since then and I have never worked on this one. I leave it to a serviceman who comes every fall to clean and adjust it for me. Back in 1994 we had carbon monoxide poisioning from the old furnace and that time my husband went into a coma and we felt blessed he got better. That convinced him to get the new furnace. After he had retired, I left the furnace work up to him. We never knew the furnace had gotten that bad till it was almost too late. I still thank God for giving him back to us for another 8 wonderful years.

Sun is shining, but still quite cold out. Went out to fill the bird feeders on my back porch again. Need to do it every day lately as I have many pretty birds coming to eat at the feeders. I started tossing some sunflower seeds onto the ground for the squirrels to hopefully keep them from destroying more of my feeders. The squirrels sure are destructive animals. They even tried chewing through the house boards up under where the porch attaches to the house. Think they were looking for a place to crawl in and get warm. Another thing for me to repair when nicer weather arrives. A friend told me to buy safflower seed instead of sunflower for the feeders as the squirrels don`t like safflower seeds so probably will now stay away from the bird feeders. Hope it works, so far so good.
Well, this isn`t getting the sweater knitted, so guess I will check to see what new e-mail has arrived, then try to get more done on the sweater.

Monday, July 26th,2010-more home repairs to be done.

2010-07-26T20:46:00.004-04:00

Here it is Monday , July 26, 2010. Finally cooled off some and no rain so I was able to get a little more out side work done. Right now it is only 80 degrees F with low humidify. First day in quite a while without the window air conditioners both running, along with the furnace blower to help circulate the cooler air around the house. This was the longest heat wave here in a few years. Leaves me wondering what winter will be like this year.
A few weeks ago I decided to get the underside of the front porch roof re-painted. It should have been done earlier last year, but so much kept happening that before I knew it , it was already to rainy and cold for painting. So, I just tossed on a layer of paint to protect the wood over the winter. A few weeks ago I finally got my trusty step ladder and my scraper and scraped off all the loose paint. I knew the paint wouldn`t adhere well with the damp weather, but it did accomplish what I was hoping. The wood was protected, but of course I also knew I was making more work for myself because I knew it would probably need to be removed before re-painting it again. As I started doing a little scraping, in some places the paint came off in small sections. So, I ended up scraping almost all the paint of before doing a layer of primer. Then I got laid up for three weeks and couldn`t get my shoes on, so no climbing the ladder for me. This morning I went out and painted on a second coat of primer. I bought the primer paint that will cover stains so it wouldn`t show where there was still some old white paint from where the bare wood was. I also had used my multi master tool with the sander and sanded over the paint that was left on to make sure the whole surface was smooth and wouldn`t come loose , before I started painting. Now instead of seeing some flaking paint, it looks lots better. Now, I have to wait for another nice dry day so I can do the white top coat. Thought I could do it tomorrow, but the weather man has changed his report to possible thunder storms. So, will have to wait till tomorrow to know. Once that is finished, I am hoping to be able to re-stain all three porch floors before winter. I try to do the porch floors about every 3 or 4 years.

A few years ago my youngest son extended the back porch roof out to cover the steps for my safety. Every winter I was having ice on the steps to worry about. I was going down those steps often to get to my 3 section compost bin that sits on the property that connects to the house property on that side of the house. Every winter I tell myself "this will probably be my last year working the compost", but then I keep saving house scraps and taking them out and covering them with the leaves from the leaf pile. The soil from the compost is usually used in the flower beds by the front of the house and the long bed beside the driveway. I noticed the plywood used to cover the extension has started flaking on the underside and needs replacing. It was covered with the black paper and shingles, which protected the top side. I am hoping to have it re-done using boards this time. Plywood did last 4 or 5 years before the moisture started destroying it. Used the plywood because I already had it handy and too save money. OH Well, at least now when it gets done, it should last as long as I need it to if I can get it painted. Now have to wait till my carpenter son`s work load slows down and he has time to do it for me. Wish I owned one of those ladders that can be sit on the ground with the other side on a step so I could reach to paint it myself. I do have the long handled section to connect the paint rollers to, but that doesn`t do the job in the edge where the framework and boards are nailed together. I tried taping a paint brush to the handle, but it didn`t work. Last summer I used my floor scrub brush handle and taped my long handled scraper to it and was able to scrape down the eave board on the front of the house. Worked great. My home has a single front with a second story only on the back half of the house. So, I am able to do the front eaves myself. To be honest, I never wanted a two story house, I wanted a ranch style with all the bedrooms on the main floor. Might have won that battle if my Dad hadn`t told Walt we should add the second story. Walt felt our property was not wide enough for the size home I wanted, I was willing to build it sideways with the kitchen end towards the road. That would have given us plenty of room with still lots of back yard for kids to play in. Years ago we had the sewer changed and I wanted to have it moved further into the back yard so we could add a couple more rooms to the back of the house, lost again. Walt felt it would be too hard to run the sewer pipes under the addition unless we also had the cellar extended under the addition and he was probably right. Would have cost too much to have a cellar dug out and built- really not worth the cost at our ages then. I can`t complain, because if it had been something I felt was really important, I would have insisted and he would have given in. I knew when to take a stand and when to let it go- all depended on how important and needed it was. If you want to win the important battles, you first need to learn how to let the unnecessary wants go. We both learned over the years how to give and take and how to listen to each other`s reasons behind out actions. Kept us together for a little over 50 years. July 19th made 8 lonely years living here alone with out him. Many time I wish he was here to talk over some repair that needed doing. I still remember what he said to me when I mentioned some repairs I felt should be done. His answer was " Let who ever gets it after we are gone do the repairs. It will last as long as we need it". I remember those words whenever I start putting money into more repairs. So glad I have three handy boys willing to help with the harder work. We have done so much in the past 8 years, new roofing shingles on house and on kitchen addition, whole new side of the building and new shingles on shop building, new bathroom tiles , mopboards and ceiling and casing trim, over half of the main boards and sheeting boards replaced on the back lower section of the house, new bathroom window to replace the rotting one, added new insulation and plastic in the attic to save fuel money. Walt would be shocked if he knew how much the fuel prices went up. I could go on and on as have done loads of repairs over the years. Yes, the home might have lasted as long as we needed, but I sure would have been living in tough times. Roof probably would have been allowing the rain in by now. Ha Ha. Part of owning your own home is keeping up with all the necessary repairs. I have a cousin who told me they sold their home and will be renting until the new senior housing settlement is finished, then they will get one of their places to live in. She said it was nice letting others be responsible for all home repairs, mowing, snow plowing etc.. Her and her husband think it will be cheaper to rent there than paying taxes and for repairs for their own home. It will be about another year before the housing settlement is finished, so I am waiting to see how they make out. I hope things work out for them. She is just a few months older than I am and her husband is only a few years older. So, it probably will make their life a lot easier. I just can`t imagine myself not living in my own home. One of my wishes is to continue living in my own home the rest of my life. I hope my wish comes true. Watching my Aunt that last year living in a nursing home and seeing how much she wanted to go back home was very heartbreaking. I went every week to sit and crochet with her to keep her active and feeling she was still able to do something she enjoyed that also made her feel more useful. One day she forgot how to crochet. She asked me how anyone can forget how to do something they had been doing for years. I told her she was just tired and it is hard to think well when we are tired. I kept her crocheting up to three days before, by constantly finding easier and easier crochet patterns, then near the end I got out some of the small blocks she had done before and showed her how to just do a single crochet row of a different color for a border. Told her they would make cute doilies to sit some of her knicknacks on. The next day when I stopped to visit, there they were, finished and her knicknackls were sitting on them. She was proud of how it looked. That make me feel happy seeing the smile back on her face. As much as I still miss her, I know she never accepted losing her husband only 1 1/2 years before, after being married for 67 years. They had gotten married on her Birthday, so her 80th Birthday this year was a sad day spent thinking of him. Her husband, my Uncle John, was my mother`s youngest brother and the last living member of her family.
Saturday we had our family yearly picnic, held this year at one of my youngers sisters yards. I can remember many years when we would have way over 100 people attending. This year there was under 40 and almost half of them were my sister`s family. She felt so discouraged that she told me she was thinking of just having her own family picnic next year. I sure do not blame her. A lot of extra work and money spent and few showing up. We have lost so many family members that the family gets smaller every year, but at the same time, it keeps growing with everyones new great grand babies. There is just my three sisters, 2 sister-in-laws, and a few cousins left and some of them live out of state. One of my daughters could not go because she had a back operation, one son had accepted a previous invitation to a graduation party, another son (A carpenter) worked, another daughter is a correctional officer at the prison and had to work, the son who lives an hour`s drive away was working on his car as he needed it for work today. Getting harder every year to get everyone together. Was planning on taking my older sister`s Birthday gift down to her today as she will be leaving for home on Wednesday, but when I called, she had spent the night ou at camp with my sister-in-law and it is quite a ride out there. Am hoping I might catch her tomorrow if they come back from camp. The daughter with the back op shares the same Birth date as does one of my good friends I have known over 10 years on the computer. 29th is a popular date in my family.
Still having trouble getting used to living here without my trusty Border Collie. For 14 years she protected us and our home and let us know whenever anything different was going on outside. I went to bed knowing she was there looking out for me. The last few weeks of her life I had to use a harness with strap type handles to pick her up as her hind legs and hip could not do it. Once she was on her feet, I would walk along with her using the harness until she got steady on her feet and could walk alone. Finally I had to give in since the pain pills stopped working and I could not let her be in pain. One of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life was taking her to the vets and saying good by to her. Kids keep telling me I should get another dog, preferably one a couple years old and already house trained. It has only been a few weeks, and I still am not sure if I will ever get another pet or not. Just know I am not ready right now.

Saturday July 1o/ Sunday July 11,2010

2010-07-11T21:02:00.001-04:00

Life never has time to get boring. Always something happening and sometimes things we wish didn`t happen.

I am reminded of the old saying-When it rains, it pours, meaning when one thing happens, other things are bound to happen. This morning (Saturday July 10th, 2010)was the burial for the 6 beautiful children who died in the fire, 2 of which I knew. While reading the morning newspaper there was another Funeral this morning for a 50 year old girl originally from our neighborhood whose family hung with my kids through their school days. I was unable to attend either Funeral because my feet are still so swollen they do not fit into my shoes. Then to make things worse, running around without shoes I bumped my little toe against the toolbox, hurting it so bad I feared I had broken it. Ice packed it for about 3 hours, then had to put on a sock to keep the toe held in place next to the next toe so I could get some sleep. That was two nights ago. Today it is still badly bruised and swollen about twice it`s normal size, but able to bend it a little- so thankful it wasn`t broken. I am still waiting for the meds to turn my feet and legs back to normal size and for the bruised color to leave that huge little toe so it will fit into my shoes when my feet do. I am sure things will improve once this heat wave is over. Rained a little last night and early this morning, but it did not cool things off like we thought it might. Reminds me of when my husband`s feet were badly swollen, but his were even worse.

Last week I had hoped to add a second coat of paint on the white carousel horses that once were probably from a swing set on a school playground. They have an antique look to them and you do not see them at schools anymore. Every day I hope to wake up and find my shoes again fit so I can go outside and paint. When I can , maybe I will go buy some gloss white for the second coat so the horses will shine better the way the red saddles and the black mane and tail do. All carousel horses did usually have the glossy look to them. I am not very good at sitting around accomplishing nothing. My daughter who had the back operation two weeks ago came over to make sure I was sitting with my feet up until the swelling goes down. She even pushed my old computer over, sit one of my kitchen chair thick soft cushions on the top of the computer and insisted I use it for a high foot stool. I think it also brought back memories to her of how bad her father`s feet got from the water build up, so it scared her.
Three days ago I called my Dr to have the prescription renewed. The Nurse called me back and told me she had faxed in the prescription, to wait a couple hours and they should be ready for me to pick up. A couple hours later I phoned our Hannaford Pharmacy to be sure they were ready, the girl who answered the phone told me they were out for lunch from 12 noon till one o`clock, so to call back after one. I called back and the next person who answered told me to call back later as they were out from 12:30 till 2:30. What a run-around I was getting. At 2:30 I went to pick up the prescription and was told they never received the prescription from my Dr`s office. I told them I knew it was faxed in to them because my Dr`s nurse phoned me after she faxed it in. I told the girl I hope I can handle wearing the tight shoes for a second trip. So, I had to come back home and re-call my Dr`s office and was told she had sent them the order and that they should have received it, and that she would re-fax it and for me to give them another 2 hours and this time it better be ready for me to pick it up. I told her I knew she had and that I was sure it was a mess up in the store. I waited another two hours, again used a shoehorn to help push my swollen feet into the too small shoes that I had loosened the shoe strings in as large as they would go so I could drive down again to pick them up. The ones working the first shift at the pharmacy had gone home and others were then working. Before making the second trip I tried reaching my oldest daughter to ask her to pick them up for me, but she wasn`t home. She stopped to check on me later and told me she got my message and tried calling me back, but I had already left. The daughter who had the back op thought they should not have renewed the pills without having me come into the office for a check-up. Told her to stop worrying, I have had this problem in the past and the pills had worked before, so they should work again. Now I am still waiting for the pills to do their job. If I cannot wear my shoes soon ( even my slippers are too tight) I will go stir crazy. I have spent the past few days working on the knitted baby sweater and catching up on my e-mail on the computer. OH well, using the keyboard and knitting are supposed to be good exercise for the arthritis in my hands. But I would rather be exercising them by playing the organ- but things would not sound as good without also working the foot pedals. I did manage to hobble out the back door a while ago and use the garden hose to fill the water sections in my garden earth boxes so my plants would not die. They had not been watered in a couple days. Rain does not water these plants as there are covers over the boxes and the plants grow up through the x cut places in the covers. Plants are all growing good so far and I do not want all my work to go to waste, so I just had to manage climbing up and down the four steps wearing some old slippers, cannot get the newer ones on . Less painful than wearing the shoes was.
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Back writing again. Here it is, Sunday and I am still doing a lot of sitting. feet still swollen, but legs look almost normal again and feet also are improving, but it usually gets worse towards night- hoping not this time. Little toe still huge, bruised and sore. Should improve soon. Still too warm to shut off the air conditioners and the noise of the one in the window beside me is getting to me, so will shut it off for a while. The larger air conditioner is way off in the laundry room at the other end of the house. For it to help much, I turn on my furnace fan. The fan draws the cooler air down the larger register in the laundry room and then shoots it up all the hot air registers in all the rooms. Not as good as a full house air conditioner, but sure does help a lot. Wow, just shut off this one and it is already feeling too hot. As I told people who were complaining about the very cold weather last winter, wishing for warmer weather- when the warmer weather gets here you will then be wishing for cooler weather. This year we have already had more hot days than we had all last summer. They blame it on global warming. Heat wave has already lasted over a week, and nights are staying up in the 60`s or higher, so nights are not cool enough to help with cooling down the next day.

Well, enough about the weather. Got a little more done on the baby sweater. Wish my crazy hands would let me stay knitting or crocheting for much longer time. Have a new way of holding knitting needles. Hold one needle in my left hand, the other needle I push against the bottom of the chair I sit in, using my knees to keep it straight upright, so my right hand just has to hold the yarn and wind it around the empty needle. With the body of the sweater almost done, the left needle does get heavy. Weighs very little, but feels heavy for my hand holding it. Have two granddaughter`s expecting, one a girl, other a boy, plus my sister`s granddaughter is expecting twins, still unsure- boys, girls, or one of each. Even though the baby shower was too far away for me to attend, I still feel I should make a gift, or maybe two since they did send me an invite. One good thing is that noone will need a baby sweater for a couple more months here and maybe longer where the parents of the future twins live, so hoping time enough to get more sweaters made, but first I need to get this one done

Soo much sadness, looking forward to happier days.

2010-07-05T18:07:00.002-04:00

Monday, July 6, 2010
Soo much sadness, looking forward to happier days .
So much has happened since I last wrote. I had lost my oldest brother Fred in June, 2008, then less than 6 months later I lost my last Uncle -John Thompson -on Dec. 2008, Next it was my 3rd and last brother Gerald just 8 months later in August 2009, 9 months later it was my Aunt Hazel Thompson in May of this year. Only 13 days after losing my Aunt , last month on June 15th I lost my beloved 14 year old Border Collie who had kept me going every since I lost my husband in 2002.
There was also another favorite uncle , a cousin, a cousin`s husband and other relatives in these three years. We got so we felt like we were living at the local Funeral Home.

All my life if we lost one person, we usually lost 2 more before that year was over. It happened so often that we sort of expected it to happen in three`s. But things seemed to change after I lost my wonderful husband Walt in 2002. Things started happening in our immediate family every 2 years. Two years after my husband it was my youngest sister`s husband who died from an accident, then 2 years after Steve, it was my oldest sister`s husband Bud (Edwin), then 2 years after Bud, it was my oldest brother Fred. Then things changed again and there were only months between, not enough to even try to handle one before there was another. I try to tell myself that when you get older, everyone else also gets older and I should be prepared for things like this. But, how do you prepare for losing a loved one, then another and another. All you can do is pray for help handling it.
At my Aunt`s funeral, my older sister (will be 81 this month) was telling someone that she was now the oldest member of our family. When she saw me she said to me , "after me, you will be the oldest". I told her she had to hang around for years because I never wanted to become the oldest. I now have three sisters, one 2 years older, one 4 years younger and my youngest who is almost 11 years younger than I am.

Today is the 4th of July and our thoughts should be on all those fighting wars so we can live in peace here at home. But, last week there was a terrible house fire where 6 children died ranging in age from 1 year to 12 years. Six children who will never know what it is like growing up into adulthood. I only knew 2 of these children- one age 6, the other age 12, but I feel for all of them. The mother of these two children came to see me last week with her 14 year old daughter and one of my granddaughters who came up from Virginia to be with her friend. The mother also has another daughter who turned 16 on the day of the fire. Her 2 children who died in the fire had only been living with their father and his girl friend for a few months. So very very sad for everyone in their families and for all those who loved them. All 6 funerals will be held this week. My heart goes out to all of them.

This is not the usual posts I write in my blog, but my mind is just so filled with memories of everyone. I am finding it hard to clear my mind and think of things going on here in my own home. One daughter had back surgery last week and is slowly starting to get around again. A son brought me two of those quite heavy horse swings like the ones you used to see on the old school play ground swing sets. Not sure what material they are made from. Full horses with the legs bent up under their bodies. The day he gave them to me, he turned over a high barrel, placed a long wide board across the barrell and sat the two horses up on the board ballancing them so the board stayed in place. He know I have a problem bending over for very long. After him and his family left, I started scrubbing them clean. The next day I spent re-painting them- white horses, black manes, hoofs and tails and eyes, bright red saddles trimmed with black edging and black halters painted on the horses heads. I was surprised how well they looked when I finished. I am thinking of maybe doing a second coat of the white part on the horses. Next , I need to decide how I wish to set them up in my yard. Last month this same son gave me one of those horse/ carriage set ups that is an open weave style with those tiny Christmas lights that light up on it. Beautiful and large - resembles the reindeer. sleigh ones you see in yards at Christmas time. As you probably guessed, I am a horse lover and own a large collection, part inside and part outside. Painting them helped. I have always handled things better if I stay busy. I have started making a knitted , hooded baby sweater that zips down the back. Need to get two made for the new great grand babies expected in the near months. My family may be getting lots smaller all the time while my own childrens families are getting larger. It feels like us older ones move on to make room for all the younger generation to move in. I will be 79 years old in September, time sure seems to fly by so much faster when you get older. I can still remember when having three months off from school in the summer seemed like it lasted a lot more than just three months. Now, it seems like summer just starts and in no time it is over and cold weather is back again. Is it because as we age we find so much more that needs to get done that we have forgotten how to just sit and relax and let the world go by without feeling we shouldn`t be wasting time needed to accomplish all that needs doing. Why have we forgotten what it was like when we were kids with nothing much to worry about. Why did we let ourself become so worried about how things look to others or about all the repairs we need to do, instead of just spending some time enjoying ourself with out filling our heads with problems that might never happen just because we stopped and wasted away a whole day. The jobs will still be there tomorrow, but wouldn`t our health be improved if we spent less time worrying and more time laughing having fun? Easy to say, but how do we change how our habits have us controlled? Can we change the way we have spent most of our lives? If only it was as easy to alter our lives as it is to alter clothes.

Hi, I am back!!

2010-06-26T15:50:00.003-04:00

WOW! I never thought I would again find my way back to the blogs after my computer compleyely crashed and i lost so much.
I have our wonderful friend that writes "Eveslungs" to Thank. She found me on Facebook and also had her blog listed. After going to her blog and reading some of the posts, I was able to see where I could sign up into my own blog again. I am so grateful to her. Sure was wonderful hearing from one of my wonderful blog friends. A lot has happened since I last wrote back in Jamnuary. I will try writing more soon.
Hope all my friends here in blog land are doing good and having lots of good luck. Hugs and love to you all. Your old friend Dot
You can also find me on Facebook.

Todays weather warning- memories of the past

2010-01-28T14:41:00.002-05:00

January 28, 2010
Weather Warning on TV for my area - brings back memories of past.

Today it is up to 27 degrees F and dropping to around 8 tonight. Snowing outside. Do not expect a large amount of snow, but reports say to expect strong winds and white out -making it impossible to see for driving for the few hours it is expected to last- from about 10AM through at least 5PM this afternoon. Many times this winter the weather report has been wrong, but the way the snow is coming down on a slant and the flakes so close together , I believe this time they will be correct. Already my driveway has a thin covering of snow and the wind and snow are getting worse.

Many people say this year we are having a much colder winter, so far with less snow. But I can remember how our faces got so cold that they felt frozen by the time we walked the mile to school. I remember my father driving the distance from our home to our grade school to see just how far we were actually walking- a full mile, 4 times a day since we also had to walk back and forth at lunch time from the age of 5 years old in First Grade. Yes, at 5 years old we went to First grade - there were no pre-school or kindergarten classes back then, like they have today. We used to hold our mitten covered hands over our nose while breathing because our nose would hurt so much every time we tried to breath. We also covered our mouth when we talked due to the awful cold air we were trying not to breath in, that would sometimes cause pain in your chest. Being little, our uncovered lips would sometimes get raw and painful from the cold wind and sometimes you would have to take your hands from your face and push them into your jacket pockets because even wearing the mittens, the hands would get so cold they were freezing and getting stiff- hard to bend the fingers. We did not have the lip balm to protect our lips and could not wear lipstick to protect them until we were about 16 years old. Today they even make safe play lip covering for the little girls and the lip balm for everyone. I remember our mother having us spread some clear Vaseline over our chapped lips to help heal them. I still remember the greasy mess and how it wasn`t so good tasting, though it was not real terribly tasting and did work great. Vaseline was very popular for many things, even for healing some very bad burns . I still think it works better than a lot of the newer salves and ointments on sale today.

I remember how we used to try to pull our coats and coat collars up as far as we could - trying to protect our ears and face from that very strong cold wind and blowing snow. I used to get some bad ear aches from the cold. So, guess it was as cold back when I was small as it is today, but so far this winter our snow banks here are not as bad, but then winter only started about 4 1/2 weeks ago, and we have weeks more winter to get through, so who knows what is still ahead for this winter. Funny how you can go on the net and read about the bad snow storm that happened in either 1957 or 1958, while the one I remember as worst was in the 1955-56 winter. I know I have the correct year for the one I remember being so bad here because it was the twins (born in April 1955) first winter and the only winter we lived in the little house on the back of this property. We had built a small place to live in while we were building the larger home that I still live in today.

One morning, shortly after I awoke, I heard a neighbor`s son , Ken, calling my name. When I opened the side door to see what he wanted, all I saw was snow that covered all the doorway except for about two inches at the top. This house had no cellar and was built down level on the ground. So, I pulled over a chair to stand on so I could peek out to ask Ken what he wanted. He asked me if he could borrow my snow shovel. First, I asked him where he was as I could see no one. Suddenly I saw a space where the snow started to hump up a little, then his finger tips started to show above the top of the snow. He was also standing on a chair inside the shack his family lived in. I told him, yes, if he could find a way to come over after it. That was when I started holding my breath in fear that he might fall down under the snow on his way over to my house. While he was taller than I was, the snow was still over his head. I watch as he slowly packed down the snow ahead of him as he crawled on his stomach across close to 60 feet of property from his place to reach my side door. Luckily I had brought my snow shovel inside the night before or it would have been hidden some place under that deep snow like this neighbor`s shovel was. I was finally able to breath easier once Ken arrived at my doorway. Then came the problem of how to pull him from the high snow down into my kitchen without him being hurt. A lot of snow came falling into my kitchen along with him and what a mess I had to clean up. Ken stood on my kitchen chair and slowly shoveled the snow away from the door. Then he started shoveling a path from my door back to his home. Since the snow was so high, I let him carry my chair along so he could reach the snow top to shovel it. Once he reached his home, he carried my chair back over to me and I sat it in front of the kerosene heating stove to dry it off. Ken needed my shovel to shovel out the driveway for his father. I often remember how his father made his sons do any hard work that needed to be done. His father then worked at the same mill where my husband Walter had worked. He spent every spare free minute either going fishing or going hunting with his friends, not that good a family man.
When you have gone through a snow storm and worried about a teenager falling into the snow, knowing there would be no way for you to reach him, you never forget where you lived and what year it was when this bad storm happened.

I also remember another winter about in the late 1980`s or 90`s when we had a lot of snow, just not mostly from one storm. My son had parked a car on the other side of the fence on our next property and that winter his car was completely covered with snow. I took pictures of where the car was and since not even a bump showed in the snow, most people did not think the car was actually under there. So, when some snow started melting, I again took a picture showing part of the top of his car. When spring came I was surprised to see that being snow covered had not affected the car finish and the car still ran great- not even the inside seats were damaged. That car sure had good door and window seals on it. I expected the car to be ruined, I sure was surprised. My son was working for a moving Co. and traveled a lot and at that time I was unable to shovel it out for him. If I remember correct, I think that was when I had my first hand op., plus was still having problems from when I broke off my tail bone and had some disc that kept slipping out of place because of it. Since this son told me not to worry about his car, that it would be ok, guess everyone else took him at his word as no one offered to shovel it out.

So, I am hoping that we do not have any huge snow storms like those this winter. My older sister spends her winters in Florida and her last e-mail mentioned she was glad she was not up her in our cold weather. But, I would rather have these storm warnings that are still being reported on TV for our area, than the flooded problems she has almost every spring. Just cost her $1600 for having the apartment dried out and mildew proofing done again, plus now needs a new rug, new wallboard and lots other repairs from having about 17 inches of water flooding her place. She says she still has lots more clean-up work to do and more furniture and other things to check out. I wish her luck. Since she is 2 years older than I am, at 80, it has to be quite hard work for her even with a neighbor friend and hiring some repair workers to help. Her floors are cement, so no boards there to need replacing every year.

Just came on TV again with the storm warning. Not expecting a large snow storm, but snowing with the strong winds is expected to cause the white out with little or no way to see , it sure could cause some bad accidents if people still have to, or take the chance, driving on the roads. I am hoping my son reaches the school where he works before the worst of the storm is , since he drives over 50 miles from his place in the mountains to the school about a 15 minute drive from where I live. He phoned me a short while ago to see what the weather was supposed to be here. If the warning is correct, the storm will have stopped so the town should have the roads cleared again before he gets out of work late tonight. So, I am just praying the snow and wind do not get any worse before he reaches his work. He should be leaving home soon as he told me he was going in early, hoping to reach the school ahead of the white out effect. They are now listing loads of school all around me which are closing early today, but not directly in my area. Our school district is always the last one to give in , but since it has started getting worse and now I can hardly see my own street corner, they should change their minds soon. Might be better if they kept them till after the storm lets up, but that sure would scare their parents since everyone does not watch the TV reports to know what is going on, and way too many to ever try contacting that many parents. Hope my son has reached, or is very close to reaching his place of work. Hope his twin brother stays safe driving a town truck in this storm. So many family members to worry about that might be driving to or from work during this storm. I remember how I used to worry when Walt was driving to or from work in bad weather. I also know that sometimes it is harder to see up the road from inside the house than it is driving in the car. Hope this is one of those times. The snow flakes are getting much larger now and the cars seem to being driving a little slower on the main road than they usually do. The snow is now starting to pile up faster and if it continues for very long we will end up with a lot more than the 1 inch they predicted . Close to that already and still coming down heavy with large flakes and blowing wind. Glad my mailman came early so I will have no reason to need to go outside in this wearher. I had hoped to go visit my Aunt in the Nursing Home this morning as the weather report first said the storm would start at noon in my area, but by 10 O`clock the snow had already started, so I changed my mind and decided to stay home. Supposed to be in the teens tomorrow, so not sure about going then. She does get feeling more down when I stay away for too many days, so I try to make it at least once a week. Seeing it snowing, she will not expect to see me today as she knows I seldom drive in bad weather unless I have to. WOW, it sure has gotten worse in just the last few minutes, I now cannot see the house on the next road and cannot see cars driving down the main road, so their white out effect was true. I will close this with a prayer for safety for all who are living through this storm or any storm where they might live. Know it is also snowing in N. Carolina and Virginia where part of my family lives.

Here I am back to finish writing this post so I can add it to my blog. It is almost three PM and the bad storm has suddenly stopped completely and the white out is over. I can again clearly see both the house on the next road and the cars speeding down the main road. We did get more than the inch, but only between three and four inches total, so not enough to make it necessary for me to run out and shovel at the moment, will do it later.

This is not a very interesting post, but my way of letting future family members, who might some day read it, know a little more about what it was like growing up back in the 30`s when I attended grade School.

In Memory of my Brother Gerald Dickinson

2010-01-23T16:35:00.003-05:00

In Memory of my Brother Gerald

So much has happened in the last 6 months that I do not know where to start. A lot changed in my life on August 20, 2008, when I lost my third and last brother . This brother had a hard life but he never let it keep him down for long, but the bone cancer was just more than his worn out system could handle. He lacked 3 months of being 82 years old. Few family members gave him the understanding for what he was going through most of his life while he was growing up. He was only 14 when he first started having problems with one leg. He ended up in the Hospital where he stayed for over a year. I was only 10 years old at that time, but I still remember the Glens Falls Hospital allowing our parents to bring all of us up to the main waiting room where the large Christmas tree was set up where we watched our brother open his Christmas gifts. They brought my brother Gerald down on a movable bed so we could visit with him. After all this time I was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to see this brother again. I was always interested in medical knowledge, so my curiosity about his leg was wanting to see what it looked like. I still remember asking him if I could peek at his leg and he shook his head yes. So, I slowly, carefully lifted the sheet and was shocked at what I saw.They had a support over that leg to keep the sheet and blanket from touching that leg. he told me they left that leg completely uncovered when he was in his room and had just covered it so people could not see it while he was with us. He had osteomyelitis, which is a kind of bone cancer and there was so much dead and pussy looking flesh and such a very deep indentation where they had operated and removed a large section of the leg bone from the knee down to just above his ankle on the outside of the leg. They had not removed the entire bone, but what was left sure made that leg look so skinny, not much thicker than what you would see on about a one to two year old. I used to wonder how that thin bone would ever hold up his body for walking when he was healed. Back then they did not have all these medical medicines they have today, so they used live maggots to eat away all the dead infected flesh. I remember they were wiggling around in that long deep cavity. When a Nurse noticed me looking at the leg, she rushed over to re-cover the leg. None of the others came over to that further side of his bed while I was peeking, so they never saw what I saw. I think they thought I was crazy after we got home when I told some of them about those wiggly wormy looking things crawling on his leg. I later learned they were called magots which would eat dead flesh and never hurt the live flesh. The nurse had pushed the bed close to the wall, so they probably thought no one would ever squeeze between the wall and the stretcher, so his leg would never be uncovered. Well, I actually never uncovered the leg, just lifted the sheet up far enough to peek at the leg. Years later, after I started working at the Hospital as a Nurses`s Aide, I learned from the very Nurse who had cared for my brother during that year about the night my brother`s fever had risen so high that they thought they were losing him and the Dr had her phone my parents to come immediately to the Hospital. The Dr informed my parents that he would die if they did not remove his leg immediately. My mother`s faith was so great that she would not sign for that operation. She felt he would make it, and he did. One evening, (I worked the 3pm to 11pm shift) after I had finished all my work and was getting bored for something more to do, I asked the head floor nurse if she knew something more I could do. I had even straightened out the linen closet for something more to do. I worked on what was called the -4 West wing- on the 4th floor , where all the private room were back then and we all called that wing "The Gold Coast" as it held the most expensive rooms in the whole Hospital. Mercheron, the floor head nurse mentioned that Jennings could always use more help on the 2nd floor North where all the wards were. Those rooms held from 4 to 6 patients to a room. Her floor was always over filled with way too many patients for the few nurses to handle , they were always rushed there trying to help so many patients. So, I went down to 2nd North and I suddenly remembered she had the same name as the Nurse who helped care for my brother about 8 years before. I asked Mrs Jennings if she had worked there when my brother Gerald was a patient and she said yes and started telling me about what my brother had gone through. She told me about that terrible night when they thought my brother would surely die. Then later she came into the room where I was helping a patients and told me there was someone she wanted me to meet. Turned out to be Dr Bartholomew ( Dr Bart as he was often called). She told me he was the Dr who saved my brother`s life so many years before. Dr Bart then told me he could not take the credit for saving my brother`s life, that he had already done everything humanly possible and there was nothing more he or anyone could do and he was sure they were losing the lad. Then he told me "It took someone more powerful that I am to save your brother`s life". I never forgot his words or the serious look that came into his face and eyes while he said it. You knew he was saying it was God who saved my brother`s life that night when things looked so bad. Maybe my knowing all this and hearing what a hard time my brother went through that made me more caring with this brother than most of the other brothers and sisters were with him.

When he finally was discharged from the Hospital he was not able to walk and I remember my mother carrying his (wicker woven seat, huge very heavy wooden antique high back) wheelchair outside and placing it under one of the trees in the shade in our front yard. Then she would lift and carry my brother from the house and place him in the chair where he could get some fresh air and watch the rest of us kids playing. I remember one day when we were playing a game of crochet where you use wooden mallets to hit round wooden balls through wire wickets that were pushed into the ground. There was a course that you drove the ball through from one wooded post to the wooden post at the other end. If I remember correct there were 2 wires in front of each post with enough space between them for the ball to roll out of line, plus one wire in the center spot and two more spaced on each side half way between the center wicket and the two end wickets on each side. Covered a large section of our side yard near the house. To get back to my brother, while we were playing I noticed he had dropped his pencil he was using to work in a puzzle book. Our police dog usually would lay down beside him under the tree unless we were playing baseball in the field on the other side of the house where the dog would run around the bases with us. Gerald could also watch us there from the front yard. So, I rushed over to pick it up for him. I still remember one sister yelling at me to hurry up, it was my turn and that I was holding every else up. I did not care about being yelled at, I felt my brother`s needs should come ahead of our fun game. It always bothered me that he was not able to play the games with us. I used to think it must be terrible to watch every one else running around and having fun while he had to just sit in that big monster chair. I remember how small he looked in that chair because the back of it was real high. I still have the pictures I took of him in that chair when I received my first small camera.

While Gerald was laid up at home, a teacher, Mr Brady, came to out home evenings and tutored my brother since he was not able to attend school. Mr Brady was the same Teacher who later became both my eighth grade teacher and our school principal- so the principal held both jobs at the same time. Then my brother surprised the DR`s when he started to learn to walk again. The knee liquid had been drained twice from that knee while in the Hospital to hopefully stop the osteomyelitis from going above the knee and killing him. They said that made the knee stiff so it would never bend, plus the bone being so thin they felt it would never hold his weight for walking. So we all felt he would spend the rest of his life sitting in a wheel chair. He was a fighter and did learn to use crutches for more support and started walking. The following year he started High School and was still using crutches two years later when I started high School. Then he wanted a bicycle and my parents bought him one and he learned to ride using that leg to pedal which helped to strengthen his leg bone and he soon stopped using his crutches- rode his bike to school. I remember how the teachers would make him wait in the room until all the other kids had entered rooms and the halls were clear before allowing him to walk down the halls on his crutches. So, this kid who would never live through the night, beat those odds, then this same kid who would never walk again ended up not only walking but riding a bicycle. I remember times when he would have me sit on the crossbar of his bike as he coasted down the steep short hill near the High School.

That leg always bothered him, but he seldom complained. He knew how lucky he was to just have that leg and be able to walk with it. Things continued this way for many many years until he was almost 80 and things caused him to lose that leg. Started with cancer in his throat gland which had to be removed. This caused his body to react like one with Diabetes since that gland was no longer there to handle the sugar content in the body. So he had to be treated with pills to handle it. Next came prostate cancer and the monthly shots for that. Then came more leg problems and the leg bone got so bad they feared it could break at any time and to save his life, this time they had to remove the leg. I had the same fears my brother had lived with all his life, that operating on that leg might make the osteo active again as all tests over the years proved it was still in his system and could become active at any time. No one admits that his bone cancer was actually the osteo, and I do know that when my husband had prostate cancer he also had cancer in a couple ribs and my brother`s had also spread to a couple ribs. So, we will never know if the bone cancer that killed him was from the prostate cancer spreading or from the operation waking up and spreading the cancer into his other bones. I only know that the Dr told me that as long as my husband kept taking the shots he would die with the cancer, but never because of it as the shots were supposed to keep the cancer locked where it was and not allow it to spread. That is just another reason I do believe removing the leg started the osteomyelitis up in full force and was the cause of the bone cancer that he died from.

From the time we lost our mother back in 1995( year after losing my youngest brother at age 60 in 1994) my brother was living alone in the family home and he started spending lots more time at our home. Then after losing Walt, Gerald and I started attending things together instead of each going alone. This continued for a few years until he lost his leg. Then I bought my new Aveo 2009 car with the larger trunk area and the back seat could be dropped down for even more room. It was large enough for me to put his walker in without having to close the walker up, so I started taking my brother places to see people since he was unable to drive anymore. Things went pretty good until he started having more trouble and could no longer walk with the prosthesis. Then I was again feeling bad because I could no longer put him in my car and take him visiting family and friends. I could have gotten family members to help me lift him from the wheelchair and into my car, but there would have been no one to help me get him out of the car and into other`s homes.

We had some good times every summer for three years in a row attending our High School yearly picnics. I had never attended them before, but my brother had gone for a couple previous years and was disappointed that he could no longer attend them, so that was what started me taking him. The first year we went I was having trouble driving, so our youngest sister drove us down and picked us up. The next two summers I picked him up and drove us there. All three summers I never did find out who might be there from my own graduating class as I just located which tables were being used by my brother`s class and then I stayed with them to help him out, getting his meals for him and other things. It would have been great to have seen some of tne members from my class, but his class made me feel very welcome at their tables. I knew all his class as they were just two years ahead of me and I had some of them in some of the extra subjects ( Geometry, Intermediate Algebra, Latin, Designing, Mechanical drawing , Typing, etc., .) that I took up, plus in the "Ticket Please Club" that I joined in High School. Belonging to this Club got me working collecting at all our Home sport Games without paying, which was nice. I was just a Freshman ( 1st year of High School) when I was picked to work collecting tickets at his class`s Junior Prom ( his third year of high School - a Dressy school dance where they dressed in long gowns and dress suits and where his class held their ceremony picking the King and Queen for their class.) To attend your Junior prom, you either had to be a Junior ( in 3rd year of High School) or go as a date with someone in that class. Once the ticket collection period was over we were invited to share in their meal and some even invited mw to a dance with them. So I did have a fun time- even had to wear a long gown while working there, which was exciting since I was only in 1st year of High and 15 years old at the time. Two years later I attended my own class`s Junior Prom with a date, not working this time, but I did stay a member of the Ticket Please Club till I graduated from High School. It was nice having two friends from his class show up at my brother`s Funeral Wake . When they spotted me they said they were hoping I would be there when they arrived as I was the only other one in my family that they knew. I tried to make them feel as comfortable as they had made me feel while I introduced them to my sisters and sister-in-laws. Gerald would have been so pleased that they cared enough about him to come. That was the kind of caring people they were and he was well liked by most everyone he met. They were very nice friends, even to me that used to be Gerald`s little sister in high School. My cousin was also there and she was in my High School class, but they never remembered her, even though she had been a cheer leader at the games. She had asked me to join with her, but I just was too shy back then to be up jumping around in front of so many strangers who attended our games.

I went down home to visit Gerald often and we had fun playing games together, some on the computer like the bowling and miniature Golf games, one board game we played was a game he had bought for me called "Horse-opoly". It was like the old Monopoly game, except everything had to do with horses. I did my best to bring him some enjoyment as much as I could. Every night we would catch each other on yahoo messenger to say "Good Night, have pleasant dreams, I love you" before we went off the computer for the night. I still find myself wanting to do it after 6 months.
My three daughters had all had training caring for the elderly, and they went down to help my nephew and his girl friend caring for Gerald the last couple weeks when things got worse. This nephew moved in with Gerald when he was operated on to remove his leg and they stayed living with him for the last three years to help care for him. Many family members were there with him that last day so he knew how much everyone loved him. Earlier that morning he told one of my daughters that he had to keep fighting because he was worried about his sisters. Even in all his pain, he was still thinking of us, not of himself. My daughter told him that we would all be hurting, but that we would be ok so he did not have to keep fighting the awful pain any longer, that it would be ok for him to let go, that we would understand. I was one of those holding his hand when he took his last breath. He went into a light coma shortly before, but I sensed he still was hearing us just the same by the way his hold on my hand still had some strength to the last breath and by the expressions on his face when I spoke to him. Because of his leg he always knew the osteo could break out at any time. Many times over the years spots were always breaking out and starting to bleed or look infected in different places on his leg, always reminding him it would always be there in his system. The skin remained so thin over the bone that any bump might cause a break in the skin and bleeding would start. Today they have a cure for osteomyelitis if it is caught in time, but years ago this medicine did not exist and his was too advanced to be of any help for him. He never wanted to become a burden to anyone,so he felt it would be unfair for him to marry . I never could change that feeling. So, he had no wife or kids to make his arrangements and we had him buried between our parents and our oldest brother Fred who had died in July 2008, just 13 months before losing our brother Gerald . We were always a very close family and it was doubly hard losing two brother so close together. My family used to be a large one, I had three brothers and three sisters, three were younger and three were older. Now there is just us four sisters and my older sister is 2 years older than I am, she just turned 80 years old last July. So, instead of having 2 older brothers and 1 older sister, I now find myself the next to oldest in the family with 1 older sister and 2 younger sisters. I have one sister who is 4 years younger, the brother we lost in 1994 was between her and I in age and the youngest sister is only 67. I guess that is the hardest thing about getting older, losing so many of those you love. Gone, but never forgotten. Their love will always be remembered by those who are left behind.

December 13th, Almost Christmas, Making some Gifts

2009-12-13T23:41:00.002-05:00

Here it is, almost Christmas and I still have a lot left to get done before Christmas arrives. Seems like the older I get the later I get the gifts for everyone. Maybe that is because every year my family just keeps getting larger- either with more new great grandchildren, or more grandchildren getting married. Heard a while ago that there will be at least one new great grandchild again next year.
I have been busy trying to get enough crocheting done to help with the gifts. I try to spend at least one afternoon each week visiting my Aunt in the Nursing Home.
After losing my last brother in August, my 3 sisters and myself had the home place to clear out. My Dad built this house back in 1923 or 1924 and after my Father passed away in 1975, one of my brothers moved in with my mother and he remained in the home place after our mother passed away in 1995. About a year ago, a sister-in-law (the wife of my oldest brother Fred who died last year) bought the home place. In the Will our mother had given my brother Gerald the life use of the home, where he remained until he died this past August. Then the sister-in-law wanted her house and the garage cleaned out. Last month my three sisters and myself worked for weeks trying to get all the work finished. Was hard watching strangers buying so many items that once belonged to our parents and my brother. I never realized how much there was in the house that I had bought over the years for them. A few of them I brought back home with me. November was made even harder as the 13th was brother Fred`s Birthday and the 26th was brother Gerald`s Birthday. Lost our last Uncle just a couple months before Gerald. That took such a strain on my Aunt that a few months later she went into a Nursing Home. They had been Married for 67 years. Will be even harder for my Aunt when her Birthday comes in April as that is also her Wedding Anniversary date. She is 89 years old and I worry a lot about her health. When I visited her a couple days ago she was telling me about pain she had both in her chest and in her right arm and that she still didn`t feel quite right from it. She also told me that she did not mention it to either of her sons as she did not want them to worry. She told me in confidence so If I tell either of them I would be letting her down and she would feel she had no one left she could trust to talk to. The Nurses at the home know about it and it is their duty to let her son know. I do not know if they did . She told me she asked them to see a Dr. and she said they told her they could not call the Dr over everything that happens. Since I am just her niece, I have no authority, so can not do anything. A couple months ago she had an eye infection and I was told "she will see the Dr tomorrow as that is her scheduled time". A few days later, while we were attending my brother`s Funeral, I was told that she had been taken to the Hospital because the infection had gotten so bad she was running a high fever. If it had been my mother, I would have insisted she see a Dr when the eye infection was first noticed instead of letting it get that bad. I did tell both of her sons that if it was my mother I would have insisted. Her oldest son said it did not look that bad to him.

Then last month there was all the outside items to be taken care of before the snow arrived, plus all my outside plants that needed to be brought inside for the winter. Once all that was done, I covered the side porch with heavy plastic to keep the snow off the porch and to help break the wind when the door was opened. Next, I put some plastic over the kitchen windows to help make the kitchen warmer. I made a small table frame to hold the round table top for a place to get the plants all in one place and off the floor and in front of the smaller pitcher window -in the room that once was my dining room. Today this room holds my large horse collection and now also my house plants during the winter. Yesterday one daughter told me it looked like a garden with soo many plants. All of the Amaryllis plants are upstairs where they will rest till spring except if they blossom as Some usually do blossom during the winter.

Another thing I did last month was to help daughter Linda make new front porch steps- railings and all. Her old cement steps had some breakage, making them unsafe.
Since it would have cost her a lot to get someone to break up and remove the huge old steps, I decided to just extend the porch out a little so we could make new steps to just cover over top of the old ones. She has a Ranch style home with a porch extending all across the front of the house, so wider steps looks ok. Some of her neighbors came over to tell us how great they looked. I did all the head work, measuring and most of the cutting, but to make it more her work, I had her do all the drilling and all the screw driving. That way she could feel proud of the job and also learned more about how to make plans and work better with electric tools. She is a fast learner and a hard worker.

This month I went in half on a new snow blower. My daughter and her husband who live next door to me have been helping me shovel for the past few years. This way they have a better machine to remove the snow with and since they also do most of mine for me, I benefit by helping so they can buy a better one that should last for years instead of a small cheap one.

Guess I should stop writing and head off to bed as it is now 10 minutes of one in the morning. My Border Collie Sassy will be up early waiting for me to get up and let her out and then bring her back in to feed her. She is almost 14 years old and does not stay out very long now that it is so cold out. I have to chain her up every time she goes out as we have a dog confinement Law here. Only got about 2-3 inches of snow today before it started hailing out, but almost a foot the day before yesterday. So, winter snow is starting to pile up. Was in the teens F when I let her out this morning, and got up into the 20`s F during the day. It is about 30 F now. I went out and poured hot water (with some Dawn dish washing detergent in it) over the porch steps on all three of my porches to keep them from icing up. I also poured it over the dogs steps off the side porch to remove some ice that had started forming on them. Funny how hot water with the Dawn keeps the ice from forming instead of making more ice. But it works great as long as there is enough dish detergent added to the hot water.
Sorry it has taken me so long to get myself writing again. Am still quite busy with getting gifts made and bought, but will write again when I find some spare time.

August 12, 2009 New Pillow case, 2nd picture

2009-08-26T15:14:00.002-04:00

This is the second picture showing the sunflower butter dish closed. Was open in the other picture.

Sorry I haven`t been writing in my Blog for a while. My brother took a turn for the worst and the Dr said it could be anytime. So, I was spending more time visiting him at the home-place where he was living. This is the sane home our father had built, where we were all born, and we all lived until the day we got married.

My very brave courageous brother was in lots of pain as he had bone cancer. He had refused the Morphine because he wanted to keep his mind clear to visit with us for as long as was possible. He had other pain pills, but they were not much help. He never complained even when we could see the pain was getting more than he could bear. He had been suffering from one thing or another since he was 13 years old. When he was 14, he was Hospitalized with osteo-mylitis and he got so ill that the Dr told my mother if they did not remove the bad leg my brother would not live through the night. My mother refused to sign for the leg removal. My brother spent a year in the Hospital, then another year at home in a wheel chair being tutored at home for his schooling. Then he finally started high School using crutches. He was still on crutches when I started high School the following year. Dr`s said he would never walk again after having the knee fluid removed twice from his knee, but he proved them all wrong. His next year of High School he rode his bike to school. We walked about a mile each way to High School twice a day as we went home for lunch. Many times he had me sitting on the crossbar as we coasted down the hill beside the school. Little harder pushing the bike and walking back up that steep short hill as we started back home. I used to help him pushing it uphill. I would have pushed it up myself, but he insisted he could do it, so I just held onto the other handlebar and helped.
Since that time he has suffered with kidney stones, had the neck gland removed due to cancer that had spread. Last year we were told that he had the bone cancer and there was nothing they could do for it. On the 4th, I knew it would not be more than three weeks, so I dropped everything to keep visiting with him.

He lost his hard fighting battle on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 .
Monday, Aug.24th we held his Funeral Service. He was liked by everyone who met him and made friends very easily. He was such a good person and will be missed terribly.
We had just lost our oldest brother in June of last year from Heart problems. Our youngest brother passed away back in 1994. Now we have lost all of our brothers and there is just me and my 3 sisters left.

Some day when I feel more in control of my feelings, I will tell some stories of my life with this older brother who not only shared my High School days, but we did a lot together- even to falling down a well together at an uncles farm when we were younger. God Bless and care for him until we meet again. I love you brother.

Aug.12, 2009 Working on my sewing machine.

2009-08-26T14:32:00.003-04:00

August 12, 2009 -Sewing on my electric sewing machine!

Today was one of those days when you ask yourself if you should have stayed in bed. Yesterday I decided it was time I stopped putting off sewing what needed to be done. I had piled up some items on the end of the font room couch near the sewing machine. There it sat all last week while I kept finding other things I felt were more important to do first.
Finally on Monday I started sewing. Finished hemming up four pairs of slacks and got the last pair half done when I ran out of that colored thread. Since I
already had one leg hemmed, I could not use another color to finish the hem on the other leg, so it waits till I can get to the store for more thread.

Then yesterday I shortened a couple of blouses that I had kept hanging on hangers and not wearing. Now I was feeling better just seeing the end of the couch cleared off and most of the sewing done.

Well, then came this morning. I decided that since I still had the sewing machine all set up, it would be a good time to make a couple new pillow cases for the small pillow I take places with me. The original cover was beginning to look worn from years of use. Maybe I should explain the importance of this small pillow. Years ago when my Husband and I were still running the Cub and Boy Scout Troops, I had an accident. My Dining room curtain had fallen and the curtain rod holder needed to be replaced. Back then we did not own a step ladder, so I often used the baby high chair to reach high places. Before climbing up onto the High chair, I took time to remove the other chairs away from that side of the dining room table-out of the way for safety. That day all the boy Scouts were meeting at our home before leaving for a week-end camping trip. Many of the boys came inside to chat with me while waiting for the others to arrive. I continued fixing the curtain rod and hanging the curtain while we chatted. Then when I was finished I started to climb back off the high chair and landed directly on the rounded top of one side of the back of one of the dining room chairs. One of the boys must have thought they were helping by moving the chair back under that end of the table. The impact broke off the tail bone and to this day I still have that separated piece of bone lose and able to move. Since this piece of bone causes pain whenever I sit wrong, I have been using a small pillow with a hole in it where the spine hits, so the bone does not get knocked against the end of the spine and causing pain running up my back to my head.

Now to get back to my day sewing to make the 2 new pillow covers-
First the thread broke and I had quite a time trying to re-thread the machine. I have a needle threader that I bent so I could push it through the machine needle. Takes me many tries before getting the threader through the needle hole.
Times like this I wish my hands were in better shape and I did not have diplopia, but I am still glad I am not really bad off like so many people are. I started sewing again and was doing well when the bobbin ran out of thread. I was glad I had another bobbin with some white thread on it so I did not need to fill the bobbin right then.

After re-pacing the bobbin, I was again sewing along when suddenly the thread got tangled on the post that was holding it. Without thinking, I just turned the spool of thread upside down to keep the thread from tangling again. Not too smart as I was reminded a few minutes later. Started sewing again. Everything was going well until suddenly the spool of thread went flying off the machine and down behind the machine. I reached the thread, but could not find the post as it had unscrewed off the machine and I figured it also must have gone flying. Looked all over and could not locate the post, so I decided to just unscrew the other post that was for winding a bobbin and screw it in the spool post spot. Then when I went to re-place the spool of thread onto the post, I discovered the post was still up inside the thread spool. Since the post is much smaller around than the opening in top of the thread spool, I still do not understand what held the post inside the spool.
So, I replaced the 2 posts back where they belonged and again started sewing.
Sewing the first pillow cover I had used the pins like I was sewing in a straight line, which of course didn`t work when sewing around corners as the pillow is almost a circle shape. So, many of the pins kept catching on the machine as I sewed. I was lots smarter when sewing the second pillow case and put the pins in sideways so the machine could glide gracefully over them. That made the work much faster and lots easier. I had just finished sewing when the second bobbin ran out of thread. Now, before putting away my machine, I should re-wind both empty white thread bobbins so they will be ready the next time I need to use white thread.

In the pictures is the small pillow with the new cover on. Also shown is my sewing machine paper can- an empty large coffee can with sewing items painted on it. I kept a second coffee can cover to add on the bottom of the can. Takes up very little room and so useful beside the machine to catch all the cloth and thread bits.

Even with all these problems, this machine works much better than my first expensixe Sears machine ever did.
My first machine was a Singer with the large foot treadle on the bottom. I loved that antique machine, but thought the new Sears machine would be lots better.
How mistaken I was. The new machine never held the tension and kept messing up till I gave up trying to sew with it. I went back to sewing by hand for many years. Then I saw an ad for a cheap machine put out by the "White Co.". Have now owned it for ten years and it still works great. Proof that money does not mean something is better when if costs a lot more.

Even now, I can still say that old treadle Singer sewing machine was a great machine. I made a lot of the kids clothes on it, plus some of my own.

Two week-ends ago I went to my older sister`s 80th Birthday party which was held about a 4 hours ride from where I live. I rode out with my other two sisters, ones husband (the driver) , plus a sister-in-law ( used her car).
. On the way the driver got lost so we were an hour late reaching the party. It was supposed to be a surprise party and everyone was really surprised to see us arriving that late. We all had a great time, spent the night in a motel and enjoyed spending most of the next day visiting before heading back home. It was wonderful seeing my sister`s family and her grandchildren and her great grand children , some I had never seen before as they live in North Carolina. The flower with the bee was sitting on the tables and the nephews wife who made them told me to take one home with me. One of the cute gifts my sister received was a butter holder. When my older sister came out to visit us this past week-end she brought us all a butter holder like hers. The glass container with the sun flower on it is that butter dish. In one picture you can see what it looks like closed up. In the other picture it has one section on top of the other. You are supposed to add warm water to the bottom section and butter in the top section and the warm water is supposed to keep the butter spreadable. I had never seen one like it before and at first i thought it was going to be a candle holder until she removed the cover. I thought that was real nice of her to give us all one.

Hoping things settle down soon so I will feel more like posting again. We are so worried about our only living brother who had a leg removed three years ago. He now is fighting a bad case of bone cancer and the Dr say there is nothing more they can do to help him. Then my only Aunt was put into a nursing home and she is having a rough time dealing with it. She lost her husband shortly before Christmas after being married for 67 years. I try to visit her as often as I can- at least once or twice a week. Plus visiting my brother and sisters is keeping me busy. I do miss reading all my friends blogs and feel I am missing a lot and hoping you are all doing well.

Just noticed the 1984 L.A. olympics mug was still on the table when I took the picture. My son had just given it to me to add to my stein collection. He said they only made a very few of them- less than 20 of them. Think he said 8 or 9, but not sure. Has the Olympic village stadium on it- put out by the Anheuser-Busch, which also made all the many Clysdale steins every year that are in my collection.

You might notice that both the napkin holder and the cup holders also have horses on them

July 30th, 2009, Sister, daughter, friends Birthday and Aunt Hazel into Nursing Home

2009-07-30T15:11:00.002-04:00

July 30th, 2009

Yesterday was my older sister`s 80th Birthday. It was also my middle daughter`s 52nd Birthday, and a long time internet friend`s 42nd Birthday. A popular date for sure. They celebrated my sister`s Birthday with a surprise Birthday party on Sunday. It normally takes about 3 to 3 1/2 hours to drive to my sisters, but we got lost on the way and ended up getting there an hour late. We should have arrived there a half hour early. Everyone they asked either had never heard of Pulaski, or gave directions that were wrong. We ended up about 35 miles past where we were headed and had to drive back. Everyone had a great time. My other two sisters also went, the car belonged to a sister-in-law who was married to our oldest brother and a brother-in-law did the driving. Much better coming home as we drove on the Thruway part way home so we wouldn`t get lost again.

OH! How busy I have become lately. Worrying about my Aunt Hazel has turned into a different kind of worry. While in the hospital for an infection, she started getting mixed up about where she was. She was thinking she was at home and that some one had removed all her paintings off the wall and her furniture was missing. It was very hard seeing her that way. It started the following morning after she was admitted to the hospital. I keep wondering if the meds they gave her for the infection might have caused illusions, but no one else is thinking my way. After the infection was cured, things were still confused in her thinking. I noticed they were giving her shots to calm her. The first two hours when I arrived she was fine, then there was 4 hours of confusion. When I left her Saturday she asked me how many day I would be gone. Went to my sister`s surprise Birthday Party- we left early Sunday morning and came home Monday evening. So, I told her I would be gone for two days. Tuesday I went back to the Hospital to visit with her and learned her Dr told her she was going from the Hospital into a nursing home. Her thinking was very clear when I showed up to visit with her and she asked me if I was in on sending her to the Home. Of course I was not, but I am not sure she is believing me. Now, I am giving her a few days to settle in at the Nursing Home before I go there to visit her. I just hope she does realize that her going into the Home has nothing to do with me. It breaks my heart to have her leaving her home after so many years. She had grown up in the same home and when her father was ill, her and her Husband moved there to care for him and being an only child, the home was left to her. She has lived there every since. When her husband got ill, their youngest son and his wife moved in with them to help.
My Uncle passed away shortly before Christmas. He was my mother`s brother. They only had the two sons who are both married and there is a granddaughter. About the only other ones who were visiting my Aunt at home was my cousin Mary and myself.

I know it will be very hard for her. At Home she was able to get up when she wished, eat when she was hungry, do whatever she felt like doing and go to bed when ever she felt tired. She has a hand saw almost painted for me. She paints country scenes on old saws and on almost anything else she finds. She was also crocheting some still. I had bought her a large knitting case to hold her yarn and crochet needles which they probably will not allow her to have at the home and I am sure they will not allow the saw for her to finish painting it. I am hoping they do allow her to have a canvas and her paints as she so loves painting.

The Rescue Squad had told my cousin she would be transported to the Nursing Home about 1:30 on Monday. I went to visit her around 1PM and stayed till about three PM Monday and she was still there when I left. I arrived home to hear a message left on my phone from the cousin. I called him back to tell him she was still in the hospital at 3PM which surprised him. He thought they had taken her long before. I am not sure what time they ended up moving her to the Home. Later this evening I will call and see how things are going for her. My heart breaks for her. She had hoped to spend the rest of her life in her own home. She was born in 1920 and turned 89 years old on April 6th. She had been married for 67 years when her husband passed away last December. Their Anniversary was also on her Birthday, making her Birthday a sad day this year.

Last month my brother was almost moved to a Nursing Home, but arrangements were made for help so he could continue living at home.

I have spent so much time visiting them and the rest of my family, that I haven`t had time for writing in my blog. Hoping things settle down soon so I can again start visiting my friends blogs. I miss reading them.

Fourth of July, 2009

2009-07-05T13:36:00.002-04:00

Independence Day 2008.

A Day for thanking all who fought, who were willing (and many did) to give their lives to give us the Freedoms we still enjoy today. God Bless them all and all those still fighting to keep our country free both today and all through the years.
While growing up I was often marching in the Parades with the girl Scouts, then for years we would walk the kids to the corner on the main road so they could enjoy seeing the parades. A few years ago they even had a small parade that went by the end of the road where I live now and to watch the fireworks going off at the firehouse about a half mile from my home, we simply sat out in chairs in our front yard while the kids laid on the blankets. I remember for a few years before that when we drove to see fireworks and sat on the car hood to see over the crowd. Then a few years ago they moved the fireworks up on the mountain at the ski center. Now the trees keep us from enjoying the fireworks from our own yard. Seems funny how we can see the lights from the ski center, but not the fireworks. Maybe it is because we live only a mile or two from the mountain that the trees are hiding everything, or maybe they are setting them off towards the other side of the mountain. I do miss seeing them, but not enough to drive through that madness of vehicles to watch it.

I usually have my flag flying in the flag holder on the front porch, but I had to leave it inside this year due to rain. In the past almost four weeks we have only had three good days with out rain. Actually only two clear days and it did rain for a short time in the morning of that third day, but the afternoon was nice. Rained again last night, but clear out right now. They are saying more rain tomorrow and most of next week. I am hoping they are wrong as there is such a thing as too much rain for some of the farmers crops, such as tomato plants to keep the plants healthy. It has helped keep my many flower gardens filled with blossoming flowers. But, I still have to go fill the bottom water holding section on my earth boxes that my garden plants are growing in. There is a cover on the boxes with only the plants them self growing through the poked holes so they do not get watered by the rain. Might be a good thing since my tomato plants do not get over watered that way.

My first memories of Independence Day were of celebrating this day at home with my family. As we grew up and had families of our own, my parents continued holding the great family Picnics where all relations were invited to attend. I remember all the work my parents did to feed everyone and to make the day so special for everyone. Over the years as the families became larger, everyone started bringing a dish of food to share with others. My Dad was the outside cook, while my mother did all the oven and salads cooking. I still remember those large containers of lemon flavored drinks, iced tea containers and coffee always ready to serve and re-blemished as soon as any container started looking over half empty. There was always my mother`s home baked beans and her famous baked rice, her chocolate cake and her apple sause cake, plus often her molasses cookies. It rook hours to make her baked rice because she first cooked the rice in a large kettle for hours on the stove until it looked like cooked oatmeal. Then she would add the ingredients to the rice and pour it into a large rectangular metal pan and cook it for a few more hours in the oven till the rice was real tender, but not dry. She would always add raisins to just half of the pan and leave the other half without the raisins to satisfy everyone who attended. I will always remember how long it took to make her rice because every year for the past 14 years I continued making it for the picnics. I was the only family member who ever learned how she made her rice. One time I tried on my own and it just never tasted as good as my mother`s. So, I asked her to let me know the next time she intended making it so I could come down and watch her. It ended up with me doing all the work while she sat and instructed me, so that is how I learned to make my mothers baked rice. Yesterday was the first year I didn`t have to make the rice because no one got together for a large family picnic. Seems like the family members are so much fewer and many live farther away and not as many were attending last year to make it seem worth it this year. Many of the families grown children and grandchildren are working and unable to tend, others are off camping or otherwise busy.
I remember after my Father passed away in 1975, my mother, with the help of all our family continued to hold the cook outs in her back yard for quite a few years. Then my oldest brother moved the huge family picnics from my parents back yard next door to his large farm. This is the same farm where my father grew up and that we had rented many years later from my father`s sister. This was where we lived when our twins were born. My brother bought it years later. One time my mother told me she wished the picnics were moved back to her yard again, but it never happened. I know my oldest brother thought it was a lot easier and lots less work for my mother and I do not think he ever knew her wishes. Been 34 years since my Dad stood at the BBQ cooking and my Mom hosted the 4th of July Picnic for all the relations on both of the family. We had lost our youngest brother the year before we lost our Mother. It now has been 15 years without Ken and 14 years since my Mom cooked her beans and rice, cakes and so much more. This is the second year without my oldest brother around to host the picnics at his farm. The last few years he was in a wheelchair and unable to do anything so each of my 3 sisters families and the youngest brother`s family and my family took turns being in charge of running the games and handling the grill and other doings which was still being held at his farm. Last year one of my younger sisters held a small get together picnic at her place. Only about 25 - 30 attended. I can remember many picnics when there was way over 150 attending. There were horseshoes, bad mitten, water balloons, and so much more to keep everyone enjoying the day. For a few years my brother had his son (who was not only a fireman, but trained in setting off fireworks), set off fireworks on his large farm. One year many of those attended drove to my brother`s camp, where that year , the fireworks were set off out over the lake. The ground was too dry and fear of a fire made it to dangerous to chance having fireworks on the farm that year.

So many many memories I still have from those years and years of family picnics with so many relatives showing up all at the same time. I remember you couldn`t walk two feet without finding another relative to chat with. The back yard was loaded with lawn chairs and if you got up, don`t expect the chair to be still empty when you got back to it. All of my the family brought their chairs to add to my parents and there were the picnic tables that my Dad had built. Some years they even borrowed chairs from the firehouse and even kitchen chairs often ended outside. The porch steps were usually loaded with sitters and to go in or out of the house meant some had to move. My mother also would toss down blankets on the ground to sit or lay on- great places for the crawling babies to play and sleep under the trees. Many of the kids played basket ball using my ball and hoop that my Dad had hung on his garage over the garage doors, plus crochet, horseshoes , a ring toss game and other games were set up in different areas on my parents property. There was never any kids fighting because there were so many games to play to keep them happy. I used to marvel that there was over 150 people together and all getting along. And food,- there was so much food and so many different kinds that no one went home hungry. I cannot remember ever seeing half that much food at a wedding or other big doings. There was always so much that I can remember my mother talking many into taking some of it home with them at the end of the day. People would start showing up early in the morning and most never left till long after dark, so eating went on all day. After all these years, my kids still remember the fun at the grandparent home when they were kids still in school.

This year I find myself missing those good old days when you got to see relations you hardly ever saw during the rest of the year. Most of them are gone today and it seems the younger grandchildren today have their own life to live and are not as willing to work all day, come home to get the kids ready and to rush off to a family picnic. In my day and in my kids day, we were always willing to rush down to join everyone, even if they had worked all day- they still showed for a few hours after they got out of work.
The best part of growing up are the wonderful family memories we made together. We were a lucky group of 7 children- I had three sisters, three brothers, three were older and three were younger- cannot get any more in the middle than that. Since our parents believed in family doing things together , we were left with some wonderful memories for all to share and cherish for years to come.

God Bless our Troops and bring them home safely is my Prayer. Keeping our country and other countries safe and free so that all those in Service can soon be headed back to their homeland is also important and Prayers also go out for that.

Just another rainy day/ Aunt Hazel.

2009-06-17T21:02:00.002-04:00

Another day stopped by rain.

Monday, June 15, 2009

This has been one rainy spring so far. Saturday I decided to make a small picket style fence to sit in front of the trash barrels. At my daughters they had some scrap treated lumber which I felt would work great. I started checking out the boards and cut the smaller pieces into the length I needed and then decided to make the top with the slanted sides and a small flat center to match the picket fences we had in our back yards. I was doing great until I ran out of the smaller boards (about 9-10 foot lengths that made two uprights each) and needed to cut some very long boards down as they were too long to cut in my shop. These boards were long enough to cut three good picket boards with more board left over. So, I asked my Son-I-L- if he could cut them in half for me. He has the saw for doing it and all I had was Walt`s heavy electric saw and with the pinched nerve in the right shoulder I knew I would not be able to hold the weight long enough to do all the cutting. As it ended up, my Son-I-L not only cut them shorter, but did the rest of the top cuts on them also. Well, I could have cut them on my table saw, but there are a lot of long boards that would need to be moved before I could turn my saw sideways to accommodate the longer boards. Then I found some thick boards that made good posts by just cutting them into about 3 1/2 inch widths. Son-I-L owns a hole digger, so I didn`t even have to dig the deep holes for the three posts. With me holding the level we finally got the three posts put in. Then I decided to add a wider board along the bottom of the posts a short distance above the ground. Then I used another wide board, cut in half lengthwise to make two narrower support boards which we screwed a short ways down from the top and one across the center. These I did on my table saw. Then I held each upright picket cut board in place while my Son-I-L- screwed them all onto the support boards. Daughter thought it looked nice when we finished and said she would paint it.

Would have been easier and faster to have put it all together on the ground and then just set the posts into the holes. but if you have ever tried to dig 3 holes exactly the same distance into the ground, you know how hard that is to do. Even harder into uneven ground where you cannot mark the poles to be sure the same length shows above the ground. I did level the ground some to make it a little easier. We finished just as it started to rain. We ended up hurrying to get all the tools out of the rain. Never realized how many tools we used until we were rushing to pick them all up- the heavy cutting saw, drill, shovel, hoe ( I used leveling), post hole digger, hammer, 3 different size screws, level, right angle ( used when cutting the boards) , plus the smaller saw used for trimming the end on one board.

Yesterday ( Sunday) I spent the day working on my long narrow flower beds that run along the front of the house on each side of the front porch. I had to trim the grass before starting. Most of the rocks had worked down into the ground and needed to be dug out, then I weeded them well and added more soil in the front where the rocks were to sit. The floor boards on my front porch are painted redwood color, so I decided to use the reddish brown colored mulch around the plants I put into the flowerbeds. I finished one side and came in the house to rest for a spell, then went back out to do the other side. I was almost finished when again it started to sprinkle. But I still managed to keep working. A lot less tools to take care of in the rain this time- just the wheel barrow, shovel, the grass trimmer, rewind the 100 feet of electric cord onto the reel, bring in my phone, rinse off the garden gloves and hang them on the clothes line.
When we finished my daughter told her husband " Now that you know how to build a picket fence, you can build me a short one to keep the kids in the play area and away from the flowers when they are out back". His reply was that you can buy one already made. Ha Ha.

One problem that I have is -too many cordless phones. The old one I mostly use outside and in the shop, one sits beside my bed and when I went for a new one for my computer line I ended up with a two phone set, making a total of 4 cordless phones. Saturday I had taken out the mate to the comp phone as the phone rang and that one was the closest phone when I ran inside to answer it. Big mistake . I had laid it on my son`s snowmobile out of the way while carrying the boards and marking them for cutting. That was located near the back of the property, close to where the boards were piled. But the work was being done out front a short distance from the road where the phone couldn`t be seen. Rushing to get everything inside out of the rain, I never went back into the back yard. So, my phone was left out side. Since I never use that phone- it usually just sits on the charger out of sight. This morning when I got up, I suddenly remembered that I never brought it back in and it was outside from Saturday morning until about 5:30 am this morning (Monday). I was surprised to see that even in two rain storms, plus the night moisture , when I opened the battery case no water had gotten in. Now I am waiting to see if the dead battery will again take a full charge. If I owned less phones, I would have had to remember to bring it back inside the first night. So, guess there is a bad side to owning so many cordless phones. But, I also keep one of the old style phones that isn`t a cordless just for extra safety.

I haven`t started anything outside so far today as we are expecting a thunder storm according to the weather report. It did thunder a bit yesterday while I was putting everything away, but it didn`t last long. I just read a severe thunder storm warning going across the bottom of the TV screen , warning to get inside if you hear thunder , and that there might be hail with this storm. It is almost 1:30 now and it is supposed to be about 15 miles from me by 2:15, but it still might not reach this far. I can hear thunder way off in the distance now.
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Here it is Tuesday and the phone charged up ok and I used it today. Went out and hooked up the hose sprayer and watered the front yard. Grass is nice and green and flowers are doing well. Picked some lettuce from my garden boxes, then painted an old wood rectangular table that used to be my small work brench before I built myself a much larger one. I am thinking of painting the table top to resemble tile blocks and might sit my small water fountain on it along with a few other items. Then sit the table out near my back porch close to the larger flower bed. Later I am hoping to add a standard under a real large table like top that resembles what would make a wonderful table to sit with company in my back yard. It is shaped like an 8 sided very large table top. I have some pieces of treated posts that would make a great base once I decide how I am going to hook them all together and how I can add supports so it can not tip over. If I have good luck, I plan on making some sort of framework under the table top to fit tightly over the center standard. This way, I would be able to remove the top and put it inside the shop during the winter since the top is not made from treated wood. A lot of planning, next thing is to carry them out. The edging around the table top extends up a little so nothing could fall off it. Still a lot more planning to do before I can begin working on it.
I have looked at that table top taking up so much room in my shop for a few years now and hope to do something with it now. Wish I had a nice patio to sit it on, but that is too much dreaming and I do not have the proper space for building a patio, or even to enlarge my back porch that much. Hope my plans are not to much for me to accomplish. Time will tell.

When I was last out side it was starting to sprinkle, but I do not think it will amount to much tonight. Supposed to be nice tomorrow, then more rain the next few days. The farmer must love all this rain.
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Here it is a nice day for a change- Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Started the day out by driving down to check on my Aunt. Sat and crocheted with her till her youngest son came home from work around 4pm. Wish I knew a way to help her handle living with out my Uncle. I know from experience that time is the only thing that helps. She feels she has nothing to live for without her husband. Being 89 years old, she is not able to do all the things she used to do and feels she is just a burden to everyone. Today I reminded her that her sons and their families needed her. I understand how hard it is finding yourself alone after many years of marriage. I told her that her sons just lost their father and that they needed her now more than ever. I was hoping that getting her to remember that they were also missing him as much as she is might get her thinking of how they felt and why they needed her so much.

I did manage to get her laughing a couple times for the first time in months. I went after her mail for her and took care of her trash can after the trash truck picked up this afternoon. Things she would have done herself in the past. She hated leaving everything for her son to do after he came home from work.
I got her talking about lots of happy memories that were connected to many of the items in her home that she has kept over the years. Her eyes did brighten up while she was telling me how she obtained the medium sized wooden pig that once belonged to her grandparents, and about the painting she did by copying a picture off a card some stranger had sent her many years ago. This stranger was riding a bike across country and had stopped at the little country store that my Aunt was running while her husband was off in Germany fighting in the second World War. This young lad was stopping to rest and she gave him a free ice cream while she listened to him talk about his travels. When he tried to pay for the ice cream, she insisted it was free. Before he left he had asked her to write her name and address on a paper grocery bag for him. Months later she received a Christmas card from him thanking her for the free ice cream. He did sign his name, ( Larry something) , but his address was listed from " A windstorm that passed through". Today, over 50 years later, she still wishes she knew where he lived and how he was doing. The picture on the card was a nice winter scene and the enlarged painting she did looks just like that card. She told me that listening to him talking about his journey was the brightest part of that week and she wish he knew how much it had meant to her. i enjoy listening to her telling me her stories about the past and I know how much my just sitting quietly listening brightens up her day. She is very hard of hearing, so talking is easier for her than trying to carry on a two way conversation all the time. i waved to her son who was driving in as i was leaving. He is always thanking me for spending time with his mother. As I told him once, he doesn`t owe me any thanks because i enjoy visiting with his mother. Saddest part is that one of my cousin and myself are the only family members who ever stop to visit with her. I wish more relation would stop to visit with her once in a while. It sure would mean a lot to her. Some day they might find them self alone that way and then they will realize how it feels to feel abandoned that way with few visitors to talk to. I wish they would realize it before it is too late to brighten up her long lonely days.

Tomorrow, Thursday, I am off again to see my eye specialist. I know I will need to have the prisms in my glasses changed again as things are not as clear again. My Dr hates to change them until he actually has to. I was told by the place where I have my glasses done that there are only so many different prisms and that is why the Dr likes to wait as long as he can before changing them. But, working in a wood shop around so many kinds of large saws and other electrical tools, I do not feel safe waiting that long. As I told the Dr I have to see as clearly as possible to be safe in my shop and also for driving my car. So, I will just keep praying there are enough prisms for me to keep changing them for as long as I am around to need them.
Over 5 years ago the Dr told me that in time the prisms will turn my eyes crossed and he was surprised it hadn`t already happened. Now, here it is over 5 years since he told me that and so far it has not happened.
God has been good to me this long, so I have Faith that he will continue getting me through the hard times ahead. No need to be worrying until I have to, that is my motto.
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Now, for the weather ahead- weather report says more rain tomorrow (Friday), again Saturday, thunder storms on Sunday and rain again next Monday. Haven`t heard any further ahead, so wondering when our next dry day will arrive. Neighbors must think I am crazy as using the earth boxes to grow my garden in means I need to use the water hose and refill the bottom section of each earth box with water every day, even on the days when it rains. Wonder if my neighbors think I am crazy when they see me standing in the rain, holding the hose pouring water into the boxes? :) But the boxes have covers over them and the only openings in the covers is where the plants are growing, so the rain doesn`t water them.

Monday, Memorial Day, May 25th, 2009

2009-05-26T09:50:00.002-04:00

Monday, Memorial Day, May 25th, 2009

When I was a kid Memorial Day was a special day. A day to give thanks to all who fought for our protection and to keep all the freedoms we have been accustomed to. A Day to remember all those who gave their lives to keep our country free and all those who came home with so many terrible disabilities to handle the rest of their lives. We owe them all so much. Now that night time is almost here, I need to go out and bring in my Flag. I do fly our beautiful American Flag on all important holidays unless the weather is bad. I need to bring it in as it might rain tonight, plus the frost could ruin it. I live on a short street with only about a dozen families living on it and as far as I can see, I believe my Flag is the only one that ever flies on my street. I love seeing the furls of the flag as the wind blows it. Wonder if kids today ever heard of the word furls. My father and most of our neighbors used to put out the flag when I was growing up, plus all the schools also used to have the Flag flying in the yard. Leaves me wondering what ever happened to respect for our country. Did removing the -standing and saying the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag with your hand over your heart in all schools before class started every day- did it cause the younger generation to lose the respect for our Flag? If so, then do we have to blame our generation for allowing it to happen. Looks like we need more people making our laws that did the war fighting and so knew the hard struggles they faced fighting for our Country. It is our generations that keep complaining about the lack of respect from teenagers today, and also our generations that are making the new laws removing God from all important places. I noticed they still keep God in the Inaugural process when putting a new President in office, so shouldn`t all others in offices need to do the same? If they can`t put the word God on plaques in the Court Room, then why do they still have to swear on the Bible to tell the truth, nothing but the truth? How can using the word God be wrong and using the Bible be correct? Are they not basically standing for the same thing. Wonder what would happen if all Lawyers also had to swear on the Bible to tell nothing but the truth? Would they be able to win their cases as much? God Bless all those who fought to keep our country free!!

I finally thought spring weather was here so I started putting the plants in my Earth boxes . Started some of my vegetable plants in the house months ago. This year, instead of using the miracle-grow soil, I decided to try out those small peat pods to grow in. They were being advertised so much, I expected good luck using them. Big mistake. Everything started growing faster at first, but soon the plants were bending over ( less than an inch tall) and couldn`t stand up because the stems were too weak and spindly. Next year, if I am still able to garden, I will go back to using the soil, not those peat pods. So, I ended up buying many of my plants at the nursery place.

As for the large reg. tomatoes, those I usually get from a son-in-laws father who has his own small green house in his own back yard. A while ago my Son -In-Law came over to tell me he has the tomato plants from his Dad sitting on his side porch any time I am ready to plant them in my boxes. Heard on the TV that it was going down to 34 degrees F tonight and that we should cover everything outside as we might have a wide spread frost. So, I have decided to leave the tomato plants on the porch overnight and plant them tomorrow. Will mean a couple boxes less to cover tonight. I will be covering the boxes holding the lettuce, pepper plants, zucchini, cukes and a few others I have already planted in some of the boxes. Green and yellow string beans are planted, but not growing yet, so no need to cover them. Also have other containers with carrots and beets growing which might need to be covered. Sometimes I wonder if all this work is worth it, but once I start eating those fresh grown veggies, I am always glad I did grow them.
Thinking of the old days when we used to have the huge gardens on the farm, now those were real busy summers. We continues having the farm gardens even after we moved up here. Relation owned the farm and allowed us to keep farming way out back. We would even grow enough potatoes to feed our family all through the winter months. Helped a lot needing less money for groceries and leaving more for other necessary items. I still can a few beans, beets, carrots and tomatoes, but nothing like the amount I used to can. But still enough for one person. I still have a few more canned string beans, and carrots from last years crop. I am hoping to can more carrots and beets this year than I did last year.
We usually do not have to worry any more about having a frost after Memorial Day, but this year we might have it tonight on Memorial Day evening. Weather seems less dependable every year, or so it seems.

Yesterday I finally fixed up the two boxes for the cemetery- one goes on Walt`s and the second if for my parents grave. I thought of taking the boxes down today, but after seeing the traffic (when I made a fast trip early this morning to the grocery store), I have decided to wait till another day. Supposed to rain most of this week, but the first nice day we have, I will take down the boxes which are filled with flowering plants and some long trailing Ivy.

When I picked up the plants and soil yesterday, I saw a small water fountain that wasn`t very expensive, so I decided to buy it. I have always wanted one for my yard, but never would spend the money on one. I told my daughter I decided to buy it, that maybe at my age , it was time I stopped worrying about every spent penny and started having a few things I have always wanted. She agreed. I also saw a pot holding a climbing Mandevilla flowering plant with the wooden trellis in the pot that the plant was already climbing up and decided instead of planting the morning glories this year, I would sit this plant in front of my taller trellis beside my side porch and let it climb up that trellis. When my daughter saw me looking at the plant she decided she was going to buy it and give it to me as an early Birthday gift (real early since my Birthday isn`t till Sept.). I read on the directions that in the winter it can become a house plant, Hope I have good luck keeping it inside next winter. The flowers on it are large and pretty.

To get back to the water fountain, It is just a small fountain and the top resembles a flower with the water cascading down from the flower top to one water holding place, then has small streams cascading down in different areas all around the fountain from the first dish like section to a second larger one below it. Small enough to make it easy for me to store when winter arrives so the weather will not destroy it and it should last me for years. now, I just need to decide where I wish to put it. If I had a patio, it would have been put on it, but since I do now have a patio, maybe place it by one of my flower beds.
Thought of setting it in the center of the flower bed out back, but then decided against it.
I should bring down my wooden glider swing and replace the top board so I can again sit out on the back porch in it on the cooler evenings. I used to sit on the back porch with Walt in this swing and either knit or crochet on Christmas gifts. One year it got left out on the back porch and the dripping eaves destroyed the end section of the top board. I do have the wood and the needed router to make the groove needed for the top board, so my only excuse for not having it already repaired is just too lazy to get it done I guess. It just seems like there is always something more important that needs doing first. Time to stop looking for more work that needs doing and take time for things to enjoy while I am still able to work in my shop.

I was intending on writing a tribute to my mother for Mother`s day, but just couldn`t get my mind working on it. As i mentioned in my last post, this year mother`s day fell on the same date that my Mother had died- May 10th, 14 years ago and her birthday would have been 4 days after Mother`s day on May 14th. So, Mother`s day started out feeling the loss, but it brightened up once my children and some grandchildren showed up, plus my newest great granddaughter that was born on my birthday last Sept. was also here to visit with me.

Last week was another happy event. My youngest granddaughter had invited me to her "Grandparents Tea" at her Pre-School. I wasn`t sure if I could make it, was hoping for nice weather. Turned out a nice day and when I arrived I saw little Latasha walking around looking lost among all her school friends and their grandparents. When she saw me, her mouth dropped open, her arms went up and she came on a run to meet me. It was fun seeing the excitement on her face and she kept telling her friends "this is my grandmother". I was told when she got home later she was still so excited that she kept telling her baby-sitter that her grandmother was there. Her Mom said she was still talking about it when she go home from work. Made me feel great knowing how happy it made her to have me make it.

Well, I am back. Just went out to cover all the plants and moved what I could up onto the back and side porches. Hope the new ones I just planted in the flower beds across the front of he house make it through if we get the frost. Sure is feeling quite chilly outside and it is only 7:45pm. Feels like fall weather, so we probably will get the frost. reads 48 degrees F on my porch, but that cold wind makes it feel more like 30 degrees. I thought we were done with the cold weather and some warmer spring weather was here to stay. Now expecting it to go down to 34 degrees. Shows you can never count on the spring weather to stay, even if the May month says it is spring.

Have already brought Sassy, my border Collie, inside for the night. She has started wanting to stay indoors all the time unless I put her food and water out on the porch to interest her in going outside. I always bring her inside in bad weather as she is getting old and I think the dampness might bother her, especially on days like this when the chilly wind is blowing. Sassy turned 13 years old this past March. One day over 13 years ago, we were visiting at their trailer and here was this tiny about 3 month old puppy. She was chewing on the large cats ears and also on the old cocker spaniels ears and no one was correcting her, so I decided to teach her it was a no. Seemed like the more I corrected her the more she was following me where ever I walked. When it was time for us to leave, this little puppy beat me into the car and hopped up onto the back seat. I removed her, but she squeezed behind my seat into the back again before I could shut my car door. Then I carried her all the way to their porch and put her up on the porch and hurried back to the car. Still she beat me in before I could shut the door. The nieces husband told me to take her home. When I said I couldn`t take their dog, I was told I had to because the puppy had chose me and she had never followed them around like she was following me. Our niece agreed with her husband and also told me there was a small dog at the local Mall pound she wanted to get, but already owning three dogs, she couldn`t, but if I took Sassy, then she could get the other dog. As far as we knew she never did get another dog and they moved from the trailer soon after wards. Sassy was named by my husbands niece and her husband before they gave her to me and since she came when called, we decided to keep her name. On her papers she is listed as Sassy Babe. She was the first dog that Walt got real close with. He taught her how to walk backwards in front of him and today she still often slows me down by walking backwards through the house in front of me. When I am in a hurry, I wish she hadn`t learned to walk backwards, but most of the time it doesn`t bother me. I sure would miss her company and hope to have her for many more years, but sometimes I notice that her kidneys are starting to leak a bit and that causes me to worry more about losing her. Vet tells me she is doing great considering her age. He was surprised at how good her teeth still were at 13 years old. but she does loves her chews and her meaty or milk dog bones and they do help keep the teeth clean and stronger. There was a spell when she started getting too overweight, but I was able to get her weight back down to between 50 to 55 pounds and the vet seemed pleased about that weight. At night I keep a long piece of cardboard, covered by plastic which has layers of newspapers over the plastic just in case she should leak while sleeping. It is not continuous yet and I am hoping it never gets any worse. Love and depend on her too much to even think about not having her here with me. She gives me such a safe protected feeling, so living alone I can go to sleep at night with no worry. Any noise outside and she will start barking, rather she is outside or sleeping here in the house with me. I have learned the difference in the sounds of her barks, more sharper when someone has entered my property, duller when she is just trying to send a cat or squirrel out of my yard. She is loud when it is a larger vehicle such as a town or garbage truck going down our road. Still another sound when it is just the whirring sound of the cars and trucks on the Northway a few blocks from my home. The Northway is our local speed road and is much higher in the air -way above our local roads so the sounds carry loud at times. I remember when it was first built. Many of the neighbors used to complain about the noise, especially the loud clang made by the long delivery trucks with the second trailer added on the back- we call them piggy backers- two large enclosed carriers attached together and then connected to just one cab. It sounded like home to me as there was just a huge wooded area- large forest- between where I lived and where the railroad was located-- about a mile or two of woods going from our home where we grew up to the Railroad station. We would lay in bed at night and listen to the loud clang noise made when they would back up the train and slam into another car (train section) to connect it to the end of the train. Well, the piggy backers made almost identical noise as the two sections rattled where connected. So, I was used to hearing that loud clanging noise.
Our local railway closed up for a few years after I was married, but then it re-opened and is still in use today, being used both by passengers and also for transporting supplies for factories. I got to ride this train when I was a Senior in high school. We took the train -about a 4 hour drive- from our town to New York City on our senior trip that year at Easter time. After spending 4 days seeing all the important places in New York City, even went up into the top of the Statue of Liberty and also up into the torch, what a view of both New york City and also of New Jersey, plus out over the ocean that seemed to stretch forever. Gave you a great feeling knowing how - probably millions or more by now- of immigrants came through this port to become US Citizens so many many years ago. A couple years later they closed off the way to the torch for needed repairs. we then rode a bus from New York City to Washington, Dc where we spent 4 more days visiting where our President lives and where all our Senators and Assemblymen (and women) sat when they passed laws for our country. I remember how we found the seats saved for those from our state and we sat in them to get the feel- seemed like the feel of power must sit there. We were also allowed to sit in the presidents chair and other important government officials seats. The Cherry trees were in blossom when we were in Washington and i still remember how beautiful they looked and the wonderful aroma these cherry trees gave off. I still have the picture of our class and those from many other schools, some from our state and many classes from other states-all sitting on the hugs green lawn that stretched out in front of the Capital building. We saw houses where early president had lived and learned a little about the way they lived from the style of furniture in those houses.There was so much that we got to see that week. Even though there was many more important buildings for us to see in NY City, many of the kids in my graduating class wished we had spent just 3 days in NY City and the 4 days in Washington DC. It was beautiful in Washington that time of year. People there seemed so polite and friendly, while in NY City it seemed like everyone was in such a rush all the time, heading off in every direction. We did get to spend a few hours shopping in the large stores, such a Gimbals and other popular places we had only heard about and never expected to set foot in. Some were a little too expensive for us school kids, but it was still fun to check out the items bought by the rich. I had saved my baby sitting money to spend on this trip. I bought gifts for my parents and my baby sister, then found some small items to bring back to other family members. In my old scrapbook I still have the receipts from Gimbals for some of the items I bought there. We stayed at the New Yorker Hotel.
I still also have the very long pencil with a three pointed flag on the eraser end. This flag has a picture of our New York Capital building on it. This I bought when my eighth grade class made the bus trip to Albany, which is the capital City in our state of New York. On that trip, we left on Friday and came back home late Sunday night. Teachers didn`t waste any time during that trip, we were constantly seeing one important place after another, including where our own State laws were made. I wish schools were still continuing these trips when my children were in school. I would have loved them being able to enjoy such education trips and all the fun that goes along with these trips.

Mother`s Day 2009

2009-05-10T22:40:00.004-04:00

Some flowers in bloom in time for Mother`s Day. First picture shows the flower bed along my driveway from the front end, the second picture shows the same flower bed from the other end. The other smaller flower bed is out front and the flowering tree is near the back porch.

Mother`s Day -May 10th, 2009

Today is Mother`s Day and also the date that my mother passed away-May 10th.
Her Birthday was May 14th. It has been 14 long years since she died- on May 10, 1995
I sure was thinking of her and remembering how we used to go to visit her every year,
both on her Birthday and on Mother`s Day. We never missed one year without visiting
with her. She was a wonderful mother and will always be missed.

The day started getting brighter when company started arriving. I have seen all my 6 children and their mates-plus a phone call from my step son. A granddaughtetr stopped with my newest great granddaughter who is now 8 months old. While I was playing with her she let out a burb and gave us both a bath. Even I had to change my clothes. But she is a sweetie. Later a grandson stopped with his wife and three of my great grandsons. Then a received a second phone call from another grandson who lives in Virginia- about 7 or 8 hours drive from me. Two other gandchildren came with their parents. So, I have had my 6 children and their mates, 4 grandchildren and one`s wife, and 4 great grandchildren stop here to visit with me and wish me Happy Mother`s Day, plus two phone calls- one from my step-son and one from another grandson who lives too far away to visit.

I know Later tonight my daughter-in-law in North Carolina will also phone me. She phones me every week and on every important Holiday plus on my Birthday.

I received a lot of nice gifts, but the best gift is always having them phone me or drop by for a visit. Isn`t it wonderful when grandchildren not only think of their own mother, but also of their Grandmother on Mother`s Day. I have such a wonderful family. My table looks like a flower place with so many flowers and flowering plants sitting on it, plus one large one is already hanging on my side porch.

Well, I better make this a short post as I just remembered I promised a sister-in-law that I would phone her back. She phoned me earlier and when my company started arriving, I asked to call her back after everyone left and I do believe it is important to keep my promises. Plus I also need to phone the Hospital to see how my brother is doing. He was having trouble standing on his only leg. I think they plan on putting him back in therapy.

Happy Mother`s day to all the ladies everwhere.

2009-05-01T23:08:00.002-04:00

Here are the Tag rules:
just write a post of your own (5 things that you love about being a mom) and find someone to link to and tag - someone from your own country, if you like, but definitely someone from another country (Google is a good resource if you don't know any; google any country name and 'mom' in their blog search function) (be sure to let them know that you've tagged them!) - and link back here to me and also leave a comment to HBM so she knows how close we are getting to the 80 clicks to different mothers.

This tag was started by HBM way back on March 31, 2009. She is hoping to connect blogging Mothers all over the world in 80 clicks. I was Tagged by Hip Grandma on April 12, `09 and am finally finding some time to think about what it was like being a mother, before I became a grandmother and later a great grandmother.

As you have probably guessed, it was a long time ago when I was raising my own children. My youngest is 40 years old and my oldest is now 56 years old. WOW, does that make me feel even older. Funny how 77 didn`t feel old until I saw that 56.

My first daughter was born in September, 1952- just 20 days after my 21st Birthday. But, she was the second daughter as I also was raising a step daughter who was 4 yrs old when her Father and I married. I knew nothing about how to raise a child or how to be a mother with no years raising her to learn from. The sd was very jealous having a new baby in the house. I soon learned that mother hood was not to be an easy job, like I had imagined it would be. I thought "Love could conquer anything".
Boy, was I ever wrong! I tried giving the sd extra love and attention, hoping to make her know she was loved and the new baby wouldn`t change that. Nothing worked and it got so I had to keep a close watch on her whenever she headed for a room where the baby was. I once caught her slapping the baby across the face hard enough to leave her hand print. After that I started keeping the baby in the same room I was in. Was months before she stopped acting out.

The baby grew up to be a very easy child to raise. I could take her anyplace and she never touched anything without permission. I remember a friend who had a coffee table filled with breakable knick knacks and I feared she might break one. The friend went and got an unbreakable object, made room on the coffee table for it and told my 1 year old that she could play with that toy (as she called it) but not to touch any of the others as they were not toys and would break. From that day on, every time we visited there, my little daughter would pick up that one so called toy and never would touch the rest. I felt so proud of her- just turned a year old and obeyed so well. Today she is the mother of 6 and the grandmother of 8. She worked her way through College, holding down a job and raising her school age children at the same time. She has always made me proud to be her mother.

When my first daughter was 2 1/2, we were blessed with twin boys- not identical- one had blond hair, other light brown. My husbands mother and my father were blonds, while my mother and my husbands father had darker hair. One son was larger and soon became like the big boss over the little one. This continued till the day the little one learned to walk , while his brother was still crawling. I remember feeling like a failure when nothing I tried stopped the older one from grabbing every toy the littler one picked up. They were small and in a playpen together when all this kept happening. I used to feel sad watching the little son putting up with what his brother was doing and just crawling over for another toy. He never cried or even whined, just acted like it was ok. When the little one was almost 9 months old he started walking. Every time his brother crawled over and started to take the toy, the little one would get up, run across the playpen and hold the toy outside the playpen. Every time his brother crawled close, he would just run to the other side. Finally I thought I would be able to stop feeling I wasn`t such a good mother. Then, the older one started crying because he could no longer take the toys away from his brother, and I again felt I should have been able to handle things better.
Today the oldest-which was then the smallest- is a great father who raised 3 children alone after their mother left and is a grandfather of 2. The younger twin which was the larger of the two and his wife are the proud parents of two lovely adopted children. They are both hard workers and make me proud to be their mother.

Two years later along came another daughter. I remember again feeling like I wasn`t being the best of mothers as I didn`t have money to waste on the more expensive pretty little dresses. She had a lot of hand-me-down. Beautiful dresses, but I felt I let her down because I couldn`t buy her own nice dresses that no one else had ever worn. Why did I let it bother me? It made no difference to her and I was able to buy them when she started school. Today she is the mother of 2 and the grandmother of 6.

Next- 5 years later, along came the youngest son ( the carpenter)who didn`t have his mother home with him every day like the others did. When he was about 3, it became necessary for me to get a job. I remember how every payday I would buy him a small kids book. Guess I was trying to show him I loved him and I told him if he was good I would buy him another book next week. I used to feel so guilty for leaving him. I had never left the older children, was home with them all day until they were old enough to start school. I used to read the books to him before he went to bed. Many times he would ask me to read the books again and again and his then 8 year old sister loved sitting beside me while I was reading. She also enjoyed the books. Sometimes she would bring home Library books from school for me to read to them. This son is the father of 2 sons. The year he was born we took in the step son who was 14 years old. His mother had kicked him out. I soon learned that he was a lot easier to raise than his sister had been. He was grateful that his father and I took him in and he still calls me mom today.

Last came the youngest daughter - I had been working for a few years and due to problems I had to quit work. So, I was home with her like with the older ones. She was a surprise because we hadn`t planned on having any more. There hadn`t been a baby in the house for a few years since the last one was already 6 years old. It felt like I was starting over as the others were 6, 11, 13, 13, and 15 , 18 (stepson entered the Marines at 17)and the sd was 20 ( already married) when she was born. I was a lot more educated in motherhood by then so I think I was probably a better mother as things didn`t bother me as much and I took everything in stride without letting it upset me. Plus, it was a lot easier by then as I knew better how to handle the little problems that came along with raising so many. The first ones were the hardest because I knew nothing about raising a child and each one taught me something new. I think I learned as much from them as they did from me. I do think all the baby sitting I did while growing up helped some. Today this youngest daughter is a Correctional officer in a prison, the mother of 2 and the grandmother of 1.

Being a mother had many scary times, like when I was told to meet the playground attendant at the Hospital because one son was taken to the Hospital with a Jart ( a very very large dart) stuck in his neck (1/8 " from killing him- Dr said). Another son broke his leg a few years later, at age 14 the smaller twin almost died from fever caused by Arthritis in his ankle, then there was the car accident, we found the car with broken windows, glass all over the car and blood enough to say it could be serious. Ended up with head stitches. Many other scary times and each time it reminded you that motherhood, while wonderful, could also take a lot out of you from fear and worry. Today when I think of my children and their families I feel so proud of all of them and it makes all those many years of motherhood and hardships worth all I went through. I now feel I must have done something right while raising them for them all to have turned out so good. So, I went through times when I felt I was failing them, or letting them down and would wish I knew how to be a better mother. Then I remember the key chain that a daughter-in-law gave me years ago. I still have it today. It has a picture of a car and says "If a mother`s place is in the home, why am I always in the car". I would drive the boys to little league and to Boy Scouts, and the girls to Girl Scouts , plus taking them to friends homes, or bringing their friends to our home. I was a Cub Leader for 15 years and on the Boy Scout Troop Badge counseling committee along with other things. Our yard became the neighborhood hangout for all their friends and the neighbors kids. I always felt it was better to have all the kids here driving me crazy than wondering where my kids were or who they were with. Many baseball and basketball games were held here even though my property then was only 90 feet x 100 feet and that included the house and bike shop areas. Today I own 150 x 100. Wish we had owned it when the kids were teenagers with so many friends hanging here. Then there was the step sons`s band playting in my cellar and people 4 streets away telling me how good they sounded. They got moved to the garage when hubby was home. A wonder I have any hearing left.

Now, for who to Tag:

hillgrandmom from Kerala, India

Sally from USA

starry nights from California, USA

deni from N Carolina, USA

I am having trouble trying to keep the underline below all the names when i paste them in.

Still keeping busy

2009-04-26T19:57:00.002-04:00

Just a short note to let everyone know I will be back posting as soon as I finish working in the dining room ( or should be now called my Horse collection room) as the table and chairs were moved to the kitchen edition years ago, just the name- dining room- stuck from habit.

The boys finished doing the last coat of paint on the back of the house, so it is finally finished. But I am still working in the room inside. Today I set some of the house plants out into the large planter box on the side porch railing. Now, hoping it doesn`t get too cold for them during the night. I also managed to clean off the back porch and gets everything back into a better order. I did have quite a time trying to push an outdoor lead chord through a drilled opening on the porch. I needed to replace the chord so I have a light and plug in on the back porch. You see, even the outside house boards were replaced on the back side of the porch . Every time I tried to push the small plug end in through the wall, it would go through the double outside boards and then fall down between the inside and outside walls. Very little extra room, but I did manage to tape a very thin wood stick to the chord line and it held the line stiff enough to go through the outside wall, insulation and the inside wall. so, another problem solved.

Then I managed to take down the plastic from one end of my side porch so I could remove the wood cover I made to protect my long large flower box on the railing. I placed some of the house plants in the large box to give me more room to work in while finishing the room. I am hoping it doesn`t get too cold for the plants to be outside over night

Then had to quit as company showed up- a granddaughter, her oldest daughter the new baby that was born on my Birthday last Sept. and the baby`s proud daddy. They have just moved back here from Virginia and it is great having them back.

While they were here my daughter ( the mother and grandmother) saw her daughters car in my drive when she got home from work and came over. When she walked in and shut the door, I noticed something black in her hair- at first wasn`t sure if it was a spider or a fly. Turned out to be a fly which took off flying in my house. I still haven`t found it again. Never remember having a fly catch a ride inside my house in someones hair before. LOL. Ended up playing the game "Connect Four" with the 9 year old granddaughter , which made her happy. Once they all left, I had stopped long enough to feel tired, so quit for the rest of the day. There is always tomorrow and the work won`t go anyplace. It will be sitting there waiting patiently for me when I get up in the morning.

Well, I will post better once I get more work caught up.

Hillgrandmom, I haven`t forgotten and will do the Tag soon. I just want to take my time doing the Tag so need more time to do it in when I am not so tired.

April20, 2009-Rebuilding Back of my Home

2009-04-20T15:09:00.003-04:00

Sunday, April 19th, 2009- Rebuilding the back of the house.

WOW, What a week this has been.

My youngest son, Ronnie showed up on Monday with all the boards needed to re-do the bottom half of the back of my home. I have a second story on the back of the house. First he had to pull off all the old bad outside boards and then we discovered that a lot of the main house boards underneath were bad and needed to be replaced. Then came more bad news. We had to replace 4 of the main upright 2x4`s in the outside frame of the house as the old ones were rotting. Today the framework is done with 2x6`s, but back in 1955-56 when we built our home, they used 2x4`s. So, in order for the new uprights to fit the rest, we had to replace the old 2x4`s with new 2x4`s. We also replaced most of the insulation in the back wall. A lot more work than we were expecting. I never before watched someone go that fast working alone with no help. After 5 days of hard work, the back of the house is now ready for painting. We had hoped to do some painting today, but the boards were still a bit damp from the rain yesterday. I even surprised myself. I decided to fix the back door and the screen door so there would be no air leakage next winter as I had this past winter. Originally the screen door was just added without a proper fitted casing. I removed the old casings and the other boards the door had shut against. Then I cut and replaced the door framework so it fits the doors the way it should. There were extra boards used to fill in the space and now their is just the one solid board and a better fitting door casing all around the three sides and both doors shut snug and latch tightly. While doing this, I also was doing a washing. Knowing how I hate to stop working until I finish what I have started, I hung the towels out onto the line to dry. Before my son showed up, I had started digging out a tree so it could be transplanted further from the clothes line. I knew I would be too tired to do more digging by the time we finished the work on the house. I also knew if I hung some of the washing out on the clothesline I would not do any digging while those clothes were drying. This way I would have to stop and rest when the doorway was finished instead of doing more digging.

Now I have to get used to using the door handle to open the screen door. Before the latch didn`t strike far enough into the latch to hook the door shut and I had to add one of those spring type latches to hold the door shut. A couple times I started to just push the door open and the first time I thought the door acted like it was locked. Now, I do remember to turn the door knob to open it. Even the lock works with the key unlocking it. First time in years that door has looked good and worked great. My son , the carpenter, told me I did a great job. How`s that for getting a compliment? Usually it is me telling him what a great job he did for me. I had done a lot of house re-pairs, but never tried making a new enclosure around a door before. There is also a tiny place where the side door isn`t sealed tightly, so that will be my next project now that I know I can do it ok.

But before I can start a new project I must finish straightening up inside. With all the pounding outside, I had to remove all the pictures, etc. from the dining room wall, plus move everything breakable off the top of everything and even pull furniture away from the wall. Years ago when we added on the larger kitchen, we didn`t add an upstairs over it. Kitchen is just the single floor section with a small attic space over it. We had just closed up the grocery store and turned the Business back into a Bicycle shop and no longer needed the addition on the front of the building. So, Walt removed the front section and added it to the house for a larger kitchen. This room is not as tall as the rooms in the rest of the house and I didn`t care for how it looked where the two ceilings connected. To make it look like it belonged that way, I decided to make a shelf going all the way across the width of the 8 foot dinning room ceiling about a foot down from the ceiling even with the height of the kitchen ceiling. The new kitchen is only 7 foot- about 1 foot shorter than the connecting room. I made the shelf so it starts even with the 7 foot on the kitchen. I added a trim to make the shelf look good. this shelf holds all my fancy dishes and plates-such as my Mother`s Day plate, the two 25th Anniversary fancy plates, the 50th Anniversary plate, plus more pretty plates. Some are hand painted that belong in the family years ago, two are Horse plates, one is a fancy cake plate that is quite old, plus others. All the plates hang on the top back wall of the shelf and the shelf itself holds more items. I tell all about this shelf to show more work that had to be done. I had to take down all the plates and all the items off that high shelf so they wouldn`t get broken from the pounding. Wish it was warmer out as I would have liked to re-paint the shelf and back wall while I had everything down, but still not warm enough to open windows for painting inside. So, that has to wait.

Yesterday I started washing everything from that shelf and washed the shelf and back wall, plus the ceiling over the shelf and replaced everything. Today I removed everything off two and 1/2 more of the dining room walls, washed the walls and cleaned all the pictures and other items before hanging them back on the wall. I still have one more wall to clean once I have taken down everything on it- which includes three small glass door knickknack cupboards filled with salt and pepper shakers-which will also need washing. I still have the glass door cupboard filled with horses and other small items to wash, plus all the crystal, blown glass, regular glass items, horse goblets, other size horse glasses, musical Horse items and other items that sat on top of the bureau and on the top of the double glass door floor horse cabinet. I never realized all the work I would be doing just from replacing an outside wall. But I did need to take down anything that could break. And I never could put them back up without first cleaning them. Once you start on a room, the rest of the room needs the same cleaning. Can`t wash one wall section without washing the rest of the room.

Did stop for a few minutes after cleaning my organ and putting it back against the clean washed wall. I ended up sitting at the organ and playing music for about a half hour before getting back to work. Nothing breaks up hard work like enjoying oneself doing something you enjoy.

One of my twins showed up with Ron today with his paint sprayer. They were hoping to do the primer paint on the back of the house today, but the wood was a bit damp from the rain last night. Might rain the rest of the week, so might be the week-end before they can paint. Should save me some fuel cost next winter.

Guess I should add on that I ended up recalling something Walt used to say to me whenever I was working hard for hours doing something. He was always telling me to " sit down and rest before you get hurt". Well, while pounding in those small finishing nails , I ended up hitting my left hand middle finger with the hammer. Ended up with a blood clot that measured about 1/2 " long and about 1/4" wide on the left corner of the tip of the finger and the whole end of the finger was discolored. That was three days ago and I have been careful not to break the blood fester so the pain has already left. Now it is like the old saying- It never hurts unless I touch it. Ha Ha. A few more days and the finger should feel back to normal. Discoloration has already left. Walt always said I do things differently than most people. I cannot use my thumb and 1st finger to pick up or hold things due to the arthritis putting my joints out of alignment. So in place of the first finger, I use the middle fingers with my thumb to do things, or I use the 1st and middle finger to pick up many things by squeezing the fingers together around the top of bottles, etc. As my Dad always said, "Where there is a will, there is a way". Yes, if you wish to do something bad enough you can usually figure out a way to accomplish it. Of course that should only be when doing things you can feel proud of doing. Wonder where the saying "doing things bad enough" came from, when this time the word "bad" means wanting it a lot.

This reminds me of what one of my Dr`s said to me about a week or so ago. He asked me how I manage to do things with my hands in such shape. I showed him how I use the two fingers for things others would use the thumb and first finger together for and how I keep a pair of scissors and a pair of pliers in a kitchen drawer. I cannot hold bags of food tight enough to tear off the top of the bag, the bad just slips out of my hands, so I use the scissors, can`t pull up the tongue in my shoes, so use the pliers for that, and so on. Dr told me I was very resilient. Must have meant being flexible, so guess he is right. Maybe I am just too stubborn to stop trying, or maybe I just learned not to give up from watching my parents keep working hard as they aged. I am already almost 6 older than my Dad reached, but my mom was 4 days short of being 91 years old. She was still putting up wallpaper in her early 80`s and still on a Bowling Team then. She never slowed down very much until the year she broke her hip and ended up with a hip replacement. With my help, she was still able to get back walking with the use of a walker. I knew she could have walked without it, but my fear of her falling again kept me from saying it to her. When she first came home from the Hospital she asked me if I thought she would ever be standing or walking again. I told her-before I was through doing her exercises with her - she would be on her feet walking, but that she might need to use the walker for security from another fall. I would often see her taking a few steps without the walker, but for going very far she did use the walker. I spent every day the first three weeks doing her exercises with her and I was as happy as she was when all our hard work paid off so well. I will always feel happy knowing I was able to help her manage so well.
Still so much work to finish doing before the dining room is completed. Actually it is not used as a dinning room any more because years back we added another section to the kitchen to hold the table and chairs. It now holds my organ, daybed, horse collection and other items- but mostly filled with the large horse collection. Many of the items were bought by Walt and my kids, gifts from my grand kids and gifts from my sisters and brothers and a brother-in-law. I bought very little, but some are worth a lot in money value, but all are worth a lot in memories.

Guess I should stop writing and get more work done. I made a new frame for one puzzle that I want to hang. Waiting for the glue to dry so I can stain the frame before adding the picture puzzle .

2009-04-04T19:28:00.002-04:00

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

Ever feel like God must be trying to protect you from yourself? Today I decided to see if
I could get some of the leaf raking done. Weather report says rain this evening. I figured it would
be a lot easier to rake before the leaves are soaked and matted on the ground. Plus being wet makes them heavier and harder to rake. I fed the dog, filled the bird feeders and headed outside to rake. I started raking about 8 AM and managed to get the front lawn and part of the 2 lots on the other side of my home raked up. Then I noticed my daughter and her husband already had bags of leaves waiting for the town to pick them up. That told me this must be the week the town is doing the spring pickup. I must have missed the notice that is usually in the newspaper.

So, I stopped raking because I do not bag my leaves for the town to pick up because I have a three section compost bin that I save my leaves for. So, I can rake the rest anytime. But, I had a large pile of tree branches to get rid of. I often wished I had one of those mulch machines that chew limbs up to use in compost . But, since I don`t, I have to cut them up small enough for the town to put through their chopper. I finished cutting them small enough and then made four trips carrying all the branches out into a neat pile near the road. By the time I had finished doing this job, I started to do some more raking. I knew I was getting tired and should stop, but wanted to get more done.

Well, no more than I started raking again it started sprinkling, so I knew I had to stop and put everything away before it started raining harder. So, I put the wheelbarrow away in the shed. Never ended up using the wheelbarrow, but had planned on using it to carry the raked leaf piles to the compost bin. Then I remembered how much easier it was last year when I used an old bed sheet. So, this time, instead of using the wheelbarrow , I again laid the sheet on the ground, raked the leaves onto the sheet and carried the leaf filled sheet and dumped it beside the compost bin. Made four trips and the leaf piles were all cleaned up. So much easier than trying to keep the leafs from flying off the wheelbarrow with each tiny breeze. Also much faster using the sheet as I can rake the leaf piles onto the sheet much faster than I ever could have picked up the leaves, put them into the wheelbarrow, pushed the wheelbarrow all the way to the compost bin and then dumped it with every load. Also the sheet holds more leaves than the wheelbarrow can which means less trips.

To get back to the rain. I hurried to take care of everything. Put the wheelbarrow away, took care of the rake, my garden work gloves, and the large limb cutting shears, plus the phone I always set on the porch so I will not miss any important phone calls. By the time the rain was coming down harder, I just grabbed the sheet, shook it good, picked up the phone and made it onto my back porch. Not quite fast enough, so I had to get out of those chilly damp clothes. Then I decided I deserved a rest. I feel I should be thanking God for bringing the rain when he did instead of tonight or I might have kept raking till I had done more than I should have.

Funny how you usually find yourself feeling better when you have accomplished something. Yesterday I was on pins and needles as the saying goes. My only Aunt had an operation to replace the battery in her heart machine- monitor. or? She will be 89 years old on Sunday. Her Birthday is also her Wedding Anniversary date. So having lost her husband just before Christmas, this will be her first Anniversary without him. They would have celebrated their 68th Anniversary. Her Birthday, which should be a Happy day, will be a sad day spending her Anniversary without my Uncle. I was relieved when my cousin Tom phoned me yesterday afternoon to let me know the op was over and they were back home and that everything went well. I was down visiting her the day before and she was having trouble getting enough air and was feeling light headed and a bit dizzy. The new battery should get her heart beating faster and solve her other problems. She was so scared before the op, but she should feel much better now that it is over.

Yesterday my twin sons- Walter and Roger- turned 54 years old. WOW, that made me remember how old I was getting. Next, I remembered their older sister will be 57 in September, shortly after my 78th birthday also in September. Boy, how time does keep flying by.

April 4th, Rained again today. Said possible snow, sure glad that was wrong. Have seen enough snow and shoveling for this year. So, can`t work outside. The rest of the leaves will have to wait till another nice day comes along. Going back down to 31 degrees F again tonight. Can`t wait for some warmer weather to arrive and stay for more than a day or two. Garden seeds sprouted and are starting to grow taller. Looking at them makes one wonder how those tall skinny plants will eventually grow into tall thick stemmed strong plants. Every year when the plants first start growing I get impatient to see them growing stronger so they can amount to the large great producing vegetables I look forward to having. Then I remind myself they start this way every year. Will have to keep them inside until after Memorial Day before I can set them outside. Can have a frost until then which could kill the plants. So, they still have another 7 weeks to grow stronger in. Every year i look forward to what i call "My Stand-up Garden". I use the Earth Boxes and made standards to sit the boxes up on, so I can just stand up and walk around the boxes to take care of the garden plants. Always have good luck using the earth boxes. Glad someone invented them, or I would have had to give up gardening when I could no longer work the large regular ground gardens.

Cleaning the new car for the first time.

2009-03-29T18:28:00.000-04:00

Saturday,March 28, 2009
Cleaning the new car for the first time.

Today started out good. Even though the sun wasn`t shining through the clouds, it still felt warmer out. At 9AM it was 41 degrees F. with no wind blowing. It was supposed to hit the high 50`s, so I decided it would be a good day to clean my car. I went down cellar and turned on the well water line that connects to my outdoors faucet. Then I started getting everything together and setting it out on my back porch- the small ladder, the large sponge ( never ended up using it), the long handled brush that connects to the hose, the water proof gloves, soft cloths, old soft white socks, etc. I like using old socks with the ribbed top folded inside for rubbing on the cleaner as I can slide my fingers up inside the sock- like a mitt. I have trouble hanging onto a regular small cloth, But do use the larger soft cloths for wiping off the cleaner. Then I went out to the shed for the long hose, and drove the car from the garage to the empty lot I own on the other side of the house where the faucet is. Now, figured I had everything ready, so went to get the cleaner/wax container.

Now, this is where the day started going wrong. Reaching for the cleaner on the high shelf in the laundry room, it slipped from my crocked fingers, hitting the floor. The plastic bottle broke-splitting down the whole seam side and dumped all over my laundry room floor. I used a large putty knife to scoop it up and most of it was ok to still use. Had to finish washing the floor and other items before heading back outside. Took what could be used and headed outside. Next, when I hooked the hose to the faucet, it leaked. Checking I noticed the gasket was missing, so I borrowed one from another hose- fit and worked great. So another problem solved. Now, to hook on the long handled brush. The brush came unhooked from the handle, found the head where it connected was cracked. So, back to the house for the old brush. This one leaked- so borrowed the second gasket from the other hose to stop that leak.

Finally was able to start hosing off the car and start cleaning it. Before I finished, I found out why they always say to keep the cleaners off any rubber decoration on the car. Long before I was finished the rubber gloves were being destroyed. Spent all morning cleaning and waxing the car. It was worth all the time and trouble I went through just to see it shining like new again. What should have been about a couple hours work ended up taking me all morning to accomplish. I sure will miss that larger, longer handled brush. It had a neck part that could be adjusted to any angle and the center of the large sized brush swiveled as the water flowed through it. It was great for washing higher outside windows on the house.
Wish the long handled additions would fit the old brush, but no way. I will need to check Sears to see if they still sell the better brush. Guess mine just wore out from years of use. I can`t complain as it gave me good service for years. As they say, nothing lasts forever.

My daughter Theresa offered to wash the car for me this afternoon after she got home from work. But, that first new car washing is when you notice if there is any defects in the paint, so better to do it myself and know. Plus, she works two jobs all week long and I felt she needed to rest and be with her husband when ever she had any spare time.

Snow banks before the rain and after the rain, March, 2009

2009-03-19T22:07:00.002-04:00

Garden/ Sassy, my Border Collie

2009-03-19T22:04:00.001-04:00

March 18, 2009, Thursday

Spring is almost here. A few days ago I started planting my veggie seeds and most are already sprouting. Bought one of those small plastic greenhouses with 72 peat pellets to plant seeds into. Never tried this way before. So far, so good. Most everything is already starting to sprout. Used to take 1 to 2 weeks in regular potting soil. Hope they continue to grow and strengthen so they stand well. I do love fresh garden veggies over bought ones. I had to stop planting the larger gardens when it became too hard to get up off the ground. For a few years I used my short handled pitchfork stuck into the ground as a crutch to get up with. Then I smartened up and figured out another way to keep having my garden without reaching the ground. I started buying what they call Earth Boxes and I built standards to sit them on. Then I named it my Stand-up garden. Now, each year I find it much easier to grow my vegetables without working so hard. I am able to care for the garden by just walking around the boxes. The boxes come with covers, so no weeds or grass to keep pulling. Using potting soil, i learned weeds do not grow in it like in regular soil. The bottom of the Earth boxes has a reservoir ares under the soil platform that can be filled with water. So, the sun doesn`t dry out the soil like it did the larger gardens. So, you do not even have to re-fill it every day unless it is real hot out. Less water wasted and the plants have a constant water supply to draw from. The person who invented these Boxes deserves a lot of credit.

I cannot figure out why my dog suddenly decided the tiny Koala bear shouldn`t be clipped onto the top corner of my monitor screen. My older sister brought it back when she visited friends in Australia last summer. It has hung on my monitor for a whole year now. I awoke a couple days ago to find it laying on the kitchen floor destroyed. My border Collie must have climb her front feet up onto my keyboard table to reach it. It had a good clamp on it so it`s paws held it real tight and it couldn`t fall on it`s own. I keep wondering if it was the starring eyes that drew my dogs attention or what. Over a week ago I had taken a fall when a knee gave out and I caught my other foot on her dog bed and went flying. Luckily I only got bruised up and strained an arm and broke nothing. So it wouldn`t happen again, I moved her bed from the dining room into the other side of my kitchen where my computer also sits. So she now sleeps out here at night. In fact she now spends most of the day and evening laying on her dog bed behind my chair. Maybe her eyesight isn`t as clear as it used to be. Maybe she thought the trinket was real. Who knows. She isn`t the type that normally chews up anything except the treats I give her. This is so unlike her. But she turned 13 years old this month, so maybe her eyesight isn`t as good as it used to be. I had the vet check both her hearing and eyesight a few months ago when she went for her yearly check-up and he felt she was doing good. Maybe she never noticed the tiny bear hanging there until she started sleeping out here. I know she has chased flies in the past, but this bear was not moving. Guess I will never fully understand what caused her to attack it that way. I picked it up , let her see me holding it and placed it into a small plastic bag and re-hung it using a clip to hold the bag there. I am hoping that her watching me taking care of it will make her realize that it was ok for it to be there. Hopefully it will show her that it is ok for things to be hanging there so she won`t attack something else in the future.

It rained again today and washed down more of the snowbanks. It sure feels good to be able to see to safely while backing out of my driveway. The banks sure were way too high this winter. Spring will be here in a couple days and there is still snow on the ground. Was in the 50`s for a couple days, now back in the 40`s again days and 20`s and teens still at nights. I will post pictures showing the high banks before the rain and their height after the rain.

Change in styles of clothing in 1930`s and 40`s

2009-03-01T15:14:00.001-05:00

February 28, 2009
Here it is- almost the end of February, 2009. Part of me wonders where the past couple months went to. Seems like Christmas was just about three or four weeks ago. The other part of me can`t wait for winter to end and the high snow banks to start melting so I can see to back out safely from my driveway onto the road that runs in front of my home. My road is just wide enough for two cars to pass comfortably in the summer, but in the winter they don`t plow the road as wide as they could. I think they are afraid of hitting the mailboxes that sit near the side of the road. Maybe I should explain the mailboxes for future generations in case they stop delivering mail to every home years from now. We have home mail delivery. The mail delivery person drives a vehicle and puts each family`s mail into their own mailbox that sits on a post that is driven into the ground to keep it from falling over. If I lived in the city I would only have a small letter holder on the outside of my house on the front porch and mail would be delivered by a postman or postlady who walk on foot while delivering.

We have always had our mail delivered 6 days a week-- every day except for Sunday. I heard on the television that they are thinking of stopping the Saturday delivery and only leave mail on the 5 week days instead of 6 days. They figure it would save money. Might save the government money, but what about how much harder it might make it for the family if the post delivery person lost a days pay every week. Who is thinking of their families? One day a week might not sound like much till you realize the paycheck would be 4 days less every month . With 52 weeks delivery every year, that would be 52 less pay days every year- like having almost two months vacations without pay, How does a family manage during those almost two months. Do they go on Government paid welfare help? How much would be really saved if the Government had to support the whole family instead of paying the 52 days pay to the parent supporting this family. But the government would not help these families for that one missing payday every week. So, the Government might give them one less working day each week, instead of the almost 2 months off because this way they won`t have to help support the family. But that one day less pay becomes a lot of less pay for the worker as the weeks go by.

A few years ago they spoke of making the 5 day a week school days into 6 days a week. Now, that would cost much more than what the one less mail day pay would save. Paying so many teachers , plus more supplies, heat or cooling for all the school rooms, more gas and bus repairs to transport the children the extra day each week- all this would sure amount to quit a bit. So, property taxes would probably be raised to help cover this extra cost. So, again, it would be the people who would suffer with paying out more.

To get back to the road that isn`t plowed very wide- to make matters worse seems there is always at least one or two cars parked in the road to drive around. One was parking across from my driveway making it hard for both me and my daughters to back out of our driveways. There is just a couple feet between our two driveways. Once the snow is gone then they can park further off the side of the road instead of in the road. The town snow plow had to drive around the parked car leaving the snow in our driveways in order to get passed the parked car. This one car didn`t even have a license on it, so according to laws it can`t legally be on the road. Still the police didn`t wish to do anything to have it removed. Finally the town got tired of only being able to plow part of the road so they turned in a report. They first tried to give the owner a chance to remove it off the road, but no one was willing to admit they owned the car. So, the town had it towed away. Wonder if the owner ever went to claim his vehicle.

They say we might get more snow tomorrow into Monday. I hope the weather report is wrong. The snow banks are so high it is getting hard for the snow blower to reach that high and very hard to try and throw a shovel full up that high. I am ready for spring to get here.
I hear people saying this winter reminds them of the old winters when they were small.Sometimes I feel the same way. I just do not remember having the weeks of warmer weather in the middle of winter that makes the snow bank melt down and start building all over again with the next snow storm like it did this year. Maybe my mind has forgotten that, but what I remember is the banks just kept getting higher and higher and they didn`t seem to lower until spring. I remember what they call Indian summers only lasting about three or four days, not as many days as it seems to last in recent winters.

----------Remembering the styles of Clothing back in the 30`s and 40`s---------

But one thing that has improved greatly is the clothing that is allowed in school today. Still not sure how I feel about wearing pant-suits to Church, but allowing girls to wear slacks, etc. to school is a wonderful change. I was surprised when in later years they started allowing jeans worn in Church.
Years ago we were not allowed to cover our legs. Leotards had not been invented, neither did we have knee high socks yet. It was dresses and short thin bobby socks with fold down cuff tops that just went above the ankles leaving the legs bare from the ankles to just above the knees. I remember how that cold winter wind would make your legs so cold you lost the feelings in them and Oh, how they would ache once they started warming up again when you went inside a building. Now boys were lucky as their clothing also changed, but for the better. Those knee high pants or knee knockers as some called them, became foot length covering their entire legs and so their legs were better protected from the cold winter weather and freezing winds. We walked a mile each way-including lunch time- making a 4 mile total walk every day starting at the age of 5 in First grade. When I first started school some boys were still wearing the knee knocker pants so there legs were only a little more protected than the girls legs were, but some of the boys had already started wearing the new long length pants. I still have one of my grade school class pictures showing boys wearing both styles.I often wonder if that leg freezing over so many school years might be why so many have leg problems when they are older.

So there was a good change in clothing styles that helped the boys when I was young. It may have taken years to allow girls the same leg protection, but time did bring that good change also.
Hopefully there might be less leg problems for the future generations. They often say that History repeats itself. Let`s hope not where the bare leg clothing comes back into style for winter wear.

December 1942

2009-02-22T20:41:00.002-05:00

1942- District # 9 School

2009-02-22T20:24:00.002-05:00

Friday, Feb.20th, 2009
Grade school memories. District #9 Elementary School

Was sorting out some old papers today and came across an old newspaper clipping that I had saved in the old scrapbook I kept while in school. This clipping was from back in 1942 - a few months after my youngest sister was born. She was the good news. But all news wasn`t good. I had an older brother, a younger brother and a younger sister still attending this grade school with me at the time. Well, the older brother was in the hospital when things happened, so he never went back to this school. You see, we were all home for the week-end when the school burned, so the School decided to start our school`s Christmas vacation early while they decided what to do next. The whole school burned down. It was a 2 story brick building and only the 4 brick walls remained standing once the fire was out. Even the roof had caved in. I am sure there probably were some kids who used to wish the school would burn so they wouldn`t have to keep going to school. But, no one thought it would ever happen, at least not while we were young enough to be going to school. This was an old building- built back in 1911. But, still it was only a 31 year old building when it burned down.

This school only held 8 grades-the first grade up to the eighth grade. No Headstart or kindergarten in those days. When you turned 5 you went to first grade. Actually if your 5th Birthday was before December 1st, you started school in September. My 2 older brothers, my younger brother and myself started school at age 4, but had out 5th Birthday soon after, younger brother and I later in September and the 2 oldest brothers in November. Only 2 of my sisters were already 5 before school started, one turned 5 in March and the other one in July. The youngest sister was almost 4 months old when the school burned, so she never knew our school.

I have a lot of memories from attending that school. My third grade teacher was an older cousin and another cousin my age was in the same grades with me. We stayed in the same grade right up till we graduated from High School together in 1949. We often would forget to call our teacher cousin by Mrs and would call her Katie like we did out of school. Then she would send us to the cloak room for a few minutes to teach us we couldn`t do that during school hours or the other kids might start copying us. I still remember all the sets of swings- must have been at least 4 swings in each set. Then there was the teeter tauters ( also called see-saws by some). Each set consisted of about 4 separate sets all hooked together on one main frame. There was a whirly machine you pumped with your feet and a lot could sit and ride around in a circle on it at the same time, and a very tall slide. I can`t remember any one fighting on school property and everyone stood in line and waited for their turn to use the playground equipment. There was no gym in this school, but there was a large auditorium.

Another item this school had was the large fire escape to quickly get kids off the second floor in case of fire. We used to have a fire drill once or twice a month. We never knew when it would be until we would hear the school fire siren start blowing and then we would calmly line up in a neat row in front of our rooms doorway and follow our teacher out of our school room and down the long corridor with her walking beside us. As we got near the outside door, I remember her standing there just inside the door and telling us to keep walking outside and to wait in the designated area we had practiced to in the past. Then once all the kids from our room were outside, our teacher would follow us and take a head count to be sure no one was missing. The lower grades were all on the first floor, while the older grades were held on the second floor. The second floor had a kind of closed slide to get them from the top floor faster to the ground outside. It was called a fire Escape. It looked like a long snake with a curve near the top shortly after you left the building. You would sit on the top and start sliding down like you were sliding down a regular playground slide. Only big difference is this slide was completely closed all the way from the top till it stopped about 2-3 feet from the ground. it looked like a round, huge, over sized furnace heat pipe that carries the heat from the furnace to the house grates. Us younger kids used to wish we could ride down that huge fire escape like all the older kids did.

Well, along came a day when a girlfriend suggested we climb up inside that fire escape and slide down in it. There was this girlfriend, another friend and my cousin and myself there that time. School had just let out for the day and just the 4 of us were standing there. The other kids were already heading home. The metal gate door to the escape was left open, which just made it look more tempting to us. First the friend started climbing inside and then the other friend, then my cousin started inside while calling me to follow her. I hesitated for a few minutes, but finally gave in and joined them. I knew I would be in a lot of trouble at home if my parents found out. I remember that the further up you climb, the darker it got. Once around the top bend, it was so dark we couldn`t see anything, even the bottom of the escape was hidden by the curve near the top of the slide. We were all sitting there in the dark thinking of what it would be like when we slid down. We had no idea how fast or slow we would be going on the way out. We only had about 5 minutes to think about it before I heard a noise sounding like a chain and knew the janitor must be starting to chain the closed metal door for the night. Actually this was on a Friday, so it wouldn`t be re-opened again until school started again on the following Monday. The thought of spending all week-end locked up in this dark place was more than I wan ted to do. So, I knew , since I was the last one to climb up this long high slide, then I had to be the first one to slide back down ahead of the others. Fear mad me move faster and down I went, followed by the other 3 girls. I remember my feet hit that metal door, knocking it back open and once my feet hit the ground, they never stopped running till I was off the school property. The others were running right behind me. We found out it might take a few minutes to climb up to the top, but just a few seconds to slide down it. I remember seeing the janitor almost fall as my feet knocked the door and chain out of his hands. The chain was like one of those thick heavy chains my father used to tow cars with. The chain used to have a padlock on it to keep the door closed when not in use.

All that week-end us girls worried that the janitor might have turned us in to the Principal. When Monday came around we were in no hurry to get to school. We used to hurry so we would have more time to play with our friends before the school bell rang. When the bell rang we entered the school. There standing just in side the large double doors stood the janitor. We had to walk past him to go to out class room. As we passed him, he said this to us " Did you girls have fun last Friday". Now we knew he had recognized all of us. Funny how you never forget what was said when you were afraid of what might happen. All that day, we worried, waiting to be told to go to the Principals office, but it never happened. We continued to be afraid for the rest of that week. Finally, after a whole week had passed we started to relax again. He never did turn us in or mention the ordeal ever again after that time. Now that was our only time to experience what it was like to slide down that closed up fire escape because the school burned before we were old enough to be in the top floor classes.

Now, that might have been the last for us going to District # School. They talked about dividing up the 260 kids and sending them to two neighboring school. But some people started offering their buildings to use as class rooms, so the school kept going with classes scattered all over the small district. I spent my 6th, 7th and 8th grades going to a building that was originally called "The Half Way House"- it originally was a beer joint or tavern- depending who you asked. I guess it got it`s name due to it`s location. District No. 9 was located between the Town of Fort Edward and the City of Hudson Falls - so halfway between them. They never did rebuild our school. Instead, they joined with Hudson Falls school district and became a part of the Hudson falls School district.
originally all the District #9 school students had their choice of whether they wanted to attend the Fort Edward high School or the Hudson Falls high School once they graduated from District #9 school. Two of my sister, one brother and I attended Fort Edward high, while the other 2 brothers attended High School in Hudson Falls. By the time our youngest sister started school, there was no District # 9 school and she had no choice and had to go to Hudson Falls Schools.
School taxes went up a lot higher after the schools consolidated together. So, my parents, like many of the others who lived near us were listed as living in the Town of Fort Edward, receiving mail from Fort Edward and paying Fort Edward property taxes, but from then on were also paying their School property taxes to the city of Hudson Falls.

I remember another thing I did in District # 9 school. They used the building to hold Bingo games on the week-end. My Aunt once took me with her. I remember winning a pretty set of salt and pepper shakers that night. I still have one of those shakers today. Can`t remember what ever happened to the other one. Can`t even remember what room was used to hold the bingo games in.
I also remember how we had to make up all the time we missed from the time the school burned and they were able to set up desks in all those other building used to hold the 8 classes. I remember the 1 and 2 grades were held in a vacant house, 3rd and 4th in a large place that used to be a store, I forget where the 5th was, but the 6th was first held in the Half way house. Then the following two years this same building held the 7th and 8th and I do not recall where they moved the 6th grade to. So, I spent three years in this same building. My 8th grade teacher was the same man who was our Principal. Later when I took up drivers training in High School he was working there as the Instructor. Since there was no longer a Principals office after the school burned, no one had to worry about being sent to his office. I had three different teachers in the 4th grade. Our first teacher was drafted into the Army in the second World War, the second teacher got sick and her sister became out teacher for the remainder of that year. it is a wonder any of us passed that year.
To make up the weeks of school we had missed while they found places and set them up into classrooms, we had to start going to school on Saturdays. None of the other schools had Saturday classes, so friends from nearby schools used to show up and look through the large windows and make faces at us. The teacher was forever going out to tell them to run along. One time this drunk walked into our clss room asking for a beer. The teacher kept trying to get him to leave but he kept saying he would leave after he had his beer. Teacher finally had to phone for help to have the drunk removed. He came back once more after that and then we never saw him again. In these separate building we no longer had a playground. There was a car junk yard way out in back of the building I went to, but we did have enough room to play made up games. I also remember that things were rationed during the war so every Monday morning we were given a paper cup and told to write our name on it. We had to use this same cup for the 5 school days that week and would be given another new cup the next Monday morning. We would sit it up on the window sill over the sink in the back room. I remember you held up one finger to get a drink and 2 fingers for permission to go to the bathroom. The old school had lockers , but here we just had a hook to hang our coats on. You pushed your mittens into your jacket pockets so you wouldn`t lose them. If you wore a hat , it also was pushed into your coat pocket. I can`t remember ever wearing a hat back then. If you wore boots in the winter, they sat on the floor right under where you hung your coat.
Once they no longer needed the building for school rooms, the building I attended went back to being the Original Halfway House and that bar is still in operation today.

Cell phone/ great Stuff/ Marshmallows- what a day.

2009-02-03T23:07:00.002-05:00

Cell phone/ great Stuff/ Marshmallows- what a day.

Things are looking up again and as cold as it was today, even the sun was trying to shine.The bad snow storm we were expecting ended up further south so we were spared this time. Mighty nippy outside all day. Reminded me of the old days when we had to walk a mile to school and since we had to walk home for lunch, we started walking 4 miles a day from the age of 5. I remember how sometimes we would try walking backwards to keep the cold wind from burning and freezing our uncovered faces. The cold also made our bare legs so red and raw looking since girls were not allowed to wear slacks to school in those days. It was dresses and short ankle socks. I sometimes wonder if they ache today from freezing my legs for so many years always walking back and forth four trips a day in the cold blistering winter weather. Four miles a day for the first 8 years of school, then when we entered High School we walked even further every school day.
This morning I had to zip my jacket all the way to the top so I could tuck my chin in out of the cold while walking from the workout clinic back to my car in the further parking lot. I was wishing i could hide my whole face out of the cold wind and that i had my scarf with me. All the closer parking spaces were filled and I had to park up by the Hospital and walk to the building out behind the hospital.

Now, Just an update on the cell phone minutes. I finally found a place in my account on-line where It listed the words -support ticket- never seeing those words before, I didn`t know what they stood for. Since all my e-mails were not being answered, I decided to click on it and see what happened. Up came a place where I could write about any problem that I had. This actually was answered with a reply saying they would look into the problem and someone in the support group would get back to me. Then I received an e-mail giving me a phone number and asking me to call them asap so they could help with this matter. In no time they understood my problem and told me something was funny and they would definitely check it out further. He also told me within two minutes I would be receiving an e-mail with a corrected re-fill number. Took me only a few minutes to have the new minutes added to my phone. So, this dilemma was finally taken care of.

Then I went to work out at the Wellness Clinic and when I got back there was another e-mail from the lad I had e-mailed yesterday when no one was answering the other e-mails. I found this lads e-mail address still in my address book from when he helped me over a year ago. His e-mail told me he would have the matter straightened out for me by early this afternoon. I had to reply to his e-mail to let him know that another fellow had already helped me this morning. But, I thanked him for answering my e-mail and for offering to help. I received back another e-mail from this lad telling me it was no problem and for me to have a nice day. Now, I should have sent the problem to the " support ticket" place instead of to the " support at prepaid wireless .com" that their papers always say to use if there is a problem.
You can be sure I will know where to go for faster service in the future. I never knew what the support ticket meant.

I bought a bag of small marshmallows a few days ago and when I went to add some to a cup of cocoa I discovered the whole bag was all stuck together. I was trying to think up a way to still use them. So, I used a tablespoon to dig some out of the bag, melted them and stirred in some puffed wheat and dropped some into small chunks onto waxed paper. The stickiness is drying up as they sit. next time I might trying adding some chopped raspberry chips, or some cinnamon flavored chips, or maybe butterscotch, or peanut butter chips. Even the chocolate chips would work with the marshmallow. Maybe even add some finely chopped nuts. Or might just melt some of the raspberry chips and swirl it through the melted marshmallow. Bought all the different flavored chips to make Christmas Cookies, but never go to use most of them. Knew if I put my thinking cap on I could figure out something to use this bag of partly melted stuck together small marshmallows so I wouldn`t have to just throw them away. And the cereal is better for me than the Brownies I love so much. I seldom make brownies because I have trouble looking and not eating too many. They are one of my downfalls where sweets are concerned. Not a big sweet eater, but Brownies are hard to resist.

Still peeling more Great Stuff off my hands, but had enough removed so I didn`t have to hide my hands to hit the Hosp gym center. But, my hands do look shiny where the plastic coating still remains on my hands. Guess the only thing it can`t be removed from is the skin. Who ever would have thought one of those cans had that much pressure in it. The last can I used was easy- all I did was push the nail into the opening to shut off the flow. This time when it kept trying to push the nail back out, I quickly grabbed the can cover and added it over the nail and was pushing hard to keep the cover on- hoping it would thicken and stop the flow. I have never before seen a nail crack through the cover and fly across the room while the contents kept flowing and pouring up through the cracked cover. I have used this Great Stuff before and never before had this strong pressure in the can to work against. The nail I was using was the same nail I had removed from the last can I used. I am just glad there was no one standing in front of me when that nail broke through the plastic cover and went flying. I have seen the nails in a power nail gun go flying with this kind of force, but never before saw a nail crack a cover and fly out through the crack. If anyone had told me this was possible i probably wouldn`t have believed it. My nails look the worst. I hope it doesn`t weaken the nails before it wears off them. If only the nail polish remover had worked. I once read that wearing fake nails for any length of time could weaken the nails, so I wonder what having this plastic like cover will do to them. But I can smile again knowing in time this problem will also be solved.

I was feeling a little down the past few days, but now things are starting to look up again. :) In case someday one of my great grandchildren might be reading this, maybe I should explain that the symbol " :) " stands for a smile. I wonder what new symbols will be used by the time they are grown with kids of their own?

February 2,2009, What to do now?

2009-02-02T18:08:00.002-05:00

Monday, February 2,2009

What to do now?

I finally was able to get back doing the full workouts again last Saturday. Sure felt good. Then yesterday I decided to check out the upstairs eaves to see if I could find the cause of the leaks I am suddenly getting- both dripping down between the screen and back door, and also dripping down over the bathroom window. I had the tin added to the edge of the back high roof hoping to stop the icicle build up, but this year the ice build up seems to be bad for lots of people. Well, I did locate a place where the insulation had unhooked and I could see sunlight through the tin. So, I got out the Great Stuff to fill up the crack in the eaves before I re-hook the insulation. I was too tired to got out to get some gloves from the shop. All went well till I was finished filling in the opening where I could see some light. Then I grabbed the nail that I had used before to close up the top of the can spout. Worked well before, so why not now? The pressure in the can was soo strong that it kept trying to push out the nail. So, I grabbed the can cover to put on the can to hold the nail. Was I ever surprised with what happened next. The nail suddenly cracked the center of the cover and flew right through the crack. If I hadn`t seen it, I do not think I would have believed. It was like watching a dart flying with no target waiting to stop it.
Anyone who has ever used the can of Great Stuff (sold by the Dow Chemical Co) knows that with that much pressure the filler will just keep flowing out so fast and get onto anything in it`s path. It never stops until the can is empty and this was a full can. Being upstairs there was no place I could think to cover the can with, so I hurried downstairs and carried it outside, grabbing a garbage bag on my way through the laundry room. I am sure you have already come to the conclusion that it had gotten all over my hands. That is always a no no, since there is no cleaner that will remove it from your skin. Still, I did try many many cleaners, even peanut butter, with no good result.
So, I went on line and looked up the Dow Chemical Co, hoping something might have been invented that I didn`t know about. Their report on Great Stuff said there was only two ways of removing it from the skin- one was mechanically ( ????) and the other way was to just let it wear off. I wonder what they mean by " mechanically"? All day yesterday and again today I have spent a lot of time trying to peel off the plastic like coating that covers my hands. Using a lot of hand moisturizing lotion hoping to soften it for pealing. It peels off in such very tiny specks at a time.

Now, I am hoping to get my hands cleaned before going back to workout again.
Now, if that was my only problem right now, it wouldn`t be as bad. But, I have a cell phone that I buy minutes for on line. Last week I bought more minutes and was approved. Problem came when I tried to add the new minutes to my phone account. I was told that the minutes I was trying to add was the same numbers that they had added to another customers cell phone back in November. I was told to contact the on-line where I bought the refill minutes. Well, here it is a week later and five e-mails written with not a single reply from them. I checked and -yes, they have already charged the amount for these fraud minutes onto my credit card. Hard to know what to do since it would coat me as much to have the payment stopped as it did for the minutes. My type cell phone only keeps the minutes still on my phone if I add on more minutes before the 3 month limit is up. That runs out in 2 more days, so if I do not add on more, I will also lose what I still have left from the last time. I keep this cell phone because it is lots cheaper as there is no monthly charges and I do not use it enough to warrant buying a more expensive one. Plus, for a year I also have the Star service in my new car which has a phone service with it. I wish they had a phone number I could call when no one answers their e-mails.

So, here I sit, trying to stay cheerful and not let things get to me. Of couse it will not hurt if I say a little prayer for an e-mail to arrive correcting the re-fill numbers so I can add them in time to save my present minutes and so the charge on my credit card is for proper minutes.

Keep smiling :):) . When my Dr asked me why I didn`t come in complaining a lot more, I told him that complaining only brings a person down further and makes it harder to handle problems- medical or otherwise. Guess he wishes I would complain more so he can tell more about my condition. My last back X-rays surprised him. but they didn`t tell me anything new that other Dr`s hadn`t already told me over the years. He will just have to depend on what he learns from tests and so forth. Besides, isn`t he supposed to be the one who tells me what is wrong. I got tired of telling my old Dr what to treat me for. This time I want it to be the Dr`s job.

Friday, January 23,2009, Back to the Wellness Clinic to work out.

2009-01-23T20:48:00.002-05:00

Well, here it is-Friday, January 23, 2009
A couple days ago it was -4 when I got up and it only warmed up to 3 + degrees above zero all day. Today it was nice out- no storm, temperature reached to 31 degrees- just 1 degree below the 32 freezing mark. Funny how warm 31 can feel after you have had a week of real cold out.
This past Tuesday I managed to workout a little at the hospital Wellness Clinic. I managed 15 minutes on the recumbent bike, another 15 minutes on the new Step and next was the treadmill. I only made it for 5 minutes at a low speed of 2 before the sciatica nerve started giving me pain and I had to quit. Wednesday I mostly sat again with the heating pad to help the pain. Thursday I again went back to try working out again. Did a little better this time. 15 minutes on recumbent bike, 15 minutes on the new step and managed 10 minutes with speed of 2.5 on the treadmill. The place has a limit of 15 minutes on any of the machines. It shouldn`t be long before I am back doing the 15 minutes at 3 speed on the treadmill.
Today I managed to remove the ice from my back porch and sweep off all the birdseed mess before re-filling the feeders. I still have some ice on my front porch steps. I usually pour hot water with Dawn dish washing detergent down the steps before going to bed when we are expecting sleet or freezing rain. But this last time I was in so much pain that after I did the more used side porch steps, I let the rest wait. Big mistake and now it will be harder to remove the thickened ice. One daughter bought me a set of those Winter Trax to add on the bottom of my shoes to make it safer when I am walking outside. They do help keep my feet from slipping. my kids are always doing something for me.
I always have a lot of birds around my back porch all winter. I keep the suet holder filled, the taller thistle holder and the round style feeders filled. Today my dog Sassy was in the laundry room laying by the back door. She started barking and started walking towards the kitchen and went back towards the back door still barking. So, I knew she wanted me to come see what she was barking at. There was two cats laying on the table on the porch. I do not know if they are both wild cats or if they belong to someone in the neighborhood. They often come meowing near one of my porches or my daughters next door, but if you go out, then they usually run away fast. One day last week the large light gray colored one was by my back porch. I went out. stood by the top step, held out my hand and talked low to it and it surprised me. It came up the steps and stood there allowing me to keep patting it for quite a few minutes. It would have stayed longer, but it was way too cold for me to stay outside very long. That was the day it was -37 below. Today both cats took off fast when I opened the back door. I do not want them hanging around the back porch with so many birds eating from the hanging feeders there.

Today, I was going to see if the heater would make the shop warm enough for me to work out there, but ended up just working around the house. I am thinking of bringing the heater into the house to warm it up to see if the liquid in it might be partly frozen from sitting all winter in the cold shop. I didn`t think it could freeze, but I guess anything is possible. When I shake it a little I do not hear a lot of movement from the liquid inside. It is an electric fuel oil heater. I also have another house problem. I must have a spot upstairs where the heat is escaping out to the eaves and this leak must be melting the icicles and causing them to back up and leak water down the inside wall. It is dripping down and coming out at the bathroom window . Right now I have a small plastic container sitting on the window sill to catch the drips. Had this problem once years ago, but not in the last 5 years since we put on the new house roof. I know if I open up that spot and pull back the insulation on that spot, then the house heat will melt off the icicles and the leak will stop. Many years ago we had an electric heating coil running along the eaves on the back of the house. I hope I do not have to have one added again to stop the ice from backing up. I thought I had this problem licked when we added the metal strip along the roof edge. It hasn`t built icicles in a few years until now. But this winter sure has been a wicked one. A couple other people told me they were also having problems this year.

Tuesday, I managed to get back working out a little before the sciatic nerve pain interrupted the work out. 15 minutes on the new step, 15 minutes on the recumbent bike , but only 5 minutes on the treadmill at a low speed of 2. Thursday I did a little better, after the recumbent bike and the new step, I walked a bit faster at a speed of 2.5 for 10 minutes on the treadmill before needing to stop. Hopefully it won`t be too much longer before I am back exercising the 1 1/2 hours that I was doing before and doing the treadmill at the faster speed. I know I need to go slow for now and not rush it. Doing the therapy exercises at home is improving the spine problem and causing less pressure on the sciatic nerve. Dr mentioned he could send me to a therapist for help if I wanted to go, but I told him I know most of those exercises by heart from the times I was bedridden over the years with this same problem. I am a bit smarter now than I was back then. I start the exercises as soon as I feel a disc slipping and usually get it back before things get too bad. Bones are getting more brittle according to the Dr and so they are allowing curvature of the spine now and this time the bones are putting pressure on the sciatic nerve causing the pain. Heat does wonders for the pain. The pain pills were worthless and I didn`t want the real strong pills. I wouldn`t be safe working with electrical tools or driving my car if I took them. Plus, I have always believed that every med you take for one problem can end up causing more problems somewhere else in your body.
Hard being patient and taking things slower as I am used to being active and accomplishing things. But taking things on a slower key will get me back where I want to be much faster with less chance of causing more problems. So, I will learn to be more careful and not overdo while I still accomplish things at a slower pace for now.

Sunday, Jan.18, 2009- Too cold in shop

2009-01-23T19:48:00.001-05:00

Too cold to work in my shop!
This was written 5 days ago. Today, Sunday, January 18, 2009, wasn`t a total waste. This time the snow we got was dryer and lighter so my tiny little foot wide snow blower came in handy. I was out blowing snow so that Sassy would have room to still make it out back at least a little way from the house. My son-in-law heard my snow blower and came out to tell me he intended on doing it for me with his larger snow blower. I told him I was just doing room for Sassy, plus I wanted to work in the shop. So, I did in front of both the shop door and the garage doors. I needed to use the ice scraper to remove all the snow way down , as one garage door never opens far enough to back the car out if there is even a little snow or a tiny bump of ice for it to glide over. A friend once mentioned those hinges that swing a door upward as it opens. But I haven`t been able to find any strong enough to hold the weight of a 4x8 sheet of plywood on a wooden framework. I even checked my books and also on line with no luck. Guess they just do not make them for doors that large or heavy. Last year I shaved a little wood off the bottom of the door to allow it to open enough. The cold and moisture must be getting under the driveway and heaving up that side a bit. The other side was made with a better slope so the door raises farther off the driveway as it opens. I wish they had done that on both sides.

I went to the shop and started the heater, then came back inside to rest while the shop warmed up. About 35 minutes later I went back out, only to find the heater just couldn`t handle this terrible cold we are getting lately. We didn`t have -37 below during the daytime when the heater was heating the shop so great last year. So, I just measured and cut the board for the bottom of the slide out shelf and shut off the heater and decided to give up for today. I decided I could still add the casters on the bottom of that shelf. When I opened the 2 sets of casters I discovered they didn`t come with any screws to put them on with. Luckily I had bought lots of different small size screws last year when I was ordering from the Rockler catalog. I found one small bag with the right size to fit the board I was using. When I had three of the casters screwed onto the board I discovered I only had three more screws in the bag. So, I had to go hunting through all my odd screws to find one the right size to finish that last caster. So, now that much is finished. I did cut some thin slats about 2" high to fit the longer two sides of the shelf board . These I can glue on for edging, but I was getting too cold out there to hunt up and cut another narrower , higher one to add up the back to keep the bottles from falling our when the shelf is rolled out and back in.

Now for the next plans. Do I want to leave it a single shelf and just add edges around the three sides so the bottles can`t fall off when I pull the shelf out? Or do I want to add another higher shelf and make it a two shelf slider section? It can only be about 7" wide by 24 " deep. But I can make it as high as the cupboards on each side of where it will go. I had cut the cupboard top long enough to cover both cupboards (both the old one and the new one I made a couple months ago) plus the space between them. Wish I had more spare wall space there so I could have left a wider center section, but then I wouldn`t have been able to open the doors on the large beautiful divider that goes between the kitchen and dining room. So there will already be a top over the shelf space. I do not want to lose any more width so I do not want to make a very strong framework to hold up the top shelf section. There would be advantages either way. Leaving just the one bottom shelf would make it easier to see exactly what was left on the shelf without pulling it out to see under. I used to buy a lot of soda, but now I buy very little. When I was going to the expensive exercise center the owner provided plenty of cold flavored water drinks for anyone who wanted them. That got me off the soda so much and more drinking the flavored water. But since I buy both the quart size and the smaller bottles, the higher shelf would come in handy to hold the smaller bottles. I like the smaller bottles to take in the car with me. Well, no rush in deciding as it looks like it will be a while before it will get warm enough to work in the shop. Last winter I was able to work out there all winter, but it sure is much colder this year. So, here I sit with the electric lap robe putting heat on my spine. hip, legs and knees. Heat does wonders with alleviating the arthritic pain. I also have the small heater running behind my chair to get the chill out from being outside so long.

It has now warmed up to 14 with a wind chill of -23 degrees F and I thought they said is was going to be warmer today. Guess it is much warmer than the -37 we had without a wind chill. My D-In-Law told me yesterday that they are now getting our old temps. I just saw on TV that it is now only 23 degrees where she lives in North Carolina. That would feel warm to us here, but must feel awful cold there when they are not used to our chilly weather. Back in the 50`s when my oldest brother first moved to New Jersey they had never had snow in that state. I remember their first snow storm. It was so bad that the workers in my brothers lace factory couldn`t leave the factory and the second shift couldn`t get to work. New Jersey had no snow shovels or even town or city snowplows. The large snowplows from New York State went to N. Jersey to dig them out. You can bet the stores and the cities and towns started ordering snow equipment real fast. Then a lot of the residents didn`t know how to handle driving in snow and schools would close with just a little snow on the ground. Today N. Jersey is used to driving in snow. Now other states further south are experiencing what it is like to drive in snow and on ice.

I remember a couple years ago they had a movie showing Greenland and Iceland and how the ice was spreading further and further every year and they announced that we were heading for another ice age. They said not in our time, but possible in our kids life, but most definitely during our grandchildren's age.
I am wondering if that has changed now. Recently I heard that the ice was melting worse each year in the northern end of Alaska due to the global warming from the pollution and gases in the air. They are worrying about the animals living there becoming extinct if the ice keeps melting more every year. Keeps one guessing which is going to happen. Weather sure looks more like the ice age with the changes and how some of the warmer southern states are getting the cold weather we used to have up here while we are getting much colder than in the past. But, this year we are back getting the large snow amounts more like we did when I was a kid, but I do not remember temps going as low as -36 without a wind chill to lower it - at least not where I live. I remember it being below zero, but not for weeks at a time like it is now. We used to say it was too cold to snow, but can`t say that anymore. It has snowed at -36 degrees below zero. Just saw the weather report for the coming week and we are expecting snow every day except for Thursday, if it doesn`t change. I am hoping Thursday is snowless so I can go back and try doing the exercises again. I know that exercise is very important for anyone with the many kind of arthritis. I once told my old Dr that my mother was asked what kinds of arthritis she had and she wasn`t sure. My Dr responded by telling me if anyone asked me that question I could tell them I had all kinds. I really wasn`t asking him about myself, but guess he read it that way. At the time my mother, in her late 80`s, was having an eye replacement. She had bought new glasses and one of the lens popped out hitting her eye and damaged the eyesight in the eye. She had wonderful success with the eye replacement. A few years later she had an operation to repair a broken hip which never healed strong so it re-broke, and about three months later they had to do a complete hip replacement. I was surprised that she healed so well at her age - almost 90, when her arm had never healed back in her late 40`s. But she was always an active person. She stayed on the Bowling Team till she broke her hip. I think all her staying busy doing things must have helped to strengthen her system to keep her going. I remember my Dad kept Bowling for quite a few years even with the bad hands. I had to stop going years ago as the arthritis was enlarging the finger joints so they just didn`t fit into the finger holes in the bowling balls. I never joined a League like both my parents did.
Yesterday I noticed there was cold air leaking around one side of my kitchen door. Funny how every time I had checked it during the past month I could feel no leak before. I had the new metal weather strips still upstairs. I had originally bought them for the back door, but was able to fix that door by just adding a thin strip along the opening side so I still had the set . Yesterday I noticed it also fit my side door frame so I added the right side strip up the outside of the door to correct the air leak. I did`not finish adding the top and the other side yet because it is too cold to stay outside doing something that is not necessary right now.

It was so cold yesterday that my fingers started to freeze onto the hook on my dogs chain. I had to run my fingers under cool water a while before I could warm them with warmer water. I had frozen three of those fingers years ago when my nephew never showed up back at my home. He has epilepsy and I feared he might have had an attack and it was in the winter time. I couldn`t find my gloves as I had let one of the kids wear them to play outside and I was too scared to keep hunting. When our son`s German Shepherd also never came back home, I knew it had stayed with Ed. I did find Ed- all confused, sitting on the ground and the dog stayed with him. Funny part is my nephew had always been afraid of the dog before this. A neighbor who lived on the next road belonged to a snowmobile club back then and he contacted his friends who all showed up to hunt the woods for my nephew, but just as I saw the lights as they were entering the woods I located him. It was getting dark by the time I found him. My fingers use to freeze for years after that whenever they got too cold. Been years now since that has happened till I started to take the dog chain hook off the wall hook, (where I hang it on the house), so I could put the dog out. Sassy had to wait till I got my aching fingers warmed up again. Then I put on my gloves and did a lot of rubbing to warm up the hook before connecting it to Sassy`s collar.

Hope it warms up soon so i can get nback working in the shop.

Another New Year and Test results

2009-01-16T17:03:00.003-05:00

Friday, January 16, 2009
Another new year and test results

Another new year and getting older has a funny way of making you face truths you might otherwise ignore. I have been doing great with acting like everything is ok even though I knew the condition my back was getting into. Well, after the x-rays, now this Dr also knows the condition my spine is in. He told me I have degenerative problems. He also told me that the arthritis has deformed the bones in my spine and the damaged bones were in terrible condition and causing curvature of the spine. This deformed shape is putting pressure on the sciatic nerve causing this terrible pain from my hip on down my whole leg to my foot. I was pretty sure that was what was causing the pain as I have been completely bed ridden twice over the years from the sciatic nerve and needed therapy to be able to walk again. Another Dr was treating me back then, so this Dr knew nothing till he saw the x-rays. He did surprise me when he told me that I could be doing a lot of complaining and he would understand in my condition. He said I have a lot of reasons for complaining and he could see that I was not a complainer. Nice that he finally is getting to know the real me. :) My family also has known about my back problems. When my youngest son was getting married years ago, he told me I was going to be at his wedding if he had to carry me there. That was the last time it put me flat in bed. I do better now because I know all the therapy exercises so well and the minute I feel a lump in my back I start doing them and so far am able to put the discs back in place. On top of all this, the Dr knows I have sleep apnea, allergies, and Diplopia ( double vision caused by a Minnie stroke years ago), plus he has told me he doesn`t see how I do anything with my hands in such rough arthritic shape. plus I had both hands operated over the years from ruptured tendons from working with tools so much. After the right hand operation, that surgeon told me to go back home and works with more tools and then come back and see him in another year as he only did this type operation on Mechanics and Carpenters. My dad had also had one of his hands operated on for the ruptured tendons. That Dr died long before I needed the second op on the left hand. I told my Dr that people are always telling me they can`t see how I do anything using my hands. But as I tell them, my Dad had a saying that I live by- "Where there is a will, there is a way". He continued working on cars right up to the day before he died and his hands were also in real bad shape. My mother had a lesser case of arthritis and still crocheted with her aching hands. She also had a broken arm from a car accident which never healed and the bone in her arm was only held together by the wire they put in during that operation when she was 47 and was still in the same shape when she died 4 days before her 91st birthday. But, she never complained even when I often could see the pain in her face when she was doing things. She still washed walls and ceilings, replaced wall paper , painted, had her garden up into her early 80`s and canned a lot, and just continued doing her own housework. I learned the best thing to do is keep exercising the fingers and told the Dr my large organ and the computer keyboard are good ways for exercising my fingers. You see we had good examples to learn from.

When the Dr asked me how I managed, I told him a few things I do, such as my hands can`t hang onto small or thin items and I can`t pull up the tongues in my shoes so I keep a pair of pliers in my kitchen to do such things. I have trouble tying my shoes, so when daughter Theresa asked me what I wanted for my Birthday last Sept., I told her a long handled shoe horn. Now I leave the shoes tied and use the shoe horn to slide my feet into the walking shoes. I would probably have yelled at my kids if they had done that. I even keep an old small shoe horn in the gym bag to use when changing shoes at the Hosp. gym. I also told him I use enlargers on my crochet hooks to hold onto them and keep a large pair of shears in the kitchen drawer with the pliers. His reply was that I was very resourceful. I told him there is almost always a way if we want to do something bad enough.

So, all I actually learned from these x-rays was that the spine bones are getting more brittle and in worse shape. But I had to expect that to happen eventually. He asked how the pain pills were working. I told him I stopped taking them because they were not helping any. He offered stronger pain pills, but then I wouldn`t be safe driving or working in my shop without worrying about getting hurt. my eye specialist would like to wait longer between changing my prisms in my glasses as he says there are only so many and he wants to be sure they last as long as i do. But, as I told him, I need to see real clear to keep working with the electrical tools and the table saw, scroll saw and Band saw, plus driving or I could get seriously hurt. As for the pain, the large heating pad and the electric lap blanket help a lot, so I sit with it a lot during the days and also sleep with the electric lap robe over my hip and legs all night. I also learned Thursday that I was right - the lumps in my legs are blockages , but in the superficial veins, so nothing to worry about.

Now, i am not writing this to get anyone feeling sorry for me as I still manage to keep enjoying things and as soon as we get rid of this -26 degree below zero F weather, I intend to get the pull out bottle shelf made to go between the two cupboards. I already bought the casters and have wood. The one to feel sorry for is my only living brother who had a leg removed from osteo-mylitis 2 years ago, his thyroid neck gland removed a couple years before that due to throat cancer and now suffers from bone cancer and last month the Dr started him on insulin shots for Di abates. Now, he is someone who can sure use all the prayers he can get. We are all worried about losing him since the Dr says the cancer has advanced. Lost my younger brother from heart problems back in 1994 and our oldest brother in June due to worse Minnie strokes and now we worry about out last brother. One younger sister had a heart attack a few months ago and has emphysema bad, so we also worry about her. All in all, I feel lucky as long as I can keep living in my own home, doing things for myself and do not become a burden to my kids.

I wasn`t going to post the test results, but decided to let others know why I haven`t been posting as often as I used to. Staying inside to keep warm as it is only -26 F outside. Must be worse than that in Canada since that is where they say this cold weather is coming from. This crazy weather we keep having. I can`t wait for spring to arrive. Stay warm everyone and if you live where you get our snow, be careful shoveling. I am sure some one has some hot weather they would love to share with us. :) We have a lot of freezing weather we would love to send to them, along with the snow. Ha Ha. Keep smiling, remember, things could always be worse.

1/2/2009/Christmas/Friend from China/Remembering Pwn Pals from England

2009-01-03T13:09:00.002-05:00

Christmas is over and New Years Day has passed. Now it is time to think about what I want to accomplish in the new year. As soon as I lick this pain in my hip and right leg, I am hoping to get back working in my wood shop. I want to make a small pull out section between two cupboards for holding the plastic bottles that hold the flavored water and the soda drinks. While Christmas shopping , I found the small casters to put under the bottom of the pull out section. I have enough wood left from my last project, so just need to be able to do the work. Dr ordered ex-rays today, so should know the cause soon so I can start working on the cure. I was happy that one of my daughters drove me to the Dr`s office in the morning and again drove me back in the afternoon for the ex-rays so I never had to clear out the snow in front of the garage doors. We only got about 4 more inches over night. Hope I feel up to shoveling that little bit tomorrow. Wasn`t enough to make it necessary for anyone to shovel out the driveway for me. But, we may get more snow again tonight.

I still haven`t made it to my brother or sisters homes with their gifts. But they all understand what is stopping me from visiting them. I wasn`t walking to well at the Funeral home even though I tried to hide it. Now, If I had been able to make all those trips up and down the porch steps I could have packed all their gifts into my car before I drove down for my uncles Funeral. Two of my sisters brought their gifts for me and put them in my car as we were leaving the Funeral place. I knew I couldn`t drive on down to their homes after I left there because I had to get home for my dog as I had left her inside while I was gone. She is getting old and I didn`t want to leave her out when it was so cold. I do have hay in her dog house , but that morning it was way too cold to leave her outside.

I received a lot of useful items for Christmas, plus some just to enjoy. I hope they like their gifts as much as I liked mine. I always love the newer pictures the grandchildren give me of my great grandchildren. Having new pictures means more than any expensive gift would to me. I did manage to take a picture of each part of the family that made it to my home. One member of my family has a very polite young man visiting them from China. He is in America to attend a college. I enjoyed chatting with this young lad. For one so young, he sounds very educated. He must have wonderful caring parents from the kindness he shows to everyone he meets in our family. You can tell that he had a very good upbringing from the way he acts. He mentioned that in the college he is attending some of the teachers look out for the students like they were a second set of parents. Now, that sure is a nice tribute to our college teachers. Being an only child, it must be hard for his family having their only child so far from home. I remember how I worried when one of my sons joined the Navy . I guess , no matter how much we hear from them through letters or phone calls, we still worry until our children are safely back home. My daughter let him use her phone to call his parents. I am not sure how much longer he will be visiting here before he has to report back to the college. I think it is great that my daughter and her family had the chance to meet someone from another country. We can learn so much more about other countries from it`s citizens than we could from reading about the country in books. Books are so matter of fact without the normal living ways that most people have to face in their day to day living. Books don`t show the feeling that people face while growing up. it never tells the little things that happen that have so much to do with how a persons life unfolds. I have always found it very interesting learning more about other countries. That is one of the things I love most about having a computer- the education you receive from meeting people from all over - both my own country and around the world. I guess I never realized how different it can be growing up in another state that has different kinds of plants, flowers, birds, animals and trees, and so forth than we find in our state. In school you learn what different things each state is noted for, but you do not learn the different ways people talk and the kind of foods they prefer eating that you do not find in all states. I have a granddaughter who was so young when they moved that she has the southern way of speaking while her older brother and sister went to schools in the north and therefore learned to speak like a northerner. You never learned , that growing up in a different state can make such a difference in how you pronounce words or the kind of foods you learn to love. Those are things you learn from experience, or from other people, not from books. I remember when i was a child in Girl Scouts and we had penpals. Mine was from England. After writing to this pen pal for a few months, I received letters from two other girls from England and for years the three of them and I kept contact with each other through our letters. Somehow, after we grew up we lost contact with each other. Today, while looking through some old saved memories from my school days i came across two post cards one of the girls had sent to me. One of them was of a large beautiful church and on the card it says " The Chancel, Nantwich Church". On the other post card is a picture of people swimming in a huge pool and it says "Brine Swimming Pool, Nantwich". I received these from a friend named Ursula crawford, the date was 1946. These cards were published by the Johnson & Son , Stationers, Nantwich, under License granted by the Ministry of Supply. These post cards were printed in Great britian. I have always valued these cards because they were sent to me by a great friend. So, I learned at a young age that you can have a wonderful friend even if the two of you never meet in person.

Christmas 2008 is finally over but still more gifts to give.

2008-12-26T14:37:00.002-05:00

Christmas 2008 is finally over, but I still have more gifts to hand out to some family members who didn`t make it on Christmas Day. So far, everyone seems to love the gifts I gave to them. I also still have more gifts that I was not able to deliver in time due to both the weather and my Uncle`s Funeral. I do feel God was with me as I drove down and back to the Funeral place alone on Wednesday. All of my children were working and unable to drive me there. I knew the roads were a bit on the slippery side and that the snow would be changing to sleet and later rain that morning and early afternoon. Since the hours were 10 to 12 noon for the Wake and the funeral was to start immediately after that, I stayed alert throughout the morning and early afternoon. It was just snowing lightly when I left home. It never started sleeting until I was on my way driving back home and the heat on the windshield kept melting the sleet so it didn`t get real bad seeing through it. It did have me being extra careful for a few minutes when the sleet was freezing on the windshield and I had to lean my head down to look through the small area that was still clear. That brought back many memories of the old days when I had a car with wipers that stopped working. One time I drove home from my mothers home with my head stuck our the open window so I could see to drive home. The wipers refused to work . Glad I never passed any officers on the road while snow had completely covered my windshield making it impossible to see through it. I can imagine what other car drivers were thinking as the watched me driving with the window wide open and my head stuck out that window . An other time Walt and I had made the trip to visit my step son and his family who lived in North Carolina. It was snowing hard as we were driving up the winding steep hill through Virginia on our way home. You couldn`t see anything through the windows. So, that time I also kept my head out the open window so I could see where the car lights showed the road only in front of the car itself. The difference this time is I wasn`t the one driving the car. We had to keep driving for miles and miles because we could not see any roads to turn off the road. We ended up driving from Virginia, then threw the other stated this road entered and left. Finally we reached the state of Massachusetts before we drove out of that bad storm. We were so relieved to be able to see where we were and with my map I was able to direct us from Mass. back into New York State where I directed Walt till we were back in more familiar territory. To get back to my ride home from the Funeral Parlor with the ice forming on my windshield, once I turned the heat onto the dash the sleet melted off the windshield in just seconds letting me see well again. My many years of driving in bad weather sure came in handy again. One daughter said she could drive me there before she left for work and suggested I hail a Taxi to bring me home. But I guess I had seen too many accidents over the years involving taxies. As I told her you never know if the taxi driver would be one who had plenty of practice driving in bad weather, or if it might be a new driver with little practice. So, I felt a bit safer driving myself. My new car held the road very well. Too many of the older experienced Taxi drivers have now retired, so there are a lot of new ones now.

It was -17 F when I got up that morning and had only gotten up to -15 by 8:30AM , so was still very cold when I started driving, but got up into the 20`s by the time I was driving back home. Later it warmed up to 31, and soon after the rain started. We did not get much rain , so it never lowered the high snow banks any. When I was getting into my car to head home, my sisters came over to put some Christmas gifts in my car from them. I have been having pain in my back and it had gotten worse and the pain started going down my right leg, so it was giving me some trouble walking and even sitting. I thought about putting the gifts in my car for my brother , sisters, and sister-in-law -knowing they would all be there, but it was too painful climbing up and down the porch steps. I would have had to make a lot of trips up and down those steps to carry everything from the house to my car. I was afraid if I tried, then I might not be able to go to the Funeral home, and I felt I had to be there for my Aunt and cousins, plus I thought a lot of this Uncle. He was the last one in my mother`s family. Now I have no more Uncles and the only 2 Aunt`s left are the one married to this Uncle and the one who was married to the other Uncle who died earlier this year.

Yesterday was a bit warmer and no storm all day. I went to a son`s home for Dinner with him, his wife and 2 children, plus my stepson and his friend also joined us. Most of the children phoned to tell me Merry Christmas before I left. My youngest son showed up with his friend as soon as he knew I was back home. No more than he left my youngest daughter came with her little 4 year old daughter. One of my other granddaughters visited me on my Anniversary Date- 23rd. She has meet a nice lad and wanted me to meet him. She had phoned me a few days before to tell me she would be bringing him with her. So we exchanged gifts on my Anniversary. It helped make that day a bit more pleasant for me. Out of all the days in the year my Anniversary is the hardest one to handle. So, I was happy she decided to come then. After she left, I was invited to another daughters home to celebrate Christmas with her, her husband, her son and her three grandchildren. It was this daughter`s only night off as she sits with an elderly person and had to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. So I exchanged gifts there with all of them. We had already celebrated Christmas at her home over a week before when her daughter was visiting from out of state. She is the mother of the newest great grand daughter who was born in Sept. on my birthday. So, we finally got to see that beautiful little Dakota. I tried to scan her picture to add to this post, but today my scanner is acting like it has a mind of it`s own, I will need to check it out again. I usually can get it working after I fool around with it for a while. Maybe I can post the picture later.

I was happy that I managed to finish all the hanging towels for everyone. OH, here is one to smile about. When I was at my daughters and gave my grandson`s wife her gift- which included 2 of the towels among the gifts- She said that mike asked her where are all the kitchen towels? So, after he arrived from work and was opening the gift I gave him, I also gave him one of the towels. I told him his wife mentioned he had asked where all the towels went to and now he knew where his own towel was. That brought a smile to his face and others got in with the laughs. This grandson was one who grew up living next door to me and any time he came over and saw me cleaning, he would always say he wanted to clean with me. One thing he was always doing was checking out my bathroom sink. Back then I had two sons who were always working on their cars or motorcycle and getting the sink dirty. They sometimes waited till they finished getting dirty to wash out the sink. They would always rinse it out, but if any grease mark was left, they would scrub it better when they finished what they were repairing. If Mike saw a dirty sink he would tell me " Grandma, they are doing it again", meaning the boys left the sink dirty. I would find him using the sponge and cleaner and was scrubbing my sink clean. My daughter once told me that she wished I could teach her son how to help her the way he kept helping me. He is still a great grandson today. Oh, I do have such a nice family where any one of them would help me if they saw I needed help. Can`t be a luckier Grandmother or great Grandmother than I am.
Here is part of what was written on the card I received with the gifts on Christmas Day from my youngest daughter: "In all my 40 years, you have been my strength. You have taught me so much and when I need you, you are there. If not in person, then in thought. Just knowing all that`s needed is to pick up the phone and you are there. You let me talk and at times you don`t say much about the reason I call, but I gain much from listening to what I am saying to you. When those calls end, I do feel so much better and re-focused on what I need to do. .... "At the very end of the writing she said "Thank you for being my Mom! ,and I pull my strength from you. I have had many others write such nice things to me over the years. It sure helps make all those hard years raising a big family so very worth while. Nothing makes a person more happy than to know their kids both love and also respect a parents advice. Yes, God sure did Bless me with a wonderful family.
So, all in all, even with the pain, my family brought me lots of pleasure and helped make Christmas a lot happier. As soon as I have a better feeling day, I need to take the gifts to my brother and sisters. I know they understand. When I was heading for my car after the Funeral, I heard one of my sisters yell to me asking me if I would be alright. Of course, I told her yes and my older sister came over to my car to be sure I would be able to drive home ok. Before leaving I had told my brother that I would see him after Christmas and when I went on-line this morning there was a message from him telling me the present wasn`t important, all the family cared was that I feel better and that I would be ok. I am so lucky to have such a close family that we all love and worry about each other. I am so glad I decided to buy the new car as right now I wouldn`t have been able to drive my standard car as it needed two feet for pushing both the clutch and brake and I only could use the left foot till the pain lets up. With the new automatic car with power steering, I knew I would be able to drive ok without using that leg. Must admit that I was happy when I finally got home so I could take the pain pills. They make me sleepy, so won`t take them if I am going to be driving the car. Christmas day my son came to pick me up to go to his house, so I was able to take the pain pills and have a better time while I was there. I know all the therapy exercises by heart and am back doing them to help with my back and I think the leg is from the pressure on the sciatic nerve. Been there many times in the past. The only difference this time is I think I have arthritis in the joint that connects the spine to the leg as the pain started there. I always manage in time to put everything back in place so the pain lets up. It just takes a little time. I am due back to my Dr`s on the 15th, so then I can find out if I am right about the arthritis being involved.
I hope everyone had a wonderful , very Merry Christmas.
Next thing on my mind is wiahing everyone a very Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T10:20:00.002-05:00

Just a short note to wish everyone a wonderful very "Merry Christmas". If you live where you do not celebrate this Holiday, then i wish you also a wonderful day.I have been kept real busy every day for the past few weeks with the gifts I was crocheting and shopping for other gifts. My family has grown to about 57 to buy for, plus my brother, 3 sisters, 2 sister-in-laws and 1 brother-in-law. Christmas is just getting to be too hard for me to keep up- with the family adding on every year.

The 23rd would have been my Anniversary and out of all the days in the year, that one seems to be the hardest. Then yesterday the 24th I attended a Wake followed by the Funeral for my only remaining Uncle.

Today I will be having Dinner at one of my sons and his family. As soon as things calm down around here I will be around to visit all the many interesting friends blogs. I just didn`t want anyone to think I had forgotten them. I miss reading all your blogs and can`t wait to find time to get back reading them. Thanks for being such great understanding friends.

Will I finish before Christmas

2008-12-04T18:46:00.002-05:00

Will I ever get finished in time for Christmas? Seems like I ask myself that same question every year. I am making those towels with the crocheted hanging tops to help with the gifts for the daughters, daughter-in-laws, married granddaughters, sisters and sister-in-laws. If I haven`t missed anyone and I make 2 for each, I will need to complete 54 of them to add to the other gifts . Already gave 2 of the 54 to a granddaughter who won`t be back up before Christmas. I just finished # 31, so just 21 more to crochet, then I still will need to tack the flower into the shape I want it to be -on all 52 towels and sew on the 52 buttons. Every year I hear them asking for more , so here I go again this year. So, every year I try to figure out a different pattern. This year I am adding a colored yarn flower on each of the crocheted tops. Hope they like it as much as other years patterns. The most expensive part is the cost of the buttons. Well, it does cost more for the towels, but I feel they are worth the price. $1.25 for every package of three medium large buttons seems high with little to show for it. Just a few years ago I was getting 5 buttons for just one dollar. That would have cost me only $11 and given me one extra button for 54 buttons , instead, this year it cost me $18 for 54 buttons. What a difference. I remember my mother once telling me she wish everyone gave her back the buttons when the towels wore out. I wish she were here to see the new pattern I am making this year. I know she would have asked me to teach her how I am doing it so she could make them. We used to cut each towel in half making two hanging towels from each towel. Was a lot cheaper that way. Now, I just fold the towel in half which makes the towel dry better as it is double thick. Cost twice as much this way, but I like them better. Still makes nice gifts without spending too much. When starting the crochet work on the top of the fold, I use the nut meat picks to push a hole through the double thickness where i need to pull the yarn through the double thickness. Seems like we seldom ever used the nut picks any more since they started selling the nuts already shucked. So, I found a new helpful use for one of them and it stays in with my crochet needles. I also have those 3 sided rubber enlargers slid onto my crochet hooks so I can hang onto them. As they say- Where there is a will, there is a way. I was asked the other day how I ever crochet and knit and work in my wood shop. Told her I use extenders to make the crochet needles larger around and when knitting I let my knees support one knitting needle with the head of the needle tight against the seat of the chair I sit on so one hand can hold one needle and my right hand is free to wind the yarn around the needle between my knees. Doing this allows me to keep knitting and crocheting. As for working in my shop, the tools are large so my hands can close far enough to use them.

Tonight , I was able to finish one more top while waiting for my computer to go through the defrag.. Hadn`t defraged in a long time, so thought I should get it done. Now my fingers are needing a rest. Little harder using my hands when a storm is on the way. If it storms tomorrow, I will stay home and can maybe get three more done, I hope. UPdate- did three more today and added them to the numbers above.
Glad I already finished the baby afghan and the hooded baby sweater that zips down the back.

I am sitting here yawning. Not much sleep last night. Brother-in-law called me about 7pm last night to tell me that my brother went to the hospital as he was having problems breathing. I called the hospital to see what I could find out, but they just handed the phone to my brother and he kept me on the phone for over an hour. I think it helped to calm down his breathing while talking to me. I never went to bed till after one AM and woke up at 5:30 this morning. When I called the Hosp at 7:30 this morning I was told he had gone home. I called down home ( used to be the home place where I grew up) and I was told he came home around 2 am and was still sleeping. We know nothing more now than we did when he went in. I am sure nerves is playing a part since he has bone cancer and it isn`t good.
He can use all the Prayers he can get. Update since writing this- they say he had an infection between the ribs causing the pain.

Hanging on one of the gold knobs on my daybed is a straw hat, similar to those farmers wore while working in the fields. I remember the time I got it. I had taken my mother shopping and one of the stores was giving away a straw hat to everyone who bought a banana split. Back then a banana split consisted of a banana sliced the long way with three scoops using three kinds of ice cream spread over the banana ( vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream). Then the ice cream was topped with three different types of ice cream topping with whipped cream piled in the top center. Chopped nuts were spread over the topping and it was topped with a cherry. Delicious!!!

When I worked, right after graduation, every week I allowed myself one Banana Split on payday. That was the only money I allowed myself to waste. Glad they were real cheap back then since i was only earning $18 a week. Did get a raise- up to $21 a week after working a full year. But, I quit and got married and only saw that raise for about 4 months. Today I sometimes miss those banana splits and make them here at home. That day, in the store, I bought one for my mother and one for myself, My mother often used her straw hat while working in her garden in the hot sun. One time I asked my brother what happened to my mothers straw hat as I knew it was still in one of the upstairs bedrooms for years after she passed away. I would have liked having it because of the nice memories connected to it. But it seems to have disappeared over the years. There is another cap that has memories for me. My husband used to say " Where`s the beef ". It was a popular saying back then. One of the sons-in laws heard him saying it and the following week he showed up with a baseball shaped cap with this writing on the front of the cap " Here`s the beef". He had made it in his father`s shop. His father used to work for the newspaper and had bought the equipment for printing on shirts , caps, etc.. Walt got a big kick out of that hat. I still have it today. I look around my home and know it would look nicer if I got rid of lots of things. But, I hate giving away or tossing away anything with happy memories connected to it. Guess that is because i know there will never be any new memories made with Walt, my 2 brothers or my parents, so what i have from the past is twice as important to me. Like I still have the old Navy winter dark blue sailor pants with those thirteen buttons on the front flap. I can`t imagine having to button 13 buttons so many times a day. Think of the amount of time that could add up to in a month or a year. Seems like they could be a danger in a war as who can take time for that many buttons when being shot at. Leaves me wondering what the officials were thinking of when they added all those buttons.
I often wonder if the 13 had anything to do with the original 13 states that joined the Union making up the original United States. I will have to look this up when I have extra time.

Now these warm sailor pants kept my achy legs warm when I was a kid out sliding down the long roads in the roads, or skiing and skip jacking down the other steeper road. I remember how I used to come in the house after playing outside in the cold and my legs would ache for hours. One day my brother told me he had something that would help my achy legs and he came back carrying his heavy winter weight sailor pants. He was right, they did help keep my legs warm and I was able to enjoy being outdoors a lot more. Thinking of those sailor pants reminded me of how small and skinny my oldest brother used to be when he was just 17. Later he grew up to be a tall, nicely built handsome man. He had my fathers big broad shoulders and large strong hands. He was no longer that skinny 17 year old. But, I have to be happy he once was that smaller fellow for me to be able to wear his sailor pants.

A home would just be a house without the happy and yes, sometimes the sad, memories that made it a home. I have seen some houses that look like a million with all their rich looking furniture that no one dares to sit on for fear of breaking it or getting a stain on it. I have no stains on my furniture, but I do see happy memories each time I look at them. I could have afforded to own more expensive items, but I never wanted a show place. I wanted a place where people laughed and had fun. Where they were not afraid to cuddle up together watching TV. Cuddling with Walt on the couch to watch TV together- makes me smile just thinking of it. When the kids were small, they would often climb up to sit with us, or sometimes climb up on our laps. We never worried about how many crowded onto the couch at the same time. we just had more there to hug. As they say, a family that is close when the kids are small, if often a family that stays close when they grow up. Had a brother who was a millionaire. One of his children once told me that he would gladly give away all the money his family had if his family could have even half the kind of love he saw in my family and in my younger brother`s family. We were at the younger brother`s funeral at the time. He told me they might be rich, but they don`t have the closeness my family has. Money doesn`t buy happiness, love does. This nephew might be the youngest of 6 kids, but I think he is also the wisest. Also lost this wonderful brother this past summer and I see his family is not as close without him holding them together, so his son, my nephew, was right about having money and missing out on the closeness. This brother had nothing handed to him, he worked hard to get where he was. He started out drawing patterns for our local Lace Factory. Then he saved for a small factory of his own in New Jersey, which he later sold and went into partnership with a friend on a much larger Lace factory. He had a smart business head and wasn`t afraid of hard work. I always looked up to him. He has helped our family and our mother many times over the years. I can honestly say that I am the only one in the family who never accepted a hand out from him. I am proud that Walt and I were able to raise our family on our own without asking anyone for a penny. I always knew my brother would help if I needed help, but am glad Walt and I, working hard together, accomplished whatever we needed to accomplish to give our kids a decent life. As they say, life doesn`t just happen, you have to be willing to work hard to get ahead . So, I feel that baring medical problems, life is what we make it our self through our own actions, hard work and good deeds. No matter how a person grows up, if he keeps his record clean and is willing to work hard, he can end up giving himself-or herself- a future where they can feel proud of them self and proud of what they have accomplished. A person doesn`t have to be rich to feel proud, he -or she- just has to be proud of their own actions and how they treat others. Their children will grow up feeling rich as long as they are surrounded with the strong family love that makes them happy. Having enough to eat, a roof over their head and clean decent clothes to wear is important, but without love, it will not bring them any happiness. Material things are not as important as giving of yourself to make each child feel they are special. Not one special child, but all your children should feel this same warm loved special feeling. Guess I learned this growing up knowing our mother did have her special pets. OH, we all knew she loved us, but just some more than others. I wanted to be like my Dad who had no special children, we all felt special in his eyes. I can honestly say that my mother changed after she was laid up and needed constant care after her hip operation and one of her pets wasn`t willing to move in for a few weeks to help her, while my youngest brother, his wife and Walt and I were there every day and night till she was back on her feet. Took her into her 80`s to see what her spoiling her oldest daughter turned her into. To be fair, this sister did help out, she just wasn`t willing to stay for a week or more to help. What bothered my mother was that she could stay away from her home to spend the whole winter down south, but she had to get back home after just a couple days when she needed her. As I told our mother, I grew up loving Nursing and had over a years training on the job at our local hospital, while my oldest sister was one who didn`t do well around the sick. So, it was much easier for me than for her. I remember mom telling me she wondered what this sister would do if her husband was ever sick. Well, if she had been still here to watch, she would have seen this sister taking good care when her husband was seriously ill and needed her. My mother would have been proud of her actions all over again. I am sure she was watching with a smile on her face knowing she hadn`t failed with this daughter. Probably if there hadn`t been other family members living closer who were able to help our mother, I think she would have taken over caring for mom, but she did know I was better trained for the job and that I would be willing to do the work. Plus another sister also lived close by. She just had no training and didn`t know what she should or shouldn`t do and I was the only one who knew how to handle the bandaging etc. after the first op.. Yes, first they tried to repair the broken hip, but a few months later they had to do a full hip replacement and again I was the only one who knew the exercises and what was needed to get my mother up and back walking again. My Hospital training caring for all kinds of patients sure came in handy. I will always be happy that I was able to help her and she did appreciate it very much.

Thought I would explain what I was working on for Christmas gifts to let all my wonderful blog friends know that I haven`t forgotten them and I will be around to visit as soon as I have more time. I miss reading your blogs and hope I can finish the towels soon and get back to reading your blogs.

When I was young

2008-11-23T18:49:00.002-05:00

Subject: when I was young!!
It was real cold outside yesterday when I went to the Hospital Wellness clinic to work use their exercise equipment. Was only 8 degrees F when I got up yesterday morning and only reached into the 20`s all day. People at the clinic were talking about how cold it was and it got me thinking of what it was like when I was younger. Our road, back then, was a private road so the town didn`t plow it. Our Father would get up real early, connect his plow to the front of his car and plow out the long road. The only houses on the road back then were the home place where my father`s family lived and our home. Many mornings the snow would be back almost as high again by the time us kids left for school. There were no school buses in our district so we walked to school, home for lunch and back to school. Dad once checked the distance with his car and said it was a mile one way. So, from the time we were 5 years old we walked a total of 4 miles every day. I started school at 4 years and had my 5th Birthday a couple days later, Most of our friends never needed boots to go to school as the main roads were all plowed. But, us kids needed boots just to get down our road to reach the main road. We often had wet feet if the snow was higher than our boots. Boy, that left your feet feeling frozen and aching all day at school. We would put on dry socks when we went home for lunch, but often those were wet from snow falling down into our boots as we walked back to school. Back then the boots were the kind that you slipped on over your shoes. I doubt kids today have ever heard of boots that you kept your shoes on and pulled the boots on over your shoes. Those boots were solid rubber, they didn`t have any laces in them, there was no way to make the tops of those boots close up tight against your legs to keep out the snow. We were not allowed to wear snow pants as they were once called. Girls had to wear dresses and the socks back then were only ankle high- no knee socks or long stockings for kids back then - so the legs were bare from the ankles to the knees. I remember thinking how lucky the boys were with their long pants protecting their legs from the harsh winds and cold snow. I remember how my legs would be real red and aching from the cold. Today I often wonder if that wasn`t what caused me to have leg and knee pains all through the years.

Now I do feel ancient as I remember those winter freezing outhouses, water pumped from the well, the pail and dipper sitting under the pump spout that you had to remember to leave enough water all the time for priming the pump with, the scrub board and large wash tubs- one for washing the clothes and the second one for rinsing the soap out, wood racks for drying on bad weather days, the long clotheslines ( I just put a new rope on my about 76 foot long pulley line), cooking on wood stoves (had one in our first apt. after we married-actually learned to bake with it), the old deep cistern at the end of the farmhouse filled with rain water, catching snow to melt on the stove for water for washing clothes , the old coal furnace that was banked at night and always went out before morning- oh how freezing cold it would get before Dad awoke to restart it again, ... I remember the old coal bin in the cellar under one of the cellar windows. The coal truck would back up into our driveway and stop near that cellar window. Then someone would go downstairs and open that window. The driver of the coal truck would then connect the long coal chute ( which looked like a playground slide with no support under it to hold it up. It connected to the back of the truck and the driver would then use his coal shovel to keep pushing the coal off the truck and down the chute through the window and landing in the coal bin. We had a short handled shovel down cellar by the coal bin. I remember watching my Dad using this shovel to throw some coal into the furnace and then he would light a fire As the fire got going good it would set the coal on fire and every time it started feeling cold in the house, it meant it was time to go down and shovel in more coal to keep the fire burning. I remember the huge square furnace cover that was in the dinning room. The dining room was once in the center of the house, but later on a new larger kitchen was added to the back of the house. This cover was called a grate and must have measured about 4 foot square. I remember under that grate was two tin cylinders one inside the other. They extended from inside the furnace in the cellar and came up to almost touching the dining room floor under the large sized grate cover. I will never forget those cylinders because one time my brother-in-law was helping my mother lay new linoleum on the dining room floor and they needed to remove the grate to cut out the shape of the grate. This happened when I was about 19 years old. They removed the cover while I was upstairs getting dressed for work. When I came downstairs I walked across the linoleum covered furnace with intentions of getting my High School jacket which hung on the wooden archway beyond the furnace. I never made it beyond the furnace as I fell through the linoleum right into the furnace scraping up both legs and both arms. Boy, did I ever look terrible to go to work -at all places at a Hospital caring for patients. Back then we used the red colored Mercurochrome on every cut. Even though we wore silk stockings, the red on every one of those scrapes and cuts showed through. The uniform had short sleeves, so every one of the cuts on the arms showed also. I must have looked like I got into a fight with a wild cat, or more like a bunch of wild cats. I sure learned how sharp the top of those round tin centers were. Today, looking back, I realize how lucky I was to fall straight down the empty center area or I would have had some very serious cuts instead of numerous scrapes and long thin cuts that were not real deep. Glad the Mercurochrome stopped the bleeding. I fully expected to be sent back home when I got to work. I was afraid they might not let me do nursing work around patients looking that bad. But, on the 3 to 11 shift I worked, there was just the one registered nurse and me. So, they would have been in a big mess if they hadn`t let me remain working. Things seemed backwards for a few days. It was usually me feeling sorry for the patients, but then the patients started worrying about me. I wasn`t used to that. But by a week or two all the cuts had healed and I no longer felt embarrassed about how I looked. I remember my mother asking me- what was with all this falling through things. I knew she was remembering years before when my brother and I fell through the old well boards on my Aunt and Uncles farm. That time the well was covered with snow and we were following another brother who said we were a long ways from the old well. First the well, then the furnace. OH, Well, neither of them left lasting scars , so I sure was lucky both times. I still have a fear of drowning if I am swimming and water touches my face. A few years later my father converted the coal furnace into an oil burning furnace and the large furnace cover was replaced with small grates in all the rooms. Was nice knowing the furnace wouldn`t go out during the night, even though there were no heat grates in the upstairs bedrooms. There was one small grate in the upstairs hall that allowed some heat to rise up from downstairs. It was chilly when you climb out from under the blankets, but not freezing like when I was small.

I remember how the mothers would save all the left over grease from frying and when there was enough they would use this grease for cooking. I remember the cans of lard that were often used to cook doughnuts in or for frying french fried potatoes in. All this lard seldom made anyone fat because there were no TV`s or computers to keep people sitting around for long periods of time. Kids spent every nice weather day playing outside in active games which gave them lots of exercise. No one wanted to stay inside if they didn`t have to. It was hard for a mother to keep a child inside even when the child were sick. Being made to stay indoors felt like being punished. Today a child feels like it is being punished if it is told to shut off the TV or the Computer and go outside and play for a while.
Guess I better stop thinking as the more I think, the older I feel. :) OH, how much easier we do have it today. At least we did have electricity- but used kerosene lanterns when the power went out. As hard as our life was, it had to have been much much worse in our parents and great grand parents day.
Maybe I should explain what :) means as it might become outdated years from now and if the great grand kids ever read this, there might not be someone around to explain to them that :) just stand for smiling. Also, I want those reading this years from now to know that I am only telling you about what it was like when I was a kid so you will know more about your Family History. I am not trying to compare my growing hardships with yours as every generation will always have it`s own hardships to handle.Love of Family will always be special to me.

Sunday, Nov. 9th, 08/ Blond Hair and after.

2008-11-09T11:35:00.002-05:00

Subject: My Dad and Blond Hair

While I never knew my father when he had blond hair, it was dark as far back as I can remember, but he was born with blond hair and I inherited it from him, mine darkened when I was in grade school. My Husband was also a blond which darkened years after we were married. I got my blond from my Dad, while my husband got his blond from his Mom. My Mother and his father both had dark colored hair. Since all my children except for one of the twins are blonds and most of the grandchildren are also blonds as are many of the great grandchildren. So, when they read this, they will understand where their blond hair came from. I am sure they might wonder where their parent got the blond hair since both their grandparents had darker hair when they knew us.

Today I own the very large baby picture of my Dad sitting in the highchair -that my mother used to keep on her bedroom wall after we lost my Dad. She gave it to me before she passed away, but I refused to take it as long as she was here to enjoy it. She said it belonged to me because I was the only one who ever washed the glass or dusted it for her. Funny that I can`r remember where that picture was while I was growing up. I think it was kept upstairs as it took a lot of room hanging on a wall. In this picture, he is wearing those black high top baby shoes of years gone past. He was wearing a beautiful long Confirmation Dress that I think he was Baptized in. Back in those days ( in 1903), babies wore those long dresses. His hair was blond in this picture. I have no idea how old he was when his blond hair started getting darker. I only know his hair was almost black as far back as i can remember. He was only 73 when he died and then his hair was gray. My Mother was born with brown hair which turned a grayish white when she was either in her 70`s or 80`s , I think. I know very little about Walt`s parents. But I was told his mother was born a blond while his Dad had dark hair. Most of their kids were also born with blond hair and most of their grandchildren were also born blonds. So, it was no wonder my children were also blonds. My blond hair turned a light brown when I was still in grade school, while Walt`s blond hair never started to darken till he was in about his 40`s. Funny, I can`t remember exactly when his changed. The only one of my kids that wasn`t born a blond was one of the twins -who has brown hair. He was the image of his grandfather ( my Dad) when he graduated from High school. In that picture my Dad`s hair had already turned dark. In this picture of my Dad, when he graduated from High School, you would think this picture and my son`s graduation picture could be the same person. Things might have been different for that twin without this picture. I once overheard my son telling a friend that his mother had brought home the wrong baby. I guess he got tired of having kids asking him why he didn`t have blond hair like his brothers and sisters. So, he made up an excuse. I remember the day I overheard him saying this to his friend. I went in to the room and told him that if I had brought home the wrong baby, I would have taken him back for the right one as he cried a lot. He was more demanding than his twin brother was. I would give him at least three spoons of food to every one I gave his brother when they were babies in high chairs and still he would be crying while I gave that one spoonful to his brother. His brother is still a very patient man and seldom argues with anyone. When they were about 5 months old and in the playpen he would crawl over and grab whatever toy his brother was playing with. He didn`t want the toy, he just wanted whatever his brother had. As soon as his brother picked up another toy, he would again take it from him. This continued till they were 9 months old and his brother started walking while he was still crawling. Now, whenever he started to grab the toy, his brother would hold the toy outside the playpen and run to the other end of the playpen. I remember a neighbor being with me when this happened and she just laughed and laughed watching the littlest one finally winning against his brother. After about 10 minutes of not being able to take the toy the bigger one just sat down and started crying. All through school he was demanding over his brother till one day his brother came to me asking that I tell his brother to hurry up. They both had jobs while still in High School, but only one owned a car and he provided transportation also for his brother. This one day. the one was playing cards with his girlfriend when his brother was ready to leave for work and the one owning the car asked me to make his brother hurry up. I told him it was time he learned to stand up to his brother like he did when they were small. So he told his brother he was leaving and if he wanted a ride he better come now. Brother kept playing cards and soon we heard the car backing out of the driveway. The girfriend told his brother he better get going as his brother was leaving. he replied to his girlfriend with this remark " Don`t worry, he will only go as far as the corner and he will drive back". Was he ever surprised when his brother never came back for him and he then asked me for a ride to work. I felt it was time he learned he didn`t rule the house, so I told him that he had a ride if he had wanted one. The next day a neighbor told me she saw my son thumbing a ride on the Northway ramp. You can bet after that he was ready to leave when his brother was. They not only have different colored hair, but the blond has blue eyes while his brother has brown eyes. They are still as different as day and night-- one is book smart and talks like he was an executive working in a high position, while the other one is head smart in different ways, like he knows electrician , pluming, repairing cars , etc, but talks more like a regular everyday worker. The blond is three minutes older and only weighed 5 pounds 1 1/2 ounces and was shorter than his brother. The younger brown haired one weighed 6 pounds 11 3/4 ounces and was a bit taller. Two beautiful babies with completely different temperaments- one was very outgoing and the other one grew up thinking he wasn`t as smart as his brother. I never caught on to this till they were in their teens.

While one twin had brown hair, his brother`s hair was almost white when he was born. So far all the other kids still have their blond hair- even the ones in their 50`s. I figured it is staying longer due to having both parents born blonds.

Wish I had gotten to know both of Walt`s parents, but they died when he was just 13 and almost 15 yrs old. Much of what I learned about them was from Walt`s older brothers and sister. Walt was the baby of his family.

And to think all this started with my Dad and Walt`s Mom being born with blond hair. Or i could say it started with my Mom and Wal`t Dad having dark har.

One more thing I wish to add is that when I was small I always said I was going to marry a man with black hair and Walt`s hair turned black- just as my Dad`s did before turning gray. So, for a few years my childish dream came true.
Another thing I said ,when in High School, was that I would never marry a Morehouse. I dated one- no relation to Walt`s family- back then and a friend asked if I thought we would ever marry. He was a polite man, often giving me boxes of Chocolates, etc., treated me well, but he just wasn`t the type I wanted to live a whole life with. He did once ask me to marry him, but I was honest with him and told him I liked him as a great friend, but I just wasn`t in love with him. I told him he deserved real love and one day he would meet the right person. A few years after Walt and I married we were at the Bowling Ally with my family and just as Walt was ready to throw his ball down the ally, there came the one I had dated years before. He came over to where I was sitting and said he wanted me to meet his wife and that I was right- the right woman had come along. Walt got so jealous that he tossed his ball and it went right down the gutter. He had four stikes in a row and now a gutter ball. I am glad he eventually outgrew his jealousy before it destroyed our marriage. When we first married he once told me that all women were alike and his first wife was a runner. They broke up after he came home on furlough from the Army and found her in their bed with another man they both knew. I asked him what he did. He said all he did was tell the man- you want her, you got her. Then he walked out and flattened all 4 tires on the man`s car. I met him a few years after that. It didn`t take me long to convince him that all women are not alike.

Special Relatives during my Childhood and later. in Life

2008-10-28T19:51:00.002-04:00

Special Relatives during my Childhood and later in Life.

Ever get thinking of items or events that remind you of special relatives?

For the past few weeks, every time I see those boxes of Hot Cross Buns, I think of when my Aunt Morm (real name-Mary) taught me to make her delicious "Hot Cross Buns". It has been a very long time since I have made them. I used to make them a lot when there was a large family to eat them. Now, it just seems too expensive to make them just for myself when I can buy a small package of only 6 of them. Now 6 I can handle eating before they lose their freshly backed taste. Last week on my way home from the exercise place I stopped at the super market for some groceries. I am sure you already know one item I picked up and I just ate one with my breakfast and just as delicious as I remembered them to be. Almost as delicious as my Aunts were. Aunt Morm was the one I went to when I had a problem or a question and she never let me down. She was like a second Mom to me. We never had an argument in all those years. She was the sweetest loving person I have ever known.

Maybe I should explain why this wonderful Aunt was given the title of Aunt Mormie, or was it Mormy- I never was sure. sometimes shortened to Aunt Morm. We also had another Mary with the title of Aunt Moey- you sounded out the long "o"and long e sound and the "Y" was silent. My oldest brother gave them those nicknames when he was small and the rest of us kids followed his lead. Even most of our cousins copied us and called her Aunt Morm. Neither of the Aunt Mary`s seemed to mind their nicknames which remained all their lives.

Mary ( Aunt Mormie) was one of my father`s two sisters. I have many old items that she once gave me. I have a beautiful pink dish with a fancy about 2 inch long ridge rounding downward all around the top and three almost 1 inch long legs under the large fancy deep dish and there are flower designs etched all over the outside of the dish all in the same solid pale pink color.it is just beautiful and prescious to me. There is also a large hand painted cake plate with handles formed on each side with colored flowers on the plate, plus a couple of hand painted regular dinner sized plates with large colored flowers on them, I also have many real old crochet pattern books that she gave me along with many smaller ones from my Mother. I learned a lot from Aunt Morm. She lived on the farm next door to us, so we grew up seeing her every day. She not only taught me how to crochet (as I mentioned in another post), but also how to bake some foods. Our Mother was always afraid kids might get burned and so she preferred we stay safe and not touch the oven. I often wish I had asked her what happened during her lifetime that gave her that fear. But, it is way too late to ask now. To get back to Aunt Mormie, I learned that you could take a can of spam, score the top of it with small diamond shapes all over, spread it with brown sugar and stick cloves - one into each of the small diamond shapes. I remembered you just drew the sharp knife on a slant across it about every 3/4th inch and repeated it in the opposite direction to make those diamond shapes. Taste resembled the more expensive brown sugar baked ham, only lots cheaper. Another thing I haven`t made in a while. Now this would be small enough for me to completely eat in a few meals , so it wouldn`t have any waste to toss out. Guess I should enjoy eating it again when I get the oven working again or give up and buy a new stove.

Back then, during the second World war some foods got more scarce and expensive. There was surplus food given out to help large families and canned spam was one of them. Some of the other surplus foods that I can still recall are lard for frying, large boxes of American yellow cheese ( macaroni and cheese and cheese melted on buttered bread fried in the frying pan were favorite cheap meals to make back then), flour, instant egg mixture for baking, instant milk powder for baking and drinking, cornmeal ( we ate a lot of johnny cake back then), large packages of real butter, I think there was also a container of honey. I know there was this larger round container with some style of ground up meat where you cut off the ends of the can and slowly pushed the meat out slicing it into patties for frying as you pushed it out of the can.
- might have been corned beef. You didn`t get the same surplus supplies every month. You never knew what until you picked up the package. I am sure I am forgetting some items that I will recall after I post this.

Now to get back to our other Aunt Mary ( Moey) who was one of my mothers sisters. I remember some things that happened when I was visiting her. Like one day she was baby sitting her only daughter`s 2 small children. The youngest was a boy about 3 when this happened. While we sat there chatting, this little boy started tossing all the books and some large 78 records off the book case. My Aunt never said a thing until he tossed a book about a TV minister that she enjoyed listening to on TV. Then she told him sternly to put that book back. He looked surprisingly at his grandmother who never raised her voice and seldom ever corrected him and he immediately picked up that book and placed it back onto one of the book case shelves. Then he just went back to tossing off all the remaining items and throwing them around on the floor. I almost started picking up the book for her, but then I knew he would just be allowed to toss them off again, so I wouldn`t be teaching him anything and enabling him even more to enjoy tossing things.
I had one disagreement through the years with this Aunt Mary ( Moey). It happened the day of my Fathers funeral. After the Funeral we all went back to our parents home where we grew up. My youngest sister and brother were talking a bit too loud since we were all so upset. Aunt Moey was sitting in the living room with our mother and us kids were all in the kitchen. Hearing the raised voices, our Aunt came out and started yelling at my younger brother and sister, telling them that our mother was going through enough without hearing her kids fighting. I tried to tell her they weren`t fighting, just talking together, but she just repeated telling them they should be ashamed acting that way. After this went on for about 10 minutes I just couldn`t take it any more. When none of the older ones did anything to stop her, I asked myself "What would Dad do if he were here?" He would make her stop, so that`s what i felt needed to be done. So, I got between her and my brother and sister and told her my mother needs her in the other room, so please go back in with her and leave the kids alone. She surprised me and just walked back into the living room with my mother.
Speaking out that way at an elder family member bothered me so much that I couldn`t get it off my mind for the next few days. I finally told Walt I needed to go down and apologize to my Aunt. When I walked into her home, I didn`t know how she would greet me as she could be a very stern person when things didn`t agree with her. After I told her how sorry I was and I just didn`t know any other way to get her to listen to me that they weren`t arguing, she surprised me. She told me I didn`t owe her an apology, that she owed us kids one. She told me she was glad I had stopped her and she Thanked me for it. It was good to be rid of that feeling that I had been disrespectful to my Aunt. I remember when she was in a coma in the hospital shortly before she died. I was standing there alone beside her bed and I said " Aunt Moey, I would give anything to see one of your beautiful smiles again". Suddenly there were tears flowing down her cheeks. it hit me so hard that I told her "That`s okay Aunt Moey, both God and I can see your smiles on the inside so they don`t need to show outside". She just as suddenly stopped crying. More proof that they can hear what you say when they are in a coma. I had three different times when I saw proof that people in a coma, even when dying, can still hear everything you say when in the same room with them.

I had intended on telling my favorite memories over the years of my Aunt`s and Uncles, but just the two Aunt Mary`s has taken a lot of room. There was the uncle who gave me rides on his horses while he worked in the fields, the sled with the broken board he gave me knowing my Father would cut a board to repair it for me. Another of my fathers brothers gave me this small tea set of real china dishes and he was also the one who had the baby piglets whose mother sow had died. He would line up us kids on their long back porch with our feet dangling off the side and he would give each of us a newborn piglet and a baby bottle and Oh how we enjoyed feeding those baby piglets. We would hurry home from school, change our school clothes and head for that porch. We managed to keep them all alive. Then there was another of my mother`s sisters who owned an antique huge organ, pipes and all. She would allow me to strum on it to my hearts content. My only bad memory of visiting there was the time an older brother and I fell through old boards down into the deep well. God was with us that time for sure. We also helped with the animals on that farm when we were there. The other one of my fathers sisters was more stern, but she was also one who would buy books for us girls to read when we were playing with my cousin- books that explained everything a young girl needed to know. She always brought in her home made cookies along with something to drink along with the books. My cousin and some other girlfriends and myself spent a lot of time just laying across the bed chatting. She would always say that if we had any questions don`t be afraid to come out and ask her. Had only one disagreement with her through the years. My cousin had started a fight with a boy as we were walking home from school and this time the boy hit her back. My Aunt got mad at me for not stepping in and protecting her. We were in the same class in school. I told my Aunt there wouldn`t be any reason to fight if she just stopped starting it. My Aunt got mad and it was quite a while before I went back there again. Then there was my mother`s step sister where this little dog had puppies first on her front porch and finishing in her bathroom. This was a strange dog that kept hanging around our home till I felt sorry for it and started feeding it. I never knew it followed me when i went to visit my only grandmother who was then living with this Aunt. I remember a cousin coming in and asking who owned the small dog on the porch having puppies. I never knew it was expecting it was so skinny. This Aunt got some towels and made a bed for the mommy in her beautiful elegant bathroom and even tended to the births. Who would expect her to be willing to mess up her bathroom for a strange dog no one actually owned?
Then there was sweet Aunt Daisy, another of my mother`s sisters. From her I learned a way to remember when to send out birthday or Anniversary cards on time. She would buy the cards early and make them out ready to mail. Then where the stamp would later go she would jot down the date of the Birthday or Anniversary and use the stamp to cover the date on the day of mailing. One day another cousin who lived near her told me how delicious the candy I kept making for our Aunt really tasted. So I learned she shared the candy I made for her . One time she asked me if I was left handed. I said, no, I was right handed. So she placed the cup on the right side of my plate when I joined her for lunch at her home. When we were eating, she suddenly said, you are left handed. That`s when I realized I had confused her when I
moved the cup to drink using my left hand. The arthritis in my right hand made it hard for me to hold the cup handle, so I learned to do it with my left hand so I wouldn`t drop the cup or spill the contents. Her husband built a rock flower garden and could tell you who gave him each stone and from where they came
- I remember that one Dr brought one home from a trip overseas.
Then there is the uncle who gave me one of his homemade small TV size close-able tables and told me I could take it apart to make myself a pattern. I made seven of them and gave them away to my kids and a neighbor as Christmas gifts. He is another brother of my Mother and his wife has also made things for me in crocheting and from cloth. I have a beautiful bed cover made from small different shapes of cloth with a full cloth section on the back side. It fits my daybed and looks so pretty on it. Years ago my grandmother made me a small crib sized one and showed me how to make them. Today my hand doesn`t hold a small sewing needle so the one from my Aunt was greatly loved.

Today all my Dads family is gone and there is just my mothers one brother and her two brother`s wives. My father had 2 sisters and 2 brothers, my Mother had 3 sisters, 2 brothers, one half sister and a step sister. I still have 2 cousins on my Father`s side and 3 cousins on my mother`s side.

So much more I could recall about more of my wonderful Aunts and Uncles. Maybe another time. Thought I would like to leave memories of them for my kids, grand kids and great grand kids who might some day read my Life story that I started years ago. My older kids will remember a few of these relatives so these memories will hold more pleasure for them. Never had a relative I didn`t love and who didn`t make me feel loved by them. Looking back, I was one very lucky kid.

Friday, Oct 12th, 2008-Memories and Dancing

2008-10-17T20:47:00.002-04:00

Dancing- and memories.

Remembering times long gone. I used to attend every Dance held in our High School. I always enjoyed dancing. There was a time when I knew how to dance on roller skates and that was also fun, But the dances running through my mind at the present time were after I married.

We had a double wedding along with one sister and her husband. Both of us married men with the first name "Walt". Funny how neither of us had any friends named Walter, but we ended up both marrying a man named Walter ( well my Walt was 25, so a grown man, her`s was 20 while 21 was considered grown up for men and 18 for girls back then). We celebrated our Wedding Anniversaries together for many years. I remember one time when we were out dancing and enjoying the band -playing country songs. There was this fellow who had a bit too much to drink. He was no one we knew. At the end of the evening as we were leaving, this drunken man started following us up the stairs. When we reached the top of the stairs he suddenly looked at my husband and said " And you-" and he put up one fist like he wanted to fight. We tried to ignore him and headed towards the door. This fellow sat his drink down on a trophy case and it tipped over running into the case. my sister`s husband headed downstairs to notify the owners before their trophies were destroyed. Walt, my sister and I headed out the door. Before we had gotten very far, this other fellow started following us. We watched him lose one of his shoes in the high snow, but he just kept slowly wobbling along , not even acting like he knew his shoe was gone. He kept trying to pick a fight. Thank goodness my husband isn`t one who lets people like him bother him. I remember the drunk was trying to tell my husband that he was the one who hit him downstairs. Of course it never happened. We hadn`t seen anyone hitting another person all evening, so had no idea what this man was talking about. This was when my sister`s husband caught up with us. As he passed this man we heard the man asking my brother-in-law if he was the one who hit him downstairs. My Bro-I-Law told him that the man who hit him must be still downstairs. The man turned around and headed back through the door looking for the man who he said hit him. I wonder if he ever did get his shoe from the snowdrift. Personally, I don`t think anyone ever hit him, as the dance floor was one huge open room and if there had been any fight, everyone should have seen it. I think he was just one who likes to fight when he has had too much to drink. I will never know how that night ended for that man as we got into our car and headed home.

Another time we were out dancing with my youngest sister and her husband. That is one night that I will never forget. This other brother-in-law was one whop was always trying to be funny. He wasn`t a trouble maker. Just one who knew how to liven up an evening. But this night, he had me worrying that we would all be kicked out of the place. We were sitting beside where the band was playing and there was a square dance going on in front of where we sat. None of us knew that this BRO-I-Law had brought some sneezing powder with him. In fact we were all surprised that he did. Well, here was the square dance group dancing right in front of our table. My bro-IN-law reached under the table and squirted some sneezing powder towards the dance floor. Everyone in that square dance set started sneezing. One fellow walked over and took the cowboy hat off another fellow, thinking he was responsible, then he dropped the hat on the floor and stepped on it.The other fellow picked up his hat , straightened it out and placed it back on his head. A few minutes later the other fellow again started sneezing. Again he walked over and took the hat, placed it on the floor and started stomping on it again. This time the fellow that owned the hat picked up his hat and placed it back on his head leaving it all bent up. All this time I was expecting the owners to catch on to what was going on and expected him to toss us all out. But this never happened. There was this poor waitress who just happened to walk by with a tray filled with drinks and there must have been sneezing powder still in the air. I felt so sorry for her as I watched her walking the whole length of that large room, all the time trying to hold back a sneeze. She managed to deliver the drinks before the sneeze took over and you could here her all over the room. That was when the BRO-I-Law decided not to spray any more of his sneezing powder and I was finally able to relax and start enjoying myself. After all I was married to a good dancer. I remember how he used to say he needed a drink before he could get on the dance floor. He never was a big drinker, but that one drink, he just felt he needed for courage to get on the floor. Then we would dance for hours or until it was time for the place to close. I remember back then, they only sold ginger-ale and no other soft drinks as they do today. When we joined in the square dancing, we made sure to go to the other side of the room where the sneezing powder wouldn`t start us sneezing. I am glad the square dancers were not the type to get angry with each other, or the night might have ended up much differently.

I remember the first time we ever danced together. He was an orderly at the hospital where I also worked. The Hospital threw a Christmas party for all it`s workers and Walt and I were just dating at that time. Another couple friends rode in his car with us. At the party some of our friends were daring each other to dance with the lady who was head of Nurses. They kept daring each other to ask her to dance and finally Walt walked up to her and did ask her to dance. We were all surprised when she accepted and danced with him. She was an older lady and back then we were young- I was just 19, Walt was 24, and many of the others were young. I noticed most others stopped dancing and everyone was staring at Walt and the head of Nursing out on the floor dancing together. This was a sight that surprised everyone. This lady was a strict ordering type of person, not especially liked by most. So, this was another side of her that we had never seen before. It was like she was finally acting human for a change. This was the night when I found out what a good dancer Walt was. It was also the first time I had ever seen him drinking more than a couple beers. That night didn`t have a good ending. Oh, the party and dancing were great. it was when we were getting ready to leave. I refused to let Walt drive us all home. First I tried to get him to let me call my father to pick us up, and when that didn`t work, we started tossing the keys back and forth over the car to keep him from getting them as we knew he shouldn`t drive. After a while the other lad missed catching the keys and they landed somewhere in the high snow. The owners loaned us some flashlights to hunt for the keys. Once we found them, we finally convinced Walt to get in the passenger seat and let me drive us home. At the time I had passed drivers training in High School, but had no car to take the test with. So, I only had a permit at the time. But, back then you could drive as long as you had a Licensed driver in the car with you. it was snowing so bad you couldn`t even see the front of the car you were in. I had ridden this road we took every day on my way to and from work, so I knew every bend in it. All was great for the first 45 minutes driving home. Then we were nearing where we would need to turn and cross a small bridge. I decided to park the car off the side of the road and walk to the bridge so I could be sure just how far away we were from it. I had no more than gotten back in to the car when we were hit by two cars, one had come from the bridge, the other had turned the corner just a short ways ahead of where we were sitting. As it was, our car wasn`t moving and we had 2 tires off the edge of the road when the other 2 cars hit each other and ended up striking our car. Thanks goodness no one was moving very fast with the bad storm. So, no one was hurt, just a little damage to the other two cars where they first hit each other. I am glad I had just gotten back into the car and shut the door before it happened, as no one could have seen me in the blinding snow. All three cars occupants had to go to the police station to sign the papers about the accident. I found it easier to follow the police car with it`s red light flashing on top. At the station Walt tried to insist I wasn`t driving, that he was. The officer knew he wasn`t driving, but when he kept insisting, the police chief finally told him- ok, so you want it listed that you were driving. I kept insisting that I was driving, not him and the officer was shaking his head yes- agreeing with me. But, when Walt kept talking the chief ended up giving him a ticket for driving under the influence. The next day, Walt felt like a fool for the way he thought he was protecting me. By law, it was legal for me to take over doing the driving, but Walt didn`t know that. He thought he was protecting me, and only messed up things for himself by doing so. Today the kids can`t drive late at night unless they are going to and from work, but back then you could even drive a motorcycle with the same drivers permit. In fact I used my permit more for driving the motorcycle than for driving a car. Two of my brothers had cycles, so they were handy and there was always a brother with a license on another cycle riding with me. Today, you need two different Licenses, one for a car and another for a motorcycle. Things get more complicated all the time. Probably changed it as another means for the government to collect more money. I wonder how the government was able to keep running so well when it was collecting less money years ago. Seems like the more laws they make to collect more money. the less they do with the money.

Well, to get back to the fun times dancing, there were many many times over the years when we had lots of fun. There was this time when we double dated again with the one who had the sneezing powder. We went to a different place to dance this time. This bro-In-law wasn`t much of a drinker, but this one time he had a few so my sister insisted she was driving us home, not him. It was there car this time. He wasn`t drunk and wanted to do the driving, but it was a bad road and needed a real alert person to safely drive down it. There was always accidents there in the winter snow. My sister and I told him if he didn`t get in the back seat, we were going to toss him in the trunk. Of course we were just fooling around , but when he realized my sister was serious about driving, he finally did get in the back seat with Walt. The place was situated in the Adirondack Mountains and the road leading out from it was real steep. As usual it had started snowing and the road was slippery and a bit scary till we finally reached the highway where it was plowed better. I came from a family of non-drinkers. There were a couple of in-laws who drank, but none from either my mother or fathers family. Even at our weddings, there was no alcoholic drinks served. So, I grew up accepting anyone who had a few drinks, but not one who was a real drunk. As I told my kids, it isn`t the drink I am against, it is the drinks that first drink sometimes leads to. I still feel that way today. I don`t mind as long as the person doesn`t turn into someone who changes so much that they become mean and abusive. How can someone say they love someone and beat or try to choke them when they are drunk? That is not my idea of love. I don`t understand hurting someone you claim to love. But, I know it happens, I just couldn`t live that way. Children deserve better than to be caught in this type of situation.

I could go on and on writing about the many times we went dancing through-out my marriage. The very last time was at our 50th Wedding Anniversary party that our kids threw for us. It was kept a surprise and we never knew until that very night. One of the twins had invited us out for supper with him and his wife. After he picked us up, he said he had to stop and pick up his wife who had delivered a car to a friend. When he parked behind the place, he asked us to come inside with him and meet their friend. No more than we took a couple steps through the door I noticed one of my sisters standing near the corner. That was when I knew something was up. The kids had been planning this party for almost a year and no one let the secret out. Even my family all knew and kept silent. Now, that is something when you come from a large family as I did.
They threw the party a few months early because they feared if they waited their Dad wouldn`t be able to attend. Walt insisted on dancing with me that evening. I worried it might be too much for him, but he said " I want to dance with you." So we danced quite a few times before the evening was over. I remember closely watching his face every few minutes in case he started looking too tired. Precious memories that will always mean a lot to me. Dancing with my head on his shoulder and his arms holding me as we glided across the floor together. That was our last time dancing together. He went on oxygen shortly after that. We knew his emphysema was getting much worse and that was why the kids decided on giving us the Anniversary Party a few months early. We spent 50 Anniversaries together. So many wonderful memories, so many places where we danced to the country music bands. Country music was always my favorite music.

Walt`s Birthday- Oct. 3rd, 1926- July 19th, 2002

2008-10-04T15:47:00.001-04:00

Walt`s Birthday.

Yesterday , October 3rd, was Walt`s Birthday. Like the past 6 Birthdays, it rained again. Can`t say I accomplished very much. I kept thinking things like this-
Wonder if he would like my new car,
I am sure he would have done a better job puttying the window,
remembering how the kids all used to show up for his birthday,
Oh, my mind just kept wandering. Six long years without him. He would have been 82 yesterday, but he only celebrated 75 Birthdays. Even though he was 5 years older than me, last month I had already lived 2 more years than he had. He was a good man who kept his name clean for his kids.

As my Dad would say. your name was clean when my Dad gave it to me and still clean when I gave it to you. Now it is your turn to keep it clean to pass on to your kids. Have no idea what my Dad`s name might have been since his Dad was adopted by a wonderful family. I sometimes wonder what my Birth last name would have been if we had known the actual last name of my grandfather before he was adopted. My Dad tried and was never able to find out anything as the court house had burnt years before.
Now I am watching the name being passed down to the great grandchildren and hoping they continue to keep it clean. Of course my dad and mom`s names are not being passed on by me, but I am hoping Walt`s name that I helped pass on will stay as good as he kept it for them. I often wonder if things might have been different if his own father had lived as his father was an alcoholic and Walt`s oldest brother was also one. But, Walt had a step Dad for a short time and from what I heard, this man was a good father image. Walt even chose to name one of our twins after this step dad. There are 4 sons to carry on Walt`s last name, and together these 4 boys had 3 more sons plus an adopted son to carry on his name. I hope that at least one of these sons has a son to carry on the name in the future.

Yesterday, I went to the bank and then to the grocery store. As I walked around the store I kept seeing items that I used to buy for Walt. He had a sweet tooth and loved whatever I picked up for him. I remember one birthday when he said he wished he had some coconut. next day I bought him a full bag of plain coconut and it was eaten in no time. I stopped buying him the long boxes of thin peppermint patties because the kids started adding them to their gifts. I remember being asked "What do you give a Dad that needs nothing". I told them Love and taking time to sit and chat with him. He always loved it when any of them stopped by to visit. Walt would often say to me" Why are you so good to me? or You are so good to me." He never had much when he was a kid. I think he grew up thinking he didn`t deserve much. His Father died when he was 13 and he came home from school to find his mother dead on the kitchen floor a couple years later. He went to live with his grandmother till the system decided she was too old to be raising a teenager, and they moved him to a foster home. At 16 he walked out of the foster home, left school, got a job at a silk factory and a room at the YMCA and from that time on he supported himself. You could call him one of the kids who fell through the cracks as no one ever looked for him when he never returned to the foster home or went back to school. He learned that no one cared what happened to him. He also learned the hard way that you only get what you are willing to work hard for. He was a hard worker all his life until he retired. We had a lot of hard times trying to keep the kids all in shoes and sneakers at the same time. Sneakers sure never lasted very long in those days. Seemed like someone needed a new pair every week and the school required them for gym. Those flimsy sneakers tore out or came unglued so easy. No super glue back then, and sneakers were nothing like the stronger shoe style ones we have today. The thin material wore holes in them very easy.

I was just thinking of a time when we were at our oldest daughters home when her older kids were small. Besides working at the mill days, Walt also worked evenings in the bike shop or the grocery store ( over many years we operated one or the other) with me when our kids were young. So he never had a lot of spare time to play with the kids. He would talk with them while fixing a bike, etc., and we often took them on picnics and fishing in the years between closing the bike shop and opening the grocery store. Trouble with the grocery store was that it was kept open 7 days a week. It was supposed to close by 9Pm, but we would often be still waiting on customers at 10- 11 PM..
To get back to the daughters home. It was one of the granddaughters birthday parties and one of her gifts was a book of paper dolls. Walt was sitting at the kitchen table when we noticed he was cutting out the paper dolls clothes for our granddaughter. Something he had never done before. In the old pictures, I still have a picture of this. Another picture that comes to mind is one taken in the early 80`s at our step-sons place when they lived in N. Carolina. Both the s-son and his wife were working when we arrived and we spent the day with the three grandchildren. The two granddaughters were young at the time and their parents had taken them all to a Fair the week before. At the Fair the girls got some monkeys on strings hooked to a stick. These monkeys were at least 2 foot tall. They both brought out their monkeys and sat them on their gramp`s lap. The youngest g-daughter then climb up onto his lap while the other one stood beside him. I took that picture also. I think he was making up for missing out on all this while working so hard to support the family. Another picture I have is Walt holding our youngest son, feeding him his bottle- about 3 or 4 months of age. We were on vacation and spent a week at a quiet small camp near a small lake. We had hired someone to run the grocery store and a friend to stay with the older kids for the week. Our youngest daughter was only 5 at the time so Walt insisted we also take her with us. This was the only time I remember him holding a baby while feeding him his bottle. He looked so happy standing there holding the baby with the youngest daughter standing beside him.
The older kids used to love walking through the wide stream on the rocks where they would often see a fish swimming past them. The little ones would get so excited when a fish swam by the rock they were standing on. They soon learned how to be very quiet so they wouldn`t scare the fish away.Their Dad led the way up the stream and even the smaller kids would try to step on the same rocks they saw their Dad walk on. I remember telling him not to take any large steps that their little feet couldn`t reach. I was usually the one on the flat cleared space near the stream - watching the baby in the playpen. But, I did often go fetch one who slipped off the rock into the stream. Walt knew all these nice spots off the road where there was clearings large enough for a playpen and a couple of chairs, plus enough room to toss down a blanket for the kids to sit on. He had grown up in this area. We often took the camp stove and ate picnic style there. There wasn`t room for a bonfire in these small clearings. These were happy times that the kids will never forget about. Owning a bike shop, all of our kids owned bikes. The two step- kids were already grown and married by the time we opened the bike shop. But they were still home to enjoy the fishing and rock walking with us.

Thinking of Walt, I could write and write and never cover even half of what our
life was like during our courtship and our -a little over 50- years of Marriage.

Why was I so good to him? Easy, I loved him and knew he also loved me. That is all the reason any one needs to be good to each other. Love works wonders if it is given freely and when that love is returned it has the power to make the whole family love one another. Gone, but never forgotten.

Freezer Defroster Day/ Thinking of Mother

2008-09-28T19:08:00.002-04:00

Freezer Defroster Day/ Thinking of Mother

Today I was thinking of my Mother. After spending yesterday re-arranging all the furniture in the front room ( or living room) my back and hands started telling me off. So, today I knew I needed to rest a bit. But I am one who never learned how to just sit and do nothing, so, freezer here I come was my next thought. It has been a few months since I last defrosted my freezer. To do that, I needed to be able to cram, yes cram everything from my 4 foot tall deep freezer into my narrower deep freezer in my side by side freezer/frig combo.. I finally ended up deciding what I would like for breakfast and dinner today, plus tomorrows meals because I couldn`t fit everything in. Leaving that much out into my refrigerator, I managed to -with some fancy packing- get the rest into the frig freezer. I will need to be very careful when i open that freezer or a lot of things might come pouring out onto the floor.

Now, this is where thoughts of my mother came up. Years ago no one had frost free refrigerators . So, every so often we had to turn them off and wait many many hours for them to defrost and it consisted of a lot of manual messy work. Years ago I saw this electric freezer defroster and I bought it for my Mother. Raising kids didn`t leave much spare change, so I didn`t spend money buying myself the defroster. My mother used this defroster for many years. Then came the year my father bought my mother a new refrigerator with a frost free freezer on the top over the refrigerator part. So, my mother never had a use for the defroster anymore and she gave it back to me to use. I lost my wonderful mom in 1995 and my wonderful dad in 1975. So, I have owned the defroster over 35 years now and it still works. Years ago we gave our huge upright freezer to a daughter because our family had gotten so small we no longer needed the large freezer. Then we bought a smaller 4 foot tall freezer which had plenty of room for us. But this freezer is not frost free, so I again started using the defroster to melt the ice and frost in this freezer. I never use the defroster without thinking it was one of the most useful gifts we ever gave my mother. I started working on the freezer a little after 5AM this morning and it was almost 8:30 before I was finished. Now, the freezer is washed and back on-- just waiting for it to run a while before re-stocking it with all that crammed food in the other freezer. One thing I always do is sort the meats and vegetables onto separate shelfs, being sure to check all dates so the older packages are left in front to be used first. Then on the third shelf I put all the quick meals and the garden vegetables that I froze. Under the third shelf is where I keep all the cold packs like the large and the smaller igloo cold packs so they are always cold and ready if I need them. Now that I don`t need them for all day family picnics, I still find them useful for keeping frozen meat and other frozen packages if I should get to the larger place about 35 -40 miles from my home. The smaller igloo chest and smaller igloo cold pack gets more use as it keeps the flavored water and the soda bottles cold all day at the family picnics and any short trips where we might be gone most of the day.

A few years ago I saw some racks with three high sides for use in the freezer and I bought two of them ( wish i had bought three). Find it much easier to see what is where when searching the freezer as I can pull the shelf out without having to bend way down to look. I have this problem that many seniors have-- don`t get down to the floor unless you have something to hang onto to get back up, especially when I can`t yell " Walt, I need help, I can`t get up". Today I usually keep a kitchen chair handy to lean on, of if near the sink, I reach up, grab the top of the closed in sink and use my arms to pull myself up, or I sometimes have to crawl across the floor till I get to something I can use to get up with. When outside working I keep my short handled pitch fork handy. It has a handle to hang on on the top of the handle, and when the prongs are shoved far into the hard ground, it works like a nice cane. I do my best not to get down that low, but if you trip and fall, you better have something handy or you will find yourself having to crawl along the ground all the way back to the porch steps and that is no fun.
Here is one time when I had wished Walt hadn`t waited in the car while i went into the drug store for a watch battery. Should have only taken me a few min utes. But I had to bend down to read the numbers on the batteries. I was down almost sitting on my heals and no matter how hard i kept trying, i just couldn`t get back up. I was sure feeling like a fool and even though i already foung the battery i wanted, I kept pretending i was still searching the batteries every time someone walked down that isle. I knew i couldn`t grab onto the shelfs as they might unhook lettinng everything on the shelf dump onto the floor. After what seemed like hours ( probably about 15 -20 minutes) the isle was empty and no one was in sight. Then i got on all fours ( hands and feet) and was able to push myself up enough to straighten my legs more and while pushing up with one hand I managed to get the other hand up near my knee and started pushing with that hand till I was able to also get my other hand up pushing against my other leg. Finally i was back standing again. By this time I was feeling exhausted.
When I finally reached the parking lot and started to get into the car, I remember Walt asking me what took me so long. He said he was about ready to come in after me. I told him, I wish he had and then told him what had happened. Those batteries used to be high up near the register. But they had been moved to the other side of the store hanging on the bottom rack near the floor. One thing that happened after that ordeal was that Walt never waited in the car again without asking me if I wanted him to go in with me. A couple times he even came in looking for me if I was in there very long. Usually I was just standing in a long line at the register when he came in.

If anyone ever asked me what was my most embarrassing moment this one would have qualified. But another event would have tied with it in first place. We were in a grocery store shortly before my twins were born. I told Walt I was feeling light headed and felt I should wait in the car while he did the shopping. He insisted I go in with him. As we hit the second isle, I again told him I should go back to the car. His answer was " You`ll be alright" . His famous words. My reply was " I can`t even see you, now will you believe me". That was all I remembered till I came to with some strange man carrying me through the double set of door out of the store. I got so scarred I almost passed out again till I saw Walt walking behind us. Seems Walt got so scarred he kept trying to pick me up, but he
couldn`t pick me up and another shopper hopped in to help him. This stranger no more sat me in our car when two of the girls who worked in the store came running out with a cold glass of water for me. I can still remember one of the girls apologizing, saying they had tried to remove the label from the glass but it wouldn`t come off. I was so out of it that I never thought to get the name of the man or the girls names. I always wished I had been able to better thank them. I remember thinking that man must have been real strong to carry me. I must have weighed about 135 at the time. Today, that doesn`t sound so heavy, but to someone who normally weighed 98 when I married and never got over 104 before normally, 135 sounded awful. Hope I never again embarrass myself like this.

Sitting here resting, I just remembered that I forgot to fill an ice cube tray so I would be sure when the freezer was cold enough to replace the food in it. I never have a need for ice cubes as my refrigerator is one of those with the light, cold water, full sized ice cubes or crushed ice all in the freezer door. But since I do not own a freezer temperature gauge, I find making ice cubes the next best way of testing for coldness. I just filled an ice cube tray. Now to wait and see how long it takes for the water to freeze. Of course there is always the mopping up in front of the freezer from the melting ice even though I use a cat plastic litter box sitting in the bottom of the freezer to catch most of the thawed ice that keeps falling. Bet you never would have thought of buying a plastic littler box for this use. it helps an awful lot. I also spread out a large 30 gallon plastic garbage bag on the floor in front of the freezer to catch some of the water. Right now, both the litter box and the plastic bag are drying on the side porch. The defroster has cooled off and put away till I need it again in the future.
Thank you Mom for remembering who gave you that handy defroster and for giving it to me when you no longer needed it. I am a lucky daughter to have had such great parents. They both taught me so much.

My new clothesline.

2008-09-20T15:57:00.006-04:00

My new clothesline-

Spent a couple days wondering how I was going to put up a new clothes line through the pulley that is connected near the top of an old telephone pole about 75 + feet from my back porch.

Years ago the people who owned the two lots next to my home had a telephone pole on their property where the electric co. connected the electricity from the poles on our street to their house ( actually just a square shack with a flat roof and a dirt floor- where they raised 5 children). Today the Town wouldn`t allow anyone to live that way, they would have condemned the shack. One day they had a fire which burnt down that old shack and we could even hear the bullets keep going off inside from the hot fire. Her husband at that time was a big hunter. Four of the 5 children had already married and left home, so they just had the youngest with them then. They bought a small trailer to live in for a short time. After the husband died, the wife got the old trailer moved and decided to sell the property and Walt and I bought it. That is how the tall pole was already on the property.

My clothesline is a long one. It crosses the 60 feet of the two lots, plus another almost 20 feet to the pulley on my back porch. So, I had to buy 160 feet of nylon twisted rope to reach from my porch , across the next 2 lots, to the top of the telephone pole and back to the pulley hooked on my back porch. Having a pulley line allows me to hang things without going off my porch. I ended up with only about 3 feet extra. I almost bought just 150 which wouldn`t have been enough. I never realized how much the price of clothes line had gone up. But it wouldn`t have cost much if I had a normal length to cover.

To get back to my problem- how do I get the new line through the high pole pulley? It was too dangerous having a son standing on the top rung ( where no one should ever stand) of an extension ladder that was just balancing onto a round pole. I still remember how scared I was when I watched my youngest son up there straightening the pulpy and running the other rope through the pulley while my husband was on the ground below. I remember running out to help hold that wiggling ladder. I never wanted to see that happening again.
I finally decided to try binding the ends of the old rotten rope with the end of the new rope- overlapping then for about 2 inches. I used my picture wire to bind the two ropes tight together. Then I started silently praying that God would help me hold both rope ends while I slowly walked towards the telephone pole. Luck was with me. I managed to hold both the old rope and the new rope tight enough to keep the rope from falling off the high pulley. The wire held strong and the old rope didn`t break again where it was so worn, so I was able to keep walking back towards the house - slowly letter the new rope loosen while pulling the old rope the opposite direction till the original end of the new rope was in one hand and near the other end of the new rope was in my other hand. If I thought the hard work was over, I had another think coming. I still had to hold both ends of the new rope tight to keep it on the pulley and at the same time I needed to string the rope through the pulley on the porch. I wised up and tied the bottom rope end onto a porch post, then I wound more picture wire around the end of the frayed rope end and pushed the end of this wire up and around the pulley and with the wire, I was able to get the new rope through the pulley. Then there is the metal contraption that is used when you need to tighten up the clothes line. You need to pull the end forward enough to open the other end where the ball bearings are in order to make the opening large enough to push the other rope end through it. Again I added another piece of wire around this rope end and pushed the wire through and with the wire was able to pull the rope through the ball bearing end of the tightener. This done , all that was left was to untie the other rope end and tie it to the other end of the rope tightener. Was wishing I had at least three hands while doing all this, but tying the ends to the porch post was like having a third hand. Again, I surprised myself that I now have a good working clothesline and my worst fears never happened. I never let either end of the ropes get loose enough to fall off the high pulley. Thanks you God , was my first thought once I was finished.
If I ever need to replace the rope again, I hope I remember how I did it this time.
--------------------------------
My under kitchen work to save heat this winter.

Did very little today. Just finished 2 loads of washing when one of my twins showed up and gave me a ride to lows where we picked up hot air pipe wrapping. Then my son crawled under the Kitchen and kitchen addition and wrapped all my heating pipes that went under there. He also used up all the extra insulations I still had from when I did my attic and the boys did my shop. He insulated all under the kitchen addition floor for me. A lot of work and took a few hours to do. All I did to help was keep pushing more insulation in to him. I might not need to use the electric heater in the addition this year. The original house has a full cellar, but just a 3 foot to 4 foot crawl space under the added on kitchen and the later added on kitchen addition. I have wanted this all done for years, but would never ask any of my kids to do it for me and was afraid I would`t be able to work the stapler over my head, or wrap the long pipes real tight with the bad shoulder. Thanks to my son Walt, it might cost me less to heat this winter and with the high price of fuel oil and electricity so high, ever little bit helps.

Must be Sassy`s Day!!

2008-09-17T16:08:00.004-04:00

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

Could call today "Dog Day". I decided to give Sassy a bath. First I brushed off as much loose hair as I could. She is a Border Collie and she sheds bad year around. You can fill a grocery bag and you will still need to clean up her hair if she just walks through the house.

Well, to get back to bathing her. I don`t have one of the long hose spray adapters to fit the faucet or the shower head. One son told me if i got the shower head extender spray, he would hook it up for me. I should do that. So I cut the top section off a gallon plastic bottle- leaving the handle intact on it. This becomes the water holder for wetting her hair before soaping her up and for rinsing off the soap after. She stays in the tub as long as I keep one hand under her head or i stay in front of her. Once her bath is over I use3 large old towels for trying to wipe her a little dry. Then comes the fun, as she starts shaking and everything in the bathroom soon needs cleaning. She hates the hair dryer. I think it is actually the noise from the dryer that she dislikes. Once I get her dry enough so she can`t continue shaking water everywhere, she will go into the laundry room to lay down. I scrubbed her collar and hung it out on the clothesline to dry in the sun.
Yes, the sun did shine, no rain, but a bit cooler. Only in the 60`s F today. That is why I made her stay inside till she was dry.
Now the real work begins. Scrubbing the tub mat and the tub, then scouring the shower walls, then the cupboards and everything else sitting near the floor. Once that is done, it is time to mop the whole floor. Boy, her shaking doesn`t leave much dry. The ceiling and top half of the walls are all that doesn`t need washing off after giving her a bath.
I also end up looking like I had stood under the shower, except for the back of my clothes stay dry. Sure could use some longer arms to make cleaning the other side of the tub and the wall behind the tub. LOL. Sure do not need to exercise today as she has already given me a work out.

Then, no sense cleaning her unless I also clean her dog house. After sweeping it out, I got the old sponge mop and tried to clean up the floor and once that was done, i also got my industrial air spray and sprayed out any left over odor. Next, I had to remove the old dirty piece of heavy rug that covers the doghouse doorway, cut a new rug piece and nailed it on so she stays warmer on the cooler nights, plus the rain and wind can`t blow into her doghouse.
I still left the board opened over the window opening as it isn`t quite cold enough to shut all fresh air out. Will need to shut it up soon to keep her warmer this winter.

Once all this was done, I had to give in and sit and rest for a while. This evening, I did manage to dig up the four Agapanthus flower plants from the flower beds along the front of the house. I planted 4, but dug up more as they had already started producing new plants. The directions said to separate them in the spring, so I decided to leave them intact with their mother plant till next spring. This way it needs less plant dishes. Didn`t know where I might find enough room for more large planters, so for now I just planted all of then into one larger container. Still a few more plants in the flower box on the side porch to re-pot and bring in, plus a lot of Aloe plants still on the back porch to take care of. There must now be at least 30 -40 plants in those three larger Aloe plant pots. No way I can separate and re-pot that many. So, most will stay in the three planters. Have already re-planted a few larger ones that are ready to bring in when I find a place for them. Might be another frost Friday night, so can`t wait much longer. I have a heavy plastic cover at nights over the 2 earth boxes holding the yellow string beans and the pepper plants with hopes the beans manage to get larger, and the small peppers might get larger before the plants die.

Sassy kept my side door working all day like it was on a swivel. In and out, in and out, but finally about 10:30 she decided she wanted to stay in tonight and is now asleep in the laundry room. This will be her first night in the house in over a week. Maybe she couldn`t stand her own dog odor and so she stayed out in the fresh air. LOL. I should post the newest picture of my new great granddaughter. Her expression would fit well here.
I fell so tired, think I will save this and post it tomorrow.

Brilliant Weblog Award image

2008-09-15T20:04:00.002-04:00

This is for all who were listed in my post on Sept 15 th for receiving the Brillant weblog Award. Hope it posts ok this time.

written last Friday-Sept 12, 08

2008-09-15T18:15:00.002-04:00

Friday, September 12, 2008
What a busy day. Woke up at 12:30. still not back asleep at 4:30 AM , so I gave up and got up and started working in the laundry room. First I removed the large air conditioner from the window onto the table where it stays all winter. Getting a little chilly at nights now - had a freeze last night. Then I washed the windows, plus the 2 storms and screen- both inside and out. Saw a neighbor leaving for work at 5am while I was standing outside on my ladder washing the outside of the windows. Glad my daughter ot her husband couldn`t see me on the other end of the house, or they would be telling me how they feel about me being outside at that hour, and up on the ladder. It was light out, so i could see very well. Then I made a new casing for the window and hung the new curtain.
Then I had a bad draft from the back door and the screen last winter. So, I cut some small slats for the doors and added some weatherstripping onto the thin slats. Should be lots warmer in there this winter. Then when that was done I removed the screen and put in the storm glass in the storm door. Washed the screen and put it away. Then I mopped the laundry room floor and did a load of washing. The clothes are in the dryer now. As soon as the dryer is finished I will be done for today.
Only got 1 1/2 hours sleep last night. Hope all this work helps me get more sleep tonight.
Will need to bring in all the plants off the side and back porch soon so needed to get the laundry room ready as most of them either sit on the table in front of that window, or hang over the table in front of the window. That window faces the south where the sun shines in the best in the winter. Knew I couldn`t bring them in until I had the work finished in that room. I knew I couldn`t put it off any longer or I might lose all my flowering plants. Glad that much is finally done.
Glad I started early as it started raining this evening.

Next I should start getting the dogs house ready for winter. I need to sweep it out, close up the window opening and remove the dirty rug that hangs in the doorway and cut and hang a new rug piece. I find the heavy rug closes the opening and helps keep the cold out. Two summers ago I cut a small window section high in one side of her dog house to let fresh air circulate to make it cooler in the summer. I added a board to cover the opening in winter with one nail on one side that allows the board to swing open, and using a screw on the other side to hold it shut tight for winter. So, all I have to do is remove the screw to open the window board, and re-add the screw to hold it shut in winter. I also add straw in the winter to keep her warm. One winter she stayed out all winter, last year she stayed inside all winter. For the past couple weeks she has insisted on staying in her coop all night. She is her own boss when it comes to telling me if she wants to come inside or prefers staying outside. I just hope she will start staying in nights when it gets colder. IO worry to much about her when she stays out in the cold as she is about 12 1/2 years old now and starting to look older and slowing down some.

Well, guess I better get off the comp as the buzzer is going off on the dryer and I want to get things taken care of so I can just sit and rest till I go to bed.

Update- Did get everything taken care of before heading off to bed. But awoke at 4:AM and never got back to sleep, so got up and transplanted more flowering plants. So, most of the outdoor plants are already inside. Warmed up again so can`t close up the dog`s window area yet..

Brilliant weblog Premio 2008 AWARD

2008-09-15T17:31:00.002-04:00

I am having problems posting the picture of the Brilliante Weblog Premio 2008 award.
Tried adding it to my photos with no luck and copy/paste doesn`t work. I have decided to do the awaed post just the same. maybe later i can find a way to show the award image. Sorry everyone. You can see the award by going to the following blog.

http://newgranny.blogspot.com/

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written by Hillgrandmom on her blog when she awarded me this award.
Dot at Dot's Thoughts. She is one energetic senior! She maintains her blog as well as gardens, does carpentry, cooks and copes with life's difficulties cheerfully.

I received this award from a wonderful friend that many of you know:
Hillgrandmom-blog

http://newgranny.blogspot.com/

if you have never read her blog, go, check it out, I am sure you will find it interesting. Thank you Hillgrandmom for the brilliant blog award and the nice words you said about me. I don`t feel very brilliant, but it was nice reading it.
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Now for the award and rules for the award giving and the names of some I am sending it to. There are many others whose blogs i enjoy reading- some have already received the award from others, some haven`t been writing in their blogs recently, and some special ones are no longer with us, So, here are a few others who I don`t think have received this award before:
-- Award and rules:

(Award can be seen at the above blog and hopefully you will have better luck copying it to your blog if you pas on the award)

The purpose of the prize is to promote as many blogs as possible in the blogosphere. The rules are:
1. Put the logo on your blog;

2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you;

3. Nominate 7 (minimum 5) other blogs;

4. Add links to them on your blog;

5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blogs.
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Here are some blogs that I hope you will enjoy reading:

1. Sally - shows such great love for her family, I love the cute sayings from her little granddaughter Hunter. Sally is going through a lot of sad times right now. Maybe more visiters will help bring smiles.
ttp://www.whispering-hope.blogspot.com/

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2. Under the Ocean

Cecilia has such interesting subjects with good definitions of her topics. Very educated sounding for someone her age. Also a young lady with a loving family life.

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3. it's a 'burg thing

Itisi knows how to find humor even when things get rough. Good reading.
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4. Nan's Small Piece Of The World

Nan- A proud Mom who has shared her thoughts, and her love for her baby and that great baby`s Dad with us . Together they make each other so happy and know how to work for what they want out of live. Nan handles hardships with hope and courage. A great Mom.
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5. Kat - who is now back posting on her blog, in case you used to read her blog in the past. To know which way her blog thoughts will be, just pop over to her blog and start reading.

http://myitcentre.blogspot.com

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6.
http://www.seftontaxis.wordpress.com/

Gaz- (Gary Ledwidge- liverpool, England)

Gary used to tell some great stories about his Taxi work. Now, he has started a new blog, so not sure yet what his topics will be.
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If your blog isn`t mentioned it is either because I have yet to see your blog, or someone already beat me to awarding you, or that I Might have lost the way back to your blog. Many have just stopped posting in their blogs, so I felt they wouldn`t see the award if I sent it to them. If you would like receiving this award, consider you received it and let me know when you post it on your blog. Thanks all for being such wonderful friends. Dot

For Hillgrandmom from Dot

2008-09-08T18:12:00.002-04:00

Just a short note for Hillgrandmom- I am unable to enter your blog to see the award you gave me. Thank you for thinking of me. Do I need a special invite to open and read your blog?
Just wanted to let you know why I haven`t been to your blog. I have tried many times, but it will not allow me in.
Hugs, Dot
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If anyone reading this is able to read and post on her blog, please let her know why I haven`t been there to receive the award she told me about. Thanks loads, Dot

9/6/08, Dreams

2008-09-07T18:49:00.002-04:00

September 6, 2008

Sitting here listening to the TV, they talked about what your dreams might mean. They said that fear of falling or of water was usually due to something you saw on TV. I seem to differ with them. I never had a fear of falling or of water until after I fell down a well on an Uncles farm when I was young. Before this happened I used to swim across the Barge Canal, climb up the rocks on the other side, standing on one rock that was almost flat, we would dive off down into the water below. I never felt any fear while doing this and I had done it many times. But, after falling down the well, I never was able to dive under water, the fear of drowning would come back as soon as water started to cover my face. I still have that fear today. There was one time when my youngest son was about 3 yrs old when he ran out on the pier and jumped off into the deep water. I was hanging onto the side boards of the pier when it happened, and without time for thinking, I immediately let go of the boards and swam down under the water , found my son and swam back to shore with him. It took both the life guard and myself over an hour to talk him back into the low water near shore. The life guard had this football without the cover on it and he kept tossing it to my son who would toss it back to him. He kept tossing it a little further each time till my son was starting to go a little ways into the water to retrieve it. Finally he tossed it into the water where it was almost up to my little sons waist. Then he told me son if he got the ball out of the water he would let him keep the football and take it home with him. So, he got the ball and when he got older he became a great swimmer. He did do one stupid thing when swimming in the school pool. He did a flip backwards as he jumped off the diving board and he didn`t land out far enough and hit his head on the pool and cut his head open and required stitches. He had done this dive before, but according to the teacher, this time he was joking with another student and not concentrating on what he was doing. I was glad we were able to get him back in the water so he didn`t grow up with the fear like I did. There was no way for me to have gotten back into the water swimming as my accident happened in the winter with snow on the ground-- so no swimming again till the following summer and by then the fear and dreams had been happening for months. My relatives owned the property that extend all the way through the woods to the canal so we had our own private beach for swimming. Today that property is still in the family.

Another dream I had happened almost a year after we were married. I almost walked out and ended my marriage, but I had this dream. There was this woman who apparently was supposed to be my husbands mother. She had passed away when my husband was only 15 years old and he never owned a picture of her. So, I had no idea what she even looked like, but still I knew this woman to be his mother. She kept telling me not to give up, that things would get better. About the time I started having this dream I discovered I was going to have a baby. That only made me think even more about leaving. But this dream continued every night. It was often a little different, but the message from this woman remained the same- don`t give up, things will get better. This dream continued for the whole 9 months and once the baby was born I never had that dream again. About this time my husbands only sister, who had lived a long ways from us, moved about 20 miles from us and we went to visit her. While there, I asked her if she had any pictures of their mother. She only had the one picture taken shortly before their mother died. His sister had made the long trip by wagon so her mother could see her new grandchildren ( twins, a girl and a boy). Her mother`s picture was small, so his sister gave me a magnifier to see their mother`s face better. I felt like I was losing my stomach when I noticed it was the exact woman from my dreams. I will never be able to understand this, but it left me with the feeling that, even though we had never met, I just felt this closeness to her. I was left with the feeling that I would have loved his mother if I had ever been able to meet her in person. Also, I will always be grateful to her for talking me into staying those 9 months. I would never have had the over 50 years with the man of my dreams if it hadn`t been for her helping me through dreams.

Then there was this other dream. I awoke one morning about quarter to 3AM. I had been dreaming that my oldest brother was taken by ambulance to the hospital near where he lived in another state. From the dream I knew it was serious. I knew I couldn`t phone my mother at that time in the morning, but I was never able to go back to sleep. I ended up pacing the floor waiting for the time to hurry up and go by. Finally at 8:30, I knew my father would have left for work and my mother would have sent my youngest sister off to school. If I had called her earlier I was afraid I would upset her if she had heard nothing from New Jersey. I talked a few minutes and then I asked her what she had heard from Fred lately. Then she told me that my sister-in-law had called them to tell them Fred was taken to the Hospital early that morning. His appendix had burst while at home and he was very sick. That was when I told my mother about my scary dream and told her I awoke at quarter to 3. She then told me that they had picked up Fred shortly before 3AM. That not only shook me up, but also my mother- to think my dream was true and it happened the same time as I dreamed it happened.

Then we lost my youngest brother 15 years ago. That morning my mother phoned me to tell me his wife had called her and said the ambulance was there and they were taking him to the hospital and my mother asked me if I would meet another brother there so he wouldn`t be alone. I told my mother I would be there by the time he got there since he had further to drive than I did. I no more than hung up the phone when I got this feeling that there was no need to go to the Hospital because Ken had already passed away. I immediately phoned my mother back to tell her about my feeling. This wasn`t the first time I felt someone had died and we learned it was true, so my mother yelled out to my brother to wait. He was in the process of backing his car out of the driveway. Then I called my youngest brother`s home and learned that the ambulance was still in front of their house and they were still trying to revive my brother, but he was gone.

Every since these dreams, I have taken every dream more seriously. I remembered when the kids used to pick on me when ever the phone rang . They would ask me who it was before I answered it and the funny thing was I usually knew. I will never understand the meaning of dreams given by professionals, but I do usually know what mine stand for. I read once that dreams have something to do with something you either saw or talked about in the past few days before the dream happened. But, that never explained my dreams for me.
To this day, I hate it when I get these feelings that something is wrong with someone, because I know it is probably true. Some tell me it is a gift, but it isn`t the kind of gift to bring a smile, it is usually something to be dreaded.
Now, I am living with the fear of losing my pet dog, but this time it is because she is getting old and her black and white hair on her face is turning gray. So, at least this time it has nothing to do with dreams, it is something just looking at her shows. She is over 12 years old and I read on the net that a Border Collie usually has about a 14 year life span. I know sometimes they live longer than what is considered average and I am hoping so this time. She is what makes me get up in the morning. I can`t loaf in bed when my wonderful protector is waiting to be fed. I have always felt so safe here the past 6 years that I have lived alone. She will bark and wake me at the slightest sound outside. She has a different bark sound for a person than for an animal that might be around the house. Also her re-turn bark to a neighbors dogs barks- it isn`t shrill like when it is a person- even when they are just walking down the road in front of my home she lets me know. I have learned that Border Collies are very intelligent dogs. If I lost her, I wouldn`t just lose my wonderful loyal pet, but might also lose my strong feeling of security that she has given over the years.
I have one daughter that sometimes has these same strange to understand or explain feelings. it is not something I would have passed on on purpose because too many of the times it has to do with sadness. Sometimes it feels more like a curse than a blessing. They usually say there is an explanation for everything, but I have yet to understand it. Hasn`t happened lately and it is a relief to be feeling more confident and more at ease.

August 31st- My sister`s Birthday

2008-09-01T14:16:00.000-04:00

Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 1:37 PM
Subject: Sister Carol`s Birthday- August 31st, 08

First an update on the fire detector. No more beeping, so think I have corrected that. Then today the carbon monoxide detector (in the kitchen near my gas stove) started beeping and I replaced the battery in it, and finally had to plug it into another plug in and no more beeping so far. While I was at it yesterday I also replaced the batteries in the smoke detector in the dining room and the one in the cellar. Hope that cures all the beeping for a while, but there is also one more smoke detector upstairs ( near where the fireplace pipeing goes thru the attic and on through the roof) and another carbon monoxide one in the bathroom over the cellar furnace register- this is the closest register over the heating furnace. We could have died back in 1994 when we had carbon monoxide poisioning and Walt was so bad he went into a coma for days before we knew what was making us so terribly sick. We had thought we had the Flu. Thanks to God, he lived and we both got better, but I never took chances after that. We might have been wiser at the time , but I had just lost my younger brother and we were attending his Funeral and still trying not to get close to anyone. But, there is no odor to carbon monoxide and that is why they add an odor to the gas used for cooking kitchen stove gas. We never even smelled any smoke from the furnace becomming clogged up. We had no smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors at that time, but you can be sure i bought some as soon as i was well enough to drive to the stores. Have since replaced them with newer ones.

Now back to todays topic- What Happened on my younger sister`s birthday:

Yesterday started out like any nice day. I drove up to see my youngest sister as it was her birthday. We were expecting our oldest sister to be arriving about an hour after I got their. She lives about 6 hours drive from us and was coming out for our birthdays. When time kept going by and she hadn`t arrived we were beginning to wonder what was holding her up. She had called my sister about 2 hours before saying she would be their in about an hour. Finally she did call us back to tell us she was in a car accident, but wasn`t hurt and to meet her at our other sisters place. So, my youngest sister and I both headed off to our other sisters which was about a half hours drive from where we were then. My sister later told us she decided to have the people drop her off there as it was closer. The people wouldn`t even allow her to give them any money for the gas used in driving the 50-60 miles. No One was hurt, but her car was destroyed, neither door on the drivers side will open and the drivers side front wheel was bent, or maybe the axle or frame was bent causing the wheel to turn in wrong. Thanks goodness she wasn`t hurt and neither were the people in the other vehicle. I better explain who the helpful strangers were.
There was another car with 2 people and 2 of their grandkids in it who witnessed the accident. After they checked to be sure no one was hurt in either car, they offered to let my sister leave her vehicle on their property and they offered to bring my sister the about 60 miles further to our other sisters home. What a wonderful thing for someone to do for a stranger they had never seen before. Just goes to show there are still wonderful people who will go out of their way to help even a stranger. I got to meet them when they dropped my sister off and they were very nice people. I heard they own and run a Religious Book Store- looks like they are one who doesn`t just believe, they practice what they believe.
I felt sorry for my sister- there I was with my brand new car and here she was with no car. She was the one who was always driving the 6 hours to come out and see the rest of the family, so she did need her car to be able to see all of us. The rest of us all live within a half hours drive apart.
So, my sister`s Birthday was celebrated at my other younger sister and her husbands place with a chicken BBQ -outside cook out- with all the family present. Even our brother pushed his wheel chair over from across the road to join us for supper. Was nice having the family all together again, just sad why it happened. My older sister told us that she had intended on taking the youngest sister and I out for lunch to celebrate our birthdays. It was on my sister`s birthday and a few days before mine. The other younger sister told me she was sorry she didn`t have my Birthday card yet, but she hadn`t expected on seeing me early. She provided the chicken cook out meal which meant even more to me than a card.
They even made a cake and wrote both my sisters name and mine on it and sang Happy Birthday to us. Except for feeling sorry for our sister losing her car, the rest of the day was nice with one other exception. One of my nieces daughters called her mom to say her little dog had been hit by a car, but lucky to end up with just scraped up legs. At least we hope that is all. They might know more today as the dog owners live in another state. My sister said her Birthday was a jinx since our older sister was making the trip that day for her birthday. Of course I told her I don`t believe in jinxes.

I am still listening to the updates on the Hurricane Gustav. Always scarry and thankful we live up nearer the eastern coast -both inland and a lot further up north- where we might have lots of snow and lose power from bad storms, but still safer here than in the Gulf States, or even Florida and other coastal states and the awful powerful storms they often get. As a friend said to me earlier this afternoon, as much as she hates our cold winters with all the snow, she prefers living here to living in the fear in the gulf states with the damaging scarry storms they get. I wholeheartedly agree with her.
May God Bless and protect all who live in the Hurricane`s path. These storms cause so much destruction and lives are often lost. Such a sad time for everyone, especially those who live in it`s path and all their loved ones.

August 30th, 08, Never a Dull Moment

2008-09-01T13:56:00.002-04:00

Subject: Never a Dull Moment.

August 30th, 2008
Never a dull moment-

Started for the mailbox to mail some bills this morning. As I started to walk down the front porch steps I noticed a spider had made a web that completely reached from one railing across the width of the steps and connecting to the railing on the other side of the steps. I broke down the web from one side (all three strings) and went to put the mail in my mail box in front of my house. I never bothered to kill the spider.
Big mistake! A couple hours later my mailman had picked up my out going mail and left me some new mail. So I decided to go get my mail. When I reached the front porch steps, there was that spider again and he had already spun his web from one railing to the other all over again. Persistent spider I must say. I again broke down the web strands so I could go down the steps. This darn spider kept swinging trying to reach the other side. I finally gave up and killed it. Killed a couple spiders in my bathroom this past week. Seems like the spiders always show up after we have had weeks of rain. Hadn`t seen a spider in my house all summer. I also broke a spider web off one of my plant dishes that sits on the new steps I had made by the side porch. Did this just two days ago. Glad we do not have dangerous spiders where I live.

Been a lot less crickets here so far this year. Only killed one in my house plus the one that I found dead on the laundry room floor where Sassy sleeps nights, so Sassy must have killed that one. Never do know how they get inside. Usually there are so many crickets that their noise bothers my ears, so am sure they must also bother Sassy`s ears since they are much more sensitive to high tones. If only those crickets would get tired of brushing their legs together which makes the shrill noise. Is a relief this year not having as many around to make that awful noise. I sure haven`t missed them.

Sassy has kept me busy the past two days. I had to replace the batteries in two of my fire detectors. One of them kept beeping with the new battery, so I tried another new battery with the same results. That beeping was driving Sassy crazy. First she went and hid in the tub behind the shower curtain and I had to pull her out and spent the next 20 minutes cleaning dog hair out of the tub and scouring the tub clean. My own fault for forgetting to shut the bathroom door. I knew better as she had hid there on other occasions when she heard thunder or the neighbors had set off firecrackers.
I thought I had finally fixed the fire detector and last evening it again started beeping. This time the bathroom door was shut, but I had forgotten to shut the bedroom door tight so she started to go in there. Glad I was heading for the laundry room to take the clothes out of the dryer. I caught her just in time and pulled her out and shut that door tight. She would have jumped over my bed and hid behind it like she did once before. Here is a dog that never used to act scared of anything, who suddenly is being scarred by any real loud bang noise. A few years ago I found a burnt fire cracker near her dog coop and I wonder if it might have hit her when she was outside that night.
She hasn`t stayed out side nights much this summer. It was so hot that she preferred being inside with the air conditioners running. Now, for the last three nights she has stayed outside in her coop. The nights have cooled down now so it is hotter in the house than outside at night. Still having warm days and when it is hot out, she still prefers being inside when the air conditioners are running. Tonight she can`t seem to make up her mind. She has already made two trips in and back out and right now she is outside in her coop.

I haven`t yet taken any pictures of my new car. But my oldest daughter took a few pictures the day she ran me down to pick it up. I heard she has already posted the pictures on one of the sites she belongs to. So, some other family members, plus some friends have probably already seen what my car looks like, plus when I was showing her the car she suddenly snapped a picture of me standing beside my new car. I haven`t seen what these pictures look like. Guess i will need to go into the site to see them. She is so excited over me getting the car. She told me she has been bragging about the car to everyone. Another daughter told her husband she wants her next car to be like mine. It makes me smile to see how excited my kids are because their mother finally bought a new car. My youngest son also liked the car. The rest still haven`t seen it yet.

Tomorrow is my youngest sister`s Birthday. I should have picked the string beans today, but by the time I had picked up two garbage bags over half filled of apples off the ground, I was feeling tired. Still loads more apples on the ground to clean up, plus an awful lot still on the tree. Have to take care of them all so there won`t be any left to rotten on the ground and cause more bad apples next year. Also still have the other porch floors to re-stain before winter. Glad the side porch floor is done as it needed it the worst. I used redwood stain color on the side porch and it now looks good.

Almost forgot about seeing the beautiful little Hummingbird just before I came in for the night. I was outside talking with my son-in-law and this beautiful green Hummingbird swooped down, hovering just over one of the flower in one of my daughters hanging baskets. Just as I was telling my son-in-law, away it flew over my head, over my shop/garage building (the two building are connected as we added the shop building to one outside wall of the garage) and on out of sight. Might have gone to the nectar bottle hanging near the tree by my back porch. I love seeing the many different types of birds that come to my feeders every year and think the green Humming birds are one of the prettiest.
Mother Nature is always showing us something beautiful if we are taking the time to look around. A day might seem so quiet and empty till we start looking around us. There is almost always something to see.