I welcome all little footprints to my site even if some are unfriendly to me. 

My earliest memory is being held by one of my male relatives….either my father, my uncle or my grandfather….standing beside a railroad track.  The train arriving must have really frightened me with its size, its closeness and noise for the memory to be so firmly lodged in my memory.  With my Mother’s help in figuring out the time sequence of events, the event was determine to have happened when I was 18 months old.

 I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

I may be old-fashioned but I think that men are incredibly sexy when they are doing manual labor tasks……especially if one of them is my Husband.  Right now he is under the sink fixing a clogged drain.  Someone…..not me…..allowed grease to go down the drain in the kitchen sink and with winter upon us, it has congealed into a solid mass.  I just love that he is so multi skilled since he can do all the tasks needed to do any home improvements.  I even asked him if there was a job that he could not do for the house and his answer was “Have you ever had to call someone to fix anything?”.  I never have…..and he can fix cars too!  I find that very sexxy….not a mispelling, just a clue to where my mind is going. 

Just got the news today, my son, Scott and his wife, Lindy are going to be able to come home for Christmas.  I am so excited.  His coming home is a HUGE Christmas present to me.  I just love Christmas time!

At 3 minutes to 4, our 24 pound turkey was placed into the oven.  So far, that makes turkey and stuffing, Heaven, pasta/salami salad, and the veggie tray a definite for the Thanksgiving menu.  More to come……plus what all the kids bring.  We sort of overdo….a lot…..when it comes to Thanksgiving.  Off for a nap until 9.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone even if you do not celebrate it or celebrate it on a different day.  Good wishes are a blessing to be cherished and enjoyed.

An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life…He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil — he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego. The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.” They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

When I read this for the first time, every hair on my body stood on end.  I have hated my real father for a long time.  I use to love him so much as a child and always tried to please him and make him proud of me.  A very hard and thankless task that, to this day, can interfere with my ability to interact with my Husband.  My father was an abusive man that beat his children for any petty reason.  I learned to adjust and survive, to avoid and anticipate his mood changes.  I learned how to become invisible.  I also learned that sometimes that I had to take the brunt of his abuse to protect my little sisters.   After he beat my middle sister so severely that her back was black and blue and bleeding, I started saying I was the one who had done whatever.  My sister got that beating because she pulled too much toilet paper off the roll (we were suppose to only use two section, folded together, then folded in half for each wipe) and hid the excess toilet paper behind the tub.  My Mother has tried for years to get me to forgive him so that I could let go of the hate.  Hate, she said, that was hurting me more than it would ever hurt him.  He died.  He had a massive heart attack and I was pissed that it was quick since I wanted him to die a long and painful death for the damage that he had done in his lifetime.  Forgiving him would almost be like saying that the damage and hurt he had inflicted was forgivable.  I can NEVER forgive the abuse he inflicted!  But the quote led me down a path along with some other stuff going on in my life this summer that has finally allowed me to end this love/hate relationship with my dead father.  I will NEVER forgive the abuse but I can forgive the man for being a stupid idiot that was so short-sighted that he could not see that he had three little girls that thought he was the most handsome man on this earth and loved him in spite of all his shortcomings.  I even forgive him for not having the natural intelligence to recognize that he lost something along the way besides alienating potential kidney donators.  Maybe it was easier to forgive him once he was no longer able to ask for forgiveness, especially since he didn’t even feel the need while he was alive.  With him being dead…….my negative feelings were not going to have any impact on his Life…he was dead!  So now I can look back on that part of my life and instead of feeling hatred, I now feel sorrow and pity for a man that missed the love and respect that only children bestow in such unconditional quantities and disgust for his inability to get pass his me, me, me attitude to even appreciate the fact that his life had some major holes in it.  Hatred is such a strong emotion where sorrow, pity, and even disgust are such minor emotions compared to Hatred.  I have so much more positive things to devote my attentions to especially with Thanksgiving just around the corner and the family is starting to gather to my house again.  Jessie and Alex are already here and my grandson is already bringing the joy only children bring to a home.  I am so blessed! 

A Friend emailed me these reasons and I just had to share.  My favorite one is on how to treat your siblings…….oh, the joys of youth.

A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small. The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. The little girl said, “When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah.” The teacher asked, “What if Jonah went to hell?” The little girl replied, “Then you ask him.”

My grandson, Alex, turned 2 years old yesterday (my, oh my, where has the time gone to) and I tried to post a birthday entry.  It got lost somewhere between my computer and the internet.  So a day late …..but only on the entry, since I called him and sang Happy Birthday to him over the phone.  He must of thought his Grammie was crazy since I would start to sing and start crying singing….and then start to laugh because I was crying…..go figure!  I did sing the complete song even though my throat was trying to close up on me and my voice sort of sounded like Minny Mouse.  Oh well, at least he knows that Grammie loves him.  He is such a handsome boy!

After Jen’s wedding, I agreed to care for my grandson, Alex, until my daughter could get their finances in a better condition.  Since this would entail her getting a job, I would be giving her time to find a job and getting child care setup.  They only have the one car so this was going to get tricky working everyone’s schedule around the availablity of the car.  My daughter suggested the arrangement to me but did not think I would do it since she could see that my health had gone down hill a bit.  While she was here, my doctor had increased the dosage of my pain pills.   My doctor had come to realize that I was more interested in decreasing my pain levels than increasing my pain killer dosages since the pain meds that she had been giving me only allowed me to be active about 10 minutes at time as a free standing adult.  I found more relief from the ibuprofen but there lies the rub…..I am on steriods so I am told the two do not mix well.  She increased the pain med dosage as a bargaining chip to get my promise to reduce my Ibuprofen usage.  The new pain med dosage enabled me to be more active with less pain.  I do not get to be pain free….just bring down the pain levels to an acceptable level so that I can do things.  With that in mind, I agreed to take care of Alex since he could walk and I did not have to carry him all the time.  Taking care of Alex for those few months were a blessing to me……and a wakeup call to me!  I am not a young as I would like to think I am.  I now fully understand why we have children while we are young.  It takes a lot of energy and time to raise a child.  I have raised five of my own but caring for a grandchild was different.  One difference was that I did not care if he minded anyone else as long as he minded me.  I am the Grammie….not the Mom, I have waited a long time for a grandchild to spoil and now is the time.  Now that he is gone back to his Mom, I wish that I had spoiled him even more.  As it is, I forget that he is not here sometimes and I think I hear him waking from his nap.  That happened to me yesterday and I almost got up from the computer to get him…..and then I remembered that he was not here.  I miss him!  I love his baby kisses and his baby hugs even though he is going to be turning 2 years old this coming Friday.  He will always be Grammie’s baby.  My daughter also learned a valuable lesson too.  It is hard not having your child with you even for the best of reasons.  The good thing is that Alex made the transition from one household to the other without a hitch.  That is probably due to the fact that he probably considers Grammie’s house his other home…..which it is.

I received this little tidbit in my email today from a friend :