HORSESHOE BEND 2

I Am Home

2012-01-15T13:14:00.000-05:00

It is strange when you think about it...having a home in Facebook Land.

But I do...and you do too, if you live amongst us.

I think of it as a virtual neighborhood...a place like "CHEERS". The sitcom about a bar, where you can 'go where everybody knows your name.'

Here in Facebook Land, I have good friends and family. Ones that are here to cheer me up when I am down, help me when I am in need and even pray for me when I am in need of a Higher Power.

I was at work when my daughter showed me a post by one of my friends. Sally had posted a picture that she took of me that day at the Bar-B-Que while she and her mom ate lunch. Underneath that post was over 40 comments...all from good friends and family who, without another thought, offered to donate money and even a free computer to help me come back home.

It amazed me to think that they care about Me...I am nothing special....just an old lady who was a little country girl who came from the poorest of poor...who yet still lives in a tiny rundown Milltown house on the wrong side of the tracks.

It touched my heart..made my soul sing...to know that there are yet still angels among us...that there are still good people in this world of ours and they are actually my friends and family... and all those people care about me. It made me cry, made me humble...made me want to strive to be a better, more caring person, like they are. It made me want to hug every last one of them.

It made me bow my head right there at my table at work and say a prayer thanking my Heavenly Father for all of them and asking Him to bless them all for their loving kindness.

Yes...I have a home in Facebook Land...and it is filled with angels....

And a secret Santa.

Thank God I am home.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

DAYS OF MY LIFE

2011-11-14T14:55:00.000-05:00

My computer died....again...and this time, unfortunately, it is gone for good.

My son doesn't understand what the big deal is. He tells me constantly how he could care less about computers. What he doesn't realize is that my computer was not just an electronic device. It was a life line to the outside world, a place I could go to find out how my cyber friends are. More than that, it was part of my daily ritual to come in from work, grab something to eat and drink and then get on line.

At my age, I do not like change. For days, I found myself sitting at my desk just staring at a blank monitor...trying again and again to get it to start up....Sort of like the doctor on the TV show Greys Anatomy. You know...The one who can't stand the thought of his patient dying on him..so he keeps pumping and pumping the patient's heart...hoping against hope, to hear that first faint heart beat....but like the doctor, I got nothing...just a flat line and the steady beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Time of death.....Nov. 06, 2011.

So my daughter has loaned me her laptop, until I can afford to get another PC. God bless her heart, I think she knew I was on the verge of a melt down. lol

In other news...I went to see my mama this past Wednesday. Alzheimer's is taking it's toll on her. When I am talking to her, I catch myself looking deeply into her eyes..as if I am trying to find her in there somewhere. Sometimes it actually seems like there is a veil there..as if she is hiding behind it ...in a place where I can not go. It hurts me soooooooooo bad to see her this way. She is my mama...and she doesn't even recognize me 99 percent of the time. It is all I can do to choke back the tears that are constantly trying to escape while I am with her. I don't want her to see me crying, because she will not understand and it will upset her. The nursing home called Friday, saying they were going to up the amount of a vitamin and calorie supplement she is getting to three times a day. She is not eating enough. I had noticed when she went to supper this past Wednesday, that she just sat and looked at her food.

On happier news, Wyatt and will are growing like weeds. They are constantly amazing me with the things that they say and do and how quick they are in all ways. I rode to Ingles the other night with Amanda so I could sit in the car with them while she went in to get a few things. While sitting there, Wyatt said, "Maw-Maw, will you come home with me?" I said, Wyatt, I can't. I have to go to my house." "But Maw-Maw" he said, "My chickens miss you!" Now you have to understand, his mama and daddy have about a dozen chickens that they helped hatch and are now raising. I choked back my laughter and asked, "what did you say Wyatt?" He said, "Maw-Maw, I said my chickens miss you. They are crying for you! You need to come home with me so they will quit crying!"

You know what I think?

To have someone want you to go home with them soooooooo bad that they say that their chickens are crying for you....Well you know right then and there that you are LOVED beyond all measure....

God bless their little hearts...

GOD IS SO GOOD.

If God never gives me another blessing in my life...

He has already given me TWO of the greatest blessings in the world.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

HOMECOMING

2011-10-02T16:35:00.000-04:00

You know, they say we learn something new everyday and I believe this to be true, because the older I get, the more I realize that, although my younger self always thought she knew it all...

She didn't.

Take today for example. Me, Dan, Amanda, Kelvin and my two grandsons went to Homecoming at West End Baptist, which I am a member of. There is no way that my younger self would have had enough smarts to enjoy it as much as my older self did.

My younger self would have probably been keeping an eye out for the good looking guys that may have shown up with family or most likely wondering what I was going to do when I left...

But not this older self...

As soon as I opened the door of the Church, I was greeted by friends and family..As I proceeded on down the aisle, to get to the old wooden pew that I sit in up front, more and more folks offered their hands, their hugs and their smiles...Folks that have come into my life at various times for various reasons... and also hometown folks...old friends that I went to school with and grew up with, were there.

As I glanced over to tell Miss Thelma hello, I saw my distant cousin sitting there beside her...and I was so surprised and happy! Denise was the friend that I played jump rope, hop scotch and jackstones with in those long ago days of childhood. She is also the one that I use to spend the night with and get up and go to church with her and her parents on Sunday morning. Not only was her mom a good Christian woman, but she sure could cook good Sunday dinners too!

At the end of the aisle, near my pew, was Preacher Robinson...not only my pastor, but also a good friend...one who went fishing with Danny many a time and in the end, when God called my husband home, with a tear in his eye, he also preached his funeral.

Today, instead of having Church as usual at 11:00 am, it began at 10:00 with the Lanier Land Boys, a Gospel music group, that shook the rafters with their spirited singing and playing! Later on, Preacher Wayne Usry got up and gave a real good sermon about how tomorrow may be just one day too late to get to know Jesus.

Preacher Wayne use to preach at our Church many, many years ago...back when I was my younger self. During today's Homecoming, (back at this same little church he use to preach at), we celebrated his 40th year of preaching God's words! Wonder just how many souls he helped save in all those years? Don't you know that it has to be one of the best feelings... to know that you have led someone to Christ and ultimately to everlasting life...I know that when he steps through those pearly gates, that God will say;
" Well done, my good and faithful servant."

Sitting in front of my pew were my niece and her husband and their daughter....and also my niece's mom, Sue. Sue was my friend way back in school and ended up marrying my brother right before she graduated. After years together, in the end, their marriage didn't last...but our friendship did. There is nothing that I would not do for her...and visa-versa.

I hear the door to the Church open and in walks Sandra, my friend from Facebook! Later on, as I am sitting stuffing my mouth

~~now you know Southern Baptist ALWAYS have to eat at Homecomings~~

I glance up and there is Sandra taking my picture! I love that lady so much...I have the highest respect for her...after all the adversity that she has been through, ( She lost her husband not long ago and right afterwards was in a head on collision and very nearly lost her life ) she comes out of it smiling and laughing and making sure that you do too! She is such an awesome lady!

Watching my two grandsons put their little hands together and clap to the beat of the good gospel music...watching them run around and play outside afterwards...watching as Wyatt hunts for and finally finds "Miss Agnes" the preacher's wife...(and also a friend)...so she can give them a bolo paddle and ball, like she did many months ago when they came to church here...(That child has a memory like an elephant!) and just being with my daughter and son together in Church like in days gone by....had some very powerful emotions running around inside my soul.

Yep...my younger self probably would have missed picking up on all the love that was in that old church today...

But my Older self didn't.

"Three things will last forever--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love. "

1 Corinthians 13:13

Thank YOU GOD for all YOUR many blessings on me.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

Margaret Seeliger

2011-09-10T22:22:00.000-04:00

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001.....

It was a beautiful morning,with bright clear blue skies as Margaret Seeliger and her husband Bruce left their Manhattan apartment and stood in line to vote in New York's primary election. It was a sunny day and all the airports were reporting 100% visibility.

After voting, they would have walked on toward work together as usual, but Bruce had a doctor's appointment. So this morning, they kissed goodbye at the corner of 76th Street and Third Avenue. Bruce stood watching as Margaret boarded the train that would take her to her job and unknowingly, to her fate. You see, only thirty-four years old, Margaret Seeliger was employed as Head of the Student Health Division of Anon Insurance.

Which happened to be located on the 100th floor at 2 World Trade Center in New York.

Margaret had boundless energy, and lived her life to the fullest. She felt and often stated that "you never know how long you have here on this earth" so she was always busy. Many of her weekends were spent in Buffalo visiting with her mom, who had fallen victim to Alzheimer's. Margaret was a very important part of her mom's care, attending to even the smallest details for her.

Since her mother was no longer able to do so, Margaret had taken over the role of being "Grandma" to her 11 nieces and nephews. She and her husband Bruce were constantly traveling to soccer games, or school plays in Rochester, California, Philadelphia and Atlanta. Looking so much like her own mom, the children had even began calling her "Grandma".

On some weekends, she and Bruce would catch a flight to Atlanta to visit with her sister Beth and her three children. It was on one of those last visits that Margaret asked Beth to hold on to the crib and baby clothes that she had in her basement...secretly confiding that she wanted to start trying to get pregnant that November.

November never came for Margaret.

On that bright and beautiful morning of September 11, 2001, Bin Laden ordered an attack on AMERICA, killing thousands of innocent people as planes crashed into the the Pentagon, an open field and… The World Trade Center Towers.

Where Margaret worked.

I can not imagine the fear and the panic that had to be running rampant through the buildings as people tried to flee to safety, but Margaret Seeliger bravely gave up her space on the last over crowded elevator that would leave the 100th floor of 2 World Trade Center… So that two of her colleagues could make it out.

MARGARET SEELIGER DIED A TRUE HERO.

So, Bin Laden…MAY YOU FOREVER ROT IN THE HELL THAT WE HAVE SENT YOU TO. YOU DESTROYED OUR TOWERS, YOU MURDERED OUR PEOPLE, BUT YOU DID NOT DETROY THAT WHICH HAS ALWAYS MADE AMERICA THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD…

LOVE, COMPASSION, LOYALTY, BRAVERY AND OUR BELIEF IN THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD.

God bless you Margaret Seeliger and May Our Almighty God rest your soul….May His Holy Spirit continue to bring comfort to your family and friends.

YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.

FOR WE WILL NEVER FORGET

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

MY MAMA

2011-09-07T22:01:00.000-04:00

I went to see my mama today. I found her at the end of the hall that leads to her room. She was sitting in her wheelchair, staring intently out the glass door that looks out onto the parking lot.

I came up to her and touched her arm and asked, " What are you doing mama?" She turned to me with the fading blue eyes that don't recognize her youngest child anymore and said, " Hi Mam! I was just sitting here, waiting...My mama is suppose to come and get me today and take me home with her." I swallowed hard and said, "She is? Well that will be nice." As she happily talked about getting to go home again, I quickly got behind her wheel chair and began rolling her back to her room.

The nurses say that she can not find her room anymore and that worries me all the time. What if she wants to lie down, or just be in her room? I know the nurses will take her there, if they aren't too busy, but what if she doesn't think to ask?

When I get her to her room, I give her the little goodies bag I have brought with me. Like a child, she loves the little treats I bring her. Sometimes it is a few cookies, sometimes peanut butter and cheese crackers, sometimes candy.Today it was a couple of soft oatmeal raisin cookies and a few animal crackers. She immediately took half of them out and placed them on her little eating table there in front of me. Then she began begging me to eat. Back on Horseshoe Bend, she never ate until all her children had eaten....old habits die hard.

The whole time she was munching on her cookies, she was asking me to come live with her and her mama; my (deceased)grandmother. She was explaining how we would have such a good time living together.

It seems that the further my mama goes into the Alzheimer's, the further back her mind takes her. The years that her mind has taken her to now are way before my time. So I am no longer in her world now. Not as her baby girl anyway. I am "Mam"...just some lady who comes around to see her...and this breaks my heart.

I busy myself doing things, so I can try to forget about the lump in my throat. I start by brushing her hair. Then I began clipping her fingernails and end by changing her sweater to a newer one...a cleaner one. I am thinking about all the times she did these very same things for me. The whole time I am fixing her up, she is begging me to come live with her and her mama. No matter how hard I try to change the subject, she is having none of it. Like a merry-go-round, we go around and around with it...over and over.

After a while, I tell her I have to leave. She asks me when I will be back and I tell her soon...As I am walking out of her room, she calls for me to come back..and I do. She looks at me a minute and she says very quietly; " If I'm not here when you get back, it is because I have gone home with mama".

I am trying my very best not to cry before I get out of her room. Just as I get back to the door to leave, she yells, " HEY!!! You know what??"

I stop again, turn around, smile and say, "What Mama?"

She smiles the brightest smile and says, "Tommie is alive!"
( Tommie is her brother who passed away in the early 60's)

My mama...the lady her gave me life..who fed me, clothed me, washed my little body in a tin tub...stayed with me during my many sicknesses and stood by me all my life.... Has left me to go somewhere back in time.

Like a little child, I want to beg, "please don't leave me mama"...I want to wail and cry and throw a hissy fit..I want my mama to come back....

Listening to her talk about where her and her mama's home is, she has to be somewhere in the 1930's.

A place in time where she still has her brother and sisters, and her mama...A place in time where life was simple and good.

I love you my mama.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

NO WONDER OUR COUNTRY NEEDS TO RAISE THE DEBT LIMIT!!!

2011-07-27T13:58:00.001-04:00

The Ten Highest-Paid :

President: Barack Obama
Annual Base Salary: $400,000 (FYI: this amount was set in the George W. Bush term)

Postmaster General: Patrick R. Donahoe
Annual Base Salary: $245,000

Vice President: Joseph Biden
Annual Base Salary: $227,300

Speaker of the House: John Boehner : $223,500

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Admiral Michael Mullen
Annual Base Salary: $220,734.36

Chief Justice of Supreme Court John G. Roberts
Annual Base Salary: $217,400

Chairman of the Federal Reserve: Benjamin Bernanke
Annual Base Salary: $199,700

Senate Majority Leader: Harry Reid
Annual Base Salary: $193,400

Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner
Annual Base Salary: $191,300

Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton
Annual Base Salary: $186,600

total : $ 2,304,934.00

(that’s two million,three hundred four thousand, nine hundred thirty-four dollars….PER YEAR)

Other federal officials, such as the Vice President, Cabinet members, and members of Congress do not have fixed salaries, but rather ones that can increase annually. ( unlike minimum wage, that goes for years and years without changing ) document published by the Congressional Research Service called Salaries of Federal Officials by Barbara L. Schwemle [CRS Report for Congress 98-53 GOV]. http://www.ipl.org/div/farq/pensionFARQ.html

The current salary (2011) for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year.

Congress: Leadership Members' Salary (2011)
Leaders of the House and Senate are paid a higher salary than rank-and-file members.

Senate Leadership
Majority Party Leader - $193,400
Minority Party Leader - $193,400

House Leadership
Speaker of the House - $223,500
Majority Leader - $193,400
Minority Leader - $193,400

***living-adjustment (COLA) increase takes effect annually.

Add the fact that Congress’ pay and benefits are *exempt from government shutdown” … i.e., they continue collecting their $174,000 paycheck and choke-a-horse perks package no matter what happens after the government’s funding runs out next Friday.

http://www.watchblog.com/thirdparty/archives/007420.html

Also add that members of Congress automatically draw a percentage of their salary for life after leaving office. That pension ranges from a minimum of 28% up to 80%, depending on their length of time in office. (Note: 28% of $174,000 is $48,720.)

Also add that every member of Congress is paid per diem, free travel, free postage, free health club/spa memberships, free retirement (i.e., they don’t pay in), and all expenses such as cell phones, meals, bottled water, clothing allowances – even shoe polishing – are all paid by you and I.

Also add that Congress is exempt from whatever health care requirements or Medicare/Medicaid cuts they impose on taxpayers because they gave themselves the choice to “opt in” on public health care or take the taxpayer-funded premium plan offered to all Congressional officials.

Retirement Benefits http://www.thecapitol.net/FAQ/payandperqs.htm

Personal Staff Allowances: Representatives' staff allowances can be used to hire up to 18 permanent and four non-permanent aides divided between the members' Washington and district offices. The maximum salary allowed to Senate personal staffers in 2003 was $150,159

Expense Allowances for members, kept separate from personal staff allowances, cover domestic travel, stationery, newsletters, overseas postage, telephone and telegraph service, and other expenses in Washington and in the members' state or congressional districts.

The Franking Privilege, a valuable perquisite, allows a member to mail official letters and packages under the members' signature without charges for postage. (See Congressional Deskbook, § 5.50, "Franking Privilege")

Foreign Travel by members for the conduct of government business is financed through special allowances. These funds can come from various sources.

Domestic Travel (to and from District/State)
House: Included in office expenses is a minimum amount of $9,700 (2003), with additional funding based on a formula that uses the distance from Washington, DC to the farthest point in the Congressional district from Washington.

Our national debt is more than $14 trillion dollars at the time of this writing.

Their are 365 men in the House Of Representatives and 70 women for a total of 435.
There are 86 men and 14 women in the senate.

This comes out to 535 annual pay checks @ $174,000 per check

not counting perks….which add up into the millions/ billions.

Want to do some multiplication ?

Now, I don’t have a college education, but it seems to me like the USA ’s borrowing the majority of the money…

Just to pay the damn help!!!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL!

THE MISSING CHILDREN

2011-07-05T21:49:00.001-04:00

Talk about shocking.

The verdict in the Casey Anthony trial today has shocked our nation. We are horrified and we are, once again, mourning the death of a beautiful little three year old baby girl…a child who died and was left in a swamp, in a plastic garbage bag…

In a graveyard for pets.

In my personal opinion, I believe there is a lot more to the story than we may ever know. I believe that there were more people involved in this child’s death than just Casey. I can not believe she drove this child’s body around in the trunk of her car for a month with NO ONE smelling the odor of decomposition..until her car was picked up! She had no job, she had to be staying SOMEWHERE with SOMEONE…so why didn’t they smell the odor?

So many, many questions with no answers…not truthful ones anyway. I feverishly hope someday, someone, will come forward with the TRUTH.

Either way...

GOD knows.

HE ALWAYS KNOWS THE TRUTH.

We may try to hide it from HIM , but we can’t.

God has been dealing with this since the beginning of time. This goes all the way back to when Cain killed Abel....Cain too, tried to hide it from God, but

God knew and He called him on it.

What is wrong with the people in this world? Our children are suppose to be fed, to be clothed, to be loved, and to be protected…How hard is that for parents to do? There are so many,many little children missing and/or dead now. What about little Haleigh Cummings, who was also from Florida and was never found? Or Madeline; the little girl who ended up missing when her parents left her in a motel room while they partied? And don't forget, they never got anyone for the murder of little Joan Benet Ramsey.

This is just to mention a very few.

There is a status going around Facebook now, that is asking for people to “KEEP THE PORCH LIGHT ON FOR CAYLEE” at 9pm tonight….

But, I say;

Keep it on tonight for ALL the little children who are still missing, and murdered.

We can also pray and be thankful that God has the final judgment…because HE says;

Romans 12:19-21

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰ To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”

²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

GOD BLESS THE LITTLE CHILDREN

2011-06-22T13:53:00.001-04:00

One of the things I love about little children is that it doesn’t take a whole lot of anything to make them happy…

Daddy cutting our watermelon!

Take Wyatt and William for instance, the first just turned three years old and the latter just turned eighteen months old. I have noticed that there are certain things that Wyatt just has to do when he came to see me. This child is sure enough a little creature of habit. He has to get my small two step ladder and put it in the living room. You would be amazed at just how many things that child can find to do on that one little ladder! He will climb up it, he will turn around and climb down it. He will sit on the top of it and he will turn around and slide off the back of it. This can go on for hours, as he neglects the very many so called real toys overflowing his and Will’s toy box.

William with a piece of melon as big as he is!

He has to play with his Wee-Dough; which is the name Wyatt gave Play-Dough. I know he can pronounce the correct name very well, because he will each and every time I ask him to. Why he calls it Wee-Dough only he knows.

Wyatt tearing into his piece of melon!

But the very best thing Wyatt loves??? Well, from the time he was born, that child has loved to be on my bed. The thrill of his little life is to go into “Maw-Maw’s bedroom”. Since he was old enough to hold a baby rattle in his little fist, I have kept a very small wicker basket of toys to amuse him in my room and since he was old enough to sit and walk, he has loved getting on my bed and having that basket placed in front of him.

Someone’s been eating the blackberries mama picked!

Some of the toys are the very same ones that have been in that basket since day one; His Glow Worm that plays tunes, a baby doll that cries unless you give it a bottle, and some small plastic blocks. Yet, to this day, he will take out all the toys and carefully examine and play with each and every one as if it is the very first time .

After he has done this, he will slide off the side of the bed and climb up on my old storage ottoman that sits by the bedside table. He will then grab the pull chain on my small table lamp and turn it on. Wyatt loves LIGHT…always has. When he goes into any room, he will tell you right quick, “turn the light on”, no matter how light and bright the room may be.

Wyatt on his little stool

As he pulls the chain on that little lamp, he will turn and smile the biggest smile at me and say, “Maw-Maw (in sing-song voice) the light is COLD!”

This comes from the time when he was around 18 months old and I told him not to touch the light because it was hot…having forgotten that I had replaced the old bulb with a new florescent one. Well, of course Wyatt just had to touch that light to see if it truly was hot and actually found out to his delight that it was cold.

So, one of my grandson’s first sentences was,“MAW-MAW, THE LIGHT IS COLD!” and trust me, he hasn’t forgotten it. He always laughs so hard, as if it is the funniest thing that his Maw-Maw was wrong!!!

Wyatt on top of the couch!

Yesterday, when Amanda brought him and William over to see me, I was busy finishing up with the washing of my living room and kitchen curtains. After pausing to fix Wyatt and William a little breakfast, I began hanging the curtains back up, sharing the little two step ladder with the boys, being careful not to step on them on the way down! As soon as I was through, sure enough, Wyatt asked to go into my room.

Now days, even little brother knows the drill! William went straight to the bed and held his little arms up to me to be picked up and placed on Maw-Maw’s bed, while big brother climbed up all by himself…where they both carefully took each and every toy out of that old wicker basket and examined them.

William in serious thought!

As Wyatt slid off the bed and headed for the ottoman to pull the light chain on, baby brother Will grabbed the baby doll and tried to stuff the bottle into it’s mouth. When he couldn’t get the bottle into it’s mouth to shut it up, he picked the baby doll up and put it on his shoulder, patting it’s ( up-side-down) back!! Sure enough, only moments later, Wyatt pulled the light chain on, and looked at me, laughing his head off saying “Maw-Maw…(in sing-song voice) the light is COLD!”

Nope, it doesn’t take that much to make little children happy…some warm clothes in the winter, cool clothes in the summer, good home cooked food, something cool to drink when they are thirsty and most importantly; plenty of LOVE …

With big bear hugs thrown in for good measure.

Is it possible to look at this picture of these two little angels God blessed us with and NOT cry???

I believe that we come into this world with an inner voice telling us what is important, what will make us happy and what is comforting.

We may lose sight of that as we grow up, but fortunately we tend to revert back to it..

As we go into our senior years.

Thank goodness.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WYATT!

2011-06-15T00:59:00.001-04:00

Amanda and Kelvin held a birthday party for Wyatt this past Sunday. Amanda baked a sheet cake and then she and Kelvin decorated it. They made it look like a tractor pull! Which was right up Wyatt's alley! That child loves tractors!

He has a cold, but he still had fun.

Every time someone would come in carrying a gift, Wyatt would excitedly tell me, “Maw-Maw; my presents are coming!!! ” He was so thrilled and had to wait such a long time before getting to open up those glorious presents! So he kept trying to sneak a little bitty bit of paper off a present without his mama seeing him! He would pinch a teeny tiny piece off and wad it up in his little hand, and run throw it in the trash can! And William???

Well, he was running around trying to feed their new little kitty cat to their new German Shepherd pup!!!

“Finally! I get to open Maw-Maw’s present!!”

It did my heart good to see my grandchildren Sunday, but I had a dark cloud hidden deep in my heart. You see, when I woke up Sunday morning, I did like I always do, I looked on Facebook . The very first post I saw was one of a dear friend… One who was there for me before and after Danny died…

My friend, Lori is the type that takes care of everything and everybody. She works without ceasing for her family. She loves her children and grandchildren and puts them above and beyond anything…including herself. Her first post literally screamed at me; “Wes not breathing” And then, “dear God take me, not Weston” and then, “Weston is gone.”

It was then that my heart stopped and my mind absolutely refused to accept what my eyes were seeing. I tell you, the illogical thought of “Surely this must be some kind of new and cruel hacking/spamming joke.” kept running through my brain. When the words of her posts began to finally sink in, the words that came bubbling up like a volcano from my very soul were; “Oh God…Oh God…Oh Heavenly Father…. nooooooooooo…nooooooooo”

You see, my friend’s two month old grandson, Weston… a little cherub… a beautiful little baby boy.…One who had been fine Saturday when she posted a video of him cooing …was gone. Just that fast. Gone. God be with them. I can not begin to imagine the pain they are feeling …but I do know the pain that I am feeling for them. I pray that God grant them all Shalom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I bought a pork roast yesterday. This morning when I got up, it was calling to me from within the refrigerator. It told me it wanted to be part of the bigger story. It wanted to become a huge pot of Brunswick stew.

Okay…so the pork roast really didn’t call out to me…but I just knew it did want to become part of the Brunswick stew I made today, and it got it’s wish! Dan had been dropping hints for weeks that he had no more stew in the freezer, sooooo ….

After making a quick trip to Moon’s Grocery to get some more chicken, corn, tomatoes and grab some of their containers…( I don’t like their tops!) It took me from 7:30 this morning until 3:00 pm to finish cooking all of it. I let it sit and cool down, while I drove Dan out to the Publix shopping center to get a hair cut! When I came back home, I ladled it up into the containers. I ended up with 10 quarts and 10 pints and two bowls that held a pint and a half each.

Guess what we had for supper??

Freezing it to put in the big freezer

You know, I try to make Dan some stew about once a year and each time I do, I have even more respect for my bosses than I did before. They do this every week and let me tell you, they make a heck of a lot more than I did today. Just ONE of their aluminum pots hold more stew than I could make in three days!!

Trust me…

My weary body could tell you right now just how long ,hard, and hot work making Brunswick Stew is …

But I made my young-un happy today…and that makes up for everything.

Until next time…

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

The Last Day of May

2011-05-31T22:13:00.001-04:00

My back yard: 4/19/2011

I have always wished I had a back deck to sit out on in the evenings!

If I am going to keep a journal, then I sure as heck need to be writing more often in it! I am mad at me. So many, many days have gone by ( nearly a month!) and they are now lost, all because I was just too lazy to write it down.

Back in the old days of AOL JOURNALS, there were so many of us writing that it was hard to keep up with each other. Tonight I went over to check on some of my fellow bloggers and some of them are not even there anymore.

There was one lady who’s journal was about her sister having Alzheimer's ; “WATCHING MY SISTER DISAPPEAR” …The last post she wrote was around two years ago and it was titled; “John’s Turn Now”. It was about how her husband now had the same disease! I sure wish I knew how she was..but there is no email…nothing I can follow up on to find her.

Now most of us have went over to Facebook and we tend to forget our journals. Some of my old AOL JOURNAL friends are now on my Facebook friends list, so at least I can keep up with them. One of the best things Danny ever gave me was the computer for my Christmas present a few years before he passed away. I don’t know what I would have done all those hundreds of nights I couldn’t sleep after he died, if it had not been for my online friends. They were there and they kept me going.

Wyatt in his rocker: 5/08/2011

Will on my front porch : 4/29/2011

Wyatt and William are growing so fast…too fast. I often tell Amanda she needs to enjoy every minute of them being small because before she knows it, they will be grown and leaving home… But no one can prepare a mother for that empty nest feeling, it is something one has to learn themselves. Now I know how my mama felt when we all left.

Mama : on Mother’s day, 2011

My mama is doing as okay as possible, but Alzheimer’s is taking her farther and farther away from me…Most times she doesn’t recognize me as her daughter, but will recognize my name and think I am an aid at the nursing home. On days that he goes with me , she seems to think that Dan (my son) is my husband…It is only when I point at the picture on her wall of Danny that she remembers “Danny Noggle” …and that only lasts for a few moments. This breaks my heart every time…She loved Danny so much.

Dan cut the grass for me last week and I didn’t even have to help! Wyatt, William and Amanda was here, so we sat outside and watched him. When Dan would get close to my roses and such, Wyatt would start yelling, “STAY AWAY FROM MAW-MAW’S BUSHES!!” and no…he didn’t hear me saying that either! Pretty smart for a two year old, ( soon to be three) huh??

It was really hot today and is suppose to get hotter. I dread next month’s electric bill because I have had the air on for a while now. Our water/sewage bill doubled this month because of new City Hall rates. Mine was right at $140.00. I don’t know how we low income folks can keep making it what with EVERYTHING going up…groceries, utilities, cable..not to even mention GAS… But God has still been so good to us here in Greene County. Though we have had storm damage, we have not had the devastation that Missouri has had by the killer tornadoes…

I pray that we never ever have to experience that.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

PATHS OF DESTRUCTION

2011-04-28T22:11:00.001-04:00

With my television on yesterday evening and all through the night, I watched in horror as tornado after tornado ripped through Georgia’s sister state, ALABAMA.

It was almost like an evilness had decided that it was going to destroy and kill everything in it’s path. Then, once it started, it couldn’t get enough of the devastation it was causing…

So it kept right on going.

I watched for hours as the tornadoes tore and ripped up Alabama. In the end, it still wouldn’t be satisfied, even with all the destruction it had caused.

So, in the darkness of night, the evilness began it’s deadly trek into the state of Georgia.

Just like General Sherman, who told Grant that he would, “make Georgia howl”, so too did the evilness, as it cut it’s path of destruction from the northern tip to the southern part of our state.

Around 12:30 am, Greene County, Georgia came under a tornado WARNING. Not a watch..but a true WARNING. Which meant that there was rotation on the ground.

AND IT WAS HEADED TOWARD US.

I prayed and prayed …and prayed some more. Not only for myself and my family…but also for my friends and their families.

For over an hour, we were in the middle of hail, lightning, wild roaring wind and torrential rain…

But no tornado.

I ended up going to bed at 5:15 am this morning and got right back up at 7:00am.

While cooking Dan’s breakfast, I again turned the TV on and my heart ached as I looked at the devastation that lay in Alabama and Georgia. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said his state had confirmed 194 deaths. At least 280 people were killed across six states — more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind.There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 14 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured — 600 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama alone.

All day at work, for over ten hours, I worried about those I had not heard from since the tornadoes.

This evening I came home and found that one of my friends from Alabama had commented on Facebook and finally…blessedly, knew that at least she and her husband were safe.

It was like a dam had burst…I sat there and cried like a baby.

It could be that I am just getting soft in my old age, or it could be the hormone pills I now take, or it could be the fact that I only had one and a half hours sleep this morning before I had to get up and go on in to work.

But what I’d like to think it is…

That, as I have aged, I have finally learned what is most important in life.

Loved ones…. family ….. friends.

And the fact that they are SAFE and still with us.

WE ARE SO BLESSED.

Thank You God.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

THAT COULD HAVE BEEN US.

2011-03-03T01:46:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, after work, I was sitting at the drive through window at Zaxby’s waiting on my order, when out of the side door, a little boy and girl came running out. Right behind them were (what I took to be) their parents. They all were laughing and chattering away as they strode toward their jeep, which also had a boat in tow. The dad popped open the rear jeep hatch and the children climbed in eagerly as their parents, laughing and talking amongst themselves, went on around to the front. As I sat there watching them, it hit me;

This use to be us.

One summer when we went to Myrtle Beach, just as we finally pulled up to our motel, our car battery died! A nice couple saw us having trouble and jumped us off, so we could go get a new one. I remembered how that dead battery didn’t spoil our time, and how we laughed all the way to the store. The rest of the vacation has faded into all the other times we went to Myrtle Beach, disappearing like the little wisps of steam that come up from a hot cup of coffee and quickly fade away.

But our laughter still plays on.

I miss those times. When you have children, you are so busy raising them that you don’t notice how fast the time is moving, do you? One minute, it seems we are bringing them home from the hospital, the next we are sending them off to school and before we even know it…they are gone from our homes.

Oh, if I could go back and know then what I know now… I would try to hold on to every minute of every single day. I wouldn’t be so worried about what I needed to get done around the house.

I would take more time to hug my kids and hold them close.

Time goes forward .. it doesn’t come back.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

ONE OF THOSE DAYS

2011-02-17T23:27:00.001-05:00

Today I got up early; well, earlier than usual for a work day. As I walked the pups, I noticed how foggy it was outside and wondered if it would rain.

DANNY AT EMORY 2005

Later, I came inside, cooked breakfast and afterwards, took a shower. I put my clothes on, and went to my bedroom to get my purse and keys.

I keep most of the sweet stuff and drinks in my bedroom, because my son Dan is a diabetic. When he started raiding the sweets while I was at work and his sugar begin to spike, I had the old doorknob taken off and a new one with a lock put on!

So, this morning, I got my purse, shut and locked my bedroom door,and went into the kitchen. I was going to get my R.C. Cola out of the refrigerator to take to work with me! Before I got to the refrigerator though, it dawned on me that I didn’t have my keys. I looked everywhere and couldn't find them, Then it hit me...I had left my keys in my bedroom!

IN MY LOCKED BEDROOM!

I tired using a screwdriver, a butter knife, and even some old keys to no avail! I was just fixing to take the screwdriver and get my hammer and knock the pins out of the hinges, when I thought to go outside and try to go through the window. I got the old plastic lawn chair and pulled it up to the window. I stepped up on it and was just too short to get to the window. So I got the little plastic table and sat it on the chair. I stepped up on it…and it sank to the bottom of the chair…but I was high enough to at least get the screen to unlock and come off the window and then raise the wooden window up. The only trouble was, I couldn’t get my leg up high enough, nor push myself up high enough to get in the window!

So I called Dan…who was laughing at me! He kept saying, Mama if you hadn’t put that lock on the door, you wouldn’t be having to do this!!! Oh, I wanted to pinch his head off!

Did I mention that by this time it was ALSO RAINING???

Dan finally got through the window and went straight to my desk where I keep my keys and they WERE NOT THERE. So, after I finally go the window put back together and went inside, I set about looking for my keys AGAIN.

Would you believe they were sitting right up under my purse???? Dan thought it was hilarious, but not me…

I have always said that my legs are way too short, and today it proved true, because I sure wanted to kick my own butt!

Because, after all that…..

I left my dang R.C. Cola at home.

GOD BELSS YOU ALL.

DANNY NOGGLE

2011-01-29T23:15:00.001-05:00

THE FOLLOWING IS A REPRINT OF A JOURNAL POST I WROTE ON Friday, February 17, 2006…with pictures added.

WORK DAY 02/17/2006

Danny Noggle

Feb. 17, 2006- There were so many people at the Bar-B-Que today. . I met people that I did not know, that knew Danny. Even people from out of state came in to eat and tell me they knew Danny and are praying for us....It is all so overwhelming.....Danny was a simple man, a country boy, and yet there was a lot more to him.........

IN OUR EARLY YEARS

I remember very little about the funeral....I remember the two songs that were sung by a local gentleman that sings and plays the piano at weddings and funerals...a man that we know well, a man that had just lost his wife a month before....He played and sang, as always, beautifully....the one hymn that Danny wanted; "I Have a Mansion, Just Over The Hill Top" and the one I chose; "Wind Beneath My Wings"...( because He WAS and STILL IS MY HERO).....

Danny at the gazebo in Greensboro

I remember looking in the church over to my right at all the Ga. State Patrol and the out of town Oconee County Deputy that were honorary pallbearers that were seated in the little alcove...I remember seeing that Oconee County Deputy break down and cry like a baby......because she was one of "OUR ADOPTED" ....She has stood the pain of being maced and tazered (so she could feel the same pain she could inflict on criminals)....but I have never seen her cry like she did that Thursday...You see, she loved Danny like a daddy....and me like a mama.

Danny and his nephew Troy the last of 2005.

The Ga. State Patrol were Danny's friends...some he went hunting and fishing with...The preacher of our Church that did the eulogy, was also a fishing buddy....Preachers, from all the other local churches were at the service...some having to stand among the many that were packed in the basement....

We had several "adopted " children at the service...Me and Danny could only have 2 children, but our children brought home children from their schools and other various places and somehow or the other, we always ended up "mama" and "pop" to all of them....They all showed back up the day Danny died and came over everyday to offer help, comfort, prayers and love.

Danny was also a father figure to our many nieces and nephews...teaching them how to fish, how to hunt, how to clean what you shoot or catch.....We would gather them up and have Easter Egg hunts, Trick or treat, movies.... they were the kids we could not have and they loved us....Six of the nephews were the pall bearers.

Helping Charity find the eggs.

I heard today about how there was not enough room in the church for all the people that came...that the entire basement was full, and the stairwells, and the Sunday school rooms and the Choir pews.....and there were still people standing outside..in the pouring down freezing rain.....and then there were still people that had went on to the grave yard to wait....

This was left AFTER we took 99% of the flowers home. Every room in my house was full…and the front porch and yards too.

And it really brings home the fact that it doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter how many diplomas you have, it doesn't matter what brand name clothes you wear, nor how perfect your smile is.........My Danny had $40.00 in his bill folder when he died, and a depleted savings account because of all the drugs he had to take....My Danny never made it past the 6th grade, he had to go to work in the cotton mill, but he was the smartest man I have ever known.....My Danny only wore cheap Rustler Jeans, and Wal-Mart tennis shoes that cost $9.00 a pair..and would wear them completely out before he would get anymore.

My Danny, bless his heart, did not have ANY TEETH because they pulled them before the open heart surgery...I once asked him at the BBQ….." Danny, are you embarrassed to talk and smile at these people with no teeth?"and I will never forget what he replied, "Honey, it is not what is in your mouth, it is what comes out of your mouth ."

At Wilmington N.C. on the Naval ship.

What really matters is how you treat others......I heard these words over and over again…"DANNY WAS ALWAYS HIMSELF, DANNY WAS NOT FAKE, DANNY ALWAYS HAD A SMILE FOR EVERYONE, DANNY WAS A KIND AND DECENT MAN, DANNY WAS SO BRAVE AND STRONG; NEVER COMPLAINING, AND WE DID NOT REALIZE HE WAS IN SO MUCH PAIN, DANNY NEVER MET A STRANGER, DANNY WAS NEVER TOO TIRED OR HURT TOO MUCH TO HELP ANYONE"....AND THE ONE I LIKE THE MOST…"DANNY WAS A SPECIAL PERSON"

ALL THE GOLD IN THE WORLD COULD NOT BUY THE PRIDE THAT I HAVE TONIGHT IN MY HEART FOR MY DANNY.

He truly knew what LIFE was all about.

THIS WAS OUR FAMILY

*** Here it is five years to the day Danny died on Jan. 29, 2006 and Today I was at the BBQ again...and every time I walked by the same drink machines out front (where he started having his last heart attack that day) I could still see him there in my mind.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again..if you still by the grace of GOD have that special someone that you love…TELL THEM what they mean to you…TONIGHT.

Tomorrow may not come.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

Posted by Carlene Noggle at 10:44 PM

I USE TO LOVE SNOW

2011-01-11T17:09:00.001-05:00

Okay…I am ready for this snow and ice to disappear! I have places to go, things to do, and … bills to pay!

Back in my younger days, I would have been in my glory with all this white stuff Mother Nature threw at us this week! I use to wait anxiously every winter…wondering if we would get snow and if we did, how much. I couldn’t wait to see the first of the softly falling little flakes hitting the ground! I use to have so much fun building a snowman with Danny and the kids, having snowball fights on Spring Street with my sister-in-laws and their families, and then going home to make snow ice cream!

My most favorite thing to do though, was to climb into the car or truck with Danny and go wandering around the county, just admiring the beauty of the land and trees, and the old barns. To me, Main street in Greensboro always looks like a Christmas card when there is snow on everything …

Ever notice how much nicer things look covered in freshly fallen snow?

When I had Dan, I was 18 years old and so naive…I thought anytime you wanted a baby, all you had to do was just try and nine months or so down the road, there would be another baby to love. Well…it didn’t happen like that for me. After losing two, and going to fertility specialists, I learned that there was very little chance of me ever carrying a child full term again if I got pregnant. It was a very long ten years later that I found out I was pregnant… and this time, praise God, it went full term!

My doctor told me he had a way to determine the date of delivery and my baby would be born on January 12, 1982. Well one night, I dreamed that she would be born on Christmas Eve or Dec. 28, of 1981….and was shown in my dream, that the baby would be a healthy little girl! When I told my doctor about my dream on our next visit, he looked at me like I had lost my mind!! Then he just laughed and said, “If you had wanted a little tax deduction, you should have started sooner!” and laughed at his own little joke.

But the joke was on him…she was born on Dec. 28, 1981 and she was a little girl!!! You should have seen his face when I reminded him of my dream the night Amanda was born!!!

And get this…..Had I came in labor on Jan.12, 1982…I wouldn’t have been able to even get to Wilkes County Hospital, because Green County and the surrounding areas were hit with a snow and ice storm similar to the one we have now!

GOD IS SO GOOD!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

CHRISTMAS EVE 2010

2010-12-24T23:23:00.001-05:00

With Amanda and Kelvin and the grandchildren gone out of town and me not going to be able to see them until tomorrow evening, it was just me and Dan tonight at home. I decided to post a poem I wrote (and it was actually published ) back in 1987. To my surprise, it won the GOLDEN POET AWARD that year…fancy that…the little kid from Horseshoe Bend being a ‘Poet’!

The Horseshoe Bend Kids @ 1955 at my granny’s house on Madison Highway across for the old Phelps's home place; That’s me in my rocker with my colored baby doll!

HOME AT LAST

The day had been a bad one and Christmas Eve was drawing near,

I wished my kids would quiet down … I wished I wasn't here.

I wished I were a child again, back home with mom and dad,

I wished that time would take me back, as I climbed into my bed.

I dreamed of looking through a window, and the past was there to see,

Past that window was my daddy, chopping down our Christmas tree.

In a moment’s time, the scene had changed; frost lay white on Georgia ground,

Fire was crackling in the old wood stove, as all the family gathered round.

In the corner was a Christmas tree, the one cut by loving hands

So tall it touched the ceiling as it stood on an old wood stand.

The children with their threadbare clothes,were so beautiful to see..

For they were my brothers and my sisters; and the smallest child was me!

Long gone smells of cedar mixed with oranges, came back against my will,

As our childish cries of joy and laughter and mama's singing held me still.

Look! Daddy's hugging mama and that's our Granny over there..

Oh, I longed to stay forever within this love we use to share.

From the mantle hung our stockings that were made from old used socks,

On the tree were strings of popcorn; from the bottom to the top.

But something missing from these scenes of old, kept pulling me away

I couldn't see my children, so in Christmas Past I couldn't stay,

There and then I knelt down by that window, praying "Lord, put time back in place"

"For now I've seen how fast time flies, and I have none to waste."

I awoke to cries of joys and laughter, and these not from my past,

These sounds came from my children...I WAS HOME AT LAST.

E.C.L.N.

I wrote this sometime during the latter part of December of 1987. This was two years after my dear daddy had passed away. Amanda was five and Dan was 15… I had went to sleep that night, after having had a bad day with the kids, and actually had the dream I speak of in the poem!

I use to love to write poetry…but haven’t in a long time.

Hope all my friends have a great Christmas tomorrow…remember to tell Jesus Happy Birthday!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

EMPATHY

2010-12-01T10:16:00.001-05:00

What does it take to move the human spirit to show empathy? Empathy is the identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives…so I guess one would have to had experienced at least some of what the other person is going through.

Being raised like we were, gave me the chance to experience things that some folks haven’t had the chance to…Like being hungry because there is no more food left in the house….or the only food available for a day or two was black berries and milk…Like being cold….shivering throughout the night because there is no heat in the house….or standing on the corner waiting on the school bus and telling your friend you are not cold because you have no coat to go back and get….and you are ashamed to admit it. Like being in school and having your shoe fall off your foot because the sole wore out…

As a child and a young adult, I use to be ashamed of the fact that we had very little coming up…I am no longer ashamed of how I was raised..I am actually thankful to GOD for that experience. Please don’t get me wrong…my parents were good people…my daddy worked two and three jobs all his life until he retired… and my mama was a stay at home mama…well most all mama’s were stay at home mamas back then in the 40’s and 50’s…and she worked…oh how hard she worked to keep us going back then on Horseshoe Bend, even with very bad legs and feet. Back then, if there was a welfare system, we didn’t know it…so we made do with what we had.

Having felt cold and hunger as a small child…having had very few clothes that were already thread bare by the time I received them…makes me realize that although television today portrays our country as the land of rich people or middle class people…there are folks here that are dealt a bad hand in life…for whatever reason, they are down on their luck and may not have the mental capacity to improve their situation.

I saw such a person …I watched her closely for over three weeks…I watched her fumble and fiddle with her belongings…I watched her talking to the invisible …to pure air…I watched as she blew on her fingers to try her best to warm them…and my heart broke…and I thought..BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I…OR MY CHILDREN…OR MY GRANDCHILDREN…OR MY MAMA…

We never know what the future may hold for any of us. The way this country is going now days, this could be any one of us.

In a world that has grown cold hearted…in a world where some may think; ‘well, they have chosen their life’….I thank God there are still a few people left with compassion and empathy …I thank GOD there are those among us with the love of CHRIST JESUS burning within them…

I thank God for the ANGELS that are placed among us to help those of us less fortunate.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

DELAYED REACTION

2010-11-14T01:37:00.001-05:00

Boot and Shelby

I found a picture of my nephew and his sister online tonight and I decided I wanted to save that picture…so after I right clicked on it, I had to “name the file”

Before thinking about it, I automatically typed…

“Boot and Sissy.

Because for nearly 19 years, it was always BOOT AND SISSY…

Where you saw one, you usually saw the other. Boot had a love for his little sister like no other brother I have ever known. I have seen him, even as a very young child, intentionally cause a fuss if he thought Sissy was about to get in trouble…just to pull the attention away from her.

Only this time, it wasn’t Sissy in the picture..it was his youngest sister Shelby. Little Shelby is one of the sweetest young ladies I have ever met…a natural ray of sunshine… so very beautiful and chock full of that Georgia southern charm.

So much like Sissy.

As I sat here looking at what I had typed, something snapped within me. I wanted to scream, to rip things up and throw them against the walls, to lie down on the floor and have a freaking all out tantrum…as I sat there sobbing like I haven’t since the day my Danny died.

I think all the tears I had stored within me for years came to the surface.

I guess I had what they call a delayed reaction.

You see…

There was a terrible car accident…

We buried Sissy over a month ago.

She was only 18 years old for gosh sake…

Sissy never got the chance to truly live her life.

Our entire family has an empty place that can never be filled and we miss her so very much.

You never know….

You just never know….

Here one minute...

Gone the next.

Rest In Peace Laura Ashley Epps…

OUR SISSY

You will never be forgotten.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

HALLOWEEN DOINGS 2010

2010-11-04T23:07:00.001-04:00

Well, well, well…..we are finally here…

It is NOVEMBER and the weather is finally beginning to feel like fall…which is a good thing….we don’t need hot weather at this late date.

But for now…lets go back to OCTOBER…..

For Halloween, Kevin carved both Wyatt and Will’s jack-o-lanterns and he did such a good job. He did it free-hand too! Here they are lit up!

Little will’s had a pumpkin spooky face and his name on it.

Of course, Wyatt wanted a tractor on his! His name is to the left but we couldn’t get it and the tractor in the picture.

Although the true Halloween was Sunday, Wyatt and Will went up town Saturday and trick-or-treated at the stores which were giving out candy. Wyatt was dressed up as a Ga. football player and William as the mascot. Kelvin and Dan brought them by Holcomb’s before they went …

Then later on that night, they came to my house and got their little bags of candy. Wyatt thought he was staying with ‘Maw-maw’ and cried when they put him back in the car! Amanda said she bribed him with chocolate to stop the tears! lol

I know this isn’t much of a post…and the truth is…I am really not in the mood to write tonight…haven’t been in a long time…just wanted to put down the grandbabies’ Halloween doings, so I would have it here when I … or they…want to look back.

Maybe later on, my urge to write will came back to me….

Until then….

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

A QUIET PEACEFUL DAY

2010-10-17T21:44:00.001-04:00

Wyatt loves the horsey his ‘Aunt Jady got him.

I didn’t go to church this morning. When I walked the pups before 7 am, it was cold as the dickens! I haven’t turned my old space heater on yet, so the house was chilly inside too…so I crawled back in bed under my covers! Sure did feel good too and before I knew it, I was out like a light and the next thing I knew, it was nearly11:00!

Wee Will…He is the embodiment of love!

Kelly came by today to see Dan. They had a good time talking out on the front porch and when they came in I had some lunch on the table…lunch being sausage, eggs, grits and biscuits…yeah…breakfast! It was pretty good and I finally convinced Kelly to eat with us! Kelly is one of the kids that came into our lives via our children….He is a good kid…yeah I know he is grown now, with children of his own, but to me they are always our kids, no matter how old they get!

I cooked pinto beans, potato salad,hamburger helper and homemade biscuits for supper. (AND SWEET TEA) I made the cheesy enchilada hamburger helper for the first time and it was good…but I think I like the stroganoff the best . I don’t cook hamburger helper much, I usually cook regular meat dishes, but I had bought some boxes of it while it was on sale. I also had coupons for it, so I was able to save a lot…and trust me, every bit helps.

So, I am sitting here watching SISTER WIVES. The TV just happened to be on TLC and this new show comes on. I don’t know about anyone else, but this kind of family life seems sort of crazy to me…To each his own..but when I see shows like this, I always wonder why there are no brother husbands? I mean…why is it that it is always the man that has extra wives and not the other way around?

One morning earlier this month…

Not saying that I would agree with that lifestyle either, but it sounds to me like the men sort of get to have their cake and eat it too and the women don’t…they just have to sit around and watch their husband go out and “court” another woman and then bring her into the family. This just doesn’t seem right to me…in more ways than one. If these women want sisters…someone to share their lives and their children with…why not have a family sort of like the TV sitcom GOLDEN GIRLS portrayed and kick the husband to the side? Hey, since they have umpteen kids all combined, they could all pool their child support and live pretty good!!!

Seriously, I am so glad that Autumn has finally got here, me and hot weather do not get along. The leaves are falling, falling,falling and the mornings are very chilly. Every now and then, I hear the pecans from the old pecan tree out back hitting my tin roof and it ‘s a nice sound. I love the Fall… love it about as much as I love the Spring of the year.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

IF ONLY I COULD…

2010-10-11T21:49:00.001-04:00

For once; three sisters with their mama.

Is there anything more comforting than food that your mama use to cook for you? I find it so odd that the food that we had almost daily, is the exact food that I crave when the world turns upside down and I am wondering how much longer I can hold on.

Tonight I cooked blackeyed peas and cornbread for mine and Dan’s supper…I had started ‘looking’ some dry pinto beans when Dan, sitting across the table from me, said, “Mama, are those blackeyed peas???” I knew instantly that he was wanting peas instead, so I put some water over the pinto beans to cook later on tomorrow, and began ‘looking’ the blackeyed peas.

(For those who don’t know; looking is the act of looking through the dry beans/peas for any tiny rocks, dirt, etc. to get rid of before washing and cooking…something I was taught to do once married and cooking for my own little family)

My mama made the best blackeyed peas! Usually when she had them for supper, she also cooked collard greens and cornbread to go along with them. Just ask Dan and he will tell you that his GRANDMA LINDSEY cooked the BEST blackeyed peas and collards! He tells me that I come close, but hers is and always will be the BEST! (I think ALL her grandchildren would say the same thing if asked! That’s okay by me, because it is the truth!)

Kay, Mama’s oldest grandchild, came home for the first time in years. Kay is not only my niece, but also my hero…a very brave and strong Christian lady.

The loss of Laura Ashley has cut our hearts and added a new scar. I can’t and won’t talk about it now, it is too sad…. but her loss has me pondering about a lot of things. If any good came out of her death,it is that it brought family back together.

I’ve been looking way back and thinking about how my life has played out so far and have been regretting the many mistakes I have made. I’ve been wondering why things happen the way they do and what I would do differently if only God would give me a chance to go back in time…

I know that I would…

Truly honor my parents…Oh, I learned the ten commandments back in my early childhood, but it wasn’t until I got much older, with children of my own, that I fully understood what the word HONOR meant. I know now that it goes right along with r-e-s-p-e-c-t… and if I had the chance today, I would do al lot more honoring and respecting and I would wrap my arms around my parents and tell them how much I appreciate all the sacrifices they made for me. Sacrifices that I didn’t even notice at the time.

Isn’t she beautiful?? My cousin; who will always be “Baby Helen” to us…thanks to my mama.

I would sit down with my Granny and both my parents and ask all about their childhoods and their lives and I would write it all down, so that when I became my age now and my children wanted to know, I wouldn’t have to worry about having forgot it.

I would put my all into being a good student. Oh, I did pretty good in school…but I was so lazy when it came to putting my all into it. So, if given the chance, I would sit in every class, everyday and be a virtual sponge soaking up all the knowledge that was thrown my way….and if I didn’t understand some bit of information, I would be brave enough to hold my hand up and ask .

I would care less of what others thought of me and strive to please GOD more. I would be brave enough to laugh in the face of those silly girls in grade school who wouldn’t play with me or teased me about being poor….

For poor I was not…

I was rich in what mattered most.

I had love.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

PRECIOUS MEMORIES

2010-09-15T00:28:00.002-04:00

When Danny and I first got married, he worked at the Mary Leila Cotton Mill as a doffer. He took me on a tour of his work section one day when we were dating…I was awed at how fast he had to be to keep up with those huge machines!

I remember there was cotton blowing everywhere in that room. The whole room’s air was infiltrated with tiny loose cotton strands. No wonder Danny use to come home after work with the white fuzz all in his hair, his nose, his throat, and all over his entire body. All the workers did. His mama and his grandmother both worked with Danny at the Mill, and would come help him catch up with his section at lunch, so they could all eat together.

When we married, we rented a little 3 room shotgun house from the Mill. It was right in front of the Mill’s front office and though empty now, it still stands. We didn’t own a car, so we walked to town to get our groceries…Back then there was very little money, so there were very few groceries to carry home! We mainly lived off beans and cornbread and only occasionally would we have meat for supper. But we were so happy!

Back when I lived on Horseshoe Bend…we had chicken maybe once a week on Sunday morning. Mama had to go outside and catch that chicken and kill it, scald it, pluck it, clean it and then and only then, was she able to fry it. Sometimes during the week, if daddy had time from working his two jobs to go fishing, we would have fried catfish or bream and if it was hog killing time, we had pork…but mostly beans and potatoes or just white gravy and biscuits…Oh what I would give for mama’s good white gravy and great big fluffy cat head biscuits now!

You know, in the fifty plus years God has granted me here on this earth, I have come to understand that it is the simplest things which give us true happiness and most times, we don’t realize it until much later in life.

It is the simple things from my past that I miss the very most …like snuggling up with Danny on cold winter nights,he and I both fussing because our feet are so cold… holding each other’s hands while walking , seeing my babies take their first steps, going to get a Christmas tree with Danny and our kids, taking our babies to see their grandparents for the first time, me and Danny picking up pecans with Kathy and Donnie, and laying in bed talking with Danny.

These times in my life didn’t cost a dime, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to put a price on them.

Remember the old hymn Precious Memories?

Memories like these are priceless.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

REMEMBERING MARGARET SEELIGER

2010-09-10T22:54:00.001-04:00

September 11, 2001

After voting, they would have walked on toward work together as usual, but Bruce had a doctor's appointment. So this morning, they kissed goodbye at the corner of 76th Street and Third Avenue. Bruce stood watching as Margaret boarded the train that would take her to her job and unknowingly, to her fate. You see, only thirty-four years old, Margaret Seeliger was employed as Head of the Student Health Division of Anon Insurance.

Which happened to be located on the 100th floor at 2 World Trade Center in New York.

Margaret had boundless energy, and lived her life to the fullest. She felt and often stated that "you never know how long you have here on this earth" so she was always busy. Many of her weekends were spent in Buffalo visiting with her mom, who had fallen victim to Alzheimer's. Margaret was a very important part of her mom's care, attending to even the smallest details for her.

Since her mother was no longer able to do so, Margaret had taken over the role of being "Grandma" to her 11 nieces and nephews. She and her husband Bruce were constantly traveling to soccer games, or school plays in Rochester, California, Philadelphia and Atlanta. Looking so much like her own mom, the children had even began calling her "Grandma".

On some weekends, she and Bruce would catch a flight to Atlanta to visit with her sister Beth and her three children. It was on one of those last visits that Margaret asked Beth to hold on to the crib and baby clothes that she had in her basement...secretly confiding that she wanted to start trying to get pregnant that November.

November never came for Margaret.

On that bright and beautiful morning of September 11, 2001, Bin Laden ordered an attack on AMERICA, killing thousands of innocent people as planes crashed into the the Pentagon, an open field and… The World Trade Center Towers.

Where Margaret worked.

I can not imagine the fear and the panic that had to be running rampant through the buildings as people tried to flee to safety, but Margaret Seeliger bravely gave up her space on the last over crowded elevator that would leave the 100th floor of 2 World Trade Center…

So that two of her colleagues could make it out.

MARGARET SEELIGER DIED A HERO.

So, Bin Laden…YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SCUM…

YOU FAILED.

FOR YOU DID NOT DETROY THAT WHICH HAS MADE AMERICA THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD…

LOVE, COMPASSION, LOYALTY, BRAVERY AND OUR BELIEF IN THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD.

God bless you Margaret Seeliger and May Our Almighty God rest your soul….May His Holy Spirit continue to bring comfort to your family and friends.

YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.

FOR

WE WILL NEVER FORGET

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

LABOR DAY AND DENTISTS

2010-09-07T23:01:00.001-04:00

Sign of the times…Fall is coming!

This past Saturday at the BBQ was our first Georgia Bulldog Game, the start of Dove hunting season, Labor Day weekend and the first week of the month, all rolled into one long day! So needless to say, we were busy! After opening at 9:00am, we sold out of meat and stew by 11:30 am and had to get more brought in.

FUTURE BULLDOG FANS

People were lined up in the dining area as soon as we got there for the fried pork skins and it was all we could do to weigh them and get them bagged and sell them. We sold out of ALL the pork skins within 15 minutes of opening. We had a very brisk day, selling out of meat and stew twice more before we finally called it quits at 7:30pm.

We had some Georgia Bulldog fans ( ADULTS ) come in and sit at the long back table near closing time. On each side of that table hung up on the wall are Georgia Bulldog rugs. In the middle of the rugs is an approximately 3ft x 4ft Georgia Tech Banner hung a little higher up on the wall in honor of my boss’ nephew ( he is also the owner’s grandson) who graduated from there. When the Bulldog Fans left, I went back to clean off their table and found the Georgia Tech Banner wadded up under the table with the chairs sitting on top of it. Now wouldn’t you think that ADULTS would have more respect for other’s property than that? We may have been poor little critters out there on Horseshoe Bend, but my mama taught us ALL how to have respect .

Just a moment before Will pulled his brother’s ear!

After I got off work, I headed home and took the pups out for a quick walk and then headed back over to Amanda’s house to babysit my grandsons. It was Kelvin’s sister Liz’s birthday and they wanted to take her out to celebrate. They had a whole lot of folks, Dan included, going along with them to Cowboy’s…a country music dance hall over in Milledgeville. My grandboys were so sweet…never had an ounce of trouble out of either one of them. Amanda and Kelvin are blessed with two good natured little tykes. Little Wyatt was so happy to see me when I come in that he started hopping up and down and doing the happy dance!!! I asked him; “Wyatt, what are you doing?” and he said, “I happy Maw-maw!” and then he ran and put his little arms around my legs and just hugged me so tight! God have mercy, that baby can melt this old woman’s heart.

Watching TV together!

It was around 5:00 am when Amanda, Kelvin, Liz and Dan finally made it home and everyone seemed to have had a wonderful time! I had let the boys stay up as late as they wanted because I knew their parents would probably want to sleep late the next day…but I stayed awake the whole time. So I was more than ready to head back to my house and crawl into my bed when they all came home! I went to bed as soon as I got home and went back to bed off and on all day Sunday….and no I didn’t make it to church.

Will took Wyatt’s pickle!

Wyatt took his pickle back!

So Will got his very own pickle!

Yesterday morning, Amanda, Kelvin, the boys, Dan and I all got together and went to the Crawfordville Labor Day Fair. Kelvin’s mama and Liz came over there later on too. For it to have been so cool when I got up around 6:30, it sure did get hot during the fair! I got sunburned on my neck and face. We kept the kids in the shade and kept them well hydrated. I had heard the parade would start at 10 am but found out once there that it wouldn’t start until 2:00! Right after the parade, we left and came home. We had a real nice time, but I missed getting me some scuttlins and muskidines….and gosh, I sure did want some.

Keeping the fluids coming!

Watching the parade with mommy

Playground near the fair…One tired little Will

I woke Dan up this morning around 7:00am and after getting dressed, we headed to Athens to the dentist. He had to have oral surgery to remove three teeth. He was suppose to have four pulled but once there, he asked the dentist not to pull his front one yet! So the dentist said he would wait a while on that one. I tell you what, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer dentist! Matter of fact all of the people there were very kind and tried their very best to make Dan as comfortable as could be. Of course Dan was so nervous that the dental chair was shaking violently while he sat there waiting to get it over with!

Today at Dentist.

Right about the time I took this picture, I thought he was was going to get up and go! It didn’t help matters that someone across the hall…a grown man…was screaming his fool head off every time the dentist stepped near him! I wanted to step over there and help him out…by knocking his butt on out…the hard way!

Man, he had Dan scared to death!

You have to understand, Dan has been terrified of doctors and dentists since he was a baby and it has always been the hardest thing to get him to go. It was so awful when he was younger because sometimes, we had to literally drag him into the doctor’s office or hospital kicking and screaming. It hasn’t gotten much better either, believe me! For one thing, he is a lot bigger and hard for me to mange.

All and all, he did pretty good today and I thank God for the kindness of the dental team up there at Athens' Family Dental Clinic.

And I thank you my friends for all your kind words and prayers; for I am sure they helped make the day a little easier…

But, I am so glad that this day is over with!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL .

THREE LITTLE WORDS

2010-08-30T23:44:00.001-04:00

Petting zoo at Myrtle Beach.

Three little words….

Isn’t it amazing how three little words have the power to turn your world upside down, make your heart do flip-flops and even stop the world from turning?

At Myrtle Beach 8/2010

Wyatt came home with me a few nights ago. He had came to the BBQ with his Daddy near closing time, and wanted to ride in ‘Maw-maw’s car’ when we got ready to leave. Though I was tired from working 11 hours, when he reached for me to hold him and those little legs wrapped tightly around my waist and he put those little arms around my neck…well…it would have taken an act of God for me to say no. After I asked permission for him to go from his parents, he quickly turned and said, “bye bye Mommy, bye-bye Daddy, and then we were on our way…to Maw Maw’s house.

Will tried to eat the beach!!!

When we got there, I fixed us some supper and after he had finished eating he wanted to go “sit on the bed”… “c'mon Maw Maw…go sit on bed” he says…It is his ritual every time he comes over. He has toys in a little woven basket that he has played with on my bed ever since he was old enough to sit up and before.

He loved the sand!

So that night, he and I and his Uncle Dan were sitting on the bed, while he took his toys out one by one and played with each of them, as he does every time. In that old woven basket, his treasures await him. A duck rattle/teether, a Glow worm doll, a baby doll with a milk bottle that cries if you don’t feed it, an assortment of plastic blocks, and two harmonicas…which his Maw Maw thinks he plays like Neal McCoy! Well maybe not yet…but in time… These are his toys…that he plays on Maw Maw's bed with…this is his thing he does every time that he is at my house.

He has to have trucks and tractors!!!

Later on, he asked to play with “maw maw's blocks”, which is a wooden perpetual calendar that sits on my desk. It has little oblong wooden months that slide into the bottom and square wooden blocks that have the dates on them, that sit on top of a little shelf. I have always let him play with it and he plays with it like a puzzle, putting the various pieces on it, making different dates.

I love this one..see their reflection in the glass?

When he had finished placing the blocks on it that night, I looked and nearly fell off the bed …He had put in: JULY 14…

Danny’s birthday!

I know… it was just a coincidence, but still…

Will in his car!!!

He had his back to me, still playing with that calendar, when all of a sudden, he got real still and quietly turned around and looked me square in the face and said… “I love you Maw Maw”, just as serious as he could be. He had never before said those words even around me , much less to me. My jaw dropped open and with a lump about the size of Texas in my throat , I managed to get out; “I love you too Wyatt”.

I was so stunned that I then turned and asked Dan, “Did you hear him?” trying to make sure I wasn’t imagining it..and Dan said; “yes Mama, he said I love you Maw Maw” and hearing his Uncle Dan, Wyatt grinned like a little monkey and grabbed me around my neck and said it twice again!

“I love you Maw Maw…I love you!!!”

Now this may seem like such a trivial thing to some.

But let me tell you this…

I wouldn’t take a million dollars for those …

Three little words.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

LOCKED OUT

2010-08-23T23:05:00.002-04:00

To say that today has been “one of those days” is an understatement. It started out like a good day. I got up early and began my day like always…walking the pups, feeding Annie ( my outside dog), walking Annie, giving her clean water, and then watering my almost dead as door nails tomato plants. Afterwards, I went inside and made my bed, swept my floors, and made out checks for my bills.
I have been wanting to paint my living room, so after I got all that over and done with, I got on line to Home Depot and checked on paint colors. I want a neutral color this time, so that it will go with any furniture or curtains, etc. Well, you wouldn’t believe just how many neutral colors there are! I finished up on line, and called my sister to see if she needed to go to town when I went. She did, so I told her to be ready in 30 minutes and I went and got my shower.
Oh, it felt so good taking that shower. I felt so much better after being out in the heat and humidity this morning. I quickly threw my clothes and makeup on and actually had a little spring in my step when I walked out onto the front porch and closed the front door. I knew it as soon as I heard the door click shut and I could have just fell down and had a dang temper tantrum right then and there, had I not been on my front porch where everyone could see me.
But as it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing me…oh noooooooooooo…..because there was NOBODY around. For once in it’s life, my whole street was empty and as dead as a ghost town. Remember those old westerns that use to be on TV years ago with the tumbling weeds always blowing across the dirt roads ? Yeah…it was like that.
Luckily, I had my cell phone, so I called a couple of folks hoping that someone would be there to help me…..but oh nooooooooooooo….everybody was gone. Even my kids were gone. So here I am stuck outside in 90 plus degree heat, with no house key, no car key, nothing …. but me.
So, I walk around back and drag the water hose holder, which looks like a plastic square box,to a window. I try to get my leg up to the top of it to get on it…nope…can’t. So I lay my cloth purse down on it to cushion my old knees and get up on it . I slowly try to stand up on it and finally got upright and started trying to take the storm window off. It wouldn’t budge. I get down and head toward the old wood shed… which is locked with one of the keys that is inside my house.
I am able to find a pair of old rusted catfish skinners that Danny use to use, in a catch all box under the shed, so I grab those and head back to the hose box under the window. I ease myself back on on it and using the catfish skinner handles, I pry up the hateful storm window and toss it on the ground . Then I try to raise the old window (that has been in this house ever since it was built by the cotton mill eons ago)…..and of course…it doesn’t budge. By this time, I am sweating bullets and so pissed off at myself, that, as my granny use to say, I could whoop my own butt.
I say a few choice and ungodly words and then go at that old window like a demon child with those skinners and it finally comes unstuck and raises. Oh…I felt so victorious…..Until… I tried to raise myself high enough to get a leg (or even my head) inside that window. There was no way on God’s green earth that I could get my leg that high and still be normal. And no way I could jump up and fly in that window like a bird either….so I step down off my box and did what I had not wanted to do….
I called Greensboro PD.
The 911 dispatcher was nice enough considering me being the fool locked outside on Mill Street calling but she informed me that they were on a call and would be there shortly. After a good while, I see the white police car coming. The policeman walks around back with me, but he was as short as I and could not reach the window either. So he had to call back up. Well, the next one was as about as short but must have been more agile, since he was able to (after pulling off his police tool belt) pull his weight up enough to get through the dang window.
And wouldn’t you know it…As soon as his leg went in, Hallie, my Chihuahua and the other three ( aka mini pit bulls ) go into attack mode. It was only when the other policeman informed him that he had to go all the way through the house to the front door and unlock it, that he jokingly yelled for his tazer!
So here I am…with a policeman running through my house with four Chihuahuas nipping at his legs…Man…If embarrassment could kill you, I would be as dead as my tomato plants.
Needless to say I am so grateful to those two angels that we call cops.
This was just the beginning of my day today…there is more…
But..
I am too tired to go into that just yet.
GOD BLESS THE GREENSBORO PD
AND
GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

ANTS , BUBBA, AND WEE WILL

2010-08-14T21:38:00.001-04:00

I have ants in my car! Yes … ants! My car sits under a pecan tree in my front yard, so I guess that’s where the ants are coming from. There’s nothing like driving down the highway and feeling an ant biting the blue blazes out of your foot that’s on the accelerator! And what’s up with that anyway? How in the heck can an ant bite that hard??? Have you ever seen an ant’s mouth??? Me neither! Heck, their heads aren’t big enough for a mouth to be on it…much less have teeth!!! I am seriously thinking about throwing an ant bomb in the car tonight…what yall think?

Amanda, Wyatt, Kelvin and William in Helen, Ga.

I got to bring Wyatt home with me Thursday evening after I got off work. I was so tired form working all day, but yall know grandma’s are hardly ever too tired for their grandbabies. Since Wyatt was here, he helped me walk the dogs. ( He has been helping me walk the dogs since he himself first learned how to walk. )The daddy dog, Bubba, is getting a little older now, so it takes him a while to get his mind set on going wee-wee…. so, I had walked the dogs up the street and back several times…in 97 degree heat…with Wyatt walking right along by my side… when all of a sudden Wyatt sort of does a side kick towards Bubba and says very loudly and in as stern a voice as a two year old can muster up , “ GO PEE BUBBA!”

Well let me tell you...I nearly fell out !!! I didn’t know the kid could even say that, much less realize that Bubba was the reason we were going up and down the street so many times! Not wanting to encourage his kicking at animals, I nearly choked just trying not to laugh as I told him we mustn't be mean to animals!

Amanda has a heavy metal baby gate that Kelvin’s mom gave them . It is a nice one that is real sturdy. Amanda put it in between their living room and kitchen doorway so the kids can’t get into the kitchen while she cooks.. Well, our little William has learned to crawl to the baby gate and pull himself up. Then he stands there at the baby gate holding on with one hand and jumping up and down while just a jabbering! (Amanda says he reminds her of a little monkey when he does that! lol )

You know…there’s not much of anything that can bring a smile to your face like a baby can…and just let that baby be your grandbaby and oh my…

Suddenly your world seems a whole lot brighter.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

YOU NEVER KNOW

2010-08-13T23:39:00.000-04:00

Nothing special about my work day this morning…No funny feelings like I am sometimes known to get if something is going to happen. Just a normal day, as I headed toward the table in the corner with pen and pad in hand. It was after I had gotten their order that the lady informed me that a friend’s husband had suffered a brain aneurysm this morning. I was so shocked that my breath literally caught in my throat and it was all I could do to keep from crying.

This friend had lost her daddy a little over 6 weeks ago and had just underwent some painful oral surgery the day before. She had been through quite a rough time and had shown me just how strong she truly is.

And now this.

I am sure when she went to bed last night that she had no idea…no inkling… that her world was about to be turned upside down.

Just like that night over four years ago…when I didn’t know that my world, as I knew it, was about to end .

Sometimes I have wondered if I would have done anything or said anything different that Saturday night had I known. Oh, I am sure there would have been some things done differently on both our parts, but we pretty much had already ‘gotten ourselves in gear’ so to speak, because God had already given me and Danny the warnings. You see, there were several smaller heart attacks before the massive heart attack that finally took his life.

The weeks we spent together at Emory during his open heart surgery to replace his aortic valve was time that we spent talking about all our years together and also about what time that we hoped we had left. The night before his surgery, we stayed up all night because Danny wanted to make sure that I knew all his wishes, just in case. My heart breaking, I didn’t want to listen…but he was determined…and he was so happy when he awoke to find that he had made it through the surgery.

That was in August of 2005.

We didn’t know it then, but we only had five more months together on this earth. That Sunday morning on Jan 29, 2006 was like any other Sunday morning at our house…Matter of fact, Danny told me he felt better than he had in years.

Within two hours, he would be gone…

Forever.

Today, while working at the Bar-B-Que I was reminded once again how fragile life is.

How the totally unexpected can come flying from out of nowhere to smack you right in the face, when you least expect it.

So, before you go to bed tonight, if you are lucky enough to still have that special someone there with you…

Give them a great big hug and make sure that they know how much you love them…

Because you never know.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

YOU NEVER KNOW…

2010-08-13T23:21:00.001-04:00

Nothing special about my work day this morning…No funny feelings like I am sometimes known to get if something is going to happen. Just a normal day, as I headed toward the table in the corner with pen and pad in hand. It was after I had gotten their order that the lady informed me that a friend’s husband had suffered a brain aneurysm this morning. I was so shocked that my breath literally caught in my throat and it was all I could do to keep from crying.

This friend had lost her daddy a little over 6 weeks ago and had just underwent some painful oral surgery the day before. She had been through quite a rough time and had shown me just how strong she truly is.

And now this.

I am sure when she went to bed last night that she had no idea…no inkling… that her world was about to be turned upside down.

Just like that night over four years ago…when I didn’t know that my world, as I knew it, was about to end .

Sometimes I have wondered if I would have done anything or said anything different that Saturday night had I known. Oh, I am sure there would have been some things done differently on both our parts, but we pretty much had already ‘gotten ourselves in gear’ so to speak, because God had already given me and Danny the warnings. You see, there were several smaller heart attacks before the massive heart attack that finally took his life.

The weeks we spent together at Emory during his open heart surgery to replace his aortic valve was time that we spent talking about all our years together and also about what time that we hoped we had left.

The night before his surgery, we stayed up all night because Danny wanted to make sure that I knew all his wishes, just in case. My heart breaking, I didn’t want to listen…but he was determined…and he was so happy when he awoke to find that he had made it through the surgery.

That was in August of 2005.

We didn’t know it then, but we only had five more months together on this earth. That Sunday morning on Jan 29, 2006 was like any other Sunday morning at our house…Matter of fact Danny told me he felt better than he had in years.

Within two hours, he would be gone….

Forever.

Today, while working at the Bar-B-Que I was reminded once again how fragile life is.

How the totally unexpected can come flying from out of nowhere to smack you right in the face, when you least expect it.

So, before you go to bed tonight, if you are lucky enough to still have that special someone there with you…

Give them a great big hug and make sure that they know how much you love them….

Because you never know.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

SCHOOL DAYS...SCHOOL DAYS

2010-08-05T23:30:00.000-04:00

My daddy was a school bus driver. I can remember him getting up in the wintertime before the sun came up, to get that old number 13 school bus started. That way it would heat up enough to get the ice off the windshield…I can also remember him coming back into the house and his eyebrows would actually have frost on them. Yeah…it use to be that cold in the wintertime in Georgia back in the 50’s !

WYATT….BEFORE.

We were so poor back then. Don’t get me wrong, I am poor now, but nothing like back then. I can remember going to school one day and my shoe sole coming right off my old worn out hand-me-down shoe….I also remember my daddy patching it with rubber from car tires.

There were no free lunches back then..If you didn’t have the money, you didn’t eat… unless you brought something from home. I can remember so well the teacher calling our names, one by one, to come to her desk with our lunch money, which was 30 cents a day. Oh, how embarrassed I would be to have to say, “ I don’t have it.” Now, 30 cents a day doesn’t sound like much…but it was back then…especially if you had to multiply it by 6 or 8.

HE GOT A BUZZ CUT TODAY!

Many a day, when I first started in primary, I was sent to school with a cold peanut butter biscuit wrapped in paper. Let me tell you, that cold biscuit tasted pretty dang good by lunch time to that little girl from Horseshoe Bend!

For a long time in first grade, there was a boy who would make me give him my biscuit… and even threatened me if I told…so I would end up with nothing to eat at all on those days. This went on for a good while until I, in my 6 year old mind feeling that I had no other choice, told my mama a fib. I told her that I needed two biscuits for lunch because one wasn’t enough. So, at six years old, I learned to hide one biscuit and give the other to that old biscuit thief .

William, doing what he does best!

You know, for a long time I held a deep hatred for this guy. The way I saw it; he stole my dang biscuit…which left me awfully hungry…and worse yet, it forced me to lie to my mama. When you are poor, you already don’t have much of anything… so there is nothing worse than someone stealing what little you do have from you.

So,for a LONG time, I hated him…

Until it finally dawned on me that he was probably just as poor and just as hungry as I was! Like a little stray hungry kitten that will claw and hiss and snatch…Stealing my biscuit was the only way he knew how to fill his little hungry stomach back then. So, I finally had to quit hating him.

As you can see, he doesn’t need a buzz cut!

Now here we are in 2010. I have no children in school at this point in time, but I have heard parents around here talking about the school lists and wondered what all the fuss was about. Being the inquisitive person that I am, I looked it up to see what exactly was on these lists. Maybe I am old fashioned, but in my opinion these lists are ….

Ridiculous !!!

Here is a sampling of the lists and keep in mind it is for primary school grades and kindergarten.

Ziploc bags; gallon, sandwich, and quart sizes
3 boxes of tissue ( it ranges from 1-3 )
2 bottles of glue
a whole pack of glue sticks
a 24 pack of #2 pencils
a whole pack of erasers
1 roll of paper towels
2 bottles of hand sanitizer
1 pack of Clorox wipes ( for the desks)
paper plates and paper cups

This is just a sample…some lists are longer than this one…Now tell me this isn’t ridiculous!

My first grade teacher; Miss Sally, would have have fell out of her desk chair laughing had she seen this list and then she would have gotten mad!

Miss Sally drove the same black model A ( or was it a T?) Ford car the whole time she was a teacher back in the 50’s and 60’s. So that alone should tell you she did not believe in waste such as this. This car was one that had the hand crank on the front of it.

Dear old Miss Sally…she was up in her 80’s or 90’s but she would lead us to the bathroom, where she made it her business to see that we all, one by one, washed our little hands correctly…using plain old soap and water…not hand sanitizer….and we dried them on brown paper towels supplied by the school in the bathroom.

If a child came to school with a cold and had a runny nose or such, the parents sent tissues for them…or a handkerchief…(or a rag if you were poor)….If all else failed, we went to the school bathroom and got a wad of toilet tissue. We sure as heck didn’t have to bring three boxes of tissues for Heaven’s sake!

Our desks got wiped off by the janitor, or the teacher, or kids being held after school, later… after we went home…so we didn’t bring Clorox wipes either.

Paper plates and paper cups were only for birthday parties, valentine parties or such and the parents of the child or the PTA mother and/or teacher supplied them at the time of the party.

We knew to bring a pencil, a pack of notebook paper, (or one of those FAT pencils and an ABC tablet if younger), but that was pretty much all, until we got into high school. On up in grade we did have to have composition books, rulers, folders and such too. If we happen to forget something, or gave out of paper, or say our pencil broke or the eraser fell off….well, we either borrowed one from a friend or we made do until the next day.

Of course I can see having to bring pencils, paper, and even a glue stick…but whole packs of them???? I have heard that these extra items are for the children that do not bring such. What I would like to know is….If a child comes to school without even pencil or paper or a Kleenex to blow their nose on for goodness sake, why aren’t the parents of these children contacted right then and there?

The way I see it…If there is a real need for assistance, or the child is being neglected intentionally, then maybe donations can be raised or if need be, the local family and children services contacted.

It is not right, and down right wrong to put the burden of cost for these extra supplies on parents that are already having a hard enough time furnishing clothes and supplies for their own children.

Yep…
Bless your heart,
&
Rest on in peace Miss Sally…

Because if you were here today….

You would definitely be mad.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

I HATE ALZHEIMERS.

2010-07-18T16:24:00.003-04:00

There is a lady in front of me , as I walk the walkway to the front door of the nursing home. She very quickly punches in the security code, so I am spared doing so.
As I enter the lobby, I catch a glimpse of my mama rolling her wheel chair around the corner…I figure she is headed toward her room, but as I rounded the corner, I find that I had been wrong…my mama has stopped to chat with a lady. A lady that is in a semi-comatose state. Mama is holding a pretty good one sided conversation with her as I come up behind her. I grab hold of the handles to her chair and say “Hello mama, I love you!” She quickly turns her head to be able to see who has hold of her and says, “ Have you come to roll me back to my room?”
I stare into her blue eyes and I wait for a flicker of recognition. When it finally comes, she thinks I am her long dead cousin’s daughter…and my heart sinks.
I know this is going to be another hard visit.
I slowly roll her to her room and when we get there, we both notice that the room is cold as ice…so I quickly go and turn the air down… because my Mama is cold natured.
When I get that done, I turn and go back to her and sit on her bed. She is sitting there with the brightest smile on her face. I ask her how she has been doing and she quickly tells me about the cold she has…a cold that she has had for years…and how it is all in her chest. (Where this pretend cold came from and why it has stuck around in her mind all these years, no one knows, but I believe it is her way of knowing that she has to have help because she is sick….Through all the years that I have known her, my mama never let anyone help her, or tend to her…so I figure that in her mind, she has to be sick to stay in the ‘hospital’.)
Mama asks me who I am…and I tell her, "Mama, I am Carlene; your baby.” She thinks about that for only a minute before her face lights up and her eyes begin to sparkle and she says, “Carlene! Are you my baby girl?” My heart lifts and just as I am saying , “Yes, mama, I am your baby”…I see her eyes begin to dull and glaze over and I know that she has already forgotten me…her baby girl. My mama has no short term memory left and what you tell her only remains for a minute before it is gone…and forgotten.
Here is part of the conversation we had today…..

Mama: “ How’s your mama?”
Me: “ She is okay” ( I learned a while back not to antagonize her by trying to get her to understand the truth…and my mama is okay…sort of.)
Mama: “Why don’t you come live with us? I will make sure that you have plenty to eat” ( I don’t know yet who the ‘us’ is…but that’s my mama for you…always worried about folks going hungry…)
Me: “I can’t…I have to work”
Mama: “ What…I can’t hear you. Tell it to this ear.” ( she leans forward and points to her right ear.)
Me: “ I have to work!” ( leaning forward and trying to talk loudly into her ear and trying to make sure my pronunciation is clear)
Mama: “ Whaaaaaaat???? I can’t hear you…try it again” as she shakes her ear vigorously and leans forward….again.
Me: “ I have to work, I can’t live with you.” ( I say this as I am groping around in my purse to find an ink pen and piece of paper…It is strange how her hearing improves when I start writing what I say down!
Mama: “Please come and live with us…you won’t have no worries, no rent…nothing…” She is smiling and clapping her hands now like a little girl….
Me: “ Okay mama”
Mama: “ Really!!?…My Mama loves you to death and I won’t let the kids bother you” (She is talking about her mama…Who the kids are, I don’t know…unless they are us…me and my sisters and brothers back in the past)
Mama: “ Are you staying with your mama? How is Aunt Hallie Armour? She was my favorite aunt! Please tell her that I love her. She can come live with us too! After you left that least time, I missed you so much. ”
I am just nodding silently now…
Mama: “I’ve been going to school…are you still in school too? I can quit…the way things are now…” ( she lets the rest just hang there.
Mama: “ Why don’t you come live with us? Walt loves yall too. Do you like the country?” ( ‘Walt’ was my daddy…my hero…the man I thought walked on water….He died in 1985. ‘The country’ is where we grew up…on HORSESHOE BEND.)
Mama: “ I don’t know when they are going to come get me…they haven’t said.” ( I don’t know what she meant by this…but it gave me an eerie feeling, since she had been talking about all those loved ones that have gone on to the afterlife…)
By this time, I am silently nodding…biting my lip and trying my damndest to swallow the ever growing lump in my throat and not cry in front of her as I tell her I have to leave…and yes, I may be back tonight……
As I go stand out in the hall…the nurse finds me crying and asks what is wrong…when I tell her how mama doesn’t know me and how it hurts so bad….she says that maybe I should come more and more often and stay longer and longer each time I come …
Now, I know she is trying her best to be helpful, but I am thinking…
Dear Lord…Can’t she see how this is killing me????
There is no daddy anymore….
There is no granny….
There is no home back on HORSESHOE BEND…
They are all gone….
Except in her mind.
GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

TIMES GONE BY

2010-07-04T00:20:00.001-04:00

Today was such a hard day at work…It being the Fourth of July weekend brought us many, many orders for Bar-B-Que and Stew…I am pretty sure that we sold well over 100 pounds within the first hour of opening.

By the time 6:00 pm came around, for some reason, my back was torturing me. Even taking 3 Motrin didn’t cut the pain one iota…so I just kept on going …. trying not to look at the time, but keep working towards the goal of getting everything done that needed to be done….and let me tell you…though I work hard sometimes, my boss lady works harder and never have I heard her complain.

When I got home, I did something I don’t ever do, I immediately went to my room and laid down trying to ease the pain. After a few minutes, miraculously, the pain had actually eased up enough to let me get up and take Dan to get something to eat.

I keep my car radio tuned to the Greensboro radio station, and tonight they were playing the old rock and roll songs. Songs from the sixties and seventies. Songs that never fail to bring back memories.

On the way back from the interstate, where I got our supper, a song came on that I had not heard in a long, long time…and hearing the words immediately took me back to my teen years. Funny how just listening to certain songs can transport you back in time.

I don’t know whether it was the fact that me and Dan were riding with the car widows down in order to feel the unnaturally cool summer breeze while we slowly rode down the main street in our little town, or if it were the song’s haunting melody…but hearing it took me through a time warp.

It just seemed like all the right elements were there and they were coming together…forming a time machine to take me back to those golden days of my youth…Let me tell you, for some reason, tonight, that time in my life was so close that I could honestly feel it and almost, just almost…. touch it.

Long ago scenes flashed in my mind’s eye like snapshots…living pictures from my past…special moments frozen in time…some important, some seemingly not.

Passing the old Greensboro High School, I saw me and Danny standing in front of the wall that lead to the lunch room and he is telling me that he loved me….and when I got to the middle of town, I could see us parked in front of the City Cafe….talking and holding hands…neither of us with a care n the world.

If only I could go back and know then what I know now.

Oh, and the song that was playing??? Danny use to tell me to “listen to the words, Carlene” and I would see how he truly felt about me…

Well, I listened to the words tonight Danny….

Here it is…lyrics and all…

Bridge Over Troubled Water

When you’re weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all;
I’m on your side. When times get rough
And friends just can’t be found,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.

When you’re down and out,
When you’re on the street,
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you.
I’ll take your part.
When darkness comes
And pain is all around,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.

Sail on silver girl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine.
All your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine
If you need a friend
I’m sailing right behind.

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.

Danny was my ‘bridge over troubled waters’….

And I miss him so much sometimes'…

that it takes my breath away…..

Like tonight.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

A BIRTHDAY!

2010-06-22T10:17:00.001-04:00

Wyatt is two years old now! Though I have lived nearly 57 years on this earth and should know by now, it continues to amaze me how fast time flies.

Having a two year old grandson and having him live close to me is a blessing indeed. I am getting to see him develop into a little boy right before my very eyes. I love watching his personality take shape! This child never ceases to surprise me with his wisdom, his energy, and his love.

He is so funny…He can be quietly playing with his toys, when all of a sudden, it is like a spark of super charged electricity runs through that child, and he will take off….going around and around, then streaking through the house with his little arms lifted up into the air like a Georgia tornado, squealing with pure delight and then end up landing right in front of me giggling his little head off!

This is “The Professor”… the neighborhood cat!

I went over to his house the other night to have a little cake and ice cream for his birthday. Now, his mommy and daddy has satellite TV and a DVR …which creates a problem… When he is at his maw-maw’s house, he can’t understand why maw-maw can’t rewind Wonder Pets, or any of the other little learning shows he loves to watch!

Little Will peek-a-booing over the bassinet!

Anyway, while I was over there at his house, his mommy put the CARS cartoon on that she had recorded for him on the DVR and let me tell you what…I would have given about anything to have been able to record his reaction to that cartoon! That is the most animated I have ever seen that child! He is just now learning words and how to string them together into short sentences, but he was so excited watching the cars and trucks racing around, that words were literally spilling out of his little mouth and becoming sentences on their own!

He loves “Mater”, the old rusty truck on the movie, so that is what his mommy and daddy got him for his birthday. They couldn’t have picked a better present if they had tried! He loved it!

Sunday, Wyatt’s Aunt Sue and Uncle David were kind enough to host another birthday party for him at their house in the country. This time he got to play with all his little cousins and friends. Let me tell you…that child's energy was running at extreme mega watts the whole day!

Amanda had his birthday cake made with “Mater” on it , and Wyatt had a fit over it!

After he blew out the candle, he immediately took “Mater” and began running him over the cake, going.”vroom, vroom”!

We ended up giving him his own plate before the entire cake was destroyed!

As always, there are going to be folks who crash the party…

Hey…they did it at the White House didn’t they??? :-)

When asked who they were, we got the old standby excuse…

“See No Evil…Speak No Evil…and Hear No evil” !

It took Little Will to straighten that crew of hooligans out….

And just think…

I get to watch him turn the big ONE in December!

Life is good and so is GOD.

Thank YOU Lord for your many blessings on me…

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

AN EVENTFUL DAY

2010-06-09T21:38:00.001-04:00

WHEW! I got through cutting the grass about 3 minutes into the rain storm. The rain actually felt pretty good to my old tired body by then…but the lightning was too close for comfort! Man I am beat.

This is one of the kitties that I feed everyday…She is a loving little cat…and she has been here for years after she just started coming around and adopted me. Her name?…kitty-kitty.

Another one of my adoptees….

Isn’t he pretty? He was born to a neighborhood cat on my street and is called…“kitty-kitty” 2. He also adopted me. They say it is good luck for a black cat to adopt you. He loves all over my legs, but when I try to pet him, he shies away.

There is one more cat that comes here to eat, and after talking to one of my neighbors, I have found out that he has adopted several of us and has several aliases …I call him, “The Professor” because he looks like one…a very old one! One day, I may get a picture of him, but he is skittish, so it may be awhile.

Earlier, I took Wyatt to show him the little baby chicks running around outside. As soon as he saw them, he goes running over to the neighbor’s yard chasing one of them… and I go running after him, and what do I do???

That’s right…I nearly break my fool neck.

The neighbor’s spigot is surrounded by a huge broken clay pot and I never saw it, as I was trying to catch Wyatt before he got hurt on some of the tons of junk they have laying around. The next thing I know, I am flailing, trying to catch my balance…with the thought of… “oh Lord…please don’t let me fall again and break something else” running through my mind.

I went a good 12 feet hopping, wobbling and toppling like a dang nut before I came to a stop…UPRIGHT …THANK YOU GOD….but with a 2 inch scrape around the entire front of the bottom of my leg. Right where the top of the sock is. A knot the size of a goose egg soon came up on it.

Sheesh, it hurts…but at least I am still in one piece. While I was flailing around, I also stubbed my dang left middle finger on their junk car door…so it is stiff as a dead door nail, but at least it is still usable!

Bless his little heart…seeing me bent over…Wyatt came up to me saying,

“ maw-maw hurt???”

I love that baby…

We ; Amanda, Dan and I … and the two W’s … went to Madison today. I had to buy a new broom…done wore my other one out finally…and Wyatt also had to have a hair cut. He was beginning to look like a little girl! He got his hair cut at Wal-Mart this time and while there, he had to have some shorts too.

Just look at what he did with he shorts….

Our little NUN!!!! lol

He thought he was soooooooo cool!!! He was yelling for his Uncle Dan to look at his HAT! ( This was before his hair cut! )

Wyatt calls his baby brother “Wee Will” and is a very good big brother most of the time.

“WEE WILL” beginning to crawl.

The other day, we got the exer-saucer ( a walker type thing that a baby can sit in, with toys all around it ) out of the shed so that we would have something for Will to sit in at my house besides the car seat or the bassinet.

Would you believe that Wyatt remembered that thing as being his? Yep, and he even had to sit in it again! We could sure tell just how much he had grown by seeing him in that thing!

He had to look at and play with all the little toys on it and you could tell that he was so happy seeing it again! It was like he had met up with a long lost buddy of his! He was laughing and yelling, “ weeeee…weeeeee!” as he spun himself around and around in the seat!

Then today, when we put Will in it… well, at first Wyatt didn’t pay any attention… but then when he did…oh my…he started saying…“Nooooooo…noooooooooo…Wee Will”.

It was when he started trying to pull Will out by his arms, his mama had to step in and give Wyatt a little talk! Soon, he was okay with it, but I noticed that he would not even look in that direction!

Yep…and it was after that, that I decided to take Wyatt outside to see the baby chicks...

And we all know how that turned out for his “maw-maw” don’t we??!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

MY MAMA SANG

2010-05-30T10:16:00.001-04:00

As soon as I get this posted, I am going to get up from here and take a shower and get ready to go to church.

As I write, I am listening to AOL radio and Tennessee Ernie Ford is singing;

“AS WE GATHER AT THE RIVER”

and it brings back so many childhood memories.

I remember my mama had an old radio that she listened to constantly. It crackled and buzzed as it played, but it was one of the very few luxuries she was able to have back in those days on Horseshoe Bend. She loved music and come to think of it, she seemed to love all kinds…just as I do now.

Looking back, it seemed that the radio station stayed tuned to country more times than not…In my mind, I can still hear Roy Acuff, Patsy Cline, and Tex Ritter’s voices coming from that little radio, that my mama kept in the kitchen. I often wonder how many little children now days are lucky enough to hear their mama singing as she makes breakfast or supper for them…as we did back then.

She could sing beautifully too! I remember her telling me that when she was but a young girl, she and her older sister Helen use to sing together…and was once requested to sing on radio. This art of singing has seemed to have passed down through the years. I know one of Aunt Helen’s daughters can sing beautifully, as I heard her singing at my other Aunt’s funeral. Several of my mama’s daughters and grand daughters have this gift also.

Can you just imagine??? It never dawned on my young mind, but it sure does now…

frequently…

That my mama was only 27 when I was born and had already given birth to five children before me…She lived in a house that had no running water…She had no rugs on the bare, never painted, never varnished wooden floors…Nor any paint on the wooden plank walls of that little four room home…

No heat in the winter,except for the one pot bellied stove and nothing to cool it in the hot Georgia summers, except for one little metal osculating fan…She did without so much that others would have taken for granted, even back then in the hard times. Some would say she had nothing to sing about…

But she sang…and she sang beautifully.

No state of the art stereo system, nothing we or anyone else could sing, would ever sound as sweet as my mama’s voice drifting through that old ramshackle house ….

A voice which still travels through my mind, my soul and my heart today.

If you are blessed to still have your mama…

Be sure to tell her how much you love her today before it’s too late….and don’t forget to thank her for all the many things that she may have sacrificed just for you.

Even if she has went on to wait for you in that Heavenly home…

You can still tell her.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

FAMILY TIME

2010-05-26T16:02:00.001-04:00

Sunday, I didn’t go to church…and I hope the good Lord forgives me, because Sunday I had a chance to be with family…and that is something that I haven’t been able to do in a long time. Dan, Amanda, Kelvin,the children and I all went to a family fish fry in Eatonton!

There was some real good food there too! I haven’t had Nanny’s ( Danny’s mama ) hush puppies in ‘coon ages’, so they were a real treat for me! Not to mention Kathy’s delicious Red Velvet Cake, and Connie's FAMOUS pecan pie, the grilled pork chops and fried cat fish by Scott and Doug…just to name a few lip smacking items on the menu!

Danny’s sis; Connie and his mama; Gladys (holding Will !)

All thoughts of food aside, there is nothing quite like being able to sit down with family, friends and loved ones and catch up on all their news and happenings…and just to be able to relax and be yourself.

Danny’s sis; Kathy and her boyfriend Doug.

Of course, I was also hopping up and checking on Wyatt every once in a while…He had himself a great time with all the other children there…and also with his great-uncle Nathan…who he took to calling “Paw-Paw” !!

Wyatt and his Great-uncle Nathan ( aka Paw-paw! )

Wyatt, Jacob, Brianna and Julie playing

Wyatt and Brianna in their “pool” !!!

Will enjoyed all the attention he was getting from Ray’s little girls. I think every time I looked, he was in someone else’s arms…his nanny, his big mama and his Aunt Beth… Which was right up Will’s alley!

Danny’s mama and William

Oh, I enjoyed it sooooooo much. One of the things I always loved about Danny’s family was the get –togethers they always had on special occasions or on just any ordinary day….like Sunday’s was. The only one missing was Danny himself, and I think he may have been there too…in spirit…I know he was there in my heart.

I started Tuesday out by cutting my grass and had not pushed the mower but a few feet when it stopped on me….so off to Sisson’s Lawn Mower shop I go with the mower in the trunk of my car. Thank God for Wayne and his brothers and his wife for being there when I need them. Wayne and Bill came out and got the mower out of the car trunk for me as soon as I got there and had it fixed in no time! You can’t ask for any better service than that.

Danny’s sis; Connie and husband David

I had to go to the chiropractor today. My back has been hurting for about two weeks now, but I kept putting off going to the Dr. It didn’t feel like my sciatic nerve like it was right after Danny died, so I figured I had bumped up against something or such and it would straighten itself out…This morning, when I got up at 6:30, I knew it couldn’t wait any longer, I could hardly move without screaming out in pain.

SCOTT JODY TROY

So, I went and he said it was a pinched nerve…such a little bitty phrase…doesn’t sound like much does it? But oh the pain it has caused me! I was hollering every time he did something and I got to thinking what the other patients may be thinking…so I said, “ I hoep I don’t run all your other patients away and he told me, “Nah…just walk out the door saying real loud,“wow! He healed me!!!”

I finally got my bottom teeth fixed where they fit in my mouth too…so that in itself is a big relief! I plan on getting them all pulled before long, and also have to make an appointment with my eye doctor for new specs…as soon as my back gets a little better. One thing at a time.

This is Memorial Day weekend and I expect that the BBQ will be very busy. We usually are and have actually sold out of all the BBQ in years past.

You know, on certain holidays it is so hard for me emotionally. When me and Danny got married , one of she things I wanted was to make holidays special for our little family…and so we always had a little cook out on Memorial day, Fourth of July and Labor Day and such…Now that he is gone, most all of the cook outs and family times are too.

I miss that so much.

Wyatt found a whole in the fence!

Something that we don’t think about much is that our life can change at any time…whether it is because of death or divorce or our children growing up and moving away from home…things change. The family times that we may have taken for granted or even fussed about, what with all the work involved in getting it all together…can stop at any time and …

Well, one day, you may very well be wishing for it again.

We live and learn don’t we?

Thank You God for Your many blessings on me and for the chance to have FAMILY TIME once again.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

UNANSWERED PRAYERS

2010-05-19T22:17:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite Bible verses is Isaiah40:31:

“ But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. ”

Whenever I feel discouraged, I think of this verse … and trust me; it has helped me to get through some rough times.
To me, it means that although God may not answer our prayers in our time, or in our way…He will answer them in His time and in His way.


                       My sweet mama

Down through the years of my life…I can remember sometimes thinking , “why doesn’t God answer my prayer ?” Looking back now, years later, I know that God did indeed answer my prayers…each and every one of them.

Oh, it may not have been the answer I had been praying for, ( thank goodness ) but I realize that He always knew far better than me what I needed each and every time…and He supplied it. See, God already knows what the future holds for us…and we don’t.


             Wyatt at his table at Maw-maw’s house

When I think back on all the prayers that I can remember sending up to God … prayers for things that I thought I needed or prayers for what I thought would be the right outcome to some situation in my life at the time, well it is a wonder if God even listens to me anymore!

I can just see Him shaking his head when He heard some of those prayers that I sent up and wondering if He remembered to put a brain in my head when He crated me!


                   Little Will loves spaghetti!

Tonight, I am grateful. I am grateful for the friends and folks that God puts in my life…I firmly believe that each and every one of them was given to me for a reason.

I am grateful for my family and thank God for all the days we are allowed to share together here on earth.

And in the words of Garth Brooks…
Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you're talkin' to the Man upstairs…
That just because He doesn't answer, doesn't mean He don't care…

Some of God's greatest gifts…
Are unanswered prayers.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

WATCH OUT…THEY STEAL YOUR HEART!

2010-05-15T23:24:00.001-04:00

Whew…I am so glad that this work week is over with.

Isn’t it strange how we wish all our days away while we are working ?

And how come the three days that I work go so much slower than the four days that I am off ?

Sort of like when your kids are small, you are all the time wishing they would hurry up and get big enough to take care of themselves…then when they grow up and leave home, to take care of themselves…you wish they were little again.

I think that is why being a grandparent is so much fun…You get the best of both worlds…

I love my grandbabies so much. I never thought you could love someone as much as you do your children…but these two little boys have stolen my heart.

Wyatt was over here at my house Wednesday. His mama was getting William ready to go home and asked me to take Wyatt outside and get him seated in his car seat. Well on the way to the car, little Wyatt took a detour and saw his Turtle pool/sand box sitting up on the picnic table.

He immediately started saying, “Pool Maw-maw”… and then…“water Maw-maw” and finally, as he struggled to pull the water hose off the holder… in the loudest little voice he could muster… “ FIM MAW-MAW ” . ( ‘Fim’ is Wyatt's way of saying swim. )

I honestly tried to dissuade him…I truly did…telling him that his mama wanted him to go home with her…that Will was already in the car…that we would “Fim” another day…but it wasn’t working…

That baby wanted to “fim” and nothing was going to change his mind…It was either put him in the car and watch as he cried his little heart out…or let him “Fim”. So, I told his mama to go ahead and I would bring him on home later on.

Now I had a lot to do…not to mention that my legs and feet were swollen and hurting pretty bad…but I could not let that baby go home when he wanted to “fim " so badly.

And so he stayed with ‘Maw-maw’….and she let him “Fim”….and he swam….and he swam….and he swam…Then the little girl and boy down the street came up…Wyatt loves this little girl and calls for her by name every time he is over here in my front yard.

So, while they were here, the kids had themselves a little picnic, a sort of pool party I guess you could call it…as I gave them all some Vienna sausages , crackers, and ice cold pieces of watermelon…

And my little Wyatt was in heaven!!!

By that time, they could have sawed these two old swollen legs slap off my body for all I cared…

Because for me to be able to see that baby enjoying himself like he did…

Well, let me tell you…

that is one memory that will last my lifetime…

and beyond…

If the good Lord will let it.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

MOTHER’S DAY

2010-05-09T23:38:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, when I came home from work, Kelvin and Amanda came over and brought me two Knock Out Rose bushes from Wyatt and William for my Mother’s Day gift! I love roses! Then I got to watch Wyatt while Amanda and Kelvin went to a movie and ate out. Jessie was kind enough to watch little Will for us.

My Knock-out Roses

Then this morning, Amanda, Kelvin and the kids surprised me and came to church! Charity and her children were there also! It was so nice to have family there ! I even got to see one of my cousins that I hadn’t seen in a while there!!! Charity’s two daughters got up and sang some songs and they were so good! Wyatt loved their singing so much that he stood up in the pew and started swaying back and forth, clapping his little hands, and God bless his little heart; singing along with them, the only song he knows…

OLD MCDONALD HAD A FARM…E - I – E – I - O!!!

Sitting in Church with Maw-maw

After church, I was taken out to eat at the Chop House in Madison…with my all my kids (Kelvin too!) and my grandchildren there…We had to wait a long time outside the restaurant, they were that busy, but it was worth it…the food was delicious! This was the best Mother’s Day that I have had in a long time and the best part was having my young-uns sitting beside me at church.

Wyatt, yesterday at Maw-maw’s house

Dan and I got home this afternoon, and went to see my mama out at the Nursing home. She didn’t know me at first, but after we were there for a while, she knew me. I bought her a new pair of pants and a nice blouse and also a new house coat…along with some candy and an ice cold coke and she was happy. I also cleaned her winter clothes out her closet and put some springtime clothes in for her.

Little Will taking his big brother’s car for a spin!

My mama was a good mama and her life wasn’t an easy one.

I remember how when I went out on a date, she never went to bed until I walked in the front door and she could make sure I was okay. That use to bug me as a teen, but you know, after you have teens ( and even older children) of your own, you began to understand some things….

Like, no matter how old your children get, you will still worry about them….

and

No matter how old you get, you would still lay down your life for them, if it came to that.

“Doodle-Doo”.. the rooster at my house

Being a mother is one of the hardest jobs there is, but also one of the most rewarding…

I wouldn’t take a million dollars for the hugs and the sloppy wet kisses that my children gave me when the were little …

Or the “I love you mama” or the “ night-night mama” that will live forever in my heart and soul.

That is what’s so special about being a grandma…You get to live it all over again and this time, you know what’s most important about child raising….

L – O – V - E

And you’ve lived long enough to know that….

All those fancy “bringing up baby” books you read…

Well, didn’t amount to a hill of beans, did they ?

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

ANGELS AMONG US

2010-05-08T02:04:00.001-04:00

When home computers became widely available, the stores would send out sales flyers advertising the newest models, and I wanted one so bad. I would look at each and every sales paper much like a child would look at the “Sears Wish Book” at Christmas!

Danny caught me looking at them one day and evidently even heard me sighing…like I always did, whenever I came to my senses and stopped my looking and dreaming. When he asked me what I was looking at, I was too embarrassed to tell him..after all, I didn’t even know how to turn a dag-blame computer on, much less get any use out of it…and even the cheapest computer was way out of our reach.

Danny was always full of surprises. For instance, if you didn’t know Danny like I did…you would have thought he was a very simple country man…but oh..he was so much more.

Danny was one of the smartest men I have ever known…what he may have lacked in formal education, he more than made up for in good old common sense….something a lot of people have very little of now days.

He could fix anything. He did plumbing, electrical, mechanical, carpentry…you name it and he could do it. Complicated things that had to be put together… he never even read the instructions…he never had to… My daddy always said that there were people with book sense and then there were people with common sense and between the two… he would choose the common sense person every time…My daddy loved Danny just as if he was his own son.

Like I said, Danny was full of surprises…Like the year he did without lunch at his job , because he saved his lunch money to buy me a Micro Wave for Christmas….

Or the time he did odd jobs while I was at work…

To buy me that computer I had dreamed of for Christmas…

I remember ripping the wrapping paper off the huge box that mysteriously appeared under the tree that Christmas morning…and I remember begging Danny to take it back before I even opened the box…

You see, I knew he had to have paid A LOT for it, way more than we could afford and I felt so guilty…and so very dumb…After all, I didn’t even know how to turn the thing on, much less do anything with it.

I can still hear him telling me… “Carlene…just take the thing out of the box, let me get John to set it up for you and then you just play with it…I know you Carlene…you won’t stop until you learn it.”

As always, he was right…Because the more I “played with it”, the more I liked it, and the more I liked it, the more I learned.

Then I found a place called AOL JOURNALS….and I dove right in head first. See, from the time I could form sentences and be able to write them on paper, I have loved to write my thoughts down. As a child, when I had enough money saved, I would go to the old dime store in town and buy me a little diary…the kind with the padded fake leather cover and the strap with the little gold lock and key on front. I don’t know how many of those little diaries that I filled up as a child, but what I do know is that I have wished a many a time that I hadn’t been so dumb as to throw them all away when I thought I was too old for such things!

So anyway…when I found AOL JOURNALS on line, I was in heaven! I began to write…and write …and write.

I wrote about my childhood out on HORSESHOE BEND, and I also wrote about mine and Danny’s everyday life. A few people began to read my journal…and then a few more….and before I knew it, I began to meet some wonderful folks.

This went on for a couple of years and then on Jan. 29, 2006…..my world stopped turning.

That Sunday morning started out like every other Sunday morning in our lives…Except that before the day was over, Danny had a massive heart attack and I became a widow. I was no longer an “us” and I was alone for the first time since I was sixteen.

When Danny died…I kid you not…there were weeks after his death, where I did not sleep at all at night …I couldn’t…Hey, it took me months to even take my daytime clothes off ( yes took baths!) and put a night gown on again and be able to lay down… on top of the cover on our bed.

Looking back, I sometimes think that I was waiting …Waiting on Danny to walk back in that front door of ours…Crazy I know...but then when you have lost the one you love, well….grief does strange things to you…trust me, I know.

So I stayed awake…

Back then; any night you could have came by and found me sitting up at my computer…and the same folks that I had met by way of my journal…well, they were there with me…

At a time when I needed them the most, they helped me keep what little bit of sanity I had left…and just like my family, they helped me make it through the roughest part of my life.

God is so good to us…

I truly believe He puts certain people in our paths to help us when we are at our lowest…because He knows what we need… long before we even realize we are going to need it.

God has continued to bless me with wonderful friends.

Like the song goes…

Oh, I believe there are angels among us
Sent down to us from somewhere up above
They come to you and me in our darkest hours
To show us how to live
To teach us how to give
To guide us with a light of love When life dealt troubled times and had me down on my knees
There's always been someone there to come along and comfort me.

THERE ARE ANGELS ON EARTH…

You all know who you are

I hope and pray our Heavenly Father blesses you all in return.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

MY CHOPPERS CAN WASH CLOTHES

2010-05-04T20:35:00.001-04:00

This has not been a good week…

Come to think of it, last week wasn’t so hot either….

See, it all started last week when my teeth quit fitting correctly in my mouth…no, not my real teeth…my bottom bridge. I knew that once you start getting old..things start shifting around, but I never knew your teeth would.

So, after being in denture pain hell for a week….Last Monday, I get up the nerve and the money and I take myself to Affordable Dentures in Covington. Drove my old car there…My thought was, ‘I will just get a new bridge because the other one is so old.’

Our Little Will

Well, as my luck would have it…After the whole head x-ray, the dentist there said that I need my teeth cleaned first for a ‘proper fit’ . Then he explained that they do not clean teeth…I would have to go to yet another dentist, get another x-ray and get my teeth cleaned…which would cost about $200.00 ! Then I would come back…and oh yes…one of the real teeth needs pulling, so there will have to be another tooth added to the bridge. Then I was sent home….in pain which had to have come from hell…and my bridge sitting cock-sided in my mouth. Once I got home, I slung the dang things into the denture cup.

Wyatt and somebody’s dog

Unfortunately, I am poor…always have been…so that’s no big deal to me…so I had to work …with my cock-sided teeth in my mouth…and pain that ; on a scale from 1-10, was an 18…I worked three days like that…three 10 and 11 hour days…the whole time trying to come up with a way in my mind to get my teeth fixed. I finally decided that the cheapest route would be to pull the few teeth left on bottom, and then just get a whole new bottom plate.

Caught sitting on Maw-maw’s table

During the days that I worked, it was all I could do to keep from crying …or vomiting…the pain was that bad. Every night I came home and took a finger nail file to my bottom bridge..I figured since it will have to be re-placed there is no harm done either way. I filed them Thursday night and then Friday night I filed them some more…and before I went to bed that night , I took the de-boning shears that I have and I cut the dad blasted end slap off of them…and then filed some more…Saturday when I went into work, the pain, although still there,…well, let’s just say it was a lot less of it.

All I could think about Sunday, was how Monday morning I was calling that Affordable Dentures and make sure they could pull all the bottom teeth and make me a plate that day! lol

More than one way to ride the girl next door’s scooter!

Monday morning, I got up bright and early and noticed a little half grown solid white chicken on my old wood shed’s steps….It was so pretty……Then as I waited for the Affordable Denture place to open, I started a load of clothes in the washer….

And when the washer got to the very last spin cycle…it died. Just then Dan starts screaming for me to come outside….The dang cat had gotten that little chicken and before I could get to him…he killed it.

Our little Will…with his “cow”.

I go back inside, and as I am wringing out a big load of clothes, my mind is whirling…and the thought that finally became clear was …

‘Well hell…there goes my teeth.’

So…what was suppose to be my new set of choppers, is now sitting in my hall…. washing clothes.

Then today, while sitting making out some of the bills that didn’t come in Monday… I laid my glasses on my desk ,because I got a headache…and then Amanda came up…and since I am blind without my glasses, I couldn’t find them…so I got out of the desk chair and stepped back and heard…c r u n c h….yep…it was my glasses… under my foot.

Amanda was able to put the lens back into the little rim and straighten them up somewhat….

Soooooooo…..

I am still in some pain…

I now have crooked teeth…..

and

crooked glasses….

But my clothes are clean.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

FACING BOOGER-BEARS

2010-04-28T01:58:00.001-04:00

When I was little, we finally got a TV in the house and the one thing my siblings always wanted to watch on Saturdays were the scary movies…like The Werewolf , Dracula, or Frankenstein. I didn’t like those movies, in fact I hated them. I had much rather be watching Captain Kangaroo, Mighty Mouse or the Mickey Mouse Club…. but back then, TV was still such a rarity and so very new to us, that I couldn’t not watch!

I admit though, most of the time, my little head was up under a pillow….but I could still hear.

I use to have nightmares about Frankenstein…You remember him, right? Back then, horror movies were like the toys of that age and time…They let you use your imagination. You didn’t have to see all the blood and gore like they show today to be justifiably scared ….it was what you didn’t see that terrified you.

Anyway, in my dreams it as always night, with a full moon and Frankenstein would be chasing me. I would be running down the dirt road in front of our old house…running down Horseshoe Bend….or rather trying to run down it…because in my dream, my legs would be as heavy as lead, and try as I might, I could not get anywhere…In the dreams, it always felt like my feet were stuck in the Georgia mud. I would be constantly looking back over my shoulder and he would be gaining on me. Scary stuff…especially for a little 5 or 6 year old kid. I hated having those dreams and would always wake mama up with my crying.

This went on for what seems like years…One night, I went to sleep and the same dream popped up…He was chasing me again…and I had grown tired of running…and he was gaining on me and I was so fed up with all this….

So I stopped ... I stopped running and I turned around and waited on him to get there.

Oh, I was so scared and can remember that dream like it was yesterday….I can still feel my heart beating wildly… about to burst out of my little chest….but dang it, I was fed up with running….and running … and running…and all I knew was that..

Me and my little brave self wasn’t going to run no more…

He would just have to kill me.

Funny thing was, when he got close up to me, so close that I looked him in his face…

He disappeared.

Whew….

Now that I am grown , I occasionally find myself still running away, much the same way I did as a little child in those dreams. Oh, not from monsters per say, but from some fear or worry or loss.

So, I have to remind myself to stop the running…to turn around and face what I am scared of.

It wasn’t easy back then and it isn’t now, but to ever find peace within ourselves….

We have to stop running, and turn around to face the booger-bears sometimes.

In order to make them disappear…

So we can get on with our lives.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

HOME COOKIN’

2010-04-25T17:25:00.001-04:00

Dan and and his grandma

I don’t know what has gotten in to me…...but I am constantly thinking about FOOD!!! Not just any food…but home cooked food.

My azalea

Maybe it is the steroid pills the ER doctor put me on, once home from the hospital, or maybe it is the fact that I love to watch the Food Network channel…

Or maybe it is just the inner child in me wanting to go back to simpler times…

Wyatt playing on his PAPA’s boat

Times like when I was a little bitty thing out on Horseshoe Bend sitting at the kitchen table watching while my mama cooked our supper…

And yes, it was SUPPER…dinner was the meal we had a noon time.

Oh, to be able to go back to then and know what I know now.

Wyatt on His Papa’s boat

Now, we never had fancy food…never had much meat at all to talk of , except when Daddy killed the hogs in wintertime or on some Sunday mornings when my mama would go out the back door and get a chicken out of the yard to fry for breakfast.

Wyatt coming down slide

Come to think of it, we did eat doves, squirrels and wild rabbits. My daddy loved to hunt and fish…and since we lived just within a a couple of miles of the Oconee River, yes we did have a lot of fish too. Most times Daddy fished off the bank, but sometimes he would take his old boat. (Daddy, along with his friends, always built the wooden boats he fished out of .)

Our Little Will

If I close my eyes, I can see my mama getting the old oblong wooden biscuit bowl out of the white Hoosier cabinet and place it on the table. She used that bowl so many times that the bottom was slap worn out of it, so daddy laid a piece of tin in it. I can see her open the cloth flour bag and carefully ration out cups of the snow white flour into her old metal hand sifter.

Will is trying to crawl !

She didn’t use shortening. She used REX LARD…which came in a big red metal can. Then she would measure out the can milk into a glass of water… which by the way, I have been informed that the correct name for is evaporated milk! She didn’t use a fork, but put her hands down in the mixture and begin forming the dough.

Let me tell you, my mama could make the best biscuits and white gravy that you ever put in your mouth….

Oh my goodness…that in itself was a meal..and often times it was…for we were poor as church mice.

Look at those baby blue eyes!

Yesterday, while at work, for some reason, I got to thinking about green beans and potatoes….cooked slowly with the ham bone that I had in my freezer simmering in them …and then I got to thinking about squash…yellow squash, boiled and then fried down with white onions…with red juicy slices of tomatoes on the side in a little saucer…and then maybe some pork chops…battered and fried real slow, smothered fried …and I would top it off with some ice cold sweet tea….

Sounds real good doesn’t it???

Just thinking about it at work made me feel like I was in a wonderful dream….

Well guess what?

This is one dream of mine that is going to come true…..

It won’t be as good as my mama’s food or good as being able to sit at her table, talking to her while she cooks…

But I can promise you this…

It will be good!

Oh, and one more thing…

I went to God’s house this morning!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

JUST LOOK AROUND YOU

2010-04-11T23:55:00.001-04:00

Someone asked me many, many years ago, “How do you know for sure that there is a God?” and it took me by surprise, because I had never before really ever given it a thought…

I had just always known in my heart and soul that God existed.

It was late spring or early summer way back in 1969 0r so…back in the dark days of the Viet Nam War when all our young men were leaving home for that hell on earth…some never to return. So I guess it was only natural for the thought to surface. I was a teenager back then and out on a date with the person who had asked the question.

At the time…we were riding on various dirt roads out in the country. We had just crossed a beautiful little trickling stream that ran right across the road. A lot of the trees had blossoms and there were wild flowers everywhere. The sky was Easter egg blue complete with white puffy clouds. That day, the bright golden sunshine played hide and seek in and out of the thick forest of trees as we rode down that Georgia dirt road.

I was silently thinking of what I could say…wondering how on earth do you explain that something exists if you can’t see it. Then it came to me…just as if GOD Himself had spoken to me….and maybe HE did…

‘YOU CAN SEE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.’

It was as if a new light had came on in my soul…I excitedly told him…“Just look around you…LOOK AROUND YOU! Do you know anyone, any human being who could have created all this? Look at the sky…the sun…the stars and moon at night…and the wind…you can’t see the wind….but you feel it and know that it’s there…It’s like love….you can’t see love either…but you know it is there.”

I believe I convinced him.

This has been a beautiful Sunday…

With those white puffy Cumulus clouds floating by lazily up above in the blue skies that were highlighted by golden sunshine……

It was almost like Someone had painted the scene on a giant canvas and it had taken on a life of it’s own.

I guess when you think about it enough…

Someone did.

So, after months of staying away…

I went to HIS HOUSE today so I could thank HIM…

It was about time, wasn’t it GOD?

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

A FULL DAY

2010-04-05T21:32:00.001-04:00

Wyatt and Will were dressed so sweet Easter. They were in matching outfits! They brought them by the house before they went to Washington, so they could get their Easter baskets I had fixed for them and I could get a few quick pictures. I even got to throw out a dozen boiled eggs and a few candy ones in my front yard before they had to leave. Wyatt looked so funny when he saw the colored eggs in the yard! lol He didn’t quite get the idea of placing them in his basket either….He would pick one up and yell; “MEATBALL” and throw it as hard as he could! (All balls are meatballs to Wyatt!)

AT MAWMAW’S :

After Amanda and Kelvin left for Washington, Dan and I went out to Sue and David’s in the country. I love going out there. It is one of the very few places that I can feel at peace with myself. Around 5:30 or so, Amanda and Kelvin came back with the children and Wyatt got to hunt Easter eggs again...thanks to his Aunt Sue and Uncle David! Jady’s children were there and after watching them for a little while, Wyatt finally stopped “throwing meatballs” and started “finding the eggs” and putting them into his basket!

I can climb up Aunt Sue’s steps!

Here’s an egg!

A FAMILY

He also loved playing on the trampoline! I put him on it and he kept saying , “BOUNCE MAWMAW!!” and “ AROUND, AROUND, AROUND!!!” as he ran ninety miles n hour around the mat! Jady’s twins were up there with him and sat very still letting him play! The only problem was, he didn’t want to come off! lol

There was so much good home cooked food there! I had taken homemade macaroni and cheese casserole, spiral cut ham, baked beans and chocolate éclair cake. Sue and my nieces had potato salad, strawberry pies, monkey bread,a fruit tray with vanilla yogurt...not to mention the hot dogs, pork chops and hamburgers that Chris cooked on the grill outside! Plenty to eat, plenty of Pepsi’s, Mt. Dews and sweet tea to drink…and family…what else could you want?

I got up this morning and after taking the pups for their morning walk, I brought them back and gave them all a bath. They are so funny... so like little children when they first find out they have to have one, but afterwards, they are so happy and run around playing doggie tag ! lol

After the baths, I decided to cut my grass. Living where I do, I have to hide my dang lawn mower spark plug in my house. I keep it with the socket wrench that I use to take it out…only this morning it wasn’t in it. So, while I was up town getting gas for the mower, I went by and bought a new plug. I got a call from Dan while I was at the bank depositing my check, telling me that he found the plug…bless his heart…but it was too late. Oh, well…got a spare now.

I have a riding mower, but after paying over 200.00 getting it worked on a couple of years ago…it accidently fell off the truck when me and Jody brought it home…After turning it back upright, I was able to ride it to the shed and park it, but when I tried to back it out of the shed later, it wouldn’t budge. Someone said the brake may be stuck…well, I don’t know beans about mowers and I have no way to get it back to the shop…so long story short…I have to push cut my grass….and let me tell you it was hot as Hades this morning…but I got it done.

Coming back around the house, I saw my car out in the street where I had parked it in order to cut the front lawn without throwing gravel on it….and I decided that after having waited all winter, it was time to wash my filthy piece of car….so I did…and it looks so much better and I swear I heard it sighing a big sigh of relief afterwards!

When I went to get in the car to move it back to the driveway, I couldn’t get the driver’s side door open! See, a couple of months ago…Kelvin had the interior door panel pulled out when he was spraying W-D 40 in it so the “door ajar” light would go out…and I guess it messed up the ‘clips’ that hold the panel on…and when I asked him again if he could please fix them back last week, he said,“ take it to the dealer” …so I called the Ford dealer…who kindly told me it would be better to call the collision center…. which saved me a lot of money..They fixed the door within a couple of minutes! GOD Bless all of you at the collision center…there are some awfully sweet people in our town.

The collision center is right next to the car wash, so while I was out that way, I went there and vacuumed my car out, so the only thing I need to do now is clean the windows on the inside. Speaking of the windows…the other day I tried to wash my windshield using my windshield washer and though I tried and tried , no fluid would shoot out…so I thought it was empty. I went by the dollar store and bought a new gallon of the stuff today and started to pour some in the thing….It was full! So now what’s wrong? sigh….Oh yeah…I had to use a tree limb to hold the dang hood up cause the hydraulic things no longer work! See what I mean? It is only a piece of car… but it is all I have and I am grateful…because a piece of car is better than no car at all!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

THE GOLDEN YEARS

2010-04-03T23:05:00.001-04:00

Back when my children were small, I would let them color the eggs for our Easter egg hunt. We had very little money, and back then the Easter egg dye kits were expensive, so I always used food coloring. It went a lot farther and to me, the colors were more vibrant.

I can still see my children…sitting at the tiny kitchen table waiting impatiently for the eggs to cool so they could dip them into the cups of colored water. We didn’t cut our grass until after Easter, because we always hid a few eggs out in our own back yard on Easter morning for our two children and also for Jady and Charity…my nieces ( *my other children) who lived below us.

I have a pictures of Danny hiding the eggs…when he was in his twenty’s, and the one below of him helping little Charity find some Easter eggs….Funny how simple things can become the most important things…those pictures mean the world to me now.

After the small egg hunt in our back yard, we always loaded up in our old car and went to Grandma’s and Granddaddy’s where they had hugs and kisses and an Easter basket waiting for them. Then on to Nanny’s and Pawpaw’s house right down the street where the whole back yard became a field of hidden eggs.

Danny, and his brother-in-laws; Jerry and Donnie would be hiding them while we women held the children hostage in the house..which was no small feat…trust me. There was always a PRIZE egg that was the hardest to find. Back then, it was only a couple of dollars, but you would have thought it was a fortune the way the children hunted for it.

After the kids had found the last of the eggs, everyone gathered under the carport to just relax and talk …Pawpaw ( Danny’s daddy) could be found every year, sitting on the back door steps with the salt and pepper shaker and a couple of eggs he had conned from his grandkids…this image is ingrained in my mind and probably is in all his kid’s and grandkid’s minds too.

You know, it just dawned on me…we always dressed our children up in the cutest little Easter outfits…no matter that we were just going over to Nanny’s and Pawpaw’s…or Grandma and Granddaddy's house…All of us had our children in their cute little special outfits…bought with some very hard earned money.

Being a grandmother now ( Sorry Wyatt…I mean a Mawmaw) I know now how very special that had to have been for our parents…to see all their grandchildren arriving in their Easter best…looking so innocently beautiful.

For us, times were so hard back then…

It was a time of layoffs and unemployment checks, gas lines and bald tires….

Most times we didn’t know where our next dime was coming from…

They say hind sight is twenty-twenty…

and I believe this to be true…

Because looking back…

I realize now that those weren’t the hard times we thought they were…

Instead..

they were truly

the golden years….

for all of us.

If you are lucky enough to be with family this Easter Sunday…treasure the time that you are given.

Thank You God for these precious memories….

And most of all….

Thank You….

For the very special gift You gave to all humanity so many Easters ago…

HAPPY EASTER

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

LESSONS LEARNED

2010-04-01T20:51:00.001-04:00

Mama, me and Dorris

Some things you have to go through in life to be able to learn them. No matter how many people try to tell you before hand…you have to go through them yourself in order to know.

Like when you are three or four years old and your mama says…‘don’t touch that wood heater…it is hot’…but the side of the heater is glowing so pretty and red…that you just have to touch it…

And you find out real quick…just what hot feels like…

Me and my mama

Or like when she tells you that one day you are going to understand why mama always worried about you…no matter how old you are…

You have to be a mama to know what she meant.

Folks will tell you that everything will change when you lose your husband…

Danny and me.

The relationships with your children

and even the family traditions that formed your life for over thirty five years…

They too are going to change.

We just have to learn to deal with it…

and in the mean time…

We have our friends…

People that God put here on earth to help us get by….

To comfort us when we are down…

Just like when I walked into my home this evening after work and found not one…

But two beautiful Easter cards from Tiffany and Cathy….

God bless you my friends.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

ABOUT TIME I WROTE SOMETHING…

2010-03-24T19:16:00.001-04:00

These are the daffodils that Danny helped me plant in our back yard. You can always tell when Spring arrives…just watch for the daffodils along side the roads and in the pastures. We had a beautiful spring day here in N.E. Georgia today. It is still a warm 75 degrees here at 5:05 pm.

And along with Spring flowers comes the Spring thunderstorms….like a few weeks ago…

Afterwards; we saw God’s eternal promise….

And this time,

He gave us a double rainbow!

Wyatt and William are growing like little weeds!

Wyatt is learning more and more words and even beginning to put them together into sentences. His favorite foods right now are spaghetti ABC’S and mini meatballs, corn, green beans, sweet peas and carrots, fruit cups of peaches, pears or mixed fruits, brown and serve little sausage links, the little fruit flavored gummy snacks, and Yogo bits. Just getting him to slow down long enough to eat is a chore. He doesn’t like eggs very much at all! He is also running now…which is so funny to watch! He is so short that his whole little body gets into it, twisting and turning , but running none the less ! He is also developing his own little attitude…and sometimes that can be the attitude with a capital A! lol When his ‘Uncle Dan’ pesters him too much by calling his name while he is busy playing, he will stop what he is doing and turn to look at Dan, point his finger at him and say, “stop!”

Then there are the times, that he will stop what he is doing and come climb up in my lap and hugs me or lays his little head on my chest…. giggling and calling me ‘Maw-Maw’ while patting my face….

and melts this old woman’s heart when he does that….I would walk on hot coals for this child.

Wyatt loves to help…especially if it is man’s work that his daddy is doing…“I help daddy, I help!” is what he kept saying when he wanted to help shovel the gravel into my driveway! That shovel was heavy and he managed to pick it up and use it!

He still absolutely loves tractors and big trucks…

and little brother is starting to get in on the action!

LITTLE WILL

Little Will is quickly becoming Big Will!!! Unlike his brother, he has a super appetite and loves to eat anytime you will let him! He loves squash, carrots…

and sweet potatoes…lol

He has out grown most of his 0-3 month clothes and is now getting into the 3-6 month clothes. He loves to be held by his mama and loves for anybody to talk to him. He is cooing and smiling and actually babbling out loud already. I believe he is going to be a little talker! He is also trying to sit upright by himself…and loves to look around when you hold him up. His hair is coming in and I believe he is going to be a strawberry blonde like his mama use to be when she was little … his hair is very light colored. He has his mama’s dark blue eyes too, while Wyatt has his daddy’s crystal blue eyes. Will too, just like his big brother, is a very loving child…and has his grandma’s heart in his little bitty hands already.

Since I have been on Facebook, I find that I am letting the time that I post here in my journal get longer and longer…and that needs to change. Years from now, this journal will be a reminder of past times in my family’s life, and it needs to be updated more often…which I am going to try to do…Seems like everyday life just gets in the way and there is never enough time for everything I need to get done. ( For instance, I have got to set aside a day to go get my eyes checked again and get new glasses, since it has been years since I last got them.)

Here are my grown children….

Amanda with Will today

And below; Dan sitting on the tail gate with his cousin Jody, last week.

And lastly….

ME….

I hate taking pictures...I always look so dopey!

Ok…I have finally updated…

Now lets see how long it will take me to get another post in here!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

AND LIFE GOES ON….

2010-02-22T00:40:00.001-05:00

A day like today makes me long for Spring…We had a beautiful day … bright sunshine, blue skies and temperatures in the high sixties…Mother Nature did her best to give us a glimpse of what is to come before very much longer.

Wyatt and his daddy…Wyatt loves tractors!

I did not have a good week, to say the least, so today was like a breath of fresh air…

Even if I didn’t leave the house.

It seemed like a storm cloud brewed right over my home, beginning on Tuesday and on into Wednesday…and Thursday…and Friday.

Will….2 month sold and he laughs and coos already!

Tuesday was just small stuff really…but , well let’s just say…words said in anger can hurt deeply …and we will leave it at that.

Then Wednesday night, when I reached up to get the Pam off the shelf over the stove, I dropped it…and it fell…behind the stove and lodged in between the hot water heater copper tubing. I would have to let the stove cool down to be able to get to it.

Will….our little “Rooster” again!

I had boiled some chicken and made some stock to freeze. I love homemade chicken stock and use it instead of the canned stuff. I ended up with two bowls of the stuff…bowls that held one and a half quarts each.

Caught trying to get out the front door at his house!

Going to “Maw-Maw’s”…

As soon as they cooled down, I put the first one into the freezer section of my side-by-side refrigerator…then as I went to put the second one in…

I dropped it!

Oh dear Lord….

Well, of course the top flew off and of course all of the cool greasy liquid quickly ran under the refrigerator. I tried to keep my cool as I pulled the refrigerator out from the wall…wiggling it this way and that, until it was out far enough. At the same time I was desperately trying to keep from sliding up in the greasy mess and breaking an arm…or worse.

Wyatt finds out ice cream is gooood!

Well…thank God I didn’t fall, but I didn’t keep my cool either…

It didn’t help matters that my back has been killing me all week for some reason. I had bent down and had began sopping the mess up with towels (that I had just gotten washed and dried) and I began thinking that I still had to pull the stove out after I was through with all this….

And that is when I lost it.

I began crying and sobbing like I had just found out that there was no tomorrow. Every hurt that I have suffered since birth was running through my heart and and wringing it out, just like I was having to wring out the dang towels.

That was Wednesday…

Thursday…

I came home from working 10 hours, got the mail off the chest by the front door and found in it a letter from a company wanting aprox. $14,000.00…which I will have to sort out.

Friday…

I got a letter wanting $2,500.00 which I had been looking to get, but of all days to get it.

Help me Jesus.

I did not get out of my pj’s all day today…

Do you ever feel like just giving up?

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

ANGELS AMONG US

2010-02-11T19:21:00.001-05:00

As I was standing by the take-out window during a lull at the Bar-B-Que today, I was thinking about Valentine’s Day…which lead me to think about those little bitty candy hearts that have the cute little sayings on them…You know the ones...they say; ‘kiss me’ or ‘hug me’ or ‘love’ or such.

Danny use to give me just one each Valentine’s Day with a box of chocolate candy and a card. Usually the one he gave me would say ‘love’ or ‘kiss me’ …and I too would give him one with his gift…a heart felt reminder of the times when we were young and gave each other a whole box of them…and thought we were doing something grand! lol

As I stood there with all our Valentine Day memories running through my head, I took my finger and gently wrote “Danny” in the fog on the window….

Soon, a customer came up, which forced me out of my melancholy mood … Work…it is one of the best things there is for the blues, isn’t it?

When I came home just now, I stopped at the chest by the front door to grab the mail that Dan places there for me to look at. Thankfully there were no bills…for a change…but there was one envelope with my name on it. When I opened it up, imagine my surprise when I saw that it was a BEAUTIFUL VALENTINE !!!!!

That it came today … of all days…only proves to me that yes indeed… “there are angels among us.”

GOD BLESS YOU ALWAYS SWEET TIFFANY…YOU PUT A SMILE ON THIS OLD LADY’S FACE TONIGHT AND I WILL NEVER FORGET YOUR KINDNESS.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

A SMALL TOWN SOUTHERN MAN

2010-02-02T15:29:00.001-05:00

TODAY WOULD HAVE BEEN MY DADDY’S BIRHTDAY…HE DIED IN 1985 AND I STILL MISS HIM. HE WAS A WONDERFUL, KIND AND LOVING DADDY…

THEY SAY MOST TIMES A GIRL WILL CHOOSE A MAN LIKE HER DADDY…AND I DID…DANNY WAS JUST AS KIND AND GOOD AND LOVING .

TODAY IS ALSO THE DAY THAT WE BURRIED DANNY BACK IN 2006…I REMEMBER THINKING THEN THAT I WAS SENDING DADDY ONE HELL OF A GOOD BIRTHDAY PRESENT… FOR HE LOVED DANNY LIKE A SON.

ALAN JACKSON SINGS A SONG THAT REMINDS ME SO MUCH OF DANNY...AND ALSO MY DADDY…

HERE ARE PART OF THE LYRICS OF

A SMALL TOWN SOUTHERN MAN :

[Chorus:]
And he bowed his head to Jesus
And he stood for Uncle Sam
And he only loved one woman
(He) was always proud of what he had
He said his greatest contribution
Is the ones you leave behind
Raised on the ways and gentle kindness
Of a small town Southern man
(Raised on the ways and gentle kindness)
(Of a small town Southern man)

Callous hands told the story
For this small town Southern man
He gave it all to keep it all together
And keep his family on his land
Like his daddy, years wore out his body
Made it hard just to walk and stand
You can break the back
But you can't break the spirit
Of a small town Southern man

Finally death came callin'
For this small town Southern man
He said it's alright 'cause I see angels
And they got me by the hand
Don't you cry, and don't you worry
I'm blessed, and I know I am
'Cause God has a place in Heaven
For a small town Southern man..

THIS I KNOW IS TRUE….

I KNOW WITHOUT A SHADOW OF A DOUBT, THAT MY DADDY AND MY DANNY ARE BOTH IN HEAVEN.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.