THREE LITTLE WORDS

 

       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

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

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

                  
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…

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

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.