WILLIAM THOMAS FRANKLIN KITCHENS

It is with humble gratitude and praise to our Father in Heaven, from whom all sweet blessings come, that I present my second grandson;

             William Thomas Franklin Kitchens:

Born: 12/18/2009 ~ weighing 7lbs. 4oz. ~ length 20 inches

                

 

                                 All cleaned up :

                  

               My big brother  loves me already!

         He held my tiny hand for a long ,long time.

           

             This will be  my very first Christmas! :

              

           Look, I can hold my little head up already :

             

                         This is my close up!!! :

              

Sometimes when you think that the things you want so badly will never happen to you…

And you begin to listen to the “experts” that tell you they won’t ever happen…

You are forgetting  to listen to THE ONE who knows more than anyone else in this world…

Forgive me Lord….

Thank You God for Your many, many blessings on me…I never expected to ever become a grandma…

Then You have blessed me with two beautiful little grandsons…

MERRY CHRISTMAS !

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

THINGS WE GET USE TO

        

You know it is funny what we get use to…what we take for granted sometimes.

Yesterday would have been my 38th anniversary had Danny not died from a massive heart attack in 2006.  This morning, I was remembering back to that day of many years ago, because today is Saturday and it was actually on a Saturday that we made that long journey to Aiken, S.C.

I was thinking about how long it took us to get there and how I had to sit on Danny’s lap all the way causing my neck to ache for two days afterwards!  Then it dawned on me that the reason my brother-in-law had to take us in his car was because we didn’t have one of our own.

Today people would be aghast wouldn’t they? More so than they may have been back in 1971. That two people, who are only 17 and 18 years old with not but one tiny paycheck to their name and NO CAR was actually thinking about getting married!

Our parents told us that we had to have a house and furniture before we could get married…Well, we had the house…A little three room “shot-gun house”  that we rented from the Cotton Mill where Danny worked at the time. They called it a “shot-gun” house because of the way it was made…three little rooms that went straight through. First the living room, then the bedroom, then the kitchen and as an afterthought ; a bathroom that was built onto the back of the kitchen!  We were lucky that the door to ours was on the inside…some folks had to go out on the back porch to access theirs!

For months we had scrimped and saved enough to buy a used iron bed and a new re-stuffed mattress…a table and four chairs…a stove…and a refrigerator. My mama let us borrow her little twin bed ( also iron) and we used that as a couch in the living room. We had a wringer washing machine and a clothes line to do our clothes. Danny’s BIG MAMA made us sheets for our bed  from cotton sheeting she got from the mill for a wedding present!

We thought we were rich.

It scares me now when looking back…. I realize how poor we actually were . We didn’t have much at all…and we were mere babies.

But you know what?  I wish I still had that old fifties’ style chrome table and chairs, it was so pretty…Same goes for the iron beds and oh, my goodness, what I would give for a stove like I had then …It had two ovens…one big and one small…it had push buttons on the back top of it and three cooking ‘eyes’ and a ‘deep well’ to fry or boil in !  That little bitty refrigerator???  Well, I can not in all honesty say that I would trade in the one I have now for it, because I remember too well the little bitty freezer in the one we started out with! There was only enough room for two ice trays in it! (Plus I hated defrosting that thing!) How did we ever make it without room for frozen meat or vegetables???  We hardly ever could afford much meat and the  main vegetables we had were cabbage, potatoes and dry beans.

Yep…it’s funny what we take for granted sometimes.

Would I go back to those days?

You bet…

In a heart beat….

Because what we had back then…

Was worth more than all the gold in Fort Knox.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

ONCE AGAIN

      

My friends; it has been a while since I have updated this “blog” of mine..never can get use to calling it that…To me, it will always be my journal.

It has rained all day here in N.E. Georgia…and it is rather chilly…Yeah… I know… it is November after all…but it has been in the 70’s  around here until today. It is 46 degrees this evening. I paid to have my leaves swept Friday while I was at work and now it is a huge mess again. Money I didn’t have; wasted.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner isn’t it?  I am planning on having lunch here for everyone, then Amanda and Kelvin will be going to his mama’s house afterwards.

Amanda goes back to the OBGYN tomorrow, so wish us luck, ok? I will be so happy to see this baby and know that all is okay with him and his mama.

           

I got to see my little Wyatt this afternoon! They all came over and ate the home made vegetable soup that I made. It was so good on a day like today! Wyatt is learning more and more words.

            

He can say tractor, Poppa (when he sees the picture of Danny, he always points at it and says “poppa”  ), Hallie , Coco , Bubba ,Annie, (all pups) hot, horse, cow, kitty, mommy, maw-maw, daddy, baby , Dinky,  (Dan’s nickname we call him that Wyatt has picked up on!) just to name a few!

Oh and MOON….he looks for it every time he goes outside! After he kept asking for the moon and looking for it, I found him the little book named “GOODNIGHT MOON” and he loves it. Strange, but it was Amanda’s favorite book too when she was little!

Dan had to go to the doctor last month. He is a diabetic and now he also has to take medicine for high cholesterol and high triglycerides. He has to go back next week. Seems I am spending all my days off at doctors now.

             

I am watching Wizard of Oz…I am one of the few who still love this movie after having watched it every year while I was little. I love hearing Judy sing; “ SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW ” and I can still remember me and my sister laughing ourselves silly when the scarecrow said; “part of me is over there… Those were the good old days…God I miss them.

               

I am trying soooo hard not to get into a funk this year…Holidays are so darn hard when your loved ones are gone…especially when you had strong family traditions during them.

I am trying hard to be jolly for little Wyatt and was actually going to put my Christmas decorations up today had it not rained so hard.

                              

                           Our last trip to the mountains

This Friday is my wedding anniversary. We would have been married 38 years had Danny lived. We always said we would be together until our 50th…Having married so young, it never dawned on either of us that one of us could die before that.

Danny was only just turned 17 and me 18. We had to go out of state to Aiken S.C.  because Danny was not old enough to get married in the State of Georgia. Me, Danny, my mama, my daddy, my 2 sisters and my brother-in-law all crammed into his brand new yellow Ford Maverick….a small 2 door car!  Thank goodness I was smaller back then, cause I sat in Danny’s lap all the way up there.

We listened and sang to “Going to the Chapel” which ironically played on the radio over and over  on the way to the courthouse…I remember that it was a Saturday and had drizzled all the way up there and after getting married, the sun came out…I remember that I was so glad the sun finally came out, since the old wives tale says that “if it rains on your wedding day, that’s how many tears you will shed”

The same brother-in-law ( even though now divorced from my sister) that drove us up there to get married, would, 10 years later,  take me and Danny to a hospital over 30 miles away when I came in labor with Amanda…and again, he had a brand new yellow car; a Toyota this time..That day, there was ice on the highway and we skidded trying to avoid a deer that ran out in front of us…but we made it in time for my water to break just as I walked into the ER !

Good Memories….Special Memories….

Every night when I come home from work… every night when I lay my head down on my pillow and slide my arm and leg across the bed to the other side…where now no one lays and the sheets are cold…

It hits me what I have lost.

Trust me….

Make sure your loved one knows how much they mean to you.

There is nothing more heartbreakingly lonesome …

than losing a part of yourself .

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

PLAYING CATCH UP

Our little Wyatt loves a broom and mop! Dan made him a tiny broom to sweep his granny’s floor with and he loves it. He grabbed my mop last night and “mopped” my whole living room…and I mean the whole living room! lol  There is a space between the coffee table and couch and he came and got me to move a toy of his so he could “mop” there too! lol  He was so cute.

                   

Wyatt loves tractors and since there is an old Alice Chalmers (SP???)  in the next door neighbor’s yard behind my house, he has to go visit it everyday that he comes over here! He goes “vroooomm-vroooomm the whole time he is over there at it!        

                          

   Looking like a little man after getting his hair cut the last time!

Speaking of Wyatt, he has a computerized stuffed dog that I bought at Good Will for 50 cents…This dog will “learn” your commands if you repeat simple commands 3 times…Wyatt will grab this dog out of his toy box and bring it to me and get me to “wake him up” and get him to bark, lay down, or howl etc.

                    

Last night he brought him to me and I was telling the dog to “Bark” …well we went through that a couple of times and the doggy barked! I then told the dog to “lay down” two times and when he still wouldn’t lay down….Well, by gosh, Wyatt decided to show the doggy how…When I said “lay down” again…Wyatt quickly lay down beside his doggy!  At first I thought it was a coincidence…but I tried it twice more and each time Wyatt quickly “lay down” beside his puppy!  I laughed until my sides hurt!  I had trained my grandbaby to lay down!

My mama is doing okay…I go see her weekly…I will go back Sunday to see her this week…She is in a good place  where the nurses and CNA’s really CARE about their patients….so I know she is taken care of and SAFE. She is forgetting more and more…which is expected …Her short term memory is about 1 minute now…so I repeat over and over while I am there…She remembers some things way back….She has yet to forget me, but she can  not remember her grandchildren…except for Dan, but then she thinks of him as still being a little child…When Amanda goes out here with me, Mama thinks she is a friend of hers that rode the school bus with her….She loves Wyatt when she sees him, but has to be told over and over and over again that he is her great-grandchild….and also what his name is. She holds him while we are there and he seems to realize who she is and will lay his little head on her chest and be just as still…She has begun asking why my daddy don’t come to see her while she is in the hospital…and where is Danny. Daddy  has been dead since 1985 ….and Danny since 2006…This part of the visit is especially hard on me…and sometimes when I leave there I have to sit in my car and just bawl my eyes out before going home….

My tax on my home  nearly tripled this year…and it was a shock that came out of nowhere…something about the governor repealing an exemption.  Thank God that the tax on Mama’s house only went up $40.oo .  I am hoping  and praying that God will help me out…He has helped me so many times…I so hate to keep asking Him for help when I know that there are so many others far worse off than me.

Amanda only has a little less than  two more months to go before we get our new little one in the family! YAY!!! I know she will be so happy! We went to her doctor’s visit today…She is doing good and her stomach measured one week ahead of  what she actually is…so we are hoping that this baby will be a little bigger than Wyatt who weighed only 4 lbs and 15 oz. …She is going every two weeks now…The next time we go, she will have another sonogram…We still don’t know for sure what this little boy will be named…she has a couple of names in mind, but that could change any day!

I am not feeling too good here lately…nothing major…just sinus stuff and allergies…My eyes stay red and blood shot … and I feel generally icky…I have to go to the doctor next week, so maybe he can give me something for it.

                     

Well, I think I will say goodnight my friends…

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE

This has been a lazy Sunday. I did wash my bed cover and a few loads of clothes and fed all the pets…cooked breakfast and supper, but that’s about it.

We have had heavy rain here for days and days. Today was the first day in a long time that the sun was out all day.Thank you God. I should have cut the grass but it was still soggy out back. I also  had  a bad headache and felt sort of jittery all day…so I am hoping to get it done tomorrow or the next day.

Desperate Housewives is coming on tonight…I can’t wait to see how it begins this season.

Amanda still hasn’t settled on a name for the new little baby! I have told her I am going to call him “baby X” !  She is leaning  toward Weston…but who knows…it could change tomorrow.  (THANK YOU ALL FOR SOME GREAT SUGGESTIONS!) A few of you even suggested Weston!!!

Some of the names she has come up with, well let’s just say, I do not care for them…but then again, I didn’t think I liked the name ‘Wyatt’, but now that he is actually here, I realize that the name fits him so well and I can not imagine him with any other name! God, I love my little grandson and I can not wait to be able to hold the new one!!! Please pray that all goes well with her and this new baby.

 

This is Wyatt petting Annie. He loves Annie so much. and she is so gentle around him. Wyatt will toddle over and look out my kitchen window every time he comes over, just to see if he can see her out back and call her, saying, “ Annieeeee” lol

We got Annie one day when Amanda was about 14 or so…Guess that means she is hitting 14 herself now. She was at a flea market… still a young pup, with a man who had her for sale. He didn’t sell her and was heading home, so he went to put Annie in a cage. Bless her heart, she got away, and ran like a striped ape to under his truck.

This idiot got in the truck and revved the motor up and was screaming like a maniac for her to come out…Well, she did  and then ran like hell away from him again…He started yelling and turned and saw Amanda and some other little boy that was standing there watching him act like a fool. He told them”which ever one of you catches that dog can have her, I am leaving”.

Gosh, I hate to say it, but I was so hoping that little boy would catch her first!!! But, oh no…Amanda wasn’t going to let that boy beat her to a puppy…oh no…not my child…She dived at Annie and caught her first! After some hard begging and  pleading and, “Mama, I will tend to her, you won’t have to do anything”; (famous words, huh? ) Annie was soon in our Van and headed back home with us. She was starved half to death and filthy…She ate and lapped water like there was no tomorrow all the way home.

I  named her “Little Orphan Annie” and after a while, we shortened it to just “Annie”.  Let me tell you…she has been one of the best dogs we ever had. Very very smart. When Amanda got married, she left Annie with me and I didn’t mind, because I loved her.

She is old and almost totally blind and deaf now. I use to love to see her run…she could run like the wind…She can’t run very well anymore, her legs are too stiff. She can’t  find her way back home alone and I am so afraid she won’t come back one day, so now  I walk her every day.

It is so sad to see how she has aged…

But she is happy…

She is loved and well cared for and she knows it….

And after all….

Being loved and cared for is what really matters most to all of us, isn’t it?

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

“PAPA???”

We had torrential rains here last night..It rained so hard and for so long (ALL EVENING AND ALL NIGHT LONG) that as I stood washing up my supper dishes at my kitchen sink, I started feeling rain hit me on my head…I looked up and sure enough…it was raining from my kitchen ceiling! I have a huge leak there and also in Dan’s room…Lord have mercy,  if it isn’t one thing, it’s another.  I am leaving this problem up to the good Lord…No; I don’t know where the money will come for this….but I am sure GOD does.

Amanda will be going to the OBGYN every two weeks now, beginning next week. The time is flying by so fast…well, at least for me, maybe not for Amanda.

They still have no idea what to name this little boy….

So I am going to ask yall…

What is a good name for this little boy??? Preferably one that begins with “W”,and  is sort of like a cowboy’s name???  That is what she is leaning toward…right now anyways! lol I told her that it looks like I am going to have to call him;  “ BABY X  ” ! For real, if you can think of any good names, please feel free to leave me a comment...no matter what letter the name starts with!

My nieces’ from Louisville, Ky. came down this past week. That’s Susie on the left and Wendy on the right in the picture below…

                 

The little girl and baby girl are Wendy’s children; they are my great-nieces!  It was the first time that I had seen the baby girl ! They only stayed for a couple of days, so it was a fast trip and like always I hated to see them go. I didn’t get to see Christina (my other niece) and her children, as she didn’t get to come….but she knows I love her…don’t you Pumpkin???

Wyatt loves tractors! He got to go to a tractor pull not long ago with his mama and  daddy and now he is in love with tractors!  There is one across from my back yard and he wasn’t satisfied, until he got me to take him over there so he could  see it up close and touch it! He would stand there and look at it and be going “brmmmmm---brmmmmmm…” like revving his motor up! He even tried to say “tractor”… it came out “trac-cor” lol

Wyatt has a new word now… “hot”. He was playing with the pull chain to my bedside lamp, cutting it on and off. I was right there sitting on my bed watching him. The lamp has a florescent light in it that stays cool, thank goodness…but somehow he must had put his hand too close to the base of the bulb..because all of a sudden, he pulled his little hand away and looked right at me and said “hot”…stringing it out long…. saying…..hhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat sounding like “what” …He didn’t cry, just looked very surprised!

I have no other place to put my deep freezer, except in my bedroom…so it sits right by my bed… The day after Danny died, I figured out that I could put a picture of Danny right there on the side of it and when I lay down…Danny’s face would be the last thing I see before I close my eyes…just like when he lived. It soothes me to see his face before I go to sleep.

Well, after Wyatt got through with his experimenting with my lamp; he sat there on my foot stool and was steadily looking at that picture of Danny…staring hard at it.

I sat on my bed….very still and quiet…just watching him…

I nearly fell off my bed when he pointed at the picture and said very plainly….“ PAPA? ”…I couldn’t believe what I had just heard…so I asked; “ What did you say Wyatt?” and again, he said…plain as day… “ PAPA?” as he touched the picture.

Let me tell you…I had to swallow one hell of a lump in my throat, for this old heart of mine was breaking…

I said, with some difficulty, “Yes Darling…that is your PAPA”. He patted the picture…as he tends to do with the puppies when he loves on them…saying; “ PAPA” the whole time…I had been taking pictures of him with the lamp and so I snapped these too.

I so wish that Danny could have lived long enough for Wyatt to have known him and to have known the love that He would have gotten from such a wonderful “PAPA”…..

Never the less…He will know all about his “PAPA” ….

As long as there is still breath in this old body of mine, he will know.

I Thank YOU God for this wonderful little child YOU sent to us.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.