Thanksgiving Holiday

I am taking a break from here due to being too busy with the holiday preperations I have to do. I will be back after the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Photos: White Tail Neighbors

Photos: White Tail Neighbors: White Tail Neighbors , a set on Flickr.

Photos: Season Of Fall

Photos: Season Of Fall: Season Of Fall , a set on Flickr.     

Took the granddaughters to the park today. There is a walking trail there which is where I took most of the pictures in this set. Others were taken in my yard and around the country neighborhood. Hope you enjoy them. :)
My granddaughter thought this drainage pipe was a skunk from where we were standing. I zoomed in on it to find out, lol.

  

Brenda

I didn't have many friends, but one of my very best friends was Brenda. We became best friends after my step dad sold the swap shop/coffee shop/auction barn. We moved into town to a house that my step dad owned and had been renting out. Brenda lived right across the street. Although we were in the same grade in school and knew each other we hadn't been friends, that changed when I moved to town. One summer Brenda was allowed to go camping and fishing with us. We went to Cassville, Wisconsin for 3 weeks. My step brother and his family and my brother also went along. Here is a picture of Brenda, my step brother's 2 boys, and me.

 

 

 

Brenda and I slept in sleeping bags on top of lounge chairs inside of a screened in patio tent. We had a lot of fun and I wasn't bored at all. Here is another picture that was taken on that trip. It is a picture of me holding up a catfish that my step brother's son, Dean had caught.

 

 

In case you are wondering, yes those are the flat bottom boats that we used to go fishing in...little things aren't they...especially on the Mississippi River!!

 

 

Brenda and I did everything together until something happened and all of a sudden we didn't talk to each other. Brenda got mad at me for something that some other girl had told her that wasn't even true. This was very hard on me. Living across the street from her even made it harder. I don't know how I made it thru this time of my life. Then just as sudden as it started it was over. Brenda apoligized to me and we once again became best friends. We stayed friends even after I had to move when my mom and step dad got a divorce. However, our friendship wasn't as close as it had been from then on. Strange how things like that work....

Happy Halloween

My daughter and son in law dressed up to go to work last night for Halloween. A full fledged werewolf and one that is just changing into a werewolf.

 

 

 

 

Tonight they dressed to take my granddaughters out to trick or treat. Sammy Jo dressed as a flapper and Christina as a gangster. Tabitha dressed as a vampiress and Frank as a vampire.

 



Photos: More Breakfast Companions

Photos: More Breakfast Companions: My breakfast companion returned this morning and brought a few friends.     

Ramblings About Childhood Loneliness

Living at the edge of town up above our swap shop and coffee shop, it was lonely for the most part. There were no neighbors, so no children to play with. I had to keep myself entertained. We had a huge gravel parking lot out front but not much grass. There was a narrow strip of grass beside the auction barn. The railroad tracks were right behind us. From my bedroom window I could look out and almost touch the trains as they went by. I had seen many a hobo standing in the open doors of the railroad cars as they went by. I would play on the railroad tracks. This was one of my favorite things to do actually. I would walk on the track putting one foot in front of the other, seeing how long I could stay on the track without falling off. One day I was walking on the tracks and I must have been really deep in my daydreaming, because a train had snuck up behind me and the engineer laid on the train whistle. I jumped straight up in the air and much to my surprise there was this giant train right behind me. I could see the engineer laughing so hard at me. I do not know how this giant train got so close to me without me hearing or feeling it on the track. I was very deep into my daydreams I guess.  Between our buildings and the railroad tracks there was another narrow stretch of grass. Back there is where we planted our garden.  I loved to read.  I read a lot of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys books. Once I started reading I couldn't put the book down. There were times that I read 5 books a day. One day I was in my bedroom laying on my bed reading and my mom asked me to watch the coffeepot she had on the stove. I got so involved in my book I forgot about it and all the water boiled out of it and burned it up. Yup I was in trouble. We had a tree in front of the auction barn that I would climb up and sit in sometimes and read. Here is a picture of the tree, my mom and sister sitting in front of it. It had a nice sitting place not too high off the ground.

 

 

 

I had a bicycle that I would ride in the gravel parking lot. I loved to watch shows that had spies and private detectives in them. I would ride my bicycle around and make up games where I would pretend that I was a spy or a private detective on a big case. In the narrow grassy strip next to the auction barn there was an old picnic table that the top was broken off of. I would jump from bench to bench saying little rhymes, to pass the time. That ended the day I went to jump and missed the other bench and landed on the metal bar that had once been attached to the top. It ripped thru my right leg and blood was everywhere. I ran to my mom and she wanted to take me for stitches because she said it looked deep. I was such a wimp that just the thought of stitches put me in a panic. I begged my mom not to take me for stitches. I begged her to just put some butterfly bandages on it. She didn't want to but she finally gave in and used the butterfly bandages, it took 4 of them. I did heal, but I ended up with a nasty looking scar. I was once a very lucky girl. The front door of our coffee shop was a door that had glass window up top and was wooden at the bottom. Not sure what had happened to the door, but for a while it wouldn't latch and you were able to just push it open from the outside. I got into the habit of doing this without turning the door handle. One day while I was playing outside I went running into the coffee shop and instead of the door opening when I pushed on it, my hands and arms went thru the glass. My step dad had fixed the latch and I didn't know. The glass went everywhere and I scared all the customers and my mom to death. I ended up with some very small scratches, not big enough to call a cut. Like I said I was very lucky...even more so then this, but that story is for another blog some day....

 



Now That's Luck!!

One year while out in our fishing boat on the Wolf River in Fremont Wisconsin, my step dad got a hold of a fish that he just couldn't handle. This fish or whatever it was took the bait on my step dad's hook and ran with it. My step dad who was standing up at the time almost fell out of the boat. He caught his self but the boat was rocking badly and he lost his grip on his fishing rod. I thought we were gonna tip over. The boat settled down and my step dad grabbed for his fishing rod but he was too late it went over the side. He grabbed one of the fishing nets we had and tried to scoop the fishing rod but it didn't work and the fishing rod went under..Found a picture online of a fishing net like what he was using.

 

 

He kept trying for a few more minutes but soon realized it was hopeless, his fishing rod was gone. It had sunk and who knew how far the attached fish had taken it. My step dad was not a happy camper for this fishing rod had been his favorite one. The following year we went back like always. There we were sitting in the fishing boat once again. My mom had made a joke about my step dad losing his fishing rod the year before and to make sure he didn't lose another one. All of a sudden my step dad got a bite on his line and he was saying "Oh boy this must be a big one!". He pulled and reeled and pulled some more. He had changed his mind about it being a fish and was mumbling about it being a tree branch. He was not a happy camper. Finally, he lifted it up out of the water. Much to our surprise, it wasn't a fish or a tree branch. It was the fishing rod he had lost the year before, now covered with river slime! We couldn't believe our eyes! What a fine catch it was!! The best surprise of all was that it still worked!! Made my step dad's day, week, month, year!! It gave him the bragging rights of the best catch ever, lol



Breakfast Companion

Sitting at breakfast table this morning and seen her in the backyard by the woods.

 

 



Help!!! What is It??

Camping and fishing can be boring for a young girl. I had many days when we would go camping and fishing where I was bored to death! I remember one such day, I was 12 years old, we were in Cassville, Wisconsin on the Mississippi River. My step dad had went out fishing in the boat and my mom I had stayed at the campground. I was bored, there wasn't any children around to play with. So I took my fishing pole down to the boat dock. I didn't have any bait for my hook but like I said I was bored. I stood on the boat dock and casted my rod into the river and then I would slowly reel it in, then repeat. I don't know how long it was that I stood there on the boat dock throwing and reeling, but it was for a while. All of a sudden my line caught a snag, as they say. This is what I thought anyway. I tried to get it to come loose but couldn't. I was getting madder and madder. Finally, I pulled with all the might I had and I could feel it loosen a little. So I started reeling it in and it was coming, although it felt like I had a tree limb attached. Then BAM! my line started running out. I had a fish on my line. I thought..how? I had empty hook...I planted my feet firmly and started pulling my rod and reeling the line in. My little arms were getting so tired but I kept it up until I finally could see a fish flopping in the water. I was able to pull it up on the boat dock. It was the biggest fish I had ever seen. I had no clue what kind of fish it even was. It looked mean and it wouldn't stop flopping around. I didn't know how to take a fish off my line. I took off walking with fishing pole in tow with the fish still attached and headed towards our campsite. I passed other campers/fishermen on the way and they were all telling me what a fine catch I had. When I got within yelling distance of our campsite I did just that. I started yelling for my mom. She came running, thinking that I was hurt. She sees the fish flopping all over the place. "Where did you get that?" she asked. I told her the story and I asked her, "What is this thing?" My mom said that she thought it was a northern pike. She had me help her put it in a bucket of water because she didn't want to try and take the hook out, so she just cut the line. When my step dad came in from fishing he told us that it was indeed a northern pike. he wanted to know how I caught it and when I told him he said UNBELIEVABLE! I wish I had a picture of the fish I caught but pictures were a rare thing for me in those days. I did however find this picture of a northern pike online.

 



All Aboard!!

A few times during the summer months, my mom had sent my sister and I to visit our aunts in Indianapolis, Indiana. This happened before my mom married my step dad, I was about 7 years old. The Greyhound bus had a bus stop in my hometown. We would get on the bus there and ride it to Indianapolis, Indiana. Our aunts would pick us up at the bus station upon arrival. Along the way the bus would stop for lunch and a bathroom break. Once when we walked back outside to board our bus, there was 3 Greyhound buses parked, nose to end. My sister starts to get on the wrong bus. I had seen something about our bus that told me that the bus my sister was getting on wasn't the right bus. I yelled and told her it was the wrong bus. My sister being the stubborn person she is wouldn't listen to me. She dragged me on to the wrong bus. I being the stubborn person I am planted my feet and started pulling her off the bus, screaming the whole time that it was the wrong bus!! She just wouldn't believe me and kept pulling me back. Finally I yelled if you don't believe me then ask the bus driver. Did I tell you how stubborn my sister is?? She wouldn't ask, but me being oh so stubborn myself did ask. I yelled hey is this bus going to Indianapolis, Indiana? The bus driver said no it's not. Finally my sister gets it into her head that we are on the wrong bus and we get off and run to the bus that I kept telling her was ours...Of course this time she asked the bus driver if it was going to Indianapolis, Indiana and he said yes. We got on the bus in the nick of time...of course it was years before I let my sister live this one down!!

In Memory

Wrong day

Leave it to me to pick the wrong day. That is exactly what I did today. I decided yesterday that I was going to go to the laundromat this morning to wash all of my heavy comforters and quilts in their big washing machines. I needed change so I stopped at bank first...Oh crap the bank is closed due to Columbus Day!! I didn't even think about today being Columbus Day. So I am like ok now what do I do. There is a tobacco store next to the laundromat and Brian takes a $20 in to get change since the changer in the laundromat takes $10. Well that worked about as good as going to the bank!! The woman in the tobacco store tells Brian that there is a law that when the banks are closed due to a holiday that the stores can't give you change because of "funny money". I think this is the most stupiest thing I have ever heard!! Next to the tobacco store is a Save A Lot store. I tell Brian to go in there and buy a can corn or something just so we can get change, no problem he comes out with a can of corn and the prized change!! Ok so now we go back next door to the laundromat only to find that all of the big washing machines are taken. Drive across town to the other laundromat which I find empty, yay!! Plenty of big washing machines to use. Each machine cost $3 and I had 3 of them. The dryers I had to use $1 in each and 2 had to use .50 cents more. It was cutting it close but I had enough quarters to get them all done. YAY!! Hopefully the next time I have to wash this stuff up I won't choose a holiday to do it on. 

Photos: Hazel Days Car Show

Photos: Hazel Days Car Show: Hazel Days Car Show , a set on Flickr. Today was the annaul Hazel Day's. One of the activities is a car show. I took pictures of wha...

A Pinky

Every year in May, my step dad would say..."If the lilacs are blooming, the white bass are biting"...and off we would go to Fremont Wisconsin to the Wolf River.

 

 

My step dad would carry our 14 foot flat bottom boat on top of our bus camper. He would also use a tow bar to pull our "camping" car behind the bus. It was a Chevy Corvair that he had painted orange to match the orange stripes on the bus camper. Once we arrived to the campgrounds we would have a way to go into town, etc. One year my step brother and his family had followed us up. They were using a tent and had rented a boat from the campgrounds. While on a fishing trip, one must always awake at the crack of dawn. Eat breakfast, pack lunch (if you have plans to stay out on river all day) and head on down to your boat and pull anchor. On this particular day, my step brother and his family followed us in their boat. We set anchor at one of my step dad's favorite fishing "spots". Sometimes I would fish and sometimes I would just play in the water with my hand. There were even times when I would catch baby snapping turtles on the end of one of the boat oars. This day I was fishing with rod and reel. If you have ever went fishing then you know that most of the time is spent waiting for a fish to bite your bait. This day was no different for everyone. No bites and my step dad was about to give it up for the day, when I got a bite and reeled in a very decent sized white bass...My mom took the fish off my hook for me as I didn't know how. I could bait my own hook though... I threw my line back in the water and BAM! I had another bite and reeled in another white bass. Again my mom removed the fish from my hook and back in the water it went. BAM! another bite and we continued the cycle. Everytime I threw my hook into the water I had a bite, just like that!! I was catching fish so fast that everyone else in both boats gave up trying just so they could take the fish off my line. Our boats were close enough together that I could swing the fish into either boat. Thank goodness for that. They were dumbfounded how I was catching so many fish. My step dad asked me.. "What are you using for bait?"..I said.. "I have a pinky on it"..he asked.." You don't even have a minnow on it?"..I said.. "No only the pinky". They could not believe it!! What we called a pinky was this little pink feathery fishing lure. I thought they were cute, lol...I found this picture on the web of them...except the one I was using was completely pink.

So then they all tried to use what I was using but still they didn't get any bites. I kept on throwing my pinky out and the white bass kept biting it, for the next hour...  They were everywhere!! We had 2 metal fish baskets full and 2 fish stringers full and the bottoms of both boats full. So we headed back. I would always help my step dad clean the fish. I would scale them and he would do the rest. This is a very messy smelly job. The fish scales go everywhere and my hair would look like a Christmas tree decorated with fish scales when we were done. This day this job took forever and my step brother was also brought in for reinforcements.  As you see for I and I alone in 1 hour had caught 100 white bass!! I really enjoyed that too..I wasn't bored that was for sure. We had to go into town and buy garbage cans to put the fish in so we could take them home. Garbage cans full of ice and fish..I had caught lots of fish before this, but on this day, for that 1 hour I was a mighty fisherman!!

Half A Million Dollars

Have you ever wondered what a half a million dollars looks like?....Well here is what it looks like to a farmer.

 

 

 

 

This combine with the head on it cost a half of a million dollars. It has GPS, radar, etc. It also has some kind of a leveling thing that moves up and down with the ground, so as you can see, when they are done the field looks like it has been mowed. There is nothing left but smooth ground. Never have seen a field cut this close....



Photos: Corn Harvest 2011

Photos: Corn Harvest 2011

Photos: More of My Favorites

Photos: More of My Favorites

Lady

As I have written in previous blogs, I spent a lot of my childhood camping/fishing. My step dad loved to fish so most of our trips were fishing trips. My brother, who was in the Army had somehow picked up a cat as a hitchhiker on a trip back home once. He gave her to me. Here is a photo of Lady and me.

 

We took her with us in the bus camper every time we went on a trip. Lady was declawed but that didn't stop her from removing the lid off of my step dad's minnow bucket and then preceeding to empty it of all the minnows. Oh how mad he would be to find his bait gone, lol. Of course mom and me thought it oh so funny to watch her catch and then eat the minnows. Lady would stick her paw in the water and smack a minnow up against the side of the bucket. She would then just push it up the side and out of the bucket, where it would fall to the ground and she would then eat it. Lady had this so down pat that she could empty a full minnow bucket in 10 minutes. Lady liked fish for sure. I once won a goldfish at the fair and she ate it the same day. I didn't bring anymore fish home...On one of our fishing trips in the bus Lady managed to get out the door one night. I was a basket case and my mom was so upset. My mom was feeling guilty because she had her declawed. Now here Lady was outside at night with no claws for protection. My mom said I will never forgive myself if anything happens to her. She grabbed the flashlight and off we went to look for her. We heard what sounded like 2 cats fighting and headed in that direction. It was late at night and here we are running around in a campground yelling "LADY, HERE KITTY KITTY" Somehow, someway my mom seen what she was hoping to be Lady and not a raccoon. As you can see in the photo Lady was a gray with black stripes cat and her tail kinda looked like a raccoon. All we could see was the back half of an animal that had it's head stuck under someone's tent. My mom asked me is it Lady? I said it looks like her. Being brave, she reached down and grabbed the animal up. Thankfully it was indeed Lady. I was so very happy that we had found her because she was sometimes the only friend I had and I loved her dearly....I wrote before of a Christmas we spent in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I came across this picture I had taken there.

 

 

The campgrounds where we were staying had a building that they used for card games, pot luck dinners, etc. Since it was holiday time when we were there, they had a little New Year's Eve party. We played games and ate. One of the games was for the wives to make hats for their husbands out of newspaper. The best one won a prize. My mom didn't win but the photo is my step dad (center) and his friend wearing their hats....lol

 



Serial Killer

If you were connected to me on Multiply then you might remember a blog I once wrote about a cousin of mine that was murdered at the age of 11. I was 15 when it happened. I attended her funeral but up until just recently I never knew what I am about to write....I discovered this information, not from my family, but by accident on the internet....I had been doing some ancestry research when I came across this,  click here   It had caught my attention because it had my cousin's name (Cheryl Ann Bolin) in it. So I clicked on it and read what appears to be like a blog of some sort. After reading this I clicked on the Find a Grave link which took me here. After seeing this I went back and did a search for my cousin's name and found her here. Doing all of this is how I found out that there was a suspect in my cousin's murder. All of these years I had thought that the police didn't have any suspects and that they didn't know who had killed her. In reading all of this and doing a bit more research I discovered that a man named John Richard Willoughby was or is a suspect in the murder of Cheryl and of another girl. (Terri Darlington) I also discovered that this man has been convicted of the murder of a woman who was an Indianapolis police officer. (Patricia McCaslin) I read transcripts of an appeal hearing of his conviction that I also came across while searching. Although this man was never arrested or convicted of Cheryl's murder, finding out that there was a suspect and that he is in prison sort of gives me some kind of relief/closure. People think that stuff like this will never happen to them...but it does happen and it doesn't have to be in big cities, it can be anywhere at anytime...if this man was able to kidnap and murder an Indianapolis police officer..Cheryl, Terri and who knows how many more there may have been, never had a chance....Cheryl was just riding her bike home from a sleepover she had at a friend's house... 
R.I.P. Cheryl Ann Bolin.

A Fright in the Night

Just a little funny story that I remember from my childhood. If you have read some of my previous blogs you know that part of my childhood we lived above our coffee shop/swap shop in an apartment. Well on one night in late fall, we had just finished eating our dinner and my mom was taking out the kitchen garbage. We kept our big garbage can at the top of the enclosed stairway, as the door for our apartment went into the kitchen. The garbage can was one of those metal ones with a removable metal lid. My mom went out the door with the garbage and all of a sudden I heard her scream, a blood curdling scream. I went to the door to see what was wrong and she came busting through the door and knocked me down. She was yelling for my stepdad, who by this time had came running to see what all the commotion was about. He helped me up from the floor and asked my mom had she done went crazy. She told him that there was something in the garbage can, some critter of some kind. She said, "I took the lid off to put the garbage in and there were eyeballs staring at me and whatever it is, it hissed at me"  My stepdad went to see what was in the can....he found a mother opossum and her babies...he put the lid on tight and took the can downstairs. The next day, a friend and him took the can and released the family of opossums farther out in the country. We never could figure out how that mother opossum was able to get not just herself, but also her babies into the building and then into the can....Of course it became a huge joke about how my mom went screaming, running and knocked me down. She also never went to take the kitchen garbage out again without a flashlight, lol...

My First Job

I started my first job when I was 10 years old. I became a waitress in my stepdad's coffee shop/diner. In fact I was the only waitress that my stepdad had at night. My mom worked 2nd shift in a factory then, and she also helped out by waiting tables during the day. My stepdad was the cook at night and during the day we had a woman who did that job while my stepdad ran the swap shop. There was also a couple more waitresses that worked days and on the weekends also. Here is a picture of the outside.

 

It was just a little coffee shop (the white part) on the outskirts of a small town population about 3000. The staircase on the right was the outside staircase that went up to the apartment that my stepdad had built for us to live in. At the other end was a door that opened into the inside staircase that also went to our apartment. Past the white part was the swap shop. The auction barn, I was standing in front of when I took the picture. That building is still standing, but all the other is gone and they have built a road right there. makes me so sad....but I have wandered off topic...As soon as I got home from school and finished any homework I had, I went to work. I was not "paid" the only money I got came from the tips the customers would leave me. Also my stepdad would match my tips and the money went into my savings account.  I enjoyed my job, it was hard work but I did it. My mom would get home from work shortly after closing time and I would be sitting on a counter stool with my head laying on the counter, asleep. I can't remember how long I had my job, but I was very good at it. Then an older woman that worked as a waitress during the day called and reported my stepdad for having child labor and I was no longer able to work like that. Everyone said that the woman was jealous because I made more tips than she did. My customers told me that I was a better waitress. The woman eventually was fired because she had been very rude to a customer. Of course she tried to say it was because of me and turned my stepdad in for that. he had the customer on his side and she lost that one....looking back I guess I had a very strange childhood...anyway...here is a picture of me sitting at the counter eating a Susie Q...

 

I was such a dorky looking kid, lol...here is a picture of one of the waitresses we had, her name was Deb..I remember thinking how cool her outfit was, lol...she was very nice and NOT the woman who caused me to lose my job.

 

 

 



Not Sure and Not Happy

I recently, 3 weeks ago, had my cat Sugar declawed in the front. She has been limping and holding up her right paw since the procedure was done. It is to be expected that they have tenderness afterwards. I have had other cats that had this procedure done (6 of them) so I knew what to expect. So I became concerned when Sugar continued to limp (none of my other cats did they just walked gingerly) but Sugar has a very noticable limp. She is also holding her right paw up after walking as she sits. I thought that she was getting a little better last week but then over the weekend I noticed she was right back to the way she was. I have not been able to see anything wrong with her paw. I have looked and didn't see any swelling, etc. I can touch her paw and she doesn't scream in pain. I did not put any pressure on it, just hold it. So I made up my mind that I was taking her back to the vet this morning to have them look at her. I didn't even call, I just took her in. They got Sugar in rather quickly and took her behind closed doors to check her out. I don't like that. They brought her back after 10-15 minutes and said that she walked a bit for them and they did notice her holding up the right paw but they didn't see a limp. I asked...you didn't notice the limp?...They said no she hadn't limped but that she might be hiding it from them...Really??? Hiding it??? They said she had no fever and there was no swelling and that she looks like she has healed, no infection, no nothing. So I asked is she always going to do this now?...They said probably not...They said if she is still doing this in a couple more weeks to take her back in...So I wait some more..

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my granddaughter Tabitha who is 10 years old today!! 

Beta Club Bake Sale

I was absent from here yesterday because I was baking, and baking and baking some more...Sammy Jo my oldest granddaughter is in Beta Club. If you are not familiar with that, it is like The National Honor Society. They are chosen by their teachers for entry into the club. The club can be helpful with college scholarships, etc.....The Beta Club is having a bake sale Monday during parent-teacher conferences, to raise money so they can go to the State Convention in November in Nashville. They have a heck of a lot of money to raise...not sure they will make it.....anyway I baked 8 loaves of dessert bread..2 pumpkin..2 applesauce..2 banana..2 apple pumpkin....I baked 5 cakes..1 strawberry..1 orange..1 carrot..1 red velvet..1 lemon..Then on top of all that I had to bake my youngest granddaughter's birthday cake as her 10th birthday is tomorrow. I baked her cake but was not happy with the way it raised so I baked another one just like it and it did the same way. So I put them on top of each other..hoping they taste alright. Now as I write this we have lost our power, hope I don't lose this. Well it was a good thing that I had the mind to copy this blog and put it into my notepad because I would have lost it all otherwise. Our power is back on now after 90 minutes. The reason for the outage was a combine hit a guide wire on an electric pole in the field down the road and broke the pole in half.

Camping

This is my mom and my stepdad, who by the way was more of a dad then my biological dad was.

 

He was 21 years older than my mom. He loved to go camping and fishing. He is the one who taught me how to fish. They would take me out of school for sometimes up to 3 weeks at a time to go. I remember having to get all of my assignments from my teachers. I would do all this schoolwork and have it finished by the time we got to where we were going. Upon returning to school I would always be ahead of the other students because they hadn't gotten as far as the teacher thought they would. I don't suppose they allow this type of behaviour anymore.... Although I am the youngest of 3 it felt like I was an only child growing up. There are so many years between us that my siblings were already out of the house by the time I was 9. I was lonely a lot... We started camping in a tent. I remember being told don't touch the tent when it was raining, for if you did this the tent would then leak. After the tent my stepdad got one of those little campers that you put into the back of a pickup truck. I remember riding inside of it laying in the upper bed that was above the cab of the truck. I hear that is against the law now. After that camper my stepdad got an Airstream camper that was pulled behind our truck. Sometimes I would also ride in it while we were traveling. Another against the law thing. Then my stepdad bought this school bus from our local school district.

 

 

He turned this bus into a camper. I was allowed to "help". I used hammer to pound some nails in and helped measure this and that, hold this and that. It was a very nice camper when he finished with it. My mom made curtains for it. He painted it white.

 

 

Later he painted parts of it orange, you can't see it in this picture but the sides of it had an orange stripe where usually you would see the school name.

 

 

 

We would go to different places camping and fishing. Sometimes there was another couple, friends of my parents that had a Winnebago, that would travel with us. Here is a picture of my mom and the lady. We were in Hot Springs, Arkansas, it was Christmas. There was a babbling brook close by. I would have rather been home for Christmas though....just didn't seem like Christmas to me.....

 

 

 

 









9-11-01 - 9-11-12

Never Forget

 

 



Pet Peeves

Pet peeves, do you have any? When I was working at the hotel, my boss would pronounce the "s" in Illinois. Not only would she pronounce a letter that was suppose to be silent, she would draw it out.  Illinois being my home state, this would bother me to the point where I wanted to just slap her. Who knows maybe she knew it bothered me and that's why she did it?? She didn't like me I know. I just kept thinking for someone who thought she was so smart, she was so dumb...

Damage Repaired

As I posted on my quick notes the other day, I managed to get my door frames painted where Sugar had scratched them all up. It is only a cover up for now, until we are able to afford to replace them. She really did a number on them as you can see. the green tape was covering up a hole in the wallpaper wear her sharp talons had ripped it.

 

 

 

So now the door frames are painted and I used some wallpaper border to repair the wallpaper. I figured the border was an easier fix then having to re-wallpaper the whole hallway.

 

 

I guess it doesn't look too bad, I think I kinda like it....

 

 

but would have liked it better if it hadn't of needed to be done in the first place....SUGAR!!!!! Boy did I ever give you the wrong name, lol...

 

 

 



Seasons Change

The seasons are a changing....summer has been a scorcher and the farmers will be hurtin.....as for me, our garden survived for the most part...rewarding us with a plentiful abundance of tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet banana peppers, before the weeds totally took over. We had enough of all to share with our daughter and my granddaughter's friend's family. Weeds seem to grow even in a drought. They say the proof is in the pudding, I say the proof is in the picture as you can see in my before and after shots.

 

 

 

 

Before

 

 

After

 

Brian was doing a fairly good job of keeping up with the hated weeds with a rototiller for most of the summer. I even managed to get out there one day and pull them up from around the plants. They just keep fighting back....My plants were troopers for sure, they kept producing even while they were being choked to death by the evil weeds. Then finally the produce was becoming smaller and smaller and wasn't worth my time to go out amoung the weeds to pick it anymore. Not to mention I was becoming afraid that a snake would be in there and I wouldn't be able to see it with all the weeds....ewww just the thought of it....I am thankful for what we did grow which was a bunch and I was proud to be able to share with family & friends. Now all that is left is a mess that needs to be mowed down...this I have been trying to get Brian to do for a while now. He keeps telling me it will get done and I keep asking when.....and we go round in circles......my flowers are doing pretty good although they are starting to show the signs of the season changing.

 

 

as is my rose bush

 

 

I just purchased these mums to replace the zinnas that I purchased to replace the original flowers that I had in my swans at the beginning of the season. Not sure why the flowers in them don't last. I am thinking it may have something to do with the lava rocks though.

It has been a different summer, hot, dry, rain too late. Seems strange to see the corn already harvested, as they did that at the end of August, not good, not good at all. The soybeans are still in the fields but now they have all turned brown too and I don't think it will be too much longer before they do them too. October is harvest time usually, not August and September...so this year the season is a changing way too soon.....

 



Catching Up

Hello out there in Bloggerville!! I have been on the busy side with the holiday weekend and all. Here it is already Wednesday, my how time flies. The holiday weekend gave me the time to sit on my @ss and watch the new episodes of 2 of my favorite shows. Dexter & Boardwalk Empire. My daughter, who also likes these shows, bought the new seasons of both that have just come out on DVD. :) Season 6 of Dexter and season 2 of Boardwalk Empire. Since we had to tighten our belts since I had to stop working, we no longer get Showtime & HBO which is where these shows air. Thankfully they put them on DVD. A year later then they air, but at least we get to still see the shows. :) They were killer for sure!!!

 

 

As you know I recently had Sugar, our cat, declawed in the front. She has been keeping me busy taking care of her. They used a laser and then instead of stitches they used surgerical glue. I would have preferred they had just used the stitches. Why you ask? I shall tell you. Cats lick, that is how they bathe. Vet says don't get paws wet, don't let her lick, bite, chew, etc. Oh yea, right, lol sure...Sugar is not the first cat that I have had declawed, but she is the first that was glued. Trying to keep her from licking has been a full time job. With stitches they dissolve rather quickly, the glue, not so much. Then there was the problem of the cat litter. You have to use shredded paper, which has never been a problem before with other cats. Sugar on the other hand didn't like the recycled paper pellets that we first tried. She refused to use it and did her business next to the box. So I got rid of that and put in just shredded newspaper. Sugar seemed to think that was just something to lay and curl up on. So I got rid of that and put her regular "sand" litter back in. Sugar was happy, but I was concerned that it was going to hurt her. Thankfully it hasn't and she seems to be doing alright. I do however catch her once in a while walking gingerly, but she is back to jumping up to high places as you can see. She weighed 13.6 at the vet.

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I had to catch up with laundry after the long weekend and today I had to take Brian to doctor for his regular 3 month visit. Tomorrow I have to get started on painting the door frames that Sugar has all clawed up. Hope you all have a wonderful rest of the day. :)



You Can't Go Home Again

They say you can't go home again and in my case that is true. All of my childhood homes are gone, torn down. I don't remember living in the house I was born in, but I remember seeing it when we would drive by it in later years. It is gone. The house I lived in from ages 2 thru 9 is now gone. This is the house that this blog is about. This is the house where these pictures were taken.

 

My mom & dad

Me

 

This is the house where I played on the front porch, rode my bicycle on the front sidewalk, and built snow forts in the front yard. We had a Collie named Spot (who mom always called Pumpkin). This is the house where my dad left my mom and us 3 kids. This is the house where my mom struggled to make ends meet. This is the house we left behind when my mom remarried. This is the house that is now gone. My sister had found out that they were going to tear this house down and she went and took pictures and she was kind enough to send me copies. So sad this house was. A far cry from what it was when we lived in it. It had been a very nice house but years of neglect left it looking like this.

 

Here is the side view

 

 

That was my bedroom, the double window on the second floor. Played with a lot of baby dolls in there. Now they tear it down. I cried like a baby when I seen these pictures just as I cry now. A time I can't go back to, a home I can't go back to, and memories of my dear mom come flooding in.

 

An empty lot is all that is left. Funny how it seems so small without the big ol' house sitting on it. WAIT!! There is one thing left after all, somewhere, someone has our old bathtub. Yes it is the very same one that I took a bath in from ages 2 thru 9!!