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!!

 

 

 

 



KFC Cares....?????

It has been 1 week since I sent KFC an email telling them about my experience at the local store. I have not heard from them. I find it funny that their email address is KFCcares@kfc.com because they apparently don't care!! 

Long Busy Weekend

Took our cat Sugar into the vet Friday morning to have her front declawed. I hated to have this done and had tried so hard not to, but the door frames and walls were what she clawed the most. So off she went for surgery. Sugar had to stay the night at vet. So off Brian and I went to make our 120 mile trek to Cadiz, KY to the closest Casey's General Store for pizza and donuts. I know that sounds a bit strange but as we originally come from northern IL where they have Casey's General Stores everywhere, we miss not having one here in TN. Not only that, but we can't find donuts that are worth eating around here. Also the pizzas are no where near like what we are use to here. So earlier in the month we discovered that Casey's had opened a brand new store only 60 miles away!!! I keep trying to get them to open one closer to us, maybe someday. After returning home to TN with pizzas and donuts, I because of my faulty memory ended up making 2 trips to Wal-Mart. Upon returning home, Brian helped me hang up the new curtains I had to buy for the granddaughters rooms. Last week Sugar decided to destroy the window blinds. Her front claws just ripped through them like a hot knife in butter.

 

 

Yesterday morning went to pickup Sugar from the vets and because of my faulty memory once again had to return to Wal-Mart. Sugar at home, seemed to being doing very well. It was also laundry day. Then because of my faulty memory again, took my youngest granddaughter to Wal-Mart while my oldest granddaughter attended a birthday pool party. Grilled out for dinner after watching the Little League Goodlettsville TN team win against CA. They are now the US Champions. Today they play Japan. Win or lose they have done great so far. After dinner it was time to watch the Nascar race. It was a real bang em deal. Today I am resting.....

Scrap

This morning Brian and I took a trailer load of scrap to the scrap yard. They use this claw to pick up the scrap from our trailer. It's a good jolt when it comes down on the trailer.

Joke and Guns..A Childhood Memory

My stepdad owned an auction barn/swap shop/coffee shop and I spent most of my adolescence working, learning and playing in them. My stepdad would always say one man's junk is another's treasure. I do believe that. On the morning news I heard about a woman that had killed her husband by hitting him in the head with a coffee cup (must have been a very hard cup) earlier this year. Anyway for some reason that story reminded me of a Saturday night at our auction. My stepdad was an auctioneer and one night while he was on the podium auctioning off starter pistols. They looked like real guns. He had a habit of stopping and telling jokes, then start auctioning again. On this particular night he told a joke that my mom couldn't stand and had previously told him to stop telling. The simple joke was...

 

 

My wife is a good housekeeper. She's been married 7 times and kept the house everytime.

 

 

My mom picked up the starter pistol and shoved it against his belly and said...That's not true!! I told you to stop telling that joke...then she pulled the trigger. It sounded like a real gun had went off. People screamed..Oh my God!!! Then deadly silence. Of course my stepdad wasn't hurt and he started laughing as did everyone else.  Although it did burn a hole in his shirt!! Everyone thought it was all an act to get people to buy the starter pistols (which they did sell like hotcakes afterwards) but it wasn't an act just something that happened and one of my childhood memories, lol

Testing My Phone App

I seen on Cinna's that there was a phone app, thanks... Trying it out.

KFC Update

I was contacted today on Facebook about the post I put on their Facebook page. I was given the customer service phone # and email address so I could forward my complaint to them. I just finished sending them an email. I copied and pasted my post from facebook into the email to save me time. 

Weekend Over

The weekend is drawing to an end quickly as the sun sets while I am writing this. Yesterday was a long day, as I sat outside giving Tabitha encouragement to learn to ride a bicycle. She will be 10 years next month and high time she learnt this childhood activity. We had tried to teach her when her sister finally learned at age 8. However she was not able to learn then. Finally she has learned but is not yet a pro.

Today the girls went to church. I had laundry to do and sheets to change. I also have been trying to put away some of the girls summer clothing.

 On top of everything else, dear ol' Sugar has for the 2nd time, taken her sharp daggers and tore up the window blind in Sammy Jo's bedroom.

  

3 of the slats just ripped into. The first time Brian was able to fix it, but not this time (we ran out of extra slats). So I ran to Wal-Mart to find some kind of a curtain. Dear ol' Brian gave me wrong measurements for window, the curtain doesn't exactly fit but will do for time being. Friday I will buy another. I shall be buying curtains window by window to replace the window blinds that we now have. The window blinds are too much for me to take care of anymore and have become dust collectors anyway. At least with curtains I can throw into washer. Tomorrow I will be calling the vet, hopefully to get appt. for Friday to have Sugar declawed in the front. I have tried not to do this but am going to have to as we don't have a single door frame in the house that she hasn't tore up and also managed to get the wall next to the door frame on Tabitha's bedroom. After she is declawed we are going to have to paint each door frame and as for the wall I am hoping that a wallpaper border will do the trick. So much trouble Sugar has caused......



Hungry...Don't Go To KFC

The following is a post I just left at the KFC Facebook page.

My husband and i took our 2 granddaughters to our local KFC in Paris, TN. for dinner tonight. We arrived at 5:17pm. The employees were rude. We paid for the buffet and to our disbelief there were no bicuits, cole slaw and hardly any chicken. My granddaughters wanted chicken legs, there were only 4.....2 original and 2 extra crispy. We were told there was a 9 minute wait on the biscuits and a 12 minute wait on chicken legs

One of my granddaughters had a cherry pepsi and it was flat. She took her cup up to the counter and told the man that it was flat. He doesn't take her cup, doesn't give her a new one or tell her where to dump the bad drink at. He does go to fix the drink fountain machine. I had to ask them for a new cup for her or did they just want her to dump the bad drink in the fountain drain. (most places don't like you doing that) The man gave her a new cup and said that she didn't ask for one. I wasn't aware that we needed to. I thought common sense would have told him to give her a new cup. The 9 minute wait for biscuits is finally up and they place the biscuits in the buffet. My husband gets a dirty look from one of the employees because he took 4 of them (1 for each us). I sent my granddaughter to ask about the chicken legs at the 12 minute mark. She was told they weren't done yet. I waited abother 5 minutes and went up myself to ask about the chicken legs. The woman who was the only one wearing a red hat, walked to a storage tray and brought back 5 chicken legs. I called my granddaughter over. The woman then preceeded to tell me and my granddaughter that was all the legs they had and not to take them all so there would be some for everyone!!!! I asked my granddaughter if she wanted 1 or 2 she said 2 and I gave them to her. I am appalled at what this woman said and I am not sure if I will ever go back to a KFC ever again.



Memories

The other day I seen a commercial on TV that had me in stitches and brought back memories. It's a car commercial, I think for Toyota. A woman pulls up at a gas station and is waiting for the car in front of her to finish. The car in front of her suddenly takes off with the gas hose still in her gas tank. The gas pump gets ripped out and is dragged behind the car and hits what I believe is a propane tank and explodes. The minute I seen the car take off with gas hose still attached I thought of my dear mom. As you see back in the 70's my mom, my sister-in-law and I went camping. My mom had a little pop-up trailer that she would pull behind her 1975 Chevy Nova. We were on our way to Arkansas, and my mom stopped in Mount Vernon, IL for gas. This was back in the days of full service stations. She pulled up to the gas pump and a young fellow came out and asked her what she wanted. She told him to fill it. We used the restroom while he pumped the gas. Once back in the car, the young fellow came to the car window and told my mom what she owed for the gas. My mom paid him, thanked him and gave him a tip. He told her thank you and have a nice day as he walked back inside. My mom preceeded to pull away from the pump. Slowly, as she didn't want to scrape the trailer on the pump curb. All of a sudden we hear a scraping noise. She tells me to look and see what she is rubbing against. I am in the back seat, so I look out all the back windows and tell her she isn't rubbing against anything. She asked me if I was sure, I looked again and still didn't see anything wrong. She had plenty of room away from the pump curb. I told her she was ok and she eased out more. We again heard the noise and my mom hit the brakes and we all started looking for what was making the noise just in time to see the gas pump fall over with a huge CRASH!! I will never forget seeing the gas bubbling and gushing up and the gas station attendents running around like chickens with their heads cut off. The older man was yelling to get to the emergency shut off. The gas filler neck was behind the license plate and we couldn't see that the hose was still attached. Apparently the license plate bracket had kept the hose from just falling out of the car. We just sat in the car in disbelief until the older man decided to start screaming at my mom. He was screaming not so very nice words either. He wanted to know what in the hell my mom thought she was doing. My mom, when she was able to get a word in edgewise, explained that the young fellow came and collected her money for the gas and told her to have a nice day and that he went back inside. She told the angry man that it wasn't her fault. He took my money and left. Wouldn't you take it that he had taken the hose out if it had been you? The angry man asked my mom, he took your money? My mom once again told him yes he did and he told me to have a nice day. He apoligized to my mom, who by this time was a nervous wreck. He turned to the young fellow that had pumped the gas and yelled....YOU'RE FIRED!!! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!...and a few other choice words....We left and continued on our trip, although for some reason my mom felt bad because the young fellow had lost his job, it wasn't her fault, but she felt bad anyway because that was the type of person she was. 

Update on Tabitha's Planner

Ok I really want to know what schooling a teacher has to go through to become a teacher. Seriously!! Yesterday Tabitha approached her teacher with the $5.00 so she could get a new planner. The teacher told her that the office people had told another student that it was too early in the year to buy a new planner. It seems that a boy in Tabitha's class had his planner stolen on the same day. When Tabitha told me what her teacher said I was like What??? What does she mean its too early?? Your planner was stolen, but the school says you have to have one. So my daughter, Tabitha's mom, stops at the school this morning on her way home from work. She explains to office woman what Tabitha told us. The office woman says...That's not what I told the teacher!! So the deal is this....She told the teacher to make the students do a planner check to see if they have the right planner. There is a page in each planner where the teacher, student, parent and principal sign it. They are going to do this for the whole 5th grade. Then if by Monday the 2 planners have not been found then they will make them pay the $5.00. The office woman said that they hated to charge the $5.00 so early in the year. I still feel like they shouldn't be charged at all for them...they didn't lose them they were stolen!!! If my granddaughter's teacher can't get what the office woman told her straight, how is she teaching these students??? 

Stupidity

Yesterday on Facebook I felt that I had to respond to a woman that had posted what I thought was a stupid comment. She said that she didn't believe that there was children going hungry in the USA. I usually don't comment when someone posts something that is stupid. I don't like to argue, it is their page. However I couldn't stop myself when I seen that and I told her how wrong she was and yes many children are going hungry in this country. Well today I get online and the first news story I see on AOL is a story about a woman that is going to be fined for turning her driveway into a dining room in the summer to feed hungry children. The story said that she fed up to 60 children a day!! I posted this story on Facebook, couldn't help myself. If she seen it or not I do not know, but she sure didn't comment about it.

In other news my squirrel friend is back :)



WTF???

My granddaughter Tabitha came home from school yesterday without her planner. A school planner is a book that they give to every student at the beginning of the school year. It is basically a calendar where they write down their homework assignments. The teachers intial it everyday and the parents are to do the same. I think they are a big waste. It seems that someone stole Tabitha's planner. They were told to leave their stuff in the classroom and were made to go somewhere else in the school. When they returned to the classroom her planner was gone. The brilliant teacher "let" her go to her locker to see if it was in there. ???? How did it magically get from classroom to locker??? I wasn't aware that this was wizards and witches school. If you "lose" your planner they make you pay $5.00 for a replacement. My daughter stopped at the school this morning with the $5.00. The lady in the office told Tabitha to hang on to the $5.00 and ask each teacher today if they had found her planner. If not then at the end of the day she could turn in the $5.00 for a replacement. My problem is why should my daughter be made to pay for a replacement when my granddaughter didn't lose it. She left it where she was told to by a teacher. I feel that making her buy a replacement is saying that it is her fault that it is gone. This matter has my hair burning up, that is what is left of said hair after pulling it out for days.....



PhotoBlog

I have found out if you want to see my photos page in your feed you will have to follow that page. I am sure there must be a better way of doing this but I haven't found it yet. :(

Crazy

I have saved my pics from Multiply, at least the ones I dearly wanted. My clicking finger is sore but I am done, done gone crazy that is!!

Tell Me What You Think

Ok after hours of fiddling with this site trying to find a way to have photo albums and failing time after time, I came up with this. I created a second blog for my photos. Then I created a page (photo tab) that is actually a link that takes you to my photo blog. You may choose to follow the photo blog the same way you did this blog if you like. So tell me what you think. Also please tell me what you think about the slideshow. The other post of pics if you click on it will take you directly to the album. Try out both and tell me which one you like.

Created a Guestbook

I have been trying to make Blogger feel like home...Multiply...I have created a guestbook for anyone to leave a comment or to just say hi. I have also copied and pasted my blogs from Multiply to here. Not sure if I will keep them up but as long as they are here if you haven't read and care to feel free to. The pictures you may not be able to see in the blogs and you won't be able to leave a comment at the bottom of each blog, that is showing from Multiply, but if you care to leave a comment you may do so if you scroll down to the bottom of the page or just use the guestbook tab. 

Dress Code

My oldest grandaughter, 12 years, Sammy Jo came home from school yesterday distraught. Two of her teachers made her take off the shirt she had worn to school and put on a school t-shirt they supplied her with. I was very aware of the shirt she had worn to school, as I am the one who told her to wear it. We needed a shirt to match her new purple skinny jeans. It wasn't a brand new shirt, she got it for her birthday in March and had worn this exact shirt to school last school year until school was out in May. Never was there anything said about it. The shirt in question has a scoop neckline. The teachers apparently thought that it was too low. However they also have a dress code about how short a pair of shorts can be. They apparently don't feel the need to do anything about the girls that are wearing short shorts to school. My granddaughters aren't allowed to wear these because the code doesn't allow. So now, my daughter has to go buy something that can be worn under Sammy Jo's shirts because most of the brand new shirts that were bought for school have either a scoop neck or a V neck. We didn't buy these kind of shirts because we wanted them, they were bought because that was basically all the store had.

Sea of Clouds

We awoke to the sound of thunder and a cloudy sky. Storms in the area but only gave us a couple of sprinkles, if you blinked you missed it. The clouds are now parting and blue sky is showing through. The girls have a day off from school today, it's fair day. The county fair is this week. Brian is working in KY today on the dirt man's truck again. Nothing much going on.

Busy Week

This week has been made busier for me thanks to finding out that Multiply will be going away. The girls started school on Monday, we made a 120 mile round trip to the closest Casey's General Store that has newly opened in KY for donuts and pizza. Yesterday, had to take Brian to work on the man's truck, the one that brought us the dirt and gravel, found out about Multiply, and Sammy Jo had an appt. Today I am doing laundry and trying to figure out more about this site. I looked for a way to import my stuff from Multiply to here but don't see a way. Have also been trying to find out if I had done something on here the reason Benni can't follow me, on her end it says I have blocked her, but I don't know how to block...this is frustrating....

Trying.....(sigh)

Ok I am trying here.....I readily admit that I am not happy with it so far. I am a hater of change, not good with it at all, but I am trying...