Lunch With Tooter

Today I went to eat lunch at school with Tooter. Good ole school lunch. Chicken nugs, taters and that wonderful broccoli we all love. Plus a big cup of hmmmmm pineapple bits. Then if you eat all your chicken nugs you can have a runny cup of orange sherbert. Makes my mouth water just to think of it all.

Remember the lunch tickets you had to buy in homeroom and hand over to the "lunch ticket taker upper" lady? Well no more! Now you just punch in your lunch number and viola you have bought your lunch(provided Mom and Dad have put money in your account). We used to be so evil....we would split our lunch tickets in half - front from the back - and get two lunches for the price of one. It wasn't that we were that fond of the school lunches but rather the thrill of doing something so evil and not getting caught. They did evenutally catch on and stopped it. I am sure some of my class mates probably ended up in jail because of that little theft scheme.

And I remember the day we boycotted the lunch room food. We all brought our lunch. Those lunch ladies looked pitiful just standing behind the tray line with nothing to do....no dipping or nothing going on. Food didn't get any better! Lost cause.

WE had real "live" plastic plates too. And real forks and spoons. Now they have throw away plates and forks. No spoons. Soup days are horrible to watch. We had tables with real "live" chairs. Now they have little round "pans" to sit on and I hope your butt ain't to big to sit on one. How things change. One thing that hasn't changed is the thrill of having someone, anyone, come to eat lunch with you at school. It is just good to know that while you are in this place called school, there are people who are still thinking of you and love you enough to come keep you company and take a chance on this wonderful school food. Tooter was thrilled that I had come today.

Moldy Cross Stitch

Remember back in the 80's when everyone was doing cross stitching? I had something going all the time. I think that is where my neck problems started....always "hunkered" over a piece of material stitching. I did several pictures and hung them every where in the house. I did pictures for people who didn't even want a cross stitch. What made me think people would want something like that hanging in their houses? Nuts. I even made stuff for my boys....now there is a thrilling present for a boy.
This thing is a calendar I did for Christmas one year for the boys. It has a cross stitched reindeer at the top and then I stitched the dates below with these little white rings. I hung Life Savers on the rings. The idea being that the boys were supposed to take a piece of candy off each day until Christmas Eve so they would know how close it was until Christmas. They liked it even though they were not so crazy about Life Savers candy.
WE dug this picture out of the closet the other day and I evidently had put it away with the candy still on it. I was showing it around and everybody wanted to know what that green stuff was....guess!!

Heaven Or Not?

Lately I have been bombarded from all sorts of different places and people about there NOT being a God or life after death. I happened to watch some woman on HBO the other day talking about "not believing" in God any more. Any more??? She had been raised in the Catholic church and somewhere along the way decided there was - No God. I was "plumb" depressed for three days after I watched that. I have always believed in God and heaven and all that jazz. Why wouldn't you? What good is it to believe there is no God? I don't understand it. Even if there was no God...why would anyone want to believe that? How would you get through crap in your life? There has to be hope for people to carry on daily life. Hope.
I want to believe that I will see the people that I have loved in my life, who have passed on. I may not, but I want to believe that. People ask, if there is a God, why would He let all these bad things happen? Like life is supposed to be a picnic every day. I, of course, have wondered that too but I believe the world was "set up" in a way that does not permit God to interfere with certain things. I do believe that He does step in where and whenever He is able to. Thus, coincidences, miracles, etc.
The whole world is nuts over religion and beliefs. I am not religious and have become a calmer and "less" stressed person for coming to those decisions. I don't care what you believe or don't believe and I don't mean to project the idea that I do. Most people do whatever they think is best for that particular time in their lives according to the circumstances they have experienced along their "path".
God....to believe or not....a choice...as so much of life is....a choice.

Pina Colada

These past few days have been very entertaining. Paul and I went to Jacksonville Florida to visit my awesome cousin Ron and his saintly wife Charlene. We say that she is a saint and will have extra stars in her crown because she has had to put up with Ron for 40 years. You would have to know Ron to understand. There is no other person in the world like him. I have always thought he hung the moon. When I was little I would squalled like a baby when we would leave to come home from their house. They lived in South Pittsburg, Tennessee and my family would visit every now and then. They would come to Decatur to visit our family also. We have had several family reunions at our cabin on Elk River, Wolverine Park, Doublehead Park in Town Creek, and the "biggy" at Riverside Park when the Hudson Bridge was dedicated. Ron was the "life" of the party at ALL of the reunions. He used to wear a black jacket and comb his hair like Elvis. He could shake his legs and dance like Elvis too. I was thrilled to just watch him. Anyway, we go down and just hang out every now and then at their house in Jacksonville now. We get to do things like watch Have Gun Will Travel and Judge Judy, watch George the pool vacuum clean the pool, take adventure trips, and just be together.
On this particular trip we went to St. Augustine and walked around looking at old stuff. We took a tour of the beer factory. We ate a lot. Road around a lot. And laughed more than a lot.
Once we went to an old place where this famous author lived...I forgot who....guess they weren't to famous to me but I loved touring that old house. We have been to Savannah and Charleston together. We have cruised together. Ron and Charlene have been to all the important events in my life. They have always made special things seem more special to me. And Charlene....she is a saint to put up with Ron's family in my opinion. Hang in there Char...your reward awaits.

Where Is Warmer Weather?

This is me sitting by the river....smothering. Got a drink in my hand and my cool umbrella to help me endure the heat. So where is the sprinkling of warmer days we are so accustom to during this time of the year. These rainy, dreary,cold days are getting me down. I love the summer when we don't have to take an extra thirty minutes to get "coated" up before going outside just to get the mail. When we can wear very few clothes and still be "to hot". And when we can have a beer "or twelve" to cool us off after working in the yard, taking a walk down the street or just sitting out in the back yard, sweating. It is cool to go riding in the boat on the river, float on a float, or just sit by the river and smell the fish... maybe wet a hook. I love to grill out with the family. We grill everything from steak to shrimp to hot dogs....make home made ice cream. You can't make ice cream in the cold months...it is un-American. Oh yea and watching Tooter play t-ball. It is not summer without a little baseball thrown in. Well I am dreaming about warmer weather today and had to share.

This is the farm house we built four years ago. We have been out there on this property for about 8 years. We kept the horses in the pasture and used the barn before we ever owned the property. Paul and I used to go out there on the weekends and ride the horses and "clear the land". When we first took the horses out there, the front of the barn was so grown up we had to cut a path to reach the barn. There was a old farm house that stood in the exact same spot where our little farm house stands now. The people living there were renting from the same person who let us keep our horses in the pasture. That is another story. After we finally bought the place,we tried to save the old farm house and make adjustments but it was to far gone. Paul and I had started clearing out the house and tearing out the ceilings and floor but It was just a mess! After we tore out a place in the floor of one of the bedrooms and found all the floor joists were rotted, we closed it up and decided to burn it down and start over. Called the local fire department and they came out and doused the house with diesel fuel, I think it was, and Paul went in and set the old house on fire. That sucker went up like a rolling prairie fire. Even burned down a huge old oak tree that was standing close by the side of the house. Rats, snakes, possums and all kinds of things were running from the house. Glad we decided to start over. No telling what was living in that place. Some really great friends of Paul's came out and bulldozed everything into this great big hole that they dug out in the pasture. They scooped everything up and dumped it in that hole and covered it up. Then they smoothed out the pad where the old house had been and the new one was going to be built. Actually the new farm house is a two story double car garage with the inside finished. The garage builders came out and threw the shell of the house up in three days. Then Paul started calling around for folks to finish the inside. We had to have the plumber, then the concrete folks, then the insulation done, then the dry wall folks, then the painter-me, and the electrician and the heating and cooling folks. We never had any problem with people coming and doing their job when they were supposed to. I have always heard to build a house and contract your own workers was a pain in the butt. I am amazed to say that everything went well for us in that department. Paul and I put down all the flooring. I even laid the ceramic tile in the bathrooms. We used the snap together wood floors for the rest of the house. It turned out really cute. I love to be out there and sit on the front porch swing. I put that swing up as soon as there was a front porch to put it on. It is full of furniture that we found or took from the house in Decatur. I didn't think I would ever have enough stuff, but I did. Seems like you don't need as much stuff as you think you do. After I cleaned out my main house I had plenty to go out at the farm. We love to be out there and just putter around doing things in the pasture or with the horses. We are lucky to have the farm house and I think about that every day.