THINGS I HAVE A HARD TIME LETTING GO OF

The inside edge of the door where we measured the growth of our kids. Looks like Marks height was last recorded in July of 1994. That was Johnny's height in December of December 1989. Wow!!! That's thirty one years.

We have a shelf in the kitchen with family keepsakes. The yellow Ball jar belonged to John's uncle, the platter on the right belonged to my grand mother (Mama Hale), the syrup pitcher was found under Bruce's house when it was remodeled years ago. It must have belonged to the Lewis' that lived there when I was little and the Micky Mouse was a toy that belonged to my brother Mark ( who died when he was four).

The canister set in the middle of the shelf was brought over when John's great grand parents came here from Germany back in the 1800's

Now this is probably one of the strangest things I hold on to. This plant was given to Sarah by her softball team when my dad died 18 years ago. Over the years I would decide to throw it away, but would say to myself, " I'll water it one more time". As you can see it is in pitiful shape, but not dead yet. I can't bring myself to toss it out.

In looking around the house, I found some pretty weird stuff, like this cut out of a turtle. Sarah was the turtle and Nichole her best friend was the frog. If you can see there are #99 stickers on it. That was the year they graduated from High School and I'm pretty sure they created this lovely master piece earlier on.

Now these are a couple of things that I am not sentimental about, but every time I have started to get rid of them, one of the girls will say, "Oh mother don't throw those out, they have been there forever" and then remind me that I threw out the little boy sports pictures that hung in the boys room. So here they hang waiting for some of the kids to come home and claim them.....

This picture is hard to see, but it says May 20Th 1984. Oh my goodness, that's 27 years. Now I have painted this bedroom several times since then, but I have never been able to roll that roller brush over the Unicorns that Sondra painted on the inside closet door.

This is one of the Unicorns that she drew. She would have been 12 or 13 at the time.



Now the picture below is my pride and joy. I was 8 months pregnant with Mark at the time. Johnny, Monica and Sondra were absolutely driving me nuts that day. I went into the bedroom to ask them to settle down , and they had made the most god awful mess I had ever seen. I really lost it, but decided I had better calm down before trying to discipline them. I stomped out of the bedroom into the hall took my foot and kicked the door. I popped that big old hole in it and then I had to worry about trying to explain to John when he came home. So my punishment has been that every time I walk down the hall I have to remember that I need to control my temper. One of these days we plan to take it down and see what all the kids and grand kids have stuck down in the hole in the door over the years.

And last but not least is my Bitchalittle sign. This has hung in my kitchen, by the stove for probably the last 40 years. I have decided a number of times to take it down and throw it out but it still hangs there. This says a lot about me and my life and how I have handled things over the last 65 years. Enjoy life a lot and BITCHALITTLE.

DON'T FORGET TO READ TO FINE PRINT

I am just flat out annoyed. Whatever happened to the time when you bought a item or an insurance policy and you didn't have to pull out the microscope to find out what is written in fine print somewhere at the bottom of the page. It seems that everything has restrictions or loop holes or "Oh I forgot to tell you" attached somewhere.

I received a letter from my Advantage policy this week telling me that the blood pressure medicine that I have been taking for a number of years is no longer available to me. They have given me an added month of the prescription. During that time I will need to see my doctor and have her prescribe another medication. It usually takes me a few weeks to adapt to a new medication, since if there is a side affect I usually have it. I am going into my second year with this Advantage policy. Apparently a year is enough time for them to see which medications a person takes and delete those meds from their list.

Back when John was working and we had the regular Blue Cross and Blue Shield, (this was before we turned 65 and had to find a Medicare supplement), we could go to the drug store with our prescription and pay a $15.00 co-pay and walk out with no problems. Now we have money taken out of our social security check, and pay for the Advantage policy out our pocket. By the way the Advantage policy doubled this year. Now if I am not mistaken, we pay more per month than when John was working and are getting less. I guess that is a ploy to kill off all the senior citizens, move the longevity rate back a few years and then lay the loss of years on our diet.

We also bought an insurance policy when we were in our late twenties or early thirties. This was supposed to be one of those policies where the money grows and when you get to retirement age you have a nice nest egg to make your life easier. WELL!! Last year we go a notice from the company saying that they had been using our money that the policy had made to pay premiums and the money was gone. We had never missed a payment and had always been prompt in paying the premiums. To keep the policy active we would have to pay xx amount extra. Since this will be our funeral expense money, we continue to send payments. This is as bad a dealing with the Mafia. How are companies allowed to miss use money like that? My advise to young couples is to figure out how much you will have to pay each month for prescription and premiums and stuff it in a fruit jar and bury it it in you back yard. At least you will know where your money is.

Now this will just make you want to spit out ten penny nails. We got a subscription notice from Reminisce Magazine this week. Now we love this magazine but have only bought occasionally because they are kind of expensive. John said maybe we should buy this subscription. He got to reading the fine print and found out that there are only six issues a year. If they issue a special, that counts for two issues and that at any time they can change the number of issues per year and guess what? You pay the same amount whether it be six issues or one. Huh mm.. Whatever happened to the times when you knew what you were buying and got in a timely fashion?

Since I am on a complaining soap box, let me say something about our economy. We live in a beautiful area with lots of lakes, boating, fishing and golf courses. But most of us can't survive on professional fishing and golf. Most of the industry in our area has shut down and moved to other countries. We are an area of food related businesses and retail stores. I don't understand sending the textile and garment business out of the country. We are loosing a whole generation of people to welfare and government programs who could be self providing for their families, if the jobs were still here. There will come a time when the people in these other countries will not be willing to work for pennies by the hour. When they price themselves out of a job, who will we turn to then? We will have to find a way to retrain our own workers and reestablish all these businesses that we have so foolishly thrown out.

We are going to have to move back a little to a time when a person could make a living, have confidence in the business they dealt with and not become such a skeptic as myself.

SNOW IN ALABAMA

The ground is still covered with the most beautiful snow we have had in years, here in Alabama. The snow came in during the early morning hours on Monday. We were awaken to the soft quiet sounds that you only get when there is snow on the ground or the power goes off during the night. At first I thought is was just a dusting, but when it actually got daylight, I realized we had really gotten a snow. John went out back and measured snow that was on top of the picnic table and it measured 14". Not much has melted because the temperatures have stayed right around freezing. The old wives tale is if it stays on the ground three days, you'll get another snow soon. The snow that we had at Christmas laid on the ground for three days, so maybe there is something to the saying.

All the schools and most of the businesses in the area were closed on Monday, but people started trying to make it back to work today. We were closed at UNA because we don't officially open until Wednesday. The temperature is supposed to get down to 17 degrees tonight, so I think I will have John drive me into work in the morning. I don't know how, nor do I even pretend to know how to drive in icy conditions.

I have been really disappointed because I have tried for the last two days to get some pictures of the snow. For some reason my camera will take video and inside pictures, but when I take a picture outside all I get is white, and I can't figure out how to reset the camera.

John Pearson and Emily were here today and will be tomorrow. We have played games most of the day. Rummy and Mexican Train have been the most popular. Poor John. He will be here with them by himself tomorrow. I think Emily will want to play Monopoly. I hate that game I'd rather be working:) I also made some really good brownies this morning. This made a nice snow day treat along with a glass of cold milk.

Brownie Recipe

2 sticks margarine
2 cups sugar
2 cups plain flour
1/2 coco
2 eggs
tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts

Melt margarine, add sugar, salt, vanilla, and coco. Heat until sugar is dissolved. Add flour and stir until blended thoroughly with sugar mixture. Beat egg and add a couple of spoonfuls of chocolate mixture and stir. ( this warms the eggs so they don't start to cook when you blend it into the rest of the ingredients). Add eggs and nuts. Spray 9x13 with nonstick spray. Cook for 15 minutes at 375 degrees.


I actually watched a whole football game for the third time in my life. AU was playing for the National Championship last night against the Oregon Ducks. It was a close game and both teams stayed neck to neck the whole game. So it was almost 11:00 o'clock when the kicker for AU made the final two points of the ballgame. If AU had ever got far enough ahead I would probably not have stayed up and watched the whole thing. I only got interested this year because Johnny and Mark get so excited.

Sorry no snow pictures right now.

MY LONG AWAITED POTTERY CLASS

I have worked at UNA for the last 21 years minus the 1 1/2 years that that I left to work somewhere else. Every year I would tell John that I wanted to take the pottery class for beginners and every year something else would come up and I would not go. Well this time I talked a friend at work into signing up with me and we went together. That made it a whole lot easier.

The classes started just after we got back from our trip to CO.. I came home with the worst sinus infection that I have ever had in my life. Just to try bending over to work on the pottery pieces made me feel like my head was going to burst. I even missed a whole week of classes.

I think if I had felt better I could have done a much better job. Although I didn't put a hundred percent effort into the project, I was pleasantly surprised when I went to pick up my creations. Its probably hard to tell in the pictures, but the colors turned out bright and pretty well blended. Since the glaze was in large 5 gallon buckets and looks absolutely nothing like the color you're hoping to achieve, I just had to hope for the best.

I know that my pieces are not
something that will be handed down through generations, but I was satisfied enough with them to maybe try it again sometimes. Johnny did like an luminary and I gave it to him, so if any of the other kids wants a piece it is kind of first come first serve.

This is my whimsical piece. It has a daisy on the front and if you turn it around there is a little snake crawling from behind. I like this piece the most.


The picture at the bottom is a fruit bowl and a pitcher. The color in the bowl is a real pretty sky blue, but it looks kind of gray here.

I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to try the wheel. I guess because it is a beginners class they prefer you make things by hand. Maybe if I go again I can create something on the wheel.

It was worth the price of the class and I got to know my friend Catherine better and found that we had lots of things in common. Now I am going to spend the next few weeks working with the Rosetta Stone program that Sondra gave me for Christmas and try to learn some Spanish. (See) Then, I will get out the Instant Photo Digitizer that Monica and Tim gave us and Digitize all our pictures that we have taken for the last 45 years.

ENJOYING OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Another Pat and John. Pat is Sandra's sister and we have been friends since we were about 4 or 5 years old. They made it down to spend the evening with us on the last day of our stay at the group lodge. It was nice catching up on kids and grand kids.

Bill and Mary Sue came up for a visit on New Year's eve. We have been neighbors and friends for about 40 years. I can't believe how the time has flown. They have just celebrated their 50 anniversary recently and are still smiling. Don't you just love it?

This picture was taken on New Year's Day. We had the traditional southern meal. Turnip greens, black eyed peas and hog jowl along with a lot of other yummy food such as fried okra, mac & cheese, corn, and a hunk of cornbread. I think I ate enough to make me healthy, wealthy and wise for the rest of my life. If I didn't, I sure tried.

Enjoying conversation with friends. (My John, Sandra and friend John).

This was our New Year's Eve feast. Every year for the last 40 years we have had seafood and this year was no different. We had boiled shrimp, grilled jumbo shrimp, grilled scallops, fried oysters, fresh water stripe, hush puppies, home cut fries and just to make it healthy, we had a salad. The kids lined up before we finished cooking and the adults were not far behind.

We stayed 4 days at the lodge. We played more board games than I can count. The two that we enjoyed most was Mexican Train domino's and Smart Ass. They were both games that the young ones and adults could play together.

This group is working on a puzzle. It was a Noah's ark picture and turned out really pretty. It was small pieces and lots of color and design. I found a piece at the beginning and when they were almost through putting it together.

Emily and Paige ( Marks fiance') and myself decided to make cookies to take to the lodge. We made around 16 dozen cookies, peanut butter, chocolate chip, sugar cookies and some ooey gooey bars. The box of cookies had been devoured by the second day. I know most of the kids were on a real sugar high the first two days.

This picture shows what a mess be made in the kitchen on our cookie adventure. I think me and Paige enjoyed it more then Emily.

I also took a trip down memory lane while I was off work. This is a picture of the house my Dad built when I was about 10 years old. We had move into an old farm house and it burnt to the ground. We built in the same spot and lived there until I was 13. That is when we move down to the lake. When he built this house, I thought it was huge, but it wasn't. It made me a little sad to see it in shambles and about ready to be torn down to make room for a subdivision. Lots of happy memories there.

Another view of the house inside.

Six of us on the couch. We said hopefully, next year we will fit it better.

We did get a beautiful snow on Christmas morning. Just enough to turn everything white, but not enough to cover the roads and side walks. For some reason my pictures seem to be going backwards but I am not going to take the time to make them chronologically correct.

This was Christmas. Sarah and Cody and the kids had to leave on Sunday morning heading for Washington St. They didn't make to the New Year's weekend. It gets harder and harder to get everyone in the same place at the same time.

I hope everyone had as happy a holiday season as we did. Although I think we need to create a few more words to describe our feeling. Like maybe sadcited (sad that part of you family is leaving and excited that others will be coming in soon). One thing is for sure I think a lot of happy memories were made this year and hopefully there will be more in store during the coming year.