Baching It...

It has been an interesting weekend. Jim went camping with his bowling buddies and I had the weekend to myself. I could have gone out with "the girls", but with my sis still here watching mom and dad, I decided to take the time for myself and do whatever I wanted. I completed transferring files from one computer and getting all the applications up and running on Vista. New computers sure are time consuming! I took a relaxing bubblebath, and read a book. I also drank a bottle of wine (no, not all at one time lol). I rented the movie, "Mad Money" with Diane Keaton, Ted Danson, and Queen Lativa. If you haven't seen it, get it. I really enjoyed it. Jim and I are going to rent it again so we can watch it goether. I spent time walking in my gardens and reflecting on how good I really have it. And I even chatted a little, something I don't find time to do much anymore.
Jim was here when I returned home from church this morning. It really was great to see him home. I missed him. Tomorrow (Monday) I take my sister to the St. Louis airport. I'm going to miss her too. It has been so nice to have her here to take care of mom and dad for awhile.
So, next week I have to get back into my routines. It sure has been nice to have a little ME time!
I hope everyone has a great week. Huggsssss

Roasting Marshmallows

Yep. Middle of summer and we roasted marshmallows over a campfire. Last week when my nephew and his family stayed with us, we had unseasonably cool weather. They are from Phoenix, Arizona, so open fires aren't a normal day to day thing. We had our granddaughter here to keep their kids entertained, and I had the bright idea of roasting marshmallows. Now, think about it. Three kids age five and under - eight o'clock at night - and I'm proposing filling them full of sugar. Yea, that is a bright idea! Well, we did have a great time and I know we made memories for those Arizonaites that they will not forget (at least the older one won't lol). Oh, in case you couldn't tell, my granddaughter is the one in blue *grins*.

Even with the sugar high the kids were worn out and once we got them down for the night we sat on the porch (with blankets around us because it was so cool!) and visited. We had a great time and got to know a nephew and his family who we really didn't know very well before. How cool is that?

Watch out below!

I got home from work yesterday to find Jim walking around in a stupor. Come to find out he was working outside and a tree branch had fallen on his head! It left a huge indentation (he's bald, so it was easy to tell lol). Good thing he had a baseball hat on.
He refused to go to the emergency room (of course). So I googled concussion. Watch for headache (yep), dizziness (yep), ringing of ears (yep), nausea (nope). Seek medical attention if nausea or headache persists for a long period of time. Ok. So I let him lay down and woke him up every half hour. At one point he asked me why I had let the little kitten in that was hiding behind the wood stove. That kinda freaked me because there was nothing behind the stove... Finally around midnight he sat up and said the ringing in his ears had stopped. We sat and talked awhile and then I let him go to bed. I'll have to admit I didn't sleep well and kept waking him up throughout the night.
Today he seems just fine - thank goodness! It sure made me stop and think about how fragile life is and how quickly it can be taken from us.
Have to get going now. Get to go to the mean ol' dentist today. Later!

More pictures

We planted this cactus plant several years in the flower bed down by the road. It was just a tiny little plant and look at it now! Two years later the plant has quadrupled in size and has beautiful flowers.














The flower bed itself needs some TLC. The drought last year killed off quite a few of my perennials and I didn't get them replanted this year. Ironically, it has been too wet LOL. The cactus plant of course survived the drought - now I'll have to wait and see if it survives all of this moisture.






Mom and dad gave me this Clematis for my birthday ten years ago. Every year I can't wait to see how pretty it is going to be. The hummingbirds just love it. I've seen my share of butterflies drinking from its nectar too.





This is a picture of our house and the brick walkway leading to it. (See my kitty cat, Baby?) I'm not sure if you can tell by looking, but the house is Log. We designed and built the house ourselves 27 years ago. We bought lengths of log from a log company and cut them to size using a chain saw. About ten years ago Jefferson City did a lot of street work and had to dig up some of the old brick streets. They dumped the bricks in a private landfill. Each day we would let them dump and then we'd pull them back out (no, they wouldn't just let us get them direct from them - sigh - so we got permission from the landfill owner to retrieve them). We used the bricks to lay the sidewalk from the upper drive down to the house. Pretty cool, huh.

Family

Iggy's comment about gazillions of cousins (or something like that) on my last post got me to thinking about how huge the family really is. This picture is of grandma, aunts and uncles, and cousins on just my dad's side of the family. It was taken in 1969. Many of my cousins were born after this picture was taken. I can honestly say that I have passed cousins on the street and not recognized them until they have said something like, "hey, aren't you my cousin Deanna..." Then we stop and visit forever, trying to catch up on family news.

I may come from a "big" family, but it just got bigger and bigger and bigger when I began chatting. I wouldn't trade my chat family for the world! Family Reunion 1969

60th Wedding Anniversary

60 years. Wow! How many of us can say we have been married for 60 years? I can only claim a little over half that many years. We celebrated my parents' 60th wedding anniversary this past weekend. After Mass we had a special blessing for them. Hubby, me and our special group of friends sang our version of Alison Krauss' "A Living Prayer". Then we had a reception in our parish hall. We invited only immediate family and almost everyone made it - about 50 in all.
Mom will not remember any of this day but it meant the world to my dad. Here are a few pictures from their special day.

This is my mom and my oldest grandson, Travis. She watched him each day for the first six weeks of his life. There is something to say about early bonding. She still asks how he is but doesn't know him when she sees him. Travis originally took her Alzheimer's disease hard. Now he just spends as much time with her that he can.

Me, and my two oldest grandkids, Travis (12) and Emily (10).

Me and hubby, my sister, my brother and his wife, and youngest brother with mom and dad


With most of the great grandkids. My grandkids are all of the kids in the back (with the exception of the cutie boy in the red shirt) and the two sweeties next to my dad.

With all of their grandkids and their spouses except one. My kids are next to mom and dad - daughter Tessa in green and her hubby, Bill, and in blue is Julie and her hubby, Doug. My son Greg is in the back row on the left with his wife, Alicia.

Well, this is about it. It has been quite a week. We have had company for 7 days.... but then that is another blog entirely!!!!!!

Later and have a great week all!

Irises

We've had lots of Spring rains, which means the flowers have been gorgeous this year. Here a few pictures taken a few weeks ago of my Irises. I have some beautiful flower and herb gardens. Hopefully I can shoot a few more pictures and share them soon. It is raining again today, but it is supposed to be sunny again tomorrow - and I'm sure incredibly humid, considering all of the rain we've been getting. I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

I don't care what anyone says, I think this is funny...

Earlier this week we went to our 12 year old grandson's baseball game. As we walked into the ball field, our three year old grandson, Austin, came running, ready for hugs. Imagine my surprise when I saw his mohawk! I luaghed until I cried. Apparently my daughter and her family had attended a party the weekend before where everyone dressed up as someone from a rock band. (yes, the tattoo is fake...) I'm not sure who Austin was supposed to be, but he ended up with the mohawk out of the deal. My mind immediately went to this joke that has been around for years:

"An old man is sitting on a bench in central park when a teenager with a
rainbow hair-dyed mohawk spiked up like a punk rocker and a nose ring sits down
next to him. The man begins to stare at him for a long time in shock. Then the
teenager says, "What you looking at old man?" The man replys, "Nothing,
nothing." Again the man begins to stare at him for a long time and the teen
says, "What's your problem, old man, you never did anything crazy when you were
a kid?" The old man replies, "Yeah, the thing is when I was a teen I got real,
real drunk and fucked a parrot, and I am trying to figure out if you are my
son."

Austin is spending the night with us tonight. He has peed in his pants twice - just out of ornriness I think. Then he told me he had to go poop. I took him into the bathroom, just knowing he had already done the deed. Surprise, surprise, surprise.. he hadn't. I got him on the pot and he looked at me and said "here comes a big one".... and lordy that boy was right! What a kid.

On a more serious note, please say a prayer for this little guy. He is going in for open heart surgery on July 29th to fix a hole in his heart. His chances of a long life are great but yet... anytime they operate, there is danger. He is a pretty special grandson.

Thoughts

What a wonderful world the Internet has opened up to all of us. I have met so many wonderful people while sitting at my keyboard - people I would never otherwise have had the chance to meet.
I think what I like most about meeting people over the internet is that I am able to get to know a person without all the filters I normally use, such as looks, where they live, what they do for a living, bad habits, and on and on and on... I've found that by the time I get around to finding out the details, my friends' heart and soul and true personalities have already shown through and the warts just don't matter. One of my best friends was an "old hippie" who continued to smoke marijuana until he died. In real life I would have run the other way, rather than become friends with a "druggie". What a shame that would have been. I have another friend who is an alcoholic. Again, in real life I would never have gotten to know this wonderful person because of all the filters I use.
Of course on the internet people lie and take advantage of others, just like in real life. I've had it happen to me and I know others have had it happen to them. On several occasions I've sent people money or paid their ISP bill so they could stay online. Only once was I "burned" by doing that. If a person is lying or taking advantage of me, it shows eventually and I chalk it up to experience and move on. Overall the good experiences have far outweighed the bad.
I don't chat very much anymore. I guess it has lost its magic for me. I feel bad about that because at some level I feel like I have abandoned people who I consider friends. But my heart is just no longer in it. Nowadays when I go into a chat room I feel like a stranger who has happened into a party that is in full swing - or I feel like I have entered a morgue because the room is empty... Yea, I still miss my buddy Pete lol, no matter what time I finally came online, he was there waiting for me.
This has been a rambling blog, prompted by reading other blogs. We are all dealing with real issues in our lives. We've been sharing each other's happiness and sadness. So, thank you my internet friends. Even though I'm not online very much anymore, I hold you all dear in my heart.