Organ donors

Sending prayers to all the victims and their familes of Hurricane Katrina.

***

Strides for Change Walk
My girlfriend and I signed up for a walk with our local UAW sisters to support the efforts of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). It is a few weeks away, but something to look forward to. That is one thing about my company and the UAW that impresses me, they have so many groups that they support. Be it "Toys for Tots," helping victims of disasters, sending support to soliders in Iraq, etc.

***

I read an amazing story the other day in our company newspaper.

I'll try to make a long story short. It was about a man, Steven Dulka who in 1997 had contracted a virus that caused Cardiomyopathy, a disease that enlarges and weakens the heart muscles. Eventually his condition had gotten worse, and the doctors informed him that the only thing that would keep him alive would be a heart transplant.

In 1999 Steven had met a woman named Deidre that he fell in love with. Last year on her birthay he asked his doctor to let him out of the hospital so that he could take her to a nice restaurant and ask her to marry him. He did not get the chance to ask her that evening because he collapsed shortly after arriving at the restaurant. Eventually he did get to ask her, and a Oct 2, 2004 wedding date was set.

On October 2, the day of his wedding, shortly before noon he received a call. The call was from his contact at the transplant center that stated, "We've got a heart for you if you want to come and get it." They quickly got married ahead of schedule that day and he had his heart transplant.

Can you imagine actually "getting a heart" and in a sense giving your heart away in the same day?

Dulka said in the article, "I know that the heart came from someone who had an unfortunate accident, but I also know it was from someone who wanted someone else to live and benefit from their gift of life."

In April 2005, the Chrysler Group, along with General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Compuware and the UAW, launched a three-year campaign to increase awareness and organ donation registrations. Approximately 89,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant. Each day, about 74 people receive an organ transplant, but 17 people die waiting for transplants that cannot take place because of the shortage of donated organs. For more information or to register as an organ donor, go to www.iaod.org

Dulka also said "We could save so many more people, if more people would just say yes."

This story was on the news and in newspapers around the country, but the story is about a man that works within my corporation. I do not know him personally, but I just felt so touched by the article that I knew it was worth repeating.

Best Wishes to the Mr. & Mrs. and their new lease on life!

Mall Sketches

Ever seen one of those booths at the mall that make computerized portraits. This is one that Rona and I had done a few years ago. I think it is pretty cool looking. We had several made this is just one of them.

Smile Together

May 2004

This is my sister, mom and myself on
our way to my nephews
highschool graduation ceremony.

Cute as a bug

We find delight in the beauty
and happiness of children
that makes the heart too
big for the body.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

This is Rona Leigh as a toddler Isn't she cute?
She made this little pose all on her own, I was
just there ready with the camera.

~Live, Love, Laugh~

Pumpkin patch

This photo was taken in 2003. Rona and Joey are showing off one of the pumpkins they picked from the pumpkin patch. Jason is off somewhere searching for his prize possession. Unfortunately after taking this picture I ran out of film so I didn't get a shot of all three of them together with their pumpkins. I love black & white photos though, so I am glad that I altered this picture.

A smile

May 21, 2004

A smile costs nothing but gives so much. It enriches those
who receive without making poorer those who give.
It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes
lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he
cannot be made rich by it. A smile creates happiness
in the home, fosters goodwill in business and is the
countersign of friendship.
It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the
discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and is
nature's best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot
be brought, begged, borowed, or stolen,
for it is something that is of no value to anyone until
it is given away.
Some people are too tired to give you a smile.
Give them one of yours, as none needs a
smile so much as he who has no more to give.

~author unknown~

Adore, Cherish, Nurture, Treasure

Adore, Cherish, Nurture, Treasure

This picture was taken several years
ago with my boys. Rona Leigh
took the picture of me and the boys lying on
my bed together.

Huh, Monkey see monkey do!

A Tinsel Christmas with Father

This is a scrapbook page that I created about a year ago. It is of my maternal grandfather with his three oldest children. My mother is the one sitting on the floor between his legs. I really enjoy this picture. It reminds me so much of an Old Fashioned Christmas. Remember when the trees actually use to have all of that tinsel on it, you don't see that very often any more.

What rejected crayon am I?

You are

What Rejected Crayon Are You?


Yes, I know I am going a bit crazy with this online quiz thing. Anyways, this is
my rejected crayon color.

Miracle on 34th Street

Your Christmas is Most Like: Miracle on 34th Street

Sweet and caring, Christmas is about helping for you. While Santa may not exist, you try to share his spirit.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year. I love to get ready for the holiday. I love the decorations, turning the lights down low, lighting a candle, maybe listening to some Bing Crobsy Christmas tunes. To me it is very relaxing.

I also enjoy all of the hustle, and bustle of Christmas shopping, being surrounded by the Christmas spirit.

It is funny that this is the movie that came up for me, because this is one of my favorite Christmas movies. I have a copy of it on my shelf.

How weird am I?

You Are 20% Weird

Not enough to scare other people... But sometimes you scare yourself.

How Weird Are You?

Fortune cookie

Your Fortune Is

Man who scratch ass should not bite fingernails.

The Wacky Fortune Cookie Generator

This just happened to be my fortune, hahaha.

I know how to embarrass myself

I had lunch today with a "friend." Usually I don't talk about dates, but I have to tell this one little thing. I usually have these long beautiful acrylic nails. I decided recently to take them off. Instead of doing what a "normal" person would do like soak them off, I decided to just wait until I could "pop" them off myself. While I was sitting with my friend I started playing with one of these nails, suddening the acrylic popped off of my nail and into my blouse between my breasts. Of course he DID notice it, so I couldn't just let it be and pretend it never happened and dig it out later. I had to reach down my blouse into my bra to fetch it out, talk about embarrassing. He was sweet though and offered to fetch it for me. haha

You're 36?

My daughter is such a sweetheart. She was looking at my profile and noticed that it said I was 36. She exclaims, "YOU'RE 36?!" Duh!!!! Nothing like making mom feel old. I accidently typed 26 instead of 36 and she said "OH yeah, you wish you were 26." Yeah I do, that would only make her 3 and she wouldn't be standing over my shoulder reading what I am typing.

You gotta love them though!

Z Coil shoes

These shoes are made by Z Coil shoes.

My daughter thinks that they are cool looking, but I think they look weird as heck. I could not imagine myself ever wearing them, but I did see someone yesterday at work wearing a pair. Of course I had to ask about them. Actually I sent someone to walk down the line to ask they guy who made them and what they were like.

The guy said that he had a bad back and that the shoes really did help him. He said that they were like walking on air.

I guess they look weird, but if your standing on your feet all day long like I do maybe it is something that is worth investing in. Speaking of investing, someone said that these shoes run around $150 or $200 per pair. I checked out their website and I couldn't find a price anywhere on it, maybe that is why.

Of course I wore combat boots for six months straight in Desert Storm, so I know that I have feet made of steel and could tolerate wearing a much less expensive pair of shoes to work everyday.

What is love?

Just something that I was reminded of today....

I was late walking into one of my psychology classes a few years back. As I walked in the professor asked me, "Rhonda, what is love?"

My response (note that I was the only divorced person in the room), "I thought I knew once but obviously I was mistaken."

My great BIG empty space

I can't seem to come up with a single thing to write about. I browse different blogs and I see so much creativity. Everyone has a opinion about one thing or another. Something that I have realized about myself is that I do have opinions, but unless someone asks me about something in particular I can't seem to discuss anything that most people would consider "interesting." (oh trust me I do have an opinion and if you ask any of my friends I will openly express it when the time arises.

Two things that peek my interest are my children (which I do tend to talk about) and my job (or my friends at work). I will speak often about my children, but I have decided not to include conversations about my job because I would like to keep it. I don't think discussing work on my blog (having me thinking it is appropriate, and them thinking it is not) is something that I am willing to risk.

So this leaves me to discuss any other ridiculous subject that pops into my head. Unfortunately today it is a great big empty space.

Dirty movie

About six years ago my son, Jason, was browsing through our VHS collection. He would have been about four years old at the time. He stumbled upon one that he didn't recall ever seeing before. He asked my sister to put it into the VCR for him. She grabbed it and THANK GOD she looked at it before putting it in the machine. The words came out of her mouth a bit too quickly, "Oh no!! that's a dirty movie." Jason looked, then ran off. When he returned he came back with a wet washcloth....to clean it off. LOL

This was a present left for me by my ex-husband after our divorce. Ha, Ha, he thought he was funny.

Late night escapades

Do you want to see how goofy your kids really are?

All you have to do is go to bed early and leave your digital camera out on the desk. Make sure you have the batteries charged, because if your kids are anything like mine they will figure out how to use the video recorder and will show you exactly how silly they really are.

What goofballs I have. Rona was the leader of the group. Jason stood back as an innocent observer (while eating a bowl of cereal, yes that was caught on camera). Rona put on some dark sun glasses and focused the camera directly on her (this is where you catch Jason devouring a bowl on Cookie Crisp cereal). As she looks into the camera she starts saying over and over "oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah" as she shifts her eyebrows up and down over the top of her shades. What's really funny is that you can see Jason in the background watching her, but he is unconsciously doing the same thing with his eyebrows while he shovels spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth. Suddenly the camera shifts to Joey who starts shaking his head and repeating "Oh my God." Why I have no idea.

This was just one of their episodes for the evening. They did about five different ones for my viewing pleasure. Now I am confident that I am raising a bunch of goofballs.

Rona DaVinci

DaVinci had his Mona Lisa, Rona has her self-portrait titled "self-portrait." LOL

Rona said that I could only post this on my blog if I made sure to let everyone know that she did it when she was in fourth grade.

I don't care if she doesn't like it, I love it.

Today I am having one of those moments when being single really sucks. This is what I get for watching all of these chick flicks today. They will do it to you every time. Lately I have been feeling pretty good about the single life. Although right now I am missing having someone special to spend my time with. The bad thing about this is that I know in order to find someone I have to go on dates, and dates usually tend to be disappointing. Oh well....in a few days single life will be good again.

Me & Joey

Me & Joey

This was taken on Mother's Day 2004.
Joey is always great at
taking pictures with me whenever
there is an opportunity.
Such a cutie!!

J&J Cedar Point 2004

Sisters

Me & Sis

This was taken about 3 years ago I believe.
Again keeping it simple I think works with
this page. The paper is beautiful, and
I think it was perfect for this picture.

Beautiful

This is one of my favorite pictures of my daughter when she was younger. I loved her in that little blue outfit. I had her hair in a french braid. Can you see the twins in the background, man were they a handful. I like the idea that I made this page so simple, I think it is all that I needed, nothing else needed to be said. She is simply "beautiful."

Me in 2003

December 2003

Happy 1. having, showing or causing great joy and pleasure
2. an emotion characterized by sense or well-being
and gladness
3. causing one to SMILE

Legacy

Legacy

This is my maternal grandmother.
She died when my mother was only 12 years
old. I have no memories of her. All I
have are these beautiful photographs that
I have collected from family members.

Even though we have never met. I have
learned a valuable lesson because of her.
I have realized the importance of preserving
my memories. Because of her I
am creating a legacy to pass on to my
family through my photographs and
journaling.

Our memories are the most precious things
that we can pass on to our children
and generations to come.

Mother as a child

All of the pages that I will put on this blog in the near future are from my older projects. My scanner broke so I haven't been able to scan any of the newer ones. My nephew scanned these for me last year and put them onto my computer for me (thanks Nathan, it makes it really convenient for me).

Anyways, I love this picture. This is a school picture of my mother when she was about 10 years old. I love how they add the rose color to the cheeks to pictures back then. Looking at this picture makes me realize how much my son Joey looks exactly like my mother when she was young. This is funny since my boys are identical twins, but for some reason Joey looks like her and not Jason.

Me & my daughter

This is one of my daughter's favorite pictures of the two of us together. It was taken almost two weeks ago, at my favorite restaurant (BD's Mongolian BBQ). She is a sweetheart and her sense of humor is becoming more and more like mine.

The men in my life

The men in my life....my superheros!

Time

Here is another page taken from my scrapbook. This is of my maternal grandfather. He is part of my Italian ancestry, more specifically we are Sicilian.

The words Time and definitions are a transparency that I laid over a piece of tan paper, then attached to the dark green background.

This is one of my favorite pictures of my grandfather.

My Inspiration for scrapbooking

This is a page from my scrapbook page. This is my grandmother when she was young. She died when my mother was 12 years old (she was 36), and she is part of my inspiration. Even though I never met her she has inspired me to share my life through pictures and my words. I hope that eventually one day my family will cherish everything that I have worked so hard to create.

My grandmother was a very beautiful woman. This picture was actually a oil painting of my mothers that I scanned and printed up to use on my page.

I hope you enjoy all that I have to share.

Do you understand percentages?

Have you ever had a conversation with someone where they keep insisting that they understand what you are saying, but you KNOW that they don't?

I did recently with one woman. I was talking about percentages. This is how the discussion started. I was talking about attendance, I stated that two years ago a certain % of people would not be present on any given day. This year that average has increased by 6%.

She responded by saying, "well they need to understand that they have more people now, so that will make the percentage go up."

What she is referring to is that about another 1,000 (an inaccurate number, just used for example) people were added. She states that because of these new people that it is only right that the percentages would increase. I tried to explain to her that it doesn't matter if you have 1,000 or 5,000 people the percentage is of the whole. The percentage does not change because you added more people. Yes percentages can increase or decrease but not simply because they have more people. The actual numbers of people absent may increase because of the increase of people, but not necessarily the percentage.

Is this that difficult to understand? Or is it just me that is wrong?

Well what ended up happening with me and this woman was that I had to tell her that we were not going to agree on anything so we needed to end the conversation now. We could have sat there and both argued our points for hours and neither of us would have changed our minds. So I decided to end it then, but now tell me which of us was right and which was wrong?

Overdue dental visit?

I received this in the mail the other day and thought it was cute.

It is a postcard sent to me by my previous dentist. It hasn't been that long since my last checkup, but it has with this dentist. I moved, so I switched to another dentist about 2 years ago.

I still got a kick out of the postcard though.

Speed dating

I was reading the book Blink when I came across a section in the book detailing a dating technique that I found interesting. I have seen this technique before on some movie, but I have never run across it anywhere near where I live. This technique is called speed-dating.

This process takes potential daters and places them in a setting with other potential daters. They get to spend a set amount of time with each person (in the book it said 6 minutes) before each man moves on to the next. So what they do is basically jump from one person to another every six minutes to see if there is any kind of connection. Each person fills out a form to let the host know which person they found an interest in. If there was a mutual interest between two people then they would both be contacted at a later time. Where it goes from there is up to the two individuals.

I thought this was a great idea. I have been on so many first dates, sitting there with them for a couple of hours when I've realized within the first several minutes that I was not interested in anything further. Or endless hours of internet chatting only to find out that when I meet them in person they are really not the person that I thought they were.

I should check into this and see if there is anything like this in my area. I live in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area if anyone out there has any suggestions.

Gossip Girls

The other day there was a discussion on the book Gossip Girls. This book is in the young adult sections of the bookstore. The radio station put together a forum of teenage girls and asked them about the book.

See I have a daughter that will be thirteen next month, so I found this interesting.

There are several of them already in publication. So anyways, these girls were talking about these books. To them what they found that would be most disturbing to their parents were the sections about sex, and the characters parents allowing teenage drinking.

When the radio host asked the girls "do you think your parents would let you read these books if they knew what was in them?" the girls responded "no."

Although the girls did say that they didn't think that anything in the book gave them a desire to do any of those things. The girls stated, "it depends on what type of girl you are." So if you are are girl that is already interested in something like that, maybe it would give you a little push into that direction, or that if you are a girl with morals already then what you read didn't mean anything. It didn't mean that you were going to go out and do anything.

I can kind of relate to what they mean. When I was young I read some books that I thought were kind of fast back then. Not quite as fast as these books are, but left me daydreaming about kissing a boy or something like that. Well those books didn't make me run out and have sex or anything like that. I didn't agree to have sex until I was nearly 19 years old. Underage drinking, oh yes I did plenty of that though. That wasn't because I read it in a book though.

See I was not the type of girl to be encouraged by a book. Some girls probably could be though. Who knows, all I know is that I am not ready to have my daughter reading about sex, underage drinking, etc. See as parents we like to think we know our children. That we know without a doubt that they would not do inappropriate behavior without us knowing. WRONG. Even though I wasn't having sex, I did a lot of inappropriate behavior growing up. My parents, I think took it much better than I suspect that I will in similar circumstances.

For some reason my parents were very lenient with me. I did whatever I wanted to do. I never really got into trouble (caught). There were many times that I stayed out all night long never calling home. I must have scared the heck out of my parents, especially my mother. Did they know what I was up to? Did they know that I was the "town virgin" and that I wasn't doing anything sexually? Don't get me wrong, I think I had great parents, I always felt loved, my needs were always taken care of. Maybe they just knew more about me than I thought they did. Huh, I never really thought about this so deeply until now. Well anyways, lets just say that it all ended well. I managed to get through highschool and I am completely normal (well at least I think I am). I don't do drugs, rarely drink, don't smoke, heck I don't even drink coffee.

Will I let my daughter read the book if she comes across it? doubtful, at least not until I have read it. I did buy her a book at the bookstore yesterday, LOL. It was an SAT vocabulary novel by Sparknotes. It was called Vampire Dreams, and it is loaded with 1,000 common SAT words and their definitions but written as a novel so that it is more interesting to learn. Let her learn something from that, besides how to party with your girlfriends and drink alcohol. Well it must have been a good book, because she finished all 174 pages in just a few hours.

I didn't read that book before giving it to her, I assumed that a book for SAT study would be appropriate. Watch me be wrong. Oh and btw she did read the definitions at the bottom also.

Anyways, I didn't read any of the Gossip Girls' books, so just use your own judgement before letting your teenage daughter read it. I was just glad that I heard the forum so that I would be able to check the book out before giving it to her without even knowing what the contents of the book were. Good Luck.

Cruisin' down Woodward

Today was a pretty busy day for me and the boys. Shortly before noon we jumped into the car and took off. We started with lunch at Famous Daves. Have you ever heard of it? They serve bar-b-que ribs, chicken, etc. This was the first time I have taken the boys there. My daughter decided to stay home (she didn't like the idea of looking at cars all day). Jason loved the ribs, he couldn't stop talking about them; they were riblicious. Joey had the chicken fingers, and I had cajun chicken sandwich with remoulaude on the side. They have different types of bar-b-que sauce on the table for you to try. I tried every single one of them on my sandwich. Lunch was great, and it was a good way to start our day.

Next...we moved on to our shopping spree. The kids needed their shoes for school. I got pretty lucky, I managed to get three pairs of sneakers for just around $100.

From there....we went across the street to the mall and picked up about six new tops for my daughter.

Finally...we were on our way to the Woodward Dream Cruise 2005. This was how we originally planned to spend our day. The rest just kind of happened. The Cruise is probably an hour away from our house, but it was worth the drive. As I exited the expressway at Woodward, I could see what we were in for. Woodward was jam packed, not just with the normal traffic but the vehicles for the Cruise. All the muscle cars, Fairlanes, Challengers, Chargers, Shelby Mustangs, Model T's, etc. You name it, everything was pretty much there.

What happens is that cars are lined up along both sides of the road. Onlookers set up tents and their lawnchairs and settle in for the day. We never actually got a chance to park, but the cool thing is that whether you are in your car driving down the road, or walking the streets you still get to see everything. All sorts of cars are cruising down Woodward, be it old or new. This is a three of four lane highway in both directions. This street is so packed that traffic crawls at a speed of about five miles per hour (pedestrians were moving faster than us). It pretty much feels like you one of the floats in the Thanksgiving Day parade.

As I said in my earlier post that I would hear the word "sweet" out of my boys' mouths. This is exactly what I heard to describe every cool car that they saw. We took some pictures, but since we never actually got out of the car (because before we got to a spot to part it started pouring) we only have the few that the boys took while inside my car creeping down the road.

It was a good day even though we left the cruise a bit earlier than expected because of the rain. We didn't end it with that though, we were on our way home when we ran across a Barnes & Noble bookstore. Of course we had to stop and at least look, if not buy anything (we did end up buying a couple of books though). One thing that the kids and I enjoy doing is going to the book store. I know that kind of sounds nerdy, but they all like it. Of course I don't mind, they would rather I head into a bookstore than a clothing store. They will grab my hand and pull at me to keep me from going into one of those. This is weird to me because I will spend a lot more time in the bookstore than I do in a clothing store. I guess it is because they don't find anything interesting about women's clothing, but at least in a book store they can find something to entertain them.

Anyways, that was our excitement for the day. Tomorrow is grocery shopping day (YIPPY).

The Woodward Dream Cruise

Tomorrow with be the 11th annual Woodward Dream Cruise. My boys LOVE cars and every year I plan to take them to this event, but somehow never quite make it. This year we are going.

This started out as a fund raising event for children's soccer field. Eleven years later it is the world's largest one day automotive event in history. It now attracts more than 1.7 million people from all around the world. The cruise will cover a 16-mile route which goes through nine different communities.

In 1986 Charles Brady King drove the first automobile down this famed street. Several months later Henry Ford drove one of his down this same road.

I have only been to this event once, and if you are a car buff this is a must see event. I cannot say that I am a car buff; but seeing the look on my boys' faces is gonna be awesome. I can hear them now...."sweet"...this is their favorite word now when they like something. They are ten years old now, and they have been able to tell the difference between car makers since they were about five years old. I remember it use to amaze me how we would drive down the road, and tell me which company manufactured which car (hell, I work for one of the Big Three and I can't even do that).

I'm sure that I will have my camera ready for lots of snapshots. I'll try to update and maybe even include some pictures this weekend.

Library late fees

I have a ton of books and I like to keep them. I have this little problem though. Someone always seems to see me reading a book and will ask me if they can borrow it. I am the type of person that likes to share. I share what I am eating with my friends at work, I hear a funny story and I have to share it with the person next to me, someone wants to read my book, fine I have no problem sharing. What I do have a problem with is when nobody returns them.

Right off the top of my head I can name five books that I have lent out (I feel like the library).

1. Just recently (today) someone borrowed "Freakonomics" from me. I do feel that this person will return it within a reasonable amount of time. Of course I thought this of all the others also.

2. About six months ago I lent out a copy of a book about the Trojan War. Didn't that war last ten years? Maybe I'll get the book back in about the same amount of time.

3. About 2 years ago a girl that I knew had a relative died, so I lent her the book "On Death and Dying" by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. I was at the time reading another book, and I figured she needed the book more than I did so I let her read it. I brought the subject up to her several time and she seems to avoid me. It is just a book, but I want it back. I never even got the chance to read this one, it was brand new.

4. This is to my dear friend Kim, that I think is great, BUT you still have one of my books. Another one that I didn't even get a chance to read. I can't recall the name of this book or even what it is about because you have had it so long.

5. Then there is The DaVinci Code. I don't usually read novels, but I really enjoyed this book and passed it along to several people. Somewhere along the way it got lost and never managed to find its way back to me.

Maybe if I started charging late fees I would get them back? ya think?

My grandma is soooo cool

I think this is the coolest thing. My grandmother will be 85 years old in October. Besides the fact that she always looks perfect, makeup on, hair always done, well kept clothes. My grandma has her eyebrows tattooed. Tell me that isn't cool. Actually I am not into them, I wouldn't get one because when I think about getting one all I can think about is me as an old lady with some shriveled up tattoo. What my grandma did a fews years ago was to have her eyebrows done. You would think that you would be able to tell, but I never even noticed it. The color goes well with her hair so it seems so natural. She actually had to tell me about it. Then of course after someone tells you something like that you can't help but check em out.

Last year when I went to visit her she told me that she wanted to get her teeth whitened. I can't believe it, she is 84 years old and still so particular about her looks. I think she looks great, and I can only hope that when I get her age that I look as good.

My son's bad day

My son didn't have such a great day today.

He came into the house, walking like a zombie from "Night of the Living Dead." My mom was watching them while I was at work. When she saw him come in, she couldn't believe what she saw. The first words out of her mouth were, "What happened to you? Did you throw up?"

What happened was, that he was outside, riding his bike around the neighborhood as usual. He wasn't paying attention, and at the last second he noticed a large tub of melted Country Crock butter in his way. TOO LATE!! He nailed it, and it exploded all over the place and all over him. Gross, I can only imagine what that must have felt like. He got cleaned up and changed his clothes.

Shortly after that he was at his friends house sitting on the bed. The friend's dog was sitting on the bed also. All of a sudden he felt something wet on the back of his pants. The dog went to the bathroom on the bed and it rolled down onto him. Again he went home to get cleaned up and changed.

Next he was drinking a glass of soda when he somehow managed to miss his mouth and it all ended up on the front of his shirt. Again, had to change his clothes, then he said to my mom, "grandma, I'm having a bad day."

My poor baby.

Never saw this one before

I just read the previous post to my mother. She laughed because it reminded her of a time when she was driving down the road with my nephew. She came upon a man carrying a sign. She looked at the sign, then looked a little closer. See this was not your typical sign for a beggar. Usually the signs read "will work for food," or "help a vet" this particular sign read "I need a beer." She couldn't help but laugh and look at my nephew and say, "well at least he is honest." LOL. Never saw that one before.

"Mom, the police are here"

When I was about four or five years old, my sister and I pranced into our mom's room and said, "Mom, the police are here."

"What?" said my mom as she jumped out of bed.

She goes to the door only to find not the police but the Salvation Army instead. Heck, we didn't know, anyone in a uniform was a police officer to us. When she opened the door they asked her if she was Mrs. _____, and asked her what our ages where. She told them, and they said that they would be back in a few days.

They did come back, several days later, but this time they brought with them everything to make a Thanksgiving feast. They also brought a doll for each of us girls.

Someone had turned out names in to the Salvation Army. At the time my father was fighting in the Vietnam War, and my aunt turned in our name. She said that our father was stationed overseas, and that we were poor and didn't have any money.

I don't remember ever being "poor," but I guess there was a time in our life that we were. Even though I don't remember this story (this is one of my mother's memories) I am sure that we were all very grateful.

This brings me to a discussion me and some of my friends had today. Someone was telling a story about how a stranger approached her at the mall. He told her that she looked like a good christian woman, she agreed that she was. He went on to tell her that he had a mother that needed insulin and that he needed $16 more for her medication. She didn't have cash on her, so she actually took the money out of an ATM for him, well she gave him $10. After she did it she was thinking, what did I do? She said that she felt comfortable using the ATM there because she was in a mall and surrounded by people, but she wondered what the money was actually going to be used for.

This made us go into a discussion about beggars on the street. Where I work, near a major city, I pass by the beggars on street corners often. With their signs "Will work 4 food." I have no problem giving to the needy, but you can't help but wonder if the money will actually go towards some food, or a bottle of booze. Because of this I usually drive by without giving, but feeling kind of bad for not. I would much rather go to the nearest Burger King and pick up a combo meal for him than hand over my hard earned cash.

First experiences

I went to visit my aunt the other day. While we were all sitting around gabbing about this and that she all of a sudden asked me this question, "You have never smoked have you?"

"Nope" I responded.

I guess why she asked me that was because both of my parents are chain smokers. From my understanding this should have drastically increased our (my sister and I) chances of smoking. Neither of use have ever smoked, and I highly doubt that either of us will.

The sound of my father "hacking up" in the morning is enough to discourage anyone from starting that nasty habit. I would hate to take a peak at his lungs. He started smoking when he was like seven years old, and he will turn sixty in a few months.

When I say that we have never smoked, this does not actually mean that we have not tried it. We just never took up the habit. When I was less than ten years old, not actually sure of the correct age, we found this abandoned purple (yes purple) van in the woods near our house. My sister and I were not the only ones to find it, many of the other children in the neighborhood found it as well. This was like our little hangout. I don't know who decided to start experimenting with smoking first, but I remember that it was one of my dad's packs of cigarettes that we tried. Lucky for us my dad smoked Camel nonfiltered (probably why we never started, disgusting). If we would have started with a filtered cigarette maybe it would not have been so bad. Anyways, it didn't take us long to realize that there was absolutely nothing exciting about smoking cigarettes.

This van was also our first encounter with "dirty magazines." I have no clue where those came from, but all the kids were checking it out. I can only imagine the expression on my face when I saw my first male genitalia. I probably thought that was disgusting too. All I can remember about this magazine was actually seeing it, I remember nothing else about it. I was probably in such a state of shock that I've blocked it out of my memory bank completely.

The only time I remember my parents actually talking to me about sex was when my sister got pregnant around the age of fifteen. She ended up having a miscarriage and my father had a "talk" with me in the hospital waitingroom. He said, "she what you girls need to do is keep your legs open....oops, I mean closed." hehehe.

Isn't it funny?

Isn't it funny how sometimes you can forget what you had for dinner last night, but remember a poem that you memorized for a class eighteen years ago.

Annabelle Lee

by Edgar Allen Poe
(well at least the first two stanzas)

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea.
That a maiden there lived whom you may know,
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love an be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the wingd seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

Starsky & Hutch

My daughter and I are sitting here watching the movie "Starsky & Hutch" (her choice). My mom is in the kitchen reading a book. There was a particular part in the movie where they walk out onto the sidewalk and Starsky remarks about Hutch's yellow truck. Starsky tells Hutch that the truck sticks out like a sore thumb. He then tells him he is in for a surprise, and runs off to get his car (which really sticks out).

My daughter asks me, "Is that like the car they had in the original?"

My mom overheard our conversation and says, "yeah, and they climbed in through the windows."

My mom is sooooo cute, I couldn't help but laugh.

"No mom, that was the Dukes of Hazzard."

"oh yeah" LOL

I actually use to watch both when I was younger. Oh and remember C.H.I.P.S. with Eric Estrada? I actually thought the blonde guy was the cutest.

What shows did you watch regularly when you were a teenager?

Replacement for my original blog

This blog is being created as a replacement for my original one. The first one was great, lots of pictures. I put a lot of my time and energy into creating it. Unfortunately someone became obsessed with it and me, so this blog is its replacement. Hope you enjoy it.