Happy Tears, Sad Tears, or Just plain old tears

I read in a response to a blog the other day about happy tears. Well, yesterday, I think I experienced every kind of tear available. You see one of my cubettes loaded his car and headed out to the rest of his life. How excited he must have felt. I wonder if his cycle of emotions were as complicated as mine thinking about how his life is evolving. First there was sheer happiness knowing how he must be feeling. Next came total selfishness on my part thinking about the changes being made and how we could never go back to our original relationship with Mew. It was temporary despair! Our little critter leaving the cave. All these past Christmases forever changed. All the summer experiences forever changed. All the crystal hunting, frog shooting, boating forever replaced with his grown up life. Yes, Mew, it was indeed a sad day at Grammy's and couldn't be fixed by her making another chocolate pie. One thing that will never change is my love for Mew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Goooooood Morning

Hopefully everone had a nice weekend. We certainly did although the best part was that it was totally unproductive!! We have a beautiful day today. The sun is shining and believe it or not, the wind is not blowing. How much luckier can we be?

I am getting ready to make cookies for the Compassion Outreach Center that our Church sponsors. We have volunteer doctors, nurses, etc staffing it one night each month and people who need it are given services and free medicines. We also provide a meal. Yes, First born cub, my cookies will be home made. For those of you unfamiliar with this story, my oldest cub kept volunteering me for cookies everytime they had a school party. One day his teacher called me and she was laughing until she had trouble talking. She said, "When I asked for cookies and K raised his hand, I said, your Mom does them all the time" and to this he replied, "Oh but she doesn't care and besides hers are always home made".

I have a confession of weakness to share. You know we are told in the Bible to be content in whatever state we are in and usually I don't have a problem with this. However, right now I am struggling. I need strength. You see, last week I went to my regular beautician for a haircut and perm. To emphasize how bad the cut is when the Alien looked at me, he said, "How come your hair is lots longer on one side than the other?" Now you know it must be bad for him to notice as usually I can get two haircuts before he notices it the first time. Then my older sibling and spouse came yesterday and when they saw it, they tried hard to hide their faces and were pretty successful until I turned around and they saw the back. My sibling said, "You should have gone with Casper and let them do your hair". I may be like Mrs. Beans and have to get a wig until it grows out. The Alien might be surprised when he comes home and all the mirrors are off the walls.

I have a funny story to share with you. The Alien's library is his bathroom. When he orders books from Amazon, he orders several. I though he was keeping the new ones in the rack in his Bathroom. When I got in the house cleaning mode (which isn't too often anymore) and cleaned our bedroom thoroughly I would take the stack of books off his dresser and put them in the book cases. Sure enough some time later, here would come a new supply of books. Finally, I said, how are you reading so many books? He said, "I am not, I think I have lots of new books on my dresser and then when I go to get one, they are gone so I just think I am out again so I order more". I said, "Well, all those on your dresser have been moved to the book case". He found many new books there that he had not read. Now I know not to move the "stack" lol

Thanks for letting me visit - you are in my prayers -

"Boring, boring, final update"

Don't you get tired of people going on and on about what all is wrong with them? Well, I do even if you don't so with that in mind I am sending my final update on the medical condition that has been irritating me for several weeks.

First, the specialist stated that I was not having mini strokes. Yippee!! He said it was my heart. Yippee again. I would rather make a quick exit than hang around drooling so celebrate with me!! I am now taking another heart medication and have not had a "spell" since that medicine got built up. The problem with the heart is in the wiring and surgery is not an option. It is all in my ballpark and I just have to manage the stress since it is the main contributing factor. I plan to be around long enough to be a thorn in my cubs' flesh so while I love your concern please don't worry okay?

Now enough said on that subject.

The cub has two more guitar lessons left (in the beginners' class) and when I asked her if she was interested in the advanced lessons, she gave me a definite "no".

Those memories of the soft drinks were entertaining. I remember before the last boy cub left home, he drank an IBC rootbeer somewhere and when we couldn't find one in our town, he somehow talked me into driving about 60 miles to another town to get them.

My older sibling has been experiencing some really heart wrenching times these days with one of her cubs. The other night they were up visiting and I was telling her that I had made appointments that day for Casper and me to get our hair cut. To this she stated, "Do you'll go to the same place?" Her spouse and I were ROFL and bless her heart she could not figure out why.

Well its naptime so thanks for letting me visit.

Grapette

Recently, I read a blog concerning grapettes. Just for the record, they were created the same year of my birth. Also, that was the very first soda that I can remember drinking. Won't drink the new versions since they are not in the original bottle. Set in my ways or just don't want to spoil good memories!!

Persimmons, Head Feed and Storms - #2

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we were two young siblings helping our Dad clear some land for planting "head feed". He was cutting the persimmon sprouts and we were dragging them over to a pile. Some of these sprouts had some orangey looking fruit on them. After much nagging about what they tasted like and Dad telling us they weren't ripe yet, he finally said, "Well go ahead and eat one". Now if you have ever eaten a green persimmon you will be totally sympathetic with us. Your mouth puckers until you can't get a straw in it. Strangely enough, we didn't complain but I assure you that we never nagged again about eating those orangey things.

Now if you have never experienced the joy of harvesting head feed, you are surely deprived. It puts off a fine dust that gets all over you. Down your collar, in your socks, hair - well you get the picture. Anyway, it stings just like you had walked through stinging nettles. We would cut off the tops and throw them in the wagon for hauling to the barn. Did a bath ever feel good!!!

It was during this time that Dad was working at the ammunition depot (during the war) and trying to keep things running at home. This was during the time of rationing. My parents would trade some of their sugar rations for coffee rations. On Fridays, when Dad got paid, he would be given four milky ways with his check. Chocolate was very hard to come by. I can still remember how good that milky way tasted. During this time frame, Dad took in a homeless person (they knew him well) and he lived with us until he got back on his feet. Now the good part of this was that he would also get five candy bars since he lived with us and he would share them with us.

This will be the last memory of the ranch shared as this final episode necessitated us moving into town.

We have violent storms in this part of the country. Mom was so scared of storms that Dad always said if it clouded over, she made us go to the storm cellar. This one day she had done just that. As my Dad watched from the cellar door, he watched the wind blow the roof off the house, the lightening kill livestock and the hail beat the car up pretty bad. Then and there the decision was made to move.

Thanks for visiting!!!

Recounted Memories - 1st of ?

In the past several days, I have had occasion to use my "memory bank" for certain things. I am discovering that it might be necessary for me to write down a few things (not that I am getting forgetful) lol.

Now before I get into my memories, I want to share something funny that happened prior to my birth. In those days, there were no pampers so you used cloth diapers. There were also no washers and dryers so you did laundry by hand. Okay on to the story, my Mom had hung out my sibling's diapers on the clothes line and Dad's dogs had been pulling at the bottom of them. My Mom gave my Dad a fair warning and assured him that if they did it again she would shoot them. Well, they did and then she did. The only problem she put the shotgun up to her face like a rifle so she had a very black and blue face.

So, with that in mind, I am starting at my earliest memories which was about age 3. I was the second born daughter to this Christian hard working (poor materially) couple. We lived out in the country on a small farm /ranch. We had cows, pigs, chickens, horses and dogs.

It was about this time that the infamous saying originated. My Dad called out to me to bring him the milk bucket so he could milk the cows. I was never very far from his heels when he was at home. It was just about dark as I started out with the bucket and since I was so short the bucket hit the ground often. On the way, I heard this owl hooting. To my young ears it was saying, "Whooo are you?" To this I answered, "I Barba Ann and I goin to the house as fast as I can". With that, I threw the bucket down and ran like a quail. I can still hear my Dad laughing and no matter how hard he tried, I would not come back out. This saying has followed me through my entire life.

Dad took me with him everywhere he could and one day we were going into town in the wagon to get some feed for the animals. He always found a penny or two for candy and this day was no different. That day, the candy he bought me was a green, yellow and pink striped coconut square. As I was savoring each tiny nibble, I saw something shiny and sure enough there was a little ring in the candy. What a treat!! As you can see from some early pictures, I have always loved jewelry.

In that day and age, the men all got together when the weather turned cold and killed hogs. They would go from one house to the other helping each other. Well, I had one of the pigs named and was very distraught when the slaughter took place. Afterwards when Mom cooked the pork, I would ask if it was my pig and each time Dad would say no. It never occurred to me that when the pork was all gone so was my pig.

I don't know if we went every Saturday night or not but I remember many times that on Saturday afternoon Mom would give us baths, curl our hair and put us down for a nap. That night we would go into the next big town and go to Gene Bell's cafe. We would get hamburgers and then go to the Okla Theatre and watch a movie. The movies were mostly all westerns. First they showed the cartoons, then the serial, each week they had what we now call soaps so they would show an episode and leave you hanging until the next week. Then came the main feature. Those were the days of Roy Rogers, Lash Larue, etc. Those were clear times, the good guys always won. You could tell the good from the bad as the good ones wore white hats while the bad ones wore black.

"Senility" Only Alternative?

I am suddenly being bombarded with little quips regarding age. For instance, one cub gave me a plaque that reads "I am just an Old Raggedy Ann in a Barbie Doll World". Then the reference to the elderly during my recent hospital visit, and to top that off, the Alien's secretary sent me the following little prayer:

--- THE SENILITY PRAYER : Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

I know what is happening! Its all this dreary weather! Yep, that must be it. I have one thing to say to the clever mouth of the wayward cub, "Raggedy Ann's will be around when Miss Barbie bites the dust".

With the recent eye surgery, I have ensured my ability to recognize the "correct" people and those that don't know about the surgery, well they will just think I am getting "Senile". Hee hee, I have it covered!

Food for Thought

Just a humorous thought to my present "physical" dilemma. Remember the doctor's explanation was "you can't put 7 gallons in a 5 gallon bucket". Well, duh, I will just buy a bigger bucket. Just kidding!!!!!!

This is one of the best explanations of why God allows pain and suffering that I have seen. It's an explanation other people will understand:

A lady went to a beauty shop to have her hair cut and her nails painted and trimmed. As the lady began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects.

When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the beautician said: "I don't believe that God exists."

"Why do you say that?" asked Sheryl, who has MS.

"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things."Then Sheryl thought for a moment, but didn't respond because she didn't want to start an argument. The beautician finished her job and the customer left the shop.

Just after she left the beauty shop, she saw a woman in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and not groomed at all. She looked dirty and unkempt. Then Sheryl turned back and entered the beauty shop again and she said to the beautician: "You know what? Beauticians do not exist." "How can you say that?" asked the surprised beautician. "I am here, and I am a beautician. And I just worked on you!"

"No!" Sheryl exclaimed. "Beauticians don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and be very unkempt, like that woman outside."

"Ah, but beauticians DO exist! What happens is, people do not come to me."
"Exactly!"- affirmed Sheryl. "That 's the point! God, too, DOES exist! What happens, is, people don't go to Him and do not look for Him. That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world."

Best Made Plans of Mice and Men

Sometimes no matter how hard you have tried to be organized it just doesn't work out that way. Today was one of those days for both me and the Alien. After a trip to the doctor yesterday to explore these weird "episodes" that have been occurring about once a week, she diagnosed the problem as Mini Strokes or TIA's. Being the cautious one she is, I was scheduled for an MRI, Ultrasound and blood work today to make sure there were no blockages. Well, this morning I hopped out of bed to get the cub off to school. She even talked me into taking her too school so she wouldn't have to ride the bus. About that time, one of the episodes hit again. When these hit, my vision is so blurred that driving is impossible, balance is gone, weakness is severe and usually there is nausea. At this point, I called the Alien to come get me to take me to the hospital. I was thinking for the tests but with my medical history, he assumed that I was having a heart attack so he called the ambulance so I got chauffeured to the hospital in style. Needless to say, my limo was closely followed by a red ford pickup. Now the fun really starts, yeah right.

I have to insert something humorous here. As they were wheeling me to Xray, a new tech in training was assisting the usual technician. The new tech had asked me my name and I told him. The seasoned tech said, "You must always check the bracelet as sometimes the elderly may not understand the question". If I had just had the energy, I could have had some fun with that. I knew that day could come but wish I could have been in a position to enjoy it.

Anyway to make a long story short, all the tests were run and no blockages. The ER physician came in and told me that he had discussed all this with my own physician and they both agreed that the mini strokes were being caused by stress. As the ER doc said, you can take a 5 gallon bucket and try to put in 7 gallon and something has to give. Where we go from here is a big question.

Don't worry, the Alien is like a mother hen and takes such good care of me and oh yes, Casper too, he won't leave my side when I am ill.

Need a Giggle?

The stoplight on the corner buzzes when its safe to cross the street I was crossing with an intellectually challenged coworker of mine. She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red. Appalled, she responded, "What on earth are blind people doing driving?" She was a probation officer in Wichita, Kansas.

Back to Basics

Have you noticed that sometimes even a good thing gets so far out that we must stop, take a deep breath and go back to the basics? Do you ever feel that Xmas is at this stage? Don't get me wrong, I am probably one of the biggest offenders (for lack of a better word). However, in the quiet of the morning while thinking back to why we are celebrating Xmas I can't help but wonder if this is what God had in mind when he sent his son.

That reflection raised these thoughts. For Jesus' birthday, there were no feasts, stacks of presents, lavish parties, etc. It was a very awesome day. Not even a bed to lay him in. Yet based on that day's event, we as Christians believe we were given the gift of eternal life. Think back to each of the gifts you received, did any of them give you such an awesome promise? It made me think that we should do further soul searching on how would Jesus want to celebrate his birthday? Would it be with overspending, overeating, jealousy that someone got more or better gifts than we did, partying to the point of drunkeness, just focusing on the entirely different concept than Jesus had in mind for "HIS" birthday party. Has it become "OUR" party? If so, can we give the same gifts he does? Can we give patience, charity, unselfishness, and all those other virtues he so generously bestows?

What if there was just one town in this world that chose to celebrate Jesus' birthday as he would choose? How would they do it? My thoughts are that they would spend their time and money celebrating family, orphans, elderly and those less fortunate. I don't think there would be drunken parties, credit cards maxed out, jealous confrontations, etc It made me stop and ask myself how would I feel if I were Jesus?

Do we need to go back to basics?

Do You Have a Title?

See, even the blog ask for a title! Are titles important to you? They are to most people. For instance, my title is "Executive Senior Research Associate in the Field of Child Development and Human Relations". I know your next question, how did you get that title? Well, I earned it by becoming a mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Now if you will read the title carefully you will see how all this fits together. First, I am diversified and able to multitask which is extremely important in my field. I am willing to work long hours and seven days a week without asking for overtime or comp time. I work in the field (some call them playgrounds) as well as inside. I am not geared to get my reward through monetary compensation. I am a dedicated employee who will probably never retire. I will never file for workmen's comp or sue the company for sexual harassment. I do not require vacation time or sick leave. So now you know how I earned my title. "Just a Mom"

country girl or city boy

I have just had my amusement for the day. Can you believe it came from reading MSN's home page? Jon Katz wrote a very detailed story about his "steer" and how the steer named Elvis fell in love. I was practically rolling in the floor laughing. If Jon would look up the word "steer" in the dictionary he would find out why I found this so funny. Of course, I confess to being a country girl so I knew the impossibility of an occurrence such as this happening. Goes to show, "You can't believe everything you hear and not much of what you read", sorry for modifying this quotation a little.

Warty Frog

The warty frog is not pretentious. It does not berate its Maker for its lack of beauty. It lives and thrives in spite of its outward affectations.

Perhaps it is far wiser than mortals who would strive to cloak that which they truly are.

Lots of wisdom imparted by Mary Summer Rain in this quotation don't you think?

Elfdom

If some of you are wondering if there is such a word as Elfdom, I will answer that quickly. If there wasn't before, there is now. I like that word. Better still I like elves. No wonder Santa is always so happy. He has all those little elves helping him. What jolly little people they are. Now here comes the kicker!! If anyone asks you what I want for Xmas, tell them I want elves. Lots and lots of elves. The more the merrier!

Clan Update

Hopefully all the ailing members of the clan are up and over the sneaky little bug that caught them. Just a quick note from the cave to update what is happening here.

We totally enjoyed all the cubs and their families that made it here for the big day. I think all of us had more to eat than we needed. One neice has called me to remind me that I didn't fulfil my role in the making of a chocolate pie for this specific person. I promised two for Xmas. It seems she has appointed me to take her Grandmother's place in making these pies.

J came through her surgery today. It was quite lengthy, almost five hours but thankfully no report of any lingering problems. There were several of us there to give her moral support and it sure seemed like a long time to sit and wait.

Gerbeans and spouse will be leaving tomorrow. Boy their time here sure goes fast.

I have started another new project. Genealogy! Boy is it ever fascinating. I am about to decide that I may have too many projects going but sure enjoy both the land searches along with the "people" searches.

Will sign off for now -

"Latest Endeavor"

Grammy is into another search. I am now doing genealogy searches working on my family tree. How interesting!! I have gone back as far as several "greats" on certain family ancestors. When Xmas rolls around and the grandkids come and find Grammy glued to the computer on ancestry.com they may get a little irritated, lol.
Howver, I will try to make sure that we don't have to many "sad days". I have discovered that one of our distant relatives was married to the Gatlins of the Gatlin Gun inventors. Another one was captured in the civil war, one was witness to a lynching, etc.

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving. Don't know for sure who all will be here but will just enjoy the time. I am trying out a new rocky road chocolate pie recipe. One of the cubettes asked her Mom to make sure that I didn't forget to make the broccoli/rice cassserole and the cherry cheese cake. And they think us "older" ones are the traditionalists, lol.

We had the energizer bunny all day Sunday. She went to Church with us. We then went out to eat and on to the Couches for a visit. She got to go with Papa G out into the pasture to see the longhorn cows. He couldn't get her on the four wheeler though, she said, "no, I too scared". She does not want to miss her bible class and since her Mom and her Nina were going to the city, I talked them into leaving her with us.

I have come to grips with the situation with the cub to the north. Still have some very sad thoughts but don't obsess about it. It is in God's hands.

Happy turkey day to all of you - as you know our family has our love -

New Experience

I had a new experience yesterday that I enjoyed immensely. My siblings and I are in the process of leasing some of our royalty that we inherited from our Mom. As is my usual inquisitive nature, I couldn't figure why the numbers of acres seemed to change each time a land company leased the royalty. I decided that I would try to find out how all this worked. That involved me going to the court house in Atoka County and doing research on two Sections of land. There was one lady that worked there that sort of took me under her wing and taught me the tricks to find information. That was so interesting. I was able to learn how to trace the history of ownership clear back to their beginning. I was able to find out that we were being "underpaid" for the number of acres. The siblings were encouraging but didn't participate in the hunt. I have two more court houses to visit. One in Pittsburg County and one in Cooks County, Texas. Oh yes, another visit to Atoka County for two more sections. That is so fascinating to see all these records. Fortunately, these parcels of land so far have not changed ownership too awfully many times. Each time any transaction takes place, it is notated in first the legal description book under the specific Section, then the deeds are in yet more books and if the mineral rights have been sold they are also kept in minerals deed books. The land in Texas in question that my Papa kept the mineral rights on was land owned by his Dad and it was purchased back in the 1800's. After his death, Papa bought his siblings share of the property. We have no idea how much royalty we may have there. So far, there has not been anyone attempting to lease it. Anyway, I am looking forward to that challenge. Should be very interesting to read about that great grand father on the D side.

Casper had his beauty shop appt today and got his yearly vaccinations. He was really glad to see us when we picked him up.

Thanks for visiting!

"True Family Sagas"

There was this family who lived in a small rural community. They were extremely poor in material things but very blessed with what matters most - family - This family consisted of a mother, father and three girls. Two of the girls were much older than the third one. They were surrounded by grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and too many cousins to count. This family lived in a three room house without running water and had an outside outhouse. The birthdays were not always celebrated with gifts, parties or even cakes. Yet each family member knew they were loved. Christmas also was very lean. Not always even a Christmas tree. Yet each member knew they were loved.

Now when future stories are written about this family, you have the setting.

The episode that I am writing about today took place when the two older siblings were quite young (around ages 11 & 13). Their parents had to go to the Northwest to pick up the patriarch's brother(who was going through mid-life crisis). Anyway, the parents left the two girls with a great-grandmother and great-grandfather hereafter called Pa and Grannie. Pa and Grannie lived one block over in a fairly large house. Grannie was not to keen on cleaning and had many cats that lived inside. Unfortunately the cats got their food from the dining room table also. Now the second night there, the siblings were in bed trying to go to sleep and the wind was whistling through the windows and the house seemed to be creaking. They decided then and there that they would go home and spend the rest of the time there. Which is exactly what they did the very next day.

Now before the parents returned the youngest sibling decided to clean the house and do the laundry. The older sibling refused to help so this created a large confrontation that resulted in a rather spirited fight with feather pillows. Much to their dismay, one of the pillows came apart and those pesky feathers went everywhere. The youngest sibling thought by sweeping them outside, they would go un-noticed. Afterall, they had chickens so feathers were common place. However, piles of feathers are different from a few scattered around or at least that is what the parents said.

Stay tuned!