%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  My Blog....Pearls of wisdom and/or foolish mutterings.....You be the judge.... |
|
A little of this, a dash of that......epic mood swings.......A LOT of foolish mutterings and occasionally a few words of wisdom. It's a crapshoot. You never know what you'll find in here... |
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Inspired by fellow blogger PlannerDan  , I dug out this old photo after reading his blog entry about an old photo he has of an unknown relative or family friend taken in front of an old Model T. He refers to her as his Mona Lisa and asks his readers to give their impression of the back story to this picture. I commented in his blog that I too had a box of very old photos that originally belonged to my great-grandmother and it contains a couple of pictures that are very intriguing to me. The photo above is one of those afore-mentioned intriguing photos. From the first moment I came across this photo, I have wondered about it. The first man on the left is my grandfather, the man on the right is my uncle Clayton, who was a big-band leader. Don't know who the man in the middle is. The picture was taken sometime in the 1930's. According to the stories I've heard all my life, my grandparents and great-grandparents were dirt-poor farmers in the Texas Panhandle. They did live in a small farmhouse outside of a tiny town in the Panhandle when I was born, but had long since stopped farming their land and by all appearances then, they were dirt-poor farmers. But the above picture just doesn't square with everything I've ever been told. First of all - the setting. Where the heck was this picture taken? And check out those clothes. Kind of fancy for dirt-poor farmers. So, here's my question. What does this photo say to you? Anyone have any ideas, thoughts, opinions? |
| Did I ever mention that I used to be incredibly shy? No? Well, it's true. It was a long, long time ago, but there was a time when I was painfully shy. I blushed every time someone spoke to me. Obviously, I have overcome that - some who know me might say the pendulum has swung a little too far to the other side. In the ninth grade, I took a Speech class as one of my electives. Apparently when I signed up for it, I wasn't clear on the class requirements or I would never have signed up for it. The first time I had to stand up in front of the class and give a speech, I took a deep breath and spewed out my entire three minute speech in thirty oxygen-depleting seconds, at the end of which, I leaned forward and gulped in air like a maniac. It's funny now, but it was humiliating then. The next day when I received all of my critiques from my classmates, every one of them included a comment that I needed to "take a breath," or "breathe." The saving grace of that episode was that it showed me that I could be thoroughly embarrassed in front of a group of my peers and I would not die from it. It was actually a freeing experience. So much so, that the next time I gave a speech, I was so relaxed that I loved it. I had found my true love. Give me an audience and a microphone and I am in heaven. How odd to go from painfully shy to spotlight seeker. I think the crippling shyness I suffered from before that speech class was situational more than a part of my nature. We moved a lot when I was in elementary school; I was never in the same school for two years in a row, sometimes not even for a whole year. We finally settled in West Texas about the time I was entering junior high school. Once we stayed put, my true shining personality could emerge.  Does anyone out there have a microphone and a stage? |
| Well, isn't that special? I just spent the last hour working on a really genius piece of writing here in my blog and stupidly, did not save it as I was writing, and with one fatal slip of the finger on the keyboard, lost the whole thing. I sooooo know better! Arrrrrgggghhhhh!!!!! Well, maybe tomorrow..... Crap! |
| OH. MY. GOD. It is so freakin' hot here. It's not even anywhere near bearable. I swear it gets hotter and hotter every year in Houston and this year is no exception. I don't know why people even live here Seriously, why would people choose to live in a place where the night-time low is in the 80's?! Yeah, yeah, I can here you all now, telling me that I have lived here for, how many years is it now? Twenty? Isn't that right? Yes, that is right. I have indeed lived here for twenty years, but I'm now 20 years older and it's oh so much hotter now than it was when I first moved here. At least 20 years ago we did have a good full month, sometimes even a month-and-a-half of what we Houstonians refer to as cold weather. To the rest of you who live in normal places with normal weather, our cold weather wouldn't even qualify as a cool snap. But to us, it was cold. Why, at times, it even dipped down to freezing for an hour or two at night. Now, twenty years down the road, we have "winter" one day a year - usually on a Tuesday. For the last couple of years, I've been out of town on winter and have missed it entirely. Here is a run-down of our weather pattern here in Houston We have light summer, summer, actual hell, more summer and then one day which we laughingly refer to as winter (which is actually nothing more than heavy fall.) It really has gotten to the ridiculous point. I don't know what has happened. Has the equator migrated to the north and settled right on top of us? Has mother nature lost her mind and set Houston's weather thermostat on "Fry 'em, fry 'em all, I say!?" Does anyone recognize how sad it is that to live in Houston means you will at some point be heard uttering the words, "Wow, it's really cool here this morning. It got down into the low 70s during the night." And yes, I do know I'm rambling. That is because my brain is fried. This is your brain on HOT. Can somebody get me a freakin' ice pack, please? ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Last week when my sister, Kathy, was here, we decided to take her two granddaughters and her daughter on an ice cream run. We also decided to go by my brother's house and scoop him up to go with us. I knocked on his door with purpose, you know, like I was the police demanding entrance. Mike came to the door groggy-eyed. Seems my determined knocking woke him from a mid-day nap, which isn't as decadent as it sounds since he works nights. But he was good-natured enough to let slide the fact that I interrupted his beauty sleep and decided to go with us to Coldstone Creamery. My sister-in-law, Charla, came along, too. We all piled into my Durango and headed off to ice cream heaven, but not without one more quick stop. Since Mike and Charla were going with us, I decided to check back with my hubby to make sure he didn't want to tag along. He had originally said no, but I read his mind (as all good wives do, right?) and determined that the reason he said no was because originally it was an all-girl excursion. Now that the dynamics had changed, I thought he might change his mind. I pulled up to the curb in front of my house and as I hopped out of the truck, I turned to look at my sister to utter those same smart-ass words I had been using all week every time I got out of the car and she stayed there to wait for me. "Don't talk to any strangers and DO NOT get in this seat behind the wheel." A little explanation is probably in order at this point. When we were children, my mom and dad used to leave us in the car as they popped in and out running errands. Every time they got out, they turned to us and gave us that same instruction about not talking to strangers and not getting behind the wheel. Of course, Kathy didn't live with us (remember, my mom gave her up for adoption) but she has heard the story from me enough times that it probably seems like her own memory by now. Since I pride myself on being a smart-ass, I used that little admonishment on her every time I got out of the truck all week long. Apparently, it was wearing a little thin by the time we got to the ice cream run. I ran into my house, checked with hubby, no, he still didn't want to go with us, and dashed back outside to hop in the truck. The truck that was nowhere in sight. Ha ha, very funny. There I stood on my driveway, hands on my hips (I refer you to the picture above,) tapping my foot impatiently. In a few minutes, there came Kathy pulling up in my truck. Everyone was laughing uproariously when I opened the door and stepped inside. But what rang out the loudest was Charla's comment, "See, I told you she would be standing there with her hands on her hips and that look on her face! Just like the picture in her blog." At least it's good to know that some things never change. |
I've been spending a lot of time this week reading and doing reviews. I always get inspired when I do that. There are so many great writers on this site. True to form, I was inspired to do a little writing of my own, which is good because my muse seems to be taking an extended vacation at the moment. If you get a chance, please check out my new short story. I would love to hear your comments and/or suggestions for improvement. Thanks in advance.
|
| So then there was this frog one time that tried to hop in our front door. The four of us - my mom, my dad, my brother and I - had just come home from God knows where. We were standing there at the door of our luxurious duplex in Amarillo, Texas, waiting for Dad to unlock the door. It was dark outside, the porch light wasn't on. Dad finally got the key in and when he swung the door open, the light spilled out on the porch and there right in the big, fat middle of all of us was this gigantic frog. I never knew, until that night, that my mom was so scared of frogs. She looked down at that frog, he looked up at her and she screamed like a wet cat. I swear she levitated across that porch and landed inside the house. My dad was already inside, Mike and I were standing outside, staring at the biggest frog we had ever seen. Suddenly, all three of us - Mike, me and the frog - were plunged into total darkness as my mother slammed the door and locked it, as if the frog could hop up there and grab the doorknob, turn it and go inside after her. For a few minutes Mike and I just stood there looking at ... well, nothing, because it was too dark to see anything. Mom could lock the door, but she couldn't manage to turn on the porch light. Nice. Neither of us moved for fear of stepping on the monster frog and smashing him all over the porch. After a while, the thought of having smashed frog guts all over the bottom of my shoe and possibly splashing them up on my bare legs was more than I could stand. I started screaming like a banshee. When I started screaming, Mike started screaming. I'm sure the frog screamed his little frog scream too, but we couldn't hear him because we were too loud. Daddy yanked open the door and there was Mom again, screaming that wet-cat scream, afraid the frog was coming in. She slammed the door shut again. There Mike and I stood, on the porch, in the dark again. Ad the frog was still there. He was probably having a coronary by then with all the screaming because he hadn't even moved - he was frozen in place, just like Mike and me. Daddy yanked open the door again. This time, Mom was fighting him for the door, trying to slam it shut, practically hysterical about the frog coming in the house. Never mind that her two children - ages 5 and 3 - were standing outside in the dark, scared to death. Daddy had a death grip on the door this time, but she was giving him a run for his money. I guess her adrenalin was really pumping, the chords on her neck were popped out like ropes from all the effort she was putting into closing that door. Daddy was yelling at her to let us come in the house, Mike and I were begging to come in, the frog even chimed in. He was croaking for all he was worth, which of course, only incited my mother to shift into ultra-high gear hysterics. Daddy finally managed to brace his foot against the door so he could step out on the porch with the other foot. He was fending my mom off with one arm while he grabbed first Mike, then me and pulled us into the house. By this time, all the shouting had reached such a crescendo that our neighbors had called the police who showed up almost immediately after Daddy pulled us into the house and Mom slammed the door shut against that vicious frog for what she assumed was the last time. You should have seen her face when the police knocked on the door. She would never admit it, but we all knew from her bugged out eyes that she thought, for just a split second, that the frog was knocking on the door. Daddy walked over and opened the door with Mom tuning up her wet cat scream again. He was looking at the two policemen, but the rest of us were watching the frog as he nonchalantly hopped over the threshhold into the house and straight at our mother. You would have thought someone was killing her the way Mom was carrying on. The two policemen and Daddy just stared at each other, then they all three turned to stare at Mom and then down at the frog. One of the policeman walked over, scooped up the offending frog and tossed him out the door. The silence in the room was deafening when all the screaming stopped. After all the explanations were made, the policemen turned to leave and Mom actually begged them not to open the door. She was convinced the killer frog was out there, just waiting to get back in. The same policeman who tossed the frog outside, managed to exercise tremendous restraint by opening the door just a crack to peer out and check for the frog. Assuring her the frog was nowhere in sight, he opened the door and stepped outside with his partner. Mike and I sat on the couch glaring at our mother who had thrown us over to escape a frog. We were indignant. It took a whle before everyone settled down enough to go to sleep, but if finally happened. Mike was more forgiving than I was. He actually kissed mom goodnight. Not me. I went to bed without kising her goodnight and lulled myself to sleep fantasizing about frogs surrounding Mom in her bedroom. Maybe it would have made Mom feel better if we had invited her to the Viking Fog Funeral. Or not. |
| I feel like such a slug. I haven't updated my blog in days, haven't written anything more extensive than a grocery list and have barely logged on to check email. The last ten days feel like one big blur to me. My sister has been here for a visit, she just left this morning. I don't get to see her as often as I'd like, so when she's here or when I go to Albuquerque to visit her, I try to soak up as much of her as I can! Yesterday, she and I went through some old family pictures and picked out quite a few that we wanted to make copies of for her to take home with her. We gathered our selection together and headed to Kinko's. When we got there, the store was deserted, except for one sole employee - Dave. Dave, according to his name tag, has been a Kinko's employee since 1993. That's a long time to be anywhere, but I digress. I told Dave what we wanted, he asked a few questions and then explained to us about signing off on some very old pictures that he said were probably copyrighted, blah, blah, blah. He was not very friendly, all business would be a more accurate description. When we had agreed on the type of paper we wanted and a price estimation for what we wanted done, I asked him how long it would take for us to get our pictures back. He said, in a very official voice, that he'd like to have "until at least tomorrow this time." Huh? But Kathy and I looked at each and decided we could live with that, so we said okay, that was fine. I told her I could just send her the pictures from there when I came to pick them up the next day. Then Dave pulled out some forms for me to sign and while I was doing that, he gathered up several of the pictures, took them over to the copier and made a copy of them. While he was making the copy, I picked up another of the pictures and was telling Kathy about a cousin in one of the pictures who was very different when we were kids. (Some of you may remember that Kathy and I did not grow together. My mother gave her up for adoption and I didn't meet her until I was about 24 years old. So we don't have a childhood in common.  Anyway, I was telling Kathy about this cousin who liked to have funerals for anything dead that we came across while traipsing around my grandmother's farm. We had a lot of frog funerals - one of them was even a Viking frog funeral. We built a little raft, laid the frog out on the raft, covered him with leaves and then twigs, set the raft on fire and then launched it into the pond. I know, creepy, right? But, when I finished telling my viking frog funeral story, Dave, who had been within earshot the entire time, came back over to the counter to show us the copy he had just made of several of the pictures. We ooohed and aaaahhhed over the copy and suddenly Dave morphed into a really nice person who couldn't do enough for us.(I knew that frog story would come in handy someday.) He decided that he could, after all, do the copies while we waited. Gosh, that would be great, Dave! As he made the copies, he started asking questions about how we came to be exchanging old pictures. So I told him the short version of how we didn't get to grow up together, but that we had now known each other for about 25 years. He asked a lot more questions and told us that his mother actually confessed to him and his two sisters when they were all in their forties that she had been married before she was married to his dad. He said he never asked her any questions about it because he wasn't sure if she wanted to talk about it or not. (Men!) He found our story quite interesting and even went so far as to venture a guess as to why our mother had given Kathy up for adoption and had always been so secretive. I have a sneaking suspicion that Dave actually had more questions for his mom than he owned up to, but he just never had the nerve to ask her. By the time we left there with our copies in hand, Dave seemed sad to see us go. He was still chattering after us as we walked to the door. I thought for a moment he might leap over the counter and kiss us goodbye when we left. On the paperwork I had to fill out, I had to put my phone number. I halfway expect to get a call from Dave asking if he could ask me a few more questions about my mother, my sister and if I have any more of those frog stories.  Th funny thing is, I do. I have a lot more weird frog stories and some even weirder stories that don't involve frogs but are still mighty entertaining. Maybe I'll write them here someday. If Dave liked the Viking Frog Funeral story enough to morph into Nice Dave, I'm sure some of you would get a kick out of them too. |
| I'm sad tonight. I haven't been online for several days because my sister is here visiting and I've been trying to soak up all of her that I can before she has to go home in a few days. So I've fallen behind on reading all of the blogs I usually read. Tonight when I logged on, the first three blogs I read broke my heart. First, I read David McClain 's blog. I left a comment and tried, like so many others, to let him know how much he has meant to me and to so many others. I want to erase the view he has of himself right now and replace it with the view I have of him as a kind and gentle soul with great words of wisdom to share. I know that we all have our own demons to fight and no one can do that for us, but I hurt for him. Then, I went on to read Eric Wharton  's blog to find that he is retiring his blog to slay some dragons in his life. While I heartily applaud his decision to put all his energy into that fight, selfishly I will miss reading his words. My next blog to read was that of my dear friend, ShellySunshine and the pain I heard in her words brought tears to my eyes. I want to make it all better for her, to lessen her pain and to give her some hope. I can write a few encouraging words to her, wish her well, but ultimately, I can't make her world easier any more than I can make things better for Eric Wharton or David McClain .When I became a member of WDC at the first of this year, I could never have imagined the close bonds I have forged with so many dear people. People I have never actually "met" in the strictest sense of the word have become more important to me than I ever dreamed possible. I treasure the friendships I have made on WDC. When my friends hurt, I hurt. I was in a pensive mood when I logged on tonight. I knew I needed to update my blog and I logged on with the intention of writing of my own pervasive sadness. It seems that Blogville is not a happy place today. In the broader sense, life is not an easy path to traverse. We have all written of our own valleys of despair at different times on this site. Each one of us has seen our share of life's difficulties and we have all experienced the peaks and valleys that are built in to life. Perhaps, this compulsion to chronicle our experiences, to inspect the pages of life with words that seek to explain or make sense of that which simply IS, perhaps it is that which weighs so heavily on our hearts. I don't know if it helps or hurts. I just know that there is something inside each one of us that pushes us to put pen to paper or, in this case, fingers to the keyboard in an attempt to explain, hoping that in our explanation we will find our own answers. Perhaps it is both the curse and the blessing of the writer to be ever-seeking, always questioning, always looking for the right words. |
| In a blog a few months ago, I mentioned seeing a therapist. I have been seeing her for about 18 months now (has it really been that long?) If someone had asked me when I first started seeing her how long I expected my therapy to last, I would have guessed 3 months at the very most. No, that would not have been optimism speaking, it would have been the voice of experience. You see, I've been to counselors, therapists, pastors, etc. many times over the years and I've always seen them 5 or 6 times and then stopped. Those 5 or 6 visits would get me past a crisis point and then I would bolt. I can't tell you why this time has been different. It could have been so many different reasons. It could have been because when I started seeing my therapist 18 months ago, I had never been in such a bad place mentally and emotionally as I was then. It could have something to do with the fact that I turned 50 and for some reason, that seems to be an age that makes many people stop and take stock of their lives and begin making changes. It could have been that both of my parents are now gone and I felt "freed" to deal with the demons of the past. It could have been so many things. But whatever the reason, I am thankful that this was the time I determined to stick it out. I am not the same person I was 18 months ago. Now that is probably true of the majority of us, but bear with me. I have come to a place in my life at 50 years of age where I finally know who I am. Yes, I know that has a trite ring to it, but it could not be more true. I know who I am and I like who I am. I couldn't say that 18 months ago. Well, I could have said it, but I would have been lying. I can truthfully say that I have faced down the demons of my childhood and I am still standing. I'm even standing tall. I've looked the demons square in the eyes and I didn't flinch. I have found the truth inside myself that I was afraid to look at for so long. You know the old saying which goes something like this: that which doesn't kill me, only makes me stronger? Well, it didn't kill me and I am indeed stronger. I have found a peace that I never believed was available to me. I like the place I'm in today. This peace didn't come without a fight. The last 18 months have been a helluva battle and many times, I wanted to throw up my hands and run away. But I stayed and I fought--for me. And I won. I'm a survivor. Yep, that's what I am and I'm damn proud of it. It feels good. Now... as for the next chapter... bring it on! I'm ready. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
