Remember When…….

Once upon a time….many moons ago….a little boy came into the world…My older brother know to the WLS friends as “Rocketman”…..we call him “Chip”.

Today is his birthday.  We are having a “party” for him….on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=180331585351737&id=180320485352847

Here are his “virtual” presents from me;

I can’t tell you how old he is….but here’s a hint: he’s 1 year and 8 months older than me. I’ve alerted the fire Department because of the number of candles that will be on the cake…..

Simon!!! Get out of the Cake!!! 

April Showers…or Where’s the boat???

Another weekend is gone.

My Grandson came over about 10 days ago and stayed for his entire Spring Break.  It’s nice to have him here.  We don’t do much…I buy him his favorite snacks…Cheeze-its, ice cream for milk shakes, popcorn, beef sticks and Coke….I make his favorite meals….We watch TV, play on the computer and talk….Just having him here is a great joy.  I have to enjoy these last few weeks as I don’t know how long it will be before I get to hear fro him or see him once his mother moves them away in June. I’ll miss our time together….

Easter was just another day….no candy or big family dinner….to Easter Egg hunt with the children…Same thing I always do, knit, watch TV and wait……

I’ve been making plans for my future. I’m sending off for the Ohio Festivals brochure . The weekend of May 5th is the Wild Turkey Festival in McArthur near where my Aunt lives… I am thinking about asking my grandson if he’d like to go with me for a few hours of fun, and to see my aunt.

I am going to offer my services to the football team this year.  I will help them in any way they need me….even though watching the boys play will remind me that my grandsons….my heart….won’t be there and I won’t be watching them play.  I can only hope that my grandchildren will find a way to send me photos of them….and keep hoping that one day, my daughter will realize how much she has hurt me….and I will see them again.

the football field with water on the home side that completely covers half the field

The Parking lot…in mid construction

And I have my camera.  I took it out this weekend to take some photos of our “new” lake…..the football field and parking lot….Why the city keeps using fill every year instead of installing drains that empty into the river that borders one side of the parking lot and pave the lot , I’ll never know!  They would spend less money in the long run, and solve the drainage problem… I guess you have to be a college graduate to figure that one out.

the Practice field.

 

The rain has not let up…I’m going to need Noah’s boat building plans if it keeps up.  And it does nothing for my mood…Nothing good anyway!

River by the Junior Hightrees by the High School

And of course, I am going to make a T-shirt quilt.  Right now, I am just biding my time.  I don’t really want to start anything yet, and I need a sewing machine….Unfortunately, neither the Lottery God, or the Class Action Lawsuit I am waiting on has brought a windfall of money. 

Someday, I’d even like to buy my own computer…

Until then, I am stuck using my son’s and waiting in line to use it.

To all my friends, Hugs and Love! I hope you had a wonderful Easter….

Rainy Days and Mondays

 

Today the weather reflects my mood…

Friday my grandson gave me the bad news.  I have 6 weeks to get my belongings that are stored in my daughters garage. I am still not supposed to know that my daughter and my grandchildren….my life….are moving away….or where they are moving to.  Of course 2 of my grandsons have been visiting me and have already told me they are moving to Florida.  Although they are looking forward to moving near beaches and sunny warm weather, they aren’t looking forward to leaving me behind…or in the dark. I have tried not to think about it.  I try to be upbeat and happy for them…

But inside, my heart is breaking For the past 19 years or more, my life has been all about them.  They are as much a part of me as my own skin. Birthdays, Sports, Spelling Bees, Easters, Christmases, Thanksgiving and weekends. My home is filled with album after album of photographs…There have been picnics, Scouting adventures, camp-outs, canoe trips, horseback riding, kindergarten graduations and 1 High school graduation. 

But that all ends in 6 weeks.

I try not to think about it…But the memories coming flooding back….and then the tears begin…

I know that when they move, I won’t have any contact with them until they have phone service and internet back…..and that’s only if their mother will allow them to contact me. I will miss 3 birthdays this year, all the holidays, football season.  I don’t even know if my 2 grandsons will be able to play this year.  It will depend upon whether there is a youth league where they are going, and if my middle grandson makes the Junior high team when he tries out. 

My Grand-daughter will graduate next June. I pay for her cell phone….but I don’t know if she will be allowed to invite me to her graduation.  She never calls me now, and barely texts me. 

My “Army” grandson has always been very close to me. Lately, I barely hear from him…Usually it is just when I see him as I pick up or drop off the middle grandson for the weekend. He wants to attend the College near here in the fall.  In High Scholl, he earned college credits in a Vo-Tech course he was enrolled in for 2 years.  He doesn’t know if they credits will transfer to an out of state school.  I have offered he could stay here with me until he gets into college….I don’t know if he will take me up on it or not. 

Rain on….the day might as well be as gloomy as my thoughts….

Hugs and Love to all my dear friends…my constant companions….my shoulders to lean on…Have I told you lately how much you mean to me???

Stones

STONES

 
TWO FRIENDS WERE WALKING
THROUGH THE DESERT .
DURING SOME POINT OF THE
JOURNEY, THEY HAD AN
ARGUMENT; AND ONE FRIEND
SLAPPED THE OTHER ONE
IN THE FACE
THE ONE WHO GOT SLAPPED
WAS HURT, BUT WITHOUT
SAYING ANYTHING,
WROTE IN THE SAND ,
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND
SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE .

THEY KEPT ON WALKING,
UNTIL THEY FOUND AN OASIS,
WHERE THEY DECIDED
TO TAKE A BATH
THE ONE WHO HAD BEEN
SLAPPED GOT STUCK IN THE
MIRE AND STARTED DROWNING,
BUT THE FRIEND SAVED HIM.
AFTER HE RECOVERED FROM
THE NEAR DROWNING,
HE WROTE ON A STONE:
'TODAY MY BEST FRIEND
SAVED MY LIFE'

THE FRIEND WHO HAD SLAPPED
AND SAVED HIS BEST FRIEND
ASKED HIM, 'AFTER I HURT YOU,
YOU WROTE IN THE SAND AND NOW,
YOU WRITE ON A STONE, WHY?'
THE FRIEND REPLIED
'WHEN SOMEONE HURTS US
WE SHOULD WRITE IT DOWN
IN SAND, WHERE WINDS OF
FORGIVENESS CAN ERASE IT AWAY.
BUT, WHEN SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING GOOD FOR US,
WE MUST ENGRAVE IT IN STONE
WHERE NO WIND
CAN EVER ERASE IT'

LEARN TO WRITE
YOUR HURTS IN
THE SAND AND TO
CARVE YOUR
BENEFITS IN STONE.
THEY SAY IT TAKES A
MINUTE TO FIND A SPECIAL
PERSON,
AN HOUR TO
APPRECIATE THEM,
A DAY
TO LOVE THEM,
BUT THEN ,
AN ENTIRE LIFE
TO FORGET THEM.
SEND THIS TO
THE PEOPLE YOU'LL NEVER
FORGET.
I JUST DID..
IF YOU DON'T
SEND IT TO ANYONE,
IT MEANS YOU'RE IN A
HURRY AND THAT YOU'VE
FORGOTTEN YOUR FRIENDS.
TAKE THE TIME TO LIVE!
DO NOT VALUE THE MATERIAL THINGS
YOU HAVE IN YOUR LIFE,

BUT VALUE
WHO YOU HAVE KNOWN IN YOUR LIFE!

AND IF I HAPPEN TO GET THIS BACK,
THEN I KNOW MY PLACE IN YOUR LIFE
Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet

is fighting some kind of battle.

 

Hugs and Love to all my dear friends….who I cherish more than anything! You are always there to lift me up, give me strength and make me laugh when I feel like crying.

Not again…

I woke up in one of those moods again….

You know…blue…

No particular reason except I keep having this one dream.  My grandchildren are in it and so is “She”…My “I don’t want nothing to do with you” daughter.  I think the reason I am having so many dreams that involve her lately is because it seems inevitable that they will be moving this summer.  I had a long talk with my oldest grandson yesterday (Who has an uncanny sense of knowing when I have money!).  He said his mother expects him to use most of his Army enlistment bonus to help pay for their move to Florida.  He wants to move to be near the beaches, but he doesn’t want to move away from me or away from the college he was planning on attending in the fall.  You see, in High School, he went to a Vo-Tech program that earned him some college credits and he’s not sure they would transfer over to another state.  I told him he could always stay with me until college begins and then he could get housing there.  The Army would pay room and board for his college.  I also told him that since she is the one that wants to move so bad, he should use his money to get a car and if he had money left and he wanted to, he could let her borrow the money to move. After all, he will only get half of his bonus, and he is the one who earned it by going through all the training!

My middle grandson came over as usual on the weekend and he called me the “O” word…..OLD!  He told me I should keep my car and make my youngest son walk to work because I am (Insert “O” word here) and I need to get out more during the week and do things….I tried to explain that because of my money situation, the only thing I do during the week is watch grandchildren play sports….it doesn’t cost me much, I can take pictures and it’s about the only thing I really love doing outside the house.  If they move, I won’t have that…..and I don’t know if I could bare to watch their teams play without them.  It would bring back too many memories.

I try not to think about it too much…I try not to cry….

So I did get out yesterday.  I had made an appointment with my second cousin (by marriage) to take Easter photos of her little girl for Monday noon….then we got some pretty severe thunderstorms so we postponed it until Tuesday.  Emily usually is a “Ham”, but she didn’t want anything to do with having her pictures done this time!!  It took us about 3 times as long to get some nice shots this time because every time her mother would sit her down or walk away, Emily would throw the fakes tantrum !  But she’s a doll, I am patient and I know how to set the shutter speed to get those quick shots when she wasn’t watching….

Don’t you know that as soon as I took the memory car out of the camera to upload them to the laptop, Emily started to perform!!!  I snuck a new memory card in the camera just in case!  I call this shot the “Where’s the Candy/” shot!  She is definitely a “sober” little girl.  Usually she smiles a lot but we got a few candid shots of faces she’s never made before!!

I made $50, which my grandson borrowed part of to shut his mother up.  Ooopa !! Maybe I shouldn’t have said that but IT IS MY BLOG!!!!!  Apparently she expects him to fill her gas tank ($20) and buy a dog tag for his 9 week old puppy because he borrowed the car a few times….Well, I know where he went and I can make the same trips for under $5 and her car is in better shape!

And of course, the weather has been contributing to my depression.  We had a late March (or Early April’s Fool) snow.It barely covered the ground and didn’t stay around long

. 

But more oft than naught, the sun has been hiding behind a mass of gray and the temperatures have been more winter like than spring. Of course I had opened my wooden framed windows when the temperatures had teased us with warmer than normal Spring-like temperatures; and now can’t close it!!! Grrrrrrrrr!!!

And of course….there is always my knitting…

.I have been knitting hats to match the scarves and knitting more scarves…I made the blue and white hat, and the scarlet and gray hat but have yet to make their matching scarves….although I have made about 3 of the scarlet and gray scarves that were given as presents. .Now I just need to start selling them before they take over my entire room!

So for now….I stay busy in my own way….Once again my mother-in-law is trying to influence where I do my grocery shopping…She prefers Kroger because she “saves so much money”….I haven’t seen anything in Kroger I couldn’t get cheaper at Giant Eagle AND save money on gas at the same time! So it looks like I will have to make 2 grocery trips each week. 

So for now I’m trying…..

Hugs and Love to all my dear friends readin!!!