tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44618897913715637092024-03-13T19:56:24.097-05:00Knock Three Times - Laissez Les Bons Temps RoulerA place to write my observations and share ideas.Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-54316030976626447952011-04-16T15:28:00.011-05:002011-04-16T16:17:46.821-05:00<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">Here it is nearly mid-April and I have drifted in. I do wish I was like these bloggers who are disciplined enough to talk to you once a day. I know I love to read their blogs. My days are mostly all alike so I guess I think my words would just be boring.<br /><br />Since I was last here, I have had a birthday and am now older than dirt - 66 years old. At least I am healthy.<br /><br />I do have some new pictures of my great granddaughters that I can share.<br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8D-MbILNX52KMZTFEDMZ_3fTp89eEFlgN79ERXw2zwsHvcLzTDd1yTjtd-FBICQfNO9Z4yVnSpVzMhI2RQG8C2sAs1FGKXbKQRoby_cGcRPIO0LdR_0D2DCMdp8Cxhq2FQAoNp0Wkx-ov/s1600/Laila+in+lavendar.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8D-MbILNX52KMZTFEDMZ_3fTp89eEFlgN79ERXw2zwsHvcLzTDd1yTjtd-FBICQfNO9Z4yVnSpVzMhI2RQG8C2sAs1FGKXbKQRoby_cGcRPIO0LdR_0D2DCMdp8Cxhq2FQAoNp0Wkx-ov/s320/Laila+in+lavendar.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596283658295056258" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sweet little Laila playing - taken with a phone<br /></span></span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGXIXAwydZGkIxpBaaPua9E9WmVa3P-4CuYzRNWC6q_9tfoMJI5iAzPK2NArATxe3kw-1FsqfPeoxnmrQLTe41wOghrDVRuKAH2yjXjv2YiZvrRXgoCup6pBgeFhXoNhB4tIcljaV4Uw1D/s1600/Laila+in+Debra%2527s+chair.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 239px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGXIXAwydZGkIxpBaaPua9E9WmVa3P-4CuYzRNWC6q_9tfoMJI5iAzPK2NArATxe3kw-1FsqfPeoxnmrQLTe41wOghrDVRuKAH2yjXjv2YiZvrRXgoCup6pBgeFhXoNhB4tIcljaV4Uw1D/s320/Laila+in+Debra%2527s+chair.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596284831781110450" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dressed up and sitting in her other great-grandmother's chair</span><br /></span></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNxTHUuqy_d8nnDnyr6AfIVeeTevb_xKqQ7HOAlNwj6-5ayl4R7udzIEb35wShlXL1PK4hp-aijjAW-lVZDGk9Wq-rnZ90ppORi0kak9NyC74K-gx7K2EdWo8XslQLvT-vXPk5yfTJOzNu/s1600/Listening.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNxTHUuqy_d8nnDnyr6AfIVeeTevb_xKqQ7HOAlNwj6-5ayl4R7udzIEb35wShlXL1PK4hp-aijjAW-lVZDGk9Wq-rnZ90ppORi0kak9NyC74K-gx7K2EdWo8XslQLvT-vXPk5yfTJOzNu/s320/Listening.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596286600584054274" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Found daddy's ear protectors in his duffel bag and decided to use them</span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxoPv7cyw45rBtfPk_I5U92ZF6iTUhw1DkP-rBPOHm4SKiDIiXMvdHhJy42xce0Qyx4X1pwikYFZSnyjDjyDK_gw3jXRgoeGilBni9EYkvakKT0xSgqFaFLaMwuHAgZmdpLOMV90pbBnlR/s1600/into+the+makeup.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxoPv7cyw45rBtfPk_I5U92ZF6iTUhw1DkP-rBPOHm4SKiDIiXMvdHhJy42xce0Qyx4X1pwikYFZSnyjDjyDK_gw3jXRgoeGilBni9EYkvakKT0xSgqFaFLaMwuHAgZmdpLOMV90pbBnlR/s320/into+the+makeup.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596286343818833010" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">I need my mom's stuff to beautify myself</span><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht5vXnOFzTZeOpTxXdv7oaH6nGHWcULPEdJxe_46ga1x8c1fNhzECKNbob_5pGAkmgaIitwzxR5RGqsiGogvaeQpvCtFmQXAPmHw5z8663mKj4A23EJ5h2OlCWSEg0qnM7pA9nhFVSHwU0/s1600/Free+ride+push+ups.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht5vXnOFzTZeOpTxXdv7oaH6nGHWcULPEdJxe_46ga1x8c1fNhzECKNbob_5pGAkmgaIitwzxR5RGqsiGogvaeQpvCtFmQXAPmHw5z8663mKj4A23EJ5h2OlCWSEg0qnM7pA9nhFVSHwU0/s320/Free+ride+push+ups.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596285773291907874" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">Doing my push-ups the easy way</span></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheUAZe3zxJDEVnVGfXZ1rhDXNF-DqWXWy74eQCXOudYLLkBdZqi7Mt1vHChNtGiuZsxKmlNU157PwSUo3piT8z3yMOUU_Fk9k6drqG8v9xklstxFv8EqiV-rv8QoTj0lUmAQJfvspTgEMH/s1600/Big+bite+of+ice+cream.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheUAZe3zxJDEVnVGfXZ1rhDXNF-DqWXWy74eQCXOudYLLkBdZqi7Mt1vHChNtGiuZsxKmlNU157PwSUo3piT8z3yMOUU_Fk9k6drqG8v9xklstxFv8EqiV-rv8QoTj0lUmAQJfvspTgEMH/s320/Big+bite+of+ice+cream.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596285257151712802" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">This is some yummy stuff</span><br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Well, no promises when I will be back. I will probably cook for two of my grandchildren because their parents will be out of town for Easter. Can't have them with no holiday meal. The Easter bunny might leave them something here too. :-)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hope ya'll have a lot of crawfish where you live and wish the season lasted a lot longer than it does. Have a great h0liday and I will see you when I see you.</span><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"></span></span></div></div>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-88758859041338182562011-02-20T21:47:00.004-06:002011-02-20T22:07:44.652-06:00February 20, 2011<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">It has been forever since I last posted. I had forgotten how to even get to the posting page and so it has taken me over an hour trying to find the "gate". However, I hope I can remember to at least post once a week from now on.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Right at the beginning of December I got sick with a flu-like virus that put me to bed for nearly eight weeks. Yes, I had my flu shot, but this was something else. I had eaten out with a friend and on the way home I started getting dizzy, but thought the vertigo was just coming back so I took it easy on the interstate. Got in bed and immediately had to get back up and lost my cookies. That went on along with what throwing up usually goes along with. Finally, I just brought the bathroom trashcan and put it beside the bed for the rest of the night.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">This part lasted a good eight days and I began to feel better. I never did want anything to eat, but I did sip on gingerale so I wouldn't get dehydrated. I got up and got dressed and the next day I was down again for another week. Same thing a week later. That happened three times. Then it took a good month to get any kind of stamina back. The one good thing to come from this is now I don't have an appetite and I have lost weight. I am taking vitamins since I am not really eating much at all. I haven't had chocolate or any kind of sweets and don't want any since all of this has taken place. Now I am determined to just eat this little bit, not pick up the sweets habit, and no seconds anymore. Since last April I have lost 60 pounds. My doctor is thrilled. I don't feel any different though.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Let's see - Melyssa and Emily Anna went to Germany for Christmas to spend their time off with Lee, Telesia, and Zoey. When they got there their luggage didn't make it. They ended up having to buy one outfit and a few other items and just wash and wear the whole time they were there. Em's luggage arrived at Lee's when Tee was driving them to their hotel 1.5 hours away for their flight home the next morning. She ended up having to get up early and make that trip again and just got Em's luggage to her. Melyssa's luggage didn't get to Lee's for another week. She told Tee just what she needed to send back to the states and on her next trip over she will pick up her luggage and whatever is in it.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">We really didn't do anything for the holidays since I was ill. I did feel good on Christmas day and we went to some friends's house and then came on back home. We had to cancel out on going to see my folks when I had to go back to bed. We did go the next week and took them out to eat. I had one of the shaking chills and ended up just drinking a Sprite. I will get my Eggplant Parmesan one of these days. I was really looking forward to that.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">We have had a run of really nasty weather. Ice and a teaspoonful of snow. Thank goodness the power stayed on which usually isn't the case when we have ice. This week it has been in the 70s and has been so nice. I have a feeling we will get one more blast of winter weather before spring is really here.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">I am sure I have left a lot of things out and I do have some pictures to share, but will do that another time. Later</span><br /></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-65221115582388260872010-08-19T02:09:00.004-05:002010-08-19T02:20:12.721-05:00August 19, 2010<span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Here is a chance to get a class from KC Willis. Her works is just so cool. She had this workshop in a box that you could buy since most of us couldn't get out to Colorado for one of her in person workshops. Now she is trimming the workshop in a box to a workshop in a bag. </span></span><div style="text-align: left; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a target="_blank" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7PJcqpDJiBO8sPZW0PCBHzJzacCU03EwyrIDwDNx3qD85f2nPY5lvjYfONY7rH_z9zYEL8tb7WfEUVw7IJowaoyhybBETbK4gGC3lsRKnHlmbIAnAlzFy-lP-9evO6Oc5hl6AxONWL_k/s1600/bag+with+dvds.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 400px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7PJcqpDJiBO8sPZW0PCBHzJzacCU03EwyrIDwDNx3qD85f2nPY5lvjYfONY7rH_z9zYEL8tb7WfEUVw7IJowaoyhybBETbK4gGC3lsRKnHlmbIAnAlzFy-lP-9evO6Oc5hl6AxONWL_k/s400/bag+with+dvds.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span></div><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);font-size:130%;" ><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">She has live workshops (a step up from the box for those interested in stepping up) that you can read about right here http://kcwillis.blogspot.com/2010/08/bye-bye-boxhello-giveaway.html. Check out this site as well www.studioretreats.ning.com in the same blog. She offers Collage Camp...her on-line workshop and link to (www.collagecamp.ning.com) that you may be interested in too.</span><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a target="_blank" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7PJcqpDJiBO8sPZW0PCBHzJzacCU03EwyrIDwDNx3qD85f2nPY5lvjYfONY7rH_z9zYEL8tb7WfEUVw7IJowaoyhybBETbK4gGC3lsRKnHlmbIAnAlzFy-lP-9evO6Oc5hl6AxONWL_k/s1600/bag+with+dvds.jpg"><br /></a></div>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-27173545225199480762010-08-08T17:15:00.013-05:002011-04-16T15:56:58.380-05:00August 8, 2010<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><span>Since I last talked to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ya'll</span>, I have a new great granddaughter. She made her debut on 7-27-2010, 1:31 PM, 7lb and 5oz, 20 inches long. She has long feet and fingers and I told her dad that they will have to start saving for a piano with those hands. She is a strawberry blond and just gorgeous. I will include a picture. She is Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Laila</span> Ann.<br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Wzmbt_gflO7Fr13agQjVrY2Ymd_hQBxImTL0QS48tbEZ0tm7BHE-DZZFR1e_5ZYtno0aDEssKe9hnfeBc7ZB7NsjFfJrbi2PZs6bfWN6JPx3_wVNRpnvupSkBwqkRrd1gT4qeYrUwdl7/s1600/Laila+asleep.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Wzmbt_gflO7Fr13agQjVrY2Ymd_hQBxImTL0QS48tbEZ0tm7BHE-DZZFR1e_5ZYtno0aDEssKe9hnfeBc7ZB7NsjFfJrbi2PZs6bfWN6JPx3_wVNRpnvupSkBwqkRrd1gT4qeYrUwdl7/s320/Laila+asleep.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5503172651050769810" border="0" /></a></span><br /></div><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><span> </span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Laila</span> Ann</span></span><br /></div><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><span><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip_ezt68WmvJkCzo-qSGLK-OWQb2ggp5xNcc37i5TbTL2fVT-sZFHMlK_9pHeu9sMKgAva4ycp7SiPeppdkMnr40QmdK6tynWvpB_Muiu03S8miA14q2cKNb_FIB-ud9HvPaEGH0-rT0b4/s1600/Benjamin+and+Laila.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip_ezt68WmvJkCzo-qSGLK-OWQb2ggp5xNcc37i5TbTL2fVT-sZFHMlK_9pHeu9sMKgAva4ycp7SiPeppdkMnr40QmdK6tynWvpB_Muiu03S8miA14q2cKNb_FIB-ud9HvPaEGH0-rT0b4/s320/Benjamin+and+Laila.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5503177236296935762" border="0" /></a></span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" > Benjamin and his princess, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Laila</span> Ann</span><br /></div><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><span><br />We have had probably one of the hottest summers on record around here. With the heat index it is soared up to 118 some days and there have been heat advisories almost every day. Most days it will roar with thunder and lightning and then we will get a teaspoonful of rain. However, day before yesterday we actually got 2 1/4 inches and again yesterday we got enough to fill up the potholes in the street. At least we have had some okra and tomatoes from what little rain there has been. I am not a fall or winter person at all, but some kind of break in this weather would certainly be welcome.<br /><br />My oldest grandson, his wife, and Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Zoey</span> Elizabeth leave this week for a three year tour compliments of the US Air Force over in Germany. If you gathered all of our tears, they would probably raise the level of the Red River a foot or two. I can't even think about it without my eyes brimming over. My parents came up several weekends ago to have lunch with them and say goodbye. Mama, who recently turned 85, even brought her bathing suit and got in the pool with them. She didn't want to get out and would have stayed over if my dad wouldn't have gotten antsy to leave. I will try and find a picture or two of their visit and include them.<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuEUAK4nCgZBoC9Oe7kcOYKDR23dGHSqgVwdjiER0DPzjxpeQR0_cMh8JWi88qiqNBrTfWlMXePPRgsHhdMYFvlgzubgVdaqQA1Y70P-gqytigbHQUQRPeH1Ndjnl0x75S5-gfw0ghqbn_/s1600/SANY0902.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuEUAK4nCgZBoC9Oe7kcOYKDR23dGHSqgVwdjiER0DPzjxpeQR0_cMh8JWi88qiqNBrTfWlMXePPRgsHhdMYFvlgzubgVdaqQA1Y70P-gqytigbHQUQRPeH1Ndjnl0x75S5-gfw0ghqbn_/s320/SANY0902.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5503176587708858834" border="0" /></a></span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Zoey</span> Elizabeth, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Telesia</span>, Lee, My mom, Jane, 85 years old in the pool</span><br /></div><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><span><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL3PckaRMABftYaqg1NDxWCBhCv1U980l2lb52UP0IUwFmmx-k-GonLvi7L5TDkAmGU0pzthPkfuUUT9rqYQM3w8xflvgCBQVTPmvMA-AffJZ2J-ExyLo5YJYLeq804jdIl65MHKtDaIUH/s1600/SANY0890.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL3PckaRMABftYaqg1NDxWCBhCv1U980l2lb52UP0IUwFmmx-k-GonLvi7L5TDkAmGU0pzthPkfuUUT9rqYQM3w8xflvgCBQVTPmvMA-AffJZ2J-ExyLo5YJYLeq804jdIl65MHKtDaIUH/s320/SANY0890.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5503176980445853746" border="0" /></a></span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" > <span>Jeff, My dad, 90 years old</span></span><br /></div><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" >Bill is whittling away on his bathroom project, but I have finally convinced him to get out there earlier than noon, work before the temperatures soar, and then come inside and rest during the hottest part of the day. He loves the outside, but this is killer weather.</span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" >I found and reconnected with two college friends and last night we met up in Shreveport and closed down the restaurant where we met. We had so much fun reminding each other of things we had done, people we knew and wondered where they were and what they were doing, laughing our heads off, and just having a fun time. It is so nice when no one has changed and you just pick up where you left off before everyone went their merry ways. We will try to get together again around Christmas time.</span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" >Stay cool, drink plenty of liquids, and laugh like there was no tomorrow. Until the next time.....</span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:180%;" ><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-30523636021141381912010-07-17T21:01:00.006-05:002010-07-17T22:00:27.699-05:00July 17, 2010<span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" ><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">I don't know about where you live, but here in Louisiana, it is way hot. Everything is just laying low trying not to breathe too much of that hot air into its lungs. I had to go to two different cities this week and just getting out of the truck and into the building was an effort. Then to get out of the building, back across the melty tarmac parking lot and into the oven-like vehicle was just about too much.<br /><br />For about two weeks now we have had some violent lightning and thunder storms that produce probably a tablespoonful of rain, but you can't get into the pool for fear you will be struck dead. Just a typical Louisiana summer. However, I think this one is really hotter than most we have had in a long time. I can assure you, if I don't have to go outside, I don't.<br /><br />Last time I wrote it was my dad's 90th birthday. Two weeks after that, we pulled off a surprise party for my mother's 85th birthday, which was also their 67th anniversary. We had a nice group of folks show up for her party. Only one brother didn't make it, but he and his wife took my parents out for breakfast on the actual day of my mom's birthday, so I guess that counted for them. We missed having him there to tell stories with one of my other brothers though. They are always our entertainment committee for family gatherings. They can have you rolling in the floor laughing at what all they did when we were growing up. My younger brother and I are probably their biggest fans.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM9gjoEehcdIdQ6AQIRjHqgi9G2IbpHF0HZ121dZfDpbGvGn2TEbqblZ8VOLCUGSChyStENog4nBDcS6ssX079Y7UC4SLH0x1TfQT8y3WRffu7jQ5C3jEKy5_6sMnYTgiZNWEy1oNfv8Wj/s1600/Surprise+85th.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 169px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM9gjoEehcdIdQ6AQIRjHqgi9G2IbpHF0HZ121dZfDpbGvGn2TEbqblZ8VOLCUGSChyStENog4nBDcS6ssX079Y7UC4SLH0x1TfQT8y3WRffu7jQ5C3jEKy5_6sMnYTgiZNWEy1oNfv8Wj/s320/Surprise+85th.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495073715104931874" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I had my 2nd in line grandson, in age, with back surgery, which must not have taken because for three weeks he has been in unbelievable pain. He ended up having to be taken by ambulance this past Sunday back to the city to the hospital for another back surgery. He is doing much better this time with pain, but nothing like what he was experiencing before. His little wife is due just about any day with their first child, but I hope she can wait maybe one week until he is more mobile and can get around better.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">My first born grandson is being transferred to Germany for a 3 year tour and he, his wife and Zoey will leave on August 11th. I think there will be some wailing going on around these parts. I just hope they will be able to come home on leave at least once or twice during that time. Zoey will be 4 years old by the time they do come home and she will have forgotten who her Mi Mi is by then. Thank goodness for Skype and I hope I can figure out how to use it and that our times work out to be able to talk and see each other.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bill has helped me build, out of an old bedside table, a little "kitchen" for Zoey. I haven't taken pictures of it yet, but when I do, I will post them. It is kind of primitive, but it is cute. I had them mix what was supposed to be just a breath of pink paint, but it had quite a bit of pink in it once I brushed it on. Oh well, it is something for her to play with when she is at my daughter's house. It will do in a rush and she will never know the difference. It grates on my nerves though because that old perfectionist in me is growling since it isn't like the ones you buy. I just have to remember that it is homemade and that she is 15 months old. Now, if I just had a pink pot holder, I might be more satisfied with it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">My son's 13 year old son is in Knoxville playing in the world series and I am waiting on a phone call any minute to see if they are going to be 1st or 2nd place. This makes the 4th game they have played today with 15 minutes in between each game. I don't know how in the world they can even stay in the competition after that much ball gaming in one day. It has been like that all week long. Had they lost yesterday, then there was a possibility they would have had to play 6 games in a row. Good thing he is a kid with energy. Makes me want to crawl in the bed just thinking about it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bill has finally finished all of the cabinet work in my new kitchen addition. Now he has spent this week working on his bathroom addition. Actually, it is a brand new bathroom for him. His old bathroom will become a passageway/linen closet when he busts through the wall into the new section. I don't know how in the world he has survived out in this heat, but he is an outdoor person and at least has two fans blowing on him. If he can hurry and finish the overhead stuff and get off the ladder, then the rest should be smooth sailing. When that room is finished, then we will be able to put down new flooring. I want the same flooring in the new bath, linen closet/passageway, new/old kitchen, small dining room, hallway, and my bathroom. Right now, the new part just has sub-flooring and there are two different types of flooring in two of the areas. I want it consistent throughout.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">When that is done, then the living room needs a face lift. That is the problem with living in a house that is around 100 years old. It is a money pit, but there is no way we could ever afford to replicate the space at today's prices. We couldn't even buy a broom closet at today's prices for what we paid for this house and four town lots back in 1974. I kid you not.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Stay cool and maybe I will not wait so long to post next time. Don't hold your breath though.</span><br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-57484093889691163992010-06-02T20:44:00.005-05:002010-06-02T21:33:12.487-05:00<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I have been missing in action. Where have I been? Doing as little as possible. Just too lazy I guess to find my way to this blog to write. I kid you not! I have a hard time remembering how to get here!<br /><br />In the next little village up from mine I have found a gold mine. My village is small, but this one is even smaller, but it has a new and fully stocked, state-of-the-art library. The librarian is the best!!! I have been spending hours and hours reading now that I am a member of that library. We have one here in our village, but I don't care when I drive by it, there aren't any cars there. Who knows when they are open. When they were on Front Street, they kept pretty regular hours, but when they moved onto the school grounds, I believe they got slack.<br /><br />Now when I hear of or see a book that I want to read, I just write it down and when I go to the library I turn in my list and usually within a week they have what I have requested. I don't think I will ever have to purchase another book again. It is like being turned a loose in a candy store. We aren't talking about old musty smelling books, but new ones with clean dust jackets on them. They have computers for folks who want to look up things. There are DVDs to check out, newspapers from the surrounding area, magazines, you name it, they either have it or will get it for you.<br /><br />Since around my birthday we have had yard wreckers here as well. Since 1974 we have had various and sundry above ground pools getting larger and larger ones each time. Several years ago when these old shoulders and knees decided they didn't want to work any longer, I had one heck of a time getting myself out of our pool. I honestly thought I would end my life like a bar of soap that is left in the tub too long. Yep, just melt away, never to be seen again. I honestly don't remember how in the heck I ever got myself out of there the last time I went in, but I never went back. That was three years ago.<br /><br />The knees have been replaced, but after the last replacement and the MRSA staff infection, I refuse to have the shoulders replaced even though my ortho surgeon says they must. Too bad. I will live with the pain, but unless it is a real life and death situation, this old woman won't be going to a hospital to have anything done to her again. I was never afraid of a hospital or surgery before, but you get that infection and you get scared very quickly and for life. Gives me shivers just thinking about what all was done to me in what is supposed to be a clean place, but is apparently a filthy place.<br /><br />My doctor suggested water therapy and of course I had to tell him I could get into our pool, but couldn't get out any longer. He suggested an inground pool and I asked him if he was paying. :-) We talked about it and decided, why not? We don't travel, our children aren't hurting for money, we can't take it with us, so why not? Thus, the yard wreckers.<br /><br />If you have never dealt with people who come into your yard to dig and install an inground pool, call me first. If that won't do, I will give you my son's number and he will give you an earful. After losing my religion, saying words that my mother at 85 years old would still try and shove a bar of Ivory soap down my mouth for saying or even thinking, six weeks of cussing out loud and inside my head, it is a reality. There are still a few kinks to work out, like they broke the sand filter and had better get themselves out here very quickly to either bring a new one or fix this one or else...but, we are certainly enjoying the new addition to the yard.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmnDQGUbwpiEkguWPDim1DOaEl00th6nAlXCYf6jNsQILrTNvrnITEWovlj3OE1lKOFdVTL5eahPgkd9arwlXQD_8LdFJsD09w-tEz1wnSSLQGDrhsxhxcRwfnJVIAIRvfGpXwZvk4CQ1d/s1600/getting+ready.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmnDQGUbwpiEkguWPDim1DOaEl00th6nAlXCYf6jNsQILrTNvrnITEWovlj3OE1lKOFdVTL5eahPgkd9arwlXQD_8LdFJsD09w-tEz1wnSSLQGDrhsxhxcRwfnJVIAIRvfGpXwZvk4CQ1d/s320/getting+ready.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478366389209322370" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Bill has St. Augustine grass growing around the pool where there was red sand and it looks like it is spreading like it should. Three more weeks and he will be able to mow it. Not all of the plants made it when they replanted them, but those that did are flowering and look nice. We have been cooking lots of veggies and eating outside and that has to be good for you. Lots of exercise.<br /><br />Another thing that took up some time was helping my mother pull together a surprise 90th birthday party for my dad a week and a half ago. We almost made it until he caught her taking a lot of cokes out to the storeroom and wanted to know why so many drinks. She said she told him that his sons were coming over to fry some fish for him and that is what the cokes were for. Even though it wasn't a complete surprise, he was still very surprised at all of the friends and family who showed up. The gig was up though when my brothers came up with their big outdoor fish fryers and skillets. By then, people started arriving. My mother had the neatest cake made that had a picture of him playing golf airbrushed on it. She had hidden it under the bed. He still plays golf three days a week.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrLPetkjlSSZegM2BLt-JnOzoCNV6cmrhh5XDXST5kGYICia0d5LaXfwY2fyGSC-7qXBpuLSN38veq0ZL6Z7tShhBTsA5DyZu3R3XOLv4l3CR1DHr4Rbb-LCoPFoDzwMqxuxaxIQkC7rfD/s1600/Cake.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 231px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrLPetkjlSSZegM2BLt-JnOzoCNV6cmrhh5XDXST5kGYICia0d5LaXfwY2fyGSC-7qXBpuLSN38veq0ZL6Z7tShhBTsA5DyZu3R3XOLv4l3CR1DHr4Rbb-LCoPFoDzwMqxuxaxIQkC7rfD/s320/Cake.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478367702247438242" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Now, this Saturday we are trying to have a surprise 85th birthday dinner for my mother, but since my brothers said that daddy's birthday gathering made them decide they wanted to go out of the big party fish frying business (it was hot as blue blazes that day), we are all meeting at a fish restaurant and afterwards we will go to my parent's home for cake and ice cream. We were kind of afraid to chance waiting on having a surprise 90th for her. I don't really know why though because on both sides of their families, their parents and grandparents lived to be almost 100 and Mama had one uncle who made it to 105. I think they will be around for quite a while longer. They are two amazing people. Oh, tomorrow is my mother's birthday, but it is also their 66th wedding anniversary. You just don't see that much anymore.<br /><br />Have a super summer and like I say everytime I write, I will try to do better, but don't hold my feet to the fire. You know how I am and how hard it is for me to find my way to this page. :-)<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-79274862535854226882010-04-11T18:07:00.010-05:002010-04-11T18:36:08.533-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpaOufpjd7PjeJ8Pa2UGtvMaer3s7ZP3OHxNe3wIBOpKD2uKn3GZKeEklmCTtjH7yzuENNoWwK_teXVsSsi1fnYAbZlOaJgvbHFB8c5FIfc4HYxwpSEPH2CQxZZHTLC8A8l55t9VVZLl_N/s1600/Zoey+and+the+crawdad+4-10.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpaOufpjd7PjeJ8Pa2UGtvMaer3s7ZP3OHxNe3wIBOpKD2uKn3GZKeEklmCTtjH7yzuENNoWwK_teXVsSsi1fnYAbZlOaJgvbHFB8c5FIfc4HYxwpSEPH2CQxZZHTLC8A8l55t9VVZLl_N/s320/Zoey+and+the+crawdad+4-10.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459023849586407570" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVSmzvOoYNZJ3aUhExfN4Jjsfqo_gXgyfeRgse1uhYHzZOzYhJXhW1cn4Ns6Q63_8qS6XLL8PQqPuIP7uyw5ecS0cPBwQJlP5xAOrHNom6uTZjq9izcn2P52pjX2mZcyNHik1JuvI3LTrW/s1600/Zoey+and+the+crawdad+4-10.jpg"><br /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Zoey and the Crawdad</span></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilP39dS2t2-FzdbAXNSeyAkz4Fyrl0rq10lzg3s6dQgszziMQittpNrzAzhQBlSJhrAF0Xw2pw219zAmavJXEVG63UNEf6qg_q-iJGOoXybq6Ij7Ua7tjc1hvyuLI4uFmnfEHlXuRkVr8a/s1600/Bunny+Girl+2010.JPG"><br /></a><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Mid-April so I must be doing something right to be here blogging before the end of the month. Had my 65th birthday on Wednesday and really don't feel any older. My daughter cooked supper for us and made a guiltless cake to boot. Had a card with lots of cash in it. There was a present from my son and his crew waiting there for me too. It was a personalized travel mug with black and has white circles and then a hot pink "J" in a border. Neat-O. Inside the mug was some cash and pictures of the grands that thrilled me, of course. Never can get enough pictures of those precious faces.<br /><br />Oldest granddaughter has been in Arkansas visiting her older brother and his wife and Zoey. She actually brought Zoey back with her. What a trip. You can guess where I am headed in a little while. Here is a picture of that doll with her bunny ears on and one holding a crayfish (I can't make this one get under the bunny ear girl picture). And her mama wants a girly-girl. I think she is going to have to settle for 1/2 girly-girl.<br /></span><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilP39dS2t2-FzdbAXNSeyAkz4Fyrl0rq10lzg3s6dQgszziMQittpNrzAzhQBlSJhrAF0Xw2pw219zAmavJXEVG63UNEf6qg_q-iJGOoXybq6Ij7Ua7tjc1hvyuLI4uFmnfEHlXuRkVr8a/s1600/Bunny+Girl+2010.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilP39dS2t2-FzdbAXNSeyAkz4Fyrl0rq10lzg3s6dQgszziMQittpNrzAzhQBlSJhrAF0Xw2pw219zAmavJXEVG63UNEf6qg_q-iJGOoXybq6Ij7Ua7tjc1hvyuLI4uFmnfEHlXuRkVr8a/s320/Bunny+Girl+2010.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459022447857606994" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-size:130%;" >1st Easter and the bunny ears</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Yesterday while we went to Alexandria for more birthday goodness with my parents and my youngest brother.</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">We met them at a little place out in Ball, Louisiana, named Fant's. The older gentleman whose son owns the place used to be our neighbors when we first moved to Alexandria. They had the best seafood. After we ate, we went to my brother's house for cake and more presents. John had taken pictures of the "Medussa" tree in my front yard and the old swing with the rusted out eye hook and blew them up to 8 x 10s for me. He is really getting great at photography. Notices things that us non-photographers don't see.<br /><br />My parents treated us to lunch, had a card with more cash in it, Mama knitted me a shawl/scarf and hat, and a sweet birch looking doll with flowers in front of her face like she is shy. I have seen them at Hallmark and they probably have a name.<br /><br />We had a leisure drive home up old Hwy. 71 and stayed off I-49. When we got home, the yard had a long-bed trailer in it and parked in the side yard was a backhoe. They must have dropped it off so they can start the excavation on Monday.<br /><br />Today, Sunday, Bill went to Shreveport and while he was gone, two young men from the pool company came to tear down the above-ground pool. They have been at it for 4 1/2 hours. When they started, wasps came out of the things that hold up the sides of the pool. Good thing Bill had left them some wasp spray. Last time I looked, they were nearing the end. I am taking pictures about once an hour of the demolition. I hear their truck cranking up so they must be finished. Off to take the last pictures before the hole starts to be dug in the morning. This is getting exciting.<br /></span></span></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></span></span></div>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-9029980137463398502010-03-31T09:30:00.001-05:002010-03-31T09:31:52.834-05:00March 31, 2010<p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">In like a lamb, roared through like a lion, out like a lamb.  That was our March.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Observations:</font></strong></p> <blockquote> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Don’t think you can remember the color of your last post.  That is true if you don’t post regularly.  That is especially true if your memory is going away.  That might of bothered me a while back and could bother me tomorrow being kind of obsessive-compulsive, but today, it doesn’t bother me.  I might go back and fix it, but I might not.</font></strong></p> </blockquote> <p><strong></strong></p> <blockquote> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  Well, that is something I have always heard anyway.  When I started my blog my intention was to write daily, kind of like a diary.  Got really ill when I had surgery and then it was once in a while.  Looking at my posts it seems now I am doing well if I post once a month.  I will try to do better, but being kind of ADD, things get in my way and I wander off and forget the way back.</font></strong></p> </blockquote> <p> </p> <blockquote> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Birthdays for one year olds.  Give them a fake cake made of just icing.  Make sure there is a plastic tablecloth underneath.  Preferably they need to be buck naked when you turn them a loose on their private cake, but I think there is a law against that and if there isn’t, then give Congress a few minutes and they will pass a law as such.  I digress.  Turn the child a loose and since this is their first encounter with a cake, they will test the waters and stick their finger into the icing and bring the finger to the mouth – like they do the dog food, scraps of paper on the floor, and everything they find – hand to mouth syndrome.  Next, put the entire hand into the icing and bring that to the mouth since that first taste was so good.  Enough sugar now to keep said child fueled for all day long.  Let’s see what can be done with two hands.  Pat, pat, pat.  Slide hands back and forth on the table cloth.  If the cake happens to be a Strawberry Shortcake cake, then the colors are pink and green which equal brown when mixed.</font></strong></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S7NcfG49nGI/AAAAAAAAAG4/xV7-cAadl8k/s1600-h/Cake%20hand%5B2%5D.jpg"><img title="Cake hand" style="border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="244" alt="Cake hand" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S7NcfQdZVMI/AAAAAAAAAG8/35Pzh6L-fYY/Cake%20hand_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="128" border="0" /></a> </p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Before the party can continue, the child has to be whisked away to be <strike>hosed down </strike>washed up and redressed and the table has to be cleaned up.  Now it is time to open presents.  I am guilty!!!  Yes, I am.  I brought multiple presents to the party along with the multiple presents that everyone else brought.  What in the world were we thinking.  Apparently we forgot that a one year old child has the attention span of a gnat.  With that being said, just two, hear me, TWO presents total would have been more than enough.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">After opening two presents, it was just a blur of paper and ribbons so carefully tied being jammed into a garbage sack to go off to the landfill.  I will say that whatever season the child was born in surely makes it nice for the parents.  They won’t have to buy any clothes at all until the next season rolls around.  Just think of the money they can save to go to the movies and to eat out.  My, oh, my.  Well, that is what I would have done with the money.  Just saying.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Would you believe it if I told you that this adorable child opened  one of my gifts and that was the end of the gift opening.  God bless her.  Took that mop and broom and you would have thought her mama had made her Susie Homemaker since birth.  Went straight to the kitchen and started using them both at the same time.  She needs a few lessons and then I think her mother can just point her in the direction of the kitchen and never have to clean a floor again.  (I did hear that she had stepped on the broom – one of those straight kinds like janitors use – and it came up and bopped her in the head which caused a torrent of tears – just has to learn how to use the thing properly)  Never did go hack to opening the presents.</font></strong></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S7NcgOvsh4I/AAAAAAAAAHA/KEhennooIXE/s1600-h/My%20own%20mop%20and%20broom%5B2%5D.jpg"><img title="My own mop and broom" style="border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="244" alt="My own mop and broom" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S7NcgXAin8I/AAAAAAAAAHE/P8CDc8NyBYQ/My%20own%20mop%20and%20broom_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="213" border="0" /></a> </p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">We all had a good time visiting with the other grand parents, great-grandparents, and even great-great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who we don’t get to see but on rare occasions.  The real cake and ice cream were good too.</font></strong></p> </blockquote> <p> </p> <blockquote> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Getting elderly – When does that time come?  I thought it might be with age, but decided that wasn’t it.  My dad is 90 and plays golf three days a week.  My mom is 85 and knits up a storm and you are lucky of you call and she is at home.  I guess if it were age, then they would qualify as elderly.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Health – This past year has proven that health can certainly age you, but if you erase the year and pretend it never happened, then maybe it didn’t.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Gait – Bad knees give you a bad gait like you have glass between the cushions in your knees.  Get new knees and your gait changes.  Now you totter along scared to death you will fall down and tear loose something that will damage those new knees.  I think sometime I look elderly by the way I walk, but I hope not.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Hair color – I choose not to color my hair.  Could be that I am following in my mother’s footsteps and “aging gracefully” as she likes to say.  I think it is because I am lazy and don’t want to spend my money at the beauty shop but would rather spend it on crafting things.  I had my hair streaked when I was younger and you had to go when the root line started growing out.  Yep, I think it is more lazy than anything else.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Teeth or the lack or – This, right now, is definitely my current definition of elderly.  Recently I broke a tooth and went to see my least favorite, but sweetest doctor, my dentist.  I complained of the tooth next to it hurting up in the gumline.  He x-rayed and came back in with worry written on his face.  I have seen his face a lot since he began his practice probably 30 years ago and can read it like a book.  I have teeth that my mother blessed me with and they are made of chalk.  Not worth a damn.  You can floss, see the hygienist twice yearly, brush 50 times a day, but you are eventually going to have root canals, crowns, bridges, and assorted other hurtful things going on in your mouth.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Did I say I still, sometime, cry in the dentist chair?  Well, I do.  Comes from pure terror as a child and a terrible dentist whose breath would have slayed a dragon.  I love my dentist because he has learned over the years to gas me up and that it takes a long time and lots of juice to deaden my mouth, unlike the dragon slayer dentist.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Well, he comes back in and says that the root on the eye tooth, which is next to the chipped tooth, has to come out as it has a split root and the chipped tooth is so badly chipped, like in half, that it can’t be saved either.  He says there are two ways to go and it is my choice.  Pull them all and get upper dentures – I completely came unglued and wept.  The other choice was to make a bridge that you have to put in and take out daily and that would buy me a few years.  I chose the latter one.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">I will be 65 next week and in my mind that is too young to have to have real false teeth.  LOL  Vanity is what it is, pure and simple.  Here is where elderly comes to play.  At this time in my life, elderly is when you have a plastic box on your bathroom sink that you wash each day, fill with water at night, pour in some Scope, and deposit brushed teeth into at night.  That is elderly.  What do you do if you go and visit someone.  Where do you put these things?  In your suitcase?  On their sink?  Under the bed, which makes me think of something funny I will share in a moment.  What do you do with these awful things?  I do know you have a bad time trying to eat a Snicker bar with them in your mouth.  Seems the caramel wants to pull them right out of your mouth.  I have to remember not to hear sticky anything out in public, ever!!!</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">That funny story and I will leave the elderly scene.   My daughter’s youngest son is a hoot.  When he was about two years old, his great-grandmother came to spend the night with them.  She lives in East Texas so her visits always included at least one night at their house.  When they got up the next morning, she went to put her false teeth in and they weren’t in the box on the bathroom sink.  They looked high and low.  The children were asked if they had seen them and this grandchild sheepishly hung his head and said, “Yes, I know where they are.”  “Well, where are they?”  “They are under my pillow.  I looked in the box and they scared me so I put them under my pillow.”  Thus, the case of the missing teeth was solved.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Until the next time…..</font></strong></p></blockquote> Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-37361130412429685302010-02-21T21:01:00.000-06:002010-02-21T21:02:01.923-06:00February 25, 2010<p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">I must have been held captive by foreign beings since I have been missing for so long.  Arkansas was on the agenda and then buckets of rain and several days of snow.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">Several weekends ago I went to a workshop near Monroe, Louisiana which was taught by Michelle Zindorf.  Talk about a dynamic and organized teacher.  Unbelievable workshop.  I learned so much and will try and insert the cards I made.  Remember that this was my first use of a brayer and it was an incredible experience.  WOW</font></strong></p> <p> <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyUnPZ33I/AAAAAAAAAGE/_XPIF2YejgA/s1600-h/Acquaduct%20with%20flowers%5B2%5D.jpg"><img title="Acquaduct with flowers" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="244" alt="Acquaduct with flowers" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyVDyy4tI/AAAAAAAAAGI/vKHqeXcs3O4/Acquaduct%20with%20flowers_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="187" border="0" /></a></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">This one was my least favorite card.  I am not sure why, but it just didn’t appeal to me.  When I saw the example card what I saw was three tombstones.  I made sure to space mine out a bit so it would look more like the aqueduct that it is.  The flowers were heat embossed.</font></strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyVbWbGpI/AAAAAAAAAGM/Gar6Zsfy_Ak/s1600-h/Asian%20sunset%5B2%5D.jpg"><img title="Asian sunset" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="244" alt="Asian sunset" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyVqeicXI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/9EIaYweK_YU/Asian%20sunset_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="125" border="0" /></a> </p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">I call this one Asian Sunset over Water.  We learned how to do a reflection with this card without using a reflection stamp.  The hinges are a punched piece that was bent in double and attached with brads.</font></strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyWHUGkjI/AAAAAAAAAGU/3HV539m-eRc/s1600-h/Deer%20in%20the%20snow.jpgj%5B2%5D.jpg"><img title="Deer in the snow.jpgj" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="244" alt="Deer in the snow.jpgj" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyWQ9FhMI/AAAAAAAAAGY/qyPR8-ykHBE/Deer%20in%20the%20snow.jpgj_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" border="0" /></a> </p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">This one is Deer in the Snow.  So original!!!  I missed getting into the upper left-hand corner with this one which threw off my sunrays.</font></strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyW1-3tfI/AAAAAAAAAGc/_GLeYyqx25Q/s1600-h/Red%20Bird2%5B2%5D.jpg"><img title="Red Bird2" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="244" alt="Red Bird2" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyXFr9j1I/AAAAAAAAAGg/SaHVv_UlCdk/Red%20Bird2_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="195" border="0" /></a> </p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">I added the small red bird after our class.  I needed just this little speck of color.</font></strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyXden3gI/AAAAAAAAAGk/n0634V16qJE/s1600-h/Spit%20of%20land%5B2%5D.jpg"><img title="Spit of land" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="110" alt="Spit of land" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyXvdIbZI/AAAAAAAAAGo/QzeYqRSy0zU/Spit%20of%20land_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" border="0" /></a> </p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">This card reminded me of Toledo Bend near where I live.  It is a spit of land out of into the lake.</font></strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyYENZU9I/AAAAAAAAAGs/8a3gNxJzOU8/s1600-h/Tire%20swing%5B2%5D.jpg"><img title="Tire swing" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="244" alt="Tire swing" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1S-CoS7Ku28/S4HyYrzJuCI/AAAAAAAAAGw/VQ52OB3a6Is/Tire%20swing_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="192" border="0" /></a> </p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">The orange doesn’t show up like I would wish in this scan.  Love the playful tire swing on the tree.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">These are no place near what Michelle does, but for my first try at her techniques, I am proud of my work.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">Just found out that we will have another great-granddaughter in late July.  No name has been picked yet, but just so long it is healthy, that is all that matters.  They didn’t take to the name I suggested, Seawillow.  That was the name of a friend’s grandmother and I like unusual names.  Reminds me of when I gave my daughter some names before the births of her children and she told me if I wanted names like that I needed to have some more children.  LOL  Oh, the wit of that girl.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">We haven’t done much lately but try to stay warm and dry.  I had my fill of snow when we lived in Denver.  It can go back on up North as far as I am concerned.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">It is hard to believe, but our first great-granddaughter, Zoey Elizabeth, will be one year old in less than a month.  Where does time go?  Terrell Thomas just turned 18 last month and Emily Anna will be 20 the last day of this month.  They surely getting old since I know it isn’t me that is ageing.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">This year I will try to do better about posting.  It took a long time for me to find the program to write in that allows me to put the pictures into the post.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="3">Spring, hurry and get here!!!</font></strong></p> Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-82252594396852780152010-01-08T00:10:00.002-06:002010-01-08T00:18:05.248-06:00January 7, 2010<p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0080ff" size="3">I am trying out Windows Live so I can put pictures where I want them  I hope this works as I don’t like all of my pictures all on the right side.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0080ff" size="3">This has been a sad time for me as my uncle in South Carolina died on Sunday night and we live too far to go to the funeral.  I really wanted to be there for my cousin and aunt and to see cousins and the only surviving aunt and uncle.  He was such a character.  When he was with his brothers and even alone, he was so funny that I would have to beg him to let me catch my breath before he proceeded with is stories.  My mom, his sister, says her brothers loved to “embroider” their stories as time went on.  I have such fond memories of our visits each summer and when they would come to my hometown for a visit.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0080ff" size="3">A friend died this week also and I went to her funeral yesterday.  She had gotten down and was so feisty she wouldn’t have wanted to live like that.  I know her children and grandchildren will miss her.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0080ff" size="3">It is bitter cold here and is supposed to get even colder overnight and through the weekend.  I just hope we don’t lose power as we have central heat.  We do have two space heaters, but they will struggle to keep up with the cold.  We also have a gas stove next to the electric one and that has always been a bonus in weather without power.  At least we can cook.  Last year, we purchased a generator so we wouldn't lose what is in the freezers.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0080ff" size="3">This past Saturday night I got to see a friend who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years.  She still looks the same.  We met in Natchitoches for supper and had a good time catching up.  We promised we wouldn’t wait to long to connect again.  If we wait that long, I will be in my late 80s and won’t be able to drive over to our old stomping grounds.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0080ff" size="3">We found out we will be great-grandparents again in either late July or early August.  Another baby to love and cuddle.  I am praying for a healthy baby.  It will be over a month before they will be able to tell if it is a boy or girl.  It really doesn’t matter to me which it is, but I do hope it will have red hair like my grandson.  None of the grandchildren or the other great-granddaughter have red hair and that is a weakness I have – I love red hair.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0080ff" size="3">Here is it midnight and Bill just walked in with a coconut cake he baked.  I bet he is in there dishing up a piece with vanilla ice cream on it.  Just what my hips and stomach need.</font></strong></p> <p><strong><font face="Arial" color="#0080ff" size="3">Later</font></strong></p> Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-45062156401437118022009-12-31T17:28:00.000-06:002009-12-31T17:30:09.338-06:00December 31, 2009<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cjane1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="Preview" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cjane1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_preview.wmf"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:version>12.00</o:Version> 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mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">December 31, 2009,<span style=""> </span>Blog entry</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">I have been missing in action for a spell.<span style=""> </span>Had to open up Santa’s workshop, card making shop, and bakery.<span style=""> </span>All are closed now and maybe I will have some time to do things on the computer again.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Never again do I want to even contemplate the number 8. <span style=""> </span>Seems nearly everything I had to do ended up in making 8 of the critters, which I found boring after the first two.<span style=""> </span>My daughter bought material for me to make her grandmother, my mom, some new placemats and napkins.<span style=""> </span>I got the fabric and made them reversible.<span style=""> </span>Made 8 of those and they were in solid colors.<span style=""> </span>Then, the napkins were in a print to match each side and made 8 of them for each side.<span style=""> </span>Still time left so I made 8 coasters that had an absorbent material inside each one.<span style=""> </span>That was two sets of 8.<span style=""> </span>On Christmas Eve I made myself go back to the machine and with the material that was left over, I made two hot pads for the table, one to match each napkin and coaster.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Another bright idea I had was to make the great-granddaughter a fleece blanket out of LSU material and a hat to match.<span style=""> </span>Looked like an easy thing to make, but I had to cut out two of them, cut 7” from each corner, and then cut into the material every inch up 7”.<span style=""> </span>The pattern said it was a “no sew” thing, but I believe it would have been easier to just sew around the thing.<span style=""> </span>Once all of these “fingers” were cut, I had to take matching pieces from each of the two sides and tie them in a knot.<span style=""> </span>Boring!!!<span style=""> </span>I pulled a cap pattern off the net that was adorable and made the hat.<span style=""> </span>Well, when it was finished, it would only have fit a tennis ball or maybe even a golf ball.<span style=""> </span>Back to the city for more fleece and this time I just cut what I imagined was a hat that would fit her head.<span style=""> </span>I sewed a deep cuff to they could pull it down over her ears in the cold weather.<span style=""> </span>I won’t be guilty of another “no sew” anything.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">I always give a check to the kids, my parents, and the grandchildren so they can either get what they want or put my money with some other they may get to purchase something they wanted and didn’t get.<span style=""> </span>Instead of that impersonal check, I decided to make scrapbook paper covered cardboard wallets.<span style=""> </span>I cut a notch in each side, folded the bills, and tied them into the center of the wallet.<span style=""> </span>I used Velcro to secure the part that folds over onto the top and then put a sparkly sticker on the front.<span style=""> </span>I had to make 11 of those.<span style=""> </span>Everyone seemed to like them although the Velcro did tear loose from the paper since I didn’t tell them to carefully open the wallets.<span style=""> </span>For the two younger grands I made money trees.<span style=""> </span>I accordion folded 80 one dollar bills and stuck them into a Styrofoam cone with florist’s pins and stuck a glittered pick in the top.<span style=""> </span>It looked so sparse that I started to go to the bank and get more money, but then I would have had to increase everyone’s money so it would come out fair.<span style=""> </span>I told Bill that I couldn’t cut the top out of the cone because it would look stupid.<span style=""> </span>He suggested cutting some of the bottom of the cone. Duh!!!<span style=""> </span>Why didn’t I think of that?<span style=""> </span>They ended up being way too cute.<span style=""> </span>I bought some picks with red glittered berries and silk leaves on them and tore them all apart and stuck each berry all around the tree.<span style=""> </span>Their mother said, “Oh, you can’t take the money out of the tree.<span style=""> </span>We need to save them to put out as decorations next year.”<span style=""> </span>Again, Bill suggested she give them what money was on the tree and that way she can keep them and they will still get their money.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Another 8 that I made, and won’t do ever again, is take a Mason jar and make it into a button jar/mending kit for each family.<span style=""> </span>I found little mending kits with threads, needles, tiny scissors, a few buttons and thimble at the dollar store and put that inside each jar.<span style=""> </span>Then I had to cut some large circles out of fabric and some smaller ones.<span style=""> </span>Hand gathering material takes way too long, but there wasn’t any other way I could think to do that.<span style=""> </span>Each jar lid had to be stuffed with fiberfill and sewn tightly to the lid.<span style=""> </span>Next, I used fabric glue and attached fabric to cardboard circles, then stuck those to the round, puffy, pincushion top.<span style=""> </span>They turned out very cute, but 8 were just a bit too many to make.<span style=""> </span>Oh, I stuck pins in the top of the pincushion as well.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">For Zoey I wanted these little bell bracelets children in Thailand wear on their ankles and you can find them when they walk out of a room, when they are toddling.<span style=""> </span>The best price I could find on the net was $45 and shipping and I just wouldn’t pay that.<span style=""> </span>I decided I could make her some out of jingle bells and cording.<span style=""> </span>Easy to do, but then to make them adjustable I needed to tie square knots.<span style=""> </span>I have tied probably 5 million of them in my lifetime back when macramé was the thing.<span style=""> </span>I had a hard time doing it.<span style=""> </span>I could sit on the back porch and visualize how to do it and then come inside and would mess up.<span style=""> </span>I made three of them and if her mom likes them, then I have the stuff to make her some more colors of them.<span style=""> </span>She has taken 11 steps alone now and it won’t be long before she will be everywhere and I am sure into everything.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Next, I thought it would be nice to make candy and cookies to share with the neighbors.<span style=""> </span>It started out with me deciding to make my son some white chocolate covered pretzels, which is something he loves.<span style=""> </span>From there I went to fudge, Martha Washington’s, cow patties, a carrot cake, and White Christmas meringues.<span style=""> </span>No, I didn’t make just one batch of each.<span style=""> </span>I made two of each.<span style=""> </span>I have shared with the neighbors and took a lot to my parents, but there is still some left and for some reason or other, when I walk past the table, this magnetic force makes my hand shoot into a container and come out with chocolate calories.<span style=""> </span>I ran out of time and energy before I made the cookies I wanted, but had I made them first, nothing else would have gotten made.<span style=""> </span>I will make my Cosi Ducci cookies when all of this other stuff is gone.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">We opened gifts with my daughter’s family on Christmas Eve this year since all of us went on Christmas down to Alexandria to my parent’s home for Christmas day.<span style=""> </span>My dad is almost 90 and mama is 84 and who knows how many more Christmases we will have with them.<span style=""> </span>Two of my brothers with their children and grandchildren were there, one brother dropped in later after spending Christmas with his wife’s people, a SIL’s mother was there, my daughter and her husband, my parents, and Bill and I.<span style=""> </span>It was a very enjoyable day, but I was happy to get home to my quiet house.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">On Monday we drove to Conway, Arkansas, to have Christmas with my son and his family.<span style=""> </span>His oldest son and his wife stopped by early on Christmas Eve to exchange gifts as he was called back to work.<span style=""> </span>We had a really nice time with our son’s family and of course enjoyed the grandchildren, who we don’t get to see regularly now that they have moved.<span style=""> </span>Instead of going on the 6 lane through Little Rock, we took a longer scenic route through the mountains which added probably a bit over an hour to the trip, but I would have had a panic or anxiety attack had I had to drive on that crazy freeway.<span style=""> </span>Nice sunny trip up there, but misted on us on the way home.<span style=""> </span>Just thankful it was pouring down rain.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Our friends we usually spend New Year’s Eve have gone to Mississippi to see grandchildren, Melyssa is tied up tonight, and our other friends have gone to the casino for the night.<span style=""> </span>Guess we will ring in the New Year just us two.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">I am sure health wise this next year will be better for me as unless it is an emergency, I won’t have to have any surgeries.<span style=""> </span>My doctor wants to do my shoulders, but I told him after this last knee surgery with the infection afterwards, wild horses couldn’t drag me into a hospital unless it was life or death.<span style=""> </span>No way.<span style=""> </span>Nada.<span style=""> </span>No!!!</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">They say what you are doing on New Year’s Eve you will be doing all year long.<span style=""> </span>Well, I just sat here and paid all of my bills that have come in and I hope the new year brings something a bit more interesting than that.<span style=""> </span><span style="">J</span><span style=""> </span>Wishing all of you the best in 2010.<span style=""> </span>Please pray for those in need, who are ill, and for our soldiers who are keeping this country free.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Happy New Year, 2010!!!!</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Later</span></p> Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-41296292544072172532009-12-05T00:22:00.004-06:002009-12-05T01:38:45.560-06:00December 4, 2009<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">It has been a few days since I last posted. Lots going on, like staying on the computer reading other people's blogs and reading emails. I think maybe I am addicted to blog hopping and visuals of neat things. I am definitely a visual person.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">We had a tiny bit of snow this afternoon here in NW Louisiana. What a surprise. Nothing stuck. It is cold out there and is supposed to get down to 29 degrees tonight. Snow is nice if people are used to it like when we lived in Denver. They have the equipment and people know how to drive in it. Down here, the road crews don't have a clue and people definitely don't know how to drive in it. I don't think we will be building any snow people this year.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">The other thing about the cold is when it ices over. We lose power and it is dark, very dark. I have a flashlight next to my desk, one by the bed, one by where I sit at the eating bar, and there are others all over the house. If we didn't have them, we would be knocking ourselves out running into furniture and walls. Definitely not my idea of fun. However, we bought a generator for those times and at least we won't lose the food in our freezers like we have done in the past.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">Our son drove down from his home in Conway to Grand Cane to wrap his pipes. They are already wrapped, but it has been a few years since they were done and he was worried that the wrapping might be deteriorating. Plus, it is a way to get to hunt that illusive giant deer roaming his woods. Two jumped out in front of us on the way home tonight - Bambi and his dad. At least they didn't want a piece of our truck like they did my cousin's car the other night. Those things can ruin a ride.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">My daughter stopped by this afternoon and brought me part of my Christmas present. She wanted me to have it to wear to any parties I have this time of year. She also bought me a beautiful white scarf to dress up the cranberry jacket she bought for me. She is one thoughtful child. I checked my planner to see when our retired teachers luncheon is so I could wear it and it was yesterday. Day late and a dollar short. I do have one other thing on tap and of course Christmas day. Now, in the South, we usually are wearing shorts on that day, but I am ready if it is cold. Lovely gift and I love it.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">My time seems to be spent running back and forth to Shreveport to the chiropractor with my back and shoulders. I am finally getting some relief from the pain. I still find myself going to pick up something heavy and then I remember why I mustn't do that. I told my doctor that he could come home with me if he would bring that table I told you about in an earlier post - the one that seems to have the 18 wheeler rim in it that runs up and down your spine. I need one of those planted here at my house. Surely would save a lot of gasoline.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">I found another Christmas gift for Bill and Zoey. I think the tea set will have to wait a bit, but she will have it when she is old enough to drink from a cup. I believe in being prepared. :-)</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">Ellie Mae, Emily Anna's dog, came back to Louisiana with my son. She will use the potty outside, but still loves to wet the floor. My grandson had enough of that and sent her back to his sister. She and Pepper were a sight before another grandson picked her up. She is a tea cup Yorkie and he is a Lab mix. They chased each other all over the house while she was waiting on her taxi cab - Terrell Thomas's truck to drive her back to my daughter's house. She is cute, but I don't want to get attached to another dog after losing my dear Bisquit two weeks ago. Still too fresh a memory of him around here.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">I am trying to find a way to get Bill to do something to at least finish my kitchen addition. First, I was going to buy a hutch, but then I wouldn't have a work area. Nex, I thought about putting my old school desk out there and building bookcases above it. Then I wouldn't have the cupboard space I need. Today I thought about putting the desk out there again, but in the corner and purchasing cupboards that you put together like I did in the little dining room. I can't remember where I bought them, but I think it was either from the Sears or J C Penney's catalog and I don't even think they have catalogs now. I will have to check that out. It would be as cheap as purchasing the lumber to build a set of cabinets. For now, they can be open ones, but eventually I want glass doors on it whatever I get. Decisions, decisions.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">We have made plans to spend Christmas day with my parents at their home and I hope my brothers and their families will be there. I just hate it when families get scattered and it is neigh onto impossible to get everyone together in one place at the same time. Life was much simpler before the grandchildren grew up.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">Today I began sewing the 8 placemats for my mother's Christmas gift from my daughter. I had cut them out the other day, but hadn't the time to start sewing. All of them have been sewn and need to be turned and top stitched - they are reversible. Then I will have two sets of napkins to make for each side. I bought some felt kind of material for stuffing because I think I have enough fabric left to make coasters to match. If there is still some left, then I am going to make some napkin rings. My mother uses cloth napkins and placemats for every meal. She loves it. I like paper plates and paper napkins. I think I do that because I have always been rebellious.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">Bill got up the outside lights and it really looks nice. Last year after Christmas I bought a deer and two doe that are lighted. They are supposed to raise and lower their heads, but maybe they were on sale because they just stand there. Better than not having them. Once I can find the hanger, I can get the wreath up and the house will look nice. I have a fake pot of poinsettias on the table and that is the extent of the inside decorations. I don't mind doing it, but taking it down is what I hate. One year I still had the tree up at Valentine's Day and my dad asked me if I was going to leave it up until Easter. He should have never said that because to show him I could, I did leave it up until Easter. I guess you could say I am hard headed and stubborn.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">Yesterday while I was in the city I got some LSU fleece and am going to make Zoey a blanket and hat. They gave me a free pattern that shows you how to make the blanket without sewing it. You just clip so far into the fabric and tie knots from both sides. I will also sew some knot things throughout the blanket to keep the two sides together. There was the cutest "bat" hat I found on the net and I will make it out of the same fleece and on the "bat" ears you tie ribbons - purple and gold, of course.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">I ordered crisp money from the bank to make "money trees" for the two youngest grandchildren. I plan to say in their cards that I had PaPa look all over the yard and he could only find two of them and cut them down just for them. I also ordered crisp money and will make paper wallets and put the money in them for the older grandchildren and children. Plan to do that for my parent too.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">For Bill I found a soft sided toolbox several months ago and yesterday I got him a new set of screw drivers. He ruined one of his putting my new sewing table together. Boy is that a wonderful table. It has a grid printed on top that has measurements on it. Nice when you want to cut things out. The machine has its own spot and this little door opens and a leg drops out and my serger has a little shelf all of its own to sit on. Now I won't have to take the machine down or the serger. Just cover them and they will be ready for the next project.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">My sweet uncle is still in the hospital in South Carolina and is waiting on a room at a neighboring hospital that has in-house rehab. I understand he is making the nurses laugh. He is such a funny man and can make you roll in the floor laughing. Their only child is with them and is taking his mom back and forth to the hospital. They have made a decision to go into an assisted living arrangement as soon as my uncle regains his strength. Both of them are almost 90 and my cousin lives in Florida and can't get to them fast enough if they need him. If only they weren't 1000 miles away I could do something to help. The only thing I have ever hated about living n Louisiana is it is so far from all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. I have missed so much by not living close to them. Out of 8 children, there are only 4 of them left. Best relatives anyone could ask for. My brothers and I really missed the closeness of the family by only getting two weeks each summer with our only cousins.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">I see that is is late and I have a lot of sewing to do tomorrow. Guess I will have to wind this down and will see ya'll later.</span><br /></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-144704766257964362009-11-23T03:40:00.004-06:002009-11-23T03:51:15.197-06:00November 23, 2009<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cjane1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="Preview" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cjane1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_preview.wmf"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:version>12.00</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> </xml><![endif]--><link rel="themeData" 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mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Be Choosy About Your Friends<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I always thought I needed to have girlfriends.<span style=""> </span>Some I needed to have a steady diet of because I guess they validated my being. I have found that I am happy being my own guide and not having to depend on what someone that I care about really thinks about me.<span style=""> </span>Never in a hundred years would I believe I had it in my power to be happy with myself without someone else’s approval.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I needed someone to raise my children with who faced some of the same situations as I faced trying to be the best of mothers.<span style=""> </span>Someone to share a coke with.<span style=""> </span>Someone to shop with.<span style=""> </span>Someone to travel with to events we both enjoyed.<span style=""> </span>I needed someone to laugh with, cry with, share secrets with.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There have been friends who I have lost whom I might have tried harder to keep.<span style=""> </span>I have had friends who used me and I am sure I used them.<span style=""> </span>I don’t think either of is consciously used each other, but maybe we did since the friendships have gone by the wayside.<span style=""> </span>Some of the friends I made when I was younger weren’t good for me.<span style=""> </span>I am easily influenced and made mistakes in judgment by having them as friends.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There have been friends who I know now I must have forced the friendship by being the one to suggest we do things together and maybe that isn’t want they wanted to do.<span style=""> </span>I had friends who I pursued with much more fervor than they did for our friendship to remain intact.<span style=""> </span>Some friends must have been bored and were a friend to me to ease that boredom and have something to do.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I have had friends who did more for me than I did for them both emotionally and financially.<span style=""> </span>Maybe when you can’t keep up with the gifting that goes along with friendships, the friendship dies a natural death.<span style=""> </span>Maybe one of us grows emotionally and leaves the other one behind.<span style=""> </span>I haven’t completely figured that one out yet.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I have had friends who depended on me more than I could give.<span style=""> </span>I am sure I have depended on friends more than they could take.<span style=""> </span>There have been friends who probably think that I have let them down, but it wasn’t intentionally done.<span style=""> </span>I have had friends who I have hurt and been hurt by.<span style=""> </span>I have intentionally hurt some friends because I was hurt and struck back in an unkind way.<span style=""> </span>I regret that I acted so immaturely, but I was immature at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There have been friends in the different ages of my life that I have drifted away from because one or the other of us moved.<span style=""> </span>There were friends from work, but when jobs changed and you weren’t in close proximity to them anymore, the friendship withered and died.<span style=""> </span>I don’t believe they weren’t friendships and dear ones at the time, but circumstances changed things.<span style=""> </span>Sometime our children drifted apart and we no longer had so much in common.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I have learned now that many of those, who at the time I thought were going to be friends until death, were really acquaintances who had a lot of commonalities with me at the time, but not enough to sustain the friendship over time.<span style=""> </span>Our ships set different courses and they have sailed off in a different direction.<span style=""> </span>It would be nice to reconnect someday with some of them.<span style=""> </span>The wonderful thing about the Internet is that a lot of friends have reconnected if only briefly.<span style=""> </span>It was easy with some to catch up with forty years between us in a matter of a few emails.<span style=""> </span>Our tastes seem to have a way of changing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Now the friends I have seem to be the ones I went to grammar and high school with.<span style=""> </span>I think those friendships were forged in steel and our paths keep crossing at different stages of our lives.<span style=""> </span>I have lost friends to death and that is heart breaking.<span style=""> </span>At my age, that will happen more and more and all you can do is remember the fun times you had when you were friends.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I have few close friends now, but don’t look at that as something terrible.<span style=""> </span>The friends I have now bring me joy, have faith in me, encourage me to do and be my best, to be creative.<span style=""> </span>We laugh at the same things and cry as only women can do.<span style=""> </span>My friendships are deeper now and less shallow as the ones I had when I was younger.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">At my age, time is against having friends who aren’t what I consider real.<span style=""> </span>There just isn’t time to waste on breadth and not depth.<span style=""> </span>I like to think I am a genuine person and expect the same from the people I associate with.<span style=""> </span>I don’t have time to play around the edges of the sandbox.<span style=""> </span>Time is ticking.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">My heart has been broken to the place that it isn’t mended completely by the loss of friends.<span style=""> </span>I wonder where things went astray.<span style=""> </span>I think deep down inside of me I know, but I will never really know what went wrong with some of them.<span style=""> </span>You think you know someone to the core and you find out that you really didn’t know them like you thought you did.<span style=""> </span>There have been friendships that have been extended that should have been ended so both parties could get on with life without regrets.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Via the internet, I have made some wonderful friends.<span style=""> </span>People who share some of the same ideals I do.<span style=""> </span>Women who like doing the things I do.<span style=""> </span>That we haven’t physically met doesn’t make a difference.<span style=""> </span>I have been fortunate though in making international friends who have put themselves out to come to visit me and friends who live in the states who have done the same.<span style=""> </span>It is like we have known each other forever.<span style=""> </span>Maybe we get along so well because we aren’t around each other all the time.<span style=""> </span>My grandmother used to say to me, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” and I think she was really on to something.<span style=""> </span>If we aren’t physically around someone very much, then we see mostly the good and not the warts.<span style=""> </span>Possibly that is a Pollyanna attitude, but it seems to explain why these friendships come about and endure.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It really matters now who I surround myself with.<span style=""> </span>I need those who I can encourage and those who can encourage me.<span style=""> </span>I need truthfulness by me at all times.<span style=""> </span>I don’t need to hear something just because it is the nice thing to say to me.<span style=""> </span>I need honesty.<span style=""> </span>That is something I have preached to my children and all of the kids I taught – be honest, truthful, and never steal from another person.<span style=""> </span>I don’t mean to say if someone’s dress or hair looks terrible I need to tell them, but I don’t need to tell them they look lovely either when they don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I want someone who will cheer me up when I am down.<span style=""> </span>Someone who will be there if I need them day or night and they can expect the same in return.<span style=""> </span>I want to be there to support my friends when they are down and need lifting up.<span style=""> </span>I want to matter to someone.<span style=""> </span>I want someone near me who is happy when I do well and who can help me out when I don’t do so well.<span style=""> </span>I want to be that kind of friend too.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Most women don’t realize the power they have to lift or to crush.<span style=""> </span>Women need to be mindful of just how much power they have over the ones that you love – your children, husband’s view of you from your friend’s perspective, you parents.<span style=""> </span>Women, myself included, need to wield that power carefully because they don’t know what effect they have on the people you care about.<span style=""> </span>As women, we need to be kind and caring and if we can’t get the same in return from those who we believe are some kind of friend, then we need to shuck them and find someone where caring and kindness are utmost to them too.<span style=""> </span>If no one around fits the bill, then enjoy your own company and devote yourself to what makes you happy and certainly do for your family first.<span style=""> </span>If we can make ourselves happy, then we can go about making others happy.<span style=""> </span>If there is a flaw we have that we aren’t happy within ourselves, then we will never be able to be that true friend to anyone else.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What kind of friend are you?</span></p> Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-79242394203195188732009-11-20T10:50:00.003-06:002009-11-20T11:05:50.634-06:00November 20, 2009<span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">(In reply to an email from my </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" >SIL</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> about Brian </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" >Dettmer's</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> art)</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">Would you believe I have been looking at his work lately? I found him by following links from blogs, which is now my "job." Bill asks me what I am doing and I tell him going to work each day. He just laughs. I don't know why he laughs as since retirement I get up each day and go straight to my work desk and begin my daylong job of </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" >internetting</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">. I just don't get paid for my work these days. Maybe that is why he laughs. Blink. Blink. No pay, no real job.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">This guy never cuts the pages out of his books. He finds the pictures he wants and then using glue, puts the pages together so that he can use the </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" >scalpel</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> to cut away what he doesn't want. For about a </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" >nano</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> second I wanted to go to Goodwill and buy one encyclopedia or dictionary and give it a try, but my brain said it just didn't have the go power to even go buy the book. I guess I will just have to wonder now if it would have been possible for me to do a piece like this. :-)</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">Moving things around to put up a new sewing table in the spare room that will allow me to keep my machine and </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" >serger</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> up all the time, I guess I picked up something too heavy. I couldn't sleep but fitfully Sunday and Monday nights, but knew I had to do something. My </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" >ortho</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> surgeon had already told me that my problem is inoperable since it would involve plates and screws which he said would give me more problems than any pain I have. Of course, it wasn't him trying to sit up to get out of bed and by the hardest, doing so. Plus, he didn't have wet panties by the time he got to the potty from not being able to hold his bladder and use the muscles necessary to achieve a sitting up position. Why I was getting this room ready is another entire posting that I hope I don't forget to share with you one of these days.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">My friend, Karen, goes to a </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" >chiro</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> in Shreveport that she swears by. I used to go to one a lot in Alexandria in my 20s, but when I moved from there to Denver I never went again. I called Karen's doctor and he could see me by the time I could get to the city. This is one cool doctor. He wears plaid flannel shirts to the office with his docker-type pants. I am sure he has to since his office is set about 2 degrees below Alaska in the winter. I will wear a jacket today.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">He said with the bone plugs in my neck and the two new knees he was limited in what he could do, but did have a few tricks up his sleeve. There is this machine he has that you lay on that probably has the part that a tire fits onto an 18 wheeler made of steel and concrete combined. It runs up and down your spine and the tech said they raise the angle each time you come in. It makes you nauseous until you can find the maps on the inside of your eyelids to stare at as it does its magic. This is definitely not a table for whiners, which I am prone to be. This is a table for girls with "big girl" panties on and maybe even two pair at the same time. When the bell dings, the assistant, about the size of Barbie's baby sister, tells you to sit up, which you cannot do. Barbie's baby sister with every ounce of strength she possesses, she probably weighs all of 28 pounds, gives you a hand and you get up thankful that you didn't pull her down on top of you.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">You wait. When it is your turn to see good-looking in his flannel shirt with his docker-like pants, he has you sit in this </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" >playlike</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> chair where you are sitting up, but laying face first into the contraption. You have already hears this loud Geiger counter blasting away when you were on the table getting your "massage" done with 18 wheeler </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" >metal</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> tire rim and concrete and wondered if he was </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" >tazing</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> someone. Now you get to see what the </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" >tazing</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> was all about.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">He puts some kind of small bar-like thing in his hand, or at least you presume it his his hand since you are sitting face down into this chair thingy. He proceeds to Geiger you in each vertebrae and also does your shoulders, which you have already told him your surgeon wants to replace, but that you refuse to have done as long as the </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" >MRSA</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> virus is alive in this world. Now, this machine is like ten strong men working each joint and it hurts so good that you don't want him to stop and feel like telling him things like, "move it over just a tad to the left/right, down a little, could you turn me over and do my ribs and the tiny </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" >riblets</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> across the top of my chest...." you get the picture.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">After your time is up there, you get to face a wall that has a large canvas on it that is made of gray felt. Well, that is what it looks like, but I don't know what its purpose is. Could be that once in a while with this next treatment he could </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" >accidentally</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> drop you and you would fall against this wall and with the felt it wouldn't leave too many bruises/lawsuits on you/him. He has you put your right hand on your left shoulder and visa </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" >versa</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">, but you remind him that your shoulders need to be replaced and your right hand cannot reach your left shoulder. He then has you put your left hand on your right shoulder and the other hand somewhere in the vicinity of the left shoulder. He gets up behind you, if you were younger you could really get into this since his body parts are touching yours, but at 64 all you can do is wish. He then tells you to relax, right, and all but lifts you off the floor twice in succession without any warning.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">You are finished for the day and go and pay only a $5 co-pay. Now, if gasoline weren't what it is, you would ask if you could come to see him multiple times a day, but he suggests he will see you again in two days. Yeah!!!! I get to go back today. Wonder if they will raise that back roller and if they do will I have to concentrate harder on the </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" >roadmaps</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> on the backsides of my eyelids to keep from puking all over his floor and probably on myself as well.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">I must say, the back is still hurting, but not quite as badly. I am still finding it hard to get up into a </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" >sitting</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> position from being prone, the washing machine is on double time keeping my unmentionables all nice and clean, but I am looking forward to more torture. I will keep you posted on my progress and let you know if I get straight again or if I will have to live out the rest of my life at a 90 degree angle with a case of Depends near me at all times.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">Have a nice day and run get a scalpel, some glue, an old encyclopedia or dictionary and the next time I see you, I want to see a piece of work like Brain's. You might even inspire me to find a </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" >scalpel</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;">, glue, and old picture book. However, I will be looking for a book with one picture on each page. That way, I can glue a lot of them together and cut down to the bottom picture. Do you think I will need an </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" >Esty</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0); font-weight: bold;"> shop?</span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-42401373296024881632009-11-16T13:38:00.003-06:002009-11-16T13:53:59.580-06:00November 16, 2009<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Yesterday Bill and I went to Shreveport. I had seen a sewing table in the Jo<br />Ann's <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">circular</span> that I wanted. There is a place to put your sewing machine and also a place to put your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">serger</span>. We bought some baskets, lots of baskets, to put on his new bathroom's shelves. I think it will look better if there aren't any doors where the shelving will be. Now all of these baskets match. Some are larger than others. Two of the large ones will fit on a shelf and three of the small ones will fit on a shelf. I am hoping this will keep his bathroom looking neat instead of like a dump.<br /><br />Today he had to go to the skin doctor and woke me up at 7:30 to see if I knew where his wallet was. I don't even know what his wallet looks like. Blink. He finally found it under the cupboard where he sits at the bar. I guess I will have to start looking into a nursing home for him if it gets any worse. :-) He still cannot find one of the wallets and it has money and a $50 gift card to a fancy place in Bossier that you can't afford to go to unless you have a gift card. Who knows where he has put it.<br /><br />I am cleaning out the spare bedroom to put my new desk in. That is one heck of a job. I work for 15 minutes and then my back won't take it anymore and I come back here to the computer and sit for a bit. At this rate, I might have it done by next Christmas. It is fun to go into a room that has been abandoned for several years because there are all kinds of treasures you find. I even found part of our friend's Christmas present from last year. As soon as I see them I will have to give it to them as we aren't exchanging gifts this year. They are keeping their money and flying to NYC to see Phantom of the Opera and NYC at <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Christmastime</span>.<br /><br />There are two bookshelves in boxes to be put together and a DVD bookcase too. I used to be the one who did all of the construction on things like that, but it is so hard with even new knees to get up off the floor that the fairies will have to come and construct these. I believe I am going to bring them into my bedroom and unload what is in my hutch onto the shelves.<br /><br />By doing that I can get shelving out in the newest part of my kitchen because at the rate those two new rooms are coming along, I will be dead and gone before the ones that I wanted built ever get done. Should I get lucky and get the shelving and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">counter tops</span> built before I die, then I can move the hutch into the spare room and take down some shelves I built about ten years ago that are pitiful looking. Just raw wood is what I used and of course they never did get shored up and painted by you know who. I don't know why it is so hard for me to remember that if I want something, then I sure as Sam better do it myself if I don't want to wait until Death's Door swings open for me.<br /><br />My back is rested again and it is time for another 15 minute session in the room from you know where and it starts with an H.<br /><br />Later<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-51109145591942827942009-11-13T21:45:00.002-06:002009-11-13T21:57:21.649-06:00November 13, 2009<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">Yesterday was my Friday 13<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">th</span>. So far today has been uneventful.<br /><br />Our sweet and faithful pet dog, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Bisquit</span>, had to be put down. He had a tumor that had been removed last year and it came back. He could no longer get up on his own, but most of the time once we picked him up, he could walk down the stairs and go outside to the bathroom.<br /><br />We did have to pick him up to get back into the house. He has been back and forth to the vet's for several months and since he was still eating and drinking and able to walk, the vet didn't think he needed to be put down yet. He didn't appear to be in any pain either.<br /><br />Yesterday, he wanted me to hold him it seemed like for hours and that was so unlike him. He was a very independent dog. He couldn't seem to get comfortable and with that tumor growing like lightning, he had a hard time drinking and wasn't interested in eating.<br /><br />Bill called our vet and we decided it was time to say <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">goodbye</span>. Just the shot that calms them down before "the shot" took him out. He must have been hanging on by a thread. Needless to say, two grown adults cried like babies. I think since he is the only dog who we ever let into the house made it harder than losing all of our yard dogs over the years. We missed them, but there was something special about <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Bisquit</span>.<br /><br />Twice today I thought I heard him "yip" like he did when he wanted you to pick him up to go outside. We are going to miss that little old rat terrier. Once he got down in the back though, he was never the same. He hasn't even been able to wag his tail for a few days. <br /><br />I just know since God created everything, he must have a special place for dogs in Heaven and one of these days we will see our beloved pets again. They will be whole like everyone else will be.<br /><br />By sweet little boy dog.<br /><br />Later<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-24778732582979843932009-11-08T19:50:00.003-06:002009-11-08T20:09:38.762-06:00November 8, 2009<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">I guess I won't be <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">journaling</span> everyday like I planned to do. Seems life gets in the way of keeping up my journal. Maybe it is because I am trying to get a book ready to make a "real" art journal. I have been cutting pictures out of magazines to put into the journal since I can't draw a straight line. There are tons of wonderful examples of these art journals out there and that is where I have been spending a lot of my time.<br /><br />Since I had to go to the doctor on Monday and wouldn't be here for a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">HSN</span> shopping experience I didn't want to miss, I checked the site and was able to order what I wanted a day before the show aired. I have a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Cuttlebug</span> and there are several folders that are new and two of them could only be gotten on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">HSN</span>. I am a happy camper to get these folders. <br /><br />My cholesterol was high, but I don't remember which it was. My doctor wants me to take some <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">meds</span> and see her in two months to see if the number has gone down. Just when I got my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">meds</span> down to four from twenty-one a day, I have to add one. Something is going to kill you eventually and I hate that I have to take <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">meds</span>. No one is going to leave Earth alive, so I would rather live each day to the fullest without all of the stupid chemicals in my system. I did discontinue one without permission, but it is for muscle cramps and unless I get some cramps, I am not going to take the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">meds</span>. Just call me Doctor Jane.<br /><br />Wednesday I went to Young at Heart at my friend's church in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Natchitoches</span>. It is the first Wednesday of each month at noon. They had a great program. Two student actors put on a short play that was darling. The lunch was the traditional turkey dinner. I got to sit across from Doris who used to be the preacher here until she retired. Saw several of my old professors and got a lead on a favorite professor in Arkansas. I wrote him a note, epistle, and hope to hear back from him. It has been years since I have seen him or his wife.<br /><br />Saw the foot doctor which is necessary if you are diabetic. Ate at the Chinese buffet where they have shrimp done in a gazillion ways. Always a good place to eat.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Melyssa</span> and I went to Alexandria yesterday to see my parents and her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, my great-granddaughter. She is such a delightful little girl. Happy and smiles all the time. She has three teeth now and is pulling up. Won't be long before she is walking. I had found her several cute little outfits. I will get to see them this next week too as they are staying until Lee gets off duty on Tuesday evening. Supper with all of them this Wednesday.<br /><br />Tomorrow I have to go to the USDA office and judge their essay contest. Then I hope I don't forget to get my oil changed.<br /><br />There is a baby shower for my friend's daughter on Saturday. I need to make a card and wrap her present. She is going to have a baby girl. The baby should come in November.<br /><br />Ate supper with Heath on Friday evening and then followed him to his house for a nice visit. He came in by himself to fill the deer feeders and hunt. I don't know when he will be back as he plans to have Thanksgiving and Christmas up in Conway this year.<br /><br />Guess that is all for the time being. Hope I don't wait so long to come back here.<br /><br />Later<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-61880365219083947522009-10-26T01:17:00.003-05:002009-10-26T01:34:03.148-05:00<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Boy, when you don't have time to blog, you almost forget to when you do have time. It feels like it has been a month of Sundays since the last blog post. My company left on the same day I left for a weekend down in South Louisiana with some good friends.<br /><br />We ate out at a neat Cajun place and it was delicious. I learned of Cajun mayonnaise which is mustard, mayonnaise, some red pepper and probably anything else you want to put in it. Tastes great to dip your friend shrimp and fish into. <br /><br />We got up the next morning and went to the 7 mile long yard sale from Grand <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Couteau</span> to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Arnaudville</span>. It was fun, but as expected, my back gave out on me early on. We went back to my friend's house and ate a delicious chef salad and hit the trail again. <br /><br />This time, we just went into Grand <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Couteau</span> and did their main street. I did find some ephemera and my friend also had some that she gave me. Now to get busy on some altered something. :-) We went to the Kitchen Shop and I got Bill some goodies from there which he was tickled with. I love that store. They have added on a dress shop next door. Boy if I were rich, I could drop a bundle there.<br /><br />That night we had some yummy meatballs in a dark gravy on mashed potatoes and some <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">zucchini</span> croquettes, or it was a fried something with <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">zucchini</span>. Delicious!!!! We also had some <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">zucchini</span> chocolate cake that was scrumptious. I found a recipe and am going to make some of that. Well, I am going to get Bill to make it more than likely.<br /><br />I left for home early because when I woke up I thought my watch said five after one. I needed my glasses!!! I quickly got up and got the truck packed and when I came back inside, I realized it was only five after eight.<br /><br />When I went through Alexandria, my parents were at church so I just wrote my mother a note and left her the linens I found at the yard sale that I knew she would be tickled to have.<br /><br />I have done <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">absolutely</span> nothing but stay on the computer this week wading through all of the mail that was stacked up while my company was here. Of course, that is what I usually do anyway - stay on the computer following links and reading and looking at interesting things.<br /><br />Today I found site that was cake wrecks that was hilarious. This lady has even written a book about cakes and how horrendous some of them are. The funniest to me are the ones where you call in an order and they write just what you say on top of the cake. One of them said, "Happy Birthday in <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Lavender</span>." Makes you scratch your head in wonderment. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">LOL</span><br /><br />My daughter and I went to a baby shower today and boy did our friend make a haul. Gorgeous things and she is such a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">grateful</span> person. They are adopting and are thrilled out of their minds. She is going to make a wonderful mother. I had to laugh when she got things for a baby crib because I bet that baby never sees a crib. I do believe it will be one of those babies that are held all of the time. :-)<br /><br />Nothing much on the agenda for this week. Kids, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">grandkids</span>, and great granddaughter are all fine. Have talked to them and wished them all a great week.<br /><br />Later<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-76347378629042338302009-10-18T17:51:00.005-05:002009-10-18T18:04:37.966-05:00October 18, 2009<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">I have been missing in action lately. Some friends from Virginia came down for an extended visit and just left on Friday. Polly and I have been outside in my studio almost the entire time. I am all crafted out. She showed me a lot of techniques that I hadn't done before and except for the messy ones, I really enjoyed them. There is something about glitter, grit from embossing powder, and paint stained hands that I don't like at all. Of course, I couldn't find my box of rubber gloves, but for the most part, my hands came clean after a few washings.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Polly and I went to Shreveport and Alexandria to the craft shops and also got to eat and visit with my parents when we were in Alexandria. Jan, her husband, and Bill made two trips to Many and to Shreveport. They enjoyed going to several museums in Shreveport and Bossier City.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">On Friday, I left before my company left for their journey back to Virginia. I went to </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Carencro</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> to visit a friend. On Saturday we picked up a friend of hers and went to the 7-mile-long yard sale between </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Arnaudville</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> and Grand </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Couteau</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">. I was a bit disappointed in the yard sale, but did find a few things to use in my projects. I also found some neat gadgets for the kitchen for Bill at a little kitchen shop.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">I am home now and hope to quickly get back into a routine that I am used to. Hope </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">ya'll</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> have a great week.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Later</span><br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-13283284763730607492009-09-27T22:27:00.003-05:002009-09-27T23:23:29.324-05:00September 27, 2009<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">I had loads of fun <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">scrapbooking</span> this weekend with some friends. I almost finished an album for my son and his family. I still have to put down some <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">journaling</span> blocks and decorations on the page though. They will have to either journal the pages or tell me what to write as I don't know what I am looking at in the pictures. I ended up with 60 pages and only about 5 of them are blank.<br /><br />Guess I will talk about my dad's mother tonight. Her given name was Mary Ophelia <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Coulon</span> and she was born in Hamburg, Louisiana, in 1898. She had a sister and several brothers. Her parents were Pierre Albert <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Coulon</span> and Laura <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Stepp</span>. Her father was French and her mother was part Cherokee Indian. We all called her <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Mamo</span>.<br /><br />She married my grandfather, Charles Howard <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Jeffress</span>, Sr. and they had one son, my dad. I don't know when or where they met, but my grandfather was in the Army during WWI. They ended up in California. My dad was born in San Francisco, California in 1920. I don't know their ages when they had him.<br /><br />Primarily, my grandmother was a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">beautician</span> and my grandfather, after his service years, was a shoe salesman. He was from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Waxahatchie</span>, Texas. I know that they divorced when my dad was young and she married George Fluke. After George died and years later, she remarried my dad's dad and they lived in Louisiana until his death.<br /><br />At some point in time, she started doing ceramics and taught others how to do that craft. She was very proficient in China painting and also in making these ceramic dolls with lace skirts, one of which I have.<br /><br />When our family moved from California, she followed shortly and opened a ceramic business. I used to go with her to Shreveport and buy molds. It was always a special day and we would eat out at the Bamboo each time. We ate there for years until the place closed sometime after Bill and I married and moved to Louisiana. She taught ceramics in the City Park and I was her helper. I loved cleaning the ceramics, but hated doing anything else to them. I loved mixing the slip as I loved the earthy smell of it. I loved to load the kiln too.<br /><br />I guess she most influenced me. She always preached to never pass up an opportunity to learn something new and to never quit learning. Those are two of the things that have stuck with me all of my life and I have passed the ideas along to both my children and my students. She was a lifelong learner before the term was ever invented.<br /><br />She did a lot of crafts. She was also an accomplished seamstress and made most of my clothes from birth until after my children were born. I remember that she would spend ridiculous amounts of money on buttons that had to match the outfit she was making perfectly. It didn't matter to her what they cost as long as they were the perfect fit for the outfit. She is the one who taught me to sew. She even bought me a kid's sewing machine to make doll's clothes with.<br /><br />I would sit next to her and watch what she did and then we would swap seats and she would guide me as to what to do. That is how I learned to sew. I never took a lesson in school. She really made me some gorgeous clothes. She made my brothers shirts as well. I can remember some she made them that we still laugh about. The material was a synthetic nylon type and it was waffled. Hot as Hell in the summer time. Those were the boy's Sunday shirts. They would sweat up a storm on those shirts. I can still see beads of sweat on their faces when they wore those shirts.<br /><br />When I started driving, she let me be the one who drove her everywhere. She loved to go to Hot Wells outside Alexandria on Sunday afternoons. They had mineral baths and the hottest water on Earth. Once she talked me into going for a bath and it only took a foot in the water to change my mind. How in the world anyone could get into a tub of water that had to come from the core of the Earth is beyond me. Then she would have a massage. We would usually get a hamburger afterwards and head back to town.<br /><br />I spent the night at her house a lot and for breakfast we would go to Moses Cafe on Bolton Avenue and have a hamburger and coke. I guess that is where I learned to like "real" food for breakfast and not breakfast types of food. Those were the best hamburgers I have ever tasted. After breakfast, she would drop me off at school. Sometime I would stay there a whole week.<br /><br />When I was young, I was asthmatic and missed some school when I was sick. She believed, and so do I, that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Vicks</span> salve would cure anything. If I was ill, she would smear it all over my chest and then put a piece of flannel on my chest. Why the flannel, I don't have a clue.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Mamo</span> was an excellent cook. She would cook Sunday lunch and shortly after we came in from church, she would show up with our lunch. I have only eaten lamb once and that was when she cooked it. I learned to like liver the way she cooked it too. Not many kids will eat liver, but hers was really good. She could fry chicken that would melt in your mouth.<br /><br />She was generous to a fault, especially where I was concerned. I guess it was because I was the only girl that she did so much for me. It makes me feel bad to this day that my brothers didn't get as much as I did from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Mamo</span>. When I was in the 5<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">th</span> grade, she took me to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Schnack's</span> for my birthday and bought me a 1/4 <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">carat</span> diamond ring. I still have the stone.<br /><br />When I turned 15, she offered to buy me a car. I didn't want her to spend her money and told her that I didn't really need one. I honestly thought she would insist, but she must have given a sigh of relief because she never brought up a car again. Drat it!!! <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">LOL</span><br /><br />If I were sick, I would sit on her bed and she would give me her button tin and I would try and sort the buttons for hours. I would sort by how many holes they had, shank or no shank, color, texture, and on and on. I never did find a way to successfully sort buttons. When she died, that is all that I wanted of hers. Unfortunately, my dad wouldn't let us go to her house until he cleaned it out. In the process of his cleaning, he either gave away or threw away that button tin. If only he had known how much that would have meant to me, I like to think he would have saved it for me.<br /><br />Once when she was going to Chicago for a ceramic convention, we went to take her to the train. That day, I had every book from school with me. I started crying because I wanted to go and she held up the train so she could buy a ticket for me. I got to go and miss school. My mother had to mail me some clothes as I didn't have anything but the clothes on my back.<br /><br />When we arrived in Chicago, I learned what cold was. It was March and wasn't even cold enough here to have on a sweater in Louisiana. Up there waiting on a cab, I thought I would break some bones from shivering so violently. That wind swept off the lake and chilled me to the bone. We went out that afternoon and she bought me a new jacket. We never left the hotel where the convention was, but I had a new warm coat for the return trip. I can still see that beautiful <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">turquoise</span> car coat.<br /><br />In Chicago I also learned that people aren't like Southerners everywhere in the states. On the elevator ride up to our room, there was a man in a trench coat and of course I said hello. He just shrank into his coat and stared at me. I can remember being afraid of him and afraid that he would come to our room and hurt us. People in the south speak to everyone. Just two different cultures.<br /><br />When I ran off and married, I thought someone should know and I called my grandmother, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Mamo</span>, and told her, but swore her to secrecy. I bet I hadn't hung up my end of the line before she called my parents. My dad was beside himself because he had spent that weekend getting my room ready for me to come home from college and go to school in Alexandria. The next day, my husband and I were on the street in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Natchitoches</span> coming out of the bank and there was my mother. She was crying as she knew that my husband and I had broken up and then I upped and married him. I can remember her asking him if he really loved me and he said he did.<br /><br />After Kenny was killed in a car accident, I moved into an apartment and stored my stove and icebox in my grandmother's storage shed. One day <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">during</span> a monsoon storm, she called me and said she wanted my things out that day. It was a Sunday to start with and a monsoon storm raging outside. I told her that it wouldn't come out that day, but would the next. I called the Salvation Army and told them to go to her house and pick up those two things on Monday morning. After that, we were most estranged until her death.<br /><br />I was civil, but the closeness we once shared was gone as she was so ugly and demanding on the phone that Sunday. I don't know what got into her, but she fought the wrong battle with me. That, I guess, is one of my big regrets in life. I could have overlooked what she said and chalked it up to her age, but I didn't.<br /><br />One afternoon my niece and I went someplace and were near the nursing home she lived in. I asked Ashley Claire if she would go with me to see <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Mamo</span>. We had a nice visit and the next morning my dad called to say she had passed away in the night. I am so thankful that I was led to make the time to see her that day. Otherwise, I know my heart would have been heavier when she left. We were the last of the family to see her alive.<br /><br />I miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Mamo</span> to this day and wish she could see and know her great-grandchildren. She saw them when they were small, but never really got to know them when they got older. She would have enjoyed their company.<br /><br />I miss you, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Mamo</span>.<br /><br />Later<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-38559462206881859462009-09-25T16:42:00.003-05:002009-09-26T01:27:11.645-05:00September 25, 2009<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">I have been sitting here trying to decide which brother to start with, but we were a unit and I believe I will just have to tell about all three of them at the same time.<br /><br />First of all, we were close in age, three of us, and then there was John. I am the oldest, then two years later is Chuck, 18 months later is Wayne, and 7 years from Wayne, came John.<br /><br />I was born in South Carolina during WWII. After the war, my parents moved to California and that is where Chuck and Wayne were born. There were only three of us for almost 10 years of my life. We played together I guess from the beginning. I remember a few things from California, but only remember my brothers from our Louisiana days. I do, however, recall Chuck throwing a fit for his own ice cream cone at Punch and Judy's on Vine Street in Hollywood. We were all supposed to share one, but he pitched such a fit that he got his own. Maybe that is when the seed was planted that life isn't always fair. That is what Bill tells me all of the time - that we weren't promised fairness in this lifetime. I am a stickler for fairness.<br /><br />When we moved to Alexandria around 1951, we lived in a duplex. You walked into the front room and there was a hall to the left. Down the hall there were two doors on the right - kitchen and bathroom, and a door at the end of the hall - bedroom. Now, I slept on a Hollywood couch which doubled as a bed at night up in the living room. My brothers had a bed in my parents bedroom.<br /><br />I had to wait out school a year when we moved to Louisiana because they didn't have a kindergarten class in Alexandria as they had in California. I enrolled in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Rosenthal</span> Elementary School on Monroe street and went to school there for the first and second grade. My first grade teacher was named Mrs. Tower, but I don't know who my second grade teacher was. She must not have impressed me.<br /><br />In the first grade room we had tables pushed together and four of us sat facing each other by twos. I am sure this is where I learned to read, but I do not remember doing anything at that school. I remember reading about Dick, Jane, and Spot. I remember in the 2<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">nd</span> grade we had desks where the top flipped up and underneath was a place to story your things. In the top was a hole cut out for your ink bottle. As much as I loved school, it feels weird to say I don't remember anything at that school, but I do remember friends from there who I have kept through the years.<br /><br />My brothers got to play all day long when I was at school. I have no idea at all what they did. We would play in the yard when I was at home. There was a deep ditch behind our house that had reeds in it, frogs, and I bet there were snakes there too. Behind our house and down the street was a small park where we were allowed to go to swing and play. Back then, parents didn't have the worries parents face <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">nowadays</span>. I do though remember being grossed out by this older boy in that park. He called my brothers and me over to where and he caught a frog and cut its legs off and then laughed and stuffed the cut up frog down a hole. We ran for our lives and I don't remember going back there.<br /><br />Once at that house, my brother crawled underneath the house and set it on fire. Boys and matches. The fire trucks had to come put out the fire. Another time we took mail out of mailboxes and tore the mail up and threw it in the ditch. Not too long after that, some man came to the house and he was like the FBI and wanted to know if we knew about this ladies mail going missing, since she hadn't gotten her social security check. We told the man what we had done and I don't remember being punished for our transgression. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Lordy</span>, but we could have grown up criminals if we had tried a bit harder.<br /><br />My parents bought a home about eight blocks away from the duplex. It was a real house. You walked into the living room and behind it was the kitchen. To the left of the living room was a bedroom and next to the kitchen was another bedroom with a bathroom in between the two rooms. It was kind of like a box. You could run around that house because all of the rooms were connected unlike the house I finished growing up in.<br /><br />When we moved to Nelson Street, Chuck got to start school which left Wayne to his own devices. I don't know what he did all day when Chuck and I were at school. We were allowed to walk to school as it was only six blocks away and you could see the playground from our front corner. That first year at David F. Huddle Elementary School Chuck and I were on the same hall. We were just doors away from each other. After that year, we were on different halls with an auditorium between the two wings. He was a bunny rabbit in a school play with a real bunny suit and muched a carrot too. He made a cute bunny.<br /><br />He wasn't a good eater and I can remember his teacher telling him they had a 3 bite club at school. You had to take three bites of each thing on your plate in the lunchroom. I don't know if he bought that or not. I never had a problem with school food. In fact, I love, to this day, school/institutional cooking. Could those school cooks ever make some rolls. They must all use the same recipe because as many schools as I have been in, the rolls are all the best thing on the plate. Well, the greens come in second.<br /><br />When we got home, we would take off our school clothes and go outside to play until our dad came home and then it was suppertime, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">bathtime</span>, and bed. Notice I didn't mention TV. At that time, we had the TV we had in California, but in Louisiana there weren't any TV stations. It just sat there until Louisiana caught up with the rest of the world. One thing we loved doing was raking leaves into the shape of floor plans. We would then play house in the rooms we constructed. I don't know what we did when the pecan trees still had their leaves on.<br /><br />Down at the end of our street there was a lot of construction going on and after the men would leave, we would go and get scraps of wood from their burn piles. I don't remember making anything with them except a pair of stilts. We would also love to run around in 1/2 finished houses and see what the inside was going to look like. I am surprised all of us aren't architects the way we loved making our own leaf houses and going through those houses.<br /><br />At Christmastime, we would wait until people started putting their dead trees out for garbage pickup and the three of us would drag home a LOT of trees. Sometime we were lucky and they still had the stand on them. They became trees outside the forts we built with the dead trees. We loved the ones that still had <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">tensile</span> on them. It took very little to make us happy kids.<br /><br />Somewhere along 5<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">th</span> grade time for me, my mother said she was going to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">have</span> a baby. Oh, did I pray for a sister! I got another brother, but at my age, I was thrilled with him. When my parent's friends saw how good I was with a newborn, my babysitting careet took off. From 5th grade until I married, I had steady babysitting jobs. They would even call the dorm room to see if I was going to be home a certain weekend.<br /><br />A new school was built across the street from our elementary school. It was named Alexandria Junior High or AJH. I was in the first 7th grade class there and the last 8th grade class as it was moved back to the high school after my class left. We walked to that school for a while too.<br /><br />In junior high school my parents bought a newer brick house about 1.5 miles from our school on Simmons. My brothers went to E S Aiken grammer school and then on to AJH and then to Bolton. From out new house it was about a mile or so to the high school and we all walked unless some nice soul would stop and offer us a ride.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">That house on Simmons street had connecting rooms, but two of the bedrooms were a trap. If our mother had a belt in her hands, we were drawn to those rooms like June bugs to light. Why I don't know because we were trapped and suffered the consequences. Had we just stayed out of those two rooms, we could have run her ragged just making circles in the house. She would have given out way before us. My parents still live in that house.</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><br />There was a borrow pit through the back yard and the neighbors yard, across the street and through those people's yard. My brothers would live at that pond fishing. They even took my dad's boat over there and said that they would rev the motor, go about a few feet, and shut the motor down as they had gone across the pond. They would get out of the boat, turn it around and do it again, and again, and again.<br /><br />My brother Wayne took one of my mother's sterling silver wedding forks and taped it to the end of a cane pole and spread the tynes on it to make a frog gig. I remember coming home from somewhere and they were cooking frog legs on my dad's Coleman stove. They offered me a bite and it got bigger and bigger in my mouth. Probably why I don't care for frog legs to this day and too because of that boy in the park I told you about.<br /><br />Mama said that once when we had torrential rain, she looked out the front window and saw two boys in a boat moving with the current in the ditch along the highway. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was Chuck and Wayne just floating with the water. Another time she looked out side and a state trooper pulled up in her driveway with the boys in tow. They had taken my dad's shotgun to the south traffic circle (a wetlands now) and went hunting in there. They never even thought about the cars zooming around that thing. It is pretty large an area and to two young boys, it probably looked like Yellowstone National Park. Hey, it was a place to hunt.<br /><br />We never had air conditioning when I grew up, but in that house, we did have an attic fan and it was so nice at night in the summer time when we would partially close a window, click on the attic fan, and shut some doors to create this suction that would pull the window curtains far out over our beds bringing us a cooling breeze. We didn't hae air conditioned cars at first either. Our grandmother bought the first one in our family and everyone wanted to ride with Mamo. Since that time, the floor heater has been replaced and so has the attic fan with central air and heat. We didn't have a dryer either and all of the clothes were either dried on the line of on this rack over the floor heater in the hall if it was the monsoon season. That house only had and still only has one bathroom. How everyone managed to bathe everyday and use the bathroom is beyond my comprehension and I don't remember it being a problem.<br /><br />All three of my brothers make me laugh hysterically. They are just like my mother's brothers when they get together and they "embroider" stories of when we were growing up. I can't begin to tell you how funny they are. You would have to be around them to appreciate their humor.<br /><br />While we lived on Nelson Street, one year my brothers got red bikes for Christmas. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Ungrateful</span> child that I was, I got a child's sewing machine, a table and chairs to share, a doll with a real baby tub, but I didn't get a bike. I tried to act happy and I was, but they were outside riding around and I was inside bathing my doll. I was miserable, but just tried my best not to show it. After all, I probably got more than they did with all of the girly things. Well, after lunch, my grandmother said for us to come outside and look under the house. She had hidden my beautiful blue bike under there and I guess it was her way of surprising me. That was one of my happiest memories as a child.<br /><br />We all gained immense freedom with those bikes. As I said earlier, parents didn't worry about bad things happening to their children back then. Our street wasn't paved and neither was a main road a block away. We rode those bikes all the way to the city park which was at least a mile away from home. There was a gully in the park and water had <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">eroded</span> the land which made some hills and valleys. We were scared to death because it looked like to us we were at the top of the mountain and then we would zoom down to the bottom and up another hill all to do all over again. We spent hours riding those hills. As an adult I went back to see those hills and had to laugh out loud. They looked so steep to us when we were children on our bikes, but they were just little <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">indentions</span> in the ground.<br /><br />Around the fifth grade, the city came to pave our street. Gosh, but I bet we worried those poor workers to death. Our mother made gallons and gallons of Kook Aid that we would sell to the workers for pennies a glass. We were in business for ourselves at 10, 8, and 6. John would have still been too small to hang out with us. There came a time that the drains were laid along with the concrete pipes throughout our end of town. The workers would cover the manholes when they left for the day. That is when the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Jeffress</span> kids <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">swang</span> into action. Off we would pop those covers, and would roam the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">labyrinth</span> of culverts. I am so thankful there wasn't a heavy rainfall when we were down there. We would have probably been washed down to the Red River never to be seen again. It was so much fun down there and our voices carried for miles and miles.<br /><br />On Nelson street </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">dressed up in my clothes so when our dad came home we could trick him into believing the boys had left and he now had only daughters. He knew better, but would carry on anyway. My mother says that when I would come in from school, I would make my brothers gather around this little kids table we had and teach them what I had learned that day at school. That is probably one of the reasons none of them particularly cared for school when they got there. I think they also got the line, "Oh, you are Jane's brother!"</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><br />My oldest brother and I ended up being pretty close once we got to high school. His friends were my friends and we did pretty much everything together. I guess Wayne was a bit young for us at that time. I know John was just a small boy.<br /><br />After graduation, Chuck joined the Army for four years. During that time I was in college and then married. He got married shortly after doing his duty. He didn't have any children by that marriage. He married again and had two sons, but that marriage didn't last either. He is still married to his current wife and raised her daughter as his own.<br /><br />He started as a driver for UPS and worked his way up to management and was what I call a sharp shooter for the company. If they had a center that wasn't performing up to snuff, he was sent in to fix the situation. Now he fishes and has a dog named Rudy.<br /><br />Wayne quit school and joined the Marines. He earned his GED while in the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">service</span> and I remember my mother saying that the principal at Bolton High School, Mr. Pate, called her one day to come and pick up his diploma. She said she was so happy that she cried. When Wayne got out of the service, he too married, but as I understand it, Chuck's wife told Wayne's wife that she didn't have to put up with his hunting and fishing and that marriage ended in divorce. We still love that wife. They didn't have any children. He married again and had his first son, but that marriage ended as well. He ended up raising his son along with his third wife and her son. They have a boy and girl who are now graduated. Three of their children are in or have been in the military. Two are/were Marines like my brother and the other is in the Navy.<br /><br />Wayne is the brother who always got hurt. We were out shooting arrows and when it was Chuck's turn, he told Wayne to get out of the way and Wayne ran into a barbed wire fence and sliced his head open. Off to the emergency room and I don't remember target practicing ever again. He and Chuck were fishing on the Red River and his foot slipped off a culvert and he sliced open his foot. Off to the emergency room. Got his foot stitched up and walking back to the car barefooted stepped on a broken bottle and had to return to the emergency room to have that one stitched up too. At my mother's choir practice someone told him there was caramel candy in these bottle tops and he dug it out and ate it. Off to the emergency room to have his stomach pumped out since it was poison. When he was a toddler, he somehow or other crawled out of his crib, up to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">countertop</span> in the kitchen and my mother found him eating some pills she had from her pregnancy with him. Off to the emergency room to have his stomach pumped out. I guess you could say he had a spell of bad luck.<br /><br />John went from high school into selling vehicles. He has won many national awards for his salesmanship. He is divorced from his third wife and didn't have any children with any of his wives, but did adopt his second wife's daughter, who he loves dearly. He is still in sales, but is now the leader of salesmen. I haven't seen it, but my parents say he has a lovely home that he has fixed up beautifully.<br /><br />All threee of my brothers inherited my dad's gift of being able to draw and paint. None, but Johh, pursue that gift. He does some really lovely pen and ink drawings with watercolors added. I have a few of his pieces. I can't draw a straight line with a ruler and although my mother tried to teach me to knit, I can't do that either. I do love to sew which I learned from my grandmother and do scrapbooking and card making. I like crafts.<br /><br />I have given you but a glimpse of my brothers. We fought like cats and dogs, but would kill for each other if we had to. I am glad now that I was the only girl with three brothers. I didn't have any competition when I was growing up. :-)<br /><br />Later<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-75093515171075423682009-09-24T21:19:00.003-05:002009-09-24T22:08:29.764-05:00September 24, 2009<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">I just love snapdragons. There are some growing outside my back door. Did you know you can pinch the flower off, put your fingers on either side where the flower separates, mash, and voile', you have a puppet? We used to play with them when we were children and could find them. They aren't something everyone grows. My husband knows that I love them and keeps me some to play with. Yes, I still have to play with snapdragons.<br /><br />Today I will share some things about my dad. He is called Jeff and I think I forgot to say my mom is another Jane. My dad is a junior, my brother the III, and his son the IV. Would you believe we all have the same middle name? My mother was going to name me Laura Jane after my paternal great-grandmother and herself. However, I was a WWII baby and when I was born my dad was shipping out. He wanted to have someone carry a family name and since I was the first child, I got the honor of having a boy's name. My middle name is Howard. There was only one teacher who was allowed to call me by my whole name, Jane Howard, and I kept it a secret until I grew up. If someone found out, I would almost go into hiding. Now it doesn't bother me in the least, but back then I might as well have had a red A printed on my forehead. I had a wise teacher in college who told us to choose a child's name wisely as they would have to bear it <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">thoughout</span> their lives and to watch what their initials spelled too. For instance, my husband's initials spell WET. Guess it was meant for us to hook up with names like we had.<br /><br />My dad was born in California and spent his young years there and in Oregon. His dad was a veteran and they moved from post to post. He ended up in a military school at a young age and I guess it was with his best interest in mind with having to move schools, but I always thought it was very cruel of his parents to leave him so young. He is an only and how he ever survived four of us is beyond me. He likes his peace and quiet and I know for a fact that for years and years he never had any peace with a daughter and three younger sons.<br /><br />He learned to fly an airplane before he was old enough to get his driver's license. He graduated from Hollywood High School and was friends with a lot of people who later became movie stars. He was left to his own devices with both parents working and has told about one of his fond memories of removing a manhole cover, snaking his way with a sack of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">leechy</span> nuts, and going onto the flats in the San Francisco Bay area. It is a wonder he didn't drown when the tide came in. He would eat his nuts and feed the birds with them as well.<br /><br />My dad was an artist from the start and was even offered a job working for Walt Disney. After high school, he moved to Louisiana with his mother and started going to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">LSU</span> in Baton Rouge. WWII interrupted his schooling, but in his later years he would come back and finish three degrees and teach at Louisiana College in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Pineville</span>, Louisiana. He became a pilot and then a pilot instructor in what I believe was called the Army-Air Force back then. He was stationed at Shaw AFB in Sumter, South Carolina, where he met my mother.<br /><br />Her best friend liked his best friend and they were young and could only double date. Betty Ann begged my mother to date my dad so she could see his friend, Casey. My mother said she didn't like my dad because he was so full of himself like a lot of pilots are/were. She dated him so her friend could see his friend. In the wind up, they had a double wedding and each recently celebrated their 65<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">th</span> wedding anniversaries.<br /><br />My dad was stationed in Burma and flew the HUMP. He said that after the war ended, he would return to base and there were bullet holes in his plane. Word hadn't reached the fighters in the mountains that the war was over.<br /><br />After the war, my parents moved to Hollywood where my father was in business with his mother. He was a florist and did doctor's offices, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">restaurants</span>, and movie stars flowers. I can remember getting up at the crack of dawn and going with him to the flower market. It seems there were alleyways filled with cans that had fresh flowers stuck inside and he would buy what he needed for that day. I am wondering if my mom had fresh flowers that were leftovers at the end of the day. I just don't know. We would go on deliveries into the mountains and people had their homes built out on ledges and that might be where I got my fear of heights. I remember seeing the twinkling lights of LA down in the valley area.<br /><br />My mother was a continent away from her family and being from a tight knit family, she was miserable. She had her sister come for a visit, but I don't know if her parents were ever able to make that trip. The did have two of my brothers out there in Burbank. I don't know if she said she would leave or what, but it was decided that they would move to Louisiana where my dad had relatives and she would only be 1000 miles from home. The had also decided that they didn't want to raise children in that rat race either.<br /><br />We looked like the Grapes of Wrath moving across country. My dad had an old green Packard car and pulled a thing behind the car with all of our earthly possessions in it. One lady promised my mother she would mail my doll high chair, but that was history. I never saw it again. I left behind my kindergarten class too. Once in Louisiana, my dad set up shop as a florist again, but I don't guess he could make enough to support five of us. He went to work for a timber company as their purchasing agent, pilot, printer, safety man, and Lord only knows what else. He was with them for 20 years and then my mother went to work to support him while he finished his education. She was a school health nurse while he was in school.<br /><br />When I was 10 years old, my brother, John, came along. It was like he was my <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">baby doll</span>. I can remember getting him out of his crib if he whimpered, as we shared a room, and my mom yelling that I had better not have him out of the crib. He never had a chance to cry if I was around.<br /><br />Before too long, I was in college and gone from the nest. My dad was back in school and studying art, his life. He has always loved the southwest and all of his art was of mountains and aspens. All of the work was from the perspective of a pilot. When he still worked for the timber company, he also did commercial art work for a printer and I have seen him at the drafting table well into the night. By this time there were six mouths to feed and one paycheck didn't make it.<br /><br />He graduated from Louisiana College and went on to Stephen F. Austin college in Texas where he got his master's and terminal degree in art. He came back and taught art at Louisiana College until he opened his own gallery. He was a very successful artist and when he turned about 80, we convinced him it was time to put it down and enjoy his later years. He has since taken up golf and it is a passion with him like everything else he has done.<br /><br />I get my drive from my dad. His mother <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">always</span> said you are never too old to learn and to never pass up an opportunity to learn something new. I guess he got his drive from her and passed it down to my brothers and me. He encouraged me to go to college and earn a degree. My mother didn't understand why I would give up a good job at a department store to go to college. I am thankful for his encouragement as it has served me well. He is someone to look up to. Both of my parents have been good parents in many ways and have erred too. None of us is perfect. Except for a few regrets, I am glad that I listened to their advice.<br /><br />Later<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-69472307999040021362009-09-23T20:12:00.002-05:002009-09-23T20:37:09.310-05:00<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">I wasn't able to write last night as I think I have the flu. I had chills yesterday and couldn't get warm until Bill made some chicken noodle soup and then I was peeling out of socks, my flannel shirt, and out from under the cover. That warmed me up considerably. I have felt like a mac truck ran over me and then made another pass to make sure the job was done. Today, I have felt a bit better and have caught up on my email.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Today I think I will write about my mother. I guess she is on my mind because she called today to say they had snow at Red River, but had gone on to see some of the trees and a deep gorge. Glad it is them seeing the gorge because heights and I don't get along at all. It would be torture for me to even be near something deep.<br /><br />My mom is a knitter. At 84, those needles are clacking all the time. She loves making baby things and I believe everyone in the immediate and extended family has something she has knitted for their baby. She also knits the most wonderful wash clothes. They are soft and I am kind of ashamed to say I don't use mine. I am saving them for a rainy day. I just don't want to mess them up. I might never get another one.<br /><br />Mama was a stay-at-home mother. She did play bridge once a month, but you could always find her when school was out. She didn't like cooking then, but makes the most wonderful potato salad, tuna fish, congealed salads, and we learned to love hot dogs and hamburgers. We were laughing the other day when I was there for a visit saying that we ate good on Sundays. My dad's mother would cook a full meal and bring it to our house. My brothers would meet her at the car and try and get to the food before she got it into the house. Her specialty was fried chicken and these roll-ups with chili peppers in them. You take some crescent rolls, flatten them out, put a piece of pepper from the can of Old El <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Paso</span>, and a stick of cheese, roll them up and bake them. I think I could eat one million of them. She was a good cook. Mama's cooking has improved over the years and she can set out a delicious meal.<br /><br />Our mom had us doing chores although she was always at home. I don't know what chores my brothers had, but I had to keep the bathroom spotless, eat off the floor spotless and clean. I also had to wash and dry the dishes. She would help if she and I wanted to go after supper to play tennis. She was quite the tennis player and could beat the socks off me. She grew up with clay courts across from where she grew up. If either of us could get around again, we would be out at the city park lobbing that ball around. She knew if she could get me to laughing, I was worthless on the court. She would go into a low stance and start swinging from side to side and that would do it for me. It is hard to serve if you are laughing hard.<br /><br />Mama loved to visit with her friends and still does. We went a lot of places with her and could she ever make a dollar stretch. Once in a while she would take us to the A & W Root Beer place where we could get a hamburger and root beer. Fond memories.<br /><br />Not much fazes my mother and she keeps up with the times. She is much more flexible than I am and never sees the bad in anyone. She is almost <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">naive</span> if you ask me. She sings in her choir and the doors to the church never open unless both parents are there. Once in a while they will miss, but it is because we are having a family function someplace out of their town. Otherwise, they will be in that church.<br /><br />Mama and I haven't always seen eye-to-eye on much, but we still get along and if she gets on my nerves, I just leave and come home.<br /><br />My mother is one of eight (now there are only four left) children and she knows how to share. She would give you the shirt off her back if you wanted it. Honestly!!! Her family was a tight one and it has been hard on her to lose siblings and not be able to run to South Carolina for their funerals. Her family always encourages her to stay put and not make the trip home when someone dies. It is hard if you are young to get around in the Atlanta terminal and I think they would worry themselves to death if she tired to do that at her age.<br /><br />I wish I had 1/10 the memory cells that my mom has. She can remember back to when she was in the crib and her grandmother coming in to tell her she had a brand new brother. She can <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">describe</span> her dresses when she was a toddler, her dolls (she still loves dolls to this day), what went on in the household, and at school, and I sit in wonder at her memory. I have tried many times to get her to journal these things, but to no avail.<br /><br />My mother still has her South Carolina drawl after living in Louisiana for probably 60+ years. It take her forever to tell you something, she still uses words that are foreign to our ears like "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">al</span>-U-min-e-um" for aluminum. She is one classy Southern lady.<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-78363434357660243762009-09-21T23:56:00.003-05:002009-09-22T00:50:05.111-05:00September 21, 2009<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">I was just reading a blog where the woman told about a person a day and it got me thinking - I wonder if I can think of 365 people who I can talk about. I think I can.<br /><br />#1 Bill<br />Bill and I met back in 1970. Back then, he was a Roman Catholic priest stationed in my hometown. I went to midnight mass one Christmas and there was like an aura around him while he was preaching. No lie! Whatever he said that night gave me the courage I needed to want to take instructions in the Catholic faith. <br /><br />I was strongly influenced my my paternal great-grandfather. I never saw <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Poppee</span> put one bite of food into his mouth that he didn't recite his Rosary. I really didn't know what he was doing at the time because I was raised a Methodist, but it impressed itself on my young brain. My next door neighbor and another friend two doors down were both Catholic girls. I guess there were a lot of Catholics in our neighborhood. Even before them, my across-the-street neighbor was Catholic and I can remember them not having the same holidays as we did in school. When we were out and they had to go to school, I would go with them.<br /><br />The nuns were fascinating to me and boy did they demand respect. When they walked into the classroom, everyone stood until told to be seated. I went to public school and we didn't have anything remotely like that. I looked forward to our holidays so I could go with them to school. My first piano teacher was Sister <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Francilla</span> and was she ever a stickler for playing the piano with form. If your hands weren't curved just right over the keys, she would take the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">thinnest</span> baton and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">whap</span> you across the knuckles. You paid attention to what she said.<br /><br />Getting back to Bill. After the new year came, I called the rectory and told the secretary I wanted to take instructions and didn't want the black headed priest or the old one, but I wanted the one with the red hair. I understand that they really got a kick out of that request. I took my instructions and after Kenny, my husband, came home from his stint in the Army, he watched the children, bought me a new dress, and I was baptised by Bill. He heard my first confession and gave me my first communion. My landlord and teacher at the high school I graduated from was my sponsor.<br /><br />When Kenny was killed in an auto accident, it was time for confirmation and Mary Ann, our secretary, asked me if I was going to invite Father Bill. I said I didn't know I was supposed to do that and she said I was. I called the rectory and was told he had been transferred to Shreveport and was given the phone number. I called him and invited him. He said if possible he would be there.<br /><br />The night of the confirmation we were all dressed in robes and marched into the church and were seated together. In came all of the priests, probably 20+ of them. When I saw him, I thought it would be so neat to have a husband like him as he was so kind and understanding. Of course, I feared I would be struck by lightening having a thought like that in the church. As my saints name, I picked Jude. When the Bishop got to me and I gave him my name, he was kind of taken aback. I guess most women take on lady saints names.<br /><br />Afterwards, Bill introduced me to the Bishop, Bishop <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Greco</span>, and told me to stay on the steps of the church. He ran off into the night with his cassock flapping in the breeze. Here he came with a wrapped gift that I still have, a paperweight with a cross inside of it. He then said goodnight and went off with the rest of the priests for supper.<br /><br />At work the next day, I wrote a thank you note and asked Mary Ann, a Catholic, to read it and see if it was appropriate. I told her that one day I wished I could find someone like him to marry. She asked me if I were serious and I said I was. She said let me help you write the note. Between the two of us, we wrote one that could be read between the lines. :-) He read between the lines.<br /><br />At that time, I didn't know he was doubting whether or not he had made the right decision on becoming a priest. He said that as soon as you got settled in a place and made friends of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">parishioners</span>, the Church would transfer you out to somewhere else and there was never a feeling of belonging. We talked on the phone and when he was in Alex we would see each other. Ours was a courtship of letters and phone calls. In late June of 1972, we spent the day riding the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">backroads</span> and talking. He made the decision to talk to the Bishop and tell him he was unsure he wanted to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">remain</span> a priest.<br /><br />The Bishop said for him to take a sabbatical and go off far away and think about it. He asked me if I liked the mountains and I said I loved the mountains. Now, a mountain to me was a place called Red Dirt which is a state preserve south of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Natchitoches</span>. If you are at the lookout place there, you can see for miles around. I thought it was a mountain, really.<br /><br />He said he would go to Denver to think and he did. We talked on the phone every night and wrote volumes of letters which are in a box out in our barn. It was apparent that we would end up together and we decided to wait until mid-term so <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Melyssa</span> could finish part of her school year. In November when I got my phone bill, it was about $2000 which was an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">unbelievable</span> sum in those days. Instead of waiting and getting another bank breaker phone bill, I went to my parents and told them I was moving to Denver to be with him. <br /><br />Keep in mind that my parents had never laid eyes on Bill and I was taking their only grandchildren at that time halfway across the country. My mind was made up and I resigned from my job and hired the movers to fetch my things. He lived downtown in an apartment and found the children and me a house in a suburb not too far away. After about two weeks with those living arrangements, we got a marriage license and saw a judge who married us between court cases. We had to run back and pick up Heath from kindergarten and the three of us went on our <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">honeymoon</span> to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">IHOP</span>. He let his apartment go and moved to the house.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Also, I learned that I didn't like the mountains and wanted back on flat land. Once there, he took me up to Lookout Mountain with kids in tow and with a picnic lunch. He went up the backside which was switchbacks and steep. I thought in the mountains there would be a rail or something to keep you from falling off the road, but there wasn't. If you looked down, you would see pieces of metal. Probably where cars had crashed down the mountain. Right then and there, I realized what I thought was a mountain wasn't even a bump in the road. Mountains are nice to look at, but not something I wanted to live in. I was terrified of them.</span></span></span></span> <span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Heights and I don't do well together.</span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">While we lived in Denver, Bill was a manager of a McDonald's working for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Copus</span> Corporation. We got to come home our second Christmas out there and my dad and youngest brother came out for a visit the next summer. My brother lost a finger while I was gone from home and there wasn't money for me to come home. When Bill's dad called to see if we wanted to come home and take over the farm, we jumped at the chance to get back home. Our farming lasted about three or four days and it was apparent that you <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">couldn't</span> have two farmers on one farm.</span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">I got a job teaching since I had earned my certification in Denver and Bill went back to school for a year and a half to get his teacher's license. We are both retired educators. He raised the children as his own and although <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Melyssa</span> remembers her dad, Heath doesn't. They were so young when he got killed so that is why they don't have a good memory of him.</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><br />Bill is one of the kindest and nicest persons anyone would ever want to meet. He is an only child, but isn't a selfish one. He has always given freely not only with is money, but also with his time. He is the one who taught the kids how to cook and even had Heath breaking eggs with one hand when he was only five. I remember the two of them cooked veal pinwheels as Heath's first cooking of a meal.<br /><br />I think I made a wise decision and my family loves Bill. He is such a fair person, he is wise, and has been a fantastic grandfather and now a great-grandfather. Funny how I would probably have killed my children if they had up and done something like I did, but I have no regrets. I hope he doesn't either.<br /><br />Later<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461889791371563709.post-61245224396349186832009-09-17T20:53:00.005-05:002009-09-17T22:13:32.373-05:00September 17, 2009<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Of all things, I have caught a cold. Drat!!! I wonder if it is because I got my flu shot or if it is just one of those things. I bet I sneezed 20 time in a row last night without stopping.<br /><br />We went for check-ups and our doctor said we needed exercise. I could have saved her some time on that one. How well do I know how badly I need to exercise. She suggested a stationary bike and I told her we have one in the shed that is probably 20 years old. Her next suggestion was to join a gym. Well, since I had therapy after her, I purchased a couples plan at the gym where I go for therapy. The way I look at it is, if I have spent that much money, surely to goodness I will make the time to drive those 22 miles one way and go.<br /><br />Forty-four years ago today <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Melyssa</span> was born. We are going out tomorrow night for supper with them to celebrate. We saw Terrell in the big W today and he said he called her office to tell her secretary to wish her a happy birthday since she hoped to fly under the radar all day long. They went out and bought a cake and did a party. That was very thoughtful and nice of them.<br /><br />Bill went for his first gym session today when I was doing therapy. He said he was surprised that he wasn't sore. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Hahaha</span>. Just wait until tomorrow. I increased my numbers on this machine where your ankles go behind a bar and you swing your legs out and up and I think maybe I needed to leave it alone. Talk about stiff and sore. It isn't even tomorrow and I can hardly walk.<br /><br />I hear my new clock playing music in the other room. I have had my eye on it for about a year and the other day when I was in the jewelry store picking up a ring, I told the girl that I wanted it. She said I could put it on layaway, but I told her I might be dead as a doornail by the time it got paid for. I had a bit of money tucked aside and went on and got it. It has the sweetest music on the hour. I might have to move it into the bedroom so I can hear it better. If I am busy, I miss hearing it. At Christmas, it has some songs for that time of the year. I love that clock and am so glad I treated myself to it.<br /><br />Most everything that needed doing from the fallout of the non-wedding has been done. I thought of one more person who needed to be called, but <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Melyssa</span> said that Emily Anna had already taken care of it. Looks like it will still be raining this weekend and that would have spoiled the outdoor wedding anyway. Things do have a way of working out for the best. We will look back on this time a few years down the line and hopefully can find something to laugh about. I know one thing, I don't have to look at the groom's cake and I won't even tell you what it was going to be. So there is some sunshine in all of this rain. :-)<br /><br />Tonight I believe I will work on a journal that I am still painting pages in for my granddaughter-in-law to put the cute things that you think you will remember about your baby that you forget. I will do a sample page or two for her, but it is just a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">speckeldy</span> notebook where I glued pages together, painted the pages with art paint, and then if you can't draw, you just clip pictures and words from magazines and glue them to the page. You can write in all kinds of handwriting like caps, print, cursive, ghost letters and color in the space, etc. I put ribbon around the cover so it would tie shut and then put wallpaper over that to dress up the front and back. She is always so appreciative and I believe she will like this. Makes <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">journaling</span> fun when it has art in it.<br /><br />My parents leave for out west and will follow my middle brother and his wife there. They plan to do some fly fishing and just lazing around. Then my folks will leave them and go see some friends in New Mexico. My dad used to be an artist before he retired and all of his work is of the mountains out west and the aspens. He wants to see the leaves change color one more time. He will be 90 next year and this will probably be their last trip west.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Melyssa</span> and I are going to see them this Saturday and take her dress for the wedding back, take things back to Michael's, and also to Hobby Lobby. I know she has no use for the flowers for the two silk arrangements that were going to be at the reception along with the roses. There are tons of candles that she will never use either. Just lots of this and that and hopefully she has all of her receipts and can recover some of her hard earned money.<br /><br />Vallie came today and my house is sparkling. If I were wealthy, I would have her every day. I love a clean and straightened home, but don't like doing it myself. Not something that finds its way onto my daily agenda. She will come back next week and fix it up again before my friend Polly and her husband arrive for a two week visit.<br /><br />I don't know where she and Jan will sleep in their camper thing because she is bringing all of her art things, I do believe. I have to laugh because I will get an email asking if she needs to bring such and such. Nice that I have most all of what she wants to bring and at least they will have a place to lay down at night. They have the largest camper that you drag behind a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">dooley</span> truck and I can just see it stuffed to the brim with artsy-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">craftsy</span> stuff. Wonder why we have to have a stash so large to put out a card or two or a scrapbook or two. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">LOL</span><br /><br />I believe my chef is about to call me to the table. We had a sandwich late and so supper is late tonight. Maybe I won't have a dream like the other night when I woke myself up calling to Heath. I was hollering his name so loud that I actually woke up. He was about a football's length from me and I needed for him to look my way to tell him something. Dreams are really strange and I wonder what makes us have some of them. Mine are all in color which makes it interesting too.<br /><br />Later<br /></span></span></span></span>Jane Jeffress Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07168132945656382882noreply@blogger.com1