ABC's of My Town

My first entry for the ABC's of my town.  

A~B~C is this week!

Some ABC's of the Shoals are... 

Apple Blossom from my neighbor's yard

Artwork on the side of a building in North Florence,

Home of such businesses as Bragwell's Barber Shop and

Peck Ace Hardware

Artwork Close Up

Blooms at UNA

Bridge over Shoal Creek...now closed, but it would make a

wonderful pedestrian bridge...

Columns at Christ Chapel, Petersville

Cardinals in the Snow (January, 2011)

Should you decide to play along, The Rules are simple: 

• All photos should be current, that is, shot in 2011.
• Try to keep the shots as close to home as possible…showcase your area as much as you can...but if you get some great vacation shots, use them!
• It must be your photography

If you post some pictures...even if you don't do all the ABC's...leave a comment and a link so that I can see them!

Conversations Outside My Head

A little different take on Monday Musings....

Me: (with camera draped around my neck) Does my necklace look too ostentatious?

Co-Worker: Well, it is a little flashy.

Me: I think it’s supposed to rain this weekend.

Co-Worker: Whatever. You can keep dry on the couch.

Ole Boy: (putting gas in my car) I miss the old way of getting gas.

Me: When they pumped it for you?

Ole Boy: Syphoning.

Me: I feel like I’m late if I’m not at work by 7:40.

Cousin: I feel like I’m late if I get there at 8:01…because uh, then I am!

Friend: Me first!

Me: OK.

Friend: Never mind. If you’re letting me, it can’t be good for me.

Four year old Samara: (showing me a band-aid on her toe) I was getting a big fingernail off my toe.  I made it sore.

Me:   Why didn’t you get someone to clip that “fingernail” off your toe?

Samara:   Because I was chewing it.

This is the kick off week for the ABC’s of My Town Photo Challenge.   I’m off this week and had planned to get some good shots…but I don’t think the weather is going to cooperate!    If, by chance, you plan to participate in posting pictures of your own, please drop back by here and leave a link to your blog!    Click HERE for a sample entry!

Head Noise

At any given time, there are three or four conversations going on in my head.   One of those conversations I will be having with someone else; the rest of them are in my head.   I don’t know what’s in your brain (and aren’t you happy about that!) but my brain is like the energizer bunny....it keeps going and going.  

Picture, if you can, a large rubber band ball.  

If you can’t, here’s an image to help you: 

About every 7 seconds, shoot 20 – 30 of the bands.  That’s the constant barrage of thoughts through my head (and not all are nice and pleasant...I know you can't believe that!)   Now, add to that the outside conversations throughout the day (in which I’m expected to participate).   Finally, weave a big ribbon through the ball, which is the song I heard at some point yesterday that landed in my waves and won’t go away.  

Today, the song was Sin Wagon, as sung by Carrie Underwood on American Idol several years ago.   In the midst of “If it rains, I left my umbrella in the car/It’s hot in here/I don’t like my sweater today, but it looks better than the chick in front of me on the stairs earlier/Where’s my pencil/No, my other pencil, the blue one/Man, it’s hot in here/Those poor people in Japan/Haiti, too/Sudan, too/I need to make a car payment/Insurance, too/Maybe it will be better if I take this sweater off” is Carrie’s twangy voice singing a jumbled version of Sin Wagon.

So, my brain waves look more like this:

I hope the rains washes the bird poop off my car (Praise the Lord, pass the ammunition…) I’m glad I took my sweater off/I need to stop at Dollar General and pick up some paper towels (I need a little bit more of what I’ve been missing…) Liz Taylor died today!  I thought she was older than that (I don’t know where I’ll be crashing…) I can’t believe she and Debbie Reynolds ended up being friends! (I don’t know where I’ll be crashing…) I wonder if that kid cares I’m still being assaulted by the mental image of her too-low pants showing me WAY-MORE than I wanted to see while going up the stairs (but I’m arriving on a sin wagon…) This song is borderline sacrilegious…it can’t be something God hums to Himself…why do I keep singing it???

Welcome to my Head Noise!

Nothing!

If I hadn’t been watching the Biggest Loser (and eating my cookies while watching), and if I had slept better last night…and if I weren’t so tired tonight, you would be reading something that actually made a little more sense than this run-on sentence, but I didn’t want to miss another day of posting in my Blogging with Discipline for the month of March endeavor.

Tomorrow, I may wonder why in the world I posted this (and you may be wondering that as you read this) but for tonight…I blogged with mindless discipline.

Are you still reading, hoping for some brilliance??   Let me direct you here….clicky <<<< to a random previous post from 2009.    It's not brilliant, but it's better than what you just read!  

Have a good Hump Day.

Monday Musings

Dear Lady at WalMart, too busy answering your phone to realize your purse was still in your buggy as you were getting into your car:

Oh, wait.   That was me.   (Thanks, Nice Lady, for calling my attention to it.)

Dear Self:

The WalMart list you made doesn’t do you any good at home while you’re shopping.

Dear Professor:

Someone lied to you when they told you your pants length was 31.   It’s 32….or more like 33.

Dear Nancy,

Mom said I better not write stories of her losing her temper when we were little.   So be sure not to mention this!

Dear Blogger:

I’ve noticed you hate…with a solid hatred…people who think/believe differently than you.   It really stands out in your writing and your comments that you are doing the very thing you accuse them of doing.

Dear America,

In view of the current world situation, will you blast and blame Obama as much as you did Bush?

Dear America,

Don’t forget to pray!

The Lord's Day

I can be such a baby at times.  (As I typed that, I remembered how mad it makes me when someone calls me a baby.)    I don’t like to stay by myself, and Ole Boy was gone last night.   Normally, I have at least two lights on in the house at all times.   When Ole Boy is gone, I will have 3 or 4 turned on.   Last night, however, I begged my daughter to spend the night after her night out.   She finally consented to do it, but she had to be seriously bribed with the promise of a Shoney’s breakfast buffet this morning.

When I woke up, my head was hurting so badly, I could have sworn I had a hangover, that’s how bad I felt.    I mean…it hurt how bad I’ve HEARD a hangover feels.   :::Ahem:::   It took two sinus pills, two ibuprofen and two naps before it finally eased up.   I fulfilled my promise to take her out to breakfast, however.

From the moment Ole Boy walked out of the house yesterday morning, Peppy knew something wasn’t right, and he started to whimper.   He sat on the back of the couch for an hour whimpering like he was in pain (he wasn’t, he already had his pain meds) until he finally fell asleep.   I put him in his kennel while I went to WalMart, and when I came back in he was doing a death howl.   It really scared me, because I had a dog to do that and die several years ago.   The silly hound was just fine, though.    He wouldn’t even go to bed last night.   He stayed on the recliner all night.   This morning, he stuck his nose in every room and took a sniff looking for Ole Boy.    Silly dog!    I will post a video one day of how he acts when Ole Boy and I hug.   It’s comical; he carries on like a baboon. 

Ole Boy called me from Nashville and asked me if I wanted to go out for dinner when he gets home.   In the words of Charlie Sheen:   Winner!  Duh!    He’s only been gone for a little over 24 hours, but I’ve missed him.    I don’t think I’d do very well for very long with my Ole Boy.    I sure He sure puts up with a lot.   I can’t imagine life without him.  

One more working week and then I’m off for a week!   I am so incredibly blessed.   If I ever dared to complain about my job, I give you permission to smack me.   But only one of you!   I don’t want folks lining up to take a turn!

I don’t know if anyone noticed (or cared) that I missed a day on my blogging with discipline endeavor.   But I noticed, as I was looking back over the month (after a co-worker asked me about my “photo blog”) that I haven’t posted any photos all month!   So…

Big Yellow Moon in a Southern Sky.... 

Olivia

Ashton, Devon, Olivia

Silly boys!

Handsome boys!

Ashton is showing us how many

of his teeth are missing.

Have a great week! 

Saturday...

Little children wear me out.   Samara and Olivia are spending the night with me tonight, and I feel like I’ve done manual labor all night.    I have a feeling I know why God gives us children when we’re young!  I’m not sure I could do this every day!    Although...I’d probably lose weight.

Today, some of my high school classmates met for an informal get-together.   I didn’t go…but I’ve been looking at some of the pictures they are posting on Facebook.   I plan to go next year to the official reunion, and I let them all know that showing up today didn’t excuse them from the next one.

The last reunion we had planned…nearly nine years ago…was the same time Devon was at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis.   More exact, the day of the reunion was the day we got home, having finally found out that he didn’t have cancer after all.    It was a very emotionally and physically draining experience.    I had, up until Devon’s ordeal, planned to go to the reunion.  

If ever you are looking for a worthy cause for donations, St. Jude should be at the top of your list.    There is no way I can describe to the wonderful care two very poor kids and one sick baby received while they were there.   They were treated no differently just because they didn’t have any money.   I know this because they couldn’t have been treated any nicer. 

Because of many (sweet) interruptions, it’s taken me over two hours just to type these few words…it’s now way-yonder past my bedtime!

Good Night…..

Breakfast and Baby Aspirin

When I was little, before the myriad of children’s medicine available now, we had Bayer baby aspirin, and I loved it.   It came only in orange flavor, and getting one or two of those little orange nuggets was one of the good things about being sick.    Staying out of school was another, unlike when you’re all grown up and have to go to work when you’re sick.   The only good thing about that is possibly spreading your germs to a certain co-worker you don't like.  When I worked for Mr. Big, I was tempted to go cough on his desk a time or two.   But I digress.

As a kid when I was sick, Mom always gave me a little extra attention.    That was the one time when I got the couch all to myself.   Sick?  Own the couch!    My blanket and pillow and me, all tucked in, right in the middle of the house, so that every time Mom passed by she could “check” on me.   The extra attention factor was nice because with five kids, it can feel like there’s not enough Mom to go around.   My mom always seemed to be able to handle it, though.

Every morning throughout the school year, I would get up to a warm, home cooked breakfast, unless it was Friday.   Sometimes, that was Pop Tart day.   I loved Pop Tarts, even more than baby aspirin, plus I didn’t have to be sick.   I hear it was different for my oldest sister.   Mom, with five little children, wasn’t always able to cook breakfast for Gina during her elementary years.  (Mom had 5 kids in 6 years.   Yeah, I know.)   I remember Mom saying some years ago that she felt Gina deserved a cooked breakfast through high school, which meant, of course, that I got it all through elementary school.

The bus picked us up right outside our house, but a few of the neighborhood kids had to walk a half a block or so in order the catch the bus.   On the really cold mornings, Mom let a couple of sisters, Glenda and Debbie, come inside the house and wait with us for the bus.  

It was a life time ago.   My brother bought the house we were raised in, and he lives not so very far from me.   Every now and then I run into Debbie, or another childhood friend, and the memories that flood in are pleasant like a warm, homemade breakfast on a cold day.

What made me take this trip down memory lane?   Tums has sugar free, extra strength-750, orange crème flavored tablets, and they taste just like Bayer baby aspirin.

Out of respect for my cousins,

...Who are my wonderful friends...

Because of the loss of their beloved "Bam" today

My blogs will be silent tonight.

I am so sorry.

Day 15: Blogging With Discipline

It’s late…I haven’t made my “Blogging with Discipline” entry yet.    It’s hard to be witty when I’m tired, and I sure don’t want to be serious!   That’s why I’m skipping Newsday Tuesday, because there is just no good news in the world today….as reported by the media, that is…and the only news you’ll be getting is from my own little corner of the universe:

My little Devon fell at school today and smacked his head on the gym floor.   Then another child fell on him and smacked the other side of his head.   He now has a knot on each side of his head.    I think he’s going to be fine.   Les went ahead and infused him with Factor 8 to ward off any potential internal bleeding from his hemophilia.

I managed to make it through The Biggest Loser without eating!   Normally, I like to watch all the folks work out really hard while I eat cookies.   That’s a victory of sorts for me.  (Eating cookies isn't the victory, NOT eating them tonight made me a bigger winner than Charlie Sheen.  Duh!)

I work next week, then I’m off for a week, and I’m really looking forward to it!

I’m going to a new doctor next week…really not looking forward to that, but I suppose I need to have a doctor.   It’s check-up time, and my doctor left town.   I hope he’s happy running that hospice clinic.   Can one be happy running a hospice clinic?

My eyelid is really sore.   And swollen.  And red.  I can hide it pretty well with make-up, but I don’t know what’s going on with it. 

If I weren’t so tired, this entry wouldn’t be so disjointed.   But it is what it is, and I have blogged with discipline yet again!

Monday Musings

Dear American Idol:

You have a freak show going on there, and I don’t mean the contestants.

Dear LesLee:

Six months, Pumpkin.

Dear Logan’s Server:

You are barely 20…one day you will be 45, and you’re going to have a hole in your ear lobe through which you will easily be able to fit a roll of quarters.  Does this worry you?   Perhaps it should.

Dear Logan’s Peanut Roaster:

Your over-roasted peanuts taste like bad coffee.  ::::shudder::::  I hate coffee…it’s all bad.

Dear Elijah Abbott, Marc and Rachel Motes, Rusty Foshee, Joe-Jack Ricks, “Ur boy” Joe Hardy, and Yackie aka Jackie Davison:

Your names get added to THIS LIST.   You should be pretty ashamed.  

Dear McDonald’s, North Florence:

Why was it that after you made me repeat my two-item order 3 times, you still got it wrong?   Let me guess…you’re trying to remind me that I need to stay away from fast food, yes?   Thank you.

Dear Co-Worker:

Could it be that the reason you don’t have time to do your job in the afternoon is because you were shopping all morning?

Dear OfficialQuiz.com

That Dog-Human Hybrid image is very disturbing; very disturbing, indeed.

Dear Natchez Trace Parkway…

I rode many miles on you yesterday…there was NO COLOR!    Flowers, please!!

Dear Japan:

It may seem like we have gone about our regular business and forgotten you, with our March Madness and our shopping, our overcrowded restaurants and our daily lives.  Please know that many, many of us are praying for you…for your peace, for the easing of pain, for broken hearts to mend, for recovery.   Soon, we will be donating to help send aid to you.  We have not forgotten!

Forgiveness, even if....

Being one to hold grudges, I am so unchristlike when it comes to forgiveness.   I’m not always sure why I get bent out of shape by some incidents, and not at all by others.   If I’m embarrassed by someone, it’s hard for me to get over it.   A cousin humiliated me some years ago in front of much of my family, and it took me years to forgive him.   I’m almost certain everyone who heard his one comment forgot it within five minutes.   No so with me.    Not only did I hold it against him, I was vocal about my displeasure.  In retrospect, I brought a lot more attention to myself and to the situation than he ever did.

Hindsight is 20/20, yes?

I finally forgave him.   And in my heart of hearts, I do not believe he said anything to hurt me, and had he known how I would feel about it, he would have never said anything.    That was one comment.   With my ex-husband, who did far more than my cousin, I can’t remember that I ever held a grudge.   Hardly makes sense does it?

Two different times today, an issue I’ve had trouble forgiving has been brought to my mind.   This was something a couple I considered my friends did to my daughter, not to me directly (but in a way, it was to me directly because it hurt my daughter so badly).    At times, I think I’m over it, it’s behind me, all forgiven, and some days, I know that’s true.   On other days, something will remind me, and I find that I still harbor some unforgiveness.    I go very long periods of time without thinking about them; it’s not as if I dwell on it and plot revenge.   No, but every once in a while, I will be reminded, and I just know…there’s still something there.  If I see them out, I do my best to avoid speaking with them.   What’s more, this was a very long time ago.   It’s not how I want to be!  

Forgiveness does not mean that I have to restore the relationship.   But it does mean that I give it up to God.  It means that I let it go, and I will no longer hold it against them.  Heaven knows, God has had to put up with a lot from me!   

These people probably have no clue that I still think about that incident at times.   I’m sure they’ve long forgotten that day.   That’s what I plan to do, as well.   As my dad told me just today, “Get over it!”   I suppose I need to get over myself, as well.  

Six Word Saturday

When thinking of going about my business

of the weekend, guilt slides in because

of the events of the last 24 hours.  

I will be praying for the people of

Japan while I am busy finding

ways to enjoy my days off.

 Cate over at Show My Face hosts Six Word Saturday,

where we are challenged to use only six words to describe our lives...or something!

(for more Six Word descriptions, visit Cate @ Show My Face!)

I'm Glad I know Him....

After a Taco Bell run today, I got back to work only to realize that they had put onions on my burrito, when I had specifically stated “no onions” and it made me a little mad.     As I was pulling into my parking space, it occurred to me that I was as ungrateful as a person could get.   I had so many options.   I could turn around, and go get another one….they aren’t but about a buck each, and Taco Bell is only about a mile from my work parking lot.   I could do without and not feel real hunger; for certain, I wouldn't starve to death.   I could remove the offending flavor and eat it.

As I was getting myself worked up over an onion, people in Sendai and Kesennuma in Miyagi, Japan, are in the midst of suffering beyond my scope of knowing.  Right now, they don't have too many choices.  I was so ashamed of myself, and I asked for God’s forgiveness.  

For much of the day, that song “Lift Up Your Head, Redemption Draweth Nigh” has been in my mind.   I never want to be a prophet of doom, because I read The Book, and I know we win.   But it does bear thinking about when I see Biblical words come to life:

⁶ And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. ⁷ For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences,and earthquakes in various places.   

(Matthew 24)

Whether you or I believe it or not, the Truth will still remain:   Jesus is coming back to claim His Bride.   There is no disclaimer.   No maybe.   No what if.    There is a God and He holds the world in the palm of His hand, and it’s far better to walk in this life holding His hand and standing on the Rock, than to walk on shoddy, sinking sand of the ideas and untruths of a lying and deceived world.

I'll leave you with the Good News of John 14: 

 ¹ “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. ² In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴ And where I go you know, and the way you know.”⁵ Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

ABC's of Me

I think this is called a meme, and it's making it's blogging rounds.  It's probably kinda cheating on my "Blogging With Discipline" endeavor, but (in my best Toby Keith impersonation) I wanna talk about ME!   So, here are the ABC's of me:

Age: What?   You’re breaking up!

Chore I hate:  Cleaning….anything!

Bed size:  Double.  Ole Boy has a queen.   OK, yeah, we have separate beds.   It has probably saved our marriage.

Dogs?  Dogs are so precious…they rarely fail to make me smile! 

Essential start to my day:  A nice hot shower…

Favorite color:  Normally blue, but I have to say pink is very pleasing to me as well.

Gold or silver: Silver….Except for when it’s in my hair!!

Job title:  Officially it’s “Specialist.”  I hate that word and rarely use it in my title.

Live:  I plan to keep it up until I die…and then I’ll really live.

Kids?  1 daughter…4 grandchildren; 6 when I count Ole Boys grandchildren.

Instruments I play:  I can’t even whistle a tune.   I can play the radio, or MP3s and CDs on the Window’s Media Player.

Height: 5’8"

Nicknames:   All my dad ever called when I was growing up was “Frog.”   Even one or two of his buddies called me that.   No one else in the family did, though.   Just Dad. 
Mom's name:   Dorothy Jean.   “Dot” to her sisters.   “Mommy” to me.  Yeah, I actually call her that sometimes.

Overnight hospital stays:  When I was 6, I had my tonsils out, that one a one night stay.  When I was 12, I had my nose fixed…not that it was a bad nose, just some internal stuff going on, and I think that was a two day stay.     When I was in my 20’s, I got very sick and ended up in the hospital for a week.   Really sick…I almost died.  Pancreatitis.   Try to never, ever get that.

Pet Peeve:  It grates my nerves that folks will not take their carts to the cart corral.   Some of them are a mere 5 feet away!    How lazy can you be???

Siblings: Two of each…all older.

Right or Left handed: Right

Quote from a movie: "And what's so wrong with being personal, anyway?  …whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal."  Kathleen Kelley, You’ve Got Mail

Time you wake up: Usually 2 a.m, 3:30 a.m.  5 a.m.  Sometimes even midnight if I get in bed early enough.    I try to roll out of bed by a quarter of six when I have to go to work.

Underwear: Why, yes!  Yes, I do.   Thank you.

Vegetable you dislike:  Isn’t an onion a vegetable?   There is just no excuse for an onion.   Period.

Yummy food you make:  Green bean Casserole.  Yeah, you wouldn’t think so, but it’s really good.

X-rays:  I’ve had a few…the last one was on my head because I had a major sinus infection.   The doctor walked in with my X-ray and asked if I had a screw in my skull.   “Uh, no.”  A previous injury?   Uh, NO!    He showed me this questionable dark spot in the middle of my forehead.    He then searched my head and found the offender…the metal spring in my plastic hair clip.    Whew!  Another one of my screws didn’t come loose!

What makes you run late:  Ole Boy!   (…and a little procrastination on my part every once in a while.)

Zoo animal favorite:  I really like otters.  And bears!