MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

From Thanksgiving to Christmas.....where have I been?????  Isn't it amazing how time flies?   The days are short and the nights are long.     It seems I couldn't get everything together this year.   I had to MAKE myself put up the tree and I still have a few packages to wrap.     Lisa and her family are visiting her husbands relatives in LA....so that means no grandboys for Christmas.  They will be back right after Christmas and will come stay with me for a few days.   Here's a picture of my tree.   The only ornaments are crocheted snowflakes.   I will celebrate His birthday  and be happy for all my blessings!

THANKSGIVING DAY AT LISA'S

I went to Lisa's for Thanksgiving. Gary joined us that day. Here is our meal. I ate way too much, but I did it with a thankful heart! First picture....Sweet Potato Casserole.

Pumpkin Dish ...layered with spice cake and real whipped cream.

Oyster Dressing

Green Bean Casserole

Cranberry Salad

Corn Pudding

Brussel Sprouts

Apple Tart....made in an iron skillet and then turned out onto a plate.

And The Turkey!!!!!

Here's my plate.....(the first helping) : ~ )

A LETTER TO MY HUSBAND, BILL MELVIN, NOV 23, 2011

DEAR BILL,
A YEAR HAS PASSED SINCE YOU WENT AWAY.
MY HOW TIME DOES FLY!
IT SEEMS LIKE ONLY YESTERDAY..
YOU SAID YOUR LAST GOODBYE.

I WISH YOU COULD BE HERE,
TO SEE THE THINGS I'VE DONE
A NEW ROOF, A NEW DRAIN...
BUT GOD SAID YOU MUST COME.

IT'S NOT THE SAME WITHOUT YOU...
THE NIGHTS ALL SEEM SO LONG!
I STILL HERE YOU CALL MY NAME...
EVEN THO I KNOW YOU'RE GONE.

PLEASE WAIT FOR ME FOR I'LL BE THERE...
AS I PROMISED YOU I WOULD.
GOD WAS SO GOOD TO US....
I'D DO IT OVER....IF I COULD!

     YOUR LOVING WIFE   "CLARA MAE"

A LITTLE HUMOR

This was made last night at our cancer support group meeting.  We had a great time.  Fifty six people attented.   That was good for such a rainy night. I am reminded of this poem when I look at myself!
                                                         
                   MY GET-UP AND GO HAS GOT UP AND WENT!

How do I know my youth is all spent?
Well, my get up and go has got up and went.
But in spite of it all, I am able to grin,
When I recall where all get up has been.

Old age is golden so I've heard it said
But sometimes I wonder when I get out of bed
With my ears in a drawer and my teeth in a cup
My eyes on the table until I wake up.

"Ere sleep dims my eyes I say to myself,
"Is there anything more I should lay on the shelf."
And I'm happy to say as I close my door
My friends are the same...perhaps even more.

When I was young my slippers were red;
I could kick up my heels right over my head,
When I grew older my slippers are blue
But still I could dance the whol;e night through.

But now I am older, my slippers are black,
I walk to the store and puff my way back.
The reason I know my youth is all spent
My get up and go has got up and went.

But really, I don't mind when I think with a grin,
All of the places my get up has been.
Since I have retired from life's competition,
I busy myself with complete repetition.

I get up each morning.....dust of my wits,
Pick up the paper and read the "O'bits"
If my name is missing, I know I'm not dead.
So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
 
 Thanks Peggy for the picture!  It DOES look just like me!
And really my get up and go hasn't gone anywhere!

HALLOWEEN WISHES !!!!!!!

I think I posted this last year, but here it is again.   My wishes are the same!

Since this is the time for goblins and bats

Halloween spirits and ghosts and cats.

Weird happenings and witches brew,

These are the things I wish for you.

May the only ghost that comes to stay,

Be the Holy Ghost to guide your way.

May the only spirit you chance to meet,

Be the spirit of love and warm friends sweet.

May the tricks that you're ask to do

Be the tricks of making a friend or two.

And of helping another along the way,

To add happiness into their day.

These are Halloween Wishes just for you,

And may God bless you in all you do!

LOOKING FOR A BLOG.......

Do any of my readers know who writes the blog.....JourneyThroughGrace.blogspot.com?    I started reading it about a year ago and when I go there now you have to sign in.  I enjoyed it a lot.  I would like to ask the person's permission to read it again.  It seems that I found it through one of my readers.  Thanks for any help.

Memory Monday....Braids

I hated braids when I was small.  My Mother would part my hair from ear to ear and braid each side and then pin them on top of my head.  On my way to school I would take them down and then you can imagine what my hair looked like but to me it was better than braids.  The picture below is my daughter Lisa. I didn't even have a comb.  She loves braids and wishes I was there every morning to braid her hair.  I wish my Mother could braid mine again too.  I wouldn't complain now!

MEMORY MONDAY.....

Here I am this beautiful morning remembering way back when.   This post came to my mind this morning as I was cooking breakfast.  The eggs that I cracked into the skillet make me think of the chickens we  kept when I was small.  We always had chickens....and my Daddy always had a store (right in front of our house)  We would sell Daddy sggs.  About 100 times a day, we would go to the chicken house and everytime there was an egg, we took it to the store and Daddy would give us a nickel for it.  We would either save it until we had several nickels or we would buy a candy bar or ice cream.  We have been known to wait outside the chicken house (if there happened to be a chicken on the nest) until it finished with its business.   I wish I could tell my Daddy today how much fun we had doing that and how sweet he was to pay us for his own  eggs!  Happy Memories!

Two Amish children die as horse-drawn carts, SUV collide in Indiana...See My Post Below.

Two Amish children die as horse-drawn carts, SUV collide in Indiana

No Memory Monday....I'm sad today!

  I heard some bad news late last night.  An Amish family with whom I have stayed with in Shipshewana, IN.  has had something tragic to happen.   Six of the eight children were riding in a buggy...driven by the oldest one....age nine... and she pulled out in front of a truck.  She died instantly and another one died on the way to the hospital.  The rest of them are not responsive.  I cannot begin to imagine how this family must be hurting.  If you feel led, please say a prayer for them. Rose, have you heard anything about this?  I know you go to Shipshewana ocassionally.  My heart aches for them.

MY FAIR ITEMS

Crocheted Dress

I entered ten items and won ten ribbons.   Six blue, two red and two white.  I was pleased. .   I didn't make a picture of the lady bug purse at the fair...this is a picture I made at home.

MEMORIES.......

Here's a picture of antique scales I have.  It has nothing to do  with my chilehood memories, but it brings back memories of the first job I had after high school.  I worked at F. W. Woolworth  5 and 10 cent store behind the candy counter.  The scales were something like this.   I remember chocolate covered p-nuts were 59 cents a lb.  Cashews (hot) were $1.59 a lb.  There were a lot in a lb. too.  I wish they were that cheap today.  I remember cooking the cashews and when they came out of the cooker you could smell them all over the store.  My wages were $18.00 a week and I had more money than I do now.    I remember the first payday I ever recieved....I gave my Daddy two dollars and I think he still had that two dollars in his wallet when he died ....about fifty years later.  Do any of you remember F. W. Woolworth's?  I wish it was still in existence.

Follow Up on post below.....

One of the boys working on my drain pipe yesterday.    His Dad was in a car wreck and died.  (He owned the Company) I feel so sorry.  I knew they left here in a hurry.  One of the crew called me this morning and said it would be a few days until they came back to finish up here.  I said. "No Hurry....No Worry.'

Busy, busy, busy.....yard work and more....

Well, here I am and it's NOT Memory Monday....   I have worked in my yard every day this week....so far.  I wish I had made pictures before and after.   For three past years I wasn't able to do much work work outside because of my husband being sick.  He wanted me in "hollering" distance at all times.   Now, it's catching up time.  I have burned brush, cleaned out a fence row and trimmed the lilac bush,  cut down "suckers" around an apple tree stump,  (they were taller than me.)   Now the MORE part.  The line  going from the house to the septic tank is being  replaced.  I have had trouble with it for the last several years.  Every so often, the septic people would have to come and dig down to the tank and open up the drain pipe.  (UCKKK) As of late they were haveing to come every few weeks, so I know it was time to do something else.  They came yesterday and started.   Would you believe my septic tank is under concrete?  Why would anybody concrete over the tank?  The concrete has to be cut out with a saw....what a mess.  But I will be so glad to get that done.   The workers had to leave yesterday.....said there was an emergency.  So, I am here waiting on their return.   Guess I will go back to the yard work and pray for their return!  :-)

Memory Monday.....State Fair

I have always been a "fair" person.  When I was around ten years old and in the 4H club at school......I made a dress and entered it in the fair.   It won 1st place and I recieved ten dollars.  A child at that time with ten dollars was rich.  I was rich!  I remember the money stayed in my posession for a long long time, but for the life of me, I can't remember what I did with it.   The dress is still vivid in my mind.....  it was plaid and had a V neck.   That has been many moons ago, but I am still taking my "wares" to the fair.  This week I took ten items.  Every year I think about the dress that won ten dollars.  The fair has always been a part of my life.   Have you ever entered anything in the fair?

Memory Monday....Our Entertainment As Children.....and more!

Can you remember what you did for entertainment when you were a kid?  I can....We played Hop Scotch,  Red Rover, May I, Chinese Checkers   and Hide and Seek.   Then when we got tired of doing that we build play houses in the woods.  I remember sweeping out a clean ":room" and placing rocks around it.   We would slice potatoes and put them in salt water and thought they were good.   We didn't know about the X-Box,  ipods, ipads and iphones.  I remember one time, I had a new pair of jeans.  I must have been around seven or eight.  I had worn them so long they woiuld have stood up by their self when I took them off.   My Mother finally got them off of me and put them in the wringer washing machine.   I got them out of the washing machine and put them on wet.   My Daddy must have been close by, because I looked up and he was coming throught the apple orchard.  As he came by one tree he broke off a limb.   He took the jeans off me and switched my wet legs.  You wouldn't believe how much more it hurts when your legs are wet.  I learned my lesson and never again did I try to get ANYTHING out of the washing machine to wear before it was ready.  

Remembering COOLER Days!!! (MEMORY MONDAY)

Baby ! It's HOT outside.   Can you remember when the hot weather didn't bother you?   I can.   In my younger days, no matter how high the tempatures were, it didn't matter to me.  What happens to us as we get older.?   I have just about melted today.  I had to get out of the house and do a few errands and I've been to the surgery center to sit with my sister while her husband and a small place removed from his face.  I am fine as long as I am indoors, but the minute I step outside my stomach starts feeling sick.   Oh, to be young again!!!!

Memory Monday....

I'm back after spending four days with my daughter and grandsons.   We had the priviledge of seeing Dolly Parton in person.  She came to Thompson- Boling Arena in Knoxville for a concert.   It was great.  I really like her.     I came home last Sunday and the boys came with me, so we enjoyed our week together.  That will be the last time for a long visit because school starts soon.   But anyway....this morning as the soft, gentle rain fell, it brought back memories of my childhood.   We loved to play in the rain. ... running through the puddles and catching rainwater in a barrel.   When it rained, we could always find these tiny frogs.  I never see them now.  They would come out by the hundreds.   We thought it rained them from Heaven.  It sure didn't take much to make us happy.   Does anyone else remember seeing these little frogs?

Memory Monday.....

I was thinking this morning about blackberries.  We used to pick them by the gallons when we were kids.  My Daddy would get us up (it seemed like the crack of dawn) to go pick berries.  We each had a gallon bucket and we stayed until we got it full.  Next would come the jam making.  I never actually made the jam, but I always had to get the jars ready.  I could still get my hand down inside the jar to make certain it was clean.  My Mother would work tirelessly until the jam was ready to be put on the shelf.   I can still pick blackberries at my daughters house, and that brings back all the memories all over again.  A jar of blackberry jam would be nice right now.!  Did any of you pick berries when you were kids?

My Trip to San Diego, CA

Here are just a few of the MANY, MANY picture I made in San Diego. That's us on the sail boat. It belongs to Fred and Denise....the couple we stayed with.  Click twice on any photo to enlarge.

Here we are at Safari Park. It is part of the San Diego Zoo.

This is Palomar Observatory Telescope. The dome opens up and the telescope inside is just as big.

An Orange Grove. We drove through it.

We went camping one night and I loved it. First time I had been camping since Lisa and Gary were small. It was wonderful.   Ryan and Lucas have on their pajama's and note the jackets.  It was really cool.....7000 feet above sea level!

This was at our camp site. That's Lisa reading Gap Creek by Robert Morgan and that's me sitting there waiting until she gets through so I can read it! It's a good book!

We drove into Tecate, Mexico one day. Here is a sidewalk sale and entertainment outside the restaurant where we ate.

This is really a diet coke.

We were seranated at our table as we ate.

This was my plate of food. Tortillas, refried beans and rice. Doesn't that sound like Mexico> It was good!

This is SHAMU at Sea World.

Here we were in the tram riding though the "bush country" to see the wild animals. It truly felt like I was in Africa. Loved it! Safari Park is GREAT!

Hot air balloon at the zoo. We were going to ride it but it was $17.00 a piece for just a few minutes so we thought it was sufficient to watch from the ground. It was tethered.

Donaldo, Lisa Ryan and Lucas at La Jolla Beach. A beautiful place. Here is where the "rich" people live. (well, ONE place)

This is Anza Borrego. America's largest state park. In the distance you can see miles and miles of desert and the salt sea.

Part of the Safari Park.

You can by-pass this one if you like. It's Lisa, Ryan and Lucas. I'm glad that's her instead of me!

And here....we are taking a break from the zoo and park and eating lunch on the ground in the parking lot. I liked it. Well, that's just a few of the "shots" I made. Hope you enjoyed looking at them. If you did...maybe I will post more later.

Memory Monday.....

Well, here I am....feeling good but can't get back into the "real world."    My mind isn't working very well this morning.  Maybe by next Monday, I will think of something interesting to write.  There are so many things going around in my head.  I'm sure something will pop up by then.  Until then.... here I sit in San Diego at "The Concert In The Park."  That was fun!  Please do NOT click to enlarge.....LOL