Decisions, Decisions...

Last weekend we went to an RV sale.  Unfortunately, the "sale" prices weren't quite sale enough for us.  When our children were younger we had an 18' self-contained trailer which we used for 20 years.  It was getting old and we sold it a few years ago.  We are thinking of getting another one since we have a daughter in Kentucky and another daughter in North Carolina.

Here is the floor plan we want (my camera was on the wrong setting, so most of my pictures are blurry).

So things are never as simply as they seem.  It isn't as simple as going out and finding a good deal on a trailer. The SUV we have now is small, so the trailer we pull with it is limited, besides, we just don't want a huge trailer.  The above trailer would suit all our needs even if we were on an extended vacation.  But, although we have room at our house to store an RV, we already have a 16' cargo trailer where we store out 1961 Metropolitan convertible.  If we sell the trailer & the car we would have the cash to pay for the trailer.  Then the dilema is...do I really want to sell my little Metropolitan?  It's the car that I got for my 40th birthday.  It's the car I've wanted since I first saw one when I about 10 years old...ugh!!!  Decisions, decisions...

The Waltons (sniff! sniff!)

The Walton's TV show originally aired from 1972 - 1981.  I graduated from high school in May of 1971 and went away to college that fall (in the days when we didn't have TV's in our dorm rooms), so I don't know when I would have watched it.  Anyway, it seems like I must have watched the Waltons - didn't everyone?  

"Good Night, John-Boy".

A few months ago, the Hallmark channel began showing reruns of the old Walton's show.  I was looking forward to seeing the series in it's entirety.  I vaguely remembered from the late 70's that Mary Ellen married a doctor and he was later killed at Pearl Harbor.  Yesterday, I watched the show and found out that after 4 years of being a widow, Mary Ellen found out that her husband was still alive & living in Florida.  He had been injured at Pearl Harbor and was very bitter and didn't want to continue a relationship with Mary Ellen & their son.  

I'm really sad!!  Somehow I could deal with Mary Ellen being a widow and going on with her life, but it is so disappointing that her husband (I know these are fictional people) was out there somewhere & didn't love her anymore.  She did go ahead and remarry.  But now I wish I had never begun to watch the Walton's show again!!

Here is a link to a clip of where the Walton's actors are now.

Oh Happy Day!!

Do you remember Y2K and all the trepidation we felt as a new century approached?  Some people thought our electricity would fail, others thought there would be widespread computer glitches which would create havoc.  As far as I know, none of that happened.  But as the new century dawned, I had no idea what the next year as well as the next decade would have in store for me.  On one of the last days of the year 1999, my husband,  my daughter and I went skiing at one of my least favorite ski areas.  As I was getting off a ski lift, one of my skis went in a rut left by a snow-boarder.  I fell backwards and landed on my tailbone.  Since then, I have had a lot of pain when sitting for long periods - especially on hard chairs.  In the last year (probably because of my increasing age and subsequent loss of muscle) I have been in more pain.  I recently began sitting on one of those neck pillows

to ease the pain.  The odd thing about the pain was that I didn't notice it while sitting, but upon standing, the pain was excruciating.  Sometimes, after sitting on a wooden chair or other hard surface, I would have to sit on a heating pad for several hours to relieve the pain.

The good news is...I have a new chair!!!  We picked it up on Wednesday.  It is a rocker/recliner and it was on sale at American Furniture Warehouse for $209!!!  In our family room, I have a wonderful, cushy, marshmallow of a recliner (that matches my husband's), but this chair is for my sewing/craft room where I spend a good deal of time.  The great thing about this chair is that there are 3 positions to sit in (and a very soft seat) so it takes the pressure off my tail bone.  In fact, I already feel better!!!

My chair is just like this one, but tan in color.

Random Thoughts

1. For some unknown reason, I went to Best Buy today to look at computers.  A sales girl came up to me and asked me if I needed help.  I told her I was just looking. She replied, "Well, we have experts here..."  Apparently, I look like a little old lady who has never been around a computer!!

2. A few years ago there was a house in my town that had a fake tombstone in their front yard and on it was the following inscription, "Here lies the last dog that pooped in our yard".  I want a one for my yard.  ;)

3  Copied from a friend's Facebook post yesterday, "SO throughout my life I have hated the word "wiener" , because of it's related connotation, I have reached my limit, my ears cannot take any more....!!!!   sigh.

Have a great weekend!!

My, Oh My, I Love Shutterfly

In January, my husband bought a new camera for work.  He bought it at Best Buy and the really cool thing is that when he bought the camera, he got a coupon for a FREE 8x8 digital photo album from Shutterfly.  I have always been a proponent of traditional scrapbooking, but this weekend I absolutely fell in love with Shutterfly.  First of all, it is way faster to upload photos to Shutterfly than Kodak Gallery.  Secondly, it is fun!! You can take the "simple path" and upload your pictures and let it do the work for you, but I found that I didn't like the layouts.  So, I took the "custom path" where you can put from 1 - 25 pictures on a page. Shutterfly has different templates for 1, 2. 3, 4 and 5+ photos per page. You can pick your backgrounds and embellish your pages any way you want.  It can be very simple or you can customize to your heart's content!!

Above is the cover of my photo album.  I don't know why the picture is so blurry, but you get the idea.  With my coupon I am getting an 8x8 hard cover photo album with 20 pages - a $29.99 value (of course, I had to pay $8.50 shipping and handling).  The photo album will arrive in about 2 weeks.  After a lot of consternation, I decided to do an album of my recent trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina with my youngest daughter. You might ask why I didn't do an album filled with pages of my 8 beautiful grandchildren...well, my ninth grandchild is due in August and I've decided to make an album of ALL my grandchildren after she is born!!

Just for Today...(actually forever, but I'll take it one day at a time)

• I'm embracing my curly hair.  I've straightened my hair nearly every day for 40+ years and I'm soooo tired of it, so I'm going to go "au naturale". Please don't ask me if I got a perm - perms look good and the curls are symmetrical - mine are not.  And I know my hair isn't really curly anymore - after straightening it all those years and having 50% gray hair it's not all that curly...and please don't tell me I'm so lucky to have curly hair!
• I'm going to stop wasting time playing games of Facebook. At least most of the time.  :)
• I'm going to only wear my Cold Water Creek jeans out in public.  They fit well and I feel better in them because I don't have a "muffin-top" when I wear them and I bought 4 of the 6 pair of Cold Water Creek jeans I own at half price!!

Things I'm Learning from my Grandchildren...

I recently visited my daughter in Kentucky.  We went to one of our favorite stores and as she was checking out, I was waiting near the front door with her 4 year-old daughter.  All of a sudden "L" blurted out quite loudly, "Grandma, you're old".  I proceeded to ignore her since I was really embarrassed.  Then she said, "Grandma, you look old."  I was horrified!  Then again, "Grandma, you're old".  I was shocked into silence.  My mouth was frozen shut.  I wanted to run somewhere and hide. 

In retrospect, I realize I should have immediately said something clever like, "Of course I'm old, I'm a grandma" or "Yes, I'm old and you're young".  But one thing I've learned is NEVER ignore your Grandchildren...

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

I have eight grandchildren ranging in age from 1 month to 10 years and I love each one of them dearly.  They all brighten my life.  Here are a few cute things they have said recently...

• I recently was babysitting my 2 grandchildren in Kentucky.  My 3-1/2 year-old grand-daughter was frustrated with her 18-month-old little brother and called him "stupid".  I was quite shocked that this sweet little girl would say such a thing.  Then she suddenly started repeating, "stupid", "dang it", "shut-up".  I realized she was "showing off" in front of me by saying all the bad words she knew. So I went into the kitchen to hide my stifled laughter... (ah, to be that innocent)
• About a year ago my grand-daughter was in the car with her mother. She asked why the new MacDonald's doesn't have a farm like the Old MacDonald's.... (you know the song...Old MacDonald had a farm...E-I-E-I-O...
• My 5-year-old grand-daughter recently rebuked her mother by saying, "Mommy, you just called Grandma "Mom".  (OK, who does she think I am, some little old lady off the street who just comes to visit them each week?)  Love it!!!
• I recently went to the Grand Opening of the new grocery store in our town with my daughter and her 6 children.  I was commenting to my 10-year-old grand-daughter that I thought there were really a lot of old people there.  She turned and looked at me and said, "Grandma, you're old!" (Oops!)

A Day in the Life...

• I had to get out yesterday eventhough it was only -11 degrees when I woke up.  We had a couple of inches of snow over the weekend and it isn't melting because it is sooo cold!  I needed some needles for my sewing machine.  Our town of 100,000, only has one fabric store and it is located near the university.  Of course, I forgot to wear my boots, so after I bought my needles, I was carefully walking back to my car, trying to avoid the icy spots. Suddenly, a red card "spun out" all too close to me.  Instead of taking his foot off the accelerator, the idiot  college student began spinning "donuts".  Funny, huh?  Well, not so funny when it happens 30 feet away from you!  All I could imagine was how painful it would be to be hit by a car and/or be pinned between this out-of-control car and my cute little Honda.  And it's way to cold for pain!  So, chicken that I am, I carefully side-stepped the ice and went back into the store.

• Then, in the afternoon, I had a phone call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft.  A voice with a foreign accent stated that my computer was downloading viruses from the internet.  "Were you aware of that?" the voice asked.  I said I was not.  "Oh, my goodness!," said the voice from the phone.  I said, "I'm sorry," and hung up.  Really! Would someone really call me from Microsoft if my computer really was downloading viruses?  I can't even talk to a real person when I do call Microsoft.  And what about the Microsoft Security Essentials virus protection I have on my compute.  Really! Would anyone be a sucker for a phone call like that?

Did you ever wonder...

Did you ever wonder why there are really strange words like akimbo?  e.g. She stood with her arms akimbo (a human body position in which the hands are on the hips and the elbows are bowed outward).


Or, did you you ever wonder why there are words like laughter and daughter, and cough and dough - words that are spelled the same, but pronounced differently.  And then there are words like read, that can be pronounced 2 ways...e.g. I would like to read today's newspaper because I haven't read  a newspaper since Sunday.


Then there are palindromes, those silly words in the English language that can be spelled the same forward and backward...like level and Dr. Awkward. And then there are people who make up entire sentences that are palindromes...Was it a rat I saw?


And then there are the words we can no longer use because their meanings have changed.  Have you noticed how many Christmas Songs use the word gay..."Don we now our gay apparel" and "a turkey and some mistletoe help to make the Yuletide gay".  I mean, really...why can't we use that word anymore to state that someone is happy?  And pasties.  We can't mention that food item without eliciting snickers.  Pasties are meat turnovers which are sold at little Pasty Stands all over Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota.


And last of all, why do people in Australia have really odd terms for things like a willy willy is a tornado, a barbecue is called a barbie, men's Speedo-type swim trunks are called budgie-smugglers...you can Google that one...


And one more thing...did you ever wonder how we got along without Google?

Pet Peeves...November 2010

 I've decided that periodically I will vent some of my "pet peeves".

1.  I did not vote for him, but he IS our President, so let's respect him and his office and don't criticize and
     please call him President Obama, not Obama...  This esepcially goes for the News Media...

2.  Please, when you are driving, use your turn signals.  It is not "cool" to not use them.  They have a purpose
     and it doesn't really take that much effort, so use them!!!

3.  When you are sitting in church, please refrain from massaging your significant other's back.  This goes for
     married people as well as unmarried couples.  First of all, it is very distracting to see an arm
     carressing your beloved's back...Secondly, it makes my mind wander and then I start wondering
     if one or other of the two are getting aroused - ANYWAY - not appropriate in church!!!!!! OK.

4.  A friend of mine posted a video on Facebook of his grand daughter in a cheerleader competition.  That's  
     great!!!  At the beginning of their routine, all the girls turned their backs to the audience and "shook their
     booty".  Is this really appropriate behavior for 8 and 9-year-old girls?  Actually, is this appropriate
     behavior for girls (women) of any age?

5.  And last, but not least, it drives me CRAZY when people use "that" instead of "who" when referring to a
     person.  For example, John Doe was a man who loved to ski - not - John Doe was a man that loved to
     ski.  "Who" is for people and "that" is for things.  Thank you!

I apologize for the margins.  It looked fine as a draft, but when I published this post it went haywire!