Those Were The Days

Oh how I wish I could go back to my childhood again. Life was so much simpler back then. We could go outside in the Summer and stay until Mom hollered at us to come in at night. We walked the street barefooted on 103 degree ashpalt and then cooled our burning feet in the grass. We played out in the waterhose with a Water Wiggle on the end. We played kickball in the street under the streetlights. We camped outside in the yard, never worrying about someone kidnapping us. My Uncle Wes and his friends and i used to play Army in the Dark. I can still hear our "machine guns" going d-d-d-d-dow! Rode our skateboards and bicycles down a very steep hill at the end of the street. Remember having "Klackers" bruises in various places on your body? Boy that was fun...sort of..., lol. Or making Mud Pies, and eating the big purple ants on your popsicle at least once in your life? Oh those were the days my friends..thought they would never end...

I AM My Grandmother's Granddaughter

I AM a product of my Grandmother


My Grandmother was a wonderful woman. She was nurturing, smart, determined, had a green thumb, and many more traits that made her the great woman that she was. Her only flaw (not really a flaw but I'll explain later) was that she saved everything. I never saw her throw away a bread tie,bread wrapper, plastic lids, jars, take out containers, newspapers, magazines...she kept EVERYTHING. She grew up in time when money was tight, so she learned to be thrifty. Thrifty..that's the word...not flaw. Never knew when you or somebody might need that item for something. Once in awhile, she actually did find use for those things..she could rig up anything that was broken and make it work again, often with the things she had saved.

Now, as I try to clean up my house and declutter some things, I find that I have done the same things. A draw full of bread ties and lids, a whole cabinet full of jars, a junk drawer full of this and that. It's time to let go, so I just threw 2 trashbags full of junk away. Of course, even though she's gone, I'll never let go of my Grandma...or the memory of her thriftiness, but I have to get my house in some kind of order before I drown in my own clutter...

Oops There Goes Another Rubber Tree Plant

Every morning, I sit outside on the back porch while I have my first cup of coffee...to hear the birds sing and watch the wildlife wandering around sleepy eyed looking for their breakfast.

This morning, I sat in my chair and put my bare feet down on the concrete, and I felt something wiggling against my toe. I looked down and it was a tiny lizard tail wiggling around (I must've scared the lizard when I put my foot down and he dropped his tail). I watched it wiggle around for awhile, then noticed a lone ant crawling over to look at it. He stared at it for awhile, then decided to try to move it by himself. He lifted and pushed and shoved...but it wouldn't budge. Finally he gave up (or so I thought) and headed back to the ant bed. Suddenly I saw a trail of ants heading back to the tail and realized that lone ant had gone back to the bed to call in the troops:) They gathered around the tail and it didn't take long before they started marching it back to the bed for breakfast. Teamwork!

I started thinking about it...and it makes sense. Instead of trying to face obstacles alone, more of us should ask for help. It's hard to face things alone..but with a network of friends or family, anything can be accomplished. All we have to do is suck it up and ask! For the rest of the day, I had the song Rubber Tree Plant in my head....oops there goes another rubber tree plant.

Saying Goodbye To An Old Friend

Tomorrow, November 8, 2010, I will be saying goodbye to a dear old friend. She has been with me for the first 45 years of my life. She was with me when I learned to walk..enabled me to ride bikes, roller skate, skip rope, and play basketball when I was growing up. She was there to help me carry my baby around when I became a young woman..there for me when I had to climb 3 flights of stairs to go to work every day..there to help me garden, putter around my yard enjoying nature, etc. as I became a middle aged woman. While she did complain once in awhile and needed some extra help once in awhile, she never failed me...until a year ago, when she decided "enough is enough, I'm ready to go". I kept her as long as I could, but Monday morning, her life comes to an end. It seems like a sad ending for such a loyal friend..discarded in a medical waste bin. I feel like I should have a funeral...

Good Old Friend. I will miss you. Thank you, right knee, for being loyal to the very end....

Welcome To My Blog

A big welcome to those of you that are just discovering my blog:) I haven't written in awhile, but I am about to get back into it. I am having TKR (Total Knee Replacement) on my right leg tomorrow, so for awhile, I will be blogging my progress, thoughts, etc.

For those of you that know me and have followed my blogs, you know that I may not always write of fluffy kittens and cute puppy dogs. Sometimes I get deep, sometimes I get on my soapbox and bitch and moan. Most of the time I write of good things though.

For those new to the blog, a word of warning. I don't sugarcoat life, so IF you come across something you don't like, please don't be offended..just skip over it. I don't write to offend anyone, but I do write whatever I feel. I Yam What I Yam, LOL:)

Feel free to comment on any of my blogs..I love your input.


Until next time...

If You Love Life, Life Will Love You Back....

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

When Bill and I were dating in the early 80's, one of our favorite things to do (besides the obvious, LOL) was get in the old Mustang, crank up the music, and cruise. Bill recently bought himself a 1969 Fastback and I've been downloading some cruising music for him and we started talking about what music means to us. It turns out we have totally different views of what it means..I like his way of looking at it better than mine.

When I hear songs, it brings back memories of sitting in my beanbag in my room, the blacklight shining on the cool psychedlic posters on my wall, and the music cranked up on the old stereo as loud as my parents can stand it. I could kick back for hours and just jam! I also remember my friends and I calling KMMK radio over and over to request songs. The DJ (I THINK his name was John Ricoh) got so used to us calling he started putting us on the radio pretty often.

When Bill hears music, almost every song brings back a memory of when he first heard it or where he heard it most often. For example, Fire Lake by Bob Segar brings back the memory of driving down the dirt road heading towards the Rock Pit...his girl (me) by his side and a friend sitting in the back seat. Some songs he remembers hearing when he was sitting out in his favorite spot in the field when he was younger, listening to them on the transistor radio with his friends. I love to play the songs from our past and hear him tell a story or memory about each one....

My Quest For The Blue Ribbon

In case you don't know by now, I really love photography. I mean I really, really, really LOVE photography, LOL. I've been snapping away ever since I got my new camera almost 2 years ago and have been lucky enough to capture some great shots if I do say so myself:) I got this bright idea to enter some photos in the Titus County Fair at almost the last minute. I read the rules and it said the photos had to be mounted on mat board. I didn't even know what mat board was, much less where to get it! Found out what it was and the hunt was on. Living in a small town has its disadvantages..everybody and their dogs must've had the same idea, because I could NOT find mat board anywhere. Poor Bill even went out on his day off to see if he could find me some..but to no avail. We finally made one more trip and found something called card stock. I mounted my photos and fretted over whether they would be accepted or not. The day came to turn them in and I handed them over to the lady, who told me that people had been turning in stuff mounted on all kinds of stuff so mine was fine:) After much anticipation, the first night of the fair finally came. My daughter, Grandson, and I met a good friend there and headed into the building to see all of the entries. The first one of mine I came to had a pink Honorable Mention ribbon on it (which they give to everybody who doesn't place). I expected Pink on all of mine, because after all, this WAS my first year to enter. Imagine my shock when my friend hollered from halfway across the room "Angie..YOU GOT 1st, BEST OF CLASS AND BEST OF SHOW ON YOUR DRAGONFLY!" No way..uh uh..is all I could say. I ran over there and it was true..the greatest honor I could ask for being a newbie was right in front of my eyes! Ashley took pictures of me while I stood there grinning from ear to ear like a dork, LOL. We moved on and found that I had gotten two more Blue Ribbons (1st place) and 2 White Ribbons (3rd). On the 6 entries, I had placed with 5 of them! Imagine that! I was, and still am, on Cloud 9....

I LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY!!

Life Is Like A Box of Chocolates

Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates


When you live out in the country, life is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re gonna get. It might be an old lady across the road burning her trash and letting it turn into a grassfire, threatening to burn your land down along with hers. It might be a couple of drunk, high, or just plain nuts, people driving around and around your back yard in the middle of the night because they were “lost”..said they were looking for a place called the Compound (hello! When you drive down a long driveway, PAST a house with cars in the driveway, see a swimming pool in the backyard, you can be pretty sure you are in somebody’s yard, NOT the compound)..it might be a Red Fox hollering half the night right under your bedroom window (if you’ve never heard a fox cry, it sounds like a very distressed newborn baby..very eerie sounding..it might be the same Red Fox standing in your driveway looking at you while you take his picture…it might be Buzzards nesting in your chicken house..it might be your neighbors chicken laying dozens of eggs beside your shed..it might be a Black Snake in the blackberries with his belly so full of berries he can hardly move..it might be young lovers using your front property for their own personal “parking” place (at least they practiced safe sex, judging by all of the condoms and wrappers they left lying on the ground)…or it might be a BIG cow running around your property for 3 days, eluding the bowlegged cowboy and the rednecks trying to chase her down until somebody FINALLY had the bright idea to cut the back fence and chase her into the pasture..Yeehaw!!

Yep..Forrest Gump was right..Life IS Like a Box of Chocolates…..