The Sweetness

Christmas come and gone, and I am glad. For Christmas, I gave Dianna a trip to the salon to get her "nales" done. I promised Savannah that she could accompany us and we would make it a girls day. I got a pedicure, and Savannah got her "nales" painted. She must have had a good time that day. When we got back she wrote the note on the picture above on my calendar. I love this picture especially the way she spelled nails and done. Gotta love that sweet little girl. She sat so still and was soooo good at the salon. I have also included a picture of her with her favorite Christmas gift from Santa. She is a real sweetie !!!

The Socks

What can I say about my hubby. He numbers his socks. The "D" on the socks stands for Dad, so we have Dad 1 (D1) etc.

Mark also numbered Joshua and Michael's socks as well. Those sock numbers run J1 and M1 respectively. . .You get my drift I'm sure.

The weird part about it all is that Joshua and Michael do their own laundry and D socks never mingle with J or M socks, nor do J and M socks ever mingle.

I'm not sure if this is a military thing or not, I just don't know. . . .but the weirdest part of all is . . . I try and match them all by numbers when I do the laundry.

I need to get back to work - and soon - sock mania is drivin me nutso.

Sock Bingo Anyone! "D5 - Bingo!!"

Christmas Eve at the West House

Here are a few pics from Christmas Eve at my house. I have just included pics of all the kids. Let's face it - Christmas is about the kids anyway. My oh My how all of these kids have grown.

Juan just being happy.

Anthony in his new shirt.

Joshua with his new Guitar

Savannah with ALL the presents.




Michael with his new IPod

The Subjects

Golly, what can I say. Seems everyone is posting picture after picture on their blogs - that is, everyone but me. I only post pics other people take (Thanks Nan). I went out and bought me a camera. It's new, I'm green at this, so I'm gonna practice posting a few pics that I snapped around the house. I want to go to "blog" school so I can make this look all nice and pretty like some of you do. Any Teacher's out there???

Daisy and Shiloh: Daisy is camera shy and does NOT like the camera.

The Twins, like Daisy DO NOT LIKE THE CAMERA, so I caught them off-guard.
This is Michael sorting our mail.

This is Joshua - just coming home from school, caught by surprise.

The Loyal

Well, he's now mine. I got him from our next door neighbors whose house had burned down. He was having trouble adjusting in an apartment, with three boys and another large dog. He IS the best Christmas present ever.

Shiloh? What can I say. I used to dog sit for the him and Buddy when our neighbors went out of town or needed a break. Me and Shiloh just kind of bonded, so when he came to live with me, he and I were already "ole' buds."

I can tell you without a doubt, this is the most loyal dog - EVER. He follows me around constantly. He lays at my feet, or sits by the couch. He can be sound asleep and if I get up he gets up and follows me. He is very well behaved and listens to commands. You tell him to lay down and he does - Amazing. (Most of my dogs have been renegades and don't listen to a word I say).

When I take a shower, he is right outside the door waiting for me. When I get home from work, he is very happy to see me. I do not know his history, but he has been trained somewhere along the line. The neighbors got him from a rescue place, so I hope no one was ever mean to him. The neighbors were really good to him though, just don't know Shiloh's history before they got him.

Daisy? What can I say. She is still sweet and cute, but she is somewhat of a "bully." She won't let the big dog around her food, and won't let him play with her toys. It's hard to teach a doggie to share. She is still sweet though - Except - she helped herself to a whole Pumpkin Pie yesterday. It's jut so hard to get mad at her - I thought it was funny.

If you've never owned a dog - you do not know what you are missing. I think God put them on this earth for the shear pleasure of loving us humans unconditionally and us humans loving them right back. "All God's creatures - big and small."

DOROTHY ALBERTA BLOG - COMING SOON

I am almost done with my blog part on my mother. Sorry it has taken me so long to get this done, but sometimes life gets in the way.

I would like some help from all of you. Instead of commenting on the blog after I've written it, I would like you all to share your stories of Mother before I put mine out there, so I can include your tid-bits in the blog. It may be fun.

Sooooooo any memories or stories you have - please put them out there. Also any pics would be nice if you care to email them to me.

After Mother's is done, I haven't decided where I want to take this. I'm thinking about doing one on the NIcolas' then maybe (MAYBE) the sisters. . . . .Slow process.

I'VE POSTED THIS ON THE FAMILY BLOG. SOOOOO, GET THEM STORIES TO ME.

Glo

The Light

Dianna, Savannah and Bubbie came over Sunday. When they left, I was very sad. It seemed Savannah had grown up, was different or something was wrong. Dianna and family are going through some difficult times right now and it's hard for Savannah, I know. That wasn't what was gripping at me in such a way that nearly brought me to tears most of the afternoon. I finally realized what was different about Savannah. I grappled around for pictures at a furious pace until I found my answer. There was no longer any "light" in Savannah's eyes. Previously, when she was around, she would be excited about "everything" and it shined brightly in her eyes. It was contagious to say the least. You felt happy just being around her. I must say that most of that is now missing. In the two pictures, if you look at them closely, you can see what I am talking about. Savannah is indeed a "girlie" girl and the new haircut (which looks great) should have literally lit up her eyes beyond belief, but that wasn't the case.

While they were here Sunday, Savannah was wanting to do various things, like play basketball, color and she wanted to make something for her teacher so she could "be a good student." Together, we got something together for her teacher, and she was happy about it, but not in a "twinkling eye" kind of way. It's as though she was just going through the motions.

Dianna asked me how can we give Savannah back the twinkle in her eyes. I wish I had that answer, I really do. The previous Sunday was a very hard lesson on how to extinguish a brilliant "light". I was told and assured that no one in that house would ever be "hurt" yet, all in that house lay bleeding profusely, and we have all lost a certain brilliant light. Someone define hurt, please.

The only thing I can think of is all of us need to "be good students" and. . . .learn.

The shoes

My name is Gloria W. and I am addicted to shoes.

I went out yesterday and purchased two more pair. Not sure if I'll wear them or not, but I have this thing for shoes.

I hate to admit this, but I have dozens of pair of shoes in my closet that I have bought and have never worn. They will end up at the Goodwill, in a yard sale or just tossed. Mind you, I don't go out an buy really expensive shoes, but I buy them none-the-less.

Let me try and sort through my shoe thing. I'm overweight, and shoes are the only thing I can buy that is sized in a single digit. I can admit my shoe size 7 and 1/2. Will never admit what size I wear in other clothes.

Because of my body size, I do not like to buy "other clothes" because it's too depressing, so what do I buy - SHOES !!!! Somehow in my mind, I justify that "fine looking" shoes will make me look thinner. Ha Ha Ha.

Secondly, with those people who are close to me who have passed, I look at their shoes as some sort of "monument" to them. It probably comes from the "shoes" being hard to fill thing. I have a pair of my momma's shoes in my closet. My first encounter of this shoe thing (I hesitate to call it a fetish) was with my Grandma Mivelaz's shoes. It didn't hit me she was gone, until I saw her shoes sitting in her house. I just dunno :(

My next purchase of shoes should be a good pair of "WALKING SHOES" so I can get up off my arse, walk, lose weight, get all these shoes out of my closet to someone who needs them and just simply QUIT BUYING SHOES !!!

Is there a support group for this?

The Wind

"It really was no miracle
What happened was just this:
The wind began to switch
the house to pitch
And suddenly the hinges started to unhitch. . ."
Wizard of Oz

Yesterday was the weirdest weather situation I can remember. Funny thing about wind, is you can hear it, you can feel it, but you can't actually see it. It's there, and you know it. If our neighborhood is any indication, yesterday's hurricane-force gust took a toll on some in the region. It was absolutely wild. I've never seen anything like it really. Typically when we get "remnants" (ahem) of a hurricane, it's a little wind and a whole lot of rain. Yesterday we got a little rain and a whole lot of wind.

We were without power for a brief time, but it came back on about 8 last night. Some small damage, but nothing to write home about.

I can only imagine how the people on the Texas coast feel. My itty bitty inconvenience is NOTHING compared to the losses they have suffered. It must be horrendous for them. This is just my take on how "WEIRD" it all was. Mind you tho - we are in KY - far away from any costal region.

The Bath

Take a music bath once or twice a week for
a few seasons. You will find it
is to the soul what a water bath is to the body.

~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Guess you could say that my soul is now clean. Mark and the Twins were all out of the house yesterday, and I "pumped up the volume." I listened to music all day. I dug out some old CDs, listened to music at Dianna's Blog - I just couldn't get enough music. I do not listen to music much when everyone is around, just when I am by myself. When the family IS around, I spend a lot of time demanding that they turn their music down, as it gives me a headache.

I'm not sure why, to me, music is best when alone. Maybe Mr. Holmes was right, it's like a warm soothing bath, which is something we do alone, as it does refresh the spirit - much like music.

The Shame

Mark and I were driving to Dianna's on Saturday, and I have to say that I am extremely embarassed and ashamed at what transpired.

We were driving along a two lane road, when we noticed something in the road. We get to the object in the road, and noticed it was some type of lawn chair - just sitting there.

We stop to wait for oncoming traffic to pass so we can go around, EXCEPT a van stopped in the other lane coming towards us. The chair was not in their lane - just ours.

An old lady, gets out of her van - while stopping traffic and removes the chair from the road, and our path. My first thought was that she had lost it and was coming back to retrieve it - BUT NOOOOOOOOOO. She carries it off and sits it on the side of the road, so all can pass and no one will be involved in an accident.

Mark and I were just going to sit there and go around it once traffic on the other side had past - but this elderly lady really showed us up. I felt awful and embarassed.

I should have gotten off my lazy ass and moved the chair. It was on my side, blocking our path. God - what have I become.

Chairs? I need to get out of them and move me arse - may save a life.

The Trees

I think that I shall never see
A Poem as lovely as a Tree.
A Tree whose Hungry mouth is Prest
Against the Earth's sweet flowing breast.

A Tree that looks at God all day
and lifts her leafy arms to pray
A Tree that may in summer wear
A nest of Robins in her hair.


Upon whose bosom snow has lain
Who Intimately lives with rain
Poems are made by fools like me.
But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer





Well, they are working on tearing down the house next door that burned. The first thing they took out were the two beautiful Bradford Pear Trees that stood in the front yard. I loved those threes. They were probably nearly 30 years old. Brandford Pear Trees are the first ones to get their leaves in the spring and the last ones to lose them in the fall. Plus, in the spring they have beautiful blooms on them. I miss a lot about the house next door, but I really miss the trees.

Good old Golden Rule Days

A collective sigh of relief, and some cheering and hollering can be heard today across the city, as school begins.

I however, feel differently. I'm always sad when the kids go back to school, for it means the end of summer. I like kids around, for they make me feel better (for what reason, I don't know.) The house is too quiet when kids are in school, and I'm not even here - I'm at work. Someone with a psychology degree out there, figure that one out.

The only thing I like about this time of year is looking forward to the new TV season and basketball - WOW !!!!

I absolutely hate Nov, Dec & Jan, because they are typically cloudy, cold and gloomy. Did I mention Cloudy? Not looking forward to them at all.

Give me summer all the time - please.

For all you kiddies out there - Sorry this marks the end of your vacation - and have a wonderful school year.

All's well that ends well. . . . Well. . . .

I thought it was time for the kids in the family to have a cell phone. Seems they are always going someplace, and there is no way to contact them. I added 2 cell phones to my family plan. Joshua and Michael have one to share, and Anthony and Juan have the other to share. Sharing doesn't really work, but that is another story for another time.

I get my first cell phone bill and all is well. I get a list of who the kids are calling and who they are texting. I didn't mention that I got the kids "unlimited" texting, because I know that teens like to text. Fine.

The second time I got a bill, it was a little different story. The bill had a $1,637.37 charge on it. Yes you heard me right, ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN DOLLARS AND THIRTY SEVEN CENTS. It seems Joshua found the WWW on his cell and used it abundantly.
I called AT&T in a tizzy on the 25th of July. Mark noticed that this particular billing cycle ended on the 18th of july, and he was worried about what went on between the end of the billing cycle and the 25th of July. Soooooo, when I called AT&T there were indeed more charges that had not yet shown on my bill, to the tune of $2,964 dollars. Yes you heard me correctly add $2,964 to 1637.00 and you get FOUR THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND ONE DOLLARS. Yea, I can pay that. . . .Right. Joshua was going to be working for me for the rest of his life.

Well, when I get on the phone to AT&T, I talked to the nicest gentleman, his name was Monty. Monty gave me "free unlimited internet service" back to the 19th of July, so most of the $2964 was wiped out. . . .and Monty put in a request for a "high rate adjustment" to my bill. . .
The wonderful folks at AT&T took every cent of Internet off of my bill. They gave me "free unlimited internet service" back several months - so I just owe the normal amount. I will never switch my service, and Josh has learned a valuable lesson about responsibility.

When you are old like me, you don't read the fine print, you know enough about technology to be dangerous, and you take lots of deep breaths when dealing with teens. I fear the day, these kids get behind the wheel of a car.

Later.

Ramblings

Thought I would post today, since I am bored out of my mind. I have been fighting algea in my pool for about 2 weeks, and I won. The pool looks great, but I didn't get in today. I've been in it every day for about 3 weeks, and I'm taking a break. I threw a pool party last weekend, and I want to say nobody came, but my kids/grandkids were here, and they are all somebody special. Dianna and Savannah were here yesterday, and it was nice spending time with them.

I am sitting for the neighbor's dogs, and I was up at 4:00 am this morning (A Saturday mind you). I did take a nap, but feel worse than before the nap. It has been one of those lazy days for sure. I almost feel another nap coming on.

The dogs will be going home tomorrow, and I will miss them. They are huge and are very active. Dianna has pics of them on her photo blog. My dog Daisy doesn't like these big dogs much. They play with her ball, so she's pissed and she carried HER ball in the bathroom last night, and laid there and protected it. Daisy is funny, she will ignore me for about 2 weeks cause these big dogs were here. When the dogs come, we keep Daisy upstairs and the big dogs downstairs. We put Daisy's dog food upstairs too. Since I knew the big dogs were coming, I moved Daisy's dog food up early - and she was totally mad at me. She knew what was to come.

Work sucks - what more can I say? Nothing.

Mark - In the Back Yard - With a Lead Pipe

I do laundry once a week and today began the cycle.

I start the dryer and hear a rustling in the dryer vent. I took a flashlight outside to look in the vent and see something in there. I couldn't make out what it was, so I call Markie to the rescue.

Turns out it was a mommy mouse and a nest in the vent. The next had 3 baby mice in it.

Mark formulates a strategy. He goes upstairs and gets a Kroger plastic bag and a glue trap. He then instructs me to turn on the dryer. Nothing. The mommy mouse scurries but doeosn't come out of the next.

Sooooo, Markie goes into the garage, grabs a lead pipe and instructs me to turn the dryer on "high heat". I do as I am instructed.

The mommy mouse grabs one of the babies and runs out of the dryer vent. Mark is beating the lead pipe all over the ground trying to hit the mommy mouse. He fails.

The mommy mouse is under the deck peeking out at Markie and heads back to try and rescue the other two babies. She gets back into Mark's sights and Mark again starts beating the ground with the lead pipe - again - missing the mommy mouse.

By this time, Mark had scraped the nest out of the vent, and the remaining two babies were dead. The mommy mouse scurried back and picked up one of the dead babies, and dropped it once she realized it was dead.

If I had a video camera this whole scenario would have been a riot. That mouse was darned fast and if you couldn't see the mouse, Mark looked like a mad-man outside beating the ground with the lead pipe. Tee Hee.

On the down side, it was kind of sad that even those dirty, disgusting creatures called mice, protect their young.

Every Picture Tells a Story

This is one of the few pictures I have of when the kids were little that caught a moment perfectly. If you look at it, it looks like three kids posing at the beach. Look again.

We had taken Shawn Smuskie to Florida with us, and the kids had a very long day and were very tired. I was younger then too.

I wanted their picture in the water, so I said "Now everybody hold hands and smile.".

Well, Dianna and Shawn immediately did as they were told, but Johnny on the other hand was such a rebel. Shawn was saying "Come on Johnny." Johnny was saying "Ewwwww I ain't holding anybody's hand." If not notice he's holding his hand back, Shawn is ready to hold hands, and Dianna . . .well, she's just blasted tired.

It caught the moment perfectly, and I thought I would share.

Johnny and Shawn are still friends to this date - Johnny was Shawn's best man in his wedding.

Every picture does tell a story - sometimes you have to look a little closer tho.

I bounce

I wear my coffee well.

I left work a few minutes early today, got home, fixed my afternoon coffee and was heading down the stairs. Maybe "heading" down the stairs is an understatement. I butted down the stairs.

Second to last step, my foot slipped and down I went. I hit the landing on my hip and tailbone, my coffee hit me and the walls. My head scraped the door, but I am ok. I took on most of the coffee, mainly in my hair. I wasn't burned, so I guess the coffee cooled while it was splashing through space. It's funny now that I think about it.

The twins were great, and came running to my rescue and helped me clean up the little bit of coffee that was on the floor. Michael assisted me in getting up.

I am going to be sore tomorrow. At this point, I'm glad my rear-end carries that extra padding.

I fly through the air with the un-greatest of ease, and I DO bounce.

Been Awhile huh?

I haven't posted in awhile, so I thought I would join the masses.

Nothing much going on here, same ole, same ole.

I have been extremely anxious of late, so I started taking Lexapro and it has really helped me a lot. I hate these winter months - However, I noticed at 6:30 pm last night, that there was still a glimmer of light of day, and that tells me the days are getting longer.

I used to love the winter - but not any more - I'm ready to move to the SUNSHINE state.

Work is so hectic that when I get home, I'm on the couch and asleep. They are hiring someone to help out - YIPEE. We interview this week. YAY.

Working in HR you really do see the best and the worst of people. It's intriguing.

Joshua and Michael competed in an academic competition yesterday. Michael won first place in Science (Gold medal and 100 savings bond). Josh came home with second in Science (silver medal). Proud of them both - they are sooooo very smart.

One problem with this is that Josh has always kinda been the dominant twin and Michael has always stayed in the background. Since they have come to live with us, Michael has really come out of his shell and speaks up, stands up for himself, etc. Joshua was not too happy with Michael taking first place. Josh is such a competitor - Michael is a "roll with the flow" kind of guy. If they will concentrate on their school work more, there are definiate scholarships in their future.