Stamp Out New Year Resolutions

Stamp Out New Year Resolutions!!

I have no new ones. I just use the same ones every year, and so far I have not had a problem sticking with them.

• I will not diet
• I will not exercise
• I will not eat Brussels sprouts
  
  
  

Second Childhood

This may sound far-fetched, but I am telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing, but the truth. I had a dream. It isn’t anything to write in a blog about, but I’m going to write about it anyway. A couple night’s ago I dreamed my checking account was in trouble and I spent a lot of time in the dream trying to untangle the mess. When I woke up, I went straight to the computer and looked at my account. It was on the verge of being overdrawn. I just caught it in time to transfer some money into it. I had written a check that I thought would be taken out in January and it came out in December. I have had people tell me, that they would never bank online. They think it is too risky. I think banking online is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I guess my Guardian Angel tapped me on the shoulder while I was sleeping and told me to check my account. While I’m on the subject of banks, I think the ATM card is the next greatest thing since sliced bread. I once had a close friend that I shopped with all the time and I tried so hard to convince her that she needed an ATM card. She goes, “No way, Jose (she always thought my name was Jose) I don’t want one of those things, I’ve lived this long without one, and I can live a few more years without it.” I told her that I guess it’s true that you can’t teach and old dog new tricks. My wonderful friend has since passed away and I miss her every day. She was right about not needing to learn the new trick of using an ATM card. Alice and I enjoyed our second childhood more than we did the first one. One day while at the Mall we noticed one of those old picture booths that were so popular in our younger days. Something just came over us, we crammed ourselves into it and took our picture.
I am so frustrated I could explode. I am using the new Microsoft Word 2007. A trial offer came with the new laptop. I just want to save the document until I can finish it at a later time. Do you think I can find a button that says “save as”, so I can put it in the folder I want it in and I can give it a name. I can find everything else under the sun. Such as, one page, two pages, page width and zoom, split, new window, ruler, accept and reject, and 4000 different fonts. I have been fooling around with it and it is really cool. There is nothing it can’t do. I even found the “save as” button. I better go back to word pad because this thing is too expensive for my budget. This is my story for today.

Back on the Farm

I recall an incident that happened back on the farm where I grew up. Grandpa lived with us since Grandma had passed on. Our Daddy was the preacher of the little country church. It was a very devout household and we learned very early on that there was a code of ethics that you lived up to or else. Bad words were on the top of that list. No bad words. Us kids soon learned to follow that rule, but Grandpa just didn’t seem to get the message. I don't think he really cared about the rule because he used them all the time. One time he hooked up a team of horses to a wagon and went to a field. I don’t remember what he was doing, but it doesn’t matter. When he started back to the barn the horses got spooked over something and had a run-away, they took off like flying rockets over ruts and brambles and kicking up clouds of dust a mile high, and the wagon looked like an air born missile. Some of us kids were outside and saw them coming in our direction. We were worried that Grandpa had been thrown out and may be hurt bad because we couldn’t see him in the wagon. We didn’t know how we were going to get the horses stopped. We thought they might even run over us. Well, not to worry, horses are smart because when they saw the house they came to a screeching halt almost at our back door. I don’t know for sure how horses think, but I think they must have thought they were safe now that they were in their own back yard, or maybe they thought the fly that had been chasing them, was no longer a threat. We’ve got to go find Grandpa! About the time we were talking about finding Grandpa, he managed to pull himself up and was standing in the bed of the wagon. This is the point when he began to badmouth the horses with some more of those forbidden bad words. There were some words that our tender young ears had never heard before, he finally ended it with, "I see we finally got here." Maybe you would need to be there to get the humor of it, but we thought that was about the funniest line we had ever heard so we began to snicker and chuckle a little. At the same time Grandpa climbed out of the wagon and staggered around in front of the horses and started shouting those same words to the horses again, in case they had not heard him the first time. He had raised his voice to a full roar. By now we had collapsed into a full-blown laugh seizure. We were laughing so hard we couldn’t stand up. I guess Grandpa must have noticed this because, all at once, he turned his verbal abuse from the horses to us. Grandpa sure knew how to take the humor out of something because we snapped to attention and things began to simmer down and it was back to normal. Grandpa just didn’t have much of a sense of humor.

O Christmas Tree

Do you see what I see

hiding in the tree!

He thinks he is

an ornament !

but he can't fool me.

I call this cat, KathyKat, because he belongs to my niece, Kathy.

My brother, the Grandpa, calls him Cooter.

We don't care what his real name is.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday
to my Granddaughters
YYY

Emily and Molly

Public Apology

I made the local newspaper without being arrested. I am flattered beyond words that they thought others would be interested in my blog. Nearly 400 people viewed it the first day. When I started this blog I honestly was naïve enough to believe only my family, and people I sent the blog to would ever read it. Needless to say I was not very discriminatory with what I said about anything. I have poked fun at almost everybody in town. With that said, let me make a public apology to the following victims.
Doctors
Office clerks
Beauty Shops
Paper Carriers
Neighbors
Medical Suppliers
By Standers
Dogs and Cats
Weatherman
Fiesta Food
Albertson’s
Fence People
People who live in the desert
People who live in the arctic
Pepsi Cola Drivers
Relatives
Missourians
Fishermen
Wal-Mart dot com
Wal-Mart
TV People ( and by the way, you still owe me)
Internet Server
Court System

Mystery Solved

As I said before, I got married so young. I was barely out of diapers. I left my home and came to this strange land. Now I know why. Look at the following Ad. It's from the olden days and they advertised smoking like you were a misfit if you didn't smoke. The man I married was a smoker and now I know why I got married so young.

Treadmill Dreadmill

I walk the treadmill
a mile a day
Hoping the fat
will go away
But all I ever lose
is fat from my feet
Never an ounce comes
off my seat !!

When I wrote that thing
Twas a different day
Now I just drive by the gym

And look the other way !!

Jury Duty Selection

Oops, I've been nailed by the court system. They need me for jury duty. I'd rather be needed for hog slopping duty. Jury duty can be, and usually is the most boring thing you can imagine. Anyway the ones I have been on are boring. How can you stay awake and pretend you are alert when it's just boring. You can't let yourself nod off because the Judge is eye-balling you every minute. I have heard that if you nod off they shoot you with the taser gun. It'll wake you up. You have to be dead to get out of jury duty, and you have to be alive once you are in there. Once upon a long time ago my daughter-in-law was called for Jury duty. She has a day care and had five or six kids. She attempted to convince the court that the parents of those kids needed her services. They had no alternative sitters and it would be an extreme hardship on everybody if she had to serve. I guess they had heard that excuse before because they said, "No". So she packed up her kids and took them with her. She strolled into that court room like Mother Goose with her little goslings following behind her, and brought along small toys and sippy cups for the kids in case they got restless.
Three and four year olds get restless in a matter of seconds. They played with their toys and became louder and louder and louder. Finally the Judge called the Bailiff up and told him to tell the lady with the children that she can be dismissed. I don't know if she has ever been called back for jury duty or not. They probably don't allow kids in the jury selection room anymore.

The Perm Disaster

Back in the early days, and I am speaking 40’s, I was attending a one room school house in the state of Oklahoma near a town called Glencoe. I was excited about getting a perm. I had never had one because money was something that was always talked about, but never seen. My rich brother had joined the Air Force and was now a private stationed in Hawaii at Hickam Field. I wrote him a letter pleading with him to be so kind as to send a few dollars so I could get a perm. I explained to him that everybody thinks I am the ugliest girl in school and if I had a perm it would really help the situation. (Little did I know it would remove all doubt) Much to my delight and surprise he sent the money in his next letter. In the next few days he also sent me a beautiful fresh Hawaiian Orchid lei. I thought he sure likes me better than he used to. One Saturday morning, my mother and I got all gussied up and went to town to get this perm. They shampooed my hair and put a lot of rollers all over my head and than sat me in another chair and began to clamp something that hung down from a huge machine of some kind on to each roller. It must have been plugged into electricity. I don’t know how long I sat under that monster, but it got hot and it got hotter. I tolerated it because I wanted curly hair, like Shirley Temple. Finally the torture was over and I could look in the mirror. I saved my tears until I got in the car. It was the worst disaster you could possible imagine. One huge tumble weed sitting on top of my head is what it looked like. It couldn’t be covered up. It was big. Whoever coined the word big-hair must have gotten a glimpse of me. I had to go to school so I put the exotic fresh Orchid lei around my neck and to school I went. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

The Day I met my In laws

I was a mere child when I married. At the ripe old age of 17 to be exact. "What was the urgency you might ask"? Let me assure you, I cannot answer that one because I am totally clueless as to the reason. I just chalk it up to "young and very dumb". The marriage took place and we took a trip to the state of Washington to take up residence because that was where my new husband's family lived. I was a bit apprehensive about meeting my new in laws because I knew we would be living with them because this was the era right after the WW2 and rentals were next to impossible to find. People were getting married left and right and looking for housing. Well, meet them I did!!! I was expecting to be judged, but not at that exact minute. The following picture pretty much sums it up. My first thought was, "I wonder if this place has a back door."



The above post is just a spoof, meant to be funny. It is an actual picture of my in laws, but my in laws were absolutely wonderful people and couldn't have been nicer to me.

Sleepless in Yakima

This is a picture of Tylor, another great grandson. He is a brother of AJ. He is 14 and goes to school a block from my house so he comes here every day after school and AJ picks him up. The neighbors across the street where the cars are, have a problem finding parking spaces for all their vehicles. One of their places to park was in front of my mailbox. The carrier wasn't too happy about it so I wrote a note and put it on their car asking them very kindly to please leave room for the mail carrier to get to my mail box. They totally ignored me. After all I guess it's a free country and they can park where they want to. One day another neighbor came over with my mail. He said the mail man had given it to him because he couldn't get to my mail box. He also told me the police had been called. I don't know what happened, but they haven't parked in front of my mail box again. I know that must be very uninteresting, but I have nothing else to write about.
I am a true dyed in the wool, bona fide basket case. I woke up at one something this morning. There was no way my brain would let me go back to sleep. After lying there peeking at the clock every five minutes for a solid hour I decided if my stupid brain thinks I don't need anymore sleep than so be it. I crawled out of bed at two AM and turned on the coffee pot and turned on TV while I ate a piece of toast. Not much on TV at that hour so don't worry about missing something unless you like advertisements for sleeping pills. Except the news channels are on. Do you know they stay up all night and babble on and on about those auto makers. The CEO's of the auto makers have agreed to receive a one dollar salary for a year. Would you do that? Could it be because you have not been making a million dollars a year for the past several years. Fritz Henderson is the president of General motors. This news is kind of interesting. Two shoppers in a Toys R Us store got into a little tiff about something and it developed into a full blown guns drawn battle. They were chasing each other all over the store and people and kids were screaming. They were firing their guns and finally shot and killed each other. True story. No wonder I can't sleep. I remember about 50 years ago we had a murder take place in this town and it was talked about for years. Now it happens about once a month.
The early morning rambling of an insomniac.

Anthony aka AJ

This is a more current picture of AJ. He does not have a super sized loop in his ear, he is standing in front of a clock.

Photo Tag

Cora has challenged me to a photo tag game. The rules of the game are to post the fourth photo out of your fourth folder. This one turns out to be my great grand son, AJ and his friend Allen. Taken a few years back because he is now 18 years old. He may have even outgrown cookies by now. He does not have some wierd hairdo, he is standing in front of a house plant. Allen, I am sorry that you got cut off.

Cowards

Why do people hate other people? What did the terrorist accomplish by killing all those people in the Taj Mahal Hotel in India? It's nothing more than a sadistic game they are playing. What kind of war is that? They probably studied and prepared for it for months and months. Did they get what they wanted. Killing innocent people is about as sick and demonic as you can get. One of the Terrorist was caught and the first thing he said was, "Don't kill me, I don't want to die yet". That remark should be grounds for murder. According to a news report he also said they were trying to kill 5000 people.
It must really feed their sick ego and now they are already working on their next target. Maybe the lesson we can learn from it is to stay in the smallest hotel you can find or attend the least crowded event. This is just a few of my thoughts on the subject.

Thankful

Thanksgiving is here and I am thankful that my eye surgery is over. I went in Monday for my followup appointment on the progress of the left eye. Everything was perfect. The Dr. said they had a cancellation and if I wanted to I could have the surgery on my other eye done the next day. I jumped at that opportunity. Otherwise I was going to have to wait until December 4th. How blessed can I get. It is over and done with and I am seeing good again. What a Thanksgiving.

Ranting Again

Should we give money to bail out the auto industry? The world needs a big brother to keep little brothers in line.
They should start at the other end. The housing and auto industry are going broke because they can no longer sell their inflated priced cars and houses and the reason for that is because our income has not been inflated to keep up with it. Except those at the top can inflate their own income. This is where big brother could give us a hand. Here lies the solution!! Give everybody a super big bonus so he can buy another car and make the house payment.

I haven't been elected to anything yet so don't ask me how it can be done. You need to elect me first and then I'll hire somebody to figure it out.

Cool Glasses

I cannot began to tell you how happy I will be to get my other eye fixed. One eye has a new artificial lens which makes the vision perfect and the other eye still needs glasses. It's driving me nuts. If I want to read something, which happens very frequently, I put on the glasses and with the glasses made for bad eye sight in both eyes it makes for a very miserable reading experience. I now need to hold the reading material under my nose in order to make out what it says. To top that off I have to wear these dark glasses while outside. I didn't realize how gorgeous I looked in them until my 14 year old Grandson told me how cool my glasses were. I asked him if he would like to have them and he said, "you're kidding, can I really have them" ? I told him when the two weeks are over he is welcome to them.
I drew a picture of me so you can see what I look like in my cool glasses.
I had to squint one eye closed while drawing the picture so if it looks a little odd that might be why.

Eye Surgery

Tomorrow morning at 9 AM I will be having surgery on my left eye. The cataract will be removed and hopefully I will be able to see a little better. I have been putting in two different kinds of eye drops in the eye. I have to do it four times today. I guess it prepares the eye for surgery. Tomorrow they put in an IV and drug me up a little. Maybe it's so I can be still while they are working on it. The surgery only last a few minutes, but I will be there for about two hours. That is what she told me. Two weeks later I will have the other eye done.
Everybody I know that has had it done tell me there is nothing to it so I am not worrying about it.

Pet Peeve

This only bothers me slightly, but I always seem to notice it. When I went to school the teacher seemed to think certain things were very very important. If you are inside it's called the floor. If you are outside it's called the ground. Now I hear a lot of people, and I am talking about things I watch on TV, referring to the floor as the ground. For instance, "it fell on the ground". If you're inside there ain't no ground around for it to fall on. To me I always associated ground and dirt as one and the same. Now, don't go getting all excited about my awful grammar and bad punctuations and I already know you ain't supposed to say, "ain't no". It's double negative or something. I also know that "ain't" ain't even a very good word to use.
Now what do you think about this? Should I just ignore it because maybe the floor is so dirty they can't tell the difference?

Signs of the Times

A woman writes a letter to her bank.
Dear Sirs,
In view of what seems to be happening internationally with banks at the moment, I was wondering if you could advise me… if one of my cheques is returned marked 'insufficient funds,' how do I know whether that refers to me or to you?

The True Reuben Sandwich

The True Reuben Sandwich

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
8 slices rye bread
1/2 cup thousand island dressing
8 slices Swiss cheese
8 slices deli sliced corned beef
1 cup sauerkraut, drained


Cooking Instructions


Preheat a large skillet or griddle on medium heat.
Lightly butter one side of bread slices. Spread non-buttered sides with thousand island dressing. On 4 bread slices, layer 1 slice Swiss cheese, 2 slices corned beef, 1/4 cup sauerkraut and second slice of Swiss cheese. Top with remaining bread slices, buttered sides out.
Grill sandwiches until both sides are golden brown, about 15 minutes per side. Serve hot.


Nutrition FactsServings per Recipe: 4
Amount Per Serving

• calories: 655cal


• total fat: 40.1g


• cholesterol: 115mg


• sodium: 1987mg


• carbohydrates: 42.4g


• fiber: 4.6g


• protein: 32.9g
• Preparation Time: 15 min.Cooking Time: 30 min.Ready In: 45 min.Servings: 4
  

Dogs are Beautiful

This is one of our family pooches. Name is Jeffrey and is now 15 years old and totally blind. He was beautiful in his day. I don't know the next one, but I'm sure she won first prize.

President Elect

I suppose his nickname will be BO.

Anyway I thought the following quote was funny.

MOSCOW: Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy described President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday as "young, handsome and well tanned."