Save it for Last

Senior retirement homes should be called Half-Way houses because that is what they are, half of a house, half as many rooms, a bathroom in half the space, half a kitchen if any at all, a living room with enough room for a chair with a TV in front of it, half a closet. No front porch, patio, lawn, garage or flower bed. When you graduate from that, you go to The Senior Hotel. You have rooms and hallways, and valets and maids to turn your bed down at night. You even have maids to help with the bath. Meal time is fine dining with all your friends, served tomato soup with delicious cat food sandwiches. Who could ask for more?

Not many can afford this fine living, it is not cheap, it runs around $50000 or more a year. You work a lifetime to pay for a home so you will have something to bequeath to The Senior Hotel.

 That is the  long and short of it, but it isn't all gloom and doom.

Now for a few words about the teens.

Teens have a lingo all of their own,

and they always have.

Adults:                                          Teen:

Call or phone                                Text

Visit                                              Hang out

Aced it                                          Smacked it

Old or antique                              Teek

Good friend                                  We’re tight

Not going steady                           Single

Clean your room                          It’s not dirty

Just Because

My mother was a natural born seamstress; she could look at a picture and make a pattern. This didn’t just apply to clothes; at one time she made a crib for the baby in the family. She had very few tools to work with, but it was very well made and lasted a very long time. Even though I was a kid at the time I was impressed.

One time when I was about 5 years old, I came downstairs from a nap, and my mother handed me something. It was a homemade doll; she had made for me while I was outside playing and before I woke up in the mornings.

I have never in my lifetime been so excited and happy over a gift. It wasn’t my birthday, it was a just-because gift. It was made from a white flour sack, with cotton stuffing. It had arms and legs, an embroidered face and brown yarn hair. Mom said the hair was the color of my hair. It was my prized possession, and I carried it around and took great care of it until one day I accidentally left it outside. One of those Oklahoma gully washer rain storms came up and my poor doll was pounded with rain. It was rather limp and lumpy after that, but I loved it anyway. I still love dolls, and have a couple on display, but none have ever meant as much to me as that rag doll my mother made just for me, just because.

 Maybe that event inspired me to make dolls. I have made a few. 

 Here are some of the dolls I have made:

I had a few Granddaughters.

I had a few patterns.

I tried to create an elephant, but it looked more like a pig so I added wings and a curly tail. I sent it to Laura because she is the one that always says, "when pigs fly."

I had so many of these little people made, that I gave them to the trick or treaters.They liked them.

The Cleaning Fairy, Me.

This morning I went into a cleaning frenzy. It only takes one episode of ’Hoarders’ to do it.  There is no way in hell or any other place that I will allow piles of garbage and other wonderful collector items to stand between me and my table or bed. I even have a favorite chair and couch that fit into that category. I had to empty the canister on the vacuum cleaner. That is a challenge that boggles the mind (that is, if you have a mind). You cannot just set it back in there, it has to be adjusted with exact precision or it won’t work. It finally happened and by now the adrenaline is running in high gear so the job was a breeze. This included floor scrubbing and dusting furniture. Now I am exhausted and thirsty so I am having an ice cold can of aspartame, phosphorus, potassium benzoate, phenylketonurics, sometimes known as diet Pepsi.
It is a beautiful day on my little part of the globe. I think there is rain heading this way. It will first hit the coastal area and then we get the tail end of it. The weather prophet said there could be snow in the mountains. It’s summertime, when is it going to stop snowing?

Photo's of the Little Ones

Granddaughters, Leah and Chloe now three and the personalities are developing. Chloe is giving her Dad the evil eye for taking their picture. Leah finds it rather amusing.

 

Chloe going on a bike ride with her Mom.

This was taken several months earlier.

I think this was taken at Christmas time.

Taken last September