Thursday 13

13 Things I've "Inherited" from My mom.

As yall know, I lost my mom recently. I use lost as it infers that I will one day find her again...and i will...not in this world, but in the next. So, one of the many tasks we've had (my brother, husband and i ) is to clean out her stuff and for us to divy it up. Here are the top 13 things I'm now the proud new owner of.

13. The yellow mixing bowl. It's nothing fancy...it's just soooo handy. It's a thick plastic, a good size and has a handle. We've used it for as long as we can remember for so many different projects from cake batters to popcorn.



12. The GREEN mixing bowl. LOL. But it's totally different from the aforementioned yellow one. First, this one is much older and it's metal. And we used it alllll the time. Most memorable was for shelling peas or snapping green beans. Steven (my brother ) and i both wanted it...but i got it...afterall, he got her car.

11. ANGELS. glory goodness that woman loved angels...and many of these i'd given her. I'm looking at a pretty one right now...it's got no face and has moss hair and a vine for a halo. They're all over the house now...watching over us.



10. Dolphin stained glass. She was a huge collector of all things dolphins. Me? not so much. But she did have one beautiful stained glass that was in her front window at the little cottage (what she called her house...along with the Briarpatch cottage).



9. Jewelry! so much jewelry. She loved gemstones and had a huge collection that i couldnt begin to appreciate. (There's a REASON she wanted her friend Bill to have it!) But i went thru her jewelry and picked out a few pieces that weren't so big...i'm not into big jewelry. I gave some to my cousin Kim and some to my Aunt and Grandmother.

8. A really cool night stand. it's got tons of drawers and it's pretty. Now, knowing my mom, she probably got it at a thrift store, but who cares? It's really neat. I'm "letting" Dale use it for his night stand...but it looks good over on his side of the room and it's perfect for my organized husband.



7. FOOD. Steven and I felt like little scavengers going thru her pantry...but I now have more chocolate than i could dream of buying, canned foods that would do a food pantry proud. Every meal, we comment, "another one down..." meaning the cans.

6. A Canon Printer/fax/scanner. Dale's had one for several years now but since the move, I've been deprived of it since we're not in the same room anymore. But thanks to Mom, I have my own now. It's older and takes 5 cartridges instead of 2, but hey, it works.

5. 3 HUGE framed (expensively i might add) prints/paintings of dolphins. I have NO IDEA where there're going to go, but they were too nice to donate to charity.



4. An old timey radio from my great Aunt Mary Alice's home that my mom had gotten. It's one of those large rounded ones that probably announced the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It's still got the vacumn tubes in the back.

3. A king size bed. We havn't brought it down to the house yet, but will. It'll be the first time I've ever owned a King!! What an up grade from Queen.

2. 2 new computers...but I'm giving one to my cousin Kim. Both are Dell's and faster than my current one that is circa first marriage.

1. Every card or picture or letter that my kids, my brother or I ever sent her. She kept them all. God I miss her.

Happy Easter 2008

Ok...we did it. We broke the terrible news to the kids about the existence of the Easter Bunny or lack thereof. It came up because we bought Sheena an Easter gift and John could not stop arguing and complaining that SHE got a gift from us and he didn't. It didn't matter that he'd gotten something from the Easter Bunny...he hadn't received anything from US. So we told them. Very bluntly I might add. And of course the inevitable came up from Josh, " Does this mean that Santa isn't real either???" I couldnt do it. I broke down and lied. NO...That's a totally different thing. Santa's real...but a hopping bunny bringing easter gifts? come on now.

So with all that said, here are some pics from the Easter Egg Gettogether we had ysterday at Dale's sister Amy's home. Dont think these are the best I can do...i forgot my camera and had to use my cell phone!



and here are all the grandkids....

Thursday 13 Today In History

I'm a history buff...I admit it freely and w/o shame. Yes, when I was in highschool, I was even on the Social Studies Team (today you'd probably call it a Trivia Team). so call me a nerd if you like. But today I decided to make a today in history...Just because I can. So in Chronilogical order from oldest to most recent...

13. 1790 John Martin, 1st American-born actor, performs in Philadelphia. Now, I don't know what play...but we can be guaranteed he wasn't swarmed by papperazzi and he didn't make a pre-play appearance on THE VIEW.

12. 1852 Uncle Sam cartoon figure made its debut in the New York Lantern weekly. And from here we get the Uncle Sam figure of Americana.

11. 1861 Jefferson Davis signs bill authorizing use of slaves as soldiers. So kind of him dont you think?

10. 1868 Senate begins President Andrew Johnson impeachment trial. He apparently irked a lot of the radical republicans after the Civil War by trying to follow Abe Lincoln's more lenient plan for reconstruction. But the straw that broke the camel's back was when he removed Stanton as Secty of War in violation of an act that had passed saying the President had to have the consent of Congress to remove appointed officials. Turns out, Senate voted to acquit Andrew Johnson by a margin of 35 guilty to 19 not guilty - one vote short of the two-thirds needed to convict. I wonder who was that swing vote and why he voted the way he did??? Guess I have something to look up.

9. 1915 Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson tries to catch a baseball dropped from an airplane, but the pilot substituted a grapefruit. UGH. how messy could that be? wonder if he caught it? Info doesn't say.

8. 1921 Mongolia declares independence from China. And yet, we still find mongolian bbq on most chinese buffets. Get it right folks.!

7. 1922 WRR-AM in Dallas TX begins radio transmissions It became the first broadcast radio station in the state of Texas, and the 2nd in the nation

6. 1936 Clarence Nash birthday. Now who is that you may be asking yourself? He was the voice of Donald Duck.

5. 1939 Neil Sedaka's birthday. I used to love him when I was a kid. Still think it's odd for ANY man to sing that high tho! He had some great songs. Happy Birthday Sweet 16, Calendar Girl, Next Door To An Angel, Breaking Up is Hard to Do, & Laughter In the Rain. And trivia for the day, did you know he helped write, Captain & Tennille's Love Will Keep Us Together?

4. 1947 19th Academy Awards (for the year 1946) "Best Years of Our Lives",(Really great movie if you've never seen it!) Frederic March won for Best actor from that movie and so did Harold Russell for best supporting actor. Olivia de Havilland won also but for a movie I'm not familiar with "To Each His Own".

3. 1954 Braves' Bobby Thomson breaks his ankle, he is replaced by Hank Aaron. Poor Bobby set into action the most valuable Brave ever. And the rest is history.

2. 1988 14th People's Choice Awards: Fatal Attraction, Bill Cosby win. Now these are not even my favorite awards shows. But it's a good indication of what was popular at the time. Bill Cosby was on the Tonight Show last night...20 years after this award and still as funny as ever.

1. 1993 Blizzard of '93 hits north-east US. I sooo remember that storm as it hit Atlanta, GA too. I still have pictures of it.

In My Life..

Remember that song by the Beatles? I love it. Well anyway...things going on in my life right now....

Working at West At Home...it's a home based customer service company. I get to stay at home and I take calls from people who're ordering things from infomercials. I'd just gotten the position when Mom got so sick...I'd only worked like 2 shifts. So then after she passed away, I started back to work with them. It's a job just getting shifts! I think they've over hired and we're all scrambling to get the few coveted shifts. I've also applied with another company called Live Ops...I'm hoping that with the two jobs I'll be able to get some decent shifts and bring home some extra income. I'm only wanting to work 15-20 hours each week and that would bring us in enough income to live comfortably. We'd like to use my income for entertainment portion of our budget.

Started back to Weight Watchers. I haven't been since Jan 28th...(Mom died on Feb 9th) and are you ready for this? My weight stayed EXACTLY the same over that time. 279.8. I was shocked...not that I thought I'd gained that much weight but that the numbers were exactly the same. So, I need to get back on the wagon. Christine almost quit this week and I would have hated for her to do that. She's at a comfortable weight even tho she has put back on 10 pounds. And she feels that other things are more important in her life right now that she wants to concentrate her efforts on. I can understand it fully...but none the less, I hope she continues. And I want to do my part to help her feel that she has a worthwhile partner in this.

Cleaning out Mom's house. God how depressing. Sheena went with me today (she's out on spring break) and she was able to get a lot of mom's clothes. That made me feel good that she could get some use out of them. We've still got to get a lot of her furniture out. I feel a bit of pressure to hurry it up because Aunt Marilyn needs to re-rent her home and can't do that til Steven and i get it emptied. The other thing that's pressing us is the need to find a home for those pooches of mom's. They're chiauauas (or rat dogs) and just not my kind of dog. And I know that's bad of me to say since I claim to be a dog lover. So that means I should love all breeds right? but i dont.

So that's about it...Until we chat again.