The Clipping Adventures.

I’m off on an adventure that I’ve started many times before, but I could never master the mental gymnastics or the organizational skills necessary to keep the adventure going. I went ahead and signed up last night for this arduous journey in front of me, not knowing if I have the will power and presence’s of mind to endure the incessant clipping, the calendar date hopping or the filing capabilities needed for this journey.

Now you’re probably wondering what great adventure am I starting? Well I’ll tell you. I decided to start clipping coupons again. I’ve already gotten about half a box full and I signed up on a web site last night. The thing that got me started again on this was a news program I watched about a woman that did some serious coupon clipping. If I remember correctly the program gave her $450.00 dollars to spend for groceries. She went through the store and packed two shopping carts full and after all the coupons were counted she had to pay a total of around $35.00.

Now I’ve gone through the process of clipping coupons before and if they have instant coupons that you can tear off the product and redeem during check out, well sure I’d do that. But the clipping and organizing just never took hold. So as I said above, I’ll see if I have the will power and presence’s of mind to keep this going. Instead of running low at the end of the month, I expect to have a refrigerator and pantry full of groceries. I’m expecting to have every empty shelf filled to the brim. I’ll have so much food that I’ll start eating and possibly in the following months I’ll become quite rotund weight wise. Or on the other hand I might remain skinny with a potbelly. Anyway it will be a new adventure and it will be a slackerly endeavor. So I figure that will be right down my alley.

I hope everyone is doing good and remember to keep clip, clip, clipping away, well as long as it’s done in a slackerly manner. Take care.

FM

The Second Great House Flood.

Well I haven’t written anything in a while, so here goes on what has been happening here.

Yesterday morning my sil was beating on my door yelling we have an emergency. I jump up from my chair and hobble out to the kitchen. I see right away what the emergency is. The hot water hose to the washer blew and there was a fountain of hot water going all the way to the ceiling in the utility room. I go in and try to shut the water off at the faucet. As usual in this house nothing works as it should. The faucet is completely frozen so while I’m holding onto the hose trying to slow the water from spewing, I’m yelling at my sil to go to the front lawn and cut off all the water to the house. Some long time later the water finally stops running. This turns out to be the second flood we’ve had in the house this month. The first was from trying to un-stop a stopped up sewer line.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a walking disaster when it comes to home repair. However, I figure this is one easy fix even I can do. Of course this isn’t going to happen here. Now in any normal house, this would be a simple job of unscrewing the hot water hose from the faucet, replace said hot water hose and turn the hot water back on. So I get some tools and no matter how hard I try, I can’t unfreeze the hose from the faucet. I finally figure out that I can cut the hot water off from the hot water heater and we’ll at least have cold water running. My brother calls a friend that is handy with home repair and he looks at it and said we’ll have to replace the entire faucet. At this point in time this is where I relinquish all responsibility for the repair of this little project. So where are we now? The friend left this morning to get another faucet and we haven’t heard from him since. This is the second day in a row that I’ve had to take a cold shower and I’m no fan of cold showers. That’s the thing I really hate about home repair or trying to fix something mechanical. When you look at the project it seems so simple, but there always that one frozen bolt or faucet that make an easy job turn into something monumental. I guess I just don’t have the patience for work like that.

What else is going on? I got all of the 85 staples removed from my leg earlier this week. The doctor told me the wound was healing very well and asked how my walking was now that the surgery was done. I told him in the walking I’ve been doing that I hadn’t noticed any pain like I used to. I told him I hadn’t been walking that much so far because my leg, ankle and foot would swell up to much. He told me that’s normal after this type of surgery and that I would be experiencing that for some months to come. However, he said I should start walking every day and keep increasing the distance. He also said that when the swelling occurs to just take some time and put my leg up above my heart and the swelling would go down after a while. So as far as the surgery and my leg are concerned, it seems everything is going fine.

That’s it for this post. Hopefully I’ll get back into the writing mode and I’ll be posting more often. Hope everyone is fine and take care.

FM

Computer Problems.

I’m not sure, but I either have a bad mal-ware program or my computer is dying on me. Whenever I put it in sleep mode and try to restart it, it just recycles over and over and never comes on. Plus whenever I get to the Internet, it will work for a little while and then it won’t. I really don’t know what’s going on with it. It’s about two and a half years old, so I guess in computer life, it up there. At this point whenever it does start I’m not sure if it will be the last time.

Anyway, just incase I’m not back for a long time, it’s because I have a dead computer. If it does die on me, I’ll try to stay in touch with the library computers.

I hope everyone is doing good and stay warm.

FM

Merry Christmas!

I'm being lazy this Christmas again, and I'm reposting my Christmas story. I'm hoping that everyone has a joyous Christmas and that the wonder and delight that I experienced as a kid will somehow come to all of you.

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When I was a kid, we would always come home to my Grandparent’s house for Christmas. My Grandparent’s house had been built in the 1850’s, and we were the newest generation coming together to celebrate our family and the holiday. All of my Aunts and Uncles and Cousins would converge to this one place so that three generations could spend the holiday together. We would usually be the last to arrive either on Christmas Eve or the day before. Back then I can remember my Grandmother, Mother and Aunts staying in the kitchen cooking and catching up. My Grandfather would always wait until all of us were there and then we would go out into the woods and pick the perfect Christmas Tree. The tree was always put in the parlor, in a corner with two windows. It would sit there all day without an ornament or tinsel until just the right moment. After one of my Grandmothers big wonderful suppers and when the kitchen was clean, my Grandmother would pull out all of the cherished decorations. Some ornaments were made in the late 1800’s and had been my great Grandparents. Once my Grandmother had all the boxes she had packed so carefully the year before opened, we children were allowed to start decorating the tree. The grown ups would sit and watch and direct our decorating. As a child this was the most magical part of Christmas for me. The smell of the tree, the familiar decorations, the tinsel and lights. The tree was never finished until Grandma gave her approval. Grandma always approved our childish endeavors to decorate and I can remember the tree always looked different in the morning. I always thought Santa came behind us to make it look better.

Well being a child we had to go to bed right after the tree was decorated. Being told Santa wouldn’t come to the house unless we were asleep was enough for us, but once my cousins and I bundled into the big bed all we could do is talk and wonder if we would get what we wish for. Grandma would come in a couple of times and do the Santa/sleep thing, but she would finally hit us with Mr. Wilson. He’s sort of the resident ghost of the house. I think I wrote about him some time back. Anyway that was enough for us. As I grew up and joined the ranks, I found out the adults would stay up late in the night wrapping presents and putting together toys.

Next morning guess who was up first? Yep we kids would be dragging all the grown ups out of bed. The door to the parlor was closed and we knew we couldn’t go in until everybody was up. Once everyone was up my oldest Aunt would always be the first to go in with all of us behind her. She was the presenter of the family. The adults would sit in chairs and the couches and we child would be on the floor around the tree. My Aunt would pick up one present at a time and call out whose it was. The anticipation sometimes was maddening, but it was so wonderful when your name was called. When it was something like a bicycle it was always saved until last and up until that time you thought Santa had forgotten about it. When just at the last it would be rolled in. When all the presents were opened my Grandmother, Mother and Aunts would start a big breakfast for all. We kids had no interest in eating at all, but the adults would get us away from whichever toy we were playing with and to the table. My Grandmother was such a wonderful cook that I think back and look at all the great meals I just wolfed down, but at that time it was THE TOYS!!!!

Every family creates their own traditions and every grown up remember those wonderful times of being young and the wonder and surprise. We still celebrate holidays at the old farmhouse, although no one lives there anymore. My Grandparents traditions run firmly in us and now my sister is the presenter of the family. We are now the adults staying up late into the night and the next morning sitting in the chairs and couches. I watch the newest generation and see the wonder and surprise in their young faces, and I remember.

This old house has seen my family through many good and bad times. I wished I knew more about the day to day lives of my ancestors, but I don’t. I do know that since the beginning, that one room, the parlor has celebrated Christmas and family for about 153 years. I hope that the future generations of our family will come there to celebrate and enjoy each other. It makes me feel good to know that past, present and future generations have and will enjoy Christmas in that house.

I hope everyone's holidays are the best this year!

Take care,

FM

X-mas Decorating

Everybody is getting ready for X-mas. My sil is in the living room putting up the X-mas tree and decorating right now. Since it will be her kids and grandkids that will fill up the house during X-mas, she likes to have the whole house done and decorated before they get here. I on the other hand remember when I was small and my grandmother would wait until all the children and grandchildren were there and we would all together do the decorating. I much more prefer the waiting until everyone is here mode.

I was telling a friend today about how much family traditions means to me. Anyone who has read my blog for awhile knows I preach traditions all the time. I was looking through some stuff of mine the other day and I came across my X-mas tree.

I have lived a fair amount of time on my own. So instead of buying a real or fake tree for myself, I decided to miniaturize the X-mas tree at least. I’ve had this tree probably going on 25 years now, and whenever I’m living by myself I’ll put this tree on my mantle piece or coffee table and that will be my decorating. I figure I’ve done a number of things by doing this. One, I’ve not killed a tree. Two, I’ve saved money by not spending a lot of decorations. And three, the most important, it’s the most damned slackerly thing I can think to do for decorating.

So all in all I’m keeping with my tradition of X-mas, and I’m keeping with my tradition of slacking. It amazes me sometimes how doing so little can feel so right some times.

Not The Best Post.

On the 10th I went and had those steroid shots for my back again. They never completely take away the back pain, but they do help for awhile. I talked to the doctor and he said a week or two just isn’t long enough for the relief I get from them and that if this last set of shots didn’t last longer that we would have to talk about some other form of treatment. At this point and time I’m almost open to any suggestion with the exception of surgery. For some reason back surgery really scares me. The last “other” treatment was when they gave me the steroid shots and microwaved some of the nerves in my back. Even when I broke the vertebrae in my back I don’t remember it hurting that bad. I basically told them that having that procedure done again was not in the picture. So I’d say from this latest round I’ve gotten about a 40-50% decrease in the pain and that’s a good thing. Now to see how long it lasts. That’s the big thing.

I had to re-schedule with my surgeon for my leg. That will be something that I’ll be happy to have done and soon. It will be so nice to be able to walk more than 20-30 yards without having to stop so my leg will stop hurting.

Well enough of the health doom and gloom. I’ve found out that this year we’re having X-mas night at the farmhouse. All sibling will have X-mas morning and brunch with their respective families, and we’ll all meet out at the farmhouse for X-mas supper. Instead of the traditional meal we’re going with off the wall stuff again. Last year I remember we had chili, stew, barbecue and all sorts of different things. Here at this house since it will be like T’giving, all of my brother’s kids, grandkids, friends and probably dogs will be here. So we’ll have the traditional food here and the off the wall things at the farmhouse. My sil keeps saying this will be our last X-mas in this house, but it doesn’t seem to effect me as it does her. You see, Fmom moved into this house about two years after I had already moved away from home. So as to two previous houses we lived in, I don’t have that familial feeling as I did from other houses we lived in.

I’m still house/trailer hunting, but still haven’t found anything in my price range or that will take pets. As I said before, it will be so nice to have a place of my own again. With the monthly bills my brother and sil pick up the electricity and I pay all the other monthly bills. It’s funny but I was noticing today that while they’re in the house they’ll have the heat up, but once they leave they turn it down. It’s almost like they forget that both George and I are still in the house. No big worry to me though. I just throw on more clothes and George has his fur. But I am looking forward to having my own place again.

Well I guess this is all I’ve got to say at the moment. It sounds all doom and gloom, and I’m thinking that might be some of the effects of the steroids. I really do hope it’s that, because I usually like to sound more upbeat and happy.

So I’ll bid all a good night and a happy w/e.

Take care

FM

The House.

As usual in this house, something has gone wrong again. Three weeks ago it was a sewer clog. Today it’s the heater isn’t working. I guess I’m looking at these things in a different light now. In about a month I have to be out of this house into another place. My siblings decided this house needs to be sold, so I’ve been calling around to some places in town. Most of the places in town are out of my price range even though they aren’t that expensive. The places that do have openings for some reason won’t take pets. As I told my siblings, I don’t care if I have to live out of the car, I’m not getting rid of George. Plus George has been a one-person dog all his life, and I know he wouldn’t put up with anyone else.

I’m sort of looking forward to moving. I’ve said before that I always enjoyed living by myself. One reason is that I don’t have to worry about finding stuff. What I mean is that since I’ve lived here, if I have a certain place that I put something so I’ll know it’s there when I want it again, it’s never there when I look for it again. For the cooks out there, I know in your kitchens you place your dishes and cookware in certain places and you know they are always there. When I first moved here I did most of the cooking. I set up the kitchen a couple of times where I knew where things were. Usually within two days the entire kitchen was re-arranged and it would take forever to find something. That applies for just about anything of mine that was outside of my room. Now most of you know how slackerly I am. I’ve always thought that when you know where everything is, you expend less energy looking for things and in my search for perfect slackdom that makes sense.

So with a new smaller place, I’ll know where everything is and since the place will be smaller I’ll even have less area I’ll have to walk to find things. Plus, Plus, Plus – If I rent a place I won’t have a lawn to worry about – WOO HOO!!!!!!!

Well I hope everyone is doing fine and staying warm.

Take care

FM

Uncle B’s Golf Cart.

From a long time back my youngest brother has had a golf cart parked inside the carport. Fmom’s house is right by a golf course and my youngest brother fell in love with the game. He’s the only one in the family that did. After playing for a number of years he finally saved up enough money to buy a used golf cart. As time passed he played golf less and less with family and work taking up his time, but the golf cart remained in the carport. Even after he and his family moved away the golf cart remained. Now here’s why the golf cart is so important.

When my girls were small the first thing they asked about when we were coming home was could we ride in Uncle B’s golf cart. They liked seeing all the relatives, but the golf cart was the most important thing. Uncle B never had any qualms about the children using the golf cart. With the smallest ones he would put them in his lap and let them steer while he worked the pedals. The little bit older ones he would let them drive by themselves, but they had to go around and around the house never going out on the road. Then the older children who knew how to watch for cars in the neighborhood could go out on the road. My children are grown now and they still remember the golf cart. My nephews and nieces are grown too and they remember. Now it’s my great nephews and nieces who are asking about Uncle B’s golf cart. They look forward to that old golf cart as much as my girls did. All this time Uncle B could have sold the golf cart and gotten some of his money back from it, and I don’t know why he didn’t. But I do know that every time the children come home they seek out their Uncle B and ask can they ride the golf cart. As I said, I don’t know why he hasn’t gotten rid of it, but I like to think he knows how much it means to the kids every time they come home.

Post T’giving.

I was right and we had 30 out at the farmhouse yesterday. We had the usual fried turkey, baked turkey, ham, casseroles of untold numbers, cakes and pies. My youngest brother bought a new cooker for his turkey. He called it an oil-less turkey fryer. It looks like a regular turkey fryer that is hooked up to a propane gas bottle. This was the first time he used it and we all weren’t sure how the turkey would turn out. While he was cooking the turkey in it, I had a question for him about it. I asked how could you call it a fryer if it doesn’t fry? He started to give me this long convoluted explanation, but I told him he was baking a turkey using indirect heat. After awhile we put an end to that world-shattering question. Then it came to the question of frying in oil versus indirect heat frying (I know it’s not frying, but……). With the oil frying I was told the meat is juicer, but since this was the first turkey on the indirect heat fryer, we didn’t know how dry or juicy it would be. Everyone I asked about this question said they didn’t like dry turkey. I told them it really didn’t matter to me, because the majority of turkey I would eat would be afterward in sandwiches. I told them that as long as I could slap some Miracle Whip on bread the turkey could be as dry as it wanted. Anyway, my brother’s turkey came out really good. It was just as juicy as the oil fried one and it was browned to perfection. So I saw two things going for the oil-less turkey fryer. One, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than buying all that oil to fry with, plus you don’t have to worry about the disposing of the oil. Two, it sort of gives you the feeling of being outside and frying the turkey. I’m not sure if that’s one of those pre-historic things about being outside cooking meat over a fire. I myself am happy to be in a warm house with the turkey in an oven. However, the turkey was good.

Back at the house I woke up this morning with George barking like crazy because the four dogs outside of my room were barking. With 8 adults, 4 kids, 5 dogs and 6 puppies here at the house, I knew when I took George out that the house would be a wreck. I was right. With the exception of George and me all the adults, kids, dogs and puppies are my brother’s family and guest. So I decided not to even worry about the place getting cleaned up. I’m leaving that all to them. I found out yesterday, the puppies aren’t even 4 days old. They’re full-blooded Cocker Spaniels and all girls. George hasn’t even seen them, but the four other dogs in the house have him jumpy. I took him out to play with them earlier and they all wanted to play. George just barked at them and then ran back into my room. He wouldn’t even come out when I was calling for him. George has never been socialized with other dogs, so I think he’s afraid of them. I think everybody will be leaving here on Sunday so things will finally quieten down some. I feel the inner curmudgeon coming out, so Sunday will be a good day.

I hope everybody had a good T’giving and to the ones travelling be careful.

Take care

FM

Happy Thanksgiving!

It looks like this Thanksgiving theme for us is “Tail Wagging T’giving”. It seems everybody that is coming is bringing dogs. The nephew is bring his dog, the niece is bring two dogs plus six puppies one of her dogs just had, and friends of my brother bought their dog in last night too. George has never been socialized to much with other dogs so he has been barking on and off all night with just one dog here already. I figure just here at this house, we’ll have 12 people, 5 dogs and 6 puppies. I still don’t know how many people will show up out at the farmhouse. God, how I love the holidays!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and take care.

FM

Meteors, Snow and Memories.

The Leonid meteor shower happened last night and I missed it. It got me to thinking of Fmom. Most everybody must remember the Hale-Bopp comet when it came by. When this was happening I was still in the military, and I would come home on the weekends. When I came home I remember Fmom and I would go out and set the lawn chairs in the back yard to watch. We would sit there for hours sometimes and just talk and watch. We would never talk about anything in particular, but just talk. I remember telling Fmom that she was alive to see something that might be only seen by humans for this last time. I told her that we don’t know what will happen in the next 300-400 years, much less a few thousand. Fmom would tell me about some of the meteor showers she had seen, and she would really go into detail. I just wish I could remember what she had said.

The reason the Leonid shower got me to thinking of her is because once I moved home to take care of her, we would always get up in the middle of the night, put the lawn chairs in the front yard, bundle up and sit and watch. We tried to do this every year, but we did miss a few. Fmom would be almost as excited at seeing the meteors as she was whenever it snowed down here. I can remember many times she would wake me up if there were even a few snowflakes coming down. It usually didn’t last long, but she was like a kid a lot of times watching the snow. She used to say that she wanted to see one more good snow before she died. In January of 2008 we finally had a good snow down here. Oddly enough I thought about what she said about seeing one more good snow, and sadly she passed away that same year.

So when I look up in the sky, a lot of times I’ll think of Fmom. I’ll be thinking of the times we just sat, talked and watched the night sky, or when we would look out of the windows and watch snowflakes dancing down to the earth. I missed the Leonid meteor shower last night, but I really didn’t have to see it for so many good memories to come back. I hope all of you have such good memories.

Take care

FM

My Brother and Some Non-Barking Time.

My brother, sil and nephew have been here for about two weeks now and they’re leaving tomorrow for Arkansas. Although it will be nice to get back to some peace and quiet, it has been good to have them here. While I’m not the picture of health, my brother make me look like an Olympic athlete. He’s the one that has had two by-pass surgeries and all sorts of other stuff. Within the last week both of his legs have swollen up very badly. He called his doctor and was told to double the amount of diuretic he usually takes. Well he did and it hasn’t seemed to help. So they’re leaving tomorrow because he has an appointment on Thursday. The swelling of the legs wouldn’t be so bad except that he is a diabetic. I keep thinking that if something goes wrong, he could lose his legs. I’ve been telling him he should go to the emergency room or see some local doctor, but he’s a stubborn person and said he’d wait until he could see his doctor. At least he will be seeing someone by Thursday.

With their leaving tomorrow, I think George will finally wind down on all of his barking. At his age I don’t know how he keeps all the barking going. At my age I don’t know how I put up with all the barking. Although George can be a pain in the A** a lot of time, he’s still my buddy and so I put up with the constant yapping.

I went to my back doctor for an appointment today. I told them how my back has been doing for the last couple of months and after we talked for awhile it was decided that they were going to do another TF LESI (transforaminal (TF) lumbar epidural steroid injections (LESI)). It helps out a lot but only for about a month. So at the last of the month I’ll have my bil drive me to the appointment, they will knock me out with something and then do the injections. It’s really sad that that will be the high point of my month. :)

Well my sil decided to cook tonight and we’re having beef/vegetable stew along with cornbread. Who said you had to be a gourmet to eat well. :O)

Everyone have a good remainder of the night and a good day tomorrow.

Take care,

FM

The Quandary of the House Numbers.

As all of you know, I usually don’t comment on politics or such. Well I have a neighbor who was going on and on about health care. He believes the only channel is Fox news and that Rush is given the word from on high and so on. When he started talking about euthanasia I asked him had he read the bill. He said no. So I printed out the part of the bill he was talking about and took it to him. The next day I asked him if he had read it and he said yes. I asked him did the see the word euthanasia anywhere in it. He told me no, but they had had it in there and then took it out. So I came home and wrote a little nonsense fable for him. It’s pretty simple, but I do like the moral of the story.


The Quandary of the House Numbers.

Once upon a time there was a land. The residents of the land didn’t see it as having North, South, East or West sides. They saw their land as having a left and right side. Some people lived right in the middle and some lived on the fringes of both sides. The land fathers had seen over many years that all the houses in this land had different size numbers on them, and some houses didn’t have numbers at all.

The land fathers decided that all houses should have numbers on them, but they were unsure of the sizes. So they wrote up a contract and put out bids. There were two companies that bid for the contract. One was from the left side of the land and one was from the right side of the land. The contract was put out for the people to see. The people of the left side knew the left side company and felt comfortable with their bid. The same applied for the right side and right side company. There was no consensus because the land fathers were split too.

The companies and land fathers sent out their people to their sides and told the people what the contract said. Oddly enough each company saw the contract differently. The people on the left believed the left company and the people on the right believed the right company. Some of the people became angry, some could see no change and many just didn’t care. It was their companies and land fathers, and since they lived on the left or right sides they felt they had to go with their companies.

The quandary was which side to believe. One man asked his neighbors, “Have you read the contract”? His neighbors replied, “No”. He asked, “How can you decide if you haven’t read it”? They replied “Because my company and land fathers told me so, and they wouldn’t lie to us”. The man shook his head and wondered why would people become so upset when they hadn’t even read the contract. One neighbor told him the contract was too long, it was written like gobbledygook and he didn’t have the time. Even some of the land fathers had not read the entire contract.

The man thought that it’s OK for the people to defend what they think is right. It’s was OK for them to ask questions. But before they made their decisions, they needed to know what the contract said. They needed to become informed.

The moral of this story is just because you live on the left side or right side of the land don’t believe what the left and right companies and land fathers tell you. Look up the contract, read it very carefully and make your own informed decisions.

Hot Spots.

For the last month I’ve been having problems with George. He has never had them before, but he has been developing hot spots. One on his right back hip got so bad I had to take him to the vet. The vet gave him a steroid shot and gave me some spray to put on the area and antibiotics. Well this seemed to take care of it, but I was noticing the other day that George was biting on his back. I looked at it and there were red areas going down his lower back. It’s no where near as bad as his hip, but I threw him in the shower and gave him a good bath (for which my back didn’t thank me at all). Then I got the scissors and clippers out and got all the hair off the area and then started treating it with what I had here. I still have some of that spray left and tried that, but he kept biting and licking his back. So I figured if it’s itching I would put some Benadryl cream on the red spots. So far that seems to help. I figure I’ll keep the area clean and dry and when he does start itching, I’ll put a little Benadryl on it. If anyone has any other suggestions, let me know.

Otherwise things around here have been going about the same.

Hope everyone is going fine and that you are all having a good w/e.

FM

Manual Typewriter.

I hope everyone has been doing fine. I’ve been under the weather for awhile, but I have been feeling better lately.

I’ve been thinking of some of the things that you can look back on and that kids of today wouldn’t know about. In other words, things that sort of make you feel old. Oddly enough the first thing to hit my mind and that seems to stick there is typing. I learned how to type on an old manual typewriter. I wonder how many kids and older people, for that matter, would feel if all of a sudden that they had to put the effort into typing on a manual typewriter. It isn’t as if you are lifting weights or anything as physical, but there is some effort involved. I remember when we switched over to an electric typewriter and thinking of how much easier it was. Now of days typing on a computer instead of a manual typewriter is almost like flying. Well not like flying, but you get my point.

Then there were the inevitable errors. Instead of just backspacing and changing the incorrect letter, you had to go back and use an eraser. That was just on the original and God help you if you had six or seven carbon copies. In other words if you made a simple mistake it could take up to three to five minutes to correct that mistake, depending on how many carbon copies you had.

Another thing that has me thinking I’m getting older – the weather. When I was younger I never did pay too much attention to it. But now of days I can give you a ten-day forecast and even hour by hour if needed. My sister who lives across the street will call me if we have any bad weather approaching. She knows that I’ve been keeping up with the weather radar and can tell her where the clouds are and when the storm will get here. I don’t know why, but it seems when you get older that the weather seems to be more important.

There are a lot of other things that have popped into my head about how things have changed from the early 50’s when I was born up until now. How do you explain to kids about not having computers, or cable TV, or a microwave oven or even movies you can rent to take home? How do you explain about sitting on the front porch in the afternoon and just talking for entertainment? It’s sometimes fun to look back and think of all the things that have changed over time and then to think of all the great things to come.

It’s Wednesday and hump day! To all of you that are working, here’s to a speedy week and an endless weekend. To all of us that are not working – well it’s just another day in paradise.

Take care

FM