Accidents Happen - Please Pray

Yesterday on our way to get a pizza for supper, we were rear ended by a very old car (think plastic duct taped into driver's window) full (5 to be exact) teenagers.

Finally policeman comes takes info and sits in cruiser with three of the teenagers and comes back in an hour with the number of the police station written in pencil on our registration. Says his computer wasn't working. Hmmmmm....

Sounds slightly okay a lot weird.

We are off to the police station to try to get some DOCUMENTATION to show our insurance agent. Please pray all goes well. We feel a bit like we are in a Stephen King novel but we know we are not because GOD is in this with us.

We were not hurt; the bumper and trunk of our car were.

We'll keep you posted!

Great Reads

I want to tell you about some super books I have read lately.

My favorite was The Help by Kathryn Sackett. It is the story of a white girl growing up in Missisippi who gets the idea to tell the story of the maids who work for her family and friends during the 1960's. It is semiautobiographical and delves into the deep relationships of black maids and the white families they work for.

My second favorite was Jane Austin Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo. It tell the story of a recently divorced young woman with her PHD in English Lit. who goes to London to jump start a new life. Jane Austin fans will love this.

Right now I am in the middle of The Associate by John Grisham. I love Grisham! He does not disappoint.

I read Maeve Binchey's latest Heart and Soul last week and it is pretty good,

I started Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwall but I am just not that into blood and gore so I stopped.

I have also read Mockingbird, an autobiography of Harper Lee that I enjoyed.

Things here on the housesit are going well. We went to visit our dear friends Wave and Thea who lived next door to us at Santee during their first years of marriage. They are all grown up (in their fifties) with grown children and live now too far from here. They are now committed Christians and it is wonderful to see how the Lord has blessed them in so many ways.

They had a Golden Retriever named Jake who our family loved. Jake is in doggie heaven and they now have a Golden puppy named Tucker who is a darling bundle of fur. (Yes, I got my share of puppy breath and puppy feet while I was there.)

I am off to exercise at the local health club. I can finally stand and sit again after the Zumba class I took on Friday.

The computer here won't take my memory card so you have to wait for pictures :(

Housesitting 101

Well, we did it! We signed up for a housesit last January and we are here at the house now. For those unfamiliar with housesitting, I went to a website called "housesit" and joined ($45) after convincing my husband this would be a fun way to get a FREE vacation.

Every day after we joined I would get housesitting messages from people who were looking for someone to stay at their house while they took a vacation. Most people have a pet or two or three and some plants that need looking after. Others just want someone at their home to prevent a break in.

Every day I would scan the available sits and apply to those that seemed reasonably feasible. As in Italy, California, Hawaii, Washington, DC etc...I learned NOT to ask said husband about each one. He would ponder for days...."do I really want to go to Hawaii in April????" I quickly learned that just because one applies does not mean one gets the job. Solution= apply to everything that does not involve a mobile home, ten feet of snow, ten dogs etc...

So far two have met our criterion and theirs. This is the first. We are in Hillsborough, NC which is 15 minutes from Durham and 15 minutes from Chapel Hill and better than that it is a historic town in its own lovely right.

Our "hosts" welcomed" us to their lovely eclectic home in the woods yesterday. The house is truly one of a kind and surrounded inside and out by nature.....yummo. Lots of windows, too.

The two dogs are Maggie, a loving, sweet yellow lab of five years old; and Blue a part rat terrier/beagle they rescued out of the road a few years back. Blue is very similar in looks and temperment to our Scout. Needless to say we are already in love with these dogs :)

The cats, so far, have stayed outside; but they have a cat door to go in and out when they want (yeah, no litter box to clean).

I will keep you posted on our adventures while we are here the next 12 days so stay tuned to WDGC Donnamo for the latest.

Family Fun Day Part 2

Somehow, this picture of Granny and her special card made by the cute little great-grandaughter went into cyberspace instead of on the preceeding blog. :( I just couldn't leave it out.

FAMILY FUN DAY

When our kids were young we had a tradition of having Family Fun Night at our house. I remember the kids would groan when we would tell them it was time for yet another "Family Fun Night" but then they would enjoy it when the time came. I think we played Scrabble, Charades, watched movies at home together, that kind of stuff.

Well today we had family fun day. C's mother is having her 93rd b'day Tuesday. An occasion worthy of a family fun day if ever there was one.

(THIS PICTURE BELONGS AT THE END)

#1 son and family came from Columbia and stayed with Birthday Granny. o I enlisted their two children to decorate the Birthday Cake. Now Granny is famous for making cakes; all kinds and all are superb. So much so, I have never attempted to compete. But.....you can't have the woman cook her own cake so I womaned up!

I saw an egg shaped cake in my Martha Stewart Simply Living Magazine (which I would never subscribe to but was given to me) and I thought.....that looks cool....like one of those fake easter eggs you can look inside. So I went on the internet and ordered the pan; and got it just in time to make a practice cake. My Bible Study gave it a thumbs up so I made one for Granny.

The rest of the fam came today with gifts and cards and hugs and kisses. Granny is delighted over all the attention; especially the hand made card from her great-grand daughter.

(Seen at the top of the blog)

All in all it was a fun day for all. The kids and I egg hunted (those very same Big Leggs eggs my kids hunted) the boys played golf, the girls played school, the littlest one, Gates, played waiter at the girls "restaurant". Oh, it all makes this Nana so very happy!

But then before you know it....good-byes are being said, cars are packed and they are all gone.

And I'm sad....they are all gone again....the house is quiet, too quiet. I sit in the yard awhile savoring the day. And then I come in and there is this sweet note on the easel from my grandson...... that brings a few tears and a smile.

Thank you God for allowing me to have children and six grandchildren. Bless them and keep them safe. Weren't those prayers they said at dinner just the sweetest? I'm so glad our family is in your family, God! I love you! Nana

Death Clock

Our minister has mentioned the "death clock" in his sermon at least twice. It is a website where they take your statistics and tell you when you will die (according to statistics).

When it figured my bmi at 25 I thought....not bad.....when I looked at their chart and saw I just hit the overweight category... I was not surprised.

(But not being good with numbers I first thought it said BMI 35 which is OBESE!) OMG!

Now I am very relieved to be just overweight :)

Anyway.....guess when my death date is (children prepare to have zero inheritance if this proves true) March 9.........2046.

I will be 103......that is not good news to me. I only want to live as long as I am happy and scrappy......no lingering in the HOME, please God.

All my 65 year old "girl friends" agree.....we will go to the same home together (probably a state run home...since the stock market tanked)

We are comforted by the fact that a friend of ours spent his entire fortune keeping his wife with Alzheimer's in the nicest home available. When the money ran out he was forced to put her in a state run home. Guess what!???? She got better care there!

Offspring, Remember put Mom in the nice home first!

Well, I'd better get busy .....37 years to go....but who is counting????

My Favorite Year

A friend recently loaned me this DVD. It is an oldie but a goodie that takes place in my heyday (the fifties aned sixties); however, I must confess I fell asleep. :(

But it did get me to thinking about my favorite year. At 65 I have lots to choose from; sixty-five to be exact.

I decided my favorite year was my senior year in high school. It was 1961, Rock and Roll was in its heyday; I was free,white and 17 with my own beautiful 1958 Fairlane 500. (That was the year Ford changed the model in the middle of the year so mine was already a classic.) I got my car as a surprise gift the summer before my senior year. My brother drove it down to my parents beach house...... I was ecstatic. I slept in it the first night; and spent the days swatting flies off it til the new wore off.

I met a boy in Senior English who finally asked me out (after months of shameless flirting on my part). We went to the National Theater to see a Shakesperean play (don't remember which) and Helen Hayes starred in it. It was supposed to be her last theatrical performance, but I later read she did perform again. (For those under 65....Helen Hayes' son is/was Larry Hagman the actor who played JR on Dallas.) Check her out on Wikipedia so you will be in the know about her many accomplishments.

Anyway Mark and I became a couple which is fun your senior year. Dances, proms, drag races,...and going to a horse race in West Virginia with his SCOUT TROOP for heaven sake. We also canoed down the Potomac and almost got arrested for prowling around Rosevelt Island where they were getting ready to construct the Rosevelt Bridge.

Mark had no money to speak of. He did have a job as a prescription deliverer for a local drugstore. He used this to fund the purchase of a 1950 Ford at a car lot's Washington's Birthday Sale.....for....drum roll....$50. The paint was worn off.... it looked almost like camo when camo wasn't cool. And best of all the passenger seat had a broken spring so it wouldn't sit up......this of course necessitated me sitting almost in his lap and shifting the gears (ohhh that grinding noise tore him up)>

Needless to say my parents were not thrilled for me to leave my beautiful car home to ride to school in this wreck. Mark had as we say today no people skills....or at least no adult people skills....another mark against him with my parents. He came to pick me up; I ran and answered the door, he said, "goodnight Mrs. Gates" and off we went like the proverbial bat.

I think you can understand though why I would pick my senior year as ONE of my TWO favorite years.

The other year was 1966; the year I married my husband after a whirlwind 8 month courtship.

We met in July, engaged in November and married in March (with no buns in the oven).

Between November and December I dated Curtis every night and we often wrote (and mailed) each other letters during the day. We had it bad, folks! When school let out in December, I was finished, a 3 and a half year graduate and I went home to plan our wedding.

I also bullied Curtis long distance to get his parent's old (we are talking 1866) house that had been most recently used to store tobacco ready for Princess Do......that would be me!

The weather was freezing that winter and there was no heat in the house but that was NO EXCUSE for not painting those huge rooms with the 12 foot ceilings.....EVERY day.

He MANNED UP big time and got that sucker ready by the time we got "home" from our wedding in Washington. Yes, Sir, he carried me over that threshold and we promptly used the only piece of furniture we owned....our king size four poster bed.

I remember that Spring as the best one ever. I wasn't working; he was. I got up and cooked his breakfast; he left for work and I wrote Thank You Notes until he got back. Oh, and unpacked gifts and, covered the kitchen shelves and all those domestic duties. Then I got out my Betty Crocker Cooking For Two Cookbook and whisked up some delightful (????) meal that he declared nightly was "the best I ever ate!"

So those are my two favorite years....lets hear about yours!

Art Swap continued

Is it me, or can the rest of you bloggers manage to edit your post after it has been saved in draft form. Call me techno nerd but I cannot seem to manage that; therefore, I am forced to take two blogs to show pictures and say something.

What? You think it is God telling me not to "say" anything; impossible! God didn't give me this big mouth and two hands and expect me not to talk and type.

Anyway, the pictures above are two of the five I took of the art card/book my friend Kimberly sent me in my first art swap. It is very cool; it would be cooler if you could see five different pictures instead of 3 with two of them being the same....but the blog just won't cooperate =evil sneer on my face.

She very kindly explained in her accompanying letter that she has been saving interesting images for a long time and she went through them and made a book just for me. The back of it is really cool and I may make a 3rd blog to show it tomorrow after I am over this snit.

Thank you Kimberly for inspiring me; I'm starting to go through my magazines and save some images myself for future projects. By the by...where did you get the copper "card stock"??? Very cool!

Art Swap

Look at the blog below for the text to go with these two pictures :(





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Feeding Frenzy

Curtis and I have become enamoured of feeding and watching birds and squirrels who come to our feeders (this is a certified "old people" hobby).

We are so into it we have named two of our daily visitors. The two crows in the picture above. There are other animals in the picture but I am sure you can identify the crows.....no one needs a bird watching guide book for that :)

Well, these are named Heckle and Jeckle. Which is which? Well, Heckle is on the right and Jeckle is on the left....or maybe it is the other way around....it is kinda hard to tell crows apart.

Sometimes, they bring their sidekick Speckle with them. Not today.

Last week on may way to town I saw them in my neighbors driveway.... I was vaclempt; they were cheating on us. But they were feasting on road kill which happily does not occur everyday so they are back with us; maybe because my husband puts out fresh food EVERY morning.

Okay, so now you see our other friend "Squirrel De Solie" (as in Circ de Solie which I can't spell either.)

Said squirrel loves to visit our "Squirrel Proof Feeder". He has evidently not read the label or doesn't believe it is squirrel proof. He tries every trick in the book to get into it (to our great amusement).

He is truly a candidate for said circus; when the bird bath freezes, he ice skates on it. I will try to get a picture of this feat but you know it is warming up (it is 23 this morning) so it may be too late; but I will try.

So for those of you who think retirement is boring.....au contrare....mother nature brings us hours of enjoyment and we don't have to leave the house to enjoy it. Bon Appetit!