Thank you, Brad & Catie!

I would like to say a MILLION thanks to my dear nephew and his wife for so generously and selflessly sharing with me the most precious and beloved thing in their life, their darling son. You will never know how much it meant to me and to my husband that you allowed him to travel all those miles and to be apart from you for several days so that we could have the joy of spending some time with this dear child! I can’t imagine how much you must have missed him, because even though I rarely see him and naturally don’t have the same bond with him that you do, I missed him terribly from the moment he left. If humanly possible, I could spend every moment with him and never tire of it, he is SUCH a delight and a joy!!! He’s the cutest thing I have ever seen (I know, I said that about each of you nephews and niece, but I mean it every time!) and smart – oh, my goodness – he’s smart as a whip! I don’t know any other 2 year olds that would look at a pink beenie-baby with long legs and a big beak and say “I want the FLAMINGO!” instead of “pink birdie” or something like that! How many 2 year olds know what a flamingo is, for pete’s sake??? I keep the nursery once a month, the 2 year olds, and we routinely have an average of 25 2-year-olds in our room, and NONE of them talk nearly as good as little J. His vocabulary is stunning!!! We had a big, bad, scary thunderstorm one night, complete with pounding rain, thumder, lightning and hail and he said “hear that rain?” and then “but we are SAFE IN THE HOUSE!” :) We took him into “big church” with us on Sunday morning and he sat there and behaved like he knew exactly what was going on and knew that he was supposed to be quiet! For over an hour!!! He wiggled a little bit, got up and down off the seat a few times, but kept quiet as a churchmouse! It was amazing! Once the preacher clapped his hands, so he clapped his hands too! I have some pictures and video from the trip and I haven’t put them on my computer yet but will do so tomorrow and then I will include some on here.

Don’t know how to post the video clips but maybe I’ll figure it out. Anyway, my point wasn’t to brag about how awesome this kid is (although he is) my point was to thank the parents for “letting go” enough to SHARE him with others who love him. You will never know what that means to us! Well, maybe you will .... when your kids have kids ... then you might. If they generously and lovingly let them spend time with you, spend the nights with you or even the weekends, go on little trips with you and generally share in their lives, you will know that great pleasure and joy. If they don’t, you will know the sadness that comes from not being able to be a real integral part of their lives. I pray that doesn’t happen! Everyone loses – the children, the grandparents, the aunts, the uncles. I can’t imagine not having the memories I have of spending many, many nights with Nanny and Granddaddy, taking vacations with them, arguing over whose turn it was to spend the night, etc. We loved it. They loved it. Memories can’t be made if time can’t be spent together. And a few hours here and there, once every few months, doesn’t build much of a relationship. And unless parents are willing to loosen the grip, realize that someone else is perfectly capable of safe-guarding their precious little ones, and actively assist in developing those family relationships and allow others to be a strong presence in their children’s lives, it won’t happen. I am speaking from personal experience. I have 7 grandchildren. But not the relationship we had hoped for. Distance is not the issue. Willingness is the issue. Foresight is the issue. Trusting is the issue. It never ceases to amaze me at the number of people who were raised by good, loving, reasonable, responsible, caring, intelligent parents who suddenly think those same folks are incapable of properly watching over a child. I really shouldn’t get started on that ‘can of worms’ so I’ll back up right here and now. Just rest assured, for those who do share their kids with me, that I would and will do anything within my power (and then some) to protect and love your child when they are in my care. The joy we received this past weekend, spending time with that adorable great-nephew is something that cannot be described in words. We are eternally grateful.

Wow! I'm on a roll!

Mercy me! I just noticed that I have done EIGHT WHOLE POSTS this year! I am really rockin' & rollin' along, aren't I???? Bet it's hard to keep up with my amazing pace!!!

Well, imagine that ... ??

The only post I've EVER put any photos on (real ones, not a cartoon) (vacation) and I didn't get even one tiny comment on it!! Of all things!!

That strange expression

On the comments to a previous post, the words "bait breath" came up. Then the words "bated breath." In an effort to figure out where in the world this phrase came from and just what it means, I have found the following and thought it was interesting .....

[Q] From Steve Gearhart: “Where does the term baited breath come from, as in: ‘I am waiting with baited breath for your answer’?”
[A] The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it’s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there’s every chance it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers. Examples in newspapers and magazines are legion; this one appeared in the Daily Mirror on 12 April 2003: “She hasn’t responded yet but Michael is waiting with baited breath”.
It’s easy to mock, but there’s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis); it has the meaning “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety.
Shakespeare is the first writer known to use it, in The Merchant of Venice: “Shall I bend low and, in a bondman’s key, / With bated breath and whisp’ring humbleness, / Say this ...”. Nearly three centuries later, Mark Twain employed it in Tom Sawyer: “Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale”.
For those who know the older spelling or who stop to consider the matter, baited breath evokes an incongruous image, which Geoffrey Taylor humorously (and consciously) captured in verse in his poem Cruel Clever Cat:
Sally, having swallowed cheese,Directs down holes the scented breeze,Enticing thus with baited breathNice mice to an untimely death.
[I’m indebted to Rainer Thonnes for telling me about this little ditty, which appears in an anthology called Catscript, edited by Marie Angel. However, it was first published in 1933 in a limited edition of Geoffrey Taylor’s poems entitled A Dash of Garlic.]

What was I doing ....?

1) What was I doing 10 years ago? ...... I was recuperating from thyroid surgery, killing myself trying to continue to clean those big houses with absolutely zero energy (didn't allow enough recovery time!). Learned my lesson and my limits!

2) What was I doing 5 years ago? ...... I was heading to Wichita KS to help my cousin and his wife with their 3 darling little girls while the wife was in the hospital having surgery. I was also, unbeknownst to me, about to face one of the biggest blows of my life when I came home from that Wichita trip to find that my husband had just gone to the hospital with a heart attack; spent our 20th anniversary in the hospital with him recovering from quadruple bypass surgery. Thanks to God, he did recover and is doing well!

3) What was I doing 1 year ago? ...... I was working 60 hours a week trying to keep this print center running. Shorthanded for 3 months, running with 1 full-time person (me) and 1 part-time person, when we actually needed 3 full timers. If I can figure out how to put a photo on here, I'll put one of me taken back at that time ...









4) What was I doing yesterday? ...... Working, as usual. Not a bad day, though, really. Went to the food court at the mall for lunch with a couple of co-workers, browsed around the mall for about 20 minutes before returning to work. Actually got off ON TIME for a change, so home before dark. Watered flowerbeds in back yard, went to Granddaddy's, visited with him while he watched a couple of episodes of I Love Lucy and then a baseball game, home about 9:15 and to bed at 11:30.


5) Five snacks I enjoy:

- Snickers Ice Cream bars
- Pancho's Cheese Dip (Memphis Pancho's, that is)
- Peanut M & Ms
- Cool Ranch Doritos
- cashews
(Darn it, carrot sticks and celery just barely missed making my top 5 list!)


6) Five things I would do if I suddenly had $100 million dollars :

- Pay a heckuva lot of taxes
- Tithe
- Buy a nice home for each of my family members in the location of their choice
- Set aside enough money for me and Jimmy, my grandfather, parents, sisters and their spouses, nieces and nephews and their spouses and children to all have adequate and proper care in their old age
- Help the homeless shelters in my city - to have enough housing so no one has to sleep on the sidewalk during the cold winter, and to have the resources to help get the people off drugs and alcohol and to educate them enough that they could hold some type of employment


7) Five locations I would like to run away to (but only temporarily):

- Colorado
- Ireland
- Germany
- New Zealand
- Vermont


8) Five bad habits I have:

- Procrastinating
- Starting too many projects at one time
- Giving people too much of my own opinions
- Trying to help where it's not really wanted
- Thinking that I have to do things "just so" or not at all


9) Five things I like doing:

- Sleeping in
- Grocery shopping
- Cooking/baking
- Laying in the hammock on a cool day reading a cookbook
- Taking a ride with Jimmy on the motorcycle to nowhere in particular


10) Five TV shows I like:

- Design on a Dime
- Flip this House
- Unwrapped (Food Channel)
- Across America w/ John Ratzenberger
- Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives


11) Five things I hate doing:

- Getting up early
- Standing in line
- Sitting in traffic
- Public speaking (having to talk in front of a group of people)
- Having an argument/hard feelings with anyone


12) Five biggest joys of the moment:

- that I am relatively healthy and able to enjoy life (i.e. physically - able to move around, see, hear, think, etc.)
- that I have a great husband and family (all of them!) :)
- that I have a very good job that I enjoy
- that I have some very good friends
- that I have a God who allows me all these pleasures and who is faithful to me, no matter what


Okay, I'm done. Passing it on to Dixietn ...... go for it. (Ya'll don't hold your breath now, she doesn't like to do these cheesy things, so if she does, we'll all get a big surprise!)