Ah, October !

Ah, October! I have always loved it and am glad it is upon us even though it is a harbinger of winter (which I detest). An action-packed month for me, I work very little during the month. THIS particular October starts with my Tristin becoming an official "Tiger Cub". How exciting for him and isn't he a doll ! He is excited that he gets to walk in the Lincoln Days parade this coming weekend with his "pack". Sydney has joined a Brownie troop, but no pictures to share yet. She is taking a trip this weekend with her Mom and won't be there for the parade, but there will be lots of other fun things for her to do in the Brownies. It brings back a lot of OLD memories from when I was a Brownie. Yes, believe it or not, I did that, too.
The trip to the Outer Banks with Kristin is coming up next week, then Tristin's birthday party at a local aquatics center, the annual "Girls Trip", and finally, Halloween (my favorite holiday!).

April drug out her Halloween decorations last week and of course, our boy had to try on masks. He's already prepared. They are having a party this year and I'm not sure if I'll make it or not. I have to work that day and the next, so it would be a ROAD trip to drive 2 1/2 hours each way. We'll see.
Happy October my blogging friends!

Hot Slaw, Cool Ice

Okay, do these things only happen to ME? (And apparently my son-in-law Bruce ?)

Once upon a time when my daughter and her husband were here for a visit, I bought some bar-b-que at a local place with a unique side dish, hot slaw. Not temperature hot, but spicy hot. I personally have never tasted it but it has quite a following as this story bears out. Bruce, the son-in-law (pictured above) LOVED the hot slaw. He loves it so much that he wanted to share this great side dish with his co-workers. Hence, the annual employee picnic seemed the perfect time to do just that. He called me and I hooked him up with the owner of the restaurant and I never heard another word. Until YESTERDAY, that is.

Apparently they had worked it all out, he ordered and paid, they shipped. UPS. In ice. In a CARDBOARD BOX.
Ice melts. Cardboard gets wet. UPS faxed the owner of the restaurant saying the boxes were "damaged" and would be returned ! Who wants rotten hot slaw? (Not me.)
This is the day BEFORE the picnic. Uh-oh.
Sweet mother-in-law that I am, I drive like a maniac to the restaurant and pick up replacement slaw and still get Mother to the Doctor on time. Then take her home and hit the WK Parkway. You see, my son-in-law works 2 1/2 hours away from here. We both drive for an hour or so and meet on the road, do the "quick change" on the side of the road and FINALLY, Bruce's company will get the hot slaw.
The picnic was today. I hope they liked it :)

Once I Had A Doctor

Well, there he is folks. The Doctor.

It seems I've had a lot of trouble with retaining Doctors and I've come to think it must be ME. When I first moved to this little burg I had no difficulty finding a doctor. Crouch, it was. He was very good for me. During his tenure I developed hypertension that was discovered during an "episode" that he diagnosed quickly and during which I was hospitalized for a few days. He discovered the correct prescription medicines for me to keep this problem under control (if I behaved) and all went well for several years.

Then, lo and behold, the young Dr. Crouch and his pretty wife and baby up and move to Florida (I'm sure now it was to get away from me).

No problem. He was in a group of family physicians so all I had to do was pick one. Problem. So which one? I decided the simplest thing to do was to interview them. So I scheduled an appointment with the "looker" above and paid the office call charge to perform the interview. Instead of taking offense, he got a real charge out of it. Rolled with the flow and discovered an immediate rapport. He got the job.

He's been with me through back surgeries, hypertension medication adjustments, pap smears and confessions. My all-around great doctor.

GET THIS !!! He has deserted me! Gone on to bigger things at his ripe, sweet age. I understand our government is opening a VA clinic in our town and he will be the medical director. Grrrrrrrrrr. I am NOT a veteran, alas. No more pap smears for him! I truly am developing a neurotic feeling that I am too much for the doctors around here.

Okay, so I will pick another one in my practice. I know all the nurses, the front desk gals, etc., etc. NO..... none of them are accepting Dr. _____'s patients. I have great insurance. I am being blackballed here.

So this time around, after spending a day on the phone and finding that no one accepts new patients, I have lowered my standards and am now begging my Mother's doctor to "accept" me as a patient. No longer am I the interviewER, I am now the candidate. It is a contest here.

I saw my desertion Doctor in the grocery store this afternoon. He politely says hello and remarks that I look great. I tell him that I hope he's happy in his new position and how much I miss him. Damn, I wish I didn't have to be so polite. Those were NOT my thoughts.

Working on Sunday

I know it's Sunday, but it's a "work" Sunday and here I am at the funeral home again. This evening we are having a visitation for Art Ward whose funeral will be tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. at our local United Methodist Church. I have known Art's wife Glynn since I moved to Hopkinsville 10 years ago so feel much more of an attachment to this family than to most. There are many unique and interesting facets to each and every service I plan, as well as each and every family we serve. The Ward family is no exception. The most unique aspect (to me) is that inclusion of The Salvation Army and in a very big way.

Evidently Mr. Ward spent his life serving The Army in many capacities and wanted his funeral service to reflect that. In the photo above is Lt. Col. Richard Norris, who is here to speak tomorrow and Major Hilda Howell from Atlanta who serves as somewhat of a facilitator between The Salvation Army and the funeral home. Every contact I have made with them has been most professional and personable, I am happy to say.

On another note, the adorable young girl in the picture above is Carrie, who is visiting with us tonight but making GREAT use of her time and talents. She is making "bracelets" from the various colored rubber bands pictured here and selling them for 25 cents each to raise awareness and funds for orphaned children from Zambia whose parents died due to AIDS.

She's a COOL girl!

Mine are purple and pink and the other is orange and green. I told her she was not charging enough money and so we all overpaid her here, but she's certainly doing something worthwhile with her time and talents. Glad God sent her my way today. It lifts me up to hear a young child talk so adamantly about helping others.

Have a great Sunday night, my blogging friends!

Girl's Trip Shirts

Excitement has been mounting as I've waited with great anticipation for this year's edition of our annual Girl's Trip t-shirt to arrive.  It gets a little harder each year to design something new and different in a different color than we've ever had but they are HERE.

This 2006 shirt in orange quoted a popular saying of that year "What happens on the Girls Trip in Brown County stays in Brown County" and was one of the more popular ones :)

Okay, just a teaser above !  I AM getting ready to mail them :) Ah, I LOVE them!  We've not used yellow before and either khaki or denim will look GREAT with them!

But NEXT year I want HELP !!!!!!

You'll read way too much about the girls trip in October so away I go to address those labels you see in the above picture......

Catching Up

Like the rest of the world, I have been so busy with LIFE lately that I haven't even been blogging with any regularity at ALL.  I'm just gonna play "catch-up" a little tonight and hit some high spots.

I know you'll all be as thrilled as I was to learn that my younger brother is switching over to Black Angus cows from whatever kind of cows he had before :)  Okay, he's pretty proud so let's give a big shout-out here.

I got to visit with my older brother for about 15 whole minutes (okay, that's an exaggeration) when he brought Mom home from her little week-long trip with the boys earlier.  I miss him but when he's here he has so little time.  Of course, my working at the funeral home when he's here doesn't help with the visiting part much.

 

I DID manage to get my hands on a set of bunk beds for my spare, spare room so when the kids some again we'll have a couple more beds.  Wayne put them together for me.  There was a bag of screws and nuts and "man things" that I had just been looking at for a week or two.  I WAS going to tackle that project someday, really.

THEN I went to the coolest cook-out/party of the year.  Don't ask me who these folks really are, cause I really don't know, but they are friends of David and Barbie and I got an invite.  Best bluegrass picking I've heard in YEARS!  And it was seriously in the country.  Had a great time with many new friends and lots of good food.  Wow, having grown-up kids sure have great benefits! 

Flag Football Days !

Anticipation ran high as I woke up to a beautiful Saturday morning and loaded the car for a 2 1/2 hour drive to see my Tristin play in his first flag football game this year.  He played last year, but at 5 yrs. old, I don't think he ever really got the "hang" of it.  Wow, what a difference a year makes!  His Mom told me he got out of bed and started studying plays (without prodding).  Now I don't profess to know much about football, but I DO know lots about little grandsons.  He is not big, but he is fast.  Don't even know what position he plays, but I know he's the one they hand the ball off to and I know he can run like the wind.  He scored THREE touchdowns!  (Well, okay, he really scored four, but they only counted three of them.)  See, things like penalties I don't understand.

This is the old shirt coming off and the new going on.  Thanks to Veolia Water for sponsoring his team this year.

Coach Dad helping get things adjusted a little here.

And we're ready for some action.  His Mom took lots of touchdown and flag-taking pictures and I'm not going to put them here, but you get the picture.  We all had such a great time and I'm just sorry I'll be working next Saturday and won't get to see him play.  Sometimes life just doesn't seem fair.

 

Cousin Sydney came to watch !

Labor Day 2009

Betcha thought I'd be blogging about the fabulous Labor Day weekend I had full of pools and parties, food and friends. Well NO. Instead, I just about worked myself to death (pardon the pun) at the funeral home ALL weekend! Brother Rodney brought Mom back home as planned and they were here two days before I even found (made) time to get over and see them. It was really good to see him and I was glad that she's back home safe and sound. Of course, brothers DO say the sweetest things. He looked at my hands and said, "Gosh, your hands look really old! When did that happen?"

This afternoon I hurt my hand a little unloading some furniture so I took a picture to show you all what blood thinners do to hands and when I looked at it, I wondered just whose hand that IS? Surely MY hand doesn't look that old? Okay, so he was serious for a change :(
This is a picture of what I do every night before I go to bed. No , I don't watch TV because I'm a facebook addict. We are all sick and I know it, but at least I discriminate. I only play five rounds of Farkle and then I quit. See, I'm no sick at all.

Thankful Thursday

I don't usually post a "Thankful Thursday" but this week I am especially thankful to be blessed with two fabulous brothers! My brother Wayne (in the blue shirt) came to visit last weekend and took Mom back home with him for a few days to northern Indiana. Then yesterday he took her to my other brother's house in southern Illinois. Rodney (in the black) will be bringing her home this weekend. I absolutely love and cherish all the time I get to spend with Mom now that she is older, but she is not well. Alzheimer's is stealing her away from us. But I feel blessed to have such caring brothers who took time out of their busy lives to give me an emotional break.

Today is my day off as I will be working this Labor Day weekend and it is a busy day. I am baking a cake right now as one of the men who work for me at the funeral home lost his Dad this morning. This will be my only opportunity to bake for them.

My heart is heavy for Jimmy and his family in the loss of his Dad this morning and also for another friend of mine who lost her Grandaddy this morning. I will have a very busy weekend at work but am happy to be caring for families I love.

I have laundry to do, the cake in the oven, errands to run and a zillion other things to get done in one day so off I scoot!