It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas. . .

Not so much with the weather, yet. But we've got our Christmas lights and decorations done outside. I've got my floor decorated at work for my residents and I'm starting to get all of our household decorations up.
It reminds me of a time long ago, when I was a child. I really can't recall the gifts I received as a child. I do remember that they were few and not very expensive because my parents didn't have a lot of money to spend on such things, but that didn't matter much to me. The things I remember most about Christmas, you can't buy in a store.
Looking back on Christmas' past, I remember my mother baking Christmas cookies and how excited us children were to decorate all of them. I remember going out with my dad every year to get the family Christmas tree. Especially one year when we shopped for a tree after dark and didn't realize that the tree had a very crooked tree trunk. My dad had to attach guide lines to the tree and hammer them into our living room walls just to keep the tree from toppling over. I remember going out as a family driving down different streets to see all the beautiful Christmas lights that people put outside.
I remember one Christmas over Grandma's house while we were all watching Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol starring Alastair Sim as Scrooge. I innocently said to my Uncle John that he looked just like Mr. Scrooge on the TV. My father and my Uncle Kenny bursted out laughing. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what they were laughing about or why Uncle John got a sour look on his face after I made my brilliant observation. I remember how much fun I had with my sibblings and my cousins at the "kids table" out in the utility room at Grandma's and thinking how glad I was that I didn't have to set at the main table where I would have to mind my manners and be quiet amongst the adults.
Most of all, I remember walking into Grandma's house with my family on Christmas. The smell of the freshly baked pecan rolls that Grandma had been busy making all morning would be lingering in the air. I would give Grandma a huge hug, tell her Merry Christmas, and then rush out to the utility room where all the pecan rolls would be cooling on the baking racks. I would pick one up and savor the flavor of it as I went back into the kitchen with a big smile on my face. Grandma would then give me the lecture on how I was going to spoil my appetite for the Christmas dinner she was preparing. Of course, she really didn't mind me sneaking the pecan rolls and I knew this because her favorite thing to do in life was to stuff us with food, but it was kind of like a yearly tradition for the two of us.
Ah, such wonderful Christmas memories. You know, I would give up every Christmas present I have ever received in my lifetime and much more than that, if just once more I could be with Grandma on Christmas day, taste her pecan rolls, and go through our "yearly tradition".
Now I am the Grandma and my Grandchildren come to my house for Christmas Dinner every year. And if my grandchildren love me even one tenth as much as I loved my Grandma, I am one very lucky lady.

On the Road Again

Well, he's on the road again and I'm left here with nothing to do. My husband drives this heavy duty tow truck. Lots of times he has to go out of state for his job. People think it's strange when I tell them that my tow truck driving husband has to go all over the states on runs. They're thinking of the regular tow trucks you see on the street every day and I have a hard time describing the truck he drives and what he does with it. He does the roll over accidents, tows semi trucks and busses and hauls stuff all over the place. When 9/11 happened, he had to go to New York to help out FEMA bringing all sorts of stuff the emergency crews needed for the job of search and recover and then the clean up afterwards. When the hurricanes hit New Orleans, he had to go down with generators and things that FEMA needed in that disaster. He was three and a half weeks driving back and forth in all the effected states in the area bringing them the things they needed at the time. Now he's taking a de-icer truck down to Mississippi Airport. Sometimes, when he goes on runs that only last a few days, I go with him. Unfortunately, I took last week off instead of this week so I couldn't go with him on this run. So I decided to clean out the laundry room on my day off today. That's the room that is a catch all for everything that we're too lazy to put where it actually belongs at the time, so we just throw it in there until whenever. Well, too much stuff was accumulating in that room, so since I didn't have anything to do and my husband is out of town, I decided to get to work in the laundry room disaster area. Oh, what fun.

What was I Thinking

Yesterday was a wonderful Thanksgiving day. Watching the parade on TV, all the family coming over, even my older brother came over. After dinner played games, talked, laughed, and someone brought up shopping for the early specials on friday morning. So late last night, after everyone was gone home and my husband was snoring away, I got to thinking, "Oh, I haven't went shopping day after Thanksgiving for years and since I don't have to work in the morning, maybe I'll get up and get some of my Christmas shopping done".
What the hell was I thinking!!! I set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. so I could get an early start. I actually thought as I drove down Gratiot Ave. "Oh, this isn't so bad. There's hardly any traffic on the roads this morning". Then I pulled in to the store parking lot. Well, I guess this is where all the cars were hiding. Yes at 5 a.m. the store is more packed than I have ever seen. Stupid me, I go into the store expecting to find a shopping cart in there. No Carts - the lady in the greeting section of the store tells me that shoppers are getting the carts from the people in the parking lot that are done shopping. So out to the parking lot I go, looking for a cart. After ten minutes of looking in a cart empty lot, I finally find one.
Then it begins. "excuse me, pardon me, oops sorry" I make my way through the isles. It takes about two hours in that first store to find most of what I was looking for. They were sold out of a few things, but I prided myself on the fact that I did get most of the stuff on my list. So I make my way to the checkout counter. Shock hits me. Oh, now I remember why I don't go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. So I wait, and I wait, and I wait. Finally after about 45 more minutes, It's my turn to check out. Oh Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!!! I go back to the parking lot with my bags of goodies and realize, I forgot where I parked my car. Another 10 minutes go by and I finally find my vehicle. So I pack up the stuff in the trunk, hop in the car, and . . . well, you know the rest. I go to the next store on my list and start this mess all over again. I'm a glutin for punishment. After all the big sales of the morning are over, I'm on my way home. It's about 11:30 a.m. I have a bad headache, I'm tired, and I'm hungry. I get home, bring the stuff in the house, get some leftover Thanksgiving dinner in my belly, take some motrin, and go to bed for a nap vowing never to venture out on the day after Thanksgiving again as long as I live. (Or at least until I forget how terrible it is)

Thankfulness

Today is the day before Thanksgiving. I will spend most of my day in the kitchen preparing for our family Thanksgiving feast. Making bread dough for the cloverleaf rolls. Preparing the pie crusts for all my pies. Making the Nut bread and my cream chese fruit tarts. Cutting up the celery and onions to put into the stuffing for the turkey. Making cranberry sauce, etc. and so forth.
During this time, I think of all the things I am thankful for this year and all the good things that God has blessed me with.
I am thankful for my faith and I pray for those who have lost theirs.
I am Thankful for the closeness of our family and I pray for those families that are separated by anger, death, or distance.
I am thankful for the roof over my head and I pray for those who are homeless.
I am thankful that my husband and I are both employed and I pray for all those who have lost their jobs this year.
I am thankful that my children and my grandchildren are in good health and I pray for all the children in the world who suffer with illness and disease.
I am thankful for good friends and I pray for those who feel alone with no one to turn to in times of trouble.
I am thankful for this bountiful Thanksgiving feast that I am preparing today and I pray for those less fortunate souls around the world who suffer from famine.
I am thankful to be alive and I pray for all the poor souls who have passed before me, that they find peace with God in Heaven.
Yes, as I prepare my family's Thanksgiving feast, I realise that I am truely blessed and I thank God for everything he has bestowed upon me.

Happy Thanksgiving to All.

I'm Back !!!

Well, I'm back. It's been a tough week. I hate all those new antibiotics they have now. Just give me some penicillin and call it a day. The doc gave me some new antibiotic last week to get rid of this bronchitis stuff and guess what? I'm still weasing and my cough sounds like a St. Benard barking. At least I don't feel as weak as I did when this first started. I just wish I could get rid of the chest congestion. The picture was from this past Saturday. My twin granddaughter's had their christening, finally. Better late than never I guess. Their dresses were made by their Grandma Dianne who lives in Arizona now. The lace for the dresses came from Ireland. Grandma Dianne made satin hooded capes to go with the dresses. In the middle of the ceremony, Sheila leans over to me and says, "Mom look, they're wearing capes, they're superbabies!" I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. We had a wonderful time. It was a beautiful day. I'm greatful that I got to attend. I was kind of worried that due to the illness I would miss the event, but luckily, I was feeling somewhat better.

I feel like I'm not all there.

The past couple of days have been pretty bad for me. I feel like I'm not all there. Thank God I'm not due back at work until tommorrow. I've got chills, my throat's scratchy, I've got this weezing sound in my chest, and I've got the cough from hell. I went to the doctor's today. I hate going mainly because when I'm feeling really bad, the last thing I want to do is sit in a waiting room with a bunch of other sick people waiting for my turn to get poked and prodded at. Well the Doc finally got around to checking me out. Apparently, I have a sinus infection and bronchitis. So he gave me a bunch of prescriptions to have filled and I figured I'd write this down while I wait to go pick the prescriptions up. Needless to say, I probably won't be writing any posts for the next couple of days. I'm just going to go pick up my medicine, take it and then crawl into bed. Stay well everybody.

What's in a Name?

The boy standing to the far left is my great-grandfather Oliver Noah. Sitting next to him is my great-great-grandparents James Lake and Angelina Cordelia. All of their children are surrounding them.

A while back, when I was at work, one of my co-workers addressed me as "Laura Lou" I responded to her by saying, "Look, if your gonna say it, say it right. It's Laura Mae, not Laura Lou!" Ever since, whenever she addresses me, It's Hey, Laura Mae. This started me on thinking about how people come to receive their chosen names at birth. I started thinking of my paternal grandmother's family. And so it begins:

Lily Mae is my paternal grandmother. She is the daughter of Oliver Noah. Oliver Noah got his name in a strange way. His grandfather, Oliver Lake and all of Oliver Lake's children lived on farms in and around Huron County, Michigan. Oliver Lake told all his children that if they would name one of their offspring "Oliver", he would give them a sheep for their farm. Hence, James Lake (son of Oliver Lake) named one of his son's Oliver Noah.

Oliver Noah grew up and married a woman named Mary Ann. They had four children. Shortly after the fourth child was born, Mary Ann died.
The third child born to Oliver Noah and Mary Ann was my grandma, Lily Mae.
Lily Mae married Otto Dell. Now, I don't know where the Otto came from, but he received his middle name from his mother as Dell was her maiden name. Lily Mae did not like the name Otto, so she always called her husband Dell.

Lily Mae and Otto Dell had five children:
1.) John Leroy - Lily Mae wanted to name her first born Jack. However, back then, Jack was considered a nickname and you couldn't put it on a birth certificate unlike today where you can name your child anything you want. So she named her first born John, but she always called him Jack.
2.) Oliver Dell - (This is my father) Oliver Dell was named after Lily Mae's father and he received the same middle name as his father. Lily Mae didn't like the name Oliver, but she wanted a son named after her father whom she loved deeply. So she named her second son Oliver, but she always called him "Pete" as did everyone who knew him. Now how they got "Pete" out of Oliver, I'll never know. Your guess is as good as mine.
3.) Laura Mae - Her first name is the same as her paternal grandmother and her middle name is the same as her mother's middle name. Laura Mae became very ill at seven months old and died because this was a time before the discovery of penicillin and she was too weak to keep fighting off the infection.
4.) Helen Irene - This child only lived for three weeks. Her middle name is the same as the middle name of Lily Mae's older sister Velma Irene.
5.) Kenneth Otto was given his first name because Lily Mae liked the name "Kenny". His middle name is Otto because Otto Dell wanted one of his son's named after him, but since Lily Mae hated that name, they compromised and made it the middle name.
Are you still with me? Let's continue.

Oliver Dell married Arlene Marie. (These are my parents) and they had five children:
1.) David Dell - Arlene Marie wanted to take a name from both her side and her husband's side of the family. So she named her first born David after her step-father, whom she adored. Arlene Marie chose the middle name Dell, the same as her husband and her father-in-law.
2.) Laura Mae - (This is me) Arlene Marie wanted to name her daughter Lily Mae after her mother-in-law. Lily Mae told Arlene, "I am the only Lily in the family and that's the way I want it to stay." So Arlene Marie decided to name her second child Laura Mae after the deceased sister of her husband that lived the longest. Lily Mae approved of this choice of names.
3.)Beverly Ann - This child received her name for the simple reason that Arlene Marie liked the sound of the name.
4.) Jeffrey Michael - Jeffrey also received his name because Arlene Marie liked it.
5.) Louise Marie - The fifth child born to Oliver Dell and Arlene Marie was born one year after the tragic death of their son, Jeffrey Michael. When Arlene Marie was pregnant, she was hoping for another son and had tons of boys names picked out. However, the baby was a girl and she had no idea what to name her. Oliver Dell had always liked the name Louise, Arlene did not like this name. But when Oliver Dell suggested to his wife after the delivery, "How about Louise?" she caved in. Louise's middle name is the same as her mother's middle name.
Are you confused yet?

Laura Mae grew up and married Ricky James. Ricky received his name because his mother, Helen Angelina, loved the I Love Lucy Show. She took the name Ricky after the "Ricky Ricardo" character on the show. She gave her son the middle name James after his father, James Corbet. Helen and James had to fight the staff at the hospital to allow them to name their son "Ricky" because the hospital wanted to put Richard on the birth certificate. Now Helen and James would have none of this and they argued with the hospital staff until they finally relented and allowed Helen and James to put the name Ricky on the birth certificate even though it wasn't considered a "proper name".

Laura Mae and Ricky James had three children:
1.) Ricky James II - Laura Mae wanted to name her son after her deceased little brother and Ricky James always wanted a boy named after himself. So they compromised and decided that if the first child was a boy, Ricky James could name him and if it was a girl, Laura Mae could name her. Then whoever didn't get to name the first child would name the second. The first born was a boy, Hence, Ricky James II. Laura Mae insisted on the II at the end of her son's name instead of Jr. Because she didn't want her son to get stuck with the nickname of Junior.
2.) Jeffrey Oliver - Laura Mae and Ricky James were hoping for a girl this time around. Laura Mae was having this baby on Ricky James' oldest sister's, (Sheila Ann) thirtieth birthday. Sheila Ann had all boys and always had wanted a little girl. Laura decided that if this baby was a girl, she would name her after her sister-in-law, Sheila Ann. However, the baby was a boy so Laura named her second son Jeffrey after her deceased brother and gave him the middle name of Oliver, which was her father's first name.
3.) Sheila Marie - Six years later, Laura Mae once again was pregnant. Laura Mae and Ricky James decided to do like they did with their first child (Laura names a girl and Ricky names a boy). The name Sheila had stuck in the back of Laura Mae's mind since her second pregnancy. She tells her father of her decision to name the baby Sheila after her sister-in-law (who now has 6 sons and no daughters) and give the baby the middle name of Louise which is the same as her sister's first name. Oliver Dell doesn't like the way the two names sound together and suggests to Laura Mae that instead she use the middle name Marie, which is the same middle name of Laura's mother and sister. Laura Mae agrees with her father and Sheila Marie is born.
And the generations continue:

Out of Laura Mae and Ricky James' five grandchildren, Their grandson Evan James receives his middle name by his father in memory of James Corbet who had passed away before Evan's birth. Cassidy Marie gets her middle name at the suggestion of her grandpa, Ricky James because he thinks it sounds well with Cassidy and the parents agree. The twins, Laurie and Deanna are named for both their grandmother's. However, the parents make slight variations in the names as to ward off any confusion when the whole family gets together. Laurie is named for her paternal grandmother, Laura Mae and Deanna is named for her maternal grandmother, Dianne.

And to think, all this started over the gift of a sheep!!! Go figure.

Opps, I did it again

Well, I was drafting the post I intended to post for today and somehow the picture I was posting with it disappeared off the page. Now I don't want to post this particular post without it's picture and the computer will not let me put the picture back in there. So I've decided to write the post, which is kind of long, down on paper after I get home from work and then try it again. Who know's maybe I'll have it done by Saturday. Until then, have a great weekend everybody.

Laura's Day Off

Today was great. I'm so glad I didn't have to work today. For one thing, I needed the R&R and if I went in again today and that resident pulled his laundry crap on me again, I probably would have went off on him. That would not be good.
I got up and straightened up a little. Checked out some blogsites and then was off to my best friends house for lunch and an afternoon of scrapbooking. We've been friends since 2nd grade and we like to get together often just to talk and do stuff together. Well, during lunch I got to vent all my stresses that are currently going on in my life (who needs a therapist when you've got a best friend that always seems to know the right thing to say at the right moment). Usually she talks a mile a minute, but today, she knew that I needed to get some things out. So she let me vent and gave me the support I needed at the time. Then we went downstairs to our scrapping tables and got to work on that. The conversation became lighter as we showed each other the pages we've put together since the last time. It was calming a good time. After I got home, Sheila wanted to go with me to the gym and check it out. I had a free pass so she could get in. We stopped and had dinner on the way there, and then we did our workouts together. This was fun for me because I usually go to the gym alone. It was nice having her to talk to. She decided to get a membership there which makes me very happy because now occassionally, when are schedules don't conflict, we can go together. We talked and talked all evening and when we got home, she came into my room where I was folding some laundry and started showing me her book list. There are pages and pages of books and series and authors that she wants for her collection. I swear, when that girl moves out, she better have a house that has a library or study where she can keep her collection. This kid could probably open her own library. But it was a fun day. I think I really needed a day where nothing stressful happened and nothing went wrong. This was that day for me. It's like having Christmas early.

Stupidity with a capital "S"

I'm at work and everything is going great, until . . .

One of my residents decides to put a load of laundry in right at lunch time. Now this guy knows that I have to get the table linnens in the wash right after lunch so they can be done, folded, and put away before I have to be down to shift report at 3 p.m. This resident of mine never puts in a normal load of clothes. He packs down his clothes into the washing machine until it will hold no more and turns it on. He won't let the facility do his wash because he doesn't want to pay the extra few bucks for us to do it for him. Then instead of taking care of his own laundry, like he is suppose to do when he choses to do his own wash, he conveniently forgets about it and leaves it to me to finish. There are so many clothes in his "one load" that it takes about an hour and a half to dry them all. Well, his laundry finally gets dry at 2:30 p.m. I go to get the clothes out of the dryer and I am rushing because I have to fold his stuff, get my linnens done, folded and put away, unload the dishwasher, and make my last rounds on the residents so I can make it to shift report at 3 p.m. I quickly go to take the clothes out of the dryer and the tips of my fingers bash into the dryer drum. The fingernail on my third finger of my right hand is forced backwards causing the nail to snap half off. Naturally this starts bleeding all over. My wrist stayed straight and the force of the impact did something to my arm right above the wrist. That part of my arm now has a swollen knot on it and is starting to bruise. I'm thinking to myself, I'll never get all my stuff done because I have to fill out an employee incident report and go to the nurses office with it. I fill out the report and take it to the nurses office on the 3rd floor. They check out my arm and finger They give me an ice pack for my arm, bandage the tip of my finger, and start lecturing me that I should go to the clinic. I'm thinking to myself, like that's going to happen for something as simple as this. I'm not wasting my time to sit in a clinic for a few hours after work so they can take x-rays and tell me it's not broken. The one nurse who is filling out their section of my report asks me, "What should I put down as the cause of this injury"? I give her a sarcastic look and reply, "stupidity". She looks at me funny and says, "they don't have that on this form". The other nurse looks at her and says, "just put a checkmark by accidental". So now I'm home trying to type this crap onto my blogsite. My arm is killing me and typing this isn't helping any, so I think I'll end it on that note. Hope everybody's day went better than mine did.

Picture that goes with the post below

From the "Hall of Pictures"

Perms, Pictures, and then Death

The lunch hour is done at work and I am starting to clean up the tables in the dining room. Their is still a group of 3 residents and 1 private aide sitting at the table closest to the serving kitchen door. I overhear one of the residents talking about setting up an appointment with our in house beautician for a perm. She tells the private aide of the other resident that she doesn't remember when the last time she had her hair permed. She states that her hair never holds a perm for more that about 3 weeks anyway. The private aide says, " Oh, I know what you mean. Look at my hair. I get a perm and it looks good for a couple of weeks and then it starts to look like this". The aide grabs onto a lock of her hair and it is dried out and kinky. I come back into the room after putting all the lunch dishes in the cart and I start to tell them of my disaster of a perm experience that I had, Thanks to my mother. When I was in second grade my mother decided to give me one of those lilt home perms right before the day of school pictures. She left it on for too long. It turned my hair into a mound of dried out frizz. So the next morning, she puts my frizzed out mess into two ponytails. My hair now looks like two frizzed out poofballs. One on each side of my head. She then tells me to make sure that I don't smile (my two front teeth were missing) for the picture. I go off to school upset about my ugly frizzball hair determined not to smile. When I sit down in the photographer's chair, he starts telling my a funny story. Needless to say, I started laughing. What happened next left me horrified. You guessed it, he snapped the picture. The four ladies were laughing hysterically in the dining room. I proceeded to tell them of the time in middle school when I was about twelve. I was sitting at my desk and all of a sudden my male teacher walks up to my desk and throws down this dreaded picture of mine onto my desk. He said to me, "who is this adorable little girl". My face turned eight shades of red as I hurried to put the frizzball picture in my purse before any of my classmates could see it. Of course, when the teacher walked away all the kids around my desk kept asking me what the teacher had given me. I was truely mortified. The residents that are still sitting at the table begin to discuss pictures from their past. Everyone is laughing and having a good time. The private aid starts to talk of her son missing school during alot of his picture days because he hated to get his picture taken. She also tells about how there is not many pictures of her as a child because her mother never really bothered to take too many pictures. I tell everyone that I have tons of pictures of my kids, grandkid, and of the family. My husband always is threatening to shoot Kodak. Then it happens. Laughter turns into sadness as I try to relate to the private aide's lack of pictures. I did not intend for the topic of conversation to change to this, but it just came out. I tell the ladies that I think that there is a psychological reason behind my obsession with taking pictures in every phase of the children's lives. You see, my mother had plenty of pictures of me and my older brother as we were the first boy and girl. But as the family size increased, the picture taking faded. There was only about eight pictures of my brother (who was the fourth child). My father told my mother early on in the year of 1966 that they couldn't afford to have studio pictures taken of him when she had asked him about it. Well, one day a photographer came to the house photography supplies in hand and was giving special deals on pictures that day. He took the photos right at the house and you didn't have to go to the studio or anything like that. Well my mother decided to have the pictures taken, even though she new that my dad would be upset and probably not let her purchase any of them. The man took a picture of me and my two brothers and then a picture of little Jeffrey by himself. A short time after these pictures were taken, we had a house fire and my little brother received 3rd degree burns over 70% of his body. Basically everything but his face. (Perhap someday I'll write about this incident, but today is not that day.) The room becomes very quiet. No one is talking or commenting. Everyone's eyes in the dining room are fixated on me as I continue the story from my past. These last pictures were delivered to the house after my little brother's death about three weeks later. As I am telling the ladies of this, tears are welling up in my eyes. Goosebumps fill my arms and I can barely get the words out. I tell them how sad it is that we only have about eight snapshots and these last pictures taken by the photographer that day to remember him by. I give the residents and the private aide my annalistic view of the reasoning behind my deep seated need for taking so many pictures of my loved ones. Somewhere deep down inside me I felt if I had alot of pictures of my children, nothing bad like this would ever happen to them. I choked up. I could no longer speak. I quietly left the dining room and returned to the serving kitchen to finish my chores. The residents got up to leave. Everyone was silent just as if they were leaving a church service.

Jeffrey died in 1966. After forty years, I still miss him and I think of him every day. When I sit in my chair, I always look up at the last photo taken of the three of us that hangs on the "hall of pictures" (that's what my kids call the hallway that leads to the bedrooms) and wonder; What would he have looked like now? What kind of man would he have become if he only had a chance at life? I named my number 2 son Jeffrey in memory of him. I also bonded with my husband's little brother as if he were my own. It's like he is filling a void in my life for the little brother I lost. You see, my brother-in-law was only nine years old when my husband and I married. It's strange now that I'm sitting here writing of this. It all started with a discussion of perms, then pictures, then it ended up a discussion about death and despair.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Cowboys

Stress! Stress! Stress! O.K. Last night I stayed up for half the night trying to upload a picture of our Halloween decorations out front for my Halloween post and it wouldn't let me. I tried again earlier today with no success. Now I figure, o.k. I'll try to figure out what's wrong and I put in this picture to upload, and it works! The problem is, I have nothing to write about that relates to this specific picture. So all I can say is . . . Hey Jim, this is my little cowboy. He doesn't have a guitar, but he does have a horsey that was too heavy for him to carry along while he was out trick or treating last night. Also, his hat kept flying off his head because of the wind.