Tuesday, September 25, 2007
A Rose By Any Other Name
I think women of child-bearing age who plan to make a career in education should have their babies before they actually start teaching. After a few years in the classroom there will be very few names available that don't send shivers up their spines.....
The Princess
My granddaughter, The Princess, is a tiny tow-haired blond with the mindset of an army mule and the smile of an angel. She will flash those baby-blues in impish delight one minute and declare a mutiny the next.
Keep her away from your nail polish and lip gloss because she thinks it all belongs to her and she is just allowing you to keep it at your house.
One minute she will be playing dress up and the next she'll be jumping into the deep end of our pool and swimming to the side.
She's a sweetheart!
Keep her away from your nail polish and lip gloss because she thinks it all belongs to her and she is just allowing you to keep it at your house.
One minute she will be playing dress up and the next she'll be jumping into the deep end of our pool and swimming to the side.
She's a sweetheart!
Osama bin Shirley
I have been asked by a friend to put the following experience into my blog. It happened in August at the Memphis International Airport. We were sending Carey off to boot camp, and encountered a slight problem.
FYI: Did you know that if you are over the age of 65, Tennessee does not require you to have your picture taken to keep your drivers license? My mother and father both took advantage of this little perk. What I did NOT know is detailed below.
------------------------------:-)
August 2, 2007: A high point in our day occurred when we were permitted to walk with Carey to his boarding gate. Families of military leaving town are now allowed to accompany their loved ones through security gates and wait with them before they board the plane. We gave our IDs to the people at the check-in desk and were issued a ‘pretend’ boarding pass – just to get us through security. We thought all was going well because everyone passed the “security” test at check-in. The trouble began just before we entered the rat maze in front of the Nuclear Metal Detectors when The Security Lady looked at Mother’s driver’s license. Did ANYONE in this family know that Mother had SCOTCH-TAPED a picture of herself over the place where the official picture on her license is supposed to be????? For God’s sake, I think it may have been a picture of her at the lake!!!
Well, that did not fly with The Security Lady. Mother and I began scrounging desperately through her wallet, giving The Security Lady all sorts of IDs. They don’t take Sam’s Club cards, in case anyone was wondering, even though a grainy picture is right there on the back! After what seemed like hours, but was apparently only a minutes, The Security Lady called for The Security Man who, obviously thinking our Mother was terrorist material, loudly stated that we should not worry – Mother could pass to the gate after being given an INTENSIVE SECURITY SCREENING.
FYI: Intensive Security Screening involves being placed inside a glass container that strangely resembles a large Fish Tank. There is nothing else inside this Fish Tank, so I can only assume that it there to keep you from running away, as if Mother could run! Security Lady Two begins to move her magic wand over Mother’s body in the Fish Tank because Mother set off the Nuclear Metal Detectors when she entered. Amid all the confusion no one remembered that both of Mother’s hips have been replaced with METAL rods. Security Lady Two did not find humor in the fact that we failed to mention it.
Mother was then taken aside to an area where Security Lady THREE scanned her for a second time and PATTED HER DOWN. Security Lady THREE also took some sort of wet-wipe and rubbed it all over Mother’s shoes. We don’t know why so don’t ask....
In spite of the confusion, we did find humor in the moment and all realize that these folks are only doing their jobs to protect us from the REAL BAD GUYS.
Happy Landing!
Monday, September 24, 2007
The Honeymoon??
I'm fine....really!
The past few weeks (since Carey’s wedding) have been crazy. During the planning stages of the wedding, our swimming pool had to be drained and repainted. Drained, because of an icky mustard algae that we had been fighting all summer and painted because the pool needed it and since it was already empty we figured it would make sense. What on Earth were we thinking?
It took Carey and crew almost 10 days to get to California – not because they were sightseeing along the way mind you – but because anything crazy that could befall them did, and anything that could break, did so several times.
The day before they were scheduled to leave, TJ broke his collarbone. That involved a visit to St. Francis Bartlett where a former Nazi works in triage. Also, that day, Carey and Travis came down with the same stomach virus that Nathanial and TJ had two days before the wedding and Brandy got the DAY OF THE WEDDING. I came in to school that morning, got a sub, and went home to try and sort through the chaos. They were supposed to leave early Saturday morning – nadda – Carey couldn’t drive because he was still throwing up. Brandy couldn’t drive because we just would not let her (another story, another day). They finally left around 6:00 pm and Carey was still sick. On the second day they were just on the other side of OK City when the brakes on his truck starting making a howling sound. They found a motel and a place to look at the brakes. At first they were told it would cost them around $900 to get the brakes fixed, but I think the people at the brake shop felt sorry for them and lowered the cost to just under $500. Of course, they may have just wanted them to leave. The 3 boys had been strapped in to the backseat of the truck for 48 hours and were crazed (more so than usual). At about midday, Brady came down with the intestinal version of the stomach virus that had terrorized everyone else. According to Carey, Brady was just standing in the reception area of the brake place when what appeared to be lava poured forth from his diaper. I think you get the picture.
But wait, if you order within the next hour, you will receive a second set of gingsu knives........
Forty miles down the road, Carey smelled something burning and noticed some blackish liquid spewing from under his truck – hitting Brandy’s car – which was in-tow behind him. It is getting dark, they had been sitting in the brake shop all day, Brady still has volcanic diarrhea and Carey’s outlook on life is, at best, grim. He thinks the car is on fire and yells to Brandy to get the boys out of the truck and run. By the time he realized that they are not about to see all their belongings go up in flames, Brandy and the kids are 100 yards out in the middle of a field.
Miraculously, the truck will still move so they creep along the interstate, with emergency flashers blinking, to the first exit with a place to stay – The Vagabond Inn. Travis insists it was probably the Bates Motel. Just before exiting the interstate, a pickup truck with blacked-out windows pulled along side of them, slowed down and paced Carey’s vehicle. After the truck pulled ahead, Carey saw a very large cross standing upright in the middle of its bed, which upon closer inspection, closely resembled those giant crosses out by the interstate at Bellevue. The truck then sped off at a high rate of speed. Yikes!
Carey’s old truck finally bit the dust in the desert near Albuquerque. I truly hoped for a decent burial of the thing but no one ever listens to their mothers any more.....after renting a U-Haul, they off-loaded everything out of the dead truck and Brandy’s car, loaded up the U-Haul, took Brandy’s car out-of-tow, put Carey’s truck in-tow and began their journey once again – this time with Carey driving the U-Haul, pulling his truck, and Brandy driving her car. Did I mention that we don’t like for Brandy to drive? Carey talked regularly with his Chief at the base in Petaluma explaining every disaster du jour. I’ve always said if Carey didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all.......sounds like a country music song!
And yes, they did FINALLY arrive at the base in Petaluma, they are almost settled into base housing, and Carey starts school today. I hope when Carey and Brandy are MUCH, MUCH older they will look back on this trip and laugh. What a honeymoon!
So, as you can see......I’m fine!
The past few weeks (since Carey’s wedding) have been crazy. During the planning stages of the wedding, our swimming pool had to be drained and repainted. Drained, because of an icky mustard algae that we had been fighting all summer and painted because the pool needed it and since it was already empty we figured it would make sense. What on Earth were we thinking?
It took Carey and crew almost 10 days to get to California – not because they were sightseeing along the way mind you – but because anything crazy that could befall them did, and anything that could break, did so several times.
The day before they were scheduled to leave, TJ broke his collarbone. That involved a visit to St. Francis Bartlett where a former Nazi works in triage. Also, that day, Carey and Travis came down with the same stomach virus that Nathanial and TJ had two days before the wedding and Brandy got the DAY OF THE WEDDING. I came in to school that morning, got a sub, and went home to try and sort through the chaos. They were supposed to leave early Saturday morning – nadda – Carey couldn’t drive because he was still throwing up. Brandy couldn’t drive because we just would not let her (another story, another day). They finally left around 6:00 pm and Carey was still sick. On the second day they were just on the other side of OK City when the brakes on his truck starting making a howling sound. They found a motel and a place to look at the brakes. At first they were told it would cost them around $900 to get the brakes fixed, but I think the people at the brake shop felt sorry for them and lowered the cost to just under $500. Of course, they may have just wanted them to leave. The 3 boys had been strapped in to the backseat of the truck for 48 hours and were crazed (more so than usual). At about midday, Brady came down with the intestinal version of the stomach virus that had terrorized everyone else. According to Carey, Brady was just standing in the reception area of the brake place when what appeared to be lava poured forth from his diaper. I think you get the picture.
But wait, if you order within the next hour, you will receive a second set of gingsu knives........
Forty miles down the road, Carey smelled something burning and noticed some blackish liquid spewing from under his truck – hitting Brandy’s car – which was in-tow behind him. It is getting dark, they had been sitting in the brake shop all day, Brady still has volcanic diarrhea and Carey’s outlook on life is, at best, grim. He thinks the car is on fire and yells to Brandy to get the boys out of the truck and run. By the time he realized that they are not about to see all their belongings go up in flames, Brandy and the kids are 100 yards out in the middle of a field.
Miraculously, the truck will still move so they creep along the interstate, with emergency flashers blinking, to the first exit with a place to stay – The Vagabond Inn. Travis insists it was probably the Bates Motel. Just before exiting the interstate, a pickup truck with blacked-out windows pulled along side of them, slowed down and paced Carey’s vehicle. After the truck pulled ahead, Carey saw a very large cross standing upright in the middle of its bed, which upon closer inspection, closely resembled those giant crosses out by the interstate at Bellevue. The truck then sped off at a high rate of speed. Yikes!
Carey’s old truck finally bit the dust in the desert near Albuquerque. I truly hoped for a decent burial of the thing but no one ever listens to their mothers any more.....after renting a U-Haul, they off-loaded everything out of the dead truck and Brandy’s car, loaded up the U-Haul, took Brandy’s car out-of-tow, put Carey’s truck in-tow and began their journey once again – this time with Carey driving the U-Haul, pulling his truck, and Brandy driving her car. Did I mention that we don’t like for Brandy to drive? Carey talked regularly with his Chief at the base in Petaluma explaining every disaster du jour. I’ve always said if Carey didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all.......sounds like a country music song!
And yes, they did FINALLY arrive at the base in Petaluma, they are almost settled into base housing, and Carey starts school today. I hope when Carey and Brandy are MUCH, MUCH older they will look back on this trip and laugh. What a honeymoon!
So, as you can see......I’m fine!
The Cowboy and The Lady
Travis hails from Texas. I'm a Tennessee Girl.
We have 5 living children between us. If we were not forced to substitute players on the court due to excessive fouls, we could run a basketball team:-)
More later on who we really are....
We have 5 living children between us. If we were not forced to substitute players on the court due to excessive fouls, we could run a basketball team:-)
More later on who we really are....
The Wedding
Over Labor Day Weekend, my 33 year old son, Carey, married the mother of his son. So what if they got the whole marriage-birth order thing out of whack. I'm happy....and when momma's happy....well you know the rest of the story:-)
This is his first, and hopefully only, marriage. My daughter-in-law, Brandy, brings two children into the picture, so in the breath of an 'I do' at the altar, suddenly we were grandparents to seven - six boys and one princess.
When I tell you that we know chaos, trust me, it is our middle name.
This is his first, and hopefully only, marriage. My daughter-in-law, Brandy, brings two children into the picture, so in the breath of an 'I do' at the altar, suddenly we were grandparents to seven - six boys and one princess.
When I tell you that we know chaos, trust me, it is our middle name.
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