There comes a time every year

I love my Moleskein datebooks. 

I have been using the Moleskein soft cover small pocket daily planner since sometime around 2008. 

And at the end of every year it is time to transfer all of the pertinent information from the year ending into the next year's book.

I flip through page by page and copy all the important details. Mainly birthdays but occasionally things I like to keep a yearly record of. 

As I was going through my 2014 datebook I found some really neat reminders. 

The day his sister and I had to take a 4 hour round trip to pick up the boys new truck while he was still in Afghanistan. The day the boy came home from Afghanistan, including the exact date that his boots touched American soil again. The day I spent a couple of hours looking for and purchasing our hotel rooms for our whirlwind Florida trip this summer. The day I weighed in at 128.08 lbs and freaked the hell out. The day my oldest finally started at a job that would mean she would finally become self sufficient and wouldn't never again have to rely on someone to help her through.The day we celebrated the pending wedding of Brat#4 to his girlfriend of almost 4 years. The date of the beautiful wedding they shared at Springhill College Chapel. The day we drove to Tennessee to visit the newlyweds in their new apartment, and then had a blast at the Bristol race.

Birthday parties I attended, anniversaries remembered.Planning for visits and get togethers and barbeques and taking and meeting old friends out for great food and lots of laughs and good times.

 

It's all in this little book that I throw in my purse everyday and jot stuff down to remind me what I always forget to do.

I can even look back through this little book and see what kind of weather we have had. How old my chickens are. How many eggs we are getting at certain times of the year. Who was sick and who had school functions, whether I went to them or not.

And every Alabama football game I watched. Most with the finishing scores.

This is the best part of the end of a year for me. Going through this little black book and looking back over a year that is always full of good times and bad, friends and family, smiles, laughter and tears. 

I've been doing it for quite a while now, you should too, you will thank me at the end of next year ;0)

A move from social media

I was driving into work this morning listening to Elvis Duran and The Morning Show and one of the guys on the show, Scary Jones, was talking about how obsessed he was with his social media apps. His point was that he was so obsessed with constantly checking Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and quite a few other social media apps that he had blown away most of his Sunday on his phone.
This got me to thinking. (now that's Scary)
As much as I love staying in touch with my friends and family that I don't get to see too much, I also spend way too much of my time surfing, posting and tweeting.
Too many selfies, too many bitches and whines on facebook. And trust me I am one of the world's worst. Like my opinion mattered so much that it was worth posting on a social media website, marking it public, to make sure everyone could see the wonderful and insightful thoughts bouncing around in my brain.
And the more people that 'like' my status, the more validated I felt, empowered, like maybe my opinion really does matter. I'm making a difference! Changing the world! Everyone is starting to realize how smart and witty I am! Pretty soon they will vote me President of the Social Media Network!!!
Yeah
NO
Stop it!

Some of the best days I have relaxing are when we go to the hunting camp.
No internet, no cable t.v. hell half the time you can't even get a signal to make a stupid phone call.
But it is awesome! Everyone knows I am where I can't be reached and besides the kids or my BFF that I talk to when I can get a signal, everyone else leaves me alone.
Because I can't post up there, there is no constant checking to see how many likes I have, or tags in a post, or comments on my status or updates or notifications or pictures.......
Though it is an obsession I created for myself, it is all very tiring.

You know that feeling when you comment along with ten other people on someone's post and they reply to everyone's comments but yours.
You're crushed, you feel left out, then you get mad, and yes sometimes go as far as, heaven forbid, unfriending them!
That's another thing about Facebook, jeeze louise, don't unfriend anyone, they have a beacon, an algorithm written that sends red flashing lights to them, and before you can surf to another page, THEY KNOW. They are pm'ing you mad at you, telling you how much they never really did like you anyway.
Honestly I think they just get mad because you did it first.

Don't get me wrong, I like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. I just think I need to cut back. Look up more. Notice what's going on around me instead of around the twittersphere.

Maybe the blog will get a little much needed attention. ;0)

Note To Self

Years from now, when I go tripping through the blog to see where my head was at, what do I want to see?
What was going on? What was my frame of mind? Was I doing good? bad? whiny?
That's the kind of stuff I want to see on this blog. A Note To Self.

Unfortunately to make an exciting and awesome blog post, something exciting and awesome would have to happen.
Basically since the end of the Thanksgiving Holiday, life has become a tad boring.
Not that I'm complaining that much. We have had a whirlwind summer, what with the boat, the trips to Panama City, Naples, Ft. Lauderdale, Chatanooga, Bristol, foot ball games and camping twice on the island. It's been a whirlwind of good times and great friends.
Now the colder weather is here, I hardly ever sit out back anymore and spend most of my time knitting in front of the t.v. when I am not cleaning all the little things here and there that were neglected over the spring and summer months. You know, things like steam cleaning the carpet, scrubbing down the baseboards and toilets and floors.
I did finally get back into my knitting and once I did it was like, whoa! it's been a while.
My MIL asked me to make her some cloths one day about two months ago. Once I did, I was off and running with it again.
Almost everyone is getting something knitted for Christmas. Well, ok, the ones that I know and feel would appreciate it, or at least pretend to use what I make for them when I'm around.
I have only been up to the hunting camp once so far.
I love going up there, it's quiet with no cable or internet, fireplace to curl up in front of and a huge pond out back for catching dinner.
I could live up there! But it's just been one thing after another, mainly because PB hasn't been up there that much himself so far this year. The second time he went I couldn't go with him, work, kids, guests coming for the holidays. I'm sure once the Christmas holidays are over we will be headed back up there again. In fact, I am going to make sure we do ;0)
I guess I can sit back and enjoy the down time for a while. As long as it doesn't become too long.
I have already started planning our summer for 2015 though.
Friends coming to stay with us in Panama City in June, a whole week in Naples in July. Camping on the island in May, before it gets so hot that you can't sleep at night. (when I camp, I camp, nothing that uses electricity) except for phones, those have to go, how else could I take all of the pictures!
I think I always get like this around this time of year. We stay so busy that when it does come time to slow down, I get grumpy and bored and sick of the processed air from the a.c. unit.
I don't have any idea how people can live up north where the great outside time is limited to three or four months a year. (unless you can stand the cold, which I can not!) I much prefer our three months a year of inside time.
That's my whine for today. It's only December and I am already sick and tired of being stuck inside.
Hell I was just sweating my ass off last week cleaning all the oak leaves out of the front yard. Now, four days later I am tired of the cold wind blowing around my house!

It does make for some pretty cool pictures though ;0)

Thanksgiving Holiday Fun

We had a blast this last Thanksgiving.
We had company come in all the way from Miami the day before.
OMG the food we ate. Oysters on Wednesday and Friday. Of course the always awesome and overfilling turkey traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Football food for the Iron Bowl on Saturday.
I don't know how in the hell I lost down to 118 lbs. by today. I thought I would be fighting the 'holiday weight' battle until at least New Years.
But sure enough, I woke up this morning and 118.6 lbs! Don't ask me, I don't know how.

Friday night we took everyone,yes this whole awesome gang to

 Bellingrath Gardens Magic Christmas In Lights

We had a great time even though it was a tad chilly. And I am sure for our Miami guests it was downright freezing!

But you can never go wrong with a trip there to see the lights. Always beautiful! Plus they added a few new sections to see. I didn't get photos of those. For some reason (I can't imagine why) my phone kept dieing at the most inopportune times!

I think this picture will end up on the Christmas cards this year if I decide to send any out. 

A few years ago, I really got into sending out the cards, but my gosh! the expense and the time to hand write a note on every single one, it is just a lot and I haven't sent any out in the last couple of years.

But if I was going to, this picture would be on it. 

Us and all the kids save one, who was with his cousin that night and opted out, and all our grandbrats.

We definitely make a crowd just by ourselves!

All in all is was five days of great family fun. And with all the kids now grown up, dating, married, jobs and their own families, we were lucky to have all this time together.
And then there was IRON BOWL SATURDAY!
But that's for next time................

Gulf Coast Living

Our humidity during the summertime can range anywhere from a mild 60% to wrapped in a wet sticky blanket at 100%, 

We can spend two weeks preparing for a storm that could wipe us off the planet and live without basic necessities for weeks. 

But not very many other places in this country will you wear these

and a wool coat to work on Monday and 

these with a pair of shorts and tank tops on Saturday. 

The best of both worlds!

Shiloh

Neil Diamond is the absolute best singer, hands down. And Shiloh?
Well he is just absolutely the best dog ever.
He's calm and quiet, if this dog barks, you might want to get up and go see what's up.
He only barks when there is something, or someone in the yard. Whether you are standing right there or not, he has decided that his job is to let you know someone is around.
Once he knows you are paying attention, he stops. He figures you got it.
He is my 8 year old full blooded German Shepherd.

 

I had a little ShitZu named Burplees (I know, long story) for 13 years. When he passed away, I realized I didn't have any pictures of him over the years. Just a few here and there crowded in between some of the kids. 

So Shiloh has become one of my most photographed animals. (besides the chickens). He even has his own photo album at home, right there beside all the kids and grandkids albums. 

Being a herding dog, it is hilarious when we take him to the island to go fishing with all five of the grandbrats. He doesn't know what to do when you have Daddy way out in the water, three kids playing in the surf, 2 digging in the sand, and me sitting in my chair at water's edge.

It really wears the poor fella out when we go. He will swim out, tap Dad on the butt with his nose and turn around and come back, rub his wet head in my lap then go sniff each and every one of the grandbrats, then it's back to Daddy again. LOL poor guy. By the time we leave, I don't even have to leash him to get him back to the truck, he straightlines right to the tailgate.
 

You can tell that age is starting to get to him, he limps a little now and then and has just about totally given up the ball which he was so obsessed with playing fetch we would have to take it from him and hide it so he would get some rest. Now? he just holds it in his mouth and sometimes, not very often, let Dad throw it, but he rarely ever brings it back anymore. Just takes it to his spot and lays down with it. 

I am going to start him on an aspirin a day soon to help with the old creeks and pops and joints. He is quite used to getting medicine, he's been on Benadryl every summer since he was about two. 

 He really is a great dog, so I thought I would introduce him.

He's so handsome! I love that turd!

 

 A few weeks ago we were burning a fire in our chimenia when I noticed the wood looked allot like Shiloh. So of course I took pictures!

I call it Shiloh On Fire LOL

BAH HUMBUG

 I'm feeling a little scroogish today!

 

Between the stores putting out the Christmas decorations before Halloween, the TV commercials pushing early Christmas buying and a few radio stations already going to Christmas music all day long, I AM OVER IT!

I remember when my kids were little, I loved Christmas, even when we hardly had any money to buy them anything, we still managed to have great Christmas mornings and happy faces all day. They didn't care if I spent a dollar or a hundred. They enjoyed everything about Christmas. The lights, the music, the family.

Now it's buy as much as you can and make sure everyone gets the same amount spent on them and if you do give out handmade gifts, it better come with a gift card attached. 

I hate, hate, hate Christmas time.
It was bad enough when we couldn't even get past Thanksgiving before the Christmas stuff went up at the stores, but this year we didn't even get through Halloween before they started putting up and pumping down our throats, "You can buy more  if you start now" "Layaway now, in October, for Christmas"  Ugggghhhh! Stop it!

I guess this year, because it has started so early, it has pissed me off more than normal. I feel like I am being forced to outdo last year, to make it better, buy more, make it bigger. 




Yes, I could say, "You know what, we aren't falling into this hyped up bullshit this year" then I have 6 sad little faces looking at me like "WTF MiMi"

I guess my bad attitude could have a little bit to do with the fact I no longer have those little smiling faces to wake up to on Christmas morning. No little thunder feet running to my room whispering "should we wake them up?" It's mainly just Me and DH now and though it's a great day with him, it's not near as fun as it used to be until later in the day when we get together with all the family and friends. 

I miss those Christmas mornings.

 

SCRATCHES (my rather lengthy ghost story)

Since the first day we moved into our trailer there have always been weird things happening. Sounds, breezes, smells, voices, just all manner of weird but harmless things.
About a week after we moved in, I was at the kitchen sink which had a window over it that looked out on the back yard, washing dishes, I glanced out the window and saw a woman in an old outfit hanging by her neck in a tree that stands out there. It was a quick glance up and when I looked again I didn't see anything. 
So as humans are prone to do, I wrote it off as "I didn't see that. My mind is playing tricks on me." and "It was just a quick glance, you didn't see what you think you saw"
That was almost 20 years ago now. And that seems to be what will now be called 'the beginning'

I grew up in a haunted house. Genuinely haunted. 
Typewriters going in the middle of the night with actual print on the paper the next morning. My Dad, after the first night of hearing the typewriter going, put a piece of paper in it the next night before he went to bed and sure enough the next morning it had been typed on. Sorry, nothing as awesome as WE ARE HERE or anything like that, just a bunch of letters and symbols in no particular order. Which I am sure some fanatic somewhere could obsess over and come up with it meaning something.  But trust me, it was just a random bunch of letters and numbers and symbols.
My parents saw our ghost one night, actually many nights, but the first night is always the story that got told.




My parents had and armoire in their room that stood about 6 foot tall. One night when they were lying in bed a man (neither one of them knew how they knew it was a man) stepped out from behind it. Or as my dad would say, more or less unfolded from behind it as he stood over 7 foot tall. With lumberjack clothes on and a black cloak, he just stood there at the foot of their bed. Just standing there.  My Dad, thinking someone had gotten into our house dove out of bed and grabbed nothing but air. And he was gone. 
Over the years we lived in that old house we grew quite accustomed to seeing him. My whole family, my parents, me, my sisters. 
There was never anything threatening about the man so we never were afraid of him popping up and showing himself. Tho we never saw a face.
He seemed to be a benevolent spirit until the day my Dad moved to another state for a job and we stayed home packing everything up. Things started getting very tense in the house. The man no longer 'visited' us. The typewriter went berzerk one final night then was silent. And the last time we saw the man? I woke up to him standing over my little sister's bed holding, what to me, looked like a huge cast iron skillet over her head. 
I grabbed my sister and we ran screaming to my Mom's room where we stayed every night until we moved out.
Even though I had grown up with one, as I grew older I became more skeptical.  If ghosts were real, why is there, after all these centuries, no physical proof? Is there some kind of instruction sheet you get when you pass that tells you to never leave behind any proof that there is such a thing? And as far as what happened in our little house in the woods? A simple form of mild mass hysteria? Can't you convince yourself that you did see, did hear what you think you did as long as everyone else is seeing and hearing it too?
Sit by yourself in a dark room and start thinking about something scary, all the sudden you are hyper aware, you hear noises, see flashes, something brushes past you. 
The mind is a powerful thing. 
So the more years that passed since our last sighting of 'the man' the more I stopped believing in ghosts and spirits. Demons? Yes! I will always believe in those whether real or perceived. 
Then we bought this trailer. After the initial incident, there really wasn't that much more that happened. Just little things here and there that could be brushed aside. Missing items that were not where you looked for them ten times, then the eleventh there they were. Sounds that could be explained away. Glimpses, but always out of the corner of your eye. 

Then we had the trailer removed and built a house in the exact same spot. 
Not long after we had moved back in, my DH was having a very bad bout of snoring. As I always did when it got too much for me, I grabbed my pillow and headed to the living room to sleep on the love seat. Since it was something I did often, my DH would come in if he woke up and touch me and try and get me to come back to bed. So when I felt his hand on my face I turned toward him, but there was no one there. I know I felt it. My cheek was warm from the touch. That night he was woken up by his wife curled up in a ball hugging as close to him as I could get!

About a week later, DH had gotten up and was cooking breakfast for all the grandbrats and left me asleep in our room. I heard his phone ringing and woke up enough to think, I wonder why he changed his ringtone? I fell right back to sleep after it stopped, (yes DH had kept me up most of the night with the snoring) then it started ringing again. The Nokia ringtone we all know from back in the day. Once again I wondered who he had set that ringtone for and was he ever going to answer that stupid phone? By now I was awake and laying there debating whether or not to just go ahead and get up when it started again. I rolled over to his side of the bed to grab his phone, (I was going to march into the kitchen with it and grumpily demand he not leave it in the room while I was trying to sleep) but the phone wasn't there. That's when I realized the the ringing was coming from our bathroom, and more specifically, my husbands closet. 

The ringing was coming from a box that had an old phone in it that he had put up in case anything happened to his new phone. I snatched it down and took it to the kitchen and handed it to him and told him someone was trying to call him, he really should take the sim card out of that phone then marched my grumpy butt back to the bathroom. 
When I came back out, he had the phone out of the box and he told me "honey, neither the sim card nor the battery are in this phone" 

I told him how it had been ringing off and on for the last half hour, and it rang the last time as I was headed out the bedroom door with it. 
We threw the phone away and the Nokia ringtone quickly became named "that creepy ringtone" at my house. I can't stand to hear it. Sorry Nokia

A few weeks after that, I was on the phone with my youngest son who had called me early in the morning while he was at school, I'm sure to see if I would come get him out for some supposed stomach ache or something, and as we said Goodbye, I heard a woman's voice saying "Laura" like you do when you have a bad phone connection..."Laura"
First of all, I do not use my first name at all. Only a few immediate family members call me that. And it sounded like my Mother, I kept saying "ma'am" "ma'am" "can you not hear me?" I thought the lines had gotten crossed in between my son hanging up and my Mom trying to call me. But my phone was disconnected. I figured, ok, it could happen lines mixing up if the timing were perfect between the incoming call and the disconnection of the first call.
So I called my Mom, and woke her up. I explained to her what happened and she thought maybe it had been my Grandmother who had died years before. 
I still hate being on the phone after someone hangs up now. I just don't want to hear it again.
I play with my ghost radar but I try not invite any unwanted attention to me or my house. I guess I still believe more than I thought. 
So I ignore the little things, like items still disappearing and reappearing where you left them, but not for a couple of days. Smells I can't find where they are coming from. All those little things you can explain away. 
Until this morning.
This morning when we woke up, DH has 4 scratches on his hip. He said they were burning. We checked his nails thinking he had done it with a hangnail in his sleep, no hangnails, we checked the sheets to make sure there was nothing in them and no pajamas so it couldn't have been that. 
When I looked at them they look like four perfect kitten scratches from his hip bone to the top of his thigh. 
Now, Houston, we might have a problem..............
 
 
 

When it's cold and I'm lazy

Something happened while we slept last night. 
The rain moved in and the temperature dropped, a lot! Brrrr baby! It's cold outside!
As usual when the cold weather finally does find it's way down here to the Gulf Coast, I start thinking about cooking heavier meals. 
Meals we don't normally eat in the summertime because it is just too damned hot to fill up on heavy food. 
Summer time is for salads and veggies and steaks on the grill. 
Oh wait, steaks on the grill are a year round thing.....skip that last part.
Winter is for chicken and dumplings and chili and mashed potatoes and thick hardy soups. 

This morning I decided I wanted something we haven't had since early last winter. 
My lazy BBQ chicken.
Yes that's actually what I call it because it takes absolutely no effort whatsoever. 
 
 

At the moment Sweet Baby Ray's is the sauce of choice because it was on sale a few months ago at the grocery. So I stocked up and quickly named it "the favorite" so everyone wouldn't wonder why I have so much of it.

I don't mind all this cold weather really. I just don't like the cold and wet weather. 
When I used to live in Virginia Beach it would drop down below 60 degrees and it would be chilly but comfortable. You didn't need much more than a long sleeved t-shirt and you were fine. 
Down here on the Gulf Coast our winters are cold and wet. The air is always damp, I'm surprised when it freezes that stuff doesn't just freeze right there, stuck in mid air. So when we get cold? It's to the bone.  But I do love pulling out my sweaters.  No not the funky Christmas sweaters with the horridly huge picture of Santa on it. Just regular everyday long sleeved shirts and sweaters. I love 'em.  They hide all kinds of imperfections! ;0)

Taking Back the Blog

Almost a year since my last post on here! Wow!
Well that is about to change.


I just started to get back into my blogging and I have really started to enjoy it, especially once I decided I didn't give a flying flip who saw it and who doesn't.

I have a blog where I try to be nice, not cuss and keep my feet off the furniture.

But this blog? This one is where everything else is going.
My opinions (promise you're not going to like most of them)
My pictures and thoughts and recipes and just basic gossip and conversation with myself.

This is where I am going to blow off some steam so you might just want to take a step back as a precaution.
Here, if I want to drop the *f* bomb, I will. See watch

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FUCK!

BOOM!

So if you are the artsy, sensitive type you might want to stick to a different type of blog.