Oh Well!!!!

Sunday is our 58th Wedding Anniversary.    Ted asked me the other day what I wanted to do and if I had anywhere I'd like to go.

I had been thinking now that we are living so close it might be fun to go back to Navoo where we spent our Honeymoon and eat at a place that was really famous at the time.   The name was:  Flora Thumbs Restaurant.

So a few minutes ago I Googled it and oh my, I got some weird answers.

The one that really caught my eye though was:   Flora  -  minus thumbs.   I'm not sure just what that was as I decided Flora Thumbs was closed and we couldn't take that trip back in time.

Oh Well!!!!!!

MEMORIES

Yesterday we buried another member of our family.   She was a niece on my side of the family and only 8 years younger than I am.   I did not know her children very well.   We moved to Tennessee while they were still young.   Her two living sisters and several other nieces and nephews were at the service.

This morning my daughter had a picture of several of the nieces and nephews on Face Book and the memories have been flooding in every since.

Some twenty years ago we lost the first grandchild on my side of the family.   He was just a neat kid and grew to be a pretty neat man too.   These two danced together for many years and my mother and I would come to Peoria every year to see their performance.

They were two of the funniest kids you'd ever want to know.   Well, I've had a few funny kids of my own by now but I thought these two were special when I was growing up.

I won't bore you with all my memories but I would encourage anyone that has a big family and have lost the parents to try and get together.   I'm hoping this summer we can arrange to have a family reunion of the ones left.   We have lost 5 of this generation and that's too many not to realize we need to keep in touch.

Happy Birthday, Winni

Today is a very good friends birthday.   She's in her 90's - I don't know the exact number, didn't ask, don't care.    She loved us from the first time she saw us.

Ted had gone to work for GTE and we lived in a garage that had been converted to a little apartment.   We had a picture window in our bathroom.    We lived there when Kim was born. 

One morning in January we woke to ice on the inside of our windows right beside Kim's bed.  So a search for new housing began.   We had very little money and the houses in Mt. Carmel, IL were too expensive.   Someone told us about a house in the country we might want to look at.  

We called the people and set a time to go see it that night.  When we arrived they had a roaring fire in a beautiful fireplace.   Their house was so pretty.   They said the electricity had been turned off at the rental house but Don would take his big beam lantern to show us the house.  It was hard to see at night but we looked and they said the rent was $45 a month.  Then I saw the kitchen and there were two sinks in it.   Also this Don guy stuttered and then here was this house with two sinks.   Good heavens I thought.   So...being the nice person I was (AHEM) I politely said, "We'll call you"  and at the same time Ted said, "We'll take it".    I thought he'd lost his mind.  

Little did I know what wonderful people they were.    They loved us from the first time we were there and did everything they could to help us.   The day we moved in Kim had not had a bath for three days as our house was just too cold.   So...their oldest daughter, Judy, kept Kim while we unloaded our meager furnishings.   During that afternoon Judy gave Kim two baths and I think Kim slept sounder than she had in days.

We did not have a television so they invited us over every Sunday evening to watch T.V. and every Thursday night to watch Tennessee Ernie Ford.    When we finally saved enough to buy our first T.V. I think they were about as sad as I'd ever seen them.

They furnished us a lawn mower, we had all the fruit we could eat or can - FREE and I couldn't begin to count the number of free meals we ate over there.   They really adopted us, they just didn't make it legal.   To this day we call Winnie - AUNT WINNIE and though Don died many years ago he was always UNCLE DON too.   Such wonderful people.   Loved us just for who we were and even though we smoked and I'm sure they knew we drank too they never tried to change us.   They just loved us.  

We were two very young, very lucky people.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

We knew 2014 would be a different kind of year for us and we would have snow.   We never expected SO MUCH snow.

 

This was just our first snow.   Since this 8" we've had a little warm weather, some ice and then another inch of snow on top of that, then last Sunday we had another 6" and then the temperature dropped to -12 degrees.    O.K. already!!!!!!

 

Yesterday we saw an inch of rain on top of the last snowfall making for one crappy mess to walk in OR drive in.

 

Today we were in beautiful sunshine and 40 degrees.  Tomorrow they promise us almost 50 degrees and I may see if they open the pool at the park.   

 

 

 

 

SQUIRREL SNOW

Oh yes, we have been officially welcomed to Illinois now.   Our first snowfall came last night and measured about 8" or better.  It's beautiful.    The trees look like a fairyland.

I kept seeing bunches of snow fall but we have no wind.   Couldn't figure out what the heck that was.
Just now I saw a squirrel playing in a tree and the snow was falling below him. 

Thus   SQUIRREL SNOW

THIS OLD HOUSE

Yes, we bought this house in August and moved in quickly.  We were so excited to have a house we did not have it inspected.   DUMB.   



                                                           

 

 

 

We  love the neighborhood and the neighbors that we have met.   We have one of the most beautiful maple trees we have ever seen in our front yard.  

 

BUT...we should of had it inspected.   We knew we had to do something to the kitchen.   In the end we decided to replace ALL the cabinets, put in a new stove and microwave and eventually a new floor.

 

What we did not realize was that we had to replace the faucets to the sink in the utility room, Ted had to rewire much of the wiring coming into the utility room and the last thing he has had to replace was the garage door opener.

 

We kind of wonder what will be next.   It's going to be a really neat house when we finish.  We hope to do some work in the downstairs bathroom and replace the carpet downstairs at some point too.  Then I suppose it will be about time to move again.

 

 

 

BOOKS

I love a GOOD book.   I did not read for many years, then someone handed me a really big book on my way out of church one time and said, "You need to read this".   I took it to get her off my back and much to my surprise it was a REALLY GOOD book.   I finished reading it that Tuesday morning about 5 a.m.

For several years I read only books that were true.   Then one time a friend told me if I would read fiction I could go anywhere.   So I read fiction and still do.  I love a good mystery if it doesn't get too gory.     But have to admit my favorite books are ones that are based on truth anyway.  

I have read a few books that stand out in my memory.   Some of Will Campbell books are excellent.  One book about a battle in the Civil War is a book I keep in my library - small as it is.   I have a couple of books written by a lady I saw at the Southern Writers conference.  She writes books based on truth and one of hers is another book that will always be in my library.  It's a true story about a woman that butchered her husband.

We have a used book store here where we live and they carry a lot of what I call  junk books .  We are members there though and now and then you can get a good book for hardly anything.   I am reading just such a book now.

It's written by a southern writer but it's about a year they spent in Alaska.  I can hardly ever put it down and yet  hate for it to end.   I just want to keep reading about living in Alaska. 

Ted and I drove there one time and it was one of our best trips ever.  We drove the Alcan Highway and I wouldn't give that memory up for  anything.   Kim and I spent two weeks there 5 years later and saw different things altogether.   She and I saw the Northern Lights, a big moose right in front of us on the road, a glacier that was calving, a pod of Orca and had a trip that lives forever in her mother's heart.   I wish I could take a trip like that with all my children.

I'm hoping when I get to the end of this book I find another just as exciting and wonderful