Do you recognize me?

If you know me well, you will know how true this is, if not, you will learn very quickly that I STAND FOR SOMETHING!!

I think we enjoyed Christmas more this year, as we are finding that life is very fragile. Last year Dad, now Mom. We will be the elders soon and have a heavy burden to carry, not that Mom ever carried anything!  It was great to have the kids here, we all stayed at Mama Belle’s and Santa forgot his greatest gift for the kids! That was pretty funny!

Hello !  Long time no speak!

Hi Honey, I am home, Where are you?

He has been to Florida, Texas, and back to Georgia and headed home tonight! I have already voted, as a Florida resident, so I am so past all this election stuff, I hate that it is all I can find on the TV! I am now teaching computer applications at VWCC and loving it! Can’t just run off to Danville like I used to, but Laura is busy with her Kevin and her new job.

I have come alive again with the ability to be out in the world and to talk to people and teach again. It is a very wonderful feeling.  Last night, Laura and Kevin showed up in Roanoke and visited their G’ma Doris, at the Glebe and then came to see me, it was so sweet. I can feel a different feeling in my bones. It is like being– not dead, but not alive–and then really coming to life. Look at Kevin & Laura at the zoo in Asheboro, NC.

They are always going somewhere and doing something, which is very different for Laura. She has been like her Mom and sat around knitting and reading the past several years, now she has a reason to get up and go! This weekend they went to Mabry’s Mill and decided against the 2 hour wait for Buckwheat Pancakes, and went on to Chateau Morrissette, and ate there. Then they cruised the Blue Ridge Parkway and ended up here in Roanoke! What a wonderful surprise for me and G’ma!

Josh has an interview in November with the FBI and is very happy. He is back with Stephanie, and they are stuck like glue dots.  He is still work at Lewis Bear loading Budweiser trucks, studying for his CDL so he can get a day job running a route, and making more money. We are praying that he will be accepted by the FBI as an investigative agent. That is what he has always wanted, so of course, it is what we want for him. Step is in radiology school and has decided to become a Physician’s assistant.  They are both very intelligent kids and have put their minds to building a great future. As are Laura and Kevin, he will graduate in May and is studying precision milling, I do not know what that is because I do not understand when he talks about it, too over my head, just give me my computer! That I understand!

Want to meet some friends? And listen to a great production? Laura and Rick Steere have a ranch in Ridgeway, Va.  They raise about everything you can imagine. The most beautiful draft horses, angora bunnies, goats, alpacas, llamas, sugar gliders, coatimundi, even a miniature pig. You will find them here:

Laura & Rick Steere
Infinity Acres LLC Alpacas, Llamas, Petting Ranch & Percheron Horses
www.InfinityAcres.org
www.photoshow.com/members/momsteere check out our animal slideshow!!
http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/article.cfm?ID=13100
www.alpacanation.com/infinityacresva.asp
www.powerbarrowcompany.com
276-358-BEST

Laura has a friend, we are very happy about that.  We had dinner together last night when we went to Danville to pick up things we left there and do laundry. Ofcourse, Mr.Bean got our dogs reinfected with fleas, so we had to wash them again today! I sure hope Jessica takes him enjoys him. Laura is looking at a step up at work and even less time at home, we got an ad in for the Finches, and will see what comes of that.  I am looking for a bird show so we can see what we can sell. I may go to Cathy’s and get the Senegal and take if there is a show around here any time soon.

I have called and left a message for Cathy that I want a meeting,a straightening out of the misunderstanding we obviously have, I am very hurt by it and I want it out in the open. I want to be able to talk to my friend, and see the horses, even if I never ride again, I want to help her, if she will only let me.  I have no idea what to think, how can you lose a friend of 30 years and not know why?

I am still applying and interviewing for jobs, yesterday at disability determination.  I want a school job, but as a counselor not a teacher. I wish now that I had gotten my Master’s in Guidance, not library, had I known then what I know now, I would have. I am seriously thinking of going back to get an e.ed. in Guidance and Curriculum.  Still no RT open, still no local school positions, and I am so ready for a change. I have no chance at the DD job I interviewed for yesterday, they were interviewing 18 people in the three days, I cannot hold up to all those younger people.  This jobs thing is bad!!!

But we are fine, here we have no bills, ha ha ha! What a joke, we are working to pay off the credit cards, the truckand the car, if I have to I will find something I can do even if it is hourly to get them paid off so we can buy a farm. That is all I care about right now.

I just cannot tell you how ecstatic I am over the choice John McCain made for his VP!!!  Who would have ever thunk it?  Not only a woman, a whistle blower, a hunter, a lifetime member of the NRA, the mother of 5 kids, the latest of them an angel!  Not a Washingtonian who is just there to play the game! This is a REAL person, who has fought the bureaucracy and won. This is just wonderful– on with the games, I can hardly wait for her to debate old Joe Biden, ‘Scrappy Joe’  what a massacre that will be! He can begin to think like this lovely woman.

It is amazing that Alaska keeps coming up in our family, I put my name on the list for teaching in alaska and got several calls, then I looked at the temp there in July and decided my bones were too old for anything more than a visit! This is the year of history making, a black man is running for President, God help him, and a woman is the Republican VP candidate, these people have us all on our ears waiting for what they will do next.

Glenn Beck had Ted Nugent on this week, what a pair! I loved it and was so impressed with Ted, he is so full of himself and his way of life, if only all of us could be so confident, so clean and so sure of where we were headed! He said venison is the cleanest meat and he is monitoring his property and making sure that the balance is staying perfect with his animals.  Also a lot of talk about Texas, you know how I love TEXAS! I would love to live there when we are free. We are off to NM and Montana to look at property also, Laura’s house is for sale in SAT now, we have a tree that has uprooted the house and we have to have the home owners come out and fix it. I am looking up her insurance and checking to make sure it is covered.

Just what we need another trip! I have an interview Wednesday at 1 with disability determination, as a case worker. I am looking forward to the challenge. Should be interesting! Also, I have an interview for Rue 21 Manager and Hobby Lobby Asst manager. Thei nterviews are coming in finally, now let us see if there are any offers!

What is this all about? What have we as Americans become? I have been at Laura’s while she has been sick, and her rule is no watching the news! So when I get home, DH is telling me all the news I have missed, Obama has made fruitcake out of the Bible?  Hillary has given up her run, hard to believe! The border fence is still not built. A border agent was run over by a drug dealer trying to get away and go back to Mexico and no one at all cares that her 5 year old son is missing a mother, as she rots away in jail! We still have the other two in solitary for doing their job, what the hell???  As Greer the green parrot and his Papa would say,

” WHAT THE HELL?”

I have said for over a year now, lets dredge the Rio Grande and make it deeper and wider, lets take all the dirt to New Orleans to build it up, let’s haul all the extra gators out of the Florida swamp and put them into the Rio Grande, and then throw Bill Mayer in to see how the “fence system” works.  If he comes back, then we need more gators!!

What is the government thinking, and has anyone read their Bible lately? That man in Iran is getting ready to destroy us all and here we sit giving prizes to Al Gore for what? The same things the hippies (that would be me) have been saying since the 70′s when Mother Earth News became the magazine of the day! I-we-my family- can live self sufficently, we have learned over the years what and how to do that? What is wrong with today’s kids? They want to be spoon fed and prenant at 13!! Who is going to end up taking care of all those babies, the babies themselves who gave birth to them in jr high school???  Whatever happened to expelling pregnant teens and making them home-bound students so everyone would not be high 5′ing their having sex and getting a sperm donor!  You had best pick up the book and read Revelations!!  There will always be wars and rumors of wars in the middle East, now Isreal is going to attack Iran, who is going to help them, if we do not, God will destroy us for not helping his people.  I am flabbergasted that as I decide to open a new business in teaching heritage arts for the young people, dyeing yarn and knitting, spinning, etc, so that at least they will know something of the old ways, and will be able to protect and feed themselves, they are all out having sex and getting pregnant, talk about adding to their problems!

Where are their parents????

Don’t they even care about their kids??  Have they not gone to the trouble of teaching these children anything? Can any of them care for themselves much less a baby?  Oh and let’s all run to help China and bring their babies back here to raise, that’s another great idea?? Who is helping the poor and outcast amongst us here in this country, instead of the Chinese, the Africans, I am sooo sick of hearing about their illnesses, they brought them on themselves, why should they expect someone else to come in and take care of them? The storms and the fury that are taking out large populations are all listed in the Bible and they have nothing to do with “Global Warming”. They have to do with prophesy and the actions of the people involved.  If we elect Obama into the our government, we are in for real trouble, his wife is the greatest hate monger I have ever seen on TV!! She is what my KKK Granddaddy would have called ‘an uppity nigger’ as he rolls in his grave and says “Elvis, save us!!” 

I am not a politician, I am not any thing, really. I am just an American with a voice, and this voice has paid the price to be able to state my feelings freely, my disabled Veteran Husband will tell you, there is no control for me, I am full out even if I am slower than I was 20 years ago. 30 years ago I was milking goats, raising hogs, chickens, rabbits, calves, and raising two beautiful babies, I could take care of myself and my family. I have the shooting trophy to prove what I can do with a 22 rifle. My redneck husband decided to join the Navy and serve the country called America, and what he got for his trouble is a load of Sadam’s nonexistent nerve gases and weapons of destruction, now he suffers daily with joint degeneration, back and spine degneration, fibromyalgia, chronic pain syndrome, Chronic PTSD, and severe depression. Wow, wouldn’t you love to be him?  Serve up the WMD’s folks, whether you believe in them or not, ask the guys who were there how they feel now!! You will not believe how many are medically retired with the same problems, and are not eligible for concurrent receipt because they did not make it to 20 years service, their bodies gave out and they became a liability, so shouldn’e we be giving them more, not less???

I told you I was on a rant, I forewarned you, now I want to tell you, I love my family, I love my country, I am so disappointed that no one in the government will listen to the people who make sense instead of the liberal secular progressives who are trying to take our society apart.  How can we be so stupid when we are supposed to be the most educated country on the Earth? I am ready to go back to the classroom and straighten out some of the misrepresentations. How long do you think I will last?

I look forward to teaching the old Foxfire Skills, if you have not read the Foxfire series done in the Appalchains in the 60′s and 70′s, look them up. It is a series of 4 books, yes everything comes back to books with me, that a group of college students put together about the old ways and went up into the hills and talked to the old people, and made a record of what and how they lived, it is fascinating reading.  You may need those skills soon, when we have to go back to the horse and buggy cuz their is no diesel left to fuel the new truck and horse trailer!! Me, I am for turning all the used cooking oil in the US into diesel and let the gas guzzelers cry!! Detroit has had the last word for too long on what we should and will be presented with to drive, long live the hybrid and the peanut oil fueled buses that Willie Nelson drives.

I am voting for Toby Keith and Willie Nelson as President and Vice President, as write ins in protest to the politicians, cuz I DO NOT BELIEVE WE CAN BELIEVE ANY OF THEM!!!!!

Are you with me, mate? Shall we start a grass roots rebellion and take over this country and make someone who is already living what they preach our leaders??? 

www.dreamspinners.etsy.com

and are finding it to be a great experience! Things have started selling and we are looking at some advertising on Ravelry which should bring many people to our shop. I am happy to say Kevin is selling his Nostepinne’s that he learned to make on his wood lathe. 

We jsut celebrated Mother’s Day with Laura and her Grandma, it was a great weekend although it rained all day on Sunday! It was one of those, blow your umbrella inside out, rains! We did take them Saturday to the Home Place Resturant on top of Catawba Mountain.  It was wonderful and we got right in, no waiting, of course we got there an hour before they ‘opened’ and they were already open, so beats me!  But it worked out wonderfully, and all had a great time.

Sunday Ani called and told her grandmother she had gotten engaged, to which her ‘memaw’ said finally! Now you will not be living in sin, and of course, she turned to us and said “well, you know Ani is an Artist”  I said, ‘Yes, I know, I are one too’ to which my husband of over 30 years relpied,’Well, why did we get married?’

Now we have one turning 30 this weekend and one 26, unbelievable! People told us the time would fly, and I prayed it would, now that I look back on those times, I think I managed well while we were in the Navy, and I was raising these young’un’s. At the time, I felt stretched to the limit, but I do believe that I needed a hobby!

The depression took over and there were weeks I did not leave my room, I just sat there and read books, now that I look back, I see all the symptoms.  I am on antidepressants now, a heavy dose but I still have times when I do not want to leave the house and I struggle with it daily. I used to be so funny and made everyone laugh and I had friends, many of them, was respected and loved by the whole Navy family for my help as an Ombudsman! I think when we left Mayport and went to an airdale community, I lost my way.  Nothing was the same and we were shunned by the airdales. After all, we were some of very few snipes (sea going rates-black shoes as it was). Kevin excelled there and got his wings and was the first sailor there to have both warfare, ship and air, pins ever.  Then he was transferred back to the ship and left us behind as he made Chief aboard the USS Vicksburg, CG-69! Wow, we were all so proud!!  We had a Navy Chief in the family, he had studied for over a year every day for 4 hours after work and made it first time up!

Now we are retired, living on pensions, I am making crafts to have mad money, which I love!! I just hate depending on it! Laura and I have started a new business of dyeing the yarns, and hand painting them and she is wonderful!! She makes the most beautiful combinations! 

I have happily been contracted  to teach for 4 weeks this summer at the

ALABAMA FOLK SCHOOL and am really looking forward to it! I am teaching first a week of clock building in Dad’s Memory. Then a week of Knitting Accessories, then Knit’n & Purl’n, and finally Paper Arts!

I am so excited, I will spend some time with Josh between weeks and some with Tana! It will be a great summer if we get enough enrolled, so I am going to advertise those classes like crazy!!

I am off to complete some pendants and make them into necklaces and put them on Etsy!! See you there! 

 www.dreamspinners.etsy.com

We leave Tuesday and take Sweet Pea to Laura’s, spend the night with her and see my friends! Then we will go from there to Tana’s and spend the night there, before we go on to Pensacola and Josh’s where we will lite for a couple of weeks!  I am ready, I need to walk the beach and clear my head, I need to smell the salt water and fish for oops……..gig for flounder with my son!  In that mean boat that threw me out and tried to pull my arm off! 

We have one set of trilooms left, 5 and a half foot with easel, I want to sell it and never see it again.  The looms kept us alive and Kevin busy, but now he has moved on to better and funner things that he can make with his wood lathe.  He has been making nostepinnes, he says ‘nasty pins’  and I won’t tell you what his next idea is spurred on by that!

We have been loading yarn, pendants, bags and goodies on etsy, now I am ready for a vacation.  I look forward to that nasty smell we used to complain about when we crossed the bridge into Mayport, you could smell the bog, the swamp there, but it meant we were home for so many years when we were stationed there.  Now I look forward to that smell as we hit the Pensacola coastline!  White sands and margaritas, ya ya!  We will see about those margaritas when we get the results of my blood sugar tests from the Dr. I hope that he will increase my metformin, then I can eat a little more. 

Yoo hoo! That is all I hear now that Zorro has moved into the sitting room from my craft room.  He does not like to be alone, but I will bring his play stand back this trip and he can come in here with me.  He really likes to “help” by eating whatever I am working on!!  At least he has learned to say ‘thank you’ which alerts me to his having taken something!  I am off to make some clay pendants and beads and eat some lunch,

Let’s make a pact! Let’s all agree to smile no matter what, it is so hard to be sad, mad, upset, aggravated or bent out of shape with a smile on your face……………….and you just might help someone else who really needs to see that smile!   Happy day!