A Picture Brings Back A Thousand Memories

Grandpa Chuck's house. The house we lived in, in Oklahoma City. "Kent" house. (On Kent Street).

Grandma Annie's old house (below). It looks like someone wanted to change the look, because it doesn't have any of the Victorian trim or windows, or the giant porch that wrapped all the way around the house. It's not even the same color. I was really disappointed to see that they changed it so much. This is the biggest house on the street and I was told that it was originally built for the mayor of Oklahoma City. It was beautiful in it's day. There are two large sets of staircases inside. One that goes up, and the other one that goes down the other side. (I guess you could go up or down both of them). I was also a little disappointed that all the bushes and trees had been cut down, only because I hoped it would look just like I had remembered it. I think the house used to be blue. There were trees and bushes everywhere, so much that we never stepped a foot in the back yard. The old truck isn't there, but as soon as I see Grandma Annie, I will ask her where it went.

But... the shaded sidewalk and chain link fence was very familiar. I can remember walking down this sidewalk with great grandpa Orval many times. When we were taking pictures of the house, a neighbor ran out of their house and into Grandma's old house. They were very suspicious of us walking around taking pictures of the house. The neighborhood is very shady... and so were the people giving us evil eyes from across the street. I don't blame them for being concerned, but I would have explained had I not been so afraid of them. Mom was across the street in the car waving her arms out the window, whisper/yelling "come on... lets go; people are coming!" So I snapped this last picture just before I ran across the street with Kristen on my heels and jumped in the car. I almost forgot to look both ways. Grandma Annie is doing really good. She was in a sitting position with her eyes open. She was answering all mom's questions correctly. Good news guys... she remembers all of our middle names and birth order. She had physical therapy this morning, which didn't make her very happy. She wanted to lay down and the girl wouldn't let her. She was very young and sweet, but told Grandma that she had to sit up and move her legs and stretch her lungs, so grandma pinched her because she wouldn't let her lay down. The girl didn't say anything, she just grinned but Francie and I saw it. It was just like she would do to us when we were little. She slid her hand up the girls arm and when she got to the back of her arm, she grabbed the "flabby part" and pinched. I guess it was just a threat because it didn't hurt her.
This is the bank that Grandma was pulling out of when she was broadsided by a pick-up with a trailer. Mom called this the "pineapple" bank. Can you believe they gave an old lady on her potential death bed a ticket? They are saying it's her fault.

All her nurses are so sweet, they treat her like she were their own grandma. To them she isn't just another sick old lady. They really care about her. Every one of them.

I will post pictures of Grandma Annie if I can get a good one of her awake. Last night we thought she was going. I had been struggling to hold it in all day, and then when she started to get confused I just lost it, and then everyone else followed. We were all sobbing out of control. Kristen blew so much snot her tissue blew out, we all were laughing and crying at the same time over that. Leave it to Kristen to make us all laugh at a time like this. She is doing so much better today, however, that they are moving her to a new room, out of the ICU. So I have to go because at this very moment they are moving her. I sure hope we have Internet in that room, since we haven't had it in her current room.

Happy Mother's Day

Sorry that I cannot call you today to wish you a happy mother's day. I don't want the international charges, and I'm guessing you don't either. Hope you are enjoying yourself today. Thanks for being a great mom.

Little Larry

No, we did not get another pet. We are simply caring for it until it's weaned from a bottle and can eat hard food. Or until we find someone patient enough to care for a kitty needing to be bottle fed. Little Larry has to eat every 3-4 hours, and he poops on himself, so his bedding has to be changed every few hours as well. I have done 4 loads of just kitty laundry just this week. Larry came from Marble. Marble is my Dea's mom, my brown cat. They were both neglected in the same way, only Larry is much stronger and healthier than Dea was. Larry has to go to work with me. I can't exactly get in trouble with my boss, (my FIL) because he's the one who found him and put him on Adam's desk in a box. Right now he is sitting on my lap, he smells very bad. I hate to freshen him up before bed, as he will surely potty on himself tonight and I will have to clean him up again in the morning. He is so stinky!

I hate not having electricity.

I feel like I'm from the olden days. All day Saturday and Sunday we were without power therefore, no internet, lights, TV, we couldn't even charge the cell phones. I went out an bought a lantern Saturday night so that I could at least see where I was going in the house. We just switched from A*T&T to Comcas*t, so we had no TV or internet yesterday. It was really quiet when we went to bed without watching at least one show. And this morning was weird too, because we always have the news on. Before the internet service switch, our internet speed was so slow, it felt like dial-up. Now that we have normal service again and our electricity is back on, I can make more regular appearance... ( I love that I have an excuse).

Another one.

I made another purse, only this one is smaller... 64% to be exact. I shrank the pattern on the copy machine. Just to mix it up a bit. this is practically the 4th purse I've made with the same pattern. Not sure yet what I will do with it. For now I will just look at it until I decide something else.

oh, and if you are wondering how it went with the manager at my grocery store, he was very apologetic, and wasn't sure which person it was, but should be able to find out by looking through the cancelled register orders. He offered me store vouchers but I told him I wasn't there for that reason and refused them. I don't want him to think I'm trying to get something for free, I want him to know that girl was really rude and that is why they lost a sale.

Another Store I can't Go to Cause I Made a Scene

I hate grocery shopping. But more than that, I hate making dinner from nothing. So, I gave in and went grocery shopping. I usually just get what I need to make dinner - once. But I went all out and got a whole cart full of stuff. When I was a kid, and went grocery shopping with my mom, she would remember the price of every item in her cart down to the cents. I was always amazed that she could do that. Still am, she's never wrong. Now I catch myself doing the same thing. Only I am not as good as she is, sometimes if I'm not 100% sure if something rang up wrong, I will wait until I have loaded my car with the bags and then run back in and check, just for my own satisfactions sake. It's a compulsion, the whole paying-the-advertised-price thing. I HATE trying to remember the prices, I just want to grab what I need and go, not think about it, but I can't do that. It's a disease... thanks mom. Back to my story - I loaded the groceries on the belt and before I could finish, the person in front of me finished and the lady started ringing up my groceries. "Ma'am, will you please wait for me to unload my cart so that I can watch the prices?" ..."OK" she said, grumpily, "but it's going to take you awhile"... SO! Where do you have to be? I thought to myself. There was no one in line behind me. It took me less than 30 seconds to finish and I was moving really fast, not slow and annoying, like some people move. As soon as I moved up to where I could see, I said "thank you" and she continued ringing stuff up. "Do you have your shoppers card?" She asked me. "yeah, hang on a sec..." (digging for my keys). All the while she's STILL ringing up my groceries. "Ma'am, I can't watch the screen and look for my shoppers card at the same time, I really want to watch the prices, will you please wait?" Huff and puffs from the lady; I was being very polite, trying my best to be nice, since I usually tend to overreact and then end up feeling bad about it later. I didn't want to be her 'annoying customer' of the day that she goes home and tells her husband or roommate about. Or in her case, her dog or cat 'cause she can't get along with people. Turns out I didn't have my shoppers card, because I brought the spare set of keys instead of my regular ones. So I had to type my phone number into the keypad, which of course took more time, and clearly that was annoying to her. So when I finally gave her my attention, and gave her the go-ahead, she was obviously ticked. I was being the old lady that still writes checks; so what? Give me a break, I forgot my shoppers card but still want the sale prices (that's too much to ask for people). So she starts ringing things up really fast, so fast that stuff is flying everywhere. My frozen pizza that I got, the ones not in a square box, but round and wrapped in cellophane, bounced into the air and back onto the belt spinning like a penny does when it gets dropped on the ground, and then flew off the belt and over the side. Didn't hardly phase her, I think she caught it with her leg against the counter by her feet. But she was scanning stuff so fast, that I couldn't read a single item on the monitor before the following items would push the previous items off the screen. Stuff was flying everywhere, and spinning out of control. She was doing it on purpose so that I couldn't ultimately read the prices, which was the whole reason I asked her to wait! Why do people have to be so stupid? I had just about had it, and then she grabbed the bag of chips, squeezed it in her hand and smashed it down at the other end of the belt. That was the last straw... "look lady, if you're gonna be rough with my groceries because your ticked, I'll go somewhere else to do my shopping." All serious now, but very stern... "I'm just doing my job!" (Yeah right, you're a terrible checker). I was still being nice, just very blunt; she could have saved the sale if she wanted to. I went through all the trouble to get the groceries, the hard part was over. I just wanted to get home. But she forced me to stand my ground, so I walked out. Told her I would shop somewhere else. And tomorrow I will probably speak to her manager. I really do hope she enjoyed putting all that stuff away. Thanks to her I still had to figure something out for dinner, so I just got Chinese. I'm still mad, and I think I'm out of cereal and milk for tomorrow morning which makes me even madder.

MY new purse

I should probably give Francie some credit, while I'm "blogging" (if you can call it that); she helped me clean my basement out this weekend. She was a huge help. We carried all the garbage to the front porch, and then i made Francie sit down in the piles and get her picture taken because there was SOO much!

...and one last thing; Adam and Justin worked on extending the deck. They too, worked very hard.