Well, I thought I might have something interesting to report on an ongoing relationship, but unfortunately nothings happened. I asked Joshua to a picnic at the park on July 26 and he came. I had a pretty good time....what with a cross cranky little boy who didn't want to go in the first place and HAD to be home by 8pm,7 central to see something on TV. But I had hoped he would come to church the next night, because by then I didn't have any children for a couple or three weeks and thought maybe we could see each other without kids. But, after he stood me up.....yep, can you imagine that? I haven't heard from him. I guess you win some and you lose some. Oh, well, Maybe another nice gentleman will come into BK and Doug will try to "hook" us up. But again, maybe not!

Just thinking 8/9/03

Well, here it is nearly the end of the summer and Susan and her family are going to Carolina Beach today and Cindy and Dave are going to Virginia Beach today for an Enterprise beach party. Guess I won't see the ocean this year, but that's okay. Susan needs a vacation.....she's spent the last few weeks painting and cleaning her house. She got a new ceiling in her kitchen and for some reason, when you do something in one room, all of a sudden you can find all kinds of things that ought to be done. A little paint in this room....new blinds or curtains in this one and then this room WOULD look better with new paint. Then new bedspreads and curtains really would make this room look better... and it goes on and on. THATS why I DON'T do anything to my house. Once you get started, it's a never ending cycle! However, I did get a beautiful roll top desk this week. Ron had picked it up a few weeks ago and they had been carrying it around in the back of the Tahoe. In order to have room for beach stuff, they had to get rid of the desk and so I have it!! I love it! I hope to get it organized soon. I really didn't have time this week with the babies around. I did polish it and it was looking real good and today when I walked by it I noticed a whole row of tiny lil fingerprints on the edge of the writing surface. I guess they were Anna's and Brittany's. Wonder what they were looking for? Well, this summer Susan and Cindy have been going to yard sales with me. Last week our church had one, so I didn't get to go. Today, they are both heading off, so I'm hoping Linda is going with me. It really messes up your whole week(at least, mine) when you miss your yardsales. When you stop to think about it, what's so great about looking at other people's junk? Well, I like to read and I usually pick up 10/12 books. Once in a while, nobody has books or else I've already read the ones that look likely. BUT, one week not so long ago, I was looking at jewelry at a yard sale and found what I thought was a wide sterling silver necklace for 25 cents. When I got it home and cleaned it with silver cream, it turned out to be 14 carat white gold. This rain has really made a jungle out of my so called flowers. The weeds are so prolific they have just about taken over, One day soon I hope to get back out there and spend another day just pulling weeds. Michael put down some mulch for me in front of my porch this spring and first thing you know a green plant came up through it. One on each side! One side is a yellow squash and the other side is a zucchini. I think I wrote about this before, but now I know for sure that it's a zucchini cause I can see them growing. Guess I'll make zucchini bread before long. Well, guess it's time for bed....6:15 comes early!

Sunday Night 8/10/03

Well, the weekend is almost over...another couple of hours and it'll be Monday again. I had a good weekend, tho. With Susan and Cindy both at the beach, I had new yard sale partners this week. Linda and Lindsay! We got a late start...almost 8:15 before we got started. But, once we got started we made hay! For you who don't "do" yard sales, it's really fun to look at other peoples throw aways. Actually, sometimes you can find designer clothes with the tags still on them. I picked up 3 pairs of shorts and three shirts and a really cute one piece short set for one of my grand kids and a new looking onesie for Savannah. I bought a really great Hamilton Beach blender with a glass pitcher for 3 bucks and Linda got a microwave oven that looks and works like new for 10 bucks. She also got a bookcase, a tater/onion bin, and a new collector knife for James. She also picked up a lot of other smaller items. All in all, it was a very enjoyable day. Douglas came by after work and ate soup, salad and sandwiches with me before he went home and then I cleaned up the kitchen, checked my mail and watched a little TV and went to bed. Today was church day. The preacher is doing sermons on the seven deadly sins and today was the 4th one. Who knows what it is? Well, if you want to know you can look it up yourself. A friend called and asked me why he preached on that subject since every body there today were widows. Beats me. After church I went and fed Susan's outdoor cat and then I went home and read a while and straightened up a little and then made me some fried rice with beef. It was pretty good. I washed my dishes and got ready for church and left early so I could go by and feed Susan's indoor cat. Sara had told me to stay for a while and pet her, but when I went in she went somewhere and hid. Maybe tomorrow she'll be used to me coming in and I'll get a chance to pet her a little. I then went to church and we had a good crowd and a good song service and a good sermon. However, he preached using the same text that Rev. Heffner used last Sunday morning. After church I came home and Cindy came by and we ate cantalope(?) with vanilla icecream and it WAS good. Then she went home and I'm on the 'puter relating the events of my weekend.Which, after all, wasn't very outstanding. Oh, except that I got flirted with by a good looking dude with salt and pepper hair in Food Lion yesterday afternoon. Of course, he had on shades and probably couldn't see my wrinkles, but he did tell me that he was single.Whee-doggies! Well, gonna go change into something comfortable and relax a while. Maybe drink some 7-up and nibble something salty while I watch TV. More later.

Old 97 8/10/03

The 100th anniversary of "The Wreck of the Old 97" is coming up on Sept.27. I was looking through some cassette tapes the other day and found some by my late brother Jim (Connie). For you who didn't know him, he was a self-taught guitar player and singer and could really do both well. I started listening to one cassette and about mid way he started talking....giving a little history of the wreck and then he started playing and singing. It's such a good song. I started remembering when I was little. Our backyard went down almost to where the train took it's dive. In the little creek I wrote about another time. When we were young, there were still cross ties and pieces of rail down there near the creek and big pieces of metal that we thought were parts of the train. There were still canaries which were offspring of some that were in old 97 when it wrecked. We could see them in the trees around our house for lots of years when I was young. When I was a little girl, there was this old lady who lived up on Henry Street and she could really tell good stories. Every once in a while, she would walk down to our house to talk to my Banny Hall (G'ma) and if Connie was around, he would always get her to tell us about the train wreck she went to see. Seems like she and her sons had come home from church and had had dinner and was resting when they heard this tremendous noise that went on for a good little while. At this time she was living on Farrar St., so she sent her hubby out to see what was causing the noise. He came running back in to say that there was a train in the creek with smoke coming out everywhere. She and her boys went running down there along with everybody else in North Danville. She had a picture that had been taken of the wreck and she showed me her and her youngest son Alec standing up on the bank looking at the wreckage. She told us that while she was standing there a lot of yellow birds came flying out of the wreckage and landed in the trees and started singing. I think 11 people were killed that day and I believe that was the worst train wreck in Virginia history. I'm going to try my best to go see what is planned to commemorate the anniversary. I wish Connie could be there, but on that date he will have been dead 10 years. Doesn't seem that long.

Another Birthday 8/23/03

I didn't stay up on purpose to greet my birthday, but circumstances had me up and wide awake......so here I am ready to tell you how it feels to be another year older. Well, actually I feel a couple of years younger. Why do we have to have birthdays any way? Wouldn't it be much better if we didn't keep an account of how old we are? Why not just say "I'm wiser now than I was, but not as wise as I'm gonna be." Wouldn't that be much better than saying how old you are? And then you wouldn't have to have cakes, parties, or buy gifts. Of course, the kids probably wouldn't like that, but look how much money the parents would save over a period of time. Especially if they had more than one child. They would have a head start on a college fund or a car when the time came. Anyway, I digress. Birthdays are really nice. I've been to two birthday dinners this week. One for an eighteen year old and one for an eight year old. Both are two of my Adams grandkids. Actually, Leanna's birthday and mine are the same day, but she wanted to celebrate hers without me celebrating at the same time...thus, her dinner on the 22nd. But, she'll be here later today and I think she has a gift to open, so she'll sorta be celebrating with me anyway. I do think, tho, that after this one, I'll just put birthdays on hold until I hit a really BIG one.....like 95 or 100. Well, I need to get to bed....gotta get up early for yardsales with Cindy and Rebecca. Hasta luego/Adios/Buenos Noches/ Goodnight!!!!

Labor Day Eve 8/31/03

Well, here it is, almost Labor Day. The only person I know who actually labored on Labor Day was Marie's daughter-in-law Debra who gave birth on Labor Day to Michael. I think, 30 years or so ago. I used to HATE Labor Day when I was a kid because I knew that the next day was the beginning of a new school year. And I used to hate school, for at least the first 3/4 years. Yesterday Cindy and I went to yardsales. There were some pretty good ones...I found three books that I hadn't read and some sheet music for Bobby, some sneakers for a grandchild, a really nice potty chair and a rubber ducky for my bath tub. Well, not for me, but for the babies when they get in the tub. So far, I've had 3 lil rubber duckies to disappear from my bathroom. Any body seen my quackers? Today has been a very pleasant day temperature wise. I got a new dress for my B'day and it has a sweater type jacket and I thought I'd probably get too hot, but it was very comfortable. And now it's pretty cool in my room.....feels like the air is on, but its just a window fan on low. I think tomorrow I'll work on my room. I want to put up my new panels and put my new bedding on the bed. Of course, that means I'll have to do SOME cleaning, but Hey, after all, it will be Labor Day.