Well, I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep and while I was laying there I started thinking about how easy we have it today.

I remember when I was a little girl, my mama, who had four kids at the time(by the time Richard came along she had a wringer washer)used to get up early on Monday and do the "washing". In the summer and maybe also in the winter, she had to heat the water on the kerosene cook stove(the gas stove came along later)and pour it into the big sink in the kitchen, add washing powder(the kind where you always got a premium in the box--glassware,etc) and get her washboaed from the back porch and scrub them by hand, after they soaked for a while. The whites got bleached sometime during the process and then they had to be rinsed, again in hot water, wrung out by hand and taken out to the clothes line, in freezing cold or scorching hot weather. If it should rain on them or if a bird deposited it's load on them, they had to be brought in and washed again!

Now, my daddy worked for DRM Inc. and he wore "overalls", bibs to you young folk, and they got really greasy and nasty and they got washed the same way, which had to be a really tough job.

This took up the better part of Monday and you did it whether you felt like it or not, whether you were pregnant or not or whether you had company or not.

Then when they got dry, you took your big wicker clothes basket out and got them off the line...inspecting to make sure they weren't full of bird doo or cinders/soot from the mill smokestack.

In between washing, hanging and retrieving them, you got to cook on the kerosene stove, wash dishes by hand, make beds, sweep with a broom, and keep your eye on your kids and several others from the neighborhood.

Then came Tuesday. Ironing day. My mom had an electric iron, but she also had a couple of flat irons cause they ironed the sheets better! In case you don't know, flat irons were ones you heated over the fire( in Mama's case, in the oven). She didn't iron towels and knit underwear or socks, but everything else, including sheets and pillowcases had to be ironed. This was the day of no permanent press and when I used to have to help iron I always wished that somewbody would invent cloth that didn't have to be ironed. Thank the Lord that somebody did!

In addition to our laundry, she also did laundry for Marie and her husband Bobby.Because they both worked. This consisted mostly of shirts because Bobby had to wear a fresh, clean shirt everyday. She taught me early how to iron shirts and I hated it. I always vowed that if I ever got married "the one" would not wear shirts that had to be done by hand...at least not by my hand.

Well, it's nearly time for Brittany so I'll finish later. Wait til you hear about the milk, and the grocery shopping!! We have it SO easy today!!!

Early on Saturday morning, Mama would get up and get the glass milk bottles and wash them out real nice and clean and wait for the milk man.

Mr. Mills drove a little black Ford coupe with a rumble seat and he carried 3 or 4 big, shiny 5 gallon milk cans in it. He lived out on Stony Mill Road and raised milk cows and sold milk to some "city" folks. He also sold butter....REAL....and eggs and in the summer there were different kinds of vegetables.Mrs Mills was always with him....I guess after they got all the milk sold they went to the grocery store for staples such as sugar, flour and washing powder.

My brothers and I used to wait for the milk man to get there.....I guess because he let us "help" put the can back in the car.

You know, they probably got up at the crack of dawn and milked the cows and came right into town with the milk cause they didn't have electricity, just a spring house to keep things cool and Mama never would let us drink any milk until it had been in the fridge for a couple of hours. I don't guess it could get any fresher than that!

On Saturday mornings, after the milk came, Mama would get dressed and I mean in a dress and hose and shoes, and I would get ready and we would go to the Piggly Wiggly to get our groceries for the week. There wasn't any running back to pick up something you forgot so you were very careful to get everything you needed.

We walked down the railroad track that went from the mill gate at the bottom of our street, down to Main Street bridge, over the bridge, up Main St. to Union St and there was the store! This was also something you did no matter the weather or how you felt.

Mama would load her buggy with enough food and loaf bread to last the week,also the other important things like bleach, washing powder and paper goods(mainly toilet paper) and go to the check out. Remember that in any given week, we might have Banny Hall, G'ma and G'pa Craig and various uncles staying with us, so we would have a lot of stuff in our buggy.

After she paid for the groceries and it was reloaded in the buggy, we would go stand outside the store and wait for a taxi to take us home. Then when we got home we had to take it from the street to the house, but the taxi driver would always help....one of them would even take the bags all the way to the kitchen table. Were these really "the good old days"?

Last Thursday Kerri came by to pick up Brittany and started watching TV. Of course, the weather warnings started coming across the screen and Rachel started getting worried and then Susan called and wanted to bring her kids down because I had a basement and she didn't.

After a while the warnings were coming more frequently and Kerri took the kids to the basement while I made her a bacon and tomato sandwich. Suddenly the rain was coming cross ways across the roof over the carport. I mean it looked like it was laying down....I never saw rain "fall" like that before. Then at 4:50, the lights went out and they all started hollering in the basement and then they came back up stairs.

By then the wind had died down and we went to the front door to look out and just about all the trees on the other side of the street were down. All the trees at the Presbyterian church were either down or cracked in half. Then we saw why our lights were out....the tree across the street had taken the power lines down.

Every body hung around for a while and when the rain stopped, Susan and Kerri rode out the road to see the damage. We had had several phone calls saying that Marshalls(where Kerri works) was in bad shape and she wanted to see. Well, it was pretty bad, but not as bad as we'd been told. They re-opened Saturday!

Everybody left but Kerri and Brittany and at 8:20 the power came back on. I spent ten minutes resetting the clocks and then the power goes off again. By then, I'd found my flashlight and when Kerri left I lit a few candles and got comfortable on the sofa to read by flashlight.

On and off through the night, the lights would flicker on and I'd think "YES"!, then they would be gone again. Finally about 3AM they came on and stayed. Then I went to bed!!!

I love to read! How can anybody not like to read? But I run into people all the time who say "Oh, I don't read"! Does this mean that they don't how to read or they just don't like to read?

What do folks do when there's nothing on TV ( which is often), or when they're just sitting at home alone. What do they do for entertainment? Talk to themselves? Clean house? wash dishes? Cook? Personally, unless I'm hungry, I'd rather read!! I really can't see anyone not liking to read.

You can transport yourself anywhere and be with anybody you want. All you have to do is open a book. You can travel to wonderful places, solve mysterious crimes, live anywhere you want. All you have to do is open a book!

My main source of reading material is yardsales. However, this year, I have found very few good books. Or any books for that matter. One yardsale had a few that I would have liked to read, but she was asking $1.00 for a PAPERBACK. That's ridiculous. Needless to say, I didn't buy any from her. Maybe soon I'll go to a sale and there will be a big box of books I haven't read and they will be priced right!

I have been having really strange dreams here lately. The other night I was helping somebody deliver a baby, in a hospital, with a couple of other doctors(?) around. The mother had been in the hospital all the day before, had been sent home and had come back on this day to have the baby. The doctor told me to give her a fresh raspberry enema. That it probably wouldn't help her have the baby, but the poop would smell good!!

One night I dreamed that I had a monkey in Sosa's cage and was taking it somewhere in my car and it kept on taking my grocery bag apart and opening the prettiest steaks you ever saw and putting them on his head. When I fussed at him, he turned into Tiger and was trying to eat my steak.

I dreamed last night that I was moving back into the house on Baugh Street and Mrs. Burnett's daughter Linda was moving into her old house next door at the same time. Linda had her two little grandkids with her and they looked just like her kids looked when they were young.They were going to live with her she said.

One night I dreamed that I was cleaning out the cockatiel's cage and they were both laying real still on a little round platform in the cage and I thought they were dead and was starting to feel real bad when I discovered that they weren't dead after all. They had turned into little dill pickles! Then I didn't feel bad, I thought, "Oh well, I'll put them on a bologna sandwich"

One night this week I dreamed about being down at the house on Highland Ct. helping Mama get something in out of the garden. She had a big sink full of water and we were busy picking something to put in that sink. However, that day I had been talking to Margaret Cox about hog chittlins. She said her mom took hers down to the creek to clean them and I said that my mama used the big sink in the kitchen. Maybe that stuck in my subconscious.( If I have one, that is!)

Do you think these dreams mean anything? If so, tell me what's in store. Actually, I think I know the meaning of the one about moving back into the house on Baugh St.!!!!!!!

I was just watching a Cubs game and as I watched it dawned on me how silly a baseball game would look to someone who had never seen one. Here you have 9 men in one color uniform, one with a little hard ball, throwing it at a man in another color uniform who is standing there with a piece of wood in his hand trying to hit the ball. If and when he finally hits it, he takes off running toward a little white square of canvas while the other color uniforms try to throw that same little ball to get him out.

And what about golf? This one has a man with a long metal stick with a little piece of metal on the end standing there trying to hit an even smaller ball into a tiny little hole hundeds of yards away. What's the point?

Football? This is even more stupid. Two bunches of guys on either end of a field......one gets the ball and all the ones not on his team start chasing him and they all end up in a big pile with the poor guy with the football on the bottom.

I don't think basketball is a lot better. This time five guys are on either end of a gymnasium trying to throw a ball a little bigger than his head through a hoop strung with net which is about 7 and a half feet off the floor.Sounds pretty easy, huh? But while he's trying to throw the ball there's an eight foot guy in his face trying to knock the ball away. Fun, Fun, Fun!!!!!

Was it really a year ago that I was writing about my birthday? I guess time really does fly when you're having fun!

Today I have been serenaded by two of the sweetest little voices. Anna came in singing today and Brittany woke up singing......they sung solo and together. "Happy Burfday to you, Happy Burfday to you" Wish I'd had a tape to record them.

I got two cakes.......one from Harris Teeter and one homemade from scratch. I'm saving the one Teresa brought for Tuesday when Rachel and Emily eat with me. The other one we cut as soon as Cindy and Dave got here with it. It was GOOD!!!!!

This morning I went to the door when the bell rang and there was the most beautiful, humongous basket of azalea plants from Tami. They are really something! And the basket is an almost perfect match to my park bench! Or with my park bench....whatever.

I also got underwear,a beautiful pitcher, a pillow(with derogatory remarks about my family..something about my family tree being full of nuts), a book from Sharon, a fiber optic lighthouse and a certificate for a pedicure. Also some money.

Bobby came in and wished me a Happy 70th because Barbara Eden is 70 today. Not there yet!!All in all, I had a very nice day. Maybe I'll celebrate again tomorrow!

Last Friday I was invited to eat B'day supper with Linda and her family. Since Leanna and I share a birth date we usually have something together. This time we had hamburgers cooked on the grill with all the trimmings and really GOOD beans made with hamburger and onions and other good stuff. We shared a B'day cake that Linda had ordered and I took a brownie (pan) that I had made. I told you about the fiber optic lighthouse in the other rambling. It was from the Adams' family and is so pretty lit up. However, I haven't lit it with Brittany and Anna around because I don't want them messing with it. Brittany is really death on my lighthouses!! She doesn't mean to, but they are just as broke as if she did!!!

Then last night Bobby and Teresa took me to The Purple Onion for my B'day. I had never been there although I'd heard a lot about how good the food is from Cindy and Douglas and Teresa.It was good!! I was really hungry and everything sounded good. I got a grilled chicken breast sandwich with fries and key lime pie for dessert. They have a lot of things on the menu that I don't recognize, but I would like to try. Most of the food is types of sandwiches, except for soups, poo-poo platter and cheese fries. But a lot of the sandwiches have "foreign" names; they're what I want to go back to try. Well, I hear Brittany....she's been in the bed for awhile, but not asleep, so I'd better go see what she's doing!

I had tomatoes planted in my earth boxes on the deck and dill and chives in pots.The tomatoes did really well and I've had fresh ones for sandwiches, salads and just plain eating for the last month or so. I discovered a new way (for me) to eat them that's really good. Get smaller ones, wash and dry, cut into chunks into a small saucer, add fresh dill and salt, stir around and let set for about 10 minutes. Then eat!! They taste so good. Once I used Mortons hot salt and that made them pretty zingy, so if you like hot,try it!

Today, I made dill tomatoes and cheese fries for supper. I used Ore Ida fast fries and after I cooked them I added grated sharp cheese and then stuck them in the microwave long enough to melt the cheese. Ummmm, good!

yesterday we had lunch at church after the service and you wouldn't believe all the food! There were three different plates of deviled eggs, chicken tenders and legs, ham, beef, 2 different green beans, lima beans, 2 chicken casseroles, brocolli casserole, 2 different versions of cowboy beans or ranch beans,baked potato salad, macaroni salad, green salad,some kind of sweet potatoes,marinated carrots,slaw and a couple of other dishes I didn't recognize. Also ,homemade biscuits and cornbread.Then there were lots of desserts......pies, cakes, cobblers, apple crumb cake, orange fluff and frosted brownies.It was all so good! Of course, I didn't eat ALL of it, but what I did eat was delicious!