Since my last post, I've written several funny ( I thought) articles, but when I tried to post them, they just up and disappeared.

One was about my lil 3 year old BOY quaker parrot. Out of the blue one day in May, he/she laid two eggs! I was really surprised, but not as surprised as Sosa.I've spent time since trying to get him/her to say "Sosa is a good girl" instead of "Sosa is a good boy". As of today, the parrot still thinks she is a he.

I also have two cockatiels....one boy and one girl. So far, in the last two weeks, Trixie has laid seven eggs. In the last five years, she's only laid two. Maybe it was because I put them out on the deck in late May and early June and they saw what the other birds were doing.

I don't remember what else I wrote about, it's been so long. Our merged church is doing okay. I still don't like the long drive, but most of the people are very nice. The choir sounds very good. We have 12 to 14 members and generally we don't make too much of a mess. Except, 4th of July. We had practiced singing The Pledge of Allegiance, which is kinda hard to sing, but we had learned it. On the morning of the 4th, evrybody was primed to give it our best and the CHOIR LEADER messed up!!! For some reason, he didn't sing it the way it's written or the way we had practiced and the beginning was awful!

Tami came up a couple of weeks ago and brought fresh vegetables. Squash, zucchinni, snaps, tomatoes, corn, cukes, crowder peas and it was all delicious. I made zucchinni creole which was pretty tasty, and squash casserole, in addition to cooking some of it the old tried and true way. Then yesterday a man from the funeral home drove his truck over and gave me a bunch of vergetables and then this morning the man from up the street came down and gave me a big bucket of corn. The funeral home guy promised new potatoes for Friday. Now, if I could find somebody with a surplus of meat and soft drinks, I'd be all set!!!

My beach trip was fun...just not long enough. One time I'd like to go and just laze around and do nothing. No cooking, no laundry, no bed making, no kids.....just a bunch of adult types!!

About ten days ago, my computer decided it wanted to act up. Whatever it did was something it had never done before . It's amazing how much you miss it when you're without it for a while. Anyway, Linda worked on it last night and it's working pretty good now.(knock knock). Well, gonna go see what's in the freezer to eat before bedtime. See you!

One day, a lot of years ago, I was visiting Geraldine in Portsmouth. Douglas and Chip were working on the boat...don't know what they were doing, but a lot of times they would be there doing some kind of "work". Anyway, Geraldine and I decided to cook a really good supper for them and who ever else was there...probably some of my kids and a couple of Gerry's kids.

We had carried fresh veggies when we went to visit and Farm Fresh provided what ever else we needed along with a humongous hunk of beef. I remember that I was going to make squash fritters.

Now, fast forward to 2004...today to be exact. I had some fresh squash and I decided to make some squash fritters. I grated and mixed and got the pan hot and started cooking the fritters. Just when I got ready to put the last one into the hot grease.....I dropped the spoon, fritter stuff and all. As it hit the cabinet door, splattered off the front of the stove and landed in a mess on the floor, all of a sudden I was back in Geraldine's kitchen fixing to put the last fritter in the pan and guess what? Deja vu all over again!!!!!!!!!

For all my life, I've tried to do and be what was expected of me. When I was a child I always tried to do what my parents asked of me. Sometimes, I kicked against the traces and did "my own" thing, but mostly I was the obedient daughter. I remember once when I was 18...out of school and working, but still living at home, this guy asked me out. My dad heard about it and told me not to go out with him because he had been married. We were just going out to eat, for gosh sakes, but I didn't go and it was hard to explain to him and his sister(who was a good friend)why I didn't go. Now, I regret that I didn't go.

When I was a senior in high school, I had hepititis and had to be in the hospital for a week. My doctor had a daughter who had been in my class for three years and we had gotten to be pretty good friends. After I got out of the hospital and had gone back to see him for my final check up, he offered to pay my way to nursing school if I wanted to go. I regret that I didn't take him up on his offer. At the time I was deathly afraid of the sight of blood and thought I probably wouldn't make a good nurse, but I discovered after I became a mom that I could handle all sorts of emergencies.

I regret that I didn't try out for cheerleading when I went to school. I might not have made it, but since I didn't try, I'll never know. I also regret that I wasn't friendlier to some of the other kids earlier. Cause once I got to know them, some of them became my best friends.

Now that I'm OLD, I have so many regrets concerning my kids and grandkids. That I wasn't always there for them, that I didn't always listen with both ears,that sometimes I laughed when I shouldn't have and that sometimes I should have laughed when I didn't. I regret that I don't know some of my granddaughters as well as I do the rest of them and that we don't have any kind of a relationship. That's all for now.......there are many more regrets, but maybe I can "fix" some of them before it's too late. Love you, all!

About a month ago, Tami ordered me a couple of earth boxes for the deck. Bobby brought some tomato plants and I planted them along with a cucumber plant. Well, the cuke died and one of the smaller tomato plants, but the others are about as tall as I am and full of tomatoes. Today he gave me a cherry tomato plant that had just been standing in his yard doing nothing and a strawberry plant. I waited til the sun got off the deck before I planted them and then nature co-operated and we got some rain and cool. So now I'm looking forward to cherry tomatoes for my salad.

I went to yard sales with Bobby today. First time I'd been in a while......all my yard sale partners have disappeared. Anyway, I got up and was ready to go at 6:30 as per plan. He finally called at seven and got here a few minutes later. We went to several sales, but every one that had paperback books--which is what I look for---you wouldn't believe!!! These folks were asking $1.00 EACH for paperbacks! Most people, especially the savvy ones, ask 25cent or 5 for $1. So I only found a couple of books for Emily. Bobby got a nintendo 64 with one game for $4 and I got Rebecca some nice skates for $3.It wasn't really one of those days where you are really excited abouta purchase, but I did get excited about an estate sale on Macon street we went to. Actually, not the sale, but the house. It's for sale too, and it was so neat. It had a living room, den, kitchen. 3 bedrooms, a laundry room right off the kitchen, a big back yard and a basement that you got into from the outside.It was so compact and neat. I'd forgotten how cute little houses could be.

I wrote about Trixie laying eggs. Well, she laid another one Sunday and this morning when I went in to clean the cage, she was down in the bottom of the cage actually sitting on another one. She moved when I stuck my hand in to get the nesting box out of the way, so I picked up the egg and it was warm, so I put it in my bra to keep it warm while I cleaned the cage. Well, during the course of moving the cage off of the bottom part, somehow the lil egg fell out and broke. Guess I didn't have enough in my bra to hold it in! Anyway, after I cleaned the cage I put one of the other eggs down in the corner trying to fool her into thinking it was the one she was sitting on. Don't think it worked, tho. I got the book out and read it again and it said she would lay 4 to 6 eggs during a brooding period. So far, she's laid nine. When is she ever gonna stop? I'm afraid she's going to kill herself laying eggs that won't hatch.

Since I didn't have any babies today, I did some stuff that has needed to be done for a while. Like cleaning out behind the stove and the refrigerator, scrubbing out the trash can, moving stuff off the dining room table, writing long overdue letters. Tomorrow I'm going to tackle the newspapers I've been saving to recycle. Think I'll take them over to the bin at the newspaper office after I go through them and get out the stuff you can't recycle. That shouldn't take more than half a day!!! Then I have a board meeting at church tomorrow at 7:30.....hate that! It messes up my evening and it's such a long drive!

Bright and early Monday morning I saw a truck parked out where I park my car and looked to see who it was. It was "Spanky", a guy who does all sorts of things...repairs, building, painting, etc. for the funeral home. He got out and walked over to the falling down wall where Tommy plants his flowers every year, looked around and left.

By the time he came back about an hour later, I was dressed and went out to see what he was doing.He said that Ryland and then Keister had told him to take that wall down. I guess because Anni, my neighbor, had told them that it was dangerous and might fall into her yard. I told him that it looked just like it had for the past 13 years I've lived here. He sorta jumped around on it and then I showed him where to plug in his drop cord and I went on inside. I heard him and his jack hammer for a while and when I looked again, he was gone. I went out and there was one little plug of cement wall that he had gotten loose. I don't know why he left, or if he's coming back or what, but if it didn't fall when he was out there bouncing around on it, I don't think it's gonna fall. And what if it does? What's it gonna hurt? That little lizard that I see sunning himself on the wall? I think he's fast enough to get away should the wall suddenly decide to fall.

Sometimes do you wish you could go back in time and do something over or do it differently? Like not say a hurtful thing or not do something that hurt someone? Sometimes I think that if we could see down the road a few years, or see into the future for just a minute that we would all live our lives differently?

We would spend more time enjoying our babies and less time waiting for them to grow up and be independent. We would spend more time playing with our kids and less time on having a clean house. We would spend more time with our husbands, trying to see things from his perspective, instead of finding fault with every little thing. We would find time to spend with our friends, talking and being there for each other.

We would take the time to smell the roses and while we're smelling them, do a little weeding and pruning. Instead of looking around and saying, "This is laundry day or this is mopping day", do something you really want to do. After all, the dirty clothes and floor will still be there long after the kids are gone and they don't care any way.

One morning set your alarm for 6AM and when it goes off, turn over and turn it off and keep on snoozing. Of course, don't try this on a work day, your boss might not be sympathetic.Or at lunch time, order something you wouldn't ordinarily order and split it with a friend. Do something you wouldn't usually do and enjoy doing it. After all, life is short and is meant to be enjoyed. Do it!!!!

Last Sunday I had a meeting at church at 5PM and Douglas got here to pick me up and I ran up to change clothes. I took my glasses off so I could pull my shirt over my head and then I sat down on the bed and right on my glasses. I picked them up and put them on after I put on my clothes and looked in the mirror and I couldn't see anything! Then I took them off and looked again and BOTH lenses had popped out. I tried to pop them back, but couldn't, so I grabbed a pair of dollar store reading glasses and stuck them in my purse, just in case. I finally got them both in, washed them, put them in the case and left. When I got to church and was handed a paper to read, I got them out and put them on. I felt like I was going blind...everything was all quivery and quavery. I had put the lenses in the wrong sides and it really messed up my vision....now I think I know how being drunk feels. Weird!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tami called me Friday night and asked if I'd been bothered by flies.....not just an occasional one, but a lot at a time. Well, I had once when the weather first got hot. I mean, I killed about 50 in just about 15 minutes, but hadn't had any since.

Well, David told her that if you took a baggy and filled it with water and taped it on your screen door or the out side of the other door, that it would keep the flies out. He said he had seen that method work on restaurant doors, barn and stable doors and that it really worked. He didn't know why, tho, but he offered the explanation that maybe when a fly landed on the bag of water and saw his reflection magnified several times, it scared them away.

Well, Sat. I went to see Sharon and when we got home and I went to the living room to turn on the air conditioner, there were probably 40 big, black flies buzzing around the window above the unit. Tommy and I swatted and sprayed until we got rid of just about all of them( a few escaped to the kitchen, but we got them, too.)

After I got rid of the flies I called Tami and told her that I was pretty sure her baggy on the door worked, because all of her flies had come to my house!

THEN, I filled a baggy with water and Douglas taped it onto the outside of my window where the air conditioner is. Right now, it's working...no flies in the living room. However, I can just see the guys from the funeral home tomorrow when they are lining up cars and get a glimpse of that baggy taped to my window. They'll probably tear it off, thinking it's some gag!!

This being Tuesday, two of my granddaughters ate supper with me and another granddaughter(who shall remain nameless). After they left......early by the way.....I decided I'd check my e-mail and the unnamed granddaughter decided she'd watch TV.

After I messed around on the computer for a while, I decided I would lay on my bed and watch TV, too. Well, after being up late a couple of nights and getting up early, I dozed off. I was awakened by the granddaughter calling me to come tuck her in.

When I went into the kitchen, instead of finding a glass and various and sundry messed up small utensils and such, everything was nice and clean, except the pans and cookie sheets weren't in the oven where I keep them. I opened the oven to put them away and it was barely warm, but enough so you could tell it HAD been warm/hot.

I asked unnamed gd how come and she said she'd made some cookies. Generally the kind of cookies we make are the ones you either slice and bake or separate and bake. I said,"but we didn't have any cookies" and she replied "I made them with a cookbook...sugar cookies", and proceeded to show them to me."But", she said, "they didn't get done in the middle, so I put them in the fridge to get firm". I didn't see that she'd used the mixer so I asked her how she mixed them and she said, "By hand like the cookbook said". "Oh, you used a fork," said I. "No, I used my hands".

She proceeded to get the cookbook and find the recipe and it did say mix by hand. But, this was an old cookbook, and reading back some other recipes it would either say mix with mixer or by hand.....meaning use a fork. But this unnamed gd, put all the ingredients in the bowl, including eggs, and mixed BY HAND. She said, "But I washed my hands real good first." I have been laughing ever since. Think about it, you cooks out there....mixing raw eggs by hand!!!! laugh I did and am laughing still. I told her we'd find another simpler recipe tomorrow and she could do it again, but she says her cookies are really good. Oh well, live and learn.