Yesterday Chad and Sarah were down here after school and went out in the back to play. After a little while, Sarah came in and got an empty sour cream container and a little later Chad came in with the container in his hand and a beatific smile on his face and announced, "G'ma, I have my first pet". I looked in the container and there was a lil charcoal colored creature about 2 1/2 inches long, with a short lil tail, really strange looking feet and a snout that looked kinda like a miniature anteater. It was a baby mole!

He really wanted to keep it and so I looked up mole on the computer and found that contrary to what folks think, moles DO NOT eat bulbs and plants.(Although they do make lots of tunnels). Voles do, rabbits do, deer do and squirrels do, but moles eat insects, grubs, earthworms and japanese beetles. And they have to eat their weight in buggy things each day in order to survive. I told Chad that he probably couldn't keep it cause it would starve to death, but he took it home to show his dad and then turned it loose in his back yard. So, his folks took him to the pet store and bought him a dwarf hamster that he named Nibbles.

Today I was out in the back yard with the babies and Susan, Sarah and Chad and I found a cluster of holes under that big tree in the center of my yard. I thought they might be mole holes so Sarah went and got a little digger and we dug up a SNAKE! A real, live snake was living in a hole under my tree. I guess there was probably a whole family of them including the mom and dad, but we didn't find them.

We put him in a jar and after Chad played with him for a while he gave him to a little black boy who had come over. He said his mom would "totally freak out" when he took it home, so I gave him some daffodils that Brittany had picked to sorta soften the sight of a snake.

So, while it's not really spring, the weather has been acting like spring. Today it was 76 degrees and tomorrow it's supposed to be 82. Then "they" said that we might be getting some snow by Sunday night. What do you think? Spring or not?

Late summer of 1979, my dad, being about finished with his garden, decided he wanted to learn how to make a quilt. My mom knew nothing about quilting, but she knew someone who was an expert. Our neighbor, the wife of our pastor at Emmanuel Wesleyan Church, Mrs. Martha Shockley. My mom called her and asked her if she would show my dad the art of quilt making and she kindly said she would.

They spent the rest of the summer and on into early November working on that quilt. I think they worked on it about every week day and it was finally finished. My dad had a heart attack and died in late November, but he had fulfilled his dream. He had made a quilt!

Mothers must draw a subtle line

Finer than any thread is fine;

Must hold firmly, but never clutch,

Must give freely, but not too much,

Must stand apart but never far,

Must heal the wound, but bless the scar;

And falsely speaking truly tell,

And, guarding, never guard too well,

And hearing, fail to overhear;

And, fearing all things, have no fear;

And loving, love each child the best

Yet no child dearer than the rest.

Well, it's Thursday and the weekend will soon be upon us again. I won't have Rebecca and Tommy this weekend, but I would like to go to the mall and as I write this, the car is still at the mechanics and last time someone checked, he hadn't got around to it yet.

It's supposed to be a nice, warm weekend and I would like to go to a few yardsales, too. Bobby might be off this Sat. and if he is, maybe I can go with him. It's been a long time since I went to a good yardsale. By good, I mean one with lots of paperback books for sale. Preferably, cheap and some I haven't read. I'm about out of reading material. I was so desperate I read a Stephen King novel. It wasn't bad, but not the type I normally read. So, I do need new reading material.

I'll be glad when this wind stops blowing. I thought maybe we wouldn't have much since it blew so hard in Jan. and Feb., but March is blowing right along. I'm ready for nice, calm, warm weather that gradually makes it up to hot. I love hot much more than cold or even cool. Guess my blood is too thin or something.

One of my favorite girls got kicked off American Idol tonight and also a cute lil boy who I thought sang really well. I liked Ayla and Will......they were both so cute and talented.I don't know who will be the eventual winner, but I guess it's time for a white boy American Idol. They've had a white girl, black guy, black girl, white girl and now it's time for Nick or Ace or Elliot or Bucky or Kevin or Martin. Well, come May, we'll see!

This evening I finally got to see the house Kerri and Chad are buying. I would die happy if I could just go through that basement in the daylight!

First, it's a full basement with nice cement floors and it was completely filled with all kinds of stuff.You wouldn't believe the trunks, marble top tables..round and square, the really old lamps with the round globes, fancy big lamps with great bases, several cabinets including one with an old fashioned flour bin, and last.........zillions of pieces of glassware and dishes, both real old and some not so old.This included the old fashioed ball canning jars with the attached lids made of blue glass with the date July 1908 on them!

What really struck me when I first started looking around was the fact that in one part of the basement there were five trunks stacked one on the other and another one on the floor in front of them. I had already seen one in each room and in each closet upstairs and now down in the cellar were many more. I wonder what Chad's G'ma did with all those trunks? Some were made of wood, but most were the old fashioned ones folks used a long time ago when they went on trips.I really want one of them to use for a storage trunk in my bedroom. Wonder if I could sneak one out when no bodys looking? Hmmm. Maybe I'll give it a try.

A week ago last Sat. Rebecca's aunt Ginny let her spend the night with a friend from school. Now Rebecca has blonde hair and the friend has brown hair. After talking about it, they decided they would put blonde highlights in their hair.

Rebecca called Ginny and asked her if it was OK for her to put highlights in her hair. Now, to my way of thinking, as light as her hair already is, they probably wouldn't be any more noticeable than the natural ones she gets every summer from the sun. Anyway, Ginny said absolutely not!!

So, last Sunday Sharon called me and said, "Mama, guess what Rebecca's done. She dyed her hair red with a semi-permanent dye. When I called her, she had already washed her hair eight times and was still washing it."

When she got to my house on Friday, her hair was a pretty shade of light reddish, pinkish auburn. A pretty color and more so after she washed it with her shampoo for blonde hair.

She told me that she had washed her hair 22 times at Ginnys and she really didn't know why Ginny was so mad cause she colored her hair." After all, I asked her if I could put highlights in it and she said no, BUT, she DIDN'T say I couldn't COLOR it!"

I was gifted with a ticket to see the show being performed at the newly renovated North theater on Sat. March 25th. My "adopted' granddaughter, April, was modeling in the show and she very kindly got me a ticket

My friend Margaret, from church, and I got to the theater at about 6:20 and were told that the doors wouldn't open until 6:30, but we, along with about 30 others could wait in the lobby out of the cold.

People kept coming and coming and finally it was so crowded that they relented and opened the doors a little early. We got good seats about 6 or 7 rows from the front cause we didn't want to miss anything. The theater rapidly filled....I was so surprised that everyone who had bought tickets came. They sold 750 tickets and I didn't see hardly any empty seats.

They gave us very nice programs, but it was too dark in the theater to read them and there were a row of older ladies behind me complaining that they couldn't see to read. I remembered that I had a small flashlight on my keychain, so I got it out and asked the lady behind me if she wanted to use it. She did and so they passed it down the row and they all got to read the program.

Finally, it started! A little white haired lady was sitting at the Steinway piano and there was a guy playing bass violin and one on drums. They provided all the music for all the numbers except for the dance Douglas did. That lady could really play!

It started with little excerpts from the first talking movie along with a live performance of Swanee River and went from there. It sort of followed the progression of the movies from then to the late sixties.

There was a spoof of "Gone With the Wind" complete with Miss Scarlett and her dress made out of draperies(with the curtain rods),a dance from "Singing in the Rain", Yankee Doodle Dandy, a beautiful fashion show with dresses modeled by members of the Junior Wednesday Club (April and others), a beautiful waltz by a very nice looking young man with a pony tail and an older lady in a dignified, but sparkly white gown. They danced to "As Time Goes By" and it was beautiful and so sweet. There were songs and dances from "Cabaret" and "Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend", and a little girl tap danced, I think to "Yankee Doodle Dandy". Danya and Jose from The Dance Space (where Doug teaches) danced to "Beauty and the Beast" which was also a beautiful dance. Some little short guy played guitar and sang a Spanish song and another man sung "Moon River". They were all good, but I saved the best til last!

The producer of the show had asked Doug if he would dance a John Travolta number, but not as John Travolta, but as Douglas Adams. So, his mom made him black shirt and pants trimmed with a little purple and sequins and skin tight.

The lights dimmed, he was on the platform in his beginning pose with his back toward the audience. The music started and he started his lil hip movement and the old ladies all went "Ahhhhhhhhh". Then he turned and started dancing, first on the platform and then down the stairs to the lower stage, and he was really good. So good that I couldn't contain myself and hollered Yea, Go Doug"! and then the old ladies started hollering, too. Margaret said, in her opinion, he was the best in the show.

A reception followed at The Stratford Conference Center and we went cause they had free food and drink. Unfortunately, for a long time all the drink we could find was the hard stuff, but we did get some pretty good refreshments.

I saw so many people there that I had either worked with at Schoolfield school or at Hylton Hall and also a guy I went to school with...and that was long ago....my former next door neighbor, Annie and some ladies I met at the Presbyterian church across the street from me. It was like 'old home' night. It was a very successful evening and Thank You, April for providing the ticket to a night to remember.