The Rumble of Random Thoughts

Please "bear" with me - this will be a long rambling post.......

This has been a very busy week for me. We have started the new state computer system at work. Most of the student addresses did not convert over from the old system. Guess what I have been doing at work since Monday? Since we have 540 students enrolled as of Friday, I have been putting addresses in the computer day and night, every waking moment, and in my sleep! The best part of the new system is that it is web based, so I can work from home when I need to. Thank goodness we have DSL at home! I stayed home all day Tuesday and worked without any phone interruptions. I washed 6 loads of cloths, cooked supper and enrolled 68 kindergarten students. I stayed in my PJs until 2:00 in the afternoon! I could easily get used to working from home!

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July 23, 1988

Wednesday was our 20^th wedding anniversary. I was "several" pounds lighter and had long 80's style hair in this picture! It seems like just yesterday that we were dating and falling in love! I took the day off from work Wednesday and we took a little trip to Evansville, Indiana for shopping, eating, and to visit the cemetery where my great aunt is buried. We had never been to the cemetery before and got lost - just a little! There was lot of road construction and detours in the area.

St. Joseph’s Cemetery is located near Mesker’s Zoo. I have never, in all my life, seen a cemetery that large! It was one of the most beautiful, well kept, peaceful cemeteries I have ever seen. We stopped at the main office to find directions to the gravesites. My aunt, uncle, and their daughter are buried there. We found them very easily with the printed directions that we were given. We could have looked all day and never would have found the markers since there are over 37,000 people buried there. This is a picture that I took of one of the statues in cemetery. The other picture is looking across one area of the cemetery.

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Today we drove over into Missouri to Lamberts. This was Jennie’s first Lamberts trip. We got there at 1:00 and got our number - #454. They told us it was at least a one hour wait time. We went to the Outlet Mail to shop instead of waiting outside in 98 degree heat! When we returned, they were calling #448. We waited outside for about 20 minutes before they called our number. We stuffed ourselves with rolls, fried okra, fried potatoes, and much more! I ordered the fried jowl and had plenty leftover for breakfast in the morning! We stopped on the way home in Paducah at the mall and shopped there for awhile. There were great sales on baby cloths and you know that Jennie never has enough cloths! It sure felt great to get home tonight and take off my shoes and rest.

This is Jennie waiting to enjoy Lambert's for the first time!

It didn't take her very long to spy the rolls!

Can you tell that she might be just a little bit spoiled?

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We have no big plans for tomorrow other than the usual Sunday stuff. I’m putting a pork roast in the crock pot tonight for sandwiches tomorrow for dinner. I also plan to fix baked potatoes in the oven, macaroni & cheese, and slice some tomatoes. It will be just a lazy day for us before we start back to work on Monday. It is supposed to be in the upper 90s and humid for the next several days. I think I can hear the air conditioner calling my name this week!

Lesa

Happy 40th Birthday to My Sister!

Today is my sister's 40th birthday. This picture was taken four years ago at my sister’s wedding. We need to get more pictures taken of us together. This is the only one I could find last night!
(Note: I hate to have my picture taken. I'm always the one in the family pictures watching the squirrels in the nut trees when the camera flashes!)

Forty years ago, God blessed me with one the most precious gifts I have ever received. He sent me a baby sister. It was the summer that I was seven years old and wanted nothing more than to see this life that my mother was carrying inside of her. Mom and I had talked about what she was going to name the baby. She asked me what I thought of Suzanne, Susanna, or Susan. She finally decided on Susan Vernell. Mom’s best friend was named Vernell but as Susan is very quick to point out, nobody ever called her by Vernell. They called her Bunny! There was never a discussion of boy names. It was as if Mom knew it was going to be a girl. In 1968, you never knew what the baby was going to be before it was born!

After she was born, I was never jealous of her getting all the attention. She was the center of my attention and everyone else who came to visit. After all, I was her big sister and that was all the mattered to me. She was a beautiful baby with dark hair and brown eyes. Since I had blonde hair and blue eyes, I thought she was absolutely gorgeous! Yes - I did tell her she was adopted because she didn't look like me!

She had colic and would cry at night with her stomach hurting. Mom and I would get in the car, with Susan on a pillow in my lap, and ride down the old gravel roads with all the windows down until she dozed off after finally burping or passing gas. We would ease in the driveway, park the car, carefully open the doors, and very quietly slip her in her crib. Then we would go back to car roll up the windows and close the car doors. We did this night after night – at all hours of the night…..

I will never forget when she about four years old and was playing in the back of the truck. She bumped her head and had a huge “goose egg” in the middle of her forehead. As the bump went down, she developed two black eyes and looked horrible – like there was something really bad wrong with her. When we went to Florida the next week, people would look at our family and shake their heads and whisper – “Bless her heart!” - as if she was abused or mentally handicapped!

We have been through a lot over the past forty years. We stood by each other the night we said good bye to our brother and watched a part of each of us leave this world. As our mother struggles with her memory due to Alzheimer’s, I am so thankful for the memories we have of those years and to have the strength of my sister beside me now. I never would have dreamed forty years ago that precious little baby girl would have grown up to be my best friend, a mother, a wife, but most of all – the best sister anybody could hope to for! I consider myself very lucky and blessed.

Happy Birthday Susan! I love you even more - 40 years later!

Lesa

Wednesday - "What's for Supper?"

This is just one of the many reasons that I married my husband.

When we first started dating, he fixed supper for me one night and made this salad. That's when I was convinced that he was the man of my dreams. He had barbecued pork chops, that would melt in your mouth, baked potatoes, and made this salad. I almost didn't eat it because it looked "all mixed up" and I really don't care for green peas but this was wonderful!

Over the past twenty years, I have finally got this in recipe form.

I may add more salt, pepper, salad dressing and vinegar. It just all depends on how it looks and taste. I top the salad with a few sliced eggs, whole olives, and sprinkle with a little paprika for color.

Since it has been hot as blue blazes here all week, I think I might fix this and grill out this weekend. It's what I call cool cooking!

Cool Cooking Tip: I put my eggs in a pan on the stove with water enough to cover them, bring to a boil, and cover the pan with a lid. I turn off the stove, set the timer for 20 minutes, and let the pan set on the burner of the stove. They are always perfectly done and ready to peel under cold water when the timer goes off.

Scrapbooking Note: I used paint card samples for all the different shades of green circles.

Lesa

Which is easier?

Going to someone new to get your hair cut or going to a new gynecologist? They both rank right up there together in my book!

I have had the same person cut my hair since 1974. When I was in the 8th grade, my hair was so long it would get caught in the bottom of the bus seat. I talked Mom into letting me get my hair cut at a “real beauty shop”. Up until that time, Mom would cut my hair on the porch with scissors. I don’t know how many pictures were taken of me with crooked bangs!

At the beauty shop, Linda cut and permed my hair like Gloria on “All in the Family” and I loved it! She had been a part of my life since then. She has always known exactly what I wanted my hair to like when I just moved my hand over my head and tried to describe what I wanted. She would be the first one to tell me when I wouldn’t like my hair cut a certain way and she was always right when I didn’t listen. She would also tell me when I needed to cover the gray "highlights", pluck my eyebrows or trim that one “wild hair” that decided to grow on my chin! The was a trust there that was established 34 years ago when she cut off what seemed like three feet of hair and gave me my first curly perm. She had been with me though high school, marriage, the birth of a baby, divorce, remarriage, and many deaths of loved ones. I could tell her anything and know that it would go no further. Not that we would ever gossip – no – never! When Linda retired last December with fingers that were bent with painful arthritis, I felt like I had lost one of my best friends.

Since I haven’t had my hair cut since a week before Christmas, I have come up with many ways of coping with my hair while it was “growing out”. I have more headbands, clips, and “scrunchies” than any woman should ever have. Someone at work asked me if I was staging my own personal rebellion for Linda retiring. Well – maybe I was.

So today was the day.

I asked several people at work who cut their hair. I finally made a call to a highly recommended stylist on Monday and got an appointment for this morning. I decided that I would get a good all over trim and go back later for more if I liked her. When I first came in, I tried to make small talk with her since we had a few friends in common. I can usually carry on a conversation with a brick wall but not this girl. She acted like I was a big inconvenience and a waste of her time. She kept up a full conversation with the other stylist as if I was not even sitting in her chair. She even stopped and walked over to whisper something to the other stylist. After she trimmed the back and the top of my hair, she said, “I hope that is enough.” She handed me the brush so I could brush it and see. I told her I thought it was fine (just to get out) and asked if she could dry it so I could go back to work. She had drenched my head and blouse with water from a squirt bottle. After she fried and pulled out half my hair drying it, (I swear - it was smoking!) I didn’t have enough nerve to ask her to curl and style it! Looking like a porcupine caught in a weed eater, I paid her and went home to fix my hair! It does look better but I will not go back to her. Now I’m on the hunt again for someone else to cut my hair.

Next month I have to find a new gynecologist so I can get my hormones refilled. I hope I have better luck. I just hope I don’t come out of the doctor’s office with fried hair looking like a wild porcupine! That would be just my luck. I’ll keep you posted!

Lesa

Faith

“Prayer is the key to heaven,
But faith unlocks the door.
Words are so easily spoken;
Prayer without faith is like a boat without an oar.”

How faith when you speak to the Master.
That's all He asks you for;
Prayer is the key to heaven,
But faith unlocks the door. ”
Written by: Samuel T. Scott & Robert L. Sande
Copyright 1955 Duchess Music Corp.

I’ve been singing this song in my mind all day. I can’t imagine what I would do without faith. How would I begin each day? What do people do that don’t have faith? Where do they find their strength to face each day?

Today was one those days that I relied on my faith a lot. It is so hard to go back to work after being off for three days. I had training this afternoon on the new state computer system – yuck! There was also a little bit of “drama” with some of the people attending the class. I can’t stand drama. This was not the place or time to be acting silly! I’ve got to admit that I actually learned a lot today. Now maybe I will not be so lost that I embarrass myself when the new system starts! I hope the rest of my week is better than today – I’m sure it will be!

I took this picture several months ago when I took the pictures for this post.

Hope you have great rest of the week – I know I will – no matter what!

Lesa

Happy 4th of July!

Fun at the Fair Week

This is fair week in our town and we have been to the fair every night! I entered several things in the fair Tuesday. I was delighted than I won several ribbons. I won a second place ribbon for my recipe book that contains alot of the recipes that I feature on here.

I also entered several photos that I have taken. The ones that I thought would do good did not and the ones that I didn’t think would place - did. Who knows what they are looking for? I took a picture of Jennie’s hand close up in black and white. It won a second place ribbon. I think she was excited too. This is a picture of my sister Susan and Jennie at the fair Tuesday night holding the photo.

One of my favorite pictures of my cat, Tipper, won a third place ribbon. She is looking at the camera upside down. The category for this photo was a black and white picture of an animal. Since she is a black and white cat, I made this photo black and white. She weighs about 15 pounds and is a very “fluffy” cat!

Jennie has really enjoyed the truck pulls, mud boggin’, and the demolition derby that we have watched so far this week. She is so cute wearing her little "headphones" to block out the loud noise. She is a true country girl!

Tonight was the demolition derby and the cars got a little to close too the side and slug mud up into the grandstands where we were sitting. We had mud splattered all over us! Jennie thought it was chocolate and tried to eat some that was in her hand! Thank goodness we had baby wipes!

Tomorrow night we are taking a rest and staying home. I may actually cook – what I don’t know! Friday and Saturday night are truck and tractor pulls. We look forward to this each year. I also look forward to the funnel cake and cotton candy! I sure don’t want to look behind me because that is where all the funnel cake and cotton candy go!

Lesa