May 2005 Archives

I have been tagged! Kate at A Daily Dose of Power got me with this one. 1. Total volume of music files on my computer: This laptop I am on right now - none My Linux machine - 1 cd (John Mayer) I ripped My Windows machine - maybe 1 gig My other hard drive - 2000+ mp3's 2. Last CD I bought: Soundtrack from The Phantom of the Opera 3. Song playing right now: None (watching Sci-Fi and doing this meme) 4. Five Songs I listen to a lot or mean a lot to me: 1. Our first Christmas together Steven bought me a framed gold record of - Love Me Tender. 2. Ray Charles' - Georia On My Mind - It is. 3. Amazing Grace - I sang it solo one time. 4. Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Because. 5. Lullabye's I sang to my babies. Pick one or twelve or twenty! Bonus: The song playing in my head right now: When I take you out, tonight, with me, Honey, here's the way it's goin' to be: You will set behind a team of snow white horses, In the slickest gig you ever see! Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry When I take you out in the surrey, When I take you out in the surrey with the fringe on top! Watch that fringe and see how it flutters When I drive them high steppin' strutters. Nosey pokes'll peek thru' their shutters and their eyes will pop! The wheels are yeller, the upholstery's brown, The dashboard's genuine leather, With isinglass curtains y' can roll right down, In case there's a change in the weather. Two bright sidelight's winkin' and blinkin', Ain't no finer rig I'm a-thinkin' You c'n keep your rig if you're thinkin' 'at I'd keer to swap Fer that shiny, little surrey with the fringe on the top! Did you say the fringe was made of silk Wouldn't have no other kind but silk Does it really have a team of snow white horses One's like snow, the other's more like milk All the world'll fly in a flurry When I take you out in the surrey, When I take you out in the surrey with the fringe on top! When we hit that road, hell fer leather, Cats and dogs'll dance in the heather, Birds and frogs'll sing all together and the toads will hop! The wind'll whistle as we rattle along, The cows'll moo in the clover, The river will ripple out a whispered song, And whisper it over and over: Don't you wisht y'd go on forever? Don't you wisht y'd go on forever? Don't you wisht y'd go on forever and ud never stop In that shiny, little surrey with the fringe on the top! I can see the stars gettin' blurry, When we drive back home in the surrey, Drivin' slowly home in the surrey with the fringe on top! I can feel the day gettin' older, Feel a sleepy head on my shoulder, Noddin', droopin' close to my shoulder, till it falls kerplop! The sun is swimmin' on the rim of a hill; The moon is takin' a header, And jist as I'm thinkin' all the earth is still, A lark'll wake up in the medder. Hush, you bird, my baby's a-sleepin'! Maybe got a dream worth a-keepin' Whoa! you team, and jist keep a-creepin' at a slow clip clop. Don't you hurry with the surrey with the fringe on the top! It has been a day of show tunes in my head! I don't think there is anyone to tag. Mostly everyone I have read has already done this one.

Judy mentioned Carousel in her post this morning. I have to say I LOVE musicals! The King and I, Oklahoma, State Fair, Showboat, My Fair Lady, South Pacific, The Music Man ... oh the list I could make! One of my most favorites will always be The Sound of Music. I borrowed the tune from Maria's Favorite Things and wrote my own version. Some things you may not understand. If you ask me I will answer. This is my way of letting you get to know me. (I love that song too! Getting to know you, getting to know all about you ...) So without further adieu, live on the internet, I give you my rendition of My Favorite Things. Feel free to sing along. This tune sticks in your head! :-) Raindrops on roses and men who ride Harleys Bright minded fellas that don't smell of Charlie Blue velvet boxes filled with a ring These are a few of my favorite things Fairytale romances and men who share Best friends who know you really do care Cherry-cola haired Angels and Warriors with wings These are a few of my favorite things Chocolates from Belgium and Pink colored roses Men with a fetish for red painted toeses Rose colored sapphires and dinner served by a king These are a few of my favorite things Me in a black dress in a pink convertible car Unlimited expenses for the health and beauty spa Strawberries served with whipping creme These are a few of my favorite things Marabou slippers and hats with wide brims Buying a lottery ticket guaranteed to win Men not afraid to reach for their dreams These are a few of my favorite things Gazebos and bike rides and windmills in the dark Palace concerts, true abby beer, walks in Orange Park Loving me tender and tears that don't sting These are a few of my favorite things Whispers and giggles and tender strong hands Elvis and cadillacs and rock-n-roll bands The Snowy River and mountain tops and phones when they ring These are a few of my favorite things Long dark tresses and my lips painted red The scent of sunshine in linens on my bed Around my throat pearls on a string These are a few of my favorite things Men with a sensitive side and who use their brain Warm summer nights and walks in the rain Men who serenade you even tho they can't sing These are a few of my favorite things Men who could love a child like their own Spending hours and hours talking on the phone Midnight picnics in the warmth of spring These are a few of my favorite things Traveling cross country in passenger trains Sundays at home listening to warm summer rain Dress blue uniforms worn by Marines These are a few of my favorite things The scent of a baby and a warm body at night Men who want your dreams to take flight Sweet kisses and eyes with a devilish gleam These are a few of my favorite things Bubble baths, enchanted evenings, walks on the beach Time alone and the first taste of a warm summer peach Fireworks, kids when they laugh, and Spring These are a few of my favorite things When the cold bites, When I PMS, When I am a mess, I simply remember my favorite things And then I don't feel so sad. P.S. Hoss - my favorite smell, the picture was of night blooming jasmine. It is just beautiful carried on a sultry night breeze.

Last night - "Do you know Gracie made me breakfast-in-bed this morning?" Colby asked. "No, I didn't. She must have made it after dad went out and before I woke up." I answered. "She made me a poptart." "On a napkin," Gracie piped up. "She made me a bowl of applejacks,too." "I got the bowl out of the dishwasher," Gracie chimed. "And she brought me a glass of milk." "Did you get the glass out of the dishwasher?" I asked. "No, just the bowl," Gracie answered, so VERY proud of herself. "The dishes in the dishwasher were not clean." I told Colby. "I found that out after I ate the cereal and saw the dirty bottom of the bowl." Colby laughed. It is the thought that counts! How many 18 year olds have a 7 year old sister who thinks they are special enough for breakfast-in-bed? For the record: I was supposed to turn on the dishwasher after everyone got a bath last night. I wanted to be sure everyone had enough hot water. I forgot to turn it on! It was all my fault that Colby ate out of a dirty bowl this morning. Oops! ******* We spent the day finishing up at the townhouse then we went over to Steven's parents. OH, his mom put on a feast! We had filet minon, roasted corn, shrimp and more shrimp, twice baked potaoes, deviled eggs, bread, food, food and more food. Then she served 3 (THREE!) desserts. We are full as ticks on a dogs back, I tell ya! Those who live up here - Can you believe there was NO traffic on the Fairfax Parkway nor I-95? NONE! We made it home in record time. 1 hour 17 minutes! And we did not speed! ****** J&J'sMom and Kate encouraged participation in this image game. Place I grew up Place I live now My name My grandmother's name Favorite Food Favorite drink Favorite Song Favorite Smell

You could NEVER accuse my husband of being a firebug or an arsonist. Bless his heart, building a fire is not his strong suit. Building a bondfire is not his talent. It was hard enough this winter letting him build a fire in the fireplace. Most days I built the morning fire and nursed through the day. Yesterday I finished cutting all the boxwood trees shrubs from along the edge of the road opposite of the orchard except for one. So much debris was beginning to pile up we started another burn pile. This morning Steven gave himself the chore of burning it. This is FAR easier said than done. We woke this morning to a light rain that change to a misting rain and then to a drizzle. This was good. My fears of the fire getting out of control was somewhat relieved. Steven used the tractor and cut a fire break around both of the piles. Then he started the fires. It took awhile. As I said he is NOT a firestarter. I was awake and sipping coffee when I heard a rumble. I thought one of the kids was up in the attic and had toppled something over. "Gracie?" I called up the stairs, "What are you doing? What did you knock over?" "Nothing, I'm just watching TV," she answered. "What was that noise?" I called again. "It came from outside, " Colby called down. OMG! I was in my pink flowered nightgown, grabbed an umbrella and slipped my feet into my waterproof clogs and head outside. "He has gasoline!" My head screamed. I walked out back to where he was at the two massive piles to be burned. He was having trouble getting the fire started. We talked a few minutes. "If I were going to start the fire I would pour just a little gasoline low at the bottom and light it." Having grown up in the country I am well aware of the dangers of starting a fire with gasoline. I am also aware that huges piles of debris do not start easily. It is common practice when a feild is cleared for everything to be bulldozed into a huge mass and then set on fire after a little dousing of a flamable agent. Steven did not listen. He poured gasoline over the TOP. I was watching and I swear I did not know what in the hell to scream at him. He stepped back about 10 feet, struck a match and tossed it onto the pile. VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMPPPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!! That damn pile of limbs and vines came at least a foot off the ground and the percussion from it made the ground shake. I felt it pass through me. He is standing there grinning. "Did you see that?" I yelled. "See what? I was trying to watch were the match went." He NEVER saw the 6x6x5 foot pile lift up off the ground and smash back down. At this point my nerves were shot. I know I am not his mother. He is an adult, but by God some men need supervision. "What me to bring you a cup of coffe while you watch it burn?" I was high tailing it to the house! "That would be great, thanks." He was walking toward the barn for the shovel. I came in started another pot of morning coffee and got dressed. There was no way a fire like that was burning without my supervision. By now the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out. The first fire had been burning about an hour before I remember to get the camera. It burned far quicker than I thought it would. Most of the stuff was freshly cut. In less than an hour after the inferno began it was burnt to ashes. The larger pile which was 12x20x6.5 took hours to burn. I thought it would burn the quickest and the hottest. Everything in the bottom of the pile was dry but it turned out to be so compacted it took much longer to break it open and get the oxygen in to fuel a good burn. Finally at near 3pm the fire was burned down to mostly ash. While the fire roared we had enjoyed a little picnic lunch of sandwiches and chips and sat in the grass. He got up often to stir it up to help it along. I walked around and took some pictures of the peonies and roses. I took photos of the back of the house. I walked out to the road and took a photo of the area I had spent this week clearing. Remember what it looked like before? This is what it looks like now. I have one more bush to go! We are taking the rest of the day off. Steven has showered and gone to take a nap. I made potato salad and have pork chops marinating waiting to go on the grill. I also have a pot of butterbeans waiting to be warmed. I was planning to do NOTHING tomorrow. But you know the one about the best laid plans of mice and men? We signed a contract last night to sell the townhouse. We have to go in the morning before we go to his parents for a cookout/birthday party and pressure wash the deck and he has to fix a shingle and clean the gutters. Thank goodness an end is near. The people buying it want to close June 27. I hate waiting! I am ready to be done. The way it has been raining we will have to cut grass Monday and there is plenty of weed eating to do. So much for a couple days of rest.

Blackbird's Friday Show and Tell theme is work in progress and souvenirs. I have photos of the work in progress. I have souvenirs but I am resting from a morning of working in the yard (read - taking down more of those overgrown boxwood shrub/trees). I don't feel like taking photos of them right now. Sorry, I am completely lazy at the moment sipping on lemonade. Mmmmm. Ice cold too. Want some? My work in progress is my second water garden just out the back door. You can find it here.

I think I was born into the wrong culture. Seriously. I believe I was meant to be Italian and something happened and I got shipped off to the woman I call Momma in the deep south. In Italy some poor woman is shaking her head and watching her daughter prepare chittlins and hog maws for her family. I registered for an Italian class at the local college but they cancelled the class at the last minute! Argggghh!! I do have the textbook requirements and the tapes but so far I know very little of the Italian language. It is sad. I love Italian things. Food, art, music. I could bathe in olive oil. I love that stuff! I love the sharp fruity scent of extra virgin olive oil and I also love the not so fruity scent of the successive pressings that yeild the other three grades of oil. I wonder if an olive tree will grow in Virginia so I can at least pretend I am near Tuscany. My kids love Italian bread: sauteed in olive oil until it is crisp and seasoned with garlic and basil pannini style or simply plain and dipped in olive oil. We all love pasta. It doesn't have to have sauce on it either. Just some pasta drizzled with good olive oil and salt and pepper, sometimes a little pat of butter. It's a dang good meal! This weekend I picked up 2 nice plump black beauty eggplants at the grocery store. We like them and better yet they were on sale. (The same as the rutabaga that Hoss seems to think is a punishment. We love rutabaga. If people in Virginia would sell turnips with the roots still on I would buy them more often, Hoss.) Today we have made eggplant parmegiana for supper. My daughter is in the kitchen now sauteeing thinly cut slices of Italian bread in olive oil. Mmmmmmmm. We will throw together a salad of romaine, grape tomatoes and cucumbers drizzled with (what else?) olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice and garlic, salt and pepper. We are gonna be feasting tonight! My stomach is growling now. I do try at least once a week to prepare a vegetarian meal. Steven has had problems in the past and I find too much red meat (meats in general) really play havoc with his system. I make a hearty meal and no one misses the meat -well most of the time. My recipe for Eggplant Parmigiana Preparing the eggplant 2 eggplants, peeled and sliced lengthwise about 1/4 inch thick 2 eggs, beaten 1/2 cup flour Bread crumbs Olive oil Mozzarella cheese Lightly salt the eggplant and lay on paper towels to absorb alot of the water they will extrude, about 30 minutes is enough. Lightly coat the eggplant slices in flour, dip in egg, coat with bread crumbs. Sautee them in a scant amount of olive oil until golden brown. Remove to more paper towels. Slice the mozzarella thinly and refrigerate until needed. Marinara Sauce 1 large can of Hunts tomato sauce (Normally I am not picky about tomato sauce but if you are cooking Hunts is the best to use, it just tastes different, fresher, doesn't have that bitter after taste some canned sauces have.) 1 can plum tomatoes roughly chopped 10 basil leaves fresh from my herb pot, chopped finely 3 cloves garlic, crushed 1 small onion very finely chopped 1/2 cup parmesian cheese, grated black pepper, fresh cracked salt Olive oil Oregano (I do not use oregano. It makes Steven gassy. It is not worth it!) Heat the olive oil in a sauce pan, add garlic and onion and sautee to release their flavor, do not brown. Add tomatoes and sauce, basil, pepper and salt to taste. (If it is too thin add 2 tsp tomato paste.) Simmer at a low heat for 30 minutes. Add the parmesian cheese. Simmer about 5 minutes until the cheese is beginning to melt. Remove from heat. In a casserole dish, cover the bottom lightly with the tomato sauce mixture. Make a layer of eggplant slices much like building a lasagna. Cover with a little more sauce. Add a layer of thinly sliced mozzarella cheese. Repeat until you have used all the eggplant slices. Pour the remaining marinara sauce over the top. Sprinkle with a generous amount of parmesian cheese. Traditionally this would be made with a single layer of eggplant, sauce and cheese but I like mine thick and gooey. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 - 25 minutes. Allow to cool for 15 - 30 minutes before serving. My kids cannot wait for 30 minutes. They can't wait for 15 either but being the mean mother I am I make them wait. For plating I make a mound of pasta on each persons plate, top with a generous helping of the parmigiana. If you are coming over for supper tonight do you mind picking up a nice bottle of Red? I prefer marriage wines like an nice grenache/shiraz. I also prefer Australian wines made by Italians. There is a difference in the soil that adds something to the fruit of the vine. Try it. You'll see I am telling the truth -but it MUST be made by Italians. Grazie. trat·to·ri·a n. pl. trat·to·ri·as or trat·to·ri·e An informal restaurant or tavern serving simple Italian dishes. [Italian, from trattore, host, from trattare, to treat.] Note to MistressMary: It is a hog cheek (jowl) that his been smoke cured with pepper instead of salt. Some people will use a ham hock or a slice of fatback but it does not taste as good as the smoked jowl. It is not disgusting. It is pork fat. In the south pork fat rules, baby! Yes! Yes! Yes! We did eat butter and sugar sandwiches. Sometimes plain sometimes run under the broiler for a couple minutes. My kids have them, too.

Bread is my downfall. I LOVE bread. I am romanced by a nearly black loaf of jewish rye (pumpernickle). I am drawn hither by a loaf of puffy, soft yeast bread. I am harkened by sour dough. I am seduced by loaves of crusty french bread where the bread's crumbs burst forth on the first bite and my teeth sink into the soft center. I am comforted by hot biscuits fresh from my momma's oven. I am not a baker. I do not excell in the art of dough. I won't pretend that I do. My daughter is a baker but she doesn't really like to bake. In the winter I do bake. I love the warmth of the kitchen and steam on the windows while the oven is hot and pumping out the perfume of bread which wafts through the house. Most often though I buy bread. I am cheap. Really. I cannot justify buying ingredients and spending hours waiting for a loaf of bread when for a couple of dollars I can buy beautiful loaves of bread that will be exactly the same loaf after loaf. Pumpkin bread, potato bread, raisin bread, cinnamon bread, garlic loaf, rosemary and olive oil bread, ficcacio with tomato and basil ... bread, bread, bread. It is the staff of life! I also like plain white sandwich bread. Little Miss Sunbeam Old Fashioned Round Top loaf bread. Just thinking of biting into a sandwich made with fresh white bread makes my mouth water. You know that first bite when the bread sticks behind your teeth and to the roof of your mouth? There is NOTHING better! I serve my family sandwiches occationally for supper. Layered sandwiches that are full of lovely things: roasted red peppers and feta cheese, olive salad with a little extra olive oil, thinly sliced meats with lettuce and tomato all between layers of different types of bread, made the day before and left to rest and meld overnight in the refrigerator. Lunch is usually a sandwich. Simple samdwiches: peanut butter and jelly, pimento cheese, ham or turkey or chicken salad. In the summer the best part of the day is going out to the garden and plucking a ripe tomato from the vine, slicing it into layers and layers of paper thin pieces and stacking it on white bread with mayonnaise and salt and pepper. Sometimes the variation may include a slice of sweet vidalia onions. (It is pronounced V-eye-dale-ya, thank you very much.) It makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Lately I am disgruntled with loaf bread from the grocery store. It seems like every week the price changes. I know the loaves are smaller than they were 10 or 15 years ago too! Maybe I have not adjusted to feeding five people. One sandwich each is 10 slices. That is a half loaf! If Steven has two sandwiches then that is 12 slices. Add toast for breakfast and an entire loaf can be consumed in one day! When I was growing up bread was on the table for every meal. Supper would have cornbread or biscuits or a plate of sliced bread just waiting for the butter. It is a tradition (habit?) that I have continued all my life. The table is not set if there isn't bread on it. If I were to try and give you a recipe for bread I would probably cause you a failure because as I have said I am not a baker. The secret of biscuits cannot be conveyed either. I am one who needs to watch to accomplish the task of mixing dough. I do have 1 recipe to share and I think you will find it simple and an excellent sample of quick breads your family will love. Try this one. I bet you will make it again and again. You can use a biscuit cutter and make gorgeous fresh bread for supper or Sunday brunch. You can pinch it off and roll it in your hands and make little balls of dough that will bake up into perfect little bites to serve at any luncheon or filled with meats or chicken salad for a party tray. Give it a try. 1 cup of sour cream 1 stick of real butter, softened 2 cups of self rising flour (I use King Arthur unbleached flour) Knead with your hands until it forms a ball. Turn out on a floured board and press it out gently to about an inch thickness. Cut with the biscuit cutter and place on a buttered baking sheet. Or roll out balls and drop each one into the cups of a muffin pan that has been buttered. Bake at 375 degrees. Watch them and take them out when the tops are lightly golden brown. Serve with butter and jelly. Fill them with chicken salad or make tiny little sandwiches. Your family will think you are a goddess in the kitchen. They will ask for more. You will be looked at with awe as you serve hot fresh bread with roast beef and gravy. Mmmmmm. Wednesday Evening Supper On The Farm A Menu Slow Cooked Roast Beef
simmered with onions, carrots and garlic Potatoes
with roasted beef gravy Rutabagas
simmered with cured peppered jowl String Beans
blanched and lightly sauteed with butter and lemon juice Potato Bread
with butter Beverage of your choiceP.S. Yes,I cook everyday. A full meal is on the table every evening when Steven comes home from work. I am usually just finishing up as he pulls in. This is how we start our evening. Family supper, kids do dishes, we retire to the living room until bedtime.

On the very far edge of our property we have a cemetery. The only mention of this cemetery that I have been able to find is one in a book about a local church that shows the cemetery on an old map of the village drawn from memory and the original deed dated to when the man who built our house bought this piece of land. From the deed and local history we know it is the family cemetery of whom our village is named. We can identify eight graves. At least three appear to be adult sized and the rest are children or infants. The plots are marked with large stones at the head and foot but there is no marked headstone. I have been digging and researching and talking to people to try to accurately record who is in there. Having talked with several members of the historical society in this county no one was aware that a cemetery existed. No one at the library, tax office or clerk of courts knew there was a cemetery here. Having talked with Miss Ethel she only remembers one woman who ever had anything to do with the cemetery and I have traced that name to be a daughter of the man I believe to be buried there. All the pieces of the puzzle fit. I just have to prove it. Much easier said than done. As I have searched deed books, will books, marriage bonds, census records and abstracts from other histories written about our county I have come to know this family in a sense. Just as I have come to know the family and the man who built our house in 1909. The original owner of this piece of land was a tavern keeper. His father before him was a tavern keeper here as well. The corner from which you enter our property sits catty-cornered to two roads that have been major thoroughfares in Virginia's past. On our corner is a Virginia State Historical marker that indicates the encampment of the Marquis De Lafayette in June of 1781. The view from the orchard toward the road is the road that has been in use since before 1776. It was a major highway of the day. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson visited friends and collegues in this area. We have even had a chance to dine in a fine home where Jefferson was often a guest. The past comes alive for me as I sit and read. My imagination is vivid. I dream in color. It is 1778 and horse drawn carriages pass by on their way to the grand plantations where Jefferson and Washington will sleep. It is 1781 and I can hear the low murmurs of men camped under the trees, rolled up in their bedding, fires dying in the night as they await for the time to push General Cornwallis to the east. It is 1801 and James Madison has inherited Montpelier. It is 1817 and Dolley and James have come to make their home. It is 1864 and I can hear the beat of horse hooves as Jackson and Lee and Longstreet ride, camp and fight. It is 1909 and I can hear the train that once stopped in front our house where the owner had his general mercantile store, the post office and the train depot. It is 1960 and the village is quiet. There is no train, no store. It is 1990 and the most movement in the village is across the road where the post office now resides in an old store front smaller than my livingroom. It is 2005 and I close my eyes and am wisked away to another time and it all happened right here at my doorstep. The past is alive and I am part of history.

If you want to see how I spend my days click this link. I will be updating this post later this afternoon. Right now I have to shower and start supper. I am cooking butterbeans and pork chops and I have no idea at the moment what else. Notes: Hoss - The top of the house is an attic. It is a full attic with windows front and back. It could be a great room with an incredible view. It has a full walk up staircase just like the one in my downstairs front hall and my back staircase. It will be a long time before I get to the point we will actually do anything other than use it for storage. The kids do play up there sometimes. It is well lit with tongue and groove hardwood flooring. Up until recent years the house was knob and post electric wiring. Some of it is still in excellent shape too. The knobs and tubes are visible up there. We were told it might be a Sears house but have done a lot of research and Miss Ethel said it was NOT a Sears house. Her Daddy planned it and built it for her mother. I have a lot of history to document on this old place. Susie - Come help me! Bring the boys. They can play in the barns and run wild in the back field. MommaK - Bring your work gloves. We don't sit still for long. We can have tea inbetween hauling and cutting. MistressMary - I am taking a break today. It is raining down here. AGAIN!

I really love our house and little farm. If anyone had told me 2 years ago that I would be here now I would have told them to have their head checked and may have even called them a liar. I honestly never thought I would leave Georgia and all that I ever knew behind me. I am not one who adjusts well to drastic changes. I like things to remain as they are. I like living in one place and having order to my days. There is an odd feeling as we work and work and work some more to bring this place up to par. All the cleaning, cutting, hauling that comes with back aches and muscle pain and cramping hands and legs at the end of a weekend like this one leaves me with an odd sense of comfort knowing that in a few years all the really hard stuff will be done and it will be a matter of maintaining what we have accomplished. This is home. God willing and the creek don't rise this is were we will live out all the days of the rest our lives. We have put down roots and claimed this place as ours. It has taken me 38 years to get here. I like the here and now. I love the promise of the future in this place of snow and cool springs. I like knowing this is where our children will grow up and grandchildren will come to visit. It's a good life. Are you still traveling to your dream home? Have you settled down and sunk your tap roots in deep? If not, where do you think you will settle and stake your claim? As promised you can find the photo's of the house here: Farm House Monthly - May. P.S. I will be updating my reading list this week. I have discovered MORE great journals I like to read. An apology for the future - I may read your journal but I am horrible about commenting. Honestly sometimes I have nothing to say. LOL

Yesterday's post was heavy and emotionally draining for me. I know most of you avoided it and I can't say that I blame you. Today we are going to get back to the fun things. I have put together a series of before and after photos of some of the gardens here on our farm. The changes amaze me! In just 6 short weeks we have gone from being buried in snow to having lovely lush gardens. You can find the photos here. Allow the page time to load if you are on dial-up. It will open in a new window. I plan to finish putting together a similar photo series with the changes in the house from December when we contracted to by it up to this month when everything is blooming. How are your gardens coming along? I really want to know! You can also click here for the link to the photo page. I think my link color choice may be poor. I'll try to change it.

I have a shameful confession to make. It is deep and dark and eats at me like a little worm boring into a piece of fruit. It scares frightens petrifies terrifies horrorfies me. It is an ugly open mouth like a gaping black hole that I fear will swallow me up. From the time I knew I would become a mother I have been afraid that death would come while my children are small. I'll never get to see them grow up. They won't have enough time to build memories to remember me. They won't be able to console themselves. They will feel abandoned and left to the mercy of the world with no one who will love them like I do. If you are a parent surely you have thought about it. Probably not obssessed over it. Maybe like me you push it down and forget about it until something stirs it and wakes it up and it pokes its head up and makes you look at it. This is not my confession of shame. This is: Since finding Kate's journal I have made an extra effort to avoid the subject of breast cancer and death. I have told myself I don't know anyone who has suffered and beat the odds. I have told myself breast cancer hasn't touched my life. I have lived in denial for such a long time that it is my shame to have denied the life of one beautiful woman, her husband and three wonderful children. If I am avoiding the entire subject why do I keep going back? I like Kate's journal. I like the way she writes. I can hear my oldest niece's voice in her words. It makes me smile to see her photo with her pretty smiling face and handsome husband. I just try to ignore and skip over the parts about breast cancer and death. As of today I am finished running away from my fears of death and leaving my children. I won't block out memories of Traci and Bobby. I won't pretend out of sight out mind where three children are concerned. I met Traci when I was in my early weeks of pregnancy. Just a few months later she too was pregnant. She was the only person I knew who was pregnant at the same time. It gave us something to talk about and share a common bond while we discovered other things we both liked and disliked. She was a lovely young woman when we met. Her hair was thick and long the color of cherry cola as Hope would call it. She was tall, thin on top and heavily built in the bottom and thighs. She dieted a few times but accepted her body for what it was and felt good about herself in general. Sure, we all have those parts we wish we could change but she never obssessed over it. Her father was stationed overseas when she was born. She spent her early childhood growing up in Germany. After her father retired the family moved to Georgia. She had yankee ways like her mother but she picked up the southern ways too. I would shake my head when I saw some of the things she did. We often joked about the 'yankee' things she did. It made no difference. Traci was married to Bobby, her high school sweetheart. They had married just after graduation. They were like the rest of us starting out in the 80's. They struggled to make ends meet, worked hard at keeping their marriage together, argued about money, made up and tried to live the American dream. To anyone who cared to take a look it was readily apparent that they had something most married couples do not. They were completely, unquestionably, totally devoted to one another. After Robert was born Bobby had some problems and the diagnosis came back that he needed a pacemaker. She was by his side every minute. He came through the ordeal with flying colors. They picked up their life where it left off and continued on through the everyday obstacles we all face. Bobby worked for his father in the business of construction. He had grown up in the country, loved to hunt and fish. In the winter Traci found herself like most young wives of similar background -filling her hours with her friends on the weekend while the boys went hunting or fishing or competing in bow tournaments. The men being gone we were close in those days. We shared everything. When our children were born they were friends, too. Colby and Robert loved to play together. As time marched forward they shared birthday parties, halloween trick-or-treating, christmas and vacation bible school. They played in the mud, on the swing set and entertained one another so that she and I could just take a break if only for the afternoon. A year after Colby and Robert were born we both found ourselves faced with the possibilty of another baby arriving. My pregnancy test was false. Her's was positive. Within nine months she was the mother of a lovely little baby girl they named Jessica. Raising children, working, struggling in those days to live above the poverty line made the days pass quickly. Five years later Traci and Bobby moved away and we didn't see each other often. They struggled to keep their marriage together the same as we did. All the real life drama ate up our time and it was further and further apart that we saw one another. Traci, along with her sister, had taken over her mother's cleaning business. I was going back to school. There wasn't time for anything in those days. Ten years after Colby and Robert were born the two of us found ourselves pregnant again. Traci brought home a little girl named Leslie in July and I brought home Gracie in December. The events brought us back together but not as close as we had been 10 years before. At my baby shower before Gracie was born, Leslie played on the floor in my mother's den, Traci and I sat and caught up on old and new things filling our life. We talked about how similar events seemed to play out for us. We even laughed at the idea of 10 years after becoming a mother we find ourselves in similar circumstances. We talked about our pregnancies, past and present. We laughed and ate cake and drank punch. Traci told us how she had been having problems with a blocked milk duct. It was normal stuff that moms and friends talk about. We promised to keep in touch and get together often. We wouldn't let time get away from us again. We talked about how at one time she had thought about divorcing Bobby and I had thought about divorcing John. We both stuck it out and made the best of our marriages. Sometimes I wondered if Traci had Leslie to save her marriage much like I had thought having another baby would save mine. During that time Traci and Bobby had redidcated their lives to Christ and were living a wonderful life. My (now ex-) husband would never go to church with me much less try to live right. I often felt a bit of jealousy or maybe it was envy that she seemed to have found the path that eluded me. She had a husband who adored her, loved her unconditionally. It wasn't long after that I found out that Traci's blocked duct was much more than a blocked milk duct. After a battery of tests she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She and her husband Bobby prayed about it. They counseled with their Pastor. In the end they agreed radical treatment was the answer. Shortly after she had a total mastectomy. Afterward all her tests came back clean, she had beat the odds but she still had to be checked every 6 months just to be sure. Six months later a bone scan and blood tests and other tests gave her a clean bill of health. Less than a month later she was sick again. The doctor gave her the news that the same cancer from her breast was now in her lymph nodes and had made its way to her liver. Again they were strong and brave. Traci did radiation therapy. She had chemo therapy. She lost her hair and wore a wig. She tried to understand the pain of her children and had many bad moments to work through with them. Robert never understood she was fighting to live, he only knew his mother was dying. Jessica was defiant and dug in her heels. They were very honest with their children trying to prepare them for what was coming. How do you prepare a 10 and 8 year old for your death? Both children remembered the first battle. They felt with this second battle somehow their mother had lied about everything being okay in the end. How do you prepare yourself to leave a baby who would never remember the sound of your voice or the touch of your hand? Knowing there was nothing that could be done Traci went home from the hospital trying to live while she prepared herself to die. The last time I saw her was a visit in the hospital. She was smiling. She told me how she had tried to talk to her kids and explain what was happening. It was the hardest thing she had ever had to do. Battling the cancer was easy compared to having to tell her children the truth. I tried not to let her see me cry but I couldn't help myself. I thought of those three children and it shattered my heart. Through all the days following Bobby never left her side. When the pain became to much to bare and no drug could take it away he would lay with her in their bed, hold her and whisper in her ear. He would sing to her and read the Bible. They got through the same as always, together. After months of never leaving her side it was urgent that Bobby take care of some of their personal business. Traci's mother came over to stay with her and Bobby set out for a quick trip to the post office. In the short time that he was gone Traci lost her battle and passed away in the arms of her mother. It was May 12th, 1999. She was 32 years old. Bobby never got over his self imposed guilt of leaving his wife. He blamed himself every moment of every day. He cursed himself. He played that day out in his head over and over. It does no good to rehash those events. Nothing anyone could say eased his pain. In many ways he felt he had failed her by not being there in the end. He was strong and held up like a real trooper through the funeral and details. He buried his wife and tried to raise his children. Family members tried to get him to let them take the children but he would have no part of it. They were his children and he would raise them. He worked hard, took care of children the best he could. His brother moved in with him and shared the load. His mother and mother-in-law did they everything they could to help out. Those of us who saw Bobby later in the year knew he wasn't holding up as well as everyone thought. The last time I saw Bobby was May 5th, 2000. We ran into one another at a night club. I was newly divorced and he had begun dating. Later that night in the early hours of May 6th Bobby ran his truck off an embankment and ended his life. To this day I believe he had never gotten over Traci's death. Their three children now live with Traci's mother. My heartbreaks to think of them growing up without either parent. How hard it must be for Robert and Jessica to miss both of their parents. How tragic Leslie will never really know the mommy and daddy who loved them all so very much. I have been thinking about Traci and Bobby a lot. Sometimes the cruelty of it all is overwelming and I put them out of my mind, I forget them but something always makes me remember. I am ashamed of myself for trying to forget. I am no longer forgetting. I am remembering and trying to celebrate their lives, their love story. Please visit Kate's journal. Please click on the link and donate what you can for breast cancer research. There has to be an answer. There has to be away to stop the devastation left in its wake. Breast cancer destroys lives far beyond any given woman. It rips families to pieces and leaves children as orphans. Together we can all make a difference. I made this little pink ribbon. If you support breast cancer research will you take it and put it on your journal? Will you link to Kate and help her raise money for research? All you have to do is right click on the pink ribbon of your choice. Save it to your computer. Upload it to the place you store all of your photos online. Add a link to the pink ribbon in your side bar. Add the link to Kate's journal.

Please do not link to the image on my server or I will have to enable the no hotlinking feature and the image will disappear. By linking to the image on my server and not uploading to your own storage space you are stealing bandwidth. This makes you a theif.

At the end of the day Colby hugged us both and proclaimed it as the "best birthday ever!" She spent the day trying on the new fashions I had given her in the morning. She spent hours primping and fixing her hair. She applied her makeup expertly. She took a nap and after had to fix her hair AGAIN! She had been absolved of performing all chores for the day. I know not having to wash dishes was the BEST part of the day. We went out to supper and enjoyed chicken and veal parmegiana, fettuccini alfredo, lasagne, salad, bread, Itialian soda and chocolate torte with raspberry sauce. She loves Italian food as much as I do. We came home and took a ride in Red. We had the ice cream cake Steven made. Ohhhh it was good! He has declared himself the Official Birthday Cake Maker. My two girls refined pallettes have broadened his horizons from round yellow cakes to such concoctions as doll cakes, blueberry cheesecake, rapsberry mousse filled chocolate cake and now the ice cream cake. I think I should hire him out. Colby recieved all the books she had requested (see under the cut at the end), more clothes, and the Yamaha keyboard she had been eyeing for sometime. That thing sounds great! I would swear as she played she was sitting at a grand concert piano! My baby is 18. It is still a surreal feeling. Almost the same as the day she was born -without the pain or the drugs! Not that I would know about drugs. I did the brave thing and went natural. Having gone into labor two weeks prior and having said labor stopped by the doctor because I was soooooooooo sick, I had spent those two weeks with a baby knotted up in my back suffering, I mean SUFFERING with back pain that could bring you to your knees at any given moment! Did I express how I suffered? S-U-F-F-E-R-E-D!!! The evening I went into labor was the end of a day that I woke feeling invincible. I had gone grocery shopping at 6am. I had scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floor with a little scrub brush. I have no idea why I did so with a little scrub brush. I had cooked meals for the freezer and a million other mundane things. I laid down for a nice long nap and woke with the strangest feeling SOMETHING was going on. Not in pain, just a feeling something was happening. At 10:30pm I went to the bathroom, saw that I had lost the mucus plug and called my momma. Everyone loaded up in the car because you know you can't go to the hospital to have a baby without a full blown enterage! Especially if you live in places like Georgia. On a farm. In the middle of nowhere. I spent the 45 minute ride trying to breath slow and deep but I swear I was delirious. That deep drawing, pulling, stretching sensation of the cervix opening is the absolute most painful feeling I have ever experienced in my entire life. Yeah, Yeah. It was great going in 9 months before but it was hell coming out nine months later! Arriving at the hospital it was declared I was only 2 centimeters dialated. The very large, older black woman who was assigned as my nurse kept telling me how I had a very long 8 hours ahead of me and I could not keep getting up and walking to the bathroom. I really was not having the urge to go pee. Now I ask, how the hell does she know I didn't have to pee? I proved her wrong I did have to pee. Then she told me something I find to be the absolute most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. "If you keep walking around you are going to break your babies neck before it is born." WTF? To this day I firmly believe this woman had had no medical training and her nursing license came out of a cracker jack box. I did the deep breathing exercises to control the pain. I rocked on my hands and knees in the most embarrassing position and then I told the nurse I had to push. AGAIN this woman told me I did not have to push I had "at least eight hours of hard labor ahead of me." I gritted my teeth, looked at her with a glare in my pain contorted features and I know my voice became that of a demon from hell, "Get me the doctor or another nurse NOW!!" She hesitated for less than a second and went off to meet my demands. The head nursing supervisor of labor and delivery was quick at my bedside and I told her, "I HAVE TO PUSH!" Grabbing a pair of gloves she quickly checked me, her eyes grew huge and she said, "Do not push!" She turned and called the large nurse and said, "She is at 10!" Yayyyyyyyy me! I had gone from 2 to 10 in 15 minutes! Before I could pointedly scream at the older nurse that I indeed did NOT have at least eight hours of hard labor ahead of me I was being pushed out the door and down the hall to delivery. Everything was happening so quickly! There wasn't time for my doctor to get to the hospital. If the doctor you have paid to deliver your baby does not arrive for the delivery and you have to be delivered by the doctor on staff doesn't that stand to reason he should not be paid for the delivery part of the OB care? In the delivery room, bright lights galore, nurses and interns watching, my legs in the stirrups exposing everything I own to God and the world I pushed. Once. Twice. Three times. And it was over. At 12:25am, Monday, May 18, 1987 I delivered a 7lbs 1/2oz 21 1/2 inch baby girl -who was meconium stained. Throughout my entire pregnancy this had been my worst fear. It was like a premonition of some sort. Thankfully for us she was born quickly and suctioned well and none of the meconium had been inhaled with her first breath. Later, doing research I discovered the medication I had been given two weeks before to stop my labor could have caused this. It also could have caused me to have a stroke and the baby to have a heartattack! WTF?!? Although it was the 1980's I still feel like my pregnancy had been in the 1940's. Who in their right mind would give a woman medications that could potentially killer her and her baby? To this day it still makes me angry but also grateful someone in heaven had been watching over us both. Having delivered so quickly there was no time for my body to stretch and I ended up holding my baby while two sets of sutures were used to embroider my nether regions back together. I held this wonderful being, wrinkled, covered in vernix with peeling skin, unwrapped the blanket so I could count her fingers and toes. "Oh look it is her birthday and she has left me a present." She was covered in poop from her waist to her toes. She could not be bothered to wait until she had been washed and diapered to take her first poop. 36 hours after her birth I was at home, sitting in a rocking chair, crying and nursing a brand new baby. I was so ready to come home and start being a most excellent mother. Instead I was a nervous wreck, having a crying jag while a little tiny baby was latched on to my nipple and the blisteres were already beginning to form. 18 years later I am still learning how to take care of this beautiful creature who graced my presence. The list of books Colby requested for her birthday are under the cut below.

Dear Colby, Tonight at 12:25am, May 18th, you will have become 18 years old. In the eyes of the world this will make you legally an adult. You will have new choices to make, new paths to follow and dreams to catch in your net like butterflies passing on the wind. To the world you may be seen as an adult but to me you will always be my baby, my first love, my heart, my little girl, a beautiful young woman, a part of me that no one can ever take away. From the moment you were given life until the end of time and evermore you will be my child. When I am 100 and you are 80 and we have forgotten in our old age who is the mother and who is the daughter I will still be your mother and you will still be my baby. I was 20, not much older than you, when you entered my life physically. Before that, for nine months you had been a dream, a wish, a prayer, real yet still unreal, a whisper of the future, a physical part of my body, flesh of my flesh that can never be undone. You are the reason I decided to grow up. You are the reason a girl became a woman. Not because I gave physical birth to you. Giving birth does not make you a woman or a momma. Please always remember that. If I have taught you anything this I have and I want you to never forget it. You will not completely understand it until someday you have a child of your own. As a woman I understood the responsibility of having a child. I wanted to be the very best mother that had ever been or ever will be. I wanted to be the woman that taught you everything. I have always prayed I was an example of a woman that you could rise up and call blessed. Not for selfish reasons or pride but because I wanted to be a Godly example for you. I held you in my arms, tears streaming down my cheeks, within moments of your birth. The entire world was shown to me in your tiny face. I even said to the doctor, "I am holding the entire world in my hands at this moment." I fell in love with you then and I am still in love with you now. You were the most attentive and active baby I had ever seen, that your Granny had ever seen, that your Papa had ever seen. Within 6 months you weaned yourself and demanded a cup. At 7 months you walked, all on your own, holding onto nothing. You went from sitting up to walking in a matter of days which in many ways did not surprise me at all. The day you were born you were the topic of conversation by the nurses in the nursery. You were the newborn who could lift herself with her forearms and look from side to side. You were eager to know what the world was all about. Before that first year was over you were talking in sentences and potty trained. In this year you also suffered in a way no child ever should. You were horridly burned while being left with your father's parents for a total of two hours. I have never in my life felt so completely helpless and out of control. I stayed by your hospital bed only leaving one time in the entire two weeks to go home and pack a bag. You slept on my chest every night. I went with you daily to therapy while they scrubbed your hands that had no skin whatsoever left on them. I understood this had to be done but the entire time I wanted to kill those people who were hurting my precious baby. Colby, God answers prayers. You are a living example of answered prayers. When you are at the end of your rope and feel you have no where to turn, please remember what I have tried so hard to teach you, God is always there. You are never alone. God was with us the night they told us there nothing left to do for your hands. He listened to my prayers. There is no other way to explain the miracle of millions of skin cells forming on your hands overnight, in less than 6 hours from the time the doctors made evening rounds and returned early the next morning for your skin grafting surgery. God answered my prayer and you never needed that surgery, you needed nothing but God's power and He healed you. He always will. It is my prayer now that you will continue on the path we have traveled together. Lean on God for everything. Seek his will. He will never leave you. I know you think I have been hard on you as you have grown up. I know I have been hard on you. I never demanded more from you than you could give and you have always exceeded my greatest expectations. You have grown into a responsible, moral young woman who will someday be an awesome wife and mother. The man who wins your heart will have the greatest treasure known to mankind. I hope you choose well. We have often talked about this and I believe as I think you do, God has been preparing the perfect man for you. He has been grooming him all these years. Do not be in a hurry to get married and have children. In His perfect time the man of your dreams, the man worthy of you will come along. Please do not let him pass you by. Time passes quickly as we grow older but I remember as if it were just yesterday everything about you. Birth and crying all night.Tea parties and baby dolls. Dress-up and lipstick. School books and pony tails. Piano lessons and school bus stops. Make-up and perfume. Sunday school and summer camp. Salvation and baptism. Homeschool and baby sisters. Good times and bad. We have been through them all together. We have so much more to do together. I am so sorry for things in the past. I am sorry your father was not the Daddy you needed him to be. I believe divorcing him was the best thing I ever did. Some may think I was saving myself and in a way I was but in my mind I was saving you. Saving you from the bitterness and ugliness of a man who had lost his grip on life. Saving you from heartbreak and disappointment of watching a man who could never be what you needed him to be. Through this you and I came out together. As the years of just us passed I do know how out of control you felt when Steven came into our lives. I know how difficult it was to share me, to share us, with someone unknown. I know your expectations were high where he was concerned. I believe he has surpassed them all. He may not be your biological father but he has proven himself in this one short year to be your Dad. He always will be your Dad. In the beginning I admit to being jealous and hurt when you turned from me to him when you needed a shoulder, a friend, a Dad. I quickly learned I had lost nothing and gained everything in this man who loved my child as much as I love you. He will always be your ship in the storm of life. Please know that Steven loves you beyond anything your father ever felt for you. I know in your heart you think only of him as your Dad. I know you think he pushes too hard at times. Perhaps he does. In his heart he is doing his best to be the man you need to see as a role model. He only has the very best intentions for you in his heart. I know you know this. I also want to thank you. Thank you for being the most perfect daughter a parent could ask for. Thank you for being the example of everything a sister should be. You have raised the bar. Gracie can only grow-up to be an incredible young woman because she has you to follow. Your footsteps are her guide. During the times when we had nothing except each other thank you for helping me. Thank you for digging in, for using up and wearing out, without ever complaining. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for being my daughter. I have often played this day out in my mind. What will I say to you that will give you the confidence you need to take the step forward, away from me and into your own world that you create. This is all I have ever been able to think of: I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you. I love who you are. I love everything about you. As long as there is breath in me I will be here for you. Never hesitate to come to me. Nothing you can ever say will change my love for you. Perhaps we may not always agree. You have your own life to create. Regardless of your choices I will always be here, waiting, watching and loving you, just as I have every moment of your life, from your very first breath. There is a poem that I have lived as my motto. Do you remember it? Cleaning and Scrubbing Can wait till tomorrow For babies grow up We learn to our sorrow. Settle down cobwebs, Dust go to sleep I'm rocking my baby 'Cause babies don't keep. Every word is truth. You didn't keep. You grew up. What a beautiful moment I have been blessed to witness. My mother never understood how or why I could leave dishes in the sink and laundry in the basket, forgettting them so that I could play with you. She never understood how a bed could be left unmade and the carpet not vacuumed every single day. I hope when you have your own children you will remember those little words and you will forget about your chores for the moment and spend those minutes sharing, caring, loving your own children. Dishes can be washed and laundry can be folded after little ones go to sleep. When the time is gone you can never get it back. I hope you will never get so wrapped up in the details of living that you forget how to live your life for every moment. So on today, this is my wish for you: May you find the path that leads you to the life you want. May you find the courage and the strength to create the world you want to live in. May you find true love and happiness in one man who deserves you. May you have children who rise up and call you blessed. Happy Birthday, my darling girl. Love, Momma

Republished due to spam without comments May 17, 2005 I Was An MSN Bride - Introduction Disclaimer The work contained herein is reality based from the skewed point of view of the author. The author has taken creative liberties and all content may or may not have actually taken place. You can rest assured that events similar to those posed here inspired the events chronicled. Chat nics have been changed to allievate the need of other parties to resort to extortion and claim copyright infringment to the Nic usage. In the course of changing Nics to protect the author and a Nic used by the reader is found in this content, rest assured the author is not speaking of you. If the author were speaking of you your Nic would have been changed and you would not have seen your Nic in any conversation documented herein. Names, places and dates have been blurred to protect the innocent. MSN is the registered trademark of the Microsoft Network. No one in this work is affiliated with Bill Gates. Most of us do not even like Microsoft or Bill Gates but MSN Chat at one time was several steps above Yahoo Chat. It might even still be. However you will not ever catch this author in Yahoo chat as long as the ability to breath is present. The Spousal Unit of the author is unaware of what the author may or may not write and has no editorial control of the clicking of the publish button in any entry catagorized as "I Was An MSN Bride". The reader has the right to remain silent. Anything the reader says can and will be used to create colorful characters and further story lines. About The Author Angie is 38 years old living on a tiny farm in a small village in central Virginia with her husband, children and a dog. Marriage, children, divorce and remarriage has taken its toll and little of the young woman she once was still exists. She has grown and expanded her horizon beyond typical educational methods and is now a self made woman of many talents and diverse interests. She spends her days puttering around on her little farm where she grows tomatoes in the best southern tradition and a few other vegetables, herbs and flowers. She cooks, she cleans, she does the laundry and scrubs toilets in an attempt to be an almost trophy wife. She can be found on occassion standing at an ironing board for upwards of two hours ironing her husbands shirts so he doesn't go to work looking as if no one cares about him or that he might have pulled his clothing out of the rag bag. She has also been known to pass up fashionable new clothing for herself instead donning prior years fashions so that her children can prance about in their version of haute couture. She has shunned modern transportation with its fancy power steering, a/c and GPS onboard systems in order to indulge in the best gift ever -a 1953 Buick Special Eight. She is confident the struggle with the over-sized steering wheel will give her arms of steel and one day, if she is lucky, just might become the female arm wrestling champion of the world. She loves shoes, White Diamond perfumes and Italian foods. Introduction In the beginning there was dal net, irc clients and command lines. Then Bill said let there be chat. And there was chat. And it was good. From lands near and afar people traveled to this mystical land to meet and talk and laugh through the written word. They became intimate in those private message boxes known as whispers developing relationships that people outside the kingdom did not understand. They made friends and met lovers and some found their soulmates. Mothers began to fear their sons would be taken in and led down a road of debauchery by viperous women; feared their daughters would be violated by dirty old men and come away from the glowing terminals no longer chaste and virginal. Those outside the kingdom felt sure the Internet was the evil work of Satan. In some cases this may have been true. For those who stepped into the box they found themselves surrounded by others just like themselves. They shared ideas and customs and adult conversation. They found a shoulder to cry on, a friend to lean on, an ear to hear their voice. Men and women who otherwise would never have had an opportunity began to meet and pair off. They became intimate. They learned each other inside first, the deep inner workings of mind and soul uninhibited by the physical world. Some took the giant step to crawl out of the little binary boxes and met in the physical world. This is the story of two of those people.

I have decided all the hoopla in the blogging world on who will and who won't, who did and who didn't get a book deal has become my inspiration today, my muse. I did not care about book deals. I have already published a lovely work and can look at my name on the spine of a beautifully covered hardback book of nonfiction relating to the South, The War Between The States, and 1500 men who became so dear to my heart it felt as if they were my children. So today I am beginning my second book without a book deal anywhere in the horizon and could care less if one ever comes. My readers can decide if it is classified as fiction or nonfiction and to which genre it falls in: romance, sci-fi, tech, horror, literature, erotica or dime store novella trash. Let's get the really hard stuff out of the way first. The front cover of the book will feature the title, my by line and an artfully taken photograph pointing into the sun where it is just able to be seen in the glare at the very bottom of the cover a pair of manicured bare feet on my red couch crossed at the ankles, the power cord to this old laptop, a sweating glass of iced tea or diet coke with lime, our snoring farting black dog sleeping nearby and a pack of Marlboro Menthol 100's tossed carelessly among the frey. For visual impact I may include my floral wedding bouquet with a psuedo MSN butterfly gracing one of the yellowing petals of white rose or stephanotis. The back cover will feature me and Red. We will be posers akin to Steven King. However I will be wearing black cateye framed sunglasses, a boldly printed scarf tossed over my hair and across my shoulder, my lips will be painted a vibrant red to match Red's paint job and I will hold a smoldering cigarette between my fingers with highly manicured nails the same shade as my lips and the cigarette will be stained from my lipstick in that tell-tale sign that someone actually puffed on it. The dedication will be to my husband of course: "The man who made it all possible." Because you know he DID marry me after he found me online and he provides me with cable internet! The man deserves it! Inside the posh and shiney dust jacket will read how I became a bride through MSN chat and all the things I learned before and after about men. It will be inciteful quips and blurbs about all things me: my car, my house, my husband, my children, the dog and the state of affairs of internet relationships and the impossible happily-ever-after of online dating and quickie marriages with a few examples of how cheaply frugal I can be. I will also toss in a few wildly made up, yet hotly erotic cyber sex senerios along with messenger conversations that may or may not have actually taken place followed up with digitally enhanced phone sex encouters. You know, to add spice and excitement. It may even have a little map with all the places I stopped for gas between Georgia and Virginia. My book tours will only take me to the places where I can meet my favorite online journalists so that I won't have to spend my own money for the transportation across this great nation and to places over seas. Those same journalists and I will sit together in some bookstore and those same journalists will autograph my book as the crowds line up adding spiffy little phrases telling my readers they should have read the free version online. We will then go have a drink or coffee and eat fattening foods, laughing loudly and making catty remarks about bloggers who do not appeal to us. If we are lucky we will be asked to leave and this will only feed our laughter as we saunter out into the night and into the bar or restaurant next door. How does that sound? Are you hooked? Now, my favorite online journalists, which of you is willing to be the stand in foot model? I have a thing about feet and do not want mine splashed on the front of a best selling runaway novel. Come on, ladies, I'll spring for the pedicure! Hoss, if the ladies won't do it, will you? I am sure a man of your stature would appreciate a foot massage and I won't let them paint your toenails pink or red, maybe bright orange or lime green, something electrifying. My next entry will be the Introduction. Stay tuned.

I am looking at my daily stats as I type this. You people rock!!! Won't you please take a moment to say, "Hi"? Please? I really would like to meet you! You are important people to me. Who is from: Australia? Canada? France? Germany? Netherlands? Seychelles (I thought this was France)? United Kingdom? USA? I know I am setting myself up for failure here because it takes more than a request for the silent masses to actually type something. But I REALLY want to know. Please, please, please, won't you say, "Hi"? P.S. To the person who did the Wget on my journal: YOU ARE AN ASSHEAD!!! Do NOT steal my words. That is just plain wrong and in my opinion sleezy. It is a real lowlife, underhanded thing to take everything off my site. Go write your own words if you need content! This domain belonged to some else before me. I am not that person! If you have to steal what is here you are disgusting. I hope something from the horrors of Steven King's mind comes and gets you at night while you sleep! I know you are a Linux user! Get your head out of that penguins ass and think for yourself!

It was late Thursday night. The house was asleep. I had heartburn and didn't know why. I got up and went to the kitchen finding the bottle of antiacid tablets and chewed two. Knowing that it would not subside that quickly I went to the livingroom turned on the tv and settled myself on the little couch and flipped open the lap top. I was thinking about my new car. OMG, Steven bought me a car!! Not just any car! My new car is a '53 Buick Special Eight! I had the giddiness of a teenager with my very first car. "And Steven King's car was a '54 Buick Eight," came the little voice in my head. Holy Shit! "And it is painted like his Christine, too," the little voice chimed in again. Sweet Mother of God! My mind raced through both of those books, Christine and From A Buick 8! The things that come back are straight from the pits of hell! I remember reading Christine all those years ago and being scared shitless! It was just two years ago that I read about the Buick and though I wasn't scared the idea was off putting. But! There is always a "but". Steven King is a master of the mind fuck and it is what he leaves you thinking that is more frightening than what he writes! About the time I was shaking it off and getting my thoughts back to the joy joy happy happy of the new car -- "BLAM! WHAM! CRACK! BAM! SLAM!" Sweet Jesus in Heaven! Something from the pits of hell just crashed through my kitchen door! The dog woke from her coma and came over cowering at my feet. What a great protector I have. She should have torn into the kitchen to see what was happening. But NO! She cowers! It must be from hell if she is cowering! With shaking breath and very small slow footsteps I eased toward the kitchen. I stopped short of the doorway trying to peer into the darkness. I couldn't see a damn thing! Do you know how dark it is in the country? I let my fingers slip along the door jam and to the other side to flip on the dining room light. That switch answered my call in nanoseconds and the room was flooded with bright light from the ceiling fan. When nothing else happened, I poked my head around and took one shakey step into the room. The back door was closed, locked, the glass was intact! WTF? I stepped farther into the room. My eyes scanned every inch of space in the kitchen, flew to the windows to see if one of them was shattered. All intact. I eased around the side of the refrigerator. The light cover swung to and fro as it hung from its hinge. Save me! ... from a falling four foot light cover hanging from the kitchen ceiling! "You are so going to blog this!" The little voice taunted me. "No I am not!" Why would I do that to myself? "Heh, oh yes you will, because I am not going to let you write anything else until you tell this story." The fucking little voiced laughed. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!?

Thursday night Gracie was in a first grade program at school. She had been so excited about performing because this would be her debute as an actress/singer! I mean this is the beginning of her career! She wants to act and sing and dance on stage and entertain America when she grows up. How perfect was it that her first performance would be in a production of "Sing Across America"! She steps up to the microphone, smiles at the crowd of adoring fans gathered in the school auditorium. "My name is Gracie. Do you know how to spell America? "A" is for America!" She steps back and other letters come forward with their name but there was no letter in America that was belted out into the mic like that first letter "A"! She sang loud and kept a smile pasted on her little face exactly like a broadway star of her calibur should, except when she got lost in one song and forgot the words and picked it up in the next refrain. Afterwards I assured her that we heard HER above all of those other voices on stage. I sat among the throngs of rude adults who were talking loudly and not giving the children or the teacher who had worked so hard any respect. I came to see my child perform! Shut the hell up, I wanted to scream. However my child understands speaking from the diaphram and projecting her voice so I heard her very well over the crowd of RUDE, DISRESPECTFUL people filling the small school auditorium. As I sat and watched my child I did what every self respecting parent would do. I smiled, I laughed, I took photos and I wiped a few tears from the corner of my eyes. My dear child, so sweet and innocent, just jerks at my heart strings. I cry every time. Happy tears born of pride and awe that MY child worked so hard to learn 12 songs. She understood that her performance was a grand "Thank You" to all those who gave of themselves for this great nation we call home. She understood that heroes come in all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life. She also understood that men and women give their life to protect our freedom. She is an American. And she knows with that wealth there comes a great responsibility. "My name is Angie. "A" is for America!"

Yes, we bought the car. I am naming her "Red". Susie has already called shotgun but I think she is going to have to sit on Hope's lap. The back seat is wide enough for at least 3 or 4 more. Who's up for a ride?

This hot little momma is a 1953 Buick Eight! I test drove her tonight. She has a 3 gear shift on the column with a big 8 ball on the end of the shaft. I slid behind the wheel. The seats comfortable and smooth. I rolled down the window and the man who has her for sale climbed into the passenger side. The last car I drove anywhere near this car was a '63 Opal Cadet. I drove to school up until my senior year. I inserted the key. Turned it from "lock" to "on". Pressed the starter button hidden under the dash. She roared to life and idled with that deep throaty growl akin to only Bonnie Rait. The man told me to reach under the dash and press the other button my fingers touched. As I did a specialty horn let out a long low wolf call of a whistle. Oh, hell, I love this car!! "Standard shift?", I asked with a loud laugh. "Yes, she is," the red haired man with dew rag and harley-like sunglasses smiled. I pushed in the clutch, put my foot on the break and tested the shift. Forward and up to reverse, forward and down to first, up and back to second, back and down to third. I put her back in reverse and depressed the gas pedal. The engine roared, the guys on the man's porch laughed. "Gonna stand there and laugh to see if I let her stall?" I called out the window. The red haired boy shook his head, laughed and answered, "No, ma'am." I revved the engine a little easing my foot off the clutch and she began to smoothly roll backward. The steering wheel is almost as big as a an old mack truck, a big 8 ball attached to make the turning easy. I didn't use it, I kept my hands on the wheel. Hand over hand I turned as I eased her back and my palm brushed the metal bar running across the wheel and horn blared. Oh, man! I was in love and had not even made it to the road. I turned the wheel, easing in the clutch and touching the brake, smoothly shifted her into first and got a wheel coming out of the man's gravel driveway. The engine roared as it whined out and I shifted into second. The stop sign came up quick and I stopped with the blinker flashing to the left. Back in first I pulled out onto the road. The man in the wide seat beside me was talking and I wasn't listening. I was listening to this baby sing as we shifted into second then to third and tooled down the road right past my house and out to the main highway. As I made the right turn onto the Virginia State Highway I hit the gas pedal and shifted when she screamed for the next gear. The wind blew into the windows and she reached 55 mph at a very easy pace. That stretch of highway hummed under her radial belted tires. Man, what a sound! All too soon the ride was over and I was making a right turn and then a left and back into the man's driveway. I did not want to get out. I wanted to go down to the interstate and let her open to see what she would really do but with the traffic backed up from the beltway from the scare of the fly-by of a cessna into the forbidden zone over Washington, D.C. reached on for miles. I would have been lucky to get her up to 30 mph out there. What he is asking for it is standard for a car the shape it is in. The real question is if I want to pay for it. I would love to have this ride. I would go anywhere in it that she would be willing to take me. We have to think about it. We have to talk about it. If it were up to me I would buy it and not think twice. But this world isn't all about me and I have to think of others. I wonder what we will do. At this point I honestly don't know. She sure feeds the ego when you are sitting behind the wheel.

My husband has quirks. Not too many but a few. He really isn't picky in general. I mean, he eats whatever I cook. No complaints. Only if I press him will he tell me if he likes something or would care to not ever have it again. That's a good thing! Being mild mannered as he is I would hate to spend the next 40 years cooking something he really can't stand. For the life of me I can't figure out why rice and stewed tomatoes are not up there on the list of things he REALLY likes. I grew up eating cooked white rice topped with a thick helping of stewed tomatoes with okra and onions. I love it. I have found he generally doesn't care for the things his mother doesn't like because he wasn't exposed to them at a young age. She hates coconut and marshmellow. He hates coconut and marshmellow. Gracie and J. love to torture him by eating peanutbutter and fluff sandwiches in his presence. I find it hilariously funny. He is not very picky about what he wears. I wash and iron his shirts. I fold his pants with a crease right out of the dryer. I steam his suits and brush them with a lint roller as needed. I lay out his clothes every night and that is what he wears to work the next morning. For years before I entered his life and brought the world of color with me he only wore blue or white shirts. That's it. The reason? It made it very easy to get dressed. A blue or white dress shirt goes with all his pants. No fuss. No muss. He doesn't even care if they are ironed. He will wear them anyway -over my dead body! Like I said he isn't too picky about his clothes but there is a catch: 1. No briefs. He is a boxers man. 2. He thinks light colored pants are not manly. So he only wears black, navy blue, dark brown, I slipped in a dark green and there is a very dark kahki. Blue jeans fall into their own catagory and any color of blue denim jeans is acceptable even if they are washed to almost white. Do you see the contradiction here? Almost white is VERY light. Colby has often pointed this out. At which point comes a dissertation on how jeans have rules of their own that defy the laws of wearing light colored pants. Some days I am not surprised he doesn't pull out a Power Point presentation and a laser pointer explaining the laws of physics as pertaining to light colored pants vs. old worn jeans of a very light color. They are not pants. They are jeans. Mmkay. 3. He only wears boots. The cowboy fashion. He has 5 or 6 pair. One red leather. One brown leather. One snakeskin. One black leather that is every day wear. One black lizard skin that is only worn with his suits. There is also one black leather pair that is for working in the yard and fields. In the past year he has added three (3) new pair of shoes to his wardrobe. Out of neccesity and to end my constant badgering, nagging and bitching -not to mention begging and pleading. These items are single purpose utility. He now has a pair of black gumboots solely for mucking around on the farm. It is the only way to have dry feet. He has a pair of steel toe boots because I insisted he have them when he bought his new chainsaw. I don't think it would be easy to walk as fast as he does without the aide of toes -much less stand up without teetering like a tree waiting to fall. He also has one pair of athletic shoes. They are white. I MADE him buy them against his will. We went to Six Flags last summer and he didn't have any shoes but boots and I didn't want to walk around with a guy in blue jean shorts and black cowboy boots. He has never worn them since. He may never wear them again. I think it almost killed him to spend $20 at K-mart for a pair of shoes he planned to only wear that one time. That is why we went to K-mart and not Foot Locker. It was worth the $20 to me not to be pointed at all day long and mocked as the lady with the husband wearing shorts and cowboy boots. Editorial Note: When I write specifically about my husband he has full editorial control on the clicking of the publish button. This being the case, he insists that he did have 1 pair of shoes he intended to wear. These shoes being 1 pair of Nikes he had been wearing since he was 15 years old. These shoes had spent much of their life in the basement and he wore them mainly when he policed the backyard cleaning up dog poop. I am certain I had thrown those shoes away the day before. They had not yet been collected by the garbage truck but were sitting in the black bag. He insists those shoes were not in the garbage. We disagree. So, out of duty as his wife I will now include to the list of shoes my husband owned: one pair of very old Nikes he had been wearing since he was 15 years old that stank of dog poop and 19 years of sweaty feet. 4. This is the big one. All socks should be gray. White or black socks are only acceptable if there is no way in hell gray socks can be obtained. Seriously. He has worn black socks. He has worn white socks. He does not like wearing them. Editorial Note #2: Him: "They did not stink." Me: "Yes, they did." Him: "No they did not." Me: "Oh, yes they did!" Him: "They were just starting to break in." Him: Walking to the kitchen and then on to the bedroom, "They did not stink." OHHHHH, yes they did! I asked his mother about the clothes thing. Now, I have to tell you his mother has given him MANY nice clothes and when we married they were found in the closet with tags still on them or in the gift bags. How many men do you know that have 2 full length London Fog Dress Coats? So, anyway, I asked her what was it with his clothes. She swears she has never heard of the light pants things. NEVER. Editorial Note #3: Him: "Because she NEVER asked!" I pointedly asked about the gray socks. How do you raise a son who thinks GRAY is the only sock color option? She said, seriously, I stopped buying white socks when they were little boys. Gray doesn't show dirt and stains as easily as white. So there it is. Once again his mother has conditioned him to this quirk! Which reminds me of a very funny story and the inspiration of this post which I remembered yesterday as I was purchasing 2 packages, 12 pairs, of gray socks. Steven rises early. He showers and gets dressed and zips out of the house in the dark hours of the morning. He likes to be behind his desk by 6:30am. It is the time of the day before anyone is in the office and he is able to get his coding done. He does his best coding before the sun breaks the eastern sky. My husband is very considerate, too. The master bath joining the master bedroom in the townhouse was in line with the bed. He would always make sure the door was pulled nearly shut with only a thin line of light to dress by so as not to wake me. I was mostly already awake. Still am. I refuse to let him leave the house without my saying bye and I love you. I am morbid that way and am always conscious that this might be the last time I get to say it. One early morning last winter as he dressed in the dim bit of light from the bathroom door left only slightly ajar after his shower so as not to make the room too bright and wake me, which I already was awake, I see Steven in the morning shadows trying to pull on socks, shirt and pants. His legs looked funny. I blink to clear my eyes. I squinted to see better. I couldn't make out what was so very wrong. Finally I asked him what he had on. He stops bent over, looks up at me and says, "I feel like goddamn Pipi Longstockings!" In the dark of the morning he had stumbled to the dresser and gotten out some knee-high thick winter socks his mother had given him as a gift, "boot socks". Have you ever seen those? They are so thick they look as if someone's old Grandma hand knitted them for your personal wearing pleasure. I told him his socks were in the clean laundry basket I just had not put them in the drawers. He was already dressed and did not want to change his socks. I mean he has to get to work! No time for changing socks! I still laugh like a fool when I picture him with those things on. His voice rings in my head like a bell. I guess the only thing worse than black or white socks is walking around all day at work knowing that you are the only one in the entire building who knows that you are wearing socks Pipi Longstockings would wear and hoping you don't get into an accident before you get home.

When we moved to this house it was cold, snowed alot and rained even more. There was no neighborhood welcoming committee. This little rural village is inhabited by mostly older folk. My daughter overheard at the post office the other day that the lady two houses down will be turning 98 this week. I am thinking maybe we will bake something and send it over. As the warm weather has been creeping in the neighbors have been creeping out. Those we have not seen we now see. We have even had the chance to meet a few. Across the road in another huge old farm house, white with red trim and tin red roof, is an aged couple. Peggy met us over the fence last week. They are not full time residents. They are in the process of selling their city house so they can live full time out here. She is 73 and thinks it is time she retired. She has noticed the hard work we have put into cleaning up the place. Although she did not actually gossip she made a point of making sure we knew how shabby the former owners of house kept things. Oh, yes, we know! We have been digging out and cleaning up every day that the weather permits. She turned up her nose as she spoke of the former goats and sheep and, at one time, miniature horses, the dogs and cats and who knows what else that lived in our pastures. I loved the look on her face when it fell as I said we would be getting a few chickens and a couple milk goats. She recovered quickly, smiled and made some comment about baby goats being cute. She ended the conversation abruptly and returned to bossing her husband around who was mulching her flower beds. I am sure we were a topic of conversation -us and our damned goats we would be getting. The little house on the opposite side of our property is owned by a younger single woman. We have not met her. We have met her father who comes over and cuts the grass and keeps the bushes trimmed neatly. I pointed out we had been clearing along the fence line because the fence had to be replaced. I didn't want any confrontation about us cutting 'their' trees so I asked politely if there was anything on that side of the fence we should be careful of in the carrying out of repairs to our fence. Tommy told me to cut it all down! lol He also complimented me on the way everything was looking. He then proceeded to peg my accent. "There's an old gal I see. She is fron Macon. You sound just like her." Hahahaha! This just makes me laugh so hard. Yes, I am from Georgia and I hope to keep my accent! The whole neighborhood has noticed the woman who works most of the day outside cutting and trimming and cleaning. I can only imagine what those coversations must be like. I am sure they think we should have left the overgrowth of trees and bushes or at least ripped down the rotted discolored boards of the fence. Well, we can't do everything at once. It goes in stages. A little further down the road is a little house with property that runs adjacent to the back field and butts up to our property that runs a good distance down behind several smaller houses. We met these neighbors back in late February when we had one day of descent weather and decided to ride our fence line to take account of the work we needed to prepare for. As we approached the farthest fence, we saw a man on a bobcat clearing fallen trees and brush and junk that someone had stacked up in the tree line. A woman was out there with him doing only what can be described as 'supervising'. Let's call the neighbors over there Willie and Ray. Willie had a can of beer in her hand. I couldn't make out the brand but it looked like maybe it was a Schlitz. She was shouting at the dog running around her feet. As we neared the fence she came over and waved in a friendly way so we stopped the tractor and said hello. Introductions were made and soon her husband crawled off his machine and came over too. We had to continually repeat ourselves as Ray couldn't quite hear us. I am not sure if he had a hearing problem or if he too had been having a beer or twelve that affected his hearing or wether the natural shouting voice of his wife made our normal voices sound like whispers. We stood maybe five feet apart and found ourselves shouting to be heard. We were asked about the old grape vines. Yes, we are letting them grow. We won't cut them down. Yes, the old cemetery is ours. Yes, we intend to have a new fence put up. No, you may not go over with a metal detector and dig up anything you find! She was telling me she wanted to dig up whomever was in our graveyard! I politely said that anyone found digging in our graveyard would find themselves faced with a shot gun or the sherriff and maybe both. She seemed to take this in stride but her next breath was telling me how she wanted to dig in our cemetery. So next their dog is yapping and chasing another dog. Willie turns around and shouts, "Shut up, asshole." Take your own advice, Willie, flashes across my mind but did not make it to my tongue. The next thing out of her mouth caused Steven and I to laugh uncontrollably when we departed their company. She turns to us and says, "Yes, I drink beer. He does, too," indicating her husband, "and our dog is gay. He likes the dog down the street." I looked at Steven, he looked at me, we both looked at our neighbors who never missed a beat and told us about the man who owned the dog their dog is enamored with. "He has a shotgun and sometimes he comes out and shoots at stray cats." Then she says, "The neighborhood knows everything about you. We even know what you paid for your house." Ha, I think not. The sell price and what the realtor put in his ad in the local paper are two hugely different things. "We saw you move in. We even talked about you. Everyone knows everything." Well, now isn't that nice? We live in one of the oldest and largest houses, on the highest point in the village, and everyone is watching us and knows 'everything' about us. I am thinking we should go up to the attic at night, turn on the lights and do weird things up there. Now that would give them something to talk about!

I was mowing the orchard this morning. The sun was warm, the air cool, birds flying about, chirping and singing. The constant hum of the engine and the steady drone of the PTO turning the mower blades is, in a fashion, lulling. I do some of my very best thinking while driving in endless circles around our little farm. One thought led to another and another. I was thinking about yesterday. About Mother's Day. About my momma. About my Grandma. Grandma passed away a few months before we bought this house and farm. I miss her. I kept thinking how I would have liked showing her my house and gardens and flowers. She would have loved it. And when she left she would have gone home to South Carolina with little cups of dirt filled with snips of this and that and the other. Little clippings and sprouts and seeds she would have put into the dirt and watched grow. I know her's would grow better than mine even though she would do nothing different than I have. She had a green thumb, could grow anything. She would take her finger and poke a hole in the soil, plop something in and it would grow. It didn't matter much what it was. It would grown. Seeds from an orange she bought at the grocery store. A pinch of something she felched from the airport. A little rooting she had put in water until she could see long dangling white hairs. Everything grew as if SHE was the sun and the water and the earth. My Grandmother taught herself everything she knew. She gave me the foundation for most of the things I have taught myself. How to sew, cook, garden, etc. She is also the reason I do many of things I do. If that makes sense. Bleach, no matter the brand name is refer to as 'clo-white'. Doing laundry is 'washing clothes' even when it isn't clothes, it could be sheets or curtains or rugs, and putting them on 'the line', the clothesline. I suppose if you ask my momma and her sisters they very much do the same things. However, my momma is the only one of her sisters who can cook like Grandma. My Aunt Sue inherited my grandmother's penchant for gaudy jewelry. My Aunt Sherry got her looks, although she is much taller than her mother. My Aunt Rachel got her sense of adventure. I think we all got our sense of propriety from Grandma. You won't find any of Mary's children looking any less than, as Preacher Bill would say, 'spit-shined'. When you leave the house you look put together. Hair 'fixed', neat clothes, good shoes. You look presentable. All of us have raised our children the same way. No miniskirts and belly-shirts around these parts! No child related to her would dare look like they came from the Gypsy Camp! I was thinking about how my Grandma's house looks, big and white sitting on a city block behind the elementary school. Hanging baskets on the front porch, rows of potted plants every where. Yards trimmed neat, sidewalk edged, leaves raked, everything tidy and in it's place, that is the way Grandma did it. She and I used to talk about having a big old house in the country, although she had a big old house in the city. We talked about flowers and bushes and the artichokes her momma grew. Me and Grandma talked about anything and everything, within propriety that is. I would call and ask how to cook something and she would tell me, never using measurements! Cooking was done by instinct. At first I was sad. My grandma won't ever see my white old house in the country. She won't see all my flowers or the hanging baskets on my front porch. She won't see how my Colby and Gracie look all 'spit shined' when we leave the house. She won't see how J. is adapting rather well to propriety standards and has begun to learn to sew. She won't see my husband dutifully help me trim bushes without stepping on the vinca. She won't promise to come to Washington D.C. and give him a 'what for' if he doesn't treat me well. Which he does, Grandma! He does! I was mowing the orchard this morning. The sun was warm, the air cool, birds flying about, chirping and singing. And I began to cry. While I was crying and missing my Grandma, the wind rose and blew all around me. The tears of sadness fell away and became tears of joy. My Grandma may never see everything I want to show her but then she doesn't have to. She is here. She is here. With me. She is in the baskets hanging on my front porch. She is in the flowers blooming around my yard. She is in the neat and tidy way I keep the front entrance. She is in the artichoke seeds we will plant. She is in the 'clo-white' when I 'wash clothes' and 'put them on the line'. She is in the spit-shined and polished look of my children when they leave the house. She is in every pot and pan that bubbles on the stove. She is here. I won't ever let her leave. When my children grow up and have homes of their own, I know she will go with them, too.

I had a lovely day today. We did nothing special or out of the ordinary. We did not eat in a restaurant nor did we have take-out. Steven woke me at nearly 7:30. The meds for the mouth thing really made me sleep! I woke, groggy, jaw stiff and stumbled to the bathroom. Brushed my teeth and tried to pry my eyes open. The kids had been up for hours waiting for me to wake. They were eager and smiling. Gracie was just anxious as ever to present her special gifts for her momma. Gracie presented me with a lovely little plant cup wrapped in pink tissue paper and tied with a green ribbon.

The tag reads: This isn't just an empty pot. There's something you should know. Inside the pot there is a seed That just like me will grow. The plant that grows will someday bloom And remind you of the seed so small. But without your love and tender care, Thw seed wouldn't grow at all. Thanks for helping me grow! Happy Mother's Day!

She also had made me a card professing her love. She had also put together a little book complete with drawing and misspelled words. My youngest child thinks I am a rock star. She thinks I am cool. Her favorite thing is when I hold her close and hug her when she is sad. Oh, yes, it was a Hallmark moment! J. was eager to present me with a card she had picked out herself and used her own money to buy. It was a funny card, addressing me as "Mom". It is the first time she has allowed herself to actually call me "Mom". Which says more than you will ever know because she lives primarily with her mother, but today I AM "Mom". Colby also made me a beautiful card. To her mother "who always gives more than she gets." My dear oldest daughter remembers those years when I never got anything from her father. From my husband I got THE letter. His letters very tiny all in a line like soldiers, but very unkempt soldiers. No one but me will ever be able to decifer his script. It tells me I am appreciated even though sometimes I might think I am not. It also tells me I am loved. One line reads:

"I love you with my whole heart. I only want to be with you, here, in our house, on our farm."

My gift on this Mother's Day is an antique sewing machine, a White Rotary, ca. 1913. It is a lovely piece of old world craftsmanship. From it's condition it was well used but also well tended. It works as if it were new. I said "Thank you" and can only hope I did so graciously. I do wonder though if my reaction was not what was expected for all day long I was asked by my dear husband if today was a proper and good Mother's Day. To which I answered it was. After the morning gifts, J. had to be taken home to have Mother's Day with her mother. In the late morning we sat at the table, ate leftover pizza and planned what would fill our hours the rest of the day. I was asked my plans and then asked what I wanted him to do. I answered, "Help me, of course." Trusty chainsaw in tow, my husband finished a chore we started and never really got back too. We took down about 2 foot of the height off the boxwoods in front of the house. They are all neatly one height now and you can actually see the porch. We moved down toward the road front along the white fence and cut and chopped all of the overgrown trees that belong to the neighbors but have crossed over and grown through our fence. The trees and brush have been allowed to grow for so long they literally have torn down the fence in several places as the previous owners seemed to have NEVER taken care of that area of the front yard. This evening as the night fell over us, the front grass is mowed. The trees and trash and scrub brush and nasty bushes with animal nests are all gone. All that is left on our side is the sight of our uncovered delapidated-in-places whi