Rain, rain go away!

I have two things to do this week in this rain:  put up Xmas decorations and get rid of this sinus infection!  They could work together if I tried to do the yard decs and got zapped by the electric current!  But that is a drastic measure!

So I will suffer in silence inside and find something to do and wipe my nose endlessly!  Bah humbug!

Remembering two years ago

I have a stupid sinus infection like everyone else who lives here with endless rain!  Noah and his ark are coming for us soon!  So I am staying in this house and inventing things to do!  I may resort to watching Xmas movies!  You don't have to figure out the plot!  There isn't one! 

Then I got a Fb flash of joy!  Here we were two years ago at Mark Stacy's house!

Graduation thoughts!

It just hit me yesterday!  In May Sindupa, Raphael and Nelson will all be graduating! All three of these guys are a part of my weekly life! They are from Sri Lanka, France, and Kenya!  Their common denominator is Semo!

Yesterday we did our usual for Sindupas birthday and we went to Andys in the rain for ice cream!  I can hardly think of my life without my Three Musketeers!  They help me up the stairs when my back goes out, move my furniture back after water damage and allow me the privilege of talking to them like a grandmother!  Because I am that to them!

Hearing the voices

I'm not hearing voices in my head; it's just that I like to hear voices of the people I love I'm holidays. So I spent the time I was whole calling my three sisters and started calling my three children. I never miss calling my three sisters.

I call Rosemarie first so that I can tell the other two sisters how she is doing and she knocks me out with telling me stuff I know nothing about like a Music arrangement she's doing. Julia tells me about the food that she ate that day. Betty laughs and laughs and I love to hear the sound. It is music to my ears. It is Thanksgiving at our old house again.

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Eating at the Hickams today!

Going to Bev Hickams house today to eat with her mother, Nancy and Danny!  I will have a Happy Thanksgiving and hope you will too!

It takes grits to make grits!

I sent my son, Jim, the video of my making grits on television and he responded, "wish I was home eating them!"  So did I!  He was a picky eater and did not like half the things I put on the table including vegetables and desserts!  But he loved garlic cheese grits!  

So I died laughing last night showing his culinary efforts!  Yes, home is where the grits dish started!  Eat up and remember, Jim!

Bryan Stacy has a birthday!

Bryan Stacy has a birthday today and I am a proud grandmother!  He walks to the tune of his own drummer and in his own cadence! And that's the way he has to be!  To thine own self, be true!

To me, he is like my mother!  Art filled the empty space in her life and gave meaning and depth and conscience!  It does the same for my beloved Bryan!  And he makes me laugh jut thinking of him!

Mentally getting ready for Thanksgiving!

I have so many reasons to be thankful:  my children and grandchildren, my three sisters, my friends, my health, on and on I could go!  But thankfulness does not automatically happen!  I'm in charge of it happening!  And I grew up hearing, "You've got the same clothes on to be glad in, that you have to be sad in!"  No one has to change their outfit to "get Glad"; but they may need an adjustment in their attitude!  Myself included!

So this is the season I get glad!  I think glad by getting my mind off what should have been and thinking what I can do to help somebody else!  So life didn't turn out like you wanted!  Things happen! We don't get do-overs but we do get start-overs!  Thank God!

Moving with Manasa

Last week Dr Wanda Pipkin, a local veterinarian, and I had lunch and I made a call with her to international students who need stuff!  Manasa, from Nepal, told me she needed plates!  So I gave her my dishes I had in my cabinet!  Two days later I found more of the pattern in my dishwasher and yesterday Matt Porter and I took them by along with a Christmas tree!   She was thrilled with a red colorful pop up tree!  

Snowing in Madison

Jim sent pics today of the snow in Madison!  It's raining in Cape so I slept until nine and I am still in my pajamas drinking coffee!  We beat Umkc last night in women's basketball!  We have a new basketball coach, first woman coach, and she played for Baylor!  She is now family to me and I take a cheering squad and sit behind her bench!

Living in the past...and bringing it up to present!

Yesterday I went out to eat at El Sol with my old colleagues:  Barb Kinsey and Marcia Hendrix from Semo Athletics to celebrate Barbs birthday and we talked about all the old coaches and how someone would get fired and a new coach would take the team to the championship!    I kept thinking about that as the afternoon went on!

We all build on the work of others!   But it is nice when the new person acknowledges that debt!

Russian Tea room talk

My friends, Dr Wanda Pipkin and Lynette Williamson, went out to lunch yesterday at Milk and Honey, a Russian specialty restaurant!  Svetlova owns it and the cabbage rolls and bread are wonderful!  Wanda goes to Cape Bible Chapel and Lynn goes to centenary Methodist but our common bond is international students!  Wanda is teaching seven of them to drive.  

No one would believe our conversation!  It was about dealing with bedbugs and Wanda had zero mixed information!  It is relevant!  Did you know heat from a hair dryer will draw them out!  Bedbugs may not be usual lunch conversation but it will help more people than you think!

Julia Childs is whipped to a whisk!

The television filming of my cooking debut is over!  Carly Okeefe is gone and so is the Kfvs tv truck in front of my house!  I am home alone and I am singing the old hymn, "Blessed Quietness"!   Yes, I made Garlic Cheese Grits on camera!   I can cook!  I raised three children and helped raise their friends!  Program is on Friday at noon! I am a better cook than Tom Harte!  I took a survey!

Rain is pouring down but I have to be Julia child's!

Kfvs tv is coming this morning at 8:30 to film me making garlic cheese grits and do an interview!  I haven't made them in years, I look like an unmade bed, I am cleaning the house before Gloria gets here and I got up before six to make it look normal!  Now I need to memorize the recipe before the people get here to film!  I wish the show didn't have to go on today!

Thanksgiving dinner for International students!

Last night we hosted a dinner for international students at Dearmont cafeteria and they ate well --all 175 plus of them!  Georganne and Bill Syler took on the massive task and it was wonderful!  Ran out of everything but green bean casserole and pumpkin pie!  President and Mrs Vargas came also! What a wonderful night!  I have had Thanksgiving!

Agony remembered!

Harriett Small sent me a pic of an old time dentist office and I responded pronto, "It is Dr Cornwall's office, a place of torture and pain!"  And it began years of my avoiding dentist's office and a gag reflex which continues to this day until the nitrous hits!

No wonder!  There are yellow demons in this picture!

Praying for Paris

Can't turn the television off!  Finally heard from Raphael Pellenard, my scholarship recipient from France, and his family is fine!  This is mind-boggling and I can't wrap my mind around it! 

Athletic Hall of Fame at Semo

No one would believe that I am inducted into the Semo Hall of Fame but if the Creeks don't rise, I will be!  Read it for yourself in today's southeast Missourian!

A celebration of birthdays!

I work at Baptist Student Center every Wednesday and we have built camaraderie!  It was Matts birthday and we go to eat and celebrate! He picked Katie O Farrell's and we love it! I got him a horrible card and he was embarrassed to death! But we laughed and enjoyed the stupidness which comes from togetherness!  Families forge, often, before you know it and way before you even think to acknowledge it! But we are a family that has happened!  

A celebration of birthdays!

I work at Baptist Student Center every Wednesday and we have built camaraderie!  It was Matts birthday and we go to eat and celebrate! He picked Katie O Farrell's and we love it! I got him a horrible card and he was embarrassed to death! But we laughed and enjoyed the stupidness which comes from togetherness!  Families forge, often, before you know it and way before you even think to acknowledge it! But we are a family that has happened!  

Veterans Day celebrated

Yea for all our veterans today!   

Go to hairdresser and Doctor! One of them will make you look better!

Debbie Bickings came to get me yesterday to go to shop!  She has done my hair for over thirty years and she knows every strand of my hair. So I sat down and back as she weaved her magic and removed facial hair! 

Then  I went to Dr Kasten who never seems to remember that I watched him grow up!  I think he has to check the plan paper before he knows who I am!  He asks me if I want all these tests!  I say no!

He gives me a pneumonia shot!  I read the report that says I weigh 184!  Wow what a splendid piece of news!  At least my hair looks good on my fat body!

Don McNeely death

I received a sad call from Donna Sue McNeely yesterday saying that her dad had died!  Don was the heart and front man of Kfvs and became a wonderful personal friend!  I remember my son Jim being friends with his daughter, Laura Beth, in Campus School!

But what immediately came to my mind was in a world of "Get the story; to hell with the victims that are left behind!" Don McNeely did not fall for that line!  Courtesy and accuracy walked together with him!  I am proud to call him friend!  Rip!

In Charleston yesterday for the Hearnes program:

Carol Robinson took me down to Charleston yesterday for the Hearnes program.  I was happy to see the work on the video and thank David Dickey and the Kellermans and Frank Nickell for their work and interest!  You can't go home again but you can remember!

Yesterday I had a dose of family!

My niece, Annie, and I have "check-up " times!  It is a time when we focus on each other and catch up!  Yesterday was one of those nights--out to eat at Bella with Holly, my great-niece, and then run by the Gary Lucy art show!  And voila!  The President of the University was there and I had spent the entire night urging Holly to consider Semo when she graduates from high school this yeatr!  

I took it as providential!

And the world keeps turning..

I try to keep up with everything but then I get up to a whole new day and wonder why I booked everything!  Today is one of those days:  Britts mother died last night, Carole Jane is sick, Annie has started a new job, I need to pick up stuff for Betty's reception from SAMs, Cindy Gannon came by about the video they are doing about me for a banquet and I am meeting with Mitchell Dill this morning at Bsc, lunch with Don and Sue Kaverman, Coke at three with Lana Richmond and dinner with Annie and Holly tonight!

At least I'm not bored!

Filming Demarcus

I grew up in a world where my father reached out to everyone!  True, hewas a preacher and it was expected. However, I've known a lot of preachers who never reached out to anyone.  But my dad saw potential in rocks.

Maybe I have a touch of it also. Demarcus Patterson is trying to find a job and he is a master chef. Yesterday he came by with Angelia to tell me about the television filming by KF vs of his making French onion soup. Hopefully somebody hopefully will find  and will give him a job.I have become my daddy.

 

Catch up day!

I am going to play catch up today and Karel is going to help me!  My office upstairs is a shambles and I need to get ready for taxes and make it into a place that is organized and comfy!  Yesterday I did the same thing at Bsc and when I got home Gene had come and cleaned the yard of leaves!  I don't do well with clutter!  Neither does my brain!

So let the trash cans be filled today and let be tired but happy at the end of the day!

You can go home again!

I went to Dexter for the visitation for Mike Parker's mother yesterday and ran into Trudy Land Garrett who lived in Albert Hall with me when I was in college and we were both Hesperians and in bsu!   She recognized me!  I remembered all kinds of connections along the way and experiences!   So fun to stop and think about the snitches of the past!

A whale of a weekend!

Sunday Carol Robinson and I went to the Salvation Army empty Bowls lunch and enjoyed it I was her guest. Then we went to the ball game to see the lady Redhawks play. Ended up at the big festival of the Muertos and had a huge crowd at the Latin festival at the Baptist student center.  president Vargas came to all three events. I was tired when I got home.

The telephone connection

Although we have all kinds of communication these days, I want to hear my children's voices these days!  Yesterday I talked to Tina and today I talked to Jim and Laurie!  I don't like to call them because I want them to decide the time to talk! 

Tina is a wonderful conversationalist and calls me on her way home from work!  She is fair and it permeates her conversation and morality!  Jim always lets me know he cares about me and he would not allow anyone to cause me grief!  Laurie has had a sad week because they had to have their cat put down and she loves her animals!  Phones give you a sense of looking into their soul firsthand.  It is good to be there!