New Texas Toy

 

We have been Up home for about 3 weeks now,  getting caught up on medical appointments and paying taxes.  Also catching up with family a bit.  So we are ready to head back to Texas next week and don't know for sure how long we will stay this time.  The end of April is my deadline, then I want to be back Up home for our spring and summer.  May rent the house in Tx. if we find someone we trust,  if not will just close it up till late fall.  Each trip we just  take things a week at a time.  We had been looking at an Amtrak trip while down there but now think a few short trips locally in So Texas will suit us better.  A lake and cabin for a few days or go down toward Port Aransis to gulf waters and a big bird sanctuary.  Pack a bag and stay a couple days.  So anyway we will be on our way again.  So many loose ends to think of.  

Cant believe its December.  Saw a cute joke on FB.  Little dog gets real excited when his owner carried a Christmas tree into the house.  He says "At last, indoor plumbing"

Close only counts in horseshoes!!!

 Did you ever think that you might have a rich uncle (cousin) that could leave you a whole wagon load of money? 

Well over a year ago I got a letter from a company named Heir Search.  It listed a lot of people I know and said that I had a distant relative in Illinois who died without a valid will and that we were all heirs, 39 of us.  Turns out he was a pretty well off farmer and after his estate was settled there was over 5,000,000 to be distributed.  Boy we all got our calculators out and figured if the state and lawyers took half that's still a lot of money to divide.  Seems that dear old Ed had his parents as his beneficiaries  and they had died. He never updated his will.  Probably to busy running his farm. He never married, had no children.  So we all thought WOW  we are going to get a nice inheritance.  WRONG.  Came down to the wire there were 2 women related to him thru his grandmother, since he had no siblings either and no living relatives from his parents.  All the rest of us are descendants of his great grandfather. For myself, that would be my grandmothers brother.  Well Illinois law says that if there are relatives of that grandparents then the others won't count.  Well crapola.  It was fun while it lasted.  A nephew of mine was like " What a waste of time"  I thought oh yes, you are laying around not working and whining about wasting your time.  Shoot I think its rather exciting to think I had a rich relative.  I learned how to file a petition via e-file, and how to sit in on Zoom Hearings with the judge.  We were encouraged to do that so we could have our voices heard.  One good thing that came out of it was to find "cousins"  who are grandchildren of an aunt that I barely knew and they knew nothing about myself or my siblings.  I hope we try to keep in touch.  Would be fun to have an {Almost rich} reunion.  

Thought for today:  He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh about. 

This old gal is headed to the Texas beach.  Plan to spend lots of time there from now till end of next June and just come back up home every few weeks for a bit.  We call our place down there as "down home"  and up here as " up home" 

Old Bloggers

 Spending a lazy Sunday afternoon, so decided to peek thru some of the old bloggers that I used to follow.  It seems like everyone dropped blogging around 2016.  I guess thats when social media became the "thing"  Many of these folks like myself had blogged for 10 plus years.  I chuckle at one that I followed many years ago, a ranchers wife from Oklahoma.  Does the name Pioneer Woman ring a bell?  She had a little cooking blog back then and now she is a mega star with her own show and a full line of cookware sold in every Walmart, (BTW most made in China)  

But I wonder what became of the other folks.  One other site was called Half Naked Thursday.  Folks would post a tiny bit of skin, like a body piercing or bare belly,  just enough to be feeling risque.  LOL  Seems very mild compared to today.  

I also read back on some of my relatives that had blogs and stopped them.  One sister has passed away now but her blog will live on forever.  Hey I guess mine will to, but not sure anyone reads it.  

I have made a commitment to keep mine going.  A lot has gone on since I sort of quit myself a number of years ago.  I have made attempts to start up but then a year or more would go by.  I have my big brother coming to visit from NC next week, then we are packing up and headed to our vacation home in Texas.  That will have to be stuff for another day.  

Thought for the day :: If a turtle doesn't have a shell is he homeless or naked??

I painted this on the corner of a sign for my weaving studio.  

I AM

 

I copied this from this blog that I did back in 2006 and it sort of felt like something I wanted to share again. 

Have you ever thought about what it is that makes us who we are? I mean really what is IT? You see people born into the same family that turn out so different. Why?
Is it Nature or Nurture? Is it the genes, DNA, that we inherit or the influence of how you are raised, combined with exposure to outside factors that mold us? I guess I tend to think it is a mix of both, but then I like to throw in the free choice that we have going for us. And what about predestination, I still believe that we chose the paths that we follow. I think that explains why some of us have such hard lives and some have easy times. There is Karma thrown in there. So this is a long explanation for why I am going to post this thing that I wrote over a year ago and had posted on my old blog site. I liked it then and still like it. I would love to see other think of what it is that makes them who they are and write something similar. Thanks for listening....

I am me.

I am the little girl collecting McCall paper dolls.

I am the tears cried as mom read Lassie and Big Red to us by kerosene lamp.

I am the kid who caught grasshoppers to feed to the chickens.

I am a country girl first and always.

I am the 16 year old who ran crying in the rain when my first love moved away.

I am the 12 year old who got an ear jerked as punishment by a father who never once spanked me.

I am an old farm house made of brick with huge pine trees in the yard and a big apricot tree.

I am the girl who's best friend was a little brother.

I am home canned green beans.

I am the teenager who locked herself in the bathroom so Mom couldn't hit me with the yard stick.

I am the smell and taste of moms raised doughnuts rolled in sugar.

I am the high school drop out.

I am the 17 year old being married far to soon.

I am the nursing student who worked every weekend for gas money to get to class.

I am the nursing grad who was 2nd in her class at age 27.

I am the first baby I delivered with my own hands.

I am bleach blond hair.

I am the mother of 2 babies of my own.

I am the child who played in the pond and haymow for fun.

I am the smell of cows breath, while sitting in the hay bunk while they ate.

I am the woman who's heart has been broken, to be mended again and again.

I am music that makes me feel melancholy.

I am books that make me think of all the possibilities.

I am the keeper of the secrets.

I am a grandmother.

I am the seeker of spiritual truth.

I am a blogger.

Blue Skys

 Do you ever wake up in the morning and for just a few minutes you have ideas so clear in your mind about something, like what I might want to chat about here.  Then later when you sit down to type it just vanishes.  So I guess that makes something to type about.  I just finished a super good book called Water, Stone, Heart.  I would like to remember a few pages but know I probably wont.  But the feeling I got was the importance of community.  We have learned to live our lives so separate from others, especially I think in the big cities.  The main character in the book is a guy who went to school to study architecture and then went on to be a professor who never built anything.  He just taught about it.  When his wife walks out on him he takes a class in England to learn how to build stone hedges.  The author did a great job with his research and I am sure has his factual stuff down.  But in working in this little village on the Cornwall coast he regains his true passion of wanting to create real live communities like only Europeans seem to be able to do.  Of course he finds his soul mate and makes friends.  I loved the ending that of course always leaves the reader wanting to know more.  So for today I guess this is what I want to write about.  We get out and walk about 10 blocks around our quiet little suburban neighborhood every morning.  It really feels dead, as we rarely see anyone outside, other than maybe a couple other older folks trying to get their exercise in too before it gets to hot.  We live in a nice little burb a couple miles out of town with prob about 45 homes.  Kids come home from school and go inside and mostly don't come out unless its to load up and go somewhere else.  I feel good that we don't have loud neighbors and very few barking dogs but again it just feels sort of dead.  Am I getting to picky in my old age?  I want to see (really see) how I feel on my next trip down to our vacation house.  Want to see if it feels anymore like a community or just the same as here as that's the way we Americans know how to live now.  No more front porch sitting, we sit on our back porch that is covered and look at our fence which provides us privacy from neighbors,  we all do that.  Is it a fence for privacy or a fence to keep the world out?  Or maybe our way of living is a choice we make and we feel isolated because we isolate ourselves.  Hmm  

Thought for the day:  A stranger is a friend you haven't met.

There is only Now

There is only Now

 Well about every 2 years I decide I will get back to blogging again.  Well this time I think I really mean it.  I like to journal and I have not done much of that lately.  I have done some ancestry investigation and that is fun but can be very time consuming.  A lot has changed in my life as it has in everyone's the past couple years.  Number 1 being the pandemic Covid.  Wow!  So much sickness and death, also so much misinformation and mistrust of the health system and government. So much of the country was shut down for months, that we are still feeling the effects.  Vaccine is available but many won't take it.  For us personally I have always hated putting any drug or inoculation in my body.  I had to take the regular flu shot for years as it was mandatory in the medical settings where I worked.  Once I retired I stopped till the last couple years.   I am 74 now and hubby is 89  and we agreed that we could not wait out this thing. We did take the vaccine when it was available to us.  We have tried to be careful, doing the distancing thing, and hand washing.  We only go into stores early in mornings when less crowded.  But we have not stopped living.  We actually travel more now than before.  In Dec last year 2020 we rented a vacation house on the gulf of Texas for 3 weeks, and fell in love with it.  So we went back in Dec to look at houses and made an offer on one. It is in a small shrimping town of less than 5,000 population.  We took possession in March and went down to spend over 2 months.  It is so freeing to be there and no commitments to anyone but just us. Hubby would like to move but we agree that at his age it just doesn't seem practical to give up our home and do this permanent.  It is a bit less than 700 miles down there so we decided we would just play each trip down by ear and stay a few weeks then come back "Up Home" for 2 or 3 weeks then go back "Down Home".  We will see how long it lasts. With me being the one to do all the driving and most of the decision making is new to me so we are just living one day at a time.

I read somewhere that Yesterday is a memory, Tomorrow is a dream, There is only Now!  That is pretty deep if you really think about it.  When I see a really pretty sunset or experience something new I like to say in my head "there is only now"