African Cats

No one wants to watch "The African Lion" with me. I asked Chris to and he said "no way". I asked him who would and he said "no one". :) Which I did myself in on Big Cat week on NATGeo last week. There was one scene that will take some time to recover from. Chris told me to turn it at the end of an episode last week. He said it was going to get sad and he didn't want to watch that. I said no it's not. He said told you so.

A Year in the Life of Hair

My niece Amber shaving my hair.

Hair.  It's a funny thing.  My whole life I've complained about my hair.  Too oily, widow's peak, cowlick at my widow's peak that gets out of control.  In the 80's I couldn't keep it frizzy enough.  In the past 10 years I couldn't keep it straight enough.  Then, well, no hair.  And still I complained.  Mangy dog?  Why couldn't my hair just fall out.  All of it?  No, lol, my hair fell out in patches and I had to keep it shaved throughout chemo. (Which is the norm more than not.)

Chris shaved my long hair 19 days to the first treatment, in our back yard with our horse clippers.  My sister Lynette helped me shave one time and Amber another. The photos show my niece Amber shaving my hair, the last time I needed to before letting it grow at an even pace.  Now?  Well now I still complain about my hair.  Now?  The curls.  I cannot contain or control the curls.  Hair or no hair.  Maybe it's just in my nature to hate it.  

My niece Amber doing me a huge favor.

I've been so lucky in the blessings of my friends and family during my hair loss.  Being bald is a emotionally hard trial.  Everywhere you go there are stares.  Wig or scarf.  At home there is also the fear of being stared at with visitors.  Being afraid of going without covering even though you are in your own home.  


Those around me made being bald easy.  I never thought about it when I was around them.  I felt like I'd always been bald.  When the subject came up it was in fun.  Not in fun that people made light of it or tried to distract me.  Just fun as in it's no big deal fun.  I usually asked those around me if it bothered them for me to take off my scarf while they were visiting or we were driving somewhere.  I knew they would say no they didn't mind.  I just hated the thought of making those around me uncomfortable.  They never were.  And I never was.  It's almost surreal to look back upon those times.  How lucky I was.

GREAT friends Kelley and 
Brittany whether it's sitting on 
the couch watching UFC

or playing with my wigs.

Chris and Rusty having 
a  good time with my wigs.

My niece Amber

My niece Jessie brought me food to chemo.  

Ohhhh the hunger was excruciating!!!

My nephew Tanner

My nephew Jamey

Thanksgiving 2010

   Kelley always willing to share
 lends me a hand with my hair.

My sister Lynette

Cathy, me & Brittany
New Year's Eve 2010

Kelley, Elisha, Me & Brittany
GREAT Friends!

My nieces

                                                                                                                    

The amazing thing in the year of the life of hair was the growth. To the right is the 2010 Christmas photo showing my hair which had just started to grow since Thanksgiving 2010.  

To the left is this year's, 2011, Christmas photo.  I'm very lucky that my hair has always been fast growing.  Thank you God for my hair.  And not letting me down in bringing it back even though I'm still never happy with it.

( I wonder if my niece Jessie will notice that I had "borrowed" her furry vest in the 2010 photo.  She is wearing the vest in the 2011. Ha!)

Winter Classic

Wishing I could go to the Winter Classic.

 Especially after watching HBO documentary

 "24/7 Flyers vs. Rangers Road to the NHL

 Winter Classic". Liev Schreiber makes

HBO sports documentaries like this one even

 better. Wow, what a narrator voice he has.

No one writes in cursive anymore but everyone blogs

I recently found out that teachers are not required to teach children how to write in cursive.  This discovery has been quite disturbing to me.

What is the purpose of no longer writing in cursive?  Is the thought of decision makers that we are entering the iPad era and such things are no longer important? (Batteries go dead ya'll.) The time is coming where everything we use to communicate with others will be on the computer-is this the reasoning?

Hand writing is an important skill everyone needs to have.  Handwritten notes and cards are so much more caring and thoughtful when reaching out to others.  Everyone will always need to know how to write, debit card or not.

Once having learned handwriting it's with a sense of pride.  Signing your name, in a readable way, on documents or letters is a powerful thing.  A signature, handwriting personalizing a issue and puts your face onto that issue in a deep bonded way with your handwritten signature that not a type out Word document can accomplish.

Yes, no one has to write in cursive anymore but everybody blogs..

Dummy Doe part 2

I was on the front porch this evening about 6.  Just as the sun was really setting.  I happened to glance over to the soy bean field and who did I see in the dusk?  My doe and her yearling.  I started to talk to her to test and see what the deer would do, to see if it was my doe.  She just raised her head and listened for a minute then back to grazing she went.  So it had to be her I thought to myself.

I walked to the edge of the porch and yelled toward the barn for Chris to come to the house, that my doe was home.  He came over and said he wasn't so sure that's it's her.  Maybe he said.  He has seen three doe together with two babies this past week.  Our doe is never with others so this might be her. We were watching her and the yearling as we talked.  They just kept looking back and grazing.  I saw something move at the tree line and at the tree line I spotted something else.  A six point buck!

Trevor

I love Trevor's You Tube videos from the Apple Store.

The Hunger Games

Can't wait for the movie!  I almost wish I'd never read the book because movies never seem to be as good as the books.  Hopefully this one will be.

Stick Your Tongue Out

Bridget tried to help a momma with two little kids running around in the lobby of the courthouse today.

his is what the one she told no, no, no did to her as he tried to pull a plant over.

Bridget told him "now that's not very nice." 

Dummy Deer

I like where we live.  No houses can be seen from our place.  Not that we don't have neighbors close by, scattered among the farm fields and woods in our community.

Being an animal lover it's great to live on the farm.  I've finally gotten hummingbirds and rabbits coming near the house after years of trying.  We have lots of quail and wild turkeys, hawks and falcons, owls in the roads at night and beaver we never see. And two baby raccoons live in a tree at the stop sign at the end of our road.  We also have all sorts of birds but luckily few groundhogs (we don't like those or coyotes).  

The ten acres beside us is alternated as a soy bean field and a hay field.  Quite a few creatures like to wander about it and the creek makes for great hiding for the beavers, although I think someone has killed those off.  

I'll start this section by saying I’m not anti hunting!!!!  I cannot count the number of friends and family members who like to hunt deer and bear and wild boar and rabbits and doves and so on.  Our dogs, American Bull Dogs, were created to be catch dogs and we've sold several puppies for boar dogs.  

Hunting is okay in my mind.  I’ll even eat deer meat if someone has cooked it.  Not much though and that's not because it’s deer meat.  I just don’t like the flavor that much.  And no, it doesn’t taste like beef.  Chris is not a hunter and I'm glad.  I don't mind other people hunting but I like that our household doesn't.  Chris also knows I don't like the few wild animals on our property scared off or killed.  

I’m not some crazy person like those on “Animal Attractions”.  I just like glimpses of wild animals around our place.  I do not want them hanging around all the time like they’re tame.  I don’t even want to see them everyday.  I just like to know they are there and I might get lucky enough for a sighting. 

We have a doe.  Chris and I call her our dummy deer because she doesn’t seem to fear people.  She has been coming to the soy bean field every year for around four years.  She comes quite close when we are grilling on the back porch.  We've even talked to her a little.  I chid her for being a dummy deer and tell her she is lucky to have lived so long, walking into the open like she does.  

Last year she had a fawn.  It was probably her first, or first to have lived long, because we'd never seen her with one before.  She gradually allowed it to come further and further into the soy bean field with her.  I scolded her for being a bad momma deer and raising a dummy fawn that wouldn't know how to fear humans.  Maybe I’ve been in the wrong by talking to her.  Maybe I set her up this week.......

Chris tells all our friends in the area who hunt that they better "not kill Marna's doe.  She’ll be mad.”  Monday a friend from across the way who is a deer hunter stopped by the barn and told Chris "I think Marna's doe is dead.  There is a doe that has been shot and thrown in the ditch.  I think it's her."  I was quite sad and upset when I heard about our doe.  

To be honest I'm not a big deer fan.  It's nice to see them out and about in our area like all the other wildlife. But I don't go to Cades Cove to see deer-we have far enough around our farm--but rather to try and see a bear.  But my dummy deer had become like a pet in ways. I enjoyed the evenings seeing her near the house.  I'd watch for her and sometimes I'd see her watch for me. 

It infuriates me a little for people who are supposed hunters to shoot a deer and throw her out like that.  Everyone I know has the deer they kill processed or give it to someone who will.  What a waste to kill something that is edible and toss it away when there are starving people in the world.     

I’m hoping that my doe will show up in the spring, maybe with a fawn.  For four years she has been quite good at hiding in the winters.  We’ve never seen her out during those times.  So maybe that wasn’t her in the ditch and maybe she isn’t a dummy after all…. 

Nasty Buffalo

It's no secret I'm a NatGeo kinda girl with dreams of traveling to Africa and the Galapagos and other wild places.  Watching NatGeo, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel I think I have seen about every type and topic of animal documentary. 

I’ve often thought of my dream trips to faraway places.  The fortunate thing about going on a couch safari is the ability to change channels when real life begins, or ends I should say.

I understand the harshness of life on the plains.  However, unless it’s a “fast” kill as the narrators describe, I can’t watch.  Predators must eat as well as the grazers but I prefer to only watch the chase, not the finish line. 

The Yellowstone documentary, or maybe it was the moose documentary, showed a young mother moose with her new calf.  They were near a river or lake.  A buffalo is in the background.  Now granted, I’ve never been a buffalo fan.  They are about on the same level as monkeys in my thoughts so I might be a little judgmental of this buffalo.  When I was showing my mare, Saya, in cow horse I would haul her to a cutting trainer’s place.  Brandon Sutton.  Brandon would give me cutting lessons on his buffalo.  This experience led me to dislike buffalo even more.  Saya was not far behind in my thoughts.  Tough as nails they could run for what seemed an endless amount of time. 

The moose and her calf were minding their own business when the buffalo decides to interrupt their day.  The baby moose has no idea about danger at this point in it’s young life.  But momma moose does.  She tries to lead her calf to safety but the buffalo butts the calf, again and again.  Momma moose runs back and forth trying to lead the buffalo away.  Finally the buffalo gores the baby calf into the ground.  The calf is not moving anymore and the buffalo leaves, looking very satisfied with itself. 

Momma moose runs to her calf and for a moment life seems hopeless.  But in a minute the little calf is up and wobbling after it’s momma into the woods.  Somehow I don’t think the baby survived the night.  We, the watchers, never know.  The documentary goes to another subject.  Perhaps to wolves of which I won’t watch hunt.

I hated that buffalo in an almost comical way, like somehow that buffalo was a big bully on the playground planning an attack.  Buffalos aren’t predators.  They are not carnivores, they are grazers, herbivores.  Somehow the scene just struck me as a move against nature, the natural order of things.  Buffalos and moose are not supposed to be locked in a battle for survival against one another.

I can barely kill a spider and to hit an animal accidently while driving is very upsetting.  However, I think had I been in the wild when that buffalo picked on the calf I’d have shot it.  People are supposed to be observers when in amongst animals in these situations, never interfering with “life”.  But that moment didn’t seem like life.  It seemed sinister.  Evil.  Nasty buffalo.  I’m not a hunter but have family members who are and that is okay either way to me.  In that split second I could have been a hunter.  I’d have my revenge.  Revenge that I’ve wrote about in another note, on another day.

Hmmm….the nasty buffalo, the momma moose, the calf, the narrator, the observer….if I look close enough I can see a similarities………

My Uncle Clarence Maynard 

Honey Baked Ham Kinda Day

Let me start by saying this is a tongue in cheek kinda story!!!! The hard thing about writing things down and not communicating in person is the inability to share facial expression and voice levels which would let someone know the other person is trying to be being funny, is happy, sad, mad, glad and so on.  That said I’m trying to be funny in retelling my day.  In the sarcastic way I am sometimes. 

To start with I’m not much of a taker of food to family functions kinda girl.  Taker of drinks, paper products and the such, that is me.  So last week I decided to be a good family member and volunteer to get a Honey Baked Ham for the Hull Thanksgiving Dinner.  I ordered it last Friday for pickup today, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving…

When Chris worked at Sea Ray Boats, a long, long time ago, the company gave employees a Honey Baked Ham for their Christmas bonus.  The ham was always a big treat at Christmas time.  About 15 years ago, yes, 15, I bought a ham for Thanksgiving since Chris didn’t work at Sea Ray any longer.  Everyone missed having the ham. 

That year I ordered the Honey Baked Ham and picked it up the day before Thanksgiving.  Just like today.  This morning I told everyone at work there would be a line, just like years ago, but it wasn’t too bad back then, wouldn’t be too bad today.  This is proof that my mind always remembers an event that is bad.  However, the “badness” of the situation isn’t remembered full force.

Lunch with my friend Patty.  Always a great treat.  This will get my trip to Knoxville started right.  And it did.  Our lunch lasted about two hours full of laughs as usual.  I love Patty. 

On the way to Knoxville I should have had a hint things might not go so well.  The Interstate was locked down with traffic, right where 75 meets 40.  That is okay.  I’m pretty patient. 

I pull into the parking lot of Honey Baked Ham.  There is a police officer directing traffic.  Another hint that things were going to be tough. 

Around the back of the building I begin to get nervous about not finding a parking place plus I saw three more police cars.  Getting back on Kingston Pike because of no parking was not appealing.  It would take another 30 minutes to get turned around and come back.  

At the edge of the end of the building the man in front of me drives up on the curb and parks in the grass.  Okay.  My Cavalier can do that and up I go.   I jump out about as fast as he does and we race around the corner.  I think we both were afraid a police officer was going to see us and make us move.  Plus I think we both thought stupidly that the faster we got to the door the less time we’d wait because we would beat EVERYBODY.  I don’t think we shaved more than a couple of minutes off of our time in line. 

The line was outside the building, about 20 deep.  Okay I thought once again.  This isn’t too bad.  At least it’s not raining or 30 degrees.  (I seemed to think “okay” a lot today.)

Once inside the door the real line is in full view.  It was like being in a line at Disneyland, twisting and turning in cheap plastic ropes, never knowing when the end will come and the fun will begin. 

A lady is offering free samples of ham or turkey or something.  I look to see everyone is taking a bite.  I also see the empty plate and napkin in their hands.  Nah, I’ll not take a sample.  No telling how long I’ll wait in line.  It’s bad enough standing.  I don’t won’t to have to hold trash all the way around.  I will be smart about one thing at least today.

The first corner comes into view.  A display holds a great looking bunch of sauces and such you can buy on one side, cakes and pies on the other.  Hmmm, those look yummy I think to myself.  Let me get one to read about while waiting.  As I am putting the bottle back, crash, I knocked one of the glass marinades off the display.  It doesn’t break but it was quite embarrassing.  

About this time I’m hoping Mickey will appear to take the pressure off me, my accident and the whole situation.  He doesn’t.  Someone has killed Mickey in a fit of Honey Baked Ham store rage. 

The next 30 minutes are pretty uneventful.  What could top me destroying a display or Mickey’s death? 

Finally, my ham.  I have my paper reservation ready.  The lady doesn’t look at it, only asks how many people I’d be serving.    I tell her about 20 and she goes and picks my ham.  The lady unwraps the ham in front of me, telling me all about the care of this precious piece of meat and asking if this ham was okay.  I almost told her it didn’t have enough brown sugar coating just to see her expression.  I decided now was not the time for joking.  People were waiting. 

I grab my ham and start walking away.  Wow, this thing is heavy I think.  Then I start hoping this isn’t a bag like Wal-Mart bags.  You know, the kind when stuffed full breaks right when you get to your car.

The lady had sent me toward the door with my ham to pay.  Another Disney line awaits.  Another Disney line which just isn’t going anywhere.  Please let me off the carosale. I want off the carosale! 

At that point I tell the lady behind me we are definitely at Wal-Mart.  Not only is my plastic bag stretching to the point of breaking in my hand but there are only two cashiers.  She laughs and then proceeds to say she is a diabetic and her mouth is getting dry.  The line better hurry she says, maybe “If I pass out they’ll wait on me faster”.  I laughed and told her to hang on we are almost out and that people would probably just step over her to get to the cash register anyway. 

There is a police officer, yes there is a police officer at the cash register, either for security of riot or security of money I do not know.   He says I can lay my ham on the desk while the man in front of me pays.   I pay and I’m done!  Out I go, AND I beat the guy who was parked in front of me.  Pretty good. 

Well not only did I volunteer to bring ham this year but I decide today that I’ll fix some baked beans.  I’m being very ambitious.  I haven’t made baked beans in forever and they are never as good as my sister’s. 

I decide I’ll stop at Wal-Mart in Madisonville for groceries.  Wal-Mart.  After all my evil thoughts at Honey Baked Ham about Wal-Mart , the place would have to have a little revenge.  Pretty busy but not too bad I think as I pull in.  I have to park at the end of the parking lot.  I walk in.  No buggies, anywhere.  So out I go to get a buggy.  Okay, I needed the exercise anyway. 

Shopping time.  I need brown sugar, pork n beans, onion.  Of course I start in another section and end up with a lot more than I came in for before I even hit the grocery part.  After talking to several people I know I go to get the brown sugar.  None, nada, not to be found.  Brown sugar?  Out?  Okay….  I see a friend and her four little boys, who are cute as bugs.  She is looking for sectioned paper plates and there are none.  I tell her and the boys I’m out of luck too.  No brown sugar so I’ll have to stop at Ingles after leaving Wal-Mart. 

On to pork n beans.  None, nada, not to be found.  Pork n beans?  Really?  Out?  How can anyplace be out of pork n beans?  All of a sudden I hear “Marna!”  Keri’s boys have found the brown sugar I need and are bringing it to me.  Keri comes around the corner and said somebody laid it down and the boys grabbed it!  I told them thanks so much and now I couldn’t find pork n beans.  Keri said laughing, “Oh, don’t let them hear that!  They’ll be running all over the store trying to find pork n beans.” 

So I end up with a onion and about 10 other things I hadn’t realized nor really need. I’m usually a very patient person so get in a regular line although tonight I’m eligible for the 20 and under line.  I only have 11 items.  (Eleven.  That number comes up a lot.  In fact every Thursday night when Chris’s favorite show, “The Vampire Diaries” is on.  Thursday is vampire and 11 only pepperonis on my pizza night.)  

My cashier is checking out the people in front of me.  I notice she is bent over the register doing something.  Maybe she dropped something?  Nope, she is Face Booking.  Ugh.  Really?  Face Booking while working at Wal-Mart? 

On to Ingles while holding my breath.  Thankfully very uneventful and I got my pork n beans.  Homeward while listening to Christmas music, uneventful….  Trying to keep Chris out of the ham all night?  This is going to be very hard.

I don’t even like ham…………

NASCAR

Chris paid me a huge compliment on my

 driving abilities this evening. We don't really

 watch NASCAR but saw a glimpse or two

 today. Chris said "Marna, if you drove in

 NASCAR you'd be the safest car out 

there." (Guess he means I wouldn't win but

 I'd save money on not blowing cars up and

 on fuel.)

Revenge

Revenge, payback, retribution, retaliation, vengeance….Revenge is a new TV show starting Wednesday night.  Chris and I plan to watch.  The show looks pretty interesting, though my believe system doesn’t include Revenge as an option.

Revenge is hurtful.  It’s not an act that heals a past event, an injustice, an injury someone has inflicted upon us.  Although many look at it just that way.  It’s easy to think of Revenge as a justifiable way to end a conflict, to right a wrong.

Revenge is, in many ways, like a figure 8.  Just because we may succeed in paying back the person for how they have hurt us, the situation is not over.  Because through Revenge you have actually hurt someone too, someone other than the person you intend.  Someone who may love your enemy or be linked to them in some profound way.  Should Revenge be a legitimate way to end a conflict the figure 8 would continue.   For the people linked to the person you got even with, whom wronged you, thus has a reason to exert their revenge up on you…..on so on and so on and so on…..

Thoughts of revenge can also lead us into living in bitterness.  Some may feel just thinking of revenge is their revenge.  It’s winning in its on way.  However, plotting revenge whether it is carried out or not consumes lives.  One may take years planning what they would do if they had the nerve to or not to carry out their ideas.  Years which could be lived in a choice of happiness instead of one of bitterness.  Once bitterness has a foothold in someone’s life it’s an emotion that is hard to expel.

“Revenge is a dish best served cold”.  I think everyone has heard this quote at least one point in their lives.  But when confronted with that option and “I’m gonna get you sucka” it’s often a hard fork in the road to choose…..But I think “turning the other cheek” is the choice.  At least for me…….

Fortune Tellers

Fortune tellers. They supposedly know fortunes.  They supposedly know futures. When I was a kid I loved getting my palm read at carnivals.  Much to the dismay of my Momma, who only allowed it to happen one time.  Even as a Christian I didn’t put faith in the fortune teller it was fun to hear them and to wonder about the possibilities of their predictions. And of course carnival fortune tellers all have happy endings to their hand readings. Kinda like  fortune cookies at a Chinese.  (Which by the way, have to be positive or who in their right mind would ever eat at a Chinese buffet again, right?)

For the past year my thoughts and questions about my future have been quite different from those of a 4th grader wondering if they would marry their latest crush. After passing the ole Fortune Teller’s house in Alcoa a few weeks back I thought about their lives.  If a fortune teller held real power they nor their loved ones would never know tragedy or at least not much of it. They would be able to see their own and their loved one’s future/fortunes and thus be able to warn to prevent “bad” things from occurring in their life and those they love.  Because, who in their right mind, should they know the future, be able to hold it in?  If I “knew” the man my daughter was going to marry was going to abuse her I would try my best to prevent that union.  If I knew that if my momma didn’t get her mammogram this year that she would die next of advanced breast cancer I would make sure she got that yearly mammogram.  If I knew my niece was going to be pregnant by New Year’s how could I withhold the joy?

What unpleasantness would actually befall someone’s life if the eye in the ball knew it all?  To always know when or what will happen?  Or even to know a ballpark figure that a terrible event would occur.  One would be able to thwart the bad of life. 

What about the good in life?  If one really had power to see the future good to come would be no fun either.  Where is the surprise?  The good in life, the fun, would just become something else that happens.

I’m glad that the eye in the ball doesn’t see it all.  My experiences have at times been tough.  But they are who make me who I am.  They should not be changed.  And the good.  I’m glad I could not see the good to come either.  There are so rare surprises already in life.  The amazement at getting Jason's text "We're pregnant", the excitement of Amber's text "I passed my test", the thrill of Chris's phone call "I won!".  I'm so glad I couldn't or someone else couldn't "see" those things to come.  I’m so glad God doesn’t work through a ball but through a Book.  He knows far better than I on how and when things in my life should unfold.