I won???

I'm the winner of "Savage Kingdom"safari sweepstakes!  Can this be real?  I'm so shocked and dazed and confused that I don't know where to start a blog post....

Peace Lilly Christmas Tree

Corny I know.  But...it makes everyone who comes into my office at the courthouse.....smile....

Ummm....yum

My staff appreciated ha ha

Thanksgiving Day 2016

               I don't like extreme sports !

Movies with sis and some of

nieces and nephews Thanksgiving

 night "Moana"

2nd extreme sport of the day. Letting my 16 yr old great niece drive to movies.  Bella had passed her permit test the day before!

Like I've said, I don't like extreme sports..

What in Tarnation!!!!

We used 295 shells on skeet/clay shooting. Boy, it was fun though!

Well, hello there

Love when my nephew Tanner visits office

Halloween at office 2016. I was shark attack victim. My great, great niece most adorable pumpkin ever. Loved her visit

Bland posts lately....that is, when motivated to even care

November Preds with Chris

Not as good seats....

November Preds Alone-Great Seat!

Flames and Ashes

"We may go down in flames together but we'll also rise out of the ashes together too....."   Twitter #quoteoftheday

Southern Terminology for Family

In small rural Southern towns it's very important when talking about family to use words "great" and "second", etc.

I am an aunt, a great aunt, and a great, great aunt.  Being an oops, late in lifer baby I've learned the importance of family terminology.

On both sides of my family,  my momma's side and my daddy's I have 50 or so FIRST cousins.  The children of my first cousins are my seconds, children of seconds are thirds and so forth.

Family bonds run deep in our small Southern towns.  When speaking to someone about my family I always, always say "this is my nephew", "this is my niece", "this is my great nephew" "this is my grear, great niece" "that's my second cousin".

In speaking to others, family references are always made in these ways.  Maybe it's our deep family bonds.  Pride in our bonds. Maybe it's a family tree type thing.  When speaking to folks interjecting your place in the family helps everyone know who is kin to whom. Who is who and where they came from and instant knowledge of family history.


I'm posting but this post needs much much rewriting and some additional information.   Stay tuned.....

More important than newsfeed...

Sometimes we know more about the day of a stranger or friend on our Social Media newsfeed than the important stuff in the life of the person we are sitting beside.
I'm guilty.......

Dumbo, Elephants and me

I remember being a small child and watching "Dumbo" with my mother.  I also remember crying (quietly so mama wouldn't hear), when Dumbo went to visit with his mother one last time while she was in the railroad car.  I could never, ever re-watch the movie.

While working on my master's degree a professor of a class I was in showed clips of movies to emphasize points being made in his class.  I don't recall the class, some sort of psychology/social work/sociology type.  I really do not remember lessons taught.  I do remember clips of two movies teaching two seperate ideals or something or other.

I remember clips of the "The Matrix" but no memory on what the clips meant.  I believe that it stuck with me of the many we saw because I hated that movie.

A few weeks later, on a new subject, I began to slip down in my chair.  For I realized, somehow, the clip which was coming would be of a tremendously sad scene. The scene of Dumbo and his mother.  I barely made it through that class, that night, because of the emotional thoughts deeply stirred.

By that point in my life I had lost my mother.  She had died about 8 years or so before in 1990.  The scene this time around was not just representative of a child feeling sadness about a baby elephant losing it's mother.  Now the scene contained not only that but also a new sorrow.  Not only of a baby elephant but also of an 18 year old girl becoming a young woman with no mother.

When my brother Gary died in 1979 I was nearly 8 and Gary 27.  My mama and daddy settled, I guess that's what it was, into grief.  My mama and I had talks of Gary, and death and God and Heaven.  She prepared me for my future death you'd say by giving me a peace of what would come.

The one lesson mama never, ever taught me? Was how to live without her.  How to live without a mother......

Elephants are iconic to me.  They fascinate me through their deep bonds of family. Of being a matriarchal society-mothers raising and forming deep bonds with their babies. Of their ability to mourn, in the future, of family gone if they cross paths with the bones of past elephants of their group.

Perhaps part of my admiration of the elephant was born of "Dumbo" followed with my loss of mama. I became a sort of "Dumbo" in my shared experience of "Dumbo".

First dinner with my parents....

Hmmmmm.....going to tell a homey type story for Kathy Eyman to wake up too. Chris's first meal with my Daddy, Momma and I would have been around February or March 1990. (We began kinda seeing each other after his birthday in January 1990.) Momma was cooking her normal, large, country every night meal, which always contained cornbread and milk for Daddy.

Chris wasn't at the house yet. I walked into the kitchen to find Skeeter, my Australian Shepherd dog given to me by my big sis Sharon McNutt, leaning on top of table eating the meatloaf.  I cried out, "MOM Skeeter has eaten some of the side of the meatloaf!!!!!!!!!!!"  I was hysterical!!

Momma came in and made Skeeter go away.  She proceded to calmly cut away the side Skeeter had nibbled on. Momma in her always classy, cool, and collected way said, "Chris will never know".

And he didn't.  Untill after we were married in 1996.  Figured I needed that piece of information hidden until we were hitched.

Skeeter went everywhere with me.  Slept in the floor beside me and would play to exhaustion with his beloved football. 

Kid's water slides

Driving by kid's birthday parties with huge air water slide rentals in yards reminds me of my childhood.

One summer, probably around 1979, Daddy bought some sort of rolled up plastic from the hardware store.  He unrolled on a small slope at our house and put a water hose at the top.

Jamey and I had fun for a couple days. However, after many grass burns, plastic cuts and a sore chest we let Daddy roll up the plastic.  On for us to ride bikes again.   (Until 1 pm.  "Days of our Lifes" came on at 1....)

Positive Living

It's said we are like five or so of those we spend our time with.  Usually people tend to flock together who share personality traits.  So often we don't choose our five-it's not a conscience choice as self help books say it should be.  As it probably should be.  Yes, #1 surround yourself with postive people it's said.  But that can turn into a disaster when a group of positive people will not recieve doses of the reality we all must face.

 Positive living is not always what another group sees as positive.  My positive living may not be what you say positive living is.  My positive living may be listening to my doctor, not surrounding myself with gossiping, not surrounding myself with people who use me, or are selfish, loving being an aunt, have a ready smile-not a smirk, helping others, a genuine empathy toward others, regret, the type to make me better, Faith, craving to hear "well done my good and faithful servant", not leading or encouraging people into behaviours which harm others emotionally or physically. I fail at living as I want.  But I want people arround me to keep me in check.  Those would be my five to choose. Five who do not encourage selfishness which cuts them from lives of others.

I do not believe we can keep up living everyday as if it's your last. (Whew, how exhausting!) Those who do often have an earlier demise in their lives, and I'm not just speaking of losing life.  Living that life consumes a person and becomes a more selfish habit than any they have had, ever.  Life is all about that person and what they need.  In the end those who truly love you are spent and those who've gravitated toward you leave because your true nature is now roadblock to theirs.  Friends leave and gravitate to new groups to satisfy their own need of selfishness you can no longer provide.

Life cannot be spent loving yourself or walking over others to achieve that end.  Reality will hit one day whether you're running or not.... God will bring life's reality to your doorstep.

*excerpt from an very old blog post of mine....

It needs to be worn a little more...

My Bible. As you can tell it's a little worn.  I love my Bible and would never trade.  But....the issue.... I used to read it more,
I need to read it more. When I read it more life is made of more. Greater Truth in: Happiness, conquering fear, improving  relationships, better attitude, awareness of who I am and His purpose for my life and not parts I wish to bend to my will. And................Peace...

Permission

"You have permission to rest.  You are not responsible for fixing everything that is broken. You do not have to try and make everyone happy.  For now, take time for you. It's time to replenish.....

Yet another bucket list....

Chincoteague Island PonySwim...............

Another bucket list.....

Iroquois steeplechase.....................................

Lenny Kravitz

Watching "Just Let Go: Lenny Kravitz Live"...wish it were in person and not on TV. Concert.....someday.........bucket list......

Ugh......my eyes.......

Mom's day 2016

Bless it.  Chris is reading the Facebook feed and said "Everyone is wishing their moms a happy mothers day".  I told him you "notice it and feel differently on this day when you don't have a mother."  Chris asked what he should write.....  " should I write something Uncle Jerry would say, like, I know you're having a blast in Heaven."  I said, "just write what you feel".

Wonder what he's writing right now?  He just asked if he could "tag momma".  Bless it....I told Chris  there's no Facebook in Heaven.

Mother's Day 2016

Good job Chris.  Beautiful pick of flowers for decorating grave for your mother's day. Irises.   She'd love that.



We also decorated mom's, dad's and my brother Gary's graves at Hopewell.  I'm not as good as my sister Lynette.

With three of my awesome employees

Mountain Trip

My great niece Bella and I spent a day in mountains of Tellico.