Stepdaughters and Make-up

Soon after I first married Bobby's daughter's came to spend the weekend with us. I had met them before we met. In fact the first time I ever met them they planned their father's and my impending nuptials. The only problem was that Bobby and I had not been dating too long and to say it was awkward would be putting it mildly. Putting our uncomfortable feelings aside, we played along because his daughters seemed to be having so much fun with it.

We were leaving to take them roller skating and we were staying with his parents because they hadn't seen the girls in awhile. They ran down to their aunt's house to get ready and once I got ready to went to get them. What I saw when they pranced out of that house as only 11 year old girls can when they are feeling pretty almost floored me on the spot. I wanted to laugh hysterically but I didn't because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. I couldn't let them go out in public that way because I guarantee you the rest of the world wouldn't be able to contain their mirth at the sight.

They decided they were going to wear make-up. Unfortunately it was obvious that no one had ever taught them to put on make-up. Coming toward me were two, giggly little girls that had on full fledged clown faces! I wasn't their mother or father so I couldn't tell them to take it off. They had barely even met me.

Thinking fast I told them that their daddy hated make-up. I pointed out that I wasn't even wearing any which sealed the deal for them. They ran back in the house and scrubbed their faces clean so that their daddy would be pleased. Unfortunately I couldn't put my own make-up on because I had got them to take theirs off.

Anyway we went skating and had a wonderful time.

We Finally Found Our Fishing Hole

Eddie and I have been fishing for a couple of years. I should say that "he" has been fishing while I watch for wildlife or read or daydream and generally hang out in the woods which is something I like to do. I actually had a fishing license last year but I only caught one fish and I am too cheap to buy another one....no return on my dollar.

Yesterday we went to a spot we have been wanting to go to for at least a year. The strange part is it is the closest spot to my house. We just kept forgetting about it. I backed my truck up right next to the river and dropped the tailgate and "viola" it was the perfect spot.

He caught the same fish twice, It was a little catfish that he threw back. Another guy that was there caught a little bass that he threw back. He is a customer at Fruth so I knew him. He started telling me about the giant catfish and gar and muskie he had caught from his boat. He said if people knew how big the fish were around here they would never get in the water.

He started laughing about seeing a family come to the river with a bar of soap to take a bath. I had to laugh at that because I had seen some people do that in Boone County once. My stepdaughters were horrified. I thought it was funny and as I explained to them at the time, "at least the people are trying to be clean." If you don't have water you have to do what you have to do.

As I hung out yesterday doing "my thing". I noticed a lot of trash laying around. Some was regular river trash that is left behind by flooding. Most was trash left by trashy people including lots of plastic where somebody had been stripping copper from wires and left their crap behind. So I started my own personal river beautification project. I cleaned up enough wire plastic to fill up a shopping bag. It may not sound like a lot but if I do that everytime I go back it won't take me long to singlehandedly beautify my own little corner of WV.

The best part is I found a butterfly bush seedling. I wish I had found it a month ago. I paid $40 dollars for a butterfly bush for my mom for a combination mother's day/birthday gift. Since she wouldn't let me take her to dinner for mother's day I transferred the money to a better birthday present. The bush was beautiful but I had been trying to grow one for almost a year because she mentioned she wanted one. None of my cuttings took root though. I have a black thumb unfortunately.

The seedling was tall and pretty. Not as pretty as the $40 bush but it would have still made a lovely present in a pretty flower pot. Not to mention the fact that it would have been free! Anyway I got Eddie to dig it up and I took it home and repotted it. Hopefully it will take root and grow. If I had not have taken it, it would have been washed away by the next flood anyway so I didn't hurt anything by doing it.

We finally found our fishing holw

July Health Update

I'm doing better than I have in Months. The doctors changed my meds last month and I haven't had any a fib attacks in a couple of weeks now. And that was after going through a couple of weeks of utter exhaustion because of helping an ungrateful friend and then the power failure.

No, I don't mean Lou, the friend who stayed with me during the power failure. She was wonderful and we hope to hang out more in the future...just not live together...haha

I had a problem with someone accusing me of some stuff. I was going to document my every move but I realized after very little consideration that I quit defending myself to this person years ago. They say when you take meds or get drunk that your true feeling about someone come out. Well trust me, they did. But it is their problem, not mine.

Eddie and I are getting along better than ever. Who knows how long that will last ...but that is the nature of our relationship. We both know that when push comes to shove that all we have are each other. We just have to give each other plenty of space in the good times. If it had not been for him during the power failure I would have ended up in the hospital.

It's amazing how a little change in routine rocks my world. As tired as I was I would normally be having chest pain galore but I didn't have any. Just the bone chilling tiredness that is typical with a heart failure patient.

They finally scheduled my surgery for August 3rd. But I just found out one of the doctors will be on vacation that week. I'm waiting on word from the other doctor about what to do. There is NO WAY I'm going to let them do 2 surgeries.

Get it all done the first time or not at all is what I am going to tell them!

Levi

Levi was a greyhound I took home to because he had the good sense to fall in love with me. It's a good thing because he did not adjust to being a pet too well and I was able to give him the special care that he needed. He did just fine around me but he was very nervous around others and thunderstorms terrified him. He became Queenie's best friend and they did everything together for a few years.

I had him fixed because I didn't want him to defile my precious Queenie. That's when I learned that even if you have a dog fixed it still has the desire to mate (just like a man - huh)! Levi was a world champion digger. He weighed like 85 pounds and he could dig a hole deep enough to hide every inch of his body with only a few inches of tail sticking out of it. The contractor next door to us said he wished he could pay Levi to dig where he wanted holes dug - he would make a fortune with him.

One time I had him in a kennel with dirt floors. I opened my front door one day and he was sitting there waiting for me. To dig his way out of the kennel he had to dig through 3 pens and under the front door. In two of the pens there were chickens sitting on eggs - he did not disturb them! Unfortunately there was a storm one night and it must have really scared him (I was at work). Instead of cowering in the closet like he usually did, he went outside and dug his way under the fence. I looked far and wide for him and I never did find him. He is one of the few dogs that I have gone looking for in my life and couldn't find.

I wish I knew what happened to him.

Walking in a Storm

One time when I had my puppy farm there was a lightning storm. I looked out into the field to see all my greyhound puppies just standing at the gate looking at the house instead of doing the perfectly logical thing and going to the barn. (they didn't like the barn because it was on the opposite end of the field and they wanted to watch us come and go)

So me in all my stupidity went out into the field and walked across it with all my 8 month old pups around me and lightning striking all around us. I don't mean just one lightning strike. I mean probably around 50 of them - some no more than 10 feet away. I just cringed and slowly walked to the barn because I didn't want my pups to stand out in the rain.

Unfortunately my stupidity didn't end there.

I needed to go to work. So, after a short amount of time, I walked all the way back to my trailer in the storm with the lightning striking all around me. To add insult to injury, every single one of those pups followed me back! They stood out in the rain until I left for work. I don't know how long they were out in the storm after that.

Interesting Observation

My friend, Eddie, started smoking again about 2 months ago. Last week he mentioned he was having tingling in his fingers and he couldn't feel his fingertips. I told him the cigarettes were cutting off his circulation and that was the first sign of it. (He is a diabetic and has high cholesterol as well)

For once he listened to me and quit smoking.

It is about a week later. He says his fingers are fine now.

Smoking and diabetes don't mix. I watched them take my dad's toes one at a time until they had to amputate his entire foot. He also had a bed sore on his other foot's heel that I took care of everyday for 2 years trying to save the foot.

He died of complications of diabetes which were exacerbated by his smoking.

One of the Most Terrifying Moments of my Childhood

I was around 13 or so. I was in the kitchen frying a piece of fish. The pan caught on fire. I cooly and calmly picked up the pan and walked over to the water spighot and turned it on full blast into the pan. In less than a second the entire wall of the kitchen in front of me was engulfed in flames! You can't imagine how big and how fast those flames shot up!

I threw myself backwards and SQUEALED, "MOMMY!" I was absolutely terrified.

My mom was vacuuming in the living room. I guess my scream of pure terror hit a note with her because I heard the vacuum cleaner drop to the floor before it had finished leaving my mouth. She raced into the kitchen and threw flour or salt or something on the fire.

Once she made sure I was safe she asked me what had happenned. When I told her what I had done she promptly explained the proper way to put out a grease fire. You have to smother it with a lid or flour or salt or whatever dry goods are around that will take away the oxygen supply. NEVER, EVER put water on a grease fire. The fire will spread as far and wide as the water spreads.

As Multiply Flounders in the Dust...

...Thoughts.com has completely revamped their website for bloggers. I am having to learn how to navigate it all over again but I like what I see so far.

Multiply recently announced that it is emphasizing their Southeast Asia branch and those of us who were around when Yahoo 360 started floundering know what it 's like to lose your blogs when the site is not committed to you.

Thoughts.com is a chance to get in on a blog that is already established. The recent changes have given it the feel of a new site with the stability of an older one.

It is the chance to get in on the ground floor, I feel. I for one am going to take advantage of it.

One of my Stranger Posts

Yah! I don't have bed bugs!

The really good news is I NEVER had them.

About a week ago I was watching tv in the television room downstairs in my building. There was a bug on me. I had just been in the garden so I didn't think too much about it. Two days later I was watching tv in the same chair and out of the corner of my eye I saw a tiny little bug crawling on the chair.

I jumped up. I looked at it. It was small. Smaller than a flea. It didn't jump or fly it crawled like an ant but it was smaller than an ant. Then the lightbulb came on over my head. It didn't look like a bed bug but there are bed bugs in the building. I had seen one once and it looked nothing like what I had seen but I didn't want to take any chances so I went and got Doug, the maintenance man.

He checked the chair and just for cautions sake closed the tv room until he could have the bug guy come and check it. He told me I also needed to call in to have my apartment checked which I promptly did. I had seen an adult bed bug before but he told me what I was describing was what they looked like when they hatch.

Also, while we were talking, I told him the only other person's name who also used the chair. That's when he told me they had just sprayed "Ben's" apt. (not his real name) When I asked if they did it as a precaution or if he actually had them he told me that Ben actually had them.

That was the nail in the coffin for me. Even though I had not seen them in my apartment and I had not been bitten I couldn't take any chances. I threw away my pillows and washed my bedclothes in hot water. I haven't had anything on the bed since.

The bug guy came and checked my apartment this morning. I have no bugs. He also checked the tv room. No bugs there either. So, at least in my small part of the world the bed bug epidemic is under control.

99 STUPID THINGS I'VE DONE

Level 1:

() Smoked A Cigarette (electronic)

( ) Smoked A Cigar

() Kissed a member of the same sex

(x) Drank Alcohol

SO FAR:1

Level 2

(x) Are / Been In Love

(x) Been Dumped

( X) Shoplifted

(x) Been Fired

( ) Been In A Fist Fight

SO FAR:5

Level 3

(x) Had A Crush On An Older Person

() Skipped School

() Slept With A Co-worker

(x) Seen Someone / Something Die

(x) Had a crush on a younger person

SO FAR: 8

Level 4

() Had / Have A Crush On One Of Your Facebook Friends

( ) Been To Paris

( ) Been To England

(x) Been On A Plane

(X ) Thrown Up From (CAR, BOAT)

SO FAR: 10

Level 5

() Eaten Sushi

( ) Been Snowboarding

(x) Met Someone BECAUSE Of Facebook/Myspace/MXit

() Been in a Mosh Pit

SO FAR: 11

Level 6

(X) Taken Pain Killers

(x) Loved/Liked Someone Who You Can't Have

(X) Laid On Your Back And Watched Cloud Shapes Go By

(X) Made A Snow Angel

SO FAR: 15

Level 7

(x) Had A Tea Party

(x) Flown A Kite

(x) Built A Sand Castle

( X) Gone Mudding

(x) Played Dress Up

SO FAR: 19

Level 8

(X) Jumped Into A Pile Of Leaves

(X ) Gone Sledding

(X) Cheated While Playing A Game

(X) Been Lonely

(X) Fallen Asleep At Work / School

SO FAR: 24

Level 9

(X) Watched The Sun Set

(x) Felt An Earthquake

( X) Held A Snake

SO FAR: 27

Level 10

(X) Been Tickled

( X) Been Robbed / Vandalized

(x) Been Cheated On

(X) Been Misunderstood

SO FAR: 31

Level 11

(x) Won A Contest

( ) Been Suspended From/In School

(X ) Had Detention

(x) Been In A Car / Motorcycle Accident

SO FAR: 34

Level 12

() Had / Have Braces

(x) Eaten A Whole Pint Of Ice Cream In One Night

() Danced In The Moonlight

SO FAR: 35

Level 13

(X) Hated The Way You Look

(x) Witnessed A Crime

( ) Pole Danced

() Questioned Your Heart

() Been Obsessed With Post It Notes

SO FAR: 37

Level 14

(x) Squished Barefoot Through The Mud

(X) Been Lost

() Been To The Opposite Side Of The World

(x) Swam In The Ocean

(x) Felt Like You Were Dying

SO FAR: 41

Level 15

(X) Cried Yourself To Sleep

(X ) Played Cops And Robbers

(x) Recently Colored With Crayons / Colored Pencils / Markers

() Sang Karaoke

(x) Paid For A Meal With Only Coins

SO FAR: 45

Level 16

(X) Done Something You Told Yourself You Wouldn't

(x) Made Prank Phone Calls

(x) Laughed Until Some Kind Of Beverage Came Out Of Your Nose

(x)Kissed In The Rain

SO FAR: 49

Level 17

(X) Written A Letter To Santa Claus

(x) Watched The Sun Set and/or Sun Rise With Someone You Care/Cared About

(X) Blown Bubbles

(X) Made A Bonfire On The Beach or Anywhere

SO FAR: 53

Level 18

(X ) Crashed A Party

(x) Have Travelled More Than 5 Days With A Car Full Of People

(X) Gone Rollerskating / Blading

(x) Had A Wish Come True

SO FAR: 57

Level 19

() Worn Pearls

(X ) Jumped Off A Bridge

( ) Swam With Dolphins

SO FAR: 58

Level 20

(X ) Got Your Tongue Stuck To A Pole/Freezer/Ice Cube

( ) Kissed A Fish

(x) Worn The Opposite Sex's Clothes

(x) Sat On A Roof Top

SO FAR: 61

Level 21

(X) Screamed At The Top Of Your Lungs

(X ) Done / Attempted A One-Handed Cartwheel

(x) Talked On The Phone For More Than 4 Hours

(x) Recently Stayed Up For A While Talking To Someone You Care About

SO FAR: 65

Level 22

(X ) Picked And Ate An Apple Right Off The Tree

(X) Climbed A Tree

(X ) Had/Been In A Tree House

(x) Been Scared To Watch Scary Movies Alone

SO FAR: 69

Level 23

(X) Believe In Ghosts

( ) Have/had More Then 30 Pairs Of Shoes

(X ) Streaking

(X ) Visited a Jail

SO FAR: 72

Level 24

(x) Played till the end in a monopoly game

(x) Been Told You're Hot By A Complete Stranger

(X ) Broken A Bone

(X) Been Easily Amused

SO FAR: 76

Level 25

(x) Caught A Fish Then Ate It Later

(X ) Made A Porn Movie

(x) Caught A Butterfly

(X) Laughed So Hard You Cried

(x) Cried So Hard You Laughed

SO FAR: 81

Level 26

(x) Mooned/Flashed Someone

(x) Had Someone Moon/Flash You

(x) Cheated On A Test

(X) Forgotten Someone's Name

(X ) French Braided Someones Hair

(x) Gone Skinny Dipping

(x) Been Kicked Out Of Your House

SO FAR: 88

Level 27

(x) Rode A Roller Coaster

() Went Scuba-Diving/Snorkeling

(x) Had A Cavity

() Black-Mailed Someone

() Been Black Mailed

SO FAR: 90

Level 28

(x) Been Used

(X) Fell Going Up The Stairs

(X) Licked by A Cat

(x) Bitten Someone

(x) Licked Someone

SO FAR: 95

Level 29

(X ) Been Shot At/Or At Gunpoint

(x) had a crappy relationship

( ) Flattened Someones Tires (I WANTED TO)

(x) Have been in a bike VS bike accident

(X) Have ridden a bike into something

More Storms Blowing Power all over WV again

Another bad storm blew through a couple of hours ago.

I am fortunate to still have power but power is out all over Charleston again including at several hospitals.

I went grocery shopping earlier today. I only bought canned food. Others are doing the same. You can't take a chance on your freezer going out again. Many who went out and bought new groceries after the first storm had them go bad again when the power went out again.

There was still 78,000 people without power before the last storm hit a couple of hours ago. Now there is more power out all over again.

for the original 78,000 they have been without power for 9 days.

I am fortunate. My friend, Lou, still has power. Hers was off for 8 days.