Day 10, 10 words

1. suponification

2. redneck

3. Emerson (as in Emerson good lookin boots)

4. Mayonnaise (mayonnaise a big mess of greens)

5. Biggo ( that's a biggo burger you got there)

6. blessing

7. Joy

8. friends

9. peppermint

10. dishwasher

Day 9, 10 Ways to Win my Heart

1. Speak nicely

2. Ignore my age

3. Kiss me like you mean it

4. Hold me closely

5. Ask me to dance

6. Listen carefully when I tell my feelings

7. Tell the truth always

8. bring me little presents because you want to

9. Like my dogs

10.keep your promises

It goes without saying that you like my kids since we are a package deal.

Day 8, 10 favorite songs

1. I hope you dance

2.In my daughter's eyes

3.Landslide

4.Robin into the rain

5. Son of man

6. Tumbling dice

7. All my life

8. Respect

9. Its raining men

10. It's five o'clock somewhere

Day 7, 10 Important people

1. Jesus

2. Walker and Lizzy (tie)

3. Bill and Erin (tie)

4. Jenn

5. Randle

6. Jennifer Lawson

7. Dad

8. Maa

9. Bub

10. Bill H. and Frank A. (tie)

Day 6 , 10 items I can't live without

1. my Rosary

2. my car

3. haircolor

4. glasses

5. coffee

6. diet coke

7. TV and DVD

8. cake decorating stuff

9. art supplies

10. chocolate

Day 5: 10 wishes

I wish:

1. for security

2. for a home

3. for a boyfriend

4. for happiness and success for my children

5. that Josie wasn't old.

6. my face wasn't getting wrinkles and my hair wasn't really white

7. recognition at my job

8. a sock monkey hat for Christmas

9. Christmas would get here fast

10.I had enough money to buy my homeless friends a hot meal for all of us to share together and a warm coat for each one wrapped in wrapping paper.

Day 4: 10 things you want to say to one person

1. Why?

2. Why not?

3. You are so selfish

4. I am way too strong for you

5. It's not about money

6. I wasted way too much time thinking about you

7. Did I ever matter?

8. I hope you are happy.

9. You could have ruled the world

10. Your star has been given a new name.

Day 3, 10 Things I Hate

1. Haters

2. Alarm clocks

3. Texting at the dinner table

4. stepping in dog poop that other people didn't pick up

5. being poor

6. lousy food, bad service

7. tattle tales

8. New T shirts that shrink to fit a chihuahua at the first wash

9. Pepsi, Diet Pepsi (eeeeeeeewww tastes and smells like play dough)

10. 300 Channels and nothing to watch

Day 2, 10 Things I Love

1. My Children

2. Bill and Erin

3. Slapshot and Josie

4. My Family

5. Good coffee

6. uninterrupted sleep

7. Fine fabrics

8. Art, making it and viewing it

9. Clean sheets off a clothes line

10.God, actually he's first because without Him the other things wouldn't exist

Ten Day Challenge Day 1, 10 Things about me

1. I love being a mother

2. I have never been really in love.

3. I am an artist.

4. I am a very good nurse even without a BSN.

5. I am a very good cook.

6. I love to fish

7. I don't like to eat fish

8. I am very religious even though I don't go to Mass very often

9. I am very studious, if something interests me I learn all I can about it.

10.I love dogs, aside from my own dogs my next favorite breed is Pit Bulls.

Bicycle Cop

I saw the most amazing thing on Wed. It truly was a YouTube moment but happened so unexpectedly there was no time for a camera. I work in an old Mall that had been left to ruin until it was converted to state of the art Vanderbilt Health Clinics. Wed. afternoon I was standing outside in the back ONE-WAY alley smoking a cigarette with my friend Karen. A VUPD police officer rode by us on his police bike. We waved and he rode on by waving back.Next thing we knew a big SUV sped by us going the wrong way in the alley. Behind the SUV in hot pursuit was the bicycle cop pedaling as fast as he could with a little blue light flickering on the front of his bike. I mean we are talking a little light the size of a mini mag flashlight, just flickering away. Karen and I died laughing. All that was missing was the cop making siren noises. They apparently don't put sirens on police bikes. I wonder if he was radioing ahead to headquarters located around the bend in the alley to throw down the spike strips in the alley! Vandy's finest at work. Got to admire that cop for giving it all he had, sadly I doubt the SUV could even see him in the rear view mirror. Close your eyes and try to get a visual on this as there are no pictures of this awesome event.
Just to make it perfectly clear, this was a very funny moment but our Vanderbilt Police do an incredible job. They have reduced the crime in the area of this old mall to almost nothing. The retail stores on the street level have <3% shoplifting since the VUPD arrived and the movie theater next door is now a safe place to visit, where in the past there was guaranteed at least one shooting a night on the weekends. They might want to consider giving the cops horses instead of bicycles though. Yee Haaw!

Through the Years

OK, so I'm a goober but I like Kenny Rogers. Today I was listening to him on my iPOD in the car. This song came on and instantly a vision came into my mind of a picture Lizzy got at her first SEARCH. All of a sudden the words of this song took on a whole new meaning for me.


I can't remember when you weren't there
When I didn't care for anyone but you
I swear we've been through everything there is
Can't imagine anything we've missed
Can't imagine anything the two of us can't do

Through the years, you've never let me down
You turned my life around, the sweetest days I've found
I've found with you ... Through the years
I've never been afraid, I've loved the life we've made
And I'm so glad I've stayed, right here with you
Through the years

I can't remember what I used to do
Who I trusted whom, I listened to before
I swear you've taught me everything I know
Can't imagine needing someone so
But through the years it seems to me
I need you more and more

Through the years, through all the good and bad
I knew how much we had, I've always been so glad
To be with you ... Through the years
It's better everyday, you've kissed my tears away
As long as it's okay, I'll stay with you
Through the years


Through the years, when everything went wrong
Together we were strong, I know that I belonged
Right here with you ... Through the years
I never had a doubt, we'd always work things out
I've learned what love's about, by loving you
Through the years

Pondering

I am 58 years old. I have lived longer than either of my parents. They were so young. Didn't seem that way at the time but looking back they missed so much.
I have so many things I wonder about as senior status is breathing down my neck:

Will I ever meet the love of my life? I hope I don't live out my life without experiencing true love just once.

Will I see my grandchildren?

Have I been the best mother (and in some ways father)I could be to my children?

Would my Dad be proud of the woman I have become?

Will I ever achieve my dream of being an artist? Not famous, just enough of an artist to satisfy myself?

Will I ever have a real home again?

Am I too old to dance?

Does this fat make my ass look big?

Have I lived a good life so far?

Do I do all I can to give some small comforts to people who are less fortunate than I am?

Am I really 58 already? More than half of my life is over,where did the time go?

So many questions, I'll have to wait and see.

I wonder if:

If my true friends know how much I love them?

If I'll ever be able to retire?

If I'll be old and alone?

If God knows how much I appreciate all of the glorious gifts He has given me?

If I will ever feel secure again?


I am so grateful for:

My precious children.

My multiple talents, a gift from God.

The support of my true friends.

My doggies,both the living and those who have gone over the Rainbow Bridge.

Surviving poverty up to this point.

My health.

My career choice, it sometimes makes me crazy but being a nurse is a ministry for me.

A place to live and food on my table.

The kindness of strangers.

Learning how to read even if it was at the age of 22.

My East Tennessee strong country roots.

Sonic Limeade

Being an American

That is where I am at 58, I wish I had written something similar at 21. I will write something similar when I am 68,78,88,98..... stay tuned.

Stuff

My kids are in Maine watching their big brother launch his new ship. I am so proud to have Tate as my step son and have him being Executive Officer of his own brand new Navy ship.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I am making changes. I found out our landlord will be renewing our lease for another year. YES! Now for the past year I have been living out of boxes and have unopened boxes laying around everywhere because I have worried another shoe would drop and we would be moving again. It's time to make this condo into a home instead of a box warehouse. I have bags for the homeless, bags for the Goodwill, boxes of used books to sell and bags of trash. I am amazed at the STUFF I threw in boxes when we were leaving our house. I suppose when you are broke and losing your home you feel the need to hold on to whatever you can. I have opened some boxes and wonder what the hell I was thinking bringing that junk with us. Crazy shit. I have really had a good time going through boxes of things. I am saving pictures of my family and dear friends. I am getting rid of weird corporate gifts I have received over the years, tacky wedding gifts from a marriage long dead,stacks of bills I don't need to pay anymore. Why did I pack those? A grim reminder of financial failure?
I have a box of bibles from three generations in my mother's family. My great grandmother Frances Chandler Walker's bible is such a treasure. She had 12 children, all of their births documented in ber bible, along with all of her children's marriages, the deaths of two of her children. She only lost 2 out of twelve in her life time, the others lived to be in their late 90s except for Ruby who lived to be 101. Granny Walker wrote little notes in her bible, she put little inspirational pieces from the Sevierville newspaper in her bible with scripture passages written in the margins. She was an amazing Christian lady. My grandmother Dell Keener Walker Massey's bible is the same except she outlived all 4 of her children and every death is documented in her strong hand. She lived to be 99 and 6 months old. She always believed in God and lived a good Christian life. My parents bible is in the box too, documenting all of our births, my sisters marriage, my parents never lived to see Bob ordained to the priesthood or to see me marry. I have my family bible in the box as well, it contains the births and sacraments of my children. My marriage which ended 6 years ago. In my family bible I have notes from families of patients I have cared for until their deaths. Those notes make me realize that being a nurse is a valuable profession and a ministry as well. I wonder now how those families are getting along. The bibles stay!
I know when you are ditching stuff you aren't supposed to look at it but I have to touch every piece and either have a moment in memory lane or a head scratching laugh at myself for saving some goofy things. I have been laughing quite a bit. The coolest part is to look around the edges of a few walls today and realize that we have much more space! Crap is a huge thief of space. This project is going to take me a few weeks to complete, I wonder what other treasures I am going to come up with. If you are a friend of mine and it is getting close to your birthday you should be afraid, very afraid of what might be in the gift wrapped box from me. Remember Aunt Bethany from Nat'l Lampoon Christmas vacation????
I'll close with this final thought for you to ponder, Where do socks go? Why do I have 500 mismatched socks and more importantly why did I pack them in a box marked KITCHEN FRAGILE? The first person to come up with the answer to this wins an unopened box marked, BATHROOM.

Neighbors

As everybody knows Nashville was hit by a record breaking $1.9 billion flood May 3-4. There was a place on the river bank called Tent City. It was a community of homeless people who had formed their own city, they had a Mayor and a government of their own. Amos House a Catholic Monastic group and Otter Creek Church of Christ ministered to them, helped them survive and even the city of Nashville recognized their community. THey lived 3 blocks east of where we live. When the flood waters came they were walking down our street with looks of horror and sadness on their faces. A man named Lee Beaman who is a car dealer here amongst other things and is very wealthy, donated 2 acres of his land to relocate these people temporarily in an area of town which is not the greatest part of town with shootings and violent crime a way of life. Many of our neighbors moved out to Lee's property and tried to rebuild their community. You can see the tent city from the interstate but not from the road. The business owners pitched a major bitch and are having them evicted from Lee's property. I am pissed off, very pissed off. The people in Tent City are the ones who should be scared out there. Anyway, behind our apartment building are railroad tracks and a bunch of brush and a very tiny wooded strip of land owned by the railroad. It's back where I walk Josie. I have noticed some activity back there, the first thing was some of the bushes there had been cut down, next day there was a strip of old carpet in the path covering the cleared area.Then some 2x4s and rope to hold to to go down the hill into the bushes. Yesterday there was a white sign with one word "OPEN" written on it. Now, I know that most of you would freak if you thought bums were taking up residence in your back yard but somehow I feel blessed to have them taking shelter there. I have never seen my mystery neighbors but I did leave a bag full of T-shirts at their "door step" when I was walking Josie this afternoon. I hope they fit. God Bless these people, they are doing the best they can with things they have repurposed. Pray for them please.

It's all in the name

There was a funeral home/crematory right across the street from my favorite Sonic. It opened about 6 months ago and for 6 months I have intended to take a picture of the sign. I am the only person on earth who has a Blackberry without a camera in it. I couldn't remember to throw my camera in my purse. Well, anyway, this place never had any customers that I could tell, they had an elegant display of urns in the front of the window which you could see from the street and would house your beloved deceased tastefully on your mantle. This place recently went out of business. I am sure they provided loving services to the bereaved but I just don't think I could have turned the remains of a beloved to the BURNS-SHORT CREMATORY. What were they thinking when they named this place. They still have a website in case you were thinking I lost my mind and made it up. Google it.

Would you like some Whine with that Cheese

Yesterday sucked. I have been working my ass off and doing everything I could to get a promotion at work. Well, not an actual promotion which involved a lot of money or anything but a promotion with a title. I basically applied for the job I am already doing it just got a reclassified title but I had to apply for it anyway. I got an email from HR saying they had identified more qualified candidates than me and that I won't be considered for the job but please feel free to apply for another job anytime.

Well friends, as you see from my previous post my job started out as the job from HELL but I put on my big girl knickers and sucked it up and made chicken salad out of chicken shit. I have been a nurse since Moby Dick was a minnow and I am really good at it. Since Job from Hell started I have been applying for a new position. I have in fact over the past 9 months applied for 86 jobs with my employer. I am dead serious I even applied for food service to serve green beans on the lunch line. Every time I get the same computer generated email: "Thank you for applying but we have identified candidates who are better qualified..blah blah blah"
For the life of me I can't figure out the green bean job. I am a MOM, every mom knows how to sling beans on a plate. Maybe they thought I would look even less qualified in a food service hair net.

So anyway, I had a couple of cocktails which I haven't had since the Masters in April and took a sleeping pill and went to bed. I have been wide awake since 3 am. I don't sleep well when I am puzzled. I always have to try and figure out the logic in things. I never got the answer to this one and finally just got up.

I am on my third cup of coffee fortified with Stok caffiene shots and have smoked about 600 cigarettes. I walked through my apartment (which is about 5 steps round trip) and watched my grown babies sleeping, Walker with his size 13 1/2 feet hanging off the end of his bed with Cartoon Network blaring on the TV, Lizzy snoring quietly with Penelope Wolf clutched to her chest as she has been every night for 17 years, they are so beautiful. The best job I have ever had and succeeded in is being a Mom. I wish I was younger and had been able to have about 10 more of them.

I live in the heart of downtown Nashville and have been sitting on the stoop outside in my ratty nightgown drinking coffee, smoking like a chimney like white trash and all of a sudden I noticed the birds are back. They have been really quiet since the great flood. This morning they are all up early singing their spring birdie songs. They are singing about love and family and nests and worms. Not a care in the world. In my next life I am going to be a bird, a Mourning Dove I think because they look like Victorian Ladies. I want nothing more than to wake up early joyous, flirting with all kinds of boy birds til I find the right one and building a nest out of sticks and grass to raise my babies in. I would fly and soar and look down on people rushing around doing things they aren't happy doing and wonder why they don't just stop and enjoy the world like me.

Instead I have to be at a 7 o'clock meeting where I will hear the same old blah blah blah. I guess I need to go have another cup of coffee, put on my ever so flattering blue scrubs and head on off to the coal mine, but I will be wearing my neon sneakers which empower me and I will know this too will pass.
Have a great day everybody. This is the day the Lord has made, let us give thanks and be glad in it.

I'll start my blog with where I've been

OK, so here's what happened in a nutshell... November 2008 the parent company for Bobby Jones Apparel went belly up thus cutting off my main source of income, we went broke, lost our home, I cried, popped antidepressants and sleeping pills like candy and stayed asleep as much as I could. I was a lousy mother during that time and my precious little girl held me up. Walker graduated from Baylor in the spring of '09 and spent his summer getting us moved and settled into our apartment. I honestly do not know why I was not admitted to the psych ward and how I went to work everyday (more on the job thing later). On June 30 of '09 we lost our home. Through the grace of God and the kindness of a few friends and one total stranger we got a place to live 2 weeks before we were to become homeless.
Speaking of friends, I learned a valuable lesson about friends who really love you and friends who really aren't friends at all. When you lose all of your money, "friends" scatter like roaches when the light goes on. The people I thought I could depend on most either vanished or just acted like it's no big deal. My personal faves were the ones who compared their financial situations to mine while they have hot cars, second homes, country club memberships, elaborate vacations, food, gas, money and "Stuff". Then of course there are the friends who really love us. A dear friend, single mom of three little ones offered to get her boyfriend to finish out her basement for us to have a place to live. A precious and loving offer which we could not accept although she would not have allowed us to be homeless. One couple pays our rent every month because they really care that we have some quality of life. I know that with three kids in private school they could be using that money for something for their own family but they found it in their hearts to help out friends in need. A church which we do not even attend and who are of polar opposite beliefs than ours (or so I thought) made sure we had food on our table when we were wondering what to do with a can of water chestnuts, stale cheerios and half a jar of creamy peanut butter, which was all we had left.
During this time I also changed jobs. On top of the financial and familial upheaval, I started my new job and was almost instantly targeted by a bully whose goal was to completely break me. I was incredulous that at 57 years old I was the victim of a bully. I really needed ton of more stress. One day I was in the bathroom at work sobbing and Walker called me. He told me to quit my job that day, that the tuition benefit I had worked so long and hard for to educate them wasn't worth my health and that he and Lizzy would borrow every dime they needed to go to school. He was so sweet and so concerned but no way was I going to give up their education money, I earned that benefit. After taking my case all the way to the civil rights department I finally got the bullying stopped. God throws things at you for a reason, I now work in the same department, am successful and actually look forward to going to work everyday. Oh and for some reason the bully still works there, go figure.
A huge, amazing thing happened to me during this time. Through the grace of God and the wonders of Facebook I reconnected with my very best friend from high school who I lost touch with 40 years ago! She now resides in France of all places. Right before we lost our house she came to visit, we drank wine on the front porch till 6 AM and it was like 40 years had never passed. She has a cool French long distance calling plan where if she calls me on our land line it costs her nothing so we are as close as we were when we were 17. Technology is truly awesome. She has vowed to elp me in any way to get my children through college.
Lizzy had the most amazing, opportunity filled senior year of anyone I have ever known and graduated this May'10 cum laude from Father Ryan High School. She has been my joy and my strength through all of this, has learned way more than a child her age should have to and I am so sad that I spent most of her most joyous time a nervous doped hot mess of a human being. She is an amazing young lady.
I don't want to minimize Walker's suffering through our debacle. He was away, dealing with the heaviest school load he has ever faced and I am sure was worried sick about what was going on at home that he was powerless to fix. At 19 he developed severe hypertension which is partially bad genes he got from me and partially stress that I caused. He is on meds for it now and doing fine.
So in the end, we have our little family, our health, a roof over our heads, food on our table and most importantly we have learned that money (or the lack there of) doesn't define you, that "stuff" doesn't define you, that what you drive doesn't define you. We have learned that character defines you and that is all that matters. We love our God and have over time come to realize what a gift we were given when we lost our world as we knew it. He opened our eyes to what is truly important and to the needs of others less fortunate than we are.

So there's the story if anyone was wondering what really happened to us. I guess that was more like a giant peach than a nutshell, sorry about that. Now that I have let it out I will try very hard to make the rest of my posts more optimistic and maybe even funny now that my sense of humor is returning.