Turtle # 7

Yep, I checked her markings and this little girl is not one of the previous turtles I have photographed so she is the 7th I have found in my yard---the 5th within the past month. 

I am super sleepy...fireworks started popping in my neigbhorhood, terrifying one of my dogs and annoying my other one and the beagle that is currently visiting us.  Since I have not been babysitting ths week I have read most of the night and slept most of the day, although I have a 100 things to do, at least, before Tues.

And my laptop died.  I will be using my daughter's until  can save up for one. Posts here my be few and far between.  Have a wonderful weekend.

Cute Little Coasters

My friend, Jimmie, recently visited her family and came back with some coasters someone made---her Grandma I think.  Anyway, I think they are just the cutest little things.  My granddaughter has a little pink tea set and she has been carrying these coasters around like they are pot holders for her teapot.  If I had a sewing machine I think I could figure out how to make them.  The strips of fabric are folded over strips overlapped...the only stitching is the seam of the square. 

It's a Little Girl! Turtle # 6

little girl who visited us on 7-1-2012

My daughter, Casey and granddog, Andy have come to live with me for a month.  She is moving to a brand new apartment and construction is running about 4 weeks behind schedule.  She had already given notice at her old apartment so she put her furniture in storage at her dad's big barn and she and Andy will hang out here for July.  He plays real well with my dogs and they are always glad to have him come play.  Me too.  Anyway, last night Andy was outside barking up a storm and when Casey checked on him he had discovered a turtle in the one part of my yard with tall grass.  She is a little girl, I am almost positive.  She is a fiesty little thing.  The other turtles that have visited me would draw into their shells but not her! well, she is in this photo because all 3 dogs were barking up a storm but after we got her in the garden away from the dogs she didn't seem afraid of me and Casey.  She is ready to take on the world.  She is fast too.  Casey got the shovel to scoop her up and move her out of the dogs' yard and she tried to crawl off the end of the shovel as soon as Casey scooped her up.  Casey didn't have time to make it to the lower 4 ft portion of fence to set her over gently so she took her to the garden instead.  Miss Fiesty Pants took off across the garden area for all she was worth! That turtle could scoot pretty darn fast.  I know she is a different one because she is slightly smaller, has three distinct ridges across her shell that break up the solid yellow line down her back, and because she is the first turtle to let me see her little tail...it appeared to be wagging as she ran across the garden.  I have never seen a turtle moved so fast!

Miss Fiesty Pants 7-1-2012

Three Tuesday Tidbits

1. Remember on my old blog when I posted about Steve Job's last words?  If not then go to my old blog,  www.incarolsworld.blogspot.com and read about it because it was pretty cool.  It is the post on November 1, 2011.  Anyway, I was thinking about that and wanted to call my friend Debbie's husband Wayne and tell him about that if he had not heard it.  I thought it might bring him some comfort.  She passed away ... oh my gosh, was that just day before yesterday.  The 2 weeks since she had her stroke have seem like lasting a year or something.  Anyway, I called his cell and it immediately went to voice mail like he might have turned off his cell.  At the hospital he had her cell phone with him so I called that number.  It rang a few times and went to voice mail ... except then the greeting started.  It was my friend, my friend that died, it was her voice on the recorded greeting.  Well, it was her phone so of course it was her voice on the recording, I should have expected it since I have heard it a million times, but tonight it was a shock.  I know that recording will be a treasure to her husband, but tonight it was a real shock to me.  I was not prepared to hear her voice.  I really was not prepared to hear her voice.  And you know how you get a song "stuck in your head?"  All day I have been humming, singing, thinking about the song she wants played at her funeral, The Spirit in the Sky.  I can't get it out of my head.  Luckily, I like it too. 
2. 
   My granddaughter was in the middle of eating her lunch when my daughter came in, took off her shoes and got ready to babysit her niece for the rest of the day.  Taylor evidently decided she suddenly needed to wear her aunt's shoes, and she proceeded to walk very well in them across the room, holding white cheese in one hand, cheddar cheese in the other, and the white blobs on her face and bib -- that is cottage cheese.  Need I say she loves cheese? 

3. 

   see the black seed nestled
    in tiny green leaves?
   This is also what 4 o'clocks look
   like with the blooms closed

I love my 4 o'clocks.  In the evening they smell so good.  If I can keep them alive in this heat --today was 106 -- they will attract butterflies and hummingbirds.  I also love to hunt for the seeds.  As far as flower seeds go they are huge.  They are nestled in green leaves though and even being big black seeds in the pale green leaves they are easy to overlook.  It reminds me of hunting for Easter eggs.  I just love to hunt for them.  I usually find about 20 a day on the few large bushes I have.  It calms me, somehow, looking through the leaves for the seeds.  It is a joy to find them, realizing each little seed holds who knows how many blooms in it that will in turn produce seeds.  This year I have been planting them as soon as I harvest them in the hopes that my fence will be lined with them by next month.  This is what they look like:

blooms opened up

 

    

seeds I harvested tonight

and the smell?  Sweet, delicious, homey. 

I Wish I Lived In a World Where Ugliness Didn't Exist

        On my former blog I think I wrote about my phone number.  I have grandkids and when it recently came to pass that I wanted to change cell phone companies I chose not to keep my old number but pick a new one that I thought would be super easy for my grandkids to remember.   The Clear employee read me off a list of easy sounding numbers available. Of the 7 digit phone number only 2 numbers and 1 zero at the end are involved.  Perfect, I thought.  Things were fine until I got my new phone charged up and running and I received the first text.  It was something pretty close to this, I think exactly -- "I saw your ad on the internet and I am really interested.  Do you have any recent photos?"  I was appalled but my daughter said oh mom, the people who formerly had this number were probably just selling a piece of furniture on Craigslist or something.  Yeah, they were selling something all right.  I have lost track of how many texts and voice mails I have received "in response to the 'net ad" for massages.  Go figure.... it is only men apparently that need these "massages." Sometimes they need a massage at 3 a.m.  My cell phone is the only phone I have.  If I get a call from some number I do not know I just don't answer it.  I don't respond to the voice mails or texts although I jokingly have said to my family "maybe for fun and profit I could think about ...nooo, I can't even joke about that." My niece jokingly said that might be a good way to pay off my mortgage!  I have had the phone number about 2 or 3 months now and the calls have all but stopped, except for an occassional odd call, and then two people.  One is hispanic and possibly only speaks Spanish.  He calls maybe 3 times a day, sometimes 6.  At first I didn't answer his calls because  I didn't recognize the number but now I know it is him, since he always leaves a voice message -- either in Spanish or just heavy breathing.  I ignore him and I don't let it bother me.  Believe me, I have other things to worry over.  I finally started answering when he called to tell him he had the wrong number.  He either does not, or pretends to not understand English.  Even when I answer and say you have the wrong number he will imediately call back. Whatever.  Last week I told him if you ever call this number again I am going to turn your phone number over to the police, thinking even if, and it is a big if, he does not understand English I bet he understands the word "police."  He still calls.  I am just going to go to the Clear Kiosk sometime and find out how to block his number.  The second guy (I am assuming it is a male) sends texts.  A phone number appears along with this ... myskinismysin ... instead of a name.  Not anyone I know, or want to know. I have always ignored him and just deleted them but yesterday I let it bother me.  Yesterday was the day my friend died.  My friend of 50 years.  My friend who died at least 30 years too early.  Yesterday when we were waiting for Drs to take my brain dead friend off the life support keeping her body working until they could harvest the organs she donated. Yesterday that jerk texted me "who got killed."  I have no idea what he was talking about but I did not need to receive that text yesterday.  I will get his number blocked too.  His number shows up --until I can get it blocked do you think I should call him or text him back rather than ignore him?

       The next bit of ugliness/stupidity is really scarey.  I live right off of a highway.  DOT is tearing down some old overpass bridges and replacing them.  They are almost done with one less than a half a mile south of my house.  Now they have started removing the old bridge about a mile north of my house.  Here is the first line in an article I read in my paper yesterday ... "State highway officials are seeking the public’s help to find who’s responsible for rearranging traffic barriers meant to keep motorists from plunging off a north Amarillo bridge that is under construction."  Unbelievable.  From what I heard on the tv news evidently for the past three nights in a row in the wee hours of the morning someone moved barriers to keep people from driving off a demolished bridge and moved the barriers to block the lane you are suppose to drive down.  http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2012-06-25/someone-moving-traffic-barriers-amarillo-bridge-project-state-says-bobby Again, all I can say is unbelievable.  I hope they catch them.
    And then the brats on the school bus.  In case you missed it, Karen Klein, a 68 year old widowed bus monitor in New York was bullied by a group of middle school kids on a school bus.  They were filmed for over ten minutes profainly taunting and bullying this woman because of her weight, appearance, hearing aides, and for appearing to be poor.  I saw a small portion of it.  It was vulgar, disgusting, horrifying.  Their words were nothing but hateful.  They poked her with books,  grabbed the flabby part of her upper arm.  One kid said she was so ugly and fat that if she had kids they should kill themselves.  She cried.  Her son committed suicide about 10 years ago.  The child that filmed it posted it on his facebook and millions saw it. A Toronto nutritionist who doesn't know Mrs. Klein but felt like he should do something started up a fundraising campaign with the hope of raising $5,000 to send her on a vacation. He says today that the campaign has raised more than $650,000 since last week.  A few of the children have sent her "notes of apology." None have apologized in person.  Here is what my favorite local journalist had to say  http://amarillo.com/blog-post/jon-mark-beilue/2012-06-25/little-jerks-apologize-what-thats-worth
 (and I apologize if there are typos in my blog --- my computer is on its' last leg evidently and skipping keystrokes, plus spellcheck won't work today)

My Friend Passed Away Today

My friend of 50 years, much like a sister to me, passed away today.  She had another stroke.  Because of my religious beliefs I know that she is in a better place.  She is no longer in any pain.  She is reunited with people she loves.  She is more than ok.  She would not want us to cry, but at the hospital I did and her husband did, and I am sure her sister and niece did too when they got the phone call.  It just seems weird.  One minute you are fine and in the blink of an eye something can happen and life changes.  After her first stroke she was not able to swallow.  Just yesterday at the hospital when we were trying to wake her up to see if she could possibly swallow some lemon ice for the therapist I told her "remember how we have spent 100's of hours talking on the phone ... you have to get better so we can do that again."  I also told her remember how many times we have gone just driving around, drinking Dr Pepper from Sonic, and listening to the radio, swaping every secret thought we either had ever had?  We have got to go driving around, and to do that you have got to get better.   Well, it will be a while until she and I get to do that.  The 11 days she was in the hospital I know she never recognized me.  Because she had not made any progress the hospital was going to discharge her soon and told her husband he would need to put her in a nursing home.  I know for a fact, from our hours of talking about things, that she never, ever wanted to be in a nursing home.  Maybe she heard that and decided nope, not going to a nursing home. Her husband told me today when I asked what he was plannng for a service  that  there were some songs she would have want played.  She loved Elvis.  He was going to have think about what  gospel song of his she would have wanted.  He knew for certain she wanted the song Spirit in the Sky to be played.  A song from our high school days.  It was written in 1969, I think.  Here it is ....

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPlGFh6OpQ

Thursday Things

At the library my grandkids
received spy disquises as one of the summer reading program prizes ... mustaches and sunglasses.  Taylor loves the mustache and has worn hers off and on for days. 
     My granddaughter is talking more and more.  Today I was washing her dishes, sippy cups and little forks, etc and she brought me her tea set dishes and said "wash this."  Well, okey dokey.  This week her favorite word is "mine."  She loves to share food, wants to feed us bites all the time.  Today she tried to feed my daughter a potato chip and when my daughter said "no thank you" Taylor said "pleeeease?"  We had never heard her say please before. 
    The wind has been blowing fiercely.  My grandson, in the red shirt, is almost twelve.  We were having pizza for supper and I have to have a fountain coke with pizza so we went to the closest convenience store for a coke.  My grandson sat his 32 oz drink (obviously WE don't live in New York City) ... anyway, het sat his drink down on the counter right in front of me and it sat there a second before it just tumbled off the counter.   The convenience store people were super nice, my grandson was super embarrassed and I was super sticky.  He fixed another drink and we came home.  I just have regular "trailer house" steps ... not the best situation but it is what I have.  The wind was blowing like crazy and actually blew the screen door back, hitting my grandson and between the door and the wind he went flying off the top step.  I mean really, blew him off, right on his bottom about 4 feet away from the steps. Last year the wind caught the door and ripped the chain and the door return thingy off the door and I haven't replaced it because it would just get ripped off again.  The wind catches that door daily.  At 11 yrs old getting blown off the porch is embarrassing (to him). Oh. And he was holding his 32 oz drink which hit the ground, the styrofoam cup burst and he was again super embarrassed, super sticky and his pride bruised.  He and I drove back to the convenience store.  Right before we headed out for the cokes & pizza he had taken my dogs' crate outside to wash for me.  The bottom tray is pretty hefty metal.  It WAS totally flat when he washed it but the strong wind hit it while it was drying and now it looks like this ....  

When the wind was not blowing my daughter and I took my granddaughter to a park ... she loves to swing.

         For lunch I made my favorite sandwich ....  a lot of crispy Oscar Meyer already cooked bacon that you zap in the microwave for 30 seconds crumbled into a bowl with grated cheddar cheese and mixed with Miracle Whip until you make a spread and put on really fresh, soft white bread.  Yum! I finished a book, Cast On, Kill Off by Maggie Sefton that I really enjoyed, even though I figured out "who did it" right off the bat and I hate that.  We had a wonderfully cool day today -- in the 80's so I got outside and pulled some weeds but the entire weekend is going to be 98 to 100.  Ugh ...
            I have a friend I met 50 years ago. I went to an elementary school that was mostly hispanic. I was always the only white girl in my class until Debbie came to my school. We became best friends. She had a stroke last week. I went to the hospital to see her today. Not a happy time.