My life, South of the Border!

As you all know, last year I threatened to move to Canada if Palin was elected.  Well, maybe you did not know that, but the cat is out of the bag now.  I even went so far as to find out that it is apparently quite easy to move to Canada. 

If it was just not so darn cold there!  And, I’m pretty sure that my Master’s Daughter will not follow me as she is very happy in all of her jobs.  And, I jokingly mentioned to Gaffer that I would like to move and his whiny response was, “But, I just found a job!” 

So, in the spirit of good and bad lists, I am weighing my options:

First, on the downside:

1. This house needs so much work that I will be 97 before it is ready to sell.
2. The economy is down the tubes and we would probably not get our money out of this house.
3. Packing seems overwhelming.
4. I would have to find new doctors and I LOVE my doctors.
5. I would have to find a new bank.  Since my bank is in a constant state of changing it’s name and I have had three banks in the last seven years without doing a thing.
6. Mother would probably have a melt down, or more likely a “freeze up.”
7. Since it will take three years for the new health care to get running, I will probably not have a doctor for the next two years, since our oldest has found a job.  Never mind that every penny he makes will be going to Sallie Mae for his eternal student loans.  Canada has health care and when you have gone for years without healthcare, anything is better than nothing.
8. Distance from relatives.

Second on the plus side:

1. I would not be the owner of this house when it slides off the slope into the pond.
2. There is no plus side on the economy.
3. A ton of my stuff is still packed in Rubbermaids from the last move.
4. Sorry, no plus side on finding new doctors!
5. I could maybe find a bank that did not sell-out every three years.
6. My mother does love nature and we could move to the edge of civilization; albeit frozen civilization.
7. I would have healthcare.
8. I would then be “north of the border,” thus making my relatives, who think that living on the wrong side of an imaginary line makes you less equal, as the people who would THEN be living “south of the border.”

I really think I need to move somewhere though.  This house needs a thorough cleaning.

Teach a child to think and he learns for a lifetime!

Our youngest grandson/son/ward is still struggling in school.  Having only been educated to a 2nd and 3rd grade level by the time he was 13, when he came to live with us, has been near impossible to make up.  Even the two years of nearly private teachers in Jr. High, could not make up his being approximately six years behind in education.

He is currently failing history.  My oldest grandson had a history teacher who would dress up like a Civil War Soldier and come to class and teach all about why the war was going on and how the battles were fought, and the consequences.  Our boy has a teacher who gives his tests on what year the battle took place, how many soldiers enlisted, how many soldiers died; and all this for five to seven battles at a time.

Obviously, our boy does not have a great memory and I’m thinking this teacher isn’t the best either.  To be fair, this is the side of the story I am getting from youngest boy and another mother.  I do not sit in his classroom.

The discussion always comes up, how many good teachers do you remember?  Just ponder that for a minute.  How many teachers did you have that you actually felt made you learn to think for yourself and made learning fun?

I remember one.  I think she was my fifth grade teacher and, when you read a book, if you were tired of writing reports, you could draw a picture or do a diorama, or anything you could think up to show what you thought was important in the book.  She kept a file folder for each child and taught each child.  No child was “left behind.”

Mostly I remember teachers like the coach/health teacher who chose one child every year to humiliate in class.  Then there was the history class where every day, every class was the same with the first person in the row reading the first paragraph in the history book,  and on down the line.  I remember several other idiot teachers but why go there.  I would rather focus on good teachers here.

Never mind that she is my daughter, read this good teacher’s blog at Cool Moments in Teaching « Braindebris’s Weblog and tell me what you think?  Is this not what we would like to see all teacher’s be?

In the meantime, in his freshman year of high school, youngest boy had the biology teacher from hell who was rumored to have passed four children total out of all her classes and “left” the job at the end of the year.  I knew the first day I met her, she would be a problem as she had come from a seminar and wanted youngest boy to answer a seminar problem, and he had not been at the seminar.  The next year he had another problem teacher who “left” at the end of the year.   This year he apparently has a teacher who is trying to teach him to memorize instead of think.

You know, maybe if we start paying our teachers, as if they were important (let’s see, how about we reverse the income of AIG professionals and teachers?) just maybe we could get more good teachers.

Do Your Ears Hang Low?

I love the new advertisement for ?? is it WalMart?  It may not be the most successful ad, since I cannot remember what it is for, but I love it anyway.

We are all raised with an idea of what beauty is.  My mother tends to use the word pretty for all kinds of things.  “Doesn’t she have a pretty face?”  “That shirt is pretty.”  “There’s a pretty rock.”

Conversely, anything she does not like is ugly.  “That sausage tastes ugly.”  “That yard is ugly.”  Etc.

My idea of pretty is a bit off from my mothers.  I think that Whoppi Goldberg is one of the prettiest actors (I guess using actress is not PC.) around.  But, somehow judging say, Nicholas Cage, on a pretty scale is just wrong.  Now, if you want to talk Viggo Mortensen——.

I have painted portraits professionally for over twenty years now, and I think all faces are beautiful.  I love Whoppi’s smile.  It makes her beautiful.  Some people have beautiful eyes.  Some have beautiful wrinkles.  Honest! 

And, I love to watch that commercial because every one of those people is beautiful, and so are you!

P.S.  Right now, I’m looking in the mirror and reminding myself that I have always thought wrinkles were pretty.

I am sooooo excited!

My Master’s Daughter, yes XUP this is MY daughter, not some Master of Tai Kwan Do’s daughter, or Master Chef’s daughter.  She is “MY” oldest daughter and she graduated with a straight A average for her Masters degree in education, so she is “my master’s daughter” and she is back to contributing to the blogosphere.

She is my favorite blog.  Sorry,  XUP but she is my daughter and  she is also the funniest person on this earth, and we are talking a lot of very funny people:

Like Crazy Aunt Purl

and Cake Wrecks

and even Blog | Anthony Bourdain

But, this girl was born seeing the world through funny eyes and her blog is the best ever; daughter or no daughter.  I mean, how many people can find a ton of laughs in cleaning a rabbit cage.  Braindebris’s Weblog.  And, I am talking tears running down my cheeks, laughing so hard I cannot talk now at the picture she has painted of her misadventures cleaning the rabbit cage.  You just gotta read it.

I would also like to point out that the other day I admitted to her:

Under the pressure to be witty and informing on Twitter, I am now cannibalizing your BrainDebris blog and stealing lines.  Oh, the humiliation.

And, now, she begins writing again, after a long absence.  Coincidence?  I think not!!!

HMMM!  There’s this little message at the bottom of her blog in size 3 font.  What does it say????

This blog is property of Braindebris@wordpress.com so back away from that copy/paste bucko and think for yourself!

The little smart aleck!  Guess I’m on my own with Twitter.

Listen up, AOL!!!

I am on AOL dial-up.  The price is right, at $10.00 a month, and it really does not matter.  I am one of those rural people who is waiting to catch up to the 21st century.  Our phone lines, literally, become party lines when it rains.  There is no high speed.

You can be on the phone and hear a neighbors phone dialing, then the neighbor talking about their son being arrested.  Seems to me that AT&T is breaking some privacy law by not fixing it.  I’ve tried everything else to get it fixed, maybe that will work??? I doubt it.

A friend emailed me the other day. 

Your AOL email response has really messed up my computer!
 
The whole thing has slowed down to a crawl. I did a Spybot cleanup and rebooted, but now my browzer is AOL, there is some kind of AIM Buddy program running my screens, Mozilla Firefox has taken over the PC and even my task bar and desktop are messed up with AOL stuff !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
 Please don’t respond to my emails using AOL.  Could you please contact AOL and get then to stop this kind of thing?”

Okay, what dream world does he live in that he thinks that AOL will actually listen to me and fix this issue?  First, no one else, that I have emailed, has complained.  Second, I have a virus scan that runs every time I go online.  Thus making it necessary for me to turn it on and go do dishes as it devours all my RAM.  But, ensuring it is not a virus.    Third, $10 a month!!! Do you think AOL really cares what I say?

The next day, I got this email.

I’m back on line!
 
It took a few hours but I was able to removed all of the AOL and Foxfire stuff, clean out the cookies, remove the desktop and kill the startup file programs.
 … 
 Anyway, I’ve never had problems with email from Hotmail (Microsoft), so could you please create a hotmail account  and write back?  It’s free, too.”

I agree with almost everything he says.  AOL had to do some community service recently for adding stuff to the email, so I really do not know what this was about, but since I cannot write him back, I thought I would let him know on my blog.

I currently have one website, three blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.  All of which have passwords.  That does not count the bank, Barnes & Noble, the pharmacy and I am just at the B’s.  I counted and I am up to 23 passwords and I am in the C’s.   I am at password overload. 

You are not supposed to use one password, nor use anything that might be public knowledge (birthdays, kids names, etc), nor keep them written down (YEAH RIGHT!).  I did see a neat trick about doing it with your keyboard.  I figure that since I saw it on CNN, then so did all the creeps who steal stuff, so what good is that?

Anyway, Jes, next time I can get on my website email (it did not work yesterday), I will write.  Just don’t hold your breath waiting for AOL to listen to me.

The cutest Treat you could find!

I love Halloween.  What’s not to love about a holiday that lets you run around after dark, eat chocolate and dress in a costume, and I just had to ask permission to post this picture, from my nephew, because it is just the cutest picture on earth  today.

Beside the adorable baby, in the picture above, we have an awesomely carved pumpkin eating a pumpkin.  That should win an award somewhere. Obviously, I am proud of my great nephew and lovely significant other, sorry I did not mention you earlier.  You are a dear and should not be forgotten.

Since I am totally messed up as far as my photos (Yes, rubbermaids full that I am sorting), I am posting a couple of Halloween pictures that are not of the best quality but at least new to this blog.  I would like to post the one of my Master’s Daughter, who I first took trick or treating when she was eight months old, but who knows which Rubbermaid it is in?

EMT Dragon and Gaffer Knight

You have seen this dragon costume last year when it was a photo of my oldest grandson and his mother, my Master’s Daughter, who created some fantastic costumes for her boys and let her nephews borrow them.

And, even when their aunt did not supply costumes, they found a way to create them.  This is EMT, Jake in the middle and Gaffer to the right.  The goal was to create armor out of blue jeans. 

EMT, many years ago, in full body “blue jean” armor

Have a fun and safe Halloween!

Bobbie or Donna, I have your photos!

 

This cuties name is Donna and the date is 10-31-58 and she is a mystery to me, as I have some of her photos and would love to return them to someone who might have a personal connection with them.

If I had “life” to do over again, one of my choices would have been to be a photo journalist, possibly even before I would have been a classical violinist.  I love faces and I love photographs.   In fact, I grew up with a camera in my face and a red sweatshirt on.

My parents loved to take pictures.  Dad loved to take movies and they both loved to take 3D photos.  This extended to other family members and even when I went to my grandmother’s house for the holidays, we would get out of the car and my aunt would be standing out in a blizzard to capture every moment of the holiday, on celluloid.

I worked for law offices for years and occasionally, we would be told to go through boxes and take out anything we wanted.  This usually was the result of a marital break up or an estate case.  For some reason, no one wanted the stuff in the box and the lawyers were stuck with it.  One time there was a photo album in one of the boxes and, not being able to abandon photos, I took it home.

Eventually, I quit carting that photo album around in my many moves, but I could not throw away the photos.  I saved those photos and they are like owning a mystery to me. 

Most seem to feature a girl named Donna or Bobbie.  I am thinking she went to West Technical High School in Cleveland 2, Ohio. (That is not a typo, that is an address from the 50s.).  The reason I say that is this photo is stamped on the back: DEPARTMENT OF PHOTOGRAPHY, West Technical High School.  Not too dumb, am I?

I believe the girl’s name is Donna or Bobbie as she resembles the girl on the left in this photo titled, “Winding up For The Take Off” and is dated Oct. 8, 1951.

And, I think that Miss Vanek must have been one of her teachers.  This photo was dated December 1954 and identified by the teacher’s name on the back.  Doesn’t the girl on the left resemble Donna or Bobbie, but then the girl on the right could be one of them too?

Finally, and there are other photos without any identification, we know that somehow they know “THE SKIPPER FAMILY.”  Season’s Greetings to all was included in their album.

I have to tell you.  This is such an iconic photo.  I love it.  It is obviously for Christmas but I gather, by the foliage, that they are in the south?  And, here stands Mrs in a fur hat, scarf, coat and gloves, while daughter is just in a sweater and he is in a suit. 

So, if anyone out there in the blogosphere, knows Donna or Bobbie or the Skipper Family, maybe we can get these pictures back to their family.  Just email or comment and let me know.

Oh, and the red sweatshirt reference??  Mom thought red showed up really well in color photographs.  So, for vacation, every year, she bought me a new red sweatshirt.  If you find any photos of a girl in a red sweatshirt, standing by the sign for entering every state in the country, or by every statue, landmark and waterfall ever seen on vacation, you know who to send them to.

Christmas is coming!

It is in the high 60’s today, in Indiana.  I understand that in Casper, Wyoming, where we lived for ten years before moving back home to Indiana, they have had four good snow storms and are expecting ten more inches this weekend. 

I am still not used to the warmth and nicer weather we have by living less than fifty miles south of Indianapolis.  It is gorgeous today and I saw my first Christmas advertisement.  Good Grief!

It used to be that you had Halloween, the next day you saw adds for Thanksgiving and then, right around Thanksgiving the Christmas adds started.  Now, the folks at Hobby Lobby tell me they have already condensed the ornaments, since they have sold so many, and the Christmas television ads have started.

Just like Crazy Aunt Purl, and her fight against buying more Christmas decorations, I am a Christmas nut.  I have ornaments from both of my grandmother’s trees.  I love the season and I love the lights, smells, sounds and ornamentation of it.  However, it just does not last as long as it used to.

I remember coming home from school with crayon Christmas drawings, through huge drifts of snow , and how long it seemed before Christmas Eve.   I remember sneaking into the kitchen, while the others decorated the tree, and eating the whole package of chocolate covered wafer cookies.  I do not remember the throwing up which I did.

But, snow or no snow, and even though Christmas comes and goes in the blink of an eye, it is a warm and cozy holiday to spend with loved ones.  With or without sixteen rubbermaids of decorations.

Hoppin’ possum and other moments of life

1. We are almost having summer here. Summer, with golden red leaves in the trees and brown ones on the ground. 
2. I let Irritating Little Chihuahua out the front door the other night, and both of us got a bit freaked out by the sound of footsteps in the deep crinkling leaves at the back of the house.  She came right back in and I went to face the unknown out the back door, where my flashlight highlighted a possum.  Just how does a possum walk in leaves and make footstep sounds?  Gaffer said it was a hoppin’ possum.
3. It has been raining in Indiana, which means I have problems getting on line and can, yet again, listen in on my neighbors phone calls and they, mine.  Gotta love Indiana.
4. Twenty-three year old, Gaffer, is working now.  In the last months, he has applied for a job in every city within a fifty mile radius.  He got, exactly, one call back.  After two interviews, he began working as a cashier at a Cracker Barrel and is now up for his first raise.  He is delighted.  He is a good worker and in January, he begins his training to take his Master’s Electrician license. 
5. The twenty year old, EMT, was looking for a job.  He has signed his enlistment papers to join the Army and goes to basic in January so thought he would not be able to find a job to fill-in for a couple of months.  He was happy to find a job with NTN in Columbus, IN.  They make drive shafts, I believe.  He starts on Monday.  We have thought, for some time, that would be a good fit for the military.  Will I worry?  Yes!  But, no more than when he was a volunteer fireman or getting his woodland fire fighter certificate. 
6. And, the games continue.  Tonight they are playing Trivial Pursuit.  It is as noisy as Risk.  I do believe they have all realized that life, as it tends to do, will be evolving very soon and are making memories and enjoying each other’s company. 

Gaffer may be here for a year, or more, but once he has his Master’s Electrician License, he will be off to points where there are sets and stages that need electricians.  EMT will be in the Army for four years and Jake, formerly known as JRock and less formerly known as JCountry, will be off to Nashville, TN in a couple of years.  His choice is either Diesel Mechanic and/or guitar/singer. 

Right now, the little ladies who shop in Nashville, Indiana love Jake and are overwhelmed by the depth of his voice, with their claps and a few tips too.

We have been “smited” again.

One of my all time favorite blogs is Crazy Aunt Purl. Her new book is in the hands of her editor and all is well in her world; other than her roof has a waterfall coming through it.   I cannot wait to read her new book and, I promise, I will buy my own copy this time and not just borrow my daughter’s. 

Her October 14th post, has a hilarious section about the summer she was smited three times.  She is from bayou country and down there they refer to acts of God as being “smited.”  I am from the midwest where those same “acts of God” are usually lectured as, “God has his reasons.” 

Those reasons were never explained but the inference were that either you had done some awful, evil thing or, even more esoteric, your band director was a jerk and you had to leave band (your chosen vocation) because this would ’some day in the future’ save you from dying in childbirth. 

Obviously, I never died in childbirth so perhaps that was the reason I had to endure some stuff, but I had to wonder, even as a child, just exactly what evil, thing I,  an eleven/twelve/etc. year old child could have possibly done that brought God’s wrath down on me, repeatedly.

To preface my story, for my non-daily readers (which is everyone since I have been very lax in posting lately), husband is on Social Security Disability, and after twenty years of that, you have very old, junky cars. 

We have been very fortunate in that several times, relatives/friends have given us cars they were done with.  Then, I came into a very small sum of money a year ago and was able to purchase a 2000 Chrysler Voyager.

I absolutely love that car.  It is my favorite ever car and has the best visibility in the world.   It was really nice to have a reliable car, with a muffler, so that I did not have to sneak into places where I had to go to meetings, so I would be heard before I arrived.  Our other car, inherited, had no muffler, a cracked windshield, no heater or air, and a wierd thunk in the transmission since before I inherited it, but it just keeps plugging along.

So Gaffer called the other night and said he was let off work early as the restaurant was not busy enough.  Husband left to pick son up from work, and on our windy, after dusk roads, he stopped at a stop sign, looked, and was 3/4 way through the intersection when he noticed another car’s headlamps were embedded into, well, just about into his head.  Amazingly, he has one tiny injury from the padded arm rest.   The car is not so lucky!

I do have to wonder why no one has ever hit the car with no muffler, cracked windshield, no heater or air and a wierd thunk in the transmission?

Say goodbye to my Chrysler Voyager!