WHEN I CAN.....

sit up in this chair for more than 3 minutes at a time, I will catch everyone up on what's been going on. For now, suffice it to say that we had a great Christmas and have enjoyed tremendously having all the grandgirls here and seeing them interact.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

ONLY.....

1 MORE DAY.....!!!

ONLY.....

2 MORE DAYS.....!!!

ONLY.....

3 MORE DAYS.....!!!

THE SUGGESTION BOX.....

is back. Knock yourself out.

ONLY.....

4 MORE DAYS.....!!!

ONLY.....

5 MORE DAYS 'TIL I GET MY CHRISTMAS PRESENTS!!!!!

BECAUSE OF THIS BUM BACK OF MINE.....

I've done 90% of my Christmas shopping online this year. It's been awesome. Just sit here in my jammies and window shop (surf) as long as I want and save all that wear and tear on my poor old body. Plus, the selections are so numerous. Any store you can think of and LOTS you didn't even know existed are online. You're not limited to whatever is at the mall. You can have it sent wherever you want. Makes hiding stuff so much easier. I'm just amazed every time I sit down to look for something. I'll most likely do it like this forever now. It's just too cool!!

I'M TIRED.....

of looking at that turkey. So, until I can come up with something witty to say about Christmas, here are some traditional icons of the holiday season.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Y'ALL ARE NOT GONNA BELIEVE THIS.....

but, I swear on my cat's stubby tail that it's true. Now, Tylie loves grapes. And I try to keep some here for her most of the time. She likes to help me pick them off of the stems before I wash them. We do this on the couch while we watch "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" for the 38th time. After they get picked and washed, we eat them. She's three.....sometimes she drops one. I always try to pick it up. Apparently I don't always MANAGE to get it picked up. I was looking under the couch cushions for a pen that had slipped down between them. Guess what.....you can make raisins without the sun!!

I BOUGHT SOME OF THOSE.....

"Instantly slims you" blue jeans. Yeah, right. The only thing these jeans do is push all that flab up.

MUFFIN TOP???

I WISH!!!!

I look more like Jabba the Hut in these stupid pants. (Except not quite so green.)

I need some jeans that "instantly slim me" all the way up to my armpits. *sigh* Or, how about some "why don't you just stay home in your flannel jammies" jeans. That'd work!

I SHOULD HAVE.....

put this post on back in September. I thought about it then. And then forgot about it. I first need to explain who the players are here. The bigger little girl is Tylie, one of our grandgirls, and she's three. The smaller little girl is Katie, a granddaughter of Tony's brother, and she's one and a half. That makes these two little girls third cousins. (at least in Martin County) Tylie had just gotten a new puppy that day.

Katie was a little apprehensive about getting too close. As you can see, Tylie was trying to coax her a little closer.....

and a little closer.....

and finally Tylie reached over to get her hand and put it on the puppy.

I think Katie did end up patting the puppy but I didn't get a real good picture of that. It was cute to watch and listen to them.

(Remember.....you can always click on a picture to make it bigger and then click on your back button to come back to the blog. That goes for the buggy pictures, tooooooo.)

EW, EW, EWWWWW.....

Ok, this is just nasty but I don't want to be the ONLY one grossed out by it. When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, I sat out on the front porch for a little while. We've got a glider out there and it's pretty nice sometimes. We've had us some excellence in the weather department this week and I was enjoying a little bit of it. I happened to look over and there was this ewwy big bug on the arm of the glider. Well, I panicked a bit and kinda swatted it off and when it hit the concrete it turned into two bugs. Huh??? That's what I said, two bugs. So I watched and, while the larger bug started back toward the glider, the smaller bug like to have broke it's legs scurryin' to get back on top of the larger bug. Now, folks, I dunno what was goin' on there. As far as I could tell, it was just a small bug hitchin' a ride on a big bug. Swear to God. I kept watching and there was no hanky panky. But, get this.....the big bug headed up the side of the glider again. It was very determined. It made it all the way back up to the side of the arm and it fell off all by itself that time. Also, the smaller bug fell off again. And, again, the smaller bug hightailed it onto the bigger bug's back. And the bigger bug trudged all the way back up to the arm of the glider again. And I decided to take pictures. This time it just kinda hung on the side of the arm. And was hanging there still when I came in the house. (P.S. If anyone knows what kinda bug/bugs this/these is/are, lemme know.)

THIS IS MY.....

belated Halloween post. We're lucky. We live along the highway and, more importantly, DON'T HAVE ANY SIDEWALKS IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE!! Which means that there aren't gangs of too-big kids that we don't know ringing our doorbell on Halloween asking for the few treats that I buy. Since we've lived here, we've only ever had family kids and a very few close friends come trick-or-treating. This year, only one came, our niece, little Liz. When she came in, I said, "Oooooohhhh, you're a beautiful princess!" (She had make-up on and everything!!) She gave me a withering look and said, "I'm a queen....." I immediately began bowing and scraping and asked if I would be allowed to take her picture. As you can see, she sat for her formal portrait and smiled at the correct moment.

I present to you

Queen Mary Elizabeth

And, if she is the Queen, then this must be the Queen and the Queen Mother.

THIS IS.....

OK, THE EXPERIMENT.....

has run its rather abbreviated course. I thought it would last longer than this; but, Butch is more particular than I had first thought. Now, I've watched Butch over the years and he'll lie down on almost anything that isn't moving. (That's another post.) There are times when I'm folding towels and he'll lie down on one before I can get the next one folded and stacked. Or there will be one on the bed and he'll lie down on it even if it's practically hanging off the edge. So.....I decided to see what his height limit was. Number one was easy.

He hopped up on this first towel almost before I could get my hands off of it.

Number two towel was nearly as easy. He just didn't go to the trouble of actually getting fully up on top of both of them.

But, as you can see, he looks pretty darned comfortable.

Then came number three towel.

Again, he made a valiant attempt to situate himself as far on top as he was willing to exert the energy for.

So, I decided to throw another towel on the pile. That's where Butch drew the line. Three seems to be his limit. He didn't even get close enough to sniff them to see if they were warm.

HOWEVER,

Tony was more than willing to lie on the four-towel tower!

I'M CONDUCTING.....

an experiment. I'll share the results with you in a few days. (It involves Butch, the cat, and the results will be documented with photos.)

SOMEONE SUGGESTED.....

• that I "expound on my employment" at RCA. Now.....a couple of things. First, no one I know who knows that I worked at RCA would have any inkling of what the word "expound" means. Second, someone I know who knows that I worked at RCA knows what "expound" means. This is sooooooooo confusing to me. And, quite honestly, I would have thought that anyone old enough to remember my union days at RCA would be dead by now. My employment at RCA was many moons ago. (What's the formula for figuring "moons?" Ok, let's see. RCA employment = summer 1971. Now = fall 2008. That's about 37 years' worth of moons and there are roughly 12 moons in every year except when there's a "blue moon" [and that's a whole different post] so let's say 444 moons. That sounds about right to me. 444 moons is a hell of a long time.) Before I was a nana.....before I had kids.....before I was married, even. I did have Tony, but nothing was official at that point in time.
• The reason I worked at RCA that summer was because I was a college student. And, as such, I was ALMOST a part of the real world and didn't get to laze around all summer. I don't remember a whole lot about the job, really. I worked on an assembly line making television sets. The factory was in Bloomington and it was unionized. We could only make so many tvs on our line in a day. No more, no less. Everything was timed and there were buzzers so you'd know when to shove the part you were working on down to the next person so they could do their little part in putting the bigger part together. I don't know how I managed it but I was the first person on the line. A man would bring me loads of two different parts. I have no idea what they were for. They went inside tvs was all I knew. I had to take a metal part about the size of a cigar box without a lid that had square holes and round holes all over it and a green circuit board attached and screw a little plastic part onto it, pull a couple of wires coming out of the little plastic part through one of the holes and then solder (HA.....I had "weld" there before.....that would have been a real sight to behold) the wires onto the circuit board. And when the buzzer buzzed, I shoved it down to the next lady. Oh, and I had to flip a little counter so they'd know how many I had done.
• Now, hard to imagine, I know, but I used to be faster than I am now. I could get one of those parts done before the buzzer buzzed. So much faster that I could get two or three or four ahead. The gals down the line could see them and yell for me to send them down. So I did. BIG NO NO. (damned union.....I could have made a fortune that summer if I'd been getting paid for piece work) So I had to go back to doing one per buzzer. And twiddling my thumbs in between.....for a while. I got so I'd only get maybe one or two ahead. That seemed to work out alright.
• I remember that I was wounded in the line of duty a few times and still have one faint scar. I'd reach for one of the metal cigar boxes and run the back of my finger along the edge (not on purpose, silly). Those edges were as sharp as razors and once in a while I'd manage to take a hunk of flesh out of a finger. Like I said, I still have a scar. And the soldering iron was HOT. I guess they have to be to work properly. *shrug* Every once in a while I'd get it against my wrist. I had a few blisters but no permanent damage there. (I said I was fast, not coordinated.) And I remember the time I was sick and tossed my cookies into the big cardboard box we used for trash before the line lady could get someone to take my place. I remember that I ate dozens of Little Debbie orange something-or-others in my lunches that summer. And I remember that I had to get up BEFORE the buttcrack of dawn.....when the only people who were awake were women in labor on their way to the hospital and farmers.
• And I remember one other thing. The most important thing. I remember that that summer was a turning point in my life. The job I was doing didn't require much thought. Once I learned it, I could almost do it in my sleep. And I did a lot of thinking about other things that summer. Like I said, I was in college because I thought I wanted to be a teacher. I also loved Tony and knew that I wanted to be married to him. And I had all summer to think about those two things. By the end of the summer and all that thought, my life was changed forever. I had decided that I didn't want to be a teacher, didn't want to spend another three years in college. I wanted to get married. So I went back to college thinking that I would get a two-year secretarial degree. I'd be doing all the things that I liked to do.....just not teaching them. But it was not to be. I had taken all the wrong subjects the first year for a two-year degree. There was no point in my staying another whole year. I quit at semester. Tony and I got engaged in December of 1971 and we got married in July of 1972.
• I used to say that that was my one regret in life. That I didn't finish college. But, if I had finished college, I would not have the life that I have. Oh, I'm sure I would have married Tony. It just would have been at a different time. And then, everything else would have been different. And I love my life.....the life that includes 36+ years with Tony instead of whatever the number would have been.....the life that includes my two awesomely special and unique children instead of whatever children I would have had at different times.....the life that includes the exquisitely unique granddaughters they've given me.
• Thinking about it now, I can honestly say I don't regret it one bit. And I never really thought it before, but that was one of the best summers of my life.

AT THIS POINT IN TIME.....

I have ideas for three future posts. I just need to get some pictures to go with them. Old pictures. Pictures that I have to look for. Don't expect the posts today. Maybe tomorrow. Or not.

Dear readers. Am I to assume by your lack of suggestions that you don't really want me to post any more? C'mon folks, give me some ideas. I ain't a professional writer ya know. This stuff isn't just all in there waiting for me to find it. I have to actually try to THINK of stuff to write that might be mildly amusing or informative for you. LOL

YOU MIGHT NOTICE.....

the new "What should I write about?" block over to the right. To make a suggestion, click on "What should I write about?" Then/Or, you can vote on what you'd like to see me write about. We're going to try this out for a while and see what happens. This should be interesting.

OCTOBER IS.....

Breast Cancer Awareness Month. If you're a female and 40+ years old, get a yearly mammogram starting now. If you're a male and know a female, remind her to get a yearly mammogram.

ONE PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS.....

..........

I HAVE AN ADDICTION.....

and the majority of you are not aware of it. I hang my head in shame as I admit publicly, for the first time, ever, ANYwhere, that I am a compulsive "hotel/motel room amenities hoarder." I even go so far as to retrieve the soap that's only been used TWICE in the shower, for goodness sake, and wrap it up in the plastic wrap I tore off of the plastic glasses. These little bars of soap are just the right size for the soap dish in the bathroom at home. And I convince myself that the granddaughters will be unreasonably ecstatic when I present them with a tiny bottle of hand lotion. And since I'm the only one at home who drinks coffee, I have a tiny 4-cup coffee pot.....just the right size to use those coffee thingies they put in most of the rooms. And the plastic cups?? They might come in handy in the kitchen and they're fun to play with in the tub. Tub toys for cheap. And the pens and pads of paper. Now who DOESN'T need all the pens and scrap paper they can get their hands on? How could anyone walk away from all that??? And, besides.....I PAID for all that stuff, didn't I? It's all included in the price of the room, isn't it? It's MY STUFF!!!

For a while, I had a handle on it. Once, when I was cleaning out the cabinet in the bathroom and found the gallon plastic zipper bag full of midget soap bars, I realized I had a problem. When I opened the linen closet door and was nearly knocked senseless with a shower of tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner and lotion and mouthwash and shower gel, I realized I had a problem. When I found myself washing the plastic glasses in the kitchen, I realized I had a problem. And I quit. Oh, not cold turkey. I would take the occasional bottle of lotion to drop in my purse. But I was getting better.

Then we went on the cross-county trip of a lifetime. And we stopped at several hotel/motels. We had to. We didn't make plans to sleep in the car. And it was on this trip that I noticed it. The soap bars were bigger. And you didn't just get a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of lotion. You got a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of lotion AND you got a bottle of conditioner and a bottle of mouthwash and you even (sometimes) got a bottle of shower gel along WITH the bars of soap. (BONUS!!!) And, once in a blue moon, you might hit the mother lode! As I did when we stopped in Reno and stayed at the Silver Legacy. In the picture below, you will notice that there is a bottle of body lotion, a bottle of shampoo, a bottle of conditioner, an (empty) bottle of BUBBLE BATH and TWO bottles of mouthwash. ALONG WITH.....a shower cap, a sewing kit and two GINORMOUS bars of soap. Oh, and NOT in the picture??? Two pairs of (cheap) slip-on houseshoes and the mandatory pens and notepads. (Believe it or not, we paid less for the room in Reno than we did for most of the other rooms we stayed in on that trip.)

What it boils down to is the fact that I fell off the wagon. So, if you find yourself in need of a bottle of lotion for your purse or a sewing kit for your desk drawer or a plastic cup for your kid to play with in the bathtub, I'm willing to share. I am totally aware of the fact that I'll never use all this stuff. But I still can't bear the thought of just leaving it in that room for the maid to take home. I am SOOOOOOOOOO lucky that they don't give away those tiny bottles of booze on the airplanes.

BE SURE AND.....

check out the 1150 Riders' website. Jeremy has posted some pictures from the Memorial Weekend. (Oh, and if you click on the little picture, it becomes BIG! Aren't computers just plumb magical?)

TYLIE SAYS.....

to all who participated in the 2nd Annual Willie Walton Memorial Weekend and Ride. And, ESPECIALLY to the 1150 Riders and their families for all the hard work and long hours that went into this year's weekend.....a big HUG!

Here's a picture of the 1150 Riders and Tylie.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL!

NANA IS.....

"Back Home Again, in Indiana." And so is Papaw. We made it home today at about 1:00 p.m. I need to organize some pictures and get some of my thoughts in order before I start telling you, my dear readers, about the wicked awesomeness of our cross-country-and-back trip. (Just so's ya kno.....it's gunna be a while afore I gets me sum pitchers posted. I'be gots me over 700 pitchers to chooze fum. An I habn't found 'em all yit.)

NANA IS GOING.....

on vacation to see the FAR granddaughters!! Papaw and I are leaving at 5:00 a.m. Saturday to drive to Washington state to see these cuties! We'll be back on Monday, Sept. 1 with lots of pictures and tales to tell, I'm sure. For right now, tho, I'm busy doing all the last minute things I need to get done as well as starting to pack. No more posting until September unless something really, REALLY blog-worthy happens between now and Friday night.

THEY'VE POSTED.....

new info about the 2nd Annual Willie Walton Memorial weekend on the 1150 Riders' website (http://www.1150riders.com/). Please check it out and pass the information on to anyone you think would be interested! Thanks!!

Willie and Tylie Walton - October 2005

..........

more cat pictures

THIS IS FOR SHANNON.....

I listened to this new song from Rick Springfield and it took me back a few years.....about 25, most likely. I just sat there and smiled the whole time. What a great time in our lives to remember. How old is he now? I'm pretty sure he probably dyes his hair; but, he's still kinda cute. :-)

HERE WE GO.....

2nd Annual Willie Walton

Memorial Cookout & Ride

Come See The Indiana State Police Alliance

Orange County Chopper

on display and up for Raffle at the cookout and

before the ride!!!

Cookout - 5 p.m., Sat. Sept. 6 at the American Legion County Club in Loogootee

Live Music!

Family Fun - Scavenger Hunt, Bubble Gum Race, Face Painting

Raffle

50/50 Drawing (will be drawn before ride starts)

Ride - 9 a.m., Sun. Sept. 7 at Bo-Mac's in Shoals - Sign up starts at 7 a.m.

Ride with the 1150 Riders & see beautiful southern Indiana

Questions or Info

http://www.1150riders.com/

Jason Tinkle/296-7284 Danny Tow/247-2059

Brady Showalter/486-7660 Dustin Greene/709-1356

The raffle for the Indiana State Police Alliance motorcycle is

separate from any fundraisers sponsored by the 1150 Riders

All funds raised by the 1150 Riders will be deposited in a College Choice Fund

for the benefit of Tylie Walton,

Willie's daughter.

OH, MAN.....

I have such an awesome name for a blog. Well, it would be awesome if the writer lived in rural southwestern Indiana. But I can't change mine as I really AM a "Nana, near and far....." and that's kinda MOSTLY what my blog's about. Bein' that nana. BUT.....if I were to get ambitious enuff to start a new blog, I'd call it "Horse Manure on the Highway" and it would be all about life in this rural area of Indiana. OK.....I call dibs on "Horse Manure on the Highway." I may make some notes and start me a NEW blog......EEEEEEEEEEK!

..... :-) .....

to us.

SOME OF THESE ARE.....

TOOOOOOOOOOOO funny. Check them out! LOL

http://totallylookslike.com/

WELL, THIS IS JUST.....

too awesome for words. Read on.....

AMAZING STRIPED ICEBERGS

Icebergs in the Antarctic area sometimes have stripes, formed by layers of snow that react to different conditions. Blue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with meltwater and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form. When an iceberg falls into the sea, a layer of salty seawater can freeze to the underside. If this is rich in algae, it can form a green stripe. Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the sea.

PLEASE WELCOME.....

MAXINE

OH, MY GOODNESS.....(again!)

I just opened e-mail and got these pictures. The first ones from Washington. I had to share. They're awesome pictures!! They're at the rock beach on Birch Bay very near where they live.

KRISTIN

HANNAH

ELLIE

I JUST HAVE TO .....

put this picture on here that I took Sunday evening. Tony and I were coming back from eating supper and we had Tylie with us. Tony and Ty loitered on the sidewalk and I rushed in to get the camera. When I came back out, Ty was shouting, "TAKE A PITCHER, TAKE A PITCHER".....so I did.....lol Seriously, tho.....is this not awesome? Naturally, the "pitcher" doesn't do it justice.

I HAVE A COUPLE OF.....

new pictures of the ISP Alliance motorcycle and a blurb about what they were doing. For anyone who can't tell, they are at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

"These are a couple of pics of our bike and the Toyota. The bike will be leading the parade lap for the Brickyard 400 next Sunday (July 27). We wanted to do a shake down run; so, Wednesday evening we got to go to the track after hours and do some testing and take a lot of pics and video. They actually put us on the track and said "see ya later and lock the gate when you leave." We spent two hours on the track having a blast. We are producing a 75th anniversary video and the producer was with us taping most of what we did. We had the Alliance bike, the Tundra, three State Police motorcycles and a State Police car. These pics are taken at the start/finish line. You can actually see part of the famous yard of bricks."

I PROMISED.....

this post a long time ago and have been waiting for the best time to put it on here. It could turn into a long one so you might want to take a potty break (be sure and wash your hands after) and get a snack and a beverage. It's an interesting tale and there will be pictures later on.


The story started well over a year ago. I got a call from my brother, Wayne, the Indiana State Trooper, one day. He was, at the time, in line to be the president of the Indiana State Police Alliance in 2008; AND, 2008 was going to be the 75th anniversary of the Indiana State Police. He had a wild idea for a way to celebrate the anniversary. He wrote an e-mail to OCC (yes, THAT OCC..... http://orangecountychoppers.com/ ) and suggested that they build a motorcycle for the Alliance to raffle.

He kind of forgot about it, figured he'd never hear a word back, after that; but, what do you know, they e-mailed him back with some interest in the project. After some back-and-forth, they came to an agreement that Orange County Choppers would build a motorcycle for the Indiana State Police Alliance. It would not, however, get to be on one of their televised shows.

Well, the motorcycle was finished early this year and Wayne went to New York to pick it up. The Alliance has made plans to travel around the state with it this summer to various county fairs and festivals. You can check out a schedule and also find out a little about the Alliance here: http://indianasfinest.com/Motorcycle.php

Toyota has generously offered the use of a Tundra pick-up truck for the summer to pull the trailer in which the motorcycle is moved around the state.

Now, here's the REALLY exciting part. If you read my earlier posts, you know about our son being killed last summer in a motorcycle accident and the fundraising weekend that his motorcycle pals put on to raise money for his daughter's college education. ( I can't thank those folks enough for what they've already done for Tylie. God bless 'em!) The pals are putting on another weekend this year on the first weekend in September. The State Police Alliance is going to have the OCC motorcycle there that weekend! Please visit the 1150 Riders' website (the link is over on the righthand side here) to keep current with exactly when and where the weekend will be. And please come and see us that weekend if you can. There will be food and entertainment on Saturday, I'm told, and a ride on Sunday. If you know anyone who rides a motorcycle, let them know about it.