March 17, 2012 at First Church with Steve Parke!

I put captions under all of these and I am hoping that when I hit the "publish" button they will miraculously appear. 
This was St. Patricks Day at our church and Steve Parke put on a wonderful presentation of his trip to Ireland to see family that remains over there.  Steve is big on the genealogy thing and I may have him help me find the roots on my dad's side of the family.  Mother's side has been documented back to the 1400's, but my dad was a slippery little fellow and all I know is I was named after his mom.
 So enjoy the slide show and if the captions do not come up, there are several of the people from our church there.  But the dancers are from the Sarah Shaw Dance Studion and are under the direction of a very capable young lady named Samantha!   If you ever get the chance, these kids are great!
I am off to do chores, but I will check on this and see if it is working later.  

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Happy St. Patrick's Day!! and meet Steve Parke!!

Well,  here is my little friend, Steve Parke!  Today he is going to be conducting a program on his trip to Ireland a little while back.  We will get to see lots of slides of the Irish side of Steve, but I bet they have been censored.  Oh, not really.  He is a really great guy but I bet you would never guess by that ornery look on his face that he is a retired minister, would you?
He has lots of irons in the fire and genealogy is only one of them.  He plays a mean guitar and does the coffee shop strumming thing.  Open mike nights are his forte.  He also works with the little kiddies in our "Mothers Day Out" Daycare program.  He really likes that and the kids think he is superman!
Steve is an avid ski bum.  (I did not say skier cause I am not sure how to spell it.)  Winter time comes and Steve is up in Gunnison, teaching and doing the down hill thing. 
I do believe he is starting to stay in town a little more in the winter which is a good thing because we are always happy to have him in our midst.  He has put out an album which I had for sale in my store for a while.  I can sing along on all those songs.
So this afternoon I will be whiling away the hours in Mayflower Hall, learning all about the Irish roots of the Parke family.  And that is a good thing to do because as I understand it, we are all Irish on this day!  Hmmmmm....Can Haas, Gagnebien, and Hatfield actually be considered Irish!

See you later today, you wild little Irishman , you!

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And the Apricot out back is in full bloom.

Well, yesterday I bit the bullet and cleaned the goose house.  I am sure the little feathered friends apprectiate my efforts if no one else does.  That is one very dirty job.  It took 5 wheel barrow loads in the garden and one up front on the herb garden.  Today I am going to start the sprinlers.  I am sure that will entail a trip to the local hardware to replace one or two of them.  I just love Spring.  With a little luck I will remember to get gas and such so I can rototill tomorrow or Saturday.  And during a stroll through my kingdom, I happened to see that the Apricot out back is in full bloom.  I did not take a picture of it because I take one every year and it looks the same, so here is a picture of it.

The strange part of this whole thing is that the tree in the back is in full bloom and the one in front is not.  Now I bet you are thinking that the front is further North, but it is not.  It is actually East.  I know what it is though.  This one is West of the house and the sun reflect on the stucco and warms it up more.  For many years I maintained Rose Gardens in the back, front , far front and side yards.  The kids always gave me roses for Mother's Day and at one time I had 64 and they were absolutely beautiful.  I love roses!  I used to have a favorite, but then I broke it into categories.  Favorite red, was Chrysler Imperial because it smelled best.  Favorite multi-color was Double Delight because it smelled best.  Favorite orange was Tropicana.  I could point at each one and tell you what it was, but then I got a little lax on the pruning and the feeding and the roses got a little scraggly and then real scraggly and then one by one they went to the big rose garden in the sky.  I still have a few, but those are on their way out.
This year I am going to work on turning my back yards into natural habitats for the little furry creatures and I do not mean the foxes, but I am sure they will drink from the pond if the dogs let them.  Oh, yeah and then there is that skunk thing.  Maybe I will try to just attract birds.  That would be best, I think.  I will keep the grass in the front and on the North side because I just love to mow that stuff!  That and the dogs and I like to set out front in the evening and early morning and survey our kingdom.  I have tried to get the geese to join us but I can not get them to leave the back.  Scary world out there!
So, just wanted to pop in here and let you know that Spring is here at my house.  This is not to say that we will not get a foot of snow next week.  It is just to say that it is looking good here yesterday and today and I am going to take full advantage of this little spurt of good weather!

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Pedestrian Access to the Kayak Course off fourth street

I have a friend who is doing the whole cancer and radiation thing and is not a well puppy.  So I do what I can and one of the things is walk his dog.  He lives on the bluff of the stretch of the river that runs through Pueblo between Fourth Street and Union Avenue.  That is also where the Kayak Course is located.  They have done a lot of work down there to include a very nice wide side walk, benches, trash cans, bags to pick up doggie do and also landscaped and planted the steep edges with wild grass and such.  To hold that in place they covered it with net.  Now comes the tricky part. 
That net is doing what it is supposed to do, it is rotting and going back to mother nature.  Well, kind of doing that, but not quite.  The plot thickens.  Click on my little slide show and be sure to read the captions.

The first shot is Pearl and Chapa.  That is right off of Fourth Street.  The fishing sign is 2 blocks away and is right behind my friends house.  So I go out the door, turn left and pass two houses, another left and across a vacant lot and there I am at the big wide side walk.   As you can see it is very nice.  Well, yeah, until it ends!  There I am left with the choice to either slip and slide down down the dirt incline which is rutted and full of rocks and no place a 70 year old woman out to be skittering down!  Or I can angle off across where you see those 3 young'uns walking down.  See that is steep, too.  So if I go at an angle I come to a gentle slope and then I reach the wide, safe sidewalk.  Unless, of course, I catch my shoe in the netting and then I face plant.  Last time I went that way I was so careful and I reached the sidewalk and had one foot in the air on the way down to the sidewalk and the other in the netting and face down on the cool concrete, my fall broken only by my poor old, mistreated knees.  There were two girls there with there dogs who were kind enough to offer to help me up, but the dog I walk is very protective of me, so that did not happen.

So, I have a message for the city of Pueblo.  I notice you have chained the steps that lead up the embankment beside the Chinese Resturant there on Fourth and the bridge heading into the city.  I have no idea what that is about.  How about taking some of those chains down there and draping them across the "Pedestrian Access" behind that big gravel pile in case another little old lady wanders down there and thinks that 3 foot wide sidewalk actually goes some where.  Or here!  Even better would be if you finished that other 30 feet so we could actually get down there safely.  How about that? 
When my son saw my bruises he was in hog heaven imagining the lawsuit we could have against the city.  This is a clear cut case of negligence on your part.  However, I am not a suing person, but you should know there are people out there who are.  I love to walk on that part of the river and that access is wonderful right up to the point that it becomes treacherous.  I am surely not the only one who would like to see that little stretch finished.  It just seems counter productive to do so much work and spend so much money and then not finish the project. 
So, I ask you to either finish it or take down the Pedestrian Access sign and chain that sidewalk, before some one else gets hurt.  I could loan you a padlock if you don't have one.

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The roots of my raisin' run deep!

This is the top shelf of my computer desk.  I managed to click this photo while Icarus, the devil cat, was on break.  Starting with the big picture in back on the left is Mother.  Then Uncle Charlie, Uncle Frank, Uncle Ray, and Aunt Lola on the end.  This is probably the last picture of all of them together.  This is actually the only picture I know of that has all the 5 in a group.  And now that I think about it, I do not know if there is a formal picture like this of my siblings.  There is a picture somewhere of us 5 girls, but Jake was not in it.  So it would not have been complete.  And we were setting in the kitchen of Dorothy's house when she was married to Ernie and they lived out o 4th Street in Hutchinson.  Course Jake and Josephine are no longer with us so a picture is completely out of the question.
I will tell you about the other pictures and then come back and tell you about my Aunt and Uncles.  The small picture on the left is mom and dad, before they were mom and dad.  You know, back when they were Christine and Rueben Bartholomew.  This is their wedding snapshot, I think.  The picture on the right is mother's high school yearbook picture.  And of course the little angel in the back would be me!  That frame is now 69 years old.  I should sell it on eBay, but I want to keep it, so I will.  I always get what I want!
Now to the family picture.  Most of you probably knew mother, but doubted the existence of any other relatives.  The first is Uncle Charlie Haas.  He was married to Aunt Edith and they lived in Missouri.  Independence, I think.  They had one daughter, Donna.  Donna was not well and could never live on her own.  One year when I lived with Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield, Uncle Charlie and Aunt Edith sent me a birthday card with a Silver Dollar in it with my birth year.  I damn near broke both legs getting to the general store and getting rid of that money.  Most money I ever had at one time in my life!  At one point Uncle Charlie bought land in Woodland Park, Colorado, and built a new house.  Unfortuneatly he could not live in the high altitude due to his high blood pressure and had to sell it.  Mother and I tried to find it once from his description, but had no luck.  Uncle Charlie died first, then Aunt Edith.  Donna spent her remaining days in a nursing home and passed about 5 years ago.
Uncle Frank married Aunt Lila and lived in Lawrence, Kansas for the duration.  He was a farmer and she was a school teacher.  They had no children.  I was always scared to death of Aunt Lila.  I do not know if it was because she was a teacher, or she just looked very intimidating to poor little me.  When they retired they bought a home on 30th street in Hutchinson, Kansas.  He worked on the old tube type radios and had an extensive collection.  When they could no longer function at home they moved to assisted living in McPherson where they lived until he died and then her.  Mom and I used to go visit and it was so sad.  Uncle Frank was very hard of hearing and had dementia towards the end. The last time we were there he was setting at the desk tearing magazine pages into one inch squares and piling them very neatly.  He smiled at mother with the sweetest smile I have ever seen on a living human being.  He asked her what her name was and she replied "Christine."  His eyes lit up and he said, "Oh, I used to have a sister named Christine!"  At this mother lit up also.  "Why Frank!  It is me!"  He looked at her and you could see the wheels turn and he added. "Oh, no, she died a long time ago."  Of course mother was crushed.  Uncle died soon after that visit.  He was 90 something.
Uncle Ray was the most wonderful man in the world and I shall not try to tell you about him in this post, but will save him for a special time.
The lady on the end was Aunt Lola.  Aunt Lola was married to Alvin Farney and they lived near Plevna, Kansas and of course, were farmers.  They had one son, Carl, and 3 daughters, Alvina, Rosetta, and Marilyn. Marilyn had a very high fever when she was about a year old.  It did brain damage and disfigured her face.  But she was a wonderful girl and helped Aunt Lola keep house and cook.  Aunt Lola died younger than most of her brothers.  See, in our family we live to be 100 years old with amazing regularity.  Good genes and all.  Mom was 80 and that was very young.  So, the kids of Aunt Lola are my cousins and the only ones I actually know/knew.  I am afraid I did not keep up with them.  I do know Alvina and Rosetta married and had children.  Josephine used to keep me up on that stuff, but alas, no more.
When mother used to tell me tales and the grandmother and great grandmother would remember the good old days, I did not listen.  In one ear and out the other, so to speak.  So now here I set and have no clue.  We do have a genealogy book that traces our family roots back to Germany to the 1500's.  I love to read the stories and am absolutely fascinated by what those pioneers went through to bring this squalling little brat into the world.  Stop and think.  If one thing had been different, I would not be here.  It is all in the grand scheme of things.  Everything that transpired all those years ago led to this day and this hour.
Think about it.  My roots run very deep, but they are no different than your roots!  Have a good one!

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Why yes, Virginia, there is a crocus in my yard.

And with that title I must now tell you this has nothing to do with a crocus. This has to do with my inhumanity to myself.  As you know, in the past 3 weeks I have thrown myself off the treadmill, face planted on the sidewalk at the kayak course, dropped my camera that I loved face down on the asphalt and now I have a concussion and a broken arm all because I changed the ink in the printer.  Of course you want to know how that one happened, don't you?

Icarus, the calico cat is the one to blame on this one.  Icarus attacks the printer every time I print something.  So I contrived to put the printer inside the cabinet. Of course the shelf had to be lowered to facilitate this.  That being done I could then put two boxes on either side of the tray the printed stuff comes out on.  The boxes are there to hold the baby gate off the tray.  This makes it so Icarus can only swat through  the tiny squares, but she will hit nothing.  This is all well and good until the printer needs a little maintenance like an ink cartridge installed.  Looked easy enough during the planning stage.

Now the printer sets clear to the back and it is dark back there. On first glance it appeared that if I just got on my knees I could be on the printer level and I could see better.  But of course those are the same knees that were present for the landing at the kayak course and they did not want to be knelt upon.  No problem.  Here is this lovely box of printer paper.  Let me just set down on it and Holy Shit!  Printer paper boxes are not very sturdy.  I shot backwards off of that sucker and whacked my head on the bottom of the office desk which is very hard!  And somewhere along that ride I sustained a laceration to my left forearm and my left elbow, but nothing compared to the knot that mysteriously appeared on my right arm.

As I lay there bruised, battered, and bleeding staring up at the bottom of the desk I wondered if there really is a God.  As the stars blinked on and off in my good eye, I also wondered just who that doctor was trying to fool when he told me that I have osteoporosis and what ever I do , don't fall.  Brittle bones my big fat patootie!  I am ten feet tall and bullet proof.  If anything was going to break I am pretty sure there should be a bone protruding through skin after any one of those "mishaps". 

I have,however decided that I must start being a little more careful.  So, I am going to give up exercise althogether!  Now that the treadmill is safely ensconced in the basement I think I will sell it and have some one drag it up the stairs and out the door.  I will need to give up walking cause sidewalks are very hard.  And it looks like even this computer is out the door.  Or maybe I will just put the printer back on top of the cabinet and get a spray bottle and squirt that damn cat.  Oh, crud, I will probably slip in the water on the floor and break my neck for sure.  No winning around here so I guess I will just go to bed. 

Have a good one!

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Sluts, birth control and poor Rush is losing sponsors.

Got to weigh in on this one!  Now, granted I read the headlines and then the first line of the next 3 paragraphs and that is my news for the day. Anything else is overkill.  My take on this is that Rush Limbaugh was doing what he does best and that is being an ass.  Not the first time and not going to be the last time.  I am sure you all know who Rush Limbaugh is and how he leads his moral majority into the fiery halls of congress.  The man is not known for doing anything quietly and there is only one side to any story and that is the Ultra conservative.  As you all know I am a bleeding heart Liberal so no way will Rush and I ever agree on anything and frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. 
From what little I read about this woman, I can not help but applaud her desire to use birth control.  Just seems like the responsible thing to do.  Red blooded women with feelings have been having sex from time immemorial.  I have even done that myself once or twice.  We all know that sex sometimes has repercussions that are mighty weighty if we don't practice safe sex.  There is that AIDS/HIV thing that would stop me in my tracks.
But say you dodge that bullet,  and whoops, I am pregnant.  What shall I do?  Abortion?  That is not an option for a lot of women for a lot of reasons.  Have a baby alone and take care of it while finishing school and building a career?  Is that fair to the kid or you?  Seems like preventing that pregnancy in the first place is the wisest as well as the most economically feasible choice.  Oh, yeah, forgoing sex all together is the perfect answer as I am sure Rush and his cronies always do but not all of us have that will power.  If you are a man having sex you are a very eligible batchelor.  If you are a woman doing the same thing, you are a slut. Hmmmmmmmmmmm!
Now lets weigh the taxpayer cost here.  Birth control.  Abortion.  Medical care for single mother and financial aid to raise a baby for 18 years.  Too much for my little mind to grasp.
Just my humble opinion.

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I just now seen it out there by the carport!

I just ran a package over to the post office on the highway and when I got home I looked over there and there is a pretty little yellow crocus.  Debbie called me this morning to tell me she just picked a Jonquil.  So you know what this means?  Spring is here whether or not it is actually here!  When the flowers bloom that means it is Spring, I do not care what no damn groundhog says!
The farmers are out plowing and I am fixing to pull the Cruiser out and dig out my rototiller.  Then I will go get some fresh gas and I been hearing from the tall guy that he will  "get out there and get that machine ready for tilling very soon."  Yeah, tall guy, by the time you get around to getting out here, I will have a crop in the ground.  Going to amend that old saying "Time and Tide wait for no man." to say "Lou waits for no man!"  Been waiting all winter and now I am waiting no more.
Neighbor man dumped a big load of manure out there and tomorrow the goose house is getting new straw and the old straw is going to line the pathways.  I can almost taste them tomatoes now!  Ah, and the eggplant, cucumbers, squash and Lord only knows what kind of seeds I may find in the drawer.  And I got the organic thing going on, so that is good.  If I hurry, I can get a little lettuce before it gets too hot!
So if you are calling me, just leave a message cause I can not hear the phone over the rototiller motor and the squawking geese and barking dogs!  And if I do hear it I will probably not answer.  Gotta make hay while it is sunny!!

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Roll of scotch tape; roll of linoleum.

I was thinking last night about how when I was small and we would move into a rented house what would transpire.  First the walls had to be repapered.  Before I could remember that part I understand sometimes the papering was with newspapers.  But we must have been rich because we had actual wall paper.  Usually it was some sort of flower stuff.  We did not always paper every room, but we did like the clean feeling new paper gave to the house.  After the rooms were papered came the most fun of all.

Off the parents went to the place, which was usually the furniture store, to buy our new floor.  Back in those days the furniture store was owned by Mr. Warn and his brother, Doc Warn, owned the appliance store and repair.  The furniture store also carried caskets, in case you died waiting for your new linoleum to arrive!  Did you ever hear of linoleum?  You measured your room and if it was 12' x 12' you told Mr. Warn and he would take you to the size you needed and show you a picture of it to make sure you liked it.  Sometimes there were several to choose.  The linoleum was rolled up and inside a big cardboard tube.  We usually carried it home since we did not have a car and the horses were supposed to be for work and this was fun!

When we got it home Dad would very carefully cut the tube.  Sometimes it would slide out the end and then we had the tube to play with which was way better than the linoleum to my way of thinking!  Any way, after it was out of the tube it had to lay there and rest and loosen up and we were not to touch it for any reason because if we did it would crack.  I think it was straight asbestos with a picture painted on one side.  As it relaxed it started to loosen and unfurl a bit.  At that point we were allowed to very gently unroll it.  If we met with any resistance we had to stop and wait some more.  This is the reason you only bought linoleum in the summer.  Cold weather slowed the process considerably.

After a couple days of tending to the roll it finally was completely unfurled.  It was rolled so when it was unrolled the design was on top.  Otherwise we would have had to flip it.  When it was all the way open we were allowed to walk very gently on it and finish flatening it.  Always in our bare feet.  Hell yes!  Well we never had shoes in the summer anyway!  So now the room was perfect.  And now the furniture could be brought back in from where ever it was.  Well, first, the wood stove had to be placed.  Moving into a new home always meant we got a new thing to put under the wood stove.  That was a big piece of asbestos covered with an enamaled piece of tin. 

You should make note here that asbestos is now illegal and is considered Hazardous Waste.  We did not know that when we were walking on it, setting hot pans on it, and generally using it for every thing imaginable.  Probably had a piece in each hand when we ran through the cooling mist of the machine spraying DDT to kill the mosquitoes on a hot summer night!

Ah, Home Sweet Home!!! 

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Wanna buy a perpetual calendar?

After the completion of a Bonnie Inouye Exploring Multi-shaft Design study,
six weavers from within the Handweavers Guild of Pueblo created a
delightful perpetual calendar for keeping a record of special birthdates,
anniversaries, etc., using their designs and woven samples.
Each month's design includes the threading, treadling and tie up along with
the actual woven sample. The front and back of the weave can be viewed in
it's own window.
Calendars measure 5 1/2" X 11" and have a spiral binding.
The price is $28.00 with delivery at Colorado Weavers Day Conference in
Golden on May 19. CWD committee has given their okay for distribution of
pre- ordered calendars at the end of the Conference. If you prefer having
your calendar mailed directly to you there will be a $5. charge for postage.
To preorder your calendar please contact:
*E-mail Orders*: Joanne Caldwell *caldwelltheweaver@gmail.com
*
*Phone orders*: Cathy Coatney 719.251.2959

Click here to view

6 degrees and one of us is rising!

I am setting here in my banana belt enjoying a lovely 6 degree morning.  Yesterday at 7:30 AM I took Elvira in to the beauty shop.  Noticed a few flakes.  Dropped the dog off and headed home in a blinding blizzard.  9:10 Doug called to say she was ready, but not to hurry cause it was supposed to stop at 9:00.  Hmmmmm.  By the time I drove back into town through the same blinding blizzard the snow was about 4 inches deep.  And when it finally got around to slowing down, this would be the view out my office window.  It was anywhere from 4-8 inches depending on where you stuck the ruler in the snow at. 

By 2 o'clock  the snow had stopped.  I had to run over to the highway and drop off some packages.  At that point the roads were snow covered and it was slushy. 2 hours later I walked up to get the mail and South Road was clear.  Patty came in about 6:00 and arrived on a sheet of ice. 

Now my point is this, where is that damn groundhog when I need him.  I had been setting here on Wednesday plotting the tilling of the garden and planting of the seeds.  Then the next day I am digging out the snow shovel again.  As I recall, back home, it was a simple matter of watching and when things started popping up, it was time to plant.  We used to start tomato seeds inside in flats in January and when planting time came we had big nice plants ready to stick in the ground. Such is not the case here in Colorado. 

Remember when they had a car advertisement that said "Zero to 60 in 9.9!"  That seems to be the motto here in Colorado only just reverse it.  Now I see that the 7 day out look is calling for this to happen again on Tuesday.  Want to come shovel for me?

When Amy was here nary a flake fell.  Wait, yes it did, but not much.  What happens in Colorado is almost comical.  See it drops down to exactly 32 degrees.  Then it starts to rain and it drops another 1/2 degree.  This causes snow flakes that are about 4 inches across.  Looks like a bunch of white feathers coming down.  These, of course, pile up very quickly.  So we have a very deep snow going on until it stops and the temperature shoots up to 32.5 degrees and it immediately starts to sink into itself since snow flakes are very delicate.  This is my scientific description, by the way.

Well, kiddies, I got up this morning with a headache, so I am going to cut this short, go deal with my eBay stuff, print a label and start my day.  We are off to an apron class this afternoon.  Not because I want to, but because Patty wants to and I do not think Garden City is conducive to new sewers.  So tomorrow I will try to post about our class, unless of course, I get side tracked which has been known to happen.

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Well, that was rather anti climatic if I do say so myself!

I some how wonder just what that was all about, the star business, I mean.  But I sure found out who my supporters are!  To refresh here, I needed only a few feedbacks to reach my thousand feedbacks and my star would change colors.  Several of you emailed me that you would leave me feedback on eBay if you could, but they do have thier rules.  First you have to buy something from me and then you can leave feedback.  And you can only leave one feedback a week.  So I lingered at the 998, then along came Cindy Darrow, my niece,  to the rescue.  She left lots of feedbacks for things she had bought previously.  That put me up to 999.  She then began buying Lip Bong and leaving feedback.  But they still did not count!  Only one per week counts. ;(
Then some time in the night pheadwood left feedback for an Avon necklace and my purple star quietly turned red.  That was it!  No glowing letter from eBay extolling my virtues as a seller.  No fan fare.  No nothing.  But I do have to tell you about this niece of mine.  She is the daughter of my late oldest sister.  She lives in Oklahoma, so I do not see much of her, but I may make the effort to remedy that this summer when I head south to see my son in Dallas.
I am not sure just what the girl does down there, but I do know she sent me 250 of the big Crown Royal Bags.  She also sends me lots of electronics that actually work along with new stuff that comes from Lord only knows where.  I think she may have connections and may be one of  "Lou's Little Angels" who are people who work quietly behind the scenes for my little causes. 
Some of this is routed through her brother, my nephew.  And why does she do this?  These things are earmarked for the AIDS clients that I work with here in Pueblo.  If we want money for something like candle wax to make candles for the homeless, the office in the Springs does not fund that!  If we want to have an outing away from the office and just let out hair down, like at the bowling alley, the office in the Springs does not fund that.  A long walk on the Nature Center trail followed by a hamburger some where; the office in the Springs does not fund that.  While I do my own funding for most of the social events as far as the food aspect goes, there are a lot of little things this money furnishes.  I call this the "Lou fundraiser". 
Of course this is not tax deductible for you or me either.  If I were walking the streets asking for money it would probably be illegal.  What I have done is just let it be known to  a few of my friends that here in the Pueblo office we like to do special things for our clients to kind of raise their spirits and make them feel a little more human.  This money goes through no channels except me.  My first donation came from my friends Kay and Frank.  Then Cindy took up the banner and ran with it.  Last week I put almost $300 in the "Lou Fundraiser"  and I have more stuff on eBay now, along with a box right over there that needs to be photographed and listed.  More then one way to skin a cat in this old world.
As long as I have friends like Cindy and Kay and Frank, I will do just fine operating on the skirt of  the organization.  And as for my feedback number and the sad little red star, life goes on.  I am now setting at 1002 and I do not know when the next change will be, but I do know that I have friends out there rooting me on and that is all that really matters! 
And do you know what sponsored links are?  Those are places that pay me money when you go there and buy stuff.  And where do you suppose that money goes?

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Me and eBay, it is a beautiful thing!

Most of you know by now that I have been selling on eBay for a number of years.  In my mushy little mind it seems like I have been doing it since last month but in reality I know it has been longer than that, but less then nine years.  I think about eight maybe.  There is a point coming!  Drum roll, please!
Feedback on eBay is paramount.  Very important to the survival of a seller on their site.  When I reached 50 and was 100% I was very happy.  Then I reached 100.  Then 250.  Then 500.  I still remain at 100%.  Somewhere along the line some guy bought a seed catcher for $12 and left me a neutral feed back and the comment  "Very nice quality and arrived quickly, but a little pricey!"  Oh, I almost had a stroke!  Good feedback is green.  Bad feedback is red.  Neutral counts for nothing and is gray, but somehow that little gray dot broke my heart.  So I wrote him.
"My dear fellow.  I am very sorry you were not happy with my price, but here is the deal. I have fabric, thread, store fees, insertion fees, final value fees, and time involved.  Oh and then there is that free shipping thing every seed catcher customer gets. I do not feel the $12 is too far out of reason if you check the other stores where they sell for $20.00 plus shipping."
I did get a letter of apology back explaining that he did not understand, but since I had told him he would go back and change it if he could, but he had tried and could not.  So the little grey circle passed from one month into the 6 month column and someday it will march on off the right side of the page.  Right now I am setting with my purple star and 100% rating and a little fellow who looks happy and that is the Power Seller guy.  There is also a medallion with ribbons out the bottom and that means I am a top rated seller.  These along with my Bronze rating gives me a discount on my eBay fees which makes them only a little bit absorbenent.  And my feedback number is now 995.  In only 5 more feedbacks I will reach a thousand.  I trust I will get something special.  Lord only knows what, but I hope it is good.  I kind of hate to loose my purple star since that is my favorite color, but
I know I will get something better, maybe.
There is no way I will ever get rich there on eBay, but I do make a little money for PFLAG, other people and a few dollars for myself.  You can not walk through this part of the house, and I have a storage trailer full of total crap, but I still have my wits about me and I can find an item when I need to lay my hands on it.  Seed catcher business is hopping cause people do not want to clean up the cage area 3-4 times a day and they do not want the cheap net things at Petsmart.  I make mine to order and it seems that no matter what colors I have ready in the bin, that is not the color they want.  But that is fine, because I like to put my personal touch on everything that leaves here to a new home.  I have made a lot of friends on eBay and expect I will make a lot more. 
I had a cold recently and a lady from Michigan sent me Nasturium tea.  Big shot at General Motors in Niagara Falls sent me tea shirt from Buffalo, other memorabilia and $20 to buy a bottle of wine along with a cork screw.  Murano heart necklace from a girl in Daytona Beach. (That is the same one who drove 2,000 one way to meet me.)   Necklace and a tie-dye tee shirt from a lady in Palm Bay, tea towels from Wales, ice scraper from Missouri, and I could go on all day, but I think you get the picture.
So as I keep clicking over on the feedback waiting for the next five to come in I am celebrating my own little personal best here and I can not beleive it...IT IS STARTING TO SNOW!!!! I thought spring was here!  Damn!

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This is a bunch of paper from a box I just unpacked.  If you look closely in the center you can see a black thing.  Do you have any idea at all what that could be?

 Ah!  It suddenly becomes clear, doesn't it?  Icarus, the cat from hell! 

May I have my chair?

I wish I could borrow that note book or see that screen.

Right now the devil cat is climbing through a box of eBay stuff that belongs to some one and I know if I try to make her move there is going to be a bunch of crashing and then I will have broken glass to clean up and something to pay for  that I sure did not need.  She is now peering at me from under the monitor.  Pretty soon she will start swatting at my fingers.  I have no idea how I have managed to keep my Internet up and running with her prowling all over my desk.  I think she can read, so I expect that will be swatted off  pretty soon.

I do not remember how long ago I got this cat.  Seems like over a year.  Hell, it seems like I have always had her.  She was a rescue cat and had just had a litter of kittens.  Of course she was skinny and had the droopy boobies.  Always amazes me how people can neglect an animal, but a lot of them do.  Anyway, when I got her, I kept her inside because I knew she would run away if she got outside.  She would go back to her old home, cause I hear that is what cats do.  Silly me.  She immediately settled in and thought she was a dog.

When I go out to do my chores, my dogs go with me.  Elvira is a Lhaso/Shitzu and Daisy is a Jack Russel Terrier/Wiener dog.  Both rescue dogs and I think I told you Elvira had just had a litter when we got her.  Daisy was just an unfed little runt with two black eyes.  She was Bret's dog.  So here they are, the three of them.

Daisy

Elvira 

Now when I go out there are all three of them with me.  I do not know how that cat knows I am even on the move, but here she comes.  The dogs are never more than 10 feet away, just waiting for some action.  So we go out back and every one of them goes and sniffs everything, but the real action comes when we start for the house.  Icarus and I get to the gate first and have to stand and holler for the busy little dogs.  Icarus settles her self down behind a barrel and waits.  When the first dog arrives she leaps through the air and lands on it's back and rides on into the house.  I have tried to get a picture of that, but all I get is a blur. 

I had to get another printer because the controls on the other one were on top and she kept walking across them and running the scanner.  Guess she was doing "cat scans".   This printer fascinates her and when she hears me hit the print button she jumps up on the desk and peers into the place where the page will come out.  As soon as she sees it coming she grabs at it and if I don't get her first I fear she may be jerked in and spit out the other side.  And it is very hard to read the page after she has shredded it.  Well, the same thing happens in the bathroom.  If the stool is going to be flushed she is going to be with her paws over the side watching it go.

I have often thought about getting another cat to keep her company, but what if I then had 2 devil cats?  No matter where she is during the day, if I set in the recliner and flip  the foot rest out, before it is in the full upright position, Icarus will be on my stomach.  And the first thing she does is knead it for me.  When it is soft enough, she lays down and puts her paws on either side of my throat and turns out just enough claw for me to know that if I push her off my stomach, my jugular vein will be ripped from my throat. 

At night I wake up and find her perched on my shoulder, or laying curled up on the other side of the bed, or staring out the window at Lord only knows what.  But for all my complaining, I love all my animals, even the 13 geese out back.  Guarantee there is not a man walking who could cross that yard if I were not there to run interference.  Guard Geese.  Gotta get that sign up!

Well, I am off to start another day and hopefully I will actually get something done, but I doubt it very much. Today I am babysitting a 2 year old, so it is cuddle time around here!

Have a good one.

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How sad is the death of Whitney Houston.  The death of anyone leaves a hole in our soul and when someone who is as famous as Whitney was with her phenomenal voice, her grace, and her  beauty we are reminded that no one is exempt from this thing called death.  And no matter where we are when our final moment comes, we are completely and totally alone.  We could be in the middle of Grand Central Station during rush hour, but when the final breathe leaves our body and our eyes lock on the great beyond and its' secrets;  we are alone.
As I make my way on down my own bucket list, I some times think about what kind of setting I would like to have as I sprout my wings and leave this plain.  I do believe I would like to be up in the mountains, alone on the top of one of the highest mountains very near the edge so I could gaze at the vista that I have only seen a few times.  I am terrified of heights, but I do like to look out across the miles and realize how much beauty this world holds.  That and the fact that if I leap from a precipice there is a good chance I can catch an updraft!  This picture was taken in Rye, Colorado on the deck of a friends house.

I

I guess, the place I am located at will not be nearly as important as the state of mind I am in at the time.  I think about death and I am ready when ever the Good Lord is ready.  Now I am not trying to hurry that little fellow in any way, but he could surprise me if he wants to and that would be alright with me.  Gonna have some grouchy kids when they try to figure out my filing system.  You know, where do I bank and who do I owe and stuff like that.  Most of that is in my head and course when I leave this world that little part of my hard drive is going to crash, big time.

But today, I am not going to worry about any of that stuff.  I am going to say my prayers for all the Whitney Houstons' in the world who have embarked on their new journey.  Today will be no different than every other day that way.  And I will pray for peace, strength and understanding.  And when I lay my head on my pillow at night, I will thank God for keeping me one more day.  Then I picture my childhood home in Nickerson, Kansas, and I walk the mile to school and see momma doing the ironing for the lady in town.  Those are my days of innocence and those are what sustain me as I reach for the stars that Whitney Houston now holds in her hands.

Rest In Peace

Whitney Houston

Girl, your work on earth is through.

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Nickerson, Kansas, or the good old days.

Well, another day and another class trying to learn something.  It is amazing to me that when I was young and learning stuff was free and easy, I was not interested in the whole concept.  And now, here I am 70 years old with my mind so full of stuff that I can not pick out one vital piece of information and I now want to cram some more stuff in there to clutter it up even  worse.  But I shall clutter, none the less.
Let me see, what else have I been up to?  Well, I have been trying to figure out how to write about my childhood in Nickerson, Kansas and I am getting confused.  If I just start at the beginning that is a pretty boring story.  So I have arrived at the concept of just giving you snippets of my younger days.  Like now, the story playing out in my head is the one where I got my first bicycle. 
The local grocery had a contest and whoever came in with the most labels won  their choice of either a 3 speed bicycle or a radio.  At the same time the IGA was having a contest, but their prize was a trip to St. Louis.  I knocked on doors, scavenged through trash barrels, begged in front of the store, and otherwise just made a nuisance of myself.
Well, when the contest ended and all the labels were counted, I had like 7,000 and the next kid had 300+.  He was very upset because he wanted that bike.  His dad owned the local newspaper and I was pretty sure that his dad had way more money then my mother who cleaned their house. 
Ah, that bike was a beauty!  It was a boys bike because I did not want to wait for them to order in a girls' bike.  It was maroon and some chrome and I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world. And it had the little skinny tires and it was called an "English Racing Bike".  I very proudly pushed it all the way home.  I pushed it up on to the front porch and there it stayed.  Having never had a bicycle, I did not know how to ride.  The neighbor girls had bikes.  Little bicycles that I could actually step over the bar and set on the seat.  Irene agreed to give me "bike riding lessons".  Told me it was "easy as pie"!  Ever make a pie?  It is not that easy. 
So this is how this would happen;  I would get on the bike and she would hold on to the back fender and keep me in an upright postition.  Hell, that sounded like a genius idea to me.  The first short little bursts worked well.  Now she would let me go when she was sure I had my balance.  Brilliant!  Off we went and I quickly achieved "lift off", and down the road I went.  Course any fool knows what happened next.  Dead end road so it was either stop or turn the corner.  Unfortuneately we had discussed neither of thos option in advance.  I suddenly remembered something about pedaling backwards and so I reversed my direction.  Now I do not know if you have ever ridden a bike with that kind of brake, but I am here to tell you, when you suddenly reverse the foot pedals, you stop.  That is where that old saying "It can stop on a dime!" came from.  Of course when the bike stops so does the balance thing you had going on.  This was my first wreck.  Irene was very proud that I had gone almost half a block.  I was not real sure the other half of that block was left in me.
Of course in due time I learned to do it right.  And then my new bike was waiting for me.  It was taller then me and I needed to park by the step to climb on and take off.  Now I find my whole life has been lived this way.  I know how to start and I know how to get on, I just don't know how to end the ride!  I quickly learned to ride close to a hill, squeeze the brake and then lean toward the hill with my leg extended.  That was all in the first day!  Sadly though, the first day was about all there was to that.  Remember those little skinny tires I was so proud of the first day?  They do not stand up well against the dreaded Goat Head, which is a very sharp sticker.  I would pump the tires up and ride until they went flat.  The rides got shorter and I moved on to other things, like playing "Annie Over" Irene's house.
I think that was the name of the game.  She was on one side of the house and I was on the other.  Whoever had the ball would holler "Annie Over" and throw it over the house.  You got three tries to get it over and then we had to change sides.  If she missed, she got three chances.  The most amazing part of the whole thing was that there was a lot of honesty went on without us even knowing.  If we missed the ball, we called "miss" and if it did not go over the house we called "do over!"  I guess at that place in our lives we had not yet learned how to cheat and lie.  Of course we all picked that habit up as we got out in the real world, but something else I have noticed is that as I get older, I am reverting to my honesty days.  I do not find it necessary to embellish the truth any more.  I think part of that happened when I realized I better tell the truth because I was having a hard time remembering the lies.  Or maybe I am just returning to what is known as my "second childhood." 
Either way I am enjoying this part of life and as the prize gets closer I remember the good old days with a clarity I never had when I was there.
Wonder what I will think about tomorrow!

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You have got to be kidding!!

Oh, now this is more than even I can fathom!  I am used to receiving the dating sites advertisements in my spam box through my email.  But wait a minute.  Do you know what LinkedIn is?  Well what I thought it was and what it is may be two entirely different thing.  Again I blame my naivete!  See I thought it was a place where professional people could meet like  minded people and maybe pick up a referral for a service they or I offer.  I know my son has made great contacts through there and gotten his resume in the proper hands.  So I carefully filled out my little profile and listed all the things I can do and just finished that update a couple days ago.  Today I received a list of 4 groups I might want to join. 
First one was for the Millionairs Club which I was pretty sure was out of my league, but hey, a girl can dream, can't she?  I clicked on that sucker and was amazed to find it was one of those dating sites that usually ends up in the spam filter.  I was just a  little disappointed to find that cause I thought hob nobbing with millionaires might be kind of fun.  So with a sad little sigh, I went to #2.
That was a dating service as well.  Same with numbers 3 and 4.  Give me a break here!
So the question here would be this; why does every place I go think that because I am single  and domesticated, meaning I can cook and sew, that I am therefore looking for a mate?  Or is the mere fact that I am a warm blooded being enough to qualify me as "eligible"?   Is the fact that I am living alone a desperate plea for someone to save me from this solitary existence?  Did I say that?  If I wanted a man, trust me, there are plenty of them within reach. 
Do I need to be constantly bombarded with pictures of the lonely fellow gazing in profile towards an empty window?  Looking for love?  No, not really.  Sure I would like to have someone to shovel the walk when it snows, or run the tiller in the spring, or clean out the goose house and tank, and wash the car.  Send me that ad and I will be all over that one. 
I can see that one: "Very handsome and healthy single male looking for a short, fat woman in her waning years to pay bills for, do yard work for, general handyman duties to include cleaning the car and changing oil.  I love to clean house, do laundry and entertain grandkids on occasion.  Sucessful applicant must be intelligent, selfish, cook occasionally, and go to bed early every night and get up at 4 AM because it is the best part of the day and sunrise won't happen if she is not there to jerk it out of the ground.  Age is not a factor as long as she is breathing, little over weight is preferable, bad breathe is a plus,and slovenliness is a necessity.  I require no attention, no attaboys, and sex only when she deems it necessary."
Send me that one and my name is all over that dotted line!  Not really, but it sounds good, doesn't it?
Just wanted to vent my fustrations a little bit.  I am very happy with my life just like it is and I can send that stuff to the spam box all day long and set right here and enjoy my sunrise, sunset and the weeds sprouting all day long!