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Ornament Party

Category: Other Stuff | Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 3:14 am

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I had a good time at party last night. The attendance was very low this year, only six ladies showed, I think it was because of the cold weather. But we partied anyway. Everyone brings a wrapped Christmas ornament, we sit in a circle. A story is read consisting of the words left and right heavily scattered throughout. The ornaments are then passed accordingly. At the end of the story you should end up with a package that is not your own. The lady who reads the story is the daughter-in-law of the hostess. She has a very heavy Cajun accent and her story is about Santa not being able to deliver toys on Christmas eve so he calls on Pierre Boudreaux to get the job done. It is fun and of course you end up with a new ornament for the tree. This year mine was a boxed set of four ornaments. They are gold and red with a holly leaf design on them and are teardrop shaped. Very pretty. And, being a true Baptist occasion, there is always good food to eat.

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All Work and No Play

Category: Family and Everyday Life | Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 3:58 am

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Sorry I haven't been around much, but I have been working 12 hour days. Ugh. We are really short handed and the last person we hired only worked three weeks and then quit, plus one person left for another job. Hope I can make it through the holidays.

Last edited: Fri Dec 08, 2006 3:59 am

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The Old Grey Mare..........

Category: Family and Everyday Life | Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:06 pm

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ain't what she used to be. I think that at work all the time, because my job is very physically demanding, lifting 25 to 60+ lb. boxes most of the day. Not much fun for 8 hours. But I have always been able to get things done around the house. Not anymore!!!! It takes me forever to get the simplest things done. I use to clean my whole living room, including the walls and shampooing the carpet in 4 or 5 hours, now I can't get it done in 2 days. I just don't have the get up and go that I had 5 years ago, and I am only 53. Can't wait till I'm 63, should really be fun then. I wonder why they call old age the Golden Years? You are too tired and hurt to bad to enjoy them. Or maybe I don't get as much done around the house because I am always stopping to check in on a few of my favorite forums ( don't wanna blame it all on the Stew.) LOL Oh well, back to cleaning so I can get this tree decorated.

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Christmas Past Memories

Category: Childhood Memories | Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:43 am

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I can remember the excitement of those childhood Christmases. Dad getting the two older boys together to go cut the tree. We always had a cedar tree. It would always be too big and Dad would have to top it out. While they were gone we would get the decorations down. Some were handpainted ornaments from Germany that Dad had sent back home during WWII, some were homemade, and of course there were a lot of the shiny glass balls, and plastic glow in the dark icicles and snowflakes. We would have the lights all sorted out, not the tiny little lights they have now, but the big fat ones. After the tree was finally up Dad would string the lights, then it was our turn. He would hold us up to put ornaments on the top of the tree when we were little. I wonder if he missed doing that when we got to big for it. The tree would be so beautiful when it was finally finished. I would sit for hours staring at it and I still like to do that. Then is would be time to start dreaming about what we would get that year. No making lists, no demanding what we wanted, it was a surprise every year. And we only got one thing apiece. I guess my all time favorite present was the treasure chest. I got the one for girls and my little brother got the one for boys. It had colors and coloring books, paper dolls, games, books to read and small toys to play with. It was really cool because it was like getting a ton of presents at once. We didn't know it until years later, but we bought our own Christmas presents. We picked pecans in the cow pastures on halves with the owner. The man, Mr. Bobby Wince, who bought them would come around and weigh them and give Dad half the money and bring the other half to the owner of the pastures. When I was older and didn't believe in Santa anymore I asked Mom how could they afford to get Christmas for six kids every year, and that was when she told me it was the pecan money that bought them. I wish things could be so simple today.

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The Person I Admire the Most

Category: People Who Have Blessed My Life | Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 4:33 am

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I guess I could have put this under family, it would fit there too. But this person has been a blessing to me all of my life. She is my Mom, and at 84 years old she continues to be an immense blessing to me. Let me tell you why I admire her so much.

My mother was born with a degenerative bone disease. It is a form of dwarfism. She is probably only about 4ft. 6 inches, maybe. This never stopped her. She had seven children, raised 6, lost one. My youngest brother was born with one kidney, which was malfunctioning. She stayed at the hospital 2 years with him and after 22 surgeries he finally came home. It is only by the efforts of one doctor, Dr. Rowena Spencer, that he survived. And the loving care of a mother who would not leave him in the hands of the nurses, a mother who had to make a choice of leaving her other 5 children at home to stay with her sick baby. My mother, even when she was younger, could not easily get up and down steps. My Dad built a rail for her to hold on to so she would be able to motivate them. I can remember her washing clothes by hand, hauling water in to heat for our bathes, wringing chickens necks and plucking them and cleaning them, hoeing a huge garden, directing us to pick the vegetables so she could clean them and can them, staying up till 2 in the morning cleaning crawfish for the freezer, plus doing the housework and cooking. She never stopped, she would have had every excuse not to work the way she did, but she never used it. She never complained, she just did what she had to do for her family, never thinking of herself. When she finally went to the doctor for her bones he was amazed. He told her everytime she had a baby, the birthing process displaced her hips a little more. He was surprised that she could walk at all. She has had both hips replaced 2 times. The last surgery did not go well. The doctor bothced it, he did not rebuild her pelvic bone and the hip joint had nothing solid to hold to and it crumbled, a week later he redid the surgery, this time rebuilding the pelvic bone. A week later he was back in pulling everything out and fusing the hip with no artifical joint in it because of massive infection. She almost died, and that is the closest I have ever seen her to giving up. She was in a rehab hospital for 3 months learning how to walk again. None of it ever stopped her. At 82 she was still cooking and washing her dishes. She now can not do those things anymore. I feel honored to be able to do for her now, after she has given me so much, after she devoted her life to raising her family. Many people would have given up long ago.

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