Santa and Christmas

I don't remember ever seeing so many santas as there are now. They are everywhere you look and the insistent advertising of stuff follows them like gnats on a sweaty horse. I don't have a picture of me with santa. And only a couple of santa and my son. Of course, I was born in 1940 and for the first 6 or 7 years of my life, WW2 influenced every aspect of my being. Christmas was very simple. I would get one big thing , some pajamas and a few clothes. Mostly we gave each other (My aunts, uncles, grandma, mom, daddy) pajamas or robes. Evidentally we wore them out a lot! I got one thing from santa and a couple little things and stocking with fruit, hard candy and thats about it. I can remember one Christmas at my grandmothers where the tree was a pine and i helped make a paper chain for part of the decorations. It was so cold because the only heat source was a little fuel heater in my grandmas bedroom, the others had those little fireplaces that took coal and a large fireplace in the dining room for big logs and the wood stove in the kitchen! Wow, when i woke up after sleeping under about 4 quilts, i ran to the kitchen and dressed by the wood stove. Needless to say, we took very few baths, only sponging off with water heated on the stove and carried to the bathroom, which had only been added about 1941. So , still, Christmas came to all of us during this time, with more necessities than wants. I always got a book for Christmas and to this day, love to read. Starting out with little Mother Goose books and moving up to the classics like Black Beauty, The Black Stallion, then on to the Nancy Drew stories. I loved horses from the get go and any book about them i got. To this day, I love the smell of a library and the feel of the books. I tended to be a tom boy and wanted more things like a lionel train and a cowgirl outfit and matching guns..which i got. One Christmas , a misguided santa tried to give me a baby doll and carriage..i promptly tried to flush said babydoll down the toiled and cracked his head...huh, from then on, it was proudly displayed on the mantle every New Years Eve with a sash on that gave the new year, cracked head and all! We got things we needed mostly from then on, even when i was a young teen, maybe some roller skates and some paints and color pencils because I loved to draw, horses. But school clothes and my buster brown oxfords were the norm. I remember the first big teen thing I got was a little bulover watch from Sears and i was really proud of that watch. We had no shopping malls or big places to shop, the Sears was a bus, then trolly ride from the house and it was pretty big but did a moster job in mail order..my first bike came from there, a JC Higgins bike, too big but thats what you got, and my daddy put blocks on the pedals so I could reach. Still, there was a lot of falling, scraped knees, crying and sniggling behind my back by my mother! So maybe we have too many santas and not enough books given , now its video games, phones, computer stuff. Kids no longer want to enjoy the long books that give you the imagination to believe you are in the story yourself. After all, i read Gone With the Wind when I was 13 and could still enjoy the read. What do you think folks? Too much hype, not enough going to gather pinecones for the tree?

Maybe.

Fall is a coming

Lets hope it does come a little soon or we might have more critters like this one hanging around. What a beauty of a spider. But the bugs have been really bad this year from gnats to roaches to mosquitoes and all of em! So fall is change . Again. People move, come back, change. There is some hard enough times in the economy but our President seems to be determined to make our lives more confused. Not many understand what he wants to do or how he wants to pay for all the "Change" I think if we knew more and could hear it put more simply we would not be so fearful and thats what it is, people are afraid; afraid of change and teriffied that what happend last sept will happen again. That we will lose all our savings and more and more will lose jobs and more and more homes will be lost. i don't think the current govt. has done enough to explain the reasons behind what they did or what they are going to do and uncertainty breeds distrust. I know folks are changing the way they spend, the way they shop and what becomes real NEED versus just WANT. Sure, there are things I want, would love to have...oh, maybe a 40 inch HDTV, and some new living room furniture(mine is about 15 years old or more)or a screen in porch instead of a deck, some yard work, maybe even a newer used car, but its not a need and whereas i love to watch football and movies and read, i can do that in the stuff i have got. But what i always will need is food, utilities, paying bills and some wine!! So we make do with what we have and keep hoping we hear and see more positive things coming our way. So for Christmas, just give me some Zinfadel, a book to read, some firelogs, and a box of toile paper, paper towels and cat food!! Thanks all....hurry fall.

Love Anyway

Love Anyway. I want to love someone. Everyone wants to love someone. To have someone to care about, to hug, to love, to hold to sleep deeply with and to have them care for you. For them to care when you hurt and how you hurt and if they can do something to ease that pain for you. Someone there in the night, when the dreams are bad and the night is so long. To love someone and know they are thinking about you as you are them and when they can see you again and how much longer till the day is done and you are together again. To argue with, to not see eye to eye but to still care enough to call to see how you are during the work day or when you are apart. Love often, over and over and over. it does not matter the times you get hurt or the times your love is not returned equally. Just love and one of those times, you will love and it will be the same and you won't get hurt and all the other times won't matter. All that matters is just this one time, the one that didn't hurt, the one that matched perfectly. Don't be afraid to love, you will make a difference in your loving, even if it wasn't right all those other times and you will make a difference in the lives of others. Its fall and the Sept. heat and the leaves have started to turn, and the football season is upon us again and times are still tough for people with and without jobs and its hard to make the ends meet again, but we are people with hope and even the friends and neighbors and family who invite you to supper or bring you leftovers are there to cherish and the ones who are having a tough time, you be there for them and it will benefit you too. We always wish we could do more but what we do really matters.

Happy Allergy Time People

It finally is Spring, along with allergies, sneezing, coughing, pollen and itching..but at least its warmer and the weather is beautiful. The furry critters are out and about and you cant see her but Lucy is down at the bottom of the tree just daring that furry tail rat to come on down. Every one is doing good and my gran in NEESES has a couple more horses and they are pretty. My little gran here is doing great at school and almost finished with the 5th grade. How proud I am of both of them. Im good, but broke, thanks to the greed of Wall st. and the banks and the crap going on in the new administration...its crazy and no one seems to know what the heck is happening.

Hope we didn't get ourselves into something really, really bad. Its just strange the way higher up people and companies just don't pay their taxes and lie about it. Well, on to raking yards for a couple bucks, except now they are all done and we are just waiting for the grass to come in.....love the smell of grass....watch out for April fool!

Gosh, what can I say? Its already almost March of 09, and we have had Christmas, New Years, and the Feb. Birthdays. Its going to be a rough ride this year with the economy doing so poorly and people losing their jobs. Even the "wal mart greeter" jobs have about 100 people for each opening. You have to contend with laid off executives along with college grads for every job and moms out of work and dads getting laid off. Stretching money gets harder and harder with every month. People are losing their homes and cars and the new President has one heck of a job trying to fix this. Seniors have a really hard time because they are on fixed income...meaning..no more comes in, but more goes out...we feel sorta stuck and forgotten. This country has been through tough times before and I lived throug some of them, but this has everyone down and depressed. Time is the only thing we have going for everything put into place to start to work but its hard being patient. I am so thankful for the small bit I have and the family that I have. i have come to be so much closer to my gran in Orangeburg and her family and now she is taking horses in to train and ride and I am so proud of her. She has 4 and works with them all the time. my little gran turned 12 and she is so busy with her friends and school and skating that i seldom get to see her , Ijust hope she thinks of me once in a while. the neighborhood misses Lane and Jill and the cookouts we use to have. We had a small one last night and it was fun and good food...Mandy is the grillmaster now and she did the cooking. She is working on the pool to get it ready and on her back porch. The porch looks great, more like a room with some corner curtains and a new little rug and she is getting some cushion covers in a great stripe. .saw Rebecca for the first time in a while, she has a new guy and we NEVER see them come out for air! They are so in love and goofy.

Holly turned 4 and Matti 8 and thats about all the news...and the good times will come back...after all, Tippy got her burn barrell so she is set for the burning and is working hard on her back yard! I have nothing to give anyone after the crashing of the stock mkt last fall, all i have is me and my love. Good times will be simpler times and vegetables cooked on the grill!! Later, Dudes