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

SANTA CAME TO THE CIRCLE

Santa finally came to the circle and he was mobbed by the kids..we must have had about 15 of the little critters. It was fun and we had good food and a couple of new babies for the day.

Kiddies ran around, played, fought, fussed, laughed and had a great time ..then it rained and it all ended. I got to go eat with my oldest grandaughter and her hubby and her mom and that was nice. I get tired of my "so called" cooking ! Cooking for me is mirowaving a dinner. However, the leftovers in the neighborhood sometimes make their way to my house and thats a good change! Hope everthing is wonderful for everyone this Christmas and maybe the New Year will be better for all. I really hope so. Look forward to the New year and miss the old ones at the same time.

December is here

December is here again and this year feels different and everyone has changed some. More people are out of work and more people have lost money in the savings and retirement funds they have. Its turning out to be a Christmas of essentials like giving coffee, a gift card to a grocery store, fruit, and clothing. Not a Christmas for just things you "want" but things you need. I would be glad for a 6 pack of paper towels, some tp, coffee, and a stocking with oranges, apples and nuts in it...IF I still believed in Santa Clause. Its almost like the 50's again when you got a pair of pymas, some bedoom shoes, socks, and underwear and maybe thats what it has to be. This will pass and the economy will come back, but darn it, I have been through too many of these and now, at 69, to be worrying how to pay the water or electric bill is really depressing. All through the 40's we scrimped and had ration tickets for gas and women gave up their nylons for the war..then in the 50's, the Korean war and then was VietNam, and in the 70's the recession where we had gas rationing and you had to buy gas according to the first letter of your last name and the malls and businesses went dark at night, lights in manufacturing plants were turned off and Christmas lights were not put up because of the energy crisis..and then in the 80's another backward slide and you had to go through a shortage of goods in the stores and places were doing badly in business ....but this is worse because we had such a long run of good times where GREED raised its ugly head and screwed everything up from Wall Street, Govt, to the builder in the housing business. But we all are paying for it. i remember when we were doing good at the store and i could help family and friends and my Aunt. i put a new roof on her house, got her a new furnace, could get her any food she needed and clothing and even paid for her paper and her cable so she could watch Braves Baseball....what happend to grown children who take care of their parents? They are having hard times too and parents are having to help them and try to take care of themselves. i can't do it any more. its too hard. i don't have any resources left and the part time jobs i have applied for have not come through.

Talk about feeling alone and deserted..damn, where is everyone? Even our neighborhood is looking sad and depressed, people are not decorating as much, houses that are vacant are dark and lonely looking...God help us get through this. If even we needed the Christ put back in Christmas, its this year.

Strange Times

This is a strange fall, its been colder than normal, but the trees and leaves and foliage has been beautiful. A lot of it too....we have some turbulant times in the stock market and with wall street thats affecting all the world and the retail world and consumers very badly. People can't afford to shop, their house s are being foreclosed on, even with the deep discounts you can't buy because you have either been laid off, or can't find work, or the places you use to work are closed. Its seems like someone somewhere his trying to level the playing field for the whole world. You have the big 3 auto makers coming to congress and asking for money to survive, and yet they come is corporate jets...??.whats wit tha? They want money but they pay wages that add up to 75.00 an hour and here in the south , our auto workers are doing fine, making payroll, and putting out cars for 45.00 an hour???Someone somewhere has got to get real. Maybe we do need a big ol crash, go back to living in black and white, getting up from our seats to change the channel and use a push button phone for all our communications....we are spoiled and not living within our means and it s coming back to haunt us! Change is coming and mayb not the good kind...go back to what is NEEDED not what is WANTED.....me, i just want to see my family more. I think about them a lot and them laughing, talking, playing games, talking pictures, and being and having fun. I don't go anywhere anymore unless I am invited. i don't feel right just poppping in and i love them so much. There were some horrible things said...it will come back in spades and the karma will be satisfied. So, whatever, stay warm.....had a great visit with my oldest gran and her husband. I am sorry now none of us went to her wedding. Karma...will slap you in the face, then circle around and bite you in the ass!! Stay warm, say a prayer for family , friends, and the troops..

Hard Times for 08,09

The picture was taken in front of my business called Bums. I had this retail store for nearly 30 years and eventually added a wholesale section and another retail store called Catalog Factory Outlet. It was a long hard , hard, road working in your own business and I would never do it again ever. Especially now that the government is going to be taking most of what small business makes. This is not the time for venture or adventure. Thos of you who are working for a large company, the city, county or state or govt. be sure and keep what you got because the job market sucks now. That business I had went through some really rough times and some good times. It gave jobs to high school seniors in their first try at working, college kids needing their 200 hours to graduate, single moms with kids, and retired people who needed to work to keep going. We treated them with respect and taught them everything we could from cleaning, straingtening, putting up clothes and pricing and closing and opening and balancing out the register. Some were great, most were good , some were awful and stole from us. But they knew if they had a sick kid, we understood, if they needed time off, they could have it , and whatever else we could do for them from giving discounty to them and their family and even loaning a buck or two. We bought lunches, had birthday parties, Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas hams, we gave gifts and bonusus at Christmas and tried to accomodate the football schedule.

We worked 7 days a week, sometimes from 7 am to 9 pm and sat and sun. WE never asked anything of an employee that we would not do ourselves. We hired people based on what we saw in them and not what was in their past and we were rewarded in our trust. We worked hard and in the years we did especially well, our employees benefited also. In the years that really sucked, I went many months withous pay to pay them and the rent and the bills. Many , many times I covered bills and payroll out of my own pocket and it shows in the amount of soc sec i get now. Though it was hard, so hard, it was also great fun and happiness. They were family and on big saturdays, we took everyone out to eat for a reward. I would not be able to do that again in this economy and now it is taking a great toll on me. For years, I saved a little bit now and then and tried my best to help my family when i could. Now, the stock market has managed to crash and take almost all i have saved in my IRA and retirements funds. i don't know what the future will hold or if I will be able to make a house payment and a car payment or have to choose between ...the housing market sucks so much, its not a good time to sell, and the move again would kill me...i will be 69 next year and i am tired. i have been for quite a while, just tired of trying to make ends meet and it would be nice to be cared for but i have been caring and looked after so many for so long, I just have only one way to go, put my trust in The Lord and pray.

Almost Fall!

Hey, its a little cooler and the trees are showing a bit of color. It has been rough the last few weeks with my family moved a little further away. I still catch myself looking across the street and checking to make sure they are in at night, but its getting better. I really miss my Logan but she is in 6th grade now and her time is limited. i know she knows that I am here for her and would be at her side in a heartbeat if she needed me. Maybe she will get some time to call every now and then. But she is 11 , going on 25 and an old grandmother is not so much fun anymore as boys, school, friends, music, The jonas brothers, and new cell phones!! Miss my kids. Some things have been said in anger and some in honesty that will be hard to overcome. i have been accused of things that never happened and misjudged and my best friends here in the neighborhood know that its not so. One of my friends here has been hurt badly and we will miss the friendships and closeness that once was. Lane is very much missed and Logan and the family get togethers we use to have. But maybe the hurts will ease and the slights will be forgotten and even if things are never as they once were, some tension will be gone and we can at least talk for a spell. Hope so. Finiances are horrible with the stock market and i worry that our way of life as we once knew it, is gone forever. Don't know what will have to our United States and the state of our finiancial status all the way from the top to the bottom. I know that i have lost a lot of money in my retirement funds and have no idea what the future holds, if I will be able to stay in my home or look for a section 8 apartment somewhere, just worry all the time and have already cut back on services, and anything i can think of...never go anywhere or spend any extra..just don't have the income that once was. Lets pray that the right man wins and that the economy can get back on track so we all won't lose what we have.!!! Thank goodness for wine and football!!