What I Got For Christmas

I wanted more. I wanted a diamond necklace and new boots. I wanted (two) orphaned children. I wanted/needed an updated wardrobe. I wanted new jama's. I wanted/needed a vacation. I wanted love. I wanted my boys all home for the Holidays. I wanted a duplex, and yes with checks. I wanted a years worth of toilet paper and baggies. (Just a "thing" with me)
I wanted new carpet. I wanted updated furniture. I wanted a home big enough for a few more animals. (Don't worry, I am not cat-lady material) I wanted a friend to share life with. I wanted a new mattress for my back. I wanted a new car for my daughter. I wanted homes for the homeless. I wanted a flat screen TV and an HD radio. I wanted a fancy scanner that scans fifty pictures at a time. I wanted a wicker hanging swing for my porch come Spring. I wanted a massage chair for my back. I wanted a dentist who takes payments. I wanted a face lift, mini one would do for now. I wanted to take writing classes so I can work on my book. I want to finalize the other book, Crestview,The Road Back. I wanted new shoes called Nuots. Something like that. I wanted security. A hotel room with a whirlpool and big TV and no where to go for three days or more. Ballroom Dance lessons, (like my back would eat that mess right up!) I wanted more time. I wanted a decent haircut. I wanted allot of things most people want.
But I got these socks from someone that works for me... bless her heart, she ran to the dollar store and got me these socks and two candles! Damn I am lucky. And I got an all natural pine needle sachet from my son in Vegas. (It is nice) And, and, oh a MUG with my Grands Mugs on it. A Bethlehem flower from my friend....and, and, and....and..... I think that 's it. Wait, I did get $50 from my brother and sister in law. That is out of five children, six Grand children, and so on... Wow it was a great Christmas for me wasn't it? And yes I did give.... maybe it'll come back in other ways they say. And then a-gain....maybe I got more than some. But then a-GAIN, maybe it's time for a change. Ya-think? p.s. I hope no one read this before I say how much I truly appreciated these one dollar socks! Someone went out of their way on a busy day for me. It doesn't matter what they cost. That is exactly the sweet part of the whole discussion.

Blizzards and Not the Ice Cream Kind...

This is tonight while trying to get home from work, the grocery store, and one Christmas errand. The snow was blowing sideways... of which my new Smart Phone did not catch the fullness of. It is Wisconsin! And it is December 23rd. The National Weather Service has said we are getting sleet, snow, sleet, ice, snow and more ice...until late tomorrow. That means if you want Christmas dinner you had to get whatever you needed NOW, Tonight in the sleet, ice, snow and more ice. Sure no problem. And if you weren't finished Christmas shopping, well, you had to get it done TONIGHT in the sleet, snow, ice and more ice. As you see I found myself behind a large snow plow. I am home now, with enough food for the dog, cat, me and Bree, and maybe one more visitor..... Merry Christmas

It's Insane O'clock

Isn't this disgusting? Half a tree! And it isn't like its not noticeable totally...great grammar going on here.

It's five a.m. and I have been up since three a.m. Why? Because I had a bad dream, wha wha... And then some sort of what some would call OCD kicked in and I couldn't stop singing that Christmas song about Barnie and Ben! It's still there two hours later. Oh yeah, "It's beginning to Look Allot like Christmas." How could I forget considering I have been singing it in my head all this time doi. So...I made a pot of coffee, a two cupper that is, no no, it is a four cupper?? Whatever, I drank it all, took a shower, did my nails, cleaned my bedroom, and now I am eating Tuna Casserole and telling someone in the world all about this little mess in my head. Not to mention that half blacked out Christmas tree.

As you do not know, the lights on the top of my pre lit tree went OUT! Total Blackout! I thought when one went out the rest were supposed to keep going. Isn't this 2009?
I was in great hopes the plug came out somewhere inside this fully decorated deal...but no such luck. All plugged in and no go on the top. So I just pull the mini blinds to that spot so no one outside can see it. But we can see it! My friend says to just string a stand up top....are u nuts? Like I said, a fully decorated tree. This year may be the first year my tree comes down the day after Christmas. Anyway it looks like Busch Gardens in here...so many plants and no where for them to go. You see the Grand daughter recently moved into the spare room which meant everything had to come out. Well I only live in three rooms anymore. One great one with a bedroom off each side. Hence a garden of greens around my Christmas Tree. Pretty hilarious actually. Maybe I should have just hung some balls on the plants this time. Now that would have really been a "Bah humbug." I just had a chocolate chip cookie. I think when a person is very tired their brain calls out for food trying to spunk the body back up...or the brain and the body. But this is nuts. This is like a bad B movie called, "Looking for Food (Love) in all the Wrong Places!" It's not working and possibly I should stop eating now considering so far its been all carbs! Eating carbs at five a.m. while watching a half blacked out Christmas tree, singing about Barnie and Ben, and now trying to stay awake to go to work two jobs, then an MRI, then Post Office and somewhere in all that taking the dog out several times. Maybe a nap??? Doubtful.

Grandma Tillie Jungbluth's Pffefer-nuts

I have written blogs before about my Grannie Tillie and how good she was to me, how she talks to me from another place or space or dimension. How I can smell her sometimes. She was good to me. She was never anything but a poor farm woman. She milked cows, made cheese and butter from an authentic "huge contraption" called a creme separator. (top photo because I cant get it to move down!) Grandma Till also raised chickens and geese and ducks and she baked cookies. The best cookies ever. She let me eat as many eggs as I wanted, and she hugged me all the time. When I hear the crows I am reminded of the sounds that woke me when I spent the night with her. (Oh and those dark green window shades too.) One would think evil, but it wasn't. Just crows on the farm. eewww. Back to cookies and her life. She told me she always wanted to be somebody. But, that she didn't know how.

So this year she will be somebody all over the United States of America. Grandma Tillie's traditional family Pffefer-nut cookies will and are being shipped all over the country to different relatives and they are under glass! Glass pickle jars that is. I have a friend that has a printing business called Tuxedo Printing, Madison, Wisconsin... and on a minutes notice, because the idea came to me in just about that fast a time, he made me those great labels in the above photo, just for Grandma Till.

I hope she is smiling and not thumping me for not getting enough flour in the dough. You see that 's her secret. These German cookies are to be rock hard and then dropped into hot coffee, let to sit a bit, spooned out to melt in one's mouth. Black strap pure molasses, corn syrup, peanuts, anise, and so on.... They are as amazing as she was. Merry Christmas Tillie, you are somebody special.

We Got Ed!

Today has been straight out of Hellie! You know that place where shit happens. That place where you try to crawl out of a sand pit! Try that one and get back to me. Nasty people "pretending," humm, to be dogs biting you. Or wolves in sheep's clothing pretending to be what they are not and trying to take allot of your green paper. Cars, alternators, wreckers, liars, cheaters, and baking cookies while all this is going on. Youth and old age (The Grand and I) working together to figure it out. And we shall! The answer after a day of hellie is .........WE GOT ED! Better said, WE HAVE ED! Ed recently bought a Meineke Store in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. He is a real authentic person. He used to take care of my Dodge Intrepid at a Madison Meineke before he "stepped up" and got his own franchise. And since then I gave my Grand Daughter that same Dodge Intrepid he had taken under his "wing." She is only 18, works at Hooters and needs that car. Since she moved in with me the blessed car has decided it needed four new tires, a battery, and now an alternator. Jeez! I already put over $7,000 in that little sweetie. Bless the G daughter, she is a bit overwhelmed at paying back hundreds of cash flow....but then what a lesson to get out of the way ........ We both had an extremely stressful day asking the Great Gma (not me) for help with this issue... That was no go! So we kept making cookies for Christmas gifts and after HOURS of true scary stress something told me we were OK... cause we got Ed! Ed felt comfortable telling me he had a week out of effing hell also. And I thought we had it bad....after hearing only a couple of his stories I went to my sweet Grand daughters bedroom door, knocked, and opened it, and said, "You know, I think Ed had a worse week that we had today." She agreed ... I said, " We will be fine, because we got Ed." He cares...and he will be alright also because he cares.... and its only green paper... p.s. You cant imagine the peace in this house even though the lights under the Angel, on the top half of our pre- lit tree, went out last night. Imagine that.

Szymanowski Symphonies #2 and #3

Ah yes, doesn't that sound Symphonatic! I have a client that usually puts a classical CD on while we are at his home and I usually enjoy it. But this! Not! I thought I should lose my mind. I handled the Szymanowski Symphonies #2 and #3 for two hours plus! Never ending and surely like Chinese and Bush torture and beyond. The music should be used for torture and only torture. I could hear the talent but also wondered how the musicians could even think to read their music. Wait, maybe it was like a drug to them.... as the notes moved and the sound grew so did their intensities. For them it was like fireworks or like, sex.... making love with instruments... starting out slowing and moving to the ultimate climax.... except I don't want to listen to anyone making love so there you have it. It was NOISE to me...Loud noisy noise ...like starting to pull fingernails out, or bright flashing white lights close to your eyes, or a charlie horse that wont go away for six hours, or plucking out all your eyebrows, and so on. That is why I wrote down the name of the CD so I could share its pain with all of you. Szymanowski's torture CD. My Tuesday nightmare in the morning. Nothing peaceful and soothing about that CD... never to hear it again. And I do have classical class. Just don't care for noise. It was like symbols over and over and over....which sent me into hate and anger. Which took some time to recover from and find my way out of.....like a bad clown, or danger. I'm OK now...it was weeks ago.. (Ya think?)

"Thank God for Men"

Thank God for Men! I hadn't "thought that thought" or said that line for so many years that when I saw it in print on Face Book I just sat there and starred at it. Thank God for Men! Humm. I really never had that experience in a positive manner. Of course possibly due to improper chosing or "re-incarnation repair," I really don't know and also do not wish to rehash. But just maybe I should start saying that more often. I tried Match.com. Good God that was a mess. I tried and paid for E-Harmony. That was ridiculous. If I wanted to travel hours for a date it may have been fine. I kept telling Match.com, NO WATER men, and only send the ones within 30-50 miles. They didn't listen and kept taking my money. And I never got the man that cost me $200+. I suppose that would have been considered a cheap date anyway. They say its what you put into it....yet for me the buck stopped there. I think I should be able to find a free man. If I hurry up that is. Time is taking whatever it wants to, even though the battle is on between us. Time and myself that is. Heck I could have had a half of a botox treatment for that $200+. Nevermind...and I almost said, "They aren't worth it." Men that is.... I have to start saying, "Thank God for Men." Good Men I should add. I do miss a good man. I think I can remember one or two whether merely passing by or maybe they stopped to say hi. Men can do good things. Move furniture. I'll think of more. Maybe later...time to go to work.

My Scale is Possessed

As you all know I found a little Pomeranian/Chihuahua at the Humane Society two years and one month ago! And we have not been apart since. No healthy but fact. I am working with a dog trainer to desensitize her, Gracie, to a variety of life issues. Such as nail clipping, eating dog food instead of taco's and pizza, and knowing I will return if she is left alone. There to fore, she has not been spayed or had her million dollar teeth work yet. Because I have to leave her overnight at the clinic. Back to why my scale is possessed. Because it cost me several hundred dollars today. Grace has not been eating in her normal fashion for about two weeks. I was starting to get concerned about this. Although she would eat Duck jerky...humm, which gives her loosie goosie stoolie's! Today I came home from work and decide I will weigh the little dog. I get on the scale, it tells me what I weigh, omg! Then I weigh her and I. And here is the rest of the story.........
We get to clinic. She is shaking like a terrified Chihuahua. We talk, they do stool tests for worms, they take blood for many various issues, give her a rabies shot, walk around behind her and I with a cup attached to a long wand trying to get urine of which she would have no part of, then we talk more, they take her temperature... They WEIGHED HER! She weighed 6.9 ounces. My scale on the other hand is possessed! It told me she lost 3 pounds...when in fact she didn't. And furthermore.....I did not drama this mess either. She hasn't been eating normally or as usual. Vet gives me some pepcid AC ($5.00 at the store) and revolution for cats ears and Grace and I leave. It is late, almost five so I am going to eat my other half sandwich from lunch. And you better know I was hungry considering I had only eaten half a sandwich, chips, and some Dove Chocolate! Grace is starring at me with that "want my food stare" I haven't seen for awhile. So I chew a piece and give it to her. She EATS IT! IN FACT SHE ATE MOST OF MY SANDWICH AND MY CHIPS. My dog and my scale are possessed...trying to take my $$. Can you believe it ....I am in no mood. p.s. the scale is in the trash. The dog is in my lap on a heating pad. She seems a little down from her rabies shot or just plain tuckered out. Well ditto on that.

I Could Be Like Rachael Ray....

I could be like Rachael Ray, if I gained a few pounds and talked louder that is. Maybe having a few good connections works too. Even so.... Everyone puts recipe's and cooking on their blogs and I never have. I rather do life recipe's of what not to do even if it's too late. So today I shall share the last homemade chicken soup from my 84 year old Father's garden. Not the soup, the ingrede's. While I was preparing the soup I was snacking on Grandpa's (Dad's) yummie Squash that is out of this world sweet, no sugar added, organic, and fresh as a bad boy. Less the organic on the bad boy of course. The dog even liked it. Huge carrots, beautiful potatoes, onions, (I bought the celery) Range Chicken breasts and sea salt with Grandma's dry broth mix. No bull cubes please eeeww. This soup cures all, just ask anyone that has rec'd it while ill. Maybe its the love its sent with, or maybe it really is the combination of ingredients. I just know it works. I used my George Foreman grill for the chicken breasts, and my dumplings usually are called Giblets from my Granny's old German recipe, but today I used Bisquick...or however you spell it. I use Bis-quick once every two years so I am not up on the spelling....I am up on the how bad it is for me. After the soup cools I will transfer it to clean saved GLASS pickle jars for easy transport and no BHA or BJS or whatever that is in plastic that kills when it comes in contact with heat. No killing with plastic around here. Enjoy the healing soup... It is amazing.

Cody Ogden, Son # 3

I was checking in on the daily happenings at Face Book U.S.A. or is it world? I happened to see a link to the above and here: http://www.dcdphotography.net/p736538202/slideshow Why didn't anyone tell the Mom. The Mom gets sooo excited when new headshots come out. So this is a bit of Mom drama on blogger.

Happy Birthday to ME....

Happy Birthday. That must mean I am to be happy today because many decades ago I was born on 11-22 at 12-22p.m. Which means I should, by all numerological definitions, be happier, have more, as well as have changed the world somehow. You see those are master numbers, according to the Greek Pythagoras who discovered the correlation between letters and numbers of which I have found to be amazing. Except for my own. Just kidding because I do have amazing numbers. 87649...that means in my soul I wish to master money and sometimes make myself a victim...(eewww I knew that) It means my personality is a loner, psychic, enjoying deja vu's. A more important number tells me I am a natural Mother, of people and animals. Next is the number that says I need security! No lie on that one. And the last and most important is that I am a humanitarian, a giver. If I am not giving I am not happy. And I do not do it to make anyone like me duh! Along with the ability to be an executive leader. Wonder when that will happen.....
So I am spending the day with my Grandest Granddaughter at the mall. We will be having a bourbon chicken Chinese lunch after looking at serious face cremes and a new cell phone with GPS....and who knows what else..oh yes, kitty litter! Basically just another day. Am I glad I was born. I have no choice so of course I am. So for my birthday I am asking for a "kewl" new truck for my middle son Cody! Perfect health for my only daughter. Freedom for my oldest son. And a new place for me to live also... Been here too long....6 years. Sometimes a new and refreshing area is good. L.A. would be great, but not time yet I guess. Unless I win my lotto numbers 4 - 12 - 13 - 21 - 22.....all my children's birth dates as well as mine. Because its always been them and I. Is that proper grammar? Who cares. Oh and I am sure I was born into the wrong family and or adopted. Ha!

Bear Lady

As you all know by now Maria and I have nicknames for some of our clients. Cant help it, tried, but it just is what it is.... For instance, Goldfish lady if you recall kept the dead family goldfish in a bowl in the corner of the family tub for six months easy! Then there is Candyman who has bags and bags and bags of candy, not cookies or cake, CANDY next to his bed, next to his easy chair and TV, on his workstation, and all about the kitchen counter!! Seriously. Then there is psycho bia-tcha who cant do confrontation but can holler and then run to her bedroom. Seriously again. Recall the Analyst? Or is that Annalist humm? The client that sees dust where there is none.... sort of like an anorexic that sees fat when there is NONE! SAME THING different sight seeing. Also we have dog lady, marble lady, and today is Bear Ladies day... But before I go there let me say Maria and I adore most all these people. They are kind, loving, hard working, lovely people. We just cant help but nickname them according to their ways of life. God only knows what they would nickname us. OK back to Bear Lady...and I don't mean bare naked! She loves stuffed teddy bears and has them all over her gorgeous condo. She has elegant furniture and artwork all amongst the bears. Big bears, little bears, dressed bears, picture frame bears, her own dog named Lil Bear, anything you can think of bear. They are in the bathrooms, the living room, the bedrooms, the office, and they even have their own room, The Bear Room. I took a few pictures and seriously I mean only a few!! I could have used a roll as they used to say in the old days. Now its, "I could have used the entire time on a Sony canon battery!" But as I said, I only took a few. Enjoy! And do believe me when I say there are at least 600 bears in that Condo.... Its quite a cushy place if you like being cushy with Teddy's. Do you think they each have a name?

The Wooden Heart

I found this on the kitchen hardwood floor of one of my clients homes. A heart! If I were a young couple looking for a home and I spotted this heart right in the heart of a kitchen, I would have bought the house too! Isn't it amazing and love-ly?

Lucky or Unlucky

Maria and I arrive at our Psychiatrist Client 's home yesterday around noon. When we arrive she is home which never happens. You see we have never met her, she hired us sight unseen.
So in we go.... After all greetings and more salutations we comment on what a wonderful aroma is in the air. Psychiatrist says, "Mother is visiting (age 90) and making fruitcake. If you are lucky you will leave with one, and if your not you wont."
Maria and I finished our work, all the time believing we might get to share the physical sense of said aroma. Silently watching Grandma sitting in her rocking chair reading, and secretly wondering why she hadn't gotten up to wrap up those two mini fruitcake loaves for us. But there was time. Then I made it a point to tell her I was going to finish up the foyer on my way out. She said it was nice meeting us and we responded likewise. We left, got to the trunk of my car.....I looked at Maria and said, "I guess we aren't lucky huh?" Maria said, "Guess not!" All the time I was thinking, "What a thing for a psychiatrist to say to people....Just in case Grand Mommie Dearest did not give us a fruitcake, which in fact happened! I know we are lucky anyway.... just thought the comment interesting. What would the shrinks shrink say was her reason? Wait a minute....you dont think that unlucky thing had anything to do with me forgetting to rinse the pan I made my Ham and cheese omelette in this morning do you? I took one bite and tasted Dawn Foam dishsoap. The dog wouldnt even eat it! OMG...I have to speak to that unlucky stream of words someone sent me and erase it from MY SPACE!

GodParents

My own personal life experience with Godparents has been less than what I was raised to beleive their role in life is. In other words, sucks Canal Water! The definition of a God Parent is a person that makes the decision to accept responsibility for a child's rearing in the case of the parents death....plus that child is to be special in the God Parents life. Better than Sponsoring a ball team. Today I say God Parents suck. My parents chose two people (which is the norm) to be my God parents. They felt, let's say, above others in my life, although only on paper....but I reaped nothing from it.... no phone calls, no I love yous......nadda! So I followed suit of family tradition and chose God Parents for my first three children of which NONE have done squat. Not even Birthday cards, Come on! Acknowledgement hello! God Parents! Read that carefully. Look it up, Godparent rules for dummies. Maybe its on EHow somewhere... I would give much for someone to have given me the privilege of being a Godparent to any child.....yet my experience with said gift has been null. That means NEGATIVE, & some call it DARK. My God Parents, nevermind. My first child's God Parents, well one is dead and I cant even remember who the other one is. My second child's God Parents were just plain a total family dysfunction...don't ask. So I tried it one more time.....third Child's God Parents really sucked...They didn't even know what it meant~!~ and they lived in the Bible belt.. I call that a case of the "dumb ass!" I can call it what ever I chose yet the result for my child would have been sad and disturbing should I have croaked before he grew up. So I do what I can to make up for the losers I chose. Let me make a list, nevermind, not healthy... I am trying to find humor in something really quite serious and not funny. How do I find myself with people I have no-thing in common with....they know no God. So the next two children have no God Parents thank God! Because none is better than one that does naught. Some call them "Sponsors." Think on that one....

A Clear Moment

This is an old 35 mm slide from my Grandfathers collection....1950's I think it needs photoshop color repair, but it reminded me of today and not 60 years ago. (I was barely alive if there is such a thing)

It is 7:00 a.m. and time to take Gracie Allen outside which can be annoying some days as all who own dogs understand. But today was diff. No one in sight when at least one thousand live within this block of space on earth. I could call it "My Space," because it is and it especially was this morning. I lost track of the date, the time, and where I was. Why? I don't know exactly except it was euphoric like I hear a drug would be. Like Morphine before surgery.... Who was giving me this moment in time and why? The smell of the air held a meaning of such goodness and memory that I kept breathing it in as deeply as I could. I was asking the Universe what this meant or where it came from. I looked up into the specially blue sky only to see the moon in all its cratered glory looking at only me, telling me how much more there is that I cannot see with my human eye. Well I was willing to see it with my spiritual eye but that didn't happen...or maybe it did, only every other of my four senses plus was working overtime. Maybe I should have tried harder to just enjoy it instead of trying to remember it. Emotions came to visit also. I thought maybe it was a memory of another time when things were wonderful. Children bustling about, pancakes on the griddle, a soul mate offering and sharing.... It wasn't the same smell and feeling that I get from my Grandma's farm early in the morning from back in the 50's... No, this was clean, crisp but not cold, sunny but not hot, this was perfection. There was no place for worry, pain, fear, or any of the grey and certainly no place for any black on my block. I actually lost Grace for over a minute in time. Something I never do as she had no harness on this fine morning. I don't think Grace noticed the fairy like magic that had come over me but she did sit by my feet waiting for me to come back to the grey senses of this world which I really didn't do until I opened that front door. I didn't want to leave it. "It" being the total feeling of security where there is none. "It" being the total feeling of love where there isn't much of. "It" being the total feeling that no matter what everything is alright so just go with it......" Even if "It" was only the smell of a wonderful memory, but I know better! I received a gift from the moon? From the Universe? From God this morning during Gracie's podie time. How ironic. I am a very lucky person.

www.capetown.travel/.../Autumn_colours.jpg

Tortured Screaming Nail Clipping Day

Actually the bottom picture of my little buddy Grace is on our ride towards the tortured screaming nail clipping adventure, of which I purposely did not videotape. People think she is dying! Her dog trainer, above photo, Jamie Mueller, slash nail trimmer owns a CURVES studio and when we arrive Grace tries so diligently to communicate with me (by licking my neck and trying to hide there also) that this is a bad thing for her. And it is! Her anxiety level is TEN. I felt so badly for her but it had to be done. I said, "Hey, I don't want her to have a heart attack!" I was assured that wouldn't happen but I wasn't so sure. We went yesterday and today and will go next week trying to de-sensitize her to this nail clipping deal. She screams like she is being tortured. The ladies at curves go bonkers. I am expecting someone to call animal 911 at any time during the procedure. Grace is the best in most all areas, but not this one. Someone must have hurt her (she is a rescue dog) because there is one paw that makes her go CRAZY NUTS... the other paws she is fine with. Well we made it......then drove on home and she was fine. This makes taking children for their shots look like an easy road compared to!! Seriously. But ALSWELL that ends well.... We are home and doing well.