Move Over Warren Buffet...Here Comes Ned!

The folks at Aldersgate are still trying to talk Ned into "working" a couple of hours a day. They realize that a workshop situation might not be best because it would tend to be loud and a little chaotic and Ned isn't used to that. Ned isn't used to work of ANY kind. Even so, the very kind gentleman who is over the entire disabilities board told Ned that he would try to set up something so that Ned could work a couple of hours each day in his office. Ned said that he would "think about it."

I decided to try to talk him into it so I said, Ned...Hank and I get up and go to work everyday...that's what grownups do! You're a grownup. Daddy went to work everyday and Mother worked at home taking care of all of us. You'd meet all kinds of nice people.

Ned replied I'll think about it.

I persevered, moving on the cousins and neighbors...Nancy, Gail and Tom go to work everyday...so do Tana, Frank and Niles. Don't you want go help Mr. Bone for a little bit a few days each week? He could REALLY used your help.

Ned replied I'll think about it.

Y'all know that I don't give up easily...NED...wouldn't it be exciting to help people? You love to help people. Wouldn't it be MORE exciting to get MONEY for helping people? You'd get a paycheck. You would be making MONEY!!!

Ned replied, I have money. (Just before posting this, Miss Vernelle called to tell me that when she tried to talk to him about it again yesterday, he told her that he didn't have to work because he was "rich.") Who does he think he is? Warren Buffett??

This may take some time...

Read in a smalltown weekly newspaper...

A wedding writeup...

" The groomsmen wore lime green come-habuns."

" Red candles were illuminating in beautiful candlelobstas."

Is the kid from the deli counter at the Piggly Wiggly moonlighting as a features writer for the paper?

Overheard in the Piggly Wiggly

In the grocery store yesterday afternoon at the deli counter...

Belle: I'd like a half dozen wings please.

Deli Clerk: What did you say?

Belle: I'd like a half dozen wings please.

Deli Clerk: (puzzled) A half dozen??????????????

Belle: Six (holding up six fingers). I want six wings please.

Deli Clerk: OH! Six wings...

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Scary, isn't it?

Where to begin...

I finally had my "moment" last Friday night. I came home at 5:30 PM and told Hank, who was cutting the grass in the front yard that I was "done!" I took a bath, put on my pajamas, got my pillow, turned on the TV and laid down on the sofa. I moved from the sofa to the bed at 10:00 PM and got up on Saturday afternoon at 12:07 PM. Between the pressure of finishing the grant (let me assure you that I am NOT a grant writer and have been nervous, VERY nervous for two solid weeks) and all of the drama at the office, I was completely exhausted.

Not to mention that I never flinched during all of the brouhaha with Mother and Ned. I think I might have been overdue for a "sinking spell."

The difficulties with the economy have hit education hard in the state of South Carolina...it's hit hard in other places also but in most instances, governors are accepting the stimulus money to help offset reductions in force. The governor of SC, who is not a friend of public education, says that he isn't accepting the money, therefore our new superintendent (bless his heart for moving to a new job in a new state and have all of this drop in his lap first thing...) had to go ahead and reorganize. I suppose I'm thankful for the distraction of the grant proposal as I was too busy to worry about my job the first week. This week was a different story.

Every single person I work with was just sick with worry all week. We had no idea what the reorganization would bring for us until Thursday. For those of us who are Southern Belles and Beaus, well...we thought we were entitled to an update every day and we didn't get one. So...what did we do? We started making things up...looking at every possible scenario and the sub-scenarios and the sub-sub-scenarios and so forth. Then came "THE MEETING"... everybody got called in to learn his or her fate. Best Boss in the World (BB) had a rough day...he had to give each person the news. If anybody could do it with kindness, he certainly could (and did). But here's how I envisioned it...(except that I look NOTHING like Carrie Underwood)

BB- OK...Belle...stand up. Principal Smith says that you're really swell and he'd love to have you come to work for him. Principal Jones thinks that you haven't really "found yourself" and could do with a little more professional development in teacher evaluation. Principal Brown, well, Principal Brown thinks that you are are "forgettable." Belle...the school board voted and...YOU.... ARE......

GOING HOME!!!!!!

As God's grace would have it...I was NOT sent home. My position is safe for now and I am relieved and thankful. And I feel extraordinarily guilty for feeling relieved when many other people's jobs did not make it onto the new organizational chart. They will NOT be unemployed, which is a blessing, but will have to take involuntary transfers back into school buildings or choose to look for employment elsewhere. (There is very little employment elsewhere, as we all well know.) Retirees are who currently employed will not receive contracts until displaced district staff are placed. It's a terrible terrible situation. I guess in a way we're all feeling a sense of grief.

The good news is that I feel much better after giving into my "sinking spell" and am ready to start the new week with renewed energy. I can't be FORGETTABLE, now can I???

This is NO time to diet...

HERE IT IS...the last part of my repeat posting of Funerals in the South. The grant is done and I delivered it to THE MAN in Columbia at 11:24 AM yesterday. Stopped back by on my way home to visit mother and Ned...they're well...have a couple of Ned stories for later as well as a recap of my very busy week...quite a lot of drama at work. More later...enjoy the last part of the series...
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Funerals in the South...Part 3

Food! I hardly know where to begin. In my southern belle bubble, when people feel at loose ends as to how to comfort a bereaved friend or neighbor they resort to food. There is certainly a practical side to this as there are often many people to feed but mainly, it's really about trying to comfort someone when there are few words that can do the trick. Southern belles have the makings for at least two funeral dishes in the pantry at all times, just like they have a funeral outfit in the closet at all times.

The Church is going to be in charge of the mid-day meal on the day of the service. The Lady who rules The Church committee in charge of funeral food at is a powerful individual. For example, everybody loves (and expects) to see Miss Melda's coconut cake sitting on the sideboard at every funeral dinner but they know that Miss Melda, as the president of the Garden Club, better be sure that The Lady's prize camellia is in a prominent spot at the annual camellia show or she and her coconut cake will be replaced with Miss Sylvia (president of the Music Study Club who let The Lady sing a solo from "My Fair Lady" at the last meeting), whose red velvet cake will move up the funeral food society ladder. Of course, if Melda or Sylvia were vindictive sorts, they could take The Lady down a notch or two, but they aren't like that.

There generally needs to be about two days worth of food. Folks tiptoe quietly in the back door with their best dishes and say, "I can't stay but I wanted to bring this by and tell you how SORRY I am for your loss...now... you've got my phone number and you just call anytime day or night if (insert husband's name here) or I can do anything at all for you...Day or Night...I MEAN it. We love you and we'll be thinking about you."

Here's the thing...they DO mean it.

I can safely say that each of the following foods was in the kitchen when my daddy, aunt, grandmother, uncle, most beloved neighbor, and father-in-law passed away. Turkey, ham, fried chicken, chicken purlieu (purlieu means mixed with rice), shrimp purlieu, plain rice, sweet potatoes, dressing, macaroni pie (or mac and cheese as some folks call it), string beans, butter beans, field peas, broccoli casserole, squash casserole, asparagus casserole, potato salad, fruit salad, multiple congealed salads, deviled eggs, assorted pickles, egg salad sandwiches, pimento cheese sandwiches, pineapple and cream cheese sandwiches, pound cake, coconut cake, german chocolate cake, pecan pie, coconut pie, buttermilk pie, lemon meringue pie, banana pudding, sweet tea, lemonade, and coffee. In every instance, we had to call on the neighbors to help store the food. Heaven forbid that one of the cooks didn't tape her name on the bottom of her dish.

On to the funeral home visitation...Folks put on their Sunday clothes and head over the funeral home early because there is usually a line. The line for my daddy and my father-in-law stretched all the way around the block. We felt awful because people drove for two hours to get there and then had to wait for an hour to get to see us. The little old ladies of the town get escorted to the front and after speaking to the family in the receiving line, go and sit on the sofas and chairs reserved for little old ladies. Subsequent mourners are then obligated to pay their respects to the family AND to the little old ladies of the community, stopping by to have a look at the dearly departed in between..."Doesn't she look beautiful? Alma did a good job with her hair, didn't she? But her mouth looks funny...what did Thomas do to her mouth...go ask him what he did to her mouth...I hope her son/daughter/brother/sister/husband didn't notice. Are they seriously going to bury her with her jewelry on? I thought that Mary was getting the pearls and I'm pretty sure that Dorothy thinks she's getting the wedding set. I don't remember the cameo...Do you remember that cameo? I wonder who will get the cameo? Does she have on too much make-up? Trudy must have done the make-up...she's heavy handed...this is a funeral, not a Las Vegas floor show." Trudy's not going to do MY makeup."...and it goes on and on and on.

Preppy 101 reminded me about the politicians who show up every time the funeral home doors open to glad hand and greet (dare I say CAMPAIGN). I'm very cynical about motive if the politician isn't a true blue friend of the family, but the old folks and some of the less cynical locals just eat it up. You'd think the motorcade of the President of the United States had just pulled into town. "Linda...did you see Harold Lee McTeer over there. He's the best mayor we've ever had and just the sweetest man...I didn't even know that he knew who we were but he was one of the the first ones to call when my Woodrow passed last year. Harold Lee apparently thought the WORLD of Woodrow, rest his soul."

I think I've covered all the basics except for the choosing of the tombstone...

If you've been reading my blog for awhile you've figured out that my mother is a tad eccentric. Choosing the perfect tombstone for my daddy became an obsession, and she made me drive her around every cemetery in town so that she could analyze the competition. Daddy's marker couldn't be too big (the Browder stone was "so showy...they always did think they were better than everybody else.") and it couldn't be too small ("what were the Cobb children thinking...their mother deserved better than that and you know that oldest boy has plenty of money, despite the manner in which he might have earned it."). I would drive and she'd holler "STOP" then jump out and run with her notepad and tape measure over to whichever monument had caught her eye.

More than 25 years later, she can still show you her notes and drawings. It had to be marble...definitely marble. She made the monument guy (who was also the funeral director) call her every time a piece of marble came in over a period of several weeks until she found just the right one. You cannot rush these things. The font had to be classic and there could be no curlicues or angels or embellishment of any kind...just the family name "MASON" on both sides. A simple foot stone gave the details of who, when, and where. When she goes on to her great reward her foot stone will be added, and my brother Ned will be buried there with them also. Of course, they purchased four plots just in case I never found myself a husband...

I guess I've about covered it but I'll be happy to entertain questions. If I don't know the answer I'll just make one up. I hope you enjoyed the Funerals in the South series.

Location, Location, Location

Grant almost done...Please enjoy this repeat of Part II of the Funerals in the South Series...
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Thanks for the fabulous comments on part one of what I'm now calling my "funerals in the south" series! Keep them coming...

Let's see...funeral locations. There is quite a bit if disagreement in my family on this point. My uncle was a funeral director and a member of the First Baptist Church. The First Baptist Church in my hometown has very steep steps, probably 25 of them, and my uncle told everybody that he did NOT want his funeral in the church because he had carried many a casket up those steps and he always worried that the tops of their heads were being bumped against the end of the casket when they had to tilt it to get it up THOSE steps and he did NOT want HIS head bumping against the end of the casket. (Editorial note: Hank told me to add this...he was a pallbearer at Miss Margaret's funeral at the First Baptist Church and says that the least of his worries was hitting her head. The steps were so hard to maneuver that he was afraid they were going to lose their grip and send her sailing down over the parking lot and through the front window of the auto parts store across the street.)

My uncle (perhaps justified) was so adamant, that over the years the "THOSE steps" prejudice against the First Baptist Church translated into some kind of funeral service boycott against the Methodist Church also, even though it only has about five steps. My daddy and his sister LOVED the Methodist Church...they'd sat in the same seats in the choir loft their entire adult lives. When daddy died, I really thought that we should have his service in the church. There was more space and his was sure to be a "standing room only" service, not to mention that there was a better organ and beautiful Steinway grand piano. Well, my mother would not HEAR of it. "We don't have our funerals in the church...we have our funerals at the chapel at the funeral home."

Years later when Daddy's sister passed away, I decided to put my foot down. We were having her funeral in the Methodist Church and nobody was talking me out of it. When we arrived at my mother's house after making the arrangements, I told Hank that I was counting on him to support me on this one...my mother was NOT going to bully me this time...it wasn't her concern...I was in charge. She didn't even like her sister-in-law all that much! I marched in her back door with Hank right behind me and told mother what was what. "You will NOT have that funeral in the church, " she said sternly. "Oh yes we WILL," I replied, turning around to look at Hank. "Well....," he said, not making eye contact. "Over my dead body will that funeral be in the church," she said in a louder voice. Since it didn't seem practical to kill her and Hank was NO help at all, we found ourselves right back in the funeral home chapel.

There is also the graveside service option and the cremation/memorial service option. When my neighbor's dad passed away, they threw a new twist on things. They did the cremation/ memorial service, put the urn on the shelf for a couple of months, then go to Arlington National Cemetery and have a military honors service and bury the urn option. All of this to say, the southern belle doesn't have any hard and fast rules about the location of the service...(but she prefers the in the church with lots of uplifting music option).

I would be remiss in not mentioning proper protocol for traveling from the church (or funeral chapel as the case may be) to the cemetery. The family should NEVER EVER get out of the cars until the loved one is in place and the service ready to begin. It's just not done. At my grandmother's burial, my cousin and his family messed up the whole thing by jumping out of their car too quickly. NOW he knows...

I think I'm going to tackle cemeteries and save funeral food for later. Burial grounds in the south can take on all forms as I'm sure they probably do in other regions. There are family cemeteries, church cemeteries, town cemeteries, and commercial for profit cemeteries. I suppose the cemetery you choose is incumbent upon where you live and maybe where your loved ones chose to go before you. My father-in-law, whose funeral service was just about as near to perfect as I have EVER experienced, is buried in one of the tackiest gosh awful cemeteries I've ever seen. He purchased the plot himself so that was what he wanted but OH MY STARS. People put flowers (both live and plastic) out and never remove them, along with all sorts of paraphernalia...perhaps I'm being harsh, but garden gnomes just don't work for me in a cemetery.

One little church had to get an injunction against one overly enthusiastic son who put so much junk around his mother's resting place that it started to resemble...well, I don't quite know what it resembled...nobody'd ever seen anything like it in a cemetery. Here's the southern belle cemetery rule....LESS IS MORE! Nobody likes a tacky neighbor.

Funerals and Clown Makeup

While I'm finishing up the grant I thought you might enjoy some oldies but goodies...my Funerals in the South series...I had SO MUCH fun writing these and they are among my favorites. TODAY FOR OUR READING PLEASURE...Part I, Funerals and Clown Makeup
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I went to a funeral this morning for the parent of a coworker and it got me to thinking. While I’ve traveled quite a bit in my lifetime, I’ve always lived within a 100 mile radius of where I was born. It’s my little bubble and I like it. Having said this, you can understand why I don’t have anything other than a “southern belle bubble” perspective on funerals.

Southern belles are raised to deal with death in a very unique way. We have at least one funeral outfit in the closet at all times. When arranging a funeral, it is important to have someone with a sense of style in charge. Consequently, after the initial shock wears off (you get about an hour and a half) the southern belle has to WILL herself into Funeral Hostess mode. There will be plenty of time to mourn later on. In my neck of the woods, a funeral is a macabre sort of social event and there are rules! People are going to judge…they are going to talk…they are going to compare your “style” with every other funeral that they can recall. The house has to be immaculate…the best china and crystal ready for use and the silver polished. While the belle is at the funeral home and florist, neighbors, co-workers and church friends will swoop in. In addition to bringing food and drink and ice and flowers, they’ll cut your grass, wash and iron your clothes, clean your kitchen, vacuum and sweep your floors, feed your children, and walk your dog. When you get back they’ll try to make you eat, take a Valium, and lie down for a few minutes. They know you won’t do any of these things, except maybe take the Valium, but they’re going to keep trying. You’ll return the favor eventually.

Choosing a casket in which to place a loved for all eternity is tricky business. I’m partial to wood, but some members of my family prefer the classic gray metal version. Of course, there is quite a variety of themed caskets available these days…college mascots, hunting/camouflage, and so forth. Likewise, choosing what your loved one is going to WEAR for all eternity takes some thought. While Mrs. Ray Don Dickson did not purchase the hunting themed casket, when Mr. Ray Don Dickson went to his great reward, she had him dressed in his hunting clothes. She did not have a southern belle at her disposal to assist and YES, people talked about her TERRIBLE but I reckon it wasn’t anybody’s business but hers. My 101 year old grandmother was dressed in a simple peach colored Vanity Fair nylon nightgown and robe with little embroidered flowers on it.

My family has used the same funeral home forever…they’ve buried every member of my daddy’s family, including my daddy (wooden casket/wore a suit). They know what we expect and have never let us down. When my daddy’s sister died (wooden casket/favorite red suit), there was no way I was allowing an open casket. I was in charge and she didn't look anything like she did before she'd moved to the nursing home a few years prior. I have no doubt that she would have haunted me until I lost my mind if I’d let the general public see her like that. Thomas, the funeral director, didn’t budge when people inquired about viewing…”be here at 6:00 pm and Belle will probably let you take a little peek before everybody else arrives for the visitation” is what he was directed to say. Nobody argued and the few close friends and family members who needed the closure were there at 6:00 pm. and we closed her back up at 6:15...taking me on when I’m in Funeral Hostess Mode isn’t wise. One thing you do need to watch out for at a southern funeral parlor…they have a tendency to miss the boat with the hair and makeup. As my friend Anita said recently when her father passed away, “I’ve got to get over to the funeral home to be sure everything looks alright…I’m scared they might have put clown makeup on Daddy.”

to be continued….next time funeral locations and funeral food

Happy Birthday to.....

The draft of the grant is done. Still have to do a budget narrative and evaluation piece but the bulk is right on target. I gave the drafts out this afternoon as planned and am now going to go away with my wonderful husband for the weekend to celebrate his 50th birthday.

Yes, I am younger...that is important to note! We're flying up to DC tomorrow to spend the weekend with our friends Philip and Paul. Philip is celebrating his 50th birthday also. Philip's is Monday and Hank's is Tuesday. I'll bring lots of photos back as there will be a party on Saturday night and the guys have a gorgeous new house that we haven't seen yet. Good friends and good food and CAKE...I bet we'll have CAKE!!! Probably not THIS cake but I found the photo and thought it was pretty!

We'll be back on Sunday evening with stories to tell.

If you don't already know...my Hank is the most wonderful patient kind patient loving patient generous patient man who ever walked the face of the earth. As a daddy, he is the best. As a friend, he is one of the most loyal anyone could ever hope to have. In his professional life, he is hard working and a man of impecible integrity.

He is without question the BETTER half in our marriage. He is the love of my life. Nobody else ever came even close.

I don't know why God blessed me with such a wonderful husband but I count my blessings each and every single day.

Join me, won't you, in wishing him a very Happy 50th Birthday!

The City That Never Sleeps

Just a short post...the grant is coming but is a long way from done.

I think I've mentioned the Best Boss in the World (BB) a time or two. I like him and as you all well know, I don't like just everybody. His mama raised him right and he's a Southern gent through and through. She lives in her own version of Green Grove in another part of the state and I love to hear stories about her because she always sounds so reasonable and easy going, even when she isn't feeling so well. I told him the other day that he should say, "You're a doodle, mama" like Miss Daisy's son tells her in Driving Miss Daisy.

BB took a few vacation days last week while the rest of us were on Spring Break and went with some friends to New York City. A little after midnight one night as he was sound asleep (or so he says) he was startled by his cellphone ringing.

BB (grabbing phone): MOTHER...are you OK...is everything alright??

Mama (laughing): I'm fine...were you asleep?

BB: Yes ma'am, I was...it IS after midnight.

Mama: Well, I've always heard that New York is the city that never sleeps so I thought I'd give you a call and see what you were up to.

This is where he should have said, You're a doodle, mama. Don't you agree?

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OK folks...now you've got to leave lots of nice positive comments here because I'm going to print all of this out for BB to read and he needs to be impressed with how much people LIKE me.
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Oh mercy...before long, Legare is going to be saying, you're a doodle, to me.

Back to Work Tomorrow

The spring break week went by MUCH to fast. I survived not having my kids home and we enjoyed having Ned at the farm and seeing Mother today for church and dinner. She hadn't been to church in four or five years and the little chapel at Green Grove is just right for her. It was a good day. She did mention to me yesterday that "the old people here just love it when I talk to them and give them a little attention." I have to wonder with the dementia if it is possible that she doesn't realize that SHE, at almost 81 years of age, is also an old person...Whatever works. She's happy and isn't complaining.

My posting might be a little scarce for the next couple of weeks. I have to write a grant at work and am on a very tight timeline...it's due the 24th. NO...no pressure...none at all. Hopefully, I'll stay on my regular blog schedule but just in case, you'll know where I am.

Here are a few photos in a slide show of the weekend. I was planning to have Hank's mother and "Miss" Peggy at the farm this afternoon for tea but they were afraid they would be too tired from getting up early for the sunrise service and so forth. I set the table anyhow just to see how it WOULD have looked. Now I have a plan for Mother's Day, without the eggs of course.

The Easter Bunny

Legare and Lorelai aren't going to be here for Easter this year. Their spring breaks happened back in March and they don't even get Good Friday off, so the long travel time home as exams are looming is just not going to work for them. Lor and her roommate were invited to Atlanta to spend the holiday with a friend and Legare is hunkered down in Chapel Hill getting ready for exams.

I'm a little bit sad because this will be the first time since Legare's first Easter in 1987 that there won't be a "child" in the house for the Easter Bunny to visit. As Hank and I sat in the sun room the other afternoon talking about it, a couple of little teeny tiny tears started to well up in my eyes. As usual, Hank tried to put it in perspective for me by saying..."For goodness sake, you can't expect them to drive all the way here when they're so busy just for a few little BUNNY things." He's right...and I don't...but here we are at another MILESTONE...

The Easter Bunny WILL arrive as usual and L and L will have something wonderful to look forward to when they get home in a couple of weeks. I'll just have to substitute Hank and Ned on Easter morning...I wonder if they'll let me take their pictures with their Easter baskets.

I couldn't resist ending with the pouty face photo of Lorelai below. She must have been about seven years old and was so ill tempered when she got up on Easter morning that we wouldn't let her have her Easter basket until she changed her attitude and got dressed for church. As you can see, she is dressed but the attitude doesn't appear to be a lot better. It's amusing now...not so much then...

We're off to the farm. Have a wonderful weekend everyone...I'll be back on Sunday.

A Special Thursday Edition of Frugal Friday

Frugal Friday is BACK...a day early! Some small changes this week but the small things add up.

First...did you know that there is a place where you can get books to read for FREE? Yes indeed, it is called The Public Library. We love books....ADORE books at our house. When our kids were little we would never say "no" to a book. We have a lot of books...A LOT! I still buy books by my favorite authors...books that I want to keep, but rather than buying other random books that I'll end up taking to Goodwill or trade around with friends (which is a fun and sort of frugal thing to do), I think I'll utilize the library for awhile...and maybe I'll give them a few of our old books for their annual fundraiser.

I also talked Hank into putting all of our recurring monthly bills on bank draft or auto pay, along with notifying said "billers" that we want to go paperless. We'll save on postage and checks and not have nearly as much paper to throw away. I've been paying my bills online for ages but Hank has been slow to get on board. YES...we keep separate checkbooks. We learned very soon after we married that the accountant in him could not share a checkbook with the likes of me!! It's worked out beautifully for almost 26 years.
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We interrupt this post for a Message from HANK...Why WOULDN'T it work out beautifully for Belle? From the moment we said "I do" the money I've earned has been OUR money and the money she's earned has been HER money. I ask you...WHERE is the logic in that???
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Don't let him fool you...he knew before he married me that I didn't have a logical bone in my body...and he loves me...a lot...and I love him...A LOT.

That's My Boy!!

Legare just got notification that he is the 1L winner of the 2009 Gressman-Pollitt Award for Excellence in Oral Advocacy at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Thanks for letting me brag for a second...

YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY

What's Up with Ned??

Saturday a week ago, Ned and Mr. Herman picked up Fred, a resident from another home in the area and the three of them hopped up to Columbia for a Wildlife Expo. (Ned and Fred...LOL) They had a nice time but Ned was a little concerned about the helmet that Fred was wearing. (Fred has seizures sometimes.) On Sunday morning, Ned asked Miss Vernelle, who was on duty, "What is wrong with Fred...does he have a disease?" Miss Vernelle did her best to explain. Ned's reply was, "Oh...OK...well, I'm going to be his friend." Isn't that sweet?

Ned's sweet nature departed from him briefly later in the week when LaVonia told him they were going over to one of the workshops for an afternoon of games and dancing. Ned informed her VERY matter of fact-like that he would just stay home by himself because he wasn't going to be going to work! When she told him that they were just going for the fun and he couldn't stay home by himself, he FURTHER stated, "Belle says I can stay home by myself if I want to...I'm going to talk to Belle about this!" OOPS...guess I'll have to straighten him out on that one.

Anyway, LaVonia talked him into it and said that he did play a few games but stayed very close to her the entire time. One young lady asked him to dance but he declined! Can't you just see it??

In Ned's defense, all of this is SO new to him...it will take some time to get used to all of the going and doing. Maybe we need to get him some dancing lessons...





By the way...am I the only person having trouble getting into Dancing with the Stars this time?

Back to Ned...you know he loves going to the farm and since he's only living seven minutes away now, we're fixing up one of the bedrooms for him. We're going to have the furniture from his bedroom at home refinished and take him over for a weekend every now and again. He's always enjoyed riding with Hank on the four-wheeler, which was unfortunately stolen from the shed by some nimrod a year or so ago. Hank thinks that replacing it with a four wheel drive golf cart would be a better choice for Ned. We were talking to Ned the other day about this and how he could learn to drive it. Oh HECK NO!!! He says he's not driving ANYTHING. (Are you starting to see the stubborn streak?)

Ned has a tendency to talk to himself when he gets a little riled up...actually, he could be talking to "somebody" that we can't see but generally, it seems that he's either trying to talk himself INTO or OUT OF something. On the afternoon of the golf cart discussion, he went into the back bedroom and we were able to catch snippets of his "conversation"...NO. You can't drive a golf cart...traffic on the road...get hurt...nooooo.....not going to learn to drive....lawnmower...have a wreck.....can't....don't want to....not going to....tractor....got to find the four wheeler...not driving anything...

As Hank says...sometimes it isn't good to give Ned too much forewarning about things.

AH....Spring Break!

I'm just wondering...would it be odd if I stayed in my house for the entire week of spring break? I think I'd really enjoy something of a self-imposed exile after the last several weeks, particularly if I had this gorgeous cake from Dean and Deluca to keep me company!

But I digress...

I've gotten SO much done just this Saturday morning. There were four bags of stuff that I collected back in August when I cleaned up Lorelai's room after she moved to college. She's had since then to go through the bags to see what was treasure and what was trash...it must have all been trash in her estimation because she never went through it. HELLO GOODWILL!

I've paid all of mother's bills. In the month prior to her move she apparently felt that the bills for the house insurance, car insurance, Ned's colonoscopy, and dentist were trash. Incidentally, when I called her on Thursday afternoon, she had just enjoyed a nice visit from "a preacher"...she doesn't think that he is HER preacher but he surely was a "pleasant bald headed and plump little fellow." She can't get over how time flies, the past TWO YEARS since she moved having gone by so quickly. (good grief)

I have a few cute little stories about Ned that I'll save for next week. He's a character, that one.

Let's see...a little spring cleaning (check), bill paying (check), dreaming about a $200 cake that I'm never going to get (check)...I think that's enough work for today. I believe I'll do a little reading now...both blog and otherwise...

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, my friends!

Randoms and a Rant

1. Spring Break starts at 4:00 PM today!! YAYAYAYAYAY
2. I'm watching the morning news about a guy who saved a runaway cow from going to "the bad place" because he "saw the fear in her eyes."
3. I've given up on trying to produce the Duggar's Laundry Detergent. It takes too many containers and too much space.
4. Three Quotation Thursday and Frugal Friday return next week.
5. The State of South Carolina is fixing to lose upwards of 6,000 teachers and other positions in public education because our governor is determined NOT to accept our $700 million share of the stimulus funding. Hear this, sir...not every person in this state can afford to send their children to Heathwood Hall. Not everybody owns a plantation and a house at the beach. Don't try to tell us that the "common" people are with you because you rocked at the Rotary Club in Greenville earlier in the week. You INSULT us, sir, and I am embarrassed by your cavalier attitude and lack of regard for what is best for the people of South Carolina just because you think you want to run for President one day. Good thing you have all of that timber down in Beaufort County that you can cut to help fund your future campaign because I WILL campaign for DAFFY DUCK before I will support you. I know A LOT of people and EVERYBODY thinks you've gone around the bend. This isn't about people who played fast and loose with their investments or their mortgages...this is about the future our our state....our CHILDREN! While your children are safely tucked away in their private school classrooms at Heathwood, the children in our public schools will be sitting in overcrowded classrooms with limited resources. Oh yes....you are BRILLIANT!!! (and by brilliant, I mean SELFISH)

Sorry about that folks...I've been holding it in for a week! Gotta get ready for work now!

Have I ever told you how much I love to WIN?

Petunia in Paradise hosted a giveaway in honor of her beautiful daughter's birthday and I WON.....I WON....I WON!! YAY!!!!

Sorry about that outburst but I've had a bad couple of weeks and I NEVER win anything...well some hockey tickets and pot plant once ten years ago but big whoop.

Petunia has been one of my favorite daily blog reads since forever. If you don't keep her with her and her sweet family then you SHOULD!!

So...what did I win? You might not want to keep reading because you're going to be envious. LORELAI...these are MINE and you can't have them so don't get any ideas.

THANKS PETUNIA!!!!!