My view on The View

I tuned in The View last week because at one time I used to like Rosie O'Donnell. My purpose was to see just how long it took her to throw in her political opinions. Not surprisingly, it only took one day before she started slinging her little digs in oposition to GWB or anything conservative. She really stepped in it Friday when she said "extremist Christians were just as bad as extremist muslims". What an idiotic statement!!! I despise her pseudo-scholarly rhetoric.They need someone like Michelle Malkin to be the other host to help out poor conservative Elizabeth Hasselback. Of course, Michelle has much too much class and intelligence to ever do a show like that. Rosie wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell in a debate with Michelle!!

I liked The View better with Star even with all her superiority (self-proscribed). Meredith Vierra kept the show on a sort of even keel, so it has been tanking, in my opinion, since she left.

Dum dum hummer....

Update: I just went out to check on him and he is not there unless he is dead somewhere and I didn't see him. I hope he is gone!


I have one dumb hummingbird in my garage. He has been there a long time now flying so near the ceiling that he cannot see the big huge opening that is the DOOR to the garage. I went out and tried to help him find his way out, but had no luck. And yes, it is a HE....judging by his ruby throated bright colors!!

Selling tickets to my spring yard...

I received in the mail today a catalog from this place along with a gift certificate for $125 from my cousin. Now I am going to get busy building more flower beds so I can fill them up with bulbs that will bloom in early spring before anything else does. I am going to be like a kid in a candy store buying these bulbs!! Unfortunately, I have already ordered some Daffodil bulbs and it's too late to cancel that order. I am going to have bulbs coming out my ears, but I can promise a show place on my street next March or April. There are thousands of choices in the catalog and I don't know where to begin, but it will be fun to try. I don't want to put them in the backyard because no one will see them, but I may have to put some there.

Wow! Just Wow!

I went to a choir concert tonight at my church. The music in the church was the drawing card for me and what impressed me most on my first visit there. The Passion Singers are a group of 11 that stand in front of the choir and are the main singers. They are just fabulous. One could not find a more professional sounding group in any city in the USA. It was a wonderful praise service! I will not miss another one of those services.

The Amazing Race!

I love this TV show. Tonight the muslim pair was the first to be eliminated. Ooops! I guess allah was too busy blowing up Christian churches to help those guys!!!

Lost my "get up and go" again!

Our wonderful week of cooler weather left us. Today it was 95 again, so I just stayed inside and watched football. One cannot be a resident of Louisiana and not know what's going on with LSU, so I watched the LSU/Auburn game. "We" lost! OK..I can be an LSU fan until they play Texas or A&M, then I have to stick to my loyalties. Most of the game I was sleeping in the recliner. Right now my Alma Mater (Louisiana Tech) is playing, but I don't have much interest in that now either. I just want my energy back and cool weather!!!

Long time friends....

My best friend from high school came by to visit today. She lives in Massachusettes, but has built an awesome plantation home not far from here on Caddo Lake. Unfortunately, the market is so bad where they live now that they can't sell their home there. This is her home waiting for her to move into here. Pretty awesome! She had her mother with her and they had been to see my mom and dad before coming here. WE roomed together when we first went to college, but due to my penchant for partying and her.......not so much.....we parted ways.
We went to dinner to pig out on some crawfish and shrimp . !

template change

Update: Now it's back to normal!


My template changed for no apparent reason. I checked another blog that uses the same template and it has changed too. I don't like it, but can't find out what happened! GRRRR!

I'm HOOKED yet again!

This time it's Survivor. I was on the phone long distance at straight up 7 P.M. when the first Survivor was coming on. I did not want to have to drop that phone and pretend I lost the connection, but I would have. I am going to have to program the VCR to record it in case that ever happens again. Unfortunately, I don't have DVR or TiVo yet! I have seen every season of this show and they keep getting better plus Jeff Probst is just HOT!

Today's project completed....

I have never cared about decorating outside until I got a house. Now I can't wait for Christmas! Since Christmas is slow in coming, I did a little fall decor today. Have a look! Pretty cute, huh!

Fall flowers

Yesterday I planted two flats of yellow snapdragons and 8 yellow mums in my little flower bed around the tree out front. Those flowers are really crammed in there, so when they are blooming, I hope it will be a show piece flower bed. I just love working in the yard. My hard work always manifests itself in my yard. I am so anal about having every thing just perfect.

My neighbor bought a pewter bird bath at the PX at Barksdale Air Force Base yesterday. We have been discussing birdbaths for a while. Hers is beautiful and she offered to go back and buy one for me (since I can't shop at the PX), but I had to decline because the damn thing has frogs on it. Have I mentioned lately that I don't like frogs? She thinks I'm nuts! Someone gave my mom a rain gauge that has a frog wrapped all around it. It's ugly. She knew I didn't want it, but she offered anyway!!!

Engine restarted.....

My engine, that is! The cool weather has me in Farmer Brown mode again. My neighbor came to get me this morning and we took our 1.2 mile walk. This walk is very different from 1.2 miles in my former neighborhood in Texas. I live in a very hilly area now, but in Texas where I came from there were NO hills. So it is a pretty good, beneficial walk.

After we returned, I went to Mom and Dad's to check on them. Dad said he is feeling better, but he just looks bad to me. I cleaned out the rose garden and threw all the old, dead rose bushes away. My brother came over and tilled the area that I cleaned and we got it all ready to plant collard greens and turnip greens. Yeah! Good soul food for the winter!!

To die for ice cream...

Since I was so good all day and only ate some blackened talapia and broccoli, this is dinner!!!! Go directly to your store right now and get you some of this!! You earned it and you deserve it.

It's over!

Big Brother All Stars is over. I am sort of glad because I have been so glued to this show to the point that I wouldn't answer the phone while it was on. Of course, I would check the caller ID to make sure it wasn't someone important.

My neighbor came over while I was mowing the yard today and made me quit and come to her house for some iced tea. She saw how red my face was and was ready to call the paramedics. I was fine...just hot! I made the mistake of telling her I mapped out a 1.2 mile walk from my house and back and started walking it this morning. Now she wants to go with me. I like to walk alone and listen to my Ipod! Oh, well. I'll just go again some other time and listen to my Ipod;that way I get in two walks, double benefits, and get to listen to my Ipod. I just about had a stroke when I got on the scales this morning and there were two more pounds there that weren't there yesterday! WTF! I guess I was deriving considerable benefits from the stairs in my previous home and my 3 to 4 times a week at the Wellness Center in Beaumont. I miss that facility a lot!

Never FORGET!

Don't miss this!

Bulletin: You still have a chance to see Glenn Beck's show on CNNHN tonight. Central time final broadcast is 11:00. This is one of the most powerful shows I have ever seen. It's different and very moving. Don't miss this.....Use your Tivo or whatever device you have, but do not miss this show.

5 years ago today...

I was in my classroom just beginning second period when my principal came to my door and told me that some a-hole (Yes, he did use that terminology) had flown a plane into the WTC. Lots of things went through my mind, none of which were terrorism. I thought of the time just a couple of years prior that I had stood on top of one the WTC buildings and looked in awe at New York City. I thought of my friend who lived there on 86th, but I knew that the WTC was on the opposite end of Manhattan from his apartment. I thought of my cousin's daughter who is a flight attendant for American and flies out of Logan Airport in Boston. School was basically done for that day as no more teaching went on, but lots of TV's were on all day. It didn't take me long to find out that my flight attendant relative was out of the country and my friend in New York was safe.

La-la Land kind of day!

I took one half of a 150MG Deseryl (Trazadone) to help me sleep last night. Not only did I sleep last night, but pretty much all day as well. I have been totally worthless. The yard needs to be mowed, but I am trying to wait until the impending "cold" front comes through tonight and tomorrow. Thursday morning the low is supposed to be 60, so I am waiting for that.

Frogs, Frogs, Frogs....

Since I have turned off the porch light, the frogs have moved to my kitchen window. Now I guess I'll have to turn off kitchen lights as well. When I lived in Texas, I used to get the occasional lizard in my apartment. I finally learned that I could spray wasp spray on the lizard from a long distance and the lizard would die. I tried that on the frogs and they just think they are in the spa getting a good shower. It doesn't faze them. They don't even move!!! What to do!

My dad is not well.......

and he is tired of feeling so bad for no apparent reason. His digestion has basically shut down; he is just pitiful.

I don't like these....

and they are getting on my nerves around my front door. I have killed two today, but two more got away. There was also one in each of my hose boxes where I wind the water hoses up in a box. To me, these don't have any useful purpose. I don't care if they eat bugs. I would rather have the bugs. My front porch light was set to come on at dark, so I guess they were eating bugs all night. I have turned the light off so there won't be any bugs there. Fortunately, I haven't seen even one lizard, which I really hate more than frogs. I'm sure my day is coming when they will find my new home.

While I am on the subject of animals, I have some birds that are pissing me off, too. They are eating from my hummingbird feeder and while they are there, the hummers won't come. I don't understand how any bird, but a hummer could eat through those little holes. These birds have beaks! It's some type of finch just like the picture. I have to run them off so my hummers can feed! I know my hummers are about to embark on a long journey and they need to be tanking up.

Bye, Bye pear preserves!

Mom burned one whole dishpan full of pears. She was sitting right there in the kitchen with them and still let them burn. It is not uncommon for her to go off on another tangent and leave something on the stove, but sitting right there in the room with them is highly unusual.
She also found a filled prescription of Xanax in her purse that Dad is supposed to be taking and two prescriptions that had never been filled! This is a woman who used to never forget anything and had more intelligence than all the rest of us put together! This pains me more than anything to see her losing it mentally!!

More of the same...

Yesterday I went to Mom and Dad's to see how Dad was. He just does not feel well....in fact, he didn't even go to church on Sunday. When I went to my brother's for Sunday lunch, Dad was there, but he could not eat and he just had tears in his eyes. We still don't know what is wrong, but he is slowly being weaned off the last medicine that the doc thinks could be causing him to feel so bad....prednisone. Dad told my mom that he was just in the way and couldn't do anything any more. He soooooo does not want to be a burden to his children. That will never happen. He will have our devotion until the end. It's only fitting after all that man has done for us. Not all fathers deserve that devotion, but this one does. Dad's truck wouldn't start, so Stewart came to see about it, then went to buy a new battery for Dad.

I found Mom up to her eyeballs in pears. She wanted to make some pear preserves, but the pears were so hard, that her apple pealer/corer thingy would not peal them. She was trying to do it by hand with her arthritic hands. She is the type of person that would have tried until midnight if that's what it took to not give up. I pealed all her pears for her and got them cut up so she can make the preserves. That will be the easy part.

Incompetence personified!

Yesterday I went to Dillard's specifically to get my mom and myself some make-up. I have been using Princess Borghese Hydro Minerali Natural Finish for at least 20 years. Now my mom uses it as well. I took the old bottle and specifically told her to make sure it was the correct one because the containers all look the same. When I got home, I looked in the bag and mine was the right kind, but my mom's wasn't. That is $70 worth of make-up and a 60 mile round trip. I took it back today and the lady was very apologetic and gave me a container of their foot cream to help placate me. I told her that I was not a happy camper, so she tried to make me happy. I'm good now!!

Racking up points :)

I went to Mom and Dad's and mowed their yard this morning. It took all morning to do that and I was covered in dirt. The yard is so dry that I had to cover my face and nose with a bandana, looking for all the world like a bandit in the old West. My nose was full of dirt, my hair was full of dirt, and my ears were full of dirt. I just hope I got it all clean.

This afternoon I was on another mission. I needed a hair cut badly, so I went to the mall and waited an hour at Master Cuts before giving up and leaving. As I was going home, I saw a Super Cuts store, so I swung in there and got a hair cut. It is harder to find a new hair dresser that I like than it is to find a doctor. Of course, I haven't found one of those yet, either. Fortunately, I haven't needed one, yet.

Lazy kind of day.....sort of!

Yesterday, I spent the better part of the day taking Mom and Dad to Shreveport for him to see about getting a new hearing aid. Mom forgot her walking cane, so I had to hang on to her any time she had to walk. Fortunately, Dad's appointment went well and he has a new digital hearing aid ordered. That put him in a better mood so he wasn't so hard to be around. Still, it just drains me emotionally to spend a day like that.

So.....today I just chilled. I went downtown and ate lunch at the Blue Moon Java, a unique little coffee house. After lunch I walked down Main Street. It is such a neat little downtown with great potential for unique little shops, but few people are capitalizing on it. The streets are brick and back when all the stores were occupied, my family used to go every Christmas after the stores were closed and window shop because they always had great Christmas decorations in the glassed showcases. The showcased windows are still there....but the stores aren't.

Tonight my brother and sister-in-law dropped by to visit. It's so nice to be close enough for them to do that now. Have I mentioned lately how much I love this place?

My sentiments exactly!!!

Ahhhhh! Retirement!

Your assignment.....

should you accept it is to watch Glenn Beck's television show on CNNHN. I heard his radio show a few times when I was traveling, but he has never been on in my market. When I saw that he was now on TV, I started watching. I don't usually watch anything put out there by CNN, but this one is good. This man is fresh, on target, and really funny! He is on at 6,8 & 11 CST. I only have one issue with him and it is a huge one. He follows a "religion" that just blows my mind!!! I can't see how any intelligent person can believe the stuff this "religion" teaches!!!You can find out which one here.

Whistle while you work kind of day....

It's nearly noon here and the temp is 75 degrees in August.....AWESOME! I had coffee on the patio and have already mowed the yard. Fall flowers are beckoning me, but I know it is too early to plant them.

Dad only spent 24 hours in the hospital and, once again, I was the lucky one that got to experience his monumental impatience while getting checked out of the hospital. It is a mystery to me why in the hell it takes so long to do that, but I am much more patient than he is. The tests showed nothing physically wrong and he felt OK in the hospital, but as soon as he got home he didn't feel good again and didn't want to eat. He is off all the meds that doc thought were causing the symptoms. I just pray that he improves. I don't know how my mom lives with him!!! She is the most patient woman in the world. Today is one year since her triple by-pass and she has never recovered from it.

Here we go again...

Tonight my dad was put in the hospital. We don't know what's wrong, but the doc suspects it may be medication related (as in too much). Dad just doesn't feel well...so much so that he didn't want to live. He is in the local hospital right here in my town, so it will be much easier on all of us, especially Mom. He had lost 10 pounds since he was weighed at the doctor's office just a short time ago. He had an EKG tonight which was normal. I guess they'll nail it down by the process of elimination.

Passing thoughts...in other words..I got nuthin'

Tomorrow's Sunday School lesson is on Love and Marriage......I'm sleeping in.....don't need it!

Starbuck's Frappuccinno: Am I the last one on the planet to discover this nectar of the gods?

She is just so cute. I could watch her all day....personality galore! Food Network has all New Orleans stuff tonight since the focus is once again on Katrina...one year post Katrina. Of course, her shows are pre-Katrina. Some of the places she features are no longer there. :(

Praise God!

WE finally got some rain. We are in a major drought here and all the plants are suffering from the heat and drought. Yesterday, I got .5 inches and today I got .5...both combined with clouds and not so hot may save some plants. For the first time in my life, I am having to pay a water bill and even with restricted watering, it hurts. I refuse to let my grass die. I worked too hard to get it weed free, ant free and lush.

Today I sucked it up and went to a little fellow's baseball game. I knew the heat would be oppressive, but his mother had brought a canopy to protect us from the sun and it also rained. Those kids were so hot, they just played on in the rain and we were not miserable watching them.

My take on global warming.....

It's BS! The record temperature for this date in this area was 103 in........1899!

Big Time Stuff!

As I was kicked back in my recliner getting my day started with breakfast and coffee, there was a HUGE explosion. It rattled the windows in my house. The booms just kept coming and I soon learned that about 10 miles from me is an old Army ammunitions plant. They no longer make ammo there, but there is a business there that disassembles 65 pound bombs and takes the TNT out of them for re-use in newer bombs. Miraculously, no one was killed. I-20 was shut down for 4 hours and the nearest town of 800 residents and two schools was completely evacuated. That town is still evacuated. They still have not been able to get close enough to the area to determine the cause, but aerial evaluations are very bad. There were subsequent explosions all day.....about 30 in all!

Thick and green and...

hard to mow! My fertilization program is working so well that my grass was really hard to mow today. I waited one week to mow and it was a tough job. I almost made myself sick again before I got finished. I guess I am going to have to mow more often than once a week . I love my grass. I can walk barefoot through it and feel confident that I won't step on anything that would hurt my feet!

On another note, my new friends that invited me to go to Vegas with them left tonight and now I am wishing I had taken the plunge and gone with them. They had an excellent deal which included airfare from Shreveport and 3 nights at the Bellagio.

Ho Hum

JUst kicking back and enjoying my retirement.....watching the big, yellow buses go by!!!

Staying in the Will!

I went down to Mom and Dad's this morning to see how they were doing. Their washing machine broke (after 35 years), so I took them to buy a new one. It will be delivered tomorrow, but the area where the old machine sat was a mess. The linoleum tile was brittle, broken, and black. My brother and I got the old machine out, then I chiseled up all the old tile, cleaned it all up and laid some new tile (left over from Mom's kitchen). Who Knew!!! I guess that's one job I had never done. Now I have, but it is not an occupation I wish to pursue. I told my brother to take Dad fishing so he would be out of my way while I was doing this massive cleanup. If Dad had been there, he would have been all in my way and telling me how to do it. I did it and left before they got back!!! Hope they caught some fish!!!

Grass success..

I couldn't find enough grass to fill in the whole area, but the part I did fill in is doing great. I am hoping it will send out runners and get established in the rest of the area.


Aside: I downloaded Firefox to get my pictures to upload!

Yet another addiction...

When I was a child, I loved these things. Now I have re-discovered them and I can't stop eating them. I have gained 5 pounds since I moved in February and I am not comfortable with this, but dang, these things are good!