2012... bring it on

1. Going to walk slower and enjoy the view

2. Listen more and talk less... try... not a promise

3. Read more

4. Read farther when the story doesn't grab me... like maybe to page 50 instead of page 15

5. Tell my friends how much they mean to me more

6. Tell my family I love them... sometimes the words are needed

7. Write every day even if it's just in my journal

8. Get more chickens... I really do like to watch them

9. Ride a horse at least twice a week...starting in the spring

10. Make two Christmas quilts and get those grandbabies to finish their charm quilts

Well it's offical... My writing buddy is moving

11 hours away... to Florida and I hate going to Florida. Sheila Renfro my friend and conference buddy got a much better job and will be leaving the Shoals area in less than 30 days. Am I sad... for me I'm very sad but for her I so proud and happy she is reaching her goals and getting her dream job. You go girlfriend.

This is my plan for 2012

Sometimes you see a post on FB and it screams share me... which I did but I wanted to comment on it too. To me this verse and pictures says "Golden Rule" Why can't we live it.... world would be some much better.

War Horse and the Iron King

Went to see War Horse last night with my daughter, granddaughters, niece, sister-in-law and some of their friends and my son-in-law Joe and grand boyfriend (I guess that is what Jase's boyfriend Kyle would be called)

First let me say, that I'm really getting to be a mean old lady with no patience. The woman sitting behind me kicked my seat during the entire movie and didn't stop even when I glared at her... twice... it took me saying loudly that I was going to move to the seat behind the stupid inconsiderate witch that was kicking my seat and see if I could kick some smarts into her.... and of course there was a person in front of us checking facebook DURING the movie... people..if you just have to check your status... go pee and do it while you're in the bathroom.

Okay, now to the movie. It is a four tissue movie for horse crazy teens... a little on the corny side at times but over all I would give it four stars... the horses were the best actors. All their actions seemed realistic, where some of the people seems too Gone With the Windish... great scenes that pulled you into the story and made you cheer for the horse.

I'm reading The Iron King, the first book in a series by Julie Kagawa... so far I like it... Thanks Jana for recommending it. I've only read the first fifty pages but I'm not putting it down. Will update when I finish. Can't believe I'm reading a book about faeries.

95% Chirstmas Free

You've seen the pictures and read the blogs... Christmas has been at my house since Thanksgiving.... I know ... you're not suppose to take down your tree until after the new year but people... I want normal.

I've got my hummingbird plates ready to hang in the kitchen, my pottery bowls ready to put in their place and my depression glass pieces ready to put out. I have my blue curtains up in the living room, the shower curtains back to normal... What?? you don't put up Christmas shower curtains???

I'm off to see War Horse with the girls tonight and since my kids know me so well and know how much I love love love bargains... I have gift cards to Kohl's and Joann's. Can you say fun fun fun.

We had the greatest Christmas and we're all so blessed. Off to get that other 5% down so I can relax.

Lets get ready for 2012, year of the Dragon.

The Eve of Christmas Eve...

The last night the kids go to bed counting the hours until Santa comes... tomorrow night is the big night... only one more day of worry that you was good enough to get everything on your list. I want to take this moment to send a holiday hug to everyone and be safe because you are important.
Might not blog tomorrow... don't eat too much and don't stress too much... just enjoy.

Trousdale Christmas 2011

My Daddy and Brenda, my step-mother in red, ... one is tough and the other is one of the sweetest souls I've ever met... you guess which is which

Family was all there and it was a good night.

Those two boys are six years apart but still close brothers.

A small snapshot of the after the party blues... dishes and cups everywhere.

What to do -- What to do???

With all this free time! Nap time. I've had a nasty sinus infection, like nearly everyone else in the state of Alabama, put pushed through family weekend. Everything went great!!! but my sinus got worst. Kept the grandbabies yesterday and oh do I have a story to tell you later this week about our visit to the chicken pen... but I really didn't do anything... just played with the kids and watched movies. Today I worked but was home early and napped on couch until just a little while ago... think I'll finish this blog and go to bed early. All this extra time feels good now but when I get to feeling better, I'm going to find something to do.

Picture of Family... 2011 has been a great year

Family overload... just what I needed

I had a wonderful evening yesterday with my family. Everyone was there and I know that there isn't too many more Christmas that everyone will be in one spot at the same time. Weaver gathering in two hours and everything is done... Yea.

I feel energized even through I have a terrible cold...or sinus not sure which but will be going to doctor if I'm not better by tomorrow. There is nothing like Family overload to Grinch heart grow...And God bless us, everyone.

Picture is my bedroom with my Christmas quilt and my Roll Tide Roll blanket Irene gave me last Christmas.

Doesn't Christmas smell wonderful!

Big weekend... Saturday is the Trousdale Christmas and Sunday is the Weaver Christmas
Both will be at my house, why you might ask... well.... for the Trousdales I took over when Mother died in 1974 and did Christmas at my house. My nieces and nephews have never had a Trousdale Christmas anywhere but at my house... oh they have it at home ... since I only have brothers that means their Christmas is a Trousdale Christmas but the entire family together has always been at my house.

Now the Weaver's have been at my house since the late eighties ... not sure exactly when we started having them at my house but they have been celebrated here since.

I love family and I love to have them enjoy the holidays nestled in my Christmas spirit.

So ready to play a little dirty Santa.

Today is all we have

This picture is going around on facebook and it moved me so much I wanted to share with y'all. How true these words are... live the moment because that might be the rest of your life. Merry Christmas my friends, I hope the new year brings charity to your heart, peace to your soul and new dreams to your spirit.

Memories of Christmas Past

I've been looking at old pictures... scratching my head because I want to scan them and put them on a disc for the kids and really just don't know were to start... and I got lost in memories. They tell me that a sure sign of old age.

Here are some of my favorite memories of Christmas Past:
1. Midnight mass on Christmas Day
2. Two weeks of no school to play hard with cousins and friends
3. Christmas Eve supper at Granny's house with every member of my daddy's family filling their small house ... 8 kids and their spouses... 14 grandchildren
4. Aunt Margaret's smiles when everyone came on Christmas Eve... Aunt Margaret lived with Granny and Granddaddy until she died in the early sixties. She was really my great Aunt and she had the purest heart.
5. My Daddy's corny jokes about hunters and the reindeer
6. My brother, Logan, trying to keep me awake so we could see Santa... not a chance dear brother.
7. Later in life... my children's feet padding down the hall, bursting through the bedroom door and squealing "Santa came, Santa came."
8. Last year, my entire family around the breakfast table on Christmas Eve morning ... the kids begging the grownups to hurry so they can open presents

In all the tight schedules of the Christmas holiday... please take the time to visit the memories of Christmas past. It will brighten your Christmas present and become a yearly tradition for Christmas future.

Picture is Saint Michael's Church in St Florian, Alabama
and my Daddy with wife Brenda and their grandchildren

Break out the shorts... baby it's warm outside

Can you believe it's going to be 68 degrees tomorrow and in the low sixties all week. I remember my mother writing to tell her sisters that she went Christmas shopping in just a sweater. Mother was born and raised in Rhode Island... well born in Massachusetts but raised in Providence. My Dad met her when he was in the Navy, Providence was a navel port. She worked at the Blue Robin... They were like oil and water (family has told me they fought) from the start but there must have been some spices in the mix because they got married after only knowing each other a few months.

I'm lucky to be here... faith touched my mother's life. Four months before she got pregnant with me, she miscarried twins... a boy and a girl. If she had carried them to term, no me. My blood type is A positive and my two brothers are O negative like mother... I wasn't the first baby and with positive blood should have been miscarried but here I am. After I was born, Mother had six more miscarriages... one between me and Logan and five between Logan and Jim. I'm fifteen years older than Jim and only two older than Logan.

All this rambling is leading to a question. My parents seemed happy... sure there was fights but as a whole they seemed happy... I was happy! I was whipped when I needed it ... which was pretty often... but it didn't scar me or make me resent my parents. Mother had a deep fear of storms and would hide us under the bed but I don't fear storms at all, in fact I love to watch the sky as the clouds roll past. I was wondering if Dr Spock looked at my family if he would decide I wasn't happy and I hated my parents... I don't but we wasn't the text book family. I had one Aunt tell me I didn't matter because I was only a girl and couldn't carry on the family name... which I answered... "Mother should have had all girls and stopped the craziest of this family." I got a spanking for being sassy but Mother said she agreed with me.

The picture is of me with Santa on my first Christmas. We lived in Dayton Ohio where I was born. Look at that snowsuit... whew, it makes me hot just looking at it.

December 04 was my Granny’s birthday… she died in 1969 from lung cancer. I lived next door to my Granny for all of my life and thought she was the most wonderful person in the world… she treated everyone so special … like they were need, wanted and loved.

For a creative writing workshop we had to write about something in our childhood that we can still see, feel, taste, and smell in our mind. This was what I wrote about my Granny’s house.

Pots bubbled on the stove and a medley of smells assaulted your nose when you enter the back door. Dirty dishes are stacked in the deep cast iron sink and the floor needs to be swept. A huge butcher knife with a thin blade from the many times it has been sharpened lies on the white painted table. A rat trap baited with cheese is chained to the flour cabinet and a bowl of bread is rising on the small table under the double windows. You’re greeted by a sincere smile and the flash of arms before you’re crushed against the soft warmth of a chest. The reassurance of a steady heart beat and the musky smells of sweat and earth lets you know you’re loved.

At Christmas her house always smelled like pine trees mingled with whatever yummy goody she had in the oven. The front door stayed open even when it was cold because people kept arriving. Her big oak table held the load of the family meal... none of this buffet style... Granddaddy got the bowls first and he would pass it to his right, with Granny getting the bowl last. No one took a bite of food or touched a bowl before Granddaddy said grace. That always puzzled me... Granddaddy didn't go to church and he was a gambling man till the day he died... like the moonshine too. Granny was a church goer and a godly light with her life.... why did Granddaddy say grace??? maybe Granny wanted him to stay on speaking terms with God.

Why does bad things come in threes???

It always seems that way... first my dear friend and neighbor called early evening to tell us that someone broke into their house... yes they clean them out but the really bad part was her mother's jewelery. You can't replace that kind of stuff.
then one of our neighbors died, yes he had cancer and we knew it was coming but are we ever ready for someone to die??? He was a wonderful person and just a few years older than me. Finally, Sheila call this morning and her mother-in-law fell and broke her hip yesterday evening.

I've been mopey all day and I have my open house with "who know how many people coming" tomorrow night. Then I cut my pointing finger on my right hand really bad.... as Ronnie put duck tape on it (it was bleeding so bad nothing else would stick) I realized that I was so blessed. Sound crazy? Yes I have tons to do and this finger will hinder me but I have the things that are important to me like my husband... my health... my friends who will not care if the onions are a little larger than normal in the beans or if the sausage balls aren't perfectly round.
Sometimes you need a little pain to appreciate the joy in your life.

Heart felt sorrow for the Watkin's family
Lezlie, no one can steal your memories, which I know is small condolence right now
Sheila, let me know if I can help

I'm feeling very blessed this afternoon. Going to get grandbabies... maybe those feels will survive. :)

The pictures reflect my hope for the crooks that took my friends belongs.

Stop the Merry-Go-Around and let me off

This picture was posted on Facebook ... I love it. Don't you feel like a craved horse on a Merry-Go-Round sometimes... frozen and going in circles... wouldn't be wonderful to just shed the boundaries of you world and find the magic of your soul. My new years resolution is going to be .... jump off carnival ride and be me at least once a day. To relish the feel of mud beneath my feet, rejoice at the rain on my face and savor the many blessings in my life. Come run with me.

I'm past the age of children on Santa's lap

but now I stressed because I can't get my dog to pose with Santa.... She will do just about anything I ask until I have a camera in my hand. Well y'all are just going to see the BAD pictures and then I'm going to post the good picture someone else took.

What makes you happy?

Money?? Do you ever have enough?? Do you have true friends or money brought friends?? What would happen if one day you didn't have money? To me, money is like thin ice, you never know when it's going to crack and let you fall into the cold waters of financial difficulties.

Social position?? How hard it must be to stay on a pedestal when people are bumping the base trying to knock you off? And how cold your relationships must be when everyone is below you

Your family?? Well you're getting warmer but you know family moves out of your daily life.. kids grow up and leave... husbands, well there is divorce and death... brothers and sisters have families of their own. My point is family should be a blessing but not your happiness.

Friends?? sort of like family, as their family grows with grandchildren and in-laws and this means they are getting older... less time for long talks, long lunches, or a movie outing. Doesn't mean they love you less just that they know you will be there always and understand.

What makes me happy?
Me, myself and I!
I'm happy with who I am, what I have, where I've been and where I'm going.

I need my family and for sure my friends but they're the spices in the soup or the color magenta in your coloring box. I like to think that happiness in your heart makes the people close to you happy too.

If you don't wake up every morning with joyous thoughts ... rain on the roof, the sun peeking over the trees, your rooster crowing, or you husband's husky voice saying "Mornin', did you sleep okay?" well, you need to stop and figure out how to make those thoughts happy ones.

Tonight I put fresh linens on my bed and I was grinning the entire time...my Christmas quilts makes me happy every morning and secret smiling happy each night when I cover up with it. My friends tell me not to use it... it is too pretty to use... I ask them , "Why would I want to put it in a closet when it brings me so much joy on my bed?'

Don't put away the things that make your heart happy... pull them out and use them.

You're worth it!

The front of the quilt is a strip design and the back is Blocks.

I've been bad....

I've been listening to that little voice that says... you don't have time to write... that story needs work... your eyes are getting heavy when I say no way, you'll get up and will not write again today...

Well, I'm blessed with good friends ... first let me say, I'm not a huge, always and forever Elvis fan so this Christmas gift is not for that reason. Don't get me wrong, I listened to his music as a kid and his Christmas album is wonderful.

Hopefully one day soon, I will be able to share why this sign has so much meaning and touched me because I know for a fact she searched for this gift... isn't it wonderful when good friends give you a swift kick to get those creative juices flowing again. Thanks Irene.

Forever Graceland is in document file and not tucked into the writing file where it takes a few more steps to get to it. Merry Christmas to my writing buddies and new chapters will be coming soon.

Digging out of the Christmas blues

I get the blues every Christmas... it's an old ailment... I've had it for as long as I can remember. A little back story here. My mother's family lived in Rhode Island and when she married my Dad June 26, 1946 she never spent Christmas with her family again. Why? Well, Daddy moved her to Florence, Alabama and at first there was no money to travel North at Christmas ... then kids that needed to stay home and have Christmas. My memories of Christmas are wonderful except for Christmas morning... every Christmas morning Mother would call my Grandmother Dugan and cry for the five minutes they talked (remember back then long distance calls were expense) then my Auntie Vi and Aunt Dot would call mother and more crying. Then Mother would start the Christmas feast and cry the entire time.... she always told us it was the onions that made her cry but I knew her heart ached. I lost my mother June of 1978 so Christmas 1977 was my last Christmas with her. She was fifty when she pasted from lung cancer.

Mother's love of Christmas and her family is part of the reason I go slightly overboard for Christmas. But when something or someone influences your actions... you have to take the good and bad with it... every ornament, Santa figure, or nativity I put out brings back Mother and those tears on Christmas morning. I stride to leave happy memories of Christmas spent with me, never sad.

My Christmas motto:

Be kinder to strangers, you don't know the stress they have in their life

Be a better friend because you do know the stress in their lives and you shouldn't neglect them just because you're busy with Christmas

Be more generous with your time, money and talent... it will make your heart joyous

Be grateful for what you have, not sad at what you don't

Be thoughtful, Granny always said... you catch more flies with honey but if you shovel crap... those flies will be all over ya. Thoughtful is the honey and rude is the crap... Her point was flies will come into your life no matter what but don't draw more with your attitude.