A Dog's Life

Dear Diary,


My human, who calls herself Mom, has lost her marbles.  No,  really.  I knew she was kind of wacky when on our walks she started putting my defecation in bags and bringing it home with us.  One day she's yelling at me for doing such a thing on the floor, next day she's dragging it home from afar.  Who can figure her out?

But I put up with her and her shenanigans because she does toss me  some pretty tasty treats once in a while.  However... the lady has a lot of fun at my expense. 

This outfit's five years old for crying out loud!  I've put on a few pounds since then.  When I heard her saying "oh, Gracie... look what I found..." I knew I was in trouble.  But what the heck, gotta keep  her happy.

It wasn't bad enough that she poured me into a dress that barely fits... but then she parades me outside for all the world to see.  Ugh!

I'm going to bed now and I'm going to try to forget this day ever happened.  Gracie.

Yard sale in the neighborhood

Right in the middle of cleaning the house I noticed (as I peeked out the window) that there was a yard sale in the neighborhood so I grabbed my pocketbook and ran.

This stand that I picked up for $3 freed up some space in my hall closet.  I can never resist little stands or tables...  my mindset is always... "I'll find something I can use it for..."  And I did!

I finally put my dried  wildflowers together to make an arrangement.  It was more work than worth if you ask me, but here they are...  Don't mind me.  Seeing summer wind down is always sad for me...  

So I pruned my very-dry- and-dead hydrangea bush.  I'd never done this before, and later did research on how to do it. It probably should have been done weeks ago.  I hope it blooms okay next year.

Remember how pretty they were at 

the beginning of summer?

 *sniff, sniff*  

I always feel better if I can move furniture 

around a bit.  So I switched chairs with Gracie. 

 Yes, she has her own recliner...  

Gracie hates change.  

Best Friend

Darn it.  I forgot to take pictures.


Anyway...  yesterday I had dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in a good 25 years.  She was my best friend in grade school/junior high/and part of high school.   It's amazing how years pass and people change and yet memories of days gone by are so vivid.


We evolve from who we've been to who we are now... and the people who were once in our lives played a big part in developing our character...  whether we know it or not.


Thank you friend.  For hot summer nights sleeping on your front porch in sleeping bags, talking about boys, and eating bags full of candy.


Thank you friend.  For loaning me your clothes, including me on family outings, and teaching me how to 'get a guy'. LOL.


Thank you friend.  For making me laugh till I cried, sticking by me at camp when I didn't make friends as easily as you did, and sharing in my terror at the huge spiders that clung to the side of our tents at night.


Thank you friend.  For the many sleepovers, homemade chocolate cake made by your mom, and for always meeting me halfway when we'd go to each other's house.


Thank you friend.  For sharing you're 'today' with you're bestie from the 'past'.  It was great.

Kids and Dogs

Green Tea and Honey

Well what do you know. 

Look what I found in my cupboard at work. 

It's always nice to be prepared for those days when your throat/sinus/head doesn't feel quite up to par.  I refuse to call this a cold or flu just yet. 

The reason you cannot see the apple on this photo is because I already ate it :-)  I'm crossing my fingers and dumping as many hot liquids and remedy's down my pipe as humanly possible. 

And tomorrow will be better!

Dear Diary. Where's that cheese?

Dear Diary,

Summer's are all the same.  Hot sunny days, Frontline, intruders in our yard, and pictures everytime I turn around.  It's always, "C'mon Gracie... I'll take you for a walk but then we're going to get a picture."  or "Hey Gracie... Say cheese. "  Cheese?!  I'll take a hunk of cheese...  but please don't ask me to say it, lady.  A dog can only do so much.  Grrrrrrr...    Gracie 

PS  Can I have that cheese now? 

Life is Short

Church Talk

Why I Failed To Get Too Excited About This Change In My Life. by Gracie

Bummy - Beautiful and Everything In Between

Hot Summer Days, Mr. Softee, and Mud Pies.

It's funny how an item can trigger a memory of days gone by.  Who would have thought back in the early 60's as I tossed a dime much like this one into the air while sitting on the hot tarry road above our house waiting for the 'ding ding ding' of Mr. Softee's Ice cream truck to get louder, that scores of years later I'd give this coin a second thought.  But here I am, feeling the macadam's misplaced pebbles between my toes and standing second in a line of six kids, trying to decide what flavor of cone I want. 

Life was simple. Days were long. Summers... forever.

Hope you're summer is memorable!  God bless.

Bobbie Jo's Mud Pie Recipe

1 cup. dirt

1/2 cup water

Cabbage, shredded 

3 Tbs. Wheat seeds

Pink seeds (as many as you can find)

"cabbage"

pink seeds

"Wheat"

And you know what the dirt and water look like. 

This recipe is not meant for consumption.

 Just memories.

Parental alienation is Child Abuse

Have I ever told you about my husband Gary?  I met him online,  ten-years in February.

It wasn't his good looks that won my heart at first.... . 

Nor was it that he sent me flowers  'just because'.

The truth is, I fell in love with him the day I met his children for the first time.  We met them at the Cracker Barrel for dinner.

see picture-books on table. 

Athena was happy to see her dad and fell into his arms, hugging him tightly. “Did you bring your picture books with you?” he asked. She nodded and pulled out a small photo album from a box full of others. She handed it to me and while everyone else ordered dinner I turned the pages of a year’s worth of memories, painstakingly put together by her dad; time spent together; photos with captions, movie tickets and other miscellaneous memorabilia. If he’d been trying to sell himself to me he may as well have slapped a sold sign in the middle of his forehead at that moment because it was then that I began to fall in love with this unique and wonderful man.

Throughout dinner Athena clung to him, holding his arm close to her small face and watching him in admiration, and when the time came to leave she wiped away tears and squeezed him like she’d never let him go. His older kids, Stacy and Jason, hugged us and we said goodbye.

Forward - --  Almost ten years. 

Parental Alienation.

Not many know about this form of child abuse. If it is not in you're back yard you may not even know it exists.

 My last memory of Athena is of her crying  and asking her father if she could come and live with us.  That was four years ago.  She was drugged, brainwashed, bribed and hypnotised in an effort to remove her father from her life and her heart.  

She's no longer in our lives.