What a week....

I am still in the process of looking at computers....I am driving myself and everyone else crazy. I will think I have found the one, only to have something go wrong with it. One only had two USB ports...I think it is the only one I have seen with just two USB ports. Another did not even have one 3.0 usb port. Always some little something that is not quite what I want.

Then last night I really found what I thought was THE ONE...tried to order it and it was no go. It said it was available for shipment to home, but did not give me an option to check that. So, I got up and called this morn since they were closed last night...well, the girl said one store is supposed to have 4 of them. I called and that store and the girl there finally pulled it up and said they are supposed to have two. But she did not go and physcially look...so who knows.

If Roger feels up to it, we may run by there tomorrow--it is in Indianapolis. If they actually have one I may have found the one...but I don't want to get the one that the store has used as its display model. If it is not there, there is one in Terre Haute that is very similar to it....

Until then, I am not doing much blogging...my mind is frazzled. I have looked and looked and looked some more...don't think I am going to relax until I get this done.

Stumbled on this...

I was looking for another song, and came across this one...never heard of the guy. But that is not saying much...I just never listen to the radio any more...anyway, thought I would post it here....maybe someone else will like it. Also, have you heard of him--Vince Dixon before?


I really like it...but he reminds me of someone else. Just can't say who.
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I am have been thinking about home a lot and thinking about our girls...I always wonder what memories they carry with them about home. One thing for sure, both of them are so much better with kids than I was at their age. I suppose I enjoy Lorelei so much because I am feel like I am more at ease...in fact I was more at ease with Sarah than I was her sister. By then I learned not to stress about every little thing...I might not make the most perfect decision, but for sure wasn't going to be doing anything that would harm them.

Small kids have always gravitated to my girls. They have always loved both of them...in different ways. I am not sure how to say this...they gravitated to my younger because she was more a kid, and I think they gravitated to my older daughter because they felt secure with her. When she was in college, she worked at a mini-mart every night...there was a couple that had a young girl...I think between two and three. If they stopped by to run in and get something, she had to go in and see my daughter...and my daughter had to hold her and talk to her. The only way just one of the parents could come in was to hurry in and tell my daughter to stay out of her view. And you might think this was some of my daughter's childhood friends but it wasn't. It was just someone that came in and out there.

And another time, a couple was in there with one even younger, and she had to go to my daughter, and the parents just kept saying she don't do this, she don't make friends like this...and when they left, she had to kiss my daughter good-bye...again totally surprising her parents.

And with Sarah, all the little kids in the neighborhood always wanted to come and see her, and her sister too.... And kids love her now...and I tell you I have learned more about being a mom from watching her and even watching her sister with Lo than anyone else, except maybe one of my sisters.

Then I tell myself, maybe I have not been too bad to have the girls as we have...
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Today I have been on the go the most of the day. I had to go to Walmart, to Terre Haute, to the post office, back home...then to the bank and to pay a bill for someone else.

The reason I had to go to the bank was I counted my change...I was wondering how much I had....and though I did not count all the pennies, we all know that it takes a whole bunch of those to add up. I took $11 worth of pennies alone and left more than that here. Altogether I had $321 in change. And that is not as much as I have taken in at other times...at one time I took over $700! Another time I cannot remember but I know it was in the hundreds...I really don't want to let it add up like that again...it is so heavy to take in.

Then tonight the internet was flickering off and on till I couldn't do anything...so am late getting this ready to post...

A hard scrabble....

Everything about this picture says it is a hard scrabble life for anyone wanting to farm this property. I was going to post it over on my Time Stand Still blog, but decided to use it here. It is a picture I took in Tennessee....it is not uncommon to see land with the rocks exposed in the area I am from. If I run across land like this up here, it takes me back to so many places I have known...to what seems like another world, another time.

I first thought this was some kind of outbuilding, but then I seen the curtain at the window and I wondered had it been someone's house many years ago...and that thought was followed by the remembrance of plastic curtains. Does anyone else remember them? I don't know if we had any, but I know some neighbors did.

Can you imagine trying to grow anything here...down home, at least in two areas that I was very familiar with...cattle ran the fields. And I could always count on finding the prickly pear cactus growing there. And some of the best wild blackberries grew in those fields...and one of them had some big flat rocks that had ruts wore in them and mom always said they were from wagon wheels of early settlers/pioneers....

Our school yard had some of these same old limestone rocks...not quite as many as above but they were there. Out behind the school, which was the play ground for the first and second grades, I remember there was this one huge limestone rock, or it seemed huge to me then...I think the one I am referring to was almost flush with the ground. At one end of it it had, it had I don't know what you would call them. Almost as if someone had spun two tires side by side there until it wore it down. Only it was completely natural. I know we played and played on that rock, and I think we pretended that was where our babies slept...what I don't recall is if one of us pretended to be the baby or what. I do not remember having dolls there.

Then to the one end, where the rest of the grades could play at some time or other, was more rocks, one of these was not huge by any means, the part that was above ground was maybe 4 or 5 foot long.... most of it was probably under the ground so really no telling how big it actually was. It was flush with the ground on one side and then stuck out of the ground at least a foot or so on the other edge.

Well, I think from 3rd or 4th grade on, we would take our jump rope to that rock. Two of us would get in front of the side of that ledge of rock and hold the ends of the jump rope. All the other kids, including the boys, would get in line back from the side of that rock that was flush with the ground. The two holding the rope would hold the rope up and everyone would run and jump from the ledge over the rope....and as everyone had a turn, the rope would be raised higher. I think some of us would eventually be jumping it when it was higher than our waist....we would get back and run as hard as we could and just leap as high as we could from that rock to try to go up and over.

And I think sometimes we would use an old dry stick weed....just anything to have fun. We didn't have supervision at recess...when we got mad about something we argued a little and got over it and went on with what we were doing. I don't remember there ever being anyone that thought about a lawsuit over someone getting hurt...and don't remember anyone being seriously hurt.

I do remember one time, one of the boys in the class ahead of us had a red hot jawbreaker and got choked on it....this was before I ever remember hearing of the Heimlich maneuver. The teacher tried turning him upside down and shaking him, I think....and I don't know what all and nothing helped. One of them stuck him in their car and headed out I assume to the doctor's office because it was closer than the hospital.

They had to cross a railroad on the way--as they crossed over it the rough ride either made the jawbreaker come out or pass on down. I don't remember which it did...gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'how to save a life.'