Random Dozen

1. Have you, or has someone close to you, ever won an award for anything?

Not that I’m aware of.

2. Who is the nearest relative to you who has served in the US Military?

My stepfather was in the Army during Viet Nam, and my husband was in the Marine Corps.

3. Share something that stirs the patriotic spirit in you.

Anytime I hear the beginning of the Star Spangled Banner or Lee Greenwood’s Proud to be an American- I get goose bumps.

4. Where are you in the birth order in your family? Do you think your "placement" made a difference in your personality?

I am an only child. And, yes, because I had to be ‘on my own’ so much of the time, I believe it did contribute to my hard headed, stubborn nature.

5. Name one trait you hope you carry that was evidenced in your parents or grandparents.

Love for the Lord, from both of my Grandmother’s & my Mother. I didn’t know either of my Grandfather’s. Strength from my Paternal Grandmother, and humility from my Maternal Grandmother.

6. If female, do you prefer wearing a skirt or pants? If male, shirt and tie or polo?

I love long skirts.

7. Approximately how many times do you wake during the night? What do you do to go back to sleep?

2-3 times, once to go to the restroom (always around 2:00 AM), then without fail, around 4:00 AM with the dread of knowing I have to get up in a couple hours and go to work. I normally just lay back down after the 2:00 AM wakeup and fall back to sleep fairly quickly. The 4:00 AM, notsomuch. Tossing & turning until the alarm goes off.

8. Share a favorite movie quote.
“I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who's ever lived: I've loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.” ~ The Notebook

9. What is your favorite Fall candle scent?

Pumpkin Spice

10. What is one Fall activity you're looking forward to?

Turning our A/C OFF.

11. Tell us about a pleasant surprise that happened to you recently.

No surprises lately.

12. What was it like when you first met your in-laws-to-be?

It was Thanksgiving Day- I was to make my infamous Southern Cornbread Dressing for these California folks. I get to their home only to realize they don’t have a Cast Iron skillet. Anyone from the South knows you can’t make proper Cornbread Dressing without a Cast Iron Skillet. I made do with a Teflon cake pan- but it just wasn’t the same. I did take to them both immediately, and I believe, they to me. I think they thought I was a little on the crazy side, though. And, couldn't understand hardly a word I said. HAHA

On Vacations and A Disturbing Fact

We had a fantabulous time down in Gulf Shores. We got a later start on Wednesday evening than intended. Cam has been having some stomach issues and needed to go back to the GP to get a referral to a GI. So, I met him there at 5:15 because he didn't have the copay fundage. While I was there (it's a clinic of sorts), I asked if I could be seen.

Why? Well, I had been having severe pain right above my pubic bone since Sunday. I honestly thought it was just gas. Nice, right? Well, hey, everyone has it. Don lie. Anyway- after four days of eating Phazyme it wasn't any better. Come to find out it was a "Severe Bladder Infection." What? I have had no pain tinkling. Well, she says, it will probably get worse before it gets better. Here is a script for 3 days of Cipro. Okidoke.

So, we left Memphis at 8:30 PM in lieu of the 5:30 PM scheduled departure.

I drove for a bit- then started feeling really tired, as I am wont to do after 6:00 PM every freakin' day. So, Bryan took over the wheel, I settled into the passenger seat for my usual sleep while someone else is driving routine. Well, I guess since this was the first road trip in my new (to me) car- I hadn't gotten my Sleep Mojo going. I was awake the entire way down.

We arrived close to our destination around 4:30 in the morning. I told the kids- we should just stay up and watch the sun come up on the beach. If I could stay up- anyone could. We hit the Walmart in Fairhope, or Foley, wherever, for coffee to make when we got to the condo.

We got in, made coffee and did indeed watch the sun come up. It was beautiful. The sound and smell of the ocean air, a great cup of Community Coffee- it was just wonderful.

I finally got in the bed around 7:00 AM. Slept until 10:00 when my bladder pain woke me from a dead sleep.

Needless to say, it did, indeed, get worse before it got better. I ended up spending the entire first day in the bed. Cipro + Ibuprofen + Cranberry Juice + lots of water. I slept off & on until the next morning. Between pain/peeing/and sweats from fever it wasn't a great day/night.

Also, of course, the Cipro comes with the stay out of the sun warning. Really? The first time I take a day off for 'pleasure' and I'm in bed all day, then I have to be careful of the sun ON THE BEACH! Well, fughettaboutit! I just sprayed on the sunscreen and went for it. I did very well, thankyaverahmuch. I alternated in the sun to under the umbrella all day every day we were there. So, I have a nice tan- one little spot that got sunburned where I obviously missed spraying. It's now turned to tan, all is good.

So, long story short- I had a crappy first day- but the rest were marvelous! The kids had a blast. Bryan had a blast. THAT was the most important thing to me.

Monday was back to reality. ~Le sigh~

Work has been work since I've been back. Same stresses, same dread driving in each morning. Enough about that.

I had something very disturbing occur last night.

I am a TV Crime Show addict. Admission is the first step, right?

So, the premier of Criminal Minds was last night. They started doing the 'what happened last' previews before it started. I watched with a huge question mark looming over my head. I had NO CLUE whatsoever what was going on. I know I watched all last season. I even asked Bryan if he remembered the last show- Yes, yes he did. I sat watching the episode as if it were brand new. I honestly had no clue, no memory of what happened last season. Do you know how scary that is?

And, now I just had the same type thing happen. I emailed Bryan, Evan & Tayler this morning about going to see What If tomorrow night. Bryan just messaged me on Yahoo with RE: the movie- we have tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld tomorrow night. Worst part: We JUST talked about that last night as we were watching a Seinfeld episode.

This really, truly freaks me OUT.

The MS is jacking me UP! I have sworn that I will not allow this disease to run my life. But, how can I do that when I have no control over it? None.

I'm exhausted and fatigued all the time. I have a few hours of 'good' in the mornings, but that's about it. My memory is shot. I'm terrified that I'm going to forget something here at work. I already forgot to pay our (not the company) mortgage this month. Nice, right? These are things that normally just come 'natural' for me.

My life is very scary right now, and it doesn't seem to be looking up anytime soon.

P.S. Please forgive any misspellings, bad grammar, etc. I do a bit better typing things out than I do speaking, but I'm sure this is all jacked up somewhere!

My South

My South by Robert St. John

Thirty years ago I visited my first cousin in Virginia. While hanging out with his friends, the discussion turned to popular movies of the day. When I offered my two-cents on the authenticity and social relevance of the movie “Billy Jack," one of the boys asked, in all seriousness: “Do you guys have movie theaters down there?” To which I replied, “Yep, and we wear shoes, too.”

Just three years ago, my wife and I were attending a food and wine seminar in Aspen, Colorado. We were seated with two couples from Las Vegas. One of the Glitter Gulch gals was amazed, amused and downright rude when I described our restaurant as a fine-dining restaurant.

“Mississippi doesn’t have fine-dining restaurants!” she demanded, as she snickered and nudged her companion. I fought back the strong desire to mention that she lived in the land that invented the 99-cent breakfast buffet, but resisted. I wanted badly to defend my state and my restaurant with a 15-minute soliloquy and public relations rant that would surely change her mind. It was at that precise moment that I was hit with a blinding jolt of enlightenment, and in a moment of complete and absolute clarity it dawned on me—my South is the best-kept secret in the country. Why would I try to win this woman over? She might move down here.

I am always amused by Hollywood’s interpretation of the South. We are still, on occasion, depicted as a collective group of sweaty, stupid, backwards-minded and racist rednecks. The South of movies and TV, the Hollywood South, is not my South.

~~My South is full of honest, hard-working people.

~~My South is colorblind. In my South, we don’t put a premium on pigment. No one cares whether you are black, white, red or green with orange polka dots.

~~My South is the birthplace of blues and jazz, and rock-and-roll. It has banjo pickers and fiddle players, but it also has B.B. King, Muddy Waters, the Allman Brothers, Emmylou Harris and Elvis.

~~My South is hot.

~~My South smells of newly mown grass.

~~My South was the South of The Partridge Family, Hawaii 5-0 and kick the can.

~~My South was creek swimming, cane-pole fishing and bird hunting.

~~In my South football is king, and the Southeastern Conference is the kingdom.

~~My South is home to the most beautiful women on the planet.

~~In my South soul food and country cooking are the same thing.

~~My South is full of fig preserves, cornbread, butter beans, fried chicken, grits and catfish.

~~In my South we eat foie gras, caviar and truffles.

~~In my South our transistor radios introduced us to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at the same time they were introduced to the rest of the country.

~~In my South grandmothers cook a big lunch every Sunday.

~~In my South family matters, deeply.

~~My South is boiled shrimp, blackberry cobbler, peach ice cream, banana pudding and oatmeal cream pies.

~~In my South people put peanuts in bottles of Coca Cola and hot sauce on almost everything.

~~In my South the tea is iced, and almost as sweet as the women.

~~My South has air-conditioning.

~~My South is camellias, azaleas, wisteria and hydrangeas.

~~My South is humid.

~~In my South the only person who has to sit on the back of the bus is the last person who got on the bus.

~~In my South people still say “yes, ma’am," “no, ma’am," “please” and “thank you.”

~~In my South we all wear shoes . . . most of the time.

My South is the best-kept secret in the country. Please continue to keep the secret . . .

My South II ~by Robert St. John

While channel-surfing on the idiot box the other day, I came across another one of those clichéd programs about the South. These supposed Southerners were talking about eating a possum.

As long as I have lived in the South I have never eaten a possum. No one I know has ever eaten a possum. I have never been to anyone’s house who served possum. I have never seen possum offered on a restaurant menu, and I have never seen possum in the frozen meat section of a grocery store.

I have, however, seen possums running through the woods. And I have seen a few possums (who weren’t good runners) in the middle of the road.

In the South, we might eat strange foods, but possum isn’t one of them.

As far as Hollywood is concerned, the South is still one big hot and humid region full of stereotypes and clichés (they got the humidity part right). We are either Big-Daddy-sitting-on-the-front-porch-in-a-seersucker-suit, sweating and fanning while drinking mint juleps beside a scratching dog— or— the poor-barefooted-child-in-tattered-clothes, walking down a dusty-dirt road beside a scratching dog. There is no middle ground. Most of the time, we are either stupid or racist or both.

A year ago I wrote a column titled “My South." In light of yesterday's possum experience I would like to add to the list of things that make up my South. The South of movies and TV, the Hollywood South, is not my South.

~~In my South no one eats possum. We do, on occasion, accidentally run over them.

~~In my South little girls wear bows in their hair.

~~In my South banana pudding is its own food group.

~~My South doesn’t have hoagies. In my South, we eat po boys.

~~In my South the back porches are screened and the front porches have rocking chairs and swings.

~~In my South the ham is as salty as the oysters.

~~In my South everyone waves.

~~In my South we know the difference between yams and sweet potatoes.

~~In my South we eat every part of the pig, just like they do in Paris.

~~In my South we use knives, forks and spoons, but we let cornbread and biscuits finish the job.

~~My South has tar-paper shacks but it also has tall-glass skyscrapers.

~~In my South people will put crabmeat on almost anything.

~~My South has tire swings hanging under live oak trees.

~~In my South grandmothers will put almost anything inside a mold filled with Jell-O.

~~In my South “cobbler” is a dessert, not a shoemaker.

~~In my South the only things that “squeal like a pig” are pigs.

~~In my South ice cream is made on the back porch instead of in a factory.

~~In my South grandmothers always have a homemade cake or pie on the counter.

~~My South has bottle trees.

~~In my South we give a firm handshake.

~~In my South “sopping” is an acquired skill and could be an Olympic sport.

~~My South is oleander and honeysuckle.

~~In my South we celebrate Easter a month-and-a-half early with a two-week long party called Mardi gras.

~~In my South fried chicken is a religion with its own denomination.

~~My South has sugar-sand beaches, pine forests, plains, hills, swamps and mountains.

~~In my South we still open doors and pull out chairs for ladies.

~~In my South we eat hushpuppies instead of wearing them on ourfeet.

~~In my South it’s OK to discuss politics and religion at the dinner table. As a matter of fact, it is required.

~~In my South we don’t hold Elvis’s movies against him.

~~My South has shrimp boats and multi-colored sunrises.

~~In my South we move slowly because we can.

~~My South has covered dish suppers and cutting-edge fine dining restaurants.

~~In my South young boys still catch fireflies in washed out mayonnaise jars.

~~In my South 50% of the dinner conversation deals with someone’s genealogy.

~~In my South we don’t burn crosses, we worship them.

~~In my South the dogs are still scratching.

---

Y'all are welcome to come to My South any ol' time you please.
Please check your preconceptions and assumptions at the door.
And y'all come back now . . . y'heah?

T Minus Five Hours and Counting

until we head to THE BEACH!!!!!!!! We finally told Ev & Tay last night. They are so jazzed. We are going here:

My People Call this Paradise

We will have lots of pics to share!!!!

Please pray for a safe trip for us!

Who Am I Kidding?

I thought I was going to have some time to write yesterday, but alas, the Excel spreadsheets and report forms for a client had to be done. It takes a lot of concentration on a regular basis to do these things, much less in the afternoon when most of my brain power has been depleted. But, they are done, for the year. And, correctly, thank God.

To address some of the notes on my last entry. No, we don't have a union, no the FMLA or ADA apply to me. Why? Because we only have 11 employee's. FMLA requires 50 employee's, ADA requires 15. Add to that, Tennessee is an 'at will' employment state. What does that mean? It means I can be fired with no reason given, and I can quit with no reason given.

So, there ya go. Add to that, I heard back from our disability carrier today, that I have been denied because I am not, according to my neurologist 'disabled'. And, no I'm not. My boss spoke with the carrier a few months ago to find out if there would be coverage for additional days I was off over and above my PTO- they, being the sales rep, said OF COURSE. Notsomuch the case. And, that's OK.

I DO have more good days than bad. So I really can't complain. It's just that the stress of this job is a major contributor to exacerbating my symptoms. Don't stress you say? Yeah, I say that to myself every day. Not easy.

Actually, my boss has sort of changed his tune the past couple of weeks. I think he realized what he said really cut me to the bone. I never said anything, but truth be told, he's been in kiss up mode.

I AM very good at what I do. I should be, I've been in this business for 26 years. He would seriously have to hire three people to do my job(s). I think it finally sunk in with him.

As much as I would LOVE and want to get out of this town, I am the one kidding myself.

It would be so hard for me to find a job. We simply can't make it on just one income even if we dwindled down to an efficiency apartment and one vehicle. My income is what pays the majority of the bills. That's not to knock my husband, but he has other obligations that take half of his paycheck. The part about that that aggravates me, is he works so hard, so many hours, on SALARY that is much lower than he is worth. But, he does love his job, and we have pretty good benefits. So, period, end of story- I will be working & living here until I can't anymore and that's just the way it is.

And, seriously, who, in this economy, leaves fairly good job security?

So, enough about that.

Dr.'s appointments for the kids next week. Evan to see a dermatologist for a strange mole that has a white circle around it, and Tay to see a GP and maybe on to a Gastroenterologist for some tummy issues she's been plagued with since last year.

We are taking a trip next week, but I can't tell where- it's a surprise for the kids & they might stumble upon this on my other blog. Details to follow, when I can share them. I have to give major props to my boss, actually, for said trip. He's allowing me to take the time (paid) a few days prior to my anniversary date, and we are staying at his 'place' at the destination.

Some trivial updates- I'm completely hooked on Nip/Tuck- thanks to Jules. I'm on Season 5. I can't believe I never watched this show before. Everyone has to have a guilty pleasure, yes? Well, this is mine.

I have lost almost 10 lbs in the past month or so. It certainly doesn't show much, but I'm trying. Just 30 more to go. ~sigh~

Ciao! for now.

These Are Not MY Words

...but they could be.

I Live with MS

by Jacqueline Lyne Wunsche

I wake up and am confused,

I think and try to choose

I get up and am weak,

I stop and think before I speak.

I arise and try to stand,

I walk and might need a hand.

I have learned

I might have to lean,

I might be stubborn-

you know what I mean.

I've learned to be strong,

And a smile helps me get along

I've learned to accept a shoulder,

And why others might seem colder.

I will get along with Him at my side,

And take what God gives me all with pride

My Ms Prayer

by Jacqueline Lyne Wunsche

M ake my life whole,

U nderstand when I'm not.

L ove me as me,

T each me to grow,

I do want to learn ,

P lease help me to.

L et me understand,

E ach days starts anew.

S o if I may stumble,

C rumple and fall,

L et me arise ,

E ncouragage me on.

R ealize I'll try,

O r when I just can't.

S tay by my side,

I 'll be there with you,

S o be with me too.Amen