Remembering Wally

I got really sad news this past week. One of my favorite co-worker/friends moved on from this world to the next. Time and distance somewhat hindered that friendship the last few years, but we stayed in occasional contact through Facebook. I tried to get with him in person last year when I was in town, but our schedules never worked out, and I was going to try again this summer when I came up. I had no idea his health had gotten so bad that I wouldn’t have another chance, and that breaks my heart, even though I know he’s much better off. Another mutual friend posted, “now he has all the answers.” I’m truly happy for Wally (his nickname on this blog), that he’s got the ultimate healing, but so sad that he’s not just a phone call away anymore.

So, since he was one of my biggest encouragers to start this blog (and to keep it going), I thought I would post one more in his memory.

I keep starting and deleting paragraphs. This is really hard. I’m not great with words, and I’m horrible with feelings. Everything I start to write, I hear Wally saying, stop that and just remember the laughter. And boy howdy, did we ever laugh. He made tough workdays bearable just by making me laugh. It wasn’t part of my original job to help him in Studio B, but when he lost one of his assistants to budget cuts, I gladly picked up the slack. Those ended up being some of my favorite memories of working with Wally. He would talk about what I said on my blog, we would chat about microphones (he had some cool ones!), he would tell me stories from his California days, he talked about his family and asked about mine, and just random conversations while we worked on getting the studio set up for his sessions. He showed me how to set up the microphones, where to put the wires…every setup was a little different, but he eventually got me trained…through a lot of laughter when I got it wrong. The gaffe tape especially…I would try to get the gaffe tape over the wires just right…he was very particular about that, but he NEVER got mad, just laughingly ragged me and made me redo it…again and again…lol…I was so happy when I finally learned the way he wanted it and would get it right on the first try.

He would tell you exactly how it was, and he pulled no punches, but when you were his friend, you knew he had your back. He loved God, he loved his family, and he loved his friends. It was my honor and utter privilege to have been one of the latter.

In conclusion, I’ve never been more grateful that he pushed me to keep blogging, because I was able today to go back through and pull out a few specific mentions of him that brought back memories I had forgotten. So I will close with these blog post bits.

Thats about all the interesting news I have for the day. I only got hit on by Wally today....and he only did that b/c he was making fun of me for that last blog entry....and b/c it bugs me. LOL....and he was actually literally punching me in the shoulder. Like I said, he was laughing at me and poking fun. Isn't that sweet? LOL...I guess I can take it from him....but he's only one of the select few allowed to poke fun. *grin* Shhhh...don't tell him. LOL. (August 16, 2006)

I had a duh moment today. (act surprised, will ya?) I got to work and Wally mentioned to me that the Flickr account that I've been using for my blog pics is linked to my main yahoo mail, not my blog yahoo mail....the main yahoo mail has my name on it. Ooops. I've created a flickr under my blog yahoo now, so all I have to do is go back and figure out which ones are where in my blog and re-upload them all under the new name. URGH. What a pain. I can't believe I missed that. (February 15, 2007)

…And Wally.....who asked if the foot in my mouth was the one with the ingrown toenail......
Pause for a moment while I laugh out loud......
Okay.....anyways, Wally.....I think I'll have to draw the line on answering that question. Ya know....I wouldn't want to give TOO much information out on here. ROFL!!! There are some things that should just remain a secret forever. Like whether or not I've got an ingrown toenail on the foot that was in my mouth. LOL. (June 4, 2007)

What do you hope to achieve or accomplish with your blog? Have you been successful? If not, do you have a plan to achieve those goals?
Um, it started out as just a place to have an outlet for my thoughts and random details of my life, and it's still that, but now, one of my biggest kicks is making Wally laugh at whatever I'm blogging about at the time (hahah). And since both of those things seem to happen fairly often, then, yes, I guess that means I have been successful. =) (June 11, 2007 

…If it ain't one thing, it's half a zillion others. *sigh*
Wally asked me the other day if I had a "hot key" for that *sigh* thing. No, I sure don't, but I use it so often, it would save me at least 50 keystrokes per blog entry if I did. End of sentence. Press F7. Write another paragraph, insert F7. (December 7, 2007)

After leaving the bluegrass music this evening, sitting in the car while Daddy's pumping gas:
(a little history is that "Uncle Wally," which is what munchkin calls a guy I used to work with that I was talking to at the festival, was kidding around with the munchkin after I told him we were heading off to take our hot and grumpy kids to the air conditioned grocery store to pick up some much needed groceries and tells her, "Okay, I need toilet paper and laundry powder.....oh and FROSTED Flakes, too. Did you get all that?" Of course, she giggled, so I thought she caught on to the fact that he was kidding.....LOL.....okay so back to the car scene:)
Munchkin: "Mom, don't forget, when we get to the store, Unca Waw-we needs to'wet paper and.....um....what else?"
Mommy: "Frosted Flakes."
Munchkin: "YEAH. Fwosted Fwakes and.....um....what else?"
Mommy (laughing): "Honey, Uncle Wally was just playing with you. He doesn't really want you to get all those things for him."
Munchkin: "Nuh UH, he needs to-wet paper!!"
Mommy: "I'm sure if he needs it, he'll get it the next time he goes to the grocery store."
Munchkin (insistently): "No, he needs it NOW!"
(July 3, 2008)

Randomosity….Or as my friend, Wally says: “because you just NEVER know!”  (LOL) (December 19, 2010)

In recent years, I haven’t blogged as much, hence the lack of recent mentions, but here’s his photo of us (altered his name to what he went by on my blog) and his last birthday wish to me on Facebook that I somehow missed last year =(, (although we’ve talked since then, I only just saw this when I went looking for this picture):

Faith.Wife.Mom.Photographer.Artist.House Painter.Dog Wrangler.Child of God.One Funny Lady.My buddy.Today is Mizz Faith's Birthday. She is sumpin' else. I bet she is at the beach with those two beast she calls dogs. God Bless you and all in your life.

Farewell, my friend, until we meet again.

Healthy Addictions

I know, IS there such a thing as healthy addictions? Those two words seem like total opposites. I think there is, though. Like right now, I am COMPLETELY addicted to bullet journaling. I love the creative outlet and getting things written down/out of my brain. I especially love that it’s made me do some things (or not do) just because I know that I’m tracking it and I want to be able to check off that little box at the end of the day.

For instance, no soda. I’ve had (caffeine free) soda three times this month, so that’s 13 solid days of soda free me. I haven’t had a Dr. Pepper in forever, as long as I don’t take any sips, I think that habit is effectively kicked, but I have still been drinking occasional sodas, and I really would like to kick that, too!

And now, I check off in my journal how many glasses of water a day…so I want to drink more so I can check off more boxes!

Vitamins…I’ve actually taken them this month! LOL. Bible reading…way more consistent! Flossing…okay, that one is still an epic fail. Maybe next month.

My point is, this addiction is helping solve some of my grown up behavior problems…so that’s healthy, right? =)

It’s not helping so much on the blog habit though…but I’ll keep trying.

Happy January!

Oh my word, I was going to do so much better at the end of last year…I failed. Miserably.

We had a great Christmas break, spent our 15th anniversary in the hospital with KC’s mom (surgery, but she’s recovering well). We did get a moment to eat at Red Lobster (the one restaurant without a wait) sans kids before going to stay with his mom at the hospital. Gotta get those date moments in while you can, right? =)

I’m just thankful…we are so blessed. Things could always be worse. Like, the gunman who killed 5 in the baggage claim of the Ft. Lauderdale airport…if he had done that two months earlier, when my family of four was in that same baggage claim getting our stuff and preparing to take a cruise, things could have been a whole lot different in my story.

We also just watched the movie, Sully, and it made me realize how many times KC has flown from NYC to CLT in winter weather, safely. So many things we’ve been protected from, we’ll probably never know all of them. So I’ll just be grateful. For everything.

Even the snow that we got today. LOL It was so cold and my hands were in terrible pain at one point, but I’m thankful for a warm house.

And cardboard games. This one is sequence…a card/board game. Sounds funnier to call it a cardboard game though. Haha.

And last, but DEFINITELY not least, my super fun bullet journal…it’s like a journal, sketchbook, AND planner…all in one place. I am REALLY liking it. I’ve got to figure out a way to pare down on the pen collection though…I love colorful pens, but they’re taking up way too much real estate around here.

I’m nowhere near pro at this thing, but pinterest got me interested, and now that I’ve finally tried it, I’m totally hooked. You know all those times you make to-do lists and write things on them that are already done, just so you can check them off? Then you throw the list away? Well, now I have a place to put all those lists and instead of throwing them away, I can have them forever as a record of having done them. LOL. I know…I’m a little crazy. It’s okay.

Know why I’m blogging right now? Because I put it on my list in my bullet journal that I need to do it more often. So now I’m going to go check it off of today! *insert maniacal giggles*

Later!

Writer Wanna-Be

I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who’s noticed my own lack of energy and time for blogging lately.  It seems like when I actually get the time, sleep is more important….and the rest of the time, I’m blogging in my head while I’m doing other things and don’t have opportunity (and occasionally the guts) to post it.  And of course, my working memory is constantly full, so the things that I think could be worth blogging never, ever, ever stick in my head long enough to come out when I sit down and start writing. 

I wish I knew how to fix that.  My memory used to be awesome.  I know this, because I was reading back in one of my journals awhile back, and it seems that I only found time to write them about once every couple months, and I always had a huge long list of the things that had happened since the last time I wrote.  And not just things that happened, I had huge run-on sentences about who I had been mad at, why I was mad at them, how I felt about it, who I liked (and in some years, there had been more than one “who” between entries, and I remembered and listed EACH of them along with reasons and detailed examples of why I decided to not like them anymore).  Then, there was the list of who liked who, who got married, what I thought about it, who died, who was being a jerk…oh my.  It just keeps on going.  At one point I thought it would be cool to copy random journal entries from “this day in history,” then I read those journal entries and wisdom prevailed.

Thankfully, my horizons have broadened since the journal writing days.  I don’t know if anyone else read the Harriet the Spy books way back in the day, but I think I must have adapted my journal skills from her…the battle is breaking that habit of reporting and doing some real writing. 

Now if I only knew what “real” writing was, and if I could remember it long enough to post it.

*Sigh*

This song makes me cry every time I hear it. 

I know I’ve already done a page on my Mammaw, but this song always makes me think of her and there was a lyrics challenge over at PolkaDotPlum and this was the first one that came to mind. 

It's by Dottie Rambo and I first heard it the week after my grandma died several years ago.

Template from BSD for challenge week
Kit: Springtime Zen by Sweet Tomato Designs
Clocks: Today kit by Sweet Tomato Designs
Fonts: Pea Sadie, Times & Times Again

Anyway, I’m in a little better mood today…well, at least I’m not hissing.  LOL. =)  Need to get off the computer and get some stuff done…ended up with a sorta free weekend since we had to call the camping trip off because it’s supposed to be raining Saturday and we’ve already done camp tsunami once in our lifetime and don’t care to repeat the experience.  LOL.  I’m thinking about going yardsaling in the morning…the listing of good ol’ craig had some postings of some big community yard sales not to far away and I google mapped them and went to street view and it’s some honkin daddy lake neighborhoods so I’m crossing my fingers that maybe I’ll find some good stuff.  LOL! 

Okay, well, gotta get moving.  =)  Later!

Happy Birthday, Mammaw.

 
Second photo: L-R: Mammaw, Aunt Jean, Great Grandma Ader S., Aunt Eva, Mom (the baby), Joe S. (I'm not sure which relation he was), and Aunt Betty

(all deceased except Aunt Eva, Aunt Betty, and my mom)

Fo' sum reason....

I feel tha dreadful need ta blog ta-night. I'm also feelin tha dreadful urge ta talk in a dreadful southern accent. Or would that be ax-sa-unt?

Yes. I know. I'm certifiable. Get over it already. I have. HAHA. Now I just have a good time with it. *smiles*

Strangely enough, I don't have a clue why I feel like blogging, since I have absolutely nothing of importance to share or record. I really missed doing the Monday Messages this week, but it doesn't feel the same to do it on Tuesday. I guess I could, but again, I'm drawing a blank on what to say. For some reason, on Mondays, I never have that problem.

Seriously, I have nothing new to say. I'm busy. Story of my life. Things just go crazy all the time. This morning I had been at work for an hour when the daycare called and said that K-man was running a temp of 100 and I needed to get there and get him. So I collected some work to take home, ran by the library and borrowed a few kids dvds, and ran by the PO for work and then came and got the K-man and went to the grocery store for some "sick food." Ya know, chicken soup and gatorade. He seems fine though. No fever since I picked him up. Maybe they were just a little wary of any strange behavior simply because the teacher and several other kids were sent home today and word has it that they have strep and ear infections. Uh. Great. I wonder how long I'll get to work tomorrow? And then to top all that off, I finally get home, get our lunch, get him down for a nap and settle in to work and no files showed up in my email that I had sent myself. So I called and had mom run in my office and try to resend the files....no success. And that project was due today. So I spent the afternoon trying to get all that straightened out and the project finished and all that....didn't make it. I ended up taking a nap at one point while waiting on the files to come through. LOL. Can't complain about THAT. Anywho, thankfully my coworker was able to talk to the agency and get the deadline extended until tomorrow, so I finished the ad tonight and hopefully that will be sent in first thing in the morning and I'll be covered. Unless one or both of the kids end up sick tomorrow and I have to miss again. There are limitations to what I can do from home. *sigh* The bad thing is that my throat feels a little achy tonight. NOT GOOD SIGN AT ALL.

Bummer is that I missed the fireworks today at work. Mom told me that while she was trying to get that stuff emailed to me so that I could work on it, Looney Lady struck again. This time she actually made the male instructor that she has the "thing" for (who has a nearly infinite amount of patience with her, which is really amazing) reach the end of that nearly infinite patience when she made some kind of negative references TO HIS FACE about his morals and past behavior. He works down the hall from our offices, so you can usually hear conversations down there pretty well....well, mom said today that the male instructor actually shouted profanities at her, told her to get ******** out of his office, and then slammed his door in her face. WOAH! Mom said LL started to walk off the other direction, then turned around and walked down to mom's door and said very defensively, "____'s having a bad day or ____'s not in a very good mood today" or something like that. ROFL. Of all the nerve. What a nut!

Anywho.

Let's see. I've had some strange dreams again lately. I don't put much weight in the meanings of dreams or anything, but the ones I've had lately have kinda creeped me out in that I don't remember them when I wake up, but through the day random things will trigger a faint impulse that I dreamed about it and that I should remember it, but I don't. Like I was checking in on my myspace today and looked at my friends on their and was looking at this one lady's profile and that faint impulse that I should remember something came back to me out of the blue. It's driving me crazy. And it's not just seeing a picture or a person, it's lots of little things. A line of a song, driving down the road through a certain area....i don't know, it's just weird.

Oh, one thing I have to thank God for....I almost wrecked the car yesterday coming back from lunch. It would have been bad, and I'm just thankful it wasn't. If He hadn't watched out for me though, it could have been. I had looked down just for a second to put my gum in a wrapper to throw it away and looked back up and there was a line of cars stopped in front of me that had been moving and was a good distance ahead just a few seconds before. About three cars up was a car waiting to turn left, but I hadn't seen brake lights or turn signal or anything and I was right on top of them and couldn't stop but at the last minute I knew I was going to hit them and I thought it would be better to take my chances with the ditch so I jerked the wheel and ran off the road and then corrected and straightened the car up and then jerked the car back on the road right in front of the first car in line and right before a fence that was coming up. If that ditch hadn't been fairly level and if I hadn't been able to get control of the car and think fast enough to go into the ditch instead of rear ending the cars in front of me, it would not have been pretty. I was only going about thirty five or forty, but 35-40 hitting a stopped car would have still been fairly unpleasant. I'm just thankful it turned out alright. Not a scratch on the car or anybody else's car, and the ditch was decent enough that it didn't cause any problems to make a little offroading detour. *whew* I said a few prayers of thanksgiving after that little episode. That is, once I got my heart out of my throat.

Well, I can't think of anything else to write about tonight. Seems like I should have lots more to write, given that I still feel the urge to blog -- but since I am stumped on the reason for that, I think I'll go find something more productive to do. Like sleep. haha. or more accurately....read everyone elses blogs....haha.

Later!

Journal Jar #2 -- Doodlebug

Do you doodle? What figures tend to come up most often? Boxes? Circles? Faces? When are you most likely to doodle? and for those of you who are interested, feel free to copy any of the journal jar questions and answer them about yourself on your blog or in the comments here. let me know if you do, cuz I'd love to see what you say!

Yes. Guilty as charged. I can't help it....give me a pen and paper and it will end up with something scribbled on it. Especially if it's in my possession while I'm concentrating on something else.....like a meeting or a phone call.

I've always had that tendency. When I was a kid in church, my parents were strict about us paying attention and it killed me not to have anything to do, so we compromised and I was allowed to have a notebook IF I was using it to take notes on the sermons and not to write notes to my friends. Now I'll have to admit, I have written a note or two during church services, although at this point, I tend to feel much like my parents did about the subject, however, if I still had those notebooks full of sermon notes, you'd see all kinds of doodles all around the edge of the paper.

Now mind you, the sermon notes were generally not much more than the title of the message, who was preaching, and the five scriptures he used, so I had quite a bit of room left for doodling.

My favorite thing back then was faces. Particularly guy's faces. Attractive guy faces, no less. Now they weren't of any guys that I knew, just generally the characteristics of male faces that I find most attractive. Come to think of it, if my recollection serves me correctly, I think some of those faces bore quite a bit of similarity to my dear hubby's face. Interesting.

From time to time I drew girls, or flowers.....but that was pretty much it.

Now? Well. Keeping up with kids in church kinda kills the opportunity to take notes on the sermon, so I don't do much writing there anymore, but every now and then I'll have a meeting or a long phone call in which I have a piece of paper in front of me and nothing with which to occupy my hands.

Faces generally don't appear in my doodles anymore, now the majority of the time it's triangles with little rectangles next to them to make them arrows. And then it becomes a box around whatever my notes are....then I do a matching triangle and rectangle set on the other side of the box.....

Occasionally my doodles will include flowers or swirls, but only in the REALLY long meetings.

Now. To conclude this post, I'm going to go google the meanings of doodles. I googled "doodles meanings" before I wrote this post, but when the first result said it would tell you what the doodles you make say about you, I decided I would wait and see what I wrote first before I looked up the meanings. So that way it wouldn't be like I was cheating. *grin*

>Arrows represent direction and ambition. Drawn aggressively, they represent a desire for action. Drawn in careful outline, they indicate a desire for progression or advancement, especially if pointing upwards. Arrows traditionally have masculine associations. Drawn with a heart, it becomes cupid's arrow.
>Regular patterns from geometric shapes tend to indicate an organised and efficient mind. Triangles are a geometrically stable shape but also suggest direction and sense of purpose.
>Doodles of flowers indicate a gentle personality, a love of nature, sometimes childlike innocence or wistfulness.
-from about.com

>Arrows:Arrows indicate a person who is aggressively ambitious. Yikes! I don't think I'm "that"!
>Portraits:Faces are usually doodled by adolescent girls, seeking to produce an idealized self-portrait. Faces in profile, however, can be a sign of an introverted personality. Comic faces are usually drawn by men, indicating a desire to be the centre of attention.
-from bbc

>Many people who doodle may seem like they're not paying attention to what's going on around them. Actually, they're very focused, but not on the doodling—they *are* paying attention, and the doodling is helping them do that. They may not even realize they're doodling until someone points it out to them. HA! Do ya see that, all you people who never believed me when I said I was paying attention?!?! LOL!
>Doodling seems to have two purposes. The first is to help the writer express emotions that may otherwise be stifled because of the situation; for example, it's usually inappropriate in a business meeting to show what you think of your boss's new proposal. But you can doodle all you want, saying how you really feel without anyone's knowing! And doodling can also be a great way to boost your creativity. When used for this purpose it can be a really good tool for problem-solving—although you may not know how you managed to come up with that perfect solution.
>Pictures of boxes can indicate organization and structure.
-from Associated Content

Ahh. Anyways. That is interesting. I'd have to say from reading the few pages I saw, and thinking back to how I feel at the times I usually doodle, that it appears to be on track. Maybe not a hundred percent accurate, but not too far off the mark either (no pun intended).

Anyways. So that's my doodle personality.

Journal Jar #1 - If You Were A Tree....

If you could be a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

So my first thought was: ohh....let's start by "googling" types of trees and seeing what each of the trees does and so on.....

I clicked on this one and started doing a little reading.

I learned from this page that there is no way I could be a redbud, since "It is a graceful and small tree" and you know I don't fit that. And after looking at each of the specimen trees (which create increased interest and beauty in your yard), I unfortunately don't think I could be anywhere in that category.

Next pick would be the Fruit Trees category b/c who wouldn't want to be described as "bringing more than just beauty to your landscape -- you'll be able to harvest a sweet crop of home-grown fruit, too." I'd like to think of myself as useful and sweet. Beauty would be nice, but I try to be realistic. And from what I'm reading so far ("Sweet, ripe fruit can attract yellow jackets and other critters.") this could very well be my spot if I were a tree. (ROFL!) Unfortunately, I'm not seeing any particular tree that could be a match for me.

So back to google. Okay....from the arbor day website....I think I'm going to choose this one since I don't really think any of the fruit trees fit.

Willow, Pussy
Salix caprea
The pussy willow has long been admired for its strong, spreading, upright stems, colorful autumn leaves, and the purplish-brown catkins that appear in March.

I chose this one b/c I have always liked the little pussy willows. They're generally straight up and down, just like me, and they're March babies. Just like me. Ah yes, and from time to time, I'm a little pussy cat. Which means (and I just googled that term as well to make sure there wasn't some terrible slang meaning to that phrase and in case you wondered, here's what I found) "Informal. One who is regarded as easygoing, mild-mannered, or amiable."

Yeah. I think it fits me. Oh and in one place it said pussy willows have long glossy brown hair. That could occasionally be a description of my legs. ROFL! JUST KIDDING! (mostly....HAHA!)