Whenever I pull into my garage every evening after work, I immediately start looking around for any unusual or out of place items. My sense of smell is pretty good too. I can smell an unusual smell and pretty much pin point where it is coming from. My biggest fear is that on one of these excursions I will have something jump out at me that will be totally unexpected and trap me. It will probably be a skunk.

My mother and I live in a small township N. of Midwest City so we have some open fields and country close by the housing addition that we live in. Hence, an assortment of animals that exist in our area. We have rabbits, skunks, stray dogs, cats, snakes, lama’s and horses. And if you drive or walk  around the corner then down the street a pet cemetery.

Well, to the point. I noticed a very unplesant smell in the garage last weekend, so Sat. night I decided it was time for me to put out my animal traps again and see what species I might trap this time. I made a wonderful tuna salad for sandwiches to watch during the football games on Sat. and I kept the stinky juice off of it in a jar. I washed the tuna can, set the trap, and put the juice back inside the tuna can to temp my non suspecting visitor.

I have been chasing off this very wild cat that tends to have litter after liter of kittens in our garage and then leave them for someone else to tend to. And it must know that I am a real sucker, because I will take care of them, feed them well then find them a home. I have tried unsuccessfully to catch this cat for about a year.

Surprise, Sun. morning when I strolled out into the garage guess what my stinky tuna juice finally caught? Your right, the beautiful wild long hair black cat with the greenest eyes I have ever seen. It looked so sad in the cage that I felt guilty for catching it. One of our own outdoor cats was sitting beside the cage and I do believe they were having a conversation. When the black cat looked up at me, it sounded like it was trying to talk to me.

I felt so guilty that I went and got my mother to ask her if I should just let the cat go or relocate her. My 75 year old mother took one look at this calm. sweet looking cat and said please let her go. My mother went back into the house, and when I picked up the cage that cat went crazy. It was running all around the cage like a possessed animal. I was really out of my comfort zone. I felt like I had just walked into a horror movie. I didn’t know if this cat would turn on me and attack me. I stilled my nerves and sat the cage on the ground, opened the door and watched the cat run like greased lightning one way as I ran like greased lightening the other way.

Once I calmed down and went into the house and told my mother what happened and she stopped laughing and crying, I realized that I still had something lurking in the garage that I still had to catch.

That was Sun. Morning this is Thurs. Morning and I have not see the cat again, and I am still working up the courage to set the cage again.

Remember to laugh it really is the best medicine.

Since I have last written on this blog, my mothers scooter has been in the shop for scooter repairs, its go has got up and gone. Now you wouldn’t think that there are many ways to mess up a scooter. It has two wheels, a battery, key with and on/off switch, horn and an electric motor. Now with a regular mechanic you take your vehicle into the shop and they listen to it, put it on diagnostic devices, drive it then tell you what could possibly be the problem.

With the scooter, they listen for the beeps. What! That is exactly what I said. They diagnosis the problem by how many beeps the scooters sounds off after you have the problem. Now the problem with that is, if I am an elderly person and my scooter quits on me in the middle of say a Casino and just starts beeping at me will I know to start counting the beeps. The answer is NO. The first thing I would do is look around to see who is looking at me because I really don’t know what to do, and I would be looking for a hole to crawl into and hide. Not to mention an elderly woman getting very frustrated with the scooter because it was not moving and was sounding off like an alarm and my mother starts talking to it telling it to go.

Of course when this happened, and it really did happen, I felt really stupid leaving my mother sitting in the middle of a casino while I ran to the car for her wheelchair and dashed back into the casino to get my upset mother back into the car, while I left a security guard standing beside the scooter until I could get back and try to push the thing out of the casino, to the parking lot and into the back of my car again. I am sure the the people watching through the camera’s in the ceiling did get a pretty good laugh.

When I took the scooter in for repairs, the first thing out of the repair mans mouth was, how many beeps. I must have had a pretty blank look on my face, because he asked the question again kind of smiling. You know one of those side way grins, when you know that he is thinking this lady does not have a clue what I am talking about. He Was Right!

Then he proceeds to explain. Now remember when she got the scooter I made the remark that they really need to come with manuals. When you turn the key off, you are suppose to count the number of beeps, and it is suppose to tell you what is wrong with the scooter. After two weeks of not being able to diagnose the problem because of course I did not count the beeps, they rode it for the two week period and did not find a thing wrong with it.

Of course I was answering almost daily to my mother, that they have not found the problem yet. Finally after two weeks they called me and told me with great excitement in their voice that they have diagnosed the problem. The electric motor was going out, but wait, it would cost $600. to replace it. I started laughing and I know this guy thought that I had totally lost it. He sounded confused as he asked me why I was laughing. I said you want to charge me $600. to replace a motor on a scooter that cost $800. that took you two weeks to diagnose because you had trouble counting the beeps. After about 10 minutes of both of us laughing so hard we were crying, he said he would replace the motor and all I would need to pay is the labor charge. Which I gladly did.

Now we have back this wonderful invention that gives my mother freedom again, that I am hesitant to take out of my car and she is very leery to ride, because we are both in fear that this may happen again.

And as Paul Harvey would end his stories, and Now The Rest Of The Story

Animals are so funny, you treat them like your babies so they are actually a member of your family. And they are great company for my mother when she is at home during the day by herself. Each one of our babies have their own personalities and it feels like they are human kids most of the time. They eat at a certain time and get treats just like humans. In fact when I go to the store and buy dog food the bill is just about the same as when my kids were still at home.

I will start with Scrappy the Poodle, he is 9 years old and is like a grouchy old man, well of course in human years he is 49 years old, and over weight with a very short attention span and frequent trips outside to potty. He loves to eat and when he gets excited about something, he jumps up & down and looks like a small white oversized miniture sheep. He likes to smile and tries very hard to talk to you. I just can’t understand what he is saying.

Lola the SchiTzu, she is my mothers baby and I do mean baby. My mother adopeted her from a litter of puppies that my cousin had. She was a very laid back puppy and still is, which is good for my mother. Moving fast or getting excited all of the time is not a good thing for my mother. She has one speed and it is all her own, she will tell you that she will get there when she gets there. Lola follows my mother around the house like a shadow all day long. When my mother sits down, Lola lays down at my mothers feet with her head on my mothers feet. She is very quiet & sweet, I don’t think we ever heard her bark until she had been with us about a month. we have had her taken from our locked back yard in the past and we were very fortunate to get her back. I won’t tell you who took her but be very careful of maintance people working around your neighborhood.

Then there is my Ella Bella! She is my baby and thank goodness there is not another one like her, because she is very high maintance. When I am home she is perfect, but when I am gone, my mother tells me she becomes a bully to the other two and just wears her out. I must admit she does have a mind of her own, but we will wrestle and play together and just have a blast. She makes me laugh. She dances when I sing to her, I don’t know if it is because she like the singing or it is hurting her ears. She knows when it is bedtime and will stand and look at me and not move, regardless how long it is until I go to my bedroom. She has her own pillow and she will lay on it on my bed and look at me until I lay down. She is a blanket hog, if she is cold she will pull the blanket on top of her and snuggle up against me. She thinks she is a German Shephern in a Yorkie Body. She loves for me to toss her in the air and catch her. I would be lost without my little one. I adopted her when she was about 6 months old, from some people that purchased her in Texas and did not have the time to spend with her to train and love her.

When I take my mother out of the house we put our babies in their kennels. And when we return home, it is like you just got home from work and your children are at you, all at the same time yelling mommy mommy. Only they are barking their heads off like you have deserted them for days and you have only been gone 2 hours.

But we love them and they keep our lives interesting and they are wonderful companions.

All but one cat in the area that we live in have been spayed or neutured. Except for one very fiesty male cat. I call him Frico the wonderer. I was feeling pretty good about no unwanted animals when I spyed a very pregnant calico female. She had to have been abodoned or dropped off in the area because I had not seen her before. It was Friday night and I already had a plan to set my animal traps with tuna in the can and take her to the vet down the street to adopt her & her kittens out.

I will never hurt and animal, just take then somewhere else where they can get shelter, food & water. I woke up Sat. morning feeling very sure of myself that I caught her and could take her to the vet and be at my grandchildrens scoccer games by 10:am.

What a shock when I checked my animal trap. I didn’t catch a very pregnant cat, it was a very big, ugly and very nasty smelling Possium. This is the 4th possium that I have caught but this one was twice the size of the other ones and much much uglier and mean looking. This one scared me. Since I was running short on time. I put the cage in my car and took it with me to the soccer games, I decided that my son in law could help me let this one loose in the woods.

The possium stunk so bad I was sick to my stomach by the time I got to the soccer field. I had all four of my windows rolled down on the highway so the wind would blow the smell out, but it still stunk. I asked my son in law to help me let it go in the woods and he put on a very brave face and said sure, I’ll help you. When it came time to open the cage my son in law stood about 5 foot behind me with my long ice scrapper in his hand to protect me if he needed to Of course by the time he would have gotten tp me I would have already been bitten.

Long story short, the possium has a new home and I have a cleaned out detailed car.

And how was your day.

I have been known to try and tackle jobs that I have never done before and somehow manage to get the job done but it might not have been the best way to get it done.

When I started driving, before I was allowed to take the car out by myself, after I have gotten my drivers license, I had to be shown how to take a tire off and put one back on. My father said that this was for my own benefit, just in case of emergencies. But I always called him or my brother anyway when I needed help. I was living out of state and decided that I needed an oil change, so I went to the store and bought the oil which was all I thought you needed at the time. (I didn’t realize that you also needed a new oil & air filter) I really though I was doing something, I put on my overalls, pulled the car up on the curb (I didn’t have a jack) got under the car with a bucket, unscrewed the bolt to the oil pain and oil went everywhere. Have you ever tried to move really fast in a very confined space, Its not very easy to do. When I calmed down, I heard my neighbor laughing really loud on his front porch so I crawled out from under the car to see what was so funny and he laughed even louder. I walked over to him and he had me look in a mirror and we both laughed until we cried. I was covered in oil from head to toe. He told me that when he saw what I was going to do he just couldn’t contain himself, he put a chair on his front porch and had to watch the show, I had such a look of determination on my face. And when he saw the oil running down the street he knew that I missed the bucket and droped the bolt. I lived there for two years and never had to do my own oil change again, he always volunteered to do it for me and I never said no!

I remember moving once and I had just gotten a brand new waterbed, I had never had one before and I was looking forward to a first time experience! You just fill it up with water and plug in the heater, Right? That would be true with just about anybody else but me. I set it up and screwed on the water hose to start the filling up process. I was really tired from moving, so I laid down on the floor in the next room. What a big mistake! I fell asleep for about 2 hours, I woke up with the sound of running water coming out of the next room. I went running in the next room and there was a water fall shooting out of where the hose was connected. My waterbed poped up and looked like a fresh baked loaf of bread. I disconnected the hose from the faucet and let it start draining, while I went to a rental shop to get a wet vac to save the carpet. When I got back the bed was about normal, so I started on the carpet, I was working furiouly trying to soak up the water from the carpet when the wet vac started shooting out sparks. Now I had sparks flying in a room with a waterbed that was made of rubber. Not a very good combination. Not to mention I was standing in water using electricity, electricution did cross my mind and it was not in my cards. I took the wet vac back to the rental store expained what happened, and the guy behind the counter started laughing so hard he fell down. Then he told me that the last time that wet vac was rented the same thing happened so he didn’t charge me for the rental. He said that the laugh covered the cost.

I would like to say that I do learn from my mistakes, but I am afraid I do have some repeats. This only makes me laugh at myself more

Does it always seem that you are being picked on by nature? We have parking lot that we park at, that is about two blocks away from our building, so I call it the South 4o. So when I refer to the South 40 this is what I am referring to.

Last night when I was walking to the South 40 after work, I was looking at the ground and noticed some unusual slimy wet spots and wondered what they were, when all of a sudden somthing is shooting accross infront of my face. I looked up in the trees and notice a rather large group of birds perched there trying to target practice on the people walking by. I found this really funny as I watched other people including myself pick up our pace to our car.

Today at lunch, I was driving and my best friend had her hand sticking out the downed window playing with the wind, when she was targeted by the birds. I thought that this was halarious. Are birds really smart enough to do this.

I had to remember back many moons ago when I was married and my husband had a recessed hairline. He was out in the yard working, raking leaves and hauling trash, when I heard this loud yell and saw foriegn objects flying through the air. I looked at him and he was targeted by a fast flying blackbird that had been eating mulberries, at least that is what I would say according to the color of it.

I had a convertible and was driving with my mother and had the top down, when in a moving vehicle I was targeted in my lap. My mother and I laughed until we both were crying. I had makeup running down my face just as we were pulling up at the drive up window at Del Rancho, and my mother wanted to know why the lady was looking at me so strange.

Life is too short not to enjoy the little things that bring a smile to our face, remember to stop and smell the roses and smile once in awhil at least make people wonder what you are thinking.

All three of my grandchildren play soccer, they have been kicking balls around since just about their first steps walking. My son in law was actually offered a Soccer Scholarship in Highschool, but instead of taking the Scholarship he married my daughter. I know that he often wonders what could have been if he had taken the scholarship, but I also see how much he loves my daughter and what a fantastic father and husband he is. I am very proud to call him my second son.

Now that you know the background. My grandaughter is my first grandchild and she was barely walking while kicking balls at the same time. I call her, My Sunshine! They even have a Rotweiler (dog) that would kick and chase the soccer ball all over the backyard, my son inlaw would go in the backyard and play soccer with him. Of course now, the dog is about 12yrs old in people years and doesn’t run like he use to, but he still has the soccer ball and is all over the place with it.

Soccer is usually three outdoor seasons a year and I don’t know how many indoor seasons. They mainly play their games at Southlakes Soccer Field in Moore. I am usually so pumped up on the way to the games, I am listening to my car stereo to songs like “We Will We Will Rock You” or “We Are The Champions My Friend!” My granddaughter thinks this is halarious. I take my folding chair and my water bottle & don’t forget the camera and my mother on her scooter. I sit in the chair until the game starts and thats all I can handle.

I am on my feet hooting, yelling, clapping, cheering all the girls on and having a blast. I get so excited I forget to take pictures, my chairs sits empy for anybody who would like to sit in it, and my daughter is so busy laughing at me she almost looses track of the game. The girls on this team she plays with all started together and know each others moves and really support each other. My mother will be pretty quiet until my girl steals the ball and away we go, shes yelling for her to goal it. They are awsome and they are only 10 year olds playing 12 year old girls. My daughter was told that the Scouts for the Olympic team will be out scouting the 12year olds this season but don’t be surpirsed if they scout my girl.

Now my 2nd grandchild, the one I call My Man, is 7 years old and has practiced with his sister until he could start playing soccer about 3 years ago. He has learned alot just by observing the games and playing in their practices. He has developed his own skill styles and is a wonderful player. When he started it was a riot. I love to laugh and it was great for the soul. If you have ever watched a 5year old play soccer it is great to see, they will get so excited that they will go to kick the ball and that foot will just keep on swinging and they will fall head over heels on the ground, or they will get distracted by something on the side lines and stop what they are doing and just stare. I love it, they are adorable. But his coach is his dad and their team has been #1 at South Lakes Soccer Field for the past two years in their age group. When he gets or steals the ball, you can see this look of concentration on his face and his little tounge sticking out with a grin so large and bright on his face that it could light the sky. He is definetly one to watch.

Now my third grandchild started this season. It’s kind of scary because he doesn’t appear to be afraid of anything and he is such a little guy. He is an asthmatic and takes a breathing treatment every morning. But it dosesn’t slow him down. I know they say big things come in little packages, and if you ever see this little package, I do believe its true. He has two games this Sat. and I have to be there on the sidelines with my camera to get my first glimpse of the “wee one ” coming into his own. This is my little man Tate.

Make yourself feel good, instead of sitting around inside of the house being bored watching TV and go and watch our up and coming generation play some kind of sport. You don’t have to be related to any of them. It is watching life bursting all around you and feeling the energy and excitement that they put off, that helps ignite that spark inside.

Would you be offended? What thoughts would go through your mind? As you know I live and help take care of my mother on a daily basis and have since Sept. 6, 2003. That is 6 1/2 years of my life that has been given to my mother.

In that time we have gone through multiple health crisis and some major remodeling to my mothers home. Remodeling old bathrooms that had water leaking in the floors and walls for years, adding a sunroom that she always wanted to give more light and room to the house, a privacy fence so she had privacy in her backyard from the new neighborhood that was built behind her house, a new CH&A unit, a new hot water heater, backup generator etc. Mostly updates to her house to make it more condusive for her daily living. I have taken her on trips to see things that she had wanted to see before, but never been able to, due to sickness or finances.

I have always tried to give her whatever she needed when she mentioned it so she never had to want for anything. I put all the work that had to be done on my own shoulders and handled all the details and muscle that was needed.

Recently she has mentioned to me that another sybling has been inquiring how much money she has in her banking account and asking for a copy of her Last Will & Testament. This upset her termendously as it would me. That is very private information, and as far as I am concerned nobody elses business. How would you like to be asked the same thing! Our important papers are locked up at well as copies are at our attorneys office.

I am sorry but this does not sit well with me, if my own children had asked me for the same information, I would have said it was none of their business and they would find out when I was gone. Life is for the living, and if you can afford to do something that you would really like to do, then do it. You can’t take it with you so why not enjoy what life you have left. After all it is your money and was left for you.

Who knows how long you will be on this earth, enjoy what you can when you can. It really doesn’t matter what other people think. If they are not walking in your shoes, they really don’t know what it is like.

I love to laugh and do things all the time to try and keep my mother laughing. She is not getting younger, and does feel all the aches and pains as we age which really don’t do much for her desposition, so let her be and if she ask you do something for her, just do it. If she ask your advice, give it but remember you are not walking in her shoes so think it through before you answer.

If you really want to make her feel loved and appreciated without a price in your head. Then ask her if there is anything that she needs, call and invite her out for dinner without an catches. Spend more than an hour with her at a time and don’t criticise her or me for what ever reason you may come up with. Be happy with your life as she is trying to be happy with hers and mine. Find something to make you laugh and stop and smell the roses on a daily basis you will find life will be so much more rewarding. Smile at somebody who looks like their having a bad day, it just might bring a smile back to you on their face. You do get less wrinkles when you smile ( I read that in a book somewhere).

This story actually happened about 11 or 12 years ago, believe it or not.

My father came from a family of eight children that were raised during the depression, one of his brothers who lived in El Paso, Texas passed away, and we were planning the final trip to El Paso for his funeral.

I had a 2 door Ford Explorer, my father was 6′4″ tall and my mother is 4′11″ tall and I was the one driving. Now when you have a two door explorer, it can be a challenge for anybody to get into the back seat. My mother was so short that she needed a helping hand up and then had to crawl on her knees in the back and my fathers legs were so long that they would get tangled in the seat belt straps everytime he got in or out of the car. My father had Alzhimers Disease and was in the middle stage of it, the stages where you were confused or disoriented most of the time but there were moments of clarity when you knew everything that was going on. He did know that we were going to his brothers funeral in El Paso and it would be a very long ride.

Now if you have ever been to El Paso, Texas, it is in the middle of no where and either very hot and dry or cold and wet. Everything started out normal. When we arrived in El Paso, Texas we checked into the hotel and contacted other members of the family and let them know that we were there. They explained where the church was and where my uncle was so we could go and visit. Bless my dads heart he was excited to see his other brothers and sisters but very hard to handle and at times very disoriented.

That night my mother, father, younger brother and myself stayed in the same hotel room. My father ws very confused, he forgot where we were and started pounding on the walls. My mother was a nervous wreck and my brother and I looked at each other and we both wanted to run away. After everything settled down, it was either laugh or cry and it was much better to laugh.

We went to the church the next day and had a beautiful service, that is if any funeral can be beautiful. Now is when it gets wierd. After the funeral and you all line up to go to the cemetery in your procession line, we had about 25 vehicles in this line. But we kept driving and driving until we were almost 30 miles outside of town. My dad was very anxious, a person with Alhizmers does not stay confined inside of a car very well, it reminded me of the commercials are we there yet.

When we finally arrived at the cemetery to our surprise the grave had not been dug yet! There was some confusion about the equipment being there to do the work and the time that it had to be done. At any rate, we were all asked to leave and go back to out prospective places that we were staying and wait for a phone call. The funeral director was to call us when it was time to come back for the funeral.

Well just before dusk the funeral director called and said that everything was done and it was time to go back. After I managed to get my parents back into my vehicle we made the long drive back out to the cemetery. The bobcat was there to dig the hole but it had still not been dug. Now this cemetery was 30 miles outside of town and there were no street lamps around for light. It was an old fashioned cemetery. The moon was the brightest that I had ever seen it.

It was now getting dark, we were asked to move our cars where our headlights would shine on the bobcat and we could get this hole dug and have this over. We had car battery’s going dead. It was finally dug and the preacher was talking, remember the car lights are still on us. He finishes talking and goes to hand the folded United States Flag to my aunt, (as my uncle had been in the Navy) and drops the flag and it falls beneath the casket into the hole. The guy that was working the backhoe, crawled down into the hole and picked up the flag, handed it to the funeral director and tried to give it to my horrified aunt.

Of course the flag was desecrated and he was trying to give it to my aunt. My aunt of course refused to take the flag and said that it needed to be sent back to Washington DC and burned and replaced with another one. It is now pitch dark and there are wolves howling in the background. My father falls into a sticker patch getting out of my vehicle after having his legs getting tangled in the seat belt straps, my mother goes to help him and falls on top of him in the sticker patch. I took pictures of the whole thing, but the film was double exposed and the pictures that printed looked like ghost people standing in a cemetery at night.

Now even though this is a solem occasion, you have to laugh. I would never have thought that I would be involved in something like this in a hundred years. This is a story that will be in the family for a long, long time.

We have a 4 bedroom house approx. 1800sq’ mol, and this generator is suppose to handle all of our emergency needs should we have a power shortage in the cold or heat. We will need power for our Central Heat and Air unit, 2 Refridgerators, 1 Microwave, 1 Freezer, my mothers By-Pap (Breathing Machine) & Oxygen Machine. We purchased a 14,000kt Unit. Which should be more than enough power to get us by.

The installer from Generac comes out to your house and will estimate how many kilowatts you will need to just get you by or have alittle extra kilowatts if needed, according to your personal needs. Before you purchase the unit and have it ordered. I found out some very interesting things as I am always loaded with questions, my mother says I am one of those people that has the mind set of, inquiring minds want to know.

I did find out that you use less watts when you use your Central & Air Unit compared to a free standing or ceramic heater. I would have thought it to be the opposite. There are units that run off of natural gas or propane gas. The unit that we are having installed will run off of natural gas as our house is gas & electric. When the placement is picked for the unit, it has to be at least 3 to 4 feet away from any window, due to the possibility of carbon dioxide being released in the air.

Our gas meter is behind our house and beside our sunroom. A licensed plumber will lay the gas pipes up to 5 feet from the gas meter without charging extra fees, if they had to dig out further it would cost Approx. $30. more per foot. The installation should take one to two days to be completely installed. You have a one year warranty on the Generac Unit or you can purchase a separate service agreement and have it maintained longer and more frequently.

I contacted my homeowners insurance to see it I needed to have it covered, we do not and the policy does not change. The unit is under the dwelling part of our insurance policy. It does ad to the value of the home should it ever be sold. There will be a weekly test done and this will be set up on a timer by the tenichian to insure that the unit is working correctly. Every Sat. when the noon bell goes off the generator will kick in and run approx. 15 minutes. It s being set up to kick on when the noon bell goes off, as it is a generator and all generators are not quiet and this should not disturb any of our neighbors. Did I mention that you can purchaset a muffler to be put on the generators so they are hardly noticed when they are running? So far everything sounds fantastic.

My mother is like a kid in a candy store right now, she is so excited that she can hardly stand it. She will be able to stay in her own home should and problems arise with the power being loss for any amount of time.

If this is something that you may want to consider, we purchased our unit through Lowes and they handled all details. This is not an cheap purchase, but not everything worth having is.

This puts a smile on my face, peace of mind is a wonderful thing.