Carol's Corner

From Radar, with love…

Laurie had her baby yesterday. I invited all the people who were there for the big event to come to our house for hamburgers. I ended up getting my album out to show Haley that I was 7 (like she is) when Grant was born. I have a picture of me holding him right after he and Mom came home from the hospital.

I was looking at the album this morning and thought I would google Todd Kramarczyk. He asked me to marry him when I turned 20. We were best friends when he moved away at 5 years old.

I found out that he died on November 30th, 2006. He had a wife, Susie, and 2 girls, Sarah and Erin. I think they lived in St. Louis. I found out that donations were asked to be sent to a Neurofibromatosis fund.

I think he would have been 43 or 44.

A house burned down in our neighborhood today. Eric came home from school at 1:30 and the police were blocking the entrance to the neighborhood. He could see emergency vehicles and fire trucks, police cars and ambulances up the street. I was at Andrew’s school serving lunch and had no idea there was a problem in the neighborhood.

Eric called my cell phone to ask what he should do. He is not allowed to drive anywhere but to school and work. I told him to go to the library or some where else until I could get home.

As it turned out a house in the neighborhood was burning up. Bob looked it up online and the local news channel had it coverd. There were helicopters flying by and news trucks on the street.

Later in the day after everyone left, Eric and I took the dogs down the street to see the damage. It was bad. The house was a shell (5000 sq. feet 2 story) with the columns in the front fallen into the smoldering rubble. Smoke was still coming out of the debris. The strangest thing was the sizzling sounds coming from the house.

The reasons for this fire remain to be disclosed. It doesn’t look good.

I went to my Women of Worship meeting today where I received some flyers I stuck in my bag to read later.

After our meeting I got in my van to go home and it did some funny thing it hadn’t done before. I took it as a reminder that I needed new back tires and to go get them.

Sitting in the waiting room at the tire place I noticed a young man across from me was reading the Bible. I asked him what he was reading and he said 1 Peter. We had just discussed some of that at my meeting.

I told him I was reading Exodus and some of the verses from the New Testament that tied in with the chapter from Exodus.

I thought I should look at my flyers and see if I should share something with him. One of them was a quote from Mother Theresa “Do It Anyway”. I had heard it before and of course thought it was great so I asked him if he wanted to read it. He read it slowly and said it was really good. He handed it back to me. I asked him if he wanted to keep it. You would have thought I

told him he just won a new Ipod. His eyes lit up and he had a big smile and said he would like to have it because it went right along with the lesson he was preparing to give at his church youth group meeting tonight.

That was a God thing.

Continue reading Do It Anyway

Yesterday was our very last Pinewood Derby due to the fact that Andrew will turn into a Boy Scout on February 9th. The Pinewood Derby is just for Cub Scouts.

Bob worked very hard chisiling out a sleak looking sports car from the block of wood that comes in the kit. He smoothed it out until it felt like butter. Bob weighed all the parts of the car to see how close it was to 5.0 oz. He needed to drill a hole in the back of the car and slip some weights in to make sure the car would weigh in at the mandatory 5.0 on the day of the race (paint had to be taken into consideration). He carefully painted the car with primer then 2 coats of a deep dark black paint. After the paint was dry the car was shiny black like a puddle of oil.

The car was ready for the black widow decals which were carefully positioned in just the right spots. Then a coat of poly-urethane was painted on, then another and another.

The last step was to add the wheels and graphite and the Black Widow was ready for race day.

Julie A. G. C. was kind enough to come to the big race and take some pictures.

Well the big news is that the Black Widow came in 3rd and Bob and Andrew were thrilled. They got a very nice trophy and that’s the end of that.

This is a true story.

Julie loves to take a walk everyday. She does this for exercise, physical and mental. If she could choose the day it would be sunny and on the warmer side (at least 75 degrees).

So on this particular January day in central Florida, it was close to 80 and sunny, and time for a walk. Julie had been busy cleaning but was happy to take a break because her darling dorter had come to join her.

The two set off and went to the right instead of the left. To the left was a paved road leading to paved sidewalks and pedestrian crossings etc. To the right was a “path” Julie claimed to have been cleared “recently”. Carol found a large stick to put out alligator eyes just incase.

To snakes and other creatures this path would look like a dream come true. There was just the right amount of brush, weeds, and water near by.

Just when the 2 got to the point of no return (the path was shoulder high) a fence appeared in a clearing not too far off. So the choice was to go back or to go forward and have to climb the fence. Julie said to the skeptical dorter, “aren’t you curious?” so on they went.

The younger dorter managed to climb up and over the fence. Julie was right behind and had her own style of fence climbing which worked for her.

After the girls landed on the other side of the fence they were amazed at the number of briars stuck to their clothes from head to foot. Looking around there was a choice to go left towards another fence or to go right towards water and another fence. So off to the right they went. After climbing the 2nd fence the two landed in someone’s backyard. It was quite beautiful.

Julie asked where they were and how they could have gotten to that point. Carol wasn’t much help in figuring out where they were. It was good to be back on a paved road.

After walking down the street and down another street the pair ended up at the neighborhood country club, so thoughts of being in danger had subsided (these thoughts were only in Carol’s mind).

After finally arriving back at Julie’s condominium Carol came to the conclusion that it is amazing we have had so many years with Julie Adventure Grant Cashel. She is our own example of how to live life to the fullest.

A friend of mine was telling me that she was trying to buy some used soccer goals for her children from a local on-line classified add. These classifieds are convenient because you can contact the seller and pick up the item somewhere in your area.

The seller wanted $30 for the soccer goals which was a great deal because they are usually at least $50 used. My friend was so excited and tried to set up an appointment to pick them up yesterday afternoon. That ended up having to be changed to today.

When my friend checked her email the seller reneged on the offer saying that she had discovered the goals sell for $300 new, so she was going to advertise them for $300.

Unfortunately my friend was very “irritated” by this and was trying to figure out what action to take, and asked for my advice.

I told her that she has a guardian angel watching out for her because her kids could have been injured on those soccer goals yesterday or she might have been in an accident going to pick them up.

She said that was true, but she just didn’t think the seller sounded like the type of person to do something so rude. I told her that you just never know about people, just when you think you have someone pegged, they go and do something completely unexpected.

She asked what she should say (if anything) to the seller. I told her to send an email telling her that if she doesn’t sell the goals for $300, you would still be happy to give her $30.

My friend liked my ideas and had a good laugh and felt much better when we ended our conversation.

If any of you need advice for similar situations, don’t hesitate to contact me!

We have a new routine this year. David is the 1st one out the door at 5:50. He catches the bus to Bartow just down the street and around the corner. I went with him today and took the dogs so they wouldn’t have a fit.

David and I were waiting for the bus (along with the dogs and 2 other students and a Dad) when Bob drove by and said he was going to play racquetball at the Y.

The bus came, David went to school, the dogs and I went home and back through the door.

About 25 minutes later Eric headed out the door to meet his ride (very cute girl in a cute car) in the driveway. As he was walking through the door he ran right into a spiderweb that hit him at his hairline.

This is just one thing you have to deal with when you are the tallest one.

I just finished pouring my cup of coffee this morning when I heard a thud and looked out the front window just in time to see something fall to the ground. I went to the window and saw a bird laying on the ground paws up with slitted eyes, no sign of movement. There were some little feathers and a smudge on my front window. I watched to see if I could see any breaths coming in or going out…nothing. I have seen birds fly into windows and eventually come to and fly away. I waited, no sign of life.

I went outside and picked up the lifeless bird and realized it was a female cardinal. I put her on a shoe box lid and placed her out on my front walk. Her bright red mate was chirping near by and watching every move I made. I heard some young chirps, but didn’t see the birds.

After an hour or so I went ahead and put the bird in a bag and took the bag to the side of the house to go out for trash pick-up tomorrow.

Every time I went outside today I saw the red bird and heard him chirping and never getting an answer.

Stupid window.