Category: Family

I cooked up corned beef, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, raisen bread, chocolate/pecan pie, and invited Ted, Jeb, Kathy, Kelly and Claire over for dinner. Grandaddy went out and bought some Guiness Beer, and we offered Irish Coffee. Now, how more Irish can you get? Creative Claire got out the bag of Mardi Gras beads and old jewelry and decorated her dad. We had a fun time.

Next day, (today) Jami, Grant, Fiona and Michael came up and spent the day with us and we finished off all of above. It’s fun to be with our kids and grands. Thanks for coming, everybody!

I had an interview today to volunteer at Saint Joseph’s Hospital. I had the mistaken idea that all I had to do was call them and tell them I was interested and they would say “can you start tomorrow”. No way. My interview lasted one and one-half hours. I was informed that I have to join the Auxilliary (minimum $15.00 per year if you work 100 hours), That’s just the beginning. I have to go to an orientation meeting that will last about 6 hours on April 27th, I had to be tested for TB today and have to go back next Tuesday for them to check me, then have another test on that day. I have to buy my own uniform (navy blue jacket, white blouse, white scrub pants, tennis shoes. But, I am not to buy those until I go through orientation. Then, I have to be trained by an experienced volunteer in 13 departments, and each one is a 3 to 4 hour shift. They suggest that I get in one department a week, but I can do more if I can work it out. I will be in uniform when I do this. There are 17 different departments I can volunteer to work in.

Once I get all of those hours in (about 50), I can sign up to work as a volunteer in the areas I like the most. There are all sorts of meetings to attend during the course of the year.

Perks? I will be able to park free when I volunteer in uniform, I will get a free meal in the cafeteria when I work (after I complete 25 hours) as long as it doesn’t go over $6.50, and I will belong to a group of about 300 volunteers, I could get a free flu shot each year (but I already get that at Kaiser), and somehow or other Dad and I get discounts on hospital visits (whatever is the balance after our insurance kicks in). Also, I get to be tested annually for TB!

So there you are. I’ll be volunteering sometime this year at Saint Josephs Hospital (I can’t write St. Joseph’s because it is against the policy since St. also stands for Street), but probably not until July or August. I found out that Peggy Cashin is currently in training.

Nicole emailed this week and asked if we were doing anything Saturday night. I answered her that it was wide open, so she replied that she would come to see us about 4:30 or 5:00. Grandaddy and I were very excited that our #1 grandchild was coming from Athens for a visit, so Grandaddy said “let’s get tickets to ‘Good News’. I wasn’t sure there any were available since it is a dinner/show, but I called Friday morning and they worked the 3 or us in. Nicole came about 6 and we went to the show. It was so good (as all of these Street People Shows are). We visited until 12:30 a.m. and all went to bed.

This morning, we went to 9 AM Mass. We were very proud to show Nicole off to our friends. Charlotte Keller came over to our house for a visit after Mass and we enjoyed talking with her areound the kitchen table. She left, and we just kept sitting there and Ted came over. So, the 4 of us had lunch and Grandaddy told stories about when he was on the SS Bennington in the Navy.

Nicole left about 1:30 or 2:00 and Grandaddy and UT went to Pike’s to get some weed control stuff that Ted is now putting on our yard. We have such good children to help us out!

Aren’t we lucky?

We went to Athens today to see Fiona in a musical at her Episopal Church Nursery School. The children were just precious – all dressed up in their finery with paper crowns decorated by each one full of hearts and jewels. Fiona lent her good friend, Katie Grace, a pretty necklace to wear and Katie Grace, being such a good girl, came right up to Fiona as soon as the muscial was over and returned the necklace. The program lasted about 20 minutes, max. Then we were served cheese pizza and salad (both pretty good actually) and Valentines Cookies in different colors. Fiona ate a pink one. That’s her favorite color.

The pastor of the church is a lady and they call her “Mother”. I thought that was pretty funny, but actually they couldn’t call her “Father”.

Michael was quite good. He loves Fiona’s school and would like to be attending, himself. He’s trying to talk a bit, still laughs about everything.

We went by to see their house under construction. It’s going to be beautiful and huge. They got a contract on the house they are living in this morning and it’s close to the asking price. Yea!

We visited a while at the house afterwards and Grandaddy put on a puppet show for us. It was soooo funny. We should have gotten him a puppet house a long time ago. He’s really good at this!

A fun day.

Edward & Mary Ann arrived last Thrusday and left early Sunday morning. We were all prepared to show them Lakeland, but Edward just wanted to play golf, so he and Dan played Friday and Saturday. After I played tennis with all of the guys Friday morning, Mary Ann & I went touring. We toured Florida Southern campus located on Lake Hollingsworth downtown, where there is the largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural designs – 12 buildings in all. Interesting uses of light and stone. Then, we went to Lake Mirror and walked through Hollis Gardens and all the around the lake (not even a mile). On the other side of the lake was an interesting building that we found out was Amtrak – the train station. We went over and up to the check in area and found that there are trains going all over the place from Lakeland. MA & Edward think they will ride the train down next January.

I took her to see Lake Morton and it is the one nicknamed “Swan Lake” because there are a jillion swans of all colors there. We ate at a sub place downtown and took lots of side streets. Mary Ann was totally impressed with how beautiful Lakeland is.

Friday night we had Patsy, Bob, Carol, David & Andrew down for cocktails then we all went to an Italian restaurant at the Lakeland Airport afterwards.

Saturday, Mary Ann, Carol, Patsy and I went to Dade City for the famous Cumquat Festival. It was really fun. That will probably be an annual outing for us. There were many craft artists, all sorts of food and we all even were given a bag of tangerines.

Bob and Carol invited us to go to a Wine Tasting Saturday night at Tim’s Wine Shop. It was a private party just for Bob & Carol and there were a total of 13 of us. We had seven different Sharaz Wines from around the world, very generous servings, plus a complete delicious dinner of salmon, pork tenderloin, marrinaded broccoli, great potatoes, all sorts of beautiful cheeses and fruits and bread. That was an event we’ll always remember. We enjoyed meeting some of their friends who we did not previously know, and to get to be with Jill & Tom again.

Mary Ann and Edward have made reservations in Mulberry for next January.

An Uncle’s Christmas Prayer

To Jeb (when you’re a little older)

It is lucky for us that things are not always what they seem,

The world seems so big, and certainly you could never walk around it,

But really it is not as big as our minds

Because we can reach out with our thoughts to the farthest star without even trying

And quicker than a wink my thoughts can leave these beautiful snow mountains of Switzerland and fly across the ocean and go right through the door to where you are

Sitting on the floor with crumpled Christmas paper around you

And the tree brightly spreading happiness

And your Mother and Daddy smiling and smiling

As if they shared some great secret.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

I don’t mean just very nice, but full of wonder:

The suspense when you count: Just four more days till Christmas.

The surprise when you watch all the fancy decorations suddenly light up

The anxious-feeling when you try to guess what you will get and hope so hard that you won’t be forgotten

The slightly scared feeling when you’re tucked in bed

And you look out the window at the pale winter moon

And you strain to hear sleigh bells and reindeer’s hoofs.

I hope you have a beautiful Christmas.

I hope that everything outside and inside will be full of beauty,

And even the gentle gray rain can be beautiful.

And Christmas has its own special music so that it sounds beautiful

And it smells clean and fresh like fir and pine

And your presents are new and exciting

And everybody has an inside glow that makes them beautiful, too.

I hope you have a lovely Christmas,

Not just pretty, but full of love.

I hope your friends send you Christmas cards

Especially if they have to draw and color them themselves

And that your brothers and sisters will like you a lot

And even let you play with their toys,

And that you will save a piece of candy for somebody

Who doesn’t have as many people to love him as you do.

I hope you will have a good Christmas

That you are good to everybody and that everybody is good to you

That nothing happens to hurt your feelings,

That you will get good things you will want to take care of,

That you will like your Christmas dinner

Not only because your food is good, but because the family is together

And finally I hope that all your Christmases will be like this one –

Full of wonder and beauty and love and goodness.

May your wonder never leave you, but may it swell and search

Higher than the sky and deeper than the sea and beyond the far horizon.

May you look for what is beautiful and treasure it when you find it

In the glory of a golden sunset or a crisp night filled with stars.

The melody made by the sound of music or the murmur of a spoken rhyme.

If you look you will see beauty and if you love it you will have it always.

And when you see how happy others feel when they love you

May you too find happiness in loving others,

And may you learn that you enjoy a fine thing twice as much

When you share it with a friend.

May you find your pleasure in good things and in good people,

Expect to find the best in them and you will,

Feel sorry for the person who is bad because inside he is very sad,

And when you do acquire something deep down good may you hunger for something still better.

And so if you go through life, from one Christmas to the next

Searching for truth and beauty and love and goodness

It may take years, it may take all your life

But someday you will be surprised and very pleased

To find all that you have been seeking

Not in a manger two thousand years away

But, more wonderful, in the manger of your heart!

And then suddenly everything will make sense, and every day will be Christmas.

And what could be a nicer present than a new baby sister? (or even brother)

Seriously, I hope by now congratulations are in order and mine are most heartfelt.

Uncle) Ed

(1962)

A curious thing happened to me this morning. I logged on on the laptop to Yahoo Mail and my computer announced a message that AOL had some updates for me and would I like to download them now. Since it was free and I know those people go to a lot of trouble to make things better for their customers, I clicked “yes”. It proceeded to download the updates. When it finished, it told me that I had to turn off my computer and restart, which I did. Well, I came back in to Yahoo via SpeedFactor and checked my emails, etc., then thought “I’ll just go check out what AOL changed for me.” I went to the AOL main page and it always comes up with my name “julcash1” and then I put in my password. Well, lo and behold, it came up “pgaries1” and I don’t have Phylllis’ password. I put in my password, and of course it told me that was invalid. Rather than call up Phyllis and ask her what her password was and since I didn’t really want to check her email, anyhow, I just signed in as a different user and it all worked out just fine. Now, what in the world? I don’t even have Phyllis in my AOL address book. However, she is in my Yahoo address book. But, then I have over 300 addresses in my Yahoo address book and many, many of them are AOL. Can any of you tech folks explain?

Mom

David & Andrew had a teacher’s workday yesterday so Carol & I and the boys went to Cypress Gardens for the day, packing a picnic lunch. We arrived shortly after they opened at 10 a.m. and stayed until after 4 p.m. The park has been completely redone and it is awesome. Beautiful flowers, sculptured shrubs, shows including ski show, animal area (like the zoo) including a panther, butterfly house, bird sanctuary, rides including a giant ferris wheel and several roller coasters, a toddler ride area, train to transport you from one side to another, game arcade, water park including lots of slides and a wave pool, lots of places to sip and sup. It was a beautiful day. The boys tried every slide, but Carol & I were not as brave as they were so we just did a few, but that was fun. We took bathing suits and changed there.

I highly recommend Cypress Gardens to anybody who visits our condo. It’s only about 30 to 45 minutes away.

I’ll try to post a photo on another entry as I already tried it and failed and lost my entry.

Love,

Mom

Carol At Cypress Gardens

Carol & Patsy flew up to Atlanta from Lakeland last Friday, July 1st. We went shopping in Lilburn and to the Goodwill that afternoon. Rested the rest of the day. That night, Patsy, Carol and I joined Mary Sydney and her mother, Sydney Lines, and Phyllis for “Menopause” at the 14th Street Theatre. It was hillarious! Left for Birmingham Saturday morning, had lunch with Tempie, Lillian, Taylor and his girlfriend at Tempie’s house. Tempie drove us all over Birmingham that afternoon and showed us all of the new and old. We had wine at Lillians late in the afternoon, then went to Brio’s for dinner. Stayed over night at Comfort Inn. Sunday, we had complimentary breakfast at motel, went to Mass at Our Lady of Assumption (where dad and I got married), then drove to Pell City to see Horace and Frances. We ate at a great barbque place (The Golden Rule)in Pell City then went to Horace’s and Frances’ house and visited for a couple of hours and had dessert. Drove back to Atlanta. Carol went over to Bridget’s with Nancy while Patsy, Dad and I just relaxed that evening. Monday is written about on Nicole’s blog. Tuesday, we joined Kathy, Kelly and Claire and went to Helen, GA for lunch and tubing. It was a perfect day for tubing. So much fun. The only bad part was Kelly hurting herself going down one of the rapids. Got home about 6 p.m. We watched a video of our Windjammer Cruise in 1995. Carol & Patsy left on Wednesday, the 7th. I took them to the airport in the morning. It was a fun summer camp.

Julie, Mom, Gramalie

Kelly and I returned from Lakeland by Air Tran today. When we went down (last Wednesday) it was Kelly’s first flight. It was very impressive how she seemed to be a “pro” flyer today. She didn’t even pull her window shade down once! We went down to keep David and Andrew company while Carol & Bob were in New York. We had some fun times, including swimming in the Ettensohn’s pool, having Aunt Patsy and McKenzie and Justin over for lunch, playing poker, going to see “The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe”, attending Andrew’s closing awards ceremony and bar-b-q at Tiger Stadium (scout camp), riding bikes, going to Lido Beach to enjoy Red Tide, and taking care of Jake and Radar. Eric was at H.E.A.R.T. camp in Beauford, SC this week and he got home Saturday afternoon. Carol & Bob got home late Sunday night and Kelly and I flew home today. We were pretty tired! Gramalie