Three Things I Think I Think...

“Truth is one forever absolute, but opinion is truth filtered through the moods, the blood, the disposition of the spectator.”

by Wendell Phillips.

I don’t often dole out my opinions as a result of another fitting quote ‘Opinions are like ass-h----, everyone has them!’ ...while I am NOT a fan of that quote, it serves its purpose and typically if no one really cares to hear my opinions enough to ask, I don’t by and large serve them. So to share these things I think, is an opportunity for individuals to either agree, disagree, or sustain; take your pick~

1.) I think this working gig is for the birds . . . Really, while tracked out I went from having all the time in the world to write, to blog, to catch up with friends, to read, to play and to scrapbook and now you want me to do what? Return to work? . . .UGH!!!

Something about this concept just doesn’t seem ‘right’ to me~ perhaps in my next life I will be re-incarnated into a person who is independently wealthy so I no longer have to work OR my work can be done out of the haven of my home. Doesn’t that sound reasonable to you?

2.) I think basically the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, if you want to know the truth. Seriously, the price of gas is rising, the cost of food is astronomical, various sections of the world are in lethal turmoil and we as citizens of the United States of America are emotionally and economically being used as pawns in the proverbial government chess game.

Now really, it’s not my style to talk politics or religion, however, it angers me that oil companies, bank managers and CEO’s, to name a few are declaring exorbitant profits as a record number of individuals' homes are going through foreclosure, people are strained to make a decision between eating and paying the electric bill and additional families and children in our country are declared ‘homeless’.

I just think it is an atrocity…

3.) I think I am blessed beyond belief with friends . . . and it’s not that I have an enormous quantity of friends. I have quality relationships with individuals that support me and love me and let's face it- put up with me!

I happened upon a quote that reads:

“Friendship isn't about whom you've know the longest. It's about who came, and never left your side...”

I read these profound words and respond with ‘Amen’! People whom I just met through blogging have become my dearest friends as well as those blossoms of life-time chums that have touched my existence from grade school to college to present.

I am thankful for each and every one of you and I mean that with much sincerity~ My life is rich thanks to YOU!



Rebuttal from my Sister...

My sister and me...

Now, before I allow my sister to take center stage with her rebuttal as many of you inquired about, please remember there are three, yes, THREE sides to every story: hers, mine and the RIGHT side! 

I just want to remind you of that before she begins speaking with such nonsense the experiences she believes you all should be aware of to make me out to be the 'bad' guy in our growing up years.

So without further ado, my loving favorite, oh yeah, only sister, Dawn Currier~

A rebuttal huh?....wow, where does one begin? To all Tracy's blog friends, I know Tracy has all of you believing she is quite innocent in her childhood escapades, but trust me she knew how to push buttons and was often the reason for so many issues that occured in our childhood. One is that of our rollers. You see, my hair was very thick and would curl well with those sponge rollers. I always knew that my hair would be just beautiful once those curlers were removed.

Tracy was always very jealous. Thus, you see the pic of her getting rollers put into her hair and having a very bitter face. This is because she knows that sitting there going through the trauma of me doing her hair was all for nothing because mine was going to turn out pretty and she was just "wasting her play time". Too bad for you Ms. Tracy!

...at the lake~

Has Tracy ever shared the time that we were working on the farm down the road? Our job was to lay straw down for the cows...WHILE the cows were in the pen I might add. Well, she had a huge holstein cow watching her do her job. She was very fearful because this cow kept staring at her. I had to "push" her in front of me just to keep her doing her work. Now I must tell you we were about 10-12 yrs. old so those cows were as much afraid of us as Tracy was of them. I, of course knew that, but all she wanted to do was stand in the pen with the cows surrounding us yelling for our brother to come and get us.

I tried to tell her we were ok, but NOOOOO she had to yell and scream. The cows were not the least bit threatened. Soon my brother and the Dr. who "hired" us, told us to get the heck out of the pen and forget it. So you see as innocent as Tracy may seem, she got me fired from my first paying job.

WE are the cute ones in the swim suits...

There also was the time that Tracy and I were up on Lake Erie at our cottage. Our dad took us to an uncle who also lived up there. We were so excited to go out on the pontoon boat since we hadn't been out for quite some time. As we were floating out on the lake (I am sure it was only a few hundred feet from land) about 10 miles the chain broke off the steering wheel.

Well, because Tracy and I were such fish as we were raised near the water all of our lives, we decided to hop in and swim while dad and our uncle fixed the problem with the steering. As Tracy jumped in and crawled out she bragged how nice the water was. Now realize, both of us lived in our bathing suits so we were all prepared for our unexpected swim. Tracy hollers, "come on Dawn, jump in."

Of course, doing what I was told I jumped in. Just as I made that jump, Tracy decided to crawl out and "sight" Jaws about 5 feet away from the boat toward my backside.

I screamed, "Get me out of here" as Tracy sang, "da da da da da da," you know the tune! I was so scared I could not find the strength to pull myself out of the water. All my mind could see was Jaws chewing my legs off of my body from under the water. In fact, I could swear the water was a red color. As I am screaming from total fright, Tracy stands on the pontoon boat laughing her head off!

Now, since you think she is such a sweet women, I can agree with you there, but as a child....she deserved everything she got! Tracy, just know that someday I will live close to you again and I will be there to GET YOU!

...and there you have it MY friends; and although Dawn can be pretty convincing,  you decide~

"A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost."

~Marion C. Garretty

My Son~

I walk side-by-side with my child, fingers knotted with mine as we begin our journey: destination unknown. 

He squeezes my fingers to notify me of his existence, just in case I’ve forgotten. 

We connect with our eyes and engage in an exchange of words-their presence more essential than their meaning. 

In that little boy voice he asks, ‘NeeNee, do you love me?’ a question that the answer is already well-known—

‘Yes, my son, I love you more than you will ever know.’ I speak, as a grin glides across his sweet little face and his eyes dance with delight.

Son, you outgrew my lap, but never my heart. ~Author Unknown

Facts of Five and Updates...

If you are a new follower let me give details of Facts of Five. It was a model I used when I taught students with special needs in a self contained classroom. I presented a category such as ‘Five Cartoons’ or ‘Five flavors of Kool-aid’ and the students had to consider an idea that fit the group. It was fun and thought generating yet in the meantime, I was able to get to know what was important to my students.

So our category for today is ‘Five Updates from happenings in my life~ okay, I’ll begin…

1.) Little Ethan- The following message is from my niece, Katie: “Ethan seems to be doing much better. He is up playing and acting like every two year old should. He does wear down quickly, but I am sure his strength will be stronger over the next few days. He did have a fever tonight but I believe it’s from him running around so much. Thank you everyone for asking about him and keeping him in your prayers. It has been one stressful week. I could not of done it without my family. Thank you Tracy for the blog and the support. I will keep everyone updated. Much love.”

Ethan with his little sister, Mia at the Doctor~

Ahhh, the power of prayer...So she thanks you and I thank you deeply…

2.) My sister-gosh, it’s been a banner day, I also received this message from my sister, whom you were all privileged to meet and she sent the following message: “I am going to bed now...we have conferences tomorrow and Thurs. and I am way behind on some much needed sleep. I will talk to you about your "sisterly" blog later. Don't you have any stories to tell except the one where YOU fell and broke YOU arm b/c YOU were not doing what YOU should have been and YOU even admitted it in your story that you were a bit of an instigator. Duh....just a little bit of an instigator....I would say you got most of what you deserved. “

Don't I look thrilled?

Well, golly gee, people can be so testy now, can’t they? I guess I will have to ‘try’ to come up with some story I’ll admit to, although it will be very difficult, being the ‘perfect’ child I was; UH-huummm!

3.) Spring is here! And well, it continues to be here as I showed you a few blogs back. I don’t want to brag or anything but goodness, the weather has been beautiful and how can I deny the temps of 70’s and 80’s? (Well NOT every day!) But a good taste of what is to come… Therefore, a few more photos to share…

4.) Track out is almost over~ Oh, this makes me incredibly sad. Thursday will be my last ‘free’ day, and then it’s back to work on Friday. I have had three weeks of bliss: I slept in when I so desired, took preferred naps, did a great deal of reading and writing, cleaned, or well, NOT cleaned if I so desired but however, it is back to reality! Which, I suppose given that I have a tendency to glance at the bright side of circumstances, I thrive in a structured environment and track out is anything but routine so it will be productive for me to return to exertion. Most excellent of all, I will be encircled by my kids who cause me to laugh, smile, think and feel; a true day’s employment!

5.) I’ve got a secret….

My sister...and an update on Ethan~

My sister, Dawn who is two years older wrote an e-mail today stating that she was ready for another blog entry. She evidently likes my writing, which is a good thing, and of course I wanted to indulge her. What? Garsh Darn-it, here we are just on the precipice of mid-life and she is STILL telling me what to do! And the worst part is I STILL do what she says!

So here I am writing a blog entry because my sister said so…as a result it got me thinking about all the things I had to do as a youngster because ‘my sister said so’.


Oh boy, there were so many instances; you see she took it upon herself to be MY boss! She would probably claim she was being a ‘caretaker’ …same thing; just a euphemism, but being the youngest of five, EVERYONE seemed to be my boss! Further I felt I could never escape it or her…but don’t worry, she’d tell you the same thing herself so I’m not revealing any deep dark secret here.

I have committed to memory the occasion I was in third or fourth grade and I had ‘on purpose’ forgotten my school book since I hadn’t done my homework. Therefore while we were standing in the kitchen and the bus was blaring its horn she yelled at me to go get my math book with the incomplete work tucked inside. I emphatically said ‘NO!’ so she pushed me toward my curtailed job and I hit my forehead on the corner of the table and needed stitches…the good part? I didn’t have to go to school without my unfinished homework!

Another time we were amusing ourselves with our baby dolls on the back patio and I wanted to rock mine to sleep and being the baby sister, Dawnie’s child sized rocking chair was there for the taking. I sat down and started swaying and singing to my baby, and she told me to ‘Get Up!’ Well, my baby wasn’t quite asleep yet, so I stayed put and kept on serenading my young one. Well, I could tell in the tone of my sister’s voice she wasn’t going to say, ‘oh gosh then, I’ll just wait until you are done…’ No, that wasn’t in her so she demanded again with her hands on her hips and her brow furrowed as her lips pursed together puckered out, shouting, ‘GET UP!’ and I repeatedly told her I wanted to sing my baby to sleep.

To this day I have no idea what bravery crawled into me, but I remember picking up that rocking chair and dashing around the back yard as fast as my little legs could carry me rushing from her as she was shaking her fist at me. Unfortunately, I was running with the furniture and my baby doll so I was definitely at a disadvantage therefore I made a cut to the right and when I couldn’t escape her wrath, I put the chair down and bounded over it; or at least I attempted to leap over it and landed on my arm. Of course, I cried and blamed her because it was ALWAYS her fault (I’m no dummy!) and spent the next six months in a cast up to my shoulder. (Picture below to prove it!)

Seriously, a sliver of examples, BUT a true depiction of our growing up, I love my sister, and what’s more I admire her. She has an incredible heart of kindness and would give the shirt off her back for those less fortunate. She has adopted four children as a single parent and continues to give when she has nothing left to offer. I want to shake her at times because she sticks her neck out repeatedly and then gets hurt so deeply and I end up aching for her, although she keeps plugging away when I would have thrown in the towel a long time ago.

My sister is a teacher who is extremely smart in the area of life, knows what she likes and doesn’t like and says what is on her mind. She doesn’t let people get the best of her, well, most of the time and her unbelievable strength carries her through distressed times only to do it all over again. So yeah, I continue to be the little sister whose big sister still can tell her what to do, but whom else would I have to tell me what to do? Never mind, don’t answer that! ...the line starts here!

I love you, Dawnie!

*******

 

I received a message from my sister and Ethan was sent home, although she says she doesn't know why because he's still a very sick little boy. However, he was without a fever for 12 hours; ummmm.  He has a Dr. appointment today and she said she wouldn't be surprised if he was put back into the hospital. Thank you all so much for your continual prayers.

You all mean the world to me!

Calling all Prayer Warriors...

My great nephew Ethan, three years young has been in the hospital since Wednesday with RSV--Respiratory Syncytial Virus.  He’s having a bumpy time of it and continues to spike fevers of 104 as well as difficulty with breathing.


Therefore, it is on this day that I give a shout out to all my prayer warriors to cast a few words to God for healing in addition to strength for his family.

“We mold one another’s dreams. We all hold each other’s fragile hopes in our hands. We all touch other’s hearts.” (Unknown)

…thanks for touching mine~

Sweet Dreams are made of this...

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Sweet dreams are made of this. Get out a pen and paper and take notes on any imaginative concepts that bubble to the surface.

It's not a habit of mine to read my horoscope, however, this morning it offered me the perfect excuse to write…how lovely~ The permission I gained was imperative to my psyche knowing that I am shooting for new stars; doesn’t everyone need dreams to reach toward to keep their lives purposeful?


I adore being a teacher, and affecting the lives of my students. Most days I can’t ever see myself retiring, however within the past year a couple of innovative dreams have penetrated my soul. I fantasize of writing and publishing a book or two.

I aspire to start a scrapbooking business on the beach to assemble photo creations for others who don’t enjoy the craft as I do and will allow me to capture the essence of the special ones in their world. I couple this goal with the idea of having my studio overlook the ocean; ahhhh, what better atmosphere to get the imaginative juices flowing than to be immersed by the ocean’s beauty?

My husband, Scott has a longing to open a donut/bagel shop at the beach so we can be beach bums collectively; anybody have a couple hundred thousand dollars they’d like to donate? ...just thought I'd ask~


My point being, just because we age doesn’t mean our dreams cease to exist. I wonder, are the ideals of our life as an adult more luring because the inhibitions of youth are no longer as prevalent? Or perhaps we stop listening to ‘could’ve, should’ve and would’ve’ thoughts that saturate our dreams.
 
At any rate, I like the consent of my horoscope and in the meantime, I’ll let the words of my book bubble to the surface and dream of that place by the ocean.
 

"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”

by James Dean