http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php en http://backend.userland.com/rss092 I find myself wondering once again where a year went. I had so many plans and it seems I accomplished nothing toward any of them during 2006. I've had better years. Not that I want to complain and sound ungrateful, because some dear folks stood by me and supported me through some rough patches and prayed for me during a breast cancer scare--and THANK GOD a scare was all it was. The diabetes thing slowed me down so much. I was diagnosed in the early spring, although I had suspected that .. http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php?id=61 Back when I was a relatively skinny blonde tom-boy in high school, a gentleman from Pennsylvania bought the long deserted farm down the road from us and had a big pond dug in preparation for raising a few cattle there after he retired from the airforce. We were given permission to go swimming there that summer (and raid his pear tree) while there were no cows around and we had a ball. Then he retired. He and his wife moved down and built a big brick house and started "farming" from scratch after .. http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php?id=60 I have no idea if anyone ever reads this stuff, but since all the "band" people in Alabama who have any interest in posting in this forum have evidently perished, I suppose I might as well talk to myself some more. I lost 36 pounds since I have been dieting. That is the good news. The bad news is that I have been dieting for over a year and now I seem to be stuck. That always happens. I am going to have to build myself a gym, I guess. Walking just isn't sufficient excercise to get the .. http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php?id=56 I've said before that I am not particularly inclined to boycott a store/organization over its corporate policies because of the innocents who tend to get hurt in situations where they are caught in the middle. I do make it a personal habit to choose where I shop according to certain values, though, so I have made a personal decision to no longer shop at Sears or Kmart stores in response to their corporate strategy of firing full-time employees in order to avoid providing benefits. Since Kmar .. http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php?id=55 I 've really been busy since September, although I don't know how much I can claim to have accomplished. Still, there was football season... and Thanksgiving and C H R I S T mas and New Years... and having bronchitis forever.......also lots of forum stuff (mostly elsewhere) to keep me busy. My smart aleck little nephew accused me of being online "twenty-four/seven" --which I'm not, and I can't believe a first grader came up with that without help from his dad--my smart aleck little brother, .. http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php?id=54 One of my husband's two sisters lives near Tyler, TX. Her husband emailed me that they are all safe and sound. It is hard for me to visualize the reality of a storm (Rita) so huge that it could menace so large a part of a place the size of Texas. It is mind boggling..... I am glad to know they are all ok. We had not been keeping in touch like we should have until recently. Odd how terrible things sometimes bring about good. My brother-in-law lost his dad a few months back and I got in .. http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php?id=53 As a compromise--because my husband just is not into going to band competitions or high school football games, and I have no interest in Nascar (and not much in most country music)--we have decided to set the occasional weekend aside for finding things to do together that we BOTH like.....which basically means going to the movies, riding around (not with gas prices the way they are now), or having picnics/cookouts. (Even going to the lake is iffy because I like swimming and he wants to fish- .. http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php?id=52 My husband told my daughter she needed a refresher course in biology because he quickly discovered his puppy was not the male she had told him "he" was. :icon_lol: SHE is still named Sparky, but he also calls her Sparkle sometimes, too. I told him Sparky was ok for either sex and that Sparkette sounded dumb! My daughter said she never checked the gender, just accepted what her friend told her. Funny! http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php?id=51 I don't have the words to express the horror and sadness of the last few weeks. I suppose that is why I have been avoiding this blog. The devastation the hurricane brought was so horrific in parts of the Alabama coast and especially in Mississippi. So many people lost everything. I watched tv and cried and prayed until I couldn't take it anymore. The ruin and disorder in New Orleans was not only sad, but also sickening. The political blame game makes me want to puke. I will NEVER vo .. http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php?id=50 I took two of my nephews swimming in my sister's pool this morning. They are very well behaved and so it was a lot of fun. (I love swimming! ) Most of my other nephews are too wild for me to be willing to get in the pool with them, but these two are much calmer. The oldest is going into sixth grade and the youngest will be a first grader. It surprises me that these two are the quiet ones because they are the ones involved in sports instead of band. Maybe it is the whole sports discipline th .. http://www.alabamahs.com/blog/shajon.php?id=49