More problems!

The brakes went out on the Camero yesterday down town Kincaid.

No one got hurt!

The youngsters have it torn up again.

Snickers.....

Isn't he cute? The boy that lives a couple of doors down raised Snickers on an eye dropper, and now he is two months old, and looks big enough to leave the nest.

I am not sure he will make it on his own, though, because he doesn't know anything about gathering food, or other survival techniques.

Snickers is very friendly, and will climb all over you, and jump from one person to the next. He runs up the tree in the yard, and then back to his friend.

They had to get his teeth clipped at the vets, because they were growing out like a saber tooth tiger's teeth. Squirrels are like rats, and have to chew on something to keep their front teeth worn off.

Here is the kid that raised Snickers. He has a pretty good four letter word vocabulary, when he needs it, and I think he was also riding one of the four wheelers in the state park when the law came in with helicopters, and machine guns to ruin the fun. He can't be all bad, though. After all he gave me some popcorn that his brother (in the background) got at the movie theater where he works, and he did a good job with the squirrel. He also has beautiful petunias in the front and back of his apartment.

Happy Birthday Mijo!

Twenty nine years and holding! Today is our son, Robert's birthday. And what a joy you are, Robert. I thank God every day for you. We wish we could be with you to celebrate at the Jayton swimming pool with all the cousins like we used to do. Have a wonderful day and know that we love you! Mom and Dad

Ephesian 3:16-17

This is garage sale week in Kincaid.

Here is my garage sale buy for the day! It's Lady Ann by Rogers Silverplate. Nine of everything--dinner and salad/dessert forks, spoons, tablespoons and hollow handle knives in a nice chest all for $35! That is less than $1 apiece. This pattern is a promotional for Pillsbury Mills, and the thrifty lady sent in coupons from cake mixes along with money for each piece (Mom did the same thing during the 50s). It even has the "handy order blank in it--3 teaspoons for 6 coupons and $0.50; 3 hollow hand dinner knives for 9 coupons and $2.00, etc., etc.
I had walked around, gone through about five places, combed through about a million books (bought a Nora Roberts for the trip home), and was about to give up, but thought, "Oh well, I'll stop here, and look at what they have."

You know the old saying, "You have to sift through a lot of dirt to get to the gold, or in this case silver."

Hey, ladies can you believe...

....aprons are not only a decorator item now, they are a fashion thing. I saw this in a shop in Taylorville (about $30). They had this same thing in turquoise, lime, pink. Cute!


P.S. This little shop could have fit right in on main street Lamesa.

Happy Birthday to Cactus Lili and Mark Geeslin!

Lili, I hope you have a great and wonderful time today, and that everyone else does the cooking and cleaning up for a change so you can have leisure, champagne, and bonbons.

Cactus and I have been friends for a long time, now. We were neighbors in the dorm at Tech, where she kept us all highly entertained, and she is also the founder of an exclusive alum society called HBAA! We were home demonstration agents in adjoining counties until she got married and moved away. She is an old-school home economist who knows how to do everything from making a dress, a feast fit for a king to hiring and firing lawyers. Blessings!

Mark Geeslin was the ag. agent in Kent County for years, and later was the county judge. He served our country in WWII, and his unit liberated one of the POW camps in Germany. He came home from the war, got his degree from A&M, and is a most loyal Aggie. Gig 'em and happy birthday to Mark.

P.S. I was going to try to upload a picture from the web, but this computer or wireless setup is being bullheaded about it, so I just quit; it is time to run around, and see what I can see. Have a good day everyone.

Take my breath away!

I love beautiful buildings! The stuff they build today is sterile, emasculated, and boring like this building for instance. Just look at it! It looks like a giant cement block with windows. No personality at all.


Old buildings have beauty, craftsmanship, and are interesting. Springfield is very historic, and here are some of the beautiful buildings in the downtown area.










Cathedral of Immaculate Conception.

There is a lot of construction going on around the cathedral because they are making it handicap accessible.




This is the Franklin Insurance Building. I wonder how long it will be before they are required to sandblast this quote, which says:
"God grant that not only the love of liberty, but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere and say that this is my country."
Benjamin Franklin





This is the Illinois Supreme Court. I am sure it gets plenty of business.

Country Mouse in the capital city!

First of all let me tell you that I do not enjoy driving in towns in general, and especially ones that I don't know. However, I decided to be brave, and go to Springfield yesterday. It seemed like an easy going place the other day when I was at the mall, and I am going to give you proof that it lived up to my expectations and more.

First of all the coordination of the lights in that town is amazing! I was nearly to the capital before I hit a stop light. Stop lights are where I get my bearings, but I resent hitting one red light after another. I had time to catch my breath, look at the signs, and decide what to do. I decided to turn left as soon as possible.

Sure enough I was on Capitol Avenue heading straight for the capitol building. Everything is good. I turn left, thinking I am going to circle the land mark, but wouldn't you know it, I am on some little side street heading straight for something underground, and from where I was it didn't look big enough to drive a pickup into. I stopped. I didn't care that there was a sign beside me that said, "No parking at any time." I wasn't going any closer to that bunker, hole, or whatever it was. A car came up behind me. I waved him around me, and he zoomed on down into the pit. By that time I was feeling pretty desperate--no way to make a U turn, pickup too long, and no help in sight. If I had been more adventuresome I would have gone down under, but instead, I did the only thing I could think of.

I backed up about 20 feet, turned the wheel so I backed neatly into the middle of intersection heading West, and took off! Yep, it was a success. No one saw me because no one was on the street. There were no sirens or troopers writing out tickets. I just praised the Lord that I was not in Austin. Mercy! In Austin the law would have been all over me like a chicken on a June bug. Well, if it had been Austin I would have had to go in the underground thing even if it took the top off that red pickup.

After that trial I found the visitor center, and parked the pickup. I spent a lot of time walking around looking at all the beautiful buildings, and walked to Cafe Moxo for a BLT with peanut butter. Not bad, either. Try it sometime.

Moral of this story--country mice need to stay in the country!

Country Mouse "done come to town"....

Yesterday I had an enjoyable time in Springfield, Illinois. It is not a huge city--between 111 and 112 thousand people, quite a bit smaller than Lubbock. I was surprised at how laid-back it was. When I think of a capital city, I think of Austin with bumper to bumper, hideous traffic! Not this capital. However, it does have some similarities to Austin, and that is a capital building and con artists.

I am not going to describe the ones inside the capital building, although I do think Illinois has Texas beat on this event. Instead, I want to tell you about the one I met in the mall parking lot.

I was done shopping, and was walking to the pickup to load up and go home, when I spotted a Cadillac coming my way. I noticed because it doesn't seem like there are many of them around these parts--not as many as I see in Midland. I was about to unlock and get in when she pulled up beside me, and began her story.

She used to drive a truck, but got laid off. I could see why. She looked like someone on a meth documentary--scrawny with bad teeth, hair in disarray. She needed money; her car was nearly out of gas and she needed to get on the road to go to another job. I have seen the same act at Wal Mart in Midland, so I very nicely told her I had spent all my money in the mall. Then she wondered if I had a credit card. Are you kidding me? She still didn't give up--"Do you have any change?" "Nope, I spent it all." She sighed and said, "That that is what women do", and started driving up the row. so I watched her just to see what she would do. She stopped by another lady, and talked for quite a while, then I saw that dear woman hand her two bills. The Cadillac took off, and so did I.

Amazingly it worked out to where I could keep her in sight. She drove across the street to Lowes, or whatever the store was over there. As I was stopped at the light, I saw her get out, hand the two bills to the man who walked up (I could actually see the grin on his face). He got in behind the wheel and she in the passenger seat, and they drove off. And it didn't look like their car was about to run out of gas, or that they were headed to a gas station either.

A priest taught me how to say, "No" to these con artists, and to not fall for the guilt trip that they lay out. I was waiting for my husband in the entrance of Furr's Cafeteria in Lubbock when a man came in, and told me how hungry he was, and wondered if I could spare some money so he could go get a hamburger. I gave him $5, and he tore out the door. Then a priest came in and sat down to wait for someone, so I told him about the poor, hungry man. The priest laid down the law, and told me not to be giving these people money, because they either buy drugs or alcohol, and if they need help with food there are plenty of places that can help them.

So the next time someone drives up, and tells you their bad luck story, don't go for it. You can give them your blessing, but don't give them money. You only contribute to their vice.

More about the "children" next door.....

The youngsters next door are still working on the Camero. They got one blinker to work yesterday. Come to find out, the boy who bought the car, when he got his bonus check, also bought two four-wheelers (apparently his theory is--when you hit pay dirt you need to get the money in circulation as fast as possible), but the little machines have been confiscated by the law.

He and his buddy, who also lives next door, took the four wheelers out to a state park close by, and were running all over the place; the law got tipped off about their presence, and descended on the park to round the boys up. They even ended up getting a helicopter out because the boys ran. The one who owns all this machinery said he got scared to surrender because he was already on probation for breaking a door in the convenience store where his girlfriend worked, and was afraid he would end up in prison.

Not to fear--he is free to father children, and work on the Camero!

What About My Name?

Rosie is not my real name, of course, not on my birth certificate at least. When I was a kid my dad called me Rosie; so did all my uncles, and neighbor men. The aunts and neighbor ladies called me by my real name.

My folks ranched, and every year the cattle buyers would come out to the place to look at the calves. This was long before the video camera had been invented, and the video sales came along, so the buyers would stop, have coffee and pie or eat dinner with us, and then my dad, and the buyer would get in the pickup to drive around through the cows so he could get a good look at the calves, and then make an offer. Some of the time I went with them just for something to do. One of the buyers (can't remember his name) always called me, "Rosie O'Grady." This name just sticks in my memory like those good times I remember of the ranch life when I was a kid.

I just told this so my friend, Cactus Lily, would understand why I sign off as Rosie O'Grady. See Lily, there is a reason for it!

What is the world coming to?

Hey, this is my first attempt at blogging, so excuse me if I ramble and blunder on.

I am not in West Texas at the moment, but am enjoying the green trees, green grass, little lakes and rain here in Kincaid, Illinois. My husband is here working on a construction project for Ranger Construction, and he has a small apartment in Kincaid. There are only a few apartments in this unit. The last time I was here most of the apartments were rented by men working on this job. All of them are gone now, and the new inhabitants make me wonder what the world is coming to.

There are two sisters living next door. One has a job in Springfield at a sporting goods store, and the other is pregnant with no job. Her boyfriend was working for Ranger, but got laid off. He has spent his bonus on a hot rod Camero he bought in Mississippi, a pickup, and who knows what else. He took all the wiring out of the car and is rewiring it, also sanding the floorboard so he can put a new bottom in it. Everything is torn out. The sister who works also has a boyfriend living with them who helps with the car.

I talked to the girls, they are happy as larks. They told me about the jobs they have had in Wal Mart, gas stations (that is how they met their boyfriends), and they are not the least bit nervous about their economic situation. This is normal for them. They told me about all their sisters, step siblings (that won't talk to them), nieces, nephews. They told me everything they could think of, and none of it included a thought about going to school to learn how to be a nurse, teacher, highway patrolmen or any sort of thing that would sharpen their skills or help them be a manager of a Wal Mart store.

And the girl is going to have a baby at the end of August!