Geez, never thought I’d see the day when Ms. Martha gets sent to the slammer. She is all over the news as she is now in ‘Camp Cupcake’ as they call the West Virginia prison that is now home to her for the next 5 months. All this for a measly 40K out of her millions. It’s rather greedy. But I love her omnimedia, darn it! Martha gained popularity right when I was a new homemaker and wife. I wanted to be just like her. She is from Nutley, NJ which is a small town. She didn’t have money back then, but was in the top 10% of her high school class. Her entire persona is ‘adopted’. (My mom use to say that about Grace Kelly too-who was from Philly and acquired a very preppy manner of speaking, though her daughter Stephanie could be from South Philly from her manner of speaking).
Martha Stewart Living is one of the best magazines ever. I have almost every issue from the beginning. My subscription stopped once and I really missed it. I still think a lot of the ‘other’ shows try to copy her show. She is definitely the Martha everyone knows by her first name. Wonder what she will be allowed to do with her prison cell to make it more ‘homey’? At least Rosie O’Donnell is sticking beside her. Good luck MS.

My mom always says this to me when I am down, ‘the Lord never gives you more than you can handle’. I guess I agree somewhat as these are comforting words. But tell that to the parent who is watching a child slowly dying from cancer. In these situations, the parent or parents must be really strong people. I was just reading a note from parents thanking the ‘Make A Child Smile’ webmistress (and group) for their only child’s (daughter) grave marker. I guess you have to look at the whole picture to get by and cope. They were grateful for their little girl, even the short length of time she had on this earth.
I do believe I come from strong stock. My maternal great grandmom watched her oldest and very longed for child die from pneumonia at age 7. She had 3 or 4 other children, but this must have been heartbreaking. My late grandmom could remember viewing her big sister at rest in her coffin holding a handful of daisies.
Most of us learn that life goes on and we have to take the punches and get on with it. I like to say ‘live each day one day at a time’. Deal with today and tomorrow will hopefully be better.

If you were to choose the single most joyous thing about life, what would it be?
Sounds like a loaded question to me. The most joyous (feeling of happiness) thing-being a mother? a daughter? a wife? a sister? a neighbor? a salesperson? I have to say that being pregnant and finally being a mom has to be it. I have always wanted to be a mom since I hugged my first Thumbelina baby doll. (If you grew up in the 60s you know about that doll). I just wanted to mother people my entire life. Sean’s a great kid and I can’t believe he’s almost 18 (on the 24th). I love almost everything about him, though I will cuss him out when I don’t like anything too self-centered that comes out of his mouth. But that dear little boy, my only child with the pacifier has shot up so fast and on the verge of manhood. It’s not fair. I only got one, but a good guy. Thanks God. : )
I’ve had a weird day. My uncle is not well. He had a procedure to quarterize his bladder and it didn’t work. He’s 81 yrs old and like a dad to me. He’s helped my mom so much over the years I can’t tell you how much. To see him going through this is crushing us. They will try another procedure and if that doesn’t work, he will lose his bladder. This happened because of radiation he had for prostate cancer. We feel so bad for him. Now it’s a waiting game.

I found tribe.net through a blog I read once in a while. It’s a pretty neat site and you have to invite people with the same interests to be pals. There tons of tribes, some like recipe exchange to the other extreme of being erotic. I am not in it for the later, no thank you. I joined a left handed group and I hate to tell you what they were talking about. Yes, it had to do with doing something with your hands in private. If they keep it up, I’m going to another tribe. I joined on Sunday and have about 4 friends now. I think it’s neat to be able to do all these things on the internet. Tribe is also good for selling things in your area, recommending restaurants, group meetings etc. I think I will be a lurker a while. My one pal said she has met half of her 150 pals! Maybe many are from the same area. I have met a few of my online pals IRL (in real life) over the years. Most I have talked to on the phone. Where I live there isn’t many ways to meet people except through church and volunteer work. I tried the church choir group and they didn’t want to be friendly IRL that much. We went to each other’s houses which was nice. With the school, I was always helping out teachers etc. I was even in the PTO (org here) as the corresponding secretary one year. After elementary school, I wasn’t needed anymore. I try to think that all that volunteering helped Sean but lead to not making any money for me. I did make some money about 8 yrs ago through a lady I met at the school through another lady who was a friend. I hand-painted stenciled ‘Welcome’ slates for many months-did about 400 of them if not more. I think a job may actually do me good to get me out of the house once in a while.

What is it with this cat of mine? Cosmo is doing some really weird stuff these last few weeks. First he was climbing into one the of the windows in the basement via junk and a metal shelf. That was keeping him out of my hair for a few hours. Now between 7:30 to 9:00 am, he’ll cry loudly outside my closed bedroom door to get me awake. He’ll then push on the door and get it open and then jump and walk all over me and then take off like a bullet down the hallway. Darn! I do get up between 9-9:30 only because I go to bed around 1-1:30 am. Today I had to get up because I was so thristy. Usually Cosmo gets on my lap for a half hour or so and calms down, like he needs that reassurance that mama is there for him. I decided some of his claws needed a trim and managed to do a few while he tried to warn me with an open mouth on my hand. Oy. Maybe Cos is feeling the change in the weather too. I try to take him outside everyday so he doesn’t feel trapped. I try to give him lots of love. He is always in front of his dish and I don’t want a Buddha kitty. Maybe it’s a faze-do cats have these?

It’s after 11 pm and I just grabbed about 4 of my houseplants off the front step as there’s a frost advisory tonight. Another short warm season for us in the northeast. I’m getting over a virus and it’s in the postnasal drip stage, lucky me. I feel like I do in February instead of this time of year.
I dug up some ‘wild begonias’ to send to a friend in New York. I had to cut most of the flower part off as they had grown about 2-3 feet! I added some gourds that I had grown a few years back because I know A is crafty.
After I mailed some things off I went to the grocery store. Now I have the option of going to 1 of 4 supermarkets in a 5 mile range, with 2 of them being about 1 mile away. I usually pick one of these as I am lazy. The one I went to today has Patricia Heaton as its spokeswoman (Acme/Albertson). There were mostly old ladies in there today. It’s like this a lot of times. Only a few of them have their husbands. I saw this one lady who use to work in Jamesway (long gone) and I recognized her by her back hump. That is sad, let me tell you. And you know its an effort for them to get out, yet they only have a couple of items in their carts. This year I feel for them more than anything as everything I do that is strenous is either hurting my feet or arms or back. This is bit scary for me as a past Lyme Disease sufferer. And more than anything, it’s watching how much pain my mom was and is in this past year. Is this what I have to look forward to? I sure hope in the next 30 yrs there are miraculous cures for people who suffer with daily pain.

Yep, I felt like painting again. It’s been two weeks and I want to finish up while I can still open the window. I have only one wall left now and it’s a complimentary color of gold. I put up a sample to see how it’s going to look and I think it’s rich looking. Sean turned up his nose a bit. He had the nerve as his room is that light avocado green. Brian said it looked like pumpkin color. It’s GOLD, man, gold!!! As soon as Bri pulls out the entertainment center I can finish up. I am not looking forward to the edges. I have one of those paint pads with the wheels. I had blue tape and it is missing. I am sure it will look fine. ‘The Kiss’ came today and I need to figure out how to hang it in the existing frame I have.
How much am I moved by the show ‘Extreme Home Makeover’? I want to work on that show. I haven’t said anything like that in a long time. I would want to go buy the stuff for the kids’ rooms like wacky wallpaper, Barbies, swings, you name it. I just love to see the family flip out after the bus pulls away from the front of their new home. Great job ABC! I hope this show goes on for a long time. Can you imagine the worries being lifted from these people’s shoulders if they are hurting financially? I will watch the over Extreme show but that one creeps me out a bit. I really love when they fix their teeth. That’s the best.

Not sure if that applies, but since it’s fall now and it’s a nice day, it reminds me of a day in summer. I was out trying to enjoy the weather a bit. I had the cat on his harness which he is very good about. We were on the back patio and I am starting to gather my garden decorations so I can clean them off and pack them away for next year. My yard is in good shape this year. I worked hard at maintaining it. I stopped weeding, but things still are blooming and look decent. I promised my friend in Arizona some freshly dried herbs for her retro spice jars.
My mom did a disappearing act on all of us yesterday. I knew she was going to a local yearly fair, but when I couldn’t get in touch with her all afternoon and my uncle and brother hadn’t heard from her either, I got panicky. She couldn’t be reached for over 6 hours. Turns out she left the fair and went to a Farmer’s Market that isn’t even near the fair. I had the phonebook out at 5:15 to call the police to ask about accident reports. We tried for the 15th time around 5:20 and Jim the boarder answered the phone. I was in tears with him and really hung up on him. Mom called back and I told her how pissed off I was. She was embarrassed and I feel bad I made her that way, but I love her and was worried to death about her. That definitely aggravated my cold and I am worst today as is my sore neck. Darn, what to finish my painting and decorating. It’s been over 2 weeks since I’ve painted in the family room. I can see my piles diminishing though. Why did I have to be such a pack rat and marry one too?

I got 2 large plastic boxes yesterday-hooray! Right after I got up this morning and had my tea and French toast, I started to load VHS tapes into one of them. Then I started pulling tapes out of the coffee table (bought for it’s cavernous storage underneath). I found some tapes to share with my niece and nephew (hopefully they will forget to give them back-lol) and then my organizational skills kicked in and I separated all the Titanic tapes, Harrison Fords, etc into piles. One of the piles is work-out videos of all kinds-yeah from Jack Lalaine (LOL) to Cheryl Ladd slipping and sliding on a mat thingie. I do enjoy my Richard Simmons tapes, so I did keep them. When I ran into the ones that said ‘Sean at pop-pop’s house 1990’ and ‘Our Wedding 1984’, that pulled at my heartstrings. I’d hate to lose them. I should put them in my cabinet in the living room closer to the door. I opened the closet door in the family room and that is a mess in there with more videos!!!
My mom went to a church fair down near the ‘main line’ of Philly today. I try to go once in a while, but it’s an hour away and if you don’t go right when they open, everything gets picked over. It’s like an elephant stampede to rush to the book tent or the knick-knacks. The people who donate have some money, so it’s a popular fair. Every year they have 100s (maybe thousands by now) of people come and they charge an admission which is getting steep-like $5 a person to walk around and then buy their donated stuff! I overheard someone there about 15 yrs ago say they made 90K from it-that’s only in 6 hours! With all the moola,you’d think they would get the white elephant tables out of the old horse stalls and get some bigger, nicer smelling tents. Most of the time you can’t move from one table to the next. They run out of food early too. I wonder where all the money is going? The main reason I use to go is for my auction sales. After last year, it wasn’t worth me going again this year. I use to go there when I was a little kid too.

True! Down in West Philadelphia a few nights ago, a buck (deer with antlers) somehow got into a chicken joint! Now this area is all row houses with no open spaces except for Cobbs Creek park that is miles away. I am just picturing this buck walking through the streets of Philly. He must have been walking down alleys as no one saw him before he got himself stuck in the restaurant. He head butted a few teens, but they were okay. The authorities finally tranquilized him and got him out to return to him to ‘the wild’ somewhere. It was weird seeing his deer hooves hanging over the side of the stretcher. The reporter said about the experience, “Now I’ve seen everything.” Check out the photos of ‘Bucky’ at the following link:
WPVI.com: Deer Trapped in Restaurant