Let praise be given equally to women as well as men who have been distinguished in virtue.
- — Plato

Imagine that, Plato!  Who knew.  I just wish he had elaborated more, like intelligence, committment, etc.  But virtue is a good thing, and means a whole lot more than keeping your pants on anyway. 

I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!

My husbands grandma died last night.  I am sad for him and his mom.  I am sad for her brothers, and all the family but I am thrilled for her.  She was a tiny, ornery, firecracker of a woman with more than her share of Yankee common sense and guts.  In the last year she went down fast, she wanted to go and hated being bedridden and in pain.  After being active all her life, she lost her independance, she would ask my mother in law why God wouldn’t take her, last night he finally did.  It makes me sad that we won’t see her anymore.  I recognize that I am not crying for her death but at the loss all my in laws feel at losing their matriarch.  The strong woman she was all her life not the suffering woman she became.  I don’t care how old you are, losing your mother is a hard thing and no matter how expected it is you still hurt.  Loss is loss and the how and why don’t matter when your grieving.

What kept me awake last night!  Yeah I know I’m weird.     But it kept me from thinking about other sadder things.                              Why snail mail isn’t working:

If you mail a letter to the town 60 miles North of where I live, that letter has to travel 80 miles South before it turns right back around, goes through this town, and then goes North the originally intended 60 miles.  Hmm??  What really kills me about this system is that  this very same letter is picked up on it’s way to the town in the North, it’s just not dropped off because they “can’t” process mail there.  So it basically gets there twice.  Once on the day you mail it and then again in the next day or so when it gets sorted at the main Little Rock branch of the great snail mail center, to be sent on it’s backtracking merry way….and they wonder why they’re losing money.  I am sure in some beauracratic circles there’s a perfectly good reason for this, what it is escapes me.

Milk Duds are a truly underrated candy, I may eat them all before Friday. 

Smarties are addictive.

It’s finally feeling like Autumn.  For two weeks we have had warm temps usually in the upper 70s middle 80s.  Overnight we dropped almost 15 degrees.  The wind is blowing and the sky turned gray.  There won’t be anymore sleeveless shirts and procrastination time is over, I need to dig out my fall and winter clothes.  Now it feels like Halloween can arrive. 

I always buy the “good candy”  we don’t have that many trick or treaters so anything that’s left over I want to like.  I get the little candy bars like Snickers,  Kit Kat, Baby Ruth, Starburst stuff like that, if the kids had walkie talkies the word would spread “hey some crazy lady is giving away handfuls of candy”.  But they don’t so I always end up with a bowl of really good stuff. 

On the flip side, a friend of my dad’s lives on what’s called school hill.  All the houses are close together, and it’s the biggest concentration of houses in town.  It’s the place where kids can just run from house to house.  Dovie runs out of candy every year, no matter how much she buys.  If it were me I would just turn off the porch light.  I think most kids understand that universal signal and the ones that don’t, I would just tell them, “to late, all gone”  but that’s me, and she is a soft hearted little old lady.  Last year she felt so bad for running out of candy that she gave away instant oatmeal.  I can just see some kids face when he got home and dumped out his candy bag and saw oatmeal.  “WTF?”   But hey it was portable and in individual packets, and like I said she’s soft hearted.    My dad is going to buy her a couple of extra bags of candy and I may do the same.   Stem the oatmeal tide. lol          (Her fixed income is fixed way to low to spring for decent Halloween candy) 

 All for now maybe more later!

George is a big pig.  He is calm, sweet and oh so very patient.  He give new meaning to the word.  Case in point.

This is Budgie!  Budgie thinks George is a great playmate.  As soon as George moves Budgie runs out of his cage and gets as close to George as he can.  Trilling and kissing, whistling and following wherever George goes.  He even taught himself to drink out of Georges’ sipper bottle.  When I put Georges’ fruit and veggies down Budgies waddles over to have a nibble.  I guess he figures if it’s good enough for George it’s good enough for him.  Through it all George patiently goes about his business of being a big pig.  Even though Budgie is a get in your face bird.

This is Little Bit!  Little Bit belongs to my dad, but I’m taking care of him for a week or two.

Little Bit meet George

Did I mention George is a patient, calm pig.

The only thing George wanted to know was why he had to share his carrot.

I feel really bad for not posting in so long and I know that there are at least one or two nice people out there who wonder what is going on.  The truth is I am completely overwhelmed.  Things are not going all that great and I can feel myself slipping into a real depression, I just don’t know how to stop the slide.  So if you were wondering, now you know.

You are Form 5, Dragon: The Weaver. “And The Dragon seperated the virtuous from the sinful. He tore his eyes from his sockets and used them to peer into the souls of those on trial to make a judgement. He knew that with endless knowledge came endless responsibility.” Some examples of the Dragon Form are Athena (Greek), St. Peter (Christian), and Surya (Indian). The Dragon is associated with the concept of intelligence, the number 5, and the element of wood. His sign is the crescent moon. As a member of Form 5, you are an intelligent and wise individual. You weigh options by looking at how logical they are and you know that while there may not always be a right or wrong choice, there is always a logical one. People may say you are too indecisive, but it’s only because you want to do what’s right. Dragons are the best friends to have because they’re willing to learn.