Mamma Mia

I had to look to see if I'd already posted about this but the search says no.  I am getting a little senile...

I love this movie.  I know I am possibly the only one but the music makes me feel good and lets me sing along. I love Meryl, Colin, Pierce (who can get by with this campy singing only--never again please), Christine, Julie.  It must be because I am a child of the 70's and Abba.  I watch it when I want mindless entertainment.  My heart boils over when Donna and Sophie are getting ready for the wedding.  I miss my mom.  Big surprise there, huh?   And I have to be a Dancing Queen, all over the house.   I saw it on the stage and like the movie better.  So shoot me.  I watched it today.  Can you tell?

Happy Easter

Bunny Kiss

Anchors

This week at Weight Watchers the subject was anchors.  While they were of course talking about weight loss and what you can hold onto when you are weak I have now been thinking about anchors.  An anchor should keep you steady but not totally stationary.  And I can tell you that for the past few years I have been anchor-less.

I think it really started when I lost Mom.  And I lost Mom probably 3 years before she died in 2003.  She was the strongest person I ever knew.  Her mom died in 1945 when Mom was 16.  Grandma Betty, who I never knew, died at age 37.  Mom was the oldest child still left at home, Uncle T was about 11 and Uncle D only 3.  And Grandaddy climbed into a bottle it took him 25 years to crawl back out of.  Mom had to quit school and take care of things at home.  Then at 17, she married Daddy in 1945.  Cathy was born in 1946, Jo in 1947, a stillbirth son Michael in 1956 and then me, in 1957.  Along the way, over the years, she took care of her brothers, her nephew, her grandson Steve and a lot of others along the way.  She and daddy moved numerous times over the years and she did not have a home of her own that they purchased until about 1980.  After I was out of school. she had a couple of jobs but before that she was home with us.

Jo died in 1970, a victim of domestic violence.  She had a 2 year old at the time and Mom and Daddy raised him.  We used to tease her that with the difference in our ages she was a room mother for 30 years  I do know she was a great mom and grandma.  She made our clothes (well, not Steve's), she made our lunches, she made our school brownies.  She was the money person and took not much money over the years and sent us all to college.  Not all stayed but we all went.  And I only know now how poor we were and how hard it must have been.  There were always people worse off than us, people mom managed to give to.

Mom told a story of about 1947, it was the 20th of the month and daddy's payday wasn't til the 1st of the month.  She had 2 little girls and she had used her last cup of flour that morning to make biscuits.  She said she sat down at the table and began to pray because she did not know how she was going to feed everyone for the next 10  days.  While she was sitting there, there was a knock on the door and outside was a stranger.  He needed a refrigerator and had heard she had one to sell.  About a month before, she had put an ad in the paper but only had money for 1 week.  There was no response and it was all but forgotten.  Now, as an answer to her prayer, God had sent a stranger with cash to buy that refrigerator.  She took that money--I don't remember how much--and bought groceries and she said never again were they in that much trouble.  She had enough then and managed to save some after that.  We all made it through with no health insurance, no 401k, no welfare, no earned income tax credit, no food stamps.

After I left for college, she worked at a sewing factory and later she had a job driving a bus to bring older people to Lubbock.  She also had her office where she administered Green Thumb, a clothing dropoff and she helped people fill out government forms  She did not make a lot of money but she loved that job more than anything.  She was happiest because it was not a job that had her cooking or sewing.  She felt she really did an important job.  And the people loved her.  Then she had her first little mini stroke and basically they grounded her because she was a driving liability.  And it broke her heart.

Then in 1997, Cathy died of breast cancer.  And while losing her job bent her, losing Cathy broke her.  Burying 3 of her 4 children took it's toll.  Her health began to fail pretty quickly and she was at a point where she could no longer walk and daddy could no longer take care of her.  We had talked over the years about the nursing home, how it can be a prison or a home and she always agreed with that but when the time came, it was horribly hard on her.  I had thought about quitting my job to go take care of them but the reality was in 20 years I'd have nothing...no family, no home, no retirement...and she would not have wanted that  So we did the best we could and for the 1st year we cried a lot.  But she eventually settled in, a lot by her mind checking out.  She died in 2003.

My niece asked me if she thought Mom was happy and the truth is I think she was.  I think she would have liked some things to be different.  She would have like to finish school  She would have liked to keep her job.  She loved her family and was a great mom, a great anchor for all of us.  I do think in some ways she thought her choices were limited and they were.  I tried in her later years to help her try new things.  We got manicures, we went to Vegas, she'd come to my house (which she was extremely proud of) to spend the weekend and we'd go out to eat. She loved eating out because she did not have to cook it and people served her.  Before she got sick, we were friends too and those are memories that I will cherish always.

In my fluid and unending journey for self improvement I will work hard to solve my anchor problem.

Average Woman

As everyone knows, my weight loss struggle continues.  I am on a winning trail right now but it is now and will always be a struggle.  I come from heavy stock and I have ignored the problem for too long but I am motivated right now.  And I watch things like Project Runway where they make clothes for sticks and want us all to believe that a size 2 is a normal size.  But the research shows that the average woman is a size 14, not a size 2.  As I am out and about I see 1 person in a 100 who fits their size 2 model.  And that person would probably like to weigh a little more because, frankly, they look like 12 year old boys body wise.  I am now wearing size 12 pants and have a pair of 10's that fit but are not super comfy.  I hope to be an 8 by summer.  I am big on top so the bottom may make it but I have curves so it's probably not ever gonna happen top wise.  A 12 sounds bad  but I have been a size 20 and I feel so much better.

I saw a story that "fat is the new ugly"...  Apparently fat is the worst thing you can be on the planet you can be in some eyes.  I don't happen to think so but there will always be people who do think so.  Screw them.  I am  more than the size of my body.  Don't like me because of it?  Whatever.  One of the worst offenders I hear every day is Dr Laura who espouses every day her opinion on fat people.  The B can go butt a stump.

Albuquerque, February 2012

Robbie, Me, Kyle at Hard Rock 2-18-12

My 2 favorite traveling buddies and I drove to Albuquerque for the weekend, to get away and to play at the casino.  We drove over on Friday night and by the next morning, we were refreshed and ready for a couple of days of unplanned leisure.  First, we went to the Sandia Casino and lost a little of money there.   You can see my March 16 entry to see a pic of the hotel.  We did not stay there this time but have learned a couple of things and will be staying there next time.  We then went to Old Town Albuquerque where we looked in shops and had a great lunch--a tortilla burger.  It was a great burger in a flour tortilla instead of a bun and it had sour cream and green chiles.  It was yum.  And $3 per person!!  

We checked out many of the shops and found a photographer's co-op and talked to a lady there who had pictures for sale of the area.  While the boys bought a larger picture, I just bought some small note cards with photos on them for my collection.  This lady had taken pictures of old Whiting Bros Stations and Motels from the old Route 66, something Kyle and I had talked about before.  When we were younger, our family came from Arizona to Texas to visit my grandmother while Kyle's family went west regularly went west.  We were also told that even though it is now an auto repair shop, the last standing Whiting Brother's station and sign were in Moriarity, NM, which is just east of Albuquerque, so on the way home we had to find it.    Click here for some Whiting Bros History:

Whiting Brothers Info

Moriarity NM

 While we are lookers, we are not big buyers so not much $$ spent but we had a great time.  After a brief rest at the hotel, our next stop was the Albuquerque Hard Rock:

A nice & fun place

Notthing exciting happened but it was fun to look at clothes and guitars different people had donated to the casino.
Then, on Sunday morning we met up with my boyfriend Mike and his boyfriend Cecil for breakfast.  It was the first time any of the others had met and we had a great breakfast at Sandia and a grand time visiting.

It was a great weekend

Cecil & Mike

My Mom

Angela,

Mom was the middle child...your granddad was the oldest, then Aunt Honorah, then mom, Uncle Ted and Uncle Dan.  I'll try to download some pics of all of them.

You can see my mom and dad here:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txdicken/spur/m/mccombs_elmer_jo.html

Stars Off the Pedestal

It's not just Rosie.   I used to admire the talents of some actors but then you see some ugly true colors and, well, no thanks.

Mel Gibson:  Ugly racist rants.  Left his wife of about 30 years to live with a bimbo who brought him down and tarnished his rep beyond repair.  Buh bye.

Kevin Costner:  Had a child with another woman while still married to his long time wife.  Not only screwing around but not even having safe sex. Used to be box office gold, now playing Ben Affleck's brother in law.  Buh bye.

Brad and Angelina:  Possible nice people, appear to be good parents....he was married and she went after who she wanted.  Ok talents, not worth box office $$.  Buh bye.

Lindsey Lohan:  Liked her in Parent Trap.  Now she's a joke and an ex-con.  Still in show business LiLo?

Charlie Sheen:  Trainwreck.

Ahnuld:  Screwing the maid, knocking her up.  Bye Maria.

Jesse James:  Screwing around on Sandra Bullock?  It came out after she gave her loving Oscar winning speech for 'The Blindside'.   Apparently she was blindsided.  Prick.

Tiger Woods: Got what he deserved.  First with a golf club, then a divorce, then a career nosedive.

John Edwards:  So slimy that I'm surprised his name does not slide off the blog.   Cheated on wife while she was dying of cancer and then paid an aid to claim his love child so it would not ruin his political career.  How'd that work out for you?  Ick.

Just to name a few.