JUST SHARING A POEM I WROTE MANY YEARS AGO AS CHUCK AND I WERE DRIVING TO SEE HIS MOM IN THE HOSPITAL ONE DAY.

His mom was always sick with something all the years I had known her and she told me as a child, she would have to go home sick from school. She'd walk a ways down the dirt road, then have to stop and rest under a tree.

It always made me sad thinking about this sickly little girl, all by herself, traveling along a lonely road.

There is something really heart wrenching when I can picture her in my thoughts, and now she has been gone almost 21 years. What a shame she never got a chance to see her great-grandchildren. She was such a loving, kind, and funny person, they would have adored her as much as our five children had loved her.



Shades

Splotches of green, dabs of brown
Touches of white scattered around,
Shades of yellow interspersed with red
Some things living, others dead.

Dilapidated buildings share space with the new
Faded memories boast skies of heavenly blue,
Eyes of gray enhanced with unshed tears
Desperately reaching to bring back the years.

IN MEMORY OF A VERY SPECIAL MOTHER, BETTY!

Everyone have a wonderful weekend and we'll do the same babysitting
this little guy, our character of a two-year-old grandson.



God Bless Each and Every Streamer this weekend, and if it is your Spring Break, please be very careful.

Love,
Karen

Just wanted to post a little something before crawling into bed and praying I'm tired enough to go right to sleep.

But before I go, something has started to make a strange noise, and a rather large grasshopper has decided to invade my space.

So I have to go and hunt this Texas Critter down, because I don't think I want to go to bed knowing this creature could invade my bed space during the night.

Happy Friday Everyone!

Karen

Yes, it really is a true story.. http://www.snopes.com/glurge/nodesks.asp

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A FRIEND EMAILED THIS TO ME. IT REALLY TOUCHED ME.

MY DAD AND CHUCK'S DAD BOTH RETIRED MILITARY AND BOTH WERE IN WORLD WAR II.

CHUCK DID TWO TOURS IN VIETNAM.

MY NEPHEW RE-ENLISTED INTO THE MARINES RECENTLY.

MY NEWEST SON-IN-LAW SPENT 6 YEARS IN THE AIR FORCE AND HE'S RE-ENLISTING INTO THE ARMY.

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Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock , did something not to be forgotten.

On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom.

When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.

Looking around, confused, they asked,
"Ms. Cothren, where're our desks?"

She replied, "You can't have a desk until you tell me what you have done to earn the right to sit at a desk."

They thought, "Well, maybe it's our grades."

"No," she said.

Maybe it's our behavior." She told them, "No, it's not even your behavior.

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom.

By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms. Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.

The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom.

Martha Cothren said, "Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you."

At this point, Martha Cothre n went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.

Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall.

By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.

Martha said, "You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it."

By the way, this is a true story... . If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you read it in English, thank a soldier.

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I THINK THEY SHOULD DO THIS IN EVERY CLASSROOM IN EVERY SCHOOL IN THE UNITED STATES NEXT SCHOOL YEAR!



PRAYERS AND THOUGHTS TO ALL OF THOSE WHO ARE RISKING THEIR LIVES RIGHT NOW ON FOREIGN SOIL.



GOD BLESS!
KAREN

In the wee hours of the morning
Too many thoughts are rambling in my head
So here I sit, the laptop and I
Keeping one another company
I'm all cozy in my husband's recliner
While the laptop is cozy on a pillow
In my lap, which makes quite a bit of sense
More than I can say for all the nonsense
That decided to take up space in my head
This early Saturday morn.
I'm so glad it is the weekend, because
This week has been a little strain
On my body and mind, which will be
A year older on March 20th.
Now how did that happen so fast?
I just turned 60 I do believe, as I know
My mind isn't that far gone, but indeed
Another year has almost passed, so I
Will turn 61, looking younger, and
Feeling on top of the world if truth be known
Since we do now have another beautiful
Granddaughter, having bragging rights
Is a wonderful thing, showing off her sweet
Face to all who will put up with my
Grammy giddiness for the fourth time.
Oh yes, I love people, and so I have
Many friends in our small town.
I have my church family, my school family
And my hospital family, not to mention
My neighborhood family, so yes, I have
Been busy, oh plus the announcement
Will be in next week's newspaper as well,
Or the week after, who knows with a twice
A week, hometown newspaper? And of course
Many will see it and say, "Now how many
Grandchildren do they have now?" Ah
The beauty of a small town, although we live
6 miles out, yes indeed, we are truly
Established after 27 1/2 years, although
It truly did help us get our foot in the
Door of this tight-knit German-Czech community
When our oldest daughter decided to fall in love
With a wonderful young man from a wonderful local
Family, so we are no longer unattached
Outsiders, but actually related to the community.
I'm certain some of you on the Stream
Know exactly what I'm talking about Smalltown, USA.
Well, our newest granddaughter is in Georgia and
In June, our grandson, oh yes and his mom and dad
Will be moving to Charlottesville, VA, so looks
Like we will be making a lot of trips east.
Our youngest will also be moving, not yet knowing
When or where, but as soon as she and her hubby
Have all their plans made, I will let my
Stream family know, just to see if anyone
Might reside where they might end up.
So this is the make-up of my kids and their where-abouts
And the make up of where we are from.
I was born in Oregon, Hubby in Missouri
Our son was born in Virginia, but now lives in Seattle.
All of our four girls were born here in Texas
But all in different towns, with the exception
Of course with our twins. My mother was born in Arizona
My mother-in-law was born in Kansas.
We have one twin in Georgia, and in June
The other twin will be in Virginia,
With oldest daughter and two of our grandchildren
In a town 30 miles from us and youngest daughter
In Texas, but 8 hours away and where she and hubby
Will end up, as I said, don't know yet.
Wow! I'm worn out just thinking about all of that.
Oh, did I mention my sister lives in Oklahoma
And my other sister, who passed away with cancer
Several years ago lived in Utah, where her husband
And my nephew and his family still live.
Let's see. The cousins are in Washington State
Oregon, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky
California, and my precious Uncle Don in Florida.
I know there are more out there and I wouldn't
Be surprised if they covered about all the states.
So as you can tell, I am tired and rambling
As I said my mind was doing, but now I have
All of my rambles documented for all the world
To read and in one hundred years when someone
Might run across my rambles, they might just
Scratch their heads and say, "My, those 2008 folks
Were a strange lot indeed!"


Love you all,
God Bless and have a WONDERFUL WEEKEND!

Karen

OK, so I couldn't just write and not share the latest pics of our new Sweetie Pie.

I wanted to post this sooner, but we were in Lubbock, babysitting our precious grandson, Charlie, and finally home. Which isn't such a great thing, since we are missing him like crazy, but today we get to see two of our other grandchildren we haven't seen in weeks and they are equally precious and missed.

OK, back to my identical twin daughters, April and Amy. I'm going back in time, 30 years back in time to the wee early hours of the morning they made their incredible debut, astonishing my doctor the most.

Throughout my pregnancy, I kept asking the doctor if he was certain I wasn't carrying twins, and each time he was adamant about it, "No, there is one heartbeat, therefore, one baby."

Now you have to realize we were in a southwest Texas town where there were no sonograms to check things out, so there I was blooming more and more by the day and so totally miserable, always thinking a little foot was stuck between my ribs. Since I already had two other children, 9 and 5, that I would know that there was something not quite right with what the doctor was trying to tell me.

Well my due date was in April, so we decided on a girl's name, April, but we had also decided just in case the doctor was wrong, we would chose a second name and we finally agreed on Amy.

Midnight, February 28, 1978, 6 weeks before my due date, I went into labor with a vengeance. We lived a little ways out of town, so I called a friend so we could leave our son and daughter with them, got to the hospital, barely, and by 1:30 AM we had a tiny little girl, April, 4 pounds, 10 ounces.

But wait, the nurse, not the doctor realized something wasn't quite right with me. She felt my tummy and said, "Doctor, she sure is still rigid." After all of these years, I can still see the astonished expression on his face. I asked what was going on and he had to confess that there might be a possibility there was another child hiding within me. He reached up inside and said, "Um, I feel a foot." I so wanted to tell him at that point, "I told you so," but poor thing, I was afraid he was going to pass out as he was as white as a sheet.

OKAY, so you would assume, little baby number one came very fast, so hidden baby girl would pop out any moment, but no such luck. Either she was comfy, cozy where she was, or my body just wasn't ready to let her go. So as my poor husband had to wait outside after being told, "It's a girl, but we don't know what the other one is yet," we were all waiting for something to happen, but it didn't.

The labor had stopped and that was that. So what happens now? They gave me shots in my hip of something to persuade our little stubborn baby to make her debut as well, but she held on tight. So we waited some more and finally the doctor had had enough of this stubborn little breech baby. He literally reached inside of me, grabbed her by her feet and pulled her out of me. She was not a happy camper, this little 4 pound 3 ounce identical little girl to her twin who was born 1 hour and 5 minutes earlier.

Luckily they were healthy little ones, except Amy didn't like to be out of the incubator. Not because she was on any oxygen, just that she liked to be warm and every time they tried to take her out, she would be cold and holler and turn a shade of blue, which was quite discerning to us, since the hospital staff couldn't give us any straight answers concerning why this was happening to her. She was born with a birthmark on her lower leg that looked more like a blood blister, which actually was a good thing so we could tell theses two look-a-likes apart until we knew them better. After all, they spent 13 days in the hospital, and I probably cried a little each of those days.

See, our first daughter, our second child, was also a preemie, coming 2 months early. She had weighed in at a whopping 3 pounds and 9 1/2 ounces and spent a month in the hospital, half of that was spent not knowing if she was going to survive or not. Lucky for us Misti was born at the army hospital in San Antonio, BMC. They had a great program where little ones were flown in there to be taken care of, so, although it was quite an ordeal for us all, she not only survived, but has been our healthiest child out of our five kids.

Oh yes, I have two interesting stories concerning the births of our son, the oldest, and our youngest daughter, but now is not the time to relate.

Just wanted to holler out to my girls, A BELATED HAPPY "30TH" on the Stream. April received her precious present on the 21st, her little girl who was so wanted and so prayed for and God answered their prayers. The sad part is, Chuck and I don't get to see our precious new granddaughter until we make a trip to Georgia at the end of this month or the beginning or April, but when we get there oh boy, do we have hugs, cuddles and kisses all stored up to last a very long time.

Is there anyone out there in Blogstream land who just celebrated their birthday on the 29th? The year my girls were born, it wasn't a leap year, but my April was hoping their little one would be born on the 29th, but alas, her due date was March 6th, but a few little bumps were in the birthing road and she had to have a c-section on the 21st. But, our daughter and granddaughter are doing great and even got to hear her squeal over the phone while the other grandmother was changing her diaper. She and her husband are so enjoying their very first grand baby, that it really doesn't bother me we weren't able to be there for awhile since we have been there with our first three grandchildren and so glad the new grandparents are having a taste of the glory of it all. They are incredible in-laws, so they will be incredible grandparents as well. Our little granddaughter is so fortunate to have a set of adoring parents and two sets of adoring grandparents, just like our other three grandchildren have. Oh what a different world it would be if each child born was as wanted and as loved as our four precious grandchildren!!!

God Bless all the grandparents on the Stream because I know you feel the same way that we do.
Karen, AKA Grammy

P.S. MANY OF YOU PROBABLY KNOW THAT IF A BABY IS A PREEMIE, THE DOCTORS DO NOT ADMINISTER ANY KIND OF ANESTHESIA,, SO ALL OF THIS WAS DONE ALL NATURAL-OUCH!