Today we went for a drive on Kentucky Roads. We followed Highway 68 over the Kentucky River and then to Perryville Battlefield. This is a Civil War Battlefield. Enjoy the pictures! This is my 2nd attempt at video added to my blog. http://www.slide.com/r/KR61V5Q_5j-kfWuPsGRAtnCVear9cm_I?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

A Bit of History for Today...

I've attached a picture of Junie in the fridge, Neffie holding a cup and I am the one in the ponytail with my back to the camera. There are a lot of memories stirred by this pictures. I'll tell you about this home in which we spent most of our growing up years. The address was 120 East Herndon, Shreveport, LA. The house was a long, white, frame home that stood maybe a foot high in places on brick footings in several places under the home so that the air could get completely under the house. You don't find many basements in Louisiana because of the water table being sooooo high. The house could have been divided in half from front to back to determine living areas. This half in the picture started in the front with a brick front porch that was completely covered. There were cement steps going to the front door. I remember my mom keeping a fresh coat of paint on those steps. You entered a big living room from the front door. It has a fireplace in it that was a gas one with pretend logs. Mom taught us girls to stand in front of it and hike our skirts up in the back to keep our legs warm. I have a cute picture of Andie doing after mom taught her the concept. From the living room you went through a set of french doors into the dining room. The upright piano was in here that each of us learned to play the piano on. Junie etched Rocky Chalmiers name in it also. There was an old round table for dining and a long hutch on one wall for storage. When Papa drove long-haul truck, we kept a map of the United States on one wall of this room. We had string and pins with big heads on them. We put a pin in the city he was in and wrapped string around it to connect it to the city he had come from. This helped us to feel closer to him as he traveled over the United States. The you went thru a swinging door into a breakfast room. This room had windows on one side and the little table was there. The other side had 2 corner cabinets. In the bottom of one of those was my Girl Scout manual and I can remember using it to learn to set a table properly. The counter top on the other corner cabinet had a pink depression glass cookie jar. Mimi won this at a fair as a child. She always kept it full of fudge or divinity or something sweet. Hence the sweet tooth we all have. Next came the kitchen with the fridge you see pictured. There was also a stove that had a griddle in the center and 2 gas burners on either side of the griddle. There was not dishwasher, that's what the girls were for. The shelves in this kitchen went almost to the ceilings which were very high. When we would misbehave (which was not often...), our favorite toys would go on top of these shelves. Then you would go to the little screened in back porch. This was were the washer was and eventually the fridge you see pictured went there after a newer one was purchased. The other side of the house started in the front with a big screened in front porch. It has a swing on it that now hangs from my deck on my patio. Mimi also made sure the floor and swing were painted regularly. This porch was great to play school in during the hot summer days. There was a door from the porch into the front bedroom which was my parents bedroom. Then you went into a little hallway with an alcove on one side for the telephone. This alcove had a shelf in the bottom to place the phone book. The other side of the hallway opened into the only bathroom. This bathroom had a built-in dirty clothes hamper in it's closet. The bottom half of the closet had a wooden counter with a door that you could lift up and drop your dirty clothes in. The front of the hamper was a gate-like door that you opened to take the dirty clothes out when it was time to do laundry. This was a great hiding place when playing hide-and-seek. From the little hallway you went into the last 2 bedrooms in the house. The first of these bedrooms had a closet in which hung a razor strap. This was made of leather and used to sharpen straight razors years ago. It was also the source of threatened discipline if we misbehaved (which I have already stated we didn't do...). I never remember that razor strap being taken from that closet. When we were cleaning our my parents home to move them to Kentucky, I asked Neffie if she wanted it. She assured me she did not. I brought it home and it now hangs on the hall tree in my basement bathroom. The back bedroom had a huge window fan to draw the air through the house in the summer. My parents let us paint it a great blue color and the blades we painted gold. The house had gas heaters. One in the living room in the fireplace, one in the back bedroom and one in the bathroom. There were probably others but those are the ones that stick out in my mind. The one in the back bedroom had a little shelf on it. We used to cut apples in half in the winter, core them, add sugar, butter and cinnamon in the hollow middle and put them in dishes on the shelf in the front of this little heater. It made great baked apples that way. When the old fridge in the picture was moved to the back porch, my mother stored some chicken in it. We went on a trip and when we came home there had been a power-outage on the back porch and the fridge was not working. Those chickens had little worms crawling all over them and they smelled sooooooo bad. I don't know how my poor mom cleaned that out but she did. When the fridge was in the kitchen, it always had a quart jar of tuna fish and a quart jar of pimento cheese in it for a quick snack after school or for lunch in the summer. Another thing Mimi would keep in there was any juice left over from anything that had juice in it. When she had collected enough, she would come home with a bit of dry ice and drop it in the mixture. It would bubble and the color would usually be dark from mixing so many things. We called this 'stump water' and it was always good.

Last night we attended the annual Trunk-or-Treat at church. Claude entered the chili cookoff. He did not win but made a great pot of chili none-the-less. He and Bart Barber from church have a friendly rivalry going when it comes to this chili cookoff. Yesterday Claude got an eMail on his blackberry and he looked at me and said, "Bart is talkin' trash." It seems Bart eMailed him with pictures of cats attached and indicated that Claude was preparing chili using cat meat. Claude returned the reply that in Sadieville we use 'possums because they have less fat. I also think mention was made of Bart using horse flesh since he is a veteranarian by profession. Incidentally, Bart did not win either. There was an interesting chili there made with pumpkin and cinnamon. One of the highlights of the evening was a dance number performed by 6 young married types. They performed in great costumes to 'Thriller'. We were very glad they did an encore performance at the end of the evening.

And Now We Present...

If you look closely, you will notice a new blog listed on the left of my blog. I'll give you a hint...it has to do with Kentucky...Okay...It is the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. That is right. My hubby is not Colonel Claude Christensen. He received his commission certificate this weekend. He eMailed all of his children. Nissa's response was...Why do you make coleslaw the way you do? and, What is the secret ingredient? Andie's response was...well, look at the attached picture and you'll see. Jake's response was...Congratulations and you now have my permission to get the 'Red Hat Ladies'. These are not exact words but close enough for this post's purposes. Way to go Big Guy!!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Today was a good day. I had the morning to accomplish stuff. I walked my full 30 minutes on my treadmill for the first time in 2 months. With colds and a bruise foot I haven't been able to do that. It felt great! Then I got lots of stuff ticked off lists. Made a trip into Georgetown and took care of some medical business with Papa. Then he and I practiced music for singing tomorrow at the nursing home. I got a chance to visit Mimi and she is so much more healthy and talkative than even Sunday when I saw her last. I was there to start her eating her dinner and she was going great guns when I left. She fell last night but didn't hurt herself. Then I hurried to Steak 'n Shake for dinner with the hubster. He got a chocolate shake with his meal and didn't want it so I quickly drove it to Valorie. She and Spencer had a great time sharing their shake. The I visited our new neighbors for a while. Her mother passed away this weekend and the funeral was today. Her mom had Alzheimer's and she was caring for her at home. It as a sweet visit. Now I'm home playing computer again. Great day. Last night I determined I would be happier with this as a journal if I included pictures and rememberances of my life. Tonight I'm going to post a few pictures of me as a baby. The are from 1951. I was born, July 30, 1950. That was a Sunday. The old poem states 'A child that is born on the Sabbath Day is fair and wise and good and gay'. From what my unbiased parents have told me in the distant past...I was a happy baby. I remember my mom telling me that they didn't have a crib for me at first so I slept in a dresser drawer. I have most certainly outgrown that phase of my life! I do remember early being sick with a cold or something and my mom boiling a whole onion in a cloth and squeezing the juice to give me. I believe she put sugar or something in it to make it taste a little better. I was born at the Baptist Hospital in DeRidder, Louisiana. My parents lived in what I believe was originally an old barracks building. It had been made into 2 apartments. I remember us living in one and storing things in the other. I remember a front room and a back bedroom and a kitchen with a door to the back yard. There were stairs from the kitchen to the ground. Papa made us a huge swing set in the back yard out of telephone poles he sunk in the ground. I had a recurring nightmare as a child that I was playing in that swing and Satan would come driving up the side road in a red car (Yes, I dreamed in color!!). I would run to that back kitchen door and as I was opening it and trying to get in, Satan had one of my arms trying to pull me out and put me in his car, my parents had a firm grip of my other hand and pulled me into our home to safety. Okay, go ahead a dissect that dream and tell me what it means?? We had a little dog that would run away to the neighbors up the street. He was an old man and I can't remember his name now. He made things out of wood. We had 2 little bitty rocking chairs and a rocking horse made by this man. I remember us girls loving these toys for many years. That's enough for tonight.