Failing and Overcoming

Well, I knew I did too much other stuff over the weekend and I must say, if you're going to blow a test, blow it in a big way! And...I did, along with most of my classmates. Who ever thought that it would be a good idea to take a science course in the middle of the summer? My advisor, that's who. She failed to tell me that we would be covering four weeks of a fall or spring semester's worth of work in one night! Two and a half hours of lecture surely is hard to sit through and keep your mind and bottom in gear. The amount of memorization is staggering! My advisor thought that with my GPA I would breeze through Microbiology.

There is only one way to fix a goof up and that's to work harder for it not to happen again. I have always tried to work hard but I just let this one slide and I thought my innate love of Science would pull me through. That must have been most of my classmate's attitudes too, because professor said he'd never had a group as a whole fail a test on such a large scale! Tomorrow, out come the books and the internet to look things up that I don't understand in the book.

By the way, why do professors make you buy books that you NEVER use and spend anywhere from $50.00 to $350.00 on them. I have had 28 college classes, I have had maybe five that I really used my books for. They also have to point you to the school bookstore to buy them, where if you are so inclined, you may pay full retail for them. After the first semester of school I learned about Amazon, EBay, Cheap Books, and OZ. I have bought new books for much less than half price. Not only have I learned to blog this summer, I have learned to sell my old books and maybe make enough money to buy my fall books! I may put a little more information with my books than others do and maybe that's why they have sold so quickly! I always tell if there is writing in them. I only use pencil if I do write in them. I mean they are just like new when I say they are like new. I detest buying a book from someone that is NOT what they promised. I have learned to find my professor's web sites and find out what books I need before I take their class. No more full costs books for this girl.

Most teachers have notes on their web sites, plus outlines and their power points. Technology will get you nearly anywhere you need to go in both of the colleges I have attended. There was none when I was in high school. We still had slide rulers for Pete's sake! Hand held calculators were just coming out and did little more than add, subtract, multiply, and divide. You were uptown if you had one that did percentages and the teacher's wouldn't let you use them in class. Now they do the Quadratic Equation and factoring! Now we need a class to learn how to use them. Mr. Forrester and Mr. Blalock spent a great deal of their time showing us how to use them for each section of Alegebra we were in. I got extra help from both of them. I stayed for tutoring every day and when I couldn't remember their tricks for a problem I would stroll to their offices for their advice. I would write detailed instructions, but I couldn't remember them for five minutes. The first quarter I spent with Mr. Blalock, I cried every test. I gave that up when I got to Mr. Forrester's class. They had many a laugh over me. I am Algebra challenged. I just cannot remember formulae to save my life! But I hope that you are impressed that I know formulae is the plural of formula! I pulled a "B" from Mr. Blalock and and two "A's" from Mr. Forrester. That's how far you can go with a little, okay... a lot of determination! I may never be a whiz at Algebra, but I can write an essay in fifteen minutes flat (with references) and read a 400 page book in two days.

This blog makes me sound ancient. I am not. I am 52. I am many times the oldest person in my class. Most of my classmates think I am in my thirties until I tell them differently. I am proud to be the "old girl" in my classes. And with the exception of Ultrasound Physics and Microbiology, I have always been at the top of my class. If you think you are ancient, you probably are. Go out today and do something that makes you feel young. Ride that old rusty bike down the river trails, buy a kayak and paddle the rivers! Go register for those classes you've always said you were going to do. Learn something or do something new everyday. You might just surprise yourself. Love God, Love People, Love Living Life.

First Test and Father's Day

Well it's that time again. The first tests of the summer semester is on Monday. I despise first tests. You never know how that particular professor is going to test, what style of tests will any particular professor use? You don't know what to study so you study EVERYTHING and it's hard to remember ANYTHING! I stress so much over the first test that I nearly become ill. So I have two tests with two different professors on Monday and they are both the day after Father's Day.



It's so hard to allot your time so that everyone gets attention and you spend enough time studying. Not only do I have to schedule study time but I also have to do the housework, mow the yard and I so need to do the laundry. There just isn't enough time in the day!



Freddy is a wonderful Dad. He has two boys, Wayne and Scotty, and we have Nicole. The boys have grown up to be great young men and Nicole is growing into an adult. Where did all the time go. Wayne and Scotty were 11 and 9 years old respectively when I came along. They are independent and have their own homes. I hope they have the life that they want. Nicole is still in school and I really hope that she likes digging in the dirt since she has been studying horticulture for the past three years. I don't know what is in the future but it sure has been a good ride with our kids.



Freddy is so patient with me and going to school. I have taken full loads every quarter or semester since September of 2006. I can't believe I've been in school this long! Three years! I took all college level classes at Coosa Valley Tech and had 71 hours invested there. Then I didn't like the Vascular Technology program after I got in it. In January of this year I transferred to Georgia Highlands College and became a freshman again. After checking my advising transcript today I found out I am now listed as a Sophomore. I still have two more years to go before I finish school. I so appreciate Freddy for sending me this long.

I hope that most days in life Freddy is content. He has such a stressful job! He is the Engineering Manager at Sara Lee here in Rome. There is always some kind of mechanical problem/project going on or some kind of issue with employees. I know though that he does a great job! I'm sure that though the sacrifices he makes to work at such a high stress occupation keeps him so busy we are glad to be able to live in our own home again.

After twenty-seven and a half years of marriage, we finally know most everything about each other. I know what he likes and doesn't like. I know most of the time what he's thinking. I know what kind of clothes he likes. I know he loves photography. I know he loves his family. I know that he loves Lexi, our Yorkie. I know he loves to eat fresh strawberries. I know he loves God. I know he loves to pick his guitar and sing songs that he wrote. He also likes to sing in the choir. I know so many things about him, and yet, there is much I don't know about him. He can still surprise me after all these years. That's the best part of being his wife.

Life may be hectic, without enough time in the day to do all I need to do, but I'm privileged to be in school, I'm happy to be a mother and step-mother and I'm happy to be a wife. Living Life, wouldn't take anything for living in my zoo!

Uncle Barnard

Today is Uncle Barnard's eighty-seventh birthday. He is still in good health and works two different jobs. I think that's what keeps him going. He has never stood still for too long at a time.
He never married and helped raise me and my two brothers and sent my Aunt Jean and Uncle Guice through college. He is always visiting "old" people in the nursing home, hospitals, or the homebound. He taught us to do the same. He is a most awesome man.



I don't know what we would have done as we were growing up without Uncle Barnard. He bought all my school clothes. Right before school started every year, he would come home with seven to nine dresses and tell me to pick my five favorites. I always was looking good when I went to school that first day. On my birthday, December 29, the whole process was repeated.



Every Friday evening when Uncle Barnard came home, he would come with a trunk load of groceries. We would all go out and help bring them in. Every other Sunday he cooked a pot roast with all the trimmings. On the other Sundays, Mama cooked fried chicken. We never knew how many people would be coming to eat. We always had cousins, other aunts and uncles, and friends who would show up on Sundays to eat with us. Most of the time the preacher and family would be there too.



We had a host of friends who would come on Saturdays or Sundays. Sometimes Uncle Guice would play the Hammond organ and Uncle Barnard would play the piano. Donald Hammonds would play the piano too. Donald taught me to dance "The Pony, and the Mashed Potato, and the Watusi" in grandmother's living room. Uncle Barnard would cut the rug with me too. The Meyers Sisters worked with Uncle Barnard years before I was born and came often to visit. Uncle Guice's sweetheart Nelli Burt was usually there too. The bigger the crowd the happier we all were. I still love to have company and I guess I got this from Uncle Barnard and Mother. Our door was always open. I don't remember our door ever being locked when I was a child. I don't even know if there was a key to the house.



Uncle Barnard lives in the home place that my granddaddy built out of huge rocks that he and my mother snaked out Town Creek with oxen. Some of them are four to five feet tall. The outside and inside of the house are made of these. It doesn't take a lot to keep it warm in the winter or cool in the summer, but if the rocks ever get cold in the winter it takes quite some time to warm them up! When we were kids, Mother and I slept in the back bathroom, Grandmother in the front, Uncle Guice in the bedroom off the kitchen, Everett and Terry slept in the attic, and Uncle Barnard slept in the little house out by the road. I don't know how but we all fit and we often had company too. Uncle Glysco, Aunt Lela and Mickey would come for a visit once a year and so would Uncle Edward, Aunt Ethel, Butch and Laura. Aunt Eulene and Uncle Yewell came every year with Melinda and Robert. Uncle DeArmond and Aunt Hazel came once a year too. By the time I was old enough to remember, their kids were already grown. When I was little, I thought our house was huge. Now it is small. Isn't it a wonder how our perspective changes when we grow up? There was always enough room for everybody though. The kids would sleep on pallets and as soon as Grandmother got up we had to too. We had to fold the quilts and put them away in case we had company to visit whatever company we had.



We would always sit outside when it was pretty. We had lawn chairs every where and a picnic table. Grandmother would make sweet tea and we drank it out of those aluminum glasses that everybody had in the sixties. They gave the drinks a sharp taste that I loved. There was nothing like water from the spring in one of those glasses! We would have watermelon cuttings and them cut the rinds up to feed the cows. Uncle Barnard never really liked the cows. It was something that Uncle Guice and I did. Uncle Guice always kept a milk cow until Everett and Terry graduated from high school and it almost broke my heart when he sold the last milk cow. Of course, I never had to milk! I might have felt differently about it if I'd had to do it.



Aunt Jean and Uncle G.B. came with Brian and Tim nearly every other Sunday to see us. I would run out to the car and tell them every thing that had happened since they were there last and Aunt Jean would say that they never needed the news when I was around. I guess I still do that through my blog. Aunt Edith and Uncle Lester came pretty often on Sundays and I never could figure out how they went to church at 11:00 am but got to our house, an hour away, at 12:00 noon. I was probably in my teens before I figured out that twenty-five miles away the time changed! Aunt Edith never came to visit me without bringing me a gift. She made me an Easter outfit several years when I was a little girl. When I would go to visit her on Lookout Mountain she would put me in her little VW and take me to Loveman's in Chattanooga and buy me an outfit. Then, when I was properly dressed, gloved, hatted, and shod she would take me to the Reed House for lunch. Most of the time I thought she was the cat's pajamas but sometimes she was stern like Grandmother and I would want Mother to come get me.



Vondell, Glenda's husband, would fly over the house sometimes in his little plane and buzz us several times. He'd actually holler out the window for us to come to the airport and pick him up. He took me on my first airplane ride. I thought I was going to die when we went over the edge of Lookout Mountain and we hit the down and up drafts! It was the first time I saw our house from the sky. I thought our little farm was beautiful.



At Christmas, Uncle Barnard and I would take a van full of toys to the United Methodist Children's home in Selma. I never could understand why children of divorced parents could be in an orphanage. I couldn't understand that there were children with two parents that at least one of them didn't want those kids. Everett, Terry and I may have had divorced parents but we never had to worry where our next meal was coming from or be cold or without nice clothes. Uncle Barnard and Uncle Guice took care of all our daily needs. Our other aunts made sure we had treats through the year. Aunt Jean would dress me up and take me to see Santa Clause and have my picture taken even though I didn't really believe in Santa anymore. Aunt Flora, Grandmother's sister told me there was no Santa Clause when I was four. She used to keep me when Mother worked at Forrest Avenue Elementary School and it was against her religion or something.



Uncle Barnard has always been kind and wonderful to all of us in this huge family we had. I don't know what we would do without him and I hope he has many more birthdays to share with us. I hope I get to emulate the wonderful life Uncle Barnard has had so far. Living Life...sure has been a trip with Uncle Barnard.

Paddling the Etowah

Yesterday Nicole and I joined nearly seventy other river rats and paddled 10 miles of the Etowah River. It was gorgeous! We arrived at Osborne Park in Euharlee where we met up with the other paddlers. We were even a little early and... if you know Nicole that was a major accomplishment! She is not much of a morning person but she really hung in there yesterday.

There are no boat launches on the Etowah except in Rome, so we had to go down a steep little path to get to the creek that led to the river. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was! One of the best things about the trip was Alan Crawford, the person in charge of Adventure for the Coosa River Basin Initiative, is a paraplegic. Some of the men from the Initiative made an aluminum frame with wheel chair wheels and webbing across it for the kayak. The rolled Al down a very steep bank and got him in the water. On the water, Al was not disabled in any way. We had a great day with Al and appreciated all his efforts.

This is the launch site at Osborne Park in Euharlee. It was fairly steep.


We paddled about half a mile on the creek and then the river opened up before us. There were several fishing weirs on the trip. These were places where the Cherokee placed rocks in the river to herd fish into a narrow space and then they caught them with nets. There are rocky shoals all along the river and most places it was only a foot to waist deep. We floated several miles and took a group break on an island. Nicole pointed out some animal tracks in the mud. "Deer tracks," I said. I asked her if she was surprised that I knew that and she replied that no she wasn't. I know everything. For once she wasn't ill with me or anything almost all day! We got back in our boats in swift water and I lost my paddle. A lady said, "Here I come!" She and I got to the paddle at the same time. Nicole laughed at me. Her laughter was like silver over the water. Nicole took this picture of me when we got to our first rest stop. An island in the middle of the river. This is the group of nearly 70 "River Rats" who had a great day on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 This is me just paddling along about to go under Hardin Bridge. My back was really killing me, this little boat doesn't have an adjustable seat, and I thought I would just try so sit on the back of the boat.





Just before Hardin Bridge Road, I decided my back just couldn't stay in one position any more! I tried to push up to sit on the back of my sit-on-top. Big mistake...that boat whipped me over the side faster than you could say, "Jack Sprat!" I came up spitting and hissing. My life jacket was too big and it was about to kill me! I thought I was going to drown from the life jacket! It came above my ears, pushed my glasses all cockeyed, and knocked my hat up on one side, down on the other. Nicole was having a fit. She laughed so hard she could hardly catch her breath. The other thing that amazed me about this spill was that it didn't even turn my can of Sprite over! It was sitting there in the boat right with my shoes. They had not moved one little bit. The water was just the perfect temperature after I got my breath back and I would have floated until I could reach the bottom but Nicole was freaking out! She doesn't like to be in water that she can't see her feet. Well, I didn't care that I couldn't see my feet, it was great. I guess I floated a hundred feet or so when there was a rock just under the water that I could stand on to get back on my boat. There were no witnesses to my embarrassing spill, the people behind Nicole and me were around one bend in the river and the people in front were too. But, I have the pictures to prove it. Nicole says that when I die she's going to blow it up and put it up for everyone to see. I told her if she died before I did, I have naked baby pictures of her!

Well, I tried to sit on the back of the boat and this is the result...an unexpected swim. My lifejacket was too big and it knocked my glasses and hat all catywampas. I thought I would drown from the jacket! I picked the one place in this whole stretch of the river that the water was over my head to turn over.
This is me just chillin' and being cool after my "swim." Whew!

We came to a rock place with shoals all across the river for lunch. It was a beautiful place and people were body surfing over the rocks out in the middle of the river. Our canoes were wedged over some logs and there was a huge spider underneath it. When it was under the log, it was black, when it crawled on top, it turned a light gray. I didn't know that some spiders were chromatophores! It had a leg spread bigger than a silver dollar. Another spider with shorter legs and a big round abdomen kept crawling up on the front of Nicole's boat. She has arachnophobia. She wasn't even in her boat. She was standing on shore eating her sandwich. I flicked it off and dang! that spider came right back up the side of that boat. I flicked it again, this time it got caught by the current and it was bye bye spider. It's good to be the Mama that's not afraid of things to save my daughter from even if it's just a spider. When we got back in the boats I got stuck against the rocks at the Class 1 rapids. I finally pushed the back of my boat away from the rocks and pointed straight ahead and shot across them. Another party was crossing across the river from us. The spilled and all their stuff came out of their canoe. Several people in canoes turned over. Our little sit-on-tops were very stable as long as you don't try to climb behind the cockpit in the deepest water on that stretch of the river.

Many of the creeks around Rome have trash in them. When you walk you see plastic shopping bags up in the trees from people just throwing them down, and then the wind and rain sweeps them in the creeks. When it floods from heavy rains they float on top of the water and wind up in the trees. I didn't see one bag in the trees on the river. It was remarkably clean. Mark Lamade, the CRBI board president, found a plastic gas can complete with the spout. He tied it to his kayak and pulled it behind him home. He said that he always came back with more than he started out with. I saw one red plastic disposable cup in the river but somebody picked it up before I got to it. We also carried a plastic bag, tissues, and a trowel in case nature called on the trip. It did. I do believe a 2 piece swimsuit is in my future. I didn't think about getting a wet suit down and back up while I was in the woods. Nicole was much faster than I was, she didn't have to get completely undressed! We packed all out our accoutrements. The only thing we left behind was footprints.
This is Nicole just after we went through the last rapids. She didn't follow me, choosing her own path and it swamped her boat.
Nicole's legs in her swamped boat. She didn't like this too much.

Nicole bailed her boat out with her shoe! When in doubt just improvise. We were less than a mile away from the landing site so she was alright.

You might be surprised how quiet it was on the trip down the river. Once we left the park in Euharlee until we got to the takeout on 411 there was not one sound of a car engine. There were only the birds calling to each other.There was one pack of dogs at someone's river house. They came to edge of the river to greet us. One was a mastiff and three were pugs. They looked like miniature clones of the mastiff. We got a kick out of them. We saw a few people on the banks or in skiffs with trolling motors fishing. Other than that the only people we saw were in our group on the river and we were a fairly quiet bunch. It was the most peaceful place I've been ever in Northeast Georgia. The very last rapids we went over, Nicole spilled her half full Dr. Pepper in her lap. We laughed and laughed.I knew when the end of the paddle was near because I could hear cars again. It made feel just a bit melancholy, but also glad to be back in my normal habitat.
All in all, this was one of the best days I've had in a long, long time. I can't wait to buy my first Tarpon sit-on-top with an adjustable seat and a lifejacket that fits! The river was beautiful. The company was excellent, and new friends were made. Saturday, June 13, 2009 is a day that will live long in my memory and a great day for just living life!

Sit On Top Practice

Well tomorrow is a big day, Nicole and I are going kayaking on the Etowah River from Euharlee to the bridge at 411. So I went to Piedmont and rented the sit on tops and got home with them about 6:30. Between thunderstorms tonight Nicole and I took one to her friend's pool to practice getting in and out of them in deep water. Tomorrow when we are on the river with a bunch of other river rats, we didn't want to take a spill and look like complete idiots if we took a spill in front of other people.





We did pretty well. I did turn mine back over several times trying to get back on because I weigh a lot more than the last time I got in a boat in the middle of the lake! Nicole was like an otter! She just slid back in. I feel a lot better now than I did before I practiced. When I was young I was just like Nicole and could slip right over the side. It took quite a bit of effort to haul this big old bottom in the boat but I did it! While I was paddling around the pool, Nicole curled up under the front of the boat and let me paddle her some too. Before you know it she had slipped her leg up on top of the boat and was sitting in front of me. She's so little she didn't even rock the boat.





There's still some kick in this old girl yet. Just Living Life, ain't it a hoot?

Classmate

One of my new classmates came in the other day and sat down right beside me. Sometimes I wonder at classroom dynamics and how we decide who we are going to sit with and who is going to be our friends.

This young lady is so hilarious. She is a beautiful African American girl. She told us she was emancipated at 16 after living with her grandmother who didn't like children, but it was the only place she had to go. For a time she lived in her car, then started sleeping in the church office at night. She is now married to a pastor, and a college student at 26. She is awesome.

There was something about her cadence of speech that struck a cord with me. I asked her where she lived as a kid. She grew up in the projects on MLK. I asked her if she ever ate at the Community Kitchen at North Rome United Methodist Church. She said, "Oh yes, we hit them all, the kitchens, the food pantries, everywhere they could get something to eat." I asked her if she remembered the lady who ran the kitchen...She replied that yes she did..."oh wait, was that you?" Well, yes it was. I founded Rome Urban Ministries Community Kitchen when Nicole was 2 years old. I did it because it was something I could do and take Nicole with me and because I needed a ministry and one thing I could do was cook for a crowd. I remembered this little girl because of her cadence of speech. She is doing wonderfully now after such a rocky start in life...

Many times I see former clients on the street, or at the store. Several are doing well now. You never know who or how you will impact someone in life. Maybe, just maybe years later you see something you did that bears fruit. Satin is not my client anymore, now she is my classmate...and my friend.

I used to say that when I died it would be wonderful for people to call me the "Lunch Lady." It still would not be a bad epitaph, but there is so much more to me. You could call me the eternal student. You could call me a wife and mother. I hope you remember I was just Living Life.

Falling Down

On the first evening of class last semester and the first evening at my new school as I was on my way to class, I fell down. I don't mean I just fell, I really WIPED OUT and slid about four feet on the pavement! Books scattered everywhere, my shoes came off, my glasses went flying. The first thing I did was look to see if anyone was watching. I was in the wrong parking lot (faculty only) but I didn't know it then and it was DARK. I didn't see anybody and was relieved! Then...a car door opened and my heart almost jumped out of my chest. A gentleman asked me if I needed help and I hastily said no. I gathered up my things and asked him if he knew where I needed to go. He replied that no, he was just waiting for his wife. He didn't get out of the car, I think he knew he startled me. I limped off to find my class.

In class, Psychology, no less, I pulled up my jeans legs and looked at my knees...they were bloody and scraped and ragged. My hands were scraped up too. I was trying not to cry because it hurt like hell! Then I saw the humor in it and began laughing. The whole class laughed with me. I had just started a reputation for being a clutz. You have to understand, I was SO clutzy growing up but I had not fallen since I fell in the ice in New York more than four years ago. I thought I had a graceful streak going! We laughed about my knees all semester. I still have a scar on the left knee and it took nearly two months for them to heal up completely.

Monday was a new semester, summer, and I was happy to be going back to school after the break. When I got home I was pulling my book bag up the steps and the storm door shut on the bag and jerked me down. I banged my arm up on the edge of the door! I peeled skin and got a bruise. Freddy was home for lunch and Lexi (our Yorkie) let him know I was here. He came to open the door for me and asked what was I doing on the floor? He didn't hear all the banging the door made as it closed on me! He, gentleman that he is, helped me up. My butt is still sore.

On Tuesday, my friend, Sandy, and I went bike riding. We rode the Heritage Riverways Trail here in Rome. I took her by the fountain at the Rome History Museum to show her how the Etowah and Oostanala Rivers come together to make the Coosa River. As I rolled up on the sidewalk, my front wheel hit a big crevice in the sidewalk and turned me over. I didn't fall to the ground because this magnolia tree reached right out and grabbed me. Scraped up my left shoulder and I guess I messed my right leg up on my bike! The magnolia right behind me in this picture is the one that grabbed me!

What's the deal with all this falling lately? Am I doomed to fall the first day of class every semester? I just want to prepare myself...Dear Reader, if you have any ideas of how I can break the new falling down streak just let me know!

Ghosts, Do You Believe?

Last night two friends from school and I went for a drink after class. Sweet tea with a bowl of lemons is my poison. One friend asked me if I had any encounters with ghosts. I said I didn't believe in ghosts, then I proceeded with my story...

My mother and Uncle Guice died six months apart the year I was 19. Still the worse year of my life. I never dreamed about them for years, but...My mother would come stand in my doorway every night about 3:00 or 3:30 and smoke a cigarette. I would sit up in bed, smoke a cigarette with her and we would have these short, wonderful conversations. For about two years I would wake up around 3:00 o'clock smelling smoke. I never saw my mother or smoke, but it seemed like she was visiting me.

Then, when Freddy and I were dating, my aunt didn't want me to marry him. He had two children and yegads! lived in a trailer. She thought he would have to pay child support for years and that he wasn't good enough for me. I had the concern that he had two boys, but not about taking care of me or the boys. The mattress was worn and I was sleeping on an air mattress on top of the old mattress. One night I woke up and I smelled cigarette smoke and heard my mother say as plain as day, "It'll be alright, Sis." When I got up I turned on the light and there was smoke in the air and an imprint on the mattress that looked as if someone had been sitting on it! Keep in mind it's hard to make an impression on an air mattress. I was at peace and nearly twenty-eight years later I am still married to the most wonderful man in the world. By the way, my aunt loves him now and I think she thinks it might just work out.

Still, I don't believe in ghosts! My mother and I were so close that I think on some plane she is still looking out for me. How is that? I don't know, the mind is not always rational.

I have dreamed of Uncle Guice and mother many times the last few years and they have all been good dreams. When I wake up it's almost like I had a visit with them. I am sure that if there is an afterlife, that my Uncle Guice is proud of me because I went back to school and my mother is proud of me because I have a happy life.