Life Through the Eyes of my Scattered Brian

Last night at midnight, through the work week, the idiot two doors up decided to start celebrating the 4th of July early. I heard the fireworks about an hour and 15 minutes after me falling off to sleep. Now, keep in mind, my sleep is important because I have so many sleep issues as it is. So here I am sleeping so well, when the noise woke me. I rolled back over and tried to go back off to sleep when I hear it again, and again …..and yet again! Needless to say, I was not a happy camper. I laid there a bit then I decided to get up and go stand on the porch. I guess the lights flipping on in the house kind of made them stop and think, because by the time I got the front door open, they stopped…….but by this time, I was awake and not at all happy. I was thinking that I wished they had those fireworks put where to sun did not shine and I had the match! I stayed awake for about 15 minutes, but the sleep had already been disturbed. After getting back into bed, suiting back up with my mask an

Today is my niece’s birthday. She is turning 17. Some friends of Lori and Ray’s that have been living in the guest house at Ray’s for the past 3 months have taken Jessie home with them for two weeks, so she is spending her birthday in the UK this year. Tim and Allsion have been here while Tim went to a flying school to learn to fly a helicopter. Tim will be returning to Nashville in two weeks and will be bringing Jessie home then. Jessie is a mild and meek girl, very quite. Sometimes you do not realize she is in the room. That is a difference from all the others in my family. We are vocal, and people know when we are around because we like to talk. I met Jessie when she was about 7 years of age. Her Mom, Lori, married my brother, Ray and I was blessed with a new sister in law, a new niece and nephew. Jessie is a tiny blonde that loves chicken fingers and fries! I remember on our cruise that is all she would eat. But even with that, she doesn’t eat a lot. She and her Mom are really cl

Happy Birthday, Ray This is our birthday month….Mark, Holly, now Ray and then Jessy. So bear with me in my b-day wishes. Ray is my oldest brother. There is about 2.5 years between him and I and then 2.5 years between Mark and I. Once again, I will not tell my brothers age since he probably would not like that! Ray is a business man thru and thru. He attended college at Vol State for a year then he went to UT Martin for several more. He majored in accounting. I can remember when Ray kept books at home as a teen. He had his own log book where he put down everything that had to do with money. He cut yards for money then and that was added in the plus column of this log, then when he spent some, even a quarter, it was logged in the minus column. If he was just a few cents off he would figure, and refigure and try to come up with where he went wrong. It did not surprise me that he decided to become a CPA. Ray graduated from college then he moved to Chattanooga and worked there. Only to move

I have always liked dolphins, but my daughter Amber loves them. They are such beautiful creatures that swim with such grace through the water. I have been lucky enough to say that I have swam with them, petted them and even received a kiss from one. With my fear of water and the fact I can’t swim, that is saying a lot. In October 2006, my lovely sister in law and I took another cruise (our second). We flew to Miami Fla. to board our ship and from there we traveled to Cozumel , Mexico . Once there we got off the ship and prepared for our swim. There were two dolphins that we were to swim with. We had two coach’s ( to coach us) or trainers ( for the dolphins). There were several people in our group including Lori’s Mom, Eva, and her Dad, George. Let me just say right now that I am George’s adopted daughter according to him…and that is just fine with me. We were introduced to the dolphins when they were told with hand singles to swim in front of us standing on a gated type platform a

My grandson Caleb has loved learning since he was a little thing. Even the littlest thing, he would listen and soak it all up. I started teaching him when he was a few months old with animal sounds. Teaching him the sound and then telling him what animal it was. We did colors, trees, bushes, birds and even state capitals. Before he was 4 years old he knew 32 state capitals. A lot of those we did not stay on top of and he has forgotten most. If I was working around the house with a screw driver or hammer, cleaning….whatever, my little shadow wanted to be a part of it all. I taught him to use that screw driver and hammer as well as the vacuum cleaner. By the time he was two, he was excellent with a toilet brush! Scared me at times because I worried about child labor laws! I taught him how to make his bed….and mine. Actually, we made mine together making a game of it. That was how I taught him a lot of things, making a game of it. He learns so fast and retains what he learns. He use to he

Holly has grown up on us all to fast. I remember when she was born, that was 14 years ago tomorrow. Her parents are my brother, Mark and Kim. She is an only child and she has her Dad's sense of humor. She is a cut up and an entertainer all the way around. There is not much this girl can't do. Mark was racing before Holly came along at the old Nashville speedway. The night that Kim was rushed to he hospital to have Holly, Mark was due to start on the pole at the track. He handed the car over to Steve Addington to run the race in his place. Steve took home first place that night and when he was interviewed he made the statement that he won that race for Mark. Later Mark stopped racing since he did not want to take any chances, he wanted to be able to be around and raise his new daughter. Holly was different then most babies. When trying to get a baby to lay down and sleep, you usually keep everything quite, not with Ms. Holly, most times to get her to sleep they ran the vacuum cl

When I was younger I never thought about a dragonfly with any interest. I just thought of them as flying bugs that hung around the lake when we went fishing with my Dad. At that age I never looked at them as a form of beauty. They were just pesky bugs flying around. I remember hearing them referred to as “Snake Doctors” from my Mom. The last few years I have begun to look at them so differently. They are so colorful and so graceful in their flight around. I took more notice to them about four years ago when a friend’s daughter was graduating from high school and I was to fly to Florida to attend the event. She so loves the dragonfly so I felt that would make a great gift. No, I did not take her a dragonfly; I painted her one on canvas. At the time I was studying them in books to see just how to paint one, I then noticed their beauty. Then last year I bought myself my first “real” camera; a professional like camera. Not long after getting it I was in the backyard snapping away when a be

SURPRISE! Hi all. My nephew Cobi, age 15, has been attending a boarding school the last two years (here in referred to as JAIL) in Colorado. He came home this week for good, or did he perform a daring jail break??? My brother, Ray, had a welcome home party for Cobi Friday night. A SURPRISE party. We all arrived earlier then Cobi. Mom was to bring him later, as if dropping him off at home. Only to have him walk in on a house full of friends and family...all wearing correctional institute "orange". Ray had gotten everyone orange t-shirts with the name of school on the back with the words "county jail" after it. Cobi was totally surprised and I am sure touched. He was going around saying hi to all and everyone was fixing their plates with some really good food. When all of a sudden a real live police officer (friend of the family and Cobi's) came in with a Warrant for Cobi's arrest. He read off the warrant to Cobi and asked why Cobi left his school in Colorado

I have four items combined into one bill, handled by one company, AT&T. I did that to make paying bills easier, now I have to rethink that. I have my cell, my satellite service, my home phone and my internet with this company that I feel has bitten off more then they can chew, at least when it comes to customer service. There customer service pretty much sucks. You either have to call or be transferred to other people, or you get someone who acts like they know what they are doing, or you get one that try’s to sell you something else while you are calling to try and get a problem fixed. In April, I called about a download that was done to my cell, that I did not request and I was being charged $10.00 for. But now only that, because the download had happened, I keep getting message’s texted over my cell. The woman I talked with said that either they could block all text’s coming in, which I did not want. I don’t text but I get text’s. Or they could discontinue the download and that

Cloud of Witness group Last Friday night was Relay for Life at Summit Hospital in Hermitage, Tennessee. I don’t have a group but a friend of mine does. Tammy lost her husband in 2006 to lung cancer. He was a young man, actually right around my age. Tammy and Bill have two beautiful, good and sweet daughters. I know that the struggle through Bill’s illness was hard on all of them. But Tammy and the girls have their faith and have a great standing in their church. I know that the church and the members were a great support for Tammy and the girls in their time of need. A few months after losing Bill, Tammy got involved in Relay for Life. This year was her and the girls 4th year to have a group, Cloud of Witness. In the four years I have only missed one year that I was unable to attend Relay and support Tammy and her group. Last year I donated a painting to the silent auction with the proceeds going to Relay (Tammy’s group) and this year I donated a necklace and earrings to the cause. Als

I just want to do a shout of to my little brother, Mark. Today is his birthday. Not going to tell his age but lets just say that he is a little younger then I am. Mark was always my fix it man after I divorced. When I needed something fixed or looked at he was always there to see what he could do. I try not to ask anything of him the last few years since he has his home to do work on and keep up, plus doing the same for Mom and her yard. If I so much as mention something that I need looked at, he will say that he will do it. Knowing all along that he will try but he already has so much on his plate. He never knows how to say NO. Mark is a jack of all traits. He can do some of the most beautiful wood work. He made a sewing center desk for my Mom. Made of Oak and it is beautiful. It has a slotted drawer for patterns and one for spools of thread. He also built her a pine hutch in the kitchen as well as taking down her kitchen cabinets and replacing them with solid oak, handmade cabinets b

I commented on a friend’s blog this morning that I have been so busy that I have not been blogging daily like I was in the beginning. Spring and summer brings so much to do that you would not be doing in the winter time. For me it is the re-new part of life…..re-new the old, paint, clean, redo, work in the yard and all that kind of stuff. I have been working on trying to get some of those things done lately. I don’t cut my yard anymore (NO….it is not over grown), I hire my future son in law to cut my yard. Course, it would not hurt me to get out and do it, I could use that as exercise, but with the allergies that have been kicking in this spring, I am pretty much staying away from cutting. Also with that, I have not been working the yard, flower beds and things like that either. Flowerbeds use to be my out, that is when I did thinking and planning. I gave that up years ago when I was watching my grandson, Caleb in the evening while my daughter Amber worked nights. I live on a creek and

On Thursday, May 28th, a friend flew in from Ohio to visit. Nancy and I have been friends for a year and a half now but we had never really met face to face. We met over a website called Clubmom. Actually, Nancy and my cousin, Kathy became friends before Nancy and I did. We were all on the same site. Clubmom was a site (it is no longer a working site since December 08), where Mom’s went on to meet, discuss, talk, and to share pictures. It was a really easy site to get around in. When you signed up you were given a calendar on your page that you were able to download a picture to each day. Only one per day. The calendar would change over to the next month at the end of each month. But you could go back to any month and view anyone’s photo’s or go back by the year. You could post your family, pets, vacation spots, nature shots… just whatever you wanted. With this site you met Mom’s, and some Dad’s, you met their children or grandchildren, sister’s and brothers and pets. You were able to