Saturday, June 30, 2012

Veteran's Memorial Park

 We have a new Veteran's Memorial Park. The dedication was this morning. The park has ball fields for the kids to play on - baseball, soccer, basketball.... The land was purchased in 1993, planning started in 2003 and it is just now finished. We had a nice ceremony pointing out that without the veterans, the kids would not be able to play ball like they can now. I hope some of them remember that when they go there. The Boy Scouts were there and helped with the raising of the flag. Sadly, we did not have any WWII vets there as they are pretty much all gone, but we had quite a few from Korea, Vietnam, Dessert Storm and Iraq. Every branch was represented, including the Coast Guard.










Six Word Saturday

To participate all you need to do is describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words. For more information, go to Show My Face. and Cate will explain it. Add an image, a video, a song, nothing.



Dedication of Veteran's Memorial Park today!

Friday, June 29, 2012

Five Question Friday

Time to head over to Mama M's at My Little Life for 5 question Friday!






Rules for 5QF: Copy and paste the following questions to your blog post, answer them, then watch for the linky post to appear and LINK UP!
Questions for Friday, June 29th.
 1. What's your favorite childhood snack that you still eat as an adult? Peanut butter

2. What food will you not eat the low fat version of? Cottage Cheese - the lowfat stuff is awful!
3. What's your favorite way to cool off during the summer? In the pool!
4. What's your favorite summer read? I've been reading a lot of the free Kindel books and some of them are pretty good - lately, I've been into the paranormal ones.
5. What are you doing to stay cool in this awful heat? See #3!


Follow Friday Four Fill-In Fun

Welcome to the weekly Follow Friday Four Fill-in Fun Blog Hop!


Photobucket

Each week, Hilary over at Feeling Beachie lists four statements with a blank for you to fill in on your own blogs.  This week’s co-host is Jen from Just Another Day – she came up with the last two statements. Hilary really needs co-hosts, so please email me some statements! She would LOVE it if you could please help her spread the word about this hop…. So, please tweet, FaceBook share, and add the linky to your post…


This week’s statements:
1.       Seeing a laughing baby makes me laugh
2.       sometimes watching the news_makes me sad
3.       My"Indian" (high cheekbones) looks take after my grandmother.
4.       When I hear rain on a tin roof I think of my childhood at my grandmother's house.



Thursday, June 28, 2012

Pondering With a Purpose

Thursday again! Time to do a little "pondering" with Brenda from Fiction With a Purpose.


Her rules are really easy:

1. Grab the Pondering with a Purpose Badge (in her sidebar)
2. Look at the week's prompt
3. Post something on your blog that relates to the prompt - it can be a story, a poem, a picture -- anything you want it to be.
4. Go back here and add the URL from your post to the linky list on Brenda's.
5. Go check out the other bloggers who have added their links to the list.
6. AND most of all.... Have fun!

This Week's prompt:  Punishments you've received

Well here goes - I was raised in a very strict Southern Baptist atmosphere. My mother was, and is, what I would call "the dictator of all dictators" - there are two ways with my mother - her way and the wrong way and heaven help you if you chose the latter. I don't know if anyone has noticed but I rarely mention my mother in any posts. This is the reason. I am her worst failure. To  say that we do not see eye to eye is an extreem understatement. And I am not talking about religion here because I am a Christian. But nothing I have ever done has been right as far as my mother is concerned and none of her "punishments" have succeeded in changing me. I have been slapped, hit, switched, yelled at and thrown out of the house. I left home at the age of 16 under circumstances that were not the best - all because I have a mind of my own. To better help you understand - my daughter says it like this - in Grandma's eyes I am the devil and she is Satan's spawn. For some reason, she loves my son though - go figure!

Lately, she has been calling and I received a letter from her telling me how "wrong" she had been. That she "put things on me that she shouldn't have." So what do I do? In my mind it is "too little, too late." But she is an old woman and I know that she will probably not be around much longer. Do I forgive and forget? Advice anyone?

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Hodgepodge

Welcome back to the Wednesday Hodgepodge! Be sure to add your link to the bottom of Joyce's post and then go visit the neighbors. After all, that's part of the fun! 
1. What do the words 'freedom' and 'liberty' mean to you? Does your mind go in the direction of not being persecuted or discriminated against or does it head in the direction of doing what you please?

Freedom - Americans have fought for our freedom. Young men and women haven given their lives for it. Freedom is the ability to live the way we want, worship the way we want, enjoy the God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -corny, maybe - but still true.


2. Nathan's sponsors a hot dog eating contest every July 4th. Last year over 40,000 people attended the event and almost 2 million watched it on TV. The winner ate over 60 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. How do you like your hot dogs?

With mustard and cooked over a fire!

3. If you were going to enter an eating contest what would be on the menu?

I like watermelon but don't think I could do a contest - actually don't think I could do a contest with any food - not that I can't put it away at times - but I really don't want an audience while I'm doing it.

4. Do you run your house more as a dictatorship or a democracy?

I, of course, would say a democracy. My children may disagree with that though.

5. Where was your favorite summer place as a kid?

Home - I've always been a home body. Home to me, would be the hills of VA.

6. Do you have a guest room? Would you want to stay there?

I do have a spare room but it's nothing fancy. I wouldn't mind staying there but then it doesn't take much to make me happy.

7. Next Wednesday America celebrates her independence. Do you have any special plans for the 4th of July? If you live outside the USA when and how does your country celebrate its own patriotic holiday?

No plans as of yet.

8. Insert your own random thought here. 
 
As far as the forth of July goes - we get a day off in the middle of the week which I'm not complaining about but I'd much rather have a Friday or a Monday off . That way you'd have more time to actually do something. Anybody taking Thursday and Friday as vacation?

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Chats on the Farmhouse Porch

It's time to head over to Patrice's porch for the weekly chat.




Questions
  1. What's your favorite day of the week? Why?
  2. Do you have a blog? Please tell us the name of it and how long you've had it.
  3. What's the last book you read? If you're not a reader, please tell us about the last movie you saw.
  4. Do you ever doodle with a pen or pencil while something else is going on?
  5. Tell me about your bathroom towels. What color are they? Do they all match?
My Answers

  1. My favorite day of the week is Saturday - the day I usually get a lot of things done - canning, cleaning, laundry, cooking....
  2. I've had my blog - Empty Nest in Illinois - since 2009. I started it as a way to keep in touch with my son and DIL when they went to England. They switched to facebook and I let the blog go for a while but resurrected it about a year ago and I'm soooooo glad I did. I've found a whole new circle of friends!
  3. I've been getting into the free paranormal books for Kindel. Not the vampire ones though, can't seem to get into those.
  4. All the time.
  5. I have two colors, some green, some brown. They are stored in a small cabinet in the bathroom Then I have a whole bunch of odds and ends that I use for the pool and cleaning.


Coffee Chat

 I'm joining the coffee chat again this morning! If you'd like to join, head over to Leslie's at Time out for Mom. The topic is: School's Out!! Whatchagonnado?

Unfortunately, school is not out for me. I'm taking one summer class. One very boring, worthless summer class on resume writing - it's a one hour class (and I needed the one hour to fulfill a requirement).