A Day

This morning, I felt like I had been run over by a Mack truck and as I was trying to get up from being run-down, someone slammed me in the back of the head with a 2 x 4.  I guess I had too much fun yesterday and now am paying for it?

A lot of people, some, a few, one person has asked me what I was decorating for fall.  This is it.

Are you impressed?  No?

I don't do seasonal decorating, except a different wreath on the door.   Christmas is the big decorating time for me.
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I just got word from Maddie that she WILL be dancing in the Nutcracker Ballet again this year (her 12th year) and she will be dancing the Spanish Dancer solo part.    

                          (Google image)

She is going to be so great!!!

...and then, right after New Year's, she will leave for four months on a Mission to Guatemala. <sigh>

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Well, yesterday afternoon was really something.  I had asked Pearl to come down to take pictures of me as the Unknown Poser.  We were having a blast, laughing and re-taking photos and...just a lot of fun.

Afterwards, we sat talking about...lots of stuff and all of a sudden, Darlene busts in, with this in her hand.

"Look what I got for my good friend, Judy! It was on sale at Meijer's, but with my discount, I got it for one dollar!  I got four of them."

<I'm still wondering about the "good friend" comment>

Pearl said, "Oh.  A plant stand...with three holders.  That is so pretty!"

<I am thinking, I don't really need or want this.>

Dar:  "Yeah.  I just knew my dear friend would love it."

<now I understand.  The dear friend is for Pearl's benefit!>

Me:  "I wish I could use it inside, but Maggie eats any plant I bring in here.  It will be nice for my porch next spring. Thank you."

<I so wanted to ask, "if you got four, can you give one to Pearl?">

Dar plopped down in the rocking chair--Pearl was sitting on the couch, with Buddy on her lap.  Dar lights a cigarette and I immediately told her, "You can't smoke in here."

D:  "Oh sorry.  I forgot.  Pearl is allergic."

P:  "Yeah--smoke stuffs up my head, really bad.

D:  "What is wrong with Merle?  He looks terrible!"

P:  "Nothing is wrong with him.  Every test comes back negative.  He saw the cancer doctor last week and the blood report was--nothing wrong."

D:  "Well--somethings wrong with him.  He looks like death warmed over!"

<Egad woman--shut up!>

J:  "He had a sleep study test and those results aren't known yet.  That's probably his problem.  Probably the study will show that he's waking up several times a week and he needs a bi-pap.  After he gets that, he will feel much better."

P:  "I'm hoping that will cure him."

J:  "Pearl and I were just talking about how the young girls pose in pictures nowadays, and we wondered why.  We just got done doing a whole bunch of pictures of those silly poses."

P:   "It must be a new craze.  We never posed like that when we were young."

Dar jumped up and went into a sexy pose with one hand in the air and one on her hip.  "I posed like this in my bathing suit...when I was ten.  I was still a virgin, but I knew how to be sexy!"

<complete silence for at least three heart beats>

P:  "I hope so!  At ten, I hope you were a virgin."

D:  "Oh...I was sexual at a very young age.  I had sexual feelings...from the time I was four.  I have always been a very sexual person."

<the deafening silence once again--who knows what to say to these kinds of comments!>

D:  "Look!  I got my tooth fixed this morning."  She shows us her front tooth that had been chipped.  "I haven't been outside my house in four days.  I won't go anywhere looking like that!"

P:  "I sometimes forget to even put in my bridge."

D:  "You go out in public looking like that?"

P:  "Yes...sometimes...when I forget."  and Pearl smiles at Dar, showing that she doesn't have her bridge in.

D:  "Oh my gawd!  You look like a crone!"

  

P:  "I'm seventy-eight years old.  Why does it matter if I don't wear my bridge around the house?"

D:  "You should go home right now and put it in!  You'd look so much better when Merle gets home!"

<arggh>

P:  "He won't even notice."

J:  "Did Jackie go on another vacation?"

D:  "Yeah.  Didn't she tell you?  She's gone for the week."

P:  "That girl---she's never home."

D:  "She's home all the time."

J:  "Well, she sure travels a lot...and I think that's great...that she can."

D:  "Oh my gawd--look at that mess in Tami's yard.  Is she going to put that junk away?  I just might talk to Rob and see what he can do to make her clean it up."

J:  "I think they already mentioned it to her.  She and Ron have been staining their porch.  She will probably put it all away when they get done."

D:  "Well...you know...I have a lot of pull with Rob.  Either of you ever have a problem...let me know and I will talk to him and I will get it done!  She is completely nuts!  She really does have mental issues--I am glad I made her mad because now, she won't even say Hi to me.  I just might tell Rob--although I think everyone up at the office knows she nuts."

<yes..and guess what Baby, they say the same about you.>

J:  "That's why I have my room arranged this way.  So I don't have to look out that window and see her yard.  I moved the couch and re-arranged it different a few years ago...but...that couch is so heavy, I can't move it myself, and I don't really wan.........."

D:  "Get those things....those...you put under the legs and......"

P:  "Super Sliders?"

D:  "Yes.  You put them under the legs and just slide it wherever you want it."

J:  "I have those, but the couch is so heavy that I can't lift it.  Plus it's build on a steel frame and doesn't have............."

D:  "Oh--it can't be that heavy!  You just don't have any strength anymore.  I'm still very strong."

J:  "Okay--show me how you'd lift it."

<because I am just about done with this woman's boastfulness!>  

So Dar gets up, walks over to the front corner of the couch and gets on her knees to lift.  It doesn't budge.  Then she starts feeling around under it and says, "I can't find the leg."

J:  "I told you, it doesn't have legs.  You didn't hear me.  It's built on a steel frame.  Each section comes off, in order to move it and then...you are left with the frame, which is still very heavy to move."

P:  "Plus, it has a recliner on each end, so it is really hard to move."

Dar is still trying.  "Ow."  Then she grabs her thigh and stands up slowly.  "I think I pulled a muscle!"

P:  "We warned you."

So, we all sit down once again and Dar starts in on Pearl--again.  

D:  "I have lost seventeen pounds!"

P:  "Really?"

D:  "Yes. Can't you tell?"

P:  "I guess I hadn't looked."

D:  "Oh--I just cut out some of my carbs.  You should try it--you could stand to lose a few pounds yourself."

Pearl starts to say something and Dar puts up her hand, "No..wait..let me finish."

I sat and watched the inter-play.  Dar goes on with her "sermon" on what she has cut out and what Pearl should eat and not eat.  I am watching Dar, my elbow on the arm of my chair, chin resting on my hand, but I can move my eyes to the left and watch Pearl's reaction.  Of course, Dar points her finger at Pearl and goes on with her lecture.

Pearl didn't seem agitated...but when Dar FINALLY stopped to take a breath, Pearl said," Speaking of food.  Merle should be home by now and I need to go fix his supper."

J:  "Yeah...I saw him drive by a few minutes ago."

Pearl gets up and leaves.  I walk out to the porch with her and thank her for coming down and helping me with the photos. She is no more than off the front porch, when Dar lights her cigarette and when I come back in from saying Good-Bye to Pearl and sit down, Dar says, "Looney-Tunes.  Both of them are the Looney-Tunes of the neighborhood!"

I said, "I think they are really nice.  They have been there for me many times.  They both are really good friends to me."

Dar checks her watch and her phone and said, "Oh...I gotta get home too."  and I walk her out to say Good-Bye...and I do not accidentally push her down the front porch steps.  Wanted too.  Did not.

=====================

I walked up to Pearl's after supper and apologized for Dar's rudeness.  

P:  "I know you've told me she gets real aggressive and hyper, but...I've never talked to her very much. She's kinda scary, isn't she?"

J:  "She can be.  She only comes over when she wants to get something off her mind.  She does all the talking and I just sit and listen."

P:  "I went to say something and...she put her hand up to stop me."

J:  "I know--that is kind of rude."

P:  "Maybe that's just the way she jokes around.  She sure wanted me to know that you are her good friend."

J:  "Don't know where she got that, but...I think you're right.  That whole display was for your benefit."

P:  "Well...I don't think I need to see a re-run of that show."

...and we both laughed.

BTW--Judy L. and Sheila don't have much to do with Dar anymore.  Probably that is why she is now coming over to my house more? 

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Just figured out my "head"problem today--I have been drinking only De-Caffeinated Diet Pepsi, but ran out yesterday.  I think the sudden surge of Caffeine 

did it to me.  I know, I didn't sleep very well.

Lesson learned!!

The Date!

Oh T-Shirt--your comment on yesterday's post is so true!!!  Plus, no new neighbors to spy on and take photos.

My new persona:

Confab taking place on the porch.

I could be new sidewalk going in

or their deck.

Later today it was revealed that the new parking pad

and sidewalk are under construction

I suppose Tami's yard, and my view, have to be worse before it becomes better?

Found, they removed the junk pile to re-stain the front porch.

I was out front and Tami saw me.  YIKES!!  She came stomping over waving her arms in great agitation.

"I'm going to write to that d*** Behr company and tell them their stain is for s***.  I just did it two years ago and it wore right through and peeled off!"

"Did you wash ..................."

"I don't want a new can of their s***, I want money for my time and work!"

"Didyouwashdowntheporchfirst?"
<gotta say it real quick before she goes on another tangent>

"Nope.  Just swept it."

"Well, it looks nice............................"

"Yeah--their s*** stinks!  Ron and I been working hard."

"Where are you going to put all your stuff>"

"We have a storage unit--I guess maybe...put it in there?"
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So this crazy woman--didn't wash or prepare the porch for the stain and wonders why it peeled.  This crazy woman has a rented storage unit, plus a storage shed in back of her house and yet--she never thought to put her "stuff" in either place?
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Saturday, on Face Book, I asked the question of why young women and girls think they have to "pose"when they get their pictures taken.  
I see little girls posing like this.
To me it looks "affected", or like they have "attitude" or--I don't know what.  Do they think they look like celebrities?

The ever popular, let me pose by Grand Dad's casket

because I am so sexy!

I got no answers from any young girls, so I Googled it and this is the new (last 3 years) craze.  The ones at the top are called, Chicken Wing, the bottom two photos, Tea Pot.

So being mean and witchy, I decided to spoof and put my own, The Unknown Poser photos on Face Book.  Pearl came down and took the pix--we had so much fun.

I guess young women think they look cute with those poses--personally, I think they look like sluts!!

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Okay--enough of that.  Now to THE DATE!!!

A "friend" I haven't seen for 22 years, personal messaged me on FB and wanted to know if he could take me out for lunch on Sunday.  After much consideration and knowing we couldn't talk and catch-up in a restaurant, I told him I'd run up to Subway and we could eat here.

Well, he arrived with a very large present for me-----

We talked as fast as we could--talking over each other and reminiscing about the old days.  I had a blast!!!

After he left, I posted on FB, that I had just had the best "date" in 2 1/2 years.  I purposefully put quotes around the word date, so my friends would know it wasn't a REAL date, but the comments came pouring in about, "YAY JUDE!"  "It's about time you had some fun."--Stuff like that.

He had taken a "selfie" of us, so I posted that figuring people would pick up on the fact that he is much younger than I am.

Dar came over about 15 minutes later.

"There was a truck parked outside for four and a half hours!  Who was that?"

"Oh, I had an old friend stop for lunch and a visit."

"Oh?"

"Yeah--he's just a kid I've known forever."

"Oh--becoming a Cougar?"

It then occurred to me that people were mis-understanding the whole thing.  I explained and she left and I jumped back on FB.  Now he is leaving comments about "Had a great date with a wonderful woman.  Catching up on lost times."  More comments underneath his from friends that I know, but of course he doesn't--wanting to know who he is, where he's from--stuff like that.

I private messaged him that my friends were thinking we had a REAL date and I hope he's not embarrassed by it all.  He loved it and continued to play along.

So, this morning I spent an inordinate amount of time, trying to explain on FB that:

This is a neighborhood boy, who was in Karen's grade, played softball for my Dad and worked on our farm, baling hay to make muscles for football season.  I still think some thought, we just had our first date.  OH MY!!!

So back on FB and writing a very long post to explain how.  He was in the class of 1979--my favorite class of kids ever.  I was their Room Mother, chaperoned their dances, went on the zoo field trip with them, they built their homecoming floats out in our barn, he and others used to love to TP my trees out in front, how I put up flood lights and one night, just as they were too throw the TP up in the trees, I turned on the light and scared them half to death--how a couple of the tallest boys had soaped my high front windows--on and on.

Then he commented, "You couldn't be a Cougar, you have too much class.  You are more like a Lioness."

and I commented under his comment, "Yes, a Momma Lioness to all you baby cubs in the class of 1979."

More of the kids from that class, who are also friends of mine on FB--after all, they are Karen's friends also, started reminiscing and it all seemed to work out okay.

I was fretting for awhile, hoping he wasn't embarrassed.  I didn't want to post, "Hey--he's only 53!" because I think he looks older than that and I didn't want one of my FB friends to say, "He looks older" and him see it and embarrass him.

He came down to just visit--like younger's from your past are prone to do--when  you are really old and near death and they want one last conversation before you kick off.  He had been to visit my Daddy three weeks before Daddy died.

The one nice thing that came out of all of this--he told me that my Daddy was the best coach he ever had because "Charlie was always fair.  He said what he meant, and he meant what he said.  He told us if we missed practice and it wasn't because of a death in the family, we wouldn't play the next game.  We had a fantastic pitcher--kids had a big head.  He missed practice and you Dad benched him--the night we were going for the County championship.  I don't think any of us ever forgot that and what it meant to keep a commitment and our word."

I didn't tell him what a mean father my Daddy was.  My Daddy loved everyone of those kids he coached--for 25 years.  They all have told me what a great man he was, and I wouldn't want to denigrate their feelings toward him.

It was a really nice afternoon.  He is a Microbiologist at Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan.  He does the testing of chemicals used in farming on rabbits and mice to see if it is harmful.  If it turns out to be harmful to their fetus--it might also be harmful to human fetuses.  He reports and Dow than won't manufacture that chemical. He also works with a group reviewing ways to prevent pollution.  He is a tree hugger!  He also leads a group for young people with drug and alcohol addiction and helps unwed mothers finds ways to get help through the government Welfare system, coaches a softball team for (mostly) black children with absent father's and most recently, helped a young, pregnant woman, who was living with a black drug dealer, get away from the guy, get a job and an apartment of her own and bought her a used car.  Sat with her while she was in labor and posted photos on FB of him holding the new baby.

When I asked him why he spent so much time helping other people, he said, "You know we were poor."

I nodded.

"My Dad never worked a day in his life.  We grew up on the government dole.  I have done some bad things in my life...my life pendulum has swung over to the side.  I want to do something that will bring that pendulum back to the center, before I die"

"You must be a Democrat....or a Liberal?"

"Nope.  I'm a Conservative Independent usually voting Republican."

"Wow," I said.

Ya know," he said.  "Liberals think that Conservatives don't care about the environment or helping poor people or doing anything in the sense of that word. They think we are racists, rich people who want to hang onto all our money and not pay any taxes."

Silence for a moment, as I waited for him to continue.

Then he smiled, shook his head and said,  "My favorite Reagan quote, 'It's not that Liberals are ignorant.  It's just that they know so much that isn't so.' " 

He was just an average kid when I knew him, but I think, he is very full of wisdom now.

1979 Year Book Picture

Sorting It Out

When some people get sad or depressed or remember old things that make them sad, they don't want to think too long on them, because it just makes it worse for them.

Me?  I get right in the midst and wallow and find old pictures and talk about it--write about it, until it makes sense and then I can be done with it.  Usually works.

Last night's post was like that.  To answer some questions,  yes, my kids know I would love to live "back home":.

Yes that township is zoned for a manufactured home--there are many in that area.

My sister, of course knows, because she and Chuck and Fred and I used to look around and pick out where the mobile home should be.  I liked the field south of the house, she liked the small knoll north of the house and Fred and Chuck thought we should be across the road between the pond and the woods.

We talked about how much fun it would be to live near each other.  All the things we'd do.  How we could wave to each other every single day, even if we didn't talk.  The four of us figured that after Daddy died, and we inherited our share, we could do it.

Then Daddy died and we didn't get our share.

Then Fred had his heart attack and needed to be nearer doctors, hospitals, ambulance service, on and on and then Fred had the audacity to die on me!
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So, the plan was that after the step-mother died and Susan and I got our share, I would get a new manufactured home and move out there.  Well we all know what happened with that plan!

Realistically--rationally and all those other words that have nothing to do with the emotional side of yearning, it would cost more than I have and more help than any of my kids could afford to give me---AND I would not allow any of them to give me--not that any of them have offered, LOL.

First the Perc test--to see if it is feasible to have a septic system and well.
Half basement or slab for under the house: anywhere from $2K to $5K
Septic system:  $2K-$5K at least
Dig a Well:  $5K-upwards.
A driveway and culvert must be put in--I have no clue as to a price
It would be best for me to sell this place and get a newer home--$25K - $50K

If I sold this place, I could probably get $10K for it--these places depreciate just like a car--their price never increases no matter how much you put into them.

That leaves me about.......hm-mm........$35K short.  So, unless or until someone starts a Go Fund Me account for me on Face Book....I guess I am staying here, LOL.
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Logically--at my age?  I too, now, need to be near doctors, hospitals, ambulance services, stores, and all the rest.  It wouldn't be prudent for me to move to the hinter-lands--although if I have stayed there the last 25 years, those necessities would never enter my mind--as they don't the people who live there.

I have not told Pammie that I WANT to live with her, because I really don't and I know she doesn't WANT me too, but I did tell her this:"I know you and I both like living alone.  I just want you to know, that if it ever comes down to where you can't keep up the expenses on the house and farm, I would move in with you and give you most of my monthly income to help.  I would take over the upstairs and you wouldn't have to see me unless you wanted too."

Me figuring that with her working all day, I could roam all I wanted and when she got home tired, I'd be ever so quiet upstairs in my "apartment".  But, if I fell or became ill, at least someone would be there to notice.  LOL

So--it is planted in her memory bank.  We shall see?

It's all good.
=======================

Tomorrow, I will have to tell you all about the "date" I had this afternoon!

Yearning

yearn·ing

ˈyərniNG/

noun

1. a feeling of intense longing for something.

=========================================

You, my regular readers, all know that a few times, during each year...I get such a deep yearning--to the depths of my heart yearning--to return "home".  I never felt "at home", no matter where I lived, until I moved to my Grandma's farm in 1967.  I left that farm in 1988 and I haven't felt "at home" anywhere since.  Every place I have lived felt like a, "just for awhile" place, until I could move back home.

At times, it is a very unsettling feeling--a sort of restlessness--not being completely able to relax.  It is a very weird feeling.
=====================

I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE:

Here:

 Or here--

Or even here--

I do yearn to move this: 

Here--

Or here--

Or here--

 Or here-- 

Or here-- 

 Or here--

Before I move here!!! 

There is about four miles of road frontage total, on those three farms.  It seems there would be one tiny, feasible spot where I could set my home.
I am not particular on which spot it would be.


Do not tell me it is impractical.  I know it is!

Do not tell me it will never happen.  I know it won't!

Do not tell me I can't afford it.  I know I can't!

Do not tell me to get over it and "bloom where I'm planted".  I know that!

Yearning is an emotion.  It has nothing to do with practicality, logic or rationale!

It is such a deep ache in my soul and heart and mind, to just be able to spend the rest of this life living on one tiny piece of the land that I love.

The land of Peter and Charles and Roy and Charles Walts.  The land of (now) six generations of Walts descendants.   

<sigh>

Family

I traveled up to The Farm today for a reunion of the cousin's on my Mother's side of the family.  We do not have any first cousins on my Daddy's side as he was an only child.

My favorite boy cousin died two years ago of Alzheimer's, but his widow came.

My oldest boy cousin's wife died ten years ago from untreated breast cancer--she relied on a Chiropractor for ALL her medical needs and he thought he could cure her!!! 

My cousin was there with his lady friend. 

My only girl cousin, Carolyn was there as was her brother, who was born when she was 11, Tim.

A truly strange family in the way they had or didn't have children.

The oldest, Mamie, had two sons, Don and Wayne.  Don was there today, Wayne is the one who died.

The next oldest, Paul, went into the Navy in WWII and afterwards became a Texas Ranger, also working with Elliott Ness against the Mafia in Chicago.  He never returned to visit his family because he didn't want to take the chance of any gangsters knowing where his parents, or siblings lived and harm them. I only saw him once--when I was 4, after the War.

We thought our Grand Parents had kept him out of the family because at one time, he was married to a black lady, then divorced her and married a Morman.  It was only after his death and my cousin Carolyn ended up with his diaries and taped journals, that we learned the truth.  He did have a daughter--Esther, the oldest of all our cousins, but she died 10 years ago.

The next, Ruth, was Carolyn and Tim's Mother.  She was my favorite Aunt--a nurse who was with my Mother when I was born and with my Mother when mother died.  Her two children are 11 years apart.

Next was Robert--he was a Methodist minister, like my Grand Father (his father) and he and his wife had no children.

Then comes my Mother.  Her children being 13 years apart.

Then my Uncle Phil.  He was also in WWII and suffered my an unstable mental condition afterwards.  He is now buried in one of the Great Lakes Military Cemeteries--just up the road, in Holly, Michigan.

So, out of 6 children, we only ended up with 6 Cousins.  I would have thought there would be 18 or more.

Left: My cousin Don's friend. Barb.  Oldest Cousin Don.  Youngest Cousin Tim.
Susan and me
Mary (Tim's wife). Yvonne, my cousin Wayne's widow and my cousin Carolyn, Tim's sister.

That's it.  
Don is 85
Tim is 70
Susan is 62
I am 75
Carolyn is 80
and Wayne would be 80 also.
===============================
I took some other pictures while I was walking around.

Chuck just finished up the new steps and porch flooring.

They moved the 100 year old Hosta's away from the porch because Chuck had to go under and put up new braces and then redo the original lattice work.

They will move the Hosta's back to the foundation at a later date.

They found four old sets of shutters out in the barn.  Cleaned them up and repainted and put on the new addition, so it all matches and looks like part of the house.  I love it. 

So, to the right of the front steps, my sister had this cute little sign that belong to our Uncle Robert--adorable, but then I noticed...two mouse/rat (I suppose Chipmunk) traps on either side of the sign.  What's up with that?

 These two statuary's are in a memorial garden she is creating for her son Matthew, who died from Leukemia, a week short of high school graduation.

We called this the Walts Family Tree.  It took 8 people hand to hand to wrap around the trunk.  It was the oldest Oak tree in our county and one of the oldest in the entire State.

A large branch from the middle, fell down, the winter after my Daddy died.  He was the last with the Walts name, so we figured it was only proper that branch of the family tree, fell.--2008

In 2011, a limb from the left side came down.  Here is brother-in-law Chuck.

In 2013, Susan called me to tell me there were only two branches left.  Chuck called them the
"Two Sisters"  Susan and I were going to pick a branch to be our own, but a good thing we didn't because, in the storm we had the first of Spring, one of the branches came down.  If we had given them our names, the one that went down would assume she was dying!!

This is all that stands of that magnificent tree.  They are going to have it taken down as it bothers us to see it this way.  

They will have enough firewood to last them for the next generation, LOL.

All of this, makes me extremely emotional and sad. 

 Because my ancestor's lived such long lives, I remember them.  I am the only one, now, who remembers the Greats.  We both remember our Grandmother, but I also remember our Grandfather who died at age 48, in 1943.  Susan doesn't

I have always shared the affinity for THE LAND that my father and the men before him had.  I was young enough to walk all over every field in the three farms and both woods.  As I walked with my Daddy, he always said, "Take care of the land.  It is what provides life for us."  He learned that from his father, who learned it from his father, who learned it from the first Walts who settled there in 1850.

I was an outside all the time kid.  Susan was an inside all the time kid.  She lived in a suburb of Binghamton, NY, called Chenago Bridge, for 22 years.  Lovely little town, with lots of neighbor's.  I know she loves the land, or at least the farm she owns, but she doesn't have that deep rooted passion I have for it.  She sometimes misses the wonderful town she lived in and her neighbor's.

You all know, I could move out there in the middle of the woods and just roam the land and not see any living soul for weeks on end.  I could have moved in and lived in that old farm house with no renovations and been perfectly content and happy to die in the downstairs bedroom where most of my ancestor's took their last breath.  Had my funeral from the parlor, where their funerals were held.

My sister needs a large kitchen and family room--thus the addition.  She inherited the Centennial Farm and I did not and ....it is a very good thing she did because I never would have been able to afford it.

It's all good now , but....when they tore down the smaller house where all my ancestor's were born, to put on the addition...it was a very hard day for me. 

Whenever I drive up that way, I see the farm of my parent's where I was born and grew and my son now owns.  I drive by my Grandparent's farm, where I raised my children and Pammie now owns and...I have to be honest, it fills me with sadness that I am not living there now.

BUT--it is what it is, as they say.  I am the oldest generation now and I can look and see that all THE LAND is being well cared for.  That's a good thing!  I don't need to live there and I am EXTREMELY lucky that I can still go back "home"--it's ALL still there.

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I got home around 6:00 and look what's going on next door!!!  They may be cleaning up their pile of junk--or moving.  Either one is fine with me. LOL