My Friend

I posted a long time ago about my friend Lynne. We go back to about 1968. My kids call her their other mother and hers call me the same. She never gave up on me. The drug years, the drunk years the recovery times. She postponed moving to be with her husband to be here with me and help me through Cadys birth. She was to be a homebirth like my boys. I have never had a friend like her other than her. She could hear me say one word and know if I wasn't okay and she would jump in her car and be right there. We have always done everything together. This time of year is our best time. She drove from Wyo. while in law school so we could be together on Oct 9th for our yearly John Lennon birthday celebration. We would go to the mts and pick apples and then come to my house(her old house) and put in all our Beatle tapes and music and make apple everything. Pies and apple butter and canned apple sauce. The kids would gather round and listen to us talk about the stuff we did as teens. Last year I found her old friend online and he moved here from Denver and moved in with Lynne(she got rid of the crazy hubby finally after 26 yrs) he was an old friend of mine as well. I almost married his brother when I was 16. I was heartbroken when lloyd decided that he could not deal with anyone else being in Lynnes life and she was so happy that she didn't seem to notice that he had pushed us all away. They sold her house and moved 100 miles away to Las Cruces. I am there several times a month but never see her. I tried to talk to her but she was changed. At one point she did let me know she felt bad about the way things were. I know she has no idea why I stopped inviting her to family functions. My family hates Lloyd. I do not like him. He's a loud bossy man who always has a drink in his hand. I write her now and then and she writes back but it's not the same. She told me 2 months ago that she had him move out but he is there alot. I know she will get rid of him at some point. I really felt it didn't matter to me. She was in charge of the way things went with us not him. But no matter what I said I cry for her at least once a week. Making an apple pie yesterday made me miss her. I thought I may write her last night. When I got on my pc there was a letter from her. She's coming to town today and asked if she could come over for a visit. I am beside myself with joy. We have not been alone together(without lloyd) in a year. No girltalk with my best friend in a year. She will be here in an hour and we will drink a pot of coffee and have pie and be us again. My heart is pounding. What if we cannot be us again? Maybe things are forever ruined. I think they will be fine. She's my touch stone. I have no time to go into it and you may not care anyway but I also was there for her. But I always felt like she had a big job being my friend. I was alot of work in the old days.

The Clan At The County Fair

Eating is what we do best at the fair. It rained alot this year and it made it interesting and fun. Okay, and wet.

picture page!

I have so many photos I took all summer just for this blog. I never used so many of them and so I am going to do it now. Waiting for Cady to get home from a date and I must pass the time. This will be a Cady page. Some old shots( like 5 years old or more) and some recent.

Happy Birthday Baby

Here is the picture of Cady and Brandi. This was the one they liked. I am going to return to Mt Foto and get a smiling color version. I remember so clearly my 18th birthday. Don't ask me what I did last week but I remember 1971.

Oops

What can I say? I went to sleep a while ago and have been trying to get myself together ever since. Health issues I won't bore you with. My insurance starts Nov 1st. I am hanging on till then.
Friday my baby turned 18 years old. Um, hm, I just don't know how to tell you how much I want my little girl back. Time is marching on and on. Joe had to leave that day for a mens retreat in Ruidoso ( he is in the band and had to go) so he took the whole day off and we took Cady and her best friend to Cloudcroft(they took off half a day from school) and we had lunch at Cadys favorite spot. Then we wandered down the boardwalk and took the girls to Mt Foto and they had some old time pictures taken together. Brandi had her birthday last week( she was born on Oct 9th, John Lennons birthday) so it was a double celebration. The picture is so cute and when Joe gets home tomorrow he will scan it for me and you can see it. The entire clan came over that night and we had a party . Just our family and Brandi and I tell you it was insane. We have outgrown this house. I did up some great decorations. I combined Halloween and harvest. The little kids played stick the nose on the pumpkin and had a ball. I bought prizes for them all. I was so burned out that I forgot to take even one picture. My ex loves Cady and he brought his camera so thank goodness I have some. I will when he sends them tomorrow. Today was the last soccer game for Jaylon and Seth. My son Billy (Jaylons dad) and his best pal are coaches and are so good with those kids it makes me burst with pride to watch them. They pay for their team to have their names on the backs of their jerseys and buy them giant trophies with each childs name on them. The city does only the bare minimum. They make sure every child plays no matter how well they can play and even though winning is great it's all about the kids all being part of the team and feeling proud of themselves. Their team "The Dark Knights" was undefeated this year. Jaylon and Seth are both 7 yrs old. Am I bragging, yes. It's all good. Joe comes home tomorrow and I am making him an apple pie. This is my normal jumble of thoughts that may or may not make sense. Kinda like me.

posting a couple pics of my grandsons. i never had cousins to play with. they love each other. Seth is the son of my oldest, Heather. Seth has long hair and Jaylon, not. Gage has decided he wants hair like Sethy. I know my son Joey will not go for that. I did not cut my boys hair when they were little and they act like it was some form of abuse. i like boys with long hair, always have.

Wedding For Strangers

I spent all week in town helping my sweet friend Linda do prep work for a wedding that is today. We do not know these people nor do they even live here. The couple drove all night from San Diego. Somebody who knows somebody thought it would be a snap to throw together a wedding for this very nice couple. Myself and Linda have health issues although she is much worse than I. I have made it due to the kindness of a few friends with pain meds to spare. Linda also did Joeys wedding and she does such a beautiful job. The brides family all came to help yesterday and we finished up at 11 last night. I had my camera since I brought it to takes pics of my grandson in the parade. I went ahead and took a few of the rehearsal. My camera is a ghetto disaster. Held together with scotch tape and rubberbands. Tis my shame. A new one is coming to me in the near future. When they saw me taking a few shots of them last night they realized they had not remembered to find a photographer for today. Joe was recruited to run sound and I am now taking the pics and oh yes, running the video camera. How can I do all that? If the bride and her brides maid were not the sweet girls that they are I would not be doing this. I am worried about doing a good job. My dad was a photographer before I was born. We had a darkroom in our garage. I remember my mom getting hit for not having a good enough background in her pictures. Later he was a photographer for NASA. My pics are for fun. But someones wedding ? I feel my dad standing over me. Maybe he's watching over me eh? I will be using a better camera today so that will help. I just feel kinda stressed. I will do the best I can and hope it's enough. My camera has a weak flash so as you can see it's good I will be using another camera. I like the way the decorating came out except that I think we should have ironed the tablecloths. Picky picky. Not bad considering we only had what was around the church to decorate with. I don't think anything was bought and nothing rented. Everytime we do a wedding there we aquire a few more things to use for the next one. After we all got finished and out of there last night Joe and I headed to Applebees. Just as we got into the parking lot my cell rang. Cady had just got bit by a black widow. We never even made it out of the truck. Told Sara to call the ER and Heather told me to come by and get benadryl and take to Cady. Cady was at Saras. We live in a small town but still we are driving like mad thinking she could be dieing. 1 block away from Saras she calls and tells me it's cool. Dr said if she was gonna to have a bad reaction she would be doing it by now. Shit, we turn around and go back to Applebees. Joe and I are tired and grumpy and bickering all the way like small children. When we finally get inside the door we are met by a greeter being giving crap by a drunk guy who thinks he should be allowed to go out the door with a tall glass of beer and telling him how he can kick his ass. I am in no mood. Open my big mouth with our church friends someplace there and yell "ah fuck dude, it's too late and we are too tired, move the hell out of our way". I am so lucky that guy didn't smash me in the face with his glass of beer. Maybe it helped to have a 6ft 4 grumpy hungry husband standing behind me. Some days just seem to go on forever.

Homecoming Parade

Here is my grandson Christian on the jr high football float. He's the cute one in the middle. # 60. He turned 13 in June. I'd like to know how those years went by so damn fast. He's the oldest grandchild. He's still my little guy even though he is now taller than me.