I Can Remember When I Thought Thirty Was Old

When I was a little kid my momma had an older brother who was in his early thirties or as I thought, "Middle Aged."

That's certainly a hoot considering in the matter of just three months I'll be turning fifty four and still consider MYSELF middle aged. Heck, my sister is sixty one and still think of her as middle aged.

Unless scientists make some pretty drastic advancements or discoveries, I'm as off the mark as when I was a little kid. Boy, THAT'S kinda a bummer.

Concepts are so different when you're a kid. I occasionally see people from our childhood who we considered  old then. Problem is they look exactly the same to me now. Did they just look old in their forties when I was a kid or do you get a free pass if you made it through WWII?

There is an orchestra teacher who taught in the elementary school I attended in the sixties. She came into the restaurant where I work now but the minute I saw her knew exactly who she was, even remembered her hobbling little style of walking as she tottered over to a table.

She looked EXACTLY the same to me. We go visit our childhood church every once in a while and all the old peeps I remember look exactly the same as well. Did people pickle better in the sixties?

I'll run into people I went to high school with and sometimes have no idea who they are.

I attribute it to the fact that times simply aren't as great as they were when I was a kid.

Actually I'm surprised when people see me again after three or four decades and know who I am. I've aged more in the past five years than I would like. My hair's going gray and have even more wrinkles than gray.

I always say money is over rated but that's probably because we don't have much. My husband got screwed in a bad business venture and our spiral started. It was horrible at first but made it through with so much help from others that it almost embarrasses me.

When life hands you lemons you make lemonade. When you can't even afford the lemonade you tend to let your sour attitude suffice. We didn't have to. Although it's been hard and sometimes harder, we've survived and is a lot better than some people have it.

I was at work tonight and stepped out back to make a phone call around four thirty. The guy who washes dishes pulled into the parking lot. He got out of a really nice huge Ford F-1 pickup.

Dang, I don't even HAVE a car! But then started thinking...

This guy works two full time jobs and a part time job washing dishes and doubt his full time jobs are much more pleasant.

 Yes he has a nice ride and I bum rides, but am four years away from owning our house free and clear.

 Sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture.

It's not a mansion but guarantee you is nicer than the place he parks his F-1 when he has time to drop by.

Tim is at his wit's end but has never given up or in. He spends at least two or three hours every day searching for a full time job and have full confidence God will make it happen soon.

All three of my kids are working now and don't have to help them out...well every once in a while but that's what parents do. My parents helped me out so much it was ridiculous.

We're hanging tough and doing okay. I don't drive a huge shiny truck, or own any vehicle at all but I don't work three jobs either. I think I like my life better.

I hope one day I'll run into someone from my childhood and when they say "You haven't changed one bit!" I'll be able to ask them how much time they have?

Yes my life has changed but even when I thought it was going the wrong way, it was just a detour.

We may be waiting on a miracle but have no doubt all will be okay. God's got this.

I have a husband who for the life of me can't figure out why he stays with my crazy self but does. I have three great kids all doing wonderful things. I have three pups who never ask one question or complain even if their  food is one day late  and two sibs who care for me like the baby sister I am.

Vehicles are over rated too. Love is all you need and we have plenty.

Til next time, COTTON

Can't Scare me!

I feel pretty good about this Friday the 13th. I've had more Friday the 13th's in the past couple of years than I care to count...this one's been a piece of cake!

It's been a long "WEAK" as I like to call them. I put in well over fifty hours last week so this one felt like a staycation.


Took a 36 hour self imposed time out from the world on my day off and came back strong.

My next door husband's daughter went to her first prom this weekend and asked me to hem the dress she (he) had bought. I'm no super seamstress but my Mom was and taught me all the basics. The dress was a pale sea foam green and quite beautiful, especially when Alyssa put it on. She has lived next door to us since she was four and I have watched her grow up alongside Massey.

They started as precious tots and grew into cute little kids, struggled through those awkward "Tween" years and both turned out as rare beauties, inside and out.

I was a nervous wreck hemming the dress. A brand new dress is a novelty to me much less one that cost a couple of bills. The skirt was full and at least six inches too long. I didn't want to cut it ... get rid of material and there's NO room for errors! I decided on turning it up twice and hemming. The problem was that creates a LOT of material to hem and when you get a quarter of the way around you end up with two inches of material to fold up and try to blend in.

If you are a straight male that reads my blog...just skip the last two sentences.

On top of the dress hemming, my boss asked me if I wanted to starch and iron catering shirts for this weekend? We are catering one wedding for 2oo and another for 300 both on Saturday. They said they'd rather pay me than a dry cleaner so I said "Sign me up...Shirt be ready Friday, Love you long time!"

Now I felt pressure to do a REALLY good job on the shirts.

It's hard when you have Charlie scrubbing against the ironing board every five minutes like a cat next to the shirt hanging on the ironing board and gets his white freakin' hair all OVER the jet black dress shirts I am trying to iron..."IDIOT" (But I love the little doofus)

Between both projects and working eights shifts, I squeezed in Franny's 80th birthday "PAR-TAY." If you read my blog you know who Franny is...if you don't, she's my Diddy's cousin we only met a few years back through a relative doing a family tree. (Thanks Cuzn Neil)

She's most aptly described as "A hot mess that makes ya feel blessed!!"

She is a pistol. She's taken many a lickin' and kept right on tickin'. Sharp as a tack. The only sign of old age I have noticed is that she is "hard a hearing" (that's what we call it in the South.)

By the time you reach eighty you've heard it all anyway!

If I live to be her age, that's the way I want to be..."Like Franny."

She NEVER complains, and if she does it's because she is putting you in your rightful place and reminding you of how lazy today's society has become. When I look at all this woman has been through and seen in her eighty years... and the fact that I have never heard her complain once, except when she complained I was focusing on the negative too much and not the positive, truly and totally inspires me!

Both my parents are gone...but now I have a "Super Franny."

Franny's birthday is May 13 and this one fell on Friday.
You are one LUCKY woman Franny, and I am even LUCKIER for having YOU in my life.

Almost the end of my weak/week . My struggles are NOTHING compared to what Franny has survived. If she, at eighty can be as strong and strong willed as she most certainly still is...I am a very lucky woman... Thank the Lord I come from strong stock.

Countin' down the days til Zach graduates from prison/high school with fingers toes and eyes crossed....COTTON

Merry Lunar Eclipse

Like a huge red Christmas ornament hanging in the sky...the full moon will be red tonight.

I got home at 11:00 PM tonight after going in at 10:30 this morning. My eyes look like a lunar eclipse.

Lunch started out with a bang and quickly turned into semi controlled chaos. We didn't have a hostess, both owner's had to go to catering jobs and us three servers and one bartender manned the fort. It was crazy...but a good crazy. We all worked together and just as the bottom started to fall out the owner's son showed up and by the skin of our teeth we made it.

Lunch kept getting busier and busier but by the time we almost went under again, both owner's got back from catering and it all came together.

I laughed (after the rush) and said to the owner "If the people out in the restaurant knew what WE know back here we would all win a prize."

That's what's great about working in a family owned place. It's not just the owner's that are family...we are ALL family.

It got close to being out of control but  customers never knew it. We regrouped and plunged on.

I didn't get off til 4 and had to be back on by 5.

Dinner hit with the same ferocity but we were staffed and ready. Christmas is a wonderful time to be a server.

Waiting tables is a crap shoot. You bank big or you go home crying about your losses.

I only went home between shifts to drop off a McDonald's value meal for Massey, the only one home (or awake...Tim was asleep) and back to the firing line I went.

Being a server is all about averages. You have good tables and you have bad tables. You just hope that you have more good tables than bad  in any given shift and that at the end of the week it all averages out to your advantage.

My first table was a woman waiting on a friend. I talked her into a nice bottle of Merlot and Mussels Caprese as an appetizer. Her dinner partner came in the front door and said she had a cake and balloons in the car, wanting to know if she could give them to me and me bring them to the table? I told her certainly and she walked back in with a group of balloons big enough to be in the Macy's day parade.

I took them through the front window at the hostess stand and delivered them to the table after the other woman was seated. It only lifted me off the ground a couple of times but I got them there.

They ordered Rack of Lamb...one of our high end dishes and after dinner I brought out the cake.

Between two people they spent $91.00.

The chick who brought in the helium balloons large enough to float a blimp paid the check. She handed me a hundred dollar bill and said to keep the change. I wanted to say "Well I'd better tell Tiny Tim to hang on to that crutch cause his leg ain't gonna get no better on nine bucks."

They were very complimentary about the food and service. As a server, the "Verbal" tip  usually means the "Kiss of Death" and once again it did .

But then the next table I had was a party of three. One teen and two women. Tab was $60 and they tipped me $20.

If you are a good server it generally works out to your advantage. Sometimes it doesn't but those are the days that you tell yourself  "Today I was the bug on the windshield, tomorrow I will BE the windshield."

God smiled on me once again and it all worked out to my advantage.

My feet are killing me, I still haven't taken my winter coat off but  am happy in Blogland and have three dogs keeping my feet warm as I type.

Tomorrow is my only day off and I gotta "Get'r Done."

Only have an hour to go before the Lunar Eclipse. Call me stupid (you won't be the first) but I think it will be neat to capture on video.

I'm off anyway and what's going to bed at 2 when you don't have to get up again until the mood strikes you?

Doing some serious frugal shopping tomorrow. Thanks to Uncle/ Aunt/ Friend/ Reader Santa's all I have to do is fill in gaps and get Christmas dinner bought.

I used to think that this has been a crappy year. Now,  with the law of averages weighing in heavily...it's turning out to be the luckiest year of my life.

Hoping everyone...and I mean "EVERYONE" knows how much the love and blessings have meant.

"Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,  That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.  'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved ;  How precious  did that grace appear The hour I  first believed."

The moon is full, my heart is full.

I am one lucky woman raising a house of teens that try me but can't break me. I love my life and it has taken me months to realize how to apply "The law of averages" to my own personal life.

Hoping everyone has the Christmas I  am experiencing. The  meaning of  love and being loved  go hand in hand ... you can't have one without the other.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

I have learned lessons and been reminded of things that so many take for granted.

I will never forget this year but as my Dad's wise cousin told me "Look forward, never look back."

Hoping that everyone reading her words think about their own life and also think of the life of one's less fortunate.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Oh yeah, still waiting on the moon to turn red, but trust me I'll be up.

Pics later!!

Til next time...VERY contented COTTON

Friday The 13th...WHAT A LUCKY DAY !!

Got home from work today and decided to have a girls night out with Massey. We were originally going into downtown Atlanta to an event at the Biltmore Hotel. It was a jewelry and clothing show . The tickets were $35 to get in but they gave you a goody bag supposedly worth three times that. I thought we could just walk around and look at things we couldn't afford. When I got home from work I looked it up on line and it seemed a pretty pricey affair and maybe even one that you had to be 21 to get in (cocktails and such.)

I got my anniversary check at work today for my 12 year employment date, $1000.00. Unfortunately after taxes and them catching up my state taxes the net was $616.00. Still it was a welcome shot in the arm AND the bank account. I decided to splurge on a dinner date with my daughter and once we decided against the down town affair (I was relieved...too much $$$) I let Massey choose where we would eat. She picked her favorite restaurant, Mama Lucia's here in Newnan.

If you are ever in the southern crescent of the ATL...it is well worth a visit. A family run business...their son is a good friend of mine and used to work with me at my restaurant. His dad used to be a manager with our company and his mother works there as well. It is a lovely place and the food is out of this world.

Our waitress tonight is the wife of one of our former bartenders (see previous post "Andre the Giant, Doofus." One of the bartenders at Mama Lucia's is the wife of one of my favorite former managers so going there is a very homey and friendly feeling.

I splurged and had one glass of wine, Massey had Parmesan Encrusted Talapia over sauteed spinach with tomatoes and a Caesar salad. I had Veal Piccata with capers (YUM) over angel hair pasta and a Caesar salad as well. It was MARVELOUS! It was so nice to see my friends and chat with them while we had a lovely girls night out. I don't get to see them often but we keep up via FB or when they come into my restaurant.

Massey and I were adding up the tab in our heads, already thinking that we could take the leftovers home to the boys and feed them as well.

Crystal (we'll call our waitress that for this post) brought us our check and packed up all the leftovers for the boys and sent home that wonderful bread with the olive oil, spices and cheese in a small container. I picked up the check and of course had to hold it as far away from my face as I could just to read it (too vain to wear my dollar store reading glasses in public) and saw the total:

$6.96

I asked Massey to look at it to make sure my eyes hadn't taken yet another turn for the worse. Sure enough that was the total. I told Massey to try and get Crystal's attention, but before she could the owner came up behind me. She was setting up a party behind us and said that the girls (Crystal and my bartender friend...we'll call her Jen) wanted to do that for us and they would be mad if I left a huge tip. She said she let them use their employee discount on us.

Here came the water works! I told the owner (we'll call her Barbara) that I couldn't do that and she said the girls really wanted to do it and it was her pleasure to let them use their discount. I tried to leave $50...she said no, she said no more than $20 so I left a twenty on the table and went to the bar to find Jen. I gave her another ten and asked her to take it as well and split it with Crystal and she refused.

What have I ever done to have such wonderful friends and family and have so much support?

Massey and I decided on the way home that we would babysit for each of these young mothers to give them a night out like we just had.

Massey thanked me controlling my water works and keeping them to a minimum and we left and went window shopping at Lizard Thicket and enjoyed a wonderful evening together. While we were leaving the store, Tim called and said that the financing had come through for the trucking company he and several others were starting up. Tim will be sales manager and another couple has put up all the financing and it is a great opportunity for him. Today his background check came back from Walmart and he starts at the first of the week. (Thanks to another wonderful friend we'll call Lisa and her husband we'll call Russ.)


Who would ever think that Friday the 13th would turn out to be such a fabulous day?

I think my new lucky number is "13"

Matters of the Heart

Home again from the hospital... I think my car could drive to downtown Atlanta on its own now. Good news to report though... the patient, who we will call "Harvey" for this post, is doing AMAZINGLY well. He has had a couple of setbacks ; low blood pressure, and has been on a diabetic diet for his sugar levels (he has never had this problem before.) But all in all, he has made a great recovery thus far. My kids and I went to stay with him tonight, and he took a nice stroll with my son down the ever busy halls of a cardiac unit. I don't know how he gets any rest. If it isn't a nurse, it is a respiratory therapist, or an insulin shot, or pain meds, blood pressure medicine and a quick check on his vitals, urine or ten other things they are watching and monitoring on an obviously ten minute rotation. Not that I am complaining, but I bet HE wants to ! The heart surgeon that operated on him came by to check on him... was there for about 5 minutes...an extremely nice guy who probably made $200 from his little chat with us. Once again, I am just trying to be funny ( although that little pop in surely wasn't for free... what IS in a hospital)? My middle son and I were down in the cafeteria taking a break and getting a bite to eat, when Zach pointed out a sign on one of the cooler doors. It was a refrigerator with those TINY little creamers for your coffee... they probably have 1/2 ounce of creamer in them, and they had a sign that said "creamers 5 cents". So you buy a $2 cup of coffee, and you have to pay five more cents if you don't take it black? Are we being punished for not taking it black, or are the Arabs in charge of creamers now too? I try to take the good with the bad though... and just remind myself that they saved my brother in law's life, and while he is in residence there, I will just take my coffee black! He has dealt with the pain better than I thought he would ( he IS a man after all). After the first day of being TOTALLY whacked out on Morphine...LOT'S OF STORIES TO TELL ABOUT THAT DAY!... he has managed surprisingly well, and I am very proud of his total commitment to a successful recovery and rehabilitation. On his second day of recovery, he asked my sister if they had remembered to tip the guy who had brought him his dinner tray. Morphine seems to be somewhat of a "truth" serum... the things that came out of his mouth were absolutely incredible, out of character; and now that he is on the fast track to health....HILARIOUS! My sister and I have decided to keep a log of all his "drug" induced comedy, and maybe send him on the road with it as soon as he is able. You don't even have to know him to find it incredibly funny. We often found the nurses out in the hall giggling over a comment that he had made, or one of his by now famous "Eye Rolling" episodes. They like to get you up and moving as soon as they can, which I am sure is terribly painful. On the second day (after we apologized to the "waiter" and told Harvey we gave him a 25% tip) "Nurse Ratchet" came into the room to roust him out of bed for a little walk to the scale...two feet away from him. In his "Purple Haze", he rolled his eyes in total disgust; and said, quite unbelieving she had even dared asked him to not only sit up, but actually GET out of the bed and stand...."NOW" ??? She smiled and said "yes, now." He has progressed from his haze to a point that even I can't believe. When I was a kid, people that had open heart surgery stayed in the hospital for at least TWO weeks, followed by a year long recovery time. He has been amazing and almost a better patient than he is a brother in law!! TOTALLY JUST KIDDING!! He has been sweet; appreciated every one of our visits, and told us countless times how much he loves us and how much our coming by means to him. We just all pray that this improvement continues, and in 3 months, he will back to his old self, and my sister will receive her "Gold Star" ...for outstanding and understanding "wife"of the year. Till next time... COTTON

My Sister

I am currently forty seven years old, zooming down the path to forty eight. My sister is fifty "something" (just in case she reads this blog.) She is my best friend (sorry Lisa), she is my mentor, she is my gravitational device on this Earth. Our Mother died when I was seventeen, my sister was in her early twenties. We were both completely lost without our mother.. she was one in a million.. and that is a mild statement to make; especially if you knew our Mother. In the years that have passed, we have grown closer and closer. If there is one thing that I am sure of in my life; it is that my sister will ALWAYS have my back. She supports me, corrects me when I need it, and guides me when she knows I need guidance. She is ABSOLUTELY the most fascinating, inspired, and enigmatic person that I have ever had the fortune of knowing. How she does all the things I admire and love her for totally amaze me, and make me Thank God every day that He blessed me with such a marvelous person as Cin for a sister. She raised two boys as a single mother, helped raise me, and totally took care of my father in his quick decline into Alzheimer's. Without her I would not be even half the person that I am today; nor would be, all the people who's live's she has touched and changed. I hope that every person that reads this has a sister or a relative, or a friend that means to them what Cindy means to me. From the bottom of my heart, and the depths of my soul.. I Thank God every day that I have my sister, and Thank God above the He gave her to me of all people.. I hope that you can be as lucky one day. And Hey Cin... Thanks for loving me !! Till next time... COTTON