Mom's birthday...the big 6-0

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday. As I have stated in past posts, it is also Granny's birthday. Mom's mom. You may also remember that we lost Granny in March of 2008. So mom's first birthday without Granny to celebrate with was actually last year. But with the loss so close to the birthday, the pain of the loss was still very strong. Mom didn't want anything for her birthday, so Amanda and I kidnapped her and did a turn around trip to Altus last year so mom could put flowers on Granny's grave. As I type the word grave, I feel the tears swelling in my eyes.

Well, mom stated a few weeks ago that she didn't want to celebrate her birthday because she had no one to celebrate it with. That broke my heart, but I knew what she meant.

So here is what her sneaky child is going to do. Or has already started doing about two weeks ago:

Mom has always loved the works of Thomas Kinkade. A couple of months ago, Amanda and I took her to his gallery in Fort Worth. If you have never gone and live close to one of his galleries, you need to go look. They have dimmer switches for the lights and you can see what that creates with his art when you dim the lights slowly. Just beautiful. You will really see why they call him the painter of light. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I went and bought her a Thomas Kinkade classic. It is a print of course, but his prints are actually on canvass, not a piece of paper. I am going to pay it off today and make plans with the gallery director on how mom is going to receive it tomorrow. What mom will also think is cool is that the director of this particular gallery is Thom's sister-in-law.

Here is my plan: David, Amanda and I, are going over mom and dads tomorrow to take them out to lunch for mom's birthday. I am taking them downtown Fort Worth to Risky's BBQ. Great food and a good price. And the atmosphere is very nice. But the best part about Risky's, it is right next to the gallery. Once we eat, we will mosie on over the gallery since dad has never been there. They do have 1 original Kinkade there, but since I don't have $195,000.00 dollars, she is getting a copy. Yes, that is One Hundred and Ninety Five Thousand dollars. Yikes! But it is big and beautiful. Anyway, her picture will be on the wall with a "Reserved for Linda Barrett" With a Happy Birthday with it. My plan is that we will wander in the gallery and I will have my camera in hand. We will kind of guide mom in the direction of her present and she will find it for herself. Once she finds it, I know the tears will roll, but being the only child and with Granny gone, I want to make "her" days as special for her as I can. I then want Mrs. Kinkade to come up and introduce herself and wish mom a happy birthday. And here is her picture:

The title is Victorian Garden.

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Please wish me luck that my plan goes off without a hitch. I love my mom and want her to have a memorable 60th birthday.

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Thanks for reading,

Tammy in TX

My baby is 18...

On the weekend of March 14th, Amanda, Mom and I took a 4 day trip to Altus. Amanda's birthday is March 16th and that is what she wanted to do for her birthday. Her birthday falls on her Spring break and every year she went and spent spring break with Granny. I had a bad feeling that this was going to be a sad four days as Granny will be gone for a year on March 26th. But I also knew, Granny wouldn't want us dwelling on her not being with us. Because, I guess in a way, she was. We stayed at Aunt Doris' house, she is Granny's baby sister. Her daughter, Sandy, stayed the first night with us as Aunt Doris had to go be with her other daughter, Pat, who's husband is very ill from cancer and they live near Killeen, TX. We were heart broke that we wouldn't get to see her, but totally understood.

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Anyway...we ended up having a great time. Only a few tears shed on the trip to there. Once in Altus, we headed to Sandy's house. Sandy now lives in Granny's house and as of this weekend, will be buying it. We are very glad, as I know that none of us want to see some stranger living there, it would be too hard.

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Saturday, we just hung out and visited with all kinds of cousins. Sunday, David's parents picked up Amanda for church, took her out to eat and then shopping. While they were gone, Sandy, mom and I, planned a little surprise party for Amanda. We got her the really pretty cake with gorgeous blue roses on it. (a little story) When Amanda was a little toot, mom and she would go grocery shopping, Amanda would see birthday cakes and tell mom, "Nanny, get me a Happy Birthday to me, birthday cake." Well, this weekend, we got her just that. The lady at Walmart did a fabulous job of putting those words on that cake.

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And here is a picture of the cake, to bad we cut into it before we thought to take a picture:

Of course, with Amanda and the gross factor, had to show us her blue tongue. Of course, the rest of us had to follow suit: *****************************************Sandy

****************************************Amanda

************************************Me and mom

Granny would be so proud. Come to think of it, I am sure she is. (smile)

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Some other family came over to for cake, but no pictures of them. Cousin Susan and her daughter Tanya with her two boys, Mason and Aaron.

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On Monday, Amanda, Mom and I went to the cemetary and put new artifical flowers on Granny's grave and I put a little angel on her head stone. Mom placed Tracey's collar around the angel. Tracey was Granny's poodle. She lived with mom and dad for the past year and a week before this trip, they had to put her down. It was very hard on everyone. I think because it was one of the last connections to Granny before she died. Anyway, it was somewhat a hard day. But still not as bad as I thought it would be, for that I am grateful.

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Aunt Doris had to come home on this day as well. Her back was hurting real bad and she had to come home and go see her doctor. I hated that she was not feeling well, but glad that we got to see her.

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All in all, we had a wonderful trip. It went smoothly and we got so much visiting of family in that it was more happy than it was sad. Thank you Lord.

Interesting day yesterday for my mom

June 6th, 1976, my grandfather passed away. He was not my mother's biological father, but he was more of a dad to her than her own father. Grandpa became my mom's dad when she was 5 years old. He had a son from a previous marriage that my mom never met nor talked to. Grandpa allowed Larry to be adopted by his (Larry's) step father at a very young age. We don't know the history between grandpa and his first wife. Yesterday, mom got a phone call from grandpa's son. His son (Grandpa's biological grandson) started researching grandpa. He found Granny's obituary and found mom. Larry is not much older than mom, just turning 60 years old himself and lives in Virgina. He e-mailed some current photos of himself to mom and she forwarded them to me. I wondered if he looked like Grandpa. He is the spitting image of him. Grandpa died when I was 7 and I adored that man. I am not going to post his photo on this site. I don't think that would be appropriate right now. But I hope that they continue to stay in touch and I hope Larry learns what a wonderful man his father really was.

Christmas 2008

Well, it is gone. Yet another Christmas that we can't wait to be here, is over.

I am on vacation this week, so spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, shopping and cleaning the house as my parents were coming over for Christmas dinner. I do this every year. Spend most of my vacation cleaning the house. But I don't mind as it has become a tradition. (smile)

We had a good Christmas. Amanda got what she wanted. She is almost 18 years old, so it is hard to buy for her. Her job of choice is to be a beautician so she received a stylist roll around cart with all the accessories, Tinker Bell floor mats, the third book in the Twilight series and much more. David and I weren't going to do much for each other as he has spent a ton of money on vet bills for our cat Mia. I will tell later what is wrong with her. Anyway, he bought me a TomTom GPS. I was totally not expecting that. I got him some odd and ends but nothing that nice. As I said, my parents came over and brought us all gifts and cash. I can always due with money. (smile) We ate a lot, as usual for a Christmas day. The movie A Christmas Story was on all day and surprisingly enough, that is where it stayed. You could hear my dad laughing or chuckling most of the day in the living room. His favorite part is where Ralphie beats the snot out of the red headed bully. I love the deranged Easter bunny part. It is all funny though.

It really was a nice holiday. I feel very blessed to have a good daughter, a wonderful husband and loving parents. It was sad though as this was the first Christmas without Granny. So yes, there was crying. We went through her cedar trunk. That was the first time it had been opened since her funeral. That was the one item I wanted most out of her house and mom gave it to me. So of course, there was crying during that too. Mom didn't want anything out of it, she wanted it to stay in the trunk where everything would be safe. And it will be.

I am going to try to go to the barn later and go riding with Tracey, but that wind is horrible. I don't mind riding in it, but is seems more of a job than a pleasure when you ride in not perfect weather. And God knows, I had better take my allergy meds, if not, a horrid migraine will set in.

Took Mia to the vet this morning to clean her face up. It is hard to describe, but where the cancer is, she is constantly scratching and we have to wrap her foot so she can't use her nails to scratch with. But she is still rubbing her face raw and the skin is starting to pull away from her cheek. The fur is all matted with blood and pus. It is all very gross. Maybe I shouldn't be posting this on the Christmas blog but that is part of my Christmas week. We left her there because we have an appt with her vet at 3:15 to see what we can do to ease her itching and try to help her leave her cheek alone. David and I have even talked about, if she has even 6 months to a year to live, having that one back foot declawed so that it doesn't have to be wrapped (as she really hates that) and she can rub her cheek all she wants but not cause any damage. We have done all our bank account will allow. Plus there isn't a good prognosis even if we were millionaires and could afford it. She is still eating good, playing, and VERY loving. So we are going to spend money on making her as comfortable as possible until it is time to let her go be with Sheba.

Anyway, enough sadness now.

Better go, hope all who reads these had a blessed Christmas. And if you didn't think it was blessed, try to find the blessing even in a sadness. God has a reason for everything He does.

Happy New Year,
Tammy, David, Amanda, Summer, Libby, Tigger and Mia.

Update on everything...Mom, Granny, Libby...

1. Friday was my mom's birthday. If you remember, my Granny passed away in March, my mom's mom. Also remember that Granny and mom share the same birthday. So this was going to be a hard day for her, the first birthday without Granny.

On Thursday, at the last minute, I asked my Sergeant if I could have Friday off and they approved. I got Amanda up and ready and we headed to mom and dad's. Dad and I have been having problems and I knew it would be good to let them go on this day. Well, we got there and rang the door bell, both mom and dad started crying. Mom was holding two Mylar "happy birthday" balloons and some flowers. We walked in and all started hugging and crying. Dad told me he didn't want to fight anymore and neither do I. After we settled down, mom told me they were going to the park to release one of the balloons for Granny. I told her that sounded good. Then I told her we needed to hurry tho cause we were going to Oklahoma and do a turn around. It is a 3 1/2 hour drive there. She had a somewhat shocked look on her face. I told her that since she didn't want me to get her anything for this birthday, that my gift was to take her to OK and put flowers on Granny's grave and to get to see the head stone she hasn't got to see yet. More tears. Amanda and I thought she wouldn't go, my mom is not a spontaneous person, so we were shocked she said okay. Had she said no, we were going to trick her into "going to the store with us", then just take off to OK. We are a sneaky bunch.

We got there about 1pm and my Aunt Doris (Granny's sister) had made a wonderful lunch. We ate, went and got flowers and headed to the cemetery. It is an old country cemetery, very quiet and serene. Once we visited, placed beautiful red, artificial roses on Granny's grave, and replaced all the flowers on the other family headstones, and cleaned up some others, we headed back to Aunt Doris'. About 5:30 we headed back for home, another 3 1/2 drive. Mom was so happy and sad at the same time. I told her I was glad she had a good birthday and that I couldn't call it happy because Granny wasn't here, and she told me it was a happy birthday for her. Course I couldn't cry when she said that cause I was driving. (smile)

Mom just couldn't believe I was doing this and that she went along with it. But I just couldn't see her not getting to visit Granny on the first birthday of her being gone. It wasn't really closure, but it had to be done. Mom had to go visit. I guess I can't explain it, but I am sure those who read this will understand.


2. Libby is all better! Took her to the vet yesterday after work and had her stitches out and the doctor gave her an all clear and she is all better. I was so happy. It was Pyometra and due to her uterus being enlarged when they removed it, some of her hormones escaped into her blood stream and that is what is causing her false pregnancy. She is doing better on that too. She isn't nesting as much anymore and she has stopped dripping milk. Her boobs are still a little enlarged, but it is starting to pass.

Well,
TTFN

The Lord who created you... says... I have called you by name; you are mine.
Isaiah 43:1

Mother's day...

Summer got all her shots Friday night so she got that night and all of Saturday off.

Sunday was mother's day. I got my mom some real sentimental stuff of Granny and Grandpa that I had her open in the back bedroom cause I knew she would cry. One was an older picture (late 60's early 70's) of Granny and Grandpa kissing. I blew it up and framed it. One was a beautiful porcelain, I guess you would call it a pill box. It was about 2" tall and 3" long and 1 1/2" deep. It was painted with flowers and had a gold color lip and clasp. On top was written FOREVER. Inside was red silk with a cushion under it. I have had Granny and Grandpa's wedding rings for a LONG time. But with Granny gone now, I just didn't feel it was my right to have them anymore. So I put them in there and gave those to mom too. She cried. I know she was trying to hold it in and not show emotion. This was, as you know, her first mother's day without Granny. She really cried hard when she opened those two gifts. The other gift in the same bag was a smaller, square 1"x1"x1" porcelain box with a rose painted on top. What I put inside of it was Granny's mothers day locket mom gave her several years ago. Granny never put a picture in it. I brought it home from Granny's on that sad weekend. I put a pic of Granny on one side and a pic of Granny and Grandpa on the other. She cried with that gift too. But I think the hardest one was the rings. But like I said, I just didn't feel right having them anymore.

The larger gift I got her I let her open in the living room. It was an angel mom holding her angel baby. The mom was reading to the baby. I bought it cause I thought of me and my mom. After I got it though, I thought of Granny and Aunt Betty. Granny and Grandpa had a little girl named Betty who died at 2 days old. I thought of Granny getting to hold and be with Betty now. But I wasn't going to say that to mom. Of course when she pulled it out of the bag, she cried. I asked her what she was thinking, and she said Granny and Betty. That she shouldn't be selfish, that it is Betty's turn to be with Granny now.

Then we got the old home movies out. They are on reel to reel and are getting very old. Amanda had never seen them so it was a treat to get to see her mom (me) as an 18 month old. And she got to see Grandpa (who died when I was 7yoa). I cried when I saw him put me on his lap then I cried when I saw a shot of Granny giving me a kiss when I was about 2yoa. I just still can't believe it's real that she is gone.

Anyway, David and Dad checked into the price to have all those put on DVD. It will be about $320.00. I told Dad we would pay for half. I want those memories to live on and I want Amanda to have them some day.

Onto a "not so emotional side", Sunday evening Tracey and I went riding in the pasture. I was a nice ride. Summer and Amira were great. Then last night we met up again and she brought her son Wes. We all rode out and we all had a good time. However, with all this rain we are getting, the pasture and wooded areas are really growing over. We have some serious trail work to do. I may try to do some this weekend if the ground isn't too icky.

Anyway,
TTFN

Is it fate or did Granny hand pick the boy?

My daughter had her first car date this past Saturday. He is a little red headed cutie pie. He and she have been going "steady" (if they still use that word) for a month now. They went on their first date this weekend.

For a couple of weeks I have been asking Amanda questions about the boy. One question, when is his birthday? She knew it was in June but kept forgetting to ask what day. So, Saturday night he came over a 6pm to pick her up. He looked sooo scared, it was like de-ja-vue. It kinda took me back to when my beau's came to meet my parents and pick me up for a date. I talked to him for a bit and then asked him what day his birthday was on. I told him Amanda had told us June but forgot to ask him what day.

Now go back, my mom's birthday is June 20th, her mom (Granny) is June 20th, (yea, I know, weird), plus a good family friend, Janie, who knew my Granny before she knew my mom, and is only 1 hour older than my mom is, yes, June 20th. Janie knew my Granny for 41 years, yes, before I was born. Anyway.

Now what date do you think this boy told me? Yes, I got tears, I hope I didn't scare him off, but he said the 20th. OM goodness, was he hand picked by my Granny? He asked Amanda on March 31st (the Monday after Granny's funeral) to "go steady" (I am sure, not the words he used). But he seems like a real sweet kid. His dad is an engineer and mom is a children's minister.

I am really happy for Amanda. I know that having a beau has really boosted her self esteem. She is really hitting her homework hard. If this is what it takes to get her grades up, I hope he sticks around for awhile. I think she is cleaning her face better too, the acne seems to be clearing up better.

Well, gotta go to work.
TTFN

One month tomorrow...

I can't believe it will be one month tomorrow that my Granny passed away. My mom is still not doing to good. She still crys a lot. We are going over there tomorrow to spend the day with her and dad. Mom says that when she went back to Oklahoma that following week to take care of Granny's house, she found a bunch of pictures that she didn't know Granny had. Pictures of Granny's grandparents. So mom wants to walk down memory lane and go through those pictures. I think it will be nice, but I know there will a lot of tears.

Mom keeps saying things like, "I wish I had, I should have, why didn't I?" when I comes to when Granny was alive. I keep telling her she was a great daughter and hind sight is 20/20, but I know that is not that comforting. I will just pray for her that she will soon find peace and come to terms that Granny is with her other family now.

I figure that Amanda and I will go up there this Summer so she can visit David's parents and we can visit my Great-Aunts (Granny's sisters), and our cousins. Go see Granny and Grandma and take them flowers, along with the rest of the grandparents and aunts at that cemetary. It is kinda a family cemetary way out in the country. I goes back to my Great X 3 grandparents. The head stone of my GGG-Grandfather has the Mason symbol on it. I thought that was kinda cool that I had Mason in my family. I had watched some documentarys on the Mason's, very interesting.

Well, now I am just rambling.
TTYL

A long and sad week...

Well, last Wednesday, March 26, 2008, my grandmother passed away. We called her Granny. This has been a stressful and emotional week for me and my family. It was so unexpected. She wasn't sick, no heart problems, non-smoker, no cancer, nothing. She was complaining that her legs hurt and were bothering her. I wonder if she had a blood clot break loose. She was 79. I try to find the blessing in every negative thing in my life. When I have questions like, "Why would God do this?" I try to find a blessing when that question comes to me. I have found some with this last week. My daughter, her great-granddaughter, got to spend her 17th birthday with Granny just 10 days prior to her passing. She got to spend that week with her for spring break. That is a blessing that God allowed that. It is also a blessing that He waited until the next week to take Granny home and to her family that have already passed and not take her while Amanda was there. It was a blessing that she wasn't bed ridden like her brother was that passed just 2 months prior. He had bone cancer and was sick for over a year. Granny was always on the go. You couldn't keep that lady down. She was the one that took care of others, not the other way around. So I find another blessing that, "she lived until she died". That there was no pain in her death, that is was sudden and even she did not know it was happening. I just miss her so much already. She was my Granny, and I know that I will see her again someday. I believe that our life on earth is just one minute to God.

Ecclesicstes 7:1-2
1 A good name is better than fine perfume,
and the day of death better than the day of birth.
2 It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of every man;
the living should take this to heart.

2 Timothy 4:6-8
and the time has come for my departure.
7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race,
I have kept the faith.
8Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day