Sunday Scribblings - Sports - 2/15/09

When I saw the prompt for this week, my mind when in a couple of different directions. And then I decided I would go for something current. Usually I write about my childhood memories, I did have a great story, but I will save it for another time.

There is just one sport for me…. college basketball and one team….. Carolina! When I say Carolina, I mean the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC.



I don’t think I am the usual fan. There are times I can’t even watch the game I am so stressed, I just lay in my bedroom in the dark, praying they will win. Sometimes, I can listen with my head covered with my blanket and if they are up by 20 points or more I can sit in my living room and watch them play.

I am not sure why but I have every TV in the house tuned to the game I guess somehow I feel this helps them in some way. I talk to the players and even to Roy by shouting at the TV.

I love Carolina Tarheel basketball! This year we are doing good, we have had some ups and downs, but it looks like everything is coming together. On Wednesday night we beat Duke at Cameron and I did loved that, but we play them again the last game of the season and I am worried. Always with Duke I worry. After that the ACC tournament, then on to the NCAA with the #1 seed in the East, I hope. The reason I worry is because of this statement……. On any given night when 2 ACC teams meet to play, any ACC team (no matter what their standings) can beat the other team. Over the years I have seen bottom ranked teams win when the odds were almost impossible. It must have something to do with adrenalin.


Info about the picture above: North Carolina's basketball team is introduced during the Late Night With Roy Williams NCAA college basketball scrimmage in Chapel Hill, N.C., Friday, Oct. 24, 2008. Fans got their first chance to see the 2008-2009 Tar Heel basketball team at the event.

Just so you will know, I am able to watch all sports and I do understand them, but I just don’t have the love for them like I do for my beloved Carolina Tarheels.

Sunday Scribblings - Regrets - 2/1/09

Regrets….yes I have them.

I first thought about making a list. Then I thought would any good come from making that list? Would it make any one of them change? NO, nothing would be different in my life so why should I take the time to relive things I can not change.

If I could erase my regrets, by making different decisions I am not sure I would. I believe changing even one decision would make my entire life different. Everyone I know thinks making changes in their past would make everything better, but it could do just the opposite.

My life is far from perfect, but I have family, people who love me, a roof over my head, enough food (well perhaps too much food),a great dog, many precious memories with a few regrets. I think I am pretty lucky so far.

Sunday Scribblings - Organic- 1/11/09

When I saw the prompt for this week, I thought of the many times I have heard the word over the past few years. There are many articles and advertisements that tell us we will be healthier if we eat organic foods, I agree with this logic, but then I begin to think of all the people in the world who are starving and I am sure they are not thinking about eating organic. This makes me feel selfish since the cost for organic foods is so much more. So now I just try my best to eat like my grandparents did……simple. Their lives were long and productive and I am hoping mine will be also.
Just as I was about to end this boring post I decided to look up some synonyms for organic. Here are some of them, basic, natural, essential, functional, healthful, living, primitive, fundamental, vital, elemental and simple.
After reading the list, I feel much better. I am eating organic in my own way.

Sunday Scribblings - For Richer or Poorer - 1/04/09

For richer or poorer………
It seems that most of my writings are about my childhood. I am not sure why that is, but when I see the prompts that is generally what comes to my mind.
You know, I didn’t even realize I was raised poor until I was about 25 years old. I know you are wondering why I didn’t know? I think is because I had everything I needed and most of what I wanted growing up. My parents worked, but Daddy was almost always on lay off for three to four months each year and my mother just made minimum wage. My parents learned to make sure every penny was used carefully. My mother’s sister and her husband lived just two doors down the street from my house and their situation was much the same, except they had two children.
The “two family effort” started before I can remember and continues to this day. (Our fathers are gone, but we still have our mothers.) It was like I had 2 mothers and 2 fathers. I am an only child, except for my two cousins. We were like a family of seven. We had a garden, went to my Grandma’s house, built picnic tables, sold produce on the side of the road, owned a power mower, went to church, took vacations, and many other things…….all TOGETHER! What we had was the “two family effort” and this made so much more possible.
Each family had their own house and car and spent time with just their family, but when there was something we REALLY needed, the power of the “two family effort” came to the surface and together everything came out okay.
Just to let you know having four parents made getting into trouble much harder, but we still managed. I will save those stories for another time.
My childhood was rich with love and comfort.

Sunday Scribblings - Change - 11/9/08

When I saw the prompt for this week’s Sunday Scribblings. I thought most people would be thinking about our recent national election, since for months all we have been hearing is how much America needs change. And perhaps we do, but that is not what I thought about today when I saw the prompt. I thought of daddy’s change.
For as far back as I can remember, nightly I would hear the sound of coins being dropped into a glass jar that sat on the floor beside the night stand in my parents’ bedroom. I thought every man did this, but as I grew older, I found out this wasn’t true. The fact was my father hated change, especially nickels! I tried to figure this out, but as a child this was above my thinking. To me money was money, no matter if it was paper or change.
As the years passed, we counted his change, or I should say I counted his change. I learned to count by counting pennies and he helped me learn to make change. Over the years, daddy’s change did many things for us. It took us to Washington, DC and to Florida. Once I counted his change and that weekend we headed to Myrtle Beach, SC. Over the years his change bought surprises for many different people.
As I got older, we made a deal. I counted, rolled and took it to the bank for paper money and for doing this I got to keep all the nickels myself. I remember once there was $42 in nickels. We kept this deal in place until daddy passed away. Several months after daddy’s death my mother called to ask me to come by the house, when I got there she had found one last jar of change. We made a decision, to keep daddy’s change just like he left it. So there it stays for now.

Sunday Scribblings - Wedding - 9/28/08

When I saw the prompt this week instantly I thought of Betty. Several years ago I worked with her and we were friends. She had six children, two boys and four girls. By the time we met, her children were older, three already out of her house and on their own, two still in college and one a senior in high school.

We had almost every day contact for over ten years. During those years, I heard updates on all six children often. I remember the day she told me that her baby girl was getting married. I thought she might be emotional since Ginger was the last one at home so I just let her talk. I wanted to be a shoulder if she needed one.

Betty started talking about Ginger’s plans for the wedding. She talked about the church, number of attendants, flowers, and colors for the wedding, food for the reception. As she talked I thought, “I wonder what all of this is going to cost?”

Betty was excited about the upcoming wedding or so I thought. And then she told me of an offer they had made to Ginger. Betty and Gene offered Ginger the money for all new kitchen appliances including washer and dryer, new furniture for her entire house plus $20,000 for a down payment on a house they wanted to buy if she would just elope. Ginger declined their offer.

The wedding was gorgeous and just, as Ginger wanted. Betty and Gene paid for everything. The pictures were beautiful, something a couple would cherish always.

I want you to know Gene and Betty were not against the marriage just the wedding. For you see with experience comes knowledge and by this time they had been part of five other weddings and they knew what could happen.

And much to their sorrow it did happen. In less than 3 years Ginger and her husband were divorced. Here in North Carolina, it takes a full year of separation to get a divorce so their real marriage lasted less than 2 years. So what Ginger really got for all the money Betty and Gene paid was beautiful wedding pictures with a man who cheated on her.

So if they had eloped, she wouldn’t have all those beautiful pictures in the white leather wedding book to remind her of the loser she married. But she might have had the house she wanted so much. (They never purchased that house; they didn’t have a down payment.)

Sunday Scribblings - Invitation - 9/21/08

I was talking with my daughter, Julie, last week. She was going over her schedule for the upcoming week. It is something we have done for several years now. It helps us stay in touch a little better. And we seem to worry less about each other since we started exchanging schedules. Now I want you to know it’s not like we go over every tiny detail just an overview. She mentioned a Sunday afternoon football party. I thought it sounded like a lot of fun, but she went on to tell me more about it and then I knew she didn’t really care to go, but she was going. She believes you should go when invited unless you have another engagement already on the schedule. In return she believes people will attend your parties when ask.

Later on in the week Julie called to tell me about a situation that occurred with a friend of hers. She mentioned the football party to a friend just in general conversation and found out that MK had NOT been invited. MK was very upset! The host has been to her home on several occasions for parties including football parties. MK just couldn’t understand why she wasn’t invited.

After several minutes of talking about the situation, MK told Julie she wouldn’t have attended the party, but thought she should have been invited.

I have thought about this many times over the years, but for the life of me I can’t decide why most women feel this way. It doesn’t really matter about the event, whether you want to go or not…..actually it’s all about the invitation.

Sunday Scribblings - 55 Flash Fiction Friday - "Coffee" - 9/14/08

Here early working on HIS paperwork so I can get mine done in time. I hear the sounds of co-workers arriving. The minutes of my precious morning time have slipping away. Everyone is now hard at work. Thirty-three minutes late I hear HIM arrive. And then the dreaded command…..COFFEE!!!! I am not a waitress……….

Sunday Scribblings - Miracle - 9/7/08

When I saw the prompt for this week, my mind flashed. I saw replays of many things I consider to be miracles in my life. Sometimes I feel I am the luckiest person in the world and other times I seem to forget how lucky I am.

I watched a beautiful person I love very much change their life of addiction and become a productive member of society.

One night several years ago (I had just gotten my first computer a few months before) I was on Yahoo, looking around and found a site where you could post comments and ask for others to respond back to you. I responded and met a friend and soul mate. The site was gone the next day. (We both looked for it.)

Birth, this is for sure a miracle. Two beautiful, healthy children, three perfect grandchildren. I am so lucky to have them in my life.

I don’t think it is possible for me to list all of my miracles. I know that I experience many each and every day and for that I am so very thankful……..




Another miracle........my beautiful Outer Banks........

Sunday Scribblings "My Nights" and Writer's Island "Unexpected"

My writing time has been limited recently so I decided to combine Sunday Scribblings and Writer's Island this week. The prompts worked well together for me. Sunday Scribblings prompt was My Nights and the prompt for Writer's Island was Unexpected.





My insecurities always surface when I am alone and the darkness comes. I don’t like feeling the anxiety that comes with them. I am in hotel rooms at least 4 nights each week so I try to hide myself in activities to avoid the fear that comes each night. I do endless paperwork, play computer games, talk on the phone, and watch TV, write and read trying to busy myself until bedtime. I play the TV all night because the fear of waking to an unexpected sound doesn’t allow me to have silence. I must have light in the room to keep the shadows away.




I don’t let my family or friends know about "my nights" because that would show weakness and that is not acceptable! I like being independent and having insecurities and fear doesn’t exactly fit with independence. The good thing is just as the darkness comes each day so does the light. Strange as it is, I love "my nights" just not when I am alone.

Sunday Scribblings - Composed - April 20, 2008

I sometimes wonder how I am able to hold so many things inside without letting the people around me know I am almost ready to explode. I want the people I love to be able to count on me and they do.

Most of the time I feel they use my willingness to help and guilt to pressure me. The next thing I know I have agreed to commitments that I don’t have time for. When I am “spread so thin” I can’t get my timing right. Either I am late or not prepared when I get there. Either way the end results are not what I wanted……so more guilt.

I have guilt because I travel during the week for work, so I only have the weekends to get everything done at home. Let me tell you it is very hard to maintain a home, get ready for the upcoming week, get reports e-mailed, take your mother out to breakfast on Saturday, see your husband, daughter, son, grandchildren, go to a ballgame and eat Sunday lunch at your mother’s house. And somewhere in all of this, I have to wash my hair, paint my nails and rub a little lotion on my body.

On the outside I am composed, laughing, talking moving through this life of mine,

but on the inside I am fragmented, totally a crazy woman!

And the funny part I am the only one that knows the secret. And now I have told you.

Sunday Scribblings - Fearless - 4/13/08

I think fear makes us fearless. I believe all people have at least one “thing” they would protect at any cost! I don’t know what your “thing” is, but I feel sure you have one.

Thank goodness for the many people that have more than just one. I think of our military personnel

and I am so grateful for their sacrifices. They leave their families and homes to protect us. I see
law enforcement officers,

firemen,

and volunteers from many different groups become fearless for you and me.
On the news, I hear about ordinary people finding the courage and unexpected strength to save someone they don’t even know. I read about people who put their fear aside and donate bone marrow and organs to help save lives.

Fear somehow gives us courage and with courage we become fearless.