I saw him standing in line for the checkouts.  At first glance he looked as though he had some kind of genetic defect, some kind of retardation.  He looked like one of modern man's ancestors with his sloping brow and thick lips, not to mention his longer-than-average arms and thick, hairy knuckles.  He was neatly dressed but his ensemble had a 'too neat' air to them, as if his mother had chosen his clothes for him and he had been given no say in the matter whatsoever.  He...

*disclaimer for the dense: 'daft' is a British way of saying 'silly' in a good-natured kind of way.  Read on, and you'll see why I'm saying it* My mum is coming to visit us next spring.  We're really happy and excited to have her come and visit, it'll be the first time in a decade that we've seen her.  She knows that we're excited about it, but she's being very British and very polite about the whole thing First of all, she asked 'do you think it'd be okay if I came to visit...

I've been making candy this week. I made some blackberry flavored hard candy last Friday and some cotton candy flavored yesterday.  I made suckers and hexagon shaped candy pieces, and I also used a Jello 'Jello Bean' mold - the candy pieces that came out of that are the perfect size and shape (IMO). I also got a chocolate mold when I was at the cake and confectionery store.   It's like a sucker mold, but instead of sucker sticks you put pretzel rods in it and get chocolate p...

I don't use checks much anymore.  Most of our bills are paid online; there are only two that need to be paid via paper checks.  I only use checks at three stores - the commissary so I can write the check for a few dollar over to tip the bagger, the thrift store because they don't accept Visa, and the BX - we write checks there for cash to avoid the ATM fees (our primary bank account is in South Dakota and we get charged fees at all of the ATM's on base). Consequently, one box o...

There are some people on our street who are moving house.  Again. This is the latest in a series of moves for them, and that's just at this base.  I don't know exactly how many times they moved at their last duty assignments, but I know that the moves were pretty frequent. Here, they've moved from on-base housing to off-base civilian housing, then they moved civilian houses twice before applying to come back on base again.  Now they're moving to another subdi...

I've been up all night, sitting with a patient. After a hair raising drive along some dark and icy roads  I got home and to bed after 5 am, but I didn't really sleep.  I dozed, thinking about how I have to go to the store, clean the house, do laundry and run a bunch of general errands today.  I didn't get enough sleep the night before last either, so I'm literally running on fumes today.  Dave knows that and is being gentle with me...hopefully that'll last until...

A couple of years ago, I made Christmas gifts for my family in England.  They went over so well that I've decided to do the same thing again this year. For my mum: I've knitted her a cabled scarf using a vintage pattern.  I've also made her a pair of earrings and a matching pendant using some gorgeous turquoise crackled-glass beads.  The kids have made her Christmas angels to hang on her tree. For my brother: I hand knit a beanie in his favorite soccer team's colors (Manches...

The Hospice conference I attended yesterday was held on Southern Illinois University's Edwardsville campus in the main conference hall.  Driving around campus made me feel old; there were kids wandering around who didn't look too much older than my 14 year old - and in reality, they AREN'T that much older at a mere 18 - 20 years. All of the facilities in and around the conference hall were geared towards the younger generation:  fast food places, Starbucks, TV's tuned to MTV instead...

Sometimes during the course of my ordinary, everyday life I come across people who I think are, for want of a better word, angels. It's not their actions that make me think them such, nor is it their appearance or their voices.  It's nothing that they've done (or not done) or said (or not said); it's not how they dress or style their hair or even the clothes that they wear.  None of those things has any bearing on my thinking them to be celestial, spiritual beings. It's their pre...

The Air Force base that I live on started a Veteran's Day Vigilance walk/run yesterday afternoon. Basically, we've had someone running or walking and carrying the flag ever since 1600 yesterday.  Yesterday when it started the weather looked like it was going to be on our side; it was pleasant and unseasonably warm at 65+ degrees.  However, that didn't last.  At 1800 it started to rain, then we got thunder and lightning followed by a 30 - 40 degree drop in temperature ...

It's official.  I'm an Ambassador.  I even have a nametag with my new status on it. Training went well and was very informative.  I came out of it with a crate full of materials to disperse; pens and wound measures and pill boxes and booklets and brochures and shirts and hats and bumper stickers and all kinds of other stuff.  We also found out that each of us was hand-picked.  Out of the 100+ volunteers that the hospice has working for them, only four of us we...

I have a site bookmarked on my laptop.  It's a record of each convict executed by various states since 1976.  It has their name, photos of them, details of their crime and their last meal and final statements.  Sometimes it also has photos of their victims. Link I stop by there every so often to see who's been send to their grave and what they did to get there. Most of the crimes make me sad, but the ones who REALLY bother me are the crimes against children.  There a...

There's a Burger King about 1/4 mile up the street from my house.  I don't eat there much, mainly because I don't care for BK food much, but also because it has a history and a reputation for gawd-awful customer service.  The time before last that we went there, we waited 30 minutes for our food before asking for a refund and going elsewhere. This evening we're watching our neighbor's kids, so we decided to treat them to BK.  I'd seen commercials for the Italian chicken sandwic...

I'm restless today.  I got up at 0600 even though the kids don't have school (parent teacher conferences - Jakes was yesterday and he's a straight B student, which is awesome for Jake).  Dave went to the gym at 0500 (like always) and I thought I heard the screen door slam announcing his arrival home from running the perimiter of the flightline (7 miles), so I hauled my ass outta bed - only to find that it wasn't Dave but the cat who had got shut out all night and was throwing herself a...

I LOVE getting a bargain.  It makes me feel so good to know that I got something for a lot less than retail price. I like to tell people how much I paid for things; I relish getting a good deal. But you know what I love more than getting a bargain for myself?  Getting a bargain for someone else. This morning I went to the thrift store on base looking for outfits for Angela Marie's baby.  I was hoping to get a couple of what I call baby-gro's...I think they're called sle...