WoooHoooo!!!

I'm back on-line. I actually was able to follow Bro's instructions and hook up to my Cuz's computer. And it worked! Tomorrow I'll be out with my camera if I can find which box it's in and take some photos so you can see the place and meet the critters, at least the ones that live here. Spud is a Jack Russell and he is in hog heaven. My Cuz says he thinks he has his own harem even though he and the girls all are 'fixed' they run around and check out all the trees and leaves and SueSue and he play chase some until the Spud gets too rambunctious as Jack Russell terriers tend to get and then she just ducks because he is jumpin' over her and around her. They all three like being around each other and Spud comes in and gets in bed with me and the girls and sometimes he and Suess nap on my bed. We both have decided that he's glad for short legged critters being around. Lucky is the outdoor dog. He has a short weak front leg that he can use somewhat and he is such a sweet dog. My cousin's late husband came carryin' him. He had found him and brought him home as a pup and thus the name Lucky.

It is so nice to get up in the morning and look out the window and see the cows grazing out in the pasture or just to go out and feel the sun on my face and the breeze through my hair and to know this peace inside again. And to know that my world is starting to level out and I love my Cuz all the more for opening her home to me. Her son came by the first day I was here and helped me unload my truck and told me he was glad that I was here. He was thinking it will be good for his momma to not be here by herself. I told him that I was the fortunate one to have a close enough relationship with her and was looking forward to be able to visit and get to know him and his sister and her three girls better. I'll be going to basketball games to help Granny yell for the granddaughters and Cuz and I are looking forward to taking the metal detector out to several places around the land they own that were old homesteads and her youngest granddaughter is faunching at the bit to go out hunting with Granny (my Cuz) and Helen looking for treasure. When she saw the metal detector Wednesday evening she wanted to go looking right then... I told her it was getting pretty cool and it was dark so not tonight... She said, "Granny has a big flashlight in her closet!" She sure made it difficult to not go right then but I told her we needed to wait until Saturday.

This is going to be such fun but I have to say that I already have my treasure. I have family that loves and wants me to be around and to be happy and peaceful.

I have the greatest Christmas gift that I could ever have been given.

In A Remembering Mood...

I guess with all that's gone on in the past week, I'm somewhat in a looking back mood. These three woman, these sisters were the major influence of my life.

My mom, Mary Lou, is on the right,who raised me and my five brothers and sisters.

Aunt Mack (Maxine), mom to my cousins Nancy Gale, Ray and Carol, who just lost her husband.

Aunt Pauline, mom of my cousins Michael and Bonnie.

These three were so different in so many ways and yet, so alike in so many ways.

This photo is the only one that I know of that has all of us cousins together. On the back row (l-r)is Nancy Gale, my oldest brother Bill, and my oldest sister Lou Ann. The next row (l-r) is my middle brother Walter, Ray Lynn and Michael. The two taller girls are my middle sister Sue and Carol. Then Bonnie with the gorgeous curls, my baby brother Bennett and yours truly.

I interrupted my story with this photo just because I had been talking to my cousins Carol and Nancy after the funeral and said something about it and since Carol reads my blog, she and Nancy can see the photo and print it off so they will have a copy.

But I digress... or is it regress?? Back to the sisters.


In their growing up, they were raised out in Canadian Texas, along with their brother Tom. It was not, I'm sure, the easiest time, but I never heard any of them tell anything but fun stories about growing up. Any other stories that were told were just like, well, that was life and you dealt with it.

I think all of the sisters, and Uncle Tom, too, really, really to this little girl, enjoyed each others company. Aunt Paul lived in California after she married and every time she was able to come home, to Okla. City, it was all about the girls.


She always brought Bonnie with her and whether she was at our home, or at Aunt Mack's or we were all together at either home, all us girls loved being together. And we all saw the love and the trust between our moms. We never, back then, thought about that part of the relationship, but looking back now that I'm getting older, it is one of those things you carry with you.

They each had their burdens they carried, but they each dealt with them in their quiet steady way. But the one thing I know is how much love they had... for each other and for their children.

The last photo is one that was taken on an Easter Sunday, about sixty years ago. On the left is Aunt Mack is behind Carol, Nancy is behind me, Mom is behind Sue and Lou Ann is next to mom. This one, too, is for my cousins. Because I love them and have so enjoyed the time we had this week to talk and remember...

I love being with my family... they are who makes me feel complete.

This One's For You, Cuz...

These three sisters... these three friends...

The relationships between them was probably the closest relationships I ever saw growing up. Aunt Pauline, Aunt Mack (Maxine) and mom, Mary Lou, (in that order in the first photo), were so very close. I don't ever recall anything but laughter and lots of talking when these three got together.

It didn't happen nearly as often as they would have liked, because Aunt Paul and her husband and two children lived in Santa Monica, California. Aunt Mack and her family lived in Okla. City like our family.

So many times when we were growing up we were out in the 'country' (south OKC on a small acreage) at Aunt Mack and Uncle Bud's place, playing with our cousins and learning about 'country' ways.

Slopping the hogs was just that. I don't know what all was in those buckets, but it looked like slop and in the deep summer time it smelled like slop. I learned how you milked a cow. I always loved to watch my uncle milk because they had barn cats around and he could squirt that milk right into those cat's mouths.

I helped pick corn and tomatoes, snap and hull black-eyed peas and green beans. And if mom and Aunt Mack were tired of us they'd shoo us outside to play. When Aunt Pauline would come to visit, mostly it was just that... visiting. Time shared was so precious to all the sisters that they would talk for hours on end, all help in fixing up whatever meal it was time for, all help in cleaning up after the meal, then it was more visiting time.

My family would go to California every two or three years to visit Aunt Pauline and Uncle Benny and our cousins Bonnie and Mike. I always looked forward to those trips because seeing new places and going to the beach.

On those trips we saw the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Yosemite, Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park and other places I've forgotten.

But the best part was the family getting together to re-connect, to talk and catch up on what was going on in our various lives.

This photo is the only one I know of that has all the children of the three sisters together. You've seen my cousin Bonnie, she of the beautiful curls, my baby brother Bennett, being held in place by my sister Sue, and me on the right. Our cousin Carol is next to Sue, my middle brother Walter, cousin Ray Lynn and Cousin Mike. On the back row from the left, is our cousin Nancy Gale, my oldest brother Bill and my oldest sister Lou Ann. This photo was taken approximately in the summer of 1951.

I get to see my cousin Carol mostly, because she lives the closest, but every 10 or 15 years I get to see Bonnie when she comes to visit in Oklahoma and just last week I got to visit with both Carol and Nancy Gale when I met with them for dinner and to watch Nancy's granddaughter play in a basketball game in Shawnee.

And the reason that this one is for my Cuz... We were talking about the old photos and I promised her when I found the one of all of us kids, I'd post it so she could see it and print it off if she wanted.

What better thing is there to do but share with family.... and with friends.