ABC's of Callie B.

Ruth posted "20 on Tuesday". She listed twenty things that are characteristic of Callie. I'm making a list of twenty six things related to Callie. One for each letter of the alphabet. Here we go:

A. Apple of my eye--Callie

B. Beautiful eyes--long, dark lashes (Chad) and her eyes dance whenever she smiles (Ruth)

C. Cute, cute, cute!

D. Determined--Callie plugs away at each new endeavor

E. Entertaining--I could watch her play and go about her business all day long!

F. Funny--She is pleased when others laugh--she loves playing jokes.

G. GaGa! That's my name that Callie gave me.

H. Heart--what ever little empty spaces I have had in my heart, Callie has filled them up.

I. Independent--without being tempermental (yet), Callie tries new things and has shown us that she would like to try on her own.

J. Joy! Goes along with heart.

K. Keeper--She's a keeper!

L. Lovable--There's nothing better than holding her and she puts her head on your shoulder and stays that way so you may soak her up.

M. Mischievious--Goes without saying, sometimes she tests her limits.

N. Nothing like it! Being a grandmother, that is.

O. October 3--the day all of us were blessed to have this sweet child come into our lives.

P. Process--Everything she does, she does methodically. There is a process, it's not a ritual, but she thinks through from Point A to Point B. Ask Chad & Ruth.

Q. Quizzical--a look she may give you that makes you wonder "Whatever is going through that baby's mind?"

R. Radiant--Callie's smile

S. Sweet, sweet Callie!

T. Thrill-seeker. Ask Chad...she loves to rough-house play, she loves to swing, first time on a slide, she pushed herself off and kept coming back for more.

U. Unbelievably smart! Callie processes all information. You may think she didn't take notice of something said or done once, but she lets you know later on that she understood and uses that information.

V. Verbal! She uses many words and they are understandable, but when she is excited or is trying to explain something, you just can't keep up.

W. What would we do without Callie?

X. Kiss, kiss, kiss. She kisses her baby doll, Elmo, Bert and a duck decoy I have on my hearth!

Y. Yet. If she doesn't give you a return demonstration at the moment or she doesn't respond right away...it's not that she doesn't comprehend. She just hasn't responded YET.

Z. Zoo, of course..she has been to the zoo many times and Ruth & Chad say she enjoys it even more with each visit.

THIS LAND IS OUR LAND

I watched a movie last night that was based on the true story about two Napa Valley wineries beating out French wines in the first Franco-American wine tasting in 1976. Very interesting stuff to know that Napa wineries have been in operation for many, many years even though they were considered poor quality wines by the entire wine snob world.


To the point...the movie illustrated the passion of vitners, the symbiotic relationship that man has with the earth and nature to produce a quality wine. There was a passionate dialogue between an "up-start" vitner and an Hispanic employee who has guided the vitner along with his knowledge. The Hispanic was a third or fourth generation Napa Valley winery employee. He spoke of his heritage of migrant workers, laborers and how the only way to know wine-making was to have the juice of the grape and the grit of the soil under one's fingernails. One needed to know the sense of toil in one's muscles, calluses on the hands, the breathing in of the air of the seasons during growing and cultivation to truly be a vitner.


It reminded me of how as technology moves us along, we rely less and less on our knowledge of the earth to accomplish what we need to do to live. Even as briefly as 100 years ago, most of the world worked the earth to make a living--farming, raising animals, forestry, fishing, and building things from the natural elements of soil, wood, water, fire, and stone. How far away we have traveled from our Earth! Products are synthetic, "man-made". Chemists, machinists, industrialists, carmakers, engineers develop new and improved products that have literally transformed even those vocations that have relied on the Earth. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides; and gasoline, electrical, coal, steam powered machines pollute the very water we drink and the food we produce for human consumption. Theories abound (with some truth) that children reach puberty at younger ages now due to the prolification and popularity of the chicken nugget. Chickens are raised by huge chicken farms that utilize hormones and antibiotics to produce a better, cheaper chicken.


If you concentrate on this and think it through, you may be concerned...where are we headed? If we cover more and more soil with concrete, the earth doesn't absorb and filter rain efficently. It goes on and on.


Point is....we need to get MUCH greener. Our great-grandfathers are gone, there are fewer and fewer teachers of the Earth available. Experience/failure IS the best teacher, but I wonder
why we have to be dire situations before we learn.

"We humans must come again to a moral comprehension of the earth and air. We must live according to the principle of a land ethic. The alternative is that we shall not live at all."
~N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa~

MY FRIENDS

I was able to have lunch with a very dear friend this week. It was so good to see her. We laugh quite a bit. We are kindred spirits, both left-handed, both nurses--detail-oriented, and fiercely committed to our families. She was a great friend during Clu Flu's illnesses and death. She has moved far away, but comes back routinely. We had not had a visit since October. We tried to catch up sufficiently with each others' lives within 1 1/2 hours--talking in fragments, knowing that the other would understand the query: "Kids?" "Fine"--"Work?", etc.

During our visit, I blurted out rather unexpectedly that I never want to lose her friendship. I don't feel the friendship is jeopardized....but there is a great mileage distance between us. It is very difficult for me to "lose" those close to me. She wondered where that came from.

I explained that I feared that a long-term friendship of mine had suffered some damage last Fall as a result of the political campaigns---and I was at a loss as to how to get back to the friendship prior to the political issues.

I never say "best friend" because all my close friends are diverse and from different parts of my life. They are equally important to me. It is my hope that I have contributed something positive to each friend to return the many positive things they have each given me.

Family is the backbone of our lives, but the friendships enrich our lives.

If you are my friend and you are reading this....you know what I mean. I love you all and I cherish our friendships.

Fourth of Four---from Ruth

1. Go to your 4th folder where you store your photos.

2. Select the 4th photo (no exceptions).

3. Post the picture with an explanation and link it back to your tagger.

4. Tag 4 people to do the same.

Clu Flu's surprise birthday party--June, 2006 Left to right: John Lusk, June Sherrill's daughter, Dr. Bobby Brown, June Sherrill, Dr. White (half-hidden), and Sara Brown

Withdrawal Symptoms

I have a confession to make, Dear Bloggers. I am an e-mail junkie. I check my e-mail at least 4 times a day. I enjoy reading most of them. I enjoy organizing them into folders. I enjoy "cleaning up " my e-mails by deleting them. I don't forward as much as I used to...but I will forward "a good one" here and there. I enjoy referring to SNOPES when I receive one of those outlandish forwards. I recently got an e-mail that said that the couple who post SNOPES are really not authorities on anything....they just google like you and me!

So, I am a little disjointed today. My Yahoo Mail is DOWN and has been for almost 24 hours! I CAN'T CHECK MY E-MAIL!

I actually take care of things via e-mail. Right now, I need to e-mail Brooke, my tax accountant, and my financial planner. The State of Texas sends me updates to my personal e-mail for work. Not to mention that I am sure that I have accumulated about 100 "non-Spam" e-mails.

This is, by far, the longest I have been incommunicado. And get this! Today our State server was down at work. Could not get into our program to communicate with Austin or complete the report I'm working on that is late due to weather office closures last week. So, in my altered neurological state today, I was having paranoid thoughts about Homeland Security issues. Maybe crippling the Internet is a valid way to do us in. I wasn't really concerned, but that did cause me to think that we rely so much on the Internet. Two people in the office had to find a phone book to look up phone numbers. One person couldn't get on MapQuest or Expedia to plot directions to an agency.

So, here I sit, feeling lost, disoriented, and out of touch. Thank goodness for Facebook!