Sun. morning, August 24, 2008-reunion

Hi, Everyone,
Thanks for stopping by this past week.

Yesterday's family reunion with my Uncle and Aunt, Brother, and Aunt's other niece and her husband, turned out to be a very wonderful day of sharing and laughter. Hubby helped me a lot with the preparations of different things, and for that I am very blessed. He is such a sweetie!

The day was perfect. The summer breeze, while sitting in the back yard under the shade of the White Ash tree, was a saving grace from the oppressing heat of the day.
We had a feast of good food (so they told me), and lots of reminiscing and updates of everyone. The dogs even behaved themselves and didn't bother anyone too much! Clara even showed off by fetching her ball. I thought it was a very great get-together and was so glad it happened.

Last Monday, while I was at work, I manned the phones while my supervisor was in court. She told me a "former Domestic Violence abuser" (who went to prison a couple years ago), was back in court. This young fellow, around 25 y.o. age, was back again for the umpteenth time. This time it was a violation of a Protection Order he had against him by someone. My supervisor told me while he was sitting there in court, wearing his orange jail jumpsuit, handcuffs on him, he became irate at the judge and proceeded to shout and get pretty nasty. Duh? Well, that did not go over well, so the judge imposed 68 days in jail. I doubt even this amount of time will give him the opportunity to cool down by the end of his time served. This guy is a repeat offender, and just doesn't get it. He blames everyone and everything on his situations.

On his way back down to jail after court, the probation officer who was escorting him, even took out his Tazer gun just in case "Tommy" decided to be even more of a violent and abusive person than he already is.

I am looking forward to being at the Waldenbooks Bookstore in Strongsville, Ohio this coming Saturday. Hope to see you there!

Summer is winding down, and soon the birds will be gathering for their migration south. Bummer!

Hubby started school this past Friday, and the students start on Tuesday. Time flew by.

Gotta go for now. Lots to get done today. Have a great week, and thanks for keeping in touch.

Be blessed,
Becky :)

Sun. morning, August 20, 2008

Hi, Everyone,

Wow! I received the most incredible email from a gal that read my first book. How uplifting and encouraging were her words. Thanks, Janey! I will be meeting her again at the Oberlin College book signing coming up October 4th. She made me a "special bear" and wants to get my second book too. How awesome! I am so blessed.

Ya know, often times I wonder if my books inspire anyone. Her email confirms this, and it is so uplifting and enlightening it just makes my heart soar!

The garden is slowing down. We have not had much rain to speak of in weeks. The cherry tomatoes are coming along, as are the Roma's for father-in-law, but the regular ones are very small in size. Because we have our own well, I hardly ever water to save our water for our needs. When I clean out the filter for the pond, that gives me at least 4-5 gallon buckets of water and I do use it on the veggies in the garden, but that is only done once a week. The green beans have really stopped producing. The zucchini plants are dying off, (this is a blessing in a way as there was getting to be so many huge ones just in a few days!)that is okay with me.

Hubby's second corn, the Candy Corn, has been absolutely delicious, and we have eaten it every night almost. Soon it will be ready to blanch and freeze. Then the third corn is coming on, and hopefully it will be ready for company this next Saturday coming. If not, we will probably have to buy some! Bummer!

Hubby dug up a row of his potatoes yesterday. (I was at two fund-raisers for the CCAPL.) We will be digging up the other three rows today. The potatoes look really good. I'll use some of them this next Sat. for making potato salad.

Woodrow, one of the beagles, went down the potato row umpteen times yesterday checking for any left he could eat. He just loves potatoes as do the other dogs too. Clara swiped a tomato yesterday. Those crazy dogs just love the veggies. It is really funny to watch them try and sneak into the garden undetected, but that doesn't happen often! We keep a close watch on their activities. Some of the cucumbers turned yellow on the vine, so I gave them to the dogs. They just crunch away at them and seem to enjoy them too.

Next Saturday I will be in Strongsville and I am looking forward to it a lot. It will be my first time there. I am so appreciative of any book store that will give me a signing, as it is difficult for self-published authors these days to get into a lot of the well-known bookstore. There seems to be some trouble with Corporate Headquarters not allowing self-published author's (POD- Print on Demand) books in their stores. It really is a problem anymore and other author friends of mine are having the same difficulty. (My books meet the Corporate criteria, so what is the problem anyway?)

Another busy week coming up. Meetings, neighbor to the doctor, working on the business plan finances of 2007 for the CCAPL, and getting ready for the company next Saturday. I'm sure looking forward to that reunion! My brother hasn't seen our Uncle in many, many years.

Have a great week everyone. Enjoy the summer while it is still here. Be safe, and count your blessings, one-by-one.
Warmest regards to you all and thanks for stopping by.
Becky :)

Sun. morning, August 10, 2008

Hi, Everyone,

Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting my site. I sure hope all of you are doing well and enjoying the beautiful weather. It has been cooler here recently and a relief from the heat. My brother-in-law lives in Nebraska and he called me for my birthday. He said it was 103 degrees out there for several days and was really hard to deal with.

Kinky-B-Bob, our 17 year old cat is not doing well. A couple weeks ago I took him to our local vet and she assessed he has hyperthyroidism, a bad heart murmur and he has not been able to keep his regular cat food down, plus he is loosing weight. I got all the medicine for him, nausea pills, heart pills, thyroid pills, and a bottle of vitamins. Poor little guy got a reaction to one of them, or all of them and was really spaced out. I never saw a cat hallucinate before! His eyes were totally dilated and he was really stressed out with very labored breathing. I was so worried and scared for him.

Around midnight last Saturday, he finally settled down and slept most of the night. I didn't give him any medicine the next day and by Monday afternoon he was better. I called the vet and told her of his reactions. Because of his advanced age, his little old systems cannot handle all the drugs. So he isn't on anything now. He is getting his regular baby food, tuna fish, and boiled white chicken. He seems to keep all that down, but as soon as he eats his regular cat food, he throws it up within about a half hour. Poor little fellow. We will just see how it goes. He absolutely refuses to eat canned cat food. Won't touch it!

I have been working on a four-part series on domestic violence and abuse for my supervisor at the office. So far one of the articles was published in our local paper, The Free Press Standard, on July 31, 2008. I submitted the second article the other day for August. The next one will be in September, and the last one will be the first of October, as October is "Domestic Violence Month." I sure hope it makes the public aware, and also helps someone dealing with the violence and abuse in their lives.

Despite the lack of rain, the zucchini is flourishing as are the green peppers. I have already frozen beans, and pepper. The tomatoes are ripening, but they are small. Hubby's first corn is on its way out and today we are going to blanch, cut it off and freeze it in bags. The second corn, Candy Corn, (so delicious!) just started coming the other day. We have corn out the wazoo! We are giving some away and eating all we can each night. Hopefully there will be some of the third corn to feed to our company in a couple weeks when my only living Uncle, his wife, my Aunt by marriage, my brother, and my Aunt's niece and her husband come down for a reunion of sorts. I am looking forward to it a lot as my Aunt and Uncle have never been here and they have not seen each other in about 18 years or so.

If you haven't visited the CCAPL's website, and you love animals, visit when you can. It is through FreeWebs and serves our purpose for now. There is a lot of valuable information on it and also what all we are trying to accomplish. Check out the "Pet Alert's Page" for various things that are harmful to dogs and cats!

Gotta go for now. Thanks for stopping by!
Be blessed, correspond when you can, and enjoy the great outdoors!
Becky :)

My Birthday- Aug. 2, 2008

Hi, Everyone!

Thanks for stopping by and visiting my web site. I hope it is pleasant, and resourceful for those of you that visit.

Today is my birthday! It is just hard to believe I have made it this far! Do you want to know how old I am? I'm not telling. Ha!

Yesterday I spent the entire day at the V.A. office entering data for my supervisor. They had such a busy week with so many cases coming in and they got behind with entering. I entered data from 7 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. with a small break for lunch with our victim advocate. I still had three more cases to do but had to leave. Whew!

It still amazes me how many assault and D.V. cases keep coming through. People beating each other up, punching, kicking, injuring, and so on. What is wrong with these people? Certainly a lot of "anger and aggressive issues" abounding! Has morality gone out the window? It seems so. So much violence, anger, disrespect for other people's property, and their boundaries.

I am making progress on the pond walkway. I decided to do the whole walkway so hubby went to the lumber place in town and purchased the rest of the block for me. I'll get it done eventually.

We had a storm go through last night about 7 p.m. It rained quite heavily for a little while and then stopped. We were supposed to get more rain around 11 p.m., but it didn't happen. The garden sure could use more rain. Hubby's corn is starting to come on and it is wonderful!

Monday I am going to speak on behalf of the V.A. office for my boss down in Dennison, Ohio. She can't make it. Then I'll come back to town and do a W.I.S.H. group with some of the girls attending who recently have gone through a D.V. situation.

The CCAPL has a big meeting coming up Tuesday. I'll be busy next week! Love it!

Gotta go for now!
Be safe, be blessed, and have a great week!
Thanks for stopping by.
Best wishes and warm regards,
Becky :)