Random Suz: A Decision

I have decided, as scared to death as I am about the eye surgery, I am going to try to put it out of my mind for now.  I can do nothing about it until it is fully funded, one way or another.  If the funding never comes through, I won't have to be worried about what they would do to me because they won't be doing it to me.  If the funding comes through, then I can re-enter total freak out mode then.

I have too much to do right now to stay in total terror mode and I am not helping my other friends that are facing this by making my worries so public.  To those friends, I apologize for putting my wimpiness out here and scaring you in the process.

Merry Christmas to all of you out there!

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Random Suz: Day 11

How has your Sunday gone? Ours has been relatively peaceful. We didn't have anything that we *had* to do outside of the house other than taking our daughter to work and picking her back up. After we got her from work, we went for a short ride to look at Christmas lights. There seem to be, for the most part, two extremes in our area: Tim Taylor/Griswold or Nothing. We tend to be on the extreme minimalist side of things, only having a Christmas tree inside. If money didn't control what could be done around here, David would have every inch of the yard lit up and flashing and playing music and all sorts of things. He's my Tim Taylor. :)

While on our drive, we came across a lighted gazebo near the water's edge. It made a pretty reflection in the water. I tried to capture that, but many things were against a great photograph, including a flash that I couldn't disengage for whatever reason. It just wouldn't respond when I clicked it and kept flashing anyway. On the third shot, I think I finally got it to stop flashing. Here is the best of the three that I took of that gazebo. The other two were extremely grainy. This one came out rather abstract, not really looking like a gazebo at all.

Half Moon Gazebo ©11 December 2016 Suzanne G. McClendon

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Random Suz: Day 10

Last night and today have been very exciting!

You all know how I love, love Newspapers.com and have found quite a bit in regards to our family history.  Well, what I didn't know was that you could send/receive messages from folks there.  Last night, I opened my email box to find a message from a lady via Newspapers.com.  She found me by doing a search on the address of the house she bought six years ago.

It turns out the house that she bought once belonged to my great-grandfather's brother, James Franklin Pressley.  He was long dead before I ever entered the picture. I knew his daughter Rose and his sister, my Aunt Pauline.

We only lived a few streets over from their house, so we saw them fairly often, I guess. Every time we went there, I wanted to go upstairs to see what was up there. Upstairs was a major no-no. That didn't stop little Suz from trying anyway. :)  I would get to the lower landing, and out of nowhere, there would be Rose. Every time, she told me, "Don't go up there! The goblins will get you!" So, I came back down from the stairs, never knowing what cool stuff must be up there. It had to be really cool, otherwise, they would have let me go up there, right?

Now, there is reason for me to believe that Rose's warning wasn't just something that adults say to little kids to make them stay downstairs. The new owner wrote me a nice letter detailing some of the things happening there. There are weird things happening in that house now. But, those stories aren't mine to tell.

I am going to be working to find out more about Uncle James' house and what all might have happened there.  Some of the stories are particularly troubling and I hope that somehow she and I can either prove or disprove them, one way or the other setting the record straight and hopefully laying some things to rest.

Here is a picture of the house.   Have a blessed weekend, y'all!

Former home of James Franklin Pressley & Family. Used with permission.

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Random Suz

Hi folks,

The last few days have been one unexpected surprise after another. I've hardly had time to remember to breathe, much less anything here on the computer.

I wanted to let you all know that I appreciate your comments and visits very much. I hope to get caught up on commenting and visiting your blogs this weekend.

Surprise #1: We went out Tuesday afternoon to take our daughter to work. Usually I at least glance at the tires, but didn't this time because we were already behind schedule. We didn't make it out of the driveway before kerthunking made it obvious there was a problem. The front driver's side tired was flatter than a pancake. David pumped it up and we barely made it to the WM tire center.

Surprise #2: It isn't just a tire problem. There were wires poking out all over the place on the flat tire. They said that we had an alignment issue and to go to Wharton County Tire to get that fixed before they would put the tires on (we were going to go ahead and replace all of them). We left WM with the space-saver spare on. Then, we went to Wharton County Tire to see about the alignment and decided to just get the tires put on there. This was about 30 minutes before their closing time.

Surprise #3: Wharton County Tire informed us that they do not do alignments. Okay, so who does? The lady told us two places. When asked which one she would recommend, she just shrugged her head and shoulders and didn't make a recommendation. So, we went to the other place the WM tire dude suggested. I can't remember the name of that place at the moment. But, they do tires and alignments, so they got the whole business.

We took the car to that repair place on Wednesday where Zoomie spent the afternoon away from home. Thankfully, our daughter was off that day, so we didn't have to try to figure how to get her to work and back. We had Zoomie back by 5:30pm on Wednesday. I'm glad that re-alignments don't cost a zillion bucks. I wish the same were true about tires.

Surprise #4 & Freak Attack #1: This morning, David called to give Mags (our youngest daughter) her wake-up call at 6am so that she could get to class. She didn't answer. We tried for hours to get her on the phone. It kept going straight to voice mail. Of course, this just made us even more worried. I sent her a couple of messages via FB Messenger and they just showed as Sent, not Delivered. Finally, we heard back from her via FB. Her phone had died even though it was on the charger and the charger was plugged in.

We can't have baby girl way out on the Island with no way to make a call, so off to the Island we went to replace her phone and got to see her all of five seconds (if that) because she was in the middle of the production and only had 45 seconds once she left the building to get the phone and get back inside.

All that is sorted out. Now I am left with a burning question that I am not going to put to print or speech because Fate has a way of answering it and I don't need any more surprises this week!

Please bear with me as I play the continual catch-up game. Have a blessed weekend!


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Random Suz: Day 6

Okay, yesterday I told you there would be a little more information regarding that wet floor caution sign.

You know how they put out those wet floor signs when they mop in a public place or the floor is otherwise wet?  Well, I met up with one of those yesterday in the bathroom at the wound care center.  The wet floor didn't cause me any problem at all, but....

Guess who tripped over the "Caution: Wet Floor!" sign?

Yep, me. And it isn't even like I didn't know it was there.  I bumped into it walking into the bathroom, but I flat out knocked it flat on the way out of the bathroom.  It landed with such a loud reverberation, I was sure that the folks on the top floor of the hospital had heard it!


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Biggest Mistake

Today is the 18th anniversary of what is probably the biggest mistake of our lives.  I won't go into specifics here because it is just too upsetting on a multitude of levels.  While I would never want to do again what we did way back then - the cost was too high - I did learn a few lessons along the way.

 1. Don't trust anybody.  Well, this one I already knew, but this experience drilled it home even deeper.

 2. Just because someone says they love you doesn't mean that they do.

 3. Some people do not want to be loved.

 4. Some people are beyond helping.

 5. Good deeds do not always result in good deeds. Sometimes they result in pain beyond belief and broken homes and hearts. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

 6. It is best to let others take out their own garbage.  If you take it out, then the stink gets on you and can be impossible to remove.

 7. Keep reminding yourself, "Just one more day" or hour, or minute, or whatever it takes to get through the rough spot. We can survive just about anything if we take it in increments. Taking that bottle of pills might not end your pain. It might just make it worse.

 8. Don't count everybody out just because some people are bad.

 9. Jesus died for the good and the bad. We have to hold on to that thought and do the good deeds anyway.

10. Heavenly Father determines one's value. It doesn't matter what other humans think. They aren't God. He decided that you are of value when He sent His Son to die for your sins.  In the end, it is only His thoughts of you that matter.

No matter how bad things get out there, we are never truly alone. We may feel deserted and lonely and abandoned, but we are not alone.  He is there working all things for the good of those that love Him. We can trust Him.  He had this thing covered long before we were even born.

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."  Philippians 4:13 (KJV)

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December and Random Suz

I hope that all of you are having a great day so far. :)

I do not have a set topic for the month of December here on PS Annie! I plan to do (hopefully) daily random posts as I try to reach my goal of a post each day for a year, which ends 1 July 2017.

Today was a hectic, gone-all-day kind of day. Our oldest daughter had an interview in Houston, which appears to have gone well. She should know something in a few days.  While she was in the interview, David and I graced the third floor of the parking garage. I don't like parking garages any more than I like Houston.  I was bored, so I took some pictures. Random selfies and himmies and cars and all that, you know. 

Side Note:  There's a good reason why I look wrecked...I am!  I slept all of two minutes last night.  I had a lot of trouble breathing and was fighting off mini-panic attacks because it was hard to breathe. David's sugar levels were high, which made him antsy.  He was also worried that something was going to happen to me because I was having such difficulty.  Part of the problem was the wood fires going on around here.  I love the smell of a wood fire, but my lungs aren't too impressed, thanks to COPD.   I can't very well gripe about people trying to keep warm, nor would I.  About 4am or so, we ended up just going to the car and down to Gilbert's Crossing. David took a little nap there.  I couldn't.  Typically, if we are on the side of the road, a ton of people stop to ask if we're okay or if we need help.  I didn't want to fall asleep only to be awakened by a good Samaritan tapping on the window and then freak out thinking the Sickle Man had come for me or something. We were at Gilbert's Crossing, after all. :)

The traffic in Houston was hectic, as usual, full of honkers and passers and speeders, but thankfully we made it back home in one piece. Well, okay, technically three pieces: David, Laynie, and me. :)

We stopped by the Hobby Lobby to get the supplies that I need to make the ancestor-themed Christmas ornaments that I plan to make.  David will print out the photos of the folks for me. I will then adhere them to the wood pieces that I got.  I will use some cording that I already had from a previous project to create the hanging loops for the ornaments.  I've never made anything like this before, so I hope it comes out okay.  I plan to post pictures when I finish them.

The coolest thing happened as we got to a more rural part of our journey.  There was what we thought to be a huge buzzard in the middle of the road eating some poor, unfortunate creature. But, it wasn't a buzzard at all! As our car approached it, it took flight and we were amazed to see that it was a bald eagle!  How cool is that?


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