Happy Labor Day Weekend!!

Hope everyone is enjoying their Labor Day weekend. We have nothing planned and it's kind of nice just to hang out. We are getting ready to go on vacation in a few days, so I have been very busy trying to tie up loose ends at work and home before we leave. The plan is that the girls(my two daughters and two granddaughters) and I are heading to Hilton Head Island first and the boys will follow later. I will have my laptop with me so I hope to share some photos of our time there. Not much else going on around here, the backyard project is starting to come together, we ordered the aluminum fence yesterday and it'll look so pretty when it's all installed. Anything will look better then the rotting wood fence that's up now. LOL I'll share more of that project as we go along. We are fixing our backyard up this Fall and we are tearing down all the decking and wood fence and putting up the aluminum fence and also putting in a paver patio instead of a deck. Our son-in-law is going to put in a little pond/fountain for me so I can sit by it and enjoy my morning coffee and have some quiet time. I also have been reading a great book this weekend called The Shack and cannot put it down. I read about it on another blog and can't remember who but they recommended it. So it's kind of a quiet weekend around here but sometimes that's just what you need. Have a wonderful weekend!

Memories of Gus

Maddie's pet goldfish went to goldfish heaven yesterday. It seems he died from eating too much food. Someone and I'm not naming names allowed a two year old to feed Gus. Here's the emails that went back and forth in my family yesterday. Yes, I actually know these crazy people. And by the way I will miss Gus, I said good morning to him every morning(for a week) when I came downstairs for the day.


ORIGINAL EMAIL FROM MELISSA(MADDIE'S MOM)



R.I.P. Gus the Goldfish S**** 8/18/08 - 8/26/0 Cause of death: too much food . Time of death: mid morning (he was alive at breakfast) :( Very sad. buttons has no clue - she just points & giggles at his dead fish body in the bowl.




REPLY FROM PAPA



There will be a viewing this Thursday 8/28/08 from8:30pm-8:40pm In place of flowers Buttons(Maddie) has asked friends and well wishers to send new goldfish in big orange colored boxed to 818 Goldfish Lane. Cincinnati, Ohio Attn. Maddie "Buttons" S**** Burial service to immediately follow behind the swimming pool Anyone wishing to share stories and reflection of fun times and memories is encouraged to do so. Papa



REPLY FROM MADDIE'S DAD



I'll never forget him....it was the best 9 days of my life. At this rate, to have a pet fish for Maddie now through her teen years it will cost over $500 (double this amount if we get two fish-one for Sydney). This does not include fish food, water, fish toys, etc.... 365 days / 9 days (life span) x $0.79 (cost of fish) x 16 years= $512.80 So a donation fund will be set up in his honor. Part of the funds will go towards replacement fish while a big portion will be used in the worldwide fight against overfeeding. (did I mention Maddie's Dad is an accountant).



And finally



FROM AUNT CHRISTINA


Office of the C*****-C**** County Coroner Date and hour of autopsy performed: 8/26/2008; 2:40PM by Christina C******, M.D. 818 Goldfish Lane .Cincinnati, OH 555.555.5555 SUMMARY REPORT OF AUTOPSY:Name: Gus S***** Coroner Case: #1Date of Birth: 8/18/2008 Age: 9 days Race: Goldfish Sex: Male Date of Death: 8/26/08 Body Identified by: Madison S****EVIDENCE OF TREATMENT:N/A EXTERNAL EXAMINATION:The autopsy begun at 2:40PM on August 26, 2008. The body is presented in a small clear bowl. The victim was not wearing any clothing or jewelry at time of death. The body is that of a normally developed 9 day old male goldfish measuring 1.5 inches in length and weighing 3grams, and appearing generally consistent with the stated 9 days of age. The body is cold in temperature and unembalmed. Lividity is present in the distal portions bilaterally on gills. The irises are black and corneas are cloudy. Pupils measure .01cm. The gills are white and bright orange. Upon removal of the fish from the bowl a presence of an unidentifiable smell was detected. There is an orange marking noted at the victims neck, crossing the anterior midline of the neck just below the laryngeal prominence. The top gill is orange with two orange spots present on the dorsal side of the tail. Gills are equal, symmetrically developed and show no evidence of injury. There are no residual scars, markings, or tattoos. INTERNAL EXAMINATION:HEAD-CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM: Subsequent autopsy shows all areas of system to have been in good general health just prior to time of death. No hemorrhaging internally. Brain weighs .001gm and is within normal limits.RESPIRATORY SYSTEM: The oral cavity shows no lesions. Petechial hemorrhaging is present at the mucosa of the lips and the interior of the mouth. The airway is obstructed by excessive amounts of fish food. It appears that the victim was fed to death and died of hypoxia. The mucosa of the epiglottis, trachea, and major bronchi present with the same symptoms. Lesions in the trachea are noted, 3 in count measuring .002cm in diameter and .0001cm in width.CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM: The heart weighs .002grams, and has a normal size and configuration. No evidence of atherosclerosis is present.TOXICOLOGY: Sample of right pleural blood and bile are submitted for toxicological analysis. Stomach contents are saved.DRUG SCREEN RESULTS: Urine sample: NEGATIVE Hallucinogens: POSITIVE Barbiturates: NEGATIVE OPINION: TIME OF DEATH: Body temperature, rigor and liver mortis, and stomach contents approximate time of death to be between 9:45am-10:30am on August 26, 2008. IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF DEATH: Asphyxia/hypoxia due to excessive feeding and negligence of care. MANNER OF DEATH: Homicide REMARKS: Decedent originally presented to this office as suicide victim. Autopsy findings and discoveries suggests that suicide in this case is highly improbable. C-S county detectives were notified of this case and it's findings immediately upon conclusion of examination.Christina C*****, M.D.





Yes that's my family. Gotta love their wacky sense of humor!

Awards what I learned in Photoshop

In the photos below is what I learned from my niece Allison yesterday. She showed me a few things to do on Photoshop Elements because I was having some trouble figuring it out myself. LOL She's thirteen and I'm 52 so it just goes to show that you can learn something from teenagers. Okay now don't make fun of me because I am still trying to get the hang of this. I love the black and white photos with a touch of color but when you do it in photoshop you have to have a steady hand and I definitely do not have steady hands so the first one with the pink bow is not perfect but the next photo with Maddie and Allison and Coco the wonder dog with just her pink tongue showing is better. It's a fun program and I hope to figure it out more. Allison loved learning how to bead jewelry. I'm not the best teacher because I tend to go jump around when I talk as most of you know from reading this blog. LOL But she's a smart kid so she picked it up very fast. Thanks Allison, I had fun learning this and having you guys over yesterday and watching Maddie chase Coco all around the house.

See the cute pink tongue hanging out?

Okay that was fun and I really could spend all day playing with photos but I need to take care of some bloggy business. I received some very special awards from some very special ladies and I need to thank them and pass them on to more special ladies. The first one is from Celeste at La Rea Rose. If you have never paid her a visit you really should, Celeste and her golden retriever Miss Beazy Lee are always creating special items. So here are the rules and thanks so much Celeste!

The rules to pass on this award are to nominate 5 other people, four of which are dedicated followers of your blog and one that is new from another country. Post the Twinks Bank Icon and lastly link the giving blog friend who gave you this award.

Okay so I pass this award on to:
1) Donna from Cottage Days and Journeys

2)Donna from Made in Heaven

3)Britt from Lille Meg She's my blogging buddy from Norway and if you visit her she has a really cool thing on her blog that will translate her blog from Norwegian to English. I don't have anyone new from another country and I want Britt to have this award.

4)Brenda from Whats Up Down South

5)Sally from Whispering Hope

And then my buddy Kat from Just a Beach Kat has presented me with a special award. It's called the Kreativ Blogger Award. As the recipient of this award I am supposed to tell 6 things that make me happy and pass the award on Okay, here are 6 things that make me happy:

1. My wonderful husband of almost 32 years
2. My children and my grandbabies(duh, like I don't talk about my grandbabies all the time here) LOL
3. My first cup of coffee each morning and reading the morning paper
4. Getting my toes done(going there when I get this post done) YEA!!!
5.Driving in my car, weird but I really love driving in my car and listening to music.
6 . Last but not least that my Dad got a clean bill of health when he went to his cancer doctor last week. No sign of cancer and he doesn't have to go back for six months!! That makes me so happy.

Thanks Kat, it has made me happy to have you as a blogging friend!

Also Donna from Made in Heaven gave all of her bloggy buddies this Wylde Woman Award. Yea, I'm really Wylde and crazy. LOL So I am passing this award on to all of my blogging buddies also. That means all of you because you all continually bring joy to my life through your encouragement, humor, inspiration and talent. Thanks Donna!
WYLDE WOMAN AWARD The rules of this award are:

1. You can give it to one or one hundred or any number in between - it's up to you. Make sure you link to their site in your post.
2.To send love and acknowledgment to men and women, who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.
These people continually bring joy to my life through their encouragement, humour, inspiration and talent.

Have a good one, now I am off to get my toes done and rest! LOL This post took a long time to do. Happy Tuesday!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I'm busy, busy, busy today. First I am watching the two girls while Mommy is at the doctors and then I am off for some maintenance(getting hair done). We are also having a new washer delivered. Exciting stuff. LOL Our old washer just gave out this weekend so my sweetie and I went to Sears and bought a new front loading one. If there's a deal to be had, my sweetie will try to deal. He met his match with our sales lady though, she was good and he was working his very best to get a better deal. Did you know it costs more to get a washer in a color(like candy apple red)? Loved the red washer but decided to go with the white one. The front loading ones are cool though. Anyway after I get my hair done my sisters are coming over for one last swim with the kids before school starts back this week and my niece Allison(aka Pippi) is going to try and teach me some of Photo Shop Elements. I need all the help I can get and she knows how to work this program and I'm going to teach her how to bead jewelry. So I am still trying to catch up with everyone's blogs and even some of Brenda's Photo Challenge from Saturday(wasn't that one fun?). I'll get there it's just that this time of year is always a little crazy. I also have some awards to pass on. Here's a photo from this weekend. Papa and I were out on our date night Friday when Maddie's Mom called and told us Maddie was all out of ice cream. So what's a Grandma and Grandpa to do? Well, we made an ice cream stop on the way home. LOL Happy Monday!

BRENDA'S PHOTO CHALLENGE ~ SWEETS

I can't believe it's time for Brenda's Photo Challenge again. The theme this time is "SWEETS" and Tegan is our hostess today. So go over to Brenda's Photo Challenge Blog and see who's playing this time. Okay, for this challenge I went back in my photo files and to get a few photos of the trip my sweetie and I took for our 30th anniversary and our both turning 50. That was two years ago. We went on a Mediterranean cruise and stopped at many wonderful places but when I heard that the theme was sweets, I knew I had photos from the Barcelona Market in Spain that would fit this theme.

These first two photos are of the Barcelona Market just off of Las Ramblas. There are many things to see and do in Barcelona but we decided just to walk up and down Las Ramblas. It's pretty cool with vendors and stores lining the whole street but we spent a good couple of hours at this market where I took dozens of photos. It was an amazing market. The top "SWEET' photo is of a lady and her "SWEET' fruit. And the bottom photo is of some kind of candy they were selling there. Very "SWEET.'
This last photo was in Sicily in a little place called Taormina. It is very hilly and has uneven walkways. I twisted the heck out of my ankle there because I was looking out at the magnificent views and not the ground. But these two old guys with their produce got my attention for two reasons. First I thought they were cute and second my sweetie's grandfather came from Sicily and started a produce business here in Cincy. Anyway didn't mean to make this about a travel post but these photos all have "SWEETS" in them and they make me want to go back to Europe. Have a good one and I can't wait to see everyone's photos and what the next challenge will be. This was fun!

Some Old Photos of Cincinnati

I got this book a few weeks ago and thought I would share a few photos from it. I seen it while I was at my eye doctor's for my yearly exam and told him how fascinating I thought it was and he told me he gets them $15.00 off the bookstore price, so I grabbed one and have been browsing through it since. It is a coffee table book so it's big and was hard to scan. I'm not sure if anyone outside of Cincinnati would find it as fascinating but I love history and I love Cincinnati so I thought I would share a few of my favorite photos from the book.

The top photo is the cover of the book. This book starts in 1860 and goes up to the 1960's. The photo below this is of a lady in 1912 charging up her car. It says electric vehicles were popular for women in the early 1900's because they didn't need to be cranked for starting or have their gears shifted. Doesn't she look snazzy in her hat and dress?

The photo below is the swimming pool at our Coney Island, probably in the late 1920's. At the time it was the largest recirculating pool in the world. An adult could swim with a rented suit and towel for 50 cents and a child for 25 cents. The suits and towels were "sterilized" in between uses.
When I scanned the photo below everything turned around but this is a Kroger's store that opened in 1883. Kroger's does not look like this anymore. LOL
Okay this one below cracks me up. First off read the signs, it says you get a wienerwurst with every drink. Cincinnati is known for it's German heritage. Here's what funny about this photo, this corner was named "nasty corner" back in the 1890's because of the large numbers of saloons on the corner. This was at our Fifth and Vine street which later on became the site of our Carew Tower which I worked in for years. So it was very interesting to see what it looked like before the 50 story building was constructed.
This last photo is one of my favorites. Because the caption in the book says that photography along with nursing and teaching was one of the socially acceptable occupations for women in the late 19th century. Socially acceptable???? LOL It also said most women learned photography from their family and often inherited the photo studio from their father or husband. Anyway hope you enjoyed my history trip of Cincy. I really do love this book and anyone from this area should really take a look at it. Also don't forget Brenda's Photo Challenge this Saturday, August 23rd and the theme is "SWEETS", I have a link on my sidebar so hop over and sign up. I think we should use this chick as our poster girl for the photo challenge. LOL Have a good one!

Lots of Fun!!

Everyone is pretty tired around our home. Maddie had a great birthday weekend. Papa and I took her to her favorite place to eat, Subway! She loves Subway and gets excited every time we pull up to the restaurant. LOL And then when we were finished eating we went next door to the pet store and she made friends with the puppies.
She loved this little black puppy(and so did I). He was so friendly and just wanted someone to love on him. Isn't he so cute?
We resisted the urge to buy her a puppy but look at his little face watching us. I think the pet store was her favorite part of the outing.
Then we took her to Toys R Us and picked her up a few of her Thomas the train toys. She loves Thomas the train and yells "choo, choo" everytime she sees something with Thomas on it.
She had to show Aunt Christina one of her new toys.
On Sunday she had her birthday party and got so many fun things. Yes folks, that's two packs of 100 balls. It's for some kind of thing that you blow up and then you put all the balls in it and jump around. I don't know what they are called. LOL

And then yesterday my sister June and my neice Allison and my sister Gail and my nephew Andrew came over to swim and have pizza with Maddie and Aunt Steph came over after work to play and blow bubbles. I know you hate this photo of you Steph but I think it's so sweet. She had a long full and wonderful weekend and what happens after you go and go and go for days............
You curl up in your princess tent and go to sleep. :-)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADDIE!

Grandma and Grandpa holding Maddie the day she was born two years ago.
Maddie getting ready to blow out her candles last night. Just wanted to wish my sweet little girlfriend a happy birthday today. We had a big weekend and I'll share some more photos of all the fun just as soon as I can. Grandma and Papa love you Maddie! Happy Birthday sweet girl!!

Sunday Stuff

This cartoon was in our Sunday paper today and I thought it was too cute not to share. I'm not sure how many people get Jim Borgman's cartoons in their newspaper. The swimming has been so exciting to watch. So between watching the Olympics and trying to get a photo of the Moon it was a fun night. Enjoy your Sunday!

Cool Chick!

We took Sas(aka Sydney, our youngest grandbaby) outside the other day and she was not a happy camper. She didn't like the sun in her eyes so my daughter Christina put her sunglasses on her, which she hated even more. :-) But Sas you look so cool!! We're off to shop today with the oldest grandbaby who turns two on Monday and tomorrow the middle grandbaby, Cameron is coming over for the big birthday party for Miss Maddie so we'll have all three grandbabies here! Fun times!!

When Electronics Go Bad

Well, I have to ship my pretty pink camera off to the camera doctor. I take it everywhere with me and today when I tried to take photos at our weekly lunch with my Dad, it was shaking something awful. So after lunch I ran over to the big Mall here in Cincy where they have a Sony store and they told me it would have to go to the camera hospital to be worked on. I am bummed. This camera is not even a year old yet so it is covered under the warranty but it's the one that I carry everywhere with me because it's so little and lightweight and they said it would take up to three weeks to fix. Three weeks without my beautiful pink goddess!! Thank goodness I have another camera but it is bigger and I don't like to carry it everywhere. Sometimes electronics can be a pain in the neck. I also had to take my IPod touch to the Apple store when I was at the mall. It kept playing the same song over and over again. Hey,I love Sherry from the Jersey Boys but not over and over. Anyway I guess I pressed a little button that made the same song repeat over and over again. All they had to do was unpress the button for me. So they showed me what to do in case I do it again. At first I felt stupid but the guys at the Apple store didn't even know about that little feature till they were playing with it. I'll tell you these electronic things are making me crazy today. LOL


We have a busy weekend. Maddie turns two on Monday so my sweetie and I are doing a tradition my Mom and Dad started with all of their grandkids. My parents would take each one of their grandchildren out for their birthdays to shop for presents and then go out to eat and then to finish up their special time out my Mom & Dad would take the kids to the candy shop and have them fill their bags to the top. In fact if the bags weren't filled enough my Dad would make them go back and get more candy. LOL It's funny because none of the kids ever abused this gift, none of them got out of hand and wanted everything in the store or tons of presents and each one of them looked forward to this special time with their Grandma and Grandpa. So even though she's only two, we thought it would be fun to take her out with just Grams and Gramps. That's it for me on this beautiful Friday here in Cincy, Ohio. I watched a gorgeous sunrise here today. Love starting the day off with a beautiful sunrise. Have a good weekend!

Grandma's Little Helper

To make up for my previous boring post, here's some photos of my grandaughter Maddie helping Grandma water her flowers tonight. She' such a big helper and Grandma sure did appreciate it.

We are on a flight path so we always play a little game when the airplanes fly overhead. This is her expression when she seen one taking off tonight.
And this is her face when I told her to say goodbye to the plane. Not sure what kind of look she's giving me. LOL
Airplane's all gone Grandma! We did finally get the water to those poor flowers and not just on the deck. Have a good one!

This and That

This umbrella bag was in our paper this morning. This is called the Brella Bag and their website says it is a hands free nylon bag design that holds an umbrella giving you the ability to do things that would be hard while trying to hold a regular umbrella like walking the dog, carrying your baby, groceries or for people who need to use a walker etc.. What do you guys think? Would you use something like this? Or would you just use this pretty pink umbrella from Vera Bradley without the bag? But seriously I think for people with disabilities this would be a great idea. I just wonder if it would throw you off balance at all. It looks like it also carries stuff in the nylon bag. I'm just not sure I would like something around my neck.
I also got this new phone(the red one) this week. I've never had a Blackberry before and it was a little intimidating at first but my daughter Christina has one so she showed me how to set it all up. Still trying to figure it all out. I think I'll like it when I get used to it but I kept my pretty little pink phone just in case. It's suppose to keep me more organized with working from home. I get about fifty(or more) emails a day that are work related, most are from tour companies telling me what their latest deals are so I did figure out real fast how to turn off the sound for when emails come in. But it also helps me to respond back to my customers right away even when I'm out and about. I also like the full size keyboard. Oh well that's it for me today, really boring post but not much going on around the old casa today. I have been walking around three miles everyday this week so I want to keep it going. We are leaving for Hilton Head in a few weeks and thinking of this body in a bathing suit on the beach, well.......a little scary! LOL