Kim's Thoughts
Just a few thoughts I feel worthy of jotting down!
Dancing….
Tonight they are all dancing and will either do the Mambo or the Quick Step – both difficult dances!! Then, tomorrow, TWO will go home – one of the guys and one of the gals with the lowest combined scores from last week and tonight……………..the competition is off and running (or should I say Quick Stepping?????)
On a side note that has nothing to do with dancing ability or potential (cause I think she has a good chance to go a long way based on her performance last week) — does anyone else think that Priscilla Presley has had just a tad too much “work” done??? She looks like her face is pulled so tight or is so frozen from Botox that she is afraid to smile too big – it might crack on her!!! ha-ha Regardless — she is amazing — I don’t know of many 63 year olds (she’ll be 63 on May 24th) that are that limber and impressive on the dance floor — at 51, I couldn’t even come close in my dreams (and I can do almost anything in my dreams – ha-ha)……
The tennis star (can’t think of her name – Monica, maybe????) had a comment that cracked me up — she said that before this she “…didn’t know the difference between a Mambo and a Mango…” — what a hoot!!!!
Good luck to all the contestants – they all deserve a TON of credit!!!
If I didn’t have THREE dogs…..
If I didn’t have a dog…..
I could walk around the yard barefoot in safety.
My house could be carpeted instead of tiled and laminated.
All flat surfaces, clothing, furniture, and cars would be free of hair.
When the doorbell rings, it wouldn’t sound like a kennel.
When the doorbell rings, I could get to the door without wading through fuzzy bodies who beat me there.
I could sit on the couch and my bed the way I wanted, without taking into consideration how much space several fur bodies would need to get comfortable.
I would have money … and no guilt to go on a real vacation.
I would not be on a first-name basis with 6 veterinarians, as I put their yet unborn grand kids through college.
The most used words in my vocabulary would not be: out, sit, down, come, no, stay, and leave him/her/it ALONE.
My house would not be cordoned off into zones with baby gates or barriers.
My house would not look like a day care center, toys everywhere.
My pockets would not contain things like poop bags, treats and an extra leash.
I would no longer have to spell the words B-A-L-L, F-R-I-S-B-E-E, W-A-L-K, T-R-E-A-T, B-I-K-E, G-O, R-I-D-E
I would not have as many leaves INSIDE my house as outside.
I would not look strangely at people who think having ONE dog/cat ties them down too much.
I’d look forward to spring and the rainy season instead of dreading “mud” season.
I would not have to answer the question “Why do you have so many animals?” from people who will never have the joy in their lives of knowing they are loved unconditionally by someone as close to an angel as they will ever get.
How EMPTY my life would be!
Sunday Morning – Happy is the word….
First — Happy Easter!! Nothing says “Spring” quite like Easter! When I was a little girl, my Mom used to buy me a pretty new Easter outfit – complete with a pretty new dress, white gloves, white ankle socks with lace, white shoes, white purse, and a pretty bonnet! My younger brother had to wear a suit – he looked nice, but it wasn’t a frilly new Easter outfit, like I had!!! I have several pictures of us over the years all doozied up in our Easter finery – all taken outside and most with big snow banks in the background! So – another reason to be happy is that today is Easter and I don’t see any snow out my window (although, if I was up home, that wouldn’t be the case)! Easter also marks the date that I can get out my white clothing! I know it isn’t as strict of a fashion rule as it used to be, but I was raised with the understanding that you don’t wear white before Easter or after Labor Day (excluding white shirts or tennis shoes)!!! So, I don’t!!! So – Happy Easter for all the normal reasons, but also because I’m happy to be able to start wearing some white!!!!
The girls are always happy, but I do believe they are happier than usual today — not crazier or more energetic – HAPPIER!! Katie is going around kissing everyone and dancing around the room with a big “smile” on her face; Megan is eagerly squeaking her toys to try to get everyone to play with her; and Amy is all wiggles and “smiles” while she kisses everyone and looks for wiggly snuggles…………..this isn’t terribly unusual separately, but for them to ALL be so happy and affectionate to each other at the same time is rare! There is always at least one that doesn’t want to be bothered or is irritated by the attention of the other two or jealous that one is getting more attention than the other two……..So – this makes ME happy, too — I get a big kick out of seeing them be so animated and loving!!! This morning, I have no doubt that I have three very happy doggies……….(not that there is ever much doubt there)!
The girls and I put on a rowdy concert of Broadway Show Tunes this morning to celebrate all the happiness…….which made us even MORE happy!!! They love it when we sing and dance around the house together………………frankly, so do I!!!
And the last thing to add is that I just got a phone call with an invitation to go out for breakfast! This isn’t unusual, either, but just the icing on the cake for an already very pleasant (and happy) day!!!! So, I’m off to the shower and to get dressed so I can meet my friend for breakfast — wonder where we’ll go to eat????
Bananas
I was eating an absolutely delicious banana for breakfast this morning and my mind wandered about bananas in general and began to get flooded with thoughts involving bananas!!! So, I took this inspiration and decided to run with it………the result: a post all about BANANAS!!!
I love bananas (“nanners”) and they are so good for you — full of potassium and folic acid — and lots more great stuff!! I get a lot of muscle cramps and once heard that they might be caused by low potassium levels and that if I ate more bananas, I might not get as many muscle cramps!! I thought of that while I was eating my delicious banana breakfast and decided to google bananas to see if that is true!!! I found a great web site devoted completely to bananas (http://www.banana.com/) and it lists a TON of nutritional and medicinal benefits of bananas, but doesn’t include that particular benefit — but I bet that’s only because they would not have enough space on the internet to list ALL of the benefits of bananas……so, they only listed the heavy hitters!!! Did you know that they can help you quit smoking??? The site also has info on how to grow, buy and store bananas and lots of great sounding banana recipes!!!
The Dole web site has some great recipes and I found one on banana fruit kabobs (click here to link directly to that recipe) – yum – it sounds so good….I would have never thought of grilling bananas or making something like this — great discovery! Then, I started humming the old Chiquita Banana song and wondered if I could find a clip with it and, sure enough, a google search on Chiquita Bananas found this – the original Chiquita Banana commercial!!! What fun!!! When I was a little girl, I used to dance around sorta like a Cha-Cha-Cha and sing “I’m a Chiquita Banana and I’m here to say, I am the best banana in the world today….” ha-ha-ha It was a fun commercial, but also very educational and informative!!! Tells you when a banana is the most digestible and good for you and how not to store them and what they can be used in……good commercial!!!
As for me — here is what I like best about bananas:
I like them best when they are a just a little shy of fully ripe — when they are a nice bright yellow and firmer than the spotted fully ripe ones. I like to take a section and then split the three wedges apart to eat them separately!!! ha-ha
I love to slice bananas up on cereal — they are by far the BEST fruit to put on cereal!!!
I really like banana bread, banana muffins, bananas with strawberries in a nice syrup, banana strawberry flavored jello and yogurt – really anything that has banana/strawberry flavor combinations, and of course banana pudding!!!!
Most people have a favorite way to make a banana sandwich — most like to put peanut butter on it — not me! My favorite way to make a banana sandwich is:
KIM’S NANNER SANDWICH RECIPE
Take two slices of white bread
Apply a nice coating of Miracle Whip on both slices
Sprinkle sugar on the Miracle Whip on both slices
Peel and cut a whole banana in 1/2 (across the banana, not lengthwise)
Slice the halves in 1/2 lengthwise (like planks)
Take ONE of the 4 planks and slice it in 1/2 lengthwise (like long wedges)
Layer the 3 banana planks on one of the slices of the bread – flat side down
Layer the 2 banana wedges in the crevices caused by the rounded planks – v side down
Place the other slice of bread on top to make the sandwich
Cut the sandwich on the diagonal
ENJOY!
Oh, man — makes me want a nanner sandwich right now!!!!!!
Now – go bananas about bananas!!!!
Best of Blogs Awards!!!
Hey — I stumbled upon this today! There is a blog site that takes nominations for little known, low hit blogs to win awards in a whole list of categories. It is called The Best of Blogs! Click on this link and check it out!!!
Unfortunately, I just found it today and there isn’t much time left in the nomination period!! The original deadline was TOMORROW — but it looks like they opened it up to last one more week!!! So — go to the site and nominate your favorite blogs!!! When you get to the site, just click on one or more of the categories on the right side and leave a comment with the name and URL of your nomination. You can nominate the same blog in multiple categories and nominate as many blogs as you would like.
If you feel so inclined, I’d appreciate a nomination or two or three —- I nominated some of you (and myself – he-he-he) — but maybe you know of others that are deserving of an award and recognition, too!!!!
Winners will be announced May 5th — maybe someone from our Sanford blog group will win something!!!!
The rules and categories are posted on the site, but here is a briefing cut and pasted directly from the site:
Rules and Exclusions
- Please nominate personal blogs only. Political blogs, technical blogs, and marketing blogs are excluded from this competition. (“Political” blog here means a blog devoted almost exclusively to politics, where 50% or more of the entries are politically oriented.)
- Nominating your own blog is allowed this year!!
- Remember! Only blogs receiving less than 250 original visits a week are allowed to be nominated.
- Panelists are excluded from the BoB Awards. Please do not nominate a blog belonging to one of our panelists
- Consider casting nominations for lesser-known blogs, instead of offering “obvious” picks. While we do not wish to hold a blog’s popularity against it, we also want to keep the focus of this contest on blogs that could benefit from additional traffic.
Remembering My Poppie….
To explain why this man was so very special to me, I have to back up and start with a little history. My “father” – the one who supplied part of my DNA – left us when I was a very young little girl and hasn’t been around since just a little after that time. To say that I wouldn’t recognize him if I passed him on the street is probably stretching it a little, but the truth isn’t far from that! Now – in contrast to that, my “Dad” – the one who meant the world to me and was my Dad in every sense of the word that matters – was this man – Charlie Culmo! We affectionately nicknamed him “Poppie”. Charlie passed away on this day (March 20th) in 1999. I can’t believe he has been gone for 9 years now! I still miss him terribly. After all this time, I still forget I can’t just call him and he’ll be there!
Charlie officially came into our lives when I was in high school. He was my friend and my hero – he was my Poppie!!! He was a family friend long before he started dating my Mom, so when they decided to get together, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world – it all just clicked!!!
Some of the great memories I have of him:
~~ “Our” song was Teddy Bear Song by Barbara Fairchild. It was a great country song to slow dance to and whenever we would hear it, we would dance. Regardless of who we were with or what was going on, we wouldn’t dance to this song with anyone else – it was OUR’s! It had a sort of “two step” beat to it, so it was a nice song to dance to and Charlie was a really good dancer. From then on, teddy bears tended to be a symbol of what we meant to each other – I even put a teddy bear figurine in his casket that said “you will always be close at heart”! (if you’d like to hear it and read the lyrics, click on the song title to link to a page that will take you there)
~~ He was 100% pure Italian and a really great cook — he would make us pasta to die for!!! He would make the best lasagna and, knowing that I am allergic to cheese, he would make a special pan just for me without cheese! And it was so good – even without the one thing that makes it real lasagna – because it was made with love!
~~ He didn’t really speak Italian, but his parents did and he knew some Italian. He would throw Italian sounding words around to crack us up – we never knew if some of them were real or made up (most were supposedly cuss words), but they always made us laugh. When he first made pasta for us, he was in our kitchen and asked us for a “skoolabasta” (I am absolutely positive I didn’t spell that right, but that’s how it sounded – ha-ha)!! My brother and I looked at each other with weird expressions and had no idea what he wanted!!! He said “skoolabasta, skoolabasta – you know, macaroni stay, water go away!” in a put on Italian accent! That puzzled us even more! Mom finally went to the cupboard and got the COLANDER so he could strain the pasta!!! ha-ha That became a standing joke with us for many, many years!!!! I still call a colander a “skoolabasta – macaroni stay, water go away”!!!! At the funeral, my brother and I told the minister that story to add to the others he had to tell during the eulogy — he was reading his notes and tried to pronounce the word and totally messed it up — all of Charlie’s brothers chimed in with a chorus of “skoolabasta” to let the room know what the minister was talking about and then we all recited along with the minister when he said the part about “macaroni stay, water go away”!!! Every one laughed and smiled — Charlie would have LOVED that — I bet he was watching and cracking up at us all!!!!
~~ He never, ever treated us like or referred to us as “step children” — and we never, ever thought of him as a “step father” — we were his kids and he was our Dad!!! PERIOD!!!!
~~ He was there for every major event from high school on — graduation, 18th birthday, parties, giving his opinion on my boyfriends, etc………………and – he gave me away at my wedding!!! He told me that it was the one most precious time for him! He was so proud to perform that duty for me and it was very, very special………..but, truth be told, it was much more so for me!!! Girls dream of their weddings from the time they are very small – I was no exception. But, when I dreamed of my wedding, my dreams didn’t have a “Father of the Bride”! I always planned to have my brother give me away – which was perfectly fine and the plan for many years! But, when the time came for me to plan the wedding for “real”, Charlie was there and I did end up having a “Father of the Bride” after all!!!! I called my brother and told him that I had always planned to have him do the honors, but hoped that my asking Charlie to do it wouldn’t hurt his feelings — he loved Charlie very much, too, and responded with “yeah – who else would you ask!!!” So, it was done! And I adore the photos of us walking down the aisle together and the memories I have of my Poppie and his little girl all dressed up………….So, he thought I was honoring him — but, actually, he was honoring me!!! I’ll always cherish that!!!
~~ He built computers in his spare time. He kept me in computer upgrades for years!!! We often joked about how when he retired, we could go into business together — he would be the hardware geek and I would be the software geek and together we could solve every one’s computer problems!!!
~~ The one thing that I was excited about him sharing with me was when I had my LASIK surgery! Mom sent me the money to have it done and I did it in February 1999. He was so happy for me — every time we talked, he would ask me “how does everything look to ya?” or something similar!!! I had a trip planned to visit with them in April and he told me all the time how he couldn’t wait to see me with no glasses and no squinting!!! But – he died in March!
There was so much more — years and years of fabulous memories and zillions of little things he did with and for me!!! I could go on forever…………but, won’t! The one thing I am most happy and proud of is that I don’t have a regret in the world when it comes to him — I will never have to say that there was something important left unsaid! I know without a shadow of a doubt that he knew exactly what he meant to me and I knew exactly what I meant to him!!! I will never have to say that I wish I hadn’t let so much time go by without speaking to him – I actually talked to him on the phone the morning he died – I called him to ask him some computer question and he said he was feeling kinda tired. Later that day, he died of a massive heart attack at age 59! He would have been 60 in May.
So – now he is one of my three guardian angels – Poppie, Grandma, and Grandpa! The three of them watch over me and let me know they are here with me by warming my heart whenever I think of them or something happens that makes me think of them. And they visit me in my dreams and I get to have a chat with them and hug them!
I was sad most of the day today — thinking of him every time I had to write the date and other things triggered memories! Oh, how I hope he will visit me in my dreams tonight — I sure could use a hug from him to help warm up my heart!!!!
That’s my Poppie — I miss him, I love him, he will always be close at heart!!!!
Happy Spring!
And what a lovely first day of Spring is was……..
Dancing, Medium, Visitors
I also managed to stay awake long enough to watch Medium tonight, too — I slept through the first new show since the writer’s strike last week……it was good tonight!
I’ve logged in 533 unique visitors on my blog – but the big milestone is that I have reached 1000 page loads!!! And I’ve only been keeping track since around Thanksgiving or so…….thanks to all who are regular visitors and to those who just pop in based on a search or link from a fellow blogger!
Megan – What A Mess!!!
It all happened so fast — within a split second!! I stood there for a minute in disbelief – then, I had to get a towel and clean up the mess — and what a mess it was!!!! After I got the floor all mopped up, I let the girls back in for their dinner — they were much calmer this time around and Megan politely walked over to the food dishes and ate her dinner without further incident…..WHEW!!!!
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