HEAT HEAT HOORAY!!

Here is the feel good story of the year. My sister, Nikki, is a single mom raising two boys,  her youngest has severe autism. She works as janitorial staff at a major manufacturing warehouse.  The other night, her heating unit bit the dust. We are in the 20's and 30's for temperatures right now. She asked some of the guys she works with if they knew anything about how to fix it, they didn't. The company they work for has a contract with Lee Company, a local heating and cooling repair company here in Nashville Tennessee.  They called Lee to see if they could come and look at it for her. It's a 21 year old unit and Chad, the service manager, came out and told her it would cost around $2,800 to fix. The igniter switch was shot and there were a few other cracks in it. The worst part was there was carbon monoxide leaking from it. 

My sister was devastated, she doesn't have that kind of money and figured they would be using space heaters for the winter. She thanked Chad for his time, but said she couldn't afford it right now. He said they would figure something out. 

When she went into work this morning, she was called into the office. One of the guy she works with was on the phone and he said, yeah, she's here right now. He handed her the phone and she said, 'Hello". It was Chad from Lee Company. He said he had spoken with the president of the company and they were donating a brand new unit to her. They came out today and installed it for her completely free of charge. 

This is a company that has gone above and beyond in customer service! Because of the angels at this company, my sisters and nephews now have a comfortable house to live in again. From now on, if anyone I know has problems with their heating and air units, i am going to refer them to Lee Company. 

I just want to say a very heartfelt Thank You to them from the bottom of my heart!

A Prayer For Jonathan

This is an original poem by me. 

Hope you like it.

This is an original. I wrote it myself and it won local recognition when I entered it in a contest.


A Prayer For Jonathan

Through all the pain and frustration and despair,
As I desperately struggle for a fresh breath of air.
I search and try to find my way,
Then the dawn rises on yet another lonely day.
I think, maybe this one will be better than the last,
Then I realize it's just a repeat of the past.
How do I go on living now that my hearts forgotten how to laugh?
How much more can I take before my soul breaks in half?
There has to be an answer, a way through this pain,
I've matched tears of sorrow for each drop of rain.
God, his name was Jonathan, and he was the love of my life,
But you called him home before he could make me his wife.
If I pray real hard by day and by night,
Will you lead me from my darkness and into your light?
The raw edges may fade and soften a bit, 
But, I'll hold on to the memories of his humor and wit.
Jonathan, just know that I love you and I always will,
Watch over me from Heaven and know that my love was real.
Goodbye my dear Jonathan, our time time was so sweet,
To love you and hold you was life's greatest treat.
Goodbye Jonathan, I love you.


Hope you like it.

The Day My Mom Came Out Of The Closet.......it isn't what you think

These are stories about my family and they are all true.  I hope you enjoy it.

Back centuries ago when I was 12 or 13, Mom decided we needed to paint the living room. I was ok with it because I was really too young to realize how much work was involved with painting a room. Mom took a couple of days off work to get this project done. She figured two days would be enough. She was almost right. Before I go any further, I know you are asking yourself,'What does painting a living room have to do with someone coming out of a closet?" Stick around, I think you will soon understand.
We took all the furniture out and had our tarps down. Mom taped off the floor boards and removed to outlet covers. We were ready to begin. We started by the door frames ans was just getting to the walls when Mom heard a car pull up in the driveway. "DAMN!" she said. It was her friend Ms. Moore. Mom not wanting to spend the day talking to Ms. Moore, (this lady could talk the warts plum off a frog) told me to tell her that she wasn't home. I said, "OK." Ms. Moore waddled up to the front door and knocked. Mom took off down the hall and hid in the closet (you getting it now?). I cracked the door open just a hair and said hello. Ms. Moore asked if mom was home. I told her she wasn't, I said we are painting the living room and Mom went to get more supplies. Ms. Moore being the epitome of a good friend said, "That's ok, I'll come in and wait for her." and then pushed past me and strode into the living room like she owned the place.
I'm thinking this will only be for a few minutes as I stole a nervous glance down the hall to the closet.
I picked up my paint brush and continued painting. Ms. Moore then  bombarded me with question after question after question. This woman could TALK!. I was trying to ignore her but it was impossible. I was trying real hard not to start laughing or crying. I answered as best I could. I tried to tell he that Mom had several errands to run but she wasn't getting the hint. She was too busy talking to hear what I was mumbling. I resigned myself to the fact that this was going to be a very long afternoon.
At one point she had been talking for so long I started to hallucinate, she disappeared and in her place was a giant pair of red lips on legs. The more she talked the bigger these red lips grew. Did I tell you that this woman could TALK?? She had been there quite a while and Mom must have got a bit of a cramp because we heard something from the hall. "What was that?" the red lips, err, I mean Ms. Moore asked.  We have squirrels in the attic I said. She bought it,,,,she wasn't very bright. I was starting to get antsy, Mom had been in the closet for quite a while now. It was getting to be lunch time and I was hungry and I knew Mom had to be hungry as well.
I said again that Mom had several errands and it could be a while before she gets back. "That's Ok Ms. Lips said, I don't have anything planned for today. GREAT!! JUST GREAT!!. I kept painting she kept talking.
My brain had gone numb, I no longer heard what she was saying, I just mumbled a yes Ma'am every one in a while and kept nodding my head.
Ms. M then asked if we had any coffee, DAMN! I thought.  I told her we didn't have any made. She asked if I'd be a dear and make some. Like a zombie I walked into the kitchen and put the peculator on. She HAS to leave soon I thought! I hoped! I prayed! After the coffee was done I went and fixed us both a cup. I figured that she would drink a cup then leave. Three cups later she was still there. Did I mention that this woman could TALK???
I just about had two walls finished by myself now. I was thinking, was it possible for a 13 year old to have a complete nervous breakdown from being talked to? I was beginning to think so. I saw a movement from the corner of my eye, NO, this is too good to be true! she had reached into her purse and had her keys in her hand.  I dared not breathe.......was she leaving? She said, "I guess I should go it's getting late." I stood in the middle of the room not moving, not breathing, not blinking. I said, "Yeah, looks like Mom had more to do than she thought." Ms. Moore waddled over to the door and put her chubby little hand on the doorknob, THERE IS A GOD, was all I could think. She slowly, ever so slowly turned the knob, then stopped. DAMN! I need to use the bathroom before I leave she said. SO CLOSE, SO VERY CLOSE! She had been there for over two hours so she probably did have to use it, Down the hall, first door to your right I said, the closet was the second door on the right and they were right next to each other.
She went and stayed in there for several minutes. Then to my relief I heard the toilet flush and the water in the sink come on. She came out and said she had enjoyed our visit. I said something like yeah me too or yeah screw you, or something. I mumbled it so low she didn't hear me. She then opened the door, and I almost screamed from the pain of the Sunlight. She waddled down to her car, got in and left. I shut and locked the door.
MOM! She's gone! I yelled down the hall. The closet door busted open with a force you only see in movies. There was a whirl of color, not unlike the Tasmanian Devil from the Buggs Bunny cartoons and then the bathroom door slammed shut. I don't know how you were raised but we were not wealthy enough to have a potty in the closet. Mom had to pee BEFORE she went in, she had been holding it for over two hours. When she finally emerged from the bathroom, she was a sweaty shaking mess.
I went and put on another pot of coffee and I really couldn't help myself. I busted out laughing and it took several minutes for me to pull myself back together. Mom just gave me the evil eye mom look. She knew she couldn't get mad at me because after all, I was just a kid and she's the one that said to tell her she wasn't home. To this day, I still tease mom about that day she came out of the closet.

I hope you enjoyed this little story, I have about a million of them. I'm the oldest of 5 kids so you you know I have plenty to write about. Check back next week if you liked this one and I'll try my best to entertain you with another one.

My Family

Hello, this is my first blog here. I do not have a specific subject that I will stick to, just random thoughts and stories about growing up in my dysfunctional family. Let me start by telling a little history. I am the oldest out of 5 kids and have 3 sisters and one brother. My brother is the youngest and the only boy. My mom and dad divorced when I was two, she remarried and had 4 more kids, we do not consider ourselves half siblings, we are full siblings. I have enough stories about us to blog for years and years. I hope you will enjoy them. Nothing is made up, everything I blog about will be honest to goodness true stories.
A little about me......I am a single mother of a beautiful daughter. She will be 16 this month and I have no idea where the time went! I work for the state and do love my job. It doesn't pay a whole lot, but it is good work. We just moved into a new apartment and I am loving it. I'll start by explaining why we moved.
Last year my daughter and I moved into a redone garage apartment. The rent was super cheap and the landlord was living in Hawaii. His sister got real sick and he came back to take care of her. He put the house up for sale and it sold this past July. The new owner was a kindly older man who was happy about buying the place. The property had the main house and our little place was in the back yard. My daughter helped him do some cleaning after he moved in. We didn't have a washer or dryer and he offered to let us use his. My daughter took a load of laundry to the house every weekend. On Labor Day he wanted to have a cook out and he bought everything and I grilled it all up. We ate at his place. After we ate he showed us several picture albums and some stuff he had collected over the years. One of the pics was of him and two other guys in a prison yard. I asked if he had been in prison and he nodded his head. He's 83 so I really didn't think much of it. Later, I got curious and looked him up. He is a repeat sex offender!  He like to rape young girls. He may be 83 but he's strong as an ox. He was lifting BIG tree limbs out of the back yard and putting them in the back of his truck without and help or any trouble.
I called the police and made a report. He had been 'grooming' my daughter to be his next victim. He told her (before we found out) that when they got 'closer' he was going to let her read his diary from 1997, that's when he raped a young girl. I was told that under Tennessee law, he's allowed to have young girls in his house as long as they don't live there or he isn't babysitting them. WTF??? There was nothing the police would do about it. I decided it was time to move. It took almost a month for me to find something, but I did fine a nice 2 bedroom apartment on the other side of town. For the last month we lived there, we were without hot water. The creep had disabled our hot water heater. Needless to say, it was a very difficult month. I had friends picking my daughter up after school and bringing her home when I got off work.
When he realized that my daughter wasn't there, he got real nasty towards me.
I couldn't relax at home always had a big icy knot in my stomach.
Thank God we are out of that mess and are in a better environment now. I'm relaxed and have been in a MUCH better mood since we moved. We've been here a couple of weeks and my attitude has changed so much for the better.
This is one story about my life that is a little dark, the rest will be a little lighter and hopefully you will enjoy reading them.
Thank you for taking the time to read this one.