Serendipity

Oneida Correctional Facility in Rome was closed by New York State in 2011 There are very few of us that have an idea what really goes on behind the fences and razor wire at correctional facilities. Most of us that do have a fair idea, know that it's not a place we want to be...let alone have a loved one in.  The inmates range in temperment to laid back and just doing their time, others join into gangs, and yet others bully and harass other inmates for any number of reasons including no reason at all. It's a vicious place at times. I am thankful for those that serve as Corrections Officers (COs). It's certainly a hard job, a dangerous job and a job that takes a certain kind of person to be behind those fences and razor wire dealing with inmates convicted of all kinds of crimes. But this isn't about the COs that are the good guys...this is about the ones that are dirty, and what I choose to call "rogue". These officers likely should be incarcerated...

I promise you cannot read these and not laugh out loud! These are real notes written from parents in a Mississippi school district. (Spellings have been left intact.) My son is under a doctor's care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him. Please excuse Lisa for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot. Dear School: Please ekscuse John Henry being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33 Please excuse Gloria Jean from Jim today. She is administrating Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip. John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face. Carlos was absent yesterday because he playing football. He hurt in the growing part. Ethel Pearl could not come to school today because she has been bothered by very close veins. Please xcuse LeRoy from school, he ain't got no rain cot and it was missing rain. Please excuse Bowdiddly fom school cause he uncle died. Bow say, "I s...

Eric Kelly EOD This blog is focused on finding this individual. His name is Eric Kelly and he was stationed in Germany up until the past week or two, when he was retiring from the service and coming home to the states. Age is about 41. Seperated from his wife or girlfriend and has a little girl. He home territory is around the San Diego area or suburbs in California. His status in the army was EOD. This is the story... I met him on Instagram back in June this past Summer. He struck up a conversation with me and as we talked over the next several weeks, we grew fond of each other. Next thing I know he is asking me to marry him. I was being "groomed" so he could get information from me, I guess. And I fell for it like a fool. Next thing I know...I am giving him information that we should never give anyone, because he was teaching me how to buy and sell bitcoin. Five bank accounts were opened in my name, places that received monies to be invested in bitcoin...bas...

1. Refuse to take action on nagging problems. Procrastinate, brood, and if possible, lose some sleep over them. 2. Make a concerted effort to take note of irritations in your life and blow them out of proportion. 3. Consider the power of negative thinking. 4. Hide your sense of humor. Erase the words smile, joke, and laugh from your vocabulary; concentrate on frowning. 5. If you've been working a 60 hour week, try 65 or 70 or 75! Spending more time at work will give you less time to consider how stressed you are. 6. Consume vast quantities of caffeine. As a stimulant it will ensure that you are awake day and night. 7. Practice the art of "hurry up and wait". This means dashing off to join a line-up somewhere - like the bank, cinema, or ticket outlet. 8. Make sure you drive no further than two feet from the car in front. 9. To relieve boredom while waiting for traffic lights, pretend you are on the starting grid for the Indy 500. 10. Never read a book or listen to mu...

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 now and we don't know where the hell she is. The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again. I joined a health club last year, spent about 400 bucks. Haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to show up. I have to exercise early in the morning before my brain figures out what I'm doing. I don't exercise at all. If God meant us to touch our toes, he would have put them further up our body. I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them. The advantage of exercising every day is that you die healthier. If you are going to try cross-county skiing, start with a small country. I don't jog; it makes the ice jump right out of my glass. It is well documented that for every mile that you jog..... you add one minute to your life .... This enables you, at 85 years old......

Does this look familiar? I realize this topic has seen a lot of play over the recent years, yet nothing seems to be getting done to change things. Why?  I admit, I am totally baffled. Yet I'm not. Exactly when did parenting skills start falling apart? Isn't that really what's going on? Parenting has changed, we as adults have changed. I found this on Facebook, believe it or not. Talk about perfect timing! But it says it all for the most part. Do you agree? My parents, especially my mother was pretty strict. When I had kids, I was fairly strict. My daughter is fairly strict. My sons not so much. The difference being that I was harder on my daughter because she was a girl. I didn't want her to make the mistakes I did. Now I'm not saying my sons are super lenient, they are not. But they give more leeway with their children than my daughter does. I will tell you that her children are well behaved and know respect and common sense is no stranger to them...

View from my desk of the outside I sit here giggling...with an image in my mind of what I must look like...you know those old ladies that sit near their windows and know the comings and goings of people in their neighborhood? Yes? Well... Although I'm not that old, that's me!!!  LOL  My desk sits to the right of the window above which gives me a view of who is coming and going from 4 of the buildings here, including from the other 3 apartments in my own building.  See, I am a bonified people watcher. Always have been and always will be.  I've seen a few things while the blinds are open but nothing that baffles me more than the fellow that lives upstairs. It's like he's a window watcher too. I have noticed time and again in the past week that when certain people pull in, he's out the door like a flash and attempting to casually walk up the sidewalk like he has nothing better to do. Being  nonchalant  doesn't suit him. I have watc...

The upside of Spring's arrival, however fleeting, is that the snow clouds disperse and we start seeing more of the wispy clouds which I love. On this day, I was able to get 3 shots, as the afternoon slid into disk. You can see a sliver of the moon. Contrails...'X'must be the spot! Sun has slowly moved toward setting. While I was out that afternoon, I shot the next two photos: Not sure what these are but there was a patch I found. Not sure what these husks were that were tangled in the bush. The next image I think is rather unique. I was in the kitchen and noticed the lace sheer that covers the kitchen window was creating a shadow on the floor. The sheer has rose-like flowers that spread across the floor. Yesterday afternoon, it suddenly clouded over and got really dark. I opened the shades and caught these images: The wind had picked up and the temperature dropped. The clouds actually looked more like snow clouds. We ...

Okay folks, I admit it...I am square. I don't like the smell of pot. Period. I've been this way since I was 18 and nothing's changed since. When I left my last pot-smoking boyfriend, I had high hopes I would not smell that stuff ever again. Boy...was I wrong. When my son and I moved into this apartment last October, the fun began. The people who live across the hall from us, a fellow probably in his late 20s or early 30s and a couple of young gals who I would be inclined to think/hope were in their late teens or early 20s really seem to like to puff their days away. Constantly.  If we walk out our apartment door we plow into an unseen cloud of pot smoke that about chokes us to death. I am being dead serious here. It's horrible and it even seeps in under our door and into our apartment at times. Ticks me off. I know you are thinking that I should report them. I have...to the office that manages this place. They served the people across the hall with a warnin...

If you'd asked me a few years ago if I could stand being by myself, I probably would have replied "No". In fact, I have never in all my adult years lived by myself or at least spent most of my time alone. I've always had someone there, a husband/significant other or other family member, so I was never really  alone.  Since moving here, I have learned to enjoy the alone time...even for days at a time.  I have gone through stages though to get to this point.  The first stage was a deep loneliness, and with it came a round of depression almost as deep. The next stage was one of keeping myself busy with making my crochet items for my shop on Etsy . If I kept my mind and hands busy I couldn't think. The next stage I really began to enjoy the quiet and the ease of not having anyone to be here with me. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted and how I wanted. Pretty sad to come to this point as a 59 year old woman! LOL In all honesty, I am glad that I have com...

Dinner is served For those of you in the USA, I don't know if you've become familiar with Campbell's new products called: Campbell's Skillet Sauces . So far they have 4 choices to choose from and the one that I was introduced to was Chicken Marsala  pictured below. I was able to be there when it was being fixed by my daughter the first time I tried it. She told me that with your chicken breasts, you need to slice them in half width-wise, so you end up with twice as many pieces of chicken breasts. Below, here are the 2 chicken breasts that I sliced in half to get the 4 pieces. This way, the meat cooks quicker. Makes sense. I used a large 12 inch skillet with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. (For some reason olive oil is bothering me.) I fried these until they were light brown on either side, making sure that they were cooked through.  Then came the sauce. Because I wanted to have another serving for dinner tomorrow night and save the rest to freez...

I have been thinking about a lot of things over the last 4 - 5 months. Not to the point of obsessing, just trying to puzzle out some things we deal with in life. One of the things that I've learned over the years is that we can spend a long time with someone...yet never really 'know' them. Or they 'knowing' you. I have to wonder how that can be when this person started and for the most part remained my best friend, yet we really didn't know each other. This happened many times. Some place along the line we stopped learning and wanting to learn about each other. Why? Was it after the first couple of hurts...where words were said that hurt feelings or actions that betrayed feelings? I don't know...not for sure. I know for me, my feelings are easily hurt, but it's even worse when words that were hurled at me were said with menace. I actually keep a tally mentally in my head of how many times I am made to cry, or feel belittled. And yes...I di...