New Family Member

This is Harold and Debbie. She is our "newest" family member.

You just never know what kind of surprise is waiting for you around the next corner. About a year ago Harold got a phone call from his brother out of the blue that he had been contacted by a girl in Florida who said she was Harold's grand-daughter. She left a phone number, and he called, it turned out he had a daughter he never knew about. All this happened more than 50 years ago. What a shock. They began talking and getting acquainted over the phone, and she decided to come to Oklahoma to meet him.

She flew from Orlando to Lawton, and we met her at the airport there. We had pictures so we recognized her instantly. She is friendly and out-going, just like Harold, and we have been having a great time getting to know her. Patti and David are thrilled to have a sister (well, half). She is only staying until Saturday, June 6, but we are sure she will be back.

Life is full of surprises, makes it interesting and never boring.

Emily Dickinson said, "To live is so startling, it leaves little time for anything else."

Wishing y'all pleasant surprises.

Grandma in the yellow house

Summer Cooking

I make "Really Easy Bread" from the living green and simple blog, but summer is coming and it will be too hot to turn on the oven. I have been thinking about using the crockpot to bake, but was unsuccessful at finding a recipe for crockpot bread. Until today.
I found a blog address I had saved and misplaced (not an unusual occurance) some time ago, and there were the directions for making crockpot bread!
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com

There are recipes for whatever you can imagine, and she even lists a few failures with comments on how bad they were.

The bread recipes are for french toast loaf, banana bread, corn bread, and gluten-free bread. The gluten-free uses a ready made mix from the store, but I plan to use the regular mix and give it a try. We love home-made bread. We have gone as long as 3 months without buying a loaf of bread at the grocery store. If the crockpot experiment is successful it could be many more months until we buy another loaf.

Wish me luck with my experiment.
Grandma in the yellow house

The New Bike

David's new (to him) bike.....he got it from Andy who got it from a customer who needed cash. Whew! And he made it clear it does NOT replace Susie. Just moves in next to her. He stopped by for awhile this evening, but was going home--too cold to be riding very far. It has been rainy and chilly for 3 days now, and still going to be on the cool side tomorrow and Monday, unless the weather guy got it wrong.

Patti called this evening and told us Rowdy, the Australian Shepherd, escaped last night, and Randy had not been able to find him. Patti worked today so was unable to help look for him. She called again a few minutes ago and they had found him down at the school. Obviously he felt the need to continue his education. (Smile)

"The only failure is not to try." George Clooney

Rowdy tried it out there on his own, but bet he's glad to be back inside the fence at home.

Be safe y'all

Grandma in the yellow house

Family History

Dad's younger brother, Farrell (the only one still living), brought over some very old pictures of our great grand-parents. I had not seen these before and found them to be so interesting I thought some of our David relatives might like to see them. I know my niece Stefanie collects family history, and hope someday she will publish all her findings.

This photo is of my great grand-father, Daniel Webster David, and his wife, great grand-mother Mary Mellon David. They are seated in front with my grandfather on the left in front, James Albert David. On the right is the eldest, Nora, who married a Preston. In the back standing are Roy, Eva, Arthur, Frank, Lilian, and Vernon. Most of them lived into their 90's and Aunt Lilian was almost 103 when she passed away. She was the youngest of the eight children.

I am so glad someone took the time to write the names on the back of the photo. I have many in my collection who are unknown to me. They have been passed down through the family, but no one in the present generation knows who they are. Please, take the time to identify those in your photo albums so the next generation can know who their ancestors are. I need to do this myself, and it will be quite a task. I have lots of photos!

Remembering the past...........

Grandma in the yellow house

About Andy

The memorial service for Andy White was at 10:30 this morning. The little church was packed with standing room only. Friends attended from as far away as Amarillo, and family from even farther. He was laid to rest dressed in his leather biker's jacket. He would have appreciated that.

Several of his motorcycle buddies came, on their bikes, and Andy would have appreciated that also. He loved his motorcycle.

David and our grandson, Jack, were two of the pallbearers. Jack came over from Electra this morning---first time we have seen him in several months. Lots of hugging went on here.

It is now time to get on with our daily parade of adventures. (See? Told ya Andy looked like an aging hippy.)

God bless y'all.

Grandma in the yellow house

More on Tragedy

We have learned that an arrest has been made in the case of Andy's murder. The police told Patti yesterday that an arrest was expected at any time, then we saw David at noon today and he told us a man was taken into custody late in the afternoon.

Our Jackson County Sheriff's dept. and the OSBI (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation) worked together to solve the crime, and did an excellent job.

The man arrested has confessed, and is charged with 1 count of first degree murder, and 1 count of armed robbery. He is a former town cop (not our town) who was fired for misconduct on the job, being too physically and verbally abusive to anyone he happened to stop or have legal contact with.

We will be attending memorial services tomorrow morning, burial in the afternoon.

Andy was one of the good guys. He looked like an aging hippy, with a beard and old clothes, but he was good-hearted. He had very little of this world's goods because he gave nearly everything he owned away. All one had to do was ask, or sometimes not even that. Both Patti's kids loved their Uncle Andy. He will be missed.

Blessings to all my family. Hug your loved ones, you don't know how long you will have them.

Grandma in the yellow house

Tragedy

My first though is, "OMG, how can this happen to someone I know?" Well, I guess every tragedy happens to those someone knows personally.

Sometime between the close of business on Sunday evening and the opening of business on Monday, late afternoon, Patti's brother-in-law Andy was shot and killed during a suspected robbery. He was found when his waitress went to work, and found all the doors locked and could not get in. She then came to town and got our son David, who has a key, and Patti's husband and brother to Andy, and they went down to see what was wrong. They found him and called the police. I heard they have a suspect, but no details yet.

Randy is holding up well, better than Patti, but this has to be very hard for him. He is now the sole suvivor of his immediate family. He has one Aunt left, and 2 cousins, one nephew somewhere, and a half brother who spends most of his time in alcoholic recovery or jail. That is sad.

Andy was well liked, and David considered him one of his best friends. When Andy had a motorcycle accident recently, David kept the business going for him until he could get back on his feet. That's why he still had a key, Andy said he might need it sometime. You hear of things like this on the news, but never expect it to happen to someone you know.

The family needs prayer.

Praying here.......
Grandma in the yellow house

Vaccines

As you all know I occasionally go way off family news to talk (write) about different things that catch my interest, tickle my funnybone, or rile me up. I received this little quote in my Daily Dose message from William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
There has been talk about states making the Gardisil vaccine mandatory for all girls in public schools age 9 and up. If I remember correctly, Texas actually passed this bill in their state assembly, and there was such an outcry from parents and other interested medical personel that they quickly reversed themselves.
Anyway, Dr. Douglass quoted a CDC report stating that 32 girls died after receiving Gardasil, the so-called cervical cancer vaccine. Eleven occured less than a week after getting the shot. Seven occured in less than two days. In an earlier message he reported that the vaccine in most cases isn't even necessary to kill the virus claimed to cause some cases of cervical cancer, the immune system does the job much more effectively. Another case of big drug companies trying to ram an unnecessary treatment down the throat of the public, for the purpose of profits.
And speaking of vaccinations, check out www.mercola.com for a very interesting article on the H1N1 virus, aka swine flu, and you will think twice about lining up for that vaccination. A lot of us were around for the swine flu scare back in 1976, and a vaccination was rushed to market to help stop the eminent pandemic. Well, the pandemic did not materialize, just fizzled out, but the vaccine killed more people than the flu did. It also caused healthy young people to be paralyzed, and caused a lot of respiratory distress.
I am not saying all vaccinations are bad, those for polio, whooping cough, tetanus, etc. have been life-savers. But they are giving them to children much too young. If it were up to me they would only get those shots if they were going to be in day care or other places where they might be exposed to childhood diseases. And most childhood diseases strengthen the immune system. Did we not all survive measles, mumps, chicken pox and such? How else were we going to get to skip school?
Just FYI, I have not had a flu shot in years, and do not plan to get one. I eat healthy foods, get my exercise and plenty of rest, and follow Patti's 3 rules for stopping the spread of infections.
1. Wash your hands.
2. Wash your hands.
3. Wash your hands.
Ok, time to get off my soap box for now.

Stay healthy and God bless you all.
Grandma in the yellow house