The Time I Shot Myself.....kinda

I'm the kind of person who reads the last page of a book to see how it ends because I can't stand the suspense.  I use Wikipedia to find out everything that happens in a movie so I'll know when to close my eyes.  My friends can't stand that I do this.  I can't ever imagine NOT doing it.

I do not like any kind of suspense at all.  I certainly do not like to be scared.  My family and friends know not to ever "BOO!" me because I can't be responsible for what might happen to them if they do.  I go in Fat Girl Ninja mode.  It ain't pretty but it's effective and that's what matters.

When I was little, my father (Buddy) was a long-haul trucker so he was gone for periods of time.  One night, my mom and I were sitting in our family room watching TV when I heard a scratching at the side window.  We had a woodpile right outside and we also heard some logs falling.  My mom called the police to come out.  After doing a search, it was concluded that it was "just a cat".  However, while the police were at our house, a burglary call came in at the house right behind ours.  Not a coincidence......


When I was a little bit older, I shared a bedroom with my older sister, who is 11 years older than me.  With that age difference, we didn't have a whole lot in common.  I was the bratty baby sister and she was a high schooler.  One night, I heard a scratching noise at the bedroom window.  When I looked over, I saw a stick being raised, lowered and scratching the window screen.  Either my mom or my sister tried to scream but nothing came out.  I think it was my mom that ran to the front door wielding a gun at the would-be-intruder.  To this DAY I am petrified of windows.  All of my doors and windows must be covered by blinds and at night they have to be closed.  Josh would love to sleep with the window open but that's just not going to ever happen.  As a matter of fact, when I first moved back to Dothan from New Orleans, I had all of the windows in my house nailed shut.

You know the feeling you get when you think someone is following you and about to grab you?  Its a mixture of adrenaline and fear.  I would get that walking down my hallway at night, or walking from my front door to the car, or swimming in our pool.  I kept the heeby-jeebies all the time, even now.

I'm also afraid of the dark.  Definitely not as much as I used to be.  I used to have to have a light on in the bedroom to go to sleep.  Now, I just leave the bathroom light on.  *lol*  Only when Josh is home do I get a dark room to sleep in.  Luckily, he can sleep through anything so the light doesn't bother him, just my scaredy-cat ways.  Driving down a dark road.....CREEPY!  I'm always afraid someone is going to pop out of the bushes.  As a middle schooler, a group of us would ride down to the Devil Church on Fortner Street, turn the lights out on the car and drive down there into the dark.  If I could see the old me now, I'd love to smack the snot out of me for the stupid things I did.


Growing up, I was convinced I would be dead before I hit 40.  I just knew that I would die a horrific, brutal murder. Because of my fear of the dark....and other fears.....Josh decided it would be a good idea to get me a pistol for when he's not here, or if I find myself in a situation out in public.  I needed to learn how to shoot it, right? 


Josh took me and a box of bullets out to my brother's place in Kinsey.  They had a little home made shooting range out there.  So I loaded my gun, aimed for the target and prepared to shoot.  I made a couple of really good shots!  As I was changing my grip, I apparently put my hands in a position Josh told me not to.  When I squeezed the trigger, I felt a little cut and then my thumb started pouring blood.  We got the bleeding to stop, bandaged it up and kept shooting.  Before we left, I was checking out my thumb and noticed it wouldn't bend.  At all.  I could sit there and will it all I wanted to and it wasn't going to move.  We stopped at a friend's house on the way home and let him take a look at it since he's a P.A.  He thought it might just be sprained and thought it would probably be ok.  It wasn't.  By Monday, it was still the same so I called my family doctor for an appointment.  I will just say now, my doctor was Tony Gabrielson.  If you know him, you can imagine how THAT visit went.  He crawled my butt for letting it go so long.  "Dude, that's  an important digit!  You don't need to lose that!"  My grip was wrong on the gun so the slide came back when it was fired and it sliced the tendon in my thumb.

A week or two later (!) I was taken to Columbus, GA by an angel named Kelly Johnson.  I had surgery on my thumb at the Hughston Clinic.  The tendon was reattached and a very long pin was placed in the top of my thumb going straight down through it to hold everything together.  I went through hand therapy and today, it's relatively good as new.

 

 
All these years, I  have had so many fears.  It should have occurred to me a long time ago that I'm my own worst enemy.  I need to watch out for myself, apparently!

Animal House

“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

I was told the other day that I BETTER think of something to write about.  *lol*  So here!!!
However, if you're not an animal lover, then just go ahead and pass right by this blog.  All this is going to be about are 4 legged blessings with a LOT of pictures.   I have been an animal lover my entire life.  Chances are if you've known me for any length of time, you'll remember at least one if not all of these.

When I was growing up, my mom raised Persian cats, Doberman Pinschers and Afghan Hounds.  Before I was born she raised horses.  I wish I could have been alive then.  A bucket list entry for me is to ride a horse across a beautiful meadow as fast as it can go.  Unfortunately, I am not a horse rider so the possibility of that happening is next to none.

My first memory of an animal I actually have a picture of is below.  I adopted  kittens from one of our litters and named them Blueberry, Wallplug and Lightplug. Crazy original huh?  I didn't get to keep them.  Once they left that was the end of cats for a while. I also had a pet duck when I was 6.  His name was D.D.  Mom said it was for Dumb Duck but it was just DD to me.  He tried to follow me to school and also swam in our pool with me.  We eventually took him out to a friend's pond so he could hang out with his bird friends. 
 

Infamous green carpet I mentioned in my first blog....

 We then had Doberman Pinschers.  "Cash" had extremely bad gas if I remember correctly.  "Bonnie" was a petite little girl that was just adorable.  She had a litter of puppies that I got help take care of.  To this day I still remember the smell of Puppy Chow and water mixed together because that's what we fed them.  One of the puppies accidentally was stepped on by someone and I remember it being devastating.  He was bleeding and my mom was trying to save it.  UGH, sometimes I hate vivid memories.

After the Dobermans we started raising Afghan Hounds.  We had Penny (Lady Penelope Szerzo), KC (K-Z's Summerwind Akaba) and Cella (Mahadi's Silver Lima de Prima).

KC & Penny

Me & Cella

They are absolutely beautiful animals but a pain in the butt to keep groomed. When I was in 2nd grade, the Dothan Eagle did a story on my mom raising the Afghans.  When I got home from school, they took a picture of me and the puppies to add to the article.

One of the puppies had a tendon problem so several times a day I would work the puppy's paws back and forth trying to stretch the tendon.  I saw a lot of litters born and learned very young how precious even an animal life is.  When the Afghans were gone, we didn't have any animals.  Until Morris.....

Morris and Murphy

Murphy was a sweet little baby that was abandoned by his mother.  He hardly had a chance he was so sick.  I was trying to nurse him back to health and ended up killing him.  He liked to cuddle up close to me at night.  I woke up one morning and he was hard as a rock.  Suffocated.  My dear sweet Dad tried to give him mouth-to-mouth we were all so upset about that little fella.

His final days

Morris the Cat came into my life when I was in middle school.  He was there throughout all the rough stuff with my parents divorcing.  I can't tell you how many times I would go outside and lay on the concrete or grass and cry to my kitty.  As he got older, he developed a skin condition.  A really nasty one at that.  He lost a lot of fur and it was replaced by scabs which bled all the time.  When he was 15, he had a stroke.  It was winter so I kept him inside by the wood burning stove.  I had to pick him up to get food and water.  Late one night I went in to check on him.  I got down on the carpet, cuddled around him and just started talking about all the things we had been through together.  I told him I hated seeing him suffer because it was breaking my heart.  He was gone the next morning.....


In high school I had a little white doggie named Duffy.  He was named after Duff McKagan in Guns N Roses.  Ha! Ha!

I didn't do well with bunnies.  I tried for a short time after Morris.  I thought I was doing a good thing by letting the bunny play outside while I was out there.  Unfortunately, I forgot the City had been out to spray the yard.  Bunny ate the grass and died the next morning.  Another image in my brain.

Let's see........after the bunny came our time with Shelties.  The little girl was Prissy and the boy was Kane.  These were really smart and beautiful dogs!  Remember the near-flood Dothan experienced in the 90s? These two babies were stuck in the crawl-space of my house during that and it was full of water!  My mom swam out into the water, underneath the house and rescued them.  Prissy was standing on top of Kane and they were up to their noses in water.  But they lived!!!  Mom eventually got rid of Prissy and gave Kane to my sister.  I don't know if Kane was trying to get back to us or just ran away but he was found shot on the side of the road.  I'll end that story right there.........

 Along came Joe.  Joe was one of the coolest cats I had ever met.  He was sweet, mild mannered and a great cuddler.  Joe passed away the year the kids were born.  He had Leukemia.  Anytime his name is brought up now, it's almost always followed by "I miss ole' Joe.  He was a good cat."  That he was.

A friend of mine was watching my dog for me when I had brain surgery.  When I went to pick up my dog, he showed me a kitten he was about to put in the woods because he didn't want it.  I TOOK IT!  It was way too little to be all alone!  He named her Biloxi but I just cut it off at Bill.  So then I had two cats, Joe & Bill.

When I lived with Chad in Louisiana, his brother Michael had a dog named Loretta.  Since I wasn't able to work, I got to spend a lot of time with her and fell completely in love.  When Chad and I split, Loretta and I did too. 

After the split, I got an apartment in Louisiana.  I was lonely though because I have always had animals around me.  So, I adopted Spencer.  Spencer's mom was killed by a car when he was a little baby.  He lived on a car lot and was absolutely nasty.  He weighed 1 pound, he had an upper respiratory infection and kitty herpes.  When I moved back to Dothan and started dating Josh, he rescued a kitty that was getting his butt kicked outside of our house.  This cat fell in LOVE with Josh!  It was adorable.  He was found in October and he was orange so we named him Punkin.  So then we had Bill, Spencer and Punkin at our house and Joe lived at moms until he passed away from leukemia.

A little while after we moved into our new house, Bill disappeared.  We have no idea what happened to her and Emily still talks about her to this day.  Several years later, Punkin developed diabetes.  I noticed he was drinking a lot of water and he couldn't walk right.  The vet said he would live but he would have to have shots every day.  I couldn't do that to my baby, him not knowing why I was sticking him with a needle all the time.  Punkin then passed away.

Punkins last few days.....cuddled with Spencer

 Spencer lived for 14 years.  The last couple of years of his life were absolutely miserable.  I finally gave in and had him put to sleep.  It nearly killed me.  Josh did it when I was at school for PTO one day.   He even brought him back home and buried him for me.  These were his last days:

Man, it feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest.  If you're not an animal lover, you can't imagine what it feels like to live through this, let alone relive it by writing this post.

But, all of that brings me to where we are now.  Four years ago on a rainy July afternoon, we came across a puppy while we were all out riding our bikes.  I brought the kids on home while Josh tried to find out who the pup belonged to.  Josh walked through the door with this face:

Introducing....TRIGGER!!

This picture is so funny to me.  It's like he is trying to put on his best cuteness so we will keep him.  I wasn't the problem, it was Josh.  He said we would keep him in the yard until we found his owner.  No owner found.  So then he was just supposed to stay outside.......but then this happened.

SUCKERRR!

He became an inside dog but he was NOT going to sleep with us, period.

Need I caption this picture?!?!  SUCKER!!!!

 Really though, could you deny that face?  Trigger Treat Edwards is truly the best dog I have ever owned.  He's so smart.  He's funny.  He protects his family.  He's just awesome :)  No more cats.  No more dogs.  NOW I understand why my mom always said when we got rid of our animals, we wouldn't get any more.  It's just too hard to lose them. 

Carline and Other Traffic Idiocracies

I long for the day when I can get in my car, input an address and have my car drive me there.  It could happen, right?  I have serious road rage.  Not so bad that I would get out and hurt someone.  I'm not THAT crazy.   I just have a very low tolerance for bad drivers and what I call "entitlement" drivers.  

My idea of an entitlement driver......
Out Highway 52 past Lowe's just before you get to Trawick Road is what used to be Geraldine's Restaurant.  Coming FROM Trawick, sitting at the light with the Texaco on your right, I see people cut across Geraldine's every single day.  I've seen several near miss head on collisions because of this too.  Since Geraldine's closed and the business was repainted, a wire going across both driveways was erected with a couple of 4x4's in the ground.  That didn't last long.  I sure would like to see the vehicle that busted through that.  I just want a police officer to sit in the Shoe & Leather parking lot between 7:15am - 8:00am and see how many times this happens. 

Another example of an entitlement driver is in car line.  I shouldn't even get STARTED talking about car line, but since this post is regarding my road rage, Ill go ahead. :)  At our school, there are two directions you can come from.  Allllllll the normal people get in line and wait like we're supposed to.  Some choose to get there an hour and a half early, some an hour or some just 15 minutes before the bell.  Either way, we get in line and we wait.  Once the line starts, you take turns going from the two directions.

There are a few people that come from a different direction that try to bee-bop into the car line.  Well, I ain't lettin them in.  They can FUGGETABOUTIT.  It ain't happening and I guarantee if they try it in front of many people, they won't let them in either.  I'm not even talking about patiently waiting for someone to let them in.  I'm talking about them getting their bumper in there a little at a time to squeeze others out.  There are supposed to be cones at the corner so people can't come in from that way but the school doesn't put them out anymore.


Then you have people that like to take chances with their lives and vehicles.  They play Frogger in real life.  In the below picture, I was at the red light on Westgate & Main in front of Walgreens.  You know the place, traffic nightmare.  The tan vehicle was trying to cut across traffic that was stopped for a red light.  A car headed for the turn lane slammed into it because it pulled out in front.  Well.....DUH.  I can go ahead and tell you, if you see me stopped at a red light and you're trying to get across, I'm not letting you through.  Nor will I take the open spot someone offers me to cross.  Seriously, THINK people!  

Can we all just PLEASE learn how to correctly turn in a median?!?!?!?  Lordy!

Now Walmart-North.  Read closely.  THERE IS NOT A STOP SIGN AT THE TOP OF THE HILL COMING IN TO WALMART PARKING LOT NEXT TO BRUSTERS.   STOP stopping! 

School buses and 18 wheelers.......do people not understand these vehicles are HUGE?!?  They have a wide turn radius so give them room!  And for pete's sake, don't pull out in front of them.  They can't stop as quick as a normal car!!!

So tell me, what's you're traffic pet peeve?


I literally fear the day my children get their license.  I know I can teach them the ways of the road, but having to look out for others is the problem.  I am not looking forward to that day, at all.


(Grrrr....I'm all fired up now! )

By the way, to let you all know, Im all blogged out.  I finished my story and have nothing more to tell.  I knew I should have spaced the others out so it would last longer but I just didn't.  I was on a roll and was having fun reliving the old days.  I hope something will pop up in my head or someone will give me an idea of what to write.  Until then.........