Author: Wanda

I am a Catholic widow, mother, grandmother, friend and according to my kids just a little bit crazy. My faith is paramount in my life. Spending time with my family, especially my four grandchildren is one of my most treasured blessings. I love Redskins football, Phillies baseball, NASCAR, quilting, genealogy, and am a bibliophile and struggling blogger.

JusJoJan Catch Up

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January 3 – Solo (Dar @ https://darsword.wordpress.com/)

January 4 – One Liner Wednesday & Jus Jo Jan Courage

January 5 – Cancer (Lauren @ https://lssattitudeofgratitude.wordpress.com)

January 6 – Sweet (Ritu Bhathal @ http://www.butismileanyway.com)

January 7 – SoCS & Jus Jo Jan

January 8 – Friendship (JezzieG @ https://jezzieg.com/)

January 9 – Endurance (Destiny @ https://destinysdesignz.wordpress.com/)

January 10 – Periwinkle (Maggie@https://fromcavewalls.wordpress.com/)

As I was packing up my house getting ready to move to North Carolina I came across an old friend’s grandmother’s dishes. When she and her ex divorced she asked me to hold onto them until she had room for them. We have enjoyed a friendship since we were in high school. Unfortunately, her ex telling her he had remained friends with my husband and I, we lost touch. I had missed her so much but had no idea where she had gone. Dottie is my one daughters god mother.

Well after I found the dishes I decided to see if her sister was still in the next town over and give her a call. To my surprise she was and she was happy to give me Dottie’s number so I could give her a call. I did and it was like we had just talked on the phone the day before. I was so happy since I had missed her over the years.

After we moved to North Carolina we made plans to head to Florida to deliver my sweet friends dishes. I met her husband and we have spent so much time together ever since. They travelled through my neck of the woods heading up to Pennsylvania for the various family events they attended.

Dottie and Frank stopped the last time they drove down to let me know her sister that was living with them had been diagnosed with cancer. I felt terrible. I had gotten to know all of her family over the years. I always feel helpless when someone you love is dealing with such a situations. I wanted so much to help Dottie, but all I could do was to listen when she needed to talk.

In 2016 after losing my husband I began making the trek to Florida solo. I have gone down to see them quite often. As a matter of fact, when Frank became very ill, I stayed with them for almost 4 months taking care of Frank. Dottie was still working at Disney so she needed a hand. As Frank’s endurance improved he needed less and less help from me. That was the year I really got into photography and posted a lot of the pictures on my blogs. Maybe some of you remember that.

One of the funniest things I remember from my stay in Florida that year was when Dottie wanted to get new drapes for her living room. Frank asked her what was wrong with the ones they had. Dottie looked at Frank and told him they were old and out dated. Oh! Frank said I guess you want the periwinkle ones you saw last week. Well Dottie and I looked at each other and we both started laughing out loud. Dottie said to Frank, “I didn’t know you knew what periwinkle was.” At that he replied, ” Of course I do it’s that stretchy material made from periwinkle.” Dottie said to Frank while laughing hysterically with tears streaming down her face “you mean polyester?” Frank looked at me hoping I could help him out and all I could do was laugh. So Frank just said polyester/periwinkle it’s the same thing.

Share Your World

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Share Your World January 2nd 2023 hosted by pensitivity101

1. Did you stay up to see the New Year in?

Not this year. I worked till 7 and by the time I got home it was closer to 9. Tired, crabby and suffering from a cold that made me feel just awful I put my pj’s on and slept soundly till the morning.

2. Are there any special occasions or events coming up in 2023 for you or your family?

Not that I know of, but then most times I am the last one in the family to know about things. LOL

3. Do you keep a diary?

I have never been good at keeping a diary. I have tried over the years but I get busy and forget to write in it. That’s one of the reasons I started blogging.

4. How did yesterday differ from January 1st 2022 or was there no difference?

Last year I spent the day with my oldest daughter and her family. She has three of my grandchildren. Everyone came here for supper and we played games. We had a great time.

Retail Rant

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After many years working as a nurse and retiring, I find myself back at work in retail. I could never understand why my daughter thought that customers were such a pain, but I do now.

It amazes me that people will walk down an aisle, pick something up, change their mind about getting it then walk down the aisle and throw it where it doesn’t belong. I was actually told by a customer that I should not complain about picking up after the customers since I was getting paid to clean up after them. Biting my tongue, I just gave her a look and walked away. Since when is cleaning up after sloppy people who don’t care about what does not belong to them considered customer service?

I am a full time assistant manager who usually works the evening shift. I cannot tell you how many customers are rude, nasty, and outright threatening to myself and fellow employees. It seems more and more I have to ask customers to leave the store because of the outrageous behavior they exhibit.

The other night I had a teenaged girl shopping with her mother bouncing a basketball in the store by the glass display shelves. I nicely asked her to not bounce the ball in the store. She and her mother just gave me a look and kept walking and bouncing. I repeated the question, again nicely, and the mother said to the daughter you just go ahead and bounce the ball and to me she said she’s not hurting anyone. At that point I again asked nicely and she turned to me and threatened me. It was at that point that I removed my phone from my pocket and called the police to have them removed from the store. The mother laughed at me until she realized I was really on the phone with the police, then as she was walking out of the building she told me I better watch myself when I left the building that night as I was not going to make it home safely. You can be sure that I had the police at the store at closing to assure my safety.

Disrespect for the products we carry is only one part of it. The restrooms are destroyed on a regular basis. It is amazing to me how grown adults think it’s acceptable to write on the restroom walls with feces, leave used personal items on the floor, and steal the toilet paper!

The theft is unbelievable! As the customers shop they help themselves to snacks and cold drinks and deposit the trash from them on the shelves all over the store. The amount of inventory that is lost is amazing. Then we have people who just take frozen food out of the freezers and leave it on a random shelf. It just doesn’t make any sense.

I feel better now. I can go into work tomorrow with my sanity restored because I have been able to vent a little. Thank you my fellow bloggers for listening!

I See Stars

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Daily Prompt Jus Jo Jan the 2nd 2023 – Constellation by willowdot21

I am not much of a star gazer, but I do appreciate the beauty of the lighted night sky. I don’t have the ability to actually see the definition of even the Big Dipper as my depth perception is somewhat distorted. I don’t really know if that has anything to do with it, or if my mind just can’t see the vague outlines of stars creating a picture.

At any rate I discovered a Constellation I can wrap my head around and thoroughly enjoy. When I was researching cocktail recipes few years ago for a social event, I found this recipe for a Constellation.

Mixed Drink Recipe from Cocktail Builder

Constellation

1/2 oz of Advocaat Liqueur
1/2 oz of Cherry Advocaat Liqueur (or blackcurrant flavored liqueur)
1/2 oz of Butterscotch Schnapps
1 dash of Blue Curacao Liqueur

Pour both normal advokaat and cherry advokaat in shot glass at same time, beside each other. Add butterscotch schnappes. Then add dash of blue curacao. There should be no set layers, it should be a mix of colors.

YUM!

Happy New Year!

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Daily Prompt – JusJoJan the 1st, 2023

Today is for reflecting on the past year and planning for the new year. For remembering the good times and the not so good times, family and friends lost and those that remain, for honestly assessing the choices we made and the outcomes those choices merited, and deciding if we want to repeat them or change them. If we are brutally honest with ourselves, we know that we go through life repeating the same choices over and over and over again with the same outcomes as a result. But still each year we come up with our ideas of what will make us better. Our New Years’ Resolutions.

I have come up with a few for myself this year. They are:

Take care of my soul, mind and body.

Treat everyone with respect and kindness.

Work hard and always do my best.

Develop more patience with others and myself.

Remember to do what I love.

I know that I am destined to fail at times, I am human, but instead of those lofty resolutions of my youth, I just want to be the child of God He wants me to be.

What are your resolutions for 2023?

Blessings to all and a Very Happy New Year!

Question Time Over Coffee

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Question Time Over Coffee is hosted by Earthly Comforts.

This week’s questions are:

  1. Are you more socially or community-minded regarding people, or do you not think there is a difference between the two? I generally am a mix. I love the socialization working in the community gives me and the community service by social groups allow.
  2. On a scale of 1 – 10, how ethically minded do you think you are?
    What behaviour do you consider to be ethical? I would give myself a 9. Not a 10 because I do not think it’s ethical to lie, but I would rather tell someone they look nice than they look awful. Hurting someone’s feelings serves no purpose except to cause the hurt. The 10 Commandments keep my ethics in line. 🙂
  3. What enrichment do you personally receive from being social? As humans we are social by nature and I find that spending time socially gives me a good perspective on life.
  4. Have you become noticeably more socially isolated or socially interactive after the pandemic and the lockdowns? There may be no difference in your social behaviour; if this is the case, let me know below. All during the pandemic I worked with the public. The only change in my behavior was adding coordinating masks to my wardrobe.
  5. What would be your top sustainability tip? Stay as active as you can.
  6. Do you find it easy or hard to talk to your friends and family about your health? I rarely talk about my health but when I need to I don’t find it difficult.
  7. What will you be doing this weekend? Christmas Eve, I am here blogging. Christmas Day I will be going to Mass, then to a friend’s for a short visit and finally to my daughter’s for supper. I’ll be face timing with my son and granddaughter after supper.
  8. As the writer and author of your blog, how connected do you feel to your audience? I have been absent from my blog for about a year and am just now getting back into it. I hope to reconnect with the bloggers I have gotten to know since I began this blog. Does your blog reveal too much, too little or just the right balance of you to your readers? I guess that would depend on who is reading it. 🙂 Mostly I hope that I don’t bore my readers.
  9. If you were granted a day at being one of your favourite book characters, who would you choose to be and why? I love the Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon. I would choose to be Claire Fraser I think it would be cool to time travel.
  10. What do you believe is the greatest threat to our planet today? The greatest threat to our planet in my opinion it nuclear war.

Change Is Coming

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Fandango’s Story Starter #75

The somber mood in the studio was not surprising, given that the anchorman had just led with a major story that would change our way of life. It seems that our government had developed a new philosophy of law and order. No longer would it be possible to go out without a pass. No longer would it be possible to shop for what you needed or wanted. No longer would it be possible to attend church on Sundays or choose where to live or send out kids to school.

The freedoms we had enjoyed since the beginning were being taken away by those who decided they knew better what we needed. We saw the warning signs, but were convinced it could never happen here. After all we lived in a free land with a government by the people, for the people and of the people. Unfortunately, the people of whom the government consisted were not really who they said they were. Election after election they were voted back in by their constituents choosing not to answer to them but to those who held the purse strings.

A new social order was marching into our beloved country. Everyone should have the same clothes, food, living quarters, and wealth. Or lack of wealth. Society was going to become like a bee hive with the many worker bees tending to the needs of the queen bee. No matter how many times in history the socialist, communist, Marxist ways destroyed countries here was our government falling right into the same trap. Capitalism is despised by these philosophies but the leaders get rich while exploiting the poor.

Looking at each of his coworkers the anchorman had tears in his eyes as he realized what had just happened. He just announced the end of our freedom.

Share Your World December 5, 2022

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Hosted by pensitivity101

This week’s questions:

1.  Do you have a favourite outfit you like to wear?

I am most comfortable in an old pair of soft jeans and T shirt. I don’t dress up much any more except when going to church. Otherwise it’s comfy casual for me.

2. What is the worst thing you were forced to wear as a child (school uniforms aside) ?

The worst thing I was forced to wear as a child was an eye patch over my right eye. I had a lazy left eye. I had the cutest pair of pink checked glasses, but a very ugly flesh colored patch over my seeing eye. I was black and blue most of the time from walking into everything since I had little to no depth perception. It’s funny, until right now I had forgotten about it.

3.  Do you have a sweet tooth, and if so, are you a chewer, cruncher, or sucker?

Yes, yes, yes and yes!

4.  Do you think you could eat your weight in chocolate?

I am not sure I could, but I would die trying! I love chocolate!