duppy55
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "duppy55" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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01:27 pm
[Link] | Just got done eating barbeque ribs, corn on the cob, potatoe salad and peach cobbler. Twas very good. we always eat early on holidays.
I also now have an upright shed in my back yard! Make that 2 upright sheds.
We also now have Ranza's car back from Boca. That is great. We have lined up 2 mechanics and have another engine to put in it so she should be back on the road soon.
Hopefully, things will keep zipping along.
My grass is also all mowed thanks to the new resident, brother Rocky.
Will be screening in the porch soon and also have the deck destructed. Will be fixing the remainder of the shed and deck soon.
We go on vacation in August so we are attempting to get all this done soon.
Our life is moving forward at the speed of light!
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09:55 am
[Link] | Well, my little brother moved in with us and what a great thing it is. He has already mowed the grass and is tearing up our old deck and its not even 10:00 am yet. He is a real go getter. It makes his moving in with us so much more positive that I expected. He seems satisfied with everything and is going to watch NASCAR with my husband and he gets along with all the other denizens of this house, too. He is going to help us with Ranza's car (it needs a new engine) and he helped put up a new shed for us yesterday. Wow! We are getting our money's worth out of him. All I have to do is feed him and he doesn't eat much. He pays us each week and washes dishes and buys food and takes care of everything around here. Love the luxury of having him here! So, so much more than I expected. As both my husband and I are disabled this is a real blessing for us. He is going to clean out our fish pond, too. Well, this Independence Day is really exciting for me. He is much younger than us and we can have help around here for some time to come. We are very blessed!
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09:46 am
[Link] |
Holiday
Happy 4th of July to all of you fellow Americans. Time for a barbeque! Having homemade potatoe salad, ribs and the works today. Have apple pie for desert. The yard is mowed. Need to clean the house a bit but the dishes are done, coffee is over and time to eat the rest of the day and watch the Firecracker 400 with the boys. What a blessed day it is.
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01:25 pm
[Link] | My Number 2 son just took me to see Transformers. Loved it. His dad fell asleep during the movie. Too funny! I liked the way Bumble Bee kicked butt. I thought at the ending that Sam would turn into a transformer but he didn't. Wouldn't that be an awesome plot twist?
If I was a transformer, I would be pink because I look good in pink.
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03:52 pm
[Link] | Well, I'm a little depressed today. Farah Fawcett died from cancer. Also, my mother called me to let me know that my aunt (who was diagnosed with breast cancer 20 years ago) now has lung cancer. She had a double mastectomy so it seems that my diagnosis may just be a killer anyway. Just have to determine if I will die of heart desease first. I know, that is very depressing but its a reality I have to face anyway.
Hopefully, I'll be a little older than 62 when I die so just in case Mr.Furious does have a grandchild for me I'll be there for that red letter day.
Also, we have a nail in our tire today. Not to mention Ranza's car being in Boca Raton waiting for us to get the cash to go and pick it up. Well, in the meantime we are wasting our money paying for her insurance. Life is tough here lately. When it rains it pours.
My brother is going to rent our extra bedroom so we can have a little bit of spending cash. Did I mention that this is the brother my whole family is against at this time? His girlfriend just left him and took his 3 year old daughter out of state and he is going a little nuts wanting to contact his daughter but to no avail. I did contact the Ohio dept. of Social Services but I have not heard anything yet. At least this is going to help us because he can fix things around the house for us. Skip and I just do not fix things very well.
But I will stop this depressing tirade and hopefully Mr.Furious will come up with something more positive and funny to take my mind out of this funk.
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07:43 am
[Link] |
Life and Death
I noticed that people are dying in alphabetical order. That is really good. Saves a lot of time for the newspaper people who publish the obits. It doesn't matter which paper you read, they are all going in ABC order. I wonder why they aren't born that way? Or maybe they are and I'm just missing it. Reading the obits is a habit I got in to when our backyard was a cemetary in Sebastian, Florida. We had a chicken house in the back yard, too. My dad used to sit in the bathroom and watch the funerals. He also used to scare the devil out of us when he would sneak through the backyward at night when he would come home from fishing early. He was a commercial fisherman. When he wanted to come home at night he just parked his boat and came home. Usually the fish weren't being caught on those nights.
You know, I may have stated this observation before, but normally people say you catch fish when they are "moving". I noticed I only catch fish when they "stop". That is, when they stop and bite the hook. People will say the trout are running, etc, but usually the trout are "stopping" when they bite the hook. Maybe its just me observing it incorrectly but it sure makes sense that they don't move too far when caught on a hook or in a cast net.
Fishing is great fun. We used to use a chicken neck tied to a kite string to catch crabs off of the causeways. Nowadays we use a rod and reel (I'm still getting used to this.) I don't have all the tricks with lures, etc. Just learning what a drag is on a fishing pole. Never caught any monster fish this way, either.
Fishing out in the ocean with gill nets was fun and we never caught any great tunas with our sharks. Mostly just a lot of sharks. Also, our harvests were never close to what recreational fisherman caughter in this state. The numbers for small time commercial fisherman are quite different than those who were using deep sea nets and trawlers. We only had a 24' boat and small nets. Its why my arms got so strong.
Dad used to throw what he called "puppy" sharks (baby sharks) and c___ covers at us or slap us in the head with black mullett if we screwed up (which happened alot). We had to light lanterns that were placed on floats tied to the ends of nets so we could find our nets in the dark. Placing a lit lantern overboard from a moving boat without being thrown with it is a particularly learned habit. Also, making sure the net isn't connected to any buttons on your oilers (water slickers) so that you remain on board while the net is going out is a critical move. We didn't have pulleys like the deep sea shrimp trawlers, we only had our arms. I wore cotton gloves and dad was so much faster than me. He always picked all of the catfish out of the net. I usually did spots and "pisswinks" (sailor's choice) and every other type of fish. Dad would also pick the crabs. Pogies were another fish that we hated to catch but they usually showed up with the spots. Catching pompano was the most exciting fish. My dad would scream like a crazy man and the whole process was generally very fast and was titillating. These were our money fish and usually meant we had a good Christmas. At the time we were paid about $5.00 per pound. You can imagine what the average fish buyer sold them for at that time.
With the spots we were paid about 8cents a pound. This stayed the same price for over 20 years. I have no idea what the going rate is today. Alas, fishing by gill net was outlawed in this state and I believe it caused my father's early death. One week, my father, my brother, my uncle and I caught 8,000 pounds of black mullett in a cast net with two number 3 washtubs. This was some kind of record hereabouts at that time. This was after the net ban and after my dad's boat was stolen. It was so healthy for me to work this way. I lost 45 pounds in 3 months and it turned to solid muscle.
We had 9 children in our family and fish and grits was a main staple of our diet. My mother is Spanish/Indian so we had a lot of refried beans and tamales to supplement our mainstay diet. My dad did not eat beans at all, though. He was a grits and fish kind of guy. I wouldn't eat fish for years after because unless we caught it ourself, it was like throwing money away. I still have a couple of brothers who commercial fish via cast net but they are working towards having steady jobs that don't require so much physical work.
Life was very complicated in our family and remains so today. Too many strong personalities and conflicts abounding. I only wish that my children could have known what life was like growing up on the Indian River back in "my day". (I knew I was going to be able to say that one day!)
Well, I don't remember what my original post was going to be about but with my brain surgery a year and a 1/2 ago, all of my thoughts come bursting out just like this. I have been trying to write a book but I keep losing interest in "Reddings Corners". I have saved what I have written on a large flash drive so if I do feel the need to pick it back up, I won't have to start over from scratch. I have done this over the last 10 years. Yeah for thumb drives! Thank goodness thumb drives are much bigger than they used to be also.
Well, good life to all.
Mr.Furious used to scream like a girl when my dad would throw a blue crab at him when he was 4 years old. Imagine that. At least he did get to know my dad a little. My dad always called him "Joshua Lee with the big pee-pee". There are all types of marine life that are missing in this world today. Clams, oysters and fish used to be so abundant. There were no "closed" areas like with today's runoff and pollution. Fish kills would always be after Harris would let out their wastewater. Harris used to be called Radiation. I think they should have left that name intact. It is more accurate. We have come across more fish kills in my lifetime than I care to remember. Also, after flood type rains, the flood gates out in the farm areas would be opened and fish kills would abound then, too. That is also when we would see the large rattle snakes (8 feet long and 5 to 6 inches around). Its scary to know that these were around all the time. Around all of the Australian pine trees would be pigmy rattle snakes. These were abundant at the time also.
Coral snakes were around but we wern't as wary of them because they actually had to "chew" on you before they could inject the venom unlike rattle snakes. Every bug known to mankind was abundant "back in my day". There is a snake called a "coachwhip" that we used to see when the flood gates would be opened, especially after or during hurricane weather.
It is a wonder we survived childhood, I guess.
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01:57 pm
[Link] | Regina Brett's 45 life lessons and 5 to grow on
Posted by Regina Brett September 20, 2007 14:03PM
To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.
It is the most-requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolls over to 50 this week, so here's an update:
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.
17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.
18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years, will this matter?"
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
35. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
36. Growing old beats the alternative - dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.
38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
41. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
42. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
45. The best is yet to come.
46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
48. If you don't ask, you don't get.
49. Yield.
50. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.
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09:18 pm
[Link] | Today I changed internet service providers and stopped all of my AT & T phones. Unfortunately, that also included my mom's phone which I have been paying for 2 1/2 years now. However, I believe that she can probably pay for her own phone as she is living with my sister, rent free and getting food stamps as well. Or perhaps one of the other siblings can step in and pay for her phone. I just do not have the scratch anymore. Good news on the scratch front, though. My mortgage is going to be lowered to 4 1/2 percent. Yay! Maybe even lower if the economy dumps again. Keep hoping and thanking Obama for the largesse! So my mom came by when the internet guy was here and determined what was happening to her phone (she has a free govt. phone that she lets my sister use). I still have to pay for my cell phone (or actually Switz usually pays for it). Thank goodness I have Switz helping me. I feel like I rob Peter to pay Paul all the time now. It is very sobering at the changes in my financial circumstances. I used to have extra money all the time but alas, no more. Just putting tires on the van is a major issue. Plus, our property got slapped with a fine from 1994 from the city and we didn't even move in until 2001. However, due to our joint handicaps, my husband and I do have alot of cleaning and organizing to do so we are working on that issue. The last 2 years have really sucked! Especially not driving anymore! I am so limited as to what I can do and I believe my limitations make certain people happy. Well, too bad for me, I guess.
I know, I sound like a crybaby but without a job for either of us and my daughter always needing money it has been quite a nightmare! Switz is the only one working and I thank goodness that he is able to work. We are just keeping our noses above water and keeping our mortgage paid. I could lose about 50 pounds so I could cut back on food if I have to. I cannot lose the dogs, though. Switz really loves them muchly.
I am trying to swim and walk every day and become more healthy but life is hard. Keeping my nose pointed in the right direction is about all I can do these days. Well sorry for the rant but LJ really works well when you have to rant.
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03:42 am
[Link] | Wow, I just lost an entire post. Sometimes I hate the internet! It was long and rambling though so its probably just as well.
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08:31 am
[Link] | Sometimes I just do not understand life. Last year I went through a very horrific experience and almost lost my life. This year I lost the closest sister I have because she hates my daughter and (no, I do not like hers, either). My point is, I love my daughter and just because she doesn't always do the things as expected, no one really likes her (in my family) but I love her. She is my daughter and she is a young adult who will continue to make mistakes and alienate people along the way. I do not expect her to be perfect but apparently everyone else does. I find as I get older that life just keeps changing and you have to roll with life's punches or just give it up. I am not ready to "give it up" yet. I have a few more years to go yet and if I die, I want my life to have been lived just the way it should have been. True to myself and without too much damage to those that I love.
It is great to have had such 3 wonderful children and to have been blessed with a large family. It is not so great to have been blessed with a bipolar sister and bipolar niece. Yes, I worked with psych doctors long enough to know the difference.
My short term memory is shot but ultimately, my husband and I are hanging tough and trying to keep our own legacy alive. I am sorry that no one seems to see this the way that we do but when you have a near death experience you tend to reflect on the most important things in your life. The sun is good. Swimming is fun. Eating is still good and getting better. I ate a sweet potatoe yesterday for the first time in nearly 50 years,
Yesterday was also the 9th anniversary of my father's death and my feelings are very close to the surface. I do not understand why I am so affected this time. It feels like it just happened all over again. My husband says just remember that his mother and my father are in heaven eating "fish and grits" together. My mother in law used to stay with us every year and never had fish and grits and she loved them and as my Dad was a commercial fisherman, "fish and grits" were a main staple in our diet. We never eat that now. We are contemplating eating it but I could never bring myself to buy fish because we got them for free all of our life. I rarely pole-fished growing up except with a cane pole or a hand line around the docks in Sebastian. My brother in law and I used to crab with a hand line and a chicken neck. This was fun, also. Mostly most of our seafood was received through exchanges with my father's friends at the seafood retail market. We always had a huge Christmas party with seafood and all the family. Dad was a great believer in trying to keep the family together. He once rented a bowling alley to host our family reunion. Of course, my dad had 8 brothers and sisters and in 1995, my grandmother had over 300 living descendents in Brevard County alone. Now, on my mother's side (in Arizona) she had 11 brothers and sisters and I could not tell you how many first cousins I had. Many, many!
Of course, I will never see them again anyway because my mom doesn't really like me anymore (or else she doesn't like my daughter) so it doesn't really matter how many kin I have out there.
Basically, I would like this to be a tribute to my dad as I loved him so very much and I miss him so very much. When he got sick, his whole world fell apart, much like mine has.
Not driving is a really sucky thing I tell you. Dropping $3,000 a month in income is also very sucky. But, whatever, I am still alive! Now if I could only afford my anti hormone medication so I can fight off any more hormone positive cancer I could live the remainder of my live happily. Just having my children and slowly picking up with the family I never lost to begin with is enough for me.
In August we are going to Kentucky and I might just look around up there for a place to live and give this place to Mr.Furious and Switz and Ranza to live in. I don't know if I could actually leave my children down here, tho. That would be much too hard. Plus, all of the fishing months I would lose! And I love to fish! Cannot fish in the winter time in Kentucky too well and the lakes up there are mostly pay lakes so it would be difficult to just go across the highway to fish. I already can go swimming right at the lake (Only 1/2 a mile from my house) and the water was so clean and lovely today. Still cold, though, for me. I don't have to swim as many laps as the pool and it doesn't take nearly as long as going to my sister's pool to swim, plus, I don't have to pay extra gas money to just go to Melbourne. This means alot to me as we do not have too much money anymore.
So, slowly but surely, I am resolving life's little bumps and grinds along my way. My life is coming together in a very happy fashion. Now, I have to schedule a fasting blood draw and a colonoscopy (not looking forward to that one) and then just take one day at a time.
I have been mending my fences with some of my kinfolk and it is nice to have them back in my life. Nice and surprising, too. My cousin, Hank, and I haven't gotten along since my Dad died. My sister's husband had a fight with him and it truly pissed me off but I am way over that, now. Life is really too short to be so petty about some things. I hope I can remember that one sentence and begin to live my life over again and try to see things in a much different light as well. You know, spread a little love and good cheer. I actually spoke with an old boss of mine yesterday (she's not old, she's just retired and I don't work anymore so I am retired, too!)
I went to my family reunion here in Geneva, Florida this year and it is probably nearly the last one I will go to. It is hard to plan that far in advance for me anymore. My husband and I are trying to accomplish one thing at a time and slowly but surely he is doing that for me! We got slapped with a violation from the city that may end up costing us almost $5,000.00. It stemmed from a 1994 violation and we didn't even move in until 2000. Still, this property will be going to Switz and we want it to be free and clear for him when we do die. Don't tell Mr.Furious because he only gets the life insurance and Ranza only gets the jewelry and personal belongings. Of course, we will begin paying our own funeral expenses in advance so that the kids won't have to pay for this.
(It is amazing how your mind thinks when you have a near death experience.) Now, I need to stop sweating the small stuff and enjoy the family I have right before me. My daughter can be so loving but she definitely had her own issues but she is still my daughter and I will stand beside her and behind her until the day I die.
This rant is way too long so I guess I just need to end it here.
Sorry this is so boring and not at all kewl like Mr.Furious' stuff always is.
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07:06 am
[Link] | Happy Birthday! CK Meyers is finally entering "Us Ol' Ladies Club!"
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08:02 am
[Link] | Happy upcoming Birthday, Sinfindel! You are 22 again!
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08:21 pm
[Link] | Went to an awesome outdoor concert at a bar today in Sebastian, Florida. Saw many beautiful Harley's and lots of near naked people and drunk people. I don't drink but everyone seemed to have a wonderful time today. It was a fun time.
Tags: earl's hideaway concert
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02:58 pm
[Link] | It looks like Scotty Short is showing his crack! Switz' stripper name is L'il Bear Orange Blossom!
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10:40 am
[Link] |
Love is:
Don Hertzfeldt's renowned student film captures the essence of the human mating ritual and teaches us that no matter what you say to a girl, you should always be prepared for her to rip off your skin and pour salt on your exposed organs.
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10:25 am
[Link] |
Your stripper name:
Your first name is the first name of your first pet and the last name is the name of the first street you lived on. My name is Fluffy Lousiana or Lassie Louisiana. Mr.Furious' name is Scotty Short. Don't we have cool names?
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03:28 pm
[Link] | MrFurious better come and pick up his Easter basket! Someone already took a bite out of the chocoloate basket!
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08:21 am
[Link] | Last nite we went to Denny's in Switz' new, used car. It was a nice nite ride and we ate good stuff and the ride was very fine. Switz lucked out and got a new, used car with only 65,000 miles on it for a very, very good price. He drove us around a little last nite and we had a little family time without MrFurious (who was home asleep, I am sure). I ate things that were not approved for my diet. (Hot fudge brownie with vanilla icecream and a strawberry Milkshake.) Twas very good. The car runs really good and suits Switz very well. He is back on the road again! My sister in law and her 2 grandchildren will be in on the 31st to stay for about 5 days. Beach here we come. I haven't been to the beach in so long. I'm wondering if I can even walk on the beach at this time. I surely am afraid to swim in the ocean because I am not as strong as I used to be. I haven't even been swimming for almost a year. Well, maybe just looking at the water will pep me up. I think I will take along my own life guard just in case.
I want to take them to the inlet, too, and the boardwalk for the touristy things. We plan on going fishing and maybe I can have one of my brothers take them for a ride in the ocean in their boats. I have less and less brothers who do the fishing thing now, tho'. Well, here's to catching fish next week!
Oh yeah, my family reunion is this weekend and I plan on going for probably the last time ever. Just not up to doing that right now. I still take naps all the time and don't walk very far. I am so much better, tho'. Don't have to use a walker and am cancer free according to my doctor. Yeah!
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09:04 am
[Link] | Happy upcoming birthday, Gabby! I wanted to post this before I forget. I seem to be so very forgetful this year and last!
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02:33 pm
[Link] | | What type of person do you attract? Your Result: You attract geeks! Your stunning intellect and love of sci-fi and video games allures the geeks like nothing else. Maybe it is the sparkle in your eye that makes them want to text you, who knows. Geeks make good partners, but tend to be arguementative. If you are a TRUE geek magnet, you will know if that was spelled correctly, and actually care. If it is a bad-boy/bad-girl you are seeking, you are barking up the wrong tree, unless they are just 'bad' behind a PS2 console. | | You attract rednecks! | | | You attract Yuppies! | | | You attract unstable people! | | | You attract models! | | | You attract artsy people! | | What type of person do you attract?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz |
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