For Christmas, my dear twin put together a cd photo album of old pictures. I hadn’t seen some of them in years, and some I had never seen. There are pics of my parents on their wedding day, pics of both of their parents and even one of my maternal grandmother’s parents.

I got bored last night so I uploaded some of those pics to xanga and decided to replace my profile pic with one of me as a baby. I could not figure out how to do that! I’m starting to feel old. Things that used to be easy to figure out now seem impossibly complicated. I have scary memories of my mom calling me because she couldn’t figure out how to change the log-in name on her AOL account after another grandchild had logged in on their name. And there was no talking her through it, either. I had to actually drive over to her house and do it for her. Numerous times, too. I have a fear of becoming that incompetent with things. But I’m sure that technology will eventually pass me by just like it did her. I see it happening already. Noooo!!!! 

Fortunately I have my own daughter! Unfortunately she lives many miles away. I guess if I get to the point of needing her to physically do things for me, I’ll have to move. I hope that doesn’t happen for another 20 years or so!

At any rate, I’m going to try to upload some of the more interesting photos here. No, not in this post…..I’d need Holley again for that! But I think I can put them in the photo folder.

By the way, I’m the blonde twin.

I have a flower bed in my front yard that was, until a couple of hours ago, completely full of weeds. Mostly dollar weeds. I haven’t done anything with it for a couple of years because we had a large sycamore tree nearby that was blocking all the sun from the flowers I had tried to plant there. Now we have had the tree removed, so I felt it was just begging to be re-planted. And you just can’t beat the sweet fragrance of freshly dug soil. Trust me, Holley, it’s almost better than perfume.

I’m not much of a gardener, but I truly admire those that are. I have 2 sisters that have yards full of plants, flowers, herbs and veggies, but I wasn’t born with the patience it takes to do all the required work involved. However, my absolutely favorite spring flower is the gladiola and my sister reminded my to go buy some while they still had some good ones at Lowes (by the end of February all that’s left are about 1/2 rotten bulbs). So I bought 5 bags, 12 bulbs in each bag, and planted all of them in this bed.

If they grow and bloom (it may take some prayer for this to happen for me!) I will take pics and post them. Or I may claim that the pic above was mine, even though I got it from someone else’s site!

 But even if they don’t, the last couple of hours spent outside in the 68 degree weather, digging in dirt, was well worth my time. I really should do it more often.

I started working for Southern Bell in 1976, the year after I graduated from high school. In 1984 the government broke up the company, saying that we were a monopoly (we were) and after many, many meetings and lots of anxiety on the parts of both the company and the employees, it was decided which jobs would be covered by the newly coined “baby bells” and which would be AT&T. My job went with AT&T. I was a directory assistance operator for 800 numbers.

I cannot even describe the stress that we all went through during this process. I do understand the government’s point in a way, although there have been other monopolies that weren’t forced to diversify. And the consumers were even more confused. It was a tough year.

I left AT&T about 6 years ago. I was ‘bought out’ because we were overstaffed, which was caused by computers taking over my job….but that’s another story.

What makes me bring all this up now 23 years later? I’m just now starting to see ads that say AT&T and BellSouth are re-uniting. They will once again be one company. Since there are so many local and long distance providers now I suppose that it’s not the same as it was back then, but I can’t help but think about all the stuff we went through to break up the companies. How funny.

Well, the holidays are over and now everyone can get back to normal. And Frances can stop making her lists of what she wants Santa to bring her (thread, material, tape player and country cd….she got them all!)

My sisters and I and our families had a very nice get together on the 30th and exchanged our gifts. I think it was one of the nicest times I’ve had with all of them. Trisha (youngest sis) has turned a part of her house into a game room with pool table and darts, so everyone had fun challanging each other to games. Maybe next year my brother will join us…..but I’m not holding my breath.

The food was good and the best part was my daughter, Holley, coming to stay for a few days!!!! And she brought Aunt Faye, who is spending her first Christmas without her husband, for the party. Aunt Faye was in a good mood and seemed to have a good time, so I’m very happy she was able to come.

I really enjoyed my visit with Holley. She brought with her the scrap book that her dad and future step-mom, Diana, gave her for Christmas when they visited her and it was really nice. Also Diana had played around with Holley’s hair, adding hi-lights and razor cutting, and it looked very good. She said she liked Diana a lot, so now I can’t wait to meet her, too.

We didn’t do a whole lot while Holley was here, went to a movie and ate out at the Indian place, but it was just such a pleasure to have her here. I miss her so much when she isn’t here, but she’s much better off where she is than here in Panama City. This is just a dead end city…no where to go but down.

So I hope everyone has a wonderful new year, and that we will all strive to be closer to God than ever before. He blesses us all so very much.