Falling Down

This is a repost "sort of" of a blog I wrote several years ago......I just happened to think of it while we were in Waco this last weekend....so...if you have ever "fallen down" this is for you!!


I just have to retell all the stories of the times I have "fallen"....in a literal way.....they still make me laugh today.......and so this is for all of us who weren't born with coordination.....

I will start with the time my dad took me shopping for tennis shoes. I was in high school, and I was soooo excited!! We went to this brand new shoe store, and it was just he and I. I was really enjoying the father/daughter time we were spending together. We walked around in the store and I picked up about 15 pairs and finally found a pair that I wanted to try on.

My dad and I went and sat down on one of those little benches, and I put a shoe on one foot, and then I put on the other, and then I stood up. I started walking and it NEVER occurred to me that the shoes were attached to one another via the little stringy thing and so therefore after about three steps my feet got tangled up and I fell down face first right in the middle of the store flat on the ground. I am pretty sure my dad had never been more embarassed by his daughter!! I laugh every time I think about that.

Billy wants me to add the time he and I were washing his mothers truck when we were teenagers to this story!! We washed her whole pickup and we were both standing in the bed of the truck. He jumped out, and I thought I would jump out too. I stood on the fender well and jumped, and slipped and fell head first right into their gravel driveway. I saw stars and black for about 30 minutes!! Hahahaha that might explain a lot about why I am the way I am today......(Wow...to give you a timeline of how long Billy and I have known each other....he said I was about 13 when this happened and he was 14)....today we are 44 and 45!!

And then when I went to the local community college in Richardson I had a major "falling" event. One of the classrooms had "levels" in it....each level had a row of desks, and then it would go up another level, and another row of desks etc. These were the old timey kind, the kind you slid in and sat by yourself!! i was sitting there one day minding my own business and my pen rolled off the end of my desk and I tried to catch it and flipped me and the whole desk off onto the lower level. It was before class started haha so there were no injuries to anyone sitting below me......::sigh::

And then, there is the time that a boy Jessica was dating came over to the house for the first time. She was about 17 and he was going to take her out to eat. So they were walking out to his truck, and going down the steps of our porch. I walked out behind them.....and I'll be darned if they hadn't made it out to the yard and I tripped and "front rolled" down the steps and out into the yard right behind them.....hahaha I'm sure he thought I had been drinking.....

haha and to finish up the story....a few months ago I was walking through the house in the dark and ran into the vacuum and tripped and rolled and bumped down the hallway until I hit the recliner in the living room...(which is at the beginning of the hallway)hahaha so now every night Jessica checks to make sure there are no obstacles in case her momma might want to get up and wander around in the dark :o)

ahhhhhh so there is no real moral to this story except that we all fall down sometimes.......some of us fall harder than others!! But we just get up and dust ourselves off again!!

The Massage

Tomorrow, I am scheduled to get a massage at a spa.  It sounds so awesome :)  Here is the description:



Lemon Balm Pick-Me-Up -
This uplifting massage energizes and cools the senses, promotes circulation, and restores a depleted, exhausted system. Lemon balm is a powerful remedy for those who are over-extended, anxious or unable to sleep due to prolonged periods of mental or emotional “selflessness.” This energetic massage is not only great for a “pick-me-up” but for those dealing with high stress.

Haha, now here is where the problem comes in.  That's kind of scary to me.  I've never had a massage before!  It's one of those situations you walk in to wondering what exactly you are supposed to do!!

Believe it or not, I've always been kind of a modest sort of person, so walking into a room with a total stranger and laying there half naked on a table just makes you feel weird before you even get there!!

You wonder, will they tell me how far I am supposed to undress and what to leave covered and uncovered?? Don't want to flash the masseuse unnecessarily :) Then of course at my age you become a little more self conscious about all of the extra "rolls" everywhere!! 

LOLOL this is very similar to feeling like you need to clean your house before the maid comes or fix your hair before going to the hairdresser haha...except in this case there is NOTHING I can do to get ready!! :) I will just have to lay on that table in all my glory!! 

 Both of my girls have had massages and this is why they are sending me to get one tomorrow.  They have informed me that it is not stressful (which is obviously the point)  and that the person will cover me up with a blanket and massage just one spot at a time! 

I think it's just my type A personality showing through!  If I am not in total control of a situation by knowing exactly what is going to happen, and having four different solutions for anything that may happen when I am there, then I am going to be uncomfortable doing it.  That is also funny in itself, because I love trying new things, but generally, THEY DON'T INVOLVE STRIPPING!!

I will let y'all know tomorrow how the massage day turns out!  I definitely need some "mom and de-stressing time"

HAPPY TUESDAY!!

Ally Bank | "Interview" Commercial

This has GOT to be one of my most favorite commercials ever!! HAHA just thought I would share it....something that makes "Carol, Carol"...Have a great day everyone....

This Week!!

Hi friends!

It's only Tuesday and I can already see this week is shaping up to be unordinarily crazy! 


When I picked up my granddaughter from her mom yesterday, I knew she was not feeling well so I made her an appointment with her pedi for yesterday afternoon. 


 I broke down and bought one of those really awesome forehead thermometers over the weekend, and went ahead and paid the premium price of $39.00 for it too!  They work great, and of course the kids wanted to carry it all around yesterday, so today obviously it is nowhere to be found.  I am starting to wonder if one of them didn't drop it in the trash can!

Back to the sick story, well Adleigh progressively felt worse as the day went on and her temp shot up to over 102.  By the time we got to the pedi she was just laying in my arms like a little rag doll and with a raging fever.  They checked her lungs and ears, and thankfully both were fine.  They had to do a flu swab, which involved sticking a giant Q tip like thing up her nose, (which obviously she hated...with a passion), and that came back negative.  Just when she had dozed off again they sent a blood tech in to take a cbc blood count.  Her white blood cell count was down and they assume that she just has a virus.  Just in case you already don't know this, pricking the finger of a sleeping baby is never a good idea...she woke up screaming and absolutely hated me....for a while lol...

While getting all of that done, Adleigh threw up all over me.  Literally from my head to my toes, soaking my blue jeans.  Ohhhhh the days of my life :)  It was a really LONG ride back home smelling like vomit. 

Today she is much better, and we are gearing up for another huge ice/snow storm here in East Texas. It's supposed to hit tonight and all day tomorrow.   Thankfully Jackie already has off on Wednesdays and was able to plan ahead and take scheduled time off of work on Thursday just in case the ice/snow hasn't melted yet.

It's only Tuesday and that is where we stand on the week so far.  I had volunteered also to watch a friends little boy, but have a feeling they are going to be iced/snowed in for the rest of the week as well!!


I've been writing my stories as they come to me on here, if you enjoy reading them please leave comments as I love to know that people read them.  :)

There are a lot of fun events coming up in March, Adleigh's 2nd Birthday and Jessica's 24th birthday that we are gearing up for!!  You know I will have to write about all the creative stuff we come up with for those!! 

Hope everyone is having a more peaceful week than me!!  Lots of hugs to you all.....

Me

On the Subject of Speaking Clearly

I thought it would be fun to write in larger letters... :) So much easier to read for us older folks!!

I have decided that I speak the way I think.  We all know that is not like everyone else!!

Yesterday Jessica and I took a trip to Tyler, which is one of our neighboring towns.  We had little baby Adleigh with us.  I had to run back into the house to get her little jacket, and it took me a while to find it.  I told Jessica I had found it on the "twirly chair".  If you are a member of my family, you would know what I meant.  If you were not, you would be wondering, what is a "twirly chair".  We have two barstools at our kitchen "island/bar".  They twirl.  I call them the twirly chairs, always have.  Why I can't be a grown up and call them barstools, I don't know, but I don't.  Maybe "twirly chair" just sounds more fun!!

All while the kids were growing up and of course still we call hair "ponytail holders"....TWISTIES.....to us that's what they are.  There is not another person around here anywhere that calls them that.  If my girls were to ask a friend if they had a twistie they would stare and say a what??  Ohhhh you mean a ponytail or a scrunchie......

Apparently we make up lots of our own words in the Dison household.

Jessica and I were discussing this phenomenon yesterday on our trip, which brought up several stories where someone didn't understand either me or someone else because of how they spoke.

We had a dear couple who were great friends and we enjoyed going to their house and playing cards.  The husband was an avid fisherman, and at that time we lived in a log cabin on Lake Jacksonville.  He asked us where we lived.  I tried to tell him.  I finally drew him a map of how to get there.  I said..."see, you go around here, and we live at the bottom of Lake Jacksonville".  He started laughing, and I had no idea why, because to me it made perfect sense.  You drive around and around the lake road, and you would reach the far side from where he was.  He asked me again where we lived, and I said...."the bottom of Lake Jacksonville"....he was laughing hysterically and after asking me and finally repeating what I had told him very slowly....I realized how something that makes perfect sense to me because I know what I meant, does not necessarily translate the same way  to another person.  :) We did NOT live at the BOTTOM of Lake Jacksonville....however if you are holding the map up and down to me we did live on the bottom side.....HA!! 

This predicament also came up with one of our employees on one of the ranches we worked on.  We were all pretty much in our early to mid twenties on this ranch.  The guys seemed to find all sorts of things to get into weekly!!  There was one time where one of them could not get the dump truck to start.  He had the bright idea to "jump it off" with our bulldozer.  Apparently something went awry, and the bulldozers battery exploded, and the employee had some battery acid hit him in the face and a got a little in his eyes.  To make sure every precaution was taken, he was taken to the ER, treated, and was fine.  It came time to call the workers comp people.  He thought he would call from our house.  I was listening as he talked to the lady.  He called her and when she asked him what happened...this is what he said....."I was trying to jump the dump truck with the bulldozer and I got hurt".  She on the other end, I'm sure, was picturing an Evil Kneivel sort of event and was like whaaatt??  You did whaaaat??  It took a while to explain what he meant.  Once again, what makes perfect sense to you may not make sense to anyone else but you!! 

I've always loved this little story as well, so as I sign off for the day , I will leave it with you. 

Woman without her man is nothing

October 12, 2004

in Laugh often...

An English professor wrote the words, “Woman without her man is nothing” on the blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly.
The men wrote: “Woman, without her man, is nothing.”
The women wrote: “Woman: Without her, man is nothing.”

The Funeral Mixup

Ohhhhh the funny things that have happened to me!


Several years ago I got the devastating news that one of my Aunt's had passed away.  I just loved her, and she had been such a fixture in our family, always hosting family Thanksgiving celebrations and was just always so sweet to my children.

Her funeral was going to be held in a town that is just about 50 mile from where we live.

The girls and I left and headed that direction on the day of the funeral.  We got to the funeral home, and there were lots and lots of cars in the parking lot.  We parked, got out and walked in.  There were lots and lots of people milling around, none of whom I really recognized, but that didn't phase me any, we always have tons of extended family.

I asked around to where Ruthie's family was, and they pointed me to a tiny room where her body was available for "viewing".  I walked in, and there were three little old ladies sitting in chairs, a casket which I didn't look at, and a guest book up against the wall.  I walked over to the guest book and started to sign my name.  I spoke with the ladies and said...I am Carol Dison, I am Selma Cate's granddaughter.  They just stared at me.  I kept talking, and my girls started saying, MOM, MOM....and of course I was thinking they were being INCREDIBLY rude for interrupting me and I kept shushing them...and they kept pulling one me saying MOM...MOM!!!!  I kept speaking to the little old ladies telling them who else I was related to hoping that they would show some glimmer of recognition that I knew Ruthie. 

They kept staring at me.

I finally just decided to go back out of the room and I turned around and the girls said MOM again, and they pointed at the casket and it was only then that I realized I WAS IN THE WRONG ROOM!! 

The person in the casket WAS NOT my Aunt Ruthie!!  It was a very momentarily awkward situation and I just walked out of the room with what dignity I had left and once I got out I started laughing. 

It turns out that there were not one, but TWO RUTHIES having funerals there that day.  So when I asked where Ruthie was, that particular group of people did point me in the right direction.....just the wrong Ruthie!!

The girls and I eventually found the other rooms on the other side of the funeral home.  I couldn't help but giggle all through my poor Aunt Ruthies funeral.  I know she was looking down and laughing too!! 

The Pig Story

I for some reason had the bright idea that the girls needed a piglet.  Don't ask me why, I have no idea to this day.  We lived here on our 7 acres at the time, I may have possibly thought it would be a great addition to our little menagerie!

The girls were about 7 and 9 at the time.  I told them we were going to the pig sale to pick out a piglet.  Livestock sales were nothing new for us, we had been to many cattle sales and understood how the whole process worked.  You go to the desk and get a bidder number, go into the livestock sale arena stands, and when an animal comes through that you are interested in, you raise your number and bid on the animal. 

We got there, got our number, and sat down to watch.  There were lots of pigs coming through, and we were waiting until they started selling baby piglets.  I should also say at this time, I knew NOTHING about pigs.  I had been in FFA in high school, and raised steers, and my husband had been a Ranch Manger on several large ranches, but we had never ever had pigs. 

Finally, the cutest little piglet that you have ever seen came running through. I waved my hand in the air and amazingly was the highest bidder.  I think I bid $25 for the little piglet.

I also, for some really silly reason, thought that since it was a piglet it would be small enough for the girls to hold on the way home.

I drove my car, with the girls in the backseat around to the "livestock loading area" to pick up our piglet. 

The guys just stared at me.  I'm sure they were like....ummmm...you want' to put a pig in your car?  Are you crazy??

They put the piglet in the floor for me and we drove away.  The piglet was a lot bigger in person than what it looked like from sitting up in the stands.

The piglet DID NOT like being in the car.

The piglet commenced to running all over the backseat and across the girls feet and on their laps and they started screaming.  It was so funny.  Ok, it was funny to me.  :o)

I ended up having to drive BACK to the livestock sale and BACK to the loading area and telling them to just take the pig and put it back in the sale because I did not want it.

I never even went and picked up my money back....Turns out this was a wild piglet...not a domesticated piglet....I didn't know the difference. 

Ohhhh the things I have put my children though in their lifetimes!! 

They each ended up raising pigs for 4H projects later and we had lots of piglets to play with!!