Aul that and more

Happy Memorial Day, dear friends! Today is a day of rememberance: remembering our troops and the price they paid so that we might have freedom.  Let us also honor those who are currently serving as well as those who have served in the past.  But I would also like us to remember the ultimate sacrifice that was paid, so that we might truely be free.  And so with that in mind, I would like to share a song that I feel is appropriate for a day such as today. Enjoy!

http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=3f16e002acb97c1cf24d

Seeing as today is May 1, I would like to share with you the poem for the month of May that I wrote when I was in 6th grade.  Since May often is the last month of school, my poem was about summer.  It also happens to be the last of my poem-a-month that I had to do.  So here it is.  Enjoy!

Summer

Summer is the time of year
When kids gather around and cheer
For school is coming to a close
And kids don’t dream of homework when they doze.

Summer is the time of year
When pools are open there and here.
we swim around and have a ball,
All through summer until fall.

Summer is the time of year
When we travel far from here.
We play on beaches and visit friends,
Ever hoping summer never ends.

When my husband and I were dating, I decided one day that I wanted to try and impress him by making his favorite pie: strawberry rhubarb. I went to the store looking for rhubarb. However, they didn’t have it, so I tried a different store. After going to several stores, I finally found a store that had a section in the produce aisle marked rhubarb. I bought some and went to my mom’s house. We were going to be having supper with my parents that day, so I figured it would be easier to make the pie there. When I arrived, I proudly showed her the rhubarb I had picked up, glad that I had actually found a store that carried it. That’s when she pointed out my mistake. I had bought asparagus instead! Apparently it had been mislabeled, and I obviously didn’t know what rhubarb or asparagus looked like to be able to tell the difference! Boy, was my face red, though not as red as it would have been had I went ahead and made a strawberry and asparagus pie. So instead of pie that evening, we had steamed asparagus with our meal. My husband still teases me on occasion about that mistake.

Greetings! Today I am over visiting my friend Renae, sipping tea and discussing doubting Thomas.  Go check it out.

Hi! I know I haven’t blogged much lately…and I promise I will get around to finishing my car posts soon.  But I just wanted to put up some exciting information.

First of all, my brother and his girlfriend became engaged soon after Christmas.  And now, just this past week, my best friend got engaged!

Can you tell I’m excited for them?

We interrupt this blogging about cars to bring you this very important Aul that and more news broadcast.  You may have heard the Aul that and more special report about phone companies being run by robots.  Well…..we now give you:  Why Banks are run by aliens!!  (The aliens declined to allow the name of their bank to be recorded, so it has been changed. You can draw your own conclusion as to what bank it is.*)

Just take a look at this sample situation (graciously related to me by my mother in an e-mail foward that she had received from someone else and passed on to me.  I just thought it was too good not to share…so enjoy! )

A lady died in January, and Alienbank* billed her for February and March for their annual service charges on her credit card, and added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance had been $0.00 when she died, but now somewhere around $60.00.

A family member placed a call to Alienbank.

Here is the exchange :

Family Member: ‘I am calling to tell you she died back in January.’

Alienbank: ‘The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.’

Family Member : ‘Maybe, you should turn it over to collections.’

Alienbank : ‘Since it is two months past due, it already has been.’

Family Member : So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?’

Alienbank : ‘Either report her account to frauds division or report her to the credit bureau, maybe both!’

Family Member : ‘Do you think God will be mad at her?’

Alienbank: ‘ Excuse me?’

Family Member : ‘Did you just get what I was telling you – the part about her being dead?’

Alienbank : ‘Sir, you’ll have to speak to my supervisor.’

*
Supervisor gets on the phone:

Family Member : ‘I’m calling to tell you, she died back in January with a $0 balance.’

Alienbank : ‘The account was never closed and late fees and charges still apply.’

Family Member : ‘You mean you want to collect from her estate?’

Alienbank : (Stammer) ‘Are you her lawyer?’

Family Member : ‘No, I’m her great nephew.’ (Lawyer info was given)

Alienbank: ‘Could you fax us a certificate of death?’

Family Member : ‘Sure.’ (Fax number was given )

After they get the fax :

Alienbank : ‘Our system just isn’t setup for death. I don’t know what more I can do to help.’

Family Member : ‘Well, if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her. She won’t care.’

Alienbank: ‘Well, the late fees and charges do still apply.’ (What is wrong with these people?!?)

Family Member : ‘Would you like her new billing address?’

Alienbank : ‘That might help…’

Family Member : ‘ Odessa Memorial Cemetery , Highway 129, Plot Number 69.’

Alienbank : ‘Sir, that’s a cemetery !’

Family Member : ‘And what do you do with dead people on your planet???

(Priceless!!)

This has been an Aul that and more special report.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Hello, dear readers!  My husband and I just bought a new car to replace the one that was wrecked.  And so, as a tribute to cars past, I would like to tell you the story of my very first car.

I’m sure everyone can remember their first car:  such fond memories of having your very own set of wheels, and the fun of getting to drive it around and show everyone.

Now my first car happened to be very unique:  a Pink 1967 Volkswagen Beetle.  For those who know me, you can imagine how excited I was, since pink is my favorite color. Of course it was also old….so it really was only good for getting me around town.  But nonetheless, it was still a fun car while we had it.

To start, it was a manual transmission.  Which meant that Dad had to teach me how to drive a stick-shift….something that wasn’t too easy considering that at the time we lived in a town built on a bluff.  So I had to learn to drive a stick-shift while trying to keep it from rolling down the hills.  And I couldn’t avoid the hills since we lived at the top of one.  So naturally, I would occasionally swipe Dad’s truck and let him go tooling around town in a Pink Bug.  Automatic transmission was so much easier…and Dad didn’t seem to be bothered too much by driving to work in a pink car.  He was quite a sport about it.

Dad and I had a lot of fun with the car.  It was known by some around town as “The Pink Lady,” which seemed to fit it quite nicely.  I even put a small bouquet of fake flowers in the back window.  It had a cute-sounding horn, and everyone recognized it as me when I’d drive around town….sometimes thinking it was me even if Dad was driving it.  But that little car had a lot of personality.  One day when I was leaving school it decided to spin out on me.

I used it as subjects for photography class as well.  That semester, I was taking a photography class, and was given an assignment to tell a story using pictures.  So I created several stories involving my car.  The first one I created told a story of my dad getting “run over” by the car, with my cat pictured as the one driving.  Then there was the time my car went trick-or-treating, dressed up as a big ghost.  It was a lot of fun.

Yeah…I think a first car is not something one easily forgets…and I know I won’t forget mine. 

Happy Valentine’s Day, dear readers!  Today is a day to celebrate love and friendship.  I am so glad to be celebrating today with my husband.  I count my blessings, because Monday my husband was in a really bad car accident.  He’s ok, suffering only minor scrapes and bruises.  God and his angels were watching out for him, and for that I am grateful.

Anyway, as a tribute to today, I would like to share a story from my high school days….back when I tended to celebrate today more as “Singles Awareness Day”.   I like Valentine’s Day, but back then it was always a bit sad because I was always reminded that I didn’t have that “someone special” to celebrate with.  So my junior year, I decided that surely there had to be others feeling the same way, so I found a way to attempt to cheer them up, as well as myself.  That year, I went and bought as many valentines as I could.  I printed out a bunch of labels (so I wouldn’t be handwriting anything to potentially give myself away), and my mom and dad helped me go through and tape the labels to all those valentines, so that they read “To: You” and “From: A Friend”.  Thankfully I lived in a smaller town, otherwise I would have had to buy a ton!  As it was, my high school had around 300-400 students.  On the night before Valentine’s Day, my dad (who was the school superintendent) let me into the building.  He and my mom helped me go through the entire school building and slip these anonymous Valentines into every student’s locker, including my own (so as not to draw attention to myself as being the only one without a valentine).  The next day was lots of fun.  I pretended to “discover” the Valentine in my locker, but only after my friend who had a locker only a few down from mine had found hers.  It was hard to try to keep a straight face, but somehow I managed to not give myself away that day.  Instead I quietly observed reactions around me, and chuckled to myself.  I listened as a friend of mine talked about an empty locker getting one.  I also listened as a guy in one of my classes talked excitedly to a friend of his:  “I got a Valentine in my locker today!” and then held back laughter as his friend retorted, “Dude…everyone got one!”   That was one Valentine’s Day that I enjoyed a lot as a teenager, and hope that I spread happiness and cheer to those around me that day.  And to this day, I don’t think anyone from my school knows that I was the one that did it.

Happy Valentine’s Day, and be blessed!

Greetings!  Today I am over here visiting my friend Renae for coffee.  Hmm…since I don’t really drink coffee…I wonder if she would have any tea? Anyway…go by and check it out!