To My Beloved Dad.. Happy Birthday on Groundhog Day Dad!

This was the last photo and last time I got to see him in 2004... I came down from Seattle for my daughters wedding to Corpus.... and then drove for a few hours trip all the way to Ennis to see my parents before going back to San Antonio to fly back to Seattle...

I was glad I made that trip. He passed away 2005 on Easter Sunday after a knee replacement got severely infected...
He would be 97 years old tomorrow....

"STOMP OUT Bullying!"

#BLUEUP

STOMP Out Bullying™ is the leading national nonprofit dedicated to changing the culture for all students. It works to reduce and prevent bullying, cyberbullying and other digital abuse, educates against homophobia, LGBTQ discrimination, racism and hatred, and deters violence in schools, online and in communities across the country. In this diverse world, STOMP Out Bullying promotes civility, inclusion and equality. It teaches effective solutions on how to respond to all forms of bullying, as well as educating kids and teens in school and online. It provides help for those in need and at risk of suicide, and raises awareness through peer mentoring programs in schools, public service announcements by noted celebrities, and social media campaigns. 

School starts and so does the bullying!Stand up as a kid, a parent, a teacher, someone who wants to help...  I was bullied in school...back then there was really nothing to do, but keep your mouth shut...NO MORE! Now you can SPEAK OUT!

"Stomp Out Bullying" October Month

With School just beginning this is a HUGE issue for so many kids!!!! I am in total support of this campaign... after being a "bit overweight" as a teenager, I was "teased" about it, nothing like what happens now, but it did effect me, even today.... I see an "overweight" girl when I look in the mirror... so "any" type of teasing, etc... can effect our kids the rest of their lives....

 

Teachers and school administrators ... Has your school signed-up to participate in Blue Shirt Day® World Day Of Bullying Prevention™? It’s easy! YOUR school can join schools from across the Globe! Help raise awareness & promote this global day of bullying prevention! Get your school involved! Sign-up today! For more info visit: http://bit.ly/2tjLF49 #MakeBullyingHistory

 

http://stompoutbullying.org/information-and-resources/about-bullying-and-cyberbullying/issue-bullying/

 Learn the facts about Bullying!!!!

 

 

 

Happy 4th, Me and Houses, Painting, cleaning, and having another "spell" last night of the cold horrid sweats all night long.... (Oh and a New I-phone (although I said I would never have one), a new bathing suit, & coping with losing Mom

The weather turned really terrible here last night. Bad enough I turned off my computer until now. We had an electrical storm worse than I've seen in a long time for right here. The thunder and lightening was bad all night long and even until about an hour ago, we had constant thunder and lightening, as well as rain. Thank goodness nothing else, but the wind was bad before the other hit. I noticed there are several smaller limbs down in my driveway today. So, the wind was pretty strong when the storm brought its leading edge in. I had one of the HORRIBLE BAD I HATE COLD SWEATS ALL NIGHT LONG! It was one of the worst I've had in a long while. My hair was totally dripping wet, and my clothes, my pillow, even the cover I have on the sofa was all wet where I had laid, but it was one of those that I was cold, shivering and had the blankets pulled up over me... even the dogs thought I was nuts I think....LOL... I did not feel all that great yesterday. I went over and was doing some painting on the kitchen cabinets at the other house, and I really like this blue color I picked out for them. And I think I've found the "white" I want to use to make the bottom half of the paneling look like "wainscott" and then I already know which board (decorative) I am using to be the "chair railing" between that and then the color up at the top. I am going to use a lighter blue on the walls, and then the same color in the dining room. So, it is slow and tedious. I've never been great at painting anyway, and these are lots of cabinets that have to be painted in the inside of them also, so that will take even more time, especially the ones on the bottom, because they are so "deep" as in far back to the back walls. Then I've got to get something to cut the "yuck" off of the venta-hood, and over the stove. Those cabinets are so "sticky" from Mom NOT using the venta-hood I think, that before I can paint those, they will have to be "degreased" for sure. Anyway, the floors I think will be okay. I've been doing some cleaning on them, and put down some wax in a few spots, but I know Dad used to have a "buffer" that he used on them. It is long gone by now, but I imagine I should be able to rent one I imagine. I found my paint at Sherwin Williams, so I am going to ask them if they may either rent those buffers for wood floors, and if not, they should know who does. By the way anyone around here, don't waste your time going into "Dirt Cheap".... I was disgusted with it and walked around about all of 4 minutes and left. They have "stuff" and clothes etc, but honestly, all of it appeared to be definitely either something wrong with it, or things that some appeared to be just not even "new", or were damaged... They had people in there buying but I saw nothing that interested me at all... BUT I DID FINALLY FIND A BATHING SUIT!!!! I could NOT believe there were NONE at Wally World... So, I had a coupon for 10.00 off at Beall's online or in the store, plus they had like another 50% marked off of their already marked down stuff, so I found a top that has the "bodice" on it, that fits nicely to the figure, but is not a one piece. It has a completely separate bottom with it, and I got them both even after tax for like 14.00! They were regularly 35.00 a piece! 

So, we shall see when it comes in... but I did NOT want some "one piece" like I was 85 years old looking, yet, with the pain pump sticking out of my side dammit, I can no longer were just any 2 piece, and I've not had a swim suit in many years. So, I ordered it, and am anxious to see if it fits and what it looks like. Then, I had to finally break down and I have a new cell phone on its way. It should come in tomorrow. My other one has gotten to where I just don't have enough minutes, and to buy extra ones was costing me more than getting a new phone and an unlimited plan. Since I don't do a lot of "data" usage on a phone, I got a pretty good plan, for not much more than what I was paying anyway, plus yes, I will have an "Apple I-Phone now".... 


I SWORE I did not need one and that it was a waste of money, but actually I got the "5" version, and they have a 6 plus or something out already, but I did not need all of those bells and whistles, thus I am going with this one, and I've already got my phone number for it. I chose to begin over with a brand new cell number, since things are so different now with Mom gone, and there are many that had my contact phone with all she was going through. So, I decided to go with a brand new phone, brand new phone number, and for now I will continue to keep my home phone. I am still getting it for a good price, so I shall see in a few months how things are with the cell phone, then make the decision whether to get rid of the home phone or keep it. I kind of was "tacky" over at Mom's house the other day. Some fool wanting to "sell her" something called and before I could get a word in, he began his spill... so when he shut up, I said' She is dead", shall I give her a message? OMG! Talk about silence at the other end of the phone...

 I know it was harsh, but they were constantly calling her trying to sell her something all the time...that is like the DAY of the Funeral, we were all over at the house cleaning, and taking stuff out to the trash etc... and there were THREE PEOPLE, and more who drove by that had the audacity, to stop, and ask if the house was "for sale".... I and my daughter and son in law, and son were so pissed... these people go through the newspaper, see these elderly people who pass away, then drive by their homes and ask crap like that... talk about rude.... as my son in law said, next time I should say "Do YOU see a FOR SALE or FOR RENT SIGN?" Then tell them well I GUESS THAT ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION! People are morons... but I do know they specifically had her on some type of phone lists they get from people who are Social Security age etc... 

and they bug the hell out of them calling to either sell them something, or for donations etc... she got them constantly... it was insane.... Anyway, I am still not feeling the best... I had nightmares, and that cold sweat mess just takes all of my energy away the next day.... so I did manage to get some "cleaning" done around here. I have not went over to the other house today yet. I may run over there, after I kind of see what this weather is going to do... it still looks like it could be bad out there, and now we are going to be hitting those TRIPLE DIGITS NEXT WEEK! I do NOT look forward to that at all. Happy 4th to all... Me....

Mom and Sharing a bit more.....

I was not sure about posting this here but it seems like the very best spot to let those who want to know about my Mom, Henrietta Steele. Of course this is Pam Steele, from the Class of 78, gosh a long time ago, LOL.... and many knew my Dad Minnis, that worked for Ennis Business Forms for 45 years, started at 16, and walked from Byrd/Rankin back and forth until he finally got his Dad's car (Model A) I think... anyway, back then it was still Ennis Tag. My Mom was having signs of "dementia" for a bit, but she is to be 81 in August, so "memory issues" are a part of that anyway. Yet, just this past January, she was still able to do much of her "daily stuff", cooking, cleaning, still in that little tiny house on Anthony Dr. - where I was raised, etc. 

But, within weeks, things went from "okay" to wait a minute something is very wrong. She was not able to "recall" how to put her car in drive, not able to turn on her oven, could not recall how to use the Microwave, and from there she quickly was stricken with what I feel is "Lewey Bodies" Dementia, it moves extremely fast, and her symptoms to be are definitely what I would say "fits".... both my Grandparents Rosie and Joe Svehlak, her parents, had Alzhemeir's/Dementia. So, it is not a huge shock, BUT theirs did not take them down this quickly. Which there could be some "mini TIA's" happening, mini strokes, and we would really not know that for the most part. 

Anyway, rather than drag this out, I know some of you have become "friends" on Facebook with me, and I am of course a friend on our Class of 78 Facebook page, so I also enjoy keeping up with everyone plus remembering "Ennis" and things we had and did as kids here, that are now just memories. Anyone, that may know of someone who would have known Dad and Mom, or myself, as I said I felt this maybe this best way to "inform" the few people we know and most of our relatives have already passed away.I am in Ennis and have been back almost 11 years from Seattle. I know a few did not even realize that. I will of course have something posted on the Keever's website once we reach that place, etc. But, mainly I wanted to get the word out, because this happened so quickly, and we don't have much family etc left, so I felt this would help to get the word out to those who wanted to know..... Pam Ravishing Rhiannon Steele

 

 

The last pic of the 3 of us in 2004, before my Dad passed away...

 

Life In A "Goldie Locks" Kind of Cinderella Fashion - Then realizing what was back then was a "view" from a childs eyes...

I've done quite a bit of posting, writing, blogging, and more posting today. More than I've done in quite a while for a change. It just seemed like since the weather is making its turn here in my neck of the woods for what sounds like worse for wear, the dreary, rainy, cloudy, soon to be falling sleet and freezing rain shall cometh as the day gets into the late afternoon and evening.

I've put some things up here, on my blog, along with some posts on Facebook, several "Tweets", and some Pinterest postings along with the entire thing also have kind of brightened up my pages on those places that were beginning to feel more staggered, than normal. Of course I go through sometimes even a week or possible almost two weeks, that living daily life, tends to be erratic, errand filled, running hereth, thereth, and yonder... and feeling too worn for wear, when it comes to being online, or even on the computer to write in my book. It comes with the territory of having some of the chronic illnesses I live with. They at times seems to inhabit more of my body, mind and spirit, than just "my own self".

That may sound a bit crazy, and with the amount of issues lately with brain fog, pain, forgetfulness, and sometimes feeling just beyond the point of lazy thus I see at a breaths space, that without my watchful eye, Lupus, RA, Sjogren's, Raynaud's and the rest can slip up behind you when you least expect it and take over your body, heart, and mind much like some alien force that presented itself from a foreign planet.

As I was taking a shower earlier this afternoon, and thinking about my life, it dawned on me how things are so very different now. When I say that I mean more of my own perspective about my life in a very personal sense. When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's... little did I know how much influence my younger years would have on me, when I was 50 and over.

Back then I never gave thought to "money". Of course I knew my family were not "rich" or even very affluent. I always lived on the "other side of town". The North part of my hometown is where the larger homes were built, mostly brick, and were a great deal much more expensive than the small little 2 bedroom, 1 bath room wooden home I lived in. In fact, I was born, raised there, and my Mom after all these years still resides in that exact house. So, it is truly "home" for me.

Mom was about 25 years old when I was born. I get the impression she never really "dated" all that much before her and Dad met. He happened to be almost 13 years OLDER than her. I guess back then, age like that was not all that huge of a factor. Most women in the 50's and 60's were home makers. They took care of the kids, house, cleaning, cooking and so forth. The Dads, Husbands were the "bread winners". They went out into the world and make a living for the family. We always had two vehicles. We usually had a "good" used car for Mom to drive me to school, to the market and errands. Or if we went on vacation we usually went in the car. Dad just about always had a truck. He began with a Chevrolet and the last one Mom traded in after he passed away was also a Chevrolet. Dad bought a brand new pickup about every 5 to 7 years. Mom had worked until I started school. When I began 1st grade she stayed home and Dad as I said was the provider. Dad and Mom were both born and somewhat remember the very "harsh" times of the Depression. Dad of course, much more than Mom. He was born in 1923. He remembered outhouses, no indoor plumbing, wells, hoeing cotton, having a farm, garden, chickens, cows you milked, flour in huge cotton sacks (Mom remembers that also. Her Mom made them underwear out of the flour sack material)!

As the years went by, of course my entire "adult" life was somewhat different than my parents. I worked almost the entire time, from the day I graduated early from High School, until the day I resigned my last job in Seattle due to health issues, I always worked. If I had relied on money coming in from either of my first two husbands, I would have never financially survived. So, things that my Mom never taught me much of, working outside the home, clothes, makeup, and all of the "girlie-girl" things... having your nails done, having your hair cut differently, even having a bit larger home, a new car, 2 kids, rather than like myself an only child, and then allowing my kids to kind of "learn their own way" around the world. I taught them how to take care of themselves. I wanted my daughter to be able to be "her own woman". Never did I want her to have to rely on some guy to take care of her. I never wanted to feel she had to "stay" in an abusive relationship, or put up with someone not treating her like a woman should be treated, due to thinking she "had to" stay. Of course I wanted both of my kids to learn how to stand up on their own two feet. But, all the time I worked and was out of the house, I also needed them to be responsible enough to come home after school (when they were old enough), do their homework and chores, and be there when I came home from work, college or both.

My Dad never wanted me to "play in the band", or try out for any type of extra things in school. He was so strict, he never allowed me to go to football games like the other kids did on Friday night. And by the time he finally DID allow me to do a few things, he would either have to drive me there, pick me up, and was just so very overprotective of me. How I ever learned anything as far as taking care of myself... was either through an innate nature I was born with, or because I had the dearest next door neighbor who took me under her wing, and taught me so much, from crocheting to being a candy striper at the hospital...  all of the things I learned were from her, or from my own trial and error.

I guess I thought life was kind of the way Mom and Dad lived it. He came home from work for dinner (he worked nights for the most part when I was a teenager), and unless he "okayed" me going to my cousins house for the weekend, or her coming over, I was alone with no siblings anywhere near close to my age. I have a half-brother who is 18 years or more older than me. My Dad was 37 when I was born, and my Mom 25 years old. So, I guess they decided that after Mom had a couple of miscarriages after me, that having one child was in their cards.

As I had said in the beginning of this, being "affluent" or having money was something as children we don't think much about. Or back then all of that type of thing was not talked about around me. I raised my kids so much differently. They knew the "value of a dollar" at an early age. I wanted them to be ready when the time came to face the world head on. Not like myself, who was hit right in the face by the time I was 19, had my son, and was paying all the bills myself.

I don't resent that my parents did or did not do things a bit differently. But, I do often wish, they would have given me "eyes" and a "mind" earlier in life to accept so many of the things that life hands us, and if we don't have the understanding, we are not able to deal with it so well.

Dad hated doctors, and hated medications. He just refused with the exception of when he was extremely ill, to see his doctors, and just would not take the medications they gave him. He thought it was all a bunch of bull, and any medication you got on was almost like a sign of weakness. So, when I began to have severe migraines at 17, little did I know just how horrid the next 15 to 20 years of my life would be. From doctor to doctor, from time lost from work, medications that did not work, and Dad never really suffered a "headache" of any kind. So, he could not "get" what a "migraine" was, and why I needed medications for them. He would get almost mad if he knew I was on medication. His Mom back when he was very young, had been ill probably with cancer back then. The only thing they could do in those years was keep someone comfortable, and that usually meant morphine. I those times no one knew that "morphine" was habit forming etc. They knew it helped with pain relief for bad pain, and the doctors gave it out to those that were in bad pain such as cancer. Well, I guess probably my Dad watched his Mom go downhill, and then between the medication and the cancer she was not "lucid" at times. So, he thought that "any" medication could cause you to "lose your mind"... and he definitely did not believe in taking any type of pain medication. So, there were times I just could not even tell him about me being home sick with a severe headache, or the many times I was in the ER with one so bad they had to give me IV medications just to get rid of it.

Even back then, as young as I was, I had joint issues. It began with an accident playing baseball with some of my cousins, and I got used for "2nd base"... and the torn meniscus had to be repaired in that knee. I spent 7 days in the hospital in traction after that surgery at 15. By the time I was 21, I had a 2nd surgery on that knee, and even then I was showing signs of arthritis. Yet, the doctors just didn't put two and two together... to see there was probably much more going on that just a knee injury. After that I began to have various joint problems. Pain, stiffness, severe pain, freezing up, until I had a shoulder, an elbow operated on, and after that, I underwent several more scopes on both shoulders, knees, and then of course replacements of my knees and my right shoulder.

Life for me as a child was days of playing alone outside in the good months, with my dolls, my table and chairs, and as I said, not knowing what really was going on through those years. Even in my teens, I just knew I had an overly strict Dad, that never allowed me to "spread my wings"... he didn't even "encourage" me to go to college... yet I did go and finally got my Associates Degree after years of going at night after work, to get my degree. I am told I am an incredible oil painter, and loved taking those lessons. I took piano for years, and loved that. Even the vacations that my parents took me on, they were nice, and I am glad they took me, but after I was grown I got to go snow skiing, go to Vegas, went to concerts, to Hot Springs, and did many things that my parents never would have tried or done.

We always want to love and "shelter" our kids from the harms of this world. But, if we "shelter them" too much, then they are not prepared for what the world holds later... and all of us know now it just gets worse with each passing year.

My Dad never understood cable TV or Dish, he never understood a cordless phone, or a CD player or DVD player. He certainly did not get a cell phone, computer, or much of anything that was "electronic" in nature at the time all of the digital, cell, and those types of things came out.

I will end this for now, on a note, that I am not upset, nor do I blame my Dad or Mom for where I feel I may have not gotten as far in life as I wanted, when it comes to things I wanted to do, places I wanted to go... and thank goodness I didn't raise my two like that. They "get" the world... but I just hope that people give their kids what they need, that will help them grow into caring, loving, and knowledgeable adults, that can "conquer" anything, and not be scared to do things in life. I felt kind of "shut off" from the real world back then...

WEGO Monthly Book Giveaway! I was one of the winners!!!

http://blog.wegohealth.com/2014/08/26/winners-of-questioning-protocol-book-giveaway/

Please take a look! I was one of the lucky winners this month in WEGO's Question/Answer Book Give Away!

I am totally thrilled!

Can't wait to get it!

Rhia