"Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar."

Do you know where those words are from? An old time radio program. My husband came across WNAR Re-Creation radio, "Radio the way it was in the 30's, 40's, and 50's. The very best of Radio Drama and Music with some News and Comedy. 24 hours a day!"It is complete with old time commercials, too. Have you ever heard of Fatima cigarettes? They were a hit back when, along with some other interesting products.

They do also put current news reports and other current adds on, too.

G's favorite program is "Johnny Dollar, Insurance Investigator." Last night G thought he'd check out more about this station, since it is broadcasted from our area. Check out this link.

If you want to go back in time, picture yourself around a radio and listen.

P gave be a bag of Babybels for my birthday. She is so thoughtful. I would probably never buy them for myself. She engineered the buying too. She called my dad and asked him to procure them for her and then give them to me on my birthday. (He forgot to bring them, and my mom dropped them off today.)

P loves the little cheeses. When she was here for Christmas she brought some with her. Or was it Thanksgiving? Well, maybe it was both. Anyway, on a visit she brought them, and had her Babybel and peanuts snack. (It was Thanksgiving, because at Christmas she added Cheerios to the combo.) She let me try a hunk of cheese garnished with peanuts. I found it to be quite palatable. I went and got my own little peanut cheese snack.

P is very big on tasty food (maybe she should be a food critic,) so she knew I would enjoy a bag of Babybels to go along with my peanuts. Previous to my Babybel acquisition, I was using extra sharp cheddar to accompany the peanuts to my stomach.

Although in February P is sharing her gift certificate to a spa with me (plus spending a little more) for my birthday, she wanted me to have a little something from her on my birthday.

What a dear friend have I.

J has acquired some new habits. One alarming, two irritating.

He has discovered that he can make a sound that imitates a cat trying to dislodge a hairball. His new thing makes me stare at him to ensure he's not choking. J thinks it's great fun. When he sees me looking at him, he'll stop, smile at me, and then continue his gagging sounds.

His other new thing is to grind his little teeth together. It's like fingernails on a chalk board. He only has 5 teeth, but they sure do make a piercing sound.

Next. J has discovered the magazine/newspaper rack. Now what do you think a 1 year old will do with a pile of paper? See how wide of an area he can spread it. Yes, he, with help from a sister, emptied the rack of it's contents over half of the living room floor. And much to his delight, when next he happened upon the rack, it had been conveniently refilled so he could empty it again. The second time he only got half of it emptied, before I came along and stopped him.

E has decided that nap time is not for her. Since Thanksgiving she has declared war on naps. She still, however, continues to be put in her room for rest time. She protests most of the time. Every once in a while, she will loose the nap battle and fall asleep. But not this day. She continues to bang and holler, though she is still in her room. Sometimes she will play nicely in her room. But not this day.

E has gotten much better with her behavior, but I reckon to say, not so much at nap time.

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Today is my 35th birthday.

G is taking me to the Melting Pot for dinner.

I have been wanting to go to The Melting Pot for a while now. It is a fondu restaurant. Unfortunately, it is rather uneconomical. We also haven't gone, because it isn't exactly kid friendly, what with small open flames and tiny spears everywhere.

But I asked G to take me there for my birthday.

Hunter has come to live with us. He is the dog my sister had originally picked out for me around Christmas 1998. She had seen him on one trip to the SPCA, and when she went back to adopt him, he had already been adopted. We went back a week or so later to see what other dogs were there, and saw Hunter. He was back, so I adopted him after all.

When G and I got married, my sister (and parents by default since it was their house) said she would keep him. G had two cats, the townhouse wasn't big, and there was no yard. Well, 8 years, two new cats, a bigger house with a yard, and two kids later, I decided, and G finally succumbed, that we could have a dog. My sister didn't want him anymore (she isn't living at home now) and my parents were only tolerating him, so we took Hunter. He's had a vet visit, a grooming, and we are trying to train him to behave better and walk him once a day.

Hunter is very good with E and J. J did not like him much when at Mom-mom and Pop-pop's house. He'd cry whenever Hunter would come near him. Not so anymore. I've witnessed J sitting next to Hunter and patting his back or pulling his tail. Hunter doesn't mind either. Hunter is also not protective of his stuff. Although we are teaching E and J to leave Hunter alone while he's eating, he doesn't object when a hand comes near his food bowl while he is eating. E likes to boss Hunter around. He doesn't obey her yet, which is another way we are trying to train him - submitting to the kids as well as us. Sometimes when we're all in the kitchen, Hunter will lay in the middle of the floor and ignore the mayhem around him. He wants to be with his people. When he's had enough, he'll vacate to more peaceful surroundings.

Now, Hunter and the cats are another story. They haven't decided to be best buddies yet. The cats just run away from Hunter and willingly chases them (he chases anything that runs.) My guess is that he wants to just smell them. He doesn't try to bite at or hurt them. Patches has growled and hissed at him. Hunter just stared back. Kalli made a run for it once and got chased for her efforts. Maybe after some time, the cats will tolerate Hunter.

I finally have Windows XP on my laptop. I just don't have anything else. In the process, it wiped out everything. It also took out my wireless adaptor, somehow. The computer won't recognize it. I called Linksys and can you believe it was still under warranty and they are sending me a new one. For free! According to UPS tracking, it should arrive tomorrow.

The main reason I wanted the laptop was to use the Internet anywhere in my house, which I still should be able to do. Getting Microsft Word and Excel back is getting looked into. I also need virus protection.

I always wonder why parents want to shelter their children from death. I am not one of those parents.

My family went to my parents' home the morning of my grandmother's death. She was staying at their house. After Grandmom's death, my aunt cleaned her and had her lying in bed. E knew M had been sick. We also told E that M had died and was with Jesus. I didn't shield E from the death of her M. I told her M would look like she was sleeping, but she wasn't going to wake up. We took her to M's bedside. She gave her a kiss and told her goodbye. She asked some questions, we answered them.

What do you say to someone who's just lost a loved one? Really there is nothing to say. The closest thing is "I am sorry" or "I'm here if you need me." But I think the best thing is to just be there, listen, and not say anything.

My husband did that for me. The night of Grandmom's service he just held me while I sobbed. He didn't say anything, just held me. That's what I needed.

Although my parents are still alive, I feel somewhat orphaned.

My maternal grandfather died November 12, 1998.
My paternal grandfather died September 16, 2003.
My maternal grandmother died July 3, 2004.

My paternal grandmother died today.

It was pointed out to me by P, and I have been very reticent to admit it. I have been making a laundry mistake . In my mind I have been trying to insist she is wrong, but unfortunately evidence is in my own drawers.

Not only does the dryer shrink things, but washing in warm or hot water does also. I hadn't been able to figure out how shirts I have never dried are now smaller than when purchased. Then I thought about P's accusation about me shrinking her unmentionables because I washed them in warm water. How much harm could warm water do to fabric? Apparently it shrinks it. My brain says it's just warm water. I could see hot water doing some shrinking, but warm water? Yet, there my clothes (and her unmentionables)are - smaller.

The other thing my brain has to get around is washing with cold water. It just doesn't seem right. Will it be as clean? I know Tide makes the cold water detergent, but that is costly. I generally now use warm water as I begin filling up the wash tub, but then switch it to cold.

I have yet another cold. And really I am quite tired of it. My friend P has a persistent cold and mine comes and goes. E's cold has finally started packing up. Her cough has decreased as has the nose blowing. J still sounds not the greatest, but both kids have been acting normal. I don't have sickly sick kids.

On another note, E has been doing much better with her behavior. G and I have been better too with our reacting. She still has her not great moments, but they have definitely decreased.

Though today, right near lunch time, was a more unfortunate time. She kept asking for gum. Which she wasn't getting because it was too close to lunch time. And G was at church, and sick me got to stay home with the sick kids. G might have stayed home with us, if not for Communion duty. So, she had a meltdown about not getting gum. Perhaps letting her have it in the first place was not one of my more brilliant mother moves.

Four packs of gum "thrown out" (I only made her think I was throwing them out, because I am not wasting gum,) two time-outs (which was a lot of me putting her on the step and her getting up again,) a can and a bottle thrown in the kitchen and finally picked up, a few swings at mommy, and a few spankings later, and I had my nice girl back.

And then Daddy walks through the door. She couldn't have waited to put on her show until after reinforcements showed up. No, tire out Mommy even more, was her strategy.

But alas, she didn't want Daddy to miss out entirely, so an encore was presented when Daddy had enough of her dragging out lunch time. Several items ended up on the floor and another time out was issued.

And right now, she isn't napping up in her room.

My daughter is definitely a pip. I think I may actually have found something that my daughter cares enough about to change her behavior. At least for one time.

Let me back up a moment though. My brother told me that my nephew's favorite dessert is chewing sugar free gum for 15 minutes. Gum. Yep, that's his favorite. So G and I decided to let E try some. Her cousin let her have a piece. She liked it.

So on our last trip to Wal-Mart, I got her some Extra, bubblegum flavor. She really likes having it. Yesterday E wouldn't clean up some toys. I threatened throwing out a toy, than changed it to throwing out her gum. And man did she react. She came hollering "No," found a toy, and tried to hand it to me to throw out (sorry P, it was the pink purse you gave her), but I said no, she had to clean up or loose the gum. Needless to say, the toys were cleanup, and her beloved gum was saved from certain disaster.

In case you were wondering, my computer still has Millennium operating systems on it. The first code didn't work. The second code didn't work. Hopefully today I will get a third code that will work.

And I did a fishing expedition today at 7:45 AM. P keeps telling me that I need to put the router higher and less hidden. So this morning when I went to go online, and and I couldn't because the router was off (we cut power to it at night and have decided to try to be more energy conscience and unplug other things that draw power unnecessarily.)

I climbed in the cabinet, pulled out the router, untangled all the cords, dangled the ether net cable that goes between the router and the computer down the back of the computer cabinet, found the end through the small opening, fastened the ether net cable that goes from the router box to the other thing to it. I then proceeded to pull both cables back up. I connected them both to the router, guessing about which one went in which port, because I forgot to pay attention when I unplugged them. I then dangled the cable back down to connect it to the computer. This attempt took two trys. With all cables hooked up, I then dangled the power adapter down, found it through the hole, and plugged it in. Now everything was set. I came in the dining room to check on my work. I was able to log on using my laptop with 58% signal. Last night, with the router in a more sheltered environment, the signal was about 28%. We'll see if this helps.

Christmas time was very busy. P came the Wednesday before Christmas and stayed until Christmas Day. My brother and his family came Christmas Day and stay until the Sunday after Christmas. My cousin and her family came the Thursday after Christmas and stayed until the next Wednesday. My aunt also arrived the Thursday after Christmas and is leaving today. Only P actually stayed at our house. It was fun to have everyone here and let the kids play.

We also had a wedding in there as well. My mom's cousin got married on the Saturday after Christmas and invited us all for the weekend. She and her husband paid for their guests' rooms and food. So the many of us hung out in Harrisburg area that weekend. Most of us drove out Saturday morning and stayed only one night. We had fun.