Where the is No Work

Ever imagine what it would be like to live in a world where no one had to work? Oh come on, everyone has. Everyone has wished at some time in their life (at least once) that they did not have to do the work that was assigned or expected. So lets peek into this world for a moment, shall we.

First thing in the morning you wake up and realize that it's a holiday. You don't have to go to school so you decide that you want to go see a movie and then to get a pizza for dinner. First you want to play Call of Dutyfor a few hours on the Xbox and maybe even Skype with a few friends before heading out to the theatre. Sounds like a fun day so let's get started.
After you walk into the bathroom you realize something is wrong here. There's no water to brush your teeth, "What the Crap!" so you try the kitchen faucet, none there either. Then it occurs to you that the house is hotter than unusual. It's September 6th so it is supposed to be hot, but not THIS early in the day. "Just grab a soda out of the fridge and head back to bed" is what you are thinking. You open fridge and you notice the light isn't on. "Guess the bulb when out." You grab your bottle of soda and head back to your room when you notice the dog is peeing on the floor by the door. "MOOOMMMM! The stupid dog just peed on the floor." "What!?", she yells back as she is putting on her house coat. "Didn't you let him out?", you ask "Are you just now getting up, are you sick or something?" She looks at you with surprise and then quickly at her wrist watch and yells, "Dear Lord, it's 9:30! What is going on? Why didn't my alarm go off? Is the power off again?!" as she whirls back into her room. "What about the stupid dog, Mom?" you yell. She opens her door and with just one look you know she means for you to take care of him AND clean up his mess. "What the crap! Why do I have to take care of him?" you mumble as you stomp down the hall.
After taking the dog outside and cleaning up the huge puddle at the back door you come in the kitchen to find your mom frantically talking to herself about something being the "Dumbest thing she had ever heard of". She is staring at the front page of the newspaper with both hands on her hips. "Whose dumb idea was this? I'm guessing it was probably a man. A man who doesn't have to do much for himself or probably wanted the long weekend off to go out of town. Why would he care if the town falls to ruin.", she exclaims as she picks up the paper and throws it back down on the table. She pours a glass of juice and picks up the paper then heads to the patio door. She looks back and says, "I'll be outside looking over what we are supposed to do about this genius plan. This is STUPID absolutely stupid!"
Your mom sits on the patio with her feet in the chair next to her so you plop down in the lounge chair and ask, "So what's it say? Why don't we have water and electricity? My cell phone doesn't work either so they better get it fixed fast." She says,"It appears that everyone has the day off." She raised her eyebrows and reads,"The National Guard has been brought in to man three areas of service in case of emergencies, a Medical post at the hospital, Police and Fire departments have been staffed as well." "Hum...'Labor Day should be called No Labor Day'...'everyone should be off not just bankers, and mailmen' the article reads. Well it appears that someone let a kid be Mayor for the day or something." She continues to read in silence. Suddenly you remember hearing those words somewhere else. Your heart starts to pound and your feel like you just got caught cheating on a test. Your English teacher asked the class to write a paper about what Labor Day means to you, it was about 2 weeks ago that you turned it in. Suddenly you feel like you just ran 10 miles in the burning sand. Your heart is thumping hard and you start to sweat and as you start shifting your weight to get up your mom says, "Are you listening to this?" You realize that your mom has been reading the article out loud to you and you weren't even hearing her. You mind was racing over the words you wrote in your paper about Labor Day, about how it wasn't fair that only certain people were allowed to be off on Labor Day. How you never got to do the fun stuff that other kids do over the three day weekend because your mom still had to work. Aw man, did you cause this crazy power outage and loss of water availability? What if your paper won some kind of contest and as a prize they did what you asked.. give everyone the day off, EVERYONE! You look at your mom as her expression changes from annoyance to concern, "Are you ok?" "Yeah, mom. What did the paper say again?" She glances back at it and says, "The mall is closed, the library is closed, all gas stations and grocery stores are closed. It's kind of like being in a state of emergency only the hospital, police and fire departments are working." "So no movies either?", you ask. "No and I don't want to go anywhere because I don't have much gas in the car. I was going to get gas on the way to work this morning."
So now you are stuck at home with not electricity, no phones, can't even take a shower or brush your teeth. Most of your friends live more than walking distance so you can't even ask if they want to get together and do.... what, what would you do? You can't play video games or watch t.v. No pizza delivery, no nothing.

Now I may have made it clear why there are jobs for everything from making corporate decisions to delivering pizza but what I might not have covered is why it is important for people to work. Work is an unavoidable and necessary fact of life that can't truly be avoided. It can be put off or avoided for a short period of time but should never be avoided all together. A life without work would only result in boredom, worthlessness and a loss of dignity. Work has a purpose in our lives, besides meeting the needs of humanity it can bring great rewards. Not just monetary rewards like money and stuff but also satisfaction from a job well done. People that feel good about what they do usually have a good attitude, and attitude is important. It is also important to have a positive attitude about the fact that work is a responsibility and a part of life. In other words, everyone has to do it or the system breaks down and we have days like the one in the story above. Responsibility goes hand in hand with rights. For every right you have, you have a responsibility. Accepting a task and doing the best you are able to do and standing by what you have done makes you responsible. Those upheld commitments to friends, family, community and country are what makes you dependable and responsible. A successful and mature person is a responsible person.

A Vacation Without Joy

At first it was the entire family, my husband and three kids would always be with me on all family vacations. Then my son's Senior year in high school we planned a second trip to Walt Disney World, but he didn't want to leave his girlfriend behind so he decided to stay at home. The first time we had gone was in March 1996 and of course, we all went together. This time one would be left out, so my husband's sister was single at the time and agreed to stay at the house to take care of our dog and of course to watch over him too(which he didn't know). That was the first real trip we had taken without him and I couldn't help but feel bad but there was nothing we could do about it, he was 19 and had a job.
Now it seems to be happening again. With all the snow days threatening our June Vacation the idea of postponing it until October is on the table. I don't want to do that but if we miss two more snow days I don't know if we can make it. If this happens I will have to cancel all our dinner reservation, (even the one at Cinderella's Royal Table) and change our resort reservation to Fall Break. My older daughter will be in college this fall and she will not have a full week off like we will so she probably would not be able to go. I will not encourage her to miss classes to go on vacation, but I also won't miss our family vacation because she can't go either. I didn't do it for my son so I won't do it for her.
I just hope that we don't miss anymore days from school. I hope this vacation will not be one without Joy.

What A Wonderful World

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.



I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.


The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by.
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you




I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.



Just Imagine what it would be like to live in such a wonderful world.
Wait,.....we do.

Cute lil' baby monkey

Ok,that is a Disney movie Quote, who knows it?
That is not entirely what this post is about but it is about a lil' baby. Those of you that babysit or have very young siblings will probably understand this better.
Just imagine that you have a baby to care for. Your job is to keep it clean, fed,keep it safe and sheltered at all times. You are invited to go see a movie with your friends and you really want to see the movie that is playing but you can't go because the baby might cry and disturb the movie. So you stay home. Another night you have been invited out for dinner but your baby is sick with a fever, so you can't go. One of your close friends, who is a heavy smoker, calls you up and need a place to stay for a week. You and this person are good friends even though your relationship has been in a strain since the baby came into your life so this is your chance to reconnect. You know they will be offended if you tell them no, so you say that would be cool but they can't smoke around the baby as a matter of fact you would rather they smoke outside. They tell you that won't work for them so if they stay they can smoke when ever and were ever they want, if you have a problem with that then they never want to hang out with you again. So trying to be responsible and provide a healthy environment for the baby, you let your friend know that you can't let them stay if they are going to insist on smoking around the baby. They tell you off and say they feel like you have change since the baby came along and won't have a problem with finding someone else to stay with and add that you were never a good friend to them anyway.(just to hurt your feelings) Time goes by and more of the same kind of things happen, you can't do the things you did before the baby and what you can do is short lived because of the baby. You finally realize that your life is going to be different from now on, so you accept it and make the best of it. You tell yourself that one day you will be glad you made these choices and that you will have made a positive influence on this life you are in charge of, one day they will thank you for all you have done.
One day the baby is crawling around the room and finds a pencil on the floor. You immediately take it from the baby and express negative sounds to discourage them from playing with it because it is sharp at one end. You make a mental note to be more careful about what is in baby's reach. Another day the baby finds another pencil and you repeat the procedure so the baby will learn that isn't a toy and should be avoided. You realize the baby is just curious and doesn't understand that they could poke the pencil into their eye, nose or mouth and damage tender tissues or chock on the eraser. Many things could hurt the baby and it is your job to protect them from harm, even harm they can do to themselves. But one day you know they will thank you for protecting them providing a safe place for them to play and learn.
Now the baby is walking and stumbling around, aren't they cute waddling around all over the place in their diaper? You can't help but snicker at them sometimes. This causes you to watch one step ahead of them to make sure they will not fall onto anything that will hurt them though,so you have to step up your reflexes and pay attention to them a little more when they are in a new environment. You begin to teach them not to play around stairs or stoves, windows and screens that they could fall into and break. Once again you just accept that you have to redirect your focus and your life to be their bodyguard. Sometimes you go out to the park with a friend that will respect that you have a baby to run after and not get frustrated that you can't go to a party with them anymore. Many of your new friends either have babies and understand or they babysit for people and don't mind too much. You tell yourself again that one day you will be glad you made these choices and your baby will be glad you did too.
Now you have a toddler that has learned enough words to form sentences. You take them to the toy isle on occasion to treat them to a new play item. They ask for a ball so you offer them a purple ball but they want the red ball. So they scream, "Red Balllll! Me want red ball!" so you take the purple ball and give them the red ball and nicely say, "Ok, honey here ya' go, see the pretty red ball?" The child giggles with glee and all is good in the world again.
Now the child had grown older and wants to "help" you cook pancakes. You decide this will be a learning experience so you agree they can mix the batter. So you sit them a safe distance from the stove top and give them the spoon and bowl of ingredients. Once the batter is mixed (with a few stirs of your own) you pour the batter into the griddle. Your child wants to see and you tell them to stay back because the stove it hot. They do as you have instructed and stay back. You feel proud that they obey your wishes and don't want to be burned by the hot stove. You enjoy your pancakes together.
Now you have a preschooler that is testing their independence and individuality. There are times when you have to say, "No" to a lot of their request to do things themselves. You let them do as much as you know they can handle and encourage learning new things with your supervision but sometimes the child tests you to see if you will let them do things they usually can not.
One day you get a call from the preschool that your child has been injured and they want you to come to the school right away. Once you arrived at the school you find that your child fell down the stairs and knocked out a couple of their teeth. You take the child to the dentist to make sure no permanent damage was done to the jaw or will hinder the permanent teeth from coming in correctly. "Everything is ok, just a couple stitches in the lip." the dentist says. Your heart leaps to your throat, "Stitches!" you think, "that means a needle, this can't go well."
Holding your child still while someone is administering pain to them is hard to do. They cry and look to you for comfort to see that you are the one holding them there, letting them do this horrible thing to them. It just breaks your heart.
Later you find out the reason for the fall was stubbornness. Your child didn't want the preschool teacher to tie their shoes for them, so they took off running away from the teacher. The turned to say, "No I do it meself!" not seeing the stairs and tripped over their shoe laces and busted their mouth, loosing two teeth and getting two stitches. If they would only listen, right?
Now imagine that same child a teenager demanding to go out with some friends that you know to be smokers, law breakers and one of them is pregnant so you know they have sex. Your child tells you to, "Back off, they are my friends. I'm not going to do anything stupid. Do you think I'm dumb?" Inside your head you are screaming back at them to "You are not going anywhere with them. Go to your room, now!" but you want them to think you believe in them so you let them go, saying a little prayer that God will keep them safe and out of trouble. Where's the thanks you thought you would get for all those time YOU STAYED HOME? You think to yourself, "I gave up my youth, my freedom, my friends, my LIFE for THIS?" You can't believe you are sitting there crying because you are afraid for their safety, for their future when they don't care at all about you. You want to be mad at them for treating you this way, but mostly you just worry. You gave away everything you could have done, could have been, could have had to help them be the best they could be and all they want to do is throw it away for a good time.
Cute lil' baby, huh?

Time Travelers

Most everyone wishes they could travel in time, some want to speed ahead into the future and some want to travel back in time to the past. I believe that most everyone has a wrong they would like to make right just as I believe that many young people would like to know how certain choices would change thier future. However that is not exactly what I am thinking about, I thinking about traveling back to the past way before my existance to experience a different way of life. I have always beleived that I was born in the wrong era because of the things I enjoy doing and the hobbies in which I choose to spend my free time.
Just imagine what it would be like to live in the late 19th century, in the 1880's. What would it be like to live on the frontier as a new settler in the west? I can imagine myself there getting up before sunrise to start the fire in the woodburning stove and cooking breakfast for my family. Of course the wood is something that would have to be taken care of ahead of time, the chopping and splitting for firewood is something that would have to be done daily. I've done that as a child and as a teenager with my parents. Gathering the eggs and milking the jersey cow is also something that would probably be done ahead of time or would have to be done right after breakfast, depending on the weather and the means of chilling the milk and the production of the hens. Once the family got up thier responsibilities would depend on thier ages and thier physical ability. If my husband had to work in a mill or mine to pay for supplies or medical care that we needed or to pay for our property would also depend on how much the children had to help with. Women on the frontier were consumed by making enough food and clothing for thier families to survive and keeping the home and clothes clean not to mention traveling to the supply store for supplies and food that was not produced at home. Then there are the nurturing, feeding and general raising of the children that was always considered woman's work. If the husband worked or the children were very young the livestock was also added to her duties.
No ME time in that schedule, huh?
I would imagine that when the darkness of night came, everyone was tired and ready for bed. Some school aged children probably didn't get to thier homework, which certainly wasn't much, until after dark because children had to help to keep things going. Gardening was important as well as feeding livestock and maintaining the woodpile. Wood was not just used for heating the home but for cooking and warming water to clean dishes and for taking baths. Animals were not pets but a source of food, domesticated animals like dogs, cats and horses had purposes not just companions or playmates. Cats took care of the mice, dogs took care of alerting when there was trouble, horses and mules carried heavy loads, pulled plows and wagons and were the mode of transportation for supplies. These animals were no more pampered than the people were of that time. Todays pets would never survive as some people wouldn't either.
Childhood was short lived in that time. Toys rarely existed and if so it was a special occasion to play with them or on bad weather days when work outside could not be done.
Can you imagine living like they did? It would be a culture shock for most if not all of the people I know. I, however, would see it as a challange worth accepting.

Christmas memories

Through the many years of my life I have seen Christmas come and go with different speeds. When I was a little girl I thought Christmas Day would never come. I longed for the last day of school before Christmas because we always went half a day and the only thing we did was have a party. I can still (yes, even now) remember the thrill in the air as we would enter the classroom filled with the smell of icing, cupcakes, sugar cookies and peppermint. Best friends would exchange simple gifts secretly as to not hurt the feelings of those you didn't bring a gift for. The teacher would give instructions to mothers that helped out for such events. We always brought a gift to exchange and sometimes we would bring goodies or candies to share with the class. There was always a few that you could count on thier mom's bringing enough homemade cupcakes or brownies for everyone to get one and staying to help with the party.The girls brought a $5 gift for a girl and the boys brought a $5 gift for a boy. Everyone ate too much sugar and played games or did Christmas crossword puzzles and word searches until the bell rang to go home. I remember most years it snowed at least a little or there was some leftover snow from a day or two ago. We always look forward to laziness and fun as we awaited the big day that we would wake earlier than school days to see what Santa had left for us. We would play all day long, rarely wanting to stop even for a meal.
There was a few years that I remember going to my Grandparents' house in Maryland for Christmas. That was always fun because we would play with our cousins and explore everyone's house for fun things to play with. Grandparents can have the coolest stuff, they don't want you to play with it, but it's all so interesting.
As I got older Christmas became a drag. We always had to clean the house and going to grandparents' house wasn't as much fun because you were too old to play and too young to go anywhere by yourself. Everyone was cooking, cleaning or watching the news (and you were never allowed to change the chanel or make too much noise while the television was on) and sitting at the table and talking about people you never heard of before. Everything was boring or stupid, no one would let you have any fun. The music you liked was considered noise and you always played it too loud. Everyone was mad at you for something.
Then when I became a mother Christmas was exciting again. Then it became overwhelming and tiresome. Now that my children are growing up Christmas is changing again. Who knows what memories lie ahead.
One thing for certain is that this year's Christmas memories will be remembered for many years to come. I usually have an idea what to expect for Christmas, but this year I would have never imagined what would transpire over the Holiday break. Last year I was sick and watched the Disney Christmas Parade from my bed, this year I watched the Holiday Wishes over Cinderella's Castle in person on the eve of New Year's Eve. WOW! That was an awesome sight as was the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. I took lots of pictures to cherish these memories as the years will fly by with unimaginable speed.

Ice Cream Shortage

What would Owensboro be like if Ritzy's ice cream maker quit. Seriously what would happen to the two locally owned restaurants as we know them? No more Cotton Candy Confetti, no more O-O-Oreo, no more Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, no more Ky Fudge Pecan Pie, no more Peanut Butter Cup and no more Butter Pecan Cashew. Not to mention the regular flavors that other places have some version of like Philadelphia Style Vanilla, Richest Chocolate, Strawberry, French Quarter Praline, Amaretto Cherry, Mint Chocolate Chunk, Chocolate Bar Chunk, Chunky Dory Fudge, Swiss Chocolate Almond, Wild Mountain Blackberry, and then there is the Seasonal favorites like Pumpkin Pie, Candy Cane and Egg Nog or Dreamcicle Swirl. People would have to either drive to Evansville as they once did in the days prior to August 1996 or they would have to settle for some substitute flavor from a different place. Just Imagine.... if the "ice cream team" decided they didn't want to make it anymore? Sometimes I consider it, really I do. Just like sometimes students don't want to finish their assignments or put off doing projects, we ALL get tired of doing things are not enjoyable or are not fun. What if all the stores didn't open, where would people buy stuff they need? What if the gas station clerks decided to lock up and go home and someone was running out of gas in their car/truck? What if someone needed money to pay for food because they were REALLY, REALLY hungry and all the bank tellers closed up the vaults and locked the doors? What if it was lunch time and all the cooks had got tired of fixing food and locked the kitchen and went home? Students would still be walking to class right now,(especially the ones that live in Maceo or Utica or somewhere else far from here)if the bus drivers never showed up to bring them to school. How about all the teachers just stop trying to help you learn stuff, now that sounds interesting doesn't it? Let's travel down this path for just a little bit, I know a short cut come on. Kids don't want to read because it's too hard to understand and no one pushes them to try harder, so no one learns to read the comics, driver's manual to get liscense, or game instructions or knows how to use internet search engines. OMG! How would anyone text!? How would anyone get a job to begin with or fill out the papers at the doctor/dentist offices. Math is too complicated once you run out of fingers and toes to count so no one knows how to keep track of thier money, if they ever found any (remember no one can read the applications to get jobs). No one would be smart enough to do much of anything, we would be no better off that people were in the Stone Age.
Everyone of everyage has to do things they don't like. Even babies have to stay in a wet or dirty diaper until someone changes them,, bet they don't like that any more than any of the rest of us like certain things either.
Just Imagine what an injured person would do if they were taken to see the doctor and he/she didn't really feel like fixing them up and making them better? What if someone called 911......and no one answered?
Next time you really feel down because you don't want to do your homework, clean your room, walk/bathe/feed the dog or take out the trash,....Just Imagine.......