Getting Back to my Mississippi Roots

Getting away is always fun, and visiting family makes it even more special. Mark and I had an opportunity to visit his sister Wes and her husband Bob last weekend. They live in Vaughan, MS, home of the famous train crash in which the engineer, Casey Jones, died saving all the other people on the train on April 30th 1900. There used to be a depot and memorial marking the crash site, but another Mississippi town had no depot and therefore it was moved a few years ago.


The train was part of the Illinois Central Railroad, the company that my grandfather worked for when I was a child. He was the personnel manager. Paige and I were riding in the Ringgold, GA Christmas Parade and I was reminded of the first time I marched in a Christmas parade. Instead of riding in the back of a truck in a trailer, I was inside a train car that had been converted to ride on the street. My grandfather, Frank Nason, had invited his grandchildren to ride the train through downtown Baton Rouge.



Vaughan, MS is about 40 miles North of Jackson up Interstate 55. It had been a couple of years since we were there and so it was exciting to see the changes as we traveled up the Interstate. First we noticed that the town of Ridgeland had a new shopping center, Renaissance Center, a fabulous life-style center which we shopped and ate lunch at while in town. Next we noticed that the cell tower built to look like the Washington Monument had been moved as the Interstate had been widened. It is located in the town of Madison, the next town as we traveled North. Madison has the only red brick interstate exchange in the country, I’m told. The mayor insisted it not look like most on and off ramps. She also insists that all buildings look like train depots and that the Wal-Mart not look like a Wal-Mart (and it doesn’t.)


The last town we passed was Canton, MS which is home to the Nissan Factory. The factory has a device that shoots out sonic booms to disburse the clouds that might have hail inside it so that the thousands of cars on the grounds will not be damaged. Canton is also where the movie A Time to Kill was filmed. It being Christmas, the town square and courthouse were completely covered in lights with carriage rides rounding the square surrounded by antique stores, boutiques, and eateries. Canton calls itself the City of Lights this time of year.



Bob and Wes live on Rosedale Plantation that was built in the 1870’s and in which they are in the process of registering it on the National Historic Registry in Washington D.C. This will be the second time they have lived in an historic home. Their first plantation was Avondale in Clinton, LA a home they moved and rebuilt to its original state before selling it and moving north to Jackson, MS. Wes is a nurse for a cardiologist while Bob is a rural property developer. In his spare time, he is a carpenter and has built among other things a potting shed for Wes. A couple of years ago, Bob surprised Wes with a cabin in the woods which he calls “Camp Wesley Pines.” It’s only eight by eight but has two drop-leaf beds, a pot-belly stove, and a chandelier made of deer antlers.



Our day trip for the weekend was a drive up State Hwy 16 to Lexington then inn Tchula we picked up US Hwy 49E to Greenwood, MS. Suddenly we are in another little Delta Mississippi town. But this one was a little different. I’ll say. Greenwood is home to the Viking Range Corporation. We walked through the Viking Store (not appliances) just accessories and could see into the kitchen where a group of students from a girls private school in Jackson were making gingerbread houses. We saw a set of steak knives for $1,200 and decided to pass on them, but we did get some great bread just baked in the bakery which we shared at dinner that night. Lunch at the Crystal Restaurant was a real treat.

On the way out of Greenwood, Bob took us to the Greenwood-Laflore Airport on US Hwy 82 where we saw the most amazing thing – a graveyard for passenger airplanes. The General Electric Corporation takes the engines out and refurbishes them and sells off the rest of the plane for scrap. He said the manager there told him some planes fly in immediately after dropping off passengers on a regularly scheduled flight. They come in still stocked with coffee in the pot, trash not emptied, and food and drinks in the pantry. I found it so interesting I got as much information I could from Bob so that I could research it for a story for an aviation magazine.


And so we said good-bye to Bob and Wes, their two dogs Melby and Sidney and cat Max and headed back to Tennessee. Going back to the state I was born in brings back many memories and leaving it makes me sad in that I don’t know it like I do all the other places I’ve lived. I thank my sister-in-law Wes and her husband Bob for sharing their time and home and love for their state with me.

Snow Day/Sick Day

What happens when a five-year-old finds herself home from school three days in a row? For my granddaughter Paige it was not a problem. On Monday she woke to find a light dusting of snow surrounding the large Frosty that sits in her front yard and news that school had been cancelled. This meant our Girl Scout meeting was also cancelled, but she ended up having a great day spending the first half with me (her Mimi) and the second half with her Aunt Vicki.

On Tuesday Paige woke up with a fever and sore throat. And to make matters worse, Fred the Elf was in the same spot that he landed on the day before. This posed a very serious question for Paige. Did Fred not go back to the North Pole during the night as he is supposed to do? Did he not report to Santa that she had been a good girl? Or did, as her parents insisted, Fred like the spot so much that he came back from the North Pole and landed on the exact spot? It was with relief and excitement that Paige showed me where Fred landed this morning which happened to be inside the votive candle holder next to the Nativity Set.

And although Paige was sick yesterday, she spent the day with her Grandma Gil enjoying her day immensely until the fever crept back up and the decision was made that she stay home from school a third day. I got the text last night and made it to her house at 7:30 a.m. I found her curled up on the couch watching TV. After a while and a little breakfast, we headed to her room to make her bed. Getting dressed was not an option as she was snuggly in her fleece PJ’s and I just didn’t have the heart to force her to dress. She asked me to play with her Lite Brite and I had a flash from the past. I didn’t even know they still made them.

She said, “You know Mimi the really cool thing about these Lite Brites is that you can do them over and over. You just push the lights back into the holes and use any color light you want.” We made a “My Little Pony” pouring a cup of tea and then an ice-cream cone. But she got tired and asked for a glass of chocolate milk and some “Scooby Doo.” We put in a DVD and two hours later she had watched seven Scooby Doo shows that she’d seen a hundred times and yet watched each as if it were the first time. Of course she told me who the villain was and the plot as we watched. You might think that was not good, but I like to know these things and she liked telling me.

Paige said she was itching all over and hot and sure enough her fever had come back. So I gave her some Ibuprofen as instructed and thought she would take a nap. She didn’t. Instead she went up to the bonus room and spent over an hour drawing, cutting out shapes, gluing and looking over all of her art projects. Occasionally she’d call me to come up and see something but I was cooking dinner and she was content so I stayed out of her way. And then it got quiet. I went upstairs and found her on the floor in the fort she had built sound asleep.

I had forgotten how much fun a snow day or a sick day can be. Paige reminded me and allowed me to share in her joy in resting, reading, playing, watching TV and pretending. Thanks Paige for reminding your Mimi what it is like to be five years old. Hope you feel better tomorrow.

Responding to Stress

As promised I have pulled from my stack of old devotionals a typed sheet of paper from a program given by Dr. Larry Freeman, CSAC at Parkway Presbyterian Church one Wednesday night in the early 1990’s.

Since I have no desire to type the paper in full, I thought I would respond to his ideas as to how they relate to me and my response to stress. He begins by stating that there is no simple or universally effective solution to the problem of stress management. What works for one person may be totally ineffective for others. But all of his ideas have worked for someone somewhere.

On the subject of becoming knowledgeable about stress, my first really stressful time was meeting the deadline for my book in 2008. Never before had I experienced such stress and not known it. I actually thought I had a handle on things but the closer it got the sicker I got until I was in so much pain I went to the doctor, my dentist, as the pain was in a tooth. For weeks we treated it as stress, then finally we discovered by tooth had abscessed and it was not stress after all. I actually felt relieved. But within those few weeks my family and friends were a huge support giving me the tools I needed to stay on the course and concentrate on completing the book without losing it at the same time.

When I do find myself in a stressful situation I take a systematic approach to solving the problem which is the second technique Dr. Freeman suggests. Years ago I took a six-week workshop on Parent Effectiveness Training (PET) which turned out to be one of the most life-changing workshops I ever attended. Being able to actively listen to another person and then work to solve any problem that might arise without making matters worse not only worked with my children but with others as well.

Dr. Freeman suggests coming to terms with your feelings for example learning to be flexible and adaptive. I can’t imagine two more perfect words to describe a mother – flexible and adaptive. If I didn’t have a good handle on this, then I probably couldn’t have survived raising four children. Acknowledging how I felt and expressing it to my family, however was not always easy. Nobody likes to admit defeat or lack and as a mother, wife, and homemaker, failure was not an option. Needless to say, I bottled it up at times and of course paid the price for that….grinding my teeth at night, for example. (That’s how my dentist was the first to diagnose my stress.)

The fourth technique on the list is to develop effective behavioral skills with the most important thing to remember to do is to learn to say NO. That was a hard concept for me but over the years I found that when I said yes to something I could not or was not prepared to do, it made matters worse. I felt like I failed the person or organization I had said yes to. Today, I’m not afraid to say NO. In fact, I’m not only doing myself a favor but also the person who is asking me.

Developing a lifestyle that will buffer against the effects of stress is the last and to me the most important technique Dr. Freeman listed. For me it is meditating every day. It is stopping and breathing in and out whenever I feel that a stressful moment is approaching and finally I maintain an optimistic attitude about my life. I believe in myself and expect to succeed in all that I do. I celebrate my successes and reward myself with thoughts of how good my life is.

My way, may not be your way but it works for me

A Prayer/Pledge of Responsibility for Children

We pray [accept responsibility] for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.

And we pray [accept responsibility] for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never “counted potatoes,”
who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an x-rated world.

We pray [accept responsibility] for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray [accept responsibility] for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can’t find any bread to steal,
who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
whose monsters are real.

We pray [accept responsibility] for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray [accept responsibility] for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.

We pray [accept responsibility] for children who want to be carried
and for those who must,
for those we never give up on and for those
who don’t get a second chance.

For those we smother….and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

Adapted from Ina J. Hughs

Back in the early 90’s it was my responsibility to organize the programs for the Wednesday night meetings at our church. Dinner and program for all ages, the evening was called “Omnibus.” One evening I asked another member of the church, Dr. Larry Freeman, CSAC, to speak to us on stress. He gave a wonderful lesson on a variety of ideas for responding to stress which I kept and drew from my stack of devotionals to write about this morning. However, paper clipped to Larry’s list was a handout he also gave us that night. The poem I printed above. Tomorrow I’ll touch on ways to reduce stress but today I’ll take time to thank God for the abundance in my life and the lives of my children and grandchildren. I will pledge to never take for granted the people in my life and pray that my eyes are not closed when I see a time where I can make a difference in the life of a child who does not have what I have.

No Separation

Today’s devotional is a postcard that I pulled randomly from my file. It has a simple poem printed on one side and a place for a personal message and address on the other side. It was meant to be framed, not mailed, I presume as it came from a company called “Be Creative!”

I asked Jesus, “How much do you love me?”
“This much,” He answered, and He stretched out His arms and died.

The other day, my husband asked me if I considered myself a Christian. I said yes and he said please explain. I said that I center my life in Christ, therefore lead a balanced life; that I like to think that I would live my life as Jesus would do; that my actions would reflect what I say. You know, “If you’re gonna talk the talk then you gotta walk the walk,” as the saying goes.

Years ago I read In His Steps by Sheldon Leonard, the classic book written in 1896 about a town that pledged to live their lives as Jesus did which of course changed the course of life for everyone in the town. And it is still changing lives as the book continues to be adapted and published. I was quite young when I read the book but I remember the impact it had on my life for it was the first time that I realized that Jesus and I were one; that is to say, that as I lived so did Jesus. And since I believe that Jesus and God are one, it followed that I realized that God and I are one as well. Of course coming to this realization took years.

The conversation with my husband continued when he asked me if I was offended by a recent cartoon in the newspaper depicting Christians as intolerant. The cartoonist is getting publicity from letters to the editor complaining about his cartoons. I told him no, I am not offended. Two reasons, one being that having met the cartoonist I am able to separate the man from his cartoon. The second reason is that spending time being offended by anything is a waste of time. Would Jesus sit down and type a long letter to the editor to complain about something he read or would he spend that time giving of himself at a homeless shelter, food kitchen, or calling an old friend? It’s all about the choices we make and standing tall and proud after we make our choice.

When my children were little, they argued about lots of things, from who got to sit in the front seat to who was right and who was wrong on any particular subject. At times the arguing would lead to fists flying and I would have to call a truce. My mother suggested an activity that I used many times over the years. She would remind me to tell you that she got it from Ann Landers in a “Dear Abby” column. Find a window or glass door (in my case the sliding door to the patio always worked) and give each child a bottle of window cleaner and a roll of paper towels and make them clean the window facing each other. It did not take long to see the two laughing and making faces and forgetting the anger and subject of their disagreement.

So I can look at the cartoons and see the cartoonist through the glass reflecting back to me and not be offended. I may not agree with his opinion but why should that make me be offended? If I say I love God and I seek to live my life as Jesus would, and did not love my fellow man in kind, then my quest would be in vain. I believe there is no separation between me, my neighbor and God. I am one with all, regardless of appearance or opinion, including my own. And if Jesus could open His arms and love me, then so too must I open my arms to my fellow man and love them for there is no separation.

A Mother’s Prayer

It’s been so long since I wrote on my blog; I almost forgot how to log into it. Yesterday, I found a box of files and inside one file was a stack of devotionals; some I wrote, some I collected from over the years and used at various times. I decided to write something about each one. As my cousin Mandy Marshall said on my Facebook page, “If you saved them….then they must have something for us all.”

A Mother’s Prayer

O God, help me always to remember that you have given to me the most important task in the world, the task of making a home.

Help me to remember this when I am tired of making beds, and washing clothes, and cooking meals, and cleaning floors, and mending clothes, and standing in shops. Help me to remember it when I am physically tired in body, and when I am weary in mind with the same things which have to be done again and again, day in and day out.

Help me never to be irritable, never to be impatient, and never to be cross. Keep me always sweet. Help me to remember how much my husband and my children need me and help me not to get annoyed when they take me for granted, and when they never seem to think of the extra work they sometimes cause me.

Help me to make this home such that the family will always be eager to come back to it, and such that, when the children grow up and go out to their own homes, they will have nothing but happy memories of the home from which they have come.

This I ask for your love’s sake. Amen

Jill Tritton, 1982

It was 1982 when this poem came across my desk. There are no notes written beside it to indicate how I came upon it. I was 32 years old and we had just moved our family to Kingwood, Texas. My husband’s commute to his office was forty-five minutes to an hour in the mornings and up to two hours returning home. He would leave the house around five o’clock in the morning and return around seven-thirty in the evening. It made for a long day for me and the four children.

But the next nine years were some of the best years of my life. Between homeroom mother, Girl Scout leader, Cub Scout den mother, team mom, Sunday School teacher, director of the Mother’s Day Out at church, Elder, and active in my P.E.O. chapter, I barely had time to breathe much less wash the clothes, clean the house, cook our meals. But somehow I did it.

My sister-in-law Margaret, whose family lived in Kingwood, is an excellent housekeeper with an eye for decorating. I always admired her ability to make her home so beautiful and yet accessible. Moving to Houston meant for the first time in our married life, we would live near family, and only a few blocks away. It was heaven. But I did not have Margaret’s skills at housekeeping so I hired a cleaning service about the time Margaret and family joined the country club. One day, my daughter asked Margaret why we were not members of the club and Margaret told her that I would prefer to have a clean house then join the club. There was some truth in that. The real reason we did not join the club is that my husband does not play golf or tennis and he thought it a waste of time and money. I on the other hand would have given up the cleaning service in a heartbeat to be a member of the club. But there was some consolation that although my house was always a cluttered mess, it was clean underneath, thanks to the service, and for that I’m grateful.

Those were formative years for my children and as they were growing up, I too was maturing both spiritually and chronologically. I look at this prayer and am reminded that my in life in those days was to be and do all things for everyone, no matter what. I cooked, I cleaned, I sewed, I carpooled, and I volunteered at the schools, church and community. And I did so without regret or complaint (for the most part.)

And now that my children are grown and have homes of their own, I see them following in my footsteps building a life with their own families around the memories they have of the life we built. I know this when I’m in their homes and see them using the parenting skills I used. I know this when I see the love they have for their children as a reflection of the love I have for them. I see this when they share with me how they feel about being parents.

My daughter paid me the best compliment the other day. She called to tell me that her two-year-old daughter was acting out at the grocery store so she took her outside and sat with her on the bench. Trying diligently to express how her behavior was inappropriate, her daughter got worse until, my daughter yelled at her saying, “I’ve had it.” And then she said she thought to herself, “I’m turning into Mamma.” You would think I might be offended by this, but the real honor is that she didn’t hesitate telling me this story, not that it happened at all.

To make a home, to raise a family, to be the person God wants me to be; that was my Mother’s Prayer.

The Joy of Life

Yesterday I got a call early in the morning from my daughter-in-law. She said the women of the church where my granddaughter Paige attends preschool were hosting a hotdog lunch for the children and their parents. It was a fundraiser to rebuild a wall at the school that got attacked by termites last year. The wall is repaired but funds are needed to pay for the work.

Paige and I were the first in the fellowship hall and were greeted by seven women, all my age or ten years older. On the counter was an old-fashioned electric steamer filled with cooked hotdogs inside buns, staying warm and ready for hungry kids. On the stove was a pot of bubbling hotdog chili.

We gave the first woman our $6 and while another woman served our hotdog, Paige perused the variety of condiments the women had placed in front our hungry eyes: pickle relish, coleslaw, sauerkraut, chopped onions, mustard and ketchup.

I asked Paige what she wanted and she said, “Mimi, please put the ketchup on first with little squiggles and then shadow them with the mustard.” Her words; I promise. “Shadow them?” I asked. And she walked me through the squiggles just to make sure I got it right. After making her hot dog I spread the mustard on mine and then asked for a little chili.

We had a choice of multi-colored Goldfish, pretzels, or waffle potato chips and Paige said she wanted one of each. I said pick one and I’ll pick another and we’ll share. She got the Goldfish and I picked the chips. We had a choice of soda to drink but Paige is a water drinker and so am I so we passed on the sodas and I filled our plastic cups already filled with ice by another woman of the church, with water from the sink. One final choice that came with our meal was a basket filled with snack desserts. We both picked a chocolate cake filled with marshmallow cream. (Paige is not a sweet eater so her dessert came home with me in my purse.)

For a few minutes we remained alone in the fellowship hall with the women. It had been reported in the paper that this church and another Methodist church in Chattanooga were merging because the membership at this church had declined. The preschool, however, a staple and much respected in the Chattanooga area, will remain on the premises and continue to function. But with only 36 active members the church could not keep functioning alone. I asked the women if they were excited about the merger and there was dead silence. I apologized if I asked a bad question and a few laughed and finally one spoke for them all saying it is a good thing although they are sad. It was clear they were doing their best to see the good in the merger and keep a positive attitude. I wished them luck and thanked them for hosting the lunch.

A friend of Paige’s along with her mother, father and little brother joined us at our table. At the end of the meal Paige’s clothes were decorated in yellow/red blotches and her upper lip was yellow. You can’t beat mustard and ketchup oozing out of a good hotdog. Paige loved it so much she asked for a second one so I went back and bought another one which we split. Afterwards we were invited to play on the school’s playground. And by now the small fellowship hall was filled with mothers, fathers, grandparents, little brothers and sisters and children from the preschool all enjoying a happy joy-filled lunch.

For the next hour-and-a-half I sat on a bench observing Paige as she played “house” with the same friend that we shared lunch with. Another grandmother sat on one side and told me about her life and her other grandchildren while a new mother sat on the other side of me holding a six week old baby. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to experience joy: joy in stopping long enough to just sit; joy in hearing the stories of these two women who have nothing and yet everything in common; joy in seeing children doing what they do best – play; and joy in sharing this experience with my granddaughter Paige.

Tractor-trailer wreck snarls traffic

This was the title of the online news reports after a crash on Interstate 24 yesterday afternoon. The truck evidently went around a curve along the Tennessee River and smashed through the guard rail and over-turned into the opposite lane of traffic, spilling fuel and injuring the driver and passenger of the truck.

The article then goes on to say that both lanes of the Interstate were closed for five hours, backing up traffic in three directions. Why three? Because not only was Interstate 24 closed both ways, but Hwy 27 which feeds into the Interstate was closed.

You might wonder why I even noticed this bit of news as we have accidents on the Interstate quite often here in Chattanooga thanks to the central location of our town and the number of travelers who pass through it going from one destination to another. But yesterday, we were returning from a birthday party celebrating our grandson, Hayden’s first birthday. He lives in North Georgia and we have several options to get to and from his home. One is to take Interstate 75 and merge onto Interstate 24. If we had taken that route, guess where we would have spent the afternoon doing? Right, sitting in our car, unless we were able to exit off and drive through town to get home. The second option, to skirt around the foot of Lookout Mountain and then go through St. Elmo to Hwy 27, going north would have been simple and although we would have seen the traffic, we would not have been affected by it. The third option and the one we chose was to come in on Hwy 27 from the south and pick up Interstate 24.

You can imagine our concern when we began to merge onto the Interstate and saw the traffic at a complete stop. That was the bad news. The good news is that by staying in the far right lane, we were able to merge onto Hwy 27 north with ease and avoid any delay. But I knew the others on the highway were in for a while as it was a very eerie sight to see orange cones and police completely barricading the Interstate. As far as the eye could see there were no cars.

And yet as we followed our usual path home, we were continually exposed to drivers that most locals call “foreigners.” You know, that driver who is in town and doesn’t know where they are going, but follows the crowds or meanders in and out of traffic at a snail’s pace as if someone is directing them where and when to turn. Out-of-state license plates were everywhere, especially at the gas station at the bottom of our mountain. We stopped before climbing up the mountain to our home and I made a comment about the unusual amount of out-of-state cars. And then as we started up the mountain and noticed the slow-moving traffic and more foreigners, it hit us. There was someone (or something) directing them where to go. Their GPS (Global Positioning System) was diverting them from the Interstate, over our ridge, down into the next valley and back onto Interstate 24 beyond the accident. Maybe an hour and a half out of their way, but better than sitting five hours on the Interstate!

I couldn’t help but compare the GPS in those cars to the GPS within me. That still small voice that guides me to be the person I’m supposed to be; that puts me in the right position at the right time; and keeps my system (body, mind, spirit) functioning at perfect speed so that I get where I’m supposed to get every day.

Keeping Lent - Ash Wednesday

Today marks the beginning of Lent, a time of preparation, fasting and prayer observed by the Western churches. The word Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for spring. The Lenten season lasts 40 days as a symbol of the Biblical traditions found in the Old and New Testaments of preparation and prayer before special occasions. There are six Sundays during Lent which are not counted in the season of Lent.

In the early Church ashes were sprinkled on the head of penitents as a token of repentance of sin. Repentance means denial and some people use the time of Lent to deny themselves of something. They say they are giving up “chocolate” for example for Lent. But for me it means a chance to remind myself that I am a child of God.

Lent is a time for me to put away negative thoughts and focus on the positive. Jesus said, “You are light for all the world.” (Matthew 5:14) Turning from the darkness and toward the light of God, I realize that I am strong, positive, powerful, wise, loving, fearless, free spirit, and the perfect child of God.

Keeping Lent this way will prepare me mentally, physically, and spiritually to rise out of the old and into the new. Each morning I plan to focus on this 40-day journey with prayer and meditation. Today I remind myself that the light of God surrounds me reflecting back into the lives of the people I touch as Jesus calls me to do, “As a lamp you must shed your light among your fellows….,” Matthew 5:16.

Highs and Lows

Yesterday was a day of ups and downs, or highs and lows, or good job Hayden and no, no, no Hayden. At almost a year-old, my grandson is experimenting with touch and tastes anything he can get his hands on. Yesterday, it was my philodendron plants, scattered throughout my house most on the floor or at his eye-level. The one in the hallway is almost bare now, thanks to Hayden’s pruning. But I’m grateful that only one leaf made into his mouth, but unfortunately I didn’t know it until he puked it up later. And you would think that would have stopped him from pulling the leaves off the plants but it was fun and he kept doing it and I kept saying, “no, no, no,” but he’d wrinkle up his eyebrows, pout his lips, and look at me with those big blue eyes and my heart would melt. But I can’t let him eat plants so, instead of battling him I moved all the plants out of his reach. (It was a learning experience for the both of us.)

As rewarding as it is – taking care of my grandson, that was not my high or low for the day. I would have to say that my high was getting not one but two telephone calls from strangers, one a local TV personality and the other a local businessman. Both wanted my help with two different things, but both wanted to pick my brain thanks to writing the history book on the Town of Signal Mountain. One is considering a book of his own and wanted my advice and the other wanted to know how I secured all the images used in our book and wanted suggestions on how he could secure some as well. It was sometime in late 2008, just after our book was published that a fellow author in the Chattanooga Writers Guild asked my advice and after a couple of hours over a cup of coffee (or two), she made a proposal to Arcadia and her book was published last month. (Maybe I should contact Arcadia Publishing and see if they want to hire me?)

And then there is my low for the day and this is hard to write. I arrived at my CWG general meeting which is held at the downtown library in Chattanooga to find two police cars and a couple of officers with two women standing over a homeless woman (I’m assuming that) in a wheel chair. The woman was obviously not mentally balanced and wanted to go to the hospital. However, the other two women were either trying to convince the officers to call an ambulance or vice versa. However, according to the off-duty officer working as a guard at the library, the ambulance would not come because the hospital refused her due to her “playing wolf.” The bottom line, I left the meeting and she is sitting outside, no coat, no hat, just a blanket wrapped around her and screaming, “M ‘am” over and over as I approach her.

I did not ignore her and said yes, but then she asked me to wheel her up to the door. I refused. That was my low. What possessed me to walk away from this woman? Of course I paid the price for it, with nightmares and waking with a terrible headache. Every morning I affirm that I am divinely inspired to right action. I knew that she could wheel herself up to the door and what she really wanted was my attention and yet I denied her of it. And it hit me this morning when I forgave myself for being selfish and ignoring her, that, isn’t that what we do every day to people in our own lives?

What was the real reason Hayden was picking off all the leaves of my philodendrons? To get his Mimi’s attention. That’s what we all want in life - to have someone notice us, need us, protect us, watch over us, but most of all love us.