This pic is from my Saturday blog, looking toward my inlaw’s:

And this was today, same view:

This was the other hill on Saturday:

And today:

And this is on my porch, I thought the cement bear was too happy to come out of hibernatiion

This morning I read two blogs dealing with names. Antisoccermom’s dealt with the choosing of her xanga name. Ed Kaz tells of his feelings for his name, Edmund.
So, I thought I will blog about some of the different names in my family. My biological father’s name was Faw. It was given to my brother and subsequently to my nephew. My Dad’s name is Denzil, as is another brother’s, although he goes by J.R. not “Junior”. I had an Uncle Orpha (pronounced Orphie) and he was married to Aunt Myrle. I have a cousin named Denver who is also married to a Merle and he also had a brother, Denzil. My Granny was Ines (rhymes with Highness) and Grandpa was Cecil.
When Mom and Dad were deciding on a name for my new baby sister, they wanted a name that would not be likely to earn a nickname. They settled on Belinda. She kept that name for only a matter of months. One day our next door neighbor came in the house and cooed to my fussy little sister sitting in a carrier seat on the table, “Hello Charlie” and she has been known by that moniker since.
I was sick one January in the late 80′s. I had been throwing up, sometimes 15 times a day, since October. I had undergone testing and the docs were unable to say what it was. They were able to tell me I wasn’t pregnant after 3 blood tests. In January, my sister and I decided to take a “last” sisters’ trip and went to Nashville. We were both country music fans and this seemed like a great thing to do. Driving to Nashville, I made my sister stop at every restroom along the way. When we got into town, the first thing we did was buy a home pregnancy kit. The second thing we did was go to a bar. I drank less than half a drink and promptly fell off the barstool dead-ass drunk! The next morning I peed on the stick and found out I really was pregnant and NOT dying. (and I was an Obstetrical Nurse at the time.)
At the time the “father” was not in the picture. He was a bit of a player. Charlie was my support person, and before we called my parents with the happy news we talked about names for the baby. I knew that his/her middle name would be Lee. Dad and two brothers have that esteemed middle name and William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys is one of my favorites. Hailey and Jared were first names I had chosen.
The “father” decided to “do the right thing” and just weeks before the delivery came back into the picture. He asked if we could name our newborn son Roger after his uncle. I acquiesced even though I didn’t particularly like the name. My mother said it would grow on me and it was a good strong name. I figured I could find a suitable nickname for my precious little son. But, seriously? All I could think of was Roger Ramjet, a cartoon fromthe 60′s; or Roger Rabbit, the animated movie which had come out that year. I remembered a Roger in school whose girlfriend lovingly called him Roger Dodger. I decided Dodge would be a nice, cute name.
Turns out, as usual, Mom was right and Roger grew on me. Especially after I met my husband and he used the name all the time. The “father” had taken a u-turn out of the situation.
I still call my son Dodge, but mostly it is Roger. He has taken on a new name, though. When he hit high school, his friends started referring to him by our last name. He wears it proudly in honor of his Dad, my husband.
I thought it was curious as I was preparing to write this entry, I googled Roger Ramjet and it referred to his sidekicks, Yank, Doodle, Dan and Dee. My Roger was born on the 4th of July. Strange, but true.

This week’s Photo Challenge is Feathers. I thought I would like to use a new photo instead of something from my library and so I took pictures of my cat, Mister Tud, and his new toy.

This is the toy up close. I think it resembles the golden snitch from the Harry Potter stories. (Yeah, I’m nearly 50 and I read them)

Okay, so now I have been on Xanga all afternoon. I was able to visit many of your sites and leave comments. My time was not wasted. Really!

I stayed home from work today. The snow was too much to deal with even with my inlaws’ Subaru. It was having a rough time on these hills. I had to walk up the hill to get the car. And when I got home, my husband was back home. He tried to go to work and turned around. He told me that he didn’t want me to go. I called work and talked it over with the nurse who would have to cover my shift and she said she was already planning to stay. She said she was going to call me to tell me to stay put. So… I did! She will be relieved by the midnight nurse whose husband brought her in to town to stay with their daughter. I get to spend unexpected time with my hubby!
I know that these pics I’m gonna show you are nothing different than anybody else in Ohio has to show, but they help illustrate what I had to deal with.
The first one is looking towards the inlaws’ house. This road is looking up the first part of the hill I climbed to get the car.

This next pic is looking the other way, toward my way to work. It looks up the other hill. You really can’t see the hill for the snow, but you get the hint, I think.

Now, I’m going to go enjoy the chili my husband made, along with a peanut butter ‘sammich’.

This is my second intallment in this month’s Kween_of_the _Queens’ Challenge:

The times I feel that I deserve a well earned pat on the back deals mostly with my profession, nursing. It’s usually the little things that get my ego boosted.
I work in what is termed an assisted living facility. Most people come to live there knowing that they will not be going home.
Someone may come to me and tell me they just don’t feel right and I do all the basics- vital signs, list of symptoms, blood sugar, SpO2, etc. My findings may be normal, but a gut instinct will tell me there is something going on. I have been known to page the doctor and discuss this “feeling’ with him. Luckily, the doctor at our facility relies on us to be his eyes and ears. Most often, he will order a test that comes up with an underlying condition. I feel better knowing that there is a reason for their feeling.
Yes, sometimes the reason will result in death, but I find that the people I care for are able to deal with that. Not knowing the reason for their awful feeling is often more scary to them than the reality. More often the cause of their malady is something that will respond to medication or therapy.
Another ego booster is when my boss takes my suggestions and puts them into action. She and the other nurses sometimes even ask my opinion on differing matters, such as staffing and procedures. This makes me feel as if they might respect my knowledge in these areas. Believe me, there are some nurses they will not go with in a crunch situation.
The aides I have to supervise seem to respect my position. They sometimes may not exactly like me, but they don’t seem to give me the amount of crap as others get from them. Yes, they talk about me, as I would expect but I also know they stand up for me with aides from other shifts because I stand up for them. They will often ask me “Why do we have to do this?” I will explain the medical reasoning behind it and they understand that it is not because I like ordering them around but because I have the welfare of the residents in mind.
The most recent Atta Girl moment happened just yesterday. We had a winter storm here in Ohio. My car ended up in a ditch and it took me an hour and a half to get to my house from half a mile away. (My husband and brother-in-law pulled the car out with the skid loader. But it took a while and a lot of pushing.)
I called work and told them I would be in for my scheduled shift but would probably be late. I was not about to try driving in that weather. The sheriff’s office will transport all necessary staff to the facility. I called work and told them I would be in, but would have to wait for the Sheriff’s office to transport me. The nurse that was scheduled to work with me, however, reported off because her car was stuck in a ditch. I feel a slight bit superior because someone had to take care of those people and day shift needed a break. One shift is enough to work, especially when the whole place is closed to “at risk” visitors due to respiratory infections. I wish I had stock in Robitussin and Tylenol. : )

Here are a few of my pics that I feel show both art and nature.
This first one is of the indian head my brother carved from a tree trunk:

I love the colors in this next pic:

This is one I took out in Arizona a few years ago:

This was taken one winter’s night:

This was taken on one of my morning walks, I felt blessed to get it:

This was taken the same morning:

This was taken in my backyard one morning:

These chickadees were in a bush at my brother’s a couple years ago:

And last this was the sunset from my porch, one of my favorites:

I had and have the best mentor I can think of – my mom. She taught me from an early age what it means to be a woman in today’s world. And she continues to show me how to age gracefully. I just hope I can be half as good as she is.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

I was watching a tv show this morning and one of the characters said, “You were as drunk as a skunk.” Now this got me thinking. So I asked my husband, who knows everything, “How drunk do skunks get? Is alcoholism a big problem in the skunk community?” To which he replied, “I’ve never noticed any of the little critters walking an especially erratic path. This brings to mind another great mystery of life. Just how happy can a clam be? They’re stuck in a shell. They’re basically mucous. They live in the bottom of the ocean. How damn happy do you think they can be?”
Yep, this is exactly what the tater household is worried about. : )

My younger sister and brother-in-law had a rude awakening this morning. They woke up at 5:30 because their bedroom was filled with smoke! My brother-in-law found the source. A power bar overheated and melted the plug to a heater. It also melted the plug to my sister’s bi-pap machine. She has asthma and sleep apnea. When my BIL told her what happened, she unthinkingly reached over to the power bar and pulled on the cord to the heater and unplugged it. Then she unplugged the power bar itself. My BIL in the meantime had went to throw the circuit breaker. Luckily nothing happened to my sister, and the smoke was limited to their bedroom. My sister had to do a breathing treatment right away but everything was good. The house is old and the wiring is probably twenty years old. I think my uncle replaced it when he re-wired the farmhouse my parents live in, back in the 80′s. They have only one outlet in the bedroom and it was not convenient to their current furniture layout so they used a power bar that was supposed to shut off if it overheated. It didn’t. The heater wasn’t even turned on and it also had a safety switch.
Luckily, they woke up. It could have been so tragic.
My sister didn’t let it get her down, though. She called the bi-pap supplier and she will have a new one tonight. They are sleeping in their living room tonight and until their bedroom airs out. They went out with our parents and one of my brothers and myself to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary which is tomorrow. Then my sister and myself went to Wally World where I bought her another smoke and fire alarm for their bedroom. They have two others, but they weren’t in that part of the house.
The house belongs to my parents. I can’t imagine how they would have felt if this had turned out differently.