I like a fresh bowl

Warning: This post is a little TMI. The subject is icky but recently it's become a bone of contention in my household, and I thought I'd pose this question.

In your household, do you have the "If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down" policy?

I'm sorry, I know GROSS, and I know you water conservationists out there like this policy, but you know what? Eww!!! Just Eww!

Well, in my house, we've always had the "fresh bowl" policy, but for some reason over the past couple of months or so, someone in my household (who shall remain nameless...but HIS name starts with a D!!!) has taken it upon himself to start using the above yellow/brown policy.

Well I don't like the yellow/brown policy. I don't like going to the bathroom and being confronted by your yellow remnants. I, like John "The Biscuit" Cage from Ally McBeal, "like a fresh bowl".

So please stop this nastiness immediately.

Just Eww!

I'm sick, ya'll

Well the woman who CAN DO ANYTHING, can't do a damn thing right now. I've been sitting in my bed all day playing online board games and watching bad TV. Calgon, take me away! I'm the biggest baby when I'm sick. Right now I'm silently cursing all the people I've come into contact with over the past week or so who have either been sick (Tiff Tiff and Ben!) or had family members who were at home sick (Ben and Monica!). Humpf. Spreading your germs all over the place.

I tried to fight the symptoms of flushness and achiness I began to feel on Thursday. I started taking medicine, washing my hands regularly, and spraying Oust all over my work station, but unfortunately by mid day on Friday I knew the fight was over. I left work early and since that time have spent my day with my friends: orange juice, chicken noodle soup, hot tea, TheraFlu, Kleenex, and Lysol. Fun..Fun.. Oh I forgot my friends: sneezing, coughing, hacking, and feeling like overall crap.

Thanks a lot all you sick people!

Humpf!!!

I CAN DO ANYTHING

I received this email from my co-worker and friend Moni today.

-----------------------
Hello to my VERY Special Friend,

[Dee], you are such a bright, SMART, talented, and articulate person who, in my opinion, can do ANYTHING!

These are all the things that I think about when I think about you!

I WISH that you would put as much ENERGY in [Dee] as you do with Monica Mingo (??) [my blog obsession...sigh], your blog, and all the other LITTLE things that you seem to make so important. Shouldn't YOU be the most important person/thing to YOU?!

I am sending this message to you to say - You can do ANYTHING you want to do. Just say to yourself, I KNOW I CAN DO THIS and just DO it!

STOP selling yourself short and START believing in yourself. If you could start applying all the words in my first sentence to you, you'll be surprised by the energy those words will bring you!

I HOPE this message makes you smile. It made me feel good to be able to honestly write this message to you, and to choose such positive words to describe you without any effort. You can do the same for yourself!

Your Friend, Moni

-------------------
I wish I could provide all the detail that inspired Moni to write this message. It's really special to me that she thought enough of me to surprise me with this letter of encouragement. I'm forever grateful to her.

And, yes, Moni. I'm smiling.

Thanks! Love you lots!

When will the madness end?

Sigh... I start to write a post about a man who stabs his baby son and then throws him out the window of his car, and then I see this:

Breaking News:

Body of missing 6-year-old Georgia boy

Christopher Michael Barrios has been found.

I'm done.

You ain't got to lie, Craig [err...Chuck]!

When I bought my car in September, Chuck, the sales guy, promised me a lot of things. One promise was that I could get a free car wash whenever I needed one. The second promise was that if I had to wait more than 10 minutes for service on my car, the dealership would gladly give me a loaner car?

Guess what ya'll... Chuck is a LIAR!

One weekend a couple of months after I bought my car, I decided to get a car wash. I called in advance to reserve a time and was told that the car wash would cost $35. Huh? Well upon further inquiry I found out that the free car wash was only offered to customers who were bringing their car in for service. The service technician then followed with a comment like, "I don't know why they [the salesmen] tell people that they can come in anytime for a car wash." Now when the service technician told me this, I wasn't mad. It made sense to me. I was just a little ticked that Chuck lied to me.

That was Chuck's first lie.

I discovered his second lie this morning. I went to Nissan's service area to get my car's 6-month check up. As I like to be prepared, I called Nissan the day prior to make a reservation and to inform them that I would need a loaner car because I wanted to drop my car off in the morning and pick it up after work. Anyway, I waited in the service bay for 10 minutes for a service technician to get to me. Once he arrived, I explained that I was there for my 6-month check up, that I had made an appointment, and that I had reserved a loaner car. He told me they don't offer loaner cars for 6-month check ups because they involve oil changes and tire balance/rotation, which only take about an hour. They only offer loaner cars for services that may take several hours, like a 15,000 mile service. (Insert picture of my face slowly cracking....)

Sigh...

Ok, maybe you're thinking I'm a little naive, and maybe I am. BUT, my car is the first new car I've ever bought, so when the sales guy tells me things to sweeten the deal, I listen and take them to heart. Now, I'm not feeling ole Chuck. Because of him, I got stuck in worse-than-normal traffic, was late for work, and am typing this post about him today.

In the immortal words of Craig's girlfriend in the movie Friday: "YOU AIN'T GOT TO LIE, [CHUCK]!"

Humph!

A weekend with Charlie Mack's Granddaughters + one

Since I started a discussion about family yesterday, I'm going to tell you about the plans I've made with my cousins for July. Last December, my sister and I came up with the idea of getting our cousins together for a girls' weekend, which we'd like to be an annual event. I got the idea from one of my male cousins, who has a guys' weekend with some of his friends and male cousins every year.

My Grandma Charlie Mack had 10 granddaughters (and 2 grandsons), so when we get together it's always a party. We were all really close as kids, spending almost every weekend at each other's houses or visiting grandma in North Carolina during our spring and summer breaks and having big slumber parties. As we got older, we lost some of that closeness. My cousins moved away and eventually life events like marriage, kids, and work made our interactions more and more sporadic. We now mostly see each other at the occasional family reunion or holiday, but we never get to spend any real time together. I'm hoping our annual cousins' weekend will change all that.

Since my sister recently moved to a big beautiful house in Atlanta, which none of my cousins have seen, we've decided to make HOTlanta our first cousins' weekend destination. We only have two rules for our weekend: NO KIDS and NO MEN. This weekend is strictly for the ladies. We're planning an old fashioned slumber party, a shopping spree, lunch or dinner at an upscale restaurant, and maybe even a night out at a trendy hot spot. I can't wait for July to get here. I've been so pleased by my cousins' responses. We are all so excited and already contemplating locations for next year.

We're going to have a ball!

Oh, and even though my "favorite" cousin Tiff Tiff is NOT one of Charlie Mack's granddaughters, she's coming too. We couldn't have a cousins' weekend without her.

P.S. The ladies in the photo are me (2nd from right) with some of my cousins. Aren't we BEAUTIFUL? I just love them!

Exploring my family tree

The recent brouhaha over Al Sharpton's ancestors possibly being slaves of Strom Thurmond's ancestors sparked my interest anew in tracing my family tree. Several years ago I had started on this journey but after a while abandoned it. Last week, I started up again.

I went to Ancestry.com, the tool the researchers used to find the link between Al Sharpton and Strom Thurmond's ancestors, and began plugging in the names of family members I knew. Ancestry.com has a search feature that helps you explore birth, marriage, death, census, military, and other records (they give you access to copies of original documents) that can give you detailed information about your ancestors. For example, I knew who my Grandma Charlie Mack's parents were but I had know idea that census records would tell me where she and her family lived when she was nine years old and the names and ages of her siblings at that time. It was very eye opening.

Through my research I've discovered a distant cousin who has been tracing the maternal side of family roots for years. She has a website linking to photos, marriage records, and a whole host of information on my mother's family from now to the mid to early 1800s. I now know the names (and even have a photo, which I posted) of ALL my great great great grandparents. Unfortunately that's as far back as she's been able to go, but her search and mine continues.

While I can trace my mother's family back to the mid to early 1800s, before last week, I could only trace my father's family as far as my grandparents. My father was able to give me some names of his family, but he wasn't sure how they were related to him. So I started making phone calls to my aunts and uncles to see if they could give me some information, and although they knew maybe a fraction more than my dad, what little they knew really helped my search. Within 2 days, using their input and Ancestry.com, I was able to trace my paternal grandfather's maternal line to the early 1800s and possibly even the late 1700s. I say possibly because in the 1800s people had very similar names and it can be easy to get one John or James confused with another. So I'm trying to be very careful.

One thing I'm learning is that this type of research takes a lot of time and patience. I'm not sure how easy or hard it is for White people to trace their lines, but it can be very difficult for African Americans. For me to be able to trace my family to the early 1800s or beyond is very good and I assume very rare. The institution of slavery split up families, changed people's names, and spread people all over the country. Trying to trace a family member who lived during those times can be nearly impossible. What's been helpful to me is that most of my ancestors lived in the same area that their descendants live today.

My hope is that within the next few weeks I will be able to have at the very least the names of my paternal great grandparents. Overall, it's really been a fascinating journey. One I hope to share with my own children one day.