My brother, Billy is a stand-up guy. I admire him for so many reasons. I’ll try to think of a few.

He has countless friends because he knows how to be a friend. He stays in touch with people he has known since childhood, and has made many more good friends in the fifty years of his career.  He devotes much time and energy making and keeping friends because he really does care. That’s the way he is. (Have I mentioned that he is retiring? Yes, the R is replacing BTW, OMG, and even…WTH?)

Billy has a great sense of humor. It’s different from mine, but that doesn’t make it wrong. He probably wouldn’t think this cartoon is funny. I think it’s hilarious.

How do you make a small fortune out of horses? Start with a large fortune…

Anyway, there are many more things about Billy to be admired. I have always envied his ability to remember details. He can remember numbers, names and stories. He never forgets a punchline. I can only remember short stories like this one:

Sam bought a horse. In its first race it went out 25-1. The only problem is that all the other horses left at around 12:30…Heeheehee

Hey, Billy! Is this your accountant?

Billy went to California the summer before his senior year of high school. Our uncle, Chuck Francis, got him a job parking cars for the Dodgers. Little did he know that experience would morph into a fifty year career. (Did you know he’s retiring?)

Billy is highly regarded for his knowledge of every facet of the parking industry. I can’t come close to describing his background, but I know he has saved companies millions with his consulting, management and auditing skills. Those in need are sure to miss him after 1-31-18. (As of 2-1-18, Billy will no longer have a job.)

Do you notice anything funny about the picture below?

Generic horse racing

A racehorse owner took his horse to the vet. “Will I be able to race this horse again?,” he asked.

The vet replies, “Of course you will…and you’ll probably win.”

Six days after Billy retires, he will be heading for Arizona to the Jones County reunion. I’m sure a good time will be had by all. I sure hope so, because I’m going to be there too. 

I’m very sure that after the reunion, Billy will be spending most of his free time, (of which there will be much), entertaining himself with his favorite past-time…fishing.

One day two guys, Rob and Ben, were out fishing when a funeral service passed over the bridge they were fishing from. Rob took his hat off and put it over his heart. He did this until the funeral service passed by.

Ben then said, “Gee Rob, I didn’t know you had it in you!”

Rob then replies, “It’s the least I could do. After all, I was married to her for forty years.”

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This post has all been in jest. I love my brother more than I can express. I know he would do anything for me, because he has. I know he’s a great friend because I have watched him be one. I know he’s smart, and funny, and handsome, because that’s what Mom told me.

Happy retirement, Brubby…you deserve it.

Love you!

You’re favorite little sister,

Clarabelle Barnsmell

Things are happening to me that I don’t quite understand, but most of it is good. Today, our women’s group met at the The Victorian Tea Room to celebrate three birthdays. Helen had a birthday on December 5th, mine was on December 31st, and Barbara’s was yesterday. As usual it was a ton of fun. I am so grateful to be a part of this group of very special women.

Most of you know that I am going to attend the Jones County reunion being held in Mesa, Arizona in thirteen days. Most of the people attending are Murdoites who retired to Arizona. The added bonus is my brother, Billy, my 2nd Dad, Gus, and Valerie are going to be there too.

Typically, before I attend a reunion of any kind, I gain ten pounds and get a bad haircut, but this time is different. I never lost the last ten pounds I gained before the last reunion. It doesn’t matter, because I’m starting a lose ten pounds in ten days diet. I have three days before I even have to start it.

I did get my haircut yesterday, and its a little shorter than I like it, but short hair has it’s advantages, which I will tell you about in a minute.

It occurred to me that my new, shorter cut was similar to the cut I had when I was sixteen. A mere fifty years ago. Most people wouldn’t be idiotic enough to do this, but I’m going to do a side by side comparison. I haven’t even looked at them side by side yet, so here we go…

I hope this didn’t creep you out. I really did not intentionally try to copy my hairdo from fifty years ago. I remember that vest. I borrowed from my mother. It was three times too big for me, but it was orange. Even though you can’t see it, I have orange on today. When I came home from the party, I changed into an orange top. This was before I went hunting for my sweet sixteen pic. Aside from those comparisons, much has changed.

In the SS picture, I was growing out my “Connie like” hairdo. Not because I was finding my own style. It was because Connie, who was two years older, was growing her do out. The sixty-six year old me opted for the shorter cut, after several years of medium length hair, because it’s easier to color the grey every four weeks. It also costs a lot of money to get it cut more often. We don’t have a Harold the barber here. He somehow knew exactly what to do. Maybe he got the word that as long as my hair was similar to Connie’s, I would be happy.

Some might worry about themselves if they referred to their past lives as much as I do, but I don’t get too concerned. I’m Loretta’s daughter and nothing can change that. My brother is also her son and he will tell you he has all of her “better” qualities. I wouldn’t trade either of them… and Gus is certainly a keeper.

Enough of the past, for now. Here’s an update on the tiny house progress. (Little did Mary Francis, the younger, know that someday she would be living in a tiny house in Texas. I don’t think she would have understood.)

Kip made an offer on a lot today and the owner accepted it!!! He is supposed to call later to give us the information so we can get it under contract. I’ll tell you more when we seal the deal. I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I’m afraid I haven’t been as nice as I should have been about pursuing this idea I agreed to. A friend at the luncheon today told me she knew it would all work out because too many things had already fallen into place. That was what I needed to hear.

I’m sure we will have a lot of fun and nurse a few headaches putting all this together, but I’m getting excited about this new adventure.Does anyone know anything about the cabbage soup diet? It sounds yummy.

My name is Pearl the dog and I live with Pearl the human. If she finds out what I did, Pearl the human will be fummin.

We live in an apartment above a grocery store. It has a lot of rooms for a canine to explore. 
There’s a room way down the hall that has a cat inside. I know cause it’s called the cat room, where cats must like to hide.

Today, the door was open and I went to have a look. I sniffed in every corner and nosed in every nook.

I tried real hard to find a cat. I really was dog bent. I smelled high and low and everywhere, but didn’t find a scent.  

I heard someone approaching so I hid behind the door. I felt like such a bad dog… like I’d never felt before.

Guess what happened next? I should have never wagged my tail. I bumped the door and it slammed shut. Now the cat room was my jail.

Would someone come and find me? If I barked would someone hear. The more I thought about it, the more I shook with fear.

I heard a human walking by. I couldn’t find my bark. I really wanted out of there. I get scared when it gets dark.

I saw the doornob turning. The door came open just a crack. Would I be in the dog house cause I had planned a cat attack?

I closed my eyes and waited. I soon would know my fate. Would I see kindness in their eyes or be penned up in a crate?

I heard a phone a ringin. Someone yelled, “Pearl it’s for you.” She turned and left to answer it. Now what was I to do?

The door, still slightly open, gave me a great idea. As I nosed it open wider, I heard a cat’s voice say…”I’ll see ya.”

 When I got to Pearl the human’s rooms, I turned to look for just a minute. Pearl was headed for the cat room. I was glad I wasn’t in it.

Alf and Annie aka Pearl the dog and Soo’-tah

This will be the shortest MG blog you have ever read.

Yikes!! House is sold!! Looking for a lot!!!

Can we take our couch?

Can I take my bed?

There is something I have been wanting to share with you and tonight, I feel like writing about it.

I have been thinking about Connie’s Story and how it evolved. I started to recall the times I had admired someone else and/or their things and wanted to emulate them. You might think I’m psychoanalyzing myself and you could be right, but I doubt I’m the only person who has struggled with finding their own identity. My first memory of admiring someone else’s style was when I was five years old.

I wanted Lois Lillibridge’s shoes.

I borrowed them and I loved them so much I couldn’t bring myself to give them back. I asked her if she wanted the pink canvas shoes I had and she said, “No.” Then an awful thing happened. Her dad died and Lois and her mom and sister were moving away from Murdo.

Picture below:

I’m sitting on the far left. I’m wearing a white blouse and shorts. Lois is sitting in front of her mother, Marce. My mother is next to Marce, on the far right. She is wearing a dress with a white collar and red shoes. Lois and I are wearing identical white shoes. We were both supposed to be flower girls in a wedding, but Mom said we weren’t going so they got somebody else. Then Mom changed her mind. I got to keep the shoes.

That was a game changer for me. Did I take her shoes back to her? No, I didn’t. I remember as if it was yesterday, taking my pink shoes as close as I could to the moving van parked in front of their house. I never went back to see if she saw them and took them with her, but my conscience wasn’t happy with the rationalization I had come up with, and I never could wear the shoes I had coveted and kept.

Through the years, I spread my coveting around. I thought “so and so” had a better family, nicer house, or…excelled at things I thought I never could or would. It wasn’t until I wrote about Connie in the Murdo Girl stories, that I discovered part of the truth.

“Everyone has their cross to bear.” Mom always said this when I complained about some family problems I thought none of my friends had to deal with. I thought I was the only one in the little town of Murdo who didn’t have the perfect family…

I was wrong and Mom was right.

The fact that I wanted to be “Connie like,” makes so much more sense to me, now. Connie Jackson was an unassuming high school girl who didn’t need the idolatry of anyone else to validate who she was. Looking back, I realize it wasn’t her clothes or her hair that I envied. It was the fact that she didn’t need the attention from people like me. That’s what drew me to her.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Some have a strong sense of self and don’t appear to be at all confused about who they are. Other’s self-worth is totally dependent on the admiration of everyone in their world.

Writing Connie’s story was a very enlightening experience for me. I wrote about my desire to be “Connie like” long before I wrote the book, which is about a little girl named Hope.

Connie Jackson’s brother, Eddie, wrote stories about the experiences he and his sister had while going to a country school and what it was like to move to town when Connie started high school. Many readers loved the true experiences he wrote about. I graduated from high school with Eddie, but hadn’t seen or talked to him for over forty years, before we collaborated on the book.

Writing Connie’s Story affected me in another way I hadn’t expected. I recently re-read the book and I felt all of the emotions Hope did. She experienced feelings most people struggle with…fear, loneliness, confusion and the sadness that can eclipse happiness and security. Hope didn’t know who to trust. She didn’t know what a happy family looked like, but in the end she got exactly what she needed. She was one of the fortunate. She recognized the good in her life didn’t have to be like the storybook version.

There are other ways Connie’s Story parallels with my story. Hope lived in Murdo, SD…my hometown. Her grandparents lived south of Highway 16, as did mine. There were two apartments above Sanderson’s Store which in real life was owned by my Grandfather and then my Uncle, Jeff. The businesses on Main Street were as I remembered them when I grew up there.

I had a Great Aunt Grace who kept her little black flats on with a wide rubber band. She never lived in Murdo. I’m grateful I got to spend some time with her after we moved to Texas. Uncle Jeff Sanderson told me she lived in Dallas and I must look her up. Grace outlived her husband, son, and daughter. The only family she had left was her grandson.

Aunt Grace was a hoot! Like her sister, (Grandma Mary), she wasn’t more than five feet tall and weighed less than a hundred pounds, but she remained strong in spite of and because of all she had endured.

Many Connies have shown up in my life. My grandmother on my dad’s side was by all accounts a strong and wise woman. Her name was Constance Abbie Francis. She became a widow when she was in her thirties and was left with a couple of hardware stores and three very young boys. My cousin, Abby, (spelled differently), was named after our Francis grandmother, and I was named after both of my grandmothers…Mary Sanderson and Constance Francis. Constance is my middle name.

Content Abbie Bottom Francis Bowers. (she changed her name from Content to Constance

Mary Tyrrell Sanderson

A few years after Mom died her sister, Helen, passed away. Her daughter shared with me that one night, she heard her mother having a conversation with my mother. Helen kept opening the door to let the angels in and out. My cousin also said she had heard her mom talking to someone named Connie. After reading Connie’s story in my Murdo Girl blog, she asked me if there was a connection.

Could all of the Connie Angels be merely coincidences? I will let you come to your own conclusions, but I believe Connie’s story evolved as it did for all of us to learn from. I don’t write like an expert. All of my thoughts and feelings don’t transfer into words as readily as they do to more experienced writers, but I have learned about myself and my beliefs by sharing my stories with you. I owe you all a debt of gratitude.

There must be a strong bond between those who have passed before us, and those who are still living, that cannot be broken. We can still feel the comforting connection to those we won’t see again in this life. Whether they are family, friends, or people we never knew… If they had a profound and positive effect on our lives, they will remain in our hearts forever. Likewise, we can hope that we will live in the hearts of those we have spent our lives loving. We are forever connected, forever family, forever friends.

https://g.co/kgs/ekbUEd 

My Angel by Kellie Pickler about the grandmother she loved

You, (or it), are, (or is), driving me to distraction.!! I can still hear Mom say this…her hazel eyes flashing. Everything Mom did was fast. She power walked before it became popular. If I hoped to get a little more sleep on Saturday mornings, my hopes were always dashed. I could hear Mom walking from the kitchen to the laundry area of our basement house, which had a tile floor. Clomp, clomp, clomp… back and forth she went. She wasn’t doing it to disturb me. That’s how she walked. She would find one piece of laundry and walk to the washing machine to throw it in, wash a few dishes and then go into the living room to grab her coffee cup. She might take a couple of puffs of her Salem cigarette, but could rarely sit down long enough to smoke the whole thing.

Eventually, it would start to bug her that I hadn’t gotten up yet. She would stand in the doorway of my bedroom off the kitchen and flip the light on and off a few times before she said, “Rise and Shine!!”

This was my mother, who got many of her mothering tips from Ann Landers or a friend that had read Ann Landers. I wrote about the afternoon  I got home from school just in time to change, grab a bite to eat, and get to the auditorium for the basketball game? I walked into my room and everything in my closet was now on the floor, and everything in my dresser drawers was thrown onto the unmade bed. Mom was right behind me, arms folded. She informed me that so and so had read Ann Landers and she said if your teenager refused to keep his or her room clean, you should throw everything on the floor and tell them they can’t leave until everything was neatly put away.

I cried and she caved, but it was all waiting for me when I got home. The older I get, the more I’m like my mother, only a couple of octaves lower.

My brother, Billy, and I are seven and a half years apart in age. I was in the fourth grade when he left for California to go to work and attend college. Most of our dad’s family lived out there and he lived with them for a while. Our Uncle got Billy a job parking cars for the Dodgers. Little did he know that he would spend the next fifty some years of his life in the parking industry. He is finally going to retire the end of this month. He has been a little nervous about retirement. We’re all just going to hide and watch.

Billy and I didn’t spend long periods of time together after he left for college, and I think we both felt a little like only children. When we were together, he would say, “Do you know what my mother said or what my dad did?” I sometimes said, “Hey, it’s our mother and our father.”

Billy and I are really close now. I can’t wait to see Gus and him and of course, cousin Valerie and Ken in Arizona in a couple of weeks. We’ll all be there for the Jones County reunion.

I have no idea how I got off on the subject of my mother, though I shouldn’t be surprised. She has a firm place in my head all the time.

On to other things…

Kip and I left our house about seven-thirty this morning to check out the lots we had uncovered with the realtor, yesterday. The first one was too far away, but we decided to look at it anyway. We took the dogs with us, and apparently they hadn’t gone to the bathroom before we left and were getting kind of antsy. We pulled off the road and let them run around a bit. That’s how we got the jeep stuck.

I know it doesn’t look like we’re stuck, but the tires just kept spinning. We were trying to back up. The second photo is Kip walking downhill to the road to make sure there was no quicksand to get into. I ended up pushing a little and we made it. The lot wasn’t an option anyway, the subdivision doesn’t allow tiny homes.

They do, however, allow people to put a propane tank on their front porch. The little mother-in-law suite next door looks like it could be having some foundation issues.

My tiny home and I will not go where we’re not wanted. They would rather have a house like that in the neighborhood, than this:

This is the Meadow View. You have seen it before in the blog, but I keep coming back to the wrap around deck, two doors to the outside and the outdoor fireplace. After you pick your floor plan, which we haven’t, there are still so many choices on the inside. Here are some pics of the same model, and the same floor plan, but the colors and staging make it look very different.

The island counter is on wheels so it can be moved out-of-the-way or face another directio

I like the stone walk- in shower, below. We can switch it out, but if it requires more space, it has to come from the kitchen or bedroom.

I took some other pictures of lots, but we don’t know the story on them, yet. Our realtor said he would get with us tomorrow after he does some research. In the meantime, I’m rather enjoying our “small home.”

See, I’m a lot like Mom. I jump around a lot and sometimes I have a difficult time finishing what I started…makes me smile, but it drives others to distraction.

You all haven’t been much help in deciding which model tiny home you like best. That’s okay…we have a little time, but once we get the lot, I think it will be downhill from there.

Kip and I met with the real estate agent who was recommended by the tiny home salesman. He is a super nice guy, energetic, and fun. He gathered information, gave us suggestions, showed us satellite views of lots that are for sale, but not listed. They’re called pocket listings. This guy would make a great detective. It won’t be easy to find what we need, but if anyone can do it, he can. Kip and I are going in the morning to look at some possibilities he gave us. I really believe the McNinch TH1 will happen in my lifetime.

Now…what do you need from me to facilitate a final favorite tiny home? Would you like more model choices or more pictures of different styles of the floor plans you have seen. We can alter some things as long as it doesn’t affect the square footage.

Oh fudge…Here are two more models to look at.

The Berry

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See the stairway in the floor plan? It would not be there because we are not going to have a loft. Without the stairway, we could make the bedroom larger.

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You can’t see the walls clearly in these photos, but the walls are rustic side boards painted white. There would be an electric fireplace on the wall with the television above. The kitchen is across from the couch.

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The shower door is not a sliding door. It pulls open. There is a door to the bathroom from the bedroom and another into the hall.

The Mountainview

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The Mountainview is wider and shorter than any of the others, giving it a square design, There is no loft. The space between the bedroom and bathroom is a closet,

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The kitchen…you can see the open barn door to the bedroom. The living room is separated from the kitchen by a long bar,

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Kitchen from another angle…and the bedroom.

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The bathroom – you can see on the floor plan, there is no door from the bedroom to the bathroom. That wouldn’t bother me. Two doors can be a hassle.

If you want me to, I can show more pictures of the three faves we all chose from previous photographs. Tell me in your comments and I will add them tomorrow as well as the lots we will see in the morning.

The Bishop 2

The Meadowview

The Trinica

Remember where the floor plan shows stairs to a loft, there will be added floor space to the living room or bedroom because we aren’t going to have a loft. There is a space for a washer and dryer in all of the floor plans. The ceilings will be vaulted throughout.

We will be busy little bee’s tomorrow. We will be cleaning and staging the sun room tomorrow too. I’ll show pictures of the “small home” soon, while it’s still clean,