Hey y'all.   I'm back!
(Forum Police: for your own good, read no further)
     
Man, no one ever told me about all the services these French maids offer... and they work for next to nothing!  I started out with two working part time but now I've hired three more.  They all live here in the house and work full time.  Life is GREAT!!!  You guys are right, they don't speak a word of English but communication has not been a problem.  Stamina has been a problem.  I'm not worried though.  I've got them taking vitamins and working out.  I can already tell their stamina is improving. 

Cyndie, being the class act that I am I will not post what Gigi's for English words were.  I will email you them.  Danielle and Desiree are also picking up certain phrases but sometimes use them in the wrong context or in front of mixed company.  Megane and Sophie are really shy and tend just giggle a lot. 

The only downside to all this is that Mona packed up her bags and left me.  Imagine that.  After all these years and all the good times we've had!  At least she took the dog. 

Oops, it's getting late.  I must stop now.  It's time for my evening bath and massage before bed. 
Did I mention that life is great? 
   
             

Hey Brenda,

One quick post before I go....  

Yes, Becky and I are cousins.  Been that way all our lives.  What made you think it was going to be me she was kin to before she said?  Maybe she told you years ago in college?

My Lindsey and her Brooke met up at UCA when they were in school.  They had several classes together and somehow the name Copeland came up and Brooke said she was kin to some Copeland's.  The rest is history.  Small world as they say.

Becky told me the exact same story about the kids at UCA (so I guess that means it's true).  I also said that maybe one of my brain-marbles from college may have told me that.  Who knows?

Sorry about Mona and the dog leaving!  Can't say that I blame her!!  (You do realize this is how rumors get started, don't you?)

David, sounds like Ricky might need some help.  You better head out to Maumelle and rescue him.

Ricky, I'm so sorry to hear about Mona.  Maybe you should have gotten her a couple of really good looking pool boys. Pool not required.

Uh, who do you think she left with?   

Copeland, Your back and full force!  I told you to leave those french maids alone.  Mona called and said she his hiring a butler, gardener, driver and personal exercise boy.  Look out!  The french maids will be going for them.  They are all young and buffed.  Sorry Rick!

Excuse me, but could anyone tell me the whereabouts of Dana and Cyndie? 

Dana has pretty much abandoned us the last month or so.  She took over as head hauncho at work and I guess they took her computer away from her.  You know management doesn't really do anything.  She should be on there all day, Mon-Fri., 8:20 to 4:10.  (she comes in late and leaves early to make up for it)

And then there is little Cyndie Massey.  Little blonde Cyndie Massey.  She was signed on once about a week ago, but nothing but silence since.  My guess on her is she's either forgot how to get on the forum or has forgotten that we even have a forum.  I can just see her sitting down in front of her PC, starring at it and wondering why she's there. 

She once told me about accidently starting a grease fire in her kitchen and quickly calling 911.  The 911 operator asked, "ok, how do the firemen get there?" to which Cyndie replied, "well duh, in their big red fire truck".  True story, I swear.

Laughter, Laughter, Laughter!  That is so funny about Cyndie.  I guess Dana has moved on up!  We are below her now.
Sure miss all the fun with Dana!
Cyndie is a hoot and maybe she will figure out where the forum is.

I guess we will just have to pick on Brenda, Barbara, Rita, Donna, or anyone else that you can think of.

Since my post about David's chain gang term,  I have logged on but have not contributed.
Poor little blonde me has been suffering from a somewhat mild case of food poisoning since Wednesday morning.  (Sympathy please!)  Although I am almost back to what I consider normal, I will still gladly accept any cards, letters, flowers or candy that anyone wishes to send.

I won't name any restaurants but I WILL NOT be eating any chicken that I have not personally prepared myself.  I drove to Little Rock to pick up our oldest grandson's b'day present and left parts of my previous evening's dinner in various places around the city.  Darryel and an employee had to come and rescue me.  Thank God he wanted me around bad enough to do it.  I could still be huddled in my car waiting on some kind soul to take pity on me.  FYI it is not that easy for even a small person to lay down in a 'vette.  

Anyway, Ricky, I am home.  I do stare at the monitor from time to time, but mainly until I can figure out just what to say to you after all you kind comments.  I could have my feelings hurt, but deep down I know just how much you love me.

Sorry to hear about your illness.  I know how you feel.  I had salmon at a restaurant while traveling once and well, let me just say it was not a pretty picture.
Glad you are feeling much better. 
Did you really tell the 911 operator that the fireman would get to your house in a fire truck?

I'm hanging around, no doubt!  It is true that I've been swamped and putting out fires, but I do still check in.  Work has been--well-- it rhymes with well, but not to worry--work is only a "thing" and a silly, "way down on the list" "thing" at that!  

The arrival of my baby is getting closer every day and I thank my Creator for this pending gift.  I love life!!

My better half and I have been working on our new addition on the weekends, and today I stacked about 50 to 60 bales of wheat straw since we have a passive solar, straw bale and adobe house and of course the addtion matches the rest of "mi casa."

This will stir up some stuff with the Rev--next weekend I am going to go to a Pueblo sweat for a cleansing/healing ceremony and expect a glimpse and vision of what is ahead for me. 

Mr. Copeland, you and Miss Mona need to stay away from the French Maids and the Yard Boys.  I hear they're nothing but trouble, and you never know where they've been!!  Yuck!!! 

Cyndie, I'm sorry you got sick and I really hate that seems to happen so much now.  That is one reason I never eat out.  I refuse to eat something that I didn't see prepared.  Isn't it amazing how many people get sick after eating out.  We trust that they are following established standards, but unforturately, this doesn't always happen.

I will spare all of you my thoughts about the food--well, actually, no I won't--Isn't it amazing what  we have to put in our bodies not knowing what happens to that beef, pork, chichen before we actually take that first bite.  I was raised in part by my grandparents who raised all of their own food including meat products, so I can taste the difference between store bought chicken and a hen that I watched my grandmother "wring" and then fry. 

Needless to say, my spouse and I  only eat local, fresh and grain fed meat.  My eggs come from my son's chickens and I raise my own veggies.  Will I live longer??? Who knows, but I do know that I'm not consuming rodent hair, any type of human fluids, added hormones, or the remains of some cow that they beat and forced to stumble through the line, so he/she could be used for that Wendy's hamburger.  I see the cattle I eat grazing when I drive to work.

Cyndie, this is my soapbox for sure and it really touches a nerve for me. 

Anyway, hope you all have a great time when you get together.  Have fun and be safe!!!  Especially you Copeland.

David, David, David.  Just how else would the firemen get to a person's house?  I would certainly hope they came on the firetruck. I want them to have all that equipment to put out the fire.  Any properly trained 911 operator should know that.

Dana, thanks for the sermon!
Good to see you back.
I agree with you on the food source.
We freeze all of our fresh veggies.

This article was on page 1B of this morning's Arkansas Democrat Gazette. The title caught my eye because if Winona Gray (class of '72) and I were in the same class starting in first grade at Smith Elementary, 'alphabetical order' always had us sitting by each other.
 
When Darryel and I got married we lived right across the street from Winona and Robert. Robert worked for my dad. Later on in grade school Bryce and her son Phillip were friends.  I saw Phillip just a couple of weeks ago but did not get to ask about her because he was playing in a band at a block party at our church and I didn't want to cause a scene interupting the performance.
 
Anyway, here is the article.  Makes me really really wish I had made a point to talk to Phillip. 
 

SWEET TEA: WIN-ona will be the one in pink

By Jay Grelen
LITTLE ROCK — Winona Anderson - that’s WIN-ona, if you please, not WY-nona - will be the woman on the football field waving back to Bradie James, No. 56.
“I’ll be looking for you,” the 6-foot-2 Dallas Cowboys linebacker promised when she met him at the Dallas Race for the Cure, “and I’m going to be waving.”
If that doesn’t distinguish her from the 99 others in pink T-shirts in today’s halftime show during the Dallas-Atlanta game on Fox, look for the woman with shoulderlength brown hair and a white handkerchief, which belonged to her late husband, tied to her left wrist.
Winona lives near Fort Worth but still talks like she is from Malvern. After a bilateral mastectomy in 2007, she is beating breast cancer, which is why she will walk onto the field today as part of the Cowboys’ Breast Cancer Awareness game.
The cancer is as much a mark of her courage as it is a battle, Phillip Taylor noted in an e-mail to us. In a period of nine months in the early 1990s, Winona’s father and grandfather died, and doctors found cancer in her husband’s colon. Winona, Phillip wrote, “was diagnosed with cancer two years ago and has been dealing with the emotional and physical pain of recovery. She lost her husband to cancer 17 years ago. ... She is also my mother.”
Phillip was 17 when his father died, his kid brother, Brandon, was 14.
Winona and Robert Taylor grew up in Malvern. She married him when she was 19. At 38, she was a widow.
Winona lived in Malvern the first 41 years of her life. After a year of sitting home, she met David Anderson at a church function, and they spent the first eight years of their marriage in Hot Springs. His job then took them to Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama (briefly) and to Texas, which was in 2006, the year Winona discovered a lump in her breast. She waited a year before she told a doctor.
Winona strongly advises you to do as she says and not as she did: Don’t wait.
Her surgery was Sept. 11, 2007.
Winona and the other 99 survivors of breast cancer will carry a Texassize pink ribbon onto the field. This will be Winona’s second visit to the new stadium. She and her husband attended the Razorbacks’ barbecuing of Texas A&M.
“It was great to be sitting up there with all the red around us,” she says.
She has left Arkansas for the time, but she is still an Arkie.
“I still have an Arkansas [cell phone] number,” she says. “I’m not going to give that up.”

Wow!  What an article.  God keep all our classmates well!  Amen!

Just curious if any other classmates got their haircut by Diffie Denton who just past away this week. He cut my hair for as long as I remember. (if I wanted it short) He was a great friend and loved to wade streams for smallmouth bass and golf, so we had alot to talk about. I guess like women enjoy the beauty shops, I enjoy going to the barber shop and listen to the old men. Hunting, fishing, Razorbacks, Leopards or just weather. Jokes were told, and everyone cut each other down and just a great place for manly conversation. I will miss Diffie. He was just a around good guy. You could tell him how you wanted your hair cut as long as you like the way he cut it. Here's to you Diffie, I LOVE YOU MAN!

Nice story about your barber, David.  I know you will miss him.  We lost a lifelong close friend this week, too.  It's really been a difficult week.  This person was almost as close as a "second dad" to us (and would discipline us like a dad if we needed it!).  He was an extremely strong Christian role model for everyone who knew him.  I'm tearing up just trying to write this.  He will be sorely missed!

I loved the story Cyndie posted about Winona.  I knew of the story of her first husband, but I hadn't heard about her cancer.  What an inspiration! 

David P. I think my dad got his hair cut there.  It is hard to see people who have been part of our lives pass on and I love the tribute you gave to Diffie.  I can just imagine you in there with all those guys laughing and enjoying each other.  Peace to you!

Thanks Brenda, Sorry about your friend. This crapp is going to happen to us more often. Better than it happening to EVERY BODY ELSE though.