It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

Good Morning Campers!!

It's a lovely chilly morning here in Florida..our tree is up and the outside decorations are done..the lights are up..today I just need to finish hanging ornaments on the tree and decorate the Florida room. As you know I love Christmas but I'm afraid my hubby is an old scrooge..he really upset me Sunday because he didn't even want to put up lights this year because we are going to England...BUT...we don't leave until the 21st of December!! I want to enjoy the warmth and coziness of my house all decorated...so he and Ryan hung the lights outside but when I went out to look they had just thrown them up..it looked awful..I was so mad! I had to get out of there before I lost it totally...I just don't understand sometimes..I don't ask for a lot..I do absolutely everything around here..if I could hang the lights myself I would have...sometimes I think my husband is really really selfish...he has gotten worse over the years...for the most part i just roll with it but my feelings were hurt Sunday..anyway moving on the house looks great and I am happy...:-)

Only 3 weeks till we go to England..I am really excited..hoping for some snow..ready to visit all my family..do some sight seeing and enjoy all the things I miss from home...the last time we all went as a family was in 2006 and it was marred by our house being broken into..we have since got an alarm system and one of Lester's friends is going to be house sitting..he got divorced and is living in an RV at the moment so I think he will enjoy being in a house for Christmas..he has children too so it will nice for them too..more room...

Things are going well at my job..working retail this time of year is crazy but fun...I am glad I am only doing part time that's for sure..

Hope all is well with you and yours...I am loving the AOL JLand group on FaceBook..maybe I will blog more now...:-)

Thanks for reading... L xx

Happy Birthday in Heaven Mum x

Today would have been my mums 75th birthday.

As you know I did not have the greatest of relationships with my Mum.She was moody, miserable, bitchy a lot of the time. She was also very funny, kind hearted, great with old people..would give you the shirt off her back.. great sense of humour..we once almost got thrown off a bus for the uncontrollable giggles caused by a man sitting opposite us with this huge bandage on his nose..one look at him and her and I were off...it was terrible!! the more we tried to stop the worse it got... LOL She cried at the Walton's and Little House on the Prairie.. she loved dogs..we had a Red Setter called Tramp for 14 years.. she walked him 3 miles every day..sometimes twice...she could do cartwheels, juggle, ride a motorbike, never learned to drive..she tried a few times but always gave up she was way too nervous.. she made Christmas very very special.. she would begin "hoarding" food as early as September..she kept it all under the stairs...she loved Malteasers (English candy similar to whoppers) she smoked..in her later years rolled her own to save money.. I saw her get into at least 3 fist fights with women...she had a terrible temper...one time this girl was after me..said I had been after her boyfriend..my Mum drug her out the pub by her hair and told her she ever so much as looked at me wrong she would be back... ;-) She loved Country and Western music and dancing and slot machines. she was the life and soul of the party and no one would ever believe the way she was at home..she was terrified of Doctors, hospitals and had a morbid fear of choking.. she chewed her food into tiny pieces to avoid that....if we ever got hurt as kids she would go get the neighbours because she would panic......she once knocked two ornaments together while dusting and smashed them and cut her palms badly..she had to have stitches and they pretty much had to put her to sleep to do them..LOL...she was always dusting, hoovering, would come in on a Saturday morning when I was trying to sleep in and open the curtains and the bloody windows and start hoovering around me...LOL.. she would spit on a hanky and wipe off my face as a kid ewwwwwwwwww...she was only just 5' tall..she was one of twins..her twin died at birth..she was born in a workhouse..she only weighed 2lb.. she never met her dad he was an alcoholic and died of Cirrhosis of the liver.. her family was very poor.. she had 2 sisters and 3 brothers...hr real name was Diana but everyone called her babe as she was the youngest.. I once watched her and her sister get into a fight..my dad and my uncle had to separate them with a water hose...LOL.. she was very very passionate... she would defend us kids to the very end...looking back I can see we had far more happy times than sad...but when I reached puberty that was it..we fought on and off for years..she seemed to be jealous of me..she begrudged me the relationship I had with my dad..she felt like it was us against her...the things she said and did to me were awful..she hit me..she calld me all the names under the sun...she hated with the same passion she loved...but at the end of the day I can say that she loved me and she did her best...she grew up in a time when you didn't talk about women's problems, depression was not an option, I know she suffered from it though, and I know she had a terrible time with menopause but never asked for help... and I can admit I was a typical moody teenager. I just wish things could have been different.. I wish we could have had the kind of relationship I have with my daughter... that is the one good thing that came out of it..I was determined to not be the way she was...

Anyways...

No Happy Returns Mum...just happy memories till we meet again..night night God Bless....

Lyn