For Rebecca In Ambler PA

Because I know you love blue.....

When I saw these I couldn't help but think of your MWB's.

See, you inspired me.

Remembrance of Another

Randy was one of my very best friends.

I knew him for over twenty years.

He and my best friend Jennifer had  a son together.

The photo above was taken in 2005 by my husband.

I thought I was ready to tell Randy's whole story and what led up to his suicide

but I guess I'm not ready to tell the world even though I have talked about it to others.

The following is only part of the story.

Randy was in town with his dad and his son and My husband and I picked Randy up and took him out for drinks.  He stayed the night at our house and during his visit he took me outside and told me something in confidence. Randy sent me this card shortly after that night.

He was such a wonderful and generous person, always thinking of others.

Every Monday night we would talk on the phone while the TV show, Prison Break was on

and we would discuss the plot and the characters, etc. 

We both loved that show.

Randy was a phenomenal drummer, a gifted artist, a skilled carpenter and a business owner.

He wasn't the greatest speller, but that doesn't matter.

He trusted every one he came in contact with and befriended them as well.

He was loyal and funny.

But most of all he loved his boy, Tyler.

He was a really great dad.

Just a few days before his suicide,

he had called me and told me that he had come close to killing himself a few days before.

If it hadn't been for Jennifer calling him at that very moment

he would have drowned himself in the tub.

We talked for a long time on the phone and I was so worried about him.

He thanked me for being such a great friend and that I had really helped him.

But my instincts kicked in.

I called my friend Cari, who just happened to be in Bakersfield visiting her mom

and begged her to go to Randy's house because I was afraid he was going to do something.

She went.  And all was well.  On that night anyway.

Four days later I got the news.

My mom called me at my office and when I heard I just broke down.

I was so sad but I was also very mad at him.

He killed himself the night before his son's high school graduation.

My best friend Jennifer really took it hard.

Randy was her first love, the father of her son.

Tyler, bless his heart walked across the stage and got his diploma with his head held high.

Randy was in a lot of emotional pain and it was too much for him to handle.

I have accepted that he wasn't thinking becuase if he was, he never would have left Tyler like he did.

Randy, Tyler and Jennifer circa 1989

Randy and JarieLyn circa 2005

I miss my friend's laughter.

Remembering the Philpott Family........Friday shoot out.

Meet the Philpott's. 

These are my great grandparents, William J. Philpott,  Ela Philpott and my grandfather Clarence (Phil) Philpott, and his sister Ruth Philpott.

This week's theme for the Friday Shoot Out was suggested by ChefE. 

She chose the subject of  Rememberance.  If you are interested in participating you can add a link to your blog by clicking here.

I struggled with what to post because I have lost so many loved ones.

I decided to focus on my dad's side of the family because I've already talked about my maternal grandparents and how much I miss them and of course I am remembering them as I write.

I don't think I've ever really mentioned my dad's side of the family.

All I can say is that there isn't anyone left on my dad's immediate side of the family.

I have one cousin and my siblings left. 

That's it. 

My dad and his two brothers and my grandfather all died at fairly young ages from various cancers.

My dad's real mother, Roberta, whom I only met once also died from cancer.

Let's start with my grandpa Phil.

This photo was taken in 1977, probably at Lake Mead.

He and my grandma Nellie were avid fishermen and they loved camping out at lake mead.

I really loved my grandpa a lot.  He was always kind and generous.

What I remember about him is when we would come to visit he would always take us to the store.

We had our choice of the big store, which was a store named Grants or the country store which was just a little store where we would buy candy, etc.

Grandpa loved Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man.

I liked hearing him laugh at the jokes on TV.

I also recall him looking through the stock pages of the newspaper and doing the crossword puzzles. 

He was a good man.

He died from Lung Cancer and was buried on my 20th birthday. (1984)

Next....meet my uncle Roy.  He is the oldest of the boys.

Uncle Roy was the first one diagnosed with cancer.

I'm not sure exactly, but I think he died while I was still in high school.

When I was a kid I had a crush on him.

I thought he was so cute.

Uncle Roy was also a health nut.

I remember him drinking powdered milk and adding wheat germ to just about everything he ate.

He loved his daughter. (s)  He was also step dad to my cousin Tammy who is my age.

Sarah is the same age as my youngest brother which would make her 32 now.

Uncle Roy was very intelligent and artistic and he also mined for gold on a regular basis.

I remember the last Christmas gift I got from him was a baby love's so soft body spray.

Isn't it funny the things we remember.

I also recall he really liked Olivia Newton John.

Next is my uncle Bob. He is the youngest of the brothers.

This photo was taken in 1977 and was probably taken at Lake Mead.

I was pretty close to him once I became an adult.

Uncle Bob was a wild one when he was young.

When he was 18 years old he was out partying with some friends and their car rolled into a canyon.

I know at least one of the persons died and my uncle ended up paralyzed, so ever since I was born he was in a wheel chair.  It seemed perfectly normal to me.

He always said that if he hadn't ended up in a wheel chair that he probably would have ended up in prison.

Uncle Bob was also very artistic and generous.

I have so many memories of him.

He was also a humanitarian and he cared greatly for people and animals.

He has been in the newspaper several times for his good work.

The newspaper photos were taken in the 90's except for this last one.  It was taken some time in the 80's.

My uncle Bob was also a musician.

He used to be in a band and he often played at party events for the mentally retarded.

My grandparents on my mom's side owned a care home and so we often got to go these parties

where my uncle was playing.  It really was a lot of fun.

One night, my uncle talked my sister and I into singing a song at one of the parties.

We sang, Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Some by BJ Thomas.

We were horrible, especially me but everyone loved us anyway.

I miss my Uncle.

My uncle was also a diabetic and later in life became a double amputee.

He died from leukemia and infection due to his diabetes.

Meet my dad.....Jerry Leon Philpott. 

In case you haven't noticed yet, I was named after him.

What?

You can't see him?

Click on the photo and look in the second row from the bottom fourth person from the left.

That's my dad.

He's 31 year's old in the picture above.  My brother looks just like him.

My sister, my brother and myself all have the Philpott nose.

My dad died just four days after his 53rd birthday.

He struggled with cancer for a long time.

The following is an article that his pastor friend wrote about him.  It was published in The Covenant Companion.

Click on the image to read about my dad. It's a really good article.

My brother and my dad at my brother's high school graduation.  1986.

This is one of my favorite pictures.

My dad was an alcoholic.

He had been sober for years and years when he died.

He also really loved mortorcycle racing and car racing.

He raced motorcycles when he was really young.

He started racing stock cars in the 1980's.

I loved going out to the track and watching him race.  It was so much fun.

I have some of his trophies at my house.

I really miss my dad.  He was so funny.  He reminded of a cross between Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, and Bob Eubanks. He didn't have a foul mouth like Richard Pryor though.

My dad loved animals too and raised rabbits at one point, had four dogs all named after a Burt Reynolds Character.  There was Hooper, Bandit and I can't remember the other two.

My dad loved to golf.

He was a building contractor by trade and he was a perfectionist.

His work was excellent and so was his work ethic.

Every house he lived in he built himself.

I have his construction calculator.

I also have his wallet, his driver's license, his debit card

and a few other personal items.

So whenever I'm missing him, I go sit in my closet and go through the box of hundreds of pictures that I have or I'll go through his yearbook and read what people wrote to him.

Below is a family bible that belonged to grandma and grandpa.

 I guess the reason I chose to write about the Philpott family is because of it's health history.

Today, as I write this my sister is in the hospital having surgery.

This is her second fight with cancer.

This time it was uterine cancer and she had to have a full hysterectomy.

She went in to surgery at 5:00 this morning and the surgery took five hours.

When I talked to my mom and to my brother-in-law just a couple of hours ago, they said she was still in recovery and probably would be for awhile.

I feel like I'm leaving something out even though I posted quite a bit.

Tomorrow I plan to post a remembrance of one of my best friends.

Please keep my sister in your thoughts.

I will be forever grateful.

Thanks for stopping by and reading though my memories.

I really could have gone on and on.

I have so many pictures from the 1800's and the early 1900's.

Someday I will post some of those.

Breakfast

I discovered Chocolate Cheerios just over a month ago.

It's my latest food addiction.

It satisfies my chocolate craving and it's good for me.

I eat them for breakfast, sometimes for lunch too

and if I am having a chocolate fit in the evening I'll eat them as a snack.

But I never over indulge at one time.

I'm learning to cut my food portions way down.

I've always been proud that I was a voracious eater,

and not one of those finicky girls who doesn't eat more than lettuce when she's out with a guy.

But times they are a changing and we weren't designed to eat more than a fistful of food at any given time.

That's the hardest thing to change and I haven't gotten there yet, but I have shortened my portions.

Some things I won't give up though.

Maybe I'll tell you about it some time.

Imported Water

I was going to use this photo in my Town Plaza post for Friday Shoot Out

but as you all know.....

I never posted that week.

 

I wonder where it's imported from?

Chasing the moon....

Earlier tonight I took my dog for a ride.

As we backed out of the drive way, I noticed this incredible full moon.

I didn't have my camera with me,

but I chased the moon turning this corner and that corner so that I could see it from different angles.

I swear, this is the biggest moon I've seen in a long while.

When I got home I got my tripod out and I took it and my camera outside to shoot the moon.

I played with various apertures and shutter speeds and two different lenses.

I got a couple of double vision moons that I think look kind of cool.

My husband doesn't like the double moon because it's not perfect.

But I think that's what I like about it.

It makes it more interesting to me.

I like a little imperfection now and then.

But then, I got a shot with more detail and more perfection but the sky around it is so dark.

It seems a little bland to me.

There's one that glows and is almost a double exposure and it is surrounded by clouds.

That is my favorite.

Which one do you like?

I really do like this last one.

It's as if the clouds are ready to swallow it up.

I'm Back and Out of My Funk and Excited To Be Blogging Again

I've been in this funk lately where I haven't been interested in doing anything.

I haven't blogged in a couple of  weeks.

I haven't even been playing with my camera since the scavenger hunt.

I think I just needed a break.

As some of you may know,

 I joined Curves awhile back and I have been quite busy at the gym

working out four days a week.

It's not that I am overweight or anything like that but I am out of shape

and much too soft.

I am pleased to say that I've already lost a total of 4 1/2 inches just in February.

I love competition and this month at the gym we are having a contest

for the most inches lost, most dedicated, most weight lost, etc.

So, I signed up and I am going to work my tail off to lose more inches.

Pun Intended.

Speaking of competions.......

I finally entered some of my photos in the print competition this month

and one of my prints one a third place ribbon.

Even though it scored high enough for a blue ribbon

there were other photographers who scored the same amount of points

and so when the judges scored for placement mine ended up third.

I am extremely excited about this and I did so much better than I anticipated.

I was scared and almost embarrassed to enter my photos when I saw how outstanding some of the others were.

But I faced my fear and just did it.

I am so proud of myself.

The funny thing is......

The burro was my least favorite picture that I entered.

My favorite entry is the one that scored the least amount of points.

The good thing is that I did not score below a 22 on any of my prints.

I think I may be bragging just a little bit.

Forgive me if my head gets too big.

The photo I entered in the Club Challenge Category "The Road Ahead" Scored pretty well also.

The highest score you can get is 27.

Even though I scored well, I still did not get a ribbon because there were just too many entrants with a score of 25, 24 and 23.

I am not disappointed though.

And then my final photo scored a 22 which I am stil very grateful.

I really was quite surprised that I did so well.

I am thinking if I had cropped those tree branches before submitting this,

It would have scored a little higher.  This photo is actually my favorite.

This month was a record setter for amount of prints entered.

There were a total of 107 prints entered. 

Amazing, isn't it?

Okay, so now I'm off to go read all of my favorite blogs because I don't want any of you to think

that I have forgotten about you and that I haven't been thinking about you and wondering what you've all been doing and how you are.  I think about each and every one of you every single day.

That is the truth.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO