My youngest is much easier than the older 2 were...

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I remember when gas was $.25 a gallon when I got my driver's license and first car.

The first car my dad had was a LaSalle with running boards. After that, he bought all Hudsons and then Ramblers. He never owned a Chevy.

My first car was a ི Chevy, green and White, that my dad paid $12 for (cost of the tag). My uncle gave it to him and was a stick shift. I never drove an automatic until I was 20 and bought my own car with my own money. I paid $1500 for a ྀ Rambler Classic, 4 door (my first 4 door, too) in turquoise blue. My dad was mad because I didn't pick the Navy blue and white stick shift Rambler because it was cheaper.

My allowance was $1.50 a week and to make money, I chauffered all my friends around plus to school and back for $.25 a week.

And, I just turned another year older on Monday. Ugh! Thank heavens, no one in my family wished me HB. I quit counting 20 years ago.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners: men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall and straight, and unwavering, they pledged: For the support of the declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books told you a lot of what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government!

Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't. So take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.

Today our youngest finally got her first car. DH and I bought it for her a few months ago and have been slowly fixing it up in anticipation of her getting her license. So today we finally gave it to her. Hubby went and got it insured and titled before he left for the week. He stopped in at the bank to tell me he'd gotten it all taken care of, and mentioned he was going to take the extra set of keys with him so they'd be safe. I said "No, you know she's going to lock the keys IN her car and need us to rescue her! Please leave them home where I can find them."

A couple hours ago DD called "Mom, is there another set of keys for my car?"
"Yes, why?"

giving fluids, tylenol/ibu., a clean bucket. Went to church this morning to teach a class, and now I'm working.

But, it's not all bad...He's finally sleeping soundly. I normally work on my company desktop, but today, hooked up my laptop and sitting outside by the pool, overlooking the gorgeous water, working away doing ASR with my candles nearby....

Now, who can complain about going to work after a long night when you can work like tihs? Not me.

How come a guy can waltz in and land the high-paying job without a degree, yet the woman has to have the proof of degree in hand, the multiple references (which with us are ALWAYS checked--men hardly ever), and the johnny-on-the-spot answers to such stupid-ass questions as, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" ...all for a job (whether it's this field or whatever) with crappy benefits and crappy pay and even crappier treatment when you want time to also do the most noble thing of all and be a mother.

When we lived in the city, we let both of our cats out on leashes but they wore harnesses, mainly so they couldn't slip loose. They did start out as kittens with them though, not as adult cats. They would hear me jingle their leashes and harnesses and come RUNNING to be tied outside to the little backyard there. They absolutely loved it and the worst that would happen is they would get tangled to each other and around a bush. I was always around to supervise though...usually enjoying morning coffee out on the back deck listening to the thumping cars and sirened-vehicles drive by. Man do I miss the city--NOT!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways.. yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in he*ll I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a dam n Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the dam n library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the dam n record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

And talk of about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to steal it from your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options!

We didn't have fancy c rap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Play Station video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked a$$! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just SC rewed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!
You were sc rewed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your a$$ and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! W e had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-s!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up. We had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupi*d JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idio*t.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

I remember all those commercials. Ipana toothpaste. And which toothpaste had Gardol that would bounce baseballs off its force field? LOL And the whiny voice of the little girl in the Shake & Bake commercial - "And Ah heyulped!"

That one drove me crazy!

Remember the Clairol commercials with the beautiful hair? And all the people gathered on the hillside singing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke...." And Herbal Essence shampoo commercials? And what was that shampoo that was in a bottle like a green stem and had a top like a yellow flower? I don't think it was Herbal Essence.