Cloverfield

The movie has a lot of controversy because the whole film is made on a video camera. I guess a lot of people got sick because the of the motion. I didn't get sick and it didn't bother me at all. I cannot go on rides at a carnival so I thought that it might bother me but it didn't. It was a good movie and kept me entertained through the whole movie. I'll give it a 9.

More Michigan friends

I have a lot of friends from Meijer where I retired from. We always had a good time and still got the work done. I'm including pictures of the girls that I have pictures of. Barbara C., Carol S. and Kathy T., Lisa H., Shirley K. and Evie C. and a picture of all of us at the lunch when I visited them in the summer of 2006. Denise is in the picture, Lori and Cathy J. Shirley Cook, Nancy C. and Lisa M. are missing from the picture. I write regularly to Cathy J and to Carol S. It's so nice to hear from them. I wish the rest would write more often.

dallas and Chuck E Cheese

Jamie and I went to Chuck E Cheese today. Dallas had a good time but when she saw Chuck E Cheese walk into the play area, she went crazy. she followed him all over the place after he gave her the high five. She started to show off for him by dancing

Dallas and Chuck E Cheese

Jamie was getting her nails done today so I took Dallas to Chuck E Cheese. She had fun running around but didn't really want to ride on the rides. A little boy put a coin into the sketch machine and left it. We were standing by it watching. He said that he wanted Dallas to have her picture done so I put her in the booth. Jamie came in so we had another sketch done. They're so cute. Except Jamie was trying to get her face out of the picture and she didn't get all the way out. She looks pretty freaky. Chuck E Cheese came out of the back room and Dallas fell in love with him. She followed him all over the place. It was so cute.

Chemo caps

We delivered caps to both centers this week. They were really happy to get them. We were also in the Allen American newspaper. Really nice article. We are also in the Neighbors Go website in a video. It was a fun week being interviewed, seeing the looks of happiness on people who had our caps on, and just hanging out.

Joyce's Chemo Cap Project

We had a meeting today with Troy Brakefield from the Allen American regarding our project. Joyce was there and a few of the knitters. It was really interesting and fun. He looked at our scrapbook, did a lot of writing and taped us so he could remember what we said. We should be in the Allen American this week or next week. I think that our project is going to really start growing when others start reading about us and either want to start knitting/crocheting or know someone that needs a cap.

Just like out of E.T.

Dallas has a new tent. It's actually a tent that has tubes and another tent for outside but we set the main part up in her room. It's big enough for her to stand in. It has a small mesh window on the side. The other day, I was walking past the room and heard Jamie and Dallas in the tent so I snuck into the room and went up to the little window and looked in. Jamie was singing. She saw me and screamed! The look on her face was so funny. Well, yesterday Dallas was in the tent and I heard Jamie say "I'll be right back, Dallas, I'm going to the bathroom". So I got into the tent with Dallas and told her to be real quiet. Jamie came into the room. I thought that she was going to peek in the front and I'd scare her. I noticed that she was going to the window so I put my face in front on the window. I went "Grrrr". She screamed and I screamed! Her eyes were so big and she jumped back. It was just like in the movie when the little girl saw ET for the first time! I chuckle every time I think of it!

Texas rain storms

Last summer we left the house and the sun was shining. We went a few blocks away so Jamie could tan at the tanning place. Dallas and I waited in the car for her. All of a sudden the clouds started to form. Denny called me and told me to get home because it looked like a storm. Dallas and I waited and we took pictures. It rained but not too long and not to hard. It's funny how it can pour at Denny's house and we'll have sunshine. We'll have hail and he'll have sunshine and we're only a few miles apart. Here's what the storm looked like.

The Kite Runner

Very good movie. It will leave you saying "It's good to be an American!"

Our House

We moved into our house last January, 2007. It's so nice to be in a house instead of an apartment, even though we were in a nice apartment. When we moved in, my dad was with us and had his own room. It was really nice and he loved it. Jamie and Dallas shared a room. Now Jamie is in Grandpa Van Dyke's room and Dallas has her own room. It's really cute and full of toys! Even a tent.
Here are some pictures of our house. The outside is different now since I have a lot of flowers. The picture was taken right after it was built. The picture of the vase of flowers was made by Jamie. She's quite talented and loves making them.

My Favorite Quote

DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK!
I read it on a sign at the antique store. I thought it was so good. Some people think of something and actually believe it to be true.

My Texas Friends

I have a lot of friends in TX. Most of them are from the center. We have a lot of fun together and I enjoy going to lunch or on trips with them. We went to downtown Dallas one day. I'll write another time about our trips. Here are some pictures of some of them. Vivian, Mary, Joyce, Lena and Bruce, Bob R. One of 'old Bob' who is 93 years old. I have to put more pictures in. Donna, Minetta, Thelma for example.

Towns of Texas

Last night I stayed up until midnight, reading about all of the towns in Texas. I only got through the A's for the prairie and lake counties which we live in. It's really interesting. I have a site that lists all of the towns, ghost towns, cemetaries and other interesting things. I read about one town that people would see a ghost of a lady and her baby that were murdered many years ago and was thrown into a well. They were first claimed missing and thought to have left town but after a sighting, they looked in the well and found clothing of the missing lady and baby. I want to go to some of the towns and check them out, especially the towns with unusual names. Many of the towns are no longer there but a cemetary or building still stands. When the weather gets warmer, I think I'm going to start looking at the towns close to us. I love to look at old cemetaries.

Bobcats

The other day while we were sitting, knitting, drinking coffee/tea/sodas one of the men came up to me and said "Hurry, Jan, get your camera. There is a Bobcat outside but Coach is out there trying to chase them away!". I ran to the door and hollered to Coach to get in the center and quit chasing him away! He did come in. We had to go to another room to see the cat before he went into the woods and I didn't have time to grab my camera. There wasn't one but two Bobcats! They walked to the corner of the woods, turned around and went into the woods. I'm going to have to have my camera ready every day from now on. We had a coyote in the back of the center one day too. I don't know why Coach had to chase them away. He'd probably be the kind that would shoot at them if he had a gun! It's bad enough that we're taking all of the wild animal's homes away. Let's leave the animals alone to live in the little wooded areas that they were left with. They're on this earth for a purpose. They're so beautiful to watch. I'd say keep them out of the zoos too. They need room to move and be free, not be put in cages for inhumans to stare at.

Oh, my aching back

I've had a hard time with my back the last three days. It was so hard for me to walk. I don't know what happened but I got up from my chair after working on my computer and WHAM!! I felt a pain in my lower back. Yesterday, Eva, one of our Chinese friends at the center massaged my back and put medicine on it. it felt a lot better. When she was giving me the massage, she told me that I have a bad knee. I never told her about it but she could tell by the way it felt. Today she gave me a second massage. My back is feeling a lot better, not completely but better. Last night I tried one of Denny's Vicadins but it didn't help at all! And, it didn't make me high or anything. Just a little tired.
The temperature is very cold right now and we even had a few snowflakes. Coming from Mi where I saw huge flakes, these were hardly visible. Sure hope it warms up soon.
The center celebrated it's 2 year birthday. Since all of the volunteers were 'fired' for not turning in their ssnums, the staff had to do the work and they were running their butts off.
The editor from the Neighbors Go came and interviewed us about our chemo cap project. Joyce was there with us. Vivian invited the lady from the paper but I'm sure that Leslie tried to take credit for it. Hmmmp, she wouldn't have ever thought about it.

Stay active, girls!

From today's Dallas Morning News:

"The Nun Study is a research is being done on nuns well into their 80s, 90s, and even 100s. The women eat nutritionally and don't smoke or drink. They keep physically active and mentally alert by praying, knitting, listening to music, walking, working in their gardens. Upon their deaths, their brains are autopsied. They're riddled with Alzheimer's, but the nuns didn't show it in life. They kept active. All this stuff doesn't prevent the pathology, but it allows you to keep your function. You can't give that as medicine or as a pill. You have to generate this yourself by what you do or how you are, physically or mentally."

Pictures of Dallas

Everyone asks me if I have pictures of Dallas but I never carry them around with me. I put these on my blog so anyone can look at them. I have a lot of pictures but I like these pictures from Christmas time, 2007. The angel picture is from Halloween.

Lunch with Betty

I went to lunch today with LB and Betty who I used to work with at Raytheon. We had a good visit. I went into the Raytheon office and saw all of the girls that I worked with. It was so good to see them again. I enjoyed working there.

Friends

We have a lot of friends in TX and MI. We see the friends in MI in the summer. I didn't go last year. Denny went to MI by himself. Jamie and I will go there for a week next summer. Here are some of our friends from Sandy Pines. Gloria, Roger, Annette, Kayla, and Shirley. I'll post more when I find them in my library.

Dallas Skye

Dallas is so cute. She just helped me empty the dishwasher. First I take out all of the glassware and the knives. Then she hands me everything one at a time. The silverware included. She's watching the Wiggles now. That's the only time she isn't in here climbing on me! In one of the pictures, the one that she looks so guilty is when I caught her taking the decorations off from the Christmas tree! Our tree was beautiful from the top to three quarters down. After that there was nothing but lights on the tree, no tinsel and no balls. Maybe she'll do better next year.

There Will Be Blood-Movie

We saw 'There Will Be Blood today'. It was a good movie but a lot of people wouldn't want to see it. It was a dark movie involving religion/money. I liked it and LB and the other girls liked it too. The movie was made in Alpine TX. And Marfa is listed in the credits and a few other TX cities.

Extended family

Laurie, or LB as we call her, is my younger sister. I’m seven years older than her. She was the first to move here to the Dallas area. She’s married to Steve. He’s a really nice guy. Oh, she’s nice too! We get along really well. LB, Steve, Denny, Jamie, Dallas and I eat out every Saturday night. LB and I go to the movies every Sunday morning with Janice Brown and Patsy Stagner. If LB and Steve never moved here, we’d probably still be stuck in cold, snowy, Michigan. Thank you, guys! They live in Richardson and it takes me about 15 minutes to get there. That is on Sunday. When I clean their house every other week, it takes me 45 minutes! I don’t take the expressway at that time of day. I’m so glad that we live close now. LB is my only sister left and I’m glad we can share things, laugh and have fun. She and I are going to go to FL at the end of February to visit our cousin, Diane. She’s our oldest cousin and I was born on her birthday. So my middle name is Diane.

Lindsey is Sue’s niece. She moved here a couple of years ago and loves it here. She’s like part of our family. Lindsey goes to college here and works at Bob’s restaurant. When we have get-togethers, Lindsey always joins us. She’s a very nice girl.

Buster and Coco

Buster aka is Denny’s and Sue’s Pug. He’s quite a character. He’ll pretend to fall in the pool if they tell him he can’t go in. He can do a lot of trick including holding a treat on his nose or paw until he’s told he can eat it. When Denny and I go to their house, he’ll run out the door, go right past me and run to Denny. The reason? Denny brings him treats and I don’t. If you ever want your floor really clean, call Buster over. He’s like a miniature vaccum cleaner. He’s a cutie.

Coco is Randy’s and Danielle’s Yorkypoo. He’s a cute little stinker. They brought him here when they came in August. O’Ley chased him around the yard and it was quite funny. I was always afraid of stepping on him.

Sue and Danielle

Sue and Danielle are great assets to the Goble family. I’m sorry, girls, it’s not my fault that they turned out to be the way they are. Blame it on Denny. One thing for sure, you girls and I don’t have that crazy Goble blood flowing through our veins!

Kids and Grandkids

Here are pictures of our family in August 2007. The pictures were taken at Dallas’ birthday party. It has been a long time since everyone was all together. Of course, I couldn’t get Denny, Randy and Jamie to look serious. Well, I guess this is normal for them. We had a good time and got a lot of good pictures. Dallas was one year old on August 27th.

Oley and Willow

My two cats are O’Ley and Willow. Willow is 16 years old, gray with a white stripe down his tail. He was all gray but one summer within a week’s time, his tail turned white like a skunk! He loves my raspberry iced tea. He goes crazy over watermelon, meowing until he gets some. And he has to have ice cubes in his water and he doesn’t like to eat out of a dish that isn’t full.
O’Ley was adopted after my female cat, Baby, the tuxedo cat died. Willow howled every night so we went to Operation Kindness and adopted O’Ley. He’s 9 years old now. He’s cream color (some think he’s white) and has one brown ear and a brown tail. Unlike Willow, who is long haired, O’Ley has short hair. And he also only has three legs! He had a tumor on his left hind leg. The tumor was removed but it grew back. His leg had to be removed before the cancer spread. He gets along great with three legs. He chased Randy’s dog all around the yard this summer. He eats like a dog, chomps anything down in a few mouthfuls. O’Ley is a real loving cat.

My flowers

I enjoy gardening. Not so much the work it entails but the beauty of if when the flowers start to bloom. When we moved into the new house, I couldn’t wait until spring came so I could plant flowers. I planted two Texas Sage first. Then I added a passion flower vine, a rose tree, a crape myrtle tree and a Chinese pistaci tree that I bought from the Allen Arbor Day celebration.
Since then I have a lot of new flowers and, of course, statues and yard art. I also put up a few wind chimes. I love the sounds of wind chimes.
I’m trying to add more vines to my yard. I have a variety of them and I’m anxious for spring to come to see if they come up again. I planted a bean hyacyth vine that really takes off and spreads. We’ll see if I’m a good gardener or not.