The Graduating Class of 1979

                                  
Since I got up the nerve to post my first blog it's almost all I've been able to think about!!  All these thoughts keep running through my mind...... what should I blog about next..... should I tell a funny story about living in the South or talk about one of my many creative and crafty creations??!!!    Or, should I talk about my 1900 Victorian home I'm slowly restoring? Or, should I talk about my new love of karaoke singing??? Maybe I should talk about the joy of raising two children in the South?  I have so much I want to blog about, so where do I start?  

The main thing on my mind right now is my big 32 year class reunion coming up Saturday!!!  Holy cow, have we really been out of high school 32 years?  I must have miscalculated!!  I keep reminding myself that I do have memory loss due to critical spinal cord surgery, so maybe I have forgotten what year I graduated high school.  Well, I am pretty sure it was 1979 and I'm pretty sure that was 32 years ago this past May.  I've calculated and recalculated and it is definitely 32 years ago.  Also, I just turned 50 (yes the big five O) so it has to be true!  Now, I am obsessing over the weight I have gained since surgery and what on earth am I going to wear??!!  I've noticed on facebook that my classmates are looking pretty good.  Are they as ridiculous as me..... worrying about how they look and what to wear?  What if I get there and can't remember names?  Jeez, this is becoming more and more stressful!  I actually thought, as I was watering the flowers and plants earlier, that if I go without eating all week I will look better by Saturday!!  Yes, this is ridiculous and I must stop this thought proceess.

A little over a week ago one of our classmates, Mark, died from Pancreatic Cancer.  It hit me hard and I cried even though I've probably not seen Mark in 10 or 15 years.  It made me realize that the people I went to school with, many of us 1st through 12th grade at East Limestone are a lot like family even though most of us don't talk on a regular basis and most of us haven't seen each other in years.  You know how you have family that you only see every so many years when there is a big family reunion.  They are still family even though you don't talk or see them on a regular basis

I have to tell a funny story (well it wasn' t funny at the time) about my Mama and her class reunion(she was class of 1957).  It was a special thing planned for all the graduating classes at East Limestone.  This was probably around 1977 or so because I was still in high school.  Mama was so excited and she had been on the phone talking to people and had her outfit all picked out.  The morning of the reunion she broke her front tooth.  Yes, her very front tooth!!!  She couldn't get a dentist to fix it that very day so she had to miss her big reunion!  No way was Mama going to a reunion without her front tooth, lol (maybe that is why I am so obsessed with my teeth) I remember how terribly disappointed she was to miss seeing all her classmates.  At home we were relieved when the dentist capped that front tooth and she once again looked like Mama instead of some freak from the swamps!

Hopefully, I will not follow in Mama's footsteps and break my tooth Saturday morning and not be able to go see my classmates!!!  I look forward to seeing all my wonderful friends from all those years ago.

If anyone has good class reunion stories please put them in the comment box for us all to share!!  It would be great if some of my classmates would write in the comment box what they are thinking and feeling about the upcoming reunion.  Please tell me I am not the only crazy one trying to figure out what to wear!! hahahaha
Nanette

P.S.  I haven't forgotten at our 10 year class reunion some of you boys (class of '79)  told me my nickname was secretly Miss Goody Two Shoes all those years agol!!!  Trust me I am living this second half of my life so that nickname no longer fits my feet!! lol

Growing up in Rural Alabama

I grew up in rural Alabama.  My Grandparents were farmers and had a hundred head or so of Black Angus Cattle.  It tickles me now to see all the advertisements for "Black Angus" hamburgers, steaks, or whatever.  I was eating nothing but Black Angus my entire life until I moved out on my own in the early 80's.  When I was a baby my parents built a home about 4 miles from my Grandparents.  I can remember my younger brother and me walking the distance down the gravel road to my Grandparents when we were about 8 and 4.  Now would I have dared let my children walk that far by themselves..... heck no!!!  Times are so different and of course, when my daughter was that age we lived in the city!!

When I was about 12 years old my Grandparents gave my parents the "Old Home Place" and 20 acres for Christmas.  I loved that old house and still do to this day.  My Grandmother apparently had wanted a new home for years so they built one less than a couple of miles away, as the crow flies.  What that means is we could walk through Pa Crouch's cow pasture and cross the highway to get to their new home!! Even though I loved that old house as I came into my teenage years I began to realize not everyone lived without central heating and cooling.  My bedroom was at the front of the house which was shut off from the rest of the house during the winter.  I did have a small space heater in my bathroom to use in the mornings.  I told myself that when I grew up I was leaving the country and NEVER LIVING IN AN OLD HOUSE!!! Never, never, never!!  Well, what did I do????  I fell in love with a beautiful historical home in Tennessee and moved back to the country in 1999.  Oh, I even planted huge gardens and canned and froze vegetables just like a good southern women does!!  My beautiful old home was heated with propane heaters and cooled with window units and that was just fine with me.  When family would come to visit they never stayed long because it was just too hot or too cold for them!! lol  Didn't bother me one bit because I loved my old house.  Now, I will admit that first winter I thought I was going to freeze to death, but once I got used to it I was perfectly comfortable in my old home!!  Unfortunately that homed burned December 5, 2005 and I was devastated!  I truly believe I was almost in a trance for nearly 5 years after the loss of that home.  It was a total loss and the only thing saved was our precious little dogs crated in the living room of the home.  I toyed with the idea of leaving the country life completely and even tried it for about a year.  Apparently you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl!!

This past April I purchased another old home in a different county in Tennessee built in 1900.  Now, I just turned 50 so, I decided the convenience of a central heating and cooling system would be a smart idea.  First week I was here I made arrangements for my neighbors company to install two units.  One for upstairs and one for downstairs.  Didn't really have time to get a garden planted but we have tomato and peppers plant in with the flowers.!!  Next year there will definitely be a huge garden.

I'm only 15 minutes from where I grew up in Alabama, so I haven't gone far.  Back when I was 18 or 19 I would have sworn I would never live in the country again.  I can't imagine spending the remainder of my life anywhere but in the Rural South!!