Hello & Good Morning!

[Mom70x7]

Wilma -

Sorry about the skin cancer possibly returning.     With all my moles (and tags), I'm checked regularly. Both my grandmothers also had skin cancer. My grandfather and my mom had other forms of cancer, so the odds are strong that I'll be there one of these days. So the frequent checking.

You'll be in my prayers.

It's been a good day here. Sunday School and church were fun - they often are and today was very nice.

This evening I went to Longton, to the Free Fair Association's Bingo night. I've not ever played Bingo before, other than at home with the kids. Had a fun evening. Ended up with two prizes: scrollwork wall hangings by Darrel White. They're beautiful. I can also understand the allure of Bingo and regular attendance.

Night all - got to get to bed so I can get up in the morning for "Swimmercize" - some of you ought to come down and join us. 6:30 at the Howard Pool. It's a great way to start the day.

[emptynest]

How can the weekend be over already?  It seems odd to return to another work week when this one is just coming to an end.  Yesterday, my pool staff and I were in the Moline Crazy Days Parade (an annual tradition for the lifeguards).  We came away with 2nd place--thanks to Mick Wunderlich who loaned us his HUGE Kansas Cooker on wheels---which we decorated with the theme---"What's Cookin' at the Howard City Pool?"  You should see this thing----it held 6 lifeguards and myself and was pulled by a 3/4 ton truck.  This GRILL ON WHEELS weighs 5,000 lbs. and is the coolest thing.  Anyway,  after the parade part of the crew headed back to open the pool in Howard, while the other half stayed in Moline and we set up an inflatable water slide down in the park for the kids who were there for the festivities.  It was hot, and by the time we closed it down---we were exhausted, burnt, and hungry!  But all was for a good cause.
Today, I pastored my 2 churches--then attended half the service at Howard--had lunch with my folks (my mom's birthday was today) and sister.  Tonight after attending a social function fundraiser back in Longton, I went to the pool to check on my guards and asst. manager as we had a private party that lasted until 9:30.  Tomorrow morning with swimmercise at 6:30, followed by swimming lessons all morning, open to the public at 1:00, then swimmercise again at 6p.m. will make for another long day.  They never end and I am counting the days until retirement.....But for now......Good night everyone. God Bless.

[Janet Harrington]

It sounds like everyone had great weekends and are off to a good start for this week.

I had my first day of on the job training, so I was in the cell house where I will be working.  I have learned that I will basically be doing what I was doing at Wilson County.  Answering and hopefully solving problems in writing for the inmates.  Passing legal mail.  Listening to inmates rant about problems the officers make for them.  On and on and on.  I will have approx. 16 inmates assigned to me to do Segregation to Society, which is a program where I will try to help them develop their skills such as finances, reading, writing, whatever else it might take to help them prepare to go back into society.

This is a grant program, so I will have a lot of lee way to work it the best way I know how.  I will have to make this program work to keep my job so we will see what I can make these inmates do.

Even though the cell house I am in is a segregation cell house, we still have inmates that will be released in a year or two.  A couple of them even next month.  That is what I have to work with.

Some of the inmates that are there for capital punishment are in my cell house.  I cannot tell you which ones, but you are welcome to go to the Kansas Department of Corrections web site and look at the KASPER site to see who is in prison.

This site tells you what facility an inmate is in and if they are mine or cell house A's the web site will tell you they are special management inmates.  I'll leave it for you to guess who I am locked up with everyday.  However; please don't ask me, as I cannot talk about these inmates to you. 

If something happens that I can tell you without revealing who the inmate is, I will do so.

I really don't think this is going to be hard at all.  The inmates just need to get used to my cheery face every day.  They won't trust me until they get to know me.  I plan on introducing myself to my 16 tomorrow.  Then I will work on the others the rest of the week.

So much for my day.  I will tell you that the cell houses are not air conditioned, so we all are hot, inmates and staff alike.

[Janet Harrington]

Update on Preemie Charity.

Here is a message from Charity's mother, Maria.

I am back from a weekend in Wichita. I got to do the most amazing thing in the world! I got to hold Charity for the first time!! I am so excited to finally get to hold my precious daughter. However, she is so tiny that I was only able to hold her for a little while before she started getting too cold. But it was the most wonderful 20 minutes of my life!!

Charity is doing great! She now weighs 2 lbs 2 oz. She is getting full feedings in her feeding tube and they are going to discontinue her IV tonight. One more tube gone!! She is still on the CPap, but the settings are very low! Within the next two weeks she will be weened off of the CPap and put on a regular nasal canula. From there she will start on the bottle! We are getting closer and closer to having our little girl home with us!!! However, our moto remains: "One Day at a Time!"

I have attached a current picture.  This shows Maria holding Charity for the first time.  Please, please, please keep this family in your prayers.  Everyday that Maria tells me Charity is improving proves to me that "Our God is an Awesome God".

[kdfrawg]

Well, by golly and good morning. Well, afternoon I guess. I have been worried about our second car, which is a little 1993 Ford Ranger pickup truck. We bought it for my daughter when she first started to drive, mainly because she couldn't get too many people in it to distract her. Her biological dad upgraded her to a better car and we got the Ranger back, just about a year ago.

It had really gotten to where it was running poorly, and worse, the automatic transmission was shifting REALLY hard. The only thing I could think of that could cause both of those things was a vacuum leak and although I listened real close everywhere with a section of rubber hose, I could not hear one anywhere. We aren't exactly made of money and I was afraid that we wouldn't be able to afford to get it fixed.

We finally bit the bullet and took it in to the shop. The mechanic called just now and said that the main problem was a vacuum leak.  LOL!  Boy, was I glad to hear that. He's busily fixing it now and we can pick it up after Sabine gets off work. It's nice to get some good news. This is an excellent late birthday present.



This is it when we first bought it. It looks exactly the same now.

[flo]

nice looking pick it up.  I drove a little Dodge Dakota, full back seat, and loved it, but it was entirely worthless on ice.  This past winter I spent a lot of days in the house because I couldn't drive anywhere.  SOOOOO traded it for a 4x4 Ford Explorer.  Sure do miss that little pick-up tho.  Now how am I going to haul things, even the rug-doctor when I rent it? but Explorer was nice for delivering Indygal's cakes, which I couldn't have done in the pickup.  Good points and bad points, I guess. Hey, ask Teresa about the bumper sticker on her pick-up 

[kdfrawg]

Hey, Teresa, what's the bumper-sticker on your pickup?

We like this little devil. It's a big V-6 so it has a lot of power. Of course, as you say, there are trade-offs and that one is that it gets poor gas mileage. But it's nice to have something to haul stuff in once in a while, including me.  But you're right about snow and ice. I'm the only one in the family that can drive it in the slick, and I have to be real careful. Especially with a small truck and a big motor, it comes unstuck pretty easy.

[MarineMom]

Good morning all!  I thought we sent all our rain to desertlilydarla yesterday, did she send it back already?

[Jo McDonald]

I'll bet she didn't get ANY  I do believe it has dug in and settled smack dab in the middle of this godd ole' USA and we are going to grow web feet before this clears out. LOL  We have been having rain since 5 this morning and it was a toad strangler for a while.  Buttttttttt    we are dry and we are not in a tent, as some of the campers are here in the campground.   One couple have a little baby and are in a tent.  Ohhhhh   the memories of that are still fresh in my mind.  We took a camping trip -- no tent, just a blanket on the ground for Fred and I and the back seat of the car for Teresa and Sherri -- any way, I got off my story, on the 4th of July in 1957 Sherri was only 36 days old and we went to Roaring River in Missouri and stayed for 3 days.  Now....How smart was that?  I had a lace curtain over her basket and that kept her bug free and she was just fine.  Teresa was 4 1/2 and had a great time -  So guess you do what you have to do and enjoy it to the max.

[desertlilydarla]

Good morning to you all,  I never recieved the rain Marinemom.  It got stuck in a back current and flowed back to you guys.  The only thing I get here are hugh dust devils, which I call mimi tornado's that sand blast all my windows.   It is suppose to be 114 here today and 118 by next Monday.  So see why I need your rain.  We do have a beautiful river about a 1/2 mile from me to cool off in,   But...... it is realllllly cold.  Does anyone know how to do a rain dance for me?... If so, I will by them a plane ticket just to come and do a rain dance for me.... LOL...    Jo, when my dad moved us to Arizona in 1966 he said "it is so hot here you can really fry and egg on the sidewalk"  and he was right.  Breakfast anyone?  coffee with that egg?