Christiansen's Comments Hinds County Gazette August 27 2009

Above is a picture of the limb mess....

Picture of the old pecan trees in my front lawn...

I recently discovered facebook. Facebook, for those who do not know, is a social web site that makes it easy for folks to stay in touch … with their friends, their friends friends, relatives and total strangers….on the computer. People share the happenings in their lives….with the whole wide world. I thought the concept was silly…Wondered who would do such? Put their life out on the www for the world to see?…and who cares what folks are up to? Well!!!! I do! .

In fact, before I sat down here to chat with you…I turned on the computer and signed into facebook to see what my friends had been up to…and let know them what I was doing…“making pickled eggs and fix’n to feed cats” and I up loaded pictures of my cats Scout and Harper Lee and my golden retriever Charlie. I just knew folks were dieing to see pictures of my animals. Yeah, that’s the type of stuff that is on facebook. Really, you know what it is like?…It is like meeting your friends and neighbors at the Post Office or the grocery store. I love it!

Keeping all of the limbs, branches and twigs picked up, that fall from my pecan trees , is a job….A big job! Several weeks ago, I had a big limb to fall, it was too big for me to cut up…and I can cut up some pretty big logs with my bow saw…but I had to go ask Bob Kemp to come with his chain saw, to cut this limb in to manageable pieces. We had lots of rain so it was too wet to bring my truck in on the grass, to haul it off…so we stacked where it fell…Then a couple of days later, I took a notion it needed moving or it was going to kill my grass, so I hauled it a piece at a time, over by the Leyland cypress trees, where grass doesn‘t grow anyway…I was getting sick of looking at that pile…So last week I moved it in to the woods. That pile of logs and branches had been moved three times!

I said that, to say this….I have often wondered of all of the places in this world, why? oh why? did I wind up in Edwards Mississippi? Of course we know God has a plan… I am guessing, He put me in this house surrounded by big old pecan trees,…because He knew I would need something to keep me occupied in my old age……So instead of me being out and about, up and down the streets worrying folks…I am on this hill, happy as if I had good sense, moving piles of limbs and sticks from first one place to another.

Hey I gotta go… I have to check and see what my facebook friends are up to now!
Call if you need me
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

Betty Jean Tatun Hill

Betty Jean Tatum Hill, 79, died Saturday, August 22, 2009, at Hospice Ministries in Jackson, MS. Funeral services will be held 2:00 p.m. Tuesday, August 25, 2009, from the Edwards Methodist Church. Visitation will be Monday, August 24, 2009, from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. at Wright & Ferguson Funeral Home High Street and at the church Tuesday from 1:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m. Burial will be in the Edwards Cemetery.She was born to Mary Eliza Tatum and John Henry Tatum in Edwards, MS in October 1929. She attended Edwards Public Schools, MUW and The University of Mississippi. She was a lifelong Methodist.She married George McLaurin Hill in 1950. She worked at Kenningtons department store for a brief time and then stayed at home to raise her three children, Mary Laurin, Betty Jane and George Jr. After they were grown, she was an independent sales representative for several educational publishers, until her retirement.She is survived by her husband, George M. Hill; daughters, Laurin Ripley of Sarrasota, FL and Jane Seale of Starkville, MS; son, George, Jr. (Mac) of Nashville, TN; grandson, Clay Seale of Batesville, MS; granddaughter, Crisler Seale of Madison, MS; and great grandson, Matthew Seale of Batesville, MS.Memorials may be made to Hospice Ministries, 450 Towne Center Blvd., Ridgeland, MS 39157.
Published in the Clarion Ledger on 8/23/2009
Notice

Brain or me...

This morning, I am not on the front porch with my lap top, I am coming to you from the room at the back of the house, I call “my office”…I can’t hardly call it “my Office” with a straight face. “Office” sort of implies you have important papers and such to deal with….

I watch the Home and Garden TV channel occasionally…That’s where I became aware that every house must have a media room and an office. I don’t have a media room, I don’t even have a flat screen TV….But I am looking…..for a BIG one….I’ll take it home hang it on the wall, in one of the under utilized rooms in this house…Then run over to Utica, to see Kevin at Cane Ridge, pick up a few miss matched chairs, set them up, facing that TV, I plan to acquire from a road side trash pile. And Voila! I have a media room! Nobody need know the TV does not work…all that really matters is I will have the must have “media room”.

In an attempt to make this room come across as an authentic office/writer room. …I have office type paraphernalia spotted around the room, there is a big old dictionary on a stand, I bought it at a second hand store and , a Roget’s Thesaurus, that I carefully placed on the desk, to make it appear that it in use frequently….(I could not tell you the last time ether one was actually used for anything…. except to press flowers)…it is so much easier and faster to go on line to get answers my lexicon questions. Also on my desk I have pencils and pens standing in vases….quite a nice wooden box, full of paper clips, I have two staplers, nether has staples in it, but they do not need to have staples…I do not have any important papers to staple… Behind me on a narrow table, I have papers and files in baskets….Like I have important business to tend to.
But all of that said, I do feel more like a “real” writer, in this room.

I don’t know how I got off on that tangent …

My brain use to work quite fast…not necessarily well, or accurately, but fast. And I always have been pretty good at interpreting instructions, even quite complicated ones……But some months back I became aware my brain had slowed down significantly …It has slowed down to the point I began to get concerned...it can’t be the chemo…those effect should have wore off long ago…I do occasionally take a Benedryl…some authorities believe Benedryl may have an adverse effect on our cognitive skills….

But, While riding the lawn mower the other day it came to me why Brain is so much slower now then he use to be! He at some point stopped taking information in and instinctively acted upon that information….to where, now, he is thinking in full and complete sentences! Occasionally with punctuation! Like !!! and dot dot dots…

I never thought in sentences, not back in the day.! I didn’t have time! You just do not have time for full sentences, not when you are tending to a house, cooking, yard, and babies.
But Brain is thinking in full sentences Now! And he repeats himself, he may change the words around a bit, but it is still pretty much the same thought….He asks questions and he does sometimes answer…but often when an solution doesn’t appear after he has repeated himself several times….he declares “I will come back to that…” and he makes Me say it out loud…..

Maybe it did begin when I was under the influence of the chemo…Brain had to work hard back then. I remember one time Brain and I were attempting to put a DVD in a Netflix envelop, so it could mailed back…Brain was struggling…. He could not figure out how to put the thing in the envelope where the bar code would show though the little window…I finally had help him by laying it down on the counter and lining it up….even then, it took awhile…we were both just before asking John for help.

I don’t know what to do about brain and his time-consuming, rambling sentences…I suppose it is to late now, I have let him get by with it for far too long. Brain use to get irritated with me, because I was so slow…but even with no parts on this body working as they once did…knees, hands, even my elbows sometimes hesitate…I, at times, am faster then Brain. Now he annoys me!….I am ready to go and he is still rambling on and on and on….

Fact is, Brain and I are both on a down hill slide…..
Brain has been wondering, who will depart this world first him or me.

Call if you need me

GloriaChristiansen@gmail.com