Change

I am always changing my hair - but this is the shortest I think it has ever been. It is similar to the style I had, but shorter. I am hoping it will take less time to fix - since I really don't want to fool with it this summer. I got tickled when this pictue was being taken. I felt like I was posing for a mug shot.

Happy Anniversary!

This past Tuesday was our anniversary. Of course Jim always comes through. I came home to roses and a sweet card! He is the best husband a girl could have and I can't the write words that express how much I love him and how much joy he has brought to my life.
Since our anniversary was during the week, we waited until the weekend to go out. We both enjoy plays so we went to see a fun comedy at Barter "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks".

http://www.bartertheatre.com/shows/show_detail.php?show_id=51

After the show we had dinner at Martha Washington Inn - yummy! I had Mahi Mahi and Jim had a big juicy tender steak. Both our dinners were fantastic and the atmosphere was wonderful. If you have not been - you must!Happy Anniversary Honey - I love you always!

Ben Stein's Final Column

This is a little long, but worth the read!

For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called 'Monday Night At Morton's.' (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.

Ben Stein's Last Column...

How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

As I begin to write this, I 'slug' it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is 'eonline FINAL,' and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.
It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.
Beyond that, a bigger change has happened..? I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.
How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a 'star' we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.
They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world. A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.
A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.
The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.
We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.
I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.
There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament..the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.
Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.
I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.
But, I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.
This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.
Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.
By Ben Stein
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I personally want to thank my daughter who plans to be a teacher, whom also teaches Bible School and my son who is an Airman in the USAF. I have been blessed with these two wonderful children and I pray God will always watch over them, keeping them safe! Thank you!

Love, Mom

Our House is For Sale

We are wanting to sell our house and either build or buy a new one. So if you know anyone interested in a place near the lake, give us a call. Our home has 3075 square feet of living space totally up-to-date. It has hardwood, tile and carpet in the bedrooms. Below are photos of our home and information. The house sits on .56 acre lot with a place to put a floating boat dock.

3 Bedroom

2 Full Bath

2 Half Bath

Living Room

Dining Room

Eat-in Kitchen

Office

Recreation Room with wet bar

Large Laundry Room

Mud Room

Basement & small attic

Above-ground Pool with Privacy Fence

Tons of Decking

Large Lot Overlooking Boone Lake

Space for a Floating Dock

This is my friendship garden. All the plants were given to me by friends. I love sitting in the swing on hot summer nights or build a fire in the fire pit - fire pit not shown in this photo.
Eat-in kitchen: photo does not show all of the kitchen, there are more cabinets on the opposite side, which include a pantry.
It has a built-in microwave, under-cabinet lighting, bleached maple cabinets and Italian porcelain tile.
The living room has brand new 3/4" hardwood flooring and lots of natural light.
The huge recreation room has a pool table, wet bar with refrigerator, sink and custom cabinets. There is also a 1/2 bath convenient for entertaining. The built-ins are wired for cable and hidden stereo system. A master bedroom to die for! The large walk-in closet is every girls dream with tons of shelving, and a pull-down to the attic. The room also has a bay window with beautiful views of the lake.
You will never want to leave the master bath. It has a double vanity, marble tile and oversized jacuzzi tub.
Beveled glass french doors lead into the master bath.
View from the upper deck to the pool area.

The above ground pool has a 2-year old liner and an eight foot privacy fence. Dimmer lights surround the pool for great entertaining in the late evenings.

Call 423-483-5127 for your private showing.

I work for a Criminal!!!

Not many people would put their boss in jail - but I had the chance and went for it! The Muscular Dystrophy Association is raising money for Jerry's kids. I received a phone call from their organization where I had been nominated to go to jail. Since I had just raised money for Big Brothers Big Sisters I felt I had tapped all my resources for the quarter, so I nominated my boss. She did a fantastic job raising over $1000 dollars.
Thanks Dawn for being such a good sport and helping so many kids - you are a real trooper!

About MD: The muscular dystrophies are a group of more than 30 genetic diseases characterized by progressive weakness and degeneration of the skeletal muscles that control movement. Some forms of MD are seen in infancy or childhood, while others may not appear until middle age or later. There is no specific treatment to stop or reverse any form of MD. The prognosis for people with MD varies according to the type and progression of the disorder. Some cases may be mild and progress very slowly over a normal lifespan, while others produce severe muscle weakness, functional disability, and loss of the ability to walk. Some children with MD die in infancy while others live into adulthood with only moderate disability.

Busy Busy Busy

Jim and I have been so busy!!! First, I had a dozen test to prepare for the past few weeks -including finals. After the weeks of studying and hard work - I'm done for the semester woo hoo!
Next we have been thinking about selling our house and downsizing. We are wanting something all on one level. We found this house in the same area we currently live. The builder was building this house for he and his wife - so he included a lot of extra touches.

I love the wrought iron going downstairs and all the large crown molding.

This is standing in the oversized dinning room looking into the living room. The floors are walnut instead of the traditional oak.

The kitchen has a ton of beautiful cherry cabinets. It will have granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, built in oven and microwave and a drop-in stove in the island. Next - graduation. This is my little buddy Jonathan, he just graduated Summa Cum Laude from NES. He got a full scholarship at ETSU to finish out his BS degree and then off to medical school. Such a super nice and smart young man! Congratulations Jonathan!
And of all the people we ran into - the professor who made our last two semesters oh so hard - Dr. Cleveland! He had to pose with his two faves!

Next was our Annual KASC Safety Seminar. The seminar takes a year to plan, tons of wonderful volunteers and hard work from all. This year - like all the rest was another huge success.
Mr. TOSHA - Randall had to get a picture with just the two of us to send Jim ;)

Some of my safety council buddies - Randy and Harold.

If you ever need anything printed these guys do fantastic work - DPS in Bristol.

Jack has been a member of the council for years - here he is talking with Shannon, another great council member and friend. Shannon and I graduated high school together.

Shew after all this I need a nap and it's only Wednesday.

Crazy Work Buddies

Okay, so we have one of the best Division Directors my entire career at Eastman. She just became the new Director of Six Sigma - a frustrating and challenging job. My co-workers wanted to kid her a little, so they named her the "Six Sigma Sorceress" Here she is looking at her new staff. The Crew - what a bunch! I stayed out of the evidence - I'm behind the camera.
This is her new office :) - it took a little coaxing for me to get her to pose in front of it.

She had no idea they all hid in this one!