Country Roads Take Me Home

The last couple of years before J.D. retired from PPG in Lake Charles, Louisiana we bought a camper and lived out of it to save some money and to already have our home on wheels when retirement time came around. The RV park where we lived during that time was owned and operated by Millie Mylander who just happened to originally be from Ohio. We became very close friends during that time and make it a point to stay at her park any time that we are in SW Louisiana. It is always like going home when we do , because Millie, Earl and Deb (their daughter) are like family to us. If you are ever in Sulphur, Louisiana and need a camper park to stay in look up Mylanders RV Park. Millie and Earl will treat you right.

We were busy busy busy while there, trying to get in visits with family and friends. J.D.'s oldest daughter, Darlene hosted a get together at her house. His middle daughter Debra and her family was there, as well as all of the grandchildren, great grandchildren and a couple of long ago friends  of J.D.'s that live in the area. Other than the sweltering heat wave that was going on, it was a great visit.

No trip to Sulphur, Louisiana is complete without getting together with J.D.'s brothers and sister. We did miss visiting with his brother Kennith and his wife Jackie on this trip though, as they were running the roads in North Louisiana while we were there. If memory serves me right, they got back the same day that we left for Texas.          

Our next stop on our journey was Paris, Texas to visit with son, Greg and his family. Greg and everyone else was working when we arrived, but his son-in-law, Butch met us and helped us get the camper settled in. 

I know I mentioned several posts back that Greg is an RN. His wife Tami and mother-in-law Sandra also have careers in the medical field. It has been a dream for the three of them to free lance and travel all over the country when they got their daughters, Alaina and Becky raised. Well, that time is quickly approaching. Alaina is now married with two beautiful children of her own and going to school to be a teacher. Becky is going to school to be an RN.

They are getting their ducks in a row right now, which became obvious when we pulled into the driveway and saw this big  beautiful camper that will be their home when they get their show on the road. It is a beautiful camper and very spacious. I am sure that Greg, Tami and Sandra will be able to live very comfortably in it. They have it all set up and operating. Becky calls it home for right now, which is great because it serves to give her the privacy and  independence of her own place, while at the same time saving her the cost of an apartment.  Another plus to Becky living in the camper now is that the kinks and gremlins that usually shows up in new campers, vehicles, etc. will get worked out and fixed before they take it on the road.

Like all trips, this one came to an end too soon and we were on our way back to Ohio. We had a birthday to celebrate when we got back, a Labor Day camping trip with family here, and a couple of soccer games to attend before I went back to the hospital for my second knee replacement surgery.

There was something that saddened me to see as we made our way south and then back north to home. I couldn't help but notice that  there were so many little country churches along the way that had their doors and windows boarded up. I thought, how sad that the lagging economy has not only found it's way into everyone's lives and homes, but also into God's House. At a time when we can all find the solace we need in the welcoming warmth of God's House and family......... The doors and windows are boarded up. It was then, that I really put some thought into what I was thinking and found a reassuring peacefulness in the knowledge that God's real house can be found within the heart.

By the way, Paddy proved to be an awesome traveling companion. 

............. To Be Continued.   

Homes ~ Past, Present and Eternal~

What a treat it was this morning to find an invitation to come receive an award for not only being a Wonderful Mom to my children, but to all people, as well as animals.
This beautiful award came from Connie @ 'My Thoughts and Creations' . Thank you so much Connie for this beautiful award. I just can't bring myself to list names for passing this award on, for fear that I will accidentally miss someone. Not only that, but I feel the need to expand this award to include Dads and Grandparents. There are a lot of single Dads out there lovingly caring for their children, grandchildren and pets as well as Grandparents that have taken in their grandchildren to raise. With that said, if you are visiting Moodscapes and fit into one of those categories, please accept this award for your blog. I have a lot of respect for you for working so hard to make this world a better place, by being the wonderfully loving and caring people that you are.

~Back to our trip to the Southland~

I have added a few Cajun songs for you to

enjoy while visiting Louisiana with us.

This is the Holiday House. I have no idea why it sports that name, but what I can tell you is that this house is located in Sulphur, Louisiana. At one time, many years ago, it was a single family home. As it goes for many of these beautiful old homes in today's world the upkeep can become very costly. When I moved to Sulphur in '99 this house had been turned into several apartments, no doubt to help with the cost of it's upkeep. By the time J.D. retired and we moved to Ohio in '03, this beautiful home was standing empty. It truly breaks my heart to see these beautiful old homes deserted and left to deteriorate and fall apart. What an uplifting my heart received to find out that the city had bought the property and returned it to it's original state. J.D.'s trade for most of his adult life was a carpenter. Before he went to work at PPG he had helped build many homes and business buildings in the Sulphur/Lake Charles area. I remember him telling me once that when a home is vacant and left deserted for many years that eventually it starts to die. I had never thought of it in that way before, but it is so very true. I for one, am so glad that this house was saved from ruin.




This house was designed from the 17th century style of New Orleans homes. It was built in the early '70s and is located in Lake Charles, Louisiana looking out over the Prien Lake. The second story porch wraps completely around the house. This is one of the houses that J.D. helped to build. The front of the house is the side that has the two dormer windows and that is the side that faces the lake. The back of the house faces the road. The two dormer windows are the only windows in the entire house. The rest of the house receives it's natural light source from the 26 pairs of interchangeable french doors throughout the house. These french doors are hung with Swiss hinges.

Hanging a door with Swiss hinges is a whole new experience as compared to hanging a door with your run of the mill hinge. The longer bottom hinge goes into the door frame, while the shorter top hinge goes into the door itself. It isn't just a matter of drilling your holes and attaching the door, everything has to be aligned. They had received the doors separate from the hinges because the hinges came from Switzerland. They came complete with a blueprint for making a template for drilling the holes. A machinist in Lake Charles then made the template from the blueprint. J.D. said that the template didn't line up like it should have and they ended up having to discard one of the doors because there were so many holes drilled in it trying to get it to align as it should. J.D. said that he had to make quite a few modifications to the template before things lined up as they should. When it was finished, you can take one door off and interchange it with any other door in the house. J.D. kept the hinge pictured as a souvenir of the job that almost caused him to loose his mind.

When we went by the house J.D. knocked on the door and asked permission to take pictures. He told the lady that lived there his connection to the house and she invited us in to take a tour of the house. Something I would have loved to do, but we were pressed for time that day and had to decline. We do however have a standing invitation, so perhaps we can get some pictures of the inside of the house on our next trip to Louisiana.

The day that we were doing our site seeing was Thursday and we were leaving the next day for Texas. I had wanted some pictures of an old cemetery in Lake Charles, but we were already trying to push a lot of things into just a little bit of time. J.D. had planned to make a union meeting that night, so on his way to the meeting he went by the cemetery and got some pictures for me. Being a Yankee, I find the cemeteries of southern Louisiana fascinating because they are above ground. I thought this might interest some of my readers that had never seen this before. The water table is so high there that if they were able to get a grave dug deep enough to bury someone underground after the first good rain, the airtight coffin would just pop up out of the ground. Gives a whole new meaning to the saying, "You can't keep a good person down". Chances are they wouldn't be able to dig deep enough any way to bury below ground. You will be able to view the pictures in the collage best if you click on the pictures.

Tomorrow I will take you to Texas with us and photos of our family there. Until then wishing you good heath and happiness.

Not so bad....

Before I get back to telling you about our trip to the southland I thought I would share my trip to the doctor with you. My appointment to receive my first Synvisc injection in my knee was Monday. I admit that I was pretty nervous about it. I remembered how the cortisone shot had hurt and I just knew that to shoot gel into my knee would require a much larger needle and would no doubt hurt even worse. That was just an example of how the mind can take unknown facts about something as simple as an injection and blow it way out of proportion. So out of proportion that you can almost imagine that it is going to take four nurses to hold you down long enough for the doctor to give you that inection. I had myself wondering if I would have the courage to go back for the other two injections.



Thankfully it was nothing near as painful as I had imagined. The first thing they did was spray my knee with some sort of cool spray. The next thing they did was feel around until they found where they wanted to put the needle in. The first injection was what I am guessing to be Novocaine or some sort of numbing agent. Instead of pulling that needle out they just unscrewed the plunger and replaced it with the plunger containing the Synvisc gel. The whole experience was for the most part pain free.



I spent the rest of the day onthe couch at home with my leg propped up on pillows and ice on it. As the numbness started to wear off I had some soreness, but nothing like the pain I had been having. Yesterday morning my knee felt good enough that I thought I could try doing some grocery shopping. I promised J.D. that should I start having pain, I would go sit down somewhere and let him take the list and finish the shopping. I honestly didn't have any pain, but as the evening wore on the soreness moved in. Still it isn't pain and I am looking forward to completing the remaining injections.


My research tells me that the Synvisc gel is made from rooster combs and it provides that cushion between the bones that has been worn away and has the ability to take away the pain for up to 6 months. Anything I can do to take away the pain and delay surgery is thumbs up with me.




Taking you back to Louisiana with us brings us to a Monday morning with Darlene not feeling well at all. Toliver had to leave in the wee hours of the morning to catch his ride back to the rig. I don't recall if I mentioned it or not, but he works off shore on an oil rig. Darlene had been up most of the night vomiting and by morning she was also having pain. She told J.D. that there was a little hospital close to her house and she agreed to go to the emergency room since the pain was pretty severe. They kept her there for a few hours, gave her a shot for the pain and sent her home. Tuesday, she was feeling OK so we thought we would take that chance to go visit J.D.'s cousin, Roger since he lives pretty close to Darlene. Roger is diabetic and has had a rough time of it. They recently had to amputate his left leg. The visiting nurse came while we were there to change his dressing on his leg and found a blister on the heel of his right foot. That wasn't good news at all. As we were leaving he took my hand and told me he was going to fight this disease with all he has left in him. Please keep Roger and his wife Marita in your prayers.




Later that evening we met with J.D.'s two brothers and his sister and their spouses for dinner at a Chinese restaurant, except for sister-in-law Jackie. She is taking care of her 96 year old father who is very frail right now and unable to do for himself any more. We went by the family music store to visit with her and her son Stacy before going to eat. While we were there we also got to spend a little time with Stacy and Amy's two beautiful children. It was a wonderful time getting together with everyone. I even added our little server to our photo gallery. He kept the beverages flowing and had such a nice smile and pleasant personality.

Angela and Nick

Wednesday morning, Darlene had an appointment with her doctor to have some tests run and it was also the morning that we were to meet Angela and Nick at the cemetery. This year would have been Warren's 16th birthday. Since Britt and Warren's birthdays were only a week apart, I find myself gauging the important milestones in Britt's life with events that we are missing with Warren because of a girl with a cell phone and a lethal weapon, an automobile. Before Angela and Nick arrived we received word that they had admitted Darlene to the hospital.



We went straight from the cemetery to the hospital after meeting with Angela and Nick. J.D. learned that they had admitted Darlene because she was in pain again and it was coming from a kidney stone. They put in stints in the hopes that she would then be able to pass the stone. As it turned out, some time in the night they moved Darlene to ICU because her blood pressure had dropped dangerously low. They kept her in the hospital again Thursday night for observation and she was released sometime on Friday morning. She she still hadn't passed the stone and had to make an appointment to go back to her doctor after they released her so they could use the laser to break up the stone. I was puzzled by that move, I couldn't understand why they just didn't go ahead and do that while they had her in the hospital. Snce we have come home they successfully got rid of the stone. Get ready for this now...... She has to make another appointment to come back to the hospital to have the stints removed!! Again I have to ask, "Why didn't they do that while they had her in the hospital yet again to do the laser routine?" We didn't get to visit much with Darlene while we were there, but we did enjoy what time we did get to spend with her.




J.D.'s brother-in law has a flea market so while we were there we managed to make time to go by the Country Flea Market and see what sort of treasures F.J. had waiting there that might be calling my name. I will have some pictures to share with you tomorrow of the the treasures I brought home. Until then, Wishing you the blessings of good health and happiness.

Road Trip

I am taking a little break from my 'To Do List' to do a post. J.D. and I both have our own lists and they are each pretty long. Very early on the morning of the 2nd we will be loading up the car and heading south to the Lake Charles, Louisiana area and then west to Paris, Texas to visit our Rebel Younguns. If I don't make a list I know that I will walk out the door and get 300 miles down the road and think of something that I either left behind or forgot to do. Angela and Nick will be home from Abu Dhabi from the 4th until the 8th. They make the trip every year to visit Warren's grave on his birthday. It will be a particularly difficult visit this year, as Warren would have been 16 years old on this birthday. Angela especially requested that her Daddy be there this year and so we are going. It will also give us the chance to visit with the other children and grandchildren while we are there.

Before heading home we are going to go just a little further west and visit with Greg and his family in Texas for a little while. We haven't seen that new Great Grand Baby, Caden yet, so we are really looking forward to that. I have lots of hugs and kisses saved up for our little Miss Audrey and can't wait to give them to her. While we are there I want to go to the Paris Cemetery and get a picture of a huge monument they have there so I can share it with all of you. It is a monument of Jesus in cowboy boots. I had no idea that Jesus was a Texan and wore cowboy boots, but those people in Paris, Texas seem to think so.

I am going to have another list when we get back. I have blood work that will need done and then a routine visit with our family doctor and a visit to my Diabetic Boot camp to get checked out by my Endocrinologist. My Rhuematologist is going to fix my knee up with Synvisc Injections. It is a gel that he will inject into my knee and is supposed to act as the cushioning that is no longer there. I will get one injection per week for thee weeks in a row. It is supposed to last for 6 months. The nurse from his office called yesterday to let me know that the Synvisc had come in. So I will need to figure out when I can fit these injections into my life. I have mixed feelings about these injections, but the bottom line is that the pain has increased to where it wakes me up most every night and that is after laying there dealing with the pain most nights for a couple of hours before I can fall asleep. It will be a solution to the pain.

Hoping you all are having a blessed week.

Happy Anniversay!!

Today is our eighth wedding anniversary.
J.D. and I both agree that it doesn't seem like we have been married any where near eight years. Since the day that J.D. walked into my life I have been experiencing what true love and happiness is all about.


When we decided that we were going to get married and spend the rest of our lives together we needed to then decide where we would get married. At the time we were living in SW Louisiana. J.D.'s earliest years of life was spent in Columbia, Louisiana. He had so many fond memories of his childhood and friendships that he had back then. I wanted to tie our wedding day into those wonderful memories that he had when he thought of Columbia.

After agreeing on the where, I got busy and made arrangements for a Justice Of Peace to marry us. J.D.'s niece by marriage, Sharon Jones and one of his childhood friends who still lived in Columbia, Don Gregory were our witnesses. It had rained all night the night before, but on the day of our wedding the sun was shining and the sky was that beautiful color of blue that you can only find in Louisiana, filled with fluffy white clouds. It was on the river walk of the Ouachita River in Columbia, Louisiana that J.D. and I promised each other our love, devotion and loyalty for the rest of our lives.

We were even fashionably late for our wedding. April 2nd was the first Sunday of the month, as well as the day the clocks were to spring ahead by one hour. We hadn't even given that a thought. Fortunately the Justice of Peace and Don figured that we had forgotten about the time change and waited for us.

I would be telling you a lie if I were to say that we live our lives here on the mountain with never a cross word or disagreement between us. We have a few little disagreements and from time to time. One or the other of us (usually me because I am too tender hearted) will get our feelings hurt, but the important thing is that we love each other enough to not let these little things fester and become big problems. I think J.D. would agree with me when I say that it is always important to be considerate of each other in all that we do.

I look forward to each new day that we have together. J.D. is not only the love of my life, but also my best friend. Since the day that we met, we seem to be so in tune with each other that if one of us thinks it the other can say it in most cases. On more than one occasion J.D. has told me that I scare him...lol

I am so glad that God's plan included our spending the rest of our lives together. I am truly 'Blessed'.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BABY!