As many of you know we went to visit Dorothy Chumley in Wichita Falls. She is in a nursing home and spends her weekends with her sister Shirley and husband Doyle in Wichita Falls.  They use to live in Iowa Park but moved in 1992.  They have 3 grown sons Rocky, Roger and Robin. The older 2 live with Ma and Pa and Rocky has a son Billy that is 10 and lives there also. Robin is in the Navy out in Virginia. Not sure of the story of the grandsons mom but anyway he is a nice kid. It was funny Shirley said after I called to say we were coming for a visit Billy was so excited as he loves to meet his kinfolks. He was so excited all week Shirley said she should have waited until Friday when she told Dorothy as he drove her crazy about it. He even called our house on Saturday when we told them the time we would be there and we were running late he wanted to make sure we were really coming.  Anyway we got there and went to lunch and Dorothy is frail but she is getting around good and then outside she uses a walker.  She was just excited to see us as Billy which he met us at the door with Dorothy grinning behind him.  We had a nice visit with all and had never met Shirley so she said she only saw me as a baby when Daddy died.  Doyle and Shirley are both retired and Doyle helps at church doing this and that Shirley says. He was not there when we got there but came in later. Billy even missed baseball pictures just to see us. Joseph and he got along famously and played all kinds of games inside and out. Then 2 of Billy’s friends that had moved to Seymour came by and added to the fun. The boys that came were twins and 10 years old also but had been born with muscle problems and so they walked slow and limped but kept up with Billy and Joseph just fine.  Dorothy talked and we had memories of when she would come to the house and bring her music and we would listen and sing.  She is very hard of hearing but her hearing aids were working good that day and so we were able to talk. I of course cried as it reminded so much of the time of her Mom being together and how they enjoyed being together.  I know that last trip that Dorothy came out Mom was not feeling well and it was hard for them to visit.  Dorothy has never had a home of her own and lived with family all her life and took care of family.  I just wish she could live in assisted living as she gets around to the bathroom and reminds Shirley when it is time to take her meds but needs someone to look after her. She said that Delbert and Pansy come to see her sometimes but Shirley added they never come to see her at Shirley’s.  Anyway one of Pansy’s daughters use to work at the place where Dorothy lives but left for a job at the State School. Dorothy really started not doing as well after that. She has a roommate that has oxygen concentrator and it is loud and with hearing aids she can’t watch TV or play her CD’s.  Shirley said she may have to talk to them about that

Well this is probably more info that you wanted but if you have a chance please write her a letter or call her at Shirley’s on the weekend as she can hear pretty good on the phone as I talked to her a couple of times.  I took pictures of everyone so she could get caught up. She said she loves us all and would love to see or hear from us.

Well that is all for now….

Shana

Thought you guys would find this interesting…

Diaper Free Babies

Hmm…

I’ve been using Linux now on my home PC for over a month…maybe two…and have come to really like it. Not just because I can pretty much do everything I want with free software, but because since the codes are open sourced, there are some really nice features developed by a worldwide group of great programmers. So I downloaded Ubuntu and loaded it on my machine, and really like the environment. (For you who seem lost, Ubuntu is an alternative Operating System (using a Linux base) instead of Windows XP/Vista.) One of the really neat things I’ve discovered lately is a composites windows manager called Compiz. Basically it takes your windows (like web browser window, email application window, file explorer, etc.) and using graphics processing to manipulate what you see. Most often it is found used in a window that is transparent. But what this allows me to do is to have fun with my windows. How could I explain it better than in this nice video…this is my actual desktop. I have four “workspaces” where I can keep windows open on (cube faces), as well as “wobbly” windows, zoom features, animations for minimize and restore, as well as desktop “widgets”. The choppiness, artifacts, and the stick point at 2:00 are due to the video capture…it actually runs pretty smooth.

Also I wanted to thank everyone for their congrats on our anniversary. It’s been a very fast year and was great. Here’s looking to many more.