Last night.....today.....

Last night we went to The Elks for the Swing in to Spring music by the LHS Jazz Band and the U of I Jazz band - it was great! They two groups and the director do an outstanding job of entertaining. It was great to watch all the people dance as well as listen to the music and watch the craziness of the director entertain the crowd.

This a.m. when we got up it was actually snowing big white flakes at our house. April 19th and snowing - WOW!

We went out to breakfast which wasn't that OUTSTANDING - Ang was begging to go to Granny's Buffet and the only time I can take that place is for breakfast and it has been years since I had even been there and let me tell you, to my taste buds, the place has NOT improved - plus the sulfites in some of the food bothers me - I will spare you the details!

After breakfast we went to the Farm store to see the Ariat boots as I thought I wanted a pair but it was a NO GO - my little feet too fat or something - my instep - something wasn't working - so I looked at a ton of Sketcher shoes - I was amazed at all the styles they had - I mean we are talking Farm & Ranch store. Angelo was MIA in the store and so after trying my luck at the boots I made my way through the store look for him. UH...ya...he was at the baby chicks asking the worker bee all these questions and what type of chicks they were and about the baby ducklings. By the time I had got there he was telling me the ducklets were a certain type. I was just giggling to myself. So I made my way around the store some more checking it out and found Joe and said "let's go". We went to get Angelo and he was still chewing on the employees leg about chicks. As we were leaving, I asked Ang if the guy knew a lot about chicks and he said "No, he didn't even know how warm the eggs had to be kept in an incubator to hatch them, it is 101 degrees or 102 (I can't remember what he told me)". You see Angelo's 3rd grade class is doing a chick experiment now where they have eggs in an incubator and they are trying to hatch some and studying along the way before they hatch.

In my younger years growing up Angelo would have been in heaven because we had chickens, rabbits, cows, horses, pigs growing up....I never thought I was fortunate to have that in my life but now I can say that I guess I was. My uncle and dad thrived on animals and raising them, going to the cow auctions and buying calves and raising them from a bottle, raising chicks - many years we had baby chicks in a refrigerator box down in our basement raising them - we picked them up at the Sears loading dock - I don't know all the details on the shipments but I know they ordered them and then we would pick them up there. We raised them, lots of chickens and had farm fresh eggs and eventually butchering day came along and my grandma would come down and we would all go out and butcher the chickens and pluck the feathers - quite the education. My grandma would not waste anything on the butchering day - she would get the egg tracts out of the chickens and boil the eggs that were still developing inside the chicken. She was raised not to waste things - not like the society we live in these days.

The same thing happened to the rabbits. We raised them and eventually they would be butchered for meat in our freezer. What a fortunate childhood I had - I wouldn't trade those experiences and times for anything - though it may sound disgusting it was interesting, it was a chore and hard work but it was a time for a family to work together and bond.

Wow, how did I end up down that road...oh ya the chicks in the Farm & Ranch store.

Anyhow, after the F&R Store we went to the movie to see Nim's Island, it was good. I really wasn't sure what I was going to see - I knew Jodie Foster was in it but really didn't know what it was about. It was an okay movie.

Joe & Angelo were trying to make a special day for me as we all had to work the day before which was my birthday. I had told Joe last night on our way to The Elks that I had been crying yesterday - don't ask me why?, just sad on my birthday, you know the song "It's my Birthday and I'll cry if I want to"....I had lots of well wishers call me and sing me a tune or say Happy Birthday but for some reason by late afternoon I was fighting back tears. I am usually not so emotional but it hit me yesterday for whatever reason.

Anyone seen any good movies lately?