Well, hello everybody. I hope you're having a wonderful holiday, and the rest of your year is just as joyous as today will be.
Di
d your kids get up and open all their presents this morning? I didn't have any presents, but my neighbor gave me a 2 L of coke, that is wonderful. I am paralyzed and laying in my bed.
lambchop ~ I wish you well, peace, Kim
I decided to go outside to look at the eclipse. It was 4:20 in the morning, and I felt dizzy coming back! As it then I went to the hospital after 2 days of laying on the floor and the paramedics advised me that they would probably keep me when I got to the hospital.
Unfortunately they did not tell me this until I got here. I had already left my apartment, and had left my phone at home. So as it turns out I am okay it didn't affect my speech, but today I have four appointments one starting in 15 minutes LOL. I have occupational therapy, and 8:30 out I feel all over the place and learned that I had had a stroke!
❤
Today is a day to remember my oldest sister, Rebecca Dian Edwards, who was born on October 29th, 1945.
Becky was 9 years older than I, she was a Scorpio of every color lol, and she stood up for people who had no voice. I will never forget Becky going to bat at Mt. Healthy's school board meetings for kids with disabilities, who needed physical exercise to help them learn. In the 70s, that was quite a feat, she had to convince people to believe something they never saw but had to somehow perceive. How tough was that?
At any rate, Becky always stood up for these children who perhaps had ADHD, or other learning disabilities. She learned that to develop the motor skills in children helps their brain to function in other ways so that they could absorb the information that was trying to be taught to them.
She moved to Boone County in the early seventies, and at that point, she used her skills to convince the folks that in Boone County, they too, needed a class for children who were perhaps autistic, or who simply had other learning disabilities that were not familiar with the people in the '70s.
Today, everyone quotes about ADHD and and other learning disabilities as if it should be common knowledge. Back then, Becky had to go to bat, as I said, for children who had no voice. Again, with the no voice thing. I love her for that. I'll always love Becky for being able to see when someone needed to have someone speak up for them. That is so important! She was a champion for people who seemed to have no one to Champion them. I will always feel inspired by Becky and her beauty. As an older sister, I got to say, she never picked on me and she never pulled my hair and she never tried to beat me up. That is a pretty damned important thing to say about an older sister! When my younger sister was born, I was happy to have someone that I could spoil and not strike or smack around or belittle. My younger sister was someone I treasured, she was always precious to me, just like Becky was.
I love you Becky, I hope heaven knows how lucky it is you are in its presence.
Blessed are those who fall asleep in Hope of the resurrection,
Kimmy
The elections are a wonderful event in our country. However, the ads that surround that time of year are annoying, to say the least.
Lately I have been watching commercials about Tim Ryan, who is a senator from Ohio. His opponent, JD Vance, an author who wrote about hillbillies, is waging a war against him.
It is a shame that if you lie in political ads, it is not a crime. The number of lies that are told are incredible, and I just want to throw a shoe at the television when when their noses start to grow. The latest is whether or not somebody voted to defund the police. That is ridiculous. The police have been under a lot of criticism over the last couple of years for killing George Floyd and Breanna Taylor, but nobody wants to defund the police entirely. They do need to be watched, though, and they do need to be policed themselves.
However, I am going to vote in a few weeks for my candidates, and I have no way of telling who's going to win. I do know that I will not volunteer to work at the election office again. It is a little bit frightening to think that anybody wants to injure someone for volunteering to take people's votes and process them accordingly.
I am anxious to see what will happen on that day, because we need to move forward in our country. With the number of murders that are happening around me, I have to notice the fact that it is easy to get a gun in my state of Ohio. There are no laws that will protect me, should someone decide in a big crowd to carry guns and shoot them at people. It is happening every day in our city, on practically every corner. Just behind my house is a kroger, and even that Kroger had an incident with an active shooter. I hate that I even need to use the words 'active shooter' & that is why I will be voting for anyone who is going to be promoting a gun law that will limit the access of those who are little bit cray cray and who don't mind talking about it.
Even friends of mine who have a lot of sense say stupid things about guns. It is so sad to see.
I'll be in prayer today.
Peace,
Kimmy
Don't you love October? It used to be in October, we would watch the Reds battle for the pennant so that they could play in the World Series. This year, the Reds lost a record 100 games!
100 losses is a lot to chew on, and I noticed the sportscasters have all joined the feeding frenzy, analyzung who's to blame. Ugh.
Now that it is almost the middle of October, we can enjoy watching the teams who survived the season battle. I always enjoy the world series, no matter who plays in it. I guess since I moved away 50 years ago, Cincinnati built new stadiums in which to play their professional sports.
It's fun to watch the news people cover all of those places, but I have no desire to be around a crowd of people. I have really changed during the pandemic, and the last month is not changed that one bit. I finally rode the bus other day, and ended up seeing much of Walnut Hills, which I cannot ever recall before. I get on the wrong bus every once in awhile, and it is an adventure to be sure.
Today, I a
Happy Fall, y'all.
Love
Kimmy
As September starts its closing week, it makes me wonder what other people have thought of September over the years? After all, it is not like September is the beginning of Spring or Winter, it is a rather gentle month that holds the day that switches us from flipflops to boots, which is kind of calm and breezy, is it not?
To watch a leaf fall from a tree, and gracefully whirl in the wind until it reaches ground is a beautiful and hypnotic thing, and so September brings about beautiful memories of that happening as I was a child and as I was growing up and as I've grown old.
September is when we celebrated my father's birthday on the 23rd, in September is when I would go back to school and fulfill my mother's dreams of a straight-A student lol. School was always fun for me, never a challenge, I was one of the lucky ones. "She's smart, but talks too much," is how teachers described me. Could it be all that ☕️ I drank pre-school? Lol.
September will always remind me of Florence Elementary and watching the gymnasium be decorated for Halloween was just a beautiful sight once October made its arrival. I had an idyllic childhood in Florence Kentucky, and I'm a lucky person that can I remember almost every day of those 13 years.
I'm looking forward to Christmas this year, which is less than 100 days away! 🤔
Pray for me and pray for peace, lambchops,
Kimmy
There was a blanket of fog in my neighborhood this morning. Fall is headed my way, despite the heat we're expecting this weekend.
Sometimes, I feel like we need a fog around our heads when we are experiencing a deep sense of grief. I never expected Queen Elizabeth's death to affect me in a massive way, but the fact that she was a pillar of our society for 70 years, or 96 years if you want to get technical with me, she was indeed a strong buttress of our life here on earth, here in the United States, here in Oakley, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
From the time I was a child, I recall considering the Queen one of the greatest people on the face of the earth. I never got to meet her, but came close when I was with the Thoroughbred Record, who covered her visit to Keeneland in the '80s.
When you work at a weekly magazine, you are involved with a story if it is on the cover, and in my job I traced down the photos, ran them up to the art department. I had my art director give me the color instructions so we could send them to the printer.
It was interesting to see how all of that transpired when the Queen came to Keeneland to see a race that was named after her, ultimately. She met the jockeys and that was the scene for the shoot, her shaking the hand of a jockey.
At any rate, I always followed Queen Elizabeth ii. I always followed her family in the press, and admired their fortitude in the face of a number of tragedies over the years. It is astounding to me that the British people are turning out in the droves that they are to honor her during her time of morning.
It is astounding to me that she continues to command that much respect, even pushing up royal daisies lol. I know that's too soon, sorry!
I wish you peace, and love,
Kimmy
I don't care who you are, Queen Elizabeth II was your queen. She was my queen, even though I'm a United States born American, I owe my allegiance to her motherhood, her daughterhood, her sense of leadership, her sense of loyalty to her country. Queen Elizabeth was the Queen. That's all you can really say...oh, but I have more!
There's not much higher accomplishment anyone could ever strive to be. I knew from the time I was a child that the Queen of England was one of the greatest people on the face of the earth. She died today, in England, and the world is mourning her death. She was 96 years old, and now her son, Charles, is the new king. It will take a while to get used to calling him King and imagining anyone else in the role of leading Britain. Britain deserves the best leadership, and hopefully Charles knows enough by now to run the royal part of the country without too much disarray happening.
I am watching the many many photos of Queen Elizabeth from the last 96 years or so, and it is incredible to watch on the television. I am reminded of the passing of John F Kennedy in 1964, and when Princess Diana died in 1997. All of the television stations quit broadcasting anything other than photos and bios of the deceased, in their prime, at their weddings, with smiles on their faces and no looming harm in their background. Funerals are strange that way, aren't they? They clarify the world for you, yet break it down so you examine the pieces and can somehow deal with the tragedy of losing a wonderful, productive and peace loving life leader.
The seemingly innocent photos displayed are in fact tearjerkers, most of them make me happy, but many of them remind me of my parents, and many of them make me sad. I'm going to watch the rest of the coverage, which I imagine will be into the night. I just hope the news has something else on at 6:00.
In the meantime, let us all pray for the United Kingdom, and let's pray for the global family of Queen Elizabeth!
Love, peace,
Kimmy
The very first job I got in the legal world was for a labor lawyer from Mt. Sterling, Ky, who he hired me in Memphis Tennessee about a year after Elvis had passed away.
I learned about Labor living in Memphis, and let me just tell you that is one tough lesson. I moved there from Cincinnati, where there was pretty much a peaceful workforce. In the much larger Memphis, there were problems everywhere with discrimination and violence because of it. I answered the phone for Gerber, Gerber & Agee, and it was quite the lesson in life. I answered the phone and learned how to type, which I already knew how to do but I became proficient at typing legal documents while working at that firm, because they told me to do something instead of just sitting there all day and reading a book. I had grown accustomed to buying a book at the used book store down on the mall and loved to read the all day and get paid for answering the phone.
They loved my Yankee voice, spoiled me rotten, and I had a great time working there. Of course, I was wearing a size 7 at the time, and now I'm in a 17 lol.
Back to labor...have you ever belonged to a union? Do you realize how important labor laws are? I submit it's something to ponder!
Above is a photograph of some girls (at the turn of the century) that were oyster shuckers, they're like 8 years old and had been shucking oysters all day. Each one of these girls has a look on their face of someone more like 70 years old. I'm so glad that people like Mother Jones came along to do away with the child labor that was so devastating to our kids over a century ago. God bless Mother Jones and the balls she had to fight so the kids were no longer enslaved.
Having said that, I'm going to say Christmas is coming. Do you know the way to Bethlehem? 🎶
Peace,
Kimmy
During the pandemic, I joined a group on Facebook called View from my Window. The point was to have people from all over the world post photos they had taken from their windows. Every day I get to see a beautiful view of Christ the Redeemer from Brazil and other photos from across the the globe. Sometimes there is something so incredible I take a screenshot of it and save it for posting somewhere. Today, that somewhere is here hahaha.
Wherever we look from, our perspective changes the way we feel about it.
I moved from an apartment on the 9th floor where I could see the sunset over the Baptist Church in downtown Lexington. Now my view is facing East and I can see some of the sunrise through the trees that I view from my window, but I have to learn how to appreciate this, because I have a dishwasher, my apartment is quite inexpensive, and it's in a convenient spot. That's the view from which I must find joy and delight and contentment, and sing solo if need be!
Anyway, I think today I will try to remember that even though I'm not in the choir anywhere, I can still sing praises to my Lord. And that is what I shall do. I will find a way to sing to Jesus and I will praise the time that I spent at Central Christian Church, and remember it was a heck of a 25 years of spiritual hugs. From learning Mozart to Scripture passages worth their weight in gold, and becoming a Stephen Minister to the dying were all extremely profound experiences.
I started going to Central Christian the day after Diana was killed in Paris, and I went to lunch with Reverend Mike Mooty that next week, joined the choir soon thereafter. Joining the choir was a life-changing experience, and I will forever be grateful as I have said here many times.
I cried this past week so much thinking about David Shirey retiring, and my choir is back to its usual self, without me of course. Life goes on, within and without us. They miss me, but I miss them so much more and it is impossible for me to even go back to that church anytime soon. I am here in Ohio, with no car, no money, and no way to get to Lexington to see another church service at Central Christian Church.
I can, though, watch it on Facebook today and see the worship service streamed at 11:00, and that is what I shall do.
Thanks for reading all that, my Lambchops,
Please pray for peace!
Kimmy
I wish I was strong enough to have a "sunrise, sunset" attitude on Reverend David Shirey's retirement after 40 years, but damn, I'm going to miss his voice at the pulpit!
He has seen me through the last eight years of new family members, and deaths of choir pals & two brothers, as well as trauma caused by my own drama. I'm watching his farewell, which is so touching.
So I got to the reunion on time, was not sick at all as I'd been during the week, and at the event, spoke to everyone and got hugs from friends I've known more than a half a century.
From early childhood, there was Joey Claxon, Toni Tucker, Diane Friedl, Winnie Jewell, Peggy Bohart and Ginny Newman. From Ockerman Junior I saw MaryJo Pruden, Joanne Goebel, Peggy Edwards and more I cannot recall, sorry y'all.
From Boone County High, so sweet to see Kenny Vaught and I got glimpses of BCHS 1970 grad and life pal Linda Massingale, who was attending the 1960-70 BCHS reunion next door.
From Conner, how nice to talk with Peggy Prabel, who I've only seen twice since 1972! Keith Howard was fabulous as always, along with wife Lori. Tony Utz gave me a ride home, thanks Tony! Cheryl Hodges, Cindy Deglow and Carla Bell were also lovely, along with Connie Kordenbrock and sis Bunny Deely!
Props to Pat Justice and Kathy Lee Estenfelder and the entire reunion committee for putting all of it together! Best one yet, y'all!
Betsy Hendrickson, Pat Craven, Debbie Lee, RaeLynn Strich, Becky Delph, Jennifer Hudson, Debbie Reed and Bill Rowland, Mark Hempfling, Bob Reineke, Mark Free, Kathy Klasner ~ squeezes and hugs to you all! (Note I only used maiden names.)
I know I forgot lots of folks, but wanted to touch base anyway. After fifty years, it felt wonderful to see all these cherished buddies again and find out what's up with them all. I wish I had eaten more, but I'm alive and well, looking forward to the next reunion!
Have the very best day!
Peace,
Kimmy
Fifty years ago, we put on our cap-n-gowns of scarlet and blue and graduated from Conner high school.
Fifty years ago, we worried who would die in Vietnam, not who voted left or right.
Fifty years ago, Watergate was happening, and nobody knew about it, not in August of 1972. We'd heard about the break-in, but the cover-up was not in the news (coz it was happening).
I was a freshman political science major at NKU, and Dr. Dolive discussed Watergate every day, God love her!
At any rate, tonight, I shall gather with 185 alumni from 1972's Conner High and Boone County High to celebrate FIFTY years of staying alive. It's going to be so nice to see everyone!
It is a diverse crowd, but we're all just glad we survived the frickin pandemic. Everyone gets along and we're all old as the hills. We don't have the energy not to get along lol. We've indeed seen enough turmoil and are ready to laugh! It's gonna be a literal pickle barrel of smiles (local joke). 😀
If you would, please say a little prayer for me. I still have to flatiron my wooly mammoth hair, which takes hours at this length!
Peace,
Kimmy
Today is the day Elvis died. Believe it or not, I was working next door to his house when he died, and I saw his ambulance come and get him. If you will remember, in the '70s, CB radios were all the rage. I was teaching a class at Cosmopolitan Spa, on Elvis Presley Boulevard, when Elvis bit the dust.
CB radios recorded the fact that ambulances were called to Graceland that day. Then when the people came in to take their aerobics class, they were all talking about it and told me that ambulances were on the way to Graceland! So the entire class went out in the parking lot; I went and got my child out of the daycare that the Cosmopolitan Spa provided for its workers, put him on my shoulders, and we watched the ambulances come and go. I say that in a plural form, because there were two ambulances that came and went. We didn't know which had Elvis in it, but the next 3 or 4 days in Memphis, Tennessee were unbelievable. Workers suddenly went on strike, as the world arrived in Memphis. Chaos? Um... yes; disastrously dangerous chaos it was!
It was at that point in my life I realized the power of labor unions. In my hometown of Cincinnati, strikes were not part of the every day conversation. However, in Memphis, labor is a force with a powerful voice. Once the garbage stopped being processed and the city stank to high heavens, the garbage workers' quality of work life improved immeasurably, and rightfully so.
The southern charm wears quite thin once you live in Memphis for years. My coworkers at Grisanti's put spaghetti and oysters in my pockets and sneered, "Yankee!" as they laughed.
I'm proud to be a Yankee, y'all. ♡
I hated it that Elvis had left this life, BUT I recall the many times he had overdosed and been hospitalized. I was not surprised, but lordy was there some mourning in that town. You couldn't buy a smile for weeks, everyone was devastated.
So here we are four decades later, and his death is still the subject of the news shows. I sorta wish everyone would let Elvis rest in peace. Sing his songs, but let Elvis rest.
Peace,
Kimmy
Oh how lovely is the morning on Sunday! Since I was a toddler, I recall putting on my lilac dotted Swiss dress, white gloves and purse to attend Sunday school and church with my older sisters and then with the craycray brothers in their suits. They were so cute and innocent, for a while!
The pews of Florence Christian Church were built in the 1800s, and the church itself was just as aged.
Across from the Caintuckee Grill, it sat on the corner of U.S. 25 and U.S. 42 in Florence, y'all. I remember the front lawn of Florence Christian was always a carpet of dandelions, and Church was simply magical there. I attended kindergarten there and met my best friend. Lisa Idol, who attended the Florence Baptist church across the street.
Eventually, the new Church was built and the old torn down. I was among the first baptized in the new building, and shortly thereafter, Brother John Murphy became our preacher. Lordy. Let me tell ya, Brother John totally changed my view of life and faith! He was a professor of genetics before he was called to preach. He was very smart, quite blunt and truly convincing.
Sometimes we need to embrace change and progress rather than resist. If the people at Florence Christian had snubbed Brother John, I'd never have known about O, Love, That Wilt Not Let Me Go. Oh my that'd be a shame.
I need to pray for peace for me and for y'all.
Peace,
Kimmy
For the past week, I have awakened with a sore stomach. My belly has been hurting so badly I could barely make it to the bathroom sometimes. Needless to say, this week has been a bummer for me. I have not been able to keep anything down, I'm not hungry, and worst of all if I do keep anything down it makes its exit very soon thereafter.
I AM thrilled that today I did not wake up with a terrible stomach. I actually made my way to the splash pool for a half an hour and made my way back home again without getting sick, and that's a victory. I ate a banana with some peanut butter and it was delicious.
So far, so good! If you have been sick, I trust you will keep praying to the Lord to help you survive. If you have been sick, I sure hope you're better. Today I just want to say that I'm grateful the Lord has spared me another day.
Pray for peace, lamb chops,
Kimmy
After a week of feeling like my stomach was falling out, I woke up with no cramps today. Shout HALLELUJAH!
I went to my splash park and enjoyed 30 minutes in the sunshine. There is no pressure at the splash park. The roughest part is climbing the hill to come home!
After an hour in the heat and humidity, I love to cool down under the spray and head home, despite the incline!
Pray for peace
Kimmy
Well, it is August!
I have been here in my new apartment for over a year, have not yet caught the terrible virus that has caused this pandemic, however the last few days I feel like I've got some thing. Whatever something is.
I have had indigestion, diarrhea, and upset stomach for ... this is my 3rd day! I am drinking enough to not get too dehydrated, but I'm starting to get worried. I have to walk to the store and get myself something to drink, and I'm afraid I can't make it there without an accident. I know if I just try to bear the malady the next day or so, surely this bug will get tired of me and go away.
So I say all of that, to say this. Do you know what I have? LOL. I have something, and it's got to be a virus, and it is keeping my stomach in an uproar. I wonder if Covid manifests itself this way?
Have y'all heard of any new flu or some other green-apple-quickstep problem? Help me if you can, Lambchops.
Any advice is welcome!
Peace,
Kimmy
