Can you believe Nov is here???? I will start planning my Thanksgiving dinner this weekend and make sure who will be here and what they are bringing. Funny I have to plan it as it is the same thing every year.lol

We are now into are rainy season, as the weather man said this morning only for the next 6 months or so. I really don’t mind I love the cool air and the sound of rain hitting the roof.  A little thunder and lighting is ok too. I don’t like wind but I think that’s from being from the Midwest and the awful storms we had.

I talk a lot about my grandkids and daughter and also about my brother but not much on my older sister Karen.

As the youngest I always looked up to Karen, she had a mind of her own and walked to the beat of her own drum even when it wasn’t even close to moms and dad’s beat. She was a sick child and we are lucky we still have her. The life style she chose or direction didn’t help her health. Dad always said he pointed all 3 of us kids down the same path, Karen just decided to take a different turn.  She was the one who ran a way several times, didn’t finish school, married young, and ended of a widow way to young. Karen is 5 years older than me and I can still remember the talk we had once when I was a young teen I couldn’t tell you another thing about the talk except the one thing she said. “If you ever do the things I do I will beat you myself” Funny how I remember that. I never did all the stuff Karen did and what little I did I was luckier than her and didn’t get found out. She always did sooner or later either by dad or the police.  I have always felt and dad did to that part of it was because they were so hard on her and not let her do a thing because partly due to her health and they worried she would get sick and part because this was an era where girls just didn’t get to do much.  By the time I came a long healthy and loved to rough house they had lighten up but it was too late for Karen. We moved from a small area outside of KC Mo to LA when I was 9 and Karen was 14 and they gave her a little space you know the saying gave her an inch and she took a mile? I think that came for life with Karen.  Karen and the family had a fallen out that I will not go into but it was when mom and dad both were so ill and dying. We didn’t see her for a few years and when mom died I told the family SHE would be at the funeral and no one would say or do anything but show respect to her as it was her mother also who we had lost. That was in 1995 I did not see her again till 2001 when I went to visit her and I have not seen her since. I call her every month or two and would like to go visit her either this winter or spring as she is in another state so it’s more than just a drive over. I love my sister and have always been the go between her and my brother who have not spoken since 1995. I look back and our lives and wonder why things ended like they did, as it would hurt mom and dad to see the space between her and Mike. But when looking back that space was always there even when we were kids, and I was always in the middle..Lol Karen has settled down, retired and watches her grandkids and great grandkids while their mom and dad’s work.  Funny sometimes it seems like just yesterday we were all running around the zoo in KC and now two are retired and I hope to join them in the next year or so retired also.  So Karen if your reading this I wish I could tell some of the stories that I remember that included me but to protect us both I will not.lolol   LOVE YOU KAREN !!! "IF IT ANT A HARLEY IT ANT A BIKE!!" "CHOP IT AND THEN CHOP IT  AGAIN"

Peace,

Jess