Brandie Halls

Did you hear about the three white tiger cubs that were rejected by their mother?  Well Isabella, a golden retriever took them in.  She nursed the ‘puppies’ and loved them just as much as if they barked instead of meowed.  People think animals don’t have feelings but I disagree.  Some animals have more feelings it seems than some people I know.  If it hadn’t been for this dog, those tiger cubs would have died.  Now the small safari park in Kansas will have the three cubs thanks to this amazing dog.

I read an article on MSN Moneycentral about feeding a family on $100 a week.  If we spent that much a week on food, we wouldn’t be able to pay all the other bills.  There are better way to save money on food than they talk about.  Mom buys a lot of chicken and hamburger but we still eat good.  We have a little garden and Grandpa has a big garden so we home can and freeze a lot of vegetables so we don’t have to buy that many vegetables.  Mom is great at making different things with the same old meats.  You just have to find recipes that everyone likes and use your imagination a little.  I’m learning to be a pretty good cook from Mom.

My family loves collecting things.  Mom loves antique and  spends a lot of time at yard sales and flea markets where most of the goodies come from.  The latest “craze” are frogs.  Since we’re out of school for the summer it seems like a great time to get a froggie tank.

I’m thinking that maybe over this weekend, while my Mom is running errands, we should stop by the closest pet store and see if we can find a froggie tank and some frog eggs and get this thing hoppin (hoppin……….frogs, wasn’t that cute???).  Hopefully it’ll make Mom feel a little better too.  That would sure be a nice additive to having the frogs.

   It’s Memorial Day Weekend and Mom can’t afford to take us anywhere this weekend.  Gas is almost $4 a gallon here.  I know I’m only in high school and none of this makes any sense to me how gas keeps going up and yet the oil companies keep making all these record profits.  How is that possible other than it looks like they’re just getting richer off of us little people.  Mom said when she started driving (back in the stone age) that gas was only .37 cents a gallon.  I asked her if that was just after they stopped using their feet like Fred Flintstone to make their cars stop and go???  She didn’t find that too funny.  Our family isn’t the only one that isn’t going anywhere.  In fact, most of my friends are just sticking around here.  Darlene’s family opened their pool and we’re all going to her house Saturday for a cook out and swim party.  Mom said something  about having a cook out Monday.  At least I’ll eat good this weekend even if we can’t afford gas.

   Granny Myrtle is one of the elderly women that has adopted me as her granddaughter at the nursing home I work at.  She’s something else.  She can’t remember what year she was born in so they aren’t sure how old she really is but it’s somewhere between 92 and 102.  What’s amazing about her is her mind is clearer than mine is most of the time!! She grew up with horse and buggies and remembers the first time she saw a car.  She said it scared her to death.  She used to have to work in the cotton fields from the time she was 5 years old.  She wasn’t allowed to work the tobacco fields because she was too young and would get sick from the tobacco.  They don’t grow tobacco around here anymore but there are more and more cotton fields now.  She remembers where she was and what she was doing when President Kennedy was assassinated.  She still getsa tear in her eye when she talks about it.  This woman is a walking, talking history book.  I have learned so much from her and the truly amazing part is I have looked up some of the things she has told me about on the Internet and she tells it like it really was.  She had 8 children of her own but they’re all gone now as she puts it.  She’s the only one left in her whole family that she knows of other than a great nephew somewhere in Ohio she thinks.  She hasn’t heard from him in over 30 years.  How can people just throw away someone just because they get old?  I can’t figure that one out.  She loves for me to comb her hair and we have some really interesting conversations while I do it.  I couldn’t love her more if she really was my Granny Myrtle.