Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

Part 5 - Third Year Law School: Trying to Juggle Law School, Law Clerking & Securing a Position as an Attorney

After I write each of the posts in this series, I think of all of the important things I left out that you should  really know about to truly understand the stresses, complexities and competitiveness of law school.  And Loyola, being a private Catholic university, was relatively speaking low key I was told.

That may have been, but it certainly ended up being much more intense and demanding than either Tom or I had envisioned ahead of time.  Having never thought about going into law or looking in to it until just before I jumped in, it came as a rude awakening.  Yet, I got caught up in it.  I had to because there were no other choices for me when all was said and done.  

I was trying to get out of a high stress work environment handling personal injury claims for a national insurance company.  I thought, based on most of the Mississippi gulf coast "good old boy" lawyers I worked with, that I could become a lawyer like they were (or seemed to be) and earn a reasonable living while enjoying life, as well.  Unfortunately, that was not to be the case.

When I first started law school, the stresses were on being able to pass and then doing well in school.  But, by the second semester first year, the focus started shifting to seeking employment - first as a law clerk and then as an attorney.  From the time my first clerking job fell through that second semester, my number one goal (besides getting through school) was finding a job with a good, well paying law firm or clerking (later working) for an appellate judge.  I was incurring a tremendous amount of school debt, as were most students, and pay back time was fast approaching.

Over the last 2 1/2 years of law school, even though I'd started clerking for an attorney, I wasn't making much.  So I sent out dozens and dozens and dozens of resumes and sought coveted interviews both in New Orleans and over on the Mississippi gulf coast, where we'd been living and where I had worked.  I can't tell you how many near misses I went through.  It was very disheartening, to say the least. 

By the time I started my third and last year of law school, the job hunting among students had reached frenzy level.  I was in a better position than some because I had been clerking for"Tim" (not his real name) in a general civil practice (as opposed to criminal) by this time for a little over a year.  I had become his right hand "woman"  in every phase of his practice.  Even though I was still a law clerk, judges let me "cross the bar" to sit with Tim in trials to help him as second chair and he took me everywhere with him.  I was getting tons of practical experience and loving it.

 As I started my third year, he was talking about me staying on as his associate, but also knew that with my abilities I needed to seek out the big firms, so encouraged me to do so.

You see - at the beginning of third year, my GPA was high enough (I did better each semester all the way through school than the semester before - I really took to law school) that I "graded on" to Loyola (of New Orleans) Law Review, the prestigious publication put out by those selected in each class who were in the top 10% of the class at the end of their first year.   I wasn't in the top 10% of my class (I graduated in the top 18%, though), but had now passed what was the top 10% GPA in our class at the end of our first year.

This was a huge deal in hunting for a job and I was ecstatic.  But, of course, it also meant a lot more work.

I had to come up with a good idea for a paper, get a faculty adviser and turn in the finished product to the law review editors for a grade and possible publication in the quarterly Loyola Law Review.  By about the same time, Tom & I realized that I was probably going to have to stay in the New Orleans area to earn a decent living practicing law, so I started taking Civil Law courses to be better able to pass the Louisiana Bar the following summer.  And, of course, I was still clerking 20 hours a week, plus full time during the summers and in between semesters.

I can't remember for sure when I had to turn in my heavily footnoted (and heavily edited for length) paper for law review, but think it was around the end of that first semester, third year.  Because of a case I'd been working on with Tim that dealt with paternity and because at that time (1992) DNA testing was such a new and somewhat controversial subject, Tim had suggested that I write my law review paper about it.  So, I did and it was accepted for publication for the summer 1992 issue of Loyola Law Review!  Yea!

Now, I had real work to do on it.

The title of the paper was "DNA and DADS: Considerations for Louisiana in Using DNA Blood Tests to Determine Paternity."  I know that seems rather archaic now, but at the time it was very new and a hot topic.  And, in doing my extensive legal research, there really weren't a lot of cases on it or legislation on it nationwide.  (You also have to understand that I was working on my very first computer - a PC, but not yet with Windows - on a blue screen in WordPerfect 5.0.  What a pain.)

It was a really interesting paper to do, but what a huge pain.  I had an editor and must have gone through at least five or six edits (at least) to try to get the thing ready to publish.  It was a doctoral level, technical, legal paper and every citation, every word, every footnote, had to be absolutely perfect.  I worked on it all through the spring semester and into the summer doing corrections and re-writes of certain parts.  I remember working on it after graduation while I was taking the prep course in June for the Louisiana Bar, which was going to be in July.

I'm going to stop here for now.  Will tell you about coming down to the home stretch, graduation and taking the bar exam next time, okay?  I'll also tell you more later about the content of my law review article because I went back in Louisiana history as far as I could go to see what the legal cases and legislative views and rules had always been.  It was fascinating.

If you're still not bored - 

To Be Continued . . . 

[Note:  I misspoke last time about how many students were in my class.  I said over 500, but I believe the correct number was about 200 to 225, although not that many graduated.  Sorry about that.]

Part 4 -  Learning the Ropes, Both Law School Wise & Practically as a Law Clerk

I haven't mentioned this yet, but in law school you absolutely must be in study groups, share notes with other students from your classes and go over and over old tests from years before.  I didn't know anyone who tried to do it all on their own.  It was impossible.

I was commuting over 30 miles one way, so didn't take as much advantage of study groups as many did, but certainly did my share.  We were all going to school five days a week and I would spend my time during the days in between classes studying with others and/or in the library.  

By my second semester, I began to feel a bit of a routine about it all, which helped mentally, and tried to concentrate on one day at a time.  That was all the brain could handle.

That was not entirely possible, though, because early into the semester, as soon as grades came out, most os us started looking for summer clerking jobs to bring in some much needed money and also to start learning some of the practicalities of being a lawyer.   I was no exception.

I was lucky in getting a tip from an old friend about a very small "family" law firm in the French Quarter that  might be looking for a summer law clerk.  I called the older man who was head of the firm (his attorney son worked with him), interviewed with him and he hired me on the spot for the summer, at least, if not longer.  I was really excited and all set.  I was way ahead of the game, I thought, and now could concentrate on school.

Our class was all taking Moot Court second semester, which meant that we were all given an involved "fake" case to work with to both argue orally, as we would if it were on appeal, and to write an appellate brief for using real federal law. We had to do extensive legal research to use as the foundation for both.

I did "okay" in my oral argument (we were all given one side or the other to argue), but felt a lot more comfortable with the writing part.  Except that I'd never written anything before in my life using legal arguments.  Further, we had a strict word limit within which to work.  This was hard stuff.

During this time - in late spring - as I was working so hard on my preparation for both oral argument and writing my brief, I got home one afternoon and Tom told me to sit down - he had some really bad news to tell me.  He had learned that the attorney I'd gotten the summer law clerking job with had just killed himself.  We couldn't believe it.  Now I was way behind in trying to find work for summer.  This was a blow.

So, I started looking for another clerking position, while finishing up the semester.  My brief was coming along well, but was way too long.  With Tom's help, I did edit after edit after edit.  No single word was beyond being cut.  I finally got it finished with all of its requirements, had bound copies made and got it turned in by the strict deadline.  We turned them in under fake names to be judged objectively.  Then we waited.

It was about the middle of the summer before we all found out how we'd done on our briefs.  I was astonished to find out that not only had I made an A on mine, it was judged as being the Best Appellate Brief in our entire class!  Tom and I were thrilled!  The school put copies of it in the library for the next year's class to use as an example of how to write a good Moot Court brief.  I also received the Jurisprudence Award from the school.

What a great ending to the first year of law school.

Meanwhile, I was doing piddle work for an insurance agent in New Orleans because I'd not been able to find anything else.  What a rip.  Then, about the end of July, I found an "ad" on the board at school of an attorney looking for a student to do some legal research for him, possibly leading to a clerking position.  I called him and went to see him.  I did the research, he was pleased and hired me to be his law clerk.  I wasn't being paid much - much less than the big firms paid - but I had a job and looked forward to clerking.

We worked it out for me to work for him 15 to 20 hours a week after school started back and so now I had even more to do.  Plus, I found that the second year of law school was by far the hardest year subject wise, study wise and test wise.  The second semester - spring semester - was particularly hard.  I was taking Corporations, Constitutional Law, Administration of Criminal Justice, Income Taxation and Secured Transaction.  I also took three what they called "skills" classes on a pass/fail basis.  (We had to have a total of six or more of them.)  Yet, I ended that semester with a 3.571 GPA. 

Tom and I had some fun, too, though, that semester, I have to say.  So, I'll leave you with this.  Here's my all time favorite picture of me and Tom together.  It's a candid snapshot of the two of us dancing at my second year law school prom in April that year.  (That was my first school dance, ever, and here I was with my new husband!)  What do you think?  Do we look happy, or what?

Y'all leave me your comments and let me know if you're getting bored yet by my legal "memoirs," okay?!  Please!  

Thanks!  Dee 

Part 3 - DIGRESSION:  Law School Smarts, Life Experiences & the Vagaries of Each

I'm not very far into my story of my life and career in law, but want to digress a bit, already.

I left you last time with my five month whirlwind, somewhat impulsive decision to go to law school at 44, doing all that needed to be done in a rush toward achieving that goal and then actually doing it.  Today, I want to delve into more of the reasoning I used at the time and how, in retrospect, I found out that I couldn't DO what I had done, nor, possibly, would I have wanted to.

As things turned out, Tom and I were both incredibly naive about what all going to law school and practicing law really entailed.  Especially, at that age and being diabetic.  But, then, isn't life always that way.  You go through the difficult experiences and testing first, and then you learn the lessons.   

For one thing, I had not graduated from college that long ago - only three years before, at 40 - and that was a really "miraculous" God-driven experience.  In fact, so much so that I still to this day consider that accomplishment to be, by far, the proudest moment of my life.  So, to understand all that I'm going to share with you about my law career, you must read my blog post about it from November 21, 2005.  (Take the couple of minutes to read it.  I'll wait.)

After all that had happened in my college experience (and many others), I trusted God to work things out in my life for good, believing that if things were meant to happen, they would.  So, I was not really surprised when they did.

It wasn't until after I was in law school that I found out that students took expensive weeks long study courses to prepare for the LSAT, took the LSAT multiple times over many months to increase their chances of passing and/or getting scholarships, sent their scores to multiple law schools (to have a better chance of being accepted), and then had to wait for up to a year to be admitted.  Me - I took the LSAT once - in June - at the very latest time it was offered that summer, got accepted mid-August, within a week and a half after Loyola received my test score, and did well enough to get a 1/2 tuition scholarship.  I'd never even heard of the LSAT until a couple of months before I took it!

Well, as you've surmised by now, I was obviously what they call "book smart."  That, coupled with my naivety and confidence in the Lord guiding me, allowed me to accomplish a lot of things not many could do.  Thanks be to God, is all I can say.

Being book smart, plus having been through some really difficult and/or horrendous life experiences, including the stressful job I had at the time I started thinking about law school, I was a much more centered, calm student than most of them I knew.  Don't get me wrong - law school was incredibly difficult and stressful.  It certainly wasn't for the weak or faint of heart.  It was hard and it called for study and endless reading 24/7, pretty much, for three years.

The level of intelligence and quality of minds of the students constantly intrigued me.  I was in a class of about 200 to 225 and they were all superior students or else they wouldn't have made it into law school.  I was impressed - and happy to be among such a number from all over the U. S. and beyond.  Men and women of all ages and backgrounds were there and the journalist in me loved all of their stories.

I certainly felt humbled by the company I was in.  For once, I had no expectations of being the best, or even trying to be, although that had always been a goal before.  I was going to be happy just to get through school with a decent GPA and graduate.  

Another big shocker came to me after I had started school when I found out (dummy me!) that in law school, you only have one test per class a semester - at the very end.  Ninety-nine percent of those were questions requiring lengthy essay answers!  You had to study a whole semester's worth of material in each class and learn it all well enough to take one make-or-break essay written test and pass.  Without having a clue, especially the first year, first semester, about what you were doing.  It was highly stressful and intimidating and went on for the entire three years.

I finished the first semester with a 2.68 GPA, which I was not to happy with, but glad the semester was over.  I had managed to get that far without totally wiping out or giving up, and was determined to do better ahead.  Which I did.  But, I had some big surprises coming - good and bad - by the end of my second semester and summer.

To Be Continued . . .

 Part 2 - Checking out going to law school

 As I sat and talked with the Gulfport plaintiff attorney in the late winter of 1989, I told him I had recently thought about becoming a lawyer, but didn't know anything about it or how I could do it, if I did.

He said he was a graduate of Loyola School of Law in New Orleans and that at Loyola you could work during the day and go to law school at night, completing the degree in four years instead of three.  You could also take the "Common Law" curriculum, in addition to the "Civil Law" curriculum for those who intended to practice law in Louisiana, which is under the Napoleanic Civil Code.  The other 49 states practice law under the English based Common Law.

I was intrigued and began asking more.  And there was a lot more.

You first had to take and pass the LSAT - Law School Admissions Test - used by law schools to determine who they accepted as students.  Some schools required higher scores than others.  I'd never heard of it. 

So, the next weekend, Tom & I went to a bookstore and checked out the big fat heavy graduate study guides for tests such as LSAT.  As I read through the LSAT book about the kind of testing it covered (see the LSAT link above), I told Tom "This sounds just like me!"   The book also listed tons of ABA accredited law schools, had acceptance dates and had five long comprehensive practice tests to take.  I bought it.

I spent my 44th birthday, March 2, driving over to Loyola in New Orleans to talk with the admissions counselor.  He told me that since I had a 4.0 GPA undergrad if I made a certain score on the LSAT I would be entitled to a full tuition scholarship at Loyola.  For each single point off that score, I would still be granted a scholarship, but only 3/4, 1/2 or 1/4 tuition.  Below that - no help.

He also said that most law students clerked in the summers after the first year for law firms and made good money.  The counselor advised against working during the school year itself, but many students did it.  You could also borrow money to go to law school if you met the requirements, which weren't that hard to meet at that level (I didn't think).

 Tom & I talked until late that night.  It was a hard decision to make with lots of variables still looming, but we decided to go for it.  We decided, based on all I'd learned, that the thing to do was to jump in full time and get it over with in 3 years.  The opportunities for funding and making connections sounded good.

 I really wanted to start law school that August, which Loyola would allow if everything else fell in place, but that was less than six months away.  The biggest obstacle was taking the LSAT and passing because there was only one more testing time left - in early June in New Orleans.

 I signed up for it and to have my score sent to both Loyola and Tulane Law School.  I also ordered some more practice tests from LSAT itself and began studying hard for the test every spare moment I could find over the next three months.  I was determined to not only pass it, but to do well enough to get full tuition scholarship.

I did pretty well on the practice tests, scoring a little higher each time, but not as well as I thought I should be doing.   When I actually took the LSAT, I felt pretty good about it, but had no clue about what my score would be.  I just kept praying about it, but didn't have time to really think about it a whole lot.

You see, a couple of weeks later I had to have a hysterectomy, had major complications and spent 12 days in the hospital over in Slidell, four of them in ICU.   I was off work seven weeks - the entire summer - recuperating and checking the mail every day for my LSAT scores.  It seemed forever, but I finally got them the 8th of August.  I passed!  Not only that, I did well enough that Loyola would give me a 1/2 tuition scholarship if they accepted me into their program.  But, time was running out.  Fast.

It was another week and a half before I got the acceptance letter from Loyola to start law school - in less than two weeks.  I hadn't even been back to work yet and would need to turn in two weeks notice.  Plus, I had to have a student loan to be able to register for school.  I had a lot to do.

I went back to work for the first time the next Monday (school events were to start later that week!) and turned in my notice.  Thankfully, which I'd been hoping, they told me to go ahead and clear all of my things out right then and they would send me my last two weeks pay.  

Tom and I started looking for inexpensive rentals in Slidell, where we would be 35 miles northeast across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans for me and 20 miles south of Picayune for him to go to work.  I also applied for a student loan because Loyola is a private school and expensive.

We found a little duplex with paper thin walls, but couldn't move in until the first of September.  So I registered for school in the Common Law program (we fully intended to come back over to the gulf coast of Mississippi), bought over $500 worth of books, and started while still living in Long Beach, which was about an hour and a half away.  At the same time, Mark left to start his second year at Mississippi State.

I got my first semester's student loan just in time to pay for what was left of my tuition with enough to spare  to help with frugal living for a while and we got moved to Slidell after the second week of school.

Thus began my odyssey through the years of my life totally immersed in the law.

 To Be Continued . . .

[Note:  I had my eyes dilated yesterday afternoon when I saw my retinologist, and they are still half-way dilated, making my vision really blurry.  So, I'm starting off slow with my memoir of my legal career.  Hope today's short post - you must read the links at the end to understand what is coming - will tide you over until my vision is better.  Should be by in the morning.]

 It began as a fluke, really.

I'd had no lifelong dream to go to law school to become a lawyer.

In fact, when the bolt of lightening struck, I was 43, living in a beach house 16' up on pilings among the huge oak trees in Long Beach, Mississippi (now totally obliterated since Katrina!) and working 20 miles east along the beach in Biloxi across from the harbor. 

 Tom worked in Picayune (40 miles northwest of Long Beach away from the coast) and Mark was a freshman in college at Mississippi State, some 6 hours north. 

We had a Hobie on the beach just across from the beach house and sailed a lot, as you can see below

 Life was good.  Certainly, going to law school was the last thing on my mind.

  But, you see - I was in the world's most hated profession (read all about my hilarious escapades here - Part 1 and here - Part 2) and forced to hang out with a lot of "lawyers" and "attorneys."

I would come home every night and tell Tom that I was a lot smarter than a lot of them I dealt with.   Finally, I said to him one evening, "You know - I ought to go to law school, but I don't know anything about it."

That changed a few days later when I was sitting in an attorney's office in downtown Gulfport working a case.  We started talking and he said . . .

To Be Continued . . . 

I've been in and out today, but when I've been in I've mostly been sitting here in front of my computer in a quandary, which Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, tells me is "a state of uncertainty; perplexing situation or position; dilemma."  Quandary's synonym is "predicament."

 You see, I have some really neat things to write about, including my legal career, that some of you (Greg) have been wanting me to talk about, but I can't get past a sentence or two without faltering, then saving the drafts for another day.  My writing just doesn't seem to be coming together today.  It all seems way to complicated, somehow. 

Writer's block, they call it. 

Although good writers persevere and keep writing every day, anyway, because sometimes when we think our writing is at its worst, later reading of it proves it was better than we perceived.

So, tell you what.  Here are the first two and one half sentences that begin my saga detailing my life and career in the law.  See if you don't think they are just brilliant on my part and worth the effort it's going to take for me to continue on.  Comment and let me know if it sounds interesting enough to you for me to bite the bullet and keep on writing, inspired or not:

It began as a fluke, really.

I'd had no lifelong dream to go to law school to become a lawyer.

In fact, when the bolt of lightening struck my mind, I was 43 . . .

To be continued . . . 

or not.  You decide.

 Cheers!

Dee

I was cleaning out a bunch of files in my computer the other day and ran across the quote above that I had saved two or three years ago.  I have no idea now where I found it, who Faber is (any of you know?) or what I was thinking when I decided it was worth keeping and having.

But, when I read it again this week, it spoke to me very eloquently.

I find something very comforting in thinking about listening for the whisperings of God in my soul.  I especially listen for those whisperings after I go to bed at night when there is darkness and silence all around me.  I still remember vividly the first time that it really dawned on me that God was always not only with me and nearby, but inside me in my heart and soul.  That happened one night, too, after I had gone to bed and was praying and dreamily pondering my life.  What a blessing and gift it was to come to that realization!

Ever since, I have carefully nurtured that relationship with God and have tried to my best to ever be listening for His whispers to me.  I've found that it becomes easier and easier, too.

So, give it a try today.  Think about what Faber has said and how you might come to better hear God in your own life.  What do you think?  Is this something you try to cultivate or is it hard for you to do?  Share with me today, if you will. 

Hope y'all have a great weekend.  My toe is doing well and if I can get some open toed shoes this evening, I might even be able to get back in the swing of things without too much trouble.  Thanks for sharing your "nail" stories with me.  I'm glad to know I'm not the only one in the world with these kinds of problems!

Cheers & Blessings to you all today!  Dee

Third time's the charm, right?!

I sure hope so.  

Actually - now that I think about it - this is the 4th time I've been out of commission with this left foot of mine in the past three years.  Before that - back in the 80s and early 90s - it was my right foot that gave me all the problems and I had to have surgery on it four different times, with the resulting casts and recuperation periods.  That were always a pain.

My left foot was always the good one!  Never a bit of trouble with it until the deep ulcer that formed between two of my toes back in the winter of 2005.  That kept me off my foot and propped up for about four months.  Even then, I couldn't walk much for a long while and went to the Miss. Pres Association convention that summer with a wheel chair everywhere.

Then, late that fall - in December 2005, just three months after Katrina - I broke a bone in my same left foot.  Remember that?  That's when I got my scooter that I ran into everything with.  That confinement lasted a total of eight months, y'all!!  I went to the MPA convention the June of 2006 on my scooter and earned a disabled license plate on my car for that ordeal, which I still use.

The ol' feet did pretty well, then, for a while.  I managed to keep them relatively healthy, although ugly (as feet go) by wearing sturdy shoes that are pretty ugly themselves.  Fashionable flip flops and painted toe nails  are way out of my league, let me tell you.  But, hey - I stayed out of the foot doctor's office for about a year.

That's when I stubbed my big left toe.  It was the last week of June, 2007.  I remember that well because that was the week we were moving out of our little apartment in town out to our new house here on the wooded hill.  

Dr. Watson, my good friend "Steve," as I took to calling him because I figured I earned the privilege, was out of pocket, so I saw his partner, who had to remove most of the nail and doctor me up because my toe was totally black and blue and infected.  I came home with antibiotics and pain killers and a terrible looking toe that had to be carefully bandaged and cared for a couple of times a day.  Just what I needed in the middle of the big move.

Well . . . it took until about two months ago for that blasted toe nail to kind of grow out again.  I mean - I was pretty upset because up until last summer, that toe had been by far the best looking one on both my feet!  It was really a lovely toe, and if the rest had been anywhere near close to it, I might have even broken down and bought some lovely open toed slippers to wear on special occasions, even though Dr. Watson definitely would not have approved.  

But, those were just dreams.

Reality really dawned on me about four days ago - on the trip - when my newly grown, ugly deformed toe nail began to hurt.  Down one side it looked black and blue beneath the nail.  The toe itself began to turn red.  I couldn't imagine what the deal was, as I had not hurt it or done anything to harm it in any way.  

I watched it and carefully examined it a couple of nights.  It kept hurting, so Monday I called to see if I could get in to see Dr. Watson yesterday here in Picayune.  (He comes up here one day a week from Slidell.)  I could, and I did.

I told him that I just dropped by to see how he was doing since he hadn't had the chance to see me in over a year and a half.  (His partner saw me last summer, remember.)   We had a good visit, with him telling me that two of his three sons and his only daughter all were married within the last few months.  He told me how expensive his daughter's wedding was.  I told him, then you'll be glad to see me because I'm good for business.

I started to tell him about how I'd stubbed my toe a year ago, but that it had grown back and been fine, except for being so ugly now and sticking way out on top, but he beat me to the punch.  He took one look at the swollen, black and blue toe that was throbbing and said, "Your toe nail has been traumatized and the cells in the root of the nail damaged (from when I stubbed it last year) and just wearing shoes aggravates it.  The toe nail is going to have to permanently come off.  I need to do it now."

I'd had to have that done on one of my toes on my right foot years ago and while it healed fine, it always looked funny afterward.  Now my very best toe was meeting the same fate.  I felt sad.

He shot my toe up with pain killers and went to work.  He removed the nail (which was already loose) and then had to chemically cauterize the nail bed so that it won't grow back in any more.  He said that it will take about five to six weeks to heal up and that my toe will look really ugly and awful the entire time because of the chemicals and cauterization.  He wrapped it up good, gave me Rx's for a strong antibiotic and pain pills and told me to go straight home and put my foot up, while I rested for the rest of the day.

He told me to stay off of it for several days and to wear a shoe with no top on it on that foot.  I don't have any, I told him, because I just wear the good sturdy shoes you've insisted a wear.  He told me to cut off the top of an old shoe, then, for that foot.  So far, I'm just scuffing around with that foot in a slip on beach sandal that belongs to Tom's grandson, who has much bigger feet than me.  I told Tom last night I guess I need to buy something to wear on that foot for the next few weeks because I don't really even have any old shoes.  Here's my chance to get open toed shoes (at least on one foot) and look at it!  Ugly, ugly, ugly!

When I got ready to leave, Dr. Watson said, "Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

I responded, "Well, not so far, but last time you told me five or six weeks to heal, it took eight months!"

I don't know.  I just can't seem to win.  We're just now paying off the last of last March's five day hospital stay.  Oh well . . . maybe this won't be so bad.  My toe is feeling much better today than it has been and if ugly feet is all I have to worry about, I guess that should be the least of my worries, you know?!

Besides, Dr. Watson told me that both he and his daughter had a great time at her wedding.  I guess my medical bills are going to some good use!

Cheers & Blessings to you all today!  Dee

Olive Riley has died.  Why is that of importance to me or the world, you ask?

Well, you see - according to the story on MSN online, the lively Australian lady of 108 was considered to be the world's oldest blogger.  I couldn't connect with the first link they give in the article to her blog, but was able to connect to the second (here at http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com/) and can't wait to read her entries.

The article says (you must read it) that she wrote about the two world wars and about her life as a station cook in the Australian outback, among other things.  Isn't that wonderful?

She had only been blogging, with help from a friend, for about a year and a half, but you can say a lot in that length of time, if you work at it, and apparently she did.  She had written (with help) 74 posts.

I don't know if I'll make it to 108.  I highly doubt it.  But, my mom might.  She is healthy and very mentally alert, with an unboundingly interesting intellect and sense of humor and insight at 86 1/2 and going strong.  I told her this last week that she may just outlive us all!

I need to get her blogging!

Meanwhile, Tom and I are back home as of about 5:30 p.m. yesterday evening (Sunday).  We both had a good week last week - me with my mom in Abilene and he with his three grandkids here - but we are very happy to be back together in the peace and quiet that only being home together brings.

I got to visit with both my brother and sister and we were all together with Mom on Saturday for lunch, along with my step-daughter, Kristine, and we had a lot of fun together.  We ate more fried okra (yum!), steamed broccoli, homemade coleslaw, sweet fresh corn on the cob, pork chops and gravy.  For dessert, we had a fresh (not cooked) strawberry pie with a gelatin filling.  And whipped cream on top, of course.

I'll have to give you guys the recipe for the fresh fruit pies.  You can use strawberries, peaches or blueberries (or other fruits, too, I suppose).  What you do is take a store bought vanilla wafer pie crust, fill it with a quart of fresh berries and pour the cooked gelatin mixture over the berries.  (Or you can mix the fruit in with the filling and then pour in the crust.)  You chill it and serve it with whipped cream.

It is light and SO-o-o-o good!  My favorite is the blueberry pie with lemon jello filling in it.  I love fresh blueberries.

I need to run try to get caught up around here today.  Got lots of mail to go through, errands to run in town and some laundry to catch up on.  Tom and the kids did very well, though, while I was gone, so that will make my catching up easier.  I just like a very neat house with everything in it's place and no clutter.  

How about you?  Comment and share with me (and the other readers) what your house looks like, okay?!  Are you a neat freak, clutter person or somewhere in between?  I'm not exactly a neat "freak," but really like everything in its certain place so that the overall effect is one of relaxation, yet order.

Comment!  (Let me know, also, if you think you'll be blogging until 108, or how ever old you get to be.)  

Cheers & Blessings to you all today!  Dee

For lunch mom and I had fried okra, fresh asparagus and sweet corn on the cob!  Outstanding!!

What's on your menu today/this evening?

Tom called while ago and he and the three kids have been sailing the past couple of days and are now back to our house for grilled brats and french fries.  They are having a great time, he said.

Thanks for dropping by and please leave a comment to let me know what you are up to and how things are going.

Cheers & Blessings to you all today!  Dee