Ann Tucker Blog - The Blogging Granny

Thoughts, ideas and stories from Ann Tucker - The Granny Blogger


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Welcome to the Ann Tucker Blog!

Welcome to my personal blog. Thanks to my son for building this neat blog page. I decided I wanted to give my thoughts and words to the world and hope they have some meaning and memories to grandparents (and others) everywhere. I am a retired civil servant (35.5 years with the Department of the Air Force), mother of two and grandmother of five. My maiden name was Scaling and I was married to Tilford N. Tucker. I raised and put two great children through college so I have a lot of experiences to build on. After retirement I became a webmaster (working for my son) for some of our family websites: ShaggyDuck
Have a fun time and a great day, bookmark this site and come back often!!!!

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Read up on some of my political views on my Soap Box Blog "The Screened Porch"

See the great BLOGS I follow and AWARDS I have gotten

• • a d v e r t i s e m e n t • •

Friday, March 12, 2010

Growing Up Without A Cell Phone.....

This is for all us "old farts"...and some of you middle-aged...becoming...like us...OFs. I have no idea who wrote it and I have added some of my own thoughts. If you got this in an email please excuse me but I thought it was good for a laugh.
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When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill...Barefoot... BOTH ways... yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty (way over), I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet (or even tv). If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents (my generation paid 2 cents! Can you imagine the Post Office making it on that amount of money?)

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. (my mom's favorite was a switch from the lilac bush) As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our a$$! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, (we didn't even have tape recorders) and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your girlfriend, a collection agency... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square!
You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen...Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE! (Gosh we didn't even have that, we had an orange crate and our imaginations)

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide or the Sunday paper to find out what was on!
You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off you're a$ and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?! (my friends and I had to share the radio with our family members - now a murder mystery on the radio definitely takes a good imagination)

There was no Cartoon Network, Disney, or Nick either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks! (Now my kids watched cartoons on Saturday while I could sleep in but when I was a kid we were outside and gathering our friends early on Saturday. We didn't waste a minute of a Saturday or Sunday)

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that! And our parents told us to stay outside and play...all day long. Oh no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores! And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky and in the front seat, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place! See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 30 (and way over 30) Crowd
(Send this to someone you'd like to make smile)

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Tuesday Tidbits

Well yesterday the lady next door called and said I had a duck in my driveway. I said "what kind of a duck?" She said a live, full grown duck and it was drinking rainwater out of puddles on the driveway. I grabbed my camera and headed out the back door and had to shoot through the chain link gate. I tried to move closer but it decided to leave at that point. The other day I had a raccoon in the back yard. Do I have a sign on my house that says ZOO?

Bummer, my physical therapist says the results from the second MRI didn't show any pinched nerves either. Now what? Guess I will go ahead and see the neurologist in April. I am taking my daughter with me. She is one of those people who demands an answer of some sort! And she is getting really tired of me not being able to go and do things with her and the kids.

Duh, I won something!!!! At my favorite hometown grocery, every 21st person checking out got to draw a ticket from the box and I got a gallon of Borden milk.

Did I tell you that when I fell I broke my eye glasses in half and then one of the lens fell out. Well I waited till my face went down and I looked a little better and I went back to my optometrist and asked for some rubber frames. Guess what! My lens and frames were still under warranty. Usually they check on things like that and my warranty usually had run out 3 days before the accident. What good luck. I got them back today at NO CHARGE. Speaking of the fall, I went to the dentist yesterday and they did some more work with the laser and on my lip also. The dentist said I had an infection in there so he put me on some antibiotics to help clear it up. I was wandering why my lip was so sore and still hurt when all my other 'owies' have healed up. I still had this little knot on the inside and they had worked on it the last dental day and it helped but they had more to do. Wonder why a doctor doesn't do something like that?

I want to say I am ashamed of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who intentionally did not mention Farrah Fawcett at the Oscars memorial section the other night. They mentioned Michael Jackson, who was only a singer and not Farrah who had 19 movies and was a member of the Academy for 40 years. The picture here is my son and his Farrah poster when he was about 12. He got all kinds of requests for this photo after she died and it was even in a magazine.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

A woman's week at the gym!

If you read this without laughing out loud, there is something wrong with you This is dedicated to everyone who ever attempted to get into a regular workout routine. (author unknown)

Dear Diary,
For my birthday this year, my husband purchased a week of personal training at the local health club. Although I am still in great shape since being a high school football cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try. I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Christo, who identified himself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear. Friends seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.
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MONDAY:
Started my day at 6:00 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Christo waiting for me. He is something of a Greek god-- with blond hair, dancing eyes, and a dazzling white smile. Woo Hoo!!
Christo gave me a tour and showed me the machines.. I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which he conducted his aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring!
Christo was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time he was around. This is going to be a FANTASTIC week!!
________________________________
TUESDAY:
I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door... Christo made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air then he put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made the full mile. His rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT! It's a whole new life for me.
_______________________________
WEDNESDAY:
The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals.. Driving was OK as long as I didn't try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a GEO in the club parking lot.
Christo was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members.. His voice is a little too perky for that early in the morning and when he scolds, he gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying.
My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Christo put me on the stair monster. Why the hell would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Christo told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. He said some other crap too.
_______________________________
THURSDAY:
Butthole was waiting for me with his vampire-like teeth exposed as his thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn't help being a half an hour late-- it took me that long to tie my shoes.
He took me to work out with dumbbells. When he was not looking, I ran and hid in the restroom. He sent some skinny witch to find me.
Then, as punishment, he put me on the rowing machine-- which I sank.
_________________________________
FRIDAY:
I hate that demon Christo more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. Stupid, skinny, anemic, anorexic, little aerobic instructor. If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat him with it.
Christo wanted me to work on my triceps. I don't have any triceps! And if you don't want dents in the floor, don't hand me the darn barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich.
The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher. Why couldn't it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director?
__ ______________________________
SATURDAY:
Satan left a message on my answering machine in his grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing his voice made me want to smash the machine with my planner; however, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching eleven straight hours of the Weather Channel..
________________________________
SUNDAY:
I'm having the Church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank GOD that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my husband will choose a gift for me that is fun-- like a root canal or a hysterectomy. I still say if God had wanted me to bend over, he would have sprinkled the floor with diamonds!!!

Copy this and send to a friend who needs to laugh. We all need a good laugh

Friday, March 5, 2010

Dooce.com blog author joins HGTV

Heather B. Armstrong of dooce.com is widely acknowledged to be the most popular “mommyblogger” in the world. She has more than 1.6 million followers on Twitter, and was recently named by Forbes Magazine as one of the 30 most influential women in media, along with Diane Sawyer, Kelly Ripa and Oprah Winfrey. She has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and she’s appeared as a guest on Oprah, The Bonnie Hunt Show and CNN. Armstrong is the author of the 2009 New York Times bestselling book, It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita. Armstrong lives in Salt Lake City with her husband, Jon Armstrong, their two young daughters, and two dogs, Chuck and Coco. Check out her current post on HGTV.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Snuggies For Seniors

While it may sound silly up front, it really is a serious effort. If anyone would like to contribute, click on the button above to help with the cause. Or please donate some Snuggies to needy nursing homes in your area.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Chapter 2

Monday I went to the dentist (previous planned appointment) and was greeted by his staff with looks of deepest sympathy as well as the dentist himself. Now I must tell you this was the very first time I have had laser cleaning. They deaden one quarter of your mouth then proceed to get rid of everything bad in your mouth. I have always had a problem with tartar. While she was in there she went ahead and lasered my wounded inside lower lip which she said was in need of help. Remember that was where my teeth went when I fell.

Tuesday was the day for the MRI to see if I have a pinched nerve that is causing my right foot to disappear. I took a walker since I had a long way to walk from where I had to park and way down the hall from check in, to where they have the MRI machine. I knew I would never make it with my bad back and my fear of falling again. Even though I feel like an old, old lady with the walker, it sure helped me get where I was going. I loved the lady who wanted to help me open the office door while trying to maneuver the walker through. When I said thanks but I can manage she said she guessed I was used to doing that. I wanted to scream, no I am not used to doing this, I am just tired of smashing my face into the cement! Thank goodness my appointment was at the end of the day and there weren't many people around that area of the hospital.

The following day was PT day. They are really nice people. Two lady therapists own the place so that was interesting. She really said until they find out why I fall, about all they can do is help me strengthen my foot and right leg. I hate it when they do lots of things on their table then tell me to do similar at home. I have no bed hard enough for that and if I get on the floor, it takes me half an hour to get up again. That leaves the couch which I have to share with the cats bed and doesn't give me room to stretch out. Thank goodness several of the exercises can be done in a chair which is my forte anyway. I will go back tomorrow before my doctors appointment.

Today was hair cut day. The place I was going last Thursday when I fell. My beautician told me she bent down in church to get something off the floor and hit her nose on the pew but she didn't look anything like I did. Last week must have been the week of the 'shiner'. Most of the scabs have fallen off or I have knocked them off scratching. A bottle of vitamin E liquid can do wonders.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

A nose dive........

OK, here's my latest trick. Thursday I was leaving the house to go get a haircut when I fell down my two stairs from porch to carport. I fell face first right into the cement driveway. As I laid there with my nose bleeding a river, I at least realized my teeth were still intact. My glasses were broken in half and had pretty much stabbed me on each side of my nose. I could see my cell phone, got hold of it, called my son to come quick and rescue me. He only lives about 6 blocks away so he got here quick. He got me upright, grabbed a towel for my bleeding nose and helped me into the house. I am glad he is a graphic artist instead of a doctor as he did mention that it was too bad I didn't get my glasses at WalMart since they only cost $38 there. I did manage a snicker even though I felt more like crying. I also realized I had put most of my teeth into my bottom lip, scrapped the skin off my face under my nose and that I had a grapefruit size bump on my right hip. I must have hit that on the step. Meanwhile my son was on the phone to one of his tennis buddies, a general surgeon, to see what were the signs of a broken nose.

Needless to say Friday morning I was a really scary sight! I looked like a MAC truck had hit me, and a little like a Pug I had once. I have red and blue half moon circles under each eye, a cut across the bridge of my nose, a red bruise on my forehead, the scrape under my nose and the largest bottom lip I have ever seen. I got into my doctor and he informed me I had not broken my nose but I sure have bruised it. I loved the fact that he warned me I could look forward to, due to my age and my looser skin, all that bruising running on down my face to my chin. I did experiment a little with powder on my face to cover some of my bruises. It helped a little but I don't think I have enough makeup to cover all this. I fell because I sometimes feel my right foot is just not there and it puts me off balance and you might know I ALWAYS fall flat on my face. My doctor sent me over to some PT folks who are going to teach me better balance and how not to fall or maybe catch myself. (guess I am not the only person who falls) Then I have to go get an MRI and see if there is a nerve being pinched that makes my foot go away. That is the weirdest feeling!!!..especially when I know what is coming next - BLAM.

Funny but I am wearing my old glasses and can see better than with the broken ones. Maybe I jolted my sight when my head hit the pavement. I am definitely going to look for rubber frames. I cannot believe how much my nose hurts if I happen to touch it. So to finish off my story I certainly advise you to carry your cell phone with you everywhere you go, in case you need to call for help. Hey, that's what I can invent, a wrist bag for my cell phone.