I started this blog to write about my incredible journey through life and how it has all led to me being able to live a dream that I have had for a long time . I have so many things I want to write about , but last week something happened that has made me unable to think about my dream at this time . I am not sure how to deal with it . Maybe writing will help me figure out where to go . I will be writing this in a vague way since I do not want to name anyone . The problem has been going on for a couple of years , but I have never had to deal with this type of problem before and felt that I would just keep doing things the way I always have . I sent a RSVP to a special person 's birthday party and I received an email stating that a person did not want me to be there and listed problems that they could not deal with anymore . They never said anything to be in the past and I thought that the coldness I was getting was just the way they were . This same thing had happened with other people and I just thought it was my turn now . I wrote back in defense of myself and told them I would not attend the party . I could probably stop this behavior by giving in and playing the game they seem to enjoy playing , but I just can 't do that . I have never had to deal with a person that needs people to feel sorry for them , worry about every thing you say and hope it will not offend them , not knowing when I should talk about something and when I should be quiet , when I should laugh and when not to , etc . I have always tried to help them in any way I could or make things for them or try to show them how to do it for themselves . I would never intentionally upset a family or rip them apart like this . My family has always been very close and now I have to try not to make it any worse by fighting back . I don 't know if time will make a difference or not . I just know that I can not be around this person when they sit and glare and do not make any attempt to join in a conversation . I am sure they are use to having people give in to them , but it does not seem to work since it keeps happening again . I could do that and then six months from now see that it is happening all over again . I would think they could see how it makes them look after going through this time after time with others . I love all my family and hope that this can be cleared up without having any lasting hurt feelings . This blog was to be a way of letting my family know how much they have meant to me after I am gone . Something they can read and know all the special times we have shared and how much they have been a part of my dream . Posted by What a great gift the day Bradley was born . I had waited 8 1 / 2 years for him and it was worth the wait . He did not seem to want to enter the world for awhile . I was 9 months and they did not want to wait longer since I was A negative and had already had one baby . They put me in the hospital and tried to induce labor all day . The doctor was pacing out in the hall until after 7 : 00 p . m . He finally came in and said they were going to stop the shots and keep me overnight . I went home the next morning empty handed . My mother - in - law had come from Dallas to stay with Kay while I was in the hospital . She had been there a week and I don 't think she was too happy to see me come back without a new baby . We waited until the next Friday and they put me in again . They started the shots and got no where . Finally the doctor said they were going to start PIT drip and that one way or the other we would have a baby . As it turned out he ( like Kay ) was turned face down . We finally were successful and I had a baby boy . I have to admit that after having grown up with my brother , I was hoping for another quiet , sweet little girl . Little did I know that boys can actually be all of that too . He was born with a broken collarbone which I did not find out about until they x - rayed him before releasing him from the hospital which was normal procedure . I brought him home and got him settled and took our cat to the vet for something that I cannot remember . I got back and the phone rang and I had to take Bradley back to the doctor to be wrapped . I could tell they were having a problem because all the things they were trying to use on him were too large . They finally wrapped gauze around his arm and shoulder and we went home . What a day . He was a good baby and happy . We were living in a two story old home owned by the university that my husband was teaching at . His room had 8 windows and was large . I think it was probably meant to be a sun room . It had a flat roof and was on the corner of the house . I loved the room . He was born in September and that winter we had a lot of snow . I never thought about anything , we were warm and the snow had stopped . We went to bed and I got up for some reason and went into his room and it was like it was raining . I guess the flat roof was keeping the melted snow from running off and it started coming in his room . Thank goodness I got up . My thoughts were that it might cave in . The next morning the university sent people over to shovel it off and we all were safe . Bradley also had his feet turned out so that they were heel to heel and they had to put the shoe braces on him . Have you ever been hit in the head while changing a dipper with those things ? It happened many times . He never complained about wearing them and learn to crawl fine with them on . He was also born with his tear ducts closed up . No tears , but he could still make a noise . One day he flipped of the table with his baby seat still attached and hurt his lip . He cried so hard that the ducts opened up and we had tears . All of these things made him Bradley and very special . We laugh today about how our first few months went . You would think it was our first baby . Maybe because we did not have Nanny watching over us . She was in Texas and unable to travel when he was born . We did have Kay though and she was great with him . I mentioned that she did not like dolls and she was not a mommy figure to Bradley either . But she kept an eye on him and was a great teacher for him . When he started walking , we got Kay a baby gate to put on her bedroom door . We told her that when she wanted him in there to take it down and and when she wanted him out to put it up . It worked for both of them . She had an antique school desk in her room and a blackboard . She would bring him in for school and I wished I had a recording of some of the lessons she taught him . When he was two years old we were swinging on a porch swing and I felt something on Bradley 's head . We brought him inside and found it was a tick . I knew not to pull it out for fear of leaving the head in . Kay was helping and we put alcohol on it , hot match stub , etc . and it would not back out . We took him in to the doctor and they even had to really work to get it out . When we got home Kay took a recorder and interviewed Bradley on the tick episode . She asked him the funniest questions and he was so serious trying to answer them . Kay would have her girlfriends over for a sleep over and they would get old clothes and dress Bradley up . He thought he looked good and could not figure out why they were always laughing at him . Kay taught him a silly dance and when we would go out shopping , she would say " Hey Bradley , hit it " and no matter where we were he would start his dance . Kay also liked to freak him out at the dinner table . She would fill her mouth with mashed potatoes and peas and look at him and open her mouth . He loved it but acted like it was so gross and it was . So many good stories between the two of them . I worried that they would not be close with so many years between them . I was so wrong . They are very close and after Gary came into our family , the three of them were together most of the time . He was a great student and the teachers loved him . The principal at his junior high school came up to me at an awards presentation and told me " You should have had more kids and had them all turn out like Bradley . " When he went to high school he was put in accelerated classes and did fine , but I wondered why I never saw any books coming home with him . He had been a perfect " A " student in the past and I just figured he was getting his work done at school . By this time , the parents did not have to sign and return report cards to school . Well one day I did find a report card that he had not shown me and I saw " C 's " where " A 's " use to be . I asked him about it and he would say , " No one cares about your grades in high school , it is college that matters . " I told him that if he wanted to go to a school of his choice , he better make the grades and get some scholarships . He did not take it to heart and continued just getting by . Now it was time to start checking out schools and getting ready to enroll . He took his entrance exam and scored 31 . The average score at his school was 17 . He even took it again to see if he could get the math score higher . He scored the same again . He turned to me and said " It is all just common sense , I knew I could do well if I wanted to . " He picked Bradley University in Peoria , IL and they accepted him based on his score and gave him some scholarships . We got grants and other things to make up the difference and off he went . That was both a happy day and a sad day . He looked so alone standing in the parking lot as we drove away . He went to Bradley for 3 years and would intern at ADM in the summers . The summer before his final year they offered him a job . He decided to stay and accept it . I figured at that point that he would never get his degree . Some years later he graduated from Millikin University and proved me wrong . It was a lot harder to have to go to school , work , and take care of his wife and son . Today he has a very good job at ADM in computers , he has two sons , and is a great father and Christian . I am so proud of him and the hard work he does to provide for his family . This is Bradley , Diana , Ben and Josh . It seems like yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital . I was so happy that she was a girl and that I could start sewing for her . I can still remember the first dress I made . She was probably 3 months old . She was a beautiful baby at 8 lbs . 9 oz . and only 18 inches long . She was like a square . She had no neck to speak of and I never had to worry about her head falling back . She had dark hair but not enough for people to see that she was a girl . I would twist the little bit on top of her head and put a small barrette in it . I wanted to take her everywhere with me I was so happy . We realized that it was going to be hard with my husband in graduate school and me having to go back to work at six weeks . I also typed a dissertation for a German priest who was in my husband 's graduate class during my six weeks at home . That was when you had typewriters and if there was a mistake you started over on the page . I have always loved to type and was good at it . I could type 80 wpm on a manual typewriter in business school . When the time came to go back to work , Nanny came everyday to take care of her . My mom would drop her off on her way to work and pick her up on the way home . I would come home to the smell of cooked food , a clean baby , and an apartment that was neat as a pin . Nanny worked at times as a live in babysitter for rich people when they brought there babies home from the hospital or went on vacation . She was great with babies and taught me so much . I am so happy I listened to her and remembered over 8 years latter when our son was born . She told me that for the next two years Kay was the most important thing . She showed me how to wrap her up so her arms did not fling out and startle her and how to keep her on a strict schedule with eating and sleeping . She was sleeping all night by the time I had to go back to work . I do not think I had any stress during my first year with a new baby and a new job . When she was two years old , we moved into a duplex and had a yard . There was a shopping center just a block away that had a fabric store in it . I would put her in her stroller and go to the shop . I started noticing how she wanted to feel all the material . That is when I realized that I did the same thing . Babies pick up on everything you do . We bought her petal car that had a wind - up radio in it for her third birthday . We lived on a corner lot and there was some traffic . When she first started riding the car , we drew a chalk line across the double driveway and told her that was as far as she could go . She never crossed it . At Halloween that year someone had thrown a pumpkin in the street and it had been run over by a car . We walked out to it and I told her that this is why she was never to go in the street without someone holding her hand . She was so serious but she understood . I could trust her not to ride her car into the street . She was such a little lady . She was not around other kids but there were a lot of adults from the graduate school around . She would sit next to me when they were over and you would think she understood everything about economics that there was . I never bought any toys that were loud or you had to run around to play with them . I loved puzzles , books , Playschool toys , and her favorite Matchbox cars . Dolls were of no interest to her . We would play games at the grocery about spotting a certain color or " Do You See What I See . " She always had to sit in the basket and never knew she had a choice . When we moved to Omaha , she was four and the house we rented was on a block where everyone had five or six kids . She pick up how much fun it was to have playmates . I did not let her go inside there homes or bring the kids into ours except when a special invitation was given . The people who lived next door were in their 70 's and two of their daughters lived with them . The dad had diabetes and one of his legs had recently been amputated . He would sit on his front porch during the day and would say helNow for the bad part . She never had any interest in doing handwork or sewing and neither was she interested in messing with her hair or using makeup . I tried and tried to get her interested in doing things with her hands . I finally gave up . Her love was cars , pets of all kinds , and pretending . So for the next 15 years , she had cats , dogs , rabbits , guinea pigs , hamsters , birds , etc . She had her Matchbox cars wrapped in Kleenex in their drawer . She was and still is an immaculate housekeeper . She and her husband have an eight car garage where they keep their show cars . You could live in the garage it is so neat . During this time we did discover that she could draw . If she could see a picture , she could draw it any size . She loves pencil drawing . I tried to encourage her to do it professionally but she just wanted to do it for herself . When she was a junior in high school , her best friend introduced her to a guy who would one day be her husband . He went to another school across town and would ride his bike to our house , eat dinner with us , and we would put his bike in our car and take him home . He was a year younger than she was a boy were we glad when he was old enough to drive . His dad had died right after Kay met him and his mother could not drive . I had told Kay often that no man is ready to marry until he was 21 years old . Words I heard from my mother . They waited six years to get married and by that time I felt I had three wonderful kids . I take credit for helping Gary to be the great person he is today . Kay got a two - year degree from our community college as did Gary . Kay went to work at our library and Gary went to work for Archer Daniel Midland ( ADM ) where his father had worked . He started out as a computer programmer and is now the head of the IT Department . Today they have a daughter who will be getting married Oct . 1 , a large home here , and another one in Florida . I am very proud of their family and the love the three of them have for each other . This is a picture of me and my brother taken in 1999 . It is a little fuzzy but you can see that his black hair has turned gray and my dishwater is still the same . Laughing keeps the gray away . It is hard to know just where to start with my brother 's story . I guess his name says it all . I never understood why he was made a Junior . My mother 's name was Pauline and everyone called her Polly . In a way I was almost a Junior as well - Polly Ann . I grew up calling my brother Bubba . I am not sure if this started with me trying to say brother or the fact that we lived in Texas . Bubba suited him very well . I am 1 1 / 2 years older than Bubba , a lot more mellow , and knew when to keep my mouth shut . Yes I was a Pollyanna and he was a Bubba . He always had to have the last word which was usually the one that got him into trouble . I was short , dishwater blonde hair , green eyes , and later in life on the heavy side . My brother ended up over 6 ft . , dark curly hair , blue eyes and thin . I have a lot of memories of our younger days and a lot of them come from times we were with Nanny . I can see my brother walking down the street with a little suitcase in his hand running away . Nanny would tell me not to worry that he would only go around the block and be back before we knew it . She knew what she was talking about . I remember trying to skate on the sidewalk . In the " olden " days beginner skates had wheels on them that allowed tiny rocks to get in and the wheels would stop turning on a dime . Then you had to sit down and get them out . He did not have the patience to deal with this so he wanted to go straight to the big skates . I have to tell you that most of his adventures resulted in him getting injured most of the time . He fell often on the skates and soon decided that was not for him . Bikes were another example of his daring way . He hated having training wheels on his and I did not have them . Off they came and down he went . My Dad built us stilts to walk on . They were pretty high and we would climb the telephone poles ( they use to have metal steps up them ) to get on our stilts . It was fun , but probably not the best thing to put in Bubba 's hands . When he got old enough to drive , they tried to hold him off as long as possible . They bought him a motor scooter but he had to have a sidecart on it so he could not really go very fast . I would send him over to pick up my girlfriends to bring them to the house . I wish I had a picture of each one of them as they pulled up in the drive . If looks could kill , I would have been dead . Each one only did the trip one time . Then there was the time we stayed at a motel that had a swimming pool andHigh school was another part of our life that , as I look back , was both good and bad . I was a year ahead of him , but I was always known as GO 's sister ( by this time he did not want to be called Bubba ) . Some people never believed that we could be kin since we were so different . In our days you could not wear shorts to school and girls could not wear pants . My brother felt he could get away with the shorts - Texas gets hot even in April . My mother had to leave work , come and pick him up at school , take him home to change , and bring him back to school . We also had ROTC at our high school and on certain days they had marching drills . They had their little marching songs , but my brother had to change the words . I was sitting in a classroom with the windows up and I heard this familiar voice , the words that were coming out of it , and I did not have to go to the window to know who it was . Everyone else knew as well . I was with a group of kids one day and one of them said " Hey did you hear about GO racing in the alley last night ? " This came from someone who did not know I was his sister . They all started talking about the garbage cans getting knocked over and how he won . My thoughts were " do I tell Mother about this " . I think you get the picture of growing up with Bubba . He was not really enjoying school by the time he was 17 and wanted to get out and join the Navy . My parents realized that at this point they could not get anywhere by forcing him to stay . They signed the papers and I know it was very hard for them to see him go away at that age . He went to San Diego for his training and after it was finished and he got his first leave to come home , it was a shock . He had lost so much weight and had grown at least 6 inches . He now was actually past the height limit for getting into the Navy because of the ships space . He had scars on his head from hitting it on the stairs going down forward and the beds were too short . Diving into burning water had messed up his sinuses as well . He was assigned to the USS Enterprise , the first atomic powered aircraft carrier in the Navy . He was proud ot this and during his 4 year time he was at the Bay of Pigs off of Cuba . After 4 years of Navy life , he switched over to the Air Force and was there for 16 years . When he came out , he had his GED , a college degree in computers and a career with DuPont . Things in our life are for a reason . My parents did the right thing by him even though it was painful for them at the time . He is now retired from DuPont and the military and lives in Rockport . As I have been writing this , I actually feel sad for kids these days . At the time ( 50 's ) what he did was considered bad . I actually find myself wishing our kids could only worry about those kinds of problems . Life today is so different and I am not sure it is for the better . I am almost positive that we were happier as kids and had a lot less to worry about than they do today . By the way , he has changed his name to Bud now . Posted by My dreams started with my grandmother - Nanny . My earliest memories were being with her during World War II . I was three years old when my dad ( a 90 - Day Wonder in the Air Force ) left to receive more training as a bombader in Utah . My mother was a nurse and followed him so that she could help as well . My brother and I stayed with Nanny and Danny and my mother 's sister , Catherine ( Cat ) . I remember standing on a wooden box to talk on the old wallphones to my parents . They were happy memories . When we were all back together again , Nanny taught me to crochet at the age of 6 . She took a bobbypin and made a hook on the end and gave it to me with some thread . She wanted me to make a long chain with them . That was a start to what has been my passion - sewing and needlework . She would sit with me while we made dollclothes for closepin dolls . She was always laughing and encouraging . When I was 13 , Danny had a heart attack and passed away . My parents sold their home and bought a duplex so that Nanny could live close to us . We had a door that connected the two sides . She had a large bedroom / sitting area , a bath , and a kitchen with an outside entrance . I would come home from school and she would be there to encourage and laugh with me . When I was 15 my parents had a new home built with an extenton on the back for Nanny that was connected to our house by an enclosed breezeway where we would eat our meals . My dad was a fireman in Dallas and my mother was a secretary for the city of Dallas . Nanny spoiled us all with her cooking . The one problem is that she did not use receipts and today I wish I had some of her wonderful deserts - fried fruit pies , bisquit pudding , hot cake and sauce , etc . By the time I was in high school , I was crocheting , making my clothes , and embrodering . My mother loved to do all of this as well and the three of us would sit on the couch at night and do our thing . My mother made all my prom dresses and many a times sewed her finger under all the ruffles of net . It was the best of times . After high school , I became engaged to my high school sweetheart . We waited 4 years to get married so that he could finish his degree at SMU in Dallas . He decided to go on to graduate school and I was working as a secretary . We soon realized that we were going to become parents but that we could manage for him to continue his schooling . I worked until 4 days before our daughter was born and went back to work 6 weeks later . You guessed it . Nanny was there to take care of Kay while we provided for our family . She took care of her for three years . My husband finished all of his classwork for a doctorate in economics and he got a teaching position in Omaha , Nebraska teaching at the University of Nebraska at Omaha . Can you imaging the saddness we felt at having to tell our families that we were moving so far away . We had a church family of friends as well that we had grown up with . This is when I realized that people sometimes have to do things that are hard to deal with but you need to make the best of it because it is happening for a reason . We said our good - byes in August and moved to Omaha . We rented a wonderful old home not far from the university from a sweet couple from Sweden . They became our " Omaha " parents . Omaha will always be one of my favorite cities . No matter how much snow we got , they knew how to take care of it . They had rules about keeping sidewalks shoveled , how to maintain your cars , and what to do in emergencies . They would turn their ballparks into ice rinks in the winter . It was hilly and great for sledding . The people were all so nice . Nanny at the age of 68 got on her first plane to come to Omaha - mostly I think to see Kay . It was a great visit and she made it every year in October for the 4 years we lived there . My husband applied for a job teaching at Millikin University in Decatur , Il and was accepted . We rented a very large house owned by the university and just across the street from some of the dorms . It was great to be so close to all the students . The first year in Decatur Nanny made My parents had moved to a man made island on the coast of Texas before we moved to Omaha . At that time Nanny had gone to live with her other daughter in East Texas . I had our son , Bradley , the next year after she visited us in Decatur . When he was 1 1 / 2 we took him to Texas to meet Nanny . She was in a wheelchair by then and it would be the last time we were together . We were still laughing like always . She started my dream and my love of sewing . I owe her so much for the things she taught me and the laugher that we shared together . In everything I make , she is a part of it . Posted by