I do not like hot weather.....

I am not a hot weather person. It should not be 86 degrees at 11am in the morning. I can handle snow and cold weather, and when it gets above freezing, wearing a winter coat is optional for me. Neither do I like air conditioning that creates 'artificial cold.' If I lived in a climate where air conditioning is required practically to survive, it might be different. But I just don't like it. It dries up everything, I feel like a shriveled up prune, a cool one, but still!

So I am cranky! I decided I needed a photo in my profile or somewhere, anywhere. I've spent the last hour resizing and renaming, and I'm not any closer than I was before. You'd think someone who has been on a computer forever would have figured something like this out a long time ago. I guess not....

This is the pic, I'm trying it again. Heaven knows what I will end up with. That's me, some years ago. No, I'm not admitting how long ago. But my Mother crocheted the pineapple dress I'm wearing. You know what, that white hair, I have that back. Come to think of it, I look like that now, just older. And I'm not smiling. And I don't fit into the dress. I have the dress and find it hard to believe that I ever fit into it.

I posted this pic once a few years back on a crochet forum, and people started looking for the pattern. I didn't have it among my mother's patterns, since a lot of her old patterns were destroyed in the great bathroom flood of the 80's that ran water down on most of her old patterns and books. Not just a little water. Lots of water, enough to destroy every book and paper it landed on.

Someone found the pattern somewhere, but I didn't save it. I don't want to make another one, because I have the original, and none of my 3 granddaughters (or my 2 daughters) fit into it anyway. Heaven knows what will happen to the original when I'm gone. After the whole discussion of the 'duck rock' over the weekend when both my daughters were here and together, I've given up the idea of all these wonderful heirlooms I'm leaving to my children and grandchildren.

Now that I've mentioned the 'duck rock' I might as well tell that story. Nothing like rambling on when you're hot and cranky! The duck rock was my dad's. He found it in one of his farm fields one day a long time ago when we all out picking rocks. To anyone who lives in the rocky midwest, at least this part of it, picking rocks is the most thankless job on a farm. It never ends. Pick all the rocks off a field, and next year, they all come back or multiply or whatever, and there they are again. That's another story.

Anyway the duck rock is shaped like a duck. My dad liked it and always kept on the cement patio by the house. When he passed away in 1997, I said I wanted the duck rock. I thought it was neat, and at one time in my life, I was always saving pretty rocks or rocks of unusual shapes. One farm we lived on, we picked arrowheads and pieces of flint. The arrowheads and flint got divided up between all six of us , because everyone wanted those. They are worth money these days. No one wanted the duck rock, except me. So it has moved with me to every house and apartment, and now lives in the backyard right next to what my daughter calls her firepit, but that I want to fill with flowers. No one has won that battle yet.

Saturday afternoon, we are all sitting outside watching all three of my granddaughters play. Or we're watching the younger two (almost 3 and 5) having the time of their lives, and the drama queen (age 8) complainig because no one likes her and wants to play with her. Another story, complete with tears and dramatic gestures and wails of anguish.

My older daughter, her husband and 3 yr. old daughter were here from Houston. Somehow the conversation ended up with the duck rock. I said they better not just toss it when I die. Someone has to keep my rock, that once belonged to my dad, and was found on the farm that I still own a piece of, another really bad story. Whatever, I want someone in my family to keep my rock. Neither daughter wants it, there were suggestions of just leaving it where it is, tossing it, throwing it in the river, none of which I was happy about. I threatened to send it to Houston with my older daughter when she goes back. My son in law is a lawyer, he knows when not to say anything, but sits there with this smile on his face. He already knows my OD really well. That rock is not going to end up in Houston!

Finally my older daughter said 'well, mom, what do you want us to do with it?' By this time, I didn't really care anymore and just said, I don't care---bury it with me or something. OD said, okay, that's what we'll do! Good grief! I think I was joking! I'm not sure I want to be stuck with this rock for eternity!

1000 years from now, someone will dig me up and find bones and that duck rock. They'll think I was some kind of rock or duck worshipper.

By the way, I'm taking the pineapple dress and all my crochet hooks with me too. We won't even get into that.