Community Gardens

Every morning I drive down Davis Blvd on my way to work and watch the gardens in this community garden grow.  On Wednesday and Saturday mornings the gardeners are out in mass watering the garden, harvesting their crops and weeding.  The heat way during the summer really hit them hard.  As I wondered around the area I found a few unexpected Items.

This is their water source and the art work for the garden.  They have five water barrels setup to provide some water to the gardens as you can imagine with the drought we had this summer these water barrels were not in use to much.

This is the rest area for the garden I loved this area, the concept and they are constantly adding on to this area.  They also have master gardeners come for lectures and advice on what to plant and how to maintain the gardens.

I love the idea of the community garden and especially next to a church. Most churches have extra property for growth and activities.  For those churches who do not have immediate growth a community garden would be a great idea.  It would give those people in their church and in the area who can't grow a garden in their back yard due to not having one a way to participate in the garden growing process.  I would also be a great way to help support a local food back or church families that need some help.  If their corps are plentiful then they could also start selling the produce. 

My Memories of 9/11/2001

Source: mediaod

There are certain days in our lives that we remember forever every detail, thought, and even the people around us at the time are imprinted on our brain forever from that day forward. Such a day was 9/11/2001, I went to work at TXU that day like I always did I was listening to my favorite radio station and listening to some country music. I parked the car in downtown Dallas a half a block from work and walked into the building. They didn't check badges at the building hadn't since I started there about 4 months earlier. Rode the elevator to the fourth floor and went to my desk then someone said the World Trade Center had been hit by a jet. The woman next to me got her radio out from under her desk and turned it on. That was the end of work in that office. All day all we did was listen to as many details as we could gather from that radio. We heard rumours a plane was on its way to Texas to knock down the Chase tower.

I looked out the windows on our floor and all the restaurants were shutting down and going home to spend time with their families. Most of the businesses downtown shut down for the day not TXU we worked our regular hours. In the afternoon a call came through from the main office that we would need a badge to get back in the office the next day. There were about 4 of us who walked over to the main office to get our badges. Downtown was a ghost town that afternoon there was no one walking around downtown just us five. Once we got there we went to the security area but they said we needed a supervisor's signature. Back to the our office to get the supervisor who was on the phone with security already. After he got off the phone we went to the main office again and he went with us this time and everyone got their badge for the next day of work.

That evening I went home the road were almost bare I felt like I was driving in holiday traffic and it wasn't a holiday. I got home and watched the T.V. to see the visual events of the day. I was glad to be home with my family and know they were safe and around me.

The next morning I was driving into work and I was driving up the road downtown to my parking space and all I could do was look at the sky for a airplane and cry.

The Fort Worth Tour

When the girls were in high school we had a total of 10 foreign exchange students. 4 of them were brought over through a corporation from Japan, Germany, and Columbia. The other 6 came over for 6 weeks through a school based exchange program. The German teacher had contacts in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the english speaking schools in those three countrys would alternate sending a class over in November and then they would go back in December. It was a great experience for the entire family. You find out that children are the same the world over and family life is the same all over the world. All the student could speak english at least a little some got to where they could speak it very well. After being here for about a month or two the student found out they were speaking so much in english they couldn't remember their own language. This could cause the student to stop learning english which is what happen to our columbian student. When he couldn't understand his mother he stopped learning english. The two students from Japan loved the shopping both of them kept asking for money when ever they wrote or called home. One spent their money on used clothing (she was a Madonna fan) and the other one spent it on perfume. Our favorite student was from Germany and he has kept in touch with us the most over the years. All the students had problems slipping back into their lifestyle back home because they were used to greater freedom so I heard about family arguements once they got home.

During the time they were here they all had the same english teacher who always gave them a list of Local sites to vist in Fort Worth. So I got in the habit of a regular tour I would take the student on throughout the year. This tour include; the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art, The Kimball Art Museum, The Museum of Science and History, The Aeronautic Museum on the road to Grandview, Texas, Billy Bob's Honky Tonk, and the Fort Worth Stockyards. Their use to be a craft mall in Dallas and the Galarie in Dallas those were the last two places on my tour.

We enjoyed having the students with us the four years the girls were in high school. During the time the students were with us. My ex-husband was called up for Desert Storm he was sent to England and my husband and I got a divorce. Life went on and they were include in the our lives like we were include in theirs. It was a great experience and the girls found out what a brother were like.

This is spring to me

This is my favorite time of the year when the redbud starts blooming and the Dogwoods start blooming. Then I know that spring has come to Texas now I get to wait on the bluebonnets to bloom. This is a time to forget the ice and snow the slipping and sliding on the ice. A time to prepare for the longer days, the spring time changes, the spring breaks, and clean the dust out of the house. A cleansing of the soul time.

A season of blooms a season of new life

Time to clean out the cobwebs in our minds and layer the mind with new memories. A Time to celebrate the new births around us and the new growth coming from the ground.

These are the times we remember, a picnic, gardening, and playing freezby.

This is spring to me.

Meeko Sunbathing

This time of the year is great for Meeko she likes to sit outside and squint at the sun. She goes out there for hours just to sunbath and enjoy the sights, smells, and sounds of spring. The only time she moves is when a squirrel tries to come into the yard then she chases after it.

The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer - Review

A young presidential aide thinks he is on top of the world. He allows the president's best friend to have a few minutes access to the president on the way to a brief speaking engagement never know once they arrive his world would shatter. He would be disfigure and the best friend would be dead. Years later young ex-presidential aide is still working for the ex-president and sees the dead friend in Malaysia on a speaking tour. Now the mystery begins what really happen that day did the events really happen the way he thought they did. With the help of his old friend Nico, a female report, and another presidential aide who is currently running for a senate seat the Presidential aide Wes Holloway is able to piece together the correct sequence of events and how the big three FBI, Secret Service, and CIA tried to blackmail the government.

This book was very enjoyable and for the most part kept me reading to the very end. There were a few places where it drag but for the most part I really enjoyed it. The look into the emotions that a president and his wife go thru once leaving the White House and the position of such power was eye opening and something I really haven't ever read about in presidential biographies. But this book makes you aware of some of those emotions. It also made me more aware of why the FBI, Secret Service, and CIA do not necessarily get along or work together in the book it explains that it is a way of maintaining a system of checks and balances over their kind of information. This is one of those books you can read over and over again.

Call Centers an insight

Call centers started growing about 10 years ago at that time I think most of them were overseas, but more are springing up in the states. While looking for a job last summer I interviewed at about 3 of them. They were being used by marketing companies, Fast cash companies, and even the government is using them. The first one I worked at was for setting up business DSL and the one I'm working at now is connected with the government. I have noticed the overall atmosphere in the call centers I have worked at trend toward high schoolish. The people on the phones tend be college age or in their thirties. Although I'm starting to see more older people coming into the call center arena.

Working in a call center you talk with a true cross section of America. There are those people who think life is all about them and their needs. They want their information now immediately with no work involved or they want someone to come out and fix it for them. Then there are the ones who give you the information have a little bit of patience and just want to get their information with as little static in the conversation as possible. The ones I like the best are the ones with patience who are ready to work at getting their issue resolved with the help of the other person on the line who will give them their information as quickly as they can.

In the past Corporate America tried to deal with customer complaints by setting up a phone system that would automatically resolve the customer's complaint through voice promps but that didn't work out because people want to talk to people not a automatic machine thus the call center evolved. Then they tried to outsource it overseas but the language barrior caused problems. So they are back in the states and over in the UK because we needed people who speak our language and will understand the problem. Call centers are also being used in the collection business, insurance companies, and credit card companies. The biggest problem the call centers have is a high turnover rate. Most call centers pay more then minimum wage and offer benefits but since one has to deal with fustrated, angry, and rude customers the wage is just not enough to make the job worth it. Which is why collection agencys usually pay the most to their customer service representatives.

All call centers usually have a quality department these are the people who listen to the calls to make sure the customer service representative (CSR) is responding in a polite courteous manner and is resolving the problem correctly, usually the client company or the customer who is paying the contract to the call center company have a quality group also who will also listen to a percentage of the calls. All CSR's are given specific phrases or words they have to say during the conversation the quality department watches for these phrases and words, if they are not said then the CSR is marked off for not saying them. So have patience with those long end of the conversation sign off's the CSR has to say all that verbiage. The quality departments sign a contract with the contracting company to the effect that the call center will maintain a quality percentage of excellent calls. Which means a specific number of calls have to be monitored a month and have to be above a specific percentage meaning the calls have to be above 90 percent or excellent calls as far as the quality of the call is concerned. If the quality of the call percentage is not met and the number of calls is not met then the call center company is fined or not payed for their services. There in lies the reason why several call centers are in the red and no longer around. The other problem is the turnover rate each call center has be staffed with a percentage of people or they lose the contract. Which is why most call centers are always hiring and why a call center doesn't always work in a small city because they can't maintain the body count.

I just wanted to introduce you to my companion Meeko. She has been with me for about 3 years now. This is her most common pose next to my chair. She is part chihuahua and part Pomeranian hence the lion effect of her face. Her name Meeko I think means Little Chief in Iroquois I found it somewhere one time but can't locate it now.





She has her princess moments but it you wake her up from a nap she will bite your hand off and when she is chasing after a cat or squirrel. You are not her friend. Recently she has been playing out in the snow and she enjoys it for the most part but if her claws get muddy she'll come through the door at a run straight to the bedroom and under the bed because she knows her paws need to be cleaned and she hates getting her paws washed in the kitchen sink.

She is next to the shed now where she discovered a cat underneath it. I'm not sure when the cat left but I'm glad it did because she would stay out there for two to three hours barking at it. She is use to cats I had one for 20 years but I had to have her put down when I made my last move. Her hip was giving her problems and I didn't think she could survive in a house with three Labs who aren't use to cats. Meeko use to herd her around every now and then. She also liked the cats food every now and then. Occasionally the cat Baby would venture outside which would disturb Meeko who ruled the back yard. The cat would just ignore Meeko and just wonder around and eat the grass then Meeko would herd the cat back inside. After the cat was back inside Meeko would jump on the couch settle down on her blanket and go to sleep. Herding cats after all is an exhausting business.

A New Vegetable to try Kale

Not sure about the rest of the world but we are not big vegetable eaters, but recently a friend of my daughter lost weight just by eating healthy and using the food pyramid. Which basically means eating vegetables and fruits on a daily basis as opposed to a two or three time a week occurence. The main vegetables we eat are carrots raw and cooked, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, and other beans. As you can see the vegetables are some what limited and pretty standard.

Last week my daughter thought she would try a new recipe and new vegetalbe "Kale". She tried the Kale Chip which is where you chop the kale into 1 1/2 inch pieces and then bake in the oven till dried out. She burned the first batch. If you did not know new recipes are trail and error in this household. The second batch came out better. I don't think it will replace the potato chip but it was okay. I like the pieces with the stem parts in, it gave it a chewy nutty flavor. We put the leftovers in a baggie for lunches, but that didn't work to well I tried one and I just kept chewing forever. So I did not think this was a good second day recipes. I am one of those people who loves leftover.

This morning I went to the following website www.whfoods.com to study the benefits of kale and found it was a great cancer preventative and great for lowing your cholesterol. The kale's fiber wrap themselves around the bile acides and take them out your intestines bypassing your liver which lowers your cholesterol and helps to prevent the following cancers bladder, breast, colon, ovary, and postrate. You can get a more detail description of the process on the whfoods website. I'm all for any food that can keep me healthy and free of cancer. I got a few recipes off this website and off allrecipes.com. I will let you know which ones I like.

In the Old Days they Use to

While trying to reduce the boxes in my Bedroom I came upon the one with lots of memories. There I found some of the old Christmas story books she use to read to us. Back in the 50's and 60's the magazines would print and illustrate a children Christmas story. My Mom would take the stories out of the Magazine and make a book out of the story using cardboard and cloth. When I had my children I started looking for these Christmas stories in the magazines and found a few and I collected them in a notebook with clear pages. Then somewhere in the late 70's they stopped putting these wonderful children oriented illustrated Christmas stories in the magazine. Now all you see in the magazines at Christmas is decorating ideas, recipes, weight loss hints, and commercials. The children are left out of Christmas in Magazine.

When I think of Chirstmas I first think of the reason for celebrating the holiday and that may be religious for some and others not so much. The second thing I think of is the children. Isn't that why we have toy drives and angel trees. When did the magazines decide that children were no long important to Christmas. I guess somewhere back in the late 70's the magazine's decided that advertising dollars were more important then children at Christmas time.

Snow, Sleet, and Cold Weather Oh My!

I talk a lot with my Aunt about the weather. I think it is an old person thing it is a safe topic of discussion when you don't want the conversation to get too personal at the beginning of a conversation. We both agree that our idea of cold weather is around 50 degrees Farenheit to 70 degrees Farenheit anything below that is too cold and we are done with winter.

We do not like snow or sleet. It is pretty to look at the snow but after the snowmen and the pictures. It can go away and go back up to 50 degrees. I realize that the cold weather is neccessary to kill off insects, give some animals and people time to hibernate, and keep the sports season going full cycle but at 30 degrees and below enough is enough.

Winter is a great time of year for a lot of people it's time to visit the ski resorts and the ice skating rinks. Some people like to go ice fishing not my favorite thing but then I'm not the outdoors type. I must admit though I enjoy the jeans, stretchy slacks, and sweat shirts at this time of the year. Sitting in my favorite chair under a blanket and sipping a hot cup of soup or coffee. This is also the time of the year when I pull out all the cold weather recipes chili, hamburger soup, and roast with potatoes and carrots. Once the cold weather is gone the winter recipes go away till the next year. Isn't it amazing the way we equate certain activites, recipes, clothes, and memories to the weather.