Hope They Got it All

My mom had surgery this morning. All I know is my sister sent a text that says, “took half of one lung. think they got it all.” Since she is in the hospital I know she can’t take cell phone calls. I will have to wait until she goes outside for a smoke break or calls someone else in the family to relay all the details.

Bad News Via Text

This morning I got a text from my sister. It didn’t say anything except two words, “it’s cancer.” I was totally freaked out. Who has cancer? What is she talking about?

I tried to call her back and got no answer. I don’t even know what that means. Is she not answering because she is talking to someone else? Did she not answer because she is too upset to talk? Does she have access to her phone or is she in a hospital where they don’t let you use cell phones?

I was going crazy with worry and not getting an answer on her cell phone. So I sent a text back, “Pls call ASAP.” But so far have not heard from her.

Too Many Bananas

Sometimes I think my mother buys a bunch of bananas to just torture them slowly as they all ripen so quickly and no one eats that many bananas in her house. Every time I go over there I see a bunch of 5-6 ripe bananas in a large bowl on her kitchen table. And then a couple days later she throws them out because they are over ripe and then she buys a new bunch at the grocery store when she does her weekly shopping.

When I was over there yesterday I teased her and called her a banana sadist. She doesn’t buy them to eat them – she buys them to watch them die a slow death. She got a little defensive, so then I asked if maybe she thought of herself as a banana rescuer instead? She buys them because she feels sorry for them in the store, and brings them home so they have a chance?

Or maybe she buys them to put in the bowl to be a pretty centerpiece and fool everyone who comes to visit into thinking that she eats a lot of fruit? I think that next time I go to the hobby and crafts store that I will buy some artificial bananas that look real and put them in the bowl at my mother’s house. I might do that as a joke and see how long it takes for her to realize that they are not getting over-ripe and are not real. LOL!

Chocolate eclairs

eclairs

Once in a while, maybe every 3 months or so, my mother would drive across town to the little Italian bakery and buy some fresh bakery goods. She claimed to go their for their homebaked breads for my dad, but I think she just wanted to buy pastries. If us kids were lucky enough to ride along with her, she would let each of us pick out a treat from the bakery case. I always picked a jelly donut and my mom always bought two of the chocolate eclairs for herself.

As soon as we got home and put away our bounty from the shopping trip, she would make a big deal about pouring a small glass of cold milk for us all and then serving up the bakery treats for an afternoon snack. Thinking back on it, she never did buy a dessert treat for my dad. They were just for us kids and her. An I believe she served the treats that same afternoon so that they were eaten before my dad got home from work and found out about them.

Every time I see chocolate eclairs, I think back on how my mom would buy her two eclairs and hide them from my dad. They were her secret indulgence and I’m glad she was able to have a few guilty pleasures in her life.

Don’t Trust the Groundhog

My grandfather used to take his shotgun with him when he plowed the fields on his big farm up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I asked him why he needed the gun and he told me that if he was plowing and saw a groundhog that he had to stop the tractor and kill the pest. He said the groundhogs did more damage to his crops than anything except a hail storm.

Not really sure why anyone wants to celebrate groundhogs and give them magical weather forecasting powers. I think like my grandfather, the critters should just be shot. Spring will get here is its ready and there’s a groundhog can do about it, one way or the other.

5 Fun Facts About Common Law Marriage

Common law marriage is something that tests the limits. You should be informed as many of the myths that we have heard are just that and they aren’t founded.

  1. In most states, you must have the mental capacity to be married. It’s not exactly clear who decides that you must have mental capacity or what that really entails. It is however clear in nearly every state that to be recognized as part of a common law marriage, you must have the mental capacity to be involved in one. This is an important part of qualifying and must be validated if there are legal issues involved.
  2. Moving away to another state to try to end the recognized marriage won’t work. If you think that moving away from your partner to end the marriage means that things are over, think again. If you were recognized as part of a common law marriage in one state and then try to dissolve it by moving away, you are still part of a common law marriage in the books and through the law.
  3. It is a misconception that living together for seven years means that you are engaged in a common law marriage. The criteria varies by state, but no matter where your common law marriage exists, no state has a criteria of seven years. Many couples automatically assume this but it is not on the books anywhere and so should not be relied upon as a criteria.
  4. If you separate, you may not have any obligations to your common law marriage partner. Many people assume that once you are recognized as part of a common law marriage, that you have certain obligations to that other person. This simply isn’t true! There may be certain things that you are responsible for during or even after, but this is very circumstantial in nature.
  5. You don’t qualify for spousal support if the common law marriage weren’t to work out. Don’t count on alimony or child support as it may not be yours with common law marriage. Though certain rights are yours, the reality is that common law marriage doesn’t always work the same as an actual marriage so keep that in mind if things dissolve.

There are certain things that people should be aware of for common law marriages. This is not a traditional occurrence and therefore many of the circumstances surrounding it are not traditional in nature.

M.M. Ward is very passionate about the law and about providing meaningful and helpful information associated with online law degree.

Family History

They say every family has at least one person who gets interested in the family history. The go-to person in my family is Spencer. He has all the records of our family history. For some reason he got old family bibles, the old photographs and scrapbooks, and even cassette tape recordings by his grandfather. Now they have ways to do more ancestry research online. I might head over to Spencer’s one day and have him show me what what’s got on my family tree.

3-D

We went to see a 3-D movie tonight and I was amazed at the effects this movie had, some of the items in the movie looked like they were going to hit us it was so real. I had never been to a 3-D movie and I do not know how many I will ever go to again but it was an experience I really enjoyed and was glad that we went to this movie. My grandson could not figure out the glasses and kept taking them off and I am sure he did not get the full effect of the 3-D and maybe we will have to take him to another 3-D movie when he gets a little older.