THE MANY BLESSINGS OF NOVEMBER CONTINUE....

from left to right: my brother, RUSS, sister JOAN, MOM, ME, sister JEAN, AND baby brother, RANDY.
WHAT A BLESSING MY MOM, BROTHERS AND SISTERS ARE TO ME! ....Not to mention how blessed I am with my sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews and cousins! Ours is a big, close family and when I come across people who are not blessed to have a large, tight-knit family, I am made even more aware of how blessed I am to be so close to mine.

Oh, but it hasn't always been that way...
My brothers AND MY sisters have been known to tell the most awful lies about how bossy I was as the oldest child. They have spread vicious rumors about how I would "claw" them with my fingernails, how I would *tattle* and boss them around, how I would tell my youngest brother that he was adopted until I made him cry.
Oh, come on!!!
Why, anyone that knows me, knows that it would be impossible for me to be anything but nice.
.....Everyone knows that my favorite saying is, "because nice matters".
Well, where do you think that came from???
Do you think I just pulled it out of the air???
NO.
It came, I feel certain, from my deep abiding love for all mankind, especially those less fortunate than me - those dipsticks I was forced to babysit....my psycho siblings.

In fact, just the fact that I would consider my siblings a blessing is a miracle in itself....
because I REMEMBER.....
...coming home late at night (during college break) and having to walk alone through our long kitchen in the pitch black because I couldn't get the light switch to work because one of the brats had balanced the switch at the other end of the kitchen so that the switch at my end wouldn't turn on the lights.
And even though I knew, I KNEW, those r*t*rds were all waiting to jump out and scare me, I would still be so scared that I would scream bloody murder when I heard the first "boo".
It's no wonder I have high blood pressure today.
Brats.
Oh, and I remember when we lived in Leawood, Kansas, and I was like in the 4th grade and we had this huge patio on the back of the house with probably 100 flood lights. Those spiteful little snakes would wait 'til dark and would lock me out of the house, turn on all 500 of the flood lights so that every JUNE BUG IN KANSAS could find me and ATTACK ME.
ATTACK ME AND PROBABLY SUCK BLOOD RIGHT OUT OF ME.

Well, that's what I remember.....I'm only touching on a couple of the highlights, but I think you get the picture. I know that from reading this post you can fully appreciate why we are so close today and why I love them so dearly.

Oh, and where was my MOTHER when all of this was going on???....I'll save "Mom as a Blessing" for another post.