My Feet Had No Idea Where They Were!

Last Thursday was a beautiful, sunny day.  It had a little bit of crispiness in the air, but not too cool to sit outside which is exactly what my Alpha Phi girlie and I were doing.  Kealley and I had not seen each other in awhile and I wanted her to catch me up on all the news with the sorority, etc.  It has been my pleasure to be the Campus Alpha Phi advisor but time had not allowed me to attend meetings lately so I felt I was behind the 8 ball.  Anyway, I had an appointment with another student at 11:15 back at Matthews, so I hurriedly rose to hug Kealley good-bye and that is when it happened.  As I turned to walk away, I lost my footing with my sandal which caused me to take a tumble down three brick steps. The good news is that I did not crash my I-Watch!  The bad news is that the fall was so abrupt that it knocked the wind out of me, causing me to faint for a moment.  When I came to, a student was holding up my feet which caused me to return to normal immediately.  To be careful, the Denton police and EMTs were called.  They checked me out and before they left, I was standing up having a normal conversation with them. After promising that I would go get "checked out" and "not to drive", I actually walked back to Matthews to my office.  I must have been walking on adrenaline because once I got there, I realized how much pain was coming from my right foot!  I knew I was going to have to go to the ER and our office manager was insistent that I do so.

Ron was in Dallas at his doctor's appointment, so I called Cathy and James Feist to come get me and drive my car home.  James took my car and Cathy took me to the ER.  To make it short, I had a couple of x-rays which indicated no fracture but a pretty tough sprain across the top of my right foot.  I was given a boot to wear which I cursed for the next two or three days.  As of this writing, Day 4, I am finally getting used to it and much of my pain has subsided.  For the past three days I have been a mess as far as dealing with the pain of the injury.  Tears and frustration hovered for awhile, but because of my incredible husband's help, I have gotten through the worst of it.  I will continue to wear the boot until all of the pain is gone because I have a trip to The Netherlands at the end of April and don't want to mess that up.
For the sake of memory, I am adding the pictures of my foot!
This has been a crazy experience.  I am so, so careful where I walk when I am on campus or anywhere else.  Obviously, last Thursday I was not careful enough.  This was a lesson learned in checking out my surroundings as to "where my feet are"!  All I know is that one healthy foot is simply not enough!

--Rosie

Spring Break - Part 2 - Arkansas Bound

I got home from my Girl Trip to Fredericksburg (long enough to wave hello and good-bye to Ron and Alex) and then headed for Arkansas to spend time with my childhood friend, Kay Allen.  Ron refers to this trip as a tradition, since I have pretty much gone to Little Rock for the past several years during spring break.

I am always excited to go see Kay.  We can have fun doing anything, everything, and nothing at all.  Our favorites usually turn out to be estate sales, hanging with her friends, or spending time at her house with Alvin Ray, her adorable dog. We are so alike in our spontaneously, easy to please personalities, that everything we do together is an adventure with lots of fun.

Alvin sleeping right next to my leg.

One of the highlights of this visit was that I got to meet a cousin that I found on Ancestry.com/DNA.  It turns out that our great-grandfather had three wives.  So, I started seeing all of these matches and discovering new cousins that I knew nothing about.  Anyway, I started sending messages and one of the first to respond was "my cousin", Karen Bridges.  It turned out that she lives in Bryant, Arkansas, which is just south of Little Rock.  We corresponded via Facebook for awhile and then finally met in person on this trip.  Kay and I met her at BJs at 4:30 p.m. one afternoon and we didn't leave until 7:30!  Karen is cute as a bug and lots of fun.  We laughed a lot and shared some great wine and Brussel Sprouts. ha ha.  I am so happy to have found her and look forward to our future visits when I go back to Little Rock.

Another highlight of the trip was going to surprise one of my former students at her college softball game.  Gaby Vasquez was a student of mine when she was in the 3rd and 4th grades at Central Elementary School.  Patty, my principal, allowed me to Loop with my 3rd graders up to their 4th grade and this turned out to be one of my most memorable classes of my career.  Gaby was always a very special child.  We had and still have one of those teacher-student bonds that will last forever.  Gaby wound up graduating from Lewisville High School in the top 10 of her class.  She won a full athletic scholarship plus other academic scholarships to Arkansas Tech.  She is going to graduate in May with a degree in nursing.  So, when I decided to go to Little Rock, I looked up her schedule and was so excited to see that she had a home game in Russellville on Saturday.  Kay and I drove there and I surprised Gaby!  It was so wonderful to see her.  Even though I don't get to see her often, it seems that nothing changes.  She also has the sweetest mom in the world and she was there, too.  It was a great time and I am extremely happy that it worked out that I could see her.

Moments after the surprise!

Gaby's Senior banner at the softball field.

Gabby in 4th grade.

This is a letter Gaby wrote to me, also, in 4th grade.

I headed home on Sunday.  As I reflected over the past week, I realized that between the Fredericksburg trip and the Arkansas visit, this was one of my favorite spring trips in several years.  I am so blessed.

-Rosie

GIRLIE TIME IN FREDERICKSBURG - 2019

There is simply something about spring that generates the words, "Road Trip" and this week-end was no exception.  The true reason for this particular excursion was to celebrate my buddy, Brenda Brown's birthday.  Brenda wanted three of her closest friends (there are many of those) to go on a trip to Fredericksburg, and, fortunately I was one of those three.  I had never met the other two and quickly learned what I had been missing. Sharon, and Sandra have been friends for many years and their history with Brenda is much longer than mine.  But, one thing the three of us all have in common is that we love Brenda Brown!

We started our trip on Thursday, March 7, and ended it on Sunday late afternoon, the 10th.  There was so much packed between those two dates that there isn't enough to write.  We laughed, shopped, watched movies, ate and ate and ate, played cards and talked and talked and talked and played cards,(among other things,) Continued writing at the bottom of pictures. Read that first.

Our home away from home.  404 East Travis.

These are truly fresh flowers when we first arrived.

A little night entertainment after dinner at Crossroads on Thursday night.

I have no idea what that is above my head. We are about to have dinner.

Brenda and I met a friend.

Three fourths of our crew about to leave for dinner.  Look out Fredericksburg.

This was a real, not pretend, fun time after dinner! Followed by a long walk that seemed to "drag" on!

Sharon enjoying our beautiful living area.

This actually is a "before" picture of our crew leaving Burleson.  Thanks, Kenny, for seeing us off!

Upon arrival, good friends making a toast.

The sign says, "Enjoy" and we truly did.

One of the lovely bedrooms.

There's the birthday girl who often was heard saying, "It's my birthday!!"

I taught the girls to play Hand and Foot.  We became addicted and played until 2:30 a.m. the first night.  We were entertained with You Tube videos, operated by our DJ, Sharon!

This picture should be at the end. If I try to rearrange, they will ALL be a mess.

Isn't this beautiful?  It was taken late Saturday afternoon.

This was my first wine tasting experience.  Such Fun!

Birthday celebration (again!) at the winery.

Clink!  There were many clinks all weekend.

My new best friend, Sandra, because she thought I was 64!

This should be at the VERY end because we were back in Burleson after a perfect weekend.  Kenny took our picture again and was instructed to hold the camera high so we would look skinny!

Really cute picture of Sharon taken at the Koffee Kup.  She is really happy because she was about to eat a big ole piece of pie!

And we are back at the winery! We didn't really go back....just those out of order pictures again.

These girls were ruthless card players.  I really had to keep an eye on them to make sure they were following the rules, which I tended to change now and then!

Yep, coconut creme and I ate every bite of it.  Proud! 

Just look at those happy faces!

You are correct!  This is a porch swing!

So Sharon designed us each a glass with her cricket machine.  This one is mine.  Be sure that you see, "Yes, Way", at the top!  I liked that word, YES!

Lunch at the Winery and, no, I did not eat it all.

We each got a different entree.  The food, coffee, wine, mimosa and coffee were delicious.

Restaurant at the winery.

Grape Juice

Okay, so Sharon took this picture of me while she was on the other side.  I was pretending she wasn't there.  I know, sounds crazy.  We were silly most of the time.  Sharon would often get confused by my name and call me, Raycie!  

I have no caption for this picture other than my nails look really good!

There was a fire pit out in the back.  We needed one more night to get to use it!

Surely was wishing for my "shuffler" at home!  This had to make do!

Our trusted driver!  Other drivers had better get out of her way, I learned.

Here we are in our dignified cuteness as we left Burleson.

Birthday cards and gifts for the birthday girl.

Texas, our Texas! la la la la la

Uh, oh dear.  This was our first stop on Thursday.  Central Perk in ???

Here are all of the glasses Sharon made.

I am just an innocent observer.

Good-bye to our home away from home.  As Arnold would say, "We'll be back!"

until the wee hours of the morning.  I am sure you get the picture.  Of course, there were some things that will remain our little secret.  You know the old saying, "What happens in Fredericksburg, stays in Fredericksburg!"  Also, this writer understands that some events that bring us to tears thinking about, might have no humor or meaning to you.  You simply had to be there to really appreciate any of the stories of our time together.  All I know is that I am so grateful for the memories, for my two new friends, Sharon and Sandra, and, of course, Brenda.
I am going to now attempt to add pictures and captions.  I haven't blogged in awhile and do recall that I can get a little frustrated trying to get them in order from my photo library to here.  So, hopefully you will enjoy seeing them, with your expectations not too elevated for how they are arranged!

Thanks for reading,
Rosie (known to some as Raysie)