updating

For anyone who is interested I am posting a photo I found on the web of General John Reynolds, from my post a few dsys ago

Chit Chat

Sorry I haven't been around much, I spent a lot of my time last week with a tummy bug. I managed to get myself dehydrated and I am still not back to 100%. I'm trying to drink lots of water and eat more, but I think it is going to take a few more days before I get back to normal. On the up side I did have a routine DR. appt and lab work done. They are doing the base line checks for sugar, thyroid, and potassium along with what ever else they check. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it all comes back normal. I had a scare a few years ago with my sugar levels but got them back to normal. I really hope I am healthy because I one of those people who just does not have time or money to be sick. Anyway it was a really boring week last week. Prior to getting sick I did get out a bit and go shopping with daughter for some plants for her yard, and went by while her and her boyfriend and dad planted them. Her dad had come by the (plant)nursery to load some top soil into his car for her, and its a good thing he did. Rebecca managed to lock her keys in the car. Guess where her extra set was. In my purse..IN THE CAR. I laughed so hard. I never leave my purse in the car, but I knew that day I would be helping pick plants out and didn't want it swinging off my arm in the way so I left it on the floor. Anyway her dad had to call pop a lock and get the car opened. In the mean time Rebecca took his car and picked up my grandson from the baby sitter leaving her dad and I alone. It was the first time him and I had a chance to talk in a long time and thankfully it was a pleasant conversation. His girlfriend holds a pretty tight rein on him since she has moved in where I am concerned. I use to get mad at her over things like not spending a few minutes with him alone to talk, but as time goes by I have just learned to let it alone. I swear though she put some kind of curse on me for having time alone with her man. I got the stomach flu the next day and have been sick all week ha ha.
On the serious side, I am glad he is happy, and Rebecca got to enjoy an afternoon with both of her parents without our spouse/significant others around. I guess even adult kids need time with just mom and dad once in awhile.

Ghost In Gettysburg

As any of you know who follow my blog on a regular basis I love ghost stories and ghost hunting.  I would be lying if I told you that I was only going to Gettysburg for the history, because a big part of why I am returning again is for the ghost.  Last year my husband and I visited the George house. It has now been turned into an old time photo studio. The current owner and I spent a few minutes talking about the following story and I was shown where the body of Major Reynolds had laid. It was a bit eerie to say the lest.

The following story was stolen borrowed from the Internet

This story was written about in the the excellent Ghosts of Gettysburg series of books written by Mark Nesbitt According to the story, two women tourists were walking past the George House late one night and, since it was currently a craft shop, they stopped and looked into the front window. What they saw was very curious--an empty room except for a woman, dressed in black, sitting in a rocking chair and a man lying on a cot who appeared to be quite dead. The woman seemed to be holding a vigil.The next day, the two women returned to the shop and were very surprised to see it filled with crafts and looking very different from the night before. When they asked the shopkeeper about the wax figures that they had seen the previous evening, the shopkeeper told them they had never had any such figures and this was, after all, a craft store. The tourists, however, were adamant about what they had seen and even knew of a door they had seen the previous night that was now completely hidden by pegboard.
So, how was this possible? How could these two women have seen what they were absolutely certain they had seen? Oddly enough, the most likely answer seems to come from the pages of Gettysburg's history, or more precisely, Gettysburg's "haunted history."

As historic records can confirm, the George House was the exact location that soldiers took the body of Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds after they carried his lifeless body off the battlefield on July 1, 1863. Reynolds' body was left in the house's small sitting room for many hours while his aides made funeral arrangements. Since Reynolds was a high ranking Union officer deserving of high honors, it is easy to believe that his remains would not be left unattended. As strange as it seems, it appears that the two women tourists happened upon some sort of rift in time that allowed them, for just a little while, to become observers of this very sad and historic moment.

Photo of plaque taken outside the George House, Gettysburg PA. Sept. 24, 2008  (Sorry I don’t have a good photo of the house itself. That is on my list of photo shoots for this up coming trip)

Faces

By the end of July 1, the first day of battle at Gettysburg, of the 16,500 men deployed by the Union Army, there were only 5,500 survivors. The rest were dead, wounded or captured.  

This is a photo of some of the real faces of the men who fought in this battle. (photo taken at Gettysburg visitor center Sept. 2008)

A grandmother's Love

Sometimes things happen that make me remember that life is worth living This photo is one of them.




This is my son with his daughter. It was the first time he has seen her in several years. He lives here in Virginia and his daughter is in California. Let's just say him and her mother are not on the best of terms and leave it at that. Unfortunately in the course of that bitterness he has not been able to see his daughter. He has been working in CA. for awhile now but hasn't seen his little one. Finally yesterday her mom agreed to bring her and her older sister down (who is not his but he still loves) for a visit. She has remarried and brought along her new husband. My son said the visit went very smoothly, and hopefully there will be more to come.
Of course all the family here was thrilled for him. I have never seen my grand daughter except in photos. The distance and the money to get there is what keeps me from her. When I saw this photo last night and heard the excitement in my son's voice when he called to tell me about his time with her, my heart swelled. For just a moment life was perfect. Sigh

Update on Sallie the dog

On my last post I talked about Sallie the mascot that is on one of the monuments at Gettysburg. One of my readers asked me where it was at on the battlefield and I went in search of the area so I could tell her. In doing so I found this photo and article so I wanted to add it to the blog post







The Loyal Mascot

The 11th Pennsylvania Infantry's loyal mascot.

One of the most symbolic monuments on Oak Ridge is that to the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry, upon which stands the full-size bronze likeness of a Union soldier overlooking the fields where Iverson's North Carolinians made their fateful charge. This monument has a unique addition at its base, a bronze statuette of of a small, mixed breed dog named "Sallie", a stray that one day wandered into the camp of the 11th Pennsylvania and became attached to one of the regiment's soldiers. Her appearance in the ranks while on dress parade or during the march was a curious site to many, though it was not uncommon for soldiers to informally "adopt" a pet of some sort, and the men in the rank and file evidently enjoyed Sallie's companionship. Sallie made the long trek from Virginia to Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863 and went into the fighting on July 1st alongside her human comrade. When the Union line collapsed that afternoon, survivors of the 11th Pennsylvania staggered through Gettysburg to Cemetery Hill, where they reformed and counted their losses. Among the missing was the small dog, lost in the confusion of battle or during the retreat. Late on July 5th, a burial detail from the regiment made their way back to the scene where the regiment fought on Oak Ridge. Here they discovered Sallie lying among the corpses of the regiment which had adopted her. Very much alive and loyal to a fault, she had remained with her fallen master. Sallie was taken by the detail back to the regiment and informally adopted by the men as the regiment's mascot. Sallie remained with her regiment, sharing in the dangers and duties that her masters faced until she was killed at the Battle of Hatcher's Run, Virginia, in 1864.

When the veterans of the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry erected their monument at Gettysburg in 1890, they chose to add the likeness of the homely little dog that brought happiness to their lives as soldiers, for she was the most humble symbol of loyalty they had experienced during the war.


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Man’s Best Friend

While in Gettysburg last year, I spent several days looking for the 11th Pennsylvania volunteers monument.(Hint, if you ever go to Gettysburg, buy the book with the photos of all the monuments in it. It is well worth the money and you won’t run around in circles looking for the interesting ones. Yes we got the book on the last day and will be taking it with us this time.)Anyway I was looking for this monument because I want to find Sallie

Sallie was a little dog who was their during the battle. She stayed On the field both during and after the battle of Gettysburg, She stayed with the regiment's dead and wounded. After Lee's army retreated from Gettysburg on July 4th, members of the 12th Massachusetts found her still alive. The dog was weak from lack of food and water. Sallie was unfortunately shot and killed during the fighting on Feb. 6, 1865 at Hatcher's Run VA.

Photo taken of me and Sallie Sept. 2008

Click to enlarge

Busy Work

Look What I Am Doing With My Day!

 

Did you know

Did you know the battle of Gettysburg happened by pure chance ?
It seems that General Robert E. Lee was heading his troops north towards Harrisburg  He heard that their were some boots in Gettysburg. In desperate need for the shoes for his troops he headed his men there.
Meanwhile Union troops were also headed north. They collided so to speak with the Confederate troops and this resulted in the bloody battle of Gettysburg where 50,000 men lost their lives

(Photo taken at Gettysburg Visitor Center-Sept. 21, 2008)

The Count Down Has Begun

Gettysburg, 1889: "In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream, and lo! The shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls."

General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
Former Colonel of the 20th Maine Infantry





With no bad luck, five weeks from today I will be sitting in Gettysburg PA.
Some of you may remember that my husband and I took a trip up there last September and I have been aching to get back ever since.
So for the next few weeks I am going to focus a bit on the three day battle that occurred there as a way of sharing my love for the area.
Starting on my next blog post I will share a tidbit of some kind about that three days. I hope you won't get to bored with the "history lesson" and join me to learn more about Gettysburg

checking in

Just checking in to let everyone know I am alive and well. Sorry I have been so bad lately about blogging. My hubby and I have been sharing a car now for a couple of weeks while we were saving up to get his back on the road. It needed several things done to it before it could pass a state inspection. The longer hours (I was going in early because he works before me) have made me really tired and this is also my long week at work. We get one three day weekend a month off, (which I had last weekend) then we work 6 days straight before we get another day. This is that week which means I am even more tired.
Thankfully the car is back on the road as of today, and I will be off on Monday so maybe life will get back to normal a bit and I can get back on track with blogging.

Chit chat

Well another holiday is behind us. Whew. If you haven't figured it out by now, I am NOT a holiday person, preferring to skip them all together. As crazy as it sounds. Halloween is really the only one I like. For the sake of family though I do celebrate the major ones such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Rebecca got a surprise to start off her day when her boyfriend snuck a 8 week old kitten in the bed with her.

I’m not really sure how thrilled she was, since they already have two cats, but I know he will get a good home. As of last night he was still nameless, but she was leaning towards Sebastian.

My grandson was excited to get his Easter basket and was on a sugar high most of the day.  I think he enjoyed playing with the bucket the candy came in almost as much as the candy itself.

 

 

Cody had dyed some eggs yesterday at his Papa’s house (my ex), but I wanted to share that with him also, so we did some more this morning.

We baled a ham and had a nice lunch then hid the eggs.

 

 

 

We watched Twilight again since the guys had not seen it, then later in the day went to the park to enjoy a bit of sun.

Newport News Park is a favorite of mine, and I never miss a chance to go down to the water.

 

While we were there I was lucky enough to spot this Heron

 

After we walked around there awhile we went over to the playground and let Cody play.

By then our day was gone, so we went back to the house and helped clean up a bit and came home.

This evening my hubby and I have just sat around and watched TV. It feels good to be lazy after such a busy day.

I'm alive

Just a quick note to let everyone know the vampires didn't get me entirely ha ha. I must say I am enjoying the books. I am now reading "Breaking Dawn" which is the fourth and final book in the Twilight series.. I hate to admit this but I don't want it to end. I am so attached to his family of vampires.
On the home front I have been suffering with a bit of a tummy flu but am better today. Also I have been enjoying some time with my daughter and grandson.
She had his pictures made for Easter. Aren't they sweet!



He is really excited about Easter this year. We will be going over to my daughters house on Sunday for lunch and to hide eggs and I am sure I will be here to blog about it.
Until then enjoy your day.

Still reading

I will be back soon, I am still reading. I just started book three. I probably won't blog until I finish it. Then you will have me again for a few day Cause I can't buy the 4th one until the end of next week ha ha
Seriously I am working all weekend and also reading but I will check in soon

Bitten by the vampire

Ok, I am hooked. I watched Twilight for the first time and now I am reading the book.
I honestly can't put it down. I really didn't know at first if I wanted to get into this whole Vampire thing. I mean yeah, I like ghost and all, but they are real(Yes, I know not everyone believes in them)..Vampires, well, they are fantasy right? Well, not in this series they are real, and young and sexy. I can certainly see what all the talk has been about. Even my daughter is reading the book. She never reads a book. Ok, I'm out of here. I think I heard Edward calling for Bella.