The Midwest Farmer's Daughter

The Wishbone

2012-12-31T20:00:00.001-08:00

Clearing off the kitchen counter to rid it of the stack of empty cookie containers, morning coffee cups and breakfast cereal bowls, I noticed something resting on the lid of the small green atlas jar setting behind the double sink. It took me just a second to recognize its familiar bony shape. There it was, hideous and dried up; the wishbone from last Thursdays Christmas eve dinner.

"How could it have gone un-noticed by me for that long?", I pondered as I stared at it for the moment. After all my OCD has never allowed anything to be out of place for much more than a minute. But never-the-less it was there, left where I had set it to dry. I thought perhaps my husband and my daughter would later that day share in the tradition of each grabbing an end and pulling quickly to break the bone apart so that the one of them who ended up with the largest of the broken piece could tease that they had won and their wish would come true.

But somehow that day had come and gone so quickly now that I could hardly remember setting the wishbone aside. As I reached for the thing to toss it into the trash, something came to mind and I found myself unable to grasp it. Instead I continued to stare at it as if I was seeing it for the first time. I must've been about seven as I stood in Grandma's kitchen inhaling the delightful aromas' of well seasoned homemade stuffing, fresh baked banana bread and apple pie. Grandpa had been picking off the last remnants of what Grandma proclaimed was the "Biggest Bird" we had ever had. Of course every year the turkeys seemed to get bigger and Grandma always fussed about how she would fit each one into her old black granite roaster. As the last few pieces were plucked off, the carcus was exposed to leave ones imagination as to what the turkey once had looked like and then the process of removing the wishbone without destroying its integrity was all that remained. I watched as my Grandpa carefully separated the thin piece from its points of connection. "Now we need to set it in the kitchen window so it can dry before we get to use it!" he warned. "How long?" I asked, hoping it would be sooner than later. "Time will tell." he stated as he left it in it's place on the window ledge and went about gathering the remaining carcus to be carried out to the trash.

Grandpa wasn't one to sit for very long and in some ways I had always been able to relate. He spent much of his time helping out with any chore that needed to be done and definitely wasn't the type to procrastinate. Even as he sat back in his rotatable rocking chair to enjoy a good Wrestling match or The Red Skelton Show on tv, if he spied a speck of dust on the carpet, he would quickly leave his comfort zone and whisk it away to the trash can in the garage. But Grandpa also had plenty of patience and the understanding that good things always come to those who wait patiently.

Finally by supper time the taste of leftover cold turkey sandwiches in buttered white bread would remind me that there were wishes to be made and the "snap" of a small, thin bone to be heard. From it's place on the window ledge to my anxiously waiting fingers, Grandpa had finally retrieved the wishbone and asked, "Well which side do you want?". I carefully looked over each bony side and after deciding which looked the sturdiest to grab hold of, I made my choice. Grandpa reminded me that first the wish and cautioned never to tell or it would not come true. Then as he held tightly to the other end, we closed our eyes, he counted to three and the breaking of the bone commenced. I can still remember the feeling of victory as I held up the larger piece tightly between my thumb and pointer finger for everyone in the room to see. I know I probably wished for something like a pony or another unobtainable thing that I had wanted, but that part I don't think mattered to me as much as the actual tradition of breaking the wishbone.

In my family, most of our traditions would be considered fairly "normal" American traditions. Some of them were based on our family's religious background and some were a matter of repeated behavior. The celebration of Christmas was of course from our religious belief. There would be the live manger scene at our church on Christmas Eve and all the little girls wished they had been chosen to be an angel so they could wear the wings. I can remember a time when even our grade school had a Christmas program and "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" was one of many songs we would collectively carol together in the school gym. Boy have times changed! I had always known that we celebrated Christmas because of the birth of the baby Jesus. Away in the Manger was probably the very first song I had ever learned to sing. During the Christmas holiday, there was always a small manger scene decorating a side table in our home as well as the manger scene snow globes that had once been given out at Sunday school. One year while living in Holland, I had sent my Grandparents a lovely manger scene. It was so large that they decided to proudly display it by setting it on a glittered cotton cloth atop the console tv set in the living room. I think it took them a while before they realized that the little light hanging over the baby Jesus actually lit up if you added a battery to the plastic casing in the back. Grandpa wouldn't let it be lit long anyway since he couldn't see wasting the battery. It had a music box hidden in the roof that when played, chimed a lovely Christmas tune but sadly I have forgotten which one.

Music was abundant around our home and at Christmas time even more than normal. Joy To The World, It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, Good King Wenceslas, Oh Christmas Tree and countless other songs came from our voices, radios and endless Christmas programs. One year at a church Christmas program where my older sister Kathy was to be singing in the acapella choir, I wore new white tights and saddle shoes with my Christmas dress. I remember the thrill that came from seeing my sister among the choir and hearing their beautiful Christmas cantata. I remember thinking that maybe someday it would be me up there singing.

Some of our Christmas traditions involved eating special things. The yummy spritz and sugar cookies decorated with those little silver and gold balls, (I'm pretty sure I read sometime back that those little balls caused cancer in laboratory rats); the ice cream Santa's and Christmas Trees that came in a package of only 6 and were so expensive but somehow we always managed to have them; the assortment of fruit pies that Grandma baked, putting such care and love into each one that it made even the most simple of pie recipes taste incredible, and of course the turkey. There was one food tradition that Grandma held dear from her Swedish roots and even Grandpa seemed to enjoy, but I'm not sure if the taste for it resonated much farther down the family tree. The stinky Swedish dish, "Lutefisk"! Lutefisk is a traditional Scandinavian dish of lye-cured cod, usually served at Christmas (by and to those who can stomach the stuff). It's served with boiled potatoes, a white sauce, lots of melted butter, and pepper. I can still remember the awful smell of the thing as it sat on a table in the garage where it had been quarantined so as not to stink up the whole house.

Grandma used to tell me the stories of when she was young and the men in the family would bring home a cedar tree from some nearby farm pasture and then her and her sister would decorate it with candles. I had always known that sometime after Thanksgiving my Grandparents would go down to the Christmas tree sales on the sidewalk in front of Boogarts grocery store and pick out an inexpensive Douglas Fir. The tree was never too big since the trunk had to fit into the small opening of the metal stand and be framed by the large picture window in the living room. It couldn't be too tall because the living room ceilings were not that high and also Grandpa being the main person to decorate it was only five foot himself. The decorations were mostly of fragile, painted glass and of many various shapes and sizes. I recognized a few from the trips I had gone on with my Grandparents each year to a local greenhouse that would sell beautiful and sometimes very expensive ornaments during the Christmas season. Grandma would delight in picking out just one or maybe two "new" ornaments to adorn her tree. One year a bubble light ornament caught her fancy and became one our favorites to watch as it did it's thing once plugged in and heated up. The brightly colored large screw in light bulbs, angel hair carefully draped across each limb and homemade felt tree skirt made the tree feel like an old friend returning each year for a visit.

I have read different stories about the origin of the Christmas tree over my lifetime; everything from it being part of a pagan ritual in the 7th century where a monk from Crediton, Devonshire, went to Germany to teach the Word of God to some Druids, to a sappy story of how it was a small, ignored tree growing in a forest among many tall and beautiful trees but was glorified by a family who cut it down for their Christmas celebration. I never questioned why we chose the tradition of having a Christmas tree in our home but rather accepted it as just something we had always done, just as I accepted many years ago the story of the baby named Jesus and why we celebrated his birth on December 25th each year.

The tradition of the wishbone for me started with Grandpa. I never thought to ask him why we did it or if his Grandpa had done this with him. Looking back now I can see where that was a mistake but many things are a mistake in retrospect. Things like not telling someone you have loved, how much they mean to you or setting aside the time just to share a moment or a memory. We all have done that and knowing we have, we still lead ourselves to believe that there will yet be another chance, another tomorrow. The world is always changing and so many things that are coming our way seem to be getting in the way of what matters the most.

This years Christmas wishbone is still sitting on the lid of the green atlas jar on my kitchen counter. As grotesque as a bone may become, I cannot bring myself to throw it away. It needs to be wished upon! It needs to be broken! It needs to be held up high in joyful exclamation! If it were to be thrown away without being shared, I fear that in some ways the closeness, the enjoyment and even the love that comes from the simple pastime of making a wish over a funny shaped turkey bone, may become one more lost tradition.

Kansas Farmhouse For Sale: Kansas Farmhouse for Sale

2012-07-12T20:49:00.001-07:00

Kansas Farmhouse For Sale: Kansas Farmhouse for Sale: The barn easily houses two cars and includes a built in work bench, a second story loft space for extra storage and lot...

Not a good way to clean out your Ventilation System!

2012-05-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

I know I've been gone for a long time; at least a month or maybe even two! I have been so terribly busy I'm not even sure how long it's been since I've had the chance to spend more than 15 minutes at this computer. But tonight my Big Guy is in another town doing his thing as the "Very Friendly Train Engineer" and I am finally free from work to take a couple of hours for myself; I guess if you count the three loads of laundry I'm working on, making out the paychecks to give to the crew tomorrow (Payday every Friday) and trying to groom the knots out of Cookie's neglected hair as my time. Anyway, here I am finally pecking away!

I wanted to tell you about something that happened about a week ago and still has me pretty shook up when I think about it. I have taken on a property management position that keeps me hopping and I'm constantly rushing here and there to get things done. Our poor little FooFoo doggies and our youngest daughter's Chihuahua Rocky have had to keep each other company while I am working although I do come home at least once every day, usually at lunch, to take them out to potty and make certain they are happy. After working a full day, I came home to find Chrissy acting like a total spaz, running around in circles, barking hysterically. Of course she does this sometimes when she just needs to go potty but this time it seemed different. She didn't head for the door like she normally does and her barking was more like a warning.

In the midst of her crazy barking I thought I could hear Rocky's muffled bark and as I followed Cookie, who had finally stopped jumping on me like she always does when I enter the house, down the hall to the bathroom where the muffled barking seemed to be coming from. I thought perhaps Rocky was stuck behind the toilet again. This has happened quite often since he has lost his hearing and his sight. Rocky will wander aimlessly until he reaches a spot that he gets stuck in, becomes confused and then he will just bark until he is rescued.

But as I entered the bathroom I was shocked to find the floor vent cover flipped off of the hole and laying nearby and the muffled bark was coming from inside the hole!

At first I thought there was no way Rocky could have fit down into that small space but reality set in when again I heard the bark from the hole. I felt the cold burst of the air conditioning and ran quickly to turn off the unit. Then, going back to the bathroom, I laid down on the floor and tried to look into the hole but could not see anything. By now the barking was becoming almost a sorrowful sound as if he had been crying out for quite some time and was giving up. My heart was sinking at the thought of what this poor little guy, blind and deaf, not to mention probably freezing from the cold air blowing continuously on his very short haired body, must have been feeling.

I flattened out on the floor as best I could and slipped my arm into the hole, extending and stretching as far as possible. Nothing on one side so I changed positions and tried the other side but felt nothing there either. He had to have been at least three feet from the hole.

A really sickening thought of not being able to get him out was entering my mind but I just started praying that God would help him and then I remembered that Rocky usually feels vibrations so I began to tap on the bottom floor of the vent. I continued to tap and pray and I must've been tapping and praying continuously for at least ten minutes when finally I felt what I thought was a small cold nose. It was Rocky's nose and the tapping had worked, but I still had to get a hold on him somehow so I could pull him out. I tickled his chin with my fingertips, hoping he would crawl closer and when he did, I pinched the end of his muzzle between my fingers and pulled.

Eureka! I was able to inch him closer and soon Rocky's head was almost completely in view. As I reached with both hands to try and pull him by his head, I realized he barely fit into the vent. Then I had to twist his body while pulling him out and he cried as his chest came through almost like birthing a baby!

When he was completely out, I sat on the floor holding him tight while his small body quivered. As over-wrought as I felt about the whole ordeal, Rocky surely was even more scarred by it. I stared in disbelief at the hole in the floor and wondered how he could've possibly gotten into it. I had noticed that due to his unusually curved nails, sometimes he had caught them in the vents when walking over them, but I had never dreamed anything like this could happen.

Once I thought he was ready to be let loose, I realized I would never be able to leave him to wonder throughout the house again so I quickly looked on Craigslist and found a 20" by 30" metal crate with a tray floor, large enough for his small bed and still room to move around if he got up. I called the number and to my surprise found the seller lived only a short distance from here. After putting Rocky safely into his small travel crate, I went to buy the larger crate and it has worked perfectly.

We were very fortunate that this bizarre happening did not end up as a tragedy. I wrote a short post about it on my Facebook page to warn friends and even had a response from one of them that their cat had crawled into their ventilation once and they were able to get her out. I can see a curious cat wanting to explore a small space like that and easily finding their way out again, but a deaf and blind little dog finding his way back, that had to be a small miracle!

New Job Blues

2012-04-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

My dear Blog, I've missed you so

but to a job I've had to go

and work my fingers to the bone

texting notes, computer, phone.

It's been great and somewhat new

with lots of things to learn to do;

my own desk from 9 to 5

see me here, I'm still alive!

And as I swivel in my chair

and twirl a finger through my hair

I think of where I'd rather be

and all the sights I'd like to see,

the flowers blooming on my farm,

the sunshine out there looks so warm;

my foofoo doggies on a walk

or maybe just to sit and talk

and then those things when you're at work

those things you need to do will lurk

and haunt you when you try to sleep

so you just wish that they would keep

then tax day came and quickly went

and now I need a place to vent

since I was not so well prepared

I woulda', coulda', shoulda' cared

and maybe I won't be here, sigh,

when Mr. IRS comes by

to ask me for his huge percent

when I can hardly pay the rent

but then again I have this job

so yes, I guess I shouldn't sob

when there are those who get no pay

I'm sure they'd trade my place today

and now I'll leave you with this thought

"I hope I'll have time to Blogspot!"

The Golden Ticket Is Not What You Think

2012-04-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

When I heard the winnings were over 600 million dollars and everyone in the Continental United States had bought a ticket except for us, I told my Big Guy that he should go buy one too.

"Why don't you buy one?" he asked.

"Because you're the luckiest one of the two of us so you should do it!" I told him.

"You're right", he told me, "I am the luckiest man alive because I got you!"

I think I've heard him say these words at least a mega million times by now, but I have always known that even though I rarely win anything, Big Guy has been my greatest prize and has always given me a reason to feel lucky. So with a sparkle in his eye, he gave me a quick peck on the cheek and was off to buy a lottery ticket among other things.

I've never been very interested in gambling. I know there is a certain amount of gamble in almost any financial venture, I know we even gamble on friendships, relationships or whether a recipe we've never tasted will turn out as good as the picture looks. And even though I've read the Robert Frost poem many times, when making a decision to take the road less traveled rather than the one that you could see was a sure path, I tend to take the sure path.

This could be the reason why I am not filthy rich but also why I'm not dirt poor. It could also be the reason why I still wear the same pair of Nikes that I bought over 8 years ago and noticed last year that the heel is separating from the shoe but I still continue to wear them. I know that probably doesn't make much sense, but if you get to know me, you'll know much of what I say doesn't make much sense.

Growing up in a family who put the most emphasis on being together and eating good food together, I always find myself feeling family and food rich. Non-useful things were never that important to our family and since they cost money, we never wasted any of ours on much of anything that wasn't necessary.

I mean, sure, there were occasions when something would be bought as a gift that might not be a useful item, like a cut glass unicorn lamp that sparkled pretty and a certain someone had begged for it for months, but birthdays and Christmas' gifts usually were a great way to get a new waffle iron, a new pair of much needed socks or that "special occasion" outfit.

My Grandpa had these awesome sayings and it wasn't until I moved out on my own and had to fend for myself that I began to understand their importance.

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch!" was probably the best one and then "A fool and his money are soon parted!" was another.

Grandpa had this great little ditty that he said often and I love it for it's rhyme.

"See a penny pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck. See a penny, leave it lie, opportunity may go by!"

This is why my Big Guy and I always race for the penny we spot at the same time and we probably look a little strange grappling in the McDonald's parking lot but I always feel good about it when the penny is retrieved even if my knees are skinned.

I haven't always been this frugal, in fact, there have been some pretty scary episodes of buying in my life that would frighten Suzy Orman or Dave Ramsey to death! The fact is I should own at least 50% shares in the Dilliards Company and should have been made CEO of Talbots due to the amount of outfits I own. I won't go into any more details now, let's just say I am still going through the twelve step program and only shake occasionally at the sight of a 75% off sale sign.

But going back to this Mega Lottery ticket that Big Guy bought. Sure, we did the little "dream session" about what if we actually won almost $200 million dollars and where we would hide out for the first year after claiming the prize; there was a trip planned to Switzerland, being generous to loved ones, giving a nice hefty tithe to our church and then what everyone wants, the home of our dreams; and then we forgot about the whole thing as we went on with our lives.

Three bouncy castle parties, a huge weekend sale at the trade shop, a few hours of work at the office, church, our annual amusement business meeting-party and Desperate Housewives all went by before we realized that the lottery was over and people were saying someone in our area had won but had not come forward to claim the ticket.

Big Guy hadn't checked his ticket!

I have to admit that even though the odds were somewhere around 1-176 million that we had a snowballs chance in hell of winning, (I was looking for the chance to say that), a little voice inside me was still saying, "You'll be taking that trip to Bern Switzerland very soon!".

"Honey," Big Guy looked at me with those sweet steely blues after checking his numbers, "I'm sorry, but you're not married to a multimillionaire!" He drew me close to him and seemed a little sad.

"Hey, that's OK! I never married you for your money anyway!" I said giving him a squeeze and not really feeling too much disappointment except for the fact that I wouldn't be hiring my new maid, Zelda, to clean the cobwebs from behind my refrigerator.

Then he continued to tell me as he held me in those big strong wonderful arms, "I may not be able to take you to Bern Switzerland, but we could take a trip soon to Bern Kansas to see some of my relatives there and eat at the little cafe?"

All I could say was, "We are food and family rich and I am the luckiest woman alive, when can we go?".

TTFN! G

Where No Man Has Gone Before!

2012-03-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

I am trying to keep this blog non-political and non-judgmental, but something I heard this morning really got the gears between my ears going and I feel I must share.

I woke up at 6am to my wonderful, trusty Chihuahua alarm and as I entered the kitchen, I found Big Guy pouring me a cup of OJ. Then I slipped on my sloggers, (rubber garden slippers for those of you who aren't garden savvy) and took out my furry alarm to potty. When I finally joined Big Guy in the family room, we enjoyed our coffee while watching the morning news.

The news seemed to be all about the Health Care issue, of which I have an opinion just as I'm sure many if not all of you reading this have as well. I promise not to bring you down by ranting about mine, but something one of the guest commentators said about free food for everyone reminded me of thoughts I once had as a child.

When I was about 10 years old, (keep in mind I had just heard a Miss America contestant say she wanted peace and love for the whole world), I thought how wonderful it would be if everyone could live in a nice home, have a dappled pony and eat chocolate pudding with candy sprinkles for breakfast every morning.

In other words, I envisioned a perfect world, (and not just because of my OCD), where every living quarters looked the same, every person wore the same outfit and all we had to do was push a button to be automatically served any kind of food we wanted. Kind of like Star Trek!

My thought was, if everything that we needed to survive was automatically provided for us, then no one would be unhappy, no one would starve and no one would need to be mean or nasty. Yes, people had been mean and nasty to me and I'll bet they were to you too!

I lived in one of the smallest and oldest homes in town and there were quite a few homes like mine sprinkled throughout, but there were also some really nice, newer and much larger homes as well. I spent days dreaming about and drawing pictures of my ideal home; a home where everyone had their own bedroom and bathroom so they wouldn't need to share or worry if the hot water was gone after waiting for a turn in the bathtub. I had never actually been in a home that had more than one bathroom, but had heard they existed.

I knew our old Betsy Lou was not a great looking car but it got us safely from point A to point B. It didn't have air-conditioning and I really wanted a car that had air-conditioning like my friend's did. Dreams of a brand new 1970, hot pink-flocked Mach 1 Mustang with a front air scoop and rumbling V-8, hadn't happened yet.

I also knew that most of my clothes and toys were second hand-hand-me-downs or bought as birthday and Christmas gifts from rich relatives. The Sears "Dream" Catalog was exactly that; a dream!

We always had great food to eat though. My grandma made the best meals of any that I had ever eaten. No matter where we went to eat on Mother's Day, which was just about the only day of the year we didn't eat at home, there wasn't one place that cooked food as good as my grandma. I thought how wonderful it could be if I could just share her cooking with the whole world; if every day could be Sunday Dinner at grandma's house; if her incredible home-made chocolate cake or apple pie could just magically appear with the push of a button.

Grandma's cooking, perfect houses, dappled ponies, store bought clothing, cars with air-conditioning and unlimited amounts of hot water baths...

Utopia! My Utopia!

I realize now just how silly this whole idea was.

I know that there are still people, whole communities of people, who don't have hot water much less a bath tub to put it in, but it's the culture they live in and they have lived that way for centuries.

I know that there are people who don't own nor have they ever owned a vehicle much less one with air-conditioning; my friend in Holland for one, who rides a bicycle or takes the public transit.

As for ponies, I'm sure there are plenty of people who own computers who have never even seen a live pony.

And as for "perfect houses", I couldn't even tell you what a perfect house consists of today since a person's home is the nest that they feather and everyone feather's there's differently.

Of course there was never a way until Facebook and Pinterest that I could clone my grandma's cooking or at least come close to making it possible to share it with the whole world!

But this I know for certain...Star Trek is not real.

For some of you Trekkies this may be hard to swallow but it really is just a TV show from the 60's. Think about it; everyone has these perfect bodies with outfits that all look the same, they all sleep in the same little cabin's with very little personal effects and they all work for the United Federation of Planets. They all get to push buttons for any thing they need and no one ever has to worry about medical care because Dr. McCoy can laser you and make you instantly healthy.

The problem with this is where does all of their stuff come from and who is paying for it?

Where do the goods, building materials, etc. come from and who does all of the work gathering these things, building these things and operating them? Do they just collect a lot of weird space rocks that are valuable to Ferengi and then trade for stuff? Or maybe they have robots do everything but somebody had to build the robots at least until the robots could start building themselves and that's a scary plot to a really good movie starring Will Smith.

On Star Trek the incentive for a job well done always means "Vacation" time on some exotic planet with half naked but extremely perfect looking people who cater to your every need. No one ever buys anything but sometimes they go exploring and find some strange artifact to take back to the ship. Then the artifact ends up being a scary alien and invading and, well it just would never work. We have to be paid for a job and we have to be able to buy things with our earnings. And we all must do this!

Why you ask? Why must we all work and be paid and then spend what we are paid to get what we want, desire, choose, need or just have to have?

Because if these things are just given to us, we will have no appreciation for them. And what incentive would there be for those who create, serve, build, nurse, doctor, teach, etc., if the reward was the same every time for everyone? That sounds more to me like the "Collective" and that's one scary Borg Queen who like it or not is insisting that you will be assimilated because resistance is futile!

Free food for everyone! I don't know about you, but I don't want to be stuck on a star ship going "Where No Man Has Gone Before"!

I'm Lucky to be Alive!

2012-03-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, lucky!

As many times that I have injured myself, placed myself in really bad situations and just by the grace of God, have survived, it amazes me.

When I was about 4, I tried to off myself by flinging my small body from the swing I was soaring in, onto the hard dirt ground. I think I thought if I went high enough, I could fly. I obviously survived with only a broken arm and a slightly bruised spirit.

A few years later on a school playground at the age of 9, I tried to hang by my heels just as I had seen the circus performer do the night before; obviously there was a trick to it because no sooner than I let go of the bar with my hands, I fell onto the hard blacktop and by no means did I hang by my heels! I ended up with a slight concussion, a few stitches along my hairline and a dislike of circus performers.

Then there was the time when I was walking home from school, I believe the same year as the heel hanging performance, and this was probably when I first discovered my OCD as well. Because I was so worried about stepping on any cracks in the sidewalk, I didn't look up in time to stop myself from walking head first into a hard metal sign post. Do the lyrics, "You can ring my bell-e-ell, ring my bell!", mean anything to you? Well, they did to me!

About 2 years ago I tried again to break my head open while changing a light bulb above the kitchen island. I stepped off the wrong side of my small utility ladder and flew headfirst into the edge of our oak breakfast table. That took a few stitches right above the right eyebrow and I had a great "Pirate" scar for months after.

I know you're wondering what brought this on all of a sudden, well, it has to do with the sharp pain I get some times when I grab something with my left hand and lately I've been feeling that pain a lot. You see, a few months back I tried to cut my left hand off with a steak knife.

No, I didn't do it on purpose but sometimes I don't think things out really well before I act and especially when it involves chocolate, caramel or anything sugary and sweet. In this case it was a caramel apple and I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into it, literally!

Every Fall season I get a terrible hankerin' for a big, juicy, Granny Smith apple dipped in that creamy caramel delight and hardened just enough to almost pull your fillings out. On this particular day I had made several of these wonderful mouth watering orbs and had decided to remove them from the plate I had placed them on in the fridge to harden. Big Guy had left earlier to meet up with our set-up crew for a church festival that we were working and beside's the FooFoo girls and Rocky, I was at home alone.

So here I am, I have the plate of yummy apples sitting on the kitchen counter and I try pulling them off by their sticks first. When that doesn't work, (at this moment I'm wishing I had used a lot more butter on the plate), I decide to try prying them up with something but looking around I'm not sure with what.

Then I get this idea that I need something flat that will slide between the apple and the plate so I grab a metal spatula out of the drawer. After struggling for a while and finally realizing that the spatula is not going to work, I start to think that if it had a smaller edge it might get under the apple easier so I grab the next item I can think of with a small edge which happened to be a very sharp steak knife.

Yep! A very sharp steak knife! This is where all of my logic leaves my brain and is replaced with sugary goo!

I can almost taste the delicious, gooey caramel melting away between my tongue and palate as I hold the plate in my left hand and plunge the steak knife with my right hand, and I do mean plunge!

(WARNING: if you get squeamish at the sight, thought, vision, sound, etc. of blood, you may not want to read on!)

I scream like a banshee, (in Irish folklore: a spirit in the form of a wailing woman who appears to or is heard by members of a family as a sign that one of them is about to die) only in my case, I'm the one dying and there are no family members to witness it, as the knife slips past the apple and into my hand.

The knife's tip has penetrated deep, barely missing the Radial Artery, which is the main blood flow that comes from the arm and circulates blood throughout your hand. I quickly yank the knife out which allows blood to spurt across my kitchen counter but try to keep it away from the caramel apples, (even though I may be moments from death, I'm still thinking of sweet stuff). Feeling like I am going to pass out, I grab the nearest towel, wrap it around my bleeding hand and hold my arm above my head. Then with my right hand I reach for my cell phone, which luckily for me was on the counter just a foot away, and I start to call Big Guy. I stop before pushing the speed dial, however, when I realize he would probably panic if I told him I was bleeding and I didn't want him to drive like a maniac to try and save me, so instead I speed dial our crew chief, Kenny. This is how the conversation with him went:

Me: "Hi Kenny! What are you doing?", I ask trying not to sound in pain but in between fast breaths while trying desperately not to pass out.

Kenny: "Hi, I'm on my way to the church to meet up with the rest of the crew, why, am I late?

Me: "No, no you're just fine but would you say you're close to the house by any chance?", I ask now trying to balance the phone between my right shoulder and ear so I can turn on the faucet and get cold water to wet another towel to catch the blood now flowing down my left arm. "Could you stop by here first?"

Kenny: "Is there something wrong?"

Me: "Oh just a little accident and I didn't want to bother the Big Guy but thought if you could stop by and also I knew you had first aid training..."

Kenny: "I'm on my way!", he cuts me off and I hear him telling his wife Jen to hang on because I'm in trouble.

Me: "Don't speed or do anything to get in an accident, please!", I'm begging him since I realize now that he has his family with him.

Kenny just hollers at me from his cell phone which he probably has dropped in his lap, to hang in there and that he'll be there shortly.

As I try and put the now throbbing and still bleeding left hand into the sink under the cold running water, I feel myself again starting to pass out. I re-wrap the hand and place it above my head once more. Then I hear a car pull up in front and people running up the sidewalk to the door. Kenny opens the door and comes quickly to the kitchen with Jen and kids following right behind. He assesses the damage to my hand, tells me I'm lucky it pierced me where it did and not a fourth of an inch to the left and then let's me know that I will live this time.

Soon I'm no longer bleeding like a sieve, hand bandaged really tight and ready to roll.

So as I sit here with this pain in my hand, I wonder if God didn't spare me in order to keep me around as a lesson to others. Here are the lessons I feel I should share:

If you want to fly, use an airplane; swings are great for launching things but what goes up without wings, will come down like a rock.
If you want to be a circus performer, join a circus; they have nets.
If you have OCD, better to stay off of cracked sidewalks.
Let your tall husband change the ceiling light bulbs and if you don't have a tall husband, buy a two-sided ladder.
When dealing with sticky caramel apples, by no means ever use a knife of any kind to try and pry them up off the plate; butter the plate better!

Oh, and you're probably wondering how I finally removed those stuck caramel apples aren't you? You know I did! Well, after Kenny left and I had sterilized my kitchen thoroughly, I went back to the apples that had been sitting out for well over an hour by now and discovered that the caramel had softened just enough to allow the apples to be pulled off of the plate by their sticks. Duh!

TTFN! G

Big Guy's Birthday, Breakfast, Bed Bugs and Bingo

2012-03-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we celebrated my Big Guy's birthday.

I woke up early and got busy making Big Guy's favorite cake; German Chocolate. I let him sleep in.

Well, he didn't really sleep in since he could hear me banging around in the kitchen and taking doggies in and out. Because he was awake, I asked him if he wanted me to fix him a nice breakfast, (obviously not breakfast in bed like I had so many times in the past), or go out somewhere.

Big Guy suggested going out, so as soon as the cake was done, we were off to a favorite restaurant.

We were lucky enough to be seated in a booth right under a lovely art photo taken in an area where my Big Guy grew up. The photo depicted a beautiful sunrise over the flint-rocked hills as seen looking out from between some trees and over an old, barbed wire fence. It was truly a vision of "God's Country" which was what my Big Guy always called this area.

We were also lucky to score our favorite waiter; a young man who we had known for several years.

After a fun discussion about whether or not he was old enough for a Senior Citizen's Discount, Big Guy ordered his favorite and I chose my usual. We visited with another friend seated nearby, until the food came.

The food was delicious as always but while we were enjoying it, something unexpected happened. A waitress was walking by, trying to juggle a few too many items, when just as she started to pass our booth, her juggling routine went awry and everything tumbled out of her arms spilling to the floor with the exception of a small pot of very hot "tea" water; it ended up splattered across Big Guy's bare forearm!

Big Guy immediately checked to see that the waitress was Ok, since the brunt of that very hot water had tipped over on her hand as she had tried to catch it before it fell. Then every other waitress/waiter headed to her rescue and helped clean up the mess. Each one noticed the water splattered on his shirt and asked my Big Guy if he was Ok and of course he wouldn't even acknowledge that it had touched him, much less the fact that he had been burned.

Anyway, breakfast continued and Big Guy seemed pleased then we paid the bill, left a good tip and were headed for the parking lot where he beat me to the passenger door and had it open and waiting for me to climb in. When we were finally seated in the truck, I asked him how he would like to spend his day and he said maybe we could go play Bingo.

Bingo! We hadn't played Bingo in years. In fact, I can count on one hand the times we had played in the past twenty five years.

We never really had been Bingo Fanatics but enjoyed playing for fun. In fact, the first time my Big Guy and I ever played Bingo together is still fresh in my mind.

During my second year of college, we had become good friends due to many theater play's we were part of and the fact that we were also the college billiard champs and spent a lot of time together playing in tournaments and practicing. One time while we were at another college tournament, Big Guy asked if I would ever consider going out with him on a date; a real date and not just to play pool to practice for a tournament. It didn't take a second for me to tell him, "I would like that very much!". I had already become terribly fond of him by now and could tell by his subtle teasing that he liked me too.

It wasn't until that following Spring, however, and after Big Guy was attending another college, when he called me up and asked if he could take me on a date one weekend while he was back for a visit. If you have read the story I posted on here, "A Big Black Hairy Valentine", you will know a little about how we communicated during this time period.

Excited about our date, I asked a friend if she could babysit my three children for the evening and then commenced to try on an assortment of outfits until something finally made me feel date-worthy. I even fussed over hair and make-up, which for me was normally only done during college plays. I was a no-fuss, no-frills kinda gal but I hadn't been on a real date probably ever so I wanted to look nice.

When Big Guy drove up, I barely allowed him time to knock on my door and sprang from the house to head for his car. He quickly cut me off so he could play the gentleman and open the door.

"You don't need to do that, I'm perfectly able to open my own door!" I said as I reached for the door handle.

"Please, I want to!" he said as he also grabbed for the handle with a giant hand.

Trying hard to pry his giant hand off of the handle, a small wrestling match begin to ensue, "No, really, I am a capable person and don't understand why you should feel the need to open my door when I could just as easily open it and save you from getting out of the car!", my voice started to escalate.

Because he was much stronger than me and able to gently take over the handle, he opened the door, "Please allow me to treat you like a lady, at least for today!" my poor confused Big Guy pleaded with me.

With tightened lips and squinted eyes I agreed, "Ok, you did it this time but just remember I am perfectly capable of opening my own doors!" I scowled at him most un-lady-like.

Then I climbed in and he proceeded to drive.

"So where are we going?" I asked, wondering to myself if we would eat dinner somewhere nice, maybe see a movie or go to the only club in town to dance.

"I wanted to take you some place where we could have fun," he began, "so I thought we would go play Bingo!" he seemed rather excited and happy with the idea.

"Ummm, don't only old people play Bingo?" I asked with some skepticism.

"Oh no, of course not! There are a lot of people our age who play!" he smiled.

Now with a concerned expression on my face, "I've just never heard of young people playing Bingo and only remember my grandparents playing.", I reasoned.

Of course I didn't know much about Bingo since the only time I had ever played was in grade school for a holiday party and we were given dry beans as markers. I didn't win either since I was too shy to yell out even if I had a Bingo and the prizes were always a new pencil or an eraser. But he seemed so confident that we would have fun and continued to assure me that there would be lot's of people there in their twenties like us.

We drove downtown to the Elks Club basement where Bingo was being held and to my Big Guy's surprise, not a single person under age fifty five was present. Yep, everyone was either gray haired or bald!

I laughed as the lady selling the cards explained that this was "Senior Citizen Night" and then she admitted to Big Guy that there were just a few young people who attended even on regular nights so it was almost always Senior Citizen Night.

When Big Guy explained to the lady that we were on our first date, she allowed us to play anyway and then she told the fellow with the microphone who called the numbers and he shared that information with the entire room.

We had so much fun with all of those elderly people who smiled sweetly at us throughout the evening and though neither of us Bingo'd, it was the best date ever!

So here we are, nearly thirty years later, planning another Bingo date. But Bingo wouldn't be starting for at least another two hours, so to kill some time, we drove out to our farmstead and walked around, enjoying the gorgeous spring weather and looking over the blooming annuals and Red Bud trees. Then Big Guy suggested we go back into town and check out an auction down the street from the Bingo hall.

Even though we arrived hours after the auction had started, there were many interesting things left including some antique items, hand made quilts and vintage clothing. After looking through the musty smelling, but beautiful old quilts, we gravitated towards a table with shallow boxes full of costume jewelry. I picked up a really pretty pink necklace and showed it off to Big Guy, who insisted on bidding on it for me. I told him not to bid more than eight dollars for it but he won it for ten.

After deciding there was nothing else we wanted to bid on, we payed for the necklace and headed back to the truck. As I climbed into my seat, Big Guy again holding the door open for me, I glanced into the visor mirror to look at the necklace. Suddenly I notice a small tiny black bug, crawling slowly on my neck. I screamed and pinched the bug between my thumb and forefinger and jumping out of the truck I flung it into the air and shook my whole entire body wildly. I'm sure, anyone watching probably thought I was having some kind of a fit or seizure! My Big Guy came running and I told him that we needed to go home immediately. I didn't know what Bed Bugs looked like, but now I was certain I had them.

Poor Big Guy kept trying to assure me it was probably just a bug from the farm but I was so convinced it was a Bed Bug from all those smelly old quilts and when we got home I stripped my clothes off and tossed them in the laundry, jumped in the shower and scrubbed my head and body frantically. Then when I was done, I had him look me over, head to toe to make certain there was nothing crawling on me anywhere. He joked about me inspecting him as well so I told him that wasn't a bad idea since he had also been looking at those old quilts. When he removed his shirt, to his dismay, I screamed again and plucked another bug just like the one I had found on me, off of his bare chest. I tossed it quickly into the toilet and flushed and then insisted he shower as well.

In an hour, we had showered, washed our clothes and inspected each other thoroughly for any more bugs and then when finally satisfied that they were all gone, we were off to play Bingo.

Bingo was like we had remembered. Mostly all old people. I stared at the young couple who were seated across the room from us and smiled as their expressions changed while they played their cards together. I even won a game but only because I switched cards with Big Guy right as the game was starting, but don't worry, I gave him the winning money since it should have been his Bingo.

Three things I learned this weekend:

First and because I've had time to look them up, the bugs were not Bed Bugs but merely small American Spider Beetles and could have come from anywhere and are basically harmless.

Second, when Big Guy and I go to Bingo from now on, we are no longer considered young people, but still find ourselves having just as much fun.

And third, even though I have shared nearly thirty of Big Guy's birthdays with him, he has not changed. He is still the wonderful, considerate and gentle giant that I fell in love with, who concerns himself with the pain someone else might be going through more than his own; he wishes to make someone else he loves happy even when it should be his turn and he still insists on treating me like a lady even when I do not deserve it most of the time.

I love you Big Guy! Happy birthday and many more Bingo's!

Oh Danny Boy!

2012-03-15T07:04:00.002-07:00

The song "Oh Danny Boy" will always cause my throat to close tight and eyes to tear. As I sit here today trying to put my morning thoughts in order, I hear this familiar and oh so lovely Irish tune being sang incredibly by the Celtic Woman. I wish I could tell you the whole story of why this song has a special place in my heart, but for now I'll just give you the short version.

Danny was my little brother. He was born when I was about three years old in 1961 and sadly died six years ago in 2006. He had a very troubled childhood that continued into his teenage years. Soon after his eighteenth birthday, he set out to find our father who lived at that time in California. When he arrived in California, unfortunately, he was involved in a very bad car accident that almost took his life; in many ways it actually did take his life but not in the ways we normally think.

He was injured so badly in the accident that he would never again walk, be able to feed himself, dress himself or hold a normal conversation. You might think that his life story found him to be a hero in some way since most stories about those who have had their lives altered by tragedy usually come out later as victorious in some aspect, but not in Danny's case. The hero's in his life story were people who cared for him and took so much time from their own lives to show him love and give quality and dignity to his life.

I don't know why his short life was so different than mine. I don't know what makes a person born in the arms of a loving, caring mother, different from another person born in those same loving arms. I don't know why some people have a different outlook on life than another who comes from the same family with the same upbringing. All I know is many years ago, I had a little brother who I played Tonka trucks and Hide and Seek in the backyard with and now he is in Heaven. I will never forget him and will continue to tear up and become speechless when I hear the song, "Oh Danny Boy".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW9sPAT7Hog

Galloping Grasshoppers and Jockey Ants (poem story)

2012-03-14T09:13:00.001-07:00

A fun poem to read to your kids or you can just read it to yourself if you like. Who knows, you might relate if you've ever eaten spicy Szechuan Beef just before going to sleep!

Galloping Grasshoppers and Jockey Ants

While tripping through the woods one day,

I heard a robin singing gay.

I turned to see him in his song,

but quickly found that I was wrong.

Twas not a bird was singing there,

instead it was a Panda bear.

I lingered on into a field

and quickly found that I must yield

a six foot grasshopper galloping past

with an ant for a jockey holding on fast.

I followed them into a cave;

to my surprise, there was a wave

of water coming ten feet high

and goats on surf boards surfing by.

I grabbed a board to hitch a ride

and as we floated with the tide

we passed a sailboat sailing near

who's captain was a white-tailed deer.

He steered his boat on out to sea

but to the beach, continued me

and finally reaching sandy shore

I saw my grasshopper once more.

He galloped past me oh so large

with the jockey ant still in charge.

Quickly I chased him to a lake

and there I met a talking snake,

wearing a sock on the tip of his tail

while giving a speech to an African snail.

As I was listening to his speech

I heard the most horrendous screech

and pulled the sheets above my eyes,

but finally from my bed did rise

to push the button on my clock

until it sounded just tick-tock.

I laughed about these things surreal;

the funny way they made me feel,

and how they really made no sense

but couldn't bear them as past tense

and hoped I'd see them through my day

but I guess dreams don't work that way!

Death By Baby Gate

2012-03-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

I would have shared this with you yesterday but thoughts about my youngest daughter turning 21 took precedence over this story. Besides, I am more able to write this now that I have had another night of miserable unrest, which caused me to lie awake for long periods of time, listening to Rocky snore.

As I lie awake in bed I usually think about deep and meaningful things such as, "Hmm, I wonder if my toilet tank freshener has dissolved and needs to be replaced!", but last night I couldn't think about anything but my Big Guy who kept tossing and turning incessantly, beside me.

It's possible my Big Guy is having a nightmare which includes being lured into the darkness, murdered violently and his body never being found.

Ok, I know what you're thinking, especially if you personally know my Big Guy, "How could a body that large, ever be hidden or lost?", right? Oh, you're wondering why he would be dreaming, or night-maring as the case may be, about being murdered!

Well this may surprise you, but it all started one beautiful, starry filled night as we were traveling down a dark and desolate road in the Flint Hills. I was driving and he was in the passenger seat, which for my Big Guy is very uncomfortable since he likes to have control, but I insisted on driving this particular time.

I had heard earlier that day about the Aurora Borealis being seen from our area if you could get to just the right location. I know we are about a million miles away from the Arctic Region, where this breath taking phenomenon occurs on a fairly regular basis, but a little country gal can hope!

I'm not usually that romantic either, that's Big Guys forte', and knowing this I guess I can understand where his mind was that night. But let me fast forward just a few years to the present so you will know why I am writing about this now.

In the early morning hours of the night before last, I woke to a very strange sound. I thought I heard the baby gate fall and CRASH, the sound of multiple, foofoo doggie toenails TICK-TICK-TICKING on the laminate hallway floor and the quiet M-O-A-NING of someone who may have been in pain. As I laid in bed trying to decide whether to go back to sleep or allow my curiosity to continue to keep me awake, the moaning finally subsided, and so did the toenail ticking; but I couldn't stop worrying about the baby gate.

For a few nights, off and on, I had placed a baby gate across the door way at the end of the hall so Cookie could not roam freely throughout our home during the night. That way I could leave our bedroom door open to allow the heat to distribute better. I read somewhere that it saved on heating cost.

The baby gate was purchased for $19.99 plus tax just 2 years ago and I really liked the easy access lever, (I highly recommend it for anyone with small children or four-footed furballs), anyway, I hoped I wouldn't have to replace it. So my curiosity won the "to sleep or not to sleep" battle and I crawled out of bed.

Upon reaching the end of the hall, I could hear the early news playing on TV and see my big Guy sitting in his Tall-Man Lazy Boy out in the Family room watching it. The baby gate was leaning against the wall near the hall doorway, where it normally is placed when not being used. As I approached my Big Guy, I asked him what had happened and he began to fill me in on his awful ordeal.

"I didn't know the baby gate was there and I fell over it," he told me with a frown and his bottom lip somewhat protruding, "but lucky for me I was able to keep from landing too hard."

I walked back over to the gate, examining it closely and then the doorway. "It looks like you pulled some of the trim off the bottom of this doorway, Hon!" I exclaimed.

With a little frustration in the tone of his voice he said, "My gosh sweetheart, I could have died and you're worried about a little door trim?"

"Died!" I looked across at him, "How silly, you didn't even fall as far as I did that time when I was changing the light bulb in the Kitchen ceiling light and stepped backwards off the wrong side of the ladder, remember how I hit my head on the table on the way down and bled all over the floor? Now that was closer to dead!" I countered with my bottom lip somewhat protruding too as I nodded to him.

"I think you put that gate there to try and kill me!" He stated, matter-of-factly. "You want the insurance money!"

He was being so silly and I knew that was my cue to jump in his lap and hug his neck, giving him a sweet, sloppy kiss. Soon he was hugging me with those Big Guy arms of his and we were laughing. And this is what made me think of that night in the Flint Hills as we drove down a dark desolate dirt road.

As I said, I am not usually the romantic one of this relationship but this particular night I really wanted to see those Northern Lights and thought it would be fun to share them with my Big Guy. So after supper I suggested we go for a little drive and I said I wanted to drive. He reluctantly agreed and soon we were on that dark, desolate road, deep in the Flint Hills, exactly where, I wasn't sure. I just kept driving, looking for a perfect spot with a view that I could see the vision of beauty I had hoped to see. But it wasn't working out very well and every time I slowed down to check a spot, Big Guy would get really tense and ask if I had a reason for wanting to be out there, and if there was something he should be looking for too.

As we traveled even farther and he kept asking, I kept answering that I would let him know when I found it. It didn't occur to me what this poor man was thinking. Then finally, after driving for almost an hour and not seeing anything that remotely came close to the Aurora Borealis, I finally pulled over and stopped. Then my Big Guy who was looking at me wide eyed, quietly but frankly asked this question: "Are you going to kill me?"

I don't think I had ever laughed so hard about anything before. Even as I was laughing this silly, wonderful man that I love more than life itself, was giving me the "deer in the headlights" look as if any moment I was going to pull out an oozie and gun him down.

As I finally composed myself enough to speak again, I explained about the Aurora Borealis and how I was hoping to surprise him. I told of how I had hoped we would snuggle together on a blanket at the top of a hill, really romantic like, and enjoy the beauty of the light show with him. Finally he breathed a sigh of relief and we laughed about the whole thing together. I repeated all the way home, while he drove this time, just how much I loved the big dope and how silly he was for thinking such a horrible thing, but I knew where he got the idea.

When Big Guy and I were first married, we lived in a house across the street from a fairly famous police officer. The crime this police officer was instrumental in solving ended up as a made for TV movie. The movie was about a real life murder that happened in the town we were living at that time. If you ever get the chance to watch, "Murder Ordained", you will understand why my Big Guy would think what he was thinking.

As for surprising my Big Guy like that again, you bet I did and what a great story I have to tell you about in another post!

My Big Guy's Prayer

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep

but if it takes a baby gate, to break my neck and seal my fate,

I will not blame my loving wife, who placed it there to end my life

and should I die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take!

Amen

No More Mersydotes!

2012-03-07T07:58:00.000-08:00

Today I am officially free of the responsibility for a child. Yes, according to the laws of the land, I am free.

For nearly 39 years of my lifetime, that's more than 3/4th's of my entire life, I managed to:

diaper;

breast feed;

wipe runny noses;

teach how to tie shoes;

sing "Mare's Eat Oat's";

explain that the words are not "Mersydotes";

bake and decorate theme birthday cakes involving Mermaids, Winnie the Pooh and Super Mario;

host parties which involved sleeping bags and turning off the TV at 3am while carefully stepping over the lifeless bodies of teenagers on the floor of our family room, (kinda' sounds like a horror movie doesn't it?);

worry about someone contracting one of the 3 "m's"-mumps, measles or mononucleosis;

purchase prom gowns, wrestling head gear or endlessly searching for that perfect pair of cowboy boots;

plan, stitch together and fit home-made Halloween costumes for every devil, vampire, California raisin or other character asked for;

revel in the joy of a new puppy with;

clean up after that new puppy;

cry with over the new puppy who was accidentally run over by a car when someone who should have taken him out on a leash but chose not to ended up learning a very important lesson about puppies;

hold tight to and silently thank God that, the someone was not running after the new puppy, while carefully explaining that the puppy was now in Little Dog Heaven;

lie about the fact that I had a perfect childhood and always listened to and did everything my parents expected of me;

share every sneaked candy bar, soda pop or HoHo I was caught red-handed with, (notice I said was caught with);

travel hours in a mini van with a team of giggling, secret telling, 12 year old softball players and biting my nails to the quick while watching that same team of softball players in the eighth inning of the World Series, tie the game only to lose but then travel hours back home with that same team of 12 year old softball players while they continued to giggle and tell secrets;

spend a quiet moment one on one with someone I once gave birth to, possibly high on a hilltop, while explaining the entire universe, as in, why fish don't fly...how clouds are formed...and why babies really are found in a cabbage patch;

and probably the biggie of all:

having heard those famous never last words while traveling anywhere at any time by any means, "Are we there yet?".

And I will dearly miss every single moment!

Happy 21st birthday to my last and final baby... now bring on the grandchildren!

A Daydream Believer in Tornado Alley

2012-03-05T14:31:00.002-08:00

The wind has blown hard here this past week, with gusts of up to 50 miles per hour. We were lucky that the closest of last week's tornadoes touched down about 40 miles southeast of us, but so sad for the people who lost their lives or homes. Living in the Midwest for nearly my entire life, I can tell you a thing or two about wind and tornadoes. I can tell you I'm thankful this area is lush with farmland crops and tall grass for if it were desert, we would be living like prairie dogs and building our homes out of dirt.

As reports continued to come in of areas that were hit by tornadoes across the Midwest and a climbing death toll, the news of 60's TV and music icon Davy Jones, who died of a heart attack at age 66, was added to the growing list of lives taken away too soon.

Davy Jones of the Monkees was the heart throb of every young girl in the mid to late 60's and the Monkees were a hit TV series about four funny guys, trying to make it onto the Rock 'n Roll scene. Even though the TV series only lasted two short seasons, it left many of my generation singing song's like, "Daydream Believer" and "I'm not your Stepping Stone", for years to come. I even had a Monkees record, "The Last Train to Clarksville", that had been cut off of the back of an Alpha-Bit's cereal box. Of course after it had been played redundantly for a week or so, the needle had dug a deep groove into the cardboard and instead of Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith's clear, high pitched back-up vocals singing, "Oh No- No- No...", mine now played a slow and garbled, "Ohhhh... Noooo... Noooo... Noooo...".

Eventually the small cardboard record became useless, was thrown away and forgotten by me until now. Because now, in between the tornado warnings, I hear remnants of the familiar Monkees tunes being played in tribute. It's strange how some memories can be triggered due to tragedy, and even stranger that memories of a particular time in my life seem to be intertwined with the events going on now.

On June 9th of 1967 the Monkees appeared at the Hollywood Bowl to begin their first tour and on that same day an F2 tornado tore through our town, removing roofs off of houses and uprooting trees everywhere. One person died and many were injured. I can remember almost every detail as if it had happened yesterday.

I was just about to turn nine years old and was hoping to have a birthday wish fulfilled. My dream of having a real pony was the one dream I wished would come true. As I played in the front yard, pretending to ride my new pony, I heard my grandma calling from her front porch.

"Get in here before the Twister comes and kills us all!", she hollered.

Our little stucco house was just two houses down and across the street from my grandparents home and when ever the weather looked bad, my grandma would pace on her front porch. I don't like to call my grandma a worry-wort, because she had seen a lifetime of tragic events and never hesitated to remind us of each and every one, but it seemed like just another day in the Midwest when the weatherman claimed "conditions favorable for tornadic activity", which was an almost every day occurrence from March to September.

But this particular time my grandma was right and before I knew it my family was being shuffled into my grandparents basement and mama was trying to keep us kids away from the small windows even though she continued to peer out at the rain that was suddenly falling.

Grandma stood at the top of the stairs, hollering and pleading to my grandpa, who was still watching from the front porch, "Stop being an old fool and get in here!" she scowled at him. Soon my grandpa joined us and with-in seconds the scene outside the windows went completely dark, the howling wind became a freight train that shook the house and the basement lights flickered and then went out.

What seemed to last for a long time, actually was over with-in a few short minutes. Grandpa looked out one of the small basement windows before heading back upstairs, much to grandma's disapproval, then I shot past grandma who was now standing guard again at the top of the stairs. I ignored her warning cries for me to come back. My grandpa opened the front door, only to find the tree in front of the porch had been uprooted, mangled and was now laying on the roof. Grandpa pushed back limbs in order to get outside and when I pushed through to join him, we both stood looking out at what had just a few minutes before, been a neighborhood of neatly manicured lawns, quaint and cared for houses; a neighborhood to be proud of.

The street was covered in tree limbs and a neighbors car was no longer in their driveway but could be seen at the end of the block, on it's side. The yards were littered with broken off trees, pieces of shingles and other debris. Some of the neighbors that had also taken cover, were now coming out to assess the damage. Many were coming together in the middle of the street and some got busy immediately, like my grandpa, removing the limbs and debris from the street and making piles on front lawns. Sirens could be heard in the distance from police and other emergency vehicles. Faces were somber as neighbors discussed the electricity being down and telephone lines as well. Thankfully the tornado had hit during daylight hours and just as quickly as the dark clouds had rolled in, they had now rolled out and the sun was showing itself again.

I discovered a mama bat clinging to a tree branch in Grandpa's front yard. Sadly, the three tiny babies that she must have tried to protect under her small wings, didn't survive. We found something to collect the bat's small, weakened body into and quickly went to look through our primitive form of "Google" known as an encyclopedia, in order to learn how to care for the bat.

I helped grandpa pick up tree limbs, looking for more bats that I could save but before long mama was calling for me to come across the street to our own home.

Our tall cottonwood trees had lost some limbs and the snapdragons that Kathy had planted along the west side of our little stucco house were completely gone, but as for the roof missing a few shingles, everything else remained Ok.

That night we went to sleep by candle light and sometime the next morning the electricity was restored. In the days to follow, we visited our cousins who lived on the other side of town in a newer housing area. The tornado had lifted the entire roof off of their beautiful new ranch style home and placed it in their backyard as if removing a lid off of a pot. Many of their neighbor's homes were completely devastated and yet there would be a single home in the midst of all the destruction, that was hardly touched. Everyone was sad for the loss of items dear to them but so grateful to be alive.

A few weeks passed by and soon we had decided the small mama bat was strong enough to release back into the world where she belonged. I placed the bat high on the trunk of our largest cottonwood tree, then laid back on the grass at the foot of the tree and watched as the bat slowly climbed the trunk. There was almost no sign of debris left by the tornadoes destructive path. Rebuilding, patching roofs and landscaping was well underway. My ninth birthday had even come and gone and although I had dreamed of a pony, I received a toy Pokey horse minus his pal Gumby. Not the pony I had hoped for but a pony never-the-less. I watched until the bat, now almost too high in the tree to see, flapped her wings and flew away.

Then the months passed and soon an entire year had gone by. There had been other tornado warnings but none that touched down near our town. The Monkees were now ending their second TV season and I often woke up in the morning hearing my mama belting out the chorus, "Cheer up sleepy Jean, Oh what can it mean to a Daydream Believer..." only she would alter the lyrics by changing Cheer with Wake and use my name instead of Jean. But that wasn't the tune I woke up to on this hot July, Sunday morning.

"Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy birthday..." my mama was singing to me as I rubbed my eyes and tried to see through a mess of auburn hair covering my face. I stretched and yawned then finally pushed the hair aside to see her smile as she said, "Wake up Susie Q, we have things to do, places to go and people to see." She often called me Suzie Q, an endearment that I rejected. I constantly told her that I preferred "George" but then she would remark, "Ok Georgie Girl", determined to remind me of my gender. Us tomboy's had to have a good, guy nickname and since my best friend's nickname was Sam, I was George.

I sat up in bed and watched as my mama disappeared through the door and into the kitchen now humming the tune of "Hey there Georgie Girl". The mint green walls of my small bedroom were glowing due to the sunshine leaking in between the slightly parted curtains that hung on the north window. It would be another hot one today and at this early in the morning I could already feel the sun burning through the window with nary a breeze or breath of any air to be felt.

The only air conditioning in our little stucco house was the old water cooler in the east living room window. To save on the energy bill, we shut it off at dark and waited until we knew we would be spending a great deal of time at home before we turned it back on.

My mama slept in the living room on a sofa and gave us kids the only two bedrooms; she always put our needs first. I didn't realize or understand her selfless sacrifice until many years later, after becoming a mother myself. As a child I guess we just don't consider these things and I was so happy to finally have my own bedroom since I had shared a room with my younger brother and sister as long as I could remember. The small mint green room had been my older sister Kathy's bedroom, but she had moved out when she turned eighteen earlier that year.

Kathy had started working as a projectionist at the local movie theater and her boss allowed her to rent a small apartment in back. Sam and I loved to visit Kathy and since Sam was the theater owner's daughter, we spent a lot of time climbing the cat walks behind the stage and watching matinees from the third story balcony that was closed off from the public.

Sam had been my best friend for almost a year and we were inseparable. We both played guitar and harmonized, singing the song Kumbaya once for our grade school's PTA meeting. We played on the same girls softball team that summer, the Boyd Oilers, started dressing alike, and even had the same short, boy-cut, hair. My mama wasn't any to happy about Sam's dad cutting my hair that spring, not because he almost clipped my ear off in the process, but because she had worked hard to keep my long locks to help give me some aspect of femininity that I sorely lacked.

We spent countless hours together pretending to be cowboys and dressing the part with our blue jean cut-off shorts, bright red bandanna's and cowboy hats. We would fold up blankets to make saddles and drape them over the railing of Sam's front porch then tie a belt in the front for the reins. Together we would ride our "porch rail ponies" across a make believe prairie.

I was hoping that we could take Sam with us to Leonard's farm, but it was Sunday and we were leaving right after church. Leonard was a wonderful man who had been dating my mama for almost two years. I had introduced him to my mama at my school carnival after she had told me she would only remarry if she met a "tall, dark and handsome" man. When I saw Leonard at the ticket booth, I thought he fit her description perfectly. He was tall compared to my mama who only stood about 5 foot and his skin was very dark due to his farmers tan and as for handsome, I thought he was handsome so after he answered no to my query as to whether he was married, I grabbed his hand and quickly led him to my very embarrassed mama, telling her, "Mama, I found you a man that's tall, dark and handsome!". The rest was history.

Leonard owned a farm near a tiny town about a half hour south of ours. He had cows and sheep and rabbits. He was part of the reason I dreamed of having a pony someday. I loved to visit the farm and couldn't wait to see Leonard either.

The inside of Betsy Lou 2, our two-tone aqua and white '58 Chevy Delray, was really hot and the bottoms of my legs were blistering as I tried to slide quickly across the vinyl seat to the opposite side. My little brother and sister climbed in after me and mama tried to place a small blanket underneath as they bounced around like Mexican jumping beans.

We stopped at the theater to pick up Kathy who always sat in the co-pilot's seat and mama, of course, was the pilot. I often pretended we were actually in an airplane and on our way to some magical land, places I had only heard about in books or movies. I loved to look out of the Chevy's big back window, bending my head as far back as it could go until I see nothing but the sky. "I'll be travelling up there with you someday, I just know it!", I told a group of puffy clouds that passed by. I dreamed of flying to Holland and picking tulips for my grandma. I dreamed of windmills and wooden shoes and visiting Sweden too, that's where my grandma's parents had come from. I hoped to fly all over the world someday. I also dreamed of going to Disneyland and seeing all the wonders I had only seen through my View-Master and Disney photo reels- a Christmas present from my cousin who lived in California. Dreams of so many places to see by a small town girl who just turned ten.

As we drove into the dusty dirt driveway and rounded the side of Leonard's old farm house, I noticed an unfamiliar pick-up truck with a small horse trailer in tow. I knew it wasn't Leonard's, so I surmised that Leonard had a visitor. The Chevy stopped and almost before the brake was locked, my little brother Danny had flown open the back door and was already running circles in the dirt. My little sister Jill was right behind him and I quickly slipped out of the hot seat too, thankful for the shade of the trees and a very slight country breeze.

Leonard was talking to a scruffy-looking old man who walked to the back of the trailer, opened the door and led out the most beautiful pony I had ever seen. She was the color of ginger root and covered all over in tiny silver specks. In the sunlight, her coat was very slick and shiny, her mane and tail a lovely flowing silvery flax. I watched eagerly hoping what I had no right to hope for. "Is she mine?" I thought, but feeling the unlikeliness of the situation and remembering last years gift of a toy Pokey horse, "No, I'm sure there's another reason." I decided to myself.

"Hey Suzie Q, come see what you think of this here horse!", Leonard motioned me to join him and my sister Kathy, who was now holding the pony's reins. The old man was getting into his truck and starting it up. "Think this one will do?" Leonard asked with a big grin. I had learned to love that grin these past two years and had hoped it would be added permanently to my daily routine someday soon, just like my mama's morning wake-up songs. I didn't even mind, for some reason, when he called me Suzie Q.

"Th-th- th- ho-hor-rse!" I stuttered. "Is she ma-mine?" I stammered.

"Happy birthday, Suzy Q!" Leonard proclaimed, still grinning from ear to ear. "Of course if you don't like her...", I didn't give him another second to finish before squealing like a stuck pig and running to hug the neck of the pony, the beautiful pony I had been dreaming of for years.

On my last birthday, the first one since my mama and Leonard had started dating, besides the toy Pokey horse, I had also received a guitar. Leonard had gone shopping in the big city with my mama and helped share the cost, but the pony was all from him. I wanted so badly to hug his neck tight and tell him how much I loved him and I wanted the word Daddy to be a part of that, but something inside of me held back. Instead I shot him a more than grateful look and asked if I could ride her.

"What are you gonna name her?" Kathy asked.

"I don't know, maybe Queenie like mama's old pony!" I said excitedly as I patted the pony's neck in sheer disbelief, thinking this was just a dream and I would wake up any second.

I studied Kathy's face as she pondered the name Queenie. Her eyes traveled to the back of the pony where I was struggling to climb on. "No, this pony needs her own name. We need to give it more thought." she said as she helped me onto the pony's back.

At first I just rode as Kathy led her around the farm yard a while and finally I was able to take the reins myself and gently steer her up and down the drive. By the end of the afternoon I was riding like a pro and when mama came out to call me in for supper, I said, "Look mama, I'm Patsy Montana!", and then I started singing while pretending to strum an invisible guitar, "I Want to be a Cowboy's Sweetheart...".

Mama laughed and then agreed that I was definitely Patsy Montana before telling me again to park the pony and come in to eat. My mama had played the part of Patsy Montana in a remake of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show when she was just a young girl about my age. She could yodel and play the guitar while singing and we loved listening to her. I tried to yodel like her but never could get it right.

Supper was fine and I was anxious to taste the delicious birthday cake but first Kathy surprised me with one more wonderful present, a very small and very beautifully wrapped box.

"I hope you are mature enough to understand the value in this gift." she warned as I began to slowly pull off the bow and unwrap the beautiful paper. I opened the small box and there inside was a ring. It was gold and had a small red stone in the center. It was beautiful as it sparkled in the light. As I slipped it on my finger she continued to tell me about the importance of the gem. "It's your birthstone, ruby, for the month of July. I know it's a little big but that's so you'll grow into it.".

It was pretty loose on my biggest middle finger but I loved it and felt like I must have done something really good to deserve such a wonderful birthday. First the pony of my dreams and now a real ring! The only ring I had ever had til now, had come from a penny gum machine.

We headed back into town right after supper; mama didn't want to drive after dark. I had said goodbye to my pony and wondered what I would name her. I couldn't wait til the next weekend when we could come back. I stared at the ruby ring on my finger and thought about my dreams that were coming true. I barely heard the conversation between my mama and sister in the front seat and hardly noticed the fight that was ensuing on the seat beside me between my little brother and sister over a pillow. Again my eyes were turning towards the skies where a thick cloud was creeping near. I wondered if on my next birthday more dreams would come true, if Leonard would be my tall, dark and handsome daddy, if I would be flying to the land of windmills and wooden shoes, but just as I began listening to my sister singing, "I'm a Believer", along with the car radio, an announcer interrupts with a warning that conditions are favorable for a tornado and mama says, "Here we go again!".

You Might Be A Midwest Farmer's Daughter...

2012-03-05T06:34:00.000-08:00

If you pronounce creek, crick

If your early mornings during childhood involved, milking cows, gathering eggs or bringing in the sheep, and all before the school bus arrived at 6am

If you had a pet chicken named Henrietta

If you ate fried chicken who you once knew as Henrietta

If you ever rode a cow on a dare

If you rode a horse bareback on purpose

If you ever took a nap and woke up with straw face

If you once had a pony named Queenie, Blackie or Sham

If your first kiss was in the hay loft from a kid named Chuck who lived on a dairy farm half a mile away

If you had a bucket full of tadpoles that you watched become frogs and not because of a school science project

If you made jewelry out of stalks of wheat, dandielions and fireflies

If you looked forward to the annual greased pig contest and tractor pull every summer

If your Barbie Doll rode a toy John Deer Tractor

If your favorite foot wear options were, Barefoot or Cowboy Boots

If you tried "City Life" and still long to be back in the "Country"

...then you might be a Midwest Farmer's Daughter

Curiosity... Interest... Obligation... Infatuation... Love... Obsession... ADDICTION... Help!

2012-02-28T19:18:00.000-08:00

Who knew something so seemingly harmless, so ridiculously simple, could actually be the Devil's playground disguised as a web site called Pinterest!

I feel it is my duty to inform you so that you won't get snared in the same terrible trap.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I found a photo of a really cute vintage camper trailer. It was so cute and pink and cute! The photo came from a blogger who used Pinterest and out of mere curiosity I clicked on it. It took me to a whole lot more photos of cute camper trailers. Because I thought it was an interesting way for someone to collect photos I decided to start my own Pinterest board of cute vintage camper trailers. Later I was checking my email and noticed there were several messages from Facebook friends who were now "Following" me on Pinterest, so I felt obligated to follow them back.

Then a friend who saw the photos on my Facebook page, said she found Pinterest to be highly addictive. So keeping that in mind I decided I should probably steer clear of the thing since I am by nature, easily addicted to worthless internet past-times.

Just a couple of examples:

In 2008 I became a Farmville-holic and it took me almost 2 years til I dried out, then suffered post-farmdom depression worrying that all of my cows had starved to death.

In 2011 I became addicted to Cityville which luckily for me I was able to escape from in under 6 months. I had to quit when I realized all I could think about was building hotels and whether or not I would get my casino running before the expiration date.

As for Sim's Social, it didn't last more than a month when I got bored with sleeping, cleaning, using the toilet, sleeping, cleaning, using the toilet and fixing things that kept breaking down. Too much like real life and I need an escape from that.

But Pinterest isn't a game, luring you in by appealing to your competitive nature, no this is much more sinister! This thing uses creativity, dreams and delicious chocolate fudge recipes to capture you.

I was doing pretty good with just the few photos of cute camper trailers but that changed a couple of days ago with one innocent little peek at a fudge brownie recipe that I saw posted on someones blog. As my mouth watered at the sight of the smooth and shiny rich brown icing, I clicked and up popped a really cool recipe site called Foodgawker. I started copying off the wonderful recipes but thought about the beautiful food photos and how little colored ink I had left in my printer. "Hmmm", I thought innocently of course, "How could I get easy access to these photos?" Then I remembered the little "Pin It" button that was right below my browser in the left hand corner. It teased me, that cute little globe with a tiny two word command! "Come on, Pin it!" It called from the corner of my left eye. "It's so simple, Pin it!" It continued to beckon me.

My brain knew better but for some reason the mouse in my right hand had a mind of it's own and four hours, 12 boards, 110 pins and 23 likes later, I realized the laundry was still wet in the washing machine, I hadn't had lunch and it was 3 O'clock in the afternoon.

That didn't stop me, however, I quickly tossed the wet clothes into the dryer, grabbed a banana and a spoonful of peanut butter, put Rocky out to pee, (thank goodness he was asleep beside me the whole time), and was quickly back to my new infatuation to search for more photos of pink Farmall tractors, miniature donkeys and flea market finds.

When my Big Guy came home at 5:30 that evening and asked what we were having for supper, I hated to leave the fun I was having but knowing I had promised him that morning we would have pork chops, I hurried to prepare the chops for pan frying, tossed 2 big baked 'taters in the microwave and heated up a can of pork 'n beans. Then I remembered that he had wanted pie ala'mode for dessert and since I had been, "huh-hum" preoccupied a little and hadn't made a delicious home made pie, I pulled out the "emergency" Mrs. Smith's Apple that had been in the freezer for about a year and placed it into the oven. I rationalized that the ice cream I would smother it with would make up for the fact it had freezer burn. Then I went back to my pinning.

Soon supper was ready and I was trying to decide whether to start a new Pin Board with the photo I found of Gerard Butler as King Leonidas in the movie 300, but the title "Guy's who melt my butter" just didn't seem appropriate and some things are better left in the back of your mind.

After supper when Big Guy asked how my day had gone, I told him about the wonderful new site I had found that allowed me to save favorite recipe's, photos of things to dream about and even crafty ideas that might come in handy later. I think he realized I was more focused on the computer screen and left me to my new found love while he searched the TV channels for something to watch. The next thing I knew, it was 11 O'clock PM and he was telling me goodnight and heading for bed. At this time I was up to 19 boards, 264 pins and 53 likes.

I hadn't realized that obsession had set in until today when I woke up and my first thought was, "I wonder if I should break down my Pinterest boards into categories like placing "Critters" into Big Critters and Little Critters or Creepy Critters and Cute Critters!".

Knowing the next step would be addiction, I couldn't allow myself another one, so here was my solution. I poured 2 cups of milk in a small pan, dumped in a box of chocolate jello pudding and stirred for 10 minutes which gave me time to clear my head. While waiting for the pudding to cool, I gave my FooFoo doggies baths and I even gave Rocky one too. Then after they were dried and combed out, I sat down to my computer along with a bowl of chocolate pudding and started to write this blog.

Now I will finish this blog and will use self control to only spend a total of 30 minutes each day on Pinterest. I'll time it with my Blackberry. I know I can do this, I know I can, and I'm even rethinking the idea of including that photo of Gerard Butler but under the title, "Guys who don't hold a candle to my Big Guy".

TaTaFerNow,

G

Just Another Day in Paradise

2012-02-24T10:37:00.000-08:00

I had actually planned to use today's blog to write about something else, but plan's changed shortly after I poured my second cup of coffee.

I started out my morning as usual, Rocky "the chihuahua" alarm at 6am (much better than last weeks 4am for four straight mornings), downed 4 ounces of orange juice while listening to the news and weather report that is thankfully better for our area than the blustery winds we dealt with yesterday, and with the first cup of coffee in hand, I kiss my Big Guy who hurries out the door.

Then I begin to check my emails.

Luckily there are only a few messages, the first one from Groupon, offering me $5 off if I buy a self teeth whitening kit or a giant floor pillow that is supposed to relax you, (over 640 bought and limited quantity available). I consider the teeth whitening kit for just a second but definitely pass on the relaxing floor pillow since I know three furry reasons why that would not relax me.

Another email was an E-Bay survey tempting me to take just a few minutes and fill it out for a chance to win $500 in online merchandise or an iPad3. Call me a sucker but I did it. It only took about 5 minutes and I'm sure they will give me the $500 for the online merchandise when they have pity on me and see that I answered question #5 that read: "In the past year, how many of these retail stores have you bought clothing, shoes, handbags, scarves, hats, wigs and other personal items from?" and I checked Other and wrote in Salvation Army.

The last email was a rejection from the third children's book illustrator I had written to last night and I wrote him back thanking him for being so prompt with his rejection, then I begin reading my Facebook wall noting my second oldest daughter was recovering nicely from yesterday's Lasik Eye surgery. I'm hopeful there won't be anymore posts about the possibility of having her eyeballs blasted from her head, discussions about being "pro-flap", having eyelids flipped inside out or anymore arguments with her older brother about who made the best choice of corrective eye surgery and who is the biggest sissy while comparing painful eye drop usage.

After saying a morning prayer for a friend who is struggling with her weight loss, for the safety of my older daughter and her hubby so that they won't get stuck in bad weather at the Chicago airport while on their trip to Las Vegas, (of which right now I am extremely envious) and for another friend who is also traveling today, I finally poured that second cup of morning magic and was collecting my thoughts when I looked over just in time to see Rocky squat on the living room carpet. Knowing that you don't pick him up while he is in full stream, (I learned that a few weeks ago, read my blogs), I exhaled and when he finished, I marked the spot with one of Chrissy's doggie toys. For those of you who haven't read my other blogs, Chrissy is my Big Guy's spoiled rotten Maltese.

Chrissy's toys are usually scattered across the living room floor and she carefully walks around checking them throughout the day, trying to decide which one needs to be chewed on next and after making her selection, she runs off with it to her hideout behind my big overstuffed chair in the corner. I'm normally not happy with that fact but today having a small stuffed butterfly within arms length, that is missing both eyeballs and part of an antenna, came in handy.

With Lil' Green Machine in hand, I begin the process of cleaning the pee spot which by now had sunk deep into my carpet's fibers. A little pre-spot is somewhat helpful since the smell of sucking up pure doggie urine doesn't bode well with my early morning sinus. Now that I'm down on my hands and knees and close enough to see, (I'm really blind even with my glasses on), I notice there is another suspicious spot that will need cleaning. After scrubbing carpet until my carpel tunel wrists are screaming at me for relief, I go to pour out the stinky, filthy solution that I have collected in the Lil' Green Machine tank and rinse it down the drain with steaming hot water, only to discover that there is no hot water.

As I said, yesterday we had a very blustery day and I'm certain that the high winds had blown out the pilot light on our hot water tank.

I opened up the door to the hot water tank and sitting on the floor close to the tank I looked in through the tiny window to see that there was no flame, so I turned the knob from on to off. Then I decided maybe I should look for directions on how to relight the pilot. I started to notice that there were plenty of "Warning" and "Danger" messages which did not make me feel at all comfortable with the situation.

The tank was called a SmartWater Tank and I was praying it was a lot smarter than me as I tried to decipher the directions.

The first thing I read of course is to turn down the heat adjustment before turning the tank off. Any second now I knew I would be would be blown to smithereens along with my three poor little furry comrades. Yep, my Big Guy would come home and find a big burnt out crater in the ground where our home used to stand, and the firemen would be handing him a small vile of soot labeled, female human remains.

I held my breath and prayed as I turned the adjuster all the way down and to my relief I was still alive. As I read further, there were more warning messages, they really weren't taking any chances with the dummy reading this.

I'm not sure where that "Inner Door" was, but I didn't remove anything!

I finally figured out the sequence of turning knobs and pushing down buttons until the pilot was successfully lit once more.

But something was missing. When I left the hot water tank and returned to the kitchen to retrieve my cup of coffee that was now ice cold, I couldn't find my glasses. I remembered I had taken them off so I could read the hot water tank. My glasses are for nearsightedness only and I'm too cheap to get bifocals but see pretty well to read without them. I kept looking in all the normal places where I would lay them, but they weren't there. I scoured every room and was careful that I didn't step on them in case they were dropped. Then I noticed that Rocky was asleep on his pillow, my wonder dog Cookie had been following me around as if expecting me to give her something, but Chrissy was no where in sight.

When Chrissy doesn't come when called, which is what happened next, that means she is doing something she shouldn't be doing and usually knows she shouldn't be doing it!

Sure enough, I peek behind my big overstuffed chair in the corner of the living room only to find that giant termite, cleverly disguised as a mop, happily gnawing away on an ear piece of my glasses.

Thankfully it wasn't too bad. What few teeth-marks that she managed to inflict would be hidden behind my ear and besides, after all of the Facebook postings I have read these past few weeks between my children discussing their Lasik, PRK and other corrective eye surgery lingo, this might be something I should consider myself. And who knows, after my surgery, I may even plan a trip to Las Vegas!

Chapter Two "Farm of My Dreams" Goodbye Gus's Garden

2012-02-21T15:26:00.000-08:00

August was almost over and the hot Kansas sun proved that the month had lived up to every bit of it's infamous reputation. The climbing rose that I had planted just two months earlier was flourishing and had covered the entire side of an eight foot section of the garden fence. Despite the heat, each rose seemed so perfect; each flower a soft, peachy-pink, perfect paradigm. As I walked through what was left of the Bee Balm; very scant and almost replaced completely now by a few leaning bare stems, I reached down and picked up a small, hand painted wood sign that read: Here Lies Our Beloved Gus, July 16th, 2002.

Gus was a mini lop rabbit. He had been an Easter Bunny gift and when the family that he had been gifted to grew tired of caring for him after 5 years, they offered him to my Pre-school. Gus had been a great gardening partner. He spent his days providing my garden with fertilizer and the children in my care with much laughter.

When Gus passed away from a combination of heat stroke and old age, we buried him under the thick Bee Balm where he had spent much of his summers sleeping. I was teased terribly before old Gus came along. My husband and children called me "Bunny Killer" due to my past bad luck with a few rabbits. I had a rabbit once that was eaten by a big dog, a rabbit that ate noxious weed and died, a rabbit that choked to death on hairballs, one that drowned in it's own water bowl and there was the one that I left in his cage, too close to the central air unit, but I don't like to think about him. Gus had been proof that I didn't really kill bunnies; at least not all of them.

"I guess the new owners won't need this." I held up the sign to my Big Guy, who had just come out to help.

"I hope they don't dig in that corner! Maybe we should take them with us." I proposed. Gus wasn't the only creature buried under the Bee Balm, he was in the company of another rabbit, a fan-tail goldfish, a world record size salamander, two gerbils and a rather large box turtle. We had a regular Pet Cemetary in that corner of the garden.

"And where would we put them?" my Big Guy said raising both eyebrows.

"You have a point. I guess we'll just have to hope the new owners like lots of Bee Balm."

Bee Balm was a favorite flower of mine and regardless of it's somewhat intrusive nature, I welcomed it back each year. I used it as a lovely backdrop in that corner of our vegetable garden. Our vegetable garden flanked the north side of our back yard patio and connected by border gardens surrounding the patio, to a larger flower garden that traveled along the entire back of our house. Our back yard was framed with a six foot tall privacy fence and was bordered with even more gardens. I loved gardening. I grew just about everything in that back yard. One of my favorite garden spots was under the Cottonwood tree in the southwest corner. That's where I grew herbs and strawberries. For quite a while, I couldn't understand why all of my strawberries kept disappearing until we caught Riley's chihuahua, Rocky, eating them one day.

I continued to walk through the garden picking up stone fairies, colorful windmills, gazing balls and other whimsies that had adorned it over the years. When I had an armful I would hand them over to Big Guy who would look at each one as if seeing them for the first time, chuckle and then whisk them away to the garage to be packed.

When Big Guy returned for another armful, we began a reminiscent journey that included stories of fences being moved multiple times and digging up two of the four Mutant Ninja Turtles one early spring while re-mulching the garden. Together we laughed until I cried.

I cried because even though I had dreamed of leaving this home someday for one in the country, we weren't leaving for that reason. We didn't have a new home to go to. In fact, we didn't even have a home to go to, period. But we had prayed for it to sell quickly and God had definitely heard our prayer.

A whirlwind of change had happened since I had seen my little Green Valley farmstead just three years earlier. When it was decided that the Green Valley home needed too much work, we had continued looking at more homes in the country and thought we had finally found it, a perfect piece of heaven about twenty miles north of town. The owners weren't in a hurry and wanted to wait until Spring, this worked out well since we would still need to sell our home and not have two house payments.

Feeling rather confident that the sale would go through, I made plans to close my Pre-school by the end of the school season and started to tell the parents so they could also make plans. The Pre-school that I had operated out of our walk-out basement for nearly twelve years, had a wonderful program with teachers that alternated morning and afternoon shifts. Our curriculum included teaching the children all of the fifty states, basic math and even some basic Spanish language. We kept a regular schedule and had a great group of kids ages three, four and a few that had already turned five. All of our children seemed happy and healthy and we had very little problems if any at all. We were one big happy Pre-school!

You can imagine the surprise when just a few weeks before my Pre-school was to close, we got a phone call from the mother of one of our three year olds, accusing us of injuring them. I should have seen it coming since she had started to ask strange questions shortly after I told her I would be closing the Pre-school. First she had asked me whether we had insurance in case of accidents, then the next day she wondered if our video camera taped the Pre-school every day. Without realizing what she was up to, I told her that our video recorder had been broken for quite some time and we just used the camera to monitor from the kitchen, and of course we had good insurance.

The next thing we knew, a lawyer had sent a threatening letter to us and to our Pre-school's insurance company, suing for three quarters of a million dollars. When it is your word against that of a hysterically crying mother accusing you of causing injury to her small helpless child, it's very hard to prove your innocence and you need a good lawyer.

All of the savings that was to be used on our new home in the country, went to pay our lawyer a retainer. Then to make things even worse, my Big Guy came home a few days later with a pink slip, his government job had lost their bid and he had been laid off. Since I had just closed my Pre-school, we had no income.

A month went by and after finally taking the only job he could find that paid well enough to support us, Big Guy left home to be an over the road truck driver. Soon I found work too. I did whatever I could to deal with lawyers, insurance people and debt that was beginning to pile up on us. Dave Ramsey is right, you need at least three months of income saved in order to survive a month without any income. Finally, after three months, I recieved notice that the Pre-school's Insurance lawyers had settled out of court for just twelve hundred dollars, the amount the family who was suing had owed their attorney. The lawsuit had been dropped, we had lost our entire savings, were still a month behind on of our bills and worst of all, we only saw each other for a day and a night once every two weeks or more. But we still had our home and Riley.

All of the older children were grown and living their own lives, some far away and some with-in a days drive. Since Riley was the only one still living at home during this time, the two of us did our best without my Big Guy but he was missing so many things that we were used to sharing. Finally he decided it was too difficult being away from us and quit his truck driving job. Almost immediately he found another job, in fact he found two jobs and worked both night and day.

Then because my Big Guy was determined to do better, he applied for a job that came open with the City and got it. By that time I had a fairly good paying property management job and soon we started talking about our dreams for a home in the country again. Even though we knew it would take time to start saving for it, the light at the end of our tunnel begin to shine brighter.

But things weren't going to be that simple. As we were climbing back out of our financial hole and had even found a way to make extra income to save for Riley's college by starting an amusement business, our mortgage company sent us a letter that said our payments were going to almost double.

Later that same week I lost my wonderful job. My boss just came into my office and with absolutely no warning or any reason given, he told me I was being "let go". I was crushed and of course demanded to know why but he just said that I should accept it and I had ten minutes to clear out. I have my theories as to why, but have never been able to prove them. The company I worked for seemed to be skimming money off of the accounts that were meant to be used for the properties improvements. They would have me write out checks to cover their personal vacation and partying expenses and then ask me to code them as "employee training". I had just questioned this for the second time a few days before I was "let go" and was told not to worry about it but I did worry since I felt I would be held responsible and this property was under a government program. But like I said, I really didn't have any proof.

I went home that night and tearfully told my Big Guy what had happened and after we brain stormed a while on how to make up for my lost income and higher mortgage payments, we reached the only decision we felt could get us caught up with our debt and that was to sell our home, so we did.

Saying goodbye was much harder than I thought it would be. Not so much to the house as it was to our memories there. The house itself had always seemed like a money pit. It started with the discovery of massive termite damage shortly after we moved in, a very good lesson in the importance of hiring a home inspector before you buy! Thirty thousand dollars in repairs later, our original seventy thousand dollar purchase had now become a one hundred thousand dollar investment.

The upstairs toilet was possessed. It would never finish flushing and in the late night hours, when you were trying to sleep, it would come to life and torture you with gurgling and sputtering sounds. Just as you couldn't take another second and got out of bed to go and jiggle the handle, the thing would stop as if to taunt you. And before you ask why we didn't put in new parts, we did! I finally had my revenge after ten years when we were financially able to replace it. I wanted so badly to take it out in the yard and throw a sledge hammer at it, but a friend convinced me to donate it to charity although I couldn't understand why he would want to give a demonic toilet to someone in need.

There were other problems with this house that continued to plague us financially, and just as we fixed one thing, something else always took it's place, but the memories we had made together in our garden had been teaching opportunities about life. They had strengthened us and cemented us together as a family. I think nature does that.

Once while planting a new row of snap-dragons to replace the ones that had died the year before, Riley asked me a startling question. "Mom, when I grow up, will you be dead?"

She was only five at the time and I wasn't sure of what to say so I tried to answer her question with a question; I learned that from her father.

"Well what do you think?" I asked her back.

"When I'm a mom will you be dead?" she countered my question with another question.

I laughed at this point and thought about how she had also learned that from her father and then reminded her that my mother was still alive and that hopefully someday, her children would be calling me grandma too.

When Riley was about 12, she decided to plant every different type of pepper she could find. We had an abundance of cherry tomatoes that year and she even learned how to make salsa. She bought the canning jars and even designed her own labels that said, "Riley's Red Hot Salsa", with a tagline that read, "made fresh from the garden". Everyone she gave a jar of her salsa to, loved it, but Riley was such a picky eater, she never even ate her own salsa!

Besides a large assortment of peppers and cherry tomatoes, this garden that engulfed our back yard, was home to a huge variety of perennials, annuals and two very tall pampas grass that grew on each side of the entrance to the patio. Almost like Mafia guards that frisked you with their long grass blades each time you passed between them, by the end of Summer these two giants reached a height of at least twelve feet.

One year we built a small red barn behind the vegetable garden in the northeast corner. On each side of the back of the barn, we added a doggie door. It became a small dog kennel for our two Bassett Hounds. Big Guy had a male named Bullwinkle and I had a female named BillieJo. Eventually, nature took over and a perfect litter of eight puppies were born. Riley learned first hand about babies being born since she had the opportunity to help with the births. We had such fun memories of floppy eared Bassett Hound's running all over the back yard, our grandchildren carrying them everywhere.

But now the Bassetts were gone, there were no more peppers to pick, Riley was living with her oldest sister in another city and in just a few moments we would be leaving our home of the past thirteen years; thirteen years of birthday parties, holidays, back yard barbecues and retrieving baseballs thrown over the fence. For thirteen years this had been a place our children could come back to, had brought our grandchildren to and affectionately said, "Mom, we're coming home!". I wondered where they would call home now.

As I picked up the final piece of yard art, a small grinning frog holding a sign that read, "I Eat What Bugs Me!", and scanned the garden from my perspective to make certain nothing was missed, I said goodbye to memories of small, impish children running through sprinklers on hot Summer afternoons, of rabbits grazing on blades of grass and cats chasing squirrels along the fence tops. I said goodbye to the tire swing and the giant cottonwood tree from which it hung and goodbye to the picket fence I had my poor Big Guy move three times before I finally decided I liked it best in it's original location.

"Do you think we'll find it?" I asked as my Big Guy took the frog from my hand.

"Find what?" he said, cocking his head to the side.

Looking into the eyes of the man that I had once promised to share my life with through better or worse, I said, "Will we find a way to make our dreams come true?"

"We will, I know we will? he assured me and together we went on our way.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." JEREMIAH 29:11 NIV

I Write out of Love!

2012-02-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

This may seem like I'm picking on my youngest daughter, Riley, who will soon turn 21, and my other 4 children are just honorable mentions, but if it wasn't for the delightful altercation, (yes I did just describe the word altercation with the word delightful), that I had with Riley on the phone yesterday, I probably wouldn't have thought to write about this at all.

I had finally finished 2 stories from the children's book series I have been working on for almost 15 years and couldn't wait to get feedback from Riley of whose childhood these stories were inspired by. I emailed her the stories earlier in the day with instructions for her to read them to her 8 year old twin nephews whom she is staying with at this time.

Then I took a break from writing and attempted to acquire a sugar high while watching a great old episode of Bonanza. I thought I would get warmed up for Valentine's Day since I hadn't had a chocolate fix in a while (all this blogging causes butt-lag and a plethora of snacking so I had to turn to dry Corn Chex for a few weeks!).

While downing a mini Snickers bar, 2 dark chocolate kisses and a handful of smarties, and falling in love with Hoss Cartwright all over again due to his tender moment where he tries to reject the advances a lovelorn girl who thinks he wants to marry her and it will never work because she is engaged to someone else who brought her there as a mail order bride and now wants to kill Hoss... am I losing you?

Anyway, as I was enjoying Hoss and my sugar high, "Moon River" began playing on my Blackberry, that's Riley's ringtone. I almost spilled my cherry kool-aid while quickly reaching across the side table to answer her.

"Mom!", I hear her sweet sounding voice in my ear and immediately respond.

"Did you read them? What do you think? Did you read them to the twins? Well, what do you think?" I couldn't wait to hear her response.

At first she sounded tired and I thought maybe she hadn't read them yet but quietly she told me that she had.

"Mom, I don't like them. They make me look stupid and they aren't accurate either. Can you please change them?" her voice was quiet, soft and pleading with me.

"Change them!" I tried to remain calm and not raise my voice, "Change them how?", I asked.

"I don't know!" Riley moaned slightly, "Maybe just change the name of the book to someone else's or make it all about Ryan!"

She was instantly adamant that I not connect her name in any way to these stories and was even suggesting I make them about her brother, Ryan, instead of her. She repeated again that the stories were not true and they made her look stupid.

"Riley, they are fiction, and fiction isn't supposed to be real!" I countered.

"But you're using my name, my dog's name and even my friends name and if you are telling lies about me and my life, I don't like it." she countered back, still sounding somewhat amicable.

"Honey, these stories are only "based" on your childhood and your character, if I wrote true stories of the things you really did, I would have to re-title the book, "My Experience's Living with the Spawn of Satan", and somehow I don't think it would make a very good children's book series even if a lot of mothers could probably relate."

"At least it wouldn't be lies that will make me look stupid!" she said. And then came the threats; these are usually added as a desperate attempt to sway ones decision when all niceness and logic has failed. "Mom," she said, still with a sweet but now somewhat nefarious tone, " You will be sorry! I can leave comments on your blog that will destroy you!"

"Go right ahead," I told her, "At least you will have shown some interest in something I have written!"

We must have argued back and fourth in this manner for nearly a half an hour until she finally said, in a somewhat amplified voice, she had to go grocery shopping. Realizing Bonanza had ended and I missed finding out how Hoss resolved his woman problem, I told her in a somewhat higher amplified voice, that I had to start supper for her father, who had just came home from work.

"Goodbye then!" Riley said in the same amplified voice, at which I said the same back at her in my higher amplified voice, and we both hung up.

Big Guy had only caught the end of the vocal fracas and thought it better not to get too involved even though I spent the entire evening detailing every word that had been said in the conversation with our daughter. He just kept assuring me that I should stand my ground and not worry about Riley's fears.

Still feeling I needed more support than what he had offered, I asked two of my closest friends for their perception about the controversy between me and Riley. Both read the stories and took my side which helped shore up my defense, so I held out hope for a restful night's sleep.

But It was still hard for me to sleep last night and not because I was agonizing over Riley's attack on my stories. It was because her dog Rocky, was having a difficult time breathing again. He has contracted a bad cold and in between his wheezing, are sniffles and an occasional cough.

So not being able to sleep due to worry over Rocky, I laid there thinking of Riley and how much I enjoy having her in my life. I went over everything about her that I loved, which made me begin to think of my other 4 children and how much I loved them too.

I have been blessed by 5 beautiful lives and all with their own special characteristics. Each one of them has brought me happiness, caused me to laugh almost uncontrollably at times, inspired me and given me comfort. Of course there have also been times of disappointment, worry and even great sadness but that just comes with the territory of love.

I hope someday to be able to write all of their stories, and they will be true, albeit coming from a mother who is terribly biased. But for now, I will listen to my heart and write what I choose with conviction, the things that come to me, whether fact or fiction. (I think that rhymed!)

I will continue to borrow the wonderful characteristics from those I love, because I believe there is honor in doing so. But, just for the sake of those involved, I will add this proclamation to any story that is deemed fiction and I am even naming it after my youngest daughter.

Riley's Rule of Fiction

To anyone who thinks they recognize their-selves in this story, whether by name, characteristic or subject matter, please keep an open mind and remember that YOU are not the only person on this earth, (population of 7,022,030,038 people according to the Worldometer at 12 noon today) that has a great name, has done funny or interesting stuff and might even have a dog named Rocky.

A Big Black Hairy Valentine

2012-02-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

When I first met my Big Guy, I had no idea he had a sidekick named JD; a Bouvier Des Flandres dog.

Now JD wasn't someone I would've immediately taken a liking to, but after a few days of being around him, he eventually grew on me and stole my heart almost in the same way that my Big Guy did.

JD was the largest dog I had ever met. He could stand on his hind legs and place his front paws over each of my shoulders and waltz with me across the kitchen floor, which we did often. He could walk right up to the dining room table and snatch a goodie off of your plate, swallowing so quickly, you hardly had time to react. With his mild and laid back personality and the way he would stare at you with those big brown eyes so innocently, it was difficult to be angry at him.

I honestly think I fell in love with this big smelly dog before I actually fell in love with my Big...ok I won't say it...wonderful Guy.

I had just gone through a divorce from my first husband who was also the father of my three young children, and the last thing I was thinking about at this time was another relationship, but Big Guy and I had become friends at college and our talent for winning in billiard tournaments kept us in close contact of one another.

One day Big Guy came to me and asked if I could keep JD for the next semester. He was leaving to attend another college and because they required all new unmarried students to live in the dorms for the first semester, he could not take JD with him. Being that I had a house with a yard and seemed to get along so well with his dog, he chose me for the job. I had no idea what I was in for.

JD got along great with the kids, almost too great. At night I would find myself constantly shuffling him out of their beds and back to the folded up blanket I had placed on the kitchen floor. I wasn't too keen about allowing my children to sleep with hairy animals. One morning, however, I woke to a cold, wet nose in my face. I screamed, JD barked and the kids came running into my room. Upon seeing JD laying next to me in bed, three little heads bobbed up and down and three little fingers shook in disapproval. Of course they never believed me and went on strike from eating breakfast until I finally allowed him to at least take turns sleeping on their bedroom floors.

Every weekend I would get a phone call from Big Guy, but not to talk to me of course, he would ask to talk to his dog. Although at first I thought it pretty silly, JD seemed to like it. When placing the phone close to JD's ear, he would get excited and make a very strange sound, kind of a long, drawn out, muffled groan. Then I could hear the same sound coming from the voice at the other end of the phone and I was beginning to understand the relationship between this dog, this man and my three young children; all needed parental guidance.

It was a clever trick on Big Guy's part I have to say, because as the phone calls continued over the months to come, I found myself having more conversation with him and him having less with JD. A year later we were married.

After moving several times and adding one more child, "Little Guy", to our family, we had now moved back to the town where it had all started. Big Guy planned to take a new job with a construction crew there but as luck would have it, that didn't pan out. He ended up driving back and fourth to his old job almost two hours away, so eventually he decided to stay with a friend and only come home on the weekends.

Our new home was a very large but very decrepit 1890 Victorian. It had two winding staircase; one at the front foyer and one in back off of the kitchen. The floors creaked, the doors rattled and at night it could get down right spooky. But we had our secret weapon to keep us safe from any monsters under the bed or worry of boogey men trying to get in; we had our big black hairy friend, JD.

Each night he charged up the stairs following after our small herd of children and then patrolled every room as they were tucked in to bed before he settled down to sleep. Each morning he greeted us with tail wagging and a big sloppy, doggie breath lick of the tongue across the face.
JD became Psychologist to my oldest daughter Maryanne. If she needed to talk to someone, she would sit with him on top of his dog house forever, telling him all of her problems. My oldest son, Robby, had figured out how to hold onto his leash and have JD pull him down the sidewalk on his skates and Miranda, my second daughter, would dress him in people clothes, always insisting he liked it. Even our Little Guy had found out he could hide in JD's dog house and JD wouldn't give him up when we were searching for him.

Every June we cut JD's very thick five inch long hair down to about an inch of his skin. Not only was it much cooler for him in the hot midwest Summer heat but we didn't have as much trouble removing the sand burrs that seemed to find him no matter where he went and he went everywhere.

Then one cold winter day, I noticed JD shivering and realized his hair had not grown back. In the almost eleven winter seasons that I had known him, this was the first time his hair was not long and thick.

We made a decision to keep him inside more on cold days which seemed to work, but there were a few times when he would do a magic act and slip outside un-noticed, then later we would find him pawing at the door to get back in.

If only I could have known how our "Houdini" dog was able to do it, maybe I could have kept him from making his escape the one time that mattered the most.

It was Christmas Day when all of the family had come together for a big celebration, and JD, once again, had slipped out of the house un-noticed. This time he did not come back, in fact, Big Guy and my oldest daughter went to look for him. They found him almost right away, in the alley behind our home. He had gotten into the neighbors trash and helped himself to his own Christmas dinner which consisted of engulfing an entire turkey carcus, including the large black, plastic trash bag it was tied up in.

We took him to the local vet to have his stomach pumped, but afterward when the vet continued to examine him, he did not have the best news. JD was old, more than thirteen years. The vet was surprised to see he had lived this long since large breed dogs don't usually make it much past age ten. And now he was telling us that there had been damage to JD's kidneys and other vital organs. It would cost a fortune to try and save his kidneys and in a dog his age, well, the vet recommended we take him home and give him some medicine he prescribed that would help him be comfortable.

JD tried hard to make a come back. He struggled to climb the winding stairs that took him to his night time route of patrolling, and some mornings we would still wake to his sloppy face licks but they were becoming fewer and fewer each day.

The days turned into weeks and the weeks went by fast, which finally brought us to the morning of February 14th. The older kids had gone to school and Little Guy was busy playing in the family room. I had moved JD's bed to the kitchen near the back stairs a few days earlier. It had been almost two days now since he had touched his food and hardly a drop of water. He didn't leave his bed and barely even moved but when you spoke to him or sat near him and stroked what was left of his once thick, long black hair, his tail would wag with approval and his soft brown eyes showed he was grateful.

My Big Guy was expected home to a romantic Valentine Dinner that evening, cooked by me and chaperoned by one teenager, two preteens and a toddler.

I busied myself as usual with the household tasks; cleaning up the poptart crumbs left behind on the kitchen counter, unloading the laundry left in the wash the night before and checking on JD and Little Guy each time I passed by them.

A friend called and I was talking to her while taking a load of clean towels up the back stairs. I had just reached the linen closet, when I heard a loud thump followed by a whimper. In a panic, I told my friend I had to go and dropping the phone into the laundry basket that had now fallen from my arms, I turned to go back down the stairs. I could see JD struggling, with his head on the last step. I hurried to reach him and sitting on the floor, carefully lifting his head into my lap, I asked him why he had tried to follow me up the stairs. Then holding his head between both hands, looking into his big brown eyes, I knew. JD was saying goodbye.

I pleaded with him not to go, not now, not on this day. I told that big black hairy lug that he couldn't leave us like this, that we weren't prepared, that I wasn't ready!

But as I watched the last billow of his chest and felt his head become lifeless in my hands, all I could do was remain there with him on the floor, sobbing with uncontrollable grief.

That night after my Big Guy came home, we buried JD under the giant Oak tree in the back yard. Six hearts were left broken that Valentine's day; there was no celebrating for any of us.

I was once asked by a total stranger, "If you only had moments left to live, how would you want to spend those moments?", and of course I had answered the way most people probably do, I said I would want to spend them with those who loved me, and now I realize, thanks to a big black hairy dog, what a blessing that would truly be and I smile when I remember a time when I once woke to a cold, wet nose in my face.

My Oldest Daughter's Greatest Prize

2012-02-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

Maryanne, with deep set, dark brown eyes and a smile that can be seen a mile away!

Always fun-loving and ready to share in her happiness whatever it might be.

She makes it a priority in her life; lighting a fire that will spark much joy in the lives of others.
But all fire's eventually burn out and Maryanne has had to re-light many times.

I wanted to write this today since Maryanne made it on a nation-wide television show last night; a special show that ended up bringing tears to the eyes of so many. She was a contestant on the popular game show, Wheel of Fortune. And this particular show, totally unrehearsed and unexpectedly, gave her an incredible gift.

Her husband, Andy, who is in the Army and had been deployed to Afghanistan for the past year, was presented to her at the end of the show; a complete surprise. Maryanne had been waiting for him to come home and only knew that it would be soon. She had hoped to surprise him by winning something wonderful that she could share and yes, she did win some very nice things including a trip to Las Vegas. But it was Andy who was able to turn the table and surprise her, which for him, is very un-characteristic.

We were fortunate to have been there for the taping when it all happened and everyone was crying, yes everyone, tears of joy for Maryanne. Then last night when it finally aired on tv, we had our own small "Wheel Watching" party and everyone in the room was also crying.

I cried again too, and still cry with every new youtube posting. I cry because I know that my daughter was so blissfully happy; that having Andy back safely from a war that she knew could have easily stolen him away forever, was her greatest reward of all.

I also knew that there had been struggles in her life, more struggles than a young woman her age would ever be expected to have to go through, but she did. And because she made it through all of them, I couldn't be prouder of her.

Congratulations, Maryanne, for a job well done!

And just in case you missed it...

My daughters greatest prize!

Tongue Tied and Twisted TV Talk

2012-02-08T19:32:00.000-08:00

What a day! Wake up with dog at 5am; he can't breath and I can't sleep because I can hear him wheezing. I hold him close and reassure him until he can finally calm down enough to go back to sleep. His doggie asthma has come back full force now that he has aged and it's always worse in the early morning hours.

I can't go back to sleep now, so I join my Big Guy who has put on the coffee water. We discuss the day ahead of us and before I know it he's off to his city work and I'm trying to find something decent to wear to my TV interview. It's not what you think.

My oldest daughter is a contestant on Wheel of Fortune!

Just say that to a complete stranger while standing in the long line at the post office and even someone who looks like they've been sucking on a pickle all day will light up like an incandescent bulb. In fact, they did!

As an avid Wheel Watcher for nearly 30 years now, having your daughter become a contestant is almost as good as you being one yourself. I am a card carrying, puzzle solving, verb and consonant seeking freak and I'm proud of it!

I used to watch this show religiously back when it was on three times in one day and even though one was a repeat, I still watched it. Our family watched it every night at supper time and I even wrote a story about that experience, (kinda' hokey though so I may or may not share it with you), and our children grew up addicted just like me. Ok, maybe they aren't all addicted like me but at least one of them turned out alright and she proved it by being on the show.

My Big Guy and I flew to California in January to watch the show be taped. It was a wonderful, life changing, (well maybe not life changing), fun experience that I can't tell you anymore about until after the show airs tomorrow night.

But I can tell you to watch it to find out what happens, and I can tell you it is a very special show and that they have never done a show like this one ever before!

So I picked out something decent enough to wear on the evening news where thousands of people would tune in to watch me look ridiculous and women I don't even know could criticize my lack of hairdo and make-up skills. We had agreed to meet at my little shop since meeting at our home with three little fur-balls running amuck, barking and begging for attention just wouldn't have worked out. Luckily the reporter was running late since I am always running late and I still managed to get there before her. She wanted to set-up in the actual shop area so she could have a background, which made me a little nervous. But she picked the area with the best assortment of stuff and kept complimenting the small rose bouquet that was on a shelf behind the chair she had me sit in. If you happen to notice it when you see me on the news tonight and would like to purchase it for your sweetheart for Valentines Day, it's $5.50, a real bargain and there is still time to ship if purchased before Saturday.

How did the interview go, you ask? I babbled! I babbled and babbled and then when she asked me another question I think I babbled some more! I don't know what came over me but I couldn't seem to concentrate. I couldn't remember the things that I had practiced to say while I was taking my shower this morning. I had rehearsed all of the smart and intellectual words I would use to describe my daughters exciting blessing. I had practiced looking proud motherly in my mirror for almost an hour and I even carefully checked in between my teeth to make sure there wasn't any broccoli remnants left from last nights supper.

When the reporter finally said she thought it was a take and seemed happy with everything, I just kept trying to remember what I had said that was at all coherent.

So that was my morning and everything since has been a blur, and until I actually see the news at ten, I'm not even certain that any of it really happened. Guess I'll watch when my Big Guy pinches me and I wake up from this dream!

"I'm a Wheel Watcher, I'm a Wheel Watcher; you can be one too..."

I'm a Wheel Watcher

My Accidental Fun Shop

2012-02-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I spilled the beans about my little shop in my last post. It is an accidental shop; didn't mean for it to happen it just did.

It was July of 2010 and we needed some place to park our trailers and trucks for our amusement business. We had been begging space off of friends, using semi truck parking lots and just about any place we could find. Our home didn't have enough parking space for the trailers.

I knew of this place that had storage units for rent and a nice large parking lot. It just happened to be in a great location by a popular retail shopping area. A friend parked 2 of his DJ trailers in the parking lot and all he had to do was rent a small storage unit, so I asked if we could do the same. I was told the only rental unit they had available was in a huge old building, once known as the Bus Barn. I remembered a crafty, artsy lady who I had hired for Face Painting a couple of years earlier, once had a shop there.

Her shop had been a pretty interesting place with lots of collectibles, an assortment of weird stuff, some antiques and all kinds of paintings that she had done on windows and just about anything else. The few times I was there, I looked for antiques but noticed the good stuff became less and the junk became more with each returning visit. Eventually her hoarding of junk got out of control and you couldn't even walk through the place. People stopped going in and she finally had an auction which sadly did not bode well for her.

It sounded crazy renting this termite chewed, decrepit old building just to be able to park a couple of trailers in front of but we were becoming pretty desperate and thought the logos on our trailers parked out front would bring free advertising, so we rented it. Then the place sat fairly empty, housing only a few tubs of games, additional electrical cords and our pink cotton candy cart.

A few days later, while paying the household bills, I stopped to ponder the amount of money we had spent on two large storage units we had been renting for the past 5 years. When I added it up, I realized why we had not been able to afford to take a cruise or any other fun vacation for a while, (great excuse since we've never taken a cruise and up to this point have only had one vacation that didn't involve a tent or fishing pole, or both). Then I made a huge decision to clean out those storage units and start saving that money. I mean really, after 5 years no one could even remember half of the contents anyway!

I started with big items first; all kinds of furniture, a barely used Coleman travel refrigerator still in it's box, (remember, no vacations), a folding golf club carrier, assorted shelves and many other useful, semi-useful and totally worthless items.

I took some good photos and posted some of the items on Craigslist. With-in days I had sold several. One person met me in the Target parking lot to buy the travel fridge, another met me at Walmart for one of my two brand new sump pumps, (no I don't know why we had two brand new sump pumps still in the boxes; I don't know why we had one!), another person met me in the library parking lot to buy a pair of old white, milk glass lamps and a woman even met me in the school parking lot of a carnival we were working with our amusement business, to pick up two metal bathroom shelves.

I only accepted cash for these things and made certain our meetings were in well lit, public places, but when it came to selling the really big items, like the furniture, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of having strangers meet me out at our storage units since they were in a fairly secluded area. I asked, (begged and finally food bribed) my Big Guy to help and together we started bringing things to our little, decrepit, shop. In a week, we had cleaned out one storage unit and the shop was full of furniture and lots of tubs and boxes stacked everywhere.

My good friend Holly came by the shop one day, and upon entering she gasped. "Where in the world did you get all of this stuff?"

She was walking through the stacks of assorted items that I had placed neatly in groups about the room.

"Oh, just a few things I've picked up here and there." I joked and then started to explain that most of the items had been blessed upon me due to the passing of several family members, children leaving the nest and an ex-husband who never came back to claim his Elvis collection. I didn't want her to think I was a hoarder but looking around the room, I could see how one would start to think that.

Many of these items and furniture were from the house we had lived in for over 13 years and sold 6 years earlier. We went from nearly 3000 square feet of living space down to our small, temporary home of under 900 square feet. That stuff had to go somewhere so storage it was.

I had actually broken my own rule of paying for storage on something that could be replaced. Years earlier, when a friend had asked for help in selling a beautiful, barely used but almost 2 year old washer and dryer, I vowed I would never lose money like she had. She had moved with-in a month or two of purchasing her beautiful new set and since the duplex she was now renting already had a perfectly good washer and dryer, her thought was to save her nice new set for later. Later hadn't come and in fact, she was already halfway through another years lease in this duplex. Frustrated when she realized she had paid more on the storage than she had for the washer and dryer originally, she decided to sell the set to try and recover some of her loss and stop paying for storage.

ROCKY ALERT!

Upon noticing that Rocky was standing in the middle of the carpet and no longer curled up asleep next to me on the sofa, almost dropping the laptop on Cookie's head and tripping over Chrissy who had also hopped un-noticed by me onto the floor, I reached for the now squatting chihuahua, already in full stream ahead. Lifting him into the air which just propelled the pee in the manor of someone holding a fire hose that was out of control, I ran with him to the kitchen tile just a few feet away. Once there, I held him as he continued to relieve what I think to be at least a gallon of pee. How in the world can something this small contain that much liquid? This is why my home always smells Pine Sol clean!

Now back to where ever I was!

As Holly helped look through the items, picking up one thing or another and exclaiming how wonderful each thing was, she suggested something that I had been trying to decide myself.

"Why don't you open up a little thrift shop and sell all of this stuff right here?"

"Well, I have been thinking about it but don't even know where to begin." I told her, holding up one of 32 different stuffed monkeys from a box belonging to my youngest daughter. "And then if it became a thrift shop, I would have to go get more stuff and I'm not sure I want to keep buying more stuff!"

Truth was, I loved buying stuff, it was giving the stuff up that I didn't know I could cope with. Already as I had started sifting through the boxes and tubs that chronicled the lives of so many in our family, I had my "keep" pile and it was growing by leaps and stuffed monkeys. I would pull out an ugly, slightly chipped dish and remember that my grandparents used it to eat from whenever they didn't have company. A tub full of old stainless steel flatware brought back memories of the welfare poor childhood I had grown up in. A box of Home Beautiful magazines from the 1990's were making my clearing of things much harder. I wanted to look through every old article like, "How to make you're bathroom grow by planting wallpaper borders with huge floral designs and matching shower curtain, towels and toothbrush holder.", that you could purchase all at K-Mart. These were the days before Martha went to the big house.

"You could really make this place fun by renting booths to artists so they can sell their work!" Holly suggested with a sweet smile. Holly, herself an artist, had a good idea even if it might have come with a somewhat personal aspiration. I told her I liked the idea of renting booths and later that evening I tossed it around with my Big Guy who seemed happy about it even though I think he only heard half of what I was talking about. (Hint: If you want a man to really listen to you, don't talk to him while the Undertaker is putting the whoop on Chris Jericho! Google WWE Smackdown and you'll know what I'm talking about.)

That night I went to my computer, googled thrift shops, antique booths and images of what I envisioned my shop to look like.

The next day, armed with some cute ideas of how to set up booths, I gathered up items that seemed to match and these are a few photos of what eventually transpired.

I am happy to say that with a lot of good photos, a couple of great friends and ton's of elbo grease, the Little Apple Trade Company was born.

More on this fun place later...at least I'll try if I'm not passed out from inhaling Pine Sol all day!

The Versatile Blogger Award

2012-02-06T14:58:00.000-08:00

Thank you Paulette, for writing such a fun blog, with wonderful thrifty findings and your mention throughout about the importance of family. I am really enjoying your blog, Cheerful Thrifty Door, (readers please go check it out) and thank you whole-heartily for nominating my blog for the Versatile Blogger Award.

The Versatile Blogger Award rules:

You should pass the award on to 15 recently discovered blogs and let the bloggers know that they have been nominated. (Being new to blogging, I will do my best.)

Share seven things about yourself. (Easy, Peasy!)

Thank the award giver and link back to their blog. (Most definitely!)

Place the icon of The Versatile Blogger Award somewhere on your blog page. (Got it!)

Seven Things About Myself:

I have a thing about the number 7; born on seventh day; seventh month; at seven o'clock; weighed 7lbs & 7oz and many more reasons why.
Was married at the age of 15, the first time around, and am still friends with my ex.
Proud to say I have 8 wonderful grandchildren and am hoping for a bunch more, (hint to my youngest 2 children that they aren't getting any younger but I will die soon and they will have to live with the fact that they have both deprived me of more wonderful grandchildren for the rest of their lives).
I can be very dramatic when I want something, (see third thing above).
I made up for being only 5'2" by marrying my Big Guy who is 6'6", (at least he was until he started shrinking; more on that later).
I always wanted to be a Ballerina but my older sister told me they had fat legs and mine were too scrawny.
I actually have a little shop that I haven't even posted about on my blog yet; it sells everything from Shabby Chic type home decor to anything that someone might think to be a treasure.

Now for the wonderful Blogs that I have chosen to pass this award onto:

52 Flea

The Polkadot Chair
Country at Heart

Chloe's Cookie Blog

Cake Wrecks

The Shabby Chic Cottage

The Summer Porch

I do everything in sevens, so please visit these seven wonderful blogs that I have found to nominate. They have a variety of interest that I hope you will enjoy as much as I have.

Born to be Wild!

2012-02-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

The day is almost over and I'm beat but there are things I feel I need to share, like the wonderful morning I had to start my day; waking up at 7 am and without a dog moaning.

And my Big Guy bursting out in song as we began to make the bed together. "Git cher motor runnin', head out on the highway", as he tosses me a pillow, then I take the next line, "lookin' fer adventure, and whatever comes our way", then together we throw the bedspread across the bed and in unison continue the song in it's entirety, "Yeah, we're gonna make it happen, take the world in a lovin brace, fire all of our guns at once and (now the big crescendo) Explode into space....Like true natures child, we were born, born to be wild...Born to be wi...ee...ild!"

Well, ok maybe we didn't do the whole song and didn't get all the words right either but we sure had fun making the bed. I added the lyrics below since I know you'll be wanting to sing it now too!

One of the important things I learned about marriage from my grandparents, you sleep together; you make the bed together. They were still helping each other make their bed even at the end of nearly 70 years of marriage. I doubt if they were singing Steppenwolf though!

That's all I can muster up tonight but I'll have a fun story to share tomorrow, I mean Monday; Sunday has got to be my day to rest! Goodnight!

"Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin' with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm under
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never want to die

Born to be wild
Born to be wild

I Wake With Dog

2012-02-03T06:46:00.000-08:00

It's not quite five am and I'm really not ready to wake up, but Rocky's internal alarm clock is not synchronized with mine and I hear him start to moan his, "I have to go pee", moan.

"I'm coming already!" I tell him as I slowly unfold from my nice warm bed. The rain had already woke me once earlier this morning and I did not feel rested by any means.

He began to moan louder which made me consider the urgency of taking him out of his crate and out of the bedroom before he woke my still sleeping husband. The last thing a tired, grumpy wife needs this early in the morning, is a tired, grumpy hubby to deal with.

Slipping quickly into my comfy pink slippers, I reached over to the small dog crate beside my bed and unlatched the crate door. In the faint blue light of our new fangled, atomic alarm clock, I saw a small dog head appear and then as soon as enough of his torso was out, I lifted him up and carried him down the hall to the back door. The rain had lightened up but the wooden steps were still slick and wet. I hesitated for a minute and pondered the idea of carrying this decrepit, blind little soul out into the yard like I normally do to keep him from falling down the steps, but I'm wearing my nice soft Victoria Secret flannel PJ's and had just washed my comfy pink slippers so, "Dog," I said, "you're on your own!".

As I watched him hop down the first two steps, I thought, "Almost there, just two more to ..." but sure enough, with one more little hop he misses the third step and over the edge he goes. Feeling incredibly guilty for my selfishness and the fact that my PJ's and slippers were bought at Goodwill anyway, I tell him I'm sorry and vow to build sides to the steps so it won't happen again. You didn't think I would actually take him out on a cold yucky wet day in my pajama's did you?

Rocky was OK and had up-righted himself immediately, prancing off to pee. Luckily, since he has done this a lot lately, it is a very short fall and there is grass on both sides of the steps. (Can't you tell that I still feel guilty?) Soon he's finished relieving himself and quick as a bunny has hopped back up the steps and into the door where I waited with a towel. Then paddy's dry, he pranced off to the Kitchen where he miss-judged a right turn and walked head first into the side of a cabinet again falling but quickly springing back up he carried on to his bowl in the corner as if nothing had happened.

I'm starting to think since he has become blind, he uses some type of radar to find his food bowl, favorite pillow and his way back to the steps. At least he seems to have no problem finding them even though he bumps into a lot of obstacles to get there. The occasional staring at walls kind of gets to me though. He does that a lot! He's not completely blind, I know this because he follows light and movement. He is, however, completely deaf and that's why I feel so ridicules yelling at him when he pees on the floor right in front of me and I only notice after I have stepped in it which is why I washed my slippers again yesterday.

So today since I can't sleep anymore anyway, I have decided to write Rocky's story; a heartwarming true tale of a very stubborn, six year old red-headed girl and how she came to hook up with a feisty little red haired chihuahua. When I'm finished, I hope you will read it and enjoy!