Update on our psychotic cardinal..

So I'm about ready to turn the boy loose with the beebee gun to take the poor female cardinal out of her misery.  I know, it's mean. I know, it's not right.  But GOOD GRIEF! She is driving us all crazy!

A few weeks ago, when she was trying to beat up the other cardinal in the window, I could wax poetic and make references to how we are like that...trying to get what we want and not turning and looking at the big picture.... Now, I just want her gone. 

We have stickers in the windows, we have foil taped to windows, my daughter has placed books and posters in her windows...did I mention that it's not just the front picture window anymore? Oh no! She now moves from window to window trying to scare off or attach or do whatever it is that her little psychotic mind is doing!  When we go to the window to scare her off, she just moves to another one! 

This starts about 5:30am, first daylight here in Oklahoma and goes until mid-afternoon.  Like I said, it's driving us all crazy.  And yeah, the male has left.  I guess he figured it was no use trying to woo a crazy female....if only some human men felt that way! he! he!

The beebee gun is looking better and better but I know if I turned the boy loose, I'd feel bad...and he'd probably just shoot out the window so the bird could move in....

Love my cuppa!

Ok, I know, I'm not British. But it sure seems like everyone on this side of the pond is really polarized about the upcoming British nuptials..  Me?  I don't care a whit, everyone is trying to play this that she's a commoner and all.....PLEASE!  I'm a commoner, she is not a commoner. She may not hold a title but she's got lots of money in the family. Enough to get her into a very prestigious university so she could hang out with the Prince!

I don't dislike the British.  I happen to know a couple that are simply charming and very polite.  I have hosted a couple at my home.  I just don't care about the wedding.  What I do like is tea!

That's right, I love a cuppa!  I have a hot tea almost every afternoon with a couple of my new favorite cookies.  Now normally, I make my own, but I do have a couple of favorite store bought ones that I squirrel away from the family.  I love those little butter cookies, I love Pepperidge Farms dark chocolate milano cookies and my my new favorite cookie is from Nabisco.  They are the new Newton Fruit Thins..the cranberry citrus goes so well with a cup of Earl Grey or Constant Comment tea.  They have a chocolate version but I haven't tried them yet!

I love to take a few minutes in the afternoon and sit and enjoy a cup of hot tea and a cookie.  I don't eat the entire bag, just one.  It just takes about ten minutes to turn a hard afternoon into a little more enjoyable one with a cup of tea and a cookie.  I can see why the British love their afternoon tea........not so much their royal weddings!

Little Woman...

I never gave being small very much thought until just a few years ago.  I saw a picture of myself with some students at prom and one of the very tall boys said, 'Wow, I just realized just how short you are!', as if he was seeing me for the first time in that photograph.  He actually had seen me almost everyday of his high school life!  It struck me that, I never had realized how short I was either until he pointed it out....You see, I'm five foot three if I stand really tall and stick my boobs out and my shoulders back.  I'm also fairly thin.  Not extremely thin but thin enough that people say things like, 'go ahead and eat (you fill in the blank), you can afford the calories.  Yeah, right, I wouldn't be thin if I ate like that!

 My husband and I had one of those rare Sundays when both kids are doing something after church so we went out to eat!  We try to get in a little alone time when we can...doesn't happen often but it's fun when we do.  As we were leaving, a young woman came hobbling up on a pair of spiky black boots.  My husband poked me and said, 'That's what you need.' To which my comeback was, 'I already have a pair of black boots."  He then proceeded to point out that mine were not spikey like the one the girl was wearing.  He knows I don't like high heels so he thought he'd be funny!  'Nah;, I said,' I don't like wearing high heels because if you have to cut into a run to catch and woop-up on someone, they are a bit restricting...'   He stopped in the parking lot and said, 'only you would say something like that!' He was laughing and laughing as I simply got into the minivan and waited for him to start the car.

He's right, I'm like a little toy poodle who doesn't know just how little it really is.  It's never come up because when I'm mad, I apparently blow myself up like a puffer fish because kids, like big football player boys, tuck their tails between their legs and start acting better immediately.  I guess you could say I just have one of those personalities that seems bigger than the person it inhabits.......

Maybe it's the southern woman in me, you know, like steel magnolias.  Sweet and hospitable but don't get her mad, she turns into a water moccasin!  And my kids say the madder I get the more southern the accent comes out.  They know just how far to push  before my Scarlet O'Hare comes shooting to the surface......

Being little has never bothered me, I've never given it much thought......I've never been anything else.  I has it's rewards sometimes.  You get to stand in the front for a parade for instance.  You also never get asked to reach up and get something. You also don't have to worry about the dust up high,....I don't see it, it doesn't bother me, so if it bothers you, here's the dust rag!

Happy President's Day!

Unless you're a government or bank employee, you may not have realized that this is President's Day!  When I was a kid, we celebrated George Washington's birthday and Abe Lincoln's birthday seperately but sometime in that forty years, someone decided to merge the two together.  As school kids, we didn't get the days off so it really didn't matter to me!  What did matter was that my mom always made a cherry dessert on old George's birthday.

I know the story about George chopping down the cherry tree is folklore, but it sure is nice to know that on that day, when you came home from school, it didn't matter what we were having for dinner because that night there would be dessert!  We usually didn't eat dessert after a normal weekday dinner, probably why none of us really struggle with our weight.  My sister says she does but she really doesn't, she's tall, thin and very nice looking!  Men used to ask her if she knew she looked like Julia Roberts!  Anyway, that's a bit off topic.....I'm talking about pie!

Today, I had to run into town to pick up some printer ink so my usual Reasor's grocery store stop was going to be a Walmart run.  I really have to gear myself up for Walmart.  It is my least favorite place to shop in the entire town, possibly state, maybe the entire country or world.  I just don't like it.  They are always moving things around so I can't find things, there are unkempt people shuffling around like they live there, and it takes so long to check out!

Today, I was just going to pop in, grab my printer ink, some frozen cherries for my pie and get out of that place!  Ha! Did I mention I don't shop there because they are like the Lowe's of the grocery world.....a little of this and that but don't ask for anything really specific because they don't carry it!  Yep, you guessed it.  No frozen cherries!  None!  I found frozen strawberries, frozen raspberries, frozen blueberries, a frozen mix of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries but not one cherry!  Frozen cantelope and melon mix but still no frozen cherry!  I thought maybe I was mistaken, so I asked a person dressed up to resemble an employee.  They looked and looked, basically where I looked and then declared that they must not carry them.

"Bummer, that means that President's Day is cancelled!" I declared.  Who ever heard of a store that doesn't carry frozen cherries!  Well, I did manage.  I bought a can of pitted cherries and had a bag of frozen cherries in my freezer(from good old Reasor's)!  The pie is in the oven baking as we speak.  The vanilla ice cream is waiting patiently in the freezer....oh yeah, we are really having dinner, cornbread topped chili casserole.  It's good but no one will remember it.  All they will remember is that we had pie....on a weeknight!

God bless our president's and president's day!!!!

Beef jerky....the perfect gift!

So we exchanged small gifts on Valentine's Day.  I always get the kids some little something.  My  mom did it for me and my sister, I do it for my own kids.  We used to get heart earrings or red pj's or panties or something cute.

My daughter got a little pink pair of running shorts. They are hot pink and really cute.  She'll look so cute out running in them. Don't tell her I said that or she'll never wear them!  The point is, it's easy to buy something cute for her for Valentine's Day.....not so much with my son!

Teenage boys get tricky when it comes to buying gifts.  Heaven knows he needs more cologne or body wash or spray.  When he actually uses it, I can barely breath.  I think this bronchitis I have may have more to do with Axe body spray and less to do with a virus! My poor lungs!  But that's when he actually uses it....most days, I have to threaten to bath him myself before I can get him into the shower.   A mother of an older boy has promised me that he will eventually get the hang of personal hygiene but I'm not sure at this time....maybe in a few years when a girl is in the picture..I can only dream.  He keeps reminding me that he's living here until he's thirty and I keep reminding him that he's not!

I finally struck upon the perfect Valentine's gift.  An assortment of beef jerky! Perfect! He almost cried with joy when he opened the package.  Four different flavors so he could mix and match! He was in heaven.....for three days.  That's how long it took him to eat all four packages.....Easter basket shopping will be easy this year.  I've just got to figure out how to roll up the jerky to fit into the eggs!

The secret to the sauce!

Ok, I promised yesterday I'd tell you the long story of how I got the best bar-be-que sauce in the world! Well, it started with my grandpa....you've got to know, he was a bit of a character.  When he was 17, he lied to join the navy during world war II.  He saw a lot of action, got wounded a couple of times and nearly died.  He survived but wouldn't talk much about what happened until later in life.  He saw terrible things for a kid.....

When he returned, he became a plumber, pipefitter and welder.  He could fix just about anything.  He traveled around the country working on stuff like power plants.  When my mom was in the fifth grade or so, they settled down in my hometown and my grandpa traveled by himself.  By the time I came around, he was working around our town and doing well for himself.

Being a navy man, my grandpa could talk the talk.  He could also gamble and smoke.  So I've got to get back to the story......word is my grandpa did some work for the owner of the bar-be-que restaurant and when he asked how much he wanted for the job and grandpa told him he wanted the sauce recipe.  He was sworn to silence and he pretty much kept his silence on the recipe for years and years.  He would whip up a big batch sauce and pass it out to family and friends.  He only gave me the recipe when I got married and moved away.  I had to swear to keep the secret and I did.  As the years went by, he did loosen up and give it to a couple of other family members. 

We were sitting around at a family gathering after grandpa passed away and we began to talk about the sauce and grandpa.  I mentioned the story he told me about how he got it and my brother starting laughing at me!  'That's not what he told me!', he said.  My grandpa had told him that he won it in a poker game.....that sounds more like the real story to me.

Did I tell you that this was the same grandpa who used to shoot off a homemade cannon for fourth of july and noodle at the river......he was fun!

Another snow day......

So thankful that I am a work from home employee!  I honestly think I would be driving closely to the madness cliff if I didn't have something to do during all this winter!  We woke up yesterday to another eight to twelve inches of snow....can't tell because we couldn't find a place that didn't already have snow to measure except the front and back porches.  We had eight inches on one side of the house and twelve inches on the other side.  I think I'll just say ten inches. 

My daughter is close to losing her mind! She's missing her friends and wants to get back to all her activities!  Being stuck at home with mom and dad and big brother is no fun at all...there are only so many places to hide in our house so she's pretty much stuck in her room.  Luckily, her brother still has school so he's been busy at least a few hours each day. 

My husband has been able to commute to work for exactly two days since last tuesday.  His normal commute is an hour so when you can't even get out out of the driveway, it's kind of dumb to drive to work.  He can also work from home just as easily so the easy chair has been his office lately.  Makes cleaning the living room a bit difficult but I know that someday, I'll have that room back!

To say that we're all tired of winter is an understatement of the year! We are ready to book a flight to anywhere closer to the equator!  So last night, I made comfort food deluxe! Homemade pancakes, fried ham, scrambled eggs and blackberries and blueberries with syrup.  You put that on the table and everyone forgets their troubles of the day!  We had very little left after we pushed away from the table.  Of course, I had made enough to feed Kate some extra dinner tonight! She's tucked into her heated dog house but I still feel sorry for her out there!  She's the only one who seems to enjoy the weather.  She actually goes out and rolls in the snow!  She'll chase the ball through the snow even though the snow rubs her belly.  She sure enjoyed the eggs and ham too. 

Oklahoma is supposed to be getting warmer and warmer this weekend, the weather men are saying it's going to be close to sixty by next tuesday! WooHoo! We'll be bringing out the flip-flops.....I need a pedicure!

Tomorrow is snow day number ten for my daughter this year.....she'll probably be going to school until mid-June, while I'm sitting by the pool.  I haven't told her that yet......it would probably push over the edge.........

Family Stories

When I was a kid, everytime we traveled through Honor Heights park in Muskogee, Oklahoma, my dad would tell us kids about the time he found a dead man leaning against a tree!  Well, he wasn't the only one that found him.  You see, he was in a boy scout troop and they were camping.

I could just imagine, as a kid, my dad, of course he was a lot younger and smaller, running like a banshee, a male banshee, through the woods at Honor Heights park with a bunch of other boys!  Running and playing and screaming and yelling and then Bam! a dead man! How cool for a bunch of little boys!  The poor man was actually a patient at the veteran's hospital on the hill and he had wandered off and sat down and died.  I often wonder to myself who he was and what kind of life he had lived...and if he would have laughed at having scared and scarred a bunch of boy scouts!

That was apparently, a pretty good trip because one boy also cut off another boys finger with a hatchet!  At this time in the story, I would always gasp in amazement and my dad would say, well he dared him to cut it off so he did!  Nowadays, if even one of those things happened at a boy scout camping trip the parents would completely freak out!  I know I would.  That was the fifties and they let boys be boys.  They didn't tell them to sit still and sing songs and feel good about themselves and others.  They just let them be wild and free and run and play with sticks. Those that were strong, lived and those that were dumb and dared others to cut off their fingers, grew up fingerless.  Oh, those were the days!  At least it seemed that way when I was a kid and my dad was telling it!

It's funny how some stories live on and on in families.  That story stuck with me because it seemed so fun and scary at once.  It also stuck with me because we lived close to Muskogee and went to Honor Heights park often and everytime we went, my dad would tell the story. After awhile, my sister and I would begin to tell it before him.  We thought it funny to beat him....

Well, now I don't live so close but I still go a couple of times a year.  Each time I go, I tell my kids that pappa found a dead man in Honor Heights park.  My daughter is horrified and my son wishes he had been there to see that kid chop off the other kids finger!  One day, my own children will probably tell the story......I wonder how the story will morph by the time their kids are telling it?   I also wonder how many of the old stories about my grandparents are not as factual as they were.  How many have changed just a little?  or maybe a lot?

January Doldrums...

I'm tired of January!  I'm in the dumps and everyone else around me is too.  We're grumpy because we're cold and it seems that the fun of Christmas left us about six months ago.... The weather is not helping the mood at my house!  Even Kate the big, black dog has taken to laying in her heated doghouse instead of chasing the birds and squirrels.

We need February!  I need hearts and chocolate and cherry pie!  It seems that February around my house is the month to eat.  While January is my month to do some of the things that I hate to do, like dust the top of the china cabinet, oil the woodwork in the hallways.  Yuck!  I need to come up with something fun and exciting to do in january!  While February has valentines day, mardi gras and President's day (think cherry pie, people), January has Martin Luther King jr day and the super bowl.  Big woop!  Those are not good days....MLK day is a day off from school but mostly it's just parades and oftentimes it snows.  The super bowl is on Sunday night! What good party have you ever had on a Sunday night?  I'm not in college anymore, I do have to get up on Monday morning, get everybody out the door and get to work!

Of course, January is fudge month for me so that's a highlight!   Maybe I'm just on a chocolate downer right now....but it just seems that the month of January is a big let down! I'll be thinking to come up with a great reason to have a holiday or party in January.....because right now, I'm just ready for February!

Year of the Pie!!!

I like pie, cakes, muffins and brownies, not so much cupcakes.  Now I know some of you are gasping and hyperventilating right now because those little over-icinged delights are your favorites.  I'm not sorry, I don't like them!  To quote my daughter, 'by the time you get to the cake, you realize there is nothing there!'  Too much icing, too little cake.  Not enough substance for me. Kind of like some people I know.  By the time you get to what they are really like, you realize that there really isn't anything there but some pretty stuff on the outside. 

I also don't like the insane colors they put on cupcakes. Really? Who needs a red, blue, green mouth anyway.  You go to a party, you get handed a cupcake without a plate and then you get to struggle with the paper wrapper all the while knowing if you drop that little thing, it's going to ruin your entire wardrobe as it rolls off your lap.  Once you finally get the paper peeled off, where do you stick the paper?  It has icing all over it and crumbs all in it.  Too messy for me.  Give me a piece of square cake and a fork. 

I read last week that it has been declared the year of the pie.  Yeah pie!! I love pies, any pie really.  Except mincemeat.  That just kind of grosses me out.  Oh, and fake apple pie.  I think if you can't afford apples, just don't make pie.  I couldn't tell you my favorite pie, I pretty much love a lot of them.  They are messy so you can't eat them without a plate.  I love that.  No messy wrapper to dispose of  and if the pie is extremely good, you can just lick the plate clean.  My son does that, he learned it from my husband.  I was not pleased....

Kids learn a lot of things from their dads that don't necessarily please the mom.  Moms try to teach manners, dads teach kids to eat over the sink and drink out of the container.  Kids need both or we'd wind up with sissy boys who lifted their pinkies when they drank or sat at the table in their underwear licking their plates.  It's a good thing to have both!  Especially when mom makes pie!!!!!

Not Feeling it Yet!!!

I'm not feeling like Christmas yet....I'm still in school and my skin has started turning green, grinch-like green! It's a good thing that tomorrow is the last day for this year or I'm sure my heart would start shrinking and I'd have Kate, the big black dog, drag me around the brown yard in the wagon! 

Teachers all over the country and probably world get like this around this time of year.  From Thanksgiving till Christmas break, oops, I said Christmas break, teachers try, try, try to keep everybody on task at school.  This is like hearding cats.  Can't be done! Even the teenagers lose their focus.  I know, THAT'S A BIG SURPRISE!
Teenagers losing focus!  Well, teachers try to keep them focused and by this week, we're just worn down.  Then that kid, you know who you are, that hasn't done one thing all year comes up and asks, 'is there anything I can do over Christmas break (yeah, the kids call it Christmas break too!), that I can do to bring up my grade to a D?

This is the kid who has done nothing all semester! They have a 10% average! Are you kidding me?  I've called your parents fifteen times this semester!  Are you kidding me?  Really, Really, you are asking me this now? 

About now, the kid realizes that they have made a deadly mistake.  The teacher is laughing hysterically and suddenly runs out of the room and into the teachers lounge,  a few minutes pass and the teachers lounge erupts in loud laughter!  I wish teachers lounges had margarita machines in them.  We'd all have a better December!

The good thing about being a virtual school teacher is that I can take a break after an email like the one above and take a walk.  I can go outside and play with Kate before I come back in, make that call and say, 'Really, Really........'

Three Reindeer and a Camel!

Ok, I was telling you how I got the boys of the house to get the outside lights up one warm Saturday.  What I didn't mention is that I went Christmas shopping and was gone most of the day.  They like it that way.  Anything that keeps them from having to go to Tulsa and shop all day makes the two men of the house very, very happy!

When I got home, I realized that the two deer from last year didn't get put in the trash like I had planned.  They were almost ten years old and I had to wrap lights around them last year to get them to light up.  I think last year, I stayed in and put up decorations when they took them down....or maybe went shopping, I can't seem to remember!

Instead of two nice, new deer I purchased last year after Christmas, we had four deer standing in the yard.  Two nice, new deer and two things that looked like they had been mangled.  I managed to get one looking almost good but the other one...he'd lost his antlers over the summer and so I said he'd had a sex change operation and was now a doe.  He'd also somehow managed to get the lights I had carefully wrapped around him last year wadded up into a ball in the center of his body!  I just pulled them out around his/her body and called it good. 

The night of light up was a few days ago.  I was not pleased with my he/she deer.  I have finally made peace with it.  It's not a deer after all! It is actually a camel! That's what it looks like and I've just told the family that whenever someone comments on him/her to tell them I purchased a camel off the internet.....that actually sounds plausible if you know me! 

Now I kind of like my camel!

Football, football, football.....

I like football.  I like to watch it, not play it.  I'd be the guy that turned tail and ran screaming in the other direction.  Definately could not play!  Since we are knee deep in football season, I thought I'd ramble a bit about my love of this lovely fall sport.

My husband, who is notoriously more cheap than me, I'm frugal, he's cheap.  He'll do without because he doesn't want to spend the money.  I'll save over here so I can spend over there.  I like to travel so my frugalistaness goes to traveling.  Anyway, my husband was talked into buying season football tickets this year to his alma mater, Oklahoma State.  I did the talking.  He got a raise and was feeling really good and I said, 'why don't you buy them this year?' He did in a moment of weakness. 

I didn't realize what a wonderful, great, loving wife I would be depicted as for talking him into buying tickets.  He was so over-excited last Saturday when we arrived on campus in time for the 'Walk'.  That's when the football team walks across campus to the stadium.  Then, we went to some friends to visit at their tailgate set-up.  All the way, he just kept saying, 'this is great!' over and over.  In fact, all week, he's been saying it.  I'm glad he had a good time. 

Ok, I did talk him into the tickets. I did threaten the children not to complain as we were slepping all over the campus following dad around in the hot sun.  But here's the secret.....I enjoyed it almost as much as he did.  I like sitting out in the stands on a cool fall evening cheering and listening to the band.  I've already bought our family pass to our hometown's football team.  Football means fall and I like that just fine!  Just don't tell the hubby that I really enjoy it.  He thinks I'm the greatest wife ever right now and I don't want to spoil it!

When did it Change?

I was hanging out with a bunch of women recently and I overheard a couple talking about their bathrooms.  This is never a good thing, me eavesdropping on conversations, but alas, it happens often.  I have extreme hearing and I just can't help it!

Anyway, they were discussing their bathroom themes.  Themes!  When did bathrooms need a theme?  It's not a restaurant!  I remember my grandparents bathrooms.  Pink and green were the prevalent theme.  Maybe there were a few decorations on the wall, someone made in ceramics.  There was a little crocheted dog made out of a bar of soap.  I think that was for smell?  That or maybe if you were ever completely out of soap it was a rescue dog! 

There wasn't a hundred dollar shower curtain.  There wasn't an expensive rug on the floor.  There wasn't a two thousand dollar shower or jetted tub.  There also wasn't a theme!  It was a bathroom, plain and simple.  And you know what?  It worked! I have a feeling the rest of the world looks at us and laughs.  The are in on the joke!  Bathrooms are for doing your business, not for decorating to look like House Beautiful!

Naked Ladies in my Yard....

Since we had some rain last week, I now have naked ladies springing up all over my yard!  Now that I've got your attention, some of you may call them suprise lilies.  Those of you who worry what other people think, probably call them that.  That or you didn't have a grandma who called them that because she liked saying it I think! Naked ladies, suprise lilies...you say tomato, I say luscious round red orbs of deliciousness! ha! Calling them naked ladies sounds like some exotic flower.  Well, they kind of are!

One day my husband called me from work and asked me if I knew what naked ladies were.  When I said yes, he then put me on speaker phone for all the ladies in the breakroom.  They had apparently been discussing them and my husband put his two cents in.  They didn't believe he knew what they were and I was there to settle a friendly bet!

These are those plants that you see about now in Oklahoma springing up all over old homestead places and old homes in town.  They don't ever really look like anyone planted them because usually they were planted so long ago that the flowerbed or fence or whatever they were planted beside is long gone.  In the spring, they send up green long leaves that just sit there in the sun soaking up those rays.  Not long around Memorial Day, they just die and everyone forgets they were ever there.  Until now.  When we finally get a good soaking rain about the end of August, they put up a stalk and on that stalk is a cluster of light pink lilies that smell heavenly!  They are so unlike plants of August that it's a relief to see them. 

I love naked ladies (he, he) because I know that the end of summer is almost here.  The next thing that will appear are the chrysanthemums but they aren't a suprise.  I can see them setting the buds so they will be here in a few weeks.

Here's a little southern speak lesson if you aren't from around here:  Do you know that naked can actually be pronounced two ways?  My husband, who has lived here most of his life, didn't either.  This is actually my own rendition but here goes....two pronunciations of naked.

       Naked- naked, without clothes - this is the one you know about. Example, Adam and Eve were naked in the garden.
       Naked - necked pronounced in two syllables, neck-ade; this is without clothes doing something you should not be doing.  Example; Bobby and JohnnySue was neck-ade in the woods!

My little lesson on southern speak for today!

Hope you smiled a little today!

Charlie, my little green snake

Ok, ok, I tend to name almost anything that lives in my yard or I own.  Hence, my van, Suzi Q who gets treated like a member of the family and Sarah, the wild turkey (she is a bird, not a drink!).  Actually, my neighbor named her, we're quite a bit a like.  I also have a green snake named Charlie.

Now, you know that I don't like snakes by now if you've read any of my posts.  I am terrified of them because they are just so sneaky and since I'm usually wandering around not paying attention to anything, the snake seems to jump out of nowhere and startle me out of my wits.

Except Charlie.  I kind of like Charlie.  He's been here for at least five years and he lives over in the east side in a flowerbed.  He likes irises because that is usually where I see him.  The first few years, I swear he would try to scare me.  I would be up to my eyebrows weeding the irises and suddenly, there he would be, staring at me eyeball to eyeball.  I think one reason that I don't like snakes is that they don't have eyelashes.  Staring into an eye that is naked is kind of weird.  If God had given snakes eyelashes, they would seem so much sweeter.  Take a snake and put big cow eyes on it and suddenly, that old snake becomes cuddly. 

Since Charlie is only about a foot long and bright green, I've simply grown accustomed to him.  I expect to see him draped over the iris leaves.  I think he knew that, so he's moved to the lilac beds to keep me on my toes!  I was watering tonight and almost reached in to pull a bright green weed when it suddenly moved.  I imagined that Charlie yelled out 'Gotcha!'  It's good to have friends in the yard!

Flip flop!

No, I'm not talking about those sandals I love so much this time of year.  I call them thongs and it embarasses my kids to death!  We had an entire discussion one night at the dinner table about what is a thong?  It is something that slides between two things!  My take on the Webster defination.  It's not my fault this generation has completely given that simple word a very graphic meaning! 

I remember when I first started teaching high school in Oklahoma in 2002.  This was the very height of thong wearing season.  Almost every girl in the school wore those awful underwear and it was also right in the middle of those hideous low slung jeans that looked good on almost no one!  Imagine for one moment what my computer typing class looked like to me since I only saw the backs of people and no one would ever push their chair up to the computer.  I loudly explained one day that if I saw another slot I was going to put a penny in it, just as the principal walked into my room.  Just as quickly, he turned and walked out!  He always teased me that observing for me was 'unique' because he never quite knew what we'd be discussing that day!

My flip flop is actually that I will be working this fall after all.  I had come to terms with God that if He wanted me to stay home, He wouldn't give me a job.  I had a peace that staying home was fine.  God had provided extra income and our stress level as a family was greatly reduced since I was home all day. I got a job offer this week from the virtual school my son is attending.  I'll be working part-time teaching their high school sciences.  This job will allow me to be home all day, help my son when he needs it and supervise all his work, pick up/drop off my daughter; pretty much everything I was doing as a full-time stay-at-home mom except for a few hours a day I'll be teaching!  God was in control all along.  He just needed me to stop running around like a chicken with her head cut off and let him lead.  I have seen a chicken with it's head cut off, more than one actually, and it's really a funny but grotesque sight!  I'm sure I looked just like that too! No direction, no plan, just run, run, run! 

I'll keep you posted this fall on how this is working!

PMS!!!!!

This post is not for men today, sorry.  If you're a man that normally reads this either; a) turn your computer off and walk away or b) read and try to learn something about the innerworkings of a madwoman since most of you know someone close to you who goes through this status once a month!

I hate PMS! I've always suffered some form of PMS from moodiness and insomnia to migraines and periodic bouts of insanity!  Each month, when my little friend, George, that's what we called it in middle school, showed up, I'd have a really crappy couple of days and then I was back to normal.  Nowadays, many, many months will go by with pretty much nothing and then WHAM!!! all of George's pent up frustrations would be taken out on me in a couple of days.  This month was a WHAM!! month.  The days leading up to greeting George makes you want get the M in PMS started already!

I've always told my husband that I needed a little dot in the center of my forehead, kind of like Hindu women have, so he could gauge my mood swings from afar.  You see, he comes in and before he gets too close, he sees that the dot is green so he kisses me and asks, 'what's for dinner?' If the dot is red, he sits down, out of arms range and says, 'what say, I take you out for dinner?'.  It would be so much easier on him if I had one of those dots.  Instead the poor man and now the poor children are left to wonder who is standing in the kitchen; normal mom who can take just about anything and laugh and joke about while making up silly songs and dancing kind of like Paula Abdul or psychomom who either cries at the drop of a hat, or ice cube, or sock or is screaming and yelling like one of those congressmen up in Washington when they aren't getting their way!

I usually don't realize that I'm in that mood for at least a couple of hours when it hits.  I know that it's a few days before George is supposed to hit but since this doesn't happen each month, it always sneaks up on me.  After a few episodes, I realize I am in full PMS mode.  Doesn't matter though, even though I know that I am being meaner than a snake, I really don't care!  That's where the crazy comes in! I sometimes like it! 

Then, just as suddenly as it came on, the pendulum swings the other way and I'm weepy and sad.  Oh hormones, why do you mess with me so?

Now days, my daughter is experiencing the joys of womanhood too.  The last time she had an episode, she almost killed her older brother.  He was horrified because she's normally a very mild-mannered child and puts up with almost anything her older bro can dish out.  I stepped in and led her to my bedroom and calmly explained the situation.  I made her lay down, propped her feet up with a pillow and handed her the remote.  I then brought her a piece of good dark chocolate and a dr. pepper.  When she emerged from the bedroom a few hours later, she was a new creature.  Her brother, however, began to understand that she could be a formidable opponent when she wanted to be.  I think he looks at her with new respect!

Oh the joys of womanhood! I just can't wait until menopause!

Anniversary

Today, my husband and I have been married twenty-two years.  It sure doesn't seem like that much time has passed until I look in the mirror! It has been a fun, fun ride with few bumps along the way.  I'd like to think that it is because I'm such a joy to live with but I know the real truth.  He puts up with a lot from me and I do the same from him.  We have always tempered our marriage with a lot of humor and a lot of prayer.  It seems to be working!

We've got both kids going places this weekend and we're going to spend some much needed time together alone.  I have to say, I'm looking forward to it a lot.  Some of our friends are beginning to bemoan the empty nest syndrome, I'm not.  It's not that I don't love my kids with all my heart.  I just know that in order for us to be successful parents, they must move on and be on their own someday.  I look forward to that day when my kids are successful adults and I can come and visit them and hopefully, my grandchildren!  I don't want to rush it though, they are only fourteen and twelve!  We have at least eight to twelve more years of actively being parents of kids who live mostly at home.  I'm just looking ahead and seeing a time when my husband and I can have more time for just the two of us.  We like to be together!

Happy anniversary boyfriend! My kids hate it when I call my husband my boyfriend.  He can't be my boyfriend since we're married apparently.  Well, I don't care, he will always be my BF!

Hot, hot, hot....

The weatherman showed the ten day forecast last night and it is supposed to be over 100 degrees for the next ten days.  I really don't like the weatherman during this part of the year!  Extreme heat is not my idea of a good time.  I don't like going outside, dragging the hose all over trying to keep my little plants alive during this heat!

I always look at August in Oklahoma like January in Indiana where we used to live.  In Indiana in January, it was so cold that you couldn't really do much of anything outside.  Even going to the grocery store was a major ordeal, especially with little kids!  That's kind of what it is like now in Oklahoma.  My daughter and I ran out to do a few errands yesterday and all I wanted to do was run from the parking lot to the cool store and back again. 

The major difference between Oklahoma in August and Indiana in January is that tonight, about seven o'clock, I'll be laying around in the pool cooling off from picking garden and watering.  I'll wear my swimming suit and cover-up to do my outside chores and then jump in and float around for awhile while the sunsets. We usually have a really pretty sunset. 

Can't do that in Indiana in January.......