Things I've Learned This Week

*There is an actual term for what happened to me the other day while out running, apparently it is a common 'issue' thus resulting in a "Code Brown"!

*Who ever came up with the saying, "What goes up must come down" never stood on a bathroom scale.

*The great debate was solved between two little girls when I was told to raise my arms, "See!!! Girls do TOO grow hair under their arms!"

*Stretch jeans can only stretch so far.

*I am the only mom in the entire universe that doesn't let her kids have or go to sleepovers.

*When I was told this saying was posted on Face Book I thought who ever came up with it was brilliant: Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.

*I am the rudest mom in the whole world because I make The Native's write me persuasive letters when they want something really bad and I need convincing.

*There are two purposes to passing gas. One, if we didn't then we'd blow up like balloons and we'd float away and second, it's a smoke screen. A means of escape. Special note: If we were to blow up like a balloon and float away then you have to watch out for birds pecking and popping us making us fall from the sky. It would be a messy landing.

Should I? Should I not.......

It's that time again. The getting very old (literally-which is why I am in this predicament in the first place) decision that needs to be made. The shimmery roots are showing and it is that time when I grind my teeth and just wish that people were allowed to grow old gracefully.

Should I cover up the grey......should I not.......

Honestly, I hate the grey but it is what it is! But I also hate the whole having to set time aside and color it process. I have absolutely no problem what so ever setting aside time to say, get a pedicure! But to get my hair colored!

I keep telling The SM that when I turn 40 that is it! I am done. I have earned the right to not have to color my hair anymore. Well, I'm almost 40..... which is a whole nether blog in and of itself. 40! Are you kidding me? I can remember when 40 was OLD! Only, now it doesn't seem so old excepting I can't possibly be almost 40 because I don't 'feel' 40........ inside at least.....

I see photos of myself and I always ask The SM, "Is that really what I look like??" OH GROSS! So sorry for him and that he has to see that everyday. When did THAT happen? Seriously, I am shocked when I walk by a mirror or see a photo. I don't recognize myself because it isn't who I feel like I look like...... does that make any sense what so ever?

And how did I digress from the original topic? Must be old age...... The question: Am I ready to let my true colors shine?

Running Saga

Photo Credit

Note to self: When running so soon after dinner make sure and use the biffy before heading out. Being several miles from home and having to knock on a stranger's door at 10:30 P.M. asking them if you can take a dump and smell up their bathroom is very very very embarrassing. So embarrassing and mortifying you can't even look the man at the door (yes, it has to be a man.... can't be a sympathetic woman) in the face as you duck by him and run to his bathroom. Said man will laugh his head off and you will duck your head even more and pray you never run into or see that person ever again knowing full well you probably will because you run by that house every time you run.

Note to self: Find a new route to run in the opposite direction next time.

Note to Mr. T who is running with me: Next time you ditch me and pretend you do not know me when I knock on stranger's door I am going to leave you in the construction zone trenches that have been dug. When you appear further down the road because you feel like said stranger's in house can't see us anymore I will bop you on the head. Laughing hysterically the whole way home making fun of me and telling me you can't wait to tell everyone is cause for me to take you out of this world. Just sayin'..........

Forget lemonade. She's going for the big bucks!

Summertime means lemonade and kool-aid stands. Little children sitting on the side of the road behind homemade signs calling out to you to stop and buy a swig of stuff that is bound to be watered down or not enough water so your lips curl and pucker.

Twenty-five cents seems to be the going rate these days for a good stiff glass of juice. It's always for a good cause though. When you pull over, the look of excitement that crosses the children's faces as they see a new sucker/I mean customer. Cha-ching! And you know that after a hard days work of standing in the heat of the day, all proceeds divided between the little hands that have dirt under their fingernails and scratches.....another sign of summer, each child will be lucky to walk away with...... twenty-five cents.

My baby girl decided she needed to earn some cold hard cash and fast. She had visions of things she wanted to buy at the 'Marts. No dinky lemonade stand was good enough for her. She sat in the kitchen and made puppets and sun catchers to sell. She was going to make big money.

Not ten minutes after being outside selling her wares, she came back in with a huge grin on her face. Success! She'd sold her stuff for a huge chunk of change and would I now take her to the 'Marts.

Guess that whole talk I gave her about not being disappointed if no one bought her stuff really paid off as she announced to me, "See? I told ya they'd buy what I made mom!"

This Aint No Boy Scout Camp

This past week/end we went camping as a family. Up to the mountains we headed but not before loading up all of our gear. As we continued to bring out more and more gear, The SM asked me how in the world we were going to cart it all even taking two vehicles. I told him that he was the engineer, figure it out but he was not aloud to remove any items!

I then told him this was no boyscout camping trip. This was Camp Beverly Hills. He had two females coming along. It's not like I haul up the Ritz Carlton in the form of a camper trailer or something! I do sleep in a tent......albeit with a big blown up mattress..... I've birthed a monstrous amount of gremlins okay? I think my old worn out body deserves a little pampering.....

And as for food! I am so not going to live on canned beans and hot dogs all week scratching my arm pits and grunting.

Fresh peach pie was on the menu one night for desert. This was after a dinner of fresh biscuits and gravy.... the biscuits having been cooked in my solar oven.

And after dinner and dessert! I made The SM put up my solar shower so I could refresh myself! And then I covered myself in my evening perfume that strongly resembles the fragrance of mosquito repellent.

When all was said and done, guess who didn't mind sleeping on the big blown up mattress next to me? Guess who didn't mind eating the food I prepared? Guess who also used my solar shower? Uh-huh! He who made fun of my froo froo camping....... The SM!! I did draw the line when The SM tried doing his hair, putting on make-up, and shaving his legs. We're camping for crying out loud! What do you think this is? Troop Beverly Hills?

Is it just me or.......

Have you ever had days where you wake up ticked for no reason and you feel like smacking somebody and are just begging someone to say or do something so you can punch them one and you walk by the mirror and are disgusted by what you see because no matter how hard you work and watch what you eat you still have major revoltage looking back at you and your hair always thinks it is Monday and no matter how nice people are to you because they are tiptoeing on egg shells around you you still get irritated at what they say and you have friends who blog about dipping their feet in the ocean and sitting on the beach and you realize that the summer is almost over and you've not done a dang thing that is fun as a family and you go to feed your dogs only to realize that no one cared to mention that you are out of dog food and you suggest the dogs put signs around their necks and go and beg for food on the street corner because you're tired of them not pulling their weight around your house and after you get out of the shower you stand in front of your closet and then go to your dresser and then back to your closet and then back to your dresser because you can't find anything that fits your tonnage and no amount of shellacking and mortaring your face with makeup can cover up the hideousness that stares back at you?

And who came up with waking up on the wrong side of the bed anyway? What is that supposed to mean? Does a person somehow in their sleep end up between the mattresses or the mattresses flip in the night because last time I looked, there wasn't a tag on my mattress that said, "wrong side". Maybe it got ripped off, one of those federal offenses if it gets ripped or cut off sort of tags and if that is the case then it is no wonder that you unknowingly wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

Do you? Does this sound familiar to you? Really? Wow! Bummer for you. I've never felt this way........ I was just curious is all.......

The Quilting Bee

Before the days of cell phones, the internet, and every electronic gadget that has us so disconnected now a days, women would get together and sit around a quilt. A quilt that was put on quilting frames with chairs all around. Conversation flew back and forth as quickly as the thread and needles were passed through the front and back of the quilt making a design much like the stories told between the women.

As a child, I would sit under the quilting frame with the children of the other mothers and we would play. Like the tent blog post that I posted the other day, sitting under a quilt on the quilting frames was magical. If you lay on your back you could watch the needle as it came through the back of the quilt and then back up again followed by the thread.

The different colored fabrics as the light shone through looked like a kaleidoscope and changed each time you moved your head.



As I sit here quietly by myself around my frame, my children playing underneath, I can't help but miss those times.......when people seemed to be more connected. And yet, there are so many of you out there that I would never have met if not for the internet. Like this quilt, so many different colorful fabrics all connected with a common thread.......spreading warmth to each other across the many miles and even different countries.

A different kind of quilting bee....

Old is New

This is called, "The square table". In our house growing up, when Mom would say, the square table, we all knew which one she meant. This table held all sorts of fascinating reading material. National Geographic magazines, great big huge picture books of all sorts of animals and birds, and a great big book full of Norman Rockwell paintings that I would look through for hours.

I loved this table. I'm not sure why. Sometimes I would take all of the books out of the bottom shelf and crawl in there and play. I liked dusting this table which if you know my dislike for dusting, is truly odd that I would enjoy dusting this table! This table and our piano. I liked dusting the piano too. Wish I still did...

Several years ago I inherited the square table and it has sat next to my recliner being the 'catch all'.



I decided that my house needed some color. A splash of color here, a splash of color there, and make it red please. I like red!



And I like my new square table. Spray paint. Embrace it!

Tents

When I was a kid one of the fun past times we entertained ourselves with was the making of tents. Not just throw up one sheet or blanket kind of tents. Oh no! Ours were like the Harry Potter kind of tents.



They were much bigger inside than they appeared from the outside. We would grab every sheet, blanket, towel, etc. that we could find and with clothes pins, would put up walls making hallways and rooms.



Boy were our tents grand! When we were finished we'd show off our tents to my mom. We'd show her where the door was and she'd get down on her hands and knees and follow us crawling through the tent as we'd describe what each room was.



And then, the ultimate fun! Mom would let us picnic in our tents and then sleep in them! The tents would be up for a few days and then as all camping trips are, it was time to take them down. That was the worst part! Having to put everything away.

I still don't like that part of any project that I do! Some things we just never grow out of.....

Grrrrrr!

In one month it will be five years ago that I was bitten by a mosquito and my life (and subsequently my families life) would change dramatically.

Five years is an important number for West Nile Survivors. Five years means, it is what it is. Most recovery and healing takes place in that five years and where you are in five years is pretty much..... where you are. Or so I've been told....

I refuse to be a statistic. I refuse to follow the crowd. Where I am in five years isn't good enough. Sure! It's a lot better than where I was three years ago but it's still not good enough.

In about a month and a half the tri-athalon (click on tri-athalon) is coming up. If you've been following my blog for any amount of time (more than a year) than you will know that each year my family participates in a tri and I have so desperately wanted to join them.

Well, this year is my year! I raise my fist high up in the air and shout out! I will be in the tri and even if I come in dead last and have to walk instead of run or cross the finish line crawling on my hands and knees, I will do it! I will do it for all of us West Nile Survivor's. We are survivors. We are fighters. We WILL beat this!

Cookies make us good

The other day Mr. C was in the kitchen making cookies. Levi said: Mr. C, if you make me some cookies, den I will eat dem, and den I'll be good!



Since making and eating cookies makes us good, we're making it pretty close to a daily thing around here.

You asked for it!

The moment you've been waiting for. You all asked me for photos of me in my Kikoy! But first, the Adorable Young Men. See? See why I was sucked in? I was walking along at the Farmer's Market and next thing I know I come to the Kikoy booth and....



The Adorable Young Men (Chris) started to show me all of the different ways to wear the Kikoy.



Can you blame me? Yeah. Me neither. I bought his one too. WHAT?? Yellow is a good happy color. I needed it I'm sure.



I have an Adorable Young Man (Alex) growing out of the top of my head.....



And speaking of heads..... I LOVED the way this beautiful gal wore her Kikoy on her head. I made her show me how to do that too. And then this started....



Just try and sit and watch.



You can't! I know! I'm sorry! I'm obnoxious like the ladies elbow sticking in the camera but I couldn't help it. I had to join in.



Can't be helped. I've no shame.



And then it got really bad when I started to do the cha-cha. I made myself behave and step aside so the real performers could show how it is really done without being slaughtered by spazo me!



My two new Kikoys. The one I am wearing and the yellow one I snatched off of Fabrice's neck. He forgave me. Cuz he's nice like that......especially if I feed him.

PBR Championships

Saturday evening I took a friend of mine Geneva.......




Here! To the PBR championships. For those who don't agree with or understand rodeos this is not a blog post for you. We're just going to have to agree to disagree my friends. It is something I grew up around and I love it.



One of the things I enjoy watching is all of the preparations that take place behind the scenes.



The adrenaline is pumping and the nerves are thick back here.



Another guy to watch that is pretty fun is this guy. He was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! After the cowboys fly through the air and eat dirt, this guy comes flying along on this beautiful horse and he gets the bull and makes sure it gets back in the pens where it belongs. I'm not even going to try to pretend I know the technical terms for everything. I know he does a lot of hazing and roping and he was magnificent to watch.



So was his horse.



Just look at that haunch! I'm sorry but I have a confession to make. I like a really nice muscly defined horses behind. Can't be helped! And this horse was beautiful. Watching this horse dig in his heels when he needed to. Wow! Just wow! And watching the cowboy dally on and dally off, rope these bulls and the finesse with which he did it. The man is a genius is all I can say.



And then, there are the bulls. The livestock at this PBR (Pro Bull Riding) did not disappoint. When you look at these animals and see how huge they are, it seems impossible that they could be so acrobatic but as you can see, these 1200 to 1300 pound animals are athletes. They are all muscle.



I can't even jump this high!



"Look mom! I can do a hand stand!"



It's not a rodeo without these bad boys. These would be the clowns. Wanna know what they do? I'll show you, and I can tell you, they don't get paid near enough.



They have a couple of jobs. One is if the bull is not being rowdy enough, they try to get the bulls to change direction and buck harder. The harder the ride, the more points the cowboy will get if he can stick it.

When the cowboy comes off, their job is to keep the bull away from the cowboy.



Especially if the cowboy gets his hand caught and his rope won't release.




See? Down goes the cowboy and here come the clowns to the rescue.



"Get outta there man!"



Here, I'll show you again. Different bull, different cowboy, same result.



This cowboy decided he wanted to copy the bulls and throw his heels in the air too. The clown didn't think this was a very good idea so here he comes? See him? There on the right.



Cowboy is on the ground, clown is getting the bull to focus on him.



This is what the bull thinks of the whole affair.



"Hi! My name is Ferdinand and I want to sit and smell the flowers!"



"What? You think I don't like flowers?"


"There's a whole lot of testosterone back here! Where are the heifers?"



"My manager is gonna hear about this!"



"Don't you go wavin' your hand in my face!"



"Any heifers this side of the fence?"



Ready, Set.................



Ummm, cowboy, you're supposed to ride the bull...... not the fence.......