The Time is Now

Sigh!

George Jones happened.
Hawaii happened.

Now it's back to real life. Summer is over. Panic is dead, peacefully buried in the pet cemetery down by the creek. Haley is cheering. Amanda's in nursing school. And my feet hurt so bad I'm ready to take a cruise to Cozumel to buy drugs.

Church is doing good. Sh-h-h, don't tell the guy downstairs.
Yep, Hawaii was good.

Summer is Here

Life on the farm in a draught.

Gary worries about rain, worries in a big way. It overtakes his every subject; it overtakes his personality. Having no rain makes me miserable listening to him.

But this Friday night I get to listen to George Jones. This was my Christmas present to Mother and she's going. So are Ta and Stan. This could possibly be a hoot, but with Stan going it must be a germ-free hoot! He's a cleanliness freak if ever there was one! If he could see the airborne germs all around us, he'd quit breathing!
But Stan's a good guy, we all have our peculiarities. Like worrying too much about rain-less-ness.

We missed our babies last week. They cruised to Mexico. They needed to, to expand their horizons. Haley came back braided, Hayden came back with a jellyfish bite.

September is Hawaii time for me. This is a dream-come-true that hasn't come true yet. Anything could happen, but hopefully not another round of pneumonia for Gary. We'll be there September 11th, hope the middle easterners don't have anything planned for that hemisphere...or any part of the world as far as that goes.

Church at Cedar Mount is going good, sparse crowds but good spirit. Got a new family that's lively, active, and yuppie. New faces, new ideas, new words, new life, new brains.....exactly what we needed! Sherry's brain can't do it all!

Joe and Terri have no baby yet. They're waiting til they can afford it. Guess they'll die childless. I haven't seen anyone yet who could afford a child, including myself.

Oh Riddle

My Mother....the riddlest of them all.

That name started started 48 years ago...when my (now 80-year-old) mother was pregnant with my brother Joe. Rejeana and I were very interested in the pregnancy because we knew it from the beginning and were allowed....even in those semiVictorian times....to feel him kick. But Rejeana, with her usual twinkle in her eye, had the idea to start "mashing" Junior. She would put her arms around Mother's big stomach and mash hard with the points of her finger. Rejeana's fingers were sharper and smaller so they must have hurt...but mine were older and stronger so they hurt in their own right! This is still funny to me, I'm laughing as I type, even though there's nothing funny about it. We'd run real quick because Mother would turn around and slap us, and we'd be giggling and run tell each other! Then we'd say "Ohhhhhhhhh Riddle".

Maybe that's why her water broke 3 weeks early, we'll never know. But by that time she'd forbidden either of us to come behind her.

Lexapro is a Life Saver

Lexapro keeps me from crying. I'd recommend it to anybody. And don't tell me it's hormonal to cry. Being 15 years past menopause I'll argue that with a rock. Maybe I'm just a big wimp, but it's either Lexapro or sporadic, inapporpriate tears.

Last night at work everything went wrong, no major errors or goofs, just everything else that could happen did. And just like the Beatles, I got by with a little help from my friend... and that's the big "L" that sits on my bathroom countertop. Sure, God did most of it....but Lex let me get through it with dignity. Sometimes I miss the tears but they can be humiliating when they're misplaced. This way I get to keep the stone-faced, who-cares demeanor and nobody sees "me".

Dreams

It's funny how dreams change.
Once I thought all my dreams would come true if I became thin.
I became thin twice and they didn't pan out; I think that's why I'm having such a hard time losing weight now.

A few years ago my dream was to have two daughters-in-law who would be my pals. Actually now, one of them is; the other one resents not only me but almost everything else. Then I dreamt of having a granddaughter who would be my close side-by-side angel and I get this wild little elf/gnome that only wants to wrestle and fight and romp with her grandfather or maybe destroy her room or even leave dirty words on a stranger's answering machine. Still, I have hope for this one because she IS learning to see what she can get out of different people. Maybe some time in the future she'll think of something to use me for and I can sneak a little affection from her.

And I dream.......now of a gondola ride in Venice or watching the changing of the guard in London.......or having one of those pictures made of me tilting sideways on a parallel with the Leaning Tower.....or seeing the Dome of the Rock before it gets torn down......or seeing a zebra in the wild....but may as well look forward to watching Gary eat a steak at the Peddler in Gatlinburg.

I'd love to see my grandchildren enjoy Disney World but the very thought makes my joints ache. I saw my own children and am thankful for that.

I dream of going to Heaven but that one's a sure thing, eventually.

Interests

My interests are travel, quilting, read about travel, grandkids, travel with the grandkids, cyber journeys, and going places.

My husband's interests are church,polled herefords, Alabama football, TV watching (Cops and Andy Griffith), and watching James Spann.

My house is a mess and my thighs are too fat. This is not a good day to blog-add.

My Sister Ta

My sister Ta is one of the funniest kids alive.

If you don't know her you should. She wins the Versatility Award when it comes to life. She loves the Lord, she reads about polar bears, she cooks with no germs because she loves her husband, she makes dressing at Thanksgiving, and she's always on the lookout for a good tallywhacker joke. She has the world's best job...at least when looked at by somebody else...and she even bore a Woo.

But these things do not make someone a funny kid. Once she stabbed me with a fork but it was a kid's fork out of a tea set. She taught me to put my arms around my mother's pregnant belly to love her, mother would be still, then she'd mash Junior and run before the slap came.

Once, before my 2nd hip replacement when I was hurting and the doc wouldn't give me anything for pain, she gave me some Lortabs which I will never forget. Another time we were on the phone and the lines got crossed with somebody else. They stopped their conversation to listen to us and I told her someone was hearing us. She said, "Well if they are, here's something for them: F**K " and she yelled it real loud. It was a crack-up moment because that's not even one of her words!

She got the looks in our family. She's the thin one. She's the groomed one. She wears good clothes and remembers birthdays and anniversaries.

And I would truly die for this funny kid Ta.

Quick Family Update for 2007

This morning, after working in the New Year all night, I came home to find the cows in the newer part of the pasture. The bull was sniffing the backside of a young he-calf so I hope he hasn't gone queer in 2007. They had ventured into the kudzoo patch, standing there skeptical about why they had even been allowed into this fruitless deadfall area. All were present except Panic who probably had flashbacks of loading chutes when they started through the narrow slit leading there.

What a life when I choose to write about cows sniffing each other's butts! I should be writing about working all night and coming home crawling into bed and making passionate love with my man. But somehow that doesn't ring true for January 1, 2007. He's more concerned with Alabama's coaching status and Toprol and Norvasc and Glucophage and Minipress and Librax.

Haley has learned to dial our phone number now so we get a lot of calls. Hayden loves tractors. Mother is excited about George Jones in July. Luke had some worries about his body recently with his latest strep visit. Amanda is starting school soon. Jamby answers 911 calls with one hand and I-won't-say-what with the other. Jennifer didn't come for Christmas. My brother Joe gave me some Sherlock Holmes CD's to listen to driving home and the narrator keeps mentioning the work "ejaculate" in a context I don't understand so I've gotta hit the online dictionary. And Terri needs a baby.

New Years' Resolution: to be a better WMU director.