Oh Yeah, Remember The Time You...

Yes, I know this clip is older than the hills but...

Talk about passive/aggressive. It's like, "Remember when you ticked me off 10 years ago?"

"Yeh, take that!!!!"



Still laughing! :)
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T-Shirt Time!

A Sad Little Life

Whoa! Edit, Edit, Edit!

I'm reminded again of the power of electronics/email.

I'm also reminded that we all should read, then reread email before we hit "send."

I was truly ticked off when I received the email that inspired this rant...but I'm also aware that 20% of life is what we're given, the other 80% is how we deal with it.

So I'll deal with it - in a more constructive way.

























Workin' it.

Forever Is A Long, Long Time

There is a couple named Leroy & Shirley Welch. Time has slipped by and the solid middle class, middle age couple I once knew have turned seventy. Their hair has greyed, his joints hurt, his knees are shot, her back is going and her hearing is gone.

Good deeds they have done - too numerous to mention. Good deeds they continue to do, and I am the recipient of some of those because there are things I can not do myself, things my men folk have chosen to fore go and Leroy has quietly stepped in to take care of them instead.

Every Wednesday, when these sweet people go to the temple, he takes the names of my grandfathers, my great grandfathers, their fathers, and their male children and all the in-laws that I have found and made temple ready...and every Sunday she faithfully returns two completed blue cards to me.

Many people take the names of people they do not know through the temple. Few have the privilege to do the work for their own, immediate, family. While I can do my female relatives, I can not, of course, do the men.  Leroy, two by two, is doing that for me.

One day, I hope to be present, when these relatives come to greet and honor Brother Welch for the service he has rendered. He deserves to be acknowledged for every time he has stood up and sat down on creaking knees, for every moment he has remained attentive so they can understand the ordinances that are being performed for them, and for the hours that have been spent by him in their service. What he does here, today, literally lasts for eternity.

And I will love him forever for that.
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Once A Year Is Not Enough

And so this is Christmas....

Some stores started holiday displays in August. Others waited, for a week or two.

 We're inundated daily with newspaper ads, flyers, catalogs, commercials & emails. There seem to be a lot of people/businesses counting on this season to put them in the 'black'.

I don't have a problem with Christmas gifts. I've always gone with the idea that we do it in similitude of the gifts the wise men brought to the baby Jesus and to show our love to friends and family. But sometimes the bigger and better thing, the more, more, more?

Umm, not so much. It is getting to be a bit too much for me.

I find myself wondering what happened to the daily appreciation of things that are done for us. Freshly laundered socks in our drawers, a path shoveled thru the snow to the barn, someone who shows up early and stays late. The garbage that is taken out without having to be nagged about it. The folks who, even tho it's not their job, are always there to help, or do a little extra, or share your burden.

I'm thinking that if we really wanted to celebrate Christs' birth we would make ourselves of service, daily. Didn't have time to help anyone today? Okay, tomorrow.

We don't have to be everything to everybody, but there is a lot that we can do for others and if they caught the spirit? And felt the need to pass it on...

Wow.

Just imagine the difference it would make. In our family, in our community, in our country, and if everyone pitched in - in the world.

This has been a busy month for me. Not because of shopping but because I know several people who have had challenges in their lives and really need others to let them know that someone cares.

Wednesday, for example, I worked and ran the regular route then came back in to find extra packages that needed delivering. Technically it wasn't my problem, but someone needed to do something about it.  I had things I wanted to do but I spent the next two hours making sure people got their Christmas presents instead. After that I knew a friend who could probably use a little help but would never ask. I called her and told her I had a spare hour and could I help with her project? She gratefully accepted and three hours later I broke away to rescue The Youngest who was 30 miles away at his swimming practice. By the time I got home the horse was surely thinking about biting me when I finally fed her, and when I was thru tidying up the house and ready to go to bed I almost jumped in fear when I saw the creature who was looking back at me from the mirror.  My hair was pasted to my head from sweat, my makeup was smudged, there were dark circles under my eyes, my clothes, which I'd not had time to change after work, were splattered with mashed potatoes, my legs were cramping from running, bended & rushing to and fro. Hay was stuck to my shoulders. I was a mess.

It was glorious.

I'm no saint. There are days when I'm a total slacker, but I hope I'm always up to lending a hand, and more than that, looking for opportunities to make a difference and not just for my family. Although, I have to admit, that the next time The Commander buys a house, with 6 tons of garbage in the back yard, ummm...yeah, I'm thinking hiring a backhoe will be the way to go.

Meanwhile, I like tinsel and shiny things, but I'm thinking most of us need to remember that there are old folks who are lonely in February, children who are hungry in March, yards that need to be mowed in May and people who just love cookies anytime you can get around to baking them.

We can make a difference.

So we might want to save some of the money we'd spend on something frivolous in December and send it to - say...Africa and make sure a couple of little girls who don't have a chance in hell of facing anything other than poverty and life as second class citizens have a shot, (no guarantees) but at least a shot at having opportunities their mother, and many other women in 3rd world countries, can only dream about.

There is always a rush at Christmas time to do good deeds, have food drives etc. To me, sometimes, it's almost like the people who go to church on Sunday, praise God, but on Monday their attitude is "Church is church, business is business." Then you watch as Sunday's good Christian turns into a snake oil salesman for the rest of the week...

Christmas is wonderful, but...

I'm thinking once a year is not enough.
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Weather Forecast...Tropical

Thanksgiving came & went in a bluster of winter weather. It got down to 5 degrees on Nov. 25.

It made me grumpy.

I wished for a Chinook. And you know how they say: be careful what you ask for?

This week has been almost balmy. Middle of December and the temperatures have been jumping between 30 & 55. My thermometer said 57 the other day. The snow has melted off the grass and it's thinking of trying to green up.

Dear shrubs, trees and assorted plant friends, please stay asleep for the winter.  :(

AND

While my car window was open yesterday a hornet tried to fly inside.

One does sooo hate to complain but seriously - I don't want to see him or any of his friends for at least another 4 months.

Oh wait.

I know for sure I won't be seeing him again.  he he
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Help Me Help My Stupid Self

I always take an extra moment before I leave my vehicle on the days that I have to work. I stop and let Him know that I'm grateful for the opportunity to work and ask for help and that He will watch over me & those I care about while I'm away from home.

Sometimes when our Assistant Postmaster hears us drive up she unlocks the door and leaves it open for us to come in. But usually she waits for me to knock so she doesn't interrupt me.

One day she started to open the door, saw it was me and closed it.

I knocked to be let in shortly thereafter.

"Well, that didn't take long," she said as she let me in.

I just grinned.

'Cause, really, it doesn't take long to ask to be able to make it thru the day, and for help to not be a butt head!
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The Cutest Little Ass I've Ever Seen



The Golden Rule

I was driving The Youngest home.

Suddenly, with no intro or prior conversation topic that would lead to this subject, he blurts, "I hate nicey, nice people."

???

Uh, okay. And?

He struggles to articulate, but is basically saying that he likes people who are more direct, who say what they have to say and who aren't....PHONY!

Ah.

Well son, is it possible that they're just trying to be polite?

"No, no." And, while not telling me of a specific situation he managed to relay his very real frustration with people who he views as not being honest and shared his views that it really isn't nice, it isn't kind and most certainly isn't helpful.

I have to laugh. This kid has been hanging around his mother wayyyy too long.

You know there isn't a mean bone in his body. He's a good kid and very seldom has anything negative to say about other people.

But I know what he's talking about. Most of us are aware of the old...if you don't have anything nice to say - don't say anything at all and we try to follow the golden rule. So we all try to be nice, while remaining honest & keeping our integrity intact and overlay that with compassion - with varying degrees of success.

I was on the computer yesterday and a gal was quite irate. She writes a humor blog and someone else was offended by her writing and commented, chastising the blogger for her language & her attitude. Following are excerpts from her blistering response:

(note - edits are mine)


If you feel like I'm a horrible person for making fun of those people native to the state in which I currently reside, fine. Stop reading my blog RIGHT NOW, drive your uptight *** down here, and see if you can muddle your way through their nonsense. I dare you. Those posts are supposed to be humorous...

Need me to keep going?

If you think I'm promoting drinking and drugs to kids, (where the **** that came from, I'll never know) by telling you people that I have a glass of champagne and a muscle relaxer (or two) to help me sleep some nights -then you fall off a building, break a large percentage of the bones in your body, and then try to lead a somewhat normal life...

Chances are, your kids are learning their bad habits from you, not me. Where do you think I learned how to drink and curse? That's right...my Mama. She's **** proud of it too.

And speaking of... if you think I curse like a sailor, well, then, you're correct. If you have a problem with that, stop ******* reading my **** blog. I don't criticize your obviously fake, 24/7 sunshine and rainbows blog. I don't like yours, so guess what? I don't read it. You don't like mine? Stop ******* reading it.

I didn't start my blog so you could read it. I started my blog so I could ***** about my life. If you happened to stumble across it, fine. (You don't like it?) Keep on stumbling right on over to the next one. I don't need your ********. I have enough of my own, thankyouverymuch.

Oh.

Well.

Blink, blink.

Perhaps a little bit too direct for my taste, (I was definitely suffering from an "F" overload) but yeh, I laughed. She had a fine little rant going on there.

Unfortunately, I've communicated my opinion just as "ably" in other situations. A while back a good friend of mine showed up in church wearing an interesting dress. It was an unusual style for her and had a bold horizontal pattern that would be difficult for even a very slender woman to carry off and my friend isn't quite that thin.... She was walking across the foyer when I turned and saw her. I know my eyebrows raised and I'm sure a big ol' grin started to spread across my face before I caught myself. She looked at me, changed course and made a direct beeline to me.

"I know what you're thinking, and I don't care!" She said. "I actually bought it as a swim suit cover up but it's so comfortable I thought I'd wear it and I don't care what you think, I like it!"

"Well, there you go! That's all that matters and besides, I didn't say a word," I responded smoothly. "You're right, the fabric looks comfortable and it's very cheerful and bright."

She glared at me. I ducked my head and stifled a snort.

I'm sure glad we're friends, (and with any luck that dress will be confined to the pool area in the future.)

Not one of my finer moments... but I tried to explain to The Youngest that finding a medium ground between being blunt/hurtful and coming across as phony is a good thing. And that his young friend(s)  are probably trying to find that middle ground also.

So okay, if you run into the girl who comes across as all fake, 24/7 sunshine & rainbows you still need to be as polite as possible. She might grow into a honest to goodness person, with a decent personality, and sense of humor... someday. There was a young gal who was driving me crazy with the mamby pamby stuff she had going on - I know she was trying to be nice but given the option I'd opt for sincerity. My friend Sharon, saved the day, telling me to be patient with her.

"I was just like that when I was a young woman too," she said.

I looked at her in disbelief... "Nooo."

"Oh yeah, I was realllly bad."

Hard to believe that. Sharon is totally cool, and if this girl turns out half as good as Sharon she'll have something going on!


So, re: phonies? Hang in there son. There are a lot of real people out there.

But sometimes - you just have to wait them out.
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Truism

...The greater a person's sense of guilt, the greater the urge to blame somebody else...
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Nothing A Good Chinook Couldn't Fix

Help is on it's way, tomorrow & the next couple of days are supposed to reach into the 40's, meanwhile when it reaches slightly above 32 then drops, refreezes and starts all over again, we get this....

Kinda cool looking, but....

No, just NO!

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You're In My Space

Padwon & I have an agreement. She's the horse. I'm the human. She weighs 1000 lbs. I weigh...ahemmm, somewhat less. So she needs to respect my space and not be on top of me.

That works - fairly well. I tap her chest, she backs up. When gently pressed on her side or patted on her hip she shifts over/away. But being blessed with the horse sized version of a Kardashian butt?

Girl friend, we're gonna have to get you rear view mirrors. 'Cause if you're at the south end of this north bound horse when she decides to turn, she can really clear the deck.

We've discussed this & I'm working on getting more of a response than the horsie equivalent of, "Oophs, my bad?"

Still, overall she's fairly responsive to me.

But...enter #1 Daughter.

We put the hay into the stall this year. Padwon prefers not to go in there, and it is more convenient to feed under the loafing area anyway. I've never had a problem with her following me into the stall and she waits, somewhat impatiently, for her food to be put in her bucket. But the Daughter, allowed (encouraged her?) to follow her into the stall.

That's when a light bulb went on in that little horse head. Grass/Alfalfa mix hay? Spare alfalfa leaves falling onto the ground? Storehouse of alfalfa leaves in the stall?

Yippee!

Since Thanksgiving, I now open the door to the stall and a little blond head is hot on my heels, her muzzle hits the ground and methodically siphons the alfalfa leaves off the ground. In mere moments she looks like a chipmunk. One of these days I'm going to step back, with an armful of hay, and end up tripping and sitting on her ears.

She's like a dang vacuum cleaner.

Anyone want to rent her?
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Man Bashing

You heard it here first!!!

Well, maybe not. You may have already read the paper...but today in "Dear Abby" a woman writes -

DEAR ABBY: My husband has a tendency to "almost" complete things, but seldom actually does. The discards make it as far as the counter above the trash container where they belong. The hose carrier gets put back two feet from where it's supposed to go. He'll leave his jacket on the chair right next to the coat closet. Get the picture?

My husband is a great guy and he does a lot around the house. It's just that these "almosts" are so consistent that I'm curious about whether they're symptomatic of a kind of disorder. - Maine Observer

DEAR OBSERVER: With the understanding that I am not licensed in any state of the Union to make a definitive diagnosis, it appears that your husband is either easily distracted or a wee bit...lazy. - Abby

Bwahaha. ROTFL. "Disorder", indeed. Yeh, Observer, him and his legion of brothers!!!

'Nuff said.
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Justify Your Existence

Ah the best laid plans...

Started the day @ 5:15am again, hopped out of bed, showered, fixed breakfast for The Youngest, and just finished reading scriptures when the phone rang.

6:10am...my plans for the day (such as they were, and what there was of them) were toasted. I was called in to cover for co-worker who wasn't feeling well. So much for TGIF. Scrambled thru the slush & yuck for way too many hours. What's not to like about a 10 hour work day in those driving conditions? Still was going to get done in time to pick The Youngest up from swim practice. First tho, I had to do a little "off the clock" work and help my friend on the other route, who was swamped, deliver a few extra packages. (Gotta work on those brownie points my good deeds!) 

Fetched the kid, brought him home, fixed dinner & fed him, cleaned the kitchen, did two loads of wash, then headed to the church to do our share of cleaning for the week. Had to do it at nite because he and I would be gone in the morning when the rest of the crew would come in... An hour and a half later, after vacuuming up a small mountain of cracker crumbs (grazing appears to be the primary activity for a majority of the kids on Sundays) it's time to go home, fold clothes, pay bills, pick up the house, make sure The Youngest is ready to go to his swim meet tomorrow and that order from Emergency Essentials that just arrived today? Ummm, I think I'll inventory & deliver it - later, much later.

Because the energizer bunny just died.

A lovely day of serving my family, friends, community & church has come to a dead halt. Nothing dramatic happened today, just taking care of "stuff" and trying to leave things in as good as shape as I found them or better, still I'm a whipped pup.

And in six hours....

I get to get up and start all over again.

I can hardly wait!

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C-CCC-CC-C-OLD.

Long story short?

Friend & I ran out the other night, in her rig, to do a service project. One of those quick in and outs. So I threw on my crocs & a fleece shirt and we went. Tip-toed thru the ice & snow then dashed back to the SUV.

She dropped me at home, I stepped out & just as I was closing the door she hesitantly asked a question.

Oh.

She needed to talk and it was one of those kind of things where you don't want to climb back in because you know she doesn't want to go into this big, long discussion and yet you don't want to impatiently wave the door back and forth and look like you're just dying to get gone....

Instead I just stood with the door open, leaning into the warmth of her rig for over an hour, with my backside hanging out, in the dark, in 25 degree weather, in my summer crocs - you know the ones with ALL the holes in them and no socks...

Oh yeah.

Don't get me wrong. I love this woman. Freezing my tail off is the least I could do for her. I don't regret that but I had to smile when she finally gave a start and realized how much time had passed, then put her rig into gear saying "I'm so sorry, it's sooo cold!"

"Not a problem," I said as I bid her good night and headed into the house.

And really it wasn't. My toes had quit hurting ... when they had gone numb ... about 20 minutes before. ;)
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Aloha!

My theory has always been that the temperature should stay around 75-80 degrees 24/7. Day in and day out. I'll concede that it would be nice to have snow on Christmas Eve but I'm pretty sure it should all be melted by Christmas Day afternoon when everyone wants to get to their holiday meal.

That's part of the reason I like living in the Tri Cities. No, we don't meet the above requirements but for being in the Pacific Northwest we do enjoy a longer than average growing season and winters are generally mild. Once every 7 or so years we get snow that sticks and stays but most of the time it's bearable.

Unfortunately it's lookin' like it's going to be one of "THOSE" years. In times past, I've had day lilies that have bloomed at Thanksgiving. (Unusual but not impossible) And  a red, red rose tried to bloom on Christmas Eve once. (Okay, I was, and still am, surprised at that!)

But this year? If these pictures I took yesterday are any indication of what it's going to be like, all I have to say is...

Bah humbug!
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Counting to 10 - Slowly

It has been noted that someone in our household is a bit of a slob.

He can turn in a pretty good performance if he thinks someone he wants to impress is watching. Otherwise, ummm...not so much.

This morning he needs an envelope. He goes to my desk. I can hear him rummaging around.

????

You see it is "my" desk because that is where I pay the bills & file them. It could be our desk if he helped pay the bills or would even discuss a budget with me, but no, that stresses him out. He has enough stress in his life he says and refuses to deal with the bills. He likes to do the "Make it so #1." 

Jean Luc Picard he is not.

Therefore, in my opinion, he has forfeited the right to rummage about, mess up the piles, remove or rearrange items on the desk. He is well known for his ability to stop and drop things all about the house and I don't need to find an overdue bill under the sofa or anywhere else he may have dropped it and then forgotten about it. (I have a hard enough time misplacing things myself without additional help from him, thank you very much!)

Back to my story. He comes back with his envelope and two (2) invoices which he throws on the table with the dirty breakfast dishes.

He is oblivious to the 'look' I give him.

"One of these should be for the radiator for your van," he says.

One?

Should?

"Put it in the van with the rest of the receipts," he says.

Oh dear.

Would this be the receipt that he left laying on the kitchen counter yesterday? The one he emailed me about? Then phoned about? The one I put on my desk for safe keeping until I found other information that I wanted to put in the van along with it?

And if he is going to rummage thru the desk, and has to have it put in the van NOW... then why do his feet not just keep moving and walk the extra 30 feet to the vehicle into which he so greatly desires it to be? Instead he throws it into the sticky ring of apple juice that his glass has left on the table?

I watch his retreating back, then pick the receipts up. Replace the one that still needs to be on my desk, wipe the apple juice off the radiator receipt and go to the garage.

There is a neat little drawer under the front passengers seat. In it are maps, a phone directory, Les Scwab envelopes & a large manila envelope in which I keep all other receipts related to the vehicle. They should be in the 8x10 envelope in chronological order, oldest to newest.

Or not.

Should being the key word here...

I see why he didn't want to put the radiator receipt out here. Apparently the last time he needed a receipt (battery replacement/warranty?) he pulled them all out of the envelope, shuffled through them, then threw the envelope and all receipts back in the little compartment... Only the receipts didn't make it back into the envelope.

It was just like playing 52 card pick up.

Insert annoyed 'smiley face' here.

I didn't like playing that game when I was a kid.

Still don't now.

Must be cold in the garage - small sizzles of steam make a halo around my head.

And I'm left wondering - how do I tell him, in the nicest possible way....

Touch the desk - and die.

???
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