Friday

Was standing in line at Wally*World last night with the usual buggy full of Gatorade, MtDew, Tide, toilet paper and kitchen cleaner..you know, the usual household stuff.

The gal checking me out said "Man, I'm tired". I stopped putting my stuff on the counter and stared at her.

My first question: "How long have you been married?"
Her answer: "Oh, I'm not married"
My next question: "How many kids do you have?"
I knew what the answer to this one was: "Oh, I don't have any kids...I'm still in college."
Okay..that threw a kink in me because I had three kids....worked full time..and finished a teaching degree. I remember going into the bathroom just so I could study!

My third question: "How many will be at your house for supper?"
She told me that she'd probably go thru the Sonic drive-in and pick up something for just herself.

So, instead of being scarcastic..I said, so you're in school? (We're in a small university town)
Her response was "Yes, I take a few classes....but I still live at home." Meaning, she still has a mama to answer to.

So, THEN I got on my soap box. I told her that when she had been married for almost 30 years, when she has raised three boys, when she had five people to cook supper for AFTER she had worked a 9 hours shift at a paying job and then went and helped her husband in the field....THEN, she could complain that she was tired.

She asked me what all I had done today: (brave soul she is):
Went to work at 7am
After work, went to the field and took the fuel tank to fill it up....spent $800. on farm diesel
Pulled an ammonia tank to the co-op to be refilled (that's another $2K) and needed to hurry my trip thru the store because I had to fix supper for the guys and take it back out to the field.

Her next question?
"So, are boys easier to raise than girls?"
Where this came from, I have no idea.

I told her that I had no idea, but it's what God gave me...so I made the most of it.
I then told her:
We've only had one broken bone
That the ambulance can get to our house in 8 minutes (they've made the trip twice)
That your heart will break when they put your baby in the helicopter
That you need to learn CRP because one of them will test your abilities
That you need to learn first-aid and you will use a medicine chest full of Bacatricin and band-aids monthly
That you should buy stock (not the cow-kind) in Wrangler, Ariat, Mt.Dew, Folgers Coffee, Tide and Miss Clairol
That we only had a few fingers missing
That red dirt will not wash out of white socks
That you had to learn to do background checks on girls who chased your boys.

She just glared at me and then said "I'm tired from listening to you".
I told her that it was at least an honest tired and that if she ever had some free time to come out and follow me (us) around.

She then wanted to know if I had any single boys. I asked her if she knew how to cook, do laundry or could drive a tractor. She didn't answer. I was hoping just to hire her for a day or two to catch me up!

Should be working....

Words that describe:
But I found this and had to play.

Crossroads Quilt

Has anybody else made this quilt and not finished it? It's taken me 8 months --or more-- to finally get it to a point where I actually like it. It's the first mystery quilt that Bonnie did. I don't typically like square quilts and then I didn't make it big enough to suite me. Not Bonnie's fault, but my own. Why didn't I make an extra 100 blocks?! ...and then, I had to go and buy a new mattress (yes, you're right I'm keeping this one) and I want to use it on my own bed...so it's 110" square. It's going to the quilter Monday night, so we'll see what she does with it. Sorry Bonnie...I've renamed mine "Crossroads-Monster".

This is my Senior. I wasn't at home to get a first-day back at school picture, but this was taken about four days before. He had just gotten out of the show ring and he didn't get a good placement He did a good job holding his composure (I would've been crying), and then his EX-girlfriend was standing about 5 feet away. Poor kid, and then Mom has to take his picture. Would've rather taken a picture of him holding a nice blue ribbon, but the green one is stuffed in his back pocket. Another show, another judge is just around the corner. He looks better smiling...thank goodness he doesn't have my kraut-temper!

Life is actually wet here in Western Oklahoma. Things have been slow (thank goodness), but will start back up when we work ground again and the whole growing process starts over. We'll put grain back in the ground in about a month. Everybody keep eating wheat bread!

Scrabble

Pholph's Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 31. My Scrabble© Score is: 15. What is your score? Get it here.

Have to admit, Scrabble isn't a game we play a lot....but isn't this fun? Stole it from Desertsky.

Had to put it in two separate words....too wide for my column!

Haven't sewn this week...and work has even been slow. This weekend is our first local fair, so stock-show season is upon us. Will try to have some pictures later this weekend.

SPAM Gripe

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This is just a sample of the 235 entries in my SPAM box this morning. Does anybody else get this abundance of advertising emails? What in the world did I sign up for to be so-blessed with these? aaarrrrg

If I wanted to be slim, rich, (re)married, educated or my innards cleaned out, I have every option to do so. Not that I couldn't stand to be slimmer, have more money, smarter, or a different husband (not even touching that one), and I sure don't want to spend more time in the potty.

Does anybody ever buy from these ads in their emails? Just my (first)gripe for this Monday.

RAIN!

It's good for the soul....


It's been a dry July/August so far, and this wetness is very welcome. The hay is put up and the fields are all worked (twice). My diesel bill is running about $10K a month (yes a month) from all of the field-work.

On a quilty-note...I finished a BIG project last night. Will try to get a picture before I send it to the quilter.

Did I mentioned it rained? Ahhhh....cleans the air and freshens the spirit.

Hotter than hot

These temps are for OKCity which is about 80 miles away, and it will be about 5 degrees hotter out on the prairie.

I feel for my guys working outside. I preach to drink lots of water and Gatorades and they usually do.

Glad I have a paying inside job today. It's gonna be a long hot summer.

August 1

Hard to believe that it's already August. We went from a mild spring, to a hot wheat harvest, to a dry July. I'm afraid August maybe hot and dry too.
Here is something we accomplished this past week. It was kind of bitter sweet seeing the house you've raised three boys in going down the road, but then I look and see how tiny and wore out the house is and tell myself it's time to go on. We have a beautiful new home to live in and we're going to build new memories there.

In case somebody asks...the house moved about 28 miles to the west ...thru two towns. We didn't follow to see what path they took or what obstacles they encountered. As soon as it left our property, it belonged to somebody else. They will take it and make it a nice home. I'm sure they'll make some good memories in it too.

Now we have more work to do...we'll have to haul loads of dirt in to make the slope not quite so extreme. Don't you think this will make a wonderful garden spot?!

I'm amazed at how much more light I have coming in on the east side of the new house. Next summer you'll never know there use to be a house setting there.

Mid July

Yes, I'm alive. I think I'm alive. This past week has been hard on this old woman, but the pain meds are working and the Morphine is out of my system.

Did you know there's absolutely nothing on television during the day? When you're a couch-lizard for several days, one can get sick of home-decorating shows and food shows--does somebody actually eat that stuff? And, who put Rachel Ray and Martha on at the same time?

Since I can set at my computer for more than five minutes at a time, thought I'd post some pictures from the past few weeks.

Roses from a hospital-birthday-day. One of my favorite peeping-Toms.
Here's the finished (with binding and a label) log cabin. It's very scrappy...and has some very ugly/weird stuff in it, but it works. It will be given away this saturday.

The guys welding in the shop. One welder in this shop, so the other two wait.
Didn't figure out what he was measuring, but it came out square.
Taking the front/south concrete porch off from the old house. SOMEDAY...it'll be gone.

Burning wheat stubble. This year we burnt almost all of the wheat fields after we harvested them. We had a lot of spring rains, which meant we had a lot of wheat-stalks/plants.

A early morning visitor I had one day. There were three of these little critters and I could hear them before I could see them.

Lunch is cooking and if I'm not back to being a couch-lizard this afternoon, I may venture into the sewing room.