Tresa's Blog

I am sorry I didn’t visit blogs or write while I was gone.  I had internet service.  I am lazy.  lazy lazy.  But I did think while going down the road.

I was thinking about how this is my blog and I write what I want and how because it’s MY BLOG.  Sometimes people don’t understand I use sentences that run together and And @ the beginning of a sentence or aint because it suits my purposes.  (OK sometimes I don’t know any better but we can pretend I catch all my mistakes can’t we?)

I also use hyperbole, rhetorical questions, allusion, illusion, preparation h, simile, and ky jelly if necessary to get my point slid across.

I also tilt @ windmills, the rebel without a cause, I spawned two conservative children and I have NO idea how but they think I am nuts.  BUT I play Don Quixote sometimes here BECAUSE I CAN, because it’s MY BLOG!!  And yes I had to look up how to spell Quixote.

I know the last 3 paragraphs have nothing to do with thanksgiving but I thought of the ky jelly line and it seemed too good not to share? I also thought of a blog post about how I lack the farming gene and my families ability to tell the crop and planting date of any field while I’m doing good to even notice them much less identify them but we will save that for another day.

What I’m grateful  for Thanksgiving day 2009:

The ability to blog and to read others blogs and my dear friends I’ve “met” blogging.

The free internet, news services, and press we have in this country.

Of course family and friends, I do have friends, I was just having trouble remembering some of their names because I hadn’t seen them since July?  LOL

Our family having survived the ups and downs of the previous year.  It’s been triumph and tragedy.  Some lost companies because of lost contracts through no fault of their own.  Some lost jobs because they were too temperamental.  (sorry if I scoff @ that one, they spoke up and told the truth and it hurt so they lost their job, imagine my relative having a big mouth? Moi?)  It was over a year ago that I started but I worked outside the home @ a job for the first time in 19 years.   Anyway I did a “real” job and I took orders from people and was a good employee which is not easy after years of “self” employment.  My husband also got a “job” for the first time in 20+ years when he leased his truck onto construction.  From what I hear he was a model employee (except for the time he asked permission to knock somone’s block off from the foreman, foreman said OK?) and was always ahead of everyone else even though he was the oldest one doing what he did. We are back to self employed but you always “work” for someone, if you are boss you “work” for the employees sometimes I think.   Also my brother is shall we say a senior citizen, I don’t know if he’s in like in his second childhood or what (I have doubts he ever left the first) but for an old man he’s not old.  Maybe it’s the race car he has?  He doesn’t drive it anymore but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.  My husband is of an age where I remember my parents well and I was going through my teenage rebellion.  He’s not old.  I’m thinking we are oblivious or just not aging like previous generations did (due to superior health care or the bilssful oblivion of many drug trips, JUST KIDDING)

Basically we have triumphed over adversity and turned around and made life better and realized what was important and what wasn’t  because of it and I’m thankful for the opportunity and the ability and the health to do it, especially during this time of financial difficulty.  (this is starting to sound like one of those bragging Christmas letters, little Johnnie is now the president of the cub scouts in North America and little Sally has been voted high school prom queen while in kindergarten and they will both attend Yale next year on a full ride scholarship, those kind of letters)

I’m grateful for my home and the ability to not live too close to people most of the time.  I’m grateful for all the “luck” and blessings that have enabled me to enjoy some(most) of lifes riches.

I’m grateful our relatives are still with us this year that were with us last year for the most part. I will miss Lester and Louella (my moms first cousin who married the widow of my dads best friend, got that?) because they were one of the links to my past.  I’m grateful that I was here when one of the closest family friends died.  I’m glad I got the opportunity to know our dog Mugsey.

I’m grateful I’ve sort of beat the fat genes that run in our family and have never seriously been over 160.  I shouldn’t say that because I will blossom (my brother has called me squatty body (say it it rhymes, he’s sometimes amusing, this isn’t one of those times) for years, we cant all be 6′4″ BRO!).  The last time I had a skinny woman ancestor was my great grandmother and her having no teeth may have had something to do with that?

I’m grateful for the man who is sleeping in my bed, (it’s my husband silly) and the dog who is sleeping in the chair, the dog sleeping on the porch, and the cat sleeping in the log cabin.

I’m grateful for the ability to overcome the health problems we have faced over the past year and the ability to “get healthy” disgusting and boring but we are doing it.  No drink, no smoke, no fatty foods, vegetables, very few sweets, sleep regularly, walk, drink water, blaaaahhhh.   BTW I never said I ever quit drinking, I’m the type of person who can have one and quit, or one potato chip.  I’m a sick sick puppy I know.  My husband will tell you how healthy he is and now he’s losing weight.  Did I mention the term ad nauseum?  I would never say those words? 

I’m grateful for the ability to go and stuff ourselves silly tomorrow with many of our close relatives and talk to the others. I am also grateful I can now distinguish most of  my grand-children’s voices over the phone and not call the boys by their mothers names which makes me NOT favorite grandma.  I’m also thankful we all have a way of making a living and/or our driving privledges left.  You know who I’m talking to.

Donnie Osmond won Dancing With The Stars and we missed it!  Sorry but I just couldn’t get behind Mya, I even sent a text vote for Kelley, first time I’ve ever done that and Johanna was GOOD and I think Derek is my nephew, that’s good and clean isn’t it?  When the show came on I thought it was the stupidest thing ever.  Now I’m usually pretty close with guessing how the judges are going to score the couples and how they will criticize them.  I know NOTHING about ballroom dancing or didn’t.  Just thought I”d throw that in there.

I’m grateful I learned how to spell quixote.

I’m on an angels on twitter list! Thanks Starlingpoet!  My family would say if she only knew me……..

I’d better quit.

Happy TURKEY DAY amigos!!

I wrote about Dispatches truck trip on animals that give pause.

This is my spa. Someone yelled @ me as I left work and said it’s 89 degrees out there, I said I’m laying in the sun then!! So I decided to do just that, I have a nice lawn it’s a shame to always be working in it, I need to enjoy it. An old chaise lounge lawn chair, a glass of wine (I don’t drink enough to be considered a drinker, just seemed to be appropriate, it even had a cork!) suntan lotion, my phone, a towel to wipe the suntan lotion off of everything and flip flops, (we don’t call them thongs anymore, no no no!). I called everyone I could think of, drank wine, suntanned flipped over. Then I napped a bit, bichon crawled on top of me and the other dogs (I’m watching the bulldog Opal for my daughter while she’s on a trip) couldn’t be left out, I finally convinced them the shade was better for them, napped some more and watched the things you aren’t supposed to have floating around behind your eyelids when you close your eyes. I listened to the birds call and watched the cumulus clouds build and dissipate. Flipped over again, listened to the kittens in the bushes, called another person. Wondered if the Mockingbird that wakes me up @ 3 am (I just know it’s him, not that many different birds take turns calling @ 3 am) was within shooting range.

Then I noticed how many bees were flying around, nope they were flies, but they weren’t bothering me? I thought maybe I should move the cat food from by the back door. Then I looked over, saw the bird feathers scattered about, kitty has been being kitty again, then I saw a snake wrapped around a folded up lawn chair by the cat food, it was dead. It was more than dead, it looked like it died in the throes of agony. The only thing I could figure is the cats tortured it to death and it was striking @ them (garter snake, harmless) and it had a heat stroke in the sun because they had it cornered. So I got rid of it in the gravel road and the flies left and the dog crawled up on top of me again, the cats got under the chaise lounge and we just had a grand old time. There was another glass of wine in there too I believe?

Part of this was brought about by listening to a broadcast on PBS about a lady who had been watching prairie dogs and thought she would go mad the first three days. The fourth day she couldn’t write down what the prairie dogs were doing fast enough, because she had learned how to slow down and really observe them and be in the place. The more we know about a place and observe what is going on the more we are really in tune with the place and learn about it. So I was one with my lawn, and my glass of wine, and my bichon, and my borrowed English Bulldog, and the birds, and my lab, and my phone and sun tan lotion too I suppose. Of course the terrier, lab, schnauzer,and cats figured in too. For those who are interested a guy has spent his life studying prairie dog language and they have “words” for man with red shirt, man with blue shirt, man with gun, man without gun, lady with yellow shirt, and so on; it’s totally amazing to me. And when left undisturbed the prairie dogs get up out of their little burrows in the morning and face the rising sun with their little paws folded across their chests for half an hour like a religious meditation. Then in the evening they do the same thing toward the setting sun before heading to their burrows. I found it fascinating and that was before any wine!

It was a simple couple hours but thoroughly different and refreshing. I’m sure most of us have learned to make more out of less even if we don’t have to. I think we should celebrate it instead of bemoaning the new way of life. Of course I would like a wooden chaise lounge with cushions but then I would have to be more careful with it, this old $9 one from the discount store does just fine as long as it still supports me. I can’t stand expensive wine, there’s no way to get a sun tan and be cool except a tanning booth I suppose but I’ve never been in one. Aren’t we all supposed to have a lack of vitamin D? I have my supply for a couple days. The bird song and the clouds moving will be in my head for a long time as will the prairie dog stories and the sounds of dogs snuffling (the bulldog) by my ear. Just a generally satisfying spring afternoon.