Tresa's Blog

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I actually took this photo because of the spanish moss, it doesn’t grow everywhere down here, I guess because of the hurricane?

Texas Road

This is the road we used to walk on till they killed the huge snake on it, now? not so much.  The 6072 sign is just out of sight and then another curve and we live there, two farms on other fork of the road.

We haven’t left on trip yet, husband napping and there is terrible weather between here and MO or here and KS whichever place we go first. Guys got up like @ 5 am and talked next door LOUD (co-workers of husband who got laid off for a couple weeks and came and got coffee, they were crying in their coffee this morning instead of crying in their beer), I dozed off and on and wondered when they would be quiet till like 7 am. If you read my other blog Animals that give pauseyou know Dispatch my bichon has been sick, he is better even this morning, jumped up in a chair without thinking about it!

Click the picture to go see more This Way-Thursday. Thanks Squirrel Queen and AL

Cow Bayou

Not much water I know but I took it with my phone from my car, and whoever came up behind me on the bridge, sorry about that!  Now if you go to my animals blog you will see a picture of this bayou when it becomes a channel by our campground.  It’s the picture with the dog balancing on the side of the bridge.  Anyway this bayou connects with the little creek or canal that the guys saw the baby alligator in which explains much.  The bayou meanders for miles which is the manner of bayous  I read a bit about it and it was dredged up to this point and the bayou actually goes to Buna which is lik 25 miles away.  The town is named Orangefield but I think it could be Oilfield, can you see why?  There are working oilwells on the other side of the road.

Watery Wednesday, click for more water photos!

all of a sudden I’m enamored with small letters.  Oh well, all better now,  I noticed people were finding my blog quite a bit by searching for information about the h1n1 virus and who is supposedly immune or probably immune because of their birthday.  1956 is the cutoff date, if you weren’t born then forget it.  I was a glimmer in my Daddies eye then and might have been making Mama nauseated but I’m not immune.  This is the original post that explains the immunity of those born before 1956 in more detail.

It seems President Obama has declared the h1n1 pandemic a national emergency says the Washington Post.  I didn’t know that before I started researching.

The following information was taken from Bloomberg.com

The proclamation, is designed to help U.S. medical treatment facilities deal with a surge in H1N1 influenza patients by waiving government rules on a case-by-case basis.  This will allow leeway for hospitals to set up separate emergency treatment facilities for example.

Swine flu is now widespread in 46 states and accounts for 411 confirmed deaths since late summer and more than 8,200 hospitalizations, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  CDC director  Thomas Frieden said  the amount of people affected is typical of the height of  the regular flu season.  Many millions of people have actually contracted the disease since it’s discovery last spring.

IF anyone is interested here is what I could find on diagnosing and guidelines in treating h1n1 in children. This document plainly states it is not for use by the general public.  I am in no way dispensing medical advice but those are the diagnosis guidelines.  These are the diagnosis guidelines for adults and a triage guide on whether the adult is at high risk for complications.

Here is a guide for taking care of a person suspected of having the flu in your home and here are guidelines from physicians for patients who have suspected h1n1.   This is sort of a informational home page for h1n1 from the cdc.  This is a guidance page from the cdc about h1n1  for questions you might have not found the link for anywhere else.

On a personal note?  My husband and I have both had a slight sore throat with a fever, it was on a Sunday for him so he didn’t miss work and I took an extra nap when I had it, maybe I didn’t get out of bed one day.  We were achy etc. also.  The aftereffects lasted a couple days.  I’m not saying we had it but I’m not saying we didn’t  since it was rampant here in SE Texas.  That was our adult version of it.  (over 50 —have to be careful –h1n1—-my royal red…… you get the picture don’t you?)  My granddaughter and her father had it and my youngest daughter did too.  It (whatever it was, no one went to the dr but it’s too early for regular flu I think?) They were sicker than we were but not much, fever a couple days, sore throats, chest hurt, lethargic for awhile (it’s hard telling though, some of us have developed lethargic to an art form).   So we have all had the same symptoms basically just varying degrees of severity.  If I did have it I have been SO much sicker from the regular flu and bronchitis or lyme that it’s not even funny.

One of the most interesting (or disturbing) posts I just happened to read on the subject is by Jeff @ My Life Lived My Way. He recounts his wife talking to their doctor about his daughters symptoms.  The physician goes through all these questions not listening to the mother at all and decides based on one symptom that the daughter has h1n1.  The daughter has NO other symptoms of the flu besides dizziness, if that’s the case I have the swine flu quite often.  This is not to disparage the severity of the national emergency but serves as a reminder that we must be informed consumers and not follow blindly.  I’m not saying don’t follow doctors orders but question, think, and communicate with your health care professionals.

On the other hand a flu toolkit isn’t a bad idea? Also it’s being said that if you think you have h1n1 you probably do.

• any necessary prescription medications. A two-week supply would be best;
• plenty of soap and alcohol-based hand sanitizers with 60 to 95 percent alcohol;
• a thermometer;
• over-the-counter antidiarrheal medicine, fever reducing medications, cough syrup and decongestants;
• water and fruit juices;
• easily digestible foods like clear broths, chicken soup, apple sauce and crackers — anything that won’t make your stomach churn;
• foods with a long shelf life, like cereals, breakfast bars, dried fruits and nuts;
• tissues, toilet paper and other necessary paper goods.

I would add batteries to that list because you don’t want to be having to run to the store because the remote to the tv doesn’t work.  Also stamps because when you feel better you might need to pay a bill the old fashioned way?

I found some novel ways on this link (note this link has disappeared, use these tips @ your own risk, I am nothing, not even a good writer) to prevent the swine flu supposedly besides the normal handwashing and facemask.  Gargling with salt water or listerine is pretty normal, washing your nostrils out with salt water isn’t BUT this was one thing the doctor had my husband do for a staph infection, also blowing your nose seems like a good idea.  The page did go on to say hot drinks will flush out the virus from your mouth but since the page is gone it doesn’t say that anymore but that makes sense to me also.  STAYING away from soda seems like a wise idea anyway.

So that’s the swine flu or h1n1 update for today.  I hope it’s helped someone find some clarity in all the confusion.

First of all my next blog post will be about H1N1 because that seems to be what people are looking for information on.  Like I’m a doctor but I can read really fast and maybe come up with a viewpoint of what is REALLY going on.  (like you care about my viewpoint— but in my delusional state I can pretend ya know.)

Second of all this is the outfit I got the other day, OK I had the capris but they are a Wal Mart Special from years ago.

Chocolate!

Goodwill T shirt

The second picture is me in a t shirt I got from goodwill.  See I make the bed @ 5 am every morning, I get a gold star?

Anyway the purpose of this is not to show you all how much weight I’ve gained on plavix and wellbutrin but to show there are decent clothes that can be purchased @ goodwill.  I started going again the other day(and I’m NOT ashamed to admit it), actually the prices aren’t any less than a good clearance rack @ wal mart BUT I found out one of the best dressed women I know shops @ goodwill and consignment shops exclusively (one of those ladies who screams color coordinated rich bi’s itchy)!  Plus with the economy the way it is it helps everyone,  the special needs people they help by giving employment to, it conserves energy by not buying new things all the time, and if I rip something or stain it I’m not heartbroken.  Both t shirts came from good will and the jeans too.  My husband saw the brown outfit on me the other day and asked me if I’d gotten something new! So whether you give to goodwill or the salvation army or the local thrift shop or buy from them or just donate money to them this is just a reminder that times have been tough, they need donations and they need our support.

See the dog on the bed in the picture of me.  We had to incorporate a bit of turn dog over and rub belly play while we were taking pictures, you thought you could get by without a picture of him?

Dog on back

Now about good looking people.  Did you see 20/20 last night?  It seems that when good looking people collect for charity they get MUCH larger donations.  I’m wracking my brain trying to think how I did the last time I collected for charity…….and of course I can’t remember so it must have not been that much!  LOL

Teacher and Classroom

I was laying in bed thinking about a post I’d been considering for days, maybe weeks.  I decided the post should probably be a page instead because I had too much to say.  The page will be about prejudice but it probably won’t be what you expect. This story isn’t about prejudice exactly but it is about kindness.  I haven’t gotten the page written yet.

I was thinking of some prejudice I’d met with in school, a small “hick” school merged with a much bigger “city” school.   I was like the big cheese in the hick school, not so in the new school.  That was 5th grade which was OK,  6th was a nightmare partly because of a teacher who was supposedly a friend of the family(I could do nothing right, he ridiculed me for getting through with assignments early etc, I could read faster than adults for years and he called me a liar…called 60s chick lit smut……. just NOT a good year), after that it got better, by high school I had convinced everyone I was just like them (I developed a VERY smart mouth) even though my mother was a teacher (in a different school)  and had cut my hair funny.

Then I remembered one incident that didn’t happen when I was going to school but when my youngest daughter was in kindergarten or first grade of the same school.  Her teacher was the wife of the high school principal.  I believe the teacher passed away @ a young  age of cancer  but @ this time she was probably in her 40s.   The incident was trivial but it made a lasting impression.

It was the Christmas party, I think I was a room mother, I’d brought cookies.  The students exchanged gifts of course.  Then it came time for an oddly wrapped present, it looked more like a ball of previously used paper than a gift.  I can’t remember who got the present but when she unwrapped it she found an obviously worn and stained old pink shirt. The teacher was prepared and miraculously somehow smoothed it over so the giver of the gift and the receiver both felt happy (the teacher either had another present or made such a fuss over the “nice” pink shirt that the receiver of the gift felt blessed, I don’t remember which).  There could have been such a scene as only little girls can make but having this teacher made all the difference in the world.  I know teachers are supposed to be prepared  for things like this and children might not even draw names anymore but the speed @ which this teacher took the mood in the room from disappointment and chaos to happiness and contentment was amazing.  No matter what else the children learned in that room they learned love, kindness, and acceptance.

I was always a stickler for my kids not making fun of others for not having things or being different or the gifts they gave but I was worse after this.  Why?  Probably because I had felt forms of prejudice firsthand.

The little girl who gave the gift?  She gave from her heart, the shirt was probably her most prized possession.  She lived not far from us, I took my daughter to see her, I think I managed to give her some clothes my kids had “outgrown”.   The child was 6 I believe and she was watching her younger brother (he was still in diapers I think) alone in the house while her parents worked as hired hands on a  large farm (I wasn’t rich by any means but my kids never knew hunger unless I was trying to get them not to be fat, this little girl obviously knew hunger and poverty firsthand).   The parents were less than  a mile away but yet not in easy calling distance.  The little girl offered me a chair when we arrived and a drink of something like a little hostess.  I just wanted to grab both of the kids up and drag them home with me (and feed them and spoil them with TV and games and attention and let them run wild and play like my kids did 90% of the time) but they seemed to be as well taken care of as they could be in those circumstances.    Yes I could have called child services but it wasn’t “done” then except for obvious physical abuse.   We lost track of the family, they moved away, but the kindness of that teacher will always remain with not only myself but with every child who’s life she touched.

Did you ever have or know a teacher or person of authority that could change a bad situation into something good @ the drop of a hat?

Why I love my husband.

Lynette Desperate Housewives

Because we had this conversation last night after my husband had made two doghouse comments in the last week.  (comments that got him in the doghouse, one was he didn’t talk about how my jeans fit because well because I was his wife, I let him look @ other women, he’s going to do it anyway, I even point them out…… and  then he said something about his first divorce, I’m his second wife, is he planning another divorce so he has to identify them?).

We are watching Desperate Housewives, (no cable till we move rv parks, too cheap for dish) and Lynette’s husband had just said something insensitive and then told her that if she didn’t have ONE thing wrong with her he couldn’t have fathomed the reason she would be with him.  (in a nutshell, one thing=small boobs)

So Lynette tells her husband that that is what she loves about him, his ability to walk through a  verbal minefield and come out not only unscathed but smelling like a rose.

Minefield

So my husband says “I don’t have that ability”.

I thought about it for awhile and I said “no, you jump in the middle of the minefield on the biggest mine  buttfirst going WHOO HOOOOOO.”  He agreed and knew what I was talking about, we laughed.

This is why I love my husband.

Oct 3, 2009

Interesting first lines of blog descriptions I found while looking for blog listing services.

We provides info about

How to shoose

Photos of place I have been

If you need to make younger,

This blog will present you how to

help you to make your finance more better

We helping Blogger in many part

Do you see anything wrong with them?

The dog just crawled up in my lap because it’s thundering, he’s not too skittish during storms but out Golden Lab was terrified so the bichon is a little leery of them. He’s not normally a cuddly dog unless he’s tired or afraid. I just realized how much he was like a child wanting comfort and wondering if I would need the feeling of the warm small thing needing me for the rest of my life. I was even the teenager who took the babies out of church so their mothers could enjoy the service, and I could get out of church to talk to one of my friends who invariably went out to help me. To see more of the dog go to Animals that give pause of course.

I just had to look up how to spell intubation. I intubated a man once who was in a coma. Just thought I’d throw that in there.  For some reason I just remembered it.

My grandson (I can write about him here because I am like 99% sure his friends don’t read this blog) sent me a text  earlier today about guns and trucks and wild pigs, fun things. We text quite a bit, he was being facetious and he is quite popular but once he said he was so cool he just text his mom, his grandma, and one friend?  He’s 15.  Remember I was a child bride and I do mean child so I can have a 15 year old grandson.

I took a walk with the dog earlier.  Evidently the walk improved the dogs digestion and he passed gas. He is a little white puffball but his gas smells like a chemical plant, probably hair dye mixed with a bit of sewer gas and smelling salts mixed in.  Hard to believe he can make an odor like that.

Dog and I just reached an important agreement after long negotiations. He can lay flat on my lap without being supported and held close to my body with my left arm, I mean it’s possible in his world, probably only temporarily though.

October 17, 2009 (forgot to post this before)

Since husband will be home tomorrow and he only gets one day a week off I try to devote it to him.  I know—– I know— gag me with a spoon—– but he works hard.  So I write a post or two ahead and if I’m not totally brain dead from our usual breakfast out on Sunday I will post them.  Speaking of eating breakfast out we went to Golden Corral last Sunday.  I won’t go into detail because I don’t want to seriously p anyone off but I’m not skinny, I wear between a 6 and a 10 and I’m 5′4″ and there were maybe 3 people out of everyone in Golden Corral that were skinnier than me and that’s giving two of them the benefit of the doubt and the other one was a teenager!  It was weird, made me feel good but also led me to believe I could eat those 3 plates, yes I did.  Also made me wonder about the general health of America?

Train of thought:

I’m sure you all have seen the  She’s a Very Freaky Girl commercial?  That always makes me think of Little Miss Sunshine (the movie, strange but it grows on you) which makes me think of the little girls grandpa trying to “help” her ou with her dance routine by choosing Superfreak for the music for a little girls beauty contest, the song and dance routine weren’t too well received.  It reminded me of my daughter coming in the house one day (we lived by her grandpas business, my father) and proudly saying Grandpa taught me how to siphon gas.  I got a little closer to her  and asked what exactly did you do for grandpa, she said sucked on the hose to get the gas out. Of course we laughed and laughed.  Please don’t think my father was a mean man but he was a horrible practical joker.   My daughter was no worse for the wear either.  But that is why Superfreak reminds me of siphoning gas.  Grandpa did something “good”.

I was honestly thinking about writing about this incident and then saw my friend Rae’s post D.I.V.O.R.C.E on her blog Weather Vane and I knew I had to write about my experience because hers was so hilarious.

I’d returned from the dentist, not good news there, I need to keep my teeth, that’s going to cost beaucoup dineroes.   I’ve mentioned before I cook for 5 people most nights, there are guys working down here with my husband who have done favors for him (meals when I’m not here, rides to work) so I return the favors by cooking for them most nights and I like to cook for a bunch of people who will eat.  This is all going somewhere, patience grasshopper, I might as well set the stage further, I had on kakhi capris and a tight white t shirt that makes me look like a dolly parton in training.  (the shirt is tight OK?) It starts raining right before the guys get home, we were grilling steaks, actually my husband was since I’m banned from the grill after my last attempt.  So we have an awning on the trailer and we can eat outside in the rain! (we have a screened room but he won’t put it up since his job makes us move often)  Camper awnings often have straps to assist in pulling them down, said strap has a loop on the end so you can grab it with the little handy dandy pulling tool that comes with the camper.  Our loop broke, I sewed it back on, firmly (I thought) and I admit it took me a month or two to get around to it.  So we’d put the awning up because we were gone for awhile, it’s starting to rain and we are trying to get awning down, FAST, loop breaks that I sewed.  It was immediately my fault for not getting a new strap, he did suggest I get one but I said NAW  I’ll feex it, I be gud @ that.  Maybe not like that but you get the drift.

Camper

Here is the camper, it’s 10 years old but it was like new when we got it 3 years ago, to tell you the truth we just took some of the labels off of the fixtures because it looked funny to still have labels on them.  Up high in the shower ( it said do not wash this shower with anything other than baby spit or it will disintegrate before your eyes into a molten puddle of acid, or something like that, I read it every time I took a shower).  It has a slate floor in the bathroom, I don’t like that, hardwood and carpet everywhere else, it’s in good shape.  All but the awning strap oh and the ice maker keeps quitting.

So then husband decides that maybe it WAS NOT MY FAULT THE STRAP had broke and we couldn’t get the STUPID awning down because HE hadn’t released something properly or it went back into place (or maybe it was because I didn’t even stop @ screaming mode and lapsed immediately into cold silence mode when he told me it was my fault because I didn’t get a new strap).  Remember this whole time it’s raining crocodile drops and I have on a white t shirt.  So then the youngest guy who eats with us showed up who shall remain nameless but we will call him Jake and I said YOU help him.  See I’m only 5′4″ on a really good day and this is a tall person job.  So they get it down a bit but without the strap pulling in the middle it’s not coming any further. Husband is NOT a happy camper.  It’s time for steaks to go on the grill and they are getting wetter and wetter messing with awning.

camper steps

So this is when my idiot gene kicks in and I say “would it help if I pushed in the middle”, see there’s this aluminum protective deal that has to unroll @ first and then it gets easy to unroll.  So I stand in the kitchen  and reach up on my tippy toes in my wet clothes and push on the awning as hard as I can WITH BOTH HANDS because it wasn’t going anywhere with one hand.  It does let go and unroll after a minute of pushing by me and pulling by them, but I can all of a sudden touch nothing and all my force is going forward.  Somehow @ my advanced age (that’s a joke I can still out arm wrestle teenage boys) I managed to right myself enough to hit the first step with my feet  (barefoot no less) and then dance down them but the guys were both  amazed I caught myself and didn’t go face first into the ground.  THAT would have hurt.  I have never been that close to falling and caught myself, not sure how I did it.   I’m sure it looked like the 3 stooges out there too.  That wasn’t the end of the trouble, one of the ends needs a little persuasion but we got it out and had t bone steaks in the rain.  I had a hamburger because of my TEETH.

The next day the first thing I did was go  to the camper place on I-10 and got a strap for the awning. Husband installed it last night.  It cost $6.30. I think maybe my idiot gene is kicking in more and more?

The rest of this has not much to do with the story but it’s what’s going on.  The dog on the table, see first picture, tore the screen door btw, I never said he was perfect did I?

More about my TEETH that are going to cost more than a decent car (ok a clunker but a NICE clunker) to KEEP them, if I want to get rid of them it’s cheaper.  The more teeth I get rid of the cheaper it is.  Only the dentist said my mouth is weird, so I would never be happy with dentures unless I had surgery and probably I would not be happy then.  I have extra bone behind my jawbone, some websites said it happened in 25 out of 1000 people, some said it was caused by grinding your teeth (guilty).  I’ve kept my teeth much longer than anyone in my family.  We just don’t have good teeth, I had to have some of my baby teeth pulled and I hardly had sweets, I brush my teeth religiously, when I had braces I had 11 cavities when I got them off.  Brushed then too.  One dentist told me I brushed too much and my husband says this is the case because he doesn’t want to wait for me to brush my teeth before we go ANYWHERE.  I haven’t hardly had a piece of sugared gum since I found out they made sugarless and I don’t eat candy basically. (my dad had a mechanics garage with candy, chips, and soda in it, I could have all I wanted,

So I’m glad I didn’t fall face down from about 4 ft up but maybe if I’d injured my mouth insurance would pay for more of my teeth?  Oh and to top this all off we had an unexpected $1000 expense the next day.  BUT I didn’t get hurt which is good and now we can eat outside and grill in the rain.  It’s cooler here 70s today.

Our marriage has survived a bathroom remodeling (down to the studs in the walls and the joists in the floor and new pipes) in a house we’d moved out of and were getting ready for renters.  Wasn’t pretty and my arm was numb for awhile from pulling nails out of 100 year old oak but we survived.  We also survived farming, midnight farming, that was the worst stress on a marriage I think.  We couldn’t agree which way was UP on a tractor throttle, see it’s in a half moon shape, once you get past say 12 o’clock the lever is going down when you are turning the tractor up?  Do you see?

Farm Road Reflection

Watery Wednesday, click this to go see other water photos.

When the dog and I (animals that give pause) were walking last week as part of my weight loss program I saw this flooded field.  The land is so flat here there (extreme SE TX, USA) are little drainage ditches dug all over the place.  Quite a few of them are not more than a foot deep if that.  I wish some days our lawn had some or was sloped a bit better.  I thought these trees and the fence made a neat reflection.  If you click on the Watery Wednesday picture above it should take you to the Watery Wednesday site to see more water pictures or you can go to the LIST to see all of today’s Watery Wednesday photos.

Did you ever hear Stonehenge was probably a burial site and there was another site nearby that the stones were removed from called Bluestonehenge?

Did you ever know there was a type of music (if you want to call it that) called Horrorcore.  Evidently one of it’s singers killed four people in Virginia including the girl who had asked him there!

Did you ever think much about the Nobel Prize much before Obama won?  Here are 10 facts about it with a pretty good synopsis @ the end about what it is all about.

That’s what I read about @ 6 am this morning.  Now I have to go find a post office and figure out what to have for dinner.  I think husband will have to suffer through tuna casserole.  I like it and it is time.  My recipe, half a bag of noodles, cook em, drain, throw in a can of tuna,  peas, (both drained) and a can of mushroom soup.  Lots of fresh ground pepper. Forget about any carbs for the next day.