Tresa's Blog

I used the term “Hey Stupid” to get my husbands attention as we were leaving IHOP the international restaurant this morning.  My daughter was with us and remarked that people should be around me to know why she acted as she did.  I wasn’t being mean or even derogatory to my husband and I had something legitimate to say.  We know when we are joking and when we aren’t.  The dog also answers to “Hey Stupid.”   If I start cooing and saying lovey dovey things everyone worries.

So then this afternoon I return my 70 year old brothers phone call (I was an afterthought with my parents, he is OLD, I am not).  He is a YOUNG 70 like we aren’t sure which childhood he is in.   He wanted to buy a new convertible a couple weeks ago..and has a racecar…  Anyway he wanted help with his new computer but had gotten it figured out, I know he can figure it out, I did, and I’ve seen him get on my computer so…….

So I get on facebook to  tell the masses there is fresh blood to pick on a new relative who has email.   My nephew replies ——-HE GOT A COMPUTER!!  It just struck me (perhaps because I had discussed the computer thing with the nephew previously) that of course my brother has a computer if he has email.  So what do I do?  Answer nicely?

You surely jest.

I wrote back and said no he didn’t get a computer he receives the messages through his brain waves by sitting there and humming.  Then I waited for the cursing to begin.  I was almost immediately gratified.  But I’m sitting there waiting for the reply and I’m grinning and I suddenly think, WHY does this make me SOOOO happy?  BTW my nephew used the exact curseword I knew he was going to use, perhaps because it fit?

I love my relatives….

1. I did Jillian Michaels  hideously hard tortuous EASY Body Sculpting workout yesterday, the 20 minute wimpy EASY one with the cool down and warm up and all that.  Henceforth Ms. Michaels shall be known in this house as that nasty person, said in the voice like the slimey guy on Boston Legal like naesty peersun.

2.  I will TRY to quit equating my husband who does not do anything necessary on the computer except entertain himself with auction sites and games with a corvette driving down a gravel road slowly.   This happens mostly when I have been trying to get some work done all day and he comes home and gets on the big computer and plays solitaire immediately…

3. I do believe I am justified when we come home after being gone ALL day since EARLY this morning and ending up driving 400 miles in answering him when he asks what I have to feed him (he’s had breakfast and a HUGE DOUBLE cheeseburger on the way home) with ” OH, snarl since I was home all day just lazing around I whipped you up all sorts of good things to eat…completely justified ………

Ms Michels may regain my good graces soon….it didn’t hurt when I was doing it….And I do love my husband, it’s just hard to be nice with these aching tired muscles…

BTW Image is from here..

My husband has been off work for almost a whole month now.  Partly by design and partly because of circumstances.  Availability of work and a wedding and HIS family reunion.

He’s in the house.  He’s on the computer.  I’ve gotten used to cooking every two hours, he’s got high blood sugar but we are doing ww bread now, it’s in the bread maker.  I’ve moved to the apple laptop and given up on the desktop computer.  I cleaned bathrooms yesterday, I will clean closets tomorrow, I’m contemplating washing windows.  It’s been raining but……we can be together 24/7 fine in the truck where he is occupied.  The house not so much, for example I’ve had to take the clicking ink pen or the aimlessly swatting flyswatter away from him more than once.

So I decided he’s on the computer so I decide to watch What Not To Wear.  He takes like 5 minutes of this and has to take the remote away.

So where do we go then?  We go to the CATTLE  AUCTION channel, I suppose it’s a whole channel, it’s endless, cows running around in a field and an auctioneer.  Pretty close to pure hades.  He keeps looking @ me till I finally blow after about 10 minutes..he’s actually commenting on the buyers and cows, I’m heading for the rubber room.

Then it’s the religious channel, then the shopping network, then the exercise channel……any of them are better than the cattle auction although, we are on the PSX 90 or whatever it is…..I told hubby to go for it, meaning he does the psx 90, not me!!!

Supposedly he goes to work tomorrow, we watched bad movies yesterday, April Fools Day was one, he found something that watches the earth now on dish, can we watch grass grow next?

I swear I’m going in the living room and watch what I’ve taped of Grey’s Anatomy, House, and Mad Men!!!

Wife: breaks off light-bulb in garage sale lamp.  Tries to get base out with needle nosed pliers but can’t because she broke the light-bulb by tightening it too much in the socket.

So she takes it to husband, he looks @ it and spends approximately 3 seconds loosening it.

Wife says, “I couldn’t get that no matter what I did, how’d you do this, this is why I have such a big strong husband, THANKS!!”

Then she says “is that enough or do I have to lay it on thicker?”

Husband tells wife to do a physical impossibility which we will leave to your imagination.

I was talking about my hawt relatives the other day……Said hawt relatives shall remain unnamed, maybe if you are related you are one?  I will never tell.  NEVER so forget it.  I love the word Hawt…hot for the uninformed.  It conveys so much.  Anyway I was talking about my hawt relatives to someone and then…..

This is where I”m probably going to get into trouble, want to come watch?

I realized while mowing (I do some of my best thinking while mowing) that not only do and did both my husbands have long arms (a fact that I was oblivious to until a year or so ago) they both have the squinty type eyes.  Not to say this ones eyes aren’t like normal.  They are.  They just have that faint exotic slant to them or they used to.  Not oriental, but almost although he is not asian in any way shape or form unless you count the American Indian/land bridge/ Asian Thing.  Neither was the first one.  Actually the first one was like German and Creole/Evangeline type people with a bit of Irish and the squint came from the GERMAN side?
This is where I get into trouble,  are you ready?  I told my second husband that he wasn’t my type when we first met.  I mean he is completely normal and HAWT.  OK, he is a tad older (and he is older than me) we aren’t talking movie star HAWT but take Mel Gibson?  Bruce Willis NOW without any airbrushing OK, are we talking the former HAWT levels there either?  I used to like skinny guys or so tall they looked skinny.  Biker types.  Leader of the Rock Band types.  I know, I know….wasn’t a good life choice on my part, and I really never ACTED on that I liked this type.  But that’s how I was.  But husband was not skinny when I met him, all macho and nice to look @ but he was more like the normal Bruce Willis Mel Gibson type…not David Bowie or anyone from the Eagles whom I was waiting to come swoop me off my feet?

I’m probably WAY in trouble so I had better quit….

Although I can’t think of ANY resemblance between myself and husbands first wife, she is tall and blonde and was a knockout without makeup, I’m short and dark and I look sort of sick without a bit of eye makeup.  Come to think of it first husband married sort of someone who resembles second husbands first wife…HEY!

To all involved, apologies if you read…….

Kids on patio

We all know the horror stories of step families, I’ve seen some and experienced a few with other step families.  I’m not saying this because I ever really didn’t like the kids (OK there were times but my own have given me some grief too) but because I just wanted to thank them for being what they are and who they are.

The kids call me old witch (all of them) but I don’t mind as other words which rhyme are MUCH worse and I do have dark hair and a big nose….

We had my two girls who were in their teens and husbands two sons that were 8 and 11 when we first got married living with us most or @ least part of the time.  He had two older girls and a girl who was 5 when we got married, she stayed with us every other weekend.  Yes that adds up to 7 children.  There were already grandkids in the equation….

Freezing stuff from the garden 15 years ago.....

I love my biological children.  I expect them to think like I do in certain ways.   It’s just programmed into  every mother.  The last few years I have been able to appreciate fully what we have all accomplished though.   It hasn’t always been pretty but now family gatherings are my most precious moments.  It’s a gentle roar with 7 kids, assorted kids and grandkids?  Plus spouses, spouses to be etc.    I don’t know how long it’s been since we all tried to sit down @ a table, usually we fill a room up with folding tables.

Christmas Two years ago....

My husband and I have only been married 18+ years but these people are my family and always will be through thick and thin.  I didn’t have anything to do with raising the two oldest girls but I’m not exactly a mother figure to them, more like an aunt.   I’ve come to realize what a precious gift I’ve been given lately.  The reason for all of this?  A gradutation, a wedding shower,  a visit from the new mother (youngest step daughter) and 4 calls later in the week one from each step child checking on how I was or inviting me to a family function.  My daughters are on facebook and we talk almost every day on there but  not all of the steps are but they ALL took the time out to call ME, their father wasn’t home this week.  It wasn’t even mothers day!!

I’m not given to extreme emotions (except for occasional anger which we won’t discuss now) and I’m usually way too COOL trying to be snide and dry to say these things but I just had to say them now.  I am so very proud, I’ve always said we somehow got the perfect step family (there is not such a thing but ours is VERY good).  I am so proud of each and every one of them.

There is no sure  formula for step families as far as I can tell.  Tolerance, time, humor and shared experiences and love for the same people are the key I believe.  OK, lots of laughter and good food and kids playing, movies stories, campfires….. and now a wedding…

God has truly blessed me, all of it may not have been what I envisioned when I was 19  but  he has filled my heart.

Me and second oldest Grandson.

They announced it this afternoon, I just found out and found another blog reference to it….divorce blog. This strikes me as rather strange, sort of like Ronnie divorcing Nancy like right before he REALLY got Alzheimers….

I know the Gores aren’t quite that old but….anyway it all sounds like it’s quite amicable which probably means neither one cares whether the other screwed around or not?

Just my 2 cents worth, now I know Tipper played drums and sang backup for Diva Zappa’s album…..strange but true…..

Flip flop picture from etsy…. I would still like to call these thongs, flip flops just doesn’t roll off the tongue?

Now picture flip flops like these only with mother of pearl and amber beading? Got the picture. I WORE these outside with cut off GREY sweatpants and a baggy t shirt this morning. TAN flip flops with grey and black. HORRORS!! We were probably 5 miles from the nearest house, somewhere in the desert but…..I could see the fashion police busting out of the sagebrush, dodging the mesquite saying ah HA!!! We knew you were poor white trash and this proves it!

OK, maybe I’m just weird and like to match?

Now lets talk about people who wear pajama bottoms IN PUBLIC IN STORES??? NONONONO, although I did see a man in Wal Mart once who had on full mens old fashioned pj’s and a robe, calmly walking and shopping, nice pj’s nice robe???

Maybe the low carb diet is affecting my brain?

Oh and you’d have to know my husband and what a tease he is but the low carb thing is working, I have HUGE size 6 shorts on and if he tugs on them they start to go down my hips, evidently this is great fun if done where he thinks I will get mad @ him? Of course I’ve always been able to put his jeans on (on me if you haven’t gotten the picture not on him) and button them and take them off without unbuttoning.

Also sharing my daughters famous line from yesterday, “don’t you DARE pee on my flashlight”. Teenage boys, power outage…..

I found myself measuring my couch for slipcovers this morning, I had had visions of like pretending I was working hard working today on websites and trucking paperwork.

I blogged last night for the first time in weeks (about a snake in the family room), being old  middle aged and a victim of lyme disease I had to look up pottery barn (I accept pottery barn cast offs, I’ll even drive a reasonable distance to get them, LOL), I had to look up pottery barn because I forgot the name.  So this morning I’m clearing off excess tabs on my browser and there was pottery barn.  Which I haven’t visited a month or twofor years.  I go to the sale section and find this slipcover that will fit my couch.  So I’m measuring the couch, it’s only 38 years old.  In my and the couches defense it’s an Ethan Allen Special order (It’s like almost 9 ft long), not pretty but sturdy if I find and put the leg back on, thus the slipcove (it has like two bed throws from wally world functioning as bad slipcovers on it now).

Husband said I needed to buy a new couch, he also said(don’t worry, I’ll wear him down) I couldn’t have a Miche purse or a Vera Wang purse (current fossil I’ve written about before, it’s 3+ years OLD!!)?  Does this make sense?  I think he also didn’t mean the pottery barn slip cover but……..

I can’t remember the lyrics to the song.  That should be a relief although you all have never had the agony of hearing me sing.

There’s a book by C. E. Morgan, All the Living, came out last year, audio this year.  We listened to it a week or so ago in the truck.  It’s a decent book.  My husband will do chick flicks and read Oprah books, yes with his baseball cap and cowboy boots, but this isn’t exactly chick lit.  All the Living is just a pretty good book.

That said there’s a phrase in it that I remember so very well.  Something about you get rid of the loving you’ve got because it seems too hard and go after what you think is easier loving.   Then you find out there’s nothing there where you thought there was easy lovin.

How many of us (100%) can say we’ve been guilty of thoughts like this?   I don’t know how to say this without saying something I don’t mean but my husband and I don’t always have easy loving.  It’s sort of like I can talk bad about him and tell him how horrible he is but no one else had better criticize him because they would be WRONG.  I’ve often wondered about this.  Second marriages are supposed to be more fragile than first, we’ve lasted almost 20 years so it’s sort of a success, especially with all the cards we had stacked against us.  The loving isn’t always easy but it’s strong,  get your mind out of the gutter if it’s there.   Talking frankly we’ve had months where I wouldn’t give you a plugged nickle for him.  Then he turns around and insists we take care of my dad with Alzheimers or tells me I’m prettier than some movie star just in passing conversation so I know he actually means it.  Or he calls me 10 times a day, or practically jumps up and down when I say I will go with him in the truck.  Or I look @ the car he insisted on buying me, (I wish he hadn’t we are STILL paying for it but the thought was there).

I knew when I was a teenager that there were boys and men whom I could walk all over.  Do anything to and they would come back for more.  That would have been EASY lovin and that’s who some of the marriage “experts” and my mother thought I should marry.  I knew life would be duller than dishwater with them.  I was also doing myself a favor by not letting myself be the manipulative b**** I knew I could be.  I was also doing those other guys a BIG favor by not marrying them.  So the easy loving isn’t always the best thing for everyone.  Sometimes it’s hard but if you pull through it’s better than anything else you could have had or @ least I think so.

Anyway that’s what I thought about that book and the message it gives.  It’s worth reading.  I think it would be good required reading before you get married or before you are allowed to divorce.  I know that’s simplistic but it might cause some people to think.