Tresa's Blog

Let me make this clear.  I clean the gutters @ my house.  On a tall ladder, when the ground is wet.  Sometimes the ladder tries to go down and I’ve been known to balance it back into submission.  I’m 52.  I resent the life alert commercials.  My daughter calls to see if I’ve broken a hip.  My teenage grandsons still won’t arm wrestle me.  Not too long ago I moved a large deep freeze outside by myself, wooden rolling pins and towels on hardwood.  I detest the senior things I get from AARP.   I moved a couch from one house to another and down to my basement by myself a few years ago and I had lyme @ the time.  (I was angry, was angry when I moved the freezer too, don’t make me angry unless you want furniture moved, come to think of it my daughter and I moved a washer and dryer ALL by ourselves a few years ago from ONE HOUSE TO ANOTHER and we were both mad @ the time)  I’m getting some of those “creases” in my cheeks that won’t go away all morning, some call them wrinkles.  I am not NEARLY as old as my parents were when they were 52 and they were a whole lot younger than their parents were @ 52.

Gimme a BREAK!!  Do I have to get old right now?? Could we put it off a few more years.  I’m pretty sure I don’t have getting sloppily drunk in me anymore but I thought that before the last time too.  4 large quadruples is a bit much for a girl,  what’s a quadruple?  lots of royal crown, little 7 up in a 16 ounce cup.  I’ve started eating right, I haven’t had a brownie in weeks (lindor chocolates on sale do not count as junk food though, didn’t you know?).  Can’t we just do this old thing another day? I still enjoy men opening doors, I seldom get a whistle anymore but they do run to open doors….I’m thinking they are too winded to whistle?  The kids haven’t been gone that long, actually one just left home for the last time (I think) 3 years ago and none of the others have returned.  So I’m not ready to settle down just quite yet?

I was going to let the hair go grey?  Yeah right.  It wants to be this light brown reddish shade when I color it and I’ve decided to just give up and let it have it’s way.  What’s $8 every month or so?  I didn’t say I used EXPENSIVE dye did I?  I’m going to fight tooth and nail, somedays I want to give up and I admit some days I go out in public without makeup which isn’t like me but nobody has ran shrieking yet so it’s all good. I may have to graduate from the generic heavy duty face cream to the high dollar stuff.  Where was this stuff when I was 30 or even 40 and toning my face with alcohol?  Not the crown royal, rubbing alcohol.

So how do you feel about this aging thing they are trying to push on us baby boomer tail end hippies?  Sucks doesn’t it?

Me in the Mirror

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.

I was cleaning off the patio (used to be garage apron) tonight and my cousin’s husband stopped by.  Nothing unusual in that because I’m surrounded by cousins.  We were talking about his wife who has survived liver cancer for over two years.  It was bad, not long after she found out she had cancer they called the kids in to say goodbye they thought.  Then they gave her one shot with chemo and it got a bit better……She’s taught school the last two years!

I had blood clots earlier this year which is nothing like cancer and they weren’t even bad blood clots, I now live healthier and my husband gave up smoking not exactly because of the blood clots but it was a wake up call to us both.

So that is what I”m thankful for other than a loving husband, a great familiy (sometimes), a few good friends, and the ability to enjoy it all.

What I’m NOT thankful for is the TV commercial down south they have for the “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” monitors for elderly people, there is a discount for people over 50, grrrrrrrrrrrr.  70 maybe but 50??  So I just finished cleaning about 100 ft of grass growing in cement cracks and then cleaned off the concrete, discount on I’ve fallen buttons my royal red… well you get the idea.

So what are you thankful for or not thankful for today?