Tresa's Blog

I’m thinking I’ve been on my diet LONG enough.  I opened a new bag of 9-lives cat food just now to give to kitty and it smelled really appetizing…..

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.

My daughter and I visited every gallery we could on this street, Los Olas Boulevard in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Christmas Eve of 2005 and then went to Key West the next day.  Not your typical Christmas but a great one (my daughter paints and so do I, heaven for wanna be artists).  Don’t know if we visited Pocock Fine Art & Antiques but I saw it on this site and was reminded of it all.  The beauty of blogs….I think Los Olas is where they had the pink drawbridge over the canal…I bought this hat close to that drawbridge and gave it to my other daughter.

My daughter and tired tired grandkids

I have more pictures on the other laptop  I’ll try to put on some day.  And BTW if you ever need to drive in Fort Lauderdale?  Forget the turn signal, a horn and a fist plus other hand signs are ALL you need.  First place I ever really had road rage or drove over a concrete median to make a u turn in heavy traffic….you just have to see it.

Update: Wednesday the 23rd—Facebook has set up a page and ways to connect the stranded drivers and to anyone else with help or information.

Topix Link to story and comments.

As one who has had a trucking company and worked for trucking companies I know this is a nightmare.  My sympathies go out to the employees and if the owners were truly trying to keep it together and do the best for everyone my thoughts are with them.  The cause of the drivers being stranded is that the fuel cards were turned off.  I used to have to put $5-$10,000 in the bank every few days for fuel for our trucks and I think there were only 10.  During this time my personal car payments were always late and we got an overdue notice from the electric company every month so it’s not the lap of luxury it looks like.

But as the wife of a truck driver/owner I feel for those drivers trapped @ truck stops through no fault of their own.  I was just thinking how if something happened to our truck we would have to rent a car to get home because of the dog and all the things we have in the truck, refrigerator, microwave, blankets and pillows and rugs I really don’t want to just throw away.  So here are these guys with a bus ticket home but they can only take so much luggage on the bus.  Damiler finance company is paying for the bus tickets.  Daimler financing is paying for the bus tickets for drivers who drove Kenworths and Freightliners which is only right.  I guess Arrow had the trucks refinanced through them (been there done that too) and couldn’t make the payments.    Here’s a link to all the news stories about arrow trucking bus ticket.  I’ve read they had 1000-1400 trucks and 1000 drivers and 300 office employees just in Tulsa OK.

Some people are offering their frequent flier miles to stranded drivers.  One shipper on topix said he shipped a load yesterday and he’s done business with arrow for years.  He goes on to say if the truck driver who took the load will contact him he will give him fuel money and pay to deliver the load and make sure the guy gets home.  What better exemplifies the true Christian Christmas Spirit.  I’m a bit weepy over it.

So if you can’t do anything else give these drivers your good thoughts.  It’s a horrible thing to happen right before Christmas in this already financially shaky year.

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.

Boston in TX Boston being where the Scarlet Letter was, ha ha

They say there are  more people here in this campground or resort or whatever you want to call it (read women home in the daytime)?  I never see anyone till the men come home @ night.   I feel like Hester Prynne from the Scarlet Letter.  I know there are women in the campers during the day, they just never come out.  If anyone who is actually here recognizes the campground I’m sorry but it’s true.  I feel like I’m in an episode of the twilight zone during the day.  One man told me to go visit his wife and then another guy said I should have visited his, they aren’t here anymore of course.  It’s like deserted.  I asked the guys what I was supposed to do go door to door and ask if anyone was home.  They naturally said yes and carry some amway and religious tracts with you.  They are true comedians.  I told my daughter about what they said and she suggested a vacuum also like I was selling vacuums?

There is one girl who lives across the street comes out of the house to get in her car and go grocery shopping.  They have dogs.  She is home alone all day.  She never comes out of the camper.  The dogs never get walked.  Of course they are chihuahuas and she has allergies to things outside I guess?  I’ve never actually talked to her and we’ve been here almost 2 months.  This morning she came out to get in her car as I was doing a lap around the campground because I didn’t want to get caught too far from home when it rained again.  One of the dogs escaped and she yelled @ it, got in her car and drove away, I’m persistent and like to bug people so I waved @ her AGAIN.  I don’t know that she has EVER waved @ me.  Her car windows are tinted so dark I can’t see in to see if she’s waving or flipping me off or what.  Her husband comes over almost every night and sits and talks.  We have the gathering place for our particular part of the company and the campground in our “front” lawn.  Why you ask?  We have the table to eat off of and the shade in the afternoon and more than one lawn chair and my husband likes to talk.

I am sort of an outdoorsy country person and I’m not much for organized exercise but there isn’t much else to do but walk.  But I never see anyone else on the road or in the field walking.  If I really thought people were avoiding me I might be upset (0r tell them to shove it which is probably more likely).  I just think it’s weird I’m the only one who ventures forth.  I’m not insulted or anything.  I just think it’s WEIRD, did I say that already.  The last place we were at was really nice and it was like this too, nothing but me and the dogs our during most of the day.

Looking the other way in campground

So am I Hester Prynne and don’t even know it?  Gives me something to think about when I walk @ least!

Since I named this blog Tresa’s blog and not Florence View like it was on Blogger I’m much more interested in it.  Thus I write more and people read it more even though I use the word thus.  I just thought this was neat, my own name makes me more literary or more of an exhibitionist?

I have to set the next paragraph up.  My husband may look like some no neck grumpy middle aged (we can’t say that old word)  man to you and then you notice he’s got some great blue eyes and still long eyelashes and cheekbones and laughs quite often. I’m NOT the only one that sees him like that but you have to be a female of a certain age I guess.

Matthew McConaughey has a new commercial on, I believe it’s a public service announcement which is quite noble and generous of him.  But the poor boy is looking a bit haggard and gray.  I remember him in A Time To Kill and he was a luscious example of……..well he was just luscious.

We saw that commercial on TV tonight and my husband remarked Matthew was looking a bit peaked, I said (yes we are finally getting to the punch line)  “Yes, Matthew looks horrible, I’d much rather wake up looking at you and not him.”  Evidently this was not a good thing to say?  I thought husband would be pleased I think he looks as good to me as this boy who is young enough to be  his….  well he’s quite a bit younger.  I’m guessing this wasn’t like my husband telling me I looked better than Angelina huh?  It must be in the context?

Oreo Cookies

We were @ my brothers over the weekend.   He ate a cookie by dunking it in water, (he was taking his many pills and just happened to have water instead of milk and I’d like to think that’s why he was dunking said cookie in water, otherwise my brother is WEIRD and considering he is my brother that can’t be so?  Maybe THAT will be incentive for him to get a computer instead of a stupid phone and a bunch of old cars to restore, I mean calling him weird, he can’t be weird he’s my brother?)  So I ask him if his mother would have jumped down his throat if he had dunked a cookie in anything?  Bob said no.  I said that is strange because MY MOTHER would have jumped down my throat (somehow this woman morphed in between children, we are 17 years apart) I told him that proved he was her favorite.  What brought all this on?  I was reading dooce 4/15/05 (I’ve read like 4 blogs from the beginning, I mean LONG blogs, I’m sick that way) and she was discussing eating said oreo.  I am a splitter of the oreo and I carefully remove the icing with my teeth, if alone I may lick said cookie, and then I eat the chocolate cookie.  My husband being of the dunk in milk and eat oreo whole school of thought has always bothered me that he can’t see the virtue in splitting the cookie?  I wonder how many people are irritated by the dunking of a cookie or the proper eating of an oreo and how dull life would be without oreo’s and the proper way to eat them?

1. Waiting till I think world is safely awake to go to Wal Mart for groceries etc. because I have to stop by the landlords (RV Park owner) house to get mail so I can maybe get my google adsense straightened out.
2. Back in TX which is where we call home even though it isn’t our native state?
3. Wondering if I should start wearing t-shirts instead of summer sleeveless tops?
4. Thankful we had such a nice “vacation” @ home and @ my brothers.
5. Listening to Good Morning America about the parents who took pictures of their kids naked, wal mart turned them in, and the children were taken from them for a month.  ?????  Everyone who hasn’t taken a picture of their kid naked please get busy because you will be the only ones out of jail and you are about 1% of the population.
6. Wondering if there is anything I can do about my step daughter who has a baby who lives in a tent with her husband whom the family doesn’t consider suitable.  We have reason trust me.  Think a record for one.
7. Thinking I’ll have to take some sort of nap because I got 5 hr sleep because I stayed up playing with my blogs or I can tough it out today without a nap?
8. Thinking I’m going to have to figure out a way not to eat 2000 calories a day even though I want to.