Happy Birthday Britt

My baby girl turns 21 today. It's been a rocky road sometimes with this beautiful young woman. When she was 13, she decided she couldn't live with her brother and me any more and asked if she could go live with her father.

I knew exactly what he would say, but I told her if that was what she wanted, she would have to call him and ask if was okay. He gave every excuse in the book as to why it wouldn't be a good idea. The clincher was that the out of state tuition would be too much. Give me a break! Tuition in 8th grade?

Since that didn't work out, Britt asked if she could go live with Grandma and Grandpaw in Indiana. That was about as successful as talking to her father. Who do you think he learned the BS from?

After all was said and done, miss Britt spent six weeks going to school in Reno, NV and living with my sister and her husband. At 18, she turned around and went back to live with my sister again because that was when Jimbob and I got married and she felt alienated.

Last year my beautiful little girl got married to some guy 10 years older on Mother's Day. I didn't know a thing about it until my sister asked why I hadn't told her that Britt got married? It seems they only bothered to tell his side of the family. I still have yet to even speak to the guy. When she calss I hear in the background, "Who are you talking to?"

I have my conjectures as to why they kept the wedding a secrete, but it doesn't matter because it's already done. I pray every day that my child is happy and safe. I could have shut the door on her because of the hurt she caused me, but who would I be kidding? She's still my baby and I want her to be happy. And if things don't work out, she knows I'm still here for her.

Useless Trivia

I’m sitting here totally bored. That doesn’t mean that I have nothing to do. But after so many years, the days all start looking alike. When the system is slow as it is today, I start thinking of all sorts of things.

No wise cracks about the thinking part. Just because I’m blond doesn’t mean I can’t think. Anyway, I thought I’d compile a list of totally useless trivia for my amusement.

Did you know that honey is the one food that never spoils? It is also used for medicinal purposes but should never be given to a child less than one year old.

There are as many flags as there are countries in the world and the most popular color combination is green, white and red.

Richard Nixon is the only vice president who ran for president and lost then came back four years later and won.

Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony after he was completely deaf.

The Puli and Komondor dog breeds do not shed even though they both look like walking rag mops.

The term “Head of the table” came from old days when there was normally one chair at the table. It was reserved for the master of the house. Everyone else had to stand.

Now wasn’t that very enlightening? Given more time I could come up with more, but I don’t want to burn up my blond brain.

TA TA for now. Have a terrific, if trivial, weekend.

Happy Birthday Mom

Yesterday was my mother's 88 the birthday. Considering she had a major stroke in '95 and wasn't expected to live that's something to crow about. (That's her on the left.)

Unfortunately her world has narrowed considerably in the past few years. She lives in a senior's apartment where she has many opportunities to socialize with other adults, but she wants nothing to do with those old people as she puts it. She could have community meals if she wanted, but again, no way, no how.

This puts a real burden on my sister who lives 20 miles away. Mom expects Joan to drop everything when she calls. And if Joan doesn't come running she hears about it for a good month. If Mom just had some friends, it would help.

As I started to say, I called her on my way home from work to wish her Happy Brithday. After we say hi, how are you, there's not a whole lot more to say. I'm not exactly Chatty Cathy so it's very difficult to talk about nothing. And Mom is even worse, but at least I called.

Monday FUN!

I don't remember going to the dentist being so hard when I was younger. My two hours in the chair yesterday PM about did me in. Maybe I should have taken the laughing gas the doctor offered me. Although I've never needed it before, so I said no.

Okay, so I've had caps put on two teeth at once in the past, but never three. Heredity was not kind to me when passing out teeth and hair. I'm not sure where my hair has gone...is going, but my lower front teeth have worn away to nubbins over the years. It has something to do with the porcelain caps on top being harder than my real teeth on the bottom.

I'm not exactly in pain this morning, but I don't want to take on a Kaiser roll or anything else harder than a bowl of soup or a banana. In fact I probably won't want to close my mouth all the way for the next week.

But I'll be so beautiful when it's all done. I've been putting it off for years because of the cost. I decided that it was time when I discovered one tooth was worn nearly into the nerve cavity. Well anyway, there goes a fast (if not painless) $2,250.00.

Weekend Warrior

We had rain yesterday. To some of you this may mean nothing, but...to us drought starved north Texans, all I can say is YAHOO! It sarted with the thunder boomers about midnight Saturday night and rained off and on all day yesterday. I have to admit I was more interested in the rain than the sermon at church.

While this wasn't conducive for getting out and cleaning up the yard, I'm sure we'll have all sorts of things sprouting and turning green. Just add water. This has been a very strange winter for us. The lowest temp was 17 degrees and highest 80. Problem is you never know what to expect.

On another note, I spent most of Saturday assembling two very large bookcases. I had picked them up Friday on the way home at a place called Ikea. It's an extremely large warehouse type store. When I finally decided which bookcases I wanted (there was a whole shit load of them), I tried to retrace my steps back to where I found them.

Now I'm not the type of person who can't find my way out of a paper sack, but I got lost in a stupid store. Somewhere along the line I jigged when I should have jogged. I finally had to ask a salesperson where the escalator was. As she so kindly pointed out to me, I couldn't get out that way because the escalator only goes up.

I didn't want out (not yet , anyway) I figured if I went back to the escalator where I came in, I could recreate my shopping adventure and find the damn cookcases. And I finally did, but it took awhile.

After copying down all the pertinent info from the sales tag, I followed all the signs to the "Self Serve" furniture pick-up. Next hurdle was to wrestle two boxes, 34"x72"x3" and weighing in at 47 lbs (but who's counting?) onto a flatbed cart, steering this thing without the benefit of a guidance system to the checkout counter, wait for the couple in front of me to dig out $5.83 from their collective pockets, pay for all my goodies and proceed to the loading spaces in front of the store.

Seeing as how I couldn't load those suckers by myself, I had to leave my $150.00 purchase setting there all alone, bring my car up and find some kid to lever them into the back of my Jeep. And I do mean lever. We had to slide them in on edge all the way up between the front seats to the dashboard. This made for great driving visibility.

Anyway, as I started to say, I spent Saturday afternoon putting them together. I had a couple of tense moments when I thought I was going to have to return them because a part was missing, or wrong. But in the end, I have to hand it to those Swedes. Everything was there and miracle of miracle, it all fit. The second one took a third of the time as the first one did.

I managed to wrestle them into place all by myself and even started loading books that were scattered around everywhere. Jimbob arrived home about then and I could see by his face that he didn't like them. Well tough titty fella, you can go with me to Ikea next time. FAT CHANCE!

It's Friday and I think I'm alive. I stayed home yesterday because my eyes felt like rotten grapes that were going to explode at any moment. Damn sinuses again. In fact I haven't felt good since we got back from Galveston, but I couldn't stay home since work has picked up again.

This morning I feel like if I sit in one spot too long, I'll fall asleep. And wouldn't you know it? After laying around most of yesterday, my back is bothering me today. That's why I keep a heating pad at work.

I know, piss and moan, piss and moan. But some times I'm entitled. Just ask me.

Speaking about pissing and moaning, one year my ex-hubby and I went to a dude ranch in the mountains above Tucson, AZ. We were on an early morning trail ride when the horse in front of me started (you guessed it) pissing and moaning. The woman behind me got very alarmed. She cris out, "Oh is someone hurt?" Yeah right lady, you should enjoy life so much.

Just Checking In

I was reminded yesterday by a friend that I had not posted in quite some time. The deluge at work that I had been anticipating STRUCK. It's the same every year. We go from very slow because all our projects are winding down and the budgets for the new year have not been approved.

Last Wednesday, I nearly had a melt down. The woman I have been training the last couple of months has decided that she knows more about our job than anyone else. Between myself and the other estimator, we have roughly 50 years of experience, but our trainee knows more than the two of us out together.

When she started to tell me how to do my job I came very close to smacking the stupid fat cow! It takes a lot (probably too much) before I go ballistic and she pushed my hot button. I had to bite my tongue, because the boss appears to be taken in by all of her "look at me" tactics.

I stepped back and said fine, since she knows it all, she doesn't need my help to crash and burn. She can carry a full load like the rest of us and then let her see just how marvelous she is. So far all she's done has been very abbreviated in a very leisurely pace. For once in my life I'm going to tell someone "NO!" when they ask for help. She can be the sand in somebody else's wedgie.

HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

I"M BACK! Galveston was WONDERFUL. I had lots of time to relax, eat, work on my book and walk on the beach when I finally convinced Jimbob to go with me.

Of course I could have gone alone, but what fun is that? One morning when he slept late, I walked over to Wal Mart and bought a swimsuit and a Galveston t-shirt. After that I walked across the road to the seawall and down to the nearest pier.

The water was warm enough to actually wade. The last thing we did on our way off the island was to stop and feed the seagulls all the little scraps of bread we'd been saving.

Now I have to get caught up on my webpage design class and my domestic responsibilities (yech!), so it may be a few days before I can visit everyone again.

I highly recommend Galveston as a place to visit. In fact, I'd love to move there.