A Prairie View

Going To The Weight Room

Ever since Ethan was introduced to the weight room at the rec center in middle school (part of PE), he likes to go up and work out on his own. He often looks at the ads forbodybuilding supplements and asks me about them. I don’t know enough about them to say “yay or nay”, but I would say until he is 18 and finished growing, he had just stick to lifting weights and not look at any kind of supplements to help the process along the way. People are often surprised that he never went out for football. He definately could masqurade as linebacker. Whats even more surprising is that his passions lie within drama and singing. He has a wonderful bass voice, and when his barbershop quarter group sings, you can always pick up on that lower bass voice singing. Somehow, bodybuilding and singing just doesn’t seem to go together, but as he leaves home and gets out on his own, who knows?

A Mighty Victory

Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Friday Feast

Appetizer
Given the choice, would you prefer to live in the country or in the city?
“Country” could be subjective. I have lived in the country — 10 miles from the closest town, and I would just as soon not live in the country. When you work all day, get off work at 5:00, and have a meeting at 6:30 … do you go home, and come back in, or hang around town until the meeting. However … my little town wouldn’t be classified as a city either. I like living in town … but it has to be like where we live now. Small, rural, argricultural. So, if we are taking “city” as in large, large cities, and not small rural towns, then give me the country any day.

Soup
Who is the cutest kid you know?
My grandkids, of course

Salad
Fill in the blank: I couldn’t believe it when I heard the doctor say “she’s gone” (when my mom passed away).

Main Course
If you could star in a commercial for one of your favorite products, which one would you want to advertise?
I know this is probably going outside of the box to what most people will answer here … but … if I were to star in a commercial, it would be for a CPAP machine. I have severe sleep apnea, and that machine literally saves my life every night. I was watching Jay Leno last night, and one of his guests was talking about her husband and his snoring. And what she described … I was mentally yelling at the TV set and at her “GET HIM TO A DOCTOR. HE HAS SLEEP APNEA.” If you loved one snores, and you hear them stop snoring, and then in a little bit hear them gasp … chances are they have sleep apnea. Not getting mine diagnoised early enough has caused my heart to go out of rhythm, and pretty much stay out of rhythm. My mom tried to tell me, and I wouldn’t listen. It was only after I went to see a doctor for unrelated reasons 3 weeks after her death, was the decision to have it checked taken out of my hands, and put in the hands of professionals.

Dessert
What type(s) of vitamins and/or supplements do you take on a regular basis?
None.

Easter Plans

With Easter being so early this year, I have a feeling my sister-in-law won’t be setting out the teak patio furniture for us to have Easter dinner on. Alot of us ate outside on the patio last year, but then, Easter was later in the year as well. Looking at the forecast, it doesn’t look like its going to be a very enjoyable “spend outside” kind of day. I’m not sure we will make it to Sunrise services either. Alot of years we do go, but David is on a road trip tonight, and it looks like its going to be at least midnight or later before he’s going to get home. And then to get back up at 5:30 or 6:00 to start getting ready …. he might. Midnight might not be too bad, but it very possibly could be later than that. I hate it when they make late night trips like this. But, with this particular trip … they need to take 2 trucks out to be fixed, and bring one home (that they had to have by tomorrow evening). So, their choices were tonight, or tomorrow. Tomorrow is a holiday, family time. So, they decided they would get it over with tonight, so they could spend time with family and not have to worry about cutting that time short, and being on the road tomorrow. Our boss says these trips are going to come to an end in a month … he’s getting married. Yeah. Right. I do believe that he’ll get married, but I don’t foresee the late nights working coming to an end entirely. Its hard to teach an old dog new tricks!

Another New Blog

I wonder if there is any kind of addiction treatment for blogging? I just started another blog this weekend. Well, actually, truth be told, I reactivated it. Last fall, I bought 4 or 5 different domains, all with “an idea” in mind of what I wanted to do with each one of them. I have a couple of that still haven’t taken off. I’ve only blogged a couple times in the last 6 months there. As I was posting more book stuff over at Quiet Time With Carolyn, I realized, yes, the blog serves the purpose I am persuing over there. But, for the every day friend and reader, who stops by just to see how my day went and what I’m up to, there is quite a bit of entries that don’t pertain to the every day stuff that they have to weed through. Same goes for this one as well. Thats when the lightbulb went off, and I decided that I would take one of those domains that I am still paying for, but not doing anything with, and dedicate it to just the mundane “this is my life” kind of entries, for time being. And maybe in the process I can incorporate what I wanted to do with initially…which was explore my life — the physical “where I was born, who my parents were, where I have lived, etc” kind of stuff. Just a basic “get to know me” kind of blog.

Something else I am doing with that blog, is incorporating my love for mouse drawn graphics. All the themes and layouts will come from those graphic artists that I have bought from forever.

So. Even though I am starting a new blog, its not totally a bad thing. It is utilizing several things that have been just sitting there, on my hard drive. Things I have paid money for — and its time I find a use for them. As well as make it easier for those who know and love me and want to know whats going on with me — reading the Life and Times of Prairierose just got easier!

Is It Behind Us Now?

I am sooo glad that it is now officially spring. Granted, I know just because it says on the calendar that its spring, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we wont’ still have more cold weather, even snow or ice. But, I’m am hoping the days of having to leave the bathroom faucet running is behind us. We don’t have a basement, and the crawl space underneath the house … well, I think the house has settled, and getting under there to do any kind of work would not be a good deal, not to mention expensive. So, in the winter, esp. when we know its going to be 30 or below, we let the bathroom faucet run a trickle to make sure the pipes under the house don’t freeze. Yes, I realize that runs up our water bill, but its still far cheaper to run continuous water like that than it would be to have to have a plumber come in and fix a broken pipe because the pipes froze. Hopefully, all that cold water is behind us for now!

Dreamin’

I feel like we have a new life ahead of us. Ethan graduates next year. We will have our house paid off, the Explorer paid off and the camper paid off by next year (actually the Explorer will be paid off in the next month, and the camper by the end of the summer this year). Will we continue down life’s path like we are now, working all the time — me @ 2 part time jobs, both of which I love. And David likes what he does, even if he gets frustrated with his drivers from time to time. Or, will we go off on some other course of life. Maybe starting a business of our own? We would probably need the help of angel investors to be able to start anything. I would love to start a Christian bookstore with a scrapbook section and scrappin’ room. Our town did have a scrapbook store, and I honestly thought they were doing pretty good. But, they have closed shop now, so I’m back to having to travel 45 miles or more to the nearest scrapbook store. Who knows, though. Dreams do come true.

Excuses, Excuses

Ok. I’ll confess. I had to Google festool when David and I were talking about work the other day, and he was telling me why he hadn’t hung the bulletin boards we had bought a month or so ago yet. He said something about Festool, and I had no clue to what he was talking about. Bottom line, he was referring to a cordless drill. The boss’s son had it, and he would need to go over and get it, and he just hadn’t gotten it done. Excuses. Excuses.

C Is For Compulsive

C

COMPULSIVE about anything?

Unfortunately, yes.  Lots of things.  Shopping, eating, blogging.   I used to be really bad about compulsive shopping … and I still have my moments.  But, I would like to think I have it better under control.  We still go to Walmart from time to time, and leave with many things that weren’t on the list.  But, we often go months without going to Walmart, or similiar type shopping, so that helps hold the compulsion at bay.  Even so,  I am doing much better than I used to.  I used to go to stores to buy something — anything.  I didn’t know what, and why, but that need to go there, to spend money, was there.  Its been a long time, though, since I have felt like that.  When we go shopping, we usually have a definate reason in mind.  I will probably always be compulsive, but I do feel like there is still hope for me.

Cool Breeze Into The Night

I don’t buy them often, I but I love looking all the different comforter sets that are out there. I was able to find one that was on sale for our camper last summer, that makes our bed area look comfortable homey. I know, what do you need a comforter for in the middle of the summer? But, true be told, we often camp late into the fall, and the evenings and nights are often on the cool side. There is no better sleeping, that having a cool breeze coming in the window, and snuggled under a warm comforter with you hubby. We have had the one on our water bed for several years now. I think its time to start looking for a new one.

Friday Feast

Play Along HERE

Appetizer
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how much do you like your own handwriting?
7. With the age of the computer and keyboarding everything, I don’t hand write things as much as I used to, and it actually hurts now to write much at any great length. But, for most of my life, I kept a hand written journal, and when I did that, I liked my handwriting, and then I would have rated it an 8 or 9.

Soup
Do you prefer baths or showers?
Shower

Salad
What was the last bad movie you watched?
We don’t watch alot of movies … if its a bad movie on TV, we just change the channel. I’m sure we’ve seen a few bad ones, but I can’t think of them, or any names right off hand.

Main Course
Name something you are addicted to and describe how it affects your life.
*sigh. Blogging. My mind is always whirling with things I want to blog about, and there just aren’t enough hours in the day to work 2 part time jobs, keep a house, be a wife and mom, friend, and do all the blogging I would like to do. So, I keep lists, and try to do what I can, when I can.

Dessert
Which instrument is your favorite to listen to?
Saxaphone

Getting Ahead

David and I were talking the other night, and I am really excited. I knew that just one more payment (well actually, its more like a payment and a half), and my Explorer will be paid off. Thinking ahead, I thought what I would do then was … I receive 2 checks a week. One from working at the church, and one from the trucking company. Once the Explorer is paid off, I am going to take the check I get from the trucking company and apply it to the House note that I pay every month. Instead of paying once a month, I’m going to make a payment every week. The payment is $400. Normally, I take home $125 or so from the trucking company each week. I’m going to apply that check to the house note each week, and my church check will be the money I use to get through the week, for gas, for lunches, etc. By doing this, I’ll be paying $500 towards the house note each month instead of $400. The reason I’m excited is because this time next year …. all our notes will be paid off. No vehicle payment, no house payment, the camper will be paid off.

What we need to do is continue making those payments, only “paying” a savings account. I think we will be surprised to see how fast it will grow. And then, somewhere down the line, if we really do decide to build a new house, will have have a good chunk of it already put back. And of course, you don’t move your old furniture into a new house, right? Hitting the furniture stores will be fun, getting to pick out new furniture and making a new house a home. And the best part, actually getting to this point in our lives, where we aren’t living from paycheck to paycheck, and having notes that we have had forever paid off. We both turn 50 in the next year (me this year, David next year). I’m thinking reaching this milestone will be exciting, and we will be celebrating a new way of life.

Friday Felicities

Things That Make Me Happy

1. Walking out into the warm spring air.
2. The sun shining without it being terribly hot.
3. Seeing my grandkids.
4. Learning some new.
5. Getting things completed — things that seem to be major projects and have been hanging over my head for awhile.
6. Scrapbooking with a friend.
7. Receiving a handmade card.

If you want to participate, make you own list, and then over to Becky’s blog and leave your link so we can find out what makes you happy.

Figuring It All Out

I still haven’t quite figured this all out. Next year, the television system will be going all digital. If I understand right, since we get our viewing from a cable company, we should be OK, and not have to do anything. One company has really promoted this, but its not the company we get our cable from. The company we use, I have yet to see a commercial, reassuring us that we won’t have to do anything. Ethan did get online and ordered a coupon from the government, so if we do have to get whatever it is that we need to get to make this change, we’ll be able to save $40 doing so. We have 3 TVs and all of them are several years old, and will probably require, if I’m following what they are saying, a HDMI splitters to make them work right. We may still have to get something, even if the cable company comes through and provides the digital airwaves that we will need. Our VHS/DVD player went kaput. So we bought a new one. But it can’t hook up to our current TVs. New player, old TV. Not a good match. David understands what we need, so I’m not going to worry about it. We’ll get it all set up one of these days.

A Good Place To Work

I love how Ethan interacts with the customers at the grocery store that he works at. Sometimes, I will just stand back and watch him. He has been working less hours because he auditioned for a play, and has had play practice these past few weeks. So, his hours have been mostly on Friday evenings, Saturdays, and Sundays. Where he works, management is really good about working with the high school kids that work there if they have other school committments. Ethan doesn’t play sports, so he took up alot of the slack when alot of the kids where in the midst of football or basketball. And now, its his turn, with this play. So many people have asked where he has been at, they have missed seeing him there. I know he gets frustrated working there — but that just comes with territory, working at any job. I get frustrated with mine. Any one, in any walk of life — whether it be the head of a large company, or a secretary, a blue collar worker, or even someone in market research , frustration is part of it.  Of course, there is some point, where the point of frustration gets to be too much, that maybe you shouldn’t be working there.  But, I don’t Ethan is at that point yet.  He’s young.  Its his first job.  He’ll look back someday, and realize that it really was a good place to work.

Looking Ahead

Because it is a new building, I have really nice office furniture where I work in the mornings, which is the church. The desks and such that we have at the trucking company have seen better days. I would really like to have a computer desk, instead of a regular office desk. The keyboard takes up alot of working area when I’m not working on the computer. We have up to date computers, so at least I don’t have to fight with the old large computers — having a thin flat screen makes a huge difference. David did finally hang the bulletin boards we had bought a month or so ago. I have notes and “cheat sheets” that I need to refer to when I do the billing. Last year, I had them taped to a calendar. But, I don’t have that same large calendar this year, and when we saw these bulletin boards, we thought they would work just perfect on the north wall. I was right, and it also brightened the room up. Maybe someday, we’ll be able to consider new office furniture as well.

Wrong Mom

I can be such a duffus sometimes.  This morning was a classic example.  I don’t even know my own son.  How bad is that???   It went something like this …

Every Monday morning, our minister, our youth director, and I meet at 8:00 to go over our calendars, share concerns that we might have, and then a short devotional.  The phone rings, and we joke that it is probably David or Ethan.  The minister tells him that his mom has flown north — that she went to Alaska.  We all laughed, and then I got up and answered the distressed child’s call. 

Child: “Mom…can you go home and get my binder?”

Me: “Right now?  I’m in a meeting”

Child: “Well, as soon as you can.  I’m in class”.

Me: “*sigh. Ok.  Where is it?” 

Child:  “The kitchen counter, I think”.

Me:  “Ok, I’ll get it, but AFTER the meeting.  I’m not leaving now”.

Child: “Ok”.

Now granted … I remember thinking he sounded a little different, but I justified it in my head that he is just getting over a bronchitis and laryngitis.   But the real clue should have been “binder” …. “kitchen counter”.   Binder would imply that he actually brought the binder in and maybe actually did homework.    But, again, I justified it in my head that maybe he needed to get some papers out of it, and thats why he brought it in. 

Ok.  So I go back to the meeting.  We finish up.  The Youth Director leaves to go to “other job”, and the minister and I talk a little bit … and then I get up and tell him I’ll be back.  I have to go get a binder and take it to the school.

I get home.  I go to the kitchen.  No.  Binder.    I walk the house.  Still no. binder.

I call the school.   I refuse to leave a message.  I want to talk to Ethan.  And I wait for him to get on the phone.

Me:  “What am I suppose to get for you?”

Ethan:  “What?”

Me:  “Binder.  Remember?  You called me.  I. Need.  My.  Binder.”

Ethan: “Mom?  I didn’t call you”

By now, the lights are going off …  I hadn’t been talking to my child.  And now I’m worried, because some kid out there thinks his mom is going to be bringing up his binder, and the mom is going to be clueless, when he gets mad at her for not doing it. 

On the way back up to the church, I call David, just to give him the laugh for the day.  Being the brilliant man he is (I never claimed to be the brightest crayon in the box) — he put 2 and 2 together.  The child I probably talked to was the Youth Director’s son.  He’s in middle school, his voice has already changed to that bass sounding man voice, like Ethan’s.  And…when he called, he probably just asked for “Mom” … and our minister is so used to Ethan calling and asking for “Mom”.  I don’t feel quite so bad though — if our minister thought it was Ethan as well, then it wasn’t just totally me being a duffus.

By the time I had gotten back to the church, the Youth Director was on the phone with the minister — she had called to stop me from having to go home (too late) — her kid called and wanted to know when she was going to bring his binder.  I can only imagine the conversation there …  “you did not call me”.  “Yes, I did.  You were in a meeting with Gordon”.  The things he said, finally clicked that it was HIM who called and I talked to — and he thought he was talking to HIS mom.

What a hoot.  We aren’t going to forget this for some time to come.  I’m going to have to give Alex a hard time when I see him.

Camping Season Soon

Today was a really nice day, and a forecast of warm and sunny days ahead of us. Maybe spring really is right around the corner. I hope so. I am ready for those wonderful spring days. We plan on doing alot more camping this year, and would like to start early this spring, before it gets too hot. I love the sereneness of it all, sitting around the campfire late at night, talking and just watching the fire burn. Its something we do as a family, and we don’t seem to do that nearly enough, esp. during the winter months. Often, we camp, the guys go out fishing and doing “guy” stuff, and I stay back at the camp sight … we have a 5th wheel, complete with A/C, so I know the concept of “roughing it” goes out the window, but thats OK. It gives me time to read, and scrapbook … and I even take my laptop out. Even though we have a wireless router, we don’t get internet reception where we camp at. So, on the weekends that we camp, I try get all of my blogging stuff done before we go out. I do take pen and paper, so I can write down notes and thoughts of things I would normally sit down and blog about. Granted, I probably go through internet withdrawal, but I know it does me good to step back from it, and give my real life a chance to breath without involving the internet.

A Parcel of Land

I know this is a major step for anyone, and its still one of those “I’ll believe it when I see” kind of thing.  But out of the blue lately, David has been talking about building a house.  He even has the ground all picked out.  No, we won’t be looking at Wilmington real estate, but actually a parcel of land his dad owns. Right now, his dad plants a yearly crop of sunflowers on it; but David and his brother have been kicking around the idea of buying 10 acres each on the south end of the field. Its an 80 acre patch, and there is a creek that runs through it, and we would get the ground south of that creek. The acres we are wanting has a hill, and we keep thinking it would be perfect for a walk out basement … except that it would be facing the north/west (the walk out part. The front of the house would be facing south/east. He has several ideas, and I honestly don’t care what we do. I’ll give my input when it becomes a reality — but my main “request” — a “It Has To Have This” — is a storm shelter or a tornado room. We are building on a field — its out in the wide open space. I want. a. safety. room. No matter what. either a room, or a storm shelter to go to. Beyond that, I’m pretty flexible to what we will or won’t do. But, I’m not budging on the shelter.

All Natural

As I am getting older, finding all natural skincare products, has become more and more important to me. It seems like my skin has changed over night. What used to work last year, now drys my skin out. I’m sure soon-to-turn-50 doesn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t wear alot of make up, so when I go shopping for skin care products, I just kinda feel out of my comfort zone of knowledge. How do you know which product you should buy, and what works and doesn’t work. So, lately, its been more or less trial and error. I have found a couple of brands that I like, and aren’t too expensive, and they are all natural, so that is a good thing as well. I keep thinking life would be so much easier as a man; but then, seeing my husband shave this morning, and reminding my 17 year old son that he probably ought to shave, I realize that maybe being the fairer of the two sexes is a good thing.

California Dreaming

When we did visit those friends that I mentioned in my last post, they didn’t take us to any Pacific Beach bars, but they did take us up the coast to wine country, and we visited a winery, which was memorable experience. We don’t drink wine, but at that time, we were a part of a family owned manufacturing plant , so it was very interesting to tour another form of manufacturing , to watch everything involved in making wine, how it was produced, and then, because of background, we were also interested in the marketing and other aspects of their product. I’m sure they didn’t get people like us in there very day. I still have the bottle of wine that we purchased that day. We knew we would probably never open it, but we did want to take away a piece of that day.

Something Out Of A Magazine

We have friends who live in California. The last time I talked to them, they were giving their house a facelift in San Diego. When we were out in their part of the country in the mid-90’s, we spent a couple of days with them, and I thought their house was beautiful beyond belief then. But they are wanting to add on, and do some minor remodeling with a couple areas of the house. My favorite part of their house … well, actually, I had two favorites … the deck, and their living room. The deck was just something out of a magazine. The view from there was breath taking. Sitting out there, while drinking your morning coffee (ok…Diet A & W Rootbeer for me…) would be something I would be doing every day if I lived there. I can just see myself, with pen and paper, or a laptop, and just looking out at the view and finding the inspiration to just write, write, write. Another inspirational place to write within their humble abode was the living. They had a couple of overstuffed chairs, as well as this really comfortable sofa, which circled around a fireplace. Again, just one of those things that draws you, and you find peace within your soul. These are amazing friends. With an amazing house.

Cold and Flu Season

Its been a season of colds and flu around here. David was down 2 weeks with the flu; and Ethan missed all but one day of school last week, went Monday of this week, and missed today — with conjunctivitis. The infection he had last week moved to his eye. So far, I’ve been pretty lucky and stayed pretty much sick-free. So far. I do dread it when I get sick (yes, I know. None of us ever relish the thought of getting sick). Not only do I suffer through whatever it is that made me sick — whether it be throwing up, or a bad cold, or bronchitis … but also, whatever sickness I get tends to mess around with my heart as well. My heart is already out of rhythm. And when I get sick, then it just seems to beat a little (alot!) harder and faster. And then, there is also that breathing thing. I sleep with a CPAP machine every night, and if you have a stuffed up nose, then even help from a Miami rhinoplasty procedure isn’t going to help. Then it becomes a catch-22. I have to sleep in my recliner because I can. not. sleep laying down without my CPAP machine. Even under the best of circumstances, just laying down without it makes my heart do wonky things. And we don’t even want to think about what happens when I sleep without. When I was first diagnoised with sleep apnea, they said over 150 sleep apnea episode. Thats 150 times that I stopped breathing. Its no wonder my nights were filled with dreams of not being able to breath. That was literally happening! Knock on wood that I continue to stay healthy through this active cold and flu season.

Gone Are The Days

I look at Ethan, and find it hard to grasp the concept that this is almost our final year. This time next year, we will just have months left, and then he steps off into life, and being an adult, and my years of rearing children will be over. Gone are the days of giving bottles in the middle of the night. Gone are the days of toilet training boys. Gone are the days of “read me another story, Mommy”. Gone are the days of little league and swim team. Right now we are in the days of proms and senior pictures. Looking at college brochures, and talking about what the future holds for this fine young man that stands before me. I’ve done this before. I have 4 adult children. You would think I wouldn’t notice that our days are limited, that I’m just repeating something I’ve done 4 times before. But, with the other children… we were living the years of chaos. I didn’t have time to hardly breathe, much less process the children leaving home, with 4 teenagers and a baby. But with Ethan, the last 10 years its just been “the baby”, and the “baby” has grown up, and now, in just one short year, I will be an empty nester. After 33 years, I will no longer have a child living at home. What a concept. I wonder what lies ahead for me? I think I see bits and pieces of it now, as our paths cross from time to time, with his school and work schedule, there are days and weeks, I don’t see a whole lot of him. And yet. I know the house is going to be a very quiet, almost empty feeling house without him here.
Where have the years gone?

Monday, Monday

I’m glad I had a good day.  David sure didn’t.  It was most definately “A” Monday for him.  Started out bad, and went downhill from there.  As for me, it was a nice quiet morning at the church.  I got stuff ready for the board meeting tonight.  Didn’t have to do prayer cards because where I have been buying them, they haven’t restocked since the last time I was in there.  Our treasurer bought some nice cards for the elders to send throughout the year to the people that are on their shepherding list. so I’m going to have him order some for me, and pay him, and I’ll be all set for next month.   My boss (our minister) is wanting to get his sermons added to the church’s website, and since this is the “off” week (i.e. — no newsletter to get out), this would be a good time to work on that.

I had a nice lunch with a friend.  David was going to join us, but at the last minute, he got a call about truck trouble, so he had to go deal with that.  I ordered him something to go, and took it out to the office, so that worked.

His afternoon continued to escalate into disaster, with more calls about truck trouble.  When it rains.  It pours.  Monday’s are typically billing for me.  But, he has to check through the paperwork first, adding pay #s, and making sure the driver’s billed the load at the correct amount.   He never got that far.  The envelopes are still sitting where he put them Saturday when the driver’s gave them him.  Didn’t break my heart that I didn’t have to do them.  I was able to work on some other things — got the checks worked up from the weekend ready for a deposit;  after that, I just had some loose ends that have been sitting there for a while.  So, thats a good feeling, to be that much more caught up.   Now, to just get the billing done tomorrow.  Assuming he gets it checked.   He’d better!   But, I can’t say much.  He did . not.  have. a good day.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.