A Prairie View

links for 2009-08-12

• Imagination Prompt Generator: Writing Inspiration at the Press of a Button
• Life is a Journal - Self Help For Lazy People!: 10 Things to Write in Your Notebook - Revisited
• Daily Writing Prompts

Heaven On Earth

With my size and weight, you will never see me utilizing pool floats lounges. But I have to tell you. They look like heaven on earth. I can only imagine there is nothing more relaxing than floating in a quiet pool, with your drink right next to you, sipping away, eyes closed, warm sun. No cares. No worries. I know this this isn’t an everyday thing (although, I’m sure there are people out there that it might be), but to occasionally grab moments in time of serene pool time … yes… my idea of heaven on earth.

Breaking Tradition

Now that we are firmly into November, its only a few blinks of the eyes before December will be here. Which means, if we are smart, we will be working on that Christmas list in the very near future. There are several : personalized gifts I would like to get several members of our family. Those take a little more time and effort than the normal gift, so if that is what I am going to do, I need to working on it now. In David’s family, we used to draw names, and we’d know a couple month in advance who we were buying for. I wish we still did that — buying for someone specific is sometimes easier than just buying a generic gift within a certain price range. With my new camera, there are lots of different directions I could go. But since that isn’t doable, I will contain my ideas within my own family, and proceed accordingly. I really don’t want to wait until the week before Christmas like we normally do to start Christmas this year. Its time we break that tradition!

Anniversary Travels

We took a whole year, trying to decide what we would be doing for our 25th wedding anniversary, which we just celebrated last week. We wanted to do something special. Travel maybe. But, would we be able to work it out with our work schedules? We kicked around the idea of going to Branson. Or maybe even Las Vegas. But ultimately? We spread it out, and we ended up traveling to just 60 miles away to Topeka for a lovely night of dining at a nice steak place, and shopping to get a couple of “gifts” that we had discussed ahead of time. I had money saved back, so I could buy him a “real” gift, not something off the bargain bin.

The second leg of our celebration involved traveling. My gift from him was a new camera, and I wanted to put it to use. So. We combined work and fun, and went around to all of his trucks that he dispatched for, and checked the tires and other stuff to make sure they weren’t needing anything. And, I got lots of pictures along the way. Spending the day with him was very nice. Something we don’t do very often, esp. on the weekends.

So, no we didn’t need travel insurance for what we did, but it was just as memorable and just our own little bonding time. Worked for me.

Celebrating All Week

Its been a wonderful week, our 25th wedding anniversary coming and going, and yet, we we took on a “celebrate all week” type attitude. The actual celebration was Tuesday night, when we ate at Outback Steakhouse, and then went shopping, buying a new camera and a new TV. This weekend, we went on a couple of road trips — combining work with pleasure. The road trip took us to surrounding towns to check the various trucks that DAvid dispatches for. Yesterday we went south. Today we went north. And along the way, we probably took 300 pictures. But, that was the whole purpose of the trip. I wanted to give my new camera a workout.

Because we were on the road, I wasn’t home, so fixing any meals kinda went by the wayside. I feel like I need the best fat burner the market has to offer. We ate way too much and I am suffering for it. I do beleive its going to be light meals all through this next week to see if we can counteract the big meals we had this weekend.

Staying Balanced

I need to call my nutritionist tomorrow. Its been a couple of weeks since we touched base. She has been monitoring my weight loss blog, so I was just curious to how I was doing, and when we take it too the next step. I know diet pills isn’t part of the process, but there are days I wish it was. Some to just help curb my appetite. I get tired of fighting the battle all the time. We’ve done pretty good this weekend, but part of that has been because we have stayed busy. And that is probably part of it — to stay busy and not get bored. Eating because you are bored. Eating because things seem to spiral out of control. Eating because you truly are hungry. So many reasons, and when you act on all of them … things tend to get way out of balance. Which is where I am right now. But, hopefully, with the help of the nutritionist, we can turn that around.

NAP

Tomorrow I have an appointment with my cardiologist. I pretty much know what he will say. But the good thing is that I have some positive information to give him. The last time I saw him, 3 months ago, he was the one who actually got through to me about considering WLS. I know I am letting this drag out, but I have contacted the hospital who does the surgeries, gone to a seminar, seen a surgeon, and have 3 goals that I need to succeed at before I will contact the surgeon again to set a possible surgery date. Those 3 goals are what I refer to as NAP. Nutritionist. Adequate finances. Pysche evaluation. I need to see a nutritionist and work with her to see if I have what it takes to eat a healthy balance meal. Each and every day. I am a picky eater, and finding that right balance, in my mind, will taken some help. If we can’t get the money together adequately, then surgery is out as well. But, we have been putting money back, so this might not be as much of an issue as the rest of the things I need to do. If we can accomplish these 2 things, then it will be on to the psyche eval. I think doing it last will be more productive than doing it first. Oh, how I wish he just allow me to take Hydroxycut and let me be on my way with that to help me. But, I don’t think its as simple as that. So, I will continue to do what he suggests, and we’ll see how far it will take us.

And The Skunk Won

We love our cat and he has been a member of our family for almost 10 years. But, we were considering packing up the cat supplies and moving him and his supplies outside. We had THE funniest smell in our house for a few days, and Ethan kept saying “I think its Sandy (aka SandyClause). At first David thought Ethan was delusional, but then he walked passed the cat, and decided that maybe Ethan was on track to his line of thinking. We are thinking he has gotten into a tangle with a skunk. He smells awful. And, even though our beloved cat loves us, I just don’t think he is going to allow us to give him a bubble bath, or a tomato juice bath. I keep thinking with time, the smell will go away. This was several weeks ago. He smells just as bad now as he did a couple weeks ago. He’s been an inside/outside cat all along anyway — coming and going as he pleased. So, for the time being, we are trying to make him stay outside, and we keep a bowl of water and food out there for him (and probably all of his neighborhood friends). But until he can not longer answer to the name “Stinky”, he’s staying outside.

Senior Pictures

We are getting things ready for school, which starts in just a few weeks. One thing I wanted to get done over the summer was to get Ethan’s senior pictures taken. His acne has cleared up quite, staying clear on his face, so now would be a good time before he does have an outbreak. We just need to decide who is going to take them. I’m tempted to take my friend’s offer of doing them. She takes really good pictures — she did her son’s senior pictures. At the after Prom activity, Ethan got a coupon for $100 off senior pictures. But when we got an ad from the people who he got the coupon from, the minimum order is $400 (which would be $300), and its just a basic in-studio shoot. We were kinda wanting to do outside pictures as well, and I think that is the next package up. I’m just not sure I want to spend THAT much money. I know this is an important time in his life, and we need to document it with pictures. But. Thats still a lot of money.

Getting Our Name Out There

We see alot of free promotional products come in through the mail. We have seen several different kinds of pens, and even ordered some for the drivers to use at the trucking company. We got a pocket calendar in the other day, and both David and I think we should order some for the driver’s next year. However, the boss thinks they are too small, and thus, doesn’t want to order them. So, unless something changes between now and the end of the year, we probably won’t order them. The main difference I can see between the pens and the calendars, is that that pens can be “left” at different places to get out name out there. The calendars, though, would be a personal item that the guys would want to hang on to and use. And that doesn’t really get our name out there as well. And that, of course, is the whole point of getting promotional products.

Getting Ahead

It feels good to be in a position to go to the bank, week after week, to make our house payment. There was a time in our lives that I would trip myself and if it had continued, we probably would have been looking for foreclosure help. I made stupid choices and stupid decisions. But, David and I have finally worked out a financial plan, that works for both of us, and we are doing just fine. Not great. But our bills are paid and we have a little bit of money in the bank. We aren’t at the point if something major happens, we would be able to breeze through it. We would struggle and very possibly go under. But, for the day to day month to month stuff, we are doing fine, and slowly getting ahead of the game. And that… is many steps ahead of where we used to be.

Enjoying The Day

I really ennoyed yesterday.  It took a little bit of extra work on David’s part to make it happen, but I am so glad that he did.  Usually, on Saturday mornings, he has to be at the office to write paychecks for the all the drivers.  But, on those rare occasions that he knows he can’t be there, he calls all of his drivers on Friday, and tells them he needs their numbers, and he writes their checks, and then our boss is up bright and early on Saturday to hand out the checks to them and answer any questions or problems that might have come up.  Yesterday was one of those days.   Once a month, there is a WLS seminar in Topeka.  Its an informational seminar, to learn more about the surgery, what it is, what to expect, etc.   Since this is something I am considering, and because it will be a huge financial committment, David needs to be (and wants to be) to walk this journey every step of the way with me.  Ethan will play an important part in it as well, and it turned out he didn’t have to work, so he went with us.   A nice family day.   He took notes, and I’m sure retained more of the information that we did.  But we did get alot of informational handouts and booklets, etc, so that will help to as we go over all the material and decide just what it is I will do.

After the seminar, we ate lunch.  They went to Walmart and I went to Target.  We were home by 3:30 and David went to the office to work on something.  Jason and April and the kids came over, so talked with them for quite a while.  Quite a full day.  But enjoyable.

Today I have the house all to myself.  I have alot, though, that I would like to do, need to do, so no afternoon naps for me.  Gotta keep moving.

Storm Free

We finally got through a Thursday without a storm. Ethan usually works most Thursday eveings, and he and the manager joke about it being “Thursday again”. At first, I didn’t think a whole lot about it. But then on the news, they expounded on it as well — that it has stormed every Thursday except for one since April. But, we actually got through another one yesterday — no storm. AND, its 4th of July week — that usually almost guarantees some kind of bad storm. I remember this, because David’s brother has a firework stand, and we always go out and help him secure things. But, all in all, its been a pretty quiet, storm free week! As much rain and and the number of storms we’ve been having, I’m really surprised!

Flying By

This summer is flying by way to fast. Lots of rain, and a little hot weather, but it really hasn’t been bad. Its just going by too fast. Fall will be here before we know it, and then the dreaded winter. I am battling several health issues, and I don’t like it. But, they come from the choices I have made, so its up to me to make better choices to make things better. I have decisions to make, research to do. But it’ll be fine. In the end, it will all work out, one way or the other.

Father’s Day

This actually is working out OK. When we were putting together Father’s Day plans, we had to take into account that Ethan had a 2:00 committment. So, anything we did, couldn’t be done until after 3:00. David said that was OK, he’d probably work a little before we went. He got something like 15 calls “during church” (it was on silent, and he didn’t answer them) — with a couple different problems. As it turns out, he needed this extra time to get somecar parts — well, ok, actually truck parts. A brake pot? got me, but sounds like a necessary part of safe driving. He’s called me a couple of times, and it sounds like he will be able to be home at the appointed time, and then we’ll head out. Nice how things work out that way.

Off The Beaten Path

I wish I could today what I did yesterday. Yesterday was a “stay at home” kind of day, and I was able to my Lasix (water pills) early,and since my doctor upped the dosage, staying close to home was pretty much a necessity. By taking the increased dosage, drinking lots of water, and keeping my feet up, my feet and ankles were in pretty good shape this morning. Not swollen or hurting at all. But, today we had church this morning, and then when Ethan gets home, we are headed for Topeka. So, I suppose a colon cleanse wouldn’t be a good idea today either. Its a 60 mile trip, one way to Topeka, and not many towns in between. So, I will forego taking my pills today and get back on track tomorrow.

Figuring It Out

We were sitting around the campfire a couple nights ago. My son-in-law works in tech support, and we were talking about his job, and what he does. And he said something about a used cisco. I had heard that word before but wasn’t sure just what it was. He tried explaining it to — still unclear to what it is, although I gather it has something to do with the phone system in large companies, which would explain why its not in my vocabulary. The biggest company I’ve ever worked for employed 100 people … and we did have 6 lines coming in. But since then, there is 4 employees at my morning job, and 2 office people at my afternoon job (11 drivers, but they all use cell phones). Maybe someday I’ll understand just what it is, but until then, my son-in-law can continue to try and explain it to me.

Time To Grill

Mostly sunny. Highs around 78. Lows around 46. South winds 5 to 10 mph.

We couldn’t have asked for a better day. Esp. after all the storms that have been rolling through here, and Missori and Arkansas. The sun was shining. No wind. A perfect spring day. David’s brother called and invited us over for a BBQ. David had a meeting at 7:30, and Ethan had Quartet practice at 7:30, so getting together at 6:00 was just the right time. They have a really nice deck, and we just sat around and chatted, while the guys grilled the steak.

Because of the 2 meetings, we did leave by 7:30. My middle son is moving from Emporia back to here, so I had called him earlier to see if he wanted to come over and eat. Ethan had bought 3 huge steaks (this BBQ was a last minute thing — David called me at 4:50 telling me about the plans, and we didn’t have any steak or hamburger, and I really didn’t have time to run to the grocery store. However… since Ethan works at said grocery store, I just gave him a call, and he picked up what we needed). Anyway, I knew Matt might not have everything moved down yet, so if he wanted to eat part of our steak, that would be great. He wanted to keep unloading the truck, so he didn’t come over. I put what steak I didn’t eat on a paper plate, and dished him up some other stuff, and after dropping Ethan and David off at the church, I stopped by his house to give him his food. He had a friend there helping him, so I didn’t stay long. I’ll go see his house laster this week.

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?

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!

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.