Saturday, October 17, 2015

In Sickness And In Health: Ten Things Of Thankful

This week went by in a flash, and it's a good thing, because that little cold named Melinda that I had last week? Yeah, well, on Wednesday, it grew teeth and claws and horns and turned into a sinus infection and completely wiped me out. Maybe the week went by so quickly because I was in such a fog? Something to ponder. In sickness and in health, here's this week's Ten Things of Thankful:

 1. We've had stunningly beautiful weather all week, with clear, blue skies and pleasant temperatures. 

2. Monday afternoon, I stopped at Walmart (the Supercenter, not the neighborhood market, and while this may not seem like a significant difference to you if you do not go to either, it really is a big one; a neighborhood market is just like any grocery store, but a Supercenter has the groceries plus all the other Walmart stuff and generally attracts a somewhat different crowd), because I needed some Rubbermaid tubs. As I was pushing my cart through the store, picking up a few other items while I was there, I had not one, but TWO men flirt with me. Okay, they were senior citizens, but still, they were both rather dapper, dressed nicely and clean and with either all their teeth or very nice dentures, and it was cute and made my day. Shut up.

 3. While I was at Walmart, I found a display with different dried fruits and nuts on it, including roasted and salted edamame, so I picked up a package of it. It's pretty tasty, although there is a moment while you're crunching it up when your mouth gets kind of dry and you would swear you have a mouthful of salty kitty litter. But it's a nice, fairly healthy snack to have around, plus it doesn't take a whole lot to satisfy you....

 4. Tuesday, my daughter's volleyball team played in West Plains (birthplace of Porter Wagoner), which is a three hour drive from here. My friend Melinda (yes, THAT Melinda) and I drove there together, and we probably had more fun than is allowed by law. 


5. I found a restaurant on Tripadvisor for us to try on our way, and we both declared it was one of the best meals we have ever eaten. If you're ever in Seymour, Missouri (don't laugh, you might be some day), then visit Rusty Spurs Cafe (turn at the Casey's General Store and go one block or so - you can't miss it; it's the only other building on the road). 


6. Oh, yeah, the volleyball games went well.


7. We went to the pumpkin patch this week at preschool. Glorious weather, adorable preschoolers, and no one cried or wet their pants (always my litmus test for a good event).


8. Wednesday afternoon, Melinda the Cold moved into my sinus cavities, and by Thursday, my head felt like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. That was not good, especially as we had our last volleyball home game of the season that evening, but I had my husband stop at the Neighborhood Market on the way so I could get some kind of decongestant that might help. Lo and behold, I found one for only 88 cents for 20 caplets AND IT WORKED. By Friday morning, the crud started breaking up and making its exit (not pretty). 

 Note to whoever decides where on a shelf a product should go: medication for sinus pain and pressure should NOT be placed on the very bottom shelf where the person who's suffering from sinus pain and pressure has to bend over to get it.

 9. In the midst of dealing with Melinda the Cold, I got the loveliest of texts from Ivy of Uncharted. In spite of her plethora of health issues, she was checking on me to see how I was feeling AND SHE SENT ME A VIDEO OF MY CHICKEN. I heart you, Ivy!

 10. Best part of the week: One of the boys in my Primary class gave me a spontaneous hug at recess and said "I love you more than anything in the whole world. Except for my dad." Fair enough, sweet boy!

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Sunday, October 11, 2015

Small Town Saturdays Are For Thankfuls

I am inspired this week by Christina at The Plagued Parent as I write this week's Ten Things of Thankful. Some weeks, it's easy to come up with ten things for which to give thanks. Really great weeks make it difficult to limit the list to ten (and why limit yourself, then, when you have so much to be thankful for? Go with it!). 

 Then there are the weeks where the bad overshadows the good so much, the thankfuls are hidden from you. That's when you pull out thankfuls like Diet Coke and indoor plumbing and electric pencil sharpeners. 

 Then there is this week. Nothing horrible, but a little bit of a Sad Sack cloud hanging over my head and a stuffy nose and cough that may be allergies or may be a cold named Melinda.

 That's when you play fast and loose with the rules of the TToT (some might call it cheating, but not me, or at least, not now). Here is my Ten Things of Thankful, told mostly in pictures.

 Saturday, my husband and I drove an hour north to the little town where my parents live (they spend part of their time there, part at the lake house). If you want a taste of REALLY small town, midwestern life, this is your place. The reason for our trip was to attend a fundraiser that my husband needed to go to for work. 

 In a big city, you wouldn't get much turn out for a little fundraiser dubbed "Octoberfest" and held in a vacant lot near the square. In a town of less than 8,000 nestled among soybean fields and pasture land, this was an Event. And it's what small town America is all about: fellowship and simple fun mixed with good food. I'm thankful ten times over (see how I did that?) that I live in the heart of America.
You've gotta have a petting zoo.

My parents, visiting a booth.

Alpaca butts. Just because.


Local singers on a stage made from a flat bed trailer.

Tables for eating chili from the chili contest or just resting.
Need a place to sit? Find an empty chair and sit down.
It doesn't matter if others are already seated at the table;
the more, the merrier!

4-H representing.


Men coming to the rescue of an older woman on
a scooter who got stuck in a rut in the ground.

Pig farmers. Correction: REAL pig farmers.


Kettle corn.

Sun tea on top of the Red Cross funnel cake trailer.


The courthouse peeping over the buildings.

The guy who made balloon animals was very popular.

A rare picture with my husband, who is camera shy.

See? Thankfuls don't have to be laid out in a list! 

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Wednesday, October 7, 2015

One Of THOSE Days

It was just one of those days....

 Today was Primary class day at preschool (3 year olds turning 4 over the course of the year). One of my students started the day by refusing to sit down in her chair and her mood (and mine) only deteriorated from there. We've been going to school for a month now, and the class still can't walk in a line down the hall (and there are only 7 of them!). It's like herding cats to get them from point A to point B. Several of them are having trouble sharing toys, which is a nice way of saying they ruthlessly grab toys from each other, leading to a tug-of-war over the toy, bawling and/or tattling, all of which were exhibited during Center Time. Juice was spilled. Playground rules were broken (don't pick up the mulch, don't pick up the mulch, DON'T PICK UP THE MULLLLCH!!!). The Sad Chair had a bottom in it more often than it didn't. And one of those damn hairy web worms fell out of the sweet gum tree on the playground and landed on my arm. 

 A day like that can only get better, right?

 Soon after school dismissed at noon, I was outta there, heading to Springfield, an hour east of here, to spend the afternoon taking the College Boy to lunch and to do some clothes shopping, then going to one of the high schools in town to watch my daughter's volleyball game. I had just left town, was in no-man's land between our town and the next one 15 miles away, jamming to the BeeGees on the radio, when I heard (and felt) my car run over something. I sure didn't see anything coming, and I didn't see anything on the road behind me when I looked in the rear view mirror, and while I most assuredly ran over SOMETHING, there seemed to be no repercussions from it. Kept driving. Kept singing. 

 Aaaaand BANG!

 Stopped singing. Wrestled the car to the shoulder just past an exit sign. Just. Past. In between cars whizzing by at 70 mph, I opened the door and stepped out long enough to see that my front tire on the driver's side was very, very flat. 

 Did I panic? Nahhh. I very calmly called AAA and explained what happened, but when the agent asked me where I was, I realized I had no idea. I mean, I knew what HIGHWAY I was on, but I didn't know where along that highway I was. There were no buildings, no signs (save for the one that said "exit" right next to me). Just trees. So I made my best guess of what the name of the exit was where I sat (turns out I was a little off), and I was informed a tow truck would be to me within 45 minutes.


That is a long time to sit on the side of the road, but the bright side was that it was, literally, bright and sunny outside and not in the middle of the night. I sat there, 4-way flashers on, car running because I figured the last thing I needed at this point was a dead battery, my seatbelt on in case anyone slammed into the back of me in spite of the 4-way flashers being on, felt sorry for myself, and contemplated whether or not I should cry (I opted not to). I amused myself while I waited for the tow truck by sending my husband texts, even though I knew he was in a meeting, and playing Candy Crush. After about half an hour of being fairly certain I was going to be killed by a speeding car careening into me, the tow truck driver called me. 

 He had been driving around the area where I had told the AAA agent I thought I was and couldn't find me. 

 "What are you near?" he asked me.

 "An exit sign," I answered. "But I don't know which exit."

 "What do you see on either side of the road?"

 "Trees. Just trees."
On my left.

Straight ahead.

On my right.

Five minutes later, I see my knight in shining armor pulling up behind me (not my husband, the tow truck driver). After a brief conversation about how I was only about 5 miles off of my guess of where I was (on a stretch of highway that was only about 7 miles long), he asked me if I had a spare.

 "I hope so," I said. "I never needed it before now." 

 "Do you know where it is?" he asked.

 "Ummmm..."

 "Never mind. I found it."

 I will tell you that he removed the spare from its super secret hiding place, aired it up, jacked up the car, took off the flat, put on the spare, and put the flat tire in the back of the van in 7 minutes, and that included the times he had to run around to the front of the car (if he had enough time) or throw himself against the side of the car (when he didn't) to avoid being smashed to smithereens by a passing car.

 During the changing of the tire, I finally got a text from my husband, who had just gotten out of his meeting and saw all of my text messages. Even though I told him I had everything under control, he headed towards where I was (which I still wasn't real clear on the exact location), arriving just as I pulled onto the highway. He followed me to Walmart, where they had exactly zero customers in the auto center. In only about 15 minutes, I had a shiny, new tire and my husband, who decided to forego the rest of his plans for the day (things like work) had me park my car in the Walmart lot (which I did, carefully parking it under a security light in the parking lot, as it would be late when we got back) and went to Springfield with me. 

 We had to give the College Boy a rain check on shopping and lunch and drove to the high school where the volleyball game was scheduled. Naturally, my bladder was at the brink of bursting by this point, so the first thing I did was go to the bathroom. 

 Where I got locked in a stall and was on the verge of crawling under the door to get out when the lock finally gave and I was freed.

 And our volleyball team got beaten to a pulp.


And when we finally got back to my car in the Walmart parking lot at 9:30, I found that I had managed to park under the only security light in the entire parking lot that was broken.
Is it a light if it isn't lit?
Yep, just one of those days....
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Sunday, October 4, 2015

Fall Weather And Other Thankfuls

I am pretty sure this is the first time I have opened my computer in exactly one week. I really need to shake off this writer's funk and get my shizz together. Maybe it will help to be thankful? Surely, it will!
1. Fall is finally here! Now, I hate, hate, HAAAAATE cold weather (unless I get a snow day out of it), but I love the clean, crisp air of fall! Our leaves aren't changing yet, save for a single leaf here and a single leaf there, but FALL, people!

 2. Volleyball still sucks. I'm not going to lie. But the JV team, on which my daughter is now playing (and please, don't get me started on the unfairness of this) won both their games this week. That team she USED to be on, the one she worked so hard to make and which she, so she's been told, single handedly has caused to lose nearly every single game they have played even though she has only lost them a handful of points, lost both of their games. By a lot. Bam!

 3. I'm thankful for a daughter who may fall apart about said treatment at home, but at practice and at games, she keeps her chin up and a smile on her face. I should do the same, but I'm not as good at hiding how I feel as she is.

 4. I'm really thankful for my good friend and fellow bleacher buddy Melinda. She was one of my very first friends when I moved here 17 years ago, and I'm happy to say she's one of the best!

 5. Funny preschoolers. Instead of straightening my hair, I wore my hair in its natural state (wildly curly) this week for the first time since school started, and one of my 3 year old girls looked up at me, smiled sweetly, and asked, "Did you take a shower?" "Because of my hair?" I asked her. "Uh huh!" she nodded happily, and I laughed and laughed. 

 6. Unless we are cooking or doing something else special, our preschoolers take turns providing snack for the class. Popular choices are goldfish crackers, Cheez-its, fruit snacks, cheese, cookies, etc. On Tuesday, the snack helper for my primary class brought watermelon (cut into bite sized pieces and in a clear, plastic box from the produce dept. at the grocery store). We've never had that for a snack before, and while messy, most of the kids loved it (I have eight 3 years olds in that class). When snack was over, I took the nearly empty box to the water fountain right outside the door to drain the juice out of it before putting it in the trash, because we all know trash bags are great and all, but they aren't leak-proof. I had the lid loosely over the box and was straining out the little bits and pieces of watermelon that were still in there as I poured AND WAS NEARLY DONE when something horrible happened and the box slipped. I do NOT know exactly how this all happened, as it went down quick and ugly, but the remaining watermelon and juice flew out of the box and against the wall above the water fountain, as well as IN the water fountain, down the sides of it, onto the wooden steps there to help preschoolers reach said water fountain AND onto the floor. What was probably only about a quarter of a cup of watermelon bits and juice appeared to be more like an entire watermelon. With a deep sigh (and, surprisingly, no bad words from me), I got paper towels and was in the midst of the clean up process when Vanessa, the church office administrator, came up the stairs. "Did you take a picture of it for your blog?!" she asked. Dammit! No, I did not! But know what makes this a thankful? That Vanessa's first thought was that it was great material for my blog. She's a fan and I appreciate it more than she knows.

 7. Can that one be two? It was really long....

 8. I'm thankful for the positive benefits of living in a small town. I did something earlier this summer to goober up my achilles tendon (I have a vague recollection of it popping as I stretched up on tiptoe to reach a high shelf). My heel has been pretty tender all summer, and I have been doing heel stretches in an attempt to make it feel better. Then two weeks ago, when I took Lizzi on her Tour de Missouri (blog post to come, I swear!), I put on real shoes instead of flip flops for the first time since, oh, May, walked for miles and climbed on rocks that nearly were the death of me (teaser), and the back of my heel became swollen and painful. REALLY swollen and REALLY painful. And kept getting worse. I was able to wear a pair of TOMS shoes, since the part that touches the heel is soft and I could slide it under the swollen part, but all other shoes are out for me. And it's fall. After Thursday's volleyball home game, I showed it to the athletic trainer and asked him what he thought about it. He thought I could have torn part of the tendon. The dad of one of the team members just happens to be an orthopedic surgeon, and while he wasn't there that night, his wife was, so, at the trainer's suggestion, I asked her to take a picture of it and ask her husband what he thought. And she did, texted it to him, and got me a tentative diagnosis of retrocalaneal bursitis. He advised ice, ibuprofen, heel stretches and clogs and let him know if that didn't make it better (which research on The Google tells me would mean four to six weeks in a walking boot to immobilize it until it heals). Try to accomplish a diagnosis and treatment plan that quickly and inexpensively (i.e., free) in a big city, why don'tcha?

 9. The second thankful here is that the doctor VERY CLEARLY has instructed me to go shoe shopping.

 10. I have loads and loads and LOADS of laundry to do today, which isn't my favorite way to spend a beautiful fall Sunday afternoon, but by the end of the day, I will have put my electric mattress pad on the bed and made it up with fresh sheets and a couple of blankets and I will be ready for cool weather!
I don't even have pictures to use this week for my post.
Enjoy this instead....

 How the heck are y'all, anyway? I've missed you, even if I haven't been making the rounds of your blogs lately. Do link up with us at Ten Things of Thankful. It really does make you feel better.

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Sunday, September 27, 2015

Yes, You CAN Find Thankfuls, Even When You Think You Can't

My, oh, my, oh, my, but I'm cutting it close with my Ten Things of Thankful post this week! I have so many blog posts floating around in my head right now, and I haven't had the time to write any of them. I wasn't able to participate in Six Sentence Stories this week, and that saddened me. There are health issues with my mom and volleyball issues with my daughter, but with any luck, I'll be back on my game and writing this week. Until then, here is a (probably blessedly) brief Ten Things of Thankful for this week:

 Friends who began as on-line friends and ended up as Real Life friends.

 Having one of those friends call you when you're on a long, solo road trip and keep you company for over an hour and a half. 

 Rental cars with cruise control and automatic windows, because, believe it or not, SOME people manage to rent cars with neither (and it wasn't me).

 Weird cloud formations, captured through a bug-spattered windshield.
Possibly an alien portal....

 The Pope's visit to America. I'm not even Catholic, but I was especially moved by the multi-faith ceremony at the World Trade Center on Friday.

 The Brit's visit to America. I know visiting my corner of the world wasn't as exciting as many of the other places she visited, but it meant a lot to me to get to show it to her.

 Ruby, who is happy to see me whether I've been gone for three days or three minutes.
Lap time after I left her for three hours.
Friday Night Lights and a big win at homecoming, and homecoming dances that make me forget how annoyed I was during the dress shopping.
It's supposed to say UNDER the sea, but I just see UDDER.

Well, they make a pretty cute couple

 Super Moons that light up the night.


Rare lunar eclipses that, even though they are too shy for the camera, glow red and lovely and have us standing outside on our sidewalk in the dark, where we can hear voices throughout the neighborhood from other people doing the same thing.

Believe it or not, it isn't too late to link up this week! Don't make me be the last one!

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Saturday, September 19, 2015

Happy Pills, Happy Kittens And Happy Preschoolers (That Didn't Start Out Being Happy)

This weekend is going by quickly, but that's okay THIS time, because Sunday afternoon, I will be meeting Christine and Lizzi in St. Louis! I'm very excited to meet Lizzi and to see Christine again, and, rest assured, you'll read all about it soon enough. In the meantime, I need to get my Ten Things of Thankful list written

 I'm thankful that my husband and daughter didn't make a fuss when I told them I was leaving for a couple of days to spend time with someone I have never met before and who may or may not be some kind of ax murderer....

 Volleyball is still not going well, but at least I got a couple of pictures of my daughter playing.





I was telling a friend at work how, the night before, I had decided to take a happy pill and not upset myself over the whole volleyball debacle, my happy pill being a bag of peanut M&Ms that I took to the game in my purse. Every time I wanted to make a snarky comment during the game, I ate an M&M. Unfortunately, the bag was empty by the time the varsity game started (shoulda bought a bigger bag, like maybe trashbag size). The next morning, I walked into the office and found a big bag of peanut M&Ms in my mailbox! Now, that's a sweet friend!

 While watching a home volleyball game this week, I looked up to see the sweet face of a former preschooler, now in 5th grade, who came over just to see me. We had a very nice visit that worked better for me that ten bags of peanut M&Ms.

Ruby has taken to sprawling across the piano like a lounge singer. It makes me laugh every time I walk in the room and see her there.


One of my preschoolers in my Primary class (3 year olds) was having trouble letting go of dad (quite literally) when he came in to the classroom on Thursday morning. After prying his fingers off of dad's pant leg, I sat down in a chair (ironically, it was the Sad Chair) and held the little guy while he cried big crocodile tears. When I had finally soothed him enough that he stopped crying, I asked him if he were ready to sit at the table with the other kids and play, but he said no, he just wanted to sit with me. So we sat together, and I dried his tears and snuggled him and it was very nice.

 Same day, same class, different boy, the youngest student in the class, just barely making it in before the age cut off. He has only been potty trained for a couple of weeks (the kids have to be potty trained to be in Primary, and I'm sure his mom had been sweating about that). The first two weeks, when I took him to the bathroom at Mandatory Potty Time, right after snack, he would just wail and cry and say he didn't have to go, and I was fearful of a long, long year of this. On Thursday, the urinal caught his eye and he wanted to know what it was. I told him it was for big boys and grown up men to use to go pee pee, and he decided he'd like to give it a try. So, having no experience ever using one, I taught him how. We were both pretty excited about it, not going to lie.

 Chicken pictures, texted to me out of the blue and usually including funny captions.


New Snapchat filters that kept me entertained for far too long.


The first glimmers that fall is just around the corner.


Always be thankful. Your hosts

 

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Thursday, September 17, 2015

Tape: A Six Sentence Story


It was the fall of 1978, my freshman year in college, and my roommate, a high school classmate of mine, and I were going to drive home for the weekend. 

 My roommate drove a veritable tank; it was a 1972 Cadillac El Dorado, a hand-me-down from her grandfather. It was big, brown, and roomy, able to take two college girls and their laundry home with room to spare. On subsequent trips, we fit six people plus luggage and dirty clothes into that car, but this trip, it was just the two of us.

 Funny how I remember that trip like it was yesterday. There was nothing particularly memorable about it, unlike the time we got stopped by the Highway Patrol in a case of mistaken identity when they were looking for a getaway car from a recent bank robbery that roughly fit the description of my friend's car; I remember it because we spent the entire three hour trip singing along to an 8-track tape of the soundtrack from Grease, over and over and over....





Linking up with Ivy at Uncharted for Six Sentence Stories with the prompt "tape."
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