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IS IT 2008 YET?

Well Christmas is over, and I am always glad. Not because of what Christmas stands for, don't get me wrong. But for what it has become to stand for. All the commercialism and guilt heaped on us. About the 15th of every Dec. I start to feel a little panic feeling in me. Not sure just what it means, but I always dread Christmas. I guess it holds too many memories of what was ,and should have been, and never will be. As families shift and change over time things get complicated.
I end up most of the time, letting it sneak up on me and then its like, Oh, my! Christmas is tomorrow and I haven't sent cards or bought any gifts! Darn. Well maybe next year!! Well I am not really quite that bad, but almost. I do manage to get gift cards out to the grand kids before Christmas. BUT, never get to spend Christmas with them, and rarely get a thank you.

Well this is a really Ba Humbug post isn't it. I just know that Christmas is like this for lots of people and we are afraid to talk about it because it makes you feel like a bad person for not having all this warm fuzzy feeling. Instead you feel guilty, feel little or no family connection. In my "previous" life, it was about cooking lots of goodies and indulging in the fudge, divinity, and cookies. Putting up a tree and decorating it. Family around and the excitement of buying presents and watching them be opened and the mess and clutter and laying around playing with the "toys". Now that was warm and fuzzy. Now its like, "Oh, lets eat out, so you won't have to cook or do dishes" Right! no mess or clutter in my life. Come home to a clean house, no gift paper on the floor because there were no gifts, no left overs to snack on, because nothing was cooked. Well it sort of chokes me up, really.

This year I did cook most of the dinner for Sunday and had siblings over and it was fun. We did a traditional turkey dinner and it was nice to have everyone around the table together.

Well I have wallowed in my self pity long enough. The new year is coming, along with another birthday soon after. Maybe I can post a grumpy post about that later!!

A naughty joke from by big sister!

OK, I promised to post this since my sister doesn't have access to her blog anymore.

Do you know what Viagra is made of??
Well here is the breakdown.
You may not want to use it anymore after this!
3% Vit E
2% Asprin
2% Ibuprofen
1% Vit. C
5% Spray Starch
87% Fix-a-Flat


Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I can't believe I put this info out there!

Not much time to write any blogs, Been busy yet with moving into new house. Really dragging it out aren't we? We finally listed the farm with an agent. We did show it 5 times ourselves with just our sign on the corner. And folks wanted it but most had property to sell first. So now I am ready for that out of state person who has already sold their property and have cash in hand! I just posted a picture here of my little dinette area in the kitchen. You can see the new hardwood floor that took so long to get done. But I really like it. The rug I found to put under the little antique table has a rooster in the center. But mostly I just liked the colors.

Had a scare of a repeat of last winter's ice storm but it went mostly north of us, we got just a little damage from it. Some folks are still waiting for power to get hooked up after a week later.

Book store business has been a little slow but I think it was this time last year. Everyone is out shopping at Walmart for all that stuff made in China. My E-Bay store has been pretty consistant with daily sales so I am pleased with that. I try to list a few books every day to keep the inventory up. Anyone interested, the site is:
http://stores.ebay.com/read-again-books53 So everyone go there and order some cool books!!!

And in case I don't get back this week, Merry Christmas to all.

Are we Crabby??

I DON'T USUALLY ADD THESE DITTY'S TO MY BLOG BUT THIS ONE WAS TO GOOD TO PASS BY:

This is a question that is on very MAN'S mind and some women but here's your answer to why women are so craby.




We started to 'bud' in our blouses at 9 or 10 years old only to find that anything that came in contact with those tender, blooming buds hurt so bad it brought us to tears. So came the ridiculously uncomfortable training bra contraption that the boys in school would snap until we had calluses on our backs.




Next, we get our periods in our early to mid-teens (or sooner). Along with those budding boobs, we bloated, we cramped, we got the hormone crankies, had to wear little mattresses between our legs or insert tubular, packed cotton rods in places we didn't even know we had.



Our next little rite of passage was having sex for the first time which was about as much fun as having a ramrod push your uterus through your nostrils (IF he did it right and didn't end up with his little cart before his horse), leaving us to wonder what all the fuss was about.




Then it was off to Motherhood where we learned to live on dry crackers and water for a few months so we didn't spend the entire day leaning over Brother John . Of course, amazing creatures that we are (and we are), we learned to live with the growing little angels inside us steadily kicking our innards night and day making us wonder if we were preparing to have Rosemary's Baby.



Our once flat bellies looked like we swallowed a whole watermelon and we pee'd our pants every time we sneezed. When the big moment arrived, the dam in our blessed Nether Regions invariably burst right in the middle of the mall and we had to waddle, with our big cartoon feet, moaning in pain all the way to the ER.




Then it was huff and puff and beg to die while theOB ? says, 'Please stop screaming, Mrs. Hearmeroar . Calm down and push. 'Just one more good push' (more like 10), warranting a strong, well-deserved impulse to punch the
%$#*@*#!* hubby and doctor square in the nose for making us cram a wiggling, mushroom-headed 10 pound bowling ball through a keyhole.



After that, it was time to raise those angels only to find that when all that 'cute' wears off, the beautiful little darlings morphed into walking, jabbering, wet, gooey, snot-blowing, life-sucking little poop machines.


Then come their 'Teen Years.' Need I say more?


When the kids are almost grown, we women hit our voracious sexual prime in our early 40's - while hubby had his somewhere around his 18th birthday.



So we progress into the grand finale: 'The Menopause,' the Grandmother of all womanhood. It's either take HRT and chance cancer in those now seasoned 'buds' or the aforementioned Nether Regions, or, sweat like a hog in July, wash your sheets and pillowcases daily and bite the head off anything that moves.



Now, you ask WHY women seem to be more spiteful than men, when men get off so easy, INCLUDING the icing on life's cake: Being able to pee in the woods without soaking their socks...


So, while I love being a woman, 'Womanhood' would make the Great Gandhi a tad crabby. You think women are the 'weaker sex?' Yeah right. Bite me.

Never ask a man the size of his spread!

Now that I have your attention, this is the title of a cute little book that I found. It is "A cowgirl's guide to life" it is full of cute quotes.

Whenever you go away, always come back before they learn to get on without you.

Alot of what a man knows, a woman knows better. (I love that one)

Horses always start, they never run out of gas, and they will not get you greasy.

Men, you can't live with 'em, and you can't shoot 'em.

Ok enough for now. Still real busy, will it ever slow up? Guess not till we get all moved and the 20 acres sold. Going to finally list with an agent. We have showned it several times, just from our sign on the corner. Still have alot to put away and still moving stuff from the farm. It helps to take a load at a time and find a place for it before he take more. Will take some pictures of the kitchen now that it is back together again. Hope everyone is having a great weekend even if the weather is icky.

Red Oak flooring

This is a Quicky

Just wanted to share my picture of my new hardwood kitchen floor, down to the home stretch so there is lots to do. Movers coming Mon. And still have kitchen cabinets sitting in the family room! Just have to take a deep breath and not worry, as I know it will get done. One thing, our carpenter does a wonderful job.

Penny Poo

No I didn't get another dog, but my brother did. Isn't she a cutie? She is a cross between a maltese and a sitzsu (I know I spelled that wrong) Anyway they are called Poos. She is 8 weeks old. Looks like a lot of fun in a bundle of fur!

Meet Penny Poo

A Poopy Story!

Funny story for this week.

We have been having work done at the house we will be moving into in Nov. This fence Co. was there this week, and we have a nice wooden back yard fence now. A couple weeks ago we moved alot of wood chips from where the tree guys took out 2 trees and ground up the trunk down into the roots. We started a pile in the back yard where we want to have a garden. Well this week, hubby hauled 2 big tubs of horse (and donkey) manure from the barn and dumped it on the wood chips. Fri. morning he hauled 2 more tubs and noticed that the first 2 were missing. We thought DANG, who would steel our poop!!

Well we found out the fence guys needed more dirt to fill in around the tops of their concreted posts to make everything neat and flush and guess what they used?

Aquarius, yea, thats me!

AQUARIUS - The Sweetheart ( Jan 20 - Feb 18)
Optimistic and honest. Sweet personality. Very independent.
Inventive and intelligent. Friendly and loyal. Can seem unemotional.
Can be a bit rebellious. Very stubborn, but original and unique.
Attractive on the inside and out. Eccentric personality

Picture Below

Below you can see the cutiest little guy ever was!! I was pulling weeds in the flower bed Mon. and looked over at the cocks comb and saw this little green thing nestled down in the convoluted folds of the bloom. Couldn't help but run get the camera. I love little frogs. Sometimes the little tree frogs are on the windows at nite. And the toads get out at night under the yard light in the driveway. We have one we call "red" because he is a rust red colored. He sure took a mauling while we had Suzy living with us. As she would go out looking for him and rake him around with her paw. I rescued him several nites by putting him up in the flowerbed out of her reach. Pups' gotta have fun.

Isn't he cute??

Here cum De Judge!

Well I had my day in court! I guess you can call it court, in a little town like this its very different than courtrooms that you see on TV with the judge in his robes. But I digress.

The good news I got my ticket thrown out! Hey for me. I think I mentioned before about getting picked up last mo. in my little farm pickup that I drive to the store. I park it behind my store which is about 2 blocks from the police station, and they drive up and down the alley many times a day. My tags expired in March but I hadn't received a notice and plain and simple I had expired tags. But what irked me was the fact that they had to have seen the expired tags sometime in the last 4 mo. and the fact that I felt the officer was waiting on the corner for me to pull out then followed me out to the edge of town to pull me over. Oh, and I told all this to the judge, and all he wanted to know was did I get the license renewed, and he had the officer there call the no. in to verify since I wasn't driving it at the time. So end of case. Saved my 72.50$ I am a criminal no more!

Busy time for everyone now for some reason. We have tons of reasons to be busy, with buying the new house and getting some renovations done before moving in, and finishing up a couple problems at the farm before we can get it listed.

Doing the garage thing today and tomorrow, at the sister-in law's house, which is conveniently right next door to our new house! So we cleaned out a bunch of stuff for sale and I helped set up this morning then came back to open the store a little late. But things were selling very well. I know we will do it again next spring when they have the citywide sales going on.

Guess I am helping pay for a Caribbean cruise for my carpenter and his wife. They got some kind of deal on a special price to go on a cruise. He will leave us for a week with my kitchen floor half done. But at least the huge hole is closed up and he went to pick up the red oak hardwood that he is going to put down this coming week. But still has to take out the rest of the cabinets to do that. so he has alot of work yet. Taking pictures as we go.
Had the central heat and air unit checked out and it is ok even though it is old, but the duct work needs some work as all the elbows have big gaps that lets the air blow under the house. So will have to get that done soon.

The guy that I went to City Hall about a couple weeks ago that has all the junk behind my store, has made an effort to clean up. Moved alot of the junk up next his building and moved the truck over about 2 feet. Thanks, but its still on the Dentists property, but I hear he is moving it out soon. (Big Sigh) Right!

Last weekend I bought out a flea market booth of books for an outrageously low price, she almost gave them to me so she wouldn't have to move them. It was a job too. Ended up with somewhere between 3,500 to 4,000 books. So the 3rd bedroom at the new house is full of books at the present.

So thats it for this week. Ohhhhhhh, I about forgot, I opened and E-Store on E-bay for my book sales. Have been doing pretty well with regular e-bay so wanted to expand and hope this will work. Should be more money in my pocket instead of E-bay's. So will see, maybe one day I can take all this stuff home and just work from home, heck I have almost as many books there as here in the store! hmmmmmm but I would miss my customers and this homey atmosphere i got going here.

When I awake "Poof" its all gone!

That's how I felt the other morning when I woke up. But there was a lingering memory of my dreaming. There was this strong feeling that I wasn't dreaming, but that it was the "real" world. Maybe what we see as real is actually the dream world. Anyway I felt this strong "Interconnectedness" Is that a word? And these words were real vivid so I wrote them down right away when I got out of bed because I knew I would forget them.

Spin and Weave
Ebb and Flow

What does that mean? Did I read those words somewhere? It was sort of spooky, but if you think about the words they actually could mean something about life. It just feels like something I should remember for some reason. So there you have it.

MY TRIP TO CITY HALL

Before I forget, I must report my trip to City Hall this last Tue.
It all started a few months ago when I went to the Dentist office next door to my store to ask about buying the lot behind my store.
Well the dentist wasn't to sure about how much of the lot he owned. He had purchased some lots a few years ago so he could expand the parking lot on the other side of his office and it included the lot that runs behind both of our buildings.
So I went to the court house and checked and he actually owned the full lot 28 ft wide behind us. So I went back and told him, well he really didn't want to sell but sure wished we could get it cleaned up. See there is an old big brick building just the other side of the lot, it had been used as an antique store, until the woman who ran it died 2 years ago. Her husband closed it down, BUT has used this lot to haul junk out and leave lay. When I bought my store, he had a huge dump truck sitting there full of God knows what. Finally on City Wide Clean up day he drove it (with tires almost flat, and icky stuff running out the bottom) out to the dump then parked it somewhere else, I was so glad to see it gone, till he pulled a pickup in and has filled it with stuff. The weeds and saplings have grown up now with all the junk under it all.
So the dentist and I got together and wrote letters to the City Council, I included a copy of the deed to show ownership in case that was in question and took pictures. Since the dentist lives 30 miles away, I agreed to present our info.
Which is what I did,(oh, and the dentist had called City Hall a couple times this summer to complain, but nothing was done) So the council voted unanimously that a letter should be sent to this guy and let him know if he didn't clear his junk out, the city would and send him a bill.
See my plan is to get the lot cleaned up. It runs from the alley up to main street, there is a foundation of some kind across the middle as it is on a sort of hill. If we can get it cleaned up the Dentist said he would bring in some gravel for the area behind my store, so I can have some parking and in exchange we will keep the area clean and mowed. Of course I visualize planting flowers and all.
So we will see what happens, I would still like to buy at least half the lot that is behind my store. Maybe later on he will agree to that. Heck I might want to add on, who knows.

Next week I will report on my trip to City Hall next Tue. Going before the Judge this time to protest my ticket I got. Will tell about that one later.

Oh, and we got posession of the house yesterday!! Now the real work begins.

Big Sigh

After a couple fasle starts we finally got closed on the new house today. There was a little glitch with the deed transfer but it got worked out. So now we can get started on the renovation that needs done. I think I mentioned that there was major floor damage in the kitchen from a leak that no one noticed. That was how we were able to make a much lower offer and the owners ( who live out of state) took it right away.

Been laying awake at night and listening to a pair of barn owls that come and sit in a tree in the front yard for awhile every nite. They have a very unusual hoot. Its sort of a hoot-hoot-hoot-purr. Alot of things go thru your mind when you can't sleep and one is the fact that no matter how old we are, do we ever really know what we WANT? I mean I am not the only one to think this am I? It is a pattern with Hubby, we are always changing what we want. But then its not just him, Its me too. I guess I never really ever knew what I wanted from life. In many ways its not what I GOT. Not that I have alot to complain about. Guess I am to much a romantic at heart. Sometimes moving around all my life ends up making me feel like I have no real root. A piece of property is just that, and it seems it shouldn't be that way. That is probably why I have alot of regrets about leaving this little 20 acre farm. IT is my 3rd time to live there, 2nd time to own it. When we moved back it just seemed like it was ment to be for us to end up back there. But there are so many reasons why we need to leave, (while we can) How many times can we start over and remake a house to fit our needs. We are getting to old for this!
So Guess we will get done what needs done and get the little farm on the market to sell. So on that note I will just give a big sigh, and move on.

Oh, we did sell the horse and donkey and found a home for Suzy, so all we have left are the chickens, and heck we could always eat them right????

BINGO, we did it again!

We made an offer on this nice house in nearby town, actually we made an offer much below asking price (will explain why later) and by the next day they accepted the offer with no questions. Hmmmmmm, wonder if we could have gone lower. Guess we will never know.
Now the reason we made a low offer, when the folks moved out last year, the line to the refrig did not have a shut off, so they bent it over. Well it has had a slow leak into the kitchen floor for a year. Still don't understand why the listing agent didn't notice anything. Maybe the buckling of the flooring didn't occure till recently. So we got our contractor guy to get a look at it and even went ahead and paid for an inspector so we know all the problems up front. Heck we are used to having our home torn up. So it is no big deal to us to have the entire kitchen floor torn up, cabinets moved out, then replace it all. We will still come out with a nice home in a very good neighborhood. It is a corner lot so only neighbor is SIL next door and the house behind is quite aways away, as the yards are real big.

So that is the biggest news. Still trying real hard to find a home for Suzy, she is into digging up moles in the yard now. Thats after she has gone out early in the morning when the birds are waking up and catches a sparrow from a bush, then carries it around and either eats it or bury's it. I put an ad in the local ad mag. that comes out weekly. But have looked into animal shelter and found one to take her to if we have to. She is so smart and sweet we hate to do that to her.

Sister is having a big celebration for her 10th wedding anniversary tomorrow. Have a big tent set up, looks like maybe they are having a revival meeting. After her cancer scare last year and treatment from hell, they feel like celebrating. I say GOOD for them. Other sister is just finishing up radiation to her leg from a rare kind of malignant tumor that was removed this summer. So send good vibes to her for getting her strength back now and getting back to her sassy self.

Oh, one last thing, it is so good to be done with that hot summer weather we had. Feels good to sleep with the window open and down in the 50's at nite. I like.

Sometimes its all just too much

Seems that the longer I go without posting something the harder it is to get back to it. Things sort of pile up and its like where do I start. So I have a feeling this will be a long post.

No. 1. I just deleted a big whinny comment about my heart problems and whether anyone cares. Decided I won't go there anymore for now.

No. 2. This is a biggy, we have decided to sell our little farm that we just bought a couple years ago and move into town. It was sort of one of those things that the inspiration hits you out of the "blue". and it just seems to be the right thing to do. A couple weeks ago we were both working our butts off and it was so hot, and we have so much to mow and so many projects that we just can't handle or get to, that I just blurted out "why don't we just sell this and buy the house next door to your sister that is for sale?" Honest to God, I don't know where that came from, but it just hit us that it was what we should do. So we hashed it over all weekend and the next week went to look at the house. So I can talk about all that later if it materializes. We just used our hearts instead of our minds when we bought this 20 acres back. One of the reasons we sold it 10 years ago was that it was to much work. Of course we have to have critters, you know if you live on a farm you have to. But they are expensive to take care, vet bills, feed, and equipment. It sure adds up. So there we are, after all the remodeling and hard work that has been done this last year.

No. 3. We sold the horse and donkeys. Wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. I think we found a good home for them. The guy who bought them brought his "hand" with him. He looked like he belonged on a horse, a skinny guy about 30 with a big wad of tobacco packed in his lower lip and a huge cowboy hat. He saddled up Sam and took him out in the pasture and talked to him and carefully got on board, and Sam bolted into the gate. So this guy is real cool and just talks to him and sits there for several minutes to let him calm down, then walked him around a bit. They both agreed he was a smart horse and just needed to be worked (and put on a diet) I imagine hubby has packed a couple hundred pounds on him in the last year. After that hard workout, Sam had to take a good roll in the dirt, and get a drink of water, then he nuzzled everyone to see if there were any treats! They will use him at the sale barn to herd cattle and such. So he will be a working horse. The donkeys will just be put out to pasture for now. We don't want to know what happens to them. The cowboy guy has his 3 kids with him, Real nice kids, all in cowboy hats and they had fun leading Flossy around and picking up her feet. She needs someone like them to mess with her. So maybe they will end up with her. Poor old momma donkey prob won't make it thru another winter, so at least we won't have to deal with that.

No. 4. Guess I am back to my medical thing just for a bit. Only to just say that I HATE the medicine that they are trying on me. Makes my blood pressure to low and that makes me feel tired, and then I have a head ache all day. So hopefully it will ease up soon or we are going to try something different.

No 5. Going to City Hall tonite to do a presentation, to try to get the lot behind my store cleaned up. I did the research and found out that the dentist next door (he has office hrs. only 1 day a week) owns the lot. So I got copies of their deed and a lot map, and I wrote a letter, and the dentist wrote a great letter. So I will present it and I even took a picture to go with it. See the next lot over after this open lot belongs to a guy who owns the big building there and he hauls all this junk out and throws it down and the weeds and brush is all grown up. All we want is for him to clear out his junk then the Dentist will help get it cleaned up and I agreed to keep it mowed and clean so I can make a parking place for a couple cars behind my store, I wanted to buy the lot, but the dentist isn't ready to let me do that. Maybe later on.

No. 6. I mentioned trying Dr. Gott's no sugar, no flour diet. Been sticking to it pretty faithfully. Lost 6 lbs. so far. Slow and easy should be the best.

Had almost 6 in. of rain Fri. nite and Sat. morning. North of us got alot of flooding and over in Oklahoma again.

OK I am done for now. Oh, has anyone ever bought or sold a house on E-Bay??

Women are Evil by Nature

A woman went up to the bar in a quiet rural pub...
She gestured alluringly to the bartender who approached her immediately.
She seductively signaled that he should bring his face closer to hers.
As he did, she gently caressed his full beard.
"Are you the manager?" she asked, softly stroking his face with both hands.
"Actually, no," he replied.
"Can you get him for me? I need to speak to him," she said, running her
hands beyond his beard and into his hair.
"I'm afraid I can't," breathed the bartender. "Is there anything I can do?"
"Yes. I need for you to give him a message," she continued, running her
forefinger across the bartender's lip and slyly popping a couple of her fingers into his mouth and allowing him to suck them gently.
"What should I tell him?" the bartender managed to say.
"Tell him," she whispered,
"There's no toilet paper, hand soap, or paper towels in the ladies room.