The Golden Years? My dying a**!

Let me see.  To bed at 9:00.  Awake at 2:00 AM to pee.  Back to bed to contemplate the fate of the world.  Doze off.  Up again at 4:00 to guess what? Back to bed to contemplate actually getting up and getting an early start on the day.  Oh, hell yes.  Like I am so busy I need to get up that early.  Sadly one of these mornings I will not even get up and who is going to know?  Oh, yeah, the dogs and that damn cat who have to eat several meals a day all home cooked and chuck full of fresh vegetables.  So at 5:00 I give it up as a lost cause and give the animals their treats.

Not that my animals are spoiled, but they need a treat for going to bed and a treat for getting up.  They also require treats throughout the day for simply going out to the bathroom, coming in after going out to the bathroom, for helping me let the geese either out or in, for staying home while I go to the store, or barking at the UPS man, or the trash man, or the airplane going over.  But this post is not about my spoiled rotten animals.  It is about my golden years and what a friggin' joke they are.

Gone are the days when I could actually cut my own toenails.  Gone are the days when my yard was always mowed and the roses were blooming and the weeds were under control.  Gone are the days when the car was clean and my floor was swept and the sink clear of dishes.  Gone are the days when I really gave a shit about anything.  My bones are stiff, my joints creek and I can not hear what you are mumbling about over there.

I have had some pretty sad days in my life, but the saddest one of all was about 2 weeks after my husband had passed and I was standing and looking at his picture on the wall and it dawned on me that I would never again be held by a man who loved me completely.  I would never be able to just turn off the stove and go out to eat because he just wanted to take me. 
No more fishing trips. 
No more running up to Cripple Creek.
No more peanut shells on the floor.
No more heated debates over politics.
No more watching me mow the grass.
No more walking up behind me and putting his arms around me and laying his head on my back.
No more anything.

I did start dating, but the first guy died.  The second one told me, "I always felt like I was standing in Kenny's shadow."  As it turned out, he probably was.  Mother always told me that divorces were easy, because there was usually hard feelings on both parts.  But when the partner dies, they take on sainthood.  You forget the little things that irritated you and the partner is remembered as perfect.
Mother was so wise. 

I miss sharing happy times.  I miss sharing sad times.  I miss sharing little victories I win.  I miss showing him what I did down in the sewing room and I miss cooking for him.  And I miss setting in the front yard with the animals and watching the world go by.  I miss him.

Well, I need to go down one level and pick up the mouse body.  Thanks, Icarus.  I really have nothing planned for today, but I know I have to get started on my day.  Put my memories away and mark another day off the calendar.

All I can say, is have a nice day and enjoy what you have while it is there to be enjoyed.  Matter while you can, because time is fleeting.  Time and tide wait for no man.

Hand washing dishes may be an art!

I like to fill the sink with dirty dishes and then run it full of warm/hot water and put in a squirt of Ivory .  I can then plunge my hands into that and look out my back window at my domain while I wash the dishes, rinse them and put them in the drainer.  But my mind is never still and this morning it flashed back to Plevna and I heard Mrs. Crawford explaining the fine art of washing dishes correctly.

"Be sure that all the dishes are scraped and piled before you begin.  You will pile them in the order they are to be washed.  Glassware first, then silver, then plates, followed by the cooking utensils.  Each item will be rinsed in your tub of very hot water."

"Some times a bit of food will be stubborn and not come off when you whisk it with your dish cloth.  Do not, I repeat, DO NOT attempt to remove it with your finger nail.  Your hands are in the water and the nail is soft and you do not want to do damage to the nail. There is a wire scratcher that comes in handy for removal of stubborn things that do not want to be removed.  You will want to keep your hands lovely and soft for your husband, so when you are finished with the dishes and the sink is clean and dry, apply a little lotion and rub in in well."

Do I need to interject here that I failed Home Economics under the able tuteledge of Mrs. Crawford?  Now when I say failed I do not mean C or D but a big Red F.

I can still see her in my minds eye standing in the home economics room in her skirt and jacket with every hair in place pointing to the sink and the dish drainer as if they were the most important items on earth.  I actually grew up believing that man was superior and I must do all I could to please one of these creatures if I ever was lucky enough to catch one.  I had a helluva lot to learn back in those days!

At the end of the semester my grandma passed away and I was returned to Nickerson and enrolled in Home Economics where Miss Irvin was my teacher.  Here I attempted to learn how to make a simple dress.  As I recall mother bought me the required pattern in the size I needed and cotton fabric that was white with small blue flowers.  And thus that exercise I futility began.  We measured each other to get the proper measurements.  And then it was time to cut the pattern and pin the darts for the chest area.  Well, until I was 16 years old, I never had a sign of a boob, so darts were pretty well wasted on me, but nonetheless, there would be darts because as sure as there was a God in heaven, I would develop before that dress wore out!  Not sure that happened though.

After 4 1/2 months of cutting, ripping, stitching, and crying, the dress was finished.  The darts in the chest were perfect, but there was nothing there to hold them out for the world to see.  My sewing career was finished and Miss Irvin gave me a final grade.  Seems I had been a very difficult student.  I had not listened and I was disrespectful with all that crying.  You guessed it.  A big RED F.

Now, after a full year of schooling on how to cook, clean and sew for my man, I walked away empty handed!  My life was over as far as my mother was concerned.  I would never catch a man.  Even grandma kept telling me things like "Where spider webs grow, no beau ever goes."  The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."  And more crap like that. 

So I finished high school and began life in the real world.  My first marriage lasted 10 years and produced 5 kids.  After a string of husbands I finally found one that understood all I needed was stability.  I do not think my cleaning and cooking skills were ever on any of the divorce papers. 

What is the most amazing part of this whole thing is that I am now an excellent seamstress.  I have a sewing room to die for and am the proud owner of 5 sergers,  5 sewing machines, a machine quilter and a 6 needle embroidery machine, all of which make me money. 

I raised my kids on money I made as a short order cook, a dinner cook, a caterer, and personal orders as needed.  I baked and  decorated wedding cakes while I was at the Red Carpet.

Sorry, Mrs. Crawford and Miss Irvin!  I know you tried, but I am just one of those people that have to learn the hard way.

Isn't it amazing how I can get off track?  Guess I was not meant to be a writer.  Oh, wait a minute!  I am a writer!!

Cinnamon rolls are ready!

I rolled out about 3:45 this morning so thought I would bake my cinnamon rolls.  I made the dough yesterday evening and panned them up before I went to bed, so they were ready to bake when I woke up.  You may have to just take my word for it since Google does not want me to upload to the blog.

There we go.  Now let me just get a cup of coffee here.

Well, the coffee is some where not wanting to have it's picture taken!  Now, Debbie, don't you wish you were here?  How long before that last pan is done?

Hey!  I can see myself in the reflection.  That is a change.  Usually the grunge is so thick on the stove that nothing shines.  Good fairy must have popped in and shined it up for me.

There.  All done.  Guess I will go put this on the blog and let them eat thier hearts out.  Let's see, I started this at 3:45.  I have ate a half loaf of monkey bread and drunk 3 cups of coffee and all the rest of the time was spent trying to get pictures posted here and on facebook.  It is now 7:00.  So I have basically jacked away over 3 hours of my life so you can read what it took me 15 minutes to bake.  And I wonder why I am never getting anything done.  Hell it is now almost 7 AM and I am ready for a nap!

All I can say at this point is I hope you have a good day.  At least better than mine is shaping up to be! 

Well, that was rather anti climatic if I do say so myself!

I some how wonder just what that was all about, the star business, I mean.  But I sure found out who my supporters are!  To refresh here, I needed only a few feedbacks to reach my thousand feedbacks and my star would change colors.  Several of you emailed me that you would leave me feedback on eBay if you could, but they do have thier rules.  First you have to buy something from me and then you can leave feedback.  And you can only leave one feedback a week.  So I lingered at the 998, then along came Cindy Darrow, my niece,  to the rescue.  She left lots of feedbacks for things she had bought previously.  That put me up to 999.  She then began buying Lip Bong and leaving feedback.  But they still did not count!  Only one per week counts. ;(
Then some time in the night pheadwood left feedback for an Avon necklace and my purple star quietly turned red.  That was it!  No glowing letter from eBay extolling my virtues as a seller.  No fan fare.  No nothing.  But I do have to tell you about this niece of mine.  She is the daughter of my late oldest sister.  She lives in Oklahoma, so I do not see much of her, but I may make the effort to remedy that this summer when I head south to see my son in Dallas.
I am not sure just what the girl does down there, but I do know she sent me 250 of the big Crown Royal Bags.  She also sends me lots of electronics that actually work along with new stuff that comes from Lord only knows where.  I think she may have connections and may be one of  "Lou's Little Angels" who are people who work quietly behind the scenes for my little causes. 
Some of this is routed through her brother, my nephew.  And why does she do this?  These things are earmarked for the AIDS clients that I work with here in Pueblo.  If we want money for something like candle wax to make candles for the homeless, the office in the Springs does not fund that!  If we want to have an outing away from the office and just let out hair down, like at the bowling alley, the office in the Springs does not fund that.  A long walk on the Nature Center trail followed by a hamburger some where; the office in the Springs does not fund that.  While I do my own funding for most of the social events as far as the food aspect goes, there are a lot of little things this money furnishes.  I call this the "Lou fundraiser". 
Of course this is not tax deductible for you or me either.  If I were walking the streets asking for money it would probably be illegal.  What I have done is just let it be known to  a few of my friends that here in the Pueblo office we like to do special things for our clients to kind of raise their spirits and make them feel a little more human.  This money goes through no channels except me.  My first donation came from my friends Kay and Frank.  Then Cindy took up the banner and ran with it.  Last week I put almost $300 in the "Lou Fundraiser"  and I have more stuff on eBay now, along with a box right over there that needs to be photographed and listed.  More then one way to skin a cat in this old world.
As long as I have friends like Cindy and Kay and Frank, I will do just fine operating on the skirt of  the organization.  And as for my feedback number and the sad little red star, life goes on.  I am now setting at 1002 and I do not know when the next change will be, but I do know that I have friends out there rooting me on and that is all that really matters! 
And do you know what sponsored links are?  Those are places that pay me money when you go there and buy stuff.  And where do you suppose that money goes?

********************************sponsored links************************************

Memorial Day was just that!

Memorial Day was the same as last year.  Cook out at Penny and Cathy's.  But the memorial part was coming home and a guy named Daniel and his wife came to get the pickup that I sold on eBay.  Cash in hand they arrived right on time.  And they were a delight to meet!

I had told him it needed a new battery and to deduct that from the price so he came with not only a new battery, but tools to install it!  Guy thought of everything.  The truck had not been started in a couple months so I was hopeful it would not disappoint me and it didn't!  New battery, turn the key and life under the hood!  We discussed why I had bought it in the first place and I explained that it was for my 16 year old son and the driving force behind a 1969 Chevy pickup was insurance costs.  See, there is no way to hurt one of them, but they can do a lot of damage.  So that was a lost cause.

We discussed how safe his son would be surrounded with all that steel.  I remarked that the kid would never know the agony of his first dent or scratch.  Mother concurred!

I watched it drive down the driveway and was a little remorseful that I had not gotten myself busy and restored it myself, but if I have one more thing to do, my head is going to explode!  Today I am taking a little break from eBay and I know that tomorrow I will regret it, but such is life.  I am going to get the thing that makes a photograph into a digital image and do a little introduction to my middle daughter, like I said I would do how long ago? 

OK, that is my short little report for the day and I am now off to do stuff that needs done.  Wish me well, but that recliner is looking mighty tempting about now!

Happy Valentines Day to you!

Let me see.  The last time I received any thing for Valentines Day was in 2003.  I got a set of pots and pans and they were exactly the kind and color I wanted.  Seems my husband had just passed away and left his wallet behind with just the right amount of money to pay for that purchase.  He always was considerate to a fault.

Then Marge gave me a thing that hangs from the ceiling and holds the pots and pans on hooks.  That is really nice.  So after all these years they are still in pretty good shape.  Well, occasionally an interloper will pass through my kitchen in search of food and use one to cook something.  No problem as long as they follow the rules which are simple.  No flash frying!  No smoke arising from any vessel.  Spray the inside lightly to prevent sticking.  But, alas, I can not guard the kitchen 24/7 and a few gouges have appeared and I may need to replace something.  These are Wearever Taste of Home collection.  I shall miss them when the time comes, but it is not going to be this year.

What do I have planned for tonight?  Ah, it is the Jeopardy! Challenge where Watson, the high powered computer built just for this, will go against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.  Being a die hard beleiver in human beings as opposed to machines, I am trusting that Watson will blow a fuse.  I have cleared my calendar for the next three days and will be plastered to the screen.  So do not call.  Do not drop by.  Do not email.  I wanted to take the kiddies to a movie tonight, but that will have to wait until after.  Oh, but then it will be cold and dark and I do not do that well at all. 

Ok.  This is my thoughts for the day.  I have something in mind for the PFLAG post so you might want to pop over there for a look.  http://www.pueblopflag.blogspot.com/