Memorial Day

Today will be a busy day of working on the house and getting ready to move, but I do want to remember those who have fought and are fighting for our nation's freedom. I want to say thank you to the men who have served and are serving in the US Military. On our trips to Washington DC, my favorite site seeing is the war memorials. I think this is because they give you such a sense of awe - that these men gave there lives or gave years of their youth serving their country. I salute the families who shared these men and women giving up their fathers, brother, and husbands. These are the true heroes of America.

Murphy's Law

Our mission was simple. Load the truck with boxes and take it to the storage unit. Make a trip to Wal Mart while in town. Then take the truck to the new house and hook up to the trailer which has a flat (air that up with the compressor). Take the truck and trailer to Toby at work so that he can purchase sheetrock. First hint that things were not going our way - the truck had a flat when we went out to load it. It was not driveable even to the barn where the big compressor sets. All portable compressors were at the new house. Both jacks were in Toby's truck. Both cans of "tire stuff" were empty. Although the truck had a spare tire, it was not easy to get to and the spare we ususally use is on the trailer at the new house. There were lots of questions as to what to do. We decided to get the big compressor from the barn and move it to the truck - easier said than done. Now the problem was how to disconnect the compressor from the wall in the barn. Amazingly enough, we were able to finally disconnect the compressor. Then we managed to drag it to the house. We had some difficulty with the nozel and had to do some switching around, but we finally got the tire aired up. And it actually held air. By this time, we are dirty, sweaty, and tired. After we had the flat fixed in town, we continued with our mission.

The insullation man showed up and insullated the house. He should finish up this morning and we should be able to sheetrock. This is a big "yeah" for me. There are so many little things that need to be done, it is almost overwhelming. My brother called yesterday to say he was bringing his sons and was going to help out this weekend. I just love him!

Another Trip to the Builder Supply

Last night we drove to Wichita to go to Lowes, Home Depot and of course, Harbor Freight. Earlier in the day I had called around to different builder supply places to get the best price on insullation asking them each the same questions conerning sizes and prices and such. Sutherlands always seems to have the best prices, but things are not always in stock. The guy kept me on the phone for a long time while he shouted back and forth to another guy who was looking for the prices that I needed. Don't they have computers to look that stuff up? Home Depot gave the price of the 2x4x16 rolls, but when I asked for the 2x6 rolls, the guy told me there was no such thing. Where do they get these guys? As it turned out we did not buy insullation from any of those major suppliers. We did buy and an air conditioner to install before we start sheet rocking since the heat nearly killed us last week. We will buy our insullation locally.

After we did our shopping, we went out to eat which is the highlight of the evening. Jesse picked the Texas Roadhouse which is a steak house. She was so tickled with getting to eat there that she was quite animated - smiling and laughing and telling us silly stories. The poor waiter was nearly killing himself trying to think of reasons to come to our table. Jesse was quite oblivious to him, but her daddy was not. I never mind getting good service. Maybe I should send her to the lumberyard next time we need something!

Turning Up the Heat

We got lots done on the house this weekend thanks to Bob, the Builder. After Jesse and I painted on Thursday, Toby took Friday off to put the metal roof on the house. We also did some sheetrocking on the inside walls. With temperatures in the triple digits, it was hot! I don't think I have ever been so hot. My clothes were dripping with sweat. Every once in a while I would have to stop and wipe the sweat out of my eyes so that I could see. Two thoughts kept me going. First, I thought of our soldiers in Iraq and how hot they must be in their armor and uniforms. This was very humbling to me. What did I have to complain about when they are doing so much? Secondly, I thought surely I will lose weight with all of this sweat pouring off my body.

Bob, the Builder, was another encouragement. He showed up with one of his sons, showed us how to make easy work of the roof, and didn't even seem to break a sweat. He is amazing. He said if he could encourage us to love and good deeds then he was happy. Bob is a good man and brother in Christ. We were thankful.

Once again, I loved spending time with my husband, son, and daughter. My children are a blessing. Although we did not get to spend much time with my granddaughter, she did show up to entertain us for a few minutes. She is just pretty special and so is her mother. I have much to be thankful for these days even in the midst of my busy-ness.

Precious Moments

Sometimes while working with your children you have one of those moments that just brings joy to your heart. Sometimes it is not what you think when you think of precious moments, but it still brings joy. Jesse and I had one of those moments yesterday. We were painting on the eaves of the house. It was hot and humid and pretty miserable. Both of us were covered in paint and sweat. A song came to my mind that I had not thought of in years - Willis Allan Ramsey's "Painted Lady". So I sang a few bars to Jesse, " Painted lady with a painted face tell me about your life in this painted place. Tell me with your lovin lips, your lovin eyes.." Jesse smiled and said she remembered a poem that I had once read to her out of one of my books. I was thinking, " Wow, Jesse remembers a poem I read!" Then she began to recite.

There once was a lass from Madras
Who had a remarkable ass
It wasn't round and pink
As you would probably think
But had long ears and ate grass

Now when you homeschool your kids as I did, you have no one else to blame for what they bring home from school. That's my girl!

Mission Impossible

My husband once wrote me a funny email called "Secret Agent Ranchhand". It started off something like, "Your mission, if you choose to accept, is ..."He continued to give me instructions as if I were a secret agent, but the mission was to put anti-freeze in the bulldozer. This has remained a joke between us whenever he has a chore (mission) for me.

Today my mission is to take the 24' gooseneck trailer to Tecumseh, OK and pick up a trailer load of sheet metal for the roof of our new house (and swing by Ardmore to drop Jesse off to pick up her Honda at the mechanic's). It sounds simple enough, but just like with Tom Cruise, the mission gets a little tougher as you go.

First off, the trailer has to be cleaned out after we hauled cattle to the sale barn last week. For those of you who know cow manure after being on wheat pasture, I am sure you will understand the difficulty. For those of you who don't know cows, you don't want to know. It turns out that we left the good flathead shovel and broom at the new house, but no problem, we can use a hose to get it wet, and then shovel it out. This meant hooking up to the trailer and backing to the barn since one tire has a slow leak (why don't we get that fixed?) to air it up before pulling up close enough to a water hose. Most of these things needed doing anyway. Here is where the mission got impossible. Jesse and I put the special nozel on the water hose to create the pressure needed to wash out the manure, but no water would come out. Jesse unscrewed the nozel and out fell some sort of giant bug. Jesse screamed and dropped the nozel. We got a good laugh out of that, and put the nozel back on. Still no water! We banged around on the nozel, but nothing came out. So I poked a screw driver up in it, and sure enough there was something stuck in the nozel. After I figured out how to take the nozel apart, I saw the bug guts wedged in the whole at the end of the nozel. I poked these out with my screw driver - not so bad. Then I poked the screwdriver back into the nozel - hmm, more bug. It took me quite a while to get the entire bug out of the nozel, and it was gross!

As I worked to get the bug guts out of the nozel, I began to think, "Do other wives do this? I cooked his breakfast, packed his lunch, and I am driving the truck to pick up roofing. Did I sign on for bug gut duty?" I was really working myself into a tizz. With all the bug guts out of the nozel I took it the nozel to Jesse who was waiting with her mud boots and gloves to wash out the trailer (she is a good kid). This time the nozel worked great. I told Jesse I was going to clean the kitchen and get the bug guts off the counter. She responded with, "Are you going to put them on Dad's pillow?" Hmm, not a bad idea!

Sense of Humor

I come from a family of smart-alecks, and then I married one. Our children are double-bred smart alecks. At family gatherings smart remarks fly usually directed at my baby sister since she is an easy target setting herself up for our weird wit and sense of humor. Although through the years I have mellowed and learned to hold my tongue, sometimes the oppurtunity to be smart is just too much for me. While eating at a local hangout, a young man from our fellowship came in. I had seen his mother earlier in the day, and she had shown me his senior pictures. When he stopped at our table to say hi, I said, "Hey Luke, I saw a picture of you today." Of course, he asked where. Then the smarty in me said, "On the wall at the post office." I thought my joke was pretty funny, but Luke just looked at me with such a puzzled expression. So I added, "You know, wanted posters." I got more of the puzzled look, so I tried again, "You know, wanted dead or alive posters." I realized the extent of my joke's flop when with a confused look on his face Luke asked, "Who put them there?" At this point I felt really bad so I apologized for my smart aleck joke and explained that it was a "before your time" remark. My daughter said I should have said, "On America's Most Wanted " or "Crime Stoppers".

Then yesterday my husband sent me to the electric company's warehouse to buy electrical wire (or if you are a true Okie, you say "war"). I never know how to play these sort of assignments. Should I act the dumb blond - "My husband sent me for some war. I have it written down somewhere..." or should I act like I know what I am doing - "I need 310 feet of 100 amp wire plus 220 feet of 200 amp wire for our new home"? I chose to do a little of both rattling off what I needed and then checking my notes as if I needed to check with my husband. Then the warehouse worker opened himself up for a smart remark when he looked at me and said, "That's a lot of war. Did you bring a pick-up truck?" My first instinct wanted to reply, "Why no, I brought my Volkswagen, but I will move the groceries over, and I am sure you can fit it in the trunk." Remembering how my other smart aleck joke flopped, I checked myself and answered appropriately. But wouldn't that have been a great smart reply?

Flawed Story

Normally I would not write anything controversial in my blog just because I want to avoid the fight. My brothers would probably roll their eyes knowing that all my life I have loved a good fight, but we do mellow as we get older, and some of us even change. Today, though, I am ready for a good fight. All last week I ranted and raved about riots against Americans and killings in the Middle East area due to a report in Newsweek that said interrogators at Guantanomo had flushed a Quran down the toilet. I wondered if the story were even true knowing that the media tends to exaggerate or outright lie about such things. The real question I had was how could they even report something like that knowing the sparks it would cause. It is such an anti-American report that I was horrified that an American would even publish it. At a time when the liberal media pushes political correctness down our throats and reports negatively on anything that could be considered "hate speech", why would they publish something that is definitely hate speech. This report caused people to die and Americans to be attacked! Isn't that treason? Doesn't the media have any responsibility? Even if the story were true, why would you report such a thing?

This morning we find out that the story was indeed false, and Newsweek "apoligized". Apoligized! People died and others could still die and hate has been stirred against America and our troops! Someone needs to pay - big time.

In the past, the Media has attacked people (usually conservatives) for a simple mis-spoken word. People have lost their jobs or their popularity because of something they have said that the Media deemed politically incorrect. Legistlators have considered passing laws against "hate speech". So what should happen to Newsweek and the reporter who stirred up so much hate that people died and will continue to die? I hope something serious happens to these irresponsible reporters.

Rainy Days

We got some much needed rain last night, and it could continue all day. Last week while folks not 20 miles away got four inches of rain, we did not get any. Although we needed it here, we were able to get the fence built and the cattle rounded up on dry ground. Slopping around in the mud is not my idea of fun. Last night's rain was a good one, and I am thankful.

Jesse and I started packing yesterday since we cannot do much at the new house right now. Until the plumbing, wiring, and insulation are done, there is just not much for us to do. The concrete guy was suppose to come yesterday, but did not. It looks like Saturday may be the day everyone shows up. That works for me. We will just have a big house building party.

We packed books and nic-nacs. Jesse probably would have thrown out about half my nic-nacs, but I would say, "Oh, someone gave me that when you were born..." She would role her eyes. I would have gotten rid of more books, but Jesse would say, "You aren't throwing that out?!" The good news is that we did agree to get rid of lots of things. We work well together. Now if I can just get rid of furniture. Clothes could be another problem. Art stuff, well, I don't even want to think about it. I am sure it will all work out.

Good-bye Cows

Yesterday we were up early and working hard to get ready to get rid of the cattle. Every spring we sell all the cows and calves. Then for the next few weeks we have to plow up the wheat field. What makes this year special? We don't have to plow! Since we are moving, the field is not ours to deal with - Yeha! The roundup went smoothly - thanks to a great fence and great cowboys.

The work did not stop after we trucked out the last load of cattle. We had several other errands to do concerning cattle and trailers. Then we headed over to the house to work. At one point I was up on the roof holding a board while Toby was standing on the scaffolding with the nail gun. He was reaching up to nail the board when he took one too many steps and stepped off the end of the scaffold. It was only about four feet off the ground, but it was enough to make his hair stand up on his head. Picture one of those cartoons where the roadrunner steps off the cliff and has that silly look on his face as he realizes he is going down. From my viewpoint, I knew he was okay, but for a moment I had a hysterical feeling of laughing and crying at the same time - laughing because it was really funny - crying because I don't think I can take any more accidents from my husband. About that time he jumped up to show me he was okay. If you know me, you know I do not get hysterical - I think I need a day of rest.

Good-bye Cows

Mending Fence

You know you are a rancher's wife when you can mend your torn pants and the fence you tore them on. I am definitely a rancher's wife. Jesse is a rancher's daughter. Since we are shipping out cattle on Tuesday, we needed to get some fences ready to move the cattle around from one pasture to another. While we were still at the kitchen table on Saturday, Toby came in carrying an arm full of beer to put in the fridge. My son, Bo, looked over at me and said, "Looks like Dad is going to work us hard today." He did work us pretty hard, but it was an overcast day, and we did well. The beer was great at the end of the day.

Toby had new-fangled barbed wire holder to make rolling out the wire easier. It worked pretty well compared to the old lawnmower handle he rigged up last year. The lawnmower handle worked okay for a little while, but it came apart pretty easily - didn't last too long. The new-fangled holder was built like a single pole toilet-paper holder that fit on the trailer hitch of the truck. The old lawnmower handle was more like a regular toilet paper holder that we had to drag behind the four-wheeler. Bo and I did snicker at the design of the new-fangled holder when it fell off the truck. Toby made a few adjustments with the welding torch, and we used it again the next day.

Bo was not able to help us on Sunday afternoon. Jesse and I took our turns at the post-pounder (another convenient homemade tool). We should be able to finish the fence this afternoon, ship cattle out on Tuesday morning, and still make it to the quilting guild. A woman's work is never done.

Saturday

Sometimes on Saturdays Toby and I like to get up early and sneak off to have breakfast together. Our children caught on, and now they like to go too. That is not so bad, but it just takes longer (like dragging a dead pig) to get everybody moving. This morning will be different. Virginia's funeral is this morning at 10:00. I am glad to know that Virginia is out of pain, and that she does not have to be in a resthome any longer. Come Monday, though, when I go to town and do not get to swing by and visit with her, I am afraid I will be very sad. It makes me wish the last few weeks had not been so busy, so that I could have vistited with Virginia more.

Isn't that always the way it goes? I once told someone that we should live our lives in a way that we have no regrets. When my dad was diagnosed with cancer three years ago, I decided to try and do things in a way that I knew I could live with my choices later. People would ask me if they should come see my dad. I would think, "Can you live with yourself later, if you don't?" As for Virginia, I think I can live with myself, but I will miss our visits and would like to have had more of them. I miss my friend Lynda, and I miss my friend Bruce. It should make us more aware of our time with each other, but it doesn't always work that way. I am thankful for the time I had with Virginia. I am thankful for the time with my dad. And I am thankful for my friends.

Planning the Day

After being at my parent's home for a few days, I am home this morning. I was hoping to get some things done around here, but I need to do some serious planning. There is so much to be done on the new house, yet there is much to be done around the old house. I need a plan. Unfortunately, I received a phone call this morning saying my good buddy, Virginia, had passed away. My mind has been jolted. Part of my plan for the day had been to visit Virginia. Now that is not possible, and I feel a little lost.

Never a Dull Moment

Mom's surgery went well. There was no cancer found, and she is recovering fine. My sister and brothers jumped right in and took care of everyone. They did a great job. Dad behaved fairly well through it all. I went home on Friday night leaving my family in charge for the weekend. It was good to get home and check out progress on the new house which is wired now. We put up a gazebo tent for my grandchild. She can be outside in the shade, but also be contained around all the construction. The tent worked great. Bo called it Lizzie's jail.

The real excitement took place last night. Toby asked me to help him with the tractor. He had run out of propane and needed me to drive the truck and drag him up to the tank. That went rather smoothly. I pulled him to the tank, and then went back inside the house to watch TV. I had not been in the house long when Jesse and I heard a loud "capushht" - like when you light the torch on the welder. Jesse asked," What was that?" I knew exactlly what it was and ran to the window. Sure enough the tractor was on fire. I ran for the fire extinguisher which after all of these years of not using it, it was not where it was suppose to be. I ran outside. Toby was standing there looking like a little lost boy. I asked him what we should do thinking that any minute the tractor could blow up and the 500 gallon propane tank would go next. Toby was still looking lost, so I grabbed the water hose. He grabbed one end and ran to the tractor while I hooked up the other end and turned on the water. He soon had the tractor fire put out while I looked for the nonexisting extinguisher. When things settled a bit, I was able to check Toby out and see if he was okay. His hair was completely burned off of his arms. His eyebrows were partially gone, and the hair around his cap was singed. His cap probably saved his face and head. I got him cleaned up and doctored. There were only a couple of small blisters on his arm. It was more like a very bad sunburn on his arms and face. With the excitement over, Toby and I stopped to thank God for His hand in protecting Toby from what could have been a very horrible accident. There is much to be thankful for.