THE IDIOM

This morning I had a nice chat with my mother.

She tricked me by calling from her home phone as I didn't recognize the ring tone I had given her cell.   So I got down from my ladder which was a good thing since I was painting my fireplace in my VS striped pjs, to answer the call.

It might have been my appliances arriving.

Nope.  Mom.

She made me laugh.  And then for reasons I won't get into, I wanted to

Bop. Her. On. The. Head.

Have you ever felt this way about your mother?

Shake your head yes.

Ok.  I am not alone.

I love her.

But I am so glad she is not the boss of me anymore.

I LOVE EDDY AND I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE

Ok...Eddy is our electrician.  He is at my house almost everyday and I really really like him.

He's funny.  He's polite.  He's courteous.  He works hard.  He's cute.

Today, I saw him on isle 3 at the grocery store with his woman.

They were standing close and they were talking about what they were going to have for supper. I didn't need to wonder what they were doing an hour ago.

I saw him in a whole different light. 

They way he looked at her like do we want cilantro or no?  Do we want beef or pork?  Do we need windex or pledge?

Raw.  Real.  Just doing what we do.  Connected.  Very.Connected.

And the way they obviously felt about one another made me feel happy.  It made me feel better about the days he crawls around in my attic and under my house connecting wires and plugs and 220s and 110s.  And the day he worked all day to put in a 3way only to find that it was at the wrong place..not by his choice but by ours...

The dissapointment on his face...I hope...was changed when he went home to his pretty little wife who had been to the store getting his supper...with the money he earned from us.

That is what makes the world go around.  And around.

I love Eddy.  And I'm not the only one.

I'M UNDER HERE

To all my peeps who have been worried about where I've been and why I'm not at my computer as usual.   I am truly covered up.  I'm under here somewhere..and when I'm not...I'm out getting a breath of fresh air!

THE FARMER'S WIFE CUT OFF HIS TAIL WITH A BUTCHER'S KNIFE

So long you no good, ball sticking, no double-clicking, old, crappy mouse.

You have given me my last annoyed beyond my limit moment.  Off with your tail!

You have made my last couple of days wretched.  Ok...I admit perhaps your performance was affected by my slamming you on the table now and again.  But, I would not have done that had you been clicking right.  So it's kind of a Catch 22...and I'm the boss.  Your copy/paste days are O.V.E.R.

So adios miceo...

Hello. PRECIOUS!

LOAD UP IN THE LIMO

My mother...

is a beautiful creature.  Inside and out, but especially out.

She has been told many times she looks like Elizabeth Taylor and I kind of think she does too.

When I was 19 we took a trip to NYC.

It was at the height of the oil boom and something I took for granted that we could afford a limo to take us out and about.

We had dinner reservations one night at some swanky restaurant and arrived in our long black limo.  When we got out...a crowd kind of gathered thinking they might be in the presence of Elizabeth Taylor.

Nope, just a pretty face from Texas.

First peep asked me last night...did Honey (that's her name because she never wanted to be Grandma) ever regret that she had 5 kids and didn't pursue a different life?

My response was that while she was very beautiful and very intelligent, her talent was sewing and creating and she really didn't have a talent such as singing or acting...so she really didn't give up anything.

In fact...she had it all.  And she still does.

DONTCHA JUST LOVE PRINCE

Ok....I walk in from the grocery store after stocking up on Windex and hear this moaning.  I mean loud.  In fact, it kind of scared me.

So I walk closer to the sound and I realize it's Fred.  He's singing....or moaning.

Ok...so he's painting our doors with Cetol and I'm thinking "Man he must be really high."  And I'm sure he is because I can smell it from here.   And I say, "Fred, that looks nice."  And he doesn't respond.  And I think, "I'm sure now he's pretty high."

He catches my movement and turns around and I just about die laughing...he has on a headset.  And he's singing.  Only he can't hear what I hear...which is moaning. 

I bet he thinks he sounds good.  But he doesn't.  He scared me, then I thought he was high. 

And then I thought he must be listening to Prince.

Or Floyd Cramer.

I PLEDGE

To never buy more Pledge for the next 8 years.

Has this ever happened to you?  You're at the grocery store and Pledge is on a 2 For sale.  You can't remember, you aren't sure, but you think you might be out of it....so in your basket go two cans of Pledge.

When you get back to your cleaning closet you realize this has happened to you before. 

8X

Now...this is not my story, but with the rock house came at least 12+ cans of Pledge and one or two+ squirt bottles of Orange Wood Cleaner.

I would never buy that much Pledge, just ask peep 3 about my dusting habits.  So I shared many cans with many friends and still have some to spare.

I would never buy that much dusting paraphernalia.  In my house you might however find an abundance of...

Windex.

Because. I. Love. Clean. Windows.

SOLID AS A ROCK

After my brother was born, my mother went in for her 6 weeks check up and found she was pregnant with me.

This means that my brother and I are the same age for two weeks in the summer. I have written about this craziness before, but something changed a couple of weeks ago.

We were close in age, but never really that close. For several reasons I suppose but to state the obvious, he was a boy and I was a girl.

I have so many funny stories about us growing up…fist fighting, playing jokes on each other which we still do to this day…so many that I’m considering a blog series just to tell about them.

But another reason is that he married young. In fact if I remember correctly he was a barely 18 when he married and of course they said it would never last.

37 38 years have come and gone along with most of his hair…but one thing remains. The two pictured in this photo are still as solid as a rock.

From older post:
A couple of weeks ago..he had a very scary heart attack at the age of 53…M was scheduled for her own major surgery, but put it off until he was well on his way back to health.


Tomorrow…I will go spend the day with them both. I love them so much. I plan to cook jell-o and do some laundry and when I asked if I could come, he said "don’t forget your mop."

In case he doesn’t know it.. I am so glad he’s alive and I’m so glad they are together. I can’t wait to tell them that they are an example of what love is really about and how and why it should last. Making it through the skinny and the fat…and never never never not ever giving up.

And I am blessed to know them both.

CHAPEL OF LOVE

I've been singing and humming this song quite a lot these days.

Yes...I have a chapel.  Yes. I am already married.

But as I have been creating my very own little chapel within the walls of my solid rock house complete with 2 stain glass windows, 6 prayer candles, 8 Virgin Mary statues, 22 rosaries, 2 jars of blessed water from Catholic bff (one from local priest and one from the Vatican), 9+ angels, and walls painted like a village church we visited in Peru..

it's just no wonder I am singing...goin' to the chapel of love!

CHOCTAW BLOOD

Email from my mother:

Gina/Tracy: I just got off the phone with Uncle Gene. He said he and Lue had gone to lunch at a restaurant owned by some friends there in Calero. Their friend had a friend there who was full-blood Choctaw. In fact this was a young girl whose parents spoke Choctaw in their home and she was fluent in the Choctaw language.

So Gene asked her how to say your names:

Red Bird is: hushi homma (hushi=bird, homma=red)

Turtle Mother is: svshki luksi (the sv is pronounced as "h", thus it sounds like "hushki")

Gene asked her if she could give him an Indian name and she said, "Yes, she could". Lue said for her to name him "Big Daddy". So she did...and that is "chiki chito"....

Toodle, doodle, love, Mother

NO PINCHING

If favor is on my side and the winds are just right,

I might get to see this outfit again tomorrow.

St. Patrick's Day 2011

Hansford County Golf Course

My sweety and me

our golf buds

cold beer and

pinching? 

That might come later.  I will wear no green just in case!

LISTENING IS PARAMOUNT

 but hearing...well...that's an art.

My house is full of folks who speak in broken English.  It amazes me that contractor comes in and speaks his fractions and instructions for the day in Spanish.  The amusement on their faces is not hidden.

I'm getting they are all related somehow...brothers, dads, cousins and they all came from Mexico.  They are artisans and they know exactly what to do and how to do it even though their tape measures are American and their leader is but practicing his Spanish.

They speak to me in English, but when I answer back, I can tell they don't really get what I'm saying.

Peep and I were laughing at this same concept brother peep uses when visiting Mexico.  The minute his plane lands, he begins to use his "Spanish" and this makes it so painfully apparent that he is from America.  He is saying in essence...I am a Tourist. For. SURE!

Yesterday Eddy was politely telling my why the crystal sconces I purchased needed to be...well actually I'm not sure what he was saying about them...and frankly neither was he.  And then it hit me.  It is much like a situation where he is talking in a language that he's practicing on someone that knows it, but when I talk back to him...he doesn't understand it enough to really hear or digest it.

Wow...isn't that just the trouble...universally?

I talk....but when I get the response...many times I'm not really listening and therefore not really hearing.

I don't know if I will change, but it was a pretty good lesson to realize anyway.

And Eddy?  Well...he doesn't need to listen to me...he knows what he's doing!  And I'm pretty sure I gave his sister my kitchen cabinets the first of May.

NO MORE T&D FOR 40 DAYS

This year I am giving up texting my peeps while drinking alone in front of my fireplace

Kind of gets me in trouble from time to time

CART BEFORE THE HORSE

If you look at this photo closely, you will notice that beside the color swatches is a wall that is unfinished and more than likely will remain so for some time.

The coral represents my coral red lipstick jacquard sofa in the next room.  Two tones of blue will be on the entry ceiling where our walnut and crystal chandelier will hang (maybe by tomorrow) and the other swatches are just colors that I see in this oil painting and plan to use.

The oil painting....came from a fun trip to a winery in Grapevine, Texas.  I admired it and later that year it showed up at my door step as a birthday gift from hubby.  He had purchased it without a single suspicion.

How might you ask, can I work a whole home of color choices around one picture?

Easy...I LOVE IT and besides it has tons of colors in it.

How might you ask, do I already know where I'm going to hang it?

I'm not sure, but I do.

These days I remind myself of Lisa Douglas on Green Acres.

Crystal chandelier, perfect paint choice, toile bedpillows in the midst of hammering (not unlike Jeb's) and saw dust falling from every cranny and there are lots of them let me tell you!

I might get allergic smelling hay but this old rock farm house is the place for me!

MY WEDDING SHOES AND OTHERS

The summer I was 14 I traveled with my grandparents to Alma, Nebraska to visit my cousins.  It was an 8 hour drive and we planned to be gone a week.

We had been there a day or two and when Sunday rolled around, church was certainly on the to go to list.

One little problem.  I didn't pack any shoes.  No, I didn't forget to pack them, I didn't pack them.

That's when I (and others) realized I was either a gypsy or a hippie.  Because I had packed my gold hoop earrings and my cut off shorts.  Just no shoes.  My grandmother was appalled and my aunt laughed.

I dislike shoes and I dislike them more in the summer, but I have come to the realization they are necessary in the winter.  I have one shoe rule and have been known to get up and leave when that rule is impossible. 

I must be able to cross my toes.  If I can't...it drives me over the edge.

So...this is why the above black high top converse all stars are my wedding shoes.

(Well, not these exact ones, because my real ones are packed away somewhere)

This isn't my only idio...but it's my favorite one!

No shoes for me unless absolutely necessary and only if I can cross my toes while wearing them!