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!

I KEEP REPEATING MYSELF

I keep repeating myself.

Oh.

I already said that.

And I might have already told you this.  Once I had a dream that me, hubby, hubby mama were performing Silent Night in his church.

I was playing the cello.

Then he bought me a cello that Christmas which I played every day for 2 years.

And then I stopped.

Here are my excuses:

an 80 year old violin teacher with weenie arms broke my A string

I have moved into another house and cellos are persnickity about being moved

My new house is full of insulation dust and sheet rock dust and cellos don't tolerate dust

I have been very very busy trying to do all I do and practicing my cello is #8 on my list

I rarely make it past #6 on any given day

Not to worry.

I love my Cello and I will play it again when I finish my music room which comes right after my chapel

that is unless I go to jail for a dishonest hit counter.

Then I might have to play the air cello.

I already do that.  Have I already told you that?

YET ANOTHER MALADY TO BEFALL ME

Ok you had your chance and not I will do what I have to do. I tried to be nice but with this email you are now aware of the fraud. That means your part of it. That is a felony and it mean prison time. You have till 12 noon tomorrow to put up a honest hit counter or I will let everyone know that your comitting fraud. Ed

This very threatening email came after one that I won't print because it's just too....hateful.

The pitfalls of online news come around now and then and usually, I really take things to heart and try to do a very good and honest, I might add..job of it.

Mr. Ed kind of caught me off guard and this more than likely came in repsonse to his bill he didn't want to remit.  The gist of the story is that he did not believe my online news has 1300 unique readers and 5000 hits a day.  I assure you, I am far too busy editing 4 of them to really even bother looking any more..but since he made me..I'm really quite proud.

With a secure (and honest) site counter in place, these are my top five responses to Mr. Ed.

1. Ed?  Are you off your meds again?
2. Ed?  Do you realize that often people accuse others of things they are doing themselves
3. Ed?  I'm busy
4. Yes Ed...after all these years you are the only one smart enough to finally catch me clicking on my own site 4,950 times a day.
5. Ed...would you like to buy a vowel?

THE MALADY THAT BEFALLS ME

I was recently invited to be a judge for a local UIL event in Headlines.


Cool...except that I really have no expertise in the field, except wait....I have been an editor now for nearly 5 years...ok 1825 days x 10 stories(app.)=

18,825 headlines. (app.)

Hmmm...maybe I do have a clue.


But just in case, I googled it and what I found was very interesting and completely logical.


Keep it simple...so simple in fact that you gear your headline AND your story to the 7th grade reader.


Why?

Because that's the level most people read on.

Who knew?


Does this mean that I no longer need to use my thesaurus? (had to spell ck).  Does this mean that instead of writing  "a malady that befalls us", I can just write "a bad thing happened"?


I love colorful language and I have lots of favorite words that I like to say and see in print.  Writing is fun and writing cleverly is funner.


So...maybe I can just hold myself back on the headlines.

MOVING IN

Ah...moving....

I moved two blocks away.  It might as well have been 2000.

Our daughter bought our house...so the moving has been kind of lackadaisical.

We are living amid serious demolition while rebuilding a dream. 

Email to hubby today:

bad day, no hot water, no workers, no pants, but all can be fixed

Email to daughter today:

Is your house locked?  I'm considering some real pants today and I know right where they are.

Life is very very good indeed...I will wash dishes next week.

WHAT I'M GOING FOR

All those years ago when driving by 822, the signs of spring would unveil her lovely beauty around the curvy sidewalk as the red tulips and grape hyachinth popped up to say "hello".

I always dreamed of a curvy sidewalk and now I have one. But because we moved the old front door and created a new one, the old curvy sidewalk had to go and so did the red tulips and purple hyacinth.

So President's Day 2011, chilly, but not as cold as it could be in February, included planting 100 red tulips and 500 purple hyacinths.

What a fun day in the neighborhood with the most
precious help one could ever imagine.

My hope is that when Betty is older and even driving by herself, she will remember the day she kissed the bulbs and planted them in the frozen winter ground and hoped and dreamed of the day her efforts would yield the most incredible and lovely...

...curvy sidewalk blooming with red and purple with a great big "HELLO".

SOMEDAYS I WONDER

Am I the fuzzy one or the clear one?