It seems lately that I have been having a very hard time getting up in the mornings. I have to believe it's because I have been going to bed so late, sometimes as late as 1 or 2 in the morning. What's keeping me up? Oh, any number of things. Lately, excitement over a writing contest I am entering, but also everyday junk wants to do a tap dance on my mind when I am trying to settle down as well.
Last night I went to bed after 1 am and with it being the same weekend that I "sprung forward" for daylights savings time, I should have known the chances of a mishap occurring would be better than average. Ray got up and took off for Alabama to finish up working on a job there, I got up, sipped my coffee and shuffled around the house givin' myself the old pep talk; "It's gonna be a great day! Boy O' Boy, it won't get dark early tonight (yawn), Yay, three more days till the weekend."
That is when I do the totally idiotic. I sit down to the computer to "check my email", that totally translates to lookin' on fb. Next thing I know it is 7:00 and I haven't even showered yet! Thankfully I did have the wherewithal to get Abby up at her regular time so she is clippin' right along. Me? Not so much. I go from laid back to full speed ahead in 60 seconds flat. I jump in the shower, get dressed and make sure that we water and feed all the animals, then head toward the door with no time to spare.
As I grab up my bag I notice that Abby has some sort of project she is holding in her hands. I ask her, "Whatcha got there?" She tells me that it is a pickle. A pickle? "Well, put it in a baggie, why do you have it on a paperplate?" That's when she tells me that she has sliced this pickle up so that she can easily share it with her friend as they wait in the bus room, a/k/a the lunchroom, at school. (We go through a lot of pickles around here and buy them in gallon jars. They are the large pickles that you see for sell at concession stands.) I told her that she was going to drip juice on herself, she needed to put that in a plastic bag. She says "No, it will be fine, I will be careful with it." I give her the you've been warned look and we head out the door.
We pile in the truck, I double check the time, 7:55, yep it's close, but we will be just fine and we head off for the school. We get no further than the top of the street and I hear a sharp intake of breath from Abby. I didn't even have to look to know what that was about. I glance over at her, sure enough, pickle juice everywhere in her lap. Either that or she peed her pants. I don't say a word and she says "it's fine just keep going." With that said, she proceeds to stretch her T-Shirt down to show me how effectively she can disguise her wardrobe malfunction.
I was too mad for words, but in my mind I'm saying "Satan will be strappin' on ice skates before I let you go to school with pickle juice all over you!" With that I slammed my truck into reverse and boiled the tires all the way back down to my house. At least I had my head on straight enough to make sure that I was on the opposite side of the street so that I would not collide with anyone heading out of the subdivision. Let me say this, your head is never on straight if your mad enough to chew nails and spit rivets. I slowed down enough so that I could haul buggy backwards up my driveway, or so I thought....
I stop short of my driveway by about a foot and a half and instead of continuing straight up the driveway as planned, I slam right into the mailbox. This does little to improve my mood. I pull forward halfway expecting to find that the mailbox is somehow embedded into my tailgate (wouldn't that just be the icing on the cake) or hung on my bumper and I will have to add insult to injury by having to get out and manhandle the stupid thing out of the clutches of the truck body. Thankfully that did not happen. I pull forward and it just leans way over and looks an awful lot like the town drunk three sheets to the wind.
That didn't stop me for long, up the driveway I go at a pretty good clip, I lost steam right before I could do any damage to Alex's car parked under the carport. I look at Abby and tell her she had better make it fast because I was not going to be late for work. She jumped out of the truck like a scared rabbit.
I still don't know how she did it but she had changed pants and was out of the house and back in the truck all buckled up before I could even find a song on the radio that I wanted to listen to. I guarantee you she got her pants out of the dirty clothes hamper cause there is no way she could have found anything to wear that fast. I am almost positive, but well past the point of caring.
Do I regret my little display? Yeah.....well no, not really, ok yes I regret it. I hate that I nailed the mailbox with my truck. I'm not too happy that I will now have to buff the white paint out off of the tailgate. I am eternally grateful that the mailbox was there and that the good Lord stopped me from being stupid one foot over as I would have ended up backing my truck into a culvert a good three foot below street level.
Who knows, maybe she will do what I suggest next time, then again maybe not. I think I should have just let her go to school with pickle juice pee stain on her clothes......
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Sit Ubu, Sit!
Today, riding home from Champ's Clock Shop, we passed by Coursey Lake. Well, what was left of it anyways. Back last year when we had the flood, the dam broke and the lakes just emptied out. It was a pitiful sight, I hated to see it like that. One of my favorite stories about Ray is centered around that lake. I never really tell ya'll too many stories about ol' RayRay so strap yourselves in, this is a good'un.
Back in 1990 Ray and I sold the double wide we had been living in for the past 4 years and moved in with his parents while we saved up a down payment on a house. If we had been smart we would have been saving all along instead of playing so much, but then I wouldn't have some of these stories to tell you now would I?
Either way, we moved in with Pat and Chuck to save money, and actually ended up living there about a year. We had not been on our own so long that moving back in with parents was intolerable, but we had been gone long enough that we came to appreciate the privacy we no longer had.
Ray and I got in the habit of spending quite a bit of time outside the house and one day he came home from work and asked me if I wanted to go fishing with him over at Coursey Lake. Well, he didn't have to ask me twice, he coulda said we were going to the dump to shoot rats and I would have been game! So we gather up poles, tackle box and Ubu, our german shepherd and off we go. Ubu, used to go with us everywhere, even Walmart. She never went inside, but she would sit out in the truck and anxiously await our return.
So, here we go, off to drown some worms, 'cept we didn't use worms, not real ones anyway. Ray was very excited that day because he was going to get the opportunity to use a lure he had just bought, to the tune of $5. Now a days $5 won't even pay for a lipstick from the grocery store, back then to my little pea brain it seemed like a luxury since we were supposed to be saving up for a down payment. Now this lure I have to admit sure was pretty, just not $5 dollars worth of pretty. It was about 4 inches long and had 3 treble hooks on it. (The better to hook the little fishies with my dear.) But I still wasn't impressed.
We arrive at our destination, Ray schleps his chiffarobe sized tackle box over to where he planned to set up our temporary fish camp and proceeds to tie this baby onto his line. He then finds what he is sure is going to be a sweet spot in the lake and makes that first cast. Nothing. Throw, reel, throw, reel, and we make our way slowly around the perimeter of the lower lake. Around cast 6 Ray throws a particularly beautiful cast that lands his lure right in the center of a tree stump protruding from the murky depths of the lake. He tugs and then starts muttering to himself, tugs, cusses a little bit, then gives a big ol' yank. Yep, that snapped the line and there sat his lure on top of the stump winking at us like leprechaun sitting on a pot of gold.
Luckily, a sweet little old man was fishing from a john boat, he saw our dilemma and went on over and plucked that lure right up and handed it over to Ray. I told him that he might want to think about trying a little something different this go round since the fish didn't find his lure no where near as appetizing as he thought they should. He gave me one of those "Hush Woman" looks and went to tying it back on his pole.
Here we go again, and in the same spot I might add. Throw, reel, throw, reel. Oooops, danged if that sucker didn't get snagged on that stump AGAIN. What are the chances?! ( Since this was the same guy that had sprained an ankle and broken both wrists at the same time while racing motorcross two summers before, I have to believe better than average.) Here goes the muttering and yanking AGAIN. Line breaks, AGAIN, sweet little man fetches lure, AGAIN. You seeing a pattern here folks?
Ray thanks the man (AGAIN) and I ask him if he was gonna be a slow learner and tie that thing on one more time, because if he was planning that he may as well hand it to me so I could pitch in the middle of the lake and be done with it. (I think that's the secret to the success of our marriage, me being so helpful.) He just gave me a dirty look and says c'mon let's go around this way some and I will put this away and find something else to throw for awhile.
Thank gawwwd. If he had tied that back on I was going to have to rethink pro-creating with this fella, there was no way I was going to bring a passel of slow learners into the world. How does the saying go? Life is hard, it's even harder if your stupid. Anyway, big strong, smart man lays that high dollar play pretty on top of the tackle box and opens one of the little drawers on the front to find himself something else to throw. Now y'all think I'm exaggerating when I say this deal was a chiffarobe, I'm not! It stood about 20 inches high and was around 18 inches long and maybe 10 inches deep. There was a drawer or two on the front at the bottom and when you opened the top a shelf lifted out and you could throw all manner of crap down inside of it. It was quite the production.
Now Ubu, I bet yall forgot she was with us on this little adventure didn't you? Well, she was hanging around pretty close this whole time. The minute Ray laid that lure on top of the tackle box, she went over to check it out. Next thing I know she has snuffed one of the treble hooks clean up her nose, it just hanging right there hooked to the edge. Bwahhgghhh, gives me the shivers telling the story.
The dog yelps, I yelp and Ray drops his fishing pole when he sees what the dog has hung on her nose. He then decides the best thing to do is straddle her and I think he is planning to see if he can work the hook off the edge of her nostril. You see upon closer examination it is just barely hanging there on the edge, but hooked there nonetheless.
So here is Ray, straddling Ubu's neck, they are both facing me and Ray is kinda crouched down and has the dogs head right where he wants it. He presses his thighs together a little to try and immobilize her since he has decided, unbeknownst to me or the dog, to literally snatch the lure out.
I have to tell you, he didn't get the chance. He applied pressure to her neck with his legs, she panicked and yanked her herself out from between his legs backwards and successfully snatched the lure out of her own nose and sunk it into his thigh all in one fell swoop. If I'm lying I'm dying!!!
Ubu ran over to the edge of the lake which was about 6 feet away, got a quick drink and was like a new dog. Ray on the other hand was still kinda crouched over with a weird look on his face. He then says, "I need you to help me, this thing is hooked in my leg". Uh oh. For real? It's not just hooked on your jeans? Then he starts to get all huffy and says yes, I'm sure, it's hooked in my leg! Well, okkkk, wotcha need me to do? He starts to straighten up and that is when we both realize that when he got hooked he was crouched low over the dogs neck and the hooks were through his jeans and sunk into his flesh and had pinned the fabric in place all bunched up in a crouched position. Weren't we in a pickle!
Ray says take the pliers and see if you can work the hook out of me. So picture this, I'm on the ground, on my knees facing Ray's crotch, he is bent at the waist with one hand on top of my head to help him balance, because his knees are bent much the same way they were when he was straddling the dog. I don't even want to know what the sweet little man was thinking out on the john boat in the middle of the lake. (You know he had to of seen us, it's not a thought, it's a feeling).
I then realize, it's futile. I can't see the hook for all the fabric bunched up around it. That's when I suggest he take his pants off as far as he can so I can see if I can do anything from the inside of the pant leg. Ray says nope, can't do that, see if I have anything we can cut these jeans with. Cut your jeans! No way buddy, there ain't nobody out here but me, you, the dog and that little old man; wave to the man, I ain't cutting a hole in these jeans.
Well, I have to tell you he wasn't making any sense. I said Ray, I'm not cutting these jeans, take the blasted things off. He said, nope, can't do it. Well for heavens sake why NOT?! That is when he says; "Cause I'm not wearing any drawers." Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I recover a split second later and fall over laughing. Ray gets tickled too and he gingerly makes his way to the ground and we have a good laugh. I think by that time the little old man has decided that is indeed not a tackle box, but a cooler full of beer and we are knee walkin' drunk.
I finally dig a rusty old knife out of the bottom of that monstrosity and cut his pants leg open so he can straighten up. We snip the other two treble hooks off the lure and make our way back around to the truck and head to the house were we proceed to do a little Granny Clampett doctoring on his leg.
Well folks, all's well that ends well. Now, don't forget, before you leave the house, always make sure you have on clean underwear, especially if you’re going fishing!
Back in 1990 Ray and I sold the double wide we had been living in for the past 4 years and moved in with his parents while we saved up a down payment on a house. If we had been smart we would have been saving all along instead of playing so much, but then I wouldn't have some of these stories to tell you now would I?
Either way, we moved in with Pat and Chuck to save money, and actually ended up living there about a year. We had not been on our own so long that moving back in with parents was intolerable, but we had been gone long enough that we came to appreciate the privacy we no longer had.
Ray and I got in the habit of spending quite a bit of time outside the house and one day he came home from work and asked me if I wanted to go fishing with him over at Coursey Lake. Well, he didn't have to ask me twice, he coulda said we were going to the dump to shoot rats and I would have been game! So we gather up poles, tackle box and Ubu, our german shepherd and off we go. Ubu, used to go with us everywhere, even Walmart. She never went inside, but she would sit out in the truck and anxiously await our return.
So, here we go, off to drown some worms, 'cept we didn't use worms, not real ones anyway. Ray was very excited that day because he was going to get the opportunity to use a lure he had just bought, to the tune of $5. Now a days $5 won't even pay for a lipstick from the grocery store, back then to my little pea brain it seemed like a luxury since we were supposed to be saving up for a down payment. Now this lure I have to admit sure was pretty, just not $5 dollars worth of pretty. It was about 4 inches long and had 3 treble hooks on it. (The better to hook the little fishies with my dear.) But I still wasn't impressed.
We arrive at our destination, Ray schleps his chiffarobe sized tackle box over to where he planned to set up our temporary fish camp and proceeds to tie this baby onto his line. He then finds what he is sure is going to be a sweet spot in the lake and makes that first cast. Nothing. Throw, reel, throw, reel, and we make our way slowly around the perimeter of the lower lake. Around cast 6 Ray throws a particularly beautiful cast that lands his lure right in the center of a tree stump protruding from the murky depths of the lake. He tugs and then starts muttering to himself, tugs, cusses a little bit, then gives a big ol' yank. Yep, that snapped the line and there sat his lure on top of the stump winking at us like leprechaun sitting on a pot of gold.
Luckily, a sweet little old man was fishing from a john boat, he saw our dilemma and went on over and plucked that lure right up and handed it over to Ray. I told him that he might want to think about trying a little something different this go round since the fish didn't find his lure no where near as appetizing as he thought they should. He gave me one of those "Hush Woman" looks and went to tying it back on his pole.
Here we go again, and in the same spot I might add. Throw, reel, throw, reel. Oooops, danged if that sucker didn't get snagged on that stump AGAIN. What are the chances?! ( Since this was the same guy that had sprained an ankle and broken both wrists at the same time while racing motorcross two summers before, I have to believe better than average.) Here goes the muttering and yanking AGAIN. Line breaks, AGAIN, sweet little man fetches lure, AGAIN. You seeing a pattern here folks?
Ray thanks the man (AGAIN) and I ask him if he was gonna be a slow learner and tie that thing on one more time, because if he was planning that he may as well hand it to me so I could pitch in the middle of the lake and be done with it. (I think that's the secret to the success of our marriage, me being so helpful.) He just gave me a dirty look and says c'mon let's go around this way some and I will put this away and find something else to throw for awhile.
Thank gawwwd. If he had tied that back on I was going to have to rethink pro-creating with this fella, there was no way I was going to bring a passel of slow learners into the world. How does the saying go? Life is hard, it's even harder if your stupid. Anyway, big strong, smart man lays that high dollar play pretty on top of the tackle box and opens one of the little drawers on the front to find himself something else to throw. Now y'all think I'm exaggerating when I say this deal was a chiffarobe, I'm not! It stood about 20 inches high and was around 18 inches long and maybe 10 inches deep. There was a drawer or two on the front at the bottom and when you opened the top a shelf lifted out and you could throw all manner of crap down inside of it. It was quite the production.
Now Ubu, I bet yall forgot she was with us on this little adventure didn't you? Well, she was hanging around pretty close this whole time. The minute Ray laid that lure on top of the tackle box, she went over to check it out. Next thing I know she has snuffed one of the treble hooks clean up her nose, it just hanging right there hooked to the edge. Bwahhgghhh, gives me the shivers telling the story.
The dog yelps, I yelp and Ray drops his fishing pole when he sees what the dog has hung on her nose. He then decides the best thing to do is straddle her and I think he is planning to see if he can work the hook off the edge of her nostril. You see upon closer examination it is just barely hanging there on the edge, but hooked there nonetheless.
So here is Ray, straddling Ubu's neck, they are both facing me and Ray is kinda crouched down and has the dogs head right where he wants it. He presses his thighs together a little to try and immobilize her since he has decided, unbeknownst to me or the dog, to literally snatch the lure out.
I have to tell you, he didn't get the chance. He applied pressure to her neck with his legs, she panicked and yanked her herself out from between his legs backwards and successfully snatched the lure out of her own nose and sunk it into his thigh all in one fell swoop. If I'm lying I'm dying!!!
Ubu ran over to the edge of the lake which was about 6 feet away, got a quick drink and was like a new dog. Ray on the other hand was still kinda crouched over with a weird look on his face. He then says, "I need you to help me, this thing is hooked in my leg". Uh oh. For real? It's not just hooked on your jeans? Then he starts to get all huffy and says yes, I'm sure, it's hooked in my leg! Well, okkkk, wotcha need me to do? He starts to straighten up and that is when we both realize that when he got hooked he was crouched low over the dogs neck and the hooks were through his jeans and sunk into his flesh and had pinned the fabric in place all bunched up in a crouched position. Weren't we in a pickle!
Ray says take the pliers and see if you can work the hook out of me. So picture this, I'm on the ground, on my knees facing Ray's crotch, he is bent at the waist with one hand on top of my head to help him balance, because his knees are bent much the same way they were when he was straddling the dog. I don't even want to know what the sweet little man was thinking out on the john boat in the middle of the lake. (You know he had to of seen us, it's not a thought, it's a feeling).
I then realize, it's futile. I can't see the hook for all the fabric bunched up around it. That's when I suggest he take his pants off as far as he can so I can see if I can do anything from the inside of the pant leg. Ray says nope, can't do that, see if I have anything we can cut these jeans with. Cut your jeans! No way buddy, there ain't nobody out here but me, you, the dog and that little old man; wave to the man, I ain't cutting a hole in these jeans.
Well, I have to tell you he wasn't making any sense. I said Ray, I'm not cutting these jeans, take the blasted things off. He said, nope, can't do it. Well for heavens sake why NOT?! That is when he says; "Cause I'm not wearing any drawers." Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I recover a split second later and fall over laughing. Ray gets tickled too and he gingerly makes his way to the ground and we have a good laugh. I think by that time the little old man has decided that is indeed not a tackle box, but a cooler full of beer and we are knee walkin' drunk.
I finally dig a rusty old knife out of the bottom of that monstrosity and cut his pants leg open so he can straighten up. We snip the other two treble hooks off the lure and make our way back around to the truck and head to the house were we proceed to do a little Granny Clampett doctoring on his leg.
Well folks, all's well that ends well. Now, don't forget, before you leave the house, always make sure you have on clean underwear, especially if you’re going fishing!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Chapstick and Vicks
Well folks, tomorrow is officially Annettepalooza. Tomorrow's palooza marks the 15th Anniversary of my 30th birthday, that's 45 in actual Annette years. It has flown by so quickly I hope I am able to pace myself these next 45! I love my birthday and the countdown to my special day is my claim to fame among my friends. I have made many new friends this year and have gone really easy on them in regards to the countdown, if they only knew! I have been known to schedule a daily email that goes out to remind a select few how many shopping days are left till the blessed event. It is of course a joke and in no way meant as a serious hint to purchase!
Wow, 45! I wonder what 45 is supposed to feel like? If it is true that you are as old as you feel, well then most days I feel like I'm in my 20's with a few days of 70 or so sprinkled in. Things are sure different than when my parents were my age. When my mom was 45, I had already been married for 2 years. My kids are still in public school. I have always heard that having kids in the house keeps you young, I don't know if I would quite put it that way, but it keeps you that's for sure! For one, it keeps you on alert because I learned the hard way that seemingly ordinary things are not always, well, ordinary.
Case in point; my children have the uncanny ability to make crap magically appear out of nowhere when they are in my truck being chauffeured around and they then leave it in there upon exiting the vehicle. I went from one such drop off point directly to the store. Before I went in the store I grabbed the chap stick that Alex left behind and used it quickly, without the aid of a mirror, cause us moms are good that way, then I ran into the store for a quick purchase. I began to notice that I was getting a lot of stares while in the store and the cashiers comment on how I looked festive went way over my head. I get back in my truck and take a quick glance in the mirror and that's when I notice that my lips are covered in silver glitter. Well, that explained the looks! I have certainly learned to double check before I use any seemingly innocent beauty product of the girls.
I am now at the place where I am more comfortable in my own skin than I have ever been in my life, while at the same time I feel like my body has staged a coup against me. While trying to thread a needle the other day I noticed that I could see the eye of the needle and I could see the end of the thread but I couldn't marry the two up, very frustrating. I actually considered putting on some 3-D glasses since wearing contacts and squinting one eye shut wasn't working for me.
I have now swapped places with Ray when it comes to who is too hot and who is freezing, who'da thunk it. The smell of Vicks Vapo Rub I now find comforting instead of smelly when I'm not feeling up to par and I have traded in my birth control pills for 81 mg of aspirin coated with Calcium. Before when trying to decide if I wanted to go out and do something with friends I took into consideration is it a work night, how much will it set me back money wise. Now I ask myself, can I wear my lounging clothes if I go? Will a line to the bathroom at this event be longer than a 15 minute wait? Is this being aired on TV, can we watch it from home? Is there a chance I could break a bone?
Yes, my way of thinking has definitely changed as I have gotten older, I wonder what I will be like at 80!
Monday, March 1, 2010
Porcelain Unicorn's
Right after I got married, back in 1985, my mother gave me a porcelain unicorn that was filled with gardenia scented wax beads. The aroma of the beads would waft out of these tiny little holes on the sides of the unicorn placed there especially for this purpose.
At the time I was on a unicorn kick, from there it went to thimbles after that I'm not to sure but right now I collect signs. What kind of signs? All kinds, but that's a story for another day. So this unicorn my mom gave me was white with a gold horn atop its head, it was lying down with it's legs curled around it to the side. It was very regal looking, for an Avon collectible that is.
I don't know why, but for some reason I was really taken with that unicorn. Why? I think because for the first time in my life I was living on my own and was a little homesick. This gift given to me by my mom reminded me of her every time I saw it. About 2 months after my mom gave me the unicorn our first child, Bocephus the cat, jumped up on the coffee table where I had placed it and knocked it to the floor where it shattered into a million pieces. I don't think I could have done a more thorough job of demolishing it if I had tried with a hammer.
To this day I am still amazed at the sorrow I felt at losing such an inexpensive trinket. I am still convinced my affection for it was because I thought of my mother each time I saw it. That is when I decided that never again would a thing, a store bought, man made, maybe not so easily but replaceable thing get that depth of emotion from me again.
This month marks 25 years since my mother gave me that pretty little dodad and I have to say up until today I thought I had done a pretty good job of avoiding having porcelain unicorns in my life. You know, those things that you attach too much of yourself to, things that you become emotionally attached to, when there are much more important things going on around you that deserve that depth of emotion.
Today as I was driving home from work my sister texted me to ask where my blog posts had gone. All I could think of was "oh crap, not again" last month around this time an entire months worth of posts were placed into my trash bin. How they got there, nobody knows. I do know this, they were retrievable and all was well with my world once again when it was explained that if something like that were to happen again, check the trash bin first and if there I could easily restore them. I also learned that it is a two step process to permanently delete my posts, so it is virtually impossible for that to happen by mistake.
Well, today at 11am my blog was completely intact, at noon on my way home, not so much. At 12:15 when I realized that indeed a few posts were in the trash bin but the last five days of January and the entire month of February was gone forever, I had a porcelain unicorn moment, BIG TIME. For some reason my little pea brain thought that my web host might have a backup, I was afraid to keep one on the dinosaur of a computer here because I was afraid it would crash and be lost forever. HA! Apparently that is not how it works.
Either way, Mike the IT guy, was very helpful, just not in the way I would have liked for him to be. I wanted him to be a magician not a technician. He wasn't pulling any rabbits out of his hat today, that is for sure. What pains me the most is that there were a few tales told that I am not sure I can capture again. They are alot like butterflies, when you get them to land long enough to get a good look at them, you know, while they slowly open and shut their wings, you can snap a photograph of them and preserve it for posterity. I neglected to keep a negative of those mental shots that I took and placed on my blog, so I am now paying for my carelessness.
OK, I am through whining about the lost blog posts. There are so much worse things happening in the world than losing a few of my scattered thoughts put out there on the web. From now on I will keep a copy or two or three in a safe place and if they come up missing again well then it should be an easy fix.
I don't believe in coincidence so I am curious why this occurred. Perhaps there are more important things that I neglecting so that I can ensure that my nightly post make it to the web? Maybe I need to be tucking those girls in along with Ray, instead of him doing it alone so that I can get that blog post in by midnight? Hmmmm, it's a thought. Perhaps I will take this opportunity to mix things up a little. March was the month I wanted to get going with my pageMeanwhile Back At The Ranch, so I will certainly direct some of my focus there, I am hoping you are pleased with the result.
This week I am going to post every other night and put some things in place to avoid the heartbreak of when a blog post, or 30 goes AWOL. Wish me luck, please visit often, and let's all remember to avoid having porcelain unicorns in our lives, it just ain't worth it.
Annette Bagley-Martin ~ Once again with cheese in her hair.........
At the time I was on a unicorn kick, from there it went to thimbles after that I'm not to sure but right now I collect signs. What kind of signs? All kinds, but that's a story for another day. So this unicorn my mom gave me was white with a gold horn atop its head, it was lying down with it's legs curled around it to the side. It was very regal looking, for an Avon collectible that is.
I don't know why, but for some reason I was really taken with that unicorn. Why? I think because for the first time in my life I was living on my own and was a little homesick. This gift given to me by my mom reminded me of her every time I saw it. About 2 months after my mom gave me the unicorn our first child, Bocephus the cat, jumped up on the coffee table where I had placed it and knocked it to the floor where it shattered into a million pieces. I don't think I could have done a more thorough job of demolishing it if I had tried with a hammer.
To this day I am still amazed at the sorrow I felt at losing such an inexpensive trinket. I am still convinced my affection for it was because I thought of my mother each time I saw it. That is when I decided that never again would a thing, a store bought, man made, maybe not so easily but replaceable thing get that depth of emotion from me again.
This month marks 25 years since my mother gave me that pretty little dodad and I have to say up until today I thought I had done a pretty good job of avoiding having porcelain unicorns in my life. You know, those things that you attach too much of yourself to, things that you become emotionally attached to, when there are much more important things going on around you that deserve that depth of emotion.
Today as I was driving home from work my sister texted me to ask where my blog posts had gone. All I could think of was "oh crap, not again" last month around this time an entire months worth of posts were placed into my trash bin. How they got there, nobody knows. I do know this, they were retrievable and all was well with my world once again when it was explained that if something like that were to happen again, check the trash bin first and if there I could easily restore them. I also learned that it is a two step process to permanently delete my posts, so it is virtually impossible for that to happen by mistake.
Well, today at 11am my blog was completely intact, at noon on my way home, not so much. At 12:15 when I realized that indeed a few posts were in the trash bin but the last five days of January and the entire month of February was gone forever, I had a porcelain unicorn moment, BIG TIME. For some reason my little pea brain thought that my web host might have a backup, I was afraid to keep one on the dinosaur of a computer here because I was afraid it would crash and be lost forever. HA! Apparently that is not how it works.
Either way, Mike the IT guy, was very helpful, just not in the way I would have liked for him to be. I wanted him to be a magician not a technician. He wasn't pulling any rabbits out of his hat today, that is for sure. What pains me the most is that there were a few tales told that I am not sure I can capture again. They are alot like butterflies, when you get them to land long enough to get a good look at them, you know, while they slowly open and shut their wings, you can snap a photograph of them and preserve it for posterity. I neglected to keep a negative of those mental shots that I took and placed on my blog, so I am now paying for my carelessness.
OK, I am through whining about the lost blog posts. There are so much worse things happening in the world than losing a few of my scattered thoughts put out there on the web. From now on I will keep a copy or two or three in a safe place and if they come up missing again well then it should be an easy fix.
I don't believe in coincidence so I am curious why this occurred. Perhaps there are more important things that I neglecting so that I can ensure that my nightly post make it to the web? Maybe I need to be tucking those girls in along with Ray, instead of him doing it alone so that I can get that blog post in by midnight? Hmmmm, it's a thought. Perhaps I will take this opportunity to mix things up a little. March was the month I wanted to get going with my pageMeanwhile Back At The Ranch, so I will certainly direct some of my focus there, I am hoping you are pleased with the result.
This week I am going to post every other night and put some things in place to avoid the heartbreak of when a blog post, or 30 goes AWOL. Wish me luck, please visit often, and let's all remember to avoid having porcelain unicorns in our lives, it just ain't worth it.
Annette Bagley-Martin ~ Once again with cheese in her hair.........
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