tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113145872024-03-14T07:11:20.573-05:00Redneck DivaI was born a semi-diva. I married a redneck. Through the magic of osmosis or just because of a serious lack of sophistication over the years I have found a balance of the two that make me who I am today. And then I write about it all, much to the chagrin of my mother.Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.comBlogger1342125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-39237047989913727602020-09-13T14:38:00.006-05:002020-09-13T14:38:52.800-05:00We....the people <p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Originally published in <i>The Miami News-Record, </i>July 2020</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Everything is different now. I’m not just talking about masks and social distancing. I’m talking about everything. When the pandemic first hit and the majority of the nation went into quarantine/lockdown/whatever you want to call it, there was a rallying cry of love and kindness and solidarity. Snippets of the song from “High School Musical” were heard: “We’re all in this together…” John Krazinski started his Good News Network with stories of how mankind in general was circling the wagons, doing good, loving their neighbor, and caring for everyone in our time of need. I would watch the show every week and big fat ugly cry and just think to myself how proud I was to be a part of humankind and the underlying theme of caring for one another in times of need.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fast forward a few months.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Y’all it’s nasty out here now. Gone is the love and understanding and brotherhood. Instead now we are divided between masks vs. no masks, agendas and conspiracies vs. taking precautions for those compromised, Republican vs. Democrat, conservative vs. liberal, protests vs. riots, and on and on. Any possible topic or conversation lately is so quickly skewed into an argument I find it’s just easier to not talk to anyone. I see the confederate flag popping up in places I never dreamed I’d see. It literally hurts my heart to see such divisiveness among a nation mere months ago so bonded and compassionate.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My husband and I are vastly different when it comes to political views. I shan’t go into details because it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that he respects and loves me enough to not pick fights with me over it. And I return the favor. He grew up in a very impoverished community, very conservative, very hard working. I grew up very middle class, one side of the family staunchly Democrat, the other straight-party-voting Republican. Yet I honestly never felt division at any family gathering. Maybe I was too busy dancing to Nan’s Village People records and playing Yahtzee with my cousins to pay attention to such things, but the underlying fact is this: if the adults disagreed, we kids never felt it. Now I feel like parents are priming their children for political battle straight out of the womb.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Just last week I expressed my grief over seeing a confederate flag flown and Paul asked me why it was so upsetting. He wasn’t picking a fight, he genuinely wanted to know why a piece of fabric made me cry. I gave him a history lesson, told him to do some research of his own if he still had questions, shared with him why it’s such a symbol of hate and racism. He listened. It was that simple. <i>He listened.</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I know that on such topics as the President and masks, I’m probably not going to change your mind. You probably aren’t going to change mine either. If you feel strongly enough to tell me your view and do it with intelligence, I will listen to you tell me why you feel a certain way, but in the end if I choose to keep my opinions the same, I will still love you as a human even if we don’t agree. It’s called respect. A few weeks ago I was lamenting to a friend over how my Facebook feed was so full of anger and hate. And in that conversation she revealed to me that she was actually polar opposite of me on a certain topic. I told her I had no idea and we both had a good chuckle about how we remained friends and still love each other even if we have NOTHING in common on this topic. And in thinking about it, among my group of friends from high school, I am the lone liberal. Yet I love those women with so much of my heart and I would move heaven and earth to help them. And I think if we, as a people, would set aside the details that divide and look into the heart of the person next to them, we’d be better off.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I keep hearing the words from a song on the “Hamilton” soundtrack over and over in my head: Are we a nation of states? What’s the state of our nation?” We are indeed a nation of states, but the state of our nation is….sad, perhaps even what I’d call dire. We all need a bandaid, a hug, maybe a kiss on the forehead, and some good old fashioned love and respect to our fellow man.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We aren’t here by accident. Remember who we are. We, the people……need each other.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-68422594273395097942020-09-13T14:33:00.001-05:002020-09-13T14:33:20.877-05:00Primed <p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Originally published in <i>The Miami News-Record, </i>June 2020</p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I honestly couldn’t tell you how long I’ve been an Amazon Prime member, but let’s just say that the time in my life before Prime was bleak and dismal and probably not worth remembering anyway. That was back when I had to wait sometimes a week for items to arrive and *gasp* I paid for shipping. Yeah. Those were dark times indeed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I don’t know how families survive without it to be honest. We get our music from Amazon, our Kindle books from Amazon, our groceries and household items as well. My online shopping with Amazon has only grown since March when the lockdown went into place and we quarantined, but I was a pretty heavy user even before then. During quarantine when things were sad and scary and I wasn’t sleeping much, online shopping was my comfort. I mean, so were Coffee Nut M&Ms, but that’s another story altogether.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I am a member of a Facebook coupon code group and I just have to say, that group has gotten me such wonderful bargains as a metal shelving unit for $34 (those run $80 and up at Sam’s Club), approximately 843 snack size bags of Cheez-Its (I might be exaggerating slightly, but it <i>was</i> a big box), a pair of Crocs flip-flops for $14, an air fryer for $40 (it has changed my life, ya’ll) (the directions are in Chinese, but I’m figuring it out), wireless phone chargers (another life changer for sure) and much more.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’ve also gotten some duds as well. After a herd of wild hogs decided to uproot half of our front yard I found a discount code for some ultra bright solar powered motion lights. The pictures showed the lights mounted over a door and appeared to be as wide as said door. I was so excited for them to get here in hopes of pairing the flood lights with the new security camera (also bought with a discount code) and nabbing the nasty oinkers. Imagine my surprise when a box no bigger than 3x5” showed up on the day of their expected arrival. I should’ve read the actual dimensions rather than rely on a picture. They’re very, very tiny. And really, they’re not bad lights, just definitely not as wide as a door. I am also anxiously awaiting a paint-by-number canvas I ordered in March. In its defense, it’s coming from China and well, that’s a whole ‘nother story, too.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Having an app now makes it even more convenient to just pick up my phone and order with a few taps. I can be having a conversation with someone, they mention they haven’t been able to find item xyz and I can literally find it within seconds usually. We’ve found replacement cables to TVs and computers, stick-on lights, stick-on bras (don’t ask….well, honestly, you might want to…), a set of Golden Girls refrigerator magnets, allergy medicine for a fraction of what it costs at the store, and according to my daughters, <i>the most comfortable underwear you’ll ever put on your tush. </i>I honestly don’t know how a family can go without it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Also during quarantine and the aforementioned not being able to sleep well thing, I relied heavily on my sleepy herbal supplements and Benadryl to force the rest on occasion. It was during one of those nights that I sleep-ordered a giant box of Slim Jims, a box of essential oils, and a 50-pack of AAA batteries. Some part of me, deep down in my subconscious must have known those items were going to be needed in my home. Or just maybe all those sleepy pills gave me the ability to see into the future when I would order a five-pack of stick-on touch lights and would need 15 of those batteries to power them up. Most likely it was just the power of Amazon, sending waves of needfulness to me whilst I slept. It’s probably just one of their many services now.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-18749048691652059172020-09-13T14:27:00.005-05:002020-09-13T14:27:56.633-05:00The dreams and the reality <p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Originally published in <i>The Miami News-Record, </i>June 2020</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When I was a little girl, I dreamed of being married. As I got older, the vision in my mind only got stronger and more vivid as to what I dreamed it would be like. I’d meet this amazing, dark-haired man and we’d have virtually everything in common. We’d go on picnics and watch movies together. We’d lie in the grass under a tree and have deep conversations about the future. We’d bake cookies together and someone would inevitably throw flour at someone and we would laugh and laugh. We’d have a neat and tidy house, eventually a couple of well-behaved children, and live happily ever after.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Like, none of that happened. None of it. Okay, well, we’re happy and this seems to be the “ever after” part they mention, so okay, those happened. He doesn’t even have dark hair – he’s a ginger for crying out loud. We have virtually no like interests, we aren’t even politically aligned, and if you turn on a movie, one or both of us will likely fall asleep. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A friend text me the other day to tell me that her husband had just shown her a pimple he had on his back. She’s 13 years my junior and has been married 10 years to my 27. I had to laugh as I responded with, “I hate to break it to you, but he’s probably gonna offer to show you a hemorrhoid one of these days, probably fairly soon. Get ready.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In reality, marriage (and mostly life in general) isn’t the storybook version of “romantic.” It isn’t deep conversations under trees in your perfectly manicured yard, or flirtatious food fights. No, it’s mostly exhausted questions answered with exhausted grunts and I never dared to playfully start a food fight in my kitchen because I knew I’d be the one cleaning it up. The yard has never been manicured – he just sets that mower as low as it’ll go so he won’t have to mow so often. And when the dog tears up the trash you just hope a windy day is on tap so it will all blow away.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s the ugly stuff in life you never considered you might encounter that mostly comprises married life. You discover stretch marks and toe fungus, you have morning breath and really bad gas after eating Chinese food, he snores, you snore, the dog snores. Basically, everybody snores. The children are super entertaining and amazing humans, but maybe not the “well-behaved” vision you had in your head. He leaves his little beard hairs on the sink and breadcrumbs on the counter. You have an Amazon shopping problem.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But when it comes down to it, marriage gives you a person. A person to call your own, a person who commits to being there for it all. A person who has this spot right on their shoulder where your head fits perfectly. A person who, upon hearing the word “turnpike,” immediately launches into a tirade about tolls and maintenance and you laugh even as you roll your eyes because you’ve heard that tirade a gazillion times before. A person who helps you paint even though they might hate painting even more than you do, and you hate it a lot. A person who binge-watches “Cheer” on Netflix with you and gets just as excited as you do when they stick the landing but would never admit to another living soul they did. A person who is a constant, a comfort, occasionally a source of frustration, but so many experiences and memories you can’t fathom going through them with anyone else.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Sure there are pimples and bad breath and the years bring on gray hair and wrinkles and extra pounds, but by that point you and your person are so entrenched in this weirdly personal thing called marriage you just embrace it for what it is: your very own version of “romance.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-20970422922374142992020-09-13T14:23:00.004-05:002020-09-13T14:23:47.443-05:00Graduation in the time of pandemic <p> Originally published in <i>The Miami News-Record, </i>May 2020</p><p><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I finally graduated from college. I didn’t walk across the stage, but instead spent the day picking up a Walmart order, having lunch with my youngest and her beau (properly distanced), visiting with my momma (from six feet apart) and then coming home to watch some TV. It was not at all how I had envisioned my college graduation that was 29 years in the making. But I did it. The two semesters and summer semester at Crowder were all straight A semesters, even with a math class thrown in there. I graduated with a 3.5 career GPA. It was hard. I made it harder on myself due to this perfectionism thing I have anchored in my DNA and I could have eased up some, but there was that part of me deep down that needed to prove I could still do it. And I did. Woohoo.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Right before campus closed, I got an email that I had been nominated to speak at graduation. I hadn’t even been sure I was going to walk since my niece, nephew, and Kady’s boyfriend were all graduating as well, all of us from different schools the same weekend, but the nomination reminded me that one item on my bucket list is to speak at a graduation commencement. So of course, I had to ponder it, ruminate on it, and finally write something for kicks and giggles if nothing else. So, without further ado:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">To the Class of 2020: wow. Just wow. We have certainly ended a year for the books. But here you are – you did it. It’s just not ending with you in your cap and gown, your family, friends, teachers, advisors, in the crowd, here to watch you in the culmination of no simple feat. But don’t let that lessen the accomplishment. High school was easy for me. College was not. I started this journey in 1991. I picked it back up again in 2007. Dropped it. Abandoned it. Kicked it a few times out of spite before I walked away. Then along came Crowder and people who said, “But what if you did….” and then my kids echoed it. And my momma and sister. And my husband. So I started. I went full time, online and started in the summer. I enrolled in seated classes for the fall semester, but a week-long hospital stay caused me to change my major, rearrange some things, and regroup. It would have been very easy to quit. Again. And oh, I thought about it. But I didn’t quit this time.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My youngest always says, “Time and place” when she hears a story about circumstances and happenstances and things just working out. “Time and place” applies to just about everything in life, but man, it sure does for college. This past year just happened to be my time and my place. Your time and your place didn’t happen for you the same way it did for me. It doesn’t have to. We all have our journey. Some of them are straight shots to the goal, the streets lined with good grades, good teachers, classes we like, scholarships. Some of us don’t have support, some of us have to choose to work instead of going to school, some of us choose more time with our kids, some of us just need to take a break.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">However you do it, whatever it may be, just do it the best way you can. My mom has always said, “I don’t care if you choose to be a doctor or a dog catcher. Whatever you choose to be, be the very best one you can.” So to all of the 2020 graduates and all of you still enrolled, be you future doctors or dog catchers, this year you proved you can do just about anything in just about the worst environment possible. Remember that. Now go do big things, little things, amazing things, important things, kind things, <b><i>all the things</i></b>…the very best way you know how. You should be so proud of yourself.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-23829980066371791772020-09-13T14:19:00.000-05:002020-09-13T14:19:13.970-05:00Humility and hilarity <p>Originally published in <i>The Miami News-Record, </i>May 2020 </p><p><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Some things are more humbling than others. Sometimes things are humbling and also hysterical. For instance, getting a new pair of shoes that have a little more heel than you’re used to, practicing walking in them so you don’t look like a frozen-toed chicken, then sashaying across the room all sassy-like only to twist your ankle and fall. That’s just humbling. Or accidentally saying the wrong word - a DIRTY word - in place of another, <i>in front of the whole family at Christmas, </i>trying to correct it, messing it up again, then messing it up THREE MORE TIMES before your mother finally says, “Enough! Stop trying to fix it!” That is humbling and amusing even while you mortified your grandfather. Or getting tickled with your best friend at the Tastee Freez and laughing so hard you pass gas <i>very loudly</i> (if you remember the old Tastee Freez in Miami, the place was small, sound carried, the booths were very hard and….resonant). That’s just downright hysterical.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The other night I had an experience so humbling <b>and </b>hilarious I can only write about it and share with you, Constant Reader, because that’s just what I do.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’ve been doing some extreme social distancing since March, plus I had been in school for almost a solid year and had very little social interaction even before the pandemic hit. Only recently have I emerged from my little groundhog hole, eyes squinted, skittish, and very, very wary. We have limited our interactions to only our kids, my sister and her crew, and my mom and pops. Even those interactions are distanced and there isn’t the usual hugging and close proximity we are all accustomed to.</p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Last Thursday Paul and I had dinner at Mom and Pops’. After dinner, the fellas went to the living room to watch TV while Mom and I stayed in the kitchen and visited.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You ladies know how it is, you touch your chin and accidentally discover a chin hair, and then it’s literally all you can focus on. I was trying to get it with my fingernails to no avail and Mom said, “Well, you can’t just sit there and fiddle with it, come on.” I protested, telling her I had car tweezers (because y’all know that car light is the best light to nab chin hairs) and would get it on the way home. She insisted I follow and as I entered the bathroom she unfurled a giant magnifying mirror from the wall. That thing had to be about 97,856X magnification. But I’m so short all I could see was my eyebrows and those were another story altogether. I tried standing on my tiptoes but still couldn’t get my chin in the frame. Finally, Mom got tired of watching me hop and stretch and said, “Give me those!” She snatched the tweezers, abandoned all social distancing rules, and grabbed my face. The hair was actually down below my jaw and still pretty small. She couldn’t see it. I found it and said, “There, right by my fingernail!” With a surgeon’s precision, she honed in on the hair. The room was quiet. And then…she started laughing. Then I started laughing. My chin in her hand, tweezers between us, both of us were laughing so hard that one of us passed gas. And one of us - okay, probably both of us - peed a little. The more we laughed the funnier it got and both of us were doubled over, wheezing, until Paul got concerned enough to come check on us. I heard him say to Pops, “I don’t know what was going on in there, but they’re both bent over and neither one of them can breathe. They’re probably fine.” When we finally composed ourselves we decided to just count our losses and leave well enough alone.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The next day when I plucked that sucker from its little hiding place, I got to giggling all over again. Few things humble - and amuse - us more than chin hairs and having someone else attempt to pluck them for us.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-74958145167249879832020-09-13T13:42:00.007-05:002020-09-13T13:42:49.852-05:00Being seen <p><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Originally published in <i>The Miami News-Record, </i>January 2020</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><br /></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">This week the program I work for brought Leon Logothetis, aka The Kindness Guy from the Netflix series </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The Kindness Diaries</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">, to campus for two sessions. The premise of his show is that he travels the world with no money, food, or possessions and does it all while relying on the kindest of strangers. It’s nothing if not inspiring.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The main premise of his speech was obviously kindness, but more than that he stressed how showing someone kindness - whether completely off the cuff or pre-planned - shows that person that you <i>see</i> them. Not just with your eyes, but with your heart, your soul, your very being. How many times have you felt invisible? Unseen? Like you are nothing and mean nothing? If you haven’t ever felt those feelings I’d say you are in the minority.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Humans need love. Humans need interactions - yes, even us introverts. We’re not monsters, just….awkward and like to hide from like, everyone we think might want to talk to us about the weather or sports. But even the most introverted of introverts still needs human interaction. And being seen is so crucial for a person’s happiness and well-being. I’m not saying go seek validation because that’s not the same as being seen. The homeless guy at the intersection holding the cardboard sign? Sure, you see him, but do you<b> <i>see</i> </b>him? Do you smile and maybe give a weird non-committal fingertip wave and then stare intently at the stoplight internally chanting “Turn green, turn green, turn green”? Or do you <i>see</i> him and think about him as a human being? How cold or hot it is that day? How appropriate or inappropriate his clothing is for the weather? Is he hungry? Is he lonely? What’s his name? Does he have family that wonders where he is and how he’s doing?</p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Sure, we can’t help every homeless person, every struggling momma in Walmart counting change to buy formula, every student crying at her computer because her parents are divorcing and math is hard and life is too much, but if we all help a few just think of the impact that would have - on our campus, our workplace, our country, our world — <b><i>on ourselves. </i></b>Not selfishly, but in a completely self-aware way. In a way that will make us truly see those around us and make us want to do more and help more and be more.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In his speech Leon said, “Heroism is built on a foundation of service and love.” One of the main tenets of Crowder College is servant leadership. When I first started working there I noticed how everyone helps every else, and not just staff and faculty helping students, but everyone helps each other. Effortlessly and without forethought - everyone just does. I had been there a few weeks before I actually heard the words “servant leadership” and I was so impressed by it, that an institution would make that such an important part of who they are.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I was helping take tickets at the door yesterday before the presentation. I have been kind of in a funk lately - it’s winter and the semester just started and it’s just that time of year for funks. I was standing behind the table when a co-worker came up and said, “I was thinking about something last night. If you had gotten rich and famous rather than the Pioneer Woman, you wouldn’t be here. And you wouldn’t know us……and we wouldn’t have gotten to know you.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>She saw me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I teared up immediately. She said, “Now, don’t go crying! We’re not those kind of women!” and we both laughed and I said something about needing some emergency estrogen and she moved on in the line. But her words echoed with me all day. She had truly thought about how her life would be without me in it. It was a simple statement, a simple gesture, it took nothing of her time and money, but she said it to me regardless.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">She saw me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Open your eyes. Open your heart. Open your mind. Watch. Listen. Look. See people. Really <b><i>see them</i></b><i>.</i> Change their world if you can. And in the process you’ll likely change yours.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-11782505834710989362020-09-13T13:40:00.002-05:002020-09-13T13:40:16.631-05:00Booming <p> Originally published in <i>The Miami News-Record, </i>July 2019 </p><p><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Growing up, we always went to Nana's on the 4th of July. Always. There was no option, no variance, it was always to Nan's for the noon meal. We took day-works - firecrackers, snakes, sparklers, pop-its, jumping Jacks, and the like. There was always watermelon and homemade ice cream. When my cousin Russ was alive and still mobile, we cousins would gather around him in the living room floor before and directly after lunch and play dominoes or Boggle. The women cleaned the kitchen and visited, the men dozed off in the post-meal tradition. Then finally! We'd climb the chat pile out back (hello, lead poisoning!) and Dad and the uncles would oversee the explosives. That was Dad's side of the family. Mom's side of the family was fairly fluid in their plans. Sometimes it was our house, sometimes it was Uncle Larry’s, occasionally we gathered at Papa's farm, it depended on where he was with harvesting or mowing or how sick Memaw was at the time. They were the evening festivity people. More sparklers, plus fountains and all the other fun, booming, high-in-the-sky stuff. It was always a day of cousins and food and stickiness and dirt and fun.</p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When Sis and I started families of our own we were just excited to have reason to buy fireworks once again. Paul and I were so broke when the kids were little, but starting in June we would scrimp and save up $100 for fireworks. It seemed like a lot until we got to the tent, then it seemed paltry and like it never bought enough. Sam always picked out something that pooped, Abby like the screaming chicken laying a fiery egg, Kady usually cried and whined that one of her siblings picked out the firework <i>she</i> wanted and the world was surely coming to an end.</p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Since we moved to Wyandotte we somehow created this tradition where every year on or around the 4th, we blow something up with a stupid amount of Tannerite. Over the years we’ve blown up a washer, a dryer, a dishwasher, and this year a stove and a dog house. My Big Family™ came over on Saturday, for volleyball (we don't play by many rules, there is a lot of smack talking and even more of Abby and me avoiding the ball at all costs), the littles played in the kiddie pool. After dinner we got ready for the boom. Like the diligent rednecks we are, we warn the neighbors (this year I posted in our neighborhood watch Facebook page to let everyone know we weren’t under siege) and record it all on our phones. A storm was trying to blow in as Paul set up for the shot, so there was the added drama of “Will we be struck by lightning while waiting for the massive explosion that could possibly send debris flying at us?” It. Was. Exhilarating. One container was sufficient for the dog house, but instead of using the remaining three for three separate explosions the guys decided to duct tape three together for one GIANT cook stove explosion. We’re talking meth lab proportions, folks. It rattled our livers.</p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We don’t get together with Mom’s or Dad’s sides of the family anymore. We have become our own family unit I guess. Our group has gone from Mom, Sis, me and our spouses to a whopping 18 with all the grands and great-grands. This year Cousin Jason came out as well. (I’m not sure the man will ever be the same. I should probably call and check on him…) and one of Kady’s friends came out, too. I hope we only continue to grow as the years change the dynamics. I know certain folks will leave, more will come in, everyone will grow older, and eventually they will begin their own family units and start their own traditions. And maybe the group that continues to gather up here on the Mountain will become boring people who don’t blow up discarded appliances, but gosh, I sure hope not. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-60666600059197969922020-09-13T13:12:00.001-05:002020-09-13T13:12:10.478-05:00First you have to find yourself <p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Originally published in <i>The Miami News-Record, </i>May 2019 </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My final kid graduates tomorrow. She completed her Junior and Senior years this year and is enrolled at Crowder for the fall. It’s been a busy time since March finalizing everything and getting things ready. We are building her an apartment in the south half of our house, so on top of school stuff we now have added construction stuff. It’s been a whirlwind to be honest.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I haven’t really known how to feel about her graduating. I didn’t get particularly emotional when the other two graduated and haven’t really felt too emotional with this one either. Since she’s not really leaving the nest just yet like her siblings did, I can save the empty nesting for another time. So yeah, I think I’m handling it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Graduation is an exciting time. I didn’t have a really great Senior year and not a lot of super awesome memories from that time, but I remember standing on that precipice between childhood and adulthood and being SO READY for whatever was next. I had bounced from one career dream and college major to another about a dozen times - from lawyer, to judge, to teacher, to actress and a few more that year. I started NEO that fall as a Theatre major. One semester in I woke up and realized I wasn’t going to make it as an actress, I had very little support for my education and I dropped out. I went to work in a daycare, moved to Stillwater, worked in a grocery store, moved home, met my husband, got married, and well, voila. I am now a mom with three adult children, two grandkids, a husband of 26 years, a job I adore, and life is good. I was a stay-at-home mom for roughly 20 years, homeschooling seven of them, and I got to help raise a few other people’s kids over the years as their babysitter. I don’t have a giant resume to show off, but I have had the most gratifying time “growing up.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My mom worked for an attorney in Miami, Mr. James Reed, for several years and I worked for him a few summers. He was a daunting man, very authoritative, and formidable. He, however, had a heart for seeing people succeed. Inside the card he sent me for graduation he wrote, <i>“First you have to find yourself. For some it is not easy. Accept trial and error.”</i> I kept the card in its entirety for years, eventually just cutting out a square around his words and laminating it. Right now it hangs on a magnet board on my bathroom wall and I see it every day. It has hung in a prominent place in my home for 29 years now. And it is the best piece of advice I’ve gotten regarding the future.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’ve tried to make sure my own kids have always known that it is 100% okay to just <i>not know</i>. It’s 100% okay to try - <i>and fail.</i> It’s 100% to start over - repeatedly if you have to. And as my youngest child, my wild child, my “she definitely keeps life interesting” child is about to embark on her own journey into adulthood, I hope she can remember that because Lord knows her momma is the queen of starting over and the whole try-and-fail thing. She’s amazing and confident and crazy smart, so I think she’ll embrace it just fine. And I hope her daddy and I have created a soft, safe place for her to land if she needs to.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Kadybugg, I cannot wait to see how this plays out. I hope you sincerely enjoy the journey of finding yourself. It’s been a pleasure seeing you grow and learn and bend us all to your will. You are a whirlwind of kindness, belligerence, strength, beauty, compassion, and empathy. I am so proud of you and the woman you have become.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Happy Graduation to all the graduates. Y’all are gonna change the world. And I love that. Be kind. Be you. Be Love.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-64658656842070864332020-09-13T13:08:00.000-05:002020-09-13T13:08:11.608-05:00How wonderfully <p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Originally published in the <i>Miami News-Record, </i>June 2019 </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I was scrolling through Facebook one morning, just as I do every morning. I allow some leeway in my morning schedule to give myself time to wake up. I take that time to scroll through Facebook. I’m sure a psychologist would screech in abject horror that I’m doing something horrible to my brain by waking it up that way, an optometrist might waggle a finger and tell me that blue light first thing in the morning will surely blind me. Meh. I enjoy a lazy, sleepy-eyed perusal through my most-used social media first thing in the morning and until Sigmund Freud himself tells me I should stop, I’m going to continue.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Wow, that was a digression.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The other morning as I was doing my morning scroll, I found something my youngest had shared. It was a square filled with line after line of the same sentence. The font was teeny tiny but neat and it caught my eye immediately. My scrolling stopped and I just stared. The repeated words formed beautiful row after row, line after line of perfection. That’s what originally stopped me, but then I read the repeated sentence:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“How wonderfully you have grown since June of last year.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It was like that little box was speaking directly to me. I’m not sure the reason why my daughter shared it. Maybe for herself, maybe for a friend. Maybe because she, too, liked the look of the repeated lines and rows. But it certainly wasn’t by accident that it showed up in my feed that morning.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Last June Paul was on month three of unemployment. Aside from the loss of our first child, it was the hardest season we have gone through in our marriage. We were both bitter and angry. Fear plagued us both. I was a month away from having a total hysterectomy after over a year of severe problems. I was in pain and exhausted physically, then we were thrown into a place of insecurity we had never been. By the end of the month he had a job. A job that would thrust him into a depression he’d never experienced. At the beginning of July I had surgery. Major surgery. I felt better immediately. However, during my recovery I found another job, the job I am at now. All while trying to make sure my husband didn’t harm himself or give up.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“How wonderfully you have grown since June of last year,” echoes in my head as I write this.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I am learning how to be. And by “be” I mean, I am learning how to “be [fill in the blank].” It seems general and vague, but think about it. I want to be [better at painting]. I want to be [a cowboy]. I want to be [more loving]. Being is a state of existence and <b><i>I want to be.</i></b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I want to be more loving, caring, compassionate, fun, open to change, open to diversity, able to roll with whatever comes my way. I want to be a better mom, wife, grandma, daughter, sister, and aunt. I want to be a better employee, student, person in general. You can add “I want to be…” in front of all of those and make sentences. Profound sentences.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Since changing jobs I have realized how closed-minded my world has been. I have shrugged off some ages-old thoughts and ideals that benefitted NO ONE and I’m ashamed I propagated them for basically my whole life. I now embrace <b>everyone</b> and even the “worst” individual humankind can introduce me to, I try to see things from a different perspective and see past what they are and into who they were and how they got to where they are. I love with all that is in me. I do good recklessly. I love who I have become since June of last year. And I hope that next June I can look back and see where I’ve become even better since this year.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">How wonderfully I have grown.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-26847109172158086562020-09-13T13:04:00.004-05:002020-09-13T13:04:24.466-05:00I blame the spider <p>Originally published in the <i>Miami News-Record</i>, May 2019 </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Terrified” doesn’t adequately express how I feel about spiders. Abject horror, paralyzing, gut-deep fear is more accurate, but not quite. When bad weather is imminent, someone else must sweep the cellar. I would rather face down an EF5 tornado wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt, leggings and my Crocs flip-flops rather than go into the cellar with creepy crawlies. We knew the storms would get going early in the day, so that morning Kady swept it out. I inspected and found it to my liking.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For most of the other warnings (so. many. warnings.) that day it was basically get the kids, babies, and dog in the cellar and I stayed out. If I did go under, it wasn’t for long. It’s my duty as a lifelong Okie to stand in the yard during any tornado warnings. I think it’s in our DNA and I’m pretty sure my parents signed some kind of oath when I was born that they would continue this tradition with their offspring.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Once Paul got home from work, he and I kept our vigil together on the porch while our little brood was tucked safely underground. After warning Number ?, we knew we had about an hour until the next one hit, so everyone came up, we got out stuff for sandwiches, and let the girls run a bit. I had no more finished making my sandwich when another warning went off. We were so tired of the chaos it took to get everyone down there so we waited a bit. I stood in the yard and watched the clouds. It felt different. Finally I told everyone to GO. I stood at the door of the cellar and watched the clouds start to rotate. Abby came up to video it and then the wind switched direction and even Paul, the tornado naysayer said, “GET UNDER!” The grandgirls were happily watching “Bubble Guppies” on their tablets, the dog was asleep on her bed, we had to threaten the men to refrain from any and all farting. It was pretty calm inside while the outside was a hot mess. Petal got sleepy, so I sat down in a lawn chair to put her to sleep. I felt a plop on top of my head.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">About the time I said, “I think someone needs to check my head to make sure that was rain and not a bug,” Abby said in the calmest voice I’ve ever heard, “Mom. Don’t freak out. [absolute certainty I was definitely going to freak out] There is a spider over your head.” If she had said that while in a house, I’d have simply gotten up and <b><i>run</i></b>. In an 8x8 cellar you don’t run. You are trapped. You are trapped with a spider dangling menacingly over your head and there’s not a doggone thing you can do about it. It was actually a raindrop that had hit my head, but I imagined a virtual waterfall of spiders raining down from the tiny vent over my head. I let an involuntary whimper escape. Everyone in the cellar was just staring at me. Abby, again so calm, said, “Mom. I’m going to take off my shoe so I can kill it. I need you to slowly get up and not drop my kid, okay?” I got up and went as far away as I could get while she whacked that eight-legged monster with my favorite flip-flop (her shoes had gotten soaked earlier, so she was in my Crocs flips - shame I have to burn them now. Or at least, the left one.) “Okay, it’s done. It’s stuck to the ceiling but—“ I interrupted her with a shrieked, “IT’S STILL ON THE CEILING?!?!” And once again, my eldest, the voice of reason, said, “Mom. It’s the best I can do. It’s dead. Stay calm.” And then my youngest asked if she could wipe my tears. The tears I didn’t realize I was crying because I was so blasted scared out of my mind. It was not my proudest moment. But I did learn that my girls definitely know how to take care of their momma.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-42305021437307862322020-09-13T12:54:00.003-05:002020-09-13T12:54:37.109-05:00Pictures and cake <p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">Originally published in the <i>Miami News-Record</i>, October 2019. </p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">A couple weekends ago, through some bizarre form of maternal magic, I managed to get all of the kids and their significant others to our house for an extended period of time. Sam’s girlfriend, Maegan, is playing basketball in Arkansas now and it was the very last weekend she was going to be able to leave campus until the holidays. The weather was forecasted to be good, we needed to celebrate Abby’s birthday, so I planned family pictures. I stressed to the kids that I <i>needed</i> this to happen. The next time we see Maegan will likely be after a ballgame or as we’re chowing down on Thanksgiving dinner and neither an is extremely photogenic moment. The stars aligned. Everyone was available. The plan was to start taking the couples’ pictures around the time the grandgirls were getting up from nap and then they’d come up once the girls were awake and dressed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">Outdoor pictures are fickle. Lighting is tricky and if you use the sun the way you should, everyone is squinty. If you don’t risk corneal burns, you have face shadows. Then, top it off, we live on the highest hill in Ottawa County. The wind hadn’t blown all day, but as soon as we walked outside it started in. Hair was getting stuck in lipstick all over the place. Earlier in the day I had asked Paul to mow out a little spot at the edge of the field so we’d have a space to stand. As we headed out to take pictures I saw that he had not done so. But all of the sudden it didn’t matter because as we walked out to scope out the area, Penny, Kady’s dog decided that THAT particular spot was THE most perfect place in our gigantic yard to take not one but TWO significantly sized poops. She’s not even that big of a dog.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">We took Sam and Maegan’s first, then moved on to Zach and Kady. We were finishing up as Abby and Dakota drove up. As soon as Penny heard the grandgirls’ voices she tried to run for the hills. She is terrified of them and tends to poop when she sees them, but considering the fact she’d already taken care of that business in our original backdrop, she thankfully wasn’t doing that. We got the girls distracted in another part of the yard while we snapped the last few with the dog, then Kady took her in the house to safety.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">The next hour was spent making absolute fools of ourselves for the sake of a few smiles out of Wemberly and Petal. Wemberly is smiley and expression-able, but Petal takes a little more coaxing. And coax we tried. They did amazing considering they are two and three and of course, I find them two of the most fetching creatures on the face of the earth.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">While we were waiting for a ladder for the group shot (since I’m the photographer, I have to have something to set the camera on when I’m in the pictures) Sam took the camera and snapped a few of me. I had my hand resting on the back of a chair, I had just lowered my scathing “Bass eyebrow” because my husband had been acting a fool and sometimes the eyebrow is all the works.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">I have some reflections on the photos he took, but those will have to wait for another day. I feel like waxing poetic and reflective on your crow’s feet a mere paragraph or two from where you described your daughter’s dog’s photo-sabotaging poop-scapade might be conflicting and not at all literarily correct. It might affect the general tone of both stories, so we’ll leave it at this:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">My family is awesome. Family picture day is always stressful, windy, chaotic, and this year, poopy. But when the pictures were over, it was the almost-21-year-old who said, “Hey, Mom? We all smiled pretty. Can we have cake now?” And it was my pleasure to lead them inside for cake at the dining room table. They are my whole heart.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p></div><p><br /><br /></p>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-73675452559849016032020-07-16T10:48:00.002-05:002020-07-16T10:49:20.274-05:00The First Half <div class="separator"><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></div></div>In case you've been hiding under a rock on planet Xenon474, it's kind of been a shitshow since 2020 started. I shan't go into all the worldwide details because I'm preeeeety sure you've actually been here living it like the rest of us. <div><br /></div><div>The program I work for hosts a cultural trip for the students each semester. Sometimes it's a play or the ballet, but this spring semester it was a several-day trip to Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX, over Spring Break. I don't particularly like to travel and I was also in the final weeks of my own final semester of college, so I opted to stay home from the trip and also took the week off work just to kind of chill a bit. There were mutterings and small news blurbs of a virus teetering on the verge of epidemic, but honestly nothing alarming. Then every day there were more reports and that tiny broken part of my brain where OCD lives took that information and started crocheting a little granny square of panic. Then it started to become more of a tea towel. When I felt like we were reaching afghan of doom territory, I decided to use one of my precious days at home alone to go shopping. I went to Sam's Club, Aldi, and Walmart in Joplin that day. My little red Camry was loaded to the hilt simply because I rarely ever make all three stores in one fell swoop. I didn't overbuy or hoard a thing - the cases of water and toilet paper were just my usual purchases when I shop. I've always been a toilet paper stocker-upper because -- well, I don't know why. It's just security to me. I know, I'm weird. I mean, ya'll pretty much knew this from the start, right? If you didn't, that's probably just on you. I text my coworkers a joking text about how I was shopping and people were kinda crazy, shopping carts were full, crowds were busy and rude. They said Texas was totally normal, you'd never know there was talk of a virus there. </div><div><br /></div><div>By the time they got back from the trip things were different. In a matter of a few days it went from quiet murmurings to borderline panic. I went to work that following Monday after Spring Break sick at my stomach, nervous, scared, unsure. Paul didn't want me to go. Hell, I didn't want to go. We had a meeting that morning with the college president who said, "This meeting is out of CDC guidelines and will be our last of this kind." <i>That </i>didn't help my anxiety. I spent the whole meeting trying to focus on his words but instead looking around noticing how many people were touching their faces, how close we were all sitting to each other, and wondering if anyone in the room was infected. It was very surreal. Not long after the meeting our department director called us each in her office individually and asked if we wanted to work from home. I nearly jumped across her desk to embrace her, but thought better of it. When I left that day I didn't return to campus for 10 weeks. My stash of Slim Jims in my desk expired and my trail mix went stale. </div><div><br /></div><div>About two weeks into lockdown Paul and I talked and then talked to Abby and Dakota and made the decision to quarantine the girls here with me while the guys hunkered down together at Abby's house. Both guys were essential and were going to be working the whole time and with Abby and Wemberly having asthma, we just didn't want to risk exposure. In a matter of hours, she packed food, clothes, and toys while I did a quick child-proof on the house, packed Paul's bag of clothes, food, and medicines, then sat on the porch crying until they got here. We did that for six weeks. I regret nothing. We existed on Walmart grocery pickup, two Aldi runs by me where I basically wore a beekeeper's suit and sprayed a cloud of Lysol around me the whole time. It wasn't until a month in that we felt brave enough to ev3en do a Sonic run. </div><div><br /></div><div>The first week of June the four of us in our department at work started going in and covering the office one day a week each. We mask up, stay to ourselves, and just do our time. School is scheduled to start on-ground mid-August and we've been advised to leave each day like we won't be coming back. I doubt we keep the entire semester on-ground, but given current numbers Oklahoma and Missouri should both be back in lockdown and that hasn't happened yet, so who knows. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm sick of the phrase "new normal," I'm tired of being asked what the semester is going to look like, I'm tired of wondering if every time I get a tickle in my throat I am infected, I am sick of being scared all the time. I'm not tired of not going to Walmart, though. Grocery pickup was my best friend well before this whole shitshow began. Too people-y for sure on any given day. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now for cuteness:</div><div><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHawH4kv-CO5BVb0FRpDxYaKRbji_JECxFZ2XyD2Wj-nacenAwJ-b9v6c0kgnyXLucoXPNJ5Bcq5I4MRIZum-zdFqSnt50bZfjEzb6dguK9IjzrboA8UBAZyo9hyphenhyphen_0jYrIT0W/s2048/0DE1DC8E-3ADF-4093-A43C-4FF93A4D7E71.heic" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHawH4kv-CO5BVb0FRpDxYaKRbji_JECxFZ2XyD2Wj-nacenAwJ-b9v6c0kgnyXLucoXPNJ5Bcq5I4MRIZum-zdFqSnt50bZfjEzb6dguK9IjzrboA8UBAZyo9hyphenhyphen_0jYrIT0W/s320/0DE1DC8E-3ADF-4093-A43C-4FF93A4D7E71.heic" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Her apples always look like a mouse has gotten hold of them. She just nibbles them to death. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh579QwhJ-BZBnUcP4HyYdOS72JLfSVt-cX7sdJLAU5jZlJejirRzOLk4qc6iq5RIZxhY-dM-0X1rZptS1GSMNpzmLlDWNQlhwJTtZJko2bCYBFkDr5cGRpDBA4YrtH87C2I9Ha/s2048/01A27250-BB55-4821-A266-EF414A7693E3.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh579QwhJ-BZBnUcP4HyYdOS72JLfSVt-cX7sdJLAU5jZlJejirRzOLk4qc6iq5RIZxhY-dM-0X1rZptS1GSMNpzmLlDWNQlhwJTtZJko2bCYBFkDr5cGRpDBA4YrtH87C2I9Ha/s320/01A27250-BB55-4821-A266-EF414A7693E3.heic" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Wemberly found this rock on Pa-Paul's nightstand the first day they were locked down at my house and she carried it everywhere for a few weeks until she lost it. She slept with it, it took a bath with her, it sat next to her plate while she ate. <div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc3QrKjaptNsQ5rHIY0nQr6zTvyetlGnUET8GfxjBkzQfi0gsgWDzcgdp-r-mp2Qu1y2ZuVFSiJGvAXTSGeeX4c4dDnxvGuRWzBdnJF_tCMMNaOXgEPGOu0hphyaUo7pWCcZRu/s2048/1A8D13E7-2FC1-4EA2-8FF3-6D42BE93BE0D.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc3QrKjaptNsQ5rHIY0nQr6zTvyetlGnUET8GfxjBkzQfi0gsgWDzcgdp-r-mp2Qu1y2ZuVFSiJGvAXTSGeeX4c4dDnxvGuRWzBdnJF_tCMMNaOXgEPGOu0hphyaUo7pWCcZRu/s320/1A8D13E7-2FC1-4EA2-8FF3-6D42BE93BE0D.heic" /></a></div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We had many many bed parties while in quarantine. While the mom I was always said no to jumping on the bed, the grandma almost always says yes. ;) </td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA9vJ079mZ_AC-m0dlcIKSSmspnozlLHr0eyom7ijwMCOvUeOqd_rKqo1ciTn_7pVpvn2-HcWDcrCmpSVV30gzkDocEF2-7pOvgmgJFVh7a4_SJgcEtjleC_Q6Xy9eJ0c8zklu/s2048/B36BB4BE-458D-4E5C-8EA9-95EBFC888EF5.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA9vJ079mZ_AC-m0dlcIKSSmspnozlLHr0eyom7ijwMCOvUeOqd_rKqo1ciTn_7pVpvn2-HcWDcrCmpSVV30gzkDocEF2-7pOvgmgJFVh7a4_SJgcEtjleC_Q6Xy9eJ0c8zklu/s320/B36BB4BE-458D-4E5C-8EA9-95EBFC888EF5.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Running off some energy! </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisuKnkdQDTzJl8J_gkgFNk9F7wwxY6A7CUOOdIT4xCzCLG2q08DkpNHKedut2i0Fd_srKw9KS2PC9rutRqXwcgSLjckCvqhLUxOpgLsviIDjcxv1iHP7XYQfjkBDskYZfLWa_N/s2048/3A6857CB-E87D-453F-96F2-98B84DF6F070.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1535" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisuKnkdQDTzJl8J_gkgFNk9F7wwxY6A7CUOOdIT4xCzCLG2q08DkpNHKedut2i0Fd_srKw9KS2PC9rutRqXwcgSLjckCvqhLUxOpgLsviIDjcxv1iHP7XYQfjkBDskYZfLWa_N/s320/3A6857CB-E87D-453F-96F2-98B84DF6F070.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkCKcyFWe-g__DhlqVhsYit3Rz036hR96f9CW_rCEkbSwFx9uiQqggDyY6ud2OA6IGUin2we7Uito6UdwVTx40IbKDlAjvPtZdNhRHKQlHhT8IdQKZX8hHTaN4yk2BMNasn6BA/s2048/AE336A30-C621-4B12-8FE9-C0FAC8300FFF.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkCKcyFWe-g__DhlqVhsYit3Rz036hR96f9CW_rCEkbSwFx9uiQqggDyY6ud2OA6IGUin2we7Uito6UdwVTx40IbKDlAjvPtZdNhRHKQlHhT8IdQKZX8hHTaN4yk2BMNasn6BA/s320/AE336A30-C621-4B12-8FE9-C0FAC8300FFF.heic" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJB7VubOD0iXrHeJviyoPlekyHhcMtIMa_-S3na7VLTpVLjZPFFXSQCQ2sB86GEQeITnyJd86A7jHB6YrT1RXz15q-G5110RMk0h1d3ygOtWuZp2S8TFddam1Be3LDloh79qZV/s2048/F256BA2B-A28F-42FB-9DB0-1D83A1C7A599.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJB7VubOD0iXrHeJviyoPlekyHhcMtIMa_-S3na7VLTpVLjZPFFXSQCQ2sB86GEQeITnyJd86A7jHB6YrT1RXz15q-G5110RMk0h1d3ygOtWuZp2S8TFddam1Be3LDloh79qZV/s320/F256BA2B-A28F-42FB-9DB0-1D83A1C7A599.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Every morning while I would work on school work, the girls would get the color. They liked their morning activities much more than I liked mine. </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd5HLOAk1f5Krg-ldYECfILtz2goLLz0VRETq8jjQ0y2a6TwcFXiHcAQo5zBDDFeGuOi5xM1CO7X6IwMAWxuD9N6doClRSIIMgfYAoZzKX4XCu6HsAz0eeG_zLO-8fAgrWpl6A/s2048/6A1D16AE-A365-4A88-8E32-32D0891ABB1E.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1681" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd5HLOAk1f5Krg-ldYECfILtz2goLLz0VRETq8jjQ0y2a6TwcFXiHcAQo5zBDDFeGuOi5xM1CO7X6IwMAWxuD9N6doClRSIIMgfYAoZzKX4XCu6HsAz0eeG_zLO-8fAgrWpl6A/s320/6A1D16AE-A365-4A88-8E32-32D0891ABB1E.jpeg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjydE855g27mxs6D2CAEZcRYxAQkgtuPhugiFu6o9HEh2UGT1DyF5TZwGOPpMwW4dZVEpAaOCulbtaIOdF8c9C60g9nLV95WyQRSBsEvL79SiQkFkIHPGC_b6Od0weAFZ3eaCAD/s2048/ED98F575-8727-4BE3-BECB-6E2FB3CCC939.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjydE855g27mxs6D2CAEZcRYxAQkgtuPhugiFu6o9HEh2UGT1DyF5TZwGOPpMwW4dZVEpAaOCulbtaIOdF8c9C60g9nLV95WyQRSBsEvL79SiQkFkIHPGC_b6Od0weAFZ3eaCAD/s320/ED98F575-8727-4BE3-BECB-6E2FB3CCC939.heic" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Family Zoom meetings kept us from feeling completely alone in the world up here on the Mountain. </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHtb5lerMOO2EMYXEyLSKEnQaSSL_Qb_KSgt_1YkYKaX0zRfux3zgbZUUa80WDrv6iE-92eVQJL7gafDOc6kpSyyydTfjDQEQ6NUyL7GttQ51mdtk4H_h8yDNkKG_1xkNOc4W7/s2048/39AF082C-EEE9-46A6-B959-0622A9FB1583.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHtb5lerMOO2EMYXEyLSKEnQaSSL_Qb_KSgt_1YkYKaX0zRfux3zgbZUUa80WDrv6iE-92eVQJL7gafDOc6kpSyyydTfjDQEQ6NUyL7GttQ51mdtk4H_h8yDNkKG_1xkNOc4W7/s320/39AF082C-EEE9-46A6-B959-0622A9FB1583.heic" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUr6QFLr7ftr13eHiitIaM62C7oY0aUsrsG3v6Mt8dbGPsEYTjAlG6TZ4nVoH1jyo-7Vha8fOWI5CpfwUZMuXRhuKVCMzL63OK_1Qd8XJsiDDb5BopW-lpulMrD1iWbvC90czg/s2048/76366E07-13B8-4B09-BFE2-F37C23F66E26.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUr6QFLr7ftr13eHiitIaM62C7oY0aUsrsG3v6Mt8dbGPsEYTjAlG6TZ4nVoH1jyo-7Vha8fOWI5CpfwUZMuXRhuKVCMzL63OK_1Qd8XJsiDDb5BopW-lpulMrD1iWbvC90czg/s320/76366E07-13B8-4B09-BFE2-F37C23F66E26.heic" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBN8i-rz76iQR9LMiYPV9aS8wPlhojmftuuEI0TUsscDEmlAHsaEyms-wmvrGzRzP-XGIdksOvR5H2ylBSBqaZBEhTDCxWswzSlNy9ZqWqf6CGYO2Hz-caY_iMYwz9vdnL6e0h/s2048/93E6557E-F713-42A8-9A1D-CC719A4027DB.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBN8i-rz76iQR9LMiYPV9aS8wPlhojmftuuEI0TUsscDEmlAHsaEyms-wmvrGzRzP-XGIdksOvR5H2ylBSBqaZBEhTDCxWswzSlNy9ZqWqf6CGYO2Hz-caY_iMYwz9vdnL6e0h/s320/93E6557E-F713-42A8-9A1D-CC719A4027DB.heic" /></a><br /><br />Petal's speech therapist was a rockstar on Zoom! Petal hated it and screamed a lot, but they managed to make it through with very little regression. <br /><br /><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzOh1y4FXW25_MdAdVms1iATPrkfiX5SbrXIuxSh93f_20I3vP9WnUiINPCrZmwrE-6p48aZt6TzxyUGb6sL88fkGi92J9g46ELikGOLtkmTPeBZjhlW_BiaLKLuRtful2pkRU/s2048/33E53AB0-0F3C-49BA-8F56-7F764CE04CDC.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzOh1y4FXW25_MdAdVms1iATPrkfiX5SbrXIuxSh93f_20I3vP9WnUiINPCrZmwrE-6p48aZt6TzxyUGb6sL88fkGi92J9g46ELikGOLtkmTPeBZjhlW_BiaLKLuRtful2pkRU/s320/33E53AB0-0F3C-49BA-8F56-7F764CE04CDC.jpeg" /></a><br />Wemberly got a teal streak in her hair just like Momma and Kiki! Is that face not the most precious? </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjksFjVA3bHhV3ZnPfEUy4XHBIk26zfMCBM9W3EyJneaUelXrvCgNu-hO3AcCUj9g4imYP6WFflDGZImrTQIVBkgNB743RhL5k9uo_N6pylTSX4xSU1dYWxXUKt4xh5shZv2qml/s2048/179E674D-BBB1-4574-B21B-69A3439F691B.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjksFjVA3bHhV3ZnPfEUy4XHBIk26zfMCBM9W3EyJneaUelXrvCgNu-hO3AcCUj9g4imYP6WFflDGZImrTQIVBkgNB743RhL5k9uo_N6pylTSX4xSU1dYWxXUKt4xh5shZv2qml/s320/179E674D-BBB1-4574-B21B-69A3439F691B.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">I told them if they could be responsible and not push any buttons they could <br />Facetime their Tatty all by themselves. <3 </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPI7xoxy3IGxrbqeTxoky875wDGrxoSAeGnoA5nbRN3JgeDRum-AkEAQ2RRShX7aVgLQMlW5DMLU2vmYUkhRb9a-YwOP24aUgbMt6zmt9lUyY5nFenUCAq2QsrFZpyPU5D1ox3/s2048/162C4AC2-AC9A-4143-859D-139E77DA251E.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPI7xoxy3IGxrbqeTxoky875wDGrxoSAeGnoA5nbRN3JgeDRum-AkEAQ2RRShX7aVgLQMlW5DMLU2vmYUkhRb9a-YwOP24aUgbMt6zmt9lUyY5nFenUCAq2QsrFZpyPU5D1ox3/s320/162C4AC2-AC9A-4143-859D-139E77DA251E.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The wasps coming out when it started warming up kept us inside most days, but occasionally we'd get lucky enough to get to spend some time out on the porch without being under attack. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1oaKF1X_o1YNBMG7dE4oD8pMsR7OYUZW2HxUn8sqYGpc5j1tpoqJFXGqFE7QeVRuCucUwNbhIG53_5oYjqxEMzIW24LKYlLu5KUw6MZnXBZw8dUwPdZuGJIvJZuJtd2Zj0AVB/s2048/605B7DCA-74AD-4BFF-BD35-19FBCE203340.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1oaKF1X_o1YNBMG7dE4oD8pMsR7OYUZW2HxUn8sqYGpc5j1tpoqJFXGqFE7QeVRuCucUwNbhIG53_5oYjqxEMzIW24LKYlLu5KUw6MZnXBZw8dUwPdZuGJIvJZuJtd2Zj0AVB/s320/605B7DCA-74AD-4BFF-BD35-19FBCE203340.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-9hUhd-anojihsITjM-cwBYKrAnDVQs5Aoj8hEWbhcNp0o1mjoMmZIdlclpA78Nm_KfvfpgaBH_NN_Pl5HN5OwORKM-PMdyJZ_feuVMJXWQLkAtdjdDK0TjNkK_4Phkeg7uIP/s2048/87026DE9-81FE-4471-87EF-9A8DF7910666.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-9hUhd-anojihsITjM-cwBYKrAnDVQs5Aoj8hEWbhcNp0o1mjoMmZIdlclpA78Nm_KfvfpgaBH_NN_Pl5HN5OwORKM-PMdyJZ_feuVMJXWQLkAtdjdDK0TjNkK_4Phkeg7uIP/s320/87026DE9-81FE-4471-87EF-9A8DF7910666.jpeg" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpG7a6GsQUNPUvP-8rqNbj5cuzinC7puQykg8ydKd1408curFJvO2fvIUZq7-kf967FCPuuG_fCuL7MXbjrSAmMI253USUAW8WWmlkJU-WCeqJ8FdiuFHNhSGvoO91LJZ_R6Kg/s2048/BEAB7177-201A-4802-952A-00367164B089.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpG7a6GsQUNPUvP-8rqNbj5cuzinC7puQykg8ydKd1408curFJvO2fvIUZq7-kf967FCPuuG_fCuL7MXbjrSAmMI253USUAW8WWmlkJU-WCeqJ8FdiuFHNhSGvoO91LJZ_R6Kg/s320/BEAB7177-201A-4802-952A-00367164B089.heic" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi63MtiGMhL7w3ZwK6DB7B0Ok_q46kXHRajfpr0Cf-5xR2MVIjQIpM8qgLbWWBnmxXnn2MlnXsL5A-bXyBMQqMFv_17GvzlxajiRthHxOaL5wUj8OgjQRI-pS5RpFYrCtAumZuo/s2048/2021FB59-EE23-419F-A98B-A396F876AF4F.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi63MtiGMhL7w3ZwK6DB7B0Ok_q46kXHRajfpr0Cf-5xR2MVIjQIpM8qgLbWWBnmxXnn2MlnXsL5A-bXyBMQqMFv_17GvzlxajiRthHxOaL5wUj8OgjQRI-pS5RpFYrCtAumZuo/s320/2021FB59-EE23-419F-A98B-A396F876AF4F.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While it was certainly not how we had intended to spent six weeks of our spring, I will always remember the time I got with three of my girls. </td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi63MtiGMhL7w3ZwK6DB7B0Ok_q46kXHRajfpr0Cf-5xR2MVIjQIpM8qgLbWWBnmxXnn2MlnXsL5A-bXyBMQqMFv_17GvzlxajiRthHxOaL5wUj8OgjQRI-pS5RpFYrCtAumZuo/s2048/2021FB59-EE23-419F-A98B-A396F876AF4F.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB4LdZ9drGCQRF_N-h6UHxEKRh6kNNfQ0H2t8UJ8j9ecqs7yh1rMP6gGoN5T4CTvVsnPUBT9WPVtN8A_lE8l1af8FPg03U91NNlWVgQsRrY4x6mBdETb8z9aJ75Qf852ctB010/s2048/2775F42A-3056-49D7-822C-AE91AF1EB955.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB4LdZ9drGCQRF_N-h6UHxEKRh6kNNfQ0H2t8UJ8j9ecqs7yh1rMP6gGoN5T4CTvVsnPUBT9WPVtN8A_lE8l1af8FPg03U91NNlWVgQsRrY4x6mBdETb8z9aJ75Qf852ctB010/s320/2775F42A-3056-49D7-822C-AE91AF1EB955.heic" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My nap buddy every day during quarantine. I loved having that time with just me and her, snuggling, giggling, marveling at the miracle she is. I didn't get to do that with Petal because Petal is a tiny tyrant and pretty much hates me lol. I'm working on her. <br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxj4MS1C9C-owaEDsL8l-Bwc445_A1Ss8OGJahDpEDG1Gw0UpAC47PoL1qrE3DlpR0p_0e6tHjOAi2aZygJM3Zn-RzTRezJGA0ZBDWvm6urqza0incZXV_O6lCX5uueNjutVDD/s2048/5594D177-EAA7-49F8-89DA-2F8A719AAA5D.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxj4MS1C9C-owaEDsL8l-Bwc445_A1Ss8OGJahDpEDG1Gw0UpAC47PoL1qrE3DlpR0p_0e6tHjOAi2aZygJM3Zn-RzTRezJGA0ZBDWvm6urqza0incZXV_O6lCX5uueNjutVDD/s320/5594D177-EAA7-49F8-89DA-2F8A719AAA5D.heic" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tatty and Zach surprised us with a window visit one afternoon! <br /><br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlL2Q_QYZPuNs6wIWrQLlqF5_w3HGNCJDkmInVPFIYSALOWUCJ_o3mnTJTBjjvCKQovybB0iv1XWRQv-yEQv52eXinvCE9ypvny3iuN7kjPvLWCdIzAHIsmzviHQAPdcRsJi2G/s320/5322816A-128B-458A-9856-833491A1ED3E.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Easter Bunny came to the Mountain this year! The candy is always the best part. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTWP6VLrCbW7ZQrnvMBZJMenQts-mxj_WRpY-ItjrpRnfpPjZ0dBBUJDlhx7AmxIe5ceSgsQ7Q-jauVi-sL3FC_JHipf77QsRzskGWfZW4uIkysDsXsrb_aYNiV-SYyCDVZY2N/s2048/951701C1-6B8F-4DCB-868D-8F247759E20C.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTWP6VLrCbW7ZQrnvMBZJMenQts-mxj_WRpY-ItjrpRnfpPjZ0dBBUJDlhx7AmxIe5ceSgsQ7Q-jauVi-sL3FC_JHipf77QsRzskGWfZW4uIkysDsXsrb_aYNiV-SYyCDVZY2N/s320/951701C1-6B8F-4DCB-868D-8F247759E20C.heic" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNT9OvWZ-vlJRNwSkSrzDYpRcbKgzyLGzinSdgdNUjn5clIjQvCJ14zxHjcvZgLfazZinNoXw6LmL4n-5x21uqeedPxV2eS4DDbvDxVGIj7qWpoW3aLNFab7Ebk9gzrgrWWhN/s2048/FF51AAC9-642D-42BD-BF3D-6EA83ED0F883.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNT9OvWZ-vlJRNwSkSrzDYpRcbKgzyLGzinSdgdNUjn5clIjQvCJ14zxHjcvZgLfazZinNoXw6LmL4n-5x21uqeedPxV2eS4DDbvDxVGIj7qWpoW3aLNFab7Ebk9gzrgrWWhN/s320/FF51AAC9-642D-42BD-BF3D-6EA83ED0F883.heic" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pa-Paul came up to mow the yard and we had a window visit! </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM-sSwH6VKWmzPHqb1Uh1LHkkr6VTIo5CWRXjjtDX4iMz_z7fuQWjQu-9-0vHtEZgXdvjdOCO8V848siY2mjZMoJz0Zca67k9EXDmNqKbkTDQZseictAnWV1jyin-oeRlpbUh3/s2048/A8BFAD0B-4CB8-4F3F-8838-FAB467F7864D.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1303" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM-sSwH6VKWmzPHqb1Uh1LHkkr6VTIo5CWRXjjtDX4iMz_z7fuQWjQu-9-0vHtEZgXdvjdOCO8V848siY2mjZMoJz0Zca67k9EXDmNqKbkTDQZseictAnWV1jyin-oeRlpbUh3/s320/A8BFAD0B-4CB8-4F3F-8838-FAB467F7864D.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It was a big deal to get her to pick the pizza up by herself! </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xMdqQfBJYmYcAkTQVmChT7MIiYZwgzHmPaQ81AHwapEhI7jupKcXnQrLw9Q5EZp81AUoAgxgi75CmOgamd2MTxHkBNHWTEAcmQucSTVcY61m-t7Yxf33ZMeSZQNWRa3buRam/s2048/A761EBEC-FCE9-4A5C-894C-B7B7D7C03512.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6w8sXGGWC1qVW13QkV5rGpq6K4ysJU4zdS5NVBdSJeuI3jpozY-AvXJET-qcDU5WnzeKoPkkzh6XsYNb1JCzk-nXdQeV82CtQfHgDym_eWzN3t3sRRUZGRlkulg1ES2dniBUR/s2048/0B37CAA4-6F88-4FD2-BF94-80BB38266238.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6w8sXGGWC1qVW13QkV5rGpq6K4ysJU4zdS5NVBdSJeuI3jpozY-AvXJET-qcDU5WnzeKoPkkzh6XsYNb1JCzk-nXdQeV82CtQfHgDym_eWzN3t3sRRUZGRlkulg1ES2dniBUR/s320/0B37CAA4-6F88-4FD2-BF94-80BB38266238.jpeg" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1539" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xMdqQfBJYmYcAkTQVmChT7MIiYZwgzHmPaQ81AHwapEhI7jupKcXnQrLw9Q5EZp81AUoAgxgi75CmOgamd2MTxHkBNHWTEAcmQucSTVcY61m-t7Yxf33ZMeSZQNWRa3buRam/s320/A761EBEC-FCE9-4A5C-894C-B7B7D7C03512.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We had a Zoom birthday party for Sammy's girlfriend Maegan since she couldn't party like normal. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xMdqQfBJYmYcAkTQVmChT7MIiYZwgzHmPaQ81AHwapEhI7jupKcXnQrLw9Q5EZp81AUoAgxgi75CmOgamd2MTxHkBNHWTEAcmQucSTVcY61m-t7Yxf33ZMeSZQNWRa3buRam/s2048/A761EBEC-FCE9-4A5C-894C-B7B7D7C03512.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7EO6HceuZ1ZgNxLMEPW495_RwzwabKzHxfpiuJmCvEmcySMhZ72GPqEHe5IgqYPEG6RPjHJc9MgUxWohzno8izW5DR5T8tRB1r-KwXxQYyEGwOhE0ggvJzuIoAy0B3-2Cq44M/s2048/B5EDD6A2-7BAA-4D13-9334-8F44FAF3CF21.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7EO6HceuZ1ZgNxLMEPW495_RwzwabKzHxfpiuJmCvEmcySMhZ72GPqEHe5IgqYPEG6RPjHJc9MgUxWohzno8izW5DR5T8tRB1r-KwXxQYyEGwOhE0ggvJzuIoAy0B3-2Cq44M/s320/B5EDD6A2-7BAA-4D13-9334-8F44FAF3CF21.heic" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Best helpers! </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4N6lsjONTk3aTNhM1dpV5JgPidKCwGNg2pW5qrTGsEPjyOfQ3iPrc09gegdDiyYyeaDA3sZ5v9NUQ4s4JkbR7rRJxaWsnz4tKIGzd3qADrgNpYP_ZN5EuhzJilVGx3_7y4_Ar/s2048/B47D3DDD-7715-4DE5-B2EB-27E10AC5BA7C.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4N6lsjONTk3aTNhM1dpV5JgPidKCwGNg2pW5qrTGsEPjyOfQ3iPrc09gegdDiyYyeaDA3sZ5v9NUQ4s4JkbR7rRJxaWsnz4tKIGzd3qADrgNpYP_ZN5EuhzJilVGx3_7y4_Ar/s320/B47D3DDD-7715-4DE5-B2EB-27E10AC5BA7C.heic" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So serious<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcfxpvcQkwWZ6u7ibNpzLSs_8CdKTch09I8HuzYI1LF90k2YhpweSiYhngABVT_I7tK1QX1LSwBcxAUdp6gWKYge6CJd7yLmo9jAluJLMWPEhzvRAZMIYk1Q8ZTn9swMaQu7RL/s2048/BDE208EF-E069-46F5-B595-DC5026A121D5.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcfxpvcQkwWZ6u7ibNpzLSs_8CdKTch09I8HuzYI1LF90k2YhpweSiYhngABVT_I7tK1QX1LSwBcxAUdp6gWKYge6CJd7yLmo9jAluJLMWPEhzvRAZMIYk1Q8ZTn9swMaQu7RL/s320/BDE208EF-E069-46F5-B595-DC5026A121D5.heic" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I was editing student papers and watching this insanity unfold before me. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhCxciVYRP9GfBxD_w9cKEGXjA0pESNAnejuz51ptoQVdv0-MXFRSxr3yWv5p124GRJNtUqa4Pwxk5OsGGPYXPvmH5LSwNqWXHiWaCd-93DWc4epH8yFTOg37269xA4twm2QeB/s2048/D80978FC-F097-4D79-9250-EDD5E91D58F5.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1983" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhCxciVYRP9GfBxD_w9cKEGXjA0pESNAnejuz51ptoQVdv0-MXFRSxr3yWv5p124GRJNtUqa4Pwxk5OsGGPYXPvmH5LSwNqWXHiWaCd-93DWc4epH8yFTOg37269xA4twm2QeB/s320/D80978FC-F097-4D79-9250-EDD5E91D58F5.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We pulled Momma's old dollhouse down off the shelf and it was a perfect "new" toy to play with and keep them occupied! </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxQ7pNpaZz5RZCpLk6YxB2drjpxXWFw__ffKPdsVwSn2PFU9lKSg6eFMa_YeP_87Ok_EtZo_fFi5opGBjGRyic0yBoYQUffmPU5Jfk8RknBg9DIyao1HBQvx8ouP2pq4A8yD8g/s960/DFBAC165-399A-4DF6-9397-22E83E392C87.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxQ7pNpaZz5RZCpLk6YxB2drjpxXWFw__ffKPdsVwSn2PFU9lKSg6eFMa_YeP_87Ok_EtZo_fFi5opGBjGRyic0yBoYQUffmPU5Jfk8RknBg9DIyao1HBQvx8ouP2pq4A8yD8g/s320/DFBAC165-399A-4DF6-9397-22E83E392C87.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Petal had never had her toenails painted. She smiled the whole time! </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzV0TTUKyMjf_b-vTjMHF709Vb_pkAJplryHlMIK8_nyAgEspOYsPYK_CThHkLHPpUf9vrbs3xc7PrqkyPdhk7NHQ1H5F4_5-yUIBk3ZMDv3-j7aFE9qou9mrYs7creVvaym_l/s2048/EBE1958C-A4EB-42BA-90A7-1AA352CA4545.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzV0TTUKyMjf_b-vTjMHF709Vb_pkAJplryHlMIK8_nyAgEspOYsPYK_CThHkLHPpUf9vrbs3xc7PrqkyPdhk7NHQ1H5F4_5-yUIBk3ZMDv3-j7aFE9qou9mrYs7creVvaym_l/s320/EBE1958C-A4EB-42BA-90A7-1AA352CA4545.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wemberly was VERY excited! </td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEietNSpepgmFGROg2ztVMXgR3c_7Oprgy4xrGgT6JP66ps_lFboYTByvVzrimpOIKUXmorRlxfmfsHeRbPeeSjFIbCAS4tYg_0fanB4EEM9jldmg5eDoz6xpPGtr9ECjieLpFvs/s320/80A41E56-1068-4043-9D42-AC4215BFF6D7.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First car ride in over a month! </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKMoCu-Rd7Safekx3fYu20VA9j_hz0dvitmRQcRraLSKa6DQl7v8uCqEzSnoOlRXMxnGZu2Bd8k7rjjlYHNR7CwQTracTLq0ZTXl6XUdab0Q16jsLmW9xviBSgQAtPHFglI3Nm/s2048/43150B3D-9005-4ECF-9858-070953258970.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1539" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKMoCu-Rd7Safekx3fYu20VA9j_hz0dvitmRQcRraLSKa6DQl7v8uCqEzSnoOlRXMxnGZu2Bd8k7rjjlYHNR7CwQTracTLq0ZTXl6XUdab0Q16jsLmW9xviBSgQAtPHFglI3Nm/s320/43150B3D-9005-4ECF-9858-070953258970.heic" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The week after the girls moved back home, I finished school and while I didn't get regalia or a ceremony, I dug around in my hope chest and found my mortarboard from high school graduation and plopped it on my head for a selfie. It was a lackluster celebration for a degree that was 29 years in the making, but I still did it and FINALLY finished! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So here we are, halfway through July, numbers spiking, people arguing, the future very unknown. I'm reviving the blog, writing for the newspaper again, focusing on going back to work and staying safe. I spend a ridiculous amount of money on masks that coordinate with my outfits, and try not to spend every moment of every day in a panic attack. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Thank you for sticking with me and my sporadic posting. It's a work in progress. I have had this beautiful home on the internet since 2004 and I am ready to come home and settle in again. Blogging is probably a dead art form - or at least the way it used to exist, but I've never been one to do what's "normal" so here I am. Blogging again. Like a boss. </div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-31260474495800356992020-01-12T18:39:00.001-06:002020-01-12T19:50:15.564-06:002019 - a (mostly crappy) year in review<br />
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<b>January:</b> Paul and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary. Sam and I started the year out on a nearly holy level by seeing the Broadway tour of <i>Book of Mormon</i> in Tulsa. I was fairly certain during one song that the entire theatre was going to be struck by lightning, but aside from that underlying fear, we laughed our asses off and I am hoping to go see it again this year in Arkansas. I turned 46. woot.<br />
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<b>February:</b> Paul turned 56. A friend in Tulsa gave me two tickets to see <i>The Play That Goes Wrong</i> at the PAC. Sam couldn't get anyone to cover his call, so I took Mom. It was cute and I plan to see it again this year in Springfield with Sam.<br />
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<b>March:</b> Paul, Kady and I got the flu during spring break. That was super fun. Mine went into pneumonia. That was also super fun. Abby, Kady and I went to NEO to see Frank Warren of <i>Post Secret</i> fame. It was spectacular, especially since I was reading Post Secret when it started.<br />
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<b>April: </b>Paul started a new job with the City of Miami. We continued our years-long journey into trying to find out What's Wrong with Kady™. Mom, Pops, and I rode to Tahlequah together to see my niece in a Greek thing for her sorority. It was on that car ride that I verbally announced to the first people on the planet my intention of going back to school to pursue a degree in Journalism/Public Relations. My anxiety went through the roof. Speaking it makes it more real. Later in the month Mom, Sis and I dressed up in 1980s dayglo and went out in public. Mom was adorable. Sam dumped his motorcycle and we spent all night in the ER getting him sewn up and a CT done just to be safe. He took a few years off his momma's life.<br />
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<b>May:</b> Paul bought a motorcycle. My anxiety went through the roof even more. I attended my first nerd-themed wedding. It was spectacular and the most fun I've ever had at a wedding. Sam and I continued our theatre adventure by seeing <i>Something Rotten</i> in Springfield. It was entertaining, but I'm not sure I'd see it again. Kady graduated from high school (a year early). Most of Ottawa County flooded.<br />
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<b>June: </b>Paul, myself and the kids journeyed to Silver Dollar City for the first time in ages. I rode a roller coaster for the first time in over 10 years. It. Was. AMAZING. The day after SDC I began summer classes online. We began construction on turning half the house into an apartment for Kady. The week after classes began there was a crackhead on a crime spree in our neighborhood and a high speed chase that ended up going literally through our front yard. Kady suffered some serious trauma from it. It was the first time in my life I ever pulled a gun on a person with the intent of shooting in self-defense. At the end of the month we went our our every-other-year traditional Big Family™ vacation. 18 people, one house, much chaos. And food.<br />
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<b>July:</b> Wemberly turned 3. She wanted a "birthday party [themed] birthday party" so that's what she got. Kady finally got into a GI doc who <i>listened</i> to her and agreed with our suspicion of Ehler's-Danlos Syndrome.<br />
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<b>August: </b>Celebrated my one year anniversary at Crowder. Started another semester of college - one online class (World Religions) and three seated (Journalism, Public Relations, and Quantitative Reasoning - <i>math</i>). Kady also started her first semester of college at Crowder while Sam began his final one. At the end of the month a very crazy storm rolled through the area - 80 mph winds which took out trees and power lines everywhere. Our power was out for four days. We ran a generator to keep the fridge and freezer going and showered in various places, including a state park. During that time I started having some abdominal pain (and honestly just thought I was constipated because of the fact we'd had no water and I'm a shy pooper lol). Also, Sam and I reached the pinnacle of the year's theatre experience when we saw <i>Hamilton</i> in Tulsa. I was so sick, running a fever and in so much pain, but wasn't about to miss out on the experience. It was absolutely phenomenal!<br />
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<b>September: </b>Sam and I got home from seeing <i>Hamilton </i>around 2am. I was in tremendous pain, so I took some Aleve, got a heating pad and slept horribly for a few hours. Paul went up to a neighbor's to work on his trailer. After some googling and a few phone calls, I decided to shower and pack a bag for the hospital. Paul had left his phone in the truck while he was working on the trailer, so Kady had to run up and get him. He careened into the driveway, ready to carry me in his arms if that was needed. I made him shower and just drive me instead. We went to Claremore Indian Hospital since I didn't have insurance. A CT showed diverticulitis with an abscess. They said they were admitting me and planned to do surgery in the morning, however the surgeon took one look at the scan and said, "I'm not touching her." So I took my first ambulance ride in about 40 years in the middle of the night to OSU Medical Center in Tulsa where I spent four days with three teams fighting over if I was going to have surgery and what kind. I was septic and miserable and scared and two hours away from my family. I ended up not having surgery, thank God. Abby drove in Tulsa her first time in order to get herself, her daddy, and sister there to see me. In order to not have to drop classes altogether since I was slipping behind in the journalism classes, I switched my major to General Studies, dropped the journalism classes and added a couple of second-eight-week online classes (Philosophy and Music Appreciation) to allow me time to heal and also keep me enrolled full time. I got home from the hospital just in time for Petal to turn 2.<br />
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<b>October: </b>On his way home a weekend with his girlfriend in Arkansas, Sam hydroplaned in his truck and left the roadway. The truck came to rest about 1000 feet into the brush. It took the tow truck 4 1/2 hours to get him out but there was ZERO damage to the truck. His mother's nerves, however, were another story. Mom had a tumor removed from her bladder. I followed up with the surgeon in Miami who suggested getting some insurance and considering a surgery to remove a significant portion of my intestines. I scheduled a colonoscopy with him for the next month. Abby turned 23. Paul and I went to a Halloween party dressed as Ladd and Ree Drummond (aka Marlboro Man and Pioneer Woman).<br />
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<b>November:</b> Sam turned 21. I had my colonoscopy. I woke up during it. That was bizarre. The doctor found some hyperplasia and said the diverticula were vast and widespread and the surgery should be even more highly considered than before. We had pizza for Thanksgiving because Momma wasn't up for killing herself to cook a giant meal in the midst of ...... well, everything.<br />
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<b>December:</b> The whole family went to see Polar Express in the theater. I passed all my classes with As. Sam finally graduated from Crowder with his Associate degree in Journalism/Public Relations. The whole family (minus the babies) saw White Christmas in the theater. Kady turned 18. We took her gambling. We sang Christmas carols for our 80 year old Uncle Tom. We had our annual Christmas Eve Mario Kart tournament. I made chocolate gravy for the first time. Kady saw a rheumatologist who shrugged his shoulders over her and referred her to a geneticist. So that saga of What's Wrong with Kady™ continues into the new year.<br />
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2019 wasn't great. Pretty crappy, if you want me to be honest. Yes, pun intended. Sure, we all survived. It could've been worse. But if you asked me to rate it, I'd likely not give it five stars.<br />
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2020 will see me finally graduate college with an Associate degree in nothing special in particular. This will mark 29 years since I took my first semester at NEO right out of high school. What should've taken four semesters took 29 years. I mean, I did it my way, right? I'm still working in Project NOW at Crowder and still love my job very much. I work with amazing people and I love helping the students. I hope to see better health and wellness - physical and mental - for us all as a family.<br />
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Kady has decided to take at least a semester off college to see what full-time work feels like being all grownup and stuff. She has a fast food job, but an interview with a bank tomorrow. She's still living in her little apartment next door and has been sharing it with her brother and his girlfriend since early December.<br />
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Sam and Maegan just moved into their new apartment today in Neosho. She has an interview tomorrow and Sam's working parttime at Crowder with hopes of a full time position soon.<br />
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Paul's still with the city. He still has his motorcycle much to my chagrin. He still leaves his little red beard hairs on the sink. We just celebrated our 27th anniversary.<br />
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Wemberly and Petal are in occupational and speech therapy respectively and are making great strides. W has Sensory Processing Disorder and OT is helping her with that so much. Petal is largely nonverbal, but speech therapy is helping her communicate. Abby and Dakota are amazing parents who absolutely devote all their energy into helping those two little girls thrive. Those two grandgirls just thrill my Kiki heart to no end.<br />
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At the beginning of last year I claimed a word for 2019: Wellness.<br />
<br />
........you see how that worked out.......<br />
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I have adopted no word, no theme, no claim for 2020. We'll just see what happens.<br />
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<br />Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-43006179028029330282019-11-28T10:03:00.000-06:002019-11-28T10:03:00.331-06:00Day of Thankfulness
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">It’s Thanksgiving morning. I'm on my bed with my laptop, supposed to be studying and listening to "Music Since 1945: Eight Representative Pieces" but ew. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">We had all of the kids and the people they created and the people they belong with over last night. We had the First Annual Pizzagiving, a tradition I hope continues for all of perpetuity. The only things I put in my dishwasher last night after everyone left were three coffee cups. We used some Thanksgiving paper plates I bought last year on clearance and styrofoam cups. (Sure, we harmed the environment, but it was just for one night.) I ordered the pizza last Sunday morning from the Pizza Hut and Domino’s apps, paid for it all with my debit card, and Kady’s boyfriend picked it up when he left work yesterday. Yesterday I cleaned house and made some pies and cookies and a sheet cake for Sammy’s birthday since we weren’t all able to be together on the actual day. (He's 21. <i>My baby boy is TWENTY ONE YEARS OLD.</i>) </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I sat down to do some quick homework about an hour before everyone arrived. I was irked at having two discussion boards due on Pizzagiving (do these instructors not know how historically important Pizzagiving is??) but I also didn’t want to take the hit of a late grade, so I worked on the World Religions post first, posted, then moved on to Music Appreciation. I hadn’t read the chapter, so it was all literally me bullshitting about musicals and Louis Armstrong. I hit post on that awful discussion board with a three-year-old grandgirl on my lap with her Trolls blanket in my face, yelling “Bushel and a peck, Kiki! Bushel and a peck!” At that point singing Bushel and a Peck to her was way more important than music of the stage and screen. And music of the stage and screen is kind of my love language. It’s all about priorities. My classmates will probably read that post and wonder if I had smoked a little before I hit that submit button. I don’t even care.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">And now it’s actual Thanksgiving day. Abby and Dakota and the girls will be heading to his family’s gathering. Kady has already made her mac and cheese and is getting around to go be with Zach’s family for the day. Sam and his girlfriend Maegan are here since she’s just in town for a couple days. They’ll have lunch with Paul and me. She’s in college in Arkansas and we don’t get to see her much now that basketball season is in full swing. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">And since it’s a few hours until I have to start fixing lunch, I figured I’d make use of the time to knock out some homework. I’m honestly so tired of homework.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">Sam paid for a year’s worth of Disney+ for the family and I have watched seven whole minutes of Disney+ programming. I watched the short, “Float” (a must-watch if you love someone with any kind of neurodiversity - seriously, go watch it right now, I’ll wait.) while I was looking for “Frozen” for Petal. Once finals are out of the way I intend to watch every Disney and Pixar movie ever made and also reacquaint myself with Netflix and watch episode after episode of “Victorious” for days on end. I will wear pants only the bare (heh) minimum of time required over the break. I will cook for my husband who has fended for himself quite a lot this semester. I will do very little thinking. I will love on my family and laugh a lot.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">So Happy Day of Thankfulness, Constant Reader. I hope your turkey is whatever you need it to be - smoked, moist, brined, deep-fried or however you prefer. I hope your ham is deliciously hammy. I hope your mashed potatoes are as good as my momma’s. I hope your pumpkin pie is that perfect shade of orange and your pecan pie isn’t runny in the center like mine was yesterday. I hope you see some of your favorite people today or in the days to come. I hope if you have homework to do, it comes to you easily and you don’t have to stress over it. I hope you get a nap. I hope you don’t have to wear pants all that often.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I hope you are thankful. I am.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<br />Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-19253760746497995552019-10-10T14:45:00.000-05:002019-10-10T14:45:25.859-05:00Abscess Much? Part 1 The last week of August a big storm rolled through our neck of the woods that Monday night. I hadn't really heard much about it and y'all know I'm a weather nerd, so I figured there wasn't much to be worried about. Well, turns out, there were tornado warnings and 70 mph winds and so. much. rain. The storm uprooted trees and knocked down power lines all over the place. Our power went out at 12:30 in the morning on that Tuesday morning. I wasn't able to go to work that next day because our hill washes out super bad, plus there were trees blocking the roads every way out. It took Paul over an hour to get out of the neighborhood and onto the highway. So Kady and I just hunkered down and took naps all day. Well, after we moved the food out of both fridges to the garage fridge (aka the beer fridge) and hooked the garage fridge and deep freeze up to the generator. Abby and Dakota were without power as well.<br />
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By that evening (Tuesday), the roads were clear so we all loaded up and trekked to Mom and Pops' house on the north end of Miami. It takes almost an hour to get there, but we needed food and showers and it was worth the drive for Mom's mashed potatoes alone. The next day I took my flat iron and makeup to work and got ready there. The next night Kady went to her boyfriend's house to stay because their power had been restored. Paul didn't want to impose on anyone although we'd had multiple offers to come stay various places, at least come shower and eat, etc. but he's weird about stuff like that and wouldn't let me accept a single offer. So he and I showered at the public shower at the state park 15 minutes from the house. It wasn't as horrific as I had imagined it was going to be and I gotta be honest, I was kind of disappointed there wasn't a raccoon in there to greet me. I got ready at work again Thursday.<br />
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Also by Thursday morning my belly was hurting. Kind of down low, kind of achey and just present enough to make me wanna go to bed.<br />
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Y'all, I'm a shy pooper. I have a really hard time pooping anywhere but at home and maybe my momma's if I'm super desperate. The fact we are on a well means that when the power goes out, we have no water. There is something in my DNA that automatically shuts down my entire digestive system when the power goes out. I might even be linked to the electric co-op's main source at the dam for all I know. I mean, it's kind of coincidental if you ask me. So, after a few days without power and water and being just generally displaced and inconvenienced, I hadn't pooped and I had just resigned myself to the fact I had done gone and constipated myself. I took a "Women's Gentle Laxative" (Correctol in my Nana's day, but I'm cheap and always go generic) and hoped for the best. Around 4 that afternoon my sister-in-law called to say the power was on. We spent the evening moving things back to the proper fridges and cleaning the house.<br />
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I don't work on Fridays and had a hair appointment scheduled. I still didn't feel all that great and the pain was more present. I took another of those lovely "gentle" laxatives. I gotta say, the cute pink tablet that clearly states its gentility right on the box is oh so less-than-gentle when you take several a day because you're just that desperate to stop hurting. But even with a horrible case of diarrhea at this point, we watched the grandgirls that evening while Abby and Dakota went to a football game. They didn't feel well themselves, so it was kind of a rough evening all the way around. I didn't sleep well that night because I hurt so bad and tried to sleep in a little the next morning. I had Paul get some gas pills from the local Dolla Gentral to see if that would help. It did not.<br />
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Back in June, Sam and I had bought tickets to see <i>Hamilton</i> in Tulsa and had been anticipating it SO HARD for months. I could've been vomiting blood and I'd have still gone to the show. I loaded up on Tylenol and off he and I headed to Tulsa. We parked across from the PAC and walked 4 blocks to Dilly Diner. He got a spicy burger, spilled the pepper juice on the table, wiped it up with his napkin, then wiped his face with his napkin. It. was. hilarious. For me anyway. Him, not so much. I got half a sandwich and half a salad and ate most of it, even though I didn't feel like it. We walked the 4 blocks back to the car, made it through security, got our merch, then waited about another 30 minutes for the doors to open.<br />
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The show was utterly and absolutely amazing! I got home around 1 am and crashed, hoping to sleep off whatever devil was inhabiting my gut. I went to sleep with a heated corn bag, but got no relief. I laid around the house all day, worked on a little homework, tried to nap again. After a nap I was chilling and running a fever. I finally decided I'd had enough. I took a shower then did some Googling, called my dad for his opinion then decided it was time to go to the emergency room. I called Paul but he was at the neighbors working on a trailer and didn't have his phone. I asked Kady to go get him because I was in so much pain and kind of just wanted to cry and scream and possibly OD on some Oxy. He came flying home after she rounded him up and was ready to drive on. I told him he was dusty and smelled like the outdoors and I wasn't riding in a truck over an hour with him. I'm still kind of bitchy even when I've nearly lost the will to live. He took the fastest shower in history and off we went.<br />
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It was about 95* out, but I rode all the way to Claremore covered up and shivering. I tried to sleep. Every bump in the road was excruciating. I cried a little. I prayed. I text my mom and sister and kids and asked them to pray that the ER was devoid of crackheads and seekers that seem to really love holiday weekends. We walked through the doors to an empty waiting room. The nurse called me back before I was even fully registered. That was the only glimmer of hope in the entire thing to that point. <br />
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...to be continued...Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-42449783931418532532019-07-04T12:54:00.000-05:002019-07-04T12:54:38.075-05:00Oh How Things Have Changed Growing up, we always went to Nana's on the 4th of July. Always. There was no option, no variance, it was always to Nan's for the noon meal. We took day-works - firecrackers, snakes, sparklers, poppits, jumping Jacks, and the like. Lunch was burgers and hot dogs. There was always watermelon and homemade ice cream. When my cousin Russ was alive and still mobile, we cousins would gather around him in the living room floor before and directly after lunch and play dominoes or Boggle. The women cleaned the kitchen and visited, the men dozed off in the post-meal tradition. Then finally! We'd climb the chat pile out back (hello, lead poisoning!) and Dad and Uncle Mike would oversee the explosives. That was Dad's side of the family. Mom's side of the family was fairly fluid in their plans. Sometimes it was our house, sometimes it was Uncle Larry and Aunt Sue's, occasionally we gathered at Papa's farm, it depended on where he was with harvesting or mowing or how sick Memaw was at the time. They were the evening festivity people. More sparklers, plus fountains and all the other fun, booming, high-in-the-sky stuff. It was always a day of cousins and food and stickiness and dirt and fun.<br />
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Then we grew up and as soon as the meal was over, we left whatever house we were at with our respective boyfriends and girlfriends to go see a movie or go to their family's shindig. I dated a guy in high school and they had a lake house and a pontoon boat and a lot of money. I hated the whole scene (they were *gasp* Republicans) and I really just wanted to go back to my family where we had cheap hot dogs and not filet mignon for lunch.<br />
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When Sis and I started families of our own we were just excited to have reason to buy fireworks once again. Paul and I were so broke when the kids were little, but starting in June we would scrimp and save up $100 for fireworks. It seemed like a lot until we got to the tent, then it seemed paltry and like it never bought enough. Sam always picked out something that pooped, Abby like the screaming chicken laying a fiery egg, Kady usually cried and whined that one of her siblings picked out the firework <i>she</i> wanted and the world was surely coming to an end. Most of the time the gathering was at our house because Mom lived in town and Sis did until she briefly lived in the country for a few years. One year we caught the field on fire. That was scary and fun all at once.<br />
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When we moved to Wyandotte I forced Paul's family to get together for the holiday. They are definitely not like my Big Family™. They don't actually like getting together. Mine anticipates the next one before the current one is over. My family lingers in the kitchen, there is always noise and laughter and eleventy-seven conversations at once. His family gets a plate. Quietly. Then some sit in the living room, some go outside, some sit at the picnic tables, some sit on the porch. There is rarely conversation and if there is, it's quiet and short. Mostly one syllable replies. Some nodding. That's just how they are. <br />
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But the ONE thing I always anticipated with Paul's family coming up on the 4th - blowing shit up. We would trek to Academy the week before to buy a stupid amount of Tannerite and unfortunately, it seems there is always an appliance to go out some time during the year to provide the explosive entertainment. We've blown up a washer, a dryer, a dishwasher, and I think a hot water tank. It was always a good time.<br />
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Last year I had surgery on the 3rd, so our 4th was quiet. I came home from the hospital that morning and just rested the rest of the day. Apparently it would usher in a series of quiet 4ths.<br />
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This year we are empty nesters. Kady has an apartment attached to our house now, but she's her own person. She cooks for herself, pretty well stays to herself these days. (Although she still relies on us some since she STILL doesn't have her driver's license.) I slept until 8 this morning and when I woke up Paul was gone. He had gone up to Abby and Dakota's on the tractor to fix their perpetually washed-out driveway. He wanted to get up there and back before the humidity got to swimmable. I made coffee, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, made some breakfast, checked Facebook, and just kind of marveled in the fact that we bought ZERO fireworks this year, no one is coming over, we aren't going anywhere (unless we decide to venture to Lowe's for some trim to finish the dining room later), and how different our life has become. The grandgirls are still too little for fireworks of their own, although Petal likes the noise where Wemberly HATES it. My Big Family™ will be over on Saturday, but even then we aren't doing any fireworks. We are volleyball obsessed, so there will be a pool and slip-n-slide, much food and MUCH volleyball. We don't play by many rules and there is a lot of smack talking and laughing and even more of Abby and me avoiding the ball at all costs. But we will be together and that will be the best part.<br />
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As we got onto the interstate last week headed for Branson for Big Family™ vacation, Paul kind of sighed and reached over to pat my leg. "It's pretty strange.....looking back and seeing your kids driving their own cars, <i>following</i> you to vacation, when just a few years ago they all three were right there behind us in the backseat, <i>with </i>us." He is far more sentimental than I these days, so I just squeezed his hand and said, "Yeah, but they're still with us, there are just more of them now. And besides, when they were in the car with us, it was much louder. And I was usually reaching back to smack someone at any given moment along the way. It's not bad, the way we are now. Just different. Enjoy, Mr. Hoover. We've earned this. This quietness, this calmness, this getting to watch them now instead of being immersed in it nonstop." He shrugged. He's seeing this part of life much differently than I am. I was in the trenches, doing most of the work when the kids were little. He worked, I stayed at home. I never got a day off. I was on the job 24/7. He had a 30 minute drive to and from work ALONE and if the house got loud, he just went out and mowed the yard or piddled in the barn. And now that my work is mostly done, I am enjoying the break, the quiet, the calm, the spectatorship of it all. Maybe he feels he missed out. I can't say for sure. I know I didn't miss anything. I was in the trenches, covered in blood, guts, gore, sweat, tears. It was exhausting. Rewarding as all get out, but also exhausting.<br />
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However, I do know this: I am enjoying the hell out of my empty nest right now. Maybe I'll get lonely? Maybe I'll get bored? I doubt it. For right now I'm still Kady's Uber driver, I find myself drowning in hours of homework every day, I am learning to cook for two rather than the NINE we had in the house just a few short years ago. I like my clean and tidy tiny little half-house. I like it when the kids come to visit and bring the noise and chaos and I like it when they go home again, back to their own homes where they now do their time being young adults, growing families, learning how to be adults, getting educations, becoming the amazing individuals we raised them to be.<br />
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And if they need us? They know where to find us. ❤️Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-17808498650538620552019-06-07T15:37:00.001-05:002019-06-07T15:37:57.429-05:00Back to the Blackboard I am 46 years old. I have been out of high school for 28 years. In 1991, fresh out of the hallowed halls of WHS I took one semester of college at NEO. I hated it. I enrolled in 18 hours. Whoever let me do that was a total moron. My parents didn't really support me. I mean, they didn't <i>not</i> support me, but they sure didn't cheer me on and tell me it would all be worth it. I think if someone wanted to analyze me from a psychological standpoint there's a whole shitload of baggage thumping around inside my head, but what that dreaded first semester taught me was: college is hard.<br />
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I was a stellar student in high school. I always got good grades and they came easy. No one warned me that college was going to be the actual opposite of high school. They didn't warn me that the instructors were going to have different opinions than I did AND that they could actually argue (some quite angrily) with me about them and there was no penalty for that. The work was harder and while I still got good grades, I worked a lot harder for them. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be successful in college as I was in high school and before long I was having migraines almost every day. I stopped going to class. I. Hated. It. And so I quit.<br />
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Fast forward to 2007. I had three kids - 10, 8, and 5. I had a husband who didn't want me to go to college. My advisor was a neat guy, but I met him once and he didn't really give me what I needed from an advisor. (Let's face it, some of us are more high-maintenance than others. Me being the <i>most high maintenance </i>you can get.) I took ALL online classes that fall. I took algebra online. Whoever let me do that was a moron. (Oh wait, it was me.) However, I managed to enroll in another semester that spring and took classes for my actual major, I wrote for the campus newspaper, I enjoyed my classes. However, at that time we only had dialup internet and online classes were only getting harder and harder to do with internet that slow. I couldn't just go to town every day and use someone else's - that kind of defeated my purpose of staying home to do school. And so I quit. Again.<br />
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Over the years I convinced myself I didn't need the degree. I worked at DHS as an aid/secretary. I worked for a mom-and-pop small business as a secretary. Both jobs were not degree-worthy. But then I was asked to apply for a job at the other junior college in the area. I applied. I interviewed. I felt really good about the interview. They said they'd call the next day. They didn't.<br />
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So I had all weekend to stew over it. I was in crisis. I don't like disappointing people. I had all but decided not to take it, no matter how much I had vibed with the people who did my interview (my future coworkers) and no matter how much I longed for a change. I just didn't want to let down my then current employers and leave them in a bad spot. But I also had some issues with them over my husband's employment there. Yet still I felt loyal. I wrestled with the decision for a whole weekend and had pretty much decided to not take it if it was offered to me. And I was also deep down 100% convinced they were <i>not</i> going to offer it to me.<br />
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Then Julie called on Monday, just as I was getting in my car to go to town. I leaned against the hood as she started with pleasantries and how they all thought I was so funny and "one of them," then she said, "Okay, so all that to say, we'd like to offer you the job!" I was speechless. I was quiet as she talked about pay and scheduling. And my heart sunk as I realized that I was going to have to turn her down, she was so nice and bubbly. But then she went on to say, "Oh and as an employee, you get free tuition if you choose to enroll, plus Sam will get his tuition free and you husband and any of your other kids!" I literally just kind of flopped down into the seat of my car and sat there stunned. I told her I needed to think about it and she was kind and gracious and said, "Absolutely! Can you let me know in a day or two?" I told her I'd let her know the next day, hung up and just sat there. Free college. F R E E C O L L E G E.<br />
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I called my mom, sister, husband, daughter, son, basically everyone just shy of the Governor of Oklahoma. They all said basically the same thing: "You're stupid if you don't take it."<br />
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And so here I am, 10 months later, a very happy employee of Crowder College and also a full-time college student once more. I am currently taking two online classes this summer and will take 12 hours this fall. I am a Journalism/Public Relations major. I'm not sure I will ever do a thing with that degree because honestly, I'm very happy with my job as the secretary for ProjectNOW, (where it's true, I am definitely "one of them" and we are all just a little twisted and weird and that seems to be what people love most about us.) but in a few semesters I'll be able to say I have a degree. My sweet little Kady With a D is also enrolled as a full-time student at Crowder in the fall as well. We have math together. I offered to switch to a different class, but she said, "No, stay. That way I <i>know </i>I won't be the only one crying in class every day."<br />
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If I wanted to take more than 12 hours a semester I could finish by May 2020, but I don't want to, so I'm not gonna. It will work out to where I'll take one final science class in the fall of 2020 and graduate in December. I haven't decided if I'm going to walk yet. I doubt it. But we'll see. The more blood, sweat, and tears I put into this, the more I may decide I want to.<br />
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I had a proper meltdown on the first day of classes. But I feel like I got it out of my system and should be good from here on out. I still put a lot of pressure on myself to be nothing less than 100% perfect, so I feel my stress levels rising quite often. All self-inflicted. It's just who I am. But this time I have support. I have colleagues who are cheering. Friends who are cheering. Family who is cheering. And I'm kind of cheering for myself this time. That's a new one.<br />
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And now I have written my first post in six months all while waiting impatiently for Blackboard (the website where all of my college sits and awaits my attention) to stop being broken. IT sent an email assuring they were on it. I took yesterday evening off to just watch some TV ("Westworld" - go watch it. It's amazing.) and did zero homework. Today I haven't been able to do any. I told Kady I was being punished for being a slacker. She assured me the universe doesn't give two shits if I take an evening off to watch a weird robot cowboy show. Always the pragmatist, that Kady.Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-25867017688401717912018-12-26T19:52:00.001-06:002018-12-26T19:52:52.075-06:00Traditions <i>Originally published in the Miami News-Record </i><br />
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Growing up, we had a fireplace. A smoke-belching black box encased in red brick that guarded the south end of our living room. There were blowers to circulate the air, but it still never seemed to get much past the living room. The blowers were great for drying our hair, though. Mom would sit on the hearth with a round brush and we’d stand whining in front of her while she curled and smoothed our little bob haircuts, sister’s blonde, mine brown. We wore flannel granny gowns or footie pajamas that the bottoms snapped to the tops with a row of snaps around the waist – which were fine if you didn’t have long legs. If you did have long legs, you felt like a sausage in a casing during a growth spurt until Mom finally just cut the feet off so you could stand straight once more. The fireplace was so hot we couldn’t hang the stockings from the mantle at Christmas. They usually got tacked to a wall, but Santa knew where to find them because Christmas morning they’d be leaned up against our mountains of toys, full to the brim.<br />
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When we had Abby we lived in town in a crackerbox of a house with no fireplace. Her stocking just kind of ended up with her toys, I don’t even think I hung it. It wasn’t until we moved to the country and once again had a fireplace, that stockings were tacked to the wall because we, too, now had a black-smoke-belching fireplace. When we replaced it with a pellet stove we discovered we could hang the stockings safely from the mantle without fear of burning down our house. Now we have gas logs and the stockings have been tacked to the wall again because the open gas flame leads me to envision casualty and destruction. This year I hung them from a curtain rod in my utility room doorway. Oh and by the way, are you wondering why I’m telling you about our Christmas stockings?<br />
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Traditions. Time-honored things we sometimes do for no reason other than…..we just do. Kady has been very upset with me this year because she claims that we are honoring zero traditions this year, nothing is the same as it’s been, and everything is wrong. “The stockings are on a curtain rod, for crying out loud, MOM.” Since we moved to Wyandotte we’ve always done Christmas Eve at home, everyone requests a food that I cook/bake/fix, we play Mario Kart and Guitar Hero, then we watch the Christmas DVD with the Weimaraners dressed like humans and laugh until we stop. Paul and I buy ridiculous amounts of gifts for everyone and it’s a two-day run of absolute chaos. This year we are having Christmas Eve brunch. We have had a hard year financially due to surgery and unemployment and then new jobs for us both, so we drew names among the adults rather than buy for everyone. Abby and Dakota will spend Christmas Day at their own home where Santa will bring toys to their girls and they will start forming their own Christmas traditions. It’s easier for me to drag out my teenagers rather than them drag out two toddlers. We’ll go to their house sometime on Christmas Day to see the haul from the North Pole. Kady has a boyfriend, Sam has a girlfriend who lives in Arkansas, so we work around their schedules as well.<br />
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So yes, while it is factual that we are basically doing Christmas completely different this year, we are keeping one thing the same. We are together. We are family. We still love, rely on, annoy, worry over, care about each other in crazy big amounts. Things do change, of course. Whether the stockings get hung by a thumbtack from the mantle or in the bathroom over the toilet (by the way, that will NEVER happen, just for the record), the love in this house remains. That won’t change.<br />
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Have a blessed Christmas, Constant Reader. Go hug your people. And if you don’t have people to hug, come hug me. I’ll even let you watch that Weimaraner DVD with us. It’s a classic.<br />
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Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-17678339544655954962018-12-14T22:46:00.001-06:002018-12-14T22:46:47.668-06:00Wicked Day(Originally published in the Miami News-Record)<br />
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A couple of years ago my mom took me to see the musical “Wicked.” Back in the spring I saw that it was coming to Tulsa in the fall and basically gave my children no option but to see it with me. I told them I’d pay for the tickets, I’d drive, and I’d buy the food for the day if they would just accompany me to the theatre and let me experience it with them. Sam nearly did cartwheels. Abby said, “Sure. A free trip to anywhere out of my house is fine – even if it has to be the theatre.” Kady pretty much said, “I’ll give my ticket to a hobo or traveling snake oil salesman – or heck, I’ll pay YOU if it means I don’t have to go.” These are the personalities of my children in a nutshell: Super Eager, Sorta Eager, Non-Compliant In Every Way.<br />
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So I bought the tickets in May and wondered if I’d be able to contain myself for an entire four months until Wicked Day finally arrived. Before I had my surgery in July I told all three kids where I had the tickets stashed just in case something happened and I died on the table; I wanted them to still go in my honor and to take their Gram. Kady asked if she could just sell them and split the money with her siblings and buy something nice in my honor instead. I ignored her. And made sure her responsible, level-headed older sister knew she needed to get to the tickets before Kady did.<br />
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Finally the day arrived. I’d been saving a new outfit for Wicked Day and Kady even donned a new outfit she hadn’t worn before. Abby borrowed her little sister’s cute gingham pants because she said all of her clothes were too “Mom-ish.” Which makes sense since she’s a mom and all. (I guess my wardrobe would fall somewhere in between “Slightly Netflix-Addicted Grandma With An Aversion to Exercise” and “Middle Aged Secretary Who Hates Eating in the Cafeteria Because It’s ‘Too Cold’.”) (Hint: it’s a lot of leggings and sweaters.) Sam donned a vest he breaks out for only the most dressy-casual occasions. When we headed out Sunday morning we looked GOOD. Kady played DJ and the music was diverse the whole hour-and-a-half drive. The plan all along had been to eat at Hard Rock in Tulsa. We didn’t know it was a buffet. We are all averse to buffets. So we had Freddy’s burgers and ended up with enough time to stop at a Ross for some shopping.<br />
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We made it downtown, Kady marveling at the buildings and declaring she wants to live in a big city someday with her dog and her husband and her no children. Sam said he thought he might like to, but would be okay with staying close to home as well. Abby just sat in the backseat clutching her purse and jumping every time there was a human on the sidewalk next to the car because she was certain we were going to be carjacked. (Again, notice the vast differences in my children’s personalities.) We paid to park in a “secure” parking lot – Abby said she wasn’t sure the guy patrolling it looked secure, but he definitely looked shady. In the theatre we swam our way upstream to mezzanine level, found a restroom, Kady asked if she could have a mixed drink, we laughed and I said no, we found our seats.<br />
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I, of course, cried when Elphaba defied gravity and again during the entire curtain call. (I *really* enjoy the theatre.) Abby and Sam loved it, Kady said it “wasn’t horrible.” Kady found a rolled ice cream place on Memorial so we trekked across Tulsa to it, which was a fascinating thing to watch. We drove home with bellies full of ice cream – and my momma heart full of memories. It was an amazing Wicked Day.<br />
<br />Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-83052129632277566682018-12-14T22:41:00.000-06:002018-12-14T22:41:20.176-06:00I Mom So Hard(Originally published in the Miami News-Record)<br />
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I am not a perfect mother. I freely admit this. My mom made it look easy; I however make it look like a herd of rabid, radioactive ferrets have taken over my circus and have eaten the ringmaster and all the other acts. So yeah, you could say I’m doing GREAT. Granted , the house is quieter more often now that they’re mostly grown, but when they’re all here, it’s back to the chaos and insanity. I created them, so I have no choice but to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labors. (Heh. Literally.)<br />
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About the only thing I ever really shone bright in when they were little: I rocked Valentine boxes. I was mediocre on Halloween costumes (the bag lady complete with shopping cart was my moment in the sun), but dudes, I killed it at Valentine’s Day. It’s my least favorite “holiday” (it’s not a real holiday, by the way - it’s commercialism at its pinkest and glitteriest and syrupy sweet awful-est), but something triggered me come February 1st and I became one of those moms, determined to outdo everyone else on the planet. Fortunately, by the time we started attending homeschool co-op, my kids had outgrown Valentine boxes. Homeschool moms are apparently ALL. ABOUT. VALENTINE. BOXES. I felt like shoebox-with-stickers-on-it-mom at homeschool co-op – and there is nothing wrong with shoeboxes and stickers mom, but my TV with real cord and hand-painted color bars paled in comparison to the to-scale ice castle that looked like it came straight from a frozen Norwegian village a la Disney. <br />
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But back to me being less-than-perfect: I dropped Kady three times when she was an infant. I told Abby to suck it up and finish her gymnastics class after she stubbed her toe on a chair. Turns out the toe was broken. And the list goes on of all the things I’ve done to thoroughly mess up my kids. I Mom pretty hard, but not perfectly.<br />
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Awhile back I found some cute string lights for the porch, which I asked Paul to put up repeatedly, to no avail. So Monday, since Kady and I had just cleaned and decorated the porch with mums, we decided to hang the lights ourselves. Until we realized we needed the big stapler. Which was somewhere in the disaster of Paul’s shop. After a few phone calls to him during which he directed us repeatedly to “one of those DeWalt tool bags over by the fridge,” we gave up due to anaphylaxis setting in. Oh, not from anything we’re allergic to, but the mess was just giving us hives. I grabbed some hamburger from the freezer for dinner and we decided to just wait until he got home <br />
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As we got back to the porch where we planned to just sit and relax, I heard Kady shriek, “OH GOSH NO MOM NO!!!!!” I turned to see her, arms in the air, spider crawling on her shirt. She was frozen in fear and apparently, as the adult who was present, she looked to me to remove it before it ate her spleen or something. I love her and all, but no way was I touching a spider with my bare hands. I briefly considered kicking it off her, then remembered I am old and fat and not at all flexible.<br />
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So I did the only thing I knew to do: I whacked my child with a pound of frozen ground beef. Right in the ribs. She made a little “oof” sound as the tube of frozen meat made contact, but I was now committed to spider annihilation. And….of course, I missed the spider. I whacked her again. Success! She should’ve embraced me in a thankful hug, but instead she just stood there a few seconds before she finally said, quietly, but fiercely, “Mom? Did you just hit me with HAMBURGER???” before she just turned and walked in the house.<br />
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I’m telling you, few women achieve this level of Maternal Greatness.<br />
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Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-49533083275443346792018-12-14T22:36:00.001-06:002018-12-14T22:36:30.161-06:00Dot Com(Originally published in the Miami News-Record) (edited a smidge)<br />
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This past week I posted to my blog, something I hadn’t done in a long time. My last post before then had been almost exactly two years prior and even it was just one of my columns from here reposted there. And for pretty much all of 2015 it was the same thing as well. What can I say? I’ve been busy.<br />
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June 7, 2004, was my very first blog post. So that means 14 years ago this month I decided to jump in with both feet and tell the world apparently everything floating around in this brain of mine. That first post is so cringe-worthy. I mean, I literally cringed when I read it just now. Thank God I got better at it. June 7, 2004, is also when my mother doubled up her worrying about me because she was (read: still is) 1500% sure that some crazed lunatic was going to read my blog, become insanely obsessed with me, kidnap me, chop my body into pieces, stuff said pieces into a barrel and bury them in his backyard. I think she is precious for thinking that. One, because a mother’s love and concern doesn’t stop when her child becomes an adult and she’s just doing her job. And two, my mother thought I was still wonderful enough at age 31 that she believed someone would find me so irresistible they’d want to kidnap me. She’s truly my biggest fan. Need a morale boost? Ask your mom. See yourself through her eyes for a bit. Chances are, she finds you kidnap-able. And I think that’s sweet. In a scary, obsessive way, but still sweet.<br />
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So those early blog posts were inane and boring and they droned on and on about my children, my sister’s children, laundry, the weather, and how I never got enough sleep. I still write about all of that, but again, thank God I got better at it. In 2006 and 2007 I won Best Humor Blog in the Okie Blog Awards. In 2009 I won Best Rural Blog. In 2009 I beat Pioneer Woman in that category. Yes, THE Pioneer Woman, the one who has a show on Food Network and a four bazillion acre ranch and now owns a Mercantile where people stand in line outside all day just to get in to browse her line of housewares and eat from a menu that probably doesn’t have a single solitary recipe made with commodity cheese. THAT Pioneer Woman. But y’all, I BEAT HER back in 2009 and that means at that point in life, I was “more rural” than a wealthy ranch lady who says “y’all” a lot on her TV show and actually owns a pair of cowboy boots. So there’s that.<br />
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I renew my domain faithfully every year because I am selfish and cannot stand to think of another woman out there calling herself Redneck Diva. I little craft shop opened up on Highway 43 a few years back and her sign said “REDNECK DIVA CRAFTS AND STUFF” and y’all, it took everything in me to not wheel my car into her driveway and inform her that I alone am The Redneck Diva and that my fans (my mom and like ten other people) and I didn’t appreciate her calling herself by my name. However, I then realized I don’t have a copyright on the name and I’m also insanely non-confrontational and she’d probably have beat me up or something, so I let it go. She’s no longer open, so I think that was just the universe’s way of saying, “I got you, Diva. It’s all about you, babe.”<br />
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I plan to keep the ol’ blog rolling. It will take dedication and effort (dedication I have, effort I lack a bit) but I’m gonna give it a whirl. Come visit. Please. There are pictures here, something I can’t give you in my newspaper column I also cuss a little more over here, so don’t tell my mom. She still thinks I’m pure and wonderful enough to be kidnap-able.<br />
<br />Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-69976409348354117062018-12-14T22:29:00.000-06:002018-12-14T22:29:40.427-06:00Musically Speaking<br />
(Originally published in the Miami News-Record)<div>
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Music is a big part of my life and has been since I was a kid. We had an 8-track player in the old Nova and trips to church or Nan’s - or anywhere - were set to the musical stylings of The Gatlin Brothers, The Oak Ridge Boys, or the house favorite, The Statler Brothers. At home there was a giant cabinet stereo with giant speakers looming from the corner behind the fireplace and on weekends when Mom was cleaning house she’d sometimes play the radio, but mostly she just stacked a bunch of 45’s on the turntable before she dragged out that behemoth of an Electrolux and began her cleaning. Olivia Newton-John, John Denver, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Barry Manilow, and again The Statler Brothers crooned away as Sis and I half-heartedly dusted before finally giving up to just lay in the floor and listen. On snow days or sick days we got sometimes got to choose the record. “On Top Of Spaghetti” was chock full of awful, tacky, mostly pretty gross children’s favorites and to this day I can still sing every word to “Great Green Globs of Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts.” There were countless Disney records and read-with-me book/record combos as well.</div>
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There was a lullaby record, “For Sleepyheads Only,”where side two was a trip to Lullaby Land where a magical train chugged its way quietly through London, Norway, Spain, Germany, and other parts abroad powered by fairy dust and childhood dreams. And I’m telling you, that record was truly full of some mystic, powerful juju because Sis and I could be climbing the walls like a couple of junior crackheads and by the time the record got to the Yiddish lullaby our eyes were so heavy there was no more fighting it. I’ve looked for it on CD because with two kids 14 months apart, Abby could use a magic lullaby when her very own crackhead children go insane. Alas, it’s only available on vinyl. </div>
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My music tastes range from disco, 80’s pop, Broadway showtunes, and even some metal. I still love The Statler Brothers, but I reserve them for housecleaning day when the curtains are open and the sun is streaming in, just like Mom did when I was a kid. When the first harmonies burst forth from the speakers Kady runs for the hills. So their music playing is some guaranteed alone time. Sam and I are planning a trip to New York City after his college graduation. We plan to see “Dear Evan Hansen” on Broadway first and foremost and he’s lobbying pretty hard for “SpongeBob: The Musical” but I think he’s joking. Oh Lord, I hope he’s joking. I got tickets for the kids and me to see “Wicked” in Tulsa in September and my poor girls are less than excited. They got their father’s love for musical theatre – absolute zero. But they are humoring me and I adore them for it. </div>
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I’ve been singing to Wemberly and Petal since they were born. My Nana used to sing “I love you [insert grandchild’s name here]” and it is a song totally made up by her, but I can’t imagine not singing it to my own grandkids. I can still hear Nana’s voice singing it. Wemberly always smiles when I sing it to her. Petal usually pulls my hair or whacks me in the nose with her binky, but she’s also a tad bit wilder than her sister. I really need to invest in some piece of recording equipment that can record from vinyl to CD because we gotta have something to calm that rogue baby with a gypsy soul and the attitude of a pit bull /chihuahua cross down some. Although, some days I’m not sure a magical train full of lavender and Benadryl can calm that one down. I think I’m better off just teaching her “Great Green Gobs of Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts” and cutting my losses.</div>
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Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-85931201057143642402018-12-14T22:24:00.000-06:002018-12-14T22:24:09.442-06:00Insult and Injury(Originally published in the Miami News-Record)<br />
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Now that life has settled down a bit, I’m trying to establish a routine at my house. Housework that has been done on an as-needed basis (read: only if I knew someone was coming over) is now being done because basically I’m only working a couple days a week now, there are no small children in the house, and really I have no excuse to not have a house that doesn’t look like crime scene investigators should be called in. I’m not aspiring for Chip and Joanna Gaines status, just less “There appears to have been a struggle” status.<br />
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A couple weeks ago I was happily doing my new Saturday cleaning thing. I sprayed down the shower and decided to dust while I waited for those scrubby little bubbles to work hard so I don’t have to. As I was finishing up the mantel I looked up and noticed the TV screen was fingerprinty. Not sure why since it’s mounted on the wall and it’s not touch screen, but in my house I have learned that my children are capable of just about anything and most of all, weird things. It’s pretty much a circus when they’re all together. My circus, my monkeys, nothing I can do about it even if I wanted to. I just embrace the chaos and wait to clean it up after it’s over.<br />
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I scrubbed all the fingerprints off at the bottom and saw some toward the top of the screen. I am all of 5’2” and the top of the TV is somewhere around seven feet so I was struggling. Having been this height since I was 13, I did what I have done for over 30 years - I stood on my tiptoes. I didn’t go full pointe like a prima ballerina. I just barely went up enough to allow my paper towel a liiiiiiiiittle extra oomph.<br />
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Then I felt a pop in the top of my foot. Followed by what felt like a horrendous cramp. Then I said a bad word. Followed by a few more. I sat down and did a few flexing and pointing exercises and felt the crampy feeling subside to a dull ache. I think I know now why people avoid housework the way they do – IT’S DANGEROUS. I figured I probably needed to put on my shoes to do housework from now on since I’m old and fragile, but instead of doing that, I went on with my vacuuming and then finished up the bathroom. As the day went on, I noticed the pain was intensifying and by evening my foot had swollen to comical proportions. Monday I shoved my foot in a comfy shoe and ate ibuprofen by the handful. Tuesday morning I could barely get any shoe on. I got a same-day appointment, they x-rayed it, and she said it sounded broken but didn’t appear broken on film. Then added that stress fractures don’t always show up immediately on an x-ray. She wanted to put me in a walking boot, but since it’s my right foot I begged for anything but that. I need to be able to drive because Kady is in physical therapy in Joplin twice a week for her very own foot injury. So instead she put me in a “surgery shoe” and scheduled me for a follow up in two weeks.<br />
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As she was walking out she cautioned, “Please be very careful the next few weeks. That shoe will affect your balance and you’re a fall risk.” I, being who I am, laughed and said, “Yeah, and at my age I’m probably at risk for a hip fracture as well.” She didn’t even smile, she just replied with, “Yes. Absolutely. So be careful.” Then patted my leg, gave me a sweet smile, and said I should probably schedule a bone density test.<br />
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Ouch. That hurt worse than the injury – or the fact that I have to tell people I am hobbling around in a Frankenstein shoe because I injured myself while dusting.<br />
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<br />Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-48865670670365974712018-12-14T22:20:00.000-06:002018-12-14T22:20:02.210-06:00It's Who I Am(Originally published in the Miami News-Record)<br />
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As I was standing in my bathroom this morning I stopped for a second as I caught a familiar image in the mirror. I was fixing my hair, but what made me stop in my tracks was the fact that not only is my hair turning a delightful shade of silver, the style is also resembling Mom’s. The best way to fix it is to tease it all over until you look like one of those fancy show chickens. Then you hairspray it like crazy and smooth it into submission. It was at the precise moment where I was between teasing and spraying that I had the revelation. I’ve seen my mom come flying out of her bathroom with hair teased to break up an argument between Heather and me on more than one occasion. I looked like Mom in teenage-daughter-argument-breakup-mode. Sidenote: It’s hard to be frightened of a woman whose hair resembles a fancy show chicken.<br />
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I get a lot of things from my mom: obviously my hair, my propensity to cry at old black and white movies (and pretty much everything else), my love of Oklahoma and Disney World, my ability to cook up a storm, my ability to organize pretty much anything, and so much more. Mom is my hero. She has taken all the bad life has given her and made it good through sheer will, determination, more than a few tears, and love. Always love.<br />
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My Aunt Shirlye took me to have my ears pierced and fashioned me a makeshift bikini out of fabric scraps once when I wanted to swim in her wheelbarrow. She is who I’m pretty sure I’m becoming as I age. Every new item of clothing or furniture or decoration I bring home in any shade of aqua/teal/turquoise, prompts Paul to say, “Alright there, Shirlye Jean. Let’s save room for the other colors, too.” She loved me so fiercely.<br />
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My Nana was my buddy. Nan’s house had few rules and there was always Coke in the fridge. She ate salt on everything. She and I watched Dick Clark many a New Year’s Eve. And so much Johnny Carson. Dresses with jingle bells in the hem, the smell of Vanderbilt perfume, and her singing “Happy Birthday” even when the tremors in her voice were so bad she was barely understandable – Goodness, but I miss her.<br />
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My Memaw was sick my entire life, but when I think of her I always think first of her smile. She was who I ran screaming to when Heather was flogged by the devil rooster on the farm and I will never forget the day I asked her if Papa was saved. We were walking hand in hand across the back yard. She smiled down at me and said, “Your Papa is a good person, Kristin. That’s important.” Now as an adult I know having to answer me vaguely was troubling to her but she would’ve never darkened my impression of my Papa. He was saved after she passed and don’t you know she was so happy to see him come through those gates on that November day!<br />
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Just today Mom told me that when it comes to worrying, I remind her of Granny Glenn. She said Granny would worry if she didn’t have something to worry about and I relate to that on a personal level. Granny fed us Vitamin C and alfalfa sprouts like our lives depended on it. And Tea Tree oil runs in my veins because of her.<br />
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I am the woman I am today largely in part due to the women I’ve had in my life. I sometimes feel like I fail in coming anywhere remotely close to who they were and are, but doggonit, I sure try. I hope I leave a legacy for my kids as colorful as the one I come from. I hope they remember laughter. I hope they remember forehead kisses and the blood, sweat, and tears I put into their over-the-top Valentine boxes. I hope they remember Momma wasn’t perfect, but she sure tried to cover the imperfect parts in glitter and cake frosting. And that I loved them with all that I had in me. Just like my momma did me.<br />
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Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11314587.post-89373519386855973842018-12-14T22:14:00.001-06:002018-12-14T22:14:58.827-06:00Me and Gym(originally published in the Miami News-Record)<br />
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I’ve been going to the gym. Now, I’m not a gym rat or anything like that. In fact, there is 100% zero chance of that ever happening. I may have a genetic propensity to addiction, but going to the gym is excluded from that in my DNA. If I were to go to one of those sites where they trace your genetic makeup and tell you that instead of being Native American you’re in fact Scandinavian (which leaves someone in your family with some ‘splaining to do), I’m fairly certain that my family history will show me to be a descendant of a little-known and long-extinct tribe of very fat, very short, very clumsy cave people who loved carbs and died out pretty early on for obvious reasons. I mean, you can’t very well escape a ravenous saber-toothed tiger when you’re in the midst of a sugar crash from eating an entire loaf of fresh cave-baked bread. And also you keep tripping over your own feet.<br />
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Aaaaaaaaanyway, so I’ve gone to the gym a whole four times in the past week. Okay, week and a half. The point is, I’m actually going. I don’t hate it, but I darn sure don’t like it. But after losing this weight I have some extra baggage. And I’m not talking about a cute, coordinating Michael Kors luggage set. I’m talking about some extra body just hanging out on me now. Y’all, I have some serious bingo wings going on. (Read: flabby arms) And my thighs are super weird – but in their defense, they’ve always been that way. They’ve always been jiggly, but I’m just more aware of them now that all the rest of me is jiggling in unison. Also, y’all my butt is sagging. Yes, I’m 45 and that’s not all that uncommon for a woman of my age, but I don’t like it. If I’ve sacrificed my beloved carbs in order to, you know, not die and stuff, I’d at least like to have a cute hiney while I’m out here living.<br />
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See, fat is jiggly like Jell-O. It’s filled out and plump. Yes it jiggles, but in a uniformly pudgy kind of way. When you lose a significant amount of weight all that skin that was gently cradling the fat now has no purpose in life. So it just kinda….hangs out. It jiggles in an entirely different way. And it’s traumatizing and uncomfortable – for you *and* those who happen to catch a glimpse of you waving, jumping, or God forbid, naked. So I’m going to the gym in an attempt to tone up some of this extra junk. And to strengthen my heart because of the not-dying thing I’ve got going on.<br />
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I’m not very confident when it comes to working out. I don’t know squat. So in my mind, walking on the treadmill is a good start. Until I get in there and remember I’m not the best at walking. I’m incredibly clumsy and uncoordinated on regular ground, so imagine how I am on ground that is constantly moving. It’s sad, but amusing and also keeps those around me on their toes. See, I’m creating a stronger, healthier me while also providing a few much-needed services. While I am walking my way to prime cardiovascular health, I am also: 1) allowing those around me to feel better about their form and stamina. They don’t need to worry if they look inept – I’m doing enough ineptitude myself that everyone’s pretty much only focused on me and worry about proper form goes right out the window. 2) creating a vigilant community of fellow gym goers who make sure no one gets hurt in their watch. Forget about 81 year old Fred over there struggling on the kettle bell in the corner, y’all better keep an eye on the short youngish grandma on the rowing machine. She’s probably gonna lose a finger at some point. And finally, 3) I’m bringing humor to the gym. Because if you can’t get a kick out of me tripping over my own feet and subsequently tossing my phone across four treadmills and also accidentally almost strangling ol’ kettle bell Fred with the cord from my ear buds, then you have no sense of humor whatsoever.<br />
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Redneck Divahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13506685036989431733noreply@blogger.com0