Playing Tag

Mar 152012
 

Sandi over at The Mrs has challenged her wonderful readers to join in a game of “Tag”, otherwise known as 11 fun filled facts about yourself in a blog post.

So I thought to myself, “Self, you already blog about every damn thing that happens in your life, what’s left to tell?”

Hrms… let’s see…

:::

Eleven things about me you may or may not care about:

ONE  I hoard pine scented candles (love the scent…mmmmmmm).  OK, maybe “hoard” is too strong of a word.  I stock up on pine scented candles at Christmas time because that is the only time I can find them.  And my daughter Chris helps feed the stockpile (thankies honey!).

TWO  I don’t shave my legs in the winter.  I’m a small-ish person and I need all the insulation I can get during the cold months.   Don’t judge.

THREE  When I’m home, I spend most of the time in the bedroom.  That’s where my computer is, and Rick set up a large screen TV so I’m all set!

(Still with me?)

FOUR  I hate when things are disorganized.  If something is out of place or slightly askew, it drives me nuts and I have to fix it immediately.  (This might fall under the “OCD” problem that you already know about.)

FIVE  I love feathers.  I’ll pick them up whenever I see them and hang them in the Dreamcatchers around the house.  Double points of love if someone gives me one.

SIX  I must be on time for everything.  If I’m even a minute late, my whole world is thrown out of whack and I get all weird.  It’s all my Dad’s fault.  He was never on time for anything when I was growing up, and he’ll be late for his own funeral (he’s even admitted that one).

SEVEN  I can read people’s eyes.  I can tell their mood, if they are not feeling well or if they are lying just by looking at their eyes.  Yes, I’m a freak.

(Hello? Anybody there?)

EIGHT  I played the flute in band when I was younger.  It still sits on the shelf in my closet.  I think it’s considered an antique now.

NINE  I do not have a Pinterest account.  I don’t know what I would do if I had one.  If someone wants to “invite” me and gush about all the neato things to do with it, I’d give it a shot.  Maybe.

TEN  Unlike 137 percent of the world, I am not addicted to Twitter.  It’s fun to look at and occasionally post to (if I have something brilliant to say, which I normally don’t), but I can easily go without it for a day and not go through withdrawals.

ELEVEN  I am not an outgoing person.  I would rather stay in the safe confines of my homestead and do nothing but soak in the nature around me than to be a social butterfly.  That way nobody witnesses what a total moron I really am.

:::

You still here?  WOW!

Well, I really had to navigate through some burnt out brain cells to come up with this stuff, but it’s all true.  Now you know more about me than I cared to ever reveal to anyone but the cats, so feel free to consider yourselves either a) fortunate or b) slightly nauseous.

Either way, you’re heros in my eyes and I hope that you still like me despite what you just read.

If not, well then you now have more than enough material for your next therapy session.

 

The Little Drip That Could(n’t)

Mar 142012
 

On this day one year ago we had this:

It was so cold yet that the sap coming out of the Maple trees froze mid-stream.

And one year later, we have temps skirting the 70s and snow melting like crazy.

And since we did not tap this year, I’m hearing all kinds of stories of how wonderful the sap is flowing and sugarbush camps are thriving everywhere.  I’m really glad to hear that, because it means that there was enough rain last fall to compensate for the minute amount of snow we received this Winter (so far… it’s still March in the Northwoods and anything can happen) and the trees are nice and healthy

AND since we will have free time to do other things instead of tending boiling sap for 14 hours a day on weekends, we can do other things.  Like start chipping away at the 10 truckloads of firewood that needs to be split and stacked.  Or clean up the yard of branches that fell over the past few months.  Perhaps shovel up the 2 tons of sunflower shells from the bird feeders.

I think our hibernation just ended.

 

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Wind Storms Lead to Smores

Mar 132012
 

When we rounded the corner to the old homestead on Saturday, we were met with a little surprise.

Apparently the storm that dumped a butt load of snow on us 2 weeks ago brought a fierce amount of wind to the valley.

Some of the branches came from more than 30 feet up the old pine tree (thankfully missing the roof) and were over 10 inches in diameter.  The only structural damage was to the top of one of the fence posts, which can easily be replaced (unlike a roof, which I’m glad we don’t have to mess with).

Corey went home and got a trailer and his kids, and being good woman folk we put the men to work cleaning up the yard.

Not to be outdone by the older generation, the grandkids dove right in and proved their salt.

Of course, every job site needs a good supervisor.

When they were done, the trailer was loaded down with enough wood to provide one heckofa bonfire.

Which naturally will be accompanied with weenies roasted on old sticks and burnt marshmallows.

And smores.

Gotta have smores.

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The End of an Era for TTFH

Mar 122012
 

For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been in constant pain.  Not a poke-a-stick-in-my-eye pain, but one that makes itself known every waking minute of the day with just enough punch to let you know that it is there.

I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I finally called the dentist.  I knew what the problem was because this tooth (from this moment forward to be known as The Tooth From Hell, or TTFH), because it’s caused me problems for over 37 years.

Yes, 37 years.  The first time that TTFH make it’s debut it was when it cracked in half when it was still one of my baby teeth.  On a Saturday, no less (don’t ask me how I remember this, but I do).  When TTFH re-emerged as an adult, it was back with a vengeance.  It has made me endure countless cavities and fillings, oral surgery that involved cutting half my mouth open to scrap off infected jaw bone (gross I know… wasn’t a picnic for me either), 2 failed root canals and a POS crown that I swear was nothing more than reinforced rubber cemented to TTFH that has miraculously lasted 16 years (how, I’ll never know).

When I met the Prince of All Dentists 2 years ago, I pointed out TTFH and he was in agreement with me that it was a vile piece of work and needed to be extracted.  But we needed to get rid of the other nasty teeth that resided in the top part of my mouth first and then we would revisit the little parasite after everything else was healed.

Well, everything has been healed for quite some time now and TTFH decided it was a great time to introduce a lovely infection that has taken up residence in the right side of my mouth, making eating anything resembling food a new experience in pain.

The Prince was able to see me on short notice and said “Let’s yank that sucker out of there!”  (Well, he didn’t exactly use those words, I did… he said that he’ll gently rock it out.  Either way, it’s history.)  But first we need to get rid of the nasty infection, so here I go on another round of antibiotics that will make me want to hurl at the smell of food.  Yay me!

But that’s OK, because in 10 days I get to say buh bye to TTFH and end it’s evil infection spreading tirade that has lorded over my mouth all these years.  And when the crater hole from where it has been extracted is healed, I’m having a big juicy slab of prime rib to celebrate.

And this time, I’ll be able to enjoy it pain free.  Victory over TTFH is going to taste sooooo good.

 

We Have a Winner

Mar 112012
 

Our house in Martell has stood empty now for 2 years.  We had tried a real estate agent and had no luck.  We tried to sell it privately, and it was still a bust.

Last weekend, Rick decided to pull out the big guns and list it on Craigslist.

So on a very beautiful Saturday, we headed south to meet with Donna.  She was a very lovely person who was easy to talk to about the history of the house and what we had envisioned for it when we purchased it 20 years ago.

I love this house.  It was so hard for me to finally come to the decision that it had to be lived in and I was not going to be the one doing that anymore.

Yes, we have not lived in it for over 10 years, but it was still a part of me.  Our daughter Nichole rented it from us until she moved 2 years ago, so in a way I still felt that I had a connection to it.  2 years without someone in there was like watching it slowly die.  It needed human contact on a constant basis.

It has such a wonderful old charm to it that you just don’t find today.  Whenever we did any work on it, we made sure to keep the original character that we fell in love with.  And I was always hoping that the right person would come along that saw all the possibilities that this house held.

I have to say that I was a little worried that the potential buyer would see the pictures that Donna took and not see what we did.  Yes, there is a lot of work that needs to be done on the inside of the house that we did not get to when we lived there, but in a way that was a blank canvas with which someone could bring the house back to life with.

It turns out that there was no need for worry.  The buyer loves the house and wants to get in there as soon as possible and begin the process of remodeling it with the same visions that we had so many years ago.

When my grandson sat next to me on the front steps yesterday and told me that he never wanted to leave this house, I almost started crying.  I sat there and thought about how my daughters had grown up in that house and all the wonderful memories that it held for them.  Seeing the grandkids running around the yard and playing in the puddles took me back in time to when my little girls did the same thing.

I hope that in the years to come, there will be more little ones that can run through the house, play in the puddles and catch crayfish in the stream down the road.  That is what keeps the house alive.

At least I still have my memories, and I’m not letting them go without a fight.

 

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