Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Friends are like balloons

Received the following from my youngest sister, and liked it a lot. Really, it sounds like something I would say myself. Thought I'd share it and the picture she sent:


"Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the one's who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it. Friends are like balloons: once you let them go, you can't get them back. So I'm gonna tie you to my heart so I never lose you."


Happy Wednesday!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Happy Mother's Day!

Dedicated to Mom and to all the wonderful moms out there!





I thought today would be "the hardest day" but really the days last week leading up to the weekend proved to be much harder. I felt "the crazy" creeping up on me many times, usually at odd and unexpected moments. It resembled, well, it was like those times when you just want to reach out and slap the other person, for no particular reason, but mostly because they didn't "get it" about just about anything. Or they were being ridulously difficult. Or, they didn't have as good of a solution as you. Could have been anything, but that's not very nice, now. Sorry, to whomever I may have entertained the idea of slapping silly. Just appreciate the fact that I gave up hitting other people when I was a teenager.




Not a day goes by when I am not reminded of my Mother. And yes, she was often in my thoughts before she died. The difference is that I used to be able to call her up and talk for short times or much longer, and plan visits in person. The difference is when a mother passes, it shifts the paradigms for others in sometimes healthy and sometimes dysfunctional ways.




No matter, I feel I can still talk to her, and I often do, which is something I appreciate knowing about and participating in. I remember when she called me the first time I was an "official" mother myself and got to celebrate my own Mother's Day (in 2004) how excited she was for us when we got our baby in the fall. How she held and cuddled him in her arms when he was only 6 months old. How we now ask her each night when our soon-to-be 5-yr older says his prayers, for her to watch over him. How sometimes I just want to laugh or cry when he now asks questions about her, depending on my state of mind and the type of question(s) he asks.




So, here was my mother's day, today. Got up early, to the sound of my text messaging going off by a friend sending wishes at 7:30 AM. Called a few friends before the guys started to wake up, including Grandma in Indiana. Called Grandma in Down County last night, since I figured she probably had plans and would either not be home or would have company at the farm today, and had also called one of my sisters yesterday. Of my 9 siblings from down county, I heard from 3, one yesterday, one by text messaging today, and one called. I will admit that while I sent messages to all but one of my 4 sisters (well, that one does not want anyone, or at least me, to contact her, making it hard to "leave messages") and also a sister-in-law, it was disappointing to only hear back from 2 of them. One hasn't called for YEARS, but yet she will send a random text message. Nothing today, won't answer a direct question or comment on her text msg on her phone, but will sporadically send odd messages at other times. I don't understand.... BUT, I "get it" that I will leave well enough alone and not stray where I am not welcome, regardless of the logic or reasonings behind the actions or reactions. I just cannot allow myself to spend any time worrying about the "funnies" of other people, I will not let it irritate me or drive me nuts.

Here's the Mother's Day card and poem that Christopher made for me at school, I love it!

Digressing over.... Mike fixed us all breakfast, including grits with scrambled eggs and cheese, green chile, and apple struedel that he had to let rise overnight and bake this morning. It was very nice, indeed! Then, we went outside with two big plastic trash bags and filled them up with weeds and leaves from about 80% of our rocked-in yard. For those who don't know, we don't cut grass out here in Albuquerque, we pick weeds. Best to do it with gloves! (1) because the cactus droppings have LOTS of microscopic needles, and (2) some of the weeds that blew in, including the tumbleweeds, have prickly parts that will cut you or puncture you. No fun. The two gigantic tumbleweeds that had blown into our yard in one of the last wind storms temporarily ended up over the fence and into the neighbor's yard. I'm sure they won't notice, since they don't do any yard work, and probably never go in the back yard (and we just need to pull them out again anyway). Usually, we take any tumbleweeds and throw them over the back fence, because the wind will carry them back out in the direction from whence they first came to us.

Our front hedge bushes. They have grown in the past 10 years, just slowly.



Did showers and headed to a friend's house about 25 minutes away, the extended family here that we fondly refer to as our "New Mexico Family". These folks are good people, will do anything, and are just really nice and honest people. They are from the area, and have taught us much about the southwest culture over the years. We do a lot of family events with them, which includes the mom and dad, Angie & Leo, and all their three girls and their families: Lee, Alice & Luisa. It was mellow and calming to spend the afternoon with them, no pressure, no expectations. The kids played on the trampoline outside (complete with safety net) and played "alien ship" where they used their squirt guns to spray water on any aliens who tried to steal their trampoline spaceship. I had returned a barely used container of "sugaring" solution to Lee, who does massage, facials, and body sugaring. So, she did everyone's eyebrows and whatever other body parts that we wanted sugared. She even fixed the unibrow on a couple of the guys.




Back home, time to get the little guy ready for bed.


This is when "something happened" -- maybe someone has a theory?




I was in the kitchen fixing a sausage burrito for Chris, he was in the small bathroom TCB (taking care of business), Mike was in the other end of the house. Then I heard a rather loud double-thud sound, and it sounded like it was done on the hallway wall, perhaps the front door. Which was odd, because people at the front door usually ring. Well, next thing I knew, here comes Chris half clothed, all concerned, calling "Papa, Papa?" as he looked for me. I asked him if he knocked the wall, and he said no, Papa did it. Well, I looked into the bedroom and saw the light under the little room door, so he wasn't roaming about. Then I checked outside to see if someone had come to the front door. There was no one outside, no one around the side of the house or walking down the street. So, I checked where Mike was again, and he was still on the other end of the house, and when I asked him, didn't even hear the knocking/thuds.




Perhaps it was Mom, making her presence known? Perhaps it was a bird that hit the front window, but it was a double thud this time, not something I've heard heard here before (unexplained, anyway), and the last time we heard a loud noice, it was one really loud single thud when the bird hit the front windows and then immediately fell down, stunned.




Hmmmm.... very peculiar.




So, I checked all the rooms, the garage, outside again. Of course, if there was something, Maya would have either eaten it or let us know we had company.




So, maybe it really was Mom, on Mother's Day, coming to visit. If so, then I thank you, Mom, with all my heart.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Questionable Intentions? Fear?

Intuitively, we all know the "right thing to do." This space tonight is dedicated to all those whose spoken and written words betray the fears they hold inside, often at the expense of loved ones, and whether intentional or otherwise. Those whose actions are contrary to doing the right thing, may they quiet their minds long enough to find the strength to learn to be true to themselves.

“As you sow so shall you reap” - Proverbs

“My mind is a garden. My thoughts are the seeds. My harvest will be either flower or weeds.” -- Mel Weldon

"Inaction is an action in itself." - Deborah Lowrey

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” - John Lubbock

“Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is "timing;" it waits on the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way.” -- Fulton J. Sheen

“Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.” -- Michael Pritchard

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” -- Henri L Bergson

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” -- Ursula K. LeGuin

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"The mind has no answers. The heart has no questions." - Proverb

“What the fool does in the end, the wise man does in the beginning.” - Proverb

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside, awakens." - Carl Jung

"Anyone can become angry, that is easy….
but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree,
at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right
way…that is not easy."
--Aristotle

"If I am not for myself, who is for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when?" - Hillel

Illusions are the truths we live by until we know better. - Nancy Gibbs

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Happy Birthday, Shawpy!!

...and Happy Earth Day, too!!

Been thinking about you throughout the day, but knew you had various plans all lined up, so I just left you a fun text message. I hope you had a fantastic day!

Hey, tell all the kin hello from me when you go down county, it'll surely be loads of fun! Give the Mom a warm hug from me...


Thursday, April 17, 2008

How Down County Farmer Kids Made Apple Cider in the 70's

There are many ways to make homemade apple cider, but here is how we did it.

First, you have to have an antique apple press, but you don't know it's an antique because it's just a tool that's been in the family for a long time, and something that you use every year when apples are in season. Usually we make applesauce with all the "extra" apples that all the kids didn't eat (including ourselves), but we loved to take out the press and make the cider.

You are supposed to put the apples in a bucket and fill the bucket with water to "wash" the apples. Then, try to pick out the ones that don't have too many worms in them. If the apples have worms, we were supposed to cut that part out and give the leftovers to the pigs. Yes, every down county farm has pigs!

Spray out the cider press with the water hose and position some sort of bucket or pan to receive the cider once the press is started. I don't remember what went there so well any more. The press is a hand cranked sort, so we take turns doing the cranks, which was actually fun to do. We were kids, so it was usually a competition over who could turn it the most times. Of course, sometimes the garden hose sprayed people and not just apples, a good thing for the hot summer days.

Then, it's simple: drop in the apples, more as the apples get pressed thru, make sure the discard pan collects the mashed up seeds and skins and other junk that squishes out. Of course, sometimes a worm-apple gets dropped in and you can't get it back out once it goes down. Sometimes a daddy long legs gets dropped in, just for fun, I think! The reasoning was, "it's going to get cooked anyway, so any bugs that are in it will be sterilized by then."

Disclaimer: this photo is not my original. Unfortunately, I cannot find the original to give proper credit, but this is very close in design to the one we used to use. Apples go in from top, hand crank, and juice comes out down below. If I can, I will post an actual photo from our family cider mill.

Give the pressed apple juice to Grandma to have her cook it in large pots on the stove for some amount of time, I think until it gets to almost boiling for a certain amount of time. She usually canned most of the juice/cider for us to have in the winter time, but we did get to drink some at the time.

And tasty it was. I fondly remember making the cider, as well as the many other projects and chores we had to do on the farm. Maybe some of them were less "fond" than others, but when they are all dropped in the memory bank, I do appreciate many parts of my childhood. Another bonus that came out of our apple cider press project, besides the fun we had in the moment, was when I learned later in life that a certain percentage of bugs is acceptable in inspections by the USDA. Ewww!

Want to know how to make your own apple cider press? Check out the website here!

Unexpected Occurances in a Day

It started like most others: at some point in the night or morning, the little guy climbs up in bed and either goes back to sleep, or cuddles. Today it was closer to 7 AM when he arrived, so shortly afterwards, the alarm goes off. He was exceptionally cuddly and in a fantastic mood. Your heart has to melt a little when your baby tells you, "Mommy, you are beautiful! And, I love you more than all the stars in the universe! More than anything, that's how much I love you. And, Papa too!" He gave hugs and was loving everyone, not grumpy at all.

I took out clothes for him to wear, shorts and a t-shirt, for we've been having 80+ degrees of weather this week. Mike told me that it was going to be at least 20 degrees cooler today, weird weather! Well, we just took out all the clothes that no longer fit, which means we need to go shopping again, little bugger is getting taller and taller, and all but two of his pants were in the washing machine wet. This left him with camo- pants, which he has trouble working the button still, or sweats, which turned out to be slightly too short. He opted for the sweats, but they will go bye bye after the next laundry.

As soon as he was dressed, he decided today was going to be a Spanish day, all words in Spanish! His pre-school has several spanish-speaking families in it, and their curriculum for his class is to speak Spanish in the morning and English in the afternoon. He really knows a lot of words and phrases, but his repeating of the same is not always accurate. He settled on something like, "mia, si'a, mia" and if we didn't get what he was saying, he showed us or made noises or hand jestures, and only responded if we answered him in a spanish phrase. He wouldn't even take the bait when Mike tried to lure him in with one of the annoying and repetitive songs, like the Chicken Dance, or Mahna Mahna, only Spanish today. This continued all the way to school, so I gave his teacher fair warning!

Caught every single traffic light on the way to school. As in, all of them.

At school, I had tried to reconcile the accounting ledger, but it is about $57 off in receipts, but matches the budget in actual available dollars, so I think we are missing a receipt/entry. A parent gave a check for a money donation from her family, so I need to go to the bank to cash that. All in all, no biggie. Got to my car, only to find I had forgotten to take the check and all my paper copies, so had to go back in and go them. Christopher was setup with watercolors and was painting on a coffee filter that they were going to make into butterflies. He smiled big and gave me a big kiss. The other kids asked, "Virginia, are you working here today? No? Well, then were are you going?" They ask a lot of questions. Then, the other class was preparing to go on a field trip to the zoo today, 43 degrees and very possible rain, and all. It did snow in the mountains and foothills, as well as in Santa Fe, and you could see the rain coming down all around the city, so what a day to go to the zoo! Just like the yard sale last Friday, when the weather had been perfect for a couple weeks, the one day we are going to be outside, it was COLD and windy, oh well. High temps reached around 61 or 62, a big drop from 80-ish yesterday!

So, get back out to my car only to find that the trash dumpster truck had arrived. Been coming to this school for almost two school years now, and never once timed my outside time with the dumpster truck. It was not helpful to see that my car was only about 2 ft away from the truck, as I had parked in a parking space, but the one next to the trash space. Good thing no one was in front of it. Had to wait for him to leave, which took a few minutes, and it was COLD outside with the wind blowing. Felt sorry for the kids to have to go on a field trip in the elements.

Drove about a mile south on 4th street to the post office to mail some "D" new quarters to one of my brothers, for his quarter collection, so I had to go inside to get it stamped and mailed. Christopher had come in with me one day last week to mail a few "love cards" out, that he had made two days prior. He was very proud of his love cards, and gave them to the guy, Bill. Then he asked Bill to show him where he was putting them all, so he showed him the box quickly, so Chris didn't go all the way around the desk to see for himself. He did his happy dance once all his letters were mailed, which he had only asked me about 10 times for "when can we mail my love cards, Mommy?" Well, today, Bill was there again, and when he was finishing up with me, an older gentleman came in with a delivery slip. Bill said "there are two of them back there", and the other guy came back a few minutes later with a double-decker set of boxes with lots of holes that were making "cheep, cheep, cheep" noises from within. Baby chicks! USPS delivery! So, I asked the dumb question, about do you have to feed them overnight? And Bill said that "Oh, they always come here in the morning, and he picks them up right away, so they really aren't here long." In case you haven't guessed it, the North Valley is a little heavy on the rural side, with chickens, goats, horses, sheep, and assorted other critters in most back yards.

Next, to the Mexican Drink Nazi! Her store is across the street from the post office, and I wanted a breakfast burrito, and possibly a horchetta (mexican rice drink, made with milk and cinnamon). The last time I went in there, I asked her if we could have 8 drinks of horchetta, and she looked me in the eye and told me "No. I can give you two." So I asked if she didn't have 8, did she have 4, because then we could split the 8 into halves so we could all have some back at the school (teachers and the assistants). She said, "I can give you two." She poured the two and even though there was enough left in the pitcher for at least two more, she put the pitcher back and served me my two drinks. I paid and left, scratching my head. My friend said I should have pulled my hair up in a different way and went back in to order two more, but I had already left from there. Then, the teachers called in a food order and asked me if I'd pick it up when I got the drinks, and she was a little surprised when I told her what had happened. So, here we go again, I return about an hour later from an errand to pick up the food order, and ask her if she has any more horchetta drinks left. She softed up a little and said, "yes, I have one or two" and she served them up. Then she told me that the next time I ordered, to tell her where we were calling from and she would know that we were really going to pick up our order, and she said she had been saving the other drinks for someone else, but he didn't show up so he missed out.

So, here we are today, and she served me with a smile, and said to come back again!

From here I went to my chiropractor appt, which I used to do 2x a week then 1x a week, and now only go 1x a month. This month I had to go about 2 weeks ago because I caught a stupid cold, after just saying how I hadn't gotten sick at all this winter season, and when caughing, I threw my lower back out. Couldn't hardly walk, couldn't hardly get out of bed, don't talk about a chair. No fun! Well, while there, he does a machine reading on my back, and does a machine adjustment where it shows it is needed (this is an awesome machine, beats the hell out of the regular adjustments process). Then, he does a cold laser on my wrists after adjusting them. As for the wrists, I swear by him. I couldn't hardly lift a cast iron frying pan with both hands when I first saw him in 2005, but now both my wrists are feeling great. I do have the problem with carpal tunnel after doing all that typing for so many years, but I don't feel a thing in them anymore, no more pain! Anyway, while sitting in there waiting today, as I was about 40 minutes late for my appt., there were two older ladies also in the waiting room. One was wearing a black skirt, black socks and slip on shoes, and a black superman t-shirt. She had short hair and no teeth. I was coughing (although better with the Mucinex) due to the horchetta drink I had, some of the rice went down the wrong pipe, I think. So, she got up and went to her coat in the hallway and came back to ask me, "do you want a lemon drop?" and I said yes. So she handed me an unwrapped lemondrop that was in her hand, and I took it, and it was good. Guess it's good that I'm not too much of a germ-a-phobe. We was talking to the Doc's wife, Flossie, when a phone started to ring. Superman lady asked Flossie, "Is that your phone?" which it was the office fax machine. Then, she said, "Oh, well, I was just wondering if it was my phone in my pocket." Moving right along...the other lady had orange-ish hair and she was very elegantly dressed and did not participate in the conversations at all. She went in first, then me and then superman lady. When I was on the chair, the older woman came in to ask the Doc a question about her wrist that was hurting, he said to put some ice on it, and it should calm down since he had already done the laser on it. When she left, Mark (the doc) told me that "that lady is 91 years old! she started coming in because she could no longer garden every day for 6 hours straight before her back started hurting." This lady is still driving and fully independent, gardening, interesting, a great role model!

On my way out of the chiropractor's office, I got into a discussion about the kids with Flossie. They have two adopted children and one natural born son, and they have mentioned in the past how they celebrate "arrival day" with the girls, as well as their birthdays, and I think also "adoption day" is a celebration. We celebrate both adoption day, which is May 5th and his birthday on May 15th. Turns out Flossie's son also has a birthday on May 15th, but he always complains about how it's not fair that the girls get two big celebrations, and he only gets one. So, his solution: he calculated back to the day when he was conceived, and now he celebrates "sperm day" as he calls it. He's 15, it must be fun to have a sperm day when you're 15. Kinda nasty if you think about it, cause it means you are remembering when your parents did the deed to make you.

Next to the job, where I do billing for a plastic surgeon/ear, nose & throat doctor. He's in h
is mid-thirties, and he only works the clinic where I am on Fridays. In fact, I was working there for almost 3 months before I finally met him for the first time. He works another clinic the rest of the week, and does on-call emergency work at the hospitals on some weekends. So, his other clinic is so successful that his wife quit her job as an attorney to stay home with their 2 1/2 yr old boy and to "check in on the office" where I work. Seems our office isn't making enough money, which might be because he only works one day a week there, but now she has set up shop in the space where I do my work. Last week, it was Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. On Thurs, I had to leave because she was conducting meetings in there. So much for communication. And she's apparently not a very "warm and loving" sort of person. The boss, well, he calls the office manager repeatedly. For example, he called her 5x in a row this afternoon when we had stepped out to go to lunch. He knew there was a tv filming crew in the office all morning to film part of a tv special to air in May of one of his colleagues who is an esthetician (sp) and when they left, we all got lunch. He calls her obsessively like that at least a few times a day, whether she answers the phone or not. She could be in the bathroom, and unable to answer a cell phone, but he'll keep calling until she does answer. So, she will turn in her 3-wk notice tomorrow afternoon. Which means, I will finish up the project I am working with and then I will probably also bail shortly afterwards, likely in about a month, unless things improve drastically. The bosses' wife "drops" by to check out what people are doing, and is sneaking around rather than asking direct questions. They are festering an atmosphere of distrust, which is ironic because this is about the most honest group of women that I've ever worked with in all of my working years. Their loss.

Anyway, while at the jobsite, tried to do the billing for the charts that just came available yesterday. In the middle, one of the other tenants asked me to do reiki on her for 30 minutes before her next appointment. We've only done it twice now, but she really likes it, it's a good thing. Next week we are going to pull out my motherpeace tarot cards, and that will be fun, also. In talking to Elizabeth, the one being filmed earlier in the day, she is intuitive and does reiki, reads palms and does cards, and other things. Her mother sounds like a real gem, can't wait to meet her. She read my palms and said that I had "a lot of things going on right now, a lot of things, lots of love in my life, and there was a time where there was a drastic, major change in my life, one that made a big impact. There are changes in the future, with two major choices of roads to take, and both the roads are related." Well, we'll see. She was right about what she said that has already occured, thank goodness those years are gone.

Off to pick up Christopher from pre-school. Called my sister Juanita on the way to his school. She is doing well, just very busy. I'm lucky to have such an intuitive and caring sister, one who "gets it" and who understands some of they whys of life. Once we get to school, there are still 6 kids left to be picked up by parents, a little later than I had wanted to arrive. I usually like to get him by 3ish, so he doesn't have too long of a day. Well, today was a good day for him, which is always a bonus. Some days the kids "put sand in my hair" and that is not fun to get out. When leaving school, he started back on his Spanish language, which continued through the shopping at Sam's club and also at home. We are going to have to get a spanish dictionary so I can tell him the right words for everything, I can only remember random ones at this point.

Dinner of baked salmon, corn on the cob, left over rice, and applesauce. Then, read ZooBooks magazine about lions and a Highlights Magazine--and off to bed for the little guy! He's been so tired all week with his schedule thrown off over the weekend and Monday (had an EEG done, which means you have to make him sleep deprived to do), he just wakes up still tired in the am.

After he went to bed, the phone rang with a local "private" number, but I answered it anyway. It was his pediatrician, calling to tell me she saw he had an EEG done, and what's going on, so we discussed all that, and she's going to check some things out and call us back. I'm glad that she's on top of his chart, since we usually only get to see her when he's really sick and it's been a few months.

And here we are. Mike should be getting off work soon, having to work until 9 pm on Thursdays. I need to start my homework for my next class that begins next week. It's stats, yay. But, I need to do a little more prep work for it, because the last class kicked all our butts, finance and accounting. Seriously, that's not an exaggeration of how tough and frustrating the class was. The only good thing about it is it's over....

This was long, you didn't have to read it thru, it was really for myself, and my amusement. It was a good day, just lots of odd things that crept into the day, pretty much at every turn. One thing for sure, I do love my family and am so glad we got Christopher, he is a great guy!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Champion fur trapper in the county!

A friend of mine recently returned to Montana to attend the funeral of her older sister. While there, she met many townspeople of this small rural "Northern Lights" -like town. One woman at the dinner she attended was wearing a fox fur coat. Deb commented on this coat, telling the woman that it was very beautiful. This lady responded with, "Oh, thank you, I made it myself. I trapped the foxes, cleaned them, and made the coat! I am the champion fur trapper in the county, and I have other ones that I also trapped and made. I have one from squirrel, one from racoon, and others. I'm just a great trapper, the best one in the county!" Pride!

I don't care who you are, you can't make up stories like this!