Say Cheese!

I believe childhood is what molds a person. If you stop and think about it, a child is taught, by guidance, what is acceptable in society, and will carry those lessons threw out his or her life. Fortunate for me I was born into a normal poverty stricken hard working family. Both of my parents strived to provide for me and my brother, Chris, with the intentions of giving us more than they had as children. They did a wonderful job, for I can not remember a time when we didn't have something to set on the table at dinner time, nor did Santa ever let us down on Christmas morning. My parents are very strong-willed, open minded individuals, who unselfishly cared for thier two children, while teaching us respect, morals, ethics, and love.

I hope you understand that I not only have to say how wonderful my parents are because it's true, but also because I know at times they have wondered why they didn't stop after the first child. Yes, I am the younger of the two, and have proven to be the more active, mischievous, and inquisitive during our childhood.

To my mother's dismay, I was the typical "Tom Boy" who enjoyed frogs, animals, and boyish activities. This trend began at age three, when I thought I had to prove myself to the other boys at the nursery. One particular boy and I made a habit of arguing every day. Once I went as far as to hit him. He went home crying that day, but he must have had some outside coaching that night, for the next morning he came back to the nursery to finish what I started the day before. After our usual name calling exercises he locked his jaws on my right cheek. Two months later my cheek was still discolored. I have determined that young boy really wanted to make an impression on me because today, 36 years later, I have a large dimple replacing his teethmarks. 

DOG GONE IT!!!

As a child I was fairly active; however, my age group did not have the medications to slow us down, only switches that we were lucky enough to pick ourselves. So when my son was diagnosed with ADHD I told myself, the doctors, and my family that I could teach him self control without medication. Honestly he did a good job learning as long as he was in my presence.

In other people’s care he had problems. It was during his Uncle Pete’s watch that he drove the car through the carport at age 4, missing the support beam by 5”. With in the second month of pre-kindergarten he was rocking the classroom so much I was politely requested to home school him. The last straw was at age 6, when he was “helping” his father wire in a metal barn, and unbeknown to his father, climbed up the outside of the 15’ tall metal barn, using the octagon screw heads, up to the roof. With in the week I had him back in the doctor’s office getting a prescription!

Giving my history with hyper activity, of course I was up for the challenge when my friend Billy came to me in April, giving me a Jack Russell Terrier, Buford. I brought Buford home and immediately he fit in to our family, and even better, he bonded with our 6 year old blue healer, Oscar. Within a few months Buford had learned his new home and some of the “Laws of the land”, such as no chasing cows or horses because it hurts when they kick,  eating out of Oscar’s food dish causes Oscar to show rather large teeth, and that there is a consequence to using humans as a chew toy.

Unfortunately, his self control fled as well when he heard other dogs across the highway barking at night, and at a pace of 0-90 in 2.4 seconds that was one lesson he could not learn from.

RIP Buford, you brought us laughter and joy for a short time, but one that will not be forgotten.

Never let tomorrow's sun rise on yesterday's problems...

Have you ever had one of those days that you just can’t stand the human race? Mine was yesterday. I have so many projects that I’ll start and believe I have to finish as soon as I start (ex. Painting my daughter’s bedroom), and once I start something I think that “MY” project is just as important to others as it is me…BOY WAS I WRONG! Hence, my human hater attitude.

While having all that time alone doing this particular project, listening to my IPod (country music), my mind just started racing in places it shouldn’t have. Yesterday I was able to sum men up in a nut shell. At the time it amazed me to think how a man woos a woman, lures her into a relationship and then the helpful, compassionate, confidant man she fell in love with abandons her. All the while, he still has bragging rights of the wife, the home, and the security. Kind of like owning a dog, except the wife can do the “Mama” chores, and doesn’t require feeding and watering. Then (being provoked by the country music) the man just whines and cry’s about how wrong he was done by his woman when she takes everything (even the dog!). Then the kids came in to the picture, but I’ll leave that summarization for another day.

By the time I finished painting yesterday, I was so upset all I wanted was an adult beverage. Which I’m glad I had one, because I finally relaxed and laughed at my craziness, and realized I worked myself up over painting a room (REALLY?), and directed my anger to the one friend that always had my back, that I could talk to about anything, who I truly love and would do anything for.

Now to let you know, today is mine and my husband’s anniversary, and even though we have had our trials and tribulations, I am totally amazed by God’s grace giving us the strength to survive the I love you’s, the f you’s, the children, the laughter, and the tears.

Happy Anniversary Mr. Turner

Where's the beef???

My husband has worked out of town for a year now, which I visit him, or he will have a chance to come home on weekends; however that leaves me to take care of the home front. To top it off, this past weekend I moved my daughter back to college for her second year, so like any parent with new found freedom, I have been finding things to occupy my time. I started working on a family tree a few months ago, which is very time consuming, but is also entertaining to learn about my ancestry.  I am finding many similarities in their lives and mine.  There have been immigrants, nurses, construction workers, metal workers, engineers, salesmen, educators, and of course farmers.

Sticking to my family roots, as well as being from a (use to be) small town in Texas, my family has had cattle and horses since I was a child. But make no mistake I am NOT a rancher / farmer by any means. My lovely experience with cattle has been very limited since that one painful game of tag with a 1200 pound cow 15 years ago. So I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when I received a call this past weekend that our cattle had gotten out of the pasture, and by the time I was able to get home from seeing my husband they had disappeared. Two days later I received a call from the Sheriff’s Office notifying me they had traveled 1-1/2 miles to another pasture. Happy to know they were okay and that they had not caused any damage, other than to our fence, my brother (who is less of a farmer / rancher than I) came over to help patch the fence and to retrieve the cows.

Now I must say, this week I realized I have a great admiration for men and their abilities. Even though at times they try my patience, I have noticed that there are things in life I am just not cut out to do. Because within two hours of getting the cattle back home, they had found another weak spot in the fence and went right back to the other pasture, and after being out in the Texas summer heat of 107 all afternoon repairing fences, hooking up the gooseneck trailer to a truck with a broken tailgate, and loading cattle, I was at my wits end! Knowing my husband’s history with ranching (which he really does), I was able to call in the REAL cowboys to help the following day. With horses, ropes, tack, and a trailer, they were able to get the cattle loaded up for the second time, which I must admit it did get a bit western with the 2000 pound bull, but the boys won the battle, and I had reconfirmed my hatred of cattle, don’t get me wrong, I like beef, just hate cows!