Sicky

For the last two days I've been down and out with some kind of rampant illness.

It really started Thursday night, with what I thought was my body's usual reaction to the new month on das patch. For several months I'll get a little queasy in the first week, as my body adjusts to the hormone rush, no big deal, it goes away eventually, I can deal.

I also had a tiny bit of a sore throat, on one side. not too surprising this time of year, plants are starting to cure out and for some reason I'm mildly allergic to dying things. Unless it's a pine tree, and then I'm seriously miserable around it.

Woke up Friday morning and I felt like hammered crap... body aches, queasy stomach, sore throat, swollen glands... just a touch of a fever.

The last two days have sucked. I've been weak as a kitten and twice as useless (I haven't even been cute!)

I'm feeling better so far today... more alert, no fever, body aches seem to be more a case of being horizontal for most of the last couple of days than illness related now.... but my throat still hurts, and my glands are still swollen.

It sucks... I can handle sitting up for more than ten minutes now... but I can't yawn, talk very loud, or swallow anything without wanting to cry.

We'll see how it goes today, I'm going to putter a little bit but not get really exited about doing too much, see if things start easing up. If not, I guess I'll have to go to the doctor and see what the heck is wrong with me.

Can't really afford it, but if this doesn't start resolving on it's own soon, I'm not gonna have much choice.

Suddenly...

Well, it's a fantastical thing, stepping into a ready-made family. Suddenly I'm surrounded by laughing children every evening, filling up the house with the kind of energy and enthusiasm for life I can vaguely remember from my own childhood.

Suddenly, not only do I get to curl up on the couch with my honey and watch a movie in the evenings, but I get to lean in the doorway to the boys' room and watch him fold himself into the lower bunk to read them a story. I never realized what a tender feeling it brings, to watch children curl up next to their father and drift off as he reads to them.

Suddenly, I've got a beautiful, intelligent young lady who includes me when she's making "I Love You" pictures, who asks me to help her with her hair. And who often asks me, "why don't you just move in?"

Suddenly, I've got two little boys who, with the artlessness of youth, tell me "My dad needs to give you a trophy!" "No Bubba, if he gives her a trophy she won't be happy and then she won't come back. Daddy needs to give her a ring, and then they'll be married, and she'll be happy, and she'll stay!"

Suddenly I've got dinner around the table, reminding the youngest to chew with his mouth closed, Middle Child to eat his vegetables, and Eldest Child that bigger bites don't count for extra points.

Suddenly I've got new challenges. Middle Child still doesn't accept authority from women very well. We have battles, when he gets in trouble. Youngest Child follows his big brother's lead, except instead of screaming, he'll give you his big blue eyes and say "Aw wight," and then do it again five minutes later. Eldest Daughter, well, she mothers her brothers, instead of being a kid herself.

We're working on all of that, and being consistent and firm is helping the boys a lot. I have to remind Eldest Daughter to just play, a lot, but she's starting to figure it out, too.

Suddenly, I've got a day care schedule to work around. I'll be dropping them off every weekday morning at eight, and picking them up at five most evenings, starting Monday.

Suddenly........... Suddenly I've got a family. Three great kids and a wonderful man who thinks that I'm perfect. He's crazy, but he's sweet.

If you'd told me, a year ago (right around the time I started this blog, remember?) that I'd be here, now, I'd have said you were nuts. And, I'd have been terrified of the prospect. Three kids? Yikes.

But, suddenly, it's not so bad. Suddenly, I find myself doing all the things that my mother used to do for me. And suddenly, I find that I like it.

I might have days that I want to pull my hair out, and I might have days when I feel like there is no way I'm up to the challenges, but even on those days, I wouldn't give it up for the world.

Learning To Rope...

I am a farm and ranch girl. I've lived in a farming and ranching area all my life, and yet, I've never learned to rope.

I tried a couple of times, but I think the main problem is that my teacher was Farmdad, who admits freely, whenever it comes up, that he can't catch a cold with a rope.

Here I am, sitting in the middle of a lot of people who know how to rope, and I haven't taken advantage of it... how dumb am I?

Well, honestly, I was a bit busy with my horse, so I suppose I can be excused for not doing it yet... but I really should take advantage of the opportunity while I can.

Now, I just have to find someone to teach me, who doesn't mind that I'm starting from... well.... nothing.

Classes start August 18th. We'll see how things go.

The Pitfalls of Spontaneity

So yesterday about two in the afternoon, CM looks at me and says "Hey honey, lets go fishing!"

Sounded good to me, so we started gathering things, and as we gathered the discussion turned into "Lets go camping!"

Now, normally, I'm a pretty good camper. I've got my personal camping routine down, I can load the car and be on my way in about an hour... if I'm at the old homestead.

Since I wasn't, it was a bit more challenging. Find tent, got sleeping bags, changes of clothes for the kids and the adults, food, stop by Wally World to renew the fishing licenses and oh we need buns and chips and worms and OH! S'mores ingredients!

Get out of Walmart after eighty bucks worth of "oh, yeah" and get headed to the lake.

We went to John Martin Resevoir... well technically we went to Hasty Lake which is on the other side of the dam from the resevoir. Let the kids swim for a while... oh crap, we forgot towels.

Back to the campsite for some supper, after buying firewood from the parks service at six bucks a bundle, then let the fire die and go fishing just at dusk. That was fun, we had Eldest Daughter's friend with us and she'd never fished in her life... she was the only one to land a fish, a nice sized crappie.

I had a honkin big fish, easily two feet long... and he broke my line right at the edge of the water. Bastard.

So we went back to camp and made s'mores and roasted hotdogs, the kids told scary stories ("Once upon a time, there was a big sized monster and an itty bitty baby living in a house. The monster ate the baby. Amen" - Youngest Child) and went to bed.

Whoops, forgot pillows. I used CM, he used my hoodie, and the Middle Child used my feet. Did I mention it was a little tent?

Well long about midnight Eldest Child's friend got to wanting to go home. This has become a pattern, and CM and I agree that it's pretty useless to invite her to stay over any more. She gets upset in the middle of the night and has to be taken home. Last night her mother had to drive for thirty minutes to come get her.

If Eldest Child somehow convinces CM to let that friend stay the night again, I'm dosing her food with sleeping pills.

Well, once her friend was gone, Eldest Child didn't want to sleep outside the tent alone. She tried the back seat of the car, and that didn't work for her. So, three kids and two adults wound up in a tent that, honestly, is only comfortable for two people.

And Eldest Child kicks in her sleep, as I learned the hard way. Right in the face.

So yeah, it was a long night.

Next time I'm home, I'm kyping our tent, and the rest of my camping gear. I'll find somewhere to stash them.

That way, I can put the air mattress in the big tent and be comfortable, and use the little tent for the children. Little ones tent, big people tent. That way I don't get booted in the face at four in the morning. (And react badly, leading to me nearly beating the crap out of CM because he was the one holding on to me....)

And next time we go camping, (and I love camping, so we will be going again) we'll be better prepared, because I'll just rework my emergency camping kit for four people instead of one. All we'll absolutely have to remember will be the food, and clothes.

Now, I have to go shower, and then take a looong nap.

Talk About A Hook...

I was at Wal-Mart today and in the treating myself mood. Give me a break, I'm menstrual, and I wanted a new pair of pajamas.

So, as I can rarely resist I took a swing through the book aisle, and they'd got a new shipment in. Perusing the covers for one that looked like a book I'd read (step 1 in the Farmgirl Buys A Book Guide to Literary Addiction) my eye caught on one that isn't really my usual style, a street scene with a dark motif.

The title was The Man with the Golden Torc, by Simon R. Green. I was just barely intrigued enough to pick it up and read the back.

The back copy was iffy.

They say, in writing, you have to have a kick ass first page. When submitting to agents, or publishing houses, you have to capture their attention in a few pages, or they'll just toss off a form rejection and call it a day. Every writing guide I've ever seen (that I was sure wasn't a joke) has instructed me to make my first page pop.

Simon R. Green has mastered this concept. I flipped the book open to take a peek at the writing to see if I wanted to give it a chance, and with just a skim down the first page of the first chapter, I knew I had to own this book.

On the first page an unnamed political figure ("Lets call him Mr. President, and no, not the one you're thinking of,") has contracted a supernatural venereal disease during a goodwill tour of Thailand, subsequently becoming pregnant with "something the very opposite of a love child."

If this is the first page, I can't wait to see the rest of the book.

On a related note, I now feel like my first page is a flop...

I'm off, to start reading the book. And yes, Farmmom, Farmdad, you can have it when I'm done with it...

Eep.

Well, folks, it looks like I'm going to be spending my weekend nights driving in circles. Just got a txt message from my buddy asking me to be his pilot car driver on Saturday and Sunday nights.

I'm not real fond of nights, but it's a paycheck, and a good one. And, frankly, I'm gonna need that money. I need that money now, to be honest.

So, lets take a look at what it's gonna be.

Saturday. Up at six am for class at seven thirty at the barn, take care of the horse, get a little riding in maybe. Go home and sleep as much as I can. Go to work at six in the evening. Drive for twelve hours.

Sunday. Get off work at six am, go to the barn. Take care of the horse. Go home and sleep. Go to work at six pm.

Monday. Get off work at six am, catch a nap, class at the barn at ten. Get out of class at eleven thirty, catch a nap, go to Management at one, and Computerized Farm Records at two thirty. Collapse as soon as possible into a nice warm loving bed.

Tuesday-Friday. Classes all day. Start over on Saturday.

Something tells me I should scrape up the money to buy stock in energy drinks, and possibly No-Doze or caffeine pills.

Yeehaw, let the games begin.

Tennis, Anyone?

I got some interesting news while I was at the Old Homestead this weekend, about the local Sheriff and his goon squa... erm. Deputies.

Anyone who reads regularly knows that I am not anti law enforcement, far from it. I am, however, against the kind of ineptitude that has been displayed by the current Sheriff's department, mixed with a sadly mistaken over-all god complex.

I said that it would be a disaster when the King of the Idiots was elected, and I was right.

Let me put it this way, when I was a young Farmgirl, we had a city officer that had the entirely irreverent nickname of Cool Whip, because of his last name. Whether he refused to believe that he was not the coolest adult living, as far as we underagers were concerned, or he honestly thought it was a compliment, I don't know, but he took the nickname and ran with it.

To the extent of telling a group of fourteen year old girls, with a straight face, "They call me Cool Whip because I come in lots of flavors." Clueless to the point of being freaking creepy. Or just freaking creepy, take your pick, no one could ever agree on that point.

The King of the Idiots makes me miss the good ol' days with Cool Whip.

Well, there's been a steady increase in the "stupid kids" kind of theft and general mayhem in the county since the KOTI took over the helm. Pulling copper wiring out of grain trucks, abandoned houses, things like that. With the price of scrap metal these days everyone pretty much figured some youngsters with a future in numbers (on their pictures, on their shirts, on their sentences..) had figured out how to make some partying cash without actually getting a job.

When nothing happened to stop that kind of stuff, the county critters started getting restless. The last Sheriff had gotten them pretty much scared back into their holes, for the most part. No one wanted to tangle with him, and I can't blame them. I've known the man all my life and when he had his Sheriff face on he scared me. And he calls me "Button!"

Well, in more recent days, the critters have gotten entirely too bold. One little old lady left her house one morning, went to town, to the grocery store, and returned to her home thirty minutes later, to find it ransacked and missing several valuable and sentimental items.

One of the grain cooperatives had the door of it's offices ripped off, and the office denuded of anything that might be of value. They had to do business, so they replaced all the essentials and fixed the door the next day. That night, the door was again ripped off, and the replacement equipment stolen. I'm not talking about the door was kicked in, or the hinges were removed, or anything as mundane as that. Someone took a truck, attached it to the door, and then started driving. From what I hear the doorframe was pretty much missing.

So far, the Sheriff's department has solved precisely one of the multitude of these kinds of incidents, resulting in the return of approximately twenty five thousand dollars of tools, welders, and such.

Now, ask me how they solved that one.

I'm so glad you asked. The guilty parties stashed the goods at a buddy's house. Said buddy got into a fight with his woman. Said woman proceeded to rat the whole lot of them out, knowing where the items came from, where they were, and who did all the totin'.

The KOTI's method to catch the culprits for all the other thefts is to have his goon squa... er... Deputies... patrol the county roads, stopping every pickup they see, and looking in the back. If you have tools, or a welder, they ask you to prove your ownership of said items.

Not the brightest investigative plan I've ever heard, really. Frankly I think a blind, deaf monkey could run the department in a more efficient and friendly to the public manner, but then, I might be a little prejudiced against the KOTI because of my own personal history with him and his family. And the fact that he slung more mud than a monster truck rally in a monsoon during his campaign.

But I digress. In addition to this oh-so-brilliant investigative technique ("open your tool box" the officer tells Farmmom. "Kiss my butt, get a warrant," she replies) one of the goon squa... er... oh screw it. One of the goon squad has a "drug dog."

A black Lab. Not the best scent hound in the first place, and knowing the caliber of the "handler and trainer," I doubt the dog could find a pound of marijuana if you mixed it in his Alpo. Anyone who has ever been around a Lab knows that they're big, clumsy, happy-go-lucky lumps. I love the breed for a pet, but you couldn't pay me to try and train a Lab for police work. They just don't have the right kind of mindset for it, in my opinion.

Anyway, Numbah One Goon has this dog that he keeps in the truck with him and calls a drug dog, and every time he makes a stop, he takes the dog around the vehicle. Since Numbah One Goon is another of the "I have a badge, I am God!" types, he manages to annoy the crap out of people on a regular basis.

Me being a smartass, (who, me?) when Farmmom told me of the tactics that they're using all over the county, my first thought, and of course the first thing out of my mouth since my mental filter was on vacation that day was:

"Well hell just start carrying a tennis ball in the pickup."

I got confused looks, which is unusual, since I was sitting in a room full of the people who raised me and taught me to think the way I do. Usually at least Farmmom can hear the distant whistle of my freight train of thought, but this time she was blank.

"The next time Numbah One Goon stops you, as soon as he unloads the dog and starts up to the truck, just pitch the tennis ball out the window and watch the show."

After we cleaned up the puddles on the floor, the bag of a dozen tennis balls was duly dug out of the closet where it lives out of the sight of my pup. If she can see that we have more balls for fetch, she'll pop them right and left. If she can't, she takes care of her toys, but she still destroys them with enough regularity that we buy them by the dozen.

I think I might have created a monster, because when I left, Farmmom was trying to figure out who she was going to give tennis balls to, and who she was going to encourage to buy their own.