Six Word Saturday

Buried in snow.  Makes me sleepy.

Chats on the Farmhouse Porch

Well, I was all set to (finally!) post my "December Ends on Pictures" post (after all, it's less than a week into January...), but for some reason, Blogger will not allow me to load pictures from my computer.  So many options!  Would I like to load pictures from my blog? 
Why would I want to do that?  Those pictures are soooo yesterday.
From a URL? 
No, from my desktop would be fine.
From a Picassa site?  From my web cam?  From my phone? 

Nah.  How 'bout from my computer?  Like we usually do? 

Sorry, not today.

 

Soooo...  I have just started visiting a blog called Everyday Rurality  and she has a linkie-poo to some questions.  This is called "Chats on the Farmhouse Porch". Since I live in a barn with a porch; and since that porch has a nice swing (well, it's nice in the summer); and since my muse is experiencing technical difficulties, I will play this game instead.  So there, photo loader. 

1. Do you make New Years resolutions?

Not really. I make Bedtime Resolutions.  These take place at the end of the day when I stand in the shower and think about how much I need to improve myself.  Tomorrow.  Tomorrow is a new day and I will reform my behavior as soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning.  Really.

 

2.  What do you hope to accomplish this year?

 

Hoo boy.  Can we leave my work stuff out of it?  Not really.  I am the director of an adult education program - mostly English as a Second Language. I am so goal-oriented at work and I have to write so many reports about what I am going to accomplish and whether I have accomplished it that I feel like I am kind of talked out on that topic.  Let's just say that the students will have phenomenal attendance, retention and progress.  That we will lay more groundwork for vocational and post-secondary education; that we will track job progress and attainment; that we will have excellent volunteer involvement. 

 

As far as my other life is concerned, I would like to sew curtains for Sara's room and the guest room.  I would like to marry Chuck on a day this summer when he, I and all four of our children can attend.  I would like to save enough money to pay for a trip to Spain this year; or a trip to New Zealand next year.  I would like to successfully pull off our journey down the Grand Canyon next November. 
 

3.  Tell me about your favorite place to think, create, or just relax.

 

My Cozy Spot.  I'm sitting in it right now.  A blue futon in front of the wood stove, which is faithfully cranking out heat.  Braided rug at my feet.  Cup of tea perched on the little table at my elbow.  Standing lamp with a  "Grandma Moses" shade.  The nighttime French doors beside me reveal nothing in the blackness in the back yard but reflect back to me the shimmering lights from all the Christmas strings we still have suspended all over the inside of the barn.  And YES!  OK!  Just now, I realized that I have a picture of the cozy stove that I had posted in an earlier blog entry, and I DID load the picture "From my bog". I admit it. 

 

4.  Are you a fan of old movies? (Like the ones that were originally black and white.)

 

Not really. Or more accurately: not specifically.  Some, I like; some, I don't.

 

5.  Tell me something that made you happy since our last porch visit. If you're new to the chats, tell me something good that has happened to you lately.

 

Things that have made me happy in the last 24 hours. My family loved the Cashew Chicken I made for supper. I successfully baked Oatmeal Pecan Pie in the wood stove. Look out! Here comes another picture!

 Chuck went to the gym with me and showed me a fun way to do crunches with the medicine ball.  Sign-up for the Family Literacy Program and the Monday / Wednesday program are both looking good, and I hope both will be filled to capacity when I close enrollment in a couple weeks. I got to sleep late this morning.

 

And now, I shall get everything laid out and ready for a busy day tomorrow.  I will take care of my daily accounts and expenses.  I will set up my crock pot.  I will curl up with Chuck and we will talk nonsense until we fall asleep.  Bliss.

Six Word Saturday

Missing newspaper.
Chilly feet.
Crabby Kate.

Girl, Interrupted

Maybe this is a problem that goes with second marriages / relationships.

Why does Chuck act one way toward me when none of the kids is around; a different way when my kids are around; and yet another way when his AND my kids are around?

Or am I imagining it?

It would be easy to convince me that it's normal, once I finally acknowledge that it is actually happening.  I am just becoming aware of it, although it has been joggling the back of my mind for some time.    

Given that, do I say something, or just let it go?

Mostly, the problem is interrupting.  I tried three or four times to ask him a question and every time, he just plowed right over me.  So I waited and tried again.  And again. 

A few minuted later, I tried to ask him another question, and that time he interrupted me deliberately with a senseless respose.  He thinks it's witty.

He interrupts me a lot, and mostly I have learned not to mind.  I just wait and try again. Or wait until he realizes that he has interrupted and asks me to continue.  But it does wear at me.  And he does it most in front of his daughter.  Why?  Tonight I finally just wanted to shut down.  It gets tiring.

Six Word Saturday

Evanston, Wyoming:
State-line vices.
Porn!  Fireworks!

Seabird

When I was a little kid, my dad had a book that I loved.  We read it together; and I read it to myself many times.  It was about a family of seafarers and their mascot:  a gull carved out of ivory.  I was telling Chuck about this book the other night, because of its nautical theme. 

Plus, I was lonely for Dad.  I had heard "Joy to the World" on the radio earlier in the day. It made me think of how much Dad liked to sing the bass line in church every Christmas Eve.  I would sing,

"And heav'n and nature sing..." and he would get in there with "...heav'n and nature sing..."

At any rate, I admit it - I was in a reminiscing sort of mood.  Poor Chuck, having to listen to my stories.  But I digress.

Dad had a lot of interesting books, and Seabird was a favorite.

The summer before he died, I was visiting and I asked him if I could have it.  Lately, he and Mom had been giving away little things to kids who would take them.  About Seabird, though, he replied, "Not yet.  I'm not done with it, yet." 

Then he died and my brother cleared out all of his books.  In the aftermath of the funeral, the move and the rest of it, I didn't think of Seabird right away.  A couple of months later, I remembered and e-mailed my brother.  Did he have it?  Would he mind giving it to me? 

He didn't know what I was talking about.  He and Dad had not read that book together.  Would he look for it, please?  He was happy to look for it, but he warned me that he had already given away a bunch of Dad's books and had no recollection of this one.

I assumed that it was out of print.  When it arrived in the mail yesterday, via Amazon, I realized it wasn't.  Chuck called it a belated Christmas present.  

There it was, restored to me.  Just like the one I used to read with Dad.  Even the slipcover is the same. 

The artwork, each painting familiar to me, although I hadn't seen them in years.

All the clever margin sketches.

When you are able to hold in your hands a thing that you thought you would never see again, a rememberance of a person that you know you will never see again, it is overwhelming.  I started to cry.  Chuck must have gone online the very next morning, looking for it.

I can't think of a present that I have loved more, ever.  Or a person I have loved more, ever.

Love May Be Temporary...

...but herpes is forever.

I knew Chuck carried the virus - he gets an occational cold sore.  What I didn't know was that I could catch it even when he doesn't have an active sore.

Know what else I was unaware of?

That it would make me SICK, SICK, SICK!

High fever, swollen glands, sores everywhere.  My tongue?  My esophagus?  My gums?  All that, AND the places you usually think of when you think of when you think, "herpes". That's where I've been this last week.

Some bright spots:

I have lost 5 pounds!  During the holidays!  Wow!
The only thing I was capable of consuming for two days?  Egg nog!  Without guilt.
There are parts of my body that were not affected.  My brain is still OK.  I aso did not get eye herpes or fingertip herpes.  Yay, me!