Stick Horse Cowgirls

One the blogs I have followed and enjoyed these two years since V got me hooked on this blogging thing is “ Rue’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Life. ”  I was sad to see Rue close down her site this month, and I will miss voyeurism into her life—hearing about her projects and about Rich and the kids.  See, I get attached to you guys. Rue has left the public realm, going to an invitation-only site.  She didn’t just leave us—she posted a “good-by,” giving us an explanation, which I appreciated.  Otherwise it would have been leaving friends abruptly, without a proper leave-taking….unthinkable.  Rue said some things in her “good by” to us that made me think….and you know how I love to overthink. She has been disillusioned somehow by some of her fellow bloggers, something I’ve not experienced, thankfully.  But one of the things that struck me most was her comments to the effect that she was tired of going around life thinking of how every little thing might ma...

Some time back in one of my family-science journals I saw an article on “community.”  The gist of the article was that we have, basically, lost community through “busyness of life” and through mobility.  One thing the article said that gave me thought was that air conditioning was one problem, compounded by television, and lack of porches and sidewalks another.  Oh, they did not pin the biggest blame on these elements, but I certainly sat up and paid attention that they were mentioned. According to the authors, there was a day in America when the routine was to come in, have supper, clean up, and go sit on the porch for a while if the weather was good.  If you were in the city, you went out to sit on the stoop.  Some folks might stroll the sidewalks, visiting with those sitting on their porches as they went. Some might  even join their neighbors for a “sit a spell” chat, and everyone could see up and down the street as to what the kids were doing. I...

Well, V and I haven’t been able to write like we usually do.  V had hand surgery last week.  Here’s a word of warning to you all: V tried to shortcut her trips with groceries from car to house by carrying a bazillion  or so of those plastic bags at one time.  She broke her hand doing it!! I do the same thing—try to cut my trips back and forth down. I usually end up dropping stuff (having to beat the dogs back from it—they think anything I drop is fair game).  I need to buy one of those little folding cart thingys MIL and my mother have.  In fact, now that I write this, I think I’ll go by the container store, where we got Mom’s, and pick up one for me and one for V.  No more spilled groceries!  No more back-and-forth trips!  No more broken hands!! Anyway, the cast is driving her nuts.  And typing one-handed is frustrating for her.  She came over Sunday and we spent the day dreaming about improving our blog (we have soooo much...

Ah, another week has drawn to a close.  Has it?  Well, I’ll be working today, although it is Saturday, so it seems that my week is not actually over.  That’s h ow hectic the week has been.  But it’s fine—there are many folks who have no work.  And, too, I relish the time on Saturdays without the interruptions of the ringing phones, the drop-in clients, the staff questions.  This week was so busy that I found myself saying to my assistant, “ Could someone give me just one more ball to keep in the air?  Bet I could do it !”  She felt the same. No, Saturdays offer pure, uninterrupted thought and work time.  I actually enjoy that.  It is when I can act upon my work rather than simply react to demands of others, if that makes sense.  And I won’t be there all day.  On Saturdays I can get done in three hours what I might accomplish in a full usual day—or more. The downside to working on Saturdays is the lack of work that gets d...

Just what do people think statistics are, anyway?  They are a collection of data which gives us a picture of “what is.”  They often give us a tool to predict.  And this applies to people, too, who are, after all, only sheep—the Lord was right when He called us that. Yes, we follow paths just as a predictably as sheep.  Sorry to be the bearer, if this is news to you. Oh, you may think you’re different.  In fact, you do think that you’re different.  That is common to us all.  We want things to be the way we want them to be, not as they are.  We want to be different—special.  We have our little individual differences, true, but in the big, broad-brush things, humans are pretty predictable. This is why marketing works and doctors can make educated guesses and why those high-falutin’ FBI experts can do criminal profiles without ever seeing the bad guy.  See?  Here we are: I try to tell folks this:  The best predictor of f...

On the heels of my canned corned beef post and in the spirit of continuing  to share food-related memories, I offer the following: When my son was about fourteen, I made an unusually-rich dessert; a peachy/whipped cream sort of thing.  Best I recall, we split  round cake layers (yellow), poured a little peach nectar over them, layered fresh peaches and whipped cream, then repeated.  It was a huge hit. It looked something like this picture on the left. After dinner and our dessert, my husband and I ran out for an hour or so on an errand.  When we returned, Son was laid out on the sofa holding his tummy, moaning.  “ Mom,”   he said.  “ Do not ever make that dessert again.  I ate so much of it, I never want to see it again.” Sure enough, when I went into the kitchen I found that a huge wedge of the leftover cake was missing, and Son was very sick later that night. Since that time our family has  used the term “ Peach Caked ” as...

This week I made a foray into the beautiful, new, expansive, gourmet Kroger that has just grand-opened in our area.  This gorgeous store with its wide selection of everything from the exotic to the mundane, is entertainment, not grocery shopping.  I mean, how much more thrilling can you get than choosing your own loaf of  “artisan” bread from the bin and dropping it into the slicer? Why, it just makes you want to buy, buy, buy (imagine that).  But I digress… This post is not about gourmet food.  It is about childhood memories and the things I recall eating waaaaaaaaay back then.  And asking: why? We ingested many unhealthy things back then (notably gallons of Kool-Aid), although I believe our diet was likely much healthier than it is today.  We certainly did not eat fast food as a way of life, and Mom cooked from scratch mostly. Still, there are those big questions—mostly centering around “meat products.” What has brought this on is that as ...

Yesterday I told V a work story that made her remember one of our favorite movies: The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio .  But first, here’s my story: My client was sad, alrigh t, but the most accurate description I can think of is “exhausted.”  She was exhausted as in the really tired sense, but she was  also exhausted in that she had pulled out the stops to save her marriage—exhausted all avenues, as it were.  It was not to be, despite her best efforts. Her problem with her professional, graduate-school-educated husband was prescription drugs.  He was hooked, had been to rehab twice and had, unbeknownst to client, drained their entire financial reserves, which were at one time substantial—all gone now.  Husband was now unemployed and just coming out of rehab for the second time (not cheap) thanks to his parents. Both sides of the family gave her emotional support as she made the hard  decision to divorce.  They were about to lose the house an...

Arkansas has only one “extreme” season: summer.  Our winters are fairly mild, and very cold days are always interspersed with some warmer days.  Snow is a fleeting treat.  So we have only summer to contend with, really, so far as hard weather  Days on end of triple-digit temperatures can drag you down, and the older I get, the harder it is for me to take the heat! Now we have reached one of my favorite points in the year: open window season.   Both summer and winter preclude this, but spring and fall each offer weeks of mild weather where the windows can be thrown open to freshen the house.  My favorite part of this is sleeping with my bedroom window open, which I did last night. I live in the country and, though I hear the occasional car way up on the main road, during the deep night what predominates are natural sounds, the sounds of the woods which surround my house.  There is something comforting to me about these, and while I am awake lis...

I am a wee bit worried about myself.  I’m thinking I might have a lazy streak, and it might be sizeable.  That is not a good thing, I realize.  Now, don’t get me wrong: I work very, very hard.  I am busy as a bee from sunup to sundown.  I have so many balls in the air each work day that keeping them each from crashing to the ground is a constant struggle.  No, I’m not lazy about my profession, and when I come home, I am usually very tired, which gives me great justification for what I am about to say…. What I am lazy about is most things physical.  I don’t want to exercise (and there’s little time, for it given my work schedule—see? Justified!) And I don’t want to clean my house!  I am thinking of hiring a housekeeper to come in every other week or so, but I am going to have to clean the house and put away the clutter before anyone will take this job. I was out to dinner with my good friends from next door, midlife country girl .  They...

Ever have a “blah” day and you just don’t know why?  Mine started out that way yesterday (Saturday).  Oh, I have plenty I could get all depressed about, but most of those things that come to mind are those I’ve already worked through.  They just aren’t the good depression material that they used to be.  As I went through my usual depression-causes list, I realized there was not a single one of them that fit yesterday.  Hmmmm , must search for some other justification for being depressed. Well, I’ll tell you, I never did find it.  And I could see a silver lining there—being somewhat depressed for no real reason probably beats being depressed because there’s something serious going on. I was thinking about this as I was driving in to do a little work (no, it’s not weekend work that has me depressed—I’m thankful for my work).  As you travel between my home and town, you pass through what we call “the hollow.”  It is a beautiful, inclined sec...

Well, it made me chuckle out loud, actually.  I am so in awe of creativity.  I tend to live in the “concrete,” and when I see something like this, it makes me scratch my head at how someone can be so creative!  So, please meet: Marcel the Shell (with shoes on!): Have a Great Weekend! C

I have decided to put a “rant warning” in the title of my more, er, “serious” posts in case you find them tiresome; although I must say this one is not entirely my fault, as those of you who make it to the end will see.  C Months ago a middle-aged mother sat in my office sobbing, with reason.  I sympathized until she boo-hooed this statement: “ I have FOUR kids!  What man is going to want me? !”  I lectured her on the advantages she has over many other women in her marital boat (she is a professional) and that she did not need to think she needs a man in her life to be complete. Recently she came back, all smiles, to tell me that she’s found one!  She’s having a “relationship,” and she wanted me to know.  Glowing .  I was happy for her—I like her a lot.  But my concern for her came right out of my mouth (I have that habit).  She has not long been divorced.  I remembered the day she was in despair because there was no man in sig...