Awwww....the only bad thing about living out on the farm is not traveling and camping with TOW-Wanda. She's parked on the long drive up past the farmhouse and I've decided I'm going to keep her set up and visit her often during the winter.
When I had little TOW-Wanda, I had to store her at a site over by the county airport. I did not like that one bit. I would go out every Sunday after church to read and take a nap. There were some Sundays in the dead of winter that I trudged through knee deep snow to get to her, but I went without fail. My campers have always been my sanctuary. For a long time, the camper was my safe place where I could get away from the pain of living in my house without Mr. Virgo. Then it became my quiet place to read and meditate. Now it has become my peaceful place to write. My "study", of sorts. I have a twin bed in the slide out filled with pillows. I can curl up with my fur throw and write while I listen to the songbirds in the dogwood out my window. I play soft music in the background. I make a pot of tea. It's positively civilized.
Marshmallow Ranch hit a milestone yesterday...5,000 followers!!!!
Oh. Em. Geeeee!
I was out to lunch with a friend when the ticker turned over and that magic number showed up. I squealed with delight, high-fived my lunch partner, and clapped my hands. What started three and a half years ago as a place where I could vent and share my innermost feelings of grief has grown into a place where 5,000 souls gather to share and care our way down this rocky road called life. We laugh. We cry. We praise. We lift each other up when the burden is heavy. We celebrate our accomplishments, no matter how small.
Someone torched a Republican campaign office in North Carolina over the weekend. They threw a Molotov cocktail through the front window and painted swastikas on the front along with demands they leave the area "or else". In a remarkable show of grace, local Democrats raised $13,000 and gave it to the Republicans with the comment "Now is the time for graciousness...not fractiousness." I felt encouraged.
I can't remember ever having a day quite like yesterday. I always pray during the opening worship service and ask God to speak to me personally through our pastor's message. He didn't fail me...He never does. And it was powerful. After church, I went for a drive to look at the beautiful fall colors. I pulled into the cemetery where my grandparents, great-grandparents, and other family members on my father's side are buried. After paying my respects, I had a picnic in the park by the river then moved on to drive up by my Aunt Marge's farm. I have wonderful memories of that place and it was sad to see it so run down. The building in this picture is the Wilding Graded School just down the road.
Farm life has me up and doing things at the ungodly hour of "0 Dark Thirty". Things like feeding the farm cats. When I first got here, I was awakened at 8:00 by what I was certain was someone trying to break in the house...first the back door, then the front. I snuck into the living room and, with great trepidation, pulled back the curtain on the front door only to find a very hungry cat glaring at me at eye height...her claws gripping the screen. I think they are plotting to kill me by loving me to death. Another delightful little task on the farm is taking the trash out at 5:30am on Wednesdays to keep the raccoons and possums out of it. You have not lived till you hear the sweet barn cat out on the porch eating the food you left a few minutes before only to go out and come face-to-face with a possum the size of a Buick. That gives aerobics a new meaning.
Mr. Virgo was hubby number three for me. My starter marriage was relatively brief...just three years. My second marriage lasted 21 years. Mr. Virgo died just three weeks shy of our sixth wedding anniversary. For me, the first divorce was probably the easiest to work through because I instigated it. I also was quite young at 23. The second was brutal. I was 47 and very much in love with my second husband when he ended the marriage. I was devastated. Then...I lost Mr. Virgo and I realized what devastation really felt like.
I don't talk politics here. It's too personal and too important to trivialize it with merely an opinion or marginalize it with angry rhetoric. There are enough venues to discuss the particulars. I won't do it here. I also won't have the comments run off the rails either. This is my safety zone...this little imaginary ranch where the wild marshmallow grows. And, I'm certainly not endorsing a candidate here. But I've got to tell you...I cannot wait till this is over. I mean, like....if this election were a bear trap and I were caught in its massive steel jaws, I would gladly chew off my own arm rather than spend one more moment with it.
I've been having a little trouble with writer's block lately. It's not necessarily that the words won't come. I write...then, when I go back later and read it, I hate it. It's extremely frustrating because it's hard to make progress when you're writing the same chapter over and over. This happens once in a while and, as my agent says, "Good writing can't be rushed." The harder I try to forge my way through it, the worse it seems to get. So, I have to practice, yet again, letting go.
Just like Gramma Rosannadanna said..."It's always something. If it's not one thing, it's another." This week's something is frustrating. When I went over to the wedding on October 1st, I remember walking into a store and looking down I noticed I was carrying the wrong set of keys. I had picked up my camper keys by mistake. The trouble is, I haven't seen them since and I can't for the life of me remember where I was when I last had them. I've replaced the keys to get in the camper. And, I have an extra truck topper key as well as the second PO Box key. What I am missing, and cannot seem to find the spare for, is the hitch lock for the camper. Those things are designed to keep people from stealing your camper and by golly this one is doing it's job! I have tried to retrace my steps. I know I had the camper keys the day I left for the wedding because I had to get my cowboy boots out of the trailer to take with me. Don't you just hate it when these memory glitches start showing up? I really need to get TOW-Wanda hooked up so I can take her to get the tanks dumped and clean before I winterize her. I would love to go camping again before winter sets in. Which brings up a new topic.
Look at you...so young, so full of promise in your first grown up formal dress. Beside you is your first boyfriend, who becomes your first husband, the father of your first child, and...ultimately...your first divorce. It isn't the first time you're going to feel like a failure. And, sad to say, it isn't your last. You have a problem that stems back long before this day. It isn't your fault...your daddy drinks too much and isn't a very good model of the man to look for. Oh, that fellow beside you there is a good man and years from now you're going to learn to be friends. But, he just isn't your guy for the long haul. Neither is the next one, as it turns out. Your "picker" is kinda broken and it all started with those shiny, patent leather Mary Janes...remember?
