I’ve lost count how many Grand Adventures this makes. The other day, Mr. FixIt was talking to one of his friends about my upcoming trip. He told the fellow I was about to embark on another adventure and will be pulling the camper to Colorado by myself. The guy was shocked. He said, “I don’t think I’d let MY wife do that!” Mr. FixIt laughed. “You don’t LET your wife do things. You support them doing the things they want to do that makes them happy!” Have I mentioned how much I love this man??? We haven’t spent more than a few days apart in the last three years. I’m going to miss him like crazy!!!
We are solidly in spring now. Tornado season is cranking up, and so my thoughts turn to the drive across tornado alley in the coming days. My living room is in utter chaos as I begin ardently sorting and deciding what I honestly need to take rather than doing what I usually do…throw everything but the kitchen sink in the truck and never use a tenth of it. The struggle is real.
We live on five beautiful fairly flat acres in West Virginia. To say we are “hobby farmers” is a stretch. We’re more like a sod farm that doesn’t harvest and sell our sod. We grow a few things. And, other than the cat, we have no livestock. We basically have a really large yard that we keep mowed because it brings us such joy and peace. Not only the act of mowing, which is highly therapeutic, but also the looks of the verdant green when the afternoon sun hits it just so. The air gets a bit of a golden green glow and…well, it’s just lovely. And we feel so blessed to be its stewards.
As I find myself aging, my body changes in so many ways. Some grand and glorious…some, not so much. Primary hyperparathyroidism makes you anxious and can cause lots of “upper GI disturbances”. Anxiety on its own can also cause these tummy troubles. Now that I have both sources, my body tells me if I’m nauseous, I must be anxious and my body sends out a huge jolt of adrenaline which only compounds the issue.
There is ALWAYS something that needs to be fixed…especially when you live on a farm!
I know I said I wasn’t going to go to town yesterday, but…I had to. I ordered a lamp for the turn signal on my truck and it came in. The nice parts dude woke me up at 8:30 to tell me so what choice did I have? I ran in, picked up the part, and headed to Kohl’s to pick up a few things for summer. I was really excited to get several shirts, a sweater, and a dress for under $100! I stopped at Walmart to get some windshield washer fluid and saw a couple more things I couldn’t live without so my summer wardrobe is complete.
I loved those weeks during the winter when we went a whole week or more without driving to town once. I get so tired of that drive…even though I love driving and the countryside is beautiful. It’s just that, there’s no such thing as a “quick trip”. Every trip turns into a full day ordeal and all I want to do is get home and do stuff that needs doing. After the trip to the beach, we have either been in town or at the farm every day or spending all day mowing…every single day.
When Daughter #1 was a little girl, we picked up an old, vintage vanity table for her to use as a desk. She sat there and colored with her crayons and worked on her homework. I spray painted it black and trimmed it in gold. I wasn’t necessarily very crafty back in those days. Look at this one…isn’t it gorgeous? When Daughter #2 came along, she inherited the vanity and then somewhere along the way, it was sent on to make someone else happy.
It seems a goodly portion of society today has forgotten their manners. Or, maybe they didn’t have them in the first place. What happened to all the Grandmas insisting the young ones say please and thank you and respect their elders? Are people with impeccable manners a thing of the past? Gosh…I surely hope not.
There are regional rules of etiquette. Young people in the south are routinely taught to say “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir”. While hand written thank you notes seem to be positively prehistoric to most people today. Things are much more relaxed in the West, but here in West Virginia…in my generation…we were taught good manners. We even had special assemblies in school where we learned the proper way to put on a coat and to enter a room. How to shake hands and make eye contact.
I am all about personal growth. I needed it desperately…several times in my life. Each time the opportunity presented itself, I came out a better version of myself. After my first divorce, it was honestly all I could do to be a better mom and get through my days. Hubby #1 moved back to WV after we separated so he could go to college. I stayed on in Denver, raising Daughter #1 and working. I really didn’t have much time to think about personal growth. I wouldn’t have known what that meant anyway.
We went from meat locker to microwave in less than twenty-four hours! It was downright chilly last week when the wind blew but the last two days at the beach were very pleasant…in the sixties. We got home well after dark Saturday night and by the time we went to bed, the temps were back down in the sixties which made for pretty good sleeping weather. That and being thoroughly exhausted after driving fourteen hours.
