Community Service

Bear with me folks, I'm gonna get on my soap box. 

The older I get, the more I become a firm believer in the value of community service.  Find something that you already are passionate about, or find something to be passionate about.  Need a good example to look up to?

I give you Vic McClung, Patron Saint of Community Service. 

This man devoted his entire life to enriching the lives of others, and for that thousands of people owe him a huge debt of gratitude.  4-H, church, schoolboard and countless other activities made life a joy for everyone, including himself. 

I've tried follow his lead in the past year and branch out, expand my horizons, leave my comfort zone.... whatever you want to call it.  I can truly say that it is a very enjoyable experience, no matter what activity I'm engaging in. 

So there.  I'm off my soapbox.  Get off your bum and go make life more fullfilling for yourself and others. 

Ways My Mother Ruined My Life

Oh, please.  Don't get your feathers in a ruffle just by reading the title.  Its not a bitter diatribe against child bearing females, trust me.  But here's my little list of ways that my mother has "ruined" me.  I'll add more as they come to me.  Which reminds me...

1.  I am a forgetful person.  Easy come, easy go...  Almost every phone conversation between us ends, "There was something else I was going to tell you... but I can't remember.  I'll call you later when I think of it again."

2.  If I do not make my bed first thing in the morning, my day is absolutely ruined.  There is no way to keep peace and harmony in the world if you can't even make your own bed. 

3.  Water is the cure for most of your ailments.  Headache?  Dehydration - drink more water.  Amputation?  You'll probably need to replenish your fluids - drink water. 

4.  The older I get, the more technology baffles me. 

5.  I love to iron.  LOVE.  I'm not sure if this stems from my mother's love of ironing, or if she hated it and so that's why I got the job.  Either way, I'm crediting her for this foolish fetish. 

6.  I have the inability to sit still for long periods of time without doing "handiwork".  Cross stitch, crochet, mending work shirts, just something to keep me occupied. 

7.  I can't do "cutesy".

8.  Being "punctual" means that you are 15 minutes early.

9.  Recipes are more like guidelines or suggestions rather than something to be followed like a NASA space shuttle launch.  That, I would probably follow directions to.  Probably.

10.  I say things like "ooh" and "aah" and "he might get hurt!" when, five years ago I was either the one pulling the stunts or egging someone on.  (This one is slightly depressing to me...)

11.  I love dirt germs.  Town germs, or even the thought of town germs, creep me out.  Picture it: a little kid in the child seat of a Wal-Mart shopping cart.  And then.... you know its coming.... with his little precious mouth wide open, the little bundle of joy will place his precious, perfect, innocent mouth over the handle of a shopping cart that was previously pushed by a crackhead, and suddenly his sterile innocence is forever shattered.  Think about that the next time you kiss a little baby.

12.  There should be a class and certification process to go through so you know properly how to load a dishwasher.  You laugh now, but the first time you have company over and they offer to help clean up supper and take allllllllll the silverware and throw it in one tight wad in one little tiny holder...... Yeah, try to smile and say thank you after watching that happen while really you're dying and grimacing on the inside. 

Nor Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Heavy Equipment...

I don't care what you say, I love the United States Postal Service.  Well, let me rephrase that:  I love our hometown Post Office and mail carrier. 

Our mailbox is.... well..... perhaps not entirely "up to code".  We went for a few weeks without a mailbox and just had our things delivered to Grandma's house.  Then, we upgraded to a reallllllly classy mailbox that Wesley found at an abandoned house.  He drove a steel post into the ground and wrapped one piece of bailing wire around the post in the ground and the post attached to the mailbox.  (The rusted-out post on the mailbox was too short to stick into the ground.)  One piece of wire proved to be insufficient for holding a mailbox upright in high winds.  Many times we would come home to find our beloved box laying on the ground, but our mailman was always faithful in his delivery, no matter how erect (or not) it may be that particular day.  (We now have TWO pieces of wire wrapped around it!)

A few weeks ago a cattle truck was backing down our road to the pens to load out some cattle for us.  The poor man never saw our beloved mailbox and sideswiped it, scraping it along his cattle pot the entire length of the trailer.  Wesley and I noticed that evening that instead of facing due west, it had simply swiveled to face south.  Whew.  Thank goodness we had the good sense to engineer ours with a super-swivel feature.  Any other "typical" mailbox that had been permanently set in concrete would have been obliterated.  That's us, always thinking.  And again, our mailman delivered our belongings regardless of the direction. 

I sometimes wonder what he thinks of our family or if every delivery holds the same sort of surprises on a daily basis. 

There has been extensive road construction happening along our road.  Some sort of fiber optic cable is being laid in the ground and therefore a trench has to be dug to lay the line in.  Guess where our mailbox is at?!?!  I came home yesterday to find that our mailbox had been moved and was laying in the middle of our front yard, behind the bulldozer but in front of the track hoe.  I figured that our mail had probably been delivered to Grandma's, but why not check.... just in case.  I walked over, kicked it to a position where I could access the door, and sure enough - our mail was safely tucked away inside.  I thought that surely he must have delivered it earlier in the day, before it was on the ground..... but something told me that I had better double check. 

I walked over to the construction crew (we beginning to become good friends) and asked them when and how the mailman had delivered our mail. 

"Well," one man said, "he had to get out of his pickup, and it took him a bit to find it, but he got her done.  Maybe we should have told him it was behind the bulldozer."

Again - I love our mailman :)

Found It!

I know you all have been waiting with eager anticipation, countless hours and sleepless nights wondering just what Loopie's peace offering may have been in regards too.  Well folks, the wait is over.  Last night I smelled it before I saw it (offering a clue to just how delightful it was to find!). 

A decomposing baby raccoon on my new rock border.  True, she may have intended to bring me something cute and cuddly, which I'm sure this once was; however, I must have been too dense to find it in a timely fashion.  My apologies to Loopie. 

Whew.  I'm glad that's over... until the next time she brings a peace offering before I find the offense. 

Hmmmmm....

This makes me nervous.  This weekend I received a peace offering from Loopie on our back doorstep. 

Trouble is, I haven't yet figured out exactly what it is that she's done wrong.  Do normal people get stressed out about things like this too?  Now I find myself just a tad anxious at all times, wondering WHAT, WHEN, and WHERE I am going to find this evil deed.  In the meantime; however, I'm just trying to admire the lovely chunk of calf hide with half the hair still attached.  You've gotta find the silver lining somewhere!

Flintstones, Physics, and Other Projects

The weather has cooled off as of late which I feel gives the general population that extra "oomph" to get through their day and not only survive, but thrive and enjoy life again.  It has inspired me to open all of our doors and windows and do crafty things.  (No, I don't see the correlation between the two either, but go with me on this.) 

In our home, "Honey-do jobs" are "Honey I'll do it myself" jobs.  (Its just easier, trust me.)  Some of the little projects I've taken on as of late include: staining the builder-grade doors in our house with leftover stain from our porch, covering a 80's gold Chinese-looking lamp with spray paint and rope, building a cover for our ugly meter box on the porch and cleaning out our feedlots. 

Wait, what?  How does cleaning out our feedlots fit in to crafty projects?  I've been taking the 100's of loads of crap, literally, and dumping them in our front yard for fill dirt.  After contouring the yard to my discerning landscaping eye, I've been hauling rocks into our yard as a boundary between the porch and future yard.  Thus, the Flintstone feeling.  Didn't Fred Flintstone haul around rocks?  I'm sorry, its been a year or two since I watched the show.  I was really wanting some large rocks - REALLY large rocks, so I got the biggest tractor we have and started to carve them out of the hill across from our house.  I almost bit off more than I could chew once, but then my physics class from high school came to mind.  (Bless you, Mr. Burkes.)  I could almost here his voice as I stared at the nearly impossible situation I had in moving a large stone before me. 

"Dammit, Poovey, think about it.  If you want to pick up the big rock, you need to balance it out using some smaller rocks for counterweight.  I swear, I should hold the power for mandatory sterilization in this sophomore class.  Why are you looking at me like I'm speaking Swahili?" 

As you can tell, he was a caring, kind man.  I jest.  He really did talk in a condescending manner like that all the time, but he was one of my favorite teachers.  And he got me out of quite a pickle yesterday.

My meter box cover.  I hope the meter man isn't too mad when he discovers it. 

Before: Standard, builder grade door - pale and ugly.

After: Gorgeous and full of character. 

My transformed, tacky gold lamp.  It was spray painted and then wrapped in "jute."  The snooty ladies at Hobby Lobby always take such delight in correcting me when I say "rope." 

The beginnings of my rock sidewalk.  The upper right-corner is filled in with pea gravel that I had lying around. 

Rock sidewalk will someday tie in with this rock border between the concrete porch and grass yard.  Grass will come someday, I promise.  Baby steps...

My physics in action.  The rock was as wide and as long as the scoop on the skid-steer.  Don't tell Wes, but it was so heavy that it even tipped us forward once when I lifted it too high.  Whoopsidaisies. 

The Trip, Part 2

I'll admit, I am a very frugal person.  When I booked our plane tickets for a return flight home I had two options: a) 8:50am for a reasonable price or b) 2pm for $80 more per ticket.  Obviously, I was willing to sacrifice a few hours more of sleep and enjoyment for the sake of monetary savings.  And yes, my husband knew I was like this before he got into the marriage. 

The entire group of us that had flown north together were all booked on the same flight early in the morning going south as well.  I realize that a 9am flight is not "early" by normal standards; however, considering the fact that it was the morning after a rowdy wedding reception which had been preceded by three days of "socializing", I'd say that I felt like I was going to have to work miracles to get everyone on that plane in time. 

Saturday night, while everyone was still coherent I collected room keys from the groomsmen staying down the hall.  I took a sharpee pen and wrote on their palms not only our room number, but the time that our rental car was leaving the hotel to go back to the airport.... just in case they got lost. 

Wes and I went to bed shortly after midnight and slept like babies.  When the alarm went off early the next morning I sat up, turned on the light, and noticed there were more than two people in the room.  Hmmmmm.  It turns out that some of the groomsmen wanted to be really sure I was able to wake them up the next morning so they pretended to be Wes and got a key to our room from the front desk.  Super.  I woke up our new roommates and preceded to make my way down the hallway to round up the rest of the troops.  Upon entering their room I politely asked a female occupant to gather her belongings and find her own room and had everyone still in their tux from the previous evening (there were lots of them) to strip down to their boxers after I exited and leave their individual tuxes in piles for me to arrange before departing for the airport.  I felt like a dorm mother that morning, giving instructions, leaving to check on the other room, and coming back every 10 minutes to make sure everyone was still on schedule.  Thankfully, no one was yet "feeling any pain". 

We finally made it to the airport, dropped off the rental car and boarded the aircraft.  Ahhhhhh..... my work was done.  I looked across the aisle at our once cheery traveling companions.  They had begun to turn a pale, greenish color and were searching frantically in the seat pocket for a tiny little plastic bag to be their lifesaver.  I tried in vain but could not contain my deep, malicious laugh that sprung from the deepest part of my belly. 

What a nice, perfect, fairytale ending to our Trip From Hell. 

The End.  Or, more appropriately, They Lived Happily Every After (once they recovered). 

The Trip from Hell

I'm trying to keep the language on this site fairly PG; however, there really are no other words for this trip.  Overall, I must admit that I am very glad that we went, but it was just the series of events that occurred on or around the trip that made it really...... "special".

Wednesday I came down with a cold/sinus infection that could knock over an elephant.  Made some phone calls and got a Rx that wouldn't be ready till Thursday morning.  Thursday I drive the 60 miles round trip to go pick up my meds, come home, and start packing.  I had 2 hours to pack and clean the house - no pressure.  (I absolutely cannot stand leaving a dirty house.  And its not like I had a lot left to do, just enough to drive me bonkers.)  My dear, sweet husband walked into the house and said we were going to leave early and stop by the salebarn on our way to the airport.  (Doesn't everyone have that problem when they're traveling?)  Because my ENTIRE schedule got pushed up by 1 1/2 hours I was running in full force, which in a sickly state is really more like 1/2 force. 

I forgot to pack:
1) Half of my husbands wardrobe.
2) My toiletry bag.  At which point every man in America asks what a toiletry bag is.  I apologize, appartently this is an antiquated word that fell out of fashion sometime in the mid '50's.  It is the bag in which a woman holds her lifeblood: makeup, toothbrush, hair products, and precious jewelry that she borrowed from her grandma-in-law.  That's right, I borrowed jewelry from Grandma Curry, packed it seperately from every other piece of jewelry so it would be really, really safe.... and then left it at home.  Well, at least it stayed really, really safe. 

On the flight north my eardrums popped and refused to return to their normal state for the next six hours, which resulted in me shouting "WHAT?" very often and rocking back and forth in my seat with my head in my hands, crying. 

But enough of the complaining.  We made an emergency run to the store to pick up neccessities and additional Kleenex and the rest of the weekend went wonderfully.  North Dakota is such a beautiful state - who knew?- and the wedding was gorgeous.  Catholic, so it was terribly long, but gorgeous.  I apologize.  Our wedding took a whopping 13 minutes (we timed it) and so now I feed obligated to hold everyone else to that same standard. 

But enough for today.  Stay tuned for part two of "The Curry's Go to North Dakota: The Trip Home".  Its great, trust me.  And not nearly as whiny as this post was.  Again, apologies. 

Soooo hot....

Sorry this will be a short note, I'm pressed for time today. 

High in Emporia, Kansas today: 107 (that's Fahrenheit, people)

High in Bismark, North Dakota today: 77 (yep, still in Fahrenheit)

I'm not expert on mental math.... but by my calculations that's about a 30 degree difference. 

Bless you, Alex Acheson, for getting married this weekend and inviting us to share with you on such a glorious day.  Glorious for many, many reasons.  But mainly one very big reason.



And YES, I meant the binding union of a man and a woman, blah, blah, blah.  Geez people, have a little faith in me!  (But the weather will be a definite plus too!)